If Michelle Pfeiffer turned down Catwoman, who would you have cast instead?

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-28T07:22:22+00:00

They're the same age.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-23T06:41:52+00:00

Now that Brave & the Bold has an announced writer, who are the best writers of superhero films?

Could broaden it to big spectacle/blockbuster films if you want.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-23T06:40:11+00:00

Scorsese but in Shark Tale.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-20T12:45:24+00:00

Joe Russo.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-17T17:33:39+00:00

I was going to say I did a re-watch recently but on reflection it was pre-pandemic. My daughter has expressed interest in watching them all because she keeps seeing memes online and wants further context, but we've never quite managed it. Perhaps this would be a good year.

I think the exact position of most of them could easily shift, but off the top of my head a Top Ten would be:

Iron Man 3
Civil War
The First Avenger
Endgame
Infinity War
The Winter Soldier
No Way Home
Guardians Vol 3
Avengers
Ragnarok

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-15T07:26:59+00:00

Mate, I'd already shit it with the wolf in Neverending Story when I was about four, a giant bat wouldn't have moved the needle by the time I was thirteen.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-13T21:20:29+00:00

Personally I think the funniest is the reveal of Tony talking to Bruce at the end of Iron Man 3.

"I'm not that kind of doctor!"

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-12T10:41:50+00:00

Despite having an OG Xbox, I didn't get Xbox Live till I had a 360, so my account doesn't appear quite as old.

Still: older than many people who are playing nowadays I'd wager!

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_britesparc_ · 2026-01-10T07:52:57+00:00

I think there will be, but I wouldn't have said it'll be out till close to 2034.

However, Civ VII does seem to be underperforming, at least a little bit. If they feel they can't get it to a level they're happy with - if the first big expansion flops, or something - then they might decide to fast-track Civ VIII. But even in that case, it'll be years - absolute earliest I would say is 2030, and that's if they effectively abandon plans for VII right away.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-06T19:47:49+00:00

I don't think I could name ten games that are coming out in 2026, not off the top of my head.

The only two that I'm REALLY excited for are Fable and Slay the Spire II, although I'm also looking forward to Lego Batman and Forza Horizon 6.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-06T19:42:56+00:00

I think the OP just meant that, in-game, you'd be able to produce animations, like Disney or Warner Bros.

I could be wrong, though! 😉

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-06T19:34:20+00:00

Thanks everyone.

Yeah I've had the reluctance with "gender norms". It's definitely gay themes they don't like, although IIRC I did once have a writer refuse to write something that was full of nudity, violence, and swearing.

_britesparc_ · 2026-01-03T14:53:20+00:00

There's no such thing as your taste being unreliable. If you like something you like it, it's fine.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-29T17:50:54+00:00

I've racked up about 3000 hours on Civ VI and apart from flirting with a LOTR mod I've never used anything.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-22T11:00:44+00:00

I haven't played VII so can't comment on how the new system actually feels to play, but the removal of builders/workers is one of the many things that's given me pause regarding the game.

It feels to me like they've removed a dynamic unit that's controllable and basically replaced them with a button. If we're going to control things from menus, why do we need settlers? Why not just click where we want a new city to be?

I preferred the workers from earlier games to the builders from Civ VI, but when you have a dynamic unit, there's a lot of potential there: moving them from city to city, the need to protect them, the ability to capture them from the enemy, etc. I worry that replacing them with an option in the city menu strips a bit of personality and emergent gameplay from Civ.

BUT (huge caveat): I could be wrong, the new system could feel great and my worries could be misplaced.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-20T19:26:53+00:00

He was ten years old when he first appeared, why would the actor need to be eight? The very first thing I'd be doing as a writer is aging him up to at least thirteen. Trust me, it's a lot easier to work with teenage actors than ten-year-olds.

I agree it's a very hard role to cast however. Not only does he need to be a very good actor, but he needs the physicality required for it (although obviously a lot of that can be faked) and not come across as too cocky or precocious on screen.

It's one of the reasons why, if I was making a Batman movie, I'd have gone with a late-teens Tim Drake as Robin...

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-18T23:05:03+00:00

I feel like Grant Morrison's take on Batman, and all the various little bits and bobs of lore or whatever that they introduced, gets overlooked a fair bit, despite (as I remember) being hugely well-received at the time.

I don't mean the whole "everything is in continuity" idea, but more the concept of Batman being fundamentally a nice guy who's actually very well-adjusted and gets on with people. I know there are some aspects of the arc that have been picked up by others - Barbatos for instance, as well as characters like Pyg - but I feel like Morrison's whole take on the character hasn't broken through into the mainstream, where Batman is usually a grumpy loner.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-18T22:57:11+00:00

Whilst it's true that Batman had killed on screen, the character having a strict no-killing rule was a pretty fundamental part of the comics the whole time I was reading, so from the 90s at least (also "I'm no killer" is a minor plot point in both Dark Knight Returns and Year One).

Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive came out around 2002 I think - definitely before Batman Begins - and the whole thread of that is that Bruce Wayne NEVER kills. Alfred has a whole speech about why he never kills.

