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Don't know. I've actually been considering taking down my someplacethatiselse.net site lately. I always say that I'm going to do something productive with it, but I'm too busy to actually do anything. Next time it's up for renewal, I may just archive it and let it go. Buffy Season 8 was a huge accomplishment for me. It was a great learning experience and it proved a lot for me, in terms of what I could accomplish, and what I could do on a strict deadline. But it was a stepping stone.

That's just me though.

I'm even more behind than you. I haven't seen Black Panther or Infinity War. I guess if they're ending their deal with Netflix, I'll have to rent them at some point. I just haven't felt a big need to see them yet.

But that ranks them above the last couple of Star Wars movies, which I'm pretty sure I've just given up on.

Has anyone watched season 2 of Luke Cage? If so, is there anything important that I need to know when going into the next season of Iron Fist? I know some characters are going back and forth between shows, but I just can't watch Luke Cage. I watched the first episode of season 2, and it was like watching a PBS documentary about paint drying. I don't know who writes that show, but it is insanely boring for a superhero series.

Maybe I've just heard too many stories about Hollywood, and have heard too many personal stories from victims of child molesters, but if I had a kid (or if it were my nephews or niece) and I saw those jokes and pictures, I would walk away. Not because I believe that Gunn is guilty of any crime, but because I just don't know, and those comments which make light of pedophilia would make me nervous about letting any of the kids in my family work closely with him. Hollywood has a long, long history of not only hiring pedophiles, but of covering up for them (many A-list celebrities still make excuses for Polanski and gave him a standing ovation when he won an Oscar... plus *they gave him an Oscar!*). Even the slightest hint would send me walking in the other direction.

But yeah, it's a personal call. He might have changed, or he might have stopped making those jokes once he was hired by Disney. I hope that he has grown as a person, I really do. If so, I wish him the best of luck. I'm not for any sort of boycott at this point.

It's just a really sensitive subject. We all know that I'm not a super-PC SJW. I make all sorts of inappropriate jokes (mostly around those who know my actual personality and know when I'm joking), but the thought of making a pedophilia joke or associating myself with NAMBLA would never even cross my mind, because the thought disgusts me so much. I don't know what it takes to get to a mental place where it wouldn't be disgusting.

Anyway, I guess it's over with. We'll see which of the actors walk away, if any. And if Disney pushes the third GotG movie back some, just to let it breathe. Though, that might cause their whole schedule to collapse, like dominoes.

His comments were bound to become an issue at some point. It was just a matter of time. If it wasn't something political, it would have been some angry fan, upset over their favorite character being killed off, or whatever. The reason for this coming out now was political, sure. However, the political people didn't create the issue. They really only did it because Gunn was unforgiving toward others, and they wanted to turn the tables. The whole point of it was to prove that everyone could be ruined in this way... but the topic of his actions made him an especially easy target.

He'll be fine. He will work again. Just (probably) not for Disney. If he were working on the next Deadpool movie, this probably wouldn't have been an issue for the studio, but the MCU movies make their billions because they market toward kids and families. Having their movie title in the same article as some of those comments could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, especially if they didn't fire the person who made those comments.

I think this is a situation of "It is what it is", just like the Roseanne thing. Agree or disagree, everyone involved was free to do what they did and there's not much more to say about it. When the Roseanne thing happened, nobody wanted to hear her explanation or her apology. She was cast out, and everyone danced on the grave of her career. James Gunn was one of those people.  Maybe he can use this as another growing opportunity.

James Gunn.

I'm not putting this in the political thread because it's not really political. I know those who brought it to light are political, so I'll address that, but the topic itself isn't political, so let's not pretend that it is. I am aware of how this issue became an issue but I honestly couldn't tell you who brought it up though. I know that they're reported as conservatives, but I don't know/remember who did it and therefore, I don't know if I agree with them or not.

My reaction to the James Gunn story has come in phases (much like the MCU!), so I'll explain those phases.

