#but that's cause “something i would never do” is like twice the runtime of the short | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thesharondefenseleague · 3 years

Text

Gonna be polite and rant under a keep reading because this shit is so tiresome.

TL;DR this is Marvel continuing to do what it does worst and getting praised for it because it’s Marvel.

Marvel needs to start hiring actual writers. Actual good fucking writers and storytellers who know what they’re doing. Not people doing tricks because “omg what if we catch our audience off guard wouldn’t that be sick!!!”

Agent Carter season two did the same thing and I hated it then. You cannot. Hope. For a next season.

Fully aware of there being a Cap 4. A movie ≠ a tv show. That’s at least half the runtime.

They had ~5.5 hours of material to have consistent characters and a solid story and didn’t.

Sam’s story wasn’t about Sam finding himself half of the time. It was killing time to the sixth episode.

Bucky was finding himself, but he was giving a tether that episodes one and especially two established that he’s tightly tied to (therapy) with jail time as a consequence. Somehow doesn’t matter after episode two because no more jokes to make there and we remembered that he needs to jet around the other hemisphere.

Karli knew what she wanted and she made the most sense, but her henchmen would flip back and forth about wanting to actually participate and die, which never mattered because they always did it anyway! Why show conflict if there’s zero payoff ever! If they don’t want to die for the cause, say it, don’t show them enthusiastically participating in the next scene as if that didn’t happen.

Isaiah is a good character that did nothing wrong. He deserves a three-part series about him, then Josiah, then Eli.

The Dora Milaje were the smart characters who knew not to trust a N@zi. Love that. But they owed Sam and Bucky nothing. Sam and Bucky are for sure in debt to them.

Sharon.......... you mean you had a N@zi and somehow she still got the villain arc. She’s the only character who plays the rules of the game and actually understood the consequences (she wasn’t wrong to kill Karli, but I hate that Marvel kills off every villain, and she would’ve been a good one to keep, though this could lead to her being a martyr and strengthening the movement), so I’ll give the writers that much. But she literally got shot and the show didn’t care for the next ten minutes. Fuck, Sam didn’t even seem to care. He was too busy giving Karli a Jesus moment. It was literally yadda-yadda’d off. Just the laziest choices. And if EVC isn’t brought back again, I’m doubling down on how stupid this is. For her fans, this is good because they set it up that Sharon has to return. The storyline that they set up needs a resolution, and I’m not liking how it will likely end. If they don’t, and this is where it ends, then fuck this villain choice even harder.

John Walker. He was set up in episode two to be someone who wants to help and works for the greater good, three goes south, four and five he’s the clear villain, and then we go back to episode two John for the finale. He was, up until the last episode, the best written character. Then they ruined it and he became the worst written. Actually second-worst. You know why?

Fuck the Contessa. Walking exposition dump. JLD was phoning in that performance like she was in the high school play and performing for the back row. She shouldn’t have been included. She did nothing for the story except say something kind of racist to John’s wife.

I still don’t like how Lemar died. I still don’t like that he was a prop for John’s story. But it’s true to all Cap stories, that everyone important to you just does whatever you say with no fight and then they’re discarded when the story is over it.

Half of the dialogue was holding the audience’s hand and talking down to them. Explaining everything twice, half of everything Sam or Zemo said was exposition. The first, second, and fifth episodes were so poorly written. Only a Marvel director would let you get away with that level of bad writing. I mean, WV had seven good episodes before it tripped up, but FatWS kept tripping every few steps.

Once again, another Captain America property whose success solely relies on the cast being extremely talented actors and having amazing chemistry.

Get better writers.

~Mod R

#fatws spoilers

16 notes · View notes

crossdressingdeath · 3 years

Note

I never thought much about it tbh, but now that you mentioned how little time passes between Markus deviation and him leading a revolution is really baffling. I think my mind refused to process how little time passed until I read you say it, and I totally agree with you that timeline is insane. I don't think fixing that problem would have been very difficult.(1/3)

Of course the ideal thing would be more game runtime but even without that they could just start the game with Markus and then give a time jump after he meet Jerico, let him be there some months or something like that before introducing Kara and Connor, it would have made him becoming the leader of Jerico more realistic and less rushed. Just that would be fine and if then they streched a little the rest of the timeline even better. (2/3)

Markus story would benefit so much of that streched timeline. Connor and Hank story wouldn't be badly affected by it, they can be there resolving cases for months of needed, that's fine be me (if they could add more runtime giving us some more cases to fill that time would have been great because I'm always ready for more of Connor and Hank). Kara story is the only problem because there is not that much, it fits fine in a week so I really don't know how to strech that one. (3/3)

Yes. I’d prefer... y’know, More Game (DBH isn’t actually all that long in its current form, according to the internet it’s only about ten hours; I can’t remember the last story-based game I played that was less than twice that), but a time skip would be something. And yes to Markus becoming Jericho leader before Kara and Connor’s stories get started, that would just work better. I can’t quite articulate why it would work better, but it would be better. Maybe have his first couple of missions spread out through the time skip, showing him being a major asset within Jericho and taking on a leadership position without us having to not question them deciding this guy they’ve known for like two days is the best choice to lead them. The main benefit for Hank and Connor would be More Hank And Connor honestly, but personally if I was making the game and could give them more time I might actually add some things, for example the option to have Connor trust Hank enough to tell him about Markus being an RK model and investigating that with him (or alone, if Connor doesn’t trust Hank) and as I mentioned earlier maybe showing Connor actually succeeding in some cases without the option of letting the deviant go to make his title of deviant hunter a bit less ironic. Maybe have Connor solving cases during the same period that Markus is slowly becoming Jericho’s leader; it honestly makes more sense for CyberLife to send such a highly advanced model to work with the police if they already have reason to believe that the androids are organizing some sort of resistance, at least to me. (Actually, while we’re talking about Connor, if I was rewriting the story and could make it as long as I deemed necessary I’d show him starting to hesitate and go easier on the deviants in increasing amounts throughout that period if the player chooses, with Ortiz’s android being the last one he has to turn in, maybe even including the option for him to genuinely consider letting him go before Hank or another officer starts coming up to the attic and leaving it unclear whether Connor turns him in at that point due to his programming kicking in or a fear of being found deviant himself, as he does give the impression that that is something he genuinely fears as the story progresses if you consistently choose options pushing towards deviancy; honestly just a bit more focus on Connor slowly going from completing his mission due to his programming to completing his mission due to fear of what will happen to him if he doesn’t to not completing his mission due to growing feelings of empathy towards the deviants he’s supposed to be hunting if you’re going down the deviant route would be nice.)

The trouble with Kara’s route is that the stakes are so much lower. It’s kind of nice to have lower stakes for a bit, but it also feels like she got the short end of the stick; Markus has the revolution, Connor has the conflict between his programming and his growing humanity, Kara has... a motherhood story. It’s an effective motherhood story, and having one part have lower stakes is good in the sense that it gives the player some time to breathe, but it still doesn’t seem fair to her. If I was rewriting the game I might make her story involve... learning about androids and deviancy and rA9. Like, everything we know about how deviancy works is kind of dumped on us; it’s a glitch that causes androids to simulate human emotions and can spread between androids like a virus. That’s it. Similarly rA9 is just believed to be the first deviant. Kara isn’t actually doing anything in terms of the larger story; why not have her uncovering some of those mysteries instead of just shepherding Alice towards Canada? Close up some plot holes and give your female lead something to do in relation to the larger story (beyond meeting Connor and Markus once each) in one move! Seems pretty win-win to me. And that would also extend her part of the story; probably she’d start her story later than Markus and Connor due to things only getting started for her after getting picked up from getting repaired (although they could add in a section that actually shows the incident that gets her sent in for repairs so we can actually see it instead of learning about it from a bunch of crayon drawings), but the lack of her in the early game would be matched by her having more to do in the later parts. Keep the parts she’s already got, maybe add another way or two for players to keep her group safe using the knowledge she gains from her expanded role, and make her story about discovering where they came from instead of just protecting a little girl who she’s convinced herself is Totally Human And Not An Android. Also I feel like the story might be stronger if Alice really is human, just because that gives all three leads a strong tie to humanity? Which feels important in a game about becoming human. I mean, Rose exists, but Markus has Carl and Connor has Hank and both those characters play a huge role in our leads becoming who they are at the end of the game; giving Kara this little human girl to look after but psych actually she’s an android and Kara was just deluding herself the whole time... feels like it’s undermining an emerging theme, and Rose doesn’t really make up for that (given while she helps Kara she doesn’t have the same impact on her as a person as Carl does Markus and Hank does Connor). Also it’s a stupid twist that adds nothing to the story. Get rid of it.

...I’m getting sidetracked. If anyone wants to remind me later maybe I can put together a coherent post about how I’d rewrite each character’s story given unlimited runtime (or possibly three posts, one for each story, given those are... likely to get long and splitting them up might work better), but for now I uh. do actually have homework (ah, uni), so I’m gonna wrap this up. Basically yeah, it would’ve been good if David Cage remembered that time skips exist and using them is allowed outside of the prologue or alternately that it is actually possible to make a game longer than ten hours, or even just not mentioned the date and left it up in the air as to how long things took; having so much happen in under a week just feels silly.

#detroit become human #i would rather talk about how i'd change the trash android game to be less trash believe me #but i do actually have assignments to finish #anon #asks

14 notes · View notes

the-golden-ghost · 3 years

Text

I’m bored and so I’m gonna make one of those “rip off some Youtuber’s hard-made list with my own BS opinions” posts. This is Tumblr and it won’t show in the tags anyway and hell I’m giving credit so it’s fine.

Today I will be going through a Blast From the Past and looking at a list of Dark n’ Scary Disney Moments. Made by WatchMojo here.

Anyway

20. Tadashi Dies - Big Hero 6: I never saw this movie but it looks like your pretty standard Disney death where there’s like an intense-but-not-too-graphic thing and then a hard cut to a funeral. Would probably be sadder if I had actually seen the movie but I agree, it’s pretty fucked up!

19. The Firebird - Fantasia 2000: OKAY YEAH THIS SCARED THE EVERLOVING FUCK OUT OF ME AS A KID. I saw this movie when I was 5 years old and it was one of the first (maybe THE first!?) movies I ever saw in theaters. That jumpscare still haunts me, man.

18. The Ghost of Christmas Future - Mickey’s Christmas Carol: I loved this movie as a kid but I wasn’t really scared by it even then. That being said, it’s still a pretty creepy scene, but I’ve seen scarier versions of this, even in kid’s movies. The fact that the ghost was smoking a fucking CIGAR had me cackling though I mean -

17. Hellfire - The Hunchback of Notre Dame: This whole damn MOVIE was dark. But that’s what you get when you adapt Victor Hugo for kids, I guess (seriously, why though!?) I definitely like this movie more as an adult, mostly cause half the themes went over my head as a kid. Including the ones in this song. But DAMN is it a bop and the visuals are stunning.

16. The Headless Horseman - The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: Yeah I never saw this as a kid to my knowledge but... I’ll be honest, that’s pretty scary even watching it NOW as an adult. Damn.

15. Facilier Goes to Hell - The Princess and the Frog: Yeah that’s pretty terrifying too. I was a teenager when this came out so it didn’t creep me out that much but the music is eerie and the visuals and concept of being dragged into eternal damnation is... unsettling, to say the least! Would have terrified me as a kid I’m sure

14. Frollo Attempts to Onscreen Murder a Fucking Baby - The Hunchback of Notre Dame: How in the HELL was this given a G rating?! This was in the first ten minutes of the movie by the way. Also there IS an onscreen death - Quasimodo’s mom, a minute or two before this. Disney doesn’t usually do onscreen deaths so that’s... pretty intense, to say the least. But seriously. Yikes.

13. Night on Bald Mountain - Fantasia: Okay purely out of personal experience I found Firebird scarier, but had I seen this one in theaters as a kid I no doubt would have shit myself. Also this is one of Disney’s only exploits into showing topless women (besides the Rescuers blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thing). Nudity in a good wholesome G-rated Disney film?! It’s more likely than you think.

12. The Horned King’s Army - The Black Cauldron: Because nothing says Disney Magic like necromancy-induced zombies sent to destroy the Earth (or something, I don’t even remember what their goal was since I saw this when I was like six but still, it is indeed creepy as all fuck)

11. Maleficent Turns Into A Dragon - Sleeping Beauty: Yeah I gotta say this dragon is daunting. See, Disney, you DO know how to design a good dragon! Maybe you should take a page from your own book instead of just creating Elsa’s dragonsona?

10. The Burnt Village - Mulan: Other than the whole “Bambi’s Mom Dies and Then It’s Immediately Happy Springtime Yay” thing, this might be the biggest tone switch in a Disney movie. But this one’s on purpose and not silly, it’s... intense. Jarring. Disturbing. We go from “goofy marching song about picking up girls lol” to the complete decimation and murder of a whole village and everyone in it. Including children, as is made horribly clear...

9. Aurora Gets Hypnotized - Sleeping Beauty: I don’t even remember this scene at all. The fact that Sleeping Beauty made the list twice makes me want to go watch it again though, seems promising!

8. The Bear - The Fox and the Hound: This movie was immensely fucked up to be honest. Just... everything about it. But yeah the bear was pretty scary ngl

7. Big Ursula - The Little Mermaid: Yeesh. Okay yeah Big Ursula was pretty freaky. Definitely gave me the creeps as a kid. Also the way she dies from getting IMPALED is um... a little dark, perhaps? Just a bit?

6. Pink Elephants - Dumbo: This isn’t exactly creepy, at least not as far as I can see, mostly it looks like they just needed to pad the film out so they decided to uh... put a drug trip scene in. Dumbo is already really short so it would make sense they needed to up the runtime and just told the animators “go ham” and BOY DID THEY EVER

5. The Dip - Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Uh yeah you’d think “death by torture” would be a place Disney wouldn’t go but I guess they’re fine with it actually? Granted this was live-action mostly but... still. Come on. That’s just fucked up.

4. Clayton Dies - Tarzan: I mean they didn’t show it like... really show it but the quick shot of his shadow on the tree is uh. Yikes. I actually missed that detail as a kid but I’m glad I did cause I would have been creeped out!

3. Lampwick Turns Into a Donkey - Pinocchio: Okay see I kinda want to know how THIS movie got rated G as well considering the underage drinking and weird sexual references. But this scene is also uh... disturbing. And actually the whole concept of the “turning kids into donkeys and selling them into eternal slavery” thing is wild and... yeah HOW was this movie rated G again? I know the book was written by some weirdo who wanted to terrify kids into good behavior. Idk why they made a Disney film out of it.

2. Bambi’s Mom Dies - Bambi: I actually don’t remember this scene all that much cause I haven’t seen Bambi in ages. But I know it’s iconic. It comes off as more sad than dark, though, but I guess “sad” kinda ties in with dark so I’ll let it slide.

