Comments by "Ronin Dave" (@RoninDave) on "The Critical Drinker" channel.

  1. I have a feeling with how soap-opera like this show is with all the shipping that he'll turn out to be Celeborn with amnesia
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  2. the orcs kind of forgot they hate the sun
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  3. it makes the world seem very small in comparison to both LOTR film versions
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  4.  @SublimeSynth  the cultural war is an American fight that the Egyptians didn't asked to be a part of. Erasing them historically and calling them invaders in their own land is hardly progressive
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  5.  @Kallisto-XK  exactly. With Cleopatra's rivalry with her siblings if her mother was non-Greek Macedonian (and close kin) it most likely would have been used against her. As it is after 300 years of only marriage with Greek-Macedonian with an exception of some Persian which even that was mixed with Greek Macedonian and all the incest it would be strange if Cleopatra would be the odd one out of the bunch. But a lot of this is because Netflix and many historical dramas don't take chances so they just do documentaries on people the general public (mainly Americans) know about which isn't much
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  6. This fiasco just shows how myopic a good number of Americans are regardless of political beliefs and education level. I've seen educated liberals defend Cleopatra with the tired old argument that Egypt is in Africa therefore they're all black. That's like saying India is in Asia therefore a member of BTS could play Gandhi in documentary.
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  7. I see the original as more of an allegory of humanity and mortality. The replicants are the humans fighting for more life against their indifferent and cruel creator gods. In the end though Roy Batty shows mercy and a final acceptance of his death which he meets on his own terms. We don't need a sequel to this kind of story.
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  8.  @MiddleEarthGirl75  ah, trying to make sense of the writers' terrible writing? That's a recipe for a headache but yeah I can imagine that this could be what they trying to convey as Sauron's brilliant plan of manipulation ignoring how highly highly unlikely he would have bumped into her in the middle of the ocean in the first place. This is the Bad Robot way - force things to happen even if they make absolutely no sense and try to pretend it's somehow clever. There's a reason why these hacks had their scripts rejected over and over again methinks
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  9. gaslighting at its finest. No one said women were inferior in the originals and Leia was a tough character. In the sequels the hatred of male characters was palpable. Finn became a goofy sidekick. Poe became a hotheaded brash pilot who needed to be humbled by strong women. Kylo Ren became a whiny emo who got beat by Rey EVERY single time they fought. Han and Luke came off as pathetic has-beens - Han a pathetic runaway who doesn't understand his ship as well as Rey does and Luke a washed-up cowardly runaway who gets bested by an untrained scavenger. In comparison Leia was allowed to be a wise military leader who Mary Poppins herself out of death in the vacuum of space.
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  10. people harp on about the CGI of the prequel but the real problem is the lack of atmosphere that the 1982 one had. It doesn't have the sense of isolation and claustrophobia coupled with paranoia. The Thing in the prequel is constantly popping out and running around going against a golden rule in story-telling especially with horror that less is more.
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  11. meanwhile Finn barely acts like he was raised from childhood to be a fighter and a follower of orders
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  12. yeah but no
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  13. There's nothing to the overall story to look forward. Empire Strikes Back had a lot of momentum to get people back into the theater to see how they would rescue Han and how Luke would deal with the revelation of (spoiler!) Vader being his father. As much as I don't like the Prequels from a story-telling perspective there was momentum leading to the next movie - Anakin's continuing struggle with his dark side, the beginning of the Clone Wars, and the Palpatine's plans coming to fruition. What is there in the new series to take the story into the next film? Snoke is dead, the new Empire is run by a whining indecisive emo vader and a shouty slapstick too-young-for-his-position general, most of the original characters are dead in film or real life, the new characters barely know each so there's not much chemistry unlike the characters in the originals and prequels, there's nothing there for Rey to do or to develop as a character, Finn has no arc to fulfill since they robbed him of that at the beginning (ie a fish out of water who grew up brainwashed by a military order and now is confronting them), Poe has no arc to fulfill since he was supposed to die in the first film originally, he only made Rey at the end of the last film, and with Leia gone he has no one to play of off with brash pilot vs wise authority figure, and the Resistance has been reduced to about a dozen people. I just have no interest in where they are going to take this story, the last story of this trilogy, a trilogy with little story or character development.
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  14. Avatar seems to have dropped off the pop culture map. Hardly anyone talks about it except to reference it box office records. Despite these records, it's a rather forgettable flick IMHO that few care to rewatch. It's unlikely it will be revived as a cult classic or an overlooked gem. It'll be one of those things that were extremely popular in their day but nearly forgotten in later times (like now).
