Poll of the Day > Geekacea: Dose One Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

we need more female tanks in video games

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Zeus posted...

When picking weapons in a fantasy setting like that, I'd rather just go with a bow or magic and avoid all of that melee altogether

I went off archery in games waaaay early, because I loathe ammunition mechanics for bows. And because I've always sort of had this underlying feeling of "If I wanted to shoot things from a distance, I'd just go play an FPS". A lot of the things I take for granted when shooting an assault rifle or marksman rifle in an FPS bother me when bows are involved. Especially if the aiming mechanics are kind of shit.

When I'm playing fantasy I mostly just want to hit things (same reason why I rarely stealth, at least not very long after the initial attack). I like fantasy to be meaty, chunky, hack-and-slash. I want to melee my way into a pile of dudes and just cut them all down in a tornado of steel. And even in FPSes, I tend to prefer games that reward more aggressive, in-the-mix play (Halo, Doom) than I do ones where you're punished for being reckless and are more forced into more tactical play (like R6).

I think the first time I ever really played a serious archer build in anything was either Skyrim or Dragon Age: Origins, and even then it was more "Well, I've already done everything else" (for DA there was also the added RP of "The Dalish are like 90% archers/hunters, so obviously I'm an archer"). And while I didn't hate those runs, they didn't really make me fall in love with the style either (and in Skyrim it feels so cheap because Archery+Stealth basically means you'll never be hit again and you kill nearly everything with only a couple attacks). And I've played games with archery since and never felt overly inclined to lean into it.

I'm not adverse to magic, though it depends on the game and how it's handled. In Diablo 2 and 3 my main character picks were the Sorceress and Wizard and I was mostly a back-line ranged magic user (especially in groups with friends) - but I hated magic in Skyrim, and while I was willing to do magic runs (mainly when I was playing a character to complete the College quest line), it always felt like more of a burden than something I actually wanted to do.

I usually treat magic the same way I do Alchemy in Skyrim - which is as something I exploit for support purposes, but nothing that I focus on or build my style around. In Skyrim, I mostly just level magic via cheaty means (like casting Soul Trap on corpses or constantly using Transmutation) for quick perk points and occasionally use minor healing magic, but then never, ever using it in actual combat. If I'm making a magic character in a game like D&D I take a couple damage spells but them dump the rest of my spell choices into utility and non-combat options (Prestidigitation and Mending are basically my must-have starting cantrips for every character and every class ever).

I just finished replaying the KotOR games, and in those I played Sentinel for the balance of skills and physicality, and 99% of my combat was hitting things with lightsabers and ignoring the fact that I have Force powers.

This mentality goes way back for me as well - when I played Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time 20 years ago, my immediate instinct for first character was Swashbuckler, basically giving me the Rogue's skill bonuses (mostly for lockpicking) at the expense of the Rogue's sneak attack/stealth advantages I never used anyway in favor of something closer to a Fighter's physical attacks (plus dual-wielding!).
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Naruto_fan_42 posted...

we need more female tanks in video games

Effie is enough.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I went off archery in games waaaay early, because I loathe ammunition mechanics for bows. And because I've always sort of had this underlying feeling of "If I wanted to shoot things from a distance, I'd just go play an FPS". A lot of the things I take for granted when shooting an assault rifle or marksman rifle in an FPS bother me when bows are involved. Especially if the aiming mechanics are kind of shit.

But then people are shooting back. If you don't have an advantage, then it diminishes the point.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I think the first time I ever really played a serious archer build in anything was either Skyrim or Dragon Age: Origins, and even then it was more "Well, I've already done everything else" (for DA there was also the added RP of "The Dalish are like 90% archers/hunters, so obviously I'm an archer"). And while I didn't hate those runs, they didn't really make me fall in love with the style either (and in Skyrim it feels so cheap because Archery+Stealth basically means you'll never be hit again and you kill nearly everything with only a couple attacks). And I've played games with archery since and never felt overly inclined to lean into it.

I try playing other builds at times, but then just kinda fall into it.


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Revelation34 posted...

Effie is enough.

Who? The only game that shows up on google is some manly looking guy with a beard

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He is maybe referring to Orisa

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I_Abibde posted...

Going to respectfully disagree on that, Zeus. AEW has been so much fun (IMO) to watch that it got both my wife and myself back into wrestling for good. That being said, no wrestling is botch-free, and AEW is no exception.

I get the whole different strokes for different folks, but jfc at a lot of AEW's shit. Most of my exposure to AEW comes from hearing Cornette's trash-talk segments (so I'll admit a bit of a bias there), but every now and again I'll hear him describe something so outlandish that I think there's no way it can be true... and then the times when I've found the event it looks even worse than described!

For instance, Cornette has been bitching about "Pockets" (aka Orange Cassidy) for months now and how the guy has been booked, so I figure I've finally got to check some of this shit out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01CjXQjBnaQ

jfc... first off, that's got to be the least intimidating guy I've seen in professional wrestling (even Eric Bishoff looked tougher, and he wasn't a wrestler). The guy looks like they just grabbed a fan from the crowd. And then I see them selling to this guy and my immediate reaction is WTF. That whole thing looked goofy as hell, although I will admit that the hands-free tumble is a neat move (as an acrobatic thing). This is still supposed to be a wrestling promotion, right?

What exactly is the appeal of AEW? Is it the comedy? The acrobatics? The spectacle? Do they have funny promos or something? Because it doesn't seem to have much in the way of wrestling.

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What's everyone's opinions on the movie Willow (1988)?

I just saw a trailer for this movie. Now, I know there are a lot of movies out there I don't know about. And a lot of movies I'm aware of but haven't seen. A big part of this is "nerd osmosis", where it's hard not to absorb bits of info when you're interacting with nerds over the years.

But somehow this one slipped through the cracks. Directed by Ron Howard, written by George Lucas, and starring Warwick Davis and prime Val Kilmer? And I've never even heard of it?

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Metalsonic66 posted...

What's everyone's opinions on the movie Willow (1988)?

I remember liking it. It's a kinda weird film, though. Very 80s fantasy. I can't remember the last time I watched it. It's been so long that maybe it was the shits and I don't remember it that clearly.

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Metalsonic66 posted...

What's everyone's opinions on the movie Willow (1988)?

I just saw a trailer for this movie. Now, I know there are a lot of movies out there I don't know about. And a lot of movies I'm aware of but haven't seen. A big part of this is "nerd osmosis", where it's hard not to absorb bits of info when you're interacting with nerds over the years.

But somehow this one slipped through the cracks. Directed by Ron Howard, written by George Lucas, and starring Warwick Davis and prime Val Kilmer? And I've never even heard of it?

It was kind of a critical failure. It actually more than made its money back (though people at the time would have been astonished by that fact - most people thought it was a huge bomb), but it never really caught on, in spite of having a number of media tie-ins. Fantasy was kind of a dead genre in the 80s.

If you actually track it down and like it, there's a number of other things set in the world. Marvel did a comic adaptation of the film in the 80s, there are three novels set years after the film (plotted by Lucas and written by Chris Claremont, the famous X-Men writer from the 80s), and Disney+ is planning to do a series based on it next year.
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Zeus posted...

Most of my exposure to AEW comes from hearing Cornette's trash-talk segments (so I'll admit a bit of a bias there)

A little bias? Cornette is pretty much the most biased anti-AEW voice on the entire face of the planet. If the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega showed up and held someone's family and loved ones down while Tony Khan slit all their throats while they watched, that person still wouldn't hate AEW as much as Cornette does. Vince McMahon doesn't hate AEW as much as Cornette does. Bernie Sanders doesn't hate Trump as much as Cornette hates AEW.

I actually like Cornette, but I just tune out completely whenever he talks about AEW at this point. He goes out of his way to paint every single thing they do as the worst possible thing in the world, and he decided to hate literally everything about the company long before he ever actually saw any of it. Which becomes kind of ridiculous when you realize that his hate for Kenny Omega is basically based on stuff Omega did years ago (which has prevented Cornette from being even remotely objective), and which has almost nothing to do with what he's actually doing now. It also doesn't help that 80% of Cornette's complaints about wrestling today are rooted in kayfabe, which is a ship that unfortunately sailed 20+ years ago (and as Cornette himself admits, it's something he himself is partly responsible for). He's holding the company to a standard that no modern company could ever live up to, and quite possibly shouldn't even try to live up to, because the audience demographics have changed so radically (a large part of why Vince is so out of touch these days as well).

No matter how hard Cornette wishes that 70s/80s style "Southern wrasslin'" would make a comeback in the modern era, it's never going to happen. MMA/UFC absorbed most of that audience, and the audience for wrestling today is much different than it used to be.

If most of what you know about AEW comes from what you hear Cornette tell you, then your view of the company is incredibly poisioned, and it's going to negatively shape your perception of any footage you DO see out of context on YouTube (especially if you're only looking for the "worst" aspects of the show, which are the things Cornette is most likely to talk about anyway). It would be like if your entire view of politics was shaped by only reading the political topics on PotD.

