The Sword and Laser discussion
TV, Movies and Games
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What else are you watching?
There's a movie? I must check this out. Thanks, Trike!
Janet wrote: "There's a movie? I must check this out. Thanks, Trike!"It’s a compilation of cut scenes and a few player sequences from the game. But some of these are both cohesive and entertaining.
I also like it when someone combines the various trailers for games into a longer narrative. Triple bonus points if the trailers are by the brilliant Blur Studio folks.
Star Wars: The Old Republic trailers by Blur Studio: https://youtu.be/yFWRuVKSlp8
Elder Scrolls cinematics (when you get to the Blur Studio stuff, you’ll know it): https://youtu.be/CXcoDjyavC8
Halo Wars 2 cutscenes: https://youtu.be/z2vJkWrcS18
Crossposting my Doctor Who stuff from Discord:More Tom Baker Doctor Who. First up the hilariously stereotypical "The Talons of Weng-Chiang." Includes an English actor in yellowface, bad chopsocky fights, and a techno dragon. I can't tell if it was a sendup of bad movies or a participant in the genre. Includes an obvious visual riff to the Doctor as Sherlock Holmes. I couldn't tell who should be Watson tho. Leela maybe, altho there was an English coroner who might fit. Especially as he gives an elephant gun to the Doctor, echoing Holmes' occasional request to Watson to "bring your service revolver." Also big rats, and Ben had come out recently.
Then "Horror of Fang Rock" which is a Lovecraftian horror set in a lighthouse. I feel like I'm missing context, like perhaps there was some british thing where a lighthouse was found abandoned. (view spoiler) which is unusual for a Doctor Who serial. Leela is established as "exotic" as the older gentleman fancies her, to which the younger one asks if he spent a lot of time in India. All kind of odd to me because they're all pasty faced white so far as I can tell.
Then "The Invisible Enemy," a forgettable serial featuring a virus taking over people. Miraculously the Gallifreyan metabolism is almost identical to human. I know it's just lazy writing and not a hint to Gallifreyan origins, but I always wanted Gallifrey to be an offshoot of future Earth. Ah, head canon. Lots of spacy sets inside the Doctor's mind. Includes creation of short term duplicates of the Doctor and Leela, and it occurs to me that this might be the genesis of the later creation of the "human doctor" in Tennant's fourth season. As my wife pointed out, Baker's fans became Tennant's writers. Saving grace for this serial: The introduction of K-9.
I watched Season Four of West World on HBO. I’m disappointed that they will not make a fifth and final season of the show. The show was very good and came to an end. But I think a fifth season would tie up the series completely.I watched Andor Season 1 on Disney Plus. It was a great spy espionage thriller. It featured a bank heist and a prison break. Looking forward to Season 2.
I’m thinking about watching Season Three of American Gods on A DVD from the library next. The series was originally on Starz. I hear that there should have been a fourth season or a movie to complete the plot from the novel, American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I’m disappointed that they will not make a fourth and final season of the show.
There are a lot of shows that are on my, to be watched list. I’m looking to watch The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season One, Picard Season Three, and Sandman Season One.
Just finished Lockwood and Co at Netflix. Quite a good adaptation from a very superb middle grade series. I miss UK's supernatural series so bad.
I finished watching The Clone Wars series. Considering how tough it was to get through the first 4 seasons, the final 3 seasons were pretty good and just flew by. For anyone who decides to watch the show, just skip Season 1 altogether, then in Season 2-6 skip any episodes that star Jar-Jar, Padme, or the Droids. You're welcome. Then I zipped through Tales of the Jedi which was pretty good and tied into some of the Clone Wars episodes, settings and characters.
Now onto Star Wars Rebels. The first episode should have been called "Aladdin in Space."
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I finished watching The Clone Wars series. Considering how tough it was to get through the first 4 seasons, the final 3 seasons were pretty good and just flew by. For anyone who decides to watch th..."Oh, Fun. I actually like the droid episodes that feature R2 more, and some of the Padme episodes where she isn't quite as much just a "damsel in distress", but has more of a plot of her own. But it has been a while, so I may not be remembering those quite as well.
Rebels hit's it's stride much quicker than Clonewars did, and I think you will probably really get into it quickly. But enjoy the ride as well.
I did a re-watch of Star Wars Rebels since I have read that the new Asoka series hired actors to portray Sabine, Hera and Ezra. No word about Zeb.
