What's an often hated movie/show/game that you experienced, that made you go "I get the hate, but I don't hate it myself"? And how much did you tolerate it?
I've recently played Resident Evil 6 for the 1st time after playing Resident Evil 4 (an absolute masterpiece) & Resident 5 (a pretty good game). I was already aware of the hate this game got over the years. But after experiencing it, it's only bad in an artificial way. Like yeah, it's nothing like the classic games and it's too much in the action category.
Otherwise, as someone who loves action games, it's a pretty fun game. Especially in Mercenaries Mode, where it's fun to mow down body-horror themed enemies. As a Resident Evil game, it's pretty bad. But...as an action third person shooter with splatter punks, it's quite well executed
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I was fine with Waterworld.
Iirc most of the press was just "this cost waaaaay too much to make" rather than "its a bad movie"
Thanks for reminding me I still need to actually watch it, though. And ive got a few hours to kill.
Just watched it for the second time last month educating the youth of today. Deserves a sequel more than Moana did.
I was recently shown this hilarious Simpsons skit, but someone had to explain it to me haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qause0z-9tM
::: spoiler Context The arcade game is desperately trying to make back the movie's budget, so it's an extortionate quarter-muncher. Lol :::
And The Postman.
But I tend to like post-apocalyptic movies anyway.
I've always liked the Postman. With the exception of
::: spoiler spoiler The scene at the end where society is totally back to normal in a totally unrealistic amount of time and they're unveiling a statue of him. They should have just skipped that and had it end with him riding by the kid and grabbing the envelope. :::
The idea of The Postman was really neat. I remember it was a very slow paced epic though. A lot of Costner movies are kinda...contemplative that way. Kinda chill I guess? Haha his Robin Hood was like that too.
The Stunt show at Universal Studios was really cool tho
Waterworld, Sahara, and John Carter are all amazing movies that BOMBED... but by what metric? Tons of money in production and/or inept expensive marketing and it didn't make it back.
That's all. It wasn't a "market success." But I'm glad they're a part of culture.
Sahara is the Uncharted movie we deserved. I wish we got more Clive Cussler movies. One of my favorite films.
John Carter is the reason I will never properly pronounce "Virginia" again.
Waterworld's stunt show is incredible and the world building was awesome.
Yes, which reminds me of another hated movie I love: The Cable Guy aka Cabo Goobla:
So much so that I'm always surprised when they get the quote wrong in Waterworld itself! 😅
Especially back in the day. It was a major action movie event.
I kind of feel the same way about Cutthroat Island. It was a massive failure, but the production value was great and I thought it was a fun action flick.
Side Note: Waterworld is one of the few movies I recommend NOT watching the extended cut. The scenes are very low quality and feel like a TV production compared to the rest of the theatrical cut scenes.
It's mad max on the water, what's not to love? Now postman on the other hand...
Hey now, I actually liked Postman.
I watched that movie when I was a kid and genuinely liked it. (I do still have really broad taste, the question can be answered for me with “most media, apparently”)
It has a special place in my heart as one of a few dozen vhs we had that I could watch with no restrictions. (One of the banned movies was A clear and Present Danger, and I still don't know why because I can’t stay awake through it because its boring. Another was Pulp Fiction. Maybe the first was a ruse!)
Is it a good movie? Idk. But smeat is still funny to me in ways that probably would have hit the same if I’d watched it today for the first time, so..
Different entertainment genre, but Nickelback.
Although I'm reasonably certain that 99% of people who hate on NB would sing along if it came on the radio.
I have a friend, whom I typically respect, who surprised me with that hot take one day. He had similar things to say about Creed and Taylor Swift.
Hes also been known to cheat at DnD, though. I love the guy but...
This makes D&D very unfun. You don't win DnD. You enjoy DnD with friends.
Yeah, as the DM i was very much tempted to call him on it a few times, but i figured it would do more harm than good. So I tried to get creative, which mostly worked.
You're a good DM
Aww thanks <3
We're all here to have fun after all.
How do you even cheat at that game?
He fudged die rolls. Claimed he hit or rolled a crit waaaaaay more often than statistically likely. I 100% saw him roll low and claim a hit anyway multiple times.
The big problem, at least to me, is that they were massively overplayed on the radio and I grew tired of hearing the same song over and over again.
Now hearing them again after a long break, I can recognize that they made some decent - not great, but still decent songs.
That's how I feel about Adele. Rolling in the Deep might even be objectively good but it GRATES on me because you'd hear it EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME.
I think a lot of decent artists are foisted upon the public so forcefully they become loathed.
For me it's sweet child o mine. It's a classic song, but I've heard and played it myself so many times that I can't stand it anymore. I always skip it when I can
We sing along because it was forced on us 😭 a few songs are ok I guess, they're like the junk food of music, small doses.
Nickelback, Daughtry, i don't get what the hate tbh.
I don't mind their one song. But that's the thing, they only have one song. (They all sound the same.)
Well, not really. For example, my favourite Nickelback song, Sister Sin, is rather different from This Afternoon, or For the River, or Just to Get High, or many others. But they definitely do have a number which are rather similar to others of theirs - but then, I honestly have never listened to a band which didn't have some that sounded a bit similar to others? Like, most Ed Sheeran songs are Ed Sheeran songs, most Sleep Token songs are Sleep Token songs...
That said, Chad Kroegar's voice is so distinctive that it makes everything they do sound instantly Nickelback.
Mumford & Sons, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Live all say "Hi!" and want to know if they can join the party.
It’s the ultimate “pop” rock. It really works for a lot of people but anyone who doesn’t like formulaic music designed with the broadest appeal will absolutely dislike it.
I can't bring myself to hate Nickelback because they gave us one of the greatest meme templates in meme history.
I am not ashamed to admit that I have their first album, and it's a solid one with quite a few solid tracks on it. However, I always hated that song, which by far became the most popular one.
I don't know much about their later stuff, though.
How I Met Your Mother. There's a ton of hate, and it's well deserved. Ted is annoying, Lily's selfish, and Barney could never be a character on national TV now. It tapers off around season 5-6 and then fails in season 9.
However, it had a profound effect on me. I grew up in rural nowhere, Midwest USA, in a town with 2 bars and a gas station. Watching the group go out in the city going to bars and growing up there made me really connect, and made me feel a bit less isolated. I finally did move out and to a different city, and HIMYM did give me the hope to someday be like that, and now I am. I still re-watch every few years. It definitely hasn't aged well, but it's nostalgic for me.
I’ve always interpreted that show with Marshall as the main character. He goes through the most growth and also has the most altruistic intentions throughout. I see it as a demonstration that your friends and loved ones can be holding you back. Marshall deserved better than that friend group and he rarely if ever sacrifices his morals for the others.
Lily especially in this watchthrough I'm noticing how much she does manipulate him. Season 2 leaving of course just destroys him, and then she comes back and just expects to be taken back like it's nothing. Then expects the wedding and everything right after, wanting everything to move on like she didn't just destroy all trust with him. The really sad thing is she left to see if she could be a painter while he never prevented her from doing that while being together, as Ted said there are so many ones in NYC why SF? She wanted to go off and be single, and he took her back way too easily.
Then getting mad that he talks to his parents, or that he dreamed of maybe living somewhere else, or the credit card debt, or then being mad that he became a corporate lawyer to pay off her credit card debt. I feel bad for the guy
Thank you! I genuinely believe that Lily is the least agreeable character in the show. Everyone else’s vices are brazen and loud, but she manages to sneak around and not get noticed because of how cute her demeanor is.
