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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Starmaker wrote:Quentin raped, or at least helped to rape, a guy and spent half the first book regretting it because he had thus cheated on his girlfriend. If they never make him accessory to rape in the show, I'm going to like this version much more.
Uh what? He raped Elliot? The Bi guy who was hitting on him all book long? News to fucking me.
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Post by hyzmarca »

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Post by Longes »

So, I went and watched Captain America: Civil War: American Exceptionalism: the Movie: the Game: Reckoning. It's okay. Black Widow and Hawkeye are still useless, despite Black Widow's superpower to make people forget they have guns and superpowers. Spider-Man's cameo is amusing. Ant-Man's cameo is confusing, because I haven't seen the Ant-Man movie and don't know about the character anything, so he was just weird.
The central conflict is that Avengers go into Lagos and blow up an appartment building during a fight, so the UN gets a bit mad and signs Sokovia Acords to make the Avengers subordinate to the UN, rather than being an independent group of american special forces american superheroes. Captain America thinks that no, he knows the best when and where to be involved and that any bureaucratic oversight will only make things worse. But I lied. The actual central conflict is that the Winter Soldier shows up, and Captain goes to save him from being arrested by the police for terrorism. And there's also some evil plot or something - not going to spoil too much since it hasn't been released in the US yet.
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Post by SlyJohnny »

In defence of Captain America, the UN's original plan was to have GSG9 burst into the Winter Soldier's apartment and kill him on sight, because he was "too dangerous" to arrest. He was only captured because Cap intervened and managed to drag him somewhere public.

I wanted to side with Iron Man (because really, once the registration act gets downgraded to UN oversight of a small volunteer group, it's entirely sensible), but he spent the entire movie waving the law and order banner, and then suddenly decides he wants to unilaterally execute Bucky as punishment for shit he did while a victim of mind control.

They already know that mind control is a thing from the first Avengers movie, it shouldn't even have been a plot point.
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Post by Kaelik »

Ironman is silly when he decides that murder for mind control victims is a good idea.

Captain is correct that the UN is full of shit because of how they literally operate on a "murder supers first, ask questions later" system allegedly because bucky is too dangerous to capture. While at the same time insisting that regular people have to apprehend the supers and that they can't use Ironman or War Machine.

But pretty much every person who opens their mouth about law and order is basically completely forgetting the last two movies.

For starters, the military commander shows clips of a bunch of property damage and presumed innocent deaths as evidence for why supers are a problem. Like he shows the Hulk jumping around new york, or the floating island killing people from ultron. . . but wait, what was the none super solution to those two problems?

Oh right, the army literally launched a nuclear bomb at New York, and the solution to the falling chunk of earth was "well I guess the entire planet has all lifeforms erased." And the bad guys in those were an interdemensional army and a legion of robots. Or you know, not supers. So apparently, without supers, New York and then entire planet would be destroyed, and that is supposed to be the reason why we care about supers damaging some buildings in new york.

Then, after that, we follow up with Tony Stark constantly talking about how supers need to be tracked and relegated. Hey, what where Tony Starks last two attempts to track and regulate people and/or supers?

The Robots that tried to exterminate human life and the Space Carriers that were hacked and were going to murder every single person who resisted Hydra?

Yeah tony, maybe there is a reason people don't like your plans for regulation because they always involve machines trying to kill them.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by name_here »

The pro-regulation side does have the entirely valid point that being a solution to world-threatening disasters does not entail a blank check to do whatever the fuck they feel like in the process, or a blank check to do whatever when it comes to non-world-threatening incidents. But the flashpoints they focus on are kind of bizarre choices. I mean, in Lagos
in the process of successfully stopping the theft of a vial kept in a special case in a room where everyone is wearing moon suits in an infectious disease center in Lagos, Scarlet Witch muffs levitating someone into the air and containing the blast from his suicide vest and blasts a chunk out of an inhabited building rather than the fully-populated open-air market where he'd been. That's probably the least objectionable instance of collateral damage imaginable, and it's not like they didn't have that incident in Age Of Ultron where the Hulk rampaged through a city.

