CBM: X-Men '97; Deadpool and Wolverine trailer

DeacHead said:

I didn't realize that movie was so far along. It was in post-production and they just flushed it down the toilet. I'm still anxious to see what they're going to do with The Flash, a movie they can't use the star for marketing since they're human toxic sludge now.

While I'm composing... I just want to give props to The Orville for having a remarkable season. This last episode contained the best sci-fi action I've ever seen on the small screen. No, I didn't say "some of the best..." it was the best I've seen. MacFarlane got a substantial budget and he's certainly spending it.

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Wow, better than some of the SNW scenes? Bc some of those were movie quality

DeacHead said:

I didn't realize that movie was so far along. It was in post-production and they just flushed it down the toilet. I'm still anxious to see what they're going to do with The Flash, a movie they can't use the star for marketing since they're human toxic sludge now.

While I'm composing... I just want to give props to The Orville for having a remarkable season. This last episode contained the best sci-fi action I've ever seen on the small screen. No, I didn't say "some of the best..." it was the best I've seen. MacFarlane got a substantial budget and he's certainly spending it.

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Agreed on The Orville. At first I didn't really like the sudden switch from broad comedy to a much more serious tone, but the episodes have been so good that they've won me over. I still prefer Strange New Worlds myself, but The Orville has definitely been high-quality sci-fi this season. Looking forward to the season finale tomorrow - I'm hoping that Hulu renews the series for a fourth season. And yeah, the last episode did have some epic battle scenes and a very satisfying ending for one of the characters. I'm also not surprised that The Flash is ending - I thought the first three seasons or so were fantastic, but it's just slowly gone downhill since, imo.

The Flash has been bad to mediocre at best in a while. I can't think of the last good episode that I really enjoyed. This will effectively end the Arrowverse. Stargirl and Superman and Lois will be the only DC shows left on the CW. Stargirl was never connected to the Arrowverse. Superman and Lois was assumed to be connected given that the actors who played Clark/Superman, Lois, and Lucy had appeared on Supergirl, but this season made it clear Superman is the only hero in that universe.

Both are by far the best CW DC shows. Stargirl Season 3 starts on August 31. Superman and Lois Season 2 ended in June.

has Ph even seen Arrow yet?

ImTheCaptain said:

Wow, better than some of the SNW scenes? Bc some of those were movie quality

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I sat on that post for a minute before I hit "Reply" because I had to ask myself if I really believed it to be true and I do. Check it out, starting at s3e1. Any plot points built out on prior seasons are adequately expositioned.

PhDeac said:

The Flash has been bad to mediocre at best in a while. I can't think of the last good episode that I really enjoyed. This will effectively end the Arrowverse. Stargirl and Superman and Lois will be the only DC shows left on the CW. Stargirl was never connected to the Arrowverse. Superman and Lois was assumed to be connected given that the actors who played Clark/Superman, Lois, and Lucy had appeared on Supergirl, but this season made it clear Superman is the only hero in that universe.

Both are by far the best CW DC shows. Stargirl Season 3 starts on August 31. Superman and Lois Season 2 ended in June.

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they should've stopped after the 2nd King Shark ep

DeacHead said:

I sat on that post for a minute before I hit "Reply" because I had to ask myself if I really believed it to be true and I do. Check it out, starting at s3e1. Any plot points built out on prior seasons are adequately expositioned.

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damn, i've been curious about getting back into Orville so maybe the time is now

First three seasons of the Orville are going to Disney plus next week.

ImTheCaptain said:

damn, i've been curious about getting back into Orville so maybe the time is now

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I really enjoyed this season once I got used to the drastic change in tone - just know that the mostly comedic/parody episodes of the first two seasons are replaced by (mostly) more serious stories in the third season. There's still some humor, but it's more in the background as opposed to being the main story. As with classic Trek there are a lot of parallels to modern politics and culture wars and so on. The FX is definitely improved this season as well.

Highland Deac said:

I really enjoyed this season once I got used to the drastic change in tone - just know that the mostly comedic/parody episodes of the first two seasons are replaced by (mostly) more serious stories in the third season. There's still some humor, but it's more in the background as opposed to being the main story. As with classic Trek there are a lot of parallels to modern politics and culture wars and so on. The FX is definitely improved this season as well.

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My biggest problem with trying The Orville is that Seth MacFarlane would benefit from me watching it

What's the problem with Seth MacFarlane?

Sandman tomorrow! I just checked to see if they released it a little bit early. Nope.

Also I had a pleasant surprise seeing that there are already 4 episodes of Harley Quinn out for this season. I had lost track of that.

