Dandesun

I've been trying to think of storylines I'd like to see them translate to the screen to give other characters some build-up. They could easily do a movie about the Shadow King's interest in Storm... even use that as a means of introducing Gambit as he helps her out (you don't even have to do the ageing shenanigans with Ororo, the Shadow King is plenty scary for grown ups.) That can establish Remy and Ororo's friendship and bring him into the X-fold. Movie!Rogue is a huge issue because they established her having a pretty normal home life before her powers kicked in. As it was, Mystique and Destiny raised her after she ran away from home... which kind of begs the question of HOW they raised her because she sure wasn't a sweet girl at first. I'd love for them to retcon Rogue back to some semblance of what she was in the comics. This was a hard-nosed chick who wasn't afraid to get messy. During the Mutant Massacre her inner monologue after Colossus killed Riptide was to think that Piotr was much too gentle to do that... killing was a job for her or Wolverine. I'd love to see that Rogue in the movie... tough and dark and ready to cross that line if need be. I think the Mutant Massacre might not be such a bad storyline to play out. (Power Pack and Thor not needed.) Or maybe do a storyline without the triangle bullshit and make us care about Scott and Jean as individuals and a pairing. I've never been a fan of the triangle in the first place and, really, the actual books just had Logan more interested in Jean, out-right pushy at times and it wasn't until editorial (who decided Jean-Phoenix had to die in the first place) wanted to resurrect her and put the original five back together, making Scott leave Madelyne and their baby and not contact her for weeks -- thus ruining him in Claremont's eyes so that when they started putting out the Classic X-Men stories, Claremont wrote a bunch of back stories in the issues to flesh out specific things, one of them being Jean's alleged wild and near uncontrollable lust/attraction to Logan. Whatever.

I have to take everyone's word regarding Eve being different but since it's been 20 years since this character has been seen I can be okay with a character being different. The retconning of her history with Jennifer? That's more of a problem and I really hate when soap writers do this because they should know better than anybody that soap fans remember shit. I mean, Theresa bears no resemblance to what a daughter of Shane and Kim should be... with the completely different name and stories about being raised with no money (?!?) -- even I know that's bullshit and I'm totally new to this show! KDP is capable of amazing things. She got a lot of shit writing over the years at OLTL and somehow always managed to portray the heart and soul of Blair when writers could clearly not give a shit because it was always about Todd's Manpain. It really kind of depends on what she gets here... she doesn't have the long term connection to Eve yet but they have given her a daughter and I think that's a good step. Eve obviously loves Paige a lot and wants to protect her. That gives KDP room to work her Mama Magic. And, I've got to be honest, I loved her 'I'm going to need a drink before dealing with that one' in regards to Theresa. I think she will do good work. It's on the writers if they aren't being true to the character. Actors can only do so much. I feel for you Nicole fans, I really do, because that is some straight up bullshit that they pulled there. I'm a Todd/Blair fan from OLTL and, believe me, that was no picnic and even though Todd pulled some heinous shit (the Dead Baby Lie being right at the top of that mess) this Nicole stuff seems harsher to me. It's 'Oh, yes, I'll do anything to help you because I love you sooooo much!' that leads to full on stabbing him in the back. I don't even get the point of it from a writing standpoint. I weirdly understood Todd pulling the DBL on Blair even if they didn't follow through with the very real ramifications and the callbacks to his own history but what Nicole did to Eric and then continuing this by basically purposefully living down to everyone's expectations of her... with no acknowledgement that that's what she's doing. I mean, if she were monologuing about how Eric believed in her but now he doesn't so she'll just go ahead and prove how unworthy and untrustworthy she is just to spite him and his family even more... that would be one thing. It'd be stupid but it would be somewhat understandable for a self-sabotaging character. As it is, is she going to step up and prove everyone wrong by telling the truth for the first time ever? That even loses it's luster because she's the one that put herself in this mess in the first place by completely betraying Eric. I don't get it.

You know how stupid and inane red carpet chatter is normally? Dumb it down tenfold and add rape jokes made by women into it.

Okay, so, whoever the runway hosts were, were fucking idiots BUT Kassie and Greg looked astoundingly pretty together and so now my crack pairing is Eve/Eric. At least that wouldn't be as astoundingly boring as Jennifer and Eric and their church picnics.

Maybe they just all have a weakness for Harlequin romance cowboy cover models. It's understandable, I'm not judging.

