#disney+ give us fifty minutes long episodes challenge

[goldenachilles]

They should've knelt, they should've knelt man. It's such an important moment in the books, it shows how different the Big Three kids are from the rest, shows that they are not only to be respected, but feared. It shows that they are dangerous.

But even more than that, all around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it (tlt, p. 126) it shows that Percy is and continues to be other, even in a place where he should fit in.

[jrobert1698-blog]

The Mandalorian Season One Review

The Mandalorian is a Disney+ original television show starring Pedro Pascal and created by Jon Favreau.  In addition to featuring a supporting cast of Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, and Giancarlo Esposito, the show also created a legend of our time: Baby Yoda.  Logging just eight episodes in its debut season, the show follows a conflicted bounty hunter as he attempts to honor the creed of his people, the customs of his profession, and his heart’s desire.  If you haven’t seen the show yet, I highly suggest you check it out.  Some spoilers lie ahead if you wish to turn back now; otherwise, “this is the way.”

I’ll be honest: I’m a really big Star Wars fan.  I should qualify that by saying I haven’t consumed every bit of the Star Wars canon, and I’m not extremely familiar with the Expanded Universe.  I know this qualifies me as scum; force choke me if you must.  Nonetheless, it is one of my favorite franchises dating all the way back to my early childhood.  This makes it somewhat difficult to review anything Star Wars related because I’m always subconsciously rooting for it to be good.  I allowed this to get the better of me with The Last Jedi, and I defended that film for far too long.  In short, I tried to approach The Mandalorian with an open mind but without letting my inner fanboy take over my sensibilities.  I’d like to believe that this review is as neutral as possible but if I do sound overexcited please forgive me. 

Before I get into The Mandalorian in detail I want to take a brief step back to 2015.  Before The Force Awakens cam out, everybody was excited to see Star Wars again.  Despite box office success, some people dismissed Episode VII as too derivative of A New Hope.  Others were just happy to have new characters, a diverse cast, and a competent director in J.J. Abrams.  I will go to the grave believing that the single biggest mistake Disney made since purchasing Star Wars was hiring Rian Johnson to direct The Last Jedi. While he is clearly capable of creating a great film in his own right, his vision clashed significantly with Abrams’ and the end result was a very divisive movie that split up the Star Wars fan base.  It made at least half the fandom bitter and jaded towards anything Star Wars that Disney produced.  People desperately needed something to unify them and make them remember why they love Star Wars again.  I’m happy to report that season one of The Mandalorian is exactly what the fans, and Disney, needed. 

I feel as though its only proper to begin a review of The Mandalorian by discussing Din Djarin himself as portrayed by Pedro Pascal.  I liked him in Game of Thrones and I like him even more here.  Some people might assume that having a mask cover your entire face makes acting easier.  To some extent this is true.  Not having to express emotions with one’s eyes and mouth alleviates some of the burden.  However, its also a unique acting challenge to make people get invested in a character whose face they can’t see.  The fact that so many love this character is a testament to good screenwriting and Pascal’s acting ability.  The audience actually roots for Mando to keep his mask on because the writers made it a crucial part of his identity.  Additionally, Pascal has to express emotion through the intonation of his voice, the speed at which he turns his helmet, and his deliberate pace when he walks.  This is far more difficult than people realize, and Pascal deserves a lot of credit for making this season the success that it was.

The character of the Mandalorian also stands out to me because in many ways he exemplifies the qualities of a good action hero.  Again, good screenwriting.  He comes off as a believable bad ass from the minute he slices a guy in half with a door in Episode 1.  However, unlike other Star Wars protagonists of late, he never feels overpowered either.  Audiences need to feel like their hero is in danger of getting hurt or dying in order for excitement to register.  There are many moments in this season where Mando gets his ass kicked.  He gets electrocuted by Jawas, gored by a Mudhorn, pinned down by Bounty Hunters and almost blown up several times.  However, like any good action hero, he always manages to bounce back and lives to fight another day.  This is why audiences truly respect this character who, at the end of the day, is just a human being like all of us. 

