couriernewvegas

[sam-keeper]

the miserable feeling of getting to the last episode of The Nevers and realizing we got Big O'd again.

I mean they did a really good job of wrapping up a lot of the plot and I think it's actually not the worst place to leave off thematically and even kind of... fascinatingly uncomfortable?

so I guess maybe what we really got was End of Evangelion'd 😬

which [stares at the corpse pile] yeah

would I recommend the Nevers?

well,

"True" is one of the most balls to the wall brilliant sci fi reveals I've seen, on par with some of the most buck wild things in Lost, and then they come back from a TWO YEAR HIATUS and frantically clean up the mess of a plot outline they were left with and arrive at a genuinely pretty brilliant pair of finale episodes... which leave on if not a cliffhanger absolutely the sense that the story was SUPPOSED to keep going

so

idfk man, do I recommend Big O?

maybe I should write something just about, idk, watching things and getting something out of stuff that is by nature of its production just sorta fundamentally incomplete

I don't really know exactly how I feel about it myself though I suppose.

I just am drawn like a moth to a flame to stuff that has this vibe, and I guess The Nevers proves that I can sense it even before the fix is in. there's nothing that appeals to me like a lost cause.

I will say this show is probably worth it for the autistic vriska coded Bird Boy, and the poor little meow meow disaster dyke energy of the main character who is canonically bisexual and poly and just a fucking mess.

could be worse I suppose. it could've been Wonder Egg Priority.

maybe I'll write about it some day. Sarah just expressed a longing for the days of fan magazines that would've covered a show like this. I'm not sure where its audience is now. I doubt anyone's tuning into fucking Tubi to watch these last six episodes lol. where does a fandom go for something like this? even the age of blogs is well past us. in a way, the doomed feeling conclusion fits with the production history and what its likely place in culture will be. there's a definite sense in the end, I think, that sometimes you do your absolute best, and it just doesn't quite work out.

was there still a value in the doing?

[lonepower]

Oh, I am so curious about Forspoken because I've only heard negative things about it. Would you mind talking about more of your thoughts about it? What's it like, and would you reccomend it?

Nonny, I am not surprised, and it is a continual source of raging frustration for me because this hate is absolutely unwarranted in every possible way!! I can't even track the tag here because, despite the small but absolutely wonderful fandom, it is so full of people hating on it that it clogs out nearly everything else.

First off: YES, I WOULD ABSOLUTELY RECOMMEND IT. PLAY THIS GAME. THAT IS A THREAT. 🔪🔪🔪🔪 

The tl;dr of my feelings about Forspoken are in line with that one excellent Jupiter Ascending review that I can't find for the life of me now, where the author is like, "is this what guys feel like all the time?" because the movie is just plucked straight from her 14-year-old self's wish fulfillment fantasies. Like, is it a deep, brooding, erudite Auteur Piece? Well, no, but... so what? It's self-indulgent to the max and so earnestly not-shy about it that it's just an absolute joy to play. It's fun. Like... it's just fun. Have we all just forgotten the sensation of joy??? 

(This got quite long, so full review under the cut:)

The game is a pretty straightforward changeling fantasy/isekai—heroine with a mysterious troubled past gets sucked into a magical world and just happens to be the exact thing needed to save it from impending doom—and it isn't shy about its own tropeyness. Like, it's not trying to be clever or subversive with its premise, and if you're used to the HBO theory that '"'"good"""(/heavy sarcasm) storytelling is completely unpredictable twists at every turn, then yeah, you're gonna find it predictable. (I called 2 of the 3 major reveals within seconds of their first being foreshadowed, but I love being right more than anything, so that was more of a bonus for me!) 

With that being said: It is absolutely excellent at doing what it sets out to do. It's not Complicated or Psychological or Edgy because that's not what it wants to be: It wants to be a fun, glittery, self-indulgent, richly detailed, joyfully tropey fantasy game, and by god it does that fantastically. It's got really deep, extensive lore and some subtler worldbuilding than I expected, it's a lot better written than people give it credit for, it's fun, it's rewarding to play. Frey is such a good protagonist, she's the epitome of "pathetic wet cat poor little meow meow blorbo from my shows" etc etc etc, and I feel like the only reason people aren't realizing this is because she's a Black woman with poor social graces who spends the majority of the game in extreme crisis mode. Water is wet 🙄

