Techwright

Considering one of the dragons sketched in the guide Hiccup read in the first HTTYD looked to be heavily influenced by the triffid on the cover art for the book "Day of the Triffids", I'd say a feathered dragon would not be the most outlandish creature in the HTTYD legendarium.

A Thunderbird actually makes sense. Some of the descriptions sound more reptilian than avian, which would pair nicely with a previously undocumented dragon type. Despite the mythical world of HTTYD, if they're going with Viking era, the population they should encounter would be the Mississippian culture, the predecessors of known modern tribes.

It's been a while, but at some past point I mentioned in the forums that possibly creating 7th slots for a limited number of powers as a reward for new, higher ranked Incarnate stuff would have been of interest to me. As to how it would be used, specific to energy blasters, I'd be able to compensate, on one power at least, for having to sacrifice one of my six enhancement slots for a "Knock Back to Knock Down" added enhancement.

That was the core problem of The Hobbit trilogy. New Line Cinema insisted on 3 films (seeing money signs, of course), and Peter Jackson (who replaced the former director at the last minute) and crew were forced into the unenviable position as to how to do that. They first went to the appendices and Tolkien's notes and scrap notes (Tolkien had been constantly rewriting The Hobbit to bring it more in line with The Lord of the Rings). That gave them the events of the Necromancer at Dol Goldur, but even exhausting these resources they had 2 large movies, or 2.5 regular movies. They should have stuck with that, but NLC was not satisfied, so then they invented material "whole cloth", and those were the big mistakes. With that we got the utter rubbish that was the character Alfred, and the ridiculous romance triangle (in lightning time, no less) of a dwarf and a she-elf and an opposing elf. Actually, the idea of a she-elf captain of the wood elves was not a bad creation and might have worked quite well, if focused solely on that. Trying to create any romance triangle with her was, however. There was also the in-mountain combat between the dwarves and the dragon. It's rather silly and just a time filler. It never happened in the books. Curiously, some of what was in the books was not in the film. It should have been. That is the birds of the Lonely Mountain. The thrush breaking nuts on the rocks in the book is key to finding the missing keyhole in the books. In addition, the dwarves for generations were allied with sentient, talking ravens (or was it crows?) much like the sentient great eagles. It was the ravens, at the request of Thorin Oakenshield, who alerted Dain and the Iron Hill dwarves to what was happening in the Lonely Mountain. I'm told someone had edited out most of the fluff, creating something much more like the books. To see it, one has to provide proof of purchase of a video of the Hobbit trilogy, though.

Despite the ending of HTTYD 3, I find great potential in the franchise still. Consider that it is a fantasy geography in the films, not a parallel "real" Earth. That lends itself to exploration, something Vikings do very well. Next consider that Viking lands were not the only ones fixated on dragons. So what's to stop the people of Berk from discovering Germanic, British (well, English or Welsh, since Burk seems to be hybrid Viking-Scottish), or even Asian dragons? Perhaps the "Germanic" dragons actually are the vicious types, leading to a need for the return of Toothless and Co. . Frankly, I'd love them to take a page from the Dragonheart franchise and have the Berkians discover Asian dragons. There's so much potential with that. In other words, there's no reason to rehash on an established masterpiece, and enough reasons to move forward with fresh material within that creative universe.

The teaser dropped for the live action version of "How To Train Your Dragon". Thoughts: 1. Good to have Gerard Butler back in the role of Stoic the Vast. I do wonder though about Gerard's, well, vastness. Had he lived, Ray Stevenson might have made an excellent choice for Stoic's physical presence, and Ray would have had the acting chops to pull it off. Still, Gerard's the man. 2. I'm a little concerned about some of the other casting choices, but not Nick Frost. The man will make an excellent Gobber. 3. CGI looks reasonable, but for a title of this magnitude, I feel it needs more polish. Also, interesting choice making Toothless' eyes a darker green than in the animation. I'm not personally sure if I like the change or not. I'll probably just go with it. I didn't see any moment at which the pupils moved to their signature squarish look. Toothless has very expressive pupils: round, cat-slits, square, and subtle variations on those. 4. And for my controversial point: Why? Why do we need a live action version, which really is a CGI animation version with live actors shoehorned in, I mean even the backgrounds appear to have at least some CGI,...(breathe)... so, why? The original film was a masterpiece. If we needed another run of it, polish the 3D animation using the latest techniques. Each successive 3D animated film in the series was visually better than the former ones. Bringing them to a new very-fine and final standardization, then re-releasing would have been fine for me.

