#and i have hopes that if they fuck up the storytelling in the spinoff

[the--sound--of--rain]

The costume department of La Casa de Papel doesn't get enough credit.

[ltleflrt]

I’m disappointed they didn’t even mention Cas. 

Now here’s the thing. I didn’t think spnwin was Going Destiel. I haven’t thought so at all from the very beginning.  I’m not surprised there’s no Cas, I’m not surprised there’s no mention of Cas, and I 110% agree with the positive fandom takes floating around that it wouldn’t have given us a fleshed out reunion scene, which is what we Hellers really want.  Tho, I wouldn’t have minded seeing them together, and then getting the reunion in another season or spinoff.  There’s room for things to happen out of order.  We’ve got time and universe travel, so linear storytelling is kinda boring when you’re playing with those tools.

But the thing is, I didn’t want The Winchesters.  I hated John, I didn’t care about Mary, and I didn’t see how this prequel could heal the still open wound that 15x20 left me with.  But I gave it a chance, and I really love it!  I have learned to like John and care about Mary, or at least this version of them, and there’s so many more characters outside of them that I have fallen in love with.  I even really like how season 1 wrapped up!  It was well done, and not just because of Dean’s presence.  This whole season has been a romp, and the finale was no different.  And I really really really want more seasons!  Just for more stories about the Winchester Gang.

But it didn’t do anything to make me feel better about 15x20.  In fact it made me feel even more upset about it.  And unlike many lucky people in fandom, I can’t pretend the finale didn’t happen.  Which means that I can’t rewatch SPN anymore.  For the better part of a decade, I watched the show on repeat.  It was the background noise of my life.  I cross stitched with it playing in the background, I cooked and cleaned with it playing in the background, I wrote fanfiction with it playing in the background.  I can’t do that anymore.  I tried to rewatch it in 2021, and I just kept getting angry.  I was losing sleep over it because I was so angry all the time.  And the only way I could stop being angry was to never watch it again.

I miss it so fucking much.

But even watching one episode a few months back caused me 4 days of depression and lost sleep, even though it was one of my favorites.  I cannot watch SPN again while 15x20 affects me like this.

And I was hoping The Winchesters would give me something to help.  It didn’t. And I don’t resent that, because I understand that the season was short, Misha was busy, Jensen’s really hoping to do more someday.  But the thing is...he may not get to.  There may not be a S2.  There may not be a reboot mini series.  This may be all we get.  And so I’m sad, because if there’s no more, then I may never be able to rewatch SPN again.

I’m depressed as fuck about it today, and I can feel the underlying rage coming back, and I already popped awake at 3am and lost sleep over how easy it could have been to include Cas in 15x20 or to mention him in 01x13. 

I’m going to bury myself in Dragon Age for a while.

See y’all next week for GK.

[skaruresonic]

https://www.tumblr.com/skaruresonic/750363540604469248/pinches-bridge-of-nose-why-do-i-feel-like-the?source=share

"crowd cherrypicks isolated moments, misconstrues them, and neglects the larger contextual framework in which those moments are nestled"

This applies to the entire sonic fandom at this point. All they care about is having fuel for their nonsensical headcanons and projections.

Honestly hard-pressed to think of another fandom that acts this disdainful toward the source material. While "fuck canon" has always been a common attitude, it just feels like some folks really have to refrain from outright sneering at the games.

I guess I've seen hints of similar attitudes crop up here and there whenever game remakes drop, mostly because folks seem to think old games = bad games. But for some reason, Sonic has it particularly bad.

Maybe... virulent HLVRAI fans when they're screeching about how Freemance is pedophilia, but everybody knew those guys were bad-faith actors to begin with. They weren't given the microphone. They were gently reminded to keep canon and common sense in mind, and when that failed, laughed at.

Well, until they started reporting people and caused the old guard to disperse elsewhere, because antis ruin everything.

And hell, at least some HLVRAI uber-stans are open about their hatred of the source material. Sonic fans hide behind a pseudo-intellectual veneer and moral superiority. Sonic has always been inconsistent, they say, as if that even means anything. Shadow is horrible now because of Sega mandates. You are not a good person if you disagree with IDW!Sonic's principles. These things are irrefutable fact even though I refuse to supply sources for my claims.

You see how insufferable that attitude gets when you're marinating in it? It's absolutely draining. It's like they've internalized the public's overall sentiments of "Sonic isn't cool" and are now trying to ingratiate themselves to the mainstream by turning Sonic into something they hope won't make the fandom into a laughingstock.

The harsh truth is, the series always has and always will be a laughingstock in the eyes of the public, simply because this is Sonic we're talking about. There are always gonna be non-fan asshats going "lol you like talking about a cartoon blue hedgehog? #cringe." You're playing a losing game by giving their views any consideration to begin with. You have got to stop playing respectability politics if you want peace of mind in this place. Be cringe, be free.

With the games, the nature of the mockery is subtly insidious. You don't really notice it at first, but it lies in the things people keep saying as though they're self-evident. Even the most basic tenets of storytelling get mocked simply on the basis of Sonic games using them. Sonic is a static character who does not change, but instead inspires others to change for the better? Bad, somehow. Eggman is the main villain? Yawn. The heroes reacting to the threat instead of being "proactive," whatever that means? A mark of poor storytelling.

But then you ask why, precisely, it's bad, and it all dissolves into white noise, which tells you that folks kind of haven't thought it through beyond some nebulous notion of "Sonic Bad."

I'm not going to sit here and pretend the series is exempt from criticism. Nothing is perfect, after all. By the same token, however, I'm not going to engage with you if the entire linchpin of your worldview rests on Sonic Bad. We're just not going to see eye-to-eye no matter what. It's as though folks take the series for granted, quite frankly. Social media is really sensitive about treating the spinoffs as though they're glass-delicate, saying "Sonic is Sonic" up until the moment we talk about the games or vtuber Sonic. All of a sudden, you don't see people walking on eggshells anymore. Instead, they take every chance they get to slag off the games, sometimes to the point of xenophobia against ST. And I can't help but think familiarity breeds contempt. Spinoffs only last a little while and become immortalized through the lens of nostalgia. The games, on the other hand, are the series' only constant. Quotidian, almost. It's easy to take them for granted. (That is, when the games aren't being used as a tool of convenience in "you can't criticize IDW / Prime because they're canon to the games, shut up"-tier arguments. The games only matter inasmuch as the validity they confer on other media.)

This behavior is enabled in part by Sega's lack of backbone. Fans say jump, Sega says how high. The problem with that is ST are going to eventually hit a wall where they literally cannot make Sonic into what the fans want because that would be tantamount to making Sonic something it's not.

I think we're already seeing it now with Shadow, actually. SxS Gens strikes me as ST throwing up their hands like "Fuck it, we don't know what you want from us, have more of this thing you used to like back when you didn't hate Shadow and us."

Anyway, my point is we know the games are going strong. Like it or not, they've always been popular, and because they take it for granted, folks feel freer to tear them to shreds than other media. When they say "Sonic is a multimedia franchise," it comes across like the blogger doth protest too much.

The really sad part is that ingratiation will fail too. Turning Sonic into something decidedly "less Japanese," less game-y, less ST-flavored, less whatever discourse buzzword du jour is not going to change the public's mind, either.

People who think Sonic is cringe won't care if Archie Sonic is "deeper" than Games!Sonic. They give exactly zero damns that IDW Sonic shows his enemies mercy or that Prime!Sonic is your funny little blorbo. To them, all Sonics are worth mocking.

[my-mt-heart]

Caryl, and Carylers, Are Stuck In Limbo

Putting a warning right up top because some of the things I get into later might be triggering to those who have struggled with mental/emotional health. Please don’t feel obligated to read that part or any of this if it’s too difficult. 

I could easily turn this into a “positivity” post, focusing on all of the romantic implications of Daryl’s and Carol’s scenes in the finale. Like Daryl’s eyes being glued to Carol when she says what a beautiful day it is, how Judith’s final words of advice to Daryl imply that his happiness is with Carol, how Daryl’s “I love you” marks a new milestone not just for their relationship, but for a “man of few words” like Daryl Dixon, how Carol’s “I love you” intentionally tries to remove the gravity of those three words in order to lessen the agony of their goodbye, and how the open-endedness of it leaves room for more stories for them in the future. 

I would love nothing more than to focus on all of that, it’s what I’m most comfortable doing, but that would mean overlooking a massive issue that impacts these characters’ alleged future and impacts the fanbase and that feels like a great disservice. If it makes me a negative nancy or whatever we’re calling that subset of Caryl fans, then that’s that. For the record, I hate that we’ve fostered this culture where our thoughts have to exist in a binary. Why can’t my thoughts be nuanced? Why can’t I give credit where credit is due and think critically about other things? Does it mean I don’t really love the show or its characters? It feels like someone associated with the show might be perpetuating that way of thinking, but I’ll get into that soon. 

Like I already mentioned, my biggest gripe with the finale is the lack of emotional realism for the characters in terms of the paths they’re taking. There have been no clues, none whatsoever, that Daryl’s “ready to move on” or that Carol had any desire to take over for Hornsby. It retcons years of some of the most beautiful character development I’ve ever seen, and fuck, it even retcons the retcons from just this season alone. How do you justify Daryl deciding to leave Judith after he’s become a “daddy” to her? How do you justify Daryl deciding to leave Carol after he tried so hard to stop her from running away? I see no effort whatsoever to make it even remotely believable. They were just forced to take several steps backward, getting trapped in narrative limbo, doomed to repeat the same storylines we saw in S9/S10C where Carol has to play pretend for the good of everyone else around her and Daryl has to be on his own, struggling to find where he belongs. After 11 seasons, the characters and the audience have earned some relief, and what we’re all stuck with is just more heartbreak and anxiety. Why? Because AMC needs to service a spinoff that has never and still does not make any narrative sense. That’s all it is, character integrity be damned. 

