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To be clear, the stories I heard were not convention stories or any sort of public events. They were just about his behavior in the real world.

But he was a teenager and as I said, I was hopeful that he had grown up and matured. I liked reading some of his thoughts on early TNG episodes. I think you're over-stating how much his later training would have helped him, since I've seen him in other things and I don't think he has progressed much as an actor. I just don't know that he has the talent for adult roles. That's not a slam. It's just something you see with actors. Some don't have the instinct for it.

I was willing to give him another chance and move on, but I haven't been a fan of how he conducts himself. There's not much more to say.

On another note, I worked with Jonathan Frakes once. I want to say that he gave me some direction personally, but it was a while ago, so I forget the details. What I can tell you is that he did not destroy any of my fanboy expectations. He was not just polite, but funny and a joy to work with. Filming is usually stressful and it can be worse when the actors or director are pissy. Also, it sucks when you like an  actor going into work and then don't like them once you've seen how they behave on set. I was really happy to be able to hold onto the Trek fan expectations.

The funny thing is, people on the right started to get frustrated with Fox News at some point as well. MSNBC was always seen as the super extreme left network, so CNN became the middle ground. People thought that they'd start to take the lead as people grew tired with the other two networks. Now, CNN has always had biased reporting, don't get me wrong. They've always been left of center and they've always held back certain details, while twisting other facts to suit their needs. However, they were seen as a network that did this less than others.

So now we have CNN's sins in the spotlight more than ever, and the other two networks gloating... while still being on shaky ground themselves.

I'm not convinced that there should be 24-hour news networks. I'm not sure that the concept works, once you figure in the need for ratings and advertisers, and the fact that there will be many days when the news is just not that thrilling. So, they start to inflate the news artificially. Then, once that line is crossed, they might as well skew that inflation in the direction of their choosing. Is there a way for this to be sustained without being corrupted?

I saw another clip of some CNN contributor talking about how sickened and outraged they were that the President would incite violence in such a manner that is unbecoming of a President. She was playing it super sincere too, not like a joke. So the gif is an outrageous incitement of violence, but when they're failing to report certain details and directly lead into riots and racial violence, that's just respectable journalism. When they're manufacturing the Russia scandal and influencing federal agencies with their lies, that's just respectable journalism.

It's impossible to watch anything they do with a straight face anymore.

All of the rumored Batgirl actresses seem pretty young. Younger than I'd expect for a post-Jason Batman story. So if the rumors are true at all, they're either going to be jumping back in time to tell her story, or she's going to be brought into the picture after Dick is long gone and Jason is dead.

So Dick may be the only Bat-family member in play right now. If he fell out with Bruce, Bruce may not have any idea where he is or how to contact him. Dick could be on the other side of the planet for all we know. Even if he were in Bludhaven, it would have probably taken him hours to get to Metropolis or Gotham to fight Doomsday, so it wasn't really an option. He probably wouldn't have been into the idea of killing Superman, so I wouldn't expect him to be a part of that story.

We're getting pieces of that story though. Jason is dead and Bruce is at a low point, isolating himself. They didn't directly mention the others, but his arc for that movie was definitely about his having cut others out, and then being open to finding others to work with. In the Justice League trailer, we have a reference to Batman working with other people *again*. So it's there, it's just not something that they're hitting very hard so far.

forgot to reply to this.

I can see this happening. CNN is going to have to change, one way or the other. Producers, on-air talent and online "journalists" have all been exposed as being incredibly unreliable, so there's no way to go on with business as usual. (he said, right before this whole story was forgotten and people went back to quoting CNN articles about Trump's relationship with Russia)

But does the world need another E! News? I suppose they could go by way of MTV or The Learning Channel. Reality shows, etc.

I feel like the political connection to this narrative is going to be overlooked though. It's not simply a corruption of journalism here, it's the fact that journalists were working to push the agenda of certain politicians. All of those Russia stories were created to serve a political purpose and to undermine the office of the President. There is a much larger, much more disturbing picture here, and it's not just about ratings.

CNN... Oh, CNN

I am starting to wonder if this network has a future at all. Over the past year, they've been hit by one scandal after another. Leaking debate questions to Hillary, running with fake news stories about Russian hookers, or tying Trump to Russia interference in the election despite having absolutely no evidence... they've just been petty and childish. And now this political gif that Trump tweeted, which is so benign that nobody would have even noticed it if the press (mostly CNN) hadn't tried to turn it into a huge story. Now that it is a huge story, it's turned on CNN because they pursued the gif's source and threatened to dox him. And for what? Posing a harmless gif that the President then tweeted?

CNN isn't just looking like a joke anymore, their corruption is showing through more and more every day, and it's getting harder to just shrug it off.

I know, ireactions is probably rolling his eyes at the James O'Keefe of it all, but O'Keefe's videos aren't revealing anything that we didn't already know. There was no Russia story, so every time they hit that angle, it was a lie. We knew that. There was no Russian prostitute story, so when they reported it, it was a lie. We knew that. We know that it's all about ratings. We know that they're betting on the American people being stupid, and the fact that we have them directly saying it isn't very shocking.

The part where they're attacking private citizens and threatening to dox them because of a stupid gif is a little surprising. And I don't know about the guy who posted it. I don't know if he is a racist or a sexist or whatever, but it also doesn't matter. He could post racist stuff every day and that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the right to do it. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have a right to privacy. Most of us don't put our names or home addresses on the internet, including the people who work at CNN. Their threat to start doxing anyone they don't like or who says mean things about them is going to backfire. Every employee and every anchor could have their info posted online, because there are people who are not going to react well to these threats.