Exactly, that just illustrates how completely wrong-headed Lucas is/was about the whole thing. Anakin isn't the story. Or least, he shouldn't have been. Why would I have given a shit about 'getting Anakin back' when there was one mere mention of a vague connection between Anakin and Vader in IV and that's when Ben says that Vader betrayed and murdered Anakin. Oh, and Ben said that Anakin was a 'great pilot and a good friend' but, as has been mentioned, we never really saw Anakin be a good friend to Ben. The relationships in the original trilogy were believable. Han was obviously the jaded dude who just wanted his payoff but desperation breeds strange companions and, by the time they escaped the Death Star there was a bond, and a certain trust, between Han, Luke, Chewie and Leia... which is why Luke's admonishment of Han later had merit. Luke, the kid, took the old pro to task. "Take a look around you. You know what they're up against." And those bonds continued through the rest of the movies... that first film established relationships well enough that it was believable that Han would risk his life to go find Luke, I mean, we don't even find out that Anakin is still... "alive" until the end of the second part of the trilogy... and this is right after he's tortured Han, Chewie and Leia, frozen Han as a test subject to prepare to do the same to Luke, then kicked Luke's ass, cut off his hand and Luke preferred to kill himself then join up. Why would I give a shit about Anakin's redemption? Hell, why was I supposed to give a shit when Luke was blathering on about it in Jedi? It wasn't Anakin's redemption I cared about, it was Luke's triumph! (And Han/Leia... they're my OTP, y'all.) So the first three movies are all about Anakin's shallow fall from twerp to bigger twerp to raging douchenozzle? It happens a lot, when creators are a little too close to their creations... it's kind of a shame but it's not uncommon.

I am not remotely worried about KDP playing vulnerable. She was certainly more than capable playing it as Blair... So much so that I went from actively hating Blair to absolutely loving her in a heartbeat because of said vulnerability. She can do it... The question will be when it will actually come out... The writers may not want that at first. We'll see but I have no worries about Kassie being able to play all the beats. That isn't the problem it's what the writing and show runners will want from her.

And doesn't that fly against the X-Men in so many ways? Claremont, who wrote the original stories they they want so badly to put on screen, was an absolute champion of strong, varied female characters... going into creating new characters by asking himself 'Is there any reason this character can't be a woman?' And yet, the movies have done an absolutely horrible job of portraying those female characters that had such an influence on the series. It ain't right.

Pope Francis just excommunicated the mafia from the Catholic church today saying that anyone who devotes their life to such evil has no communion with God. I eagerly anticipate Sonny's next visit to the church to explain how fucking awesome he is.

Charlotte Ross turned Days down because she had three projects going on. She went on Twitter saying as much.

Order 66 being carried how had a sort of teeth gnashing effect on me because you knew it was coming, you could see how Anakin's stubborn idiocy and arrogance caused so much damage (along with Padme's enabling bullshit... ugh, Padme lost me in Attack of the Clones when she was all 'how horrible for you' when Anakin confessed to slaughtering the sand people, including the children, Hello! Gigantic warning flag right there!! And don't get me started on her whole 'dying of a broken heart' crap. I'm still not sure how Leia came from her. I give all the credit to Bail Organa and his wife for making Leia smart, strong, stubborn in the right way, wily and having excellent taste in men) and yet I still wanted to reach out and stop it. Lucas' over-whelming love for Anakin and his insistence on him being the real hero of the movies sticks in my craw. It's frustrating as hell to know that the man who created two series of movies that I love (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) seems to not know what the best part of it all was. Anakin wasn't the hero to me... Luke was. And that's coming from someone who saw Luke as plenty whiny in Episode IV. Luke made mistakes, big mistakes, and he even gave into his own darkness a time or two but when it mattered, when it mattered the absolute most, he came through. Anakin failed when it mattered. Luke didn't. On a sidenote, I totally would have been down for Padme/Obi-Wan. I would have, at least, understood her attraction. As it was, Anakin was just hot. He had no real depth which made Padme ultimately shallow. Han was initially shallow, caring only about the money, but he came back when it was important and then he stuck it out when he had a death mark on his head longer than he felt he should have. Not only that but he went out in the Hoth night to find Luke, saving his life... Han had depth and real nobility to him. Anakin just wanted power and revenge.. that Padme never saw that just didn't sit right with me. Leia was a huge influence on me when I was a girl... she was tough, tiny and smart and didn't need to change herself for the sake of the men around her. Padme had great clothes and enabled her rageaholic, hot boyfriend. Yeah.

I love the opening to A Chorus Line where you have the piano chiming regularly as we see people arriving and lining up for auditions, the counts being called out as the bustle backstage at said audition unfolds. And it's a few minutes before we see the actual dancing. I love that whole movie, really. It has the added bonus of it being the first show I ever saw on Broadway. And, of course, the opening to West Side Story.

