Search options (Page 32 of 59)

2018-08-06 15:53:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQ4sB-mSHc

This was released as a deleted scene.

2018-08-06 13:52:31

Informant wrote:

All I know is that when I get into conversations about the DC movies, people usually hate the movies because "that's not my Superman." He emotes, so he's too emo. He has doubts, so he's cold. He isn't Reeves, because Reeves would never kill Zod (an actual conversation I had, despite my linking to the scene where he kills Zod in Superman II)

Well, and I think that's another issue with the route that Snyder took with this. In my opinion, he messed it up a couple of different times but in different ways.

Man of Steel is one of two "solo" movies that the DCEU has done - everything else is an ensemble piece with no clear protagonist. In that movie, we get a pretty good idea of who Superman is. There are three moments in that film that really bug people, and I think at least 2/3 of them can be written off.

- Clark kills Zod - this is what bothers people, and I don't get it. People say that "Clark doesn't kill" but that doesn't really seem to be a guiding principle for him (and doesn't really seem to be an issue for Snyder, as I'll get to later). Zod was a threat to humanity as a whole, and he had to be dealt with. Clark tried to reason with him, but it didn't work. Clark also has a bit of a breakdown after this, implying that he knew it was a bad thing to do, even if it was the right thing to do.

- Clark's fight with Zod leads to collateral damage. This, again, isn't a problem. A fight between two gods would result in collateral damage. The one thing I can point to is that Clark doesn't seem overly concerned with the damage, either in Smallville or Metropolis. If Metropolis were the only fight, I could see it getting out of hand. But after essentially destroying Smallville (and that's something people don't usually point out), he should've been more prepared to *try* to draw the fight away from the city. He knows the damage that a fight like that would cost, and I wish there were a line in the movie where he tries and Zod won't let him. At the end of the day, this doesn't bother me as much - what bothers me is the way the *films* handle it, and that's not on Clark.

- Clark lets his father die. This is the biggest "that's not my Superman" argument in my opinion. Clark is fast enough to save Jonathan without outing himself. I think it's an incredibly dumb scene that didn't make sense. I almost understand what they're going for, but the idea of something killing a loved one that Clark can't fight (like the traditional heart attack) is a much better lesson to teach Clark. Especially because, when Clark revisits Jonathan's lesson from the movie (exposing his secret), there's zero consequences. So, in my eyes, Jonathan dies for no reason and Clark learns nothing.

If you can forgive that Clark was just doing what his father told him to do (however irresponsible), Clark's characterization in Man of Steel makes sense. I think Man of Steel is a solid movie that provides a nice introduction to a DC Extended Universe.

The problem comes in BvS. We've already gone over this ad nauseum, and there's no reason to go line by line again. The main issue, for me, is that the characterization from Man of Steel doesn't seem to translate to BvS. Clark from MoS and Superman from BvS seem like two very different characters. And while Superman is allowed to emote without being emo, Clark's public persona always seems to be scowling or frowning. It's hard to represent hope when it looks like you're fighting a battle that you're, at best, indifferent to.

I think that's what people liked about Superman in Justice League. It's the same thing that people liked about Wonder Woman in her three movies - she seems to genuinely enjoy the fight. She finds joy in defeating the bad guy and saving the innocent. Clark finds joy in Lois, and he seems to dread every second he's wearing the costume in BvS.

With Batman, Snyder made the opposite mistake. With no solo film, we don't really know what to make of Batman. Like Superman, he seems to have no qualms about killing people. I know that "Batman doesn't kill people" is a rule that doesn't really fit in the movies, but a more apt rule is "Batman doesn't try to kill people." In BvS, he does seem to go out of his way to kill people, using unnecessary force in situations he has complete control over. In the chase sequence, he's in an unstoppable tank doing unnecessary damage. In the warehouse fight, he's being unnecessarily brutal against people that can't compete with him.

In the scenes where we get to look inside Batman's head, there's a clear disagreement from Alfred, but there's never a scene where it's discussed. And because Alfred has been there the whole time, he's either okay with how Batman now operates, or it's how Batman has always operated. Either way, it's a departure from what we've seen before.

It comes down to two things for me:

- In BvS, the characterization issues come down to the fact that they lend themselves to the story that Snyder wanted to tell. If he's going to tell a story where Batman and Superman are both good guys that decide to try and kill each other, then they have to see each other as threats. Batman has to be a deadly, murderous vigilante who has taken things too far. Superman has to be a cold, distant alien.

- Snyder himself sees heroism in a very uber-masculine way. Superman and Batman are both insanely jacked (like Leonidas before them), and they do what's necessary to save the day. If that means snapping a neck or blowing up a car full of bad guys, so be it. Superman and Batman don't have "no kill" rules because Snyder thinks they're dumb. And that's fine - they're his movies. But I think that's where the criticism comes from.

It's what makes me a little curious about Snyder's original Justice League vision. From the bits and pieces I've figured out, it would've featured a more troubled/suicidal Victor Stone, and a depressed/alcoholic Arthur Curry. And from the trailers, it seems like Wonder Woman would've failed to stop the bombs in Paris. It might've taken BvS' depressing tone and turn it outright nihilistic.

2018-08-06 12:18:00

Well, as we've discussed, WB is throwing a lot of darts on the board and seeing what sticks. Which, and I agree with Informant here, is a good strategy. Get a couple dozen scripts, and produce the best ones. Maybe they'll be big ones (Man of Steel 2, Flashpoint, etc), maybe they'll be smaller (Nightwing, Blue Beetle, New Gods, etc), or maybe they'll be out of continuity (Joker, maybe the Batman, etc). At the end of the day, I'm interested in more good comic book movies, and this is definitely more "creative pool" than any of the other shared universes.

I think this is what really bugs me about the way DC has handled things so far. I think DC probably could've done a bigger, badder version of what Marvel did. Not only should they have done it first, but they had all the pieces to do it. DC has most of the heroes that people recognize and could've done things in a really cool way. A Superman movie, a Batman movie, a Wonder Woman movie, a Flash movie, a Hawkman/Hawkgirl movie, an Aquaman movie, a Suicide Squad movie, a Teen Titans movie. Then BAM, Justice League with all these heroes in one movie.

They had all the rights, and name-brand characters. There's no excuse that we're getting two Ant-Man movies before we get Aquaman *or* Flash.

You'd think it'd be Marvel who, stringing together all the characters they had rights to, throwing together a cinematic universe to try and keep up. Iron Man (2013), followed by Iron Man and the Hulk (2016), leading to a divisive Avengers movie (2017).

And I should note that there's been a thought to doing Supergirl since the original Man of Steel. There's an open pod on the Kryptonian ship that was a backdoor way of getting Kara involved.

2018-08-06 09:30:59

Well, it's one thing to say that Marvel is Disney and is going after a broader audience, but I really think that only applies to kids. The days of comic book movies only going after comic book audiences is sorta over. It started with Spider-Man, continued through with the Dark Knight, and Marvel has really picked up the torch and ran with it. People that don't love comic book movies love Marvel movies, and it's not just kids. Kids help, obviously, because it's a whole segment of an audience, and kids see movies multiple times (and come with parents/guardians that pay to see the movie multiple times too).

DC might not be trying to reach the kid audience, but they can still reach a broader audience. And that's why I think the Marvel/DC conversations are relevant. But it's also why the DC/Dark Universe conversations are relevant and the DC/Monsterverse conversations are relevant. These are big studio, shared universe movies that don't exist in a bubble.

It's easy to call DC a bit of a financial mixed bag.

But it's first movie was successful enough to actually launch a series (The Mummy / Dark Universe)
It's done a good-enough job of linking the universe to feel wholly connected (Godzilla / Monsterverse)
It still feels fresh/fun after many movies (Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Transformers franchise, etc)

Marvel is the gold standard for shared universes, but DC isn't far behind.

DC is actually doing what I'm talking about now. They rushed in with the "Superman Trilogy" of Snyder films, but the movies they're talking about now are the smaller movies that are allowed to play in the sandbox. Wonder Woman was a self-contained movie. The sequel looks the same. Suicide Squad was fun and played around its own world. Aquaman is expanding it under water. Shazam is experimenting with magic. Everything about the Batman seems like it's smaller and lower stakes. The Joker movie is going to be unique.

These are the movies that are going to build this universe into something where we look forward to team-ups and connections. And maybe, to that grander audience, Phase One of the DCEU will be just like the Phase One of the MCU - important but not necessarily worth revisiting

2018-08-06 08:46:14

Ha, someone on Twitter referenced Picard sitting at home watching Space Fox News

2018-08-06 08:45:10

One note before I get quotey - We didn't skip over Dick because he's dead (at least, according to Snyder - https://movieweb.com/batman-v-superman- … -confirms/ ). Maybe Reeves' movie will explore that a bit, or maybe it won't be in continuity. All Reeves has said is that it isn't Year One.

