The Sword and Laser discussion

I liked Rings of Power Season 2. I thought it was better than Season 1 but I like that one too. I don't understand the hate for Rings of Power. Is it on the same level as the very forgettable Shannara Chronicles?

Stephen wrote: "I liked Rings of Power Season 2. I thought it was better than Season 1 but I like that one too. I don't understand the hate for Rings of Power. Is it on the same level as the very forgettable Shann..."

Shannara had character development.

We tried watching Supacell, which is basically a British version of Heroes, but we could only understand about 1 line in 6, and it wasn’t compelling enough to continue to struggle through. Didn’t make it through the first episode.

Agatha All Along is quite good, though, as is The Penguin. Marvel and DC characters respectively.

I'm totally in the bag for Agatha All Along. It's been such a fun ride so far.

I had low expectations for The Penguin. I'm not a fan of gangster stories in general but I'm really enjoying Penguin. I think Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti are superb.

I watched Uprising on Netflix, a Korean historical saga with some fine sword fighting. Has that Crouching Tiger Vibe to it.

For me Agatha Harkness is the aged crone of vast power, the white witch capable of protecting the child of Reed Richards and Sue Storm simply because she decided they could use a rest. The trainer of the Scarlet Witch, again because she thought it was a good thing to do. Vast, untapped powers residing in semi-retirement and invoked as she saw fit.

I am not a fan of the MCU Harkness. From what I have seen she is at best neutral if not actively evil. None of the original Agatha Harkness' dignity. Origin explained by silly tropes that I thought had to be an in-show joke but nope, that was it. Anyway, y'all have fun. I can't bring myself to watch any more.

While I was also disappointed that it wasn't the Agatha I knew from the comics when we met her in WandaVision, that series and this one are both really good. I don't really even associate the 2 versions of the character with each other anymore.
Maybe comics Agatha is a future version of MCU Agatha or maybe the older version is from an alternate universe. It wouldn't surprise me if we see her in the Fantastic Four movie which takes place in an alternate universe that will probably be destroyed by Galactus. The Silver Surfer in that one is Shalla-Bal instead of Norrin Radd.

I’m not bugged by the differences between comic Agatha/Penguin and the TV versions. They’re clearly different universes, the Marvel ones explicitly so. I just view them as installments of What If…? (Marvel) or Elseworlds (DC).

I definitely prefer the MCU version of Wanda, because the comic Scarlet Witch is all over the place.

I have no experience of Agatha outside Wandavision and Agatha All Along.

I'm enjoying it very much. Doubly so whenever Aubrey Plaza is on screen.

She needs her own series.

Trike wrote: "the comic Scarlet Witch is all over the place."

My take on Scarlet Witch from reading Avengers and maybe a limited series or two back in the 80s (plus some reprints of 70s stuff) was that Wanda was included for cheesecake only. Her job was to look pretty for the fanboys and throw an ill-defined hex power once an issue. I never quite understood the romance with Vision, but then, the writers regularly did big-idea stuff with little in-story justification. I just shrugged and figured it was a slate to develop robot storylines from.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Trike wrote: "the comic Scarlet Witch is all over the place."

My take on Scarlet Witch from reading Avengers and maybe a limited series or two back in the 80s (plus some reprints of 70s stuff) was..."

The jump-the-shark moment for Wanda was when they retconned her backstory from “daughter of Quicksilver” to “sister of Quicksilver, daughter of Magneto”. Now she’s so overpowered that everything is trivial for her, and apparently she’s reformed from being the ultimate Big Bad of the Marvel multiverse, and now she… uh, owns a tea shop.

The MCU throughline is at least cleaner, with a clear message that absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is being reinforced by Dr. Strange’s character arc, despite the fact he has Wanda’s example to learn from.