Plus, aside from the Hulk incident and Ultron himself, the Avengers are generally pretty good about avoiding civilian casualties and make a point of trying to evacuate areas where it becomes necessary to have superpower fights. And then the first goddamn thing the UN does after getting regulatory authority involves, I shit you not, firing a helicopter door minigun into a major city during a high-traffic period. Not helping your case!
The pro-regulation argument should really just have been that they let the Avengers run around on their own initiative and that resulted in Ultron. Because that's the singular biggest fuckup of their entire combined careers and absolutely would not have happened if Tony had been required to convince an oversight board to let him try copying an AI from technology they didn't understand procured from an insane god backed by genocidal aliens.
Last edited by name_here on Tue May 03, 2016 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

Yeah, it isn't that super hero regulation is a bad thing.

It's just that everyone arguing in favor of it has literally the worst possible track record or qualifications imaginable, and also terrible arguments.

Like, "The Hulk Broke Buildings in New York fighting an alien invasion that caused us to launch a nuke at fucking downtown New York so heroes are dangerous." is just about the worst possible argument to make.

The problem is that you have to point to times where the heroes used bad judgment to justify regulation, and the only hero who ever has bad judgment ever is Iron Man (who has it in all his movies, and in Ultron). So he's literally the worst possible pro-regulation poster boy.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Cynic »

Kaelik wrote:Yeah, it isn't that super hero regulation is a bad thing.

It's just that everyone arguing in favor of it has literally the worst possible track record or qualifications imaginable, and also terrible arguments.
Fair warning, I haven't seen Civil war but I have read the comics and that makes me an expert-extraordinaire.


So... since the government didn't have a better response than the Avengers' shitty response in prior movies they can't complain that much about the Avengers? I'm pretty sure that's not how bitching and moaning works actually.

An inverted analogue is that the super heroes don't have a good response to the SOkovia accords or superhero regulation so they are just going to try and just do....something....maybe terrorism...maybe make random new superheroes...in response.

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Post by Prak »

Kaelik wrote:
Starmaker wrote:Quentin raped, or at least helped to rape, a guy and spent half the first book regretting it because he had thus cheated on his girlfriend. If they never make him accessory to rape in the show, I'm going to like this version much more.
Uh what? He raped Elliot? The Bi guy who was hitting on him all book long? News to fucking me.
In episode 11, the five are bottling their emotions to better practice battle magic. Which apparently has a hangover. Which led to Elliot, Quentin and Margo getting fucked up on booze (and probably more in Elliot's case). Then the three of them fucked.

So, yeah, Quentin is still an accessory to rape-by-drunkness. Which... is totally a reprehensible crime in the real world, but in a book, when everyone involved is drunk... and no one got anyone drunk for the express purpose of fucking them... I'm not going to say it makes Quentin a terrible person.
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Post by Kaelik »

Prak wrote:In episode 11, the five are bottling their emotions to better practice battle magic. Which apparently has a hangover. Which led to Elliot, Quentin and Margo getting fucked up on booze (and probably more in Elliot's case). Then the three of them fucked.

So, yeah, Quentin is still an accessory to rape-by-drunkness. Which... is totally a reprehensible crime in the real world, but in a book, when everyone involved is drunk... and no one got anyone drunk for the express purpose of fucking them... I'm not going to say it makes Quentin a terrible person.
Yeah no, that is not how rape works. In the real world all sex while drunk is not rape. For example, if, hypothetically, someone offers to sleep with you often, and then gets themselves drunk, and the sleeps with you, that would be an example of "not rape."
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Where the hell are you people seeing Cap 3? It doesn't come out for three more days... Doesn't it?
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Post by Longes »

Shrapnel wrote:Where the hell are you people seeing Cap 3? It doesn't come out for three more days... Doesn't it?
It's been out in Europe for a week now.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Longes wrote:
Shrapnel wrote:Where the hell are you people seeing Cap 3? It doesn't come out for three more days... Doesn't it?
It's been out in Europe for a week now.
Stupid sexy Europeans, getting things before Boston does.
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Post by name_here »

I saw it at an advance screening in the US.

