Miguel de Cervantes’s classic novel “Don Quixote” is considered by many scholars to be one of the greatest works of literature of all time, and has even been held up as the first example of the modern novel.

The work was originally published in two parts, the latter of which is packed with the metafictional themes for which the novel is famous.

Part one of the novel, however, is a different work of fiction. Most people who have never themselves read “Don Quixote” probably imagine it, like I did, to be a novel from the end of the medieval period, mourning the death of chivalry. In reality, it is apparent from the initial few pages that Don Quixote is anything but the romantic defender of a dying order most assume him to be.

The entire first half is more of a parody of chivalric romances than a somber narrative, and it inspires far more laughter than introspection. Don Quixote is a crazed madman, attempting to revive chivalry roughly two hundred years after it became extinct.

In the famous scene in which Don Quixote battles with windmills, he does so not because he is a valiant knight whose role in society is rapidly becoming obsolete; rather, he does so because he is delusional enough to believe them to be giants, and the role in society which he wishes to take on has been dead for generations.

While the first part of the novel may not be as serious or as insightful as the second part, it is proving to be relevant in the modern world.

Don Quixote is a misguided old man waging a misguided war against modernity to revive a long dead reality. Sound familiar? Indeed, if the language were more modern, it would seem that Cervantes wrote his magnum opus about our own 45th president.

Beyond the rather obvious comparison between Don Quixote’s row with the windmills and President Trump’s crusade against renewable energy, the novel is full of connections to the president’s controversial rise.

By Don Quixote’s side rides Sancho, an unscrupulous peasant looking to gain power and riches from the titular knight errant’s conquests. In the domain of reality, we have a whole hoard of conventional Republican lawmakers who have endorsed Trump, hoping to ride his coattails to success only to face declining popularity. Like them, Sancho suffers the negative consequences of Quixote’s actions.

We also find under Don Quixote’s haunches a tired but faithful horse named Rocinante. He is frequently injured in the execution of Quixote’s will, and he sees no reward for his faithful service. Under Trump’s haunches are his most faithful supporters. Always loyal and confident, these individuals are more often the victims of Trump’s actions than the
beneficiaries.

Finally, we have the rest of the characters. These people are constantly under attack from Quixote, often for no reason other than that the knight views them as a threat to chivalry. These people are the rest of us, the citizens whom Trump attacks in an effort to bring back a romanticized America of old, one which never existed in the first place and can never exist again.

So, what is the point?

Sure, the novel does a great job of illustrating Trump’s misguided worldview, but we can just as easily observe that by reading the news. Ultimately, the insight to be found in “Don Quixote” lies in how the knight comes to see the world the way he does.

Don Quixote grows insane from reading too many medieval romances. He becomes delusional when he begins to believe that they are accurate, and that there existed a time when knights traveled over great expanses, battling with giants and bringing honor to their ladies. This time, of course, never existed outside the imaginations of romantic authors.

It seems that Trump has formed an image of an American past in which everyone worked in a coal mine or factory, and everyone was middle class and happy, and he seems to believe sincerely in its accuracy.  Like the chivalric fantasy, this America never existed and never will. If we ever want to bring our own Don Quixote back to reality, we must accept that.

I love live music. I frequent the Tabernacle, Masquerade, Center Stage and Buckhead Theatre. I was pretty excited when Music Midtown released their lineup for this past weekend, with artists like Broods, Two Door Cinema Club, blink-182 and Weezer. Over three dozen bands performed on Saturday and Sunday, and I was looking forward to seeing over half of them. I bought my tickets the week after they went on sale.

While I was prepared for the music (armed with sunscreen and a reusable water bottle), I was not prepared for the people.

Though the crowds provide a lot of good people-watching, they do not provide the best experiences. Over 70,000 people crammed themselves into Piedmont Park this past weekend.

I understand that not everyone is there to see the same bands that I am there to see. Many simply want exposure to more music and to enjoy the festival experience with their friends. That being said, it frustrates me to be in an area surrounded by people who do not appear to be focused on
the performers.

For one, there is the person who steps in front of me to take a picture of their friends in the crowd. The Instagram picture will look just as good taken farther away from the tightly packed people. You will have still spent just as long precisely applying glitter to your face, making your space buns symmetrical and dressing in the flawless Coachella-esque attire. I will not fault you for leaving the crowd to get the perfect snapshot. I will, however, be upset when you push me over in order to get your photo. People are very hard to see through and part of being at a festival is seeing the performances.

