Lurker > CoolCly

Personally, I've always thought the idea of them rushing out the gate to release stand alone movies was really greedy and shortsighted. I like the idea of stand alone movies, but they rushed to do it and both standalone movies were rife with production issues because of it, without even talking about the quality of the movies. It's apparent to everyone that these were attempts to milk the franchise and not genuine attempts at coming up with a worthwhile story. I think they shoulda focused a little more on making the main trilogy the best it could be and then think about what would make great spinoff stories. The kind that are cool that they are in this universe, but are interesting enough on their own to justify their own place in the franchise.

Honestly, I do think Solo has some worthwhile elements to its concept... it's the fact that it's titled Solo to milk the idea of Han Solo and was rushed out is what's hindered it.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

StealThisSheen posted...

My assumption is that they saw how well Marvel does with such a quick release schedule and figured... Hey, Star Wars is even bigger, right?

The problem is Marvel doesn't do spin-offs. Every movie connects, so people are more likely to not want to miss them. A spin-off that has nothing to do with the next mainline movie is much more skippable, and it came out around movies people chose to see over it.

this actually isn't the reason Marvel works. People not wanting to "skip" movies is not what makes the movies successful, and thinking that way belies a fundamental misunderstanding of its success. the connecting thing is awesome, but the reason it works because it's a bunch of different standalone franchises that happen to connect.

Any individual franchise in the MCU could be released by themselves and be a solid movie with a good take. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, Spider Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther.... being in the MCU undoubtedly helps them, but the reason the whole thing works at all is because they are all solid movies with their own themes and styles. Then they come together and make awesome super movies like the Avengers, Civil War, and Infinity War

But the thing is that the fanbases from these films are not all the same. Not everybody who sees Thor is gonna see Captain America. Not everybody that sees Guardians of the Galaxy is gonna see Doctor Strange. There are LOTS of fans of just individual franchises that show up to the team up movies. That's why the team up movies have such higher takes than the individual ones. A fan of Thor will go see the Avengers, but that doesn't mean he's gonna see The Winter Soldier.

Honestly, only nerds or people who get passionate about the movies make sure to watch every movie. That's why guys like Lopen don't understand the success of Black Panther. To him, person who is savvy about the MCU, it's just another story. But to millions of people who don't watch this shit, it's a really cool story about an alternate ancestry for them - it's a home. Every MCU franchise, or even movie within a franchise, does something unique or interesting to draw in people. Ant Man is a heist movie. Winter Soldier is a spy thriller. Guardians of the Galaxy is a space comedy. These all draw in different crowds.

Some people will be like Han and say "okay, this shit is all good, I better go back and just watch it all", but for the most part, lots of fans have only seen bits and pieces of the MCU, and this drives at the important part: It's important that things *SHOULD* be skippable.

If someone has seen the Guardians movies and the Iron Man movies and thinks "well, there's a lot of people I don't know in Infinity War... I guess I shouldn't go see it", that's a failure for the movie. Instead, the movies are made so you can just watch them all individually and enjoy them. People who have seen everything else appreciate them MORE, but it's not a requirement. It doesn't matter if you saw Ant Man before Civil War. He's just a guy that shows up and is pretty funny. Everyone gets it. Just because he has his own movie doesn't mean you have to see it. He literally doesn't matter.

To make it a requirement would kill the box office take. If Star Wars tried to take that approach it would only make them worse off.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

I'm not actually sure but the cast discussion topic on the subreddit linked to them all

https://www.reddit.com/r/BigBrother/comments/8rzhcr/big_brother_us20_cast_reveal_discussion_june_18/
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

i'm really enjoying the Ross Matthews interviews of these house guests
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

lights honestly lights up my life every day

i love her and her music
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

old reliable
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

I'm gonna go get a new phone first to 5 votes wins

i don't know anything about phones other than my S5 is getting a bit too old to keep up so i need a new one

i'll take write ins if you have better ideas

pls no iphones
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Were you covered by the free insurance? If you didn't cancel a plan even if you don't qualify for it then I could see it causing problems.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

plus four pauls
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

HanOfTheNekos posted...

he format of the movie, being told as a story from Tony's point of view, is pretty solid, although a little weird because we haven't seen something like it before. The movies are all told from a 3rd person omniscient point of view, but this one is a 1st person omniscient... which makes it a little weird when scenes without Tony happen. But I digress. This leads to two amazing moments... one is ending the movie with the same line that the first one ends with "I am Iron Man", but with so much more meaning and completion to it. Tony's arc throughout the entire 4 movies ends really solidly here - he has his place in the world, he understands who he is, what his self and Pepper mean to him. His conclusion is really good. So of course I expect them to ruin it with Avengers 2.