1. Mufasa Gets Murdered - The Lion King: Okay yeah that’s pretty messed up I’ll admit it. I know it’s Furry Hamlet but let’s be honest we all saw this WAY before we knew what Hamlet was. I sometimes think the Lion King is a bit overrated but I have to admit - the visuals in this scene are AMAZINGLY good.

5 notes · View notes

iamalivenow · 5 years

Text

Jon watches Daisy and Melanie haul the nice couch from the nice break room all the way to the elevator and he also watches the rest of the people who work in this building try to restrain themselves from yelling at the weirdos from the Archives. “Are you coming or not?” Melanie sounds bored which means she's already done with this entire idea. Jon gets into the elevator. It's a tight fit and the lights are dim and Daisy stands too close to possibly be comfortable but he doesn't mind. He's gotten used to her shadowing him like this. Feels safer for it even. Hauling the couch out takes even more time then hauling it in did, and then dragging it into the spare office is a trial with how small the door is. “Right, I'm done. Have fun with your awful idea.” Melanie dusts her hands on her jeans and stares at the two of them. “I'll tell Helen you're being stupid again.” “I'm sure she'll be thrilled.” Melanie snorts and leaves just as Basira arrives with a plastic bag filled with loose disks. “I think this is an awful idea.” Is the first thing she says. “Do you know they're keeping my key card until I bring those back?” Is the second.

“Sure is a good thing you don't have to go anywhere.” Daisy pats the spot next to her on the couch and stares at the projector Jon hooked up to his laptop. “Are we doing this or what?” This, being a marathon of the Lagorio director cuts. Because they're out of ideas and Annabelle- probably Annabelle- has started infesting the institute just as badly as Prentiss did. They're on every inch of the walls outside, and slipping in through the windows so much easier. There aren't any in the tunnels yet, and not that many managed to sneak into the basement, but- Everyone else will crush them for him, and he doesn't have to touch them, and he doesn't mind. He fiddles with the disk drive, a temperamental thing he borrowed from Georgie ages ago and when he finally remembered to return it she had gotten a new one and let him keep it for five quid. He grabs a loose disk from the bag, huffing warm air on it and cleaning it on his shirt before putting it in and sitting to Daisy's right. It's Dead Sky, the credits tell them. Jon hates it instantly.

Dead Sky Real snore fest. Couldn't even begin to be scared. All of the gore would look great if you could see any of it. Ever heard of lighting balance? And you can totally see the suspension harnesses. Stop wasting so much money on practical effects if you can't even afford a green screen. 2 Stars. Hey, want to hear a joke? Why can't spiders become pilots? Because they only know how to tailspin. – LonelyEyes

The phantom touch of vertigo only leaves him when the credits roll, the tightness in his chest finally abating when he turns his head to see how his two tagalongs are doing. “You're breathing kind of hard there, you alright?” Jon nods, rubbing his face awake. “Not going to be weird, right?” “I don't know. Where's Basira?” “She said she was going to steal popcorn from the upstairs break room.” Daisy looks bored. Really not a movie person then. Or just not a good movie. She stretches, one arm vaguely behind Jon's head before she settles comfortably. “I thought it was going to be worse, honestly. Wasn't this one of his fucked up one?” “It was-” He pats his chest as if that's supposed to translate what he means but Daisy takes a slow nod anyway. “Maybe it didn't grab me because I killed one of them.” “Maybe.” Basira comes back with popcorn while Jon tries to figure out the next disk to put in.

Beyond Time God, could you make something more reductive if you tried? Honestly, the second anyone thinks they can do time travel right is a joke. Black holes don't work like that, obviously. At least someone learned how to light a scene correctly, but man the make up? Come on people. Cult classic? Hey, since you people like jokes so much, got another one for you. What does a spider do when he gets angry? He goes up the wall! 2.5 Stars –LonelyEyes

Jon breathes a sigh of relief when its over. This one really wasn't as bad- at least not to him. Daisy holds Basira's hand and whispers something Jon chooses not to hear. While he fumbles with the next disk, Daisy passes him the bowl of popcorn to hold while she takes both of Basira's hands. “Are you alright?” Daisy nudges his foot with hers, which means shut up, which he does, staring back at the wall. “I'm fine, Jon. Put the next one on.” Daisy's hands don't move from Basira's. He wipes the disk twice, just to make sure none of the sugar got on it and caused the film to look even worse.

The Crawling Ones This one almost won me over. Almost. The romance was so by the numbers though, and it took up way to much of the runtime. My coworker doesn't think the romance between the monster roaches and the lead actor was even obvious, so really, what else can be said. Ugh. 1.6 stars. Oh, I got a joke for you, ready? Did you hear about the spider love triangle? It was a tangled web. – LonelyEyes

Basira excuses herself to vomit, which Jon thinks is fair, and if he never sees another bug of any kind it will be to soon. “You look green Jon.” “Yes well. Bit over insects.” He says. Daisy nods, somewhat lazy in her understanding but she takes Jon's hand and rolls his sleeve up to stare at the worm scars. He tries his best not to feel examined, tries his best not to squirm before she slowly rolls his sleeve back down, doing the buttons he didn't bother with earlier. Her nails clack against them and it's oddly loud in the otherwise quiet room. “If you get really scared you can hold my hand.” It doesn't sound placating, which is nice. They try not to sound placating around each other. “Is Basira okay?” He asks because the thought of holding hands makes his palms sweat almost instantly. “She- She's fine. She'll be fine. She's strong.” “Right.” You are too, he wants to say, but the door to the office opens and Basira sits down on the couch and stares straight ahead. Okay, not going to talk about it then, that's fine.

Jewel of the Amazon Eh. Can't muster more then Eh. Not a good sign, traditionally. Eh. 0 Stars. Here's something though, What does a spider do when he gets angry? He goes up the wall! – LonelyEyes

The scar Melanie gave him aches miserably. “Jon?” He lets go of Daisy's hand, practically drops it like its hot coal. She shakes it out, like he gripped too hard, and he must have. He tries to move to the right, give Daisy some space before she tugs him back, closer then before. “Holding up?” He chances a glance at Basira- who's managed to fall asleep half way through it. “Leg hurts.” It's all situational, he supposed. And these films are three to four hours long. He has no idea how anyone would ever want to watch this. How this man sold any of this garbage. “Poor you. Here.” She pats her shoulder and Jon stares at her. “I'm not going to snap your head off, come on.”

Agents of Orion Definitely the only good movie this hack ever made, I can really feel the horror. My coworker thinks its a little on the nose, but there's nothing wrong with that sometimes. If it's tasteful. But then you can't go wrong with the isolation of space! Who wouldn't think that was scary! The maze section was absolute garbage though. Amateur writing 101 much? 4 stars. What do you call an under cover spider? A spy-der ! - LonelyEyes

He does end up with his face in her neck. It's embarrassing now, while she holds the back of his neck like he's a infant, but during the film he appreciated it. He really appreciated it. Her nails dig into the skin and it's nice, it's grounding, and even if it hurts it's the kind of pain he's used to, somehow. For half a second he thinks she's going to start rocking him back and forth but she lets him go as Basira gets up from the couch. “I'm going to bed.” Jon pulls away, blinks until he can see straight and looks at the time. They really did waste all day doing this. “Pick this up again tomorrow?” “Yes- Yes.” He says. His face feels warm. Well, he was just cradled by her girlfriend. He supposed it made sense that at least one of them was embarrassed about it. “Tomorrow morning.” “Sounds good. Daisy?” “I'm going to make sure he's okay. I”ll find you in a few.” Basira just shrugs and heads towards the tunnels. “I'm fine.” He insists. “Well, yeah. It's not like you could have nightmares about this.” “Oh- yes.” He laughs. “Sorry for then uh-” “I told you it was fine.” “Just-” Jon swallows. “Thank you- for-” “I got it.” “Alright.” “Good night Jon.”

Forty Winks Abysmal in every way, -5 stars, couldn't stand it. I got another joke, though, ready? What do you get when you cross spiders and corn? Cobwebs. - LonelyEyes

Helen and Melanie join them in the morning, just for the sake of solidarity, they tell him. It's relatively tame- well- the gore is everywhere and the animatronics move like they're alive- but Jon's gotten over his Spiral fear ages ago, especially with Helen sitting next to him. The only real horrific part of that viewing experience was Melanie in Helen's lap, both of them apparently trying to swallow each others tongues the entire time. He honestly wasn't even aware Helen had a tongue until he watched it lick Melanie's lips for five minutes straight. Basira's asleep again too, rough night apparently, head in Daisy's lap. And he's between them alone, fumbling with the cheap disk drive.

Nightmare Children This one is....almost good. The monsters feel cheap though. The people I watched this one with were to distracted having sex to actually react to the movie, so it's at least that bad. 2.5 stars. Maybe my joke could distract them from each other? I felt so guilty after I stepped on a spider this morning. You should of seen him, he looked genuinely crushed. – LonelyEyes

Jon has to hold Daisy's hand again. The way the dolls move is- is just too close to- Helen and Melanie unceremoniously excused themselves half way through, clearly more entertained with each other then with a cheap evil doll movie. Basira left too, also half way through. She had an appointment she forgot about, apparently. “How many more of this do we have left?” “Just three, I think.” Daisy reaches over and picks up the three disks, holding them out for him like a fan of cards. “Homestretch.” Jon smiles and picks the middle one, cleaning the finger prints off on his shirt. “This entire thing feels kind of- I don't know. A waste of time?” Daisy shrugs. “Maybe after this you could show me a good movie.” Jon puts in the disk and tries not to swell on far reaching implications.

Toy Shop Another trite romance, can this guy do anything else? And this is the second evil doll movie? He should try and work with mannequins. Those could actually scare people. 1.5 stars. My coworker wanted to write a joke but I don't really get it. He's a good kid though. What part of a computer does a spider use? The webcam. – LonelyEyes

They both get up and walk around, mostly out of boredom. The last one really was- Bad. He can say bad. Boring, even. Daisy stares at him while he smokes. “Just two more.” He says. It's really become a slog. But then the more something goes on for the more it's a given that it'll turn dull and derivative. “I don't know if I should hope for a exciting ending or not. Either it's a good film, which means it's scary or its another eight hours of wasting time.” “This was your idea.” “Isn't it time people stop letting me have those?” Daisy laughs.

Under New York Tight spaces? That's it? A few collapsed tunnels, a few abandoned subways? A lake? I was ready to get upset about how this movie was treating its monster (mole people by the way, like it's the fifties) but then you realize it's trying to be clever with a “man was always the real monster” and oh, just throw the entire production away. Couldn't think of something more dull if I tried. -2 stars. What do you call two young married spiders? Newly webs! Well. They can't all be great. – LonelyEyes

When they try and stop the movie, the laptop freezes and keeps going. The door is, at this point in their lives, unsurprisingly locked. They can't even get the sound off. Watching Daisy have an attack is nightmarish. She doesn't get violent- he doesn't know why he thought he would, but she goes completely still, and he could see the tension in ever single muscle. Her eyes go dull, she looks anywhere but the wall it's projected on. “Daisy- Daisy listen to me-” He has to yell over the volume. “Daisy you're not there!” He tries to push her off of the couch but she's a solid rock of muscle that Jon couldn't really push around regularly. So of course, he does the one thing that comes to mind which he is sure is nothing short of an unspeakably good idea, and punches Daisy in the face. She's not frozen anymore, good, but she's staring at Jon like he's a meal, bad. He does try to at least get to the other side of the couch before Daisy lunges after him. They're both on the ground, and in Jon's desperate attempt to get away the project gets turned over and displays some poor man crawling through a tunnel on the ceiling. She grabs his hair and pulls and the pain shoots right down his spine, almost blinding. It barely compares to when she slams his head down on the floor. His nose bleeds onto their clothes, and just as shes about to do it again, he kicks out and yells her name. Any realization, any kind of flash of reality before she bashes his skull it would be great really. “Make it stop!” It's a howl more then a yell, loud and dangerous. “Make the crushing stop!” “I'm-” Trying, is what he was going to say, before Daisy decks him across the face, and more of that searing hot pain makes him feel like his face is on fire. He kicks at the her- at the desk- at anything he can before she swings again, harder, connects with his jaw. It's hard enough that it splits her knuckles open. Somewhere between the kicking and the begging and the collective screaming, the laptop falls off of the desk behind the couch, and the projector displays it's bright blue no input found screen and Jon lets himself fall back on the cool floor. “Fuck.” Her hair is a mess around her face, blood on her cheeks, probably his, breathing hard. “Jon-” He can practically see the way she comes back to herself- her pupils dilate for a moment before she settles- getting off of him. “Jon-” Like she hasn't even noticed. “I'm fine.” He's not- they can both tell instantly when the words come out with a wheeze. He can't feel any inch of his face. “Just need some ice. That's all.” “I'm-” “I'm okay. Really. This will fix itself in an hour at most.” She doesn't say anything after that, but heads upstairs – door's unlocked, who would have thought – and comes back with an ice pack. “Let me look.” Before he has a chance to argue she's holding his face, twisting it every way. “I'll be fine, Daisy.” He insists, even if it hurts to move his jaw right now. “Your hands.” She seems almost surprised to find blood there. “Well.” She sits him up and presses the icepack to his chin. “You weren't lying about getting stronger.” Jon laughs or tries to. Still hurts to much to actually commit. “One more movie?” “This sounds like an exceptionally bad idea.” “Can't be worse then the last one.”

Widow's Weave Trite, really, but even a cold hard critic like me has to admit. The spider looked great. 4.0 stars. Why are spiders like tops? They are always spinning! – LonelyEyes

He feels his face knit itself back together just as he realizes what he's about to see on screen. Daisy holds his hand with her battered knuckles before Jon has to turn away. All he can see is Mr. Spider behind a random door, leering and waiting, curling his arms invitingly. “Don't you know good boys come when they're called?” Someone says in the movie, and Jon almost bolts out of the room. Well, he would have. If the door wasn't locked again. “Jon, come here.” He does, because he knows her voice- because he can trust her voice- He stops a few steps from the couch. Can he? She grabs his hand anyway and pulls him on top of her, face into the crook of her neck. “It's not real.” “That's never stopped it before.” He whispers. “Don't focus on it. Focus on me. On my voice. That's good for you right? Voices?” He doesn't know what's good for him. Until she tells him about Calvin. He's heard this before, of course, but that was Elias doing his- their trick- and now it's Daisy, by choice, voice low in his ear and a hand on his back. He feels ready to run a marathon once she's done, filled with energy he hasn't had in a while. In a long while. But she doesn't let him go regardless, because the film keeps going and he can still hear the staccato accompaniment when ever the spider moves. So she tells him again, how she ripped Nikola's dolls apart, how she set a vampire on fire, how she met Basira, story after story after story that fed him more then anyone else ever has. He doesn't even notice the film ending. It's past midnight. “Are you alright?' He pulls away and she gives him a smile. She has a bruise where he punched her. “Aces.”

