The TV and Streaming Thread: US Writers/Actors Strike Edition

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

It makes sense in the context of prior established lore, as Darth Sidious was Darth Plagueis' apprentice, and it was established in canon that Plagueis found a way to immortality, and Star Wars quite clearly has viable cloning technology, so bringing back Palpatine makes sense in the setting's established rules. It is still a poor choice as it both shows creative bankruptcy worse than having a second Death Star in Return of the Jedi and it retroactively makes Anakin's sacrifice meaningless.

To be fair to Jar Jar Abrams though, what else could they have done after Rian Johnson killed off the main antagonist in the second movie of a trilogy without any thought as to what to do afterwards? It was a little too late to set up a new villain and Kylo Ren would have made an even poorer one. Alas

Admittedly I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy, but I took the Darth Plagueis story to be more of Palpatine trying to trick Anakin into falling by tempting him with something, especially because his promise went unfulfilled. And Star Wars cloning doesn't seem to replicate the person so much as create a biological copy of them, while Return of the Jedi: Abrams version had it definitely as Palpatine himself, not Palpatine's body double.

But really it was just a bad move for the reasons you've already mentioned. It's clear that the only plan for the sequel trilogy was to try and print money off the brand name and that the trilogy was greenlit without even an outline which is questionable storytelling but apparently good bizness.

Moreover, the obvious answer would be to have just introduced Abeloth. I think we can all say 2 hours of Star Wars Cthullu would have been better than what actually happened.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Admittedly I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy, but I took the Darth Plagueis story to be more of Palpatine trying to trick Anakin into falling by tempting him with something, especially because his promise went unfulfilled. And Star Wars cloning doesn't seem to replicate the person so much as create a biological copy of them, while Return of the Jedi: Abrams version had it definitely as Palpatine himself, not Palpatine's body double.

At the risk of defending Abrams a bit more than is really warranted* 'somehow Palpatine returned' as done in RoS does actually have prior precedent in the SW universe, to whit Dark Empire (1992 comic). Palpatine's return there is near identical to the one in RoS, ie somehow his 'essence' takes over a clone, and there are several other similarities too. Indeed that comic has had quite a lot of elements from it adapted into Disney canon in general (I think Boba Fett's survival as shown in the Disney TV series is first shown in DE, but I'm not 100% certain of it and can't be bothered checking; also fairly sure it was one of the few comics it's known that George Lucas actually read).

*especially since it means he's even more derivative than TFA made him look in the first place

Edited March 7 by Zoraptor

[Gfted1]

 

[kanisatha]

Does anyone here still watch network TV? If so, any thoughts on the new CBS drama Tracker? It's my favorite new show (well, my *only* new show). I'm quite amazed there is even one new drama on TV these days that has me so hooked.

[Hurlshort]

What is network TV? Is that a new streaming service?

[rjshae]

Started watching Extraordinary on Hulu. It's effing hilarious. British humour. Rated MA.

[majestic]

21 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

That's the crucial difference with most other instances of bad writing; Abrams got written into a corner by someone else, not himself, and had to make the best of a bad situation. It's doubtful even a genuinely good writer (which Abrams is far from, though he certainly isn't awful either) could have extricated themselves from that situation seamlessly. Ultimately not even Johnson's fault, that blame lies with the extraordinarily slack supervision/ oversight/ planning of LucasArts/ Disney with respect to their billion dollar franchise.

In contrast many other much derided examples of bad writing were entirely the writers' fault. Classic example probably being Euron's infamous dragon ambush in GoT S8 even more so than Dany going bonkers because of bells or Charles Xavier becoming king. Made no sense, required Dany to be a drooling moron who'd forgotten about the Iron Fleet (despite them being mentioned two? episodes earlier), needed her and her dragons to be blind and not notice an entire fleet and used a deus ex machina laser designated ballista which was ineffective both later and earlier in the series. At least Captain Cold and his javelin (and Palpatine, as mentioned) were supernatural.

