#what is this called again? cgi? 3D?

[space-payacho]

sorry besties i just cant get into earthspark, the animation kills me

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

You’ve mentioned how boring the Avatar movies are despite how visually stunning they can be (I can’t help but agree.) How would you rewrite it to be a more interesting?

Can't be done and not for the reasons you're probably thinking.

The Thing about James Cameron

To get into this, we have to talk about James Cameron as a director.

Now, I say this being a large fan of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, as well as generally liking Aliens and Abyss.

But generally, the focus of James Cameron's films is not the story or the writing: it's a new cutting-edge technology he wants to develop and try out and or a particular setting. The story is presented as an excuse to do these things and is paper thin at best.

The focus of Titanic was the ship itself, the exact timing of its sinking, seeing all of the ship (both upstairs and downstairs) both before and after the sinking, and to aid that along we get this story of Jack and Rose where they run around the ship like lunatics so we can see everything.

Abyss, similarly, is exploring the concept of a setting at depth and the technology needed to produce such a film.

Now, what also ties into this, is that Cameron has a few tropes he really really really likes in films that aren't that... deep I guess I'd call them. Generally, in any Cameron film, you can count at least one (usually more) of the following:

US Marines (Good or Bad or Both)

Evil Corporations/Evil Rich People

A Surprisingly (!) Good Scientist/Science/Robot People

An Uncomplicated Action Hero/Heroine

An Uncomplicated Love Story

In the case of the Avatar series, Cameron had thought up this fictitious world Pandora, the native people there the Nav'i, and wanted to push both CGI as well as 3D to the limit (notable is that Cameron did 3D for these films in a way films generally don't, in that he did actual 3D where most '3D' films just have two cameras for stereo. This is why Cameron's 3D looks so fucking good and is actually worth seeing in theaters versus other 3D films which are eeeeeeh watch it at home). And, as usual, what we see is a story written in such a way to show off the setting, the made-up culture of the Nav'i, and the technology used to produce the film rather than the story in and of itself.

So, in the first film, we get a story that hits all the usual marks for Cameron. Through Jake's adventure, we get to explore Pandora and see all the things Cameron really wants to show off to us, we also get all the tropes Cameron usually loves: an uncomplicated love story, evil corporations, US Marines, surprisingly good scientists who seem bad at first but then are misguided, and a dumb uncomplicated hero.

In this case, it's just the plot of Dances with Wolves (almost to a tee) but uh... more blue.

(The second film is even worse in this respect, as well as just as a film, as Cameron now wants to show a new part of Pandora, the ocean but uh... has no reason for the characters to be there so has to make something up that doesn't make much sense or give the characters much to do.)

The trouble is where this works for Cameron in other films (Terminator and Terminator 2 were great in that they didn't need to be complicated, the setting and special effects provided what we needed for great films), in Avatar we're hampered by a plotline that has both aged and that we've seen before, and by a script that's... just not good.

But the point I was trying to make is that Avatar would not exist without Cameron. This isn't a case where you hire a new director, new screenwriter, new anything, this is Cameron's vision and there's really not much wiggle room in that without dumping out everything Cameron wanted.

The best someone could do is rewrite the script to make the lines more catchy/memorable/quotable without changing the plot.

(Caveat, again, I think Cameron is great when he's great. What he does well he does very well, and he has made some fantastic as well as very entertaining movies. However, sometimes, it just doesn't work out.)

Back to the Question

So, to 'fix' Avatar you have to have a script Cameron would like, one that shows of Pandora in the way he wants, and with the uncomplicated characters he generally likes.

Trouble is, that is Avatar. I can think of no way to produce what Cameron would have wanted beyond what Cameron himself did. He was involved in every step of that movie and it shows.

And again, to make it better or different is to make something that never would have happened as, well, it's not Cameron.

Long story short, you can't have Avatar without Blue Pocahontas in Space.

[woodsfae]

B5 s02e20 The Long, Twilight Struggle Table of Contents • previous episode

Wow, we're almost to the end of another season! It's been a really good one, despite my own rocky start with its beginning. It's been interesting how my perspective has shifted enough along the way that I had change of minds about my change of minds of some characters. In The Gathering I loved Garibaldi, then came to dislike him for his sexism, police brutality, abuse of position, stalking Talia, being a shit about his ex, and general cop-ness, but the writing really brought me around on him! Weirdly, I now believe he can and will be better.

Almost the same for Londo. I didn't really like him at all, came to like him a little, then was to be SO disappointed in him that now I'm just fascinated to see how far his moral depravity and Sunk Cost Fallacy-ing will go.

And on to the episode!

Their CGI planet is really lovely and colorful, and does look quite 3d! And it's Centauri Prime (presumably). Must be a Londo episode!

This guy is petting the throne. wtf Refa. Very blunt about the fetishization of power that's going on here.

Londo: "Lord Refa, I have come a long way, and I am tired. Is there a reason I have been summoned here, now?" Refa: "Indeed there is, I have good news. The war which began six months is about to end. Sooner than any of us could have hoped. And you, Londo Mollari, will be the architect of our victory."

ope, the Centauri are about to do some crazy war crimes, I see!

Finally, a sexy transparent glass silhouette showering scene! I've been waiting for this since the show started. Classy of them to make it be Sheridan.

Friendly Draal Planet!!! I hoped to see him again! How delightful! What a bad omen, though.

Delenn is becoming just…transcendently beautiful. The lighting and camera shots, her expressions and grace, are all just astonishing. I am glad she gets to see her friend again. Maybe some of the other serene characters will pop up for a reunion. I'd love to see the little telepath girl who went to Minbari, Janice the Healer, and Thomas Jinxo the Seeker of the Grail again, and I think they'd all get along well (or at least interestingly) together.

Draal, appearing before Sheridan fresh out of his shower: "I've been watching you for quite some time, Captain. And I thought it was time that I introduce myself. My name, is Draal. How do you do." *Minbari bow* Sheridan, damp and be-robed: "Uh, fine. I'm fine." Draal, who has no idea how to talk to humans: "Good. You don't have any idea who I am, do you?" Sheridan, who did his research on B5 tysvm: "Unless there's another Draal who can do what you just did, you're the Minbari who took custody of the planet we're orbiting." Draal: "Ah, Captain, you do not take custody of the planet, the planet takes custody of you!."

This made me laugh really hard. The planet really did take custody of Draal. Near-total isolation, but youth. idk if I'd go for that.

Details…details…lmao Draal.

The Narn…cannot catch a fucking break. Contact with an entire sector of colonies, lost. They're losing, although their official stance is that they're holding their own. I wish them and their counter attack well! One all-out strike with the majority of their forces is a hardcore strategy! They could lose everything.

G'Sten: "If we make them pay, for every inch of space, we can wear them down, prolonging the war beyond their capacity to fight it. Centauri want a quick victory: they don't have the stomach for prolonging the war."

He also says there will always be enough ships to defend their homeworld, but dang that still feels really risky. I am so excited to see a little of G'Kar's family. His uncle! And he's so kind, warm, and loving. The exact opposite of the way they were described by Delenn and the Centauri in season one. They both call the Narn cold, strange, impossible to empathize with. I hate to see anti Narn propaganda! They have risen highly in my estimation and I am rooting for them so hard.

The Centauri are going to bomb Narn from orbit with banned weapons and wipe out much of the entire population. To "save Centauri lives." War crimes, as I thought.

Everything depends on Londo. It's too late to back out. Bringing the pressure and the logical fallacies down on him! He bends, obviously, and is going to reach out to Morden for help carrying out the sick plan.

Londo: "All right. I will bring my assoociates into this, but this is that last time. We are Centauri. If we are to sieze our destiny, we must do it ourselves. After this, no more." What'shisface" "After this there will be no need! Thank you. Cheer up. By the time you return to Babylon 5 the war will be over, and the Narns will be at our feet. This time, we will keep them there."

Exactly. The Narns will not stop resisting, they will eventually gain their freedom again, and there will be another and another. You can't build an empire without horrifically violating sentients' rights, and those sentients are always going to resist.

Love Delenn's outfit today. I hope Draal won't be an ass about her hair.

Aw, so nice, Londo gets to go watch the Centauri genociding the Narns, live and in HD safe on a warship. How thoughtful. May he choke on the sight.

Dr Franklin is a real and good friend and a great anti-fascist comrade. Gathering deets from his Narn patients to give G'Kar as up-to-date as information as he can, as quick as he can.

Draal Planet light hearted B Plot, yay! And Delenn is now experimenting with swearing She used the f-word even! Frag me, she's so great.

Delenn: "Draal? We're here." Draal: "Did you think I hadn't noticed, my old friend? You've changed. I like it."

I'm glad he's not racist to her! That makes two Minbari who have on-screen supported her: Lennier, and now her old mentor. I'm so glad!

But onto the meat of the visit. Draal has been using the planet's resources to gather information, including Sheridan's history and all the plotting Sheridan's been doing. Convenient, and awesome! Powerful allies are badly needed right now. Draal has been studying the universe and the planet, and he's ready for action! And I"m ready to see that action!