The worst part is, as a lot of people have pointed out, the only reason he talks about AEW as much as he does in the first place is because he knows the more he bashes it, the more attention it gets him, and the more money it makes him via his podcasts. He basically ceased to be a real person years ago, and has basically transformed into his heel character more or less permanently (which is kind of appropriate, in a way, for someone who worships kayfabe as much as he does). He's basically trapped in a permanent state of cutting promos.

It's telling that so many other wrestling analysts online love AEW (Dave Meltzer included), and that Cornette's only response to that is to call everyone who disagrees with him an idiot or a shill. Because it cannot possibly be that entertainment is subjective and different people will like different things, no, Cornette must be 100% objectively correct about everything he says about everything he ever talks about, and anyone who disagrees is objectively wrong.

He's a brilliant wrestling mind, but he basically calcified somewhere in the 1990s, and most of his perception of the business since then is just "old man yelling at clouds".
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you actually track it down and like it, there's a number of other things set in the world. Marvel did a comic adaptation of the film in the 80s, there are three novels set years after the film (plotted by Lucas and written by Chris Claremont, the famous X-Men writer from the 80s), and Disney+ is planning to do a series based on it next year.

Nice

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Maybe not as nice as you think - as a novelist, Claremont makes a much better comic book writer.





Back when he wrote his first novel, I jumped all over it because I loved him as the writer on X-Men, but I wasn't a huge fan of the book (or its sequel):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Flight_(novel)

That might be because it was relatively hard sci-fi, though, and that's really not my genre of choice.

No clue whether or not the Willow books are any good - I saw them in the bookstore years ago, but I never really bothered picking them up because by that point I'd already been disillusioned with the idea of Claremont as a novelist and because I never really cared about Willow as a setting/story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Moon_(book)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Dawn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Star_(novel)

They're all sequels to the movie, though, so if you do feel like tracking it down to watch it, you might want to hold off on reading too much about the books beforehand.

I suppose if I watched Willow now I might have a different opinion of it (I was 10 when it came out and my tastes in fantasy leaned more towards LotR/Krull/Excalibur/Labyrinth/Neverending Story/etc by that point). The same might apply for The Dark Crystal - no matter how much of a cult hit it might have been for a lot of people from that era (enough so that the nostalgia got it a Netflix series 35 years later, at any rate), I just never got anything out of it.
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Dark Crystal creeped me out as a kid.

As an adult I appreciated the puppetry a lot more but it still creeped me out lol

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It was kind of a critical failure. It actually more than made its money back (though people at the time would have been astonished by that fact - most people thought it was a huge bomb), but it never really caught on, in spite of having a number of media tie-ins. Fantasy was kind of a dead genre in the 80s.

If you actually track it down and like it, there's a number of other things set in the world. Marvel did a comic adaptation of the film in the 80s, there are three novels set years after the film (plotted by Lucas and written by Chris Claremont, the famous X-Men writer from the 80s), and Disney+ is planning to do a series based on it next year.

I love how you give a long post without actually stating any of your own opinions about it >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Fantasy was kind of a dead genre in the 80s.

lolwut? There were probably more fantasy films in the 80s than the 90s. And, given that you mention the genre as a whole, the 80s were a time when D&D was really taking off.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

A little bias? Cornette is pretty much the most biased anti-AEW voice on the entire face of the planet. If the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega showed up and held someone's family and loved ones down while Tony Khan slit all their throats while they watched, that person still wouldn't hate AEW as much as Cornette does. Vince McMahon doesn't hate AEW as much as Cornette does. Bernie Sanders doesn't hate Trump as much as Cornette hates AEW.

I'm not talking about Cornette's completely justified dislike for AEW and its "talent" (using talent pretty loosely for most of them), I'm talking about the introduction of bias from listening to Cornette about AEW. However, Cornette or no Cornette, AEW is the kind of crap that turned me off pro wrestling (if you could call AEW that) altogether. It takes all of the goofy shit I'd see when I decided to suffer through TNA to watch the handful of guys who could do anything and amps it up not just to 11, but to 12.

VKM wouldn't hate AEW because the only thing he'd see it as a potential competitor and clearly it's no competition. And Bernie Sanders is a weird reference because he doesn't hate Trump much at all, especially not compared to Cornette. And Cornette is fucking gentle to AEW compared to his hatred for Trump and other individuals (including he-whose-real-name-is-never-mentioned), although he still doesn't hate Trump nearly as much as some posters on this board (a few of whom may even be potentially dangerous).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

(and as Cornette himself admits, it's something he himself is partly responsible for).

You're going to need to explain that one.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It also doesn't help that 80% of Cornette's complaints about wrestling today are rooted in kayfabe, which is a ship that unfortunately sailed 20+ years ago (and as Cornette himself admits, it's something he himself is partly responsible for). He's holding the company to a standard that no modern company could ever live up to, and quite possibly shouldn't even try to live up to, because the audience demographics have changed so radically (a large part of why Vince is so out of touch these days as well).

His complaints are based on credibility and realism. If you were watching Game of Thrones and, for instance, and the Lannister and Stark forces took a break from fighting each other to do a dance routine, you might be annoyed by that. If the Hound knocked down an opponent then stopped fighting to loudly and audibly ask his opponent, "Are you okay?", because he was worried the guy might actually be hurt, you might find that distracting. If the Mountain shrugged off hits from dozens of large, heavily armored soldiers only for Theon to walk in, kick him, and he falls down, you'd probably criticize that moment. And everybody has always known TV isn't real.

As for demographics changing, they sure have -- the audience has shrunk to almost nothing and become absurdly fringe. Where decades ago, a guy on the street could tell you who the NWA or later WWF champion was, nowadays they'd struggle to name even one active wrestler let alone a champ. "The times change" argument works a lot better when an industry is bigger than ever yet people are complaining, not when it's shrinking into irrelevance. That's not a matter of "the times changing" so much as it is a matter of people running the industry into the ground. And while VKM being out of touch is a part of it, Tony Khan and everybody else can't seem to find the script either.


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ParanoidObsessive posted... If most of what you know about AEW comes from what you hear Cornette tell you, then your view of the company is incredibly poisioned, and it's going to negatively shape your perception of any footage you DO see out of context on YouTube (especially if you're only looking for the "worst" aspects of the show, which are the things Cornette is most likely to talk about anyway). It would be like if your entire view of politics was shaped by only reading the political topics on PotD.

Out of context? What more context can you give this crap? These are full length videos that the COMPANY itself is putting out there, like a toddler proud of showing his parents that they crapped their diaper.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's telling that so many other wrestling analysts online love AEW (Dave Meltzer included), and that Cornette's only response to that is to call everyone who disagrees with him an idiot or a shill. Because it cannot possibly be that entertainment is subjective and different people will like different things, no, Cornette must be 100% objectively correct about everything he says about everything he ever talks about, and anyone who disagrees is objectively wrong.

It's telling that you highlight Dave Meltzer who has long been a Kenny Omega shill -- giving him 20-star matches years before AEW -- and whose excessive praise for AEW has led many to suspect that Tony Khan has been paying him (something reinforced by one of Meltzer's tweets to Cornette).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The worst part is, as a lot of people have pointed out, the only reason he talks about AEW as much as he does in the first place is because he knows the more he bashes it, the more attention it gets him, and the more money it makes him via his podcasts. He basically ceased to be a real person years ago, and has basically transformed into his heel character more or less permanently (which is kind of appropriate, in a way, for someone who worships kayfabe as much as he does). He's basically trapped in a permanent state of cutting promos

Which is a silly go-to defense for trying to undermine legitimate opinions about how awful AEW is. Cornette can get a lot more attention by lambasting wrestlers people have actually heard of and discussing wrestling incidents people actually care about than talking about AEW. If anything, Cornette bashing AEW has helped AEW since it's free publicity for people who enjoy watching train wrecks.

After all, listeners and viewers are more likely to gravitate towards shit they've actually about. If you look at the top 10 videos on his YT channel -- which he'd stopped uploading to years ago after a dispute with YT so all of the videos are pretty recent and just clips from his podcast -- not ONE of those top videos is about AEW. One it goes down to the top 50, only two have AEW in the title and the draw for one of those isn't AEW, it's VKM. Most are about wrestling history involving wrestlers people know and care about. And sure, AEW -- as well as the WWE -- is going to come up on his podcast week to week because it's not like much other wrestling is running


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Naruto_fan_42 posted...

Who? The only game that shows up on google is some manly looking guy with a beard

They're the same person.

https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Effie

Metalsonic66 posted...

What's everyone's opinions on the movie Willow (1988)?

I just saw a trailer for this movie. Now, I know there are a lot of movies out there I don't know about. And a lot of movies I'm aware of but haven't seen. A big part of this is "nerd osmosis", where it's hard not to absorb bits of info when you're interacting with nerds over the years.

But somehow this one slipped through the cracks. Directed by Ron Howard, written by George Lucas, and starring Warwick Davis and prime Val Kilmer? And I've never even heard of it?

