OT: TV and Movies (with spoilers)

[Perseus1966]

[instagram][/instagram]

On Taika Waititi- if people haven't caught it, check out What We Do in the Shadows (the movie, I also enjoyed the tv show a lot but check out the movie first so you get the in jokes). Wonderful.

Removed +1 by mistake
+2

[KidA24]

Okay, it took 8 episodes but I’m in on The Mandalorian.

Spoiler:

The team coming together at the end against a common enemy and floating down that river of lava like they were on the river Styx sold it for me. It’s got some classic Greek hero’s journey stuff that I always dig. Add a muted tragedy with the IG droid fulfilling its purpose and sacrificing itself. That was a nice touch. I’ll hang in there for the next season. Good job Favreau. Enjoyed Taika Waititi’s direction as well. I really enjoy his stuff. He seems like a cool human being.

I also encourage people to look up who the two stormtroopers were played by.

That whole scene was the best thing SW has done in 30 years.

Another thing I saw, they didn't have enough storm trooper costumes so they enlisted fans with costumes to play them. Just an awesome thing to do.

[Iheartfootball]

On Taika Waititi- if people haven't caught it, check out What We Do in the Shadows (the movie, I also enjoyed the tv show a lot but check out the movie first so you get the in jokes). Wonderful.

'Oh no, Peter got him.'

'Who let Peter out?'

Kills me every time.

[HaroldinGMinor]

On Taika Waititi- if people haven't caught it, check out What We Do in the Shadows (the movie, I also enjoyed the tv show a lot but check out the movie first so you get the in jokes). Wonderful.

The werewolves were so great.

"We're WEREwolves not SWEARwolves."

[buckboy]

Just took my daughters to Frozen 2.

Some pretty serious 3rd act problems.

[OzzyInTheLake]

Not sure if the joke plays in the US.. But one of the betters PSAs from Taika Waititi..

Watch on YouTube

[MissKhriddleton]

I watched the Expanse instead of the Rose Bowl. Decent season.

[humanrefutation]

I started Watchmen and I'm three episodes in. I'm not sure if I'll stick by it longterm. I don't think the show does a good job providing the exposition needed to understand what's going on. I've never read the graphic novels. I did see the film, but it was a while ago and while I recall the broad strokes I distinctly recall thinking that it was terrible. I know that this show is set in the aftermath of the events of the film, but it's clearly influenced by those events and I think the show has failed thus far to explain the world we're in and what's going on. Perhaps that changes going forward this season, but I've found myself confused at times as to WTF is going on.

Spoiler:

For example, I suspected that the older rich man living with those clones was Adrian Veidt, but if you haven't seen the film or read the graphic novels, how would you know who he is or why he matters? I don't know this yet, but I suspect he's on Mars in some sort of prison made by Dr. Manhattan (yet another character who hasn't been explained at all so far).

Silk Spectre makes an appearance in this last episode, but we still don't know who she is and why she matters to the story other than the fact that she loves big blue dildos shaped like her ex.

I'm not even getting into the police/7th Kavalry plot, or the identity of Angela Abar, or the man who hung the Sheriff. All of that is presumed to be part of the mystery that's meant to be fleshed out, and I'm fine with the pace there.

But everything surrounding that central plot has been confusing as hell, IMO.

[HaroldinGMinor]

It's a slow burn but you get everything you need. I didn't know any of the source material and pretty much knew what was up. Although I did read a short summary of the original graphic novel which may have helped.

[Iheartfootball]

I started Watchmen and I'm three episodes in. I'm not sure if I'll stick by it longterm. I don't think the show does a good job providing the exposition needed to understand what's going on. I've never read the graphic novels. I did see the film, but it was a while ago and while I recall the broad strokes I distinctly recall thinking that it was terrible. I know that this show is set in the aftermath of the events of the film, but it's clearly influenced by those events and I think the show has failed thus far to explain the world we're in and what's going on. Perhaps that changes going forward this season, but I've found myself confused at times as to WTF is going on.

Spoiler:

For example, I suspected that the older rich man living with those clones was Adrian Veidt, but if you haven't seen the film or read the graphic novels, how would you know who he is or why he matters? I don't know this yet, but I suspect he's on Mars in some sort of prison made by Dr. Manhattan (yet another character who hasn't been explained at all so far).

Silk Spectre makes an appearance in this last episode, but we still don't know who she is and why she matters to the story other than the fact that she loves big blue dildos shaped like her ex.