I've been watching season 2 of the Legend of Vox Machina series, based on the Critical Role Twitch show, on Amazon. It's really very good and I find more emotionally impactful than season 1. There will be a season 3 and they've recently announced they are also making a series with Amazon based on their second campaign, The Mighty Nein.
Watched Monster Hunter, the Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich flick based on the video game. It’s quite good for what it is. I mean, it’s called “monster hunter”, and it delivers on that title. If you watched Reign of Fire and wished for more dragon v. helicopter action, this is the flick for you.Also stars Tony Jaa and Ron Perlman, the latter still kicking kaiju caboose at 70.
I didn’t play the game but based on the behind the scenes stuff, the film looks pretty accurate. Apparently Anderson is a huge fan of the game and when you’re married to one of the biggest action stars in the business, you just go, “Honey, will you be in my monster movie?”
Trike wrote: "Watched Monster Hunter, the Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich flick based on the video game. It’s quite good for what it is. I mean, it’s called “monster hunter”, and it delivers on that title...."I thought this was fun.
Been bingewatching Superstore. Quite fun, actually.
Just finished the entire series of the 1960s show The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan. Wow, that show went from weird to totally bizarre!I have actually been to the village in Wales where it was filmed so that brought back some memories.
I watched it about 15 years ago. Whacky stuff episode by episode. The endless attempt to catch "number six" in a desire for status that he thoroughly disdains, the guard balloons, the offbeat scenery.But after a while you think you know what's going on, and then, oh, that ending...
Be seeing you!
16 episodes of Three Body Problem are on youtube. I'm on episode 5. It's really scary. Two men just ordered tripe at a restaurant.
Nooooooo.......!Wife wanted to go to the new Korean BBQ place. Decent price for all you can eat lunch. Anyhoo, along with beef, chicken and pork were several different kinds of intestine. Welp, perhaps the Asians like it, but I was just fine with the more traditional offerings.
Just finished "The Witcher: Blood Origin". I'm not a huge Witcher fan, but this was definitely worth the watch. A good story, concisely told, with lots of action & great characters. (view spoiler) I was sorry to finish but it was really nice not to have to slog through hours of mayhem to find out what happened. (I'm looking at you, GOT).
Saw Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania this afternoon. It’s a solid story, but you definitely have to have seen the previous MCU movies, and it mostly sets up the future story of Phase 5.
Cross-peaust from Discord...Am into the "E-Space" era of Doctor Who, and the most-hated companion ever, Adric! And his badge for "excellence in mathematics." You know, they actually have him say he IS better because he's a "Elite," whatever those are in this situation. Sendup of British snobbery or straight up expression of it? Hard to tell. Anyway, the first one was utterly ridiculous as the ship is supposed to have crashed close on a million years ago but looks new, and the inhabitants evolved from the locals, who are mermen, and spiders, and wtf?
Then on to techno-vampires and yet more Brit-style cavorting in the forest. Man do the Brits seem to love forest cavorting. All the way back to Robin Hood. It's funny how we share a common language but most definitely not common origin myths. Well anyhoo, part of the fun of the non-American viewpoint that the good Doctor brings.
Saw Quantumania with my son today and we both really enjoyed it. The audience we were in laughed a lot, in the appropriate places. I have seen a few complaints about how MODOK was handled but I think they did the best they could with a ridiculous character.The movie as a whole had a Star Wars feel to it with more comedy.
The graphic novels of Locke and Key are very good.I just finished Peripheral season one. Now watching youtube to understand the ending. I guess it's meant to be mysterious anyway. I will always think of Chloë Grace Moretz as being Hit-Girl.
Mod
It is a great adaptation of the Octavia E. Butler book of the same name. About an African-American woman who time travels, accidentally, backwards and forwards from the present (2016) to a southern US plantation in the early 1800s.
Only problem I have with it, is that it finished on a cliff hanger and now I have to wait for Season 2
Edit: I just looked up to see if season 2 has been green lit, only to find out it got cancelled. WTF 😕
I guess I'll have to buy the books to find out what happens.
Tassie Dave wrote: "Edit: I just looked up to see if season 2 has been green lit, only to find out it got cancelled. WTF "I refuse to watch most TV series now unless I know they’ll be renewed, a policy I adopted for broadcast TV some 20 years ago.
Streaming services are making the exact same mistake that broadcast TV made - at least here in the States - that caused audiences to turn against them and stop watching. Even worse, they’re deleting movies and series from their platforms so you can never watch them, doubling down on the stupidity.
