Random TV Show Thoughts

[The Cat]

Oh yes, my heart aches for poor billionaires who feel stifled by social criticism... They're crying all the way to the bank.

They've got several hundred billion problems but a soul aint one.

 

[The Cat]

I think it might be time for a reboot of Weekend at Bernie's franchise as a streaming series. It's time for a new generation to endure the trials.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think it might be time for a reboot of Weekend at Bernie's franchise as a streaming series. It's time for a new generation to endure the trials.

What kinds of shenanigans do you think everyone's favorite corpse should get into?

 

[The Cat]

What kinds of shenanigans do you think everyone's favorite corpse should get into?

Well I always found the implied necorphilia a gas, but audiences might like to pretend to have evolved so I wouldnt hold my breath if I were me, which I am so we wont. Anywhoosers, I think it would be a lot of fun to see how the new generation would handle the situation of discovering that they were supposed to be the fall guys for their boss's shady corporate criminal dealings while invited to his beach resort to discuss what they think is to be a promotion, but in fact their boss plans to kill them, their lives saved only by the fact that the crime boss in charge decided that Bernie needed to be made an example of, so he was killed instead.

I think it could be funny.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well I always found the implied necorphilia a gas, but audiences might like to pretend to have evolved so I wouldnt hold my breath if I were me, which I am so we wont. Anywhoosers, I think it would be a lot of fun to see how the new generation would handle the situation of discovering that they were supposed to be the fall guys for their boss's shady corporate criminal dealings while invited to his beach resort to discuss what they think is to be a promotion, but in fact their boss plans to kill them, their lives saved only by the fact that the crime boss in charge decided that Bernie needed to be made an example of, so he was killed instead.

I think it could be funny.

Sounds like there needs to be moar fanfiction 'round these parts.

 

[The Cat]

So Legend of the Rangers was clearly supposed to be the pilot for the next babylon 5 series, or at least a follow up movie...but It was not Babylon 5. The writing for this one was exposition heavy. which works for a longer series but sucks for a movie.

 

[The Cat]

aaaaaaand its just dawning on me with fresh horror the realization of what "Being sent to the cornfield" meant to rural american audiences... How many times had a child been told that a dead pet had just run into the cornfield never to be seen again. Chilling. In the future down to the gravel pit will be used in place of into the cornfield.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

aaaaaaand its just dawning on me with fresh horror the realization of what "Being sent to the cornfield" meant to rural american audiences... How many times had a child been told that a dead pet had just run into the cornfield never to be seen again. Chilling. In the future down to the gravel pit will be used in place of into the cornfield.

I never thought about it like that.

 

[The Cat]

I never thought about it like that.

Yeah. It's got a bit of a heavy vibe to have to sit with, but I dig it man.

 

[The Cat]

The 70's were a trip the world over.​

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The 70's were a trip the world over.​

They used the hell out of that one clip of the cat woman looping.

 

[The Cat]

They used the hell out of that one clip of the cat woman looping.

Can you blame them? Meyowza.

 

[Totenkindly]

So I am trying to watch X-Men '97 on Disney+. I'm only 3 episodes into it. I never really watched or cared for the original and have mixed feelings about this series.

For background, my "sweet spot of comics" was primarily the Uncanny X-Men, starting from the Byrne/Claremont run (somewhere around issues #110?) up through a little after issues #300. This was my first love and I collected every issue diligently and still have them bagged. I also collected a lot of the spin-offs for awhile (X-Factor, X-Force, The New Mutants [I bought #1 off the newsstand], Gen X, etc.). At some point I stepped away from collecting more mainstream stuff and got into the more limited run series that was more independent in style, like The Sandman and Fables, etc., over the years.

Anyway, all that to say: I am super-familiar with the storylines that are driving this series. I am also familiar with the hodgepodge of characters being used. Some of them were not contemporaries in the actual comic storyline, but they're all here. It's like this series basically is just rearranging a lot of the puzzle pieces.

I don't know how I feel about it. Mostly right now, I feel little or nothing. Sometimes I laugh while watching it.

I really hate the voicing for many of the characters. I know when you READ the comics, you don't actually hear the voices, so it's kind of shocking hearing the accents now. But usually the voices are feeling like these really terrible cliches of certain accents, especially Gambit, Rogue, etc. Also, most of the acting seems bad to me; there's no nuance or realistic elements to the voicing, for many; just melodramatic readings of the lines. Gawd. I think the accents here are a hindrance in how they're done, where is the nuance? I know Rogue's got a twang, but can't they make it sound regular vs a pure cheesy hillbilly? [I'll admit I don't like Colossus' stereotypical Russian accent in Deadpool either... but Deadpool is a comedy and I can tolerate it.]

I hate Morph. He's not a real comic character as far as I recall, although he's likely based on Mimic. He's just pure comic relief and an opportunity for him to emulate a bunch of characters not in the show (like Magik or Spiral or other one-off characters they don't have room for).

The storylines are REALLY compressed into short time spans. We have Magneto's trial (I suppose issue #200), he's wearing the same John Romita Jr. costuming here. I think the Goblin Queen stuff didn't start until the later 80's (issue #230-240?) Madelyne Pryor of course originally appeared around #168 and was never intended as a superhero character, it was a "normal" storyline to teach Scott how to move on after Jean's death until Marvel stupidity insisted on bringing her back because they wanted to sell X-Factor, resulting in a soft reset where Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to Jean and leaving Madelyne screwed over.

There's also some crazy shit that goes on. Like Jean goes into immediate labor and is going to deliver within 30 minutes (or less, like a pizza!) instead of how long labor normally takes; the doctor won't deliver Jean's baby because she's a mutie; ROGUE basically rapes the doctor's mind so she knows how to deliver the baby since he is unwilling, without even batting an eye. [Women have been birthing babies for thousands of years. Rogue's actions are questionable at best and she doesn't even seem to think about what she is doing, nor Scott nor Jean; do you think this is going to HELP mutant/human relations, which was a topic of the episode because of Magneto's trial??]

I really also don't like all the clunky dialogue about mutants, etc. It becomes much more obvious when you replace it with "black" or "LGBT" how clumsy it would all sound if this was real-life dialogue. People just don't talk that way.

I think my main point here is that not only is a lot of it clunky, but there's little time for any real drama to foster. We just get all the cliche stuff like Logan again trying to hook up with Jean and never really going beyond that, Scott who thought he was with the "real Jean" and THEY JUST HAD A BABY TOGETHER AN EPISODE AGO and suddenly another Jean shows up and he almost immediately moves on -- like, let's say you were married to and sacrificed for and truly loved someone and found out later they were a clone but they were still the person you were with, and the "real" person is missing all of those memories you had built with the "clone" and... well, wouldn't you love the person you were with? Wtf?

I think the reality is just that emotionally the comics felt more real and deeper, and the series to me isn't conveying the same depth and also is like they put the continuity into a blender. Some of these storylines (like Storm originally losing her powers) were stellar ones, and this feels like the cheap version.

I hope they kill Gambit off. I never cared for him, and I'm glad they never did the solo movie.

I think a main positive take-away though is the reaffirmation that mutants were the original Marvel social outcasts, representing other ethnicities in the USA besides descendants of the British Isles, and also (quickly) LGBT people.