I'm curious: did either or both of you have a youth steeped in the stories and writings from the Medieval and or Renaissance Ages? As the son of a bookstore manager, my life experiences were different than most, and Dad made certain I was exposed to many different historical works, making me perhaps more comfortable reading something stylized like Tolkien's writings, because I'd read works from the past. I'm probably off on that. I kind of understand because I have a love/hate relationship with Louis L'amour's works. He often writes, deliberately, in the style of a bard of oral history, and I find the pattern sometimes sets my teeth on edge, though the stories are very good. I also have a problem with the style of James Fenimore Cooper, but then, most people do as well, I suspect. Mark Twain wrote a scathing, satirical essay about Fenimore Cooper's works. To quote but a sample: "Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. " That said, I do love the stories. I once considered sitting down and re-writing them for my nieces, to clean up the issues, and give them a chance to enjoy the stories, but alas, that would have been a huge project.

I've never really thought of myself as a "worst side effect". Interesting. I do consider myself a mutant (the whole MC1R mutation), and as soon as we gingers learn to weaponize our ability to resist anesthesia, Pinky, we're going to take over the world! Just kidding, I'm more likely a candidate for the sidekick program at Sky High. I'm all for sending people to Mars, however, I'm not for making the trip permanent. I've seen some concepts for how we can create a stable base, or even a small colony, and I think there's merit to it, but a permanent population should be considered very, very carefully. Like, 150 to 200 years carefully. The more we consider all variables and test them, the more we create and develop, the better a chance any future permanent colony will have. The rise in good A.I. and probably combined with good robotics, should make construction and maintenance easier in the decades to come, not to mention discovery of new building materials. I mean, just consider that we now have graphene and carbon nanotubes, things not known when Armstrong walked on the moon. I'm also of the opinion that we need to be considering some sort of mid-point station, or perhaps stations, that can react in emergencies faster than a trip from Earth could, and could act as a layover point to give weary travelers a bit of a change of pace. What that mid-point station(s) would look like, I'm not certain. The design would have to take the movement of the planets into account, since Mars moves away from the Earth at times, unlike the Moon.

Iron Man 3 is set around Christmas, though its more a background to the film, except for a few big gifts at the end. The scene that introduces Killian to the audience is a flashback to a New Year's party. Whether the movie is "good" or not depends on what you feel about the Mandarin.

While I was indeed poking fun at Namor and the whole concept of "natural" or "mutant" tiny ankle wings being able to not only lift but deliver super speed, I could see Hermes footwear as a magic-based travel form. While on the topic of magic, I wouldn't mind a re-skin of the jump boots to resemble the magical Seven-League Boots.

I don't want to change how I think about Rogue One. It's my favorite of the movies. That said, I'm guessing Diego is referring to how jaded and morally gutted Cassian is at the start of Rogue One. Jyn's influence brings some balance back into his thinking. Perhaps the actor is implying that we'll understand better, maybe even sympathize a little, with his character's moral flatline in Rogue One by the end of Andor season 2. If it enhances the movie, then yes, I'm interested.

Little white wings on the ankles to fly you at supersonic speeds... 😉

Colorization of current jetpacks as well. Gold Brickers' jetpack is fun, but I can't use it on certain dark, angsty characters because it is too cheerfully golden. It needs to come in black. I do agree additional jet boots, or at least optional skins to the current ones, would be appreciated.

Well, on the one hand, they've managed to retrieve 35 of the monkeys by last published count. (Clearly they didn't contact Luminara for help.) On the other hand, now the state is looking for a few escaped emus. 🙄

I'd call it the Superwrap, but that's probably already the name of his custom burrito at Chipotle restaurants.

As silly as that was, I always chalked it up to Kryptonian technology, rather than any power he possessed. With his dad the leading scientist of Krypton, I'd expect the rocket came packed with useful Kryptonian science and technology. Adapting it to be a quick peel-off and toss feature of his chest shield seems reasonable. The real problem was that it was a one-and-done concept. I don't believe it even had a Chekov's smoking gun build-up in the story. A bit more explanation or appearances would have moved it off the shelf of the bizarre.

