bishopcruz

This thread reminded me I need to see RE5. I have to know if the series hit its nadir with 4 or not. Holy lord that movie was bad. I had thought it impossible to have a worse actor for Wesker than was in the the games themselves. I was wrong.

This thread is 5 days away from being 10 years old. Jesus fucking christ.

Still calling the death of any cool old black guys.

Alice vs Jorah Mormont. Wow.

Now now, you can both be wrong.

Quiet you. This is serious business.

Was the original team from the 50's different?

Completely. The original Suicide Squad was half a war book. Rick Flag ran a group of regular people who fought super powered threats like dinosaurs and other weird silver age shit. They were in I think a half dozen issue of The Brave and the Bold in 1959. Post Crisis, Ostrander created Amanda Waller in the Legends crossover, and along with her, he came up with the idea of "the dirty dozen with supervillains" led by Rick Flag Jr. He took B and C tier villains and a couple of heroes, and threw them together on a team, and the Task Force X incarnation was born. He's also the one who kinda set the personalities of post-crisis Boomerang and Deadshot among others. Great books BTW, especially the early ones.

Yeah, I made a ton of excuses for Spider-Man 3, too.

Except you were wrong back then.

See, while I agree that the editing was fairly messy on the film, it absolutely nailed the main characters and the performances just elevated it. That's my main takeaway, the rest was fairly boilerplate, but Suicide Squad has never really been about its overarching plot, it's been about the misfits on the team, and Deadshot, Harley, Diablo, and Boomerang all stood out. The others got less time, and I would have liked a few more scenes with them, but that wasn't a deal breaker either. Beyond that, the dialogue was often funny, with a few misses here or there, the use of cameos was perfect, and it had some stand out scenes like

just worked on a bunch of levels.

It's not a top tier masterpiece like Dark Knight, it's not exceptional like Iron Man, MoS, or Avengers, but it is a really fun romp that doesn't deserve half the crap its getting.

http://www.comicmix.com/2016/08/07/john-ostrander-reviews-the-suicide-squad/

So John Ostrander was a big fan. Nice to see that he's joined the crazies like myself. Honestly though I am glad he likes it, he basically created the Suicide Squad as a concept, and a ton of his ideas are in this movie. I loved the shout outs.

Coming back from vacation like:

 

 

NZA and I checked Suicide Squad's RT rating while we were out of town and it wasn't looking good. Was 30 then, and 26 now. That's actually worse than BvS's final rating! Is this movie worse than that piece of hot garbage? I had such high hopes for it! Reserving final judgment till I see it, but it's a damn shame crappy movies are making a killing when entertaining films like the Ghostbusters reboot had to fight for an audience. I think Variety nailed it with this headline:

‘Suicide Squad’ Is a Hit, But DC Needs to Start Making Better Movies

At the very least you should like Harley I would think. Robbie kills it in the role and does a great job. Plus its awesome seeing her on film. As for the rest, it probably depends on what bothered you about BvS, SS still has editing issues, but its straightforward, and it's tone is nowhere near as dour as BvS was. Then again, I'm apparently a crazy person for liking all three of the DCEU films so far, so take it with a grain of salt I guess.

Interesting interview w/ the series creators/writers/directors the Duffer Bros. here. They talk about influences on the show from everything from the title font (Firestarter) to references to an obscure anime called Elfen Lied.

 

Crap, never noticed the Elfen Lied thing. Thankfully they ditched the creepy sexual undertones of that series for this one.

Show was great, best adaptation of a nonexistent Stephen King novel ever. Perfect length, very little wasted time, and damn fine performances all around.

Yeah... I finally got around to Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman last week, the former was interesting but bad and the latter was a stygian mess but fairly entertaining. I'll probably like this.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Depends, honestly the performances carry the movie and it's not trying to be deep ala BvS and MoS, so it's a much more straightforward work. I enjoyed it because I liked the characters and I'm a sucker for big fights against nameless mooks ala Avengers 1 and 2. Again, not perfect, but a lot of fun.

Are you done Alex, or do you actually have something to add that isn't you trying and failing to be a smart ass?

I'm sorry I don't jerk off to my giant marvel statues every night or dress up a real doll to look like Black Widow.

Don't listen to Da'Capn, he's wrong as he has been about every DCEU film. I mean the man likes Spiderman 3 fro crying out loud. Suicide Squad was a lot of fun, it had the feel of the original comics, the best rendition of Waller in live action yet, great characters, and a pretty shitty villian. Margot Robbie was perfect as Herley, Will Smith was a great Deadshot, and even Jai Courtney brought it as Boomerang, who is a giant asshole just like he is supposed to be.

The cameos were fun, the action was average, it's not the best movie ever, but it was damned enjoyable based on the performances.

Brian Bolland is the REAL genius behind The Killing Joke. There I said it.

Bold statement, but he is at least the MVP, Bollands art added so much weight to the book and nearly every page has an iconic image. It's brilliant.

Did not like.