Regarding the person who ignores all of the songs they do not know: I’m glad you left after the song that has been getting radio play. But I could have done without the off-key screaming to the band’s cover of “Mr. Brightside.” It is really hard for me to get into the music when you are talking to your friends and trying to plan which food truck to go grab a bite to eat at after the set.

To the person who throws their trash on the ground: you do realize someone has to pick that up later right? Every cigarette butt and every beer can need to find their way to a trash can eventually — why do you think someone else should clean up after you? Piedmont Park is a pretty clean place and there is no reason to actively contribute to dirtying it. Watch where you throw things and if it is trash, make sure it finds its way into a trash can.

For the person who picks up their friend, please just do not do that. When you surprise your best friend and pick them up, they will likely react unexpectedly and someone can get hit in the head. Also putting someone on your shoulders obstructs the view of all of the people around you.

Finally, for all of those people aggressively drinking and/or vaping: know your limits and do not be an a**hole. Do not spill your drink on me and do not blow smoke in my face. Also it is hot and humid and if you are drinking or smoking on an empty stomach you can run into some serious health problems. There are too many people at music festivals who need medical attention because they do not know when to stop or slow down. Do not be
that person.

I guess in the end, my biggest problem with festivals (aside from the heat and humidity) is that I feel like the other people there are not as invested in the music as I am. I have seen over a hundred different bands perform live and my favorite shows are always the smaller, more intimate ones. I like live music because I like to feel a connection with the performer and with the rest of the audience. To me, it is about the performer giving it all they have got and the crowd being right there with them. This requires more familiarity with the music, something large music festivals lack. Festivals are better for exposure for musicians, but on the whole I feel they are worse for the fans.

I will continue to go to festivals. I have been to Music Midtown three times now, Bonnaroo twice, and Shaky Knees once. I will enjoy people-watching and the music. But for the most part, I will not enjoy the people.

Few on the golf team are strangers to big stages. After a summer where a school-record six golfers qualified for the US Amateur, the golf team looks primed for another season as one of the top collegiate teams in the country. Just ask golf coach Bruce Heppler, who, following a win at the Carpet Capital Collegiate (CCC), praised the team.

“This should be one of our deepest teams. We’ve had some sporty groups … but they’re impressive,” Heppler said. “Five guys who can drive the ball well, and we started making some putts. Everybody feels like they were part of it.” After a disappointing previous two seasons, in which the golf team was without a team title, the victory at the CCC starts off the fall season on the right foot.

The golf team’s roster is rich with talent — the six students who qualified for the US Amateur make up half the team’s 12-man roster. Of those students, two of them ­— sophomore Luke Schniederjans and freshman Noah Norton — ranked among the top 200 amateurs in the world going into the event, Schienderjans at No. 128 and Norton at 162. Norton had a stellar showing at the event, reaching the round of 16 before falling to senior Theo Humphrey of Vanderbilt.

With such a deep roster, it is little surprise that the golf team has already been pegged for success — in the pre-season coaches’ poll from the Gold Coaches’ Association of America, they were ranked No. 18 in the country and fourth overall in the ACC. Following their successes at the US Amateur, the Jackets are also highly ranked individually. Norton and Schniederjans sit just outside the top 100 amateur golfers, ranked 103 and 133 respectively, and their teammates Tyler Strafaci, Andy Ogletree, Jacob Joiner and James Clark also sit inside the top 500 rankings. All are impressive marks; a team with six players ranked in the top 500 is even more exciting.

The victory last weekend was a welcome change for the golf team, as last season had ended in disappointment for them. For only the fourth time since the introduction of the current NCAA golf tournament format, the golf team missed qualifying for the NCAA Championships, and did so in heartbreaking fashion — losing by a single stroke to UNC. The feeling was all too familiar, as the golf team missed the championship by four strokes the season prior as well. There is reason to hope that the team will take the next step.

With golf seemingly stuck on the verge of success yet not quite over the hill, the addition of Norton is a welcome boon — the icing on the cake that could finally catapult the team to the top of the ACC. However, it is an uphill climb; the golf team has a difficult schedule every year, and this season is no different.