We also have the reveal that CNN edited interviews with Trump supporters, to reframe their comments and make them look bad. Since ireactions has been so outspokenly opposed to the practice of releasing edited video that could change comments or context, can we all agree that it's just as bad when a major news outlet does it?

Any one of these stories or scandals would blow over easily. I'm just not sure how many more of these scandals CNN can handle before they're ruined forever. Their credibility is shot, and while this isn't shocking to any of us who actually pay attention and have recognized their false reporting for years, it's so blatant now that even casual viewers will find it harder to ignore.

People say that Trump hasn't accomplished anything, but I think this shows that he has. He has shown the press for what they are, more than any President that I know of. And yeah, it made Trump look bad along the way, but it's not like we had high standards and expectations for him to begin with.

I agree with that. That's the problem with our system right now, and why we need term limits. I think that there are some who would actually work to make a difference, but they don't have the power to do it.

I have no respect for them, but just based on their work.

As for Trump, there are plenty of Presidential day-to-day things that are being done, but the press doesn't cover them. They want the ratings. Ratings come from his tweets and the Russia fanfic that they're publishing. It doesn't really come from economy, or jobs, or environmental stuff, or any of that.

I do hope that having Trump in office makes everyone think hard about what they want next time. But while that's happening, I hope that he continues to highlight the fact that the press is a circus, so they can't sway the election next time. Trump is their monster and now they can't control him. It's horrible, but not entirely un-awesome to watch.

People say that he isn't acting Presidential. As though the presidents are royalty and bound to some rules of etiquette. In reality, they've been all over the place. Some have been blindingly stupid, some have been douchebags like Trump, some have been cold manipulators, and a few have been really swell guys. It's the nature of the beast.

(I left out the ones who were quite probably murderers)

I hate to sound like I'm dismissing something that is obviously not good, but I have to say once again that Trump isn't even unusual for a President, aside from the fact that he's less graceful in dealing with the press. Obama's ego easily matched Trump's. It became such a joke that people started keeping count of how many times he mentioned himself in every speech he gave. He was petty. He was more interested in himself than any part of the general population. He went after his enemies, and used government departments to do it... sometimes quite illegally. And to make matters worse, the press was totally cleaning up after him, keeping all of his big stories buried down as far as possible. By the end, you had them praising him for going eight years without a scandal, which is ridiculous to anyone who has actually been following the news.

It's not just Obama. I mean... this is just politics. They didn't base House of Cards on Donald Trump, after all.

Like I said, I'm not dismissing the fact that this is bad, but people are acting as though Donald Trump is somehow the worst that there's ever been, and he's not. While he is very undignified in terms of how he presents himself and how he deals with people, his actual actions as President aren't even that bad when compared to others. Some part of me even appreciates the fact that there is absolutely no filter on him, because it saves me the time and effort of having to figure out the normal political double-speak.

I know that to people who just got off of eight years of having someone they liked in office, it must seem like a train just went off the rails. Not only do you have to deal with someone who has the personality of a Brillo pad, but you disagree with him on every issue, and then you have the press doing its best to make people feel like Dr. Evil was just elected and the world is doomed... it would suck to be a democrat these days. But, aside from the press creating stories and trying to cause panic in the public, you're pretty much just dealing with what the other side had been dealing with for eight years prior.

I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. I don't like him at all, actually. But I'm coming from a totally different direction from you. At times it might sound like I'm defending him, but the truth is that from where I'm sitting, Donald Trump is still a step up from where we were, and a hell of a lot better than where we could have gone.

Sorry to tell you this, but that sick feeling in your stomach isn't going away anytime soon. Believe me.

Can someone explain to me why people hate the Amazing Spider-Man movies so much? I mean, they weren't the best comic book movies ever made, but they were at least as good as any of the MCU movies out there, and probably better than most of them. Every comment I see about the new movie has some comment about the Amazing Spider-Man movies, as though they were the low point for any comic book movie in recent history.

I'm starting to think this is like what the serious Apple fanboys do, where they comment on how horrible every other feature on every other phone is, and then marvel at the brilliance of those features once Apple "invents" them a few years later.

I got it! I know how to explain it! Finally!

Think of world views as Sliders. Yes, I identify as a fan of Sliders, however, my actual position is much more nuanced than that. I am a fan of some episodes, but probably not a fan of most episodes, and saying that I'm a fan of Sliders technically puts me in the same corner as some people that I'd rather not be associated with. So saying that I'm a fan of Sliders could lead people to a lot of wrong conclusions about my tastes in general, while still being a true statement. The only way to actually know what I think on the specific Sliders-related issues would be to ask me.

And Jerry O'Connell would be a good representation of politicians and commentators. While I generally think he had the talent to be on the show, I do not always support the way he behaved while working on the show, the character choices that were made, and even today... Jerry kinda annoys me. His sense of humor reminds me of one of those embarrassing dads who is always trying to be "on" and funny, but just comes across as lame. Seems like a nice guy and he appears to have embraced the Slider within, but there's just something that irritates me when I'm watching him on talk shows.

In general, my views tend to be all shades of gray, rather than the on/off switch approach that is so popular today.

