Quark Blast's page

Should be good. Given the source material it'd be hard to screw this one up.... but 'It's Hollywood baby" so, who knows.
:D

....<snip>

As for the message, I assumed that a) it was "real" in the sense that it wasn't doctored, but b) was still manipulated. We know next to nothing about how much was restored - so it could be that every frame of footage was real, but there was still a tone unrecovered, and if you were to fill in the blanks, the message could have meant many other things. It's possible that what was recovered was still less than 50% of the full message, or that other parts were recovered, and conveniently just kept secret by Lex and not shared with the world. More convoluted explanations could also work, but it's super common in the real world to conveniently exclude bits of footage to give a very different message, and in fact, that's often what's done with political attack messages.

#### campaign messages!?! That's a tactic in all mainstream media for as long as I can remember!

And, as I said on September 11th:

"The message in the film was on (in-universe) social media, from a source who hacked security at the Fortress of Solitude, and is a person of genius intellect who is known to play mind-games with the protagonist in the legendarium."

.

Also, "making money" is much murkier with streaming services involved. Not only are there direct TVOD rental/purchases which are pretty easy to account for, but there are the harder to measure benefits of how many subscriptions to HBO does it drive - I did read that it had 13M viewers in the first week on HBO (and I myself subscribed yesterday for a month to watch it and Peacemaker). When you factor that in, I'm sure it made money, not to mention all the licensing.

It's not a matter of 'did it make money', it's a matter of how much effort went into making so little money. Hollywood has left billions of dollars on the table this last half-decade in the way they've decided to produce "entertainment" and it's killing theater owners.

Also, as I said on August 5th:

"It won't see profit until streaming.

This is the new normal."

I have a strong suspicion that AI just cost Pandora a long-term subscription, but who knows whether they'll ever realize it, much less track it.... <snip>

I'm going to blame AI because the time frame is about right that Pandora might have just switched its training algorithm to AI.

I cannot wait for the AI bubble to burst. Everything, including especially search, has turned into total crapola.

LLMs have hit the wall already (close to two years now) even though they are mining all content in real time and AI posts are likely the majority of media content globally. It's just wall-to-wall bilge water.

I've aged 60 years having to deal with this.

Proof, you ask? Why just look at this^ old man rant. Need you more proof?
:D

Saw it with my cousin and his wife because.... why not.

The critic consensus is spot on. Looks great, sounds great* but is otherwise a pasty saltless porridge.

* The score, while good, is less awesome than the Tron: Legacy soundtrack however

....<snip>But I'm appreciating their anti-phishing campaign.

Another phishing email came in. This one patently obvious. So I reported it. And got another, "Good job! You caught another of our test emails!"

So every month or so it seems like they're sending out a fake phishing email to try to educate employees.

My *big* concern is that there will be no discipline involved for people who continuously fall for these emails. If there are no consequences for being wrong, then why worry about being right?

Or you can do what I do:

If a manager asks me about an email I haven't seen I suggest it got caught in server-level filters.

Or you can do what my 'slower' colleagues have been trained to do by the consequences of getting pseudo-phished. Just manually delete everything they're not 100% certain about and play dumb when asked about something legit that they whacked. Same result, less effort on my part.

Kevin Mack wrote:

....<snip>....

If memory serves he never actually said yes or no about it being a real message. instead he said they tell you in the film.

Probably. My poor old memory doesn't serve me as well as it once did.

The message in the film was on (in-universe) social media, from a source who hacked security at the Fortress of Solitude, and is a person of genius intellect who is known to play mind-games with the protagonist in the legendarium.

There's a reason Disney-Co hasn't hit $1,000M at the global box office yet this year and the marvel efforts encapsulate exactly why. "Meh" won't get you there.... and if they hadn't invested $300+M in producing/promoting these meh-films they'd still be sitting alright. Sadly, the real victims are local theaters. The fans, after all, can re-watch their favs to scratch that itch. And so we have. And so we will.

The best way to describe me is that I believe in the "cannon fight" philosophy:

....<snip>

A couple of examples:
- Our new neighbors have a toddler who cries every single day. I don't hold it against them because as a parent, I know you have pretty much no control over that. But as I mentioned, their response to his sobbing is to take him outside of their house (where he would only impact his own family members) and move him to just below my window, prioritizing their own peace and quiet over something that's their responsibility over mine. I consider this "not OK".

- A couple of years ago one of our neighbors a block up was having construction done on his home. He parked in front of our house, knocked on our door, and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to park in front of my house for a couple of weeks ....<snip>

In my opinion, if you live in a densely-packed city, you have a higher responsibility to exert some effort to not be a jerk to your neighbors.