My 40th high school reunion is coming up, so on Facebook I’ve been posting about what’s topping the charts in movies, music and TV, and it’s fascinating to see the differences between now and then.
For instance, the #1 movie at the box office this week in 1983 was Tootsie, which had been in the top spot since before Christmas, and held the spot until mid-March. It’s so weird to see that these days. It really underscores the saying, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
The #1 TV show this week in 1983 was Dallas, which had 21.5 million viewers. The shows at the bottom of the chart at positions 68, 69 and 70, each had 8.9 million viewers. The #1 TV show this week in 2023 that wasn’t the Super Bowl was Young Sheldon. It dominated the charts with a whopping 7.3 million viewers. The population of the US in 1983 was 223 million; in 2023 it’s 339 million. Not only is the audience shrinking, the percentage of the populace watching a show is smaller, too.
I suspect most of these streaming services will soon also go away. Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime are afterthoughts to those companies, so they might last for a while. Or they could just decide tomorrow it’s pointless to prop them up any more and turn them off to focus on their main business.
Disney+ will probably keep going for a while, but I suspect Disney will shut down Hulu sooner rather than later. It’s direct competition with itself, after all. I don’t know how Peacock is still operating, frankly. Comcast (NBC/Universal) loses $3 billion a year on that, which has got to be unsustainable.
Netflix and Paramount (formerly CBS/Viacom) have to succeed, because this is all they do. That doesn’t mean they will, but they have no alternative. There was just a story this week that Paramount lost $600 million last year, despite the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick, which also drove an increase in subscribers. No idea what Netflix is thinking, punishing its loyal subscribers after losing 2 million of them over the last year. Raising prices and ending password sharing is not going to endear them to viewers.
I think the streaming landscape will look very different a year or two from now. Guess we’ll find out.
Finished with Three Body. Okay, the pacing was a bit off in the last few episodes but the story progress, acting/casting, visual effects and portrayal of the game - the human computer! - were awesome. Tencent has greenlit the second book adaptation so I'll be looking forward to that.Now rewatching Veep. I kinda miss The Thick of It as well (same creator, made earlier) but not sure where to watch it....
Trike wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "Edit: I just looked up to see if season 2 has been green lit, only to find out it got cancelled. WTF "I refuse to watch most TV series now unless I know they’ll be renewed, a ..."
My husband and I have an ongoing argument about whether or not we should keep hold of our DVD player and collection of DVDs. He thinks it’s basically obsolete technology, I point out that, while streaming services are convenient, they’re also precarious: things can be removed at any moment and the whole service might disappear.
I’m rewatching season one of Shadow and Bone (based on the book by Leigh Bardugo) ready for season two to arrive next month, and hoping Netflix doesn’t cancel the series before it reaches a conclusion… (at least there are books to read so we won’t be entirely left hanging, although the plot line for Kaz Brekker and his crew is so far substantially different from what happens in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom.
Silvana wrote: "Finished with Three Body. Okay, the pacing was a bit off in the last few episodes but the story progress, acting/casting, visual effects and portrayal of the game - the human computer! - were aweso..."I'm like 11 episodes in. It seems pretty long at 30 episodes, when the audiobook is like half the time. I'm getting a little impatient. I think there's a cartoon version too that's shorter. The song at the end is becoming an earworm for me.
♪ I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ♪
https://youtu.be/TVvTSJGGsis?t=524
Oh I saw The Wandering Earth 2 in theaters. Great space elevator sequence in the first hour.
Mod
The content creators would say that people like you are the problem.
I don't. Your position is something I hear often. Why invest the time to end up being disappointed.
A show like Kindred is always going to be a slow burn and build an audience by word of mouth. It should have been green lit for at least 2 seasons. With an ending planned (if Season 1 wasn't as popular as they wanted) It was cancelled 2 weeks before it was even aired 😕
To just end it on a cliff hanger was cruel. At least the book exists and there is always the chance that some other service will pick it up and finish it.
Trike wrote: "I suspect Disney will shut down Hulu sooner rather than later. "
Hulu doesn't exist outside the US. On Disney+ here they have an extra menu (along with Star Wars, Marvel, etc called 'Star' that has all the Hulu content. We pay a little more than you pay for D+
Trike wrote: "I think the streaming landscape will look very different a year or two from now. Guess we’ll find out."
Let the purge begin.
