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It'd be 0% about saving Japan and 100% about saving themselves, but maybe they want to die.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017- … 488376.htm

This is from the Chinese-run media.

But the crux of the entire article is that they don't give a shit about what Donald Trump thinks or says.  They aren't going to run in and save him from the North Koreans because he told them to.  But at the same time, they aren't going to die because he's an idiot.  They aren't just going to sit around and hope he doesn't retaliate with a nuclear attack 500 miles away from Beijing.

Or maybe they will.  But any smart country is going to try and defend themselves against Trump's idiocy, and I assume China isn't any different.

You know what I mean.  Everyone assumed we'd be at war with someone like Bolivia because they'd make fun of his hair.  The only wars we're involved in are ones that Bush started.

So to those of you adamantly anti-Trump....what's your best case scenario for a Trump presidency?  Do you want him to make / have made a greivous enough mistake that he has to be impeached before 2018?  Or just after 2018 when the Democrats might have more seats in Congress?  Do you want him to do enough damage to ensure a win in 2018/2020?  Do you want him to mess up and make mistakes so you have something to make fun of?  Or do you genuinely want him to succeed, knowing that his successes would be conservative ones?

It's really hard for me to tell.  The "resistance" loves to make fun of Trump's mistakes ("The Mooch" being the latest, but there have been tons) while also being "horrified" by them.  But when things run smoothly and stuff gets done (say, the travel ban) then that's also horrifying.

Understanding your hatred for him at a personal and professional level, is there anything he could do that would make you happy? 

Because, from my vantage point, the Trump presidency has actually been pretty optimal.  He's not doing a ton of damage, the rest of the world seems to be holding everything else pretty steady, we aren't in any wars, and there's an investigation to see if anything he's done to get elected is shady.  He's not doing anything outlandish or fascist (he's too incompetent for the latter), and he can't get anything pushed through a Republican-majority Congress.

And the revolving door of people in and out the White House is actually good in my eyes.  If Trump is constantly trying to work through chaos, he can't be instigating North Korea or doing anything stupid.  If he spends 90% of his time in office hiring and firing people, then that's only 10% of the time he has to do anything else.  To me, that's a win.

(This is why I feared Hillary more than Donald.  She would've actually governed, but poorly, for probably 8 years.  Donald is going to keep the country in neutral for probably less than four.  And standing still is better than going backwards).

Yeah, but it's just hard for him to say that Superman made him see the best in himself.  I mean maybe he prefaces it in the movie with "I was blinded, but..." (which is why I'm an a-hole for criticizing things out of context ) - it's just weird.  I'd actually really like to know where the other League members stand on Superman.  Barry knows about Batman (at least by reputation, he doesn't seem to know that Batman doesn't have powers based on the "I'm rich" exchange), but I'd like to see where everyone stands on Superman.

Well, I don't know about that for a couple reasons:

1. People don't change their minds easily, especially now.  I think if people hated Superman after Metropolis, everything that happened afterward would just back up that opinion.  There would be people who'd blame Superman for the explosion at Congress, and there'd be people that'd have "proof" that Doomsday and Superman were working together and Batman / the mysterious woman killed them both.

2. There were no witnesses.  No people were around.  The military would give their story, but that'd be the only story the people would hear.  I don't think Batman gives interviews (and he's feared too), and it's hard to tell what public persona Wonder Woman has, if any.  In Death of Superman, Clark died on international TV.  In this, he died under mysterious circumstances against an "unspecified" monster. 

It's obvious from the full military funeral and the Day of the Dead scene that a lot of people loved him.  No protests, apparently.  I just don't buy that it'd flip that fast.

I still maintain that the last 3 minutes is the most entertaining scene/scenes in Star Wars history.  I think it's what I've always wanted Star Wars to be, especially in terms of Vader.  And I liked it better than I liked Force Awakens because I think both are flawed and I wasn't caught up in all the "original trilogy" nostalgia because I'm not the world's biggest Star Wars fan (and I didn't love Force Awakens).

My biggest complaint wasn't with the script - I think Felicity Jones was way too wooden.  I don't know if she can act or not, but it was a prequel-quality performance.

