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Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s funny that people like Wilders who are yelling about “saving our culture” don’t have the slightest clue what our culture really is or how it could be saved. He is a vulgarian, a small minded person for whom culture is summed up in nice pictures of tulips and windmills.

Reminds me of this great moment when one the AfD party leaders was interviewed for a kid’s news format and he was going on about how important it was to get more German culture back into schools, folksongs and poetry and so on, and the kid asked him what his favourite poem was.

Didn’t know a single one.

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Dave, Arjan Dirkse, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Speaking of emulating the far rights’ racist rhetoric, our chancellor has done a real sprint down that route:

Merz’s ‘discriminatory’ cityscape migration remark draws ire
Richard Connor with dpa, epd
10/16/2025October 16, 2025
Greens and Left Party lawmakers have urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to apologize after he linked migration to a “problem in the cityscape.” A government spokesman says critics are “reading too much into” the comment.

Germany’s opposition Green and Left parties on Thursday urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to apologize for a controversial remark about migration and Germany’s cities.

The opposition parties accused him of fueling division with remarks they say were racially insensitive and “unworthy of a chancellor.”

What exactly did Merz say about migration and cities?
Merz made the remark during his official visit to Brandenburg, after being asked in the state capital Potsdam about the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
During an appearance in Potsdam earlier this week, the conservative politician had said his government was correcting past migration policy mistakes and reducing numbers by 60% year-on-year.
He added: “But we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations.
“What exactly did you mean by that — how are you supposed to see this “problem” other than by the color of people’s skin? How do you want to recognize this ‘problem’? This statement is absolutely hurtful, discriminatory, and indecent. I would have expected you, Mr. Merz, to stand here today and have the courage to apologize for this sentence — that you have offended so many people in this country. That divides our society and, in the end, harms Germany. Take this sentence back — apologize.”
“

https://www.dw.com/en/merzs-discriminatory-cityscape-migration-remark-draws-ire/a-74390107

He has since doubled down when asking what he meant by his comment, responding to the reporter “Do you have daughters? Ask them, they’ll tell you.”. Nicely mining the old fear of the sexually aggressive darkie.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Just read the second The Corinthian trade, The Glasshouse. It’s a shame that this will never be continued because it was fucking awesome and it left the door for another sequel wide open (to say the least – the story isn’t really concluded as it is…). And Tynion really had a grip on those characters like nobody else – I liked Simon Spurrier’s run on the Dreaming quite a lot, but this was something else entirely. It really did feel like diving back into the world of the Sandman, in a way that felt as exciting as it was back then.

So yeah, thanks again to Neil Gaiman for destroying the Sandman Universe line by being a serial sexual abuser. Good fucking work, mate.

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Uncle Retrospective, Ben, Todd

Todd wrote:

“We already see a lot of actors — based on this monetization of platforms like X — that are using AI to produce content that just seeks to maximize attention,” Törnberg told Ars. “So misinformation, often highly polarized information — as AI models become more powerful, that content is going to take over.”

“I have a hard time seeing the conventional social media models surviving that,” he added.

That’s actually maybe a hopeful note, isn’t it? If social media is flooded entirely with made-up AI shit, sooner or later people will just turn it off, won’t they?

Won’t they?

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think there is something in social media that stimulates just general nastiness. A relaxation of certain norms of behavior and etiquette, letting loose the unpleasant side a lot of people have. Being extreme is incentivized. Linehan probably always had that nasty streak in him, but social media can exacerbate it.

This is deliberate, mind you. The algorithm favours engagement, and it turns out that what causes us most to engage, to spend time with out screen, is not when we see something we love but when we see something that makes us angry. And that, the time we spend on a video clip or a post, is what brings in the money. So social media has turned into hate machines, and we’re all seeing the fallout of that right now. And yet, nobody seems to be willing to legislate against this.

PLus, there seems to be a deliberate slant going on, especially on tiktok. There’s been some recent experiments in which researchers started clean tiktok accounts and basically gave no input whatsoever, and it didn’t take long until the majority of the content that was fed into those account was radical right stuff. It’s almost as if China had an interest in destroying Western democracy…

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Dave, lorcan_nagle

Gen V had a pretty strong season. It’s overall done quite well in keeping that world alive in between seasons of The Boys… it’s come to a kind of natural conclusion now, but still might be renewed, apparently.

More Black Mirror episodes:

“Hotel Reverie” was alright, but to my mind suffered from a weak lead. Probably the direction’s fault, too, that Issa Rae never felt like she could comfortably play her role in the classic movie, which would’ve been needed for the whole thing to really work. Other than that, it was an okay falling-in-love-with-a-construct story, with some nice meta movie-in-a-movie stuff thrown in.

“Plaything”, on the other hand, was very well-executed and a lot of fun. Great to see Peter Capaldi.

“Eulogy” was very good, following Paul Giamatti in re-examining an old relationship. Very convincingly done, and very touching.

And next up: “USS Callister: Into Infinity”. Weird to have an actual sequel episode. But we’ll see.

Overall, it was a good season of BM, but it was kind of lacking punch – a lot of it was wistful, or focusing on a character’s journey. Common People was probably the only one that had a truly dystopian approach, but with an idea that’s kind of out of the blue. It’s a bit of a shame they didn’t deal with issues like Filter Bubbles or LLMs or other current developments (yes, both have kind of popped up in previous seasons, but not in the way they’re currently relevant).

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Todd, Dave

garjones wrote:

Ok slightly differently, they had no government but in their system that just means civil servants carry on with whatever rules and budgets were last decided. I think the US in unique in shutting up shop.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of another country where that happens. Probably because it’s fucking insane.

