TV shows are awesome

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

I thought the Thor episode was fun, but was about two minutes of story based on the joke "to stop Thor, call his mother" dragged out to twenty. I was honestly getting a bit bored of it by the end.

The Ultron episode was much more interesting, though I'm not sure I buy Ultron killing Thanos that easily. But yeah, it's always interesting when someone becomes aware of the Watcher, and this time gets involved in a fight with him. And we get a cliffhanger with evil Dr. Strange! I didn't expect to see him again, so that's going to be interesting next week.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

What if... The Watcher Broke His Oath?

The Watcher recruits Strange Supreme, Captain Carter, Star-Lord T'Challa, Thor, and Killmonger from the previous episodes, as well as a version of Gamora who killed Thanos in her universe. Watcher refers to them as the Multiverse Avengers. I was kinda hoping for a nod to the Exiles comic book in this episode (or if there was one, I missed it). The premise is essentially the same, the Exiles were also a group of characters gathered from various universes to stop threats across the multiverse. Anyway... the Multiverse Avengers are sent to battle Ultron. Unfortunately, things do not go according to plan, but with Black Widow's help from the universe this Ultron originated from, they're able to get the upper-hand.

Nice to see some of the stories of the previous episodes revisited, to some degree at least, and tie things together for the season as a whole. I was hoping for a little more from The Watcher. For breaking his oath not to interfere... We don't see his reaction/conflict for having to do so. Overall, I enjoyed this season, albeit it was a bit lacking at times.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

I always chuckle at the Watcher's oath, because in those 60s FF comics where he's introduced, he's always breaking his oath. Of course it's always in a technical way where he can claim that he didn't, but he's constantly helping the FF stop Galactus or whatever. The tv version did pretty well up until those last few episodes.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by JediTricks »

What If...? kinda fizzled for me. I enjoyed the second one a lot, and the Party Thor one a lot, but the rest kinda rolled along feeling very flawed and locked into a few narrow ideas. It was fun getting the name actors to voice characters, but not so much when it was sound-alikes that... didn't.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Shockwave
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Shockwave »

Netflix Masters of the Universe: Revelations. I saw this back in July when it came out and it is GOOD!! Like, I think this is my favorite MOTU cartoon. The end of the first episode was so packed with raw emotion that I cried. Yeah, it's THAT good. As I think most of us know at this point, Kevin Smith was the front runner on this and he really did a lot with the characters. Faker gets the biggest change from the original series which is a good thing. It really shows what a competent writer can do. I remember seeing an interview with the writer of the original cartoon episode that featured Faker and he literally said that he hated the character and just wanted to kill him off to get him out of the way as quick as possible. A GOOD writer would have rose to the challenge and done something interesting with him, but instead he just got discarded. So I think this is the biggest contrast to between the original and Kevin Smith's version where he actually did do something interesting with the character. Without giving too much away, I will say that the series focuses on Teela and what happens in an Eternia post He-Man and Skeletor. Both the heroic and evil warriors go their own ways and some unlikely alliances develop. Some characters actually die. And their deaths matter. This series is part one of a two part series, with the second part coming out November 30. The voice acting is amazing, if it wasn't the end of the first episode wouldn't have had the emotional impact that it did. And the title "Revelations" is actually appropriate, since most of the characters come to several revelations about what had actually been going on the whole time. I also want to address what could be called the elephant in the room: Whether or not this is a continuation of the original Filmation series. I fall on the side of yes and no. It very much could be. One could watch the original, then watch this and have no problem thinking of the original as the various adventures or history that the characters make reference to. It also could very much be considered it's own thing. The original Filmation series never had a definitive "final episode" where the characters saw any sort of develop or ending to their stories, so it would be very easy to see this as the ending that show never received. Artistically and stylistically it's more similar to the 200x series, from character designs to the darker more serious tone, but story wise this definitely NOT a sequel or ending to that series. Overall, I would say that if you like MOTU, like AT ALL, watch this series. A+

Netflix He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Yes, that's right, there's actually TWO new He-Man cartoons on Netflix right now that are both new and completely unrelated to each other. While Kevin Smith's Revelations was definitely meant for the adult children of the 80's, this one is definitely meant for the children of now. The character designs look like something out of a video game, like Fortnite or Overwatch or something. Not necessarily bad, just an observation. But, it also definitely sets the tone and it's a very different tone from the Revelations. Which is fine. So far, they've done a lot of interesting and different things with the characters, most of which no longer have their same back stories. There's ten episodes of the this compared to just six of Revelations and I'm only about 6 episodes into this one, but I will definitely continue watching it. All of the characters are vastly different from anything before, but the biggest difference is "
Spoiler
Ram Man", who in this series is a small thin female who is more like a mashing of the flash and Juggernaut, or Juggernaut and Quicksilver if you don't feel like mixing your Marvel and DC. And it works just fine. Other character differences are: Man At Arms (Duncan) starts out serving as a young understudy for Cronis/Trap Jaw, who used to be Man At Arms for the Eternian Palace. Cronis is written to be much more intelligent than previous versions. Teela almost immediately becomes the Sorceress of Grayskull, which is nice to see a series where this actually plays out instead of merely being hinted at. Keldor looks full human and is Randor's full brother, not adopted. The transformation into Skeletor is one of the main plot points of the series. Also, Randor is not known for being a great king. It's established early on that a lot of the population don't like him and that he doesn't seem to care what happens outside of the palace. There's definitely some classism going on there.
Overall, I would give this a solid B. Not the best, but not the worst. You could definitely be watching far far worse than this (I'm looking at YOU, Star Trek: Lower Decks!).

