I do like the show, but it's not Star Trek. If this was just a new sci-fi show that existed in its own universe, it would be incredible. However, the fact that they've tried to pass this off as Star Trek when it's clearly not sullies the experience.
If it wasn't already apparent, Paramount and CBS have no idea what made Star Trek great, and don't care either. The simple explanation is that the world of Star Trek is supposed to be optimistic; this is pessimistic. And I do enjoy pessimistic sci-fi, but there's so much of it, and to see one of the few optimistic sci-fi worlds turned into something pessimistic is a shame.
Fortunately, we now have The Orville, which is doing Star Trek better than anything has since Voyager ended in 2001.
The show is supposed to take place between Enterprise and TOS, but the technology is very different. For example, there are holograms everywhere. Why try to do a prequel again? Why not set this after Voyager? That would make a lot more sense, and they'd be able to add whatever technology they like, and not be constrained by existing continuity. Fortunately, it's not too late for the showrunners to say "hey, we made a mistake, this actually takes place X years after Voyager".
Last, they fucked up the Klingons. For almost 25 years, they had the look of the Klingons figured out perfectly. They're iconic. But this show (and the reboot movies) messed them up and made them look like generic sci-fi bad guys. What happened to their hair and beards? Also, the costumes are ridiculous, and their ship interiors look like they're made of coral. I do like the idea of having an albino Klingon though.
And I applaud their desire to use the Klingon language on the show, but it's pretty annoying having every Klingon scene subtitled. The previous shows used a common sci-fi conceit: the actors speak a language that the audience understands, but it's accepted that they're really speaking a different language. The viewer effectively has a universal translator so they can understand what's being said.
Also, it looks nothing like Star Trek. Once again, The Orville got that right, and this didn't.
All of that said, I do like the show. The characters are interesting (especially Doug Jones), I've enjoyed each episode, and I think the storyline is pretty interesting. But goddamn it, why did they have to try to make this Star Trek when it's not?
This is the most fucked up show I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. Highly recommended.
The tree vision has me worried. I really hope the show doesn't start dealing with mystical nonsense.
The episode was pretty enjoyable, but...this may have been the worst dialog I've ever heard on television. There wasn't a second of it that flowed naturally. The actors did their best, but you can't spin garbage into gold.
Pretty good, though it meanders a bit.
I highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the Manson Family and the Tate murders, if you're not already, to give you a better idea of what's going on in the world around the characters.
I expect this to receive several Oscar nominations, if for no other reason than its portrayal of Hollywood, and there's nothing the Academy loves more than itself. :laughing:
I really like how you never find out if the guy in the third part actually killed the person he was executed for or not. It forces you to sympathize with someone who may be a murderer. That's the one thing that I didn't like about Shawshank Redemption: they eventually tell you that Andy didn't kill his wife. I feel like the ambiguity is more powerful, and forces you to remember that even the worst people are still people.
An entertaining but otherwise forgettable middle-of-the-road comedy that's saved by a really enjoyable cast.
That's an interesting way to bring an actor back to the show. However, if the shapeshifter is going to be a "permanent" addition, I'd rather see the punk woman back as her primary form.
This was a lot like a Star Trek filler episode. We've seen it many times: a character hallucinates or gets transported to a parallel timeline or is trapped on the Holodeck or whatever. All the major cast members show up in different roles with somewhat different personalities. Those were usually decent episodes - and this one is too - but they never really advanced the story either.
So yeah, this one was fine, but most of it was skippable. If you were really pressed for time you could remove the entire hallucination plot up until Layton wakes up in the bunker in Korea and you basically wouldn't miss anything that had any bearing on the show's plot.
And speaking of the Korea sequence, I'm glad that they resolved an issue that has been bugging me all season. When Layton had his vision of the tree, I was afraid that the show was going to start veering into mysticism and add some sort of element of divine guidance. Fortunately, this episode squashed that like a bug by having Layton realize that the "vision" was just a photo in the bunker that he didn't remember seeing.
I really wanted to like it more than I did. It was enjoyable enough to hold my attention throughout, but...god what a mess. The characters were great (even though some of them were pretty unlike their comic counterparts), the actors did pretty well considering the material they were working with, but the story was pretty bad and hopped all over the place. The whole thing felt like a clash between Zack Snyder's grimdark vision and Joss Whedon's upbeat, fun-filled vision. (Side note: I think Snyder is done with these movies now, which is definitely for the best. He just doesn't understand what makes the DC universe so special.)
There were some pleasant surprises from time to time too, and I absolutely loved seeing a Green Lantern fighting alongside the ancient Amazons and Atlanteans, and Mera fighting Steppenwolf.
C'mon, WB. You've gotta do better than this. Stop trying to shove DC into a Marvel-shaped hole. The DC universe is supposed to be fun and inspirational and hopeful. This was a step in the right direction from Batman vs. Superman, but you've gotta take a few more steps to really get it right.
It's funny how the flashbacks and stuff from the JLA days seem like they took place in the 1950s, but it actually would've been the 1990s. It wasn't that long ago!
One of the better DC animated movies lately, and one that actually takes a risk and tries something new. Although truth be told, you could take Batman out of this movie entirely and it would still work. When he finally appears in costume, it's actually quite laughable.
It's a movie that relies heavily on martial arts, so fortunately the animation is quite good during the fight scenes. The characters move realistically and fluidly, for the most part. It doesn't seem like they skimped on the animation budget this time around.
The new Tick costume looks great. I'm glad they got rid of those weird shell bits. (Those were taking the idea of a tick a bit too literally.)