I have a deep and powerful hatred of Legends of the Fall for two reasons: 1. As I've said previously, I don't think Brad Pitt is all that so his character is not the specialist of all the special snowflakes to me. In fact, I rather think Tristan is a douche. 2. And here's the main one, I cannot accept any movie where I'm expected to believe a woman would rather kill herself than be married to the hotness that is Aiden Quinn. I spent a significant portion of that movie going Bitch, are you blind?! when she'd send these looks his way like 'God, I have to deal with this piece of shit?' I couldn't wait for that movie to be over. Another unpopular opinion... I cannot stand Julia Roberts and have felt that way from jump. Ugh. I hate that she's in the Ocean's movies and I'm expected to believe the 'This is the best part of my day' bullshit. I laughed with delight when her character died in Steel Magnolias (the rest of the girls in my dorm with whom I went to see the movie were appalled at me) It's entirely possible that I did a fist-pump and said "Yes!" when she bit it. Our student union played so many Julia Roberts movies that I got dragged to that when La Femme Nikita came, I said everyone owed me for having to sit through repeated Julia Roberts drivel and we were going to see a god damn French film. Good thing for me that it was also awesome so they didn't resent me too much.

Let me join you. I can accept that Brad Pitt is aesthetically pleasing (when he's not sporting that wispy beard he seems to love so damn much) but I've never found him attractive in a remotely sexual manner. For that matter, I would not switch sides for Angelina Jolie so in a lot of ways, their hooking up is sort of perfect storm of Dande Doesn't Think They're All That But Everyone Else Seems To. I enjoyed John Carter. I even enjoyed Taylor Kitsch in a completely shallow manner but, you're right, he doesn't have the charisma to carry off a movie like that. Now that you've suggested Chris Hemsworth in that role... dammit! Such an opportunity lost! But I'd still rather Hemsworth remain Thor,

Brady's rather... epically dumb.

Attack of the Clones is actually pretty good if you cut out all the shit with Anakin/Padme. The stuff with Obi-Wan finding the clones and all of that is like a decent spy movie. But the romance shit is horrible. Revenge of the Sith is basically when they blow everything up. As far as I'm concerned, you can turn it off the second Obi-Wan walks away from Anakin's burning body. The wrap up to ROTS is shite as far as I'm concerned. But they do have Wookies!

So, either a writer or a showrunner is living vicariously through Daniel, right? This is the part of soaps that I hate. It's been an issue since the late 90s. Like, Guza wanted so badly to be Jason on GH it wasn't even funny. Rex was the precious angel golden boy on OLTL and that was a Frons edict. So who is it that wants to be Daniel and so makes him the absolute pinnacle of all things magnificent and wonderful? All the women want him and all the men want to be him and everything he says or does is right and perfect. I have no patience for that but, at the same time, I know that other characters have no chance against this sort of bullshit. I've been prepared for Eve to be all doe-eyed about Daniel from jump (though it makes it no less nauseating) so, at this point, I have to hope she brings something else to the game. That is something I'm willing to be patient about because God knows nothing happens quickly on this show. Still, I wish someone on that show would get the fucking memo. Daniel isn't Jesus. Stop it. I don't get this, either. He always seems to cross her line of sight when she's bored, waiting for Brady to show up. It's sadistic, really. "Oh look, I'll go pull the wings off that fly while I'm not snorting coke or fucking someone." It's stupid. I've enjoyed Theresa but I actually like JJ so this is not earning her any points.

Liam Neeson was Qui-Gon Jinn. But you're absolutely right. The lightsaber fights in the prequels are very flash and, to an extent, I like them a lot. But none of them have the gravitas of the Luke/Vader fights in TESB and ROTJ. Empire's fight had an added layer of tension to it simply because you knew that Luke wasn't good enough yet to take on Vader and it became more and more apparent as the fight went on. And then the ultimate moment at the end. Then in Jedi... when Luke gives into his rage when Vader threatens to corrupt Leia to the Dark Side and just beats the shit out of Vader... until he cuts his hand off and pulls it all in, seeing himself walking down that same dangerous path. I will say this about the prequels, though, for all of the flash and all of the failure, what it did do, for me, was truly solidify Luke as a hero. I liked Obi-Wan and Anakin's battled in Revenge of the Sith but mainly because Ewan McGregor played the hell out of Obi-Wan's disappointment and sorrow at what Anakin had become. The prequels added to the originals in an interesting way. They made Han Solo even more unique, they fleshed out Obi-Wan's story, they made Leia even more fierce, strong and awesome and they made Luke the ultimate hero. The fights maybe weren't as fancy but they had so much more emotion.

