This could be my only comments on the series as the first episode is not what we would call "strong". Linked below are some YouTube reviews if you want more details about the episode.

First let me say, the actors were good. Temura Morrison and Ming Na Wen are both great. But once again, the writing and the execution are just not good at all.

Issue #1: Boba is Incompetent

Most of the episode makes Boba look bad. He isn't very smart. He can't fight. He can't shoot. Is this supposed to be the baddest, bestest bounty hunter in the galaxy? Please. He gets dissed by a mayor. Beaten up my Tusken kids, then a Tusken woman, and then by a gymnastics troop carrying plexiglass shields. There is NO indication that he is capable of taking over a criminal empire.

Issues #2: No Guns on a Disney Show

There is a big fight in the middle of the episode. Most of the problems that happen in the fight would be easily solved by Boba's blaster or by Boba's flying suit. Apparently, Disney has some sort of anti-gun/no gun policy throughout its TV series. Because from Falcon and Winter Solder series to this one, everyone is Kung Fu fighting.

Summary

Overall, just not very good. See the linked reviews for more details.

YouTube Reviews

• Jayne Theory: Book of Boba Fett ep 01 https://youtu.be/XnJyRrkPLzM
• Comix Division: Book of Boba Fett ep 01 https://youtu.be/pGv7xFsclbo

The World

Our story takes place in the Westlands, a continent containing about a dozen free kingdoms at a medieval level of technology. (Robert Jordan never gave his planet a name or provided a complete map.) Steel swords, spears, and bows are typical weapons. Stone cities and fortresses are used to control countries. However, magic is very much a part of this world.

Magic comes from the one power. Channelers (about 5% of the population), have access to this power and can do very magicy stuff. A person strong in the one power can throw fireballs, call chain lightning from the sky, and use magic to heal wounds and injuries. However, magic users at the time our story starts, are considered somewhat primitive compared to magic users of the past.

The Age of Legends

About 3500 years before our story begins, the world had experienced several millennia of peace and prosperity. Magic was practiced and perfected. An advanced civilization existed with large, amazing cities all powered by magic. Magic users stood at the pinnacle of society. They were wealthy and politically powerful.

The greatest of these magic users was Lews Therin Telamon (nicknamed, the Dragon). A channeler so powerful that he became the standard against which all others were judged (on a scale of 100, he was 100). Although Lews Therin was a good guy and solidly on the side of good, he was also a huge jerk. He was arrogant, stubborn, and liked to make fun of his peers with less magic power. This of course created a lot of enemies.

Magic researchers of the day were looking into new sources of the one power. Through some experiments, the researchers essentially drilled a hole to one promising new source (much like drilling for oil with magic). Alas, the drilling accidentally opened a hole to the devil's prison. The devil (the dark one) was released into the world and immediately recruited many powerful magic users with promises of power and immortality. Turns out many of the rich a powerful magic users cared little about the suffering of normal people.

As a result, a terrible war between the dark and light magic users began which lasted 100 years. Eventually, Lews Therin came up with a brilliant plan. Using some magic stones and 100 channelers, half men and half women, he could close the "bore" in the dark one's prison. Thusly, sealing the dark one and his magic using minions. He brought his plan to the magic user's guild, the Aes Sedai. The female Aes Sedai thought the plan too risky and voted against it. Lews Theron felt his plan could not be delayed, so he got 100 men and set off on his own to close the bore.

Lew Theron and his 100 companions made it to the Dark One's prison and were successful in closing the bore. The Dark One was sealed along with all of his most powerful followers. However, there was a problem. Because Lews Therin went with men only, the 100 male channelers directly touched the Dark One when sealing the bore. This tainted the male side of the one power. Lews Theron and his 100 immediately went bat crap crazy. They started killing anyone they came in contact with. The 100 were only killed off with great effort by the female Aes Sedai and the entire world.

Lews Therin eventually killed himself, after in a brief moment of clarity he realized he had killed his wife and family. The magic released in his suicide was so powerful that it reshaped the continent and raised a mountain, Dragonmount, in that place. As a result of these events, a vast amount of magic knowledge is lost and the world is broken.

