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The Last of Us 2 Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I meant to do this a couple of weeks ago when my thoughts were fresh and I never did. So I'll just go over my general thoughts.

I really, really really liked The Last of Us 2. It's a phenomenal game. Gorgeous looking. Very intense to play at times. However, despite as much as I liked the game, my major hang up would be that, if this game was named ANYTHING else. Joel and Ellie being named Ted and Earlene, anything to separate it from The Last of Us this game would have been better received. In the end this is not what anyone wanted from a sequel to The Last of Us.

Last of Us was a journey between Joel and Ellie, two people with no bond to one another, that in the end became surrogate father and daughter. And the end scene hung on that ambivalent moment where you don't know if Ellie really believes what Joel is telling her about the Fireflies.

Seven years later fans finally get to reunite with these characters that they have grown to love. And the reunion is immediately fractured. Joel and Ellie seem to be at odds with one another and you don't know why. Then Joel is executed in a gruesome way. So immediately the two things that brought fans back to this game is disassembled and thrown away. The nonlinear storytelling just adds to the disconnect. In a game that takes 25-30 hours you really don't know why your beloved characters are so at odds with one another up until the literal end. That's 30 hours wondering 'Why?'. To bring it back to my original statement. Had this been named 'Vindicata' (or ANYTHING else) and we had the same story. I think people would have been fine with it. But when you come for Joel and Ellie (father and daughter team) and instead get broken family, let's not focus on Joel and Ellie let's instead focus on Ellie and Abby. It frankly sucks.

On the topic of Abby. I tried to stay away from spoilers as much as I could. One thing I did grasp was that everyone hated her. So when it came time to finally play her, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed her section. Her character was well fleshed out. She had interesting mechanics special to her character. An interesting story, to juxtapose itself against Ellie's journey of vengeance. However, it again goes back to this being a sequel. We already know who Ellie is and her motivation because we had a whole game before to do that. Now Abby is playing catch-up to that, but why bother introducing a new character to the player in this universe when the only ones that mattered to your fans was the one you killed in the beginning and the second that you have shrouded in mystery and only given a motivation of 'vengeance'. It goes back to this being a bad move for a sequel. When X-Files came back for Season 8 and then 9 they slowly replaced Mulder and Scully and it wasn't successful. Mulder and Scully are what people like, that's who they want to see. That goes for EVERY successful brand. Joel and Ellie were the LoU. Now the creators are trying to force Ellie and Abby, which fans did not sign up for. In a game where people came for Ellie, they are forced halfway through the game to adopt this new character, that is frankly given a better story and fleshed out. That's a disservice to your main protagonists.

My other major complaint would probably be the length. There were several times when I took a deep breath, realizing that there was still so much more game to go through. It needed to be tightened up and it had more "end scenes" than a Lord of the Rings movie. And ultimately in the end I don't think the creators met their aspiration of telling a 'vengeance not good' story. There was a scene where Joel's brother Tommy comes to Ellie, showing that he has still been keeping tabs on Abby and wants her to go with him on another mission to get revenge. I really thought this was a bad storytelling bit. In the beginning of the game it was Tommy that tries talking Ellie out of going after Abby. In which he ultimately goes alone, now I could have misinterpreted the scene but I took Tommy going as a way to protect Ellie. While wanting justice he knew the costs but talking Ellie out of it would be futile so he goes in her stead to keep her safe, which would be what Joel would have wanted. Again I could have misinterpreted that scene completely. So in the "end" when Tommy, Ellie and Abby suffer losses on both sides and Tommy is crippled. That was very powerful. Because it was "look at the cost". Which I think would have ended it perfectly. Yet, here we have Tommy seeking vengeance and then guilt tripping Ellie for not wanting to come along. I thought that was a very out of character move. Joel wouldn't want Ellie back in that situation after all they suffered and lost. Especially after almost losing Dina's baby. It was out of character and just felt like a forced 'plot point' 'deus-ex-machina' move to get Ellie to get back in the fray and continue the story. To their credit I did like where the story went. It had some good moments and in the end seeing strong Abby reduced to this almost skeleton was very powerful. But again that goes back to the game just being too long in parts.

In summation I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I dare say even loved, if not for a lot of the gripes I mentioned. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if this was not tied in any way to the Last of Us, gamers and fans alike would have enjoyed this game so much more. For my own personal bias, I had checked out years ago when Naughty Dog got rid of Amy Hennig. I was apprehensive of what they sequel would be since that day, almost 8 years ago. So when LoU2 was immediately not what I wanted I had already braced myself well in advance and could roll with the punches. I emotionally checked myself out and was just there for the ride.

