Lurker > Proto_Spark

I think we've seen so many of these topics I recognize that stupid squirrel profile pic.

And also, the OP still doesn't say about what Contrapoints supposedly even did to upset people. Its not like she's new to people getting mad at her, she deletes like every other tweet within the day.

I've enjoyed them. Not enough to sub to Disney + for the TV shows, but I will probably go watch whenever a new Star Wars movie comes out.

Honestly, all the stuff ILCA was able to do with BDSP beyond their coat of paint was really good. The Underground was a really cool change, the art style was great, the post game stuff and gym leader rematches etc... were all great, etc...

The fact that we ended up just letting the narrative be that BDSP was lazy garbage take over before the game even came out was unfair. It's the best "classic" pokemon game that's come out in like 10+ years.

I'd be happy to see them get a chance to actually go all out with BW remakes, especially since the main story around BDSP was it being shoved onto ILCA at the last minute when it turned out they weren't gonna be able to drop PLA in time for the holidays.

Don't worry, its just that time of the week where the republicans do something really stupid and pisses off their own base, but the talking points haven't been finalized yet.

Within a couple days, the Fox News and whatnot will get their shit together and the whole MAGA crowd will move on to pretending the whole thing was a hoax to spite the republicans, or that child-sex trafficking is okay as long as its in the name of supporting daddy Trump.

Honestly, I'm surprised Trump even cares. It was like 10 years ago when he said

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

And that's shown to be pretty much completely accurate, if not even more preferential towards Trump. Its basically already been proven that Trump is a pedo, and nobody in the MAGA crowd cares in the slightest. They'll say Trump being with Epstein was fake news, or he's probably the reason he got caught, and move on to the next talking point without a second thought.

For Trump to be worried about any implication, he'd have to be way more involved than we even think he is.

I mean, was this ever really enforced to begin with? Churches have been directly supporting Trump for like, a decade now.

I remember liking it as a kid, but its pretty meh looking back at it.

Still not as bad as people pretend it was, like a 5-6/10 movie at worst. Think the problem was that Final Fantasy the game can tell a boring story for long enough that it turns around into really good by the time you finish, and you have added incentive to continue playing as long as its interesting enough because you're literally playing the game to get to that point. In a movie neither of these things are true, so if the first hour of this ~2 hour movie is boring as ****, nobody is gonna care if it gets interesting later.

I think we'll eventually get it - I think the mass popularity of GoT, and then the huge backlash the ending few seasons got probably made him change a bunch of plans (given like, the main plot points of the last few seasons aren't really that out there, just how the show got to them), and GRRM is admittedly really bad at actually planning his stuff out. Don't forget his last book was released pretty much around like, season 1-2 of the show's release. That's a lot more hype for this book than existed when he was writing the last one.

So having to redo whatever his original plans were, and then find a (at least, somewhat) different way of bringing even more characters together for a big final climax that still fits the myriad of storylines and character arcs probably isn't fun. I imagine Winds of Winter would probably be the toughest book of the story to actually write.

But because of that, I do think that if we actually manage to get Winds of Winter, we'll probably also get A Dream of Spring pretty quickly. At that point the hardest stuff for GRRM to write will be done, and it'll be easier to wrap everything up once its been set up for the big climax.

Its a love letter to the original PS games, but sort of gets carried away in its own self-indulgence.

There are a million extra collectibles you'll feel the need to try and get (and some are irritatingly tough to get) and all the levels are like 4 times as long to finish, that isn't really better than the old PS games.

If you liked the original Crash games, you'll probably like these, but you won't like it more unless you're really into Crash.

As others have said, don't try to 100% it, but its a fun game by itself.

I really liked the show when I was a kid - and being a fun little episodic crime show is IMO probably better than trying to give any kind of actual resolution to a lot of the silliness going on. One of the times filler is just like, enjoyable. Its still a fun mystery, and its always something new or different from the last one.

Its quite formulaic, but the mysteries are fun, and the silly side moments of "Jimmy needs to basically frame his incompetent guardian for solving the crime" and "Jimmy's girlfriend knows that Jimmy is the kid, but can't really prove it and for reasons Jimmy needs to convince her otherwise".