I expect Prime, Disney+, Apple+ and Netflix will survive. The rest will either merge together to compete or be consumed by the bigger services.
Trike wrote: "My 40th high school reunion is coming up"
My 40th was over 5 years ago. Last November it was 45 years since I finished HS 😕
Yes I am old.
Now we have MGM+ too. A little late to the party.
Jeff Bezos bought MGM partly to have product for that channel. He's currently gutting the studio. I give it two years.
Ruth wrote: "My husband and I have an ongoing argument about whether or not we should keep hold of our DVD player and collection of DVDs. He thinks it’s basically obsolete technology, I point out that, while streaming services are convenient, they’re also precarious: things can be removed at any moment and the whole service might disappear."I’m doubling down on hard copies. The merger between Discovery and Warner Brothers has been a clusterdoink. Not only did they cancel and throw away finished films like Batgirl in order to take a tax write-off, they deleted original movies and TV series from HBOMax.
I wanted to see the Seth Rogen movie An American Pickle, but it’s been deleted. I could buy a disc, but why should I have to when I’m paying money for the service that made it? My fault for assuming it would always be there and that I’d get around to it some day.
I also hadn’t finished watching Love Life and Made for Love when they were removed from HBO. I don’t get why they removed Raised By Wolves and Westworld, either. I thought those were pretty big hits for them.
Tassie Dave wrote: "Trike wrote: "I refuse to watch most TV series now unless I know they’ll be renewed, a policy I adopted for broadcast TV some 20 years ago."The content creators would say that people like you are..."
Netflix in particular is doing the exact same thing broadcast TV did: if a show isn’t a hit straight out of the box, it’s gone. I don’t know how many times back in the day I tuned into a show that looked interesting only to have it disappear in 3 or 6 episodes.
The dumb thing about Netflix is that they have almost zero marketing. Truly, 90% of the time I hear about a new series is when it’s reported that Netflix canceled it. I don’t even pay attention to their emails because most of the time they’re pushing junk I have no interest in. For all their supposed Super Data Mining, it’s weird that they think I’d watch a reality show about cake decorating or golf.
Tamahome wrote: "Now we have MGM+ too. A little late to the party."So late that this is the first I’m hearing about it.
Edit: oh, this is just Epix rebranded. Epix has been around for quite a while. I wonder why they renamed it.
Edit 2: it’s owned by Amazon?! What is even happening? It directly competes with itself, because MGM films are available on Apple and other places. This has to be a money-laundering scheme.
The problem with Netflix's model of tracking engagement of the first few episodes is that they're training people to do what Trike talks about and hold off... which tanks initial engagement... which leads to cancellations... which causes people to hold off.For example, I liked the live action Cowboy Bebop. I've no idea how faithful it was to the anime and I don't care, it seemed fun. But since the anime geeks seemed to dislike it out of principle, it likely didn't do that well for the first few eps and... booom cancelled. That might say "see, viewers dropped off" but.. of course I stopped watching after the cancellation. Why would I continue when it's not got a future?
ON the future of these... Apple+ will be around. They seem to have a strategy that makes sense for themselves. D+ will be fine, but I can see the Hulu content getting merged in at some point. It's already a bundle addon. ESPN+ is as well and at some point I would bet the rest of ESPN gets rolled in.
But I just cancelled Youtube TV and Netflix. The former has a ton of channels, 95% of which i don't care about so it's not worth the $65. Netflix has a few things sporadically that I want to watch, but I kept finding myself scanning through the menu to find something that I wanted now and... didn't.
Tamahome wrote: "...I will always think of Chloë Grace Moretz as being Hit-Girl."Amen.
Trike wrote: "Not only is the audience shrinking, the percentage of the populace watching a show is smaller, too."Well, yes, its because we actually have choice now. It wasn't for nothing that Pink Floyd wrote "I've got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from..." Today, shows aren't organized into channels they are grouped into streaming services. And, while a lot of it is still shit, there is a much more diverse range of shows. Like smearing peanut butter onto a bigger piece of bread, you're going to have a much thinner coating than you would on yesterday's cracker.
Agreed that it probably isn't sustainable though. Not looking forward to the day when we have 98% reality tv and a couple of non-shit shows to watch.
For the Doctor Who fans, I was at the Gallifrey One convention last weekend and posted about it in the General Chat section of Discord. Wall o' text about the event and pix featuring Jodie Whitaker, two companions, and myself and my wife near some great TARDIS and Dalek replicas. Come on by!