I'm not even getting into the police/7th Kavalry plot, or the identity of Angela Abar, or the man who hung the Sheriff. All of that is presumed to be part of the mystery that's meant to be fleshed out, and I'm fine with the pace there.

But everything surrounding that central plot has been confusing as hell, IMO.

Stick with it and you’ll be rewarded. I watched it having seen the movie ages ago and knowing nothing really about any of it. None of that is truly important. What is important is the subversive commentary on race, gender, sexuality, and politics. If you watch through that lens none of the comic stuff matters.

[MissKhriddleton]

The last 4 episodes or so before the finale are almost entirely exposition. I enjoyed the first half of the season much more.

[machu46]

Started typing up my thoughts on the new Star Wars trilogy as a whole and it turned into a very long post. I did include a TLDR at the beginning though

Spoiler:

TLDR: I think it was probably a mistake to make this trilogy at all; it seems that they simply didn't have an interesting story to tell, and even if they had one, it probably shouldn't have been confined to three movies, but I guess Star Wars = trilogies or something. A series of movies actually showing what the world is like after the Empire is defeated would have been interesting. Instead, they essentially opted to make a movie series in which the Empire wasn't actually defeated and everything was the same as we had left it in the Empire Strikes Back.

I like some of the ideas that came out of this trilogy. Namely:

1. The concept of Finn's character: a stormtrooper that sees the destruction that he's creating and switches sides to join the rebellion.

2. The idea introduced in TLJ that Rey was just a random person who happened to be strong in the force/the kid at the end that seemed to symbolize that any kid could theoretically be a Jedi.

3. The concept of Kylo's character: child of famous rebels going rogue (don't really care one way or the other if he's ultimately redeemed; I think both could have been interesting if done right).

The issue to me is that it was all executed poorly/rushed and ultimately created 1 unoriginal movie and 2 objectively poorly made movies (1 of which was so bad that it wasn't really even entertaining and 1 of which was still fun to watch despite being poorly made).

In an ideal world, I think this should have been spread out over many more movies.

For example, having Finn leave the FO after his opening scene was a mistake. We should have been introduced to him much slower; seeing his character actually develop over time to the point that he realized he was on the wrong side and then either become a spy from within or leave to join the rebels then.

With Kylo, his entire arc was rushed so much that the payoff basically didn't exist. They basically gave us one flashback to show him go bad; a movie series just about him being trained and gradually snapping would have been more interesting than what we ultimately got (though I suppose you could argue that's basically what the prequel trilogy tried to do and that obviously was poorly done too). Still, I think one flashback scene to explain him snapping and one 5 minute scene to explain him being a total good guy again was a very poor idea.

And regarding the idea that anyone could be a Jedi/Rey represented that, obviously JJ destroyed that with TRoS, but I think that was a very powerful idea that happened to be introduced within a terrible movie.

Beyond those things, Poe probably should have died in the first movie if he ever existed at all. Basically everything involving Poe in the trilogy was poorly done and he probably is part of the reason we didn't get to see a good character arc for the more interesting Finn idea.

There was just way too much involvement of the original trilogy's characters/ripping off of the original trilogy and it was often forced in ways that didn't make sense. This partially resulted in what is maybe my biggest complaint: there was essentially zero stakes in this trilogy. Nothing truly bad really ever happened. Kylo didn't win any fights until he became a good guy. Nobody important truly died; even Han, who should have been legitimately gone, was kept alive as a cheap memory. Chewie was literally blown up by Rey and then they were just like "just kidding, you never saw a second ship, but it definitely exists and that's the one that Chewie was on." They couldn't even let C3PO lose his memory. They couldn't let Poe's love interest that nobody even cared about die when her planet got blown to pieces. They showed us her giving Poe her only ticket off the planet and her refusing to leave and then it gets blown up shortly thereafter but she ended up getting off the planet in between.

They also introduced the ultimate bad guy of the entire trilogy via the opening scroll.

In ROTJ, the empire is defeated; the rebels won. TFA begins and basically that didn't actually happen; the empire is still running everything, just with a new name. The rebels are still trying to topple the empire, just with a new name. TRoS ends and the empire is defeated; the rebels won. How are we supposed to actually care? Is there any reason to believe this time, the empire is actually gone? Or will the next trilogy in the Skywalker saga just be like "Honestly, we thought this place was the only secret Sith planet, but there was actually another one and now Palpatine is a jar of goo sitting on that planet running The Second Last Order from there".

