#the real answer is the guy with a gun bahaha

[kcdahippie]

What's more powerful? Being attached to a bomb or Jo Grant, some grease, and a course in escapology.

[twilightofthe]

I found a totally legal way to watch The Mandalorian!!!  Gonna do one of my first live-blogs of it, here’s Chapter One! (tag is “liveblogging the mando show” if y’all wanna block it)

Ooooo I really like the helmet flashing new logo (tho still curse you Disney)

OOOOOH THERE’S BEEPING THERE HE IS HE’S HOLDING A BEEPER I CAN’T HANDLE THIS

Ew gross don’t molest the guy you’re beating up my dudes

EW GROSS LEAVE HIM ALONE

Yayyyy Mando Man’s here!  He gonna help this dude or?

Wait how’s he supposed to drink through his fancy mask

I love how they’re going back to Huttese omg the nostalgia

YUS BOI GET EM GET EM GOOD

Aaaaaand back to business as usual typical bars

This guy’s gonna get captured too lol I know it

Ahaha I knew it

Welp at least Mando Man’s gonna be probs a bit nicer about it

OOOOOHHHHHHHH I FREAKIN LOVE THE TITLE MUSIC

Wait did we even know what planet this was?

So he doesn’t like droids or they’re easily tracked or????

Can’t be the opening of a Star WArs movie without a trashy old Uber driver of some sorts

Also cannot be proper Star Wars without someone calling another person’s ship garbage ahah I love this

Oh dinosaur monster walrus worm cool

Ya know this guy is surprisingly nonchalant about being taken in for a bounty

Shock staff or bug zapper?  A two in one deal!!!

Oh NOW you like his ship

Pfft I know like exactly zilch about ships, I’m not one of those SW nerds, can someone tell me if Razor Crests or anything are supposed to be important or not?

Vac Tube?  Huh, I thought “fresher” was the word for “space potty”.  Guess there’s more than one lol

Ooooo weapons

C’mon this guy really thinks he’s getting out?  Pfff

Oh so Life Day is canonically a galactic holiday then, not just another word for “birthday”.  I mean I kinda knew cuz they use “birthday” for Ezra in Rebels but this confirms Life Day too

Ooooo new planet!  I wish they told us the names like Rogue One did

Aaaaaand yet another bar

OMG RECOGNIZABLE LUCAS ALIENS THANK YOU FAVREAU I’M GONNA CRY THANK YOU

*Pokemon theme* Catch em’ alll

heck yea boi stick it to the Empire

Omg I’m hopeless Pedro Pascal has such a nice voic aaaaaaaa.

“I’ll take them all” Cocky bastard

his VOICEEEEEEE AAAAAA.  

I’m already intrigued, but I really want to see more of his character behind just “cool armor fighter mask man mystery”.

Ik ik I’m being impatient this is only the first ep but still

Also his cloak game is On Point and I love it

HEY IT’S SOME OF THOSE TRASH CAN DROIDS I LOVE THOSE

*Obi Wan voice* Hello there stormtroopers xD

Hmm so who’s the doctor?

That metal old dude’s wearing, it’s not Rebel Alliance, is it Empire?  It makes sense if he’s hanging out with Stormtroopers

Wait shoot Old Dude could be another Mando, if he’s got beskar and all

BAHAHA ROASTED MONKEY LIZARD AND THEY’RE TRAUMATIZING THE LIVE ONE XD ANAKIN WOULD BE PLEASED HE HATES THOSE THINGS.  SO WOULD POE HAHA

I’m adoring the Western-style soundtrack

Oooo more Mandos

And color me wrong but that curvy fleur-de-lis thingy on the wall is the Mandalore symbol right?  I forget, don’t kill me

Head of his guild here I guess?

What is the Purge?  Ooo so he doesn’t have legit beskar armor cuz it’s rare, so he’s trying to build a 

new suit?

I like the design of the armorer’s mask

What’s a Foundling???

Ohhh his traumatic backstory I guess?

Bahaha I just thought he’s got the same tragic backstory as Kung Fu Panda pffffttttt

I Love The MUSIC

Another planet, this one sandy.  Tatooine?  The rocks look right and I know the show was going there 

Aight this looks right Imma say this is Tatooine for now, the planet likes to pop up in people’s scanners Tusken-style and attack you like Space Australia does

I recognize this alien guy’s (Ugnaught? Gah I can never keep species names straight ik I’m horrible) voice from somewhere

Vaporizers, another point towards Tatooine

Oooo sassy “idk if I want your help”

Omg bluurgs, those were on Rebels!!!

Bahaha animal taming time!  I’m glad they’re keeping some Star Wars Humor in here, it wouldn’t feel quite right if it was too serious

*How To Train Your Dragon theme plays*

The CGI my dudes!!!!!!!

