Sometimes though, the source material is shit surrounding a solid core. Like Jaws and the Godfather are hailed as two of the greatest movies right. But their source novels are considered pulpy and unremarkable from other novels in the same genre. And I’ve read Jaws; by the time you get out to sea on the Orca, you’re rooting for the shark to eat everybody BUT Brody.
Movie, TV, Web Series, and Music Hot Take(s).
- Thread starter BrawlMan
- Start date
I've also heard that sometimes the writers and producers wanted to do a different story altogether, but they were told to adapt something. So they try to merge the adaptation and their story and it doesn't work.
Now, of course that'd happen occasionally, bt without knowing how common that is, I don't know if that's a useful point.
Less of a hot take as I’m sure other people take issue with this too, so it’s more like a mini rant:
Most movies and TV shows - especially steaming it seems - have absolutely horrible sound mixing when it’s time for dialog. Without any tweaking (which shouldn’t be needed in the first place) it’s like the dialog volume is somehow only at 2 while anything else is already at 10. So typically it’s a near constant juggling act with turning the volume up to fucking hear what anyone’s saying, and then ten seconds later there’s an ear-bleeding crescendo of either the soundtrack or some other sound effects like explosions or gunfire. Or even just the soundtrack.
It’s like, how difficult is it to pipe audio through the center channel so it’s not a night and day difference from everything else. Maybe I’m just getting old, because it bothers me most at night when I’m trying to unwind.
Most movies and TV shows - especially steaming it seems - have absolutely horrible sound mixing when it’s time for dialog. Without any tweaking (which shouldn’t be needed in the first place) it’s like the dialog volume is somehow only at 2 while anything else is already at 10. So typically it’s a near constant juggling act with turning the volume up to fucking hear what anyone’s saying, and then ten seconds later there’s an ear-bleeding crescendo of either the soundtrack or some other sound effects like explosions or gunfire. Or even just the soundtrack.
It’s like, how difficult is it to pipe audio through the center channel so it’s not a night and day difference from everything else. Maybe I’m just getting old, because it bothers me most at night when I’m trying to unwind.
Last edited:
Yeah, that's been a problem for me for some years.
Also, mumbling actors, which is a separate issue, and seems to be more common on US shows. In a hurry and so don't redo their dialogue, perhaps?
Been running into that at lot lately. I kept thinking I'm finally going deaf, but I actually have kind of sensitive hearing and I've noticed it a lot on stream services. It's not that I can't hear people when they are just talking, its specific that I can hear them over even ambient noise.
I think it’s based on the erroneous assumption that just as HD/4K tvs are now common, so too are 5.1 and better sound systems.
Another problem I noticed with a lot of MCU properties recently, is that most of them are just not rewatchable or not worth watching a second time through. Though as I mentioned in pages way far back, most of the phase two sucks anyway. The MCU shows I care about even less unfortunately. Even though I have my brother's Disney plus account, I still have no interest in seeing most of these shows. You can give me all the free time in the world, and most of them I would not bother re-watching or I would just watch the clips I want to see on YouTube and move on.
Last edited:
Oddly I think Shehulk is the only one that was just "fun". My biggest peeve with the marvel shows is that they all felt like an investment. Like you were perpetually sitting through a lot of aimless "story" and "exposition" to get to the good parts. Just a lot of bad pacing. She hulk thankfully is like 30 minute episodes and its more of a comedy so each episode got you what you needed before overstaying its welcome. Thats the only one Id recommend watching without any headache.
That said its not prestige marvel television which I think irked a lot of people. It doesn't lead up to, introduce, or tie into anything else. Just a pleasant time killer. Actually the "What If" series was the same. Just fun little one shot stories.
The problem is people/MCU fans got spoiled. They have gotten content of mostly great movies, that whenever something that is just ok, average, or mediocre shows up, they all flip out and think it's the worst thing ever. When a majority of them have never really seen a bad movie or really bad show in a long time. I noticed this is something with mostly younger people, but there's plenty of people my age, your age, older that have this problem now too.
I am concerned with the obsession of "faithfulness" when it comes to adaptations, especially video game adaptations.
This is mostly coming from The Witcher and The Last of Us. Yes, I know Netfilix' the WItcher is an adaptation of the books not the games but this whole vibe I'm worried about is coming from the same type of place.
I haven't seen The Last of Us yet- I will check it out probably tonight. But the reviews are positive- which is cool- but a lot of it seems to be because it's "faithful to the game."
So- ok, I don't think good art and entertainment are going to come from meeting audience expectations. This idea where you have a "community" of eager consumers who have a checklist of things they need delivered on, and then its met or not and then you can decide, yep, it passes or it doesn't- that is so incredibly dull and lame and why do people want to live this way.
It's like "his show/movie will be good IF..." blah blah blah. Don't folks want to be surprised, delighted, inspired? When I think about my favorite stuff it's all because I didn't know such a thing could exist. Breaking Bad, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Severance, even Game of Thrones at first- I did not want these things, I imagined they'd be crap when I first heard the premise, and they were the greatest TV shows of the past 20 years.
And now we have things like the The Last of Us where it feels like we're holding it up to the game and checking off it's the same and deciding if that's good or not. And that means that the show will never be great, no matter how good it is, because by its very nature it can't truly bring something new.
