Lurker > LightningStrikes

Worldwide animated opening record, Incredibles 2 still holds the domestic record. However, if Mario had had a normal 3-day opening rather than a 5-day opening it might have broken that too. Should hit a billion for sure.

X isnt really Star Wars has always been a terrible take since its a broad setting that can do a lot of different stories. Regardless it doesnt apply to Andor, which is obviously a thematic followup to parts of A New Hope and more obviously Rogue One.

As for the rest of it its all reviewed well and gotten good audience metrics except for The Rise of Skywalker and even that made a billion dollars. Its fair to say that the Disney-era stuff has gone down well despite some of it being divisive online. Of course with that said in audience terms the prequels also got pretty good scores and box office, though not on a level with most of the stuff under Disney.

The thing about the health of Star Wars is, for both the prequels and the sequels, you have to just ignore the internet entirely. There is no franchise I can think of where the online fandom is as divorced from the general audience as this and thats been true for a long time.

Its irrelevant on Lucas though, because whatever you felt about the prequels, after that he went on to be showrunner on The Clone Wars which has some of the best Star Wars content ever. Its the best stuff Lucas was involved with since 1980 for sure.

LBJ sent a note to the Turkish Prime Minister at the time stating that if the American weapons sold to Turkey were used in an intervention in Cyprus without the permission of the US NATO would not protect Turkey (a NATO member) if the USSR invaded. Well intentioned but this kickstarted the wave of anti-Americanism among extreme elements in Turkey that would eventually give rise to Erdogan.

Well if anybody wants to ignore LMS completely and talk about something else I was reading a non-fiction book about the political history of Turkey and Lyndon B. Johnson turns up to make a huge foreign policy blunder that destabilises a region. Classic LBJ.

1) Please stop.
2) Inafune because Lucas did Clone Wars and Inafune is a joke.

Death 13 (Jojos Bizarre Adventure)
Death of Rats (Discworld)
Rukia Kuchiki (Bleach)
Hades

In the panel Tony Gilroy said that Andor season 2 is aiming for August next year so quite the wait still.

I mean people were saying the same thing about the Prequels and they built off of those really, really well. If anything one of the errors TFA makes is trying to distance itself from the Prequels and as a result there was no sense of worldbuilding or what the First Order even is because they were wary of getting into galactic politics again even though its an essential part of the story. They can easily expand on the Sequels in a way that fixes some issues, for instance by showing parts of the New Republic that didnt get blown up. Or by resolving those character arcs. Theres no saving the Palpatine stuff but the more general story problems can definitely be solved.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

still want Rogue Squadron

Its dead, Jim. :(

Oh also some of the Andor season 2/The Acolyte/Skeleton Crew footage leaked out and those three definitely look like the best stuff here. The fight choreography in The Acolyte looked great.

Nobody cares except those who care, incredible observation.

Yeah this all sounds good. They have to build off of the Sequel Trilogy just like they built off the Prequels and they have to explore more time periods within the universe, they cant just stick to the same 20-year span forever.

I dont think dunking on one person for taking an incredibly hardline stance against a vulnerable group counts as purity testing!

Well given that you can count the number of trans athletes competing at a high level who have had this issue on one hand I think the associations can afford it. Really, if you want to highlight how much of a non-issue this is, consider that the most high profile athlete to get a ban for an unfair advantage in terms of testosterone is actually a cisgender woman.

Were lazy so lets discriminate is not a great starting argument, plum.

Reminder that plum still hasnt explained why any of this even taken at face value could possibly support blanket bans rather than a case by case basis, because there is no argument for that other than trying to hurt trans people.

Just your reminder that most people dont know jack and sometimes governments need to lead on public opinion not follow it.

Im a libertarian, I just support mandatory genital checks so public bodies can exclude you from sport.

Not every trans person goes through the puberty of their assigned gender at birth, these days perhaps most young trans people wont.

masterplum posted...

I was curious about this and looked it up, and on a quick glance it looked like archery was not equal and male categories had stronger world records.

For cultural reasons. There is no technical reason a man should have an advantage over a woman in Archery. Its just the effect of it being male-dominated for so long. I thought about mentioning that but figured it was too much.