I like her character for this, gives her more dimension and imperfect characters are more interesting to me.
Yeah I just watched the episodes today where Marshall is having a crisis of character working for GNB and she gives him the go-ahead (or even the push) to quit his job to pursue his dream, and literally the next episode she is mad at him for doing exactly what she told him to do, and puts Ted on the spot again as she plans to just up and leave for a trip without talking to her husband. Her character wants to be supportive, but wants more to live her lifestyle
I loved watching that show, but the premise is a bit off. "Hey kids, let me tell you about all the chicks I banged before your mom."
Iirc Ted mosby (the real guy, not his character) asked if they were still doing that original ending.
To this day it still ranks up there with one of the worst final seasons ever for me.
It's no scrubs
This is kind of how I feel about Friends too. It gets hated on for very valid reasons. But I will always remember being a teen watching the episode where Rachel and Monica have 1 condom left in the apartment and compete over who gets it. Then Monica goes to tell Chandler (I think?) that they can’t have sex because Rachel won the condom. He whines a bit, but she holds her ground. It’s one of the earliest pieces of media I remember watching that emphasized the importance of safe sex.
Richard!
Sex and the city for me. They're rich assholes. They're also outspoken, assertive, strong. They taught a lot to teen me, a nerdy people-pleaser. They were the ones who made me realize I could just say no to men, and that having standards was a good thing.
I love that show. It’s just… fun.
I love HIMYM, but it does indeed have a lot of issues. I did a rewatch and some things were painful to watch I have to admit. It will nonetheless have a special place always in my heart.
The best it has are probably the songs. Neil Patrick Harris is so talented.
I'm with you, I love that show. I liked friends too. I love trashy TV, it's like frozen pizza, hits the spot.
I think sitcoms are an art form, people compare them to high price dramas and they aren't. Sitcoms are your "friends" after a long day if work that you can count on to be reliable and low pressure. You watch them not for a good story necessarily, but to unwind after a day. Sadly I think that's been lost over the last few years.
Exactly, you watch them to just watch a bunch of characters get into crazy hijinks that aren't real. Sometimes the writers throw in a serious storyline or some lessons, but for the most part they're not meant to be taken seriously.
I like the Super Mario Bros movie, I don't care how loosely connected it is to the games.
I'd watch Bob Hoskins read the phone book.
There was actually a deleted scene originally in the movie where an executive from Nintendo met with Mario and Luigi to buy the rights to their story and that the movie was actually what happened and the games are the ones that changed things, which I've always thought was a fun tongue in cheek nod at the source material (or lack thereof).
I know a lot of films and TV pilots start as a writers original idea, sometimes even a great idea, but for one reason or another never get picked up. Or even worse it does get picked up. But in both cases someone says, "This won't sell, can you make it Super Mario themed?"
The writer, creative as they are and just happy to get work, then mashes the two together.
I think a film featuring a parallel New York ruled by evolved dinosaurs and deevolution guns is a wild but potentially interesting film. What it has to do with Mario... I have no idea.
There's so many movies / shows that feel like "They just pulled a generic plot off the shelf and branded it with this popular franchise."
I think that's why Paramount Halo was painful. :(
The old Super Mario Bros movie is a fantastic B scifi movie, it’s just a terrible Mario Bros movie. I still love it!
I really enjoy the original live action Super Mario Bros movie from the early 90s. The production was an absolute mess from beginning to end, but somehow, an actually watchable movie came out of it, and the story is actually somewhat entertaining, even if it has nothing to do with the actual games.
Lol the "deevolution" ray that turns a dude into a monke. 😂
That movie was bizarre and wild. I like it too. I firmly file it under "Task failed successfully." Lol
It was silly like a cartoon. It was deeply flawed on nearly every critical metric but it made us laugh, with it or at it.
I have to say I enjoy that movie a lot too. I'm not denying that it's a terrible movie, but it's terrible in a very watchable and enjoyable way.
It's just a fun movie. I don't know if I only think that because I grew up with it though.
The Last Jedi. It took me a while to even process the hate, and I still don't really respect it, but I think I understand it. TLJ is flawed but by far the best sequel, and an Ep9 where Kylo is beyond redemption and rebels and force users are bubbling up from everywhere could have been really interesting.
Even if they'd backtracked thematically, The Rise of Skywalker made a huge mistake in overtly shitting on it, literally fucking over its own story (such as it was) and pacing to do so, and thereby pleasing no one. Even if you don't like what your partner did, you have to "Yes, and...," not go full "Michael Scott in improv class."
It's always going to be one of my favorite Star Wars sequels because I got into it around the tail end of a deep depression and watched it early enough not to fall for the bad press
Luke's story hit home in a weird way and I liked that Johnson at least tried to make Rey's parents irrelevant as a much-needed dismissal of the whole idea that the fate of the galaxy far far away hinges on at least one magical bloodline
On top of that it's given me a good litmus test for what differences in opinion should actually be respected. Don't like the movie? Fine, but it is rather telling to me in all the ways people get downright aggressive over hating on it
IMHO it it home because that is almost the only way it could have been done, especially after what JJ set up in The Force Awakens. We know that Luke blamed himself. We know he ran away. We know not even Leia can locate him via the Force. At least being a grumpy hermit was a way to take back a little bit of agency. When you have a hero's journey, and the hero's journey ends, you're not really supposed to revisit them thirty years later with a massive new threat, because now they have to face it, but not as the hero. Once you decide you have to have Luke in the damn story, there is nothing you can do except make him a mentor or a villain. Villain was right out, but having him fall back into old habits (doomerism, jumping to conclusions, whining) and having all that make him start as an ineffective mentor was actually really clever.
It also maybe hit a little close to home for the generation that grew up idolizing Luke, re-evaluating what he was after reaching his heights in his mid-20s. That said, it also tells that same group, "Yes, you are fatter and angrier and grabbing breakfast and a latte is the most interesting thing you'll do most days, but you have wisdom to pass down, and you have the power to beat back the darkness and learn from your own mistakes, and there is so much more to you than you've come to believe about yourself." I actually walked out of the movie thinking that once you have a Luke that let the First Order arise at all, then this Luke was a god-damn hero and saved the galaxy one last time.
Not that I'm on top of such things but I heard episode 7, 8 and 9 were conceptually laid out together. But the new director for 8 found it limiting or something so threw it in the trash to create something else.
Beautifully said
I thought that most of the movie was somewhere between fine and fun, but that casino planet sequence was so unbearably bad that it soured the entire movie for me. I thought it was poorly-done, ham-handed social commentary awkwardly shoehorned into a strangely long sequence. And then at the end of it, they were in the exact same position they were at the beginning. It took a huge chunk of the second act, and it basically amounted to nothing.
Love it or hate it, and the fact that some people will decide they hate it is what I had to come to terms with, this was very intentional and played into the theme of Poe's arc while letting Finn get the small amount of character growth they layered on in TLJ. It also made it clear that Rose is not so much a fully fleshed-out character as she is a stand-in for the entire Resistance, so she gets a chance to make its case and show its impact. Fighting the good fight is worth it even if, in the short term, it seems doomed. Narratively, I thought Canto Bight did a lot.
Canto Bight hits different after you burned out doing odd jobs at the sleazy casino on the edge of town
The biggest issue with TLJ that I don't see brought up a lot is that it left no where for the story to go.
We enter the movie with the First Order the only force in the galaxy after only destroying a few planets in the last movie, and somehow the resistance is even smaller than it was before.
