Poll of the Day > Geekmasters: Now in 4D

(+) Yeah! (+)

The reviews for Luke Cage season 2 have not been kind at all.

Apparently they rushed the season and cut the budget big time from season 1. Those are never good indicators that your show and season are headed in the right direction.
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All the Netflix series are probably in trouble in general, since Disney is talking about how they want to run their own streaming service, and if they do they're almost certainly pulling all of their own material off other streaming services and moving it to their own.

The Netflix shows are probably dead in the water, because I doubt they can contractually move away from Netflix, but I also assume that Disney won't want to keep making them after.

So halfassing a season and not caring if it tanks feels like something they'd do.


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The Wave Master posted...

The reviews for Luke Cage season 2 have not been kind at all.

Apparently they rushed the season and cut the budget big time from season 1. Those are never good indicators that your show and season are headed in the right direction.

tbh, I can't imagine s1 was one of the better-performing Marvel shows so I could see them cutting corners.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

All the Netflix series are probably in trouble in general, since Disney is talking about how they want to run their own streaming service, and if they do they're almost certainly pulling all of their own material off other streaming services and moving it to their own.

The Netflix shows are probably dead in the water, because I doubt they can contractually move away from Netflix, but I also assume that Disney won't want to keep making them after.

So halfassing a season and not caring if it tanks feels like something they'd do.

But what's really changed since then and now? NF drew up the contract after Disney already owned Marvel. Even Disney wanting to get into streaming isn't exactly a new thing.

Speaking of streaming, apparently Disney upped its bid for 21st Century Fox so it might just run stuff through Hulu instead of getting its own dedicated streaming service (which would be great news, given all of the services out there already)
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I might actually be interested in getting a Disney streaming service if the price is right. With Marvel, Star Wars, Muppets, and all the Disney cartoons and such, I could totally see it being worth $10 a month or less.
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I need to set up a Steam profile. Meh.

Metalsonic66 posted...

I might actually be interested in getting a Disney streaming service if the price is right. With Marvel, Star Wars, Muppets, and all the Disney cartoons and such, I could totally see it being worth $10 a month or less.

Well, first they'd have to get some of their stuff back from NFI. However, in general, I just don't see enough value to justify anything more than maybe a month's sub to binge a few shows. Different story if they run their content on Hulu, though.
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Zeus posted...

But what's really changed since then and now? NF drew up the contract after Disney already owned Marvel. Even Disney wanting to get into streaming isn't exactly a new thing.

But Disney apparently wasn't actively pursuing the idea at the time they signed, so there wasn't really a conflict. But in the last year or so they've started to put the pieces in place to get one up and running, so the conflict is growing more and more pronounced.

Remember, Disney-run Marvel is the company that actively tanked the Fantastic Four comic and deliberately promoted the Avengers to #1 franchise over the X-Men (ie, the one that actually made them most of their money over the last 40 years), solely because other companies were profiting from their success. It's the same reason why they refuse to make a Hulk movie.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Remember, Disney-run Marvel is the company that actively tanked the Fantastic Four comic and deliberately promoted the Avengers to #1 franchise over the X-Men (ie, the one that actually made them most of their money over the last 40 years), solely because other companies were profiting from their success. It's the same reason why they refuse to make a Hulk movie.

Seems less a matter of worrying about trying to screw other companies' profits and more a matter of synergy. It makes more sense to promote certain properties so you can make more money on them.

And what's up with the Hulk? The only thing I assumed was holding them back was the fact that the movies underperformed.
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I think there's issues with Universal regarding the Hulk.
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Zeus posted...

Seems less a matter of worrying about trying to screw other companies' profits and more a matter of synergy. It makes more sense to promote certain properties so you can make more money on them.

Yeah, but when you swing as big of a dick as Disney does, promoting synergy and fucking other companies over start looking a lot alike.



Zeus posted...

And what's up with the Hulk? The only thing I assumed was holding them back was the fact that the movies underperformed.

All of Marvel Studio's pre-Disney movies were distributed by Paramount, except for Hulk, which was through Universal.

