Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:46 am

As an outsider I found the recent US election cycle pretty entertaining.

The surprise twist this morning turned me off on the whole thing though.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:50 pm

I went and watched "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". The movie's main downfall is Rowling's inability to write a villain. Because at the end of the day, anti-magic muggles are right - witches are running around causing havoc and murder in New York. The protagonist himself is an animal smuggler with minimal security measures who causes massive property damage and possible deaths. So the villains have to be child-beating force-lightning-totting nazis with stupid haircuts. The villain reveal at the end is extremely sudden and has zero impact because of that.
The movie also has what I can only describe as an esoteric happy ending. At the end of the movie the protagonist deus ex machinas a way to memory wipe the entire New York and preserve the masquerade. Only, at this point three people died on screen and most likely hundreds died offscreen. And one of those three is a New York senator and a presidential candidate, whose father is about to wake up and learn that his son has mysteriously disappeared. AND the protagonist has just released a giant man-eating eagle to roam free in the viscinity of New York.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:40 pm

The sudden villain reveal at the end is completely stupid. "My plan went awry! Let me break my disguise in front of a bajillion aurors and get immediately captured!" The memory wipe Deus Ex Machina at the end is pretty stupid. The parade of CGI weirdness is not really all that interesting. If you thought any of the fantastic creatures in this film were fantastic, you have pretty low standards. The fight scenes are abysmal. They're a blur of continuous teleportation and meaningless light shows, like the Harry Potter version of a bad action film that uses too many close-ups and jumpcuts. The comedy shenanigans scenes with the escaped fantastic beasts are.. there. That is a thing I can say about them. The weird romances were awful. I have no idea why you're trying to sell me on any of these characters having any kind of romantic connection. They've known eachother for a day and a half, and nothing's fucking happened.

It was an incredibly mediocre movie. The friends I went with were expecting it to be great, and as a pretentious hipster who ironically enjoys terribly written movies I was expecting to be able to enjoy it for being a rubbish cashgrab on the Harry Potter name, and we were all disappointed. It was just... mediocre and boring, all around.

But! There is good news! Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is actually one of my favorite kinds of movies; the kind where the protagonist could have slept in late and nothing would have changed.

Graves wants to find the Obscurial and use it to do evil wizard things. His psychic wizard powers tell him a squip named Creedence, who is living with an abusive foster mother, can help him find the Obscurial. Graves butters up the abused squip by promising to teach him magic and take him away from his abusive home. Creedence eventually finds another foster child's toy wand, but is immediately caught with it. Awkward! Anyway, Creedence is getting blamed for it and the wand's owner is like "it's mine" and somebody if not everybody is clearly about to get the ever-loving piss belted out of them, so the obscurus attacks. Creedence calls Graves and is like "yo, it's this girl" and Graves is like "cool bro, now fuck off you squib" and then Creedence is like "nah it was me sucker and now I hate you, rampage time." And then the wizarding police show up and kill Creedence (except probably not really) and Graves is like "no, my plans! Rampage time!" and is defeated.

I mean, I guess you could say the protagonist is the one responsible for apprehending Graves and that Graves otherwise could have won that fight, but if the movie wants me to believe that it can suck my left nut I don't care. And I guess you can point out that the protagaonist is the one who delivers the memory wipe Deus Ex Machina, but that was such a lazy and awful plot development I don't want to acknowledge it. At the end of the day, Graves thwarted his own evil plans and Newt and what's-her-face really could have just stayed at home. Newt - the main character - contributed nothing to the story except to serve as a status quo button in the last five minutes.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:48 pm

Another big problem with the Harry Potter setting is that we've never been given a measure of what "a wizard of great power is". Graves claims that Creedence has enormous power, and Newt says that the lifetime of an obscurial depends on wizard's power, and Dumbledore is said to be incredibly powerful - but what the fuck does any of this mean? As far as we know wizards aren't limited by spell level, and all spells work equally well if you do them right. We've never seen anyone fail to cast a spell because their power level is too low. And the greatest evil wizard Voldemort used the same Avada Kedavra to murder people as his underlings did, and he got out-lightninged by Potter.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 12:07 am

Longes wrote:Another big problem with the Harry Potter setting is that we've never been given a measure of what "a wizard of great power is".