Tamahome wrote: "Silvana wrote: "Finished with Three Body. Okay, the pacing was a bit off in the last few episodes but the story progress, acting/casting, visual effects and portrayal of the game - the human comput..."There are some additions, or quite a lengthy portrayal of the things happening in the book, but considering c-drama can get to 50-60 episodes, having it in 30 eps is already good LOL though I do think 20-24 eps would do a better job.
How lucky you got to watch Wandering Earth II, they aired it here but only for a week before getting replaced by Ant Man...
John (Taloni) wrote: "For the Doctor Who fans, I was at the Gallifrey One convention last weekend and posted about it in the General Chat section of Discord. Wall o' text about the event and pix featuring Jodie Whitaker..."Wow!
^ Thanks! It was a great convention. I like conventions overall but this one was so well planned, so packed full of relevant content. My wife and I were amazed. Cost twice as much as a regular convention but delivered much more than that in enjoyment.
Just finished Lockwood & Co. on Netflix. Based on the novels by Jonathan Stroud. I enjoyed it. It was darker than I was expecting but the charming leads balance it out.From Netflix: "In a world plagued by ghosts, three teens band together as paranormal investigators, risking what little they have to unravel a diabolical conspiracy."
Chris K. wrote: "Just finished Lockwood & Co. on Netflix. Based on the novels by Jonathan Stroud. I enjoyed it. It was darker than I was expecting but the charming leads balance it out.From Netflix..."
Just finished this up as well and really liked it. Finally getting around to watching Foundation on Amazon now.
Trying Lockwood & Co too. It’s based on a book series. Ghost hunters, sort of like Harry Potter. Seems like it would be a fun book series.
This seemed the right place to post this article from The Guardian titled "The 20 best time-travel movies – ranked!"https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023...
John wrote: "This seemed the right place to post this article from The Guardian titled "The 20 best time-travel movies – ranked!"https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023..."
I’m guessing The Terminator and Back to the Future top the list. Although they’ll probably go with the lesser T2.
Off to read it to see if my prediction is correct!
Edit: Yep. Some of these aren’t Time Travel. Cryosleep into the future isn’t Time Travel, it’s just sleeping through the calendar. So I wouldn’t consider Planet of the Apes or Idiocracy to be Time Travel movies. I would seriously debate including some of the others as “best” but at least they’re time travel flicks.
I guess Groundhog Day is a special case of time travel...
Trike wrote: "Although they’ll probably go with the lesser T2."Lesser? Lesser? Hey, I was at Carolco when we made T2! It was the biggest hit we ever made, chewed up the box office and...and...
*sigh* that thumbs-up at the end was just awful, wasn't it?
Here’s my list of the top 20 Time Travel movies.20. Timecop
19. Predestination
18. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
17. Frequency
16. Hot Tub Time Machine
15. 12 Monkeys
14. Time After Time
13. The Final Countdown
12. Time Bandits
11. Kate & Leopold
10. About Time
9. Army of Darkness
8. Looper
7. Back to the Future 3
6. Your Name
5. The Butterfly Effect Director’s Cut
4. The Terminator
3. Back to the Future
2. Avengers Endgame
1. Kung Fury
Kung Fury is not just the greatest Time Travel movie, it’s also the greatest martial arts movie, the greatest dinosaur movie, and the greatest hacker movie.
Watch the whole film here: https://youtu.be/bS5P_LAqiVg
Trike wrote: "Here’s my list of the top 20 Time Travel movies.20. Timecop
19. Predestination
18. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
17. Frequency
16. Hot Tub Time Machine
15. 12 Monkeys
14. Time Af..."
So happy to see Time Bandits and 12 Monkeys on your list
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (other topics)The Thursday Murder Club (other topics)
Ironheart, Vol. 1: Those With Courage (other topics)
For He Can Creep (other topics)
The Shadow Rising (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
George R.R. Martin (other topics)Robert Jordan (other topics)
George R.R. Martin (other topics)
Robert Jordan (other topics)
George R.R. Martin (other topics)
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https://youtu.be/IbN3wvcBH_0
It’s 7 hours long, so I split it over several days, but I thought it was good. There are some fight scenes that go on a bit long, but aren’t too egregious. They also skip over some action bits that are pure gameplay, which can be a little jarring, but they aren’t important to the story. “Look out! [Insert monster] is attacking!” “Whew! We survived!”