Messages

1

Film & TV / Re: New Doctor Who Picked.

« on: 10 May, 2022, 04:39:05 PM »

I was recently watching some classic Who as a man struggled with some green painted bubble wrap on his arm - it was fantastic! 

'The Ark in Space' is my guess for that one - things have rather moved on!

HaHa, it was indeed the Ark in Space.  I decided to rewatch Tom Baker's first season.  Robot, Ark in Space, Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Revenge of the Cybermen - I wish it was still that good. 

2

Prog / Re: Prog 2280 - High-Octane Sci-Fi Action!

« on: 10 May, 2022, 04:28:22 PM »

I wouldn't say that my nose is out of joint because of the regens.  I'm happy for them to exist but at the same time I don't think its unreasonable to point out what a strange situation we have ended up in with them. 

My view is that 2000 AD is a standalone publication that is within an ecosystem.  Its an anthology comic for mature readers (teen+) and inserting a children's comic into that each quarter is an odd approach.  That's not to say every story in 2000 AD needs to be guns and violence - you could argue the recent intestonauts story could fit well in an all age comic - nanobots in poop, yeah young me would be all over that! 

If the initial sales figures suggest that there is some worth in pursuing this then I would have thought upping the rate of content and including some reprints of appropriate stories that have appeared in the prog previously means they have enough to produce just regen specials next year that are sold alongside the normal prog. 

Just my thoughts on the matter.  As I said before, this always felt to me like a proof of concept but here we are nearly three years later and I just wonder where this is all going. 

3

Film & TV / Re: New Doctor Who Picked.

« on: 10 May, 2022, 03:06:16 PM »

I hope they go beyond visuals. For the post part, I’ve not had problems with how Doctor Who has looked since the reboot.

I was recently watching some classic Who as a man struggled with some green painted bubble wrap on his arm - it was fantastic!  Modern Who has never 'looked' better and is far beyond anything my younger self could have imagined.

We'll have to wait and see with the new guy - I previously thought Matt Smith was too young when he was announced and he turned out to be pretty darned good, so we just can't tell.  His initial statement was spot on though - excited to do it and paying respect to all those before him.

I think the new team will do better in terms of scripts but lets be honest, the bar has been set pretty low recently!

4

Prog / Re: Prog 2280 - High-Octane Sci-Fi Action!

« on: 09 May, 2022, 05:40:31 PM »

Long-time lurker here, lured out by the perennial discussion around the regen progs!

I won't comment on the quality of the regens - as a grumpy 40+ year old, they are not aimed at me and not something that I would normally buy.  Likewise, I'm not interested in the cor blimey specials and such but I appreciate that Rebellion produce a range of products, some of which I will buy and others not.  I am more than happy for them to all exist and agree that new readers need to be brought in.

It feels like adding the regens into the normal prog schedule was a good way to test the concept but this has also been a limitation as ultimately, we won't know if it can stand on its own feet until it does.  My preference would be for this to be the last year that we have the regens included in the run of progs and that it progresses to either a quarterly, monthly or even weekly schedule of its own.

In short, where I come from there is a saying 'sh*t or get off the pot'!     

5

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 25 May, 2021, 06:06:36 PM »

Each to their own but I find the theatrical version with its voice-overs massively distracting and once you are reminded of the naked gun movies, then you can't get it out of your head!  Doesn't it also include the awful driving through the mountains ending too?  I suppose you can always just stop it when the lift doors close to avoid that - the DC/FC ending is far superior in that respect.

6

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 19 May, 2021, 06:54:53 PM »

I enjoyed the first saw film a lot and didn't see the twist coming on the first viewing but I'm surprised how many sequels they have managed to churn out, given the laws of diminishing returns!

7

Games / Re: Last game played...

« on: 19 May, 2021, 06:32:26 PM »

Like another poster, I ditched Last of Us 2 after a few hours play.  It wasn't so much the shock death of a beloved character as the painfully slow start to the game which seemed to involve lots of lengthy cut scenes, guitar playing, running in snow and then trying to get into Seattle and initially finding nothing much!  I'll go back to it at some time but it just stopped being fun and started to feel like a chore.

