Runaways: Kingdom - Dec 14

The adventures of Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ continue. We learn more of Wilders’ past, (before Alex was born, presumably), and we see the ramifications this has had on the present. Alex, in particular, met Darius and his posse and saw how the ‘other half’ lives – it is certain that there was some socio-racial commentary in it as well. …Yes, ‘Runaways’ are trying to be modern and edgy and introduce viable social (and etc.) commentary of the day, which is fine, and it also doesn’t ruin the plot of the series.

…The children have come together as a team, however problematically, and they were able to rescue Alex from Darius. Spoiler alert though – Alex might still be evil as he was in the comics, but the viewers will have to see the future episodes to learn whether this is real or not.

…The show introduced Jonah, who might be Karoline’s true father – or her mother has slept with two men, which isn’t a ‘nice’ thing, even in modern times, so hopefully ‘Runaways’ will keep sexual deviations here to a minimum. Jonah himself might be the counterpart to the giant aliens from the comic series, (the Gibborim), and if not, he is still a stereotypical white man villain – ‘Runaways’ isn’t against using racial stereotypes either, it seems.

Of course, Old Lace was there too, however briefly, and it certainly counteracted whatever flaws ‘Kingdom’ might have had as a TV episode. By fictional dinosaur standards, Old Lace is just as realistic as anything that we have seen in the ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ for example. The Baryonyx was just disappointing, as dino-fans admit unanimously; the Carnotaurus was taken straight out of Disney’s ‘Dinosaur’, (a fictional movie with talking dinosaurs who have to find the promised land to escape extinction – the ‘Land Before Time’ franchise should’ve sued), and then there was some pale theropod dinosaur, which might’ve been a Metriocanthosaurus, or an Allosaurus, or even an Indoraptor, which still hasn’t made a proper appearance.

…Again, this can be considered a reference to the initial ‘Jurassic Park’ novel by Michael Crichton. Yes, it is still fiction, but Crichton went the rhetorical extra mile to flesh it all out in RL facts; he even named Rexy, well, Rexy…who wasn’t helpful at all in the novel, but behaved rather as the JP3 Spinosaurus did, and was the second worst dinosaur in the entire park. (The raptors were the first, dilophosaurs and compys tied for the third) – but the novel itself was very different from the movie, as it is known by now. Also, the point is that the franchise continues to plunder the novels, (especially the first one), even now, years after it got published – so from this sort of a viewpoint, Old Lace, and the rest of TV-/Web-series ‘Runaways’ franchise are actually very good. They are both original and fairly true to the canon comic plot line, (though the family life of Karoline and her family? Yeesh!)

Anything else? Chase and Victor’s plotline has revealed that Victor has cancer and he has an impromptu time machine that works as often as it does not. Also, last week, on ‘Fifteen’, we learned that so far the titular ‘Runaways’ are not so much the heroic half dozen of children, but the victims of their parents’, (and Jonah’s?) plot – ‘project Runaways’: sacrificed children/young adults/teenagers that will never be missed. Again, some RL social commentary here, but it still works…

…And this is it for the moment; see you next time! 

The Gifted: eXploited - Dec 12

The fall finale of ‘Gifted’ got aired. And?

And it seems that the show is continuing in the direction, indicated by the mention of the Hellfire Club in ‘outfoX’ – the telepath that got introduced in the episode ‘eXtinction’ is not only a part of triplet team, (identical triplets here, seriously), but she/they are clearly pursuing an agenda that isn’t a part of the Sentinels, or Trask’s, or the Mutant Underground, (Marcus, Lorna and co.). The telepath had manipulated the Strucker parents, as well as Lorna and co. into going to rescue the Strucker twins as well as Blink and Dreamer…who, to make things even worse, was killed in the episode too.