They will have little time to rest on their laurels, as the Maui Jim Invitational in Arizona awaits the golf team on Sept. 22-24. Later next month, they will host the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate, whose 15-team field stacks up with 12 top-25 opponents, including No. 3 Oklahoma State. In the spring, the golf team will travel to Hawaii and Puerto Rico for tournaments, and hope to finish out their seasons with the ACC Golf Championship and the NCAA Championship, the pinnacle of team collegiate competition.

It is a difficult slate of upcoming tournaments for the golf team, but hopes are nonetheless high. Roberto Castro, golf-team alumni and one of many pro-golfers to have taken the green for the Institute, tweeted that “this team could stack [victories] up this year” in response to the golf team’s victory at the CCC. It is hard not to be excited for this team. The golf team is back with a chip on their shoulder, and they’ve got plenty to prove, with all the tools to do so.

This year marks Head Coach Bruce Heppler’s 22nd with the team. His tenure in Atlanta outlives many of his players. But despite incredible individual talent such as Ollie Schniederjans, once the number one amateur golfer in the world, his team has never captured an NCAA championship. They achieved second-place marks in 2000, 2002 and 2005. 2017 may be the year Tech finally breaks through and hoists a championship trophy of their own. No longer the bridesmaid, the Jackets seek to at last play the bride.

Hurricane Irma brought more than widespread power outages and two days off from school to Tech — the Jackets’ upcoming football game against the UCF Knights has been cancelled. Tech reached out to Central Florida, offering to host the Knights at Bobby Dodd on Saturday in return for playing in Atlanta in 2020, but the two teams could not reach an agreement. In fact, many college football games and even an NFL game (Miami Dolphins vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers) were cancelled this past weekend due to the inclement weather.

As for Tech, this cancellation brings good and bad news to the team. On one hand, they can now treat this week as a bye week. This means more time to game plan for an upcoming match against the Pittsburgh Panthers as well as more rest for players, some of whom looked sluggish against Jacksonville State. Coaches often use bye weeks to conduct extra research on the opposing team by breaking down film and identifying weaknesses of the other team that the Jackets can exploit. For example, if the Panthers have a particularly weak cornerback starting, coaches might plan out plays to force the ball to the receiver being covered by that cornerback next Saturday. An extra week to strategize can prove very valuable against a tougher opponent like the Panthers.

Furthermore, although Tech players have only played two games, being a full-time student-athlete can be very tiring and having a week without a game can help players feeling fatigued to replenish their energy by the time they face off against the Panthers. The bad news is that players get one less week of valuable experience playing a real game. No matter how hard they practice, game experience is something that cannot be emulated yet is so crucial to winning tough games. Less experience may be a factor in the team’s contest next Saturday.

One cannot help but wonder what could have been in Tech’s game versus Central Florida. The Knights are a tough team to analyze given that their previous game against Memphis was also cancelled, meaning that they have only played one game this year against a mediocre FIU Panthers team. Given the limited data surrounding their team this year, take their theoretical game against the Jackets with a grain of salt.

One thing that stands out about the Knights is that while the Tech offense is run-heavy, their offense is very pass reliant. In their game against the Panthers, quarterback McKenzie Milton threw for 360 yards on just 16 completions and four touchdowns. While they did put up these numbers on a relatively weak secondary, there’s no doubt the Knights would have given Tech’s corners and safeties a great challenge, especially in covering the deep ball. The Knights offense is also quite aggressive, as even though they led against FIU almost the whole game, they went for a fourth down conversion and succeeded all three times. This aggression would test Tech’s defense in high pressure situations.

In terms of offense, the Jackets actually matched up well against the UCF defense. Their front seven is a relatively weak unit, allowing 5.2 YPC against the Panthers, that triple option rushers TaQuon Marshall and KirVonte Benson would thrive against. As long as the Jackets could have dominated the time of possession with our clock-eating run game, they could control the pace of the game and keep the Knights on their toes.

While fans (particularly Tech alumni in the Orlando area) may be saddened by a suddenly clear Saturday afternoon football-watching schedule, the extra week off may mollify Paul Johnson. Johnson has previously complained that teams facing the Jackets face an unfair advantage when a number of them are allowed byes the week prior (see below graphic). The option offense Tech runs is unlike anything else run at the FBS level, save for the offenses of service academies and Georgia Southern. With an extra week to scheme for it, opponents can defeat much of the strategic edge it provides.