My free advice: Be less passive.

When I was in high school I was walking up our street and two neighbors were gabbing it up at the mailboxes. The one says to the other in a highly critical tone, "Ya know, this isn't so much a neighborhood as it is a development".

Whereupon I shouted across the street:
"It might be a little more neighborly if someone didn't let their dog sh#t all over the block."

Magically the large lab-mix stopped defecating outside his own yard after that exchange and, indeed, the development became a little more neighborly.

<snip>.... At this point, does anyone see it even breaking $500 million? It really seems to be fizzling at the box office. Maybe if they pull a Superman? Leave it in theaters for just over a month, then make it available for VoD to bump up the money earned... </snip>

It'll be close but I think it will pull over the $500M line.

I like it better upon reflection but I've still no plans to watch it again.

Oh, it'll definitely fall well short.

And, given the massive PR campaign budget behind Super-2025, this movie also counts as grossly under performing. It, like Jurassic World: Rebirth, only looks good when one ignores that the bottom has fallen out of the Hollywood-style movie business.

It won't see profit until streaming.

This is the new normal.

snip....

If the upcoming FF movie exceeds a $100M opening 'weekend', that will be bad news for Superman. If it's <$80M, that will be good news. >$125M, really bad news.

$118M it is, and it does look like a bit of wind was sucked from under Superman's cape this weekend. Not as bad as it could've been. Though, in inflation-adjusted dollars, this Superman will fall short of Man of Steel by about $400M. Great Krypton!

It's good. It's not great. I'm glad I went, if only to beat the heat.

The MCU has reset the bar exceedingly low this past half-decade. So, "clearing the bar" and "this movie will lose the studio a few $100M" can be truthfully and seemingly unironically said in the same review.

I think the 3rd act is a bit of a mess because of re-shoots/re-edits after the blow-back from early screenings and early press drops. The movie as it was, say in March, is considerably improved here in July.

Loved the retro-future aesthetic and the soundtrack was well scored and fitting.

I know that I've complained about the ens**ttification of the general delivery/transportation industry many times before, but this is really a trifecta that every exec should take into consideration:

(1) Food delivery: snip....

(3) Customer rewards programs: Having 4 cats, I paid $250 to join PetCo's Premiere customer rewards program, snip....

Re: (1)

Re: (3)
And PetCo's competition is?
Microsoft is a $1x10^12 company, yet their products suck for the most part (Excel is surprisingly good though).

I think the Fantastic Four movie will do extremely good numbers.

In fact, I have a feeling it will surpass Superman …

I certainly hope so!

....Work Woes....

I express my sympathy having to work with laggards.

OTOH, with the rise of AI and robotics, work kvetching will become a niche activity. Limited to those who have a job.

OTOOH, we may not have a livable planet given that Data Centers (a.k.a. AI factories) will be emitting north of 10% of global CO2 emissions by 2030 (they emit 1.5%-3.0% now) and those 2030 global emissions will be record setting; as they were last year and will be this year and every year through at least 2040.

I wonder when the news media will catch up with the fact that a +1.5°C 2100 stopped being a reasonable hope about 25 years ago and that we'll be lucky to hit only +2.5°C at this point.

Time for tea and crumpets indeed!

No early review embargo is not a good sign. The early hype is all curated - limited access to specific influencers known for not rocking the boat - also not a good sign.

I really love the design aesthetic though. I want that car! Er.... as long as it's an EV and doesn't really fly.

Still no Tron. Yikes!

Flynn Sr looks to be having a cameo appearance as well, being that he's all ethereal.

Why do people keep betting on Jared Leto as lead? Not a good plan.

We get a little more of the soundtrack. Passable. Not immediately hit material though. We can still hope though.

A humorous note - I wore a Batman t-shirt to the movie today, and when the popcorn kid asked me about it I told him even Superman needs a hero to look up to.

D*** straight!

Looks like the box office take will be looking up to The Batman as well.

This movie used humor in a Guardians of the Galaxy way. Most of the people at the showing I attended liked it well enough - based on group laughter. But it made for a very incongruous presentation. This movie needs to exceed $700M globally; it'll be lucky to get past $600M.

If the upcoming FF movie exceeds a $100M opening 'weekend', that will be bad news for Superman. If it's <$80M, that will be good news. >$125M, really bad news.

Elio looks to be another bomb at the box office.... apparently test audiences, even their so-called target demographic, gave it a middling response.

