SM: BND

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, let us talk about SM: BND instead.

I watched it. I liked it. I… feel that there is something too much, or not enough, in it.

Let us expand. In Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ we got to see an almost 3-hour-long film about Odysseus and his entourage – namely his wife Penelope, his son Telemachus, his nemesis Antinous, and his therapist, Calypso. Everyone else was an episodic character, including Athena, and some characters, like Odysseus’s parents, who played important parts in the original epic, are absent entirely.

Conversely, SM: BND is a pageant of Marvel characters, as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man films are since the very first movie, (remember it?). Here we see the friendly neighborhood you-know-who deal with the Scorpion, the Hulk, DODC, and the Hand ninjas controlled by the new Jean Grey, while dealing with his increased loneliness from Ned and MJ. Pause.

Right, this is a good point to start. In SM3, Peter parted with Ned and MJ on a tearful, powerful note. Here we see him still single, but still hanging around Ned and MJ even as they are becoming different people who have no attachment to him, no connection. So why is he not moving on?

Well, for one thing, I suspect that Tom and Zendaya are in love, and they do make more money as a package than separately. Oh, they appeared separately in all sort of films… just not Marvel ones, and so Sony/MCU did not intend to buck the trend, especially a successful one. Pause.

In the SP4 finale, we learn that PP is going into space… and without MJ and/or Ned, so there is that. Maybe PP is moving on, and outwards. After all, MCU never likes making aromantic movies, so, who knows? Maybe PP can find happiness without MJ after all.

…Given that Tom and Zendaya are in love and a successful team and Zendaya comes across as the one in charge here, I am not so sure. What else?

Jean Grey is introduced to MCU in a bright new way, since it is a ‘brand new day’. Since the upcoming Doomsday film is bringing the X-Men back as a group, this raises questions as to what happened to the other Jeans. Hey, we had several SM, Lokis, and few other characters – why not several Jeans at once? Sophie Turner might be willing to make a toehold for herself in MCU, eh?

The plot itself… it works, obviously, as do the visuals. This is important, as a plot, is well, important, and so’s the delivery. ‘Stuart fails to save the universe’, for example, has a decent plot and delivery, and… that is it. Right now, the support is highish, but people are still cautious about committing to it, it looks like.

‘Surviving Earth’, on the other hand… it was a beautiful mess whose supporters lost interest midway through. The episodes feel out of order; the season-long ode to motherhood was something else; and I really want to talk about it some other time.

For now, let us just accept that SM: BND is a good film, but not unlike Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’, it has its flaws and doubtful moments and move on. Real life sucks, eh?

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

Movies - June 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Moreover, it is beginning to bleed into the media too.

Look at the movies, to be more precise. They are just going down. The Jurassic franchise? Surviving on games, which is separate, (in a manner of speaking, ok), from the films or the streaming series. The Planet of the Apes franchise? Also down to the ground. The upcoming Supergirl movie? It is the usual ‘cynical anti-hero find their wings and inner goodness to become the hero they were meant to be’. Given that ‘My Adventures with Superman’ cartoon has done this to Kara in S2 much more powerfully, there is no surprise that people are not too enthusiastic about the upcoming Supergirl movie. Not that DC had many options left – the CW Arrowverse Supergirl really rode the perky good-hearted superheroine aspect of this character to the hilt, making Supergirl look good too, so now the DC movies are trying to do something else with the character.

The Flashpoint Paradox live-action movie had a dark-haired Supergirl instead of Superman, which was not a bad idea, overall, but someone in the creative team behind the DC live-action movies decided that that idea was contaminated by Ezra Miller’s toxicity, so back to the blonde hair it is. Now Supergirl curses, swears, drinks, and the like, but never fear! Once push comes to shove, Supergirl will do what is right. …Whether the audience will appreciate it is another question. Next?

Well, this brings us to my main point of my rant: ‘Steps’. Pause. Here I mean not the stairs, (that is for Po Ping the Panda), but rather the upcoming Netflix movie. In this version of the Cinderella’s story, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (her name is Lilith), gets the fairy godmother’s wand, makes a hash of things, and has a tyrant named Priscilla take over the kingdom, so now she and Cinderella have to team-up to save it all. Pause.

Does this sound familiar? It kind of does. No, not the Lilith bit – thanks to the team Vivziepop the name of Adam’s first wife (in some religious traditions) is well known now. I am talking about the movie’s plot – it is heavily influenced by Disney’s movie ‘Cinderella 3: the Twist in Time’. There, Cinderella’s stepfamily stole fairy godmother’s wand and almost took over the kingdom, but never fear – one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (Anastasia), reconsidered and helped Cinderella save the day. The delivery of ‘Cinderella 3’ and ‘Steps’ is different, but the latter was clearly influenced by the former. That said, while Disney’s movies often have plot twists, the plot of ‘Steps’ does not – not apparently. Rather, from the little we have, we will have Lilith help Cinderella defeat Priscilla and become a better person. The plot of ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ did this sort of thing already. Still better than Disney. Pause.

Let me try again. Where is Disney in all of this? Making ‘The Stepsisters’, something new and edgy about Cinderella’s stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella. It is supposed to be done a la ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ reboot too. That particular reboot with Disney’s attempt to do something a la ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ film. The original movie itself… is based on a book that has little to do with the film, and has its own fans and audience, not much more. The ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ film – ditto; it made money, so Disney is keeping the crew busy with ‘The Stepsisters’ while it decides what to do next, and it can take a while.

Listen. Disney loves to make money. It hates losing money, and being involved in controversies and the like – even more. It wants to appeal to the sexual minorities, which is does by featuring them in various MCU properties, done in such a manner that they can be ‘cut out’ of the main MCU narrative and the latter doesn’t suffer; sexual minorities are the outlier, and the main heterosexual narrative is the main narrative.

Is Disney’s own universe, sometimes that cannot be done, as it was with ‘Raya and the last dragon’: there the same-sex relationship was plain to see. Therefore, Disney just ended that universe, the movie is a one-time, and it will remain a one-time, though Raya herself will appear in various other properties as a Disney princess. No girlfriend or anyone, though.

Conversely, there is the ‘Frozen’ franchise. The first film was quite traditional by Disney princess standards, with Hans being a traditional villain, albeit one with an open ending – he did not die, for one thing. However, ‘Frozen 2’ completely discard that story, having Elsa and her family go north, where they met Honeymaren Elsa’s not-girlfriend – right now Elsa is officially single, and as some person told us, she’ll remain single until she decides how she swings. I.e., Disney realized that they hit on something good with a blue-eyed blonde queen/princess/whoever and they do not want to ruin it by controversy. So they did not, Elsa remained conveniently single in ‘Frozen 2’, and now that the third and fourth movies of the ‘Frozen’ franchise are coming in the next few years, we will get to see what Disney does to poor Elsa next. Anything else?

Eh, ‘Cinderella 3’ made a bit of a mess itself, as it cancelled out the events in ‘Cinderella 2’. Maybe ‘The Stepsisters’ will fix it, or they may not. Netflix’s ‘Steps’ might be a fun fresh (relatively) take on the ‘Cinderella’ story, or it might just be an insipid and pointless generic piece of junk about a redemption of not quite a villain. We will just have to wait and see. Real life sucks, remember?

This is it for now. See you all soon!

'The Tapestry of Fate' - May 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, I look at ‘The Tapestry of Fate’ by Ms. Chakraborty, and what do I think?

…A complete re-making of the franchise, that is what. In the series debut (2023), ‘The Adventures of Amina…’ the novel was extremely influenced by Disney’s PotC franchise. (Remember it? Mr. Depp was acquitted, aye, but so far, he kept a low profile regardless). It was not a bad novel, but the Daevabad series was better.