I’m not trying to rob anyone of the hope they might have for more Caryl stories down the line. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with hoping, and we do deserve those stories, but we don’t have anything official. Vague promises from actors and EPs don’t carry much weight because at the end of the day, their goal is to try to get us hooked on what they’re selling, and if they can’t do that with good storytelling, the only thing that really matters, they’ll resort to marketing ploys. So, I think it’s important to be skeptical and to use our wallets to remind AMC that we’re skeptical. Otherwise, we’re only giving them permission to keep stringing us along indefinitely, to deny us the stories we really want because they expect us to settle for less than what’s been earned.  

Think about the shortcuts taken in S11 and the regressions in the finale. If you think that can be chalked up to Kang’s and her writers’ “incompetence,” then I’d also encourage you to consider everything we’ve been told about le Daryl so far. Castles, and nightclubs, and endless epic-ness, oh my. But if Gimple has CRM brain, Zabel has never worked on a TWD show before, McDermott is focused on setting a different tone, and Norman needs Daryl to be the unattached, badass hero, then who’s monitoring the character arcs so that if Caryl fans were to watch, we feel welcome to the story, like we’re still with the character we’ve known and loved for 12 years even as he navigates new challenges? Who’s double checking that his relationship with Carol is still being respected? If Daryl’s in a similar headspace as 10C, does that mean we’re in for another Leah-esque arc? More ship baiting? 

I don’t agree with other fans that Norman bears *all* the responsibility for what happened to our promised Caryl spinoff, but it does upset me to see this disdainful attitude about Caryl fans, who are also his/Daryl’s fans, expressed over and over again as if 1) we need to be guilted or shamed into watching his show and 2) we don’t meet his criteria for what constitutes a fan. But for all the offense he seems to take that we don’t just accept this show without Carol or take him at his word that Caryl will meet down the road at some unknown point in time, we the Caryl fans, again that’s Carol AND Daryl fans, don’t feel listened to and we don’t feel reassured. 

My job teaches me to see the unglamorous side of television, but engaging in fandom has taught me something just as valuable, which is the human side. No, actors shouldn’t be bullied. I’ve been very adamant about that. What needs more emphasis though is how the fans are treated in return. They’re numbers to the network, but to me they’re real people who for one reason or another found something meaningful in following these two characters throughout their journey together, and they don’t deserve to be exploited for their viewership. They don’t deserve to have, what is for some, their only source of comfort in life ripped away so more privileged individuals can live out whatever dreams they have for themselves. I’m not singling out Norman, but he says he doesn’t like all of the “whining.” You know what I don’t like? *Putting out that trigger warning again.* I don’t like people in my DM’s sharing stories of severe anxiety, depression, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts because they lost something special to them, because they feel rejected by a show they love or an actor they admire. To many, it is not “just a TV show” and I think anyone who turns their passion for film/TV into a career should be able to empathize with that.  

Emotional and financial investment in Carol’s AND Daryl’s story is a completely valid reason for skepticism and “protests.” I’ve seen people argue that creators don’t owe their audience anything and it’s their story to tell, and while some shows certainly set a poor example, that’s actually not how things are supposed to work. If you’re making a TV show, you do so with your audience in mind. If you spend twelve years utilizing the amazing chemistry between two actors to build a meaningful relationship like no other, you honor that story and in doing so, you honor the millions of people who enable you to tell that story in the first place. Theoretically, the people who work on your favorite show should take satisfaction in giving you something you’ll love. I’m happy to say that’s been my experience so far as a writer in the industry. 

And as a woman in the industry, I can’t not take it personally if I have reason to suspect sexist/misogynistic practices are hindering some of the most talented and hard working among us, the ones who are needed both on and offscreen to create content that resonates with a diverse audience. It’s been encouraging to see so many others take it just as seriously, I imagine because so many others are also women and have had to battle sexism in their own lives. It’s not painting anyone as a victim or minimizing their agency. It’s just offering support. Women helping women.  

We’ve been called crazy, unhinged, conspiracy theorists, and feminists for raising these concerns and sure, we have blind spots. Yes, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. But overall, I don’t believe fans have anything to feel bad about. When all of this started,  AMC didn’t seem to think Carol matched Daryl in popularity, and we’ve been trying to push them to realize that isn’t true, that in fact, she is vital in her own right as well as to Daryl’s story. I don’t like to make assumptions about people I don’t know, but even if we got some things wrong, I can’t imagine Melissa would begrudge the overwhelming amount of love and appreciation she’s been shown, and I hope there isn’t a doubt in her mind how much her portrayal of Carol means to us. The whole point of rallying in her name was not to pressure her into something she didn’t want to do or invade her privacy. It was to make absolutely sure she has the power to choose what she wants for her character’s future. 

I will be beyond thrilled if I have to put my foot in my mouth like Norman said. I’ll put all the “foots” in my mouth because more than anything, I want Carol and Daryl to reunite and finish their story the way they should. But if it’s true my viewership is valued, show me, don’t tell me. In the meantime, I will not relax and I will not chill. I’m going to be upset about what I’ve been left with, which is the absolute last thing I wanted for both of my favorite characters. 

Like I said, my blog is still here. My inbox is open. 

[pastelwitchling]

I cried myself to sleep last night, so that’s the kind of season we’ve got, people. Beware going in, I skipped every scene that didn’t have Michael, and a few of Maria’s for one reason I’ll list below, in my thoughts on 4x07.

I have nothing to say on Liz and Max since I skipped all of their scenes, along the scenes with Isobel and Dallas. I just don’t care, I really don’t. I just want Alex.

By the way, side note, when you have a “Last time on Roswell New Mexico” that takes forever because it’s diving into a million subplots that don’t need to be there, excluding even more subplots by the way, you have a problem.

We were robbed. That title was just intentionally tricking us, wasn’t it? To call an episode Dig Me Out when you knew the fandom would be demanding Alex to near-protest degrees by now is an intentional attempt to trick us into thinking that Michael at least would know by now, if not having Alex himself in the episode. Instead, who do we get discovering it?

The one fucking person we want as far away from Alex as possible.

And that’s why I didn’t skip her scenes . . . near the end. See, I went into the episode knowing full well that Maria, Liz, and Dallas would end up knowing about Alex being gone at the end, so while I was able to watch a second or two of the rest of Maria’s scenes (before I just couldn’t take anymore the fact that they were actually having Alex reach out to her of all people and ended up skipping since she assumed it was just her mother anyway), I ended up watching the one at the end.

I’ll get to that particular scene more and why it made me cry in a second, though I should think the reason’s obvious. But for now, I just. I’m. I am so sick of watching The Maria Show. It’s bad enough so much of season 3 focused on her, but now we get her involved with Alex’s storyline so that I’m obligated to sit through her scenes, and when I tell you the mere sight of her, after everything she’s done, makes my heart clench in the most painful, miserable way, believe me I’m not exaggerating. This character might just give me cancer, I loathe her that much.

The problem, however, is also the fact that I just want Alex back so bad, and I want someone to finally notice he’s gone, that I will take whatever I get at this point. The promo for next episode shows that Michael finally finds out, and I just hope it’s at the beginning. By the gods, we deserve that much by now.

I understand Tyler had to miss a few more episodes than usual (it’s only been two more episodes that he’s missed than his usual three, but it feels like an eternity, which really emphasizes how much he carries this show on his back and that’s probably why he had back problems), but it’s not hard to show Michael missing him when he’s not there. Show him bored, less in the mood to make jokes, too tired and busy missing Alex to be his usual snarky self, and have other characters notice and acknowledge that.

Quick mention that I did watch Dallas’s scene with Bonnie and Clyde there at the end, and, aside from liking Clyde and Bonnie together and wanting them together, I just love Dallas so much, and he’s so wonderful, and give him and Malex their own spinoff please, the three of them the center of the show the way Sam, Dean, and Cas were the center of Supernatural. Mostly Sam and Dean, but you get the point.

Now. That scene at the end. I know Alex isn’t dead. I know they wouldn’t do that. But just hearing the words, and after not having Michael even openly or privately miss him, and finally having her, of all people, find out he was gone, to then hear Liz ask if Alex was dead, too, it makes me cry now as I write this. The very words terrify me to my core, and I just really, after everything they’ve put us through, did not appreciate it.

This isn’t suspenseful storytelling, this is completely ignoring a most-beloved character when it would only make more sense to acknowledge him when he’s not there, and then throwing in a twist by the character that has wronged him the most, in unspeakable ways, all for the sake of shock value, and so that they could show off how “tolerant” they are by having Maria be the center, even though, instead of ever giving her a proper redemption arc, which they could’ve done this season, they instead try to trick the audience once again into thinking she never did anything wrong and that anyone is lucky to have her attention. I’d rather be branded, thanks.

But again, I’ll take what I can get at this point. My sole hope in terms of Maria’s involvement in Alex’s storyline is that it ends before the next episode does. I hope they just have her there to prove to Michael that Alex is missing and that it’s not because he’s dead (seriously rnm writers, you think it’s clever writing to make your audience cry more because they’re upset at the way the character’s treated than because the story itself earned those tears?), and then make her go away.

Finally, Michael. I get that going home was something he’s wanted since he was a kid, but he’s said several times already in the past four seasons that Alex is his home. Yet the dialogue comes off like he’s not even missing Alex and that he’s really not torn up at all about leaving him. I know that’s not the case, and thanks to Vlamis, we know that Michael isn’t Michael without Alex, but for the love of Poseidon, they need to show us that! I’ve watched the promo a hundred times by now just to rewind Michael finding out about Alex, and I hope that Michael not only finds out in the beginning of the episode and goes feral so that we could have as much of that as we are owed, but that Michael realizes that the idea of Alex being in danger tips the scales all the way so there’s no longer a choice between leaving and staying with Alex.

And you know the most tragic part of all of this? If I had known the pain this show would cause me--not like Merlin, that causes pain because it yanks on all the right heartstrings--but because I would get a hero that I haven’t loved this much since Harry Potter himself (who, by the way, Tyler himself said Alex was the Harry Potter of Roswell New Mexico and that is the best description that will ever be), and see the way he’s been so blatantly disrespected, I would still do this crap all over again, if only to have Alex Manes and malex in my life. For Alex and malex, I hope and plea to the gods that the next six episodes make up for the past five. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got.

