Batman Vs Two Face
They stuck in Dr Harley Quinzel in an Adam West Batman movie for no reason. Yeah, stopped hoping this wasn't going to be bad then.
Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.
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rasmuswagner
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Aquaman - the Italian seaside village.
Yeah, so I just saw Aquaman. Like everything else from DC without Superman in it, it was enjoyable. Not good, but enjoyable.
But that scene where Manta (Marvel: Ironman has the worst villains. DC: Hold my beer) and his Atlantean soldiers crash through the buildings in a historic Italian seaside village was jarring. It _looks_ like they are crashing through drywall in places where there would _absolutely_ be brick.
"What kind of fucking _American_ made this shit?" was my out-loud question.
Yeah, so I just saw Aquaman. Like everything else from DC without Superman in it, it was enjoyable. Not good, but enjoyable.
But that scene where Manta (Marvel: Ironman has the worst villains. DC: Hold my beer) and his Atlantean soldiers crash through the buildings in a historic Italian seaside village was jarring. It _looks_ like they are crashing through drywall in places where there would _absolutely_ be brick.
"What kind of fucking _American_ made this shit?" was my out-loud question.
Every time you play in a "low magic world" with D&D rules (or derivates), a unicorn steps on a kitten and an orphan drops his ice cream cone.
A boardgaming friend bought Shadowrun Sprawl Ops (it's been available at our store for months, which will make anyone who did the kickstarter quite happy - they haven't shipped all of the kickstarter copies yet). It has...some failure points. It's a 2 hour competitive dice rolling competition, except it's worse than that sounds because there are only enough dice for one (sometimes 2) player(s) to roll at at time.
Each player has 3 starting runners, and can have up to 4. You can buy new, better runners if they're available in the store. Each runner gives you 1-3 dice (only the starting face character gives you a single die, and it's worthless except to use to negate a single wound, if you roll a success). You can also buy new equipment for those runners (they need to give you at least 1 die corresponding to the equipment type to equip it), which also give you 1-3 more dice with no equipment limit. You can also buy upgrades that give you a single die (one upgrade is wild, one is not) or the ability to take 1 damage without injury (injury=can't use that runner in missions the next round, with a small chance you can have a character die). The other option is to take missions to get more money. Missions consist of rolling all of your dice 3 times (like an extended test in tabletop, except limited to 2 rerolls), trying to get a total of a certain number of successes for each of 2-4 required tasks (each die has 2 success sides, 1 wound side, and 3 blanks; the same as SR4, and probably 5-6). Hopefully, you eventually gain enough dice, and someone completes the "final mission", which is a goal set out at the start of the game, which requires 4 successes of various types of dice.
The last good thing I will say about the game is that the prices are 4 for 1 die, or 6 for a die that is your choice of color. The exception to that is the upgrade for a single die that is not wild.
The first failure point is stores (including missons) do not restock when somebody buys, and have 1 card per player available each round. If you go last, fuck you for wanting to make a choice. The exception to this is the upgrade store, which is limited by number of players-1 being able to buy, and there are the 3 stacks I named earlier available. 5 cards/stack, and each character (of your 4) can have up to 1 from each of the 3 stacks. If you can do basic math, you'll notice that each player can have up to 12 of the available 15 cards, and also that starts to be a constraint if you're playing with more than 1 player (the game plays 2-4).
This brings us to the second issue: the store decks are very thin. We played with 4 players, and ran out of cards in every single deck. Partly we ran out because the final mission required a lot of dice from 3 of the 5 types, including 2 rare types that have fewer cards available, and none of the starting characters have. There is one runner who has 3 dice in magic, two with 2, and three with 1. The same is true of rigging. There are 4-ish pieces of equipment that increase those dice pools. Again, if you can do basic math, there are just not enough potential dice to go around if you're playing with 4 players (3 dice rolled 3 times is pretty bad odds of getting 4 successes), and that's assuming nobody is trying to take extra resources to limit everyone else.
Surely it all balances out, because everyone gets to go first eventually, right? Haha, fuck you. There is also a space on the board that lets you go first. First player does move if nobody chooses that space, and you're limited enough in actions that sometimes nobody chooses it.
