I had fun watching it! Its really nice to see all the old characters return.
C'mon writers! You can do better than this!
Spock and his girl switch bodies, and then all of a sudden they are both specifically needed at the same time? They let a random chick talk to an alien race for negotiations? And why the hell did they need Amok specifically to go talk to the guy when they could have always just punched the dude in the face and drag him away?
The writing is so transparent that I can literally see the writers hand in front of my face. There is like no immersion or soul in this show so far :(
A wanna-be humoristic episode that had me annoyed at the first two minutes and made me want to gauge out my eyes for the next 40.
Goddamn, the hell is this.
Guess I'll finish the season and be done with it like the rest of NuTrek.
Can't say we didn't give it a shot.
This is setting up a strong ending for the show. What I particularly got from this one was how Star Trekky it all felt. The giant flowers in space were such an Original Series concept. From the moment our crew arrived down on the planet it immediately felt like The Next Generation, from the rocky setting to the beautiful (and chintzy) android compound. Even the tone of the dialogue between everyone. I'm was very impressed with how good Isa Briones was here in multiple roles, and actually found her super creepy.
"That's unexpected," followed by the emergence of the Cube was a genuine WOW moment.
I found the emotional scene between Picard and Raffi particularly touching, and a great demonstration of the evolution of Picard's character from the heyday of TNG. He's still awkward but so much more open to expressing and feeling emotions. And again, I have to say that I have absolutely fallen in love with the crew of the La Sirena and I want much more of them.
The surprise appearance of Brent Spiner as another Soong relative (which was spoiled for me thanks to a website publishing articles before the episode has been broadcast worldwide) felt a little too contrived and yet was very welcome.
It annoys me that everyone seems to know about Section 31 when almost no one should know. Every time they ignore canon for no good reason it makes me want to track the writers down and slap the shit out of them.
Section 31 is suppose to be more like mission impossible than special forces. Carefully making little adjustments to keep the Federation safe and going in the right direction without anyone knowing.
I thought bringing the doctor back was a stretch.
Episode 2 this season was good progress for this show. This episode was not.
I would have liked more interaction with Pike, Michael, Georgiou
THIS SHOW IS STARTING TO SUCK REALLLLLLY QUICK! Remove Kwan's side story and every other side story and focus on master chief's story. People watch halo to watch master chief, not all these dumb ass side stories.
Kwan: Take the helmet off, they'll notice you. Kid takes helmet off and holds it. There is no way they can see the helmet when he is holding it....... dumb.
I do not like the "new" cortana. Stop fixing shit that ain't broke.
Unimpressed with the "build up" to the covenant attack. THIS ALL SEEMS SO DAM CHEESY!
MASTER CHIEF SHOULD HAVE NEVER TAKEN HIS HELMET OFF!
Dam Liberal Hollywood has to make every white role an ethnic one. So old!
That was one of the least "related looking" TV-families I have ever seen, LMAO. The kids didn't look like brothers , and neither of them looked like the parents. Really odd casting choice.
it's exactly what you expect now from Marvel, a generic movie that doesn't feel like it has to try anymore. there comes a point when you can no longer suspend your disbelief with movies like this, characters like Thor, Iron Man etc getting thrown around and getting back up straight away i can buy because they are built to take the punishment, but when Natasha is getting thrown around, through the air and into walls with barely an injury to show for it, i can no longer suspend my disbelief. at 1 point, Natasha and her sister take a really nasty tumble in a vehicle which by all rights should have killed them, but nope, they get up and walk away from it. David Harbour's Red Guardian is wasted by being nothing more than comedy relief and also by being portrayed as a bad dad. Ray Winstone's character is quite frankly a boring forgettable villain and Taskmaster, or should i say Taskmistress, yep, they gender swapped him is turned into just another brainwashed victim of the villain. the action scenes, of which there are very few are broken up by tired family drama
Best episode so far. The first episode was the boring version of superheroes doing everyday things; this one is that done right. The fight scene at the beginning is probably my favourite scene of the entire show at this point, and while it takes some time to slow down after the craziness of the last episode, you can tell that stuff will go down in the final episode.
Even by the shows now very low standards this is bad!
Surely Fox just keep it on air for records now, nobodies enjoying these episodes
It's always nice to be able to enjoy a show without being nerdily familiar with the history of the story and the origins of everything from the books.... later on true fans and readers of the series will explain everything and I'll be just fine :grin:
A decent ending to a long meandering season.
Outside of a fun homage to Star Trek IV, there's not much substance to this episode --or this season so far. Most of this episode was stuff to fill the minutes, just fluff and no substance.
