"In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good."
"I never would have given you to them. Not for anything. Don't cry. You're perfect."
This episode has some incredible quotes.
With only 2 episodes this show has made more for the characters and story than Titans in 1 season and probably the next 2. Finally a good DC "show".
The 2nd part of this movie is phenomenal. The 1st part however, although ok, could've been a lot better.
This season is by far the weakest. The perfect example of wasted potential. I'm still only on episode 10 but I doubt the other 10 are any better.
Edit: Yup. Nice way to murder a series so great. Bjorn and Lagertha were completely massacred. Floki's journey doesn't really amount to his character in any way. Ivar was nice for the most part. This clearly needs to go back to the 10 episodes formula.
This show has probably one of the worst main characters I've ever seen. The supporting cast is not much better (except Starlight but even she was kind of soured). The most interesting character to me was Black Noir and he didn't say a word during the 1st season.
The pacing and lack of world building are atrocious to a series that is only in its 1st season. It hurts me to see that after 8 hours I gained nothing from watching this.
The ending is very unsatisfying.
Innovative/Different doesn't mean good.
In Episode 1, they just pretty much skipped Ye Wenjie's backstory before Red Coast. They crammed everything into 5 minutes. Episode 2 is called 'Red Coast' but we barely pass any time at Red Coast base. Most of the episode is just present day characters talking and playing the VR game. In fact, we barely spent any time inside Red Coast itself. It doesn't even feel like a secret base/project. Besides the death of Ye Wenjie's dad - which wasn't adapted for censorship reasons -, nothing in this adaptation is honestly better than the Chinese version. I knew from the get go that 8 episodes, each with less than 60 minutes, would not be enough, but they are rushing. There's no way her character and motives will come across as understandable. This whole story is based on her past actions.
If Arcane's Act I had the crush plot between Ekko and Powder that (supposedly) exists in the lore, and a flashback to what happened between Silco and Vander, I most likely would've given it the 10.
It's a very very strong 9 for me, but those 2 extra things could've completed the story, and particularly Act III, so much more.
Ekko's fight against Jinx would've hit so much harder. And it really bothers me how the show keeps mentioning Silco and Vander's break-up, but never actually shows us anything. It feels like something that I should know is missing.
I know that it seems that I'm being a bit to harsh since I'm only complaining about 2 minors problems, but I really love this show, and it bothers me so much how close it was to being perfect in my eyes.
9++/10
I can't wait for Season 2. Is it 2023/24 already?
These kinds of movies definitely weren't made for me. I simply cannot keep up with how fast and "old" they talk. Poetry is not for me.
I think I got the gist of it, but that's not enough to come up with a reasonable score, so it stays scoreless. I'll probably not watch it again.
Visually tho, it looked incredible.
The 3rd act of this movie is so ugly. Overall, the production is pretty damn good, but that 3rd act really is something else. Everything is too dark and then everything is drowned in too much brown and yellow filters. Other than that, I really liked it. Fast paced - which is usually a downside for me - but all the characters work well enough, especially Vesemir and Illyana. I just wished that they had spent a little bit more time on Tetra and the lore of Kaer Morhen and the world. They sounded much more interesting than the bits we got.
This episode is right up the with Mob Psycho 100's Season 2 Episode 5 as one of the most insane productions ever made for TV animation. 28 minutes of pure f*cking madness!!! Absolutely unreal!!!
Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with myself. I didn't really had much fun with it. I can understand why it was the hit it was 20 years ago, but watching in 2021, after being exposed to hundreds of copycats - whether better or worse -, makes it difficult to enjoy the ideas present in this movie to the fullest.
20 years ago, I would've loved the twist at the end of the 1st, but nowadays? Not really. It's neither that impressive nor that well executed imo. The 2nd act was definitely where I had the most fun and the 3rd act rather messy. The themes were interesting, but again, not that appealing anymore.
I am super mixed on this series/season.
Episode 1? Fucking fantastic! It still is my favorite episode in the series. It's nothing but character build up, and I love it.
Episode 2 to 8? Good shit. The pacing is way too slow, and some cliffhangers are pretty shitty, but what this sets up and tries to execute is honestly good. I was ready for the finale.
Episode 9 to 12? Meh. Not a fan of a lot of stuff here.
The thing that pissed me off the most was the fact that they completely abandoned the conflict between Gwi-nam and Eun-ji. For me, they had the 2nd most interesting conflict in the story (after Na-yeon's internal conflict), and yet they decided to use Eun-ji to alert the military to the existence of hybrids in order to not end the show in episode 8, and just made Gwi-nam run after Cheong-san for god knows how many episodes. It gets tiresome after a while. Gwi-nam and Eun-ji both survived after being bitten by zombies, and yet they never clash again in order to resolve the conflict that was set-up in episode 1.
Either way, weak 6/10. Na-yeon was my favorite character.
Damn! I wasn't expecting her to do that in the end. I was expecting her to get the usual "you deserved it" type of death (and maybe clap), but I really did like that she basically decided to commit suicide.
Also, please don't kill the teacher. I actually really like her.
Hardy's acting and Venom's facial expressions are the only note wordy thing in this movie. The rest is just atrocious.
I'm pretty disappointed that Gwi-nam and Eun-ji seem to have gotten their powers for nothing. I thought that it was a way for her to have revenge against him on equal footing, but I'm not seeing how they'll meet each other again. It seems that they didn't turn into zombies because... well, the writers want to keep this show running for 12 episodes, I guess. I hope that I am wrong, because I'm really disappointed.