I guess it is what it is. It feels chaotic and troubled to people because we honestly have no idea what's going on behind the scenes or what the product is supposed to look like. Whereas Marvel tells us what their plan is ten years in advance and rarely changes a release date, the DC movies seem to depend on how they develop. It's probably the right way to go about it, but it means that movies feel like they're dangling out in limbo much more than they actually are.

Oh, I get that it's a process. The only thing that surprised me was the whole "first draft" thing. I get that movies are written and re-written, but a first draft is a first draft. There was at least one first draft because it was written by Affleck. Then, I swear, Reeves went to work re-writing that. I get that Reeves might have started completely over from scratch and this is a new "first draft" but that just surprised me.

I've noticed that most articles have stopped mentioning why Zack Snyder left Justice League. A lot of articles simply say that Snyder left the movie. A lot say that the studio replaced Snyder. Most articles make it sound like Snyder was fired because the studio didn't like him. It's become pretty rare to see an article acknowledge that Snyder left because of a seriously horrible tragedy within his family. This is just dishonest reporting, and it's a symptom of a much larger problem with big media outlets.

Well, the common theory is that Snyder was fired, and they (either the studio or a combination of the studio and Snyder) used the tragedy to cover to avoid the "bad press" of Snyder being fired because they didn't like his vision. It's a bit irresponsible, but I think most comic book movie sites are just cutting to the chase. Because there were rumors that Snyder was in trouble before the tragedy, and it makes sense that both parties would be happy to walk away from each other. And Snyder's activity on social media shows a bit that he's not super pleased with them, meaning there was a lot of stuff going on in the background to indicate that the split was more than it was.

I don't dislike the Warner/DC movies. I just think that there are people at Warner who see something like Rotten Tomatoes and panic, feeling like they need to change something, when they really just need to let the plan play out the way it was intended.

WB/DC made a lot of mistakes along the way. The first was to try and go head to head with Marvel at a bad time. Man of Steel came out a month after Iron Man 3. At that time, Marvel was just about to hit their stride - Phase 2 was just beginning after the mixed bag that was Phase One (I maintain that, outside of the first Iron Man and the fun of Avengers, Phase One is easily the worst, critically and commercially).

If DC had taken things slowly, like Marvel did, they could've been forgiven. With the exception of Iron Man, people generally love Marvel sequels better than the originals. Setting up the world is the hard part - playing in the world is easy.

And I'm not even talking about solo films. I'm just talking about making mistakes. The first Marvel film is generally considered one of the best MCU films, but the 2nd film was the Incredible Hulk, a movie where the main character was recast and the movie has been all-but-forgotten. People hate Iron Man 2. Thor has bleached eyebrows in the first movie. The First Avenger is "a trailer for the Avengers"

The problem was that, in between Man of Steel and BvS, Marvel started hitting home runs. Captain America: the Winter Soldier was a critical and financial success. People went crazy for it, and it's definitely considered one of the best MCU films. They hit another home run with Guardians of the Galaxy, a quirky and fun movie that surprised everyone. Then came Age of Ultron, a movie that people generally dislike, but it was the *second* Avengers movie.

And instead of taking their time and building their universe, DC tried to catch up. They could've released another solo film - maybe hire Affleck to do his Batman solo film before jumping into a shared universe. Maybe the Affleck Batman movie ends with the battle in Metropolis, leaving a huge tease to Batman facing off against Superman. Maybe you go Wonder Woman first. Or maybe you do a Man of Steel 2.

The problem is that you jumped right into a movie that was divisive. And I don't even mean based on reactions - I mean literally divisive - you have Batman against Superman. And like with any battle, people are going to pick sides.

It was compared, quite unfairly, to Civil War. Because there was a lot more nuance, from the audience, in Civil War. Love him or hate him, we'd cheered for Tony Stark. Boring or not, we'd cheered for Steve Rogers. And forgettable or not, we understood all the side characters on the Tony vs. Steve fight.

With jumping right into BvS, you're forcing fans to choose between them. And while most fans know Downey as Iron Man and Evans as Captain America, Batman and Superman are timeless. You're not only having Cavill vs. Affleck, you're having Bale and Keaton vs. Christopher Reeve. These characters mean something different to everyone. And to get two good guys to fight, they had to make the other look a little sinister, screwing with the way we see the characters.

Batman has to be legitimately dangerous for Superman to treat him like any other criminal. So Batman has to casually kill and brand people. Superman has to be a legitimate threat to humanity for Batman to want to eliminate him. So Superman is cold and alien whenever he's in public. You have the World's Greatest Detective and *two* great Daily Planet reporters, and neither does enough investigation to see that both guys are, generally, pretty good.

I mentioned the Affleck solo film that ends in Metropolis. Maybe it shows how tired Batman is. Maybe it's one last hurrah for him - he's either sufficiently cleaned up Gotham or he's about to give up. And Metropolis shows him that he has one more fight. But Man of Steel could've been Superman's set up. Maybe Superman faces off against someone like Parasite, and that fight takes him to Gotham. A B-story could be Clark or Lois looking into this mysterious Batman. He started off a noble and virtuous vigilante, but now something is happening to him. Whenever Clark gets close enough, he's forced back. The investigation doesn't end - Superman is still suspicious.

If you do stuff like this, you spend an entire movie inside the character's mind - and you can understand his viewpoint.

The other issue with BvS is that it felt so much like a catch-up. It's the second movie in the franchise, and here's a Batman solo movie blended into a Man of Steel sequel. And Wonder Woman is in it! And Flash! Aquaman! Cyborg! Doomsday!

It felt like an attempt to do Marvel Phase One in one movie. Thor and Hulk and Captain America solo films were lazy so we'll just throw in bits and pieces of Wonder Woman/Aquaman/Cyborg/Flash and pretend that they were solo films that you saw and forgot about. It's five films in one, and that's why it felt so overloaded to some.

If you take your time and make some of these movies, I think you give the audience a chance to warm up to your vision. Like I said, make your Batfleck movie. Make Man of Steel 2. Make Wonder Woman. If you want to grow the universe with each movie, do that. There's ways to bring Aquaman or Atlantis or Atlanteans in your Wonder Woman movie like you had with the Flash cameo in Suicide Squad. Cyborg could easily be in a Man of Steel sequel. Batfleck could connect to Suicide Squad.

And if you want to move from Batman to Superman, don't make them immediately fight. Have them team up but not entirely trust each other. Or have them cross paths but not meet. Let us meet the characters before we're forced to root against them. Take things slowly.

It's why Marvel can make 20 films in 10 years and it felt fresh, and why DC can only make a handful in half the time and feel bloated.

2018-08-06 07:50:55

I was always sorta interested in human culture for people out of Starfleet. Episodes about civilians were always interesting to me. I'd be interested in Star Trek series set entirely on Earth. Like TF said, maybe something with archaeology? Like a future Indiana Jones?

2018-08-03 08:00:12

Two fun DC nuggets that came out this week.

1. Remember the "Unite the Seven" poster that came out during the promotional period of Batman v. Superman with Aquaman? For some reason, this poster really bothered people because 1) there were no subsequent posters that tied in (nothing for Flash or Cyborg or Wonder Woman, or even anything that related to Batman or Superman) 2) it didn't make any sense - there's only six Justice Leaguers, even when you include Superman (who wasn't really part of the uniting process).

Well, they've come out with an explanation that fits - it's technically a poster for the Aquaman movie (or, at least, the Aquaman character). It's to unite the seven underwater kingdoms. It feels like quite the retrofit, but as I said, it does fit.

2. Matt Reeves says that the first draft of his Batman movie is done. But I felt like he already had a first draft done. Or did he only re-write the Affleck draft? This movie seems like it's a bit of a mess, but with the one-off movies that DC is doing (Joker), I actually think it'd fit in nicely.

*******

Comic-Con news.

1. I'm probably most excited about the Aquaman movie, but I did feel like the trailer was pretty paint-by-numbers. I'm interested to know how it ties in with what we saw in Justice League.

2. The Shazam trailer was pretty entertaining, and I think it'll be like another Suicide Squad - playing on the perimeter of the DCEU. After a lighter-toned Justice League movie, I think some of the goofiness of this character fits. And there's rumors of a Superman cameo, which I think would fit right in.

2018-08-02 10:09:35

Time to get real....

I don't remember this project at all. I don't remember any ideas I had, I don't remember communicating about it. I vaguely remember the idea, and I totally remember flaking out on it. But that's really about it. I remember the project I abandoned it for (which my friend and I completed but were unable to sell), but that's about it.