Again, ‘Gifted’ is a straightforward TV series – it is all about conflict between the mutants and the Sentinels; (the latter are aided by Trask’s, but so far Jace still seems to be the most formidable opponent of the mutants, though again, he and his wife are beginning to have doubts about what they are involved in). Now, however, with ‘eviler’ mutants making an appearance, (the triplets have no problem in killing non-mutant humans, and are doing this much better than Marcus, Lorna and others have done so far, too). Now Lorna, Marcos and others are going to have morality problems down the road: already the telepath has played an ‘us vs. them’ card putting the leaders of the Mutant Underground against the Strucker parents. It worked, but only to a point; the Mutant Underground still functioned as a coherent unit…but the evil triplets are even better at this than Marcos and the others are.

That said, this is still straightforward – the ‘good guys’ of ‘Gifted’ will make to have a choice and surpass the temptation of using their powers for evil, and while ‘Gifted’ makes a lot of noise about ‘grey morality’, the right choices and the hard ones, everything tends to be quite clear-cut in the end, even Jace’s angst about which side is right for him. However, as long as the show works, there is no problem either.

What else? Trask’s might have backwards-engineered the ‘cure’ that Mr. Strucker’s father has given his son, (the father of the current twins) to turn him human, so more bad news for the mutants. Again, this isn’t anything that wasn’t there before, just stakes are continuously being raised – but ‘Gifted’ has teased the eventual confrontation between the mutants and the military from the first episode, (the teaser trailers at the end of each), so that is actually no surprise. As it is, though, ‘Gifted’ is done with 2017, and will be back in January 2018.

…That is it for now, see you soon!

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Life Spent' - Dec 9

…The 5^th season of AoS continues… and it the show continues to recycle old ideas. Case in point – Gryll, one of the new villains, (a mini-bad), is reminiscent of Robert Gonzales, a semi-rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, (actually the leader of the ‘real S.H.I.E.L.D.’) from S2, complete with a walking cane. What gives?

Or take the xenomorphs of MCU. True, they aren’t xenomorphs from the AVP franchise, but rather some sort of original ‘roach’ creatures, (whose names start with a ‘v’ and are a proper mouthful, so let’s just call them ‘xenomorphs’ instead. Potato, po-ta-to…). They, apparently, exist on the surface of the now-devastated Earth, and-

However, Earth is not really Earth anymore! Rather, it is an asteroid belt of some sort plus a burnt-out husk, rather reminiscent of Alderaan from SW4 movie. Maybe not as demolished as Alderaan became, (see the SW4 movie, duh) but close enough. The damaged husk of the once-blue planet simply cannot sustain a breathable atmosphere, or even much of life, alien or not, (especially multicellular – single-cell organisms is another thing), period. Instead, we have an outmaneuvered ex-henchman getting run down by the roaches or whatever – and realize that this is the set of Maveth without even any customization! It is bad enough that the AoS’ team does not respect its’ characters – they do not respect their viewers either!

…Sorry about the ugly, albeit abbreviated rant, but it’s the truth. In ‘Orientation’, we talked, however briefly, about how the lack of fresh new ideas keeps AoS sinking deeper and deeper, period. Yes, continuity has to be observed, but this is not about continuity, it is more and more about the initial ideas unable to work, well, initially, and about the writers, who keep returning and returning to them regardless.

And the character-not-quite-assassinations, (for now). In the past, the fans of Grant Ward complained that the scriptwriters have mangled and reshaped the character on TV (and in the canon) however they saw fit. Now it is Jemma Simmons’ turn, instead. I.e., in S4, her character was obtuse – almost stupidly so; Jemma’s repeated statements – i.e. that the framework wasn’t real – would’ve gotten even Captain Obvious annoyed; Jemma’s emotional range in the second and third story arcs of AoS S4 became kind of stunted – so now, in S5, Jemma became a queen of compassion, leaving her previous agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. training behind – she has no self-control, she has, seemingly, forgotten all of her self-restraint and experiences gained during her spying at Whitehall’s branch of Hydra, (the first half of S2, remember?), and now… she’s a better character than who she became in S4; she’s just not the ‘original’ Jemma Simmons anymore. That is not good either, especially since the numbers of AoS’ S5 still are not very high, especially in comparison with the previous seasons of the show.

