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I *am* excited to see ____!

I've enjoyed the show.  I'm not sure if it's good or if I'm just genuinely excited to see post-Nemesis Trek.  I identify with this era so much more (and not just because of my irrational love of Voyager...for the record, I still know that DS9 is the superior show), and it's nice to see what familiar faces are up to.  It's also nice to see a side of Starfleet that we've never really seen very long or in depth - a civilian one.  Certainly there would be "retired" members of Starfleet who would still want to do something space-adjacent.  So Rios is an interesting character in that sense.

A couple things that have bothered me:

1. I know Starfleet has always been pretty corrupt.  TNG had about 100 episodes where the eventual main villain ended up being a corrupt admiral.  DS9 showed the many atrocities of both Starfleet and humans (via Section 31).  So to say that the Federation and Starfleet have always been the good guys is a bit off.  But the way Starfleet is shown does sorta throw it's arms in the face of what I think Roddenberry originally envisioned.  I'm sure the show will try and rationalize this by the end, but I found myself wondering if Picard was the only person who quit in protest.  I know we'll find out what happened to Riker and Troi.  I'm guessing Seven of Nine has been a civilian for a while, but we'll find out this week.

But what about the people we probably won't see. Would Admiral Janeway have agreed with the decision?  Bashir?  O'Brien?  Barclay?  The Doctor?  Who would've quit with Picard?  Especially people who followed Picard everywhere else.  The show makes it seem like Picard and maybe Raffi were the only ones....and that would be disappointing because I think Picard is almost certainly in the right no matter how you look at it.

2. This one is way more minor, but why does Picard let Raffi call him JL?  One...that's not a nickname we've seen from anyone else.  And two...Picard has been very hesitant to have anyone call him by his first name.  I know it's happened with the occasional love interest (I think Ruby from First Contact does), but for the most part, it's shown to be something that Picard hates, especially on duty.  And Raffi calls him JL, even when he was in uniform as an admiral.  I get that she sees him as some sort of father figure and the show wants to show that they had more of a personal relationship, but I can't imagine Picard was ever truly okay with that.

Oh and I also noticed post-Crisis, both Legends and Flash have fancy new intro sequences.  I don't love either of them, but I did notice them.

I haven't read the full script but I read portions.

At the end of the day, I think Trevorrow's script would need a ton of polishing (especially after dealing with Carrie Fisher's death), but I think it does a much better job of 1) following up on The Last Jedi and 2) completing the sequel trilogy.

I think JJ Abrams script was too concerned about hitting emotional notes that he set up with The Force Awakens and felt ownership to resolve the entire 9-movie saga.  I do think that Ben needed to be redeemed in some way, especially after Han (and in some ways, Luke) died in order to try and save him.  If he simply becomes an irredeemable villain then both their deaths are in vain.

That being said, TLJ left two options.  Either Kylo is your villain or you bring in someone else.  And, honestly, I think the movies work a lot better if Kylo is your villain.  I don't think Trevorrow handles it correctly either.  He sets up a situation with Luke and Kylo where Kylo can be saved, and he doesn't go that route either.  I think you could write a scenario where Kylo has gone full bad guy, where Kylo still dies for his crimes, and he's still redeemed in the end.  I think it's more fluid and a better connection between the movies.

As far as uniting the movies, I don't really see the reason to do that.  Yes, I think there are people who legitimately think that the series ends with 9 Skywalker movies, but I don't believe that for a second.  There will be an Episode X.  And beyond.  Of course there will.  So tying Episode IX to Episodes I-VI I think is sentimental for the sake of being sentimental.  Bringing in Palpatine doesn't make sense...so much so that they didn't even try to explain it.

Rey showing up on Tattooine doesn't make any sense.  she has no connection there.  She never knew Beru and Owen.  Her only connection to that place was Luke, and he hated it there.  She has no connection to Anakin (and I'm sure there's reason to believe she doesn't even know who Anakin is).  Luke is the only one named Skywalker she ever met, and I can't say their relationship was that strong.

She knew way more Solos.  She liked more Organas.  Solo makes much more sense for her to name herself after, but she chooses Skywalker because it's the Skywalker saga.  She goes to Tattooine because people know that place and it's significant to Star Wars.  It isn't significant to Rey.

