#the only thing is the villain's actor sucked ass but it's fine his in character motivations are better than 99% of CBM villains already

[barkloud]

I'm so fucking gagged by Madame Web ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

They actually took the stupidity and outlandishness of the premise and superhero team-ups in general, and said YES BUT this is a movie literally about coincidences and accidents.

Flat and cheesy awkward lines? YES because everyone in this movie is consistently terrible and awkward and cheesy, and that's why they're in the situation in the first place.

Constantly making characters seem or look stupidly relatable? YES because their stupidity has immediate consequences (usually so extreme that there's no way they'd predict it'd be so bad).

Nobody has a "heroic" or "powerful" turnaround they just hate it and they're selfish the entire time!!

The characters have plot armour because every lucky accident is painstakingly written in BLOOD.

No "because it makes sense" or "I'd do it this way instead". It's "this decision is fucking stupid and the last thing I'd fucking choose to do" and they literally show that it is!

It's like turning every single boring stupid nonsensical trope and nonsense decision saying yeah, but it literally has to happen this way so that's what they'll DO! Un-apologetically! We're not genre-savvy!

(Also side note I was pretty triggered from the deja-vu scenes. I was seeing someone have my anxiety/ocd attacks on screen. freaky...)

[arttrampbelle]

Now that we see of liu kang ending and all of the garbage trainwreck of the new mk game

I bet y'all thinking

"Hmmm. Maybe shang tsung's ending in mk11 wasn't actually that bad and maybe he was *gasp* actually right all along about some things?!"

I mean this isn't just me as a shang tsimp.

This is sadly kinda true. I'd rather take my chances with big shangus. Then a pompus(and pooly and backhanded written) fire god liu kang. (Which in itself is sad. Because he never wanted that. Forcing him into a role making him miserable. Completely bastardizing his character. All for what?! Not my liu kang nrs. Not my liu kang.)

Anyways. Back to shang.

Liu kang vs shang is a klassic rivalry. But its as only as good as you actually write them on equal footing. But the have never truly done that. Liu kang has always had plot armor saving him and shang tsung has the unfortunate boxing in of "bad guy i beat up. Twirly mustache" which is horrible because that's not what he actually is. (Worse more when tagawa-sama never wanted that character he played,nor any villain he plays to be that way. Its always some nuance to his characters he portrays. And he said in an interview. He grew up with wimpy asian bad guys. He never wanted to ever see that again. So if he IS gonna be a buy guy. He is gonna be THE BAD GUY. Plus he hated seeing so many stereotypes but he had to trudge thru to be able to help make a better representation and positive impact. Tho nowadays he plays sweethearts,like himself mostly. Great actor,AMAZING man. Really cool. But for them to continue to make shang a "wimp" or to be "beat up by the "good" guys" is awful and a backhanded slap to the character as a whole even outside of the amazing cary hiroyuki tagawas portrayal.)

Again liu kang should be able to barely BARELY win against shang. Even if granted god powers. Shang is a stronk ass mofo. Bad,mean,nasty,in a fight. He wasn't champion formerly for nothing. He wasn't mk tournament master for nothing. He wasn't granted a seat under shao kahns heelboot for nothing. Granted that wasn't much of a choice but survival. But thats for another post. Like shang tsung is a BEAST! Not a heavy hitter. Not a beast in a way thats a tank. But a cunning,ruthless,and calculator. An opportunist fighter. He's cold in a fight. Like gives you chills. The serpentine gaze ready to strike. You gotta be quick...or you'll die. You gonna be careful and level headed otherwise he'll take full advantage of that opening and your soul? Is definitely his.

Look shang dont fucking play. (There is nuance and context depending on the situation but for the most part depends on who he's fighting and what the story is doing but overall he is not to be underestimated at all!)

Shang tsung Wasn't an og big bad for nothing!!!!!

Shao kahn was only a bigger bad and problems later. Then it became.

Better the devil you know then someone worse. Then we start to see.

Well fuck shang tsung actually is the only thing preventing shit from getting worse!

So yeah....you kill him....

Quan chi gets more power. Shao kahn gets free range. Onaga....welp. you're screwed. Dont even get started on shinnok! Oof. All the other bads?! Yeah they are gonna get WORSE AND MORE TOUGH AND BE MORE OF A PROBLEM. and honestly it would make things harder for everyone.

Yeah so think about it.

Take shang out ,you fuck up a whole ecosystem.

He only feeds on souls and of what he needs. Dont prevoke the man he wont steal your soul and go on a killing spree sucking souls for spite.

For the most part shang is best left tf alone. So as long as he has plenty in his soul well. He'll be fine. But the man is paranoid,traumatized due to shao kahn,many other things perhaps from his past. Oof cue my backstory for the death of his mother and his attachment issues and fear of decay,meaningless deaths,etc

But for the most part if you are respectful to shang. He'll be respectful back. Be genuine,be honest,and it will get you far. Dont be easy gotten either. Make it a challenge. Again this man likes a reasonable chase. Likes intelligence(not necessarily book smarts but people smarts,emotional intelligence) he values these things.

I could go on about this characters brain soup. I could add n talk about so much character analysis for shang. Unf 💖

But I'll leave it simple

Nrs fucked up a perfectly good rivalry. A potentially amazing story arch. And two amazing characters.

In short....i bet that shang tsung ending sounds really good about now right?

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

Hot take: I unapologetically like John Walker, like, not even in a "he is morally gray and interesting" kind of way. He was brave and had good intentions, he just wasn't as quick to search for peaceful solutions and had several realistic flaws such as being insecure, ambitious and quick to follow orders for the establishment. Most people (on tumblr) just hate him because he is white so he must be evil or symbolically represent male white priviledge or something, because he didn´t romanticize terrorism as the writers made Sam start doing, and because he “unfairly” got the shield (The shield the dumb ass writers made Sam DECIDE to give up so they could have that sweet drama? THAT shield?). People say that Steve Rogers would have never done what John did, not even after his literal best friend was killed in front of his eyes, ehem... did we even watch the same movies? Did everyone just forget about that scene in Civil War after Tony tried to kill Bucky?

His reasons for murdering that terrorist  guy that took part in the killing of his best friend and for wanting to apprehend a potentially dangerous group were waay more understandable than any of Karli's actions AFTER she started killing innocent people "to send a message" while still claiming to have the moral highground instead of, you know, keep stealing and distributing food and medicines like they were exclusively doing at the beginning or something.

I get that it sucks the writers made the flag smashers the villians (I hate what they did with the good hearted and idealistic Sharon Carter as well), I myself would have prefered if Karli had been writen as an anti-hero or even new hero who teams up with Sam and Bucky, maybe the flag smashers could have been divided into different factions, some more extremist than others, and a government guy could have been the real or worst villain, but that sadly didn't happen. The moment they wrote her blowing up that building full of unarmed people though, she was a self-righteous murderer just like Zemo, which would have been fine if that was the point of her character.

 I was very irritated by the way the show writers, via Sam, tried to minimize her actions and make us feel sorry for her, dehumanizing the people she had killed in the process. We barely ever see her victims, they are mostly faceless entities who don´t matter in comparison to “poor well intentioned baby Karli”.

 If the writers wanted to send the audience a message about “doing better” for refugees they could have done so by making the flag smashers the heroes that have been unjustly framed for the terrorist attacks (Which would have been an AMAZING plot twist), or writing them to be more complicated by making most of its members stand against the extemism of certain factions of the group, or by showing the good things they do, making them fight armed guards only. They should NOT have made terrorism seem “cool” and “trendy”, the deaths of civilians “necessary”, and the terrorists the “real” victims of... *gasp* being called... terrorists! The poor babies, noo, so offensive! The correct term is freedom fighters, nooo! 

Needless to say, the woobification of the poor baby terrorists didn't work for me and I wasn't exactly horrified by Karli´s death or impressed by Sam´s corny victim blaming speech where he doesn´t actually give any practical ideas on how to solve the refugee crisis caused by the snap but sure does love to say the government officials all, indiscriminately (Maybe AOCortez or someone was there? I mean, idk), deserved to feel powerless as hostages because that, apparently, will make them sympathize with the people that made them fear for their lives instead of, I don´t know, seeing them as way too unreasonable to negociate with??

Now, I would have preferred for John Walker´s actor to play Lemar and viceversa, because I get that black characters get killed to motivate white characters far too often, so it would have been nicer to see it done the other way around for once. For John Walker to be the new flawed yet good hearted war veteran who has to redeem himself after making a huge mistake born out of pain for the loss of his friend, someone who has to develop and learn different tactics other than violence in order to defend people, someone who has to learn to question the status quo... and he just happens to be black like Sam. Their rivalry would not be even implicitly about race, but exclusively about differences in methods and about who gets the Captain America legacy. We could still have Bucky hating on him, the funny rivalry moments, no changes.

But sadly the writers needed a character to represent the white that didn't deserve Sam's shield but only got it for his race, or for looking similar to Steve, which is an important theme, but one that was perfectly explored already with the plotline about the original black supersoldier who was erased from history, and one that didn´t work for me because they made Sam give up the shield willingly BEFORE it was given to John, a war hero, so all I am getting is that simply being chosen for something important and accepting it because you think you can do the job, wanting justice for a friend, and not trusting terrorists to change their murderous ways is what made John “less than” Sam and Bucky.

I guess what I am trying to say is that John doesn´t deserve half the hate he gets and maybe if the writers had changed his race from the comic books then his character would have suffered less from being placed into a specific “personification of white male priviledge” box here on tumblr. No offence to the actor though, he was great.

[greatfay]

controversial opinions?

Cold pizza actually not good. Tastes like angry bacteria.

There’s a completely separate class of gay men who are in a different, rainbow-tinted plane of reality from the rest of us and I don’t like them. They push for “acceptance” via commercialization of the Pride movement, assimilation through over-exposure, and focus on sexualizing the movement to be “provocative” and writing annoying articles that reek of class privilege instead of something actually important like lgbtqa youth homelessness, job discrimination, and mental health awareness.

Coleslaw is good. You guys just suck in the kitchen.

Generational divides ARE real: a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old right now in 2021 could agree on every hot button sociopolitical topic and yet not even realize it because they communicate in entirely different ways.

Sam Wilson is a power bottom. No I will not elaborate.

Allison’s makeover in The Breakfast Club good, not bad. She kept literally and metaphorically dumping her trash out onto the table and it’s clearly a cry for help. Having the attention and affection of a smart, pretty girl doing her makeup for her was sweet and helped her open up to new experiences. Not every loner wants to BE a loner (see: Bender, who is fine being a lone wolf).

Movie/show recommendations that start with a detailed “representation” list read like status-effecting gear in an RPG and it’s actually a turn-off for me. I have to force myself to give something a try in spite of it.

Yelling at people to just “learn a new language” because clearly everyone who isn’t you and your immediate vicinity of friends must be a lazy ignorant white American is so fucking stupid, like I get it, you’re mad someone doesn’t immediately know how to pronounce your name or what something means. But I know 2 languages and am struggling with a 3rd when I can between 2 jobs and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to just absorb the entire kanji system into my brain to learn Japanese by tomorrow night, or suddenly learn Arabic or Welsh. There are 6500 recorded languages in the world, what’s the chance that one of 3 I’ve learn(ed?) is the one you’re yelling at me about. Yes this is referring to that post yelling at people for not knowing how to pronounce obscure Irish names and words. Sometimes just explaining something instead of admonishing people for not knowing something inherently in the belief that everyone must be lazy entitled privileged people is uh... better?

Stop fucking yelling at people. I despise feeling like someone is yelling at me or scolding me, it triggers my Violence Mode, you don’t run me, you are not God, fuck off. Worst fucking way to "educate” people, it just feels good in the moment to say or write and doesn’t help. Yes I’ve done it before.

Violence is good actually.

Characters doing bad things ≠ an endorsement of bad things. Characters doing bad things that are unquestioned by the entire rest of the cast = endorsement of bad things, or at the least, a power fantasy by the creator. See: Glee, in which Sue’s awfulness is constantly called out, while Mr. Shue’s awfulness rarely is because he’s “the hero.” See also: the Lightbringer series, in which the protagonist is a violent manipulator who is praised as clever, charming, diplomatic, and genius by every supporting character (enemies included), despite the text never demonstrating such.

Euphoria is good, actually. It falls into this niche of the past decade of “dark gritty teen shows” but actually has substance behind it, but the general vibe I get from passive-aggressive tumblr posts from casual viewers is that this show is The Devil, and the criticism of its racier content screams pearl-clutching “what about the children??” to me.

Describing all diagnosed psychopaths as violent criminals is a damaging slippery slope, sure. But I won’t be mad at anyone for inherently distrusting another human who does not have the ability to feel guilt and remorse, empathy, is a pathological liar, or proves to be cunning and manipulative.

It’s actually not easy to unconditionally support and love everyone everywhere when you’ve actually experienced the World. Your perspective and values will be challenged as you encounter difficult people, experience hardship, are torn between conflicting ideas and commitments, and fail. My vow to never ever call the cops on another black person was challenged when an employee’s boyfriend marched into the kitchen OF AN ESTABLISHMENT to scream at her, in a BUSINESS I MANAGED, and threaten to BEAT the SHIT out of her. Turns out I can hate cops and hate that motherfucker equally, I am more than capable of both.

Defending makeup culture bad, actually. Enjoy it, experiment, master it, but don’t paint it as something other than upholding exactly what they want from you. Even using makeup to “defy the heteropatriarchal oppressors!” is still putting cash in their pockets, no matter how camp...

Not every villain needs to be redeemed, some of you just never outgrew projecting yourself onto monsters and killers.

