Orville Redenbacher's page

Good grief, I thought the story was over.

Yeap, that James Bond like season 3 was rough.

Considering the recent revelations about Murn the question becomes Why? why is he so gungho to kill all the Butterflies and how dose it connect to what Judo master was going to say?

and I gotta say I am enjoying the Peacemaker vs. Judomaster thing. Hope we get more of it
Heck if they want to throw in more Charlton Heroes that would be cool too.

I think I preferred the delusional Peacemaker. The fact he is so efficient makes him scary. This ignorant anti-hero who needs redemption bit is tired. Like many of the jokes so far in PM.

Thoughts on episode 4…..

** spoiler omitted **

Vigilante is shaping up to be the best part of PM. Though, I gotta say it makes me feel all kinds of bad to want to see Robert Patrick running around as the White Dragon. Also, Danielle Brooks is at least not as wooden as the other actors on the show. I do like her character as Wallers daughter.

Orville Redenbacher wrote:

So the showrunners had already written and built the set for Laconia when Amazon dropped the final season bomb on them. Was just too late to drop it. I suppose it gives the hope of saving the Expanse (again) but im not sure if any body would.

Negatory. When Amazon rescued the show, the writers agreed to plan for three seasons and assume that was it. Apparently it was agreed that it would be unlikely for the show to go nine seasons.

I'll have to dig it up, but that does not seem to be the case.

Orville Redenbacher wrote:

Set wrote:

So this, sorta ended. I feel like it needed at least another six episodes, if not an entire 'nother season to properly wrap up the developing storylines involving Laconia, but instead the Laconia elements, IMO, just ended up stealing time away from the Belter Nation/Inaros storyline (which, since the Laconia storyline wasn't really able to be developed in the time they had left, perhaps could have been abandoned entirely and pivoted to some Belter use of the stolen protomolecule?) Eh. Felt like a missed opportunity to me.

But that last episode had a fun bit, with a list of names of members of a strike team that included W. Riker, G. Akbar, E. Ripley, J. Rico, J. O'Neil, K. Thrace, R. Dekard, etc. Cute shout out for sci-fi geeks.

So the showrunners had already written and built the set for Laconia when Amazon dropped the final season bomb on them. Was just too late to drop it. I suppose it gives the hope of saving the Expanse (again) but im not sure if any body would.

Considering there's a 30 year time jump and the popularity for bringing back shows after a while, they might have a chance to do books 7-9 in 10-20 years, who knows?

Yeah, I certainly thought about that. There were some Easter eggs dropped in the final season that makes me think the authors were rethinking the 30 year time jump. I believe they were going to do a 5 year jump so they could continue with the actors as is. Guess we shall see.

So this, sorta ended. I feel like it needed at least another six episodes, if not an entire 'nother season to properly wrap up the developing storylines involving Laconia, but instead the Laconia elements, IMO, just ended up stealing time away from the Belter Nation/Inaros storyline (which, since the Laconia storyline wasn't really able to be developed in the time they had left, perhaps could have been abandoned entirely and pivoted to some Belter use of the stolen protomolecule?) Eh. Felt like a missed opportunity to me.

But that last episode had a fun bit, with a list of names of members of a strike team that included W. Riker, G. Akbar, E. Ripley, J. Rico, J. O'Neil, K. Thrace, R. Dekard, etc. Cute shout out for sci-fi geeks.

So the showrunners had already written and built the set for Laconia when Amazon dropped the final season bomb on them. Was just too late to drop it. I suppose it gives the hope of saving the Expanse (again) but im not sure if any body would.

I did think season 4 righted the ship. I totally enjoyed it. Welcome back Cobra Kai.

meh, will wait for stream.

:(

It's 90's TV King, so its going to have that made for TV feel. If that seems to tickle the right sentiment for you, give it a shot. Otherwise, I'm guessing it will seem very dated and dull by todays standards.

I think so far the big mistake is not developing the main characters. Suian sanche has more characterization at this point than all three male leads.

It was really odd that the middle wheel spinning episodes focused so little on the main characters, not even the villains, but the support characters got all the focus. Not saying these characters are not good, but so little is spent on the dragon reborn potentials.