The reason the movie is framed this way is because of the director - Shane Black. Trivia time!

As I'm sure you are aware, RDJ had a lot of trouble with addiction in the 90ies and his career tanked big time by the early 2000's. He had a ton of trouble getting roles in the mid 2000's as most studios wouldn't take on the risk of his relapse. Iron Man is often credited with his "return" to acting, but it's more like his breakthrough back into mainstream blockbusters rather than his return to acting entirely. There were some roles he got thanks to personal connections of people willing to take a chance on him, and some cases where the studio withheld a lot of his pay until production was over in case he fucked things up.

One of these movies was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was directed by Shane Black. It's an excellent movie where RDJ plays a small time thief from NY that somehow gets swept up to LA to be in a movie but gets caught up in a twisted plot of mystery, murder, romance, and gunplay. Val Kilmer also stars and he's excellent too.

RDJ's character, Harry, is basically Tony Stark if everything was going wrong in his life and he was a screw up instead of genius. Which I guess doesn't sound like Tony Stark but he feels very similar to me.

As you may have also heard, casting Tony Stark was very controversial... like most movies there was a lot of pressure to get a young good looking guy like a Channing Tatum type to star and draw audiences. At one point Tom Cruise was considered... but he wanted the mask to be see through so you could see his face the whole movie. Imagine where we'd be now.... Anyways, Favreau pushed to get RDJ in, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is often said to be the role that helped him get it.

The structure is very similar to Iron Man 3. RDJ narrates the story the same way. I guess RDJ really liked working with Shane Black and pushed Marvel to bring him in for IM3, and Black brought his distinctive style to the movie. IM3 is kind of a spiritual sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

I highly recommend Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's a great movie. But since you are pushing through through a 20 movie 18 season mega franchise it might be a while before you can fit that in your queue....

Thoughts on IM3 itself later
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Nanis23 posted...

Mr Lasastryke posted...

according to that one-shot han was talking about (which i haven't seen) they hint at there being another "real mandarin" who never comes up again? what the hell?

Well it's unlikely to ever be important again, maybe they planned something with it, maybe not

Here's the reason they made that one shot - after the movie came out there were a lot of babies crying about how the twist was soooo bad and it RUINED and WASTED the Mandarin, one of the greatest villains of all of Iron Man fandom or something

Sound familiar?

So they released this to say "okay, maybe there's a real mandarin out there. Maybe we'll make that movie someday. Quit whining, babies."

But i guess it doesn't matter because then the babies complain about not having it now. Babies are gonna cry no matter what you do.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

seems like men who went through their 20ies and 30ies that were unable to keep a woman because of their controlling bullshit so now that they are in their 40ies and no woman near their age will put up with it at all, they target young insecure women in their 20ies, just beginning their adult lives, who will implicitly trust them due to the difference in life experience. and then abuse that trust.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

it's interesting because her exact story shows up on r/relationships every day. complete with the age gap.
it's super common. It's easy to look at it and everything she says and say "well just leave him then? he was clearly a controlling asshole so just don't put up with it?" but the cycle of abuse is very effective at controlling a person, especially when they have very little self worth.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

is that the cult season?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

the only thing i see positive about the prequels is "at least george added new stuff" which isn't really looking fondly but just a criticism of the new movies. like "shit you couldn't even be better than THAT???"
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

nobody is looking back on the prequels fondly

sounds like this is all in your head
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Nice, there's a past seasons section.

