shrewd.buddha

I was not exactly excited to see yet another prequel, but some of the previews looked fun, so we went. The sets looked impressive. And the acting was as good as it needed to be. But the story was terrible (in my opinion). It felt completely farmed out to whatever director and writer were available to get their Star Wars product to market for the summer of 2018. The mission statement seemed to be : Take every memorable phrase that Han said and either reverse it or repeat it. Take everything that Han owned and make it iconic. Also, turn Lando's wearing a cape into a thing. There was no sense of time passing. Han looked and acted exactly the same before he enlisted in the Imperial Army and the three years afterwards - which transpired in about ten seconds. The great train robbery : We should put the highly volatile, highly valuable MacGuffin on the slowest, shakiest transportation as possible. Also we need to leave a body or two at the end of every caper. What was the motivation of Val (Thandie Newton) to sacrifice herself? She was a thief, not a rebel or a soldier. "I just want all of you to end up as rich as possible without me." The theme of "kill the female companion" was again repeated with the next caper and L3-37. The grieving process took about ten seconds before the characters were back to making jokes. Ugh. And any character who was a pilot might as well have killed themselves because we all knew who was going to end up being the pilot before the end of the mission. And the Kessel Run was measured in distance instead of time?!? Why expound on what was probably a mistake on the part of George Lucas? Why would you brag about "the fastest ship in the galaxy" because it can find the best shortcuts? Everything about the mission was a factor of time : the MacGuffin would go 'boom' if they could not make the trip quickly. And no one considered uploading the navigational system into the spaceship before L3-37 'died'? Did they not understand how computers/androids work? The Crimson Dawn (Tide?) leader 'reveal' meant nothing to me. I just figured it was another person of the same species, like another Wookie instead of Chewbacca. The idea of someone coming back from the dead seems a like silly comic-book type of development. Oh no, why did we kill off our super cool villain? Let's use magic to bring them back!

Finally saw it - and thought it was very well done in terms of acting, special effects and sets. There were a lot of leaps in logic and believably, tho : getting full memories from a dna sample, a complex neural interface the size of coin. Just the technology to create sentient A.I.'s in a virtual world would be ground breaking. I was hoping for a Black Mirror that was more fun, and this was - at the beginning. But it got more disturbing as it went on. The socially awkward nerd we sympathized with at first was revealed to be a type of secret serial killer, child murderer, monster, etc. (At least in a virtual world, populated with sentient AI's.) It appeared to me that only the sentient VR characters on the ship that made it to the worm hole survived. So, the woman from marketing, and any other co-workers Daly 'created' would have perished? For myself, I think a more satisfying ending would have been for Daly's private version of the game to get exposed to the public version and have his co-workers see his twisted fantasies. I did not give the Daly character a pass because the game was not 'real'. His desires and rage were real. And the virtual AI's he tortured had real personalities and memories. With his magical technology, Daly could have made simplified, fantasy characters, but he chose not to.

This episode was a sharp left turn and slowdown from the previous episodes. There were a lot of separate locations, a lot of separated characters, and even additional characters, some of whom made a quick exit. I was not even sure what ship Melba, the spy/bomber, was working on - - there were so many moving parts in this episode. I did not like the documentary story line. At all. It feels like every show, at some point, goes the route of having a documentary film crew show up to cause strife among whatever group is involved. I find it hard to believe that Amos would ever agree to participate - especially if he has a past he does not want uncovered. Why would the minister woman (Anna ?) get transferred to a ship that was investigating the Protomolecule Ring? That just seemed like a illogical stretch to keep the actress/character involved in the current story.