[animebw]

Short Reflection: RWBY Ice Queendom

Can we just stop for a moment and appreciate how fucking insane it is that RWBY is an actual anime now?

It’s hard to remember a decade out from its premiere, but when RWBY first arrived on the scene, it was a very weird, very niche property. It was a an amateur passion project from the guys who made the funny Halo webseries, many of whom had little to no experience on a full-fledged original animated series like that. The writing was subpar, the actors were all pretty inexperienced, even the animation was pretty ramshackle outside the incredible fight scenes. But not only did RWBY persist, it grew. It improved on itself every season with better production values and storytelling, accomplishing things that never seemed possible in its early, rudimentary days. And as it grew in quality, it likewise grew in popularity, blossoming from a niche web property into one of the defining series of the modern animation landscape. And after ten years, it’s become so goddamn huge that it’s managed to snag an honest-to-god anime spinoff with some of the biggest names in the business working on it. Really, stop and think about that: Monty Oum’s love letter to anime has become such a huge success that it’s now being worked on by Gen fucking Urobuchi. Okay, yeah, Urobuchi just came up with the story concept, but still. Imagine telling anyone back in 2012 that the guy who wrote Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica, and Psycho-Pass would someday put his hands on RWBY. Wherever Monty is now, I hope he’s proud of how far his baby has come.

And to Ice Queendom’s credit, it starts from a very strong premise: what if we took one of the worst, most half-baked parts of early RWBY- namely, Weiss’ two-episode dalliance with racism- and flesh it so it actually works? The Faunus racism subplot has never been the show’s strongest aspect, something that even its creators have acknowledged. So if you’re gonna do a semi-canonical spinoff, choosing to go back and do that subplot’s initiation over is about as good an idea as I can come up with. The main issue with volume 1′s finale is how rushed the introduction and resolution of Weiss’ racism is. It’s brought up with no build-up, it’s so hilariously over-the-top that it’s impossible to take seriously, and in one of the single stupidest writing decisions I’ve ever seen, she just gets over it off-screen and it’s never brought up again. It’s not the worst RWBY has ever been (*glares menacingly at Jaunedine*), but it’s definitely up there, and it sets the stage for how awkward the whole Faunus plotline is doomed to remain going forward. If you’re gonna flesh out and re-work any part of RWBY, I can’t think of a better option than this.

So after a three-episode recap of volume 1, compressing events for time and sprinkling in new details that will form the basis of its plot, Ice Queendom launches into a good old-fashioned dream invasion arc. Weiss is attacked by a Grimm that traps her in a nightmare, and the rest of her team has to travel into that nightmare to set her free. But it’s easier said than done, because this nightmare preys on its victim’s worst impulses, bringing their darkest fears about themselves to the forefront until they consume them. And that means Dream Weiss isn’t just a passive prisoner of her own dream: she’s the dictator of it. She’s every bit the cold, ruthless authoritarian that her family wants her to be, indifferent to the suffering of her kingdom and closed off from the people she truly cares about. It’s all of Weiss’ worst qualities made manifest, exaggerated and twisted and very much not solved by an off-screen decision. Which is actually helped by that reader’s digest of volume 1 I mentioned: with just a few key details tweaked, it’s made powerfully clear that even after resolving things with Blake, Weiss is nowhere near free from his demons. And if those demons aren’t gonna let her go on their own, then her friends are just gonna have to beat them out of her with the power of friendship. Because if RWBY’s gonna go full anime, it might as well go full goddamn anime.

As a premise, this is everything I could want. Sure, the volume 1 recap isn’t perfect, and it’s far from a perfect way to start things off. It cuts too much out to be welcoming for newcomers, and this show is clearly not aiming to be anyone’s introduction to RWBY. But it also doesn’t really change enough to be interesting to established fans beyond seeing their favorite volume 1 moments realized in classic 2D animation (which, to be clear, is pretty fun on its own; the Nevermore fight is basically unimpeachable). Once Ice Queendom branches into its own story, though, it’s a damn good time. It’s clear how much love the creators of this show have for RWBY, and how well they understand Weiss’ character in particular. Even in the smaller details of the dream, like the different ways Weiss’ family members are portrayed, you can tell the people making this show are as much fans as anyone watching it. And if the only reason for IQ to exist at all was providing a more satisfying conflict and resolution to the Weiss Racism subplot, then I’d say mission accomplished. I won’t spoil how things play out, but while it isn’t perfect, it sticks the landing where it needs to and makes this part of RWBY stronger. That, if nothing else, is cause for celebration.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before some pretty significant problems start to crop up.

The first, and most obvious, issue is the animation. Shaft’s glory days as a studio are well behind them (cries in Sangatsu season 3 never), and after a mostly solid opening stretch of episodes, the animation really starts coming apart at the seams. So many awkward, unfinished cuts, off-model characters, sloppy in-between frames, and that’s just the obvious stuff I could pick up on with a cursory glance. It does pick up again in the final stretch, but this show was clearly a production nightmare, and I shudder to think how bad things were behind the scenes. But perhaps even more distressing is that even when Ice Queendom looks good, it also looks... well, boring. The character designs somehow have even less personality than the early stiff-faced poser models, colors are clashing all over the place, and there’s just so little imagination put into how to visually depict this dream world. This is the goddamn Monogatari studio setting a story inside an abstract, symbolic mindscape. Why the fuck does so much of it look so flat and basic? Yeah, early RWBY certainly wasn’t a looker, but just take a look at its most recent seasons! RWBY looks incredible now! I’d argue it’s one of the leading pioneers for CG animation, certainly for anime-style CG animation if nothing else. And it’s a shame that an actual veteran anime studio falls so short of what Rooster Teeth has been able to accomplish.

And then there’s the writing. Or rather, the lack thereof. See, all that good stuff I talked about with Ice Queendom fleshing out the Weiss Racism subplot and giving it proper closure? That’s just the first and last few episodes of the dream. There’s a huge dead space right in the middle of this show that I can only describe as plot blocking. A problem arises, the characters solve it, another problem arises, they solve it again, and the pacing practically drags to a standstill through an endless series of obstacles that don’t move the plot forward and only seem to exist to drag out the show’s runtime. It’s glaringly obvious that writer Tow Ubukata didn’t have enough ideas for how to stretch this story across a full cours, so most of its midsection is just spinning its wheels waiting for an excuse to start the actually interesting stuff again. And it doesn’t help that this is also where the animation really starts to fall apart, so for a while you’ve got a plot that’s going nowhere and looking pretty ugly while doing it. Which may have been forgivable if just for the sake of watching our favorite characters spend more time together, but, well...

Look, I feel like this is going to be a controversial take, but I have to say it anyway: Ice Queendom’s dialogue is terrible. The characters talk in the most generic anime aphorisms, there’s so little specificity to how they communicate, everyone feels like they’re Performing Anime Archetypes rather than actually embodying Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Jaune Arc, and so on. And whatever else you might say about OG RWBY, it has always had excellent dialogue. Even back in the first volume when Monty, Miles and Kerry were still finding their footing, they knew how to make a conversation flow with purpose. This, though? This just feels like fanfiction. Which, I mean, that’s essentially what Ice Queendom is, but it’s that awkward kind of fanfiction that understands how the characters are written but doesn’t really know how to portray their voice, so the dialogue is all weirdly off and impersonal and never quite sounds the way it’s supposed to. And I definitely put this on the writing more than the actors, because I recently watched the English dub trailer and it had all the same problems. Saori Hayami, Lindsay Jones, Yoko Hisaka, Kara Eberle, and all the other voice actors, JP and EN alike, are incredibly talented people, but they just cannot make this dialogue sound right.

You know, it’s funny. When Ice Queendom was first announced, the worst parts of the RWBY hatedom lauded it as Japan “taking custody of RWBY” away from evil Miles and Kerry who “ruined Monty’s vision” (by which they meant adding gay characters and not redeeming the evil male abuser). Finally, they crowed, based Nippon was going to do RWBY the way it was supposed to be done. And yet, not only is Ice Queendom a substantially weaker product than anything OG RWBY has put out in the past several years, it’s flaws are all a direct result of being an anime in the first place. The horrible production schedule leading to melty animation, the plot blocking that exists onto to perpetuate itself, the dialogue that makes the characters come off more like archetypes than characters... these are all problems that anime is very familiar with. They’re certainly problems familiar to anyone who’s kept up with Shaft’s recent output, particularly their horribly mangled Magia Record adaptation. Perhaps there’s a weird irony in that. RWBY may have started out as a love letter to anime, but it’s grown so far from those origins by now that it’s arguably better than most anime on the market. And when someone tries to turn it into anime, it only reveals just how much better off this show is for charting its own course away from the worst parts of the medium it was inspired by.

And yet... yeah, this is still really fucking cool. It’s a testament to how far this cute little indie project has come over the years. RWBY is a juggernaut now, something that’s so big it’s come around to influencing its own influences. And despite its many, many faults, I still came away from Ice Queendom feeling mostly positive (it doesn’t hurt that the last couple episodes really do kick a serious amount of ass). It’s as much a love letter to RWBY as RWBY is to anime, and seeing that mutual appreciation is just too damn inspiring to ignore. I hope this isn’t the last anime spinoff RWBY gets; I hope lots of different Japanese studios and creators get to try their hands at bringing the hidden pockets of Remnant to life. Maybe they could adapt all the tie-in novel I still haven’t read? That could be a really cool way of bringing those stories to life. But I’ll save my wish list for another day. For now, RWBY Ice Queendom was a deeply flawed, but deeply captivating experiment, and I hope it’s an experiment we see repeated- and improved upon- for quite some time to come. And I give it a score of:

5.5/10

And now we wait for volume 9 to drop next year. I swear to god, if this hiatus lasts much longer I’m going to unironically bring yorse back, and nobody wants that.

[lola-andheruniverse]

My two cents about 11x17 and 11x18, in no particular order and full of spoilers as always..

1. So much stuff happening all at once! I guess that's what happens when you waste 16 episodes on meaningless arcs with unimportant side characters and/or forceful relationships for random spinoffs..