We end the movie without really anything changing (except the resistance is even smaller - like 20 people).
Unless it was going to be four movies, TLJ doesn't leave a lot of directions for the story. It basically has to be Rey trying to decapitate the head of the First Order by killing Ben. Rise of Skywalker fails because TLJ didn't do anything to move the plot, forcing two movies worth of plot into one.
Yeah, that's the part that bugged me too. There was so much "subverting expectations" to be clever and huff ones' own farts...But no satisfying storytelling in place.
It was written like an on-the-fly television show like "Ah HAH this will be unexpected and get eyeballs and maybe we'll explain it in season 6!" . . .but it was a movie, and it was just over...and a bunch of empty threads kinda went nowhere for ~2 hours straight.
It was entertaining! I watched it and first said "WOW. That was like the BEST Star Wars in a WHILE." Then we thought about it...and realized nothing actually made any sense. Kinda like when you look at Ai stuff, weirdly enough. Lots of flash but it's clear there was no actual intent behind it.
Also Finn was supposed to be a force-sensitive Stormtrooper who grows a conscience and turns Jedi. Finn was robbed. That bothers me so much that he just got relegated to backseat supporting sidekick to a cardboard cutout who should've had some depth.
My take away was that the protagonists were too caught up in being the protagonists and the outcome would have been better if they had just done nothing.
Which just isn't a very good adventure story.
Yeah it's the best of the 3, but it's also just about the worst middle part of a trilogy they could do. It rejects the setup and doesn't really set up well for the finale, while going off and doing its own thing. The trilogy was pretty doomed before it, but it was the killing blow
You see, i don't think so. I think it is definitely redirecting the setup, but apart from sheer number of remaining rebels, I think it tracks really well with ESB. The great victory from the opening movie reveals vulnerability and removes the threat of clean and instant apocalypse, but doesn't truly alter the new balance of power (sigh... JJ could have given us a functioning New Republic dealing with an insurgency of its own, but no...). Our chosen one meets a reluctant mentor who eventually acquiesces to train her. She has a troubling but cryptic dark side experience and leaves after learning some but not enough. Hero confronts a dark truth about her history but ultimately can't truly defeat the villain. Through pluck and sacrifice, our heroes live to fight another day and we are left only with the implication of useful resources ("the fleet" in ESB, the allies who hadn't yet answered in TLJ).
Now, I'll concede the time jump would have needed to be more like ANH->ESB than ESB->ROTJ for it to work, but I also think the set up for an Episode 9 where the call is answered/being answered could work. In Canto Bight we're made aware that the Alliance/Resistance's iconography is inspirational, and we learn that the Force is out there, and there are people who want to believe in the cause of both. Additionally, we have a villain who is struggling between the light and the dark, but ultimately rejects both, as he understands them, to make his own path and pursue his own goals, motivated by emotional torment and a tragic sense of abandonment. There's good bones there, much better than "here's a hatful of fan theories. Pick one and let's chase some mcguffins."
It's the GOTCHA! (well that's a good part of it.)
TLJ is just about the best movie in the whole series. The hatred is 85% pissed-off fans who thought the franchise belonged to them. And the rest is just anti-woke hysterics.
In time, TLJ will get the respect it deserves.
I do think the movie was weak on the handwavium when a few lines could have turned the siege/chase into something a little more compelling. Some of the dialogue skewed a bit Marvel-y, and Finn's TLJ arc was way too similar to his TFA arc, only nudging forward his circle of empathy a bit. I also wish wish wish somebody had simply said the Holdo maneuver worked because she locked onto the hyperspace tracker: BOOM, two birds with one battlecruiser. Casino planet dragged a bit, but I didn't mind it nearly as much as others. Maz was wasted, and in some ways, the whole movie actually mapped too closely to ESB (subversion indeed).
However, Luke's arc hit me exactly right given that they were forced to revisit a Hero's-Journey hero whose journey was done, because JJ Abrams set up the galaxy in possibly the least compelling way possible. Luke's return from backsliding into his own old habits, accepting his failure, and using the energy he had left to secure a future for the next generation... that's good stuff, and a lot of the boomers and older X's who idolized him would do well to heed the lesson.
The initial tone poem with Rose's sister was beautiful. DJ absolutely fit as a tweak on Lando and commentary on what all this is supposed to mean. The Poe arc that he can't simply Maverick his way into leadership, the idea that Rey was no one and yet everything, that Force users and resistance could come from anywhere, and that Ren was on a path apart from Snoke's but equally irredeemable, all these things were HUGE improvements from TFA and were setting things up for a very compelling finale.
Instead, JJ crammed in his own Episode 8 into the first 45 minutes, left no time to have his own movie make any sense, just channelled Harry Potter and the Avengers for its conclusion, and repeatedly reminded people that TLJ was being undone ("come with us, Rose!" "Can't! Leia gave me homework!"... We picked "Yer a Palpatine, Rey!" from the hat full of fan theories!), thereby reminding TLJ's fans that it was being undone, and its haters that it existed. Just a piece of shit movie all around, and to top it off, with my "ACKSHULLY" cap on, it still didn't connect the tracker with the Holdo maneuver!!!!!
Finally, for what it's worth, TLJ is the only ST movie to engage in good faith with the PT, which is something you need to do, even if (like me) they're far from your favorites.
"Some body once told me, the world was gonna roll me, I ainʻt the sharpest tool in the shed..."
All Star is on my hate list because I've heard it too many times at this point. It joins
You forgot something that you're going to start remembering very soon
you sonofabitch
I meant Mariah Carey, not The Game.
Oh right, that song I heard too much Last Christmas
You forgot the killers - Mr brightside
You'll probably hate this then
I really like the 90s Romeo and Juliet, set in present day with the lines unchanged (mostly). I'm alone in this, I think.
It's sick.
"Fetch me my sword" grabs a gun named sword. Plus it has the best Mercutio.
Alone with every single girl coming of age in the 90s who swooned over it cuz of Leo "Heartthrob" DiCaprio.
I skipped it back in the day but my gf made me watch it last year and I liked it. Very stylish.
He was actually annoying in it I felt.
Weirdly, I think that is a strength of his performance. Romeo is a misunderstood character: people associate him with romance and chivalry when the Romeo from the play is obsessive, fickle, and impulsive. Kind of a dweeb, really. Juliet fails to see through his bullshit because she is so, so young.
Romeo is annoying as a character, in all fairness.
They're both annoying af I think that's half the joke. I'm a big fan of Shakespeare's sense of humor.
That was huge when it came out. Pretty much everyone I knew loved it. I think it only started getting shit on recently.
I got so much shit for liking it, maybe it was just my school though.
I'm sure there were people who didn't enjoy it (as can be seen in this thread haha), but even though we didn't have wikipedia to check at the time I think it was generally known to be big. And checking the stats it opened to box office #1 and then made 10x its budget, and the critics mostly liked it.
Anyway, it fortunately endures as a triumph for basically anyone who appreciates lit.
I remember someone saying it's like the Rockstar Games' version of Romeo & Juliet. I liked it in general, but that 90-second or so prologue always gives me goosebumps.
That's actually a great way to frame it
It was alright but the fact that they didn't modernize the language is what ruined the film for me. Who the hell spoke like that in the 90s? It made no sense.
That's... that's the point. It's Shakespeare's words given modern visual elements to make it more comprehensible by a modern audience. It's the prose of Romeo And Juliet that make it Shakespeare, not the swords and doublets.
