Iron Fist & etc. - Aug 29

…Saw the latest trailer/clip from ‘Iron Fist’ – this one is focusing on the show’s second season’s fight scenes. Apparently, they are going to be quite different from what happened in S1. Well, cannot blame a show for trying to improve itself – whether it will succeed is another question. Given all the excitement that is coming down lately, it has to, because-

Because it already had flak before the series’ premiere that the titular character is not an Asian-American actor, but Ser Loras Tyrell, the Flower Knight, who decisively is not. An Asian-American anyone, that is. That said, it really wasn’t the problem for S1 ‘Iron Fist’ – other issues were, but the whitewashing of the titular character didn’t help either, so here we are, at a moment in time when the USA media is doing its’ best to cash in on the Asian-American factor of its’ international sector. There’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ – did wonderfully back home, less wonderfully abroad, but they still made money, as Huffington Post pointed out, (or a similar website did), so they are in the gravy, at least in the short term. In the end, it all comes down to the money, so the titular characters of the novel trilogy and movie, (and the movie is likely to have a sequel), are/were onto something, after all.

The same goes for the LJ Netflix movie – proportionally, it has as much restructuring as KK’s movie – i.e. ‘Asians’ – did. As it was said before, the titular heroine is not biracial as she was in the novels, (and let us be fair, this is a big deal), she is wholly Asian, her father is not her father, but is her stepfather, and etc. As far as novels-to-movies adaptations go, this is mild staff; when Rick Riordan’s novels began to be turned into movies they suffered a much worse treatment, to the point where the author himself publicly denounced them, apparently starting some sort of a chain reaction: to this day, only the first two novels of his, (and he had written over a dozen about Percy and Annabeth, the Kane twins, Magnus Chase and his friends and so on), became movies and no talk has been raised about any repeat experience. Some of the novels were adapted into comics, but so far only the Kane chronicles were adapted completely; clearly, Riordan’s works have a reputation of some sort by now, so there is that. What next?

FH and its’ new heroes, that is what. It was discussed earlier that it was somewhat weird that the new heroes of the game also came from the Far East/Orient, just as the Samurai did, making it something of a repetition, but it is still very – convenient for FH that their new heroes are Oriental, thus giving team Ubisoft an extra edge to cashing-in on their fans – and team Ubisoft is firing on all cylinders here. They are fixing the technical issues and they are improving their story-telling aspect too: now FH has an arcade mode, which is something of a Choose Your Own Adventure sort of thing, complete with varying quests and levels of difficulty, something new and exciting. Go them! They are playing their cards close now, their level of cooperation with such YouTube channels as GameSpot, IGN and AWE Me has vanished, but maybe this is justified: in the past such alliances didn’t give Ubisoft much of an advantage, so they went in a different direction, and it seems to be working better, so good luck to Ubisoft, one guesses.

And now we are back at ‘Iron Fist’, who, as a show with – at least partially – Asian-American cast should be in a right place for some extra PR and benefits, as Ubisoft’s FH game is. Only it has not aired yet, (and it already has a weird reputation), so its situation is more ambiguous. Bugger. Still, it could be worse; it could have been like the ‘Dragonballs: Evolution’ movie or the 2017’s Power Rangers’ movie reboot. Both failed so miserably, that they are largely gone by now, so there is that.

…Well, I guess this is it for now; see you all soon!

Pathfinder & real life - Aug 24

Real life sucks. In this particular instance, the suckage began when we were finally wrapping up our Pathfinder adventure path – the giants’ one – when one of our members proclaimed that Pathfinder the franchise was undergoing a reboot.

That is nothing new in the world of RPG; D&D, for example, has went through at least five reboots/editions, and does not appear to be stopping, not yet. For Pathfinder to go through a second, or a third, reboot is not unnatural or anything like that, it is only the question of whether we will continue to play it. We are going through the official playtest manuals/adventures/etc., and it does not feel as good as the previous edition, so maybe we will tone down our involvement with Pathfinder in the future.

…And don’t try to talk about loyalty; all too often, for various RPG franchises, loyalty is translated into sinking money into their property – whether it’s D&D, Pathfinder, SW, (yes, that one), or something much more obscure, such as ‘space 1889’ (or whatever it is called). As long as people are investing money, time and effort into an RPG, they are loyal to it, the end. When they stop, they are not loyal apparently anymore. Also the end and it is very hard to make a debate about an RPG, even if you do not have much of a life, (as I do).

Anything else? Apparently, there’s a petition going around about not making Zendaya the next ‘Little Mermaid’ in case Disney will a make a live adaptation of that animated classic too. Sigh.

Listen, when it comes to race in the movies, ‘nose goes’, as says Aru Shah. Everyone is singing accolades for the LJ Netflix movie, and no one cares that Lana Condor, who plays LJ, is Korean-American, whereas in the novels LJ was half-Korean half-American instead. Vietnam and Korea are as different as, say, U.S.A. and France are, yet no one is making a big stink about it in regards to the LJ film, while KMT, Rose Tico, another Vietnamese-American actress, was dragged through the mud… How is this for (in) consistency?

…Now while we are talking about Zendaya, let us talk about ‘Spider-Man’ and the rest of the MCU. It isn’t surprising that with Spidey away, Zendaya cannot play the role of Michelle Johnson in MCU, (and yes, Marvel has blinked there, it’s a different MJ, cough), so she is potentially free for other roles, even ones associated with Disney – and this brings us to the A:IW film.