Not great. I enjoyed seeing all the stuff from the comics, but the story just felt like a lot of chunks without much connecting them, and the direction was pretty flat and somewhat amateurish. A huge part of the story was just told to you, rather than shown. I get the feeling that this would be nearly incomprehensible to people who haven't read the comics.
All that said, I really hope this does well, because I want more. David Harbour was a great choice for Hellboy.
I'm not really sure what the message of this one was. Anti-GMO? Pro-GMO? Confused?
Pretty good, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but this is more of a 7 or 8 while the comic is a 10. The whole time I felt like they took the original story and sanded off all the edges because they were afraid that people couldn't handle some of the darker or more thought-provoking moments.
It was cool that we finally got to see how the turbolifts work. However...how much empty space do they have inside the ship? Holy smokes. Seems like whoever designed that sequence forgot that these starships are supposed to be built like submarines.
So far, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying this show. There's certainly some CW-style drama, but it's not as trite and repetitive as it is in Arrow and Flash (yet).
Luke Wilson is always fun to watch, even though he sometimes lacks the gravitas needed for certain scenes. And Brec Bassinger is adorable and a perfect choice for Stargirl.
A lot of the high school stuff seems anachronistic, but maybe that's intentional. The whole show seems like it could take place in the 1960s if they removed phones from the scripts.
Not a great start, but we'll see where it goes. I'm not too thrilled about who the big villain is going to be for (part of?) the season, but I really like the actor, so hopefully he can do something interesting with the part.
This is season 6. Where the hell are the Rogues? I know most of them have appeared separately (or at best, we've had 3 at once) but we really need to see a full team in action, whoever is on it.
Also, I'm really looking forward to the Crisis.
It starts out as a pretty enjoyable dark comedy, but it strays too far into serious horror and loses a lot of what was appealing about it at the start. It has a great ensemble of characters, but they don't get nearly enough time to shine, and they mostly take a back seat to a semi-unstoppable butler(?) who seems to enter the movie out of nowhere. Also, there's some VERY unnecessary gore in the middle that's really out of place.
Is it worth your time? Probably not. Watch the trailer for all the best parts, and then watch Cabin in the Woods if you haven't already.
I had no intention of seeing this, but my sister really wanted to see it, so I acquiesced. I've never seen any of the other Purge movies, though I have seen that Purge episode of Rick & Morty.
And I've gotta say, I thought this was pretty good. It conveyed a pretty important political message, but did so without being too heavy-handed and preachy. The characters were kinda dull but likeable enough, especially Y'lan Noel, who I hope we see a lot more of in the future.
This was a pretty good episode, although I'm a little disappointed that everything got wrapped up perfectly by the inclusion of the Human Target, who I had completely forgotten about as a character.
Also, this is the second time (or maybe more) this season that they've brought back a character from Season 1 that I wish had stuck around. I wish that really was Tommy, and that he had somehow come back to life. (Lazarus pit, alternate universe, clone, whatever.) The other was Roy, who I really wish had come back to the team, but I guess he's pretty much gone for good now. I feel sorry for those two actors, who keep getting bit parts on a show they used to play major characters on.
Why does DeVoe in Izzy's body continue to speak with her accent? (The actress is from Canada, so it's not like the accent wasn't fake anyway.)
Also, I wish they would stop using the tired "what is that in English?" trope every time anyone explains a scientific concept.
I really enjoyed it. The world they build is so believable and layered that they could make dozens more movies. The filmmaking and storytelling are top-notch, though it is a bit slow. They probably could've cut half an hour from it with no problem. All in all, a very worthy sequel that improves on the original in pretty much every way.
Truth be told, it's pretty slow. It feels like they could cut about half an hour out of it and it'd be pretty decent. Not great - the story is pretty barebones and quite generic - but decent.
I do like the art style quite a bit (I love thick linework) so I hope they make more that look like this.
It's interesting that, at the end, Batman deliberately kills two people. You don't see that very often.
Last week's episode was pretty good, but the dialog was abysmal, even for Star Wars. This episode was even better, but it was clear from the start that whoever directed it is much better at directing dialog scenes. Sure enough: Taika Waititi. Of course. I don't want to criticize last week's director (Deborah Chow) too much though, because she otherwise did a good job. Sometimes things just don't come together for whatever the reason.
I enjoyed it, and I liked the characters much more than I have in the previous two movies, but overall this was a mess. It felt like a reactionary movie that's trying to "fix" things, rather than one with a clear goal in mind. As a result, they shoved way too much stuff into a it, and most of the story points didn't have a chance to breathe long enough for you to care what was happening. It would've been pretty good as 2-3 movies. Also, Palpatine and his massive hidden armada were ridiculous.
You'd think the largest media empire on earth could afford to plan out their goals for the largest franchise on earth a little better.
I was a big fan of the original Star Wars universe, which is full of great stories in books, comics, and video games. So why don't they just adapt those? Put Rey, Finn, & Poe in them instead of Luke, Leia, & Han.
Jeez, Doctor Light has been hitting the gym! That's a bit of an odd direction, but it seems to work.
I loved the comic this is based on, but this fell far short of it.
The script, art style, and overall "vibe" of the movie suggest that this is meant for kids. That would be fine, and I would judge it as such, except for the fact that there's some weirdly brutal violence (like heads getting cut off and blood being spilled) and even a few swear words, which make this unsuitable for younger kids. So if it's too adult for kids, and it's too juvenile for adults, who was it made for?
As it stands, it's a really basic story that misses everything that made the comic so good. Just skip it.
(It does, however, have very clever and artistic opening and closing credit sequences.)
