Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 3:46 pm

Nor would I, rather placing it as a typical neutral act. However, I could allow it into the list as the first step. Just to throw a bone to the opposing viewpoint.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:18 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:I wouldn't call killing Kubota to be evil either.

no, not really, it's not exactly good, but, evil isn't the absence of good. At best you could accuse him of doing evil by invoking "the ends justify the means"

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue May 05, 2009 12:28 am

If the ends don't justify the means, why do it?

Seriously, I can't imagine doing anything if the goals didn't justify it.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue May 05, 2009 6:02 am

One of my recent rules is: If in any "Mythical/Magical Action" type Manga a tournament plot shows up I drop the series.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue May 05, 2009 6:23 am

I have a question for you Heroes fans:

How does the show keep up any dramatic tension? I mean, the people there just have completely ridiculous superpowers; how come the show hasn't broken in half yet?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue May 05, 2009 6:56 am

People think it's still in one piece? I watched the third season out of semi-bored hope that it would improve. During the last half, it looked like it was crawling out of the cesspit and returning to the quality that hooked me to begin with, only to take a flying leap back with the season finale.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue May 05, 2009 7:36 am

Fuchs wrote:One of my recent rules is: If in any "Mythical/Magical Action" type Manga a tournament plot shows up I drop the series.

But then you don't get to watch Law of Ueki (or read the manga I suppose, but the anime was better).

Heck, there are episodes of Jungle-wa-Itsumo-Hale-Nochi-Guu (theres a mouthful, one word, honest) that would break that rule and drop the series.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:52 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Fuchs wrote:One of my recent rules is: If in any "Mythical/Magical Action" type Manga a tournament plot shows up I drop the series.
But then you don't get to watch Law of Ueki (or read the manga I suppose, but the anime was better).

Heck, there are episodes of Jungle-wa-Itsumo-Hale-Nochi-Guu (theres a mouthful, one word, honest) that would break that rule and drop the series.

I do not watch or read either series anyway.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue May 05, 2009 9:55 am

Fuchs wrote:I do not watch or read either series anyway.

Law of Ueki, well, you might be missing something, but sure...

But Guu!

You are missing some crazy shit right there.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Tue May 05, 2009 11:02 am

Hmm. I think How I Met Your Mother may have left me at the end of the most recent episode.

Based on every thing seen so far, Stella (Sarah Chalke) being the mother is completely implausible. The kids would know if they had a half-sister 8 or so years older than them. If the next episode isn't Stella introducing Ted to the mother, I'm going to be rather pissed.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Tue May 05, 2009 8:49 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I have a question for you Heroes fans:

How does the show keep up any dramatic tension? I mean, the people there just have completely ridiculous superpowers; how come the show hasn't broken in half yet?

Oh man, I just watched the season finale the other night, man that show is bad. I keep watching it, hoping with all my heart that they'll kill off one of the characters I don't like, but it never works.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue May 05, 2009 9:14 pm

Guys, I'm not asking any questions about its quality.

I'm asking questions about just the basic issue of keeping up dramatic tension. How do you prevent someone who has the power to absorb other peoples' superpowers from wrecking the story?

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Tue May 05, 2009 9:27 pm

You don't. The Heroes story is well and truly wrecked. They did take out one of the absorb all-powers guys, but left the homicidal one and tried to handicap him with plot. It's failed several times now, and I expect it to fail again. I'm only really watching because 1) it's on my DVR and is decent enough background noise while I'm doing something interesting, and 2) I want to see if Sylar gets to take over the world before their declining ratings push them off the air.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue May 05, 2009 9:51 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Guys, I'm not asking any questions about its quality.

I'm asking questions about just the basic issue of keeping up dramatic tension. How do you prevent someone who has the power to absorb other peoples' superpowers from wrecking the story?

Well, I mean, you have enough super powers that you can always theoretically beat anybody. Even if you have all Sylar's shit, he can still get teleported into the sun or space, get sucked into one of those vortexes of doom, or just get mindfucked completely.

Also presumably if you dropped him in a pit of acid or lava or something that totally destroyed his body, that would kill him.

Heroes pretty much goes by comic book logic anyway, where random plot device and character mood swings rule the day. And no matter how powerful someone gets, there's always a way to beat them. The main problem with heroes isn't so much that people are too powerful and nobody can die. It's that you just never know what's going to happen next. There's literally no logic or consistency at all. Whether it's character behavior or whatever. It's just all out of the writer's ass.

Of course, what really annoys me is when characters do fucking stupid stuff. Like Nathan goes to confront Sylar alone. Just fucking stupid.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue May 05, 2009 10:09 pm

If the only way you can hurt or kill a character is by teleport ambush, completely contriving a situation (seriously, dropped into a pit of lava?), or using an even more completely broken power then your show fucking sucks.

I mean, that kind of thing is fine for a game about Shadowrun where the story is basically about not being detected and all firepower really does is buy you a longer countdown timer before you're finished. But it does not work for the superhero genre. If you have a show about people with a variety of superpowers and you can't show a fair fight without the show imploding then... then I don't know what to say. I can't think of any other popular media work that was this inept.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:16 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If the only way you can hurt or kill a character is by teleport ambush, completely contriving a situation (seriously, dropped into a pit of lava?), or using an even more completely broken power then your show fucking sucks.

Terminator 2 was pretty awesome.

But seriously the show has gone downhill, but not really because of the actual superpowers, more the characters motivations and the plots. So it sucks, but not because Sylar can't be killed. I'd more say because his personality is like completely unbelievable. He's the epitome of character ADD where he seems super devoted to doing one thing and then suddenly randomly decides to do something else next episode with absolutely no build up.

Every character has that problem to some degree, but Sylar is the worst.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:30 am

Terminator 2 was pretty awesome.

Terminator wasn't a superhero work, though. It was a kickass monster movie that later did a successful genre change to killer robot cat-and-mouse. \

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:40 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Terminator wasn't a superhero work, though. It was a kickass monster movie that later did a successful genre change to killer robot cat-and-mouse.

It might as well have been. It dealt with two super powered robots fighting each other.

I don't even know the big deal honestly. I mean invulnerability is a common superhero power. Superman, Wolverine, Silver Surfer, Rogue (she can steal powers too), Dorian Grey, The Hulk, Thor... pretty much any high powered comic book hero or villain is near invulnerable. And many of them are way tougher to stop than Sylar anyway.

I just don't get your complaint.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed May 06, 2009 1:45 am

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed May 06, 2009 3:56 am

Yeah if you want to criticize the writing of heroes and the plot arcs and characters, that's one thing.

But Lago was criticizing it because near-invulnerable characters somehow break the show.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Wed May 06, 2009 6:20 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:If the only way you can hurt or kill a character is by teleport ambush, completely contriving a situation (seriously, dropped into a pit of lava?), or using an even more completely broken power then your show fucking sucks.

Actually, that can work. But only if the character in question is the hero.

The most common mistake that writers make is thinking that the villain needs to be more powerful than the hero. That's incredibly stupid. Any hero worth the title is restricted by a code of ethics that limits his powers much more than an actual physical power deficit could cause.

I've never seen a single episode of Heroes, but from what I've heard, Sylar can steal people's powers by killing them. That's a great power for a heroic character, because he can't use it. It's a terrible power for a villain, because of the slippery slope towards omnipotence.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed May 06, 2009 7:49 pm

Neeeek wrote: The most common mistake that writers make is thinking that the villain needs to be more powerful than the hero. That's incredibly stupid. Any hero worth the title is restricted by a code of ethics that limits his powers much more than an actual physical power deficit could cause.

It depends on numbers. If it's one hero against one villain (Spiderman versus Green Goblin) then they should be evenly matched.

If there are multiple heroes agaisnt one villain (Dr. Doom versus the Fantastic Four), then the villain has to be more powerful.

As far as comic books, go it's pretty normal to have a near omnipotent villain. Look at pretty much anyone Silver Surfer goes against.

An all powerful hero is really worse, because it takes away any dramatic tension. While such scenarios are okay when the emphasis is on moral qunadries (such as in Star Trek sometimes), for a comic book showdown, it pretty much sucks.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed May 06, 2009 8:12 pm

It can be cool on either side of the moral fence if the character is just that awesome with his power, which is actually fairly difficult to pull off. Hellsing is one of those examples.

And even for the invulnerable characters of Heroes, they can still be thwarted at their goals.

Sylar's current 'immortality' isn't actually unstoppable against someone who actually tries. He still gets surprised. No, a single knife to the brain stem won't keep him down any more; but he very obviously passes out for a few seconds, in which case you can easily just use a shotgun and scatter him about with a few shots, then wait to see if anything reconstitutes. Granted, this won't happen in the show; they'll knock him down once then stand like inbred slack-jaws while he regenerates, stands up, probably fixes his collar...

And as for pulling contrived situations to kill an invulnerable, why the hell not? That actually seems par for the course in the supers genre, having complex plans to put the opponent in a losing situation is hardly unknown, and having it actually apply towards killing an invulnerable character seems fine to me. There have been pretty decent plots by Luthor in this regard, and there's as many good attempts as bad.

But yeah, it's the show's lack of consistency that ruins it, not power level.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:13 am

Why do people like Lion King and Nightmare Before Christmas?

Those two movies suck.

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Wed May 20, 2009 8:19 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

I miss Heroes season 1