With Slider_Quinn21 -- I wonder if he was enthusiastic about posting random SLIDERS reboot ideas in a message board but not so enthusiastic about actually producing 4 - 6 screenplays and putting in all that work into a fan fiction project. But that is only a supposition that has never been verified by the person in question.

This is accurate, and not just with Sliders scripts. I have a number of ideas for novels/screenplays/etc that I think would make wonderful stories. Since I wrote my second novel YEARS ago, I've started 2-3 of with varying degrees of completion, but I haven't had the energy or passion to get any of them anywhere near a completed first draft. I get very excited in the idea phase, but I haven't had the time or energy to do much after that. The longest and most successful stretch of time I've spent writing was when I had the flu and was isolated and unable to get out of bed for a few days. I got a few chapters written, and that was all.

It's a place I've been in for a while. Even as I think about it, I think "Yeah, that's really a great idea. So is that! I should be writing some of these thoughts down" and know I'm not going to actually get anything on paper. I was able to edit and self-publish the better of the two novels that I wrote with no intention of ever making a dollar on it. I just wanted something to get out there into the world on the off chance that anyone would ever want to read it. And, for the record, I'm not telling you what it's called or anything about it. It's my little secret.

These might all be ideas that I do when I'm retired or when I have more free time. And maybe then I can do more Sliders fanfic. But until then, I'm just an idea guy.

2018-07-11 07:50:12

My wife might watch this.

2018-07-06 15:52:00

Watching Luke Cage. It's a little slow, but I want to play Informant to nitpick one thing:

BARACK OBAMA WASN'T PRESIDENT IN THE MCU.

He's mentioned a few dozen times. All the references make sense, and nothing is necessarily shoehorned. But we met the MCU president. And he appeared in Agents of Shield. I don't think Obama fits in the timeline.

2018-07-03 09:24:18

Your attention to detail is quite admirable, ireactions!

I really enjoyed reading all that. So much of the early bits of the show I'd actually forgotten.

*******

So Tom Holland "spoiled" the new title of the Spider-Man solo sequel - Far From Home.

And it made me laugh because of all the secrecy regarding the title of Avengers 4. They can't release it because it's a spoiler or whatever.

And, yet, they released the title of a future Spider-Man movie....after Spider-Man died in Infinity War. I'm fairly certain that's a bigger spoiler than the Avengers title would ever be.

2018-07-03 07:53:29

Informant wrote:

It is interesting to hear how the show plays for someone who isn't into sci-fi/fantasy and who isn't caught up in the pop culture frenzy that surrounded the show (and wanted it to be something that it was never going to be). She has no choice but to let it be what it is, without writing online messages to the creators to try and change the show. That is cool. It is a more pure form of viewing.

Well, I thought the show might be a hard sell so I sorta forced it on her. And, yeah, watching it again from the beginning shows a lot to me about some of the mythology of the Island. I'm not one of the people who believes that they had it all planned out back in 2004 (because enough writers for the show have admitted that they didn't), but a lot of it still fits. Even stuff that they abruptly changed (Walt leaving and Desmond sorta taking his "specialness", Michael Emerson blowing everyone away so that Ben becomes a dominant character, etc) really works.

To me, the change wasn't all that abrupt. The Island was always weird. It's just funny, for my wife, that time travel seemed to be a line that was too weird to cross. I've been assuring her that Season 5 is as weird as it gets (as everyone is living in the 70s except for Sun/Lockemonster/randoms) but I'm not even sure if that's the case. I feel like Season 6 was, if not as weird, way more divisive).

I'm just holding on to the fact that she's tied into the characters, and that's where the show really hits its mark.

BTW, I'm 100% loving it this time through. I'd always considered it my favorite show of all time (not necessarily the best but my favorite), and this is cementing that. I love watching each episode, trying to put myself in a mindset of it being a new adventure.

2018-07-02 10:15:41

More LOST rewatch stuff:

Just reached season 5.

Season 5 is weird. I don't remember it being weird, but I also have a science fiction brain. I like time travel and experimental science and all that. And I remember, at the time, thinking that the show had done enough weird stuff to sorta ease people into stuff like time travel.

After watching with my wife, they did not. Now to give you some background, my wife has never seen any Star Wars movie. Never seen an episode of any Star Trek. Hasn't seen much superhero stuff. Never seen the Matrix or Lord of the Rings or anything like that. She watches reality TV and chick flicks for entertainment so anything Sci-Fi she's going to be unfamiliar with.

And, yes, the show has gotten steadily weird, but to her, there was a huge jump from "there's a polar bear on the Island" to "the Island is skipping through time." And since she's unfamiliar with other fiction, some of the concepts didn't make sense. Locke is shot by Ethan and then time-jumped. She didn't understand why he was still shot when he jumped forward in time. And while she's liked the show more than she thought she would, she was visibly turned off by some of the stuff in the season five premiere.

They're going back to the Island?
Why are people trying to kill Hurley?
The Island is moving though time?

She's connected with the characters less so than the weird Island stuff. Which, as we all know, will pay off in the long run. The character stuff gets a solid ending while the Island stuff sorta meanders in an unsatisfactory way (to most, I thought it was fine).

But I was surprised that she saw a distinct jump in weird Island stuff, and I sorta agree with her. Most of the issues they've faced at least felt tethered to reality. Jumping around in time, no matter how Daniel tries to explain it, seems out there.

2018-06-27 08:34:58

That'll be cool! Let us know when it's posted!

In Supernatural news, the series order for next season is only 20 episodes.

2018-06-27 08:33:25

It's funny. The first movie doesn't really lend itself to any sort of traditional sequel. To tie to the previous movies, both The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park 3 involve convoluted plans to trick or convince people from the first movie to return to face dinosaurs again. There are running jokes in both movies that have Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, respectively, acknowledging that they steadfastly refuse to return and then end up right where they said they wouldn't be. While some show new dinosaurs and continue the lore of the franchise (a little bit), they both almost instantly revert to traditional monster movies for the 2nd and 3rd acts. It's the action of the first movie without much of the soul.

What's funny is that Jurassic World actually makes a lot more sense as a traditional sequel to Jurassic Park. While John Hammond failed to bring his park to life, Simon Masrani realized that it could be done with a little more precaution. The greed and ambition from the first movie lives on, and the park succeeds until more greed and more ambition wins out again. The film is, in a lot of ways, a rebootquel as it treads a lot of the same water as the first movie with bigger setpieces and a lot more collateral damage since the park is still in use. It also works because the only returning character (Henry Wu) belongs in the movie as a former employee who would still be actively involved in dinosaur production.

It definitely doesn't have the same soul as the first movie, but you can definitely see the resemblance to the original. And you can tell that the people that made the movie were huge fans, and they wanted to honor the franchise. As a huge fan, I thought they succeeded. I've rarely had as much fun in a theater as I had watching Jurassic World.

Fallen Kingdom has the same flaws as the first group of sequels in that they have to trick characters into coming back to places they'd never realistically want to go back to. And without ways to get innocent people onto the island, it has to resort to the trope of bringing the dinosaurs to the innocents.

What's funny is that I think I would've tried to stick with Jurassic World's roadmap - keep the park open. Yes, Masrani would be riddled with dozens (if not hundreds) of lawsuits regarding injuries and deaths in the park (although they might've forced guests to sign something that alleviated the risk for some of the minorly-injured guests). It would've made the park a lot harder to run because of massive risks involved.

But Jurassic Park ends with most of the dinosaurs released from their cages and major damage to most park buildings. If I remember the ending of Jurassic World correctly, there would've been major damage to Main Street but the damage to the park itself was minimal. The only dinosaurs released in the incident were the pteradons (which were taken care of before the climax of the movie), along with the Indominus itself (killed), the T-Rex, and one surviving raptor. The rest of the dinosaurs would've been contained already (outside of the ones killed by the Indominus on its way to the visitors center).

At the end of the movie, there's a ton of human damage but not that much damage to the park itself. It, hypothetically, wouldn't be that difficult to get the T-Rex back under control. Blue might be harder to catch, but they'd probably just use the same tactic from Fallen Kingdom to get her back.

Within a few months of renovations, the park could easily be cleaned back up. Yes, the reputation of the park was damaged. Yes, Masrani would be in some financial trouble. But the park was *packed* during the events of Jurassic World. There were a couple dozen major brands in use on the island (including at least one hotel, stores, restaurants, etc). I assume someone, if not Masrani Global itself, would see profit still to gain. After all, people flocked to Jurassic World even though the public was aware of the incidents at the original park and in San Diego.

So that's where I would've set a sequel. Owned by a company that wants to salvage profit (maybe BioSyn finally gets control) and doesn't care about anything else. Where park attendance is understandably fluttering. Where they start to take more chances and ease up security to get people interested. Maybe they open up the park to limited hunting for special guests? If they want dinosaurs on the mainland, maybe they start to bring some dinosaurs on "road shows" to try and get people to come to the main park?