 

I understand the necessity to add padding to make an adaptation of The Killing Joke feature length. I even think I understand what they were trying to go for with the first 30 minutes. I imagine they felt the need to add all that for the sake of casual viewers who might not be familiar with Barbara, so that her part in The Killing Joke proper resonates. Problem is, there were absolutely no ties (direct story or even thematic) to the main narrative.

 

Then there's the coda:

 

I get that it serves as a bookend for Barbara, but I feel like it totally undercuts the ending. I know TKJ had actual impact on DC canon (with Barbara becoming Oracle) but I've always viewed it as more of an elseworlds story/the last Batman-Joker story.

 

 

I remember TKJ feeling like a punch in the gut. Maybe it's just that I'm so familiar with the story now, but this just fell so flat for me....

 

That said, Conroy & Hamill forever! So glad they are both returning for Justice League Action!

I can't entirely disagree, though it didn't bother me that much. As it's own thing ,the prologue was fine, but as you said, it is not only tonally dissonant from the rest of the movie, but it adds very little if anything to the whole affair. If they needed to expand the running time, I think they honestly could have extended shots during certain sequences of the actual Killing Joke part, and given all the scenes a bit more weight. Still liked it, but it could have been better.

I think the biggest problem with the Barbara stuff is that it's trying to fix something that didn't really need it. TKJ just isn't ABOUT her, and she, like Gordon are just plot points to move along the story of Joker and Batman. I know what they were going for, and on its own I kinda like it s a 30 minute OAV, but the film would be no weaker for its removal.

It's not really Season 2 in that it's a new production with different voice actors from the original 1997 series. It's a follow up to the Golden Age Trilogy, and it basically skips the Guardians of Desire and Lost Children arcs of the manga to get straight to the Conviction Arc. It is new story that has never been animated before, I just wish that it was done better.

Only took us 19 years for season 2.

Ok, so first episode is alright. Animation is CG for the most part, and not at all to my taste. Music ranges from so-so to pretty good. But at least it's new Berserk animation. Looks like they are skipping both Guardians of Desire and Lost Children though, which is a shame.

Welp, SFDebris has updated their series with parts 3-6. Six was especially great as it details the downfall of the comics distributors in the US due to Marvel trying to muscle their way in via Hero's World. It does explain very well just how so many comic shops died in the 1990s.

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So Book 4 is done, as is any Avatar stuff outside of the comics for a long while.

Personally, and it seems I am in the minority, I really ended up loving the hell out of LoK, warts and all. Yeah, the series wasn't perfect by any stretch, but I loved the characters, LOVED the animation, and am still pretty much amazed by the soundtrack. The series set out to do something different than Last Airbender, and it did. TLA was about the world, and the big overarching journey to beat Ozai. Korra though, was first and foremost about her, and her journey. Hell, in many was Book 3, and especially book 4 were epilogues to the BIG conflicts, and I am a sucker for that. I loved Korra as a character, (outside of about 5 or so episodes in book 2 when she was insufferable). Book 3 of Korra was just edged out by Book 2 of TLA as my favorite season of either show. Just a shame that no villain in Korra came close to the awesome that was Azula.

You're the first Marie fan i've met. I've been trying to work on her social link more but she's not always accessible so right now I'm working heavily on

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

I assume a new game plus is required to max all social ranks.

Bindy knows what's up Yukino + Rise = True Happiness. You can totally max out all the social links, before new game +. If you want to get the epilogue and the new dungeon though you MUST max out Marie before 12/23.

OK, bought the game a couple of days ago. It's damned good and the servers are up and running fine. Been playing coop with gunsmith. Game is Diablo, gotta give it that. It's damned addictive and fun to play. I still say that there should be a completely cut off SP option though. But Blizzard wants the moneys from the AH.

OK, I'll talk about the ones I don't think he can beat, or at least has a major disadvantage with:

Iron Man: Up until he got his uber upgrades in the last decade or so, then maybe, Stark has money and ridiculous tech, and I'm sure he has EMP shielding. Not saying he couldn't beat him ever, but it would be tough. Earlier Iron Man would be a much closer fight.

Thor: Supes would have trouble with Thor, fuckin' electricity, and magic. Only one in DC who could probably take Thor is Captain Marvel, now THAT would be a fight.

Dr. Strange: With prep, no problem, with backup? Laughably easy, without any of those? Not so much.

Magneto: Maybe, but dude has gotten more and more ridiculous over the years and I just can't see bats getting in close enough to do much. If he can get in, then he can beat him to a paste, but yeah, not bloody likely. With prep though, ceramic Batarangs and a metal free suit and gear would make the fight interesting.

I think I also said he couldn't take Nova, but I know jack shit about him so no comments.

Oh, and Hulk depends on which version, Planet Hulk is absurd. 60's through80's hulk, yeah it could be done.

Uh in the first Wolverine mini didn't Shingen beat the ever loving tar out of Wolverine with no powers and some cheap shots? I know Wolvie won the rematch, and it's been forever since I read the series.