ThaOGDreamWeaver

If I was writing it - let the wild speculation begin... Victor Von Doom is from Earth-1969 (or whatever the Fantastic 4's Universe is). In that universe, Howard Stark is still his father, but for whatever plot reason, he was raised unaware of his legacy in Latveria by the Von Dooms and their Romani tribe. Possibly Maria Stark was a Latverian spy, it was a casual fling, he was kidnapped, or Obadiah disappeared him. Who knows. He's still a natural-20 genius and uses technology (rather than technomagic, as in DOOM's original origin story) to help his family and tribe. This leads him to the attention of ESU, where he moves to New York and begins researching alongside one Reed Richards. Fast forward through their friendship, split, nemesis bit, and whatever the actual movie turns out to be... Where and the end, due to the accidental crossing of the high-polarity McGuffinator streams, the F4 and Doom wind up being thrown into MCU continuity. Doom is initially very puzzled as to why everyone keeps calling him "Tony", for he is DOOM (etc) ...but very, very quickly works out a game plan to capitalise on that, gaining access to money, technology and secrets. After all, in an age of public distrust, only the handful of heroes who survived Thanos and saw his sacrifice play can 100% confirm Tony's dead and buried.

It does kind of feel like Steve Jobs coming back to Apple if RDJ is back. Also: like the retitle of the Avengers flick. For it will be the day of DOOM, and no-one else but DOOM. For DOOM is the mastermind, the genius and all-around visionary! It was DOOM who laid the original plan and set it into motion! Don't you see!? All you Kangs and HYDRA and TVA and SHIELD are DOOM’S plan! So your plans are DOOM’S plans, because you made plans and DOOM’S plan was to make you! DOOM never planned for his plans to make plans to stop his plan! DOOM plans to rule the multiverse, not to have DOOM’S plans plan to stop DOOM! The planner of you! So stop, cease, desist! DOOM IS your creator! AND DOOM SHALL BE YOUR DOOM! …something like that, anyway…

Life advice. (Seriously, try it).

Small update: Marvel invited everybody at SDCC to watch an after hours drone and fireworks show. Guess who crashed the party…

One of James Gunn’s animation passion projects comes to life with a top-line cast, including Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr. (who will also appear in Superman), and Viola Davis and Sean Gunn reprising their sarcasm / random burbling from Suicide Squad. We also add Indira Varma as The Bride and David Harbour as on-again/off-again love interest Eric Frankenstein, the inimitable Alan Tudyk as Dr Phosphorous, The Witcher’s Anya Chalotra slightly typecast as Circe, and Zoe Chao as neurotic amphibious genius Nina. Anime style puts me slightly in mind of Aeon Flux… what do we think?

So I had a go at the comic book generator. Can't get any of the ones I use regularly to render the title (DreamWeaver: As Heaven Is Wide) accurately, but... Microsoft Designer: Playground (Real Comics XL preset) Playground (Photorealistic preset)

Emerson Lake & Palmer - Lucky Man

Cicero Blake - See What Tomorrow Brings

You're just not Australian. Them's high-end formalwear boardies, mate. Of course, for date night, budgie smugglers all round. Ripper. On that note, I am slightly disappointed that those Lululemon jackets aren't denim, for a proper Canadian tuxedo look, eh.

UK kit is by Ben Sherman, and much as with that brand, looks... Wetherspoons*-ready, rather than fit for action or the catwalk. https://news.sky.com/story/team-gb-unveils-very-patriotic-olympic-kits-featuring-union-jack-13117912 La France: by Berluti and Le Coq Sportif, and... well, it's neat, NICE ceremony jacket, colourful but not loud for competition kit, quite smart and restrained for the podium outfits, and I might need a pair of the shoes. https://www.lecoqsportif.com/en/collections/collection-village-equipe-de-france If there's anything else I'm slightly coveting, it's the Aussie ceremonial jacket. And maybe the skirt (or the guys' boardshorts, because they're a bunch of bogans.) https://wwd.com/pop-culture/celebrity-news/australia-olympic-uniform-1236501025/ *Wetherspoons: think Applebee's, but with more beer, depression and drunken 2am fights

Netflix's infamous 3-and-out model explains a lot of the casualties - which (for legal/arcane/infernal reasons you'd need the crew from Wolfram and Hart to explain) stops them having to pay extended royalties. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/tvs-new-math-what-100m-netflix-deals-actually-shortchange-creators-1203846/ Also, since a show can live on a platform more or less forever, there's no other second-window opportunities like syndication. (Without syndication, ST:TOS would never have evolved into the cultural icon it is today. It's also why TOS episodes still look pretty fresh and have been easy to restore: back in the day, everything that wasn't news, sports or light-ents like quizzes was distributed to local stations on film, rather than videotape. And there's dozens of copies kicking around.) In fact, it's gone backwards. With platforms being voracious for content to suit any given mood - Amish True Crime? Horror Cake Reveals? Extreme Gardening? - they hoover up national, international and local productions like one of Escobar's hippos in a Miami dance club VIP room.

