THE FLASH Season 2 got Wally West completely wrong

I have a lot of complaints about The Flash Season 2, mostly pertaining to Zoom and, well, everything about Zoom being a less-impressive ripoff of the Reverse-Flash. But I want to talk about Wally West today.

CRISIS ON EARTH-X review

Suck it, Drumpf.

BREAKING: WB MAKES FIRST INTELLIGENT MOVE SINCE DAWN OF JUSTICE CAME OUT

Joss Whedon has been fired from Batgirl.

WB has no idea what it wants. WB has no idea how to get it. WB has no idea what it's doing.

But it does know that this time, heads have to roll. They stand to lose $50-100m on Justice League, and... haha no they're not firing the studio head who mandated it be 2 hours long. They're firing the schmuck brought in to clean up their mess.

Stop with the Martyrdom of Zack Snyder already

Guys.

This is a bad look.

"If not for Joss Whedon, the film wouldn't have sucked."

Oh? By "sucked" do you mean "it did poorly" or "it was bad?" Because those are two different things. And I'm just going to say it: Zack Snyder is not a critical darling, he's never going to get the praise he "deserves," and his films are never going to do as well as they "should."

"The studio interference-"

Stop it. I like Snyder, and even so I think he was laughably miscast as the director for some Superman movies. Yes, I get it, he likes making Big God Metaphors. But let's just compare the box office of some of Snyder's films against Marvel's Underpants Brigade, shall we? For funsies, I've added in the films of Christopher Nolan during that time period as well.

(There actually wasn't a Marvel Underpant movie in 2009, so I have to go with the closest release)

2008: The Incredible Hulk: $263m (Marvel)
2008: The Dark Knight: $1.005b (Nolan)
2009: Watchmen: $185m (Snyder)
2010: Inception: $826m (Nolan)

2011: Sucker Punch: $90m (Snyder)
2011: Thor 1: $499m (Marvel)
2012: The Dark Knight Rises: $1.085b (Nolan)

2013: Man of Steel: $668m (Snyder)
2013: Iron Man 3: $1.215b (Marvel)
2014: Interstellar: $675m (Nolan)

2016: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: $873m
2016: Captain America: Civil War: $1.153b

Again, Watchmen, the adaptation of THE MOST FAMOUS GRAPHIC NOVEL OF ALL TIME, did worse at the box office than the Marvel Underpant movie that was so awful they had to recast the lead.

The fact of the matter is, when you're making a Big Dumb Expensive Movie, you need to get butts in seats.

Zack Snyder does not do that.

His films are great for weirdos like me and the film nerd class. But he is wildly out of step with what the average popcorn-munching imbecile wants.

"Justice League" review, part 1: How Infirm a Foundation

I'm not even going to touch the film in this post. I'm just going to explain why it was utterly doomed.

A while back, I wrote "undercutting Snyder with the BvS theatrical cut was the single dumbest thing in this entire attempt at a cinematic universe." Well... no, it wasn't. But at that point, it was the worst thing you could have done.

"That point" being: you've already committed to piggybacking your Big Shared Universe onto Zack Snyder's "The Only Way This Jesus Metaphor Could Be Less Subtle Is If I Released The Film On Easter Weekend," a title only slightly less cumbersome than what the studio ultimately went with. The Extended Cut only softens the blow as to what a train wreck Dawn of Justice is. There is no amount of excess footage that can get around the following problems:

1. Mark Zuckerberg cosplaying as Lex Luthor pulls a goddamn piss prank at a Senate hearing.
2. Batman and Superman team up because their mothers have the same name.
3. Wonder Woman teams up with them because Batman sent her an email.

So I'm just going to come out and say it: using Zack Snyder as the vehicle for your attempt to take on the Marvel juggernaut was a strategic mistake even Napoleon wouldn't have made.

This Week in Comics: October 11, 2017

Let's dive in, kids.

We're looking at Oz Effect, A Lonely Place of Living, The Secret History of Task Force X, Bizarro Reborn, Manslaughter, and Metal this week.

So I'm reading SHATTERED

I'm not entirely sure who the book was written for. You can tell the authors have no love for the Republican Party or the current president. But at the same time, they're up-front about the fact that Hillary was her own worst enemy and her inability to convey why she was running was a huge handicap.

I do think the authors are both Hillary fans who are upset over her defeat, but, like the campaign itself, they can't really come up with a reason for her to have run aside from "it's her time." But there is a fair amount of interesting information in there, despite their pretty evident bias.

One thing the book doesn't touch on at all is the death of Justice Scalia and the role that played in the race. I remain convinced that if McConnell had folded on Garland, Trump would not have won. A great many traditional Republican voters would have stayed home, rather than reluctantly pull the lever for Trump on the off chance he could win.

Something I hadn't considered that the book touched on was the role Black Lives Matter played in Hillary's defeat. It was in part her pandering to that group that alienated working-class whites.