Another noteworthy fact is that AoS’ S5 does not appear to have any specialized mini-arcs that S4 and to a lesser extent – S3, has gone for. It is not too surprising, the AoS/MCU team went for them back in S3 as a promotional gimmick to boost the numbers, and it did not work – the numbers continue to go down, overall. Sad, really, but now AoS may be going for the S1 format – largely one single story line for the next 22 episodes with all the old characters; the only noteworthy exception is Deke, who comes across like an unholy cross of Grant Ward and Lance Hunter rather than an original character – again.

…One can argue that Deke is also equipped a-la Peter Quill the Star Lord from the GotG movies – but it seems that by travelling into the future, (in-universe terms), AoS has severed itself from the MCU movies, seeing how it was tied into the movies tightly in the S1, but now – it seems to have gone free of the upcoming ‘Avengers vs. Thanos’ movie and is doing its’ own thing. That is not bad, in DCEU the TV ‘Arrowverse’ has existed separately from the movies since the beginning, but even in AoS S3 the TV series and the movies existed in a shared universe  instead, so this break…it’s just weird. There are some references to the GotG movies, including the Kree, but they are just surface-deep, as AoS seems to be giving as InHumans as gladiators of the Kree; the most enjoyable part of that was lady Basha belittling and humiliating Kasius the Kree military governor whenever she had a chance.

Yes, the current big bad of AoS has his name starting with the letter ‘K’; AoS seems to have issues with that letter: in S2 there was Kara Palamas/Agent 33, whose story got mangled horribly and caused a lot of damage to AoS; in S3 there was Kebo, a sidekick of Grant of some sort that got killed by Bobbi Morse so that she would get her mojo back…but she still left the show, (okay, Palicki did, alongside Blood) – in other words, Kebo’s role in the show was just pointless; and now, there’s Kasius. What gives? AoS gone back from WWII RL allusions to the ancient Romans? While it makes sense, it is still somewhat strange…

Therefore, ‘Life Spent’ got to be a strange, confusing, conflicted episode. Does anyone have any different opinions? One way or another, see you soon!

Runaways: Fifteen - Dec 7

The fourth episode of Marvel’s ‘Runaways’, ‘Fifteen’, got aired, and what of it?

One of the more important notes was that Old Lace got his proper revealing: the bioengineered dinosaur certainly got character, and-

And here is where the rant about ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ dinosaurs has inserted itself. Let us be fair: both ‘Fallen Kingdom’ and ‘Runaways’ are equal, when it comes to paleontology, neither the movie franchise nor the TV series/comics are concerned with science or education; they just want to entertain, and here the ‘Runaways’ of TV/Hulu have done a very important turn of the plot: they are introducing new, original content into the old, initial plot, as depicted in the comics. They are creating something new that wasn’t there before, just as the JP3 movie did with the initial franchise – as it was written in the past, back then the JP franchise broke the formula that got established by then by introducing Spinosaurus as a newer, bigger, better monster than a T-Rex, and by giving the pterosaurs – Pteranodons – a moment to shine. ‘Fallen Kingdom’ did not introduce anything new, it just recycled the JP3 elements – both the pterosaurs, which now are playing a more active role in the franchise and Spinosaurus’ replacement – that is either Baryonyx or Suchomimus.

The latter is a relative of Baryonyx; even though it lived during the early Cretaceous in Africa, just as Spinosaurus did, right now – 2017 – scientists have established that the two dinosaurs in question, Baryonyx & Suchomimus were more closely related to each other, than to Spinosaurus. That said, Suchomimus was physically very similar to Spinosaurus, only smaller – about 11 m in length on average – and without the trademark sail on its back. Thus, if Rexy were to fight it, this would be the T-Rex vs. Spinosaurus fight from JP3, recycled, revisited, and reset – and that is not good. Lack of original content can be very problematic, for both movies and TV series – just look at AoS: the 5^th season’s premiere has started with some very low numbers, the lowest of any of season premieres ever; as a movie, ‘Fallen Kingdom’ is a very different beast from AoS, but if it continues to recycle old ideas instead of generating new ones, then it will also develop problems, (given the appearance of their Baryonyx, already available to the public, maybe those problems have already begun).