It's a funny coincidence that the very first video in the archive was the HvV premiere though...
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

i was gonna come ask if there's an easy way to find RHAP episodes for previous seasons, like if I wanted to listen to the Know It Alls episode that corresponds to an episode of Game Changers or some other season. I'm watching Heroes vs Villains and thought it'd be fun to hear Rob's thoughts on each episode. I figured the KIAs might not have existed then but maybe Rob was podcasting already?

I opened the survivor page on the website and clicked last and the very first video is "Heroes vs Villains Premiere"

So I guess this will be pretty easy for that season at least...
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

that Pedro game actually reminds me of a really fun video / game series on Newgrounds or whatever. Those Madness games where you shoot up a bunch of stick figure characters or whatever. Those were tons of fun.

They started with this video here which lead to a series of videos and then a game and now it looks like there's a TON of madness content I haven't seen before... so I guess I have to go down this rabbit hole now.

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/58182

The Pedro game really gives me the same vibe Madness gave me... which was an awesome vibe so this might be worth checking out.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

KILL THAT GIF MAN

c
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

i'm watching shroud watch this and he is genuinely just as confused as i am but he too cannot look away
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

im watching this stream and i genuinely do not know who these people are or what they are talking about but it seems like they do not give a fuck so i guess its pretty fun
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

The Starfield tease was fine, but announcing TES6 with no details and without even giving us the subtitle is pretty weak
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

honestly Fallout 76 is what we were all dreaming of when Elder Scrolls Online was announced

should be sick
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

https://pics.me.me/todd-howard-one-like-and-ill-release-skyrim-for-android-29969015.png
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Well, what was the point of that scene? What were we supposed to feel? That lady was a bit of a drag because she was chaperoning the kids so they ditched her, and then she was a big ball of stress trying to find them and keep them safe.

And then she gets torn apart by pterodactyls and then eaten by the giant sea dinosaur. Were we supposed to cheer? Did she get what was coming to her? We were kinda supposed to dislike her even though she did nothing wrong. Claire just pawned her nephews off on her assistant, *and* it's Claire's fault the citizens weren't evacuated, so.... basically everything involving that girl is Claire's fault. But she gets to run around and survive and that girl gets torn apart?

The whole scene is just a giant WTF that takes you a bit out of the movie.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

is this real?

isn't inside survivor a rumour mill?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

nice dying light

set during trump's second term
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

so like

that's literally a fox in link's tunic

what the fuck
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

wolverine is hilariously bad

like that ragtag group of powered guys he teams up with to begin with are hilarious. the blob, the guy with perfect aim with guns that they dont give the fucking adamantium revolver to, Ryan Reynolds.... Gambit is in it and is completely dumb.

God what a great bad movie.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

What a huge misunderstanding of Mike up in here

He doesn't think wolverine 1 is an awesome movie. He really enjoys Wolverine 1. He completely recognizes how bad and stupid it is in so many ways. But this is a youtube channel with a series called "Best of the Worst" where they watch bad movies and have a blast watching all the dumb things they do. Mike refers to this kind of stuff as "schlock". It's so stupid you can't help but enjoy it sometimes. He would never tell the makers of that movie "good job, you made a lot of good decisions here, do that again."

Mike is the best do not ever say anything bad about him again
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

But did it lead to him developing as a character? What exactly did he learn? What would he do differently?

If he had to go through the events of TLJ again, would he do anything differently if he didn't have the knowledge of Holdo's plan still?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Everyone I know thought Finn and Rose's Bogus Journey and Poe's plot were boring and pointless and that's like 70-80% of the movie
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Confirmed no lootboxes confirmed no gameplay advantages, the two banes of monetization

thank god
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

I like the style of Sea of Solitude. Wish we'd seen a tad more about what you like. actually do in the game. Looks like some platforming but I'm sure there's more.

I actually thought there was no way the game was going to fit the story she was telling about it but I think it kinda did, especially as well as it could for having like no dialogue.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

iv never seen unravel before but that looked pretty fun
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

BBH8

c
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

man this is just like hollywood and TV

lets bring back every beloved show and icon from 15 years ago and run it into the ground
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

i guess that name just panders to you most

I actually thought about mentioning the Boba Fett movie too but the idea is so stupid I decided to just ignore it.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Lopen posted...