Now we came to ‘The Tapestry of Fate’, and the entire premise we were given in ‘The Adventures’ gets not-so-subtle dismissed. For example, Captain Amina’s first mate, Timbu, was in the same-sex relationship with a man named Joseph, who was also of the Judaic faith – and now that plotline is not mentioned at all, and Timbu himself has a much-reduced role – for the bulk of ‘The Tapestry’ he is not there, not really. Many other characters, introduced in ‘The Adventures…’ became sidelined or removed or barely mentioned in ‘The Tapestry’, leaving the spotlight not just on the novel’s villain, queen Lab, (no, that’s not a typo, that’s her moniker; at least Ms. Chakraborty and her team didn’t name her queen Lab O’Ratory, as that would be just silly), but also on Amina, Dalila, and Raksh.

…Raksh (I’m quite sure it’s an abbreviation of ‘Rakshasa’) was decidedly an enemy of captain Amina and her crew in ‘The Adventures’; now, in ‘The Tapestry’, he’s part of the team instead. Pause.

Listen, I can list the differences as how the novels in captain Amina line treat the characters, the plot, everything else, but what for? Let us just assume that Ms. Chakraborty hired a ghostwriter, or re-hired an old ghostwriter, or hired a new one, and move on. To where?

That is a good question. What else is out there? The ‘Twisted Disney’ series, where various respected authors are paid to create book-length fanfics about various Disney characters? If you like Disney, you will probably enjoy the different adventures of Jasmine, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, etc., and buy those books; if you do not, you probably will not.

Ms. Patricia Briggs keeps on releasing the novels about Mercy, but not all. This brings us back to the topic of ghostwriters – on her own, Ms. Briggs’ novels are an endless parade of Mary Sue – one is called Mercy, and the other is called Anna or Ann, depending on which of the Marrok’s two sons a novel focuses. Ms. Briggs did not have something to name her Mary Sue three distinct names – one can be called Mercy, another Anna (or Ann), and the third – Betty or Cherry, off the top of my head – but no. Clearly, if Ms. Briggs’ Mary Sue is not named Mercy, her name has to start with the letter ‘A’, or else it just does not work.  

…Like all Mary Sue novels, the female characters who are not the main lead are villains, who are treated much harsher than the male characters, or else are bitchy and redundant. Fair enough. Ms. Briggs owns a ranch, she can release as much fiction as she can afford. Huzzah. What next?

MCU itself does not know what to do with ‘Punisher: One Last Kill’. BB has released their second S2 ‘Endlings’ episode – this one on the giant Galapagos tortoise. Again, they dutifully took the Wikipedia article – or just asked one A.I. or another – read the results, and, well, read the results to us via YouTube.

Aye, it is somewhat curious to think how people moaned the fate of Lonesome George, when just a few miles in one direction or another his cousins flourished, and, in this case, extinction didn’t get to be forever, and it is interesting to learn just how easily giant Galapagos tortoises crossbreed/hybridize with each other, and how tricky is conserving those species/subspecies, but-

Pause. I enjoyed watching this episode. It was straightforward, simple, and fun to follow. Whether or not it was original, is another question, but after reading Ms. Chakraborty (seriously, the woman does not even look the part – are we talking cultural appropriation here, or has it been relegated back to empty noise?), I do not really care. BB

Medea and Daredevil S2 - March 25

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Several of my documents were lost and I cannot recover them, I almost missed the Daredevil S2 premiere, and people are bothering me about the latest Ms. Haynes novel – ‘No friend to this house’ – that I should read it. Let me start with that one.

Am I going to read ‘No friend’? Well, eventually, maybe. Again, the reason why I’m not the biggest fan of Ms. Haynes is because she’s not the radical firebrand she’s assumed to be, it’s quite the reverse, (usually).

What does Ms. Haynes do? She re-tells the Greek myths, both as fiction and not. As not-fiction, her works are one thing, but her fiction – it is what it is. The Greek myths had been public property for a long time now, and people in general know how they go – Perseus will defeat Medusa and marry Andromeda, Atalanta will kill the boar and lose the race because of the apples, Odysseus is going to get to Ithaca and save his house, etc. Those stories are read, known, remembered, de-facto etched in stone. They can be re-worked, of course… and then they become something else entirely.

Let us get back to A.I. When I experimented with it to write fiction, I quickly uncovered that the fiction it writes follows certain guidelines – couples are heterosexual (unless made otherwise), social strata fall into the strata of priests, aristocrats and peasants, (no workers or entrepreneurs unless made otherwise), characters choose to remain themselves than to change to please others (unless made otherwise)… Pause.

Here is the thing. If you are using A.I., you are free to use it or not. No one forces you to rely on A.I. alone, even if you are commissioned to write something, it is you who is commissioned, not the A.I. You are free to write your own things, not follow the A.I.’s guidelines if you do not want to. Fiction?

By now, there is plenty of fictional novels that feature Greek mythical characters, including the Argonauts. They do not claim to be ‘a mixture of dark tragedy and witty satire’ as Ms. Haynes’ take on them is, supposedly, is, but they were often quite derived from the original Greek myths, much more so than Ms. Haynes’ novels are; she just tries to add the feminist angle to the myths; as a rule, her female characters are positive (unless otherwise), while her male characters are negative, (unless otherwise). Nothing exactly radical here. Yet she is praised for her derivative works so much that I wonder if her political progressiveness is a neophyte’s zeal… or a masterful plan of playing the political progressivity system for personal gain… just as the system is beginning to break for real thanks to the Donald’s meddling… where were we?

In her non-fiction book of essays on the mortal women of Greek Myths, (‘Pandora’s Jar’, PJ), Ms. Haynes talks about Medea and Jason, comparing them to a modern divorcing couple, save for the murdering of the children. Therefore, I am betting that this is how she is depicting them in ‘No Friend’ – as a modern couple, (where the wife is smarter than the husband is, just not that much smarter), save for the murdering of the children. Therefore, I am willing to wait a few months until the excitement dies down, (such as it is), and then read about a modern divorce dressed in ancient Greek trappings, such as the murdering of the children. Ms. Haynes does not really try to justify Medea’s actions, she just re-tells them in her own language, maybe dumbed down for her audience, maybe not, and moves on. (To Penelope of Ithaca, but that is unimportant). What else?

The Daredevil S2 premiere. From the technical P.O.V., it is stunning, but the content… MCU itself had Matt Murdoch point out that the Sokovia protocols are dead in the ‘She-Hulk’ the series, so why is Fisk running NYC as if it is? The AVTF (or whatever they are abbreviated to), may be his personal army, but how is he getting away with it? During the Donald’s first 4 years, Marvel comics tried to reflect reality, but the Joe Biden became the 46^th U.S. president, Marvel comics and MCU had to redirect themselves or whatever, and now, unlike Thanos of MCU, the Donald is back and is causing the U.S. and the cause of democracy a lot of damage, and MCU is going for Fisk in NYC instead. Bravo! Innovative stuff here indeed! Real life sucks!

No, wait, that’s probably Tom Holland’s fourth Spider-Man movie, as it has the Punisher in it too. That deserves its’ own discussion, and we will have it some other time.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Dinosaurs and PJO - March 09

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but sometimes it is just weird. A while earlier this year, I found several Montoy™ Toy Dinosaurs down at the recycling room; they were in good condition, so I took them. (Childish, I know, but they are still good, my life sucks, and so I took them). There were five of them – a T-Rex, a Dilophosaurus, a Triceratops, a Velociraptor, and a Pteranodon – I was really lucky, for once.

This is when things got odd. Most of the dinosaurs, (yes, I know that the Pteranodon was not a dinosaur at all, but their cousin, but those are toys, so this doesn’t matter), are realistic enough, and looked just how they were depicted on the box… except for the T-Rex, which is built much… less robust than the Dilophosaurus and the Velociraptor; his head and torso are horizontal, parallel to the ground, and it doesn’t look much like a T-Rex… or how it is depicted on the box.

How do I know how it is depicted on the box? I went looking for the Montoy™ toy block dinosaurs at the local dollar stores… and I found them. I found the Dilophosaurus, the Velociraptor, and the Pteranodon easily enough, but the Triceratops and in particular the T-Rex – with much more effort. Why?

