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Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Ugly In The Morning posted:

S1 doesn’t go off the rails too bad until episode 7, which is when they start really diverging from the books. It did a lot right, the casting for Kovacs and Ortega was basically exactly as I imagined them, and it looked fantastic. Plus, that soundtrack kicked rear end.

S2’s plot is stupid, a bunch of things don’t make sense, and Anthony Mackie is a pretty bad Kovacs. In S1 they were really good about keeping the mannerisms consistent between the different actors playing him, but Mackie just does his usual thing. He doesn’t talk like Kovacs which is a major problem when he’s double sleeved and sharing screen time with Will Yun Lee who talks and moves completely differently.

E:bringing Poe back was the kind of move that told me they were going to completely gently caress it up. He had a good arc in S1 but then just deciding that Kovacs got him running again because he was popular with fans shows where their writing priorities are.

Oh good; there is somewhere to talk about Altered Carbon this season. :sigh:

Season 2 striking off on its own pretty much told me it was going to be baaaad the moment they announced it, and I'm sad I was proven right. 95% of the good parts of season 1 (the others being Skinhead Abuella, that kid's backpack he always had, and Poe) were what was directly adapted from the book, and literally any time they changed something, they hosed it up in some stupidly basic way. Making Envoys into Summercamp Jedi is a big example. And well, all the rest of Episode 7. To be clear; I don't think changing elements for an adaption is necessarily a bad thing, it's just really, REAAAALLY, badly done in Altered Carbon.

The first episode just laid bared how creatively deficit the Showrunners are without a book to fall back on; In the first twenty minutes we have another Meth wanting someone to protect them, oops now ~we're solving their murder~, we're based out of the same hotel, and we have a glitchy Poe back somehow despite being erased. Harlan's World is supposed to be heavily Japanese and Russian in its culture and genetic makeup (hence a name like "Takeshi Kovacs"), and is mostly small islands on a large ocean world. With its own veritable Imperial-esque dynasty ruling the planet in the Harlans treating the peasants like poo poo (it's why the Unsettlement happened). Instead we've got a generic Caucasian woman and a British man brown-nosing up to her as the "governor" of a planet that looks generically sci-fi and they mine "ALLOY". Not a specific mineral of any kind, just... "~ALLOY~" :nallears:. They're throwing random bits of the second and third books together for this trainwreck and I'm morbidly curious to see how this one crashes and burns under its own power without the safety net of a book's being adapted verbatim to fall back on. I doubt we're getting Samedi

I fully expect this show to get to a point where the big finale is "We made resleeving go away because it was the morally right thing to do" if it somehow escapes the Netflix Curse and gets a third season. The writers clearly can't come up with any interesting ideas on their own, and don't even understand what makes the elements in the books good or interesting.

Also special mention to what's quite possibly the most hamfistedly-bad plot recap I've ever seen in a television show between Poe and that bounty hunter in the bar at the start.


Ugly In The Morning posted:

Yeah, the show runners and writers for this are kind of terrible. At this point I’m pretty sure the book doing the heavy lifting, plot-wise, is the only reason S1 turned out as well as it did.

I was saying this repeatedly in the show's thread last season. If you go into the show having read the book, it's a fascinating mess watching them systematically break a fairly well-constructed detective story to tell their own badly-written one. All the elements in it are meant to feed into different parts of the plot as a whole, and they just did not understand that if you remove or alter something, it's going to affect other parts of the story too.

Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Mar 2, 2020

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Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

I mean there are things to complain about in s2 of Altered Carbon, but the planet not being islands and one of the antagonists not being Russian or Japanese seems insanely nitpicky. If those were "fixed", how would it have affected the story at all?

It was more in the general setting and part of the larger problem with the way the show's made; Harlan's World is generally implied to be heavily based in Japanese culture and architecture, and instead we get generic future buildings and streets functionally identical to New York, and a generic ~corrupt/authoritarian governmental figure~ instead of a family of infighting nobles to play with. It's just reductive and boring compared to what could be pulled from the books and played with.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Take a drink every time somebody says "what, don't you recognise me?".

