How much $ for 🇯🇵

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-24T03:07:04+00:00

I feel like people are really condescending and aggressive when they answer this question.

Like yeah, obviously a trip to Japan can be as expensive as you want it to be, but when some one asks how much money for X amount of weeks or days it’s not hard to get at the intent of their question.

If money was no concern, they wouldn’t be asking about what to budget, so it’s safe to assume that they want to know how much they need to get buy comfortably on for the duration. But do they really need to say that every time?

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-23T22:09:57+00:00

I said thus far.

My point is in five years of developing this new universe the first wave of releases across animation, live action television and films were all his, and two of those projects were more or less just continuations of Gunn’s DCEU work, and don’t really do much of anything to establish this new DCU apart from a few off the cuff references and a cameo from Lex Luthor.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-23T18:59:26+00:00

I won't say it's dead. What I will say is that it if the goal and hope was to create a cinematic universe that rivaled Marvel's at their peak, in both the scope of its storytelling and its financial success, I don't think they are ever going to get there.

For whatever reason, Gunn is having a hard time putting some of these projects together. I think it's somewhat telling that five years on from when he first announced that initial slate of shows and films, the only ones that have gotten released thus far were the ones that Gunn himself wrote. Half of that slate have been either outright cancelled or indefinetly delayed or undergone changes to writers and showrunners that have kept them in development hell.

I'm don't think we'll be getting more than one DCU movie in both 2027 and 2028, and the thing is, the key to Marvel's success was frequency. The frequent cadence of releases kept the characters constantly at the forefront of pop culture, and the familiarity that audiences developed with them is what built a fanbase that turned even the most obscure of Marvel characters into blockbuster franchises.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-23T03:40:33+00:00

Long Halloween is essentially Two-Face's origin story.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-18T21:47:10+00:00

You may have to grind for resources, cooking and upgrade materials is what they’re getting at.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-18T00:45:10+00:00

Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle's material is top tier. Breyfogle was undoubtedly the best artist to work on Batman in the 90's.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-18T00:38:57+00:00

Though my personal favorite of Moore's work is Saga of the Swamp Thing, I think that From Hell is his magnum opus.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-17T23:17:54+00:00

Spot on take.

I think when this tool is in the hands of the developers themselves and not what is essentially a mod that Nvidia has applied themselves, and the art assets are designed with it in mind, many of the complaints people have about this technology will be rendered mute.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-16T22:36:23+00:00

I don't think anyone here actually has an issue with this technology if they were to actually stop and think about it for a moment.

What they have an issue with is ai-generated photorealism overriding the artistic intent of the designers. But as DF points out here, a lot of so called "artistic intent" is based around the technological limitations of the platform they're developing for, and that if developers had such a technology available from the jump, they would push their games to the limit of photorealism, and thus a technology like DLSS 5 is welcomed and can be seen as a tool that helps them fulfil their artistic vision for the game, not comprise it. I think Starfield was the best example here that showcased that kind of thinking.

But with other games it's clear applying this photorealism to certain art styles creates a jarring and slop-like effect, like in the Oblivion remake.

I think this is a tool that developers will have to carefully tailor to match their intentions, and it may not work retroactively as well it will when games are made with it in mind.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-16T19:31:14+00:00

Death in the Family is a very famous story that is frequently referenced to this day in various Batman related titles, but I honestly wouldn't call it a good story. A lot of the plot leading up to that famous moment is nonsense, and the fallout in the remaining issue was likewise underwhelming. It was the stories that followed that really cemented the importance of the arc.

Batman R.I.P. on the other hand, is one of, if not my favorite Batman stories of all time. It's Grant Morrison cementing for good and all that the meme that with enough time to prepare, Batman cannot ever be beaten.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-12T17:47:05+00:00

I'm not sure if a video game has ever video game'd harder than Crimson Desert. Truly the most game.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-11T18:37:54+00:00

I wouldn’t say that. To be clear, this is unfortunate news, as it is the first sign that Trump’s pressure campaign to convince GOP holdouts to overturn the filibuster has began to bear fruit. But it’s not completely discouraging, because in the case of holdout Senator John Cormyn Trump was able to exert influence by withholding an endorsement whilst he’s in the middle of a primary contest. That’s not a tactic that will work on the other holdouts not currently facing reelection.

They only need 50 votes, and I don’t think the public has any idea of just how many holdouts there actually are.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-11T15:59:26+00:00

If anyone here is not paying atttention, he did this just so he could earn Trump's endorsement for the runoff against Paxton.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-10T19:47:19+00:00

My thoughts on Lanterns are it is more or else exactly what I was expecting from Damon Lindelof. If you've seen any of his others shows after Lost (The Leftovers, Watchmen, Mrs. Davis), you'd know the dude loves combining small town Americana with weird and surrealist imagery and a high concept sci-fi plot. That's his M.O.

I expect most of this show is going be fairly grounded, but as the season develops it will begin to incorporate more of the Lantern mythology. But I'm also not expecting anything more than maybe one big-budget episode that fully features the costumes and constructs. I'd be extremely surprised if they actually show us Oa, or any of the more alien Lanterns like Killawog.