After Lews Therin's death, the taint on the male side of the one power remained. For the next 3500 years only women could safely wield the one power. Any men born with the one power went mad within 2 or 3 years of the power manifesting (which usually happened around the age of 16). So the female Aes Sedai hunted male channelers and either killed them or removed the ability to use to the one power (called gentling, which usually also resulted in suicide).

To further complicate things, an Aes Sedai prophesized that one day, the dragon would return and set things straight and defeat the Dark One (the Dragon would be reborn). Therefore, throughout history any male channeler with any serious amount of power declares himself the "dragon" and tries to conquer the world. Stopping these false Dragons is one of the main jobs of the Aes Sedai.

In summary, when the Wheel of Time begins, only female magic users (Aes Sedai) exist. Any man born with the one power can look forward to an early death. No man wants to be a magic user.

The Two Rivers

The Wheel of Time story starts in a remote region of the kingdom of Andor called the Two Rivers. The Two Rivers is farming community composed of the towns of Devin Ride, Watch Hill, and Emond's Field.

Ancient Manetheran and The Trolloc Wars

About 2000 years before the story, the Two Rivers was the heart of the ancient kingdom of Manetheran. At that time, forces of the Dark One composed mainly of trollocs (think of them as tall funny looking orcs) began a protacted war against the free nations. Manetheran was the leading nation fighting against the trolloc invasion and eventually became the main focus of the dark forces (also called shadowspawn, human followers of the Dark one are called dark friends). In a climatic battle, King Aemon of Manetheran was defeated and his army destroyed. But at the moment of defeat, his Aes Sedai wife, Queen Eldrene, overloaded herself with the One Power and essentially destroyed everyone left, including the bulk of the trolloc army. The trollocs never fully recovered and eventually lost the war.

Emond's Field

The place this final battle took place was called Aemon's field and eventually over thousands of years became known as Emond's Field. The area was farmland in the days of Manetheran and was resettled over the two thousand years when the story begin. The people of Manetheran were known for producing especially strong channelers in the one power. This is something to keep in mind.

Moraine, Lan, and the Story Begins

Aes Sedai Moraine Damodred and her warder/bodyguard Lan are in the Two Rivers searching for children of prophecy. The problem with all male channelers going crazy is that one of them eventually will be the Dragon Reborn. So if the Dragon returns and he ends up getting killed by an Aes Sedai or a dark friend, the whole world is screwed. Moraine's purpose and that of her order, is to find the Dragon Reborn and guide him in becoming the hero the world needs. When the TV show starts, her search has brought her to the Two Rivers.

Wheel of Time Background Information

Here is some additional information used to create this introduction.

Resources

• Wheel of Time Map: http://www.nerdovore.com/2016/01/wheel-of-time-maps.html
• Wheel of Time Timeline: https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline
• Wheel of Time Wiki: https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/A_beginning

Two Rivers

• Wiki Info: https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Two_Rivers
• Map here: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/wot/images/1/10/Two_Rivers.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100321062429

Manetheran

• Overview: https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Manetheren
• Location: Manetheren incorporated most of modern Andor west of the Arinelle, all lands south of the Tarendrelle, and all of Ghealdan, as well as part of modern day Tarabon and Amadicia.
• Jehannah: https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Jehannah
  • Capital of Ghealdan. Site of last Manetheran city Shanaine.

Location of the Ruins of Manetheran

• The city was located in the mountains just to the west of Devin Ride.
• The Quarry Road that Rand lives on was the old road to Manetheran. Once the road reached the mountains it turned south and lead to the old capital.
• The Waygate in the Two Rivers is the old Manetheran gate. Of course it would have been in a Ogier tree grove outside the city.

First a quick summary of the plots. Then I'll highlight some stuff by episode.

Terminus

So Phara blows up the shield control at the end of ep 4 and the Anacreons attack. Fortunately, they are terrible shots and run around in large Napoleonic war style groups. The Foundation folks with their 6 guns hold 400 people off for a while and many escape. At the same time, an Imperial battle cruiser shows up and starts to land. Oh no, the Anacreons have an artillery gun. They destroy the cruiser with one shot (very convenient). (In the books, Imperial battle ships had energy shields. One shot it not gonna work. Plus given the optical tech shown in the show, the empire is not gonna detect the gun? Silly.) Luckily for plot purposes, the Captain of the Imperial ship survives.