And again, I'm not a follower of any one of these people. I agree with some of their points, and I think that it's somewhat amusing that you easily dismiss O'Keefe for not being legitimate in your eyes, while constantly relying on distorted media reports that lie on a regular basis. As with anything, my belief is that you take in the information and process it accordingly.

Yup, and that's a douche-y essay that he wrote. I won't disagree with that. However, you were misrepresenting the other comments that he made, and I don't see anything to be gained by blindly believing in false claims.

You seem to not get me on a very fundamental level. My expert of choice is me. I listen. I read. I think. I draw my conclusions. You keep saying that I follow this person or that I believe that that person is beyond reproach. And while I might be a fan of someone in the same way that I might enjoy an author or actor, I am not a follower of anyone. I have never said or believed that anyone was beyond reproach.

The problem that I'm having here is that you claim to keep looking into all of these different sources, to try to get a grasp of what I believe, and yet you are constantly ignoring the words that I type myself. My actual beliefs and opinions. Stop looking to understand my by listening to someone else. I'm right here. Listen to what I say and ask me what I think, and that's how you'll understand where I come from.

And this is what you do. You create the story, and then rebel against what you've created. I've told you that the movie doesn't focus on Elam. It's not about Elam. He is one person of many, from both sides of the spectrum. The movie has many people, talking about many aspects of the men's rights issues. It is not about women, or feminism at all, and it's kinda arrogant for the feminists who are protesting the movie to think that everything a man thinks must revolve around them.

My original post said that the main takeaway from the movie, for me, was in seeing what happens to a person when they are just willing to listen to what the other side has to say, instead of being defensive and feeling as though they are trying to take something away from you. It's something that is sadly missing in our culture, and you're demonstrating that in this thread.

You don't want to watch the movie, not because you think it is trying to legitimize Elam or rape culture or whatever. You don't want to watch the movie because you're happy to live in the Matrix.

You are so dismissive of all of the issues raised by anyone who speaks out for men's rights, and it doesn't make sense. Let's say that Elam is an extremist who hates women. You use that to dismiss every point that might be raised in the movie. However, you insist that I *must* identify as a feminist if I believe that women should be able to vote and work. You are telling me to disregard the women who say that all men should be killed or castrated. You're telling me to ignore the women who believe that a male's instinct is to rape and that boys must be taught how to not be rapists. You're telling me to ignore people who say that a woman is allowed to beat the shit out of her spouse, and if he pushes back to defend himself, *she* is the victim.

If Elam is wrong (which he is) and evil for saying what he said about women begging to be raped, then every woman who says that all men are rapists are just as wrong. If the entire topic of men's rights must be dismissed because Elam is a nutter, then feminism must be dismissed because of those women. This is your own logic.

Again, I am not a men's rights activist. I do not associate with any of those groups, just as I do not associate with feminist groups. I agree with some of their causes, as I agree with some women's causes. I am not a fan or a follower of Paul Elam. I didn't know who he was a week ago, and now that I've gone over some of his work, I'm still not a huge fan. But that doesn't mean that I don't agree with him on some of the issues, or that I'm going to nod along with everyone who misrepresents what he's said.

Watch the friggin movie. If I can get through ten episodes of Dear White People, you can get through two hours of a movie that was produced by a feminist who came at the project with the same mindset that you have right now. I promise you, nobody is going to try to convince you that rapists should go free or that women are asking for it. At best, you might agree with some of what's said. At worst, you'll at least be able to discuss the movie from an informed position. We need to get over this mentality that it's either/or. If you truly believe in equality between the genders, then you should be open to listening to both genders. Unless you're just assuming that any man who has a concern of his own is automatically an anti-woman loon. And that would be sexist.

I watched episode one of The Handmaid's Tale today, by the way. It was infuriating.

This is actually an interesting topic. On YouTube, there are a few feminist SJW types who have been attacked recently, by their own side. It's not because they changed their views of the world or because they've given up on women's rights. The thing that has changed is that they're actually engaging in conversations with the other side and listening to what the other side is saying. They're not assuming that the other side is the enemy, and because of that, they're able to find some issues that both sides can actually agree on. It's the team mentality that keeps people fighting. It's the idea that if you agree with them, you're taking points away from us. It's a ridiculous notion, but it is the driving force behind so much of our culture's interaction these days.

The only thing that would keep people from engaging in conversation is the fear that they might learn something that they didn't know before or change a belief that they hold. That fear is irrational, and just keeps people more divided.

I'm no expert on the whole system or how it works. I'm not a part of it, nor is Cassie Jaye. I know what she spoke to Men's Rights Activists about in her film, and I agree with a lot of it, but disagree with some of it. I also know that there isn't one "men's rights movement", so when you say that it's made up of a bunch of crazies, you're going to have to specify which group you're talking about. I know there's a Reddit group that sounds crazier than other groups.

No, Paul Elam is not the star subject. You need to stop getting all of your information from angry articles that have obvious bias. Elam was interviewed, but it was just on of many people interviewed. Jaye did not ask him many hard hitting questions, but she also didn't do that with the feminists that she interviewed. She took the approach of letting them speak for themselves, which I think works best for a documentary. It's not a hard-hitting interview.