Duel of the Fates isn't great, but it attempts to be the third part in the sequel trilogy.  And since it's an early draft, I think a final draft of that script could've succeeded at that goal.  Rise of Skywalker tries to be so many different things and fails a lot because it can't focus.  So I'd give RoS a C- and DotF an incomplete.  Maybe it would've ended up worse.  Maybe not.  But its bar was lower, meaning success was more likely.

Everyone remembers the other timeline because of J'onn.  I assume that Tommy knows just because he was told by the people that J'onn let in on.

And, yeah, that's why I was kinda weirded out by the whole thing.  There's an entirely new version where Tommy lived all eight seasons and things would've definitely been at least a little different.  I imagine things are still supposed to be fairly similar to how they went.  Laurel still showed up from Earth 2 and still had her redemption arc.  And while Emiko survived, I'm assuming Darhk and Diaz still died.

I'd think a decent amount of Arrow would still be pretty much left intact.  Tommy would be alive, but he wouldn't have participated in any adventures.  Oliver still needed his team so things couldn't have gone too far off the rails.  But it's the major moments that Oliver would've gone in and tweaked to make sure he made the right decision at the right time.  It's an Oliver thing to do, but as we're seeing, it's a bigger deal that they sorta glossed over.

Hmmm, I did not get that.  My understanding is that Oliver went back and fixed his mistakes.  He saved Moira.  He saved Tommy.  He didn't kill Emiko.  Etc.  So when Tommy says he was married to Laurel, I'm assuming he was talking about a parallel timeline (not a parallel Earth) where Earth-1 Tommy (who didn't die) married Earth-1 Laurel (who eventually did die).  So there's an alternate season 2 where Tommy started to date Laurel and eventually married her before she died).

When Tommy said "I just found out there's an Earth where I died" I assume he was just talking about the original Earth-1 timeline.  It wouldn't mean any different to him.

Because Quentin is mayor.  He didn't just show up from a world where he was mayor.  So he didn't die.  I assume the same happened with Tommy.  According to Earth Prime timeline, he didn't die.

It could be semantics.  We watched the Earth 1 version of Oliver, who no longer exists.  There's an Earth Prime version of Oliver who saved Tommy, saved Moira, saved Quentin, saved Emiko.  It's just weird that *that* is the official canon now and we didn't really get to see any of that.

I can summarize, but I'll only do it from memory:

- Kylo spends the movie trying to find a way to destroy all the Jedi and Sith forever.  He hangs out in Vader's castle, and Luke spends the movie trying to get him to turn back.  But Ben Solo is gone - Kylo is all that's left.

- The First Order has a stranglehold on the galaxy.  No communication can happen between planets.  Hux controls Coruscant.

- Finn and Rose have a lot more to do.  Finn, Rose, and Poe hijack a star destroyer, and Finn ends up leading a rebellion of former stormtroopers (both giving him something to do and finishing his arc).  He's not force sensitive, but he does lead a group of sensitives to Rey at the end (including Broom Boy).

- Rey is still trying to redeem Kylo and they (along with some other force ghost cameos) are forced to kill him.

Ah, well that explains it.  In that case, it's less awkward from a behind the scenes perspective.  Still awkward from a narrative perspective.

I might watch Arrow live tomorrow if I get the chance.  I've never watched it live before in eight years.

Would Duel of the Fates have been better?  I don't know.  It would've faced difficulties since it would've needed changes after the death of Carrie Fisher.  But I think what would've helped it was the idea that it would've made the sequel trilogy feel like a cohesive story, which is the major downfall of what happened after Rise of Skywalker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzujpplt-0M

I watched this video, and I think it does a good job of understanding some of the narrative issues of TROS.  When Snoke died and Rian Johnson set up Kylo Ren as the major villain, it caused a lot of issues that Abrams decided to force his narrative through.  He wanted to redeem Kylo so he needed a villain - he chose Palpatine over creating a new villain.  But at the end of the day, it feels the same way.  I also saw another video that talked about how Daisy Ridley seemed to imply that there was enough evidence in The Force Awakens to deduce Rey's parents.  The YouTuber said that it implied, if anyone, that Luke was her father.  But since they needed to force Palpatine in, Abrams changed her parentage to be Palpatine...another twist that seemingly comes out of nowhere.

Duel of the Fates fixes some of this by simply staying the course that Rian Johnson set.  Kylo Ren is the bad guy.  Luke is spending his time trying to redeem his nephew.  The Resistance is defeated but still fighting.  It feels like it's more naturally a sequel, and it even plays with certain aspects of Abrams story with Rey ending up being a student of both sides of the Force.  It respects both Force Awakens and Last Jedi, while I don't think Rise of Skywalker did much but tolerate what parts of TLJ it had to.