Back to ‘Runaways’? There isn't really anything to criticize - they are actually doing better than ‘Fallen Kingdom’, they have no problems with the original content (and featherless dinosaurs), and they are going strong, (good for them!). Hopefully too, they will continue in this vein and continue to satisfy their viewers…

See you later! 

The Gifted: outfoX - Nov 5

Last night, the mutants went against the Sentinel Services and their allies over at Trask’s – and lost. While this is bad, it is also to be expected, and-

And here’s the thing: ‘Gifted’ doesn’t offer too many twists and turns, unlike AoS, or ‘Runaways’, for example – it is a straightforward show about the mutants struggling for their rights against the robot-using Sentinel Services. What next?

On one hand this direct approach is a good thing – ‘Gifted’ doesn’t need to be a complex show; given the political climate in RL U.S.A. at the present, (2017), the WWII-like allusions of ‘Gifted’ give the show enough edge to keep on going, (and the first season of the show is almost done, anyhow), without much concern for any new revelations…except that ‘Gifted’ has those as well; in ‘outfoX’ – this week’s episode – we learn that the original Von Strucker twins were associated with the Hellfire Club.

This is important because in the Marvel comics the Hellfire Club was an organization of evil mutants and some of the X-Men most dangerous nemeses, period; they even served to introduce Jean Grey as the Phoenix in both the comics and the cartoons, (especially the 1990s ones). If the Hellfire Club appears in ‘Gifted’ too, things can become intense – but they already are intense, because the Strucker twins, Blink and Dreamer got captured by Jace and Sentinel Services instead.

Undoubtedly, this is bad, especially within the ‘Gifted’ universe proper, but outside of it, it is just par for the course – in the Marvel comics, (and even the Marvel movies), mutants get captured by the Sentinels (and the other villains) on a regular basis, so the mutants’ defeat in ‘outfoX’ is expected and temporary, (of course), there is nothing unexpected. (Insert your own x-pun here). By refusing to use their powers in tandem, the Strucker twins proved themselves to be different, (at least on a potential level), from their original counterparts, and to be heroes rather than villains, (at least on a default level). This is also worth noting because ‘Gifted’ tries to go for the grey morality area, especially in case of Jace, who was shown in the past episodes to show not exactly remorse or regrets, but clear doubts about working with the Trask’s, the company that brainwashes mutants to do their bidding – and Jace has views about this, so judging by the next week’s promo, things in his life are going to come to – something.

On the topic of family, one of the more bizarre turns of events is the transformation of Lorna’s character and maybe her role in ‘Gifted’. In ‘outfoX’, she was shown to have second thoughts and be outright afraid of Trask’s and the Sentinels. This is understandable – she is pregnant, after all, and loves Marcos/Eclipse, (the father of her baby), and is scared about their future as a family, but…wasn’t it obvious from the beginning of the show, when the mutants were just beginning to fight the Sentinels? The way the show is handling Lorna’s character now…it is not the best, but just inconsistent – and yet...

And yet ‘Gifted’ is quite consistent, following its’ direct and straightforward script, well, forwards. It does not really deviate from the traditional ‘X-Men’ stories, but presents plenty of original new characters to keep the story exciting – and the actors’ performance, of course, is still great. (Plus, the spider robots are back). Thus, while the show’s heroes are currently in the jaws…not just of dilemma, but of their enemies, (Sentinels and Trask’s), the viewers continue to view with excitement as to what will happen to them regardless of whatever shortcomings ‘Gifted’ has developed meanwhile.

That is that for now; see you later!

Baryonyx vs. Tyrannosaurus

Now, it became known last week that the next JW movie is going to have a Baryonyx in it, and naturally, there are already discussions about it, is it going to fight the T-Rex, (Rexy) or what. There are also suggestions that it is something of a remastered rematch of a T-Rex vs. Spinosaurus fight back from the JP3 movie. Does this have any connotations?

