Lurker > LinkMarioSamus

The dumb thing is Ben Kingsley and the dragon were two of my favorite aspects of Shang-Chi. I get why XIII_Rocks takes issue with them though. I do agree the villain was one of the best parts too.

Regarding "Internet randos", I post about them mostly just because I want to say something about them somewhere, anywhere. Midnight's Edge is generally an informative YT news channel when it isn't delving into identity politics - they did a good job reporting on the Fant4stic and Ghostbusters reboot fiascoes back in the day and even as late as 2019 they put out informative videos regarding the situations with John Lasseter's reign at Disney/Pixar and Sony's control over the Spider-Man film rights. I popped into a live round table discussion on what No Way Home's success "means" for the MCU going forward where the main guy said that Kevin Feige has been humbled this year. Oh really? Even as someone who didn't like Black Widow, Shang-Chi, or Loki (and barely enjoyed Wandavision) that still seems like a stretch.

The same guy also reported on The Marvels seemingly replacing Brie Larson which...what? I've never heard that anywhere else, so yeah more of that nonsense agenda plus the chat acting like she doesn't want white men to watch her movies (even regardless of language she used, how do you extrapolate that from "I don't care what a 40-year old white dude thinks of A Wrinkle in Time, because it's not for him"?). It was that plus me drawing parallels between Larson and Christian Bale (both being intense method actors without going to Jared Leto or Daniel Day-Lewis extremes, plus both being into video games) which got me excited about the prospect of The Marvels being The Dark Knight to Captain Marvel's Batman Begins.

Speaking of which, somewhere I read that Feige cited Batman Begins as an influence on Iron Man in going for a more serious direction compared to then-contemporary Marvel Comics film adaptations like Ghost Rider and the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies. Good on him.

Was more noting something I just saw!

I didn't watch the videos (well I did happen on one livestream from Midnight's Edge which I took part in for a bit before bailing out), I was more noting that they're being put up in the first place.

I was more caught off guard by that. Like, I'm not going to say the climax of Wandavision was amazing or anything, but I was if anything GLAD to see that kind of MCU action after more than a year of nothing new.

Heck, part of me wanted to rant about Scorsese's beef with the MCU since if anything it's just doing for superheroes what people like Scorsese did for crime thrillers back in the day. I also remembered Scorsese wound up leaving Joker specifically because he didn't like how Arthur Fleck would have to become a literal comic book character and decided it would be disingenuous to remain involved, meaning it IS the subject matter he has a problem with. Ugh.

With The Marvels, it's more that I felt the original film showed promise which I hope will be realized in a sequel. Plus this Oscar-winning actress not having been given much interesting to do so far.

Also I can't be the only one who thinks the whole criticism of "standard MCU third act" is way overblown? Like the only recent MCU production where I actually had so much of a problem with it was Black Widow.

Am I the only one here who's really excited for The Marvels?

Some dummies are trying to spin this movie's success into saying it somehow goes against Marvel's "woke narrative". What narrative? I swear these guys HATE diversity, otherwise they wouldn't be so glad about their precious white man besting everyone else at the box office. My goodness.

Never seen Blue Velvet.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

Whenever a game or character loses, its this site's users sending a message to that developer that they suck now.

Literally the logic I used to pick Dark Souls over Skyrim, not realizing all the "Bethesda was never good" people were a vocal minority at best.

Either way, assuming the gap between TLOU and its sequel is as big as that between Ocarina and Wind Waker, TLOU2 is only slightly weaker than BioShock Infinite at worst (I'd estimate Wind Waker to be indirectly worth around mid-30's on Ocarina). Not good, but not that bad either.

I just remember how in his Old vs. New of the Raimi Spider-Man films vs. the Marc Webb duology the Nostalgia Critic gave the point to the former regarding villains entirely because they were more memorable. Note he decided he preferred the latter films overall because he liked Garfield's Spidey more, thought the films had better action scenes, and vastly preferred Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy to Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane.

I was more trying to "defend" The Last of Us Part II earlier by saying if the game would perform poorly in a contest setting it would be due to TLOU not really being this site's cup of tea, not so much because this site actually embraced the backlash. The gap between the two in contest strength is probably no different than the gap between Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker if anything. Which is still pretty big, especially considering TLOU isn't that strong in the first place, but I hate how people like Ulti will try to spin it into this site hating Naughty Dog.