Strange 180° turn by Disney. The Force Awakens was playing it safe to the point of being derided as a remake of A New Hope, while The Last Jedi basically threw everything out. It killed the past, as Kylo put it in the movie. Certainly a lack of planning of everyone involved in that mess.

 I already repressed most of the mess that the final Game of Thrones season was. There is also the scene where Arya kills the Night King, after several seasons of building up the confrontation between Jon Snow and the Night King.

20 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Moreover, the obvious answer would be to have just introduced Abeloth. I think we can all say 2 hours of Star Wars Cthullu would have been better than what actually happened.

The New Jedi Order novels and following stories were too bleak for many a Star Wars fan. It is easy to see why, it saw captured refugee ships crashed into planetary shields (that novel in particular had great timing, it was released shortly before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center), wars on a scale not yet seen before that killed billions, an alien civilization into self-mutilation and tortue, an insect civilization absorbing people into their collective conscious, the (sexual) torture of an underaged girl and the deaths of many a beloved character, including Chewbacca, almost all of Han and Leia's children as well as Luke's wife.

And all that is before we come to the events with Abeloth where the Jedi order is basically persecuted by the restructured New Republic, now lead by a former Imperial hardliner and Luke and his son are exiled because the Jedi order is (not so wrongfully, when you think about it) accused of causing a devastating civil war, and a Cthulhuesque Dark Side entity lays waste to Coruscant.

I mean, yeah, you are not wrong, all of that would still have been better than what Disney came up with, but surely you can see why Disney would be somewhat loathe to adapt that material into their newly acquired cash cow franchise aimed at selling merchandise to children.

Edited March 7 by majestic

[Sarex]

The Gentlemen netflix series. If you like Guy Ritchie movies, you will love the series. At some point he will have to do some different though...then again maybe not.

[LadyCrimson]

9 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

( Fallout series trailer)

Is it just me, or does this make it look like a comedy? I mean there's funny stuff in FO's, sure, but ...
That said, Walton Goggins is the main reason I might try the show. That and it's on Prime, which I have.

[LadyCrimson]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:33 AM, Gorgon said:

I rotate streaming services and grab a month about once every quarter.  There is no enough decent programming on to justify a month on month subscription to anything imho.

That only works if you're the sort who remembers you've subbed to something so you can unsub (in time), which I often am not. Plus I'm still old school enough I like my TV to always be there at a drop of a whim vs. feeling time-pressured to watch something in a short time-window. Hence Netflix as the main stay, Prime because it comes with Prime, HBO (which I may cancel soon if I can remember to), and my Viki/kdrama site. Nothing else has even a month's worth of stuff to make it worth even trying, so far. Also:

---Services should make it as easy to unsub in the same fashion/main viewing menus as it is to sub. None of that "go to this totally separate page/site, login, sift through menus, are you sure".
---I will bet you $10 that within 5-10 years most of them will introduce some kind of mandatory 3 month sub policy (1st month free, but 2 month mandatory) with an early cancellation fee to try and stop the sub/unsub habit. Or some kind of re-sub fee. Or....   ... if "most of them" haven't given up and disappeared, anyway.  Edit: or merged/bought out, leaving 4-5 main "streaming networks" w/very few separate "small" ones.

Edited March 8 by LadyCrimson

[ShadySands]

Watched Mulan and Damsel. Mulan was first up because we do a movie night with my son most Saturdays, last week was as Moana, which he enjoyed. My wife had never seen Mulan either and both her and my son ended up loving it. After the kids went to bed we watched Damsel and some stand-up that I don't remember anything about. I had fun with Damsel and the standup made me chuckle at the marriage stuff but I can't remember the name of the guy for some reason.

E: it was Steve Trevino. I can recommend him to any married folks easily but not sure if it'll land as well for single folks.

 

Edited March 18 by ShadySands

[Amentep]

 

[Lexx]

Hehe they gave that one black guy the one hairstyle that every black guy has nowadays.

