TV & streaming thread

[kirottu]

So what was that green goo in Stranger Things? Did I miss something?

[InsaneCommander]

5 hours ago, kirottu said:

So what was that green goo in Stranger Things? Did I miss something?

The vegan version of the one in The X-Files? Or maybe the one from Prometheus...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 hours ago, kirottu said:

So what was that green goo in Stranger Things? Did I miss something?

Xenomorph blood, Stranger Things is a longform prequel to Alien.

Anyways finished s3 and disappointed, mindflayer a ****. A lot of missed opportunities, ebil russians fell flat, and after two years of dealing with extra dimensional horror you'd think the characters would have learned to deal with their problems when they're not getting chased by monsters or shot at. If there's another season I hope it concludes the series.

[Lexx]

To me it felt like we've only seen half of a season. There have been too many things left unanswered - like, how did all the russians suddenly disappear from the facility. The green stuff, the ending scene, etc.

 

But yeah, I too wouldn't mind if they won't keep dragging it on for too much longer, because it already kinda started loosing its appeal in s2.

[Bartimaeus]

4 hours ago, KaineParker said:

spoilers

Spoilers for people who haven't yet seen it's sake:

 

The Russians' portrayal seemed pretty cartoonish, and I kept being annoyed by it. Actually, the villains kind of sucked in general, I guess, since the Mind Flayer felt pretty stupid, too. The inhabitants of the Upside Down had been, up until now, a senseless Lovecraftian virus-esque race/entity, with no apparent goals except to propagate itself. Simple and classic evil/alien organism reasoning, more or less, and it worked pretty perfectly in this setting. Uh, right up until it started talking to Billy and everyone else, at which point we clearly know it to be an intelligent lifeform with human-like ability to communicate and reason, presumably with expressible goals and desires. So it's both intelligent and senselessly evil just because...that's what it is? The fact that it can now clearly communicate with humans changes absolutely nothing for it? Doesn't even want to considering co-inhabiting, or even making demands or...doing anything besides exactly what it had been doing before it could communicate? I liked it better when I knew nothing about the Demogorgon or the Upside Down. The house of cards can come tumbling down awfully quick when you know too much and it stops making sense and your suspension of disbelief stops being quite so suspended...which is exactly why the first season was fantastic and season 2 and season 3 pretty much only hold up at all by the character writing.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Bartimaeus

[ktchong]

EDIT/UPDATE: Okay, I've changed my mind. I binge watched the first season and halfway into the second season... THE DRAGON PRINCE IS A STINKING PILE OF BRAINWASHING SOCIAL JUSTICE GARBAGE.    It is more of a SJW brainwashing propaganda and social re-engineering agenda than a show.  Avoid it.  

 

The show is serialized with an over-aching story instead of episodic. 

Quote

The series is set in a fantasy world on the continent of Xadia, which is rich with magic derived from six primal elements: The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, the Sky and the Ocean. However, the humans - who could not utilize primal magic - discovered the use of dark magic, which is fueled by the life essence of animals and magical creatures.As a consequence, they were driven off by the dragons and elves of Xadia to the other end of the continent, where they founded the five human kingdoms. The Breach, the border between the two halves of the continent, was guarded by Thunder, the king of dragons.

Now, after humans killed the dragon king and his egg, war is imminent. The elves attempt to assassinate the human king Harrow and his heir, the young prince Ezran, in retaliation for the egg's destruction. One among the elves, the young Rayla, along with Ezran and his older half-brother Callum, discovers that the dragon king's egg wasn't in fact destroyed, but stolen by the mage Viren, King Harrow's advisor. Together they undertake to return the egg to the dragons to prevent war between the humans and elves. But Viren, intent on conflict, seizes power after the king dies in the assassination attempt, and sends his children Claudia and Soren after the fugitives to kill the princes and recover the egg at all costs.

 

Edited July 12, 2019 by ktchong

[ktchong]

EDIT/UPDATE: Okay, I've changed my mind. I binge watched the first season and halfway into the second season... THE DRAGON PRINCE IS A STINKING PILE OF BRAINWASHING SOCIAL JUSTICE GARBAGE.    It is more of a SJW brainwashing propaganda and social re-engineering agenda than a show.  Avoid it.  

