Watch, Watched, Watching: From Scott Civil Wars to Christmas Movie Wars

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

42 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Yeah but then one of the things I hate most about the film is that, because it's playing silly buggers and hiding Talia behind pretty much every aspect of him, both his actions and his myth, he pretty much ends up being the exact same character as the Bane in Batman & Robin when you actually count it up. Almost the only part of the film where we know he's acting on his own character is his very last line. 

(that's a little hyperbolic by me, but honestly, not that much).

Idk, from what little I've read about the lore Bane is typically a super elite henchmen. If anything I thought they portrayed him pretty well, especially since the character is pretty silly in general. What I didn't get with TDKR is why the mask hurts him so much. Pretty much every other version shows him with a ton of tubes connected to it that indicates he needs it to live. In the film it's just a mask that maybe as some cartridges on it? 

Quote

It's also an excellent twist on Long Halloween, taking the vibe while changing every detail so it still functions as a mystery. 

All-time gutting way to end a great story. 

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Yeah but then one of the things I hate most about the film is that, because it's playing silly buggers and hiding Talia behind pretty much every aspect of him, both his actions and his myth, he pretty much ends up being the exact same character as the Bane in Batman & Robin when you actually count it up. Almost the only part of the film where we know he's acting on his own character is his very last line. 

And then motorcycle guns kill him. 

An infuriating ending to the character. The movie built up this dramatic role for Hardy, only to kill him in the most uninteresting way possible. "So we couldja just shot at him a lot?!"

*sigh*

[WarGalley]

47 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk, from what little I've read about the lore Bane is typically a super elite henchmen. If anything I thought they portrayed him pretty well, especially since the character is pretty silly in general. What I didn't get with TDKR is why the mask hurts him so much. Pretty much every other version shows him with a ton of tubes connected to it that indicates he needs it to live. In the film it's just a mask that maybe as some cartridges on it? 

All-time gutting way to end a great story. 

In the TDKR, Bane's mask provides a constant painkilling gas (due to some mysterious physical injury which he suffered in the Pit) which is supposed to explain why none of Bruce's blows in the initial fight seem to physically hurt him. Only till one of the pins in his mask comes loose in the final fight is when he begins to feel the effects of the fight. 

In the comics he injects himself with a highly addictive substance called Venom, which acts as substance which artificially increases his strength (and is basically the ultimate performance enhancing drug).

31 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

And then motorcycle guns kill him. 

An infuriating ending to the character. The movie built up this dramatic role for Hardy, only to kill him in the most uninteresting way possible. "So we couldja just shot at him a lot?!"

*sigh*

 

I believe that method of death was intentional. At that point, Bane is revealed to not be the mastermind behind everything and is literally Talia's bodyguard from childhood. So he's killed off like any other henchman.

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by WarGalley

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Idk, from what little I've read about the lore Bane is typically a super elite henchmen.

 

Nah, not even slightly. His whole thing is that he's 'the man who broke the Bat'. Came in from nowhere, took over Gotham's underworld, wore down Batman by sending villains at him, then broke his back. Other times he's been a sort of anti-villain, working with Batman to take down worse enemies and try to find his father, though obviously you couldn't introduce him like that. More recently he's apparently been back on his Bat-breaking horse in Tom King's run, but that was after TDKR came out so it couldn't influence it. Either way though, he usually works for himself, especially in his most iconic moments.

There is one run where he worked with Ra's, apparently, but even then he's set up as being Ra's heir and Talia's chosen husband, ie basically Ra's potential replacement for Batman. Haven't read that one, though. 

 

You might be thinking of his portrayal in Secret Six, I suppose, where he isn't always the leader of the group. 

[IlyaP]

20 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Nah, not even slightly. His whole thing is that he's 'the man who broke the Bat'. Came in from nowhere, took over Gotham's underworld, wore down Batman by sending villains at him, then broke his back. 

And that brought in the psycho Batman replacement Azrael, if memory serves, who was violent AF and a total loon? 

[KingAerys_II]

14 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Supposedly the original villain was supposed to be the son from clone wars. He kinda looks like Snoke if you squint a little. 

They shifted gears after TLJ. 

Everything is offensive, every movie should have "quotas", art is no longer the priority in Hollywood, that's why the quality of movies decreased.
The writers are hired according to their political ideologies, that's why they are developing "White Snow and the 7 magical creatures", it's not "Snow White and the 7 dwarfs", dwarf is an offensive word, the Prince is a stalker, and  Snow White is "the strong Indipendent woman" now.
Same thing they applied to Star Wars sequel, best female characters were created without following such standards,for example, Galadriel in The Hobbit and Lotr was actually stronger than Galadriel in Rings of Power, Galadriel in The Hobbit carried Gandalf, banished Sauron by using magic, Galadriel in Rings of Power is "the strong Indipendent woman" that is actually weaker

Edited December 19, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[polishgenius]

lmao sound the alarm we have a meninist. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

What’s White Snow ?

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, IlyaP said:

And that brought in the psycho Batman replacement Azrael, if memory serves, who was violent AF and a total loon? 

 

Anyway yeah. Quite interesting to me that at pretty much the same time you had both Superman and Batman out of action and replaced by a 90s Xtreem equivalent, but both explicitly with the purpose of basically taking the piss out of the 90s edge and showing that the original wasn't replaceable like that. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

24 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

What’s White Snow ?

Ermm... it's a medicinal powder applied to the nasal area via snorting for those suffering from allergies! 

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, KingAerys_II said:

Everything is offensive, every movie should have "quotas", art is no longer the priority in Hollywood, that's why the quality of movies decreased.

Sure, Jan.

[KingAerys_II]

18 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Sure, Jan.