I kind of hinted at this earlier, my opinion of course, but there seems to be an Amazon formula for their series. They all tend to feel the same. 3 excellent episode dump that sets up the season perfectly to start, then followed by tons of wheel spinning filler, and finally an overstuffed season finale that moves at break neck speed.

I know Amazon is content on doing a weekly release, but the content so far doesnt work well for it. Amazon is getting better all the time, but they are not WB/HBO level yet. I wish they would rethink their series formula and try something different.

I really enjoyed the final episode. The middle of this season was really boring. I like the set up for more stories to come, though hope some of the villainous folks get more screen time.

I liked the first half much better than the second. Many of the scenes felt strange and I'm guessing it was Covid protocol in the shooting that made that happen. Pretty hard to up the stakes with bot swarms and crowds when shooting those is not easy or possible to even do.

So, im noticing a trend with Amazon series and content. The template seems to be an 8 episode season with a 3 episode premier followed by weekly releases. Those 3 episode dumps are usually great setups with some of the season's best content. Then, the weekly episode drops tend to waver in quality as they spin the wheels on a series of "will they or wont they" questions for the audience that is then wrapped up neatly at the season ending episode. I've seen this with The Boys, The Expanse, and now Wheel of Time.

I'm in that wheel spinning phase with WoT and im just waiting for the interesting bits. Thom the bard, the white cloak inquisitor Valda, and that sketchy merchant Padin. Is it bad I care more about these characters then the main cast, or is it just hunger for something to actually happen?

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...canceled :(

I don't want to be overly negative so I'll be brief, I do not like the show and couldn't bear to continue watching it after the first episode. As far as LA anime/cartoon adaptations go I suppose it was a bit better than average, but then again, that's not exactly a very high threshold.

If I didn't know anything about Cowboy Bebob in the first place I probably would have enjoyed it at least somewhat, but as it stands I cannot recommend this show to anyone given how much of a step down from greatness this is.

Just my 2 copper pieces.

Sounds like you are already out but it does get better in the middle, of course, before getting bad again.

Looks like a live action version of the James Bond Jr cartoon. Which, again, has me thinking about the James Bond Jr paradox...

Vicious was a poor letdown from the anime, though in fairness anime is able to better handle the "badass bad guy who you get is badass despite having sweet FA characterisation" trope then you could ever get away with in live action.

Julia I thought was a massive across-the-board improvement. She was just a cypher in the anime, but now she is a character with a real arc (if a pretty traditional noir-based one) whose story makes sense.

** spoiler omitted **

It may have been tough to get Vicious right, but im not convinced it would be impossible live action. Vicious is ruthless and cunning and only rarely (usually by Spike) caught off guard. Instead we got the old cliché mob boss son who is a coward idiot that fails forward and eventually murders their father to take over. Yawn.

Julia has very little screen time in the anime, but a huge presence. Thats something I wish western media would get better at. Instead everybody has to be explained away, everyone has to have an arc. Its become cliché itself for the good guys to become bad guys and bad guys to become good guys. I'll want to puke when Vicious gets loose and joins up with Spike in season 2 for his redemption story.

Reviews I've watched have made the same points. Common theme is that it's great when it's doing Bebop-inspired storytelling, not great when it's retelling Bebop stories, and bad when Vicious and Julia are involved.

Yeap, this is it right here in one neat description.

Finished it last night. Not a fan of what they did with Vicious and Julia now too. Had zero problems with Radical Ed, actually liked the intro.

I do like the Tinkers, but the redrover defense was a bit eyerolling.

It has been a while since I watched the animated series but were the bounties in the first episode always supposed to be Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek from Desperado?

I recall it having that feel, yeah. I mean, not so much the Desperado bit, but the Banderas and Hayek if you mean latinx.

I dug Orphan Black for a season or two, it really trails off tho big time. Maria Doyle Kennedy is good as the nomad philosopher in WoT.

Just picked up P+ on Amazon black Friday 2 months for 2 bucks. Started with Piard and loved it.