I remember liking it a lot as a kid. I haven't seen it in many years so I'd probably not like it now.
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**** Cornette claimed he came up with the idea for the "Montreal Screw Job" which effectively killed Kayfabe forever.

Before that night very few people knew Vince was behind WWE, but after that night the secret was out, and if he did have a hand in the plot for what happened, then he created the monster of modern day pro wrestling that he claims to hate; which is fine and ironic.

Basically Cornette is the old man yelling at the young kids to turn down their rap music and to get off his lawn. Things will never go back to the style of wrestling he prefers and he just needs to accept that reality. Mainly because that style of wrestling wasn't that great to begin with, and kayfabe further died with the internet age. Sure it got pushed forward that night in Montreal, but it was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

As for the quality of AEW. As a person that watches all the wrestling shows every week, Raw, Smackdown, Impact, NXT, and New Japan, AEW is the best when you combine story and quality wrestling. New Japan has the best wrestling in the world, NXT is next, with AEW not far behind. Raw and Smackdown are hot garbage most nights, and the booking and wrestling are subpar. But don't listen to Cornette spew his hatred and out of context stupidity. Watch a show from beginning to end and then make a decision. Also, Ring of Honor is awesome too, but no television deal, which is a shame.

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The Wave Master posted...

**** Cornette claimed he came up with the idea for the "Montreal Screw Job" which effectively killed Kayfabe forever.

Before that night very few people knew Vince was behind WWE, but after that night the secret was out, and if he did have a hand in the plot for what happened, then he created the monster of modern day pro wrestling that he claims to hate; which is fine and ironic.

While I can't remember him claiming that (nor was the idea new), it wouldn't have been his fault either way. The people who exposed the business were Brett -- who Cornette criticized for doing -- and, after Brett had talked, VKM. And Cornette was adamantly against VKM exposing the business (when he should have just called Brett a liar) and thought his handling was idiotic, so I can't imagine he would claim to have suggested that. More importantly, that did less to expose the business than Duggan & Sheik getting caught smoking pot together or the Curtain Call, both of which happened earlier.

The Wave Master posted...

Basically Cornette is the old man yelling at the young kids to turn down their rap music and to get off his lawn. Things will never go back to the style of wrestling he prefers and he just needs to accept that reality. Mainly because that style of wrestling wasn't that great to begin with, and kayfabe further died with the internet age. Sure it got pushed forward that night in Montreal, but it was going to happen sooner or later anyway.

Instead now it's the style that most people take one look at, laugh, and change the channel.

The Wave Master posted...

AEW is the best when you combine story and quality wrestling.

lolwut?

The Wave Master posted...

But don't listen to Cornette spew his hatred and out of context stupidity.

There's no context that would make a lot AEW's stupidity palpable.

The Wave Master posted...

Watch a show from beginning to end and then make a decision.

Where are the full episodes available? I don't see the full ones listed on the YT channel, just clips.

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Zeus posted...

I love how you give a long post without actually stating any of your own opinions about it >_>

I've said multiple times in multiple posts that I don't really have a strong opinion of it, because when I watched it as a kid it didn't really appeal to me. My opinion of it is basically "meh".

But I'm also open-minded enough to point out that just because I didn't like something 30+ years ago doesn't mean that other people can't like it now.



Zeus posted...

lolwut? There were probably more fantasy films in the 80s than the 90s. And, given that you mention the genre as a whole, the 80s were a time when D&D was really taking off.

And most of them bombed (other than maybe the first Conan the Barbarian). Even Disney couldn't manage to mine the genre for success (Black Cauldron is literally used as the symbol of Disney's near-collapse as a creative force in the 70s/80s). Even the films that became popular cult hits that people still love and talk about decades later (like Labyrinth) failed in their own era (Labyrinth only made half its production budget back).

As for D&D, not really. D&D took off in the late 70s, peaked very early in the 80s, and then spent the rest of the decade dying. But even at its peak, it was still fairly niche at best. As much as ET and Stranger Things would have you believe every kid in the 80s was playing D&D, they really weren't (almost none of the core books sold in the 80s ever sold better than 500k copies - by contrast, the 5e PHB sold more than that in the first two months alone). But none of that really matters anyway, because I was talking about fantasy movies, not fantasy as a whole across all media.



Zeus posted...

I'm not talking about Cornette's completely justified dislike for AEW and its "talent" (using talent pretty loosely for most of them), I'm talking about the introduction of bias from listening to Cornette about AEW.

You're kind of missing my point. Because Cornette's bias is so strong, and because he's your main source of information about AEW, you're only hearing about the worst aspects of the company, and they're being painted in the worst possible light, so your own impression of the product is far more biased than you actually realize.

It would be like you watching MSNBC and The Young Turks as your only news sources and being convinced that you fully understand every facet of modern politics.



Zeus posted...

VKM wouldn't hate AEW because the only thing he'd see it as a potential competitor and clearly it's no competition.

He felt threatened enough to immediately counterprogram against their show in a desperate attempt to cost them ratings, and his show is regularly beaten by them in the ratings every single week. When you take demographics into account, their show is actually right on par with Raw, his beloved baby.

The WWE also felt the need to completely restructure how they offer contracts in an attempt to lock up as much talent as possible, and then spent a few years refusing to fire or release anyone in an attempt to starve AEW of talent. They only really eased back on that because of the pandemic (where cutting costs to impress investors became more important), and after it became clear that it wasn't really hindering AEW anyway.

VKM is seriously fucking bothered by the existence of AEW, no matter how hard Cornette likes to dismiss the idea that Vince cares. We're talking about the man who deliberately sabotaged and destroyed the UK indie scene because he was afraid that World of Sport could grow into a potential rival promotion halfway around the world... Vince does not like competition (no matter how often WWE likes to trot out the "Vince likes competition because it brings out the best in him" bullshit). Deep down he's always terrified of another WCW scenario, where some upstart rival he'd dismissed as a threat manages to find its feet and actually sucker-punch him into second place. Bischoff may have named his podcast 83 Weeks, but Vince probably still has nightmares about those 83 weeks to this day.

Hell, even Cornette and Brian Last themselves have freely admitted that for all that they hate AEW, they still tend to like it more than the current WWE product. WWE really isn't attracting new fans, even NXT (which was the trendy, smark-favored brand for years). Regardless of what you might think of the product, AEW is.



Zeus posted...

You're going to need to explain that one.

Cornette's mentioned that the Montreal Screwjob was his idea (though it's up to the individual to decide whether or not he's lying - considering other people have claimed credit for it as well, I'd argue his version of the story seems the most plausible). Or that, at the very least, he's the one who gave Vince the idea.

He's also mentioned that the blowback from that was that Bret went to the newspapers afterward and annihilated kayfabe by ranting about how Vince screwed him. That, combined with the controversy it created (and the filmcrew literally filming everything behind the scenes for a documentary) drew more attention to the behind the scenes reality more than almost anything else.

And then all the negative publicity from the fallout of the situation led Vince to give his "Bret screwed Bret" speech where he outright talked about "doing the job", what was "best for business", and the "time-honored tradition", before leaning fully into it and giving his "we're tired of insulting your intelligence" speech where he outright says "Sure, wrestling is fake and always has been" (at least partly due to the advantage of no longer having to pay sports taxes in New Jersey and other places).

So when you talk about the idea that kayfabe is dead and buried, and that the lack of kayfabe is a large part of what has killed the industry as a whole, then at least some of the fault for that happening has to be traced back to Montreal. Cornette has openly said that he feels at least somewhat responsible - which then starts to feel like bitter irony when you realize no one on Earth mourns the death of kayfabe as much as Cornette does. He's basically like a Greek hero who destroyed everything he loved through his own accidental hubris.
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Zeus posted...

His complaints are based on credibility and realism.

Yes, I know. But we're also talking about the person who booked Ninja Turtles to wrestle, so it's not like he's got a spotless track record in that area either.

The problem is, suspension of disbelief doesn't mean "everything needs to look realistic", which is the tact Cornette often takes. To co-opt the TV/movie analogy, I can watch a show like Game of Thrones and not throw my TV remote in disgust because there's no such thing as dragons or magic in the real world, and thus, my immersion is completely ruined. If anything, the problem with GoT is shit writing - which is the same problem that is killing WWE these days.

Cornette mostly complains because most wrestlers today all look smaller and weaker, wrestle a more athletic style, and then go play video games after work and don't get drunk and fuck groupies. And also Twitter. But again, I don't throw tantrums because Nikolaj Coster-Waldau isn't going around stabbing people in real life, Kit Harington looks too pretty to be an actual warrior fighting on The Wall, or because Maisie Williams doesn't Tweet in-character 24-7 as Arya.

I can accept the premise that wrestlers are actors, that wrestlers can do things in combat that defy the laws of physics (in the same way Bruce Willis would have died about a dozen times over in Die Hard if it was the real world), and that they then go home and are different people than their characters. Cornette has trouble with that idea when it comes to wrestling, because he's so used to the idea of kayfabe meaning you can never drop character (which is part of his own problem).

