The TV and Streaming Thread: Summer Reruns

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, Amentep said:

am thinking the idea o' rosaline is fantastic. am also believing a great concept is gonna be wasted on predictable and pedestrian, ya romcom dreck. 

what a shame... unless am wrong.

HA! Good Fun!

[Sarex]

 

[Zoraptor]

Watched the Cyberpunk anime on Netflix. First anime I've actually completed watching (only other one I can recall watching at all was Attack on Titan? with the giant zombie type things attacking cities? and I haven't seen the final season) and otherwise my entire knowledge of it comes from memes and Barenaked Ladies lyrics. Also, haven't played CDPR's game yet.

One of those series that was almost certainly better than it 'felt', since I got through it pretty quickly. OTOH, 10x27 minute episodes, with pretty much the entirety of 'This Fire' for start credits and ~ 2 minutes of end credits makes for not much more than 20 minutes running time per ep. I can see why its release has got a lot of people back into the game, certainly.
 

Spoiler

Only real problem I had with the plot was Kiwi betraying everyone. Not just because of the name either. Having a character monologue repeatedly about how trusting people is dumb, betray everyone, then walk into perhaps the most obvious trap/ set up/ ambush opportunity in the history of traps while specifically saying she doesn't have a clue why she's doing it was... stretching credulity a bit too far. Actually reminded me of the twist in Bioshock and having it pointed out how you were just following narrative imperative, then you... just followed more narrative imperative. Far better if she'd just left, or decided not to go through with the betrayal in the first place. Then again, Shakespeare gets away scot free from his end story contrivances so I guess I can allow it for anime. Otherwise, the characters were pretty engaging, the central theme was well handled and it had a decent amount of emotional impact, more than I would have thought.

Obviously no real comment on its qualities as an anime, since I have nothing to compare it to. As an animated cartoon it's fine though, pretty good at getting across what is happening, nothing too distracting etc. Perhaps the only exception being the design of the female characters. Lucy/ Rebecca/ Kiwi all look very similar in general design, with one feature to distinguish them (short/ facemask/ no facemask). Maybe cybernetics turns women's hair white? Well no, because the female Arasaka exec didn't have white hair, but it kind of felt like it did. I'm also not overly keen on it being in Japanese, though not enough to try an english dub (if it was available). I'm certainly not fundamentally opposed to captions but... well, something like Squid Game or Kingdom is obviously Korean, it makes sense that everyone speaks Korean. Something like Borgen is obviously Danish, it makes sense that people speak Danish. This gives the impression everyone should be speaking english most of the time, and it's been dubbed into Japanese. Guess that's just anime things. Now, I wait to install C2077 and find out that actually everyone in Night City does speak Japanese so I can feel like an idiot.

Anyway, can't wait to see how the game deals with cyberpsychosis since it's such a big part of the anime's plot!

 

[majestic]

40 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Now, I wait to install C2077 and find out that actually everyone in Night City does speak Japanese so I can feel like an idiot.

Just half the city.

[Sarex]

@Zoraptor Wrong thread. Join us, join us, join us.

[majestic]

Yeah, I can totally see @Zoraptor trying JoJo's or being assaulted with Sailor Moon gifs. That'll be very, ah, convincing.

Or like watching an ecchi parody without any frame of reference!

[InsaneCommander]

Just now, majestic said:

Yeah, I can totally see @Zoraptor trying JoJo's or being assaulted with Sailor Moon gifs. That'll be very, ah, convincing.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Yeah, I can totally see @Zoraptor trying JoJo's or being assaulted with Sailor Moon gifs. That'll be very, ah, convincing.

Or like watching an ecchi parody without any frame of reference!

Watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is better than arguing about the Iraq War for the 10000000000th time. In fact everyone should watch JoJo so we can start communicating solely with memes and Ora repetitions.

[Zoraptor]

The compromise option is obviously an anime about the Iraq War.

I have, at various times, been tempted to watch Sailor Moon. But no so much that I've actually done it.

[InsaneCommander]

10 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

The compromise option is obviously an anime about the Iraq War.

I have, at various times, been tempted to watch Sailor Moon. But no so much that I've actually done it.

Damn it! I was gonna suggest JoJo as the closest thing, but they intentionally avoided Iraq. Is Egypt close enough? You see people fighting in the desert.

Edit: this takes place in 1989, hence the decision to avoid Iran and Iraq.

Edited September 24, 2022 by InsaneCommander

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So JoJo had been the compromise the whole time? Araki you sly genius.

[InsaneCommander]

9 minutes ago, KP From Another World said:

So JoJo had been the compromise the whole time? Araki you sly genius.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

As young as he looks, I'm pretty sure he used the stone mask.

[majestic]

19 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I have, at various times, been tempted to watch Sailor Moon. But no so much that I've actually done it.

As long as it is the 1992 anime either in the original with subtitles or the new Viz dub, everything else is, ah, well... the original English dub is an acquired taste, I guess.

Except season four. The less is said about the creepy rape gang and the pedophile horse, the better.

Would be fun to see the reactions from others as well. Particularily @Hurlshort's, who would probably get himself an aneurysm trying to figure out why @Bartimaeus and I basically hate everything he likes but love Sailor Moon.

edit:

Just realized I actually wanted to post about how boring Rings of Power is, even - or maybe especially - when it tries to be epic. They should also hire someone to revise the dialogue. Everything is basically Star Dreck Picard: Season Two Picard/Q interaction level of cringe. Sigh.