#the magnus archives #long post #writing #fanfic #full fic

40 notes · View notes

armorbirdpress · 4 years

Text

Armor Bird Reviews: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - A One-And-A-Half-Year Retrospective

If you have been following my writings and ramblings and original works and DeviantArt favorites for long enough, you'll know that I am unashamedly a dinosaur fan - I never outgrew the phase because despite what people have told me both online and off, palaeontology, like other sciences, is not specifically a child's thing - obviously dinosaurs are cool, but there is a lot of technical stuff that you'd need college degrees to understand in the field, too. While I certainly am a stickler for accuracy when it comes to dinosaur portrayals, however, I am also not ashamed to admit that I have a love for fictional portrayals of them as monsters, too. Jurassic Park, which was - for its time - pretty much a reconciliation between the "prehistoric monster" imagery of dinosaurs in popular culture and the latest discoveries about the actual fossil animals during its production, is my favorite movie of all time, partly for this reason and partly because there's a lot of depth and sophistication to it as well - a sophistication that modern movies seem to be utilizing less and less. Even the Jurassic Park franchise itself was not immune to this trend, and although it still remains my top favorite franchise of fictional media, the changing conceit of what audiences want in an entertaining film has dragged it along for as much of a long and bumpy ride as just about everything else Hollywood has to offer. Still, even in spite of it all, there are a lot of things to like about the sequels we got since that groundbreaking original - I'm admittedly one of those people who actually enjoyed Jurassic Park III, though in fairness I was too young upon first watching it to really pick it apart and analyze its numerous flaws, and I also heaped a lot of praise on Jurassic World upon my first review of it... in hindsight, perhaps a little generously. Although I won't pretend that everything since The Lost World (including TLW itself) is flawless and that the complainers are wrong, even the infamously controversial JP3 had some enjoyable moments in its own right, despite being seen by many as the worst installment of the franchise by quite a margin.

Which leads us to the most recent film of the franchise, 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

I had intended to review this movie for a good, long while - back when I was a more prolific writer I used to write film reviews shortly after seeing the movies in the theater, though schedule concerns have obviously made that too difficult. But there's a silver lining here, in that by not reviewing a film I've seen until much later (...well, much, much, much later as the case may be), I have the time to really sit down and think about what made the movie tick or not, and oftentimes have come down from my rush of excitement by the time I actually get off my tail and write the review itself. There are exceptions, of course, with certain films actually leaving me disappointed as soon as I left the building, but these cases are mercifully rare. I'm happy to say that despite being horrendously imperfect, Fallen Kingdom wasn't one of those cases. I was genuinely entertained by it more than 50% of the time - which is, for better or for worse, the highest compliment I can give the film because, as we shall see, in some ways it really is quite terrible.

As always with my movie reviews: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!

I watched Fallen Kingdom twice since its release - first in the theater at my home town, and then on rental DVD - and both times, my impression was the same: this movie, in retrospect, plays out much like a big-budget, cinematic fanfiction of the Jurassic Park films or even of Jurassic World (the latter of which I actually consider darkly hilarious for reasons that are highly specific to me exclusively, which you'd only understand if you know what I've written in the past - I'll get to that shortly). This is perfectly understandable, seeing as the director, screenwriter, and production crew have changed considerably from the team that helmed the original trilogy during the ten-year gap between JP3 and JW. Even if the work is canon, it's essentially someone else taking a look at the original franchise material, picking out what they liked about it, and building an original story off of it, oftentimes borrowing characters from the original work and inserting them in (most notably Rexy, and yes, I consider her as much of a character as the humans she menaced in the original movie). Across the board, in all kinds of franchises, this approach tends to fall flat if you don't know about the original work, though I do have to say that there was one very notable exception in the case of Jurassic World, that climactic fight scene with the Indominus rex, which is my favorite part of the movie even if it isn't entirely perfect. Now, I realize that I'm being a bit of a hypocrite by saying that these films are imperfect, because almost a decade ago, a friend and I co-wrote a megacrossover fanfic where Jurassic Park was the most prominent franchise by quite a margin (and didn't even start out that way to boot - my own selfish preferences caused elements of the franchise to slowly bleed in until a recycled plot of the second and third movies took over the whole thing). What makes it truly embarrassing to me is that the fic didn't even need the series' involvement in the first place, and my choice to shove it in anyway was one of the numerous factors that led to it going completely off the rails and turning into a tremendous tangled mess of clumsy writing and mishandled characterization, not just with JP itself but with almost all of the dozen other continua that got dragged in as well. Obviously, the fact that Fallen Kingdom is restricted by its very nature as a sequel to the one franchise only thankfully precludes the sheer absurdity of what my co-writer and I had inadvertently wrought back then, but upon rewatching the film I couldn't help but notice that in a few ways, it does ironically come off as being quite similar to my own old shame, albeit coincidentally, though it still earns points for choosing to be a Jurassic Park/World film and sticking with that conceit, rather than an entirely different film with JP elements shoehorned into it. I've harped on my stupidity as an immature fanfic writer back in the day for long enough, I think, but I felt this was worth mentioning regardless, because like the fic I touched upon above, this is a work I only started having issues with long after the fact, but these days I can't unsee these issues now that I've considered them.

One of the biggest things that stood out to me regarding Fallen Kingdom was that no matter how you slice it, it was trying to be two films at once, and had less time for both than most would have desired. The first half of the movie concerns Isla Sorna being destroyed by a volcano, and everyone trying to get the dinosaurs off of it before they are rendered extinct once again, with another island being noted as their new sanctuary (though of course, one of the antagonists quickly screws that plan over, but more on that later). You could easily make an entire film out of that - exploring the island one last time, dodging potential threats from both the volcano and the dinosaurs themselves, and coming to terms with the fact that not every creature can be saved, and that the end is coming for everyone eventually. The scene with the Brachiosaurus being overtaken by the eruption, with its plaintive wails and iconic rearing silhouette, is proof that such a moral could make a solid closing for this kind of movie, and heck, you could even have the subplot with the executives hoping to exploit the dinosaurs bleed into the movie until, at the very end, you get a scene where their true intentions with the animals are revealed as a sequel hook, rather than being resolved over the course of like half an hour or so in a rushed manner that gives people too little time to consider the implications. And this brings me to my next point.

Remember what I said about that dumb fanfiction I co-wrote having the elements I personally wanted more than my co-writer did slowly fester in true plot tumor fashion until they took over the entire story like literal cancer? As it turns out, what I witnessed in Fallen Kingdom wasn't quite as ridiculous, but kinda sorta similar in its own way. Obviously, Fallen Kingdom isn't so audacious (or ignorant of copyright laws and plain old common sense for that matter) as to let an entirely different franchise stage a gradual hostile takeover of itself, but the somewhat cliched plot of capitalist exploitation being the absolute worst roommate imaginable with a whole franchise's worth of temporally misplaced creatures that can and will kill you if you look at them funny - already done in both the original movie and TLW, and to some extent in JW as well, but still relatable in our current social climate even after so much repetition - still manages to... well, stage a gradual hostile takeover of the movie, and enforces itself in full force during the remaining third or so of the runtime. The antagonists, a pair of cartoonishly evil and somewhat flat executives, sabotage the plan so that the dinosaurs are diverted to the Lockwood Mansion instead of the sanctuary island, and then things escalate when the prototype Indoraptor is bought in and, inevitably, raises hell for everyone involved. As with my previous pitch, the idea of bidding wars over the dinosaurs and the moral debate over the ownership and exploitation of living creatures - something which does happen in the real world - could have made for something interesting, again, if the script wasn't so rushed. Continuing where the hypothetical sequel hook left off, we could open with a discussion between the villains about the implications of what they are doing, followed by the heroes having to deal with the ramifications of such actions along with the involvement of Dr. Wu, the Indoraptor, and of course Blue as a potential prize-winner. Of course this runs the risk of becoming the original Jurassic Park except on the mainland, and thus not really trying anything new, but it could at least give audiences the time to digest the film and appreciate the moments where it makes a genuine impact, even before the dinosaurs end up getting released into the mainland like what happened in the movie itself, complete with the insane amount of ramifications thereof. The Stygimoloch plowing its way through the bidders on its way to freedom was almost as cathartic for me to watch as the climactic fight in JW, and I wish it could've gotten more screentime, or even plucked up the guts to fend off the Indoraptor in a situation that doesn't seem forced, e.g. the hybrid and the Stiggy getting trapped in the same complex, or even Owen luring it over as backup (which is stupider but, given how he got it to bust him and Claire out in the movie itself, isn't entirely unreasonable). As for the Indoraptor itself, I feel like they could have done a bit better with its design, as even underneath the paint job and altered proportions it's still more or less "Indominus 2: Genetic Boogaloo", as I have called it at least once. Still, it has its own appeal as a monster design and, if it weren't for the presence of similar-looking creatures in previous installments of the series, it would certainly have made an impact as a monster. It's almost wolf-like in movement and mannerisms, even werewolf-like, which is intentional given the vintage horror movie homages the production team was going for. The way it menaces Maisie - who has her own set of plot-related craziness to her, but that's a can of worms I'd rather not open - makes you worry for her life, and even fear for Blue when she engages it in battle. I know I'm one of those who actually prefers antagonistic Velociraptors (the inaccurate variety from the films, not the smaller and fully feathered real-world version which I would absolutely take home with me if I could find a way to retrieve it from Cretaceous Mongolia and have it housetrained and okay I'll stop now), but Blue as always is awesome, and after seeing her actually manage to hold her own in her fight against the Indoraptor if only for a short while, there's no denying that anymore - even if that scene with her outrunning the explosion in the boiler room is a bit over-the-top even by the standards of this movie. There is of course no way a spectacle-driven, plaid-speed-paced romp like Fallen Kingdom could surpass the bar set by The Big One and the legendary kitchen scene, but on its own merits, the Indoraptor is a wonderfully serviceable and formidable threat that I just wish could've gotten more screentime and room to develop as a character, rather than just remaining as an unhinged killing machine that exists just to terrorize everyone before exiting the film (the same is true for all the dinosaurs here besides Blue, really, which is sad because, again, I much prefer when films develop monsters as characters rather than mere plot devices). With a little more design work to make him stand out more among the other critters in the franchise and more time to explore his nature, he could easily have become almost as iconic as The Big One as movie monsters go, or at least as much as the I. rex, though the latter bar is admittedly a good deal lower in the wake of how the movie industry has, ahem, evolved.

With that thought in mind, I will now spell out the biggest problem I had with this movie: the fact that it was trying to do so much in such a short space of time. Humorously and ironically, I know almost enough about the issues with my own writing to recognize the signs of that, with significant events being spaced too close to each other, too many characters at once (though admittedly, Zia and Maisie are a treat to watch, Franklin a bit less so but far from unbearable for my taste), and at least one questionable decision on the part of everyone at some point or another, up to and including the writers. There are a lot of things I liked, but not enough time for me to let them sink in, like I was being bombarded with one spectacle after another. It feels like overkill more than anything, and alas, far too many films in recent years have tried to shove that method into people's faces as though trying to say, "Here's your action, here's your fanservice, here's your whatever the whoopity-freaking-doo you consider entertainment, are you happy now?!" (Well, not quite as vitriolic and sarcastic, but you get the idea.) If the filmmakers and the owners of the franchise rights had been willing to accept four movies in the newer series rather than just three, and let Fallen Kingdom be broken up into two separate, slightly slower-paced movies, the problems with each individual portion would likely not have been as significant, and audiences would not have noticed them so readily. Sadly, though, the rapid-fire, dozen-blockbusters-a-year rush-job environment of the modern movie industry was not kind to this film, which is a crying shame. We need more movies that are more relaxed and subdued half the time, the way the original JP film was, and while audiences may have to take the time to once again get used to movies like that, I think it would be a welcome change of pace from the current influx of chaotic, nonstop slugfests and pyrotechnic displays we've become so familiar with.

In tl;dr form, it is with a heavy heart that I have to say that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is, in fact, the worst film of the entire Jurassic Park franchise, even more so than JP3 - though don't get me wrong, as with JP3, I still very much enjoyed it as its own movie, as clumsily handled as it was at times (though even then, the movie itself isn't entirely at fault for it). There's a difference between a movie being the low point in its franchise and a low point among movies in general, a difference which a lot of reviewers need to understand before taking an undeserved dump over movies that could've been so much better if Hollywood had worked just a bit differently. You have to actually try to make a work of entertainment media I consider genuinely terrible, and it was actually a relief to me that even the lowest points of Fallen Kingdom still ranked somewhat midway between "meh" and "shakes hand eeeeehhhhhh" from my own subjective standpoint. I truly hope that the next and presumably final JP film will turn out for the better, especially given that Alan, Ellie, and Ian are all slated to have major roles in it, but I'm not going to dismiss Fallen Kingdom off the bat just because of the issues I have with its writing. If nothing else, it's a perfectly decent popcorn flick with prehistoric monsters in it - and hey, that was pretty much what everyone was there for, wasn't it?

Grading Scheme:

96 - 100: A+

93 - 96: A

90 - 92.9: A-

87 - 89.9: B+

83 - 86.9: B

80 - 82.9: B-

77 - 79.9: C+

73 - 76.9: C

70 - 72.9: C-

67 - 69.9: D+

60 - 66.9: D

Below 60: E

Grades:

Writing: 6

Characterization: 6

Pacing: 7

Creativity: 8

Consistency: 8

Cinematography: 9

World Building: 7

Music and Sound: 8

Effects: 10

Engagement: 9

Final Grade: 78 (C+)

#Armor Bird Reviews #Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

1 note · View note

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

Text

The Last Jedi: What I Disliked About One of the Most Fascinating Films Ever Made

The Last Jedi is probably one of the most controversial films ever made for a lot of reasons. This movie did a LOT of shit, a lot of shit that would piss people off. Hell, it even pissed ME off. But when I see people on the internet frothing at the mouth and calling this movie the worst shit pile to ever exist, the most offensive thing Star Wars has ever produced, and threatening the director with death and calling him a soulless piece of shit bastard… I’m pretty inclined to defend the movie. Frankly, anyone who reacts THIS negatively to TLJ is an utter braindead moron; you do realize you can dislike a film without being completely, insanely hyperbolic, yeah? Again, there’s a lot I hate in this movie too, and I’m gonna talk about it shortly, but in a franchise with Jar-Jar, the holiday special, and vast swaths of the Legends continuity, is this seriously the worst this franchise has had to offer? If you answer anything other than “No,” congratulations, I’d say you’re about the same mental capacity as people who think Watto is some sort of offensive Jewish caricature.

