Movie, TV, Web Series, and Music Hot Take(s).

Piscian

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Isn't it weird that both Rings Of Power and Wheel of Time were flops? Like how often do you see two big properties kasplush like that one after the other. I know we've that those instances before you know where two very similar big properties launch at the same time and one is a flop, but both? I bet somebody at Amazon had a very unfortunate series of meetings that week. Then you have HBO just hitting homeruns one after the other on it's way to being euthanized by Discover or whatever it is.

Strange times to be living in.
 
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XsjadoBlayde

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Terrence Howard is not receiving the mental support he may well be in need of.


It is a curious case study for how charisma and confidence can appear so convincing in the moment if you don't have the prerequisite knowledge to counter it.

Sorry, the official summary of the video isn't particularly clear about the actual spoken content. Luckily a commentor provided one for us all instead.

Screenshot_20230429-200227.png


-


Oki while am here lamenting actors I respect being troubled human beings in reality, Matthew McConaughey isn't up to any good these days either;


Uh, that, hmm...



Don't recommend watching this full recording, am only supplying proper sources;

 
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Eacaraxe

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Isn't it weird that both Rings Of Power and Wheel of Time were flops? Like how often do you see two big properties kasplush like that one after the other. I know we've that those instances before you know where two very similar big properties launch at the same time and one is a flop, but both? I bet somebody at Amazon had a very unfortunate series of meetings that week...
Honestly, not really. It would have been a bigger surprise had one or the other turned out to be actually good.

Without broaching the political and social bullshit around the show, Amazon as a corporation is a massive perpetual shitshow that succeeds despite itself. The various complexes and psychoses of its founder and director of the board will be analyzed by the psychiatric community for decades after his death. Amazon Studios was founded as a Johnny-come-lately vanity project for the exclusive purpose of creating a "cultural phenomenon" prestige/flagship show on the scale of Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or Game of Thrones, and it continues chasing that dragon to this day.

Except, Amazon's prototypical strategy of "throw money at it, and if that doesn't fix the problem, buy out the competition and call it innovation" doesn't lend itself particularly well to artistic creativity. Look no further than its lack of support for its few good, or at least creative or novel in some way, shows, while throwing weight behind shows in decline or formulaic content. I'd give no single finer case example of the bone-headed way it approached The Expanse, following its acquisition of distribution rights after Syfy's cancellation of the series:

Snatch it up, after it enjoyed the Breaking Bad effect of binge streaming success via word-of-mouth and was at peak popularity. Explode the budget but reduce episode count, eliminating the one thing the show did very well: slow burn storytelling with heavy worldbuilding, that built up to tense and high-stakes climaxes with far-reaching ramifications. Transition on a book widely regarded as the weakest in the series due to its insulated and episodic nature, but provide only bare bones connective tissue to link Cibola Burn to the greater setting, that amounts to little more than foreshadowing Nemesis Games. Then, worst of all, flub promoting the series, so all that hype following season 3 went entirely to waste.

That Amazon acquired a license from the Tolkien estate to produce Middle-Earth content at all is one of the greatest ironies of contemporary entertainment, given its Morgoth-like proclivity towards "corrupt and dominate, but never create".
 
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Trunkage

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Isn't it weird that both Rings Of Power and Wheel of Time were flops? Like how often do you see two big properties kasplush like that one after the other. I know we've that those instances before you know where two very similar big properties launch at the same time and one is a flop, but both? I bet somebody at Amazon had a very unfortunate series of meetings that week. Then you have HBO just hitting homeruns one after the other on it's way to being euthanized by Discover or whatever it is.

Strange times to be living in.
Most big properties/franchises go kasplush. It's weird when one is successful
 
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BrawlMan

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Isn't it weird that both Rings Of Power and Wheel of Time were flops? Like how often do you see two big properties kasplush like that one after the other. I know we've that those instances before you know where two very similar big properties launch at the same time and one is a flop, but both? I bet somebody at Amazon had a very unfortunate series of meetings that week. Then you have HBO just hitting homeruns one after the other on it's way to being euthanized by Discover or whatever it is.

Strange times to be living in.
Most big properties/franchises go kasplush. It's weird when one is successful
Wheel of Time I can't speak for, but I hoped for the best with Rings of Power. I learned that I'm not a hardcore LoR fan a long time ago, but I thought the show could at least get two seasons. I did find RoP more interesting than the Hobbit prequel trilogy.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be fine, and will be funny, but I think DnD: Honor Among Thieves will be funnier. I admit that GoG I am seeing just for some extra closure, and that's about it.
 

