Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

K · Post by K » Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:07 pm

I'd just like to jump in an defend Daybreakers.

Ok, it's not the movie it was hyped to be. On the Regular Movie Scale, its a solid C which when converted to the Vampire Movie Scale (tm) comes out as a solid B. That being said, a B is pretty good.

The main problem in the film is that it depicts vampires as an allegory for "the establishment", but at no point do we really hate them. I mean, corporate evil is a pretty easy paintbrush to use when you want to color something and they just used a few broad strokes. Vampires end up seeming like normal folks with a pesky dietary issue so at no point do I really care if the dirty humans win the war, or even why vampires wouldn't be the whole resistance since being a vampire is just a pesky dietary issue and "vampires with conscience" are not even irregularities. Heck, considering the vamps have a synthetic blood at the end of the film I expected the whole war thing to be considered a moot point since any smart corporation is not going to spend cash hunting humans when there is no essential need for that.

To fix it, I'd add in a few more kick the dog moments and rewrite the big reveal at the end with the vampire-turned-human blood being poisonous and the synthetic blood and it could be an awesome film. As it was, it was a merely interesting film.

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 1:45 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Madara is an awful villain for two reasons, one that's not the fault of his characterization, one that is.

The first problem is that his gimmick is overexposed to the point of causing the manga to derail. The Uchiha clan has already had a stranglehold on the plot; making Madara the villain completely negates any chance of the manga expanding its own Myopic vision.

I gotta say.

I find it hilarious that a series of characters who have super-sight-expanding-see-through-powers... ... ... are what is causing a manga to be so tunnel-visioned and near-sighted.

Perhaps Kishimoto has overused the sharingan, causing his own blindness?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 1:54 am

I think the biggest let down in naruto is that they spent pages and pages of time introducing a host of characters (all the other teens) and then throws them away for a plot that is utter crap. Sasuke and Naruto are essentially reincarnations of 2 ancient ninjas and they are going to repeat the fight that was destined to happen. Introducing Madara, expanding upon Danzo's movements, having Sai or the tree seal fucker is ALL POINTLESS. *hate*

Nicklance · Post by **Nicklance** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:10 am

K wrote:I'd just like to jump in an defend Daybreakers.

Ok, it's not the movie it was hyped to be. On the Regular Movie Scale, its a solid C which when converted to the Vampire Movie Scale (tm) comes out as a solid B. That being said, a B is pretty good.

The main problem in the film is that it depicts vampires as an allegory for "the establishment", but at no point do we really hate them. I mean, corporate evil is a pretty easy paintbrush to use when you want to color something and they just used a few broad strokes. Vampires end up seeming like normal folks with a pesky dietary issue so at no point do I really care if the dirty humans win the war, or even why vampires wouldn't be the whole resistance since being a vampire is just a pesky dietary issue and "vampires with conscience" are not even irregularities. Heck, considering the vamps have a synthetic blood at the end of the film I expected the whole war thing to be considered a moot point since any smart corporation is not going to spend cash hunting humans when there is no essential need for that.

To fix it, I'd add in a few more kick the dog moments and rewrite the big reveal at the end with the vampire-turned-human blood being poisonous and the synthetic blood and it could be an awesome film. As it was, it was a merely interesting film.

Bigger question is. How did they even fail in farming humans for their blood?

And with a glaring weakness against sunlight, how is it that humanity did not even manage to win this pre-Daybreaker time-period war?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 9:46 am

Blade broke for me in the first movie when I was supposed to swallow that a scientist who manages to cure an unknown virus in 24 hours is working for the police, and not working on curing cancer or impotency for a big corp, makiing tons of bucks.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 6:36 pm

So I was thinking to try to figure out the precise moment that Marvel's Ultimates stopped having any redeeming features. It probably wasn't Dr. Doom turning into a metal man for no reason or giving magnet powers to Doc Oc. I decided that the very moment that the Ultimates jumped the shark was here:
Ultimate Spiderman #67.

Which is fucking retarded, but just to give the show away to the people in cheap seats, is actually named "Jump the Shark!"

Compare an contrast to a series like Harley and Ivy that I only stopped reading because it was a limited release and they didn't make any more.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 6:52 pm

Was that the issue where in the volume they had to show an apology page of Brian Bendis choking out an intern?

I thought it was cowardly, but amusing enough to give the comic a second chance. I stopped at around, oh, the Silver Sable shenanigans but I'd give it a second read if Ultimates hadn't gone to complete fucking shit.

I was kind of

towards the re-imaging of Captain America--who has always been one of the most sensitive and enlightened superheroes ever--towards a testosterone-poisoned Aryan fuckwit and the cheap-ass joke of Harry Pym: Wifebeatah but I kind of gave up shortly after the first volume. There's Darker and Edgier and there's Not Having A Damn Clue.

I will admit that Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury was really fucking cool, though.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:01 pm

Horrible things start happening...

Ultimate Spiderman #67 Synopsis wrote:At that point the X-Men arrive, and Jean tells Wolverine that this is his punishment for hitting on her the previous night.