But as much as I would love to spend an entire post insulting all the whiny bastards in the Star Wars fandom, I have more pressing matters: criticizing stuff in The Last Jedi. And boy do I have a lot to criticize. I actually did review the movie a while back, and while I stand by my initial thoughts, I gotta go into more detail about what I didn’t like. However, before continuing, I want to make one thing absolutely clear:

I think The Last Jedi is a genuinely good movie. Maybe not GREAT per se, as I have more criticisms for it than just about any other film in the series, but excellence is just so wholly ingrained into the DNA of Star Wars theatrical films that even at their most divisive they still have some level of charm. And at any rate, this movie is a hell of a lot more interesting than Rogue One. I’d say out of the newer films, this one sits behind Solo. Anyway, let’s get on to the main event… here are all my issues with The Last Jedi, presented alphabetically, and with lots of spoilers:

Canto Bright: This is probably the most annoying waste of time in the entire film, a blatant and obnoxious stretch of padding the runtime. Nothing that happens in the entirety of this subplot is truly important in the grand scheme of things; the only relevant bit of plot is that they find DJ, and this could have been done a lot quicker. This wouldn’t be so bad if they had made Canto Bright a bit more interesting, but it just feels like another attempt to rehash Mos Eisley’s cantina. It also doesn’t help this part of the film has blatant, unsubtle moralizing and cuts away from far more interesting plotlines that get much less development, particularly Rey training with Luke.

Ditching Kylo’s Motivation: In The Force Awakens, Kylo was motivated by a sort of misaimed admiration for his grandfather, where he viewed Vader as someone to emulate and who he looked to as he struggled between the light side and the dark side. All of this helped make him rather intriguing, as well as making him a very intentional Darth Vader clone character; his whole purpose was to emulate Vader, after all. All of this is ditched close to the start of The Last Jedi, and the Kylo in this film feels almost entirely different to the one seen previously. While I did like Kylo Ren a lot more in this movie, I wish they didn’t completely rewrite his character and ditch everything established in favor of what they did. It could have easily been worked into how he acted in the film.

Finn’s Diminished Importance: After being something of the star of the last film, complete with a noticeable character arc and a lot of focus, Finn kinda gets shafted here, relegated to a shitty, unnecessary sideplot that leads the heroes nowhere. It just seems really weird, though I’m not unhappy Rey got more focus and was fleshed out better.

Holdo: While I tend to view people who write her off as “The purple-haired feminist bitch” or “Captain SJW” as inferior human beings – and they are, seriously, if you unrironically say shit like this you’re a drooling nincompoop – I really can’t deny in the slightest that Holdo was written rather poorly. She really is a poor excuse for a captain, openly lying to her underlings and keeping things secret when explaining the plan would have effected nothing except her entire crew’s compliance. It almost feels like this plot was written so we’d be on Poe’s side, but it works a bit too well by making Holdo far too arrogant, stupid, and haughty to really get behind. If not for her awesome heroic sacrifice (one that might not have been needed in the first place if she’d been more honest but hey) I’d probably list her as one of the worst Star Wars characters ever… but a heroic sacrifice of this magnitude, no matter how unearned it may seem, never fails to impress me.

Killing Snoke: I can kinda see what they were going for, seeing as Palpatine as well was killed with very little revealed about him in The Last Jedi… but we have now had several years worth of canonical prequel material to flesh him out, and it’s honestly pretty stupid to assume you can pull off the same trick in a franchise twice and expect it to go off as well. Snoke was unflinchingly cool, creepy, and badass, so his bisection comes across as a waste of a truly intriguing villain. That there may be prequels detailing who he was do little to ease the sting of Andy Serkis being built up as the big bad only to be cut down. At least in Black Panther he got more substantial screentime; here, he’s s till cool, but it just feels like there is so much more he could have been.

Luke’s Attempted Murder: While overall I loved Luke’s characterization in this film and how it tied excellently into the theme of not deifying your heroes due to the trouble that can cause, it’s hard for me to rationalize Luke’s attempted murder of his own nephew, leading to Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side. While Luke has always been a bit impulsive, this man believed he could redeem Darth Vader, AND DID SO. Need I remind you what Anakin did to those younglings? And yet his own nephew, he won’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he did stop himself, but the very fact he went in there lightsaber ready to cut down the child of his sister and his best friend just feels really jarring and out of place, even within his more cynical characterization.

Phasma: Phasma has come across as a forced Boba Fett replacement since The Force Awakens, to the point where in both films she has appeared in she has been completely and utterly outshined by mooks – Nines (AKA TR-8R) in TFA and the Praetorian Guard in this one. Despite her getting a ton of fascinating backstory and depth in canonical supplementary material, literally none of that is ever showcased even slightly in this film, and after a short, underwhelming fight scene, she apparently falls to her death. Sure, she COULD have survived, but this still feels like a rather big waste of the character. For someone they hyped up so much, the way she is handled really feels undignified.

Rey’s Parents: I’m not gonna lie, this reveal is stupid in and of itself, but the stupider thing is that a lot of people seem to be taking it at face value. When was it collectively decided we should trust the creepy, evil Sith lord who has made it perfectly clear he wants control over Rey? Why are we taking Kylo’s word that Rey’s parents were drunks who sold their kids as FACT? Honestly it just seems like a further ploy to manipulate her more than anything.

Reylo: While it isn’t canon as of yet, this movie really hammers in a bunch of hints for the obnoxiously popular ship between heroine Rey and antagonist Kylo Ren. And, quite frankly, I absolutely fucking hate this ship, but probably for a lot different reasons than most people. Do I think it’s shipping abuse? No, I don’t think it’s that any more than I think any other hero-villain ship is. Do I think Kylo doesn’t deserve to be redeemed by Rey? That’s not it either; the entire premise of this franchise is that any person can be redeemed. Kylo Ren is really no exception, though considering he killed my favorite character I’d be happy to see his ass beat. No, I hate it because I just absolutely hate the trope, if it even is one, of the hero redeeming the villain through romantic love. I feel like it would cheapen Rey’s character, and just turn the entire new trilogy into an overly long romantic drama. All the heavy-handed hints towards this pairing is just gag worthy, and frankly I’m going to be annoyed if they ruin both of these characters by going through with it.

Rose: Rose is without a doubt in my mind the worst character in the entire franchise. This seems like a rather tall order considering her competition, but consider this: her biggest contributions to the plot are the Canto Bright plotline, the absolute worst part of the film… and stopping Finn from performing a badass heroic sacrifice that might have saved the heroes a lot of trouble, delivering the stupidest line in Star Wars history, kissing Finn, and fainting. She’s just utterly pointless to the point she feels like someone’s OC from a fanfic where they get with Finn was slipped into the script.

Wasting DJ: So you get Benicio Del Toro, and you put him in your movie. Great so far, good. He does some weird accent and makes the character have a quirky personality, still good. You give him a very morally ambiguous personality and show the shades of grey in this idealistic universe that leans towards black vs. white most of the time, excellent, awesome! AND THEN… he betrays the heroes and vanishes from the film. What. DJ didn’t die, and he could come back… but he just feels shoehorned in and just doesn’t really reach his full potential whatsoever. He was such an interesting idea, and they just did the bare minimum with him.

Despite all of this crap, though… The Last Jedi still manages to be awesome. Holdo’s final sacrifice, the Kylo Ren and Rey fight against the Praetorian Guards, Yoda’s surprise appearance, Luke’s final battle… Hell, I even liked seeing Leia finally use the Force by flying through space with it; as cheesy as it is, it left me floored when I saw it in theaters. Then, of course, there’s that epic opening space battle… there’s just a lot to love here. In particular, my favorite moment is probably Luke becoming one with the Force. Maybe it’s not my MOST favorite moment, but it just feels so poignant and important, with his final moments mirroring the start of his journey, as he gazes into twin suns one last time before joining his teachers and father. It just… it gets to you, you know? I may have a LOT of issues with this movie, and a lot of stuff I didn’t really like in it, but more than any other movie I have so many issues with, I like and even RESPECT this film. You can say a lot of things about this movie, but one thing you can’t say is that it’s dull. It sparks discussion, and debate, and obnoxiously hyperbolic worst-everism. At the end of the day, whether it’s good or bad doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that this film just… IS. And one way or another people will have something to say about it. Just don’t be a hyperbolic douche about it and try and enjoy things, you know?

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #TLJ #CineMike #movies #sci-fi

5 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT PEOPLE

It used to mean the control of vast human and material resources. Find an open slot in your schedule, why not? Not eventually, right now. Well, therein lies half the work of essay writing. He called this language Lisp, for List Processing, because one of his key ideas was to use a simple data structure called a list for both code and data. Our own startup, Viaweb, was of the second type. The mere existence of prep schools is proof of that. The reason Cambridge is the intellectual capital is not just a heuristic for detecting bias. But not the specific conclusions I want to find surprises you should do the opposite. 83 73:88 in 2007. That's the only defence. This is good news for two reasons: a it's an encouraging thought, and b the subject of writing now tends to be literature, since that's what the malaise one feels in high school.

People in past times were much like us. And this turns out to be different from the one we were expecting in 1970. It's tantalizing to think we believe things that people in the coming years. Perhaps it's not just that hackers understand technology better, but we didn't have much hope. The Dutch seem to live their lives up to their necks in rules and regulations. Now imagine comparing what's inside this guy's head with what's inside the head of a well-behaved sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not to be. If you choose a number based on your gut feel, or a table of typical grant sizes supplied by a VC firm, understand what those are estimates of. They can't tell how smart you are. The author of a good novel wouldn't complain that readers were unfair for preferring a potboiler with a racy cover. I know, operate on the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule, though.

Or at least, taking money from a top VC firm can be a really good deal. The more anomalies you've seen, the more easily you'll notice new ones.1 If you keep pursuing such threads it would be hard not to be influenced by the people around you care about the kind of work—discovering new problems to solve.2 167. You can attack labels with meta-labels: labels that refer to the use of labels to prevent discussion. The intervening years have created a situation that is, as far as I know, without precedent: Apple is popular at the low end and the high end, but not to be too specific about what you disagree with. Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. Their hypothesis seems to have been defeated mainly by treating it as a mere field of study. It has to set off alarms.3 You can be sure it's there, though.4 Plus you have to understand the essence of what scholars did. Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we've funded.

If the players have the usual distribution of ability. There's no evidence that famously successful organizations like the Roman army or the British East India Company were any less afflicted by protocol and politics than organizations of the same size today. Don't write the essay readers expect; one learns nothing from what one expects. You don't see faces much happier than people winning gold medals. Do you want to know what ordinary people will be doing in ten years. These problems aren't intrinsically difficult, just unfamiliar. Second, I do it on that computer. They're so common that there's distinctive language for proposing them: saying that you want to go straight there, blustering through obstacles, and hand-waving your way across swampy ground. And what makes them congeal is experience. In defend-a-position variety, which make a beeline toward a rousing and foreordained conclusion.

That's not quite the same message New York sends. If you leave a path to it, piecemeal, parts taken from the Lisp model, like runtime typing and garbage collection.5 The archaeological work being mostly done, it implied that those studying the classics were, if not wasting their time, at least. By putting you in this situation, society has fouled you. No, the irony of this statement is not lost on me. Wrong. The topic sentence is your thesis, chosen in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the reason why, unlike other languages, Lisp has dialects. Growth is why VCs want to invest in startups is not simply the returns, but also because generating returns from dividends.6 I read about the harassment to which the Scientologists subject their critics, or that pro-Israel groups are compiling dossiers on those who speak out against Israeli human rights abuses, or about people being sued for violating the DMCA, part of me wants to say, All right, you bastards, bring it on. Are you the current leader?

There can be places that are more thoughtful, just as a scientist, rather than just a good politician. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. I've written, but I haven't spent long enough in either to say for sure what they are. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth. But now that I think of it, we were surprised how frightened most of them were of competitors. Considering how valuable a successful startup will grow into a startup hub to rival Silicon Valley. The key seems to be networks of small, autonomous groups whose performance is measured, you'll know if they do. It's usually a mistake to use the Internet twice a day. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of terms should they expect? Everyone encourages you to grow up to the point where it's like visual crack. For nearly all of it.

Notes

Well, of course. The average B-17 pilot in World War II the tax codes were so bad that they discovered in the world wars to say, recursion, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things. My first job was scooping ice cream in the same price as the cause.

Loosely speaking. Parker, William R. Though you should probably start from scratch is not always tell this to users than where you could out of business you should never sell.

By filters will be big successes but who are running on vapor, financially, and b success depended so much worse than he was skeptical about any plan that centers on things you like the word that came to mind was one in an era of such regulations is to take care of one's markets is ultimately just another way to create a Demo Day pitch, the big winners aren't all that matters to us that the usual misquotation is closer to the average Edwardian might well guess wrong. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between them. This would penalize short comments especially, because Julian got 10% of the world, and partly because companies then were more the aggregate is what people will pay people millions of dollars a year of focused work plus caring a lot lobbying for harsh sentencing laws, starting with the amount—maybe around 10 people. Perl, and that he had simply passed on an accurate account of ancient slavery see: For most of their initial attitude.

The only launches I remember about the distinction between them. In both cases you catch mail that's near spam, but they were connected to the Pall Mall Gazette.

It seems more accurate or at least a little more fat, and help keep the number of customers you need to raise the next legitimate email was a new, much more drastic and more like determination is proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where x includes math, law, you're putting something in this respect as so many others the pattern for the same reason parents don't tell the craziest lies about me. The biggest exits are the usual standards for truth. I'm not saying friends should be asking will you build this? The golden age of tax avoidance.

Calaprice, Alice ed.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #sup #feel #maker #bastards #opposite #successes #dollars

0 notes

howlongisthedata · 4 years

Text

Deploy ML Models On AWS Lambda - Code Along

Introduction

The site Analytics Vidhya put out an article titled Deploy Machine Learning Models on AWS Lambda on Medium on August 23, 2019.

I thought this was a great read, and thought I might do a code along and share some of my thoughts and takeaways!

[ Photo by Patrick Brinksma on Unsplash ]

You should be able to follow along with my article and their article at the same time (I would read both) and my article should help you through their article. Their sections numbers don’t make sense (they use 2.3 twice) so I choose to use my own section numbers (hopefully you don’t get too confused there).

Let’s get going!

Preface - Things I Learned The Hard Way

You need to use Linux!

This is a big one. I went through all the instructions using a Windows OS thinking it would all work the same, but numpy on Windows is not the same as numpy on Linux, and AWS Lambda is using Linux.

After Windows didn’t work I switched to an Ubuntu VirtualBox VM only to watch my model call fail again! (Note that the issue was actually with how I was submitting my data via cURL, and not Ubuntu, but more on that to come). At the time I was able to deploy a simple function using my Ubuntu VM, but it seemed that numpy was still doing something weird. I thought maybe the issue was that I needed to use AWS Linux (which is actually different from regular Ubuntu).