Yeah and as someone who hated Shakespeare back in my grade school days (and still does), I couldn't care less about that. I simply want to see a modern take on his plays with the script translated to a prose that I can actually understand.
As someone with ADHD, it's difficult enough as-is to focus on words on a page written in a modern dialect, let alone an ancient one! Canterbury Tales was an even worse time for me because of this. I have to be fully invested in the story, or I can't understand a damn thing in these old manuscripts because my brain refuses to pay attention to anything that isn't urgent, interesting, or novel to me.
Are you aware you're asking for something that cannot exist? If you don't have the Shakespearean prose, it's not Shakespeare. It's the identifying element of the thing. You can bend and stretch many aspects of a work, but you can't remove the identifying elements. For poets, like Shakespeare, their word choice is core to the identity of the work. The 'story' is almost meaningless.
e.g. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Loveliest of Trees have the same 'story,' a man takes a moment to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a treed landscape in winter, but one would never say they were the same thing.
Why not? If religious people can update the Bible translations to use modern English, why can't we do the same with non-religious texts?
Because the goals are different. They aren't trying to share the poetry of the various original authors of the bible. They are trying to share the stories of the christian mythos to enable/convince people to be christians. We can create things like a movie from a book or translate a book/movie and somewhat call it the same thing (though, even then, it also somewhat isn't) because the story/plot is the identity of the thing and word choice is considered secondary, but in poetry, so much of what makes a poem itself comes down to individual words and punctuation marks, changing one can be significant, let alone changing the entire text.
This kinda comes off as someone with red-green color blindness wondering why more paintings aren't done with primarily blues and yellows.
I guess if you want modern language you could always watch West Side Story.
The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
Story time. I'm nearing 30 and had only seen bits and pieces of the original trilogy (not more than 10 minutes or so at a time), and I saw episode 7 in theatre. Last year, my roommate (who is a huge Star Wars fan) and I decided to watch through the whole series. We started with the original, then trudged through the sequels so we could line up the prequel rewatch with the 20th anniversary of episode 3 and see it in theatre.
I went into it "knowing" that the originals were the best, the sequels were embarrassingly bad, and the prequels were pretty heavily shit on but still decent. I actually ended up liking the prequels more. From a technical standpoint I'd argue that they are probably "worse" movies. There's the obvious things that don't make sense (like Anakin being a child in episode one and a young adult in episode two yet Padme looks relatively unchanged) and the dialogue is certainly goofy at times, but I felt a lot more connected to the story and had more fun with the prequels than the originals.
The sequels were, in fact, absolute dog shit though.
Really, a lot of the prequel hate comes from them taking such a huge step down from the OT. In 1999, The Phantom Menace was the first major Star Wars film in 16 years; it wasn't just a cool new thing, it was a cultural event. People expected great things.
Obviously it failed at that. Not once, but twice. Revenge of the Sith barely even got a chance.
And so the backlash was brutal. While the critique wasn't unfair in its points, it also came from a perspective of starkly emotional disappointment. People say the prequels are looked at more fondly now due to 'nostalgia', but mostly I think it's that the emotional pain has faded and we can analyze them more objectively as flawed, but ultimately solid films rather than 'disasters'.
It may be that one day the sequels will be more coldly studied as well, with more focus placed on the issues produced by cycling directorship and management pressures... but I also think even a coldly analytical appraisal of them will still come up as "hollow and emotionless".
I think they might still be at least verging on disasters, though certainly more interesting ones than JJ's movies (see elsewhere in this thread for my thoughts on TLJ). The PT actually reminds me a lot of other passion projects (Megalopolis is probably the most recent, and surprise surprise, Coppola is a friend and mentor) that reveal the limitations of deferring to the auteur's singular vision in a collaborative artform.
The "saved in the edit" narrative for ANH is disingenuous I think, inserting a miracle for a particularly strong example of how the workflow for a weird project should work, but it does hint at the truth that somebody like Lucas has as many bad ideas as good ones, and only the ones he can sell to fellow respected professionals should stay in the final product.
I also think it's fair to say that because he was frustrated by the "compromises" with actors, writers, directors, and studios who all felt they were equal stakeholders, the unfiltered Lucas was a jarring departure from the OT, yet ostensibly targeted the exact same demographics, and that made it even harder to evalute the PT on its own terms. For me personally, I could never truly get over the stilted line readings that felt exactly like the cheesy serials that Lucas loved, but that the New Hollywood "kids" and British stage veterans refused to let infect the OT. "You can write this shit, George, but you can't say it."
I've never understood the hate for the prequels. I thought The Phantom Menace was kind of boring and I've never successfully removed Jar Jar's voice from my head, but I straight up liked Attack of The Clones and Revenge of The Sith.
The sequels have a bipolar plot, it gives you whiplash seeing the tonal shift and direction change each movie goes through.
The prequels are definitely flawed (George, how much political mumbo jumbo do you really think people want to see in their space wizard drama?) but they have a more or less coherent story. You can see how A>B>C and it makes sense.
Plus, the absolute memefest that the prequels turned into has helped a ton.
The prequels are the only Star Wars movies that I regularly rewatch. The other 6 are never on at our house, and the spin off movies are completely ignored.
Rogue One and Andor are pretty good
Rogue One has some banger set-pieces, and it's a decent enough war movie in Star Wars cosplay, but while it's fun to watch it after Andor, doing so also really underlined to me how thin and overhyped I think it was.
I like both
Rosamund Pike, Karl Urban, and The Rock all in one movie? I know what I'm going this weekend now
And a ridiculously haunted-house-like FPS sequence that was pretty freaking rad. It was a nice homage to the source material.
I enjoy Gods of Egypt, even have the Bluray. It's a dogshit movie but good junk food entertainment. Kinda gives me The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes which is another crap movie I like.
Not sure why, I think I'm just a sucker for ancient Egyptian themes even when they're butchered to the point of being insulting.
Awwww man, I really liked that movie. I wanted to see more on their take of captain nemo
Captain Nemo is an absolute bad ass in that movie.
If some mad hatter gives Stephen Norrington a bag of money to direct again I'd watch a sequel lol.
I love those pulpy swing-for-the-fences ideas too. Sometimes people forget not everything has to be high cinema or literature.
Sometimes we just want some imaginative adventure that takes us away from the mundane drudgery.
sword art online, sure it doesn't have a sensible plot or good writing but it has so much potential.
That's one of those shows that I can't even remember anymore because Abridged just overwrote it in my brain.
Isn't it just a what if hack sign was a harem anime?
Honestly i really liked the relationships in it. The premise is really good too. I get why the later seasons just didnt deliver the same though.
I watched it fresh back in the day and I liked it too.
The one thing that really gets me is that in a world that loves gaming, they didn’t have a regulating body or at least Gamers’ Nexus to look over the headset and say, “this could fucking kill someone.” I get that it would kill the entire franchise but I feel like they could have tried harder.
I could never tell you why, but the hate SAO gets is really obxious and is the reason why I hate the anime community
Civ VII. Every version makes changes and people scream and shout - and I'm sure many legitimately don't like the changes. But I do. I started with Civ IV and I liked V, VI, and now VII.
I hated Civ VII when it first came out. If I start out as Rome, then I will play through to the end of the game as Rome. I tried several times to go through the empire change, but my options were always countries that I have never heard of or ones that I really had no interest in playing.
Now that they updated it, I haven't tried playing again. I did like the game other than that.
I should try again. I really do like the franchise.
I usually stick with the same civ, but not always. The variety is fun.