- REMOVED -

Edited July 12, 2019 by ktchong

[Bartimaeus]

but it looks so dolphin noises ugly compared to avatar

(e): also we have a tv thread wth

Edited July 9, 2019 by Bartimaeus

[ktchong]

EDIT/UPDATE: Okay, I've changed my mind. I binge watched the first season and halfway into the second season... THE DRAGON PRINCE IS A STINKING PILE OF BRAINWASHING SOCIAL JUSTICE GARBAGE.    It is more of a SJW brainwashing propaganda and social re-engineering agenda than a show.  Avoid it.  

- Removed -

 

Edited July 12, 2019 by ktchong

[Amentep]

Please keep tv and streaming topics to the open thread for that topic.

[Lexx]

Why does the animation style look so... weird?

 

Anyway. Tried to watch the latest Hellboy. Stopped not even halfway in, because it's... bad. It looks bad, the scene compositions are bad, the music is bad... Funny, you can kinda tell a bad movie now just from checking if Milla Jovovich is somehow in it.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Lexx

[Amentep]

Its computer animated, but they're dropping the framerate on it (presumably so it mimics hand drawn animation or offset weight issues with 3D animation vs traditional animation).

[injurai]

I hate that animation style.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

16 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoilers for people who haven't yet seen it's sake:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Russians' portrayal seemed pretty cartoonish, and I kept being annoyed by it. Actually, the villains kind of sucked in general, I guess, since the Mind Flayer felt pretty stupid, too. The inhabitants of the Upside Down had been, up until now, a senseless Lovecraftian virus-esque race/entity, with no apparent goals except to propagate itself. Simple and classic evil/alien organism reasoning, more or less, and it worked pretty perfectly in this setting. Uh, right up until it started talking to Billy and everyone else, at which point we clearly know it to be an intelligent lifeform with human-like ability to communicate and reason, presumably with expressible goals and desires. So it's both intelligent and senselessly evil just because...that's what it is? The fact that it can now clearly communicate with humans changes absolutely nothing for it? Doesn't even want to considering co-inhabiting, or even making demands or...doing anything besides exactly what it had been doing before it could communicate? I liked it better when I knew nothing about the Demogorgon or the Upside Down. The house of cards can come tumbling down awfully quick when you know too much and it stops making sense and your suspension of disbelief stops being quite so suspended...which is exactly why the first season was fantastic and season 2 and season 3 pretty much only hold up at all by the character writing.

Spoiler

Cartooishly evil russians is pretty much peak 80s, but it grated badly for me over 8 episodes.  I was more annoyed that the russians had nothing going but being menacing, there was no reason to try to open a portal to a hellish dimension and nothing for any russian characters besides the dude who got shot. And despite it being a fantastical show, that a sekrit base staffed (and presumably built) by russians underneath a mall seems far-fetched unless you assume the citizens of Hawkins are complete idiots and the US government who were conducting tests in the area 2 years ago wouldn't bother to keep an eye out for the portal that spawns hellmonsters.

I'm fine with the Mind Flayer being intelligent and see it's activity as being a conquest or assimilation, sort of like the Borg. What's dumber is that it placed more effort on going after El than trying to assimilate "the topside up" and didn't camp out at the sekrit russian base to prevent a washed up cop and a weird milf from killing it by turning some keys. The Demogorgon was almost mindless but it managed to be less of a dumbass than this sentient creature. Then there's the other change of behavior where it gorges on chemicals for apparently no other reason than to tip off Nancy that something's ****ed, which could have been cut out completely with no real loss.

Character writing was really the saving grace, but in a lot of ways that fell. Like we had that Karen almost cheated on her husband but that doesn't go past the first episode or that El seems more like a prop than a character or that Hooper went from a chill dude to an obsessive controler. Quite a lot feels like loose ideas that were never developed but kept in for some reason while other things feel neglected with at best an "oh ****" moment to push in some content at the last minute.

 

[algroth]

Suprised by people praising the character writing in the series, I'm pretty much on the opposite end of all that. I didn't mind any of the "faulty logic" but felt that the characters came across as cardboard cutouts existing only as references to the most prominent 80s archetypes, and it was only once the story got going and we stopped playing the sub-Hughes rom-com that the season began to grip me. I was pretty much ready to quit following the first couple of episodes because every character was grating on me due to how flanderized they'd become, and am glad I stuck with it since I felt it soon dropped a lot of that, found its footing and ended on a rather strong note.

