Now Watching, Films/ movies discussion Options

[Kane]

He wants to kill half the people in the universe to conserve resources. It is his answer to people destroying the environment. I am not saying if he succeeds or not. So no spoilers. That is just Thanos' stated goal.

Did the film makers NOT read Infinity War? Thanos's original plan to kill half the people in the universe was to impress Lady Death, not because he was an echo warrior.
-_-

The movies have never been direct adaptations of the original stories. They just draw from them.

[Kane]

Endgame trailer. Mad hype.

[SubRosa]

I started watching Andromeda. I never saw it back when it was originally out. I just finished the second episode, and I am enjoying it immensely. Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, and a two episode show opener with a fun plot. Lots of crosses and double-crosses. Granted, I saw them coming, but I still appreciate the effort. I am looking forward to more.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I started watching Andromeda. I never saw it back when it was originally out. I just finished the second episode, and I am enjoying it immensely. Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, and a two episode show opener with a fun plot. Lots of crosses and double-crosses. Granted, I saw them coming, but I still appreciate the effort. I am looking forward to more.

Trance Gemini...
... so pretty...

[SubRosa]

I started watching Andromeda. I never saw it back when it was originally out. I just finished the second episode, and I am enjoying it immensely. Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, and a two episode show opener with a fun plot. Lots of crosses and double-crosses. Granted, I saw them coming, but I still appreciate the effort. I am looking forward to more.

Trance Gemini...
... so pretty...

There is a lot of eye candy in this show. I am kind of partial to the Andromeda Ascendant's AI. And while I am not into guys, Kevin Sorbo is no hunk of man-flesh to sneeze at. Neither is the Neitzchean guy with the long hair.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I started watching Andromeda. I never saw it back when it was originally out. I just finished the second episode, and I am enjoying it immensely. Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, and a two episode show opener with a fun plot. Lots of crosses and double-crosses. Granted, I saw them coming, but I still appreciate the effort. I am looking forward to more.

Trance Gemini...
... so pretty...

There is a lot of eye candy in this show. I am kind of partial to the Andromeda Ascendant's AI. And while I am not into guys, Kevin Sorbo is no hunk of man-flesh to sneeze at. Neither is the Neitzchean guy with the long hair.

Khajiit doesn’t really remember a whole lot about that show. Wasn’t it that Kevin Sorbo’s character was from the past and some how found himself a century or two in the future?

[SubRosa]

I started watching Andromeda. I never saw it back when it was originally out. I just finished the second episode, and I am enjoying it immensely. Interesting characters, an intriguing setting, and a two episode show opener with a fun plot. Lots of crosses and double-crosses. Granted, I saw them coming, but I still appreciate the effort. I am looking forward to more.

Trance Gemini...
... so pretty...

There is a lot of eye candy in this show. I am kind of partial to the Andromeda Ascendant's AI. And while I am not into guys, Kevin Sorbo is no hunk of man-flesh to sneeze at. Neither is the Neitzchean guy with the long hair.

Khajiit doesn’t really remember a whole lot about that show. Wasn’t it that Kevin Sorbo’s character was from the past and some how found himself a century or two in the future?

That was basically it. It was really well done, because they used real science to explain it. He and his ship were caught too close to a black hole. Time dilation caused by extreme gravity caused his time to move incredibly slow, while it moved at its normal pace everywhere else in the universe. So in just a matter of seconds for him, 300 years went by.

It would be nice if other sci-fi shows would actually try putting some science in with the fiction, instead of just making up techno-babble all the time. Yes, I am looking at you Star Trek...

[Dark Reaper]

Watching a longplay of Dante's Inferno I forgot how cool this game was.

[SubRosa]

I just finished the four parts of The Bronze Age Collapse. It was really well done.

[Kane]

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Extended edition, of course.

[SubRosa]

Of course! The theater versions were not the real movies, just long trailers...

[Decrepit]

Beginning last night and finishing up this morning I watched what is billed as the fifth and "final" cut of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. This might be my first complete viewing of the film. I recall attempting it many years ago, but believe I found it un-enjoyable at the time and gave up part way through. Not this time. I was enthralled from start to finish.

[SubRosa]

I watched Captain Marvel. It was good. I liked that neither she, nor we, know very much about her at the start. As the movie goes on, we learn more as we delve into the past alongside her. That was well done. I was not thrilled with all the space stuff. I just cannot give a crap about Marvel's whole space setting. But thankfully most the story is set on Earth. Though aliens still figure highly.