I do wonder if they’re going to go through with that storyline, which was teed up perfectly with both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Clea showing up at the end of Madness has the potential to be an epic story that combines all the various permutations of her character, which could end either as Strange rejecting the ultimate power by refusing to become the ruler of the Dark Dimension (original storyline) or Strange sacrificing himself to allow Clea to become Sorcerer Supreme (current story). Since I’m a Marvel Team-Up fan, I’m hoping the former with an appearance by Spider-Man.

Watched the new animated Tomb Raider series on Netflix. It wasn't bad. The whole season was one story. Lara goes through some character growth from the start to the end. I enjoyed the support characters. The graphics were good and had a slight anime feel to me. It ends with a setup for the next season.
Maybe 7 out of 10.

Also just finished Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History. It's a series from 2017 that looks at how American politics/history of the last 60 years and music have been intertwined. For instance, the last episode was about 9/11 and both the patriotic music that rallied people and the backlash against the Dixie Chicks following their criticism of Bush.
If you find both music and history interesting you'll enjoy this show.

Trike wrote: "The jump-the-shark moment for Wanda was when they retconned her backstory from “daughter of Quicksilver” to “sister of Quicksilver, daughter of Magneto."

That momentarily made me wonder if my memory was wrong. So I went and checked my digital copy of X-Men #4 (where Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch debuted) and the opening scene with the two of them, Toad, and Mastermind sitting a their dinner table begins with Pietro saying, "Toad! Must you chomp your food like that?? My sister happens to be at the table, you obnoxious fool!" To which Wanda responds, "It's alright, Pietro! Don't get into another fight on my account!"

If I recall correctly, their original story was orphans of wandering Romani. Then briefly orphans of a couple of golden age superheroes. I think one of them was the Whizzer, whom you might have confused with Quicksilver. And then eventually the story of Wundagore and Magneto.

With that said, Earth-616 Scarlet Witch is certainly all over the place in terms of history and powers. And she's not exactly been stable. But comics in general play fast and loose with continuity. It's part of the fun of tracking them over decades, at least from my perspective.

But they were the children of Magnus pretty consistently for the longest period of time. I'm not really up to date, but I understand that's possibly not the case anymore but also that it arguably is.

I don't look for any consistency in comics, just stories that I enjoy. Some just for pure fun. Some for the pathos. And some for the way the engage and push the visual literary medium.

But Wanda and Pietro have always been siblings. That bit has remained the same.

Oh, you’re absolutely right, they were Whizzer’s kids!

I’m old. 🤷‍♂️

Started watching The Gentlemen in Netflix. And might start on an anime/donghua, idk which one, too many in my watchlist.

We watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice last night. If you liked the original then you’ll like this one. I hate Justin Theroux. Someone that handsome shouldn’t be so good at writing and acting.

Finished season 2 of Jurassic World Chaos Theory. It's still good but didn't grab me as much as season 1. It seemed to move a little slow and the plot only works because of the "character keeps a secret that would solve everything" trope which I've always disliked.

Finished season one of The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy. It's an animated SF comedy o Amazon. You'd recognized a lot of the voice cast as SNL actors. They're trying for some edgy humor but I'm afraid I just didn't find it as funny as they did. There were a couple good bits but overall was too busy.

Stumbled across this vid recommending some sci-fi films. I hadn’t heard of any of them but they all look interesting.

5 Indie Sci-Fi Films You've Never Heard Of (NO SPOILERS)
https://youtu.be/sCk7vNfWgFU

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season 2 started on 08-29-24 on Amazon Prime Video. I’ve watched the first three episodes and there is a lot to like especially Elrond. The second season finale was on 10-03-24.
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)
Meanwhile MAX will adapt the first novella of the Dunk and Egg series. The story, The Hedge Knight can be found in the collection A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R.R. Martin). The show named A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will premiere sometime in 2025.

Watched Spellbound on Netflix yesterday. It's a typical animated "princess goes on a quest" movie. It is a musical and even though the music is written by Alan Menken it was kind of forgettable and there was probably too much of it. The movie was pretty and did have a twist that was a surprise, to me, at the end. Kids under 12 would probably like this well enough.