It was fun. And I was happy to be surprised by parts of the movie - Deadpool's super team certainly did not follow any expected route. I also liked the Juggernaut theme song and the Bond-like opening credits. But ... it suffers in comparison to the first movie. The first was like lightning in a bottle - and there is no way to be groundbreaking again. These are a few things that hurt the movie (for me) : Killing the girlfriend in the first act - - it started the movie off on a down note. This was the girlfriend Deadpool spent the first movie trying to save. And we got the trope of the girlfriend getting killed immediately after they made plans to start a family. The directing did not seem as inspired as the first. The amazing chain of events in the convoy car fight of the first movie - which became the slo-mo opening sequence - holds up to multiple viewings. There seemed to be a sense of "let's not screw up the franchise." I was hoping for more reaction to Cable saying he was from the future - Deadpool just accepted the entire time travel concept so easily. That seemed like a major missed opportunity. There were too many moments when Deadpool took breaks from trying to save the kid - and saving people from the kid. Cable could have killed FireFist many times over during those moments. And the kid could have killed the headmaster multiple times before Deadpool intervened. The staging felt a bit sloppy. I was enjoying the movie again by the end, tho. But what about the post-credits scenes? Did Deadpool really save Vanessa? Or was that just fun, non-canon film footage?

So, Deke just disappears between scenes and no one even mentions it? Did they forget because he never existed? (Not possible, because every single thing he had done before his disappearance would have changed. And if time had shifted, no one would remember there was a frozen Fitz in the freezer.) Speaking of a frozen Fitz in the freezer - that sort of undercut the death of Fitz . It was not as significant when you have a spare - and after the death, you immediately begin talking about the spare, for the first time. Plus, you get an opportunity to repeat the very special, 100th episode wedding of FitzSimmons .. maybe .. after another series of roadblocks. Coulson did not die, which also felt like a cop-out. We had to endure ten or more episodes of everyone angst-ing over the looming Death of Coulson. He was not even on his death bed. As a comic book character, there are lots of ways for Coulson to be saved (at the very last second, of course.) It sort of irked me that Talbot/Graviton sat a huge alien spaceship on top of Chicago - and we see that not all of the aliens are dead on board - and yet the AoS heroes just fly off to Tahiti and then off to search for Frozen Fitz as if everything has just been tied up with a pretty bow. (And they are still the Most Wanted Criminals on the planet.)

Unfortunately a lot of shows fall into this lazy, musical-chairs style of writing : introduce around eight main characters and have everything revolve around them. It is interesting that the actors playing Brainiac and Daron Vex also had very similar roles on Da Vinci's Demons.

Agree with everyone - the show is really firing on all cylinders. All the characters are hitting their stride, while still speaking and acting like themselves. Just a couple of nitpicks : With all the gorgeous effects for the spaceships and planets, the Protomolecule Hybrids look a bit .. lame? Maybe a person in a costume as a start - with CGI added - would look better. After all these weeks of waiting for Errinwright to be found out, his take-down felt a bit anticlimactic.

It was odd having Gibbs immediately back in the lab. I almost got a vibe of "ding dong, the witch is dead." And, was the previous episode that introduced Kasie used as a way to get Abby's blessing of the new character in the lab? Wonder if everyone knew they were setting the stage for a replacement at the time? I was expecting a lot of guest stars as temporary lab techs. Usually job vacancies are handled with postings, applications, interviews, etc., ..but since this is the fictional NCIS, run by only around six people, we just skip to the parts where the new character's quirks are revealed - apparently she will be an astronaut nerd. This week's case did not seem to be resolved very cleanly. They never even bothered to identify the actual killer of the Coast Guard agent. How much did the wife know? Was the wife an accomplice or was she being conned?

That was a very well acted, but very sad, extended episode. But of course this was what it was always going to come to, in one way or another. Just some random observations: Crozier and Hickey (and Goodsir) appear to look much healthier than the other men. A coincidence? Are they just lucky? That crazy British folly : a tent for every man? Wooden cabinets and tables in Goodsir's tent? Where are their priorities? Did they find the passage they were looking for? (Despite it being iced over.) Will anyone ever know? It is interesting how most very 'religious' people do not appear to believe their own hype when it comes to dying and 'going to a better place'. I was confused when there was an announcement at the end of the episode for "scenes from next week's season finale." How could there be another season?

I'm not exactly sure of the logistics, but I'm fairly certain Seg has not had a change of clothes, a minute of downtime, perhaps not even a bathroom break - - for the last five episodes (!) The guy has been literally on the run every since the Sagitari invaded one of the Sectors to drive out the Rankless. And for some reason all that 'action' makes the show feel less serious to me. Weird.