The game does have enough resources that 2 players can probably have an enjoyable game, and 3 can have a cutthroat game of trying to get resources before anyone else. 4 players means 2 players probably get into a situation where they cannot win the game, but they are not out of the game (so they get to sit there until someone else finally wins).
We did find a rule that allows you to win if you're already doing well. If you have at least 5 of each die, you can trade in 2 for 1 success. If you can't get 5 dice because there aren't enough resources to go around, you can't do that. Each success is counted for every roll. So for 2 fewer 1/3 chances (with 1/6 chance of taking a wound, which can be negated with 1 success), you get 1 success. For each roll. There are some reasons not to take this deal, like having consumed a lot of lead, or severe head trauma. For comparison, Shadowrun tabletop lets you trade in 4 dice for 1 success, which is slightly more than the 3 dice that give you a success on average, because you also can't roll a failure if it's an auto-success. I assume this was changed, because nobody at Catalyst understands math, but they know they need to change things that work. I'd say it was probably only playtested with 2 players, but it wasn't playtested. You can also trade in 2 successes of any one type for 1 success of the type you actually want, which mitigates lack of a type slightly, if you have a lot more dice of another type than you need (which you may, but not enough for consistent results).
There are also spaces on the board that let you earn money if you're lucky. You can send one character to roll dice for decking or fighting, and they can win 4 money if they get 2 successes. A single character is probably rolling 2-4 dice, so they're also fairly likely to take a wound and not be able to contribute dice to anything the following round. You can also rent out your characters to other players for half of their purchase value, including gear and upgrades (which is listed, because you can sell off characters after you've bought them, but there's no reason to do that.) The other players can injure your character in this way, but it does allow them to roll their dice to succeed at missions if you really want to help them.
The game isn't even bad enough to be angry about. It's just lack of basic math and basic game design. Increase the number of resources available if there are more players. Give people who don't go first some sort of bonus to make up for the lost opportunities. Don't have buying something from a store affect other players, unless you have a good reason to do that. If there is a single way to win, don't give people uneven chances of success. And don't have situations where people have to continue playing the game when they cannot compete. Although that last part can be un-fucked by just having enough resources to go around.
The last good thing I will say about the game is that the prices are 4 for 1 die, or 6 for a die that is your choice of color. The exception to that is the upgrade for a single die that is not wild.
The first failure point is stores (including missons) do not restock when somebody buys, and have 1 card per player available each round. If you go last, fuck you for wanting to make a choice. The exception to this is the upgrade store, which is limited by number of players-1 being able to buy, and there are the 3 stacks I named earlier available. 5 cards/stack, and each character (of your 4) can have up to 1 from each of the 3 stacks. If you can do basic math, you'll notice that each player can have up to 12 of the available 15 cards, and also that starts to be a constraint if you're playing with more than 1 player (the game plays 2-4).
This brings us to the second issue: the store decks are very thin. We played with 4 players, and ran out of cards in every single deck. Partly we ran out because the final mission required a lot of dice from 3 of the 5 types, including 2 rare types that have fewer cards available, and none of the starting characters have. There is one runner who has 3 dice in magic, two with 2, and three with 1. The same is true of rigging. There are 4-ish pieces of equipment that increase those dice pools. Again, if you can do basic math, there are just not enough potential dice to go around if you're playing with 4 players (3 dice rolled 3 times is pretty bad odds of getting 4 successes), and that's assuming nobody is trying to take extra resources to limit everyone else.
Surely it all balances out, because everyone gets to go first eventually, right? Haha, fuck you. There is also a space on the board that lets you go first. First player does move if nobody chooses that space, and you're limited enough in actions that sometimes nobody chooses it.
The game does have enough resources that 2 players can probably have an enjoyable game, and 3 can have a cutthroat game of trying to get resources before anyone else. 4 players means 2 players probably get into a situation where they cannot win the game, but they are not out of the game (so they get to sit there until someone else finally wins).