Because those dinosaurs are depicted much less realistically, I guess. They both are smaller than the Dilophosaurus and the Velociraptor… but they are toys. ‘Assemble yourself’ toys for preteen children. Realism does not have anything to do with them, so why Montoy™ is apparently ashamed of them, and is calling them back, I do not know. Real life sucks… but it is also weird.

Another manifestation of this weirdness involves the cobra snake. The YouTube search engine is not very different from an A.I. – it runs on human algorithms… so when you put down just ‘cobra’ you get many videos of… people who give themselves that name as their moniker or something similar. Fair enough, so you put in ‘cobra snake’ as your search and what you get are videos… of king cobras, either by themselves, or as parts of videos that talk about venomous snakes in general, including king cobras – king cobras are still representatives of the elaphid clan of the snakes, it just that now the videos talk about other snake clans as well.

Humans made the term ‘cobra’, and it applies to several snake groups that are related to each other, but are still distinct. The king cobra, in particular, is separate from the ‘other’ cobras… and there might be several snake species in that genus, and not just the default one. That is interesting, but does not explain as to why the king cobra is the ‘default’ cobra on YouTube – to find any other, you need to be even more specific, it is not a bother exactly, but it is still strange.

(Not as strange as the plaster Dilophosaurus I found – it is not as much a toy as a painting model, it had the feet of a raptor and the front claws of a T-Rex – clearly Dr. Wu and his hybrid dinosaurs are more important than how it comes across). Anything else?

Just a point about PJO S2, two points, even. First, in the novel, young Clarisse commanded a crew of the resurrected… Confederate soldiers – and in the TV series, her crew are anyone but the US. Confederate soldiers – Disney might be progressive, but it has a limit, apparently.

And second, in the original novel, Tantalus is banished to Tartarus and Chiron is rehabilitated – and he’s brought back in a much later novel, ‘The Court of the Dead’, where he’s one of the main antagonists. In the TV series, the Lestrygonians kill him instead. Why – I have no idea again, but, clearly, Disney is taking PJO somewhere, we just do not know where… real life sucks, true, but it is also weird.

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

Minions and Monsters 1 - Feb 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us turn to the movies, and… what is that? The seventh ‘Minions’ movie? Why, for the love of God?!

Let us try again. The DM1 film (I am just numbering them, come on, all know which DM movie is which); the DM1 film was about Gru adopting three orphan girls as his stepdaughters and becoming less despicable and villainous. DM2 introduces Lucy, his love interest; DM3 – his brother, and the trilogy was complete.

The DM4 film explained the origins of the Minions as well as their metaphorical journey to become, well, the Minions. DM5 – showed them becoming, well, minions to Gru when he was a teen or some age like that. DM6 introduced Gru and Lucy’s new baby son, as well as Poppy, a teenage girl that becomes somewhat of a family friend – eventually. It also introduces the Super-Minions, but they do not appear to be in this film, at least – thank God for small mercies. What next?

The DM7 film appears to be a new expansion of the DM-verse, as the Minions are going for the Monsters to have them star in the Minions’ movie. Guess someone watched MCU’s ‘Wonder Man’ series, eh?

Right, Disney/MCU’s ‘Wonder Man’. It is more ambiguous than it looks. Namely, on one hand, it looks to be the culmination of Disney/MCU’s desire to have a mini-series with a P.O.C. in charge; they tried it with RiRi ‘Ironheart’ Williams, and when her own series failed first, and Marvel Zombies cartoon series were almost just as bad, they went with Wonder Man instead. Therefore, on the other hand, WM appears to be more like ‘Agatha All Along’: it is connected to MCU but doesn’t appear to influence it; as Agatha and co. were dismissed after AAA finished, so did the WM – it is done, it is gone, Disney/MCU has its’ feel-good, and it puts WM into the storage, right next to AAA, if it ever will need either of them again. (It will not). What next?

‘Knight of the 7 kingdoms’ continues apace, with even more Targaryens that we ever wanted. The people are continuing to watch it; they like it well enough, but nothing more; the fan support is getting there, of course, but slower than they had with HoD, so there is that. Dunk and Egg are joined by Waffle – I mean, Daeron Targaryen and are about to go against Aerion the Monstrous; say what you will, but Aerys from GoT (ASOIAF) was much worse by far out of the two (for now). Guess we will have to wait to see if he does live up to his moniker, or not.

In addition, it will be curious to see just how Lyonel Baratheon’s friendship with Dunk and Egg will evolve. The Baratheons were Lords Paramount of Stormlands, and as such – just below the Targaryens themselves, but Egg is a Targaryen, (and will become king, cough), while Dunk will become the Lord Commander (and the ancestor of Brienne), so Lyonel’s friendship with them can easily become a Good Thing for the House Baratheon – and maybe it did. Certainly, until the Targaryens did that shit with the Starks the Baratheons were loyal to them well enough; why, everyone was loyal to them until Rhaegar listened to his inner Tarquin, and then almost no one was. (Just look up Shakespeare’s poem ‘The Rape of Lucretia’ would you? It is that Tarquin). What next?

Well, DM7 is going to be a cash-grab; good or bad is another story, but this one? It is going to be a cash-grab. ‘Illumination’ is already sticking Minions wherever, anywhere, regardless of whether people want it or not, and now they are getting their own movie. Again. DM4 was their first movie, and it did lay the groundwork for the second DM trilogy, but you have to admit that the DM6 film has a rather final feel to it, especially the last scenes that just re-introduce all the main characters from all of the six films in one capacity or another; it leaves Gru with his wife, daughters, son, and even brother (and some family friends) on his lawn – clearly, it was supposed to be the series’ finale. Now we are having a new Minions movie, (just when the U.S. movie industry seems to be struggling as it is). Why, for the love of God?! Oh, wait, it’s real life. It sucks. Yay.

Well, this is it for now anyhow. See you all soon, instead.

PJO S2, take 2 - Jan 13

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us return to PJO S2 once again.

We start with ‘the Sea of Monsters’, obviously. Riordan’s novel was one thing, and Disney+ went with something visibly influenced by the PotC franchise – remember the entire Depp vs. Hearst RL story? Yes, that PotC. Disney is continuing to play fast and loose with its properties – guess the Sequel Trilogy of SW did not teach them anything…

No, really, let us expand. In the SW 7-9 films, Disney tried to push female power and other progressive politics onto the movies’ audiences, and failed. The state of affairs where Disney/SW just swung back and forth between bending backwards to appease the viewers to flat-out defying them (Witcher S4 style) to elsewhere made it worse. In PJO S2, this state of affairs is not present, instead we have POCs, especially young women of Afro-American origin, being the main characters – mostly. Circe took over for Medusa here, (sort of – out of the two, Medusa is the more appealing character), and PJ (who is played by an Anglo-American male), and Grover, (who is a POC, but male, rather than female), are still important to the plot. However, otherwise? Athena is depicted here as a POC. Not a problem – she is a goddess; in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ she tended to alter her appearance constantly whenever she was in the mortal world – she could appear as anyone, male or female, as well as human or bird. Right now, we behold her as a woman of color, just as Zeus is an Afro-American man – but that does not matter at all. Zeus courted Europa as a bull, Danae – as a shower of gold, Alcmene – as her legitimate husband, and Leda – as a swan to name a few; right now he looks like an Afro-American man; in the next moment he can look like an animal, an inanimate object, or, Tartarus, even a woman – he seduced and impregnated Callisto in the shape of his another daughter, Diana slash Artemis of the hunt, so, clearly, the divine equipment is different from the mortal on many levels…

Athena, of course, is supposed to be a virginal goddess. Pause. In the second series, Riordan made it so that Minerva is a virginal goddess, but Athena isn’t – and now, in ‘The Court of the Dead’, there are ‘legacy demigods’ of Minerva too. He is clearly doing his best to adapt to whatever Disney is doing with his franchise, for what else is there?