Let us take a brief look at the roster of the dusted characters there. Bucky Barnes – a divisive, controversial character: some people love him, some hate him, and all are vocal. Wanda the Scarlet Witch – ditto. Black Panther… he was championed as some sort of an African champion and was this amazing movie milestone, until people began to proclaim him to be instead, an idealized Afro-American stereotype, an appeaser, and a conformist…basically, what Killmonger was accusing him of being. The hype died quickly after that. Ditto for ‘Asians’ – now they are proclaimed mainly as a movie success and nothing more, which is fairer for them, but still… And Spider-Man, who is already divisive – and not as a character. Rather, the rights to his franchise are owned, co-owned, by both Sony and Marvel, and even as the ‘Homecoming’ film was being made, people learned that Sony and Marvel do not get along all the time. Now, the ‘Venom’ film is coming in 2019, and even trailers it is said that the film is made in association with Marvel, not as a part of it. Odds are, before Spidey returns to the big screen, Sony and Marvel will need to work their issues first.

As for divisive, controversial characters… Disney/MCU is quietly getting rid of it all controversial elements, whether it is something more vague, like Hydra, or characters, such as Bucky and Wanda, or real life people, such as James Gunn. He was supposed to produce ‘GotG Vol 3’ movie, but then got fired because of ‘me too’ related reasons, and… the cast, (and maybe the crew) of GotG franchise rebelled, and it all…ended in nothing: James Gunn is still gone, (there were negotiations, but apparently they didn’t work), but the movie too is put on hold, and it is shaping to be a lengthy one: how it will affect the next ‘Avengers’ movie, (which also features the GotG), is anyone’s guess.

Now it is still a better approach than the opposite number that had been executed in the SW enterprise by the Disney/SW team – ignoring the criticisms, and calling the fan-critics retrogrades, obscurantists, idiots, trolls and the like. Only now the Disney/SW team discovered that these retrogrades, obscurantists, idiots, trolls and the like are also the SW fan base, and as it falls apart into pieces, there are fewer people who want to give their money for tickets for a SW movie. Disney hates losing money, so again, it is anyone’s guess as to what the SW9 movie will look like. KMT/Rose Tico is going to appear in it, but in what capacity and how exactly is another question.

Anything else? We are trying some of the Pathfinder playtest adventures and do not exactly love it; it feels rather like D&D 5 ed. adventures with a slightly different layout & format. We got into Pathfinder because we did not like D&D 5 ed. in the first place, and now that it is no longer the case, we might have to rethink it, our RPG strategy – but that is life for you.

This is it for this time, see you all soon!

KMT and co. - Aug 22

Sigh. Firstly, real life sucks, when you least expect it to do so… or when you see it coming, (sort of), but it is equally bad in both cases. And then the Americans have Hollywood.

Not so long ago, an IGN member made a brief speech on YouTube, which conflated ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, ‘To All The Boys that I Have Loved’, and – KMT, also known as Rose Tico on SW, the current trilogy. So what is the problem?

In fact, the IGN member has conflated – as the rest of U.S. may have done – a number of social groups. There are Asians who live in Asia, and whose relationship with Americans, as well as Asian-Americans is one thing. There are Asian immigrants to the U.S. as well as their direct descendants, the Asian-Americans: them and their social position in the greater American society is another thing. The third is the power struggle between the Asian-American actors (and that includes celebrities) in Hollywood and the rest of the American entertainment industry and the other power groups, including Anglo-Americans and Afro-Americans. It is very possible that there are other groups lumped with those three, but let us put them outside the brackets for the moment.

Now, KMT. The fact that she was driven from Twitter, (or Tumblr, or some other social media platform) by Internet trolls (or whoever) is abominable, no human deserves this, but-

But KMT is not just some average Asian-American citizen, (unlike the IGN member who spoke up in her defense on YouTube recently); she is a celebrity, actually. She is famous, she is talented, and she is certainly not an average person. As such, she is not just ‘a face in the crowd’ and should expect unusual treatment, both good and bad. This is the essence of free will: everyone judges everyone else freely and expresses this judgement freely. No one can be liked by everyone else, not even a deity: just read the New Testament as to what happened when the Savior played with the free will of people – it really went horribly wrong, or horribly right, but horrible either way. Judaism, and Islam, and in a different way – Buddhism – do not go this way: it is either God’s way or the highway, and you do not want to go there.

…Or maybe you do, for this is how free will works: once Moses got the Jews out of Egypt and they started their travels through the desert, the man had to have his Levites make several bloodbaths to ‘tame’ the newly liberated 12 tribes and to stop them from rebelling and returning the fleshpots of Egypt. Since the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is full of tales when the Israelis turned their back on God and went to worship other gods, idols, Moses was not really successful, though he tried hard and implemented truly draconian tactics – but we have digressed.

On a less epic note, what happened to KMT was wrong, but it was not unexpected, because a famous person always draws attention both good and bad. At that time, KMT got hit with more bad than good attention, apparently, but it had nothing to do with her race, but with the fact that Disney/SW merger went on in an unexpected direction and seems to have split its’ fan base, or at least – diminished it to a point where ‘Solo’ made only tens of millions of dollars, and not hundreds, as Disney expected it to. Now, it is not known where SW movies will go, in what direction: there is vague information about the SW9 movie, an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie, but nothing concrete, no indication of how the audiences will react to the future SW movies. The merged Disney/SW team might have wanted something new, progressive and radical…well, so did the Netflix-allied folks behind ‘Insatiable’, (though again, Debbie Ryan doesn’t appear to be associating with Disney anymore), and we know how that went down instead.

