Wow. This is just terrible. There's no other word for it other than that.
Firstly, the casting is just plain awful. Diversity for the sake of diversity takes its toll yet again, with people being cast into roles with the wrong ethnicity for that particular part. This is even more insulting considering the fact that the world all of this takes place in, already has tons of diversity in it to begin with. Don't shove it in where it doesn't belong!
Storywise... ooh boy. So much has been changed. And look, I get that book adaptations need certain elements changed in order to better fit a visual medium. And some changes they made, are fine. But let me just list some things that are completely wrong:
The whole concept of the Dragon. The show opens with a very brief description of who the Dragon is. The Dragon is the reincarnation of a male Aes Sedai who broke the world in ages past. Concise, but true. Good enough. But then they go on and say that this reincarnation could be either male or female? That makes no sense at all! The Dragon has to be male, because he's the reincarnation of a male Aes Sedai, and he will break the world a second time, just like he did before.
Finding the Dragon. Nobody knows who the Dragon Reborn is. People find out because he starts fulfilling the prophecies written about him just by being born in a certain place and on a certain time. That's how Moiraine narrows it down to the Two Rivers, by finding out about some young people there that fit those criteria. In this adaptation, all Aes Sedai have some sort of spidey sense that can pinpoint the Dragon. Lazy writing at its best.
The world itself. It should be winter, due to the Dark One's grasp increasing on the world. This is a big plot point, which causes visible distress with pretty much everyone, affecting their doings and thoughts, and in this adaptation they just dumb it down to "something drove the wolves down the mountain". It's spring in this version, and birds can be heard in pretty much every scene.
Characters not acting the way they should. Nynaeve is much too serene, Moiraine isn't serene enough, Egwene is much too mature, Perrin is much too jokey, Mat isn't jokey enough and much too responsible, and so on.
Characters' backstories changed to completely change their personality even further. Mat suddenly has abusive parents. Perrin, who is consistently described in the books as a shy, awkward, careful, peaceloving guy, not only has a girlfriend in this adaptation (his finding his first love in Faile Bashere later on is also a huge plot point that they dismissed by doing this), but he murders her in a fit of blind rage. Nynaeve is suddenly a "lost child", just so they could add her to the possible list of nonsensical Dragon candidates. Because suddenly the Aes Sedai spidey sense doesn't work anymore. Rand and Egwene having a full on sexual relationship while they're supposed to be a coming-of-age story that never works out for them.
Forced edginess. Nudity and sex scenes, while sparse, are shoved in your face so forcefully that you can just tell one of the producers saw Game of Thrones and told the script writers to shove "some of that" in there.
There is a LOT more wrong with this cesspool of an adaptation in terms of story, but those are some of the big ones. Also just overall bad acting and bad CGI. The CGI looks like a videogame from the mid 2010's.
I really wanted to like this, but no amount of goodwill can save this absolute mess of a show.
Wow. They actually ended it on the last panel of ch. 116!!! They basically didn't show you guys anything, yet. Damn, that's just brutal.
But also hilarious. I was sure that in order to put all the important info from 2 chapters they would have to cut some small stuff for good. But nope! Not even the smallest thing was cut from the manga... except for the panels revealing what happened to Levi and Zeke afterwards. Which I assume everyone wanted to see the most)
Brilliant move. Instead of 1 cliffhanger this way they got 3 cliffhangers for anime fans.
I freaking loved the Passing. And to be fair they archived it thanks to cutting two major plot points from the manga. They probably gonna start Part 2 with Levi and Zeke scenes. There is just no way around it. They have to show it eventually.. Oh and the dialogues this episode all hitted the right note except for infodump between Pixies and Yelena.
I can't believe that Porco was shown in the manga too before Jaw appears and I didn't notice him back then. Too be fair it wasn't as in your face as in the anime. But still https://official-complete-2.eorzea.us/manga/Shingeki-No-Kyojin/0116-027.png
Eren vs Pieck - their whole interaction couldn't have been done better.
"Show us. Where's the enemy? There. - I was waiting for this scene. It was perfect.
https://official-complete-2.eorzea.us/manga/Shingeki-No-Kyojin/0116-034.png
Anime fans in week or two manga will officially end. So spoilers would be everywhere. Be careful. And goodluck!
To summarize part 1 of Season 4:
Blessing in disguise. Characters, their mindset and themes were handled right. Marley's arc in particular. Manga had more gradual reveal of some plot points, but I'm not sure that in the end Zeke's plan suffered from it for example. Cuts and rearrangements worked most of the times. Especially in episodes like Children of the Forest as well done set up. Hell, Gabi and Falco focused chapter was almost unbearable to read through. But with some small tweaks to timeline and pushed around storylines Gabi and Falco focused episode was actually enjoyable in the anime.