Is the dialogue cringy at times? Yeah, honestly there were a couple moments that made me go 😬, but from what I hear about other square enix games that's really nothing new. I will also die on the hill that yes, the banter is a little Whedony, BUT: 1) Whedon banter (esp. pre-2012 firefly/buffy/resurrection banter) is NOTHING like what "marvel dialogue" has become, and the Whedony bits of Forspoken are much more like Firefly than like the written-by-committee shit that marvel spits out now; 2) Joss Whedon is actually really fucking good at writing witty, funny banter, and it's just that he's so unpleasant in his ideals that we're all sick of hearing about him. I have LOTS of problems with the guy but his dialogue is Not one of them. And the banter in this game is one of the main draws for me. I fucking love banter because I am a brilliant bitch with excellent taste who will never change 💁‍♀️

Additionally—and crucially, because it indicates that 99% of the game's detractors haven't even gotten out of the first hub area—only two characters in the game talk like that, and they are explicitly seen as off-putting and not that funny (Frey) and extremely, maddeningly annoying (Cuff) by everyone else around. Frey is a homeless kid with no friends and Cuff has been trapped in a bracelet in an antique store for decades, so it's literally in-universe canon that they have no social skills. Everyone else in the game talks normally. They're both just huge dorks.

The gameplay itself is also really, really good too—this actually seems to be the One Thing that Gamers™ have decided is acceptable to not outright froth with rage over, so I'm putting it closer to the end, but yeah, it's awesome! It's one of three (3) games that I completed on Normal rather than story/casual/Idiot Weenie Baby difficulty (the others being Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn), but it also has a lot of really excellent accessibility modifiers so you can customize your playstyle extensively. It's heavily focused on mobility and versatility, so you get better rewards and XP and stuff for combos, switching power sets, being fast & evasive, etc. The open world is also very well-designed: it's one of the only games where I actually really enjoy dicking around in the postgame doing sidequests and killing monsters (rather than just immediately starting the main story over), because parkouring around with your flashy cape and your awesome flaming spear is just that much fun. VISORIA MY BELOVED.

Also, you can pet every cat. They'll even follow you around and pick up items for you! GOTY for that alone tbh.

I have very few complaints about the game—the music not being quite up to par is one, and some of the lore/backstory could've been presented a little bit more clearly in my opinion, especially in the DLC, but that's not a problem that everyone had. I know there are also some valid criticisms from Black players on the way Frey is presented, but I'm not 100% sure what the specifics are, and obviously googling "what's wrong with Forspoken" or w/e is absolutely not going to be helpful. (I can guess, as an Extremely White person; for one, her having a criminal backstory is maybe not the best look, although I will say that in the very first minute of the game I saw "left on a doorstep" and "compulsive theft" and my immediate thought was "oh, she is some kind of changeling for sure." I wasn't...entirely wrong? (Spoilers!) So that seems more like two separate factors combining in an unfortunate way than any actual stereotypes the writers were playing into. (Again, I am Very White, so I defer any interpretation to those who actually know what they're saying and would like to weigh in!!! 😅))

In summary, I think a combination of misogynoir and Gamer Brain Rot have just created the perfect unfair storm against this game, because I genuinely do not understand how else it could be so poorly received. It's genuinely one of my favorite games. Please play Forspoken.

[burningexeter]

[HEADCANON/FAN THEORY #5]

Fuck off with the Tommy Westphall theory as far as I'm concerned.

Over several hundreds of media from movies to TV shows to video games to even comics are all set in the same insane shared universe as each other that deal with multiple different tones and aesthetics.

I personally call it "The Wildwood Universe" and a mere some of them are the ten you see above exactly as is:

• Chris Carter's The X Files Series (First nine seasons, Fight The Future, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen)

• Joss "Yikes!" Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel

• Todd McFarlane's Spawn Trilogy (HBO)

• Tom Fontana's Oz (HBO)

• David Simon's The Wire

• Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse's LOST

• Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad Trilogy

• Kurt Sutter's Sons Of Anarchy Duology

• Jeff Pinkner & J.H. Wyman's Fringe

• Remedy Entertainment's Connected Universe

And that's just TEN! Here's an extra five:

• The Entire Quentin Tarantino Universe (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Inglourious Basterds, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill 1 & 2, From Dusk Till Dawn and even both Curdled and Michelle & Romy's High School Reunion)

• Neil Gaiman & Lenny Henry's Neverwhere (BBC Mini-series)

• Takahiro Omori's Baccano!, Durarara!! and Durarara!! x2

• Bryan Fuller's Pushing Daisies and Hannibal

• Travis Knight's Wildwood and The Night Gardener

It's this idea that led me to come up with an entire idea for a TV show, an adult animated TV show to be specific, The Wildwood Chronicles, and it unintentionally and unexpectedly became my passion project so who the hell would've thought.