At the end of the day, I think it would've *felt* like a better sequel.  Whether it would've been a better sequel is up for debate.  I imagine it could've been improved on rewrites since Trevorrow was canned well before he had the chance to do so.  And maybe Disney would've pushed for changes after TLJ actually came out.

But the more I think about it, it's simply bizarre how much freedom Rian Johnson got.  Bizarre and impressive.

Green Arrow and the Canaries

I thought it was entertaining and I'd watch more of this world....but man, is this a bizarre way to both follow up on Crisis and lead into Arrow's series finale.  I get the logistical problems - this has to be post-Crisis because the Star City 2040 needs to be post-Crisis.  Oliver is dead so there can't really be a ton of post-Crisis episodes of Arrow without just starting something new.

So you're in this weird space where Oliver died, they want to do this backdoor pilot, and it has to take place in the future.  I wonder if they could've done this on an episode of Legends instead?  I get that this is a continuation of Arrow, and I imagine they're going to use a lot of Arrow writers/staff on this new show...but it just felt really weird.  It's going to be two weeks since Oliver died before we really get a reaction to it.  If this new show doesn't go to series, we're essentially leaving a show that never happened on a cliffhanger.  It was just kinda weird.

Although, again, I did like it.  I guess all the characters will eventually remember everything, and then it'll just be a nicer version of last season?  I was also a little weirded out by the whole Laurel and Dinah thing since it was kinda confusing.  Is Laurel a time traveler?  She implied that Sara dropped her off (which is why it might've fit on Legends), and she doesn't look like she's in her 50s.  Is Dinah one too?  When she said she woke up after Crisis, did she mean in 2040 or in 2020?  Or somewhere in between?  I didn't feel like she looked like she was in her 50s either, although she definitely looked a bit older.  I was wondering how they would get away with aging both actresses for every episode, but I wonder if they found a way to just not do that?

Interesting.  Okay, I buy that.

I think the Smallville scene feels out of place because it was a late addition.  I still maintain that the original idea was for Tom Welling to play the Brandon Routh Superman role.  I think it was written that Tom would appear in the Kingdom Come suit and would have a bigger part to play.  I assume Tom declined, and they went with either Option 2 or option 1B (it's hard to say that getting a theatrical Superman is worse than getting a WB/CW Superman).

So like the scene with Ezra Miller, they wrote a scene inconsequential to the plot and then threw it in.  As Tom would later say, they wrote the only version of the scene he couldn't turn down.  One day of shooting.  One scene.  No suit.  No working out.  I assume that was worked out through negotiations, and that's why it feels tacked on.

That also might be why Routh's Superman disappears in Part 3 and never returns (except for the glimpse into the new multiverse) - because it was written for Tom to appear in two episodes, and they didn't want to try and oversell something to him.  If Tom plays the part, they get out of the whole "why does Ray Palmer look like Superman" question - and may even get out of the "why does Kara's mom look like Lois" question if they followed the same "everyone in Clark's life is dead" story for Tom's Clark.

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I watched Batwoman and Supergirl's first post-Crisis episodes.  I wonder if Supergirl will have the biggest adjustment since Lex is now alive and they're all on a different Earth.  Batwoman seems mostly the same, minus a reference to Oliver Queen (and maybe the last ten minutes, which I actually haven't finished now that I think about it).  I don't watch Black Lightning, and that show also moved to a different Earth so maybe that'll change too.  Obviously Arrow will change, but that's shortlived.  The Flash has been tied to Crisis all along so it'll change but that change will feel more natural.

I'm just picturing a Supergirl fan who has only watched Supergirl since the CBS days being so confused on why so many things have changed.  I imagine even a one-show fan might watch the full crossover, and I realize that the Supergirl episode is what kicked it all off.  It's just crazy that the whole season was turned on it's head after the crossover (especially when Batmoman seems more or less unchanged).

I also thought it was kinda weird that the DEO staff kept saying that the multiverse was dead.  Did the Supergirl writers misunderstand the ending to Crisis?  The multiverse isn't dead...it came back.  Their worlds were merged into Earth Prime, but the multiverse lives. All those Brainiacs should presumably already have worlds to go back to?

