Without yet having watched Hunters for the full context, is human chess really worse than reality? Or even presented as such within the show? I mean, I’m assuming they execute the “captured pieces”, but it still doesn’t strike me as a shocking extreme of the Nazi’s dehumanising and murderous ways; just a very visual…

Took the character design criticism to heart, or weaponised their most blatant fuck up into an evil genius-level “well, we have to support it now, even though we would have had no interest if it looked like this all along” PR boost?

Without knowing the ins and outs, sure, I have no doubt that bad management played a major role, whether because the effects house promised the work on an impossible timescale or because the filmmakers increased the workload without allowing extra time to complete it. The lowly effects artists are probably the least…

“Gameplay loop” just refers to the mechanics of the game and how they’re structured and restructured into a series of quests or levels or situations, and it’s as applicable to an entirely linear singleplayer game as it is a Destiny or Anthem, or literally any other game you might care to mention. A game teaches you…

There were definitely major technical issues though — most famously, someone forgot to render Judi Dench’s hand in at least one scene:

You mean, aside from them being so bad that they released an update a week or two in to fix some of the most egregious mistakes? It wasn’t a Sonic style “we followed the design, but the design was bad, so we’re going to start over”, it was “we failed to execute the already crappy design competently”. Everyone gets…

I agree with your take on the film (rarely has a film been so shallow, yet fooled so many people into thinking it’s insightful and deep), but it was a very good performance.

Every time I see promo material about The Two Popes, it takes me way too long to work out why neither of them is Jude Law. I don’t know if that’s because, or in spite, of having yet to watch the show(s) or film.

I thought she was dreadful in M:I-2 and on that basis I couldn’t care less if she returns. But since then, she’s become a very fine actress and it’s hard to argue against her appearing in anything.

Huh? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t meant to be read as “set it up like this and surprise her”. It was to suggest it to her, as part of “just talk[ing] to her first”, as a relatively safe, anonymous, and controlled way in which she might try this cuckolding thing for real.

“across comics, board and video games, I don’t remember ever seeing this before”

That’s a nice detail that I totally missed. I wish there was more of that and it was more obvious, because my biggest bugbear with the game was how lifeless and empty the world felt when you weren’t actively involved in a quest. It’s a problem with almost all open world games once you’re cleared the points of…

So, Jason, do you have any inside knowledge? If the game is truly in the state they claim, is this a move against crunch that should be lauded far and wide, or are we already well into crunch period and they just need a 5 more months of it?

Not that I have any faith that Trevorrow’s version would be any good, but the difference here is that:
1) A lot of people wanted something new. Bringing back Palpatine is regressive.
2) Palpatine was dead, and they didn’t even attempt to explain why he’s not. That’s not an issue with a hitherto unseen villain.

Parabellum’s ending is poorly thought out, or the whole franchise? The secret underworld was a kind of fun idea for a standalone low-to-mid-budget action film, but it was never going to hold up to scrutiny (see also: Equilibrium). As soon as they decided to build the sequels around expanding that world, any semblance…

I think the bit I enjoyed most is when he’s just about to go and has a camera operator in his face, and Angel tells them to “Back up, I wanna get a continuous shot.” (in addition to the existing “continuous shot”, I guess, seeing as that one doesn’t even show the car’s starting point), and the camera operator starts…

By the end of the film I believed exactly that (albeit, I thought it was pointless). So it doesn’t feel like a “desperate confession” to me, it just confirmed my pre-existing suspicions.

By, say, seeing Abrams himself introduce the movie, for instance, which is the only way you’d know what Finn was trying to spit out to Rey when the two of them were seconds from death in the desert. (It turns out to have been that classic deathbed confession, “I am also sensitive to the Force.”)

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is such an odd beast. It’s breezy and fun and always watchable, in spite of almost all of the characters being unlikable (impressive when the cast is extremely likable). Which I don’t think is Sherman-Palladino’s intent, or that she’s even aware they come across that way. I’m not sure why…