Writing teams and networks queerbaiting is not the same as individuals queerbaiting. Nick Jonas performing exclusively at gay clubs to generate an audience really isn’t criminal; if they paid to go see him, that’s on them, he didn’t promise anyone anything other than music and a show. Do not paint this as similar to wealthy, bigoted executives and writing teams trying to snatch up the LGBTQA demographic with vague ass marketing and manipulative screenplays, only to cop out so as not to alienate their conservative audiences. And ESPECIALLY when the artists/actors/creators accused of queerbaiting or lezploitation then come out as queer in some form later on.

Queer is not a bad word, and I’ve no clue how that remains one of few words hurled at LGBTQA people that can’t be reclaimed. It’s so archaic and underused at this point that I don’t get the reaction to it compared to others.

People who defend grown-woman Lorelai Gilmore’s childish actions and in the same breath heavily criticize teenage religious abuse victim Lane Kim’s actions are not to be trusted. Also Lane deserved better.

Keep your realism out of my media, or at least make it tonally consistent. Tired of shows and movies and books where some gritty, dark shit comes out of nowhere when the narrative was relatively Romantic beforehand.

Actually people should be writing characters different from themselves, this new wave in the past year of “If you aren’t [X] you shouldn’t be writing [X]” is a complete leap backward from the 2010s media diversity movement. And if [X] has to do with an invisible minority status (not immediately visible disabilities, or diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, persecuted religious affiliations, mental illness) it’s actually quite fucked up to assume the creator can’t be whatever [X] is or to demand receipts or details of someone’s personal life to then grant them “permission” to create something. I know, we’re upset an actual gay actor wasn’t casted to play this gay character, so let’s give them shit about it: and not lose a wink of sleep when 2 years later, this very actor comes out and gives a detailed account of the pressure to stay closeted if they wanted success in Hollywood.

Projecting an actor’s personal romantic life and gender identity onto the characters they play is actually many levels of fucked up, and not cute or funny. See: reinterpreting every character Elliot Page has played through a sapphic lens, and insulting his ability to play straight characters while straight actors play actual caricatures of us (See also: Jared Leto. Fuck him).

I’m fucking sick of DaBaby, he sucks. “I shot somebody, she suck my peepee” that’s 90% of whatever he raps about.

“Political Correctness” is not new. It was, at one point, unacceptable to walk into a fine establishment and inform the proprietor that you love a nice firm pair of tits in your face. 60 years ago, such a statement would get you throw out and possibly arrested under suspicion of public intoxication. But then something happened and I blame Woodstock and Nixon. And now I have to explain to a man 40 years my senior that no, you can’t casually mention to the staff here, many of whom are children, how you haven’t had a good fuck in a while. And then rant about the “Chinese who gave us the virus.” Can’t be that upset with them if you then refused to wear your mask for 20 minutes.

Triggering content should not have a blanket ban; trigger warnings are enough, and those who campaign otherwise need to understand the difference between helping people and taking away their agency. 13 Reasons Why inspired this one. Absolutely shitty show, sure, but it’s a choice to watch it knowing exactly what it contains.

Sasuke’s not a fucking INTJ, he’s an ISFP whose every decision is based off in-the-moment feelings and proves incapable of detailed and logical planning to accomplish his larger goals.

MCU critique manages to be both spot-on and pointless. Amazing stories have been told with these characters over the course of decades; but most of it is toilet paper. Expecting a Marvel movie to be a deeply detailed examination of American nationalism and imperialism painted with a colorful gauze of avant-garde film technique is like expecting filet mignon from McDonalds. Scarf down your quarter pounder or gtfo.

Disparagingly comparing the popularity and (marginal) success of BLM to another movement is anti-black. It is not only possible but also easy to ask for people’s support without throwing in “you all supported BLM for black people but won’t show support for [insert group]” how about you keep our name out your mouth? Black people owe the rest of the world nothing tbh until yall root out the anti-blackness in your own communities.

It is the personal demon/tragic flaw of every cis gay/bi/pan man to externalize and exorcize Shame: I’m talking about the innate compulsion to Shame, especially in the name of Pride and Progress. Shame for socioeconomic “success,” shame for status of outness, shame for fitness and health, shame for looks, shame for style and dress, shame for how one fits into the gender binary, shame for sexual positions and intimacy preferences, shame for fucking music tastes. Put down the weapon that They used to beat you. Becoming the Beater is not growth, it’s the worst-case scenario.

Works by minorities do not have to be focused on their marginalized identities. Some ladies want to ride dragons AND other ladies. The pressure on minorities to create the Next Great Minority Character Study that will inevitably get snuffed at the Oscars/Peabody Awards is some bullshit when straight white dudes walk around shitting out mediocre screenplays and books.

Canadians can stfu about how the US is handling COVID-19 actually. Love most of yall, but the number of Canadian snowbirds on vacation (VACATION??? VA.CAT.ION.) in the supposed “hotbed” of my region that I’ve had to inform our mask policies and social distancing to is ASTOUNDING. Incroyable! I guess your country has a sizable population of entitled, privileged, inconsiderate, wealthy, and ignorant people making things difficult for everyone, just like mine :)

No trick to eliminate glasses fog while wearing my mask has worked, not a single one, it actually has affected my job and work speed and is incredibly frustrating, and I have to deal with it and pretend it’s not a problem while still encouraging others to follow the rules for everyone’s safety and the cognitive dissonance is driving me insane.

It’s really really really not anti-Japanese... to be uncomfortable with the rampant pedophilia in manga and anime, and voice this. I really can’t compare western animation’s sneakier bullshit with pantyshots of a 12-year-old girl.

Most of the people in the cottagecore aesthetic/tag have zero interest in all the hard work that comes with maintaining an isolated property in the countryside, milking cows and tending crops before sunrise, etc. And that’s okay? They just like flowers and pretty pottery and homemade pastries. Idk where discourse about this came from.

You think mint chip ice-cream tastes like toothpaste because you’re missing a receptor that can distinguish the flavors, and that sucks for you. It’s a sort of “taste-blindness” that can make gum spicy to some while others can eat a ghost pepper without crying.

Being a spectacle for the oppressive class doesn’t make them respect us, it makes them unafraid of us. This means they continue to devour us, but without fear of our retaliation.

Only like 4 people on tumblr dot com are actually prepared for the full ramifications of an actual revolution. The rest of you just really imprinted onto Katniss, or grew up in the suburbs.

Straight crushes are normal. They’re people first, sexual orientation second. Can’t always know.

The road to body positivity is not easy, especially if what you desire is what you aren’t.

You’re actually personally responsible for not voluntarily bringing yourself into an environment that you know is not fit for you unless you have the resolve to manage it. Can’t break a glass ceiling without getting a few cuts. This one’s a shoutout to my homophobic temp coworkers who decided working a venue with a drag show would be a good idea. This is also is a shoutout to people who want to make waves but are surprised when the boat tips. And also a shoutout to people who—wait that’s it’s own controversial opinion hold up.

Straight people can and should stay the fuck out of gay bars and queer spaces. “yoUrE bEInG diVisiVe” go fuck yourself.

[mst3kproject]

Goliath and the Dragon

I promised you colour, and here it is, with a side of My Cheese Steak!  It was produced by our old friend Samuel Z. Arkoff, and actor Salvatore Furnari played an elf in The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t and Timotheus in Hercules and the Captive Women.  The rest of the cast may not have been on MST3K, but they still have distinguished bad movie pedigrees of their own.  Philippe Hersent was in Film Crew feature The Giant of Marathon, and a lot of the other actors, including star Mark Forest and leading lady Leonora Ruffo, were in other sword-and-sandal movies I’ve featured as Episodes that Never Were.  In fact, looking at the cast list right now, I discovered that Gaby Andre was also in my previous movie, The Strange World of Planet X.  I hope she’s better in this one.

Once Upon a Time there lived Emilius the Mighty, who was so brawny and manly he was called the Goliath of Thebes.  He gets back from the pits of hell to find that his much skinnier brother Illus is in love with Princess Thea, the daughter of Goliath’s sworn enemy.  Goliath of course disapproves, but Illus thinks it’s because Goliath is in love with Thea herself, and spends much of the running time moping and whining. Meanwhile the villain, Eurytus, has decided to marry Thea in order to become the next king – although he’s also promised to marry a woman named Arsinoe in exchange for her assassinating Goliath.  Arsinoe, however, falls in love with Goliath after he saves her from a bear.  It takes most of the movie to sort out the six layers of scheming, misunderstanding, and general idiot picture going on here, and then it’s finally ass-kicking time.  I think the titular dragon gets about thirty seconds of total screen time.

I said this was a Maciste movie, but that’s an over-simplification.  American International Pictures had previously distributed a movie called Goliath and the Barbarians (which had Steve Reeves in it!), and it did well enough that they wanted a sequel.  They thus purchased the totally unrelated film The Revenge of Hercules (which does not have Steve Reeves in it, although Mark Forest might kinda look like him if you squint), dubbed over the characters’ names, added a dragon, and crossed their fingers hoping that nobody would notice the whole cast was different.  So while MST3K gave us a couple of Maciste movies turned into Hercules movies, here we have a Hercules movie changed into a Maciste movie.

The plot is rather complicated, with multiple people and gods all conspiracizing at cross-purposes.  The summary I gave above is only about the first half of the movie. A lot of this ends up coming to naught, since the guy whose position seems to be King Eurytus’ Royal Schemer is very bad at scheming.  All his plots seem to consist of ‘just do nothing and they’ll die on their own’.  I guess we’re supposed to cheer on Goliath and Illus through this series of victories on their part, but instead it just feels like a waste of the audience’s time, with no real progress made on either side.  Things don’t really start happening until an oracle gives Goliath a prophecy – but like all Greek prophecies, it’s confusingly worded and just muddles things up further, leading characters to make decisions that undermine their own goals.  It’s kind of a frustrating film to watch.

Even worse, a lot of these plot threads don’t get tied up.  Eurytus has a history with both Goliath’s family and with Thea’s dead parents… what is that all about?  It sounds like it ought to be important but we never find out.  It can’t even be something that was explained in the first movie because the first movie was, remember, completely unrelated.  Illus and Goliath eventually make up but I can’t tell if Illus ever actually realizes that Goliath wasn’t interested in Thea and that the people who told him otherwise were lying.  The whole thing just kind of drops.  Arsinoe has some personal claim on the throne but that’s only described in the vaguest of terms, and the actress playing her looks just like the one playing Dejanira, so that gets confusing.  Goliath knocks down a temple at one point but this never seems to have any consequences, unless the confusing prophecy was the gods’ revenge for that… in which case it was a pretty weak revenge coming from beings known for turning people into trees because of a mild inconvenience.

Was this supposed to be Goliath defying the gods and winning?  It doesn’t seem that way, because things turn out exactly the way the gods prophesized – Illus marries Thea and becomes king, and a woman who loves Goliath dies.  This was all set up from the beginning and the audience saw it coming from a mile away even if Goliath didn’t, and it’s with the help of the wind goddess that Goliath wins the day.  So it seems that even after razing their temple, he’s still their favourite?  What sense does that make?

It doesn’t help that we don’t like any of the characters. The bad guys have no particular personalities besides being evil.  Goliath is kind of a dick who tears down the gods’ statues when their decisions displease him, and ties his grown-ass brother to a tree to keep him from running off to suck face with Thea (in the original, Hercules version of the movie, Illus is his son, which makes it even worse).  Illus is a lovesick whiny dope who spends a lot of time staring into the camera with a vaguely confused expression.

The women, meanwhile, are absolute ciphers, with nothing to do but further the plot.  Thea is here to be pined over and coveted.  Goliath’s wife Dejanira is here to be the subject of the dire prophecy, and Arsinoe exists to provide a loophole in it.  All three are totally bland, as are the two or three little kids who represent Goliath and Dejanira’s children.  Not a single member of the cast has any depth or any redeeming characteristics.

Thank goodness for the monsters.  The creatures in Goliath and the Dragon manage to walk that perfect line between ambition and cheapness where they become downright delightful.  There’s an amazingly silly three-headed fire-breathing dog guarding the gates of hell, hilarious papier-mâché skeletons hanging around in a dungeon, and a guy in a ridiculous bat costume flailing on the end of a string, and that’s just the first ten minutes.  The movie goes on to give us an even worse bear costume than the one in the Lou Ferrigno Hercules, and of course the dragon, which is a combination of a puppet head on a stick and a lousy Claymation dinosaur.  The two do not particularly look like the same creature. Were it not for these beasties the movie would be downright unwatchable.

The real animals here don’t fare as well.  There’s a snake pit, which is pretty standard issue for this kind of movie, and they actually found some fairly large pythons instead of resorting to adorable little corn snakes.  The problem is that if you know anything about snakes, these ones are clearly very stressed by the conditions of the shoot and rather worried about sacrificial victims falling on top of them.  Even worse is Eurytus’ pet elephant, whose job is stomping prisoners to death. Goliath’s stunt double wrestles with what is clearly the real elephant – dangerous for the man, but also bad for the pachyderm, who was just as likely to get injured and far less likely to receive medical care if she was.  The computer-generated animals of modern movies kinda suck, but at least we no longer have to torture real ones on camera!

Since its original title is The Revenge of Hercules, this is obviously a movie about revenge, and it’s a motif throughout the narrative.  One of the gods Goliath serves is the God of Vengeance (in ancient Greece revenge was actually a goddess, Nemesis), and the first heroic task he does in the movie is retrieve the god’s blood diamond (shame on the god – revenge is supposed to be honourable and should therefore rely on only ethically sourced gems!) from the underworld.  Later, when he feels the god has betrayed him, he smashes the diamond and destroys the statue.  Goliath takes revenge on vengeance itself!