SPOILERS for all of Crisis now:

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I'm not sure how I feel about the crossover as a whole.  On one hand, I think what they pulled off was extraordinary.  On the other, I'm a little underwhelmed.  This was essentially the Avengers: Endgame of the Arrowverse, and I don't know if we got the same level of emotional closure that we got from Endgame.  I think part of the fact is that they went for such a shocker moment at the end of Part 1 with Oliver dying.  But they never really undid it - Oliver still died at that moment, and he only part-way came back.  Killing him twice sorta robbed us of any true connection to him dying.  I think he needed to be a paragon, and he truly needed to sacrifice himself.  As it stands now, Oliver died offscreen.

And I think some of the beats they hit just came off wrong.  I understood that the last scene was essentially the leads of all the shows (including the proposed Superman show), but having Black Lightning at the funeral (but no one from Team Arrow) felt weird.  But if it was just the leads of all the shows, why was J'onn there?  I understand that Arrow will have its own goodbye to Oliver, but it was just odd how they came to that group.

But they hit a lot of home runs in this too.  I liked the trip through Oliver's memory in the Speed Force.  I wondered for months why Legends was the finale (and not Arrow) but they truly gave the leads to all the shows a front seat for each of their episodes, and I think Sara did a great job carrying the final hour.  I liked the camaraderie between the characters (with Kate and Kara becoming instant friends).  I liked the tongue-in-cheek nature of all the crossover talk.  I think the intro of Earth-Prime was handled well and will allow for more teamwork and less roping in of Kara and her team.  And, of course, I thought all the cameos were really fun.  I still love that they made the Smallville stuff work.  That makes the crossover a win no matter what else happened.

I did find it odd (but not necessarily bad) that they didn't show any other new worlds except for the active/future shows.  It made me wonder if the Smallville universe or the Batman 89 universe were destroyed.  I wonder if the Flash TV Flash is back.  It would've been nice to have a longer montage where they showed some of the key figures living normal lives, but that might've been cut in editing.

All in all, I think it worked.  I think the hardest thing is how they handled the Flash.  "Flash disappears in Crisis" has been around since day one of the Flash.  Day one.  And for them to have such a cheap bait-and-switch with zero ramifications for the show or anything is....borderline unforgivable?  I'm not saying that I wanted Barry to die, but I think he sorta needed to for the Flash as a series to work.  It reminded me of Harry Potter - I didn't want Harry to die, but I felt like the whole series was pointed in that direction.  And when he didn't, it just felt wrong and cheap.  I think TF had the best idea - kill Barry off heroically and have Grant Gustin play someone like Bart.  It would inject some new life into the series as they team would have to deal with a new Flash, Grant would get to play a new character.  Even Iris would get to live on in a different role.

But to have five years of "Crisis is coming!  Barry is going to die" and then not even really get close to that....I mean what was Iris' article even about?  "Flash disappeared in a crisis but it was some other flash that no one knew.  Don't worry about it."

I'm a very unique guy.

I get the Nazi stuff and not wanting any more of that.  But, oddly, I think there's something healing about seeing a world where the US was completely enveloped by Nazi Germany.  Because, on it's surface, you sit there and you think, "Well, I'd never go for that.  I'd be in the resistance."  But then you watch a story about someone like John Smith, and you start to see the cracks in your own story.

And this is where I think the 1947 story is the most interesting.  In the alt-world of High Castle, FDR was assassinated in the 30s and the US never recovers from the Great Depression.  Because of this, they are slow to get into the war.  Pearl Harbor is also more devastating, and by the time the US tries to spring into action, it's too late.  Washington DC is nuked, the American continent is invaded, and that's that.

There's a scene in season 4 where we see a group of US soldiers hiding out in a cabin.  It's the day that Patton has surrendered to the Germans, and they're wondering what they're going to do.  How are they going to fight back.  Their superior officer knocks on the door, but he's wearing a swastika armband.  He tells them that they have two choices - report to work for the military and their new leaders or die.  That's that.

But he also does something else.  He brings milk.  Bread.  Provisions.  The propaganda radio, previously, talked about how America was getting running water again.  24/7 electricity.  Food was arriving from the "liberators."  And Smith and Smith's wife Helen are appreciative of the food.  The milk means that their starving baby might stop crying.  Joining up means that they get to live. 

Smith says several times that he never believed in it.  But he believed in the security and power it provided him.  He understood that looking the other way (even when his best friend was carried off to a camp) meant that his children and family get to survive and thrive.