So the Anacreons round up anyone who has experience working on Imperial ships. Very scary and mysterious. Salvor, her Dad, and Hugo sneak to all 3 of the Anacreon Corvettes which are on the ground or hovering near it. Instead of being the size of a high rise office building, they are the size of a 737 (and I'm being generous). Anyway, in broad daylight on a desert planet with no cover, they manage to blow up all 3 ships but Salvor's Dad is killed in the explosion.

So the Anacreons take the families of the Foundation hostage and commandeers Hugo's ship. Hugo assigns control to Salvor. Who we can assume has never flown a space ship, however, since she is the bestest ever, quickly figures it out. So Salvor, Hugo, a half dozen of the Foundation folks, and a half dozen of the Anacreons take off. They are off to find the Invictus, a legendary Imperial ghost ship.

So they get to the Invictus. A bunch of folks die getting into the ship. Hugo appears to fall into space when trying to board. Phara reveals her plan is to do a suicide jump into Trantor destroying the planet and thus getting even. Much fighting ensues. Salvor and Lewis take the bridge. At the same time, Hugo returns with several Thespin Lancer warships. Lewis sacrifices his life to jump the ship back to Terminus. Hugo's ship and the 3 Lancers are pulled along in the jump.

Everyone returns to the Terminus. Most of the people are unconscious due to the null field (the null field thing makes no sense. In the books, Seldon would speak in a simple auditorium.) Salvor somehow deactivates the null field. She also kills Phara somewhere along the way. A Seldon hologram appears and explains that this is all part of his master plan! The encyclopedia was just a cover. The Foundation's purpose is to unite the Anacreons, the Thespins, and the Foundation to break away from the Empire. With the Invictus, they can emit a giant bull shit pulse that will make it look like all life in all three systems are dead. Thus making them free. Now forget hundreds of years of hatred and make nice, okay.

That pretty much ends this story thread. More for Salvor which is covered with Gaal.

Gaal

Gaal arrives at her destination which is an Imperial ship on auto pilot headed to Helicon, Hari's home world. (This happens at the same time as the 30 year time jump on Terminus. Very convenient. (Remember, in the books faster than light travel is common place. There is no sub-light time dilated travel. It doesn't exist anywhere in the books.) Anyhow, Gaal finds an AI version of Hari on the ship. He is expecting Raych and she explains what happened. She figures out the she is telepathic and can "see" the future before it happens.

Hari then says that he and Raych were going to found the Second Foundation. And, her telepathic abilities may put psychohistory in jeopardy!!! Ok, as a fan of the books I gotta speak.

This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what happens in the books. In the books, the Second Foundation is created on Trantor to study psychohistory and telepathic abilities of humans. One of the main purposes of the Second Foundation is to create powerful telepaths who control minds and such. It is not at odds with psychohistory, its part of the plan. But Hollywood knows best, why follow one of the greatest authors in science fiction history?

Anyway, Gaal pitches a fit. She doesn't want to be part of the Second Foundation. Screw that! So she makes the Hari AI put her back in the capsule and sends her to Synnax her home world.

Back on Terminus, Salvor finds out that her parents are not her parents. That her biological parents were Raych and Gaal. She then decided that she will travel to Synnax at sublight speeds over many years.

So amazingly Gaal and Salvor arrive at Synnax at the same place at the same time. (I mean what could go wrong? It's only an entire planet of course they would arrive in the sample place.) So the two bestest women ever, finally meet on a flooded seemingly void of life world, with no food, no supplies, and no technology. Awesome!!!! But I'm sure these two will figure out how to save themselves!!! They have gotten rid of all those stupid men after all. Now the real story can begin! Yay!

Cleon

Not much to say about this story other than it was pointless. A waste of Lee Pace's talent if you ask me. It doesn't go anywhere, doesn't move the story of the Foundation forward at all. And Demerzel is NOT a robot of Asimov's universe. Just a bunch of anti-religious crap for no reason.

Episode Low Lights

Ep05

• The cold opening of life on Synnax has to be one of the most anti-religion sequences I have ever seen. Basically the water is rising because the people of Synnax don't think right?? Really? Maybe the show runners should spend some time with a Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist. It doesn't appear that they have.
• There is no sub-light time dilated travel in the Foundation books. Everyone always has Faster than Light travel through all the books.
• The Anacreon attack is just laughable. They have to be the worst military in the history of militaries.