Goliath also takes revenge on King Eurytus.  We are told that Eurytus killed Goliath’s parents, and appears to have taken out Thea’s as well, making him a fine target for revenge. We also get some idea that he’s in charge of the dragon that pops up at the beginning and end of the movie and never does much because it wasn’t in the script.  Exactly how this all works, however, is murky, and Goliath never even seems aware that Eurytus’ ultimate plan is to conquer Goliath’s home city of Thebes.  Plenty of cause for revenge, then… but all this backstory is only told to us, not shown.  The audience is thrown into the middle of this situation without really knowing what’s going on, and we never quire recover from it.  There’s no excuse for this, either.  A movie that could afford a three-headed fire-breathing dog could definitely afford a flashback!

Maciste movies and their ilk are usually a lot of fun, and this one has its charms.  Between the stupid monsters and Illus gazing vapidly into the void, there’s plenty of material that Joel and the bots could have worked with.  Goliath and the Dragon isn’t good enough to really enjoy but it’s also not bad enough to hate (even if the animal cruelty leaves a bad taste).  It really could use some riffing to spice it up.

[purplesurveys]

806

People say you learn something new every day, so what did you learn today? Welp, Descendants of the Sun got me curious about the mandatory military service in South Korea so I read all about that this morning. Apparently there’s a celebrity who tried getting out of his conscription by obtaining American citizenship shortly before he was due to be drafted, and the South Korean government wasn’t too pleased with what he did and banished him from the country permanently; to this day he lives in China, and he’s the only person in South Korean history to be given such a punishment. It’s both hilarious and sad. If you could get your own house with one friend, who would you pick? Gabie, duh. She’s my best friend so she counts too lol. Which is worse, too-tight clothes or much too-loose clothes? In terms of comfort? Too-tight clothing. But they look better on me than loose clothes, so I still prefer wearing tight ones. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, pancakes, waffles, or cereal? Pancakes. Waffles are nice too, but I prefer them paired with something savory. I can live without the other three. Do you think you are more of a good or bad influence? Good. I follow the rules way too much and the things I do that would make me a bad influence, like smoking, I only do with people who already do them.

Yes or no: eyebrow piercings? Not for me, but I don’t mind it if others get them. Yes or no: thongs for men? They can wear whatever they want. What is something that you are willing to fight for? Ousting the current government. If you jump, can you touch the ceiling of the room you're in? Definitely not. Do you know how to dance a waltz? No. I don’t even know what that dance looks like. When I say The Beatles, what is the first song that comes to mind? Hey Jude. If you had to be a teacher, what subject would you be able to teach best? History for sure. I’d have a lot of fun teaching it too. :) Which do you think is worse: ear aches or tooth aches? I’ve never had an ear ache so I can’t compare, but tooth aches suck ass. I had a series of them from October to December last year and there were plenty of times I’d wake up at 2 AM and cry just because it hurt a lot. How many different colors are you wearing right now? What are they? Brown and black. In your opinion, what is the very worst type of weather? Sunny and humid, which is – ever so conveniently – the usual weather where I live. It’s June now though thank goodness so I’m just waiting for the day the sun goes away for a while and for it to be replaced with thunderstorms. Do you look anything like your best friend(s)? I look nothing like either of them. You can only listen to one band for the rest of your life, who do you pick? Paramore. Are there any movies coming out that you're looking forward to? Which ones? I...don’t think anything will be coming out for a while, though I am excited for Happiest Season which has Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis, as well as for Ammonite which stars Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan. Do you like big or small cars better? Idk man, as long as it can take me places I’ll be alright with it lol. What is your favorite made up animal? I don’t have a favorite of one of these. Yes or no: Hawaiian pizza? Not for me, but you do you. I hate it when people shame me for not liking Hawaiian pizza though, or when they force me to try it. Yes or no: Coffee Ice cream? Yummmmmmm. Mad Mark’s has a particularly good coffee flavor. Who is your all time favorite cartoon character? Spongebob. What store do you get the majority of your shoes from? Nike. What place, in your mind, is heaven on earth? How about hell on earth? Heaven on earth is any coffee shop with strong aircon, large selection of drinks, and acceptable pastries/cakes. Hell on earth is any government agency that I’ve had to line up for, such as the LTO.  Do you think there is anything scary about midnight? Not at all. I’m usually very awake by then and I find that time of the day comforting. Can you snap with both of your hands? Nope, I can’t do it with my left hand. In your opinion what is the absolute worst house chore? I haven’t had to do it myself yet but I suppose I’d hate cleaning the bathroom. How young do you think is too young to get married? I don’t really like answering questions like these because it’s typically a sensitive topic and everyone has their own preferences...personally though, I think getting married before 25 or 26 is a little early for me. Who do you think is the dumbest superhero? And the coolest? I don’t know much about superheroes. I know I like Wonder Woman though lol. Would you rather be a hair stylist or a clothes designer? Both require creativity, and I suck at that.

What is something that you had to learn the hard way? Loss. If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you paint it? Baby blue or baby pink; either would be fine. I’m still a kid at heart, haha. If I had the modern house of my dreams, I’d have my room painted gray. What is something you're proud of yourself for? Getting over my horrific depressive slump back in 2017. Which smiley face do you like better: =] or :) :) I haven’t used the equal sign for a smiley since like 2009. If you could go to any amusement park right now, which would you go to? Universal Studios in Singapore. What is something that always gets you mad? Paid government trolls. Would you rather be 3 inches taller or shorter than you are now? Taller. If you could have any wild animal as a pet, what would you pick? I would really prefer they stay in their natural habitat. Which do you prefer: M&M's, Skittles, Milk Duds, or Reese's Pieces? REESE’S. Feel free to have the rest of these, reader. Are there any foods that you think smell good, but taste bad? Longganisa. Without a goddamn doubt. Would you ever stay overnight at any of your neighbors houses? Not unless there’s an absolute emergency that leaves me no choice but to ask them if I can stay the night even though I’ve never talked to them. Do you think it would be funner to play a hero or the villain in a movie? Villain, haha. What was the last new food you tried? Did you like it? I’ve had the food before but my mom bought pork buns from a new place a few days ago. I didn’t really like it; I’ve had better pork buns in other restaurants. If you had the last name of your favorite actor, what would your name be? Winslet, heheh.

[tanadrin]

I've never watched any Star Trek (except for one of the movies a few years ago and a couple scattered halves of TOS episodes) but I've always kind of wanted to get into it and you've been making DS9 sound really good; do you recommend starting with it or some other series? If some further aesthetic preference information is needed, I really like everything I've read of your writing.

DS9 is often considered the Best, for a lot of reasons. I think some of those are that it has long, multi-episode arcs, especially later in the series, and explores some pretty complicated political and moral themes around insurgency/occupation/war--all this for a series that debuted in 1993, no less--and was able to do more with developing a recurring set of characters and locations because the cast wasn’t off to a new planet every week. Also, TNG, especially in its early season, was still a little too constrained by Roddenberry’s creative control, and some of the things the writers were clearly ready to explore already in TNG were shot down by Roddenberry who had a couple of very specific things he didn’t want to make part of his version of Star Trek. Roddenberry wasn’t super interested in war stories or interpersonal conflict for its own sake (and considering some of the shit that gets passed off as Star Trek now, between the Nu-Trek movies and Discovery, that second point looks pretty smart in retrospect), but more in super-high-concept hour-long stories that stood on their own. That was fine as far as it went, and I actually think TNG has some of the best episodes of TV SF of all time: (Inner Light, Darmok, Frame of Mind, and--I realize this is an extremely controversial choice for some--Masks. But if that’s not your bag, TNG is probably not for you. Like, TNG is very much TOS, with a slightly tweaked concept and better effects, but it’s filling the same niche in the genre.

TNG and DS9 are both really good, and I think you’d do well to start with either if you want. Their biggest flaws are things that are common to all 90s TV--they feel a little dated, the sets are small, the shots are framed in specific ways, they don’t have the huge effects budgets of modern TV, and DS9 sometimes struggled to show the big space battles that were important to its plot as a result, and so on. TNG also does the planet-of-the-week premise better than its successor in that regard, Voyager, which had really uneven quality. Plenty of great episodes; Year of Hell is a fantastic two-parter, with a Moby-Dick style alien captain who’s really interesting and, for once, a plot about time travel technology that doesn’t suck ass; Course: Oblivion is a SUPER bleak episode with an ending that is 10000% my jam; but also plenty of stinkers: Threshold, infamously; and the Kazon were super irritating recurring villains that never worked, as was Seska; some characters like Janeway, Kes, and Seven of Nine were played by great actors but the writers didn’t always write them consistently, and in the case of the latter two, sometimes it seemed like they didn’t even know what to do with them at all).

Enterprise struggled to figure out what it wanted to do with the Star Trek format, and at first tried to follow in the vein of TOS/TNG/Voyager, and didn’t really get its footing until season 3, and didn’t get really properly good until Season 4, and then got cancelled, and Discovery... sigh. Discovery can’t stop reminding the viewer at every turn THIS IS STAR TREK! and the dialogue is bad, and the high-concept SF elements are rushed and sloppy, efforts to deal with the encrusted years of continuity are dealt with hamfistedly, and it’s pretty to look at, but other than the cool ships and the way Anson Mount’s ass looks in that TOS uniform, there’s not much to appreciate relative to older Star Trek.

If you actually enjoy retro SF, not merely “can appreciate it on an intellectual level,” I would start with TOS. It’s fun, it’s kinda campy, and the sets are cheap, but it’s clearly lovingly crafted, and genuinely well-acted. I think a lot of people think they know TOS because they’ve osmosed it from the culture generally, but I think the genuine article is always going to be more interesting, Kirk especially [insert your own link to the Kirk Drift essay here]. But if that’s not your cup of tea, or you’re more interested in newer entries, the choice of TNG or DS9 is down to whether you want high-concept planet of the week SF, or less high-concept (though it still has its share of godlike aliens and energy blobs), more character driven (in the original sense of “has really interesting characters,” rather than what it has come to mean now, “an endless churn of juvenile-ass high school-type drama and bad dialogue;” cf. Discovery) stories.

If you’re going to watch Star Trek movies, the general consensus is: avoid Nu-Trek like the plague, and only watch the even-numbered ones. That order holds up once you get into the later movies only if you include Galaxy Quest as a Star Trek movie (which it is, obviously), and I want to particularly recommend Wrath of Khan because I re-watched it recently and there really is no substitute for Ricardo Montalban hamming it up with his waxed pecs lovingly displayed.

[hotwaterandmilk]

I’ve had a post featuring my thoughts on the Silent Möbius stage play sitting in my drafts for two years. I know, I suck. Anyway, I decided to finish it up this weekend and even made gifs for your viewing pleasure!

What was the Silent Möbius stage play?

The Saimebi stage play was a two-hour live performance of the Silent Möbius story produced in 2017 that featured both new and existing characters in a blended tale that served as a love letter to fans as well as an introduction to those not overly familiar with the series.

How did I get to see it?

A DVD was released featuring a very basic recording of the March 29th 2017 performance of the play for 6,000 yen. I purchased the DVD and watched it from the comfort of my own home (sadly I didn’t get to actually go to the live show).

What did I think of it?

The story presented in the stage play is almost an introduction to the conflict between humans and Lucifer Hawk while at the same time managing to follow trace elements of the main tale (Ganossa, for example, is still the main villain here and his motivations remain largely intact). The AMP team is formed, they must fight against some nasty villains, and only through a unified front can justice prevail. Everyone looks fairly close to their characters (save for Kiddy as usual UGHHH) and the actors give solid performances.

However, it isn’t a hugely successful piece of theatre. I think what held it back from being incredibly awesome is that there’s just waaaaaaay too much going on. There are SO many characters that it’s impossible for them all to get the focus they really need and as a result, the pace is fairly breakneck and offers little insight into the extended cast. I mean what’s the point of the random bridge bunny characters other than “Asamiya wanted his radio show girls on stage”?

It does have some great moments though, even if it goes a million miles an hour. I was surprised by how well it worked overall for a one-off full-throttle injection of the franchise directly into the veins.

My favourite moments? (With gifs!)

1) Kiddy terrorises Ralph: I enjoy watching her do this in every iteration of the franchise and unsurprisingly, Ralph is firmly put in his place here too. Unfortunately, the pair don’t get a lot of development but neither do Roy and Katsumi (arguably the main romantic pairing in the franchise) all things considered. The focus of this play is totally on AMP getting the strength to kick some Lucifer Hawk ass and I’m 100% down with that. (Serious note on Kiddy tho, a missed opportunity to cast a black or mixed actress.)

2) Mana meets Lum Cheng: I absolutely adored this scene, it made the 6000 yen price tag on this tiny-ass, budget AF DVD totally worth it. Mana visits Lum Cheng to recruit her to AMP and is immediately met with resistance from the young woman. The pair actually fight it out for quite a while before it becomes apparent that Mana knows a lot about Lum Cheng’s family connection to Zesso and so, not only does Mana reveal that she knows the girl’s grandfather but that she knew Genvara -- Lum Cheng’s brother. It’s only after this revelation that Lum Cheng can be persuaded to lower her weapon and hear Mana out. I can’t believe it took so long for this topic to be properly touched on in the franchise but it made for a very powerful scene as they both quietly acknowledge their shared loss and move forward together as part of AMP.

3) Opening Credits: I fucking loved the opening sequence with everyone posing, fighting, then dancing. So much dancing. I could have watched it forever. “Awakening” by Kuryu Mina is used to great effect in the opening, then totally loses its draw by the curtain because they repeat it several times. Once for the opening was fine guys, you don’t need to go crazy with the one vocal track you commissioned, the background music is totally adequate.

Anyway if you want to see the entire opening package (which is amazing) it is one of the few videos available from the performance online. Please see here.

4) Katsumi refuses to give in to Mova: A lot of the stage play involves Katsumi fighting against all the Nemesis pals intent on screwing her over. Mova (who previously fought against Gigelf) is particularly derisive of her struggles against the Lucifer Hawk. With nods from her mother and Grospoliner, Katsumi rails against Mova (and Ganossa) whenever and however she can.