Bernie wasn't robbed: a theory

The theory goes that if only that Nasty Woman Hillary hadn't locked down the superdelegates, Comrade Bernito would have sailed easily to victory over Der Trumpenfuhrer.

This theory is... well, problematic. But let's leave that for another day. What I want to focus on is the argument, apparently, that Hillary locking down the superdelegates was some sort of foul underhanded play.

It assumes that this was cheating? I guess? Like the Electoral College, which apparently nobody knew about prior to Election Night 2016. The Democrat primary system was this arcane thing that nobody bothered to study.

Only... Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination. If he didn't study the rules, then he didn't, you know, do his homework.

WONDER WOMAN

So as longtime readers know, my favorite James Bond film, and one of my favorite movies ever, is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, a 140-minute opus that features an athletic lead whose acting abilities received some criticism, begins with a fight on the beach, features an obviously doomed relationship, and has a story wherein a spy and his band of unconventional allies must stop a plot involving chemical/biological weapons.

Since Wonder Woman is a 140-minute opus that features an athletic lead whose acting abilities received some criticism, begins with a fight on the beach, features an obviously doomed relationship, and has a story wherein a spy and his band of unconventional allies must stop a plot involving chemical/biological weapons, it has some really, really big shoes to fill.

It mostly succeeds, although it did kind of lose its stakes when Diana got buried under a building and walked it off during the final fight. A-.

It's also, before I get to the spoiler section, astonishingly conservative. Consider that Wonder Woman was invented by a BDSM enthusiast who used his swimsuit-clad heroine as a siren song for the matriarchy, and then consider that this film sees Diana leave her liberal feminist (hinted lesbian) paradise to go fight a war against an enemy her mother/queen insists does not actually exist (he does), using enhanced interrogation techniques and a massive sense of gung-ho interventionism along the way.

Oh - and I couldn't place him while I was watching the movie, but Field Marshal Haig, the guy in charge of the British war effort, is Lord Commander Jeor Mormont. Just throwing that out there.

Spoilers below.

Zack Snyder steps back from JUSTICE LEAGUE

Zack Snyder has decided not to finish the Justice League film after a family tragedy. The film will be finished (by that I mean, pick-up scenes will be written and shot by, and the final editing will be overseen) by Joss Whedon.

Originally, Warner Brothers wanted to push the release date back, but Snyder refused, soldiering on for another two months before realizing that he just couldn't finish the job.

Here are some observations.

1. The stakes for Wonder Woman are now enormous.
When Avengers director Joss Whedon was tapped for Batgirl, my thought was, "oh, no, if Batgirl's the first good DC film, it's going to look like the Snyder/Johns retool didn't work at all and now they've brought in Marvel's most famous director to clean up their mess." Now that Whedon is finishing Justice League, inevitably, anything good about that film is going to be laid at his feet by anti-DC/anti-Snyder folks.

2. Why Whedon? 
Whedon and Snyder have entirely different storytelling methods. I literally cannot imagine Joss Whedon's Watchmen or Zack Snyder's The Avengers. Apparently Whedon was Snyder's choice, which is what makes this tolerable to me, but between this and the studio politicking above, I can't help but feel like now, no matter what happens, Snyder's gonna get nudged aside in the future.

Which is, frankly, a shame. Snyder's not the most popular man in Hollywood, of course, but he has a vision, and Warner needs to either get behind that vision or get a new visionary (undercutting Snyder with the BvS theatrical cut was the single dumbest thing in this entire attempt at a cinematic universe). Now it looks like they're going to go with the latter option by default. Which is sad; if I wanted the Whedon approach, I'd watch Marvel movies.

On an unrelated note, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is awesome. Wait, I already did that review.

Sir Roger Moore, 1927-2017

Sir Roger Moore was, of course, best known for playing a remorseless alcoholic sociopath in seven films, increasingly flabbergasted after each successive one that he hadn't been fired yet. (He was fifty-eight when he finally gave it up.) Also, despite the character's quintessential Britishness, Moore was in fact the first Englishman to play him - his predecessors being an Aussie and a Scot.

His favorite of these films was The Spy Who Loved Me, which happens to be awesome.

Anyway, here are some choice quotes from his book, Bond on Bond:

"When I handed in my licence to kill I was constantly asked who should replace me. No! I lie. I was asked that question after about my third film, which, of course, gives an insecure actor a great feeling of being wanted. In fact, I did make a number of suggestions to Cubby - always names of really bad actors so I looked good by comparison. In the end, I was forced to abandon that idea as I couldn't find any actors worse than me."

"Sometimes [to help Desmond Llewelyn, 'Q,' remember his lines] we had 'idiot boards' on set, with his technical dialogue written in large text. As he glanced up to remind himself of the next line, the cards were peeled back one after the other. I helpfully rewrote some of those too. I like being helpful."