I've only seen 3 movies in the franchise: Aliens, Alien3, and Aliens vs. Predators. Each one had a very different feel to it, so I'm not sure what a consistent Aliens style is. I'm overdue for the first film, and I guess I'll have to stomach the ones I heard poor reviews about to get a better understanding. Incidentally, Aliens was awesome (I had bruises for days from some random lady friend of a friend seizing my arm repeatedly very, very painfully in the jump scenes. A unique experience.), Aliens v. Predators was great with popcorn, and Alien3 was the single most depressing movie I've ever seen. (With the possible exception of Where The Red Fern Grows, but I was a kid watching it.) I went opening night and the whole theater was silent afterwards, and remained that way as we left. Avengers: Infinity War didn't hold a candle to it.

How is a product of the Aliens franchise also a first-showing Disney product? I thought Fox only sold Disney their vault of films, not the whole movie making biz?

The ship appears to be a TIE Avenger (though there are some minor differences in the core. Possibly a tweak by the model shop). I'm not sure why Cassian would be stealing it, except for the simple reason of escape. I first thought that it might have been a forerunner of the TIE Defender, the ship being designed by Morgana and tested by Thrawn on Lothal (and a major plot point of the whole Rebels series), then I remembered that Andor Season 2 runs concurrent in the Star Wars BBY era with Rebels, so...no. If there's a reason within books and works not put on the screen, I've not delved deep into those, so I would not know. (Side note: it is a generally held view of fans that had the TIE defender program reached a successful conclusion, mass production of it, and utilization of it by Thrawn himself, would have won the war with the Rebellion without the need for the outrageously expensive, all-eggs-in-one-basket Death Star(s). It was that dangerous. So that is why, for a moment, I saw a forerunner theft as exciting...before reality of the timeline kicked in.)

See, there's the problem: tense mistake. CoH was dead. Not CoH is dead.

Striking! Bravo. Brown (okay, orangey-brown) is, in my observation, a rarely used color, yet it works so well that I'm surprised more have not utilized it.

Nope. I live in the state, and it's real. Unfortunately. It's been front page news here. First thing I referenced to a family member when I heard about it was a state legend, possibly true. Back when I was in the Scouts around the late 1970s to early 1980s, we knew every wild and dangerous animal in the state. We went primitive camping often, so it was needed knowledge. Not on that list were coyotes. They didn't exist here. The only wild canines were foxes, and the Carolina Yellow Dog, a.k.a. the American Dingo. (Absolutely lovely dogs, BTW. I intend my next pet to be a domesticated one.) Fast forward to the year 2010, and coyotes are "everywhere". The YMCA was getting reports of coyotes chasing joggers and bikers. Pets and farm animals were being killed, and in places the wildlife balance was being affected. The legend is that the coyotes were part of a experiment brought into the state, and someone didn't keep them penned in properly, the mistake was (somewhat badly) hushed, and there was enough for a breeding population. The state officers who track such things started seeing them show up in the east of the state around 1977. Since east is coastal, and a coyote migration would have come from the west, you can see why the legend of an escape makes a certain sense. So you can imagine my vexation at hearing these monkeys not only escaped, but have not been entirely re-captured. Actually, the team trying to trap them was announcing "significant progress" over the weekend for having captured one of them. One. That said, they did better the second try. There are now 25 of them recaptured as of Sunday evening. I've not seen an update since. You'd think something like this would happen near Liberty Island or the National Mall in Washington, DC, or something, but noooo. It had to be here. 🙉

Sounds like they got the voice for the part, too. IYNYN. Yeah, I'm not happy its ending either. While, yes, it'll be 24 episodes when done, that's not even a full season in American television (in the 1980s). Honestly, What If...? has such vast possibilities, I'd have thought they'd at least have gone for 5 seasons, if not 7. Even then, it would not be close to the 79 episodes of original Star Trek, a.k.a. just 3 years. It allows the actors to play the roles long after they physically cannot, and can be produced cheaper than, say, a season of She-Hulk. (Okay, low blow, but still...) I'm left wonder why the plug is being pulled.

Only if the set also comes with super ventriloquism.

Terrain modification looks similar in concept to that of No Man's Sky. I'm wondering if they have voxel destruction/modification in combat as well.