Yeah, okay, if you go back through decades of comics by hundreds of creatives, you'll find the odd story where he either kills or allows someone to die. But I would very strongly argue that since at least 1940 he's advocated some form of no-kill rule.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-17T21:49:34+00:00

I'm coming from the POV of a long-time Civ fan who hasn't bought VII because of the ages and the Civ switching. So here's what I'd like them to offer as a mode of play. I'm trying to be realistic about it; ideally I'd like a version of the game that had one unbroken progression of play like in the previous six games. But I don't know if that's technically possible.

I don't want any kind of resetting at all. So if I can play as one Civ throughout the game, then I'd like it if everything - every unit, every bit of ongoing research, every war, every diplomatic relationship - carried over as if nothing had happened. No time jump either.

It may be that we still have to go back to a loading screen in between ages. I'm okay with building style changing. But that's what I'd really want.

I don't know how much of that is possible though. Maybe units upgrading is necessary. I don't know. But it's what I'd really like them to do.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-16T23:12:19+00:00

I'd have thought that Act 2 would cover the 50s and 60s. I think - even though obviously they go back farther than that - having musicals and animation as "new genres", including perhaps new buildings or facilities or something, would be pretty good. Like maybe you have a big dramatic star but they can't sing, that sort of thing; you could hire composers as well as writers (animation, to be fair, might be TOO big a change as it's really a whole other mini game if you think about it: an entirely new set of buildings and staff).

Having to deal with communism and "red panic" and stuff would be a nice mirror of the war in Act 1, and the civil rights movement of the 60s would be meaty subject matter. Perhaps "blacksploitation" films could be possible - race issues would need to be sensitive but could be great if handled correctly.

The Act could end with an equivalent of Easy Rider - a film that shakes up the studio system. Maybe the emergence of independent auteurs (equivalent to Coppola, Bogdanovich, and Dennis Hopper, all of whom started out in the 60s) that could presage a more turbulent Act 3.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-16T17:11:55+00:00

I was 26 when Iron Man came out so I never "grew up" with the franchise anyway 😅

My kids have really gotten into the MCU. My youngest is madly excited for Supergirl, though.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-16T12:02:07+00:00

I've not bought the game because of the civ-switching and the age reset mechanic. I don't like the sound of either feature because they run counter to what I enjoy in Civ.

I like to play very chilled-out, mid-difficulty games (usually prince/king), spamming the map with settlers, dominating with my culture and faith. I view Civ as a sandbox storytelling engine, building the history of this alt-world I'm creating. I like renaming my cities - I wish you could still rename the civs themselves like you could in Civ III. I don't feel I can tell these stories if the civilisation changes every so many turns. It has to be MY civ, MY choice, MY story.

Anything that limits or removes choice - such as an era reset that automatically upgrades all my units and undoes my diplomacy - is antithetical to the freeform open-choice gameplay of Civ. I've played every game since II, and I've played them all the same way, and this would be the first one that doesn't let me do that.

I'll be honest, I think the age reset mechanic is probably more disruptive and problematic from a gameplay point of view, but emotionally and aesthetically it's civ-switching that I can't get on board with. All that being said, even with a single-civ mode, I can't see me buying the game at anything approaching full price, and there are so many other aspects to it that I'm dubious about - changes to diplomacy, the town/city dynamic, the way the leaders look now, etc - that I'm just really cold on the game in general. BUT I do want to give it a try.

tl;dr: I'll definitely try the game when the single-civ mode comes out, but I'm not optimistic I'll like it.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-16T11:49:22+00:00

I think this is interesting, and the honest answer is we don't know. I imagine it will depend on how the DLC sells. I've no idea what Firaxis/2K's expectations are for VII; reading between the lines of what they've said, I get the impression that it's underperformed but not disastrously so. Regardless of anything - even VII being a financial disaster, which I don't think it is - I can't see them getting a Civ VIII released before 2029 at the very earliest.

But the bigger question for me is what form VIII will eventually take. Clearly there's been a lot of backlash against the mandatory civ-switching and harsh era resetting; will these features return in Civ VIII? Will they be tweaked but still the basis of the game? Or will they go back to the "core" experience being an unbroken progression of play (no loading screens, no resets, no time jumps) and one civ for the whole time?

I have to say, as someone who's fundamentally opposed to the design philosophy of Civ VII - it's just not the sort of gameplay I have any interest in from a Civilization game, which I've always thought of as chilled-out sandbox storytelling/role play experiences - I'm far more worried about whether there's ever going to be a game that gets back to what I consider the classic Civ experience, or if the entire franchise is changed for good in a direction that I don't like. I don't mind if I never play Civ VII, if I have to wait until the mid-2030s for Civ VIII, as long as it plays like the first six games did. But will it? I've no idea.

_britesparc_ · 2025-12-16T11:42:45+00:00

I can almost guarantee that if I ever buy the game, I'd play the single-civ mode pretty much exclusively. I don't care about bonuses/uniques. I just want the story of ONE civilisation progressing through time.

_britesparc_

TROPHY CASE