Search options (Page 22 of 58)

Did you like season one?

Here's a question I read online:

If Trump agreed to quit today, but in exchange, he got a 30-minute variety show that would be aired nightly until he died on *every* channel....would Americans be okay with that?  He gets to be on TV every night (with 100% ratings) for the rest of his life, and we get rid of Trump.  I'm 100% sure he'd do it - he brags about TV ratings for his briefings so I think the part he likes most about being president is the fact that everything he does is newsworthy.

But if he quit today, people would still have to call him Mr. President for the rest of his life.  He'd still have unlimited business opportunities.  And everything he did would still be newsworthy.

I figure he'd take that trade, especially if it meant he didn't have to lose.

The question I have to ask is this: if Joe Biden truly felt that he was cognitively unable to do the job, would he both 1) allow that to be tested and 2) step aside if it was deemed that he was?

Then ask the same two questions about his opponent.

Joe Biden is old.  He's not going to be as sharp as he once was.  And when that stuff happens, it happens fast.  But Biden also cares about the office and the country more than Trump does.  So I'm willing to trust that he'll know when he can't handle the job.  Trump hasn't realized in three and a half years that he can't handle the job, and that hasn't stopped him from trying for eight.

If we don't want crazy old men, we should stop nominating crazy old men.  Until then, we'll have to do the best with what we have.

See, I think the ego would stand in front of that.  Trump is the kid who would turn the video game off before the end of the game so that it doesn't record a loss.  If he drops out, he can claim fraud without officially having had lost.  His election record would be undefeated.  Gore may think he won in 2000 and might tell people that he probably actually won, but the history books record that he did.  But they don't record that LBJ lost in 1968 because LBJ dropped out.

This is all 100% dependent on him knowing that he will lose.  If he thinks he has a shot, he's staying in the race.  But I don't see him sticking in an election that he knows he's going to lose, even if he can claim shenanigans.  Because he can claim shenanigans and (truthfully) say that he never lost by dropping out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/upsh … p-out.html

This was a discussion back in 2016.  It obviously didn't happen then (and hurts the argument that he would), but it also shows that it's something that has been discussed before.

The other sort of long shot theory behind it is all the charges that potentially await Trump if he doesn't win.  The best way for him to escape that is to literally escape that.  Wouldn't it be wild if he did a "diplomatic" trip to Russia, announced he was not running, and then never came back?  His old pal Vlad could protect him, and there's nothing the US government could do about it.  A trip to Russia as president could be suspicious but at least has a reasonable explanation.  A trip to Russia after losing the presidency is going to be harder to pull off.

I'm to season five of Clone Wars.  I always thought of it as a kids show, but it deals with a lot of fairly adult topics.  The show isn't sexual or overly violent (and with clones and droids, the show kinda gets away with the violence that's there) but they deal with just about everything else you'd expect in an adult TV show.  I think it's done a pretty good job of fixing the mistakes of the prequels - they make Anakin and Obi-Wan seem like true friends, and they flesh out much of the time between episodes II and III.

I'll have some more commentary when I finish, but one thing I'm struggling with is the hopelessness of it all.  Every victory for the "Republic" is a victory for the Empire (and to a lesser but still true extent, the First Order).  When a planet is won or converted to be under Republic rule, I understand that they'll soon be under the boot of the Empire.  Big wins for the clones are big wins for future stormtroopers.

When you start looking at it that way, it's less fun. 

Other than that, I'm really enjoying it.  And I'm excited to see the sister series in Rebels when I'm done.

(All this is in preparation for Season 2 of the Mandalorian)

I can't speak to the black experience so I won't even try.  I think the majority of protesters are legitimately trying to drive real change.  I also acknowledge that a *ton* of people are using the protests for their own gain.  Yes, there are people who are taking advantage of the situation to loot.  Yes, there are people on the ends of the political spectrum that are trying to seed chaos.

I wish the protests had been different.  When doctors and scientists went from saying "no one should gather" to "well, some people can gather" to "Trump's rally is ridiculous", they've politicized science.  And that's counterproductive.  I don't like Trump.  I support the protests (at least, for the most part).  But hypocrisy is hypocrisy.  And whether the Memorial Day parties are to blame, or the protests are to blame....the result is more dead Americans.

But the hypocrisy is giving the Trump people ammunition.  It does look like the scientists are picking and choosing what people are allowed to gather and who isn't.  I get that people felt the need to gather for the protests, but we need to acknowledge that the Trump people feel the same way. 

