Great effects were around long before Avatar, it’s just that Cameron took it to a new level. And I wouldn’t discount Cameron coming up with something here that makes the first Avatar look like Ed Wood-level effects by comparison.

People handpicked by the producers to attend lavish premiere are extremely supportive of the film. Colour me shocked…

I pray that this show has the balls to get to the end of this series without ever once uttering the words “Jedi” or “the force.” It’s so, so good.

It's classic sequelitis. Liked that thing from the first movie? Well, here's precisely that same thing...but more! 

Asked and answered. Ragnarok was kind of lightning (har har) in a bottle, and Love and Thunder was such a sweaty and obvious attempt to recreate that magic that it fell flat.

I actually feel the exact opposite about the exact same thing you said. Love & Thunder approaches goofiness at times, Ragnarok finds a way to be funny yet still take its action set pieces seriously. Here you had Russell Crowe wearing a dress.

Like.... what the hell is that scene where Thor summons a helmet in an…

It just, in a nutshell, feels very strange for Hollywood to create an Oscar bait movie out of this. It’s like patting themselves on the back for a problem they pointedly did not solve. Maybe the intent was a mea culpa, but if not, this is about twenty years too soon. Weinstein’s presence is still all over Hollywood. 

“If you didn’t know crypto was a Ponzi scheme after all this time, then you are an idiot.”

I’m sorry. If you didn’t know crypto was a Ponzi scheme after all this time, then you are an idiot. And as far as I know, the courts generally don’t provide relief from your own stupidity.

Respectfully, that feels like a huge reach.  It doesn’t take a force sensitive to want to get the fuck aware from the Empire, especially if you’re Luthen.

I especially enjoyed the scene between Saw and Luthen where Luthen prevents Saw from going into a killing rage by saying “OK, call Kreegyr and tell him what’s up.” It’s just further evidence that rebellions are messy and not just hot shot pilots doing heroic trench runs on Death Stars.

Man, Genevieve O’Reilly got cast in a deleted scene in a movie in 2005 for a character that said very little in the OG trilogy and she has been just absolutely milking that casting choice and killing it since.

Between the dogfight and last week’s monologue (and the rest), Luthen in my mind is already an all-time classic Star Wars character. That Imperial stop-and-search was so insanely tense I thought the whole thing was going to end in a Game of Thrones penultimate shock death, and when he ripped the tractor beam to pieces…

I kind of enjoyed the extended character moments in this episode and didn’t feel a pressing need to find out new information, but you do you.

I gotta say, I don’t know whether it’s because I’m getting older or if it’s because I don’t follow comics nearly as much as I used to, but all of this just seems…exhausting.

Phase 4 is just the perfect storm of bad luck, bad execution, and scripts that could have used a draft revision or two. If we think of a phase like a football season, sometimes things go in your favor, sometimes things go really wrong. People can be putting their best effort, but sometimes that’s not enough, and…

Fantastic episode.

Luthen’s speech was great. Stellan Skarsgard is just fantastic.

“...next time, baby”

My opinion - Boseman was good. But that first Black Panther movie was... not as great as many people want to claim.