Just imagine a tarnished Jurassic World with limited security, collapsing infrastructure, and expert-level greed and ambition. It'd essentially be the nightmare that Malcolm is actually talking about during Fallen Kingdom.

2018-06-26 13:18:12

The movie is very simple. There's really only 2-3 main setpieces for the entire movie (a couple locations on Isla Nublar and the mansion). You can break the movie in two parts and both parts are pretty streamlined.

There are also only a small handful of characters, and almost all the new characters are very thin. The climax of the movie is almost underwhelming in its simplicity.

Maybe people were expecting more. But for what it was, I was entertained.

2018-06-26 09:45:31

I saw this movie last night. I love the original film so much, and I've always been a little let down by the sequels. I've grown to appreciate the Lost World a bit more, and I actually really liked Jurassic World (in a lot of the same way that Star Wars fans loved The Force Awakens).

This movie was weird. So many Jurassic sequel ideas want to bring dinosaurs to the mainland, and they've finally done it on a larger scale than the Lost World. I do think there are some interesting ideas in this film about how we should handle our mistakes. I think most people in the movie appreciate that it was a mistake to create these creatures, but now that they're created, do we have an obligation to protect them? And then there's the idea that, once unleashed, do these creatures and does this technology have uses outside of theme parks? And the inclusion of the clone daughter takes the series into a completely different (but realistic) direction potentially.

At the end of the day, I think it's asking a lot of the right questions. And oddly, the movie seems to be playing both sides of the debate. The characters that we are sympathetic to throughout the movie believe that the dinosaurs need to live since we put life into them. But the movie consistently shows that the act of saving their lives ends human lives. The adult main characters even come to this conclusion by the end of the film, but the genie still gets let out of the bottle.

The movie itself is sorta bland (and, again, I'm on Malcolm's side so I thought the characters were dumb), but I think it does ask some interesting questions that you don't usually get from a dumb movie. And I think there's some promise to the franchise in the future, but I really hope that they don't go apocalyptic with it. I don't need to see a post-apocalyptic world where dinosaurs have destroyed everything.

2018-06-21 12:00:19

TemporalFlux wrote:

Enh. I feel they are retreading a bit of ground there. With Earth X, we just had oppressive government Supergirl; I don’t see where this will be different enough (even though there are differences).

It's strange with crossovers, though. I almost feel like those stories take place out of continuity. Is it retreading for Supergirl fans that only watch Supergirl? Especially since Supergirl is the show that, rightfully, has the flimsiest connection to the Arrowverse.

What's funny is that people assumed when Supergirl arrived on the CW that it would just be a matter of time until she arrived on Earth 1. Now I don't think that's going to happen.

Although with Cat Grant gone and now Winn gone, it might not be the worst storyline in the world to have J'onn, Kara, and Alex get sent to Earth 1 for a season-long arc. James' character is a mess, and most of the other characters are replaceable (either by other actors/characters or by doubles of the characters they played before).

2018-06-21 10:56:55

Ha, I wouldn't say Red Son is about a Russian conspiracy.

I'm sure they'll make snide little comments, but I like Red Son.

2018-06-21 08:29:35

Looks like next season of Supergirl will be adapting the Red Son storyline. Color me interested.

2018-06-20 12:15:17

Slide Override wrote:

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:
Would you be okay with a new version of Sliders where we start a new journey with a different group of Quinn/Wade/Rembrandt/Arturo? So Sliders Season 1-5 was the same Rembrandt, but now there's a new group?
I'm not quite sure I follow. Are you suggesting we have the exact same actors playing their characters now from the beginning all over again?

Yes. Would that be disingenuous to the original characters to say "those events happened, but now we're following a different set of sliders played by the same actors"?

2018-06-20 08:00:35

I agree 150%. Let's do what TNG did and move the story a hundred years in the future. Technology can be better, and we can see how TNG/DS9/VOY changed the galaxy.

2018-06-19 14:18:43

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41791 … s-with-cbs

2018-06-19 12:03:39

I'm tired of just hate all the way around. I think so much of the current problems would be fixed if people simply *tried* to love their enemies. Loving your enemies is attributed to Jesus a lot, but it actually spans most religions in one form or another.

I think people have stopped empathizing with others. I think people have stopped seeing political opponents as real, living, thinking people. I see it on both sides, and it's getting worse. One of the things I see online is people accusing people with opposite opinions of being bots - it's easy to disregard an opinion that you don't think is coming from a real person.

I saw this on twitter and then reposted on facebook https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/1008785416445726722

I understand feeling exhaustion from fighting a regime that he (and many others) see as completely immoral. The situation at the border is making a lot of people rightfully upset, but I think it's critical now that we keep trying to have a national discussion. When we give up on each other, that's when everything is truly lost.

2018-06-19 11:53:14

Would you be okay with a new version of Sliders where we start a new journey with a different group of Quinn/Wade/Rembrandt/Arturo? So Sliders Season 1-5 was the same Rembrandt, but now there's a new group?

2018-06-19 10:42:20

I mean, it's possible, but would it be honest to the characters.

Arturo was left behind*. If you look at him as a 360 degree character, he'd immediately be expecting rescue. Our Arturo had no respect for PTSS Arturo, and he'd assume that the other Sliders would immediately realize he's a fraud. A lot of Sliders fanfic (mine included) assumes that Arturo could invent a sliding machine and go after his friends, or at the very least, do something with sliding. When, in reality, the safest thing he could do is stay where he's at and wait for rescue. Rescue that would never come. How long would he wait? Would he want to slide by himself in his late 50s? 60s? 70s? Or would he just accept the fact that PTSS Arturo had conned his friends and that he was stuck on this facsimile forever? If the Sliders found him, he'd either have given up or accepted his fate.

* If he wasn't left behind, any hope of resurrecting Arturo is zero

Wade saw Quinn (the love of her life?) fall for some sleazy bimbo, saw her world invaded by monsters, and she was sent to a breeding camp. Even if she was drugged and didn't know anything that was happening to her, she'd know that her body was used for monstrous experiments. Then her body was mutilated and she was turned into a sliding computer. At the end of that episode, she's strongly in a place where she's ready to die. While she seemed to be quite at peace, it's still a dark place for her to be.

Rembrandt was ripped from his home involuntarily, drafted into a war he didn't fully understand, and eventually found himself adopted into a strong family. Then he lost a friend and mentor figure, lost his home world, lost other friends, and then found himself in another situation where he'd have to abandon everyone and everything on what could've easily been a suicide mission. I mean his plan in the Seer is truly nuts. Has he cracked? Would five years of sliding be enough? Is there anything that would draw him back into the fight? He'd be in his 60s now, as well.

Quinn might be the most mentally healthy of them all, but all the others' pain would also weigh on him. Especially if he ever emotionally returns to his Season 1-2 self. Once he realizes how much he sacrificed for Kromagg Prime, he'd probably be a wreck too. Yes, there's a chance that he simply lost the fight with Mallory and retreated into some sort of comatose stage. But what if he didn't? All he'd have left to do would be to sit and think about all the mistakes he'd made. And that'd be 24 hours a day, depending on whether or not a merged consciousness has the ability to sleep.

I mean, you're right. Maybe Arturo was optimistic, and maybe he understood that PTSS Arturo could trick them. Maybe Wade really was at peace and getting her body back (somehow) would cleanse her spirit. Maybe Rembrandt, the most optimistic of them all, could really handle anything the multiverse threw at him. And maybe being stuck in Mallory also cleansed Quinn's spirit. As writers, we can spin it however we'd like.

2018-06-19 08:46:22

pilight wrote:

[She was drugged and the Kromaggs have mind altering abilities, so she likely wouldn't remember any of what happened after she was captured. When they encountered her in Requiem she didn't even know where she was. As for rape, the series never said that explicitly. I prefer to think she was used as a surrogate; Kromagg egg fertilized by Kromagg male implanted in her for gestation. Still bad, but not quite as bad.
Quinn also might not remember his time being merged. Certainly he wouldn't have any memory after New Gods for Old. It's a manageable problem.

Possibly. But this is all assumption. There's just as equally a chance that Wade's experiences would closely match Jessica Jones' (Netflix version). Even if she couldn't remember everything, she'd view it as a huge violation, and she'd have huge trust issues even if she didn't know that her friends, essentially, stopped looking for her. And the last we saw her, she was a head locked in a computer

As for Quinn, you're right that he could've been "asleep" after New Gods For Old. Alternatively, there's a chance that he still experienced everything but couldn't say or do anything. That's a Black Mirror episode if there ever was one.

