The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Last month I talked a bit about kids' involvement in the big cocktail party of pop-culture. So, for this month, I decided I would review one of the chats around the hors d'oeuvre table I was involved in as a kid, namely, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Thanks to YouTube, I was able to find the first two episodes of this beloved childhood memory and watch them again, this time not as a child playing Sonic 2 on the family television on Saturday afternoon, but as an adult who was glad to get a copy of Sonic Spinball for Christmas.

Science-Fiction is Aspirational

In my series on magic, I defined magic as using apparently unrelated means to achieve some end. Also, in that same series, I pointed out that, for those without the necessary knowledge and experience, any sort of skill seems “magical” in this sense. Given this, what exactly is the difference between fantasy and science-fiction? I mean, besides the outfits, the shape of the doohickeys they use, and drastically unequal degrees of personability, what distinguishes Snape saying, “Expelliarmus!” and zapping someone with a ray, from Captain Kirk saying, “Set phasers to stun,” and zapping someone with a ray? Quite a few things, you reductionist!

Sci-fi stories say: "our courage and ingenuity will take us
boldly where no man has gone before."

A big one is this: science-fiction presupposes that, although the forces and methods shown in the story may be currently undiscovered and practically “magical,” they are discoverable, and we will use the same kinds of means we've used so far to find them out and use them to our advantage.

The Karate Kid (Part 2 of 2)

[This is part 2. Read part 1!]

Discipline, fitness, confidence, blood-thirst.
Enroll at the Cobra Kai Dojo today!

So, Danny doesn’t go to his mother, or the police, about the violent gang of high school kids that want to wreck him severely. Neither does Mr. Miyagi. It doesn’t even occur to this grown man to contact the authorities in this matter. Rather, he helps Daniel strike deals with crazed Vietnam vets, one of the terms of which is that if Danny doesn’t come to the tournament, then both the old man and the school kid will be hunted down and have the crap kicked out of them.