I want to live in the world of Top Hat. Art deco fabulousness everywhere... with horse drawn carriages for some reason, roadsters and fabulous boats... the hotel rooms are mansions in and of themselves, everyone is shockingly witty and I can dance with Fred Astaire. The Shire is also quite beautiful for a more pastoral, rustic change. Either that or the treehouse in Swiss Family Robinson. My love for that treehouse is hereditary. My mother loves it and wants to live in it and she passed that love down to me. For sci fi... forever and always Star Wars. I like that it's dirty and so much looks recycled and cobbled together, especially the ships. But I also like the differences in the planets and how you've got the core of the galaxy with Coruscant and then the outer rim planets like Tatooine and Hoth that are barely civilized. There's room to breathe in that galaxy! Plus, the possibility exists of running into Han Solo or being a Jedi. Or BOTH!

Marlena will make a note on her clipboard and say "Whatever. I created you in a lab." I do have to say that during her confrontation with Nicole, I was expecting it to go this way. "There's a word for you that I don't use very often. Cunt." How disappointed was I? Because, Nicole is totally being one. Simpering at Eric, again, about how she'd do anything for him because she wuvvy dovey wuvs him so much and then turning around and shitting on his face. What is she expecting to get out of this? Eric's going to turn into a complete masochist and say "You actively participated in destroying my life. I can't wait to marry you." I mean, it's not altogether uncommon on soaps but Eric seems to come off as the type of character who isn't built along those lines. Nicole is really going to be pissed when Eric and Jennifer start going to church picnics together. When their raspberry cordial wins first prize at the county fair, she's going to be riddled with jealousy! Speaking of Jenn, her smiling as she reminisced to JJ... hey! She actually does have some personality to her! I had no idea! All the stuff about Frankie... that can't solely be to reintroduce Eve, can it? Come on. Paige has got to be Frankie's kid. As for Kassie, she looks gorgeous. She's got panache even if it's wasted on Daniel but, dammit, those two did have chemistry in their all too brief scenes on OLTL back in 2002. They have a decent vibe... it's just too bad he sucks so much. If she can make him tolerable she will literally be made of magic and unicorns. That was her senior high school picture in the yearbook. And I laughed when we got the flashback filmed through a bag of ice. Is Roman a ranch hand? The way he talks, he's like that dude in the movies... 'And this is Curly... why he's been practically running this place for the last 15 years. We couldn't manage the Rocking K without him!' Victor remains an absolute delight. Except that he likes Jennifer. That's the first time I've had to pause. Alas. And the Sami/Kate stuff. Why didn't they kiss in the park? It so looked like it was going there. Actually, it was a weird combination of looking like they were about to make out in the midst of a dude-bro hug. All that aside, I am loving this stuff with them. I would watch Sami play puppet master with EJ and Abby for a month if it was anything like today. Sami's creator, Lady Marlena Sinister would be so proud if human emotions were still something she felt.

According to my friend who is an old time Days fan, Eve did leave the show with Frankie and they went to Africa. But didn't Frankie come back at some point saying it didn't work out? Jack and Eve had a marriage of convenience so that she could get her pimp's money or something... It wasn't a marriage of love. My friend is convinced that Paige has to be Frankie's and that would make her part Von Leuschner... but she didn't have time to go into detail about what she called one of the great stories and villains ever because it was late and I was exhausted. Eve's been gone for a long time so it stands to reason that Paige could be anyone's daughter. (I'm hoping for Frankie because I like ties like that.)

I'd watch a one-shot about Odin's ravens before Loki. I like Loki just fine and Hiddleston is great but I'm over Loki and his Jotun-pain over not being Thor. None of us are Thor, Loki. We all have to live with it!

I'm kind of rooting for Kate and Sami to get married to somehow solidify their hold on all things DiMera... after they stole it all out from under Stefano and EJ. There have been plenty of guy/girl marriages of convenience, let's do a girl/girl. Lucas' head would explode. I don't dislike Lucas but his reaction to that would be epic. And Marlena would think: At last, all of my plans are coming together. Not that she actually had a plan, she'd just act like this was totally what she wanted and expected.

No one-shot?! I don't even know what to say about that. My disappointment is epic.

I've given up trying to figure Theresa out. At this stage, I'd believe that she doesn't know she's related to Eve. I mean, she doesn't have the name she was born with and what's with her stupid ass back story of not having money? I could believe a party girl filled with ennui because she was brought up pampered and spoiled, not wanting for anything but I don't get her characterization at all based on everything those who know have told me about her parents. So, at this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she didn't know a damn thing about being related to Paige.