2018-06-19 08:10:16

Slide Override wrote:

Once you get to the point where these characters that you have been watching, witnessing their journey together, and going through emotional dramas with ... are not the characters that we all thought that we were watching - then that is the point where you completely lose the audience and their emotional investment. This is something that is extremely difficult to get back, if ever. The moment that you lose that precious trust and bond with the audience, it's game over.

I 100% understand this sentiment, and honestly, I'd agree for most shows. What I'm talking about is an in-canon explanation for how you could conveniently fix continuity errors without worrying about everything falling apart. Saying that the Season 3-5 Sliders were a different group works because we know there were other Sliders. Even quotes from the Sliders in seasons 3-5 that refer to events from Seasons 1-2 can be written off by the idea of landing on similar worlds and having similar experiences.

We can also go back to an idea I've had for a while - can Sliders branch off worlds of their own? In other words, is it possible that the events of Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome created it's own parallel universe with sets of Sliders that each left with a version of Arturo. There'd be two groups of Sliders (one that left with the "right" Arturo and one that left with the "wrong" one) and there'd be two versions of Azure Gate world - one with the original Arturo and one with Azure gate Arturo.

If that's the case, then you could even say that they *were* our characters....and now we're going to go back and follow the adventures of the *other* group of Sliders that, again, were also our characters.

Another example - the TV show "Archer" - in that show, there were about seven seasons that took place in standard continuity. Then, season 7, Archer was shot and left for dead in a pool. Seasons 8 and 9 have both taken place in Archer's head, each taking place in a different dream where Archer is the hero with the supporting characters playing other characters. Season 8 was a noir 1970s detective piece, and Season 9 was a 1930s adventure serial taking place on an Island.

In both cases, we're watching different versions of our characters that have no connections to the originals. Nothing that happens in the coma will have impact in the real world, and there aren't any stakes. But the episodes are still enjoyable, and you can still use what you know about the characters in the "real world" to add to the enjoyment of these, otherwise unconnected, characters.

******

I'm offering up just another scenario that you could use to reset the playing board. It's one of the great "fixes" in Science Fiction, and it works because there are so many problems with resetting the continuity.

Sliders left the four main characters stranded on four different worlds in four different sets of peril. To reunite the original Sliders is extremely problematic and depends on a number of different fake-outs, coincidences, and unbelievable scenarios to pull off. Even if you could write it off with a time jump (where Quinn or Arturo has found his friends in the past, and we catch up to them in the present), there are still a number of problems that you'd, realistically, have to deal with. Wade was captured and raped, and her friends didn't look for her. Arturo was replaced with an evil imposter, and none of his friends noticed. Rembrandt was forced to watch all his friends die one by one. Quinn was locked in a prison in his own mind.

It's all dark, depressing stuff. And in today's works of fiction, it's the type of stuff that would have to be dealt with. Laughing it off and having normal adventures would be insensitive to the characters themselves.

And I'm not saying you couldn't do a realistic version of the above. It'd just be hard to tell a realistic story about the Sliders having fun on a world where everything is built out of candy, since it'd be hard to have a single scene where at least one character doesn't break down in tears because of all the horrors they'd experienced.

So you either ignore it and start over (reboot or remix), or you ignore what you don't like (revision). So whether you say the events of seasons 3-5 happened to another group of sliders or just didn't happen, you're saying that the season 3-5 characters simply didn't matter.

2018-06-18 12:25:06

I think there can also be a 4th option - Revision.

There's a Halloween movie starring Jamie-Lee Curtis that's going to come out later this year. The premise is that it's a sequel to the first movie only. Michael escaped - Loomis chased him - Michael killed several and came after Laurie Strode - then he was recaptured at some point and has been locked up since the 70s. It doesn't care about the later sequels, even the ones that Jamie Lee Curtis came back for (the original Halloween II or H20).

The same was planned for a Neil Blomkamp Alien film. The plan was to make a "True Alien 3" that would've ignored Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, which would've included Hicks, Newt, and Ripley after the events of Aliens.

Another great example is the Toho Godzilla films. They get a reboot every decade or so, and every reboot starts as a sequel to the original Godzilla movie (which has stayed in canon for each iteration).

If I wanted to do stories with the original four sliders, this is how I'd handle it. Don't burden yourself with coming up with convoluted ways of explaining every continuity issue (it's going to sound like I'm teasing ireactions, but I'm really talking about the backflips I did for my own alternate Season 6) - tell the stories that make up "Vancouver Season 3" - so ignore everything that filmed in Los Angeles.

What's great about Sliders is that you could do whatever you want without harming any continuity. Just say the Season 3-5 Sliders were doubles of the originals. We know that there are other groups of Rembrandt/Quinn/Wade/Arturo sliding out there - just say that Season 3-5 was another group. If you really want, have the "real" Sliders run into post-Seer Rembrandt.

**************

That all being said, the new Power Rangers series sounds pretty cool.

2018-06-15 12:25:30

Some casting news:

Supergirl - Jessie Rath (Brainiac-5) will be a regular next season
Flash - Both Danielle Nicolet (Cecile) and Hartley Sawyer (Ralph) will be regulars next season

2018-06-15 08:59:09

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41775 … x-kurtzman

2018-06-15 08:28:10

You know, this post did get my creative juices flowing just a little bit.

Imagine a movie about a TV show that people only faintly remember has this little cult following. So little that it's a handful of people on a message board. They talk about a bunch of random stuff but they occasionally crowdsource an idea for a reboot. There's the guy who's chronicled it all. The guy who's collected all kinds of artifacts. There's the obsessive writer. There's the guy who's on the fringes of the industry. There's the guy who meets everyone at cons.

They decide to do some sort of unlicensed fan film. Writer guy will write it. Artifact guy will provide the props. Fringe guy will provide some equipment and friends to shoot it. They pool some money, meet for the first time offline, and start to shoot. It's fun. Con guy is at a convention and meets one of the major guest stars. Casually mentions they're filming this fan film. Guest star says, what the hell, he's seen this guy at cons and liked the show - decides to film a cameo. Films a cameo - snaps a selfie and mentions it on his social media. People like it and retweet it.

Writer wants to make sure he's not stepping on any toes. Talks to the original creator, who he's formed a friendly relationship with. Creator gives him some ideas, asks to see some of the footage shot. Writer sends a couple shots. Creator thinks on it a little bit.

Creator is talking to the original star at a casual lunch. He thought being the original star was going to catapult him to stardom but it doesn't work. Now he hungers for the spotlight he once had. Star is now interested. He hears that one of the major guest stars did a cameo. He thinks it might be fun to do a cameo too - maybe it'd spark a reboot or something.

Star reaches out to writer. He wants to do a cameo too. Writer is shocked that he's going to get to write a cameo for the original star and immediately agrees. Star casually mentions that he'll reach out to the other main characters to see if they'd be interested.

Weeks later, the board folks and the original stars are on a minor sound stage. Everyone involved pulled some favors to make sure that a cameo with the original stars looks right. They shoot it, and everyone has a blast. Star looks over the script - he actually really likes it. There's some good stuff in there. He talks to the other characters. None of them are really doing anything at the time, and they had a lot of fun working together.

What if they decided to shoot the whole thing?

Writer loves the idea of writing for the original actors but they don't have that kind of money tied in. Original stars say not to worry about it. But they'd need to, essentially, throw out all the footage they'd already shot. That's no problem, though. This is going to be a pretty epic fan film.

Stars arrange to use the professional sound stage fulltime and use some unused sets on a backlot. They also get a director friend to take over production and bring in some people to help make it work better. At this point, essentially all the original board members, minus the writer, are not doing anything but watching.

Buzz starts to build on social media. Star and creator talk to the studio that owns the rights but they don't care. Star and creator wonder about the legality of raising money for a fan film via kickstarter. They do it anyway. Fans who only remember the show fondly as a distant memory decide to give a few bucks here and there.

With real money behind it now, star talks to the writer - he wants to take a shot at some rewrites with another writer friend of his. Writer is a little concerned about things getting out of hand but agrees. Many scenes are re-done and everything starts shooting.

A trailer is cut for the professional fan film starring the original cast and now many of the major guest stars. It trends immediately worldwide. The studio caves. This is now no longer a fan film - it's official. The film gets studio money. The script is completely rewritten. Everything is reshot using studio resources.

The fans show up on set. They just want to watch this movie that they sparked get shot. They're turned around. Writer reaches out to star. He's too busy to talk. Promises to get him a t-shirt or something. Throws on some sunglasses and drives away in a golf cart.