No, no I don't recognise you, because you've changed sleeves.

There's just so many of these moments that just don't make sense in the setting. Like the poor family, clawing their way out of the slums, who somehow have custom engraving on their stacks . Or upon finding a dead body with its stack ripped out, our heroes immediately conclude the stack must be nearby and frantically start searching for it. It just...what? I don't want to be that guy who nitpicks characters reasoning for not being perfectly logical, but so much of what they do and say is completely incoherent.

One of my favourite stupid things from the first season was you could see the cogs turn on the writers realizing they can't actually kill anyone easily because of Stack technology. Good writers would build on this to bring back characters in new sleeves with different ethnicities or genders to build on the fundamental principles of Altered Carbon's world.

The AC writers just instead had literally everyone get shot through the stack because ~Ooooooh, people are really dying in a world where everyone's immortal~.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
Oh, one last thing I forgot;

Do you think they could be any less subtle about directly ripping off Westworld's opening credits?

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Zaphod42 posted:

"Quellcrist Falconer" continues to be the absolutely worst character name and it ruins any dialogue where someone has to say it

Part of the problem is the way she's used in the show; In the books she's mainly just a looooong-dead historic figure (like, say, Karl Marx or Che Guevera) who gets quoted a bunch by people wanting to sound smart and cool. It's also very much a pseudonym because she despises idolatry, and wanted the Unsettlement to be about the people, not her (because that's how you just wind up with a fresh flavour of dynastic ruler instead of real long-term change :v:). The nigh-messianic treatment of her in the show is basically everything her movement stood against.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Westworld season 1 was really good. I even liked season 2 though it was more pretentious and confusing for being confusing’s sake, because it looked good and had some excellent performances and some good stories buried under some messy ones.

Credit where due for Westworld, it at least tries with its mystery boxes. They're fully pre-prepared complete things, and there's enough metaphorical flashing lights and buttons on them to give people room to poke and guess at what's going on rather than just blindly drag the audience along each episode until the grand unveiling (eg; Star Trek: Picard and the grand reveal that they're just blatantly ripping of Mass Effect in its entirety). Season 2 had its moments, and I'm hoping Season 3 is at least similarly okay, if not outright-good.



Sleeveless posted:

Postmodern Jukebox was good at that niche for a few years before it just devolved into overproduced lovely music videos and tons of nerd clickbait like covers of anime theme songs.

Uhhh, I think you're confusing them with someone else, because they've never gone anywhere near anime theme songs.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Sleeveless posted:

The original Thundercats was dogshit that was chasing trends years after their peak so saying the new cartoon is a rightful heir to that throne isn't quite the slam dunk you think it is.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xom8XAHHPEc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-eEV7b4UCo

:lol: You mean the theme songs of popular 90's kids shows among like a dozen disney theme songs?

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Calaveron posted:

So I grew up watching the Simpsons in Spanish with only occasionally watching it in English with sap when available but now with this pandemic I bit the bullet and got Disney plus, and I’m watching from season 2 in English and man these voices are rough, especially mr burns'.
The Simpsons will die when Harry Shearer dies because that guy voices roughly 60% of the non family cast huh?

Oh yeah, the early episodes have some really rough dialogue where it's almost just zero pausing between lines and they mutter over one-another. Season 3's around where it kinda settles, iirc.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
Hahahaha, fuuuuck. Avenue 5 just keeps getting worse for all involved :suspense:. (The ship and crew, not the show)

At the rate they're going, I'm fully expecting it to turn out there's some quick-and-simple backup system to solve this problem the whole time that Judd's not sharing due to some petty reason. Either that or everyone on Earth somehow dies and they're the only ones left failing about in space. Or both. It could go either way with this show :stonklol:.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Escobarbarian posted:

Episode 9 was the season finale, so I guess we’ll have to wait to find out!

Wait, what? Awww :ohdear:. At least it's confirmed for a second season.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

muscles like this! posted:

Dilbert the comic wasn't always weird and bad but Scott Adams was (he was just better at hiding it back in the day.)