5) Katsumi and Grosspoliner: You’d think 2 hours wouldn’t be enough time to introduce every element of this 30+-year-old series to a modern audience, but they really do try. Case in point, Katsumi gets Grosspoliner in the stage play. The sentient weapon speaks to her and they form a pact, allowing her to finally get the upper hand against Mova and co.

6) Matsui Naoko as Fuyuka: There was a particularly special moment towards the end which involved a guest appearance by Katsumi’s original seiyuu, Matsui Naoko. Matsui has graduated from playing the spunky young heroine to the role of her self-sacrificing mother, Fuyuka. Although the baby she’s holding is American Sniper levels of fake, it is quite a touching scene as Katsumi connects to this moment in her past. (It was also great seeing Matsui Naoko just, like, in general.)

So yeah, those were the moments that stood out to me most. If you are a fan of the series and have an opportunity to check out the stage play DVD then I’d recommend it. The play won’t change your world but it is an enjoyable, nostalgic way to spend a couple of hours with lively new versions of beloved characters.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z 210

World Tournament Saga!    I’m going to be calling this the 25th Budokai saga, since “World Tournament Saga” could be applied to any of three other arcs in this series.    Anyway, we open with the horrific murder of Punch Machine.    All it wanted to do is quantify the force of punches, like the machine in Rocky IV, and Vegeta killed it because he’s too full of himself to hold back.

This has two effects.    First, everyone has to wait for a replacement machine to be brought in so they can finish qualifying for the tournament.    Second, Videl is now suspicious of the Dragon Team group, since all of them had Punch Machine scores higher than Mr. Satan, who’s supposed to be the strongest man on Earth.

Then she finds out Gohan’s one of them, which only raises further questions.  

Gohan explains that Goku is his late father, and that’s why he has a halo over his head, which doesn’t explain anything.    I don’t understand why Gohan just tells her about this like it’s no big deal.   He spends the rest of this arc trying very hard to keep her from finding out about his true power, but he’s totally fine talking about this.

So Videl and Gohan have to wait to pass the prelims, but the others head off to watch the Junior Division tournament.    This was apparently introduced at the 24th Tenkaichi Budokai event.  This time around, the winner of the junior division gets to have an exhibition match with Mr. Satan.    To kick things off, Mr. Satan tries to make this big splashy entrance...

But he trips and hits his head on the stage, and then he has to play it off like he did it intentionally, as a joke.  

Then the Announcer reveals a special surprise to open the event, and this blimp flies over the stadium.    There’s a giant screen on it, and it’s for showing a new movie about how Mr. Satan’s battle with Cell.   Mr. Satan is horrified by this, because he had no idea this was even made, but the crowd wants to see it, so he can’t refuse them.

I’m not sure why Mr. Satan is so upset over this movie.    I get the impression that he might be afraid that ZTV, who made the film, might have discovered the truth about what happened at the Cell Games, and he’s worried that this movie might expose him.    But it’s also possible that he’s just very protective of his image.     Also, I can see how he’d want to put as much distance as possible between himself and the battle with Cell.   He’s made good use of it to launch his career as a superstar hero, but he’d prefer it if the public didn’t dwell too much on that event, lest they ask too many questions.

Anyway, this movie fucking rules.   It’s basically Toei doing some self parody, complete with the “waves and rocks” opening to start off the show.   

The problem with the Cell Games was that there was only one cameraman at the event, and the camera broke early on, and what footage was recorded wasn’t very good, since most of the fighters moved faster than the eye could follow.   So ZTV just re-enacted the event with actors wearing goofy masks.   

It’s kind of weird that they bothered to include the Z-Fighters in this story at all, but it just goes to show that their presence at the Cell Games left an impression on the public, even if no one knows what they were doing there.    Gohan and Bulma were concerned that people would recognize the Saiyans if they transformed, and this movie shows that this is definitely true.   

Vegeta and Piccolo aren’t happy about this at all, but I don’t see why, this is awesome.

On the other hand, Goku loves this.    He’s a man of good taste.

Awwww, they’re all tuckered out.    

Look at Yamcha all curled up over there.  This is terrific.

So yeah, Cell cleans house, declares himself the winner, and now he’s just gonna blow up the world.    Z stands for the end.  

But not yet, you green motherfucker.

Mr. Satan shows up to kick some ass, and this movie goes out of its way to show that Cell has gimmicked his ring with booby traps that don’ work on Mr. Satan at all.

Cell begs for mercy, but Mr. Satan tells him to take his ass to church, because he’s about to catch these hands.   

Yeah!   

Bam!    

What’s awesome about this part is that Cell basically suffers the same fate Mr. Satan did when he fought Cell in real life.     He gets smacked into a mountain and falls down.   The Funimation Dub of Z was hilarious here, because they made the deliveries really, really bad.    My favorite part is when Cell takes this tumble and he goes “Ow!  Aaaahhh!   I’m losing!”

Naturally the others are amazed by Mr. Satan’s genius fighting skill.

Then Cell explodes, which I guess is the most accurate part of this production.

And a good time was had by all.

The credits have some easter egg references to Toei’s staff.   I only recognize Yukio Ebisawa, who was the animation supervisor for this episode, but I’m betting you could find the rest of these names on Google.

All right, let’s move on.    The Junior Division tournament is mostly a formality, since only Goten and Trunks have any super powers.    Trunks’ first opponent is a kid named Idasa, and Idasa’s mom just happens to sit next to the Dragon Team contingent in the stands.   

We see a few of the bouts, but they’re all comedy spots, like this kid who starts crying in the middle of the match, and then he flips out and starts flailing around until he knocks his opponent out of the ring.

And there’s a part where Mr. Satan consoles a little boy who lost his match, which is this big heartwarming moment for the crowd.     Mr. Satan’s pretty cynical about it, but you know, he still made that kid feel better, regardless of his motives.   

Back in the stands, Idasa’s mom and Bulma take an immediate dislike to each other.

Idasa talks a lot of smack himself, but this all gets settle in the ring, where-- oh, wait, Trunks has already won, because he has super powers.    Right.  

Okay, I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about Harry Potter, but this right here is why DBZ rules and Harry Potter sucks.    This lady and her idiot son were just fed to Trunks as a quick gag.     They set her up to be as obnoxious and unlikable as possible, so that whant Trunks one-shotted her kid, she would be horrified and humiliated.    Oh, and Idasa’s a total punk as well, so this is his just desserts too.      The point I’m making here is that this is incredibly satisfying, because these two get put in their place, and we all knew it would happen, and it did happen, and we’re moving on to the next cool thing.   

If Idasa’s mom were a Harry Potter character, she’d be like the Prime Minister of Magic Land, and Trunks would get arrested for using Awesome Karate Moves without a permit, and he’d get sentenced to ten years in Bullshit Prison to serve as an example to others.    Then I’d have to hear about how this is the greatest novel ever written.    Shut the front door.

Look at Krillin here, he’s bummed out because this is the dull part of Dragon Ball Z.    From Episodes 200 to 219, things are pretty slow, but we’ve seen Gohan and Videl beat up a bunch of crooks and a dinosaur, and there’s been a surprising amount of explosions so far, which is weird since there’s no major villain on the board.     Right now, we’re kind of in this holding pattern, and this tournament’s off to a slow start because it’s turned into such a dog and pony show.   Krillin’s bored because the Junior’s tournament won’t be any good until Goten and Trunks fight each other... and that’s only one episode away.    

And I guess that’s the appeal this part of the series has always held for me.    Not much really happens, but it’s cool watching this cartoon just sort of take a breath and chill out after the Cell Saga, and even when it’s taking things easy, there’s still a lot of fun to be had.   Hang in there, Krillin.    Business will pick up before you know it.  

[wadey-wilson]

Essay essay pls! I actually enjoyed the TASM films but I watched them when I was like, 10, so my actual perception of them is super skewed

re: 

I usually never talk much about things I hate because I don’t wanna care about things I hate. it’s a waste of time and nerves. but given that you asked nicely, and that I have a lot to say, and that I should sleep but we all know it never plays out, let’s go.

right off the bat, I want to say that I believe you can change some things about characters or stories if adapting them for the silver screen either requires it, or the director has a really good idea as to how the character should be done. that being said, I also believe there’s a line you can’t cross. you either change the character to be more appealing and to have them resonate with the audiences more (see: Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of The Galaxy), or to have it fit the story better (see: Mandarin in Iron Man 3). I have no problem when a director goes ‘I have an idea for this character’ and he actually has, let him do it. however, when you change too much about a story (see: Civil War) or a character, they become unrecognizable and completely off. you ever read Superior Spider-Man? they become that. a shell of someone we know but with completely different behaviour, manners, mind, and character for that matter. you can’t change a character to this point, because it ruins them. say Iron Man doesn’t drink alcohol at all, he’s a granddad of a random kid taken from the streets, and kills innocent people. doesn’t really sound well, huh?

and that’s the huge problem with that small series of films. the producers don’t understand Spider-Man (don’t @ me with Spider-Verse, Sony didn’t touch Spider-Verse, it was written by the ever great Phil Lord and Chris Miller), and they never will because they frankly don’t give a shit. they ruined Spider-Man 3 by forcing Raimi to put Venom in there despite Raimi not being able to handle the material and not being interested in that character. reason why they made the TASM films? money. reason why they keep the rights to Spidey? money. so since they don’t understand Spider-Man, they can’t make a good Spidey movie as long as it’s them making that movie.

I also want to add that I like crap movies. Spider-Man 3 is half a solid movie, but you can’t have a bad time while watching it - it’s hilarious, has great action scenes, the characters feel like characters, and the tone is consistent. Venom movie wise is like 4/10, it has 2 prologues, and 179 plot holes and/or stupid choices, but it’s entertaining, funny (even when unintentionally), has some very good dialogues, and the Venom/Eddie relationship (right along with Tom Hardy himself) saves the movie. so I like crap movies when they’re fun, comedy gold, or just so stupid that you can’t help but laugh (see: Twilight). but when a movie is shit, and does none of those things, I can’t sit through it.

with all that said, here goes: reasons why The Amazing Spider-Man movies suck balls and are offensive towards the character of Spider-Man:

comic wise:

- Peter Parker - let’s google Peter Parker.

caring. kind. loyal. brave. scared. worried. intelligent.

that’s the basic core aspect of Peter Parker. you can’t change the core of a character or else they become a different person. the core aspect is what makes them them. Peter Parker is ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, he’s a struggling one because he made a choice to save lives and that choice often ruins his day-to-day life, he’s constantly trying to be a better man, but all while bad things are happening, he remains kind, loving, caring, loyal, respectful, and worth of the powers he’s carrying.

TASM Peter Parker? that dude’s a selfish dickhead. i could go scene by scene to prove my point, but off the top of my head, he:

stalks, creeps, breaks (important) promises, is rude 24/7 towards his aunt and uncle, risks people’s lives, damages public property and doesn’t even say sorry, sneaks into Oscorp by stealing someone’s righteously earned intern badge (plus literally laughing at the guy who got kicked out bc of him, what the hell).

other than that, Andrew Garfield does not look socially awkward or nerdy in the slightest. the movies are really trying to portray him as one and terribly fail. he’s not a good fit for this Spidey. Superior Spidey? yeah, that asshole, sure. I’m not saying he’s a bad actor, he’s an amazing actor. he’s just not good for the role of Peter Parker.

I mentioned Thor before and how making him a goofball actually worked out fine, and that’s because the core aspect of him never disappeared. he’s still Thor, courageous, righteous, loving, kind, but with more jokes. Peter Parker is a nerdy outcast, he’s socially awkward like 95% of the time, and doesn’t even know how to walk straight. Andrew’s Spidey? obnoxious-skateboarding-cool-looking-Edward-Cullen-like-tall-and-model-like cute. I have no words.

to add to his terrible traits, Peter’s only motivation to put on the red-and-blue spandex is revenge. revenge. I don’t care about that scene where he’s sitting with his mask wondering if he should go after the Lizard. that doesn’t mean a thing. it would if his behaviour changed, but it never did. he made a mask and then a suit so people wouldn’t see who commits the crimes (assaulting at nights while looking for Ben’s killer, that’s crime), that’s down-right fucked up. this is not Spider-Man. speaking of…

- Spider-Man - he doesn’t care about people’s lives at-freaking-all, and it just wounds me. he jokes around while people are being murdered (see: TAMS2 scene with the Rhino where he didn’t stop Rhino when he had the chance, instead letting him run over tens of people and kept. on. joking., or putting on a fireman’s hat while people are being killed). jokes? what jokes? that guy’s a jackass. he threatens a man saying he’d kill him if he’d be the one who killed uncle Ben. he publicly humiliates a guy, I don’t care if he’s a criminal. 

see this:

(the amazing s-m #797)

vs this

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- Ben Parker - he’s 100% useless in the movie. in the comics and in the Raimi’s movies, he plays a huge role. he’s Peter’s moral compass right along with May Parker, which…

- May Parker - her presence in the movie is pointless. she’s got no impact on the plot. cut out all the scenes with her, and it changes nothing about the movies. her presence only makes Peter look more like an asshole bc he’s one towards her 99% of the time. she’s there to be… I don’t even know. she’s useless. oh, no, wait, she’s there to make Peter break his promise to Captain Stacy. amazing.

movie wise:

- tone - inconsistent, all over the place. TASM1 is dark, silly, dark, lighthearted, funny, dark, funny, dark. why can’t it be just dark or funny? same goes to TASM2, except TASM2 is way worse due to the unconnected subplots. examples of well-toned movies: Homecoming (a comedy starring Spider-Man), Iron Man 3 (consistently cartoonish with balanced humor and action), The Avengers (consistently funny and cheesy).

- character arc - there’s none. Peter learns absolutely nothing. at all. he’s selfish and remains selfish. puts people’s lives at risk all the time. breaks promises, not learning any lesson. I mentioned Venom before and how it’s a dumb movie, but even that one has Venom have an arc. rushed one, yes, very rushed, but still an arc. 

