Heartofice

I think the point being made is of all of the Oxford 5, it's really only Jin who is shown to be 'smart', or at least comes across that way. It's her solving most of the problems during the show and she is the one doing the reasoning. The rest of the characters are mostly just wandering through the plot and dealing with their personal issues, or moaning about things. Jin couldn't be the one who was picked, but they could have given Saul more during the season to demonstrate that he is actually a smart dude, that he is able to think about things and there is a sort of reason why he might be picked.

Bruno also being the last man in defence later in the game just shows the way he's playing the game. I'm sure United fans have a better idea of what to make of him, but personally he doesn't seem to be an overall positive to the team. I get that he is highly skilled, and does at least try, but he doesn't have discipline and does too much. I also don't know how much his emotionality is useful.

I can very much imagine a version of the show where that character comes across as smart, but with some personal issues and not an obvious choice, but also not a totally unbelievable one. I think it's an issue with the way the show has spent it's time. I didn't get a sense that any of the Oxford 5 were especially smart or good at their jobs, despite the show telling me. It's partly that they spend so much time just doing interpersonal stuff, talking about relationships, sitting around taking drugs or drinking. It's also the language they use I think, which I would describe as 'TV Sitcom' language. They don't talk like smart people, they don't act like smart people, and they don't look like smart people either. They look and act like people acting in a show. I don't know what it's like in the books, but it very much feels like a D&D thing. A desire to make characters relatable and more 'human' just makes them bland and cut out tv tropes.

United are so terrible, but are somehow in 6th. It makes so little sense. Bruno's goal kind of sums it up, the whole side has no plan or cohesion but they have a handful of very gifted players who just seem to pull the team out of a hole. It just happens so often it's infuriating.

The problem is show don't tell. He is described as very smart, but acts like some layabout stoner who barely says an intelligent thing the entire show. So when he gets picked it's almost as if they just chose some guy off the street with no skills whatsoever. Yes the show highlights that he is this wildcard choice that doesn't make a ton of sense, but it seems very extreme because of the way they have depicted him the entire time.

Don’t think Marvels is anywhere near as bad as it was purported to be, but it’s not good. Really, it’s got everything I would expect in a modern blockbuster: - A chaotic, irrelevant plot that has no impact - A bunch of storylines that go nowhere and compete for time - Some over stuffed CGI fueled action scenes that you barely care about. - Everything is played for laughs, rarely actually funny. A lot of it is lowest common denominator style humour your mum might chuckle along to. It doesn’t stand out as especially bad I think, because the bar is so damn low these days. If this has come out after Winter Soldier I’d be gobsmacked at how awful it is. But now? It’s not exceptional at all. Then, the other point. If this was a phase 1 or 2 movie, it might be able to get away with being shit because it was a building block to a much bigger, better Avengers movie. But in some ways, The Marvels IS the big movie that was being built up to. It’s the culmination of 2 not great tv shows ( 3 if you count Secret Invasion) and a not great movie. Those were these setting this up. That if anything is highlighting the issue Marvel have.

BBC must be compromised by ‘vested interests’

Dawkins says he likes some of the cultural artifacts that Christianity produced such as cathedrals and art, plus I guess some of the philosophical and cultural influences on general western society. I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong in anything he said. He’s also been consistent in this opinion for decades.

If anyone asked me 'Hey what's it like to live in the UK?' I'd just show them this.

Yeah, I'm sure that is true, but it also kind of misunderstands one of the greatest pulls of the MCU was that it was all tying together and it rewards viewers who can 'do their homework'. I'm sure Disney execs were looking at numbers and charts and seeing all this untapped potential of people who don't normally go to watch Marvel movies and were thinking about how they can pull those people in. Which misses the point, because if you lose your core audience, and don't really manage to bring in a new audience, then you are going to lose out.

Good post. I think it just shows that the real issues plaguing the MCU are more strategic and coming from a higher level, and this all just feeds down into making worse movies as well. The Multiverse concept was just a bad choice on a number of different levels, but primarily I think because it removes any sense of continuity within the MCU, which was actually maybe its greatest strength. If nothing that happens actually matters then why bother even watching it. Where audiences might go see a 3/5 movie simply because it all ties into the big picture before, now all they have is isolated 3/5 movies. I looks like business decisions overrode creative ones somewhere. Multiverses allow for more content, they make it easier to tie in concepts and characters owned by other studios, they give you an out if you kill off a popular character. Doesn’t mean that’s what people want to see though.

Must be those mysterious ‘vested interests’ we keep hearing about

No, he said a different universe.

Yeah I should have added ‘people won’t go watch a superhero movie just because it’s a superhero movie ANY MORE’

Yes.

They were often works of art on their own! It was one of the things I used to really look forward to when opening a game, that and the map. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Lucasfilm games) had an amazing notebook that comes with it. On a side note, I used to keep my Baldurs Gate 2 guide book that I bought and I would just randomly read bits of it for fun, reading through character bios and stuff was really interesting. I probably read it more than I played the game.

Apparently its a viable option but I'm not quite getting the best way to use him. I've tried a barbarian build and that has a lot of quite amusing dialogue options. Just being able to grunt and growl at people at every opportunity is a lot of fun.

I respec'd Wyll as a Level 4 (maybe 3) Warlock and the rest of his levels into fighter. Just so I could get Pact of the Blade and then have him whip his Rapier around. He just feels completely underwhelming like this however, the amount of damage he does is minimal even with a decent weapon. Of course could go full Warlock with him but seems kind of out of character given the way he enters the game.

Having seen the Leslie Neilsen 'RePossessed' movie about 10 times before watching The Exorcist, I mainly found it quite funny.. but not funny enough

There are some games where Achievements give you a bit of direction for other stuff you can do in a game. Lots of strategy or open world games, I quite like them because I might go play as a different faction or try and do something I wouldn't normally bother doing. Certainly would never be a completionist about any of it though

If I was to base my expectations of where this show is going purely on what I've seen from the show itself. I think I might be pretty unexcited. I wouldn't be very interested in more of the same. However from things I've seen from book readers, it is very likely to much different, which is maybe the only thing holding my curiosity. I think they should have done something like a trailer for season 2 at the back end of the show, even if they haven't filmed any of it yet, just to raise expectations. As it was, the final scene was quite meh.

Sure, I don't doubt it will be important, it just seemed to drag and seemed to be more concerned with some dull love triangle story.

Well after finishing season one the best I can say about the show is that I'm 'mildly' curious about what happens next but I would not be too sad if they never made a second season. The main bulk of the story is unfortunately bogged down by elements that don't add a lot. The whole plot about the dying guy moping after a girl and will they /won't they put his head in a jar seemed to go on forever and wasn't helping the story. The season ended with a bit of a 'was that it?!' feeling as well, it just kind of petered out. From what I can tell the story is about to get a lot bigger and more interesting, but there was little hint of that from this season. Haven't read the book, so can't really comment on how well D&D adapted it, but it does feel like they have their mucky fingerprints all over it.

To be fair to Peltz, all he said was "Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?". He even says you could make a Marvels movie! He doesn't seem to be suggesting you don't make Marvels or Black Panther movies, only that you don't have to make them in the way you made them.

There are enough comic book movies that are still doing well (Spiderverse, Guardians, Spiderman) to show that if you make something people want to see then they will go and see it. Where it's falling down is just than we've been handed an avalanche of shit and mediocrity recently, and just because a movie features a superhero isn't going to be enough to get people to part with their money. If you just look at the roll call of recent comic book movies it's not hard to see where the problem is.