To rephrase it. The IGN member, who is an Asian-American, somehow conflated KMT, who is a single person, a real life individual and so on, with ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, a good, solid, American romantic comedy that got hyped so much that it strove to achieve a status of international importance – and failed, and now all the hype is dying down quickly, leaving behind nothing more than a romantic comedy of a movie; and with ‘To All The Boys that I Have Loved’, which is also a romantic comedy movie, a young adult one, and one that is less hyped. It also is different from ‘Asians’; and in the original novels, the racial angle wasn’t too important; in the last novel, the father of the family married a Ms. Rothschild, who was certainly not Korean or even Asian.

Listen: even as this article was wrote, ‘Scientific American’ has released an article online about female climatologists being sexually harassed in a manner that looks similar to what KMT went through, a woman herself – but it isn’t about race. Not primarily. Such trolls are angry at what KMT and other progressive people are doing – and they are using free will to express their anger, whether it is wrong or right.

The catch of course, that this is to be expected; if KMT expected only accolades to have come her way post the SW8 movie…then it genuinely sucks to be her, and maybe she should star in something less controversial: a romantic comedy, maybe. (Note that for a variety of reasons she apparently was not considered to be a ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ material). She is going to replay Rose Tico in the upcoming SW9 movie, but again, until it is actually aired, this can go in any direction.

Seriously, look at ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’. There was supposed to be a scene that depicted Zia in coming out as a same-sex person, but it got cut and there is no indication that it will be revealed, or play a role in the next JW film. So where does it leave the actress and the JW franchise? The latter was trying to be progressive itself…until it did not. What will happen to SW now that ‘Solo’ has indicated that even a Disney/SW juggernaut can start feeling the hits if they accumulate. Will they pull a Riordan and leave all the progressive values behind to salvage the financial situation? And either way, where will it leave KMT and the other actors?

…And keep in mind, that none of the above matters either to ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ or to the adventures of LJ and friends, regardless of whether they will have sequels or not. LJ and friends did not really try to be politically progressive, more like mundanely romantic, and neither did ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ within their movie-verse. Their real life cast and crew did, and now there’s some backlash as well, and with the Donald still at the helm this is something ‘Asians’ and the real life U.S. don’t need – but that is another story.

…Well, this is for now – see you all soon!

To All The Boys That I Have Loved - Aug 21

…And, since we have talked about Jenny Han and her LJ trilogy before, let us talk once more about the movie.

Why? Firstly, because of timing – it isn’t known if it was intentional or not, but it came out just as the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ did, and so it got to ride their wake, because the LJ movie is also a movie about the Asian-American people, who actually live in a mixed-culture family: their dad is Anglo-American, while their mom was from Korea, and now she’s dead. There is the spectre of Jane Austen hanging over the entire LJ trilogy, and it is likely to be intentional for whatever reasons the author has.

The movie has toned down that influence: the film’s LJ is much more spunky and athletic than the novels’ version is. Jenny Han did her best to show LJ as a young woman who is just coming into her womanhood throughout the trilogy…with some humor, but also some drama and tragedy. The movie has that too, but the humor is more boosted, just as it is in the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ film.

True, we did discuss it before: the LJ novels feel more like a ‘Maid in Manhattan’, not ‘Fools Rush In’ or ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (mostly, in the latter case). The author put the emphasis on romance, not on humor, while the movie feels more like a mixture of two. This makes it better than the ‘Insatiable’ series, as far as YA Netflix productions go, while ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ differ from it by trying to go international and beyond their rom-com parameters.

Listen: there are still plenty of accolades for ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ coming from…within the U.S. Abroad, even in Canada, there are more sceptics than in the U.S., and it is beginning to show. ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is an American movie, or maybe even an Asian-American one, but it isn’t an Asian one, and if the American society doesn’t understand the differences, then it has problems. The American society, not the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ movie. The latter does its job – it entertains. So does the LJ film, as well as the original novels, (in both cases). It’s just that LJ is less ambitious in its message or scope than ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ are, which makes sense, because Netflix isn’t Disney, and it isn’t as formidable as the big league movie companies are, either.

(Apparently, Netflix did offer to make ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ a part of its’ menu, but the director decided to go for the big screens instead. Small world).

Finally, about ‘Reverie’. So far, it is still uncertain if it will be renewed for a second season or not. That is not surprising – it got potential, but little excitement, and on occasion, it was known to focus on Sarah Shahi, (who plays Mara) and her legs a little too much. It is not exactly a hot mess, nor is it insipid as Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ had been; it is just rather lackluster and sometimes – it felt hollow, unsupported, loose.

That and the fact that it ripped-off Marvel’s AoS’ framework plotline, of course. Cannot forget that either. Not surprising, then, that the face of ‘Reverie’ is still hanging in the balance. Good luck to it, though.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

Crazy Rich Asians - Aug 19

…‘Crazy Rich Asians’ have aired this month at last. Already there are issues with them. How come?

Firstly, the plot. Despite the statement that the movie drew its’ material from the entire trilogy, it is still largely based on the first novel, the initial ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. Before anyone begins to argue, let us immediately agree that yes, the novel is about the nouveau-riche of Asia, the new aristocracy that is supplanting the old, European one, so calling the movie derived from the novel some sort of a breakthrough is a misdirection. …Or is it?

Before we discuss this matter further, let us look on the more technical aspects of the movie, how it is different from the novel. One notable difference is Astrid’s plot line – in the movie, it is downplayed; she and her husband break up and this is it. In the novels,…it lasts for the entire trilogy, and it is one of the least comic plotlines there, too. It is an inverted mirror to Rachel and her man, Astrid married outside of her class, a poorer man, and their marriage didn’t work, as he became a jerk and a stereotypical domineering husband, (in a bad, non-sexual way). Fortunately, her ex-boyfriend was there to save the day and help her and her son, so it all works out at the end of the trilogy. Yay! …But with fewer laughs than you might think.