Ep06

• More evidence that the Anacreons have the worst military ever. They do nothing to guard their ships. No surveillance drones? Or Patrols? Or hey, maybe have one of your "space" ships watching the area. So dumb!
• If they attached at night, maybe they could have pulled something off. But in the daytime?

Ep09

• The whole Invictus thread is like a bad Star Trek the Next Generation episode. They have this unsolvable techincal problem that they just seem to "solve" without explanation!!!

My Thoughts

Well this show has been very disappointing. The first episode gave me hope, wow they are following the books. But then by episode 4, my hopes were fully dashed. The show has very little to do with Asimov's writings, only the names are the same. So as a fan of the books, I give this show (1/5).

On the plus side, I thought the special effects were good. The acting was very good as well.

However, the writing was atrocious. There were so many plot holes, inconsistencies, and plain bad writing. Some the lowlights included:

• After 30 years, you are still living in shipping containers with dirt streets?? Really? The best scientists in the Universe???
• The Second Foundation was completely destroyed for any future seasons.
• Salvor Hardin is the definition of a Mary Sue. Ugh! Gaal, not as bad as she did have a few things to overcome.
• Anacreons have been trained by Star Wars Imperial Stormtroopers in shooting.
• The battles and space battles were so unbelievably bad. Destroy an Imperial Battle Cruiser with 1 shot? Hell, it is highly unlikely a ship that big could even make it planet side. The ship would probably have a half dozen corvettes or so for such missions.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my reviews. I probably won't be watching season 2.

For more information on the series, check out the Foundation wiki at: https://foundation.fandom.com/wiki/Foundation_Wiki
* They have lots of go info and episode by episode guides. Very helpful.

I'll do my best to keep the episode summaries brief, but I'm afraid this will all be tldr. The show runners apparently decided to just chuck the books. So the only thing that is pretty much the same are character names.

Foundation Ep 04 - Barbarians at the Gate

The episisode starts out with Brother Dawn trying to kill himself and failing. I know where this is going from the books. (Spoiler!) The hot gardener chick is gonna kill him. In the book, Cleon wrecked a gardeners life by trying to be nice. The gardener LOVED his job, LOVED it. Then Cleon made him head gardener which ruined his life to the pointed he killed Cleon. So expect a similar outcome for this female gardener.

Brother Day has a hooker, but gets interrupted. There is schism of faith in Luminism. A leader in this hugely popular religion has declared that the Cleons have no souls. This has all the Cleons worried. This was one of Seldon's predictions.

Back to Terminus. Salvor flips the situation and captures the Anacreon leader (Phara). She questions Phara and it is pretty clear Salvor is a telepath and can read minds. They kind of imply that the Encyclopedians are pyschohistorians but they are not. There is not one psychohistorian on the planet.

The Anacreon troops show up. The are gonna attack the Foundations shield. On no!!!

Quick observations on Ep 04

It's actually stated in the episode about Salvor:

"we have been following your lead from the moment you pulled yourself upright."

lol. Classic. I'd love to see a 3yr old ordering everyone in town around. Maybe this is why they are still living in shipping conatiners after 30 years.

Don't get the luminism plot line. A change in doctrine in a peacful religion isn't gonna change anything. Just silly and boring to me. Unfortunately its about 1/3 of the show. There seems to be no point to it.

Seems like the foundation is pretty out gunned. Next ep should be interesting.

Differences from the Book Ep 04

• Everything in this episode is a complete invention except for Cleon and the Gardnener.
• There are NO pychohistorians on Terminus, only scientists.
• Salvor Hardin was NOT a telepath.
• The Anacreon situation is completely different in the book. They show up to setup a military base to "protect" the poor unarmed Foundation people. Salvor Hardin plays them off against the Thespins to save the Foundation. Politics and cunning, not force.

tags: #tv #scifi #foundation

I'll do my best to keep the episode summaries brief, but I'm afraid this will all be tldr. The show runners apparently decided to just chuck the books. So the only thing that is pretty much the same are character names.

