Christopher R Taylor

Yeah, every new format that comes out, Hollywood studios try to take all the money for themselves and pay the people who produced the content nothing.

Yeah he's loyal to his friends, and while she saw her role as being basically a secretary with only a few lines, he wanted her in billion-dollar productions. But she's still even dumber than the usual actor by all accounts.

That has less to do with her not liking the movies so much as being a colossal airhead

Since I've written two books set in my fantasy campaign and am publishing detailed info on how to run games in the setting, I've put in a lot more work than was necessary. But it developed over time, for the most part. I've run games in this setting since the mid 80s, so its grown as time had gone on. When I published the Field Guide, it underwent a soft reboot, changing the map and nations slightly.

I think she figured her time with Disney was pretty much up anyway and really you cannot let companies get away with just ripping you off like that.

Her case seems very sound to me, particularly as their defense is "coronavirus, you're being mean!!!"

It was dumb as the stuff Cap has been saying lately, I agree. "Be better" is the worst mic drop line in the history of television. Its what someone utterly clueless but glassy-eyed in their zealotry says. Yeah, but Feige etc are locked into the Ultimate universe, which is latter day Marvel guys who wrecked the company making their version of how they think the characters should have been.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scarlett-johansson-sues-disney-over-black-widow-streaming-release-11627579278 Basically, her lawsuit is over two things: 1 - She says her contract guarantees an exclusive theatrical release 2 - her paycheck is dependent on theatrical release numbers. I would not at all be shocked to find out that this is the case. Hollywood has for years now rooked people out of royalties and payment in streaming, claiming its an entirely different platform not covered under contracts.

The sad part is that Aquaman was a cheap knockoff of Namor, who is a much cooler character. But now everyone will think Namor is stolen from Aquaman. Kind of like how people think Darkseid is a Thanos knockoff.

Tell that to James Bond. Honestly I don't care if they put Simone Biles into the Iron Man armor or whatever. Tony is dead, fine. Either retire Iron Man (the most logical step) or put someone else in the armor (the most lucrative step). As long as they are doing it because they have a great story to tell rather than "we need more [fill in the blank special interest group]"

I have known people who were put into prison, and they do not come out as comical retards.

Yeah she's been significantly more interesting and likable in other roles, I think she was told to play all that down and be all tough and steely like her grim and unlikable current comic book incarnation.

Unlikely. It lost nearly 70% of viewers after the opening weekend and lost over 50% the next weekend. Word of mouth isn't great on the film, but more importantly people just aren't willing to go watch movies in theaters like they used to and stupid limited occupancy rules are still in place many places. But worse, the streaming at home is a fraction of previous major streaming releases. Its just not a popular movie (for several reasons, including a nearly complete lack of dramatic impact coming out after her death).

Yeah, you can have a super powerful, capable character that dominates their opposition (a lot of past heroes have been that way, such as nearly everyone Schwarzenegger played in movies), it can work. But you have to make the character charming, likable, and enduring or at least heroic. Terminator in T2, becomes sacrificing and even likable for example. Superman is extremely likeable because he's so dedicated to doing right and is such a boy scout to show another way of doing it. With Dr Strange, for example, you have a character who was a pompous ass, but was so humbled by his experiences that he's just really capable but interesting and likable. Plus he demonstrated inescapably that hes willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone else, without hesitation and even a smile on his face. That makes him into a character the audience can cheer with and for. Ripley in the Alien series is compassionate, protective, and determined to save people no matter what it costs her. That makes her a character that's memorable and beloved. That's what the makers of Captain Marvel missed completely. She has one moment where she's slightly human (with her friend Ms Rambeau who again should have been Captain Marvel) but the rest of the movie and all the Avengers she's stoneface and has no personality. Her utter lack of any real challenge through the entire film and the inexplicably bizarre choice to turn Skrulls into good guys (??) instead of both the Kree and the Skrull being basically bad guys that humanity is trapped between just added up to a pretty poor film overall. Just a few minor changes to the movie and story would have made a huge difference in the quality of the film, but Marvel at that point had stopped hiring the best writers and directors and instead started checking off boxes and the results have shown.

I used to build skill Elemental Controls in 4th edition, because skill based characters got expensive without much combat ability to show for it.

Would have done fine if it had been better written and directed. It sucked, and it bombed. I agree that TV content has gotten better, but movies are another story completely. There's been maybe 2 really great movies made in the last 20 years, and a host of utter crap. Used to be you'd see 2-5 every single year. Classics, movies people flocked to, movies that changed culture.

They never actually got to equal domestic sales, and over the last few years have begun to decline in Hollywood sales, as their own movie industry has grown. Still, China represents tens of millions of dollars, and that's not easy to pass up. But so does Russia and Europe, and Hollywood isn't freaked out over annoying those markets. They don't film special scenes just for Russia, they don't have Russian consultants in to work on the script, etc.

It has the double advantage of maybe turning the Mandarin into an actual real threat instead of that pathetic crap from Iron Man 3... and not upsetting the Chinese who for some reason Hollywood is terrified of and kowtows to at every conceivable opportunity.

Of course the number of movies and shows coming out that are watchable has nose-dived in the last few years. Yeah, the overall quality of movies and TV has been abysmal for years now. You can literally pick any year at random from 1930-2000 and get more great films than the last decade.

The list of upcoming films for Marvel is kind of underwhelming, now that they've killed or retired everyone major. Fantastic Four in the future maybe but... I mean I liked the Shang Chi comic (mostly for the wonderful artwork) but its not a real compelling bunch of characters for the most part.

Yeah I think it was another billion dollar job if they'd released it years ago but now? Dumb.

The chatty fight scenes work a lot better in comics than on screen, because things aren't so fast and kinetic (although Deadpool did it pretty well) but it wasn't just that. They gutted the character completely; I don't think she had any lines at all and was a mind controlled zombie.

Black Widow isn't doing really bang up numbers, but I think that's mostly people are not all that excited by the character, it came out a couple years too late, and people might be getting a little burnt out with superhero films. Streaming was extremely weak at $60 streaming (compared to Mulan, for example, with $260 million streaming in the first week. The cliff ticket sales fell off second week (almost 70% fewer) I think probably represents everyone really interested in going to see a movie at the theater deciding they don't really care to again, having gotten their nostalgia over with. Its just a guess on my part but I think people have gotten very used to watching films at home and theaters are going to suffer. That said, if Marvel can (crossing fingers and toes) do Fantastic Four right, they could rekindle real interest in superhero films. And historically these films go through waves: Superman was great and did well, then tapered off rapidly. Batman (Burton/Keaton) did really well then tapered off in a hurry. The genre won't really die but people might be more interested in something else for a while.

All that reminds me why I don't like Bendis' writing. Also: by now you know how badly they Deadpooled the Taskmaster 😕

I would say its probably worth a ½ limitation still, since the character cannot choose a defense before being attacked, and has no control over what they get