In other live action remake news:
How to Train Your Dragon nearly cleared $200 million.

A few of the live action remakes have been a push but I thought The Jungle Book 1967-->2016 was in most ways better.

Back to Lilo and Stitch:
I think I was a little over wrought with my "sail past $1 billion" remark but it presently has legs enough to just get there. We'll see what the competition does to it over the rest of this month.

‘Thunderbolts*’ Lost Millions of Dollars Despite Great Reviews. Where Does Marvel Go Next?

Probably not the kind of news Disney needed making headlines just a few weeks out from a nearly head-to-head summer match up with the Man of Steel (and dinosaurs). I can’t say I’m surprised, though.

It would've at least broke even had they not spent so much on pointless CGI/FX. The last Godzilla movie spent $15 to make it, though admittedly actors are cheaper overseas, and it looks fantastic. Which means it can be done. These consistent bombs are killing the independent theaters though. The pandemic pushed the proverbial knife into their backs and Hollywood production decisions, despite 8 years of consistently poor returns, are twisting it.

I'm not really concerned with what someone said in an interview out of context. When the movie is out, watch it, and then decide if they did a good job or not. Could have nailed the movie and fumbled the interview question, or there's simply misinterpretation of what was said.

No. When the movie is out I will go to several reviewers I trust and then I'll decide to spend the time and money. There have been far too many multi-hundred-million-dollar abject failures these last few years for me to take the optimistic approach.

*of rigor

Even people who have no experience with the books and were just watching this cold got lost. My cousin's wife noted that after the big battle among the Aes Sedai at the White Tower, the next day, one of their own comes into town and sees a burn mark on the wall and asks, 'What happened?'....

Oh, only hundreds of thousands witnessed the battle as it spilled out of the White Tower and spread through the streets. Whole buildings being brought down with the Weave, etc. The burn mark? Unsolved mystery!

It's like different people wrote and directed the separate episodes, none of them ever read the books, and there was no show runner to keep things otherwise sensible.

@Thomas Seitz - Maybe when AI can generate video from text you can make your own series. Just like Robert Jordan wrote it!
:D

I saw a quote from one of the producers that Sue Storm is the defacto leader of the team. The exact quote was...

“If you do go back through the comics, you realize that Sue Storm is arguably the leader of the Fantastic Four, because without Sue Storm, everything falls apart,” Curtis said.

As someone who's actually read plenty of FF comics, I disagree with him. Sue is more like the heart of the team. Reed is, and should be, the leader. However, I am not surprised they couldn't get even that correct.

No doubt theater-going audiences will disagree with the producers as well. This, sadly, looks to be another mega-flop.

In military terms:
Reed is the Lieutenant and Sue is the Platoon Sergeant.... or Colonel and Top Kick.... whatever. At any rate, you don't get a high functioning unit without both of those roles being held by highly capable individuals.

Debasing the IP in ignorant and stultifying fashion is de rigor in Hollywood these days. Hopefully the hundreds of millions they keep losing with each of these IP rewrites will eventually correct the course. Or write entirely new stories. I'd be fine with that.*

* Stop with the bate-and-switch and profound IP ignorance though. These writers are making six figures, maybe seven! Can you imagine? Honestly, ChatGPT could've written the script for the last Captain America movie.

I saw it. I neither regret the time nor money spent. Don't think I'll ever watch it again though.

....Despite all this, I really have no clue why so many people think Andor is so amazing. I don’t think it’s the worst Star Wars ever (that’s clearly the Acolyte, followed by Episode VIII, lets pretend spaceships are submarines and Luke Skywalker is completely different from everything we’ve ever seen of him).

The adventure is not very Star Wars. Clearly set in the SW universe (galaxy) however but it is an excellent tale with top notch writing and acting.

Agreed that the Acolyte deserves every demerit and ought to be memory-holed. Not sure who thought the lack of correlation among Episodes VII, VIII and IX would be ok but into the Sarlacc Pit they go! (if there were justice in this world).

This is one of those live actions adaptations that added nothing useful to the story, took out some setup for later gags.... and yet left the gags in so that they made no sense to anyone not familiar with the original animation.

Still, killing it at the box office and looks like it'll sail past $1 billion easy enough. If the kids like it, what do I know?

....

This said, I understand why they didn't recast T'Challa. Boseman put such a stamp on the role--he truly *was* Black Panther--and he died. I can understand leaving the role closed out of respect for Boseman....

