bigdamnhero

Nice. He definitely caught a lot more references than I did. (Tho I think he's reaching on a couple of them.) And my earlier nitpicks aside, Voss definitely captures a lot of what was gloriously right about the film.

Fair point. Interesting question. The WW movie had at least been announced and I would expect they at least had a story outline by the time they got to shooting BvS. In fact now that I think about it, they must've had casting complete for WW in time to film "the photograph" that shows up in BvS. So odds are they had a decent idea where they were planning to go.

Personally Broodingmanbaby killing Zod didn't bother me nearly as much as his complete indifference to the thousands of other lives that were lost in the preceding hour of destruction porn. Honestly, I thought it was in character for Broodingmanbaby to kill Zod in what came off as a fit of frustration, because Broodingmanbaby hadn't really been shown to care much about human lives up to that point. But then I stopped thinking of MoS as a Superman movie when Pa Kent told him he should've let a bus full of kids die to protect his secret. I even think you could've made an actual Superman movie where Supes realizes "Hundreds of innocent people are dying right now in the rubble; if I kill this one already-convicted multiple murderer, I can go save those people," makes that hard choice and then lives with the consequences. It would be a huge character moment. But you would first have to establish his character. Diana thought that by killing (not-)Ares that she would be ending not just that war but all war itself, turning the entire world into the kind of peaceful utopian paradise she grew up in. I thought it was entirely in character for her. Hmm...I can't think of any pre-Perez examples of WW intentionally killing anyone? In fact even during Perez' run I think she only killed supernatural creatures - Decay & Deimos for example - not humans. I can't think of any humans she killed prior to the last 20 years or so. So I agree the film's portrayal of WW is much closer to recent comic's portrayal of the character. And FWIW I happen to prefer the more recent version as it gives her more of her own unique personality. But I guess it depends what we mean by "iconic." Pine was playing James T. Kirk, William "the Hamasaurus"* Shatner himself, and people complain that he portrayed him as arrogant. "Didn't you guys ever watch the show?!" * Shatner actually calls himself that in his autobiography. Good point that neither story really works with their timeline. And it didn't break the movie for me either; any of these nitpicks individually wouldn't have bugged me. But it just seemed like there were so many little things that didn't make sense that collectively they kept distracting me. I still enjoyed it, give it a solid B (which is off the scale by Snyderverse standards), but they kept me from giving it an A.

Hmm...I think you're right on the wording, tho I interpreted the intent differently. Especially since she's apparently been living in Man's World ever since.

And I'd be willing to buy that...except then they established the whole "If you leave, you can never return" rule.

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I thought the story was that Zeus had charged the Amazons collectively with opposing Ares, and gave them the Godkiller "weapon" to aid them in doing so. IOW the Amazons fight Ares' army so Godkiller Diana can take out the Boss. Not that they were just supposed to prepare Diana and then stand on the sidelines while she fights alone? That doesn't even make sense from an Overprotective Mama standpoint: if your daughter is determined to go out and fight the Big Bad, and you recognize you can't stop her, you could at least send some backup... Yeah, that bugged me too. I wasn't thrilled when Azzarello made her Zeus' daughter in the comics, but at least there Zeus is still alive so it happened recently. The impression I got from the movie was that Zeus had died during classical antiquity, shortly after gathering all the Amazons to Themyscira. Which means Diana should've been conceived shortly thereafter, making her only younger than her siblings by a couple of decades? Confused timeline is confusing.

