zslane

I think the most dramatic instance of a TOS officer making a career-ending move on behalf of a fellow officer (and getting away with it) was when Spock violated General Order 7--a court martial-able offense--in The Menagerie. However, I would say that the plot and substance of that two-part episode was far superior to Mad Idolatry in nearly every way. But maybe that's not really fair; after all, The Orville is not trying to be as good as TOS, it is merely trying to be a loving send-up of the (much inferior) TNG.

Date someone who works in the financial department of a major movie studio and you'll learn about these formulas. If that's not feasible, then either do some research on this or just take my word for it.

Right. At most, each franchise set out to be a trilogy of films (The Hulk notwithstanding), not components of a team-up movie. Had WB/DC taken the same approach as Marvel, their movies might have gone something like this: 1. Man of Steel - End credits teaser shows Hal Jordon telling Superman that he's not alone as a "champion of Earth". 2. Wonder Woman - End credits teaser shows Diana, in present day, meeting Bruce Wayne at an art auction. 3. Man of Steel 2 - The plot brings Green Lantern in for a minor bit of teaming up with Superman. 4. Batman - Brief cameo for Barry Allen. 5. Aquaman: King of Atlantis - End credits scene shows Hal Jordon being told by the Lantern Corps to gather Earth's heroes for what's to come. 6. Justice League - Green Lantern brings Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman, and Flash together to defend earth against an invasion by Braniac. 7. Man of Steel 3 8. Wonder Woman 2: The Sorcereress Queen 9. Batman 2: Knight of Gotham 10. Green Lantern Corps 11. Justice League: The Dark Side - Darkseid gives it a go... 12. Flash - Oh god, any storyline except Flashpoint, please! 13. Batman 3: Darkest Knight 14. Dr. Fate 15. Green Lantern Corps 2 16. Nightwing 17. Wonder Woman: War of the Gods 18. Batgirl 19. Justice League: Ultimate Crisis - to be concluded the following year by Infinite Crisis. : Instead, they went with this: 1. Man of Steel 2. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Wonder Woman joins boss fight at the end. Barry Allen teased in end credits scene. 3. Suicide Squad - Brief flashback cameo by Batman. (Entertainment press dubs this the "DCEU", a shared cinematic universe intended to rival the MCU) 3. Wonder Woman 4. Justice League - 5. ...immolation of the DCEU and the reassigning/firing of everyone at WB/DC involved in creating it.

Which isn't saying much given how low the bar was set by MoS and BvS.

Well, thanks, but I was looking for a direct answer here to save time (and pain)...

It was pretty deft how they began to bring Ed and Kelly back together, and then navigated away from it by the end. I'm really curious, though, what their universal translators sound like to a listener. For instance, what did that little "bronze age" girl hear when Kelly spoke to her? I mean, first you have the sounds physically emerging from her mouth, which are presumably acoustically cancelled somehow, and then you have the translation coming from...somewhere...and amplified loud enough to be heard over a distance. Does it sound like a digitized re-creation of her voice, distorted for alien phonemes? I mean, it must sound pretty bizarre (in direct contradiction to what we the audience hear). And how does the translator know how to translate into a language it's never encountered before?

Colville seems to be quoting from ancient, long forgotten Kryptonian scripture. He wasn't just given a word here and there, he was given the entire mythos, presumably from this disgraced priestess. A priestess who must have been from the same super secret underground cult that sent Reign off Krypton, and was imprisoned on Fort Roz for heresy. But then the next question becomes, how did he get access to Fort Roz, with enough visitation time with this priestess to have learned all that he did? And why in the world would she have said anything at all to him? None of this makes any sense regardless of how you slice it.

And there was much rejoicing...

I don't think it is programmed to work that way, is it? Then again, I could be forgetting an episode where it withheld crucial information (or outright lied) in an effort to second-guess what Kara needed to know.

That notion isn't really supported by anything shown so far. Reign isn't depcited as having magical powers, merely Kryptonian powers. Moreover, she and Coville have never met. Besides, regaling Kara with lore that Kara would regard as ancient religious nonsense serves no strategic purpose I can think of other than, perhaps, to make Kara underestimate her (which seems like way too subtle a move for Reign, who only seems to work within the paradigm of overwhelming brute force).

I regard Snyder as a tremendous visualist. He really knows how to make his shots look beautiful (the overall ugliness of JL notwithstanding), but when it comes to story I find him severely lacking. Then again, maybe we should be blaming the screenwriters for that. I don't think he gets involved with that much, does he?