(unrelated but interesting side-note - Paramount is basically tied to CBS, Universal is tied to NBC, and Disney owns ABC)

Supposedly, there's some aspect of Marvel's contract with Universal where they're obligated to distribute an unspecified number of future Hulk films (at least one) through Universal, which means Disney either has to work in tandem with Universal (which they don't want to do), or they have to buy out the contract, presumably paying Universal a shitload of money now that the Marvel films are so blatantly successful (which they're unwilling to do). And unlike the Fox and Sony deals, this isn't a "have to make a film within a certain time frame or lose the rights" sort of deal, but a deal that continues in perpetuity until both sides fulfill their obligations (ie, the same type of rights issues that kept the Fox Doctor Who made-for-TV movie off DVD for years, until the new show got popular enough for the BBC to be willing to buy the contract out).

Since the previous Hulk movies weren't major successes (they weren't flops, though - they DID apparently make their production costs back), Marvel/Disney is perfectly content to back-burner those movies for the rest of eternity, and just keep putting the Hulk in other movies, because that's apparently okay under the current situation (because they didn't sell license rights to Universal the way they did Sony and Fox, just distribution rights).

That's part of why Thor: Ragnarok basically had the B-plot taken directly out of Planet Hulk, rather than them just making a Planet Hulk movie the way fanboys were hoping they would from the moment the Hulk flew off in Avengers 2. It's also why we're never going to see a World War Hulk movie (in spite of how many people want to see it). Their attitude is that they can just keep using Hulk in other people's movies.

At least until the potentially inevitable She-Hulk movie they try to spin off later on, after they've phased out all of the original Avengers in favor of newer heroes (assuming that's not blocked by the same rights issues).

So because they can't make all of the money, they'd rather make none of the money than some of the money.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

That's part of why Thor: Ragnarok basically had the B-plot taken directly out of Planet Hulk, rather than them just making a Planet Hulk movie the way fanboys were hoping they would from the moment the Hulk flew off in Avengers 2. It's also why we're never going to see a World War Hulk movie (in spite of how many people want to see it). Their attitude is that they can just keep using Hulk in other people's movies.

Makes sense, I suppose. Damned shame on some levels, though, given that Planet Hulk was a great storyline (although I imagine World War Hulk wouldn't scan with audiences)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

So because they can't make all of the money, they'd rather make none of the money than some of the money.

Well, that and there are only so many heroes they can reasonably promote at a time and they'd rather put a team they can make more money on in certain slots.
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SDGQ is starting today. It's a week long speesrunning fund raiser. I know not all the money gets to where it's supposed to go, but if a few dollars make it to the final destination it could help.

Plus even if you don't donate money you can enjoy great speed runs. I always love the Megan and Castlevania blocks. It's a week long you can probably find a game or two that you like.
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The Wave Master posted...

SDGQ is starting today. It's a week long speesrunning fund raiser. I know not all the money gets to where it's supposed to go, but if a few dollars make it to the final destination it could help.

Plus even if you don't donate money you can enjoy great speed runs. I always love the Megan and Castlevania blocks. It's a week long you can probably find a game or two that you like.

I usually find something to put on the background while I work.
I hope this year has another TAS bot block.
That shit is absolutely nuts.

The only interesting thing about GDQ is seeing how someone with too much time breaks a game from jumping through walls to make minute long laps in Mario Kart to screwing with menus for an hour in Pokemon, other than it's pretty much sad for me to watch.

The Resident Evil 4 run last night was interesting. I had no clue that the game had any out of bounds at all. The runner just literally ran through a game it took me a solid week to finish when I was just getting out of College and working full time.

Megaman block is happening right now so I'm off as the wife is asleep.

In sad news Richard "Old Man" Harrisom from Pawn Stars has passed away. He was 77. I bring this up because when I was in the hospital fighting for my life 4 years ago I watched a lot of Pawn Stars during my recovery, and it helped pass the time a lot.

Thank You Old Man and Pawn Stars.
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Watched Thor: Ragnarok. From the clips, I thought it'd be a great movie... but I didn't appreciate that the clips basically were the movie. That shit jumped from place to place to place like crazy for the first half. (And the Dr. Strange scene made me remember I still really need to watch that... and then some of the Hulk stuff reminded me I need to see Avengers 2 still... and there were some Thor 2 spoilers in there which I also haven't seen. Basically I spoiled a lot of shit for myself. Also, speaking of spoiling, I had seen at least part of many of the film's pivotal moments beforehand -- well, mostly the fight scenes.)

Still, better to be fast-moving, action-y, almost incoherent than dull and this was a lot more fun than Thor 1. Just wish that a lot of it didn't feel so rushed.