Phase One - I heard rumblings of a "conservative group" bringing up the James Gunn tweets and demanding that action be taken against him. At this point, I hadn't seen the tweets. I chuckled at the fact that James Gunn was now being forced to live by the standards that he set for others, but I didn't think much of the issue overall. I saw it as a way for whoever did this to highlight the hypocrisy of the liberal media, so the outrage over Gunn's firing was mildly amusing to me, but I had more important things to worry about, so I didn't really care one way or the other. If Roseanne got fired for being Roseanne, James Gunn can get fired for being James Gunn. I didn't care either way.

Phase Two - I saw the tweets. I found them repulsive. I understood why Disney fired him, but what I didn't understand was why they hired him in the first place. Surely, they must have looked over his social media history before they hired him, right? Again, I don't care that they fired him, because it's Disney and they have very strict guidelines for the people who work for them (I was actually watching a YouTube video about that subject just before the Gunn news broke, so it was fresh in my mind). What I didn't (and still don't) get was why they hired him at all. He clearly does not represent the image that Disney strives for.
There are reports of pedophiles working for Disney, and of course the whole Powder issue, but overall, they seem to at least try to look clean and family friendly.

It's important to note that while I understand why *Disney* fired him, I also wasn't interested in seeing Gunn blacklisted, or his career destroyed. Tweets aren't crimes. I am a strong supporter of free speech, even when it turns my stomach. Unless there is some evidence of him actually molesting kids, I don't need to see any pain inflicted. I just understood why Disney fired him, and I really don't know if I'd be interested in seeing his movies. I didn't even really like Guardians 2, so it's not like I was a huge fan to begin with. Honestly, seeing how many times he joked about pedophilia made me uneasy, so it was going to be a while before I sit down to watch Guardians of the Galaxy again either way. 

Still, the point of making this issue an issue was to show how differently a self-proclaimed liberal is treated, compared to a "conservative" (and I use quotes because Roseanne is not a conservative. That's more of a press label, because she supports Trump). So, the point was well made and kinda funny in an "I'll forget about this in five minutes" kind of way.

Now, the political joke is over, and we're still talking about Gunn, so I guess the issue is still an issue, regardless of where it comes from.

At this point, what was done was done. It all seemed to even out well enough, though I thought it was a mistake for the cast to tie their wagon to Gunn, because there's no way for them to know where the story was going. He was fired for good reason, and that should have been the end of it. He can go work on another movie, and they can go back to doing what they do.

Phase Three - The pictures. James Gunn attending what appears to be a "To Catch a Predator" themed party, where guests dressed as pedophiles and their child victims. This isn't just a random joke, or a poor decision made in the three seconds that it took to write a tweet. This was an organized event, with well considered themes and costumes. At the very least, it makes light of pedophilia, and at worst it shows a weird acceptance of it. Even the better of these two options is disgusting. This is a topic of entertainment not only for Gunn himself, but apparently for his circle of friends. And as I saw these pictures just after watching a documentary called "An Open Secret" about the issue of pedophilia in Hollywood, it didn't take much for me to move to the side of the people who think that Gunn needs to just go away. People need to stop defending him as though his actions are perfectly normal. People need to stop acting like Disney is out of line by firing him, or like this is all some big political conspiracy. He made those comments. He took those pictures. He is the one that is responsible for them, no matter who raised the topic.

Is he a criminal? I don't see evidence that he actually molested any kids, so I am not calling for him to go to prison or anything like that. He had every right to make these comments and go to that party. I have every right to find him disgusting because of it. Disney has every right to decide that he no longer fits their image. People have a right to defend him if they want. I won't. Whatever happens to his career now is his own doing. I feel no sympathy for him. It doesn't take a genius to know that pedophilia jokes won't go over well. It just takes an average amount of human decency.

The question is, with the cast supporting him (at least when they signed that letter) and making a fuss over his being fired, is there a point to making another Guardians movie? If they move forward without him, some cast members may not return and some of the audience might not support the movie. If they move forward with him, another part of the audience will stay away.

Would it be smarter to just use those characters in other movies, at least for a while?

