The TV and Streaming Thread: Summer Reruns

[InsaneCommander]

The Orville 3.9

Second last episode, so everything is a spoiler.
 

Spoiler

Well, now The Orville is not only a better Star Trek, if you consider what is made these days, but also a better Star Wars. Plenty of similarities and with an episode almost as long as a movie, this episode looked like a Star Wars movie.

I loved seeing Issac being called weak, just like he always calls biologicals inferior.

Despite being one of the best episodes in the entire series, I think this time there were too many obvious mistakes: they sent both the weapon's creators and only people who could use it to Kaylon. What if something unexpected happened? Even if the Kaylons were invading, I think it would be better to wait a little longer and make a copy, train more people or at least have someone working on those things, despite any damage the Kaylons did in the meantime. They should also have sent another ship with the Orville, just in case. But anyway, maybe they didn't want to show all the reasons for their choices.

But after making the deal there were more mistakes. If the weapon is used for deterrence, then it is just like a nuke: you don't keep it at home, put it in a "submarine". Keep it cloaked or in a non specified ship. And taking it to the Krill/Moclan? The admiral probably thought it was absolutely necessary, but first of all, it was obvious they were gonna kill him (he probably knew that and accepted the risk though), but it was also quite the gamble. What if the Kaylons were spying on them? That would be the perfect moment to attack. The weapon would be unusable for a while and once that changed, the Kaylons would be dead for sure. Still, I bet they would have found a way to neutralise it eventually.

In the end, Burke's sacrifice was a nice conclusion for the character and a good enough reason for the Kaylons to change their mind.

With four factions rearranged, I guess there is time for the fifth one to appear next week.

 

[uuuhhii]

hour long episode of orville season 3 are pretty impressive but also seems unlikely to continue into the next season

far too star war now

[Amentep]

Old thread:

 

Also:

 

 

 

 

[Gfted1]

‘The Flash’ TV Show Ending With Shorter Season 9 on The CW – The Hollywood Reporter

Bummer. Its shows not good, but its not bad either.

[ShadySands]

Morbius and Vemon 2: The Venoming. Morbius was as bad or worse as I've heard and I dunno if boring is the right word but I just could be bothered. Let There Be Carnage was also not a good movie but it was fun and I really enjoyed it. Just try not to think about it too much because it's almost as stupid as Morbius. Almost.

[LadyCrimson]

Terminal List (Amazon Prime) - first two episodes (out of six I think? maybe 8?). Military conspiracy and murder and stuff.

Seems like many critics think it's not that great.
Seems like many netizens think it's the current kewl 'net series.

I'm going to agree with the critics. Not watching the rest.
Even Chris Pratt was boring - his chr. feels flat and lifeless even when shouting and dispatching enemies with that TV "I'm an angry SEAL" action. Also, felt like an unreliable narrator type, but maybe that's just a big red herring among all the conspiracy stuff. The pacing feels off and the logic even within the paranoia plot was (at least initially) absurd.

Edited August 3, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

I made it to ep3 of Terminal List. I kinda want to keep watching it, but at the same time, I can't see ****. Even in bright daylight scenes, everything has a dark haze over it. I'll have to close all the window shutters to be able to see anything, and I just can't really be arsed to do this. This is probably the darkest tv show I have seen to date. Might as well treat it as an audio book.

[uuuhhii]

watched first episode of terminal list

so confused by what is going on

dark blue filter are good in some scene but feels lazy in other

[LadyCrimson]

It does have a dimmer/darker palette then some but it was fine on the oled/ps4. But I do watch in a very dimly lit room w/black curtains since I'm a vampire.   The oled would be horrible with window reflections for sure, if I preferred sunlit rooms.

Maybe it all makes more sense/gets a bit more interesting later but...can't make myself care.

[LadyCrimson]

The Adam Project - some Ryan Reynolds vehicle I've had in the Watch List for a while and finally wanted it out of my watch list.