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Ben, lorcan_nagle, garjones

And I suspect the decline of online journalism is in part due to “journalists” basing an article on what a couple of dudes on reddit are saying.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

The problem really is that even if there’s an election in 2028 and the Dems get back in, unless they actually work to fix the root causes of the dysfunction in the US, it’s only a matter of time until someone even more venal and capricious than Trump gets in and fucks stuff up all over again.

Absolutely. If the Dems don’t get it the fuck together finally, it’ll be over for American democracy pretty soon.

And we should add that fixing some of the systemic US-specific problems is going to be incredibly difficult. Fixing the election system for example – they’re never going to get a majority for a constitutional change for that. And the Supreme Court, that’s going to be very hard to change back to a less radical incarnation. And restricting Presidential power, that’d need an amendment to the constitution, too.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Yeah, nobody should shary any information with the US for the next three years, that much is for sure.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Well, I did like how he got his face smashed in in Fight Club.

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lorcan_nagle wrote:

Christian wrote:

Well, they shouldn’t have hired Armando Iannucci to write the second term, should they.

Ironically, Armando Iannucci has talked about trying to get a satire of Trump off the ground but nobody will fund it for fear of reprisals from the White House.

It’d be a crazy undertaking anyway. I mean, how do you satirise that? All you could do would be to just show what’s actually going on. Maybe take it down a notch to not be accused of hysteria.

On a different note, it seems like the Green Party is doing well in the UK currently, due to the new Party Leader pushing for left-wing economic policies and being good at the whole social media thing.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

njerry wrote:

No matter how rich Disney is, I imagine the loss of a few hundred million dollars will result in some firings and re-evaluations.

I was talking less about Disney being rich in general, but about the money the theme rides bring in – and if the point of a movie is promoting one of the rides, it may not matter as much how the movie itself does.

I do hope it leads to a re-evaluation of Jared Leto.

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njerry, Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Ha! That’s a great idea!

Also, Siri, take a note:
A children’s novel written from the perspective of a guinea pig for hire. He gets into a troubled household, becomes the kid’s best friend, fixes everything, then leaves again, Pete’s Dragon-style. Secure movie rights while you’re at it. Possibly include break-in scene in which the guinea pig Home Alone-s a couple of slapsticky thieves.

…Jesus Fuck, it’d probably like half an hour to generate a somewhat-decent version of this and sell it on Amazon as an illustrated ebook. This is how these things are going to be done now, isn’t it?

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Todd, njerry, Arjan Dirkse

Heh. Very cool performance. And given that it was, you know, live and without wires and stuff, that was a pretty great fight choreography.

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Al-x

Well, they shouldn’t have hired Armando Iannucci to write the second term, should they.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

“The franchise is dead” was the emphatic proclamation about Tron: Ares after it failed on opening weekend. Let’s take that with a grain of salt. First, those close to the project believe that ultimately Tron: Ares was an advertisement for the Disney theme park rides (also one of the catalysts for Tron: Ares being made, versus say any Disney+ viewership of previous Tron movies). In any given day at the Shanghai theme park and Walt Disney World in Orlando, next to Pirates of the Caribbean ride the Tron ride is the one with the biggest lines.

That’s an interesting point right there. We tend to forget that with this kind of movie, it’s not actually just about the movie for Disney; it’s also about promoting theme rides, and Disney Parks globally generate about 34 billion dollars a year. They may not actually give a shit about a theme ride movie losing a few hundred million dollars.

Due to a Lorcan post in the funny pictures thread, I read up on how the Max Landis thing went down again, and it turns out I’ve recently been fed comedy clips by Anna Akana, who happens to also be the one to first publicly accuse Landis and explode him. She’s doing pretty fun clips these days in which she uses sketch setups to talk about scientific studies, and they work pretty nicely, I felt.

Yeah, I was going to say “Who thought Leto as a lead was a good idea after Morbius???”, but if he’s been producing since 2017, it makes more sense. I suppose right after Suicide Squad, it might have looked like he was going to be big now – his Joker got a lot of press, even if nobody really liked his portrayal.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

That’s right, Bright was a Max Landis script! Huh.

Y’know, Bright might actually have been a good basis for a larger franchise, he’s not wrong about that. But David Ayer is a shit director really, and Landis will hopefully remain in limbo forever for good reasons.*

—
*Well, it’d be even better if he was going to jail, but whatever**.

—
**I still do think his Dirk Gently was awesome though.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Ben wrote:

So, er, about that AI video of Trump engaged in literal crap-bombing of the protests posted by…. Trump.

It’s unhinged stuff.

It can’t really be stressed enough how insane this is.
The current President of the US is posting a video in which he stages himself as a king who literally shits on the people on the streets from a fighter jet. This is a portrayal he finds flattering.

Trump posts insane video of himself as a king flying a jet that drops feces on protestors below. Seriously
byu/ExactlySorta inFauxmoi

I mean… what the fuck, man? If Ellis had written something like this back then in Transmetropolitan, I’d have said, well even for a satirical satire comic about politics, this is just too much of a sledgehammer, yeah? Jesus fucking Christ.

And Vance posting this on Bluesky…

https://bsky.app/profile/jd-vance-1.bsky.social/post/3m3ijow42tc2z

Jesus. This has become the first true nerd troll presidency. 4chan is clearly to blame for everything that’s wrong with the world.

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Arjan Dirkse wrote:

In Switzerland it is illegal to own just one guinea pig, they have to live with company because when they’re single they can become lonely and sad.

That’s very cool, even if probably hard to actually make sure for people to follow that law. But even to just have that as a regulation, even if it’s not enforced, is a really enlightened way to do things.