"In the long, twilight struggle which lies ahead of us, there is a possibility of hope."

That's a great message, and good repetition of the same sentiment from earlier with G'Kar and G'Sten. I'm afraid G'Sten is going to die, but I hope he lives. The Narns have faced enough tragedy.

Shadow ships coming for G'Sten and his fleet, the evil shits! The CGI has definitely improved from last season to a degree, although it's extremely obvious with the shadow ships. but I love the effect! They are all cgi and thus fake-looking, which I think enhances how out of sync with the normal dimensional bounds they are. I'd be fucking unnerved if I saw something that fake looking in real life.

goodbye G'Sten. :/

There's people on the Draal Planet! Wow, they must be weird.

LOVE this for Delenn. She's needed friends really badly, too!

Zathras!! Is in league with Draal! Cool!! I didn't think we'd see the Space Werewolf again, but this should be fun! JMS's spreadsheets must have been wild.

Narn is in a BAD position. Centauri have Narn surrounded, there's massive destruction and death, and the Narn fleet has been neutralized. An impromptu re-enactment between Narn and Centauri on B5 is underway. Of course.

Narn looks mostly brown and orange from orbit. I wonder what it looked like before the Centauri ever arrived. Bombs underway, Londo watching on while looking sick. Hope he feels even sicker than he looks!

Ineffective response from Minbari and Earth, of course. An atrocity! They condemn it! Really hard! Finger wag! Don't do it again!

:(

G'Kar. What a horrible horrible place to be. Narn plans to surrender. I hope they can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but knowing this show, it will be even more grim for them and the universe by the end of the episode. Horrific.

G'Kar is reduced to asking Sheridan for political asylum. If they hand him over to the Centauri…! fuck! That's the kind of dystopian universe this is, too. I hope that won't happen, though.

Ugh. A speech by Londo. What an awful piece of propaganda.

Londo: "A little over five standard hours ago, the conflict which began with the Narn declaration of war, came to and end. The Narn regime has offered complete and unconditional surrender. The terms imposed by the Centauri Republic are as follows. One: the ruling body known as the Kha'ri will be disbanded, and its members subject will be subject to arrest and trial for the commission of war crimes against the Centauri." Sheridan: "Earth requests the right to send observers to these hearings." Londo: "That request is denied. Two: to prevent further acts of terror by the Narn against our people, the penalty for the murder of any Centauri by any Narn will be the execution of five hundred Narns. Including the Perpetrator's own family. Three: a provisional ruling council appointed by my government will take up the responsibility of re-building a more civilized Narn government, as a colony of the great Centauri Republic." Sheridan: "Is there anything else." Londo: "Yes. Just, one thing. Because the Narn homeworld is now a protectorate of the Centauri Republic, we reserve the right to determine who can speak for Narn. As a result, Ambassador G'Kar may no longer represent the Narn in any official capacity whatsoever. His appointment ambassador to Babylon 5 is hereby withdrawn. And as the only member of the Kha'ri still at large, Citizen G'Kar will return to Narn for trial."

"No," quoth Sheridan. Minbari supports Earth and Babylon 5 in this, although Delenn does call him Citizen G'Kar like Londo did. Fuck him, man. He's fully a bootlicker channeling his frustration at his guilt over all the war crimes against the non-Centauri. My least favorite fictional war criminal.

The framing and character work through this scene is WILD. G'Kar, sitting, slumped, not meeting anyone's eyes. Londo, speaking with clear enunciation, racist and imperialist language framed as the ethical, sensible decisions the Narn have forced them to make. G'Kar rising and speaking calmly before leaving when Londo loses his temper and demands, screaming, that G'Kar leave the council room.

G'Kar: "No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years…we will be free."

The Narn will not go quietly.

Centauri is celebrating, they are dancing in the streets on homeworld. Or so the propaganda news broadcast goes.

Sheridan has a very nice speech for G'Kar and offer of support of all his personal assets that can be put towards that aim.

G'Kar: "The last time I took someone's hand we were at war twenty-four hours later." *takes Sheridan's offered hand anyway*

Mad lad.

And now Sheridan's off to a super-secret meeting! Delenn presiding. She has gathered him allies to pledge to Sheridan. Ah, Sinclair's project! <3 Sinclair, good work, buddy. Kosh is there, too! Somehow I doubt he is there to swear TO Sheridan. Along with, benevolently, to help the ants win against the anteater, maybe.

This is an episode of speeches! G'Kar's was terrible and great. Sheridan's falls a little flat. His line has been drawn on the other side of a fascist empire re-enslaving an entire people.

Well. I can only hope for some great and wild successes on the other side of the season finale!

The balance of affection between G'Kar and G'Sten, and Delenn's joyful reunification with Draal and the hope that and Sinclair's rangers inspired were all a much-needed balance against the Narns' current plight, but this was still so heavy and dark. It went there, it did that! Man, the forces of the Light are just fucking crippled without the Narn and their previous resources. All destroyed, and mostly dead, to feed the appetite of the Centauri Empire.

next!

[cluelessbees]

Hello I’m being delusional about the cgi heart

SO I was watching the van scene again and I decide to see if I can spot things that might suggest (emphasis on suggest here) that the heart is cgi or some effect that they’re putting in.

So I have two like- moments that I think are some decent proof- so

Frame 1 -

For me what’s off about this frame is just the way light acts when it’s close to Noah’s eyelashes. It’s like- some parts of the eyelashes go through the light some don’t. You can really see it in the top right it’s very weird.

Catchlights (which is what I just found out these are called) are light that reflects OFF our eyes right? But if his eyelashes are in front of it- surely it blocks it from reflecting?

Also the heart/light here feels so two dimensional and flat. And what I mean by that is just— from what I’ve seen of catchlights in photos- typically the closer you get to the pupil- the more the light bends. Here’s an example (I stole this from a studiobinder article about catchlight)

Look at how the square sorta bends and makes the eye feel more 3D and spherical— like compared with the Will one- the light doesn’t really curve the way it would on a spherical object yknow?

Frames 2+3 -

Okay so- as far as I’m aware these two frames are right next to each other (no other frames in between) and this is so tedious but if you look at the heart/light in his left eye (our right) you can see half the light just disappearing. Specially- the one on the cornea and not the iris (which would make sense if that was added afterwards because usually light is more prominent on the iris)

AND if you look at his right eye (our left) you see this little light also disappear (here’s a gif I made compare sorry in advance for the quality-

LIKE OBVIOUSLY HE MOVES A BIT- but it’s just so interesting how when the light fades in his left eye there’s this weird like— outline the iris has around the light.

Also- it doesn’t really show on the gif but on his right eye when the light disappears you can sorta see more like— red lines in his eyes? So I feel like maybe they removed it or yknow something

Idk it’s all just things I’ve noticed and idk if any of this makes sense but 😌 yeah- I’m not fully knowledgeable on these things so there might be a better explanation but I wanted to be delusional for a bit today.

Hope you enjoyed 😌

[videoplanchette]

TLDR: This is a marketing tool to sell dolls

So, I finished the live-action Monster High Movie last night.

It was fine. Like everything it has its pros and cons which I will be covering.

And I don't know why this is the camel that's breaking my straws or whatever the hell-- but if I see one more hyperbolic clickbaity thumbnail or post describing why this is somehow the "worst" movie people have ever seen, I think I'm going be arrested. I've binged all of the monster high shorts, and 3D animated movies, and my brain is complete goddamn mush at this point. The live-action movie isn't even the worst thing associated with the monster high brand. Like to the veteran fans who have been here and are saying that this series used to be "better"-- What crack are you smoking, just curious? Like this series has been straight-up nonsense at points because it's meant to sell toys first and foremost. I want to highlight the whole nostalgia goggles we tend to wear and tell you what it actually is. It's bias. just call it what it is, it's bias.

There are a few different reasons why this claim of Gen3 or the live-action movie, in general, being toted as "the worst thing ever" gets under my skin. I'll be trying to engage with this movie as well as most of the marketing choices with this new line of dolls in good faith. Versus assuming every misstep or mistake is somehow an attack. During this long tangent of a post, I want everyone to repeat to themselves "this is a show meant to sell toys to children; I will not send death threats over this."

To immediately get this out of the way, if you're mad because they made Frankie Stein Nonbinary/Trans, or if they made Draculaura chubby? I'm sorry but you are beyond even my help-- get well soon.

I mostly want to address the criticism of the changed art style, personalities, dynamics, and interests of the characters themselves. I guess why this is exhausting for me because as a long-time fan of other franchises which has canon routinely altered to adhere to trends or the whim of new writers, this happens a lot.

A

Lot

Actually

Don't even get me started on Scooby Doo.

And I've seen this trend of trying to pigeonhole each new reboot of a beloved franchise as either the "best" or "worst" thing ever. And sure enough, when a good thing like Rottmnt is there, it's canceled before anyone actually realized it was worth a second look, even though the animation and voice cast was always on point. Or in Voltron's case, while met with initial praise, it tried to please everybody, while pleasing nobody. Nobody likes change, I get it.

