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jriddle73's Replies
[quote]William Randolph Hearst and that old fraud FDR – both totally corrupt and power-mad – cooked up this propaganda piece to smooth the way for complete dictatorship by the socialist Democrats that were so enamored of Stalinist communism.[/quote]
Yes, William Randolph Hearst, the uber-capitalist baron enamored of fascism, a man who, on a regular basis, actually employed Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Goebbels to create content for his publications, was secretly "enamored of Stalinist communism" all along. I can tell you know lots and lots about this subject.
Filmboards is a great place. So is this.
Yeah, AQUAMAN is already in the can, unless they decide to remake it before release (which is not entirely unlikely).
[quote]"Wow a hot slate and one that will have a lot of people making fun of WB/DC strangely quiet when the box-office results pour in."[/quote]
Having heard that same loud talk before the debut of every WB/DC failure, I'm sure they're all just quaking in their boots. At this point, it's unclear whether any of those movies (except WW2) will even happen.
"I guess Simple Gimple thought throwing Carl's fatal(?) injury in the mix at the end is supposed to make everyone overlook how inane the plotting was in this episode."
It's more the case that the business with Coral is the thing to which they devoted their attention. The soap melodrama model TWD has used is built around generating emotional responses to that sort of material; everything else has always been secondary, which is part of why the writing is so bad.
When their rates go up, the more they're featured, the more they're paid. And, of course, Scott Gimple likes to atomize the cast anyway, which no doubt keeps the bean-counters happy.
In previous seasons, when Rick would disappear for weeks at a time, it led to a lot of complaints. This year, they're basically putting him in cameo parts spread out over the eps. I don't think there's any disinterest implied by this; it's just that Lincoln has been with the show from the beginning and he's being paid a LOT more money now than while he was under that initial 5-year contract. Everyone who has outlived their initial five years is getting a lot more money, so there's an incentive to feature them as little as possible.
This season, so far, has only covered two days and two nights. Carl was bitten during the second day; last night's ep was set almost entirely during the night that followed. So it's only been a few hours. If the second half of the season continues at the snail's pace established by the first, he could last until season 9.
They're both a blast. The comic was only a miniseries--a six-issue prequel to the tv shows. The series is great. It takes a few eps for it to find itself--the pilot is pretty rough and the first few eps imperfect--but by the 4th ep, it's cooking with gas and pretty much stays good. A [i]lot[/i] better than THE WALKING DEAD.
That idea was actually used by a group of pirates in the Z NATION comic miniseries earlier this year (put together by that show's co-creator). They didn't blindfold the zombies; they put a live person in there and had the zombies follow him around.
JUSTICE LEAGUE hasn't made any money at all (and is, in fact, currently on track to lose about $75 million-$120 million).
It's galaxies better than TNG. That's not saying much--merely "watchable" would manage [i]that[/i]--but I'm a few eps in and it's often entertaining.
If it's to continue beyond this season--and its creators want to do so--killing Warren shouldn't even be in the cards.
LOGAN is a really great piece of work. You watch it and can't help but lament that they weren't doing that from the beginning.
Hopefully, it has inflicted no permanent damage?
It would be almost impossible to overstate how profoundly awful the first two movies are; they're a major embarrassment to everyone involved. If you haven't seen them and you're not a masochist, just skip 'em. They're 4+ hours you'll never be able to get back.
"It's sad when it happens on a site that hasn't quite hit the critical mass to be able to absorb it, so almost all you see are the complaints that somebody really really wanted to see X, but got Y instead (which is what all of it comes down to)."
When X makes sense buy Y doesn't make any, that's an entirely valid criticism. The days of TWD's peak popularity are long gone; it will now draw as many or more complaints as praise and the complaints will become more numerous with time. That's true across even the sites tightly regulated by its awful fanboy faction (who tolerate no criticism of the show). It's never coming back from that. The problems I've been pointing out since its second season have swallowed it whole and everyone involved has just been milking it for whatever dollars can still be squeezed from it--that's the way it's been since the season 5 opener.
JDM is a good actor. Any time you evaluate a TWD actor, you simply must grant a lot of leeway because the writers give the actors absolutely [i]nothing[/i] with which to work. It's impossible to overstate that. Merle is my stock example. On paper, he was one of the worst characters on ANY tv show; he worked and actually managed to be great at times entirely because of Michael Rooker. Not everyone has managed that. Xander Berkeley is a great actor but he's stuck playing Gregory, which is just a horrible, horrible part. He sometimes manages to squeeze some laughs out of the material but not much else. Lenny James is another rock-solid talent whose character (Morgan) was ruined by the writers. Look at what the writers did to Laurie Holden's character. Good actors can do a lot with not much but it's a very rare one that can turn outright sewage into gold.
"I think that the main reason the show is in a rut is that is much closer to the comics than before. They should go back and try to improve on the original material instead of copying it. A direct transposition doesen't work, as Negan clearly demonstrates."
Negan demonstrates nothing of the sort; he's just the latest example of how this show can't get [i]anything[/i] from the comics right. Comic Negan is a sadistic, murderous bastard but he's still a human being. This '60s Adam West Batman villain version is entirely the creation of the tv show, which screws up everything it adapts from the source material. If it was faithful to the comic, it would have been one of the best shows on television right from the beginning. That doesn't mean that would have been the best approach but there's NO question which is the superior version--the tv show isn't even close.
It makes sense to go see the Garbage People and try to feel them out but that's something to be done with an armed force under a white flag. You don't start a war and then walk into a camp aligned with the enemy alone.