Second half is way better so far. Feels like the actors have settled into the characters. Writing is also improving. Pierre Pierrot was great! Still hate vicious.

Non-reader, watched the first 4 episodes over the last 2 days. So, are we supposed to care about the characters? Because I found no reason to care about the 4 suspected dragons throughout 4 episodes. The magic lady and her warder? There's a little to work with there, but mostly because of him. Too many sweeping wide shots of landscapes. Each one takes me out of what little engagement I have with each episode. I don't get it.

Yeah, I dont have too much interest in the characters either. So far, the only thing keeping me interested is learning about the world, the mystery, and this journey to the tower. Im hopping not, but expecting, my interest to plummet once they reach the tower and info dump us on all this dragon reborn stuff. Kind of like LotR once fellowship ends.

I actually liked the subversion of the super villain trope with BoE. There is all kinds of stories in the past, but now they are just tired old folks. More importantly, some of them want to change and seek redemption which is the theme of the season.

Thats the thing that keeps me coming back to Doom Patrol its never your typical journey. Oh, and its weird as hell.

Man the 90's. I'm wondering if you can find Maniac Mansion to stream anywhere lol.

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Yeah in the books Perrin doesn't get married until about book 9. I don't blame Joel for being bored since after rereading the first 5-9 chapters, they made some SERIOUS changes that I don't think served them well. (That and the fact they really have mishandled Men channelling)

Mostly I'm fine with keeping going because I know the story beats better than I know my own hand, but I admit there are some very odd choices.

I do think they should have done the opening chapter as a kind of prologue to give people better scale of what happened with the Breaking, The Dragon and everything else.

I am a little surprised though that Joel didn't mention Thom since he's kind of important too.

As someone who hasn't read the books, I don't care if his wife was new or not. Just that it was weird they never spoke to each other since they were married. Whether or not the marriage was happy or not, they could have said something.

And I actually wish they had less prologue. All the prologue stuff at the beginning of the first 2 episodes were so out of place and meaningless they could have just been skipped. Use the characters from Two Rivers as sheltered and not as worldly, so they can have this stuff explained to them as it comes up. Essentially, use them like companions to Doctor Who so that the Doctor has someone to explain things to, when it's relevant.

Yeah the info dump was general and not specific. I would have preferred if they told us some of the factions so we have some idea whats going on. All we know is that there are women wizards and apparently folks who kill them on sight. Been nice to know some of that before hand. Also, yes its fine having two rivers folks be rural and not know the world and use them to expand it for us audience.

That's odd. They cast Alexandre Willaume (previously seen in THE LAST KINGDOM) partially because he's a good actor, but also because he's a professional singer and guitarist as well. I thought his singing was fine for the grizzled audience he was playing to. The song about Manetheren, sung off-the-cuff by a bunch of country folk, also seemed fine for what it was.

I'm an amateur singer and musician, and I thought Willaume was fantastic. /shrug

Just finished the show and it's very solid. Probably the best anime-to-live-action adaptation so far (not that's saying much) and it improved on the anime in some respects (TV Julia is far more compelling a character, Jet is also a much stronger figure) but was worse in others, particularly the mis-casting of Vicious and the less nuanced, more obvious characterisation of Faye Valentine (no dis on Daniella Pineda, who is outstanding, just the writers went for an easier interpretation of the character than the original).

I think a second season could be very interesting, though only if they turn down Ed from their appearance at the end of the finale. Yeesh.

Im only half way so im looking forward to more Julia. Though, so far im disappointed in the damsel in distress role they have written. She seemed more cut throat and capable in the anime. Though, vicious seems completely off in the live action and has a lot to do with making Julia seem weak. Viscous is easily the worst part of this. I cant stand any scene with Hassel.

So does anyone think that we'll get more dialogue for Dave Baustisa in the next movie?

Most definitely. I cant wait to watch him fail at running Arrakis.

I haven't seen the HBO series, but I have read the book by Matt Ruff and thought it was brilliant. My favorite chapter was the one that involved taming the haunted house.