I don't have much to add to what Slider_Quinn21 said. It's true, of course. And a lot of people don't understand politics enough to know that what you're told isn't always the truth. There is a lot of flashy, razzle-dazzle type stuff going on that different people use to get their followers riled up, and you usually have to sort through the facts and look at the raw data before you can get an idea of what the truth is. But most people don't do that, so they're stuck in this sort of vague area that seems really scary and dramatic because fear and drama get politicans more votes, gets TV networks more viewers, gets articles more clicks, etc.

I think a large number of people are getting tired of the hatred. I don't know if it's a majority, but it's a significant number. Maybe there will be a place for rational conversation someday, even between people who disagree.

I think that DS9 and Voyager would be better long term investments for them, since they have a fan base that is still strong. But they'd probably require more work than Charmed or McGyver because of the visuals.

HD or no HD, DS9 still holds up pretty well. Their space battles were impressive. I'm watching B5 for the first time now, and it is visually very dated.

The MCU movies have done a good job of marketing to everyone, while not really targeting any one specific audience. They're very accessible to non-comic book fans in the same way that cartoon series are, but they lose many of the layers that comic books build into the worlds and characters. Again, this is like we'd see in a cartoon.

And that's a very valid way to approach it. It has made it seem like everyone loves comic book stories, even though that's not really the case. The "cool kids" are into these movies now, but only as long as they don't get too geeky. The mountain went to Muhammed.

The problem is, Superman and Batman have been telling widely accessible stories on screen for 70+ years. If they release another scene of Clark hopping around in a corn field, the audience will scream. Yet at the same time, that's what the wider audience expects.

With Batman and Superman (and to a lesser extent the Flash), there isn't much chance of pleasing the wide, broad audience in the same way that Marvel does. Some people want a shot-for-shot remake of the Donner movie. Some want to see obscure comic arcs on screen. Most wouldn't recognize the comic book characters and want the cartoon characters. Some loved Bale, while others want Keaton.

DC has a ton of baggage that Marvel doesn't. Marvel can play it safe, but DC needs to change things up. Wonder Woman probably performed the best because most people know the character while not really having any expectations of the movie.

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)

It's probably more fair to compare DC movies to Godzilla or Dracula at this point. Or James Bond. Especially with Superman and Batman.

I picture it as the winding down of someone who led this amazing, action-packed sort of life. I could see Picard coming closer to the end of his life, with no ship and all of his friends still out there doing what they do. Maybe Q comes to visit Picard and really sees the sadness and beauty of the human experience as he watches his closest friend move toward death.

But that sounds more like a two man play than it does a Star Trek series, so it probably isn't that.

New pitch: Picard and Q start a YouTube channel where they review movies.

The "Unite the Seven" thing... I feel like that was meant to be part of a different plan at the time, but Warner Bros keeps meddling and throwing off the plan, so now it means Aquaman. Which is fine. 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. They don't get that comic book fans will usually be divided one way or the other, and the more memorable comic book stories are the ones that fans tend to argue about the most.

It's frustrating to me, even just from a writing perspective. It stresses me out to have a story changed midway through its release (Snyder had an arc planned and it was approved... and then altered)

It hasn't been a complete disaster, but Warner Bros needs to back off and let the DC movie people run themselves. Create a separate studio for them or something.

The Batman movie -
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.

I am looking forward to Aquaman too, but I don't have super high hopes. The character has never been the best DC character, so if they can make a good movie, that will be awesome. However, it's hard to really get into the world of Aquaman from the trailer alone, because it's so alien and so out of context.
What I do know is that a lot of people are still complaining about Jason Momoa playing the part, and how they've changed the style of the character. I really don't care about that.

Shazam's trailer looked a lot better than I expected, actually. It looks fun, in a "Big" sort of way, without looking like a total ripoff. The characters seem to work well. The costume looks pretty good. We didn't get much in regards to the actual plot/threat, but what we did see was pretty nice.

Changing topics back to an old classic...

With updates on all of the DC movies, the press has been talking about the franchise again. What I find annoying is how they're retconning history in ways that the press always seems to do with everything. They just drop little comments in matter-of-fact ways, as though they're common facts that we all know, and then base their whole opinion around those "facts" which aren't really facts.