And I have mixed feelings about the two main options on keeping your stuff or not. Both are actually fun.
But I do play with some mods - including cheat ones, although I usually just cheat enough diplomacy so as to be able to participate with all the incoming diplomatic requests, and some limited gold, and sometimes to cheat unit movement (like if I want to adjust my starting area, or if I'm just frustrated with an enemy and I'm like "fuck it, you're out" lol)
How did you feel about Civ: Beyond Earth?
It sounded interesting, but I never obtained it, alas. :)
Spider-Man 3 (Tobey Maquire). It's not the objectively best movie of the trilogy, but it's the one I had the most fun watching
People actually hate that?
Saw it in a packed theater and I agree. The entire movie was enjoyable, especially the Emo subplot. I was actually suprised when I went online after and found out that a lot of people didn't like it. It was my favorite film in the Raimi trilogy!
I thought A Minecraft Movie was a fun watch and I'd like to see Jason Momoa do more comedy.
Jason Momoa has great comedy and fun in Stargate Atlantis.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
I like the movie and have watched it three times, now.
I've tried to watch it, but couldn't.
The lead actor's voice does not match his face, and the lead actress acts like a plastic doll. Both of them have the chemistry as a bag of marbles, with the charisma of a broom stick.
For my money Dehaan was the worse of the two. She was sort of written as a stick in the mud, but Valerian himself was supposed to be, y'know, fun.
While I know we've all soured on Chris Pratt, I do like the joke that Passengers and Valerian should have just traded leads.
I liked it for the world building potential, it does feel like it's the 2nd or 3rd movie in a trilogy I terms of story.
It needed different leads, for some reason those two give off huge and I mean HUGE brother/sister vibes... Ruins the movie.
Starfield. I think I got to ng7 before losing interest and I intend to go back to it if there’s ever a mod community. I’m sure there’s somebody else out there who thought it was fine but I haven’t found them.
Honestly I thought it was perfectly mediocre, I put like 25 hours into it and it was.... fine?? I didn't hate my time playing it. It was disappointing to me though, I expected better, that's all.
I think I put in about 120 hours, which is low for me.
Haven't been back. I feel like I did everything. I dunno if there are any good mods for it, I haven't looked. I lost interest.
Bubsy in Claws Entounters of the Furred Kind.
Bubsy walked so Crash could run.
Lest we forget the internet master of Bubsy, Ulillillia
The most common thing I saw people say that they hated about Bubsy was how "floaty" it was, but that was exactly why I liked it. Flying and sliding around almost felt like 2D Tribes.
I had a love/hate relationship with Bubsy. Loved the almost surreal environments. The difficulty almost drove me to preteen violence though. Not sure I ever beat the two titles I have.
I mastered the original. Beat it a few times. Can't even get past the past few levels these days ha.
At least Bubsy 4D was a bunch of fun!
Scrubs s9 and the Star Wars prequels.
(2002) Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Jeremy Irons
Wasn't a big hit when it came out and it'll never be as iconic as the George Pal Time Machine from the 60's. But the 2003 adaptation has the coolest looking time machine to come around in a while (at the time it was the most expensive prop ever built, might still be but I'm not sure.)
Critics shit on it for not having the cataclysmic event that destroys humanity be global warming. While I'm all for talking about global warming I can kind of understand why they didn't use that and why they didn't reuse the 60's disaster of nuclear war.
::: spoiler spoiler In the 2002 film humans destroy the moon while nuking underground living spaces to build a low gravity retirement community for the elderly. :::
But to be fair to the writers their choice to destroying humanity was original, kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke about the elderly crisis we're currently entering into and the plan is in fact an idea that has been discussed before.
Aside from that the film is pretty solid. In the book by HG Wells and the 60's film the Time Traveller (doesn't even have a name) has zero motivation aside from achieving a new scientific advancement. Thats cool and all but modern audiences, having had several successful time travel stories since Wells time, do need a better eureka moment than that. The 2002 film provides a good and believable motivation.
::: spoiler spoiler His girlfriend is killed while he proposes to her. His first time traveling event is going back in time to save her, only to have fate killed her in some other cruel way. So instead of repeating the event he goes forward in hopes someone in the future will figure out how he can change the past. :::
The film also features a believable super-distant future where the human species splits, just like in the original stories. Samantha Mumba is a member of the tribe of humans that live above ground and are technologically ignorant, thought not exactly like the child-like race we see in the 60's version. They do maintain that there are no old people and why that is.
::: spoiler spoiler Morlocks are eating them up before they get old and the meat gets all tough and stringy. :::
Samantha Mumba did a great job in her role and while I don't normally discuss a persons race the fact her father was Zambian and her mother Irish did kind of lean into what a future race of people could look like. She has a distinct look which played to the role.
Orlando Jones makes a couple appearances as a sort of AI librarian. It's nice to see him in the odd movie role.
Jeremy Irons is the head morlock, the race of humans that stayed underground, and doesn't disappoint, although his character is more of a cameo.
::: spoiler spoiler He is the one who eventually explains that the issue with changing the past is a temporal paradox since Guy Pierce wouldn't have built the machine if his lover hadn't die, thus she must die because without the machine he couldn't have went back to save her. Then to save his new future girlfriend the 2 fight to the death and he uses the time machine to sort of blow up all the other morlocks. :::
The film also had a good soundtrack and special effects that features the classic "years passing in seconds" stuff that was iconic from the 60's film.
But ultimately the film is mostly forgotten to audiences.
This is one of my favorite popcorn flicks. The first half of the movie is amazing (up to the part where the moon gets destroyed), but I feel like they could have done more to make the second half more entertaining. I don't know what, but it feels like it's missing something. I also like how the film predicted the concept of LLMs and giving them an avatar, even though they predicted it happening about decade too soon IIRC.
The core problem is the source material is also boring. Aside from the motivation issues and the fact Wells never even bothers to name the Time Traveller, the whole plot is a bit slow. Sure, the morlocks eating people is creepy but it never manages to get to the horror level like how Jurassic Park or Jaws was able to achieve. You never really felt like they were going to sneak up behind you and slash you or tear you limb from limb.
The changes they made to the story helped: named the character, moved him to New York instead of London, gave him a deep motivation, even the morlocks had a more organized system that was more believable (hunted the Eloi and were controlled telepathically by Jeremy Irons.)
Maybe having more Irons in it would've helped but with the plot elements they had to work with it would've been tricky. The good thing is they didn't drag it out, 90 minutes is the proper length. Nowadays they'd try to make it 2 1/2 and it'd be bogged down.
I still like watching the time traveling sequence.
That and the machine itself are the real star of the film. I came across some behind the scenes of the build years ago and it was impressive. The wood deck is all steel painted to look like wood. Since the spinning bits weighed a ton, acrylic and brass, they had to have it be secure. Even the geared computer (forget what it's called... a baggage computer?) worked. Really impressive prop that doesn't get enough love. Makes the Pal time machine look like a joke.
I was a young man when this came out and I certainly remember Samantha Mumba's performance.
Yeah she was fun. Shame she didn't do more stuff. I'd probably blow up my time machine and live with her instead of going back too.
Definitely!
I saw Tron: Ares in the theater. I’m honestly indifferent to Jared Leto as an actor/person, and I was just interested in how the movie would build on the Tron universe. It don’t blow me away but I didn’t hate it either. But I get why it flopped. Sadly, it probably means we won’t ever get another Tron movie.