[trash-box]

Not to be rude but HBO is not offloading anything that is actually popular and anyone upset otherwise is making a stink out of nothing. Like Insecure will never be on Tubi… who gives a FUCK about a Joss Whedon show

[festeringfae]

The one bad thing about being decades (plural) away from high school is that my peers appear to be forgetting over time that "the curtains were blue because" nonsense was an offline staple in every (including ~advanced~) lit class. It is not actually a new or significant sociological trend. Moreover, TV has always made mostly clunky attempts to emulate what it sees as the most topical or relatable issue-- there is no new, notably innovative or significant change in characters sounding like they're "on twitter." For fuck's sake, prior to the last ten years, a good portion of the kids who rolled their eyes at that dig at the English teacher were self-professed fans of Joss Whedon & Tarantino! Which, uh, ~related~: sadly, most people of any age didn't acknowledge or understand many, many, MANY portions of systemic sexism until 2017. For the first time, many ADULTS are still working through a crash course in basic consent-- and teenagers who feel alienated from their peers have a wider variety of possible explanations to consume than ever before, as both camps are experimenting with finding their agency for the first time. It's a lot more believable to me that misguided claims about cutting sex scenes are based in not understanding that characters can fuck without being objectified or othered because our existing samples are mostly atrocious than it is to think there is some Puritan Renaissance emerging wearing vintage Y2k crop tops.

Anyway, a lot of unnecessary discourse about many topics from people of a variety of ages could vanish if one simply asked oneself before posting: "does this REALLY ring true in a society where HBO's current biggest hit is 'Succession'?"

Nobody is on your lawn, demanding entirely morally pure characters with no flaws or problems. There are some people on their own lawns, trying to complain about real problems by misusing jargon that's the closest thing to making sense to them that they've ever heard. Reacting to the frequency of that with frequent annoyance is only going to lead YOU to welcoming the status quo-- possibly while considering yourself a holier-than-thou rebel for doing so. Nobody wants that.

[what-do-1000-swords-look-like]

While I'm glad that The Nevers are going to another platform and we will definitely get a 1B, I have to ask when is this shit going to end? It's so beyond fucking frustrating. And I feel for those whose content won't be coming back at all, the series that have been pulled indefinitely with no other home/platform to go to and no DVDs in production. All of that hard work is just gone. I also feel sorry for those who embark on productions and give it their best only to have them cancelled after a season at the whim of cutthroat executives. For those viewers who grow to love the story/world/characters only to have them pulled and held hostage. All because of the almighty dollar.

This is changing not only the future of streaming but the future of entertainment as we know it. And not in a good way. Not for the viewers/consumers.

[fitz-skimmons]

They’ll all come to us, and they’ll be safe. They won’t be safe. Less lonely, then. And that’s a start. It’s a start.

MRS TRUE & MISS ADAIR • THE NEVERS: Touched

[wwprice1]

The heart of the League and of the movie.

[andnowanowl]

It's "The Nevers", btw. I thought it looked pretty awesome until I saw who had his nasty little fingerprints all over it. We know how you treated Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot, you asshole.

(Apparently he was dropped from the project, but it's still creepy that a self-described feminist--from when, the 80's?--who treated Gal Gadot like shit was involved in this series.)

[recallthename]

JOSS WHEDON IS MAKING A NEW TV SHOW

THIS IS THE MOST EXCITED I HAVE BEEN ABOUT ANY TELEVISION SHOW SINCE 2009

[starplatinumnun]

"the nevers" on hbo max is a touching and accurate allegory for disability and neuro divergence, but all that kind of becomes less touching when you find out JOSS FUCKING WHEDON wrote it

[mixelation]

For shows you've never watched... "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist" or "The Nevers"?

hold up i saved some images last night let's goooo

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist

i have SEEN commercials for this and i still have no idea what it's about, but I gather from these stills that it's a musical?

tbh this just looks like someone saw the success of La La Land and was like "yeah... YEAH.... get a low budget emma stone and make a TV show out of that!"