LegoDnD

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Why would anybody want to watch a story based show that has literal hundreds of episodes. Like it blows my mind that anybody would start watching One Piece, knowing that it has over 1000 episodes. You could watch One Piece 8 hours a day and it would 40 days to see it all. And it's still not done. There's no way that something like that will have a decent resolution that wraps the plot up and has everything come together well after 25 years.
Whatever the ending is going to be, Oda had it planned from the beginning and promised that the One Piece is an object of some sort and not intangible garbage. I gave up on the anime a long time ago for going the way of DBZ's "wait all episode for the dust to clear", but the manga is still gang-busters. The final saga has begun and three out of four hints toward the big treasure's location have been collected.
 

Gordon_4

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Wheel of Time I can't speak for, but I hoped for the best with Rings of Power. I learned that I'm not a hardcore LoR fan a long time ago, but I thought the show could at least get two seasons. I did find RoP more interesting than the Hobbit prequel trilogy.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be fine, and will be funny, but I think DnD: Honor Among Thieves will be funnier. I admit that GoG I am seeing just for some extra closure, and that's about it.
Well, having seen both, I will say that DnD was funnier but that's because Guardians 3 was really aiming for pathos and catharsis this time around. It still has some funny scenes, but is intended as an emotional send off. Both movies are justly deserving of every penny and line of praise though.
 
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Hawki

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Isn't it weird that both Rings Of Power and Wheel of Time were flops?
How were they flops? Both were critically well received (by critics - fans are another story, and Rings got caught up in culture war nonsense), both are getting second seasons, etc.

Wheel of Time I can't speak for, but I hoped for the best with Rings of Power. I learned that I'm not a hardcore LoR fan a long time ago, but I thought the show could at least get two seasons.
It's getting a second season in 2024.

Incidentally, WoT's got another two seasons in the pipeline, so I don't know where this idea of them being a flop is coming from.
 
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BrawlMan

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How were they flops? Both were critically well received (by critics - fans are another story, and Rings got caught up in culture war nonsense), both are getting second seasons, etc.



It's getting a second season in 2024.

Incidentally, WoT's got another two seasons in the pipeline, so I don't know where this idea of them being a flop is coming from.
Great to know. Thank you.
 

Xprimentyl

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Yeah, the idea of "The Nothing" resonates pretty loudly as an adult, particularly nowadays. I haven't watched The Neverending Story in forever, but I really want to now; as an adult who sees a "Gmork" every time I turn on the news, I think I owe one of my favorite childhood films a revisit to really appreciate its more complex themes. The closest I've seen since is probably Pan's Labyrinth, but it doesn't even attempt to appeal to children despite the whole thing being a child's fantasy.
 

Absent

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Okay, hot take. I must face this about myself. I much reach my feelings deep down, confront them and express them at some point. It is part of who I am, there is no escaping it.

I... I think that I don't like Michel Legrand. 😟
 

BrawlMan

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Okay, hot take. I must face this about myself. I much reach my feelings deep down, confront them and express them at some point. It is part of who I am, there is no escaping it.

I... I think that I don't like Michel Legrand. 😟
Who?
 

Absent

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Supposedly the best french movie music composer ever. By far the most pretentious, but that's not even the point. The point is, I have to come to terms with the fact that I think that I actually don't like his music very much.

(They're showing The Thomas Crown Affair on TV right now.)
 
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BrawlMan

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Supposedly the best french movie music composer ever. By far the most pretentious, but that's not even the point. The point is, I have to come to terms with the fact that I think that I actually don't like his music very much.

(They're showing The Thomas Crown Affair on TV right now.)
Nothing wrong with that.
 

Drathnoxis

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It annoys me when writers just casually throw in ludicrous amounts of time into the history of a show. Right now I'm watching Made in Abyss, and they say it's been 1900 years since the Abyss was discovered. It's like writers just have no concept of how long a span of time that is. Just think of the enormity of changes that has happened in the human race since the time of Jesus' birth in the real worl, and yet we see that they are still finding artifacts within the first 200 meters of the Abyss. Get real, every teaspoon of soil would have been turned over a dozen times within the first 200 years.

Also see Nier: Automata. It's something like 5000 years since aliens attacked humanity or something and yet we still see sky scrapers standing. Not a chance. Modern construction may be pretty nifty, but I don't see concrete and steel giving the pyramids a run for their money.
 

BrawlMan

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Also see Nier: Automata. It's something like 5000 years since aliens attacked humanity or something and yet we still see sky scrapers standing. Not a chance. Modern construction may be pretty nifty, but I don't see concrete and steel giving the pyramids a run for their money.
At least with Nier: Automata, it is pointed out that certain robots or androids are maintaing certain buildings and places either because they're programmed to do so, a glitch in their system, or decided on their own. Not to mention, original, baseline humanity is known to already be long gone before the sequel. If you played or watched the original Nier on YouTube, then you would already know this. This is only a twist to those that never played the first game (which was the third game in the Drakengard series at the time). Which many had not at the time.