sinanju

Deadlines and the pressure to get X episodes filmed in Y days on Z budget is a big part of it, yes. But part of it also is low expectations for viewer intelligence and involvement, and sadly, that's often the case. I mean, we all watch Supergirl or The Flash and see plot holes big enough to throw planetoids through, and it bothers us. Most of the viewers, however, either don't see the plot holes or don't care, they just like seeing the spectacle and enjoying the character interactions.
 
I'm not saying those other viewers are less intelligent, mind you. They have other priorities. Some are watching while they do other things, and only half paying attention. Plot contrivances and characters making dumb decisions will often fly right past them--it's happened to me on shows I wasn't deeply invested in. Some hear "science fiction" or "superheroes" and expect nonsense; nonsense they might enjoy watching, perhaps, but which they aren't going to take seriously at all. Or they just accept that plotholes and plot-induced stupidity are the price of admission; I've done that for shows I really really liked otherwise but in which the fundamental premise didn't really hold up to logical analysis. Dead Like Me, for instance. I loved that show, but the rules for how being a Reaper worked were inconsistent and often contradictory. I DIDN'T CARE. I just loved the show enough to shelve my usual demand for such things.
 
Plus, yes, they could put the work in to make the plots better, and have the characters use their powers more efficiently. And then what? Most viewers won't notice or care. The return on the investment simply isn't worth it in most cases (with the rare exception where the showrunner is one of the people who cares about such things).
 
TL,DR: I would like smarter writing and better plotting--I just don't expect to see it because the product as is is good enough for most casual viewers.

It's a great day for America. Not because Trump was elected. Because Hillary WASN'T.
 
That is all.

I once thought that if I were in charge of Marvel or DC, I'd do away with Continuity . It was my view that too-strict adherence to continuity led to storytelling failure. And it still might be true. I thought that if, instead, you let artists and writers run the character during their time on the book, and use as much (or as little) continuity from previous works as they liked, you might get better results.
 
I don't think that anymore. Seeing how badly many books have splintered--I literally have NO IDEA how many X-Men variations (individuals, teams, universes) there are anymore, for instance--I see the problem there. I find it hard to care about ANY of them. Ditto for the exploding Spidey-verse. And other comic books/characters who all resemble Hydra these days. "Cut off one head, and two more will take its place!"
 
I'm not sure there IS an answer. The anecdotes about comic book editors who recycle stories on a two-year timeline because they believe the readers will have turned over by then...were probably mostly right. Nowadays, most comic readers are long-time fans who haunt their local comic shop for their latest offerings. This is especially true given that you can't pick up a comic from the spinner rack in your local drugstore anymore, which was how I got hooked back in the 70s.
 
So you can't just recycle the stories. (Well, you CAN, but....) And too much change will unhinge the fanboys or start a shooting war between the pro-change and anti-change crowds. You just can't win.

It is difficult to tell stories about the same character for nearly 75+ years. Attempts to freshen up the character for each new generation are inevitable, and not all attempts are going to work well. It ruined the Star Trek franchise (IMO), and it is ruining the DC(E)U. I would say that 50-75 years of creaking continuity has ruined 616 and whatever DC calls its comic book multi-verse, but at this point nobody really expects the comics to save themselves from their own editorial misadventures anyway.
 
Me, I'm looking forward to the tv version of Wild Cards now.

I cannot "like" this or agree with it strongly enough. I'll never forgive Joe Quesada and that crowd for this debasement of Spider-Man. They've ruined him for me. From the "deal with the devil" aspect of the retcon to the childish rationale ("our readers can't identify with a married man...even though they seem to have no problems identifying with men with spider-powers, or power-armor-wearing billionaires, or gods of thunder or....") it just appalled me. I rooted for it to fail miserably and hoped to see those idiots fired and the retcon retconned away.
 
Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

I cannot "like" this or agree with it strongly enough. I'll never forgive Joe Quesada and that crowd for this debasement of Spider-Man. They've ruined him for me. From the "deal with the devil" aspect of the retcon to the childish rationale ("our readers can't identify with a married man...even though they seem to have no problems identifying with men with spider-powers, or power-armor-wearing billionaires, or gods of thunder or....") it just appalled me. I rooted for it to fail miserably and hoped to see those idiots fired and the retcon retconned away.
 
Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

I cannot "like" this or agree with it strongly enough. I'll never forgive Joe Quesada and that crowd for this debasement of Spider-Man. They've ruined him for me. From the "deal with the devil" aspect of the retcon to the childish rationale ("our readers can't identify with a married man...even though they seem to have no problems identifying with men with spider-powers, or power-armor-wearing billionaires, or gods of thunder or....") it just appalled me. I rooted for it to fail miserably and hoped to see those idiots fired and the retcon retconned away.
 
Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

I cannot "like" this or agree with it strongly enough. I'll never forgive Joe Quesada and that crowd for this debasement of Spider-Man. They've ruined him for me. From the "deal with the devil" aspect of the retcon to the childish rationale ("our readers can't identify with a married man...even though they seem to have no problems identifying with men with spider-powers, or power-armor-wearing billionaires, or gods of thunder or....") it just appalled me. I rooted for it to fail miserably and hoped to see those idiots fired and the retcon retconned away.
 
Now? Now I just don't care about Peter Parker/Spider-Man anymore. It doesn't matter what they do with him anymore. I just can't bring myself to care. I followed the Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man for a long while, but most I'm not reading or following any Marvel comics these days. Or DC. They've splintered into so many parallel and conflicting timelines that I just can't be bothered anymore.

I disagree with this attitude so much. "Changed" is not a synonym for "ruined," and is almost always preferable to "held completely static for decades."
 
In the specific case of Peter's marriage, I thought letting Peter grow up and change really strengthened the character, and some of the storylines around his marriage with MJ were quite well done. (Say what you will about Straczynski's run on Spidey, but he wrote the Peter-MJ dynamic really well.) And there was something genuinely comforting to know that despite everything Pete went through as a kid and everything he's still going through, he nonetheless managed to find a little bit of happiness for himself. That's not a bad story for people to hear now and then.
 
What ruined Spidey for me was when they retconned away all that progress because "fans don't want to see a married Spider-Man." So we're back to Square 1, and nobody learns from anything? No possibility for character growth? What the hell is interesting about that? Where's the drama in knowing that no matter what a character goes through, nothing is ever going to change?
 
The only alternative is the DC approach of rebooting the universe every 5 years so you have an excuse to keep everyone in the exact same place and keep retelling the same damn stories over and over again. Yawn.
 
By contrast, if Marvel had kept Carol Danvers in the same box she'd been in since the 70s, no one would care about the character today and she certainly wouldn't be getting her own movie. But by letting the character evolve (starting with 2005's House Of M, and really taking off when DeConnick took over), they not only made her a far more interesting character, but they also opened up room for new characters to come in behind her.
 
I hope you don't feel I'm picking on you personally CT - I'm addressing a much wider attitude. (You just happen to be the guy that pushed the button - sorry for that!) But I genuinely feel like this instinctive, visceral resistance to change is the biggest problem with fandom today and is the main reason we can't have nice things.

I don't think many people like our drawn-out political seasons, but I don't know what we could about it. I suspect restrictions on campaigning would fall afoul of the first amendment. "No, you can't go around the country asking people to support your candidacy/raising money/campaigning" sounds pretty anti-free speech to me. And no candidate is going to tie his own hands by subscribing to a shorter campaign period voluntarily when all his rivals are out there running from the get-go.

Meanwhile in the DNC...
 
"We've analyzed the attack, ma'am, and there is a danger. Shall I have your personal shuttle standing by?"
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you severely overestimate their chances!"
 
I have no idea who's going to win in November. None. But I'm reminded of the line: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

What incentive is there for someone to dig his own grave for the guy pointing a gun at him? He isn't killing you RIGHT NOW. He might kill you (or get you killed tomorrow or next week), but for the moment, you're still alive.

What incentive is there for someone to dig his own grave for the guy pointing a gun at him? He isn't killing you RIGHT NOW. He might kill you (or get you killed tomorrow or next week), but for the moment, you're still alive.

