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technoblue

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Everything posted by technoblue

  1. Careful. In the pantheon of idealized aesthetics, this could be how the Macross toon versus toy versus line art civil wars begin. Other franchises are still embroiled in their own similar civil wars… *cough* debates… to this day. I’m in the both look nice group, btw. If the HMR 0D has a weathered or clean look at retail, I’ll definitely pick it up either way.
  2. I caught the first episode last night. So far, my only criticism is with how they rushed a certain character reveal. The rest seems ok. I’m enjoying it.
  3. A certain group of incredibly vocal people have been on a hate parade against Disney and its leadership for years now, including calling out Kennedy. Whether she is retiring on her own terms or being ‘forced out’ when Iger comes back to focus Disney on other projects is anyone’s guess at this point. Whatever the result, I’ll believe it when I see it.
  4. Nice. HMR Orguss is promising, especially if we get more vehicles from the show this time out.
  5. HaHa! I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about Rings of Power. For all it's faults, I am enjoyed the romp through a young Middle Earth and I'm looking forward to the second season. As for She Hulk, I think the series accomplished what it wanted to do, which was to give us a fourth-wall breaking, awkwardly silly super-hero lawyer show. It wasn't quite Ally McBeal, but there were times when I was reminded of that old show when watching Tatiana do her thing. Anyway, She Hulk was ok IMO. But I also don't think that Marvel needs to make every character a movie-style blockbuster entry into their cinematic universe. If She Hulk is a one-time thing that works for me. If she ends up as a side character in a larger film, then that works too. If she gets her own film like her cousin the Hulk, well...bonus. As an aside. I've never been able to understand the backlash against Solo. I mean, it's obvious it was there looking at the box office numbers, but I gave it a chance and thought it was a fun story. Personally, I think it just suffered bad timing. There was a concerted, albeit very strange, effort to make a scene after Rian Johnson's entry to the third trilogy films--any Star Wars movie that Disney released after The Last Jedi was probably an automatic target. Anyway, it's another thing that I don't understand... With Willow, I am very much looking forward to visiting another cool fantasy world. I'm avoiding as much of the scuttlebutt as I can because I want to go into the series with only my knowledge of the movie.
  6. What's more is that the aim of the particular argument has changed to conflate Disney films with Disney streaming series. With movies, we can review box office numbers and have an analytical discussion about how many people watched the movie, how much it cost to bring the idea to the big screen, and the resulting profits. With streaming, we only get to see how popular a show is on the Disney+ streaming site. This leaves out a lot of that analytical data. For influencers, I'm sure this makes their jobs golden though, because in the absence of data and numbers one can stir up shenanigans to create entertainment. Willow will be an interesting test. To date, the Star Wars and Marvel streaming series have brought in the most viewers on Disney+. If this new Willow series can match their blockbuster properties, then I can see Disney opting to add more fantasy to its line-up...and that isn't a bad thing IMO. It's good to have variety.
  7. Seeing Jodie Whittaker take her final bow as the Doctor did tug at my heart strings. I've enjoyed her style. This was a fun regeneration episode and it felt like the series ended on a high note. All the surprises they managed to fit in---fantastic. Having to wait another year for the 60th anniversary specials...oof! Edit: It looks like BBC America lost the streaming rights to nuWho. The show’s new international streaming home is Disney+. https://www.indiewire.com/2022/10/doctor-who-disney-plus-1234775786/amp/
  8. So the previous episode had me thinking that the pacing and the timeline were starting to feel muddled. This week was completely different. What an enjoyable episode that was. Even with Amazon's creative liberties, I'm looking forward to where the show takes us next season.
  9. Yeah. I heard that, but I guess it remains to be seen how nVidia will fill out the mid and low range. Curiously, benchmarks for the 4060 and 4060ti are starting to leak already and those leaked numbers are making me wonder all the more how a 4070 might fit in. Fair point. I watched a couple of the Asus Strix reviews yesterday. That is one monster card! I fear that I'm really not committed to the high end for this generation at all. I will be waiting for more information on the 4070 and 4060 parts. I'm also hoping we get to see 4000 series GPUs that can still fit in small form factor systems.
  10. 600w is still demanding and the price stinks, IMO. The 4090 is nVidia serving up a titan-class GPU without the Ti branding. Good on them for pushing the envelop on those high-end performance raster numbers, though. Making two 4080 skus instead of one 4080 and one 4070 is curious. I may wait for nVidia to announce the actual 4070 before taking a closer look at the rest of the line-up. I’m also keen on what RDNA 3 is all about and those GPUs release right around the corner in November.
  11. Ben Dixon, as interpreted by Trey Parker and Matt Stone?
  12. I caught this last episode early--on Friday last week--and I have a number of thoughts about it but I'm going to set most of them aside until after the season finale this week. ...okay, I will say this...
  13. Right. I was unsure of the order of events by the end of the episode. I thought Adar had the conversation when his army first arrived at the watchtower and he noticed the inscription on the wall. I then thought the scene where Arondir was trying to damage/destroy the sword in town came after that moment and so things got muddled. A mix-up on my part, most assuredly. Indeed. I’m okay with it being there but I find it curious, if it is that volcano, why the creative team decided to use it as an offensive strike this early. I’m not against the creative license, but I like seeing how this show gives context for its non-canon events, especially if that context can pull me deeper into the show’s current events.