2. Talking about side characters, I miss Tomi. Please give me back my Tomi. I'm glad we had meaningful Lydia screen time though. Jerry + the kids and Eugene + his sense of style are always welcome too.

3. Caryl scenes were...okay, I guess. On its twisted way TPTB addressed some important things. I think everyone and their dog knows caryl is acting weird with one another (Aaron, Gabriel and Maggie looked pretty uncomfortable witnessing another silent argument between them). I'm hoping for a bottle episode so they can finally TALK about their issues and move on and kiss. I'm still positive. Cautious, but positive.

4. I won't dive on this but I liked to see a glimpse of unhinged S1 Daryl. Yeah, yeah, it's not healthy behavior, but I think the guy can be an asshole from time to time when he's under pressure. Yeah, he is a grown man and he changed a lot but he didn't got a brain transplant.

5. Where's Princess?

6. The Commenwealth is supposed to be this huge city but we keep seeing the same 30 people on the same square and half of them are really bad stormtroopers. Lance is the only character I value from their lot. Can't wait to Aaron and company finding out he killed everyone one on Oceanside.

7. TF: I'm not a Maggie fan but girl needs to rest. She's tired as fuck. I can't figure out if Gabriel and Rosita are still together or not. Negan is always inappropriately funny so that's covered. He's also part of the gang now we like it or not; everyone's pretty comfortable around him. Comfortable as possible, obviously, but still. And I'm tired of being mad about it.

I don't think I have anything else to say about these two episodes. I wasn't excited for them and I wasn't expecting any great storytelling so I ended up enjoying just because is TWD. I will always love this stupid show. Let's see what the next 6 weeks brings I guess.

[ourkidswouldbemartians]

 My thoughts on 10x18, ‘Find Me’ 

(I’m trying to be as neutral as possible so there will be #Positivity and #negativity) 

When I first heard about the spoilers I was like HELL NO!! I’m not watching this load of shit! AMC can fuck off!! But then I stopped being dramatic and admitted that I am sucker for TWD and that no matter what this show releases I’m still gonna watch it anyway. I mean I’ve even watched the Morgan making cheese with a goat episode at least three times and on purpose so :/// 

So anyway I eventually watched this episode with the following mindset: if there’s anything storytelling has ever taught me is that drama and angsty arguments are part of the game, it gets worse before it gets better. I watched this episode telling myself: there’s a spinoff, think about all the good stuff that s10 gave us. 

I have made a list of what I found positive or negative and speculated some stuff about what the future may hold: 

Goodie :)

- Many caryllels between the past and present, between Daryl @ Leah and between Lea and Carol.  There is a reason for this I’m sure and I hope the writers will talk about it. 

- The fight wasn’t as bad as the spoilers made it seems, they’ll come back from it for sure.   A confrontation had to happen about the fact that Carol left several times and I’m glad it did, because that’s what Daryl’s most hurt about in the argument imo. I also think Carol doesn’t want to run anymore and wants to be where Daryl is (10x14 made it clear) but it’s sad Daryl doesn’t see it yet. And in this episode she says “I’m not going anywhere” which I feel is an emphasis about how her mind is made up: she knows where she belongs.

- Their banter was adorable, I just love how much Carol loves teasing him. And he teased her too!

- Carol is pretty

- The soundtrack was beautiful as always when they share a scene

- They’ll be ok again for sure... The way he looked at her when she left after the argument made me feel like he kinda regretted his words already. But that’s opened to interpretation. 

Baddie :( 

- Daryl was unfair to Carol but I wouldn’t say OOC, Daryl is not an angel, he’s a complex character who in this episode said hurtful things. He too has made mistakes that NOBODY is throwing at his face but it’s all about double standards with writers uh? 

- I still do not understand the purpose of Leah. I get it, Daryl was alone, lost, Rick’s gone, Carol’s married, everyone from Team family is scattered everywhere so he needed someone. I think he was even suicidal considering his behaviour during the storm... So I think meeting Leah made him feel better. But did it have to be romantic? We’ve heard a billion times that Daryl doesn’t do relationship so when it happens it will only happen once. So why giving him a relationship with no on screen kiss or sex? In one episode with almost no buildup?  Knowing that’s something everyone wants to see for Daryl (not necessarily w/ Carol)? I cant understand the writers’ choices. I simply don’t understand the motivation here. And I mean that without even thinking about what Leah means for Caryl. 

- It’s my fault for expecting this but I thought Carol may have had some kind of reaction towards the Daryl/Leah thing but she didn’t. But she was a bit taken aback when she found the note which makes me think she didnt know about the romantic aspect of it or that Daryl once felt like he belonged with someone other than team family

//////

Not ship related: 

- Carol was perfect in this episode. Beautiful. Talented. Brilliant. She broke my heart when she said “I just needed a friend” ... she feels so lonely, she deserves the world and she’s alone :( or feels like she is at least. Everything that happened with Alpha happened because her son got brutally murdered and for that she deserves nothing but understanding. She’s right for not being sorry. Anyway... I’m with her not matter what. I ship her with happiness first and I always will.

- The acting was on point. Nothing to say here, NR and MMM are simply stellar together. Leah’s actress is good too. And her character is likeable tbh. 

- The scenery was beautiful

/////// 

About the future: 

I don’t think all hope is lost for Caryl but I’m no longer 100% sure about them in a romantic way. They put an emphasis on the word friend in this episode and I feel they will conclude the L/D thing one way or another: Leah will be back. Carol has her knife in Diverged and Daryl said to Dog “we’re gonna get her back” which foreshadows her return. I see things possibly going two ways: they could restart their relationship, it doesn't work out / she gets killed off and that leads him to want to start over somewhere else and then he goes away with Carol (=spin off) OR: she comes back but it leads to a love triangle and he chooses Carol, they get together and Caryl is finally canon. 

In conclusion I am still confused, it’s a huge I don’t know for me. It’s not all bad, but not all good either. . I don’t fully understand the writers’ choices, in my case the only thing that could make me feel 100% hopeful about caryl being endgame is knowing what will happen in S11. So only time will tell I guess. We just have to wait. 

Caryl on and forgive my typos  ❤︎

[crusherthedoctor]

Can we have some unpopular Sonic opinions?

I tried to cram in a lot, so I hope this satisfies you. :P I tried to stick to the ones that I haven't brought up quite as often, since by this point, we all know that I think IDW's storytelling is dire, SA2's story is overrated, X Eggman is an embarrassing portrayal (at least from season 2 onwards), Blaze shouldn't be handcuffed to Silver, Shadow's backstory had issues with or without the Black Arms, Neo Metal Sonic looks silly, etc. But anyway, here we go:

- Knuckles may be tricky to incorporate into plots that don't relate to Angel Island, but making him obsessed with his duties is no better than having him forget about Angel Island entirely.

- I like Marine, and never found her annoying. Oh, I understood what they were trying to do with her, but I honestly wasn't put off by her, and found her Aussie lingo more endearing if anything. Since her debut was during the period in my life where where I couldn't stand Sonic himself, I instead thought he was irritating (and hypocritical) for getting annoyed with her for doing shit he would often be guilty of.

- Silver is just as guilty of being shoehorned into games and plots as the Deadly Six are. Having more fans than the latter is irrelevant, since we're still talking about a character who constantly has to time travel in order to be present.

- Speaking of Silver, if he has to stick around, please do something different with him. They've pulled the doomed future routine multiple times now, and it's been boring every single time. I wasn't interested when it involved Iblis. I wasn't interested when it involved Knuckles drinking the edgy Kool Aid. I wasn't interested when it involved a council of dumbasses... give it a rest already.

- The Tails Doll can work as a mildly creepy thing, with maybe more to it than meets the eye when it's time for a boss fight or what have you. But the memes about him stealing your soul are just dumb, and I thought it was dumb even back in my teenage youth.

- “Eggman is supposed to be clownish!” Yeah, well he's also meant to be a genuine villain with a 300 IQ. These qualities don't have to be mutually exclusive.

- “Sonic is supposed to have attitude!” Yeah, well that's not the same thing as being an absolute cunt. Sonic was only ever meant to come off as having an edge compared to Mario. He was never meant to be a GTA-tier protagonist.

- Rouge is not a villain, and never was a villain. Literally the whole point of her role in SA2 was to reveal that she was working against Eggman and Shadow the whole time, albeit using sneakier tactics to do so. You'd think all those people who exult SA2's story would remember this, but apparently not. She barely even qualifies as an anti-hero, since aside from stealing the Master Emerald, she rarely does anything morally questionable otherwise. She's got a lot more good in her than people give her credit for.

- Captain Whisker is a better Eggman Nega than the actual Eggman Nega. And as far as robot characters in this franchise go, Johnny's design is pretty underrated.

- I don't like Iblis or Mephiles, but I DO like Solaris, and it annoys me that it was out of focus for most of the story due to all the time spent on its less interesting halves. Had they kept the backstory with the Duke and his experiments, and worked from there, I think they could have provided an interesting contrast with Chaos (since Solaris can also qualify as a monster with a sympathetic backstory) instead of recycling the surface level schtick.

- Black Doom may technically be just as bad as Mephiles, Nega, Scourge, Mimic, etc, since he's yet another villain with one-note characterization and fucked over Eggman. But because he never gained a disproportionate fandom, he doesn't annoy me to the same extent. It's easier to ignore him by comparison, and his Dr. Claw voice and face shaped like a lady's delicate part make him enjoyable to mock.

- Likewise, while Lyric is also on the same level as these other villains, it's easier to dismiss him because I was never invested in the Boom games anyway, and being an obvious alternate universe (compared to Sonic X or IDW, which retain the Modern designs and plot elements), it never had an effect on the main series. I also unironically like his design, and if nothing else, at least this snake didn't start a hypnotism fetish across the internet.

- Sally - and the rest of the Freedom Fighters for that matter - have had their importance in the franchise severely inflated. They may have been lucky to be the face of popular media (SatAM and Archie), but they're not these magnificent entities that the game characters are but a speck of dust in comparison to. Having a “legacy” doesn't make them more entitled to shit than any other character, old or new.