...and then everything's fixed.

Is that synopsis accurate? Is that really a whole issue about Jean Grey just being a bitch?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:06 pm

Gelare wrote:Horrible things start happening...
Ultimate Spiderman #67 Synopsis wrote:At that point the X-Men arrive, and Jean tells Wolverine that this is his punishment for hitting on her the previous night.
...and then everything's fixed.

Is that synopsis accurate? Is that really a whole issue about Jean Grey just being a bitch?

It's a two parter about Jean Grey being a bitch.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:10 pm

Y'know, just in case you didn't already know that... I mean look at the tool she dates...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:52 pm

Jeezus.

Is that the best cross-over they can make with the X-Men?

"Let's send Wolverine there!"

A buddy brought up the flurry of Wolverine hype and I thought about and noticed he's right...

He's the hero of X-Men 3 (I hated that movie).

He's got his own movie (which I haven't seen).

He was apparently in Web of Shadows. I know he was in Ultimate Spider-Man the game (albeit as a boss for Venom).

Probably other shit which has slipped by me.

Why can't they remember they've got about three hundred other characters in the X-Men series alone? They could flesh out other characters who could benefit from the attention (the Sugar Man) or show some other cool characters (like Nightcrawler).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:33 pm

Fuchs wrote:Blade broke for me in the first movie when I was supposed to swallow that a scientist who manages to cure an unknown virus in 24 hours is working for the police, and not working on curing cancer or impotency for a big corp, makiing tons of bucks.

The scientist didn't manage to cure Blade, all she managed to due was craft a chemical that violently reacted with vampire blood.

That would be something I would leave off of my applications.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:39 pm

Yeah but then she takes it herself when there's just a little vampire blood in her, it reacts violently and then she doesn't transform. And she offered it to Blade under the theory that since he seemed to be half human, there was a very real chance that he wouldn't die. He declined though, so we never see if that would have worked.

Some sci-fi chemistry silliness of course, but it seemed downright reasonable for an action movie.

-Username17

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:10 am

Look up the Wolverine comics which originally were published under Marve Comics Presents in the 80's and then another series in the 90's.

In those he's pretty awesome, actually, Maxx style awesome.

-Crissa

K · Post by K » Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:10 pm

Nicklance wrote:
Bigger question is. How did they even fail in farming humans for their blood?

And with a glaring weakness against sunlight, how is it that humanity did not even manage to win this pre-Daybreaker time-period war?

Well, they failed because corporate evil is always short-term and shortsighted and they needed to create dramatic tension.... that's not even an issue I need to complain about. Corporate evil is a big paintbrush, and they used it.

As for winning the war, the movie explains that pretty easily. They literally just walked up to people and said "wanna be immortal?". Considering how various religions have been wildly successful on just the promise of immortality, I can see literal and provable immortality to be a weapon that wins wars almost overnight.

I mean, I'd take it. Vampires in Daybreakers are not even bad people by default, so gaining a kinda gross dietary requirement for immortality is not even a choice a rational person needs to think about.

------------------------

Ps. If the shower scene in Blade 3 has been up to four times longer, I would not have even pretended to complain.

And the basic idea of Blade II could have been salvaged. The problem is the same one in Daybreakers in that you can't change the script where vampires are suddenly just people with a weird diet and expect the morality of killing them to still hold water.

You could have done a whole Scorpion and the Frog thing where the sexy vampire that Blade is forced to work with reverts to her true colors and he kills her with extreme prejudice, possibly during or after a sex scene. That and making the uber-vamps kill-able by a less stupid weapon would have made the thing far less retarded.

The Blade franchise in general could have done better with sexing up the whole thing.... why they miss something so obvious when it is useful for selling tickets AND thematically appropriate is beyond me.

My biggest complaint about Blade II and III is just general badass decay. Frost in the first movie is a real villain in that he really is smart as hell and doesn't make any cartoony villain mistakes..... and while totally evil, you really root for him when he kills the vampire elders because he's got an actual beef with them and those guys are bastards too. I consider him the star of Blade in that he has more flesh to him as a character than even Blade. The next two movies literally have a homeless guy and a clueless immigrant as villains, and they just don't cut it.

And for god's sake, bringing Whistler back invalidates the whole first movie. If you wanted to throw that actor some work, you could have done a goddamn flashback sequence.

And I was serious about that shower scene.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:25 pm

This thread is making me want to watch Blade III just for the shower scene.

But then I remember that the internet has free porn.

Why exactly is Spiderman writing so shit? I mean, is it just that the writers think people will allow more leeway in stupid shit for Spiderman because it has a history of being retarded, or is it something inherent in Spiderman? Whether its having various mystical origins or having spiders have a hive mind or fucking Mephisto, Spiderman's writers should have been fired several times over.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:40 pm

Just watched it. A serious let-down.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LQWZWOLM

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:38 pm

Jessica Beal is wicked hot, but she has done sexier performances in other movies. If that isn't enough to make you watch the movie where Adam Sandler pretends to be gay, it's not enough to make you watch Blade III. The mindless violence is reasonably high quality though.