…That is actually an interesting point. Not unlike the LG trilogy by Jenny Han, KK’s CRA trilogy is not exactly as comic as the movie may make you think; there are plenty of comic moments, but both trilogies have plenty of drama, too. This is reminiscent of yet another supposed rom-com movie, ‘Maid in Manhattan’, back in 2008. Remember? It has starred J-Lo and some other celebrities? It was a good movie, but it was not exactly a comedy, for a number of reasons.

One is that J-Lo is not really a comic actress; Salma Hayek, (re: ‘Fools Rush In’ from 1997), is, but J-Lo is not. Her current TV series, ‘Shades of Blue’, is a very good TV show, but it certainly is not a comedy either, and ditto for ‘Maid in Manhattan’ film. There were a number of comic/funny scenes in that movie, but as a rule, J-Lo was not in them. Funny just does not come naturally to her, and neither does romance, apparently: there was zero chemistry and Ralph Fiennes in all of the scenes that they were together, which was bad, because they were the lead characters in the movie.

Mind you, ‘Maid in Manhattan’ had plenty in common with the CRA film – both films talk about social inequality; both movies are set in big, famous cities, and etc. Both movies are also American, but mayhap we are getting distracted?

No, not really: another major difference between the CRA film and the novels is the downplay of the fact that Rachel’s biological father was an important member of China’s communist party – it is not featured as prominently in the movie as it is in the book.

…This was actually a point of realization for me, when I read the novel: it was set in Singapore (primarily), yet the characters came across mostly as Chinese, so I actually did some research about Singapore and China and learned, to my embarrassment, that Singapore wasn’t all that close to China, but actually quite far away, which brings us to the next point.

Firstly, the critics of the movie are not wrong: CRA is downplaying the multiethnicity of Singapore, focusing primarily on its’ elite, which is apparently mainly of Chinese origin, both in the movie and the novels. As such, it raises an issue: just how much of making the movie is an international win?

This brings us to Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’, (released in Feb 2018). It is a different movie from CRA, but it had been handled similarly – it was proclaimed to be an African movie, an Afrofuturistic movie, and etc. – and then people began to examine it more closely, look at the technical angles, and began to realize that it actually didn’t have too much to do with Africa, especially with real life Africa, such as it is: Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ featured an idealized American, or Afro-American, version of Africa, which is another matter altogether – and the same thing is going down with CRA. It has less to do with real life Asia and more with a stylized, fictional Asia of the novels’ author first and the movie’s actors, filming crew, scriptwriters, the director, etc. second. It is still a very impressive feat of cooperative achievement, very important for Asian-American actors in Hollywood, but just like ‘Black Panther’, CRA appears to be reaching out for being a movie of international importance – and this is where it falls flat, as Asians abroad, (especially those native to Singapore), have very different opinions of it than the people back in U.S. do, and it shows, as all the hype about CRA the movie is dying down already.

Does CRA matter? Yes, because right now U.S. is wrestling with the temptation of getting rid of its’ international utopia…for good. This is an ambiguous move, not because if the States do it, it is the end of the official-unofficial Pax Americana that has been going on since the end of the Cold War. Fewer people outside of U.S.A. want to get rid of it than the Americans pretend, but it is enough for the Americans to grow increasingly disillusioned with the utopia that they have been building since the 1970s, actually, and this is not good either. If U.S. stops even trying being an international arbiter, (as they have pretended to be in the post-Cold War years), this is it. The end of an international democracy and the end of a world that we have lived in for more than twenty years by now. What comes next will be different – just different, but we got sidetracked.

No, not really. CRA is a good movie adaptation of a novel, with plenty of technical differences from its book cousin. This is a regular occurrence for such films – the LG movie is different from the book as we have discussed earlier, and so’s ‘Freaky Friday’, or rather – its’ latest reboot, (that has also aired in August 2018). Somehow, people forgot that in the original novels… that is right, there were at least two novels – in the first, mom and her daughter switched places, in the second – a father and son, and they were all one family, a stereotypical nuclear family. In most of the adaptations, the family usually misses a father, and the son is much younger than his sister is. Somehow, there was never any stink raised over this odd development, so there is that. The latest FF movie version was wonderful all the same, too, but we are talking about CRA here.

…And it is the same thing. Whatever justified criticism CRA’s message might be bringing forth, the setting – the city of Singapore – well, does not. Everyone likes it, but many people loved ‘Black Panther’s’ Wakanda too, and let us be honest: while the setting can have some importance to the plot, (i.e., in ‘Main in Manhattan’, Manhattan and NYC did play an important role in having the plot go along), people usually stay to watch any movie for its’ actors – and this is what they’ve done for CRA: they watched it, and they judged it. As a movie, CRA is a success; as an attempt to affect real life politics, especially outside of the U.S., it is not so much, just as ‘Black Panther’ was not, (do people even talk officially about that film anymore?), so let us just accept it and move on.

…And for now, this is it. See you all soon!

Iron Fist S2 - Aug 17

…Back to the topic of Marvel, the 2^nd season of ‘Iron Fist’ is appearing early in September 2018. Yay!

…The problem that ‘Iron Fist’ featured was that it was generic – it was about a single Caucasian male superhero. If he was, you know, Oriental, that would be okay, as ‘Luke Cage’ demonstrates: its’ titular character a single Afro-American male superhero, and that makes it different from ‘Daredevil’. ‘Iron Fist’ doesn’t have that, which gives it an extra need to differentiate it from the older, more established and successful, ‘Daredevil’.

Why is the titular character of ‘Iron Fist’ not Asian-American but instead is Westeros’ Flower Knight? There was never much of a satisfactory answer, but that is okay – there was never much of a pressure to change the actors either, so let us admit that the racial issue is there, but it is not as important as people like to pretend, and move on.