I understand WHY he thinks that way. I'd argue it isn't necessarily always correct.

If you tell a logical - and above all, consistent - story, with characters the audience actually likes or relates to, the more superficial aspects of things can be justified. Realism doesn't mean slavish devotion to reality, it means presenting a product that feels real according to its own rules.

Wrestling doesn't need to be entirely made up of guys who look like they could kick your ass and who spend most of their time hanging out in truck stops and dive bars to appeal. It mostly just needs better booking. THAT'S where the modern product tends to fall down (both in WWE and AEW). Even most modern wrestling fans will admit that. Cornette mostly just misses the forest for the trees.



Zeus posted...

As for demographics changing, they sure have -- the audience has shrunk to almost nothing and become absurdly fringe.

Yes, I'm fully aware of all of the arguments Cornette uses when he bashes the current product (and I don't even necessarily disagree with most of them - like I said, I like Cornette).

The problem is, the ability to see the symptoms doesn't mean you're drawing the right conclusions about the cause, and I think he's so mired in his own perception of what wrestling is and should be (and his own incredibly stubborn personality) that he can't really be objective about things and see the bigger picture. Which leads him to draw the wrong conclusions.

The death of kayfabe probably did do more to hurt the industry than anything else. But that's not really a genie you can put back in the bottle, and even if Vince is 100% to blame (by pushing a more cartoonish product as early as the 80s, by dropping kayfabe almost entirely after Montreal, or by sanitizing the WWE into a PG product), it likely would have happened even without him (culture in general has grown MUCH more cynical over the last few decades, and constant media presence and omnipresent Internet and cel phone use makes it hard to keep almost anything secret for long). Kayfabe was going to die no matter what, and its death was going to negatively impact wrestling no matter who was running shows, or how.

But once kayfabe is dead, you can't really magically wish it back to life and suddenly convince everyone that, sure, wrestling is fake and always has been, but YOUR company is the real deal. Which is the root of what Cornette essentially wants (and will never have).

A significant part of the audience who wanted legit bloodsports just shifted their fandom to MMA/UFC (which itself has adopted more wrestling-style promotion tactics since Dana White took over). Those people are never coming back. Culture in general has shifted since the 80s - what used to sell wouldn't necessarily sell today (consider the dwindling popularity of circuses as people have gone from loving the spectacle to being bummed out by animal cruelty and terrified of clowns). The idea of two people getting together and beating the shit out of each other for real horrifies a lot of people (there's more criticism of boxing than ever), and a lot of those people are going to cringe even when the violence is simulated. We're sort of in a weird place, where "realism" might actually hurt wrestling more than help, because people who want realism just go and watch the real thing.

Like it or not, the death of kayfabe (and other factors) has changed the landscape so severely, that just going back to do things the way they used to be done wouldn't necessarily lead to a new renaissance where all the old fandom suddenly comes back and wrestling is dominant again. It might just kill it faster. Wrestling needs to evolve (the same way it did when it became carny in the first place - there's a reason why people like the Gold Dust Trio are so important to the history of the industry). But what it becomes may be nothing like what it was - and unless it goes back to old-school territory-era southern wrasslin, Cornette will hate it.

And that's without even getting into the argument that the media landscape as a whole is RADICALLY different today than it was decades ago, and that almost no product or content or industry is as successful as it used to be. Too many options competing for the same-ish number of ideas spreads the audience thinner, and channels, networks, and services. Even if wrestling shows were putting out a product better than ever before in the history of the industry, they still might not be able to top Attitude Era ratings. Because there are always other things to watch, see, or do.

The territory system mostly worked the way it did because most people would never see content or shows from outside their local home region. Today, I can watch shows from the opposite side of the world the same second they're happening. That alone is a huge shift in how people view the product, even aside from the question of whether or not the wrestlers are burly thugs or video-game playing nerds.
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Zeus posted...

Out of context? What more context can you give this crap? These are full length videos that the COMPANY itself is putting out there, like a toddler proud of showing his parents that they crapped their diaper.

See, it's posts like this that kind of highlight the strength of your bias. Because your feelings about it are so damned strong, at this point you're never really going to be objective or open-minded about anything you see. Even if something was handled well, you'd never really be able to see it.

But by context, I mean you're not really watching the show. You're listening to Cornette's opinions of the show, only hearing about the parts Cornette generally hates the most, having every facet and detail he objects to explained to you in deliberately rhetoric-driven language (which you're echoing in your posting style), and then going to YouTube to watch isolated clips you've already been poisoned against, which by your own admission are mostly the clips Cornette himself has ranted the most about.

You're not really going to watch them to form your own opinion, you're going their to confirm his bias.

At this point, even going to watch the full show for yourself wouldn't help, because you'd only be doing it so you can "prove" your pre-existing opinion.

The irony is, I'm not even making the argument that AEW is great, or that every wrestling fan should love it. I'm just pointing out that you're no longer capable of being even remotely objective about it.

Keep in mind, ALL of this started because I objected to your "slight" bias comment. All you've really been doing is proving my point.



Zeus posted...

It's telling that you highlight Dave Meltzer who has long been a Kenny Omega shill -- giving him 20-star matches years before AEW -- and whose excessive praise for AEW has led many to suspect that Tony Khan has been paying him (something reinforced by one of Meltzer's tweets to Cornette).

It's also telling that Cornette used to be highly complimentary of Meltzer and would praise both his knowledge of the industry and his taste in wrestling right up to the point where the two disagreed over AEW, at which point Cornette's opinion changed 180 degrees and now he struggles to say even a single good thing about Meltzer retroactively (and they've both admitted they were friends before and now no longer speak to each other). This in spite of the fact that Cornette has basically implied multiple times that he used to be one of Meltzer's sources in the past (which itself is kind of ironic, because it means he was feeding behind-the-scenes info to "The Dirt Sheets", and effectively helping to hurt the very kayfabe he loves so much).

He's had similar issues with Jim Ross (which Ross himself has called him out for, in spite of the fact that Ross seems to pretty clearly hate AEW himself, even as he's getting paid to pretend to care about it).

It's also worth noting that the "many" who suspect Meltzer is getting paid are mostly just Cornette himself and his fans, so we're sort of caught in a self-reinforcing loop here (and even Cornette has implied in the past that he doesn't think Meltzer's getting paid as much as he likes the attention he gets from certain wrestlers sucking up to him).



Zeus posted...

Which is a silly go-to defense for trying to undermine legitimate opinions about how awful AEW is. Cornette can get a lot more attention by lambasting wrestlers people have actually heard of

Which these days, would be pretty much no one. As you've pointed out, the wrestling industry has become so fringe, the mainstream has no clue who Roman Reigns is, let alone anyone further down the card. For the most part, unless we're talking Attitude Era, pre-Attitude Era, or John Cena, the vast majority of non wrestling fans have no idea who you're talking about.

But Cornette isn't really fishing for those people. He's fishing for wrestling fans. And whether or not you agree, hating AEW is very fertile ground. He gets far more attention on Twitter and in social media circles in general by hating on AEW than he does hating on WWE (where most people agree with him). Which in turn boosts his fanbase.

He's fully aware that bashing AEW helps keep him relevant (even aside from the fact that a lot of his fans basically ask him to bash AEW on a regular basis). Even if the reaction to that bashing doesn't translate into direct support (people who hate Cornette and what he says are more likely to listen to clips or angrily re-Tweet quotes than they are to listen to/subscribe to his show), it still keeps him in the public eye, which in turn helps draw audience to him. People who agree with his stance or who remember being wrestling fans 40 years ago may be more likely to find him when angry wrestling fans can't stop complaining about how much of an angry out-of-touch curmudgeon he is.

SPEAKING OF WHICH...



Zeus posted...

and discussing wrestling incidents people actually care about than talking about AEW. If anything, Cornette bashing AEW has helped AEW since it's free publicity for people who enjoy watching train wrecks.

Yes, that's always been Cornette's argument. It's also been completely full of shit almost from the very beginning.

Like it or not, AEW had a built-in audience right from jump, long before Cornette started really ranting about them in earnest. You may not LIKE that audience, you may not AGREE with that audience, and you may engage in Cornette-like name-calling and ad hominems and "No True Scotsman" insults about that audience, but the audience exists. AEW really only exists because that audience existed first.

No, there is not a large segment of people watching AEW solely to hate it because Cornette told them they should. You yourself are a pretty good example - for all that you've listened to Cornette bash it and how strongly you seem to feel about it yourself, you've never actually felt compelled to watch anything more than a few random clips online.

The idea of "hatedom" is generally overblown regardless of whichever industry or content product is being discussed. Sure, hate can be a powerful drug, but usually people don't consume content they hate as much as they consume content that encourages them to hate something else, as part of a group. Cornette gets more out of encouraging you to hate AEW than AEW gets out of you hating it.



Zeus posted...

