The scene-by-scene stuff in the prequel films isn't nearly as good as the originals, I think because, for the last 15 years or so, films like Star Wars have been edited up to the last minute. Williams couldn't do something like his 15 minute Battle of Hoth suite - which is precisely timed according to camera changes…

Two wrongs make a right, Lisa.

I think the increasing acceptance of the 'the show is an improvement on the books, Martin can't write' meme is wrong-headed. The books were beloved and had won tonnes of awards before they were made into books - just because Martin's prose isn't Cormac McCarthy or Ursula Le Guin doesn't mean it's bad: his prose is…

I hope to God they don't use it as an excuse to mirror ESB. I loathe the way Star Wars stuff now likes to quote one another - while it's not actually all that bad in the prequels (though Palpatine's revised dialogue in Empire makes it seem like Vader only used the phrase 'Search your feelings, you know it to be true'…

As far as I'm concerned Prometheus was a million times more damaging to Alien than The Phantom Menace was to Star Wars.

Space coyote?

Nope; you shouldn't criticise him because he made three bad films. There's nothing wrong with criticising those films till the cows come home, but the person behind them shouldn't be. I'm defending him because current popular wisdom reviles him despite the fact that he's responsible for a large chunk of what it loves…

I think there's something really off about our collective sense of perspective when George Lucas has become such a figure of fun and often real hate.

I know they won't - and understand why they won't - but I'd like them to make a period piece and set it in the time it was written, with all the (relatively speaking) old-fashioned ideas intact. I'd also love to see a version of The War of the Worlds set in the 1890s.

(nasal, desperately anal-retentive voice) Er uhm er, I'll think you'll find that The Lord of the Rings is a sequel to The Hobbit, rather than the The Hobbit being a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. A prequel is a work set before a previously written story.

'Comedy is not really that hard to make, you asshole.'

He almost certainly did. I think the new lines were recorded over the phone.

I agree, it's just perfectly set up.

Deus Ex Machina was the episode that converted me from very casual Lost viewer (I'd caught the pilot and Walkabout, but had missed a few in a row and had never bothered to catch up), but for whatever reason decided to watch that night.

That's exactly what I thought. I don't know how anyone can be aware of the concept of depression without understanding that it and success share absolutely no inherent relationship.

No, I really like Boardwalk Empire! - I'd just put it in the 'great, but not one of the all-time greats' category.

Speaking as someone from the UK, you've nothing to worry about. Obviously both countries produce a lot of dreck, and while both also produce a fair amount of good stuff, the UK has not produced anything nearly as amazing as Breaking Bad, The Wire, Hannibal, Game of Thrones, or True Detective. We've plenty of stuff in…

It'll seem to run parallel to Breaking Bad at first, but then clues will start trickling in that this timeline is somehow different: Gus is now only a happy and well-loved owner of an international fried chicken chain; Walt decides that he really is happier living out his days as a chemistry teacher; Jesse and Badger…

I am convinced that most of the actively pro-spoiler posters are people who've been yelled at for thoughtlessly saying too much (think Homer Simpson coming out of the cinema: "Wow, who'd've thought Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father?"). It's not that they've been obnoxious; it's that other people care only about…

If an article provides a spoiler warning beneath its title but above the text, then the author's done what they should. If people complain about spoilers in an article marked as including them, hell mend them.