So, my thoughts on MOTU cartoons in general: The New Adventures cartoon was the worst of the bunch, mostly due to it's handling of Skeletor. Also, apparently that was supposed to be the continuation of the Filmation series, but it just didn't feel like it, in either tone, writing or animation style. second worst would be Filmation. Look, I love that series, but it's writing was terrible. As an adult (and sometimes even as a kid) I find myself thinking "That's not how physics works!" So many episodes where He-Man, without aid of any space suit or anything punches a moon or moves a moon or an asteroid or whatever and yeah, it's ridiculous. Right in the middle, I would put the new series, it's good, but it's definitely it's own thing, which I think is largely why it's as good as it is. Second best would be 200x and best would be Revelations, both for their darker more serious approaches to the material and for the more detailed character designs and animation.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Hawkeye - episode 1

So I guess Kate Bishop is going to be the new Hawkeye, eh? Who would have guessed? :)

Good opening episode, sets up the mystery quite nicely about who is after a watch from Avengers tower. One of the interesting aspects of this live-action MCU is that actors age out of the roles or don't want to play characters beyond a certain point, so we get to see the effects of a long career on characters like Clint Barton. He's got hearing damage, his knees bother him, and he's none too fond of seeing his friends, dead or otherwise, up on stage in a bad, bad musical about the Avengers. Good opener, I liked it quite a bit.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

My fiancée recognized one of the names in the opening credits as a Broadway star, and I'm like, "There's no way there's a musical number". Lo and behold, it had a musical number. We found it hilarious. Surprised to see it had someone representing Ant-Man, someone even Clint points out shouldn't be there. I'm wondering if that's a creative liberty whoever created this play did, or if it's meant to imply the time travel meddling the Avengers did in Endgame.

In the comics that this storyline is somewhat based on (I haven't read it yet, but, I do have it) Hawkeye intentionally damaged his own hearing to prevent someone from using some mind control device on him. I like that here, they explain is pretty much just the result of living the life of a super hero. Being so close to explosions and jumping through windows and all that stuff... it takes a toll on a normal human body, so it's nice to see them acknowledging that.

I really enjoyed the premier of this series as well. It's fun. And I'm curious to see where they take it.

So we've got Kate in this series... Eli in The Flacon and the Winter Soldier... Billy and Tommy in Wandavision... Cassie has appeared in a few of the movies... All they need is to introduce Teddy and Nathaniel and they'll have all the original members of the Young Avengers in the MCU (and in a way, Nathaniel has been introduced in Loki, at least a version of him). I have to wonder if they're planning a Young Avengers project, since they appear to be setting up the framework for it.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Hawkeye has overall probably been among my favorites of the Marvel series. Loki was great until that last episode killed it, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier was enjoyable but solid middle of the road, nothing spectacular. Wandavision is still my favorite, I thought it was creative and had the most heart. This last episode of Hawkeye with
Spoiler
Kingpin
making an appearance was really good. They did a nice job showing the toll the superhero life has taken on Clint physically... he's still highly skilled and very good at archery and at hand to hand, but he's not as young as he used to be and has to work harder to win his victories. I can easily see him having to retire at some point soon, as the other actors/characters have done, not through some "heroic sacrifice" but just because he can't do the job any more at the level that's needed.

Good series, I enjoyed it.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by JediTricks »

Hawkeye had some charm but at the end felt a bit hollow. It felt like it couldn't juggle all the pins it was throwing in the air, and kinda just shrugged and kicked them off to the side by episode 6. It felt like they wanted a longer season and obstinately stuck with their foundations even as it became clear they couldn't follow through on Jack, on Maya, on mom, on the threat or the goal, there really wasn't much of a throughline. Also, putting moody old fart MCU Hawkeye into the shoes of Matt Fraction's younger, more disentangled version seemed forced and clumsy. I didn't hate it, but it definitely felt like another lesser-than D+ show.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

The end of Hawkeye felt a rushed to me, with a lot of plots lines not really connecting to anything else or feeling lacking in their explanations.

I kept expecting them to do more with Maya but it felt like her storyline became a little lost after Clint told her Kingpin ordered a hit on her father. I'm not very familiar with her character in the comics, but I remember she was the first character to use the Ronin identity, and currently is known as Echo. But she doesn't take on either of those identities here. I guess she is getting an Echo spinoff series, but... you wouldn't know it from this. She confronts Kingpin, but they cut away, so we don't actually see what happens and they never go back to it. It comes off so anticlimactic because you know that means she didn't kill him.

I really liked that Kingpin was in this series, once again played by Vincent D'Onofrio from the Netflix Daredevil. It's nice to see the larger MCU acknowledging the Netflix series
Spoiler
also with Matt Murdock played by Charlie Cox being in NWH.
I hope we'll get more of it in future projects.

We never really found out what the Rolex the Tracksuit Mafia was after was all about. Sure, we find out it belongs to Hawkeye's wife, and she apparently was SHEILD agent 19 at some point... But what exactly does that get the mafia? Her identity as Clint suggests? How? Why? And why make a big scene out of stealing it in the first place? I don't buy that they'd call that much attention to themselves for something that mundane.

I wish there had bit a bit more to Yelena and Clint's discussion about Nat's death. I mean, I pretty much figured she wouldn't believe anything he'd have to say as it is, but I felt she was too quick to dismiss him when he said Nat sacrificed herself, and too quick to believe him when he did the whistle.

Kate Bishop's fights with Yelena and Kingpin really stood out to me as being highlights of the episode.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good mini-series, but I think they could have done a little better wrapping up some of the plot threads.
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