Also I was surprised that, for the most part, the comic (meaning humorous in this context) inversion of badass moments was often funny despite being heavily overused. Even the scene where Thor throws a ball at the window intending to break it and it just nails him in the head still got a mild chuckle out of me. (Although Valkyrie falling off the bridge during her first appearance didn't, but probably because I'm used to those kind of pratfalls from both the Pirates of the Caribbean films and from having seen rom-coms over the years)

In other news, and I'm not sure how I missed learning this until now (unless I forget it), Disney Infinity was apparently discontinued in 2016. Was kinda wondering about that for a while now. Still haven't played the games (bought 2nd and 3rd) but I kinda liked the style of some of the figurines, particularly when they got into Marvel and Star Wars. Granted, the normal pricing was always excessive thanks to the game component. When I was seeing them for $5-8, it was kinda on par with Mystery Minis, etc.
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Thor Ragnarok was by far the best of the Thor movies. But, as I've said on this board multiple times, its humor was both its biggest advantage and also its biggest drawback.

Almost all the jokes were funny, but there were several times where they were ill-placed; particularly right after something serious happened that should have had more emotional impact.
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I feel like people shit on the first Thor movie way more than it actually deserves. I felt like it did exactly what it needed to, and was basically presented in a very Shakespearean sort of way (not surprising, considering who directed it).

In the same way, it seems like a lot of people online crap on the first Captain America movie, but I thought it was exactly what it needed to be, and struck exactly the right tone for the character (about the only thing I might have changed would be how rushed the movie felt, but that was pretty much inevitable with them rushing to get him frozen and in the future for the Avengers movie).

If anything, I think those movies have a positive that some of the current movies lack - namely, they have their own feel and sense of identity. Now, everything's blurred together so much, every film sort of feels like every other film, and you're basically left with either "generic Marvel movie" flavor or "quirky Guardians of the Galaxy-esque movie" flavor.

I enjoyed Ragnarok, but it didn't really feel like THOR to me.


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The first Thor movie was pretty good. Both Thor 1 and 2 are among the weakest movies in the MCU, though; along with the second and third Iron Man movies.
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Not to switch gears entirely even though I am, it's time to talk about these morons who want to remake The Last Jedi already.

Apparently their biggest problem with the movie is the portrayal of Luke Skywalker.

Here's what I said about Luke. Warning for spoilers,

Luke was never patient. What happened in The Last Jedi was just an extension of the fact he left Dagobah early in Empire and never finished his training.

It's well within character for him to not have the patience to trust in the force and trust in Kylo to not go to the dark side.

Yes, young Luke was dumb and optimistic, but age sours all of us. Ever heard of the optimism of youth?

The Last Jedi was not a perfect movie, but the Luke stuff is right. Hell, Yoda even tells Luke he has no patience.

If anything the middle part with Finn and Rose is what needs to be changed, and the ending with Holdo.
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The Wave Master posted...

If anything the middle part with Finn and Rose is what needs to be changed, and the ending with Holdo.

Pretty much. I don't even think they need to be changed dramatically. Just give Finn and Rose's side-story more relevance to the plot, and give Holdo a valid reason for being so vague about her plans. Those are literally my only major gripes with the movie.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

In the same way, it seems like a lot of people online crap on the first Captain America movie, but I thought it was exactly what it needed to be, and struck exactly the right tone for the character (about the only thing I might have changed would be how rushed the movie felt, but that was pretty much inevitable with them rushing to get him frozen and in the future for the Avengers movie).

I enjoyed Cap 1 other than the goofy costume. iirc, it was a welcome change after I watched and was let down by Thor1 and IM2.

The Wave Master posted...

Not to switch gears entirely even though I am, it's time to talk about these morons who want to remake The Last Jedi already.

Well, you've got to do it while Mark Hamill is still alive...
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Zeus posted...

I enjoyed Cap 1 other than the goofy costume. iirc

I thought the costume in that one was great, unless you mean the one that he wore during the troop shows, which was meant to be goofy.

The costume from Avengers 1 was perfect from the neck-down, but the mask/helmet made his head look freakishly big and his chin look freakishly small.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

All the Netflix series are probably in trouble in general, since Disney is talking about how they want to run their own streaming service, and if they do they're almost certainly pulling all of their own material off other streaming services and moving it to their own.