The board fans go back to the message board, talking about the old episodes.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred

2018-06-13 14:12:50

Informant wrote:

Lost -
I think that's one of the big questions. Desmond's vision didn't turn out the way he saw it, so we're left to wonder if he lied to Charlie, or something changed. There's also the possibility that, even with the visions, the future is unknowable. Maybe he just saw one possible outcome and there really is no way to see the future. He put his faith in those visions, just like he put his faith in the button. Doing so had positive and negative results in both situations.
It's a really strange, but interesting, plot point.

Yeah, it's fascinating to me because I don't really understand the extent of Desmond's powers. Is he actually able to manipulate reality in a wide way, or is it a lot simpler than that?

Because if saving Charlie changed the parachutist from Penny to Naomi, that's a *HUGE* change in reality. As Charlie said, it wasn't even Penny's boat - so for Penny to end up in Naomi's place would require massive changes off-Island that couldn't possibly be attributed to anything resembling the butterfly effect as we know it.

But if it's simply the butterfly effect and Naomi was the parachutist either way....then manipulating Charlie into dying was a dick move. Although, I agree that I don't believe Desmond understood his own power. He does seem to treat it in the same fanatical way he treated the button, believing it 100% on pure faith.

I do wonder, though. At one point in "Greatest Hits", Desmond decides that he's going to take Charlie's place. I wonder, if he had, whether or not things would've proceeded the same way.

2018-06-13 09:05:09

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41763 … n#/slide/1

In very unsurprising news, Steve Trevor is back.

2018-06-13 07:56:40

Considering how close it came to dying, I think 10 will be great. I'm actually a little surprised that they didn't simply renew it for the 6-episode arc that you mentioned they could write to wrap things up.

2018-06-10 10:17:26

Again, it didn't really affect my opinion of the movie - if no one had said anything, I might've thought a couple of shots looked a little funny, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.

What's crazy is that, depending on how much of the Superman stuff they reshot, they could've easily worked a beard into his character (in some of the Mission Impossible trailers, it looks Cavill has a beard too). Whether or not Clark was really dead or in a comic-accurate "healing coma" - he might've had some beard growth. It isn't even out of canon in this series because Clark's had a beard before.

The whole thing is more just funny to me because someone probably got paid a decent amount of money to CGI a beard off someone. They did a good job on it....the situation itself is just funny to me.

2018-06-08 13:34:04

For the record, I don't blame McQuarrie or Paramount for any of the mustache saga. They signed an actor to play a role, he agreed, and they agreed on an aesthetic. I thought it was crazy that WB would even ask them to alter their movie for their own.

Looking forward to MI:6 as well.

2018-06-07 15:02:54

Shazam is definitely included in the DCEU but it might not have any *outright* connections. I know there was talk of Henry Cavill appearing in it, but that was back when the Rock was still going to be in it (now his movie, which I didn't even mention) is a solo film too.

2018-06-07 09:53:11

I'm watching LOST with my wife - her first time to ever see it and my first time to watch 90% of it since it originally aired. I'm surprised at how engaging it still is, even knowing what happens. There are many small aspects (mostly related to character - unquestionably the best part of the show) that I'd completely forgotten - especially as a superfan.

I imagine, after this, I'm going to be even stronger when I counter-argue that this is the best show of all time.

But two things to mention specifically about Season 3, where we are now. Its the season where Desmond gets flashes from the future that he's using to save Charlie over and over again. We watched episode 3x17 "Catch-22" last night - a Desmond episode where it's more of the same. In the episode, Desmond gets another Charlie Death Flash, but this time, he gets flashes of a parachutist on the Island. There's a quick glimpse of Penny's face, which leads Desmond to believe that Penny herself is the parachutist. Because everything must happen *exactly* the way they happened in the flash for the full flash to come true, Desmond is prepared to let Charlie die so that he can see Penny again.

Instead, at the last moment, Desmond decides to save Charlie....believing that this will mean that he won't see Penny again. And while they do end up finding the parachutist, it ends up being Naomi Dorrit, not Penny.

Two questions:

1. Is there any scenario where Desmond's power over space and time are so extensive that he'd actually be able to alter reality to the point where Penny actually *WAS* the parachutist? Written more clearly, if Desmond had let Charlie die, is there a circumstance where Penny would've gotten to the Island before the freighter, in exactly the way that Naomi ended up landing?

2. This is more of a broad question that I've had for a while. Later in the season, Desmond gets a flash of Claire getting on a rescue helicopter. He tells Charlie, and this convinces Charlie to sacrifice himself to make sure that Claire gets rescued. So Charlie goes on a suicide mission, which ends up allowing the castaways to contact the freighter, which gets some of them rescued.

The flash is wrong, though. Claire doesn't get rescued. Who does get rescued is someone else - Desmond.

I've long believed that Desmond lied to Charlie - he saw *himself* getting on a helicopter and manipulated Charlie into killing himself, knowing that he wasn't going to waste another opportunity to see Penny again over this guy who the universe clearly wanted to die.

But I did some digging and saw an alternate theory. That Desmond is telling the truth and *Charlie* is the one who alters the future and changes the flash. That in the original flash, Charlie simply drowns without the "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" note - with no reason not to trust the freighter, the castaways would've trusted everyone and Claire would've gotten on. Instead, Claire heeds Charlie's warning and goes with Locke. Because of this, Claire isn't there to be rescued.

So hardcore LOST fans - did Desmond lie to Charlie to save himself, or did Charlie actually prevent Claire's rescue with his sacrifice?

2018-06-07 08:59:53

And side question - is J'onn still using the Hank Henshaw identity? He was referred to as "Director Jones" both at the manufacturer and the DEO. When did this change?

2018-06-07 08:58:41

*Sigh*

Supergirl

Look, it's fine when shows decide to wade into politics. I guess. But "a special episode of" episodes need to be careful about how they do things. And, I think, it needs to serve some sort of purpose. The episode of Supergirl from Monday was just so awkward in its message, and I actually sorta agree with their message.

The problem is that the message that Supergirl writers are sending doesn't really apply to our world. We don't have a Winn Schott magically creating non-lethal weapons for our keepers of the peace. So while I think the episode tried to speak for both sides (the gun manufacturer talking about how getting his first gun was a transformative and positive experience and Lena talking about how she likes having a gun for self-protection), these shows aren't nuanced enough to have those discussions with any depth. So it comes off as cheap, like an 80s "Very Special Episode"

What they could've done, instead of what they did, was have a bulletproof (but maybe not super-strong) alien attack National City. So the DEO responds with their DEO guns, and someone gets shot by some sort of ricochet. They could have a discussion about "what's the point of having guns that can't hurt the people we're trying to shoot and does hurt people we're trying to save?" They could still have the gun manufacturer scene because it could still affect their business (and the families of those that work there) if the DEO pulls their business.

But instead of "guns are good" or "guns are bad" it could simply be a discussion of "is this type of firepower necessary?" - which is still a discussion point.

The problem I have with it is that it didn't dive deep enough into the issue to get anything accomplished. And, so, didn't really add to the discussion. So at the end of the day, what's the point?

2018-06-06 13:50:01

At this point, I'd actually like to see some form of Bart.

2018-06-06 13:45:47

Yeah but that's good and well, but what if both Joker scripts are great? Do you go with the one that is better and scrap the other? Do you throw out the Leto version because there's a great Scorcese version?

It's cool that DC is being very open with their ideas, but they need to get some forward momentum. Aquaman is the only film they have scheduled. It comes out in six months and there's very little buzz about it*. I even forgot it was coming out and thought Shazam was next.

* I'm actually really excited about it, but because there's been no advanced marketing for it so far, I forgot it was happening.

Then there's Shazam and Wonder Woman 2 in 2019. Both projects are coming along nicely, but Shazam might not be connected to the overall DCEU and WW2 takes place in the 80s. Then things get really hazy. There's potentially a Cyborg movie and potentially a Green Lantern Corps movie - those are the only movies that have confirmed release dates but both are questionable.

Then there's the staggering list of movies that may or may not be in development.

Man of Steel 2
Suicide Squad 2
The Batman
80s Joker prequel
Leto Joker sequel
Gotham City Sirens
Birds of Prey
Harley Quinn solo film
Flashpoint
Justice League Dark
Booster Gold / Blue Beetle
Batgirl
New Gods
Nightwing

I know there's a chance that we'll get none of these movies, and it'd be really cool if we could get all of these to work out. But it just seems like an overwhelming list of movies that doesn't even include Justice League 2.

So there's a chance that the DCEU could go over a year without any movies and then have 10 movies in 2020

2018-06-06 09:35:33

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41741 … etos-joker

In addition to a potential Juaquin Phoenix Joker movie, they're also working on a Jared Leto movie. I like that DC is willing to do anything and working on many different avenues....but it's odd that they won't let Batman in the Arrowverse or Smallville because that would confuse people....but they'll do two separate Joker movies?