Anyway the whole conversation is pointless because A) there are already measures in place for your concerns that work fine, B) a transgender woman whos never been through a testosterone puberty would have no advantage so the youth sport thing is nonsense, C) advantages only exist at a very high level with some people in some sports so obviously blanket bans make no sense and D) there are almost no transgender athletes at those levels to begin with. Also lets not forget that this began with literal genital inspections. Not exactly relevant to performance is it?

masterplum posted...

At what sport does it not matter? If chess can have a female league then literally any sport can.

And its not like this even shuts individuals out of sports. Mens teams can have female players. Vanderbilt had a female kicker on their American football team at one point.

Shooting, Archery, many winter sports. All of which have men and womens categories. If you really are interested in truth maybe that will change your mind.

Women arent a minority. Also while women are marginalised you are basically just doing hierarchy of discrimination nonsense. All while still ignoring the simple matter that it is not true for many sports and many transgender athletes at most levels!

Except 2 is not true as youve written it. In SOME sports at SOME levels there is evidence of a competitive advantage for SOME transgender people that is also true for SOME cisgender women like Caster Semenya. Instead you are using it as an absolute. Also take it from a biologist, the term biological female is effectively worthless as that can mean many things and it is impossible to exclude all transgender women from a biological definition without excluding some cisgender women.

Yes, and this is why numerous cisgender women have been excluded from some sports as well (and of course many trans women would be included under testosterone rules). Whatever your stance on that, it is clearly nonsense to blanket ban transgender people as not all will have any advantage.

masterplum posted...

Isnt that exactly what I just posted? Experts decided there was a competitive advantage by trans-males?

No. Also I wouldnt use that term. Some sports can see some people have an advantage in some scenarios and some sports according to studies, though long-term effects are unclear. That is why it should be decided on a case-by-case basis by qualified and independent experts not subject to a blanket ban. Genitals straight up have nothing to do with it.

The answer on sports and prisons is literally the answer in place. Experts decide on a case-by-case basis. No reason for governments to try and shoehorn in blanket bans. I thought you were a libertarian?

Unfortunately not just a US issue, happens just about everywhere with a representative system.

This is an issue with many systems around the world. If you change party thats okay, but it should trigger a by-election automatically. Given that it would be a by-election not a regular election it should be winnable so if you want to try and think your individual mandate tops whatever manifesto you ran on you can have a go.

Even though verified RT audience score is a million times better than the old system, you need to look at those scores on a scale and by genre not objectively. A low 80s score for Quantumania is pretty meh for a blockbuster and given time it will likely fall to around Eternals verified score of 77%. People who take the time to not only buy an early ticket but register their ticket with RT are much more likely to have liked a film. There are some who have worked out a correlation between RT verified audience score and Cinemascore and it usually tracks very closely.

Yeah I think in terms of animation critics tend to get it right. When I say audiences are going to like it a lot I dont mean theyll think its the best film ever I mean they just want to see a competent animated film with Mario in it. Again these reviews are not *bad* just middling overall.

Definitely over 70. Apparently looking at $125m which would be on par with The Batman. Only GOTG3 this year feels like it is a sure bet to top that though a few others could also.

I will be shocked if audiences dont love this film. The reviews arent even bad, theyre tepid, so in Illuminations typical style I am sure it will go down just fine.

Hbthebattle posted...

average game quality

And well, everything except maybe movies released in the last four years. Even then its not like theres much space between them on reviews.

Illumination make technically competent but otherwise mediocre animated films that appeal to kids and usually get huge box office takes. Audiences will probably like this just fine but it is not especially surprising to see a meh critical response.

Finland has now officially joined NATO. That special military operation to prevent NATO expansion is going well I see.

Looks fantastic though I would not recommend this trailer to anybody spoiler-averse as it seemed to show a lot.

I think, although Kojima has made things I enjoy more, Camerons feats are more imoressive.