When Adam asked if there would ever be a day without drama, my first thought was : the marriage will never happen. And if the engagement is called off, I suppose we can expect Bonnie to fall off the wagon .. again. This show does not seem to be a very good advertisement for AA. It would make me almost considering avoiding someone who announced themselves as a recovering addict. Maybe they are planning a spin-off show for Gambling Anonymous with another group of wacky characters who seem to spend all their time going to meetings and in a constant cycle of relapse and recovery.

Well, that is equally disappointing and surprising. For some reason I had thought The Expanse was getting a lot of positive media attention and holding a steady audience.

I think we may have watched this one just to see if Gibbs and Abby would ever be in the same scene. Nope. Each scene they 'shared' looked as if it could have easily been done with only one person in the room at a time. I saw the recent CBS "Sunday Morning" interview with the actress who plays Abby. It was a total fluff piece - - guess they did not want to ding their #1 show in any way with any difficult questions. She, unfortunately, came off as somewhat flighty, talking about 'the universe' telling her it was time to leave the show. The weirdness may have bee the result of *all* the things they were trying not to talk about. Yes, it is almost comical how only about six or so people people are shown running an entire federal organization. And all those other agents never pop their heads up over all those cubical walls. But millions of people (including me) regularly watch these procedurals populated with never changing caricatures characters.

I liked that they got the first murder resolved quickly - and that it was pretty much separate from the dirty bomb (and heist) situation. Some of the cases from previous seasons were so convoluted that I was not sure how things ended up - - and they caused the end of the episodes to be a lengthy exposition dump by Sherlock. And the twist at the end was satisfying and surprising. I guess it is a TV rule that all major characters must come from miserable childhoods and never have supportive relationships with any living parents. (I think over 50% of characters on CBS shows were "bounced around through several foster families." )

I was glad that Hickey was found out rather quickly, proven guilty, and sentenced to hanging. I was disappointed with the British formality of it all, taking time to erect a gallows, allowing Hickey an opportunity to twist the truth with his 'last' words, etc. I almost thought they were going to convene a mock court. It reminded me of the British soldiers lining up in formation and waiting for a signal to fire despite being engaged in guerrilla type warfare. Yes, the formality is all well and good in some situations, but not all. And Crozier's withheld information came back to bite him in the ass. Now he has work work doubly hard to convince the remaining men that his intentions were honorable. It was a given that Hickey would escape to lie and kill another day. He will most likely survive until the end. I suspected that the Demon Bear is connected to Lady Silence - and was reacting to the rage she felt regarding the Eski slaughter - - since Lady Silence does not have full control over the bear.

^This is what I think is causing almost all of my irritation with the show lately. I don't even blame the characters anymore - just the way they are written as square pegs to fit into the round plot holes points. And for most shows that I watch, I do not notice the writing, but it really stands out to me for AoS. It is almost as if I can imagine a group of writers in front of a white board with a label "fill in twenty-two episodes with stuff". Now General Hale has been written off the board, getting closer to the finish line (but no tears for her, apparently). There are just too many repeated patterns in the story arcs. I get that they are going for a theme of "fractured team" = "fractured planet", but there are a lot of elements that feel forced and not organic to the past stories or character histories. I am completely over the team bickering - sometimes intended to the humorous. I am not interested in The Real Housewives of SHIELD. Finally, I want Coulson to stop referring to his team of four couples (basically) as SHIELD.

Yes. While I agree that Crozier probably should keep some information from the men, he is taking a very big risk in trying to control information that : a) he cannot really control b) is causing damage to the men who are eating the tainted food. It reminds me of The Flint Michigan water crisis. If you found out your leaders knew the water was bad but allowed you to keep drinking it because they feared you would panic, your trust in them would never really recover. The men are already paranoid and suspect something is happening. Lack of information is not helping. It might help to know that your crazy thoughts might be the result of poisoning and give you some incentive to resist listening to the voices in your head. Yes, it is a suck-y situation. But the people in charge are still just people, not appointed by a god. And it always seems as if leaders think of the people they govern as easily panicked sheep. ..And sometimes panic is justified.