Every Tron movie has flopped and they still reboot it every so many years so who knows? 😅
Look, as long as they hire great musicians I don't even care about the actual movie. Best part of their mediocre Tron movies is new Daft Punk and Trent Reznor. Its hard to hate the objectively weak films when they splurge on the other stuff.
All true! Like Jay from RLM said: "they're vehicles for awesome soundtracks". And very interesting visuals too, at least in the first two movies, the third one felt a bit repetitive and too "videogamey" IMO. 👍
David Lynch's Dune. I understood the hate it got. It is a horribly difficult book to put on film. I thought the style and feel of it was great and so over the top at times. I read the book so I knew what was going on but I understood the criticisms. Sting in a speedo though, wtf? lol
Edit: Almost forgot, a great lineup of actors too.
Best Dune movie ever and I'll die on that hill. Never read the books and I had no problem following it.
I'll join you on that hill.
The hallucinatory scenes on Giedi Prime horrified and fascinated me (I was way too young when I watched it).
"I did not say this. I am not here." Goes so damn hard. Too bad only the guild decided to act in that scene.
I loved that scene. So otherworldly. The guild gave that machinations behind the scenes combined with alien feel. The imperial look is like a combination of the Shah of Iran mixed with 1600s royal Spain mixed with WW1 royal navy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSV9S2Ol3bc
The Marvels. The first movie wasn't great but this sequel was genuinely pretty fun.
Some projects are weaker than others, of course, but there is a part of the Marvel audience that can let an Antman movie slide by with little comment, but if they have to watch a girl be strong for 100 minutes, and it's not some hybrid of peak George Lucas, Mel Brooks, and Shakespeare, then clearly it's fucking awful garbage and they need to tell everybody how bad it is, but also they're not sexist because they liked Scarlett Johansson in those other movies.
The Marvels was fun and better than several Antman and Thor movies, among many others.
I'm pretty cautious of attributing hatred of the women-led movies purely to misogyny-- I think it's usually overzealous-- but I really can't think of (and haven't heard of) any other reason to dislike this particular film, so... yup, seems like it.
Side note but I actually really like the antman movies. You have to like them for what they are though. I think The Marvels actually leans a bit towards a similar fun atmosphere.
Big Bang Theory. I don't think I would enjoy it on a rewatch but watching that show became a ritual for me and my family.
It is not a piece of art, but I always had fun watching it, stereotypes or not.
Sucker Punch
The internet has been shitting on it for years. I don't even remember why. Maybe something along the lines of sexualizing female hero figures. I think a lot of people don't like Zack Snyder. I don't care. It's stylish as hell, looks awesome, has fantastic action sequences, and a killer soundtrack. And it has a whole inception vibe. I love watching it.
This was a movie that was like "hey! wouldn't it be awesome if there was a world where the nazis brought back dinosaurs to fight with- Wait! wouldn't it be cool if there was like, a world where space travel was affordable and we had a moonbase an-wait! wouldn't it be cool if there was a world where-"
And each time I'd be like "hey, there will be cool lore and world-building I'd love to see aaaand they already shifted into a different thing." That movie pissed me off so much. Shoulda just been either a softcore porn, or leaned more heavily into the idea of a real-life "Heavy Metal" remake.
I love that movie and I think it is a lot better than most give it credit for. Snyder is either overhyped or over shat on in most cases depending on whho you talk to. But sucker punch is pretty good no matter what.
Man, this movie is such a trip! Definitely not great, but I don't think it's that bad.
Danganronpa. (the games, not the anime) It's hard to defend in some places, with its abysmal minigames, nonsensical plot, and anime tropey story that gets very uncomfortable and insensitive at times. I am also of the opinion that to be cringe is to be free, but it's one of those franchises with an online fanbase that turned me off of the entire thing for a long while.
But, when I was encouraged to actually give it a fair shake, I enjoyed it a lot. At its best moments, there's some solid murder mysteries surrounded with entertaining characters and a tense atmosphere. Camp doesn't excuse the worst parts, but it definitely makes them suck a little less.
The third game in particular gets a lot of flack for its ending and I get it, it's not a very satisfying conclusion for the characters or universe and a little up its own ass. But as a reflection on the franchise, I do see what they were doing and thought it was interesting - probably more interesting than if we got actual answers for the worldbuilding questions it bypasses.
Definitely skip the anime covering the first game's events, it's way too compressed and just heinously awful in a lot of ways. Can't speak for the other anime series, the movie, or the books, though I'm still interested enough to give em a try sometime.
The games have some fantastic murder twists. After V2’s ass-pulls around its ending, and after 3’s first case, I felt like I was done. It was so weird that I could enjoy the individual murder mysteries, but once they got wrapped up in the overall crazy story they were trying to tell, I lost interest.
yeah, I felt very similarly. the games are a lot better at character drama than broader worldbuilding, so anytime the cases became more about the outside world it wasn't quite as good.
I enjoyed both Battleship and Battle: Los Angeles. They were fun movies to turn your brain off to.
Battle: Los Angeles was actually a brilliant ayylmao invasion movie, I think, blatant cringeworthy video-gamey rah-rah Marine recruitment propaganda aside.
I really liked that it doesn't cut away to some scientists or The President who know exactly what's going on and explain it to us. It doesn't show the aliens being diabolical with subtitles in their mothership or something. It doesn't expo-dump to make sure we're following along comfortably. No.
You follow a bunch of Marines deployed straight into the claustrophobic fog of war after a whole ton of "WTF" just hit finally-not-New-York-for-once.
We the viewers only know what they know. They have to learn as they go, and so do we. And that's actually pretty scary.
The aliens also had such a cool and unique design. I loved their tech and the "pop pop crackle" of their machinery sputtering thrusts to stay aloft.
Oh boy when they dropped anchor and spun that battleship around. Goofy as fuck but it was fun!
I watched both of those and you are right. Fun movies to just turn your brain off and go with the flow.
Need for Speed Most Wanted 2012. I get the hate, it isn't like the OG at all, but when played without caring about its name it is a banger game.
Can't think of anything on top of my head, so instead I'll ask: What makes you say that Resident Evil 4 is a "masterpiece"? For me it completely ruined the series. It went from survival horror to action shooter when RE4 was released, and every game since has been an iteration of that.
To me that's not Resident Evil. The fun of these games comes from the horror of not knowing what's lurking behind the next corner, and the fact that even one zombie can ruin your night. RE4 removed all of that by placing the camera behind the player, and then turning zombies into cannon fodder that swarm you by the masses. That's not Resident Evil for me, and for that reason I consider RE:0 to be the last good game in the series. (Not including the remakes of course; I'm only counting new entries.)
The thing is, your opinion is the majority. I'm the odd one out here, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. One theory I've been told is that for a lot of people, RE4 was their first Resident Evil game, in which case I can understand liking it if you never knew how good the old games were. I also understand that the tank controls can be off-putting, but that can be bypassed by mapping forward to a button other than up, that way you can move and turn at the same time (also the remakes give you an option to turn off the tank controls). So I really can't think of any other reasons why one might prefer RE4 to past titles.
I feel you. My first game was Resident Evil 2 on my N64. I LOVED that game as a kid, and then I moved on to all the other ones. I think Code: Veronica is my favorite though. RE4 absolutely ruined the series. The enemies using weapons and having complex thoughts was just such a departure from the original BOW enemies. I still played all the rest, and enjoyed them, but I had to kind of pretend it wasn't Resident Evil.