Edited September 24, 2022 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

Just realized I actually wanted to post about how boring Rings of Power is, even - or maybe especially - when it tries to be epic. They should also hire someone to revise the dialogue. Everything is basically Star Dreck Picard: Season Two Picard/Q interaction level of cringe. Sigh.

That is bad. I've been hearing conflicted things about RoP. There doesn't seem to be a consensus about wheter it is better than The Wheel of Time or not. That is enough for me to decide to skip it.

 

27 minutes ago, majestic said:

Would be fun to see the reactions from others as well. Particularily @Hurlshort's, who would probably get himself an aneurysm trying to figure out why @Bartimaeus and I basically hate everything he likes but love Sailor Moon.

I wonder how we can convince them. Maybe we tell them about beach episodes?

Oops, I meant the JoJo version, of course:

[Raithe]

[Hurlshort]

Rings of Power is gorgeous and makes me want to visit New Zealand. The Harfoots migrating while showing the hand drawn map of Middle Earth was very well done.

[Lexx]

Looks interesting. Gonna watch it for sure.

[majestic]

  House of the Dragon.

Yeah, so the real reason they made the Velaryons black wasn't just to create a token black house, but to make sure that even the dumbest morons alive realize that...

Spoiler

Rhaenyra's children aren't Ser Laenor's, but Queen Alicent still points it out regardless, before being telenovela style obvious about who the real father is.

Ser Criston still being around after that stunt he pulled is as weird as I feared it would be. In the source material, killing Joffrey happened during a tournament, where deaths aren't uncommon in Westeros.

 

Silly musings: the Velaryons, at least the male ones, all have dreadlocks. If it is cultural appropriation by caucasians to have dreads because they are a symbol of the civil rights movement, is it okay for a noble house to have dreads, even if they're all played by PoC actors? They're certainly not the ones fighting for civil rights in a medieval/feudal setting while being feudal lords, and it is very unlikely that they ever were.

*snort*

[LadyCrimson]

That Last of Us trailer actually looks ... intriguing. And it's HBO Max, which I actually have. So I guess I will check it out then.

I have never played the game but I watched someone play most of the last half or something (which also led me to read some chr/plot wikis), so while I don't know a bunch of details, I do know the gist of the plot. Could be good, especially if they focus on/do well with the relationship/emotional stuff (vs. just "oh look another apocalypse settings" visuals and enemy action etc). A series would be better for that potential vs. film, so hm. Here's hoping it's not terrible. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Hurlshort]

Is it weird that I have no interest in the GoT prequel? I mean, I read the books. I watched the series. I wasn't even all that bothered by the last season, like so many others. But I have just no interest in it. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for the adult stuff right now. I know it will have boobs and blood, but that isn't always what I'm looking for when I sit down to eat dinner and catch a show.

Rings of Power is good dinnertime cinema.  

[InsaneCommander]

41 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

Is it weird that I have no interest in the GoT prequel?

No, it is not. This is GoT after all. There are boobs, blood and... other stuff. If you go to King's Landing, don't approach the palace windows.

2 hours ago, majestic said:

  House of the Dragon.

Yeah, so the real reason they made the Velaryons black wasn't just to create a token black house, but to make sure that even the dumbest morons alive realize that...

  Hide contents

Rhaenyra's children aren't Ser Laenor's, but Queen Alicent still points it out regardless, before being telenovela style obvious about who the real father is.

Ser Criston still being around after that stunt he pulled is as weird as I feared it would be. In the source material, killing Joffrey happened during a tournament, where deaths aren't uncommon in Westeros.

Regarding the children
 

Spoiler

I know a couple here in Brazil with a man like Laenor, a woman like Rhaenyra and children as white as you see in the show. It's perfectly possible in terms of skin tone. They do have other characteristics that resemble the father, like hair color and type, similar nose and so on. That doesn't happen on the show, so even the Night King in the far north must already know they are bastards.

As for the other comment, yes, like I said in my comment for the previous episode, there were no consequences or explanations for Ser Criston's actions. Maybe Alicent asked Vyseris to pardon him?

My favorite scene was the king naively happy when Rhaenyra proposed the marriage, as if there were no problems between her and the queen. Yay! Now everyone will be happy.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Hurlshort said:

Is it weird that I have no interest in the GoT prequel?

Well first off, what do you consider weird? Because well....

But really, naw. The show isn't really doing anything interesting, it's just more GoT but with a new (and for the most part less interesting) cast. You're gonna have the secks, the violence, the nobles drinking themselves silly, and some monologues.

1 hour ago, Hurlshort said:

Rings of Power is good dinnertime cinema.  

I guess it's good background noise to have on while you're eating.

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, KP From Another World said:

 

I guess it's good background noise to have on while you're eating.

Is that a condemnation, though? Some stuff is captivating and requires your full attention. Breaking Bad is an example of that. It was pretty much edge of your seat viewing. But the stuff I put on in the background is usually pretty comforting. There is something to be said for the holiday movies that you don't need to give your full attention to. 

All of the Middle Earth movies are like that. They set a comforting tone. I suppose Rings of Power is comforting to watch.

[majestic]

5 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

It's perfectly possible in terms of skin tone.

I know - there've been cases of children with dark skin tones born to caucasian couples, and the inverse sometimes happens too, when black couples have perfectly white children. The former is fairly uncommon but happens somewhat regularily here (and in Germany) in areas that where occupied by the US after the second world war. Not hard to guess why.

I just really doubt that was the thing the creative team was going for here.