We did find a rule that allows you to win if you're already doing well. If you have at least 5 of each die, you can trade in 2 for 1 success. If you can't get 5 dice because there aren't enough resources to go around, you can't do that. Each success is counted for every roll. So for 2 fewer 1/3 chances (with 1/6 chance of taking a wound, which can be negated with 1 success), you get 1 success. For each roll. There are some reasons not to take this deal, like having consumed a lot of lead, or severe head trauma. For comparison, Shadowrun tabletop lets you trade in 4 dice for 1 success, which is slightly more than the 3 dice that give you a success on average, because you also can't roll a failure if it's an auto-success. I assume this was changed, because nobody at Catalyst understands math, but they know they need to change things that work. I'd say it was probably only playtested with 2 players, but it wasn't playtested. You can also trade in 2 successes of any one type for 1 success of the type you actually want, which mitigates lack of a type slightly, if you have a lot more dice of another type than you need (which you may, but not enough for consistent results).
There are also spaces on the board that let you earn money if you're lucky. You can send one character to roll dice for decking or fighting, and they can win 4 money if they get 2 successes. A single character is probably rolling 2-4 dice, so they're also fairly likely to take a wound and not be able to contribute dice to anything the following round. You can also rent out your characters to other players for half of their purchase value, including gear and upgrades (which is listed, because you can sell off characters after you've bought them, but there's no reason to do that.) The other players can injure your character in this way, but it does allow them to roll their dice to succeed at missions if you really want to help them.
The game isn't even bad enough to be angry about. It's just lack of basic math and basic game design. Increase the number of resources available if there are more players. Give people who don't go first some sort of bonus to make up for the lost opportunities. Don't have buying something from a store affect other players, unless you have a good reason to do that. If there is a single way to win, don't give people uneven chances of success. And don't have situations where people have to continue playing the game when they cannot compete. Although that last part can be un-fucked by just having enough resources to go around.
OK. I like to watch shows that I don't have to watch while I'm doing other things. Law & Order is always a good one because you can pretty much pick it up in the middle of any episode and not need to have seen anything and still know what's going on.
So I started a show on Netflix called Good Witch. And it's so conservatively propagandist that every now and again it makes my ears bleed. These people get chances to do cool things like get doctorate degrees or go to China or something, and it's always portrayed as a bad thing. And I totally understand the concept of family being first, but I don't understand how family being first means that you can't take yourself along for the ride. Like... Why can't your kid see that you love doing art or whatever? Why do you have to put that side of you away? And the hearkening to small town-ness is largely also a plot contrivance, but still kinda annoying. I mean, you could explain all the issues by saying that it's a way to keep the characters on the show all the same, but then why have the plots to begin with?
So I started a show on Netflix called Good Witch. And it's so conservatively propagandist that every now and again it makes my ears bleed. These people get chances to do cool things like get doctorate degrees or go to China or something, and it's always portrayed as a bad thing. And I totally understand the concept of family being first, but I don't understand how family being first means that you can't take yourself along for the ride. Like... Why can't your kid see that you love doing art or whatever? Why do you have to put that side of you away? And the hearkening to small town-ness is largely also a plot contrivance, but still kinda annoying. I mean, you could explain all the issues by saying that it's a way to keep the characters on the show all the same, but then why have the plots to begin with?
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
Don't watch Elliot: The Littlest Reindeer on Netflix. There is no likable character in the whole thing, and one of the characters is Santa. It's so bad, that I don't even want to write another word
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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Thaluikhain
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Ok, so Sucker Punch is one of Zack Snyder's weird masturbatory fantasies pretending to be a movie as it is, but when the bad guy says that lots of things have gone missing and the girls have a photocopy of one map and actually have stolen one thing he may or may not know about, that bugs me.
Possibly that's a typo that wasn't picked up on, as it can't be easy writing a screenplay with one hand.
Possibly that's a typo that wasn't picked up on, as it can't be easy writing a screenplay with one hand.
I took a look at Pugmire finally, because a vaguely related idea came up on Facebook and I remembered "Oh yeah, I know a good site with virtually every game book you can think of in pdf."
There does not appear to be any rules, anywhere that I could find, for playing a character that isn't a dog.
And, like, I get that playing a dog in a fantasy setting is the entire idea. But in pretty much any group that would be inclined to play it, I would expect there to be at least one player who would prefer to play some other kind of animal. There's even a Cat Quarter in the eponymous city. But there are no rules for making a cat character, or a badger, rat, lizard, bird or fish, all of which are specifically called out as rival species that occupy a similar space to elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. in the game world.