Well, that Brainiac stuff escalated rather quickly. What will they have left to do if there is a second season? I like the actor playing Brainiac/Voice of Rao - - but he does have a tendency to over-enunciate and over-act -- probably good traits for mustache twirling villains, or stage actors. The actor should try to get some non-villain roles, tho. He is definitely typecast. Still not buying or sympathizing with the Adam Strange argument that everything must be sacrificed to save the Superman legacy exactly as he remembers it. Hey dude, you have ability to travel to the past and make changes - - just fix all the problems that Superman would have. Or create a new Superman. Or bring a whole bunch of good samaritan Kryptonians to Earth to help out with problems.

Lots of enjoyable stuff this episode. ...almost all which has already been commented on. It can be frustrating waiting for Errinwright to get his just desserts, though.

So Hickey was always a sociopath. Is he now a sociopath driven insane by lead poisoning? All the men seem capable of losing their sanity at any moment. There is something profoundly sad about knowing their ultimate fate while seeing them desperately trying to survive. Crozier appears to be a good leader, despite the alcoholism. But I disagree with his decision to keep secrets from the men for their own good. Not telling the men about the tainted food and dead rescue party gives opportunity for mistrust and mutiny by people like Hickey. There is no way to keep a secret in this group of people. And it always seems that the people who believe they are in the right to keep such secrets are also acknowledging they consider themselves to be more rational, better suited, better educated, ... basically 'better' than the uniformed people.

For myself, I appreciated that the series wrapped up all its stories in the final episode. That was refreshing. So few series - and movies - seem to want to have a final act anymore. It also opened the series to the possibility of a whole new cast of actors, which could be interesting. I wouldn't mind that, either. They did keep insisting that those body 'sleeves' were easily changed. A new mystery, new villains, new actor for the main character and new supporting cast? I'm good with that.

I cannot decide if I am impressed or disappointed that every plot point has turned out to revolve around Kovacs. It does fit with this genre, though. And we are still enjoying the ride. One element that I never agree with is when the main characters (Kovacs) decide that particular, main villain characters deserve saving or rehabilitation (Rei). Obviously Kovacs would have no problem killing the Ghostwalker guy without a second thought. Saving the bad guys for the final fight is standard trope. But these people have slaughtered families and children - the 'real death' killing - so I am not feeling the sympathy for their insanity.

I liked this one. The were some twists with Quell and Kei, the sister, that were surprising. Though, I expected more of Quell's group to balk at her abrupt announcement - which would have turned them from a sort-of paramilitary rebel group into a sort-of suicide cult. That's the kind of thing that would need some easing into. But subtle is not really a thing in this type of genre. I am not really hung up on what actor plays what character. It only bothers me if the acting is bad to to point of being distracting. If the actor can make me focus on the character, I am good. (I do seem to prefer the BBC type casting choices where people look more authentic - - instead of the Hollywood casting where everyone must look like a fashion model.) As for this series, I assume that some of the casting was based on what actors were comfortable with a lot of nudity. As for the nudity, I am okay with that if it does not get too gratuitous. It does seem odd that many societies have been conditioned to react to the natural state of nudity as if it is offensive or always sexual - but these same cultures are perfectly okay with the unnatural appearance using make-up, hair coloring or body enhancement/alteration.

Maybe Seg can agree that he will send a grandson to Earth to keep the Superman timeline intact. Obviously the timeline is screwed up from all the information Adam Strange has told Seg and others - plus, there is more than one person from the future messing things up. And also, if the timeline does change, maybe another person will emerge as a Superman - or - things could change in such a way that Superman was not even needed. I believe it has been established that superheroes attract super-villains, who cause a lot of damage.

I'm not sure of the reason in the present, but Deke has possession of Gravitonium in the future. Not sure if this is another case of AoS helping to set future events in place. As for the Destroyer of Worlds machine being readily available, powered up, connected to other tanks, and easily operated by one person - - well, that's just lazy writing. One nice touch, though : I think they are trying to be consistent with the set of the future Lighthouse and the destruction that happens to the lighthouse in the present. When the first trojan horse bomb exploded in the Lighthouse, there was a focus on something in the wreckage that seemed significant - and was shown when Coulson first appeared in the future Lighthouse ... but I did not understand exactly what it was. On the downside : It feels as if they have been stuck in the lighthouse and talking about Gravitonium forever.