Also, could someone explain why exactly Hollywood movies are coming out in Europe before they come out in the US? I'm pretty sure there isn't a good reason why they can't come out in English everywhere simultaneously these days, but it particularly baffles me that they're coming out earlier in countries that the filmmakers aren't headquartered in.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

name_here wrote:Also, could someone explain why exactly Hollywood movies are coming out in Europe before they come out in the US?
http://www.moviefone.com/2013/05/05/box ... l-opening/
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Post by Prak »

Kaelik wrote:
Prak wrote:In episode 11, the five are bottling their emotions to better practice battle magic. Which apparently has a hangover. Which led to Elliot, Quentin and Margo getting fucked up on booze (and probably more in Elliot's case). Then the three of them fucked.

So, yeah, Quentin is still an accessory to rape-by-drunkness. Which... is totally a reprehensible crime in the real world, but in a book, when everyone involved is drunk... and no one got anyone drunk for the express purpose of fucking them... I'm not going to say it makes Quentin a terrible person.
Yeah no, that is not how rape works. In the real world all sex while drunk is not rape. For example, if, hypothetically, someone offers to sleep with you often, and then gets themselves drunk, and the sleeps with you, that would be an example of "not rape."
Dunno about the books, but in the show, that's not what happened. In fact, while Elliot obviously want's Quentin's shit, he hasn't acted on it. Elliot got completely shitfaced, Quentin and Margo drunkenly got him to bed, dropped him on the mattress and fell beside him. Vague Quentin/Margo bonding happens, and then sexy times. We are informed in "oh god, what happened last night" flashback that Elliot woke up at some point and joined in.

Given his perpetual intoxication to (not) deal with shit, I would say that Elliot isn't exactly in a position to consent to much. But Quentin and Alice are the only ones who really give any shits about the whole thing.
Last edited by Prak on Thu May 05, 2016 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

Cap 3 spoilers:

I thought it was an odd choice to have the villain be the guy from VII.

I am sold on the new Spiderman. He is played exactly as a younger Toby. Which is an easy sell, because Toby was the best Parker.

The movie is much better when it's doing spies and shit or fighting super villains than when it's having super heroes fight. I could have skipped every superhero matchup except the initial Bucky vs Panther and the climax Stark vs Cap n Bucky. The airport fight seemed totes pointless.

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Post by Schleiermacher »

I agree, the new Spiderman was great. The new aunt May though... don't get me started.

But the big thing that annoyed me with Civil War, and by extension, many of these movies (and yes, I know that it's pretty much what you sign up for with superhero movies since it's part and parcel of the genre) is that all the violence -which is lavish, hyperkinetic and over-the-top - never, ever has any consequences, or really much of any effect at all. It drains all tension and excitement right out of fight scenes for me, and turns them into a slog - nothing but a Dead Fantasy video with a bigger budget. Iron Man kicks someone through a wall? If they have a name, they'll stand right up again. Captain America punches someone in the face for twenty seconds straight? As soon as he stops, the guy starts punching back. No one ever gets hurt. No one ever stays down. And it is very rare for anyone to ever feel meaningfully more or less powerful than anybody else, because of this rubberband effect.
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Post by Kaelik »

Schleiermacher wrote:I agree, the new Spiderman was great. The new aunt May though... don't get me started.
I must be fucking ancient, because when I first saw "Aunt May" I thought she was Mary Jane, because she looked the same fucking age as the kid playing Spiderman...

I mean, am I wrong about this?
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Marisa Tomei is over 50, but yeah, I've seen a lot of people calling her 'Aunt February.'
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Post by Kaelik »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Marisa Tomei is over 50, but yeah, I've seen a lot of people calling her 'Aunt February.'
Fucking hell, if only I can look that good at 50. And that fucking young.

