Techwright

Season 2, Episodes 12 The Outpost & 13 Pabu With these two episodes, the main storyline both advances and changes, probably forever.

I don't know...I can think of at least one burger joint that would find your billboard offensive. 😉

I guess we Americans can be glad that our forefathers didn't pick Ben Franklin's turkey as our national mascot!

Thanks for the link. That is a curious apocalyptic choice even if it does suggest a form of annihilation. I'd have expected the Four Horsemen, but then the article does suggest a possible direction being hinted at. I've never seen Reservation Dogs. I'll add it to the list.

Interesting that you bring that up. I grew up with the 1960s Batman in early reruns. It became the definition of Batman on TV or movie until 1989. The "Bright Knight" interpretation was in Superfriends and multiple Batman animated projects into the mid-1980s. During this time, pretty much any comic with Batman that I saw was also the Bright Knight (probably peddling Hostess Twinkies). It was, I thought, the actual Batman. A couple of years before the live action 1989 movie, we were staying at a friend's house while on vacation. On their coffee table was a copy of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight. I picked it up, and couldn't put it down. This was a "bizarre" interpretation of Batman to my thinking (or rather my conditioning), a violent, dark take on a character I thought I knew. Even the artwork felt raw and violent. I don't know why, but I immediately loved it. If anything it seemed to explain the story I heard that the original Batman comics had him carrying a gun (I was unaware at the time that even the violent Batman didn't carry one.) When Michael Keaton's take on the character came out, I found it a fusion of elements of both the Bright Knight and the Dark Knight, though leaning to the latter. I still have a soft spot for the Adam West interpretation, I always will, but I don't see that as anything more than a humorous characterization now.

Personally not a fan of Waititi other than IG-11. Sorry. As to Rian, my first reaction was worse than a cat coughing a hairball. My second reaction was to have a little bit of fairness and ask whether the problem was mostly Rian or JJ Abrams. My third reaction was to recall that Abrams realized he'd have to take the reigns back to have any chance of ending the trilogy with even a modicum of respectability My fourth reaction was a return to my first reaction. I've missed that somehow. What'd they do, quote the opening of Ecclesiastes or something? (Turn, turn, turn...) These responses in orange:

Season 3, Episode 2 - Chapter 18 This episode completely subverted expectations in story direction, advanced three characters, and brought in a legend, fulfilling a series of hints all the way back to the first chapter and I'm excited by all of it.

Captain America as Defender of the Crown? Curious name choice. It's an interesting perspective. Storywise, WWI (and thereby the Bolshevik Revolution) is the transition point from late Steampunk to very early Dieselpunk and that transition gives a lot of leeway show hybrid aesthetics. Electro makes a good choice here, first because of that hybrid -punk look and second because this is the era of Tesla.

Tried it and got Grogu. Cute fun. Not sure how to get Din, though. As to the hidden discussion:

Good start to season.

Season 2, Episode 11: "Metamorphosis" Finally got back to main storyline stuff and man was this good. Dark, creepy, and black ops Empire evil with a new villain. To top it all, it answers a mystery left hanging for years from The Clone Wars.

I'm re-watching season 2 in preparation for tomorrow's season 3 premier, and it occurs to me there's a very big unanswered question from the end of Season 2:

Amalgam Comics these are not. There's some bizzare choices there. The Batman/Ironman one makes sense, but many of the others fused hero (or anti-hero) with villain. And many I don't even see the characters as being in the same room, let alone in a fusion. I will say the Flash/Hulk fusion would be well nigh unstoppable, lacking only flight and space flight.

Smallest change? This powerset: Think about it.