Also is there a tl;dr about this Acolyte thing? Saw the trailer but still no clue what exactly this is about. Curious if this will be yet another garbage Star Wars show or if it goes more into the Andor direction, which was good despite of Star Wars and not because of it.

Edited March 19 by Lexx

[Hurlshort]

18 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Hehe they gave that one black guy the one hairstyle that every black guy has nowadays.

Also is there a tl;dr about this Acolyte thing? Saw the trailer but still no clue what exactly this is about. Curious if this will be yet another garbage Star Wars show or if it goes more into the Andor direction, which was good despite of Star Wars and not because of it.

There are going to be lightsabers, so I wouldn't expect Andor. Probably more in line with Ahsoka, which I haven't watched yet. I assume it is about an acolyte.

[Malcador]

Maybe it'll be True Detective :  Old Republic.

[Amentep]

I understand it's set 100 years before THE PHANTOM MENACE and involves a former Palawan forced to team with their previous Jedi Master to investigate a series of mysterious crimes.

[Raithe]

The consistent rumour is that the Acolyte is actually going to be the journey of  someone into becoming the Sith Apprentice, and how the Sith do that  infiltration of the Republic and setting up dominoes for Palpatine in the future. So Ashoka with more intrigue and potential grey Andor style behaviour.

But, eh, who knows exactly how they'll play it.

[Lexx]

Watched ep1 of Ashoka yesterday... I thought it was terrible. Don't think I will watch more than that, unless someone tells me it will get a lot better.

[Raithe]

7 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Watched ep1 of Ashoka yesterday... I thought it was terrible. Don't think I will watch more than that, unless someone tells me it will get a lot better.

It has ups and downs. It runs more into Season 5 of Rebels as it pulls back most of that crew in one form or another.  And you do get a fairly nice performance from Thrawn, but not until the last couple of episodes of the season.

Edit: Also, Ray Stevenson has a standout performance in it as it goes. Which since it's his final performance, adds a certain emotion to watching it.

Edited March 21 by Raithe

[InsaneCommander]

 

[LadyCrimson]

Streets of San Francisco, Pilot episode

Good old fashioned crime show. I've seen it and a smattering of other episodes of it before, I'd guess in syndication while in grade school, but it was a bit before my time in terms of "following" it every week to see every episode. Think I'll try (slowly) working my way through the first season.

[rjshae]

On 3/7/2024 at 4:53 PM, LadyCrimson said:

Is it just me, or does this make it look like a comedy? I mean there's funny stuff in FO's, sure, but ...
That said, Walton Goggins is the main reason I might try the show. That and it's on Prime, which I have.

The Fallout setting seems to be on the satirical side. Plus a little humor doesn't hurt, even in a post-apocalyptic setting. Just look at the first few Terminator movies.

[rjshae]

On 3/21/2024 at 1:11 AM, Raithe said:

It has ups and downs. It runs more into Season 5 of Rebels as it pulls back most of that crew in one form or another.  And you do get a fairly nice performance from Thrawn, but not until the last couple of episodes of the season.

Edit: Also, Ray Stevenson has a standout performance in it as it goes. Which since it's his final performance, adds a certain emotion to watching it.

Yeah, you pretty much need to binge the Rebels series first just for the character development. I've been catching up on the new Bad Batch episodes and it seems like the series has taken a much darker turn (and not just from all the night scenes). But the graphics are quite nice for an animated show.

[melkathi]

On 3/21/2024 at 10:04 AM, Lexx said:

Watched ep1 of Ashoka yesterday... I thought it was terrible. Don't think I will watch more than that, unless someone tells me it will get a lot better.

You lasted the whole episode?

I couldn't. I am weak

It was my last attempt at watching anything Starwars. 

[ShadySands]

You might like Andor as I've heard it's a genuinely good show as opposed to a good for a Star Wars show. I have no interest because no laser swords and space magic but that's what I've heard.