Two examples that you can keep your eyes peeled for:

1. I saw one article casually refer to Justice League as an "even bigger bomb than Suicide Squad", followed by some comment like "Yeesh" or something like that.

Except, Suicide Squad wasn't a bomb. At all. It actually performed better than most people (or, at least myself) expected. To compare, Guardians of the Galaxy had a similar budget and came out around the same time. Guardians of the Galaxy (a much more kid-friendly movie with talking animals, etc) made  $333,176,600    in the US and $440,152,029 internationally. It totaled  $773,328,629, which is indeed more than Suicide Squad made.

Suicide Squad made $325,100,054 in the US, and  $421,746,840 internationally. It totaled $746,846,894.

All things considered (I don't think many parents took their kids to see Suicide Squad. Even talking about the title of the movie with my nephews made me feel like I needed to have a "Thirteen Reasons Why" type disclaimer before our chat), Suicide Squad is pretty well domestically. Internationally, that number is more impressive than Guardians though. Suicide Squad wasn't released in one of the biggest markets: China.

In China, Guardians made $86,346,366. Had Suicide Squad competed in that market, their overall profits would most likely be higher than Guardians.

I'm not putting the movies in competition with each other. Obviously, they are for different audiences. What I'm saying is, Suicide Squad was not a bomb by any measure. Justice League under-performed. It wasn't totally surprising with the chaos behind the scenes, the press attacking the movie before it even finished production and the studio apparently having no idea what to do with their properties. But still, I wouldn't call it a "bomb". A bomb doesn't make hundred of millions of dollars in profits. A bomb loses money.

2. 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.

The one upside to all of this is that we probably won't see the Carrie Kelly Robin on screen. I'm not a fan, and we haven't even gotten a proper normal Robin on screen yet. I see no reason to skip over Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian.

I'm happy for the fans to get closure, but I have to say that I'm not torn up over the show being canceled. They kept hitting historical moments, but it all seemed like shallow, uninteresting takes on history. Sometimes entirely fabricated. As a result, the thrust of the series seemed shallow and uninteresting to me.

I'd love to see a time travel show that really dug into history and explored the different layers and complexities involved.

This was posted on the GoFundMe page 8 days ago:

It sounds like she is recovering, but it's a long, hard road. When my father had a severe stroke, we were fortunate to be working with a good hospital, which helped us to navigate all of the billing issues that popped up. He also had pretty good insurance when it first happened, so that helped. It's incredibly daunting, and to have it happen to a kid on top of all of that is horrible.

That's fair enough. But I wonder what your wife would think of the show upon a second viewing (which may never happen). When you finish the series and then go back to the plane crash and the smoke monster, it all makes a different type of sense. And when you see how the weird island stuff relates to the character stuff, it comes together a bit more (at least for me).

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.

I'm currently watching Rectify on Netflix (assuming that I keep Netflix. I have to look into this kiddie porn story a bit more). I knew little about tye show going in. No cast interviews or spoilers. No writer or cast tweets. It just is what it is. Like reading a book that's already been written and published and you just have to take it for what it is, rather than what you want it to be. It's cool.

I don't think we need disclaimers to say that the views expressed by us represent our own views. That's how the brain generally works.

Okay, here's a new one for all of you liberal types. What do you do when a Mexican presidential candidate declares it a human right to cross into the US and claim it for their home? This is the case with Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who declared that he will make this a priority once he wins (if he wins). http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/eleccione … -migrantes

So we have a potential leader of a neighboring country openly stating that they will not respect our border (which they never really have) and will not only encourage, but aid those who want to violate our border.

This isn't an illegal immigration question. This is a diplomatic question. How do we address a Mexican government that openly defies our border and our nation? It seems far fetched (and kinda adorable in a way) for this to become an actual issue but we've had issues with Mexico for a long time now, with their helicopters firing our Border Patrol within our border ( http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2014/06/27 … er-agents/ ), or their military crossing our border and drawing weapons on our Border Patrol ( http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-bor … story.html ) so let's say that things escalate to the point where their leader declares that they will openly defy our border as policy.

