zslane

Well, if this leaves room for Bobbi to replace May, I'm okay with that. Not that I dislike May, mind you, it's just that I like Bobbi better.

Production in Vancouver. Airing on the CW. Basically the show is cutting every possible corner just to stay on the air. This does not bode well for the quality of the show going forward.

Actually, I think that is teasing Katie Cassidy's turn as Black Siren on The Flash.

That's true to an extent.
 
However, the Martian Manhunter isn't so much an effect as he is a complete CG character. That means that even though the cost to model, texture, and rig the character has already been paid, you still have the expense of paying animators to animate every scene he is in, compositors to merge him into the live action plates, plus trackers to track the live action footage, and lighters to light the animation scenes to match the live action lighting. And I'm ignoring the time and cost needed to mo-cap a stunt-performer, mostly because I don't think they bother with that on this show, but if they did, that would add to the cost of every appearance of the Manhunter.
 
It is a lot of work every time you decide to put a full CG character into a live action scene. And very costly, mostly in terms of labor.

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.

Traditionally, Marvel has written foreign language dialogue as English in angle brackets, usually with an asterisk referring to a footnote pointing out what language it is supposed to actually be. If anyone can extract an authentic patois from that, they have impressive magical linguistic powers.

For some people, forums are a write-only medium.

Well, you know, hope springs eternal, until it doesn't anymore. Eternal just isn't what it used to be.
 
I liked Arrow until last season when it began to disappoint me. I decided to see if this season could bring it back to form, so I gave it another chance. I was on the fence for quite a while, but now I've reached the point where I see little reason to continue. However, I sort of feel that after having seen this much of the current season, I might as well ride it out to the end of the season.
 
The Flash started out fun, but just kept getting dumber and dumber and I'm at the same point with that show now.
 
Next season, these two shows will have one fewer viewer to torture with their atrocious writing. And if advertisers think they are reaching me just because I am "tuning in," they are sadly mistaken (and apparently unaware of how DVRs work).

There are many elements and tropes that make superhero adventures look and feel like superhero adventures. Not all of them need be, or should be, employed when adapted for live-action tv shows or feature films where your goal is to appeal to more than just 9-year olds. Making a show that is suitable for, and entertaining to kids doen't mean it has to only be suitable for and entertaining to them. Writing for "all ages" seems to be a rare skill that only Pixar's writers seem to have mastered.
 
In fact, I would say that The Incredibles is a good example of a superhero movie that "feels like the comics" but isn't dumbed down to a child-like mentality level.

I thought the finale was pretty meh. Most of it didn't really make any sense.
 
 
 

I thought the finale was pretty meh. Most of it didn't really make any sense.
 
 
 

The MCU may not be perfect, but all the DC franchises are so deeply flawed it is embarrassing. And it's been that way for a long time now. Marvel and Feige may not be hitting every single pitch out of the park, but DC/WB isn't even making contact with the ball...

I'd prefer it if Marvel was simply left to its own discretion on these matters. But the world at large won't give them that much latitude. Everyone with an agenda is pulling at whatever exposed thread they can reach.
 
I don't care how they cast any of these characters as long as they do them well. Look at DC. They cast Superman with a suitably handome, square-jawed actor who certainly looks the part, but they got everything else so wrong he is unrecognizable as the last son of Krypton, at least to me (and a whole lot of others, apparently). Look at Paramount. They so thoroughly destroyed the iconic Star Trek characters in the new reboot that I refuse to acknowledge the new movies even exist. There are a lot of worse ways to ruin the legacy of your most treasured franchise characters than to cast them off-race or gender-swapped.
 
Look, it makes sense to me to update characters for a new generation (as long as you do it well). It makes sense to me to redraw and redefine characters in an effort to expand the fanbase and enlarge the potential audience. It makes no good sense to me to change characters in fundamental ways just to pander to social critics who aren't as interested in good storytelling as they are in merely balancing the scales. By the same token, I am not persuaded by any argument that says something is superior or more right merely because it is how it's always been.

I like it when the source material is honored as well. However, Marvel does play with the "traditional" identities of their characters through their various comic reboots. Nick Fury isn't just a graying white dude anymore. There's been a black Spider-Man. Ms. Marvel is an Indian girl. Thor was a woman for a while. There doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule that says Marvel is prohibited from changing things up, whether it is in their comics or their movies or their tv shows.
 
If Marvel wanted to make Danny Rand an asian guy, they could have done so and it would have seemed as un-radical a notion as Miles Morales or Kamala Kahn. Given all the opportunities for change that Marvel has taken advantage of recently in the comics, it becomes a little conspicuous when they don't do so in other media. It just becomes fodder for SJWs, and the bad press from disappointing them is arguably worse than the nerdrage they draw for daring to stray from the source material in any way.

Yeah I remember when we were told the show was going to be about ultratech agents and counter-espionage in the MCU, with little in the way of superpowers. My how things change...
 
I will say that I feel Agents of SHIELD does "intense superhero drama" far better than Arrow. And "Agent Carter" does "bright superhero dramedy" far better than Flash. For one thing, I don't feel like my intelligence is insulted every ten minutes on the Marvel shows. I also care much more about the characters in AoS and AC than anyone in the WB/DC shows. And while I know I'm not going to see Cap or Iron Man or Thor on any of these series, I am much more invested in what happens than I was with anything that happened on Gotham, where the lack of Batman (and the foreknowledge of these characters' futures) made the show pointless for me to watch.
 
I am very much looking forward to the last four episodes of AoS season 3.

I think that in their desperate push to repeat the financial success of one blockbuster movie, movie execs try to exert as much control over the sequel as possible. I get the feeling that execs believe creative genius can't be counted on; that such enormous success is a fluke and that their best bet for insuring an equivalent subsequent success is to micro-manage it to death.
 
You have to remember that the movie business is intrinsically risk-averse. They don't treat billion-dollar returns as a given. The financial performance of a movie is an unknowable, and unpredictable thing. But they definitely know how much they are spending, and that is something they can control. So when all they know is that they are spending $200-300 million, it is hard for them to put $200-300 million of faith in one person. Even after the movie rakes in $2B, they don't take it as given that the next one will do the same. All they know is that they are putting their asses on the line again to the tune of $200-300 million. They clench their sphincters even tighter over the knowledge that not only are they expected to not lose money again, but they are expected (by shareholders) to out-perform the previous success. Thus they tighten their grip even more, allowing more star system to slip through their fingers...

And don't be surprised if we see Scarlet Witch take out Vision from an emotional angle. They are, after all, destined for an epic romance, right? It probably all begins in Civil War.

I eagerly await an accurate portrayal of military operational conduct in any comic book movie. It is about as likely as an accurate portrayal of police procedures or court room protocol. I'm not holding my breath though...

I eagerly await an accurate portrayal of military operational conduct in any comic book movie. It is about as likely as an accurate portrayal of police procedures or court room protocol. I'm not holding my breath though...

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.