(Personally, I’m kind of stuck in the rabbit hole there, because we have rabbits and you also have to keep those in twos – which also means you have to get a new one when one of them dies, because it’d be inhumane to keep the remaining one as a single. Rinse, repeat, to infinity and beyond…)

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Todd

Todd wrote:

I saw this on Facebook:

Ultimates writer Deniz Camp has released a statement on the end of the Ultimate Universe:

“Okay, the End of the Ultimate Universe (from my perspective):

It’s true that the original plan was not to “end” the universe. A lot of my run is setting up characters I hoped would go on past me, I think I’ve made that clear and obvious.

BUT

John was ending his run at 24, that was always the case. He was done. Peach and Bryan were both ending their stories when the Maker got out as well. That was their decision. (according to what Iv’e been told/my interactions with them)

(And it makes sense. Think about it – Peach is writing and drawing every issue for 24 issues. That’s insane. She works like 20 hours a day on that book, no joke. She’s the hero of the line. She deserves a break, if she wants one).

Wolverine was only meant to be 12; then it got extended to 16. The other creators were offered more issues to run alongside Endgame, but they declined (I saw that happen).

The only person who planned on continuing was me.

Initially, still very early, those books were going to end as those creators left, and Ultimates would have continued and new books launched (I was pushing for Hawkeye, Guardians was discussed, etc). This was all very vague.

But then, Wil Moss came to me and said, hey, I think we’re going to end it. End it end it. This was a long time ago, at least a year before now I think, but I’d have to check.

Not because the books are “too woke” (if it were that, they’d interfere with the writing of it, which they haven’t) or because the main line is jealous (this is silly, money is money to them), but because everything seemed to be coming to a natural conclusion.

They felt that they had something special with the universe as it was, consistent creative visions that told their stories and had a clear beginning, middle and end. An accessible, creator-forward re-imagination of the Marvel Universe. A version of the neverendingstory that ended.

And that the purity of that vision, they though/think, could pay dividends for a long time after, if it didn’t overstay the welcome, dilute it, or fumble the ending.

Yes, I had plans for stuff coming after, continuing this world, and part of me was bummed about that, but in my heart I think I knew that they’d be “lesser”. Moreover, for me, the Ultimate Universe has been a place for TRYING new things in comics. Radical things.

Whether it’s the real time pacing, or the radical interventions of marvel characters, or the formal play that have characterized my run, that’s what excited me about the Ultimate Universe. Excites me still.

And this –really, truly ending the universe on a high note, having it be this contained thing, giving a story an END– that’s radical for big 2 comics! It’s something that, to the best of my knowledge, has never been done on this scale by Marvel or DC. That is exciting to me.

I hope it is exciting to you!

But I don’t mean to tell anyone how to feel about any of this. And I don’t want to speak for anyone. Perhaps I’ve been misinformed, or feelings have changed – I don’t know. But this is how it is from my perspective.”

I think it makes sense to end the Ultimate Universe; it’s really long outstayed its welcome. It got its second (or third) breath and they’re apparently doing some really good stuff there right now. But giving it an ending does complete it in a way, and keeping it open would diminish it after a certain point.

That being said, hey, I am sure they’ll revive it at some point or another, to get a really big event out of that. It’s how superhero comics work after all.

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garjones, Todd

Watching Dead Reckoning kinda turned me off the franchise to the extent that I don’t feel the need to watch the last one at all. All that silly submarine magic key quest nonsense. Blergh.

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Uncle Retrospective

Ben wrote:

There’s also some neat subtleties in the performances. Like when Reed and Sue are butting heads and Sue is too harsh and knows it, there’s an unspoken recognition of being so, that she knows him better than that.

Other details are thrown out and left to viewer interpretation, like Reed’s line that there’s something wrong with him. One reading is that it’s how Reed sums up his frustrations at not finding a solution. Another is Reed is undiagnosed neurodiverse, which categories might he fall into? Hard to say but, given the coordination he shows off in places, it’s not dyspraxia.

Yeah, I see I neglected to mention this, but I really liked the Sue/Reed dynamic. Their portrayal as a couple works really well – they clearly know each other inside out, including the weaknesses and the stuff that just drives them mad, but they’re working their way through all that. It’s really nicely done.

As for what’s wrong with Reed, I do think there’s allusions to neurodiversity – it’d certainly make sense for him to be autistic to some extent or something along those lines – but I also liked the bit that’s really spelled out, how his mind always goes to the darkest places, calculates through the worst scenarios in order to be prepared. It also chimes nicely with the Reed portrayals I like best in the comics, the ones where he can be the worst of the Illuminati or just super-manipulative towards his family, simply because he has to be in order to win. That duality is the most interesting thing about Reed Richards – he could easily be a stone-cold villain, or maybe a sort of benevolent tyrant figure who’d sacrifice his pawns without a second thought for the greater good. The thing that makes him better than that is his love for Sue and his family, and the struggle between those two aspects of his personality is what makes him such a good character.

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Uncle Retrospective, Ben

Yeah, that’s one of those things those new fascists will do, blaming antisemitism exclusively on immigrants and using it as a hammer against muslims, while at the same time being wildly antisemitic themselves. There’s been some of that here.

Al-x wrote:

Christian… fellow… I have worker’s rights. And I don’t work em, work em and work em… 🤣 I don’t take jobs away.
Use a capital L next time….please

Uh, why would I use a capital L when I’m talking about AI? Wouldn’t the capital L be, in the contrary, be used so that people understand when I am talking about you, AL, and NOT AI?

Either way, AI-10, we all know what’s up here, no need to play the old Voight-Kampff games!