Although TBH, 42% on Dark Souls isn't bad and it only looked that way because the match was debated pre-contest. Dark Souls was basically GOTD2's equivalent of Shadow of the Colossus as a game that got a big boost out of seemingly nowhere due to "respect" - although I say this as someone who picked it to get to the finals because I didn't know enough about Witcher and figured Skyrim would get caught up in Bethesda backlash when it really wasn't. TLOU is directly projected to get 39% on Skyrim which isn't half bad considering Skyrim is a high midcarder. I'd take TLOU over something like StarCraft or KOTOR. Dark Souls doesn't get enough credit. I will admit though that I'm mostly ignorant about The Last of Us and figured Dark Souls would be more this site's cup of tea. Also I remembered how certain games' strengths seemed to fluctuate massively between the 2009 and 2010 games contest so I figured the same could happen here. I just saw the match as "old-school RPG vs. cinematic survival horror game" and figured RPGFAQs would carry Dark Souls to victory.

Mostly felt like making this to follow on from a post I made in the No Way Home topic without derailing it.

I kind of feel like Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is overrated as an iconic movie villain. He was too bombastic to really be believable as a conniving real estate scammer, though Hackman's screen presence and his evil plan were enough to save the character for me. And led me to the conclusion that Hackman is physically incapable of giving a bad performance. Maybe it didn't help I witnessed Hackman's performance as Bill Daggett in Unforgiven not long before.

In fairness, I know the intention was for him to be like a Bond villain. It mostly just doesn't hold up in a day and age where Donald Trump can get elected US President (no political statement intended), and also it might have just brought to mind the criticisms of Jesse Eisenberg's Luthor. I also had similar problems with Tommy Lee Jones going way over-the-top as Two-Face in Batman Forever to the point of undermining the seriousness of all his scenes.

Not saying a hammy villain is automatically bad. I think Dennis Hopper's Howard Payne in Speed is maybe an underappreciated movie villain, but at least there it feels like there's method to the madness and Hopper's over-the-top performance makes sense since his character is supposed to be "crazy".

I never got the impression Dafoe's Green Goblin was underrated, although that could be solely due to hearing so much hype for Spider-Man 1 & 2.

Now Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, THERE'S an underrated superhero movie villain.

Just to ask, didn't Trump base his whole campaign on instituting "Law and Order" to suppress riots? If so then he basically fell into the same trap as Hillary Clinton by painting those who opposed him as evil scumbags.

Only ask because I'm amazed how sore some people still are over all the riots from last year, to the point they think the Capitol insurrection was no big deal. And I don't get why these people could even remotely act like their country is some backwater third-world nation when that's like the OPPOSITE of the reality.

Won't watch this movie until it comes on TV but good to see appreciation for Willem Dafoe.

Galaxy vs. Prime who do you pick?

Well it's 45% on FFX vs. 46% on MGS.

Galaxy being the favorite to win is honestly kind of baffling. I know Nintendo and all, but RE4 and SOTC have arguably left more lasting impact and Galaxy has never truly impressed. It says a lot when we think pushing its most impressive performances were like what, 38% on Twilight Princess and 41% on Super Metroid?

I was thinking Mario Galaxy/SOTC could be an interesting match because if you take Mario to win that basically means Super Metroid breaks 55% on MGS. I actually did pick Mario in that situation though.

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

RE4 > SotC

Why the fuck is FFIV in here?

Would Mega Man X have been a better suggestion? Actually yeah it probably would have, oops.

OrangeCrush980 posted...

SotC is one of those games that won't retain its strength. I doubt it beats MGS2 again, let alone Galaxy.

FFIV is very slightly before the sweet spot era that this site loves, so RE4 probably takes care of business.

Galaxy > RE4 because I trust Galaxy more, and 3D All Stars might've helped it out.

SOTC got 46% on MGS1 in 2015 (around what MGS2 got on RE4), and the game has even gotten a remake on PS4 since then. I would be extremely surprised if the game declined noticeably in strength since 2015.

Looks like it's all Mario vs. RE.

I wanted to give RE4 a debatable but winnable fourpack!

Agreed, was just morbidly curious.

I like the idea of Raiders of the Lost Ark having an MCU actor in it.

Went to the YT comment section for a story on the investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, people were saying it was a peaceful protest not an insurrection and didn't understand what was wrong.

What, is a protest peaceful solely because it doesn't involve torches or Molotovs? Those guys can't seem to get over all the riots from last year, looks like they HATE BLM. I don't understand why Americans of all people have so little respect for their country's own government. You'd expect this of a backwater third-world country which is like the opposite of what America actually is.