Is that official?  Is that the first official reference to Superman being in this?

Ugh, there is so much "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad" in government today.  The story being reported is that the Democrats have beaten the Republicans in the Health Care debate.  That's simply not true.  The Democrats and a group of Republicans beat a Republican-led initiative to overhaul health care.  The side led by Democrats won, but this was a bi-partisan effort.  If it was United Red vs. United Blue, then Red would have won.  It took Republicans to defeat the "Republican" bill.

I don't think anything is being made of the Republicans who crossed the line and voted with the Democrats.  In the Senate and in the House.

There's just "Republicans want people to die" and "Democrats are the only decent humans in Congress."  The whole thing makes me nauseous.

Ha, well, "back then" can also mean "in times when there wasn't anything else to do"

But they've had a handful of scenes exactly like that in several episodes.  Main characters are always running into people on the road to wherever and seeing what "common people" are talking about.  I think the purpose of the scene was to sorta humanize Arya, who had just slaughtered a room full of people.  I think it's going to pay dividends down the road.

The song was weird, but I didn't think twice about it.  Bands of people sang for entertainment back then.  Even the "it's new" line, while weird, I thought was kinda cool at the time because people would have to create new songs.  Even if Ed Sheeran was playing Edd Shee-ran, a songwriter....well, songwriters had to exist back then.  Maybe this was a guy who wanted to get into songs but was forced to do something else.

People just like to get outraged.

Why are people mad that Ed Sheeran guest starred on Game of Thrones?

In the interest of being fair, these are valid criticisms of the themes of Spider-Man: Homecoming.  (Trigger warning, there's a shot at Man of Steel, but it is Max Landis)

https://twitter.com/Uptomyknees/status/ … 2870208512

Yeah, as soon as the Avengers assembled, it's best to keep the timeline fuzzy.  So you can always just assume the movies take place at the same time as each other so you don't wonder why the Avengers weren't assembled when the freakin President was kidnapped or when SHIELD is getting destroyed.

If there were continuity errors internal to the movie, I didn't notice them.  The one thing that stuck out at me was an issue with the years.  For the most part, I think the Marvel movies are supposed to take place around the time when they come out (although from what I can tell, Marvel has stopped trying to make a timeline of any of these movies).  Avengers was in 2012, and the beginning of Homecoming is the immediate aftermath of that movie.

Then it says "8 years later" and the movie begins.  So either Avengers doesn't take place in 2012 or Homecoming takes place in 2020.  It could honestly be either since the movies don't seem to have any sense of time.  I don't think any of them mention the year, do they?

One more Incredible Hulk thought and some thoughts on Spider-Man.  There will be Spider-Man spoilers so here's your warning (Incredible Hulk thoughts first)

INCREDIBLE HULK

One more thing about this movie - as I was watching it, I was sorta fascinated by the way this is sorta the opposite of a traditional movie.  In a lot of movies, the villain is shown to be powerful (Darth Vader and the Empire), and the hero (Luke) is drastically outgunned.  He has the will to fight but no belief he can really succeed.  It's only when another hero emerges with the key to defeating the villain (Obi-Wan) that the story kicks into gear, and against all odds, the hero is able to defeat the villain.

That's basically the story of the Incredible Hulk.  Except Banner is a sympathetic villain, Blonsky is a crazy version of the hero, and Ross is an obsessed version of the mentor.  The whole movie is Banner being an unstoppable force and Blonsky taking a warped hero's journey to take down the monster.  From a certain angle, Blonsky is even a typical hero - Hulk is a monster, and he's incredibly dangerous.  Blonsky is a soldier, dedicated to protecting people.  He gets training, gets his magic sword in the form of the super-soldier formula, fails and fails again like any good hero, and he eventually finds the strength to fight the monster.

A pretty standard Hollywood movie could be done starring Blonsky, and it wouldn't even need a ton of changes until the third act.  I just thought that was interesting.

SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING

I really liked this movie.  I thought it had a lot of heart, and I thought it was so much about Spider-Man that Amazing Spider-Man wasn't (to me, at least).  Peter feels like a kid with these crazy ambitions, and I think it fits.  He also finds life as a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" boring.  Because, if he's living in the same city as the Avengers....it sorta would be.  I also wonder how much crime Peter would actually run into, especially living in a post-Avengers NYC.  The Defenders all found plenty of trouble in New York, but they typically sought it out.  Peter can really only be Spider-Man during a very specific (afternoon) portion of the day, and he's not kicking down the doors of drug dealers or ninja clans.

He has power and ambition and wants to help, but I think it really made him feel like a real kid.  He's Spider-Man, for heaven's sake, but he's still a kid....so it's not enough.

I also felt like the movie used Iron Man a sufficient amount.  He's not overwhelming, and he doesn't steal the show.  This isn't Civil War...he's just a side character in what's definitely Peter's movie.  And it's crazy how much Peter fits into this universe, and how they're able to hit on some areas (alien tech being sold, and the consequences of the path set off by Tony admitting he's Iron Man) that, honestly, Agents of SHIELD should be handling better.

It was just a fun adventure, and I loved the little reveal at the end with Pepper Potts (I said spoilers).  A really fun movie, and one of my favorites in the MCU (top 5 maybe?)

Watching the Incredible Hulk.  This movie isn't terrible, and I actually really like Norton as Banner.  It would've been interesting if Norton had stayed on....would he have been willing to do multiple Avengers movies or something like Thor:Ragnorok?

I also would really like to see Abomination or the Leader show up.  I think there was a plan to put Abomination in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but they decided against it.  He's also been mentioned in Agents of SHIELD and one of the Marvel One Shots.

Ha, I told you I don't have stories.  Stuff I've collected through the years.  Just like I'm now working on the idea that Jonathan Frakes is a nice guy because he may or may not have given Informant direction.  I'd probably heard something negative about him and that's just the "status quo" opinion I had.

To be fair, the story he wrote about Shatner was really entertaining.  So maybe my default position on Wheaton will be "he's pretty funny"

We had this conversation the other day.  We compared it, actually, to ESPN.  ESPN used to fill their programming with stuff like the World's Strongest Man competitions.  The Outdoor Games (lumberjack events).  The X-Games.  Maybe classic sports.  Then, at night, they'd do some live sports (if they could).  Then SportsCenter....which was their money cow.

Then two things happened: the Internet made SportsCenter much less relevant (if you wanted to watch a sports clip, you could watch it whenever you wanted...you didn't have to wait to catch it on SportsCenter) and ESPN got rights to big-named sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, etc).

With their big moneymaker much less powerful, they focused more on their newest toys.  But they felt they were cheapening their "legitimate" sports when they showed the "odd/quirky" stuff like World's Strongest Man.  So that disappeared.  Since they were a legit sports network that only showed legit sports, they needed to fill their time with legit sports news....and that's when opinion shows started to creep in.  They couldn't show legit sports all day, but they could talk about it all day.  So that's what they did.  Sports and politics are very similar - you pick your team and you live and die with it.  There's a clear hero and a clear enemy.  If someone talks the way you think, you tune in.  If not, you either hate-watch or don't watch at all.

It's the same with cable news.  You'd tell the news and it was fine.  But it was repetitive.  You'd tell the same 8 "mundane" news stories over and over again.  Then stuff like 9/11 happened and ratings went through the roof.  They could talk about one thing all day and cover tons of new angles.  They could bring on experts to talk about it.  To keep "breaking news" alive, more stuff had to be considered "breaking news."  Breaking news brought ratings, and they needed ratings.

With politics, they found another moneymaker.  People loved to tune in to hear people that thought like them.  And, in some cases, loved to tune in to hear people that they hated who thought differently.  Elections brought big ratings.  So how can they talk about elections when there isn't an election?  Make the elections last a year!  Even more!  Spin everything politically.  Bring in people who are there for their opinions.  Let the hosts give a few more editorials.

It's a slippery slope but they're similar.  Being big fish in small pools wasn't enough.  Once they had access to bigger pools, they had to evolve to grow.  But they stopped being who they were, and they evolved into something that was unrecognizable and counter to everything they started with.