- Conceptually, the treasure hunting gameplay is one of the better alternate gameplay styles IMO. But it was let down in SA2 by its one track minded radar (the levels may have been big, but I don't think that would have been an issue on its own if the radar was better). If they brought it back and made it more like SA1's treasure hunting, I'd be all for it, although it would probably be better suited for a spinoff title.

- This goes for a lot of games, but when it comes to 2D, I prefer sprites over models. Not that the Rush models are bad (though the ones in Chronicles sure as fuck are), but the sprites in Mania and the Advance trilogy are just so charming and full of character.

- I actually like Marble Zone. Yeah, the level design is a bit blocky, but I love the concept of an underground temple prison, mixed with lava elements in a zone that otherwise isn't a traditional volcano level.

- I also like Sandopolis Zone. Again, completely understand why it's not the most popular zone around, but I've been a sucker for the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic since childhood (you can thank Crash 3 for that), and Act 1 is visually stunning.

- I prefer the JP soundtrack for Sonic CD over the US version overall... but I also prefer Sonic Boom over You Can Do Anything.

- SA2's soundtrack isn't bad by any means - I love Rouge's tracks, and The Last Scene is one of my favourite pieces of music - but as far as variety goes, it's a step down from SA1's soundtrack.

- If Sonic X-Treme had been released, it probably would have been unenjoyable and confusing. Whatever your thoughts on SA1, it was probably the better option between the two as far as Sonic's first legitimate translation into 3D goes.

- I have no qualms with Modern Sonic and the other Modern designs and characters, but I also fully acknowledge that changing gears from Adventure onwards - and doing it with a great amount of fanfare - was always going to create one of the biggest divides in the fandom, and fans shouldn't act surprised that this happened. The fact that they felt the need to hype up a new design and direction in the first place (compared to Mario, who has mostly been the same since the beginning, with only the occasional minor change with little fanfare) also indicates that they weren't confident enough in Sonic and his universe being the way it was, which often gets ignored by all the “SEGA have no confidence!!!” complaints you see with their recent games.

- Unleashed did not deserve the incredibly harsh reviews it received back in the day... but it doesn't deserve its current sacred cow status either. It had more effort put into it than '06 to be sure, and I can respect that, but much of it was misguided effort, and even if you like the Werehog, you have to admit that the idea came at the absolute worst time. The intro cutscene may be awesome, as is the Egg Dragoon fight, but 2% doesn't make up the entire game. Chip was also quite annoying, and I wasn't particularly sad when he pressed F in the chat at the end.

- On the other hand, while Colours definitely has its shortcomings, and people have every right to criticse those shortcomings, a lot of its most vocal detractors tend to have a stick up their arse about the game because people actually enjoyed it, and it had a gimmick that people actually liked. Yes, it may have been the first game to have those writers everyone hates, but then SA1 was the first game to give the characters alternate gameplay styles and have other villains upstage Eggman, so...

- Forces is absolutely not on the level of '06. It's nowhere close. A game being flawed does not make it the next '06, clickbait YouTubers. Or should I say, the game they want to retroactively apply '06's reception to, since they've been trying hard to magically retcon '06's own quality...

- To echo @beevean, ALL of the 3D stories have their issues. SA1 is probably the most well-rounded of them on the whole, but even that one isn't perfect.

- To echo another opinion, although I do love SA1, I'm not crazy over the idea of a remake, and would prefer them to just take Sonic's gameplay from SA1 and work from there. Because with a remake, you're stuck in a hard spot: Do you keep it the way it is bar the expected graphical upgrades, and risk accusations of not doing anything to actually improve the experience? Or do you try to address past criticisms, and risk the wrath of the fans who will inevitably go on a #NotMyAdventure crusade about it? What people fail to consider is that the Crash and Spyro remakes were accepted gracefully because their original iterations were still unanimously beloved for the most part, whereas SA1 - and especially SA2 - have always been divisive, and have only gotten moreso over the years.

- People take their preferences for the character's voice actors too seriously. I have my own favourites like anyone else, but I don't make a big deal out of it.

- And with fandom voice actors, they usually focus too much on doing a basic impression of their preferred official voice actor, and not enough on the acting. So you end up getting a lot of fan voices who sound like decent impressions of Ryan Drummond or Jason Griffith on the surface, but they sound utterly empty beyond that impression, because there's no oomph or depth to the actual emotions. They think about the actor rather than the character, when it should really be the other way around.

- The thing with Ian Flynn is that he is capable of telling a decent story, and he can portray some characters well. But he's proven time and time again that everything will go off the rails if he's given too much freedom (ironic, given how quick he is to point the finger at mandates when something goes wrong).

- Ian Flynn and Shiro Maekawa are not the only people in the world who are allowed to write for Sonic. I understand that one should be cautious when seeking out new writing talent, but for all the fandom's accusations of playing it safe, they sure aren't in a rush to experiment outside of their own comfort zone.

- And of course, the big one: You don't fix the franchise's current problems by crawling back to its previous problems. It's much more helpful and constructive to discuss the good and bad alike with each of the games. Less “THIS GOOD, MODERN BAD”, and more “This could work, but maybe without that part...”

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off�� per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say “Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way.  It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

[discotreque]

“As real as a hopped-up Q on Captain Picard Day”

We're halfway through Season 1, and while I haven't felt moved to write an episode-by-episode breakdown, I do have a small handful of thoughts about Lower Decks so far.

I don't even know if these are hot takes—I've mostly been avoiding what other people are saying, because it turns out I don't really care. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So maybe it's slightly hypocritical of me to expect anyone to care about my opinions, but that's never stopped me from sharing them.

On the visuals: Possibly prettier than Disco, and that's saying something. The "special effects" are just fucking gorgeous, and are absolutely living up to the high-concept potential that animated Star Trek has always had. (TAS was goofy and not especially well-made, but you can't say they didn't swing for the fences conceptually!)

As a sitcom: If it were the exact same show, but set in an original, non–Star Trek setting (i.e. entirely nostalgia-free), I'd probably still watch it. If it were more or less the same show, but not sci-fi at all? Before Episode 5, I would have said "maybe, maybe not," but I think I'm finally and fully hooked on the characters, so yeah, I think I actually would.

As a Star Trek series: What a whole-hearted vindication of the Greatest Generation podcast’s ongoing "Star Trek is a place" thesis. There's room for so many different kinds of stories in this universe, and they're not all going to be to my tastes—e.g. I'm still hoping Section 31 is a fake cover for a different series entirely, which it's almost certainly not, but I'm still hoping. Lower Decks, though, has so much of EXACTLY what I want from Star Trek, and after three grim seasons of Picard and Discovery (which I liked! but also, ooooof), if they're hyper-correcting into joke-a-minute territory, it's actually a breath of fresh goddamned air.

On the storytelling (large-scale): The only thing even close to a season-spanning arc seems to be Mariner's relationship with Captain Freeman, and that's been simmering along pretty quietly in the background, except for Episode 4. A season of TV that actually develops its characters and their relationships instead of an infuriatingly sloppy puzzle-box plot? Fucking finally.

On the storytelling (small-scale): So far the format of the show has been fairly standard (but fairly well-executed) 22-minute sitcom premises as foreground stories—with what would have been entire 45-minute episodes of TNG as background stories? The density and the economy of the writing are just unreal.

On being TV-14-L: It's almost certainly an inevitability of commerce that the rating is so low, because you can tell if the writers had their way it would be TV-MA all day; and as a grown goddamned adult, I happen to find bleeped fuck-words infinitely more distracting than unbleeped ones—even, gasp, in Star Trek!—so I had mixed feelings about the swearing-but-not-swearing at first. But I think I'm starting to appreciate it: they're writing what works for the characters, and if CBS wants to bleep it, that's on CBS. I respect that.

On being TV-14-V: The over-the-top slapstick gore is a surprisingly natural comedic fit for the established medical technology of the setting—"You'll be fine, they'll just wave a light over it!" is one of my favourite lines so far—but I think Angie, Beckett's friend in that flashback to the Quito, is the first person we've seen actually die on Lower Decks. And that makes perfect sense too: when your entire show revolves around the lives of the redshirts, it's an entirely different vibe to kill off three of them in a cold open.

On friendship: Mariner & Boimler, and Rutherford & Tendi, are shaping up to be the main narrative pairings, and you can easily see either or both of those becoming romantic pairings—but what if they don't? Like, holy SHIT did I love Tendi and Rutherford on the Vancouver. They're both huge Starfleet nerds, but they're not goody-goodies in the slightest: their first loyalty is to SCIENCE!, and the results are chaotic as fuck, and I love them together so much... as bros. Likewise, I'm starting to really dig Mariner and Boimler's odd-couple dynamic—but I don't want any of them to hook up with each other, and so far the show's intentions in that area seem... indeterminate. So we'll see.

On the captain being a Black woman: Doesn’t look so fucking difficult, does it, Discovery?

tl;dr: I kind of love this show. I will happily watch the next 15 episodes, and I would watch 50 more after that, and then I would watch seven seasons of the spinoff with Captain Mariner, First Officer Boimler, Chief Engineer Rutherford, and Science Officer Tendi. MAKE IT SO.

[xxgothchatonxx]

That POTC post made me think about this conversation I had years ago with @leianaberrie

Margot Robbie not recognizing any female characters in the series was bad but I think about the fact that Annemarie was supposed to have a bigger role specifically to show that there are female pirates makes it even more cringe since the series tried to establish that in the beginning. In fact, her being in the series at all solves none of the representation issues. It's not even the bare minimum so idk what she's going on about.

I already cannot stand Keira and hearing about this doesn’t change my stance on her. 

Well, look at that! Another woman, Keira! 

Right, salty Keira rant over (...I make no promises it’s over for good but for now..) Back to Anamaria. I remember as a kid really liking how badass and take-no-shit-from-anyone she was, and also being confused in the sequels “...wait, where is she?” And I’m assuming it’s a combination of “Disney didn’t want her back/didn’t care about her” and this:

Also I remember hearing from either Orlando or Keira that in that final scene of Dead Man’s Chest, they were all told that Anamaria was coming back to join them in their quest to find Jack, but turns out it was a way for them to be legit shocked to see that Tia had resurrected Barbossa. Bottom line is, Anamaria got the shit end of the stick, and I feel bad that Zoe had to go through that. 