I have to agree with my fellow commenters. This was good Trek. My favorite episodes have always been away teams to other cultures. Combine that with some really good character interaction makes this one of my favorite episodes so far.
Just about every part of this was excellent. Adding Pike was the best idea they've had. The Pike/Micheal dynamic is great. Tilly and the doctor have become much fuller characters.
While the show can never be forgiven for what they did to the Klingons, they are doing a good job of course correcting.
As a fan of Vikings I simple had to binge this. Set 100 years later we get introduced to the next generation of mythical figures. You don't need to have watched the original to be able to get into this story, at worst you'll miss a couple "I get that reference" smirks. What is clear from the start is that this show has been produced with a little tweak to the original. Same quality sets and world building but somewhat lighter. I'd say 20% less nudity, 20% more action and the drama needs to share the spotlight with political intrigue. Looks like they have a big budget, so we see bigger battles (like the siege of Paris in the original series) as well as the skirmishes. I think it lands somewhere between the original Vikings and The last Kingdom. If you are a fan of either I can highly recommend this season.
[7.9/10] A funny thing happens as you get older. Children stop being peers. They stop being those bratty things you have to put up with as a teenager. They’re no longer the little ones you see, but aren’t really responsible for as a young adult.
And somewhere along the line, they start becoming these small people that you need to protect, to look out for, to support, to nurture. You recognize, in a way that's hard when you’re younger, how vulnerable they are, how much they depend on the folks who’ve been through the wringer and know the perils of the world to make sure they’re okay.
Kids are not naive innocents. They have the same vibrance and diversity of thought and feeling and attitude their grown-up counterparts do. But they need help, your help, and that realization is humbling and more than a little scary.
Which is all to say that “Identity Crisis” hits harder when you realize you’re no longer a ten-year-old imagining what it’d be like to be Luke Skywalker hacking and slashing through stormtroopers, and instead, you’re a crusty old grown-up struck by what it’d be like to be the Luke Skywalker who’s been entrusted to look after his nephew and see that he goes down the right path.
I assumed that what lie behind the trooper-protected doors of “The Vault” was something expected: a bunch of jars of pickled Snokes, a few budding attempts at cloning Palpatine, maybe a few more deformed Clone Troopers or something. The last thing I expected was a small collection of imprisoned children, and it draws out the evil of the Empire in a way that few things could.
This is one of the more harrowing episodes of The Bad Batch. I can easily stand blaster fire and dogfights among commandos. I can readily handle life-or-death fights between good guys and bad guys, even if feisty Omega is in the fray. What’s harder to withstand is a toddler, who weeps without his plushy, being torn from his mother. What’s more difficult to stomach is seeing young force-sensitives imprisoned, who only want to return home, and are treated like indifferent property rather than people.
It’s devastating to watch, and The Bad Batch is counting on that. This is (I think?) the first episode of the show that doesn’t feature a single moment of Omega or Clone Force 99. This is all about Emerie Karr stepping into a bigger role and realizing the horrors it would require of her. It is seeing the depths of what she’s participating in, trying to suck it up and do her job, only for her to be moved by the plight of the young souls she’s supposed to treat like chattel.
There is great power in that. “Identity Crisis” has some cool moments for longtime fans. Tarkin’s appearances are always a pip. The back channel negotiations and rivalries of Imperial politics always intrigues. We learn that Omega isn’t necessarily a force-sensitive herself, but rather her genetic material can act as a “binder” for DNA from other force-sensitives, which is a welcome swerve. And The return of Cad Bane and Todo is always a plus. (I should have known Bane was in the offing once I heard Seth Green voice one of the random villagers.)
But for the most part, this is a more stark story, about someone recognizing the abject cruelty they’re a part of, and not being able to turn their heart away from it once they do. The callousness with which Dr. Hemlock encourages Dr. Karr not to become attached to tiny people asking for help and solace, the casual dispassion with how Cad Bane kidnaps a child and practically taunts Emerie for asking too many questions, all reveal a rot in the soul that must have taken hold for someone to be so unconcerned with the welfare of blameless children caught up in the machinery of the Empire.
Not for nothing, there’s a political charge to this story. It is hard to see children ripped from their parents, families ratted out by opportunistic neighbors, and most pointedly, kids in cages, without thinking about the current moment. The Bad Batch is not the first show to suggest a regime is evil by treating young ones this way, but it comes with extra bite in the wake of American policies that are not so different.