The actual problem that ‘Iron Fist’ may be facing is the lack of originality – according to the rumors, he is facing a bloke named ‘Steel Serpent’ in his second season. So far so good, but this Davos person appears to be mostly an ‘Iron Fist’/’Danny Rand’ turned evil – kind of how Jessica Jones’ mom in her S2 was just like the titular heroine herself – only evil. Come to think of it, weren’t the villains in ‘Luke Cage’ S2 also both sympathetic and evil? Yes, and there was something of a parallel ‘team-up’ – Luke and Misty on one hand, Mariah and Bushmaster on the other? Yes, and we’re probably reading in it too much, but if ‘The Defenders’ are trying to keep themselves original, (with ‘Daredevil’ aside, his situation is different), there’s nothing odd about it either.

As for ‘Daredevil’… look. Not only is his comic base much more solid than the rest of ‘the Defenders’, there were also a couple of ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Electra’ movies in not so recent past. They weren’t very good, especially the ‘Electra’ one, but they did occur, so the crew of ‘Daredevil’ does have more material on which to work with, and it is tested, so they some ideas at least as to where to go with it, and what to do, and what not to do, etc. Thus, they do have an advantage over the rest of the team Defenders, and it shows.

But again, this does not matter to ‘Iron Fist’, not entirely. The current trailer shows that Misty Knight from ‘Luke Cage’ will appear in the series, (just as Colleen and Rand themselves did in ‘Luke Cage’ S2), so the semi-crossovers and the improvement of ‘the Defenders’-verse is still strong, but it is not a wonder-cure either. ‘Iron Fist’ was probably the weakest of ‘the Defenders’ show and it has to work especially hard to catch up to them…and so far there’s no indication that it is doing so. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce to the gander”… maybe, but with TV shows, and online shows, and so forth it may be different, but we will have to wait until September 2018 to see.

…This is it for now, see you all soon later!

Insatiable III - Aug 15

These days, both ‘C&D’ and ‘Reverie’ are over. Boo, but at least we can always download ‘C&D’ from Freeform™ and co., so there is that. Moreover, ‘Runaways’ S2 is coming in December 2018, and ‘The Gifted’ S2 – in September 2018, (and DCEU’s ‘Titans’ are coming in autumn 2018 as well), so there is that. Anything else?

Firstly, apparently, the ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ film was made based on all three novels of KK’s original trilogy, so it is different from the books. Yay? Probably, because the original novels didn’t go down so hot, at least not in Canada: they were being sold at a flat rate of $15 a book, and people weren’t buying them, regardless of all the excitement that Indigo and KK’s team tried to make of them. Right now, there’s a lot of talk as to how the movie will make or break the Asian-American flow in Hollywood…so, apparently, this puts the film on the level with the first transgender woman succeed in the U.S. politics at last…and this, technically, brings us back to ‘Insatiable’.

Why are we still kicking this dead horse? Probably because of Debbie Ryan, who seems to have become the latest young actress that is trying to survive in her post-Disney era. There’s Miley Cyrus, who burned her bridges with Disney so much, that no one remembers ‘Hannah Montana’ anymore; there’s Selena Gomez, for whom Disney took ‘The Wizards of Waverly Place’ and made it into her own show; and now there’s Debbie, who started her acting career in ‘The Suite Life on Deck’ portion of ‘The Suite Life’ series with the Sprouse twins, and where’s ‘The Suite Life’ now? Gone, just as ‘Hannah Montana’, ‘The Wizards’ and ‘Jessie’ are. ‘Jessie’ is the show that made Debbie into a lead actress, not one of several, as ‘The Suite Life on Deck’ did, BTW, but now it is also gone. Disney does have this trait – once a show is done, it is done, and everyone goes their separate ways. There was a crossover between ‘The Wizards’, ‘The Suite Life’ and ‘Hannah Montana’, and nothing came out of it. ‘Jessie’ got crossed with both ‘Good Luck Charlie’ and ‘Austin and Ally’ – ditto. Even before Disney teamed up with Marvel to manifest MCU, it tried to do something similar with its’ YA TV shows… but it didn’t quite work, most likely because Disney didn’t really want to commit entirely to it too.

…However, this was then. What now? Now Debbie, (known in this incarnation as Patty instead), is starring in ‘Insatiable’, a TV show that is supposed to be fat-positive, but comes across as fataphobic instead. Put more precisely, it sucks. On one hand, it deals with Debbie’s character in a not-very-funny way, the fat suit isn’t bad, but the jokes? They can be tone-deaf, and that is really ‘Insatiable’s’ true problem: it does not understand the material that it tries to address. It tries to be fat-positive, LGBTQ+ positive, and so on, but it comes across as phobic at worst and clichéd at best instead. There are all of the fat-related issues, and then there are the ‘me too’ issues: for a large part of the released episodes Patty is in not a relationship with an older man, who has been accused, (falsely or not is another issue), of molesting a teenage girl already, and the show makes it into a joke. Great. Lately there has been a report of Catholic priests also harassing teenagers across the U.S. and the pope has done nothing. Oh, how we are laughing!

That is probably the other reason as to why ‘Insatiable’ is failing, (it made 13% on Rotting Tomatoes site or some similar number) – it has bad timing; Netflix, or whoever it was behind the mental works of ‘Insatiable’ failed to realize the reality of the world where ‘Insatiable’ was going to be released into, and viewed.

No, seriously – for months now, the American in particular, and the Western in general, society was dealing with the ‘me too’ movement and what it means to both men and women, both personally and professionally. It is a thorny, complex, complicated issue, and the current political climate isn’t making it any better – and then along comes ‘Insatiable’ where Patty seems to be going into a very murky relationship with Bob, the pageant coach, while another student, Brick, is sleeping with an older woman. Just what the scriptwriters were thinking? That it will be funny? Why?