Even tho it's a light sci-fi/fantasy vs. big loud action movie, this sorta reminded me of Last Action Hero for some reason. Maybe the male child actor brought the other male child actor to mind. At any rate, nothing special, but tolerable if you're in the mood for something mindless but teenage action fluffy. Zoe Saldana was probably the best thing in the movie, but sadly she wasn't in it for long.

[InsaneCommander]

The Orville 3.10

Not my favorite episode this season, but still a good one.

Spoiler

Nice to see the explanation of how currency works in a society like the Union or the Federation from Star Trek. Some people think it is a utopia with "no money", but it is just people with different motivations and aspirations.

 

[kirottu]

This was a horrible episode of Orville and horrible ending to a horrible season, all kidding aside.

Now we can finally get back to watch actually great scifi like Discovery and Picard, all kidding aside.

[LadyCrimson]

@Lexx

Title should have been "Why Films Are Way Too Dark"

....although if you want some more serious reasons for underexposure in film/tv, this video talks about it. I've noticed a trend re: color/lighting on skintones/faces in particular, any budget, even in daytime scenes, which I always figured was at least partially because of too many potential viewing setups (theaters, PC monitors, TV's, dark rooms, light rooms, HDR or no HDR) to try to account for in post (kind of like audio). (edit: ofc it's always more complicated then one thinks...)

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Sarex]

Sandman first two episodes and the beginning of the third. They mostly stayed true to the comic and the visual are topnotch. So far so good.

[InsaneCommander]

5 hours ago, Sarex said:

Sandman first two episodes and the beginning of the third. They mostly stayed true to the comic and the visual are topnotch. So far so good.

Did they realease all episodes today?

[Sarex]

30 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Did they realease all episodes today?

Yes.

[Sarex]

Episode 3 of Sandman. Hmmm, guess they needed to make cuts on some things.

Spoiler

I can get over Constantine being a girl, the actor is pretty good even, but they completely missed the mark on Lucifer.

 

[LadyCrimson]

Carter on Netflix - all I saw was actor Joo Won's name, who was the lead in a few very-liked but not-quite-favorite K-drama's of mine. Wow he has changed style/acting persona for this movie, I almost couldn't recognize him. The movie itself is kind of a hot mess tho. Very stylistic violence/action, with one of those "mostly but not really one shot/take" conceits. Creates a very kinetic/wild cinematography style. But outside of that, rather dumb/predictable with no real core. And all the actors/scenes with the "CIA"/Eng. speaking chrs is not great, as is often typical with S. Korean fare. But if you like crazy excessively violent choreography/stunts...myself I'll hope he goes back into a k-drama.

The Sandman - 2.5 episodes - hm. Something about the cinematography style I don't like that much. Too much ... vignette/outer edging blur? slight elongated pinching/distortion of perspective? I don't mind it when it's, say, a raven's eyesight perspective or an actual dream sequence for a surreal/alternate effect but it's used almost constantly, although sometimes it's very subtle. Anyway, that's tech/artistic decision nitpicking and some may not even notice it. The story itself - haven't read the graphic novel and the first episode is a little confusing and bland. 2nd episode was a little better, and the third episode looks like it's finally "getting to a point" and becoming more interesting.

...or maybe I just like the newly introduced characters by then, more than the previous ones, or the so far really boring/silent/stoic lead. In short, I do find it somewhat bingeable and it *is* intriguing. But as someone who doesn't know the story already, once again there so far is little reason to feel attached to anything/anyone, yet. So it's mostly just admiration for some of the world building. Feels more concept than story.

Edited August 6, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

Postscript:

I seem to use the word "detachment" a lot lately. I think my sense of detachment from a lot of tv/film these days is the massive overuse of green screen effect. I mean, even if it's good green screen, it still doesn't feel like actors reacting to actors or real environments... because often it isn't. Not just in fantasy either- scenery/buildings/cars/ppl in more mundane looking fare often isn't there either, especially in movies. I think even if my eyes are wowed, my brain senses it's not actually "live interaction" (aka, more like filming a stage play) so it has no weight or sense of grounding and the brain switches to analytical mode by default vs. immersed in a plot/world/chrs mode.