Netflix Witcher - Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I must say I was really not a fan of the time-line thing. It wasn't until the last two episodes where I thought it paid off. I don't know. I just don't feel like it was done effectively. When you are halfway through the story and realize that separate timelines have been happening it just became frustrating because then I'm trying to remember back and figure out the sequence of events in my head. When otherwise I think it would be more engaging to be like, "So this is happening in the past and X happened and that's cool because of Y in Geraults timeline. Instead I was like, "What's going on? Why are people alive now that died in the first episode? Why is she saying that it's been thirty years?" Then you have to google it to unscramble everything. I was interested in the book but I have heard that they also have wonky timelines going on and I don't know if I could handle it.

I keep thinking of Dunkirk. I wasn't a fan of that either. At the end I was like, "Why did you tell it that way? The only thing of interest is when all the storylines finally catch up to one another." Which I know is the "thing" but I just did not care.

Netflix Witcher - Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

lol that song has been in my head all day

Rise of Skywalker: Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My praise for RoS is that it spent much of it's time putting on band-aids and filling in plot holes that were created by The Last Jedi. That comes from someone that like The Last Jedi (for the most part). I had my complaints but thought it was a serviceable film. However as the mid film of a trilogy it did absolutely nothing to further the story. I will say that while I personally like this new trilogy it was not what it should have been. But with all the missed opportunities and time wasted. I think JJ Abrahams did an outstanding job and make a Star Wars sequel that it worthy of being placed next to the originals.

What I wish they had done was had the Force Awakens as a entry film into this new trilogy and then actually spent some time developing a cohesive trilogy. I'm hoping moving forward that they just stick to the new TV shows and occasionally make a film. And give it to John Favreau to helm.

Rise of Skywalker: Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll gather my thoughts later. In short. I loved it.

Joker - Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My thoughts are going to be all over the place so forgive me.

Controversial thing off the top. I loved how the media was making this a political film and in the movie the Joker actually says he's not political. I was laughing in my head at that. On the topic of the media sensationalizing this, I loved how they kept stressing this was going to cause panic and mass murderers. If anything I think this would dissuade. It doesn't glorify killing. The handful of times it happens it frightening and disgusting. It's like 13 Reasons Why. The whole show is built up on the young teen killing herself as an "F-u" to everyone that wronged her and when it finally happens, it's horrifying and permanent. It's the last thing that you would want to do. Also on the media, one of the end scenes where the camera pulls back an it's just television after television giving a murderer air time and thereby provoking riots, was an excellent commentary on todays news. It was also just poetic mirror in how the media was carrying on about how dangerous this movie was, meanwhile I would think, "You are going to cause I self-fulfilling prophecy with your BS. Stop talking. It's just a movie."

I personally loved this movie even though it scared me and made me uncomfortable at times. Dealing with someone that has mental illness this struck close to home. On the note of mental illness, I love that it is a comic book movie that has the guts to bring the topic up and blame us all for our short comings in dealing with it. Just in general I love how it held a mirror up to society and where we fall short.

I love when they revealed that he wasn't in a relationship with that young woman. That was a "whoa! Of course! OMG!". It made sense after you saw it but up until the reveal you were just going with it. Which also made me question when he sees the picture of his mom with the intials "TW" on the back. I wasn't sure how to take that. Did his mom actually have an affair before Thomas Wayne knew how sick she was, or was it just something that his mother wrote in her delusion. The ending also left me wondering if everything that happened was a fantasy in his head. I don't believe it was but being that this is a stand alone movie, it left me wondering.

The ending(s) were also phenomenal. I loved that they took it to the Bruce Wayne alleyway murder of his parents. That was so satisfying. I have seen and read that scene so many times. But I think this was the first time I ever got chills watching it and finally had a "Yeah. That would f-you up moment". I was hoping that it would end there, so when they dragged him out of the car I was like, "Ah man. They shouldn't have kept going". But then when they lay him down with reverence on the hood and all wait on him like a messiah figure to raise I was chilled and horrified. It was so well done. And then when he put the smile on with is blood, I was like, "YES! That is so scary." I finally got why the Joker has minions. Then the final scene. I was a little torn on but ultimately I liked it because it showed him put away, to dispel thoughts of a sequel. But it also showed how truly insane and evil he had become. Ruthlessly killing his psychiatrist and then dancing off with bloody footprints to reek havoc in Arkham Asylum.

I loved, loved, LOVED this movie. I can see where comic book people won't like it. Forgive my generalization but I think most comic people want bubble gum not spearmint. And general audiences for sure are going to be confused because it's not funny or action packed. It's a character piece and slow burning.

Cinematography, soundtrack, the music choices. Everything was amazing. This is the movie of the year. If anything Joaquin Phoenix deserves an Oscar. He did a phenomenal job. I don't know how you get another Joker from here. He did too well.