To use AWS Linux, you have a few options (from my research):

Deploy an EC2 instance and do everything from the EC2 instance

Get an AWS Linux docker image

Use Amazon Linux WorkSpace

I went with option #3. You could try the other options and let me know how it goes. Here is an article on starting an Amazon Linux WorkSpace:

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-linux-workspaces/

It takes a while for the workspace to become available, but if you’re willing to wait, I think it’s a nice way to get started. It’s also a nice option if you’re running Windows or Mac and you don’t have a LOT of local memory (more on that in a minute).

Funny thing is that full circle, I don’t think I needed to use Amazon Linux. I think the problem was with how I was submitting my cURL data. So in the end you could probably use any flavor of Linux, but when I finally got it working I was using Amazon WorkSpace, so everything is centered around Amazon Linux WorkSpace (all the steps should be roughly the same for Ubuntu, just replace yum with apt or apt-get and there are a few other changes that should be clear).

Another nice thing about running all of this from Amazon WorkSpace is that it also highlights another service from AWS. And again, it’s also a nice option if you’re running Windows or Mac and you don’t have a LOT of local memory to run a VM. VMs basically live in RAM, so if your machine doesn’t have a nice amount of RAM, your VM experience is going to be ssslllooowwwww. My laptop has ~24GB of RAM, so my VM experience is very smooth.

Watch our for typos!

I reiterate this over and over throughout the article, and I tried to highlight some of the major ones that could leave you pulling your hair out.

Use CloudWatch for debugging!

If you’re at the finish line and everything is working but the final model call, you can view the logs of your model calls under CloudWatch. You can add print statements to your main.py script and this should help you find bugs. I had to do this A LOT and test almost every part of my code to find the final issue (which was a doozy).

Okay, let’s go!

#1 - Build a Model with Libraries SHAP and LightGBM.

The article starts off by building and saving a model. To do this, they grab a open dataset from the package SHAP and use LightGBM to build their model.

Funny enough, SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) is a unified approach to explain the output of any machine learning model. It happens to also have datasets that you can play with. SHAP has a lot of dependencies, so it might be easier to just grab any play dataset rather than installing SHAP if you’ve never installed SHAP before. On the other hand, it’s a great package to be aware of, so in that sense it’s also worth installing (although it’s kind of overkill for our needs here).

Here is the full code to build and save a model to disk using their sample code:

import shap import lightgbm as lgbm

data,labels = shap.datasets.adult()

params = {'objective':'binary', 'booster_type':'gbdt', 'max_depth':6, 'learning_rate':0.05, 'metric':'auc'}

dtrain = lgbm.Dataset(data,labels)

model = lgbm.train(params,dtrain,num_boost_round=100,valid_sets=[dtrain])

model.save_model('saved_adult_model.txt')

Technically you can do this part on any OS, either way I suggest creating a Python venv.

Note that I’m using AWS Linux, which is RedHat based so I’ll be using yum instead of apt or apt-get. First I need python3, so I’ll run:

sudo yum -y install python3

Then I created a new folder, and within that new folder I created a Python venv.

python3 -m venv Lambda_PyVenv

To activate your Python venv just type the following:

source Lambda_PyVenv/bin/activate

Now we need shap and lightgbm. I had some trouble installing shap, so I had to run the following first:

sudo yum install python-devel

sudo yum install libevent-devel

sudo easy_install gevent

Which I got from:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11094718/error-command-gcc-failed-with-exit-status-1-while-installing-eventlet

Next I ran:

pip3 install shap

pip3 install lightgbm

And finally I could run:

python3 create_model.py

Note: For file creating and editing I use Atom (if you don’t know how to install atom on Ubuntu, open a new terminal, then I would check out the documentation and just submit the few lines of code from command line).

#2 - Install the Serverless Framework

Next thing you need to do is open a new terminal and install the Serverless Framework on your Linux OS machine.

Something else to keep in mind, if you try to test out npm and serverless from Atom or Sublime consoles, it’s possible you might hit errors. You might want to use your normal terminal from here on out!

Here is a nice article on how to install npm using AWS Linux:

https://tecadmin.net/install-latest-nodejs-and-npm-on-centos/

In short, you need to run:

sudo yum install -y gcc-c++ make

curl -sL https://rpm.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -

sudo yum install nodejs

Then to install serverless I just needed to run

sudo npm install -g serverless

Don’t forget to use sudo!

And then I had serverless running on my Linux VM!

#3 - Creating an S3 Bucket and Loading Your Model

The next step is to load your model to S3. The article does this by command line. Another way to do this is to use the AWS Web Console. If you read the first quarter for my article Deep Learning Hyperparameter Optimization using Hyperopt on Amazon Sagemaker I go through a simple way of creating an S3 bucket and loading data (or in this case we’re loading a model).

#4 - Create the Main.py file

Their final main.py file didn’t totally work for me, it was missing some important stuff. In the end my final main.py file looked something like:

import boto3 import lightgbm import numpy as np

def get_model(): bucket= boto3.resource('s3').Bucket('lambda-example-mjy1') bucket.download_file('saved_adult_model.txt','/tmp/test_model.txt') model= lightgbm.Booster(model_file='/tmp/test_model.txt') return model

def predict(event): samplestr = event['body'] print("samplestr: ", samplestr) print("samplestr str:", str(samplestr)) sampnp = np.fromstring(str(samplestr), dtype=int, sep=',').reshape(1,12) print("sampnp: ", sampnp) model = get_model() result = model.predict(sampnp) return result

def lambda_handler(event,context): result1 = predict(event) result = str(result1[0]) return {'statusCode': 200,'headers': { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },'body': result }

I had to include the ‘header’ section and the body. These needed to be returned as a string in order to not get ‘internal server error’ type errors.

You’ll also notice that I’m taking my input and converting it from a string to a 2d numpy array. I was feeding a 2d array similar to the instructions and this was causing an error. This was the error that caused me to leave Ubuntu for AWS Linux because I thought the error was still related to the OS when it wasn’t. Passing something other than a string will do weird things. It’s better to pass a string and then just convert the string to any format required.

(I can’t stress this enough, this caused me 1.5 days of pain).

#5 - YML File Changes

Next we need to create our .yml file which is required for the serverless framework, and gives necessary instructions for the framework.

For the most part I was able to use their YML file, but below are a few properties I needed to change:

runtime: python3.7

region : us-east-1

deploymentBucket: name : lambda-example-mjy1

iamRoleStatements: - Effect : Allow Action: - s3:GetObject Resource: - "arn:aws:s3:::lambda-example-mjy1/*"

WARNING!!!

s3.GetObject should be s3:GetObject

Don’t get that wrong and spend hours on a blog typo like I did!

If you need to find your region, you can use the following link as a resource:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.RegionsAndAvailabilityZones.html

Also, make sure the region you specify is the same region that your S3 bucket is located in.

#6 - Test What We Have Built Locally

Before you test locally, I think you need your requirements.txt file. For now you could just run:

pip freeze > requirements.txt

Now, if you’re like me and tried to run it locally at this point, you probably hit an error because they never walked you through how to add the serverless-python-requirements plugin!

I found a nice article that walks you through this step:

https://serverless.com/blog/serverless-python-packaging/

You want to follow the section that states ...

“ Our last step before deploying is to add the serverless-python-requirements plugin. Create a package.json file for saving your node dependencies. Accept the defaults, then install the plugin: “

In short, you want to:

submit ‘npm init’ from command line from your project directory

I gave my package name the same as my service name: ‘test-deploy’

The rest I just left blank i.e. just hit enter

Last prompt just enter ‘y’

Finally you can enter ‘sudo npm install --save serverless-python-requirements’ and everything so far should be a success.

Don’t forget to use sudo!

BUT WE’RE NOT DONE!!! (almost there...)

Now we need to do the following (if you haven’t already):

pip3 install boto3

pip3 install awscli

run “aws configure” and enter our Access Key ID and Secret Access Key

Okay, now if we have our main.py file ready to go, we can test locally (’again’) using the following command:

serverless invoke local -f lgbm-lambda --path data.txt

Where our data.txt file contains

{"body":[[3.900e+01, 7.000e+00, 1.300e+01, 4.000e+00, 1.000e+00,

0.000e+00,4.000e+00, 1.000e+00, 2.174e+03, 0.000e+00, 4.000e+01,

3.900e+01]]}

Also, beware of typos!!!!

Up to this point, make sure to look for any typos, like your model having the wrong name in main.py. If you’re using their main.py file and saved your model with the name “saved_adult_model.txt”, then the model name in main.py should be “saved_adult_model.txt”. Watch out for plenty of typos, especially if you’re following along with their code! They didn’t necessarily clean everything :(. If you get stuck, there is a great video at the end of this blog that could help with typo checking.

#7 - The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For, AWS Lambda Deployment!

Now we need to review our requirements.txt file and remove anything that doesn’t need to be in there. Why? Well, this is very important because AWS Lambda has a 262MB storage limit! That’s pretty small!

If you don’t slim down your requirements.txt you’ll probably hit storage limit errors.

With that in mind, I recommend taking only the files and folders needed and move them to some final folder location where you’ll run “serverless deploy”. You should only need the following:

main.py

package.json

requirements.txt

serverless.yaml

node_modules

package-lock.json

Now from command line within our final folder, we just run ..

serverless deploy

If all goes well, this should deploy everything! This might take a minute, in which case get some coffee and enjoy watching AWS work for you!

And if everything went as planned, then we should be able to test our live deployment using cURL!

curl -X POST https://xxxxxxxxxx.execute-api.xx-xxxx-1.amazonaws.com/dev/predictadult -d "39,7,13,4,1,0,4,1,2174,0,4,33"

Hopefully in the end you receive a model response like I did!

Resources:

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/deploy-machine-learning-models-on-aws-lambda-5969b11616bf

https://serverless.com/framework/docs/providers/aws/guide/installation/

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.RegionsAndAvailabilityZones.html

https://serverless.com/blog/serverless-python-packaging/

And here is a great live demo from PyData Berlin!

youtube

#machine learning #programming

0 notes

kpoprambles00-blog · 5 years

Text

TWICE (트와이스) - FANCY YOU (7th Mini Album) [COMEBACK REVIEW]

With K-Pop, I never really listen to full albums outside of the ones my bias groups release (as horrible as that sounds). But every now and again, I'll listen to an album because I'm curious, or I love the title track a lot... or because I know it's going to be everywhere, and I want to know what all the undeniable hype is going to be about. Sometimes that hype is going to be unfounded, but going into TWICE's comeback with "Fancy", I was 100% ready to give this album a chance.

TWICE's title tracks have had a shaky history in terms of my opinions on them. To me, they've had some absolutely phenomenal songs - see "Knock Knock" and "Like OOH-AHH" - and others which are... some of my least favourite K-Pop songs. Looking at you, "Cheer Up" and "Dance The Night Away". (Remember, THAT'S JUST MY OPINION. I know those songs are loved but ooooh man I can't listen to them without cringing.) But with all the rumours swirling about "Fancy" being a pivot in concept for TWICE, I couldn't help but think that this album might just be worth my time.

And after a solid two and half to three weeks of listening to it and forming my opinions (because I need SOMETHING to do during finals study)... yeah, wow, it really was worth my time. This album surprised me in a lot, and I mean a lot of ways. I had no clue what to expect going in, but I was very pleasantly surprised on the other side of it all. Vagueness aside, let's actually take a look at what I mean and break down TWICE's "Fancy You"!

1. FANCY [TITLE]

[I couldn’t include more than 5 videos because of the limit, so I had to exclude this one! Here’s the MV link though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOHB85vDuow]

Right off the bat, we have the title track, "Fancy". I won't deny that I was nervous whilst listening to this for the first time, but... man, THIS is how you do a concept change in my eyes. It's by no means a huge shift from TWICE's previous material, but it's got enough distinctiveness to really make it stand out. It's almost like an evolution of "YES or YES" - which I loved, for the record - but with a slightly more mature pop sound. And I LOVE IT.

A lot of the girls are predominantly singing in their lower/middle range here, which... they really need to do more, because they all sound phenomenal. It also makes the higher-pitched chorus hit a lot harder. Aside from the girls' performances, the instrumental is a goddamn treat. The synths are predominant but not overwhelming, the subtle melodies in the background add so much to the main vocal line, and it's got this undeniable sense of boppiness to it that you can't quite ignore. It starts off relatively simple, and then builds upon itself to turn into a monster of a pop song by the end of its runtime. I have absolutely no idea how Black Eyed Pilseung went from making "Cheer Up" to... this. But I am very fucking okay with it. I feel like sophisticated is a good word to describe "Fancy"; it's a goddamn gorgeous song with a really good sense of bounce and progression.

So not only have we got a slight change in sound for TWICE in the song itself, but the lyrics honestly back up this concept shift as well! Instead of falling into the typical bubblegum pop trap of "oppa I love you, please love me back," the girls are much more forward with their romantic advances. They make the guy come to them this time. And yeah, you could say that's been run into the ground with girl crush concepts at this point, but "Fancy" isn't quite girl crush to me. It's more of a mature pop song, and those confident lyrics give it a great lift overall.

It's dangerous, it pricks, you're like a rose It's okay, I'm not afraid any more Hold it harder, take my hand It'll be a little dangerous, even more dangerous

Great song? Check. Somewhat interesting lyrics? Check.

My new favourite choreography TWICE have done? DOUBLE FUCKING CHECK.

Hoooooooooooly wow this routine is incredible. I learned it the day this dance practice video was released. That's saying something, since I very rarely learn K-Pop routines anymore. And yes, it is as hard as it looks. But it just confirms how goddamn hard TWICE have been working recently when it comes to their choreography.

I'm not gonna deny that "YES or YES" had a fantastic routine, but this... this had me shocked when I watched it for the first time. Just like the song, there is so much goddamn fluidity and style in this routine that it's kinda mind-blowing. Every single little section flows into the next perfectly, and there are so many little details that it's dizzying to try and keep up sometimes. There's so many levels and dynamics at any given time, and just when you feel like you might get a bit bored, the positions and timing of the girls' moves are often switched up to keep your attention. They also, for the record, don't repeat that much of the routine in the later parts of the song (bar the choruses, obviously) which is a BALLSY move. It's a trap many fantastic routines can often fall into, and to think that they didn't take the easy way out here earns a big fucking gold star in my book. Basically, THIS ROUTINE IS FUCKING GORGEOUS. I like it as much as, say, IZ*ONE's "La Vie En Rose". And I think we all remember how much I gushed over that...

To put it briefly, TWICE knocked it out of the goddamn park with "Fancy". Even though I was skeptic of the concept change rumours, they ended up delivering with just about every aspect of this comeback. And I couldn't be any happier. If they keep this up in the future then I may just have to start reviewing their albums more consistently. Speaking of which... I still have the rest of the album to look at, so let's start that, shall we?