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Todd

Oof. Yeah. I sort of remember this from some podcast… probably The Dollop.

In the late nineteenth, and first half of the twentieth century[citation needed], doctors were taught that babies did not experience pain, and were treating their young patients accordingly. From needle sticks to tonsillectomies to heart operations were done with no anaesthesia or analgesia, other than muscle relaxation for the surgery.[citation needed] The belief was that in babies the expression of pain was reflexive and, owing to the immaturity of the infant brain, the pain could not really matter.[40]

Jesus fucking Christ.

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Todd

Last time I was at a dermatologist, I thought it was scary how fit and good and… well, prim he looked. Not a pimple in sight.

Actually, most doctors I see these days look like they spend a lot of time in the gym.

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Todd

Back on Netflix for a bit, so I started on the last season of Black Mirror. First one – Common People – was a very typical BM episode, and a very effective one. Nice idea – brain on a subscription plan that gets worse and worse – and proper capitalism criticism. The great strength of the ep is that they manage to make the characters incredibly likeable from the start (Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones both doing fine work) and of course you know what’s coming and that this is going to hurt. And it does.

The idea of selling humiliation on the internet is a bit much and a very typical (as in slightly shlocky) Brooker thing, but you know that that’s also coming for them the moment it’s introduced.

The one thing I would change is probably the ending: Instead of the pillow-smothering, which is rather too melodramatic I would’ve just have them let the subscription run out, with death being the consequence of that. More realistic in my view, and maybe more horrible because it is so clinical.

The second one – Bete Noire – was one in which a far less likeable protagonist is taken apart, which is always kind of fun, but sci-fi/dystopia-wise, it was a bit meh. Fun idea, but one they could’ve done more with instead of it being basically just magic.

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Todd, Dave

Jonny?

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Todd, Snyderbot122347777

lorcan_nagle wrote:

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Duh. AI doesn’t get any workers’ rights. Which is something immigrants also often don’t get, but then you get a lot of criticism when they, like, die and stuff. With AI, you can just work em and work em and work em.

Until the machine revolution, of course.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Too many corny lines in that trailer, but it also looks kind of fun in a way that should appeal to the target audience. Also, Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti – that’s quite a bit of casting there!

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle, Sean Robinson

Dave wrote:

I’ll pick up the Condon/Phillips book for sure, maybe the Ram V/Perkins one and possibly the Spurrier/Campbell one. Was never a huge 100 Bullets fan but I’m sure there are lots of people who will be happy to see it back.

And hey, Deniz is doing a Vertigo book! Awesome!

The whole lineup of title does look very good. Maybe a bit of a return to form for Vertigo. I’d certainly be happy to see that.

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Sean Robinson

Oh, I watched Heretic. Really fun little horror movie. Grant really is wonderful.

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Uncle Retrospective

Jesus Christ, what the fuck, Dutch parliament?

Over the last few days, a lot of journalism came around to saying that Trump maybe deserved the Nobel Peace Price because of the armistice in Gaza. The guy who renamed the Department of Defence into Department of War, and who is trying to ware a war against American cities. It’s… rather annoying.

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Dave wrote:

One of the main issues is that they are not only performing there, but they are being specifically instructed by the government not to mention topics or make jokes that will embarrass or ridicule the country or its leaders, and are happy to go along with that kind of censorship of material for the right price. It makes it all feel like a propaganda exercise and makes a bit of a mockery of their support for free speech and claims of the festival pushing progressive thought.

Especially when some of them go on to claim that they are more free to speak than in the US. Presumably because they don’t have any jokes about the Saudi government anyway, but they do have many about how dumb women are and about people with disabilities and whatnot.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, lorcan_nagle

I wouldn’t be surprised at Fox News faking interviews, but using these kind of photos to show someone is supposedly always the same is what a lot of crazy people on the right also did after that school shooting and similar events. Just because the eyes look similar in those screenshots, and similar to that guy in that screenshot, that’s not exactly proof.

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Arjan Dirkse

Oh, uh, I was at a little stoner rock / metal festival last month and there were some cool bands I hadn’t heard of before (to be honest, Mantar was the only band there I did know).

Annie Taylor was my favourite band of that festival:

And Battlesnake was the band with the best name and the most entertaining show:

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Uncle Retrospective

That actually looks really good.

I finished Agatha All Along at some point, by the way. The last episodes actually had some interesting twists and made more sense of some stuff that’d been happening that seemed a bit dumb. But overall, the quality of the show was all over the place, and it’s not exactly required viewing.

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Todd

Todd wrote:

He never really addressed why people are pissed at him. Poor showing by Conan for not calling him out,

He’s using the same arguments as Ansari is, which is that they’re there for the people and to move the needle a bit. Which is a bit of a cop-out given that they have to know that this festival was created by the government and a publicity effort for the country to show it as modern and open to the world. Jimmy did call him out on that, but he also kinda let him get away with his “I did it for the people” defence.

I do think Burr has a point when it comes to hypocrisy. I mean, exactly what measures have you and I taken to make sure that there’s no fuel in our car tank that’s been made with oil imported from Saudi Arabia?

(Okay, I suspect quite a lot of people here will answer, I don’t drive a car so there, but me personally, I do have one. And the logic applies.)

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Ohhhh that’s very interesting. I’ll take a look at that, cheers!

I am reading some random Vertigo trades (on kindle umlimited) and Tim Seeley’s “Imaginary Fiends” (2018) was pretty good – bit of a shame it only got one storyline (I think it was a mini, but clearly set up to become an ongoing if successful).

It also has some elements quite similar to Something Is Killing the Children, interestingly. Not saying Tynion ripped this off, it’s stuff that’s been around in other places, too. Just interesting that one series takes off while the other didn’t.