Definitely felt weird that first episode with them having regular japanese names instead of weird dubs names like Jimmy or Rachel.

Well, this isn't slavery unless the farm owner starts to stop paying them (as in some kind of "I'll forward you the money to pay off this bill" kind of way), but is 100% reminiscent of catching runaway slaves.

Certainly not something I'd put much higher than "slavery", but there's definitely wiggle room for nazis online to dance around it to pretend its perfectly fine.

EDIT: Okay I watched what Trump said again, forget that this definitely sounds like slavery. Weird that Trump is just gonna make the farm owners responsible for these immigrants, but I don't think that means getting them a work visa...

LightSnake posted...

Isn't this just human trafficking

Yes. This would at bare minimum, be directly human trafficking.

IMO, the first Jurassic World movie was fun. The premise to make a silly disaster movie out of "we're making dinosaurs" is obvious, and Jurassic World did what it wanted to and did it well. Heck, this was the Jurassic Park book.

The real question, is why are we expecting peak cinema from a dinosaur action movie? It's a ****ing miracle the first one was any good.

I remember him saying he wanted to do that when he first finished the court case. Guess he fell for some conservative grifter and it didn't take.

If we never have to hear about him again, I wish him all the best.

Glob posted...

As somebody whos done them and isnt normally worried about exams, they are daunting as fuck.

This. My oral defence for my Master's was the most stressed I have ever been about any test I've ever had in my life, and you don't typically get an oral defence date at all unless everyone has pretty much already agreed you're passing.

I mean, Musk doesn't need to ever actually deliver on these things - he just needs to say stuff and sound futuristic.

I'm still waiting on how long before Tesla's self driving won't crash into a Road Runner-esque landscape painted on a wall.

"Wow isn't it so great that I learned nothing with my expensive degree?"

Like, why do people think this is a win?

There was a very significant part of this console generation, that being the shift to SSDs instead of hard drives. That single handedly has made a massive difference for my playing.

But at the same time, I bought a Series S relatively early on because I couldn't afford the PS5/Series X, and have felt zero need or even interest in actually upgrading, so its literally just the SSD

I really hope Microsoft keeps the Series S - type console with whatever they do next - it was a great idea to have just a cheaper option to run all the new games or casually play gamepass, and instead it was assaulted with stupid internet circlejerking at every opportunity.

I really enjoyed it, but I've barely thought about it since I put it down. I've been thinking about trying the later games, but I've just never really gone out of my way for it.

A good game, but not one I feel the need to ever actually return to.

This actually just looks like a no-win scenario for AEW. Unless they can directly prove the spot was planned, they can't really win here. Like Moxley hitting every standard for civil battery/assault was broadcast on national TV.

This guy isn't asking for that much, which seems like it isn't that likely he's just trying to scrounge for money.

obsolete posted...

Even if Moxley didn't mean any malice with that you can't shove a non-wrestler when they're not expecting it. AEW should settle, pay his medicals bills, and apologize.

Add to that the unexpected bumps are always the ones most likely to lead to some kind of injury - especially if you aren't like, trained to be taking bumps.

The one thing that could be the case as well is if this is basically a way for this guy to get his insurance to pay out, because otherwise he won't have any "on-paper" damages. This is surprisingly common because insurance companies basically won't give anything out. In this case, the guy needs to sue Moxley and AEW, even if AEW would otherwise be supportive. They can settle out of court and this guy can get his insurance to finally pay out.

Heck, the guy doesn't even seem to be suing for much? 25k in America is like, 4 minutes at the doctor.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


The event in question was broadcast on national TV, and Ricochet's tweet alone would probably be enough for this guy to win.

I bought a regular booster box, the starter deck, and a single collector booster.

If the collector booster was the price of normal ones, I'd be much more inclined to buy others, but really that's the only thing I kind of regret picking up. Got the Booster box and starter deck(s) for not much more than other sets charge, so I don't really feel ripped off for those.

The Precon decks are like triple MSRP anywhere I can find them, which is already inflated because I'm in Canada, so I didn't bother touching any of those.

It's a very 2010-era game, and it screams it so hard it feels almost weird to play in the modern day. I actually played it again recently after I saw some YouTuber make a way too long video essay about it.

