shrewd.buddha

I had to think about this, but yeah, things do not add up: a) In episode 1, Yen Wenjie gets a message that basically says "I'm a pacifist who got your message first. Your message could have been intercepted by the others who are invaders. I won't tell anyone about your call. Don't call back. Bye." b) In episode 5, the aliens seem to say "When something is known, everyone also knows," as if they share collective thought - so deception is not possible and is a foreign concept. Both of these things cannot be true - unless there is more than one highly advanced species on the planet. I really don't want to hear the writers come up with some lame "yes, but" excuse for these type of inconsistencies.. As others have said, the video game already demonstrates that the ET's know a lot about human behavior and psychology. And everything the ET-helper cultists have been instructed to do is basically deception and manipulation.

Same here. The last three episodes were mostly talk, exposition, about things that were being done . Just a lot of angst between the Oxford grads. Is this considered a success for Netflix? It seems like too much of a slow burn for typical viewers. How were the video game headsets created? The Sophons (AI) could provide the design, but the device would still need to be physically created - and that would be cutting-edge, super advanced technology. If the Sophons can directly take over EV vehicles and aircraft, they could eliminate anyone they consider a threat. The stuff with Saul and the Wallfacer plan was slightly interesting but also felt like fluff. The entire show feels like 80% talk and 20% action (or less). The concepts are intriguing but the overall result is not satisfying.

I was shocked .. at how little happened in this episode. Why is the unrequited love between cancer-guy and Jin even a plot point? (Had to look up his name: Will.)

The destruction of the Judgement Day ship was a) impressive b) a ridiculously over-engineered plan c) brutal and merciless (lots scenes of innocent, playful children) d) no guarantee that usable data would survive e) a mess that would leave the below-water half of the ship, and fuel, in the Panama Canal channel f) a nice special effect .. so, worth it ??

The stakes have certainly been raised, but common sense and logic have left the building. But we're too far in to stop watching now.. What was the point of the AI telling the humans of their entire plan? The talk of humans advancing faster than the aliens in 400 years makes no sense: the aliens in the spaceships headed to Earth are not being affected by the 3 sun problem anymore .. the spaceship aliens can monitor human tech progress and can improve their own advanced tech .. so dumb..

On a more common sense level, why would the alien helper cult think that Jin would be okay with the murder of her friend Jack? They were not even subtle or mysterious about it. Yen Wenjie (Chinese Mom) is a lot less of a sympathetic character now .. but she also seems a lot more naive (dumb) about trusting an unknown alien intelligence she knows nothing about.

Things have escalated. I wondered if Jack's murder was going to be made to look like a suicide .. but the other suicides seemed genuine. I appreciated when the one character (Augie?) called them crazy for interacting with advanced technology they didn't understand - - not that it stopped them. Three episodes in, and I'm still feeling a bit detached from it all. The flashbacks to 60's, 70's China seem more grounded than the rest.

Liu Cixin also wrote The Wandering Earth. I saw the move, also on Netflix, and reevaluated any expectations of hard science fiction. It was pretty bonkers - more like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas than 2001: A Space Odyssey. I get the impression that his novels have a lot of interesting scientific concepts but things go pretty far off the rails.

Would it have been too on-the-nose if the "Oxford 5" grad guy was dying from lung cancer instead of pancreatic cancer? All the cool kids smoke on this show. (At least the edgy, hard-driven ones do)

The "science" is a bit weak. I have heard the same about the source material. You'd think PHD scientists could not help themselves from investigating how that little head mask could manufacture an immersive VR world - but no.. Young Yen Wenjie (?) seems to have a completely different personality than older Yen Wenjie. Can't blame her for thinking aliens could run things better than the government she was enduring at the time. It continues to be slightly intriguing and slightly slow. The Oxford grads who "love each other like family" is a bit much, but I suppose that was designed to make us care.

That seemed like an odd choice for for a Communist controlled government who killed college professors for being imperialists and spreading knowledge. Interstellar communication and travel require advanced intelligence and science - by humans and aliens: not exactly things that seemed to be valued. Whenever a series ends the first episode with a preview of "things that will happen during this season", it makes me think they are worried that people might not be excited enough to continue. (We skipped the preview spoilers) Our household will continue, but it may have more to do with knowledge of - and hype - of the book. This first episode was well made, but I wouldn't describe it as riveting.

Well, that was not a satisfying ending to the season. Maybe everything ends with zombies: Halo has morphed into a futuristic version of Resident Evil. Kwan, like John-117 and Makee, is now a chosen one with special abilities and divine destiny. Fantastic. It was surprising how casual people were when everyone was turning into homicidal zombies around them. Miranda put Halsey on ice as if nothing else mattered: no exit available and not worried that the entire facility would probably be nuked. No alarms were sounding.. Thank goodness Perez survived the entire season. Without her, there would be so few prominent female characters .. other than Cortana, Halsey, Miranda, Kwan, Makee, Riz, Kai, Admiral Parangosky, Laera and the mystical white-haired woman. At this point, I am not interested in seeing more Halo. .. never played the game, so there is no bias for or against the show for that. For me, it is just not a satisfying viewing experience.

How fortunate that Kwan happened to be there to help Halsey solve the puzzle to discover the Temple of Doom thing. Ackerson getting a pass for letting millions die because he "was just following orders"? I'm not really enjoying having the worst villains of the show be the leadership of the UNSC (is that the name?).