That said, when it comes to Elam's comments that you mentioned about, one of four things is happening:

1. You are willfully misrepresenting what the man was trying to say.
2. I am looking at the wrong videos/articles written by him (I only looked at two of the three that you mentioned, due to lack of time and my back killing me)
3. You're getting your information about these comments from third or fourth hand sources who are distorting what he said in order to misinform people.
4. This is like one of those optical illusions where we can look at the same thing but see totally different pictures.

In regards to Asian women, the video that I watched with Elam had him responding to comments made by some rather stupid sounding men in his comments section, where they declare that they're going to go get them some Asian women, because they're more submissive. Elam spoke about how there are basic cultural differences when it comes to relationship dynamics in some areas of Asia, which mean that these men might be expecting a 1950's American wife, but that's not what they'll be getting. He also spoke to the fact that those cultures are changing, so these men could very well end up with a radical feminist. And he said that anyone wife that you get from shopping around on the internet is probably going to be a bad idea (typically, we refer to Russian mail-order brides, not Asians, but I guess it's the same concept). The moral to his video was that these people need to stop being stupid and be realistic about women. You find a mate by meeting people and getting to know them.

And in regards to "all rapists should go free" thing... not remotely what you said it was, if the article that I looked at was correct. It was an article discussing how many men have been cleared of rape charges since their DNA could be checked against evidence, and how there are an alarming number of false allegations of rape around the country. There are also laws that are meant to protect victims of rape from further stress, but these laws are sometimes used to prevent relevant evidence from being seen, and often present the man accused as being guilty in the courtroom, despite the fact that he is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

He talked about how this is an incredibly complicated subject, but if you are on a jury and can't be sure that you are being given all of the information needed to decide a case, how are you supposed to decide that someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

And... that's a good point. Sorry, but it is. We've had a shit-ton of rape allegations that have been proven false, and in most of those cases, the life of the man (or men) accused is still ruined. This is a very, very complicated subject because nobody wants to do more harm to a victim, but we also can't work under the assumption that the person that is being accused is actually guilty until a verdict is reached. Which means that any action taken against the accused in order to shield the accuser is going to be biased.

The article was written with a deliberately startling concept, but it wasn't presented a great option. It was presented as a need for a real examination of this issue to take place, because a lot of officials are more interested in getting a conviction than getting the truth.

So, did I read the wrong article and watch the wrong video? Or did you get your impressions from articles written about the comments? Or do you look at the same thing as me and just see something completely different? Because I'm sure as hell not a supporter of rapists, and I have no dog in this race of feminists vs. men's rights activists. I'm sure there are plenty of loons on both sides. So... I don't get where you're coming from here. If you wouldn't mind making some actual comments about the issues, rather than vague references to things that don't seem to fit what you're saying, maybe I could see your view more easily. (I realize that that sentence could be read as snarky, but I didn't mean it to be snarky)

I'm not alt-right. Nor am I a Trump supporter.

Maybe I should write an erotica trilogy based on that experience...

Or not.

The Red Pill. Anyone seen it?

For those who don't know, it's a documentary made by a woman, Cassie Jaye, who came into the project as a feminist who had read some bad things about the men's rights movement, and she set out to investigate. As she made the movie and spoke with several of the activists, as well as feminists and other people, and as she did research into specific issues and cases, Cassie began to question her own beliefs, and while she still believes in a lot of equality issues, she no longer calls herself a feminist.

The movie has been getting a lot of attention lately, both good and bad (depending on who you're reading/watching/listening to). I happened across an interview with Ms. Jaye, from Australia ( https://youtu.be/xvLsslFEv7k ) which I thought was really frustrating to watch, because the interviewers had refused to watch the movie (despite their comments in the interview, Jaye has proven that the full screener was sent to the interviewers three times over the course of about a month, as well as being available on sites like Google Play, etc), yet they were criticizing her approach to making the movie. She was constantly telling them that she had addressed their points in the film, but they kept pressing the matter as though she hadn't... all without having seen the movie.

I see this all over the place, and not just with politics. People comment on issues, or TV shows, or movies, or articles, all without having actually looked at the piece itself. They base their opinions on preconceptions and third-party talking points, and then argue those opinions to the death. It annoys the crap out of me, which is why I have a general policy against criticizing things that I haven't personally looked into/watched/read/etc. (there is a lot of criticism of The Handmaid's Tale now, but I haven't seen it, so I won't criticize it... but I do plan to sit down and watch it when I get some time. I did the same with Dear White People a while back.)

So, I saw that the movie was available on Amazon Prime. I have Prime, so I decided to take the couple of hours to sit down and watch the movie. I wanted to see what was so scary and offensive about what Ms. Jaye was saying.

The movie is actually really interesting. It says a lot of stuff that I've known for a long time. There's no support for men who are sexually assaulted or who are victim of domestic violence. I've read stories where the police will actually laugh at the men who seek help. I've looked up the statistics on male rape in the past... basically, none of the major points were really news to me. I don't necessarily agree with everything that the men's rights activists say (I have no problem with a policy of women and children first in an emergency, and I don't want women drafted into combat situations... though I probably wouldn't mind them being drafted for other wartime roles. Stuff like that), and I don't know that Jaye did either. However, I found her personal journey throughout the making of the movie to be really interesting. You can see legitimate change coming over her as she actually talks to people, from both sides.

The thing that is annoying is the concept that in order to give an inch to one person/group, you must take away from someone else. This is all over the place in our culture. There are no shades of gray. There is no nuance of opinion. History is often more processed than canned cheese products. I don't buy into this. I don't think that in order to want to help female victims of domestic violence, you must turn a blind eye to the male victims.