They managed to get passing under control and let scenes breath after 4 or so episode.
Action did suffered. Well, Levi action scenes suffered alot in my opinion the rest was decent to good. Certainly not worst than Eren vs Reiner in season 3 I'm not a fan of soft retcon with the Ackermans. Purpose of it just seems unclear in regards to the future storyline changes. Oh and there is definitely moments where animation felt way off. Not even season 3 had this many derp faces)
Ok, so Part 1 covered 25 chapters in 16 episodes. Only 22 chapters left. Here's hoping that it would give us at least 14 episodes. That would be ideal passing. Apparently Part 2 would came out around January 2022.
p.s. I can't believe that final chapter will drop in like a week. Hope, it won't dissapoint.
What an absolutely botched ending to an otherwise strong show. Spoilers: Monica and Darcy are completely tossed aside, Evan Peters is entirely wasted as Quicksilver in favor of a dick joke, the writers show zero creativity in leaving characters to die and Wanda has ultimately learned nothing about her magic, ending the show exactly where she stood 8 years ago before 'Age of Ultron'. What a complete mess devoid of consequences, leaving characters storylines wide open for projects years away instead of tying character arcs up. Wanda apologises to the town members after tortuing them for weeks and we're supposed to feel bad when her fake children are erased? No, sorry, you're responsible for that. Monica really told Wanda the town should be grateful.... after she released them from their torture slavery. Wanda belongs on the Raft, Avengers need bodycams after this abuse. This is exactly what the Sokovia Accords were for. This isn't a show, it's a promotional ad to go see the next Marvel thing. I thought they were doing something special when the show began, embracing the wierd and unexplained magic in the MCU, but by the end the Marvel formula is intact and the story falls into laziness.
Who the hell was the missing person Jimmy Woo had in witness protection to begin with?
Once again the most interesting part of this whole fucking show is the stuff that gets the least amount of time. I could not care less about the sitcom shtick and I wish they would stop ripping off other shows when it serves little purpose except to make this all ridiculous when it could've been so much better.
In the movie Far From Heaven, you get this practically picturesque town and home life of a housewife in Connecticut. It's gorgeous and full of colors and 50s/60s "retro", what have you. It looks so perfect and lovely yet hides all sorts of ugliness underneath the perfect veneer of "All American Dream". Imagine that kind of set up but with horror and mindfuckery and that could've been THIS FUCKING SHOW.
Each episode continues to disappoint.
Each episode shows me how this would have been better served in a binge-watch (if they ever fucking do anything with the reveal).
Each episode annoys me with a pointless, obnoxious laugh track.
And each episode has me not giving a single damn about this couple or buying into any of their "chemistry" or love. This relationship was developed completely offscreen, and now I'm just supposed to believe they are some shining example of True Love because Marvel clearly wants Young Avengers? Nope. Not happening. I demand better writing and pacing, thank you.
Olsen and Bettany are very talented and capable actors in other projects but here, I can't buy anything between them.
The pacing is just painful and not at all suspenseful. There's tension and then there's annoying the shit out of your audience. This show is the latter.
This show continues to be the epitome of "my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined".
The most boring, formulaic storytelling ever! This movie doesn’t indicate Hollywood is dead, instead it shows we are way beyond the grave and are just staring at the lifeless corpse of Hollywood cinema being pulled by strings. I don’t know who Wonder Woman 1984 was made for. Is the target audience kids? Because this felt like a children’s movie.
When Anna Banerjee said American superhero movies are blatant propaganda. Wow, SO true! I expect nothing less from a movie that’s an American perspective on the Cold War. Damn, communists! Damn, Russians! 90,000 years later Americans are still psychotically obsessed with the Russians. They are the only villains in US movies nowadays as well, so by that you can’t say in which year the whole movie takes place in, the only thing that pertains to 1984 are the clothes.
There was just so much wrong with this movie:
Gal Gadot is a very beautiful woman but my goodness, she cannot act even a little. It's hard not to think she was chosen only because she's a pretty model type, because it certainly was not due to her acting skills. And does she even have enough lines to justify being the leading character?
Pedro Pascal’s character is the same villain you’ve seen before in every film ever made: business man is overwhelm by his own greed. Oh, and his dad yelled at him for wetting the bed, so.
