I mean, these guys are absurd, but aren’t we better off using this opportunity to point out that the ratings system for TV, and especially for movies with the MPAA, is fundamentally broken? Daredevil is literally about a hero who refuses to kill because it violates his moral conscience but I can easily put out a war…

“this is just clinging to something that should have ended a long time ago.”

Star Wars isn’t about the nooks and crannies of the Star Wars universe because it’s ultimately not about that, nor is it structured to be about that. Star Wars is about the Force, and the conflict between good and evil represented by the Force. It has never not been about the Force or that, despite a lot of details in…

I’m going to topline a bigger, longer post about this, but I think Filoni (and to be honest a lot of fans) want to undermine Lucas’ initial thematic vision. I know I do.

This is and has always been a bizarre critique leveled only at Star Wars. I SUSPECT it’s a holdover from the EU when we really did get several anthology books and some backstory prequels for characters like Han and Lando that showed a bigger universe.

Like it or not, I think it’s something that you’ll have to deal with going forward if you want to be a fan of franchise shared universes. Marvel long ago shed any accommodation for those who haven’t seen the prior chapters and that expectation has expanded into its Disney+ series. (The trailers alone tell us you’ll…

Going though comments and not wanting to subcomment on like a half dozen of them, I think we can summarize a few things.

Right. I’ve been hoping/thinking those are an interlude, like Act II of a 3 act season. But you’re right, if it turns out that they decided to save money by setting 80% of it in the early-mid 21st century my skepticism will rise substantially. 

Yeah, I can’t disagree with that analysis. Picard S1 had substantial structural problems which fed into its unsatisfying conclusion. I’m still very interested in S2 though, in part because Patrick Stewart and Jeri Ryan remain two of the best actors to ever grace Trek and can single handedly sell scenes that would…

No pushback here. Lower Decks is the best Trek since DS9, even including homages like The Orville.

See I have exactly the opposite feeling re: both Picard (though the ending of S1 was admittedly really messy and unsatisfying) and The Orville.

Oops, forgot the video link.

I absolutely support Death of the Author as the default mode of critical analysis (in fact, I contend you can’t really do critical analysis without it, unless for example we’re going to suddenly start to agree Fahrenheit 451 really is about TV being bad rather than about censorship and intellectual freedom), but I…

Yeah as a couple of people have mentioned I don’t think fandom-as-identity is new, but you are correct that the level/scale/scope/breadth of this particular fandom in its mainstream impact as a real life cultural influence is unusual if not unique. Part of that is, I suspect, that it really rose to prominence in the…

Not to compare them in terms of quality, but just trying to clarify, does this apply to folks like Steven Colbert and his love of/expertise in LOTR? Or people for whom Star Trek is their comforting universe of choice over decades? MCU Superfans?

Yeah, this feels like an attempt to bump old content and rehash a lot of AVClub writers’ well known, though demonstrably incorrect, view of the MCU as pure factory formula.

Eternals’ being underwhelming is a disproof of concept. Most people who sing the praises of the MCU called Eternals underwhelming. It absolutely…

I don’t particularly disagree with anything you said as a generality. However I think my broader point is that our social confrontation is much more about thoughtful vs. non thoughtful and I fear we are grossly outnumbered. I realize using a GoT take to engage with that seems silly, but yet here my psyche is.

I’m not…

Oh, I think the distance between our positions is minimal. I’m probably slightly more forgiving of the aesthetic storytelling errors of GoT than you are, but from where I stand that amounts to a rounding error.

I KNOW I come across aggressive on this subject, but it’s because in my experience there’s a LOT of…

To be honest, GoT is to me a microcosm of America at this point. So I am emotionally attached at that level. Because I’ve realized most of us are deeply engaged in belief in things that aren’t helpful, and at worst that manifests as a rising fascist movement that treats Jan 6 as a dry run not a horror show.

So yeah,…

I entirely agree with you re: Reloaded. I don’t want to give the impression I don’t see the film’s myriad sins. Because damn. But I remember seeing it in my twenties and being deeply frustrated at all the philosophy/architect stuff, and rewatching a few months ago and realizing the Architect is the best (though…