Calling it quits and leaving with some originality and integrity intact. As king Midas showed, you cannot have all the money in the world, and Croesus showed that you could be rich, but still have an unhappy ending to your life. (Neither appeared on PJO yet). Riordan has 15 books on the Greek-Roman myths, 3 on the Egyptian, and another 5 on the Norse – plus oodles of supplementary books. That is quite enough for a single person; the royalties for them should last him a lot – and then there are the ‘RR presents’ YA novels – but we’ll talk about them another time. Right now we reach the point that Riordan’s characters can be POC or WASP and move to the fact that Disney is trying to pull an ‘Ironheart’ here – Annabeth, Clarisse, even Thalia (in the flashback), all are POCs, and they almost steal the show from Percy, who is not. The show is good, but now the fans have reached the acceptance stage – they do not care about the race bending, (good for them), or about anything else. They just watch the episode of the week, and move on. Riordan and Disney tried to reinvigorate the franchise. It does not appear to have worked. Of course, if they kill Clarisse, (rather than Luke) on the show, I will be sad and disgruntled for one, but that is unimportant. I believe they are trying to make Clarisse almost like a mentor/big sister to Percy and that, again, is original content. Pause.

There is nothing wrong with original content; Hell, Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ movies are full of it, and if original content is delivered correctly, (in those movies it is), it works. Otherwise, you have ‘Ironheart’ or even ‘Marvel Zombies’, where it does not work. What next?

Clarisse’s heartfelt speech in the scene with Scylla. Of all the depictions they could have taken with the sea monster, this one was disappointing – a watered-down version of the PotC Kraken. Seriously, they just could have made her a giant squid and be done with it, ‘cause why not? In addition, on another note, it is Epic: the Musical. What?

In JRH’s version, Odysseus sacrificed a random half-a-dozen of his crew so that he, and the rest, could get through and to Ithaca, eventually. In Homer, Odysseus prepared to fight Scylla, but since six heads can be smarter than one, Scylla launched a surprise sneak attack and stole six of Odysseus’ crew before Odysseus could do anything. In addition, here, in PJO S2, we have Clarisse and co. doing their best to save Clarisse’s crew (who are not entirely human themselves, but Scylla does not care)… with mixed success, but still. I honestly wonder if the script of Epic: the Musical, (there the Scylla episode is something of a response to the ‘Survive’ song set in Polyphemus’ cave), hadn’t influenced Disney’s PJO script writers and they went the other way…

Polyphemus, of course, is Polyphemus, (just as Tyson is Tyson). Here, the PJO script did something different from the book again – the Tyson vs. Polyphemus fight, for example. Clearly, the PJO scriptwriters felt that they needed to do something different from the book (and the movie) here, and they did. It was certainly dramatic, too. Good for them. Pause.

Do I like the PJO S2? It is not bad. It is full of progressive politics, just like Ms. Haynes’ books, and as I wrote before, Ms. Haynes seems to be doing her best to be noticed by Disney and co. – but she does not appear to have much luck in this direction. As it was written earlier, her writing usually does not have any passion, any investment – it is not written by an A.I., but that is not necessarily an improvement.

What is the advantage of A.I.? It allows you to bounce your ideas around, to see what they look like as a draft.

…Ok, it can enable you to do a lot more – write an official letter, an essay, explain a complex myth to your child and so on. The A.I. is here to stay, but you must learn how to handle it precisely – a slight mistake and the result is nothing that you wanted. If this sounds familiar, it is. It is Athena and her wisdom – she can help you see clearly, (or clearer), what you want, but nothing else. You are in charge, in fact, you decide where to go from there, what to do with this advice, and so on. The ‘Odyssey’ shows this clearly – Athena, disguised as Mentor, (a man – therefore, for all that we know, she was hanging around Annabeth regularly, Annabeth just never knew that it was her mum), helps Telemachus to organize his thoughts, make up his mind, design his plan, and go off to execute it. It is clean, precise, methodical, and not exactly humans – but the gods of Olympus are not exactly human to begin with, and neither is A.I. I am not saying that Annabeth is the daughter of a divine Skynet, but wouldn’t it be cool if it were?

Back to PJO… it was not written by A.I., or at least – not purely by A.I., and neither were Riordan’s original YA novels, and therefore, the PJ franchise feels more emotional than Ms. Haynes’ works. Her non-fiction works are something else, and ‘1000 ships’… well, it has Odysseus and Penelope in it, and so it is a much more interesting read than ‘Stone’; as for ‘House’ (her upcoming 2006 novel), we will just have to wait and see.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon.

 

PJO, Riordan, and Ms. Haynes - Jan 11

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. My apologizes for vanishing for the rest of 2025, but real life sucks, and I did not have a regular access to computer until now. I really hate my life, you know? That said, the ‘Endlings’ have ended for now, (and we will talk about them some other time), MCU is about to bring forth ‘Wonder-Man’ by the end of Jan 2026, (and we will talk about it then), so what is left?

The second season of PJO, mostly. After the excitement of the first season, the second is going down much quietly, people have accepted this PJ reality and just go with it – or not. The sirens, for example, clearly designed via 3.5 edition’s D&D Monster Manual II, are just… not working. This probably brings us to Annabeth (and Clarisse). Pause.

Once upon a time, there was plenty of racebending artwork – not just of PJ, but also of HP and the like – and then the first season of PJO came out, and racebending became official, and unofficially? The racebending stopped. Even via the AI, as well as the more traditional artwork. In fact, the popularity of the entire Riordan franchise still appears to be gradually dying down, which brings us to Ms. Natalie Haynes.

Ms. Haynes, judging by her books, both fiction and non-fiction, wouldn’t object being noticed by Disney or someone like that; to achieve this, she’s trying to be politically progressive, especially in ‘Deific Might’ (that features a particularly cheeky goddess Athena on the cover)… just when the progressive politics are dying – thanks to the Donald (at the moment). Moreover, as I wrote in 2025, most of the time, Ms. Haynes’ prose is more mind than passion, more Athena than Medusa (by her standards), and while she does get passionate (say, about Phaedra in ‘Pandora’s Jar’), most of the time she is not. Therefore, it is rather hard to get excited/involved/etc. in her writings as well. You read them, and you are done. Onto Athena?

Athena… is a special case for Ms. Haynes – she is clearly her favorite goddess, she tries to put her into every entry of PJ and DM. Ms. Haynes tends to be long-winded anyhow, (and it doesn’t always work in her favor), but when Athena, (or Odysseus, Penelope, or Homer), is talked about, she becomes especially so. Ms. Haynes has her favorites, and no matter how hard she tries to some across as a politically progressive person, she does not always achieve this. So what does Riordan has to do with this?

As we have seen the goddess Athena in PJO, she too is now Afro-American, as is Annabeth, her daughter. This means nothing, because Athena is a fully blooded goddess and can look like everyone. This is traditional, in fact, because in Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’, (as well as the later works, especially Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’) Athena was quite fond of disguises and could be anyone, before revealing her godly might and surprising the unlucky mortal. She got it from Zeus, of course – the king of gods and mortals really loved disguises, especially when it came to seduction; he usually didn’t go as himself (unless the other party themselves was divine, like Leto or Maia), but rather as someone else – as the lawful husband when he sired Heracles, as his own daughter when he seduced Calypso, as a bull, or a golden rain, or – you get the idea. How does Athena fit here?

Zeus was worried about himself being dethroned. After all, his father, who was dethroned by Zeus himself, so there was tradition, dethroned his grandfather and since it was in Zeus’s disfavor, he did not like it. Therefore, his Olympian children were rather worried about him whipping out his old thunderbolt and sending them off the Olympus into who knows where. There are actually myths about Apollo (and sometimes Poseidon) having this sort of experience – usually serving mortals as well. Riordan’s TTOA books have precedent on their side.

For Athena’s part, she was the daughter of Metis. Zeus was worried that Metis will bear a son, who will dethrone him, so he swallowed her, and Metis bore Athena, a daughter, instead. I.e., Athena is the son that Zeus always wanted – a daughter who cannot inherit his throne (or deposit him – theoretically). In addition, for her part Athena is always obedient to Zeus in the canon and usually does what he wants and nothing more. That is one.

