Deadlines? What Deadlines?

It's on Netflix in Canada. ETA: So it did $400 million worldwide and there were still Covid restrictions in places and it had a same-day release on HBOMax (and presumably VOD in some regions where HBOMax was not available)? Dune part 2 is going to do a billion dollars at the box office. Calling it now.

Hell Yes. Yeaaaaaaaaas. Traumatize your children you bastards. These people rock BTW. I was a similar age to that young man when my dad took my brother and me to see Sharky’s Machine. I turned out fine.

Take a look at that list again. How many of the films ahead of it (in domestic gross) were non-sequels?* I count two. And, despite the advantage of having Ryan Reynolds’ and The Rock’s star power, both finished their domestic run within 10% of Dune**. ‘Might be relevant. ETA: Thank you for being gentle. Did it get a simultaneous release on HBOMax? That would definitely have an impact. Anyway, now that the first film has the benefit of awards recognition and a Netflix streaming release, I think Dune Pt 2 will do much better than Dune Pt 1. Maybe in a similar proportion as the first and second spider-verse films. Anecdotally, one of my nieces wants to see it. She hasn’t seen part 1 but she is reading the book. *The MCU films are all sequels at this point. That includes Black Widow and Shang Chi. ** Dune’s world wide box office exceeded Jungle Cruise and Freeguy.

What?!? An “old Jedi code” that apparently “checks out”? A thirty year old code?!? Maybe codes work differently in that galaxy, but with everything that’s happened since the fall of Coruscant, there are a multitude of ways someone could have gotten that code. Someone with obvious evil intent if they tried to use it to board a Republic ship. Even the idiot captain realizes this since he automatically decides the people sending it are imposters; but “what the hell let’s let them in anyway”. So, the plan apparently was: 1. Send ancient code 2. Hope that bullshit impresses the captain of the Republic ship so much he invites you on board to laugh at you about it. Nice. As far as Skoll’s aversion to taking life, he bent to it pretty fast once his weird plan started to go sideways, didn’t he? It didn’t look like he took much convincing to me. Hell, even Darth Vader would allow someone to “fail him” or “disappoint him” a few times before choking them out. You’re right about one thing: This is true; but it still needs to be credible. A ships captain, responsible for the safety of his ship and the lives of every soul on board, would not behave the way that guy did. Everything you describe as requirements for that scene could have been done without lobotomizing the Republic Captain.

As I recall there were similar complaints about the early episodes of Andor, but they were doing some necessary world building and the series finished strong. It’s possible to do “slow burn” and still have it be engaging. The first two episodes of Ashoka ain’t it. ETA: and I was a huge fan of Clone Wars.

Nah. That’s just a laser.

Such as? Blast your way on Board; pull an Oceans Eleven; pull a Mission Impossible; steal some Republic plumbers uniforms and tell them you’re there to install new low flow shower heads; ring the doorbell and ask for a cup of flour; formulate a plan to distract the bridge crew by staging a guy fucking a grizzly bear and sneak in when they aren’t looking… I could go on. The options are endless.

It might have something to do with these films having already been delayed due to the pandemic. Aside from Aquaman 2* what do they have? *that one’s been pushed back a few times already. Yeah, its going to flop anyway.

The more I think about it, the more I think the prologue to the first episode is kind of idiotic. Two “Jedi” show up out of the blue and ask to board their ship? The captain knows it’s bullshit but he decides to let them board anyway? It could have been a suicide bomber or the ramp could lower and a dozen storm troopers pour out and just start blasting*. Oh, and they happen to be transporting a high-value prisoner to trial? Nothing to worry about there. I realize the story required them to get on board and spring what’s her name but seriously? They couldn’t come up with something more clever than that? *yeah, I know they can’t hit jack shit anymore but come on. It’s not much better. The pacing is excruciating. ETA: I see that the tomatometer is still at 89% with an average critics score of 7.25/10. Is that based on the two episodes that have aired or did they receive screeners for the entire season? If it’s the former; this might be the most critically overrated show I’ve ever seen.

Dune was the first time I’d been to a theater post-2020. When I saw it the theaters in my area still had distancing protocols in place. A sold-out screening would have been 25% full.

On the bright side, because delays cost money, now that the strike has gone on long enough for that to happen, the studios will be more motivated to negotiate to end the strike. I honestly have no idea what’s happening on that front. I have my own job problems right now. I don’t need to add other peoples problems on top.

After one week, Blue Beetle is tracking below Shazam 2 domestically. The international picture is less clear but it doesn’t look much better. Unless it has above average legs (for a recent CBM), it may struggle to crack $100 million worldwide. Yikes. I never felt the hype for this film, but I still don’t like to see this.

You didn’t know? Oh gawd, “Don’t know what you got…” is probably still a regular slow dance number at school dances today. They still have school dances don’t they? It also costs them money to delay it. Interest alone will be a few million. Plus they have to retool their marketing campaign. Yeah, no way they’ll just put this out without it. Although I think part two will do a lot more than part 1.

Not what I meant. I'm just asking what are the odds?

Thanos had armored space whales. Although they might have been giant space eels or space maggots . I dunno. - I have seen and judged. The Good: Two episodes in and there hasn't even been a mention of Tattoine. Visually, this is the best thing they've done with SW in a while. Some good action sequences involving lightsabers and stuff. Chopper. The rest of the cast. The Bad: The lightsaber duel a the end of episode 1 was terrible . I'm having a hard time buying that the map malarkey isn't total hoo-ha. If it's all about Whale migration, why is it a cryptic map in an ancient temple? They don't have marine biologists in that galaxy? If it isn't, how does this ancient map know where the hell Thrawn is? As others have pointed out, galaxies are like, really, really big. This would actually be a trivial complaint except they dedicate a lot of time to that map in the first two episodes. It's been a while; did Thrawn have anything to do with the night sisters? Was Sabine force sensitive? Gods, the pacing. Tedious and stiff. Dare I say, "wooden?" Yeah. I do. Solid teak from top to bottom. I hate to say it, because this accusation gets tossed out way too casually, but there are moments where this feels a lot like a high quality fan film. At any rate, I'll probably finish watching this but I'm not going to knock myself out to catch the latest episode or avoid spoilers.

So, so much to unpack here. What are the odds? The number of people indicted over Jan 6 compared to the number of people who participated has to be vanishingly small. How many "Trans Jan 6 rioters" were there?

Ah, the go-go ‘80’s. You know Trump was all about that song for a few months back in 1984.

More and more, with what happened in Kansas and now Ohio, it's obvious that the discourse about reproductive rights and the reality are two different things. I suspect that there are quite a few Americans, particularly women, who might openly express anti abortion views, but privately support access to abortion services. Call it, "I'd rather have a gun and not need it..." crowd. Or maybe they're just like the brexit voters who voted to leave while thinking the referendum would fail. Remember when trump supporters were saying, "Oh, he'd never get rid of abortion"?

Yeah, about that.

I know right? The what's really weird is that his face is normal size.

I may have had something in my eye during that scene. By the time that one soldier crosses himself I was a screaming mound of blubber. Also because that scene comes at the end of an amazing long take where Clive Owen successfully navigates a forest of flying razor blades to get to that building. Amazing film.

No Hard Feelings: Pretty good. It reminded me a lot of Me Myself and Irene. The pacing was a little off in some places but I definitely laughed out loud more than once. Oh, and eat my ass, Viggo Mortensen.