The Dilbert cartoon was pretty decent, I've actually got the DVD set. Also that big-rear end boxed collection from like a decade back with 20 years worth of comics (got it REAL cheap for like $30AUD instead of $150AUD as a lucky find), which from memory go right up to just before the point Scott Adams just dropped the mask and went full-blown CHUD and dropped the shirt-and-tie for the MAGA red polo shirt on Dilbert.

Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Mar 20, 2020

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

pahuyuth posted:

four episodes in and Avenue 5 is pretty good

"Have you ever masturbated to a constellation?"

"Yes. Once. Gemini. Twins."

Pay attention to everything Matt says, especially the recorded ship ads. It's nothing plot-relevant, but hoo-boy does it paint a hilariously-dark picture about the guy if you listen properly.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

bull3964 posted:

Disney is releasing Onward to Disney+ on April 3rd due to the whole no theaters thing.

This is actually a surprising move, I thought they would just release it for sale early (which they are also apparently doing). Adding it to the streaming platform is a first though.

I'm guessing they're trying to capitalize on the current situation to see if it'll get people signing up for their streaming platform to see it.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Big Mean Jerk posted:

Counterpoint: Fully embrace the current canon because lots of people outside this forum really enjoy it.

It's a real mixed bag. The Last Jedi is great, but Rise of Skywalker is one of the most soulless and tedious films I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through.



He's already been the Terribly-British Grand Moff in Rise of Skywalker. Also he's just slightly too hammy for Thrawn, I feel. Definitely looks the part though.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Mu Zeta posted:

Yeah I think the Clone Wars cartoon (and maybe Mando) are the things most fans actually like as a whole.

The Mandolorian is fantastic, go watch it if you haven't.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Alhazred posted:

It honestly looks like he is doing his role in Star Trek Discovery in his sleep. But then again, so does everyone else.

Lorca was an interesting character for an otherwise-middling-to-bad first half of season one of ST:Discovery. Just a shame once it gets to the Mirror Universe he just goes straight villain for no reason and they write him to be a grooming pedophile to the MU-Michael for god-knows-what reason just to taint all the character development in the past season between them :barf:.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Sloth Life posted:

Rewatching Killjoys. I forgot how fun and tightly plotted the first two seasons were, nearly everything tied into the main narrative, characters had flaws and made impactful decisions (some good some bad). There were real stakes and real losses.

Season 3 is a downgrade. The hackmod subplot was interesting but went absolutely nowhere. I do not like Pippin or Zeph. I do not like the humanisation/redemption of Kendry (hello experimenting on children, murder, extinction eugenics). Aneela is well done as both utterly despicable, completely unstable and also ultimately a victim.
I have skipped a few episodes because of how blah they are. I don't think seasons 4 and 5 are going to age well either.

I didn't mind Kendry, because ultimately it's about her being the devil they know. They all loving despise her with good cause, but they can at least trust her to do what's necessary for the time being. Putting Pree in charge of Westerly looks like a good deed on the surface, but ultimately it stops that moon trying to rebel against her over petty things like working conditions and rights.

Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Mar 22, 2020

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

EL BROMANCE posted:

I only watched Avenue 5s pilot episode when it aired, so catching up now. Not sure I’m supposed to be watching and thinking ‘boy I wanna be on that fucken space boat’ but things change in a month.

Uh, have you seen how things have gone on multiple cruise ships lately with Corona?


Also I fully expect there to be some kind of contagious disease (or at least paranoia of it) episode next season.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Grem posted:

I want to say first off that I really don't know much about zoos, and do believe there's good in them, but if a species would have gone extinct in the wild and humans keep them alive in zoos, isn't that just exploitative? Like the last giraffes on earth aren't going to be happy in a tiny little enclosure, so are we saving them for our own entertainment (and education, I guess) or for their sake? I see it as a very cloudy issue so I am genuinely curious on what people who are adament zoos are a good thing think.