Trump is 100% making it worse but people that were disgruntled to lock down (but did it, for the most part) are now refusing to wear masks and refusing to lock down ever again. And while I think they're wrong, I sse their point.

I tend to agree.  I think Flash has a better chance that Cyborg, and I think the only reason for that is that a Flashpoint movie does make a "soft reboot" easier.

But if I were writing it, I'd use "flashpoint" as a way to recast Ezra too.  So I'd make Flashpoint the plot of Aquaman 2.  Just create some sort of time travel mechanic in Atlantis.  He messes with it and suddenly he's in a war with the Amazons.  And now Batman is either Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Michael Keaton, and the Flash is (insert actor we all still like).

I think Jason Mamoa would be great for the comedy and action, and I think it works for Aquaman as much as it does for Flash (as long as you get the right mcguffin)

It isn't a matter of it being worth his time.  The coronavirus affects his chances at re-election.  The lockdown hurts the economy, which is his number one talking point.  With a pandemic, he can't hold his rallies...which is one of 1) his favorite things to do but 2) his best way to stir up support and get people excited to vote.  Them there's the idea that his major followers either don't believe in the virus at all or don't believe it's that big of a deal. 

So even if Trump were a good president who wants what's best for people, it's counter to his entire re-election campaign to do anything about it.  I'll give him credit for going along with the lockdown on any level, but he's essentially hoping to just ride out the storm and pretend that if he acts like things are back to normal, they'll be back to normal.

Well I think you have to look at a couple things with Biden:

1. His campaign has been much more friendly with the Sanders campaign than Hillary's was.  I've said it before - Hillary should've run the primary by sucking up to Bernie.  She could've essentially said "I love Bernie, but the people are voting for me.  I have to listen to them" and she would've easily won.  Whether you want to say it was rigged or not, she had essentially won the primary without having a single vote cast.  She'd been working on it for 8 years.  It was in the bag.  Why she ever went dirty against Bernie was beyond me.  It cost her votes.  Bernie Bros may still be mad now and may hold it against Biden, but Bernie (and Yang) have been out in front of the campaign.  I think by November, the party will be more unified than it was in 2016.

2. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that people see Biden as a hard reset.  Rewind the clock back to 2016.  Use the typical American theory that a popular president's VP will run after his term is over, and assume that Biden ran in 2016.  And just feel normal.  They can even pretend Obama is there while it's happening.  It really doesn't matter.  It also represents a hard stop because he's already said he was only going to be a one term president.  Get a female VP for the first time and then have an open race in 2024 (with the female VP being the leader in the clubhouse for that race).

So whether you see Biden as being too conservative or too old or too boring or too creepy or whatever, I think people will just see him as "Not Trump" when November rolls around.

I mean I just don't agree with this.  I'm no fan of Biden but he's got so many things in his favor.  Trump's base is nebulous at best because people assume there are 60 million Evangelicals that are loyal to him, but that's not true.  His "base" from 2016 was evangelicals, fiscal conservatives, and people that straight-up hated Clinton.  Two-thirds of that group is wavering at best.  The economy is floundering and will only be worse in November so the fiscal conservatives aren't going to rush out for four more years of that, and Biden's own right-leaning ways help with that.  And I don't think people hate Biden the way they hated Hillary.  The best they can come up with is that he's sleepy.

Then there's the math.  Biden has 183 electoral votes today locked up.  No question.  Done.  The west coast and Illinois and New England are blue, period.  You have your Minnesotas and your Nevadas and your Virginias and your Colorados that are probably blue.  It essentially gets him to Hillary's 232 without breaking a sweat.

Trump?  He has the heartland and Dixie, but those states barely add up to more than California alone.  Even Texas is borderline purple (and if he loses Texas, both he and the Republicans are done for a very long time).  Everyone laughs at Texas as a republican stronghold, but I live here and I don't know a single person who's going to vote for him.  The cities are overwhelmingly blue.  And the demographics are changing.  The farmland is overwhelmingly Trump, but steer don't vote.  I think Texas goes blue in 2024 or 2028.  And if it went blue in 2020, it wouldn't surprise me.

But let's say he gets Texas.  And let's say he gets Ohio, which could easily be a battleground state.  And let's say he gets Georgia (which could easily flip with all the activism happening there) and Iowa.  Even then, he's barely at 200.

