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Post by Horsie on Jul 5, 2017 20:52:40 GMT
To be fair, the Germans (and to an even greater extent the Austrians) did have this fear of civilians in occupied areas acting as saboteurs and spies; if something went wrong, something broke, communications failed, or enemies fire seemed a little too accurate, it could very well be locals helping the enemy.
Of course that's not the same as killing innocent civilians for shits and giggles, or test weapons.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 6, 2017 3:52:24 GMT
But you see, it was a super bad eeeeevil gas that even killed people who had gasmasks on. By breaking the gas masks. Apparently. Even though in theory the filter would just not catch the hydrogen based stuff. But okay.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 6, 2017 20:23:24 GMT
Breaking the masks? That's a new one.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 6, 2017 21:40:59 GMT
The thing I keep coming back to is that if the allies had had that stuff, they would have used it too. In fact, if the germans had used this unstoppable super gas wouldn't that have ended the war quicker?
In WW2 America dropped atomic bombs. Those do a bit more than just breka your gas mask.
To start moralising that the Germans have a nasty weapon and what monsters they are for wanting to use it seems really crass.
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Post by Canuovea on Jul 7, 2017 0:51:49 GMT
Admittedly, they hadn't finished developing it till near the end of the film.
And of course the Allies would like to stop it.
But ultimately Hark is right, its rather hollow to make the Germans out to be such villains when the Allies would have done (and in WW2 did) the very same thing. Well, they didn't test it on innocent people and captives, but nonetheless.
People have been saying that Wonder Woman is like an actual hero in this movie, and that it is great to have a change back to something more like the old Superman... except that this is utter bullshit. This movie is about a naive person learning about reality. Helping the allies? Naive. Thinking the Germans were under mind control like some villains in old comics? Naive. Etc etc etc. When you stop and think about it, you're basically being told that Wonder Woman was stupid for behaving and believing things like heroes did back in ye aulden times. It suggests that Nolan and Snyder are right.
I mean, maybe not. Maybe because Wonder Woman doesn't really lose all her idealism in the end it suggests that Batfleck and Snyderman are not really good heroes. But if that is the case, its not quite as clear. It still seems to make us want to berate Wonder Woman for her naive stupidity.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Sept 23, 2017 2:37:07 GMT
The Orville
By Seth MacFarlane
Anyone else seen this yet? We only got three episodes so far but as of yet I'm not really sold on it. I get that it's supposed to be a homage to Star Trek, specifically TNG, but it's so similar as to be confusing as to why it's not just called Star Trek (other than they didn't have the rights). It even does all the cringe inducing "we've grown up as a species" obnoxiousness that was in TNG. So far the episodes have been heavily character centered even though they haven't really sold us on the universe yet, let alone given us reason to care about the characters. The context is simply "Do you know Star Trek? Than you know Orville". I can't stress how lame that is. Give me your world, not the world you grew up with and miss so dearly. The whole thing comes off as a fanfic with a big budget. Sure, there's a handful of okay jokes, but there's nothing new here. There's no idea's here, just rehashing of Gene Roddenberry's old ideas.
To put it simple it's just lazy.
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Post by Horsie on Sept 25, 2017 18:27:01 GMT
I've never heard of it (not surprising given how little TV I watch), though if it's that close to being Star Trek it seems kinda pointless.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Oct 1, 2017 16:43:56 GMT
I changed my mind
I love The Orville now.
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Post by Horsie on Oct 2, 2017 1:04:19 GMT
What happened?
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Post by wordweaver3 on Oct 2, 2017 1:24:42 GMT
Star Trek Discovery happened.
I mean, sure The Orville is a rehash of Star Trek, but at least Macfarlane actually understands Star Trek. STD is miles ahead of Orville in terms of budget and special effects, but the writers are fuckin' clueless.
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Post by Horsie on Oct 2, 2017 1:46:56 GMT
Wow, I guess STD is good for something after all.
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Post by Canuovea on Feb 17, 2019 20:13:55 GMT
Remember when people were bitching about the new She-Ra's designs?
I watched the series and its fine. Likeable even. But the designs of the characters are miles better in the new one. Not only from a diversity perspective either (though yes) but just in general! My god. The original had nearly all the women, except for the evil ones, have the same face! Its kinda freaky, to be honest.
Maybe its just that I watched the new one first and don't have to deal with nostalgia.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Feb 17, 2019 21:46:38 GMT
Was there much nostalgia for She-Ra? I mean, even as a child I could tell it was a blatant re-skin of He-Man in an attempt to sell toys to the little girl market that doesn't exactly care for He-Man.
And it was Filmation, so yeah, they used a lot of short cuts in their animation that would even embarrass Hanna Barbera.
Frankly, it would be difficult to make a show that was worse than the original.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Apr 14, 2019 3:43:22 GMT
My Netflix Binge
Had a couple of days where the only available entertainment was Netflix and watched a whole pile of movies.
