Cowboy Bebop airs November 19 2021. Here are first images. Cho's Spike looks pretty darn good. Shakir's Jet is passable. Pineda's Faye looks like a low-budget cosplay and that's being generous. Ein is a very good boi.

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's in a new series, Mr. Corman.

It's true to the tagline: 'A deep cut into the days and nights of a public schoolteacher in the San Fernando valley.'

It hasn't been met with the warmest reception, and I'd imagine that's because it's too real. Maybe it reminds people too much of their own lives, and often we watch television to look away into something else.

Here, we dive deep into more of the same.

JGL's character wanted to be a musician, but he hasn't played in a year, not even for himself. Caught between self-loathing and anxiety attacks, not much in his life isn't precarious.

Now, it's not all gloom and doom, and it doesn't feel like I'm watching myself as a white boi on screen, even if I kinda am. There are moments of levity, and brief sequences that come out of nowhere and echo the surreal vibes of Sorry to Bother You.

Most of all, the show steers clear of preaching anything to the audience, who's just invited to see and judge on their own. There's never any speeches about the woes of life under late capitalism, and yet it's very much slice of life.

It's the story of someone who didn't do anything particularly wrong, someone who wasn't dealt the worst cards, and yet wounds up in a spot where life just keeps falling out of his grasp. It's a contemporary take on the struggling everyman, a spiritual successor to Half Nelson, if you will.

A young man who catches glimpses of himself every so often and never fails to find him lacking. It's an exploration of that frustration, and it's lightly peppered with a sense of hope. Your life is your responsibility, and many things are your fault, but not everything is. Eventually, your luck will turn.

Another 5/5.

Technically 4.5, but rounded up for approaching social issues in a respectful way without any preachy bullshit. Episode Three had me in tears.

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone still give a damn about The Walking Dead? I noticed the main discussion thread for it hasn't been updated in almost five years, so I figured I would post this here.

Anyway, I just watched the premiere of its final season, and I've come to the conclusion that only one or two of these characters actually deserve to survive, because the rest are a pack of utter mouth-breathing morons.

I started out hopeful that this tired old show would go out with a bang this season, but I was so frustrated by the end of the first half of the episode that I'm literally only hate-watching at this point. I'm now rooting for Negan to take that shit over again in a bloody coup, because fuck the rest of those useless clowns.

 

I stopped watching when Glenn and Abraham got their brains bashed out. I basically made the realization that there was no plan for a satisfying ending and the show had just become an excuse for gore porn and shock factor.

 

See, I actually liked that part, because I went into it expecting Glenn to die (I'd read the comics up to that point) so it wasn't all that shocking to me, and neither was the gore. I liked it because the show had been getting stale by introducing new characters only to kill them off a season or so later, and it was starting to feel like the OG characters were sliding by on plot armor. I was actually irritated when they killed Abraham, not because I particularly liked his character, but because at first I thought it was a cop-out to avoid having to kill Glenn.

Seeing the characters beaten down by the realization that they'd done something monumentally stupid (hiring themselves out as mercenaries to attack a group they knew nothing about) and utterly subjugated by Negan was really interesting to me. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the stupid crept back in, and their whole "Total War" arc was pretty bad. And of course, everything about the Whisperers was just fucking idiotic and could have been solved with a couple of on-the-ball snipers during their first confrontation outside Hilltop.

To paraphrase how someone else described the issue to me: The premise of the Walking Dead is supposed to be "People are scarier than zombies", but its actual premise is "idiots have a hard time surviving the apocalypse."

 

I watched Invincible over the long weekend (US Labor Day).

It was brutal, both in terms of the actions and emotions. Really look forward to season 2. I actually ended up reading the whole comic afterwards, and the adaptation is vastly superior in almost every way.

 

I do love it when they use the adaptation as a second draft instead of just doing it straight. I'm just hoping they cut it after the natural endpoint instead of dragging to the point Kirkman was making fun of the comic within itself.

 

I'll watch David Tennant in anything at this point. Even if the overall product is shit, I know I'll pretty much always enjoy his portrayal of any character.

 

Did you watch Des?

I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Chilling.

 

I haven't, but he does the 'cold psychopath' character better than any other actor out there save maybe Anthony Hopkins, so I'll be sure to check it out. Right now seems to be only Sundance airing it in US.

 

I just finished watching it myself, and I really liked it. Very intense and emotional, especially at the end.

Spoiler: Quasi-Political Issue That Most of You Are Unlikely to Care About, or Agree With

The only thing that bothered me about it, once I actually started to think about it, are the racial undertones. The only straight white males with any actual dialogue in the entire show as far as I can tell, who weren't criminals, supervillains, unscrupulous government mooks or completely unlikeable douchebags, were the security guard from the opening scene of episode 1 and the superhero tailor. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only human villain they had in the show who wasn't a white male was Titan, and they softened it by giving him a sympathetic backstory and an anti-villain's arc.

I get why this is happening. There's a lot of ugly history with racist portrayals (or a lack of any portrayals) of non-white people in entertainment, and creators are trying to avoid doing that in more modern media. But I think it's a bit of a racist/sexist overcorrection to make one particular group "fair game" for overwhelmingly negative portrayals while you avoid any negative portrayals like the plague for every other group out there.

It wouldn't even be an issue if they had balanced it with a few more positive portrayals of white men - or even a few notably negative portrayals of women and POC to balance their overwhelmingly positive presence in the series - but the showrunners chose to very conspicuously not do that. To be honest, it felt like a personal snub, like the writers were telling me "People like you can't be heroes; you're all either irrelevant bystanders or outright evil."