But with an extra bye week to rest players and devise tactics of their own before launching into ACC play, Tech may fair better than expected within the conference. Offensive lineman Parker Braun admitted after the Jacksonville State game that much of the team was fatigued entering the game against the Gamecocks, and that fatigued showed early and often during a sluggish contest at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Such is to be expected when a team plays nearly 100 offensive snaps in a double-overtime game and plays a follow-up a mere five days later.

Tech football’s first two games have yielded vastly different results, but both have shown a team that has plenty of flaws defensively and a good enough offense to make noise. Now, those lessons will be tested at the ACC level.

English classes at Tech get a bad rap.

Students often consider them a free class and do not put in the effort. However, like most classes in college, the real lessons are subtler and not written out in the curriculum. Calculus, for example, does not just teach difficult math, but rather how to structure thinking to solve a problem.

Tedious classes teach patience and challenging classes teach work ethic. English classes, ideally, teach communication.

As Tech is an engineering school, it is understandable that faculty and students prioritize STEM classes over communication-related ones.

However, one stumbling block technological innovation often encounters is reluctance from the general population, sometimes because they do not fully grasp what that technology is.

This is not entirely the general population’s fault — many times, it is due to a break in communication, even a failure to explain. The engineers and scientists working on these projects become so entrenched in them that without the proper communication skills, they are unable to explain them to a broader audience or have trouble working with people not used to a STEM-centered mindset.

Communication skills, especially written communication skills, benefit every student and working adult. The ability to convey a point clearly is one of those personal skills that can separate the great engineers and scientists from the merely good ones. At the same time, being able to analyze content in the way that English classes analyze literature teaches critical thinking and trains technical minds to uncover deeper meanings and
detect patterns.

English classes are usually only taught the first year or two at Tech, as they are core classes, and unfortunately Tech’s packed curriculum in every major leaves little room for further writing and communication classes unless those are major-related. This is a further shame because forcing students to work outside the skills they are most comfortable with — in Tech’s case, STEM skills — gives them a more well-rounded education and the ability to approach problems from multiple perspectives.

The inspiration to solve STEM problems does not always come from a STEM-centered class. Communication (and, by extension, liberal arts classes) broaden a person’s perspective and therefore their potential to find solutions.

It takes a different thought process to uncover themes in literature than it does to solve an engineering problem. Although engineers and scientists do not need to be able to tell the difference in literature movements or types of poetry, the communication skills an English class teaches gives them the ability to connect with others and better share their ideas.

On May 27, Gregg Allman passed away from liver cancer, officially closing the door on a 50-year musical career that influenced many and inspired even more. Luckily for the musical world, Allman had one last gift to leave behind. On Sept. 8, the musician’s last studio album,
“Southern Blood,” was posthumously released.

The work consists almost entirely of covers. The only exception is “My Only True Friend,” a powerful ode to music and touring that Allman penned with his guitarist Scott Sharrard.

The album was recorded just a few months before Allman’s death at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, the Alabama town responsible for such classics as the Rolling Stones’ “Sticky Fingers,” Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Street Survivors.”

There could be no more appropriate place to record this album than Muscle Shoals, a locale that has become synonymous with southern blues-rock. The inspiration that Allman undoubtedly felt while recording in the iconic studio shines through every track of the album.

Of course, Allman’s biggest inspiration for this album was surely his looming departure, but the album’s producer has been quick to note that the album is not wholly a reflection on death. Allman wanted to use the work to reflect on the significance of his entire life, not merely on the end of it.

This intention does show up in the final product: the tone of the album is not one of pain or self-grieving but of appreciation, calmness and, ultimately, acceptance. Allman made it clear that he enjoyed life and was not pleased with his coming demise on tracks like “I Love The Life I Live” and “Willin’.”

Allman shifted the focus from his death and reflected on tour life in “My Only True Friend” and on bittersweet love in “Love Like Kerosene.” In reality, however, nothing Allman sang about on the album shifted the focus from death as effectively as the form of the album: covers.