Like I guess I'd just rather the movie be considered a success on its own storytelling merits rather than because it was representing a demographic that is underrepresented.

Why is both not possible?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

goddamn what a mess of a series this is

it hinges on time travel to begin with so that means even if every movie was actually good and coherent and made sense it'd be tough to keep track of what's what after a bunch of movies

and instead we have..... what we have. good lord.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Han and Obiwan movies both sound super lame. They both sound like just pandering to some name recognition rather than any actual inspiration for a cool story.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Luke is really excellent in TLJ. It's really weird that a major problem people have with the movie when he's the most excellent thing about it (except for maybe Kylo Ren). It's literally everything else in the movie that sucks.

I don't really have any opinion on the purpose of this topic though. Who cares.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

i like your write up of the avengers, really focuses on just the fun things you liked in the movie

Out of curiosity, what have you already seen that's yet to come? I know you've seen some Daredevil but is there anything else?
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

I like first Thor movie, there's a lot of good stuff. Asgard and everything is cool, Odin is great, Loki is great, the frost giant stuff is cool. Thor is cool too which obviously is important for a movie called Thor that introduces Thor.

But... there's something missing with Thor. It's the development he undergoes. He begins the movie thirsty for revenge against the Frost Giants. He wants to go to war and make them pay and is gleeful in his wanton slaughter of them in the initial excursion to Jotunheim. By the end of the movie, he's become more humble and understanding of other races, and tells Loki "you can't kill an entire race!". Loki retorts with, "weren't you gonna do it with your bare hands at the start of the movie??" which is completely true. So ostensibly, Thor has gone through a change of character in this movie.

But when did this happen? There's a great throughline where Odin banishes him because he feels Thor isn't worthy of being his son or Asgardian royalty with his careless behaviour, so he strips of him of his power and sends him to earth, and places the famous seal upon Mjolnir "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." This leads to a *fantastic* moment when Thor breaks into the SHIELD tent base and grasps the hammer and discovers he's not worthy. That moment of realization that he's truly not worthy is excellent, and a great step in his path towards the end of the movie. Then it pays off at the end when he gets the hammer back.

But what did he do? He got drunk with Selvig? Hung out with horny Natalie Portman a little? Did this make him care about the other races more than he did before? I feel like there's just something missing here. He sacrifices himself to the Destroyer in the end, which is the moment that makes him worthy of the hammer again, but would he not have done that at the start of the movie?

I think realizing he wasn't worthy of the hammer really is a good step in him reevaluating his place and what kinds of things are worth fighting for, but it just doesn't feel like enough.

The human characters are meant to bridge that gap in his interactions with them, but maybe they were just too weak. Most people don't like Kat Dennings in Thor but I actually do.... and *still* I find the human component of this movie pretty weak.

I guess I'm just rambling at this point, but I'd say this is my biggest regret in the MCU - I feel like a bit more of a purposeful journey of Thor becoming worthy of the hammer would have made this a really great movie.

As it is, I still think it's a good movie. In the lower end of the MCU, but certainly not bad or even the level of mediocrity Iron Man 2 is. It's not like they just missed the mark completely and made a movie that misunderstood the character or something.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

clearly 3.0 was just another nail
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Pocket mirror to peak around corner is great, but a little dumb that she looks at herself in it afterward. Feels kinda against the whole "you're a woman so you can't do our man's job" thing.

Does it? I don't see a reason she can't be a strong badass independent woman who also looks fabulous. It's because she's a woman she has the mirror in the first place, after all.

It's something the series touches on as well with her attempts at keeping up with fashion, but it's not at the forefront of anything.

Anyways, people try and fit the Agent Carter one shot in as canon but ultimately I don't think it really makes sense. It's better to just accept it as test footage that was made to try and hook a TV show. If the show hadn't been made you could probably take it as canon, but I think the show basically just overrides it. Trying to fit it into canon is like trying to fit the Deadpool CGI animated test footage that got leaked that led to the Deadpool movie into the Xmen movie canon. Which wouldn't really make sense since the highway scene was in the actual movie too.