I can vouch for this. Not only was there a report about a year ago that Disney was making their own Streaming and yanking their stuff off of Netflix eventually, I'm personally going to start working on a made-for-Disney-stream movie here in a couple of months. I would guess 2019 is likely when it'll happen.
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Dear Sony,

Please stop making Spider-Man spin off movies. Venom is more than enough, and none of us want or need a Mochale Morbious movie.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2018/06/27/jared-leto-cast-as-morbius-the-living-vampire-in-spider-man-spinoff
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Venom could be good, but it's still gonna be stupid as hell to have Eddie get the "sym-bye-ote" before Peter.
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I think the symbiote can exist as a premise without Peter, but it does make less sense for it to have the spider on the chest without having him as an explanation.


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So far we haven't seen the chest spider. And his eyes are very un-Spidey-like.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

Venom could be good, but it's still gonna be stupid as hell to have Eddie get the "sym-bye-ote" before Peter.

Them pronouncing it like that might just ruin the whole movie for me. God damn.

I'm hoping it's just the one girl who says it like that.
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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Not only was there a report about a year ago that Disney was making their own Streaming and yanking their stuff off of Netflix eventually,

Yeah, had me in a panic at the end of last year which led me to binge a bunch of films, etc. When I learned it wasn't that soon, I wound up slowing down then not watching much since =x Shame in that it was a good motivator.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I'm personally going to start working on a made-for-Disney-stream movie here in a couple of months.

Oo

What bout?

The Wave Master posted...

none of us want or need a Mochale Morbious movie.

Now hold on there...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I think the symbiote can exist as a premise without Peter, but it does make less sense for it to have the spider on the chest without having him as an explanation

Or they can just cover the origin in flashback or something... wait, is it not having *any* ties to Spider-Man at all?
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Zeus posted...

Or they can just cover the origin in flashback or something... wait, is it not having *any* ties to Spider-Man at all?

From what we know, it's effectively a stand-alone where Eddie gets the symbiote via science means, and neither of them have a prior history with Spider-Man, and Spider-Man might not even exist in their universe.

I don't necessarily think that makes it terrible (though I'm sure a lot of comic geek purists will flip their shit over it), but it is worth keeping in mind.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this is a Sony film being done without Marvel input. So it might hew closer to Amazing Spider-Man than it does to Homecoming in terms of tone and writing quality. It's a left-over from the period where Sony was planning to do a ton of spin-off movies like Venom and the Sinister Six, until Amazing Spider-Man 2 tanked and kind of put all of the spin-offs on hold.

People were actually kind of surprised when they mentioned that they were still going ahead with Venom.


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That's just bizarre. Granted, if it was along the lines of ASM1, I might enjoy it.

And, once again, I still need to see HC.
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Zeus posted...

And, once again, I still need to see HC.

I've had it on DVD since it came out, and I still haven't watched it either. At this point, it's the only Marvel movie I still need to see.

I have something like 40 different movies or TV shows I've bought and just never watched. A combination of lack of time and just lack of mood keeps me from getting around to them.


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Shit, you're doing a lot better than me with your queue (unless "need to see" refers to prioritization rather than what you haven't seen). Offhand, I still need to see IM3, Cap2, Avengers2, GotG1+2, HC, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Ant-Man, IW, and... actually, maybe I'm not as far behind as I thought, but that's still like half the MCU.

And, of course, my purchased-but-haven't-watched list is probably in the hundreds by this point. Larger scale, but pretty much the same reasons you cite. Honestly, I should probably just aim to watch stuff the same day I buy it (or, in the case of streaming, add it to my queue -- because some titles have also been on there for years), but I always watch movies in a single sitting which isn't always feasible for any number of reasons.
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Ducky just posted a topic announcing that TRU officially closed all shops today. Wish I had known sooner, would have made a final trip. Can't remember if I took photos on a previous visit.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/3-poll-of-the-day/76763791#3

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/Goodbye-Geoffrey-Toys-R-Us-closing-its-last-stores-486846681.html

Eh, that's a fucking depressing day. Sure, TRU overcharged, but they carried a lot of selection not widely available offline elsewhere. Picked up some of NECA's Gremlins stuff there, possibly including the Lenny & George Mogwai; and it was how I learned about the line in the first place. Then they had all kinds of store exclusives you could never actually find in the stores >_>
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The sad thing is, with Peter in space, they had a perfectly good opportunity to introduce the Symbiote. If Sony had just waited another year or two, they could have still had a stand-alone Venom movie without completely screwing up the order of things.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

The sad thing is, with Peter in space, they had a perfectly good opportunity to introduce the Symbiote. If Sony had just waited another year or two, they could have still had a stand-alone Venom movie without completely screwing up the order of things.