Final trailer's up... is this gonna give the people what they want?

So I went too far down an internet rabbithole, and have found the heroine whose (terrifying) gig it is to end the hippo invasion and save the world. Her name is Gina Paola Serna, and I shall raise a glass of fine rum to her. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/22/vet-sterilising-pablo-escobar-hippos

Hint: watch WandaVision from episode 3 onwards, then rewatch the first two.

Prince & The Revolution - Raspberry Beret

I'm not usually into YouTube explainers, but I gave these a crack. I knew about Praying Mantis's mission and background from my teaching days but not, of course, all the BTS yahoo c***erf***ery by the air wing that is more the province of the USAF. (Frankly, they're probably still jealous to this day.) I am now five minutes into the hippo video and have had to stop because of literal tears of laughter. I was already fully aware of hippos being basically two velociraptors welded together and then given a Cheesecake Factory VIP card, but his descriptions are even better. The video is also a neat object lesson in why we should not screw with ecosystems. To quote Douglas Adams... When you spend much time with naturalists you will tend to hear two words in particular an awful lot: endemic and exotic. Three, if you count disaster. An endemic species of plant or animal is one that is native to an island or region and is found nowhere else at all. An exotic species is one that has been introduced from abroad. And a disaster is usually what results when this occurs.

I've not met that many sharks in business. Well, except real estate, and there I'd guess it's mandatory.

Yes, but I'm sure that SyFy won't be able to get sharrrroh sweet Freya in Asgard. I see your hippos, and raise you... BBC News: Sharks off Brazil coast test positive for cocaine https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cek9mr43x1xo

Cody Pennington - Nothing On Us

Wizards did it. And while I am absolutely the last person to question Peggy and Cap's happy ending, how did she maintain that sparkling career as SHIELD founder with six-two of legendary blond superhero in tow and nobody bats an eyelid or mentions it? And does Steve just retire and become a cookie-baking househusband, coach Little League? I doubt it. With Captain America officially MIA, that helps the cover a bit if he decides to become Roger Stevens or something. But there are going to be enough people around who know...

"...wait, you mean Back To The Future was bull***t?" ...that, pretty much. Per Bruce, each change doesn't fix the existing timeline, because that would be a Grandfather paradox. After all, if you went back in time to fix a problem and fixed it, then the timeline changed around it - how would you know what to fix? Instead, any change made creates a new variant timeline. (And, handily, a fine spinoff series for Loki). Which is quite a neat way of sidestepping the whole oh-no-fixed-point-timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly stuff. I wasn't thinking about F4 going back in time - I was thinking forwards and a little bit sideways, to current MCU continuity from their more idealised 1960s home.

There's a lot it gets right (Bad News Bear Jackie Earl Haley's bravura turn as Rorschach, JD Morgan characteristically charismatically crazy as the Comedian, Doc's transformation sequence, Archie, the prison fight). But - IMHO - it doesn't either catch the full spirit of the books or hang together as a complete movie. And that ending is something nerds will be warring over for decades. I understand why the change was made but it... just... still... clunks. Put together with the sequel series, the ending does work better with...

Time travel flares my IBS, both in real life and the movies. Endgame mostly worked because it lampshaded a lot of the silliness (the test runs, that's America's ass!, and having to heist the Space Stone twice), although it still got twisted up with the way Thanos sabotaged it. If the new F4 is a period/time-and-relative-dimensions travel piece, it could be quite fun as a fish-out-of-water comedy with the team having to adapt to a new world where heroes are not only well-known and commonplace, but where Reed's advanced tech knowledge is either sixty years out of date... or still ahead of its time.

So, after Zack Snyder's adap mishap, and the rather better sequel TV series, Watchmen gets a full adap in the 2-and-a-bit-D style familiar to What If? fans. It's direct to rental, so I'm unlikely to be catching this one. And to be honest, I'm with the grumpy old wizard on this one: the book's structure was made to do things in a way a straight narrative flick can't. Though if some new fans show up, that's cool.

I know, it’s odd… …according to The Numbers and IMDB, there is not one big-ticket studio release currently scheduled on Aug 29 or 30 (you can count a whole five-day "weekend" from Thursday drop to Monday for a holiday opening's box office take. So normally, executives are jostling for this spot). I know the strikes and COVID screwed things up but…? https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/release-schedule