Even for other people, just getting the power back might lend some sympathy.  Getting food and water and a return to normal life would be enough to be appreciative of the "liberators" - even if they hated them before.  It's strange - the Germans would be responsible for their losing power, but they'd also be revered for restoring it.

So I think it's important, at least for me, to see how small a bend you'd have to make to become the worst version of yourself.  And that's what we got with Smith.  He was a good soldier who fought for something, and his life changed to get a baby to stop crying.  Helen Smith has a great scene in the finale where she tries to rationalize it to her daughter, and she's horrified by her own answers.  John remarks that it's a nightmare to see other versions of himself because he knows he's the worst.  Alt-John explains that he left the military because he realized he was too good at it.

I think now, it's important to realize how easily good men become cruel.  So we don't do that.

Yeah.  I know they're doing Mandalorian season 2 and an Obi-Wan TV show.  I'd forgotten they're also doing a Cassian Andor show for Disney+ starring Diego Luna.

But Rian Johnson is still working on something for Star Wars.  So is, apparently, Kevin Feige.  So there will still be Star Wars movie, but Star Wars fatigue is definitely a thing.

Jurassic World is a ton of fun.  As someone who has more nostalgia for Jurassic Park than I've ever had for Star Wars, I can safely say that Jurassic World was a love letter to me as a fan.  I think it's a lot like the Force Awakens - it's a retelling of the original story with higher stakes (since the park is open and there are more potential casualties).  I think he might've made a similar movie to The Force Awakens, honestly.  So I assume his Episode IX wouldn't be much different than TFA.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with the Rise of Skywalker in a vacuum.  I think it's perfectly enjoyable on it's own.  I think where this series fails is simply as a cohesive unit.  Episodes VII and IX feel like two ends of the same story since they were made by the same person.  Episode VIII feels like a sidequel or a supplementary comic book adventure because what happens in it adds to the characters but not necessarily the story.

The sequel trilogy, to me, is a delicious gourmet hamburger meal.  Abrams films are two wonderfully toasted buttered buns, and Johnson's films are perfectly fried french fries coated in parmesan and truffle oil.

We're missing the meat.  The connective tissue between Abrams' movies so that the jump into IX isn't so abrupt.  We have a villain in TROS that we don't understand, even though he's a familiar face.  Is Palpatine the original guy we were introduced to in Episode I that survived the destruction of the Death Star?  Or is he, as he puts it, some sort of timeless embodiment of the Sith?  I've heard theories on all of it.  That TROS Palpatine is a clone of the original who was imperfect (or torn apart by the Dark Side energy) so he needs to jump into a new body.  Or that TROS Palpatine is the *true* Palpatine and that the Darth Sidious that was killed in Return of the Jedi was the clone/projection.

Honestly, I don't know, and the movie doesn't really care to answer.  I think maybe they just needed another edit.  Maybe merge the Pasaana and Kijimi scenes so that they can get to Exegol faster.  I don't know.  Even as someone who liked TLJ more than most (and it's my favorite of the sequel trilogy), I wonder if Rian Johnson just didn't do enough to set up Episode IX and Abrams had to cram in Episode VIII and IX into one.  And that's why it was both really long and really rushed.

I think I agree with that.  I think the primary issue is that I don't feel like either of them ever even worked together.  And I don't even necessarily mean they got in a room for days to plan things out.  I don't even feel like there was an email with a list of possible directions to go in that either of them used or referenced.  If I were JJ Abrams and I've just completed the Force Awakens, I would've made a list of directions that I was hoping to go. 

- Rey is a Palpatine
- Palpatine is still alive / is the embodiment of all Sith evil on a distant planet
- Leia is going to sacrifice herself to redeem Kylo who also sacrifices himself to save Rey

Even if its just a photo of rambling notes, I'd write something down so that the next person has a general idea of where things were meant to go.  Either Abrams did this and Johnson threw it in the trash, or Johnson made the theme of his movie about the idea that mystery boxes don't matter.  Either way, there's not really any connective tissue between Episodes VII and VIII.  And if episode IX was directed by someone else entirely, then maybe that would work.  It'd be an anthology of Star Wars movies that have a different visual or tonal style telling one mostly-coherent story.

But even if Abrams and Johnson weren't working against each other, they're not working with each other enough for the story to make the ride feel smooth.  Abrams decided he wanted to take the left path through the exciting forest, and he started down that path.  And Johnson decided he didn't like the forest and wanted to take the windier path that goes alongside the ocean so he could contemplate the vastness of the ocean without all the noises and distractions from the forest.  Neither seemed to notice or care that there was a middle path where you could still see the ocean and still hear the forest that was both safer and faster.