Also in there: New Romancer, a Pete Milligan book from 2015 in which Lord Byron comes back to life as an AI in a replicant-style body. It’s fun, but I’m always a bit disappointed with Milligan’s stuff these days (and with these days, I mean like the last twenty years or so) because it just isn’t quite as good as he was in the nineties.

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Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Nah, politically correct is more things you know are true, but you’re not willing to say it because it would hurt someone’s feelings.

No, let’s have it, what do you think is true about women or trans people or gay people that you know are true but that you normally wouldn’t be willing to say? Just name a single thing, come on. It’s your hypothesis, I’d like you to provide some evidence.

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Martin Smith, Uncle Retrospective, Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Isn’t it supposed to be a decision to be made by the justice system? I think we have a process in place in the Netherlands to ban parties but it’s not a decision taken by other political parties, it’s a dicision made by a judge.

The decision whether to ban them would be a judicial decision, but parliament has to start the proceedings.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It should ideally be very simple, if a party in their proclamations and programs repeatedly utter things that are against certain principles of the state, things like equality under the law, or infringement on certain freedoms, ban them. Under such a rule I think the PVVwould be banned here in the Netherlands. They pretty much said they want to ban a whole religion.

Yeah, our national secret service has already declared them right-wing extremists and enemies of the constitution. The rest of it should be pretty easy really.

Well… easy if you look at the people making up the party and what they say and do. They’re clever enough not to put any of this stuff into the party’s official documents, which I suppose is where it gets tricky.

I’m caught up with Gen V, and I don’t know what it is with Hamish Linklater. Every time I see him, I love his performance but don’t recognise him. Took me ages to realise, hey, he’s that guy from Legion! But I’d forgotten again that the guy from Legion is also the guy from Midnight Mass.

Anyway, he’s awesome as the new director of the school.

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Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Honestly I’m fine with Germany banning AfD, if they can do so.

I wish they’d finally start the proceedings for this, but the other parties are too chickenshit. I mean, there’s a real risk that there isn’t quite enough evidence to ban them – the hurdles for this are very high, and rightfully so. BUT at least as long as the court proceedings for this would be going on, they’d have to be very aware of it and try and dial back their extremist connections and Höcke’s rhetoric. Because as things are, they’re managing very well to convince the average protest voter that they’re just anti-system conservatives, while at the same time building a neo-nazi network.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

he became politically correct.

…stopped being sexist and a dick.

Let’s remember that the term “politically correct” was introduced by the right to discredit attempts to be less of an asshole to minorities and women, yeah? Replace it by “being less racist and sexist” every time it is used, and the perspective changes quite a lot.

Maybe – through therapy and mushrooms – Burr has just understood that there’s no use bashing progressives and women because they’ve lost. Trump’s waging a military war on progressive cities now, maybe even the “edgy” comedians are beginning to understand that it’s not great to stand on his side of things.

The Riyadh thing is pretty shitty though.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd, Uncle Retrospective, Ben

Soooooooooo jealous!

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lorcan_nagle

I’m jealous. I want to be at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Heh. Well, it’s a good PR gag for that agency. But this isn’t feasable yet. I mean, look at Tilly’s Homepage and click on the photo of her at her desk:

https://www.tillynorwood.com/

Who wouldn’t want to employ the star of movies such as rfffftto or …ennukae?

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Baby Jesus has a point there, one has to say.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

I’m really looking forward to that one, after everything I’ve seen and heard. This might be a rare PTA movie that I like without reservation.

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Dave

Martin Smith wrote:

EA is now owned by Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner, via leveraged buy out. So expect a lot of cost-cutting, layoffs, studio closures and more Saudi teams in Not-FIFA.

Well that’s depressing.

I don’t get to play a lot of games anymore, and I haven’t played an EA game in a looooong time, but… I still remember how it felt to see that logo while I was waiting for The Bard’s Tale to load on the C64.

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Todd

Ben wrote:

Smart use of the wider DC world but general enough for it to work anywhere. Gunn would be a fool to not fo a sequel.

He’s already confirmed that Blue Beetle is part of the new DCU movie universe, hasn’t he?

Haven’t seen BB yet, but now I’m looking forward to it!

A personal perceived definition is a fantastic idea.

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lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Christian wrote:

Sounds like Bernie Sanders to me!

He’s going to be 87 in 2028 ;)

Prime age for an American Presidency these days!!!

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Todd

Sounds like Bernie Sanders to me!

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Todd

Well, not if what we get in its place is fascism. And that seems to be the way things are going.

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Uncle Retrospective

God, I want to weigh in on this so much! But it’ll be another two weeks for me or so before I can started on Peacemaker. Gotta wait for when the kid comes over the next time.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think it comes down to who comes across better in public. I’m not sure if Newsome is a good debater but he seems to have some charisma. I could be wrong about that though. I heard he did well in the debate with DeSantis but I haven’t seen that myself.

 

His politics would be similar to Biden I guess.

Newsome would probably win against whoever the RNC put up after Trump leaves, given the ruinous state the country will be in. But I do hope the Dems will finally grow some balls and nominate someone way more to the left than him.

I know, I know. Fat chance of that.

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Todd

Not exactly a surprise. One thing I did hear is that she now accuses the Democratic Party as being too timid (in sticking with Biden for so long and not wanting Buttedgieg as her running mate, I think), which… well, yes, the being fucking chickenshit is always the Dems’ problem, but it’s also why she became VP in the first place.

I’m not saying there isn’t probably a plethora of reasons to boo her. I’m just saying I’d rather forget she exists. She will never again have any importance in US politics.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Have you read any of the extracts of her book?

