Chris24601

Regarding the skirt, she's also got darker tights/hose under the skirt and, presuming that the blue top is basically a leotard over hose with a skirt over it, her outfit would be no more revealing than a typical ballerina whose spins often reveal the leotard underneath. So long as they don't go out of their way to focus on it I really don't think it'll be a problem. Heck, now that I think about it... with the tights/hose she's basically wearing Superman's outfit with a skirt OVER that. If Superman can get away with a speedo over tights I don't think Kara has anything to worry about on the modesty front.

Yeah, that's definitely something that could've used some polish... where taking the time to polish REALLY makes a difference is in making movement more realistic. The basic way you do an animated sequence (ex. the semi exploding for example) is via what's called key frames. Taking the semi exploding for example, you'd position all the parts that going to fly off when the explosion happens in their starting positions and then 'key' them (i.e. the system remembers that position) and then you go however many frames you need to go (there are usually 30 frames per second for television) to reach the end of the effect and then you position each of those parts where you want them to end up and then 'key' them to that location. If you then render out the explosion at that point, each of the parts moves smoothly along a line between its start and end 'keys' over the course of those frames (i.e. if the part starts at 0 and moves to 60 over 30 frames, it would move 2 with every frame). For something like a plane flying in a straight line that's going to look perfectly fine, but something like an explosion is going to look really cheap because they don't really move like that in an explosion (the same goes for those lame running sequences in the Fringe scene above). This is where polishing comes in. It basically involves going in and adding more key frames to more tightly control the objects. In an explosion for example, the parts are going to start out being accelerated by the explosion and so will move faster at first and then slow down a little as air resistance overcomes the intial force of the explosion. Likewise, parts aren't going to fly straight up and keep going forever, gravity will turn those straight lines into arcs. The parts won't stay at a consistant angle either... they're probably spinning through the air and may even break up further in flight... and every one of those things will look better the more key frames you use to precisely control how they move. Motion Pictures can spend up to a YEAR polishing their digital FX (the new Star Wars ended principle photography last fall and they'll be tweeking their effects right up to the week of release this coming winter), but most broadcast television series dont' have much more than two-weeks to get as much polishing as they can done and often have even less. People who compain about how bad the FX are on television compared to movies really need to realize they're comparing a product that's been built and perfected over the course of 2-3 years (including pre- and post-production) and a product that's been assembled from scratch in 2-3 WEEKS (including pre- and post-production). To put this into perspective, in the same span of time it took just from the start of principle photography to release to the release of the 143 minute 'Man of Steel' (August 1, 2011 to June 10, 2013) the team behind "Arrow" produced over 1900 minutes of aired material (46 episodes at about 42 minutes apiece).

Interesting point from the YouTube of the First Look video that I think is worth mentioning is that there was barely a month between the end of principle photography for the pilot and First Look trailer. Why this is relevant is that the FX in the actual pilot (and episodes in general) might be a bit cleaner (although it already looks pretty good for a TV budget) depending on how far ahead of the upfronts they needed the trailer ready. As someone who dabbles in 3D modeling for fun I can tell you there's a world of difference between what a piece looks like after 7 days and what it looks like after 14 days (i.e. an extra seven days... 40+ hours per person involved spent fixing the digital effects to make them look realistic).

My observation/spec from the Supergirl trailer is that this series, like Buffy was a generation ago, is going to be a wonderful subversion of a lot of the tropes of genre that the superhero element is being layered on top of. Indeed, I think some of the most profound 'superhero' stories have been ones where the addition of superheroes into its midst subverts an otherwise straight telling of a genre story. For example, the entire concept of the amazing Winter Soldier was to take a Cold War era spy drama and turn it on its head by inserting the earestly uncompromising Captain America into the midst of instead of the usual world-weary cynic protagonist common to the genre. In Supergirl's case I think it almost has to start out by playing the rom-com genre straight at the outset precisely to make the contrast with how it ultimately gets subverted by having a superheroic protagonist more profound. She seems to starts out on the traditional successful career = fulfillment track (complaining about only getting to fetch coffee and layouts being a waste of her talents) and meets a hot mentor figure who, in a traditional rom-com would be the one who helps her learn what she needs to overcome her taskmaster boss and earn the respect she deserves in the company... but instead it turns out that she finds fulfillment by side-stepping career success entirely. That mentor is more of a guide to her heroing than corporate success and instead of rising to promenance within the company she'll probably decide that she needs the freedom of being a largely overlooked cog (with friends who can cover for her absences) in the corporate machine to be able to have the freedom she needs to do what she finds truly fulfilling.

