I had no idea that even happened! Well, Secret Invasion is not canon to me now, and plenty of others!
Movie, TV, Web Series, and Music Hot Take(s).
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I know this is more so a rant, but I have no interests in any of the MCU TV shows. Not even the good ones. I just don't care anymore. I have not cared for a long time. I remember some of you made this stance back in 2020 or 2021, so this is nothing new for you guys and gals. Too much time, and I am more interested in different things.
Funny how Ninja (2009) still looks great today. I remember when some people shat on it for "not having enough" ninja action. I love Ninja Assassin, but Ninja '09 is in a league of its own. At least the latter got a sequel with Shadow of a Tear. The lighting in this movie fucking art and a good use of small sets and sound stages. Makes a better Snake Eyes movie the official Snake Eyes movie.
I prefer Ninja over Ninja II: Shadow of a Tear. While SoaT arguably has even better action sequences, that are clearly inspired The Raid, I do feel some things are lost from the original. Florentine decided to make SoaT more "grounded", so it loses the comic book mysticism from the first movie. I wouldn't call SoaT "generic", but it feels more plain in comparison to Ninja. The sequel still looks good, has great lighting, and even bigger budget. The only other bonus I can give the film, is that no CG effects were used at all. Everything in the film is practical. Ninja has some minor CG, but you will rarely ever notice it.
The plot is your typical revenge movie, and makes the ending of Ninja pointless, because Mahiko gets killed at the around the 10 minute mark. Another problem is because of said character death, the twist is stupid and makes the twist villain look like a complete idiot. Why get the protagonist involved in any of this by killing his wife? You would have been better off doing it yourself, or hire someone else. Sure, you didn't have to pay Casey, but it sure as well wasn't worth it in the end!
As for either being better than Ninja Assassin, that is highly debatable. Ninja and Ninja II do have better practical effects and more complicated fight scenes, but Ninja Assassin has the better overall package. Though in NA's case, the CG blood was intentionally stylized to look like a live-action Ninja Scroll. I say they achieved that successfully. The only thing I dislike about Ninja Assassin is the short fight scene in Mika's home. It's not that bad, but I can't blame anyone trying to follow which ninja is the bad guy or the good guy, unless you've been paying attention to Raizo's weapon of choice.
I prefer Ninja over Ninja II: Shadow of a Tear. While SoaT arguably has even better action sequences, that are clearly inspired The Raid, I do feel some things are lost from the original. Florentine decided to make SoaT more "grounded", so it loses the comic book mysticism from the first movie. I wouldn't call SoaT "generic", but it feels more plain in comparison to Ninja. The sequel still looks good, has great lighting, and even bigger budget. The only other bonus I can give the film, is that no CG effects were used at all. Everything in the film is practical. Ninja has some minor CG, but you will rarely ever notice it.
The plot is your typical revenge movie, and makes the ending of Ninja pointless, because Mahiko gets killed at the around the 10 minute mark. Another problem is because of said character death, the twist is stupid and makes the twist villain look like a complete idiot. Why get the protagonist involved in any of this by killing his wife? You would have been better off doing it yourself, or hire someone else. Sure, you didn't have to pay Casey, but it sure as well wasn't worth it in the end!
As for either being better than Ninja Assassin, that is highly debatable. Ninja and Ninja II do have better practical effects and more complicated fight scenes, but Ninja Assassin has the better overall package. Though in NA's case, the CG blood was intentionally stylized to look like a live-action Ninja Scroll. I say they achieved that successfully. The only thing I dislike about Ninja Assassin is the short fight scene in Mika's home. It's not that bad, but I can't blame anyone trying to follow which ninja is the bad guy or the good guy, unless you've been paying attention to Raizo's weapon of choice.
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The MCU is not disrespecting the superhero genre by largely ignoring secret identities. For one thing, Marvel comics barely uses secret identities. And if you want secret identity drama, just about every other superhero property has it.
Him being haunted by the Harvest thing, I could handle. What really assassinated his character was basically saying that the Skrulls were responsible for all of his success as a spy.
So it wasn't enough to have him be a failure, they had to undermine ALL of his past successes at the same time. Man, the more I think about it, the more Secret Invasion has well-earned its spot on the bottom of my MCU shows list, and may even be at the bottom of all MCU properties that aren't Inhumans.
We're now getting into the worst part about comics. MCU has been so busy imitating them, they're imitating the bad parts with unnecessary or pointless retcons.
