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Reviews
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen (2022)
Bungie is back
Witch Queen was a mostly-amazing campaign. They made Savathûn a chilling and calculating, yet emotional antagonist, which was really nice. Taken King, the first time we went up against a major Hive God, was able to flesh out Oryx in a way that made him a compelling and powerful antagonist, and Savathûn is no different. The scene where she faces the Traveler and gets all emotional, and we learn that our big spherical god CHOSE her...wow. And her "final" (fairly certain she isn't dead but ah well) speech - on the ground at our feet, she simply gets real with us. Amazing.
I'm very happy that they weren't too reliant on Taken King, though. I feel like lots of storylines today lean on particularly-good source material and draw excessively from it (for example, The Rise of Skywalker), but WQ was not one of them. They made Savathûn a threatening, powerful villain in her own right - although dont get me wrong, there are a handful of callbacks to Taken King, which is nice.
Supporting characters are great, too. Ikora really shines in this one, as does the traitor Hive ghost, Fynch (love him!). And, of course, it's nice to see the player Guardian have new lines. The new season is awesome as well - the Mindscape is a badass concept that I'd love to explore more, and it seems to be setting up Freeborn Otzot and Maya Sundaresh as the next overarching antagonists, which is cool.
One thing I didn't like (aside from the obscene power grind, which is lessened somewhat by generous loot drops) was the nullification and "de-scary-ifying" of the Darkness, which has happened ever since Beyond Light. Throughout D1 and D2 we got little hints of the Darkness' true power: an eldritch terror from the blackest gulfs of space of incomprehensible power and magnitude. Even Shadowkeep, which I consider a "mediocre sandwich" - fantastic opening and ending, boring and lame story - really emphasized on the pyramids' sheer power and terror. The interior was foggy and atmospheric, completely silent, and utterly haunting. But when we enter the Europa pyramid towards the middle of the campaign, there's no lead-up or scariness at all. The interior is a dull grayish-brown, in contrast to the Shadowkeep pyramid's dark, slick interior. There's no atmosphere or tension. A platoon of bog-standard cabal thugs and freebooters have just casually set up shop in there. Like..?????
That's really only my major gripe. The rest is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. For all of you lore nerds, stay until the sorta-post-credits-scene. The Witness is cool, kinda. And are those the Scorn Barons....?!?!?!?
The Book of Boba Fett (2021)
Okayish
I like the idea of a TV series exploring Boba Fett's life as a crime lord, but for whatever reason it just didn't work.
Before I address my criticisms, I'll right off the bat state that I have no problem with Boba being "soft". Boba was never really a cunning badass, at least not in films. Throughout (canon) comics and novelizations, he was extremely noble and honorable, like when he was offered to...y'know...with Leia by Jabba the Hutt and just let her sleep on his bed instead, opting to sleep on the floor. I feel like the "badass Boba Fett" is a mental image people have developed for a character that, in reality, does not exist.
And, of course, I thought the speeder bike gang was pretty cool, honestly. Don't listen to "unga bunga they r woke!!!1!1!1!1!1" - I really liked them.
Some problems I had:
- the fight choreography was reeeaally not great in some episodes, especially episodes 1 and 2.
- Boba Fett. Right, he's honorable and dignified, but you can still make him an imposing and intimidating presence that's not to be trifled with.
- Cad Bane. Seeing Cad back was awesome, but I wish they introduced him earlier on so we could get more insight to the history between him and Boba. Show some flashbacks of him mentoring Boba, or him and Boba having a spat.
- Fennec Shand. Oh, poor Fennec. Like Finn from the Sequel Trilogy, I feel like she kinda got shafted out of a meaningful role. She's way better in the Mandalorian and Clone Wars.
- Last 2 episodes. If you wanted to make Mandalorian s3, just save those for that, please.
So overall, not TERRIBLE, but not a fitting live action return for Tem Morrison's Boba Fett. Hopefully season 2 will treat them better.
Yo Mama (2011)
Was funny
I started watching Yo Mama when Brody first commenced. The style, the eloquent grace, the sheer wonder of hearing that blonde muscular man shouting "Yo Mama!" at me everytime I opened his channel - easily one of the hallmarks of early 2000s YouTube. His jokes were actually funny (as funny as old, flash-animated Yo Mama jokes can get). Parents didn't approve, but I didn't care. I didn't need them. I only needed him.
Unfortunately, early 2000s YouTube has come and gone. All the OGs likeLaser Collection, Tha Cliff, the butter trio (Sky, Deadlox and TruMu), ASDF Movie, and others have ceased production entirely, and have remained dead.
My gripe with Yo Mama is that nowadays the jokes just don't hit the same way. Maybe it's because I'm older and more mature; maybe it's because he gave the mommas actual lines; maybe the newest mommas really can't be made actual jokes out of (nobody says "yo mama so strong/smart/evil/religious/etc''); maybe it's the immense amount of mommas that have appeared in volume 11. I'm not sure - I just feel like the jokes are going downhill and that he's running out of ideas.
Now the final Yo Mama joke is coming in September, and I'm worried that it will flop, that the end to one of the biggest parts of my childhood will, rather than go out with a big bang and a high note, go out with a sad little fart instead. I'm worried but optimistic.
Don't let me down, Brody. We're rooting for you. The Yo Mama fandom thanks you for your hard work.
Dino Hunters (2020)
Terrible is an understatement
The premise of this show is a bunch of CoWbOyS digging up fossils.
If you didn't think that was bad, these CoWbOyS then proceed to sell these fossils to the highest bidders. I think its fine to collect abundant fossils like fish, trilobites, etc, but that significant finds (IE feather/skin imprints, large megafauna, dinosaurs of any kind) should be turned over to actual scientists who preserve them in ideal conditions and study them the way they should be studied. In the hands of private collectors, valuable information about fossil animals isn't available for professional study and preservation, and is just used as a decoration. We know very little about Ankylosaurus magniventris from fossil material - these guys dug up some material from A. magniventris, which is now going to some high-paying private collector.