Sony? Making sense? Surely, you jest.
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I thought about the fact that Peter is in space, and while his suit technically can't tear, it could break apart, or get damaged, stopped functioning, and he stumbles upon the symbiote.

It is a golden opportunity, but Sony has to poop on anything that might resemble common sense.

They so want to franchise everything Spider-Man so bad that they are just thirsty for anything to stick. Sure the Venom movie could turn out well, but even if it does it's not going to ever make enough sense to fit into a Spider-Man cross over movie ever; unless we get a 4th or 5th reboot.
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Caught part of Enzo on Stone Cold's podcast. He takes responsibility for putting himself into the situation itself, but denies knowing that he was being investigated in advance of the tweet. Supposedly his friend received an email from somebody who said they were an investigator -- who never claimed to be a cop -- which they didn't respond to, but Enzo asked his lawyer to call the cops to see if anything was going on and the lawyer couldn't get any info from the cops confirming that anything was going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADG8QX-Ysk" data-time="

He talks about all the plans they had for him at Raw25 and the fact he was wearing "This is the best day of my life, I can't wait for tomorrow" t-shirt when he got the news and was still wearing the shirt the next day when he was fired.

(And yes, before we rehash our thoughts on Enzo -- great talker, awful wrestler.)
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Also, I *had* meant to wait to binge Luke Cage s2 until the weekend but caved and started earlier in the week. Unfortunately broke stuff up as a result.

Budget cuts or not, it seemed a lot better than season 1. The show didn't drag anywhere near as much, partly because they didn't have Luke engaged in long conversations demonstrating how much he knows about sports, African-American authors, etc, that did little or nothing to move the actual story or even flesh him out as a character. There was no stupidly long, slow build in the early episodes and there were fewer clumsy character introductions.

Instead, we got cameos -- Colleen and Danny show up in separate episodes -- and a super-powered villain who could go toe-to-toe with Luke (and seeing Luke Cage knocked on his ass during the first confrontation was a great moment).

Mariah got a pretty full character arc, although it was somewhat undercut by season 1's seizure of power when she murdered Cornell -- something that should have happened much later in the season so it could segue better into this season's events. The only knock against her is that the writers go out of their way to make Mariah unlikable at times, such as having her pointlessly toss barbs towards the end of the season.

Bushmaster was great. He was an over-the-top cartoonish villain, the kind of fun that was missing from LC1 and hasn't always been present in the Netflix Marvel shows. Besides having a sympathetic backstory, his actions also helped to advance Mariah's character growth -- convincing her to drop the name Dillard in favor of the Stokes legacy

Tilda was something of a pleasant surprise. Tilda's actress had previously starred in the short-lived (but enjoyable) Rosewood. While she's not a tremendous talent, she carried the role well enough and the character introduced an interesting dynamic.

Speaking of short-lived, the goofy Piranha Jones was probably my favorite supporting character. While he was mostly comic relief, I was sad to see him go -- and his method of execution was pointlessly silly, like something you'd see in a budget slasher. It kinda ruined the moment.

The biggest drawback for the season is the ending. Episode 12 really felt more like a finale, while episode 13 did little more than set things up for next season and teased events which obviously wouldn't come to pass.
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Luke Cage post from the other topic with some additional thoughts, mostly specific to episode 13.

Zeus posted...

Finished LC2 last night. Kinda mixed feelings, although I liked it a lot better than LC1 (mostly because LC1 wasted so much time on the set-up and kinda always felt like it lacked focus. Had Cornell died at the end of the season rather than midway or had Diamondback been introduced earlier (since with DD1, iirc from the first episode we knew they were working for somebody else), it would have felt a bit more cohesive).

The season's last episode in particular kinda bugged me. I'm kind of okay with Bushmaster just leaving instead of being arrested -- although I'd still rather see him wind up in prison since, although the Stokes screwed his life, he killed a *lot* of innocent people himself, including the Atreus Plastics guy; all the characters were making a big deal about Mariah and Shades not getting away with their shit, but Bushmaster was every bit as bad as Mariah.

