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Drunk Nerds posted:Having literally never seen anything ever comic book related except freeze in Batman & Robin, can someone explain what was so amazing about these freeze episodes? Not being sarcastic this stuff is interesting, but I want to know why he seems to be gold standard  Also worth keeping in mind that before that point, Mr. Freeze was the opposite - all ice puns and robbing banks, zero depth or pathos. Lyrai posted:I mean, humanizing is one of the things Batman TAS did well. Batman ALWAYS called the villains by their real name. "Harleen", not Harley. "Harvey", not Two-Face. They were never "lost" to him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wBjZemeh3k John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 04:54 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 04:48
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Batman cartoon comic related. I'm confident I was the first person to spot an Easter egg in one. Years ago, I read some of The Batman Strikes, which was the monthly comic for The Batman. There was a panel with a couple of businesses in the background. One was labelled Elfman, and the other was Soule. I think it was a pizza shop and a laundromat or something like that. This was years before Twitter. Elfman was pretty obviously a reference to Danny Elfman. I was massively into video game music at the time, and knew that Soule had to be Jeremy Soule. I went to his website and sent him an email about it. His PR person sent me back an email asking for a photo. I sent a photo of it back (a much more difficult task back in 2004). Soule replied directly back to me thanking me for spotting the shout out. It felt really cool. Especially in a pre-Twitter world where any celebrity can see and directly reply to your shitpost.
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Jun 7, 2018 04:48
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The thing that sticks out to me most about Batman Beyond was the episode where a villain wanted to discredit the Batmen by making Batman go nuts. They hijacked a bunch of electronics to transmit messages to him only when and where he could hear them alone. The idea was to gaslight him into losing his mind. Literally the entire time Batman knew exactly what was going on but played along to lead the new Batman to the villains. At the very end of the episode Batman tells Terry that he knew what was up and knew he wasn't crazy all along. Terry was just like "but how did you know?" Batman said "in my head I don't call myself Bruce." It's just such a perfect Batman moment.
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Jun 7, 2018 04:49
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Drunk Nerds posted:Having literally never seen anything ever comic book related except freeze in Batman & Robin, can someone explain what was so amazing about these freeze episodes? Not being sarcastic this stuff is interesting, but I want to know why he seems to be gold standard Before TAS, Mr. Freeze was a one-note ice-themed villain who had no real backstory or character. TAS introduced his origin (i.e. how he got his ice powers etc.) and the backstory of his dying wife Nora, and gave pathos to a character who'd only ever been a joke before. It also helped that he was voiced by Michael Ansara.
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Jun 7, 2018 04:54
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psychopomp posted:Amazon streaming has Babylon 5, so I've been watching that again. It holds up surprisingly well, especially the pacing. Everything except the CG every time they show the station's exterior. Looks like something straight out of Captain Power. Babylon 5 is good because it's basically an epic stage play.
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Jun 7, 2018 05:02
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JediTalentAgent posted:I think before it was cancelled, but the Batman Adventures comic based around the animated series was going to do an arc that involved Penguin becoming mayor and which was going to lead to Batman recruiting Riddler to figure out how he managed to pull it off. They did eventually do this story, but given the wonky title changes and shaky publication history of the DCAU Batman comics I'm not surprised you didn't know. It was the Clock King finally satisfying his hate boner for the former mayor. On topic for the thread since he was def one of the weaker characters of the show imo.
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Jun 7, 2018 05:58
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What are you talking about, Clock King was rad in a bit of a campy sort of way. They even brought him back in Justice League as part of their version of Suicide Squad.
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Jun 7, 2018 06:01
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Accordion Man posted:What are you talking about, Clock King was rad in a bit of a campy sort of way. They even brought him back in Justice League as part of their version of Suicide Squad. Yeah Clock King was rad on the show. Very much a one-off, though.