It feels like this weird mix of overly ambitious and "lazily colour-by-numbers whatever is popular in the game industry right now". But it does the lazy color-by-numbers stuff pretty decently as well.

I'm gonna say "like" but really only barely. I certainly wouldn't consider it a bad game, but its not really something worth going out of your way for.

Well if this guy cared about America he would still be at war.

/s

Didn't Trump basically say "If you don't behave perfectly we'll **** stomp you out like dirt"

I mean, there were enough protests elsewhere, and even those protests were just "yeah probably better to just not bother at the actual parade" anyone in town would probably have felt it not worth it to bother going at all.

I mean, go off and investigate whatever you want. Its not like it wasn't a literal investigation that the GOP was so desperate to find some evidence of wrongdoing in 2020 they were looking for like, bamboo residue to indicate Chinese interference.

I'm still of the opinion that if Trump did steal the election - we'd have heard about it by now because there's zero chance Trump or any of the idiots in his administration would be able to keep their mouth shut about it. Trump's last administration leaked like a sieve, and that one was a billion times more competent than this one.

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

It'll be replaced by "MEFA", which will do exactly the same thing as FEMA, but now all the conservatives who have spent years calling for FEMA to die get to say they killed it and replaced it with "a good, old fashioned conservative" alternative. And 75 million of the dumbest people imaginable won't even think to question it.

Don't forget it'll cost 4x as much to run, and somehow only deliver about 1/4 what FEMA was.

So.... there's just gonna be no disaster relief anymore?

Remember when it was a big shot against Biden that FEMA ran out of money last year? imagine if Trump could face any consequences for just never giving it out again.

I imagine the MAGA crowd will declare victory when Trump offers nothing to help West Coast Forest Fires, and it will somehow be democrats' fault when its also not there the next time a hurricane ravages Florida.

I remember the lady who wrote the book hated that they turned the movie into a generic slasher flick.

Which is funny because the book is instead a generic whodunit.

This has come up a couple times since the election, and just, there's absolutely no way we'd be hearing the election was stolen as some kind of deep-state movie plot, they'd just be bragging about it with no consequences.

There's zero chance Trump or Musk would still be quiet about this. Especially after Trump won and had basically gotten away with everything, Trump would be bragging to high heaven about how he stole the election to "save America" or whatever.

Elon Musk doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut either, and especially right now where he and Trump are in the middle of a stupid middle school spat he'd definitely tell everyone he stole the election for Trump because Musk is the biggest most special boy and he's the one that deserves all the admiration.

Trump's 2016 administration leaked like a sieve, and back then it was still loaded with people who were actually competent. None of the competent people are there anymore.

Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)

https://youtu.be/TmSseflzy38?si=u5rUwo5rXxdLGk2n

I'm firmly of the opinion that if RoS was anything close to like, real effort, and not a super awkward attempt at damage control towards an audience that would never accept it.

TFA took a similar story and set it up to go in a new direction, and then TLJ took it in a new direction and set stuff up for a finale to the trilogy. But the final movie suddenly had a whole breakdown and basically made a completely unrelated third movie with the only actual relation to the previous movie being actively ruining everything it set up as if it was bullying your friend to try and fit in with the cool kids.

If ROS had just gone with what had been set up and actually tried making a decent movie with what had been set up, nobody would still be whining about The Last Jedi.

This is apparently the kind of DEI we needed - we were sorely underrepresented in the incompetent white loser with no abilities in the federal government.

Its such a good thing Trump won and made sure the entire administration if full of this under supported group of talentless losers.

3
Crisis Core
XII
XIII
Dissidia (the first fighting game)
Dissidia 012 (the second fighting game)
World of Final Fantasy

The Elon Musk episode has aged so spectacularly poorly I don't think anything can compete with it. And it was already one of the worst moments of the Simpsons when it released.

Sputnik1337 posted...

79.99 which is about $90 after tax

And we're already getting games bumped up to 89.99

It's kind of fun to see now that the GOP has just won and the game's over, they can stop pretending to be anything other than pure evil. Everyone is going to suffer and people are going to die, and these GOP politicians want that.