There's this thing with the Black Lives Matter movement, where if you don't support #BlackLivesMatter, you are a racist. If you say that all lives matter, or that police lives matter, you are a racist. However, Black Lives Matter isn't a simple sentiment, it's an organization. It's an organization that has proven to be racist, divisive and violent. So while I might believe that black lives matter, I don't support Black Lives Matter. However, that distinction will have me labeled as a racist, alt-right, neo-whatever.

I've even seen this pop up with stupid TV show or movie arguments. It's not just politics.

At some point, the groups, which essentially becomes competing teams, cause more harm than good. Gender equality shouldn't be about supporting one and bringing down another.

An interesting part about the movie was in watching the different approaches that interviewees took. The men's rights people (often considered to be the evil, sexist ones) were basically just fighting for causes like custody rights, support for male victims of sexual assault or domestic violence, and stuff like that. Meanwhile, the feminist interviewees were fighting against the men's rights people, insisting that they were the hateful, sexist ones, while those men never actually wanted to take anything away from women.

You will tell me that the documentary was obviously skewed, and you're right. Documentaries are all skewed, and all have a message that they're trying to get across (though several of the points they made can be backed up with my own experiences and observations). The thing that made this one interesting for me to watch was the journey for Cassie Jaye herself, who didn't come into this planning to change her own beliefs. Her history shows us that she's not some wacky conservative stooge. And I think that ultimately, the point of the movie isn't about men's rights or anti-feminism. It's about what happens when you stop being defensive, and make an honest attempt to understand the other side of an issue (even if you don't agree with them).

You don't have to be anti-women's rights in order to be pro-men's rights. You don't have to support everything these groups say in order to agree on certain points. You don't have to take from group A in order to give to group B. This has always been my point of view, which is why I don't talk about "cops killing black people" as much as I talk about specific cases, or why I don't support politicians as much as I support points of view (and believe me, the republicans are pissing me off plenty right now).

I see a lot of very angry people who are totally incapable of explaining why they're spewing venom and breaking windows. At some point, it stopped being about any real point of view and started being about whose team can scream the loudest.

Anyway, good movie. Definitely more relevant to politics than to a normal status update or random thought, so I posted it here.

Does anyone own Superman II? Not the Donner cut, but the original?

If so, could you tell me how things are left with Zod and his team? In the versions I'm seeing on YouTube, they die. In a later televised version, released years later, they're seen getting arrested. In the Donner version, I think Superman reverses time, so they're back in the Phantom Zone.

But I don't know which one is the "normal" version on the modern releases.

Isn't he signed to play Indy again?

The movie does look pretty cool. I'm curious to see where the plot goes.

As for casting... I'm not a huge fan of either Gyllenhaal. I think they're both approaching Matt Damon/Leo DiCaprio levels of over-rated. So I prefer Ryan Gosling by far.

Most comic book fans agree with you, if that makes you feel better. I don't know what it is. Part of me thinks that a lot of people have just gotten used to seeing Superman done poorly, so they have a hard time accepting a version that actually has some thought behind it. Another part of me gets that while I like layers and grounding and all of that, most people just want to have fun and don't think about it as much as I do... which sounds like I'm calling them stupid, but I'm not. It's just that different people process stories in different ways.

I don't know about Steve. Bringing him into the present would be too convenient, and I'd hate that. So now they're stuck with him being dead. He could become the Spectre, but that doesn't really make sense. I just don't get why they killed off Diana's main co-star and love interest when the story didn't really require it. If he were Lois Lane, he'd still be alive.

Deep breath...

I saw Wonder Woman...

I didn't love it. <pounds head on desk repeatedly>

Spoilers below...

A couple of things to say before I go into my thoughts on the movie.
First, I've never been a huge fan of Wonder Woman. I've always found her to be a lot of iconic imagery without much character. Her story makes her unrelatable in the comics, and I've never understood why she is the big female icon, rather than one of the better female characters.
Second, I didn't love the movie, but I didn't hate it either. This isn't a negative review. I think Gal Gadot was great in the role.

I'm still trying to figure out where this movie is going to settle in my brain. I guess we'll find out in time.

What are some of the issues that I have with the movie?

Well, as I've said before, the interesting thing about Batman and Superman is that they've been done so many times before that the current franchise runners really can't fall back on the basic paint-by-numbers origin stories. They had to find a new style from which to film them, and a new hook by which to tell their stories. This means that the writers and director had to push that much harder to create a world for those characters.

Since Wonder Woman is such an unrelatable character by default, I really wanted something like Man of Steel, to make that character come alive for me and make me believe in the world that she lives in. While the opening scenes on Themyscira were beautiful and drew me into Diana's world, something shifted once they went back to the "modern" world. Suddenly, every character that surrounded Diana was comic relief, constantly bantering and joking in ways that made them feel like characters, rather than people. I couldn't imagine many of those characters existing off screen. They existed to serve Diana's character.
In Man of Steel, you get a sense of Martha's life without Clark around. You see Lois' life without him. Every character on screen has their own world and their own personality that makes the world full and complete. I just didn't feel that, even with Steve.

In many ways, Wonder Woman has a lot of the same problems that I find in Marvel movies. But I'd still say that this movie was better than the Marvel movies, because while I didn't like it *as much as* Man of Steel or Batman v Superman, I do think that there is more substance and more interesting ideas here. And visually, it just looks better.