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Jun 7, 2018 06:11
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Besesoth posted:Before TAS, Mr. Freeze was a one-note ice-themed villain who had no real backstory or character. TAS introduced his origin (i.e. how he got his ice powers etc.) and the backstory of his dying wife Nora, and gave pathos to a character who'd only ever been a joke before. the freeze episode that did this, heart of ice, also won an emmy for outstanding writing in an animated program iirc which made people start paying more attention to the show in general apparently the scene where batman saw what really happened to freeze's wife was so unexpected and poignant, given that freeze was just gimmick character before, that censors briefly forgot themselves and let batman get away with uttering a blasphemy in an era of kids' tv where that was still very verboten
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Jun 7, 2018 06:28
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The year that B:TAS was going to start airing TV Guide (I think) did their yearly 'Cartoon Review" for all the new cartoons and kids shows coming out that year and gave the show some pretty low marks, if I recall. They were probably more negative on it, though, due to the dark and violent nature of the show compared to just about everything else that was on at the time for that audience. I do sometimes find 'negative' initial reaction to what ultimately becomes products that age really well or eventually find an audience to be interesting, though. Sort of like some of the early reactions to things like anime imports and how some of the reaction is fairly negative and knowing that in just a few years it will, despite that, either become mainstream popular or find a cult following. edit: More a movie thing than a TV thing: Mallrats. Savaged by every critic out there, it was a constant watch in the 90s on home video for so many people. My last attempted viewing of it was less than positive, but then I remember that maybe there was a reason critics were negative. There was a point probably 10-15 years ago you could have a theater doing the occasion Mallrats midnight show and get a pretty big audience, though, but I don't even know if that can still happen for the film. I know the sequel is supposed to be in some sort of development. JediTalentAgent has a new favorite as of 08:21 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 08:16
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All the movie critics hated Starship Troopers too and none saw the satirical part. It's like they all forgot about Verhoeven making Robocop and Total Recall. Roger Ebert thought Verhoeven was bringing the authentic Heinlein vision to the screen.
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Jun 7, 2018 08:57
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Mu Zeta posted:All the movie critics hated Starship Troopers too and none saw the satirical part. It's like they all forgot about Verhoeven making Robocop and Total Recall. Roger Ebert thought Verhoeven was bringing the authentic Heinlein vision to the screen. Starship Troopers should have been called Poe's Law: the Movie.
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Jun 7, 2018 09:27
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Accordion Man posted:What are you talking about, Clock King was rad in a bit of a campy sort of way. They even brought him back in Justice League as part of their version of Suicide Squad. And they updated his gimmick, too! Dude was the coordinator of their missions
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Jun 7, 2018 11:05
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John Murdoch posted:That whole subplot in Batman & Robin about his dying wife and curing her disease? That's the core of his character, and without all of the ice puns and camp getting in the way of it. Combine that with Batman TAS's noir sensibilities - instead of stealing diamonds or whatever it was, he's getting revenge on the motherfuckers who turned him into an ice man and stymied his his efforts to cure his wife - and it's Well, not without ALL the ice puns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGBHGqtx9Sg
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Jun 7, 2018 11:24
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Pick posted:Babylon 5 is good because it's basically an epic stage play. Back during the original run I remember the general consensus was that the best and most central thing was everything with Londo and G'Kar. Over 20 years later, that's still correct. Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas were the MVPs. One of the best scenes ever was when they were stuck in that elevator together.
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Jun 7, 2018 11:24
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RIP G'Kar, Garibaldi, Sinclair, Dr Franklin, Vir, Zack Allen, Zathras, several dudes played by Robin Sachs
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Jun 7, 2018 11:46
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psychopomp posted:Amazon streaming has Babylon 5, so I've been watching that again. It holds up surprisingly well, especially the pacing. Everything except the CG every time they show the station's exterior. Looks like something straight out of Captain Power. The CGI alrady wasn't really fresh when it came out. Though i still maintain that, while the CGI models don't really hold up, the choreography of the space battles is still really great imho.
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Jun 7, 2018 11:57
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bitterandtwisted posted:RIP G'Kar, Garibaldi, Sinclair, Dr Franklin, Vir, Zack Allen, Zathras, several dudes played by Robin Sachs Man, was this production downwind from a nuclear testing site or something?