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  15. With the failure of so many linear story series promising answers to gimmicky mysteries I'd kind of like going back to old episodic TV shows where everything is pretty much wrapped up by the end of the episode unless it's a special 2-parter. So many of these shows are good at grabbing people's attention and creating a cottage industry of websites and youtube videos dedicated to dissecting the story and characters and musing about the answers to the mysteries (which in turn can lead the writers to make shitty decisions to try and fool audience expectations). Eventually it all dissolves into a soap opera where things happen more for emotional catharsis and "shocking" twisty twists rather than narrative sense. These shows (GOT, LOST, Westworld, Walking Dead, Sherlock, new Battlestar Galactica to name a few) start off with random unassuming characters who eventually become the most important beings in their universe where every event and other character revolves around them (and the fan's ego who identifies with those characters). And as the story goes along it begins to unravel as you realize the writers' really had no answers to the original mysteries or changed them because some autistic nitpicker on youtube figured it out. To cover up the main narrative's deterioration you get a lot of soap opera vignettes focused on characters who are fan favorites from badass fight/kill scenes to "shocking" romantic trysts none of which advances the story that is floundering anyway. And then add a thick gooey layer of pseudo-intellectual hamfisted socio-political analogies, allusions, and commentary to give the show and the dull-witted fans an essence of cleverness which will be helped by overthinking (yet amazingly shallow) media critics and vloggers. Viola! TV writing in the 21st Century! And who's going to rewatch these shows down the road? Or get into them for the first time if they already know it fizzles out? I don't see many fans of GOT going back to rewatch the series knowing how it ends nor people who never watched as they know going in the show devolves into a mess. Conversely, old episodic shows are easily re-watchable as you can jump in practically anywhere and enjoy a compact story without all the bullshit pretense of cleverness.
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  16.  @zachrohler1047  if the velociraptor was kind enough to stand still for you
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  17.  @zachrohler1047  not the point - the point is just being able to shoot a gun doesn't mean being able to hit something especially something moving
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  18. If you are going have a story with these mysteries for fuck sake have a plan to answer them sensibly before you start. Imagine if Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes like these shows today like Westworld, LOST, Battlestar Galactica, and GOT? You'd have all these impossible mysteries at the beginning with most of it never solved or addressed as the story throws out even more mysteries. The focus of characters would be on Holmes and Watson's unrequited love for each other with violins weeping in the background until the culprit reveals their improbable convoluted plan that has been in motion since Holmes' conception or the beginning of the world (whichever) then they get shot by Mrs. Hudson who is secretly Queen Victoria and a member of all female league of top assassins. In other words, it'd be crap.
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  19. I think because Into Darkness was so much more offensive on so many levels in being a terrible reboot of arguably the best Star Trek film (Wrath of Khan) that people were more "meh." about this film hence the little criticism it received. The plot is extremely stupid but overall the film is just so forgettable unlike other bad films you can jump into and have a field day dissecting. The Kelvin Timeline just needs to fade away and never brought up again. Chalk it up as another Abrams failed attempt to cash in on nostalgia but without understanding the heart of the source material.
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  20. If Slow Motion made a movie, it'd be Black Adam. Holy Sheeeet if you cut out the slow-mo it'd be barely one hour. The rest of the story is completely nonsensical. Amanda Waller is somehow the Nick Fury of the DCU telling the Justice Society to go after Black Adam just hours after he was freed because...reasons. Meanwhile, a corporation has occupied a country for 27 years without UN saying anything apparently and for some reason they have orders to detain an academic whom the leader of that corporation happens to be with for some reason so there was no reason for those detainment orders. She finds the sought-after crown that was just floating on the air for 5000 years and thank goodness Black Adam was buried/imprisoned there with the words needed to free him on his tomb so when the bad company mercs show up with a small army she can release him. How or why was he imprisoned? Don't know! How did Amanda Waller know so much how about him within hours of him being released? Don't know! How does he start speaking English in a Middle Eastern country within hours of being released to the point of mastering sarcasm and quips? Don't know! And why was there western showdown between Adam and half a dozen mercs complete with the soundtrack from the Good, Bad, and the Ugly when we had already seen him take out half an army 10 minutes earlier including attack helicopters and tanks? Was there supposed to be tension in that scene? Was it filmed before the other wipe-out-hundreds-without-breaking-a-sweat scene? Is Hawkman just Batman with wings? Nothing in this film makes any sense and people praising it or not calling it out for being a illogical narrative mess have let themselves become too blinded by the culture wars.