Here are some of them:
Absolutely Anything
Written and directed by Terry Jones and starring Simon Pegg, this is a fairly blatant rip-off of Bruce Almighty with the exception being that the ultimate power comes from some advanced aliens instead of God. The aliens want to find out if humans understand the difference between good and evil and give one man (Pegg) unlimited power to alter the universe. It is a fun, albeit forgettable, movie. Pegg uses and abuses the power, eventually trying to make the world a better place only to make everything much worse (at one point declaring that "there will be no reason for anyone to go to war, ever" only to find that every country in the world declares a war for "absolutely no reason at all"). It's a bit cheap looking as far as special effects go but it's good for a few laughs and not painful to watch. Though I have to bump it down a bit for the lack of creativity regarding the premise.
I'll give it three out of five talking dogs.
Left Behind
This one is starring Nicolas Cage, making one wonder how he picks his scripts. Left Behind is about the moments following the rapture, when all the Christian believers, and apparently all children regardless of their religion, are taken from the Earth and into heaven. Cage plays an airline pilot who's on a flight to Paris. Before leaving he has a conversation with his college age daughter about how annoying his wife is now that she's a Christian. The movie drags for most of its run time, taking forever to get to the rapture (which is pretty well done when it happens, it's sudden and with no build up). After that happens the rapture merely becomes the catalyst for an airplane disaster that takes up the rest of the movie.
The movie is shot like it's a daytime soap opera and the dialogue isn't much better. Special effects are mostly abysmal. For a Christian film it actually would have benefited from a bit more preachiness. The fact that it's the end of days keeps falling to the wayside for the airplane that is in danger of crashing, so it kills the expected terror. This is also one of those occasions where the movie desperately needed the crazy Nick Cage, not the low-key one. It's overly long and doesn't do much with the run time.
One out of five sets of unoccupied clothes.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
An unconventional take on the classic cabin in the woods slasher flick. This time we get to see the events from the perspective of the college kids getting offed and the backwoods hillbillies. The only thing is that the hillbillies are completely innocent, but due to a series of unfortunate events and misunderstandings, the kids keep experiencing gory deaths at what appears to be the hands of the hillbillies. This is not nearly as smart a deconstruction of the trope as Cabin in the Woods, but it's got far more heart, humor, and even a bit of romance. Wonderfully paced with a low budget feel and enough over-the-top blood and death to satisfy any slasher lover.
Four and a half out of five bodies in a wood chipper.
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 3, 2022 20:23:01 GMT
Netflix's Arcane
This show is broken up into three sections of three episodes each. There is a time skip after the first segment.
I'm actually having some trouble explaining this since I don't want to spoil anything. I'm not going to go in depth with the plot or characters, I'll focus mostly on the setting and some themes to start with.
The Setting: The story is set in Piltover (the city of progress) and Zaun (the city beneath the city of progress). Already you might be starting to get A Tale of Two Cities vibes... Zaun is basically the undercity, and they're under the boot of the shiny nice city of Piltover that they have provided much of the natural resources for. Zaun isn't technically a separate polity, as it has to answer to Piltover's enforcers, but there is a great deal of resentment towards Piltover. Not that Piltover is without problems of it's own, despite how progressive and technologically advanced it seems. They don't like magic, you see, because magic really messed up the world at one point. There is a struggle between new innovations and conservative tendencies. There are many different plot threads and characters spread throughout both of these areas. Over time, there is a convergence to some degree.
The Themes:
- Mental Illness (and much better than Harley Quinn, I must add).
- Politics, Political Games, Game of Thrones Theme intensifies. - Continuity vs Change, Progress (both social and technological) - Family and Parenthood - Ambiguity (the "villains" are usually somewhat sympathetic, and I'd suggest that even the "evil" characters tend to have good reasons for what they're doing. Or at least, reasons they reasonably consider good reasons).
- Corruption - Flaws. All the characters are flawed, even the ones you think are good. - The vale of peace vs the base violence necessary for change
To further add, the execution and understanding of story telling is excellent. They'd been working on it for quite some time, and there are clever details and well thought out execution of story telling techniques.
I'll give an example, but keep it vague. You've heard how they tell you to "Show, don't Tell" when making a story? This happens a lot and is well done... but... there is one character where they don't really show you much of what he can do or why he is smart and clever. You are constantly told he is smart, clever, a genius, etc. Surely this is bad, right? No. Because it makes these achievements and this character's wisdom seem insincere, not trustworthy. That matters because he's old, he's washed up, he's a person who other people too are skeptical of even if he is supposed to be really clever. Through the use of lots of telling rather than showing, the audience can get that same sense too.
The Animation... the animation is really nice, but also quite a different style. The studio is a French one, I believe, and it isn't exactly super anime or anything. I liked it quite a bit, but I can't say you will necessarily. That said, the detail and thought put into it is extreme. There is symbolism and meaning to be found almost everywhere, but it's often a passive thing, it doesn't necessarily force you to think about it (otherwise it might be overwhelming).
You also don't need to know a ton about League of Legends lore to appreciate it. My partner new next to nothing about League, and she loved it. There are little nods to it here and there, but you don't have to know it to enjoy it. That's for the best.
It's also emotional. If you let yourself get invested in the characters and story, it's going to kick you in the gut.
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