What incentive is there for someone to dig his own grave for the guy pointing a gun at him? He isn't killing you RIGHT NOW. He might kill you (or get you killed tomorrow or next week), but for the moment, you're still alive.

Yeah, and I don't really expect Zoom to abruptly murder most of the cast of the show. But in terms what you might actually expect of a superfast psychopath? That's one way to go. What I really want is just to have the protagonists show a little intelligence. So, yeah, they captured the lesser threats and drove Zoom away. Do they talk about (or show ANY evidence of having considered) what to do if Zoom comes back (as he clearly could do, given how easily he escaped)? No. Instead, they decide to have a dinner party and just ASSUME the threat is over. That was just stupid.
 
The recurring villain is a classic trope (and not just in comics). And it's one I've grown incredibly tired of, primarily because bad tv writers so often resort to making the heroes behave like idiots so the villain can escape again and again. But it can be done well, or done poorly. And the Flash series has done it quite poorly this season.
 
If our heroes had even given LIP SERVICE to the worry that Zoom might return, I probably would have been happy with what happened. But they didn't. They acted like idiots instead.

Which is why we have had Reverse Flash and Zoom #rimshot.

Meanwhile in the DNC...
 
"We've analyzed the attack, ma'am, and there is a danger. Shall I have your personal shuttle standing by?"
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you severely overestimate their chances!"
 
I have no idea who's going to win in November. None. But I'm reminded of the line: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

Meanwhile in the DNC...
 
"We've analyzed the attack, ma'am, and there is a danger. Shall I have your personal shuttle standing by?"
"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you severely overestimate their chances!"
 
I have no idea who's going to win in November. None. But I'm reminded of the line: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

He should feel guilty about not wrapping his father in duct tape like a mummy in the fraction of a second it would have taken him. The police would have had a hard time convicting him of murder when he was clearly unable to move. I'm just sayin'....(It was literally the FIRST thing I thought of when he got to the past and was unable to save him mom. "Well, at least Dad won't go to prison!")

The answer is intuitively obvious!
 
THIS Flash, OUR Flash, the one we watch each week on the CW, didn't visit Supergirl's earth. That was ANOTHER Flash from another earth, very closely aligned with the one we see, but not the same one.
 
See? Easy!

I gotta say, I was siding with Wells in this last episode. "What more do you need!?" 
 
Giving up his powers to Zoom was beyond stupid. Playing Hamlet for most of this episode, while Zoom (and his minion) ran around terrorizing and murdering people, was even worse. I fast-forwarded through most of the relationship dreck and heartfelt talks between Barry and Joe and Barry and his dad. I. Just. Didn't. Care. This whole plot was just too dumb for me to get invested.
 
The only character who seemed to have a clue--besides Wells--was Zoom. Ain't no flies on him. He saw lightning flaring over Star Labs and he knew IMMEDIATELY what they were up to and ran off to stop them.

For me, that wasn't enough. Had he mentioned that he had just spent a couple of days on an alternate Earth with aliens and a hero named Supergirl, and oh wow it was so cool and it would be great to go back someday (etc.), then that would be a proper acknowledgment. It was uncharacteristic of Barry to not go all fanboy over the experience upon his return.

Those ideas are not mutually exclusive.
 
There's an excellent fantasy novel by Steven Brust, TO REIGN IN HELL. It's probably my favorite fantasy novel. It's about how Lucifer rebelled against God, and why. I won't spoil it, except to say that there IS someone to blame for the split between Lucifer and God (Yahweh) in the novel, someone pursuing his own selfish agenda and putting these two long-time friends and allies at odds.
 
The thing is, they're all proud individuals, and by the time the real culprit is exposed, too much has been said and done--by everyone--for everything to go back to the way it was, no matter how much everyone would like it to.
 
So if, for instance, someone IS behind the conflict in Civil War, even if he/she gets exposed, too much betrayal, violence and death may have occurred for things ever to be the way they were before, even if both sides were doing what they thought right and wish it could be forgotten and forgiven.