Though I don't get why people are saying that it's so much more colorful than Man of Steel. Did I have my sunglasses on during the movie or something?

There was a moment that I thought the movie was taking a really interesting turn. As Diana tracks down General Ludendorff and kills him, she realizes that nothing changes. And Steve tells her that maybe it's not Ares, maybe it's just people. Bad people do bad things, and good (though still not perfect) people fight them, and that's the point of this. We keep fighting, because it's the right thing to do.

Right there, I thought that this was something unexpected and interesting, and a truly hero-creating moment. Diana can't rid the world of all evil and war by killing one bad guy, it has to be a life-long mission (especially since... spoiler alert... there's another World War).

Then the real Ares shows up, that moment from a few seconds ago passes, and we get a big battle that is exciting, but less meaningful than what almost happened.

It's almost like there was a whole other direction for the movie, and it was changed later in the process. In this alternate version, Steve's message to Diana sticks and she realizes that there is no simple way to kill one bad guy and be rid of evil. They off the general, and fight some soldiers as they work to blow up the poison gas, and the day is saved. Yay!
There was also this running question of what a normal life looks like in this world, in between wars. Neither Diana nor Steve know the answer. So in my alternate version, we leave with them together, off to discover what that normal life looks like and whether or not people are actually happy to be married.

There's no reason to not do this. Diana isn't frozen and thawed out decades later. She will live those decades, so why not with Steve? Why did he die in this movie, except because they want to set any sequels at a later point? Diana could have lived with him for at least a couple of years, and at most a few decades, and it wouldn't have done any harm to the character. In fact, I think it would have helped. Wonder Woman is always so unrelatable, but if she had that time with Steve and outlived him, we instantly have something that we can relate to!

This part frustrates me.

Instead, we get a big Ares battle, a dead Steve, and... I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to take away from it in the end. Maybe I need time to get past the "what I wanted to happen" part of my reaction.

Right now, my movie rankings are...

Man of Steel
Batman v Superman
Suicide Squad
Wonder Woman

But just to be clear, Wonder Woman still beats out the Marvel movies. I don't think it was bad. I don't think it was full of plot holes that render the whole movie useless. I don't think it was poorly acted or directed (though I strongly disagree with those who say that Jenkins did a better job than Snyder). It was a good movie. I just have to see where it settles once the dust clears.

Maybe Bruce assumed that all superpowered people knew each other

Got my tickets for Wonder Woman. Going tomorrow! I hope this doesn't suck!

I think that there is a phantom me living inside your head. Because most of what you say about me isn't based on anything I've ever said. In fact, it often runs directly counter to what I've said.

Phantom Me stands behind you, whispering evil little things into your ear as you read my comments, giving you the impression that I'm saying them, even if it's not true. But hot-damn is Phantom Me starting to annoy the real me. Now he's a racist?! I fucking hate this guy!!! Can we ban him from the board or something?

There are man reasons why Comey was fired, and many of them should have had him fired months ago. Some of them should now have him investigated for crimes. I'm not going to shed a tear for weasel. I know you love ignoring the misdeeds of anyone that sympathizes with your cause, but I'm not as easy to win over. Also, you love racists. 

I've already said that not all of the leaks are criminal offenses. However, some of the leaks that have come out of this culture of leaky sources have been illegal.

If you think that Trump is currently commanding that much power, you are watching the wrong news. Seriously, even Grizzlor has referred to him as a lame duck president at this point, because the man can't get a second scoop of ice cream without it becoming a national scandal. Sorry, but you're projecting a Lex Luthor image onto him, and it doesn't really gel with reality (not Winner... just actual reality).

The press isn't holding Trump accountable for his actions. Oftentimes, they are making up the story and creating facts to back it up. There is a difference between reporting truth, and creating stories that will give the public the image of the truth that you want them to believe. How many people do you think even know what Russia did when they "interfered" in the election? Do you know?
And how man people believe that Trump was absolutely involved, despite having absolutely zero evidence? This is because of selective leaks of suggestive "facts", and the withholding of any information that wouldn't support the story.

Trump may not have control of the press, but they have lost their control as well. They're every bit as juvenile and insane with their reporting as Trump is with his Twitter account.

Except that Trump wasn't under investigation... something which the leakers just happened to leave out of the newspapers. Comey (by virtue of being one of those leakers, which he has admitted) has misled the American people into believing something that he knew was not true. This is on top of his lying under oath about Trump being the only president that he ever felt a need to take notes about after meeting with him (references to such notes being written after meeting Bush are in the book "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency", released in 2009)

We did learn some interesting details about Comey's work under the previous administration, in regards to the Hillary Clinton investigation, but how much of that can be trusted? The man is a liar, with zero credibility. He absolutely deserved to be fired. And while I'm not sure that Trump can be found guilty of trying to put an end to an investigation into himself, which was neither taking place at the time, nor seems to be going away anytime soon, I'm sure that if he is guilty of trying to interfere with an investigation, he will pay the price for it. Just like all of the other presidents who have done such things... right?

Also, you love Sarah Palin. I don't know why, but you seem to really love her. A lot. It's not healthy.