This planet has something for everyone: an artifact cave facility for Halsey, a Spartan child training facility for Soren and a Halo Key safeguard facility for Master Chief (!) What are the odds ..? She just looks so petite for a Spartan trainee.. It doesn't make sense. The writers were determined to keep the character and ignore everything else. And did the showrunners challenge themselves to see how many episodes they could have where Master Chief has no armor? The annoyances for this season are growing...

Good job by Vannak: not starting to rot after a week of being killed and not refrigerated. Maybe that is a Spartan quality. Soren seemed pretty useless in the search for his son. Typical bad writing trope: someone has to be dumb and useless to make another character (Laera) appear resourceful and strong. That area of the planet Aleria did not seem to have any trees - - not sure they could afford to have a bonfire funeral.. And now Riz is out. They seem to be dropping a lot of regular characters this season.

Between this episode and last episode's removal of Soren's pirate gang, the show has off'ed a lot of characters. Why doesn't someone just snap Dr. Halsey's neck? And kill the new guy Ackerson the next time they see him.? It's so annoying the way these type of villainous characters are tolerated by the other characters. (I do understand why the show keeps them around: drama.) I had no twinges of sympathy for Ackerson when he was fretting over his sick father. He basically left millions of people to die without warning of an attack. Why is it such a big deal that Cortana was stolen? They cannot cut off the AI's access to their computer network? Cortanta is not capable of refusing to give information?

Not really happy to see Kwan or Makee. Couldn't they have just moved on? In general, I am not really excited about any of the side stories. The Planet of Pirates just feels like fluff in order to have other things happening. I would prefer that the side stories dealt with the other characters in the Halo organization. One weird thing that got my attention was when Master Chief was upset that some guy was changing placards, indicating that the other Spartan team was on standby or something. Just the idea of this futuristic, high-tech organization needing a guy to physically change signs was hilarious..

It feels as if Season 1 was a long, long time ago .. Like others, I was also surprised there was no recap of Season 1 - - we were trying to piece together all the things that had happened, which was a lot. Not really enjoying the new smirking, sarcastic Dr. Halsey stand-in. How do these organizations even function with all the backstabbing, deception, competition and dislike between every single group of the military ..? We are doing a month of Paramount+ to watch this season. I enjoy a good B Movie type sci-fi show .. but they are laying on the tropes pretty thick..

As a taxpayer, I am outraged that we should now have to pay for a high security office, high-tech equipment, multiple monitors and an entire staff of employees!! The FBI:International operation was doing just fine with five agents using laptops in a dilapidated building. (joking) And what is the deal with European buildings always having chipped plaster and peeling paint? This episode was just okay, but required a good deal of suspension of disbelief. It's fortunate that the team rarely has to deal with a language barrier - everyone speaks English pretty fluently. And Jubal makes another appearance -- maybe to help boost the show? I don't think they even care about the time difference.

So many daddy issues in one episode: Jubal and son, Father of missing girls, and crazy PTSD abductor 'dad'. I also appreciated Isobel telling Jubal to, basically, "get off the cross so people can use the wood". Thankfully, in this Jubal-centric episode, he was not constantly on his phone with his wife during the case. There is also the troubling trend of past cases that Jubal feels guilty about for sorta dropping the ball - I hope the writers are keeping track. The FBI shows are always so heavy-handed about things, so that is expected .. but the pounding, not-really-background music felt over-the-top in this episode.

Just my opinion, but I feel that Deadpool was an exceptionally made movie: the direction, story structure, etc. The slow-mo opening sequence with sight-gags and sarcastic voice over was really well done. Ryan Reynolds was just a small part of that. Deadpool 2 was just a pale imitation of the first movie and did not perform as well - - not a good sign for a franchise. Some jokes get old fast and there were a lot of things that just felt like a rehash of the first movie. Based on recent MCU productions, there is no guessing how good the MCU Deadpool will be - or how succe$$ful. I might actually enjoy the trailers more than the full movie ... some things are more tolerable in smaller doses.

I would say I appreciated it but I'm not sure if I actually liked it. The prosthetics were striking, almost distracting. Also notable to the point of distraction was Bernstein's constant cigarette smoking.

It seems crazy that Deadpool will the the only MCU movie for 2024. And the behind-the-scenes news about the next Captain America movie does not sound good: major reshoots, poor screenings, etc. They are definitely going through a new phase - but probably not one they planned for. It is disappointing, because I was excited when Kevin Feige had said something along the lines of "we have thousands of characters and plan to explore them" - in response to the option of rebooting the top tier characters. I wondered if that was the reason recent releases have included lesser known comics characters (Kamala Khan, Cassie Lang, Riri Williams, America Chavez). It seems more than a coincidence.

See, this is a good argument for the usefulness of reviewers. I would have never watched this if I had not listened to a YouTuber reviewer .. who also had ignored it until reading his followers' recommendations in the comments. This was very well done and the animation was great. All the supporting characters had good story arcs also. The part where Mizu lived as a devoted wife felt a little out of left field. I would give it 7 out of 8: The last (8th) episode felt like they tried to hedge all their bets to set up another season. Mizu kills everyone except the one person she had dedicated her life to killing..? .. not even cutting off a hand ..? And single-handedly transporting Fowler and sailing a ship to London? Hmmm..

I feel that almost any 'hot' director with a good rep would balk at all the restrictions and cross-promotional mandates that Disney MCU would put on them. Maybe that's why some of the indie directors they hire are considered "director in name only". Do you think that the MCU would even consider making a low-budget movie that isn't heavily cross-connected? The current trend seems to be comic-book hero movies as wacky comedies - which makes it easier for me to disengage from it all - - or just wait for the streaming option.