The message here is affecting -- that it’s hard for anyone with a heart not to be moved by such terrible things being visited upon little people who don’t deserve it. Dr. Karr wanting to step up, to replace Nala Se, only to see what the Kaminoan saw and realize why she did what she did, makes her change of heart palpable and meaningful.
Because she sees little Jax try desperately to escape and be harshly stopped and punished; she sees little Eva ask plaintively when she gets to go home; she sees a small infant torn from its mother whose tender age is treated like a boon to compliance, not a crime against an innocent, and cannot help but care.
I still love the stories of heroes choosing good with lightsabers and magic powers. I still love badasses leaping through the galaxy and fighting for the good. But the more real acts of evil, and more mundane acts of kindness move me more these days. And all the more, I understand how what could turn your heart, are these tiny beings who need your help, and witnessing an institution that would ignore their suffering, or worse yet, make it the point.
A glimpse of D-Day from the air..and they are saving up everything for the final episode. Can't wait to watch the last episode also kinda sad that it's going to end.
Crap episode this show just keeps getting worse with every episode sigh
Walking away from this series, all I can think is "Marvel has some very big budgets to tell some very mediocre stories"
Was so close to being pretty good, but then... This.
No, Disney, I'm not interested in just having a cliffhanger prepping me for a second season. So utterly dull.
Seems like it has potential, let's hope they can keep it up... then again, it's directed by Kurtzman... so, yeah.
If you're looking for an action and "turn brain off now" film, just don't watch it and spare us the 6-7 hearts review.
I for one, am very tired from 500$m crap like Indi Day and Marvel's poop. So I was very excited to watch this one.
This one is more like Spielberg's Encounters from the Third Kind. It's more about the characters in the film and the amazing journey they go through. It's mostly about the human behavior that will make you think.
While it's not an End of the World aliens movie like Battle: Los Angeles, it still offers great amount of military presence and plenty of stuff that's going on.
So if you actually want to care about an intelligent movie and use your head - go. Otherwise, go watch an X men.
Highly recommended for some audience 10/10.
2-feb-2017 edit: Just came out on Bluray and I saw it again. Definitely keeping my rating.
Watching again at July-2023, excited towards Dune II : Excellent. Excellent film. So called plot-holes listed here are negligible when the overall product is really thoughtful and masterfully crafted.
Oh look another show that has its natural flow interrupted by the same ol' industry standards plaguing everything else in the last few years. Hire hack writers who don't care about the source, hire every checkbox in the book, and then blame it on the fans for not liking it. Next.
Great movie. Andy Serkis played his role as Ceasar perfectly.
The computer animated apes look really amazing! I forgot a few times that they were computer animated, they looked so real. But according to a few sources no real apes where used in the movie because Rupert Wyatt (the director) wanted to show humanity's mistreatment and abuse of captive apes. Apes are the heroes of this movie, and humans are the villains. And Rupert Wyatt said he couldn't imagine a worse way of undercutting that message than by using real apes in the movie's production.
Another boring and predictable show that relies entirely on nostalgia bait (Hayden Christensen cameo).
No interesting dialogue at all, it looks cheap and mostly plays on barren planets again.
It’s clear that most fans find this season atrocious. Many complaints are that the characters that we all know so well are not behaving as they should. The final words of this episode spoken by Picard are ridiculous:
“I refuse to accept an outcome that has not yet occurred”.
That eliminates any planning, any strategies or any tactics decided on in advance! Just an attempt to cope after it happens. Absolute rubbish.
[8.0/10] Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way here first. The action in “The Believer” is great. There are two major set pieces in this one: the tanker run from the pirates into the Imperial base and our heroes’ escape from the very same base, and both work quite well.
With the former, there’s the coolness of locals leaping onto the top of the vehicle and Mando having to fight them off without his usual armor or weapons. We get to see his resourcefulness apart from his wonderful toys, and the narrative device that Mayfield can’t go too fast to get away or the rhydonium will explode creates challenges for both of them.
With the latter, it’s just good meat and potatoes Star Wars action. The narrow escape on the side of the building has thrills. Sending stormtroopers blasting into walls and falling into dams is true to the roots of the franchise. And Fennec and Dune picking off troopers so that Mando and Mayfield can make it onto Slave I is a great setup.
(Not for nothing, I gasped when Boba Fett used the same sonic charges his dad used in Attack of the Clones. But I was also perturbed that the rhydonium explosions were the wrong color!)
But what I really liked about this one, and what made it stand out among episodes this season, is its seemingly lean into moral relativism and shifting perspectives, before coming down on the side of some inviolable principles at the end of the day.