Another great, and perhaps underrated, aspect of this show is the amazing score by Ludwig Goransson.  I really liked his work on Black Panther as well and I’m looking forward to any future projects he works on.  This is the first time I can remember that anyone other than John Williams has made an original and memorable Star Wars score.  The main title is freakin’ awesome.  It’s the perfect blend of tribal mysticism and the military marches we’ve come to know and love.  Fortunately, this space opera comes with some great overtures to highlight it.

Before I sound like a total fanboy, let’s talk about a few issues I have with the show.  There are certainly issues you can nitpick from a canon perspective but that isn’t my main concern.  My biggest complaint would be the sometimes haphazard nature of the show.  Episode 5 in particular felt like a sizable departure from the main story.  Episode 6, while more entertaining, similarly broke from the overarching narrative to give us a little bit of Mando’s backstory.  I don’t necessarily have a problem with this video game mission approach to the show, but I do hope that some of these side quests get paid off more significantly in future episodes.  I also would have liked a more consistent emphasis on the supporting cast members like Carano’s Cara Dune and Weathers’ Greef Carga.  Even Kuill could have used more screen time if for no other purpose than to make us more attached to him before his untimely death.

My complaints, in the long run, are relatively minor.  Compared to my overall respect and enjoyment of this show, they pale in comparison.  One major reason why is that Disney spared no expense in making this show the best it could possibly be.  The visual effects, where I feared they might skimp, were better than a lot of feature films.  The show felt cinematic, like Game of Thrones did at its best.  The cinematography was mostly great as well.  I particularly liked Taika Waititi’s direction in the season finale.  That shot of Mando finally using a jetpack to latch onto Moff Gideon’s TIE Fighter deserves to be on a poster.  I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the closing shot of Gideon holding the fucking Darksaber.  I can’t wait to see Giancarlo Esposito in an expanded role in Season 2 and hopefully beyond.  If he can play half the villain he did in Breaking Bad it will be a success.

And, of course, I had to save the single best part of this show, by far, for last. Baby. Fucking. Yoda.  This is one of the most well-concealed plot twists in recent memory.  Disney, somehow, did a fantastic job of keeping Baby Yoda out of marketing materials and trailers in the pre-release process.  When I first saw that adorable green face for the first time I somehow screamed, laughed and cried out in excitement at once.  This character is great for so many reasons besides obviously being the cutest thing to come out of 2019.  The Child makes Mando extremely conflicted and puts him in the most difficult quandary of his life: honor his code as a Bounty Hunter or follow his instincts and protect this child in need?  Baby Yoda also kicks a lot of ass for a one-foot-tall fifty year old.  His obviously strong connection to the force presents a myriad of options for his future: will he train as a Jedi, be a powerful vigilante, or turn to the dark side?  I’m kidding, but I’m also serious; he did force choke Cara Dune after all.  And he’s grown up among a series of explosions, laser beams, and punchy storm troopers.  That’s a pretty traumatic childhood.  Clearly, Baby Yoda has turned into a phenomenon and sparked an infinite number of memes, songs, and art.  I think it’s well deserved and I can’t wait to see more adventures in baby sitting with our little green friend. 

My thoughts on The Mandalorian can be expressed very simply: it’s fucking awesome. There is a whole lot to like about where this story is going and what Favreau and the slew of directors have done so far.  They’ve managed to inject genuine excitement into the fan base for what feels like the first time in a very, very long time. Additionally, Disney needed to knock one out of the park in order to salvage their reputation and preserve fan interest in one of their most valuable franchises.  Despite a few minor missteps, season one of The Mandalorian is a fantastic and I eagerly anticipate season two whenever it comes out.  If you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out.  Baby Yoda alone makes it worth it.  I have spoken.