2018-06-06 09:25:42

The actor opens up on his decision:

http://tvline.com/2018/06/06/legends-of … ally-west/

2018-06-05 13:31:10

Wally is once again homeless.

http://tvline.com/2018/06/05/legends-of … s-regular/

2018-06-05 08:50:51

http://tvline.com/2018/06/04/gotham-fin … bicondova/

Might be a 10 episode season. Which is fine with me....since this should, essentially, just be the finale.

2018-05-31 10:41:21

Yeah, I just think that if you're playing this iconic character in a modern time where reshoots are definitely going to happen, you have to be careful with what happens. And the actor usually avoids the blame - Kate Mara wasn't blamed when her hair looked ridiculous during reshoots of Fantastic Four - but the production itself (and the director) were blamed for making it look horrible.

As I said, Whedon (ironically) was able to find a way to shoot around Chris Evans' beard during reshoots of Avengers. It was just one shot that didn't require anything out of Evans besides him being there, but he was able to shoot it without anyone noticing (if, in fact, he was even there - as it's just a stationary shot inside a restaurant....I could've directed that).

And maybe no one is to blame. I just find it odd that you get Cavill in this movie, partly because he's Superman. Just like you saw years of trying to get Stallone and Schwarzenegger in movies together because it'd be Rambo/Rocky vs the Terminator. They're obviously not playing Rambo or the Terminator, but people still use part of that fantasy as part of the hype.

Maybe Cavill's character is undercover. Maybe the mustache plays some part. Or maybe they did just want to make Cavill less pretty. Either way, it just seems like an odd choice for Cavill to agree to....or an odd decision to force on him. It was either petty on Paramount, naive of Cavill, or just a bizarre set of circumstances.

2018-05-31 09:33:17

Oh it doesn't ruin it for me. It's more funny than anything.

I know that Paramount held their ground, but I don't blame them. They had him for their movie, and they couldn't alter their production for a rival studio's movie. I know it'd be easier to have Cavill wear a fake mustache, but then *their* movie would be lampooned for the fake mustache. Now Justice League gets all the jokes, and the mustache is "real" in their entire movie.

Were official reshoots done for Justice League when Cavill grew the mustache? Because even if Snyder hadn't exited the project, reshoots are a normal part of movie-making these days. Signing on to do a movie where he'd need facial hair is problematic for Justice League unless he was 100% sure that he wouldn't need to come back.

And unless Cruise insisted, I think the mustache choice is still strange. Wouldn't it be a stroke of Cruise's ego to have him kick Superman's ass? And wouldn't you *want* him to look like Superman, in that case?

I'm not one to tell an actor to turn down a multi-million dollar role. And I'm certainly not in-the-know about Hollywood contracts. A lot has been made of who to blame in Paramount vs. WB, but I think Cavill should share a little of the blame, at least.

(And for the record, I would say the same thing about Chris Evans' beard during the "reshoots" of the original Avengers movie. Evans had a full beard that he couldn't shave when they shot the last-minute after-credits scene in the schwarma restaurant. It's the reason why Cap is the only one not eating, and why Cap is awkwardly holding his fist up to his face - he's hiding his beard. If his beard had ruined Avengers reshoots, I would've said the same thing )

2018-05-31 08:59:37

I think that's a great analysis.

To me, Tom Cavanaugh has a lot of similarities with Michael Rosenbaum. They're actors who are incredibly goofy in real life, but I was introduced to them portraying characters with this very serious dark side. It's clear that both Cavanaugh and Rosenbaum want to be goofy characters, perfectly suited for the types of podcasts that both man seem to really enjoy doing.

But to me, Rosenbaum played a cold, chilling Lex Luthor so well on Smallville. Even if his decent into comically-evil Lex was awkwardly paced, I bought it because Rosenbaum sold it. And I enjoy serious Wells more than I enjoy comic Wells. The Council of Wells does nothing for me, and I didn't particularly care about HR. I didn't like Wells when he was tripping over things, and people were rolling their eyes at him. I like Harry as a person, and I don't like deviations from that character.

At the same time, I do agree that he doesn't really have a place anymore. The roles that people have grown into have made him obsolete. It's one reason why I liked the idea that DeVoe might be setting up a series of events where Harry becomes the true Thinker. It would've been a tragic ending, but it would've given Cavanaugh something significant to do.

I don't know where you go from here. Cavanaugh is a fun actor, and I'd love to get more of him. But if they want to use him as comic relief, they should just let him go. He could work on Legends. I don't know if he'd fit any better on Team Arrow than he would Team Flash (who have Felicity and Curtis in his role), but I'd actually really love to see him bounce off Oliver for a season. I can also see him staying on Flash if they wanted to shake things up on Team Flash (which, honestly, they haven't done much of on that show).

I honestly don't know what I'd do with him. Maybe it is time for him to move on.

2018-05-31 08:19:42

So I finally saw a trailer for Mission Impossible: Fallout with Henry Cavill. For the longest time, I assumed that Cavill was going to be playing a foreign agent or something (in my head, he was Russian). Since mustaches aren't very en vogue right now, I figured it'd be some sort of choice (along with an accent) to separate him from Superman.

But, nope, he's playing an American. Using the Superman accent, it seems.

So why the mustache? Is there some sort of plot reason why he needs a mustache? Was he told to grow it, or did he decide on his own?

I know Warner Bros got its ass kicked because of mustache-gate, but was the whole thing because Henry Cavill randomly decided to grow a completely-arbitrary mustache for no reason? He didn't have one in anything else, so it's not like Henry Cavill wants to have a mustache and Mission Impossible let him be who he is.

Is Henry Cavill to blame for mustache-gate?

2018-05-30 07:56:39

I mean I'd love to dismiss it, but now it's such a big part of the show. What's crazy is that it didn't even have to go that route. If they wanted an alternate universe where the apocalypse happened in season 5....I think it's a great idea. It really ties into the mythology of the show, and I sorta like how they can bring back gritty versions of everyone.

But it seems like a simple move to make. Lucifer won. He wipes out humanity because he's evil. Or if you want to do the Michael thing....no one won. The world is destroyed because Lucifer and Michael have been fighting for 8 years and don't care about collateral damage. Michael can be a little twisted because of how long he's been at war, but he shouldn't just be executing people for no reason.

Instead of bringing back Gabriel, bring back Cage Michael. He'd be just as twisted, and they could rehabilitate him. And when you have Dean say yes to Cage Michael, you'd get a cool Sam/Dean dynamic because Cage Michael has been trapped with Sam in the Cage before. They have actual history together.

They just didn't think Apocalypse World through at all.

2018-05-29 08:10:50

Two quick notes:

1. I don't really understand what they're doing with Michael. Is he evil or is he not? Because after trying to defeat Michael the whole season, the idea of them just letting him be the hero at the end was really strange. I also don't really understand why Michael is evil in the Apocalypse World or what he was doing. Is there no Chuck in the other world? Did Michael kill Chuck? Because Chuck was around during the Michael/Lucifer fight in the main world, and he was actively working to help the brothers.

We had that alternate apocalypse world in season 5, but that was based on Lucifer winning.

2. There's a small chance that there was an election in 2017 that Trump could've won. I don't know if they've ever specifically said that elections happened at the same time in their world and our world, but on shows like the West Wing, they've made little explanations for why the elections are off. So maybe there was an election between Jack's birth and the finale.

But it was a lazy joke that should've been caught.

2018-05-25 08:41:04

That actually makes a lot of sense. There was originally going to be a Whedon tie-in to keep the movies and the show connected, but when Whedon didn't have time or energy for it, the connection weakened. And when Whedon left, it was completely severed.

Thinking about the timeline also works in why the Film division might've seen value in AoS and then realized that they don't really bring much. Agents of SHIELD premiered in September of 2013. At that point, the only Phase Two movie that had come out was Iron Man 3. Thor: The Dark World was coming.

At this point, the MCU wasn't really a success. Phase One was a mixed bag, both creatively and financially. Of the 19 current MCU films, Avengers is the only movie that's even in the Top 10 of Box Office numbers, and Phase One is 4 of the 6 lowest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. The films were picking up steam, but they weren't the guaranteed blockbuster that they are now. Iron Man 3 had just come out, and while it was a commercial success (5th highest grossing MCU film), it was rated by fans and critics around the same level as the other solo films (outside of the first Iron Man).

Marvel Films might've seen Agents of SHIELD as a way to drive people to their movies. We saw direct tie-ins to both Winter Soldier and Thor: the Dark World. We saw minor characters from those films appear on SHIELD. They were able to show tons of promos and advertise to a core audience.

