TV/Movies Megathread

[grumbler]

Her eyes weird me out. Uncanny valley territory... but without CGI

And her elbows.

Seriously, they're too big!

   I thought that they were too pointy.

[Syt]

Her eyes weird me out. Uncanny valley territory... but without CGI

And her elbows.

Seriously, they're too big!

You guys freak me out. Internet standards and all that...

She reminds me of the Alita movie which also weirded me out

I can't believe you're quibbling about face quality in a Bethesda production.

She has big eyes, but not freakishly so.

[HVC]

Her eyes weird me out. Uncanny valley territory... but without CGI

And her elbows.

Seriously, they're too big!

You guys freak me out. Internet standards and all that...

She reminds me of the Alita movie which also weirded me out

I can't believe you're quibbling about face quality in a Bethesda production.

She has big eyes, but not freakishly so.

I felt attacked haha. I mean I never said she was grotesque, or even ugly, really. I just personally felt offput

[viper37]

Ah.  At last, a good movie.

No more of these bland super hero productions and silly toy commercials.

GI Joe - Transformers crossover movie in the works

[crazy canuck]

Her eyes weird me out. Uncanny valley territory... but without CGI

And her elbows.

Seriously, they're too big!

   I thought that they were too pointy.

Yep

[crazy canuck]

Hey - Fallout acceptable for kids?  In my case, pre-teens (and not little kids)?

No. Well, not your kids. And by that I mean it has a level of violence you wouldn't accept

It's like you don't know me at all man. 

I think I'm okay with cartoonish, if gory, violence.  At least for 10-13 year olds.  It's more about the themes and tone then the blood.

it's gory, but more on the realistic rather then cartoony side. Watch episode 1 and 2 without the kids (especially 2), and see. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

OK.

I mean I don't care about my kids seeing blood and gore.  I was just watching RoboCop on Amazon last night while I cleaned up the kitchen - it can be a pretty gorey movie, and it came out when I was 12 (and that's probably when I saw it for the first time).

But my youngest, age 10, can be a sensitive kind-of kid at times, so I don't 100% know what he'd think of a R-rated gorey movie/show.  We haven't gone down that path before.


By the way - I freaking love RoboCop.  It's like the perfect action movie.

The first two episodes are rated 16+ but the third episode is rated 18+

Thinking back to when my boys were as young as yours. I think it would've been OK to get them to see the first two episodes but I'm really not sure about the third.

The problem is, if you let them watch the first two how you gonna stop them from watching the third.

[Tonitrus]

I was watching Conan/plethora of violent 80's sword and sorcery films by the time I was 10...I turned out fine. 

[Grey Fox]

Hey - Fallout acceptable for kids?  In my case, pre-teens (and not little kids)?

No. Well, not your kids. And by that I mean it has a level of violence you wouldn't accept

It's like you don't know me at all man. 

I think I'm okay with cartoonish, if gory, violence.  At least for 10-13 year olds.  It's more about the themes and tone then the blood.

The show is rated 18+.

[Syt]

I was watching Conan/plethora of violent 80's sword and sorcery films by the time I was 10...I turned out fine. 

Citation needed.

[Threviel]

Been watching Fallout a bit more and one thing annoys me, it's not just a Fallout thing, but it's a good example.

Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of Fallout


I don't like the mystery box. I think Lost popularised it back in the day. Present a mystery to the viewer, the viewer gets an interest to know the answer and therefore will continue to watch. Lost made the mystery the thing, there was nothing there, we never got to know why there was a Polar bear, it was just an empty mystery to keep viewer interest. There was no Babylon 5 style payoff in the last season, it was just an empty gimmick.

This is what I felt with the father and the scientist in Fallout. The father knows secret shit, he gets kidnapped by some super famous external woman that then inexplicably lets the rest of the vault live. The whatshername girl then has to go out into the real world to find her father. Mystery #1.

Then she meets the scientist, he has some weird shit going on and everyone hunts him. Instead of explaining what it's about, why he's hunted and the importance of his mission and the consequences of everything we get him eating poison explaining jack shit, and then we're presented with the fact that he knows the girls name. Mystery #2.

We might get presented with the answer later in the season, who knows, I just think it's so lazy writing. This is not how human beings behave. A leader of ruthless raiders capturing an intact vault filled with loot and slaves would not just let them live undisturbed for weird reasons, she has lost a lot of loyal followers, some of them just sleeping and she just leaves them after winning? She would lose all respect of her followers and presumably get killed post haste if she would show such a callous disregard for her followers lives. That's how humans behave, leaders get to be leaders because they keep the loyalty of their followers. Needlessly wasting their lives because she does not feel like waiting for them to wake up from sleep is a surefire way of getting deposed. She would presumably be expected to share the loot and the slaves with her followers, Germanic king style.

And then the girl walks with the scientist for hours and hours. Or at least for a good while. Are we to expect that they don't say anything for all that time? That she would not overwhelm him with questions as to everything they just went through? Questions on the history and politics of the world that's entirely new for her? Are we to expect that all they talked for all that time was a minute just so he could have time to be mysterious and not at all helpful?