"[Director] Terence Young and [editor] Peter Hunt decided to have a bit of fun with [the explosive attache case from From Russia With Love] when some United Artists executives were visiting Pinewood. They ran the first couple of reels of the movie, and when it reached the scene where Bond opens the attache case, Peter cut to the huge explosion from the end of Dr. No and ran the closing titles. The end."

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

Every once in a blue moon, there's a sequel to a decent film that takes everything that was good about the first and elevates it to an art form. From Russia With Love. The Empire Strikes Back. Aliens.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

As you may recall, I had some rather... unkind things to say about the original. Basically I refused to put it on a pedestal. When you consider that Guardians 1 came out around the same time as The Winter Soldier, you're going to have to forgive me for declaring GoldenEye With Superheroes the undisputed victor of that particular bout.

There's one thing I want to mention that I apparently didn't put into either review, and that's that I was confused in the first film as to just how competent Star-Lord was supposed to be. I had assumed from the marketing and the early scenes that he was a fish-out-of-water guy with way too big an estimation of his own competence, but he actually knows what he's doing. In Guardians 2, I never had any doubts as to the film's tone or what the characters are capable of. The opening credits capture the tone of the film perfectly (I will not spoil this if you have not seen it yet).

Now, one of the big problems I had with the first film - its struggle in introducing the setting - is taken care of here because, you know, there was a first film. Yay! Another problem that I had with the first film was that it spent too much time yammering about Thanos and the MacGuffin Mitten. This one does not. Thanos is relegated to being something for Karen Gillan to seethe about. Another complaint I had was that Karen Gillan was wasted in G1. Not so here. It is like somebody got a direct line to my brain and sorted out every single nitpick I had about this first film. Villains whose characterization and motivations made sense! New characters who didn't feel pointlessly shoehorned in! Baby Groot! Sylvester Stallone is in this movie for some reason! (Okay, I did have to read les interwebs to figure out what that was about.)

And let the record show that this film featured what is without a doubt the most quintessentially perfect use of "Come a Little Bit Closer" by Jay & the Americans. That is all.

This week's comics (that I read) April 12

Spoilers

Space, the Communist Frontier

I cannot lie: the Soviet Union kinda fascinates me. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't wanna live there, but the whole Soviet Superscience aesthetic...

Anyway, I stumbled across these artworks today. First one's really cute, little girl playing with a rocketship while looking at an old propaganda poster. At first I thought she was actually on a space station, watching multiple Soviet rockets take to the heavens, but no. Interesting detail that the ground is wet - it rained recently - and the poster's muddied. "Our dream, our reality."

Second one is - HEY, DON'T STAND THAT CLOSE TO A ROCKET LAUNCH YOU WILL LITERALLY DIE OF A HEART ATTACK where was I? Also, don't we know better than to launch rockets in the cold? Ah, but you underestimate the Russians, both their engineering capabilities and their willingness to give their lives for the cause, Comrade!

Third one's just stark and awful. Also, those trees are getting, what, two hours of sunlight a day?

Legends of Tomorrow 2.17 "Aruba"

Season finale. Hrm.

Spoilers.

Legends of Tomorrow 2.15: "Fellowship of the Spear"

So you might remember that I did a rant earlier about how every time-travel show eventually does the HG Wells episode. And Legends of Tomorrow brilliantly played with this by doing a George Lucas episode.

Well now they're back, with a frickin' J.R.R. Tolkien episode.

See, our heroes have finally acquired the One Ring Spear of Destiny, an artifact of untold power that corrupts the minds of anyone nearby, tempting them to use its power, which - supposedly - they can't control. It glows when magic stuff is nearby. Normal fire reveals writing on it, and it can only be destroyed by being flung into a huge fiery pit (okay, that's the next episode). Well, it can also be destroyed with the blood of Christ, and JRR happens to know where we can get some. So it's off to World War One - you know, Mordor - for wacky fun adventures in the middle of Hell on Earth.

Oh - they can't go to the Crucifixion itself because the CW doesn't want to insult unbelievers there are some points in history that even the Legends simply Do. Not. Want. to f*ck with. Possibly getting Tolkien killed in the middle of one of the stupidest wars in history? Eh, it will save everyone nine hours of their lives circa 2001-2003.

So obviously Lord of the Rings references abound. The quotes got a little excessive, but this was better than the George Lucas episode, if only because it didn't end on "clap your hands if you believe (in yourself)."

I have so many thoughts about the Batgirl movie

So Joss Whedon is in talks to direct/write/produce a Batgirl film. The film will be based on the "New 52" incarnation of the character.

This strikes me as such a stupid, idiotic, numbskull, insane, moronic decision.

• Joss Whedon is known to Fans Of A Certain Age (hi) as the genius behind Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. This sounds encouraging, but Joss Whedon is also the guy who made Dollhouse, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the script for Alien Resurrection.
• The "New 52" was a colossal mistake and the comics are literally right now in the process of fixing it. But more specifically for our purposes, it is beyond illogical to follow a "too dark" Batfilm with a Batfilm where the main protagonist is suffering from heavy PTSD. 