Like, I'm not expecting a full treatment for each of these species that is on par with with the write up for dogs, because it's Pugmire, and playing a dog is the entire point. But at least have a write up for each that's equivalent to Breed.
Edit- poking around the Pugmire site, I did find a link to a separate, compatible game called Monarchies of Mau, which is a core book for playing a cat.
Hilariously, I also found a link to an imprint on Drive Thru that is basically a place for people to upload their own Pugmire content and sell it. It has no titles.
There does not appear to be any rules, anywhere that I could find, for playing a character that isn't a dog.
And, like, I get that playing a dog in a fantasy setting is the entire idea. But in pretty much any group that would be inclined to play it, I would expect there to be at least one player who would prefer to play some other kind of animal. There's even a Cat Quarter in the eponymous city. But there are no rules for making a cat character, or a badger, rat, lizard, bird or fish, all of which are specifically called out as rival species that occupy a similar space to elves, dwarves, halflings, etc. in the game world.
Like, I'm not expecting a full treatment for each of these species that is on par with with the write up for dogs, because it's Pugmire, and playing a dog is the entire point. But at least have a write up for each that's equivalent to Breed.
Edit- poking around the Pugmire site, I did find a link to a separate, compatible game called Monarchies of Mau, which is a core book for playing a cat.
Hilariously, I also found a link to an imprint on Drive Thru that is basically a place for people to upload their own Pugmire content and sell it. It has no titles.
Last edited by Prak on Sat Dec 14, 2019 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Jack Ryan season 2. I'm just so ghostdamn annoyed that
I haven't given up on the series over this, so technically doesn't qualify for having "lost me", but I've been super sick the last several days so my tolerance for bullshit is pretty low.
the boat guy leaves the boat entirely rather than finding a hiding spot where he can keep eyes on the boat. You had one job!
I haven't given up on the series over this, so technically doesn't qualify for having "lost me", but I've been super sick the last several days so my tolerance for bullshit is pretty low.
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The Adventurer's Almanac
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Good thing I stopped using photobucket years before they started doing that.
Keys to the Contract: A crossover between Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kingdom Hearts.
RadiantPhoenix wrote:The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".TheFlatline wrote:Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".
hyzmarca wrote:Well, Mario Mario comes from a blue collar background. He was a carpenter first, working at a construction site. Then a plumber. Then a demolitionist. Also, I'm not sure how strict Mushroom Kingdom's medical licensing requirements are. I don't think his MD is valid in New York.
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Thaluikhain
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Shrapnel
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I noticed it yesterday, but the last time I used Photobucket to upload something, which was back in April, they didn't add any watermarks, so I think it must be a new-ish thing. And it's awful.
Is this wretched demi-bee
Half asleep upon my knee
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric, the half a bee
Half asleep upon my knee
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric, the half a bee
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Josh_Kablack
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Went to see the Harriet Tubman biopic this week,
The scene where she crosses the Mason Dixon line into freedom for the first time is a big emotional scene with swelling music and a shot pulling back to show the whole landscape.........with vegetation and topography that doesn't much look like any place I've ever crossed the PA/MD border and despite a shot that lets the viewer see for miles, it doesn't show a single boundary stone. I mean I understand the economics of filming in a set location, but come on, have your props people mock up one of the markers that are such a part of the history.
The scene where she crosses the Mason Dixon line into freedom for the first time is a big emotional scene with swelling music and a shot pulling back to show the whole landscape.........with vegetation and topography that doesn't much look like any place I've ever crossed the PA/MD border and despite a shot that lets the viewer see for miles, it doesn't show a single boundary stone. I mean I understand the economics of filming in a set location, but come on, have your props people mock up one of the markers that are such a part of the history.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
It's been going for some time now actually, just in different forms.Shrapnel wrote:I noticed it yesterday, but the last time I used Photobucket to upload something, which was back in April, they didn't add any watermarks, so I think it must be a new-ish thing. And it's awful.
Basically some years ago Photobucket decided to start to agressively push for making their users get paid subscriptions. First they significantly lowered the number of times their images could be seen outside the site each month before they were turned off unless you paid them every month. You may've noti noticed it if you only posted images in places that didn't get much traffic. Then more recently they've moved to adding the blurring+watermark for everybody who doesn't have a paid subscription.