The album is not one of songs composed by Allman about his final days; instead, the album serves as a book of standards. Allman’s recorded celebration is a farewell to the musical tradition in which he lived. Incredibly, the album is not about Allman at all: it is about what survives him.

Allman’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Going Going Gone,” the emotional and musical climax of the album, is a song about feeling oneself slipping from the world. Had Allman written the song for the album, it would have been a narrative about his coming death.

However, since the song is a cover, the story is about how in this stage of his life, just like in every other, Allman found the words to describe his situation in music. While the song is about death, the cover is about music. Allman played the same trick even more effectively on the final and most mournful track on the album, a cover of Jackson Browne’s “Song for Adam,” which features a guest appearance from Browne himself.

While the song, as written by Browne, recounts the tragic death of Browne’s friend Adam Saylor, Allman’s performance of the song became a record of how music helped him digest his own demise. Browne’s appearance on the track further intensifies this effect, which allowed Allman to celebrate his musical colleagues and the help he received from them throughout his life.

While most of Allman’s album is potent and inspired, it does get bogged down in the middle of its track listing. Songs like “Black Muddy River,” “Blind Bats and Swamp Rats” and “Out of Left Field” can fade into the background as Allman delivers his final tribute to blues-rock.

Still, the listener’s attention is soon snatched back by “Love Like Kerosene” and “Song for Adam,” ensuring that the beginning and end of the album are engaging. In aggregate, “Southern Blood” is not just a good album, it is a   great album.

As time goes on, one can expect to see more rock legends fading and dying off, and the process will be punishing. In this coming world of grief, one needs a soundtrack to keep up morale, to remind him that while the musicians will die, their music never will. “Southern Blood” is that soundtrack. Listeners will not soon forget Gregg Allman’s final shout into the void that the rock world is quickly becoming.

Fans of The Bard beware. TNT has deemed William Shakespeare worthy of his own TV series. Ten episodes later, they recanted and cancelled the show.

“Will” follows a destitute country writer seeking his fortune in a big city. Leaving his wife and three children behind, Will Shakespeare (Laurie Davidson, “Vampire Academy”) travels to London with nothing more than his aspiration to be a playwright and a letter to his cousin, a persecuted Catholic priest who sometimes wears a rosary as a necklace.

When this letter is stolen, the second main plot commences as the audience is introduced to Richard Topcliffe (Ewen Bremner, “Black Hawk Down”). He is another historical figure, who has declared war on all Catholics in the name of the Queen.

Meanwhile, despite having stellar actors, James Burbage’s theater is struggling to stay open and is in need of new writing talent. With his quick wit, which is painfully displayed in a local tavern’s pseudo rap battle, and innovative writing style, Will becomes the theater’s savior.

Throughout the show’s ten episodes, the theatre and religion converge on Will’s unwilling character who simply does not want any part of the religious war nor does he wish to conform to accepted practices on the stage.

“Will” is extraordinarily flexible when it comes to accurately portraying history, and its psychedelic color pallet and punk rock music are shockingly out of place in Elizabethan England. Despite the historical accuracy of the show being less credible than reports of a successful snipe hunt, there are sufficient nods to reality to keep the average Shakespeare enthusiast at least grudgingly interested.

At various moments, the characters will spew lines from Shakespeare’s plays verbatim, no matter how out of context or jarring. The entertainment for knowledgeable viewers lies then with guessing which play was just forcibly quoted, as anyone familiar with the English language would be able to identify that those words were not originally intended to be spoken where the show deigned to place them.

“Will” appears to be the result of throwing “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,” a list of heinous offences committed by 1900’s prisoners and the blog of a cosplaying punk-rock fan into a blender without a lid.  The resulting mess on the ceiling then becomes the show’s script. Admittedly, this is quite a unique take on a subject oft labelled boring by innumerable high school students.

Considering that its subject matter is rife with pedophilia, torture, orgies and executions, it would be hard to blame the camera for hiding behind walls, staircases, clothing racks and other assorted obstructions. However, the cinematography for “Will” seems less like a valid artistic choice and more like the consequence of poor planning and sets too small to accommodate the camera crew.

The resulting effect is more akin to the annoyance of an unruly video game perspective than whatever the show’s creators might have been hoping for.