- music - stock music + bad pop music + elevator music + something that tried to sound like dubstep but wound up being what comes out when you scratch your nails across the board ft. growling dying dragons from bad cartoons. I’m really sorry for Hans Zimmer that his name is in the credits bc the amazing Pharell Whilliams literally ruined the TASM2 soundtrack.

- directing - it’s shit. the movie’s shot with no life to speak of. boring shots, lower than average. there’s no scene that makes me ‘whoa’. there’s no scene that makes me ‘this is a really good shot. I very much like this shot.’ ok, I’m lying, there are two shots in the entire 2 movies. there:

these are the only shots that I like. out of 2 movies. please, take all my money.

on top of that, the colors are just ugly. Deadpool has greasy colors but they’re consistent and fit the creepy tone of the movie. TASM movies can’t decide what the hell they are so they are just a mess.

- villains:

x the Lizard. he wants people to be lizards, and that’s it. he wants his arm to regrow but then he goes ‘forget arms, now I want people to be lizards.’ and it’s sad bc he’s a very good villain in the comics.

x Green Goblin. motivation is weak, plus why did he crawl towards the suit? if he crawled towards the Doc Ock arms, would he become Doc Ock? how did he know hot to fly the glider? ‘you took his picture, so you know him’ - first of all, that shot was taken from 64508098 meters away, and second of all, how does this make Harry think Peter knows Spider-Man? he’s still better than Connors, tho.

x Electro - quite an odd one, weak motivations, what the hell was that with the corny speeches pulled out of his ass and completely out of the place? why did he even have shorts? where did he take his suit from? that’s a PG-13 movie, I get it, we don’t wanna watch an electric p*nis swing, ok, we get it  still, bad motivations, makes no sense 80% of the time, and... he’s just off. he’s such a badly-handled and poorly-written character I want to cry,

- other characters:

x Gwen Stacy - so called generic love interest. that’s it.

x I don’t even care.

- stupid bullshit - when a movie is good, I don’t care about plot holes or stupid stuff like visible reshoots (see: Tony’s hair in IW) or just idiotic moments (see: Black Widow knocking a guy out with her hair in The Avengers).

however, when the stupid bullshit takes over a movie, you can’t help but notice. why did the Lizard want everyone to be lizards? why did the electric eels fix the gap between Max’s teeth? what’s with the subplot with Peter chasing Ben’s killer? is Peter so stupid that he brought his camera with his name on it to Lizard’s secret layer? why are Peter’s parents so focused on? they’re 100% irrelevant and have no impact on the movies besides making them even stupider (that calculator scene, I’m-). why did Ben jump towards the gun? how did scrawny and skinny Harry Osborn overpower two armed, grown-ass guards? if Peter is smart enough to make web-shooters and web fluid, why did he have to look up the basics of electricity on YT? why is Gwen so stupid to grab a metal bar when there’s an electricity-fueled guy murdering people? why did even Electro become bad? why do people stand around very dangerous fight scenes like it’s a spectacle with fairies? run! the plane scene. the plane scene no2. the crane scene. how did the cranes happen to be perfectly in line across the way to Oscorp? even Raimi wouldn’t put this corny shit in his movies, and he made his trilogy corny for purpose. train? coming? out? from? the ground??? a video coincidentally waiting for Peter to be played in that train? Gwen Stacy happening to be the interns’ tour guide at Oscorp? how did Gwen get to the fight with Electro scene sooner than the police? why did the web get cut by two solid objects, simultaneously making a ‘cut’ sound, what the fuck was that? why were those movies even made? (money)

I want to add that I don’t care about deleted scenes. put them in the movie if they’re important. I really don’t give a damn there was a scene with Peter’s dad (which is just stupid) or some stuff with Connors. I don’t judge deleted scenes, I judge the movies.

and that’s it. I feel like I can talk more, but it’s like 11pm, and I have to get up early and go to work, so… I said what I said. you can’t change my opinion. if you like these films, I don’t care. they’re trash. if you can watch them and think ‘that’s a good movie,’ I’m glad you can, and I wish you a happy life with that bad perception.

to add to all of this, I’ll have you know that even Andrew Garfield is mad/sad that Sony compromised the character of Peter Parker for the sake of money.

before I go, the only good things about these movies:

- TASM2 suit is cool. I like it a lot,

- that scene where Peter wakes up and accidentally breaks things,

- that montage with Spidey after he breaks up with Gwen, it’s really nice and in-character, looking like it was written by someone completely else,

- they didn’t make a third movie.

P.S. if you want some good videos I remember seeing about those movies, visit yourmoviesucks and TheCosmonautVarietyHour on YT. also ScreenCrush explains what’s wrong with those movies basing on one scene, and it’s great.

P.S. 2. there was this comment on YT under the TASM movies review that I really like, and honestly what a mood:

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Deadpool 2 review

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! READ PAST THE BREAK WITH CAUTION!

It’s about time I reviewed this.

I put off reviewing this movie because of some barely-worth-mentioning drama, and it has been on the backburner for months. But after finally watching the Super Duper Cut, it’s time to break my silence and talk about this year’s biggest breath of fresh air and its funniest comedy.

Deadpool 2 is the Aliens of superhero movies. It takes the groundwork laid out by an already fantastic first film and just amps up everything: the humor, the action, the character interactions, all of it is just fine tuned and perfected. Where the first film was an impressive work for a first-time director, blending a romantic arc and an origin story together while delivering all the fun and laughs you’d expect from a character like Deadpool, this movie features a lot more impressive action, which is fitting since it’s given to us by the man behind John Wick and Atomic Blonde, while still delivering all sorts of gut-busting laughs and wonderful character interactions.

So what sort of mess has Wade gotten into this time? Well, after a life-changing event, Wade is down in the dumps and trying to figure out what to do with himself. In his attempts at straightforward X-Men style heroism he ends up being sent to jail alongside the superpowered kid he was trying to save, Russel. Russel soon ends up as the target of the time-travelling cyborg badass known as Cable, and after getting the shit kicked out of him Wade realizes his true calling: saving this kid from Cable. Armed with guns, katanas, a bigger budget, and his all-new X-Force team, can Wade hope to stop Cable from axing Russel?

The beauty of this film is, ultimately, how it manages to subvert expectations. A lot of movies lately have made being subversive into a big selling point; sometimes it works out really well and the movie is all the better for it - see Infinity War, a film that features the heroes failing miserably and ending on a shot of the villain contentedly relaxing after committing galactic genocide, the opposite of what you’d expect from a superhero blockbuster. Sometimes, it works poorly - see The Last Jedi, which features things going the opposite of how you’d expect due to bad writing and characters acting like idiots and trusting the shadiest people possible, the sort of idiocy we thought Star Wars had moved on from after the first two prequels. And then you have films like this, where everything is subverted for hilarity. And nothing in the world is funnier than how it subverts your expectations for Deadpool’s X-Force. Filled with unique and quirky characters like Shatterstar (who remains an alien from Mojoworld, meaning that Mojo is in fact canon in the X-Men cinematic universe. Put him in a movie, Fox) and big names like Bill Skarsgard as Zeitgeist and Terry Crews as Bedlam, not to mention the hilarious everyman without powers that is Peter, the film builds up and hypes their big skydiving scene, blasting “Thunderstruck” as they leap from the plane onto a convoy to save Russel from Cable…

...And then each and every one of them dies brutally, painfully, and horribly. And HILARIOUSLY, that’s the most important thing. I don’t think there is a funnier bit of black comedy in any other film, let alone a superhero film. Even funnier is that the invisible character, who has not spoken a word and who one could easily assume did not actually exist, has an amusing reveal right upon his death, which is the most hilariously wasteful use of an actor I have ever seen. The entire scene is just brilliant in its subversion of our expectations for a badass new hero team, helped for once by the advertising, which built things up so one would expect this team to stick around.

Of course, we have one survivor - Domino, played by Zazie Beetz, a mutant with luck-based powers. She’s one of the numerous highlights of this film, and she plays the character with the laid-back, rolls-with-the-punches attitude a character like Domino deserves. Frankly, I like her a bit more than her comic version. And speaking of new characters, let’s talk about the best new element of the film, Deadpool’s beleaguered badass bro-for-life, Cable. Played by Josh Brolin - complete with the requisite references to The Goonies and Infinity War from Deadpool - he is the ultimate straight man, his gritty, grim badassery contrasting to Deadpool’s zany, wacky bullshit. Of course, that’s not to say Cable gets no good laughs; there’s something to be said for a man who can growl “Dubstep is for pussies” with a straight face. I’m fully of the mind Cable is the best addition to the movie, and I’m praying we get even more of him and Wade interacting in potential sequels.

Then we have our special guest of the hour, the character we’ve all wanted in the X-Men universe, the one, the only, the unstoppable motherfucker to end all motherfuckers… IT’S THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH. And lord is he incredible, especially compared to the dipshit from The Last Stand. Sadly he does not utter “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” at all in the film, but he does rip Wade in half, confirm he’s Xavier’s half-brother, and threaten to turn Colossus into a cock ring, so it all evens out in the end. In this film, he actually FEELS unstoppable, and though he’s only onscreen in the third act, he definitely uses that screentime effectively, delivering the epic, ultimate smackdown between him and Colossus in what Deadpool helpfully informs us is the movie’s big CGI fight scene.

And speaking of Colossus, he’s even better here than in the first film. His interactions with Wade are hilarious and priceless, which is aided by Wade’s blatant crush on him - Wade at one point gropes his ass, and there is a romantic musical scene that calls back to a similar scene in the first film. He also gets a bit of character growth here, which is great and unexpected. Sadly I can’t say the same for Negasonic Teenage Warhead; she’s relegated to a bit part here, which is a damn shame since she was one of the highlights of the first film. On the plus side, not only is she revealed to be gay, but her girlfriend Yukio is absolutely adorable and charming… though, sadly, she also gets very little to do in the film aside from a cute running gag with her and Wade cheerily exchanging greetings.

Stuff like that is honestly the biggest problem with the film, and even then, the biggest problem is what amounts to a nitpick. Yes, it does suck that some of the characters are underutilized, but it’s hard to be too angry when the rest of the film is so gutbustingly hilarious and action-packed. One thing that did disappoint me a fair bit is Vanessa getting killed in the movie’s opening. Now, unlike many others, I’m not going to whine about “stuffing her in the fridge,” because I think that concept is so absolutely stupid and is used for literally every time a woman gets killed in a story, even if it makes sense for the story and progresses the plot meaningfully and in a well-done way. I don’t think this was awful or tacky, and regardless of anything else, the post-credit scene renders her death a moot point; still, I’m upset that she didn’t get to do anything in this movie aside from be a stand in for Lady Death. I would love if Vanessa got her comic book powers and fought alongside Wade, making them the ultimate power couple. It’s just mild disappointment, though much like with X-Force, it is a pretty subversive move to kill the love interest so abruptly and so quickly, especially when there was every indication Deadpool would get a happy ending… and then even more subversion comes at the end when Deadpool saves her (among many other hilarious moments) via the magic of time travel.

Aside from that, there’s not much else to complain about. The only other minor complaint is that the turn towards more serious elements isn’t always perfect, and some of the stuff with Russell could have been done better, but really, it’s just too hard to get worked up over the flaws. This is a fantastic, funny movie, and one of the best sequels I’ve ever seen. It’s bigger, funnier, flashier, and introduces so many more exciting elements into an already great series. This is how you make a superhero sequel, this is how you make an action-comedy, this is how you make one of the best movies ever. If you like Deadpool, if you like superheroes, if you like action-comedies, movies with great choreography, or love seeing a good subversive film, this is a movie you shouldn’t miss.

As for what version to watch, the Super Duper Cut or the theatrical cut… I have to say that the Super Duper Cut fleshes the story out a lot better and gives some much needed context, as well as adds in some new jokes that were cut from the original, as well as delivering callbacks a lot better and staying more cohesive… but I will say the theatrical cut had some much better jokes that were replaced with some less impressive takes in the Super Duper Cut. Still, the Super Duper Cut is the one I’d recommend watching, just because the story feels more fleshed out, and also because it features Deadpool trying to kill baby Hitler.

Also, I just want to say this: “Ashes” is a better Bond theme than the piece of shit theme song to Spectre.

[summerspn]

Charmed (2018)

(Minor spoilers)

I waited a few months, trying to go in this with an open mind. I didn’t google or watch anything about this show since first watching the trailer for the pilot months ago.

Here are my thoughts:

The diversity is great overall. However, I feel like the show is focusing on quantity over quality in that respect. I don’t care if the leads are African American, Latino, Caucasian, Asian, or from Mars. However, the should be able to act! Meaning, have depth / layers.

If any show/movie/or writer is attempting to be diverse, they need to diversify!

While I’m not in show business I hope to publish more stories in the future. So I read whatever I can get my hands on. Books written by Americans, Canadian, British, some from Africa, South America etc. I do this because I’m not only curious but I’m self aware. I want to know what other people do and to gain perspective.

For writers/directors/show runners etc they should watch shows & movies from other countries. British shows are phenomenal in the fact they do everything 100%. The writing feels natural, it’s intelligent, & it flows. The acting is brilliant. Even the people who have 2 lines can act! A couple years ago I watched an old Canadian show (I can’t remember the title) but it was heart wrenching and beautiful. I saw 20 minutes and was in tears...(without knowing who the characters were). The acting was that good. And the cast for many Canadian shows are diverse (though admittedly not ideal), but it feels real. They don’t beat us over the head with it.

- My point is, this 2018 version of Charmed was promoting itself as diverse but that worked for and against itself. Diversity is great but pointing out one’s differences is counterproductive. It’s like saying ‘treat me like everyone else’ and ‘I’m different & unique’ at the same time.