I feel that one huge difference is that the X-Men comics focused heavily on the characters, whereas the movies focused heavily on events that the characters were merely swept up in. It is the difference between small character-driven storylines that can span many issues of a comic title, versus large epic storylines that must fit into self-contained 2-hour viewing experiences. Maybe the thing that makes the X-Men such a good comic book property is the very thing that makes them a mediocre cinema property.

Doubtful. That strikes me as a potentially lethal omission, and I doubt Holo-Alura would be programmed take that risk. She is, after all, just supposed to be a glorified information kiosk.

Yeah, I'm much more excited about the prospects of the Fantastic Four being folded into the MCU than the X-Men. If only they came with the rights to Namor as well... I almost don't care what happens with the X-Men property. The two attempts at live-action X-Men teams have left me disappointed in numerous ways, even if some of the films have been good, and I'm just not convinced that even Marvel would present them the way I would want them to.

Even secret societies need to get their information from somewhere...

The third Nolan film was atrocious, precisely because the main character resembled Batman in appearance only. His methods were about as un-Batman-like as you could imagine.

One thing that made no sense to me was how Coville knew the lore behind Reign after researching Kryptonian culture for "months" (his words) using only those resources available on Earth, whereas Hologram Alura Zor-El knew virtually nothing despite having access to the complete historical and cultural corpus of dozens of alien worlds (including her own). That was just plain dumb.

In order to duplicate Marvel's success, you need: 1. A long-term vision and the patience to execute it slowly and organically, one franchise movie at a time. 2. A pool of writers and directors who understand and respect the characters and the source material that birthed them. 3. A creative director who understands and respects the source material, and has a strong enough personality to corral all the egos to conform to a singular vision. 4. A studio who fully supports the creative director, giving him the authority to see the singular vision through, even at the (potential) expense of the above-the-line talent (i.e., Fiege is ultimately more powerful than RDJ or Joss Whedon). WB/DC has none of those things. How anyone expected them to duplicate Marvel's success is beyond me.

My experience with (what would become) the Hero System began in 1982 with Champions 2nd edition, back when it was extremely readable, and profoundly shorter in length. It was a pleasure to read from cover to cover, to be honest. Then again, I came from a background in wargaming where reading a rulebook was a source of pleasure, not a chore. Still, for most RPGers circa 1982, accustomed to the combined length of the AD&D PHB and DMG, Champions was almost miniscule by comparison. Even the 4th edition BBB was incredibly readable and a joy to pour through cover to cover, despite its imposing size (for its time). However I feel all that changed with 5th edition, and its dense, bloated, and over-specified presentation only got worse with 6th edition. The Complete books bring the system back to a much more digestible form, and they deserve a lot of credit for bringing some sense back to the brand. Unfortunately, a lot of newcomers feel they must have the ~800 pages of 6E1/6E2 to get the "complete" game system, making their lives needlessly difficult. If only Hero Games would just dump 6E1/6E2 from the product line all together and replace them with a single system reference volume (SRV), streamlined and written in the same readable style as the Complete books, I think the system would be much better off.

As long as the DCEU movies continue to be a patchwork of disconnected ideas, the entire franchise will remain a mess, drawing little more than lukewarm audience enthusiasm. I suspect that if Flashpoint is used to reboot the DCEU and open the door to yet more cast and timeline changes, it will exhaust what little tolerance the public has for the franchise and its incoherency.

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/dc-films-justice-league-1202632214/

Actually, it is quite bad given that there is virtually no way JL will break even from its theatrical run. There is a formula that, given the opening weekend box office results, will predict the overall revenue for a film to an uncanny degree of accuracy. The $94M opening number pretty much guarantees that JL will not make back its production and advertising costs until years from now after all its ancillary revenue has rolled in (home video, streaming, toys/games, etc.). That makes it difficult to bankroll the next round of films in the slate which need financing secured in 2018. The failure to hit it big with JL will have enormous repercussions within WB/DC. It screws them (and their plans) in ways that folks who have never been involved in the industry--and feature film financing in particular--can't begin to imagine.

Well, I think it is best to be precise about it, you know? But I'm also aware that for many old-timers, "fully interchangeable" means "perfectly usable with a few adjustments". They don't want newbies thinking that just because a few things were changed/deleted/tweaked, that the Hero System as depicted in the Complete books is incompatible with 6E1/6E2, because it's not. But at the same time, there are differences, which may be confusing and/or annoying to newcomers who are unsure about which version to invest in.

Very!

6E1/6E2 lies in a sort of gray area. It is the most comprehensive expression of the 6th edition of the Hero System, but it is not the latest/newest revision of it. That honor goes to the Complete books, which do make changes to the rules since 6E1/6E2 was published. I guess you can think of the rules in the Complete books as Hero System 6.5.