And you're also going to annoy a portion of the fanbase that believes that films about women must be directed by women. I disagree but I'm throwing that out there anyway because hey, maybe something will stick.

Don't do it. This twerp thought audiences wanted a Hulk/Widow romance where Widow thought she was a monster because she couldn't have children. Don't do it because the New 52 is the last segment of Batgirl's 50-year history (other than, y'know, The Killing Joke itself) you want audiences to see when you need to make your franchise lighter and softer.

Don't do it because to my generation, Cass is Batgirl - but that is the last and least reason not to do it.

Just don't do it.

A not-inexhaustive (but probably close) list of reasons I'm "glad" Trump won

Don't worry. This won't take long.

• Justice Gorsuch. Hello, rule of law!
• Leftists will allow Liberals to say they don't like big government.
• Leftists will pretend they don't like big government.
• Instead of a batshit insane globalist warmonger, we have a batshit insane nationalist warmonger. Since we're spending our blood and treasure either way, let it be spent on our own interests.
• Every single institution would be lined up behind Hitlary, but is opposed to the Trumpenfuhrer. I know which way I prefer it.
• There's a miniscule chance of scaling back the tyranny of the administrative state.
• Watching the Democratic Party try to figure out what happened to it has been pretty entertaining so far.

...yeah that's about it.

Arrow news

SPOILERS

Jim analyzes the JUSTICE LEAGUE trailer

They made a trailer. I watched it.

Star Wars deleted scenes

And when I say Star Wars, I mean Star Wars, not "crummy cash-in two decades after the fact," nor do I mean "the Force turning tricks for the Mouse."









I'd seen the one with the "wormy" girl before, and I think one of the other scenes - but without sound. Interesting stuff. I particularly like the bit about the Empire nationalizing some of the inner systems' economies. So... not the USA, then.

So I have an un-PC thought about the upcoming WONDER WOMAN film

aaaaaaand I'm gonna step into a yuge can of worms here.

So. The Wonder Woman comic book is ridiculously feminist, to the point of being straight up misandrist. (Earth One, I am looking straight at you.) Without going too deep into it, the guy who came up with the idea was kinky, and that was probably the least insane thing about him.

Anyway. The movie features an athletic model (man points) kicking ass (man points) in a miniskirt (man points) and a metal corset (man points). There's a lot of things for guys to like, right? And, hey, maybe the WWI setting is so that the evil evil socially-backwards "Man's World" won't have obnoxious political subtext. Yeah, things sucked for women 100 years ago when Woodrow Wilson (D) was president. We can all agree on that.

(Wait a damn minute. Underclad action girl(s) in a film with a mildly feminist subtext and Zack Snyder's involvement? Friendly reminder that I liked Sucker Punch, so...)

So aside from the subject matter, the other thing that's really encouraging about this film so far is that it's lacking the marketing campaign Fake Ghostbusters had. You remember - "See this film or you're a sexist asshole!"

So yeah, looking forward to it.

Please don't suck, Wonder Woman.

Is INT overrated in New Vegas?

Okay, so the internet will tell you that Perception and Charisma are dump stats and Intelligence and Endurance are the most important SPECIAL stats to have.

Yeah, a pox on that. Well, with respect to Intelligence, at least. 

So here's the deal. Whenever you level up, you get a certain number of skill points, determined by how many Intelligence points you have. The formula is 10 + (INT/2). Now, you might notice that this doesn't necessarily yield a whole number; the extra half-point is held over and awarded on your even level-ups. So if you have, say, 7 INT, when you hit level 2, you'll get 14 points, but when you hit level 3, you'll only get 13.

Okay, so at level 4, there's a perk called Educated. The entire internet swears by this, and they're right to do so. It awards you an extra 2 skill points per level. That's like having 4 extra INT!

So if you have 2 INT and Educated, you get 12+2/2, or 13 points per level. If you have 10 INT and don't have Educated, you get 10+10/2, or 15 points per level. It's a measly two points per level, and frankly, some of those skills you don't need to push past 50 - or even lower.

David Ayer tweets photo of Black Mask

Sorry, that's "David Ayer, director of Academy Award(tm)-winning Suicide Squad.

Anyway the frame in question is from Under the Red Hood. Oh. Joy.

Bill Paxton dead at 61

Paxton was John Garrett in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fred Haise in Apollo 13, and Pvt. Hudson in Aliens, among many other roles. (He's also the "f*ck you, asshole!" punk at the beginning of The Terminator.)

D'ja ever notice - and this is not to diminish the man's skills as an actor or anything - that Hudson and Haise are pretty similar characters? They're both cocky aces who eventually lose their shit, get in a petty argument during a crisis situation, and spend the last third of the film huddled in a ball in the corner (of course, the difference is, Hudson turns out to be a coward whereas Haise... well, let's just say the poor guy misinterpreted an order and got a really nasty health problem as a result. The movie's courteous enough not to go into detail). Since Aliens and Apollo 13 are the two films he's in I've seen the most, that connection has always really jumped out at me.

