The Sword and Laser discussion

Stephen wrote: "The third episode fell flat for me. Hopefully that is the end of the flashback as the acting by the twins as children was pretty bad."

Yeah, the kids weren't great; about on a par with Jake Lloyd as Anikin. Maybe they should stop trying to make kids carry a show.

John (Taloni) wrote: "I've been watching the latest Doctor Who. Anyone else? There's been a modest discussion on Discord, I don't know if anyone else is interested."

I enjoyed the latest episode. However, I feel we jumped into the endgame quickly, probably because there are only 8 episodes this season. I keep comparing this season to Eccleston's. His season had 13 episodes so the seeds for the (view spoiler)[Bad Wolf (hide spoiler)] reveal didn't feel so rushed.

I am also really enjoying Gatwa and Gibson's performances.

Rewatched The Marvels last night and it’s still good. It suffers the same problem from toxic fandom that Phil mentions about The Acolyte. Except in this case the movie is actually good. Not great, but good, and slots right in there with Guardians of the Galaxy for lighter cosmic stories.

I quite like the fact that one planet they visit is basically a perpetual musical. It’s just bonkers but in a fun way.

I tried X-Men ‘97 afterwards due to the mid-credits stinger in The Marvels, but it wasn’t for me. The stinger: (view spoiler)[Monica Rambeau closes the tear in spacetime and ends up in an alternate universe where she’s greeted by a doppelgänger of her dead mom, who is the superhero Binary, and Hank McCoy, aka Beast from X-Men, played again by Kelsey Grammer. https://youtu.be/enEP7621ox0?si=lXZv7... (hide spoiler)]

I agree Trike, about The Marvels. I really enjoyed it as well. I can't help but smile whenever Iman Vellani is on screen.

Just watched episode 4 of The Acolyte. It's still treading middle ground for me. I like Osha and the very white padawan (Jecki) and the design of Mae's ship and who I presume is the Big Bad. I'm not a fan of Master Sol and Osha's old friend Yord, and the whole thing is coming off as cheaply done for some reason.
I was a little confused when there was meeting of a dozen Jedi Masters to discuss an issue and then at the end one says they should keep it from the Jedi council. I thought they were the Jedi council. I'd love to see an organization chart. (NERD)
I'm sure the complainers will whine that they slipped a "they" pronoun in and somehow that's ruined Star Wars for them.
We're half way through.

A friend is visiting, which gave me the impetus to finally start watching For All Mankind on Apple+ -- we made it through S1 and just watched the first episode of S2. I'm liking it a lot -- it feels like the sort of alternate timeline that would have led to the consensus future of 1950s SF novels (well, without the Martian cities and canals and Venerean jungles) with Moon colonies and (presumably later in the series) trips to Mars and eventual asteroid mining.

Joseph wrote: "A friend is visiting, which gave me the impetus to finally start watching For All Mankind on Apple+ -- we made it through S1 and just watched the first episode of S2. I'm liking it a lot -- it feel..."

The quality of that show has really impressed me. Apple TV really is the gold standard for excellent sci-fi.

Just finished season 1 of Jurassic World Chaos Theory, the sequel series to Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous. I think it's supposed to be 5 to 10 years later and the kids seem to be early to mid twenties. It seems to be significantly more intense than Camp and there are human deaths just off screen. I think they did a good job aging up the characters, both physically and emotionally, and the dinos look good.
It ends on a cliff-hanger, of course, and I look forward to the next season.

Just finished Bodkin on Netflix. At first it seems it's going to be a variation on Only Murders in the Building, with a true crime podcaster, Will Forte, going to a small town in Ireland to do a story on some people that disappeared 25 years previously. It turns out the story is much grimmer and less whimsical than Only Murders.
It was pretty good overall.

Tried watching Thor: Love and Thunder again. Only made 1/3 of the way through before turning it off. It’s even worse than I remembered.

Instead I fired up Li’l Thor in City of Heroes and went full lightning lad on bad guys.

Just finished hate-watching season 2 of Outer Range on Amazon.
It has some good actors in it but all they're given to do is mope around and act crazy and yell at each other. It reminds me a little of Lost in that there is an interesting mystery that you think is going to have a good science fiction explanation but so far it's just a bunch of mystical mumbo-jumbo with a tease of "maybe next season you'll understand".