CBM: The Flash ending after 9 seasons

I highly recommend Harley Quinn. This season really gets into what it means for an agent of chaos and a scientist/environmental terrorist to be in a romantic relationship. There’s some great Bat-family stuff too.

Ep 3 is a satire of award shows and a sweet little story of relationships.

PhDeac said:

Looks like Disney+ is open for business for TV-MA shows and R rated films. Both Deadpools and Logan are on D+ now.

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I finally watched Logan. I didn't get around to seeing it in the theaters and even had a borrowed DVD sitting around the house for 4 years.

It was as good as advertised. I agree with what someone posted here when it premiered that the X-franchise would have been much stronger if they had been working up to the whole time. The casting was on point. It was the best acting by Stewart and Jackman. The girl who played X-23 was really good. I'd be happy if Feige just brought her into MCU straight up as X-23.

It's a shame Logan hasn't paved the way for more low-key character driven superhero films/TV although Loki was kind of low-key until it ramped up.

Worth mentioning that X-23 was created for the X-Men: Evolution animated series (much like Harley Quinn was created in B:TAS). It's not as beloved as X:TAS or a cult favorite like Wolverine and the X-Men, but it was a good show in its own right. Evolution came out about 3 years after X:TAS ended so it was a tough act to follow and a lot of people (including me at the time) didn't like how aged down and kiddie-fied it was. But when I rewatched it 10 years or so ago, I appreciated it much more. The later seasons move away from the high school setting and are stronger.

CBM: Sandman on Netflix

Watched the first 5 episodes of The Sandman and am really enjoying it. The 5th episode was great. I never read the graphic novel, but the people upset with the show just seem to be mad about any changes it made. I’m not sure what they are, and had no real knowledge of the story. So as someone going in fresh, I think it’s awesome. The negative user critiques on Metacritic are insanely bigoted. If you think this show is woke, then I’ve got some bad news for you…

I guess it's catch up on R-rated comics films I haven't seen weekend. I just watched Joker. It was good, but not as good as critics seemed to think. It could have been an origin story for an expanded universe Joker and Batman. As is, there was no reason to tie it into the Waynes and definitely no reason to include Bruce. I'd like to see a Batman Year One set in that Gotham City in that time frame. It avoids the problem recent iterations have faced in having to be more technologically advanced than current time.

CBM: Sandman on Netflix

So I've caught up to where I am in the show with The Sandman audio-book, and wow are the complaints about the adaptation petty. They changed the gender and/or race of a couple characters, but again, if that's something that really bothers you then you're kinda missing the big picture. The plot is still as close to a chapter by chapter breakdown as you can get. The only thing particularly different so far in that regard is them dancing around not being able to use DC characters or places (which could also explain the gender/race changes). You don't get Arkham or it's residents, you just get an insane asylum with crazy people who are VERY similar to their DC counterparts. You don't get Gotham, you just get NYC or some other city.

For those interested in audio-books, the adaptation is revered as a triumph and I have really enjoyed it. It is theatrical, so you get as much scene building as possible without having the pictures. I'm usually not a fan, but I'm digging this.

I would have gone with the graphic novels, but it's proving considerably more difficult to locate a coherent box set for a reasonable price than I would have thought. I'm terrified of accidentally googling spoilers, so if anyone has read the graphic novels and happens to have a link to the entire box set for < $400, if you could please send it to me, I'd appreciate it.

Seems like the people who claim race and gender don't matter complain the most about changing race and gender.

It's also possible that I'm just not as familiar/connected with these characters, so I don't have a real emotional commitment to John Constantine vs Johanna Constantine. For all I know, they don't even have the copyright to do John Constantine.

I'm still early in Sandman, too early to really comment. I'm loving it, but that's all for now.

Constantine is available IP-wise, he's a DC property and any DC property could be up for grabs, the higher ups no doubt drew the line to stay away from Martian Manhunter, for example. I'm so early on I don't know if John Dee gets name dropped as Dr. Destiny or not, his story is in progress for me. I was taken aback by the pronunciation of Constantine, they're saying TYNE as opposed to TEEN, like the Arrowverse shows. I went Googling to see which was right and there was actually an Easter egg I missed in the crossover event where Lucifer shows up. He meets John and calls him ConstanTYNE and John corrects him with ConstanTEEN. Apparently in the comics the former is specified as correct.

I may check out one series of the audio books. As a comics fan, the art is as important as the text to me so I've never considered just listening to a story but DW you're not the only one that's raved about those. In the "shoulda known better" category I did a cleaning out of my comics where a friend of mine, with good EBay rep, listed my comics, which included all my Sandmans. I got Gaiman to autograph 1-10. Fetched a decent price but nothing like what it'd be today.