At least Mando Man is polite

“I have spoken” That’s gonna be my new answer for whenever I don’t know anything and someone calls me on my BS

Weequays!!!!!!!

Oop now they dead

Guess someone’s got competition

He just doesn’t like droids then :(

Wait what can a droid do with credits?

I guess every SW protag needs a trusy droid sidekick lol

Bahaha “do not self destruct” me @ me

I love him he’s got that “done with everything” attitude

Wheeeeeeee spinny gun!!!!!!

Yay they’re friendly!

Aw he’s nice for a bounty hunter!

Omg old-timey door sparky explosions THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Another trash can lol

Omg they put the freaking Baby Yoda in the trash can pfffttt it’s a literal trash baby gremlin

Awwww he likes children!!!

Ok good he protected the baby over the droid

THAT LITTLE FINGER

AND FILONI DIRECTED IT OF COURSE HE DID

AAAAAAAAAA

STILL REALLY LOVING THE WESTERN-STYLE MUSIC

I can’t watch the next one quite yet cuz busy, but omg omg omg omg I really liked this!  I know Filoni and Favreau know probably the most about canon Mandalore between the two of them (Favreau played Pre Viszla on TCW) so I totally trust them to do this well.  I’m liking Mando Man! (I shall call him Mando Man until they give him a real name and No One Can Stop Me)  I haven’t learned much about him yet, but so far I see that he’s a dedicated hunter and kinda a crankypants, but he cares about children!  He has a moral compass!  I’ll stan for now!!!!

I’m really really happy they brought the old Star Wars aliens back into this, I haven’t seen any live-action ones for so so long now ;_;  

I’m interested about the Great Purge, but I’ll go more into that on a separate post lol

[taaroko]

Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Captain America: Civil War

Time for a bunch of in-fighting!

Was there any significance to those code words?

Howard and Maria. :(

Freaking Runlow.

I read something about how they’re all being very bad at undercover, sitting around in sunglasses and hats. They’re being like actors undercover from paparazzi, not low-profile spies. Whoops.

Runlow’s team is kinda lucky the rubble from that crash didn’t block their entrance.

This is some top notch fighting from both Cap and Sam. Sam’s wings are super versatile.

Whee, Steve getting a telekinetic boost from Wanda!

Ohh, it’s Nat who used the motorcycle as a projectile in this one. Okay. I thought it happened at least twice.

Heeeey Cap’s shield is half covered in soot. Symbolism.

FREAKING RUNLOW.

That blast was either going to kill everyone in the square or the people in that building. If it had been the former, it wouldn’t have been a big international crisis.

Aged-down Tony is easily the best of that kind of special effect we’ve ever seen. *suppresses memories of CG Leia*

I think that seminar was the first we've seen of the "philanthropist" part of billionaire genius playboy philanthropist. (Donating a collection of modern art to the Boy Scouts is too weird to count.)

Hi Dean Pelton.

Awkward actress recycling! But it was worth it. She’s so good as Mariah.

Vision’s social graces are so funny.

Uggggggh General Ross. Who is now Secretary of State.

Man that footage would’ve made Bruce so sad.

“For the last four years, you’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision.” Wait does that mean it’s been four years since Winter Soldier? This timeline is a freaking mess.

I know where Thor and Banner are!

Okay, Zimo talks about painstakingly decrypting the Hydra files Nat leaked on the internet, but did he start doing that before Ultron or after? How long has it been since Ultron?

Tony’s face.

What makes this movie so good is that both Tony and Steve have very good points and multiple movies of backstory that brought them to those positions. The Tony of IM1 would’ve been anti-Accords, and the Steve from the ‘40s would’ve been pro-Accords, but here they are now. And the Accords were very inevitable after Ultron.

Noooo Peggy.

Headcanon: the non-Steve pall-bearers were Peggy’s son and grandsons.

“Plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say ‘No. You move.’”

I love that Nat’s priority is sticking together as a team, but she does get Steve’s position. (I mean obviously; she defects to his team halfway through.) Steve’s friendships with Nat and Sam are so wonderful.

Hey T’Challa!

Does the actor who plays T’Chaka have a glass eye? *internet research* Holy crap, he does. This is from John Kani’s IMDB page: Kani lost his left eye during a beating by South African police after returning home from a Broadway production of "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead", which was critical of Apartheid. He survived after being left for dead and subsequently won a 1975 Tony Award for his performance.

They did a really good job introducing T’Challa, and his arc in this movie is excellent.

Dangit Steve and Sharon would’ve kissed if Sam hadn’t interrupted.

More hats and sunglasses. You guys look real suspicious wearing hats and sunglasses INDOORS, especially when you start passing files around.