Chadwick Boseman was the best casting choice in at least the last 10 years at Marvel. That Black Panther wasn't recast though had, sadly, nothing to do with respect for Boseman. Giving the mantle of first-tier characters to lower-tier ones has failed so many times, and cost billions by now, you'd think they'd give up on that already.

As someone said; "Andor S1, Andor S2, Rogue One, the only SW trilogy I recognize since the Mouse took over."

....I know it's not the easiest series to translate and in some cases, fix...but there were some changes (some of which Wolf mentioned) that made NO sense at all.

Oh, they make sense. Just watch a few interviews with the show runner. There were no mistakes in this series. Mind you, it didn't work out like they intended but there were no mistakes as it was all intentional.

While I'm fine with the idea of giving the women characters more prominence than they had in the novels, if they hadn't "Rey Skywalker'd" them it might have worked.

Like Rings of Power, one wonders why hundreds of millions are being dumped into adapting IP that no one seems to understand. Who makes the call on efforts like these?

For season 2, episodes 1-6 were slow (1-3 painfully so). Episodes 7-9 picked up considerably and are some of the best SW.... then came episodes 10-12 and everyone brought their A-game. Acting, writing and directing of the final quartile of this season has never been better SW - and that with no Jedi or Lightsabers!

Give these people control of the franchise! Oh please, oh please!

An artist indeed! Most of this stuff predates me but I've bought more than a few comics just for the art. I especially like his rendition of Cap.

snip

Yeah, I'm probably going to get a new computer early this fall. My current is nearing the end of its natural life anyway, but I'm not happy about it. :/

If I knew more about Linux ... but I'm not sure I have the time right now to get a good enough grip on it not to drive myself bonkers.

Start with an Ubuntu distro or see this guide here. Convert your Win10 PC when you get your new one and see if it isn't way easier than you thought.

So I took one of those silly internet quizzes....snip

The result:

snip.... Such vivid fantasies are the dream of one who considers reality a prison.

...

Well played, internet. Well. Played.

But.... but, reality is a prison!

Funny to be on this side of the "Hollywood kerfuffle" and see what damage they did to themselves. I only feel sorry for all the associated folk who've lost income, or indeed their jobs, especially the independent theaters. After a fraught and desperate struggle.... streaming it is!
:D

Back to Tron: Ares
The director has promise. Remember that Joseph Kosinski, prior to Tron: Legacy, had directed a music video to his credit.

Casting is solid. Certainly no worse than Legacy.

NIN has some epically big shoes to fill. Let's hope they're up to it.
The plot only need be coherent to equal the last one. I'm hopeful that it levels up past Mortal Engines.

As for Tron.... he's come back from the dead before and this was only a teaser trailer. Or maybe he commands too much money for the 'new' Hollywood to take a chance? Another funny, this sequel was canceled (now we can say, delayed) because Legacy and another Disney movie failed to meet studio expectations.

Quark Blast wrote:

Wheel of Time S3 trailer out now.

Looks.... still a bit of a mess.

The trailer did a good job because its a whole cartfull of mess.

Messy indeed! But I'm glad some people like it. Since they went to so much trouble to not follow the books and also FX the #### out of this. That's a lot of money and expense to get a nothing response.

So, is there anything redeeming about the show or are you just hate-watching?

The acting is not bad but I'll be darned if I can follow the plot*.

* Guess I shouldn't have read the books...

Watched Hans Zimmer talking to Rick Beato this last week.
Ol' Hans rather nails the issue with this comment here (<-- time stamped so you don't have to watch 1hr 42m of content).

I mean, they're called super heroes for a reason.

Just saying.

You mean except for the super villains, right?

.

FWIW, I thought the film's action scenes make very clear if you pay attention that what saves his butt most of the time is the vibranium suit....

I concur. And, FWIW, my original comment was directed at the many parts of the movie that aren't covered under the "most of the time" exception. They did the same thing with Natasha in her eponymous movie, though one might argue some sort of super serum like conditioning as a Red Room initiate.

I mean, it's not like I'm complaining "Cap never had wings! WTH!" I just want some consistency in the telling of these stories and I'm even allowing for multiverse shenanigans. Clint got his clock cleaned a time or two through the movies. Preternatural accuracy was his calling card and, who knows, maybe he's a quasi mutant.

Tony's a normie but then his suit, after the first one, is basically magi-tech.

.

You don't need the serum to kick ass.

He also has a super suit.

You do against Red Hulk! I mean, one should.

Yeah, I noticed a lack of suit from the neck up. That might be a design oversight.