There is some nice buddy-movie stuff with her and Fury. Plus the space cat is cute. One of the aliens had a really familiar voice. It took about half the movie for me to figure out it was Ben Mendelhson. Yes, Director Krennic lives again, still in space. I was scratching my head at how Jude Law looked human. I kept expecting him to have been using some kind of illusion field to make him look that way, and reveal that he was a Kree (which I think are the blue-skinned people). But he never did. Apparently there are humans in Marvel's space-verse?

I liked how they did her origin story. Though I read a mini-series from last year called The Life of Captain Marvel which I thought did it better. In that her mother is a Kree and her father is a human. What Marvel thought had been her origin was not a case of her being given powers, but rather her natural inborn abilities awakening due to stress. I liked that. I always prefer when a characters power comes from within themselves. Because anything that is given to you is not power. It can be taken away after all. That was something the movie touched on as well.

What I did find absent was the obligatory heterosexual sex scene. I mean, it is obligatory after all. It proves that the main character is heterosexual. So I guess that leaves it open that Captain Marvel might be a lesbian. Because, after all, she's not doing the mattress dance with a dude.

All in all a good movie.

[SubRosa]

Just finished Aquaman. It was a wild, fun romp. Pretty much what you expect from a James Wan movie. Visually, it is spectacular. I cannot imagine how much money they spent on just making the actor's hair wave around, and the other underwater effects. But it was money well spent, as everything looks just amazing, even on 4k, which breaks lesser effects like Mr. T in a china shop.

I really liked the world-building they did with Atlantis. It is not just one kingdom, but seven. Each has its own look, color schemes, and even its own races. Dolph Lundrgen plays the King of Xebel, and Mera is his daughter. They tend to greens, look human, and their technology is very organic in appearance. They even rode these really cool sea-horse things.

Atlantis itself is another kindgom that also has human-looking people. They tend to blues, ride sharks, and seem to have the most advanced tech, and are the most warlike. Aquaman and his mother are both from this kingdom, as is the main bad guy played by Patrick Wilson (who I have always liked since I first saw him in Watchmen).

The Deserters are not what you would think.Their kingdom was gradually destroyed when it dried out and became a desert, the Sahara. Which I thought was pretty cool. The Trench are Lovecraftian horrors living in... you guessed it, the Mariana's Trench. The Fishermen are a mermaid looking race, who are the peaceful, artist-philosopher types. The Brine are bottom-dwellers, who are crustaceans that harness lava. Finally The Missing Kingdom is basically The Land That Time Forgot, a Hollow Earth sea in the inner earth with dinosaurs. Plus one really awesome kaiju.

All in all a fun movie. It is nothing deep or life-changing. But give credit where it is due. Aquaman is perhaps the most mocked and underappreciated character in comics. I even thought he was lame when I was a kid, and I am trans and a lesbian. But Jason Momoa makes him a total badass. Which is no surprise, given that is how he was in Justice League.

Oh, and Temuera Morrison is his dad. Jango Fett and the Grand Army of the Republic make one heck of a father.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Just finished Aquaman.

Khajiit wanted to hate this movie. The writing is mediocre, Jason Mamoa seems to play the same character in everything he does (this one is dreading seeing any of The Crow stuff with him in it), and it has one of the lamest villains Khajiit has ever seen in a film (Manta Ray or whatever he’s called). Yet, he found himself enjoying the film for the most part. It’s very pretty; the underwater battles are awesomely beautiful and most of the cast are very good looking too. Khajiit said earlier that Mamoa plays pretty much the same character in everything he does, but this one thinks the character of Aquaman really benefits from Mamoa’s usual combo of brawny bash’em smash’em stuff, sarcastic sense of humor, and broody cynicism. Let’s be real; the character needed to be reimagined into something a bit edgier with sex appeal if anyone was going to care about him in a movie, and Khajiit thinks they achieved this in spades. All in all a fun movie, certainly don’t regret seeing it, but this one doesn’t care to see the inevitable sequel.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Mar 31 2019, 05:52 AM

[SubRosa]

Just finished Aquaman.