EDIT: To be fair, thinking about it now, I was watching a Cam, so the quality wasn't great, she looks a lot older now that I'm looking at her pictures than she looked in the film. But yeah, still, she looks pretty young for 50.
Last edited by Kaelik on Fri May 06, 2016 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Username17 »

I approved of Stark calling her the surprisingly hot aunt.

Anyway, the Sokovia argument for registration is very strong. The New York argument was negatively persuasive as was the Lagos argument. The DC argument was mixed, but on the balance poor because the rogue elements attacking a city there were Hydra agents who had already infiltrated the very type of oversight committee under discussion.

The Lagos bit was one of the strongest parts of the film and I wouldn't cut it. But the deaths of eleven people from not getting the bomb far enough away from a crowded market doesn't even seem like an overall failed mission, considering the villains had already killed more people than that and were doing something that would obviously kill many more. Trying to use that as a tipping point against the Avengers didn't work in any context. Sokovia stands by itself and watering the argument down with other events from other movies didn't work.

The registration side should have been just saying Sokovia over and over again while the anti side should have been the ones talking Lagos and New York. Ross' insistence on talking about other movies that don't support his point at all weakened the film.

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Post by Longes »

FrankTrollman wrote:I approved of Stark calling her the surprisingly hot aunt.

Anyway, the Sokovia argument for registration is very strong. The New York argument was negatively persuasive as was the Lagos argument. The DC argument was mixed, but on the balance poor because the rogue elements attacking a city there were Hydra agents who had already infiltrated the very type of oversight committee under discussion.

The Lagos bit was one of the strongest parts of the film and I wouldn't cut it. But the deaths of eleven people from not getting the bomb far enough away from a crowded market doesn't even seem like an overall failed mission, considering the villains had already killed more people than that and were doing something that would obviously kill many more. Trying to use that as a tipping point against the Avengers didn't work in any context. Sokovia stands by itself and watering the argument down with other events from other movies didn't work.

The registration side should have been just saying Sokovia over and over again while the anti side should have been the ones talking Lagos and New York. Ross' insistence on talking about other movies that don't support his point at all weakened the film.

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Only the anti-registration side had no argument. Hell, it's not even a "registration" argument, it's the "Avengers legal status" argument, and Cap goes "we can't trust the politicians to decide where we can and can't deploy".
Anyway, Lagos does work as a pro-registration argument. A team of american agents barges into a country to shoot up terrorists without the agreement of the local government. Even if the Avengers were squicky clean and had no collateral damage, the argument that they should not be allowed to be international vigilantes is a strong one. We don't allow domestic vigilantes in the real world, do we? And for all the foreign governments know, Avengers could very well be the US spec-ops team that doesn't even go after the real terrorists.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Captain America: Facebook Argument
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Post by name_here »

The Avengers are not American agents. They had formerly been under the control of the international SHIELD organization and the World Security Council but are independent at the start of the film. The primary anti-regulation argument is basically that they've been doing all right and adding more administrative layers significantly bolsters the odds that they'll be stuck waiting for orders during a crisis or required to hold off while the international board controlling them opts to use nukes instead, which is after all what happened the last time they reported to an international board. And then during the film itself they are actually ordered to stand down and let other forces handle capturing Bucky. More because the task force is uncertain of their loyalty in that particular mission than because of concerns about collateral damage, but it does happen.

So Cap's position is basically that putting them under the control of an international task force will only limit their ability to take action when needed and he trusts the Avengers to do the right thing without oversight. I don't find that persuasive but it is a legitimate position.

The Sokovia argument struck me as kind of weird in how it was structured. That is, the reason it's a persuasive argument is because the ultimate cause was Ultron. But the Avengers handled the fight itself extremely well and pretty explicitly did not in fact kill people by accident and generally it's hard to see what they should have been ordered to do differently. Yet the people making the argument seem to be focusing on their actions during the fighting and not them causing the fight.
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