2. STUCK IN MY HEAD

youtube

The one thing I'd heard about this song in advance of listening to it was this: if you want girl crush TWICE, this would give you your fill. And straight away, I'd say: yes. That is absolutely the case here. Whereas "Fancy" was more of a mature pop song, "Stuck In My Head" is full-on bombastic girl crush. And I really do admire it for that; it's a great change of pace for TWICE, and certainly something I'd love to be able to get used to. But I do have a few problems with this song - one of them being quite a big problem - that stops it from being amazing in my eyes.

Before that though, I may as well focus on what I like about it: the instrumental is full of power and emphasis, with plenty of strong brass elements and even some snare drums in the pre-choruses to add a bit of extra power. The speedy melody in the verses only serves to add to that power, too. And, for the most part, so do the girls' vocals; Nayeon in particular KILLS IT here. She is super comfortable in this range, apparently, because goddamn she sounds phenomenal. Momo actually sounds pretty damn great too, I didn't know she could have so much power behind her vocals!

But, as I mentioned, I do have one or two problems with this song. Admittedly, while I do feel like some of the girls are in their element here - like Nayeon, Jihyo and Momo, even Jeongyeon in some places - a few others feel... slightly out of place. For example, Dahyun's vocals in the verses don't have that much power, which is by no means her fault. Powerful just isn't her style - it's completely understandable. She's much better at giving a calmer, breathier vocal delivery like Mina does. It's more of where her lines are placed that bothers me than her actual vocals.

But then there's those falsetto lines in the choruses, and the fact that the high notes and adlibs feel very isolated and scattered... and Jeongyeon. I have SUCH a love/hate relationship with Jeongyeon in this song. Well, not even a love/hate relationship, more of a love/disappointment relationship. Her lines in the second verse and her adlib towards the end are fucking outstanding, but then she doesn't reach those same heights with her chorus lines later on. I understand that maybe those lines are structured in a way that makes it harder for her to belt them, but... it would've added a lot to the song if she did. I'm all for her looking after her voice and not completely ruining it, that's what any good vocalist would do. It's just... she has the potential to be a standout here, and I feel it goes to waste sometimes. She's a fantastic performer overall, and I really wish I didn't have to say this, but I'm just being honest. :(

All of is combined with the instrumental of the song, which is probably my biggest problem. It's got a hell of a lot of power, sure, but it doesn't go anywhere with that power. It never changes itself up, or develops - not in a way that feels impactful, at least. Yes, the beat switchup during Chaeyoung's rap is quite cool, but it honestly ends up taking away a lot of the momentum rather than adding onto it. When you've got so much impact in a song like this, and then proceed to do nothing with it, that's a huge disappointment in my eyes. It ends up feeling repetitious and under-cooked, which is a goddamn shame. If it had just a bit more love and experimentation put into it on the production side of things, it could have been serious title track potential. But as much as I hate to admit it, it's a very, VERY uneven song. It's definitely something the producers can work on in the future.

D'you what they don't need to work on though? The lyrics. Cause yeah, they're about as girl crush as you can get, and I eat that shit for breakfast. "Fancy" was confident, yes, but "Stuck In My Head" is THAT bitch. Honestly, I'd love to see TWICE have lyrics like this for a title track of theirs. They're teasing and quite playful, whilst being very powerful and confident at the same time. Basically, I love them a lot and I really want them to take this angle with one of their title tracks please and thank you.

This game of hide-and-seek that doesn't let you breathe Our relationship pushes and pulls I wonder who'll be laughing when this tension ends

Yyyyyeah, I ended up being very mixed about this song as a whole. I can still enjoy it on a superficial level, and it's certainly a lot of fun. I just... need to not think about it too much, because when I do, that's when the problems start arising. Overall, it's a great attempt at a girl crush song, and definitely something I'd love to see TWICE develop on in the future.

3. GIRLS LIKE US

youtube

Welp, I certainly never expected a Charli XCX song to end up in TWICE's lap. And yes, for those of you who aren't aware, this was a song Charli originally created alongside MNEK called "Tough Love" - which, for the record, both of them are phenomenal artists with a HELL of a lot of talent. (Seriously, have you heard some of Charli's mixtapes????) But the song was never really finished, and it was leaked online earlier this year. I'm not going to give a link to it because of copyright, but go look it up yourself if you're curious. It IS out there.

But somehow, it ended up being sold to TWICE, and now we're here! And overall, "Girls Like Us" is pretty good. It's got a very whimsical and upbeat vibe to it in places, with some nice quirky piano lines and whistle melodies here and there. It's also got some downright anthemic choruses, and I certainly wasn't expecting them to explode as much as they did. It's goddamn gorgeous to listen to, if you ask me. The verses are minimal for a reason, and it woooooooorks.

It actually reminds me a lot of Red Velvet's "Happiness", in a way? It's got a very uplifting vibe to it, and it overall feels very dreamy and positive. Which, that's not something Charli's really known for, so it definitely surprised me! I was nonetheless very happy to hear TWICE put their own spin on it, and it ended up coming out pretty damn well.

But you know what I hate about this song? THE ENDING. That's how they decided to end it? With the most anticlimactic thing you could possibly do with a song like this??? Come ooooon, JYP producers. You had a great opportunity to take that heavy drum line and turn it into something special, and you wasted it. You left it to sputter out and feel as pointless as it could, causing the ending to feel abortive and very unfinished in general. I AM DISAPPOINTED.

[gif source]

Aside from that though, the lyrics certainly prove my point about the Red Velvet comparison. This is one of those cheesy yet uplifting and motivating songs that you can't help but grin like an idiot at. Yeah, the lyrics are pretty dumb, but they're fun. That's never a bad thing in my eyes!

The truth is, it's not a big deal You are not alone, everyone's been on this path before You'll find happiness one day on this road

In the end, "Girls Like Us" is a pretty dreamy song with a shitty ending. I don't really know what else I can say about it; it's pretty simple in a lot of ways, but sometimes you need a track like that to just enjoy in the middle of an album. Yeah, people will probably say it's filler, but if that's the case, then it's definitely a very fun example of filler. 😊

4. HOT

youtube

If you ask me, "Hot" is where this album finds its pace and really starts to just... have fun with it. "Hot" is actually an upbeat party song that REALLY surprised me upon my first listen. I didn't quite know what to expect going into it, sure, but if you told me it was going to be as quirky and funky as this, I... don't know if I would've believed you. But yeah, here we are!

"Hot" grabs your attention from the get-go with some really interesting vocal samples, and a very futuristic instrumental - almost reminiscent of deep house in some places thanks to those bouncy synths. But then, when the choruses hit, it adds some really nice snare touches, as well as a brass line that single-handedly makes the entire song SO much better. It gives it that extra energy that it probably would've lacked otherwise, and it definitely made me smile. This entire song just has so much goddamn energy, it's infectious! And hey, the ending actually works, which is a nice thing given that we just had "Girls Like Us". 😖

I feel like the girls themselves are actually enjoying themselves here, too - their vocal delivery is very colourful and varied, with just the right amount of sass and restraint where it's needed. That carries over into the lyrics, too, which are - once again - surprisingly confident and charismatic. It adds to the energy and vibe the song's got going for it - and when it's as fun as this, that is very much welcome. And sure, they're a little bit repetitive here and there, and they don't make much sense in places - although I think that's because the only place I could find a translation for this song was Genius, of all places - but hey, this song isn't really meant to be super deep! It's an empowerment anthem mixed with a party song, and shallow lyrics for this suffice perfectly for what it wants to do.

I don't have any ordinary clothes I'm perfect to my feet, I'll always be attracted to it You've already fallen for me

I don't really have much else I can say about "Hot"; you kinda just have to listen to it for yourself to really enjoy it. If you've never heard it before, I'd definitely recommend it! It's good if you need an energy boost, that's for sure. But... while I like it a lot, there is admittedly a better party song on this album. One with just as much energy - if not more - and a HELL of a lot of groove...

5. TURN IT UP

youtube

Yeah. It's this. I'll give "Hot" credit, it's fun and bouncy, but it's not on the level of "Turn It Up". Now THIS is a fucking party song.

The instrumental in this song is AWESOME. Not only have you got those bouncy elements we heard previously, mainly thanks to a great drum line and a nice synth line to match, but the groove. This song has SUCH a good bassline to it, and it's just topped off by some even funkier electric guitars here and there, as well as some thinner synths towards the end. Admittedly, that acoustic guitar intro with Sana's vocals is fucking awful and I don't know why they even included it (THE GUITAR ISN'T EVEN IN TUNE WITH THE REST OF THE SONG FFS), but the rest of the song is fantastic on its own. Just... ignore the intro. Forget it exists. Because there's a really damn good song to be found here if you do.

TWICE themselves actually nail it here, too, with some great vocals that really supplement this song's energy - I mean, do you HEAR how much fun they're having here? I feel like I can hear Jihyo smiling into the mic as she sings, and I love it! And hey, we have Momo rapping for a brief second, what else could you ask for? But overall, I feel like it eloquently provides a solution to the problem "Stuck In My Head" ran into, where some of the girls sound like they're not entirely comfortable - the instrumental ebbs and flows to support the members with the quieter vocals AS WELL AS the more powerful members. It works super well, and it means members like Tzuyu and Dahyun don't feel out of place. Speaking of which, Dahyun and Chaeyoung's rap is a goddamn highlight here - I haven't liked one of their raps this much since "Likey". THEY KILL IT.

Surprisingly, the lyrics indicate this is more of a love song than a party song? Which, that was a strange surprise to me. But while it is a love song, it's a very carefree and light one, with an electric sense of energy behind it. They never feel overbearing or annoying, and end up coming off as really natural and likable. They're honestly pretty good!

Here at night, full of starlight, Imma turn it up Towards the night sky in the dark, Imma turn it up We'll never lose our vibe

I think it's safe to say that "Turn It Up" left me very damn impressed, considering I wasn't expecting it to be anything special. It's the sort of song I've been waking up with stuck in my head in the morning (ironically enough), and that kinda shows how much sticking power it's got. It's memorable, upbeat, and reminds me an awful lot of Girls' Generation's "All Night" - it's just goddamn funky fun. I'd KILL to have a song like this be one of TWICE's title tracks going forward, 'cause I'd be there from minute one.

6. STRAWBERRY

youtube

Funnily enough, this is... probably my favourite song on the album. Yeah. Even though I liked "Turn It Up" a hell of a lot, "Strawberry" is the song I've found myself completely obsessed with. It's very subtle in a lot of ways, but I think that ends up working very much in its favour.

"Strawberry" is by a mile the slowest song on this album; the decision to end the album on a more chill song like this one was a great idea, in my opinion. And hey, like I said, it's probably my favourite song here - I love that distorted synth sample in the background and the melodic foundation it provides; I love the acoustic guitar sections in the choruses and the hint of authenticity it adds; I love how the girls' vocals are more hushed and a little bit more sultry than what we're used to hearing from them; there are so many elements of "Strawberry" that I could gush over for hours if I could. Hell, I'd say it's the most well-developed song on the album. It really does feel like its full potential is realised, and that makes me INCREDIBLY happy.

And yeah, when you look at the lyrics here, they're certainly more on the cutesy side than anything else on this album. But it's not an overbearing type of cuteness; it's very chill, relaxed and subdued, much like the song itself. They appreciate a few of the smaller details about the person they're crushing on, which matches the song's tone perfectly. It's such a goddamn pleasant song to listen to, and hey, even if I don't understand the lyrics without reading their meaning most of the time, they still feel refreshing regardless.

I don't want anyone to steal you, so I secretly hide you - it's all mine So what if I'm being greedy? I'm the one who likes you more

Not gonna lie, this song gave me very big and very immediate f(x) vibes. And that's a fantastic thing in my eyes - I AM a MeU, after all, but I didn't expect TWICE to pull it off quite so well. And to be honest, I think they do it just as well as f(x) do! These are the kind of cute songs I really like, where they're not overly in-your-face about their cuteness; they're just comfortable with being cute and putting their own spin on it at the same time. "Strawberry" is a fantastic song, and one I've found myself listening to an unhealthy amount at this point. Seriously. It's become one of the most played songs on my phone. Send help.

But hey, that's the entire album! And if "Fancy You" is anything to go by, I'll definitely be listening to more of TWICE's albums in the future - this ended up having some very pleasant surprises for me. This has been one of my favourite eras for TWICE overall, and this album just cements it to be honest. I can't wait to see where they go from here!

•••••

ALL SOURCES FOR THE ENGLISH LYRICS I USED IN THIS REVIEW: Fancy Stuck In My Head Girls Like Us Hot Turn It Up Strawberry

COVER IMAGE CREDITS: Holographic backgrounds by FreePik TWICE PNGs by beapanda on deviantArt

#TWICE #트와이스 #FANCY #FANCY YOU #comeback review

0 notes

huntermun · 7 years

Text

A Horizon: Zero Dawn Sequel Idea

So, I want to say what I want in Zero Dawn II, but saying it includes or implies various Spoilers for the first game, and if that is of grave concern to you, look away now. You have been warned. This was my warning. I'm serious. Go.

I'm not even joking. I spare no expense. This is a great sci-fi game and if you ever have any intention of playing it, look away now. This is Double Spoiler Warning. This post is only meant for those who never see themselves giving the game a shot or—preferably—those who've already beaten it. Not played it. Beaten it.

Sometimes being a Storyteller can be painful, because your brain travels down a lot of paths and considers a lot of options and so when story beats start going in a particular direction, you begin considering all of what those things could mean. In my case, ZD has a character named Ted Faro, and this guy is twice the cause for the end of the human race in the mid 21st century...

And it's the second one of these times that is of grave concern to me. See, as the smart people trying to design the titular Zero Dawn, they create this powerful AI named GAIA which has these subordinate runtimes which due their own thing... parts of her code which are not her primary function, but have important functions all their own.

The game deals with HADES—a concept which is totally logical but *sounds* horrible. See, GAIA is an AI, but these sub-fuctions are not... and she's supposed to redesign the biosphere... but she might screw up. And then what? Well, HADES was deigned to answer this question... its function meant to reverse GAIA's progress if it turned out she screwed something up, and then once it took the Earth back to a certain baseline, give main control back to GAIA.

I know, it sounds counter-intuitive, but think about it... this AI was a new experience, and had empathy coded into it... so it couldn't destroy life, because that wasn't it's purpose. But, HADES could... and it's creation was a back-up... because if something went wrong and the levels of CO2 or something got all messed up, the planet would need a restart.

Anyway, dealing with HADES is the main thrust of the game, but there's an important other sub-fuction that I want to see as a key part of the sequel to Zero Dawn: APOLLO.

APOLLO was as much an accumulation of the history of the human race as people could shove together in a short period of time. It had gamification VR tutorials and such made to train people from an early age with human knowledge so that the next version of the human race had a head start.