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Jun 7, 2018 12:01
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JediTalentAgent posted:The year that B:TAS was going to start airing TV Guide (I think) did their yearly 'Cartoon Review" for all the new cartoons and kids shows coming out that year and gave the show some pretty low marks, if I recall. They were probably more negative on it, though, due to the dark and violent nature of the show compared to just about everything else that was on at the time for that audience. The media has always been determined to keep cartoons in an utter ghetto and put the least possible effort into covering or thinking about them. It seems like it's taken the news media's rapid irrelevance to start to get cartoons out from it.
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Jun 7, 2018 12:49
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Drunk Nerds posted:Having literally never seen anything ever comic book related except freeze in Batman & Robin, can someone explain what was so amazing about these freeze episodes? Not being sarcastic this stuff is interesting, but I want to know why he seems to be gold standard Adding to everything everyone's said, the episode is also bolstered by the amazing voice talent, the atmosphere created by the animation style, the music, and also the way Batman brings him down (Batman had a cold so Alfred packed him a thermos of hot chicken soup, which he uses at a critical moment to crack Fries's helmet and it's played completely straight and not campy )
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Jun 7, 2018 13:07
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Also the animated series Mr Freeze was designed by Mike Mignolia of Hellboy fame.
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Jun 7, 2018 14:11
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Mu Zeta posted:All the movie critics hated Starship Troopers too and none saw the satirical part. It's like they all forgot about Verhoeven making Robocop and Total Recall. Roger Ebert thought Verhoeven was bringing the authentic Heinlein vision to the screen. I admit, I disliked Starship Troopers until a few years ago, when someone told me to view it as an in-universe propaganda piece . A government-ordered made-for-consumption piece to sell a war that is going a lot worse than the movie claims, and has to reconcile and retroactively justify events that can't be covered up, instead of an accurate depiction of how things went. There are even commercial interruptions during the movie, dammit.
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Jun 7, 2018 14:21
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maltesh posted:I admit, I disliked Starship Troopers until a few years ago, when someone told me to view it as an in-universe propaganda piece . A government-ordered made-for-consumption piece to sell a war that is going a lot worse than the movie claims, and has to reconcile and retroactively justify events that can't be covered up, instead of an accurate depiction of how things went. A friend of mine hates the movie specifically because it's satirical and mocks the story of the novel
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Jun 7, 2018 14:30
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purple death ray posted:A friend of mine hates the movie specifically because it's satirical and mocks the story of the novel Asking if they prefer the film or the book is a great way to filter out the fascists in your life. And apparently they're planning a reboot of the film, which Verhoeven isn't thrilled about: quote:“It said in the article [that] the production team of that movie of the remake, that they would go back more and more towards the novel. And of course, we really, really tried to get away from the novel, because we felt that the novel was fascistic and militaristic,” said Verhoeven. “You feel that going back to the novel would fit very much in a Trump Presidency.”
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Jun 7, 2018 14:40
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englerp posted:The CGI alrady wasn't really fresh when it came out. Though i still maintain that, while the CGI models don't really hold up, the choreography of the space battles is still really great imho. The CGI definitely wasn't state of the art in terms of detail when compared to the first steps being taken with the medium in Hollywood films. It was pioneering in other ways though. Nobody had really attempted CGI-heavy TV or produced such large quantities of the stuff before, especially not on a tiny budget and a bunch of store-bought computers that barely reached double-digit MHz. I agree that the choreography of the space battles is still impressive today. The use of realistic physics and inertia was another aspect they pioneered, and probably the reason why the BSG reboot hired many of the same team. Now if you want to see some TV that hasn't aged well watch the short-lived B5 sequel, Crusade, for some horrible mid-90s FX and space LARPing.