Man, Bucky just wants to buy some plums. Also, so cool that Seb got to go home to Romania and speak his native language for this bit.

Isn’t it easier to shoot out the lock than all three sets of hinges?

Bucky just came here to buy some plums and honestly he’s feeling so attacked right now.

So much multi-storey falling! I know these guys are all tougher than normal people but it’s still very stressful to watch!

These movies are always doing ridiculously cool things with motorcycles.

Rhodey makes a pretty good enforcer.

Vis and Wanda are adorable. But the conversation about the Mind Stone is really painful now.

The heck?! Tony thinks Wanda is unstable enough to cause another “incident” just by going to the store? Do Tony and Wanda still dislike each other or something? I guess they never reconciled over the whole thing where his tech killed her parents and she used her powers against him.

A fancy pen is not a convincing argument, Tony.

Steve was so ready to be thrilled for Tony if he and Pepper were gonna have a baby!

Tony just called Wanda a weapon of mass destruction. Either he’s playing devil’s advocate or he’s being really unsympathetic right now.

Bucky! Plug your ears and go LALALALALA!

I like how every time someone does the sleeper activation codes, he walks around Bucky in a circle. Is that part of it or just a cool filming thing?

Aaaaargh that elevator shaft fall.

Tony’s face when Bucky fires his gun into his glove.

Nat’s signature move is useless against Bucky.

RECOGNIZE YOU FROM WHEN?! The mission he foiled, or something else? I must know. Please answer this question, Black Widow movie.

Okay. The helicopter thing. It does not make sense. It should’ve just lifted Steve right off the ground. It is capable of carrying several passengers. One dude hanging onto it when there’s only a single occupant would not weigh it down. The part where he holds onto the railing and keeps it from flying away does work, though.

Heeeeey the scene with Bucky’s arm in the clamp is the exact midpoint of the movie. I don’t know why I find that interesting, but suddenly I very much want to analyze the significance of these moments. This one is a major turning point. The revelation of other Winter Soldiers. Team Cap now has an urgent mission.

Tony has an arc reactor scar!

HI PETER! *hug attacks him*

I love every single second of Peter’s intro scene.

“It’s a long story. I was—” “Lordy! Can you even see in these!” Bahaha, Tony cut off even a conversation of origin story.

Okay, the moment Tony leaned forward while Peter was talking obliquely about great power and responsibility. That was when he became emotionally invested in this kid. They’re both motivated by a sense of guilt and obligation.

Wanda and Clint’s methods for getting past Vision makes their team lose a bit of high ground.

Steve and Sharon’s kiss could’ve been handled less like an afterthought, but the reason I’m still cool with it is Sam and Bucky’s reactions.

How’d these three big dudes end up in a little VW Beetle anyway?

Hahaha, each team has a fanboy on it. Scott on Team Cap and Peter on Team Iron Man.

“Thinks for thanking of me!”

Yessss. Airport fight.

Um, why did Tony not even pause when Cap mentioned the other five Winter Soldiers?

Oh Peter I love you so much. And I love that Tom has this rivalry with Anthony and Seb in all the behind the scenes stuff.

“He also said I should go for your legs.” Man this is almost a vine reference.

Scott in Tony’s suit is hilarious.

Scott’s reaction to becoming Giant-Man is probably the single greatest two seconds in the movie.

Man, Clint just wants to make new friends, but T’Challa isn’t interested in this Avenger nonsense.

More tasing!

100%, Peter is trolling these geezers by pretending he’s not a gigantic Star Wars nerd.

It took me several watches to realize that when Scott says “Does anyone have any orange slices,” he’s making a reference to little league sports, and how the moms bring orange slices for after the games.

Tony went to check on Peter even though they hadn’t caught Steve and Bucky yet!

Rhodey’s fall is horrific. And the way they frame it so that you only see the ground when he hits it. Agonizing.

Part of me thinks Rhodey should’ve died right there, but there is rather a lot of precedent for falls not being fatal if you’re in an Iron Man suit. And if he’d died, I don’t think they ever would’ve been able to get past this split. Getting kinda paralyzed is an acceptable compromise.

“Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one goddamn second?” Okay that is a really interesting line. Tony is being pretty egotistical about the concept of surrendering accountability to the UN. He has been rather bad at considering alternatives. Admittedly, he’s on the clock, and then worse people will go after his friends, but he’s allowing for zero nuance here. He knows these people. He knows they don’t do things without good reasons. Steve was right that you can’t let accidents stop you from doing the right thing. Tony is letting it cripple him.

Tony is practically on Team Cap at this point, with the secretly flying after him and all.

Hahaha, Nat has a labeled gun rack. And Bucky is using her guns!