How to get to New Vegas quickly

Basically, go from Goodsprings to Sloan to Neil's Shack. Then very carefully sneak around the outskirts of Black Mountain. In order to do this, head north from the Shack, keeping the winding path on your right. Don't go down off the ledge until you run into a mountain wall. Then carefully drop down onto the winding path, but at the switchback (where the path curves back towards the south) go off-road, past the NCR corpse and the bear traps. Dodge the falling rocks. From there it's a straight shot to Repconn Headquarters, and you're in the clear.

Then comes the part where you actually have to get into New Vegas. You have numerous options.

1. Have 2000 caps. The most straightforward way. Go all the way around Vegas and enter from the north, through Freeside. Present 2000 caps to the Securitron guarding the gate to the Strip. Note that the Securitron does not actually take your caps; it just makes sure that you have 2000 caps.
2. Have 80 Science. Talk to the Securitron guard and override it. You're in.
3. Kill all the Securitrons. Not recommended.
4. Obtain a pass by going to the King's School in Freeside (2nd segment) and doing the Kings' first quest, G.I. Blues. (Note that this is likely to negatively affect your NCR reputation.) You can pick from several different rewards. Choose access to the Strip.
5. Obtain a pass by going to Mick & Ralph's in Freeside (1st segment, near the East Gate). Pass a 50 Speech check to make the pass available. From there you can pass a 50 Barter check to get a discount, or have a high NCR reputation to get the pass for free (you still need the 50 Speech, though).
6. Sneak into the Strip via Camp McCarran. Instead of heading north from the Repconn building and passing around the east side of Vegas, head west until Vegas is directly north of you, then head north. You'll run into Camp McCarran. In order to access the monorail, you'll need one of the following: 
1. a high NCR reputation (there are quests you can do there) 
2. an NCR uniform
3. the patience to wait until the shift at the monorail terminal changes.

A Blog of Thrones (Chapter 63) Catelyn X: Men on the Chessboard

This is where a local map would come in handy.

Apparently Riverrun is situated so that the army besieging it has to split up into three separate camps. A competent commander, therefore, would be concerned about having his forces attacked one-by-one and defeated in detail, but Jaime Lannister is kind of a tool.

And an impatient tool, too. Jamie has ridden out to chase off raiders in order to stave off the boredom of a siege. Robb decides to take advantage of the fact that Jaime is actually deeply stupid. I'm coming to the conclusion that Robb's not a strategic genius so much as everyone else in this setting (save certain Lannisters) is deeply stupid. 

But we don't get any of the good stuff, dear reader, because George apparently doesn't want to let us get inside the heads of any of the Five Kings. Nor are we allowed to have Jaime as a POV character yet - mostly because his characterization in this book could be summed up as "stupid incestuous asshole," and it's a bit too late in this book to start doing some character development. So instead we have to let Catelyn Stark stand on the sidelines and fret while someone else fights her battles for her.

Again.

This is unfair, I know, because Catelyn is a) old for the setting and b) a woman in a sometimes-"hard" fantasy setting. But you know what? I don't care. Catelyn Stark is not and will never be my favorite character, and frankly it's a chore to get through her stuff while the action is happening off-page. 

George was a TV writer for a while, so I wonder if this was his way of skimping on the budget. Frankly unnecessary because, hey, it's a book. So we have to hear about the battle secondhand once it's over. Jaime tried to kill Robb when he saw he'd lost the battle, and Torrhen and Eddard Karstark gave their lives to save Robb's. Now their father Rickard wants vengeance for their deaths. Hmm, maybe the whole "father to his men" trope is overrated, Robb? I mean it's great that your followers will die for you, but that kinda seems like it's more trouble than it's worth.

Theon Greyjoy also wants to just kill Jaime and be done with it, but at least Robb understands the value of a hostage. (And, um, remember: Theon is a hostage. He's with the Starks because the deal is they'll kill him if his father gets uppity. Robb might want to remember this...)

Okay, so they captured Jaime, but the Lannister host is still besieging Riverrun. Still, that's bound to upset the balance of power, no?

I love how all the stuff I got used to when I started reading "modern comic books" is no longer canon

Barbara Gordon's stuck in a wheelchair - nope
Tim Drake is the current Robin - nope
Cassandra Cain is the current Batgirl - nope 
Jason Todd is dead and not coming back - nope

Dick Grayson is still Nightwing, though. Because some things never ever ever change.

Stop remaking good movies and remake the Star Wars Prequels

Child "actors" who can't act, Jar Jar Binks, trade route politics, mind-numbing over-choreographed lightsaber battles... yeah, these aren't the biggest problems with the trilogy.

One problem that I'd like to discuss is the pacing. Specifically, Palpatine's story happens too quickly, whereas Anakin's takes too long.

To put it another way, Palpatine should not have become Chancellor until the second film, and Anakin should already have been a Jedi-in-training in the first.

In fact... Anakin, not Obi-Wan, should have been Qui-Gon's apprentice, and Qui-Gon should have died halfway through The Phantom Menace rather than at the end. Anakin killing Maul for it, instead of bringing him in alive, could have been a wedge between the two of them in the second film.

I'm just spitballing here.

Also, as much as everybody mocks the "space politics" parts, my opinion is that we actually needed more of Palpatine, because he's the best thing in the prequels.

'sbeen a while

Working on a new blog, more on that later.

Enjoying The Man in the High Castle so far.

Apparently we're getting more Eobard Thawne soon.

Yay.

I think I've said this before, but I'm still waiting for Matt Letscher to get a chance to shine with the character the way Tom Cavanagh did in, say, the "you've been dead for centuries" scene in The Flash Season 1. I still get chills just thinking of that scene, actually. Brr.

Arrow 5.10, "Who Are You"

There is no way to discuss this without les spoilers.

Legends of Tomorrow 2.09

...I actually don't want to put the title up there, because it's a giveaway to something I want to build up to.

Every science fiction show, if it lasts long enough, will eventually do an episode where the cast meets some historical figure, usually a writer. If it's a time travel show, that historical figure is more likely than not going to be H.G. Wells. Heck, Legends already met H.G. Wells last year. (Come to think of it, the way they hid Wells's identity until the reveal suddenly looks like foreshadowing.)

And that makes sense, right? I mean, H.G. Wells is pretty much the father of science fiction, so of course he'd get honors in every show ever. But the Arrowverse has gotten pop-culture overdosed in recent years (thanks Cisco) and it's not surprising that they did this eventually.

Star Wars VIII: The Search For More Money has a new title

And it is The Last Jedi.

Because that's not officially the dumbest Star Wars title ever.

Not like titles matter. Let's be honest. You'd watch a movie called Milking the Money Tree: A Star Wars Story. 

Now, the "last" Jedi refers to Luke, right? We've been over this. Ma-Rey Sue tapped into the dark side to defeat Clueless Ren. She has great innate dark side energy because she is, obviously, Palpatine's granddaughter. So if Disney had any stones whatsoever, VIII would see her be tempted by her past, as Luke was, and unlike Luke, she'd fall.

Of course, if Disney had any stones whatsoever, VII wouldn't have been a shameless rehash of IV. On the flip side, Rogue One did end the way it did...

No, that's not what's going to happen. Luke's going to die, very sad. Rey will be the Last Jedi, all light and incorruptible pure pureness. Clueless Ren will stomp around and Pathetic Boy-Tarkin will continue to be pathetic, and guys you cannot make good movies without good villains. 

The main series is f*cked because its villains are awful. I hold out hope for the anthology films. Even if they are all Milking the Money Tree: A Star Wars Story. 

The last word on SUICIDE SQUAD

All right guys, time for some real talk.

I really liked Suicide Squad, in spite of its obvious flaws, because it spoke to me. No, I'm not talking about Margot Robbie's ass in hot pants, although... Okay let's not go there. Its entire off-kilter tone is something I could identify with.

See, I have never been part of the "in" crowd. I played Pokemon well past when the rest of my middle-school class dropped it. I was a right-wing student on a campus in Wisconsin during the anti-Walker protests. I could go on, but point is, when Harley Quinn says "Normal is just a setting on the dryer," I was like "Fuck yeah." And when she gets zapped into a fantasy of a normal life, I was still like "Fuck yeah. I feel you, movie, because you fucking get me."

Well, David Ayer tweeted out a message to his fans. And, wow. He went for it. And I salute him for it.

Yes the label is "DCCU" instead of "DCEU" because as far as I'm concerned it's a cinematic universe rather than an extended one. An extended one would incorporate the shows instead of shafting them.

Some random links

Apparently liberals progressives made a big deal about Trump not having a poet at his inauguration. To which I can only suggest that perhaps Trump himself should have quoted William Shakespeare:

Tickle us, do we not laugh?
Prick us, do we not bleed?
Wrong us, shall we not throw people from helicopters?

Just trying to have a little fun here, folks. But in all seriousness, progressives don't seem to get why this happened, and I'm not holding my breath for them figuring it out by 2020.

Okay. First off... are you sitting down? Okay, good. Get this: there is going to be another Terminator film. "Oh," you're saying, "That's just the studio milking the money tree. I mean, it's not enough to just have a franchise now, there has to be a whole cinematic universe, so you can expect a spinoff starring Lance Henriksen's character from the first film within six years." Yeah, let me stop you there. James Cameron is involved. And it's being called "a reboot and a conclusion." Whatever that means.

Here is TvTropes's page on the new Justice League of America title, noting that the lineup seems to be a massive sop to Arrowverse fans. I can't help but notice this will be the third ongoing title Black Canary's in. (And I stand by my earlier analysis that this is the Dinah Laurel Lance incarnation of the character, which means she was re-integrated into comic continuity the same year her show version was killed off.)

Speaking of the Justice League, here's a Watchmen reference in Justice Leave vs. Suicide Squad #5. Given the whole bloody point of Rebirth, I have to assume this is a deliberate reference... but then, I thought the whole bloody point of Rebirth was that Watchmen is not a how-to rubric for how every comic story since 1986 must be written. So go figure.

Here's another political one: Private Manning should never have made it out of basic.

Nathan "Malcolm Reynolds" Fillion managed to bring some levity to today's events.

Here's a British (I think) guy explaining why Fallout 3 is garbage and, you know, he's not wrong. My problem with the Fallout games - well, to be specific, the Fallout 3 and 4 games - is that... look, Skyrim is basically my baseline for a Bethesda game, because it was the first Bethesda game I played. It had six factions, and you could join five of them (two of them were mutually exclusive), and you had to join zero of them to finish the game. As far as I know, 3 doesn't give you any sidequest-factions to join, and 4 requires you to join one of the three factions and wipe out the other two. It makes the world feel a lot smaller and more forced. Hell, in Skyrim, those two factions that are mutually exclusive? You don't need to join either! You can convince them to set a truce that will last until you, the player character, break it. Incidentally, here's someone who thinks that 3 offered him choices, but 4 did not. (Granted, he obviously had not gotten two-thirds of the way through the plot, but he's right about it just being a shooter.)

Here's a new trailer for Arrow 5.10, which airs Wednesday. Let's just say that Laurel, or whoever she is, does the city a public service. And here's the trailer for Legends 2.09, which airs Tuesday. No trailer for Flash because I'm not caught up yet, but that comes back Tuesday as well.

Another reason why LEGENDS is basically the Sara Lance show now

not that there's anything wrong with that

Two of the three main villains this season are personally responsible for wrecking her life - Malcolm Merlyn destroyed the Queen's Gambit, sentencing her to six years in hell, and then later orchestrated her murder; Damien Darhk murdered her sister - but none of the three have a personal connection to any of the other characters.

Here's another reason Prometheus is Tommy

The show likes to forget it's not Batman With a Bow, yeah?

Hush...

Legends of Tomorrow could just rename itself Sara Lance Murders/Seduces Everyone

And it is excellent.

Season highlights: basically every episode that isn't 2.04, "Abominations," but especially 2.05, "Compromised," 2.07, "Invasion!," and 2.08, "The Chicago Way."

Season lowlight: 2.04, "Abominations," easily.

If Rey isn't Palpatine's granddaughter somebody needs to ask John Williams why her theme intro is a rework of Palpatine's.

I'm thinking I'll be reading Justice League of America Rebirth, because, well, look at the cast!

Prometheus is Tommy Merlyn, right?

I'll tell you the theory first, and then the evidence:

Arrow's Season 5 villain, Prometheus, is a resurrected Tommy Merlyn. After he died in the Season 1 finale, Talia al-Ghul stole his body and dipped him in a Lazarus Pit, with the intention of turning him into a weapon to use against his father, League of Assassins apostate Malcolm Merlyn. But Tommy didn't play entirely according to the script, and went off-mission to hunt down Oliver. (Church telling Prommy Oliver is the Green Arrow (Arrow 5.05) is a red herring; Prommy already knew.)

So Lord of the Rings is, as most fanboys know, just a story Tolkein wrote in order to show off all the languages he'd invented.

...plus the one he'd straight-up cribbed from history.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey #6

Maria Panessa is a stone-cold bitch.

Okay here's how I'm going to get caught up this weekend

Arrowverse crossover

Why all three shows are redeeming themselves

Prometheus is totally Tommy Merlyn

Probably something political

Bond film review?

Arrow Season 5

is a surprising improvement, yay.

All the throwbacks to Season 1 made me worried this was the end, but no, the show got renewed for another year. Also yay.

Am I behind on my blogging? Oh dear I am behind on my blogging. Well. I'll work on that. Where are my keys?

I will run for president on a single-issue platform.

"Webpages must load their actual content before they load any images or ads."

I will not run for re-election, but I'll get 60% of the vote as a write-in candidate anyway.

James Bond: Octopussy

(This has been sitting in my Drafts folder for three years. Enjoy.)

First time, ladies and gentlemen, that a Soviet Russian is the Big Bad. (This film was made in 1983.) Second and last appearance of Maud Adams, making this the only film where one named Bond Girl looks an awful lot like a previous one (she was the doomed Andrea Anders in The Man With the Golden Gun).

More ramblings about Fallout: New Vegas

New Vegas fixed the biggest complaint I had about 3 (you can't aim), and weapon decay isn't really a huge problem.

So in my first four hours of New Vegas gameplay, I managed to get to the outskirts of New Vegas, where I was turned away by the robot because I didn't have 2000 caps to get my green card. Yes, I suck at Fallout games. But I got to explore Goodsprings, the Mojave Outpost, Nipton, Novac, the Helios facility, and the outskirts of New Vegas.

See, what I love love love love love about Skyrim is that right out of the gate, you could go anywhere. Yeah, Falkreath was a bit easier than everywhere else, and you were hosed if a Sabrecat happened to find you at a low level, but it wasn't like you had to wait until you were Level 20 to go to Solitude or Windhelm without dying constantly. The Fallout games seem to want to dissuade this kind of behavior. You have to go and do the things in the order we want.

I guess when you really get down to it, that's the problem I have with every Fallout game I've played - you can't instantly join the faction you want. If you want to join Ulfric's rebellion in Skyrim, walk to Whiterun, take a carriage to Windhelm, and you're off. But if you want to join the Legion (you awful person) or the Institute (you scientifically-minded awful person), well, you have to wait until the main quest gets around to it. Skyrim just feels more free, like you can actually do anything.

I guess the idea is that New Vegas gives you a couple of hours to settle into the setting before making you make the Big Decisions. You see the Legion sack Nipton, for example. Which, okay, I get that, but Fallout in general and New Vegas in particular is... well, it's candy for a min-maxer, somebody who figures out exactly what character build they're going for and who will restart their game if they suddenly realize they need two more points in Agility to get a super-useful perk. Which means playing through the same couple of hours over. And over. And over. Again.

So that's a bit dull. And the game's a bit glitchy. But it is the best Fallout game I've played, and I'm really starting to get into it (now that the settlement-building of 4 has lost its charm and I've come to realize how paper-thin the rest of the game is).

Immersion and the Fallout Games

Fallout 4 has a problem. No, I'm not talking about the lack of a "disable iron sights" option or the fact that it is absolutely impossible to shoot things in melee range in third-person view, although those are significant problems as well.

Put simply, the problem is this: it's been 200+ years since the bombs fell, and there's been no rebuilding? Hiroshima doesn't look like an atomic wasteland today, never mind what it'll look like 140 years from now. And we're also required to believe that no scavengers came through the area before me?

Fallout 3 had this problem as well, for that matter. New Vegas skated around it by virtue of the fact that New Vegas was literally the frontier in an ongoing war, with neither side willing to divert resources towards policing the civilians - not unlike the situation in Skyrim, which also doesn't have this problem.

But, look, guys, it's obvious that Mad Max is one of your inspirations, and only one of those films had no civilization whatsoever - not saying the civilizations on display in the first, third, and fourth films were particularly good, mind you, but there was some semblance of authority. The Fallout games, in contrast, all seem to take place in a Road Warrior-esque setting, where the "civilians" are being preyed on constantly by bandits and raiders and don't seem to have much in the way of help. And Road Warrior takes place only a few years after the apocalypse... well, insofar as Mad Max has a consistent internal chronology, at any rate. (Just to name one very obvious example: If Max is supposed to be as young as Tom Hardy in Fury Road, how on Earth was he a cop in the pre-apocalypse when Furiosa - whose actress is a couple years older than Hardy - was clearly born after it?) 

New Vegas remains one of the greatest games ever made.

(with sincere apologies to Dean Martin)

I love Vegas in the springtime.
I love Vegas in the fall.
I love Vegas for the creatures of the region.
I love Vegas like it's Caesar and I'm the Legion.
I love Vegas every moment,
Every moment of the year
I love Vegas, why oh why do I love Vegas?
Because my guns are here.

Speaking of guns, here's a Fallout New Vegas PSA: If you're like me and you like shooting things from as far away as humanly possible, you want to get your hands on a unique, overbuffed Varmint Rifle called the Ratslayer. Here's how to get it.

• Play the game normally until you get to Nipton.
• When you get to Nipton, enter the general store.
• Talk to Boxcars. As tempting as it may be, do not kill him.
• Ask about what happened. Then ask about the lottery.
• When the option comes up, ask about the slaves.
• Exit the conversation. Restrain the impulse to kill him.
• You'll receive a quest called "Booted." It will tell you to go to a specific Legion camp.
• Go to the camp and head east.
• You'll see a new location marker slightly to the north, but mostly east.
• Enter the Broc Flower Cave and follow the path to the right.
• If you're playing with the Wild Wasteland trait, enjoy the Princess Bride reference.
• The Ratslayer is in a room on a ledge at the end of the path, right in front of a table.

Enjoy!

Guys we need to have a talk about Season 2 of THE FLASH

For a quick introduction to what The Flash is, watch this. I agree with probably 80% of everything until he starts talking about Season 2. Season 2 of The Flash is bad.

Really bad.

Spoilers, obvi.

Hello 2017

I'm gonna swear less and work out more and actually have this log live up to its title. Voila, "daily" post.

Status: tired.

I have some comics to catch up on, do I not? Might happen tomorrow. I have the day off.

G'night.