It looks like budget emma stone works at a..... quirky tech company? is this like the california version of a career-minded young woman moving to NYC to get a job at a publisher? but it's a musical. hmm

almost none of the screen shots give any indication of plot, or who other major characters might be. the only inkling of a story i really have is this:

I'm guessing..... the lady on the left is budget emma stone's mom and she's dealing with some sort of Terrible Diagnosis. from this i'm going to extrapolate that the show centers around EITHER budget emma stone dealing with her own personal issues via musical numbers as she starts a new job and meets new people OR her helping the people around her deal with THEIR personal issues via musical number. i'd guess mostly the former with a little bit of the later thrown in for spice.

beyond this all anyone seems to do is lounge around in spacious homes they should NOT be able to afford in..... what city is this? Silicon Valley?

occasionally they go outside for musical numbers. it's still unclear if there's a real story. i suspect the story is the feelings we had along the way

The Nevers

Again, seen commercials, have no idea what it's about. It focuses on Victorian Ladies(tm)

looks like there are fantasy elements with some steampunk thrown in. the lady in the forefront of this shot is obviously the main one, and she may be a lady in a victorian era dress, but that won't stop her from being an Action Girl!! Look at this superhero pose:

the blond lady is her loyal side kick and is with her in almost every shot. are..... are they gay??

it's HBO so maybe...... but surely Tumblr would have lost its shit?? oh.... oh..... it's Joss Whedon. okay well in that case i don't want to know how he thinks strong lesbians should be lmao

I'm still not really sure what this show is about. Victorian London.... badass lady in pretty dress..... there's magic.... IS THAT ALICE

IS THIS ANOTHER FUCKING SHOW ABOUT LITERARY CHARACTERS HANGING OUT TOGETHER

actually there aren't any more shots of people who are obviously literary characters, unless joss wanted to shout out emma watson's belle? but i do think it's neat that the gabrielle to main lady's xena is some sort of.... inventor. you make shit happen, victorian gabrielle

i still have no idea what this show is actually about but i found this meme deep in the google images search

So actually i think it's a show about a collection of people who each have one (1) magical talent and find each other and hang out. victorian gabrielle has her steampunking. this girl is just a giant. main lady has a magic umbrella that she uses to--- WAIT. LITERARY CHARACTERS THEORY BACK ON THE TABLE

THIS IS A SHOW ABOUT BADASS MARY POPPINS. YOU'RE GOING TO LEARN SOME MANNERS MOTHERFUCKERS

[geek-gem]

I finally watched Zack Snyder’s Justice League

This was copied from my DeviantArt journal...oh the feelings. And I just updated it too when I remembered something when I spoke to my mom.

It's been I think...near half an hour since I watched the whole thing through...there are other things I want to talk about. It will be mainly in some silly Tumblr post of me accessing HBO Max...

But to simply describe it...

Beautiful...just simply beautiful.

That was not just epic...but that was an experience. Honestly strangely emotional and as I paced in the living room when the credits finally started rolling. I was just in shock of what I had just watched...

I felt like as I was watching it, that a part of my life felt complete. Yeah, I sound a bit weird. But as someone who liked Man Of Steel, and loves BVS. I've been a DCEU fan since 2017...

This is the movie I wanted to see in 2017...this is the movie I would of loved to seen three times if I would be able to do that...

I'm gonna sound harsh here. Fuck Joss Whedon. Fuck Geoff Johns, and screw the people that messed up this film up and didn't want it released. Including screw the people who mocked the fanbase who acted like it didn't exist...

I am simply shocked by just being done with it...I did it...I finally got to experience and watch Zack Snyder's Justice League. This is my favorite movie of 2021. Edit as I am on Tumblr right now, since my mom asked what I watched. It was a dream to finally watch it that I recall telling her.

A final note.

 Restore The Snyderverse.

[crazyintheeast]

The Nevers is a decent enough show but nothing really special. The characters are of course charismatic and the actors are very talented but apart from this the world building is mediocre at best and the writing is pretty much at the level of a random CW show. If it wasn't for the high budget of HBO it would be barely more then a footnote in the tv landscape.