Phil wrote: "Just finished hate-watching season 2 of Outer Range on Amazon.
It has some good actors in it but all they're given to do is mope around and act crazy and yell at each other. It reminds me a little ..."

Yeah, I bailed on that at episode 2 during season 1. You could see where it was going and I had better things to do. I have a new rule: Josh Brolin + Western = skip.

On the other hand, I also just watched the movie Three Thousand Years of Longing.
It stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba as a modern day scholar and a djinn, respectively. They spend a day telling stories and we see what happens with her wishes.
I loved it. It was well acted and beautifully filmed and compellingly written. I highly recommend it.
It's currently on Amazon.

I watched that on the plane last year, I agree! It was just such a compelling story.

It is based on the 1994 short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt.

Just finished the Exploding Kittens series on Netflix. It was just as gross as you would expect given the source material but pretty funny if you like that type of thing. Luckily I do.

But how's the card game?

My arthritis meds gave me blood clots in my right leg and pulmonary embolisms in my lungs, so I’ve basically been bed-ridden for the last 10 days. Doing a lot of reading and viewing.

Rewatch:

Chinatown - still solid after all these years
Avatar: The Way of Water - even better the third time through
Get Shorty - still hilarious

New to me:

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire - a weaker entry in the Monsterverse but still decent kaiju action
Masters of the Air - not as compelling as Band of Brothers or The Pacific, but pretty good
Obliterated - a rowdy good time action series even if I did twig to the big twist halfway through; C. Thomas Howell was over the top and unrecognizable

Trike wrote: "My arthritis meds gave me blood clots in my right leg and pulmonary embolisms in my lungs, so I’ve basically been bed-ridden for the last 10 days. Doing a lot of reading and viewing.

..."

Oof that’s rough, get well soon!

I’ve been watching the new Interview with the Vampire adaptation, which has finally arrived on the BBC. It’s really well done, keeping the basics of the story while updating it in intelligent ways.

Yowza Trike! Get well.

I've got a bad knee and can't do distances, but don't take meds for it. Can't do anything for bone on bone. It's made my new gig and the walk in from the parking lot interesting. It's a...joy...but nothing like what you're dealing with! Crossing fingers for you to get healthy.

Tamahome wrote: "But how's the card game?"

I've only played it once, in a pub, a few years ago and got eliminated pretty quickly. If I recall, it's kind of a cross between Munchkin and Flux. Quick and easy and a lot of luck.

Ruth wrote: "Oof that’s rough, get well soon!"

John (Taloni) wrote: "Yowza Trike! Get well.

I've got a bad knee and can't do distances, but don't take meds for it. Can't do anything for bone on bone. It's made my new gig and the walk in from the parking lot intere..."

Thanks.

My body was like, “Hey, we haven’t almost-died in a few years, lemme fix that.”

The medication was Rinvoq, btw. I rarely get side effects, unlike Mrs. Trike who gets them a lot (I call her Side-Effect Sally), so I was caught flat-footed by getting ALL the side effects. The only two I didn’t get were cancer (I hope) and sudden death. Kinda mad at myself for not stopping back in February, because by the time I’d gotten through the first bottle I was feeling pretty lousy. I just figured it was new drug transition. Always listen to your body.

On topic - Currently watching Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells discuss their favorite video games during the transition from arcades to home consoles: https://youtu.be/vSkcthweuqY?si=YeZzM...

I just finished rewatching the first season of The Good Place and man, I love that show unreservedly.

I did mostly like Masters of the Air but agree it wasn't as good as its predecessors; partially because pretty much all the flying was CGI, and also because the pacing/structure felt a bit lopsided, probably because of the specific B-17 crewmen whose memoirs they were following -- (view spoiler)[all of the big aerial scenes were in the first 3-4 episodes, and then they spent the rest of the series either working in HQ or stuck in POW camps (hide spoiler)].

Oh, and finished S3 of For All Mankind, which I'm still enjoying but the seasons are getting increasingly silly.