+1

I watched a ton of CNN during the election, and they were all so anti-Trump that it started to be noticeable.  I think they realized that a) they weren't going to get many conservative viewers who were already firmly at Fox News and b) they could get stronger ratings if they stopped trying to be unbiased.  I think it simply started with hosts like Wolf Blitzer and Ashleigh Banfield leaning slightly left, but I think it's gotten more targeted since then.  I remember the Republican Convention had a mostly-even panel between Republicans and Democrats, and then Democratic Convention panel was about 9 Democrats and 1-2 Republicans.

If they want to respond to Fox News and take the other half of the country, that's fine.  The problem is that CNN still means something to some people.  It used to be a name you could rely on.  To suddenly become Fox News under the guise of something that's better than Fox News is upsetting to me as a former journalist myself.  I almost wish they'd started a new network if that's the direction they were going to go.

Where is Will McEvoy when you need him?

All true.  It's just weird that in the ultimate "world building" movie, they didn't really flesh out the world of the main character.  I like little nods to a bigger world, especially when it's a world they hope to play in later.  I like in the Arrowverse how they've alluded to Batman (Jimmy referred to him as "Clark's friend" and Winn referred to him as "more of a frenemy").  Back when there were a ton of rumors that Nightwing would appear on Arrow, they had Oliver talk about going out with a buddy in Bludhaven.  Stuff like that is fun.

Even including the Gordon line, the impression I'm getting from the DCEU is that there was one Robin and he's dead.  I absolutely love the idea of doing Bat-Family stuff, and I want to see a Nightwing movie about as badly as anything (#PadaleckiForDickGrayson).  But if they're doing to do that, I need an explanation for where they were.  Even if it's a flashback movie for Barbara, I need to know why she wasn't in BvS/Justice League.  For Dick Grayson, it's gotta be critical if the relationship is *so* bad that neither wants anything to do with the other, and Alfred isn't even trying to make things right.

Not saying they won't, but I'm making my expectations known

That's another reason why I'm a little disappointed that Discovery isn't an anthology series.  I think there's so many cool stories that they could tell in the Star Trek universe, up to and including "What's Wesley up to?"  I think a "different era each season" story (like American Horror Story* for Star Trek) would work, or I think a complete anthology series could be really cool (like Twilight Zone* or Black Mirror*)

* Talking strictly about format.

You probably wouldn't get Avery Brooks to return as Sisko for a whole season of something, but you could get him for an episode.  Same with virtually any of the other actors (Patrick Stewart might be the only guy too big for something this small, but even he might do a cameo or something).  Let's check in on the TNG crew.  Or the people at Deep Space Nine.  How's Riker's first big command going?  What's Jake Sisko doing?  How'd the Voyager crew end up?  What was the adjustment to the first years of the Federation like for the Enterprise crew?

Or go further.  What's life like in the 26th century?  29th?  32nd?

Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate it.  It's actually pretty rare for me to hate a movie.  I can count the movies that I've started and not finished on one hand, and I can usually find something about a movie to compliment (there were parts of the latest Fantastic Four movie that I thought were interesting or well thought out mixed in the rest of the mess).

Amazing Spider-Man, to me, just felt like two different movies that were awkwardly edited together.  For example, I think the movie could've been really interesting if they hadn't included any of the Lizard stuff.  What if 80% of the movie was about Uncle Ben's killer somehow tying back into the death of Peter's parents?  After three movies where Peter fights powerful monsters, wouldn't a movie where he simply fights a bunch of evil men in suits be refreshing?  Where Peter is *easily* the most powerful person in the movie but fails because a) he hasn't figured out his powers and b) his problems can't be solved by brute strength but with the mind that he had from the very beginning.

And I still think it's off-putting that Uncle Ben's killer gets away with it.  Peter never finds him in the movie, he's still at large at the end, and he's never mentioned in the sequel.  I think it actually could've been an interesting moment if the killer is captured by the police, and Peter's relieved that his anger didn't lead him to revenge.  He's "forgiven" the man who did it, but the man who did it still faces justice.

Well, that sorta goes into what I was saying.  The guy is a kid, both mentally and emotionally.  If he wants to spend all day tweeting and golfing and being mad at people who were mean to him....isn't that exactly what we want?  If he's a bad leader....shouldn't we want him wasting his time?  It's embarrassing but he's going to be an embarrassment either way.  Wouldn't we rather he be an embarrassment that gets nothing done?