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  21. I enjoy Ragnarok. Easily the best in the series. Love and Thunder was fun in the theater but I found myself laughing less and less as the movie went on and by the time the film ended I had forgotten most of it. It was just a pale cheap imitation of Ragnarok like a lot of the recent offerings from Marvel. They used to be good at pumping at a decent product for their genre but now they're giving us the feeling of a copy of a copy of copy with such low effort.
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  22. Meh, it wasn't as bad as Batman v Superman. It's more a lazy Sunday afternoon flick like Lynch's Dune where you munch popcorn and half pay attention to the story. They'd have done far better doing a 6-10 episode series to flesh out the characters and narrative. Eternals were always low tier heroes who barely interacted with the Marvel universe so giving them a movie instead of a show was bad idea. Granted, Guardians was similar but with fewer characters and a less convoluted cosmic plot, it worked (plus it was better directed).
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  23.  pyropulse  people liked it because it wasn't outwardly boring like the first of the prequels but like many of Abrams nostalgic set pieces people like them at first then it soon fades away because they are hollow imitations of the original source material.
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  24. What made Bladerunner work in my opinion was that like good Sci-Fi it was more about themes of humanity rather than the gadgets or its inner world building. Bladerunner dealt with the question of what it means to be human and the question of Decker being a replicant or not is part of this theme. I like the idea of the human acting more robotic than the inhuman replicants he is hunting. The other main theme was dealing with mortality. Roy and his group wanted a longer life span which is a very human trait. You end up sympathizing with the antagonists to the point where Roy Batty really becomes the protagonist at the end. Blade 2049 seems to suffer from a lack of a point in this regard. Its story is too internally focused in its world which is fine for fans but leaves everyone else excluded. A hybrid child (now adult) might cause a war between humans and replicants? Uh, ok...? It's visually stunning but comes off as a hollow imitation of the original because it has nothing really to say in the end.
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  25. Another "thing" about The Thing is how it's still discussed to this day on who was the Thing and when and of course the ending that trails off without a definite conclusion. People like talking about the various aspects of the film from the music, to the special effects, to the direction, to the characters, to the eery claustrophobic atmosphere. You don't have film buffs and fans discussing the prequel unless it's to trash it. Those who do like the prequel tend to be shallow in their appreciation of good horror (and film in general) IMHO so there's not a lot of debate coming from that lot.
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  26. Say what you will but I believe Rey of the Star Wars sequels is one of the greatest modern film villains of recent times. Like the villains of yore, she's proficient in everything she touches be it starships, blasters, lightsabers, or the Force and she doesn't have any obstacles in these things to overcome like a hero would. She lures Han Solo out of hiding so he can be set up to be killed by his own son then later she also lures Luke Skywalker (whom she bested in a fight) out of hiding to end up dying expending his energies in fighting his own nephew. In another fight with Kylo Ren, she indirectly causes Leia to die expending her energies to distract her son and later that son sacrifices himself to bring Rey back to life thus ending the lives and lineage of the three principle characters of the original trilogy. I'm surprised she didn't off Chewie while she was at it (maybe she did before the ending scene). Then to top it all off, at the very end Rey assumes the name of her (obvious) enemies who she had manipulated throughout the series and buries their lightsabers ensuring no other Jedi would use them to avenge the Skywalkers. Now Rey is free under the guise of the successor of the Skywalkers to continue Palpatine's plans and subvert the Republic and the Jedi from within - muhahahahaha!!!!
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  27. They made the story 20 years later so they could have a 20-something Lorna Whatever instead of a mid-30 year old which is how old the original baby (actresses) would be now? Wow, they just made the original actors looked like they had really hard lives or that people age really quickly in that world. Does the show not think a mid-30 female character can't be a protagonist? Of course the way the show is they'd probably present a Willow-equivalent of She-Hulk.
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  28.  Critdrink  woot! Hope it's a bottle of whiskey! Get thee gone, bot!
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  29. It shows that creativity can't just be manufactured by ticking boxes on hires. Talent first is alien to them.
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  30. Moore, Brosnan, and Connery were the best Bonds. Without Connery there'd be no Bond - nuff said. Moore kept the series going and had a few stellar films like Live and Let Die and For Your Eyes Only. With Brosnan I don't like the films as much with the exception of Golden Eye but I think he absolutely nailed the part and he had a really good supporting cast. An unofficial Bond film that I consider Brosnan's last film instead of Die Another Day is Everything or Nothing. Brosnan's time also brought us the best Bond game ever - Golden Eye.