The point isn't to just raise them in zoos to gawk at, it's to get their numbers up high enough they can replenish a wild population.


pahuyuth posted:

Help me out thread

In either a good or bad way I don't care, but.... Under The Dome or Falling Skies and why? I need something when taking a break from The Last Ship.

I never saw the final season of either so I don't how goofy bad they got.

Alternate suggestion if you want goofy writing; The Librarians.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Sloth Life posted:

This show got me through some hard times. It's dreadfully twee and silly but it has genuine heart.
Also Matt Frewer steals every scene he is in.

I loved it too. Especially as it often tried drat hard to avoid "mystic thing is... EVIL?!!" cliches at every possible opportunity.

Also Rebecca Romijn just looks like she is having an absolute ball in every episode :allears:.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
I wasn't sure what format season 3 of Westworld was going to take ~Out of the Park~, but I actually really like their general insinuation that the whole world is, fundamentally, just one great big Park for the rich and powerful and most people are no better than Hosts down to preplanned/predicted scripts.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
Well my top-ten are concerning...


quote:

Petyr Baelish (Game of Thrones): 90%
Quark (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine): 88%
Elim Garak (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine): 88%
Robert Ford (Westworld): 88%
Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock): 88%
Benjamin Horne (Twin Peaks): 88%
Benjamin Linus (LOST): 86%
Walter White (Breaking Bad): 86%
Coriolanus Snow (The Hunger Games): 86%
Maurice Levy (The Wire): 86%

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Ego-bot posted:

So are the last 5 episodes of Picard better than the first 5?

What an awful and boring show so far.

If you have played Mass Effect, keep watching until the full reveal on what Agnes was actually shown by Commodore Oh to understand the show in a new, even dumber, context. Otherwise not really.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Rhyno posted:

Braff's entire body of work minus Scrubs is all terrible and basically war crimes.

What about Scrubs season 9?

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

bring back old gbs posted:

Yeah the new season is great. A straight forward story, and they STILL threw in twist I didn't expect in the newest episode :monocle:

What really helps this season is there's an actual plan slowly unfolding again, rather than just chaotic fallout from the season 1 finale. It's been way better than I was worried it would turn out to be :munch:.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Season 2 of Happy! Went up on Netflix so I watched that over the last two days while I’ve been laid up. I liked it, not as much as Season 1 but it was still hosed up and depraved in an enjoyable way. So pissed it ended on a story hook and then got cancelled. Though if you took most of that cast and creative team and made a Max Payne show I would be all over that, god drat.

Season 2 has a real problem where the first half of it is just faffing about without a coherent ongoing plot like the first season, but once it finds its feet (around the time of breaking into Sunny Shine's mansion) it starts getting much better.

I'm also pissed it never got a third season, but I like that they at least ended it on a glimpse of a Halloween scarf and delivering that promise on Smoothie :smuggo:.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Binary Logic posted:

I'd add Picard Season 1 and Discovery Season 2 to that list.

All Picard has is blatantly ripping off the first Mass Effect game.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

precision posted:

I watched the first episode of Westworld S3 and had less than zero desire to keep watching.

It's kind of impressive just how many new ways they're coming up with to have nonsense plots

I guess I'd lol if the season is building up to the reveal that the real world is just another game though

One of the underlying themes of the new season is that the real world is fundamentally built along the same rules as the Parks are writ-large. It's not a game, but the way common people are treated in a world of AI algorithms is really no different than the Hosts.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

There are 2 good episodes in season 2. The ones with Delos Sr(ep4) and Akecheta(ep8). Yea you can basically skip the rest.

I don't know if I would say that season 3 is good. The writing and dialogue are still pretty poor and honestly it's kinda boring. It's definitely better than season 2 so far but that is a super low bar to clear.

Need to watch the finale too, because it has a lot of character motivation and setup for the third.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Sleeveless posted:

It's still in progress, no reason not to.just wait a few more weeks and then get consensus on the final product if you're already that distanced from it.