Grace agrees, and I always trust the word of a sassy New Yorker who brings the receipts.
:D

So, California's trying to secede again, which is always entertaining.

Will California ever be allowed to secede? This map says, "No."

(For those who don't trust links, in terms of net Federal money, California's one of 11 states that fund the other 39. So we're a cash cow. End of secession discussion.)

I mean.... yes. But if CA weren't attached at the hip to the rest of the USA their economy wouldn't be what it is. That and all of CA's IP patents are held by the USA, not the state of CA itself. Also, if CA is so flush with ca$h, why can't they balance their state budget? And why can't they build high speed rail faster than one meter of finished track per year at the cost of ~$100k/meter?

London however could cede from GB and be just fine I think. Finance, like illicit drugs, travels across boarders like they aren't even there.

I may watch.

If they rework it in the manner of Snow White I'll give it a hard pass.

Honestly, I think at this point they should just have made a Falcon and the Winter Soldier movie. No need to "update" the characters or presentation - just give us Bucky and Sam and I'm all in! Oh please! Oh please!

If they'd only listened to me. Sigh....

IMDB says it's a "6.1" and I concur, as usual. There is little in the way of verisimilitude at Marvel (or Star Wars for that matter) anymore and it pulls me right out of the story every single time. The acting was fine, or perhaps outstanding given what they had to work with. The plot (was there a plot? maybe parts of three plots strung together?) is, as someone said, 'toothlessly topical'.

Captain Falcon has no serum to make him go, yet he goes just as hard as the OG Captain ever did. How?

It's bang on for a typical MCU bash-up runtime yet it does seem at least 20 minutes too long. How?

Have you seen the trailers? Then, in essence, you've seen the movie. Why?

Not how I would spend $400M.... just say'n.

Wheel of Time S3 trailer out now.

Looks.... still a bit of a mess.

Watched with my cousin and family. Shockingly good. Aimed at 12-year-olds +- 4 years but still quite good. Truly a Star Wars story.
Thank the Force!

Movie is coming up here soon (December 13th, 2024) and the early reviews are rather a mixed bag, sadly.... though unsurprisingly.

Animated is not my favorite and it seems in the marketing they knew this - see here for the original trailer leading and inter-cut with 50%+ live action shots from Jackson's 25-year-old LotR movie trilogy. And they also early released an 8-minute segment from the movie.

I may go see it on the big screen but only if many favorable reviews come out from people I trust. It just doesn't look that good.

I may watch.

If they rework it in the manner of Snow White I'll give it a hard pass.

Honestly, I think at this point they should just have made a Falcon and the Winter Soldier movie. No need to "update" the characters or presentation - just give us Bucky and Sam and I'm all in! Oh please! Oh please!

I finally got around to watching it. It was entertaining, but as much as I was impressed with how the first part followed the book as best it could, I was disappointed with part two. I especially disliked the way they portrayed Chani and Stilgar. In fact, I thought much of the Fremen culture was handled poorly.

Could you be more specific?

I guess I'm not that worried because the dude is 78 and eats at McDonald's.

Yeah, well, the Wizard of Omaha is 94 and eats peanut brittle by the fistful and washes it down with Coke®.

Powder is considerably less sympathetic. And this season has a more martial feel to it, making things more girl-boss than last season (didn't think that was possible). Still the best new animation out there.

Quark Blast wrote:

Villaneuve's strength in adapting Dune is the same Peter Jackson had with the LotR trilogy. Namely, in each case the director stayed true to the author's vision as laid out in the books.

I will always resent Peter Jackson for what he did to the LotR trilogy. I idolized Aragorn in the books. Turning him into a whiny, emo, "But I don't want to be king," was his greatest failing, but so many unnecessary rewrites of fundamental character traits like that.

And yet he did such a d**ned good job otherwise that it's unlikely anyone will try again for at least another 20 years, and they'll try to emulate Jackson's vision rather than Tolkein's.

Must be a generational thing. I recall Aragorn being a little emotionally distraught what with all the tragic death in his family. In the movie Boromir certainly sells Aragorn as a true captain of men with his dying words.

I thought Éowyn was miscast - a fine actress but not very good impression of 19yo puppy-love when coming from a woman in her 30's.

Faramir was the one who's character was uselessly changed. I get that the One Ring needed to be shown as powerfully tempting to keep up the film-narrative but, really, not everyone is tempted by power and Faramir certainly wasn't in the books.

Makes the Top 5 as a TV series from this year for sure. And I agree, we needed to see more Robert Pattinson.