- The CW should have just focused on the actresses/characters being relatable. That’s more about marketing & instructing the actors before they give interviews though.

The special effects are on par with the original Charmed. That’s...not great. 20 years in between the shows. There are better effects out there.

So this tells me the CW was being cheap & didn’t want to pour their money into the special effects. As if the show wasn’t worth it...and if the CW thinks that, I’m not surprised people weren’t happy about the show.

- Also, there are tricks to use less special effects...camera angles etc. From Supernatural (another CW show - the only good one imho) The camera moves around Misha Collins so he can walk out of the frame and poof! Castiel is gone! No special effects required but it still felt real. The CW could do some tricks like that to supplement the budget.

This last episode - the black Smokey demon guys poofed in and out a fair amount. Cool I guess but then the final show down where the sisters slam that staff into the ground and the gate to hell opened, that looked incredibly cheesy. Less poofing earlier = more $ for final showdown special effects. Basic math.

- I actually prefer the original special effects because it was appropriate back then - to the time & technology it was pretty great.

The reboot has constant references to modern technology but it feels like they’re not using modern tech for the special effects.

Female empowerment! Yay! Or rather, what? As a headstrong, independent woman who can hold my own in an argument and that time I got mugged I can honestly say I do NOT support male bashing. Yes there are a lot of rich white men in power that suck but your friends, neighbours, professors, nephews etc have NOTHING to do with that.

This show acts like (well, the way the dialogue is written) every little upset or injustice is because of ‘harassment’ or a rejection of feminism & females. No, one doesn’t have to lead to the other. Your professor is upset with your work or with what you say... it’s possible you’re an idiot. Or maybe you shout the information in a way that’s standoffish which rubs someone the wrong way...

The original Charmed celebrated love. The sisters loved & respected their male friends, brothers-in-law, their father etc. There was an episode where Grams had trouble accepting a male witch into the family but they showed growth & she only felt that way because she was burned by love before. The reboot just tries to create drama where there isn’t any.

Female empowerment is where you feel strong & secure enough to be yourself. To be able to speak your mind, stand up for yourself & be independent. In real life you don’t have to tell people you’re empowered, you just are.

This show distorts that message. Empowerment does not require one to tear down another gender. The sisters from the original Charmed were strong and empowered but they never acted like they were better than anyone else (except demons).

The acting. Oh the acting... so the actors aren’t great. Some are better than others. Unfortunately it’s very distracting and disruptive to the suspension of disbelief. Noticing the poor acting pulls you out of the story so once again people aren’t as invested in the characters or the plot.

The gay characters are fine. I don’t care either way but why the continual reminders? Just BE.

Even on the show Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Daryl’s character is bi and white-Josh (his nickname on the show) is gay. But it’s not annoying and when they talk about it it’s either natural or over the top celebratory. They write it into the show so even the coming out musical number feels authentic. It’s kind of impressive to do that.

- But here on Charmed it’s brought up in a way that feels almost...out of the blue. Difficult to explain but it just doesn’t work. That randomness feels like it was smacking us and going ‘see I’m gay’!

Meanwhile during Crazy Ex girlfriend after 1 episode of Daryl making eyes at White-Josh you root for them. It’s just written so well.

The writing. Sub par. It’s more about the little things but I have predicted the villains a few times.

Whitelighter-that-looks-like-Wesley-from-BTVS-and-Ketch-from-Supernatural...was it necessary to KIDNAP the sisters, bind & confine them to reveal who they are?! And he didn’t get his ass kicked for it?! They were just...okay with it? That’s the first time I felt like they were all idiots. I mean, he could have just...I dunno, had a Conversation with them minus the sketchy kidnapping!

If that had been the OG sisters they’d have been pissed. Prue probably would have sent him flying or hit him with whatever was close by even without her powers.

Most episodes just feel a little...cheesy. So whitelighter (“guardian”) says in an episode ‘you’ll need to use the power of three’. It’s all dramatic and a big show down but it felt cheesy. Looking back I think it was because that actor was probably directed to just act like he was informing them...but because of that it felt like he could care less what happened. It was flat. Plus why did he stand so he was almost pressed against her? Just...awkward.

The actual spells are okay to me and the show has some nice eerie vibes but with the background music, the dialogue and even the title ‘Charmed’ it feels very light. The combo is classic Disney. It’s all fighting against one another.

Another example of minor details which has a big impact. This last episode - cute British guy is like ‘oh!’ And grabs a chair to stop him from being sucked into Hell. Really? That’s gonna do the trick. *sigh* To be fair, the writers go off what the show runners/directors want. So IF they were in a big open room and that was the only thing there, sure grab the chair. However, he was standing next to a door frame!

So I’m guessing the writers either: 1) didn’t know the set design, 2) the powers that be instructed them to ignore that detail, or 3), everyone forgot. Either way it’s sloppy. Not to mention the end result made the whole scene feel very...goofball rather than dramatic.

One of the MOST annoying things about this series is that they throw things in like a checklist. So we talked about...feminism ✔️, LGBTQ ✔️, ethnic minorities ✔️ etc. Seriously CW, you don’t have to squish everything into one episode. It felt too much like name dropping. See, we’re talking about this this and this...see, we’re cool! 😉 it felt so awkward.

If you’re going to go through your checklist at least spread it out. One episode focusing on their long lost sister & new powers. Next episode trouble with being harassed at school, next episode how you navigate your relationship with your girlfriend etc. Everything coming at you while they’re battling a demon is just too much!

The show is entertaining in a way but it was more about seeing if it was going to get better.

After over a decade since the original series ended, the CW still wasn’t prepared for this. Too many issues to like it as anything more than a time filler. Personally I’m not a fan of it and won’t watch anymore.

I also still want the CW to apologize to the original cast & crew for ripping off the show. It won’t make me watch the reboot anymore but it’ll make me feel less guilty for watching my favourite show, Supernatural which is under their control.

[snugglyporos]

So! I decided to watch Super Sentai Jetman. I’ve seen a bit of sentai before, specifically a lot of Fiveman, but I’ve never watched Jetman before. Jetman came out in 1991, and the series that followed it Zyuranger, was adapted to Power Rangers. Now, I love me some cheese, and I’m a huge fan of foreign media from this time. I love this sort of weirdness, and even the stuff I don’t like, I can appreciate. 

But holy shit guys, I was not expecting the trip this series starts on. Let me make something clear, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a series that crammed so much insane shit into 18 minutes of footage. 

Like, within thirty seconds of the start, we have two characters, and there’s a robot shooting lasers everywhere, and then suddenly we’re on a space station, and a woman is tossing her baby up in the air, and our two main characters independently catch the baby and press a button which stops the robot from shooting lasers everywhere. Also, the male gets shot like four times and is fine, so I’m not sure why this required ninja police? But also the woman catches the baby, and I’m not sure if that’s sexism or not. The weirdness of living almost thirty years after this was made in another culture. 

Anyway, you might think that this man and woman are our main characters, because they’re immediately brought up to the space station to be turned into super heroes, using ‘birdonic waves’ which is wonderfully silver age comic for me. I’m all about stupid weird science stuff that doesn’t need to be explained, and a giant plexiglass tubes that glow and shoot lighting to give super powers. 

Anyway, the woman rather wisely asks ‘is this going to mess us up’ which is something comic protagonists should learn about before signing up with military outfits to get super powers. I immediately began suspecting something was up when they started mentioning like four times how these two never want to be apart and given this was 1991, this woman might as well have been wearing a giant sign saying ‘DEAD’ in big bold letters. 

Well anyway, then some guy with half a cone face shows up and broadcasts himself across the world. Not just with like, illusions in the sky, no that’s not extra enough. Guy fucking broadcasts through people’s coffee cups and stuff. Like bro, all they can see is your eye, why are you broadcasting through there? 

Anyway, which you should get used to, because this entire episode is basically ‘anyway, scene transition,’ suddenly he blows up the space station! Oh no! It only had two days till retirement! But also, the girlfriend of our protagonist doesn’t just die, she gets like, horribly sucked out a fucking air lock into space. The protagonist is understandably broken up, and our chief character punches him in the face and carries him to a plane and they fly out back to earth. 

Also the chief is a woman. Don’t know if I mentioned that yet. She’s a badass. Also, she beats up our protagonist like three times because he keeps wanting to go find his love who got sucked out an airlock. Anyway, apparently destroying the SCIENCE! machine caused waves to go hit random people, and now they also have powers? 

So it’s off to find them! Now we get our varied cast! Which begins with the pink one, which is fine, who is apparently like, a closeted housewife character? But she immediately goes disney princess on us and is like ‘I’m so glad I can save the world because my life is so boring!’ and I’m like shit you realize you’re signing up to fight aliens and shit, right? Well, alright then! I’m not sure I like her. Though I do like the fact that she keeps calling what they’re turning into ‘gentlemen’ and not ‘jetman.’ Also, I’m pretty sure she keeps saying ‘gentlemen’ in english for some reason. 

Then it’s off to find the yellow guy, who at present might be my favorite character. Red is a bit too emotionally distraught constantly, and chews scenery like you wouldn’t believe, and Pink at present seems like her character isn’t geared towards me. Yellow meanwhile is a slighty overweight farmer, who literally does not give a shit about saving the world. Like this guy has his rake, and his vegetables, and the world can fucking burn for all he cares, he’s got farming to do! 

Red immediately gives up on him. Like, no second attempt, just is like ‘welp he said no, guess it’s pointless!’ Pink on the other hand is like ‘I think I can handle this.’ Which I for one give her props for, because she’s clearly used to winning people over. Yellow and Pink go eat some of Yellow’s cucumbers, which apparently are very good. So farmer Yellow over here is pretty good at farming. Good to know. 

This is where I realized that Yellow is my favorite so far. He mentioned in no uncertain terms that he hates violence and doesn’t like fighting. he’s just a humble farmer who wants to farm his crops. Well, apparently for whatever reason, I assume because the plot says so, the bad guy sprinkles some foot soldiers onto the guy’s farm. Also, the bad guy brings out monsters and foot soldiers by super imposing his hand through reality and then like, sweats onto the world, I think? 

Anyway, seeing the foot soldiers ruining his precious vegetables, Yellow immediately forgets that whole ‘hating violence’ thing, picks up a rake, and starts going to town on alien foot soldiers. Just like ‘I was going to let the world be taken over by extra dimensional alien horrors, but then they ruined my vegetables, and now it’s a blood feud.’ 

Now the fight scenes are... weird. Mostly because there’s a lot of green screen. Also there’s an untransformed explosion where it looks like neither of the actors were prepared for the explosion right behind them. In any case, this is perhaps the first time where I realize yet another difference between sentai and what they adapted for power rangers. 

So there’s this trope in the west with super powers where like, you have a normal person who can’t fight, and then they get super powers, and then they can fight. Not in this series. They toss yellow and pink off a god damn cliff, and then they morph, and then yellow just straight up face plants into a fucking tree. Like that’s his first entry into being a hero, just straight face checks a tree and I laughed so hard because it was entirely not what I was expecting. I fully expected the trope, and no, there’s no trope. 

Also, the red guy, the only guy who actually has any training, is the only one who fights, while the other two basically try to survive, because again, they took two untrained civilians and tossed them into combat, and the expected result occurred. Remember in power rangers where they went to extreme lengths to show that they all had like, basic combat training? Yeah, fuck that. These two got nothing. And it’s actually... endearing? Pink acts like you would expect an upper class woman who just got thrown into a melee would act, and yellow survives by virtue of him being himself. At one point he accidentally hugs one of the foot soldiers, and like, stares him straight in the face, yells, which causes the foot soldier to yell, like neither of them were entirely prepared for any of this shit. 

Meanwhile, Red is off kicking everyone’s ass. Because he does that. Also, he’s got like, major problems with the interdimensional alien david bowie fanclub. So he fights the monster solo, and for some reason the bad guy gets scared and... saves his monster? That’s new. Usually villains don’t give a shit about their monsters. This guy goes ‘oh no! Mild resistance! quick, grab him and take him back!’ 

Also this guy is apparently eating people. Including children! That’s new. 

Anyway, then we cut to disapproving female boss who looks like she is eight kinds of done with all of this, likely wondering how the hell they’re going to make this work, and also if the other two are going to be as big a pain as the current two. 

Then we cut back to the david bowie fan club, and introduce our villains, who are all introduced by having the camera be at weird angles. Also, I’m pretty sure the one called ‘Maria’ is the Red guy’s girlfriend that got sucked out the air lock. Just a theory. 

And that’s episode one. All of that happened in 18 minutes. That’s insanity. I’ve got 52 episodes to get through. We haven’t even met Black and Blue yet! I’m honestly a little surprised about how much they play up the fact that basically only one of them is at all useful. Like he’s gotta fly a giant flying bird, and I’m just imagining the rest having to go through flight training on top of combat training and just... 

Man this series starts well. This is everything I love about weird ass silver age comics in a tv show. It’s madness and it just works. 

[casualarsonist]

Mission: Impossible - Fallout review

I can empathise with Tom Cruise’s plight. At one point in my life, I too found myself over fifty, with half a billion dollars in net worth that I didn’t know what to do with, and having had my religion chase all my girlfriends away. The world can be a lonely place when your wealth-to-height ratio is 323,592,411 to 1. At that time I also wanted to die, and my only regret is that I didn’t attempt to do it via elaborate helicopter stunts - the one aspect in which Tom Cruise and I differ from one another. (I’m lying. You don’t know for a fact that I’m not Tom Cruise, so I thought I’d clarify.) Seriously though, if I had the means to, I’d like to go out in the exact same way as him, and I’m sure he’d feel the same about my preferred method of demise - ‘not while wanking’. But for now, Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, and I am not, so instead I satisfy myself by watching him try to find the most expensive way to end his life as he films it for our viewing pleasure. 