2015 was meh. Those announcements were just logos about half of which turned into great games years later. The Shenmue III Kickstarter thing in particular was a real uh, are you sure you want to hype this? moment for fans. Its the kind of thing that was announced as this huge moment because Shenmue III was an internet meme and the result was a poorly received, badly selling game four and a half years later.

Now, 2016, that was a better E3.

Not surprising at all, it hasnt been what it was for about 17 years (and that was obviously unsustainable) and you can get the same thing elsewhere.

Also Nintendo were still going until the last one in 2019. They just stopped having an in-person press conference.

So, like I was saying, lets break up the big news corporations and try to make it less dominated by big business interests. There is absolutely a need for public and independent news services.

I said ups and downs!

Well even the Chibnall run had its moments, Id rather have the handful of really good episodes we got than nothing. Of course the issue with that run is each season gets a little better then it actually ends on a really great episode that makes you wonder wow, why wasnt it all like that?. Very odd era that definitely had production issues.

Counterpoint: Doctor Who has been going for 60 years (with a couple of big breaks in the 90s) and despite ups and downs is still going strong. Of course that show gets away with it by basically rebooting itself every few years.

Thank you for that post plum. :)

And yeah I absolutely think the likes of Spacey at least could have been successful with audiences if not for getting fired
and his legal troubles. Its not a great endorsement of humanity, but I have absolutely zero faith in market mechanisms to sort it out. Not even because of malice or apathy from the audience, I think a lot of people are not aware. You just need to look at Chris Browns success to see that.

Seriously, have there ever been any case of somebody high-profile getting cancelled by the audience and it working? Every example requires either legal or company action eg Weinstein or Spacey. No online boycott has succeeded to my knowledge.

Also as much as I hate to encourage LMS this is actually relevant here. The anti-woke brigade will, any time anything doesnt immediately break records even if it is successful, instantly start screaming that it failed because it was woke irrelevant of its actual content. The most obvious recent example was Avatar 2, where after it opened you had these people yelling about how it flopped because it was woke, then it later went on to be the third highest grossing film of all time. This is relevant because the right wing press was literally running headlines of this, its not just YouTube randos anymore.

The actual solution is that first there does need to be some regulation of the press, enough to stop blatant falsehoods and actually inciting hatred. Even more than that though we need to break up the big news corporations and get such money out of the press. As long as news is capitalistic it will favour the right.

No. Cancel culture is not real. Chris Brown had a sold out tour like two weeks ago, come on. Its just another right-wing bogeyman so it doesnt have to be real.

Moderation isnt cancel culture its moderation. No large enough online space can be unmoderated because thats how you get 8chan. The mods were absolutely right given that plums initial post before walking it back was equating being part of a vulnerable minority to being a far-right extremist. If anything they went soft on him.

The difference between moderation and cancel culture is, moderation actually works. Look at various obscene figures who were banned then unbanned from twitter. The ban actually significantly hurt their ability to influence the public and cause harm. If somebody is cancelled it only increases their public profile. So moderation of internet spaces is a good way to combat extremism.

Edit: Also the right can win elections because it has an electoral system stacked in its favour and a solid chunk of the population who identify as Republicans and will never vote any other way.

Im going to disagree, the initial post on its own was pretty horrendous. He tried to give it some context afterwards to mitigate it. However, there was no hint of that in the first post.

Best episode this season by a comfortable distance. Even though its not getting into the nitty gritty of the politics as much as Andor I do really enjoy how they are showing why the New Republic fell. It is helping improve on what the sequels were setting up but didnt flesh out.

See I would call that market socialism. Incidentally the existence of market socialism as an ideology makes me wonder what the purpose of neoliberal capitalism is other than to make a small few extravagantly wealthy. Just kidding I know thats exactly what the purpose is.

Yeah not to defend libertarians too much but many American libertarians are anything but. No libertarian should be anywhere near the Republican party.

Libertarian socialist is an odd term since it sounds like an oxymoron but it just means progressive socialist. I dont think it really gets as far as anarcho-syndaclism. I would say most modern socialists are probably libertarian socialists, socially liberal and economically left-wing.

Ill just remind everyone that it is illegal in many places to share terror-related manifestos. Also once again this is about guns above all else.