Personally, I wish we had fewer reboots and more of an emphasis on original projects these days, but then how would we buy dolls?

Speaking of the Monster High Dolls. One thing I find hilariously hypocritical about people criticizing the changes made to the characters complaining about "coherency" and the like-- You folks do remember that this series was made specifically to adapt horror icons from the famed Universal Monster library and Gothic Literature characters into teenagers who attend school, make out with each other and wear gaudy clothes? Like again you guys are watching a derivative of a derivative! Like Monster High is a high school AU of HG Wells, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, and GREEK MYTH!

I can understand the reservations to like the reboot, but I can guarantee you it's a more faithful adaptation than Winx: Fate or River Dale. It doesn't even scratch the batshit wildness that either of those series tried to pull. It's not entertainingly bad. The movie is genuinely decent. All the actors look like they wanted to be there and they all deliver their performances (especially Frankie's) with energy and charm.

Yes, the effects, costumes, and make-up are cheap, but I'd rather have cheap makeup done by unionized compensated workers with ambition than CGI everything. If anything it reminds me of my favorite made for TV Halloween movies from my childhood, like Scary Godmother or Halloweentown.

I guess what I'm trying to say, for a commercial to sell me a new line of dolls, it could have been a lot worse.

[macronectes]

Can you share accurate images of tardigrades? And/or explain why the lumpy 3d cgi is inaccurate?

okay so

[Keep in mind, i'm not an expert by any means, in fact i'm just studying for my master's degree right now. But for the past ~4 years i've been a part of the Tardigrada research group at my university and the more i study them the more painful it is to look at those horrible cgi images - and i'll try to explain why without nerding too much.]

First and foremost, i totally understand where these depictions are coming from. If you google 'water bear' you get this, right?

This is an SEM (scanning electron microscope) image, not a photo. And the thing with those is that you have to prepare your specimen in a very specific way to get a good result. I won't get into too much detail but you need your animal dead and completely dehydrated for this - and although there is a method of drying them up while keeping the body shape relatively unchanged (like in this image), it's still really far from a living creature being photographed.

Also it's colored because initial SEM images look like this:

source

And so we get art, animations etc. depicting living tardigrades being based on that. Basically blobfish treatment (looking at a somewhat deformed animal that has been taken out of its natural environment and using it as the primary reference), but not as severe.

Moving on to the actual reasons why this

and this

is wrong

Colors

Again, since artists use colored SEM images as reference, we get these piglet-hued (or vaguely bear-hued) creatures that look completely opaque. But the thing is, SEM is designed to give you the topography of an object's surface, so no matter what you put in there you'll never get an impression that something is see-through, even if in reality it is. And most tardigrades are semi-transparent!

Here's an example of a living tardigrade under a light microscope (on a temporary slide):

This is not the best quality because this was taken through an eyepiece with my phone camera, but that's basically what you're going to see if the light passes through them.

The main color here is yellowy green - that's actually the contents of the gut (in the middle) as well as body cavity cells. Other species may have pigment in their cuticle or in the cells underneath it so you get almost non-transparent (and beautifully colored) animals - like this armored water bear (Heterotardigrada):

Alright, this is how they look if we use penetrating light. But what if we look at them under a top light?

They are white-ish but still a bit transparent - and again, we can clearly see the contents of the gut in some of them!

And here's an armored tardigrade with more pigment (source):

Inside its head we can also see its bucco-pharyngeal apparatus (mouth tube + pharynx) and a pair of eyes! :)

This is the closest we get to taking pictures of water bears in a classical sense. As you can see, they're nothing like these robots-wrapped-in-human-skin type drawings.

Legs and mouth

This is mainly in response to that pink, fleshy, much too agile moss piglet in the gif above.

Yes, they are called water bears but that doesn't mean they have actual articulated paws like mammals do. If we take a closer look at an average "smooth" tardigrade leg (Mesobiotus occultatus in this case) we get something like

(A is light microscopy, C is SEM)

There are 2 branched claws on the leg here (the numbers may be different in other species). Note that the claws are basically part of the cuticle, made from the same material, so they are not growing Out of the leg, they are just On it. The leg itself is stubby, ending smoothly, without points of articulation - this is what's called a lobopod. There are some species of marine water bears with a much more complicated leg/claw/finger structure but we're not going to talk about them because the author of that gif was trying to depict a terrestrial or a freshwater tardigrade - and they certainly don't have those.

So yeah, no paws, no palms, no wrists, sorry.

And they don't move like that, but that's for later.

Next, this snout here

is where the mouth opening is located. Yes, the whole buccal cone can protract or retract, but only slightly, as there are no telescopic structures here. Here it is turned inwards:

What i'm trying to say is that a tardigrade absolutely Cannot violently throw this cone forward and make a grabbing motion as shown in that gif. They use their muscular pharynx to suck in small food particles or the contents of larger cells that they first pierce with a pair of stylets - sort of like spears that can protrude out of the mouth opening.

Movement

This post is getting too long now so i'm gonna say real quick: tardigrades don't swim or float with legs dangling, they walk/crawl/climb/whatever - main thing is they need a surface. If you knock a tardigrade off its moss leaf, or algae colony, or another invertebrate creature, it will sink until it clings to another object in its surroundings. In most tardigrades different pairs of legs serve different purposes - the first three moving back and forth propelling the animal forward, whereas the fourth pair is usually pointed backwards and helps them hang on to whatever surface they can reach.

I hope this wasn't too boring. I really love these chubby little guys and i want people to get the right ideas about them. :)

I want to end this post with an award-winning photo of a tardigrade shot by Tagide deCarvalho:

And here are some links to beautiful photos and videos i encourage you to check out if you want to look at tardigrades in all their glory - and, perhaps, get inspired to create more accurate art of these wonderful animals:

[farfromstrange]

I watched Antman And The Wasp: Quantumania last night and I have some thoughts!

If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to be spoiled, I’d suggest you don’t push the ‘read more’ button. If you have watched it or are nosy (like me) go ahead! And if you're currently not the biggest MCU fan, just letting you know that it's a good review, so do with it as you will.

Okay, let’s get into it.

I watched the movie in 3D and English, thank God, so I got the full experience.

I want to start off by saying that I had both low and high expectations, the former coming from a fear of Marvel screwing up Phase 5 and making me not enjoy their movies as much as I used to, and the latter because of the same reason because I don't want Marvel to screw it up and I hoped Antman would be as good as the trailer promised. I also hoped for Marvel to do their best at starting off Phase 5 after so much talk about how exciting it was going to be and that the future of the MCU was looking up again. I hoped for that.

In the end, Antman wasn't as good as it was promised in the trailer and the many reviews of the first screening I've read before.

It was better. Much, much better. And that comes from a personal place, of course, and how I viewed it, but let me just say, the entire room was burning (in a good way) and I wasn't the only one blown away.

Now that I've said it, I have to explain why I think that way. Or, I want to because I'm annoying and I like to share my opinion on things that no one asked for. (And most of you voted for more Daredevil thoughts no one asked for in the poll I made - this may not be Daredevil or Matt Murdock related, but in the end DD: Born Again will be part of Phase 5 so Antman actually plays an important part. It just set an example for what's about to come.)

1) I went into this movie with the fear that Marvel rushed the CGI again and completely missed the point (I liked Thor: Love And Thunder but the special effects and world building could have been better) so I kind of went into it with the fear that they ruined it. It, however, did not disappoint. Marvel did not disappoint with the CGI or world building. They did an incredible fucking job with it. And whoever is leaving terrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes... have you watched the movie? Because from what I've read, we've seen two entirely different versions. And I'm not saying this because I'm prejudiced (okay, maybe I'm holding onto too much hope, but whatever, I've viewed this movie entirely objectively because I was not convinced that Marvel would actually pull it off). The movie did exactly that. They pulled it off. Which brings me to…

2) They outdid themselves with the world building. I watched it in 3D, as previously stated, and I felt as if I was actually there. The Quantum Realm was so well-made, I can't really describe it. It partly looked like I was staring at the corals under the sea, then there were obviously some of the elements that we saw in Multiverse of Madness when they, like, entered the broken Multiverse. It was a lot, but it was well-made. Anyway! Watching it, I found myself thinking back to when Endgame came out and I watched the big battle scene. You know, when Marvel didn’t rush their projects? They did amazing and I bow down to the team. It was great, it gave me many different vibes and I just felt so enchanted at certain points because they created something magical with this. I might be exaggerating, everyone is going to have a different opinion on this movie, and that’s okay, but in my opinion, this was an amazing start and I hope Marvel continues doing what they did with Antman in their future projects.

3) The details. Let's talk about the details. The Quantum-People (I will call them that now) weren't overdone. They looked as real as something that actually doesn't exist can look real, and I was in love with the creature without holes (I have no idea what else to call him). The detail with the "ooze" that made them understand the language of the Quantum-People was also an amazing addition and of course, a necessity; I would not have sat through two hours of gibberish. And when it came to the Quantum Realm and the core, I could have sworn I saw hints at the mirror dimension. It looked like mirrors floating around anyway. And the probabilities that split Hope and Scott into several parts of themselves? Yeah, it really looked like I was staring at a million Paul Rudd's. I'm not kidding, if Marvel had done it like She-Hulk, I would not have been convinced because it would not have looked as real as it did. There are other details that I can't quite remember, I would have to watch it again to go deeper, but who knows, maybe I will. I loved it and I would so watch it again.