Two is that Athena is wisdom, true, but… the wisdom she gives is the one that the person already has. Look at Aphrodite. As love, she can be anyone, so all of those depictions of her are all true – she can take any shape, from a skinny blonde-haired woman to a short and busty redhead, to anyone else – and she will always be Aphrodite. Athena, too, can be anyone or anything – an old woman, a bird (and not just an owl), your best friend or even your sibling – and she will always give wise advice. Only… everyone has their own wisdom (and common sense), and that is what Athena does. She tells the person not so much what they want to hear, but rather what they are already thinking; she helps them work through the thinking process and arrive where they want to go mentally – and that can be dangerous. In the ‘Iliad’, for example, Athena pretended to be one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who promised to help Hector with his fight with Achilles – and so Hector went to fight Achilles, and his brother (let alone Athena) wasn’t there to help him, and that was one of the reasons he died.

The rub there, of course, is that it might’ve been one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who wanted Hector to die so that he can be the next commander in chief of the Trojan forces, and Athena just helped him figure out how to do it – how to set Hector up. Athena, the wisdom, does what you want to do, she helps you get to your goal without caring about morality, and if you fail, or succeed, and the price is paid – Athena is already gone; she usually does not care about mortals, normally she does not care about the mortals at all…

You know who, or what, this sounds like? An AI or a robot. Athena is almost all intellect, normally; she does not have much emotions. Poor Annabeth has her work cut out for her trying to impress her divine parent – it is not that Athena does not care about her children; it’s that she doesn’t do that emotionally. Moreover, I do not think that she would have children without Zeus’ permission – he is not exactly grandfather material, he is always suspecting that there is a rival within his family and so he keeps his thunderbolt ready and primed. If he suspected that Athena was not loyal to him, he would smite her too – as he did with Apollo, most likely. Therefore, Athena can prance before Ares and proclaim that she is better than he is at war and his domains, but in reality? It is a superiority of a computer/robot over a human being (in a matter of speaking), and we all know how it goes does in a sci-fi movie (or a TV series) – the human eventually triumphs…

It would have been an interesting twist, if in PJO Riordan did not make Ares the villain in the ‘Lightning Thief’ book, but rather Athena: she could have started as this flawless, perfect being, and then gradually the titular hero and his friends realized that this perfection is hollow and that Athena is manipulating everyone without caring about anyone. Chronus, of course, would still be the puppeteer; Athena would be free from his control and would spend at least a couple of books putting her life back together after this disaster. (Instead of Trials of Apollo, we could have Trials of Athena – that would be interesting too). However, no – Ares is a stereotypical villain, Percy defeats him, and Ares recovers his standing by the third book of PJO, the end. Clichéd and boring – no wonder that Riordan’s world is slowly fading into overall oblivion, Disney+ series or not. Meanwhile, Ms. Haynes?

The same thing. Her fiction books, feel like they have been written by an A.I. (or Athena) – smooth, flawless, easily forgettable. Her non-fiction books… Ms. Haynes tries to be politically progressive, but sometimes she sounds like a neophyte who arrived at progressive politics late in her life and who tries to compensate for this fact with extra zeal – and sometimes she sounds more like an opportunist, who doesn’t care about the progressive politics but wants to use them to get ahead… isn’t that Disney? It sure is – no wonder Ms. Haynes is trying to hit all the right notes and be notices – after all, if Disney worked for Riordan, and made him successful and rich, why not for her?

…Because Riordan actually has passion in his writing and emotion. Some of his novels – especially the second pentalogy, where Percy and friends meet the Romans and have to ally with them to defeat the giants – are quite good. Ms. Haynes’ novels are not so much. (In addition, authors are publishing fictive books based on Greek myths quite regularly in the last few years, so Ms. Haynes is also getting lost in the crowd). However, hey, Athena would be proud!

…Athena is not the goddess of creativity or literature – that is the role of the Muses and Apollo. Riordan invested into the latter a lot – five entire books, a whole series. Maybe Ms. Haynes should try to do something similar rather than sticking with ‘girl power’ – something that Athena does not have much in common with anyhow. (Seriously, Athena does not care all that much for mortal women, unlike the other Olympian gods and goddesses). However, hey, it is her call. (The real life sucks, again – unlike the sirens of PJO who are not even good or bad – just bizarre, and looking like some animatronics gone wrong – but that is a rant for another time).

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Endlings: Florida Panther - Oct 28

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is why I wanted to talk about Riordan and Oshiro’s ‘Court of the Dead’ novel (CoD), when I realized that it was not that different from the Florida panthers. Say what?

This week, ‘Bizarre Beasts’ released the episode about the Florida panthers – the wild cats, not the sports’ team and, again, it is a straightforward retelling of the Wiki page, plus an audio quote of Ms. Betty Osceola, an important person among the Miccosukee Native Americans. She is talking, to nobody’s surprise, about the Florida puma, and-

-And, yes, the obligatory statement: the North American ‘panther’ is another name for the puma, Puma concolor; it is only a distant relative to the ‘true’ panthers – the jaguar and the leopard; its’ closest relatives are the cheetah and the jaguarondi, a little-known wild cat that doesn’t look anything like the jaguar. Pause.

…All cats resemble one another; the differences between a tiger, a puma, a bobcat, and a housecat are mainly due to their sizes; there are few specialists as there are among the bovids, for example, or the rodents. This allows the felines to be very successful carnivores, and the puma is one of them; it is still the top feline carnivore in North America west of Mississippi. In the east, it is another story, as only the state of Florida still has any in the wild. This group of pumas was shrinking fast, due to inbreeding, so the U.S. government brought several pumas from Texas to fix this – and they did. But because the Florida wild themselves are shrinking, the pumas there are still dying-out and people need to fix this situation – just watch the BB episode for yourself. Stop.

So, here is the situation – after the series’ premiere that talked about the potential recreation of the passenger pigeon (done by a completely different narrator), and the dodgy episode about the dodgy silphium plant, BB hit its stride – the Florida panther episode is straightforward and simple, with nary a problem; it is delivered in a touching, poignant manner that is supposed to resonate with its’ audience – and perhaps it does. Only, is it enough to make the latter care enough to do something, to be affected by the BB delivery? That is the question.

On the other hand, we have ‘The Court of the Dead’ novel, where Will and Nico (a homosexual WASP couple) team-up with Frank and Hazel (a heterosexual POC couple) to help many monsters who don’t want to be evil, defeat a group of villains that are quite reminiscent for J-Ro’s Ministry of Magic in her HP books. These days she is keeping quiet (for her own reasons), but Mr. Riordan is going full speed ahead!..

Of course, he might not have a choice – when he stopped featuring sexual minorities and the like in his YA novels (‘The Trials of Apollo’ series), the price for his books fell to a flat $10-$15 dollars a book, that is very cheap by modern standards, and perhaps even a financial loss. Therefore, if Mr. Riordan wants to stay in the green (and work for Disney), he has to toe the party line, and if not, then just look at Gina Carano – she did not, and so she is gone.

Therefore, again, Mr. Riordan continues to release progressive and forwards-facing books; the problem here is that the society may not care; these days, the Americans are highly individualistic, and care only about what they think; a book, no matter how well-written, is not enough on its’ own to change their opinion – you need federal support to do so. In the U.S. In particular, this is a chancy and an unlikely thing to have or to manifest, and so that is that. ‘The Court of the Dead’ remains an inert, almost impotent, almost pointless and unrequired YA novel that does not do anything, or does not affect anyone, just as the ‘Endlings’ series of BB do – or don’t do. Sad, isn’t it? That is real life, however. It sucks.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

 

Marvel Zombies - Oct 4

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Jane Goodall is dead. Let us talk about something else – say, the now released Marvel™ Zombies?