And again I don't think this is all that strange, even in Star Wars.  Star Wars is notorious for its wide and expansive Legends universe full of tons of stories from hundreds of different creative minds.  But if Lucas wanted the Clone Wars not to be touched upon, they weren't.  When the comics wanted to bring in a clone of Vader, Lucas insisted they make it a clone of Palpatine.

I don't think it would've been a stretch for Disney to have the same philosophy.  "Rian, you're the mastermind of Episode VIII, but JJ has some plot points that we would like you to either build on or at least don't directly contradict."  So it's still collaboration even if they're still working 100% independently.

BTW, there's a fan theory that Smallville Clark is wearing a Blue Kryptonite watch.  He is, indeed, wearing a watch with a blue face so it's not impossible.  It could possibly be explained that Clark wears the Kryptonite watch when he's at home (or when there's not a Superman-level event) in case people think he's Superman.

Not sure if that makes anyone feel better, but it's a nice theory.

Yeah, I could see it being something like that.  The thing is that it was Clark's decision.

The timeline is a bit confusing.  Canonically, Clark is Superman in 2018.  It's definitely 2019 in the Arrowverse.  And yet Lois and Clark have at least two girls that are old enough to "want to show Clark something."  So if Clark gave up his powers in 2018, there's *at most* 23 months where that could work.  So the kids could maybe be one year old.

There are tons of explanations for this:

1. Clark and Lois could've had kids in the same/same-ish way that Clark and Lois had kids in the Supergirl universe.
2. Clark and Lois could've adopted during the time Clark was Superman.  So Clark's reasons for giving up his powers could be unrelated to the kids directly but still important to him indirectly.
3. "The girls made something for you" could be just making a mess, and they could be one year old.

But I think Clark would see his "career" as Superman as a success and is "retired" - without necessarily having to give up his powers in some big act of bravery to save the world.  He gave Smallville a decade.  He gave Metropolis a decade.  And then he passes the torch to someone else.  I like the idea of adapting the Eric Summers method and giving his powers to an Oliver Queen whose body has broken down and still wants to do good.

Do I feel cheated that we *still* never got to see Tom Welling in the suit?  On some level, yes.  But Tom, in interviews, essentially said that the scene they wrote was the one scene he couldn't turn down.  Which implies, at least to me, that Tom was going to turn down any offer that included him going in the suit.  Giving up his powers, as ireactions said, allowed Tom to play Clark the same way Tom looks now.  And, again, I think it's a really happy ending for Clark.  If he was still Superman, we would know that the Brandon Routh Superman's fate could still belong to Clark.

The way it is now, Lois and Clark are probably going to live a quiet life on the farm.  Until the multiverse explodes.

We got a 4-minute coda to Smallville.  I would've been happy with a 30-second one.  I feel like we won.

Unfortunately, Season 2 of Titans is pretty far down on my list of things to catch up on.  I might not get to it until the summer (same way I watched Season 1).

But I'm very excited about it.

I saw that about Benoist - very sad.  I'm glad she's doing better.

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Okay, so I wonder if they've solved the Bruce in Batwoman problem - I wonder if he'll just be Kevin Conroy.  It seems like Conroy is playing a version of Bruce that Kate can recognize.  We've read throughout that he's playing an older Bruce Wayne, and I think we have to take that as truth.  Kate seems surprised so I'm assuming that's because he's older than she'd expect.  If that's still the case, could Bruce appear on Batwoman with Conroy's voice, audio-only?  Would that be enough?

I'm assuming that Bruce is supposed to be in his mid to late 20s in Batwoman?  I don't think Conroy could play that young of a Bruce, but if Bruce is never supposed to actually show up, perhaps they picked Conroy so that he could convincingly be the voice of younger Bruce.

So I know we talked a bit about my wife and me trying to have a kid.  Well, I wanted to announce that last week, she gave birth to our daughter!  Just wanted you guys to know that 1) so you didn't feel so bad about what happened before and 2) so you won't worry if I'm not here as much in the next few weeks

Yeah, I also don't see the reason financially unless it was literally done when Snyder left (no evidence of that) or unless Snyder himself paid to finish it himself (not sure why he'd do that - he's probably more legendary without it being released).