I finished watching Black Mirror Season 6 on Netflix. I liked the first three episodes, especially Joan is Awful. I didn’t like the last two episodes. They were supernatural stories, not technological like every other episode of the series. I don’t agree with this new direction for the series. Hopefully the next season will have more episodes like the first three from this year.
I finished watching The Acolyte Season 1 on Disney Plus. There were some intriguing ideas and excellent light saber battles, but the series is marred by characters making illogical decisions and an unnecessary open ending. I doubt that there will be another season.
I am watching House of the Dragon Season 2 on MAX which started on June 16, 2024, (Based on the book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin) I’ve seen the first five episodes. Excellent so far, especially the fourth episode titled The Red dragon and the Gold.
The shows that I want to watch next are Good Omens Season One and Two on Amazon Prime Video (Based on the novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett) and the Three-Body Problem on Netflix. (Based on the novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin)

Rewatched Warcraft and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to figure out why the former doesn’t work but the latter does. Watching them back to back clarified it.

Turns out it’s simple story structure. As near as I can tell, both movies have the same number of main and secondary characters, both have similar fantastic worlds that need explaining, both visit several locations, and both have equal amounts of fan service, while DnDHAT has way more infodumps yet feels like it has fewer.

With Warcraft, it’s all thrown at you all at once, and it shifts focus like someone who has ADD has taken speed. You never get a chance to absorb what you’ve learned or get used to the characters before a new person in a different location takes center stage. In DnDHAT each time they go to a new city or village there’s a reason, and we get backstory for each place *and* how it connects to one of our main characters, doing double duty.

In Warcraft you learn why the orcs are invading but you never learn why the dark magic was employed in the first place. You find out who the traitor is but never learn why he did it. In DnDHAT you find out who the traitor is and his explanation is banal but understandable. You find out why he was in league with the evil Red Wizard and you discover her reasons, as well.

It’s also clear that Warcraft is trying to be oh-so-serious while DnDHAT is a straight-up comedy. Warcraft has brief moments of humor, like when one of the guards is turned into a sheep, but it doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of silliness the games employ.

DnDHAT also has throwaway jokes which have nothing to do with the game, which broadens its appeal. For instance, when the good guy mage with self-confidence issues faces off against the evil Red Wizard, it’s framed like a classic Western shoot-out. They even have a random basket roll through the shot like a tumbleweed. 😆

On a story and character level you have pretty much the same beats and similar characters for both, but by taking the time to introduce each place and person, DnDHAT is easy to follow while you’re always lost in Warcraft. It also doesn’t help that Warcraft ends on several downers while DnDHAT finishes with a win. If you don’t know the lore of Azeroth the mid-credits stinger means nothing to you. Meanwhile, the stinger for DnDHAT bookends the movie by echoing the opening scene, plus it’s funny.

Just by organizing Warcraft in the same way DnDHAT would solve half its issues, and answering a couple small questions regarding character motivation would make it more interesting.

Finished The Acolyte on Disney+. There was something about it that just didn't click with me. The acting was pretty bad from most of the principals and there were a lot of plot holes left open by the end of the season. Virtually none of the mysteries were answered and we're still not sure if a season 2 will be made. On the other hand it was nice to see another time outside the Skywalker era although 100 years isn't much.
Overall meh. Maybe 2 out of 5.

Also finished season 4 of The Boys. I don't have much to say about this. If you liked the previous seasons then you'll like this one and if you didn't then you won't. More brutal violence, more violent sex, more sad and mentally ill characters. It is blatantly anti-MAGA this season.
Apparently there's a lot of references I didn't get because I haven't watched Gen V but it seemed fine anyway.
Next year will be the last and it does seem to be coming to a head.

This mod for Doom 2 is the most demented and interesting I’ve ever seen. The video going through it is fascinating.

https://youtu.be/5wAo54DHDY0?si=XnvKt...

I am watching Sweet Home season 2. The more episodes I watch I see what could of been a great season. Sadly that's not what we got. Characters we were with all of last season are getting killed off and they are throwing new characters at us that are meh.

Also watching Tale of the Nine Tailed. A little more romance than what I normally watch. I like the characters and the supernatural parts are entertaining enough to keep me engaged.

Rewatched X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013) last night.

X-MOW is pretty standard action fare for the first 3/4 — mediocre stuff we’ve seen since the 80s. That last bit really goes off the rails and just becomes ridiculous. That said, the “Wolverine and Sabretooth fighting through a century of wars” credits montage at the beginning is an excellent short film by itself. https://youtu.be/hwTq5uSoTCU?si=olgzo...

Whoever thought turning Ryan Reynolds into a silent Deadpool *really* should not be allowed to make movies. The whole point of Deadpool, the “merc with a mouth”, is that he’s constantly yammering. And half of Reynolds’ appeal is that he can do the same. Taking that away was just baffling stupid.