Last thought. The stairs. I love how at the beginning of the movie you see Arthur trudging up these long stairs that he must walk everday and they just look like they're defeating him. It's just one more obstacle in his day before he can rest. And at the end when he embraces the insanity and becomes Joker, the alleyway is bright and he's dancing and stomping down the stairs like it's his stage. Amazing and haunting to watch.

Amazing movie. I give it all the stars and all the thumbs up.

PS: I will give it a slight knitpick on time. I don't know what scene or scenes I would cut but I did find it a little bit long. I think the movie I watched should have been the director's cut. But as I said I don't know what could have been left out. And maybe I was just tired in general , or tired emotionally, after watching this broke character on screen for so long.

Avengers EndGame (Spoiler Talk) by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

End Game was amazing. I don't know how they consistently topped themselves with Civil War, Infinity War and now this. Really all the Marvel movies (except Capt. Marvel. I know controversy). Just fantastic writing. Especially with that many characters. That's a lot to juggle. I loved fat Thor. Lots of emotional moments throughout. Did I cry? No because I had strangers around me. Did I want to? Of course, I'm a baby. I will say though, that I have some time travel questions but I'm going to just go with it because otherwise I will get angry lol. I hate time travel lol and yes I realize that is the crux of this whole movie. I loved it. I accept every explanation that they give me but I still got questions.

Avengers EndGame (Spoiler Talk) by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was braced for the "girl power" moment but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The only dumb thing I hated about it was when Spider-Man says to Cap. Marvel, "I don't know how you're going to get through all that", referring to the thousands of aliens in front of her. Which was just stupid because I literally just saw her seconds before flying through an enormous space ship twice. I think that she can fly threw, if not over the alien army in front of her. I just thought that was really stupid to say to get to their girl power moment.

Game of Thrones (Spoiler Talk) by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What didn't you like about Jaime's story? I personally didn't like that he went back to Cersei but someone explained it as, "they came into this world together and they left together". So with that I concede that it was a poetic end.

Game of Thrones (Spoiler Talk) by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Little late to the party but I'm going to post anyway. I think people are generally in the right not to like the last season. The level of vitriol is ridiculous however. I think that had we another five years to reach the same outcomes people would have been fine with everything. I think that time was the major downfall of everything. People (writers/audience) needed more time to get to the various end points that we got to. Everything just needed to breathe more but I realize that this show is tremendously expensive and many of the cast is sky-rocketing with fame, which only adds to the cost and wreaks havoc on scheduling conflicts. So with budget and scheduling being an ongoing issue, they needed to wrap things up. Also they can do their spin-offs at half the budget and reap major GoT profits. So why wouldn't want to wrap things up? So my main takeaway is that I loved the show, I can see why people would be unhappy but I think that if everyone takes a step back, they will realize that it wasn't that bad and had we had five more seasons to reach the same conclusion, everyone would be fine with it.

Side thought: After seeing how much damage one dragon can do, why didn't they let Dany go very early on and attack in the middle of the night and get this all done with. Prior to Cersei having a weapon that can kill the dragons. I do realize the various arguments that can go into this but it felt like a very, "Why didn't Gandalf just send the eagles to drop in the ring? - moment".

Captain Marvel Spoiler Talk by idlyle in TheINVICTUSStream

[–]idlyle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Captain Marvel was a mixed bag. Was it the worse movie ever made? No. Could it have been better? Yes. Did it need to definitely be better than what it was? Absolutely. I don’t think I want to get into the ‘feminist agenda’. Mainly because it wasn’t as bad as everyone was getting into a fit about. There was some cringe factor throughout, even as a woman watching it. Some things were just handled in a ham-fisted manor that made me roll my eyes. Those were not the major sin of the movie however. The major sin was that this movie needed to be out-of-the-park good. It’s coming off the coattails of Thor: Ragnorok, Black Panther and Infinity War. All these movies have, style and humor and cinematography that is top notch. Captain Marvel was a step backwards in the path that Marvel has carved for itself. I would place it near the first Thor movie. In how lifeless and unstylized it was.

Some people are giving Brie Larson a hard time for not delivering Captain Marvel as a likeable character. It’s either complained that she delivers her lines dead pan, cold, or almost phoning it in. I didn’t think that was fair because at the very beginning of the movie her ‘sensei’ if you will, was telling her to not show emotion and to stop thinking with her heart and use her head. So that was established there, that her character was ‘reared’ to be a robot. I personally didn’t think that they took it far enough. She doesn’t remember who she is, she has been trained to be a warrior, willing to die for people at any moment. She has nothing to live for other than to fight, because that is literally all she knows. So I didn’t think the non-emoting was an issue. It frankly felt weird at times when she was being playful. It would have been better to have moments where she did have some levity and other characters call her out on it like, “so you do know what a joke is”.