All in all, they just never really gave us a reason to care about these movies aside from the fact that it's Star Wars and we like Star Wars. I was still able to enjoy 2/3 movies but they were enjoyed from the angle of being a mindless action flick rather than being actual good movies.

[ReasonablySober]

The big issue with the last trilogy is Johnson gave way for a unique story that would have breathed new life into the franchise, and Abrams **** all over it. It bums me out to think of what we could have gotten with another Johnson film.

[machu46]

And on a non-Star Wars note: girlfriend and I are watching the final season of Mr. Robot. Just finished episode 6 and man, this last season has been awesome. Don't think it'll top Season 1, but this has been some amazing stuff.

[Bucksfan28]

Marriage Story is excellent. ScarJo and Driver acted their ass' off.

[humanrefutation]

The big issue with the last trilogy is Johnson gave way for a unique story that would have breathed new life into the franchise, and Abrams **** all over it. It bums me out to think of what we could have gotten with another Johnson film.

I think if this trilogy proved anything to me, it's that you can't have competing visions intermingling within a single story arc. You need to have one, unified story that builds through the trilogy. Whether you liked Johnson's vision or Abrams's vision, it makes no sense to have one guy directing 7 & 9 and another directing 8. Pick one and let them run with it. TLJ and ROS were failures in storytelling, IMO, because they gave little disregard for whatever plot was established in the previous film. Johnson stepped all over whatever plot was established in TFA, and that was made worse by Abrams doing the same to TLJ in ROS. There was no continuity.

If I had to pick one, I would have picked Johnson and let him run wild from Episode 7.

[Ill-yasova]

I started Watchmen and I'm three episodes in. I'm not sure if I'll stick by it longterm. I don't think the show does a good job providing the exposition needed to understand what's going on. I've never read the graphic novels. I did see the film, but it was a while ago and while I recall the broad strokes I distinctly recall thinking that it was terrible. I know that this show is set in the aftermath of the events of the film, but it's clearly influenced by those events and I think the show has failed thus far to explain the world we're in and what's going on. Perhaps that changes going forward this season, but I've found myself confused at times as to WTF is going on.

Spoiler:

For example, I suspected that the older rich man living with those clones was Adrian Veidt, but if you haven't seen the film or read the graphic novels, how would you know who he is or why he matters? I don't know this yet, but I suspect he's on Mars in some sort of prison made by Dr. Manhattan (yet another character who hasn't been explained at all so far).

Silk Spectre makes an appearance in this last episode, but we still don't know who she is and why she matters to the story other than the fact that she loves big blue dildos shaped like her ex.

I'm not even getting into the police/7th Kavalry plot, or the identity of Angela Abar, or the man who hung the Sheriff. All of that is presumed to be part of the mystery that's meant to be fleshed out, and I'm fine with the pace there.

But everything surrounding that central plot has been confusing as hell, IMO.

From what I’ve been told the show doesn’t really follow any of the source material, but definitely stick with it. The show just continues to pile crazy on top of crazy episode by episode. One of the best shows I saw last year.

[worthlessBucks]

The big issue with the last trilogy is Johnson gave way for a unique story that would have breathed new life into the franchise, and Abrams **** all over it. It bums me out to think of what we could have gotten with another Johnson film.

I think if this trilogy proved anything to me, it's that you can't have competing visions intermingling within a single story arc. You need to have one, unified story that builds through the trilogy. Whether you liked Johnson's vision or Abrams's vision, it makes no sense to have one guy directing 7 & 9 and another directing 8. Pick one and let them run with it. TLJ and ROS were failures in storytelling, IMO, because they gave little disregard for whatever plot was established in the previous film. Johnson stepped all over whatever plot was established in TFA, and that was made worse by Abrams doing the same to TLJ in ROS. There was no continuity.

If I had to pick one, I would have picked Johnson and let him run wild from Episode 7.

Yep. Sole purpose for even watching it for me was to see how the mess was going to be cleaned up or whatever. A child could have written a story arc over 3 films that made more sense than a multi billion dollar franchise did with professionals.

I think it's a great/beautiful thing to have different contributors to a series with different interpretations, but it's kind of critical and imperative to stick to the story and plot points setup from the first film and build something for the 3rd finale if you're writing the 2nd film. Failure isn't strong enough of a word for what took place in that regard for Rian. Just awful.