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  31.  @plbenton  huh? My point is there didn't need to be a sequel
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  32.  @BenignViewer  you're missing the point entirely
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  33. If ROP was an original show, it'd be largely ignored as just a bad show like the forgotten Rebel Moon. It's because the show is tied to both a classic book and film series and does an injustice to both that there is so much criticism leveled at it. It doesn't help they are so arrogant they think they can "fix" Tolkien.
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  34. Shills will say you're overthinking a story about space wizards and lazer swords but it's about basic writing and staying consistent to established rules in your fictional world. When the rules go out the window so goes out in investment (attention and financial).
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  35. Whew! Re-watching this after the farce of Rise of Skywalker shows how bad it could go. Rey becomes the best pilot/fighter of the Resistance, can heal people of fatal wounds, beats Kylo yet again, beats Palpatine, then takes the Skywalker name at the end. She was a one-woman wrecking ball of the original series - outdoing Han on the Falcon, beating Luke, beating Kylo a student of Luke and the son of Han and Leia, fake killing Chewie with her awesome lightning power while beating Kylo yet again, and killing the source of all evil from the originals who was also her grandpappy while impressing everyone she meets (something Luke had to earn). This is exactly what a Mary Sue is and does - gets implanted in a story with established characters and either impresses or bests them at everything. In this case she supplants them all and steals even their namesake. FFS!
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  36. It's simple - it's gloss vs substance. Wrath of Khan deals with age and revenge. You don't have to have seen the original appearance of Khan to understand his character - he was an old foe of Kirk's from the past blaming him for his miserable condition. Kirk is dealing with his age and boring new position then he has to face a mistake from his past when he forgot about Khan and his people. A mistake that leads to the death of an old friend. What does Into Darkness deal with? Kirk facing off against a thawed out Hitler he doesn't know to fight another bad guy who Frosty Hitler kills then Popsicle Hitler becomes the main bad guy with his brilliant plan to shoot missiles at the Enterprise. What could have been an interesting movie in itself - the direction and destiny of Star Fleet: do they pursue science or war? - becomes sidelined by a hacky reboot of Wrath of Khan without any of the elements that made the original so compelling.
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  37. Canon and character are agreements between writers and audiences. We expect some tweaks and changes here and there to better tell a story and flesh out a character but when established canon/backstory is thrown out or a character is made to be completely out-of-character it begs the question "why bother with this story if nothing is consistent and past watching/reading is made completely pointless?"
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  38. All of these blunders show what happens when you stretch out a story that was never meant to be stretched out. The old trilogy told the story and that was that. Instead milking this dead horse of a cash cow has produced a lot of dreck and one of the worst fan bases in geekdom.
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  39. But the dirty little secret that these film-makers refuse to acknowledge - women don't like this crap. This is why these projects fail. If their intended audience is women then they should have no problem making a profit. For example the Sex and the City film was the most profitable rom-com the year it came out. And don't get me started on the Twilight series and 50 Shades of Grey. Instead of blaming men, they should be wondering why women don't like their female-led action projects but that would be too difficult so blame men and file a loss with the IRS (which is probably the real driving force behind this).
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  40. 2 years later and I'm watching scenes from Thor IV and not recognizing a lot of the scenes as it was just that forgettable whereas I can easily remember the scenes from Ragnarok.
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  41.  @BZerp  it is that bad even without the horrendous mangling of Tolkien - unlikeable characters, nonsensical storylines, terrible dialogue
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  42. changing the life span of the replicants kind of tosses the whole point of the original film in the dumpster. If anything the shorter life span and the conversation with their creator in the first film can be seen as a metaphor of humans begging for immortality from God something that goes all the way back to Gilgamesh. In this film what does re-engineering replicant life spans accomplish except to make it nearly another story entirely?