Slight side-rant - I will never understand why this franchise kept pushing Liz as The First Female Pirate “ooh, look at Captain Swann!” when not only was there Anamaria BUT THEY HAD MISTRESS CHING AS PART OF THE BRETHREN COURT! 

(who was based on a real pirate queen so that’s pretty cool)

And they TRIED that shit with Calypso! Yeah, remember when Barbossa tried to trick Sao Feng into believing Liz was Calypso?? (Side-note, that is one of my favourite acting moments from Naomie Harris because she has this look as if to say “are you fucking kidding me?”) Oh yeah, the all-powerful sea goddess is a rich privileged white woman with less than six months of pirating experience! Even Disney isn’t that stupid! (But then they retconned Tia’s involvement in Jack’s backstory in the fifth movie... they were stupid for doing that.)

Yeah, this is not going to make me very popular but I’m sorry, I can’t stand Liz Swann. I don’t think I’ve ever liked her. I’ll stick with Black Sails. Eleanor Guthrie is a far better Liz Swann than Liz Swann ever was. 

But I must say, I am proud of the PotC fandom for correcting Margot when that article first came out and still to this day. That this sequel/spinoff/whatever-it-is is not going to “introduce” girl power. Also considering her last collaboration with Christina Hodson was BOP... I’m a bit worried. But honestly, this franchise has long overstayed it’s welcome, they’ve dumped Jack which is the DUMBEST decision they could’ve made! Why the fuck do you think people came to the 4th and 5th movies, Disney?? It sure as hell wasn’t because of the “great” storytelling!, and now this duo has teamed up again... so, it’s a 98% chance I’m not going to see it. 

So, good luck, Margot and Christina. In the words of Jack...

*well... anything else stupid. I really hope Margot misspoke when she said that because if she meant it... yikes. 

[arecomicsevengood]

Seeds

Before I read it, I had this idea I could write a review of Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s The Seeds for the Comics Journal, but the book just sucked too much. It had basically nothing going for it, or even decipherable as an advancing plot. One thing wrong with it is there’s this sort of conspiracy element, or this “no one believes the news” anymore element of it, but Nocenti didn’t want it to be about “fake news.” Donald Trump has rewired the narrative, so now entire types of subject matter feed into this propaganda machine simply by being addressed. Nocenti’s best work does not shy from topicality, addressing the currents in the cultural air, but this time the modern world feels too hot to handle.

I ordered the Daredevil: Typhoid’s Kiss trade paperback, reprinting a bunch of Nocenti’s work with the Typhoid Mary character from the nineties. The longest story in there is a miniseries with art by John Van Fleet. It’s partly about post-Tarantino video-store employees turned filmmakers kidnapping Typhoid Mary to use her as the subject of a documentary about serial killers and violent media. It’s also about Typhoid Mary working as a private detective trying to track down a killer of prostitutes, who the police don’t care about, and are maybe the actual killers of themselves. Storywise, it’s a pretty cool attempt to address real-world issues of the day within a pulp context.

Van Fleet’s art is pretty boring and bad in a way that’s distinctly ahead of its time. While the miniseries itself probably wouldn’t exist without the precedent of Elektra: Assassin a decade before, (a spinoff about a female Daredevil villain created by the writer during their run on Daredevil where that character defined their run) all the photoreference that’s probably actually just photo backgrounds run through filters sets a precedent for the Alex Maleev/Matt Hollingsworth Daredevil stuff to come a decade later. And it’s frequently annoying on a page design/panel background level. Like in terms of how the panel borders sort of default to grid shapes so there ends up being things that “read” as panels but that don’t actually do anything for pacing. It’s just fitting the narrative into regimented design choices.

This maybe only happens the once. But the art is also just super-stiff throughout, with a very chunky line that eliminates any real nuance. There’s a bunch of characters, but a lot of them are indistinguishable from one another, and that’s because the linework is about as muddy as the color palette — It kinda seems like he’s working with models and photo reference but also doesn’t have that many models to work with so he’s having them play multiple roles, but also his work basically seems more like photoshop filters than actual drawing? There’s a bunch of stuff that I think sucks, basically. But you can also draw a direct line from what Van Fleet is doing in Typhoid to what Aja does in The Seeds. All these choices that are meant to be classy and dignifed, a move away from the excess of superhero comics. The covers of Typhoid are just portraits of the main character, interchangeable from one issue to the next, which was a move that again, was ahead of its time: This is what so many Marvel covers in the 2000s looked like, the Tim Bradstreet Punisher covers probably being the go-to example. It’s pretty dull but it’s nice they’re not super-sexualized.

While the choices arguably suit the subject matter in Typhoid, which is at least partly about movies, in The Seeds, the story doesn’t really make any sense because the visuals seem so steeped in unreality. The premise is that a tabloid has photographed an alien, proving aliens are real. There is really nothing within the context of the story that explains why the news outlet would have enough gravitas to be convincing and have this be an actual news story. And the book is drawn in Photoshop, which is itself a photo-editing software, so the “reality” of the book is defined by the very medium that people recognize as why images can’t be trusted. This contributes a level of irony that could maybe be worked with if the book itself wasn’t so ugly and dull. The whole thing looks like some Banksy bullshit. Outside of word balloons, text appears in the large all-caps typeface of image macros. I don’t have scans of The Seeds because I gave my copy away on account of there not being any reason to keep it around.

The book is beyond dated at the time of its release. Partly this is due to the speed the cultural conversation has been moving for the past five years.  It’s been a difficult time period to work on a work of fiction about the news, certainly, and not only has the comic been a long time in the making, the writer has also been away from making comics for decades now. If the authors had been able to make this as a serialized monthly comic, it might’ve stumbled into timeliness, or the predictive, but as it is, the reading experience feels like a bunch of different, disparate ideas that do not really cohere into a narrative. Leaving aside how the book seems to emerge from a general cultural gestalt of the the 1990s, when The X-Files and Weekly World News were objects of discussion, every major plot point or news story chosen for thematic resonance is approximately fifteen years old. I believe 2005 was when I started to hear about colony collapse disorder. This bee metaphor has been lapped by a Honey Nut Cheerios campaign at this point. (A few years back, boxes of cereal came with seeds of wildflowers you/children could plant.)

Darin Morgan’s episode of The X-Files revival “The Mengele Effect” ably addresses all the issues with how cynicism and conspiracy theories feel different now, all the issues that Nocenti seems terrified of and hopes the audience doesn’t think of when reading her humorless X-Files throwback comic. That episode’s great.  Much of The Seeds seems like it was better done in the decidedly not-great Transmetropolitian. There’s something so dated and sad about this comic’s idea of a cool journalist protagonist: People barely smoke cigarettes anymore! I know no one wants to draw people vaping, but the imagery this book wishes meant “cool, urban, woman” reads as nostalgic affectation in 2021. That so much of the commercial landscapes of our cities has been replaced by vape shops was one of the biggest clues we were already living in a dystopia three years ago.

Nocenti, when she was working regularly, got to be a pretty effective writer for having a monthly deadline wherein she could speak on the issues of the day as they were happening. In the absence of a regular gig, this rare chance to speak her mind gets hampered by how much there is to talk about, and how complicated it all is. If it’s too complicated to address in an ongoing superhero comic, a one-off graphic novel with vaguely commercial ambitions turns out to be a worse space for it. It’s so much sadder than anything in this dream-of-the-nineties comic that the authors were given the grace to make something only under the conditions that doom it to failure. Real people made this work of fiction, and I don’t know what the fuck they’re even talking about, and that’s a more complicated narrative than the journalists in this comic who… stumble upon a story and then need to take to back because it’s too important or something? I don’t understand what this comic is about. It’s clearly gesturing at being about a bunch of different things, but what they get from being in juxtaposition with one another, I don’t know.

In interviews in advance of the release of The Seeds, Nocenti talked about how this was the first time she got to make a comic that didn’t have to have fight scenes or conflict in it. But reading Typhoid it’s clear how conflict ties the story’s disparate threads together. But also while reading Typhoid I kept on thinking about how visually, the Steve Lightle shit that preceded it is so much cooler! Here he is, bifurcating a page so two narrative threads can be told with different approaches to stoytelling:

People sometimes talk about how crazy it is that Nocenti started her Daredevil run immediately following up the Miller/Mazzucchelli Born Again run with a fill-in drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. But I don’t think anyone has pointed out that, since these Typhoid Mary team-up comics appeared in Marvel Comics Presents, she’s basically following up Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X, and Steve Lightle is totally capable of doing that! Even if these comics are kinda whatever narratively, Nocenti comes up with dense enough narratives to give him shit to do. She’s a good writer within the context of the harsh strictures of early nineties mainstream comics. Which I know seems like a harsh diss! But being a writer that makes work that consistently gives a comics artist something interesting to do is a difficult job that many people are just not interested in doing for various reasons, so it should be recognized when it’s attempted and accomplished.

It’s also interesting that the whole visual approach where both Steve Lightle and Barry Windsor-Smith shine is dependent on flat color. The changes in storytelling made to accommodate the shifts in visual language in full-color mainstream comics didn’t really benefit anyone, and now needs to be outsmarted. In The Seeds, we’ve got this pretty dull reading experience that superficially in its two-color print job and nine-panel grid, looks like it might be influenced by Mazzucchelli’s work in Rubber Blanket and City Of Glass. And we’ve got a black and white Barry Windsor-Smith comic coming out from Fantagraphics in a few weeks that I really hope blows it out of the water.

[truthbeetoldmedia]

Mayans MC 1x01 "Perro/Oc" Review

Mayans MC is the highly anticipated spinoff of Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy. This time around, we’re delving into the lives of members of the Mayans Motorcycle Club that live in the fictional town of Santo Padre, California, along the Mexican border. Where the Sons of Anarchy ruled the streets of Charming, the Mayans rule the streets of Santo Padre.  