4) The balance between comedy, darkness and drama was perfect. We know Scott Lang is a funny guy and Paul Rudd was born for that role, but they incorporated jokes at just the right moments, and they weren’t overdone. It made the entire cinema laugh, and didn’t feel forced. Not to speak of the battle scene at the end, it had me at the edge of my seat. I thought Cassie was going to die, then I thought Scott was going to die, then I thought Hope was going to die... I had a lot of thoughts all the time. They really made it so that you wouldn't suspect anything. I thought the villagers would lose; they didn't. I thought something might happen to our protagonists; nothing happened. Or, something did happen, but no one died. And then I thought Kang would still win, especially when he pulled Scott away from the portal and beat him senseless. I was almost crying because I thought Marvel killed another Avenger, but then Hope came and she saved the day. And they still managed to make me laugh throughout even the parts that had me scared for everyone's lives, and then I cried when the portal disappeared and I was like: NO GOD PLEASE NO. But they’re safe (for now). They came back. They made it out. That's all that matters for now. We are not looking into the future because God forbid, I am scared for every single MCU character - no one is safe!

5) I really loved Cassie. That’s it. I don’t have more to say. She was perfectly badass while sharing her father’s humor and attitude (which I completely support) so they did a great job with her too.

6) The Ants. They did the movie title justice. It wasn't just some timeline slash multiversal mess, they actually incorporated the ants and Hank's connection to the ants. And the way they started building their own technology? We need to appreciate the intelligence of ants because they're not just smart in the movie, they're also pretty smart insects in real life!

When they came to save everyone’s asses in the end? I was like, ‘You go ants!’ And I liked Hank in this movie too. Jane not so much, but with that I mean her character and not the acting performance. They did all remarkably well.

I’m not a movie critic, so I don't have a professional view of things or whatever, but it was really great and they exceeded my expectations with how the characters were portrayed, what they did and when they appeared. And the casting of Kang is *chef's kiss* honestly. I thought it when watching Loki and I'm even more convinced now that he is going to absolutely kill it in Phase 5. Amazing villain, amazing actor, well done! (Now I sound like one of those critics, but I promise, I'm not. I'm just an obsessed fangirl who doesn't know much, she just likes to watch movies, and now also reads comics, and who's just chronically obsessed with Marvel and everything relating to it.)

6) The foreshadowing at the end, at first, made me think, I knew this would come; the fear of Kang and what he said about everyone dying and Scott worrying about it. I expected that much, but then the mid-credit scene came on and I was like ‘hold up a minute, WHAT?’ When all of Kang’s variants got together to conjure up some evil plan. I did not expect that.

7) AND THEN LOKI IN THE POST-CREDIT SCENE? I thought to myself, maybe we’ll get the trailer for season 2 (and I’m really not that excited for it because of the last season, but I’m still gonna watch the shit out of it), and then the scene came on and I saw Loki AND Mobius together, sniffing out Kang, and I gasped. I audibly gasped. ‘Cause it was an entirely different timeline and I’m not sure if those were our Loki and Mobius or variants, but I guess we’ll find out in the show. And Kang will return, so he IS gonna be the villain of Phase 5 (which we all already knew) and I think that’s awesome.

Maybe I’ll talk some more when I’ve processed what I watched. But for now, that’s what struck me the most.

[kirbyofthestars]

FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE X3 5/?

And with that as one of the upper dogs at Disney said “ say there are 2 studios one being a popular studio and the other being a so and so studio, so the so so studio peaks over at the popular studio and says oh that’s why are movies are failing we need there kind of camera, and visual effects. Of course that’s not the case but that’s how Disney sees it with 2D animation and 3D” that whole interview is very interesting btw

Moving on so every studio moved on to 2D animation except for Disney the kept… FIGHT FOR THERE LIFE, but to no avail in the minds of the masses 2D animation might as well be some useless caveman art where living in the future, and so the final 2D animated movie and the Disney movie with the best song came out the princess and the frog critically it was a masterpiece but the thing is it was released 5 days before… a-Avatar. And as the ceo of Disney said, “because of the buzz surround the move avatar most saw princess and the frog as just a move for… uh little girls so that’s the reason we called trangled. Well trangled we want to differentiate from the source material to give it a chance” and another thing he said “if there was people who wanted to see 2D movies again then they would off went to see this movie anyways at the point where it was it was profitable enough to keep afloat so. Why bother.” And with that Winnie the Pooh came out.  A period at the end of the page for 2d animated.

And other thing most weren’t even going to see the 3d movies for them being good or anything it was mostly the special effects, don’t believe me we’ll just look at the time what kind of movies where coming out between 1996 to 2001 look at some of the movies 2 tornados movies and 2 volcano movies 3 astroid movies and finally 4 BLOODY FLOOD MOVIES ALL IN THE SAME YEAR. And there wasn’t even any good characters to help the movie be anything more it was just Big Bang theory level geek as the main character, why? It was easy why “waste time” making good characters or write a better plot? The star of the show is the CGI baby. So every movie was a disaster movie all of a sudden and any other movies suffered because no one cared, best example is superhero movies they where just Batman and robin and spawn. Those movies are anything but good enough said(although the spawn comic is one of the best comics I have ever read) so anything other then a disaster movie was scene as lame boring or bad. And the reason why most of these are forgotten to the stains of time is because they weren’t about heroes they were about survivors there not inspiring anyone to do anything greater because just having the words JUST DON’T DIE in impact font would have the same effect, unlike say the Truman show the whole movie is about some one being trapped then taking matters into his own hands and breaking out of the cage he was thrown into to entertain everyone, and compare that to Twister where the whole movie is just some guy and his family trying to survive a bad scenario, and that basically sums up most of the movies during that time. But Godzilla 98 was pretty good but not a good Godzilla movie. But finally back on topic to 2D animated movies

In away it’s like the western a genre which was at its time master works of art.

Giving us some of the most iconic scenes In movie history and movie history as a whole

but because of Oversaturation it died riding off into the sunset only coming back to be the but of the joke. How ever unlike 2D animated movies there still o ne we stern m o st wa n T TO seeeeeeeeeeee :)

BUT GOD BE DAMNED I’M THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS BIGGER EFFECTS THIS HAS OVER MEDIA AND CULTURE BLAST SOME COOL MUSIC IF YOU CAN NO RUSH OE ANYTHING!!!!

FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE X3 5/?

5/

[umichenginabroad]

Week 8: Robots and Morocco

This week, I went on my long-awaited trip to Morocco! But first, Robots.

As a STEM student and a sci-fi enthusiast, there was no way I was going to be able to leave Madrid without visiting the robot museum. Located in a mall, the museum was a small collection of robots throughout popular culture. I had never been to the neighborhood where the museum was before, and as soon as I exited the metro station, I seriously felt like I was in a different city. The museum is in a neighborhood east of the center called Salamanca, and it was probably the most upscale part of Madrid I have been in so far. Gran Vía with all its stores, didn’t even come close. It was cool to look around that part of the city, and I definitely want to come back to walk around more and maybe grab a cup of coffee.

In the museum, we saw some of the first robots used in sci-fi movies. They were human-sized to allow people to stand inside and control them, since they didn’t have CGI or VFX back then. They also had a pretty big display of dancing and singing robots throughout history, like Pepper, the white humanoid robot below. We also saw reproductions of robots in popular films, like Star Wars and Iron Man.

Some of my favorite robots we saw were PLEO, the Honda Asimo replica, and a completely open-source robot that can be built at home with a 3D printer!

PLEO is kind of like a physical Tamagotchi- it needs you to take care of it, it gets hungry, angry, etc., and you can feed it food. Something interesting is that the original versions of PLEO were able to “die,” meaning they would turn off and not have a way to power on again. But, it also cost hundreds of dollars, and buyers were quick to complain about an expensive toy that could be rendered useless in a few months. So, they decided to allow it to power back on for future generations.

The Honda Asimo is a humanoid robot released in 2000. More than the picture below, I highly recommend clicking this and at least watching a few seconds of the robot (I recommend the 2:00 timestamp). When I saw it, I couldn’t believe the first version was unveiled in 2000! It can do so many cool things and definitely felt ahead of its time.

This robot was my favorite. Created by InMoov (click for another video) . It’s an open source 3D printed robot that can be printed by anyone! I thought it was an amazing idea to create a robot that can be made in such an accessible way. Something like this, even on a smaller scale, would be awesome to get people excited about robotics and engineering from the comfort of their own home. I know I would definitely love creating something like this in my free time!

Overall, I really enjoyed the museum and it was a great way to spend a couple hours in the city after school.

Now, onto the big one of this week: Morocco!!! Since it was such an influential trip, I’ll be describing it a little more in detail, but if you want to just look at the pictures of places and read my thoughts, skip over the parts highlighted in blue.