Rating: 9/10

[bigyack-com]

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman Gamble $1.8 Billion on Quibi

LOS ANGELES — They had to cancel the premiere party. But Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman have stuck with the April 6 start date of Quibi, the short-form video app for smartphones that they hope will attract millions of subscribers.The two veteran executives have led some of the nation’s top companies for decades. But they have spent the last two years in start-up mode, prodding investors to kick in nearly $1.8 billion and courting producers and stars like Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, Chance the Rapper, Idris Elba, Bill Murray, Steven Spielberg and Chrissy Teigen. Now Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman are ready to unveil their ambitious venture right in the middle of a pandemic.“This is either going to be a massive home run or a massive swing and miss,” said Michael Goodman, a media analyst at Strategy Analytics.Quibi, a portmanteau of “quick bites,” will offer movies, reality shows and news programs made for the smartphone, with no installment clocking in at more than 10 minutes. The offerings fall into three main categories: movies that will be released in chapters; documentaries and unscripted reality shows; and quick-hit news and sports reports from NBC, BBC, ESPN and others. Fifty shows will be available Monday.Before the spread of the coronavirus, whenever Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman made their Quibi pitch, they described it as an on-the-go diversion for anyone standing in line at Starbucks or riding the subway. The pandemic changed the context. With potential customers largely confined to their homes, it will now go up against established platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that can be watched on any screen, including the living room TV. Quibi works only on the phone.Ms. Whitman said she wasn’t concerned about the crisis’s effect on the start-up’s chances. “Think about how often you use your phone when you’re homebound,” she said. “People who are home with their children would really like a 10-minute break.”There is also the question of how much people are willing to spend on streaming at a time when nearly 10 million are out of work. Entertainment options have also expanded while Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman were building their app with 267 employees in an open-floor office in Hollywood. The Walt Disney Company and Apple joined the streaming party in November, with Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus, and TikTok, filled with short homemade videos, had a spectacular rise, hypnotizing the young viewers Quibi hopes to attract.Under those circumstances, Quibi (rhymes with “libby”) announced last month that it would be free for its first three months. After that, the cost will be $5 a month with ads and $8 without. Shortly after the announcement of the introductory offer, the company canceled its premiere party, which was expected to draw 150 celebrities among its 1,500 guests, because of the pandemic. But delay the launch? No way.“Given the quality and quantity and convenience of Quibi, we think it comes at a time when people are looking for relief, looking for distraction and looking to escape,” Mr. Katzenberg said. “Those are all the things we are trying to deliver to them.”Mr. Katzenberg, 69, and Ms. Whitman, 63, have dived headlong into a challenging third act, creating a product geared to people half their age at a time when millennials and Gen Z-ers have taken to needling their elders (see “OK Boomer”).The head of Walt Disney Studios at the time of the original version of “The Lion King,” Mr. Katzenberg has often gone against the grain. Passed over for the No. 2 job at Disney in 1994, he built a rival conglomerate, DreamWorks SKG, with Mr. Spielberg and David Geffen. He also waged a legal battle against his former employer, saying he had deserved more compensation. The bitter, headline-generating fight concluded with Disney handing him a settlement estimated at $250 million.DreamWorks faded, but DreamWorks Animation, the spinoff run by Mr. Katzenberg, survived until 2016, when Comcast’s NBCUniversal bought it for $3.8 billion. As part of the deal, Mr. Katzenberg received a $420 million payout — and reluctantly stepped aside.In the back of his mind was a failed initiative similar to Quibi: Pop.com, a side venture he had started in 1999 with Mr. Spielberg, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard as a venue for video shorts. It went bust before it even launched.Quibi’s other leader, one of the country’s most powerful female executives, rose through the ranks of American business at Disney, DreamWorks and Hasbro before she took eBay from a shop with a staff of 30 to a global powerhouse with 15,000 workers and $8 billion in annual revenue. When she left, in 2008, she was a billionaire.She went on to spend more than $100 million of her fortune to run as a Republican for governor of California, only to lose the 2010 election to Jerry Brown. A return to business put her in charge of Hewlett-Packard, which she left in 2017. “I’ve been working straight for 35 years,” she said upon her departure. “I’m going to enjoy some downtime.”But she soon joined Mr. Katzenberg at what was then called New TV, after he had raised $1 billion from Hollywood studios, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and other investors. “She doesn’t like this, but I keep saying we’re two old dogs who have a new trick,” Mr. Katzenberg said at the time.Ms. Whitman left her home in Northern California for a West Hollywood high-rise. Now she can see Mr. Katzenberg’s house in Beverly Hills from her bedroom window.Start-ups rarely run smoothly, and several prominent executives have left Quibi over the last year, including Janice Min, the former co-president of The Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group; Diane Nelson, a former Warner Bros. executive; and Tim Connolly, a former Hulu executive. Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman are known as exacting managers who keep an eye on the tiniest detail.The company has also had trouble getting the word out. Although Quibi spent millions on commercials that ran during the Super Bowl and the Oscars, 68 percent of participants in a Morning Consult/Hollywood Reporter poll last month said they were not familiar with the brand.“Part of the reason awareness is so low is they are building a new name,” said Ross Benes, a video analyst at eMarketer. “Quibi takes time to explain. It’s not super clear that this will cost you $5 a month and you’ll get a lot of short videos.”Stay-at-home mandates have complicated the rollout, with meetings held via video conference. “Even though Zoom is great, I can’t really read the body language in the room,” Ms. Whitman said. “And that has always been an important part of how I gauge who is doing what to whom and how things are working.”Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman had an easy time making deals partly because of the terms they offer: The company pays for production costs and licensing rights, allowing anyone the creators of Quibi programs to retain copyright, meaning they can sell their work to another platform or network after a set number of years.Nicole Clemens, the president of Paramount Television, received an offer from Quibi for “When the Streetlights Go On,” a script about the aftermath of the murder of a suburban teenager that had once been shot as a Hulu pilot. “It was an incoming call,” Ms. Clemens said, “which is always nice to get.” The Quibi version will be part of the Monday launch.Writers who sign on have to follow a rule of Mr. Katzenberg’s: They must end each installment with a cliffhanger. Nick Santora, the writer of “Most Dangerous Game,” an action film starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz, described hitting those marks as “hard but exhilarating.” To pull it off, he refashioned his 48-page pilot script, initially written for NBC, into a 150-page screenplay with a climax every 10 pages.“When you’re writing a regular script, and you need a scene to tell a certain arc in your story, and it takes 12, 13 pages, it’s no big deal,” he said. “You can’t do that in Quibi. Once you get to page 10, you’re done.”Quibi intends to set itself apart from YouTube, the leader in short-form digital video, because of its reliance on an old-fashioned Hollywood hallmark: production values. Quibi films cost up to $100,00 per minute. And Mr. Katzenberg’s long experience has taught him how to handle the talent, even as his reputation as a relentless boss holds firm.“You don’t always hear from the biggest exec at the company,” said Ryan Case, the director of “Flipped,” a comedy starring Will Forte and Kaitlin Olson. “But he called me, the writers and the cast members on a Saturday at our homes to say he was excited. It was both wonderful and classy.”Unlike Disney Plus, which gained subscribers on the strength of its “Star Wars” series, “The Mandalorian,” Quibi hopes to lure viewers with its overall lineup. “I think we have fantastic shows,” Ms. Whitman said, “but I also think it’s the sum total of what we are offering, as opposed to one ‘Mandalorian.’”The companies making a line of Quibi programming called Daily Essentials have faced the toughest challenge. Madeleine Haeringer, an NBC News executive producer, spent months assembling a 50-person team able to produce twice-daily 5- to 7-minute shows. Her job got trickier when employees were forced to work from home. A week before the start date, she delivered test episodes remotely, with anchors on iPads.“It’s incredibly daunting,” Ms. Haeringer said.Quibi’s unscripted shows bring to mind to cable fare and syndicated programs. Ms. Teigen’s “Chrissy’s Court” is the app’s answer to “Judge Judy,” and Ms. Lopez produces a show that follows celebrities as they give $100,000 to someone who meant a lot to them.Will Quibi be the next digital thing or a flop? That is the $1.8 billion question.“On the plus side, Quibi is like nothing else,” said Mr. Goodman, the media analyst. “On the other hand, while we know that there is a tremendous amount of video being consumed on phones, we also know that people don’t want to pay for video on their phones.”Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Whitman say they will beat the odds. Noting Quibi’s debut slate of movies in chapters, Mr. Katzenberg said, “All five of those I think are great. Not good. Great.”Ms. Whitman sounded more circumspect. “This is very different from a movie launch,” she said. “We are building a new consumer product.” Read the full article

[goldenachilles]

DISNEY GIVE US FIFTY MINUTE LONG EPISODES CHALLENGE