Yeah, magic is the Potterverse, we're told, is a complicated and academic process, but in practice it always comes down to concentration, will, and intent.

Dumbledore's bit in Book 6--when he detects that a wall's been magiced up--alludes to there being areas of magic that most people aren't aware of, but it's never developed further so it doesn't count.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 3:15 am

Longes wrote:Another big problem with the Harry Potter setting is that we've never been given a measure of what "a wizard of great power is". Graves claims that Creedence has enormous power, and Newt says that the lifetime of an obscurial depends on wizard's power, and Dumbledore is said to be incredibly powerful - but what the fuck does any of this mean? As far as we know wizards aren't limited by spell level, and all spells work equally well if you do them right. We've never seen anyone fail to cast a spell because their power level is too low.

But we've seen them fail to cast a spell because their skill/concentration is too low.

Like Animagus transformation. Technically any wizard can learn to do it, but you need months/years of hard training for that one trick.

"Power" in Potterverse=skill and ability to remember all the necessary fancy words and moves and willpower to properly use magic. Also the ability to quickly decide what the best spell to use in a certain situation.

Dumbledore is considered a top wizard because he knows a lot, he's damn fast with his hands and has pretty much an unbreakable concentration skill, allowing him to easily take out multiple lesser wizards before they know what hit them.

Longes wrote: And the greatest evil wizard Voldemort used the same Avada Kedavra to murder people as his underlings did, and he got out-lightninged by Potter.

In case you missed it, Voldermort tried to kill Potter with the master wand-which Harry was the rightful master of by the end of the books. The master wand does not work against its current owner, no matter who's actually holding it.

It was a bit of a Xanato's gambit from the Potter's side, but paid off nicely.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:03 am

The world-building in the Potterverse is bad and has always been bad. The Potterverse was created as a coming of age story - all of the fantasy elements were initially window-dressing to the story of a boy who goes to boarding school.

The Potterverse was already collapsing into itself in the initial series (roughly from the end of Goblet of Fire onwards) and trying to place a spin-off into a universe with such little consistency was always a doomed endeavor.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 8:45 am

The Potterverse does not really have "great wizards" any more than the real world has "great body builders" or "great chemists." Those things exist, but they aren't individually world-shattering, and if you really want to you can just gank them and be done with it. And honestly the series is usually pretty good about remembering that wizards are not on a DBZ curve and are instead on something like an assault rifle curve. Voldemort is not some undefeatable cosmic horror; he's just a wizard nazi with his own private wizard nazi militia who happened to achieve a very shitty sort of immortality which lets him come back to life and put his private wizard nazi militia back together. That's scary, but mostly in the sense that having a bunch of extremists running around committing acts of sabotage, terrorism, and assassination is scary.

Creedence is only interesting because he has an unusually powerful obscurus, which probably does make him worth more than his weight in proper wizard if your goal is to murder people and blow shit up.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 8:52 am

maglag wrote:"Power" in Potterverse=skill and ability to remember all the necessary fancy words and moves and willpower to properly use magic. Also the ability to quickly decide what the best spell to use in a certain situation.

Creedence has no training, no real knowledge of magic, and has been abused his entire life which probably means he has shitty willpower too. He's described by Grindelwald as exceptionally powerful. Obscuruses are also described as being dependent on the host's power, getting stronger and more long lived the more powerful the host is. So your theory doesn't hold water.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:42 am

Heh, expanded universe gonna expanded universe.

I haven't watched the magical monsters movie yet, but seems like they're already fucking up the internal lore.

You could say the same of the play, where after Rowlings had stealth-fixed time turners into only being able to go back a few hours, they find a super time turner that can go back decades.