Watched The Flash movie last night.
I actually found it more enjoyable than I expected, based on what I had heard. Yes, the CGI people in the speed force were terrible but other than that it was ok. I thought the humor was pretty good.
Overall not great but I liked it better than a lot of the other DC universe stuff.

Just finished Arcane.
Grumpy old man here and let's start by saying it wasn't for me.
I don't know the story of League of Legends at all so I don't know if that affected my enjoyment . I found the story confusing and didn't know who half of the characters were or if they were "good" or "bad" guys and I thought the design choices (giant, oversized weapons with skinny, punky people) were ridiculous. If everyone's a punk then nobody is. The best I could say is, it was pretty.
I got the impression this was written by a 14 year old girl who thinks she is smarter and edgier than everyone around her.
I kow a lot of people love this but I'm kind of glad it's over.

Phil wrote: "Just finished Arcane.
Grumpy old man here and let's start by saying it wasn't for me.
I don't know the story of League of Legends at all so I don't know if that affected my enjoyment . I found the ..."

Out of curiosity, why watch both seasons if you didn’t like it? If I start a show that doesn’t hook me, I’m out immediately. Willow, Secret Invasion, Rings of Power, etc. - life’s too short.

We watched A Man on the Inside on Netflix last night, which is based on a true story of an elderly man hired by a PI to go undercover in a retirement home to solve the case of stolen jewelry. It’s by Michael Schur who also did the marvelous The Good Place, and stars Ted Danson.

Full 5 stars. I laughed constantly and cried several times. Quite the emotional rollercoaster. Loved it.

I also loved Man on the Inside. I'm recommending it to everyone.

As to your Arcane question, I like to give things a chance to grow on me. I only rarely Lem a book, maybe one a year on average, and only if it's a really slow read. If it's short I'll power through it for what goodness I can find. I always hope things will get better.

8 or 9 episodes of a show isn't too much to sit through and as I said, it was pretty. I think I remember liking the first season a little more than the second which was really disjointed to me. I had heard that they had planned 5 seasons but had to cut it to 2 because of the expense even though it was super popular. I'm sure the story compression didn't do it any favours. (I hate that Goodreads is trying to correct my Canadian spelling)

I watched all three series you mentioned, and agree that they are bad, with the hope that they would get better. Also I'm a Marvel and Tolkien whore and I had to watch those because of FOMO. You never know when something in a Marvel show is going to be mentioned again.

Phil wrote: "Just finished Arcane.
Grumpy old man here and let's start by saying it wasn't for me.
I don't know the story of League of Legends at all so I don't know if that affected my enjoyment . I found the ..."

I love Arcane. I'm about half way through S2.

Most of the characters are purposely neither Bad or Good. They are products of their environment and their upbringing.

Obviously you have characters that are "Good" (Vi, Caitlyn, Jayce) and Characters that are "Bad" (Jinx, Silco)

But even they show traits that are both Bad & Good.

There is a constant power struggle. The Haves v the Have Nots. The rich v the poor. Enhanced v the non-enhanced.

Many of our heroes are from the surface. Many are from below. The same with the villains.

At its heart it is also about family. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

Man on the Inside was brilliant. Season 2 can't get here fast enough.

Yavin Escape - a Star Wars fan film

https://youtu.be/sHimiAumpsE

Really good, especially for being made in Blender. (Blender is a free animation program, for this unfamiliar.)

I think this video ruined Star Wars for me "Myths Hollywood Has Taught Us About Space" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hezX... (Asteroid fields?) The one about gun myths is good too.

Watched the finale of Superman and Lois. It was a good ending for the show and I cried like a baby, at the wedding of all things. I felt the last season was much better overall than the rest of the series and they really had a lot of good moments this year. Technically, I guess this was last of the Arrowverse and they ended on a high note.