  14. Here are the facts that Amazon left intact concerning mithril: * There is a large source of it in the Dwarven mines of Khazad-Dum. * The Elves value it as a precious metal and they end up trading with the Dwarves and using the metal to accessorize. In the books, Mithril does not contain the essence of the two trees or any other Silmaril-like power. It is simply another fancy metal like gold and silver, but much rarer than these and with its own Tolkien-esque qualities to make it sought after. The Elves use it most often for clothing, utensils, and jewelry. For instance, the Mithril chain that Bilbo finds and gives to Frodo is thought to have been a shirt originally worn by an Elven prince. It had no special magical power but the shirt protected the wearer from all slashing, slicing, and piercing damage. In that respect then, it eventually became a highly valued shirt of armour. You also ask a good question about Celeborn. He and Galadriel do end up leading the Elves in Lothlorien, and he shoukdn’t be an unknown Elf during this period, so I am hoping that Amazon is saving their own creative take on how things happen for later. I’m curious to see how they get all the canon and non-canon plots to synchronize and work together.
  15. Okay. Tricksy it is, then. This explains the creative license given to things in the Elvish history that have been referenced so far in the show. That bit about the one Silmaril being a stand out --Huh?-- moment for me. But now I get it.
  16. I would say it's simply a fixed point placing where this part of his story fits within the larger SW universe. I don't know that it needs to be any more relevant than that. The date itself doesn't need to be a double entendre. But maybe I misunderstood. Given the fiction we know about, I don't see the time reference taking away from Rogue One events or the sacrifice he made with Jyn Erso and their team on Scarif. That's fair. I do agree that Disney has been inconsistent with how they have been using all the SW extended universe information. At first, all of it was off the table. Then, they were picking and choosing among the choice bits. Now, it seems they've employed a random number generator to pick which EU plots to reuse. It can get exhausting. All I'm going to say is that I'm glad I don't write SW fiction. I wouldn't want to walk that minefield. I agree. As for Cassian's personal relevancy, I think this show may be trying to fill that in. I'm waiting on some depth--maybe in the present day plot or maybe in the flashback scenes. Unfortunately, the all too important context connections have yet to be realised. With the first three episodes, I can infer two things, 1) he appears to have traced his sister even after being taken from Kenari and 2) he maybe had a thing for the leader of his tribe--what happened to her? Did she actually die? Bonus thought: If his sister is bouncing around off of Kenari in the show's present day timeline, does that mean the rest of his Lord of the Flies tribe were rescued? Did all of them find their way off planet? Oh, and clearly finding his sister is important enough that he risks everything, including the well-being of his friends, to sell that imperial tech he stole to get off planet. There's still a ways to go, though, to see the Cassian Andor from Rogue One who was a respected rebel asset: assassin, spy, and saboteur.
  17. Ooo. I like your theory about Halbrand. I could see the creative team making that work. And the goof with Galadriel's armour was unfortunate. That's a good question. If the license restrictions are limited to words like Hobbits and such, I don't see that holding the series back too much. If it includes characters and places on Tolkien's map of Arda (his fantasy world), then that could get sticky. So far, the first age references have been solid, even though Amazon's creative team has added their own non-canon flourishes here and there. I'll put my detailed thoughts in a spoiler since it mixes content from the latest episode with some book-based knowledge.
  18. I agree with @Bolt on this one for a few of reasons. First, the Battle of Yavin is a known inflection point. Second, it has been used as the date system in canon Disney-created SW fiction for a number of years now. I think the first instance in canon fiction was 2016? Third, for more invested fans, the date system harkens back to a non-canon tabletop RPG from the 1990s. So fans who played that would be familiar with it too. All that said, the title card wasn’t a big deal for me. It took only a moment to figure out what BBY stood for when it was used in the first episode. I didn’t have to look it up. IMO, the Battle of Scariff (aka the Action/Raid on Scariff) is one of a number of missions that show the fledgling rebels gaining ground and increasing their morale. I guess I would ground it in the real world to the US War for Independence. In both cases, a number of missions led to the formation of a new government but both the real-world and fictional world events have their high and low points. For the high points, there are key moments where the revolutionaries turn the tide if you will. At Scariff, a high-speed team secures the Death Star plans and passes them on to the Princess. The destruction of the first Death Star wasn’t the end, of course, but it was the first major victory and a serious morale boost at that given moment. To me, I guess it makes sense that this moment is framed—like Washington crossing the Delaware. To ground it further in what we know from the original trilogy, itself, that dystopian landscape already exists. The Galactic Senate (by the time of the first movie, known as the Imperial Senate) had been dissolved by Palpatine. He was the authoritative ruler of the Empire and he was the one who let Grand Moff Tarkin build a planet killing weapon of this type. It wasn’t just a symbol. It was a tool. We got to see it used for crushing political opponents and dissidents. I’m sure if the Battle of Yavin had ended in failure, its use would have been expanded. Imagine the Emperor using it to blink out suspected Jedi sanctuary planets?
  19. I’m enjoying it too. There are some unanswered questions about Cassian’s past—thing’s that don’t quite add up given how much information we’ve been allowed to see in the flashbacks. Then there’s Cassian’s own willingness to go wherever the winds of fate take him. That appears to be a character quirk at the moment. But I’m not an impatient viewer. I can wait for the story to fill in those missing pieces and give us more perspective as the plot unravels.
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