What is your response to that? Is there a difference between Americans fighting for open borders, and other nations pushing at our borders? Or do you view those as the same thing?

America is still a relatively young country, so it's easy to go back not-too-far and point out how things used to be as an example of the way things could be. However, the world has changed a lot sine the 1920's, the 1960's, and even the 1980's. Saying that everyone should be allowed into the country is like saying that Google should have to hire everyone who wants a job there. It would be chaos. It would destroy the economy.

Do you honestly, truly believe that we should just abandon all border policy? We should have absolutely no system for checking who comes into the country? Everyone should just come as they please? I'd say "Come and go", but let's face it... not many people are looking to rush into Mexico.

I'm all for legal immigration. I don't know that any significant number of people are opposed to it. But I absolutely do not believe that we can let everyone in, especially when they've proven that they're more than willing to ignore our laws whenever they don't feel like following them. Especially when they march through my area, waving a Mexican flag and insisting that they have a right to take what isn't theirs. In the old days, that was just called "invasion".

Larger population = more people rushing the border and sneaking over. This requires a different approach to patrolling that border. We've tried catch and release on the Mexican border. It's resulted in illegals not showing up for their court dates and disappearing into the country. Sorry, but I'd rather ship them home and let in the people who respect our nation, our laws, and our citizens enough to enter the country in the proper way. And this goes for anyone who enters our country illegally. Mexican, Canadian, or whatever. I don't care. People work their asses off, spending years and a lot of money to enter this country the right way. Why should other people get to just cut in line and take something that they didn't earn?

And if they're coming to the US to escape MS-13, I'm very sorry, but we have a problem with MS-13 as well, so maybe they should look somewhere else. It's not our responsibility to take in every sad story. It's one of the sad, but true things about life. People want to ignore the hard parts of life because it makes them feel icky, but sometimes there's no fun answer. It's unrealistic to suggest that the United States could, in this day and age, swing our gates wide open without doing incredible amounts of damage, to our healthcare system, to our education system, to our economy, to our national security... There is no area in which this would be beneficial to the American people. And sorry if it sounds cold, but the first priority of the American government should be the American people. Just like the first priority of the Canadian government should be the Canadian people. Just like with every other country in the world.

Agreed. We should process them and ship them home ASAP. Which is what usually happens, the first time. It's only after repeated crossings that they get more severely punished. However, when a child is involved, the issue becomes more complicated. Is the adult that they're with really their parent? That's assuming that they are travelling with an adult at all. Most of the minors being detained are not with an adult, which means that we have nobody to place them with. Even if they are the parent, are they abusive in some way? Believe it or not, children are often used as tools for crossing the border.

After all of that's done, they're all still going to need to be held someplace until they can be shipped home, or face whatever punishment they are going to face for repeated crossings, smuggling, etc. So, do we house children with adults in jails? That's not something that we'd ever even consider in a normal prison, so why would we consider it in this case?

There are many reasons why the southern border is patrolled differently than the northern border. We've discussed population numbers, the cultures that they're trying to get away from, criminal interests... The Canadian border simply isn't the same as the Mexican border, and I think it's absurd when celebrities tweet about how racist it is to treat them differently.

I also think that some of those outraged celebrities have been showing their true colors and proving my point recently. Peter Fonda calling for Barron Trump to be kidnapped and raped shows how much BS he is spewing when he talks about caring about children. No sane, rational person has that thought about a child. Ever. And they certainly wouldn't think of it if they really cared about kids. I think that abortion is murder, but you'd never see me talking about doing anything to anyone's child in revenge. It's disgusting.

The press and various people on social media have turned this into another blind-outrage issue, in order to keep people from actually discussing the issues at hand and resolving the problem. Resolving the problem does nothing to help the cause of the people who are generating this story (and they are, because as I've said before, this isn't breaking news. It's repurposed news).
We've all seen hundreds of people talking about how outrageous this is, and how wrong this is. Celebrities are telling their followers to stop following them if they don't agree. "Journalists" are comparing the situation to Nazi concentration camps (which I find disgusting on so many levels).