Supposedly if you give photobucket money you can get clear images hosted, but I wouldn't know since they're not getting a dime from me.
Last edited by maglag on Sun Dec 22, 2019 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
FrankTrollman wrote: Actually, our blood banking system is set up exactly the way you'd want it to be if you were a secret vampire conspiracy.
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Username17
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So I've gone deep into spoilers and reviews of Rise of Skywalker and I can say definitively that The Force Awakens did in fact lose me.
It was entertaining enough at the time. But the honest truth is that it did not present a compelling world. After I watched that film I had absolutely zero interest in the further exploration of the First Order or the collapse of the New Republic or the failed family and nation building of Han Solo. I didn't care about any of these things because they were dumb.
The New Trilogy is fundamentally disrespectful to the Original Trilogy. But beyond that, it's entire existence is merely to regurgitate the Original Trilogy. Watching TFA is an experience where you always know what is going to happen next because there's no attempt to make it anything other than a beat for beat retelling of the original. And yet, the subtext and the literal text of the movie is simply a navel gazing exercise of pondering the meaning of being a fan of the Original Trilogy. It sounds like a fucking Space Balls joke, but Kylo Ren is literally a toxic Vader fanboy and Rey is literally a gushing Luke Skywalker fangirl. That's the actual movie. For fuck's sake!
So after that, I decided that I wasn't going to see the next movie unless people said it made the setting into something I'd actually be interested in rather than more shitting on the ending of the Original Trilogy in order to rehash story beats from the Original Trilogy. And um... yeah. Not only was everyone pretty clear that the exact opposite happened, but beyond that Rian Johnson got called out about totally undermining all space combat in all previous Star Wars properties because apparently any hyperdrive can destroy entire fleets now and the fact that every X-Wing had its own hyperdrive makes every space battle retroactively not make any sense. His answer was that he was pretty sure eventually some future author would retcon a satisfactory answer and he didn't really care. Hoo boy.
So of course I decided I wasn't going to go see Rise of Skywalker unless it actually did retcon in a reasonable explanation for that, or at least do something original that wasn't just shitting on the Original Trilogy in order to repackage the Original Trilogy. I've looked at the spoilers. That is not what happened.
So I can say wholly and truly that the New Trilogy really lost me with The Force Awakens. I did not go see any more of them and won't be doing soo in the future. The New Trilogy era is simply dead to me. I genuinely don't care about it and will just wait for it to get written over the way it itself was written over Dark Empire. Which should be like 20 years, maybe less.
-Username17
It was entertaining enough at the time. But the honest truth is that it did not present a compelling world. After I watched that film I had absolutely zero interest in the further exploration of the First Order or the collapse of the New Republic or the failed family and nation building of Han Solo. I didn't care about any of these things because they were dumb.
The New Trilogy is fundamentally disrespectful to the Original Trilogy. But beyond that, it's entire existence is merely to regurgitate the Original Trilogy. Watching TFA is an experience where you always know what is going to happen next because there's no attempt to make it anything other than a beat for beat retelling of the original. And yet, the subtext and the literal text of the movie is simply a navel gazing exercise of pondering the meaning of being a fan of the Original Trilogy. It sounds like a fucking Space Balls joke, but Kylo Ren is literally a toxic Vader fanboy and Rey is literally a gushing Luke Skywalker fangirl. That's the actual movie. For fuck's sake!
So after that, I decided that I wasn't going to see the next movie unless people said it made the setting into something I'd actually be interested in rather than more shitting on the ending of the Original Trilogy in order to rehash story beats from the Original Trilogy. And um... yeah. Not only was everyone pretty clear that the exact opposite happened, but beyond that Rian Johnson got called out about totally undermining all space combat in all previous Star Wars properties because apparently any hyperdrive can destroy entire fleets now and the fact that every X-Wing had its own hyperdrive makes every space battle retroactively not make any sense. His answer was that he was pretty sure eventually some future author would retcon a satisfactory answer and he didn't really care. Hoo boy.