I’m freaking pissed at the trailer for this movie. It would have been a very good twist that instead of going to Siberia to fight five more Winter Soldiers, they were walking into a trap where the in-fighting was about to become far more personal. But I didn’t get to experience that twist, because the trailer includes shots of Tony fighting Bucky and Steve in this location. That trailer made me stop watching trailers entirely for over a year. I do think trailers can be good so you know at least the type of movie you’re about to see, but they should not give away stuff like this. I think Marvel has gotten better at that since then.

Okay, so it’s been over a year since Ultron.

Green is not a flaw in blue eyes, jerk. It’s cool.

Surveillance cameras don’t usually have sound. But oh boy this is devastating.

This moment. Tony coming apart and attacking Bucky. This is exactly the same thing that Peter Quill does to Thanos. This is the reason Tony figures out what Peter’s about to do before he does it and tries to get him to stop and think. But he knows pretty well that there’s no stopping and thinking in a situation like this.

Zimo is a lot like Frank Castle, except that his family died as accidental collateral damage, not a targeted setup.

“The living are not done with you yet.” Such a great line.

“I could do this all day.” Tony has taken the role of the bully from the first one now.

I think for a second, Tony was legit afraid Steve was going to kill him. But Steve was never the one driven to that point. This still does not count as Steve having a dark side.

Okay, Steve dropping the shield was pretty much a concession. You don’t want me using the shield your dad made if my best friend killed him? Fair enough.

TONY STANK.

Tony trolling Secretary Ross will never stop being funny.

Okay, on the whole, while I sympathize more with Cap, I think I’m actually on Team Iron Man when it comes to the Accords. The Accords are an overcorrection of long-running problem. There should have been oversight this entire time, and I think the idea is that SHIELD was that oversight until Winter Soldier. Steve didn’t want to be the dupe of a corrupt system again, so he no longer tolerated oversight, but that really can’t be his call. How transparent are the Avengers being about their missions? He doesn’t run around saving people from street thugs, he does military-style operations all around the world. That’s not the kind of thing anyone should be able to make unilateral decisions about. He’s doing what Tony used to do in his solo films. But now that the PR has gotten bad enough and the novelty of superheroes has worn off, suddenly everyone realizes it’s not a great plan to let them run around unsupervised.

But Cap’s side of the argument is valid too. Superheroes save the world. Collateral damage is a much better outcome than what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been there. Obadiah would’ve continued supplying both sides of conflicts in the Middle East, stoking the fires of war for his own gain. Red Skull would’ve blown up most of the major cities in the US and taken over. Killian would’ve had the world on its knees with his scam. Malekith would’ve destroyed all the nine realms. Loki would’ve taken Earth. Hydra would’ve wiped out anyone who could challenge their reign of terror with Project Insight. Etc. Some of the villains rose up as consequences of the heroes (Ivan, Ultron, and Zimo, for instance), but most of the threats exist independent of the heroes’ actions, which is why we need heroes.

After how much I’ve loved Tony in all the movies so far (though he was a bit iffy in Ultron), I was really surprised by how many moments he has of being kind of a jerk in Civil War. But it doesn’t make me dislike him. This is his guilt complex on overdrive. And losing it over finding out about how his parents died is heartbreaking. But the most redeeming thing for him in the movie is Peter Parker. He recognized a similar guilt-based motivation in Peter while they talked, and in that moment, he became extremely protective of this kid. He brings him in because he knows he’s got a really handy method of incapacitating people without harming them. He’s not recklessly endangering a child, because he knows none of the Avengers will use lethal force. And his concern for Peter’s well-being is actually what costs him victory in the airport fight. He could’ve apprehended Steve and Bucky, but instead he had to make sure Peter was okay.

So...if Thor and Bruce had been in this. Thor wouldn’t be cool with being beholden to Midgardian governments. He cooperates as a courtesy, but he doesn’t actually answer to Earth authority. And I’m pretty sure he’d be very sympathetic to Steve about Bucky, given that it’s a rather similar situation to him and Loki. Bruce, on the other hand, has never felt confident about his ability to stay in control, and he was a major source of collateral damage in multiple countries in Ultron, not to mention the extra footage Ross showed the team. He’d probably think Bucky needs to be under guard for the same reason. I think he’d not only side with Tony but be relieved that Tony was on the side of the Accords. However, you really can’t have two powerhouses like Thor and Hulk in this fight. On their own, they could demolish the entire opposing team. The only option would be to keep them fighting each other the whole time, which would be kind of lame. Much better for them to have a gladiator battle on trash planet where no on else can steal their thunder. (I am not sorry.)

My mind is pretty much blown by how well the MCU has traveled the path from the first few movies to here, and from here to Infinity War. The Avengers have pretty much been getting broken down since Ultron. This was where they fell apart. Infinity War is the consequences of falling apart.