On a separate note, why the hell can't they make ONE FUCKING MOVIE that is even in the same ballpark as the games?? I have yet to see the most recent one, but I already know it can't be set in the same timeline as the early games, based on the weird enemies that clearly aren't from the T-virus.
Mainly the gameplay. Ya, it feels dated, but it also feels intentionally as it makes you think strategically about your approach. It also allows a variety of gameplay styles
As for why the statement I made is a unpopular opinion, is because people praise RE4 (rightfully so), but are mixed on how action heavy 5 & 6 are. I'm just someone who likes action and dislikes horror (the opposite of most RE fans)
Well like I said, my problem isn't that it's dated, but instead that they modernized it too much by turning it into an action game with puzzle elements, rather than a puzzle game with suspenseful elements.
It seems to me that you like RE4 for all the reasons why I hate it. So is it safe to say that I was right when I guessed that RE4 was probably your first Resident Evil game? I think my opinion is so much different because I started off with the original.
The Last of Us 2. I get the hate but I LOVE playing as Abby. Christ almighty is it a fun game. Dark, but fun.
Dead by Daylight.
I get the hate: it's buggy and messy and expensive, and people are rude AF. But I just turn off chat and have fun with it.
Though I've had less enjoyment since they redid the challenges to be a constant assault of the senses with updates for fifteen concurrent "challenges" each match. I'm not a baby, I don't need the distraction or unearned praise.
Wait, maybe I do hate it?
Reversed but I think french is a horrible sounding language and the only reason people think it's sexy or romantic is because popular culture tells them it is. It sounds like a coughing fit. Likewise I think german sounds cute, and again I think most people don't because popular culture tells them german sounds like an angry man yelling. "Hallo, viele dank, bitteschön" it's always so light and cautious.
The only exception is somebody moaning "oui" and "ja" respectively.
In my opinion, I will state that co-op RE5 is my favorite way to judge compatibility with someone. I know it sounds silly but playing Army of Two is kind of the same. I played RE5 with my ex-fiance, we beat the game on the highest difficulty, got all the achievements, and she wasn't a gamer--actually didn't touch video games until we were together. Now the person I last dated was a gamer, yet I don't why we struggled so much. So in a way, I had to tolerate that we couldn't work together.
You know, the fact that you wrote ex fiance actually kinda goes against your point
Heh. When you're with someone for six years. Things change. At a certain point you have to discuss the direction in life you want to take.
I've been with my fiance for over 4 years now, and we've kinda always been very open about how we want our life to be and where it might lead us
We started dating in college at around 19. So the topic of having kids wasn't exactly something that became a topic of discussion until later on.
Well my fiance and I started dating with 19 and 20, respectively, but we still talked about our future early on
We were talking about the future; both of us had a lot of focus on trying to make a change. Being politically active and so forth. I think at the time with the 07 recession and college as well as moving around, that subject wasn't at the top of our minds. It only came up when we started working in education. The irony got to me because a student punched her in the face around then.
If a sociopath checks all the boxes for 'normal' except for understanding that other people have their own thoughts and feelings, they're still a sociopath.
Not saying their ex-wife is a sociopath, just saying that you usually need multiple litmus tests (colloquial) before you can determine a greater truth about someone.
Mando and Grogu, and for that matter Skeleton Crew. Just mindless fun. Dude, it's Star Wars, not fuggin' Shakespeare.
I've shown the video game Antichamber to about a half dozen people and watched them bounce right off it.
You know how sometimes snobs of any particular thing tend to start liking things a general audience hates? Like, I've seen movie buffs express a love of stuff like Street Trash, or whiskey snobs really like whiskey that tastes like smoke, leather and iodine. I think you've got to be like that with video games to like Antichamber.
Antichamber is a non-euclidean 3D first person puzzle platformer. It's set in an abstract series of stark black and white corridors that in many cases don't make sense. It's a strange place that doesn't behave like the real world, it is internally consistent, but you'll encounter all kinds of weird shit like falling a long distance only to wind up above where you started, multiple paths leading through the same doorway, things appearing and disappearing, mazes that aren't physically possible...and somehow it makes all the bizarre little puzzles you find yourself in parables for living a human life.
I can't fault anyone for not getting it. It's arthouse bullshit. I've shaken my head mouthing "what the fuck are you doing" to modern artists, I recognize this as arthouse bullshit, but it's arthouse bullshit that I at least partially understand.
The game reminded me so much of exploring museum in all the right ways where you weren't sure what was to come, but it was all loosely connected. The arty elements complemented this mystery and feeling like you were in some sort of other reality, which is honestly appreciated (not Backrooms vibes of unwelcoming). My only regret was having to use solutions a couple of times.
I'm glad you picked this niche game to talk about. I still think about it sometimes despite it being over a decade old. You've inspired me to pick it up again all these years later.
It's a solo project I think? So in some cases yeah it has the feeling of a children's science museum? What's over here? What does this do? OOOOOOH! In one case there's a room full of what I'm pretty sure was the test assets the developer used to learn how to create the shenanigans the game is made of.
For me, it's at it's best when it presents the player with something unfamiliar, like the layout that doesn't spatially make sense, it has strange abstract things in it, like the hallway full of balls you have to walk slowly through. You're unfamiliar with how this place works, you then learn, and it offers a checkpoint that relates that to some aspect of life. Then you get a cube gun and it's a video game again.
I watched a couple friends make their way through that one together. I'd never play it on my own, but I rarely play games anyway. I'm very much a voyeur with them and had a blast watching/listening. The friend helping was yelling things like "do the jiggle jump" and shit
Speaking of resident evil: I really like the movies. All except the last one and the one in the desert. They might shit all over the games and any semblance of continuity, but if you can shut off your brain for a while (as much as for any other action horror movie), they are fun. Especially in a proper home cinema and even more so in 3D.
They are so wildly inconsistent, and are nonsensical. If I had to turn my brain off any more, I’d be the zombie.
Hogwarts Legacy. It was surprisingly good!
Dragon Age: Veilguard. Was it MCU-ified? Sure. Still enjoyed it quite a bit. More than Inquisition, actually.
I preferred Inquisition, especially in terms of the stories and challenges of the characters, and especially their use of LGBT storylines.
In Inquisition, Krem is trans. Is that an issue? No, it's just part of their character. Is that even the most focused on thing about Krem? Absolutely not, Krem is a badass, that's the focus on Krem.
Dorian is gay. Is that a problem? Yes, but not specifically for some particularly homophobic reason, it's mostly about his role and the pressure to marry his betrothed and generally come back to Tevinter and their ways, which Dorian has been fairly steadily against (not just the pressure to not be gay). It wasn't a simple "I'm gay and want my parents to accept who I am" story.
Then there's Veilguard. Where we have a drawn-out thing about how Taash is non-binary, and for some reason that is a huge problem for their mother, even though the Qun have been accepting of trans people the whole time (but supposedly get their loincloths in a wad about non-binary? Come on). And that becomes their, like... whole deal. They're even bisexual, which is treated as a non-issue (thankfully). And they're the big dragon-slayer person, who rarely offers anything in terms of killing dragons. It seems like Taash's entire existence in the game is for a ham-fisted egg story, and it just gets tedious, frankly.
Every other character has interesting storyline and interesting interplay. Taash gets... one story, and a beat-you-over-the-head allegory in terms of accepting her Qun parts or her Rivian parts, with the painfully obvious answer of "both." Basically, we are too far along to have the cardboard cut-out non-binary character in a story and calling it representation.
Gameplay-wise, I missed the tactical system for fighting from Inquisition, though once I got the hang of the ability system of Veilguard it was an okay replacement. Definitely more fluid.