As for A Funny Thing.... yeah, it's just for fun. It's just a fun little thing to colour things in between Coulson's appearances. In Iron Man 2, he was involved in what was going with Tony's poisoning, until he abruptly says "sorry, I gotta go, something more important came up, good luck and stuff" and leaves. He left because of something in Thor, and this short is literally just him driving from Tony's house to the thing in Thor he's going to go deal with.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Metal_DK posted...

I think you never moved on to grow up and realize that reality TV is a lot of bullshit, even the real world due to protections that you neglect. If you want to go that route of discussion fine.

This is literally admitting he has a personal belief that reality TV has to be scripted and that anyone believes otherwise is just being childish. So attempting to convince him otherwise is pointless - he's decided already that it is.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

TomNook posted...

CoolCly posted...

Big Brother literally proves this with live feeds - you can tune in and watch what the houseguests are doing 24/7. You can watch them eat lunch or brush their teeth or talk strategy or play pattycake. There's no doubt about it - it's real and it has been doing this for almost 20 years

And yet, they don't allow you to see the Diary Rooms, where the producers do script things for them.

We know exactly what happens in diary rooms... they repeat statements about what's actually happening in the game in various levels of excitement. It's not a mystery and new information is rarely provided. It's just an expositional device to complement the actual gameplay happening.

Oh yeah I just wanna plug IMO the best reality TV competition - Strip Search by Penny Arcade. It follows all the hallmarks of your usual reality TV... and is definitely real despite using techniques like diary rooms and hosts and challenges.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG

Snooki getting punched the **** out was super real

Anyways, the big thing going on here is that Metal DK has this preconceived notion about reality TV - it's not real. It's all staged and scripted or mostly scripted. Survivor or The Real World or Pawn Stars or whatever - it's all the same. And I totally get why. A lot of shows like Pawn Stars or those paranormal ghost hunting shows or Property Brothers ARE basically completely staged and scripted. It'd be a big waste of time if nothing interesting happened... so they just script something interesting happening.

But there are lots of really big reality TV shows that aren't scripted. He's grudgingly conceding that Survivor has to be a little bit real because of the prize money, but he probably really does believe that it's almost all scripted. I thought the same thing about shows like Big Brother and Survivor until I started watching them a few years ago.... and while at times they are put into certain scenarios that will force them to act a certain way, like challenges, tribal councils, or given an advantage with a note that they have to read, or are asked questions in confessionals, 90% of the time it's all just completely real interactions.

Big Brother literally proves this with live feeds - you can tune in and watch what the houseguests are doing 24/7. You can watch them eat lunch or brush their teeth or talk strategy or play pattycake. There's no doubt about it - it's real and it has been doing this for almost 20 years, just like a lot of the other major cornerstones of American Reality TV like Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Real World, Ameerican Idol etc, which are all pretty real competitions. These shows don't script what's happening to make sure things are interesting - they've created a structure that's basically going to be interesting no matter what. Sure, they can throw monkey wrenches into what's happening by adding twists to the game or whatever and seeing how the contestants react to that, but it doesn't make it not real.

The big thing that you just need to understand is what's called the "edit". The things happening are very real - but the showrunner can decide how it is all cut together and shown on TV. They can show an event and portray it with a different tone than what actually happened. Big Brother has their feet held to the fire on this - we are watching the live feeds and can immediately point out when they portray things differently on the show. But ultimately, these shows are meant to entertain and they always just try to portray what happened in the most entertaining way possible.

Is that the same as scripting? No, I wouldn't say so.

Anyway, Metal DK seems to ultimately not respect reality TV so his opinion isn't going to change. He doesn't really believe they are real, *and* he's gotten lost arguing a point that doesn't really matter too much - live streaming *is* a new platform for this kind of content that we are seeing picked up more and more, and people are often creatively applying it in new ways. But... it's still just a new platform for something we've already had on TV for 20 years. It doesn't really matter that it's slightly different or being picked up by a couple new demographics - gamers mostly right now but also vloggers targetting children.
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The batman villians all seem to be one big joke that batman refuses to laugh at - SantaRPG