Yup. He's not a man that I like. Still, I don't put the cart before the horse. Obama gave many people many reasons for wanting to get him out of office, but we still had to be realistic about it. I like to make jokes about the fact that he didn't even know how many states there were when he was running for office (he said it was he'd been to fifty-seven, with one more to go... Hawaii and Alaska. Seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws ) but I would have thought it was stupid to make an actual scandal out of it, the way "legit" news sources tried doing with Trump's Twitter spell check error.

The problem is that we have celebrities, journalists and even politicians urging violence. Who, on the right, has called for violence? And in regards to hate crimes, there is a lot to look at there. First of all, I know of several cases of hate crimes being reported and heavily covered in the media, only to turn out to be false in the end. So, just like with "cops kill black people!" outrage, I would have to look at each case individually.

What can I say about hate crimes under Trump? If there are more, I don't get it. Trump isn't saying anything racist or homophobic, and none of his policies have reflected any sort of hate. I don't get the connection between Trump and hate crimes.

I agree. Russia needs to be stopped. Perhaps this problem wouldn't exist if Obama had taken the Russia threat seriously, instead of making a "The 80's called..." joke when Romney brought it up, but here we are. It's a problem. It needs to be dealt with. But instead of dealing with the Russians, the focus is on our own President, who was legally elected, since there is zero evidence of actual voter fraud. The Russians released incriminating information about the democrats (who were themselves trying to manipulate the election). What Russia did was wrong and should be dealt with. But... the democrats were also really wrong there and still deserved to lose. As of right now, there's more to incriminate Hillary of trying to sway the election than there is Trump, but nobody is mentioning that.

As I've said before, there are many reasons why Comey deserved to be fired. Trump firing him in order to end an investigation into himself, which wasn't taking place when Comey was in office... doesn't make sense.

I'm concerned with finding the truth. I want to know if Trump did something wrong. However, I don't want a witch hunt. I don't want to waste time and money, just so the press can keep spinning out Trump-bashing stories about something that they have no evidence of. When did it become wrong to want actual information before drawing conclusions?

I'm not opposed to an investigation into the Russian assault on the American electoral process. And if that investigation turns up evidence that Trump was involved, boot his ass out of office, by all means. But right now, everyone is playing that Dr. Google game, where they read a bunch of random symptoms that sound vaguely similar the the itch they have on their ass, and decide that they have incurable cancer before they so much as schedule an appointment with an actual doctor. It's hysteria, and I'm not going to feel bad for not jumping into that.

If these Trump-hating investigators had some damning information that linked Trump to the Russians, we would know about it by now. They're not great at keeping secrets. Or, they would do their job and go through official channels, in which case they wouldn't need to schedule a clandestine meeting with a NYT reporter every time Trump takes an incredibly suspicious piss.

I love my country. It's the greatest country on the planet. And from where I'm standing, the people who are crapping all over this great nation are the people who are willing to destroy the system that has made us great, just because they don't want to end their truly epic post-election tantrum.

An I don't know what your obsession with Dick Cheney is, but your fanboy drooling over his time as VP is both disturbing and, frankly, inappropriate.

Sorry for my late response. For some reason, I thought that summer would be the best time to build a retaining wall, so I've spent the past week outside all day and wanting to do as little as possible once I got inside. For the record, it's hot in Texas. Go figure.

Anyway...

No, not all of the leaks have been illegal. Some of them have been (even before Trump was President), and those people need to be thrown in prison. While other leaks may not be illegal, they should not be without consequences. People should be fired. And I'm not just talking about the lowly clerks who leak things to the press because they want to feel important, I'm talking about the high ranking officials who don't have the evidence that they wish they had to prosecute someone officially, so they decide to destroy them in the press instead. This is happening a lot with Trump.

As I've said before, I don't like Trump. If it comes time for him to get gone, so be it. However, I don't like being misled or blatantly lied to. I like facts, and people working for our government are supposed to be serving the people, not their own opinions and interests. When government are actively working to legitimize the President for no reason other than the fact that they think he's a creep, we have a problem. And it's not the President.

You say that Trump is a lame duck at this point. That may be true, but it's not something to celebrate, no matter how you feel about Trump. He can't get anything done because people don't like him as a person and they're throwing the most epic tantrum imaginable. This will cost us a lot of money. It will do harm to the American people. It could cost lives. This isn't the prom that we're talking about, it's the free world, at a time when there are a lot of bad people who want to kill as many of us as possible. And I'm not blaming the democrats for this. The republicans are equally to blame, if not more. Conservatives should be having a field day right now, but our own damn people are getting in the way of doing anything. The establishment republicans might as well be democrats at this point. They need to go.

A President shouldn't be able to do whatever they want without any question or debate. We've seen that happen in the past, and it usually doesn't result in a good outcome. Issues should be discussed and debated before they're voted on, and I'm not saying that Trump should be given a blank check. But the way this is happening is wrong. We have politicians working with the press to actively mislead (and by this I mean that they're blatantly lying to) the American people, not just about the issues, but about the President himself. At this point, the New York Times could publish a picture of Trump shooting an elderly woman and I probably wouldn't believe them, because they've lied too many times.

How is any of this productive? How is any of this good for us? Barack Obama was a self-absorbed idiot who did a lot of damage to this country, but we didn't see this level of effort going into destroying the office of the President in order to take down the man who was occupying it. The branches of the government are supposed to regulate each other, but they're not supposed to each work toward building their own shadow government.