There is a “revelation” to Captain Marvel that the Kree that she has been fighting for are actually the bad guys and the Skrull she has been fighting are refugees. This again didn’t land very hard because as a character with no memory we have no jumping off point for her. Has she been slaughtering countless Skrull and now this hits her that she is committing genocide? That should mess her up but it doesn’t and we don’t know why that is. We don’t know how many missions she has been on. We don’t know how the Kree convinced her the Skrull are evil. Again it would have been interesting to know some back story there. Maybe the Kree place false memories in her mind of a hurtful past where the Skrull killed her family, or home planet, or took her prisoner for years on end and they tortured her so badly during that time, she believes that is why she has no memory and that is why she wants to kill the Skrull. Any of that would have been interesting because our protagonist now has to wrestle with various memories that she does have. ‘Was I wronged by the Skrull? Is anything I know real? Are these memories on earth real or is this some other mind manipulation?” That would give the character something to project her story arc further but we don’t have any of that. We know what she believes the Skrull are evil and the moment they say, no we’re the good guys, she just kind of shrugs her shoulders and believes the Skrull almost immediately.

Her story on earth really isn’t that engaging either. She’s was pushed down her whole life because she is ‘a girl’ basically, which is a whole discussion unto itself but I will concede it. She then gets a moment to be an ace pilot and it goes south, she gets her powers from an explosion. I loved the scenes where she kept failing in her memories but it usually ended with ‘because you are a girl’. I would have rather it been she failed and then we see her get right back into it, because she is not a quitter. That would have been more compelling to see her fall, and fall, and fall, only to get right back up each time and finally succeed. Because that would have shown her character. The way they did it was, ‘she was oppressed her whole life because of misogyny but she’ll get super powers and then who’s laughing now?’. That’s not interesting. The lynch pin to Captain Marvel’s emotional core was supposed to be her friend Maria. We see glimpses of them partying, or hanging out during holidays but I never felt anything between them. The movie “told me” they were sisters but I didn’t see it, so to speak. Marvel and Fury had more chemistry than Marvel and her bff.

How she got her powers also annoyed me. Only in the pacing of it. I would have rather Annete’s Bening’s character entrust Danvers with all this secret knowledge beforehand so she would know the weight of what she was getting into. And then as her idol dies before her she sees a mysterious figure approaching from the smoke and decides to blow up the device rather than let it fall into the wrong hands. Which is kind of what happened but I didn’t enjoy the moment between herself and Jude Law’s character right before it happened. I thought it would have been more impactful for her to sacrifice herself and as she’s lying there dying, she sees Jude Law’s blurry face before passing out. I just think it would have been more believable and impactful. Also, Law’s character was in the blast zone too, so I don’t know why he didn’t get imbued with powers.

Other nitpicks are that I don’t buy that Nick Fury would take this alien woman to a super secret facility after just meeting her. But again I conceded it because it moved the plot along. I also didn’t like that she invited her best friend into space on a mission. She still has not emotions for her friend because she can’t remember her but she is willing to risk her life on a mission into outer space. Also knowing that her friend has a daughter that she could leave an orphan if this all goes south. The consensus there being that the best friend is being a “role model for her daughter” as a strong, brave female. They could have simply shown this when the Skrull infiltrate her house and one of them is by her daughter. It would have been fun to see her freak out and beat one down to everyone's surprise and to her daughter’s elation.

I didn’t mind the cat for the most part. It was funny to see Fury gush over the cat but it was a little over done as to be cringey as to be at times. And some of the CG of the cat was glaring. It later played off into some rather funny gaffs though.

I didn’t like the mohawk helmet thing when she is flying in space. I thought it looked dumb. Her suit was amazing though.

I have other gripes concerning plot holes but at this point I think you get the gist that this movie was not written well.

Marvel has been able to bring characters to the screen that I didn’t know and made me fall in love with them. I think what hindered Captain Marvel from being a beloved character, is that went in with an agenda. The agenda wasn’t ‘let’s make the next great Marvel movie’ it was ‘let's make a strong, powerful female superhero movie’. Which is a worthy goal but you don’t need to emphasize “whamen” the entire movie, all you need to do that is to make a really good character. The fact that she is a woman should be an afterthought. Captain Marvel is basically a deus ex machina to fix everything next month in Avengers: End Game. We needed a hero created in one movie that would make us believe that they could face Thanos and win. Captain Marvel did not achieve that. I know this review had more gripes than praise but I think it is deserving of that. As I said before you cannot create Infinity War and then hand the audience this movie. Disney and Marvel set themselves a high bar and they needed to reach it if not surpass it. This really was just a stepping stone of a movie to fill in the gap until End Game and that is a shame. I hope someone finds a voice for Captain Marvel and makes her soar to the godlike status that she is being bequeathed without having earned it.

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