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  43. In order to properly fix GOT, you'd have to start from Season 5 with a clear cut end in mind for the overall story and the characters and work towards that goal likely taking an extra season or two like HBO wanted. But if you can only start with Season 8, the way I was hoping the Battle of Winterfell would end is that the Nightking doesn't appear. They defeat his second in command with several character losses but the question raised by Jon at the end is where is the Nightking? Cut to the Nightking further south and before him is the Golden Company sent by Cersei to wipe out Danni's remaining forces if they are victorious. Episode 3 ends with Golden Company surprised by their arrival and the last scene is on the Nightking's face with a faint look of smugness having outsmarted his enemies. Next episode Cersei sees the Golden Company returning to King's Landing but it doesn't take long to realize something is wrong. The men are all wights riding on skeletal horses and even skeletal elephants. When the people realize this suddenly the sky turns black and cold. The army of the dead has cut a fast and narrow way to king's landing obliterating everything in their path and driving others to the sides with no way of communicating - a scene can show undead birds killing messenger ravens. Now King's Landing is under siege. With this we can see the strategic sense of the Nightking - take out the central authority then the rest of the 7 Kingdoms will be easy to overwhelm. Also this would punish Cersei for playing the Game of Thrones instead of focusing on the existential threat. Euron then proves how much of a coward he is pulling up anchor and abandoning Cersei to her fate and once again humbling her in her poor choice of allies. Danni and Jon race south on their dragons while the rest of their army sails south. They meet Euron where he is humiliated for fleeing. He is executed and Greyjoys take the Iron Fleet with them to Kings Landing. There they help evacuate much of the people to their ships as the White Walkers overwhelm the defenses. When the undead reach Cersei's last refuge she then unleashes the wildfire killing herself and much of the undead army. Jon and Bran are left to confront the Nightking in the end to stop him from raising the dead who weren't burned up in the wildfire. Bran goes into the past to find a weakness of the Nightking then he wargs into Drogo to fight the ice dragon while Jon finishes off the Nightking. in the aftermath where several characters have been killed along the way - Jorah, Theon, Beric, grey worm. Jon and Danni are chosen as co-rulers and although Danni is fine with a marriage Jon is not which could lead to trouble down the road. Sansa becomes Warden of the North, Tormund is made king of the Wildlings with his people to live above or below the Wall, Sam becomes a Grand Maester and one of the small council and he's the one who records the history that we've been watching. Bran leaves to go North to become a guardian in case the white walkers should ever rise again. He promises to return in case of trouble. Jaime survives but quits the service and he decides to do the Arya thing and find some kind of peace in distant unknown lands. He gives Brienne his blessing to become the head of the Kingsguard. Tirion who actually gives good advice this time around is both lord of the Lannisters and King's Hand. The show can end with him and Varys mirroring Littlefinger and Varys from earlier seasons watching the coronation of Danni and Jon in the background speculating on the future and what troubles might arise. Not saying it would be great but a damn sight better IMHO than the crap we got. You could also throw in something about the Mountain being turned into a slave of the White Walkers and killing his creator then in the aftermath put out of his misery by the Hound who realizes the brother he has long hated is truly gone. He gives up his vengeance which makes Arya do so as well. At the end they become healers and protectors of the sick and poor forsaking their former violent paths. anyway, just an idea.
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  44. After all the mystery box shit and pretentious TV shows pretending to be clever, I like the simplicity of The Mandalorian. Is it deep and complex challenging social norms? No but who cares? It's a bounty hunter in a western in space. I just hope they don't make the same mistake so many shows have done by making their characters the most important thing in the universe with a lot of twisty twists and ongoing mysteries that will eventually go nowhere. Worse if they try to tie into the Sequels explaining Snokes and Palpatine's return in order to try and explain shitty writing. Keep it simple and entertaining. He's a bounty hunter not a messiah.
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  45.  @chrissonofpear1384  that's not saying much. It was still a stupid film with contrivances galore
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  46. Jaws is very good competent movie until they go on the boat. It follows the principle of less is more though much of that was a happy accident forcing the Spielberg to show less and allow audience's imagination to scare themselves (sadly missing in these CGI times - both the principle and many people's imagination). When the film comes to the boat and condenses down to three characters, it becomes a great film. Those three actors and their respective characters how they interact with one another while being stalked by a relentless unforgiving foe is great storytelling. You could just start the movie from when they enter the boat and feel like you got the whole the movie.
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  47. and it's a shame because as good as seasons 1-4 are knowing how all the promise of a compelling conclusion went out the window and ended dismally. There's something to be said for the more simpler episodic series where a few bad episodes don't ruin the entire series
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  48. That makes it even more stupid. Why destroy the entire human race because of the death of someone in a backwater area of the Roman Empire? What did the Chinese, Indians, British, Japanese, Meso-Americans, Africans, native Australians, etc... have anything to do with Jesus's death? Plus the guy was asleep 2000 years and doesn't check if the mission was still on or that his planet was even still around?
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  49.  @dudewheresmycar6318  oh shut you! Wishing an asteroid is not actually wanting anyone dead. Take your autism meds
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  50.  @tojogornottojog1100  uhm... what? What are you disagreeing about?
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