Like watching a major traffic pile up or a crazy train derailment. Its horrible but you just can't quite look away.

I think the last book dropped during season 2 of the show(?) or around there. Since then the franchise has exploded in popularity and the TV show had an overwhelmingly disappointing ending that was probably wasn't that different from GRRM's plans, they've started a spin off TV show that's still popular, and 2-5 additional spin offs still teased and somewhat expected to release. That's a huge amount of pressure for someone who was already known for constantly missing deadlines.

GRRM has also said he likes to write the characters without a lot of plot thought - "tending a garden" or whatever it was and letting the characters do whatever they'd be doing naturally. But it's also super unnatural to push everyone into the centre role for a big climax. So all that's really left for him to do is the exact thing he doesn't like to write, with a ton of pressure that he has to reach what are, at this point, completely unobtainable standards.

I'd frankly be surprised if he ever put out Winds of Winter, even if he does actually really want to. I kind of get it - I'd hate to be in this situation.

I've read the first three, but really had to push to get through everything after the first one (They're kids books, so it wasn't hard to push through, but I just lost interest). It might be that I'm now an adult, but I remember as a kid only a bit younger than Harry & co., when the books first came out and just never really being able to get into the books either.

Still have copies of the books available, so I might finally make my way through the whole series, but ehh. Maybe the next time I feel like some kids reads to feel a bit nostalgic, because I did enjoy most of the movies.

Whole show is also on Archive.org if anyone wants to see it:

https://archive.org/details/the-looney-tunes-show_202405

McMarbles posted...

I wish they acknowledged it more. Maybe added Tina to the official Looney roster.
But I also feel that way about the French spy fox from New Looney Tunes (hell, give her Pepes spot) but nobody watched that.

Was super disappointed when we finally got a Space Jam 2 for some reason, and they didn't keep Lola's characterization from the show. Could've been way more fun.

LonelyStoner posted...

I prefer the latter. With games that involve romance options Im more inclined for them to be as immersive as possible. Everyone being pansexual would take away from the realism.

There are times when I think this is fine (games like Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon/whatever where part of the main gameplay loop is including romantic options), but if its only supplementary I have no problem with set character preferences.

Like Cyberpunk 2077 had 4 romanceable characters, but each one would only respond like that with a specific character you were playing as. It was a side quest you could do, but it wasn't a main part of the game, and you had an option available to you regardless. The goal in CyberPunk was to make it seem like a real world, and these could be real people that aren't changing their preferences for you, and I liked that. But I would dislike it if it was a major gameplay feature like in Stardew Valley.

This isn't petty? This is basic business. AEW has counter-programmed WWE before - though it was a lot more common when WWE was really cold and AEW was really hot.

WWE wants to keep their market share - they've countered TNA, WCW, NJPW, ROH, etc... before. There's nothing special here just because its currently being done to AEW.

Pretending AEW is "happy just being an alternative" is baffling. They are absolutely in direct competition and AEW is constantly trying to erode WWE's market share - just because AEW has gotten most of the immediate growth they could be, doesn't mean that's not still the intention.

Aztex posted...

AEW fans are fragile and delicate they would go insane if they knew about the Monday night wars, even TNA went up against WWE. Why are they bothered by that?

People forget TNA's big move to Mondays was also directly countered by WWE. The big Jan 4 2010 show where TNA first went to Mondays and had Hogan, Bischoff, Jeff Hardy, etc... was countered by WWE bringing back Bret Hart for the first time on WWE TV since the Montreal Screwjob 13 years earlier. Was quite possibly one of the biggest moves WWE could make at the time. But nobody made a big deal about it because well duh.

SAlYAN posted...

And it's not like the movie gave us any good reason for her to be that way; they could have thrown in a subplot about a potential mole on the ship to make it a lot more palatable and even add some extra drama. But they didn't. They literally left it at "haughty standoffs leader expects loyalty."

There is, based around the whole "The First Order is tracking us through hyperspace" stuff.

SAlYAN posted...

Holdo being right in the end and Poe's plan failing doesn't magically absolve Holdo for being a crappy leader that directly inspired this nonsense. If you're taking command of a crew that doesn't know you, and steering them through a goddamn suicide mission, you need to give them some reason to trust you. She didn't.

