Has How It Should Have Ended finally gotten too obvious?

The other day, How It Should Have Ended dropped their newest video, for The Last Jedi. And… I laughed, but I was never surprised.

Maybe it’s just because this movie ended up with so much chatter about it, about all of the different little parts people wished were different. All the perceived plot holes or plot complaints.

Maybe it was because I watched the HISHE review of The Last Jedi.

But basically, this HISHE felt like fanservice. Sure, they frequently have elements that play into fan complaints or fan observations about the film or plot. They have some fun surprises or shortcuts usually though. I love the Lord of the Rings resolved with the eagles, that’s just classic. And Harry Potter resolved with time travel? Perfect.

But this one just served up all of the fan service. And the comments? “It’s the canon Last Jedi!” and “Better than the original!” and such. Because the number one unifying complaint about this movie is that it wasn’t what fans expected, and by extension, not what fans wanted. So now they’ve been fed what they wanted, but for me… it’s falling flat.

Hopefully this is just an oddity of this episode, of this HISHE. That they have some fun, unique surprises ahead to hit us with. The Mary Sue, at least, seems to think that some of the scenes were jabs at the an complaints: maybe so, and that is certainly a reading which allows for them to keep doing their thing moving forward. What do you think?

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Hollywood and its abuse problem – Comparative Opinions Episode 66

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! This week picks up the conversation started in Week in Geek Episode 11, which ran long enough to be its own segement. Hosts Holly and David have been talking about this news story for the last few weeks, as well, as it has grown and snowballed. By abuse, there are many meanings, but more than anything what seems to unite all the stories going on right now is “abuse of power.” So the hosts tackle this topic more, and ask, what do you do when it comes to consuming media backed or made by these individuals?

The question that leads the discussion comes from this article from the Mary Sue: https://www.themarysue.com/what-to-do-about-hollywood-creeps/

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

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Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

My Short Thoughts on Evil Captain America

I keep reading the headlines about the current Secret Empire storyline in Marvel Comics, and feeling like I should say something about it. My previous writings on comics are some of my most-read material, after all, and here’s all the writing-about-comics material you could ask for!

But I knew I had said something when Captain America first hailed Hydra, and I just went back and read it. And basically… one year later, but all the same thoughts. To enumerate,

1. It’s probably in poor taste to be doing this with Hydra, given Hydra = Nazis. Just read a similar point on The Mary Sue.
2. The movies have been getting based on the comics; we’ve reached a point where the comics are being based increasingly on the movies (and wider MCU).
3. This is all a product of Secret Wars, so it’s a new universe and a new Steve Rogers so it doesn’t have much bearing on what’s come before.

The Mary Sue article I linked to basically argues that that first point invalidates the later two, and perhaps, fair enough. But they also provided exactly what I expected: evidence for point three.

From https://www.themarysue.com/marvels-stupid-hydracap-twist-its-not-about-understanding-comics-its-about-creators-thinking-beyond-themselves/

Maybe that’s real Steve Rogers! Who knows, there were quite a few of them on Battleworld. Whatever. The Marvel Universe is dead to me and I’m just really having trouble caring. Should they maybe leave secret Nazi storylines alone? In the current political climate? I mean, DC is responding to the current political moment with the Doomsday Clock:

How about you – are you reading Secret Empire? What are your thoughts on all of this? I’d love to know, because I’m unlikely to read these comics anytime soon myself!

Ghostbusters – the worst movie trailer ever?

When I was seeing news about a reviled trailer for the Ghostbusters movie I figured that a new trailer had hit and that it was truly bad. So I went and looked, and… nope. Just the same one.

A trailer that has over 31 million views, over 230,000 likes right now, and over 740,000 dislikes.

I mean, that’s approaching the levels of something like Rebecca Black’s Friday. Meaning either a) it’s being shared around because it’s so bad and others are agreeing and disliking it… or b) it’s being deliberately targeted with bad blood to dislike it.

Ask the director, Paul Feig, and it seems he has an answer on that. I found the quote on The Mary Sue, but reading the original interview piece was more revealing.

It’s sad to hear a statement like that about Geek Culture, but at the same time, can you blame him? Some of what I liked in the original interview is the list of movies he’s done, with Melissa McCarthy as well: Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and now Ghostbusters. And I will admit, we love all of those movies. The grossout of Bridesmaids isn’t my normal sort of humor, but The Heat we absolutely love, and we watched Spy recently and wanted to blog on it but just haven’t yet…

Quick thoughts on Spy: it reminded us a lot of the recent Get Smart (in fact, we watched Get Smart the week after and were amazed how much they are reminiscent). However, unlike Get Smart, where the new spy is competent but ends up with a lot of slapstick and accident sort of jokes around him. Melissa McCarthy in Spy is competent and a lot of the jokes are around people not expecting her to be competent, things like her awful cover identities.

So was the Ghostbusters trailer the best thing ever? Nah. Are there legitimate reasons someone might not be happy for the movie? Sure – we’re tired of reboots, why is it a reboot instead of a 30-years-later, it’s looking like a grosser movie than the originals… But I mean, the original was made by a bunch of comedians, and this one’s a bunch of comedians. It’s 30 years later, things change. But do I think these are the reasons why trolls are trolling and disliking this movie trailer? Nope.

Do I trust Paul Feig, with that track record of movies, to deliver? Do I trust that cast to deliver? Yes, I do. Do you?

Boycotting Exodus?

I had heard about this earlier, but with the release of Exodus: Gods and Kings I think it is coming out in the news a bit more and that is the boycott of the movie over the more egregious whitewashing in the movie. It is also in the news because Ridley Scott apparently has been blasting critics who have been saying that they will boycott the film. He also has been talking about how the casting for the film was motivated by economics. All of these reasons really seem like copouts.Then recently I read an article on The Mary Sue that reviews the movie and apparently the whitewashing is overshadowed by how bad it is. Whitewashing is mentioned in various movies, but I wonder if the reason it is getting so much attention now is because of the current political climate in the United States. At the same time it could be one of many points to judge the movie upon.