Yeah, no. Marvel™ Zombies is not bad, but-

-But, first, again, it is a comb-over. Alongside the F4 film, set in an entirely different universe, Disney/MCU released ‘Ironheart’, the adventures of Riri Williams, and it was bad. Politically incorrect as well, and Disney, in all of its’ incarnations, including Marvel, hates this. Therefore, it released ‘The Eyes of Wakanda’, another online miniseries, and they were not bad, just rushed, as we have discussed earlier. Consequently, once the dust settled, and the bad taste of ‘Ironheart’ vanished, Disney/MCU released Marvel™ Zombies, a spin-off of the previously released ‘What if?’ a Marvel universe where everything is as bad as possible, and oh, all that angst! …Somehow, Disney/MCU are in no hurry to get rid of them, and how does this mini-series end? Why, it is with Riri Williams! Pause.

Disney can be stubborn and sneaky – or so it thinks. In the SW universe, the ‘Sequel Trilogy’ (movies 7-9) and how Disney/SW handled them, fractured the SW fan base and caused a lot of damage to the franchise, and what did Disney/SW do? Release ‘The Mandalorian’ series, which were a hit (despite their own problems, cough), and the S3 season of the series? (‘The Book of Boba Fett’ does not count), showed how the SW of the sixth film’s finale became the SW of the seventh film’s premiere. The fan base realized this clearly enough, and the reactions were mixed. Disney/SW did not despair, and are releasing a feature film sequel to the now-finished series in the near with a trailer that is clearly showing that the Empire (aka the First Order) is coming back. How that film will go we will have to wait and see. So how does this connect to Disney/Marvel?

Just as Disney used – or tried to use – ‘The Mandalorian’ to fix the fans’ issues with the Disney SW vision, it seems to be trying to use Marvel™ Zombies to fix the fans’ issue as to how they view Riri ‘Ironheart’ Williams. In SW, ‘The Mandalorian’ did not quite work as how Disney thought it would work, and in Marvel, the same thing can be said about Zombies: they probably will not work as to how Disney wanted them to work. Riri Williams is still disliked by the fans.

Unlike ‘The Mandalorian’, of course, the Marvel fans can easily dismiss Marvel™ Zombies – they are not part of MCU, but an alternate universe, not unlike the 2025-F4 film. In this case, of course, not unlike the AAA series (remember Aggie-poo?) Marvel™ Zombies become just a waste of Disney/Marvel time and resources that would be better used in other means. Ah well, Disney – in all of its’ branches and affiliations always did have more money than common sense… Real life is still worse – just look at the Philippines and their earthquake… Oh, wait, they were overlooked in favor of the Donald’s latest rant – but that is another story…

For now, though, this is it – see you all soon!

'Anaconda'-2025 movie trailer - Sep 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, (mostly), so let us talk about the trailer to the 2025’s ‘Anaconda’ movie instead.

The original ‘Anaconda’ franchise was about people who came to the South American jungle for various reasons, and most of them would be eaten by an oversized anaconda (one or several) during the run time of the films, (there are several). Therefore, what makes this franchise better than the ‘Coyotes’ (remember them)?

The movies of the ‘Anaconda’ franchise, (including the one coming up in 2025), do not take themselves seriously and are not going for realism (or social commentary) the way that ‘Coyotes’ (and ‘Death of a Unicorn’) do. Even the trailer shows that the movie is going to be ridiculous and hilarious in a good way, and the completely unreal anaconda is a part of it.

The green anaconda might be the biggest modern snake; only the reticulated python of the Asian tropics might be able to match it; and the king cobra, of course, is always worth a mention, but the king cobra is a venomous snake among its’ other qualities, while the anacondas are constrictors.

‘Anacondas’ are used as a plural because ‘anaconda’ is a name of a genus of constrictor snakes, also known as the water boas. Just how many species of anaconda there actually are, is debated; two are known for sure – the green anaconda (Eunectes murinus) and the yellow (Eunectes notaeus) are confirmed and recognized; the rest are up to debate, (and one is a fossil species anyhow, which just makes everything more complex).

Usually, the people talk about ‘THE anaconda’, or, more precisely, the bigger and more massive green anaconda of Brazil, Peru, French Guiana, Suriname and Bolivia; the smaller yellow anaconda lives mainly more to the east (the two species do co-exist in Brazil), and the rest of the anaconda clan do not matter right now. What matters is that the green anaconda can be big and impressive, yet it is nowhere near the size of the mythical snake monsters that haunt the West imagination ever since the Europeans began to colonize South America. The South American rainforest is larger than life even now, so naturally it has to be inhabited by larger than life monsters. The Native Americans of South America agreed, but their monsters are much less realistic than the oversized anaconda of the European colonists and their descendants is, so let us put them aside too.

Besides the CGI Titanoboa wannabe, the trailer shows the cast handling (and accidentally killing) some other non-venomous snake, probably a boa constrictor. When put face to face, the boa is much slimmer and smaller than the green anaconda is, but like all the constrictor snakes, it has a mouthful of hook-like, needle-sharp, backwards pointing teeth, and it can deliver very painful and bloody bites too, so it should never be taken for granted.

…The cast go to the American tropics with a ‘movie budget’ under 10 000 dollars. Again, there is no realism; they want to make an ‘indie film’ (a movie within a movie – that is quite clever, in fact); so why not go to Florida, (or perhaps California) is unknown. As RL shows, there are plenty of escaped pythons, (some of which are quite large), in Florida, so an anaconda would fit in as well, but no – it is South America or bust. Anything else?

Just that after their boa is lost (it falls in the water, where the piranhas get it, or the boat propeller does, or something), the cast go into the rainforest to find a replacement snake. Suspension of disbelief and all, but the way they were doing it would have resulted in them finding a venomous snake instead, most likely, and most of the South American venomous snakes are pit vipers, too. Just think rattlesnakes without the rattles, really. (In all of South America lives a single rattlesnake species – all the rest are natives of North America instead). A bite from anyone of them would have been bad – period. In a certain light, the cast of the ‘Anaconda’-2025 are lucky that the snake they confronted was a non-venomous type.

And again, given just how unrealistic this movie’s snake monster is, it just as well could have been a giant bear, (the spectacled bear of South America is not as large as the brown bear is, but it can kill adult livestock with blows of its’ paws), or even a horde of orcs – why not? How is a kaiju-sized snake more realistic than a horde of orcs?

It is not, but the cast make it work. Even in the trailer, they are clearly having fun and are not careening all over the place as ‘Coyotes’ script (and cast) do. ‘Anaconda’-2025 does not have any ‘special’ message as the other film does, but I daresay that it will be more enjoyable and fun to watch than ‘Coyotes’ will be.

…And as for ‘Marvel™ Zombies’, coming to the viewers on Sep 24, 2025? Looks as if they are designed to cover up for the ‘Eyes of Wakanda’ just as the ‘Eyes’ did for ‘Ironheart’. Again: ‘Ironheart’ was bad, perhaps not as bad as Disney’s ‘Snow White’ remake, but still bad, hitting all the right notes in all the wrong ways. For Disney, MCU, and the rest, good relationships with Afro-Americans are important, so they covered-up (and replaced) ‘Ironheart’ with ‘Eyes’.

However, ‘Eyes’ themselves were something of a rushed job, and people have felt it. Disney/MCU do not like confrontations, so they are using ‘Zombies’ to cover-up ‘Eyes’. ‘Zombies’ themselves, of course, are strongly reminiscent of ‘Game of Thrones’ series finale, when the heroes of Westeros found themselves confronting the Night King and his cohorts, including the walking dead – but let’s wait until Sep 24, 2025, to see the ‘Marvel™ Zombies for ourselves first).

…And yes, in early 2000s, ‘Animal Face-Off’ had a ‘jaguar vs. anaconda’ episode where the anaconda won. Sadly, it is only slightly more realistic than the upcoming ‘Anaconda’-2025 film will be, so let us discuss it some other time.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

Eyes of Wakanda - Aug 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Eyes of Wakanda’… Pause.

Well, first let me admit that, apparently, I got it wrong – the video of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee painting plastic pigeon figurines wasn’t the Kickstarter, more like a special feature to motivate the financing of the Kickstarter, or whatever… Fair enough, but listen: LN openly admits that her YouTube channel is a business venture, she is in for money – and she shares money with her underlings and coworkers. Have to respect her for her openness and honesty, if nothing else, (and there is much more).

