What Are You Watching?

[Darth Fluffy 315]

Eh, saw Strange World last night. I do not recommend it. I wanted to see it because in the poster, the animation looks amazing. In all fairness, the animation wasn't bad. OK, now that the positives are out of the way ...

I am not a Disney fan. I was, when I was a child. Disney movies were, even then, distinct for their lack of, mmm, genuinely mature content; very vanilla and naive; intended to be kid safe. But within that context, they were daring, they pushed the stat of the art. The admittedly shallow interpretations of classic stories had special effects that now one else came close to. Disney animation was the gold standard.

Disney is no longer daring, in any sense. They produce formulaic cookie cutter films. They overproduce derivative material, making the source  trite. They are ruining franchises and genres with this approach. Marvel movies now have obligatory kid content. They ramble; the latest Thor lacks focus and seems less than competent, not what I got to a superhero movie to watch.

Strange World suffered from the same shortcomings. Human interactions were arbitrarily pasted onto a loose story framework, not well thought out, and loose edges were often peeling off. Example, the heavy, with a mission to accomplish, locks the protagonists in a closet when they make a discovery and seek to shut down the mission. Then, for no compelling reason, she does a 180 about twenty minutes later, having been convinced by no one that the agenda has changed. To say it felt 'off' understates the case. (In fairness, I'm guessing a kid would not have noticed. I could be wrong, kids can be perceptive.)

In a postmortem conversation with a friend, we realized that Walt Disney had basically escaped a current-Disney-like studio environment by starting his own studio. Mickey Mouse was derived from Oswald Rabbit, a character Disney had worked on, but no longer had any rights to. Disney Studios was founded so he could have creative freedom, and he took personal risks for projects he believed in, going back to the pushing the state of the art that they are noted for.

After his death, Disney became more and more of a corporate machine; you can see this in the Michael Eisner era. If you are an investor, Disney is probably a good deal, I imagine they will continue to crap out profitable drivel for the foreseeable future. I don't expect to get excited about anything they release, and their buying a franchise will likely be the point where I stop watching.

To that point, it has been noted that they are doing OK with Star Wars. Meh, Lucas is both brilliant and stupid. He's not a hard act to follow, just leave the film alone after you release the damn thing and people will think you are doing much better than he did. He's got a legacy of really pitiful prequels to advance your case. That all said, I my estimation, those are proceeding down the same lame path as Disney's other holdings, and they are no longer of great interest, to me, at least.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Darth Fluffy
fix typo

[Darth Fluffy 315]

Oh dear.

I saw the new Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie. When I was first invited, I was initially skeptical. The previous several Dungeons & Dragons movies were not good. But I looked this one up, and the reviews were good, and the cast was good. So I went.

It was a very good movie. Probably the best I've seen in a year. Good plot, lots of action, truer to the source material than any previous effort, good CGI, interesting characters. See it if you can. We saw it in IMAX, worth the small mark-up, a few scenes suggested that a 3-D viewing would be especially good.

The production subtext was interesting, and in my opinion, not good. The movie was a collaboration between Hasbro and Disney, Disney did a very good technical job on their end, the cinematography and CGI was astounding. But D&D was branded 'Hasbro Dungeons& Dragons', cutting WotC out without mention. One of our group noted that the D&D monsters they showed were primarily D&D IP monsters (or at least ones they are claiming). It was slick, in a sense it was a two hour commercial.

Hasbro's roots are as a game and toy company, targeted at children, and they did it well in the past. They have morphed into a conglomerate holding company, and they seem to know how to market and stay relevant in their milieu. But recent antics indicate that they are not ready for prime time in an adult market. WotC was founded by adult gamers. They 'get' gamers. Reducing the presence of the WotC brand does not serve the WotC properties well. Branding Magic, The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons 'Hasbro' cheapens them, and genuinely makes them less genuine; they will in the future be 'managed' by corporate drones who do not know their Tiefling from a hole in the ground.

Will they still make bank? Presumably so. The products have their own inertia. Some of us will specifically avoid D&D in the future and play other systems. There are plenty of good alternatives. Some have been playing the same edition for decades, and do not represent future sales in any case. I expect most will follow the path laid out for them and happily hand over their cash. (Real lemmings do not do what they are reputed to do, so, in essence, these folks are less savvy than a mouse-like critter.)