Firstly, what is a Baryonyx, (or was). For a while, the popular opinion was that it is a cousin of Spinosaurus, and while that is true, the modern (2017) scientific P.O.V. states that Baryonyx was only a distant relative of Spinosaurus, not a close one, so its’ popular depiction – a smaller version of the Spinosaurus without the sail, but with extra-large claws on its’ ‘thumbs’, something similar to what the raptors had, but on its front legs, rather than the hind ones. It was also quite a bit smaller than the Spinosaurus was, (or the T-Rex) – whereas T-Rex was about 12 m long, and Spinosaurus – approximately 17, Baryonyx was about 7.5-10 m in length, and while people admit that it probably did get bigger than that, it wasn’t that much bigger, making it still smaller than the T-Rex was.

Okay, that is for measurements, how about the X-Factor? (Or whatever it was called on DW). Size issues aside, T-Rex was the better fighter than Spinosaurus was, when it came to intra-species fighting, and if we substitute Baryonyx for Spinosaurus, it is the same thing, except that Baryonyx was smaller and weaker than either T-Rex or Spinosaurus were, and would be overwhelmed by T-Rex and its’ bone-crushing bite all the quicker.

That is not to say that Baryonyx could not win. It could. While Tyrannosaurus’ jaws and teeth were designed to crush and tear, Baryonyx’s were designed to latch on and not let go, just as Spinosaurus’ teeth and jaws were. (Cousins!) Thus, if Baryonyx was able to grab and bite Tyrannosaurus, then regardless of how robust and strong the latter was, it would not be able to escape Baryonyx’s jaws without losing its pound of flesh – and meanwhile, Baryonyx would continue to hit its’ opponent with its’ powerful front legs that had those trademark claws – and if it scored a lucky critical hit on a Tyrannosaurus’ eye or a blood vein, then the ‘tyrant lizard king’ would be in serious trouble.

All that, but keep in mind that Baryonyx did not have Spinosaurus’ superior physical strength and bulk; with just one lucky bite Tyrannosaurus could break Baryonyx’s spine or even tear the smaller carnivore in two, even if Baryonyx would hurt it in the fight, however badly. It would be a clear winner, even if it probably would not want to tackle another Baryonyx anytime soon.

And here the reality raises itself once again. Baryonyx and Tyrannosaurus have never met: Tyrannosaurus lived at the very end of the ‘Age of Reptiles’, the Mesozoic, in the late Cretaceous, while Baryonyx live during the late Jurassic, much earlier than Tyrannosaurus did. In real life, the two reptiles never met – and this brings us to the upcoming ‘Fallen Kingdom’ movie. Technically.

Again, nothing in the JP-franchise was ever educational, even as timorous as it was in AFO or DW, (for example). It was pure fiction, even if the original Michael Crichton novel was actually based on scientific facts, (of its time). Ergo, it must be treated as such, and where does it leave us?

With the realization that until ‘Fallen Kingdom’ comes out anyhow, JP3 was more progressive – as far as fictional movies about dinosaurs go – than the initial JW movie. It introduced a brand new dinosaur ‘villain’ – Spinosaurus – and gave the pterosaurs (Pteranodons) the recognition denied to them in the first two movies. (In the original novel Dr. Grant and the children encountered the ‘dactyls’ – Cearodactyls – big, fish-eating pterosaurs, but let us talk about them another time). The first JW movie also features pterosaurs, Pteranodons and their smaller distant cousins as ‘hazards’ of some sort, while the main monster role passed from Spinosaurus to the imaginary I-Rex, but it came later than the JP3 movie did, meaning that the JP3 movie is the more progressive than the JW one, relatively speaking.

Now we come to the issue – is Baryonyx a substitute Spinosaurus? Odds are very good that it will be, yes. Somehow, the fight between T-Rex and Spinosaurus in JP3 became quite popular, and turned into ‘two dinosaurs fighting each other’ cliché. Movie dinosaurs, movie fictional dinosaurs are kaiju, basically, and the JP3’s Spinosaurus was a textbook example of it; ditto for the JW’s I-Rex. In ‘Fallen Kingdom’, either Baryonyx or the Indoraptors will take that role, but we will talk about the Indoraptors at another time – the point is that ‘Fallen Kingdom’ is a fictional movie with nary much logic, (especially by RL’s standards) and should be treated accordingly.