Just finished Mythbusters: the Search from 2017. It was a competition of 10 contestants trying to be the hosts of a Myhbusters Revival. Apparently the revival only lasted a year.
The search show itself seemed just ok as almost all the myths they tested were rehashes from the original show and the contestants themselves were all pretty bland except one guy who was interesting but too much of a maverick to work with others.
The best surprise for me was that the host of this show was Kyle Hill whose Youtube videos I watch all the time. He's a top notch science communicator.
I've been slowly working my way through the original Mythbusters which is taking a while because some seasons have well over 30 episodes.

Finally watched Source Code for free on Tubi. Timey wimey with Jake Gyllenhaal (and his sister Maggie). Pretty cool mystery in the beginning. I was kept on the edge of my seat, although I don't know how much sense it finally made.

Just watched "65", starring Adam Driver, on Netflix. It was ridiculous in at least 65 ways but still a fun, mindless way to pass the time. The damage that Driver's character accrues should have sidelined him several times but I guess that's why he's an action hero.

Watched Red One last night. It is unpretentious and silly, but certainly not deserving of the hate it’s getting. I was surprised to see it streaming for free on Amazon something like 3 weeks after its theatrical release, but it’s pretty clearly yet another 2024 box office bomb so why not?

I finished s2 of Arcane on Netflix. I’m not really all that clear on what happened those last few episodes and the alt-universe/time travel episodes felt like they were shoehorned in from a nonexistent season 3 or something. Bit of a fizzle, I’d say.

Just finished watching a documentary called The Booksellers about people who sell (and collect) rare books. Quite good. Free on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/oM17mX_C0Cw

Just watched the series finale of What We Do In The Shadows; all three versions. They were all exactly the same except for about 2 minutes in the middle when (view spoiler)[ Nadja hypnotizes the audience, us, into seeing the ending we would most want. Each one is based on a famous movie or tv show ending. The show then returns to normal. (hide spoiler)]
It was a satisfying conclusion to the series and made sense.
Overall, I found it an excellent series.

I’m watching the new Star Wars show, Skeleton Crew, with my Star Wars loving little boy. It’s about a bunch of kids who accidentally yeet themselves into space and then team up with a disreputable space pirate who is played by Jude Law. Good fun so far!

Humblebrag: I’m the first-ever comment Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells responded to on their podcast. That’s so weird. I’m just used to 99.997% of my online comments disappearing into the aether.

Intentionally Left Blank:Commenting on Comments
https://youtu.be/CMGRo8bhEPs

(Yes, I go by “Fabulist” on YouTube because “Trike” was already taken. By ME, but when I moved I lost access to my ISP-specific email so they wouldn’t let me keep it. Same dumb thing happened with Yahoo back in the day. First World Early Adopter problems.)

Ruth wrote: "I’m watching the new Star Wars show, Skeleton Crew, with my Star Wars loving little boy. It’s about a bunch of kids who accidentally yeet themselves into space and then team up with a disreputable ..."

I've also been watching this, and been loving it. To me this feels like a Star Wars show should. More so then any live action SW has, with maybe the exception of the first season of Mando. I really enjoyed while it is clearly aimed at a younger audience, it still was willing to put in a few "scary" action moments in early on to show that was OK as well. I will say EP 4 the most recent did start to feel lke a planet of the week show, instead of a continuous story. But it was still very good, and had some great character moments for Neil, one of the ones who was not as developed before.

Hope you and your kid keep enjoying it.

Watched Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl on Netflix. It was a cute addition to the series although nothing will surpass The Wrong Trousers in my heart. Good family viewing.
Also watched a movie from 2021 called Doors on Amazon. It's 4 vignettes set in a current day world where over a million alien "doors" suddenly appear and start sucking people in and/or driving them mad. It seemed pretty amateurish and didn't offer a lot of explanation.

Phil wrote: "Watched Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl on Netflix. It was a cute addition to the series although nothing will surpass The Wrong Trousers in my heart."

We watched that last night, too. Mrs. Trike fell sound asleep and I nearly did as well. It really should’ve been half as long. And it needed twice as many gags. This is easily the least of the Wallace and Gromit shows.