And again with the "what women really want" line as if more than half the population of the globe were some uni-minded collective and not a widely diverse spectrum of beliefs and interests. Anyone in marketing who seriously presented the argument that "all men like football" would be laughed out of the industry at their incompetence... and yet some people seem to think that same line of reasoning when applied to women is valid. It boggles the mind. Now, I have no what of knowing what's in someone else's heart, but what I read between the lines of the poster making that claim is "I like darker fare and this isn't dark so I'm going accuse anyone who doesn't like what I like what I like of being 'sexist' because that accusation somehow makes all other arguments invalid... please ignore my blatent misogyny in presuming that no women could ever hold a belief that different what the beliefs I think they should have." By contrast let me say something much more specific. My mother, sister, niece and the vast majority my friends (male and female) LOVE the look of Supergirl and unless the writing ends up being terrible this will probably be appointment television for me and the group of friends I usually get together with on Monday nights. My father is the only one who's not interested, but his television viewing habits consist of flipping between the Discovery/History and various classic movie channels (particularly old Westerns) so he was never going to be a viewer regardless of the show's tone.

Men like that aren't just why people make fun of comic book fans, they're the sort of toxic fanbase that's responsible for the collapse of the comic industry to the point where 50,000 readers is considered a success. That's not even a tenth of a ratings point in television and that's presuming every last comic reader is lockstep with these guys whose myopic view of comics literally can't get past the trivial surface details (she needs to be more blonde? Really? This is your genius critique? The deal killer for you is that they used a hair tone that actually compliment's the actress' complexion instead of some horrible blonde wig? See Laurel's hideous wig for why this will always be infinitely better). Like, my guess is the reason we've got the Jimmy Olsen we do has little to do with race (if anything) and more to do with the chemistry (in the mentor/protoge rather than romantic sense) between that actor and and the one for Kara being quite strong. God forbid we cast based on talent/chemistry and not appearance. And just how are we supposed to take these reviewers seriously when they completely missed that Alex is Kara's SISTER?!? It's in basically the second line Kara even says to Alex and yet they go on and on about how its her friend. Yeah, Supergirl doesn't need those guys as fans... their entire population amounts to a rounding error in the ratings. As always, its with the general audience where a good story will trump how purely it sticks to the canon of the New52 comics (remember how I said 50k is a strong comic title these days? New52 Supergirl isn't even doing that well).

I guess they want her to be a leather sporting bad cliché spouting bad ass female? I find it rather mysogynistic when people try to shove women into a one-size fits all box where if she's not conforming precisely to their preferred stereotype (and leather-clad badass waif-fu is definitely such a monster) then the female character is automatically weak or deserves to be shunned as not "feminist." No one tries to argue that Spider-Man is less of a man because he's a poor struggling teenager instead of the male ideal of a wealthy powerful ladies man like Bruce Wayne. Nor do think him less of a man because his heroic identity is one where he cracks jokes in the middle of a fight while decked out in a brightly colored costume instead of some menacing grimdark avenger of the night who wears more black than Johnny Cash. Kara is no more Black Widow than Spider-Man is Batman... feminintity is a broad range of character traits that both Kara and Black Widow can comfortably occupy. I mean, wasn't the whole point of feminism not that all women now have to abandon everything they were before, but that a woman could be whoever SHE wants to be? If a woman wants to act just like a man that's fine. If she wants to do more traditionally feminine things that's fine too. Either way its her choice. Frankly, unlike Black Widow (whose only 'power' is her intense training), Kara doesn't need to act like a man because she's not even in a competition with them. She's thousands of times stronger, faster (mentally and physically) and tougher than any man without even trying. Heck, she could probably demolish every villain Arrow and Flash have ever gone up again at the same time without much effort... Even Hank Henshaw isn't disputing letting Kara help on the grounds of her capability or gender... he just doesn't trust aliens, something would apply just as much to cousin when he was just coming onto the scene (and for all we know it still might... Superman has a history of doing what he thinks is right even if it ticks off government organizations).

Yeah, no way would it be Ms./Captain Marvel... I'd be looking WAY down the roster for potential superheroes (or God-forbid, villains) that Jemma could be if its a transformation deal. Alternatively it could be something both original and temporary too.

Either that or its some sorta carbonite-y chrysallis that's transforming Jemma into something the Kree designed to destroy the Inhumans over the summer and Jemma's going emerge as the very thing she mistrusts and wants indexed... a powered person.

Given that interview and Jemma's arc this year about distrusting powered people and their discussing what has the most story potential I wouldn't be surprised at all if their plan isn't to give Jemma powers and thereby turn her into the very thing she's hated/feared (i.e. how she'll feel about the Index once the shoe is on the other foot... does she try to 'fix' herself like she tried to fix Skye or does she come to embrace it... how do her powers relate to the 'doom' the obilisk represents to the Inhumans... etc.)