Like I said, the language thing wasn't a big deal to me. But it did feel like there were an awful lot of "logical incongruities" even by comic book movie standards, which for me kept it from being a truly great film. Any one of them could've slid by, but they kept piling up and pulling me out of the film. YMMV, and like I say I still enjoyed it; I just thought it could've been Even Better with 10 minutes of script-doctoring. I thought they said Zeus hid them on Themyscira to keep them safe so they would be ready to defend the world when Ares returned. Yet they had no way of monitoring the outside world to know if/when Ares had returned, nor did they seem to express the least interest in the notion. And it wasn't just Hippolyta; no one other than Diana seemed even remotely curious to find out if this Big War Against War they've been training for literally every day for two millennia might actually be neigh? In the comics, Hippolyta was usually portrayed as "OK, I realize we need to send someone to Man's World; I just don't want it to be my daughter." Moving her beyond protective mother to cowardly "purpose fail" was one of my chief complaints about the script.

I get that, but it still felt rather like a rather forced "purpose fail" to use your/your friend's phrase. Oh I agree it was war/self-defense, and I wasn't actually criticizing for it. Just pointing out that Diana's preference for avoiding killing doesn't seem to be something she shares with her sisters. There's not so much as a "Should we keep one alive for questioning?" (Of course none of the Germans tried to surrender even when it was obvious they had lost because Hollywood.) I do agree the invasion scene while visually awesome, felt a bit disjointed even assuming the typical Hollywood time compression. (And was I the only one thinking: wait, what happened to that German destroyer afterwards?") Well the first time they talk with Trevor on the beach he's not bound by the lasso, but they all seem to understand him perfectly. And I could swear Diana said "We speak many languages" but I can't swear to it. She certainly didn't seem to act like it was any big thing - at that point, she seemed to believe she was "just" an Amazon. Honestly, it's not something that bugged me, and it certainly didn't come close to ruining the movie for me. Just interesting. Speaking of which, I did find it odd that AFAICT no one actually called her Wonder Woman or referred to her that way? Not necessarily Bad odd, just... interesting again.

Actual conversation after we got back from the movie: Friend: "It was great!" <pause> "There were a few things that didn't make a lot of sense..." BDH: "Like how she speaks perfect modern English, even tho it's only been around for a few hundred years?" Mrs. BDH: "What are you talking about? Modern English has only been around since the `80s!"

Brilliantly logiced, Bazza! Although...Diana seems fairly unique on Themyscira in many of those aspects. Particularly the desire to help people; nobody else seemed too fussed about helping/protecting the outside world, despite that supposedly being their whole reason for existing. And they certainly weren't trying to wound/capture any of those poor German bastards in the opening fight. Yet they're all ployglots too? [shrug] Frankly I'd be fine with "It's magic" as an explanation. It just seemed like their knowledge of the outside world was weirdly plot-specific? [shrug] Like I said, minor nitpicking.

I posted this awhile back in the Hero Designer forum and didn't get an answer, but it's not really a Dan question so I figured I'd try again here. Do the HD Character Packs ever get updated as errors/omissions are found and pointed out? And if so, how do we know about them and how do we download the new versions? The specific example I just noticed is that a number of weapons in the Equipment Guide CP have the STR Minimum entered as a custom/text modifier, rather than using the actual STR Minimum modifier, and therefore are calculating damage incorrectly.* (Mainly the Axes, Maces, & Picks.) But there have been many other CPs that I've found errors in and had to correct myself. I'm betting we (collectively) could identify the ones with errors pretty quickly, and I'd even be happy to help in crowd-sourcing fixing them; but I didn't know if there was already a mechanism for doing so? * Edit: and I really can't believe it took me so long to catch this!

James Lee Stanley. Most of you have probably never heard of him, but I've been a fan since I first saw him in 1986, and just got to see him live again last week. Dude has like 25 albums; seriously, you should check them out. (Simpatico is my personal favorite.) Here's a funny song: Digitalis, preceded by his hysterical story of how he came to write a Carlos Santana-esque "Latin Boogie" despite speaking no Spanish: Here's a serious number:

From Wikipedia: "Ottoman Turkish, or the Ottoman language, is the variety of the Turkish language that was used in the Ottoman Empire." So meh, I'm willing to give them that one. I'm more curious how they learned how to read/speak so many modern languages so perfectly if they've had no contact with Man's World in 2000 years?

