Yeah, I always felt like the whole first book was written as a bare bones standalone fantasy story that could serve as a basis for a series, if the publisher were so inclined. The Eye was set up as this climactic spectacle, but then kinda retconned into not being so important once it’s clear the series is going to go…

I remember thinking this when I caught occasional episodes of the West Wing. Their politicians, Republican or Democrat, were way better than any options we have in real life, so why not run one of those actors, have the show’s writers keep writing speeches for them, and then have them appoint super competent…

Yeah, I was going to say that...

I agree with the B grade after watching 1.5 episodes overnight with my not-sleeping 1-year-old. I read the books (all the books) as they were published, but never re-read any, so I remember the broad strokes of the plot, but have forgotten a bunch of details.

I agree about Scorsese, the Dead, and Long Strange Trip, but I’m not sure about this movie. I feel like even well-crafted biopics don’t really do much for me, unless I’m pretty unfamiliar with the protagonist. I prefer straight up documentaries. 

Any chance of a pre-air review of this? Or, dare I say, episodic reviews?

We all just laughed at Sharknado initially, but it will turn out to be quite prescient.

Yeah, I’m not nerdy enough to be super sure of this, but in Clone Wars, they made it seem like the Hutts had a galactic criminal enterprise with different Hutts having different bases out of which they operated, typically on under-the-radar planets that didn’t attract attention from the Republic.

Yeah, I’m similarly unenthused about these most recent movie releases. And it’s why I quit reading comics as a kid. Once I got to 10-11 years old, and they were telling me, “To find out what happens next you have to also buy this limited series in addition to your subscription to the regular Spiderman!,” I started…

I fully recognize the oft-cited problems with Jordan’s writing, and I think this series could very well turn out meh or worse, but here’s my optimistic spin on the tropes involved:

Yeah, this was my big issue with the film. I haven’t read the books in 30 years or so, so I don’t remember the specifics of the plot from there, but it just didn’t seem to make much sense in the film (whether or not that lines up with the books). It would have made more sense if the Atreides were struggling with spice…

Yeah, I’ve been watching the Clone Wars series for the first time now that I have Disney+, and I went back and watched the prequels because I didn’t remember some of what was going on. The prequels obviously have some terrible dialogue, bad acting, and nonsensical plot beats, but at least there is a coherent and…

Yeah, it’s one of my gripes about the show that they failed to create a distinct sense of place with the Lake of the Ozarks. I’ve never been there, but it’s reputation as the “redneck riviera” just never comes to life on the screen. It just seems like some dreary little generic lake town. 

Yeah, I’m still going to watch regardless, since I read the books in my formative years and feel a connection to the material (which is different than saying I really like it), but I don’t see why anyone unfamiliar with the source material would tune in based on the trailers they’ve released.

I haven’t read the comics, but I do admit to being a little bummed out by all of the downer endings in the show. That said, it does kind of make sense. In the regular timeline movies and shows, we see the heroes win out against seemingly impossible odds again and again. So, it figures that in the vast majority of…

I’m an academic philosopher and first saw this on PhilEvents. I had assumed it was a joke. I am certainly not above applying academic philosophy to pop culture (c.f. some of my posts on TV shows on this website), but I figured there were limits to how far one could go with that. Though, I haven’t seen Boss Baby, so…

Yeah, this is how I work to maintain some sympathy for the average Trumpist anti-vaxxer. There have been plenty of pretty normal, decent people throughout history who have been somehow sucked into some cult, and some are salvageable through deprogramming. It’s the cult leaders and their lieutenants who know what…

This goes back to some of the ancient philosophical arguments against hedonism (or at least the crude sex, music, and drugs form of it). If you base a large part of your happiness on sexual pleasure and don’t grow out of that, you’re setting yourself up to be pretty unhappy as you get older. 

I love how people still recognize Daniel from winning the All-Valley tournament in 1984. It’s so absurd that people would remember someone who won a kids’ karate tournament almost 40 years ago. 

This is the conclusion I’m coming to as well. I was an 80s kid who lived and breathed Star Wars for a while, and I still watch the new stuff, but it’s time to admit that the bad-to-mediocre Star Wars output outweighs the genuinely good output at this point. I think nostalgia could be an explanation for the continued…