Why is it that secondary characters are so often more interesting than the main ones? Is it just because they don't have enough screen time to really get grating?
I'd say it's because it's much easier for fans to project their ideas of what they are like onto them rather than the main characters. I recall a number of secondary or tertiary characters who became much more contentious when they were upgraded to primary characters.
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Traditionallly, the public is supposed to identify with the hero, so the hero must be as blank as possible to maximize compatibility and projection. The hero is also supposed to incarnate all virtues, so he's (yeah, "he") devoid of the flaws that tend to, paradoxically, endear us more.
At least that is the rationale behind Tintin and Spirou, and that era's characters. Antiheroes have made this a bit more complicated.
Because unlike main characters side characters don't have to be as identifiable, and so can be taken into different unidentifiable directions. Example: Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos. Because he's not the main character who requires a certain level of likeability, like Tony, he can be presented with more facets that would otherwise repel the viewer should they belong to the protagonist.
I can't say it any better than anyone else above has. But this is what answered that question when I was wondering the same thing.
Huh, not seen a Cracked After Hours for a while. Not saying I necessarily agree with them (well, except that Bella Swan was explicity supposed to be like that), but I did like the show back when it was still being made.
Still not a fan of Cracked. I stopped going to their website around 2012.
I'm not seeing Barbie or Oppenheimer. The former, because I have no interest, but I am glad it's doing well. The latter, because I don't like much of Nolan's work as mentioned before. I already know this movie won't do much to endear me or excite me. I'm going straight to the new TMNT movie next week.
Anime studios really should be doing more to not just adapt manga, but build on it. Hell, maybe even fix it.
I greatly enjoyed the last few episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen. I really felt like it was an improvement in every way from the manga. They adapted scenes from the manga shot for shot in some cases, did some cinema level shots in others that elevated things for me.
What I was annoyed to see them keep was all the word vomit from the manga. The mangaka is a master of using as many words as possible to poorly explain whatever bullshit power system they came up with during their breakfast that morning. To see such beautifully animated, scored, voice acted, and shot scenes be interrupted by the voice actors speed running awful dialogue is almost criminal.
I'm sure the manga purists would get their panties in a bunch, but if you have the chance to make "filler" that is actually good, then why not?
I greatly enjoyed the last few episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen. I really felt like it was an improvement in every way from the manga. They adapted scenes from the manga shot for shot in some cases, did some cinema level shots in others that elevated things for me.
What I was annoyed to see them keep was all the word vomit from the manga. The mangaka is a master of using as many words as possible to poorly explain whatever bullshit power system they came up with during their breakfast that morning. To see such beautifully animated, scored, voice acted, and shot scenes be interrupted by the voice actors speed running awful dialogue is almost criminal.
I'm sure the manga purists would get their panties in a bunch, but if you have the chance to make "filler" that is actually good, then why not?
There has been good filler, but as we've seen what was standard at the time, most "filler" either wasn't good, never referenced again/didn't factor to the overall story (not usually a bad thing), or might as well been non-canon. That was major problem back then for a lot of anime adaptions of manga back then, and not just the shounen. Though shounen such as Naruto and Bleach took it to a worse degree than the original airing of Dragonball Z. It's why you rarely see filler anymore of adaptions, unless it was already made for TV, OVA, or web first.
I'm actively hoping for some filler in the Delicious in Dungeon anime, at least in the early parts. Although in that case, "filler" would include things like sweeping vistas, travel scenes, and more detailed combat.
it's not a battle shonen, so it would help with the pacing so that Trigger isn't tempted to put, like, 4 volumes of detail packed manga into 13 episodes of anime. It needs to be wrinkly so that the back half of the story makes sense
it's not a battle shonen, so it would help with the pacing so that Trigger isn't tempted to put, like, 4 volumes of detail packed manga into 13 episodes of anime. It needs to be wrinkly so that the back half of the story makes sense
Speaking of filler, I think the Doma/Waking The Dragons Arc of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime is one of the best. The main villain leaves a bit to be desired but the expansion of Mai's arc and the dynamic Yugi, Jonouchi and Kaiba have with their respective evil counterparts is well done.
Can't watch anything anymore. No film or series no matter how well made, everything feels awful. Tried Guardians of the Galaxy 3 like 5 times now but have to quit a few minutes in, despair piles upon despair and concentration fizzles out. The backlog can't be pruned, has to be thrown away, It's all pointless trying. Dead and hollowed out, joyless corpse has to accept they cannot engage any further.