But if you stick to the main 7 books, even Lord Voldermort had to study and train a lot to become top evil wizard.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:04 am

And he and his army still get rekt by schoolkids with BB wands. There we have it - Potterverse is part of New World of Darkness.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 2:00 am

One of the major problems, beside's any nonsensical worldbuilding, is that Fantastic Beasts kinda has two separate stories running through it, and they hardly at all interact until the very end, and even then, only barely. Really, you probably could have gotten two movies out of this (Monster Hunter: Potter Edition, and Grindelwald and the obscurial).

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 2:02 am

Wiseman wrote:One of the major problems, beside's any nonsensical worldbuilding, is that Fantastic Beasts kinda has two separate stories running through it, and they hardly at all interact until the very end, and even then, only barely. Really, you probably could have gotten two movies out of this (Monster Hunter: Potter Edition, and Grindelwald and the obscurial).

This was my biggest problem with the film.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 4:19 am

Longes wrote:And he and his army still get rekt by schoolkids with BB wands. There we have it - Potterverse is part of New World of Darkness.

Actually the schoolkids were the ones got their asses kicked, with them soundly defeated and Lord Voldermort only showing any mercy because he wanted a new generation of death eaters and demanding their surrender.

Then an army of elves and centaurs, and all of the student's adult family members showed up as reinforcements.

Even then Lord Voldermort could've won if he just hadn't been so arrogant as to try to solo Potter.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:04 am

The strongest and most evil dark wizards in decades is arrogant for thinking he can take on a school brat? Uh... No. A fully grown and skilled adult thinking he can kick the shit out of a kid is not arrogant at all.

maglag wrote:
In case you missed it, Voldermort tried to kill Potter with the master wand-which Harry was the rightful master of by the end of the books. The master wand does not work against its current owner, no matter who's actually holding it.

It was a bit of a Xanato's gambit from the Potter's side, but paid off nicely.

No it wasn't. There was no gambit, Xanatos or otherwise. It was a series of completeply inept coincidences and complete ignorance. A Xanatos gambit involves planning. If no one involved knows shit (And Harry knew nothing about the wand, or the stone he was fondling when he specifically entered the forest to commit suicide by Voldemort), you absolutely cannot claim Xanatos gambit. It's all Bad Macguffins to fix shitty writing and plot holes. Because, again, this a schoolboy of mediocre ability, and a single freak power surge (driving off dementors)

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:33 am

I'm only passingly familiar with the Potterverse but I thought Harry's whole gimmick was that he was in a "There can be only one" prophecy along with Voldemort? In that case it does hit me as kinda arrogant to go from trying to murder the kid in his crib to direct confrontation unless it's a last ditch effort of some sort.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:14 am

Whipstitch wrote:I'm only passingly familiar with the Potterverse but I thought Harry's whole gimmick was that he was in a "There can be only one" prophecy along with Voldemort? In that case it does hit me as kinda arrogant to go from trying to murder the kid in his crib to direct confrontation unless it's a last ditch effort of some sort.

The prophecy is more a either can only die at the hand of the other sort of deal. Ergo, the one with more power and experience should just win, and neither of those are in question. Especially in a straight up fight, which is what Idiot Protagonist kept jumping into.

Not sure how you're getting crib murder to direct confrontation. 17ish years, multiple confrontations and excessive bullshit and wasted pages rather separate the beginning from the end. And the end is seriously a bullshit string of coincidences prevents that one specific kill spell from working. Dropping a rock on the kid's head would have worked fine (and would have also worked fine as a baby). Voldemort had won. Then bullshit happened.

Rowling got lost in her own convoluted bullshit (and it sounds like the same thing happened in the new film) and then asspulled several thousand words to dig out in an unsatisfying manner. Partly I blame the editors. They kept her fairly on track for the first two books, and after that you can watch everything spiral out of control and bloat horribly, each worse than the previous, with more and more holes.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:23 pm

Voss wrote:
Whipstitch wrote:I'm only passingly familiar with the Potterverse but I thought Harry's whole gimmick was that he was in a "There can be only one" prophecy along with Voldemort? In that case it does hit me as kinda arrogant to go from trying to murder the kid in his crib to direct confrontation unless it's a last ditch effort of some sort.
The prophecy is more a either can only die at the hand of the other sort of deal. Ergo, the one with more power and experience should just win, and neither of those are in question. Especially in a straight up fight, which is what Idiot Protagonist kept jumping into.