The Emoji Movie. I get it, the trailers looked awful. It had 'shallow crap' written all over it. But my kids loved it, and honestly, it was a perfectly fine movie. Better than a bunch of other animated movies I've had to sit through.
Yes but how do you write a plot around emoji? Are they literally the emoji in your phone becoming sentient, or did the scriptwriters come up with a whole alternative universe that they exist in or something? I'm mildly intrigued but don't care enough to look up a summary.
It was about being more than just what you are expected to be. Every other emoji stayed what they were, he was able to change. That's... it.
For games, I'd have to say Ultima. Most people who played the games before this one hate it and say that it deviated from the series too far, but I just love the post apocalyptic setting. It is so dark, and the game music by Nenad Vugrinec is really great.
Sure, it has it's flaws. Massive, massive flaws. And so many. Movement, and especially jumping, is a big mess. And the game makes you jump a lot. Onto moving platforms, too. So that was massively frustrating. But despite that and the fact that the game was never really finished, it is still really really good.
Which Ultima are you talking about here? I don't know which of the Ultima games has a post-apocalyptic setting.
Ultima 8: Pagan.
It takes place in the world of Pagan, which has been almost completly flooded, with only a few former mountain tops still above water, one of which the city of Tenebrae is located on, where the game takes place.
Thanks for the clarification!
Sounds like Ultima VIII.
Thanks!
Remember Me
For the longest time, that movie was impossible to find. But that's the movie that sold me on Robert Pattinson.
And to make people mad, he's my favorite Batman by leagues and bounds.
Ironically, I didn't even realize it was a movie. I was talking about the video game. It was short lived
Kraven the Hunter. I was entertained by it and it was beautifully filmed.
I liked Dune and Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu both well enough.
People dislike Dune?
Yes. I find the pacing is bad, it hardly bothers with the politics at all which is the entire point of why things happen in the story. It rearranges things so actors like Momoa pointlessly get extra screen time. I think Chalamet is flat and has zero range acting exactly the same as everything else he’s done and Zendaya does nothing except scowl and glare throughout the production. It’s mid acting, aimless writing, spectacular scenery, all at the expense of the actual story.
I did only see the first one, so I have no way of knowing how I would feel about the rest. I liked the one I saw
Torment: Tides of Numenera
A lot of people give this game bad rep because its (in)direct ancestor was amazing Planescape Torment, the game with one of the best stories ever made. Sure Planescape was amazing, with all its bizarre characters and places, deep thoughts provoking story, vast amounts of book like conversations, that's all true.
But Numenera was ringing the exact same bell for me.
I get some of the hate it's not real Planescape, but that's because of licensing reason and we can't do shit about that. But world of Numenera was amazing replacement! It's just as bizarre, just as strange, just as different, I loved it!
I get some of the hate of "shallow" characters which is somehow true for some random NPCs, but that's in every game. But your companions were all interesting with interesting motives and background.
I don't get the hate of mechanics and combat. I honestly prefer its game mechanics to d&d, because we've already seen it million times and this was new. And it works well. And combat? Lol. That's the last thing this game is about so I don't mind it's not perfect. And honestly, combat in "the original" sucked even more.
All in all I did not expect much thanks to reviews but I was very pleasantly surprised. I highly recommend the game for all patient gamers out there.
I liked RE6 as well. I don't remember if that's the one where you punch a boulder into a volcano or if that's 5, but I enjoyed the over the topness of it. I liked the set up of playing different characters too. Leon going through the White House was awesome.
I got that one and still need to play it, because somebody explained that it was a lot different than people expected so they didn't pick up the more action-oriented gameplay like the devs hoped.
It was a lot more dynamic and run-and-gun than survival horror, but it kinda fit the over the top theme. Something like that.
So it won me over on a sale. I think having that in mind will make for a better first impression. :)
Yeah the RE franchise took a detour around RE Zero. With RE4, it is really noticeable. It went from horror survival, you better conserve your ammo. Don't kill that zombie just run around him so you have enough ammo for the boss. To action horror, kill everything and everyone. We will drop a lot of loot for you.
I enjoy both styles, but understand the hate. After how RE4 was so well received they kept ramping up the action until the reset with 7.
I quite enjoy The Big Bang Theory. It's not great art, but it's relaxing and not taxing.
I'm fine with Harry Potter.
I see a lot of hate on the author, I almost don't know what it's about. And don't want to know. I still enjoy books and movies. And will show it to my child. I'm OK with separating the art from the artist.
I remember feeling kind of like you some years back and thinking surely this is just drama from terminally online people right? But then I finally did look into it and consider it and I did conclude that the woman really is a huge asshole.
Yeah, in the same month of this year she threatened to sue amnesty international forcing them to take down a report and posted an upskirt of someone she had a problem with. These aren't the most evil things she's done, but they are some real "are we the baddies" moments
You can separate the art from the artist as long as you don’t give her any more money. She’s actively using her wealth to hurt trans people. The new TV series was made just to spite the original actors because they’ve publicly denounced her views and supported trans people.
I think the high seas is the only ethical way to enjoy her content. I have my childhood hard covers but I’ll never give her money now. She seems truly evil. That’s coming from a Slythern!
The art is problematic in itself.
It’s just another iteration of the Heroes Journey in a nice (except for the racism) setting.
Edit: read Alanna by Tamora Pierce. Much better.
Don't forget all the talk of blood purity and the state, media, education system, and prisons all being operated by the same tight-knit group of people for generations.
At least that part is seen as a bit problematic by characters of the story.
Yes. That's the point. It's about Nazis, fascism, the KKK (pointy hats, helloooooo) etc. Which is why it's so weird that she's joined the people who she says were bad.
That list above is bullshit. There's no need to make anything up. Just stick to the truth. The woman's behaviour is appalling.
+1 for Alanna. My wife loved the books growing up so much that we named our first kid after the main character and I subsequently got a fairly big Alanna tattoo.
Wow, cool. Hasn't saw any problems in the art itself. Now see, thank you.
Anyway almost all of that is Supporting roles at best. I know I will get minuses for this comment too.
I still will watch it with my daughter, when she will apply to elementary school. And as others suggested, I will not pay money for that. Thank you, guys.
I'd recommend just about all the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce (except Mastiff. Hate that book).
She's a raging TERF and proud of it. I know you didn't want to know, but please don't give that woman any money.
I'm a massive Harry Potter fan, by the way. I can separate the art from the artist and despise the artist at the same time. See also Dickens, Dahl, Wagner, Scott Card, etc.
The author is terrible, as a person, and really as a writer too. The books are not examples of great literature, but they are kid's books, they don't have to be. What is super important is that those books helped a lot of kids to become more interested in reading. Just for that, the books have worth in my mind, and they are pretty enjoyable in a way, and they don't have in them the hatred the author has nowadays, which is good.
The movies are the work of many people, not just hers, and they show real love and have a certain magic in them on how they did the worldbuilding and everything. I wished more of the main people involved in the movies would speak against the authror though.
But please don't ignore what the author does. Don't avoid it. I am ok separating art from artist, but while the artist is alive and is affecting the world I feel it is important to be aware of what we buy and where we put the money to the best of our ability. There are many ways to enjoy something without giving money to a person full of hatred.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted.
Every single person downvoting you likes art from an artist that's a piece of shit. It's inevitable. And you didn't indicate you still financially support the artist, which is what everyone is concerned about. And you shouldn't, because she's a real piece of shit.