If you look at the top 10 videos on his YT channel -- which he'd stopped uploading to years ago after a dispute with YT so all of the videos are pretty recent and just clips from his podcast -- not ONE of those top videos is about AEW.

They still upload full podcasts constantly - they just uploaded one in the last 24 hours. Both the Drive Thru and the Experience are uploaded weekly.

And if you look at the numbers, he tends to uptick on AEW-flavored videos, though he upticks on anti-WWE videos even more, because most of the modern fanbase loves dunking on Vince.

Though the videos that do best are ones that are "viral" - like his current clip about Nia Jax's moment on Raw this week. It's done more than twice as well as almost any other video in recent times, regardless of subject.
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Zeus posted...

And sure, AEW -- as well as the WWE -- is going to come up on his podcast week to week because it's not like much other wrestling is running

This isn't really a valid argument, considering he didn't really talk about much wrestling other than those two even before the pandemic. He mostly talks about the two most significant mainstream companies, and only really talks about other companies in the context of his own direct personal relationship with them in the past (TNA, MLW, NWA,RoH, etc). And the rest of the time he's talking about anecdotes from 30+ years ago during the territory days (which is where he's the most interesting/enlightening, IMO).

It's the same reason why most wrestling YouTubers don't bother making review videos to cover Impact shows, but will cover WWE and AEW. Because that's where the interest is. He talks about AEW because it's popular enough to justify it. Not because he's got nothing else to talk about and is begrudgingly giving attention to something he otherwise wouldn't be giving the time of day.



Zeus posted...

While I can't remember him claiming that (nor was the idea new), it wouldn't have been his fault either way.

It doesn't really matter if it's objectively his fault, he's said he himself at least partly considers it his fault.

As to when he said it, it came up around the time the Dark Side of the Ring about the Montreal Screwjob came out, and he openly admitted that he was the one who suggested the idea (in spite of the fact that he'd pretty strongly alluded to that fact beforehand anyway, and as others have pointed out it's not as if Vince himself was unfamiliar with the concept - see also Wendi Richter/Moolah/"The Spider"). And he mentioned how no one expected Bret would go to the papers (in his own words, Cornette points out that Bret came from a wrestling family, his father had been a promoter, and Bret himself pretty clearly took wrestling more seriously than almost anyone else).

But the end result was still a chain reaction that helped accelerate (or outright caused) the death of kayfabe, so for someone who holds kayfabe so precious, it could easily feel like a burden. Like, maybe some nights, he wakes up in a cold sweat and just goes "Oh God, this is all my fault!".



Zeus posted...

More importantly, that did less to expose the business than Duggan & Sheik getting caught smoking pot together or the Curtain Call, both of which happened earlier.

As much as people talk those up, I'm not sure either is as significant as people act like they were (as least not in the long run/bigger picture), and they definitely didn't have the same impact on the industry as a whole as Montreal did. Or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjBeCwz2fXg

The Curtain Call was almost unheard of outside of the smart fans (who already knew kayfabe was bullshit) and the fans in the arena that night (who didn't necessarily understand what they were seeing anyway). It didn't really resonate and shatter kayfabe across the board. It sent a few ripples, Trips got punished, everything got hushed up, the dirt sheets talked about it, the few nascent Internet wrestling boards probably talked about it a bit, and the majority of the mainstream audience never knew it happened. It didn't really do much to smarten anyone up who wasn't already "smart".

As for Duggan and Sheik, I'm not sure that story ever really made it out the tri-state area (I've always had the impression the only reason I heard about it at the time was because it happened in NJ), and most of the people who would have been discussing it outside of the local area were already "smarts". It certainly had very little impact on the product or the fandom - I'd argue shit like "Duke The Dumpster", "The Goon", and "Abe Knuckleball Schwartz" did more to damage credibility around that period than the New Jersey State Troopers ever did.

We tend to see them as more significant NOW because more "clued-in" fans today know about them than did at the time they actually happened. But that's hindsight bias.

Though this leads me to another minor tangent - it might be worth an aside that I've never entirely bought into the philosophy that kayfabe is the END-ALL BE-ALL of wrestling anyway, because I honestly can't remember a time when I ever thought wrestling was real in the first place. PART of that might be because I grew up in the Northeast instead of Memphis/Mid-South/etc, where Vince was putting on ridiculous shows (and Hulk Hogan had his own cartoon!), part of it might be because I was always pretty smart/cynical in general even from a young age (and had a skeptical father who tended to encourage that style of thinking), maybe it was because having Mister T and Cyndi Lauper show up (while Captain Lou was hanging out with The Goonies) made it hard for me to assume any of this shit was real, or maybe for some other reason - but I feel like as early as the mid-80s I was blatantly aware that it was all acting and predetermined storylines. I was certainly aware of it by the time the Undertaker was murdered, rose to the Heavens, then reincarnated as two different people and he had to fight himself to reclaim his identity. All while Leslie Nielsen investigated in-character as Frank Drebin.

And yet I still watched wrestling. I still liked wrestling. I still liked Austin, in spite of knowing he didn't get run over by a car for real. I watched ECW, and WCW, and WWF/WWE for years. And it wasn't really until the writing turned to shit that I stopped caring.

And these days I find the behind-the-scenes shenanigans far more interesting than anything actually happening in any of the rings.

But even when I DO watch wrestling, it's always the storylines that interest me far more than the actual athleticism. In spite of the fact that I know they're fictional.



Zeus posted...

Instead now it's the style that most people take one look at, laugh, and change the channel.

Except the ratings have been creeping slightly higher every week, so at least some people aren't changing the channel.

As opposed to the WWE, where every week there's a few more people who seem to go "Ehh, fuck this shit."

Though it's also kind of interesting to remember that attempts to revive the old-school style of wrestling, the style that Cornette loves, the style that people claim would somehow revitalize the entire industry if it ever came back, never really seems to go anywhere even when people DO try to recreate it. NWA Powerrr might have come closest, but that hit its own roadblocks, and never managed to get a TV deal (though to be fair, the pandemic didn't help).

There was a time when Westerns were the most popular genre ever - and then suddenly there was a time when they weren't. Pirate films went from being really popular, to utter cinema death, to popular, and then back again. The popularity of superheroes seems to go in cycles as well, at least in comics themselves. Like it or not, pop culture tastes are always changing. Maybe wrestling (which itself used to peak and dip in cycles!) is simply an idea whose time has passed, and no style of wrestling will ever be as popular again.

Or maybe it was just hotshot-booked into oblivion in the late 90s/early 00s and the scorched earth still hasn't quite recovered.
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Metalsonic66 posted...

Hammer is my #2 most played weapon, after SnS. Switch Axe is my number 3, speaking of axes lol

SnS is pretty fun. I still hate how the hammer can accidentally send allies flying, though (although I've used it intentionally strategically a few times).

Zeus posted...

MH is one of those franchises where on paper it sounds like I'd love it, but I've never cared for the gameplay or mechanics. I think the camera angle (and iirc you couldn't really jump or something?) were two of the bigger turnoffs.

You should try MH World. I started off playing MH3 on the Wii, and did the 3DS game. It'd start off really fun, but I would always hit a wall around the mid-way point (after you start running into color variations of past monsters, like Pink Rathian), because the ratio of grindiness needed for armor to how effective it was was way off, and it would turn into a boring slog. Like, the armor and gear you would spend hours farming would be useless by basically the very next monster, especially since those games had a bad habit of making the armor sets prior to the next monster presented having weakness to that very element type.

MHW MASSIVELY streamlines the entire process, and gets you into the action way faster. The collection of resources, the requirements and lasting effectiveness of armor, everything just runs more smoothly and feels so much more rewarding. No more airlocks, a massive variety of monsters, and gorgeous graphic and new combat mechanics basically turns the series into what it always should have been.

I haven't touched it in months, only because I decided to try and make a dent to my 1st player Steam games, but it does a good job of giving me a reason to come back.

---

IMO 4U is still the best MH but World had a lot of QoL improvements that I wouldn't want to lose

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To switch subjects entirely, but not forever because I still have thoughts on wrestling. Thoughts that even a giant P.O. wall of text (That I fully read.) Can't stop me from expanding on a little later. However, we need to move on to apparent garbage human being Joss Whedon.

Joss Whedon is a Garbage (Person) Human Being.

This isn't surprising news as many of his former actors, producers, and crew people said that he's a terrible foot fetish obsessed little garbage person. People just ignored it Because he's "Talented."

I read on Twitter (Yes, that was my mistake and I'm sorry.) That Joss was and is under a lot of pressure while shooting shows and movies and that it's okay for him to be mean and rude and a little sexist. That same idiot also said it was okay for Joss to be Joss because normal people are terrible every day and they don't give us Buffy or The Avengers.

To that response I say, "Go suck an Egg."

The measure of a man is how he treats those less than himself, not his equal, peers, or superiors. Became Joss did have a measure of power it was his obligation to be better than others that are there now, or come before him, as an example for those moving forward. He didn't do this, and thus deserves scorn.