I knew before even coming to Madrid that I wouldn’t let myself go back to the US without visiting Morocco. It’s seriously so close! With it being just a 2 hour flight, I swear it took longer in the Morocco airport going through all the checks than it did to actually fly there (more on this later). 

This was the first trip I’ve taken that was through another company who planned it all, and it was really nice to not have to really think about the itinerary. There were about 70 people, which also made it a lot of fun to meet everyone throughout the trip. This was also my first time in Africa, so I was really excited to see what the people, food, culture, etc. was like. Landing and driving into Marrakech, it was immediately clear why Marrakech is called “The Red City.” All the houses, buildings, walls of the old city, are this vivid terracotta red color. We landed in the morning, so we immediately started going around Marrakech to knock out a lot of the main sights before we started our trip into the Sahara desert the next morning. Walking around, I was reminded a lot of my trips to India. The biggest similarities were the people all over the streets, the honking, and the lack of crosswalks. To cross, you kinda just had to walk and not stop until you reached the other side. 

We walked through the city to first visit the Jardin Majorelle, a garden designed by a French painter which actually ended up making him more famous than his paintings. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I could see the amount of thought that went into designing the buildings, fountains, ponds, and the meticulous planning of where and how each flower and plant was planted. It was clear that every choice was intentional, and I definitely understand why he became famous for this garden. 

Then, we stopped by the Secret Garden, a quiet oasis in the middle of the otherwise bustling Medina. It seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the city, and was such a beautiful place to see. Throughout the garden, there were small canals of water flowing to cool down the garden in the summer, and they had little explanations of how the flow was constructed which I definitely nerded out about.

Our next stop was the Bahia Palace, where we saw the traditional Moroccan tiling and colors decorating the palace. It was massive, and was such a beautiful place to sit and take in the atmosphere. Walking through this palace, I recognized just how much of Spanish architecture borrows from the islamic architecture of Morocco. More in the south of Spain, but still apparent in other places, the patterned tiling and floral detailing was clearly influenced by Moroccan architecture. Even in Madrid souvenir shops around the city, you can see tiles being sold with colorful geometric patterns, and I learned that those patterns are actually Moroccan.

Our last stop was the Saadian Tombs, where we saw tombs housed in an elaborately carved white stone building. 

The next morning, we started our journey into the desert. We split the journey into two days, stopping by Ait Benhaddou, an old clay city that’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is where a ton of movies were filmed, including Game of Thrones and Gladiator. In fact, when we visited, we couldn’t really go all the way up since they were filming Outer Banks Season 4. I learned that until recently, the village didn’t have any electricity, and currently, the only form of current electricity comes from solar panels. Most of the residents have since moved out, but there are surprisingly still some people who live there. It really was a place unlike any I’ve ever been to! We then spent the night in the Rose valley before continuing on.

Next, we stopped at the Todgha Gorge, a huge rock formation. It was so beautiful to walk through with the sun hitting it just right in the morning light. Then, we dressed in traditional Berber attire, learning a little bit about the Berber culture. Something interesting about Morocco is that they actually have three main languages: Berber, Arabic, and French. Berbers are the people who lived in Northern Africa before Arabic influence, and Morocco was under French rule for a while, so that’s where the language influences come from. It was interesting to learn that their everyday language included words from all three languages, resulting in a dialect called Darija. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of English people spoke, but I think one change from studying abroad is that I tried to pick up a few common words in Arabic like thank you, hello, please, and use them whenever I can. Before studying abroad in Madrid where I had to use Spanish, I probably wouldn’t have tried to make an effort. But, recognizing how much local people appreciate it when you try from my experiences here, I decided to try, and I think I will continue to do that whenever I can.

As soon as we reached the desert, the first thing we did was ride ATVs. It was my first time driving an ATV, and it was so much fun! One time, a bunch of us got stuck on an uphill, and a local boy, not more than 6 years old, masterfully got us out of the sand. I was really impressed, and it made me think about what it might be like to grow up in the area. Definitely different from anything I’m used to, but judging by the big smile on his face and his pro driving skills, even more adventurous and carefree. 

Then, we took a camel into the middle of the Sahara to stay the night. Weirdly enough, it was my second time on a camel, but I have still never ridden a horse. We then sandboarded a little before heading to our tents. We stayed at a little camp with tents that were more like “Glamping.” The camp had a firewall to block all data signals, so it was a completely disconnected evening. That night, we had a little bonfire party with traditional Berber dancing and music, as well as a DJ who played some of the more familiar music. It was really fun to be out in the desert among the stars, surrounded by the vastness of the dunes. The Sahara is just so beautiful with its reddish desert sand. Sitting on the top of a sand dune and peering out into the distance was such a relaxing feeling.

The next morning, we headed back out to Marrakech on a long 13 hour drive, which put us into Marrakech around 10pm. We made a few scenic stops along the way. At one of our many rest stops, we stopped at a place that made Argan oil by hand, peeling the nuts and using a stone grinder to produce the oil. As a regular buyer of the Moroccan Argan Oil from Trader Joes, it was super cool to see how it was made traditionally. By the end of the drive, I was so happy to be out of a bus and off the road. 

The next day, we were given a tour of the markets, Jemaa el-Fna, and we went inside a local pharmacy that explained about herbs and other natural remedies used in Moroccan culture. It was interesting to recognize that a lot of the natural remedies we learned about were things my parents had given me growing up. Like cumin for stomach aches, for example.

One thing I recommend trying if you ever visit Morocco is embracing the local cuisine by trying things like couscous, tagine (pictured below), and Moroccan mint tea. It’s quite different from other foods I’ve tried, and they’re pretty good, so even if it doesn’t look like it’s something you might like, I’d still recommend going out of your comfort zone a little to give it a little taste!

Now, about the airport. First, there was a line for security before even entering the airport. Then, I had to go to the desk with a piece of paper to get a stamp on it to validate it as my boarding pass. The most surprising part was that to check in, they had a paper list of all the passengers with their seats on a chart and they manually checked it off with a pen. I had never seen that in any airport before! Then, there was another line for actual airport security, then passport check, then another to check the passport check, and then finally, for boarding. And these lines took their own sweet time. So you could imagine how it took two hours to get through everything. Pro tip: get there 2-3 hours before your flight for a stress free experience.

Reflecting on my time in Marrakech walking through the streets and around the market , I felt like the chaos and “danger” of it all is a little overplayed by the "Western World". I’ve heard multiple times that the amount of people in the Medina, the old city, can be chaotic and overwhelming, and to watch out everywhere for people trying to sell you things and scam you. But to be honest, I think if you’re just basic city smart, it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Yes, it’s not going to be as comfortable as the United States, or Europe, or other countries in the “Western World”, but I definitely don’t think it’s anything to be afraid of. In fact, I’d say embrace the freedom of being able to cross the street whenever, because you can trust that the people that drive in Marrakesh are pros in their own streets. Embrace the hustle and bustle of people everywhere: take some time to eat in one of the main squares and just observe how many people make their livelihoods in the city. Embrace the people on the street if they approach you to buy something: politely say no, and understand that tourism is Morocco’s largest income. So it’s really just an everyday hustle too. While this may seem like an overly positive view, I feel like if you go into situations like those with that kind of mindset, there'll be nothing to worry about. 

Overall, I absolutely loved this trip and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. Thanks for sticking around for this longer post :)

Signing out for now,

Isha Venkatesh

Mechanical Engineering

Comillas — Madrid, Spain

P.S. I know, I’m pretty behind on my drawings… life’s picking up a bit, and I’m reminded of why I usually don’t crank out a drawing a week in my normal life. I can’t promise anything, but since this was a New Year’s resolution, I’m doing my best to catch up.

[nonamem9]

warning: pdf file, very long not recommend to read

slept after eating lugaw this morning, got this vivid and very long and detailed dream

stepping to zack jerryringeverything's store, a place that appeared in a previous dream i felt like few or several years ago

he acts and looks a bit odd than his youtube persona as if he's hiding his disability, and he is starting to close down his shop because of lower sales, i asked about the sales pre pandemic vs now, it was 440k vs 110k. he talked about flash games are becoming popular again since theyre a bit easy and faster to download.

met this one kid (2d animated) and his blue floating animated bean friend (3d animation that looks like 2d)

i mentally called the bean guy an "imaginary friend" when he's physically real and can interact the world around him, just a lack of a better term at the moment.