It leaves Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida as your battleground states.  Trump won in 2016 because he won all those states.  He won North Carolina by 150,000.  Arizona by 100,000 votes.  Florida by 100,000.  Pennsylvania by 50,000.  Wisconsin by 20,000.

So he needs every one of those people that voted for him to vote for him again.  He might be able to lose one of those 5 and still win, but he probably needs a full sweep.  During a pandemic he made worse.  During a recession.  After four years of doing nothing he said he'd do.

I'm very much looking forward to the return of the Orville

I guess we'll see what happens.  I would think Candice Patton is the type who would say something if she felt he was racist or sexist.  I also think Jesse L. Martin as the paternal figure on the show could speak for him or Jessica Parker Kennedy or Danielle Panabaker or Danielle Nicolet or anyone on the show.  There's a lot of women and a lot of people of color on that show, and I hadn't heard a thing about it.  Unless he completely hid his sexism and racism, I think TF is right...it would've come out.  So I guess we'll see if it comes out now.

I hope Hartley can work again.  He lost this job but Gunn got his job back.  Even Mel Gibson made a comeback.  I don't think his career has to be over - especially if his change is real and his apology is genuine.  People love to tear celebrities down, but we also like a real comeback story.  He's young and I think he's at least CW talented.  If he wants to claw his way back, I think he can.

That's upsetting and disappointing about Hartley Sawyer.  I think he's a fun actor who thrived in the Arrowverse with a character that doesn't have much going for it.  I understand why they did what they did, with the Arrowverse working very hard to be inclusive.

That being said, the article lists tweets that go up to 2014.  I know he deactivated his twitter so it doesn't mean he's changed in six years, but what are the terms we're using to cancel people?  How do we decide who gets a second chance (like James Gunn) and who doesn't?  I'm assuming that this isn't politically based (no idea if he's a Republican), but it's hard to say if Sawyer is getting the Dean Cain treatment.

It does sound like he's sorry.  And I'll never understand why it was okay to hire him after these tweets happened and it's not okay now.  I assumed he made a tweet in the last couple of weeks, but to see that it was six years ago before he even joined the Flash is a tad troubling.  If he learned from it and has been good around his female and black costars, I'd think he'd have been treated differently.  But that's not my call.

I think the main problem is that the show is set up in a way where Kate has an emotional connection to everyone on the show.  She's Beth's sister.  Commander Kane's daughter.  Mary's step-sister.  Sophie's ex.  Luke's partner.  And that's the whole main cast.

A new character could certainly work with all these people, but you can't replicate those relationships.

I have a friend whose mother is a diehard MAGA person.  Evangelical.  Nationalist.  Boomer.  I've always thought she was a very sweet lady.  Her husband is even older and is a very sweet, gentle, quiet man.  It bothers me that she's been swept up in all this crap.

It bothers me more that I never would've figured she would.  Maybe she wasn't a very sweet lady.

I had a long conversation with my own mother.  She voted for Trump in 2016, but it never seemed like she voted for him because she liked Trump.  I think she was raised to vote Republican, and I think she's always had an issue with the Clintons.  She's not political at all so it's more of one of those people that hates them "just because."  She's regretted her Trump vote and has listened to increasingly less conservative talk radio (thank you, true crime podcasts!), and I'm about 95% of the way getting her to vote for Biden.

I think this is a story of two people.  My friend's mom won't change.  My friend is worried that if Trump loses, it will be the end of his family.  My mother has changed.  She might vote Democrat for the first time in her life (I had to explain to her that there were huge chunks of the 90s where she should've but that's a story for another day).

Too often, we focus too much on the people like my friend's mother.  They're, in a way, brainwashed.  That's not to say that she's a victim, but I don't think they're salvageable before 2020.  I think we need to try and remember the people like my mother.  The people that thought maybe Trump would work.  The people that thought it was time to hand the job to a non-politician.  The ones who like the idea of draining the swamp.  The ones who liked the idea of a Republican during a good economy.  The ones who just didn't like Hillary Clinton and have not liked her since 1992 for various contradictory reasons.

As I've said, he didn't win by that much.  He hasn't converted many to his side in four years.  He can't afford for too many people to be like my mom.

I really don't understand the support for Trump.  I understand the support for conservative politics, and I understand that he's the best bet for conservative judges and conservative-ish policies (although I'm not sure there's much conservative policy being generated during this administration - it's mostly the judges).  I understand that he says a lot of things that sound good to both conservatives and Christians (pro-life and 2nd amendment protection).  I understand that it makes the libs mad, and that makes conservatives feel good after Obama.