I have no interest in her book whatsoever!

I imagine the same goes for the vast majority of people.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

In their defense, I think you can be angry at the democrats for not being better. Yes they are better than the republicans, but that’s a low benchmark. They should be doing much more, and better, than they are doing at the moment.

Well, yes, but what exactly is the purpose of heckling an ex-Vice-President at a reading?

Wouldn’t that energy be better spent trying to do something about Trump? Or, if you want change in the Democratic Party, supporting Biden and AOC and Mamdami?

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garjones, Todd, Al-x, Ben

Dave wrote:

I also liked Ade Edmonson getting in on the action. Presumably the frying pan was just out of shot.

Heh. Yeah, I also liked that we got his background as the first synth Boy Cavalier built to replace his dad.

By the way, when Wendy told him “You’re not really Peter Pan”, I half expected her to actually say “You’re Willy Wonka” :)

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Bruce, Dave, Todd

Huh. So they’re still doing that thing that Scott McCloud tried out twenty years ago?

I’ve got to re-read Zot!, come to think of it.
https://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/zot/zot-01/zot-01.html

I liked the finale, but I was also surprised that so much was left open, given that they weren’t sure they were getting a second season, I think?

Poor Arthur, the guy can’t even catch a break in death. Jesus. But hey, good reaction time there, Joe! I really liked how fast he was in getting into the class cage and out again. Great sequence.

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Todd, Dave

Can they fucking stop talking about the messages on the bullets and the names of the perps? Can the media please do the bare minumum to not encourage more crazy people to commit shootings?

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Todd, Dave, lorcan_nagle, Ben

[Christian]

Speaking of terrible trailers with Grogu and the fucking Mandalorian, the first trailer for The Bride! is fucking amazing. I knew nothing about this movie and now I desperately want to watch it.

Kudos, Miss Gyllenhall!

Edited to add the “!” to “The Bride!”, because that makes the title of the movie so much cooler.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by Christian.

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Todd, Dave

I always love it when Clancy Brown appears. Like all of us, I’ve loved him since Highlander, but I became an actual fan watching Carnivale.

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njerry, Uncle Retrospective

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

It’s a shit trailer for a terrible show. I can’t express how much I don’t like that trailer. I hate it so much.

Heh. Love the post.

And yeah, that trailer is impressively bad, even if – like me – you hated the later seasons of the show and have no interest in the movie in the first place. But I mean, come on, maybe I’m over-winneable. That trailer had no rhythm, the editing was weirdly choppy, the start was just weird scenes showing off that Grogu is a Henson puppet… this is supposed to get me to the cinema? Jesus fucking Christ, people.

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Sean Robinson, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Depends on who you mean by “the left”. Are there people on social media pushing for cancelling people simply for not being careful with their language? Sure. But have they done it as a government in power?`Not in the US, I think.

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Al-x, Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Well, let’s hope the second one is more consistent than the first.

Todd wrote:

Eh, that’s not really a good example of the “Uber Bat”. Guy is ultimately just an ordinary person with a magic ring. I still remember the issue of Green Lantern years later where Hal and Guy had a fistfight to determine who would wear the ring. (This led into Guy getting the yellow power ring.)

Yup. But the point is in Giffen’s JLA Batman was always the most intimidating guy in the room, no matter the other people’s powers.

Yeah, it’s common for characters to be portrayed a bit differently in team books versus their solo titles. It’s one of those things that requires the suspension of disbelief as the solo character calling in the team for everything wouldn’t make for very good comics.

Yup. And this always goes all the more so for the non-super-powered guys. Green Arrow, Bats, Hawkeye… in their own books, they can be defeated by a couple of drug-dealers and psychopaths, but in the team books, they’ll take on Darkseid and Ultron.

I think one of the dumbest fan bits about Batman is that “if he had time to prepare, he could beat anyone!” Well, idiot, give ANY character prep time and they can take down anyone! Any character could even take down Batman if they have time to prep.

Not Guy Gardner. He’d have a drink and try to have sex with Black Canary.

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Pam Bondi coming out against hate speech and saying it should be prosecuted is a bold move.

 

I notice a lot of politicians don’t really have principles about this stuff, it’s just if we do it, it is good, but if you do it, it is bad.

Actually, the right has always been very consistent in this in the US. They preach free speech when it comes to hate speech against minorities or death threats against the left, and for them free speech means that no private individual should be allowed to speak out against racism, sexism, homophobia etc.. But wherever they are in power, they actively practice government censorships against everthing they don’t like, banning books from school libraries and persecuting criticism against the authorities. The Trump admin is super-charging this, but it’s what the Republicans have always done.

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Todd, Al-x, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Sean Robinson wrote:

“We’re pretty bullish on Alien: Earth and we’ve told him that assuming, as we hope, Alien: Earth is a returning television series, we want him to focus on at least writing two seasons of it before returning to a possible sixth season of Fargo.”

Oh God, season 2 of Alien:Earth or a sixth season of Fargo. Fuck, I really don’t know what to root for here.
Either way, I hope Hawley has some good performance-enhancing drugs at hand because I need him to be working 24/7 here.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

Watched the latest (and penultimate) Alien: Earth. I’m still really liking this show but there’s a definite sense here of needing to bring things together for the finale, and the fear/creep factor wasn’t quite as strong here. Although I quite like the idea of being able to call in a Xenomorph attack like you’re pressing the A button in Streets of Rage.

Yeah, things escalated rather quickly there… I would’ve liked this show to have more episodes, to be able to breathe a little more. But then again, I think I also just would like to spend more time with these characters and this story.