we spotted a tricycle nearby us and inside the passenger area ifound tin can of tuna that shows a flash game called "s[something something here] x madelline" a giant futa fucking a tiny madeline, theres a note saying about the creator might've regretting this making it public before he got caught

this is where the plot starts to kick in

the animated kid and the animated bean dude talks about this mysterious guy being a fuckin weirdo to his friend that is a girl, she is dead

this is now an episodic tv show that the kid and the bean are the main character/narrator telling a story about the protagonist, i am merely the listener "reliving" the horrible memories of the crime that he witness slowly unfold, sometimes i am in there sometimes im just a reacting voice

back at the jerryrigeverything shop where other people just hang out and discuss stuff, back at the flash game talk and someone is playing one h flash game and the grandma knows the details and makes innuendos

we felt very weird so the 3 of us fuckin left and run, the blue bean esaping first in the speed of sound, then the kid, after him its me runnin

almost irrelevant cgi scene sequence on new york's grid city formation that doesn't stylistically fit the "real life/live action and 2d and 3d animation" aesthetic, spinning slowly built buildings with the name of the tower/complex like "twitchy city building" which is pathetically short for a "skyscraper"

back to the normal show

some flashbacks to the friend that became a victim and died

we're at what seems to be a store on a mixed use area, in the store is a photoshoot place of 3 people who are vtubers, one of them is the pdf file criminal, they're all 3d animated in this live action world, in the background tv behind the 3 i see mori calliope and silvervale, theyre likely not related to the three

i was holding a thin square box where it reflects and stuff, trying to hide n shit for some reason i dont remember, this scene is where we felt uncomfortable knowing that the disgusting guy is alive and still here, nobody knowing the past except us 3. (blue bean guy isnt in the photo iirc)

we got out

cut, that's it, a cut

other episode where i dont appear and is just a voice,kid retelling of the first day of school, for visualization's sake the school is just a grass field with tables, chairs, and other school supplies. i think this episode is just about meeting the girl and the friends they have, they're all in the same 2d animated style, nothing horrible happened its just another episode of meeting the characters from the past. kinda like the previous one is meeting the cast of the present times.

another episode that was supposedly in this dream, the 3rd one, didnt really appear or i didint remember

oh yeah the kid (in the present) is 14-15 and the victim girl is 16?? i think. i think as they get older they get more "detailed" and more refined sets of colours??? idk theyre more definitive as time goes on thats the gist, not really sure about the color part

woke up 11:04: am

what a heavy show concept, with an interesting look for some reason??

ive never had a dream this so long, vivid, and most importantly, conceptually consistent in my life what the hell.

[the-scottish-costume-guy]

Imperial plez. (Asky mathingie)

imperial: what film, in your opinion, has the best cinematography and/or special effects?

Oh fuck thats a hard one. Thing is special effects/cinematography are both things that can individually be impressive as hell - but also if they serve the narrative thats the best thing for it? Sorry I can't do one, we're having a list broken down into sections: Practical effects (puppetry, make up artistry, animatronics ect): 1) Jurassic park - probably shouldn't be up for debate here lads the animatronics were revolutionary 2) Star Trek Beyond - they were kind of robbed of the make up artistry award. Their alien designs, all practical effects, were stunning. 3) The childs play franchise - seriously its kind of impressive the technqiues they used and how seamless it is Special mentions: Dungeons and dragons honour among theives (I appreciate the dedication to practical effects where possible, but it wasn't as natural or seamless as the above), Megan (the way they made the doll face/mask was frankly pretty spooky and very well done.) Back to the future (flaming tire tracks are just cool). The haunting (subtle effects in this one, its an oldie but a goodie). CGI: 1) Avatar (both the first and second films) sorry but they are just innovative and look great. Plot isn't exactly as innovative but visually its stunning. 2) I do have a place in my heart for the 'live action' alice in wonderland - again it looked really awesome. 3) Pirates of the caribbean - it doesnt hold up as well as some, but damn that shit blew my mind as a kid. Cgi is a weird one, special mentions to: frankly all of the disney 3d animation department; Sandman, only not mentioned properly because its a tv show but its a perfect example of CG enhancing practical effects. Similair lines and I cant believe I'm saying this; Troy - again using cgi to enhance practical effects. Other blended films, one series that gets a bad time of it - Star Wars, and again Jurassic Park. Bad examples to me: The marvel franchise, Green Lantern - use CGI to do things that cant be done. Movies I dont know where to put them: 1) Who framed roger rabbit - not sure what to call what they did for this, practical effects with animation blended in? Either way the fact they had the balls to play with lighting - good shit? Cinematography: 1) The Batman - I really noticed how much I enjoyed the cinematography of the batman. Love it or hate it, stylistically it was really interesting. 2) The shawshank redemption - this is the film that got me invested in film studies in the first place. Cinematography is not an area I know or understand quite as well as some others. Again special mention ot the dnd movie it was good. There are hundreds of good examples of cinematography and Im taking the easy out now of stopping at 2.

[quirrelli]

Marvel Rewatch Thread

Originally posted: 25.02.22-14.03.22

Haven't seen most of the Marvel movies since they came out but I have a sudden urge to rewatch them like a TV show, with Endgame as the season finale. And to tweet about it. (Feel free to mute this thread if you're only here for the art.)

Iron Man still fucking rules. It has so much of what I like to call buzz porn. I will never get tired of the suiting up sequences.

Evil Jeff Bridges with a cigar on a Segway. A king.

We've all gotten used to it by now but the way they show Tony's face in the 3D-void with the digital interface over it is actually pretty ingenious.

Speaking of Tony, RDJ may always play himself, but the man oozes charisma from the points of his funky goatee to the bell bottoms of his suit pants.

And Jarvis too! I've never not loved a Paul Bettany performance. I predict I may say this several more times, but the casting carried this franchise from the start.

That final battle is like, what if Transformers but good?

---

Ah, the famously maligned Iron Man 2. It's true, it's not as good as the first but nevertheless, the War Machine suit FUCKS. (And so does the song).

I like Whiplash, it's Hammer that's the problem. Everyone, but especially he talks so much that the quippy bickering that is 90% of the dialogue stops being amusing like it was in 1 and becomes draggy.

Also, the narrative structure is much less clean. Iron Man 1's plot is a tight piece of ass, where 2 needs to do some more squats.

---

The Incredible Hulk certainly is an odd little duckling in the lineup. Its connection to the rest of the MCU is so tenuous as to almost not be felt at all, especially with Norton's recasting. It's also the only one without a post-credits stinger.

I will say I like Norton!Banner, but there is something off about this Hulk's face. Maybe the technology just wasn't quite there yet in 2008.

Certainly appropriately green color palette throughout though. I'm also noticing a certain grimy, tactile nature to these early entries that's gradually lost as more and more of the sets and even costumes get replaced by pure CGI. Some jumpy editing here and there too.

---

Again, the casting in these movies is stellar across the board but man, Chris Evans is such a perfect Captain America in every way. Certainly the best bod in the biz, come at me, rival Chris stans.

That replacement effect they did with pre-serum Steve's body is surprisingly good, especially remembering much more recent travesties like the Super-stache.

The first Cap suit is still lowkey my favorite one. That functional military aesthetic is just my vibe.

---

Thor is better than I remember. Everyone, but especially Jane is super likeable actually. Also, I would trust Heimdall with my life savings, my first born, my soul and my browser history.

Besides Tony, Loki arguably carried this franchise more than any other character and he proves yet again that family makes the best villains.

---

The Avengers takes me back. It might be old news now, but this is the movie that invented the concept of the "cinematic universe". Like, that wasn't a word before. It was thrilling.

I remember when I got into Marvel after the first Iron Man came out, reading rumors about a potential Avengers movie and thinking that it was never going to happen. It would be too big, too expensive, too much to set up, just unfeasable on every level. And then it... happened.

That first arc of the MCU might have also been the best execution of a cinematic universe to date, bc it was at that point still Tony's story at its core and his arc finishes here. But we'll see as we go along.

---

Thor 2 is the first of these that really feels like it only exists to be part of the larger franchise. That is not a good thing. It's what sank the DCU before it even left the shallows.

There's a very noticeable lack of verve compared to the first one, the cinematography and editing is so unexciting, the plot so basic. I mean they whipped out the ol' "when the planets align" chestnut. The only fun idea is the wacky gravity but they don't do enough with it.

Jane, despite being more directly involved in the conflict feels much less like an active agent than the first one and what did they do to rapier-man's hair?

I don't mean to pretend like these movies are high art or anything but this is well below the standards set, like b-tier fantasy at best.

---

I have to admit IM3 is better the second time around. The big twist obviously loses its impact but there's some good moments and it's thematically more coherent than I originally gave it credit for.

Having said that, that theme and its resolution requires that this be the end of Iron Man as a character, which it obviously won't be. It's sort of the opposite problem from the last one: Where Thor2 can't exist outside the MCU, IM3 can't exist within it.

What made me absolutely livid when I first saw this movie is that Tony gets the reactor removed. It still doesn't sit right with me, though the reasons have shifted. Then, it was bc Tony and the suit are a unit, if it's not part of him he becomes exactly what cap says he is in A1

Now, contrary to what IM3 posits, the reactor to me symbolizes accepting the wounds of the past as a permanent part of yourself and growing from them, which breaks down as a metaphor if Tony could always get rid of the shrapnel and just didn't, for some reason.

Also, the mark 42 is still fugly.

---

CA: winter soldier has some really good hand-to-hand combat and I really like the bromance with Natasha. They make a good team. Same goes for Wilson.

Because the themes of mass surveillance and corruption are more relevant than ever I'm not a huge fan of the conspiratorial bent this movie takes. It's a bit too real a subject to go full wacky Hydra long-con, you know.