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Jun 7, 2018 14:41
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Wicked Them Beats posted:Asking if they prefer the film or the book is a great way to filter out the fascists in your life. I don't think he's a fascist, I think he's just one of those geeks who expects complete fidelity when a book or comic or something gets adapted to a movie. He regularly gets in arguments with trump people at work, even customers
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Jun 7, 2018 14:43
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purple death ray posted:I don't think he's a fascist, I think he's just one of those geeks who expects complete fidelity when a book or comic or something gets adapted to a movie. Well if he's comfortable glossing over the jingoism and latent fascism in the text because he likes pew-pew and soldiers in power armor putting down the Regardless the reboot is being written by the luminaries behind Freddy v Jason and Baywatch 2017 so if it actually happens I can guarantee it will not age well.
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Jun 7, 2018 14:54
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KentuckyFriedNero posted:Now if you want to see some TV that hasn't aged well watch the short-lived B5 sequel, Crusade, for some horrible mid-90s FX and space LARPing. I can't get over how bad Crusade was. It's literally Dungeons and Dragons in space - right down to the main characters being a fighter, a cleric, a wizard, and a thief. Speaking of which I really hate that honourable thief character trope. It's dumb in the generic fantasy novels it came from and it makes absolutely no sense in a sci-fi show - it's somehow even dumber than the show having a literal wizard! There were one or two good ideas, but they never went anywhere (the Apocalypse Box for example), but then you have poo poo like the X-files parody episode. Sweevo has a new favorite as of 17:51 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 17:08
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Volcott posted:There's a batman comic where the riddler tries to pull off an untraceable caper and he unconsciously does a riddle that leads batman to him. He was really loving upset that he couldn't help himself. I think it ends with "I think I may need mental health care."   Lyrai posted:
It's not a good story but I always liked this little bit from Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader 
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Jun 7, 2018 17:39
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Wicked Them Beats posted:Well if he's comfortable glossing over the jingoism and latent fascism in the text because he likes pew-pew and soldiers in power armor putting down the Freddy Vs. Jason was an awesome slasher movie.
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Jun 7, 2018 18:42
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Mu Zeta posted:All the movie critics hated Starship Troopers too and none saw the satirical part. It's like they all forgot about Verhoeven making Robocop and Total Recall. Roger Ebert thought Verhoeven was bringing the authentic Heinlein vision to the screen. here's ebert's review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/starship-troopers-1997 ; heinlein was weird, weird enough that i can fully understand dunking on him 60 years later but we should really first consider his positive impacts on the genre of sci-fi before we go hog wild since he was one of its most influential writers, being one the big 3 founding fathers alongside clarke and asimov tho heinlein was a strange military-fetishist, he still usually imagined visions of the future/humanity that were in some ways optimistic with his biggest contribution to the genre being that he preferred depicting egalitarian futures where men and women of all races and creeds came together without a spirit of prejudice and heinlein wasn't afraid of any public backlash for publishing that sort of vision in the early days of sci-fi - he was one of the only big writers at the time, remembering he wrote a lot of his works in the 50s and that starship troopers was published in 1959, who was brazen about incorporating non-whites and women into his works and putting them into lead roles - the sort of wheezy nerds who bought science fiction magazines for their short-stories in the 1950s often loathed him for making, for example, the head of the One World Government in one of his stories a non-american black man because this was a controversial idea associated with controversial politics with no place in campy space magazines... i think someone once said of heinlein that before him the only colors in science fiction were white and green, with green standing for martians ofc it should be noted in the starship troopers novel johnny rico was actually named juan rico, a filipino kid, while zim was a black man and one of the characters NPH's role was based on was also asian - the starship troopers film, which was made like 40 years later, did not have the confidence/courage to use comparable actors in its casting almost going out of its way to white-wash as much as possible, but at least the film remembered that women were given equal role in contributing to the military in the book so it still had roles for dina meyer and denise richards as war fighters incidentally back in the 1950s this hot new take on humanity was influential on people like gene roddenberry who was very inspired by the book space cadet, written by heinlein in 1949, where the book imagined a diverse federation-type organization of astronauts who overlooked the earth and saw to its affairs - except instead being a benevolent organization of scientists and explorers these guys were all authoritarian soldiers who would nuke anyone on earth if they stepped out of line so as to maintain