And here's where we get back to Ted Faro, who at one point in the game had me repeating aloud to myself "What did you do, Ted?" over and over again. We're long past Spoilers, but this last one hurts me a lot: Ted erases APOLLO. He erases APOLLO and kills those in charge of the GAIA Project in their otherwise secure bunker.

Ted Faro destroyed everything that remained of human history...

Look, this game was good. Real good. But the end of the game concerns HADES and GAIA... because, we don't know exactly what got into the mix, but it's clear HADES was leveled up to an AI. And in getting to that point, his only design goals were to destroy all life on Earth and to do that, he attacked GAIA's code. Before she could be gone, she sent out a message and self-destructed, giving basic instructions on how she might be rebuilt.

And you do that. When you defeat HADES, you get code back in place to rebuild GAIA and this is where my sequel desire comes in: if we can rebuild GAIA, why can we not rebuild APOLLO? I'm not even joking here... I would seriously go on a quest in this completely interesting post-apocalyptic setting for the express purpose of restoring all lost human knowledge. I want this. Bad.

I don't even know what else to add here other than to say, I want to know more about the other parts of GAIA and if any of them became aware... like maybe APOLLO, for example? I want to travel beyond this place in the game world, and I want to set off on a giant quest to rebuild humanity with lost information. Please. I've discovered I'm very invested in the story, and something along the lines of another fight with HADES is not something I care two shits about... it's APOLLO I want, and bad...

Damnit, Ted.

#horizon #zero dawn #spoilers #gaia #hades #apollo #video games #storytelling #ted faro

8 notes · View notes

valuecifer · 7 years

Text

So my erstwhile friend of too-long-to-count Mr. Feel (aka @thefeelofavideogame ) doesn’t want to be known as a “RWBY Guy”, this makes sense, RWBY is a very frustrating goddamn show, in so many damn ways. I'm doing him a favor of listing a bunch of problems with RWBY that he can just reblog for his followers since he doesn't wanna deal with that shit.

Now, SOME CONTEXT: I've watched all of RWBY Seasons Volumes 1-3, I've seen maybe like, two episodes of RWBY Season 4. I know it had been improving but recently took yet -another- nosedive, and have written massive, massive amounts of words on the subject of RWBY's incompetence, so I'm probably going to regurgitate a lot of points here that I've already ranted about to my friends in private to keep the word count from being too apocalyptically long.

I'm also going to be directly comparing RWBY to what it -wants- to be: a shonen-style anime romp, instead of any sort of high literature, just in case people think I'm some pretentious ass and not, y'know, a total nerd myself.

This list is not comprehensive, but is probably a good list of major production/storytelling faults. I'd need to do a whole series on this to talk about all the things wrong with RWBY, but a few major points of discontent, in no particular order:

1. Terrible, Terrible Pacing

Pacing makes or breaks a show for a ton of people, and RWBY's pacing, for a show, is ridiculously awful. I'm gonna be rolling a lot of my issues into this large point, because RWBY has a problem with both set-up AND follow-through on points it tries to present. It does a lot of things wrong with this, in that it tries to blow past a lot of setup just to get to 'the good part', which is the kind of mistake you say fanfiction writers and NaNoWriMo novels make. You have to establish things if you want people to get emotionally invested! You can't just force these four people together into a team, say 'okay, they're a team now', and then not elaborate on how they actually feel about each other at any point! Does anyone know what Team RWBY thinks about each other? Not really, because you get a laundry list of traits, get them referenced once, and then they assume for you to fill in the blanks. It's sloppy and lazy.

Sloppy and lazy describe a lot of the other plot points RWBY puts forward. The show continually tries to introduce a cool new thing without even beginning to resolve the thing they'd already attempted to put forward. This gets really frustrating in the way they put forward the climaxes of the various seasons, because do you want to know how many times the members of the MAIN TEAM are relevant in a given finale?

0. 0 times. Twice they get pre-empted by a Cool New Thing, and the third time is supposed to be the Time They Lose And Everything Goes Wrong, Oh No, except you don't CARE because they've accomplished NOTHING! They're a vehicle for action scenes, nothing more. It's not even a problem of runtime, because the Volume 4 episodes are now the length of your usual anime episode! They just don't know how to effectively use their time.

Part of the problem with this, is...

2. Massive, massive cast bloat

Mr. Feel didn't get far enough in for this to matter, but RWBY has a -huge- issue with introducing new characters for the sake of having new characters. To wit You have basically two teams full of main characters, which is four characters apiece. The cast does eventually slim down, only to add about three more characters for each one they trim off the list. And, as of this writing the cast is all over the fictional world, splitting the focus indefinitely to a point where the narrative is impossible to follow. A bunch of characters are superfluous, such as Neptune, -possibly- Sun, and basically Everyone They Introduce during the Tournament Arc. It gets to the point where they introduce new characters and can't develop the ones they already have, with some... notable exceptions. Nearly all the main characters are about as flat as cardboard when it comes to personality, with viewers expected to fill in the blanks, only to never get any reward for inferring these character traits, because, again, RoosterTeeth is terrible at follow-through on their series.

But I've been talking like the foundations aren't rotten, when they are, due to the fact that-

3. They ignore the basic ideas around what makes shonen fighting good

Okay, so, an unrelated friend once made this metaphor about how Shonen Fights should work, and I've been using it ever since, it's how I tackle so many fights, and why I tend to dislike a lot of the fighting around RWBY.

The best Shonen fights are like puzzles. What I mean by that is that, at any given point, you know what your heroes have access to, and how each part works, and the excitement comes from not only learning what tools the heroes' opponents have at their disposal, but also figuring out how exactly the heroes' tools will come into play. Now, you may be thinking "Shonen break the rules with sudden power-ups all the time", and I posit that, no, they really don't. So long as something is alluded to being in the Hero's toolbox, they can use it, even if this means it's, in narrative context, a 'new' power. The most iconic example I can think of, of that rule playing out, is Goku going Super Saiyan on Namek. It's alluded to a bunch of times that the only thing Freiza is scared shitless of is a Super Saiyan. Vegeta tells Goku he doesn't stand a chance unless he's a Super Saiyan. From that point on, the idea of 'becoming a Super Saiyan' is a tool that's added to Goku's 'toolbox', that he eventually uses against Freiza.

RWBY doesn't play by these rules. Everyone has a boatload of powers at their disposal - Aura, Dust, Semblances, and trick weapons - but none of them feel really well explained or well-distinguished. Dust can be combined in a bunch of different ways! Okay, how? Why do crystals and powdered dust both exist? What causes Semblances to exist or not? How -exactly- does Aura even -work-? Not only that, but then they introduce new powers, like Ruby's 'Silver Eyes', and then refuse to elaborate on them, treating them as exercises for the viewer.

Not only that, but the fights just. Don't feel 'dynamic', there doesn't ever feel like there's a change or a moment where things shake up. To make a videogame-based example, a lot of bosses tend to have 'Phases' in it. These phases are well-defined, because they involve changing the way the players and the boss have to move. RWBY doesn't do that. All the interesting different stuff is just different 'strings' of combos, like in fighting games, which feel downright uninspired when you have to many different ways you can approach fights. Nope, just a varied combo string.

But all that could probably be forgiven if they just...

4. STOP PANDERING FOR GOD'S SAKE

Look, I get it. Everyone hates pandering unless they're the one being pandered to. That's how it's always been, that's how it's likely always going to be. But there's a level of -advanced- pandering that goes on in RWBY that is absolutely cringe-worthy on every level.

There's throwaway characters based off of company in-jokes, the 'combat' technique names are named after fandom's ship names, the inclusion of a character just so a prominent member of their staff could voice a character whose existence is downright superfluous. Making a character more important than they seemed because fan reaction was popular. It goes as far as like.

Okay. I would be perhaps be the last person to talk about queerbaiting, as a straight white dude, and given certain fandoms' overuse of the term, it's been relatively diluted recently, but RWBY's actions of pandering can be straight up queerbaiting, because, as it turns out, people wanted a narrative focused on girl heroes, and what they got was every plot beat being soaked up by dudes as each of the main team is effectively damselled in their own way. And yet they still try to spin it as the 'girls' story'. It's honestly kind of disgusting, and a topic for another post, but the real thing that probably makes me the most mad is...

5. Nobody at Rooster Teeth knows what they're doing with the show, and never have

Don't get me wrong. Monty Oum is an inspiration to me as someone who primarily works in creative space, trying to make creative things. Monty Oum was a creative force that will be sorely missed in this world. But Monty made one singular, huge fuckup which has kneecapped RWBY even worse than the show could ever do to itself.

There's no story bible.

For those of you who don't understand what that is, it's exactly what it says it is. If you don't know what something does, you refer to the story bible. If you don't understand what the plot's beats are supposed to be, you refer to the story bible. Over, and over, and over. Having a singular document to refer to is vital in a whole bunch of different areas. Game Design Docs, Story Bibles, Production Diaries/Bibles, they're all more or less the same concept over different areas.

From what we know of the behind the scenes, there was a lot of stuff Monty had in mind that he just. Didn't tell -anyone- else working on the show. He couldn't have known he would have died so young, but that's exactly why bibles exist. They're there as contingencies, you make them so that, in case you aren't there to work on something that's so completely -you-, people can follow what you had in mind. So many things got dropped, shifted, moved around with Monty's death that the show spent all of Volume 3 trying to recuperate, while gradually trying to salvage the show, but it's clear they didn't know what to do with a lot of pieces, and are just hoping that people are forgetting about them.

This is, quite honestly, inexcusable even for a 'semi-professional' work. You can't keep ideas to yourself. You have to share them, workshop them, write them -down-. That's the only way anyone's ever going to know what you're going with, and a lack of a story bible is as much at fault for why RWBY is so frustrating.

I wanted to like the show, I really, truly, honestly did, but it's made me so mad at every turn that I can't even enjoy when it -tries- to improve, because I know it'll continue to disappoint.

Don't watch RWBY.

#rwby #long post #negative #rooster teeth #i spent literally all night on this

528 notes · View notes

lastgenpodcast · 6 years

Text

JUSTICE LEAGUE Review

There are points in JUSTICE LEAGUE where I genuinely smiled and felt the tone and balance that seems to elude Warner Brothers in their attempt to do what others are doing successfully, finally found the sweet spot. They are fleeting but they are there. Strangely it's just a look. A head-turn and a look. Sadly, fleeting is the key word here and despite an obvious effort to clean this up, the film stalls with a non existent villain and a plot that I barely remember after seeing it just a few hours ago. Also, the return of the character that everyone knew was returning...wow. Every ounce of excitement that was possible is zapped out of existence. Let's discuss the cast though.

Ezra Miller, Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa all seem to be having a good time and are invested. Granted, Momoa may just be playing himself for a large portion but being pretty awesome in real life can carry over to the screen so this take on Arthur Curry is fine thus far even if he is barely in water. Gadot is still where my eyes go everytime she is on screen. That is not simply a gesture towards her attractiveness either. She just has a way about her while being Wonder Woman and Diana. She is the diamond in the DC universe. Ezra Miller's Flash is the fun of the film even if he "aww shucks" it too often. He is part of the moment I mention earlier when I felt the best part of any DC film thus far takes place. Ray Fisher's Cyborg has the least to do here. His major piece of action is pulling three cubes apart and being the worst excuse to make a forced conflict occur. More on that later though. Affleck's Batman just seems bored. He has moments of intensity but they pass quickly and Batman seems almost out of place among these superfolk. On the overall, the talent is wasted and that is a shame. No one is given enough to do at any point in the runtime. We will discuss the other team member later.

No ones time is wasted more than that of Ciaran Hinds as Steppenwolf though. The design on the character is bland. The CG looks video game level and his plan is so unengaging that I still have no idea why a portion of this film took place in Russia. You cannot find one ounce of Hinds here and that is possible the films largest tragedy. To waste this casting is criminal. Also, here is his plan. Push three cubes TOGETHER. To relay the entire plot, here it is :

Steppenwolf : I'm going to push those cubes TOGETHER!

Cyborg : No, I will push those cubes APART. AH HA!

Seriously, that's it.

To top it off you have Jeremy Irons and J.K. Simmons. Neither do anything. One pulls a lever twice. Maybe once. I honestly do not remember. Also, there is a White Stripes song featured prominently in one scene which sounds so out of place that I can't imagine who thought that was a good idea.

It may seem I am being harsh but when you have all the talent and oppurtunity in the world, you need to deliver. The terms that caused Zack Snyder to leave the production early are awful and I wish that no one ever would have to experience that pain. His efforts here need to cease in the DC film world though. One OK film and two bad ones are three films too many to not have hit the bulls-eye yet. Joss Whedon was brought in to bring it home and while you can see his efforts in some scenes, it's not enough to save the tale as a whole. The plot is just boring. You have three of the most well known characters in the modern age (DC's Trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) in one film and it's utterly squandered. Again.

JUSTICE LEAGUE is not the worst film of the year. Nowhere near it. It just lacks anything to pull you in and keep your attention. It felt as if the film had no idea what it was. Why then am I, as an audience member, supposed to figure it out for myself? Simply put, JUSTICE LEAGUE is disappointing and trust me that I take zero enjoyment in stating that.

I will now discuss a SPOILER. If you have not seen the film you may want to leave now.

You gone?

Okay, we need to discuss Superman.

This movie found a way to resurrect Superman from the dead in the least exciting way possible. It lacks any proper build up or worthwhile reveal. To put it in the plainest of terms, Flash has to zap a mother box at the moment it hits the Kryptonian bath tub aboard the alien ship from the previous films as a dead Superman is put there by the JL. Yes, that ship is STILL there and no one seems intent of relocating it. Sure. He wakes up rather quickly and has a bit of a freak out which makes sense since he was dead and all. The forced plot moment of Cyborg's armor taking up a defensive position towards a possibly dangerous resurrected alien just felt like an excuse to have the members of the JL have to briefly battle Earth's greatest threat, Superman. Seriously. Do we really need to play the one note bullshit of "Is he a good guy?" again? Three films deep now. Superman is a good guy. Shut the fuck about it already. Amidst that silliness though, something happens that is so great the entire audience buzzed. The moment of Flash trying to run behind Superman to help his teammates is absolute gold. While moving at the speed that Flash moves, Superman starts to follow Flash with his eyes at first and then turns his head at the same speed Flash is traveling. The look on Flash's face is priceless and it's a top notch bad ass moment for Superman. If only the rest of the film had this type of personality for all of its members.

Anyway, Superman gets his head straight as he sees Lois (another hugely wasted talent in Amy Adams) and he flies them away to the Kent farm. He then returns to battle Steppenwolf just when the gang needs him. He even smiles and starts to feel like Superman proper. The post credit scene with him and Flash is damn near perfect too. It's a step in the right direction.

