I cannot get over just the sheer audacity of the Disney response. Not just that this multi-billion dollar company is invoking the pandemic tragedy as justification to seemingly breach their contract with Johansson, but then they claim that somehow Disney+ has enhanced her capability of earning additional…

Man, you have a lot of faith in Disney and, to be honest, I don’t know what it is based on.

I’ll be honest, I’m even more confused by your stance here. Except for the fact that we have not seen the contract and operating based on assumptions, except none of your actual arguments are based on that.

I don’t see how actors wanting to be compensated for their work is ‘kill new releases films from ever making it to streaming service’, especially considering the insane amount of movies that make it there already. They have just to change the contract incentives that stars like Johansson would get similar kind of…

Yeah, this is one of the legal cases where I had never really thought about this aspect, but the moment I read the article on it realized how utterly important precedent this is going to be.

My biggest issue already with this show, even before having seen it, is that Pugh’s Yelena deserves so much more than to be a secondary character in a Clint Barton show.

Fair points. After writing that, I did actually find myself thinking on Andrew Luck and how that was received. It is interesting to think how differently his decision to retire young would have been received if it had been based on mental health rather than the physical damage of the game. Also, again kind of…

So I’m only going to respond to the Simmons point, partially because I do find it kind of funny how much was written here about an off-hand comment.

Yeah, it’s one of the reasons why singling out the Ledecky article felt so weird to me as it ignores the context. While Titmus won the World Championship in their last encounter, Ledecky was still the clear favorite to win that race just because of this sense of momentum. And that’s one of the things that makes the…

As a sidenote, the point in the write-up about the USWNT made me groan. Not because there isn’t a certain validity to it and I am completely behind them getting equal pay, but because that squad and several aspects of it are so bizarre, yet don’t really get fairly discussed about because of that sympathy factor and…

While I naturally agree on the central theme, a couple of points that I found myself pondering while reading this. First, has there really been that much criticism, at least my main stream sports media, about Biles’s decision to withdraw? At least the major sites I follow have reported it as a shocking decision, which…

Eh, I thought ME3 was better with that, especially since Wrex can give that praise not knowing you just sabotaged the Genophage. It also actually deals with the pressure to be that big hero the galaxy needs causing Shepard to begin cracking.

Oh, I completely agree with majority that you write and I do think that the initial Paragon/Renegade apprach was something that ME struggled with even when it hit the third game. Although, I did like it in ME3 because there it had a more nuanced meaning even if the system itself was still as simple, there it was about…

I’ve seen this argument and I do think it is a fasciating one. Partially because a part of me agrees with it, while a part does not.

As a late sidenote due to having ruminating on it for the past few days and I think it really connects to the difficulty of nuanced discussions when it comes to these athletes, if the USWNT doesn’t pull itself up soon, there’s such a minefield waiting there.

It’s kind of funny. In ME1 Adept is just massively OP, which they then vastly overcorrected for in ME2. However, in ME3 the balance was just so great.

On the latter point, I’d argue a bit of a different take. I’d claim there’s compelling evidence in games in general, not just Bioware games, that while people claim to want meaningful choices, what they really want are that the game pats you constantly on the back for a great hero you are.

This is an excellent point and I do think it highlights just how truly complicated any kind of discussion on these kinds of top athletes is, especially when it comes to team sports. There were three available alternatives and the squad wouldn’t have had to scramble if they had known before-hand that Biles would not be…

I’m most bummed out that soldier was the most popular class even though I get it. It’s just that Vanguard was such a blast that I would have liked to have seen more people give it a chance and Adept was really fun in ME3.

I’ll correct my wording. She wasn’t as impressive as usual by her standards. ROC won by three points, again even after a massive error at the beam, and Biles did commit multiple flaws during the qualifiers. Hence my argument that I don’t it’s fair to argue that the lack of her presence was the crucial element here.