Everything about this show is garbage - its visual effects (the dinosaur models are so awful), its clear anti-science motifs, and the message that fossils are simple things to be sold and bought. The "team" is highly unprofessional and immature, as seen from its awful renditions of dinosaurs. Yknow how actual scientists spend days, weeks, months, even years carefully excavating fossils? Not these dudes, because careful preservation is "fur city slickers". They haphazardly plow through fragile dig sites, tear fossils out of the ground, and shove them in boxes. They broke a Triceratops nasal horn, yknow what they did next? Glue it back together. Frickin glue it back together. Discovery ought to be ashamed for putting out such a garbage show about plundering valuable ecological and geological deposits and selling them like old toys. Ridiculous and unprofessional - then again, these are the same guys who made pseudoscientific shows such as "Mermaids the body found" and "Megalodon is still alive or whatever guys please give us money". Pitiful.
Alien Planet (2004)
Meh....pales in comparison to the book, but for what it's worth it's alright.
I'll start with the positives:
The CGI that the creatures are made from (as well as the robots and the rest of the backgrounds) is amazing and looks super close-to-life. The array of scientists who intervene every now and then and discuss the previous events that just took place are all very well credited, and all very believable and intelligent people.
However, the positives sadly end there. Aside from the creatures, the documentary really has nothing to do with the book. It has very wonky plot structure, and I was quite confused with what was going on at some points. The pacing is also off, as sometimes each scene seems like an eternity. The creatures are next. The creatures' habits, size, etc are all highly warped around. Some examples:
.the documentary gets the height wrong. The documentary insists that the Gyrosprinter is about the size of an antelope, whereas the book says it's much larger. While an accurate size estimate isn't included, the creature's tongue alone is around 2 meters long...that's as long as the documentary version's entire body! Meaning that the book gyrosprinter is nearly triple the documentary version's size.
.Body shape and habit changes. The Eosapiens' changes really bugged me. In the book they look primitive and savage, yet intelligent and wise. They regard the spaceship before them with an intense curiosity, never once showing any hostility to any of the expedition members. Alien Planet's Eosapiens are the exact opposite-the tiniest intrusion causes them to enter a fit of rage and destroy everything. Also, the Griveback is mentioned to be a filter feeder, sucking up tiny floating creatures, whereas the alien planet version absorbs water through its body to feed trees growing on its back. Ironically, the book version doesn't do anything to support the trees on its back, and they die within a week.
.the noises. Sure, they were all cool, but grossly inaccurate. Most of the Darwin IV inhabitants (with the exception of the Bladderhorn) communicate with sonar, inaudible to human or robot ears. Yet every single inhabitant in Alien Planet communicates with some loud, eerie shriek. It sounds cool no doubt, but it's inaccurate.
My third problem is the overuse of CGI. Kinda like the star wars prequel trilogy, they didn't make any effort to ue practical effects or props in any way-everything was computer-generated. Don't get me wrong, it all looks very believable, but it just makes the production team seem lazy and not willing to do anything special-which i'm sure they're not.
The final nail in the coffin of this documentary is that the narrators and guest scientists treat the events of the documentary like they could really happen, and try to make it believable. Wayne Barlowe's original book was meant to be science fiction, and science fiction only-he never tried to convince people something like that could actually exist. Steven Hawking and others' interventions are all very believable, and all supported by real scientific facts, but when you take those and compare them to the animal they're trying to get you to believe exists, you just laugh and pass it off as stupid. I had the same problem with the documentary of The Future Is Wild.
But you know what? There's one thing that's important-they TRIED. They made a conscious effort to make an obscure piece of literature into something bigger. They tried to take something already existing and remake it for a more modern audience. But that just poorly reflects when you look at all the problems with it. There really wasn't a demand for a cinematic version of Expedition, then, and there really isn't one now. It was a fantastic book, but not one you'd expect to be remade into a movie like a bajillion times.
So that's my honest review of Alien Planet, a solid five stars. I wish I could rate it higher-I really do. But inconsistencies in the plot, creatures, etc etc etc really weigh it down. Its creators tried-they really did-and it's a shame all their effort formed this.
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
After all those astounding Alien and Predator films...THIS???
Gah, I can't even begin with how mind-numbingly terrible this movie is. I personally loved Alien vs Predator, but it's sequel is barely watchable. So the Predalien crash lands into Colorado where it starts to kill people. Then, an elder predator, Wolf, comes down to stop it. Sounds innocent enough, right? You have never been more wrong. The characters are all so unlikeable and annoying (just DIE already!!) it's not even funny, considering how they're all angsty teenagers. And before you pull the whole "well ALL teenage characters are unlikeable'', Freddy vs Jason and the Friday the 13th series had tons of good teen characters. There are so many Alien 3 and Aliens references it's not even funny anymore. Acting is subpar to the point where you can't even watch it. BUT THE LIGHTING IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE WORST. I CAN'T EVEN SEE ANYTHING COOL! All the awesome battle scenes are filmed in the pitch black. You can have good night battle scenes, as Pacific Rim shows us, but this is unacceptable. The Alien costumes are so bad-they're literally re-used from the film Aliens! From 1986! You can plainly see the suits falling apart throughout the film. It's awful. A huge middle finger to two of the most iconic sci-fi franchises of all time. Alien and Predator deserve better! I mean, Alien has gotten over it, but Predator is still recovering from the trauma! Overall a terrible film, just watch the new films Prometheus and Covenant and wait for Predator 4 to come out, far more worth your money than his heaping load of garbage.