I agree Holdo wasn't a good leader either, and Poe's rebellion and side quest was justifiable. But that doesn't mean Poe's decision was better or its monumental failure didn't teach him anything valuable. They even have a scene here when Leia wakes up where Poe gets some sense beaten into him and Holdo sort of reluctantly goes "yeah, he's that good"

I said in one of my earlier posts I think Poe's whole arc would have been better had Holdo been replaced by Leia, which could have been supported by the fact that Leia was shown to kind of enable Poe's reckless decision-making (like pushing Poe into the dreadnaught) but having that sharp conflict between the Holdo and Leia's relationships with Poe (partially because you can tell Leia and Poe have a pre-existing relationship) helps push Poe into more irrational decision-making.
reincarnator07 posted...

The worst thing is that I'm pretty sure that was the intention. Disney seemed so scared of the reaction to TLJ that they went out of their way to distance ROS from it in every possible way. Rose probably got done the worst, but you're right that basically all development and new ideas were thrown away to pander to nostalgia.

I don't think TLJ is the worst SW movie (It's not even the worst sequel) but it's the one that I find most frustrating because it had by far the most potential. I wish we could have had the trilogy from him because I think we would have seen something really interesting and fresh.

TLJ is nowhere close to the worst SW movie (at worst IMO its like the 4-6 spot of the "Skywalker Saga", but is probably gonna be remembered the worst just because of how the entire movie is now just failed potential.

Rose especially sucks, given how much purely-racial hate she got, and her demotion in RoS definitely comes off as LucasFilm and Disney just telling the racists they won.

havean776 posted...

The Empire is also so incompetent that it's baffling.
They destory the Rebellion's hangers with fighters... So why not keep using the fighters? Why not jump a ship ahead of them? Every single action of the Empire has to be explained away as "their stupid".

This one got directly explained in the movie. The rebels could fight off the First Order fighters, but couldn't get away - the safest, most effective thing for the First Order to do is to just keep them running until they ran out of gas. Its a seemingly hopeless environment that justifiably pushed Poe into setting up the whole side-quest for Finn and Rose.

havean776 posted...

But Poe saved the Rebellion by destroying that dreadnaught that would of destroyed the fleet. So no going in guns blazing was a good idea. He also stood down when he knew there was a plan instead of just being petty and keeping the commander of your fighters who twice now saved the Rebellion in the dark and give him nothing to do. So what else can he do but sit there and think about how all of them are going to die if he doesn't do something.
Dear lord Holdo your a leader give him a job to do.

The point is that going in guns blazing isn't always the best idea. When a dreadnaught was threatening to destroy the fleet, then yeah get your ass in gear. But with the situation they were in - The First Order is following them waiting for them to run out of gas - then you stop and take a breather first.

Poe also only backed down after his entire plan failed, because he was unwilling to sit around and wait. Poe was unwilling to accept that there was an option besides running in guns blazing, and didn't learn his lesson until he failed. Not to mention Poe's whole plan backfiring is also the thing that almost kills the whole rebellion. Failure is kind of a theme of the movie.

havean776 posted...

The whole casino planet. So they need a code breaker but get arrested for parking violation.
Than a prisoner also happens to be an expert code breaker and easily gets them out of the cell which aparently he was just sitting in for hours waiting for them?
Than they release a bunch of horses that the slaves will probably get blamed over.

He wasn't sitting in the cell waiting for them, he was sitting in the cell because he had also been arrested. Like a typical B-movie action plot. And he also immediately stabs them in the back, really underlining the whole theme of Finns arc.

The releasing a bunch of horses was a "its better to stand for something" kind of thing - its a symbolic gesture and that you can do something back is a hopeful message to send to those slaves, even if a couple of them get punished for it. Its a somewhat selfish view to put out, but it also seemed to work that way, given the actual end of the movie.

havean776 posted...

Than the whole message Finns arch is outright stated to be wrong earlier.
"You idiot don't sacrifice yourself, protect what you love!"
"Wow Admiral Holdo sacrificed herself to protect us all!"
Huh?.