BB, on the other hand… are largely similar, but are not as successful as LN is. In part, this is because they’re a part of PBS, and PBS overall is suffering due to the Donald’s meddling in the American world, (real life sucks, remember?), but still, the sight of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee just painting tiny pigeons while muttering some facts about the pigeons from the Internet… just no…

In addition, speaking of facts, what about the ‘Eyes’? Yes, they are a work of fiction, but in the episode 1x02, they went after the ‘Iliad’, and…

Yes, true, there was a Troy in RL, and there possibly was a Trojan War in RL too, but so far, we have no idea what actually went down, so we have to accept Homer’s version as canon, which makes ‘Iliad’ & ‘Odyssey’ about as real as MCU. Moreover, Achilles, Odysseus, and co. are a part of Marvel comics – and been so for a while, nothing new here, but, again, what is with the disrespect? The second episode of ‘Eyes’ plays fast and loose with the ‘Iliad’, so it will ruffle some feathers – it ruffled mine, which is why I am writing about the ‘Eyes’ more than 2 weeks after it had aired. Pause.

Taking a breath and starting anew. In many ways, the ‘Eyes’ are clichéd and banal. In the first episode, Noni is the maverick who makes the right in choice in saving Wakanda from… what? Exposure? The Lion did not care about it, he wanted to rule outside of it, but because Wakanda had a PR problem even in the 1260 BC or so, the Dora Milaje sent Noni to bring the Lion to heel – she caused him to die instead, but, hey, she recovered the artefacts, so yay! She becomes a War Dog instead.

That is one of Wakanda’s flaws – it is isolationist, it wants to stay largely isolated, it comes down hard on those, who disagree with it, yet when those dissidents leave and start their own thing, the Wakandan government (well, the royal family) short-circuits and does its’ best to bring those dissidents to heel or just kill them. MCU and co. deal with this problem by making such renegades evil, but still, it is not one of Wakanda’s best aspects.

Back to the ‘Eyes’… sigh. The Lion was a variant Killmonger from the first Black Panther film, and the final episode actually sets up the first Black Panther film, to a certain extent. The Lion wasn’t a bad character, but as a villain? He fell flat.

In addition, in the second, ‘Iliad’ episode, we have B’Kai, who joined the Greek army to retrieve a Wakandan amulet, and he does. He also lets Helen run away with Paris-

Helen never escaped with Paris; Paris died awhile before Odysseus came up with the Trojan Horse, and Helen would eventually return home with her legal husband, Menelaus. Helen of Troy, in fact, is partially a romantic heroine from the knightly stories of later days, and partially – a modern femme fatale, but we digress.

I don’t want to discuss all the ways how much did the ‘Eyes’ mess with the ‘Iliad’, I’ll just point out that Memnon/B’Kai isn’t from Homer – he is from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’; he was an Egyptian, or an Ethiopian, general, sent to help the Trojans. He was also the son of Eos, or Aurora, the goddess of Dawn. He went against Achilles, died, and his entourage became birds. Sigh. If the bigwigs in MCU wanted to, they could have made quite a story about the Wakandan meddling the Trojan War and remained much more true to the original classical sources as well.

As for the last two episode of the ‘Eyes’… Pause. The first two episodes were connected to each other via the character of Noni and the plot continuity; the last two episodes were much more detached from each other and the first two. Were there supposed to be more episodes of ‘Eyes’ than just four? Did some rushed editing had to take place? Disney/MCU are not telling…

Anyhow, the third episode feels like a filler – the south meets the east, that sort of thing, Wakanda meets the K’un Lun, eh? It does not amount to anything… and the final episode mostly just sets-up the first Black Panther movie. Fun!

Only not, as B’Kai, for example, reminded me of Grant Ward, who betrayed his new friends for duty. Only because B’Kai’s duty was to Wakanda, not to Hydra, he is a protagonist, rather than an antagonist instead. MCU really does its’ best to recycle the old ideas in new ways, but maybe it should just go with outright new ideas instead? It worked for the new F4 film…

There is one more aspect to the ‘Eyes’, however – the African/Afro-American one. As the ‘Black Panther’ films showed, they are MCU’s Afro-Futurism reps, and for Disney/MCU, political correctness in regards to the Africans/Afro-Americans is a very big deal.

Unfortunately, before the ‘Eyes’, MCU’s latest depiction of Afro-Americans came from ‘Ironheart’ – I’m talking about Riri here. In the BP2 film, she was… average. In ‘Ironheart’, MCU did not know what to do with her, and it showed – she made Sony’s Kraven look good. Also – competent and coherent, (the movie, not the main character). Something had to be done, so MCU quickly made, or remade, the ‘Eyes’, and used them to cover up ‘Ironheart’ as the latest MCU bit that features people of color. The ‘Eyes’ do a better job of it than ‘Ironheart’ did, but then again, almost anything would – ‘Ironheart’ set the bar this low, and the ‘Eyes’ still feel like a rushed job that MCU doesn’t really needs, you know? Ah well, Disney/MCU have a better idea of what MCU/its’ audience needs than MCU’s actual viewers do no doubt… That is real life for you. It sucks. Just look at the Donald, Putin, and the Alaska story – but we will discuss that another time…

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

 

F4, 'Ironheart' +etc. - July 27

Disclaimer: real life sucks. First OO is gone, and then HH, so now king Hades has to call queen Persephone to help him deal with the double emergency. Now onto the F4-2025 movie?

Hard to say. RL was not idle recently and CB unleashed the host species of their upcoming to be resurrected giant moa species – the greater tinamou and the emu. Why? Because among the ratites, the tinamous are the closest relatives to the extinct moa, whereas the emu…

CB also proclaims that the emu is a close relative to the moa birds. It is not – the two ratite lineages were quite distant from each other. However, it is the biggest modern ratite (and modern bird overall) after the African ostriches, so it is reasonable to theorize that CB is going to ‘augment’ the emu DNA with that of the tinamous and see what happens. In case of the wolves, this strategy worked… supposedly. Lately the trio of Romus, Remulus and Khaleesi vanished from MM, you know? The point, however, is that for most people grey and dire wolves are just… wolves, they expect them to be externally similar to each other, so when they see… well, wolf puppies, they don’t really care just what kind of wolf puppies they are – if CB says that they’re dire wolf puppies, they’ll believe CB, period.

With the birds, it is more complex, especially with such a unique species as the South Island Giant Moa: physically, it is quite different from both the emu and the tinamous. Whether CB will augment an emu with tinamou genes, or vice versa, the result will not be a moa, even if CB will successful. What will It be, (and that is a big if), is another question…

In addition, yes, again, the emu is not the best candidate for a resurrected moa – the moa preferred to live in forests, and the emu lives on open plains instead. Even behaviourally, the potential new hybrid will not be like the original species. The cassowaries, who are the emu’s closest relatives, do live in the forests, but they are smaller than the emu, and much more aggressive. Naturally, CB will not have anything to do with them. What else?

Well, the F4 film. To me, it feels like a successful reworking of the 2000s F4 films, which worked. This puts ‘First Steps’ miles above the ‘Ironheart’ mini-series, which is forgotten already.

Why?

Because ‘First Steps’ is a soft reboot of sorts: it takes place in a completely different universe from ‘the sacred timeline’ with completely new characters – and it is a success. Now Disney/MCU can make more Marvel adventures in this universe with an occasional something or other taking place in the original MCU timeline as well.

‘Ironheart’, on the other hand, takes place in the MCU, just as Disney/MCU lose interest in it. ‘Ironheart’ is better than SW-2025, (but that is a low bar), but worse than 2024 ‘Kraven’. It is not a mash of two different movies, more like a failed case of having its’ cake and eating it too. ‘Ironheart’ fluctuates from being depended on Tony Stark and his legacy in the MCU world, to being completely detached from it. The cast, the crew, everyone else did not really know what they were doing, and they did not care about it either. The result? ‘Ironheart’ is almost forgotten by now, as is MCU itself by now – somewhat, but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

Thunderbolts - May 3

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In part, it might be my doing – but I never denied it – so now let us talk about the new ‘Thunderbolts’ film instead.