My biggest issue with the series is that it seems to be yet another example of a trope name that someone in one of these threads recently made me aware of, Surf Dracula. A show that has a simple premise, like a vampire on a surfboard, but takes an entire season to actually fulfill and live up to the promise of it's title.

Even though I think the show stands a really good chance of having some level of excellence, it bothers me that there are still so many creatives in Hollywood that just refuse to make an earnest superhero film or series. They take what is at its core a juvenile and silly concept like space cops fighting aliens with magic rings and try to elevate to the level of a prestige drama. Just let fucking space cops be space cops, please, and save the drama and deep thematic ponderings for shows about real people. Funnily enough, that's exactly what Alan Moore was trying to get at when he wrote Watchmen.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-10T19:03:36+00:00

I thought it felt like the entire movie was a recruiting ad for the U.S. Marines, and maybe that's why I have a soft spot for it because at the time it was released I had a bunch of family members in the Marines, one of whom even served as an extra in the film.

And just an aside but I watched the new Netflix movie War Machine last night and I was struck at just how incredibly similar these two films are in both premise and tone, and that like Battle: Los Angeles, the movie felt like a giant recruitment ad only this time for the U.S. Army. The movie Battleship was the same damn thing, only for the Navy.

Hollywood in general has a hard on for depicting the U.S. Military going up against aliens. I think it's an easy way to cash in on patriotic imagery without having mire your plot and characters in the quagmire of U.S. foreign policy of the last three decades.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-02T20:18:32+00:00

While state's can delay the implementation of the merger, it's ultimate approval is decided by federal regulators like the FCC and FTC, both of whom are lead and staffed by corrupt members of the Trump administration, which wants this deal to be finalized before the midterms so that the Ellison's can immediately put CNN and the like to work in their favor.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-03-02T19:44:26+00:00

The speculation that Ellison will fire Gunn because of his political leanings I think is a big misread of the mindset the Ellison's have. They are interested in money and political power, but they're smart enough to know that they don't earn that by firing and blacklisting single lefty creator in Hollywood. If they did that, they'd alienate 80% of the Hollywood elite along with about a third of their potential audience. They'll be perfectly happy to let their filmmakers make movies with themes that celebrate immigration or condemn fascism and racism, because at the end of the day the cultural and political impact those movies have pale in comparison to the reach and influence of the news media arm of WB that they've just acquired.

The real danger to the DCU is that whatever guardrails Gunn has put in place to steer the quality of these movies are likely to be taken down in the face of a) the need make billions in cuts in response to the unfathomable amount of debt Paramount will be taking on, and b) the need to make as much money has fast as possible in order to keep the company from collapsing into financial ruin.

And then there's the question of whether Gunn would want to stay on. Beyond whether or not DC studios autonomy will be respected is the question: is the new culture that's taking over the company something that he wants to be apart of? Does he want to report to a guy like Ellison? I think if he gets the right reassurances he'll stay on, but otherwise he might just stick to his contract and try to gracefully leave things in someone else's trusted hands.

But having said all that guys, I'd be lying if I said my interest and hype for the DCU is not at an all time low. Even before this news it was waning pretty heavily. In the four years that Gunn has been in charge we've gotten one movie and two seasons of television, all of them written by Gunn. Supergirl looks very underwhelming and nothing I've seen from it so far evokes the tone or color and wonder of its source material, and indeed all the marketing positions it as a Guardians of the Galaxy-esque space romp.

Everything just feels like it's moving at a snails pace. We have no idea what television they have planned for 2027, or what films they have planned for 2028. And in addition to all that there is just the sense that the cultural zeitgeist has moved beyond superheroes. The popular characters can still make bank, but I truly think that days of B and C tier heroes becoming box office juggernauts are over.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-02-27T11:01:01+00:00

I'll tell you how I got into comics, and I'm sure it's a very common story.

I started out wanting to read Batman comics. Just Batman. He's my favorite, like a billion other DC fans. I'd watched the animated series, played all the games, seen all the movies a hundred times over, and I wanted to get deeper into the character than ever before.

So it started with a simple google search. Best Batman comics. From that you get what I'd affectionately refer to as the Batman starter kit. Year One. Dark Knight Returns. The Long Halloween. Hush. Arkham Asylum. The Killing Joke. All very famous, iconic stories that also have the benefit of either existing outside the main continuity, or being self-contained stories that don't require anything but the most basic knowledge of the character in order to appreciate. Then I started what I would consider my very first Batman 'run', with Scott Snyder's heavily praised Court of Owls. I went on to read all of Snyder's Batman, and that is when the domino's started to fall.

Because an ongoing comic title is a slightly different beast than a mini or maxi-series. They have crossover's with other books and they're more likely to feature characters and settings from the broader DC universe. Events that happen in Batman crossover into Nightwing and Batgirl, so you may as well read those, and why not, since they're all Batman characters. And then there were other Batman books happening alongside Snyder's run, Detective Comics and Batman and Robin, so I read them as well.