GW gets a lot of flack for their overpricing, frequent rule changes to push new models, and, recently, vastly overpriced individual models based on their power in their respective game. In a recent trip to our local game store, I took note that D&D is starting down this path. Sadly, D&D shelf space has expanded, Pathfinder, which used to have a whole shelf, had a few books, and GURPS was entirely absent. The D&D models were at increased price, and were pushing out space for the other models.

Will the store do well pushing Hasbro products? Perhaps. They have a large play area, and it is generally crowded; the focus seems to be on D&D, Magic, and GW, although they do host other games. I can't imagine either Hasbro or GW cuts them any break, but the lower volume properties are probably marginal to start with and have slower sales. Sad, but likely the truth.

So, to sum up, good movie, bad mojo.

[mlooney 3,471]

I watched this last night.  Well worth the time.  It's a stand alone show, you really don't have to know anything about Clarkson, Hammond and May to like it.  Amazon Prime.
 

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwsbHrDmh10 

There are over 500 people where I work and lots of knocked over traffic cones strewn about the parking lot. 

Maybe we need to hire some bears. 

 

[mlooney 3,471]

OK, why are there traffic cones strewed about the parking lot?  And yeah, bears are always looking for work.  Other than that winter period of course. strewen

[Darth Fluffy 315]

Movies

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

Several videos marking the anniversary of The Queen's death & funeral.  

Many of these services, and later Coronation ceremonies, included Greek hymns because the late Queen's husband, and new King's father, was a Prince of Greece.

HRH Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Prince Philip Mountbaten.

Philip from the house of Battenburg.

Great Grandson of Queen Victoria, was a Prince of Greece AND Denmark.

Don't the Danes have any great hymns worth including?

 

[Darth Fluffy 315]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Several videos marking the anniversary of The Queen's death & funeral.  

Many of these services, and later Coronation ceremonies, included Greek hymns because the late Queen's husband, and new King's father, was a Prince of Greece.

HRH Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

Prince Philip Mountbaten.

Philip from the house of Battenburg.

Great Grandson of Queen Victoria, was a Prince of Greece AND Denmark.

Don't the Danes have any great hymns worth including?

The former Queen Elizabeth's Great Dane husband? Woof!

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

Felt like crying, again 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSE1Mtnnm4Y 

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

For Canada Day 

A little film I would watch as a child on Detroit TV stations at the end of the broadcast day

Remember when TV stations would end their broadcast days? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOY0-MBOh_o

 

[mlooney 3,471]

8 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Remember when TV stations would end their broadcast days? 

Yes,  I miss test patterns

[mlooney 3,471]

This makes me sad.  But they are getting old and really can't do the adventures they used to.
https://fixupx.com/ar12gaming/status/1812119606946869248?s=46&t=2fhXg8jJN8wsDCBxuaoOOA

[mlooney 3,471]

Granted it's not what I'm watching today. I hope I live long enough to see humans on the moon again.

[ijuin 584]

Technically, we were watching Aldrin most of the time after the “One small step” part, because Armstrong was the one holding the camera.

[Darth Fluffy 315]

I saw the new Tornado movie last night; it was pretty good. There were a lot of plot holes to groan about, and some or the characters were unrealistic, but the action was intense; in an odd way, it had heart.

There is a key premise that I won't spoil, we were wondering how plausible it is, and if so, why has it not been tried in real life.

It is a good documentary on why you don't want to live in Oklahoma. May apply to other tornado belt states like Kansas.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,314]

Watching The Daily Show, a rerun from the last day of the RNC. Pretty biting stuff. In reality, I'm only watching it as a test of a Paramount+ install on my new Fire Stick 4K. I've migrated Paramount+, peacock, Disney+, Prime Video, FloMarching, and last but hardly least, YouTubeTV, to the Fire Stick 4K. It's running sweetly on a v6 WiFi connection, better I might say than the base Samsung TV ran with a wired 10/100 connection (the max wired speed it supported).

I've also installed pluto tv, and quickly found the Sailor Moon channel, to the chagrin of the rest of the household. I am chaos personified. 