But 90% of that is obvious bullshit.  The reason there hasn't been any marquee conservative legislation is because Trump doesn't stand for anything.  The reason he talks about Christian values without displaying any of them is that he doesn't care.  At the end of the day, all he has is the blustering of a bully and hatred on his side.  He's abandoned any notion that he cares about anyone but white people, and he's focusing his campaign on white supremacy and trying to trick Christians.

I still don't think that all Trump supporters are evil, but I don't get following this guy.  He's not a leader, and he's not particularly good at pretending that he is.  And Republican leaders that supported him can stop whenever they want.  They don't have to openly condemn their own president, but they can stop with the positives.  Stop with open support.  Do not help elect.

Trump is doing too much damage to the Republican party, and he's not doing anywhere near enough good to recoup it.

I don't think Trump has nearly enough votes to get elected (and I'm in TEXAS), but even if he does, the Republican party is robbing Peter to pay Paul (a reference Trump wouldn't get) in a really dangerous way.  Because if they really pivot to a party for only white people, Democrats will dominate in a country of shifting demographics for decades.  They have a chance to say "we made a mistake, we sold our souls, but enough is enough" and pivot to a platform that stands for conservative politics but not white politics.  And, honestly, if they start now and really work at it, I think they could have things (mostly) cleaned up by the time the election happens.

But it won't matter.  They won't.  They feel like they're in too deep and have to see the bullshit all the way through.  Sad.

This is actually a really good question.  Movies aren't structured the same way as miniseries/TV shows.  I would think he'd have to structure it in a way where the "episodes" (if that's how it's done) have a beginning, middle and end.  As much as shows like to tout themselves as "10-hour movies" they have to have a certain structure.  Even when Kill Bill was broken into two volumes, each movie had to have a beginning, middle, and an end.

Will the Snyder cut do that?  They could possibly do a Bruce hour, a Diana hour, a Clark hour, and a finale.  With Bruce recruiting Barry and Arthur in the Bruce hour and the Cyborg stuff in the Diana hour.

Other than that, just release it as a 4-hour movie like they did with the Irishman.

If you're asking me, if recasting is the route, I hire the best person.  I watched Ashley Platz' audition tape, and she looks and sounds nothing like Ruby Rose.  But if she's the best Kate, go with it.  Long hair, short hair.  Tall, short.  To me, it doesn't matter.  Edward Norton and Mark Ruffalo don't look anything alike, and they both played Bruce Banner in the same continuity.  If you want to say that Incredible Hulk is only partially continuity, then I'll counter with Terrance Howard and Don Cheadle.

In the interests of representation, it should be a lesbian actress.  And if they really want to go authentic, a Jewish lesbian.  But other than that, we're going to have to suspend our belief either way.

Hasn't this been confirmed?  There's an explosion in the trailer, and I thought I saw something about her stopping one bomb but missing the other.

I respect Snyder's vision.  I respect that he wants to create a realistic world where gods walked the earth.  They'd be controversial.  They'd be human.  They'd be fallible.   Superman would be frustrated and would miss a bomb going off.  Wonder Woman would save one group but miss another.  Batman would certainly kill people, either accidentally or on purpose.  If Superman fought another Kryptonian in a major city center, it would cause immense damage.

My only problem with Snyder's movies is that he doesn't give any of those things the proper weight.  Because I don't think he has any emotional tie to any of it.  I think he thinks its cool when two Kryptonians destroy a city, and I don't think he cares about the "people" in the buildings.  I think he thinks its cool when Batman uses Arkham-style violence to break spines, but I don't think he worries about the paralyzed "person" afterwards.  I'm putting "person" and "people" in quotes not because Snyder doesn't care about people, but I'm just not sure he's concerned with extras and faceless people in movies.  They don't have names, we don't see them for the most part so I don't think he cares.  Which I think is fair.

And honestly if he'd made an original property like The Boys, I think it would've been fine.  The problem is that he decided to twist *established* characters and didn't bother explaining anything.  He wanted cool shots and didn't want a scene where Alfred and Bruce talk about why he's changed so much.  He didn't want a scene where Superman actually rescues people.  He likes cool shots where Superman is dragging a tanker or slow-motion flying someone out of a burning building or floating above a flooded house.