For a while, it looked like they going to do the same thing with Mariah that DD was doing with Kingpin, which felt like a lazy move. However, when I saw Tilda cooking in her kitchen, I immediately recognized it as, "Oh, bitch is being poisoned," and the kiss of death -- especially after *another* very popular show did it in recent years -- was a pretty dead tell. Killing her to end the second season was a pretty good move. While I would have liked to have seen more of her as a villain, the second season encapsulated her downfall and gave her a full character arc (whereas I had assumed it would just build her up as a villain)

Everything with Shades's proffer made no sense. Characters argued, "Oh, he wants to get her out of the way so he can take over! And get immunity for his crimes!" but, as he himself noted, once he snitched, his career was done. It's not like he was leaving with any money at that point either, since Mariah had all the cash. It would have made more sense for him just to leave.

And, while Shades did tons of objectively evil shit in season 1 to get viewers to hate him, his season 2 portrayal was more nuanced and we got to see more of his humanity. So the fact that Bushmaster was allowed to just get out of the game and go back to Jamaica yet Shades winds up being arrested for his proffer just seems stupid from a narrative point of view. idk, maybe this is buildup for his use in s3. That said, the fact that the witnesses are dead so everything is built on his confession could get him off, but it's not like there's anything to return to -- almost everybody in the organization is dead, Mariah's millions were given away, and Luke has the club.

Then, of course, everything with Luke Cage becoming a crime boss not actually involved in crime was just weird. I guess it makes a natural stopping point since it's a good place for a time skip.

While Mariah's personality constantly flipped around, I still liked her this season. And I liked how pretty much everything unfolded partly because she went ahead with a gun sale that Shades and others warned her against doing. The Hammer weapons themselves -- and I'm not sure why more weren't withheld if a few were kept anyway -- might have been enough to subdue Bushmaster, considering that his invulnerability was a lot weaker than Cage's.

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The wife and I watched The Last Jedi on Netflix again this morning. I had not seen the movie in months, but it is not as bad as I remember.

It just feels like there were a lot of missed opportunities to make the middle of the movie better.

I still love all the stuff with Luke and Rey. It's a perfect reflection of age, hero worship, and Luke having zero patience.

The first 42 minutes are great. Everyone has a moment to shine. It just all falls apart when Poe calls Maz, and she doesn't show up in the movie.

If the middle of the movie could have been Poe, Rose, and Finn sneaking into the Lead Dreadnaught ship to disable the light speed tracking device, instead of the side mission to Canto Bight; it would have been a much better movie.

The main characters could have been caught, and much like in Empire Rey could have had to leave Luke before her training was complete. Yes, it would have been like Empire but it was still a better play than what we got.

I would have even liked if Maz showed up to help them all escape from The First Order. Luke could have died after killing Snoke in an epic lightsaberfight telling Maz ro get the remaining characters back to Crait. Echoing what happened to Obi Wan in a New Hope.

The film doesn't warrant a remake, just a few changes to make the pacing and cohesion better.
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The Wave Master posted...

The wife and I watched The Last Jedi on Netflix again this morning. I had not seen the movie in months, but it is not as bad as I remember.

tbh, just noticed it was on NFI the other day and meant to watch it at some point. (Although there are a few other things I kinda want to watch more. Should also note I *still* need to see Rogue One.)

The Wave Master posted...

It just feels like there were a lot of missed opportunities to make the middle of the movie better.

Whole sequel trilogy in a nutshell, I imagine. TFA was also mostly just squandered opportunity.

The Wave Master posted...

The film doesn't warrant a remake, just a few changes to make the pacing and cohesion better.

Rather than just remake TLJ, they need to restart the whole sequel trilogy... but that's probably not going to happen, considering they'd need to do it soon.
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Caved and started TLJ tonight (was between that, Piranha (2010), Tremors: Cold Day in Hell, a Child's Play sequel, and starting a new tv show). Within the opening minutes, I'm already getting a bad feeling between the limp opening sprawl and the hammy acting from the female rebel talking about evacuating.

(Granted, the campy, way-too-enthusiastic Imperial officer in the very next scene is starting to get my hopes up a little bit. He's just getting funnier and funnier, can't stop laughing. And I'm talking *before* Poe shows up. Just General Hux's ridiculously dramatic delivery of dialogue.)