The prophecy is actually "neither can live so long as the other survives."

But this is really a tricky deal, since it's obvious they're both alive, that's not what "live" means in this context. In this context, it means to actually participate in the cycle of life grow old, and die. So long as both survive, they're both immortal. Voldemort thourgh the Horcrux in Harry's forehead, Harry through the love-sacrifice protection that Voldemort accidentally bound to his new body when he used Harry's blood to make it.

Basically nothing that Voldemort could do could kill Harry, because Voldemort made it literally impossible to kill Harry when he crafted his body. Which Voldemort didn't know, because he doesn't understand how the self-sacrifice protections works, but which Dumbledore most certainly did understand.

When Voldemort AKed Harry in the woods, he only succeeded in destroying his own horcrux and making himself vulnerable, while Harry's protection remained intact.

Note, it isn't that Harry was the chosen one, so much as its Voldemort that chose Harry. If Voldemort had gone after Neville instead, then Neville's family would have done the same self-sacrifice to protect him, and Neville would have gotten the Horcrux scar when Voldemort exploded. The whole thing literally only happened because Voldemort is an idiot. And it's explicit that prophecies come true only if you actually engage with them, rather than ignoring them as most people do.

Basically, Voldemort fell into the Oedipus problem, in which he tried way to hard to avoid something that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't tried to avoid it.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:53 pm

I'm generally upset with how ostensibly entertainment sites have turned into factories for manufactured, recreational outrage. I know it draws eyeballs = builds tribes = makes money, but I just want interesting articles about weird stuff, not virtue signaling from clear idealogues.

The post-factual reality has become painfully unfunny.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:52 am

Every year my wife gets super excited about each new season of Dr. Who. I just don't have the heart to tell her that I can't stand it anymore.

Likewise, she insists on seeing each and every new Woody Allen movie in the theater on opening weekend. Has he even made any movies since like Deconstructing Harry that wasn't just pure garbage?

I finally had enough when she tried to get me to watch some snl skit about the olympics. I don't just not give a fuck about the olympics; I viscerally hate them and refuse to hear about them at all. If an actual alien race landed at the olympic games to make first contact with humanity, I still wouldn't give a hot shit because it happened at the olmpics.

The wounded puppy dog expression on her face when I told her this is the reason why I suffer silently through Woody Allen movies and Dr. Who.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Dec 16, 2016 5:00 am

Relationship built on lies confirmed.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:22 am

Kaelik wrote:Relationship built on lies confirmed.

All relationships are built on lies:

*Sure... I work out all the time
*Well I think your parents are charming
*No...that's just a banana under my skirt
*They're probably just out playing...I absolutely did not sell your children on the internet

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:42 pm

I wouldn't say my relationship is built on lies, exactly. It's just sometimes necessary to control the exact flow of information to my girlfriend, so that she doesn't feel anxious unnecessarily.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:43 pm

I make it a point never to lie to my wife about anything she can fact check without leaving the room. She does not extend me the same courtesy and is forever misinforming me about where she put whichever household item I am currently looking for.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:49 pm

I was for awhile not entirely open about my specific tastes in anime, because I occasionally watch things with excessive amounts of plot, and my partner has some pretty significant self-esteem issues. They are honestly sometimes absurd enough to be some kind of weird comedy sketch. I've always had a little trouble understanding that - I'm a fairly mediocre looking dude, but I have always felt pretty comfortable in my own body, and she is substantially out of my league, and constantly worries about hers. It's almost like there's some kind of gender disparity at play here. And also it may have something to do with the fact that she's an A-cup, which is not typically associated with feelings of sexual empowerment.

But in the grand scheme of things I suppose the full extent of one's sexual interests is probably something typical couples are reluctant to share with one another. Being a typical couple seems kind of boring, really.