Inspired by some youtube walkthroughs I have been playing Dark Souls on the PS3.  This is a game that I'd rage-quitted some years ago and finally decided to go back too.  After getting some pointers from youtube, its a lot more fun and I'm able to appreciate what a fantastic game it is.  Its supposed to be notoriously difficult but a large part of that relates to the non-existent help that the game gives you.  Hardly anything is explained but once you get used to it, most enemies are dispatched with a block and a side-step.

8

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 01 March, 2021, 06:18:42 PM »

None of the Sony made Fantastic Four movies have been that good but that last one was especially poor and dogged by stories of studio intervention and multiple reshoots.  They really didn't have a clue what they were doing and the real shame is that they had arguably the best Marvel villain with Dr Doom. 

I'm very interested to see how then integrate X-Men and the Fantastic Four into the MCU. 

9

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 28 February, 2021, 01:01:53 PM »

Well, both movies have pretty much the same cast and one leads on from the other so it’s hardly the biggest mistake to make!

Personally, I quite like Civil War as I like the whole winter soldier storyline and I find the scaled back action more interesting. I’m more interested in the scene where the police try to raid where the winter soldier is than the huge fight at the airport. I liked the small scale ending too which would have been ruined by adding too many extra characters.

I do get though that it helps if you have an interest in these movies but I really like how they are all inter-linked.

10

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 27 February, 2021, 02:25:51 AM »

Captain America: Civil War is fairly dire. It's just not really convincing as to why they're fighting each other when it would be much easier not to.

Also: I know the violence is cartoon-y, but ... still! And: why are Iron Man and the Hulk suddenly fighting each other in downtown Johannesburg?

Hulk isn’t in Civil War at all.  That sounds like the fight from Age of Ultron although I do appreciate that they all seem to merge into one.

11

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 26 February, 2021, 06:30:18 PM »

There's just so many movies that I thought were wonderful back in the 80s only to go back recently and realise they were tosh! Obviously, my tastes have changed too but some of them are just plain bad and young me was clearly blinded by the state of the art effects. 

Masters of the Universe is still a timeless classic though, right? 

12

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 23 February, 2021, 01:24:42 AM »

I saw News of the World recently too and agree that its a decent movie with the usually dependable Tom Hanks.  I do feel that it pulled a lot of its punches though and I would have liked to have seen some of the events that happened off screen but I appreciate that would have made it a lot darker movie with a higher age rating.

13

Film & TV / Re: Carano, Whedon and all that

« on: 16 February, 2021, 01:27:43 AM »

Moving back to the original topic....

I'm sure that I saw somewhere a bit ago that Disney were going to clamp down on its 'stars' use of social media.  There's been many incidents where fans have been insulted on social media and the execs have probably realised that if you are going to alienate every Star Wars fan who is a dick then you're going to lose a large portion of your audience!

Gina Carano had a history of contentious tweets and I suspect they were looking for a reason to fire her for a while and lets be honest, she was only a minor character in the Mandalorian.  Pedro Pascal has also had to delete some of his tweets promptly and while you could argue that his liberal bias is more in tune with Disney than Carano's views, it would also be a lot harder to replace him. 

14

Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...

« on: 26 January, 2021, 01:39:01 AM »

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I have never understood the appeal of this film, but I thought I'd give it another shot.  I still don't understand the appeal of this film.  I always thought Ferris was incredibly selfish in his actions, if not his words.  Horribly manipulative and opportunistic.  I am left with the impression that his friends supposed "best day of his life" will end up being the worst when Daddy comes home.  The rest of the stuff I've never found funny. 

Well, each to their own but Ferris is a very funny film to me.  Its the little things that crack me up like the teacher with the incredibly boring voice and then all the faces of the pupils!   

On the face of it, he is an incredibly cocky person who seems to always 'get away with it' but given that the whole movie is about him trying to help out his depressed friend, I don't know if I'd call him incredibly selfish.

15

General / Re: What happened to Gerry

« on: 23 January, 2021, 02:12:37 AM »

I don't think there have been loads of interviews with Gerry so there is not a great deal of information out there but Pat Mills does talk about him in the link below:

https://www.millsverse.com/10-of-the-best-celebrating-some-of-2000ads-unsung-heroes/