Finally saw it and really enjoyed it. Definitely the best DC movie since Dark Knight, tho I feel that's damning it with faint praise. There were a few too many minor-but-annoying "Wait, WTF?" plot moments for me to give it an A, but definitely a solid B. Great acting, particularly from Gadot & Pine. A lot of nits I could pick, but honestly all I wanted was for it to NOT SUCK! and it didn't so me happy! Tho I will say: Worst. Ares. Ever.

A couple other thoughts: Yeah, I kinda lost track too, but apparently Marc Guggenheim said something about keeping that surprise for Season 6. Snoooore. Berlanti said awhile back that they'd be done with the flashbacks after Season 5.

As a side note for would-be writers: the whole "villain who's always 10 steps ahead of the hero" is a really hard thing to pull off over that many episodes without making your hero look kinda like an idiot...

Finally watched the last two eps. In many ways it felt like the perfect series finale to me, and that's how I plan to treat it. As nice as it was to see Malcolm, Slade, & Nyssa again, there was just so much Stupid Volleyball (even by Arrow standards) that my main reaction to the finale was relief that it was all over. So yeah, 5 seasons was a good run, thanks Arrow, maybe I'll catch the inevitable crossover next year, but I think I'm done here. See, that I'd watch! My own fan theory is John Constantine had a vision of what was going to happen so right as the island is about to blow he pops out of a mystic portal and pulls everyone out. But things didn't go quite as planned because when do they ever, and by opening so large a portal he attracted the attention of Tyrannon the Conqueror* who captures all of them. So we get half an episode of Ollie going full-on McBroodyface before Constantine - who managed to escape because he's John Effing Constantine - shows up to tell Ollie his friends are all (mostly?) alive but trapped in Hell, and oh BTW now Tyrannon is aware of Earth and coming to eat our dimension and somehow a guy with a bow & arrow is the only one who can stop him. But it's Berlanti & Co, so he'll probably talk Barry into going back in time again to get everyone off the island before it explodes. * I can't think of who the DC equivalent would be?

Remember tho that while Darkness vs Mental will block Mind Scan, it does zilch against a character who has LOS on you. The easiest way to make ECV Attack rolls harder is to buy up your DMCV and/or Mental Skill Levels. The easiest way to boost Breakout Rolls is to buy additional EGO, only to add to Breakout Rolls. (Hmm...seems like you could also use Mental Skill Levels for that? And/or PSLs?)

Y'know, 2 years worth of traveling to other dimensions and not once has Cisco or anyone asked the Most Important Question: "How many seasons of Firefly did you get on your Earth?"

I was watching an online lecture series on medieval literature, and the Prof pointed out that while we tend to think of learning to speak, understand, read & write a language as all happening at the same, in Days Of Yore that wasn't always the case. Reading and writing a language in particular were treated as two different skill sets. She used the example of the Emperor Charlemagne, who could read Latin just fine but never learned how to write it. Again, more granularity than is needed in most RPGs. But I thought it was an interesting point.

I thought the season finale was decent. Until the last 5 minutes, which were just painful to watch. As much as I enjoyed this show when it first started, honestly I can't remember the last time I got excited looking forward to next week's episode. Ditto for Arrow. (Legends I never enjoyed in the first place...) Supergirl is the only CW show I'm really enjoying at this point, so I think I'm going to have a couple free hours a week next year.

Finally saw the season finale, which I thought was a really strong finish! Good fights, lots of strong emotional moments, Melissa Benoist at her best and damn if Tyler Hoechlin isn't the best Superman in a long, looong time. I think I'm about over the rest of the Arrowverse shows personally, but I will be counting the days until Supergirl Season 3!

DOH! Can't believe I did that - thanks!