My worry is, with companies playing it so safe, this sort of thing will squelch interesting shows and movies. We already see Netflix canceling everything left and right, and film studios not making money on anything that isn't some franchise. I already feel like film as an interesting creative art form has effectively died, and now this "faithfulness" doctrine is coming to help kill off TV. It is just going to add fuel to the fires of the greater causes, chiefly media conglomeration. But's just a bit disturbing to see all this "true to the source material" rhetoric dominating these "franchises."
This is mostly coming from The Witcher and The Last of Us. Yes, I know Netfilix' the WItcher is an adaptation of the books not the games but this whole vibe I'm worried about is coming from the same type of place.
I haven't seen The Last of Us yet- I will check it out probably tonight. But the reviews are positive- which is cool- but a lot of it seems to be because it's "faithful to the game."
So- ok, I don't think good art and entertainment are going to come from meeting audience expectations. This idea where you have a "community" of eager consumers who have a checklist of things they need delivered on, and then its met or not and then you can decide, yep, it passes or it doesn't- that is so incredibly dull and lame and why do people want to live this way.
It's like "his show/movie will be good IF..." blah blah blah. Don't folks want to be surprised, delighted, inspired? When I think about my favorite stuff it's all because I didn't know such a thing could exist. Breaking Bad, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Severance, even Game of Thrones at first- I did not want these things, I imagined they'd be crap when I first heard the premise, and they were the greatest TV shows of the past 20 years.
And now we have things like the The Last of Us where it feels like we're holding it up to the game and checking off it's the same and deciding if that's good or not. And that means that the show will never be great, no matter how good it is, because by its very nature it can't truly bring something new.
My worry is, with companies playing it so safe, this sort of thing will squelch interesting shows and movies. We already see Netflix canceling everything left and right, and film studios not making money on anything that isn't some franchise. I already feel like film as an interesting creative art form has effectively died, and now this "faithfulness" doctrine is coming to help kill off TV. It is just going to add fuel to the fires of the greater causes, chiefly media conglomeration. But's just a bit disturbing to see all this "true to the source material" rhetoric dominating these "franchises."
A lot of the whole "faithfulness and true to the source", partly comes from desperation and validation. The other part comes from the deep fear of having an adaption be like many of the adaptions from past. Mostly the movies that didn't get the games right, barely used anything, or attach something that was never part of the franchise to begin with. I don't mind some deviation when it's done right or if it's a necessary change. Another part of that is that because superheroes and comic book movies are done so well, most games want the same thing. There are some that even one of shared cinematic universe. Be careful what you wish for of course.
I don't think filming is dying exactly yet in Hollywood. There's plenty of stuff out there. You just have to put some extra effort to find it some of the time. Sturgeon's law always apply no matter the decade. Netflix cancels lots of things left and right, yet they're still in business. Part of that was them losing the deal with Disney and the MCU. Even desperately calling for a big franchise for years. Still till this day.
There's still original animated movies and TV shows out there that are doing well. A good amount of them aren't part of some major franchise, or are stand alone projects. Watch what works for you and don't worry about everybody else too much. Shit happens.
Last edited:
So I'm just gonna come out and say it - I have a lot of trepidation regarding Season 3 of the Mandalorian and the trailer really didn't help. They are coming out with S3 pretty fast, how much of this was already written? Now that Grogu has blown up how much of the Disney factory line mentality going to change the direction of the show? Who is the target audience? I did not particularly enjoy Season 2. There was a lot of faffing about, and a lot of Jedi nonsense that carried over into Boba Fett. I was really looking forward to taking a breather from Grogu. Maybe he goes to Summer camp while mando does Mandalorian things on Mandalore, but my impression from the trailer is that Grogu is firmly at the forefront of the show. I hope it's great, but I could see myself checking out of this show pretty quickly.
Entirely tangential, we spend a lot of time on backyard patio where we've a nice little setup with a furniture, fridge, radio, and a 65" TV where we watch 99% of our television. But we're also directly in a flight paths for the [relatively] nearby DFW and Love Field airports, so we can barely go 8 minutes without a noisy flyover, so our volume button is worn smooth from constantly adjusting from volume up and down. I can't count how many times we've been watching a movie, and it's basically been "so all along the killer waaaas..."
Season 2 was in 2020 (which... wow what the fuck, how has it been that long). That said though, I do understand the trepidation. I loved Season 1, saw the flaws in Season 2 but still loved it anyway, and thought the Mando 3 episodes were the sole redeeming factor of Boba Fett.
After Andor though... I don't know if I can just hop straight back into cameo after cameo, set up for future shows, filler episodes, etc, etc. I don't think Mando needs to be dark and gritty like Andor (which is probably a hot take in of itself), but it would be great if Mando felt as genuine as Andor did. And not just like one big product, albeit with amazing production value.
No. I didn't think Inuyasha was over hated at the time. Yes, there are those that did hate it for being a show geared towards girls as Bennett mentioned. And as he also mentions, it still doesn't change the fact that the show involves a girl being abusive to her guy and it's always played for a joke.
Last edited:
Do you mean the show, the character, or everything about Harley in general? I take it the show is going to be part of The Purge WB Discovery is doing now. Even though they said it was slated for a new season. Though I don't trust anything that comes out of their mouth except for greed.