It does make one admire the actors themselves, for being able to (sometimes) perform so well despite having to act against only a green screen "box" or maybe talking to/dancing with a stick, that they'll replace later in post editing. >.> 

Edited August 6, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Sarex]

Finished s1 of Sandman. It ended pretty much where I thought it would and over all the story was pretty faithful, at least as much as it can be in a different medium. The only negative opinion I have is that some characters didn't hit the mark, notably one.

[Lexx]

On 8/5/2022 at 2:28 AM, InsaneCommander said:

The Orville 3.10

Not my favorite episode this season, but still a good one.

  Hide contents

Nice to see the explanation of how currency works in a society like the Union or the Federation from Star Trek. Some people think it is a utopia with "no money", but it is just people with different motivations and aspirations.

 

Funny, hadn't seen the latest episode yet, but I was just thinking about this today while biking. Would a post-scarcity society really be like Star Trek? I don't feel like it would. If material needs are gone, and you can have whatever you want at any time ... I do not believe that humans will be happy with that. We either become high on apathy, or people will get bored and start doing anything to get entertained. There's lots of evil that can be done, just for fun. Other than that, of course some people will want to become powerful instead. They will want to have control over other people in whatever way. I'm really not sure if we would be able to overcome such things.

I like to think that humans would philosophically evolve to "trying to better themselves" instead of following materials needs ... but guess I have too little faith in that.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Lexx

[InsaneCommander]

21 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Funny, hadn't seen the latest episode yet, but I was just thinking about this today while biking. Would a post-scarcity society really be like Star Trek? I don't feel like it would. If material needs are gone, and you can have whatever you want at any time ... I do not believe that humans will be happy with that. We either become high on apathy, or people will get bored and start doing anything to get entertained. There's lots of evil that can be done, just for fun. Other than that, of course some people will want to become powerful instead. They will want to have control over other people in whatever way. I'm really not sure if we would be able to overcome such things.

I like to think that humans would philosophically evolve to "trying to better themselves" instead of following materials needs ... but guess I have too little faith in that.

If you are thinking about these things, you will find part of this episode very interesting. It's not the main plot in it though. The discussion I mentioned is just in one scene, so it is not really a spoiler. They say their currency is reputation and that is what can get you things in this society. The question here is, what do they want? Definitely not material wealth or ostentation.

The part about getting bored is not in the episode, but it is related to purpose and the top of Maslow's pyramid:

The best case scenario is: people do want to get powerful and control others, but they do it by becoming starship captains, chief engineers and so on. The worst case would probably be the evil you mentioned, maybe doing experiments with underdeveloped societies and who knows what. Reminds me of the Stargate Atlantis episode when they found a video game that was actually influencing real people, divided in two opposing factions.

 

[kirottu]

Finally got around to watch Umbrella Academy season 3 and I have to say it is my favourite Umbrella season so far.

[uuuhhii]

5 hours ago, kirottu said:

Finally got around to watch Umbrella Academy season 3 and I have to say it is my favourite Umbrella season so far.

always like the waiting for world to inevitably end type of story

remember a movie about comet destroy earth was pretty interesting

[LadyCrimson]

The Sandman - went to 5.5 episodes. For some reason I keep turning it off mid-episode v.s end of an episode, heh

I like/d the crow, Lucifer (that was a good sequence, or at least, "fun"), and the exorcism woman (whatever her name is).  Still find the main lead dull (and he's not my handsome type so there's not even that, hahah), although I can see he's supposed to get a little growth moment here and there.

I wonder if Netflix will actually film all three seasons or cancel it. I think the show (for people who don't know the story/comic) can intrigue and grow on you some but many may not stick around past 1-2 episodes to discover that. Not sure what metric Netflix uses to determine whether they think it's worth continuing a series.

Edited August 6, 2022 by LadyCrimson