Anyway, Spiderman is one of the two flagships of Marvel (the other being Wolverine), so he gets subjected to every possible marketing gimmick you can imagine - and then some. See, whenever Spiderman sells more comics, all of Marvel sells more comics. And when Spiderman tanks, all of Marvel tanks. He's like Superman or Batman is for DC. So if they feel that Spiderman isn't selling well enough, they'll do something drastic to try to change that. Also, j michael straczynski is a fucking hack and the single most overrated writer in fandom. Bar none.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:59 pm

Yeah, Spider-Man has gotten pretty stupid. I mean, Wolverine gets stupid, too, but his biggest fans actually like his ridiculously convoluted past and his showing up in every damn time so that works for him. Nobody likes Spider-Man's old girlfriend having babies with the Green Goblin or making a deal with Mephisto or anything like that.

According to Straczynski he was forced at gunpoint to write One More Day. I don't necessarily doubt him, since that thing reeks of fanboyness and I wouldn't put that fail on anyone unless we're completely sure they deserve it, but like Frank said he's generally overrated.

Also, Frank, do you mean fandom or do you mean American comic fandom? I can think of a few writers who deserve more hate. I'm looking at your asses, Masashi Kishimoto and Mike Mearls.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:04 pm

a truck has just fallen on top of Peter Parker (who is inside Wolverine's body).

Eventually [Spiderman in Wolverine's body] just runs away, but the police take him down with a taser.

before he can explain more, Wolverine's claws pop out unexpectedly, and the phone is cut in half.

He knocks out the guards then tells Peter to pick the lock with his claws.

The two argue for a bit before they remember about Shocker

Jean tells Wolverine that this is his punishment for hitting on her the previous night. Jean then swaps their minds back to their rightful body, and Peter swings off, angry that he was just used.

Good Lord. This is worse than the Obama Edition of Spider-Man.

this was good (except when it showed wolverine in the bed), the great thing was when they switched bodies spider-man truly understood wolverine at the end instead of him being (in spidey's mind) Some crazy guy, I also liked how they had to stay in communication all the time to learn how to use their powers and fight together "HOW DO YOU POP THE FRICKIN' CLAWS!?!"

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 10:31 pm

"Jump the Shark" probably could have been an interesting story, if they set it up differently. I mean, Jean Grey switching Wolverine's mind with some random innocent person just because he hit on her the night before? They fucking turned her into a high school cheerleader bitch by doing that, Jean, as I know the character from years ago isn't the type of person to do that (Phoenix maybe...).

They still could have had someone switch the minds, say maybe Scarlet Witch, and then had Wolverine and Spiderman work together to find out how to get un-switched.

Isn't Ultimate Parker a high school kid? Wolverine would get along with him just fine if that's the case... they'd only get along better if Parker was some teenage girl from a broken home... (which says some things about Wolverine when you put it that way...)

Also... who's fucking bright idea was it to call the story "Jump the Shark"?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:28 pm

While we're on the topic of Daybreakers...

The movie was, as K mentioned, a solid C. That makes it better than the majority of movies, however, and it makes it better than the vast majority of vampire flicks. Problems with the movie were as follows:

1. Misuse of Willem Dafoe, part uno. You cannot have a vampire movie with Willem Dafoe and have him not be a vampire. Willem Dafoe has one of those faces that works perfectly for villains. Not using him as a villain should be criminal. (That's not to say that Sam Neill was a bad vampire by any stretch--he made an excellent villain.)

2. Misuse of Willem Dafoe, part dos. Whoever wrote his lines did a terrible job. You can't set yourself up for a one-liner. ("Living in a world full of vampires is about as safe as bare-backing a five dollar whore.") His entire character was annoying.

3. A bad moral. Vampirism had no real downsides in the movie. Sure, you drank blood, but being immortal is pretty awesome. The blood substitute virtually eliminated any moral questions about vampirism. On top of that, the blood companies could have sold the blood substitute and paid humans to donate their blood. It's a win-win situation--humans get rich and vampires get all the perks of vampirism.

4. Out-of-nowhere blood craze. We go from blood rationing to crazy vampire bloodlust swarms.

5. Human cattle dilemma causing the blood shortage in the first place. How could anyone mismanage anything that badly? The vampires have all the knowledge and technology that we have (and then some), and yet they managed to milk the human population dry. This makes no sense whatsoever. Vampires clearly need humans to thrive to supply them with blood. And yet nobody realized this until it was too late? Good grief.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:37 pm

re: 5. we know that about fish, but it hasn't really stopped anyone.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 12:16 am

cthulhu wrote:re: 5. we know that about fish, but it hasn't really stopped anyone.

And fish can't choose to be humans, either.

-Crissa

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 3:07 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Also, j michael straczynski is a fucking hack and the single most overrated writer in fandom. Bar none.

Except for Babylon 5, which I loved, I haven't seen or read anything by Straczynski.