“Will” seemed undecided about itself. One moment, it would extoll Shakespeare’s creative genius or follow a developing romance; the next, it wallowed in the harsh reality of the Black Death or showing the sadism of Topcliffe’s religious crusade. The concept of the show had potential, but it went in so many directions that it overwhelmed itself. For example, Christopher Marlowe (Jamie Campbell Bower, “The Twilight Saga”) searches for an alternative to the Protestant-Catholic divide while working on his mass-recognized play. The subplot has little impact on the show beyond explaining why Bower randomly shows up on occasion.

While plotlines of “Will” could have been better interwoven, each subplot had an adequate conclusion as viewers were left with few questions. Perhaps the most pressing of these was why they had  sat through ten episodes of bizarre anachronisms, misplaced Shakespeare quotations and a considerable amount of footage dedicated solely to earning a For Mature Audiences rating.

The latest iteration of Stephen King’s iconic horror novel “It” hit theatres last week, capitalizing on the timely homicidal clown theme while simultaneously bringing equal parts of horror and humor to the big screen.

Attempting to translate the terror of the novel’s thousand pages down to a two-hour film is an ambitious undertaking, but audiences will be delighted by what Bill Skarsgard (“Allegiant”) brings to the supernatural evil clown
Pennywise.

Equally delightful to watch is the acting of the “Losers Club,” the band of seven children tasked with defeating Pennywise by overcoming their own personal horrors. They overcome these obstacles with hilarious quips and the bonds of friendship.

While the novel and previous adaptations have flipped between the present day and the future, this version of “It” stays in 1988 to 1989, presenting the first part of how the Losers confront Pennywise in their adolescence.

The film opens the same way the novel does with an adorable six-year old Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) chasing a wax-covered boat as it floats down into a drain, where Pennywise charms him until poor Georgie disappears to tragically also “float down here” with It ­— and the rows of terrifying sharp teeth that hide beneath his clown mask.

Skarsgard absolutely nails the role of Pennywise. While witnessing a clown attempting to be terrifying will inevitably involve some degree of absurdity, Skarsgard manages to bring a deeply chilling vibe to each scene and interaction. He does so without going over the top (or at least as “not over the top” as one can get when playing a deranged clown).

He lures the Losers into his world of nightmares in a coquettish, manipulative manner and delivers a fully respectable performance to a challenging monster
to portray.

Georgie’s older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher, “Midnight Special”) begins investigating his brother’s disappearance, refusing to admit Georgie could be dead.

His original gang of friends, including the hilariously profane Richard (Finn Wolfhard, “Stranger Things”), asthmatic mama’s boy Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and the anxious Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), expands to include the overweight new kid Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the fantastically performed spunky-sole-female Beverly (Sophia Lillis), and the homeschooled only-black-kid-in-town, Mike (Chosen Jacobs).

Thus assembled, the seven investigate the mystery of the missing children, and each must confront their own personal nightmares on their journey to face the source of the evil cursing the town of Derry, Maine: It.

Watching the Losers evokes the endearing connection felt by the groups in “Stand by Me” or “Stranger Things,” bringing back the nostalgia and unique humor of childhood friendships.

The decision to keep this chapter of “It” contained entirely to this time frame made a more captivating and cohesive story, driven by the character development of sharing the Losers’ backstories.

This narrative framework does the book as much justice as one can expect when removing the horror story from the theatre of the mind and manifesting it on screen. Although “It” will inevitably disappoint those who seek the level of fear achieved by the novel, the special effects in this version of “It” are far superior to former attempts. Pennywise’s revelation of his true nature and the Losers’ entrance into the haunted house display technological superiority.

Despite the lessening in impact felt during the underground climax of the film, watching the Losers face their fears instead of fleeing It makes for a classic triumph that manages to not feel weary in its unfolding.

“It” is less about a supernatural clown and more about fear. Specifically, “It” is about the fears that plague children on the cusp of growing up, who are confronted by both Pennywise’s manifestations of their worst nightmares  and the horrors of reality itself.

Muschietti’s film highlights the terrors from monsters beyond this world but also the horror of being attacked by a bully, the grief of an unexpected loss and the pain of an abusive family.

For fans wanting to see more of the book brought to life, the ending credits suggest that more chapters of “It” may float to the big screen in the future.

The release of Bungie’s Destiny in 2014 was something of a cultural phenomenon. Rarely does a game generate that level of hype; Bungie’s reputation for creating the lauded Halo franchise put Destiny in the spotlight from the second it was announced.

As details about the game began to slowly trickle out, people following Destiny began to dream of a Halo-esque multiplayer RPG that would turn the genre on its head. Bungie tacked on a promising gameplay trailer at 2013’s E3 conference and essentially laid claim on $60 from everyone watching. Destiny was going to be the game to buy in 2014.

That September, stores across the globe moved copies of Destiny like it was the McRib. It easily became the largest new franchise launch of all time. Tech’s streets seemed empty: its students were packed into dorm rooms and fraternity houses to experience this new game. It was beautiful, it was novel — and, after a week — it was stale.

Although Destiny went on to become one of the most popular games of both the last and the current console generations, it came from unexpectedly humble beginnings. Upon release the game offered little beyond its repetitive story missions and competitive multiplayer mode. After a single playthrough, many underwhelmed players put the game away and never returned.

Only after a series of post-release content updates and expansions did Destiny find its stride. By the end of its lifespan, the game had become one of the biggest and most robust time-sinks in the gaming world.

The announcement of a sequel had players wondering what Destiny 2 could bring to the table that another one of the original’s game-transforming expansions did not. Would Bungie learn from its mistakes and launch a fully fleshed-out game rather than a barebones foundation?

Bungie undoubtedly handled the launch of Destiny 2 differently than the original. Complaints that plagued the first game, such as nitpicks about end-game content and creating a “full” game world, have been virtually non-existent since the sequel’s release.

The open-world mechanic has been completely redone to allow for a more cohesive experience, allowing each area to serve as a “hub” of sorts in which players take on missions and do sidequests without constantly returning to their ship.

The world has been fleshed out with dozens of hidden chests, secret boss fights and team-based public events to keep players occupied in between main story missions or competitive matches. Free-roaming through the game’s planets and moons — a boring and tedious aspect of the original — no longer feels like a chore.

Bungie filled the game to the brim with things to do, and the bad taste that the original Destiny left in players’ mouths is all but nonexistent.

Destiny 2 marks the franchise’s first appearance on PC, though mouse-and-keyboard players will have to wait a few more weeks to get their hands on it. The PS4 and XBox One releases are both optimized for 4K, so graphically the disparity between console and PC will not be as big an issue.

The game’s environments look stunning in 4K, and the wide variety of weapons and abilities all take advantage of the improved hardware of this console generation. Composer Michael Salvatori, famous for the iconic Halo soundtracks and the original Destiny, returned to provide the game’s stellar score.

The original game’s competitive multiplayer mode, referred to in-game as the Crucible, gave players the gameplay they had craved since the days of Halo 3. The Crucible is back this time around with seemingly balanced maps and gameplay features.

While there are currently few player-vs-player options, future updates promise to bring back fan-favorites like Trials of Osiris. The Crucible is quite fun; doing battle with other guardians is tense and rewarding. Much time can also be sunk into the main quest missions themselves.

Destiny caught flak for its convoluted and often repetitive story, and one of the sequel’s biggest strengths is a more tightly-focused and accessible plot. The politics of intergalactic warfare left players of the original bored, while the endless menagerie of characters made it hard to become invested in the game’s overarching conflict.

Destiny 2 sifts all of this down into the essentials, bringing back popular characters from the original and framing the story as a
revenge tale rather than a lore-heavy snoozefest.

The game’s most glaring issue is barely an issue at all, but it still gives reason to worry about the future of the franchise. A new marketplace, called the Eververse was added to the game that uses real-world currency to buy items in-game.

Many popular games have adopted a micro-transaction model, simply because it makes them more money. If the Eververse proves to be popular, Bungie could be tempted to monetize more parts of the game in an attempt to milk players for even more cash. It i s 2017: at this point, our udders are tired.

If a game’s biggest flaw is an unlikely hypothetical future situation that relates even tangentially to the word “udders,” it is a
great game sure to engage former players and earn new ones.

Bungie kept everything good from the original and refined almost every aspect of the gameplay to create a fun, content-filled experience.

There is no doubt that Destiny 2 has some real staying power; guardians will be doing battle throughout the virtual solar system for years to come.