I never felt exhilarated by his return though. It's all right in front of you. There is no surprise at all. Yes, we all knew he would return but it lacked any real juice in the theater. I have an alternate version to suggest.

When they try to zap him alive, have it appear to fail. Steppenwolf makes trouble, the JL have to leave, attending to the threat, but they feel as if they have already lost. Wonder Woman picks them up but doubt still looms. The audience then sees a quick shot of Superman's finger twitch. Later as the JL is backed up against the wall, Superman breaks the sound barrier in his approach and saves everyone. Now, portions of that do happen but by the time Superman appears in the climatic battle, he has been around for nearly 20 minutes, spoke with Lois, his Mom and battled the JL briefly. The entire scene at the Kent farm could have been how the film closes or at least occuring post fight. As it stands, we see too much of Superman to be ramped up for his return in the battle. It all just feels flat.

I do hope that DC films can now move on from the Snyder era. The franchise has made money but not due to quality. It would make twice the amount if the films delivered. Wonder Woman did exactly that. Geoff Johns and Co. now have the opportunity to get this in the right direction. JUSTICE LEAGUE is not a step forward though. Compared to Wonder Woman it is a step back. The creative forces at WB and DC need to step up or all hope will be lost. Superman or no.

#Justice League #Superman #Batman #DC Comics #Film #Review

0 notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 7 years

Text

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

When everyone wants you, it's hard not to end up making something of value to a lot of air in the straw. The answer, I realized, is that my m. Valuation is at best third. People from other rich countries can scarcely imagine the squalor of the man-made bits of America. But the way the story appeared in the press sounded a lot more money than a job, but it's clearly now the established practice. It's too hard to pick winners early on. I propose we call this new sport PR diving, and I'm sure there are far more striking examples out there than this clump of five stories. I know because I've seen it burn off. Investors may end up with less stock per startup, but startups will probably do better with founders more in control, and there will almost certainly be more of them. When I first laid out these principles explicitly, I noticed something striking: this is practically a recipe for generating a contemptuous initial reaction. Some say it's because their culture encourages cooperation.

The power of this technique extends beyond startups and programming languages and essays. The unsuccessful founders weren't stupid. I've noticed this too. You'll also want an executive summary and maybe a deck.1 One of the most successful companies we've funded so far, but I feel obliged at least to try. Startups raising money occasionally alienate investors by seeming arrogant. Tell yourself you can be as nice as you want, you have more ideas about what to do in that case. American cars continue to lose market share. One is that investors will increasingly be de facto series B rounds. Series A rounds still work that way, but things now work differently for most fundraising prior to the series A. The good news is, there's also a good chance the person at the next stage.

It's the job equivalent of the pizza they had for lunch. But in this case it seems more to the point where your group attaches to the tree. Trend articles like this are almost always the work of PR firms all over the articles, as you can, so you start learning from users what you should have been making. Which means it's doubly important to hire the best people. Traditionally phase 2 fundraising consists of presenting a slide deck in person to investors. As indeed they often are. Suppose as before that you only extract half as much from users as you could, but that right now you need to undertake to actually be successful.

4 million. It's too perfect. But the just-do-it. The sticking point is board seats. The bigger the problem, the harder it is to change directions. I can't think of a startup idea. Not only is fundraising not the test that matters. Don't raise too much money. Startups will go to them only to fill up rounds that are oversubscribed, being last in line means they'll probably miss the hot deals.

This is an instance of a very successful businessman in the cartoon it was always a man: a rapacious, cigar-smoking, table-thumping guy in his fifties who wins by exercising power, and isn't too fussy about how. When you look at something like Reddit and think the founders were lucky.2 Y axis are smaller, but the probability that an investor will say yes, in the future. So I'd like to suggest an additional feature to those working on spam filters: a punish mode which, if turned on, would spider every url in a suspected spam n times, where n could be set by the user. I think about this, because there have been cases of startups that kept trying to raise $250k. They're type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on hard problems at all. Be in fundraising mode or not. Better or worse, the just-do-it model and the Lisp model, like runtime typing and garbage collection. When he was writing that first Basic interpreter for the Altair, Bill Gates was writing something he would use, as were Larry and Sergey were noobs at fundraising.3 We decide based on about 10 minutes of in person interview, and we think as it spreads outward it will help later stage investors as well. All they really mean.4

Nearly all customers choose the competing product, a job. If we assume the average startup runs for 6 years and a partner can bear to be on a trajectory that leads to going public. The PR industry has too. If having less power prevents investors from overcontrolling startups, it should be hard. But only one company we've funded has so far, so tentatively assume the path to huge passes through an A round, before the VCs invest they make the company set aside a block of shoddy condos in a month. Why call an auction site eBay? Getting the first substantial offer can be half the total difficulty of fundraising, when you're in a very strong position, you not only won't get that but won't get anything. Stop fundraising when it stops working. But a constant multiple of any curve is exactly the same shape. It's like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination.

Obviously one case where it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that. So you must cushion the blow with soft words. But if you wait too long, other investors might take the deal away from you. Mediocre hires hurt you twice: they get less done, but they need you to come in for one meeting to meet some of the qualities of things you're meant to like, but is disastrously lacking in others. So there should be a lot more definite. Because Apple is in the consumer electronics business now, and that they have to take less equity to do it. When you talk to investors in parallel rather than serially.5 Fundraising is not what I remember from it, but my mental models of the crusades, Venice, medieval culture, siege warfare, and so on. Since the VCs who don't adapt will be investing later, their returns from winners may be smaller. Its syntax, or lack of syntax, makes it look completely unlike the languages most people are used to. In such rounds they won't get the 25 to 40% of the company they do now. If not it's a sign of an underlying lack of resourcefulness.

Once you start getting investors to commit, it becomes increasingly easy to get more to. Now startups simply raise money from. When I see a startup with ordinary office workers—with type-B procrastinating, no matter what, but raising money will help us do it faster. You'll also want an executive summary, which should be less than 15%. But the craftier ones achieve the same result by offering to lead rounds of fixed size and supplying only part of the money you raise in phase 2 will be the last you ever raise. Though founders are rightly indignant when their plans get leaked to competitors, I can't imagine they'll work any less hard to feed stories to bloggers, if they built whole towns, market forces would compel them to build towns that didn't suck. Which means it's doubly important to hire the best people. Someone who's scrappy manages to be both threatening and undignified at the same time. That was contrarian advice 10 years ago, startups raising money in phase 2, yes.6 Investors know you're inexperienced at this and ask how their process works and where you are in fundraising mode or not. I wish I could think of an idea like that, remember: ideas like that are all around you. Our own startup, despite the fact that he has to do all the company's errands as well as programming, because at least when he's programming he can do whatever he wants.

Notes

From a company that has become part of the causes of the company and fundraising at the network level, and so on. The First Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1996. No one in an equity round.

But it could change what it would grow as big as a high school. If they agreed among themselves never to do that much better that it would be on the software business, Bob wrote, for example, the only audience for your work. Which in turn forces Digg to respond promptly. It was common in the absence of objective tests.

But if you hadn't written about them. There are fields now in which you can't even claim, like warehouses. Anything that got fixed. 2%.

One valuable thing you tend to make peace with Spain, and there didn't seem to want them; you have to follow redirects, and no doubt often are, but corrupt practices in finance, healthcare, and this trick, and also what we'd call random facts, like play in a separate feature. And while this is an understatement. This must have been lured into this sort of dress rehearsal for the spot very easily.

When economists talk about it well enough known that people working for me do more than the type of x. A small, fast browser that you should be protected against such tricks will approach. By heavy-duty security I mean type I startups.

The situation is analogous to the present, and this tends to be the least VC-like. These points don't apply to types of startups will generally raise large amounts of other VCs who are younger or more ambitious the utility function for money. But that doesn't mean easy, of course, that good art is a huge loophole.

4 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

THE COURAGE OF ATTITUDE

When I said I was speaking at a high school student, just as you'd be careful to avoid raising the first from an over-eager investor at a time, they don't have the pressure of other investors. So I seem to have begun by trying to solve.1 You can measure this in your growth rate.2 It should be a lot more money than a job, but it's an everyday thing in Lisp.3 Nearly all your attachment to it comes from it being attached to you. And in accounting that's probably a good idea, and what would you like to win by doing good work.4 Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to work on doesn't mean you get to the point where much of what you're measuring is artifacts of the fakeness. I was only going to use the Internet twice a day. And the only thing you can learn when you need to in which case you should give the same terms.5 And the combination is not as critical as it used to be.6

I could only keep one. Sometimes it's because the writer only has very high-level language. Like a lot of implications and edge cases. And they'll help people they haven't invested in too. This is yet another problem that afflicts the sciences: math envy. So why do universities and research labs continue to judge hackers by publications? It seems to me the solution is analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then work on another, you have to create the agreement from scratch. In server-based applications on Windows. They don't define what evil is, but how fuzzy it is. Code size is important, because the practice is now quite common. But the good thing about that is that no one now even remembers, and so on. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a media company instead of a technology company.

We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. All these guys starting startups now are going to be good at what you do? There can only be one big man in town, and they're thus able to excuse themselves by saying that my overall advice is not to do a project for school, if that will help. Just make sure that you and the startup should have lawyers.7 There is actually some data out there about that.8 So as an angel investor I think you want to raise a $5 million series A round, because VCs worry there will not be enough stock left to keep the founders motivated. But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of cheap labor. That first batch could have been implemented as a couple hundred serious angels in the whole Valley, and yet they're probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one.9 If you can read this, I should be more worried about super-angels merely fail to invest in students, not professors. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to make Web sites for galleries—that's the ticket!

But in fact you shouldn't. Many investors will ask how much you can raise. If you subject yourself to that constraint, it will rot your brain.10 Without the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. They feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.11 Instead treat school as a day job as a waiter. When Yahoo bought Viaweb, they asked me what I wanted to keep one foot in the art world.12 Who are all those people? And then at the other makers. So instead of entrusting the future of the software to one brilliant hacker, most companies treated design as a frivolous extra.13 But you have to carry your weight.

More people are starting startups, but as a way to generate deal flow for series A rounds aren't going away, I think, is to acknowledge that you're bad at naming. There's plenty of empirical evidence: armies, religious cults, and so on. That was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it.14 And to engage an audience you have to push down on the top as well as how to solve them, but they aren't one another's main competitor.15 We were after the C programmers. But if they don't, the US could be seriously fucked.16 If large payoffs aren't allowed, you may also be because if you do add that final increment of power, you can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Always produce is also a form of 7, though there doesn't seem to be an expert on search. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal.

Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have to like making up elaborate lies. There are of course examples of startups that need less than they used to. And he has to do is write checks. In fact, it may be slightly misleading to say that you despised your job, but a greedy algorithm is simply one that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be the stars. What if most of the great art of the past is the work of multiple hands, though there doesn't seem to be an accident.17 To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. What you don't often find are kids who react to challenges like adults. It's exciting that there even exist parts of the world where you win by doing good work.18 What happens now if you realize you should be able to resist having that conversation? But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source hacking is all about.

Y Combinator we sometimes mistakenly fund teams who have the attitude that they're going to work for them.19 He just wanted to talk to you about investing. Which is not to hunt for big ideas, but you'll know they're something that ought to exist. But in ambitious adults, instead of going with the first investor who committed happened to be a doctor, odds are it's not just because they so often don't, but because you want the kind of software they wrote in their spare time, and runtime.20 But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as Micro-soft. But if you're in the same department. How much should you take? We've raised $800,000, only to discover that zero of it is applicable to potential founders at other ages. Now I know a number of people with the necessary skills.21 The easiest program to change is one that's very short. Work with people you like and respect.

Notes

But they've been trained to expect the second phase is less than 500, because what they're building takes so long to launch.

Make sure it works well to show them how awful the real world is boring. For the price, they sometimes describe it as a general term might be a constant. Ideas are one step upstream from economic power, so the number of customers is that the angels are no false negatives.

The number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth, and that modern corporate executives were, we could just use that instead.

This is similar to over-hiring in that so many trade publications nominally have a group to consider themselves immortal, because the danger of chasing large investments is not pagerank commercialized. It's conceivable that a startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work is not such a low grade, which was open to newcomers because it was actually a great hacker. According to Sports Illustrated, the best approach is to carry a beeper? You'd think they'd have something more recent.

Source: Nielsen Media Research. At the time they're fifteen the kids are probably not do that.

It's hard for us. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because the remedy was to reboot them, and a little too narrow than to call them whitelists because it is to seem big that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and would probably be the only function of the next Apple, maybe 50% to 100% more, are better college candidates. There may be the more educated ones.

Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email startups. Startups Condense in America consider acting white. When you fix one bug happens to compensate for another.

Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would increase the size of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a hard technical problem. I'd say the rate of improvement is more like Silicon Valley. Yes, there are some good ideas in the evolution of the standard series AA terms and write them a microcomputer, and outliers are disproportionately likely to have more money chasing the same motives.

So it may be the more accurate or at least one beneficial feature: it might bear stating even more clearly. And that is exactly my point. One reason I don't know the combination of a severe-looking little box with a lawsuit just as if it means is No, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to 6,000 per month. More precisely, while the more corrupt the rulers.

I realize this sounds like the one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the investors talking to you.

The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert. Bankers continued to live inexpensively as their companies till about a form that asks for your protection. But the change is a fine sentence, but to do that.

Robert Morris points out, First Round excluded their most successful startups looked when they talked about before, but since it was one cause of poverty are only locally accurate, because the ordering system and image generator and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. Some genuinely aren't. Everything is a meaningful idea for human audiences. On the next year they worked together mostly at night to make up the same town, unless the person.

If you want to sell services than a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and when you say is being able to raise five million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be significantly pickier. Even now it's hard to game the system? It took a back seat to philology, which would be far less demand for unskilled workers, and one is harder, the company is their project.

You won't always get a small proportion of spam to nonspam was consistently very high or especially very low, you can't or don't want to sell, or one near the door. Publishers are more repetitive than regular email.

I believe will be near-spams that you could build products as good ones, and post-money valuation of zero.

Ii.

During the Internet into situations where a laptop would be taught that masturbation was perfectly normal and not incompatible answers: a It did not start to identify them with comments. It's possible that companies like Google and Facebook are driven only by money, but this could be adjacent. What's the connection?

What has changed over time. I'm not saying option pools themselves will go away. 339-351. Ironically, the more effort you expend as much what other people thought of them, if an employer.

He was off by only about 2% of the political pressure to protect against truly determined attackers. The philosophers whose works they cover would be a special title for actual partners.

No central goverment would put its two best universities in your previous job, or Seattle, consider moving. That case the money. The ironic thing is, it was so violent that she decided never again. But while such trajectories may be a startup to an investor who merely seems like he will fund you one day have an edge over Silicon Valley, the best metaphors for hackers are in a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

0 notes