I wish it wouldn't have taken all these years for the truth to come out, but women have so much more to lose than a man, and can be black balled very easily. But Ray Fisher told all of us about this 3 years ago on the set of Justice League, and people laughed at him. I hope no one is laughing now.

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Still holding out hope that he will direct a Spider-Man movie or series

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Still holding out hope that he will direct a Spider-Man movie or series

I think I'm good with that never happening. He'll just tell the actress playing Mary Jane that her hair isn't red enough, or that she needs to lose pounds immediately.

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I'm ready for a thicc Mary Jane

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The Wave Master posted...

I think I'm good with that never happening. He'll just tell the actress playing Mary Jane that her hair isn't red enough, or that she needs to lose pounds immediately.

Nothing wrong with that first one.
---

Picked up a copy of Rise of the Dungeon Master, a graphic novel about the origin of D&D. I've wikiwalked enough times that I have a baseline knowledge about the subject, but the fact it was a graphic novel made it hard to resist.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I've said multiple times in multiple posts that I don't really have a strong opinion of it, because when I watched it as a kid it didn't really appeal to me. My opinion of it is basically "meh".

Just not here and now in response to the question about it? >_>

It was weird where instead of mentioning any thoughts you just started going into the commercial success of the film. I wasn't sure if you'd seen it at all. And I certainly couldn't remember any previous opinions.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But I'm also open-minded enough to point out that just because I didn't like something 30+ years ago doesn't mean that other people can't like it now.

But even now just because you don't like something doesn't mean other people can't like it. Your opinion isn't stopping anybody from doing anything =p

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And most of them bombed (other than maybe the first Conan the Barbarian). Even Disney couldn't manage to mine the genre for success (Black Cauldron is literally used as the symbol of Disney's near-collapse as a creative force in the 70s/80s). Even the films that became popular cult hits that people still love and talk about decades later (like Labyrinth) failed in their own era (Labyrinth only made half its production budget back).

idk, the Neverending Story did pretty well for itself, didn't it? And what about Clash of the Titans? Are you going to sit there and tell me Clash bombed? And while commercial success is a potential metric for the popularity of a genre, I'd imagine the more relevant metric would be the sheer number of fantasy films coming out at the time. Some were massive like Conan and the Neverending Story, but you also had Legend, The Princess Bride, Beastmaster (which gave us a show afterward), Red Sonja, the Conan sequel, and the kinda-creepy Return to Oz.

And, just running a google search to see what I may have forgotten, I'm seeing Excalibur, Dragonslayer, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which I'm embarrassed didn't come to mind because I loved that film), Fire and Ice, Deathstalker, and... well, I'm shocked that I've forgotten even that much. Then there are two dozen more films that I don't think I've heard of, but I kinda want to watch at this point.

Hell, you even had things like The Last Unicorn. (And Masters of the Universe, which is kinda the snake biting its own tail.)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But none of that really matters anyway, because I was talking about fantasy movies, not fantasy as a whole across all media.

Well, you didn't specify.


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The Wave Master posted...

To switch subjects entirely, but not forever because I still have thoughts on wrestling. Thoughts that even a giant P.O. wall of text (That I fully read.) Can't stop me from expanding on a little later. However, we need to move on to apparent garbage human being Joss Whedon.

Yeah, I gotta read through that later as well, but I can't resist the subject of Joss Whedon.

The Wave Master posted...

This isn't surprising news as many of his former actors, producers, and crew people said that he's a terrible foot fetish obsessed little garbage person. People just ignored it Because he's "Talented."

He has a LOT of creepy-ass habits and fetishes. I get the whole "not judging a book by its cover," but sometimes you can look at a guy and know that they're a creep.

And, to be blunt, he's not even that fucking talented. Yeah, I enjoyed some of his work, but oftentimes the more control he's had, the worse shit has been. And he's been up his own ass with a lot of crap. And that asshole still hasn't given us a Doctor Horrible sequel. Doctor Horrible is pretty much his only work that I actually loved, and the only reason it exists at all is because of the writers strike.

The Wave Master posted...

I read on Twitter (Yes, that was my mistake and I'm sorry.) That Joss was and is under a lot of pressure while shooting shows and movies and that it's okay for him to be mean and rude and a little sexist. That same idiot also said it was okay for Joss to be Joss because normal people are terrible every day and they don't give us Buffy or The Avengers.

And, staight-up, Avengers was lousy. The only thing I liked less in the MCU than Avengers was Captain Mary-Sue. And Avengers almost single-handedly soured me on ScarJo.

That said, I don't know much about the current allegations, although I'm aware of some of the older complaints.

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Zeus posted...

It was weird where instead of mentioning any thoughts you just started going into the commercial success of the film. I wasn't sure if you'd seen it at all. And I certainly couldn't remember any previous opinions.

Probably because of my comment wondering how it went under my nerd radar

---

I think my older brother and sister liked Willow a lot more than I did. Warwick Davis has and always will be awesome, but the film isn't my favorite. I'm glad other people can enjoy the film, but it's not my favorite. Clash of the Titans is fun, but my mom loved that more than I did, and my dad loved Conan, and it wasn't for me.

I prefer Real Genius, Better Off Dead, Zapped, or Up The Academy. Those were my 80's movies and I like to revisit them now because they're just fun.

As for Spider-Man, I like my women thicker, personal choice, and a thicc Mary Jane Watson isn't a bad thing at all.

Finally, Michelle Trachtenberg said there was a rule on set where she wasn't allowed to be alone with Joss Whedon. Dude is just a creep.

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FeelsBadMan because I love almost everything Whedon has done.

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You guys watch WandaVision?

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Zeus posted...

Just not here and now in response to the question about it? >_>

I literally said "I never really cared about Willow as a setting/story" and "I suppose if I watched Willow now I might have a different opinion of it" in my post right before yours. That seems pretty clearly indicative of my opinion of it.

Didn't like it, didn't hate it. Meh.



Zeus posted...

idk, the Neverending Story did pretty well for itself, didn't it? And what about Clash of the Titans? Are you going to sit there and tell me Clash bombed? And while commercial success is a potential metric for the popularity of a genre, I'd imagine the more relevant metric would be the sheer number of fantasy films coming out at the time. Some were massive like Conan and the Neverending Story, but you also had Legend, The Princess Bride, Beastmaster (which gave us a show afterward), Red Sonja, the Conan sequel, and the kinda-creepy Return to Oz.

And, just running a google search to see what I may have forgotten, I'm seeing Excalibur, Dragonslayer, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which I'm embarrassed didn't come to mind because I loved that film), Fire and Ice, Deathstalker, and... well, I'm shocked that I've forgotten even that much. Then there are two dozen more films that I don't think I've heard of, but I kinda want to watch at this point.

Hell, you even had things like The Last Unicorn. (And Masters of the Universe, which is kinda the snake biting its own tail.)

Apparently Clash didn't fail, which is actually surprising to me, because I always assumed it did. I'll throw Excalibur in there as well - as much as I personally like it, I always assumed it was a failure... but apparently it did turn a bit of a profit (though not a huge one).

But most of the rest of the films you mentioned were either blatant failures (Munchausen didn't even make back a quarter of its budget), or the sort of technical failures where they theoretically recoup production budget (and thus succeed, if only barely), but were actually failures when you factor in marketing budget. Beastmaster may have gotten a TV show 17 years later, but it was considered a commercial failure when it was released (and its sequel was a straight-up failure without equivocation). And that's not even including films you didn't mention, like Krull, Ladyhawke, and Sword of the Valiant. There were definitely a few successes (I never said every fantasy film in the 80s failed), but the majority did.

[As an aside, Masters of the Universe was a failure mostly spurred by the fact that it barely had anything to do with the cartoon it was theoretically based on (though some people have pointed out that it almost works as a stealth Jack Kirby/Fourth World tribute). And Deathstalker is notoriously terrible in general. It's fallen into the rotation of "worst movies ever" reviewed by sarcastic Internet film critics. If you're contemplating tracking down films you've never seen/heard of before to watch, you might want to avoid that one. Unless you like watching bad movies to make fun of them.]

I actually agree with the idea that commercial success isn't necessarily the best metric for the popularity of a genre (and definitely not the creative or critical value of a genre), but on the other hand, it doesn't really matter how many films the studios are putting out if no one is going to watch them in theaters.

And that was mostly the point of my initial comment - fantasy wasn't really overly successful in the 80s. Most films failed right out of the gate, and even the ones that succeeded failed to spawn lasting franchises (and the few that managed to produce sequels almost always tanked at that point). People who were kids in the 80s may have loved 80s fantasy movies (I certainly did), which is part of why they became cult hits (and why some of them have gotten nostalgia-fueled remakes more recently), but that didn't really translate into success for them THEN.

And in the context of the original discussion, Willow had multimedia tie-ins, but those failed, while Willow itself was generally seen as a failure (in spite of the fact that it technically made back its budget domestically). It was more successful internationally, but in the US it didn't really have the impact the behind it hoped it would (supposedly, Lucas himself was disappointed by it, which might explain why he never went back to that well in spite of it making its money back).
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Krull was terrible, and I loved it as a kid.