I watched the Secret Level series on Amazon. They claimed it would be ad-free and then served up 3 ads every episode. That would’ve been tolerable had the episodes been good but I only liked a couple of them. The Pac-Man episode was bizarrely grimdark, like they assigned it to some goth kid who fancied himself an edgelord so he didn’t want to make a fun & funny short.

On the positive side we watched a documentary called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin about a kid with a genetic muscle disorder who spent all of his time gaming in World of Warcraft. When he died at 25 from the disease, his parents thought he lived an isolated, friendless life, only to discover that he’d made hundreds of friends in the game and there was an outpouring of support when his virtual friends found out. (That’s all in the film’s description, so not a spoiler.)

Of course, he was as complicated as any person is, so it’s not like he was a saint, but you get a pretty full picture of Mats. As you might imagine, it is sad yet uplifting, and really well made. The animations they created to show his in-game interactions are impressive. I wish games could actually do that stuff. 5 stars.

I enjoyed "Vengeance Most Fowl". Until it started I didn't realise it was a sequel to "The Wrong Trousers"

Hearing Philomena Cunk (AKA Diane Morgan) as Onya Doorstep was a hoot.

Some of the gags were repeats from previous W&G shows, but overall it was a solid addition to the franchise.

We watched The Night Agent on Netflix, which is a propulsive thriller. They didn’t reinvent the wheel here but we were so taken by it that we binged all 10 episodes in a single evening. Season 2 drops at the end of the month.

I forgot to mention that we also watched Grand Turismo the other day. It’s based on a true story I’d never heard of before — ten years ago Nissan recruited the top players of the Grand Turismo video game to actually race in real GT cars. It was conceived as a marketing stunt but it turns out one of the kids is actually good enough to race with big boys. He’s still racing on the pro circuit today. (His most current race was November 30.) I read the true story and the film hews pretty closely to it. Obviously it simplifies things but overall hits the high points. Very impressive.

Mrs. Trike hates Westerns, so tonight I showed her one of my favorite Westerns, Support Your Local Sheriff. She thought it was great. It’s a full-on comedy that’s genuinely funny; not as over the top as Blazing Saddles but definitely in that vein. It’s currently running on Amazon Prime.

Trike wrote: "Support Your Local Sheriff. She thought it was great. It’s a full-on comedy that’s genuinely funny; not as over the top as Blazing Saddles but definitely in that vein. It’s currently running on Amazon Prime...."

Will you follow up with Support Your Local Gunfighter? The real star is Jack Elam!

Mark wrote: "Will you follow up with Support Your Local Gunfighter? The real star is Jack Elam!"

Elam was great in everything, even Cannonball Run, but I’m not as big a fan of the sequel quasi-remake so it might be a hard sell for her. I had to show her the “I already shot one hole in your ceiling” scene to convince her. https://youtu.be/-w8OqYRLfTY

However, she’s never seen The Last of the Mohicans because she thought it sounded like a Western. I was like, “It takes place in upstate New York, which is west of us but not a Western.” I might talk her into that one.

Some of these are bigger than I thought.

20 Tallest buildings in all of Fiction || Books, Movies & Games

https://youtu.be/BJ2LXH0QLm8

He missed the most famous tall building in all of fantasy fiction.

It would come in at No. 12 in this list.

The Tower of Babel at 2,484 metres high.

The new series of The Traitors has begun (the UK version, although I think the US version will be here soon) so that's my TV obsession for the next few weeks sorted.
For those unfamiliar, it's a reality TV/gameshow loosely based on the game 'Mafia' in which the eponymous Traitors commit a string of murders and the Faithfuls try to figure out who the Traitors are, elminating one player each day. There's also a series of challenges in which all players work together to win money for a prize pot that will be won at the end of the game by the last player(s) standing. It's silly but totally compelling television, filmed at a neo-Gothic castle in Scotland.