So of course I decided I wasn't going to go see Rise of Skywalker unless it actually did retcon in a reasonable explanation for that, or at least do something original that wasn't just shitting on the Original Trilogy in order to repackage the Original Trilogy. I've looked at the spoilers. That is not what happened.
So I can say wholly and truly that the New Trilogy really lost me with The Force Awakens. I did not go see any more of them and won't be doing soo in the future. The New Trilogy era is simply dead to me. I genuinely don't care about it and will just wait for it to get written over the way it itself was written over Dark Empire. Which should be like 20 years, maybe less.
-Username17
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angelfromanotherpin
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I worry about how much inertia the NT is going to have. Dark Empire wasn't movies in theaters with whole toy lines to support, it was just some comics. Disney commits to things. They have a whole fucking World of Avatar area in the Orlando park, with post-movie plot developments and lore, even though most people forgot that film as soon as they left the theater. I don't want to have to wait twenty years.
Maybe we can get some decent designer-imposter content out of one of the streaming services.
Maybe we can get some decent designer-imposter content out of one of the streaming services.
Not sure what spoilers you were checking, but they actually do address the weaponized hyperdrive thingy maneuver in the new movie basically going "It takes 'win lottery' luck to pull off, not something that can be reliably replicated in any way".FrankTrollman wrote: So after that, I decided that I wasn't going to see the next movie unless people said it made the setting into something I'd actually be interested in rather than more shitting on the ending of the Original Trilogy in order to rehash story beats from the Original Trilogy. And um... yeah. Not only was everyone pretty clear that the exact opposite happened, but beyond that Rian Johnson got called out about totally undermining all space combat in all previous Star Wars properties because apparently any hyperdrive can destroy entire fleets now and the fact that every X-Wing had its own hyperdrive makes every space battle retroactively not make any sense. His answer was that he was pretty sure eventually some future author would retcon a satisfactory answer and he didn't really care. Hoo boy.
So of course I decided I wasn't going to go see Rise of Skywalker unless it actually did retcon in a reasonable explanation for that, or at least do something original that wasn't just shitting on the Original Trilogy in order to repackage the Original Trilogy. I've looked at the spoilers. That is not what happened.
FrankTrollman wrote: Actually, our blood banking system is set up exactly the way you'd want it to be if you were a secret vampire conspiracy.
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Josh_Kablack
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This is not gonna meet your standards for reasonable explanation, but in the Dark Knight Skywalker Rises one of the good guys suggests they use a holdo manuver to do some real damage, and gets shouted down as "that was a million to one". So at least it's not completely ignored.FrankTrollman wrote: because apparently any hyperdrive can destroy entire fleets now and the fact that every X-Wing had its own hyperdrive makes every space battle retroactively not make any sense. His answer was that he was pretty sure eventually some future author would retcon a satisfactory answer and he didn't really care. Hoo boy.
So of course I decided I wasn't going to go see Rise of Skywalker unless it actually did retcon in a reasonable explanation for that,
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Username17
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Yeeeah. No. That's not remotely acceptable. I'm going to continue ignoring the New Trilogy era entirely.Josh_Kablack wrote:This is not gonna meet your standards for reasonable explanation, but in the Dark Knight Skywalker Rises one of the good guys suggests they use a holdo manuver to do some real damage, and gets shouted down as "that was a million to one". So at least it's not completely ignored.FrankTrollman wrote: because apparently any hyperdrive can destroy entire fleets now and the fact that every X-Wing had its own hyperdrive makes every space battle retroactively not make any sense. His answer was that he was pretty sure eventually some future author would retcon a satisfactory answer and he didn't really care. Hoo boy.
So of course I decided I wasn't going to go see Rise of Skywalker unless it actually did retcon in a reasonable explanation for that,
On the other hand, Rogue One was super good, and I'll probably binge watch The Mandalorian when it's done with a season. It's just the new continuity that that has completely lost me.
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Thaluikhain
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I thought that showed some intelligence. Obviously Ren is going to fall far short of being Vader, so they explicitly acknowledged this and made an important part of the story, that he was a crushing disappointment and insult to the original to people in universe, so he was somewhat less of a disappointment and insult to the viewers. Not that that really makes up for literally everything else, apart from...um...they recognised the 501st Legion which seems like it might be a nice charity?FrankTrollman wrote:And yet, the subtext and the literal text of the movie is simply a navel gazing exercise of pondering the meaning of being a fan of the Original Trilogy. It sounds like a fucking Space Balls joke, but Kylo Ren is literally a toxic Vader fanboy and Rey is literally a gushing Luke Skywalker fangirl. That's the actual movie. For fuck's sake!