EDIT: Pretty neat space dog fight so far. Also, why the fuck does C-3PO have a gold arm again? Didn't they make a big deal about it being red in the last film?
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Because there's no overarching artistic vision (even shitty) so things are dropped and making previously irrelevant things incredibly important.
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Good god, I've seen less than a minute of Rose and I already hate her. Otherwise it's so far been better than TFA.
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...this side-mission is just idiotic and completely kills the narrative. If they couldn't find something to do with Finn and Rose, they should have just done nothing with the characters. Or, better yet, not even introduce Rose!

Instead, we have characters leaving the ship on some adventure with the intention of going planet-side, finding an expert, and then coming back to the ship. WTF. Seriously, WTF.
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Well, other than pretty much every scene involving Finn and/or Rose (although, for the most part, they're one and the same), I enjoyed TLJ. And, had they cut everything involving Finn and Rose, they could have got the movie down to a decent run-time. Ironically enough, the controversial kiss scene -- following Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself was one of the only scenes I liked. (And not just because it may have unshipped Finn and Rey, but because the last second save was kind of a cool moment... although not enough to redeem either character.)

Granted, I knew a few of the major twists going in so it's possible without that foreknowledge I might have thought less of the movie. Certainly killing off Snoke was a weird choice. The whole unship was actually kinda clever in that it leaves room for a romantic entanglement between Kylo and Rey which adds to their whole dynamic. And the revelation of Rey's origins seems less set in stone than the spoilers had suggested, since it might just be Kylo lying to manipulate her... although it's very unlikely to be Luke at this point or Ben's lost twin sister so the parentage is kind of a moot point.

And I don't get why Phasma was given a Disney death, unless she is actually coming back from that. It seems like a massive waste of the character although, I suppose, they weren't doing shit with her anyway.

Also, General Huxley is probably my favorite sequel trilogy character. I love that fucking scene where he walks in on a dead Snoke and an unconscious Kylo. He sizes the room up and then immediately reaches for his blaster, but Kylo wakes up and he moves his hand away from it.

While Rose was generally insufferable, I wonder if it would have been nearly as bad if they had cast literally anybody else. Kelly Tran's voice was grating and Rose's dialogue, etc, might have been more bearable if they had gone with a more talented, more attractive actress. And the semi-annoying thing there is Paige (Rose's sister) looked like a fox. I guess they deliberately went with a more homely character so people wouldn't be distracted from Daisy Ridley? >_>

And, speaking of Rey, her new outfit is a bit more fanservice-y. Her TFA outfit made her look more boyish by hiding her figure whereas she's kinda cute in the new costume. I didn't like either Rey or Kylo much in TFA, but I enjoyed watching the two interact in TLJ (and their team-up against Snoke's elite guard was great, although partly because the guard had a cool array of weapons). I especially liked that they had Kylo ditch that stupid helmet.

I will say that I forgot (or didn't recognize the significance) of one spoiler -- Luke astral projecting himself to troll Kylo and distract the imperial forces -- and I'm kinda happy for it, since it was a neat trick.

There's just one big thing that I'm left wondering about at the end: What the hell happened to the other Jedi students? Luke says Kylo killed some, but suggests that others were just gone -- as in he left with them. What are those others doing now?

Also, pretty much of Kylo's character motivations *still* feel forced although they don't seem as flaky as in TFA.
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I liked Rose a lot. I thought most of her and Finn's scenes and dialog were entertaining, and they had good chemistry.

It was rather annoying (and IMO the biggest flaw with the movie) that their side story had zero bearing on the plot. The only things that really came out of it were finding Hackerman (who will likely be somewhat important in the next movie) and clashing with Phasma (who I doubt really died and will also likely feature in the next movie).
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My air conditioning has stopped working in my house. We have created a wind tunnel of small fans in our living room, but my PS4 is in the bedroom. So, I'm not finishing Dad of Boy until I get unnatural recycled air in my lungs again.

The repair person is supposed to arrive sometime today, but I'm skeptical, as I am about a lot of things lately, but we live way too far south to exist without air conditioning for long periods of time.

I know up north it is cool enough to not have a.c. but the heat and humidity make it impossible here. I did it as a kid, but I am far too old and too sick to live without an a.c. for a Mississippi summer.

I will update you all later today. Heat index is currently 106, and the temperature is presently only 84 because of the simmer afternoon thunderstorms. So, it's manageable, for now.
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