My guess is that because the stuff is disolving in water and then through fish (that didn't petrify) that the Terrigenesis material that entered to food supply is NOT still mixed with the diviner metal (ie. we'll start to get random supers popping up without the mass deaths the diviner metal causes for next season). Honestly though, if I had only heard they were thinking about a spin-off without hearing the details first... I'd swear the ending was setting up a Skye and the Inhumans spin-off and not a Bobbie/Hunter one. That said, despite Coulson's plan I have a strong suspicion that our main team next season will look a lot like the one this season, just with a cyborg-armed Coulsan and whatever the heck that obilisky thing does to Jemma (hoping and praying its not a Fred/Illyria twist... where its some other entity living in Jemma's husk... that was icky enough on Angel, but Whedons associated you never know). I figured after last week that Ward's redemption was off the table, but nice to see that he just keeps getting worse and worse. I suspect that Ward making a play to rebuild Hydra will probably be set up to parallel Coulson/Skye's supers recruitment drive next season which could make for a great 'forged in fire' test for whatever the powers team ends up being come midseason next year. Cal's ending was a lot nicer than I was expecting it to be and even if KM isn't going to be around, having Skye relate silly pet stories to her team as an indication that she's been keeping her promise to come visit him (even if he doesn't remember her) could be a sweet touch.

The only problem with the Malcolm = Damien Darhk theory is that we SAW Malcolm as an ordinary guy who went off to train with the League (he even met young Nyssa) whereas Damien is a contemporary of Ra's (so hundreds of years old). Now, Malcolm as a loyal minion of Damien who has been working to gain control of the LoA and rule it as Damien's proxy could work, probably with only minimal tweaking to what you outlined, but Malcolm as Damien himself wouldn't.

I could potentially agree, depending on how they set it up and what they can do to keep it fresh for 9-11 episodes. One of the things I've learned about serial series writing is the notion that each episode should change at least one of the relationships from negative to positive or positive to negative and the more inter-relationships you have the longer you can drag things out before you get to your ideal configuration. Frankly, there are enough relationship states between just Ollie, Diggle and Laurel (the two most likely to NOT be in his camp at the start of season four) that they could easily get half a season out of it; especially if they work it through with fixing the relationship via Felicity and Thea as middle-men in the rift. If that rift was the central focus of the first half, I honestly could see some of Olicity eloping since that could be a stable background element while the emotional conflict of the season is the damaged Bromance of Ollie and Diggle that needs to be fixed.

I dunno if it'll even need to be all that painful/awkward. People have been mentioning informed consent and with Diggle and Laurel and Ray being angry about it and distancing from Oliver I could see a point.But not two episodes ago it was Felicity who 'betrayed' Oliver's trust and drugged him into unconsciousness without his consent in a desperate ploy to try and save his life even though failure would likely mean that Oliver would be killed right along with the rest of them. And the only thing Ollie said was that he loved her more for trying. With that as the recent backdrop I just don't see Felicity giving Oliver any flak for doing essentially the same thing for the same reasons, especially when he didn't hold it against her for doing it to him. Which is I suspect what we're going to see is essentially a split on trust lines. Thea's got no reason to distrust Ollie and every reason to be greatful so she'll be in his camp and probably be his sidekick next season. Felicity will easily forgive him for basically the reasons given above and be their mission control. Diggle and Laurel won't be so forgiving and will probably keep teaming up as they distance themselves from Oliver (though I expect Felicity to continue to provide them with intel and support as a sort of go between fence mender). That'll be the status quo over the summer/3.5 comics until events in the premiere require Ollie and Diggle to bury the hatchet and work against a commin foe and in the process rebuild their trust.

I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm totally okay with Caroline flipping her switch at this stage because it'll be healthier for Steroline down the road. If they got together right after Liz died, there'd always be that open question of whether she was just sublimating her grief via a relationship with Stephan. This way Caroline will have to have dealt with her grief (and flipped her switch back on) before Steroline actually happens. On a related note, I think they could very well show us something different from Elena with Caroline's flipped off emotions. A huge part of Caroline's nature is her control freak tendencies which do as much, if not more, to help her keep vampiric tendencies under control than the guilt or remorse over killing that normally restrains vampires with their humanity switch on and that element of self-control shouldn't go away just because she's not feeling love, loss or guilt. Instead of going on a monstrous feeding binge I see Caroline as the type who'd set up some sort of rigidly ordered existance where all risk of loss has been taken out of the equation through the use of mass compulsion, complete with a scheduled feeding program where she only ever takes X blood from any given victim over Y period of time... not because she cares whether they live or die, but because its more efficient and organized this way.