Edited July 10, 2019 by algroth

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, algroth said:

spoilers

 

You're not wrong. There's been like zero meaningful character development for almost anyone besides like, what, Steve for two seasons now? All antagonists, whether it's the Russians, something from the Upside Down, the freaking local paper writers, are cartoon villains at this point. Characters that we're supposed to like frequently act like complete pricks obsessed with one particular thing that lasts for way too long for no real reason (and with nothing else written for them to interrupt their screwed-up behavior to show that they're, you know, still likeable characters on some level). So it's not really the character writing that's been good the last two seasons, I guess. What it is is characters that you like (or at least previously liked) performing fast, witty, and well-directed and edited dialogue that's fun to watch for the most part. All the things that are actually moving the story forward, and the reasons for characters behaving the way they do, have become tired, predictable, and contrived...and the action scenes that all feel so rote and repetitive. ...Oh gosh, now that I put it into words, I'm basically describing a Marvel movie. No wonder I'm having so much trouble with it. I think RedLetterMedia was right when they said were excited to see what was planned for season 2...and then we immediately learned that they had no ideas left for either characters or story and no plan on what to do next and that it probably should've stayed a one-off show.

@KaineParker

 

Some of what I wrote above applies to what you said as well.

I thought what the kids proposed about the Mind Flayer being a cut-off remnant that's stuck in the real world that can't get back home could've been pretty neat. Instead, it was, "Oh, a gate is open again, and nothing anybody does or did that doesn't have to do with closing the gate matters again, and of course we're going to make a big deal of Eleven temporarily losing her powers like it matters when it clearly won't. ...Also, the Mind Flayer doesn't actually care about anything, including surviving really, and seems to have no plans or ideas and just wants revenge because whatever, I guess." Bah. The more I think about things, the more annoyed I am.

Edited July 10, 2019 by Bartimaeus

[Agiel]

22 hours ago, Lexx said:

To me it felt like we've only seen half of a season. There have been too many things left unanswered - like, how did all the russians suddenly disappear from the facility. The green stuff, the ending scene, etc.

 

But yeah, I too wouldn't mind if they won't keep dragging it on for too much longer, because it already kinda started loosing its appeal in s2.

I actually had a theory that the Soviets had managed to use the Upside-Down as a Xen-from-Half-Life borderworld for teleportation (i.e. take a portal into the Upside Down, walk a few meters to another portal there and it would take you to some other far-off place in our world). Perhaps they had used this as their escape route for when the US military started knocking down their door, and Hop managed to take it, and that's how he (potentially) wound up in a Soviet gulag.

[Gorgon]

The product placement is atrocious, it's actually ruining scenes. They sacrificed everything for marketability. What's left is still pretty good I guess, but could have been much better.  

[Hurlshort]

19 hours ago, Lexx said:

Anyway. Tried to watch the latest Hellboy. Stopped not even halfway in, because it's... bad. It looks bad, the scene compositions are bad, the music is bad... Funny, you can kinda tell a bad movie now just from checking if Milla Jovovich is somehow in it.

How dare you sir, Milla Jovovich is a legend!  

To be fair, she is a B-movie queen. She is amazing and can often make a bad movie watchable, but she hasn't fallen from some upper echelon of acting like Sir Ben KIngsley. She's the female Bruce Campbell.

[Gorgon]

God those Resident Evil movies are terrible. Besides, there is no Gullermo del Torro and no Ron Pearlman. 

Ron Pearlman, now that's a B movie queen worth your time. 

 

[Lexx]

I, too, have the hots for Milla Jovovich, but take a look at the movies she worked on in the past years and you'll see that it is all garbage.

Not saying it is because of her performance, but she seems to be a magnet for ****ty movies.

[rjshae]

n/m

Edited July 10, 2019 by rjshae

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, Gorgon said:

God those Resident Evil movies are terrible. Besides, there is no Gullermo del Torro and no Ron Pearlman. 

Ron Pearlman, now that's a B movie queen worth your time. 

 

I kind of feel like Perlman has moved out of B-movie territory. I mean, he headlined a successful TV show and he's had a ton of voice work on major projects. Sure, he's still a bit campy when he gets a good bit part, but he's no Bruce Campbell.

[Gorgon]

Well, yes. I guess the point is that Mila isn't good - bad anymore, just plain bad. 

Her M/O, or her husband's really, is getting an IP and then spending no effort knocking out 10 sequels. 

 

[Lexx]

So I checked out The Dragon Prince, because Avatar and... it's actually pretty good. Made it to episode 7. Will continue tomorrow.