In terms of films, it's the model they frickin' invented, which has made them boatloads of cash, and which everyone else is now desperate to emulate. So there's that. Also remember that Bond only puts out one movie every 2-3 years, not every 6 months. And most of them have grossed around $400-$700M (in today's dollars), roughly on par with Ant-Man & Thor Dark World. The studio has openly talked about trying to make Bond more like Bourne - which notably had a meta-story across multiple films. And as much as I loved the first Die Hard, you can't even compare that "franchise" to the MCU: Die Hard has made 5 films over 30 years, which collectively have made $1.4B, about the same as Age of Ultron alone. I'm not unsympathetic to those of you who prefer more episodic storytelling, because that's clearly not the dominant trend now. But as someone who has always preferred more serial, ongoing storytelling and who spent decades stuck in episodic mediocrity* I say Huzzah! * ST-TNG: don't even get me started...

Two weeks worth of quotes from my Fantasy Hero game: Father Edmondo is introducing the party to Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard. But the Alchemist can’t live down a teensy fumble she made last week: Edmondo: “…and this is Abida from the far-off city of Cordova.” Thyri: “Aka Abida the Pyro.” Abida: “Y’know, you build a dozen defensive walls and you’re not Abida the Builder. Heal a hundred wounds and no one calls you Abida the Healer. Spin lead into gold on a frickin’ weekly basis and you’re not Abida the Walking Wallet. But accidentally burn down one ship, and Hey it’s Abida the Pyro!” Geralt: “We were on it at the time.” Abida: “ONE TIME!” Edmondo is thrilled to learn a well-known Icelandic bard has stolen copied one of his stories: Edmondo: “That’s how you achieve immortality!” Abida: (calmly) “No it’s not.” A moment of I Don’t Get It-itis, followed by uproarious laughter as the players all remember that Abida the alchemist has created a potion that literally makes her immortal! One of our players is moving away, so her PC Thyri got poisoned and is “mostly dead.” Edmondo, who had a will-they-won’t-they thing going with Thyri, is in mourning. Thyri’s Player: “I picture Edmondo as ugly-crying through this whole episode. Edmondo’s Player: “He’s not ugly-crying. Not in public.” They arrive in Wales, Aeddan’s homeland: Aeddan: “Welcome to Cymru, which outsiders call Wales! Everyone who has ever visited it, Bishop or Viking alike, has called it a Horse’s Ass. But we like to say, it is OUR Horses’s Ass!” [drops down and kisses the soil] Edmondo: “Seriously, what is wrong with you people?!” Thyri’s player: “Thyri’s actually glad she’s in a coma.” Parenthetical: GM: “By the way I will never complain about Irish history again, after spending the last two weeks cramming Welsh history, which is every bit as confusing except with no vowels.” Aeddan’s Player: “Right?!” Later: Player 1: “Edmondo may need to bury his grief in some Welsh bosom.” Edmondo’s Player: [shakes his head] “Too soon. Besides after being with a Viking, who here is going to satisfy him?” GM: “Once you go Viking, you never go…hiking?” Player 2: [ala Firefly] “Have you ever been with a warrior woman?” Edmondo’s Player: “Once you go Norse, you never go worse?” GM: “That…almost rhymes.” Player 1: “Maybe it sounds better in Welsh?” Edmondo’s Player: “Once you go Norse, you gwythdd iffn hwpthg ppppppppfffft!” (No those aren’t actual Welsh words, but it feels that way a little.) And finally, that moment when the GM's half asleep, everyone's getting punchy, and you should probably have called it ten minutes ago, but the GM's trying to get to the Big Cliffhanger: GM: "You arrive at the King's Hall, which has been decorated for the wedding with, uh...boughs of...holly?" Player 2: "So, they decked the hall with boughs of holly?" GM: "...You might say that." Player 2: "I didn't realize they celebrated Christmas in August here." GM: "Y'know, I got halfway through that sentence and realized where is was going, but by that time it was too late. The road's only this wide; there's no turning around."