…Maybe at another time – yes, but here and now – no, just no, and this probably brings us back to the rebooted ‘Ghostbusters’, because they are in the same boat: an assumption was made that they will succeed, because the original movie was a success, and all that the new movie had to do was to gender flip its’ characters – and it didn’t work. The movie itself was a flop, and the ‘Ghostbusters’ franchise itself experienced a backlash; the same thing happened with an equally unsuccessful reboot of the ‘Gilmore Girls’ franchise, to a point where it was abandoned, as are the ‘Ghostbusters’. SW, who is also experiencing franchise-related issues, are so far holding more strongly, there are rumors of an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie already. Considering that the Solo movie made only tens of millions of dollars, rather than the hundreds expected by Disney and co., I should not, and will not make any hopeful or positive predictions just yet.

Finally – speaking of rumors – there is one regarding a ‘Frozen 2’ movie. Well, no, it is not a rumor anymore, ‘Frozen 2’ is really in the works, and is scheduled to release in November 2019. Good for them, but because of its’ success, and the popularity of Elsa’s character, there might be some tough times ahead – too many people think that Elsa should be heterosexual, or homosexual, or asexual, and so, however Disney will depict her in ‘Frozen 2’, there will be upset people, and Disney hates upsetting people, because it means losing revenue – but that is all in the future.

And for now? This is all. See you all soon!

Reverie, 'Point of Origin' - Aug 9

‘Reverie’s’ first season ended; what next?

Well, firstly, was it good? Compared to the other ‘Reverie’ episodes, it was mixed – yes, Mara resolved her conflict with her former brother-in-law, and she and her friends rescued Alexis from Oliver and stopped him from destroying ‘Oneira’, but…

But the way this all was executed was rushed, dissatisfactory, kind of flawed. Throughout the S1 finale, ‘Reverie’ rushed about, trying to do maximum action with minimum expose and CGI – here the budget restraints of ‘Reverie’ really showed.

The plot of ‘Point of Origin’… This time, ‘Reverie’ showed us Oliver-Alexis relationship; Oliver was supposed to be an evil Ward-Fitz fusion from AoS, making Alexis a Skye-Simmons fusion, while Mara is more like Melinda, (while her ex-fiancé Chris was kind of reminiscent of Andrew/Lash). Did it work?

On one hand, AoS itself was full of such failed allusions, especially from S3 onwards – it itself had its’ script, and its’ cast, fractured and reset many times, from S2 onwards, and it showed, and it cost AoS: while it does have a sixth season, it will be far shorter than the previous 5: only 13 episodes as opposed to the regular 22. On the other,… everything in AoS was original and it did not really borrow from other shows, ABC or otherwise, so here ‘Reverie’ is definitely inferior than AoS is. Even ‘Blindspot’ – it too came from AoS, (just as DCEU’s LoT did), but it did not openly quote AoS in its episodes. A definite minus to ‘Reverie’ for lack of originality.

Look: Oliver was supposed to be like Ward in that he was a pyromaniac, among other things, and like Fitz because he had mental issues, but because he was in less than half of ‘Reverie’s’ S1 episodes, people don’t really relate to him and he isn’t like either AoS’ Grant Ward or Leo Fitz. That is fine, but due to the quotations from AoS and the like, Oliver doesn’t come out like an original character either; in fact, all of the characters of ‘Reverie’ suffer in ‘Point of Origin’ (and the rest of the show’s episodes) because of their association with AoS’ and its’ characters.

Yes, ‘Blindspot’ too based its’ characters (and plot, to a lesser degree) upon AoS, especially the earlier seasons, but by the end of S3 it moved beyond AoS. ‘Reverie’ does not appear to be even trying to do that. Pity. Whenever ‘Reverie’ was original, it worked, and it was – relatively speaking – even better than AoS was. When it ripped AoS off, it would become just an imitation of AoS, and not even a flattering one. At the end of its’ S1 finale, ‘Reverie’ seemed to have reached a choice, and it does not appear to be the right one, (because of reasons that had been discussed at different times earlier). Hopefully, if it gets renewed for the second season, ‘Reverie’ will do a better job.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Insatiable II - Aug 8

Life cannot be avoided, and while it can be changed, even that is not done easily. The end of the introduction, now onto more pleasant – and unreal – topics.

Firstly, more info about the ‘Insatiable’ series proper. Just like the trailer, the series itself is a bunch of good ideas executed badly, an approach that can, well, backfire onto the original messages; there are some scenes in the episodes that cast a bad light on the entire ‘me too’ movement in real life, (where it already encounters issues not foreseen by its’ makers), for example.

Again, this is no end of the world, ‘Insatiable’ can fix it, if it survives beyond the first season; and if it does not, that is the end of that. Debbie Ryan used to star in Disney shows, so she still got some momentum left, most likely, and will survive that setback too. Whether Netflix and co. can afford it in the increasingly toxic and politic atmosphere of the U.S. society is another matter.

This brings us to MCU, because as we have discussed earlier, it, and especially AoS, had its own share of problems regarding good ideas depicted badly. This time, though, people have pointed out that ABC, aside from AoS, AC and ‘InHumans’ had also fiddled with a TV series called ‘Most Wanted’ that was supposed to star Nick Blood and Adrienne Palicki, aka Hunter and Morse from AoS. But! ‘Most Wanted’ failed on its pilot episode level, so it does not count. It certainly matters – Blood did return to AoS in S5: for a single episode, where his role was almost superfluous and unnecessary on one hand, and for an interview, which was very brief and perfunctory too. There’s clearly some bad blood between AoS (MCU?) and those two actors, something that AoS (and the rest of MCU?) could do without…so it is unlikely that ‘Most Wanted’ will appear on TV, or at least – not as how it was initially planned.