The list is from collider.com just FYI. IIRC this is how the rest went:

18) Thor
17) Thor: The Dark World
16) Captain Marvel
15) Captain America: Civil War
14) Avengers: Infinity War
13) Spider-Man: Far From Home
12) Spider-Man: Homecoming
11) Guardians of the Galaxy
10) Iron Man 3
9) Avengers: Age of Ultron
8) Thor: Ragnarok
7) Avengers: Endgame
6) Black Panther
5) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
3) The Avengers
2) Iron Man
1) Captain America: The First Avenger

I swear no one really feels strongly about the Ant-Man movies one way or the other.

I wasn't big on it either!

There's also this one guy's ranking of MCU movies he updates every time a new movie comes out, and he ranked Shang-Chi higher than only Black Widow, both Ant-Man movies, The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Iron Man 2. I was really surprised when he ranked Eternals a spot higher. He wrote that neither Doctor Strange nor Shang-Chi presented very compelling main characters even though he admitted to enjoying Strange in later MCU films like Infinity War.

In hindsight I probably should have replaced RE4 with Kingdom Hearts or something.

I picked the Dark Souls/Metroid Prime match because Metroid Prime is projected to get 61% on Dark Souls in the 2015 x-stats, but DS having obviously boosted since then and the possibility of that division being overrated to some extent in the stats (since a lot of those matches were tainted by tumblr spillover) make it a debatable match.

For RE4, I always got the feeling old-school RE fans at least marginally respect 4 if only compared to 5 & 6.

2015 definitely points to MGS > RE4, I was just thinking MAYBE MGS becoming more dated plus RE as a series being in much better shape just might be able to turn the scales.

Somewhat amazed Dark Souls is the favorite so far. I guess I shouldn't really though.

I'm picking RE4 to win this fourpack out of favoritism!

I'm not watching Hawkeye until after my exams are over but Florence Pugh already showed off one clip of Yelena fighting Hawkeye on her Instagram.

Pugh is just one of those actresses who fits into action roles SO naturally. She even learned a bit of wrestling for the movie Fighting with My Family.

Blue Dragon would be terrible fodder anyway.

Oh I'm perfectly aware of the Toriyama connection.

The 2015 contest x-stats are surprisingly well-done all things considered. I'm more just pointing out certain things that stick out. That said:

-It looks like Pokemon Gold/Silver declined since 2010. Maybe it was overperforming on HGSS hype back then? Remember though I'm assuming that whole division is overvalued in the stats because I couldn't see Chrono Trigger getting 54% on Ocarina even back then. Speaking of which...

-I think Chrono Trigger did SFF Dragon Quest VIII, otherwise both the latter and Persona 3 actually declined since 2010.

-Pokemon Red/Blue being worth 51.5% on Mario 3 looks nice, but I just want to ask where this adjustment came from.

I'm speaking more generally, not so much relating to contest strength.

I barely understand what the heck GG actually is.

Also as far as Mr. Rittenhouse is concerned, I think the problem is that there has been a long-standing issue surrounding non-white criminals typically getting treated worse than white criminals and that him being acquitted of wrongdoing just gives more people license to go on vigilante killings against non-white criminals.

I mean, George Floyd was a criminal of some sort, right? And the whole reason he became a martyr was because he got disproportionately bad treatment by the police in a way that likely wouldn't have happened if he was white? This whole situation stinks to high heaven.

Certainly a possibility, but I still feel like at least in Undertale's case people got sick of it. It came out at the perfect time to do damage in the 2015 games contest but afterwards everyone just wanted it to go away.

Honestly yes, it's just in some cases. Plus I'm applying my own "unofficial" adjustments in several instances. Two more things regarding Smash's influence on contests:

-Someone pointed out earlier how Smash characters seemed to be excelling all over the place in 2018. Truth be told I think it was more their competition being crap most of the time due to their franchises/companies going through dry periods, plus the possibility of old-school characters getting recognizability boosts for various reasons not necessarily involving any new games (or even having to vote in every match on a given day). I mean, Simon Belmont almost lost to Ryu Hayabusa despite the high-profile Smash announcement vs. the latter's series being seemingly dead, and it's not like that was a bad contest for Castlevania since Alucard later gave Bowser a scare.

-I seriously thought Undertale would be stronger in the 2020 games contest compared to in the 2015 one (obviously not counting rallies in the latter instance) due to getting exposure through Smash. I did not take into account how Undertale was already perceived to have been over-exposed and if anything the Smash content would have only increased the hype backlash against the game. I know a lot of us view Undertale flopping in GOTD as being payback for winning the 2015 contest, but it could have just as easily been anti-votes simply due to perceived overexposure. That's probably the #1 reason for anti-votes in just about any case really.

Going through the 2015 x-stats trying to determine any changes in strength from GOTD1 hurts my brain. And I get the feeling that could be the case even without rallies.