We get that through Mayfield, who paints himself as a “realist” and gives Mando a speech not unlike DJ’s to Finn in The Last Jedi. He talks about how somebody’s always ruling and someone’s always being ruled, and how the internecine conflicts of galactic powers don’t always matter much to the people on the ground.
There’s some truth to that, akin to a popular (albeit reductive) political cartoon making the rounds about how people being bombed by the United States likely don’t have strong feelings about which party wins the Presidency. It sounds like Mayfield just trying to handwave away his own prior service in the Empire, which makes it self-serving enough to write off as potentially accurate (albeit lacking in some nuance), but probably just something he tells himself to absolve him of his sins and help him “sleep at night.”
And yet, as it’s often done this season The Mandalorian plays with our perspective a bit. We see Mando don a stormtrooper outfit and fight off local “pirates.” But it doesn’t take much to conclude that these people aren’t raiders, but rather people trying to disrupt the Empire from destroying their home planet to extract its resources. Are their lives and their struggle worth less than Mando and Grogu’s? “The Believer” puts it at issue.
It becomes a particularly live concern with the uneasy imagery of a crop of tie-fighters, stormtroopers, and other imperial soldiers getting the Big Damn Heroes moment as they save Mando and Mayfield from their attackers. The salutes and whoops the pair get when they make it safely into the base and disembark are eerily reminiscent of the end of A New Hope, when Luke and Han received a similar reception, both underscoring Mayfield’s point about the futility of which side’s on top and, at the same time, making the audience uneasy about what Din and Mayfield are accomplishing, and for whom, to get what they want.
What they want are the coordinates to Moff Gideon’s ship, which can only be obtained from an Imperial Terminal inside that base, which conveniently requires a facial scan. Mayfield tries to call off the mission when he sees his old commanding officer in there, afraid of being recognized and punished. So Din does it himself.
In the process, he proves Mayfield’s point to a degree. For all Mando’s supposedly dogmatic principles (recently dented a little by Bo-Katan), he is, true to Mayfield’s pronouncements, willing to bend them when something truly matters to him. He’ll trade his Mandalorian helmet for a stormtrooper’s when it’s the only way to sneak into an Imperial Base. He’ll break his code and show his face to a living soul because it’s what’s necessary to save his surrogate son. For all his scumminess, Mayfield recognizes that practicality that most folks embrace at some level.
But he also breaks his own rules. Despite fearing what will happen to him if he’s recognized, Mayfield steps in to save Mando from being dressed down and exposed by his former commanding Imperial Officer, in a tense scene. More to the point, when the officer invites them for a drink, Mayfield can’t help recall his old division from Project Cinder (Hello Battlefront 2 fans!) and questions how a similarly mercenary, malleable “for the greater good” perspective in his commander led to the deaths of thousands of his comrades and others.
So he shoots the guy, in order to “sleep better at night.” Maybe it’s just personal for him. Maybe he just didn’t like the guy excusing the lost lives of thousands of people as the cost of doing business or part of some trumped up story about chaos vs. order (Hello to you too, Supreme Leader Snoke fans!) that Mayfield no longer buys. Or maybe he does believe in a few moral absolutes, ones that led to his disillusionment and cynicism about how this battle of civilizations in the first place.
Either way, it adds depth to the larger conflict that stretches across the Skywalker Saga, and depth to both Mando and Mayfield, exposing a little more of who they are deep down and what they’ll do when their backs are against the wall or something more than just the next bounty matters to them. It’s enough to earn Mayfield his freedom, for Cara Dune and for the audience.
The action is all a fun side dish to that, full of the sort of infiltration and extraction plans that good heist films are made of. But what gives The Mandalorian staying power is not just its exquisite textures or thrilling set pieces, but those exchanges and choices that complicate and widen the Galaxy Far Far Away, rather than make it seem smaller.
It started off okay, apart from the “Klingorcs”. Where the fuck did they come from?
Sadly, it gets worse as the series continues. Star Trek has always tackled social issues, which was great and tried to show us how we as the human race could be. But, fuck me. We must be in a truly awful fucking place if we’re to follow the same logic.
The franchise has always seemed to inspire the more nerdy of us to invent wonderful things such as touch sensitive screens, tablets, mobile phones, WiFi and virtual assistants. The only thing I fear this shit will inspire is the inexplicable and totally unnecessary use of FUCKING WHISPERING.
I can only hope that Discovery does a “Dallas” in the next series (please make it the last) and we find out that all which has gone before was nothing but one of Burnham’s recurrent nightmares, caused by some form of trauma, for which she seeks help from Dr. Culber in 10 weekly appointments.
It just gets better and better so looking forward to next week !!! Looks fab