a kind of peace in an era of dominated by MAD style thinking - roddenberry hated the authoritative angle ofc but nonetheless borrowed what he liked for heinlein's works and incidentally gave kirk the same birthplace as the lead in space cadet as a homage to the book, later on roddenberry would borrow more from heinlein, like tribbles were a blatant enough of a rip-off of martian flatcats that there were legal issues which heinlein generously waved anyway, while i doubt anyone would consider heinlein to be a progressive by modern standards (like even tho men and women were equal partners in starship troopers' military their roles were gender-segregated iirc, women were all fighter aces and men were all grunt infantry, an idea the movie did manage to improve upon), but at the end of the day using existential threats to drive humanity into one big beautiful rainbow was one of heinlein's trademarks and def the idea that would most outlast him - i can at least understand how how there might be some people out there who wouldn't like satires his works and might want straighter takes on them even tho all the military fetishism and sabre-rattling that surround them is really off-putting, if there's anything to politely whitewash in a film adaptation focusing on heinlein's positive impacts it should be stuff like that
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Jun 7, 2018 18:58
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hard counter posted:here's ebert's review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/starship-troopers-1997 ; heinlein was weird, weird enough that i can fully understand dunking on him 60 years later but we should really first consider his positive impacts on the genre of sci-fi before we go hog wild since he was one of its most influential writers, being one the big 3 founding fathers alongside clarke and asimov
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Jun 7, 2018 19:08
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NorgLyle posted:I honestly try not to do that goon thing where you isolate one tiny part of a good post and zoom in on it to 'well actually', but, dude, Bradbury is right there and he fits the A, B, C pattern.
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Jun 7, 2018 19:24
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fair enough, i guess i should be clearer and mention there were other good, well-established writers out there covering these subjects so heinlein wasn't like a one-of-kind anomaly or anything , but i hope it's not misinformation to emphasize that he's widely considered one of the Big Three of sci-fi, that he was super influential and when critics discuss his positive contributions they mention the ways he deviated from what most other writers were doing at the time (tho for full clarity, he wasn't the only established writer doing this) anyway i guess i just wanted to say it's easy for new readers to catch the military-fetishism and criticize that, which everyone should quite honestly, but they might not realize the merits of his works since so much of it has just become normal convention hard counter has a new favorite as of 20:21 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 19:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM
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Jun 7, 2018 19:47
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The white washing in the Starship Troopers movie is a part of its satire. It's a bunch of white fascists from "Buenos Aires" in a pro-war/pro-slaughter propaganda film
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Jun 7, 2018 19:52
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hard counter posted:anyway, while i doubt anyone would consider heinlein to be a progressive by modern standards (like even tho men and women were equal partners in starship troopers' military their roles were gender-segregated iirc, women were all fighter aces and men were all grunt infantry, an idea the movie did manage to improve upon), but at the end of the day using existential threats to drive humanity into one big beautiful rainbow was one of heinlein's trademarks and def the idea that would most outlast him - i can at least understand how how there might be some people out there who wouldn't like satires his works and might want straighter takes on them even tho all the military fetishism and sabre-rattling that surround them is really off-putting, if there's anything to politely whitewash in a film adaptation focusing on heinlein's positive impacts it should be stuff like that "Outside threats are necessary for unity" is capital F fascism.
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Jun 7, 2018 19:52
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yeah dude stuff like that is why heinlein is still deffo a military-fetishist and a sabre-rattler like humanity coming together as one great big rainbow w/o prejudice in a spirit of equality is great and all but coming together to suck the dick of the military industrial complex? i don't know man!
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Jun 7, 2018 20:05
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It's almost as if people are complicated combinations of both good and bad things.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:07
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maltesh posted:I admit, I disliked Starship Troopers until a few years ago, when someone told me to view it as an in-universe propaganda piece . A government-ordered made-for-consumption piece to sell a war that is going a lot worse than the movie claims, and has to reconcile and retroactively justify events that can't be covered up, instead of an accurate depiction of how things went.
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Jun 7, 2018 20:26
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