The other possibility is regarding ‘Damage Control’, which was a subsidiary of S.H.I.E.L.D., or something related, that was supposed to fix S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mistakes on a physical, obvious level. There were rumors about a show based on that back in AoS S3, but nothing came out of it, even the rumors died, so it is hard to say just how likely that a show like that will happen.

This brings us to the movies in general. The month of August 2018 brings us such diverse films as ‘The Meg’, which can be called ‘Not Another Fictional Shark Monster Movie’. I do not remember if we have discussed in detail or not why the fictional megalodon does not have much in common with the real life shark that died out during the Miocene-Pliocene epochs, but it is irrelevant; ‘The Meg’ is coming to the movie screens, and everyone sounds excited; couldn’t someone make a sea monster movie starring a good old-fashioned sea serpent instead? Now that would be unusual!

And then there are the ‘Rich Crazy Asians’, yet another movie-version of a novel. It already sounds like an opportunity for Hollywood’s Asian-American actors. Yay! However, the novel itself? It is a soap opera-drama-etc. with only some ethnic Asian flavor; having read it, I found it actually bland; there are some Asian features in the novel, but mostly as decoration; beneath it, ‘Rich Crazy Asians’ is generic, and it showed: the sales of novel and its’ sequels, (again, it is a trilogy), were very low. Maybe the movie will be better; so far, it is anyone’s guess…

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

ABC and MCU - Aug 7

There are rumors of talks of yet another Marvel TV show on ABC, on top of AoS; the article that I have read talked about both AC and ‘InHumans’ and some vague talks about this theoretical show, and that is fine.

What is bothering me is the lumping. The truth of the matter that AoS, even at worse, is a TV show with good ideas – where it went wrong was not just the depiction of these ideas, but also the cast: just like in the MCU movies, AoS had problems in keeping its actors, especially for more than one season, especially on recurring non-villain roles, (but villain roles too). AoS has its flaws, but it also has bad luck, so there is that.

AC was only two seasons long, but it was just as good as AoS was, maybe even better, and it is a pity that Hayley Atwell left MCU – at least for the moment – because otherwise maybe AoS had had a frenemy of a rival in AC, which would have whipped AoS into shape instead, for the improvement of everyone.

And conversely, there were Marvel’s ‘InHumans’, which lasted for only a single season and had only 8 episodes, (in this incarnation, but still). Just like AoS, but far worse, ‘InHumans’ had bad luck and a host of problems from the beginning. The initial two episodes, aired before the general TV real on IMAX, gave the ‘InHumans’ a bad reputation, one that they didn’t deserve, because they weren’t bad; they were insipid, lukewarm, and rushed.

Again, just like AC, and AoS, and the rest of MCU, ‘InHumans’ best quality were the actors and their acting…and it felt rushed, flawed, incomplete; there were plot holes and indications that the show had problems with the actors; this wasn’t enough to end the ‘InHumans’ by itself, but with the low numbers and an initially bad reputation – it was.

So, what next? It is anyone’s guess – so far, there are not any direct indications as to what the next ABC MCU TV show will be. As the cases with ‘Runaways’ and ‘C&D’ show, other TV companies/channels/etc. are already getting involved and grabbing them all. Ouch! In addition, there is a limited pool of genuine Marvel ideas too; it is always possible to create OCs, as it happened in AoS, actually, but in that case, what about the AoS? If there’s a second group of OCs – based on Marvel’s Squadron Supreme or whoever – does ABC actually need AoS anymore, (as a supplement to Marvel’s movies or otherwise)? That is a good question…

Well, this is it for the moment; see you all soon!

Cloak & Dagger, 'Colony Collapses' - Aug 3

‘Colony Collapses’, ‘C&D’s’ S1 finale, aired this week. What can be said about it?

Firstly…either a disclaimer or a side-note. Jedi master Que-Gon Jinn had been a bloody genius; his statement that ‘there’s always a bigger fish’ might be said in passing and sounding trite, in a Captain Obvious way, but it was still correct. I thought that my reviews can be bitter in a sarcastic sort of way, and then IGN released its’ review of “Christopher Robin” the movie on YouTube. Man, this is potent stuff; I could never get close to it!..

Back to our topic. In CC, ‘C&D’ delivered as always, especially when it came to acting. The titular leads rocked, as they always do, but the rest of the supporting cast did as well, even though… even though their material was limited. Last week, father Delgado was little more than an exposition machine, and in this episode, the season’s finale, he was shown…in a cameo, as a friend of Ty’s family, (never mind that we have seen little indication of that in the seasons past), and a silent one at that. The role of the exposition machine passed onto aunt Voodoo, as she narrated…to the audience, but officially – to her niece, Evita, who then passed it onto Ty and Dy as they hanged in their semi-secret hideout of a church.

Let us pause for a second – before CC was aired on the screen, there were several clips-‘sneak peeks’ – circulating on YouTube and etc. Well, one of them showed Evita confronting Ty and Dy in the church…and it covered most of their interaction in the season finale, period. As a result, we got an imbalance – the aunt herself had waxed poetic, (and taking-up a large portion of the episode), about the various disasters in the New Orleans’ history, and how various heroic couples somehow resolved them, with one of them dying. And then, on the other hand, we’ve Evita passing the info onto Ty and Dy, and it took about a minute or two – “Hey, it’s my job to tell you that it is your job to save the city from the terrors, one of you is going to die though, bye!” Smooch to Ty and she is gone. Worst sidekick ever – Mina’s actually useful here.