It's just so lazy writing, it annoys me.

On the other hand the amount of candles seem credible so far.

[Josquius]

Finished Masters of the Air.
My girlfriend who usually isn't one for war stuff at all really liked it. A little bit of crying at the end maybe.
Thinking to rewatch Band of brothers soon. It is the better show. Though Masters of the Air is very good nonetheless, certainly much better than The Pacific.
Though I'm thankful I won't have to watch those credits again. Interesting how it has some vibes of a pre-streaming cheesy American TV show despite being made today- such a shame its so soon after the last of the guys died.

[Syt]

Threviel: Only skimmed your post because I want to avoid spoilers for Fallout.

But I had a similar thought when watching the new Star Trek Discovery episode today - every season of Discovery (except the 1st) started with a mystery that then leads to a search in the first half of the season. S2 had the Red Angel. S3 had the Burn. Season 4 had the mysteriously destroyed planets. And Season 5 pretty much is the search for the Holy Grail

I don't think mystery boxes are a bad thing per se. I just think they're often used poorly. IMHO, there needs to be tension and release for the viewer. What I mean is that you need to open the mystery box at some point, and the pay off must be worth it. And ideally, you use this as a jumping off point for the next mystery box, promising an even great secret. But: you can't keep this going indefinitely. And, most importantly, it must be worth it. Disco S3 is a great example. That the Burn was caused by a lonely child that vented its anxieties in a cataclysmic way - I don't really hate the concept. But after a season of build about what might have caused that apocalyptic event it felt a bit humdrum. S4 was better IMO, with discovering a new, powerful sentient race on the fringes of space and trying to understand them and realizing they were not malicious, but rather paying little attention to other species who seemed almost like inconsequential insects to them.

[Threviel]

Mystery boxes can be great of course, it's just that I despise when they are used as lazy short hand. Say for example two policemen investigating a murder scene and one says something like "I need to tell you something mysterious" and next scene is them sitting in a bar or something and the teller gets killed before having time to tell. Bam, a mystery!

But they must have rapped up the murder scene, travelled to the bar in the same car, spent hours together alone and we are to pretend that didn't talk about it then? It's something I've been annoyed at lately, that the characters behave in a way that would get socially ostracized in the real world, but we are to accept it in a tv show because it creates suspense?

I watched a cop show recently where some relative left extremely far fetched clues for the protagonist to find years after the relatives death. Sure, good tv, but in the real world they would have talked about it, discussed it and the protagonist would have been prepared for the shit storm coming and the tv show could have been much shorter.

I think lots of show suffer from the same need to create mysteries. That Rings of power abomination is a good example. Everything was a mystery designed to get twitter/reddit threads discussing every little thing. In the real world (or in Middle Earth) the characters would have talked to each other and that would be that. The show probably suffered immensely by some marketers need to create buzz.

Sorry about this nonsensical diatribe, I'm trying to formulate what it is that annoys me with this and I can't really put my finger on it.

[Josquius]

What I don't like about this way of organising series is its so formulaic and obvious.

Episode 1- monster of the week, with a side mention of something mysterious
Episode 2- monster of the week, with a side mention of something mysterious
Episode 3- monster of the week
Episode 4- lets look at that something mysterious in a bit more detail!
Episode 5- monster of the week
Episode 6- monster of the week, with a side mention of something mysterious
Episode 7- develop the something mysterious! Woo!
Episode 8- weird comedy episode that doesn't fit in at all and is either amazing or awful
Episode 9- monster of the week, with a big mysterious cliff hanger
Episode 10- quick wrap up that the mysterious thing is actually really boring and easily solved.

Early on it should often be a mystery what the big mysterious thing even is. Have several possible threads. Have sub-conclusions where real progress is made and directions completely change.
Maybe there's no obvious villain at all till the very end where he points out some not at all obvious things were connected to him (in a way that makes sense, not just added in after the fact).

I dunno. Its like...there's this big demand from modern TV to have an overall series plot whilst at the same time they want to pull in a old style stand alone adventure direction.
Strange New Worlds manages this quite well I think. It has a few B-level big plots going on whilst it focusses on its central stories. When the big bad pops up at the end of the series it feels organic, it was just one of the B plots which has blown up.

[Tamas]

Finished Masters of the Air.
My girlfriend who usually isn't one for war stuff at all really liked it. A little bit of crying at the end maybe.
Thinking to rewatch Band of brothers soon. It is the better show. Though Masters of the Air is very good nonetheless, certainly much better than The Pacific.
Though I'm thankful I won't have to watch those credits again. Interesting how it has some vibes of a pre-streaming cheesy American TV show despite being made today- such a shame its so soon after the last of the guys died.

I liked the heroics of the credits because it's a nice break from all the grimdark and cynicism.

Agreed on BoB>MotA>Pacific, although I appreciate The Pacific much more on my second watch of it, since by then I have accepted I won't be watching something living up to BoB.