They aren't quite the same situation. Finn went out to try and help out, and then decided to randomly suicide as if it would help. That's why Rose stopped him. Holdo had a separate plan to get everyone away safely, and after Poe and Finn's plan ruins it, gives herself up to let the rest of the team get away. Holdo's sacrifice was a "literally no other options, me or everyone else" and Finn's attempted sacrifice was "lol guess I'll kamikaze". Finn isn't learning from his failure by trying to kamikaze himself, and Holdo's is a result of it.

I'll admit Holdo is a weaker part of the story, and I think it would have been better had Leia been the leader in that position. Introducing Holdo makes the whole vibe "whiney blue haired librarian is talking down to our main characters and stopping the fun movie", whereas if it was Leia it would have made a much more worthwhile conflict simply because we. already know these characters. Leia "dying" was a more important part for Kylo Ren's arc, hesitating, and then her dying anyways, but she could always have just not been on the command deck at the time or something.

Westernwolf4 posted...

The movies needed to give some indication that what came before mattered in any way. The First Order and Empire appeared identical, right down to the enforcer wearing a helmet, ruled by a guy on a throne, planet killing weapon. I really enjoyed TFA, but the whole time I was thinking:,what were those other adventures for?

tbf, The First Order appearing identical was sort of the point. They aren't the Empire, but they're hijacking a ton of the iconography, and Kylo's entire character is based around trying to fill the shadow of Darth Vader without really understanding how to do that.

tl;dr I really like TLJ, you don't have to read this. I think RoS coming out did more damage to both the whole series and TLJ specifically then anything to come out of TLJ.

Kylo Ren ending TLJ as basically a school shooter was great, but then totally thrown away because some idiot at Disney felt like he needed to be redeemed for some reason. No his whole character arc was about him refusing redemption. That he's still failing basic lessons that he should've been passing when he was with Luke, while trying to pretend he's Darth Vader and trying to turn Rey to the dark side, as if he's a remotely capable Sith, because he's trying to fulfill ridiculous expectations based on his family. He's like a 4Channer, and he was a threatening villain not because he was like, a strong powerful threat, but because he's completely unhinged and there's seemingly no way to address this dude without causing a monumental amount of damage?

Luke failing by making an impulsive decision (which he did all the ****ing time in the OT) that ended up having catastrophic consequences are a completely justifiable reason for him to go into some self-imposed exile, just like both of his teachers, not to mention him attempting to recreate the Jedi order literally destroyed the universe again, justifying his complete disillusionment with everything he was doing. The acknowledgement that the "legend" of Luke Skywalker has gotten so out of control there's no way to live up to it was fun, and Luke's arc in the movie ended in a perfect way to support the "legend" of Luke Skywalker, more than him as an actual person, while the actual person of Luke Skywalker was able to directly respond to Kylo Ren's character arc, which allowed the seemingly impossibly dire situation to be saved, and that's awesome.

Finn had a fun arc of wanting to actually stand for something, whereas the whole original movie he was really just following Rey like a puppy. He gets to go on a fun little side quest where he learns everything sucks and actually trying to make the world a better place is a good thing, and then when the whole thing fails and Finn has to address his past, he finally decides he wants to fight against it, and that's a really fun character arc.

Poe has a fun little C-story about becoming a proper leader, and the fact the headstrongingly jumping into things isn't always the best decision. Upon the first rebuffment, he is able to convince half the fleet to perform a mutiny and put Finn and Rose on a side quest that spectacularly backfires and nearly ruins the actual rebel plan. And only by his spectacular movie-plot side quest failing does he realize that the rebel plan actually wasn't bad and that to be a good leader (which he clearly is) he can't go running roughshod into things.

And Rey has an excellent story where she has to come to terms with her crippling emotional issues that were set up in the first movie. She's built up this huge legacy about how finding Luke will save everything, how her parents must have been important because this is Star Wars and she has to be special, and it's all a lie. Luke is just a guy who's been completely disheartened by his own faillures and Rey's parents sold her for beer money. And Rey is unwilling to fully accept this, and seems insistent that they can just get things back to some mythical status quo and everything will be better again. This whole time Kylo Ren is offering some magical idea that all her problems will be solved and she can find the acceptance she's been craving forever by joining him and becoming a school shooter. And while Kylo's main failure is his inability to accept that he has any other options than the road he's currently going down, Rey is unwilling to sacrifice her belief that you can just do the thing and suddenly everything is back to good again - which we saw when she leaves Luke and it turns out she stole all the Jedi texts - seemingly unwilling to accept that bunch of what Luke told her was correct.