Khajiit wanted to hate this movie. The writing is mediocre, Jason Mamoa seems to play the same character in everything he does (this one is dreading seeing any of The Crow stuff with him in it), and it has one of the lamest villains Khajiit has ever seen in a film (Manta Ray or whatever he’s called). Yet, he found himself enjoying the film for the most part. It’s very pretty; the underwater battles are awesomely beautiful and most of the cast are very good looking too. Khajiit said earlier that Mamoa plays pretty much the same character in everything he does, but this one thinks the character of Aquaman really benefits from Mamoa’s usual combo of brawny bash’em smash’em stuff, sarcastic sense of humor, and broody cynicism. Let’s be real; the character needed to be reimagined into something a bit edgier with sex appeal if anyone was going to care about him in a movie, and Khajiit thinks they achieved this in spades. All in all a fun movie, certainly don’t regret seeing it, but this one doesn’t care to see the inevitable sequel.

One thing I forgot to mention about it was a nice little easter eggish thing in the very beginning. As the camera pans across the lighthouse interior, it goes past a copy of HP Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror. For those who are not HPL fans, the titular character and its brother Wilbur Whately are both half-breeds - part human, part Outer God (Yog-Sothoth apparently being the father). That was a nice touch, as the titular character in Aquaman is also a half-breed - half human, half Atlantean. Granted, he is not trying to destroy the world like the Horror and Wilbur were...

Oh wait, did I say Aquaman was half human? I meant half Mandalorian, given that is father was Jango Fett...

Turns out Manta has another HPL easter egg. When he shows up in Sicily he directly quotes Lovecraft by saying: "Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men." This is from the final paragraph of Call of Cthulhu.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Turns out Manta has another HPL easter egg. When he shows up in Sicily he directly quotes Lovecraft by saying: "Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men." This is from the final paragraph of Call of Cthulhu.

Khajiit was too busy rolling his eyes whenever Manta was on screen to pay attention to what he was saying, lol
This one loves how he gets this super awesome Atlantean technology and his first action is to tear it apart.

[Kane]

Brooklyn 99. Love this show.

[Kane]

Episode IX Teaser.

[SubRosa]

Since it is on Netflix, I finally got around to watching Infinity War. I went into it expecting little. I was still underwhelmed. I just cannot make myself care about Marvel's space setting. None of it seems real to me, so I don't care about any of the people or places. I am so glad I never wasted my time with any of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Those characters seemed so awful. Well, Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan were ok. But the rest just struck me as being idiotic.

Thanos was really bad. I had a negative opinion of him already, from the trailers and clips I saw. But John Brolin's voice acting really brought it down for me. He was just so lame. So dull and boring. He had no menace to him. He just struck me as a big, gangly, purple dork. I think of the ending of Rogue One, where we saw Vader do what he does best, and the differences are so stark (if you will pardon the pun). Vader is a villain who just exudes danger and menace. Thanos just takes up space.

His plan is also really bad. Now I am all for wiping out the human race (and any other intelligent life) in order to save the world. So I am not criticizing that. But his plan is so deeply flawed. Killing half the people in the universe is just a temporary measure. Population expands exponentially. So unless Thanos plans on snapping his fingers every twenty years or so for eternity, everything he did will come to naught.

I guess it would have been crazy for him to use his godlike powers to teach the people in the universe to use self-sustaining sources of energy that would not pollute and deplete the natural resources of their worlds. It probably would be equally horrific if he had used the same powers to decrease their reproduction rates, so their populations would not increase as such a terrific rate that it would inevitably outstrip said resources.

Finally, given that I am genre-savvy when it comes to comics, I know that the sequel will just end in an unsnapping of the fingers and restoring everyone, the ending just felt ho hum. It had no weight to it at all. Though I was glad to see most of the Guardians die. Good riddance. Unfortunately they will return...


OTOH, since it is also on Netflix, I saw Ant Man and The Wasp. It was a vast improvement over Infinity War. It was about damned time we saw the Wasp. She was just a founding member of the Avengers after all, and should have been in the first Avenger movie and had her own solo series a decade ago. (Joss Whedon wanted her, but Marvel wouldn't let him of course).

I really liked the villain in this one. Marvel has always had a problem with one-dimensional villains - Ivan Vanko, Yellowjacket, Malekith, General Ross, Justin Hammer, The Mandarin, etc... Ghost worked so much better, because she is not all about "Absolute Power!" She comes across as being very sympathetic. She is not so much a bad guy, as someone who's goals are simply contrary to the protagonist's. I was rooting for her as much as them. It felt so much more like reality than most Marvel movies.

I would have liked to have seen more of Michael Pena, and his awesome story-telling. I would like to see him get his own solo series too.