But what I adore about it is the aftershow and namely the fact that HBO completely cut off Joss Whedon from it because they know exactly how radioactive he is. And for a narcissist like Whedon this is far worse then any twitter campaign to get him fire, any article, any network investigation, hell any law suit. The fact that he was denied the opportunity to go and ramble about things how "she was abused and she saw her abusers as god and would do anything to please them" is killing him. I mean sure he would probably still go on some podcast or interview or whatver and ramble on but it won't be the same as an aftershow

In any case Fuck Joss Whedon and if you want to see a female centered show about powerful diverse women with beyond excellent world building that excels despite having a budget that's mere pennies compared to the Nevers go watch Motherland Fort Salem. Or Warrior Nun or The Wilds. We are not the 90's anymore. You don't have to be content with Joss Whedon's pitiful attempts at writing

[jazon-todd]

now that gal gadot, ben affleck, ray fisher, david ayer, and even zack snyder himself are actually acknowledging the whole #releasethesnydercut thing (because fuck joss whedon and what he did to that movie) I’m almost 99% sure it’s going to be a thing for HBO max

[fear-the-spectacular-avatar]

Release the Snyder Cut

Warning There is a mention of suicide & bullying in the very first paragraph. I know Zack & Deborah Snyder will never see this post, but I’m truly sorry for their loss.

On 11/17/2017 the Justice League made its theatrical debut. I saw it opening weekend with my mom & younger brother. I heard the mix reviews prior, but went in with an open mind like I usually do. Walking out of the theater my opinion was this: I enjoyed the film & had fun with it. That’s not to say I had issues with it; my biggest being the reshoots. Initially I was excited to see what Joss Whedon had done in terms of the reshoots & additional scenes. After seeing the film I realized the reshoots were VERY unnecessary & noticeable. Not to mention this isn’t the film Zack envisioned when he was directing. As you know Zack had to step down as director when his daughter Autumn committed suicide. When the news broke out people on social media made cruel & disgusting jokes about it. I’ve seen some of the tweets/posts & it disgusted me. You have to be a heartless asshole in order to say those things. He then tasked Avengers & Avengers Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon to handle the reshoots.

When the film was released it received mixed reviews & underperformed at the box office. A big complaint the critics had was the films runtime of 2 hrs. These were the same critics who critised Dawn of Justice’s 2 hrs & 30 minute runtime. Shortly after the film was released the hashtag Release the Snyder Cut began trending. This was created by devoted fans of Zack Snyder who felt Warner Brothers destroyed Zack’s vision for the film. A similar issue occurred prior with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice also directed by Zack Synder & David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. Both of these were resolved as when released on digital HD & BLU-Ray. Batman v Superman received an ultimate edition that was rated R & contained 30 more minutes of footage. The ultimate edition is the version we were meant to get in theaters. However Warner brothers didn’t like the idea of an R rated film with Batman & Superman in it. Hence why we got what we got in theaters. Suicide Sqaud recieved an extended cut & that’s about it.

Today marks the 2 year anniversy of the Justice League’s release. Since then Release the Synder Cut has been trending constantly amongtst the fans on social media. Plus new information, storyboards, photos, & footage were released in that time only further adding the desire to see Zack’s version of the film. Most of these releases were from Zack Synder himself via his Vero account. Plus the moment has gathered massive from the cast including Zack himself along with several other actors. Rumors have circulated that Zack’s version of Justice League is 100% complete & fans have been in a frenzy. Many, myself included, hope this is true & we finally see what Justice League was meant to be. With news of HBO MAX being released in May 2020 & the new home of all the DC films, many have be speculated the Synder Cut could be added onto it.

In the last several months my opinion of the film had slightly changed. I’ve only ever watched the film once since it’s release & I do wish we had seen Zack’s version. That’s not to say Joss’s version is bad, it does have good moments. I’m not defending joss in anyway since he dropped out of directing Batgirl cause he “couldn’t think of a story”. Like are you fucking kidding me with that bullshit?! 58 years worth of lore & you can’t think of a fucking story?! I managed to come up with a rough idea in the span of 3 minutes when I heard the news! I will forever be angry with Warner Brothers for what they did to Zack & his vision. Zack Snyder is a fantastic director with a unique sense of storytelling & vision. His version of the Justice League deserves to be shared with the world & it’s about time that happens.