henke on 20/12/2019 at 17:06
Marriage Story, was, like, insanely captivating. Well-written and with fantastic performances by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.
Also just watched ep 1 of The Witcher. It sets up the world nicely, has a good plot hook and a kickass swordfight!
Renzatic on 20/12/2019 at 19:22
Witcher's out? Rad!
Gryzemuis on 20/12/2019 at 23:44
I saw S01E01 tonight. I was a bit afraid they'd fuck it up. But they didn't. :) It was OK.
No spoilers below, but maybe people should watch S01E01 before reading further ....
[warned you]
During the first 30 minutes the voice of Geralt irritated the fuck out of me. Later on it wasn't so bad. Maybe the actor did a little less exaggeration, or maybe I got used to his voice. Or maybe Geralt talked less.
I thought there was a little bit too much of battling and ransacking, especially for a first episode. The (first) ASOIAF-books were known to not have the battles themselves described in detail at all. The outcome of a battle was only talked about in the books afterwards. Usually between two people who were not even in that battle. I liked that. I think one of the reasons why the last 2 seasons of GoT were so bad was because the directors wanted to show every battle, every fight, all the action, in great detail. Boring as fuck. And showing how a city is ransacked is even more boring. Who wants to watch innocent citizens being slaughtered ? I don't. I hope we won't get any more big battles in the TW-tv-series.
The sword-fight was actually pretty good. It was not unlike the look & feel of sword-fighting in the games. Well done. I hope there will be not too much of it. But we now know they can show it in a believable way, if they need to show it. Good.
I didn't catch up on the fact that the setting is eastern Europe. Or eastern-europe-like. Blaviken and the big city felt a bit too much like "a generic medieval fantasy town/city". Too bad. Also I probably would have liked it better if the story was about Geralt, a witcher, who traveled from village to village to small town, trying to make a living by defeating smallish monsters. I think the first book is more like that. The political stuff only starts in the following books, iirc. The first half of the first game is also like that. (I think I like TW1 over TW2 and even TW3). Unfortunately the first tv-episode seems to be setting the stage for "great adventures, great battles, saving the world and everybody is a hero". Bah, I like small adventures better. But anyway, we don't know for sure yet. Maybe there is enough room for "small things" to make this a great series.
Geralt used a bit of Aard during one of his fights. If you didn't know what Aard was, you'd probably miss it. He also tried to use Axii, but that failed (just like it often does in the games). These signs were not explained at all. I liked that.
Tomorrow night I'm gonna watch episode 2. Binge-watching is for dummies. One episode a night. Gonna watch the last (double-)episode of Mr. Robot on Monday. Gonna spend Christmas with my parents. I should be done with all 8 episodes of TW before New Year's eve. And to everyone who's gonna watch TW now: enjoy !!
Renzatic on 21/12/2019 at 03:37
I've watched 3 episodes. My take thus far?
First two episodes: okay. Not great. Not bad. They felt rushed. Like the writers were pushing through story points, getting all the introductions and world building out of the way to get the good stuff.
Third episode: this is the good stuff, and it's not good just because it touchs on some story points that's been brought up heavily in the games. It was all around great.
Severian_Silk on 21/12/2019 at 06:32
I like the Witcher too. It's very faithful to the books and the atmosphere feels like how the books were once described as back in the day in Poland - like a mixture of The Name of the Rose and Disney movies.
Renzatic on 21/12/2019 at 06:56
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
I didn't catch up on the fact that the setting is eastern Europe. Or eastern-europe-like. Blaviken and the big city felt a bit too much like "a generic medieval fantasy town/city". Too bad. Also I probably would have liked it better if the story was about Geralt, a Witcher, who traveled from village to village to small town, trying to make a living by defeating smallish monsters.
I'm now 5 episodes in (yeah, I know. I didn't want to binge watch it, but here I am), and for the most part, that's what Geralt's part of the story is. It's weird how it's set up. Yennifer's and Ciri's parts of the story are more serialized, building around the politics and intrigue of the world, while Geralt is off on weekly adventures which I'm almost definite are based off the short stories.
It's weird how the story is structured too. I won't say any more, because it may be kinda of spoilery to some.
SubJeff on 21/12/2019 at 22:17
Quote Posted by icemann
You could watch Aliens or Terminator 2, without having seen the original and be perfectly fine.
Quote Posted by icemann
Absolutely. But you could get away with the brief summary given of past events in both films... ...I too watched Aliens before Alien, and still thoroughly enjoyed it.
Dude. I didn't say you couldn't enjoy them - they are almost self contained stories. But you miss out on masses of backstory that directly affect your interpretation of what's going on unless you are as thick as a plank.
Most of the tension in the beginning of both films is knowing what's coming, kind of, and the anticipation of that. And there are too many other things that you cannot get, properly, if you haven't seen the originals. Stop being dumb.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
I didn't catch up on the fact that the setting is eastern Europe. Or eastern-europe-like. Blaviken and the big city felt a bit too much like "a generic medieval fantasy town/city". Too bad.
Agreed. And it doesn't help that one faction is called Nilfgard which is very reminiscent of Midgard.
Ep1 was OK.
Keeper Arthur on 21/12/2019 at 23:40
Star Wars: Age of Skywalker! I just got out of the cinema, and it was good!
howeird on 28/12/2019 at 15:47
When i was 15 yrs old i restored my first car to be like new and then some. I also played with chemistry sets, model building, and launched toy rockets as a child. Basically i like building things with my own hands. With that in mind you can see why i really enjoying watching this clip. I don't remember how many times i heard the squeal from our house, "What the hell are you kids doing now ?" after mom heard a boom.
[video=youtube;pJdrlWR-yFM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM[/video]
rachel on 31/12/2019 at 13:24
I finally got around to checking out Fleabag and...
Hmf. I struggled to find anything funny or edgy about it, I don't understand the hype. I see where it wants to be... but all I saw was recycling old tropes under a veneer of modernity, and being pretty bad at it...
The pretense of self-awareness with 4th-wall breaking doesn't help. Like it's "look at how clever I'm being" when, er, no, in fact.
Dunno, not for me I guess... *shrug*
Disappointed.
On the other hand, finished Season 4 of The Expanse and holy shit this series is totally replacing BSG as best scifi TV since B5. Love where they're taking the show and what they did vs the books. Wes Chatham as Amos in particular is amazing.