Me I liked season 2 and think the backlash was mostly just people mad that the show wasn't going in the direction they wanted it to (see: the constant insistence that the showrunners hurridly changed the plot and ending at the last second out of some narcisstic desire to spite the fans who had guessed the ending even though there is zero evidence and the showrunners have actively denied it and anyone with a fundamental knowledge of television production knows the whole thing was wrapped months ahead of time) and 3 seems like a bit of a synthesis between 1 and 2 so I'm glad it's winning people back over and I'm enjoying seeing where it will go.

Season 2's problem was it had no overarching plot playing out guiding everything, it was just the fallout from the first season with everyone finding their own way off the island right from the moment the first season ended. Season 3's at a much stronger starting point, because we're trying to figure out just what both Dolores and Serac are plotting with both their plans already well in motion behind the scenes.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

swickles posted:

It adds humor to a lot of the situations, plus they get a good chunk of business from people thinking he is truly psychic to do things like exorcisms and such. In a bunch of episodes he mentions cases you don't actually see him work. To go super deep, Gus mentions in the first season that psychic detectives aren't held to the same license requirements that an actual Private Investigator is. Last, it becomes a big plot point in the final season or two with his relationship with Juliet.

It also actively works against them in a lot of episodes (and creates some fun moments as a result) where they could've solved things quicker by just being detectives, but now they have to bend over backwards to figure out a way to bullshit out a "psychic detective" reason they cracked a case and prod the cops in the right direction.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

OldSenileGuy posted:

In order:

Killjoys - Never heard of this show so I looked it up and it sounds like the most generic thing ever. Though, if people say it’s good maybe I’ll give it a shot.


Killjoys is merely okay for the first season, but worth sticking with, and gets a very noticeable shift in tone for the second onwards, which is where it gets really good.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

I prefer Dark Matter to Killjoys, which also answers the question: What if Firefly but Three Seasons?

Dark Matter had a decent first season, and a really strong second season where they learned what did and didn't work from the first season and applied it well. eg; Putting a bullet in One because he did nothing in the show except tell everyone else to stop having fun, and changing Three from "Chronic Backstabber Loner" to "The Fun Single Uncle" . The third season sadly completely poo poo the bed and made their cancelling fully-justified. Even if it does have one of the best episodes of the show's run. The time travel one, of course.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Aphex- posted:

I've just watched the first 3 episodes of Avenue 5 and it's so good, I have no idea why people were so lukewarm on it initially. It's hilarious and everyone is perfect in their role.

The first episode is just a few jokes repeated verbatim and a whole lot of "SHOUTING EQUALS FUNNY!!" at eachother, and it's not until you watch a few episodes that the true nature of the show really becomes apparent as you realize there are actual consequences for every problem they have and it's all piling up.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Escobarbarian posted:

Sam Lloyd (Ted from Scrubs) died 😔

Well poo poo, now the Worthless Peons are gonna need a new lead singer :smith:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8kNoIav-vk

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
Well I binged all of Upload in two sittings :suspense:. Guess I gotta wait for season 2 now like everyone else.

Goddamn, that elevator in the last episode was brutal :stonklol:. And certainly a thing to end on with Ingrid.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

END ME SCOOB posted:

I can't tell if I'm in awe of or going to die laughing at this solution to the "we got 75% of the finale in the can before quarantine" solution. Thank god for the hubris of an NBC executive, every time.

https://twitter.com/NBCBlacklist/status/1260684451022958593

And now that a major network's done this once, prepare for a whole lot of others trying the same trick for entire seasons of shows going forward if the ratings don't tank.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

theflyingexecutive posted:

Fringe did it 9 years ago. It didn’t catch on.

Fringe's production didn't have a long-term global pandemic to contend with, situated in a country with a woeful response to managing it, an uncertain outlook on the foreseeable future for production, and limited availability of air travel to boot. All on top of general self-isolation practices.

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Alex "Shutterstock Admonition" Kurtzman is involved, so I'd just sigh and watch the monkey paw's finger curl on this one.

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Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Rhyno posted:

Anson Mount as Captain Pike cancels out everything bad.

The season 2 finale of ST:D disproves this.

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