Foundation Ep 03 - The Mathematician's Ghost

The episode starts by spending a big chunk of time with the Cleons. The oldest one (Brother Dusk) is gonna die and everyone is sad. Demerzel is definitely a robot and all the Cleons know. None of this moves the story forward.

Next we jump to Terminus. The settlers arrive and the planet is cold. They find a mysterious "vault" which knocks out any living thing. It's a mystery.

See the Foundation Wiki for more information on the Vault

Flash ahead thirty years they are still living in shipping containers. Their town has not grown much.

We meet Salvor Hardin.

See Foundation Wiki for details on Salvor

She is the Warden (like Sheriff) of Terminus. She has lots of "hunches" and "feelings" about stuff. She has a hunky boyfriend we shall call Hunk.

One night, she has a "feeling" and looks into a magic telescope which can see ships in outer space days away from the planet. (Neat trick.) She warns the colony. They try to phone for help, but their Internet space modem has been destroyed.

The next night she has a feeling and sees a ghost boy she follows to the ruins of their colony ship. She is captured by Anacreon soldiers. On no! Of course, the Anacreons are led by a woman. Salvor is captured!

Quick observations on Ep 03

• Why is Salvor 20? There is not a good reason to deviate from the books on this. A female mayor of the same age and experience would have worked fine. But the show runners clearly think they can write a better story than Isaac Asimov.
• Living in shipping containers after 30 years. Really?!!!?! 30 years!! Hollywood's obsession with dystopian futures continues with this show.
  • With Imperial tech, they could accomplish a lot of building in 30 years.
  • The town looks like they landed last year!
• Where the f*#! do they grow the food? What do they eat?

Differences from the Book Ep 03

There are a LOT of differences. Here is my list:

• Terminus was settled over decades in the book, not with a single ship.
  • Tens of thousands of people were on the planet, not hundreds as shown in the tv show.
  • There is no mention of dangerous life forms or an inhospitable climate. Both made up for the show.
  • Terminus city was very modern and used the latest Imperial tech.
    • Had unlimited power based on nuclear fusion.
    • In the books their improvement on Imperial power systems was one of the main tech advantages of the Foundation.
• The vault was just an auditorium in Terminus. The null field, the mystery, all of that is made up.
  • Seldon broadcast prerecorded messages in the vault based on psychohistory predictions. There was some mechanism that alerted Terminus City to when a broadcast would occur.
• There was no such thing as slow ship. Faster than Light (FTL) travel is common place and used throughout the book series.
  • Hunk mentions he is 70 years old because of time dilated travel. There is no such thing in the Foundation Trilogy. Even after the fall, everyone still has FTL travel.
  • Also no special pods or tech are needed for jumps. You just jump. Also added to the TV show for some dumb reason.
• There were hundreds of mathematicians working on psychohistory. Not 2. All of them understood it.
  • However, in the books, ZERO psychohistorians were on Terminus. Every kind of scientists except for them were there.
  • That is kind of a plot hole in the books. You would think the early settlers would have noticed this and complained.
• Salvor Hardin was a dude in his 30s or 40s and a master politician.
  • He was mayor of Terminus. (Mayor would eventually mean president more or less.)
  • His primary contribution was to wrest control of Terminus from the Encyclopedia scientists and convert the Foundation to a democracy.
  • There is one similarity. Both Hardin's try to convince the Encyclopedia folks that Terminus is on its own. They must provide their own defense.
  • He was never a warden, sheriff, or other type of policeman.
• The folks writing the Encyclopedia Britannica were a big deal early on in the Foundation in the books. They are there in the TV series, but if you had not read the books, you would not understand this. There is no coverage of the Encyclopedia.

tags: #tv #scifi #foundation

Thoughts on Adapting the Trilogy

The biggest problem adapting the trilogy is time. Decades if not centuries can pass between chapters and books. So the main character in the books, change often. For TV you need to keep the same characters. So I was curious

Also, some of the main characters are actually immortal robots guiding humanity. Will they include this in the series? Well let's dive in.

Episode 1

Basic story, outworlder Gaal travels to Trantor. She is there to work for the greatest math guy ever, Hari Seldon. We see lots of cool amazing tech. Gaal gets sucked into imperial intrigue as the Emperor is trying to figure out if Seldon is for real and what to do with him. Terrorists attack the space elevator on Trantor destroying it and killing millions of people. Seldon and his followers get sent to exile on Terminus.