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The Wave Master posted...

Clash of the Titans is fun, but my mom loved that more than I did

I was a big fan of that film as a kid. It probably helped that I was always into Greek myths in general.

Sam Worthington can choke to death on a sack filled with 1000 dicks, though. The remake is trash.



The Wave Master posted...

and my dad loved Conan, and it wasn't for me.

I couldn't really get into it as a kid, though I absolutely love it now. A lot of that is because of the fantastic soundtrack - in some ways it's less a movie/story and more like an operatic movement with accompanying pictures. Pure narrative is usually what I want out of stories (which is why I prefer it even in video games), but every once in a while one grabs me in a purely aesthetic sense.

The aforementioned Excalibur sort of falls into that same category - it's a large part of what kicked off my later love of Wagner and Carl Off (and Germanic opera in general). The somewhat surrealist lighting and the soundtrack almost make it more of an experience than a solid story in its own right (and helps offset the fact that it's kind of all over the place and not necessarily accurate with its take on Arthurian myth).

Hero (the Jet Li film from 2002) is another film I'll throw into that pile - the visual design is fantastic, and is a large part of the appeal (though the story is fine, too). Hero was also one of the films my girlfriend dragged me to back in the early 2000s, when she kept wanting to go to artsy films (and assumed I was going to hate them), only for her to wind up hating them while I was actually a fan of them.



The Wave Master posted...

I prefer Real Genius, Better Off Dead, Zapped, or Up The Academy. Those were my 80's movies

Interesting - other than Real Genius (which is a brilliant film), I don't think I ever watched any of the others. Hell, while I'm vaguely aware of what Better Off Dead is (though little more than the fact that John Cusack is in it.

I'd have a hard time pinning down what I'd consider my quintessential 80s films. Though I do talk up stuff like Big Trouble in Little China and The Last Dragon way too often. Cannonball Run for a more mainstream pick. Ghostbusters is obviously great.

I could also point out the handful of films where I can repeat every single line of dialogue to this day because of how often I watched them as a kid. The Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings, Transformers, and Clue definitely fall into that category. Probably a few others as well, though I ironically can't think of them right now.
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LuciferSage posted...

Krull was terrible, and I loved it as a kid.

I still love it.

As a kid, I used a jigsaw to cut a Glaive out of a sheet of thin fiberboard, then spray-painted it gold. When I threw it, it basically caught the air like a frisbee and flew a LOOOONG way. One of the tines eventually snapped off, and I just chucked it away for good (I think I might have thrown it into the ocean, though it might have just been the woods).

I did a lot of stuff like that as a kid, though. I used the same type of fiberboard and a cut-up belt for straps to make my own Captain America shield (though in my case it was actually "The Captain" shield - the one US Agent used later), and I still actually have it stored away somewhere (though I repainted it later to have a medieval coat-of-arms).

And I used to steal tons of slats from local wind fence, tape two pieces together with electrical tape, carve a point into one end, and then paint the whole thing to make a sword. At one point I made twelve swords like that and painted symbols on them to represent these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Swords#The_Twelve_Swords_of_Power

I passed those out to my friends and we used to fight with them. We did a lot of stuff along those lines - my one friend made a similar sword and painted it gold to be the Sommerswerd from Lone Wolf, and he had a couple colored stones he used as the Elfstones from Shannara. And I had a Wizard's Staff and a large round egg-shaped river stone I used as the Moonstone from the World of Lone Wolf/Grey Star books.

I also had a TARDIS for a while, where I used construction paper to make a police box door over my bedroom door, and I constructed a control console out of old computer parts, keyboards, and monitors, my old Speak & Spell (and Speak & Math and Speak & Read), some other electronic stuff, and a bunch of christmas lights.

I kind of stopped doing that sort of stuff once I got older, though I did have a moment about 10 years ago when I made all the rings from Green Lantern/Blackest Night out of plastic piping and a wooden bezel (which I still have displayed in my "gaming lounge").
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Naruto_fan_42 posted...

You guys watch WandaVision?

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I'm behind on WandaVision, and by behind, I mean I haven't started, and have avoided all spoilers thus far. Although, everyone still seems confused which is a good thing in my opinion.

In all the chaos of trying to fix my house, a few people dying, and getting a new car, I did finish Final Fantasy VII Remake last week. It took an interesting turn in the last few chapters, and I'm excited to see where the story goes from here. If you've finished the game, or saw the spoilers, I would really like to talk about the changes and what they're going for in the narrative.

Next on the list is Ghost of Tsushima. I hope it lives up to the hype.

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It seems like people are super into it, I'll probably watch it when it's all over.

Tons of posts to unpack here. Going to have to go point by point.

-- I have been planning to watch Wanda Vision, but I have not been able to get to it as of yet, and I decided I might as well hold off until all the episodes are available.

-- I enjoyed Cornette on commentary on NWA Powerrr (until he made a gaffe that cost him that job), and I appreciate the type of wrestling he advocates (again, NWA Powerrr), but I find his loathing of all things AEW to be ... bizarre, almost as if those opinions come from a different person.

-- Krull is one of my favorite movies, and that is saying a fair bit when you consider that I love almost all of those cheesy old '80s fantasy films, though I have to take a few of them in MST3K or Rifftrax format (e.g. Deathstalker). And yes, I had a homemade Glaive, too, but mine started its life as a styrofoam plate. Good times.

-- Silly trivium: Krull and Ice Pirates have the same writer (Stanford Sherman). No wonder I love both movies. Have them both in my background DVD repertoire to this day.

-- I enjoyed Willow the movie, though not as much as Willow the NES game. The Shadow Moon trilogy of books is ... not very good, IMO. As PO noted, Claremont really is a comic book writer, not a novelist, jokes about his dialogue aside.

-- +1 for mentioning the Books of Swords, PO. Those are high on a list of '80s fantasy literature that is fading into obscurity.

-- As I may have noted previously, I like FF7R, and I beat it in record time after getting it (two weeks), but the last chapter is 100% Nomura (i.e. 100% bullshit). Will have to see where Square Enix chooses to go from there, but I have very little faith in their ability to be original and surprising.

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I'm going to read over the remaining wrestling comments, etc, once I've seen that full episode of AEW... if I can find a place to watch it.

The Wave Master posted...

Finally, Michelle Trachtenberg said there was a rule on set where she wasn't allowed to be alone with Joss Whedon. Dude is just a creep.

Well, who initiated that rule? Oo

Naruto_fan_42 posted...

You guys watch WandaVision?

Not yet, although I'm a little confused what in the MCU set up the fact that the two were in a relationship. I just vaguely remember that they'd been living together at some point (which I think was referenced in IW, which is strange because continuity-wise I think Civil War was last film to feature them before IW and there wasn't anything happening there), but I don't remember any real build-up to it.

Was there any build? Or is it just something fans are supposed to go along with because we know it was a thing in the comics?

I_Abibde posted...

I enjoyed Cornette on commentary on NWA Powerrr (until he made a gaffe that cost him that job),

It didn't cost him the job, he got annoyed at the management reacted to it -- despite the fact that they vetted the show beforehand and didn't find anything wrong with his comment (which apparently was something he'd been using for decades) -- so he took some time off then decided not to come back.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I literally said "I never really cared about Willow as a setting/story" and "I suppose if I watched Willow now I might have a different opinion of it" in my post right before yours. That seems pretty clearly indicative of my opinion of it.

Didn't like it, didn't hate it. Meh.

Well, I missed it because that part was several posts later whereas the post that I'd originally saw where you responded to the subject didn't cover any of that.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But most of the rest of the films you mentioned were either blatant failures (Munchausen didn't even make back a quarter of its budget), or the sort of technical failures where they theoretically recoup production budget (and thus succeed, if only barely), but were actually failures when you factor in marketing budget. Beastmaster may have gotten a TV show 17 years later, but it was considered a commercial failure when it was released (and its sequel was a straight-up failure without equivocation). And that's not even including films you didn't mention, like Krull, Ladyhawke, and Sword of the Valiant. There were definitely a few successes (I never said every fantasy film in the 80s failed), but the majority did.

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with commercial success as a metric. I was talking about fantasy was big in the 80s because there was a fantasy film boom (among other things). If we were talking about a single film and its relative impact, then you could reasonably look at commercial success. However, when you have DOZENS of fantasy films coming out, the fact that they exist at all is the most pertinent metric. Keep in mind that horror movies were also big in the 70s and 80s, yet the vast majority of horror movies didn't pull in huge amounts of money (and the ones that were massively commercially successful was often more the result of the low budget than the box office take; the original Friday the 13th making $59m may not have been "huge" compared to other movies, but it was made on a $550k budget so even doing $4m would have made it massively successful from a commercial standpoint although if it had a $4m take then it would mean that not that many people actually saw that one particular film).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I actually agree with the idea that commercial success isn't necessarily the best metric for the popularity of a genre (and definitely not the creative or critical value of a genre), but on the other hand, it doesn't really matter how many films the studios are putting out if no one is going to watch them in theaters.