What isn't happening in all of this is simple conversation. We have issues: Illegal immigration, involving minors. What do we do with these minors? What do we do with the illegal immigrants?

Of course, the solution that the media is pushing people toward is just to let them all go. They're for open borders, which is insane. America cannot have open borders. Yet the politicians and the media will tell you that these people need asylum (for which there are many places in Mexico and other countries where they can go to apply, with their children) and if we don't let 100% of them in, we're monsters.

I don't see that as a viable solution, for many reasons. This is the United States. If we open our borders, we will have literally billions of people pouring in from all over the world. The United States will collapse, without question.

At the same time, I'm not a fan of kids suffering. I don't want them abused or raped, which happens often in the business of bringing kids into the country illegally. I want a good solution to this. So, what is it?

Addressing issues like MS-13 would be entirely different conversations. Let's do what the White Stripes tell us to to, and take all of our problems and break them apart. If we can agree that we have problems on the border and will illegal immigration, maybe we can start to discuss how to approach that problem. Where is that conversation in all of this outrage over the issue that people supposedly care so much about? If people cared, they'd have actual thoughts on the subject.

By the time TNG came along, some of TOS technology already was already becoming a reality and seemed dated for a show set so far in the future. People shrugged it off because TOS was an old show, and TNG presented a more modern look at what the "future" looked like.

Now, TNG-era technology is a reality. I'm using it to type this comment right now. Yet Star Trek keeps going back to pre-TOS, trying to make that era fit into our current vision of the future, and it doesn't work. It destroys the universe created for the franchise. It makes it feel weird to watch the new shows. It doesn't play along with the rules that we all agreed to play by, with a wink and a shrug, back in the 80's.

They're creating a new franchise, calling it Star Trek, and demanding that we ignore the fact that it's not Star Trek.

So yeah, I agree. That was me saying that I agree in as few words as I can possibly muster while avoiding work.

Really? Everything I've read says that you need to cross with proper documentation, at a proper crossing point (or risk being stopped). But I've never tried it, so I don't know how well they patrol their border. I certainly wouldn't expect them to leave their border wide open or allow anyone to enter without proper documentation.

I'm not sure what you mean by "new, more draconian approach". The policy of separating families isn't new with this administration. Obama definitely did it. I think Bush did before that. And when you think about it, it makes sense. If adults are being detained/prosecuted for violating the law, do you want little kids being detained in facilities with adult prisoners? We wouldn't do that with American citizens.

And a lot of the kids that are being held in the facilities that we're seeing all over the media are unaccompanied minors. There's nobody to release them to until someone shows up for them. We certainly can't just shoo them out the door and wish them luck on the streets.

Then there are the kids who are travelling with adults who aren't related to them. Obviously, we're not going to let them take the kids.

The media is making a big thing out of "separating families", and calling this Trump's policy despite the fact that it's been happening for a long time. The logical conversation isn't taking place, as people conflate all of these separate issues into one big headline. And there is a remarkable lack of better ideas, aside from "Let everyone into the country!" which is just silly and unrealistic. We have an immigration policy which allows for many, many people from all over the world to come into our country legally. Why is it suddenly considered racist for America (and apparently only America) to enforce immigration policies? And why is it only considered racist in regards to people coming from south of the border? There are plenty of Europeans who have to go through the proper channels to be allowed into the country, and many get sent home once their visas expire. I had a friend whose visa expired and she went home, despite wanting to stay in the country. It was a shame, but it happens.

ireactions, please stop saying that I believe things that I don't believe. Please stop claiming that I say things that I don't say. Please stop speaking for me in general. And when I do speak (or type), please pay attention to what I say, because the version of me that lives in reality is a lot less scary/crazy than the version of me that lives in your head.

What I said was that I'm not buying the current outrage, while at the same time pointing out that there is a very real, serious issue to discuss here. I also pointed out why I don't buy the outrage: The policies and articles pre-date Trump, yet people only care now because it fits their narrative. If people actually cared about this, and if it was as huge of bombshell as people are pretending it is, someone would have cared when the matter was first brought up. Also, people wouldn't be pinning the blame solely on Trump while excusing previous presidents.