You as the viewer can see The First Order doesn't offer any of the stuff Kylo Ren is preaching to Rey about - you can see everyone is parasitic and leeching off of each other - Snoke seemed to think he owned Kylo, being unaware of Kylo's collapsing mental state, and its teased pretty clearly Hux is more than happy to stab Kylo in the back at the first opportunity to talk power for himself.

Everything was great and set up for a great concluding chapter, but then we got RoS and:

• Kylo Ren gets the single most awkward redemption arc in the entire franchise, leaning with the similarly most awkward kiss in the series (which does include Luke kissing his sister)
• Kylo Ren being school shooter levels of unhinged is just sort of swept under the rug.
• Luke loses anything interesting he had developed before and just exists to be a nostalgia-grab, and then buff up Rey's ego instead of adding anything interesting.
• Poe loses all characterization and becomes "friend of main character"
• Rose loses all characterization and is demoted to "rebel with lines"
• Finn loses all characterization he had and reverts to "just wants to **** Rey"
• They throw away everything going on with the First Order and just have The Emperor return with a giant fleet of magical generic CGI armies set to take over the galaxy, completely undermining everything about the last two movies for a weak nostalgia pop.
• Rey loses all characterization, and becomes a generic good guy hero who actually does have super-special awesome family and was abandoned for a good reason and she doesn't need to have any internal conflict again because it turns out she had nothing to be internally conflicted about.

Just takes everything TLJ tried to actually do and spits on it, throws it away, or actively works against it which makes the whole movie, the whole trilogy, and the whole 9-movie "Skywalker saga" fall apart pretending this is how it ends.

Honestly, not until pretty well along his first term. But that's more of a "I didn't make 2+2 = 4 in my head until then" kind of thing.

In hindsight, probably the second time Trump announced a Press conference, and then was like 45 minutes late, and everyone waiting just kind of... kept on the empty podium giving Trump free press because he said he wanted to make a statement.

Such an obvious power move and what media should have done was gone "whatever, we'll ignore him, maybe let you know if he says something worthwhile, we have more important things to do" but didn't.

starts October 2010 with the beginning of The Walking Dead. It was a huge part of moving tv to the short, prestige episodes that were largely moved to, and a big part of the now reliance of existing IPs to get people in the door. Over the next couple years we saw this go farther with game of thrones starting and the MCU starting to peak.

End in summer 2019 when avengers endgame released. Culminating the MCU also quelled a lot of the major interest in comic stuff and created a turning point in the mainstream now that the whole saga was complete.

Covid is also a good endpoint because it was just such a drastic change in literally everything.

HudGard posted...

True but theres a reason any franchise that leans into toy sales will constantly introduce new versions of things.

Its not like there aren't plenty of dinosaurs they can introduce.

But whatever, it's not that big of a deal. Its kind of a miracle the first Jurassic Park movie was so good, even the book was basically a silly B-movie.

I very much dislike the dinosaur having 6 arms though. SO FEW things have 6 appendages like that it's such a ridiculous idea that would never actually happen. Its a movie and whatever goes, but that doesn't mean I can't be pedantic about it.

https://youtu.be/UbtByiZrKqY

Young man you cant just go declaring shenanigans on innocent people, thats how wars get started

Such a great Saturday-Morning style cartoon.

The End of Season 2 where we get like 4 layers of the Power of Friendship saving everyone was just some of the most I've enjoyed any TV in years.

I'm Canadian, so I'm not at risk until either late next year or late 2028 when Trump invades Canada to declare a state of emergency and prevent an election and declare himself dictator.

saspa posted...

Train to... busan? A Korean movie that predates Parasite? Could it be?

Train to Busan was a big deal when it first came out, because it was sort of a last gasp of "zombie stuff can actually be really good" before the trend started fully dying out.

It has 2(3?) sequels that are also pretty decent watches. Though I don't think either is quite as good.