I think Winter Soldier could've changed their minds a bit. It was a critical success, and it got a lot of people talking about how it was a legitimately good movie. The next movie was a bit of a wild card in Guardians of the Galaxy, and it did well. Suddenly, the MCU had some street cred, and they realize that they don't need the show to drive the audience.

The next season, they did the cool background storyline with the Helicarrier, but it was really just a nod to AoS fans (not much more). But there was no tie-in to Ant-Man, and by that point, the MCU was rolling along well enough that Civil War could make as much as an Avengers movie. There was no reason to use SHIELD's dwindling audience to drive people to movies that more-than-succeeded on their own.

And by that point, SHIELD was doing enough stuff on their own that it wouldn't have made sense to have Sif show up again. I'm sure they would've loved if someone like Paul Rudd showed up, but it would've seemed forced.

2018-05-25 08:02:14

TemporalFlux wrote:

The strangely excited girl who was trying to give Barry a drink before the wedding. Is that going to be Barry’s time traveling grand daughter Jenni Ognats (otherwise known as XS of the 30th century Legion of Super-heroes)?

Once again, TF was way ahead of the curve. Not exactly right but close enough.

2018-05-25 07:56:36

I finally watched the Flash finale last night.

I really don't know what to think. I think the Thinker was a really good idea for a villain because he can frustrate Team Flash in ways that no other villain had up until that point. Barry thinks of himself as a genius, and so do Cisco and Harry and Caitlin and....everyone but Joe maybe? And to have a villain come in and kick their butts at something they all think they do well was interesting.

What also was promising is a villain who has goals that are understandable. Previous villains want "more speed" for....reasons. I never really understood the goal, and the main fights ended up being races that didn't seem to make any sense.

Instead, I think they made two fatal mistakes. One, they didn't think that a guy in a wheelchair vs. a team of superheroes was compelling enough so the second half of the season turned DeVoe into Sylar. They made him way too powerful physically when his mind should have been his primary weapon.

Second....his plan was too convoluted and didn't make enough sense. This was their best chance to have a villain with a clear motive, and they botched it. As long as Arrow and Flash were copying each other, they could've gone for the "Hero has to go solo" idea and had Thinker mind control each member of Team Flash one by one. So, by the finale, it's Team Flash vs. Flash.

I actually liked Ralph, and I'm glad he wasn't dead. I actually hadn't considered that Ralph's brain would still be alive in there, and that he still had his original body. I do feel that it's a bit of a copout because I think Ralph's death was supposed to have real weight, and Team Flash still hasn't really had a true loss at any point now.

And the way Thinker lost....I can't believe that DeVoe had a perfect plan with perfect contingencies, even if they'd brought in Kara (which they mentioned but still would've been nice to see them try....especially since Supergirl went on hiatus and it might've been possible for a small cameo)....and we're led to believe that his plan went perfectly until Marlize just...unplugged him? Either he sees every option and has a plan for it, or he doesn't. You can't give him perfect precognition and then just take it away. If Marlize was a blind spot, that's fine. But I don't think they really built that in well enough if that's even what happened.

I just think it was sloppy. Which sucks because I think, overall, the season was better than it's been the last couple years.

2018-05-24 14:10:48

I genuinely enjoyed reading this. Agents of SHIELD is a series that I've watched every episode of but haven't watched particularly closely. It's often something I watch while I'm doing something else (playing on my laptop, folding laundry, cooking or eating dinner, etc). I watch the show closely enough to very easily follow the plot, but I was surprised at how few of the (several) early season references I'd completely forgotten. The show had so many random villains that I couldn't really place references to certain ones, and I'm sure some of the Easter eggs went completely over my head (the centipede serum being connected with a season 1 villainous organization was lost on me).

But I enjoyed going back through the show with your writing - it's not a show I've ever gone back to (or, honestly, considered going back) so I actually only remember the show being strong and its own thing. I have visuals of SHIELD before Winter Soldier, but I could just-as-easily be getting that confused with items from Winter Soldier itself.

SHIELD was a bastard son, created in a lab, that ended up making something of himself. Once the show stripped itself of so much of it's baggage, connected to its older brothers, the show was able to walk freely. And while the show still feels a part of Tony Stark's world, it's separated enough that it's reasonable that the two worlds wouldn't touch.

What's fascinating, to me, is the behind-the-scenes stuff. For example, I find it odd that the show came out when it did. Was it designed to run for half a season of "standard SHIELD stuff" before blowing the show up? Was that by design? Or were TV and Films always so disconnected that, when Agents of SHIELD was announced, Films laughed at the idea that they were going to blow up their show midway through their first season?

Or were things once better? When Sif, Maria Hill, and Nick Fury showed up, was there still a dream for Marvel Films and Marvel TV to have a beautiful marriage? Was there ever a conversation with, I don't know, Chris Evans, to shoot some sort of cameo while he was filming Avengers 2? Was there a dream of introducing a character here or there that might show up to help out Tony Stark in some future movie?

Or was it somewhere in the middle, where Marvel TV decided to do something, and Marvel Films wished them the best, offering them whatever help they could until things fell apart and each went their separate way?

I find it hard to believe that Marvel Films wouldn't see the value of having a TV playground to play in, but that seems to be where things went. I don't think they'd necessarily need to agree on specific episode-specific plots, but you'd think that they'd want some insight on what's happening in their various shows. I guess not, though.

2018-05-24 08:24:32

I felt weird putting this in the post about his daughter, but I also didn't think it needed it's own page.

I watch Bar Rescue but apparently haven't watched a ton of it recently because Rob Floyd is now a contributor on there. I watched an episode that he appeared on, and I thought he was great. He actually seemed a bit nervous/jittery to be on camera, which I found a bit odd. But he was very charismatic, and it seemed like he did a good job teaching (I don't know how much of it is fake). It also seemed like he was having a great time.

I wasn't sure if they'd mention it, but they didn't make any reference to his previous acting experience.

2018-05-22 12:00:52

Well, SHIELD has always been an anomaly in the MCU. In the first Iron Man movie, Coulson operates like it's a new agency that people haven't heard of (not just Tony, Pepper hasn't heard of it either). Maybe something in response to 9/11 like Homeland Security.

In Winter Soldier (and Agent Carter), the history of SHIELD shows that it's been around since the end of World War II. And as Grant Ward aptly, said in the AoS pilot:

Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?
Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Hill: And what does that mean to you?
Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "shield."

So either Coulson was playing a trick on Tony and Pepper, or no one noticed that SHIELD spelled anything for 60 years.

Search options (Page 32 of 59)

Posts found: 1,861 to 1,920 of 3,496

1,861 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 15:53:02

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,862 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 13:52:31

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,863 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 12:18:00

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,864 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 09:30:59

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,865 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 08:46:14

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (758 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,866 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 08:45:10

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,867 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-06 07:50:55

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (758 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,868 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-03 08:00:12

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,869 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-08-02 10:09:35

Re: SLIDERS (2013): Why did it fail? (4 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,870 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-07-11 07:50:12

Re: Jerry O’Connell to host “Real Men Watch Bravo” (New title pending) (13 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,871 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-07-06 15:52:00

Re: Marvel Cinematic Universe by Slider_Quinn21 (954 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,872 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-07-03 09:24:18

Re: Marvel Cinematic Universe by Slider_Quinn21 (954 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,873 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-07-03 07:53:29

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media (724 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,874 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-07-02 10:15:41

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media (724 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,875 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-27 08:34:58

Re: Supernatural (267 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,876 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-27 08:33:25

Re: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Spoilers) (4 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,877 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-26 13:18:12

Re: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Spoilers) (4 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,878 Topic by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-26 09:45:31

Topic: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Spoilers) (4 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,879 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-21 12:00:19

Re: DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (1,684 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,880 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-21 10:56:55

Re: DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (1,684 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,881 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-21 08:29:35

Re: DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (1,684 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,882 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-20 12:15:17

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,883 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-20 08:00:35

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (758 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,884 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 14:18:43

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (758 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,885 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 12:03:39

Re: American Politics: Discuss and Debate (3,573 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,886 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 11:53:14

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,887 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 10:42:20

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,888 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 08:46:22

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,889 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-19 08:10:16

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,890 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-18 12:25:06

Re: Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS (28 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,891 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-15 12:25:30

Re: DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (1,684 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,892 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-15 08:59:09

Re: Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (758 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,893 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-15 08:28:10

Re: Reboot... (14 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,894 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-13 14:12:50

Re: Random Thoughts about TV, Film and Media (724 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,895 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-13 09:05:09

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,896 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-13 07:56:40

Re: Gotham: Rise of the Villains (Spoilers) (90 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,897 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-10 10:17:26

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,898 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-08 13:34:04

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

1,899 Reply by Slider_Quinn21 2018-06-07 15:02:54

Re: DC Superheroes in Film (1943 - 2024) (1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)