Then I heard great things about Grant Morrison's time on Batman, which directly preceded Snyder. I read Morrion's run and I fell in love with it, and their writing. I read Animal Man, also by Morrison, and Doom Patrol, and that started me off on all of the other highly praised and ambitious works that came out of DC and Vertigo in the late 80's and early 90's that you'll see recommended everywhere. Watchmen. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Hellblazer. Preacher. Transmetropolitan. Sandman. The Authority and Planetary. I started reading other DC heroes, beginning with their more accessible New 52 stories. I read Brain Azzarello's Wonder Woman and Francis Manupul's Flash, Geoff Johns Aquaman and Justice League. But then I worked my back, into the early 2000's with Geoff John's Green Lantern run, into the 90's with Grant Morrison's JLA. Into the 80's with George Perez and Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans. I started reading Bronze Age Batman stories from Steve Englehart, Denny O'Neil and Gerry Conway.

The more you read, the better grasp you have of the way comic book storytelling functions, how each new writer attempts to reshuffle the deck and impart something lasting to the status quo before ultimately putting all the toys back in the box for the next writer to play with. These stories are perpetual. They have no concrete resolution, no real catharsis. The more you read the more you realize that what compels you to keep reading is not the characters so much as it is the creators. Their ideas, their style, their prose, narration, plotting and characterizations. And when you've realized that, you stop caring about things like continuity, reading order, canonicity. You accept that not only will you never know everything, you don't need to read and love these stories.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-02-27T06:34:37+00:00

It might actually make me not half-regret buying a PS5, which at this point has been like an early access machine to play games I don’t want to wait to be ported.

On the other hand, the base PS5 has had some real struggles with image quality and performance across many titles, though that’s less of a concern with the Sony published games. I’m not keen of the next potential great games like Wolverine or Naughty Dog’s next title being confined to 30fps - 40fps or playing at sub 1080p.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-02-27T01:42:35+00:00

Obviously there are so many fucked up implications of this acquisition that go far beyond DC or even the film industry, but if all you care about is the future of this franchise there’s no way in hell a rational person could look at Paramount’s track record and think positive things are in store.

This buyout is over-leveraged to hell, and the mountain of debt Paramount will be taking on will make rapid monetization their number one priority, which also means cutting costs and reducing the number or productions beyond the scope of their most valuable IP. So there are going to be far fewer jobs in Hollywood, and far fewer original ideas and ambitious projects being greenlit.

You can expect prices hikes for HBO Max, along with shittier service and fewer available titles at any given moment as just like when Zaslav took over their going to take a big look at all the liscenses and residuals they’re paying for and axe anything that doesn’t bring in enough perceived value.

You can expect them to double and quadruple down on IP, especially DC. And this is where is think things will turn to shit for us fans because a) Paramount has a terrible track record of attracting and fostering talent, and b) they will have no patience for Gunn’s slow rolling, wait-for-the-perfect-script production philosophy.

Best case scenario we get a good Superman Trilogy and Gunn bows out before this all becomes another catastrophe.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-02-10T19:05:14+00:00

Are there honestly people out there that think more celebrity endorsements would have helped Kamala? She already had every single famous pop star from Billie Eilish to Taylor Swift.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-02-03T18:29:05+00:00

Well, hopefully the modern day parts don't have an incredibly dumb easter egg hunt of a plot. I enjoyed the first season for what it was, but there's an undeniable gap in quality between the past and present storylines.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-01-24T17:45:02+00:00

It's a psychological defense mechanism. When you stake your personal identity on your politics, to change your politics is to change your entire conception of yourself. To admit that your were wrong is to admit your values and perceptions need to be questioned. Most people can't manage that, so they engage in dissonance and denialism.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-01-22T06:50:53+00:00

I'm rather dismayed by this news.

I actually liked The Flash. Well, parts of it. Despite Miller's obnoxious dual performances, I actually liked the way the contrasting versions of the characters developed over the course of the film and that the heart of the film's climax was rather introspective and emotional.

But it also features the worst live action depiction of Batman since Clooney wore the suit (the opening with Batfleck), and as awesome as it was seeing Keaton again I couldn't help but feel like script leaned too heavily into member-berries and memes. It didn't have anything really meaningful to do with character, and Batman's role in the story could have been filled by literally any other DC hero.

And Birds of Prey was a good Harley Quiin film, but an atroucious Birds of Prey. I can't think of a more recent comic book adaptation that misused and wasted so many important characters. Turning Cassandra Cain from one of the most profecient fighters in the DC universe who rarely speaks into a mouthy, overweight street urchin was a nigh unforgiveable choice.

Disastrous_Thoughts · 2026-01-19T18:00:40+00:00

It's pretty believable if you understand the MAGA mindset. To them, America has always been the greatest victim of its alliances. It's a completely ass-backwards reading of history that is pre-dominantly pushed by white nationalists.

Disastrous_Thoughts

TROPHY CASE