I first encountered the arcade version back when I was a college arcade rat, and was previously unaware there was any unusual backstory. I'm curious about the movie, but worried too. Hollywood doesn't have the greatest track record for accuracy in historic films, and these edgy, spy-like scenes in Tetris appear to be continuing that trend. Glory, one of my favorite Civil War movies, made up whole characters and scenarios, and I'd really have rather been introduced to historically accurate representations of very courageous men. It's my one grudge of the amazing book The Killer Angels and its companion movie Gettysburg. Rather than use the real sergeant of the Maine unit, whom I understand was a well-documented person, the author opted to remove him entirely and put a fictional "everyman" character in his place, compiled from the experiences of several soldiers. The worst such violation I've heard was the movie Zulu, another favorite of mine. One of the bravest men of Rorke's Drift had his sterling reputation torn to shreds by that movie which took his name but not his character, casting their version as antagonistic and cowardly. His poor family went to see the film but stormed out in protest when they saw how his reputation was forever violated. If Hollywood wants to make substantial changes to a historical person or events, take a page from John Ford's The Horse Riders, bill it as a fiction only influenced by real events, and change the names of the characters to protect the real people and their families. Then they can do with the fictional characters as they will. Here's hoping Tetris will either toe the line with accuracy or change the names to protect the innocents from defilements of fiction.

I am SO GLAD I opted not to watch The Eternals. Your stated opinion matches a host of others I've read. Phase 4 already has felt largely flat to me, though with a few great moments, notably the Spiderman movie, but others as well. I didn't need it to go into a deficit. Marvel largely did fantastic with the first 3 Phases, so I'm a bit puzzled why they've felt so off in Phase 4. I do wish someone would compile any bits from The Eternals that will have an impact in the overall MCU storyline and post a YouTube vid of them. Solely because I don't want to be blindsided if something related comes up later. I wonder how long it will be before The Film Theorists take Quantumania to the woodshed like they did the DCEU? My personal favorite was the tank keychain.

I'm not thrilled the TV show is ending, The Flash has always been one of my favorite comic characters, but considering how problematic the writing has been off and on for years, and that at 9 seasons in, actors are usually wanting to move on lest they be permanently typecast and out of work, I'd say it is time. It's too bad the Arrow-verse seems to have grown more juvenile over time (though it still had its moments). Another series or two with a harder edge to them, akin to the first seasons of The Flash and Arrow, might have been appreciated. I for one, forever hope someone would develop a gritty noir around The Question.

I thought they were trying to portray Atomic Skull at first, and finally realized it was meant to be Derek Powers. If they were going to do a Batman Beyond, Keaton is at the right age to play Bruce. Tom doesn't really strike me as Terry though. Terry's much edgier.

I'm most interested in this:

Season 2 Episode 9: "The Crossing" Mixed-bag episode. This started out poorly, but improved towards the end and appears to have some input into the major story arc.

To each his or her own, I guess.

I put my other gaming on pause to try out a host of demos during Steam's big demo event this month. Of the many I've tried so far, I keep coming back to Dreadful River. Just in the few days that I've played it the game's team have made a host of improvements, including increasing the number of opponents on the river. In talking with the devs, their goal is to unlock landing for fighting and exploration in the next few days. They seem to be very responsive to feedback right now, and one of the four suggests I made was responded to and in the patch the next day. I've never seen that kind of speed before. I've read some gamer comments referring to this as a "tower defense on a river" game. There is that, but when fully functioning, it will also act similar to classic hero questing games. Here's a link to one person's sampling of the demo. Keep in mind their version of the demo is 11 days old now (as of this writing) and many improvements have been rolled out in just that short time. I've found the tactic here is to not just float into a fight, but to keep the raft constantly rotating/revolving to spread out damage, and add it speeding up, slowing down, strategically dropping anchor or running aground, even tacking back upriver. At the first town you stop at for supplies, they will give you a sail to improve speed and maneuverability. They hope to roll the full game out before March 1.

Season 2, episode 8 - "Truth & Consequences" (mid-season episode) Wow. Major main storyline episode taking the Bad Batch storyline into several unexpected directions, and changing the Batch probably forever. Spoiler talk: