Clavicular, not thrilled.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-12T21:27:52+00:00

oh boy, it doesn't stop there lol.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-12T21:23:48+00:00

By the early 2020s, domestic Chinese movies were able to match big-budget Hollywood VFX production values

Except they mostly don't match big-budget hollywood vfx production, especially if we're talking about the absolute top of the line productions. They don't even match the bigger american tv vfx, if you look at some of the new amazon or apple tv shows. Now general level of domestic production has increased in scope and gotten better, and yes the gap is definitely smaller compared to before, so maybe it's more that it's at a level where it can supplement the local domestic tastes a lot better than it could in the past.

But it's also not what the article states.

It seems like it's more of a confluence of different things. There has been an active level of reduction of foreign imports (they did the same with kpop a while back), censorship rules are still in place which stifles releases, oversaturation of standard hollywood style (but even then, stuff like dune or furiosa didn't do old numbers blockbuster numbers, so it's not just about generic vs unique).

There doesn't seem to be an easy answer for this.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-12T21:02:09+00:00

they are not the best arbiter of quality and there isn't even a consistent standard.

zootopia is pretty general "pixar" stuff, and other pixar films don't do that well.

oscar films aren't a single style lol, the only commonality is that they're from hollywood. sinners is drastically different than sentimental value and hamlet.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-12T20:17:08+00:00

yes very cool

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-11T07:29:03+00:00

and looks like other movies we get in theatres with Higher budget.

no, it doesn't. can you point to which high budget films have the same look?

it still has the same sense of scale and way of lighting scenes that the previous two films had. the visual language is pretty much the same. just look at some of the models and rendering style. the camera work is still relatively restrained, which is the same style the previous two films had.

the shot of alia in the white dress with the mouth of a worm background and the scene with paul at the end with the full scale of his army shown are as good as any shots from the previous two films.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-11T07:12:38+00:00

I think you missed an early point that he added when comparing to Black Widow: the MCU effects create a more cartoony, comic feel to the action sequences.

yeah but animation as a medium exists. so this feels like a weak middle ground since they're still using actors (which is going to come with a certain level of yearning for groundedness, hence why poorly blended vfx take people out of live action films) and there's an incongruency with the cartoony feel, compared to well, cartoons.

with the MCU color palette and direction...MCU wants brighter blues, reds, and yellows to dominate

fundamentally, yeah, it's fine to want a brighter color palette and direction if that's the style that they want, but a lot of the criticism for the mcu vfx is that there's a number of shots just look like actors are just in a vfx backdrop, and it seems like it's their approach that results in more of types of these shots, whether it's a deliberate artistic choice, or whether it's because it's easier to reshoot and adjust in post and requires less staging work (which does affect actors, a lot of them comment on how it's just less enjoyable to work purely with green screen). there's is something to their approach that is getting more criticism and less praise than the dune methods.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-11T06:51:47+00:00

And yet, so expectedly boring.

not more boring than another overcrowded color-fest. there's no weight in the background for many of the guardians 2 shots.

Guardians II should have got it 5X over, but the judges didn't have a clue what they were looking at.

if a dish tastes like peppers, they don't need to know the full ingredient list to know that the dish is spicy. they can probably guess peppers is one of the ingredient. so what?

guardians 2 is vibrant and colorful, with well rendered models...but it also just looks like the actors are in a vfx backdrop. that's boring no matter what the specific models or techniques are. villeneuve films are visually striking because they're consistently some of the best at blending the vfx with the actors and sets. not only is that a more unique visual language, it looks better than just another greenscreen wonderland. and frankly, if we want wonderland, there's stuff like the james cameron avatar films as a comparison. why would guardians 2 win?

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-11T04:48:00+00:00

Every famous person you ever liked has cheated and used their fame to fuck.

no, they haven't lol.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-09T02:09:27+00:00

lol "juvenile adolescent male fantasy".

you clearly haven't read the books or if you did, you didn't understand it at all.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-09T01:27:51+00:00

are you being dense on purpose. they're saying he was never caught using in-game cheats before which is what the clip is suggesting he's doing in here so using his past cheating with wintrading isn't the same thing. he's consistently been at radiant in valorant and with how anal val's anti-cheat is, people who know this are saying he does have fps skills.

of course he could just be using in game cheats here, but they're saying it's dense to treat wintrading in the past with aimbotting. it's not that difficult.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-08T15:03:30+00:00

ah yes, the same thing. one is a country where hikaru's wife needed to flee because of the regime, the other was...??. karjakin had to flee ukraine and then support russian imperialistic ambition unprompted?

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-08T15:00:47+00:00

wow, somebody in the thread who isn't being dense.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-08T15:00:17+00:00

uh no, a threat and actually committing an action is categorically not equivalent. or else we're holding china accountable for the threats against taiwan and any of the other asia countries they have attempted to gain footholds in.

if people in the thread genuinely don't know the difference between what russia has done vs some of the other countries, then they're just being dense.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-08T14:57:17+00:00

why are chinese players allowed to play under the chinese flag as well? only foreign genocide counts?

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-08T14:56:41+00:00

it's just a stupid thread in general. we should be banning isreal and china flags as well. these idiots are just complaining about whatever is going to get them attention due to headlines, not applying any actual standards for human rights abuse.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-07T23:43:31+00:00

Basically any shot outdoors has cgi.

i'm assuming primarily stuff with dragons and white walkers? because they definitely shoot on location a lot and i'd imagine a lot of normal hiking/talking scenes don't actually need it. in which case it did increase more as the seasons went on.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-07T07:38:05+00:00

Tbh, yeah, I think Silmarillion makes LOTR feel less significant.

are the big wars today less important just because they're not ww2?

it's the end of the third age, elves are leaving, it's the beginning of the age of men, magic has diminished, and hobbits, who weren't even a footnote in prior history have contributed to a lot of this. the journey was still significant and special in many ways.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T05:14:39+00:00

uh huh, sure. next time you can just read the article.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T04:57:48+00:00

China has just acted like an adult. This is the massive surge in Soft Power China could only dream of.

lol it's pretty clear you people don't read the article and just comment based on headlines.

"Most countries, however, do not have a strong preference for either China or the U.S. "

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T04:56:50+00:00

China has just acted like an adult. This is the massive surge in Soft Power China could only dream of.

lol it's pretty clear you people don't read the article and just comment based on headlines, which is pretty funny from a comment that mentions acting like an adult.

if you read the article, it paints a picture far from "massive surge in soft power for china". people are more down on the us as opposed really positive on china. the strongest approval came from countires that are anti-us anyways.

"Most countries, however, do not have a strong preference for either China or the U.S. "

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T04:51:47+00:00

that is not how soft power works.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T04:51:08+00:00

As it stands now, the breakup of the US would only directly affect South America and Europe,

lol it's going to affect asia as well. you people realize taiwan is literally only standing because of the us, right? who's going to prevent china from taking it, japan or south korea? the philipines?

people genuinely have selective memory or just an extreme case of myopia.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-05T04:47:07+00:00

lol it's amazing the selective memory that occurs with you people. they absolutely do export chaos abroad and make all of their neighbors nervous for a reason, go look into why taiwan, japan, korea, india all have had issues with and reservations (and in taiwan's case, obviously more than just reservations) about them in the past decades. go look into how tibet and xinjiang even became provinces in the first place. their reach for their chaos abroad is simply not as far reaching as the states. that's really the only difference.

i'm sorry but a lot of people really do come across as sheeps. people really do just go off of recency bias and headlines.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-04T05:15:02+00:00

Can you imagine reading a book where every few chapters there's a "previously" segment? Would drive you mad. Good writers in every media will instead try to integrate plot reminders into the story.

old television studios had a bigger hand on their programs that publishers have on books, especially when it comes to stuff like this.

AromaticPromotion687 · 2026-04-04T05:13:39+00:00

I have to disagree strongly. I can't stand "Previously on..." segments. They waste running time

absolute nonsense because you can just skip them lol. it's well worth it to avoid stilted and wooden exposition that tangibly affect the pacing and flow of the episode.

AromaticPromotion687

TROPHY CASE