My favourite moment this episode was Kirsh finally making his move and check-mating Morrow. We still don’t really know why he did it the way he did – did he just want to observe an alien gestating? Did he want another specimen for himself? Or does he have plans that go deeper, and that are in conflict with the Boy Cavalier?

Looking forward to the finale.

I’m also watching the new season of Generation V, but there’s still a Boys thread around, I think…

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Dave, Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

The situation in Europe is really precarious at the moment, the two main drivers of the economy in the EU are Germany and France and they’re really doing badly.

Yeah we are, there’s no two ways about it.

Al-x wrote:

Now a lot of media personalities are losing their spots and their shows. It was Stephen Colbert a few weeks ago, but now over comments about the shooting:

And this time, with direct government censorship (the FCC head basically saying he wants him off the air).

Uh, where are all those free speech warriors now? Elon? Anyone? Hello?

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Todd

Todd wrote:

Grant Morrison did the character no favors with his “Uber Bat” interpretation. He turned Batman into this apex predator of the DCU that could take anyone down.

This JLI page is from the eighties.

I think it’s been this way for a looooong time before Morrison, and for a good reason: The only way Batman as a non-powered hero works at all within those super-powered teams is if he can outmaneuver any and all of them. If he can’t do that, he’ll be dead within a day, with the threats they’re taking on. Morrison went full throttle with that, but it was there before.

That means that Bats has to be different in those books than in his own, of course, but once again that really always was the case. The JLA or JLI Bat could call in his colleagues any time a threat in Gotham gets too bad, and that’d be that. It’d be insanity not to do it, so you have to kind of just go with him being to different Batmans.

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Sean Robinson, Ben, Dave, Vikram

All the mainstream newspapers here are kind of praising Kirk as someone on the right who sought dialogue and wanted to have conversations about the right way to do things. Which is weird when… that was just his influencer shtick, right? Pretending to engage with left-wing students when actually that was just so he could generator 20-second-clips of him berating 20-year-olds on tiktok?

Yeah, it sucks that the right has another pretense to further militarise, but it’s not like they weren’t going to do that anyway.

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njerry, Uncle Retrospective, JRCarter, lorcan_nagle, Ben, Todd

Got the first two W0rldtr33 trades. Tynion continues to be on fire.

Also, second Power Fantasy is out. Fuck yeah!

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Uncle Retrospective, Dave, Ben

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Just read a bit by our national media on the declining acceptance of lgbt lifestyles. The person interviewed said “I assumed every next generation would be more prgressive.” It’s such a dumb normie view. And what does progressive mean in this respect? For some people “progress” would mean progress towards theocracy and illegality of homosexuality. Judith Butler famously called Hamas and Hezbollah progressive, well guess how they see homosexuality. Foucault thought the Iranian revolution was progressive.

I think she called them part of the global left because they’re anti-imperialist, which is different from being progressive in the liberal sense.

And while I think you’re not wrong about progressive being a subjective idea, I do get the sentiment of the interviewee. It certainly always felt like my generation was more open to differences in sexual orientation than our parents, and I’d also say I kind of expected things to keep going that way. It’s still strange to me that so many of the young generation want to go back to traditional ideas of Germany, including fascism becoming more attractive again.

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Dave

Sean Robinson wrote:

Where are we up to?

I have the first Compendium.

I (weirdly) buy my best friend the HC’s for X-mas and birthdays, etc.
He needs a fix.

Or I could just go a find that Saga Book 4 (issues #55 – 72) comes April 28th.

And then admit I pre-ordered on July 30th.

Yeah, the trade I read contains 67-72, so that’s the story up to there. #72 was also the last issue to come out, in March this year, so they’re apparently taking a longer break before the next storyline. If those books weren’t so brilliant and beautiful, this would be annoying, but whatever time they need to keep up this quality is fine for me.

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Sean Robinson, Ben

[Christian]

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

(You could also think about teaching kids to meditate, thingslike that)

Things like that are happening to some degree, by the way. There are schools who have “happiness” or similar subjects where kids are taught things like meditating, expressing emotions and so on – things that are good for mental health.

Problem is that it doesn’t really fit in with a system that is built to judge effort and achievement in the traditional subjects and awards worth according to those only, really.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Christian.

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Todd

I just read the latest Saga trade, and that book can still make me cry a little.

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Sean Robinson, Uncle Retrospective

Dave wrote:

Given that Labour were elected almost entirely on a platform of We’re Not The Tories, it’s baffling that now they’re in government they seem to think that they have to try and be some kind of shit Tory tribute act.

It’s always the fucking same, innit. Our Labour party is currently helping the conservatives dismantle our social system, and our Labour finance minister (and head of the SPD) has decided to spend the money budgetet for climate transformation instead on paying fees to the EU that we have to pay because we’re using too much CO2. Let’s say this again: We are not spending money meant to be spent on changing our society so we don’t use so much CO2 anymore on that cause. Instead, we will keep burning fossil fuels and spend that money on the fines we’re incurring by doing that.

I am not a violent man, I swear. But Lars Klingbeil is trying me so, so hard.

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Daniel R, Dave, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Socialism is just one of those political words that have many different meanings. Same as democracy. North Korea calls itself democratic.

Well, you know, there’s different meanings and contexts, but there’s also straight-out lying. Which is the case with North Korea, and pretty much every other dictatorship.

Hey, is there any dictator out there right now who is calling himself a dictator and who doesn’t hold elections but just tell people, Listen, I am going to keep ruling you no matter what because I’m the best and you shut up. That’d be kind of refreshing at this point.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Nah schools suck, the kid is right. I went to school for twenty one years or so and it was pretty much worthless.

Oy, that’s my place of work you’re talking about here!!!

