It seems like this is what Martin had in mind

Where Winds Meet is described as “an oriental Wuxia open-world action-adventure RPG”. That sounds potentially cool — like a Chinese-inspired version of Ghost of Tsushima. A quick search turns up footage from last year backing that up (maybe a little too much, to be honest).

new religions and dialects are starting to form

The typical rule of thumb is that a movie’s global revenue has to double the production budget.

It definitely is supposed to be the same Max (or it was — I’ve not seen Furiosa yet, so I don’t know if that supersedes any of this).

For an Academy that has considered adding a popularity award in order to appeal more to “normal” audiences, an excuse to feature five of the most thrilling sequences of the year feels like it should be a slam dunk.

Not to butt in, but I think it’s just down to your use of “already”. By putting it against the 54 minutes, it suggests the 54 seconds is worse.

Parks and Rec also had a terrible first season, which probably limited how big the ratings could get.

No bloopers for these folks; in their line of work, as we’ve been quite carefully taught over the last two hours, bloopers get people hurt, or killed.

I think the line of thinking is one that’s fairly common in these kind of fanatics. A review that’s not unqualified praise is nitpicked apart until it can be dismissed as a personal attack. They’ve probably convinced themselves that they’re being reasonable and have space in their worldview for the theoretical existenc…

I thought your point was that you would be called a Nazi.

I thought it was the other way around. You keep people from getting raises by insisting it’s one season, but splitting into two parts, released months apart.

No, I got that too. She’s sure this is all part of his plan, and she’s almost certainly right. I hadn’t considered that it might be blackmail though, and I’m not sure I buy that — it’s perhaps more that she’s demonstrating that she has the intelligence to be a valuable ally.

It does seem notable that in the trailer’s placeholder image the two review quotes they’ve chosen to highlight are “fiercely original and deeply personal” and “a blasphemous Molotov cocktail of a movie”, neither of which suggest a movie that is actually good.

More importantly, Dune has cleared $600m worldwide and must surely be profitable, so Villeneuve probably will get the chance to make Messiah and finish his trilogy.

The Flashpoint story is such strong source material

[HBO] wanted 10 seasons not just because they wanted the maximum content but because they knew the story would take that long to tell.

Agreed. The quality actually stayed fairly consistent though the first six seasons, including in many storylines that had long outpaced the source material.

I didn’t say it would save the site, I said it’s an attempt to. I also said it wouldn’t work — it’ll delay the inevitable is all.

I disagree. Turning off the comments is probably a desperate attempt to save it.