If people cared about the subject, they would learn about the subject. They are not. They are outraged because someone blew their dog whistle, and all of the good little puppies know that they're supposed to bark really loud when that whistle is blown.

(The views expressed by me above absolutely represent the entirely of the Sliders fan community, at least to the extent that ireactions' words represent me)

Anyone else getting super tired of fad outrage? Y'know, where everyone gets really, really fired up about some issue that they've done zero research on, just because they read a meme about it or saw an Oprah tweet, and logic or reason have absolutely no place in the conversation, because if you don't agree with their outrage, you are *literally* a Nazi?

How can people not recognize when they're being manipulated? It happens constantly, so people should learn the signs.

I really don't see a scenario where the show can be salvaged, so I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, it's great news that people responsible for season 1 are gone. On the other hand, the foundation is rotten. I thought Berman drove Star Trek into the ground, but the modern incarnations have been made with so little respect or love for the Star Trek universe that it's almost painful to watch.

The movies are wacky fun and are entertaining enough, but they still don't register as Star Trek in my head.

Sorry. Been on a trip for two weeks and I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things...

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.

Fringe -

I think that there was probably more story originally planned for John, but the show went in another direction and it became more important to resolve his arc and move on, rather than leave anything dangling. The show really didn't come into itself until later in season 1.

Suicide Squad 2 is supposed to start filming within the next year, I think. I think that's further along than it seems. These movies just don't have a ton of talk around them. The average person probably doesn't even know that Shazam is coming (and I do believe that it is part of the DCEU, but I could be wrong). It is a very different way of going about it, since we know every Marvel movie that will be released ten years in advance, but it's probably smarter. The DCEU won't get good press, so why give people that much longer to write articles about how doomed they are?

I was never a huge fan of this Wally, obviously. I wish the actor well, but I think it'd be cool if they introduced the other Wally West now.

I don't know that Cavill is really to blame. He probably signed onto the movie and had it on his schedule for after Justice League before any sort of hair/facial hair requirements were decided upon for the movie. He was probably aware that there would be JL reshoots, because that would happen even with Snyder. It's just a convergence of events at this point. Paramount isn't going to weaken their position for Warner Bros., and Warner Bros. is going to want to try to make their position as strong as possible too. Cavill was stuck in the middle.

I know it's pretty obvious, coming from me, but I think the blame goes to Whedon for refusing to think the problem through properly. As I said, the same scene (the cell phone footage was really the only one that I remember) could be accomplished in a number of ways. Hell, they could just make it look low-res/blocky and say it was a poor internet connection. But Whedon chose to do a high-res, full screen, straight-on closeup of Cavill's face, despite the obvious problem. And I think that shows weakness as a director, as well as possibly some of the passive aggressive attitude that we've seen from Whedon in regards to his work on the movie.

No. Paramount specifically denied the request the have Cavill shave the mustache, because of the MI character. It was all them.

Any time you do a movie, they have to design the character. A lot of the time, it ends up just looking like the actor, but they probably didn't want tall, young, handsome Cavill looking too pretty next to Tom Cruise, so they needed to give him a facial oddity of some sort, while still making him appealing to the audience. Actually, that might have been in Cruise's contract.

Regardless, I watched Justice League again at home (same night as Ragnarok, actually) and the mustache honestly doesn't bother me as much as it does some people. I know it's there, just because I know it's there. And there were ways to make that less obvious (for example, having that Superman cell phone footage shown on a TV or computer screen, from a bit of a distance and maybe a slight angle), but it doesn't ruin the movie for me.

Should I take offense at that comment?

I just think that Chuck managed to remain enjoyable despite their limitations!

I am currently on a trip, and as I drove northward, I passed the Mystery Machine, and then the Weinermobile. Eventful ride. I eventually drove through Sioux Falls, SD and the Supernatural fan in me geeked out just a little bit.