I hated Kristen Wiig’s character. She is the nerd with glasses that nobody helps but we got a "makeover" scene where she becomes "pretty" because she … takes off her glasses! And then everybody totally falls for her. Gal Gadot was like, "Where is your kindness and humanity, girl?" But Kristen Wiig was like, "Lol stfu bitch, I’m doing hot girl shit now." It’s basically an endorsement of the Joker thesis that it's always the socially insecure outcast who will eventually pose the greatest threat to humanity. But now people don’t have a problem with it because it’s women, so :tada: diversity. :tada: You people will gobble up any "diversity" scraps the Hollywood toss your way.
Other tropes are so cliché are well. The "hero losing her power" - women can only be strong and powerful or have love, never both, or the "using kindness to save the world" – this really is a movie about how we can solve international war and terrorism through … forgiveness. :laughing:
Everything in this movie is black or white, so naturally, we got the "every man is an asshole but we aren’t going to have a real resolution about that" theme. Guys in car nearly kill jogger lady, bad guys want to throw kids to death in a mall – who acts like that?
The dialogue is a hokey displeasure to listen to - "Scientists don’t wear heels" "Some do", "I can save the day but ~you can save the world".
All in all, the plot is so riddled with cliches and idiotic ideas, the characters are either boring or stupidly written, the writing is complete garbage. The movie tries so hard to be relevant and relatable. I don’t have a high tolerance for overly cheesy movies, and I don’t think superhero movies are for me!
So glad this train wreck is finally done. Kinda like a bad relationship you know you need to get out of but just keep hoping it will be better. Well it never does.
This whole series had your typical conflicts and needlessly forced drama, but all in all the story arcs weren't horrible and you could sorta suspend belief.
But this final season has just been utter garbage.
Female characters suddenly turned into stereotypical lesbians butch types for no apparent reason and a few look terrible. Characters changed personality also for no apparent reasons. Lack of continuity and explanation, confusing story lines kinda went off to nowhere. Motivations are unreliable and random. I'm sure the PC police will crack down on me, but the whole "Girls Kick Ass" gets tedious. Except for Shadeheda, no man can stand against the magnificent power of the Mary Sues.
I'm so sick of agenda driven story telling. A. it's insulting to our intelligence and B. Its crap story telling.
I don't know if Hollywood is in its own echo chamber or these people really think this is good stuff. Probably a little of both, but it's a shame. The premise was good. The production value was good. The acting was good for the most part given the script. But it's unbearable to slog thru this knowing it could have been so much better.
This episode was a big letdown from the great previous episode. A redeeming factor is that they came up with an acceptable reason for War World. It was still contrived but at least it had some semblance of a reason outside of Joy & Nolan just wanting to explore these other locales.
Using a simulation to get Maive to reveal the secrets of the forge was a fine idea but I found it derivative of a lot of Season 2's story arcs. In addition, the plot of her escape wasn't only thematically the same as the entire rest of the show but it was called out as the same by Maive herself. Outside of Italy being a pretty locale I found the war world time to be rather uninteresting, even the Lee turn wasn't surprising from the moment he explained he had lived.
Continuing with beauty, the location for Maive's awakening was a gorgeous location. I found the man who woke her to be poorly acted and comical in his arrogance. He made little to no attempt to persuade Maive to help him. This makes me worried about the part she'll take in the future of the season.
In episode one Delores entered the real world and started building alliances with real world people. It was an interesting extension on the themes of the show that excited me. This episode felt like a poor copy of the past two seasons of the show.
Very very poor episode, again. Characters' motivations were all over the place, with bad explanations of why they went against form. (Why would Saru, not under any compulsion apart from fear, which he admits he has lived with his whole life, suddenly do what he did in this episode? Why would pretty-nail-shop-uniform Klingon suddenly want to defect, and then make such a terrible job of it, and when she discovers the bodies not just leave with the admiral as she'd planned?) Contrived conflicts and artificial setups with, once again, bad motivations/explanations. (Why would the Disco need to defend the dog-virus-planet from the Klingons next week on STD? The Klingons know nothing about the planet, and if the Disco acts casual would have no reason to attack it, right? Why would tree-spirit-planet call 2 warring factions together if it wants peace?)
I also question SMG's acting chops, and whether she can cut it as lead, although being given multiple lines of exposition every episode, and very little else, surely doesn't help. The most interesting character by far is the captain and the series should have been developed around him, with Burnham taking a more Tom Paris type role IMHO. The Michael Burnham as focal point just hasn't worked for the entire season so far (with the possible exception of initial double-ep) and doesn't seem likely to as the show goes on either.