I'm not gonna lie. When it was reveal at the end of the last episode episode that Gwi-nam had become an hybrid, I was pretty pissed, because that's an idea that not only sounds fucking stupid, but it also had the potential to ruin the whole balance of the story (humans vs zombies). However, with the reveal that Eun-ji is also a hybrid, things just got REALLY fucking interesting. Zombie "God" vs Zombie "God" sounds epic as fuck. A battle between the two is bound to be epic asf (or at least I hope so).
I'm still not sure how I should feel about Nam-ra being bitten tho. Her turning into a zombie would be the best thing, since it would follow the logic of a zombie transformation. Zombie "Gods" turning random people into more Zombie "Gods" is something that I really don't want to happen, especially when it seems that you need a very strong desire when you are bitten to not turn into a zombie. It's an idea that could turn really shitty really fast if it changes its rules. It looks cool now because there's only 2 of them, and they have a really solid motive to want to live.
I died with the "Train to Busan" mention :rofl::rofl::rofl:
I miss Part One's pacing. This movie honestly felt like it was moving 1000 km/h, making some stuff hard to follow. It was an enjoyable experience, but it didn't really hit that much (especially the finale). I liked Part One more. They should've just made a 2h45m movie instead of a 2 parter.
I'd say that the biggest problem with this movie is its 1st act. It's too slow and it's also confusing in some parts. It tends to jump some important parts for no reason; like the kidnapping scene. That confused the f*ck out of me. This also happened later in the movie, when "Mr. Vengeance" appeared in Ryu's hideout, when the hideout itself had never been established nor did he look for it. He was just there, waiting.
Peak Cuddy and peak House!
Not gonna lie. Last week’s episode ending left a very weird taste in my mouth. I really thought this show, which up until now was pretty fucking good, was about to shot itself in the foot, not with a simple hand gun but with a .50 caliber (just so you understand the damage).
However, this episode turned out to be an incredible achievement for the cinematic industry. It is astonishing that the writers were able to pull this off and that the director who was able to bring it to life.
Every character got the depth they needed for an epic conclusion and the not linear storytelling fit so well with the cinematography of the show but the clear winners of the episode were Jon and the Causal Loop (which I’m a big fan of in fiction).
Jon is supposed to be this ultimate god who lives throughout the entirety of the universe and that just happens to have lost the touch with human emotions. Yet, he seemed so easy to empathize with. Not relatable, that definitely not but I really did empathize with is non-existential crisis and the lengths he went to be someone again. To matter again even if that means dying stop existing.
The way this episode changed Jon and Angela was already more than enough to satisfy me. However, I honestly didn’t saw that the Casual Loop coming.
This kind of loop is (probably) the most famous in fiction but also the harder to pull off in order to leave a long last impression in the viewer. Why it works here is the because 1) the episode is told in a non-linear way, creating a sense of disorder and order in your brain and 2) because Jon just keeps mention the future, present and past as one single point (including the “tunnel”). If he never used is powers (or at least not to the necessary extent) the reveal that a Causal Loop exists would’ve crumbled right when it was created.
Thanks to the way this episode was structure everything I saw hit me in the perfect tone and the Angela-Grandad Causal Loop is like my 2nd favorite now. I don’t know, I also love the one from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which is 3rd; the 1st one is unbeatable btw).
The only things I didn’t like: Jon’s blue CGI (kind of :/) and probably the acknowledgment of the Causal Loop so suddenly but either way, that was nothing compared to the great things it did.
The first 10 episodes are kind of a let down. Episode 1 to 6 are by far the weakest of the show where 7 to 10 are when the series gets back to it's tracks. For the last 10 episodes, those are just the best 10 episodes this show has ever seen. It's a shame that they are all mixed up in one season, otherwise Season 4A: 6.5/10, Season 4B: 9.5/10.
Ross is such an idiot.
My least favorite episode thus far. It's not, by any means, a big downgrade from the last 2 (which were brilliant imo). It's just that I have a really hard time connecting to the way South Korean society sees pride. It just doesn't make much sense in my head.
Then there's also the photography plot point, which was incredibly well set-up in the last episode, only to be resolved by another plot point that had never been mentioned before this episode. It's a story beat that came and went, and it didn't really do nothing. It felt really weird.
Dude! How the hell does becoming a hybrid work? The way it was established with Gwi-nam and Eun-ji is that you need a strong goal that you have yet to fulfill when you are about to die/being bitten. The rage just overcomes the virus. That's how I interpreted it. But then comes Nam-ra, which became a hybrid because... reasons, I guess. When Gwi-nam killed Na-yeon, I thought that she'd become a hybrid too, because her circumstances were similar to Nam-ra's.
Also, why aren't the archery girl and the punk freaking out about Nam-ra and Gwi-nam? How come that they haven't asked shit?
I liked the ending, but I also found the last 2 episodes to be quite contrived. The series definitely peaked with episode 6, which was, imo, incredible.
Also, and I have to mention this, Han So-hee's performance was astounding! Her range as an actress is very impressive. I'm not familiar with her other works, but I'm definitely a fan of her.
Saved by the last 3 episodes. Really good stuff.
I didn't like it that much. It was too cheesy and a somewhat poorly explained for my taste.
I really hate whoever decided what should happen in Marvel's phase 4, looked at the Eternals and decided to make a movie instead of a TV show. This movie had an enormous potential to be an amazing TV show, but instead, what we got was a movie that crumbles under its own runtime. There are way too many characters and way too many plot lines and not enough time. And the movie is 2h30min long! But I'm not gonna lie, I liked the 1st and 2nd acts. The 1st one in particular was REALLY GOOD imo. However, once we reached the 3rd act, I realized that we had spent the whole movie trying, and failing, to get me emotionally invested in a bunch of characters instead of focusing just on 1 or 2, so I did not give a sh*t about the finale and their resolutions.
Also, the music of this movie is very boring. Get this team a theme song, please.