‘Pleasure’ being the operative word here, because Mission: Impossible - Fallout is an ode, a testament to the crazy, gregarious, charming, golden age action films of the late 80s-early 90s, complete with a villain’s death (spoiler, the villain does not win) that makes you suck in your breath and wince. And that’s a great, great thing, because between the first film and this one (the...sixth?) the series has run the gamut of action-film styles, from a tense, spy-thriller, to ridiculous wire-work John Woo insanity, to boring summer fodder, to the most recent run of three superb releases that up the ante every time. I’m not gonna lie, I absolutely hate heights, and the idea of clinging to the outside of a plane as it takes off scares the literal shit out of me as I sit here writing this. But watching Cruise do it is absolutely breathtaking. Apparently he doesn’t have a stunt double. Could it be any more clear that he’s simply trying to reach the great beyond the only way he knows how - in a big-ass summer blockbuster? More power to him I say. 

If you’ve watched any of the M:I movies before, you’ll know that plot doesn’t really count for much. Not because there’s not enough plot, mind, but because there’s too much plot. Every time there’s too much plot, full of double-crossings and fake-outs and masks and secret spy dealings. Trying to follow it all isn’t worth the mental effort, and it probably doesn’t really make much sense when you break it down, so there’s little to be found in the plot other than a sense of the large scale machinations of the various entities at work. In the end, the plot moves forward because the right people show up at the right time as if everyone is sharing their location to a Whatsapp group for international agents of espionage, and the details are but a means to an end - an end that lies at the point the next action scene begins. In most other cases this might diminish the efforts of the film, but when your action scenes are this enjoyable, I really couldn’t care less. 

Tom Cruise hangs off so many things, guys. He hangs off helicopters in flight. He hangs off a cliff. He hangs off a building. At one point, he even leaps from the roof of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, across thirty metres of open road, and onto the rooftop of another building half a football field away. It’s not something that the average punter will notice, but those familiar with the sheer amount of space between St Paul’s and every other building around it will understand just what an amazing athletic feat this is. My mum, a woman with a heart condition and a proclivity towards anxiety, left the theatre breathless and excited - a state I don’t think I’ve ever seen her enter in a positive capacity. She’s not a thrill-seeker, is what I mean, but this film thrilled the shit out of her. There’s a great sense of continuity and flow to everything, and this meticulous attention to detail, coupled with a lack of bewildering CGI helps keep you invested, even as the stakes are raised further and further. It’s the antithesis of the Bourne Identity shakey-cam technique that dominated action films for far too long - no-longer can directors use it as an excuse to cut corners and create a bamboozling visual mess in which you can’t tell who kicked what and where, while Cruise’s capability and commitment to doing everything for realsies means that they don’t have to cut fifteen times just to film him hopping over a fence. I almost, almost, raved about it when I left the cinema, and that’s a high endorsement from me when it comes to big-budget blockbusters. And that’s probably the strangest thing of all - that this film is a blockbuster sequel in a series that has long crossed the temporal line that usually denotes an irreparable decline in quality, and has somehow not only managed to recover, but get better with successive installments. Say what you will about Tom Cruise, but a Tom Cruise action film inspires a very different anticipatory feeling than a Dwayne Johnson action film. There’s a consistency in the quality that is fed by a tangible sense of ambition - this series has become Cruise’s baby, and with all the money in the world and nothing else to live for, he clearly tries damn hard to make sure that it is worth the price of entry. 

As for the rest of the film...it’s okay. It’s not so much an episodic installment as those before it, but a direct sequel to Rogue Nation, and if you haven’t seen Rogue Nation, then you’re gonna be really fuckin’ confused for a good part of the narrative. Old friends and enemies return, and you will have zero connection with any of them for at least two thirds of the production unless you’ve seen them before. Which sucks, because it’s not exactly fair that in a series of six films, they waited until you were five in before smacking you with a the first story that carries over. The performances are fine, serviceable. Simon Pegg’s character actually has some weight to it and serves a greater function than simply being the comic relief. Alec Baldwin is in it and through no fault of his own, simply due to the fact that he’s Alec Baldwin, feels miscast in his redundant, bite-sized role. Henry Cavill is...fine. He plays a charmless thug well enough, and the thing he does with his arms in the trailer and the bathroom fight is legitimately cool for reasons that I can’t explain. He’s the perfect henchman, and in this sense he’s well-cast for the first time in his life, but that’s not so much a compliment to him as it is to the casting director for realising his limitations as an actor. Cruise is the film’s heart and soul, partially because his character is the axis around which all of the other elements turn, and partially because no-one can stop themselves from crowing that Ethan Hunt is the saviour of the world, and the best-est, most amazing spy ever. It reeks of vanity project dialogue, and while it might be, I can forgive it because of the quality and effort that has gone into almost all the aspects of the production. 

In short, as mindless fun goes, watching this film is possibly the most mindless fun I’ve had in a long time. It was extremely refreshing to go from The Meg to this in the space of a week, and to be reminded that not all big-budget films are CGI-soaked trash garbage. I wouldn’t thank Tom Cruise for many things, but I’ll thank him for that. In the meantime, I just hope that when he finally does meet his maker, it’s because the navigational instruments on the spaceship he spent six months learning to pilot failed and he was propelled into the Sun during a billion-dollar set piece while filming Mission: Impossible 15 - Space Terrorism.

8.5 digitally-altered Henry Cavill moustaches out of 10

[mst3kproject]

608: Code Name: Diamond Head

 This is probably the beigest movie I’ve ever seen.  The cars are beige.  The costumes are beige.  The landscapes are beige.  Even the actors are beige.

Johnny Paul is a wealthy, carefree bachelor living it up in Honolulu – when he’s not doing the government’s dirty work as Agent Diamond Head.  His new assignment is to track down rogue agent and master of disguise Sean Donovan, code-named Tree, who has come to Hawai’i to steal a deadly bioweapon.  By posing as a Colonel, Donovan is able to sneak into a secret research facility and find the formula.  Can Diamond Head, with his fellow agents Tso Tsing and Zulu, stop him from leaving the island with it?

If you were curious, Diamond Head is a reference to a 1963 film of that title, which starred Charlton Heston as a rich asshole living in Hawai’i.  France Nguyen was in that one, too.  I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure it deserved better.

Beyond that… this is another movie I’m gonna have trouble finding anything to say about. It’s pretty blah.  Part of the reason was probably because it was so obviously made for tv (complete with built-in commercial breaks) and they were trying to sell it to a network by making it as inoffensive as possible.  The result attempts to appeal to everybody and therefore actually appeals to nobody, except for people who are interested in unappealing movies.  Even then, I’m gonna have a hell of a time filling two pages with my thoughts on this.

Much of the reason it’s so bland is because for a film in which the fate of the world is at stake, Code Name: Diamond Head is remarkably lacking in any sense of urgency.  It feels like a business-casual movie: the people in it may be saving the world, but they’re doing it because that’s the job they’re paid to do, and that’s all.  Even Tso Tsing, who supposedly wants revenge for the deaths of her family, doesn’t look all that committed.  Actress France Nguyen looked way more into it when she was playing Kitty Tsu in Dimension 5 – in Code Name: Diamond Head she just looks bored.  At the end, even the villain just gives the fuck up, which is disappointing and yet so totally appropriate for this stupid movie that I feel I should have seen it coming.

The movie also makes Hawai’i look extremely shabby and unappealing. This is perhaps intentional, a dark-side-of-paradise thing, but it’s not a menacing type of unappealing.  Instead, Honolulu just looks like a giant trailer park.  The buildings are old, the hotels are cheap, and everything looks like it’s in various states of disrepair.  It just feels like a place you wouldn’t want to go, where there’s probably a lot of crime and drugs, never mind all this espionage stuff.  I guess that would have given Diamond Head plenty of work to do in future episodes.

Nothing in the movie is at all impressive and parts of it are barely even competent.  The music is mostly unremarkable, although it sometimes does weird things like break into a funky bassoon track, or just bang on the piano like a three-year-old when the goons show up.  There’s only one special effect, when vegetation melts into a mass of goo on contact with the gas weapon, but that’s just red lights superimposed on footage of rocks and it looks like crap.

I guess this movie has some kind of point to make about the arms race. What the scientists call the ‘Gold Cross’ was created by combining two of nature’s most finely-honed weapons – cone snail venom and some kind of poison gas – into a single substance that dissolves any living thing on contact.  This weapon is so terrible that even the people who developed it are all in favour of destroying it so it can never be used.  Instead, it’s stolen for use by terrorists or something.  As metaphors go it’s pretty blatant and not really worth analyzing.

This horrifying weapon was just about the only interesting thing in the film, and the fact that we only see it in action the once was definitely the most disappointing.  There were enough clichés in Code Name: Diamond Head to make me expect that the villains would be destroyed by the very weapon they sought to possess, and even though I knew it was gonna look stupid I was all ready to see it.  As Paul, Zulu, and the Salty Old Sea Dog chase the villains out onto the ocean I was channeling Mike from The Incredible Melting Man by shouting, “just blow up and melt!”  Instead, the stuff was recovered safely and that was a terrible letdown.

A villain who’s only in it for the money and gives up as soon as the situation becomes truly life-threatening is a terrible villain, anyway, because it retroactively sucks all the life out of the film up until that point.  Donovan was never a real threat, because he wasn’t actually fighting for anything besides a payday.  The only time this works in a movie is when the weaksauce quitter villain then rats out whoever he’s working for, allowing the heroes to go after the real bad guy.  Maybe this would have happened if Code Name: Diamond Head had been a series rather than a movie, but it wasn’t, so we’re left with this.

In order to be credible, action movie villains need conviction.  They need a cause to believe in so that we know they’re just as determined as the good guys. If they’re going to surrender, it should be either a trick or because they know they’re thoroughly beaten – in The Avengers, Loki does both.  Having your bad guy just give up, right when we’re expecting a big fight scene or a superweapon explosion, mostly makes it look like the writers couldn’t figure out what ought to happen next.  It’s like ending a story by having the protagonist wake up and realize it was a dream, or the narrator announce that suddenly, there was no monster.  It’s a cop-out.

Alternatively, a surrender could be part of the villain’s character development.  Maybe he realizes that he’s on the wrong side, maybe he’s changed by developing a relationship with the hero, all kinds of things could happen.  Darth Vader realizes that Luke is right and there is still good in him, and switches sides to throw the emperor into a bottomless pit. That’s character development.  That’s Luke Skywalker succeeding in what he’s been trying to do ever since he learned that Vader was his father.  When Donovan gives up, we haven’t been inside his head enough to know if he’s had any development over the course of this story.  He just throws in the harpoon and goes, “eh, fuck it.”

I’m sure this sort of thing happens in real life, when criminals decide that lying to the police just isn’t worth it.  In fact, I can think of at least one instance when it did, when serial killer David Berkowitz was arrested for a parking violation and decided he might as well just tell them he was also the Son of Sam.  It doesn’t make for good action movies, though.  Real life can run on coincidences, but we don’t like it when fiction does.

Is there anything in this movie that didn’t annoy me?  Well, I do have to admit, it avoids those Glamorous Secret Agent tropes I complained about in Secret Agent Super Dragon and Danger!! Death Ray.  Johnny Paul does seem to hang out with beautiful women when he’s undercover as a hip bachelor, but he doesn’t go around sleeping with co-workers, enemy agents, and random passers-by.  Instead, interestingly enough, it’s Tso Tsing whom the movie implies has multiple lovers, at least some of whom may have paid for the privilege according to Donovan.  The movie has no opinion on this, never even bothering to say whether it's true or not, and Paul seems to trust her to be romantically faithful to him even if not sexually, so that’s refreshing. It's also nice that Tso Tsing is around forty and looks it, but is still the movie's 'pretty girl'.

There are also no stupid death traps.  When Donovan decides Paul needs to go, he has a buddy sneak up on him and gas him in the face with cyanide.  Paul survives mostly by luck.  Later, Paul and one of the mooks beat the shit out of each other with whatever they have to hand.  It’s much less contrived and frankly, much more exciting than a death trap.  When the hero is strapped into a death trap, we know he’s got lots of time to get out of it.  When somebody is actually pointing a gun at him… well, he’s still gonna get out of it, being as he’s the hero and all, but there’s more adrenaline when there’s less time to think.

Code Name: Diamond Head really does feel like an episode of a tv series you probably watched once and weren’t interested enough to come back for next week.  The characters are dull and the plot feels pretty half-assed.  The other secret agent movies on MST3K were pretty dumb but they were at least amusingly dumb, ridiculous enough to make you want to keep paying attention.  This one just left me feeling like I was going to fall asleep.  If Danger!! Death Ray is the best of MST3K’s spy movies, I’m pretty confident I can declare Code Name: Diamond Head the worst.

[atleastputinsomeeffortinuroc]

Rant/Review: Ready Player One --aka-- Just Watch Wrinkle in Time Instead...

I don’t usually hate movies. 

I know that seems backwards considering that this blog is me complaining and ranting incoherently about movies I don’t like, but very few movies leave me seething. Even all of the Detective Conan movies, which are mostly terrible pieces of garbage, I don’t necessarily hate. Red Crimson Letters is a terrible waste of time and energy, but I wasn’t insulted or felt talked down to. It was just a really bad movie I wanted to talk about.

In my life, there have only been three movies who have truly enraged me. “Batman v Superman,” “Joy,” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.” 

Objectively, there are aspects that are genuinely good in all of them and are definitely better than I probably give them credit for...but I doubt it, but they just flare up an anger in me for one reason or another. They’re permanently on my “fuck that movie” list. And now…now there’s another entrant to that prestigious list.

Ready Player One.

My GOD. THIS was the book everyone’s been talking about? THIS is supposed to be the fucking bible of pop culture?! THIS MOVIE?! THE ONE THAT UNIRONICALLY HAS THE PHRASE SPOKEN BY HUMAN VOCAL CHORDS “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER?!!” ARE YOU GUYS--…ok. Ok, I need to calm down. 

