Messages

Huh. Can't say we've ever had a problem with that.

I didn't comment at the time but I also thought 427 was exceptional.

We're just cracking on with Season 5 right now. It's essentially flawless.

I lost track of The Expanse when finishing up season 2.  There was all that crap about the future of the series being uncertain and I wasn't keen to get into another situation that I had with Stargate Universe.

I hear you. It's a chewy one, but in the end even if Expanse had finished after S3, I would much rather have enjoyed all those hours of awesome sci-fi than denied myself on the risk that I might not see an ending.

In fact S3 would have been a perfectly acceptable spot for Expanse to finish. Major story arcs enjoy closure all the time in that show. It's a good model for creating epic, long-form, episodic TV that doesn't leave the audience hanging on fundamentals should it suffer an untimely demise.

All that said, Expanse is hugely admired, performs great, and is now on Amazon. I don't see it going anywhere.

I enjoyed the last episode and it will be a pity if Jodie is replaced (just as I got into her interpretation of The Doctor).

Me too. One of the papers described it as "meat and potatoes Who" which I thought was accurate.

[Dredd]

I doubt there's many on this forum who haven't seen Dredd multiple times. Good point though--I might stream it next time to push those metrics.

[The Rhythm of War]

The Rhythm of War (Stormlight Archive vol. 4).

[Phantom Menace]

I enjoy the recent trilogy for the spectacle it is--much as how I enjoyed the prequels for the same reason. This will carry me for a few watches before I lose interest. Much as I love the three-way light-sabre duel in Phantom Menace, Maul still gets punked by Obi-Wan at the end, and I can listen to Duel of the Fates any time I want...thus, I haven't watched the film in years. I suspect the same thing will happen with the latest three, especially since the series' narrative choices rubbed the shine off whatever excellent goodwill TFA earned with me.

In the end that's what grinds my gears. To have embarked on these films with no plan, no three-act structure, no metaplot under which any number of top-tier directors would have happily gone to work...it's inexplicable and, to my mind, unforgivable.

It makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight.

JJA has very definite opinions about the attention span of his audience.  I still remember how the opening shot of his Star Trek reboot is a spaceship flying through space making spaceship noises, and then a minute later another spaceship is shooting very loud space lasers, while many loud space explosions happen.  Then someone falls out of a door or something into space, which is deathly silent because there is no noise in space.

This tired old thing? Cinema plays with reality at every turn, yet somehow it's wrong when sci-fi does it.

Merry Christmas to all forum Squaxx, to the droids that have pushed their charge levels into the red getting us a year of non-stop thrill power, and to Tharg for his steadfast refusal to abandon Earth as we limp from one crisis to another.  Here's to a much-improved 2021 and more incomparable thrills.

Have a great Christmas everyone.

[Pirates of the Caribbean]

We started of with Pirates of the Caribbean which I remember really enjoying in the cinema (sequels not so much). On a rewatch it's really not that good - there's some striking sequences with the undead pirates and it looks really good, but it's really carried by Depp and Geoffrey Rush and if you take them out the rest of the film is pretty weak. Furthermore if you've started to find Depp's pirate schtick tiresome then it's basically Barbosa or nothing.

If you take out the good bits, it's...less good?

Dammit I have *never* had a 2000AD reference picked up by a rando squaxx!

To be fair, if it wasn't for the remarkable sturdiness of Beskar, the stormtroopers would have nailed the Mandalorian a few times over by now.

Not to mention its apparent resistance to a light sabre.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/noah-hawley-alien-series-is-set-on-earth/

Crikey, it's like all my Christmas presents at once.