[ijuin 584]

48 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

There is a key premise that I won't spoil, we were wondering how plausible it is, and if so, why has it not been tried in real life.

I believe the US government tried something like that against hurricanes and it turned out to have too weak of an effect to be worthwhile.

[Darth Fluffy 315]

24 minutes ago, ijuin said:

I believe the US government tried something like that against hurricanes and it turned out to have too weak of an effect to be worthwhile.

The total energy of a hurricane is much larger than a tornado. Hurricanes spawn tornadoes. Multiples. (The weather events, not the planes.)

[mlooney 3,471]

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It is a good documentary on why you don't want to live in Oklahoma. May apply to other tornado belt states like Kansas.

Tornadoes are less of a problem than hurricanes.  Tornadoes path of destruction is, at most 2 miles wide.  Hurricanes is hundreds of miles wide.  Granted if your town in in the path of ef-5 tornado you are going to have a bad time.   See Joplin 2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado  and Moore 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Moore_tornado.  These are rare events however.  Hurricanes fuck up cities on the southern coast every year.

I've lived in Tornado Alley all my life (other than my army 9 years) and I've seen 2 tornadoes in 50 some odd years.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

10 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I've seen 2 tornadoes in 50 some odd years.

I'm not technically  from Tornado Alley.  Michigan was more like the Cul De Sac off the Alley down which the Tornadoes would occasionally turn. But I have seen a similar number of Tornadoes.  This was largely because my Mother had us all in the basement as soon as the Tornado Watch sounded.  There we would spend our time arguing about which windows on what side of the house should be open or closed.  Spoiler alert. It doesn't make a difference.  No common residential building is so thoroughly pressure sealed as to make your bungalow experience explosive decompression.  100+ MPH Winds and Heavy Debris do plenty of damage that can be understood with only a basic awareness of Newtonian Mechanics. 

 

[Darth Fluffy 315]

52 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Tornadoes are less of a problem than hurricanes.  Tornadoes path of destruction is, at most 2 miles wide.  Hurricanes is hundreds of miles wide.  Granted if your town in in the path of ef-5 tornado you are going to have a bad time.   See Joplin 2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado  and Moore 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Moore_tornado.  These are rare events however.  Hurricanes fuck up cities on the southern coast every year.

I've lived in Tornado Alley all my life (other than my army 9 years) and I've seen 2 tornadoes in 50 some odd years.

Weirdly (?), the places they hit seem to get repeat hits. I was stationed in Ohio for a time. Tornadoes were not common, but the town of Xenia was hit, and a wide funnel cut a large swath through the town. Years later, another one hit Xenia. Maybe there's a reason, something about the geography, just like there seems to be for the states that have them.

Apparently few places are truly immune. One hit the local mall in Albuquerque a few years after we left; they barely get weather, let alone tornadoes.

Hurricanes are indeed devastating, but they are a different kind of threat. Much larger, strong winds, trees blow down here near me (much shallow soil and hence roots), lots of water, flooding. Tornadoes are far more intense but localized and shorter duration. Caveat, hurricanes often contain tornadoes.

I've been through several hurricanes, they are not fun. Loss of life is typically surge at the coast, flooding, flash floods sweeping vehicles away at crossings, and some trees hit homes. Wind damage to property is typically less than you'd think.

 

[mlooney 3,471]

The plains west has tornadoes.   The south west has droughts and heat waves. The southern coast has hurricanes.  West coast has earthquakes and fires.  The northern part of the country and the mountain west gets blizzards.  The big river valleys get floods.  Several of these places overlap. The only non natural disaster area in the country seems to roughly be Appalachia.  And there you have to put up with the locals.  Not sure if that's a win or not.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,602]

 

13 minutes ago, mlooney said:

And there you have to put up with the locals.  Not sure if that's a win or not.

To be sure, there are Natural Disaster Locals in every part of the country.

 

[mlooney 3,471]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

 

To be sure, there are Natural Disaster Locals in every part of the country.

 

The seem to be a little more common in low "mountain" ranges.

[Darth Fluffy 315]

Every place I've ever lived has locals. They are always odd, from an outsider point of view. The only way to avoid this phenomenon is to stay put and become a mentally inbred local yourself.