There are several, several, SEVERAL parts about this movie that don’t work, and I could go into a lot of the problems, but instead I’m going to try to talk about three aspects of the film. And for the sake of me not swearing up and down, we’re not going to talk about that godawful dialogue. Just know that it sucks.)

1) The ham-fisted arc

2) The protagonist and his trophy waifu

3) References over content

There are spoilers ahead, and I’m going to write this with the assumption that you’ve already seen the movie. If you haven’t, you’ve been warned. Anywho, let’s get started. Put on some “a-ha,” break your nostalgia goggles and join me as we go down this road where I collectively shit over Spielberg’s attempt to adapt a supposed “beloved classic.” (CAN YOU TELL I’M MAD?!)

1)     The arc

Here’s the thing with arcs in narratives, and more specifically films. 

They need to feel earned. 

Your central character has gone through a life-altering change or point of view since the beginning of the film due to the adventures and trials had throughout the film. Good examples include “Mad Max: Fury Road” where Max finally lets others into his life and sees the value in not going through life alone as described by the part where he donates his own blood and tells Furiosa his name. Another good example is actually from the Oscar nominee Spielberg had LITERALLY LAST YEAR, “The Post.” In it, Kay Graham finally put her foot down and shows authority by stepping out of her comfort zone to release the Pentagon Papers—damn what the powers that be say. This is important to any narrative because it shows the flaws of your characters through their insecurities and hesitations to make them human rather than movie characters. Even if you have paragon characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, or Batman, they still have to overcome some kind of personal issue that is keeping them from achieving what they’ve wanted.

Now, if you look over to the main character, you can see that his arc was…what is it that was his arc? 

He’s…he’s the same at the beginning as he was at the end. 

“OH BUT HE HAS A PENTHOUSE AT THE END,” yeah that’s not a change. One could argue that the (even though the catalyst for change has no fucking relation to it) arc is about unplugging and enjoying the real world. The bits at the end with Easter Egg man where he starts going on and on and on about how he missed reality or something, and the VERY BRIEF bits at the beginning where you see people all over the VR systems, one of which is the mother neglecting a fire in the house and one where an Asian man almost commits suicide after losing all of his stuff in the game (it’s played for comedy, so THAT’S also pretty fun, because it’s not like Japanese suicide rates are a serious issue or anything OH WAIT.) So it’s about being close to reality and unplugging. Ok. Coolio.

But here’s the thing, similar to “War for the Planet of the Apes”…YOU HAVEN’T EARNED IT. There are brief moments where it kind of alludes to it (see the middle challenge with ‘oh yes, I should have kissed the girl during the Shining’ and the small bit at the middle where the main two are sitting there and the main dude has ONE HALF-ASSED LINE about how “it’s nice here. It’s slower,”) but that’s IT. It doesn’t actually give you a reason to think that staying in the Oasis and avoiding reality is a BAD thing. Sure you have abusive father obsessed with getting high scores but he’s just one dimensional asshole dad who dies and you don’t give a shit about it one second later after his parental figures are killed. 

There are no real CONSEQUENCES to spending too much time in the Oasis, it’s just because he’s good at the game. And if there are, they sure as hell aren’t focused on in favor of mindless spectacle (which looks REALLY BAD by the way. I know it’s supposed to look fake because video game, but do the main characters have to use the ugliest models in existence?!) As such, the ending and central arc of learning is lost.

So what’s the arc? Well…there is none. Nothing is really learned, nothing is really gained that MATTERS aside from the keys to Willy Wonka’s goddamn chocolate factory. 

Z or Perzival or Wade or generic-white-gamer-boy learns all of fucking NOTHING by the end. (As such, it makes the ending where he says “EVERYONE HAS TO BE OFF ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS” come off as BULLshit.)

But no, this is clearly the Spielberg classic. It’s not like Indiana Jones learned anything in the Last Crusade as a character only he totally fucking DID, HE LEARNED TO RESPECT AND LOVE HIS FATHER WHO HE PREVIOUSLY DESPISED AND THE IMPORTANCE OF—sorry. Sorry I’m getting a bit mad again.

Anywho, due to a lack of a real arc, it makes you think that the entire fucking plot was pointless. It was just inevitable that the good guy win because…well he’s the main character. He doesn’t say anything about anything but is instead dumb fluff, which would be fine…but here’s the thing. It also affects the main characters. And it affects them HARD.

2)     Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass

The two main characters have no personality or character due to this lack of an arc.

The main man, Wade, his personality is…what exactly? He’s just generic hero-boy who is obsessed with the 80s. “He’s like a regular Star-Lord!” I hear you say, only he totally fucking isn’t. Starlord has baggage, has character has points and instances that stretch BEYOND just quoting 80’s movie and saying the actual phrase that a screenwriter actually wrote down and didn’t immediately delete that went “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER” NO I AM NOT OVER IT.

...Point is, the references don’t make Star-Lord who he is, it’s the character of Peter Quill himself. Cocky, brash, and in many ways, a child running from his past. 

As for Wade, he’s got nothing. I’ve looked over this sometimes, depending on the writing or the situation, so maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much, but the actor who plays him isn’t doing a good job. I know I don’t talk about acting a lot, but the man…the man is just whining through his lines. He comes off as insufferable with his needless 80’s knowledge that I was genuinely rooting for the one-dimensional villain to kill that fucking brat.

Then we have Artemis or Samantha or Sam or its-the-pixie-cut-rebel-chick.  

There are several scenes that are etched into my brain now (including a FUCKING NUT-SHOT AND A PASSWORD FOR A HUMAN ADULT THAT IS “B055MAN69.” IN A SPIELBERG MOVIE. THE MAN WHO MADE INDIANA JONES AND SCHINDLER’S LIST.), but one of the big ones is the final image of the film in which the main character in his 80’s man-boy cave spins around with his beautiful woman sitting in his lap as they suck face as the line “reality is pretty awesome anyway” or something like that. Aside from the main character not earning that statement as previously stated…fucking let’s look at it for what it is.

The man just won a real-life walking-talking waifu. A trophy wife that he wins at the end of the game.

She’s what probably made me see through the movie the most honestly. She makes this big fucking deal about “oh, but I’m not who you think I am on the outside, I’m not pretty” and then when you go outside to the real world, of course she’s the fucking gorgeous Hollywood white girl—she just has a goddamn birthmark on her eye to be her “blemish.”

“Oh but she’s insecure about it,” I hear you say--I’m sorry, but you mean to tell me NOBODY told her she’s fine and beautiful with the eye-mark BEFORE Wade? You mean to tell me she’s insecure, but not insecure enough to feel the need to buy fucking MAKE-UP!? I’m not saying that she needs it, I’m saying that the character’s central flaw is the WEAKEST FUCKIN FLAW I HAVE EVER SEEN. YOU WANNA CHANGE THE GAME, QUASIMODO THAT SHIT. 

THEN, and this part was just fucking HILARIOUS to me, she mentions about how the ioi company fucking KILLED HER FATHER in a workshop and she has to stop him for revenge…and then it’s totally dropped. Like it’s never mentioned by the end. At all. She chucks a grenade into Mechagodzilla to kill the bossman but fuck me if it ain’t satisfying and adds physically NOTHING to her character.

Her character exists for one purpose. She is the love interest who sets the main character off on his journey. Nothing more. And I say that, because SHE’S THE CATALYST FOR HIM FINDING THE FIRST KEY. She tells him something that reminds him of something that solves the puzzle. And what’s more, I am willing to bet that THAT’S the reason they kept her Hollywood pretty. Because you need to have an attractive romantic love interest to keep the audience pleased. 

Now apparently, she does more in the movie than she does in the book. And that’s great. That’s super. She’s the one breaking in to destroy the d20 of doom. Hell yeah I guess. But I also don’t care. You wanna know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT READING THE BOOK. Superficial changes that improve certain aspects doesn’t make the movie better than it is. It’s like polishing a fucking turd. Yeah, it’s nicer than what you had, but you are still making me hold this piece of dogshit.

They don’t have characters. They don’t have chemistry BECAUSE they don’t have characters. It’s a fucking wash.

3) Drowning in References

But now we talk about the big one. The big fucking thing that everyone and their mother is obsessing about this movie over. And the thing that has gotten me from not liking this movie to fucking DESPISING it.

The references.

To quote from people who will be seeing the movie in the theater *ahem*...

“OHMYGOD IS THAT TRACER?! OH AND IT’S HARLEY AND THE JOKER! OH! OH! OH! IRON GIANT! HALO! BORDERLANDS! BACK TO THE FUTURE! BATMAN—FUCKING IT’S THE BATMAN! THEY MENTIONED THRILLER! THAT’S PRINCE! STREET FIGHTER! MECHA-GODZILLA FIGHTING GUNDAM! MINECRAFT! NINJA TURTLES! FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH! STAR TREK! FIREFLY! THE SHINING! IT’S FUCKING CHUCKY!!!”

…Ok? So what?

Not to be a snob, but seriously—so what? Why does it matter?

Listen, I like crossovers too. I remember the Avengers and what a big goddamn deal it was, and how it made everyone’s jaw drop to the ground, and how in some ways, it still does. But whereas with those it felt organic, Ready Player One with its ninety thousand references felt…empty.

I’m going to bring out two comparisons to the table that do the same thing that Ready Player One did, “Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Both had pop-culture icons throughout them. One had all of the classic cartoons all spliced together—where you saw Daffy Duck and Donald Duck in the same shot having a dual piano-off. One of them had all of these video game characters that you loved and embraced since you were a kid, running around and hanging out ala “Toy Story.” These big names are all in the background, just like Ready Player One, but they’re clearly different in terms of execution. Why is that?

Well it’s because the movies weren’t reliant on them. Sure, Rodger Rabbit had fun moments with these big names, but if you took them out and animated totally new characters with similar personalities, what would you lose? Nothing. The plot is the same, the dynamics are the same, and it can still be seen as a salute to the classic animations from back in the day to also an allegory for the Jim Crowe era just as the book intentionally was. Same goes for Wreck-it Ralph, the character goes through a fundamental change that has him accepting who he is and how “there’s nobody else I’d rather be, than me” ALL THE WHILE paying respects to classic arcade video games.

The same can’t be said for Ready Player One. The instant you take away the pop-culture references, the movie loses its protective suit of armor to reveal it’s about…nothing. 

It is. 

Nothing. 

The generic quest, the generic corporate baddie, the generic love interest, the main character has nothing to say, and the conflict is revealed to be flat—nothing about it sticks out or makes an impression.

And if you fail to make an impression without a fucking suit pop-culture references then, well, if I may use a pop-culture quote myself...“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

Plain and simple.

But then…there’s the one thing I can’t really debate. 

“It’s just fun though, right?”

Yeah sure. I’ll admit around that third act, even though it was long overdrawn, I had fun watching the violence and references I understood while they blasted “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in the background.

But y’know what? It was just about as enjoyable as seeing someone adapt a piece of shitty fanfiction, because both have one thing in common for everything that they do: It’s just there for fan service. If you make the statement “well the Oasis is cool,” then you’ve clearly missed the point because you don’t like the movie, you like it’s gimmick. And it’s gimmick exists—it’s called VR Chat.

Meanwhile, screenwriters of different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and religions from everywhere across the world are actually putting EFFORT into their screenwriting and directing. And while their action scenes for their blockbuster idea may not be perfect, they at least tried and did something new with it.

I went to see “Wrinkle in Time” today after I’d seen Ready Player One yesterday, needing to see literally anything good. And yeah, it’s not perfect. It’s got some stilted dialogue and some questionable acting on nearly all fronts at points and the conflict can be about as cliched as you can imagine, but the visuals, the costume design—you could tell everyone cared and put a goddamn effort into everything put forth. It’s much more gorgeous than the downright UGLY CG that was in the Oasis world in Ready Player One, and I guarantee you nobody had the phrase “B055MAN69” anywhere. It didn’t pander to kids or guys who wanted to feel validated for knowing a couple references. It wanted to tell the story of fighting back evil and hatred by embracing love. It’s cheesy and sappy…but fuck me, if it didn’t try to say something while having fun.

But fuck that movie right? We have Iron Giant fighting Mechagodzilla. 

If you have that, then why bother putting in effort?

That’s what kills me. It’s lazy and people praise it because it just stuck pop-culture words in a fucking blender. Don’t call it innovative. Don’t call it original. Don’t call it anything than what it is.

80’s. Prepubescent. Fucking. Fanfiction.

You can love it and enjoy it if you want, I mean I don’t like not liking movies. It sucks. And in some aspects, I can see why you can if you turn your brain off but…I’m not gonna lie, to see this get away with murder insults me.

Listen, I love Spielberg. There is nobody I respect more in the business. His work in AI, and the reason why he did so to keep a dying friend’s vision alive will always keep him as one of my personal heroes but…sometimes you gotta call people out when they make shit. And I am.

I don’t care what anyone says, don’t see Ready Player One. Watch something worthwhile. Go to Netflix and watch “Stranger Things” if you’ve got that need for an 80′s kick, or hell--”Blade Runner 2049″ is a visual goddamn MARVEL. Go see “The Post” or “Jaws” if you want some good Spielberg. Just PLEASE! Go see something that isn’t just a bunch of references that almost feel as though it’s a remake of “ctrl+alt+del.” 

(Random aside, people have told me to read the original book...but if that fucking thing is ANYTHING like this movie, I’d rather BURN IT than let it get one inch into my house. So no, I’m not going to read the book even if there are claims that it’s “better.” (Even though I believe that it’s impossible to say a book is better than it’s adaptation or vice versa because it’s two different mediums and as such it’s hardly fair, but that’s a whole other thing.) Point is, I’ve never been more turned off to a book in my godddamned life and I ain’t gonna bother.)