That is that for this time; see you all soon!

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Orientation' - Dec 3

The fifth season of AoS has premiered on December 1, 2017. What can be said about it?

It continues the theme of a totalitarian dystopia that began in the last third of S4 with the framework. Back then the main enemy was Hydra, (never mind that it was supposed gone for good at the end of S3 – it began to come back by the mid-S4, but so far it seems to be gone again, so there’s that), and now – the Kree. Yes, there are some allusions to some RL WWII atrocities done by the Nazis in the Kree actions, but there are just as many allusions to both the SW franchise and ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ book and TV series, (you know, the Alice Munro one). Thus, AoS is trying to be either diverse or just different from the ‘Arrowverse’s’ take on the ‘evil Nazi trope’, and-?

And it worked, yeah. AoS appears to have made a clean break from the first 3 seasons at last and is going for something completely new and exciting. Yes, the first 17-20 minutes of the first 2 S5 episodes are confusing and vague – maybe too much – but they are deliberately so, in order for more revelations and twists in the future episodes, (hopefully); for all we know, the leader of the MIB-wannabes is MCU’s version of the Watcher – or someone like that, and he had a reason for keeping Fitz behind, aside from the RL issues, one of which, apparently is the still-tight budget of AoS: with all the special effects in play, the show may be incapable of maintaining a roster of 7 full-time actors on screen, and now that Yo-Yo (NCB) is a main character in her own right, tough nuggies for Fitz (Iain).

Let us pause and focus some more on Yo-Yo and Mack (Simmons), since they are probably going to be the main focus of romance in the next few AoS episodes at least – Simmons and Fitz are separated again, Daisy is single again, and Phil and Melinda have reset their relationship for now – they are back at S2-S3 level of interacting, which means no romance. Do Gregg and Wen have some personal issues between each (or with each other)? Go figure.

…And the emphasis on ‘again’? It is just a point – in S2 (and maybe S3) Daisy’s tumultuous love life and the FitzSimmons issues as a couple were new and exciting, but now – they are not. Maybe it is time for Daisy to get back to Robbie, (Gabriel Luna), since the new guy, Deke, may have a semi-girlfriend in the new girl Tess already, and in general, in RL, Chloe Bennett, (the actress), doesn’t seem to like any romantic entanglement for her character, (Daisy); even back in S1 there were signs of this, but we got distracted.

Back to ‘Orientation’ proper, we have also learned that Daisy has as much power of destruction as SW’s Death Star did, (back in the ‘New Hope’ and ‘Rogue 1’ movies) and that the framework was one of the few things that has survived from Earth’s destruction. Maybe another one will be Hydra as some sort of a political movement, but that would be too cruel, and the Kree are quite capable of that, especially their local leader, Cassius, whose take on asshole is that of Edward Cullen, (rather than Cedric Diggory, who in the HPCC proved to be a Death Eater himself). At last, AoS managed to create a brand-new, unsympathetic villain, so kudos to them, again!

So. In S5, AoS had finally managed to break free of the morass of the first 3 seasons and finally get its’ priorities straight. This is good, but also something that AoS tried to do in S4 already, this time via the Ghost Rider/Robbie Reyes – and it did not work. By the second third of S4 Hydra was back, then AoS brought back Ward, and Tripp, and Bakshi, and many other people, (but not Hunter and Morse – what’s up with that?), and S4 ended with the lowest numbers ever in AoS’ history, and who’s to say that history won’t repeat itself, especially if AoS still hasn’t resolved all of its’ RL issues, whatever they may be?

And on that note, we must pause for the moment – the heroes of S.H.I.E.L.D. are just getting started with whatever SW-inspired Kree dystopia their authors have come up with now. Yes, again, the heroes are separated, (just when Daisy gave that pro-teamwork speech at the end of S4), but this doesn’t mean anything – none of the actors are leaving the show, so all of them are going to survive, at least for the first third, or even half of S5. Go them! AoS has also finally managed to create an unsympathetic villain, so this is good also – AoS is on a winning streak, let us now see if they can keep it. Therefore – see you soon!