I think BvS is *this close* to being a great movie.  I think the 5% that it's missing is 5% of the movie that Snyder didn't care about.  Its why I didn't have a huge uptick from watching the Ultimate version.  Yeah there's 40 minutes more but he didn't use any of those minutes to address what I think are huge problems.  And in my opinion, it's because he doesn't care.

I think that's fair.  No worries.

But when you feel better with it, the table read was really well done.  It was nice to see the cast interact with each other and crack up.  Pedro Pascal was very fun.

Um....so Ruby Rose quit Batwoman.

I've been mildly impressed on how the Arrowverse has been able to work to make their final episodes into season finales.  It's clear that there was going to be more in each season, and these are all going to make for interesting "next seasons".  For example, will the Flash be dealing with the new Mirror Master as a season-long villain?  Or will they wrap her story up quickly and move on to their next story?  Same could be said of Batwoman/Alice/War with Kane and Supergirl/Leviathon/Lex.

I guess it shows that most of these shows end on cliffhangers most of the time.  So in essence, it could've worked with any episode they ended on.  But it's interesting...the Walking Dead chose to delay their season finale until it could be completed.  I wonder if that was an option for Flash or Batwoman (it wasn't an option for Supergirl unless Melissa Benoist could work while pregnant).

I wish they'd get out of the TOS era.  If Picard doesn't want to do any Starfleet action, I'd rather have a companion piece on a Starfleet show that takes place during the Picard era.

Well that's the funny thing.  Han Solo talks about how he's been all around the galaxy and hasn't seen anything that would lead him to believe that the Force is real.  But the Jedi were *everywhere* 30 years earlier.  Even if he never saw a Jedi, there would be *tons* of living beings that would've been alive at the height of their power.

I wonder if the prequels should've gone in a different direction.  Maybe the Jedi officially ended in the Old Republic and the Sith/Jedi were fighting a secret war.  Obi-Wan worked in secret, and he finds Anakin.  The two of them fight for a couple decades, until Anakin is seduced by their rival faction.

Anyone see the miniseries "Devs"?  It was written and directed by Alex Garland, and I thought it was well done.  And since it plays around with the multiverse, I thought it was pretty cool.  Anyone else check it out?

I guess with the pandemic, there's less of a chance that people like Kat McNamara will get picked off by other shows, but the longer they don't lock her and the other actors up, the less of a chance this show happens.

The CW announced that the plan is for Supernatural to return with its final episodes in the Fall.  Since they still have to film two episodes, that's very much a question.  But, as I said in the DC shows post, that's about the only original programming planned for the CW in the fall.

Yeah, I agree.  I wonder if there's a certain pressure from the writers of the Flash to be the "headlining" series.  It's easy for the Flash to be the fun "junior" series when Arrow has dark and brooding taken care of.  These days, Legends has the fun taken care of.  Maybe the Flash feels the need to be dark and brooding like the show that just ended.

I think the writers are going about things the wrong way.  If I were them, I wouldn't have season-long villains.  Because, you're right, you sorta have to make Barry look weak or dumb whenever he can't defeat a single villain.  I don't think Bloodwork or Cicada were necessarily any stronger than Pied Pier or Weather Wizard or Captain Cold...villains that Barry was able to beat in one episode. 

I like the idea of mini-seasons, but I might even go further than that.  Maybe 2-4 episode "blocs" where villains show up, make life difficult for Barry, and after an episode or two, they defeat them.  And I would use the same "villain of the week" villains.

I also think the problem is that speed isn't fun anymore.  Barry sees the Flash as being his job - not being fun.  Speed is a means to save people, not a rush.  They had some fun when Cisco got powers, when Caitlin got powers, when Ralph got powers.  A new Wells every season isn't enough "newness" to have fun.

It's why I would've killed Barry.  Shake the show up.  It's essentially the same cast from season one with a wacky new sidekick and a wacky new Wells.  I think the show could stand to lose 2/3 of Cisco, Wells, and Caitlin.  It may be time to move on from Joe West.  Not because those character are old or stale, but they've done so much with those characters.  If they'd done TF's idea and killed Barry to replace him with Bart (also played by Gustin), then they could've played with a novice speedster on a team led by someone else (Ralph or Cisco or Frost).  Bart could have fun.  There'd be a new side for whoever the leader is.  There could be a new mentoring aspect.

The Flash needed a shakeup.  Still does.

An actress knows who I am!  I'm not even going to try and guess now!