It also wouldn't be so much of an issue if it didn't feel so obviously intentional, and blatantly unrealistic. Considering that ~60% of American men are both straight and white, statistically the majority of men who do good, heroic things in irl America are those same straight white men that Invincible so conspicuously rejects.

I'm not asking for a return to the bad old days where 99% of the heroic characters were white men, but I would like to see a bit of balance in how we're portrayed that reflects reality, rather than reflecting the "whitey is evil" ideology that seems so prevalent these days.

Overall Invincible was still good enough that I definitely plan on watching season 2 when it comes out, but that issue did significantly detract from my enjoyment toward the end.

 

Lol triggered

 

Pretty much, yeah. Good show otherwise though.

 

Star wars visions was..ok.

It just felt like an application from these animation companies to make Star Wars.

I did like the 9th Jedi though. It felt like a small star wars story that could be expanded upon.

But I swear, I really really really got tired of hearing, "I got a bad feeling about this"

Its like its the only thing Disney asked them to ensure to include.

That and Kaiber crystals

 

Well, what you are feeling now is pretty much what POC have been feeling for decades in regards to their depiction in American media.

Heck its 2021 and black people are still the first ones to die in a horror movie, lol.

 

So the episodes are out and I binged them in one go. It was... interesting. The studios were clearly given complete creative freedom, as many many many lore liberties were taken. And I agree with @Quick Ben, the whole thing felt like studios auditioning for a full series. A bit of a letdown, probably because I went in so overly-hyped to be blown away (which I firmly was not).

Some the episodes were very cringey or they were completely stylistically out of whack with Star Wars. But most were enjoyable. That said, the English dub is pretty awful. Definitely recommend watching it in Japanese with subtitles.

1) The Duel- not a lot of substance beyond nice action, but worth watching

2) Tatooine Rhapsody - liquid cringe

3) The Twins - terrible 2000's shounen omega cringe

4) The Village Bride - Beautiful and I want a whole series.

5) The Ninth Jedi - great animation, interesting story/timeframe although feels like a "part 1"

6) T0-B1 - Please stop, Japan. Please.

7) The Elder - Decent. What you probably imagine when you hear 'anime Star Wars'.

8) Lop & Ochō - The Furry episode is actually pretty darn good. Has solid worldbuilding and action.

9) Akakiri - I've never liked this animation style, but it's well done. Not a particularly strong episode to end on.

In summary, some very good episodes. But also some meh to terrible ones. I think it probably would have been smarter for Disney to go with some of the bigger studios for their first anime outing, but hindsight 20/20.

 

True, no one can dispute that.

But what's the goal? To create a society and entertainment culture where that kind of thing doesn't happen, or to punish whitey? If it's the latter, then all they're doing is replacing one racist, sexist paradigm with another equally racist and sexist one, which doesn't solve a damn thing in the end.

In any case, we're straying into thread derailment territory here, so if you want to continue this discussion, maybe we should move it to PMs or a politics thread.

 

I completely sympathize with your position. After all, I was in the same boat too once as a POC.(eg, my frustration that black dudes are still the first ones dying in horror movies)

But yeah, it's an interesting discussion to have.

There is never any need to put one group down to elevate another. It just diminishes each group.

In this case, at least you have the solace that a couple of the main characters are white. So at least you have representation.

Plus, that one Kingpin guy was a POC.

Anyway, yeah, tbh, I am genuinely not into talking about politics. So, I think its ok to table this for now.

 

I was rewatching norsemen for the umpteenth time, being a bit put off with its unfair cancellation. I looked around for similar shows, and low behold they had already made a show about vikings travelling west.


I binged the entirety of Vikings in about five days, should probably have spaced out a bit as I went into work with very little sleep. I loved the first three seasons, most of season four and then only liked a handful of episodes for the last two. The only episodes like in the last two seasons either had characters from the early seasons or had a Ubbe story.


Saying that, I still found the show constinley competent, just most of the characters weren't very interesting after season four. Some were straight up annoying like Ivar. urgh.


So I'd wholeheartedly recommend the first four seasons, and would love to say stop watching there. But some of the later episodes are really good.


After that I shopped around for a new historical drama, picking were slim to say the least. Everyone was recommending The Last Kingdom and I dropped it halfway through the first episode. Lowering my standards I tried watching Knightfall which follows knight templars looking for the holy grail, but again I couldn't get into it and dropped it after two episodes.


Next I tried Barbarians, which was recommended as a lite Vikings. Which it is, at only one season and about a total of three locations it was enjoyable enough. Had a good use of different languages being spoken, which I find is a must in historical dramas, and a passable plot. It was enjoyable but quite middle of the road.


After still looking around and everyone giving it rave reviews, I went back to The Last Kingdom, thinking maybe I gave up too quickly. Well I just gave up tonight at four seasons and regretted pretty much all of it.


The Last Kingdom is popcorn trash. Nothing ever feels at stake, the main character is inceadibly unlikeable, they don't even attempt at different languages and finally it looks cheap. Everything else I watched looked like high production series, even if the plots were not great it still looked and sounded good.

The Last Kingdom funnily enough looks like a tv documentary on the history channel.


Now I haven't read the books the show is based on but if this is a faithful adaptation I won't be. Uhtred is such an unlikable protagonist that I did not care about him, but the entire show is tripping over its own feet to show how he is some sort of badass rogue who takes orders from nobody. It comes off as bad OP fanfiction.


But I still watched four seasons, because it's an easy show to watch. No complicated plots, just incredibly (poorly) fast paced stories with cardboard characters. Not all of the characters I should note, King Alfred was good as was the viking Eric.


I wouldn't recommend it if you liked Vikings/GoT, but if you just want to watch a historical show with uncomplicated characters/story and think reading subtitles are for nerds. Then this is the show for you.

 

Uhtred is even more unlikeable in the books.