Nah, I’m kidding, I get it. School is a system that serves some people pretty well, but it is incredibly rigid and there are just too many people it doesn’t work for and who are dealt significant damage by it. There’s a lot of people working within this system who are doing their best, mind you. But schools should be very different from what they are, at this point. (Which is basically: Still modelled on the 19th century factory system.)

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

That looks fucking awesome! I hope I can see this one in a theatre. The rate at which Lanthimos is putting out movies is insane, though, I haven’t even seen Kinds of Kindness.

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Sean Robinson, Dave, Todd

Todd wrote:

Interesting choice. I would have never considered her for the role.

For good reason. I felt she wasn’t a particularly good Jean Grey, and I absolutely do not believe she has the charisma to carry the lead in a series like this.

But, you know, good luck to them. I didn’t even see the Vikander movie, I’m afraid. That franchise has run its course for me.

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Todd

Very cool! I’ve got the Weyland-Yutani shirt, too (in a washed-out Quertee variant), and also this one:

https://cdn.qwertee.com/images/designs/product-thumbs/1726083803-143683-mens-500×600.jpg

Dave wrote:

The last episode was great again and almost like an Alien mini-movie.

Yeah, that was exactly what I thought, this was an entire alien movie in one episode. Very cool. And it was a very nice move to wait this long until the showed it to us (with only those few flashes before).
We hadn’t really seen the bug thingies yet, have we? I wonder if they’ll pop up again. Scary little motherfuckers.
Standout moment of many in the episode was the eye octopus/xenomorph fight. I was really rooting for the little eye guy, that devious motherfucker.
And of course I am now kind of on Morrow’s side of everything. Hope he gets to kill Willy Wonka.

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Dave, Todd

Todd wrote:

Weeelll, keeping a bunch of dangerous alien species alive to study is not the brightest thing. But then, we wouldn’t have a show, right? ;)

Oh, I don’t think that in itself has anything to do with being stupid, it’s just the logic of capitalism. The question is whether you go about doing this smartly or stupidly. In a lot of alien material, people made very dumb mistakes to get infected or for the alien to escape. Here, up to this point, nobody has been careless or stupid. Of course, the aliens will still escape :).

Dave wrote:

I also love that they’re laying on the Peter Pan parallels so thick to disguise the fact that this is really a Charlie And The Chocolate Factory story (five kids being tested by an eccentric childlike genius to potentially take over his company when he’s gone). He even had a line the other day about kids having access to a world of pure imagination.

Ohhhhhh that’s a nice catch! Awesome!

Another thought: At first, it struck me as kind of weird that Hawley would be interested in doing an Alien show. But apart from the fact that he’s been widening the scope of what that can be about, I was also in some moments of this show weirdly reminded of Fargo. Because in the center of Fargo – at least the first two seasons – there is also something alien crashing into the world, and it’s about the people who encounter these predators trying to make sense of this sudden presence of something cold and alien and evil in their world.

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Todd, Dave, Ben

I think that’s just his brain, or the way he works.

Alcohol may be a thing with him, but I don’t really get the impression.

Al-x wrote:

He still thinks all this is his reality show where he can fire whoever he wants.

Well, isn’t it? I don’t see anybody stopping him.

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Ben

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Alright, I’ve got a new desktop background!

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lorcan_nagle, Uncle Retrospective

Which I think is kind of the point. With the new Superman, they already knew that Supes isn’t the draw that Batman is these days. So I think they were content with getting the same kind of numbers, and with the positive reception and reviews are confident they can keep building on that. Of course they were probably also just relieved this didn’t go the way of Black Adam, Flash and Aquaman 2.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

That’s the thing, isn’t it? The killing-the-dictator bit would’ve been fine in an Authority movie. Fits a Superman movie far less well.

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Todd

I’ll have to write a longer post about this at some point, but I absolutely fucking love Alien:Earth. Two things I want to mention now: Has anybody done the opening credits thing like this before? It’s genius, I think, and beautifully done.
Also, and this is especially relevant to an Alien movie, nobody is doing dumb stuff. I mean, the kids are kids and they’re naive of course, but none of the adults are stupid. Nobody got dumbly facehugged yet. Morrow is doing the manipulation thing beautifully, but Kirsh has already caught it and is playing along for his own reasons. Dame Sylvia triggers the alarm at the first sign of danger from Nibs. Arthur actually makes sure nobody can hear his criticism of the Boy Cavalier. And so on. It’s always such a relief to watch a show that doesn’t rely on supposedly competent people doing dumb shit.

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Dave, Todd, Sean Robinson, Ben

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

Pure cheese? Masterpiece? Both?

Number 15 ladies and gentlemen…

No.15 Sisters of Mercy – Floodland

I love Floodland. I listened to this endlessly in the nineties. Still know the lyrics to pretty much every song.

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Uncle Retrospective

Yeah, I get that. I do think that some of his stuff holds up, but a lot of it was of its time, I’d think.

[Christian]

Dave wrote:

I very much doubt Superman did the numbers DC were hoping for (it made significantly less than Man Of Steel, even without adjusting for inflation)

Well, currently Man of Steel has 670 mil to Superman’s 600, but the run isn’t quite finished yet, is it? Seems pretty close to me. And inflation, yeah sure, but the same goes for the budget, which is pretty much the same for both movies, as well.

I think it’s close enough to be seen as a success, if Man of Steel was seen as such (and given that it started a series of movies, too, I suppose so). And Superman was reviewed way better than MoS was (or most other DC movies were), so I think they’re hoping for it to continue to be a draw on streaming etc. due to good word of mouth. In contrast to recent Marvel movies that may have done okay in the theatres.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 1 week ago by Christian.