I think that my favorite thing about the book was how the most terrifying thing that the black characters in the book were facing was racism, so when the eldritch horrors show up, the characters face those with aplomb. "I've faced scarier things than you today!"

Unfortunately, they changed up the haunted house quite a bit. Also, the ending is very different. Outside of those elements, I think they did a very good job adapting the book to a series.

Another thing I noticed.

With the show being "diverse" and having EVERY scene with alot of people from different real world cultures, all the cultures in the world of the show look the same so you can't tell that they are talking to different cultures and meeting different types of people.

Perrin and Equine met The Tuatha'an. there is white, black, asian, ect people among them. Mat and Rand end up in another backwater town with white, black, asian, ect people in the town.

If EVERYONE and EVERYPLACE the characters
go to looks the same, there is zero diversity because every culture they are trying to honor looses their individuality.

I am actually fine with this. There are no Asian, Black, etc... people in WoT that I am aware of. No need to call any of that out or honor anybody. It is really nice to just see a variety of people, just being people. I do think they could have made folks clothing and accents a bit different (they even call such out in the dialogue).

For your bad choice, not sure that having a more 'mature speaking' Faye is a bad thing...

Daniela felt the least like their character to me (The look is right, the writing just seems off). Though, all of them could use some work, IMO.

I am actually ok with no second season. I think we could do with more limited series. You get too many seasons going and it really shows in the quality.

So, rocked the pilot and...

Yeah I got this back when it aired. I really enjoyed it. I felt the final was not as good as it could have been. Some good television for sure though.

The places they shot this are gorgeous. Feels like an amped up LotR and enjoyable so far. I dont get the GoT comparisons though.

So any word on when reviews will start coming out since it starts Friday?

Here is one.

Consensus opinion is now that, along with Dune - part 2, this will be the definitive adaptation of Herbert's book to the big screen.

Cant wait for 15 years from now when they make it into a series again.

Back for more, huh?

In my post, did I say the movie needed numerous lengthy scenes to do it? Or did I suggest a couple of lines of dialogue in already existing scenes, which would probably add at most 30-90 seconds of runtime?

An efficient script writer and director could have done it extremely easily with negligible effect on the run time (or just cut some fat somewhere else).

I personally feel the movie suffers by being ALL about Paul. It becomes a very standard Chosen One narrative when that happens, and retaining details helps smooth that out and make the story feel larger. Making it ALL about Paul makes the story feel smaller to me, and not in a good way.

But these are nitpicks, I still enjoyed the movie overall.

It sounds like Dr. Yuel had a scene or two cut. One with Jessica discussing his wife. Not sure how long they were but I agree with you that just a little more exposure would have made better sense. I also agree that its an enjoyable movie and this is just nitpicking.

Yeah YouTube Entertainment Vloggers commenting about film and television are always spot on. I personally loved the Steve Rogers and Fantastic Four cameos they confirmed for us in Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision. Who can forget the platforms epically accurate reporting about the release date and content of the Spiderman: No Way Home Trailer.

Have you seen the footage to be able to confirm everything that was cut? Have you read a shooting script?

So it’s still a rumor until Warner Bros, DV or access to the material itself confirms it.

lol. It's true usually I'd take this with a grain of salt, but there was an image that clearly looked like the dinner/banquet scene. Maybe its photoshopped, but I've heard from multiple places the scene exists and even Bautista mentioned it.

Internet has all the answers.

Nice.

Im curious how much cut material might be able to flesh out more of the missing elements. I heard a rumor that the dinner scene was filmed and cut. I'd love to see that as I think its a very impactful scene to cut from the story. Director's cut?

Heather F wrote:

I have been meaning to read the book for decades, I finally bought a copy last year, and it's currently on my to read list.

As someone who's read the book several times over the past few decades, I say....HUZZAH!!

In all seriousness though, I do hope you enjoy the book (and perhaps its many sequels, eventually). And if you do happen to like it, I can always suggest other works by Herbert. I've read most, if not all, of them.

I'll third this notion. The novel Dune is excellent.

Streaming muddies the water. We have no idea how it translates to profits or metrics unlike the box office. Im curious how it works for the execs?

This looks a little more like it.