---

Guardians 1 does a remarkable job being good, considering all the new stuff it has to fit in. I'm not particularly attached to any of the characters but yeah, it works, it's just a solid flick all around.

I'm having flashbacks to baby groot mania

---

Guardians 2's opening slaps. Also, de-aged Kurt Russell looks surprisingly convincing.

It's the sequel that's just better in every way. G1 laid a solid foundation that this one builds on a lot. It really digs into the characters' hearts (and makes me mix my metaphors apparently). They even manage to make the goofy tone thematic in that it's Peter's coping mechanism

Ego is the rare antagonist who isn't a foil but a natural evolution of the protagonist. Definitely in the upper echelons of Marvel villains.

I really like the ship with the little movable laser balls. Creative.

---

Avengers 2 time! Vision: Awesome! Hulkbuster: Awesome! That shot of Cap ripping a log in two: Awesome! Natasha calling herself a monster bc she can't have children... a choice.

I'm glad they acknowledge from the start how OP Wanda is. I'm less glad her powers are basically reduced to telekinesis when they're so much funkier than that.

Why did they give Ultron so much... face? Especially combined with Spader's expressive performance it would have been much more unsettling to have a motionless mask.

This movie really takes IM3 from a mixed bag to utterly pointless.

It could be on my end but the audio mixing is off. Some of the sfx are weirdly quiet in places.

---

Ant-Man is definitely a breath of fresh air after all relentless power escalation of the previous batch of movies. Slows down a little, brings down the scale (hah), you know

Although I do remain a touch salty that they didn't go with original ant-man/yellowjacket, especially since they already transplanted the Ultron storyline to Tony. I would have liked to have seen mad scientist Pym and his merry circus of fucked up alter-egos.

---

Movie civil war is better than comic book civil war bc it ties into the characters way more and bc the inciting incident actually directly involves an avenger, and one who is famously volatile to boot. Still perhaps a touch contrived though.

Black Panther!!! The only hero who may out-cool Tony. RIP, king.

Why are the police in Bucharest speaking German? That really threw me, to the point I was unsure where that part was taking place. Pretty serious oversight honestly.

And why did steve kiss this random side character who doesn't matter? In a movie as long as this you can't really afford to keep dead end plot lines like that around.

My aesthetic is steve rogers' biceps.

---

Listen, Toby Maguire will always have a special place in my heart, but Holland is the best package as far as spider-men go. Even though obviously no-one here looks their age I do buy Holland as conceptual teenager. Like, the energy is correct, in a way it never was before.

I really enjoy dad!Tony's ineptitude too. There was a touch of that IM3 (keep coming back to that one, huh) but it works better here.

Did they cast Michael Keaton as the Vulture bc of Birdman? I'm gonna choose to believe they did.

If I may nitpick for a second here: The new Avengers HQ was introduced after Ultron, two years before Homecoming takes place, so why would they just now have a "moving day"?

---

I really like the tech in Black Panther. The beads, the sand, the cloaks. Really adds to Wakanda's identity separate from the rest of the universe.

Who gave Michael B. Jordan the right to be this attractive and compelling and generally a highlight of the franchise?

WAR RHINOS!!!

---

Do I have lingering trauma from being on tumblr in the years 2012-17? Yes. But I still have to admit Cumberbatch is a decent actor. My favorite thing about his casting is that there's probs no one else whose name is as evenly matched in joke potential to their character as him.

The trippy shit is great. Like Inception on LSD. Just fun to watch even if, like me, you're not super invested in the story.

Rachel McAdams is so pretty <3

---

Thor Ragnarok summary The aesthetic: impeccable The cast: hideously attractive The humor: so good The tonal shift compared to previous entries: lurching

I guess it only makes sense that the most unique, mould-breaking, complete stories have the most trouble fitting into such a behemoth of a franchise. Ragnarok might be the best MCU movie outside of the context of the MCU.

When Thor lands on the rainbow bridge all electrified, a lightning arch connects between his eye and his chest circle thingy and I love that particular frame so much.

---

The size fuckery in Ant-man 2 is even better.

I don't like the ghost's acting. Nothing wrong with the character, but her body language is stiff and awkward. Now scott's daughter, there's a real mvp.

Watching the first after credits stinger before having seen infinity war makes it super ominous actually.

---

Captain Marvel aka I'm gaaaaaay, the movie. And not just me. Carol and Maria will get married eventually and finish raising their daughter together, you cannot convince me otherwise.

Aww, I forgot about the Stanley montage. That's sweet.

I do love the mohawk.

Larson leans into the cocky badass persona a bit too far but what I like about Carol is how much joy she finds in her powers. Like so many heroes they get foisted on her but she doesn't get caught up in any "but what if I'm a monster" or "I didn't ask for this" angst.

She discovers she can fly and is like "fuck yeah I can fly! Watch me gooooo!" You know, the correct response. One of my favorite moments in the movie is when she starfishes straight through a spaceship just for shits and giggles.

---

The remarkable thing about Infinity War is that while not everyone gets an arc, everyoen at least gets a beat or two and it all makes sense and hits. That's the pinnacle of what can be achieved with a well-designed cinematic universe.

The only thing that feels a touch underdeveloped is Wanda and Vision's relationship. It's a shame bc Wandavision is such a good ship with so much history. At least they have a TV show now. Also, I notice Wanda lost her accent.

Do Strange and Tony have... chemistry? Not to get all shippy for the finale but like, I might have to check AO3 and see if there's anything good.

Why is it that all of my faves specifically have to die :(

---

Is Infinity War/Endgame the best two parter finale? A case might be made, I think.

This movie really makes me cognizant of how well structured the power escalation in this franchise is (leaving aside the fact that the sorcers are supremely OP).

Time travel and universe rearrangement is game-breaking and about as far as you can reasonably go in scale. The stakes just lose touch with what's humanly imaginable/ empathizable after that, which is why it's good that they saved it for the very end.

Endgame has a touch of the ol' "too many endings" disease but I'd say it's earned them at this point.

---

Wrap up time! First, the perhaps obvious: there's a difference between watching 22 movies and 22 TV eps. They flow different and the movie marathon does get exhausting in a way the equivalent of ~2 TV seasons wouldn't have done.

They are, for the most part, fun flicks in their own right but I'm left wondering if the individual heroes wouldn't have been better served in a semi-canon CU, where weirder titles like Dr. Strange and Ant-Man would have had more freedom to experiment.

Then again, the existence of the MCU doesn't preclude future iterations that do push the envelope a little more. In fact, Wandavision, the only one of the TV shows I've cared to watch, does go in that direction, to the point that it ends up straining against its MCU obligations.

Anyway, I'm not gonna do a ranking of the movies. Instead I'm gonna do sth much more fun and at least 5% less overdone and rank each movie's main villain! It's possible they might correlate more strongly with overall enjoyment than the heroes even. Let's see here:

1. Loki 2. Killmonger 3. Vulture 4. Hela 5. Ego 6. Winter Soldier 7. Obadiah Stane 8. Ultron 9. Thanos 10. Yon-Rogg 11. Kaecilius 12. Yellowjacket 13. Ghost 14. Red Skull 15. Aldrich Kilian 16. Whiplash 17. Zemo 18. Colonel Ross 19. Ronan the Accuser 20. Malekith

[hauspiner]

Drifting lands thepiratebay

#Drifting lands thepiratebay movie

But what she and her research team will uncover is something far deadlier and more shocking than they could ever have imagined, as the modern day explorers find themselves thrust into The Land That Time Forgot! This graphic novel includes The Land That Time Forgot #1-#3 and The Land That Time Forgot Annual Savage See-ta. Today, an expedition has been launched by Tyler's great-great-great-granddaughter Abby, a quest to find concrete evidence of Bowen Tyler's adventure. Somehow, the island was never again found, and the stories of the survivors of Caspak were considered fantasy. Bens pursuit of a passengers calling lands him in the crosshairs of an enemy. U.S.GUNBOATS SEE TYLER LEXINGTON PITTSBURG LANDS R UPPER LANDINGT I V E R. What they discovered was something that defied time, and all of known science: the island of Caspak! Hidden inside impregnable rock walls lay a prehistoric world, filled with terrifying creatures, man-eaters from every era of time, and races of savage, murderous primitives from each rung of the evolutionary ladder. Whether youre looking for the best roses like Knock Out and Drift. ROAD 7MO PM CREEK SHILOH CHURCH TPB Jo LUB dollinelelo Toa frlitli. With the choice of your class, you’ll have the opportunity to take control of different ships, best suited to your favorite gameplay style. One hundred years ago, ship-builder Bowen Tyler, a handful of British allies, and the crew of the German U-33 submarine were lost at sea, drifting near the Antarctic Circle. Drifting Lands is designed to meet both shmup and hack & slash enthusiasts’ expectations. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.īook Description Paperback. The film is presented by Columbia Pictures and Rovio Animation, CGI-animated at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

#Drifting lands thepiratebay movie

What they discovered was something that defied time, and all of known science: the island of Caspak! Hidden inside impregnable rock walls lay a prehistoric world, filled with terrifying creatures, man-eaters from every era of time, and races of savage, murderous primitives from each rung of the evolutionary ladder. The Angry Birds Movie 3: A Pirate Drift is a FAN-MADE 2021 American 3D CGI-animated action-adventure comedy movie adaptation on the Angry Birds series of video games and will be released in theaters in 3D & REAL D 3D, & 2D May 2nd, 2021. One hundred years ago, ship-builder Bowen Tyler, a handful of British allies, and the crew of the German U-33 submarine were lost at sea, drifting near the Antarctic Circle.