And that was mostly the point of my initial comment - fantasy wasn't really overly successful in the 80s. Most films failed right out of the gate, and even the ones that succeeded failed to spawn lasting franchises (and the few that managed to produce sequels almost always tanked at that point). People who were kids in the 80s may have loved 80s fantasy movies (I certainly did), which is part of why they became cult hits (and why some of them have gotten nostalgia-fueled remakes more recently), but that didn't really translate into success for them THEN.

I don't recall saying "successful," I said popular. And if everybody and their brother is putting out fantasy films, clearly there was money being made or they wouldn't be able to afford the habit. It's not like you just had a few films at the start then the whole thing collapsed, these were running throughout the 80s because studios saw a market for them (which in many cases didn't exactly materialize, unless the budget was bullshit).

You can't exactly call something a dead genre -- which you literally did (and was the original point of contention) -- when you have dozens upon dozens of often big budget films (in fact, so big that they weren't profitable) coming out in that time frame. You can compare that to the 90s where you didn't really see as many fantasy films -- at least that I remember -- but then at the start of the 2000s Harry Potter and LotR tore the house down. (Which led to more fantasy films, many of which were adapted from book series yet never made it past the first novel (Eragon, The Golden Compass, etc). Offhand, I think the only other successful series might have been the Narnia stuff, which was pretty big... although I never saw a single one despite having read a few of the novels)


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I think I played Willow the game. Can't remember much about it but it does remind me of how terrible the Dragonlance game for NES was.
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Zeus posted...

Not yet, although I'm a little confused what in the MCU set up the fact that the two were in a relationship. I just vaguely remember that they'd been living together at some point (which I think was referenced in IW, which is strange because continuity-wise I think Civil War was last film to feature them before IW and there wasn't anything happening there), but I don't remember any real build-up to it.

They were flirting hard in Civil War and were practically married in Infinity War

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Metalsonic66 posted...

They were flirting hard in Civil War and were practically married in Infinity War

She's robosexual.
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Okay so Man of Tomorrow might be my second favorite Superman movie now.

It's a new origin/jumping-off point for a new animated film continuity (since the one based on the New 52 is over I guess).

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Well, they said it shouldn't be done, but I did it: I watched an entire episode of AEW Dynamite. And let me just say, those 90+ minutes of my life that I'm never going to get back just flew by >_>

I had around 6 or 7 pages of notes, but nobody's going to want to read that so I'll summarize things here (and I guess skip some of the things that happen between segments and also skip some of the smaller segments)

Darby Allen vs Joey Janella 2.5/5
Given that it was the first match in the program, I had about half a page of notes. Basically Darby Allen seems like a decent enough cruiserweight and he's got some things going for him... but I couldn't stop laughing when I noticed his jean hot pants and tights. And while he was reasonably good, unfortunately he was paired with Janella, who was kinda lousy (besides mugging for the camera). Outside of the opening minutes, Janella had maybe three good spots in the match and mostly dragged Darby down. The camera-work was also shit.

It wasn't until after the match that I realized Janella is probably the wrestler who Cornette routinely dismisses as Jelly Nutella.

MJF and Sammy talk 1/5
Sammy goes into a small room with the Inner Circle, asks everybody to leave so he can talk to MJF alone... but asks the cameraman to stay. And then he gets upset when he learns MJF recorded their conversation... but he's the guy who asked the fucking camera guy to be in there with them so he was ALREADY recorded! Wtf?!

MJF's acting was decent, Sammy's sucked. The scene was stupid and that was a tiny room for so many people.

Cody Rhodes & Lee Johnson vs some job guys 1/5
I got excited when I saw that I'd be watching a Cody Rhodes match, but unfortunately it was a tag match where he was really trying to put over his partner. Judging from the match and commentary afterward, Lee Johnson isn't ready for the spotlight or any light. His in-ring looked lousy and his mic work sucked. Of course, the smaller of the two job guys was way, way worse and was so bad that he made Cody look like shit at times. They need to get that guy off the air, or preferably out of the business. The big job guy looked pretty decent. Had it been a match between him and Cody, I might have been happy. However, if Cody is just going to be teaming with Lee, I'll have zero incentive to watch AEW again to see Cody.

Pac vs Hollywood Hunk or something Good for what it was/5
The preview for this match immediately grabbed me because I recognized Pac as being NXT's Adrian Neville. I had never liked Neville, but I was curious if he'd improved in all of those years since the WWE couldn't manage to get him over. (He was an early NXT misfire. He was rebranded in NXT before going to the main roster, where they tried to put him over as a superhero and naturally paired him against Stardust which sounded great but didn't really work out because the concept was too off-brand for the WWE at the time and he didn't have enough personality to be played as a joke character, like they did with Hurricane.)

His moveset was *exactly * what I remembered from NXT. Not a thing changed there... but even though he was doing the same shit, he's finally developed a little stage presence so those spots actually feel like they have meaning. In NXT, Pac was waaaaaay too fast-paced. Here he's slowed the fuck down. He stands over his opponent. He walks slowly and deliberately, which I don't remember him ever doing. He just looks a lot better.

I liked it, but I'm not rating it because it was a short squash match

Jericho & MJF vs the Acclaim 2.5/5
I have a lot of notes on this one because it was weird and confusing. However, The Acclaim was great, MJF was great, and Jericho was... lousy. I'd seen one or two other tag matches featuring Jericho & MJF (including that goofy one with the botches). MJF seems like a talent, but Jericho feels like he's here for an easy paycheck. His work is sloppy and he's not even taking care of himself at this point.

Otherwise I'll note that I liked the ring entrance (with the audience which looked like it was just the other wrestlers and staff singing and dancing). There was some closure on that earlier segment with Sammy. While Jericho's in-ring has massively declined (he wasn't anywhere near this bad when he was teaming with Kevin Owens/Steen in the WWE just a few years ago), he's still great on the mic. MJF is also a pro on the mic. Sammy is shit, though. He kept breaking when he was trying to deliver his lines.

Adam Page and Matt Hardy walk into a bar... 3/5
I was disappointed to learn that Matt Hardy is no longer broken, woken, or otherwise heavily gimmicked. Earlier in the show, Matt Hardy asks the guy out for a drink. The bar scene is short, but Matt Hardy talking directly to the camera made the segment fun.

Leyla Hirsh vs Thunder Rosa 1/5
I had never heard of either of them prior to tonight and had almost forgotten that AEW has a women's division at all. The two look great and they seem to have some personality, which is good because their wrestling is garbage. The match reminded me of those lingerie models that the WWE used to hire for its Divas division. Of course, I imagine that both of these girls probably come from a wrestling background (which was apparently when one did what looked like a hurricanrana) which makes this match even more disappointing. There were a few decent-looking moves, but so much of it looked sloppy and stupid.

Oh, plus they played a promo over the opening minutes of the match... which is the same thing they did during that Jericho match. Wtf?

Afterward they showed the Japanese side of the tournament, which I had heard about via a Cornette video and was moderately tempted to watch after all of that Maki Itoh nonsense (although even prior to that when Cornette was just trashing the thing I got interested). However, I can't see bothering with another normal AEW women's match after that garbage. It feels like such a massive step back for women's wrestling. Even a 1/5 feels generous. It really deserves half a point.

Kenta & Kenny Omega vs Moxley & Lance Archer 3/5
The intro packages/entrances were pretty cool for the guys who got them. The only one who kinda didn't was Lance Archer (the only wrestler I hadn't seen before), who was probably the most impressive guy in the match. At the same time, I figured that Lance *had * to be the guy who got pinned this match. On the plus side, at least they didn't make him look like shit it took 3-4 people to get him down for the count.

Despite hearing the match reviewed, I had forgotten most of what I'd heard (other than a few of the stupid spots, like the bed and the potatoes). I kinda have to agree with the general criticism of the format, especially given the ending. All that said, it may have been garbage, but at least it was fun. Some of the other matches felt like a chore.

Overall 2/5
The episode was mostly lousy. There are a few things I liked that I didn't go into, but a lot more stuff I disliked that I didn't cover (The Forbidden Door! The Forbidden Door! Seriously, fuck off, Excalibur, you goofy-ass masked commentator).

While this episode didn't have a lot egregiously bad things (relatively speaking; I've certainly seen AEW shit that looked terrible), the whole thing feels on the level of TNA, if not a bit worse.

The following interested or impressed me:
Lance Archer
Pac
MJF
The Acclaim

The following may tempt me to watch another episode:
Miro (WWE's Rusev, who only appeared in a recap tonight)
The Japanese side of the Women's Tournament
Riho vs Serena Deeb next week (I liked Serena in the WWE and I'm a little curious about Riho)

And the following shit was a massive turnoff:
Thunder Rosa vs Leyla
Lee Johnson
Sammy's acting
The Young Bucks
Whatever is happening with the Dork Order
Jericho's wrestling


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