As an aside, by now at least some viewers realized that Raina influenced Evita’s character – yes, AoS’ Raina, who had been…maybe not evil, but certainly selfish, and from time to time even crazy. At AoS’ S2 finale she did the right thing…for whatever reasons…and because AoS was experiencing a major character purge, one of the factors why the show began to go downwards from S3 on – the character/actor loss caused their scripts and plots to be seriously restructured, and it showed. And ‘C&D’?

Also yes, just to a lesser extent. Detective Mayhem’s plotline was resolved…in an unsatisfactory way. Yes, she became Mayhem proper, but the way it was handled? Clumsy. In the first half of CC, the corrupt cop, Detective Connors, was built up to be a force to reckoned, maybe even more so than your average corrupt cop was – and then it promptly collapsed, as the terrors began to invade and kill everyone, including the police. That was the beginning of the end – not only did Ty lose his upgraded superhero cloak and had to deal with his older, more basic and plain-looking one, but the corrupt cop’s demise was absolutely unexpected, as Ty’s cloak of shadows ate him.

Yeah, while Dy can drain people’s hopes, like some sort of an energy vampire, Ty apparently can just consume them, rather like Nyarlathotep, Hastur the King in Yellow, and the rest of the Old Ones can. Howard Lovecraft would have been so proud of him!.. However, before the corrupt cop became consumed, (and seriously, you are fighting some dude that can teleport from place to place, and you are not scared? He really was more than what he looked like), he did shoot and kill Mayhem so that she could return to life as…well, Mayhem. In the original stories, Mayhem became an ally of C&D, but here, apparently, she is being set up as a more Killmonger-like figure.

Another pause. When Killmonger appeared in February (or March?) of 2018, he was set-up by media as a new type of Marvel villain, as some sort of an anti-hero, (kind of how Venom is being set up in his own 2019 film). Yeah, no – Killmonger was a typical Marvel-MCU villain, and he died as one; he may have found some sort of peace at the end of the movie, but that is not enough. If ‘C&D’ team are setting up Mayhem to be like Killmonger, they are setting her up to be a villain, period, so they are deriving from her canon character in the comics. Fair enough, but there is nothing else.

Or rather – there is Mister Jip, who was another ‘C&D’ villain of a character, who was rumored to appear on the show ever since episode 1x06 – but he never did. What gives with that?

Well, probably, the ‘C&D’ cast and crew had to do some restructuring back in the real life, in the manner of AoS (from S2 onwards, in their case). Regardless, they still did a tight job, maybe not as good as AC did, (and these days the titular heroine is Mrs. Christopher Robin instead, cough), but still better than AoS was. Kudos to them, and especially – to their special effects team, who did a bang-up job with the special effects, especially everything Ty and Dy related. It balances-out the choppy time frame – in one scene it’s day, in another – night, in the third – morning, depending on what time of the day/night was needed to dramatize every scene further. Ah well, even Homer sometimes nods and all that.

Well, this is it for this time; see you all soon!

Reverie, 'The Key' - August 2

The penultimate episode of ‘Reverie’ S1 was upon us. ‘The Key’ was everything that we’ve seen in the ‘Reverie’ S1 so far and more, as this episode had actually tackled two separate plot lines, with both of them coming to a head next week in the season’s finale: firstly, Mara is finally dealing with the truth of her family’s demise, (and also the revelation that she isn’t as nice as she thinks that she is), while Oliver is finally going into the supervillain territory, as he kills his security officer minion and prepares to burn ‘Oneira’ with the reverie-manifesting machinery to the ground.

Is there a twist? Well, Oliver was intended to be relatable to us…or he would have been, if he had appeared in more than just two episodes of S1. (This is his third appearance in the show so far). For a long time, he did not have a backstory, as several villains of AoS did; he was the backstory, especially of Alexis and Charlie, which makes it hard for the audience to relate to him: he was cast as a villain from his start, so it is only natural that he is now revealed as one properly. No, what one rather feels in regards to Oliver is relief: at last ‘Reverie’ has its proper villain, so now it is up to Mara, (next week), to see if he can be redeemed or not.

Here’s a thing – unlike AoS, where the main cast members often had conflicts between themselves and had to resolve them to move the story line forwards, ‘Reverie’ is much more straightforward and simple: every week, until ‘The Key’ – this week’s episode – we had a…patient of the week with a problem, (usually with a subtle connection to one or another character from AoS), and Mara went into the reverie and helped sort it out with the help of the rest of team Oneira. There were some minor variations from one episode to the next, but in general? This is how it went – but now it does not. Now Mara and Paul need to actually take the initiative and resolve Mara’s conflict with her ex-brother-in-law as well as within herself, while also resolving whatever crazy-ass plan Oliver got for ‘Oneira’ and the reverie – but we’ve been there before.

Possibly, Mara’s revealed viciousness, (and Charlie’s, and maybe also Alexis’), is the AoS-like twist in ‘Reverie’, but somehow it only makes Mara – as a character – more rounded and human. Until now, the characters in ‘Reverie’ were more two-dimensional than those of AoS, for example, or of ‘Runaways’. Now, however, they are becoming more rounded, with the plot becoming more intriguing and exciting than it did before, so it can be safely proclaimed that ‘Reverie’ does everything right, ‘by the numbers’, as far as the shows go, so their big question currently is: was it enough? Are there enough people who give a damn – or even more – about ‘Reverie’ and its’ characters? Because if there is not, ‘Reverie’ falls flat, and since there are no news about it receiving renewed for a second season yet…this is not encouraging. We will just have to wait and see what will happen next.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!