The story takes place a few years after the events in the Sons of Anarchy series finale. The scene starts with a wild dog chewing on a dead crow along the US-Mexico border, when the crow gets run over by a certain motorcyclist. Seeing as how Sons of Anarchy (SoA) had a thing with crows, I can’t help but see this as symbolic. It’s a new dawn. It’s a new show. There is also a not-so-subtle piece of graffiti along the wall: “Divided We Fall”. Symbolic of the MC life and symbolic of our country’s current political climate, no doubt.  

We are first introduced to Ezekiel “EZ” Reyes (JD Pardo), who you would assume is the “Jax Teller” of the series. Well, you’re both right and wrong. EZ is his own entity. He is not the prince of Santo Padre, like Jax was the prince of Charming. He’s actually at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak. He’s the prospect. (In case you’re new here, that means he’s not quite yet a member of the Mayans. Until the club knows they can trust him completely, EZ does the grunt work. It’s kind of like a trial period.)  

This episode contains several flashbacks, showing the path EZ was on before he became involved in the club. EZ is smart. He had his whole life ahead of him, until he landed himself in the Stockton State Prison. The first flashback shows our young hero, clad in a Stanford hoodie, reuniting with his young girlfriend, Emily (Sarah Bolger). He’s attending a prestigious university and he’s in a relationship with a lovely young woman. His life looks pretty good.

We are then introduced to the ongoings of the Santo Padre chapter of the Mayans. The president, Bishop (Michael Irby), is shown marching through a dress-making factory. The female factory workers are hard at work, sewing kilos of drugs into extravagant quinceanera dresses. The endgame of this operation is to get these drugs to Las Vegas, Nevada for the infamous Galindo cartel. As club president, Bishop decides who the transport group will include, and he’s decided that EZ is ready to start becoming more active in the club. He consults with EZ’s brother, and fellow club member, Angel Reyes (Clayton Cardenas). This conversation is where we learn the EZ ended up in Stockton for several years for killing a cop. He was let out because the cop was later found to be crooked.  

EZ and Angel’s father, Felipe Reyes (Edward James Olmos), is the next prominent character we are introduced to. He runs a butcher shop and has a small bookcase full of books for his customers. Showing us he’s not like the bikers we’ve seen in this universe before, EZ is immediately drawn to the books. Felipe and EZ are focused more on the poetry books, especially. It’s a sweet familial relationship, no doubt. You can see how close they are.

EZ gives his pop a mysterious package, and this is when Angel arrives to collect EZ for the transport mission to Nevada. Felipe makes it a point to ask if Angel knows anything about the mysterious goings-on involving the package he was handed. EZ tells his father not to worry about it, and I can’t help but worry about it. (I’ve known Felipe Reyes for all of 30 seconds and I want no harm to befall this gentle butcher.)  

Where EZ and Felipe appear to be close, you can see that’s not necessarily the case between Felipe and Angel. Angel asks his brother if their dad has spoken to him about their mother, who appears to have had something tragic happen to her around the time EZ was sent to prison. While Felipe hasn’t spoken to either of his sons about their mother, his relationship with EZ comes across a lot stronger. Angel mentions that the only thing he talks about with Felipe anymore is baseball. He’s seems to be wistful for a better, stronger relationship.  

Cut to later that night, when they are in the middle of the run to Nevada. There are several club members riding their motorcycles riding behind the truck that’s carrying the dresses laced with drugs. Inside the truck, there are two club members in the front and two members in the back of the truck, riding with the merchandise. One of the guys gets a mysterious text message and that’s a signal for them to buckle up. You instantly know something is going to happen. The guys that are riding in the back asked for the volume of the radio to be turned up, but they don’t let them know to buckle up because something is going to happen.  

The crew is attacked by, we later find out, a Samoan gang called the Base Town Tribe.  They were all wearing masks, but we come to find out that, not only is EZ smart, he’s also observant and has a killer memory. He spotted a tattoo one of the guys’ wrists that would lead them to identify this gang as the culprit. This attack leads the Samoan gang into stealing cartel’s drugs and the Mayans truck going up in flames in a lovely explosion that I’ve come to know and appreciate in the SoA world.  

One of my favorite scenes of the episode is actually in the aftermath of the explosion. We finally meet the head of the Galindo cartel, Mr. Miguel Galindo (Danny Pino) himself! We’d heard small things here and there about the Galindo cartel in Sons, but we finally get some face time with them! Miguel Galindo is a force to be reckoned with. Pino commands the screen and the room in a way I hadn’t seen from him in his Law & Order: SVU days.  

It is in this scene that we find out that there is something going on within the Mayan crew. Only somebody with inside knowledge would have known their route for that particular run because that’s something they change frequently. (Remember my thoughts from above about that text message?) Bishop is insistent that it couldn’t have been someone from HIS club. Motorcycle clubs are notorious for being a strong brotherhood.  

Later in the episode, we find out exactly what’s going on in Bishop’s club. Turns out, the Base Town Tribe were just the middle-men. A gang of rebels, aptly named Los Olvidados, were actually behind the attack. They were the ones to intercept the drug transport and also sully the good name of the Mayans with the cartel. Oh yeah, and some of the Mayans were even in on it. Towards the end, we learn that Angel and a few other Mayans are working with Los Olvidados because they are the future. Angel tells EZ that working with this rebel group is what’s best for the club. Cartels have no respect for the club, so why should the club work for them? He introduces EZ to Adelita, the leader of Los Olvidados. She and her crew of orphan children orchestrate attacks on the cartel.  

My favorite twist of the evening was definitely learning that EZ was a government witness. That package he gave his father earlier? It went to an FBI agent. EZ is working for the Feds to bring down the cartel. While the feds know all about the trouble with the robbery and following shootout, EZ reminds the agent that he’s not there to bring down the Mayans.  

It’s the beginning of a very slippery slope and EZ is stuck right smack dab in the middle. I cannot tell you how excited I am to follow this journey. My only hope is that EZ, while nothing like Jax at the moment, doesn’t become Jax. I want him to stay perfect the way he is right now. Kurt Sutter has a way of turning his protagonists this way and that.  

Some thoughts:

I’m kind of a little in love with Adelita and I can’t wait to learn more about her.    

Angel has my heart. I knew I would love EZ, but I had no idea how much I would love Angel.  

MARCUS ALVAREZ, EVERYBODY. EL PADRINO. I was always over the moon when he guest-starred on SoA. I truly loved his relationships within the Sons and I’m excited to see a little bit more of his relationships with his own MC.

The underground tunnel that allows the Mayans to go back and forth between the US and Mexico is actually kind of neat. It’s also extremely dangerous and risky.   

This world was made a whole lot smaller when we learned that Emily, EZ’s ex-girlfriend, is now with Miguel Galindo and has a family with him. I’m kind of a little let down? I’m going to withhold my judgement until we see some more movement on this relationship.

The masks the orphans wear are creepy as fuck. Do not want. 10/10 get away from me.  

Having EZ lug the one-armed, big dead guy was just a small bit of dark humor in this dark world of storytelling. This world is full of that kind of dark humor and if you aren’t down for that, you’re probably not going to like this kind of show.  

This show is called Mayans MC. As in, THE MAYANS MOTORCYCLE CLUB. While I understand that it was Sons of Anarchy that brought you over, this is going to be a different show. Jax isn’t coming back. He’s (*SPOILER ALERT*) dead. If you came into this expecting a heavy SoA presence, you’re going to be disappointed. There are small easter eggs to hold you over, though. I did love seeing the Sons ride in, despite them not being the Sons that I know and love.  

Mayans MC airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on FX.

Sarah’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

[genngraymane]

It was just.... so frustrating to see this movie as someone who grew up on DC.

Infinity War/Infinity Gauntlet was THE definitive Marvel Cosmic event and the Russo Brothers brought that to life in such a fantastic way. It may not have been totally faithful to the source material but it had that same level of scale and magnitude and horrific tension. Thanos felt just as (if not MORE) intimidating than in the comic. These directors proved just how viable it is to adapt these epic tales involving these larger than life characters. That is a cultural phenomenon by that merit alone. This will bring about great intrigue and cultural relevancy for Marvel’s characters and mythology for years to come. Disney has been making nothing but good decisions on the development of this cinematic universe.

And then I look at Warner Bros.

Holy shit do I look at Warner Bros.

It is unfathomable to me how this is the same company that put together the team for Blade Runner 2049. That movie won a fucking Oscar and will be worshiped as one of the greatest movies of all time by Blade Runner fans. It’s not like they don’t know how to find people who are hungry for work and want to bring DC’s characters to life. Just look at Zachary Levi’s Youtube and how he talks to fans about what they want to see in Shazam and DC’s characters and all the research he did. It’s not like they can’t make a cinematic universe and make bucket loads of money off that. Look at Harry fucking Potter. You think they are gonna stop after Crimes of Grindelwald? NO BITCH I HOPE YOU’RE FUCKING READY FOR A JAMES POTTER SPINOFF. 

And even at this point, where Walter Hamada is in charge and he’s cleaning house and giving movies to legendary directors like James Wan and Steven Spielberg, they’re just so behind the curb establishing DC’s place in movies, much less a cinematic universe. If Wan’s Aquaman is a fucking BANGER like Wonder Woman it’ll be a step in the right direction for DC, sure. Hell, best case scenario Aquaman is the sleeper hit of 2018 and somehow is more successful than Ant-Man and the Wasp. As someone who loves Aquaman more than Ant-Man I would sell my left nut for that to happen. But in terms of scale, relevancy and intrigue and epic comic book storytelling is it really going to be comparable to Infinity War, no matter how good it’ll be? I don’t think Aquaman’s source material is rich enough to provide that level of hype and marketability. 

Don’t get me wrong here. From what I hear in James Wan’s interviews he’s loosely basing this movie off the Throne of Atlantis storyline, which is one of my favorite Aquaman stories ever. If this movie rocks then they have another character they can add with Wonder Woman that they can work with, but even when you have two beloved characters with great movies you can only take them so far being associated with a cinematic universe that has a known history of incompetency and contempt. How do you work with that?