First, it works. It works, because it mostly keeps away from politics, whether RL or MCU, and talks about the titular characters dealing, and defeating, their inner darkness, while managing the conflict with Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, or – ‘Don’t call me Val!’ Pause.

…Throughout SW, there was no mention of Val or the Thunderbolts, who are a bit of Marvel’s Suicide Squad, (run by DC instead). Moreover, the DCEU itself is being remade right now, so let us not talk about it, and get back to MCU and the ‘Thunderbolts’.

…Throughout SW, there was no mention of Val or the Thunderbolts, but now, in the post-SW MCU, there is no mention of the Skrulls, the She-Hulk, or the Marvels; MCU is pretending that all of the above haven’t existed, and the CA: BNA movie, the D: BA TV series, and now – the ‘Thunderbolts’ film confirm it; there’s a distinct feeling of ‘in with the new’ with all of them. Even the titular team is named not after the general ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, aka the Red Hulk, but after some obscure piece of MCU in-verse trivia instead. Fun!

MCU’s Taskmaster/Taskmistress is dead – a pity – and there is no mention of Kate, even though she and Yelena had plenty of chemistry in ‘Hawkeye’. However, the market (and the political climate) directs, and with 4 years of a Republican president in charge of the U.S., Disney and its’ branches, including MCU, are changing. We have discussed it, when we talked about AAA, so let us not repeat ourselves. Anything else?

The special effects were impressive, another one of MCU characters that vanished was Rick Jones or whoever, who helped Natasha in her ‘Black Widow’ film; ah well. ScarJo is going to appear in the next JP reboot now, and it makes the ‘Black Widow’ film appear like a classical masterpiece. What else?

…Everett Ross, who appeared in both ‘Black Panther’ films, was also killed off in the SW; since he was ‘Don’t call me Val!’ ex-husband, this is somewhat important. Only not, since Val is flirting (sort of) with the Red Guardian (Alexei) already. Well, since the Thunderbolts (the characters) are forming some sort of a crazy family, (minus the dead Antonia), this is to be expected. Whether or not this will amount to anything is another story; for all we know, in the next film there will be no mention of the Thunderbolts’ team… just as there was no mention of Sam in the ‘Thunderbolts’ movie, not really, making Bucky’s appearance in CA: BNW kind of strange and unbalanced…

So, in conclusion: the ‘Thunderbolts’ work. They work as a movie, and in particular – as a standalone movie. However, Disney/MCU is a live action Marvel Comics Universe, which means that it all will be interconnected – in theory. In practice, as depicted by the now forgotten AoS, this might not be so. In AoS, the first 3 seasons were sufficiently tied, with ties to the greater MCU. From S4 onwards, however, this was not the case at all, and after the final, 6^th, or 7^th, season, no one is remembering AoS anymore; they didn’t even appear on the ‘What If?’ series, (aside from Coulson, who doesn’t quite count there). Put otherwise, quite regularly, MCU discards characters, plot lines, and more – there is no guarantee that the ‘Thunderbolts’ will be different.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

D:BA S1 finale - April 16

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. The debate about the CB wolves being or not being dire has become more subdued and out of the spotlight, but real life still sucks.

The S1 finale of D: BA is as dramatic and well-made, as one expects from Disney/MCU – quite good. Of course, there is the question as to how Fisk is getting away with a de-facto secession from the rest of the U.S., but who cares? The first season of D: BA is over, and the world is ready to move on.

Also, keep in mind, that CA: BNA film is showing events that are happening at the same time, so the greater U.S. government just might not be finding time to deal with Fisk and his Napoleonic complex or whatever, and the Kingpin/Mayor is bribing people like crazy to get away with it, and MCU wants its’ own version of Gotham, so there you have it, folks! Question answered!

In other news, meanwhile, a rebooted version of ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ (WWD) is coming to you in 2025! The original WWD series is something of a classic by now, (and not only because it was released in 1999 either). The new WWD has some big shoes to fill – and the viewers will go Snowwhite-2025 on its’ ass if it fails.

Finally, back to PBS Nature show about the female empowerment and nature. Last week, the episode was actually done well – it balanced gender politics and wildlife protection… in the U.S., so what did the YouTube channel do? It downplays them in favour of a nature document about Africa. Maybe it was because of the entire dire wolf excitement, maybe not; this week, the show is about South America instead, and PBS Nature is not downplaying it at all. I wonder why…

…In addition The Weather Network is airing a rather nice documentary series about Canada, its’ provinces, and probably territories. It is quite fun to watch, and I advise you to do so – it certainly is better than just to argue about dire wolves…

For now, then, this is it. See you all soon!

D:BA 'Art' - April 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us… still talk about it, in a manner of speaking. First, in regards to PBS Nature: if their first, rhino-based episode was a product placement without any product, their second episode, which talked about Madagascar’s lemurs was a complete opposite – it delivered. It talked about Madagascar and its’ rewilding programs, in terms of lemur return (to the wild), in general terms – such as the replanting of the bamboo that the lemurs eat (the episode was de-facto about the greater bamboo lemur), and also – about the wilderness education of the Madagascar people. There was very little aesthetics, plenty of authenticity, and the only unnecessary element, in a manner of speaking, was the gender issue – this online show is about women taking care of the wild, but taking care of the wild and humanity’s social gender politics do not really overlap…

Speaking of humanity’s (ok, the West’s) social gender politics? Let us mention Ms. Lindsey Nicole. I’m probably not the biggest fan of her – this driven and determined young woman wants to get ahead of her competition, and remain afloat; in particular, when Biden and the Democrats were in charge, she made a point of mentioning her alternative sexual orientation, (but nothing more, nothing concrete). Now that we got a ‘new’ U.S. president and his Republican political party, all of her mentions of her alternative sexual lifestyle are gone – LN wants to stay afloat… and she’s succeeding: just last week she launched into yet another online series, this one a collaboration with another YouTube channel, a series that deals with mass extinctions… it is essentially a re-telling of Animal Planet’s™ ‘Animal Armageddon’ series. You have to give LN her credit though – she is a great populizator, her aggressive ‘shock and awe’ delivery style works, and she is always open to collaborate with other people – she really wants to be successful, and so she is. Kudos and a shout-out to her.

In addition, what about this week’s D: BA episode, ‘Art’? It works about as well as you would expect it to work: this season’s mini-bad, Muse (a male villain) is dead already since the season is done in another couple of weeks, and on its’ own, D: BA works just fine. As a part of the greater MCU, however…

‘Mayor’ Wilson Fisk has introduced the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, or AVTF. Um. While we acknowledge its’ connections with some RL issues in the U.S., what about the Sokovia accords? In the ‘She-Hulk’, Matt himself says that they are done and gone, so shouldn’t AVTF be outdated or something? As the Kingpin, Fisk did not care about popular opinion, of course, at least not too much, but as a mayor of NYC, he should, and he is intelligent enough to recognize this fact.

Listen, in RL, analogues of AVTF, such as ICE, exist because people – some people, including some of the Americans, and quite a few of them – approve of them and their actions; numbers matter, and if enough people approve of them, these ‘analogues’ will stay and even flourish, and propaganda – especially the mild one delivered by Disney and its’ daughter organizations – won’t be enough to see them off.

…Not to mention that even internal American propaganda has its’ limits, as the outcome of the elections-2016 showed, for example. However, Disney and co. cannot learn, or do not want to learn and accept, or something. Since they do not, their promoted values do not stick, as the companies cannot change and adapt – it could cost them money in the end, and they do not want that. Much better just to do a token service and be done with it. The viewers and the public will not object too much – they can adapt, on the other hand, as demonstrated by Lindsey Nicole… Real life certainly can suck, and it does.

This is it for now – see you all soon!