And sorry, but this is nothing like Obama's birth certificate. Obama actively worked to keep his birth certificate from being released, despite many requests by people who had a right to confirm the eligibility of a man who has a pretty unique background when it comes to citizenship. John McCain had to show his birth certificate, and his citizenship was questioned as well, despite the fact that there really was no question about it. Obama could have put that issue to rest within a day, but it made for great press, painting his opponents as racist conspiracy theorists. That whole scandal was of Obama's making.

The system is a mess right now, and a lot of people want to put the blame for that on Trump. Sorry to say, but he (and his stupid twitter account) is probably the least of the problems that we're facing right now. People are trying to pin a lot of Hitler-y stuff on him, just to make the "rebellion" look less batsh*t crazy, but none of it holds water. And while they throw their tantrum, their followers are still assaulting people, burning things, tipping cars, and shooting up baseball fields. And I'm going to include that because you know that if that wacko had worked on Trump's campaign, he'd be forced to own that shooting.

I forgot to reply about the Dark Universe.

DC/Warner has also been working on a Dark Universe project for a long time and I think there is a lawsuit over the name. If Universal's project isn't making them a lot of money, it may not make sense to fight for it.

I always did kinda want them to revisit Bennish on Earth Prime and keep his story going. But at the same time, tethering us to Earth Prime in such a way could make us feel less loss when it comes to the Sliders feeling lost.

I just think that today's viewers expect the story to go somewhere. Supernatural's best episodes are their stand alone episodes, I think, but we still want to see them going somewhere. I think the show's weakness has been that the characters haven't been allowed to grow and mature as much. They tried it with Dean in season 6, but the fangirls on the internet  went nuts and demanded that they go back to the way things were before. Ultimately, it weakens a show.

I don't think that Sliders should be too arc-centric. However, like Lost, I think that they should make an effort to ground the series and make us feel like each universe is realistic, even if it isn't. The writers have to believe in it, in order to make us believe in it. And even if the characters move from world to world, we are watching the same people. Those experiences have to leave a mark and the characters have to progress. I don't think that jumping in at episode 37 should be as simple as jumping in at episode 1.

I guess. To me, it just looks like the DCEU is performing consistently. WW will probably end up making about as much as MoS. That's pretty good. It's weird that the DCEU appears to be doing really well, but there is a constant need to portray BvS and SS as failures, even though they weren't. Critics didn't like them, but that doesn't appear to have stopped the movies from being successful. They're also doing really well in home video sales.

For rational people, maybe. But there is a big problem with people who are completely unwilling to address the problem of terrorism and the community that is stems from. Obama wouldn't even reference Islamic terrorism because he was afraid of offending the nice Muslims. We have first-world politicians who are more likely to be outraged by a Trump tweet than to be outraged by the fact that entire communities in Europe are turning into third-world style no-go zones, run by largely-Muslim gangs that rape, kidnap and assault people who enter their territory.

Not talking about people on this board, but I have been called "literally" a Nazi sympathizer, because I voted for the "racist", "fascist" and "dangerous" Donald Trump and his "Muslim ban", by people whose response to these endless terrorist attacks is to post a hashtag and insist that we must support the Muslim community, or else the terrorists have won. My mind is officially boggled. People will physically attack people over relatively small political differences, and then turn around and demand sympathy and tolerance for communities that believe in honor killings.

I am not saying that every Muslim is evil. I am saying that there is a clear and dangerous problem in the Muslim community, and it reaches beyond those who plow down crowds of people at a time or shoot up night clubs. A lot of these communities are made up of people from nations that do not live by the standards of the modern world, and pretending that they are the same as the rest of us, just because we don't want to sound racist, is insane. You can't just grab people from one land and throw them into the middle of a foreign and fundamentally different community, and expect it all to go swimmingly.

There is a huge issue here that people are not discussing, because it requires being blunt and potentially offensive. In other words, it's a grown-up conversation about real world issues. Until that issue is addressed and dealt with, there is not going to be an end to these attacks. London, France, Australia... and these are just the ones that are still in the current news cycle.

People have a right to free speech (in the US. In London, saying that you want to end terrorism will have you investigated for hate crimes) and the right to practice their religion. I'm not saying that they don't, and I'm not saying "every middle eastern person..." I am saying that there are *cultures* that are simply not compatible with our culture, and we can't pretend that they are. The comes a point where trying to be inclusive just gets people raped and/or killed.

It's amazing how much of this post is made up of me trying to explain a rather obvious opinion in a way that doesn't set off "racist" alarms in peoples heads. It should  have been a three sentence post!

I do find House of Cards interesting, despite the fact that I dislike almost everyone. Also, I couldn't stop laughing at their version of Highland Park when they showed Claire's childhood home. It was as bad as Supernatural's version of Richardson. They must have just looked at the carefully framed Google search images.

With Breaking Bad, it's like we were supposed to feel for Walt and then witness his downward spiral, but like you said, he started out pretty unlikable.

So I didn't get around to watching the DC movies this weekend as planned, dangnabbit. I found a 55" Samsung 4K TV at Walmart for super cheap ($250) and setting that up took more time than I expected.

The movie is going to look amazing on this TV when I get around to watching it, even at 1080p (there's upscaling that seems to work pretty well), but I need to find the time. I did watch the Justice League trailer in 4K a few times. Damn that looks good.

You're projecting onto most religions. Clearly, one of these things is not like the others.