2 stars. ⭐️⭐️

(I felt the same way about hiring Anson Mount as Black Bolt — the guy’s real-life superpower is throwing up a wall of engaging snappy patter and you’ve cast him as the only superhero who can’t talk? Bwah??)

The Wolverine was actually better than I remembered, drawing more inspiration from the comics. It still has some goofy action movie bits, but those are kept to a minimum. I know a lot of people didn’t like the changes made to Silver Samurai but I didn’t mind. I just treat the movies as existing in a slightly different universe from the comic book continuity.

I don’t know how Wolverine gets from invading Normandy in June 1944 to being a POW in Nagasaki in August 1945 since very few US soldiers saw battle in both theatres, but hey, comics. Maybe he was a special scout or something. (Mostly the men who fought on both fronts were bomber pilots and Navy officers.)

3-1/2 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🌙

SDCC cosplay and displays

https://youtu.be/-3C9BcJEgIY?si=rhI9h...

just drop on Tubi; the anime movie , Away.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8288450/

Trike wrote: "I don’t know how Wolverine gets from invading Normandy in June 1944 to being a POW in Nagasaki in August 1945 since very few US soldiers saw battle in both theatres, but hey, comics."

He landed on Normandy Beach and just kept going east.

Joseph wrote: "He landed on Normandy Beach and just kept going east."

Heh.

I looked up “walk from Normandy France to Shanghai China” on Google Maps = 3,353 hours. Assuming Wolverine walks 16 hours a day, it would take him 209-and-1/2 days. He just has to catch a boat across the water.

He would, of course, have adventures along the way, but he has a comfortable buffer of ~180 days. Totally doable.

^ We've established that Wolverine can lose memories when shot in the head. Soooo he lands in France, gets shot, starts wandering, winds up in Japan. Next up the miniseries: "Young Man Logan."

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ We've established that Wolverine can lose memories when shot in the head. Soooo he lands in France, gets shot, starts wandering, winds up in Japan. Next up the miniseries: "Young Man Logan.""

Only when shot in the head with an adamantium bullet. That’s also why he gets sick and dies: poisoned by the adamantium coating his bones. Otherwise he’s probably immortal.

Not being the biggest MCU fan, are you referring to Logan? Because I'm thinking of...that silly one where he spends some time in the Bayou and meets some minor X-Men characters...then gets shot on a silo by, IIRC, the original Deadpool with the freaky mouth.

Just finished the fourth/final season of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix. Only 6 episodes so it went by pretty quickly. I'm not familiar with the comic at all so I don't know how it stacks up but it brought a tear to my eye and I thought it was a good wrap up for the show.
As a side note I really appreciated how they handled Elliot Page's character's gender change during the series. After one of the season breaks he came back as a male and the other characters said "Cool. I'm glad you're happy, brother" and that was it. He was who he was and no fuss was made either way. Lovely.

Trike wrote: "Joseph wrote: "He landed on Normandy Beach and just kept going east."

Heh.

I looked up “walk from Normandy France to Shanghai China” on Google Maps = 3,353 hours. Assuming Wolverine walks 16 hour..."

I suppose that's a much longer journey than Tsutomu Yamaguchi took, but it is wild how a single person can manage to be present for multiple pivotal events.

Went to the movies, saw Deadpool & Wolverine. Extremely stabby, extraordinarily profane, and frequently hilarious. 4 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My copy of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga arrived and I watched it tonight. Genuinely epic, even bigger than Fury Road. That rarest of movies: a good prequel. 4-1/2 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌙

Got the 1980 Shogun from the library and watched all 4 dvd disks. More romancy and different plot points from the newer adaption. I think I understand it better. Perhaps a slower pace. It sounds like they tried to be very authentic with the location, sets and music. I wish they would subtitle all the japanese parts, although it's an interesting choice not to. Actually there's a fifth disk with behind the scenes stuff I have yet to watch. This was a big phenomenon when it originally came out. My first time seeing it. Weird that you can't stream it. I would think there would be a big interest in it. I'm slightly tempted to read the book, but I'm on a small book phase, like Tess Gerritsen (Rizzoli & Isles) thrillers.

Tamahome wrote: "Got the 1980 Shogun from the library and watched all 4 dvd disks. More romancy and different plot points from the newer adaption. I think I understand it better. Perhaps a slower pace. It sounds li..."