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Oh, just thought of something, you know how the Eragon film was, scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope? Is it better or worse than The Force Awakens? Not seen Eragon for ages (cause it was bad, and also scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope), might have to re-watch that.[/i]
I'm not all that invested in movies to be able to recognize the artistic quality in a way I can coherently articulate to others. That being said I found Eragon far more irritating than TFA. Not that I thought TFA was 'good' or anything. It was pretty lame to me but more in a banal corporate way instead of the way Eragon came off as just straight up trash.Thaluikhain wrote:I thought that showed some intelligence. Obviously Ren is going to fall far short of being Vader, so they explicitly acknowledged this and made an important part of the story, that he was a crushing disappointment and insult to the original to people in universe, so he was somewhat less of a disappointment and insult to the viewers. Not that that really makes up for literally everything else, apart from...um...they recognised the 501st Legion which seems like it might be a nice charity?FrankTrollman wrote:And yet, the subtext and the literal text of the movie is simply a navel gazing exercise of pondering the meaning of being a fan of the Original Trilogy. It sounds like a fucking Space Balls joke, but Kylo Ren is literally a toxic Vader fanboy and Rey is literally a gushing Luke Skywalker fangirl. That's the actual movie. For fuck's sake!
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Oh, just thought of something, you know how the Eragon film was, scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope? Is it better or worse than The Force Awakens? Not seen Eragon for ages (cause it was bad, and also scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope), might have to re-watch that.[/i]
Last edited by MGuy on Mon Dec 23, 2019 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Username17
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That's a really good question. The actors in The Force Awakens are much better than the material, but then Eragon had Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich slumming in it as well. The fact that Rey is much more likeable and less annoying than Eragon is a big plus.Thaluikhain wrote:Oh, just thought of something, you know how the Eragon film was, scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope? Is it better or worse than The Force Awakens? Not seen Eragon for ages (cause it was bad, and also scene for scene a rip off of A New Hope), might have to re-watch that.[/i]
The Force Awakens is visually and audially a much better film. Basic craft of editing, costuming, and special effects is much better. It's not even particularly close. The Force Awakens does look the way I'd want a modern Star Wars movie to look, while Eragon looks like something shown on the Sci Fi network in 2009. And of course John Williams >> Patrick Doyle. It's not even particularly close. I mean, Patrick Doyle isn't bad, but let's be real here: John Williams is the greatest composer of the last hundred years and Patrick Doyle is at best Salieri to Williams' Mozart.
Both movies present a world that I don't give two shits about and do not wish to see any more movies in their settings. And both movies are shallow mockups of A New Hope made with little understanding of why the movie they are copying is so good. But Eragon isn't literally rubbing my face in the fact that it is a poor substitute by constantly name checking the original film's characters. Nor is it actively taking a shit on my childhood by proclaiming that all the heroes at the end of Return of the Jedi went on to live broken lives of failure and disillusionment accomplishing nothing without even the friendships forged in that movie to fall back upon.
It's a genuinely tough call. I had more fun watching The Force Awakens. Eragon is, after all, a pretty bad film while The Force Awakens is moment to moment fairly well constructed. I am not actually sorry that I saw Eragon, while I believe I would be happier in the long run had The Force Awakens simply not been made at all. Eragon has its place as like a bad movie to watch on bad movie night, The Force Awakens is simply a shame that should not be watched at all.
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Last edited by Username17 on Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Wasn't Eragon written by a 13-year old or something? I think it was popular because people confused "good for the cringey shit teenagers write" and "actually good."MGuy wrote: I'm not all that invested in movies to be able to recognize the artistic quality in a way I can coherently articulate to others. That being said I found Eragon far more irritating than TFA. Not that I thought TFA was 'good' or anything. It was pretty lame to me but more in a banal corporate way instead of the way Eragon came off as just straight up trash.
