I can’t say I hate religion. Religion’s like a 2-by-4. You can use it to shore up a tunnel, build a house, carve into art, turn into a table leg, or make a set of building blocks. You can also build a gallows, stoke a fire, use it as a signpost banning people you don’t like, carve a weapon, or, very popular, just take…

Ugh. I really hate this style of animation. It looks so... cheap, I guess is the word I want. And no Scooter and Skeeter? No Rolf? That’s a rip-off!

Wait, now. This could work. Really, it could.

I also saw a promo for ‘AP Bio,’ which appears to be an (alleged) comedy abut a class full of brainiacs who are handed a quirky teacher who teaches them to chill out and enjoy life. I think I remember finding it vaguely humorous when I was about ten and it was called ‘Head of the Class.’ Could they simply not get the…

There is, sort of; I suspect that broadcast TV is heading the way of high-button shoes and buggy whips, and it’ll be sooner rather than later. It makes a cynical sort of sense for CBS to put all their eggs in the for-pay basket, to try and steal a march on the other stations by hooking viewers early. And Star Trek,…

I have to confess to a certain fondness for some theme songs. I mean, ‘Believe it or Not’ from ‘Greatest American Hero’ still stands up as decent music in its own right, and the ‘Ballad of Gilligan’s Island’ has got to be one of the catchiest earworms ever committed to vinyl, with close competition from…

My folks got a little nervous about the ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’ series; after I’d read the first one and matter-of-factly shared a few of the more prurient details, I was forbidden from reading the rest of the series. In their defense, I was about eight years old at the time and was under the impression that the…

Except the irony is that each of the WoZ characters already exemplifies the trait they think they lack. It’s more explicit in the book, but even in the movie, the Scarecrow comes up with all the good ideas, the Lion handles the dangerous stuff, and the Tin Man is the kindest. And Dorothy makes herself at home wherever…

I’d have pegged it as closer to ‘I won’t let anyone else matter enough to let them hurt me.’ Selfishness, yes, but stemming from a superfluity of self-defense rather than any real desire to hurt anyone else. Wounded creatures tend to lash out; it’s instinct.

Anyone remember the old Nintendo ‘Legend of Zelda’ game? (Trust me; it’s relevant.)

I wasn’t even talking about just Splinter or other blogs. Look at the papers, the evening news. Puerto Rico has essentially fallen off the radar, and Flint was barely ever on it in the first place. Ginning up outrage via appeals to the lizard-brain is a better marketing tactic.

Well, of course not. ‘Me Win... or Me SHOULD’VE Won’ is visceral and pleasant. Competition is fun, and griping about how one was robbed is only slightly less of a high than crushing one’s enemies. ‘There’s a terrible problem destroying lives and I’m either partially responsible or, at best, guilty of passively…

I always wondered what those names were supposed to mean. If everyone had odd nicknames, it would be one thing, but aside from Ponyboy and Soda, I don’t recall anyone having such out-there nomenclature.

Let’s look at that a bit closer. Dealing with governmental policies— like Obamacare— that he may or may not agree with is literally his entire job. What he’s saying is that trying to do his job is so impossibly overwhelming that it forces him to abuse and harass his staff. Is that really the excuse he wants to go with?

And that’s fair enough. That’s actually the same objection I had to the idea of a Han Solo film; enough with the prequels and the rehashes and the reworkings. Start something new. Tell me a story that goes somewhere, with characters I’ll care about. There’s a big galaxy out there. Use it.

Oh, believe you me, I’m not trying to forgive or justify bad writing. The writers should be ashamed of themselves! (They probably aren’t, but they *should* be.) I don’t think anyone could look at the scene as written/filmed and see anything but a shambles. My thought was really more for whichever writers continue the…

Granted. There’s no fixing this, officially, short of, like you said, a great deal of rewriting and recutting. But if an unofficial fix is the best we’re going to get? This scene is beyond horrible. Perhaps ‘insulting’ would be a better word for it; it spits in the eyes of everything this series ever tried to do with…

Electing royalty is one thing; electing adolescents to be royalty strikes me as asking for trouble, but maybe it works for them. :) (I mean, I remember being fifteen. Let’s just say I wasn’t ready to rule a planet and leave it at that.)

It is. But retcons are baked into the foundations of Star Wars— Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker didn’t start out as the same person, etc, etc— so if they can retcon away an incredibly bad, pointless death in some coherent fashion, I’m all for it. Padme deserved better.

Apropos of pretty much nothing, the sibs are named ‘Wendy’ and ‘Alice’? As in the Lost Girl and the Third Queen Beyond the Looking Glass? Please, please tell me that they justify those names somehow.