The argument I've seen from a financial perspective is that if they announced that the Snyder cut would be included on Day One of HBO Max, would that encourage more subscriptions?  How many people desperately want the Snyder cut and would subscribe Day One?  Would that be enough to offset any costs?  I doubt it.  And yeah, a directors cut of a movie that was a financial disaster probably isn't the same selling point as the Mandalorian was for Disney+

Maybe Snyder asked Gal and Ben and Ray to do him a solid and post it.  Just for kicks.  But it's weird because it legitimizes the movement and gets unrealistic hype unless Zack/Ben/Gal/Ray think there's a legit reason it happens.  The evidence says that it won't.  But maybe they know something we don't.

Weird.  A few days after Jason Mamoa posted an image on Instagram with the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag, both Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot did the same thing on Twitter.

I can't imagine they'd do this unless they knew something.  Is there a chance that we'll get it?  My understanding was that they didn't shoot enough to finish it, but I've also read a quote from Snyder that said it was done.

I don't think Warner Bros. would be able to make back their money on such a thing.  But if it was essentially done, there's been a consistent call for this for two years now.  Maybe a release on the WB streaming service would be worth it.

I agree with that.  I just think it's odd that I don't really feel like the show really treats Supergirl as the protagonist sometimes.  I just feel like the show feels like it wants to spend more time dealing with the other characters, and that sometimes Kara is just used as a mechanism to tell their kind of stories.  It's a little odd that Brainiac is in a relationship and Kara hasn't been one in three seasons?  I know "being in a relationship" doesn't automatically translate to "character growth" but it's funny that the show started with love interests in season one and two and then just stopped trying.  Maybe Mon-El is her soulmate or maybe they're going to try and make William a love interest?  I don't know.

I also find it weird that they decided to have Superman leave Earth, but they haven't really had Kara face that many Superman-related dangers.  Is Metropolis just fine by itself?  I know they've periodically showed Supergirl facing world-level threats (they had a worldwide montage either last season or this season) but they've been reluctant to have her fill Superman's shoes all that often.

This isn't related to the current DC universe, if one even still exists....

But I watched the teaser trailer for Superman Returns on repeat today.  One, I think that might be my favorite teaser trailer of all time.  It's so well done.  I don't like the movie very much.

Second, it's nuts to me that Brandon Routh, now cemented as a fixture in the Arrowverse, was the lead in a Superman franchise.  Not that he doesn't have the ability (I don't think he's the reason that movie doesn't work) but it's just crazy to think about.

That's kinda what I thought.  If the timeline is what it is, he's been Superman for a decade.  Maybe he's lost a step.

If we get a cute Clark and Lois scene.  Maybe a reference to Lex.  And the sky turns red, and they look up.  That's all I need.  If we get Tyler Hoechlin showing up (maybe with Routh) to talk about some sort of crisis, that's a bonus.

I would absolutely love it if Tom's Clark played an instrumental role.  If he got to be Thor in Infinity War, showing up and turning the tide.  But at the same time, this isn't his story.  This still needs to be about Barry and Oliver and Sara and Kara and Kate and the rest (primarily Barry and Oliver, I assume).  But legitimizing Smallville into the Arrowverse, in whatever form it takes, will be cool to me.

Oh, I forgot one of my other ideas.  I think it could've been cheesy so maybe I would've deleted it from an eventual final draft.  But I think it would've been interesting if Carl had reached out to other Terminators who were sent back and no longer had a purpose.  It might've been kinda fun to have a collection of terminators (not necessarily just ones played by Arnold) both working as spies and perhaps coming to help.

Maybe it wouldn't have worked because I think the finale worked fine the way it was.  But it might've been fun.

Has it?  I'm fairly certain it's still continuing.  I'm also not 100% sure about two things about the voiceover:

1. Kate is talking directly to Bruce.  Is this some sort of letter she's writing?  A set of recordings she's making?  Or are these just thoughts in her head?

2. I don't understand the timeline of this show.  Have we caught up to last year's Elseworlds spinoff, or is that still coming?  Will Crisis on Infinite Earths be a flash-forward in Batwoman's timeline?  Or will that never be addressed?  And as far as the voiceover goes, are these recordings/thoughts/letters to Bruce in real time, or is this some sort of "How I Met Your Mother" voiceover where she's actually talking to Bruce?  I don't know

I do like the show, though.  I think Alice is a fun villain, and it's pretty nice to have a season-long villain that I can feel can be truly redeemed.  My biggest fear of this show is still the shadow of Bruce Wayne and I guess the shadow of the whole concept of Batman.  This is a world where Batman existed, and most of his villains ended up in Arkham.  Last episode, they said there was a breakout at Arkham.  So we know that Batman's villains were in Arkham and now they're out.  Do they all just go underground because Batman is gone? 