[wapith]

Started typing up my thoughts on the new Star Wars trilogy as a whole and it turned into a very long post. I did include a TLDR at the beginning though

Spoiler:

TLDR: I think it was probably a mistake to make this trilogy at all; it seems that they simply didn't have an interesting story to tell, and even if they had one, it probably shouldn't have been confined to three movies, but I guess Star Wars = trilogies or something. A series of movies actually showing what the world is like after the Empire is defeated would have been interesting. Instead, they essentially opted to make a movie series in which the Empire wasn't actually defeated and everything was the same as we had left it in the Empire Strikes Back.

I like some of the ideas that came out of this trilogy. Namely:

1. The concept of Finn's character: a stormtrooper that sees the destruction that he's creating and switches sides to join the rebellion.

2. The idea introduced in TLJ that Rey was just a random person who happened to be strong in the force/the kid at the end that seemed to symbolize that any kid could theoretically be a Jedi.

3. The concept of Kylo's character: child of famous rebels going rogue (don't really care one way or the other if he's ultimately redeemed; I think both could have been interesting if done right).

The issue to me is that it was all executed poorly/rushed and ultimately created 1 unoriginal movie and 2 objectively poorly made movies (1 of which was so bad that it wasn't really even entertaining and 1 of which was still fun to watch despite being poorly made).

In an ideal world, I think this should have been spread out over many more movies.

For example, having Finn leave the FO after his opening scene was a mistake. We should have been introduced to him much slower; seeing his character actually develop over time to the point that he realized he was on the wrong side and then either become a spy from within or leave to join the rebels then.

With Kylo, his entire arc was rushed so much that the payoff basically didn't exist. They basically gave us one flashback to show him go bad; a movie series just about him being trained and gradually snapping would have been more interesting than what we ultimately got (though I suppose you could argue that's basically what the prequel trilogy tried to do and that obviously was poorly done too). Still, I think one flashback scene to explain him snapping and one 5 minute scene to explain him being a total good guy again was a very poor idea.

And regarding the idea that anyone could be a Jedi/Rey represented that, obviously JJ destroyed that with TRoS, but I think that was a very powerful idea that happened to be introduced within a terrible movie.

Beyond those things, Poe probably should have died in the first movie if he ever existed at all. Basically everything involving Poe in the trilogy was poorly done and he probably is part of the reason we didn't get to see a good character arc for the more interesting Finn idea.

There was just way too much involvement of the original trilogy's characters/ripping off of the original trilogy and it was often forced in ways that didn't make sense. This partially resulted in what is maybe my biggest complaint: there was essentially zero stakes in this trilogy. Nothing truly bad really ever happened. Kylo didn't win any fights until he became a good guy. Nobody important truly died; even Han, who should have been legitimately gone, was kept alive as a cheap memory. Chewie was literally blown up by Rey and then they were just like "just kidding, you never saw a second ship, but it definitely exists and that's the one that Chewie was on." They couldn't even let C3PO lose his memory. They couldn't let Poe's love interest that nobody even cared about die when her planet got blown to pieces. They showed us her giving Poe her only ticket off the planet and her refusing to leave and then it gets blown up shortly thereafter but she ended up getting off the planet in between.

They also introduced the ultimate bad guy of the entire trilogy via the opening scroll.

In ROTJ, the empire is defeated; the rebels won. TFA begins and basically that didn't actually happen; the empire is still running everything, just with a new name. The rebels are still trying to topple the empire, just with a new name. TRoS ends and the empire is defeated; the rebels won. How are we supposed to actually care? Is there any reason to believe this time, the empire is actually gone? Or will the next trilogy in the Skywalker saga just be like "Honestly, we thought this place was the only secret Sith planet, but there was actually another one and now Palpatine is a jar of goo sitting on that planet running The Second Last Order from there".

All in all, they just never really gave us a reason to care about these movies aside from the fact that it's Star Wars and we like Star Wars. I was still able to enjoy 2/3 movies but they were enjoyed from the angle of being a mindless action flick rather than being actual good movies.

Good summary.

I’m completely out on this new trilogy. Don’t think I’ll ever have desire to rewatch. At least with the prequels there was an overarching cohesive story being told (amongst the horrible acting and dialogue).

[DavidDunn21]

The big issue with the last trilogy is Johnson gave way for a unique story that would have breathed new life into the franchise, and Abrams **** all over it. It bums me out to think of what we could have gotten with another Johnson film.

How do you see that ending? What message is conveyed?