I guess at the end of the day, what I’m trying to say is that while I have no doubt in my mind that Warner Bros. will eventually get it right regardless of their failures, I don’t think I’ll have the same enthusiasm for those movies that I have for Marvel’s today. Marvel just did Infinity War and that took them ten years. I’ll probably be in my thirties by the time a Crisis on Infinite Earths movie will EVER be conceived. It won’t be the same when I just watched Thanos give everyone the hands with my roomates and all of us flipping out at nearly every moment. 

I don’t know. DC’s characters are timeless and it’s not like they have any shortage of great animated projects, video games or comics, and as a Marvel fan I NEVER thought I’d live to see this movie done right. It’s just every time I see Thanos on a poster or some ad, part of me wished it was Darkseid or the Anti-Moniter or something.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just losing hope.

[popwasabi]

Some 2019 movies that were...fine.

 I watch a lot of movies every year and I try my best to make time to review all of them, not just because I like to write and to keep my blog running with relevant content but because it’s also just good practice.

I need to find creative ways to express myself and dissecting all the ways a movie does and doesn’t work is a great mental exercise for me. The great movies can be all about the complex writing highlighting the directorial shot design and thematic storytelling and vice versa while the bad films can be an autopsy of what exactly killed the whole production.

But there are some movies I just don’t get around to saying much of anything about because well…they evoke no strong feelings bad or good for me after watching them. They’re…fine for a lack of a better word and there’s nothing wrong with that; I’ve watched a ton of ok films that I forget about within days and I’m still pretty happy I got to see them.

I did want to talk a little about the ones I saw this year though because while I had no strong feelings about them I did have a few thoughts and I feel they are worth mentioning here. So, without further ado some “fine” films of 2019:

 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

The first “Lego Movie” was a delightful smash hit back in 2014. A comedic meta-commentary on pop culture, Legos, and consumerism while a thoughtful look at family and imagination, the movie was better than it had any right to be and helped kickstart two more Lego film spinoffs before its eventual 2019 sequel.

Anchored again by its star-studded cast there’s a lot of good humor once again in this film and it’s a fun family comedy from start to finish. The thing is it doesn’t say anything particularly new and feels like a rehash of much of the same themes and closer to a “Direct to DVD” sequel in terms of imagination.

There’s a by the numbers feel to the plot compared to the more organically creative ideas that went into the first movie and it's just not as fun of a ride this time around. This said it’s still a fun one and kids and families alike more than likely will and have enjoyed it.

All in all, not a bad movie and worth a watch if you liked the first, perhaps on a long flight back from Honolulu like I did this summer.

 Shazam!

I love Shazam. I think he’s one of the most fun characters in the DC superhero gallery and a character more than worthy of a big-screen film. He finally got one back in April 2019 and it’s frankly, a perfect take on a classic comic book character fit for the whole family to enjoy.

So why was it just fine for me?

Well, while I do like Shazam and his movie quite a bit there really isn’t a whole lot there beyond it being just that. It’s a superhero film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and the story, for the most part, doesn’t do so either with nothing truly profound to say. There’s a nice found family theme going on in it and the cast of child actors are shockingly great and when they all (SPOILER) eventually transform into their adult counterparts they play up their silly child-like demeanor perfectly. Zachary Levi is of course perfect but it’s Jack Dylan-Grazer who steals the show as Billy Batson’s foster brother delivering plenty of great quips and good humor throughout. But again, there’s not much beyond that than just being a fun superhero romp.

This is a great movie to introduce small children to the genre of superheroes and if I had kids this would definitely be a movie I would take them to see. I’m sure children of all ages probably enjoyed the hell out of it and though it’s no “Dark Knight” or “Endgame,” of course, that’s apples to oranges and frankly who cares? It did what it was supposed to do, which was deliver a nice friendly alternative to the brooding darker superhero takes of Hollywood and frankly I’m more than interested in watching more of Shazam in the future.

 John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

The first two “John Wick” films are, for the most part, perfect action shoot’em ups. Stylish, creatively violent, and a perfect antithesis to the lazy, unimaginative, explosive-heavy movies that Hollywood normally churns out, the “John Wick” films are the smooth glass of chardonnay to other actions movie jitter-inducing Rockstar energy drink style of film-making.

Chapter 3 is still several notches higher than the average Hollywood action flick and Keanu Reeves is still delightfully dry and deadpan as the hyper-focused killer that is John Wick but as far as the bar set by the first two films “Parabellum” is a few steps below the standard they set.

For one, it’s more or less the same story as the last one. Wick breaks some law set by the underworld of crime and now every assassin, hitman/woman, thug, etc is out to kill him. There are still some fun as hell choreographed gun-kata sequences in this film and plenty of gnarly deaths but the story ultimately doesn’t advance much. Wick films aren’t known for their compelling narratives of course but Chapter 2 at least expanded upon what the first film started; Chapter 3 is content to keep much of the story arcs where they were before only seeming to go a new direction at the very, very end.

This said it’s still a fun movie and a worthy alternative to much of the action schlock Hollywood normally churns out but as far as a John Wick film goes it’s disappointing.

 Always be my Maybe

Ali Wong has been on a comedic tear for a few years now. Her two Netflix stand-up specials are great where she talks about the realities of pregnancy, being Asian American, and of course “trappin’ his ass!” and she has even more on the way.

The “Fresh off the Boat” writer is quickly becoming more and more mainstream and her first major starring role came this summer in the form of Netflix’s “Always be my Maybe” alongside the highly underappreciated Randall Park. “Always be my Maybe” is a perfectly fine romantic comedy that fans of the genre will surely enjoy, with enough of a good sense of humor to keep even those who aren’t entertained from start to finish. Keanu Reeves’ cameo as an overly eccentric version of himself is of course the best part of the movie and worth the stream on that alone but the movie doesn’t lend much of anything truly memorable beyond that.

It’s a fairly by the numbers rom-com and offers few real surprises.

This said it does continue Hollywood’s new and long overdue upward trend of Asian American representation and certainly helped moved the needle in the right direction to make critical darlings such as “The Farewell” possible. In the past, a movie like this would need to be extraordinarily good to make Asian America feel relevant but if anything its greatest accomplishment is that it shows that Asian American can have a perfectly “fine,” average romantic comedy like any other white centric film in the genre before it and for that I’m grateful.

 Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw

When the trailers came out for this I was really hoping this would be the kind of fun, over the top bad that films like “XXX” and other “Fast & Furious” films in the cool cars, hot chicks, and guns genre have been about for decades but instead, I got a mildly entertaining, decent dose of macho escapism for two hours with only some fun bad moments.

Many have discussed before how “The Rock” is in dire need of having his charismatic skills used alongside more talented directors and a film like this perfectly encapsulates how he has limited himself to these boring, one-dimensional, macho, stoic types over and over again. Jason Statham isn’t much better and frankly an actor who should do comedy more often as his early Guy Ritchie roles showed the guy can do a lot more than just scowl and throw some fancy martial arts at the screen over and over again.

My biggest problem though is the movie doesn’t go nearly far enough in being ridiculous and takes itself just seriously enough to make it a fairly mundane and uneventful action flick instead of being ridiculous, over the top schlock as it should be. This is a movie that features shirtless Samoans doing the Haka before fighting black suited, well-armed mercenaries using war clubs and yet still isn’t nearly as crazy as it should be.

This all said, it’s another “fine” movie for what it is and a decent escape from the doldrums of work life that you can turn your brain off to on a Friday night. You could do waaay worse than “Hobbs & Shaw” even if you’re only interested in the “so bad it’s good” camp of the genre but man, this could have been much more fun in the worst way.

 Uncut Gems

This will probably be my most controversial choice on this list and perhaps it was my somewhat bloated expectations going in or maybe I’m just not too big of a fan of the “owe the mob money” genre but I just didn’t get a lot out of watching this movie.

For one there is not so much dialogue in this movie as there is just YELLING! So. Much. YELLING! Every line seems to be screeched at one another with a couple hundred expletives for good measure added for extra edge and its rather grating. A lot was made about it being a bareknuckle thriller that holds your captivation from start to finish but honestly, the best parts, for me at least, were when they slowed down and the characters spoke plainly without screaming at one another.

The film needed more moments where the story was allowed to stew and we got the characters to reflect on everything. These moments in the movie are more uncomfortable (in a good way) than the violence that chases the main characters around throughout the story. It just sprints from start to finish giving very little time to really understand the psyche behind Sandler’s character beyond he’s a fuck up who can’t stop making one more horrible mistake.

This said Sandler really is pretty sharp in this movie and showcases a bit of range that he’s been capable of for more than a while and the music in the film is great and plays greatly alongside each scene. A stylish 80s techno beat that highlights the criminal opulence of what’s going on around the characters, it’s almost hypnotic at times. The cinematography highlights this well with a great use of neon light and colors that make each scene truly pop in the best way.

It’s not a bad movie despite my issues, Sandler is, at worst, deserving of an acting nomination for this role and worth a watch if you get a chance to see it but “Best Picture” material as some viewers have stated? I don’t know about that.

  So, there you have it some…fine movies of 2019 that are perfectly passable and worth at least one watch if you happen to enjoy any of these various genres. I think as audience members and people of an increasingly divisive society we like to see things in only two categories; very good or very bad. Explosive arguments seem to ensue anytime someone expresses an opinion that doesn’t fit neatly on one end of the spectrum or the other and it’s a shame because our digestion of art should be a lot more diverse than it being simply binary.

This isn’t to say you should be a centrist on everything or that every middling opinion is a good take (it definitely isn’t) but be open to the idea that some people are just not going to feel super strong about one thing or another sometimes.

Just because someone thinks a film you loved is just “ok” doesn’t mean they have no taste and certainly if someone thinks a movie you hated is “not that bad” doesn’t mean they have no standards either. Sometimes our pop culture yields no strong reactions and that’s ok. Fans, film-goers, and general people alike just need to be more ok with that because at the end of the day it’s not that big of a deal.

 TL:DR be an adult. Just liking or being apathetic about a movie is fine and you should be fine with others feeling that way too.

 Happy New Year, y’all!

 *Begins typing long-winded dissection of “Cats”* (stay tuned)