I don't care very much, the fans are rejecting Disney and their political agenda, the movies became tools to spread a political message, I am sure the Snow White movie is gonna be a failure, the actress statements are delusional

Edited December 19, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[IlyaP]

18 minutes ago, KingAerys_II said:

I don't care very much, the fans are rejecting Disney and their political agenda, the movies became tools to spread a political message, I am sure the Snow White movie is gonna be a failure, the actress statements are delusional

Suuuuuuuure. Whatever. You do you, dude.

Edited December 19, 2023 by IlyaP

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, KingAerys_II said:

Everything is offensive, every movie should have "quotas", art is no longer the priority in Hollywood, that's why the quality of movies decreased.
The writers are hired according to their political ideologies, that's why they are developing "White Snow and the 7 magical creatures", it's not "White Snow and the 7 dwarfs", dwarf is an offensive word, the Prince is a stalker, and White Snow is "the strong Indipendent woman" now.
Same thing they applied to Star Wars sequel, best female characters were created without following such standards,for example, Galadriel in The Hobbit and Lotr was actually stronger than Galadriel in Rings of Power, Galadriel in The Hobbit carried Gandalf, banished Sauron by using magic, Galadriel in Rings of Power is "the strong Indipendent woman" that is actually weaker

Those are problems in the industry, but I don’t think it’s the reason why there is so much garbage around. It’s just contributing to the garbage. 
 

Rings of Power is just badly written, end of story. That it was beholden to ‘the message’ is only a small part of why it was so shit. 
 

Disney is now doing a huge u turn on the Snow White movie after the main actress put her foot in her mouth and came across like some smarmy social science student, and it is funny how she is now doing a repentance tour and acting like it never happened. Plus it looks like they will actually use CGI dwarves now, instead of DEI.. individuals!

Even if Hollywood / Disney  stops with all the political messaging and weird politicking, the movies will probably still be bad. 

[Veltigar]

I tore through the remaining episodes of Blue Eye Samurai. It's very good, though not quite on the same level as Arcane. I could pretty much copy-paste my review from the first three episodes, as I think it holds up rather well now that I have seen the whole thing.

Amazing animation, excellent action and good characters. One thing I didn't remark on is that it clearly loves Samurai films and much of its more ridiculous moments stem from an obsession with paying homage to those roots. Accepting it on those terms however, is not very hard. I have come around to the idea that while the star forged sword and magical flowers annoy me a bit, I still can enjoy the result a lot.

I think the show is better when it focuses on simpler, more realistic things but even outside of that, it's still a towering achievement. There are a lot of individual scenes  and story telling devices that I'd like to give a shoot out to

Spoiler

I was particularly struck by the effective use of dead birds. It's a very good metaphor, that worked both in the palace storyline, but even better during Mizu's assassination mission. Her killing of the mother bird, whose four eggs will now never hatch made me very sad.

I think the best episode featured the story of the Oryo and a bit more information on Mizu's back story. I was also very happy to see that 

Spoiler

Fowler did not die at the end of the season. Brannagh voice work was outstanding, and I enjoyed seeing the Irish equivalent of Fu Manchu on the screen. A bit of a silly idea for a character, but perhaps something the world needs after all those despotic, vaguely oriental villains strutting up and down our screens for so long.

Apart from the survival of Fowler, there wasn't much that was unpredictable. I knew Seki was slated for death, I also was pretty sure that the other white men on her hit list would be far away from Japan and as soon as Mizu discovered that her "mother" had survived the fire, I was sure she wasn't her actual birth mother.

I'm also already registering a prediction here. Mizu is half-Japanese, half-white and she's assuming that she's the daughter of any of the four white men (presumably one of the two we haven't seen yet) that were in Japan prior to her birth. I'm calling the fact that this is not true. One of the remaining men will probably have had a sister or wife with him and she's the daughter of that person and a Japanese father.

 

[3CityApache]

Quite strong opening of the second season of Reacher. I'm glad they greenlighted it for the next.

[KingAerys_II]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Those are problems in the industry, but I don’t think it’s the reason why there is so much garbage around. It’s just contributing to the garbage. 
 

Rings of Power is just badly written, end of story. That it was beholden to ‘the message’ is only a small part of why it was so shit. 
 

Disney is now doing a huge u turn on the Snow White movie after the main actress put her foot in her mouth and came across like some smarmy social science student, and it is funny how she is now doing a repentance tour and acting like it never happened. Plus it looks like they will actually use CGI dwarves now, instead of DEI.. individuals!

Even if Hollywood / Disney  stops with all the political messaging and weird politicking, the movies will probably still be bad. 

Actually Disney developed Ashoka that is very good, the remakes and live actions are very bad. 

There are tv series that are very good: The Boys, Gen V, Ashoka, the movies that were produced in the last years are not so good in general, not as good as Watchmen and the Dark Knight Rises 

Edited December 19, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[Heartofice]

30 minutes ago, KingAerys_II said:

The Boys, Gen V, Ashoka,

All 3 of these shows still include tropes and ideas that come from a pretty 'woke' left wing perspective. Even something as bloody and violent as The Boys is pretty political. And yet I still really like The Boys and Gen V, even if some of it is kind of eye rolling at times.

[polishgenius]

48 minutes ago, KingAerys_II said:

the movies that were produced in the last years are not so good in general, not as good as Watchmen and the Dark Knight Rises 

 

There have, in fact, been multiple movies in the last few years miles better than either of those movies. 

 

Last year we got Top Gun Maverick, RRR and Everything Everywhere All At Once in the space of like a month (well, RRR hit a bit earlier in India but the international release was May). 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Top Gun Maverick, RRR

You are not wrong, but these examples are not helping your point.