[chromascoping]

VFX vs. CGI

“I hate CGI!!!” yells the grumpy movie-goer. They may not know the proper terminology, but they are actually pointing towards the poorly “green-screened” person in a particular scene. Unfortunately, following modern and general industry definition, keying out green-screen elements is not CGI. It is a very small thing but knowing the difference between VFX and CGI is a key factor in understanding who actually possesses at least some knowledge when complaining about it, which can make all the difference in conversations.

 I personally find it very tiring to hear people speak on topics they know nothing about, and here is no exception. Nothing is free of critique, including visual effects, but the blatant hatred towards this film department that many movie-goers hold does not help towards larger issues like VFX artist job stability, monetary valuing, and general respect within their own industry. The last thing needed is the combined voices of millions of unknowledgeable people dictating one’s job stability, especially when they call every possible thing that was not immediately filmed “CGI”.

 So what are the definitions? CGI is computer-generated imagery, and generally regards elements that were created and rendered in a 3D engine. Digital 2D animation does also fall under the CGI umbrella, yet our focus for now will stay on the most common definition for films, 3D rendering done within the computer. Visual Effects is the larger umbrella that CGI sits within and encompasses a larger range of techniques, from motion tracking, to rotoscoping, keying, matte painting, and the overall compositing that combines all these elements into one. These techniques can sound confusing when in today’s context they are done in the computer (“If VFX is done digitally then is it not computer-generated?”), but that is an odd argument that can begin to delve into calling everything, even colour grading, CGI. It is important to un-confuse and separate the terms in this way for matter of ease, historical context and them being distinctly different concepts.

CGI can exist without VFX. VFX can exist without CGI. Both intertwine and remain very close but are separate. The difference to note is that VFX greatly predates computers, and that CGI must obviously always take place within a computer. Digital VFX techniques of today are not called CGI because they do not historically need a computer to be done. 1857 brought the world’s first visual effects image with Oscar Rejlander combining different sections of multiple film negatives into a single image. Numerous other “optical” visual effects would continue in the following decades as techniques like matte painting, keying and stitching became known, editing and altering the film itself without the use of computer technology.

 The only CGI shot in the original Star Wars: A New Hope involved the Death Star wireframe animation the rebels watched when discussing their battle plans, created by the University of Illinois as the best showcase of what computers could output at the time. The rest of the VFX in A New Hope involved optically keying those famous ship miniatures, beautiful matte paintings placed in front of the camera (originally painted on large sheets of glass, only viewable from one angle), and creating a completely new motion-control camera system that would need to be built again from the ground up by the time Empire Strikes Back began production, questionably functional only because of how new the technology was.

 So, in short, VFX is an age-old process that has CGI prominently under its umbrella but not required. The optical effects and techniques listed have not gone away, they have just been updated for the digital realm, a more stable and workable environment. VFX is here to stay, same as how it has been embedded in film since the birth of cinema. We can only hope that further discussions and arguments about it come from individuals who can understand the definition of two terms, at least as a starting ground.

[mostlydaydreaming]

Hello Dolly! (1969) - My review

This movie is often called a “bomb.” The reason for the downfall of the Hollywood musical. Many downright despise it as miscast, over-blown and too old fashioned.

Honestly, I don’t understand what all the hatred is about. The movie didn’t in fact “bomb.” It finished in the top 5 grossing movies of that year. There was still an audience for it. It lost money because of how much it cost. Some of the money was lost because the movie sat on the shelf for a year, while creditors were waiting and counting interest, because the studio bought the rights for it and insisted on filming it before it ended on broadway, The contract stipulated it couldn’t be released until the end of its broadway run, so the studio had to pay up even more to release it early to stop losing money. The producer also did a poor job of keeping track of the money. The studio wanted something big and grand, even though director Gene Kelly (who accepted the job late), admitted he would have preferred to make something smaller and more intimate, like The Matchmaker.

Second, the cast. A lot has been made of Barbara Streisand being too young for the role. Again, I don’t understand this being such a big thing. Younger women have always been cast in older roles. I’m not saying it’s right, but why was it suddenly such a big deal in this case. I think some of the criticism at the time came from many who thought Carol Channing, the Dolly on Broadway, was snubbed.

People also complain about the age difference. Again, this has been going on (and still is) since movies began. Just think of the movie’s time period. You can’t say she was too young to be a widow. People didn’t live as long back then, so younger widows weren’t as uncommon. Barbara choosing a “Mae West” type portrayal, was a good decision on her part. It infused a sense of fun in the movie and helped her seem more worldly and older than her years.

For those who complain specifically about the Walter/Barbara coupling, haven’t they ever heard about “opposites attract?” I know many couples who seem opposites on the surface. But successful couples, if you look beneath the surface, do have similar likes/dislikes that hold them together. In this movie, they are both equally driven to get what they want, just in different ways. I’ve seen countless movies where one party annoys the first party until they finally fall in love. Why is this so different? I don’t see Walter being with someone as grumpy as he is, any more than I would see myself with someone as reserved as I am (I’m not)

Complaints about the movie being too big and lavish? How can you be too beautiful? Even today, there are small understated films, and movies unabashedly gaudy in 3D, IMAX, CGI splendor. I think there’s room for both.

Some people just don’t like musicals. They usually complain “how do people stop in the middle of a scene and break into a song and dance?” Of course, many of these same people have no problem suspending belief for flying super heroes, attacking aliens in spaceships, and all sorts of other fantasy worlds, not human.

Hello Dolly didn’t “kill” musicals. They continued into the 70s. Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar, Saturday Night Fever, and Grease all come to mind. I also hate it when people say musicals died out in the early 50s, forgetting some of the biggest of all time; The Sound of Music, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins… I could go on but you get the point.

This movie is not my favorite, or my favorite musical. It’s not in my top 10 or even in my top 20. It’s not perfect. It’s just a bit of lighthearted fluff for a rainy afternoon. It’s loaded with talented singers and dancers. It’s beautifully made with excellent direction and choreography.

The only complaint I have would be the length. There could have been bits trimmed or songs cut to speed it up a little. Barbara’s ballad “Love is Only Love” comes to mind. I know it’s probably meant to fill out her character and make her more sympathetic but I think it slows down the action too much. That being said, it’s not a deal breaker for me as I know there are more great numbers ahead. The title song and the waiters dance are amazing. Honestly, there are so many movies today that run 3 hours, I don’t know why people make such a big deal of it being 2 1/2. I’ve squirmed in my seat many times during supposed “blockbusters” waiting for the action to restart. It makes them imperfect, not unwatchable.

Again, it’s the hate or downright distain for this movie that I don’t understand. It’s gotten so much hate over the years! Most of it overstating how poorly it was done (it was not) or how poorly it did at the box office (it did not) or how it ruined musicals for all time (again, it did not). The audiences might be smaller. Audiences today seem more willing to suspend belief over a flying man than over an impromptu song & dance, but there is still an audience out there. Maybe some of it is people reading all the negativity, then when they finally see it that’s all they can see.

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

So I finally got around to watching the Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway anime movie. I am going to talk about what I liked and disliked about it but I want to first say that this is MY OPINION and that there will be spoilers.

What I liked:

The animation was really good and clean. I am glad that they went away from the 3D CGI type of animation that the Gundam The Origin movies use.

Hathaway is a pretty decent character even though his true intentions are easy to see before the twist happens.

The action is very well animated, especially how they use different perspectives throughout.

Does the job of setting up a sequel or some sort of continuation of this story.

What I Disliked:

Hathaway’s true intentions are too easy to notice before they reveal it in the movie. I don’t know if that was intentional but it’s true. Once he says that he was in Char’s Rebellion I knew that he was not going to be friend to the Earth Federation. Plus, they do make the Federation look bad in this movie.

The whole “Mafty is Char Aznable Reborn” is just so cliché and just like every time in the U.C. timeline they make a new antagonist and they always calls themselves the next Char Aznable.

The Penelope and XI Gundam designs are kind of too big and ugly in my opinion.

The music is either non-existent or sticks out like a sore thumb, like the first battle scene they used this rock song that felt really out of place.

The character of Gigi I didn’t like all that much. She does like two things in the movie and spends the rest of the movie getting hit on by that new Federation captain guy and being told my him she is his good luck charm. I just felt a lack of character development for her.

Ultimately, it was not a bad Gundam movie but I definitely think that the last one I watched, Mobile Suit Gundam: Narrative, was much better than this one but, again, that’s just my opinion. I really felt like this was just an average anime movie and I hope they continue the story soon.