Changing gears a little bit.  I understand why people laugh at Donald Trump.  I get why they're embarrassed of him. What I don't get (and what I'm having a harder time getting the more he's president) is why people are *afraid* of him.

From what I've heard, he's functionally illiterate.  He comes off as childish and, frankly, dumb.  He's been unable to pass any meaningful legislation and fundamentally threw away his most important 100 days in office.  This all with a supermajority in both the Senate and the House.  He might appear to be a fascist, but he has none of the other traits of one.  A fascist would've taken complete control of the situation and passed all sorts of crazy laws.  Putin took complete control of Russia in the six months that Trump's been given.

Even some of the weird/scary stuff (like removing journalists from briefings and barring cameras) seems more about embarrassment than power (the briefings became a laughing stock so the administration is trying to spare itself of more public ridicule).

Where you might get me is stuff on the international stage.  But even then, Trump is a child, but there are other grownups around.  If North Korea decided to go crazy, there are people in charge of other powerful nations that could do something about it (I've always maintained that the US isn't the right country to deal with them, anyway - it's China).  Same with Syria.  Same with Russia.  Unless Putin decides, for some reason, that he wants to die, then nuclear war is pointless for him.  It doesn't accomplish anything for him.

He's a childish, immature, possibly illiterate moron.  He's a bad president.  He's an embarrassment to the country.  But we've had childish presidents and immature presidents and illiterate presidents and bad presidents.  We've had embarrassing presidents.  The US has gotten through it, and I don't see any reason the country can't get through this one.

And outside of some executive order and whatever garish stuff the next president has to redecorate around, I don't even think there's gonna be much cleanup.  He's accomplished virtually nothing.  All the damage, for the most part, is psychological.  And we're *great* at dealing with that

I heard separate rumors today that DC is looking into making a RED SON adaptation (live action?) and that the next Justice League trailer will feature an "evil Superman" tease at the end.

Someone smarter than me here (TF, ireactions, Transmodiar, etc) either had the idea or pushed me toward the idea that something in the timer kept the Sliders in a specific "neighborhood" of the multiverse.  Time is mid-90s, human beings have evolved, even specific people have been born.  So while there might be a world where the Russians run America or women are the "stronger sex", everything else is especially familiar.  In most cases, the Earth was formed and life evolved exactly the same time.  And even though history was drastically different in certain cases, Quinn's father met Quinn's mother and the exact sperm fertilized the exact egg in the exact way and Quinn Mallory was born looking like Jerry O'Connell.

Well, I think Harrison Ford is happy to reappear in these "soft reboots" / continuations, but I think he doesn't want to do much of the heavy lifting.  It was harder with Star Wars, but I think in this he could be a minor person who provides information from the past and connects to what happened before. 

That's just my guess.  The dude is in his mid-70s so it's hard to expect too much from him these days.

And also....SMH.  We just can't agree on this crap

I think I could maybe believe that Iron Man (2008) exists in the Netflix world.  It's grounded....SHIELD is done in secret.  Everyone seems shocked by the idea of two metal men fighting.  I actually think it fits in quite nicely.

But I'm having trouble imagining Jessica Jones and anyone from the recent MCU films.  I don't see anyone in the Netflix world living in a world where the Hulk is. 

I don't necessarily hate the idea that they shared a world.  I don't think it hurts the Netflix world like it hurts the Agents of SHIELD world because they can do their own thing without really stepping on anyone's toes.  The problems that, say, Iron Fist faces are too small time for the Avengers or even SHIELD.  Just like Batman can exist in a world with Darkseid.  Superman doesn't have to save the day when the Riddler kidnaps the mayor of Gotham.

And if they'd introduced someone like Green Lantern into the Dark Knight trilogy, it'd feel weird too.  That's just how this feels.  Yeah there are powers and yeah there are a couple of costumes.  But it doesn't have the same feel as the MCU (which has a feel that even Guardians can capture).

I don't think it's a detriment to either franchise, but I think it's why there aren't (and shouldn't be) any crossovers.