I remember when Shogun was on originally. It was a big deal. Of course there were only 3 networks so not much other choice really and it was shown over 5 consecutive nights so you had to commit. The lack of subtitles was very controversial but was meant to represent the main character's POV. I would say "Hai" instead of "yes" for quite a while afterwards thinking I was very clever. The scenes of someone peeing on the main character and the view of a naked breast were quite scandalous as well.

Much more sexy times than the tnt version! But no shortage of deaths. It was phenomenon similar to Roots, although I was watching the Doctor Strange tv pilot instead.

Tamahome wrote: "I'm slightly tempted to read the book, but I'm on a small book phase..."

It's long but not at all difficult - I don't remember anything like a confusing structure or obscure wording - so it goes pretty quick. The pacing and plot are good enough that it just seems to move right along.

I do find that sometimes those big, fat historical novels (like Shogun, which I need to read someday, or Gary Jennings' Aztec) scratch the same itch as big, fat fantasy novels.

I watched IF, the John Krasinski kids comedy about imaginary friends. I’d forgotten it stars Ryan Reynolds. The real standout was the little girl main character, played by Cailey Fleming. She’s really good. She already has quite a resume, playing young Rey in Star Wars and Judith Grimes in The Walking Dead. It’s a nice little fantasy flick. 3 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rewatched Heat, the Michael Mann crime drama starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. I’d forgotten all the people playing but parts: Jeremy Piven, Hank Azaria, Dennis Haysbert, 13-year-old Natalie Portman, William Fitchner… a real who’s who of character actors and stars. Still a great film. 4 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Back to sci-fi, I also watched I.S.S., which was way better than I expected. It’s more of a character study than a flick like Life but it’s solid. I was reminded of the Thomas Scortia book Earthwreck, a 1970s thriller, but better. A bit of clunky exposition at the beginning but overall well done. They did a decent job with the set, CGI and zero gee stuff, especially considering the relatively low budget. (It looks really good when you consider that Sandra Bullock’s salary for Gravity was the same as this movie’s entire budget.) 3 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Just finished a years long rewatch of the Dick Van Dyke Show from the 60's. It's definitely in my top 5 tv shows of all time. I first watched it as a little kid and I think it had an effect on what I thought life as an adult would/could be like. I guess I never met my Laura and maybe I wasn't a good enough Rob.
The final episode was possibly ground breaking because Rob writes a book about his life that gets turned into the series we just watched. I don't know if that type of circular story-telling had been done on tv before.
There were a couple minor connections to SF. In one episode Rob thinks he sees a UFO out of the window at work and has to investigate. In another, after watching an alien invasion movie on tv, he has a dream involving aliens and walnuts. That episode is significantly referenced in the WandaVision tv series.
I strongly recommend the show although be aware the 60's gender stereotypes may be problematic for some people.

Phil wrote: "Just finished a years long rewatch of the Dick Van Dyke Show from the 60's. It's definitely in my top 5 tv shows of all time.
…
I strongly recommend the show although be aware the 60's gender stereotypes may be problematic for some people."

It’s a genuinely great show. It was also subversive in many ways. For instance, due to the Hays Code in movies and the sway the Catholic Church had over entertainment, couples weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed. Even if they were married.

The DVD show got around this at least one time by showing that Dick’s bed was messed up and Laura’s bed was perfectly made up. The implication being that they had adult sexy times. To anticipate objections, they had Laura up and dressed as a very fatigued Dick was just getting up, so their excuse was going to be that Laura was an early riser and made up her bed. But then no one ever asked. The scene can be read either way, which is pretty brilliant.

I’ve always said constraints make stories better, and that’s a perfect example.

I watched the new Ghostbusters movie last night, Frozen Empire. It’s fine but forgettable. I was fairly bored by most of it, and the extensive list of Chekhov’s Guns they set up was tediously obvious. They all pay off but they never do anything unusual or unexpected with them. There aren’t any real stakes, either. Also, aside from Patton Oswald’s 2-minute infodump there aren’t any genuinely funny moments, which was weird. I don’t think it’s rated G, but it sure feels like it.

I think my biggest complaint is that as I was watching it I could think of five cooler things to do with the set-ups and various spooks.

A little bit ago I watched this video on goblins, which was a bit more interesting than I expected.

The Goblin Hypothesis
https://youtu.be/E3rbZnsiOz4?si=FhUJv...