If they're not going to ever get to do Batman, they should've had Batman die.  Him being "gone" is a cliffhanger like Quinn being merged.  There's no point in doing a plot point that you're literally never going to get to resolve.  And they're keeping things in Gotham - I'm continually wondering where Alfred is.  Where Gordon is.  Where Dick Grayson is.  Where Tim Drake is.  Where Jason Todd is.  It's distracting.  With Supergirl, they played with Clark Kent, but Supergirl was in a different city.  Keeping Kate in Gotham is working to the detriment of the show in my opinion.  Put her in Coast City or something, or she's never going to get out of Batman's shadow.

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I'm really really enjoying Arrow.  I think it's insane that the most grounded show is now about Oliver time traveling and world hopping on the behest of a cosmic being.  But the character stuff has been great.  I still don't love the whole flash-forward stuff (even though that's maybe over now that the kids are in the present?  I haven't seen the most recent episode), but it's a backdoor pilot so it's fine.  I don't mind the characters - I just wonder what the point is.

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Flash is good.  I feel that Barry is both taking the Crisis too seriously and not seriously enough.  Yes, it's important to get his affairs in order, but I don't know if picking a new leader for Team Flash is the best use of his time.  Without the Flash, the team is going to be radically different.  No speedster changes a lot of things, even if they can just teleport the rest of the team anywhere they want.

This would actually be a great time to bring Wally back.  Or check on Jessie Quick.  Which brings me to another thing...I miss the casual connections these shows had.  Harry Wells is probably dead.  Jessie Quick is probably dead.  Earth 2 is destroyed.  And I don't think there's even been a mention.  Shouldn't this be something that the Council of Wells would be worrying about?  Or even just something Cisco could casually figure out (if that random scientist Black Siren found knew, Cisco should've).  Again, I haven't seen this week's so maybe that's why Breacher comes back, but Harry and Jessie were big characters.  And their deaths should at least get a casual mention on the Flash.

And while it's nice that Barry has accepted his fate....he's not going to do any investigation into the Crisis?  Just like "this is going to happen and I'm going to die."   Yeah, but Barry, maybe you still have to do something when you die?  Don't you feel like investigating what that might be?

I think Ramsey is a good villain.  I like that actor very much, and he should be in more genre stuff.

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Supergirl is fine. I don't know if they know what they want to do with most of these characters, though.  Kara seemingly has no character arc, and she doesn't seem to learn anything or grow at all.  Is she attracted to Lena?  Is William supposed to be a romantic lead?  I honestly have no idea what her character really is.  I think the writers seem to have a lot more fun with J'onn and Nia and Brainy and Alex.  Kara's really just there to do the fight scenes and go back and forth to check on how the characters are doing.  Am I wrong here?

I think it would be interesting to take a page from Daniel Wilson's Robopocalypse series.  If you don't want to be spoiled for that, I'd stop reading here.

In the Robopocalypse books (which I *highly* recommend, despite the hokey title), "Skynet" takes over and attacks mankind.  But "Skynet" is actually doing it to prepare humanity for another, more evil, AI that is much, much worse.  It attacked humanity but in a way that would make humanity stronger and more capable of facing the bigger threat.  It would be interesting if Terminator tried to go in that direction (and there's some sense that maybe Genisys was thinking something like this) where it turns out that Skynet, in a way, sees itself as an ally of humanity.  That the death of Sarah (or John) Connor is worth the safety of mankind as a whole.

The problem with this is...what would that even look like.  It'd obviously be terminators fighting alongside humans....but against better terminators?  So Terminators 2-6.  So maybe not   Anyway, go read Robopocalypse

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I think the series actually went the most logical way a while back - as a TV show.  I think once you've seen Terminators 1 and 2, anything else would be repetitive.  They tried different terminators, they tried different characters, they tried different timelines, and they tried going into the future.  The Sarah Connor Chronicles took a different approach and did something that movies just don't have time to do - establish character.  Who are these people.  What is a terminator that isn't programmed to kill, and how can it evolve?  And if Skynet sent back enough terminators, would some of them form a third faction that isn't loyal to Skynet or humans?