Pretty cool. The way they brought in Gaal to Trantor was neat. Special effects were really good. Trantor looked real. The tech and the look is great. The pyschohistory prime math thingy was really cool too.

The space elevator was super cool too. And the way it was destroyed and crashed were great special effects. However, the tech of the galactic empire was so advanced two bombs would not have taken it down. Damaged it badly yes, but destruction seems unlikely.

The basic theme is pretty close to the book. Once the Emperor figures out Seldon's math actually works, he tries to use it for his advantage. There was a trial and Seldon did think he might die (though the odds were slim) if I remember correctly. Really sets up the basic story. Introduces Terminus and the Encyclopedia Galactic.

Really like Jared Harris as Hari Seldon. Maybe a bit serious, but I buy him as a wise old mathematician. Lou Liobell is a look s a bit young for Gaal methinks (she's 26 but she looks 14!). In the book, Gaal was more college age. Probably a young PHD. Also, Laura Bin seems too young for Demerzel. I would expect that character to feel more 40ish or 50ish. Lee Pace is cool as Brother Day. Perfect for this role.

Differences from the Book

Character changes

• Gaal was a dude.
  • Not a big deal, the characters sex didn't really matter.
  • What's up with her home planet religion? I have never even heard of anything like that. They execute anyone who embraces science?!?! None of the major religions Islam, Christianity, Buddism, have ever done anything like that.
  • Gaal's home planet is under water. So if they deny science, how did their climate change so the planet is under water???? They should have just dropped all that and saved 30 minutes for more interesting stuff.
• Emperor was just a Dude.
  • This change is super smart! If you make the emperor a clone, then the same actor can play the part for the whole show. Awesome! As I said, Lee Pace is perfect for this role. His costume looks great.
  • In the books, the emperor was a LOT more incompetant.
• Demerzel was a dude.
  • This is more problematic. The character is a very important robot include in a number of Asimov books. He clearly is a HE and you break all sorts of stuff with the sex change.
• Salvor Hardin was a dude and older.
  • Hardin was a scientist (probably) and a politician. The tv series character is nothing like him.
  • Also, Hardin saves the Foundation several times with his wits. So far the story just points at Hardin as a "different" policeman? Sheriff? Something like that.

Race/Sex Changes: That far in the future, my guess is, the idea of race will not exist. Everyone will be sort of beige. But if you go for diversity, then stick with it. Everyone is black or white. No latins. One Indian kid, no other asians. Some of these choices are weird.

Story Changes

• The math folks (pyschohistorians) never left Trantor.
  • In fact, Seldon purposely kept any pyschohistory nerds from going to Terminus.
  • There were a lot of scientists and engineers on Terminus. But none of the Seldon bunch.
• The math folks were only sort of exiled. The emperor just funded the project at the edge of known space. With the goal of making the world forget about Seldon. In the end, everyone got what they wanted.
  • The math folks on Trantor were never messed with again after the initial "trial".
• Terminus did not have any sort of extreme climate. That's new.
  • Terminus has no natural resources very lacking in the metal ores and such.
• You don't have to go into a cocoon to do space jumps, not in the books. They just jump. Nothing special about it.

Episode 2

So the Seldon crew get on a slow ship to Terminus. Gaal does a lot of swimming. The Emperors do a lot of investigating. Eventually they hang a bunch of folks and attack 2 planets badly damaging them. Raych stages a fight with Seldon and them murders him and sends Gaal out in an escape shuttle. The settlers prepare for the "dangerous" Terminus.

Story Changes and Comments

• Nothing in here is in the book. Nothing.
• The episode ending of sending Gaal into space in a life pod made ZERO sense. Terrible writing. I'm guessing, the idea is Gaal will found the Second Foundation? No idea what was going on really.
• Seldon dies of old age safe and sound in his house on Trantor.
  • His robot wife actually visits and stays with him until the end.
• Raych got married and had 2 kids. One of the kids, Wanda Seldon, has telepathic powers and helps found the Second Foundation.
  • We will have to see if Raych and Gaal return to the story and create Wanda.
• There was no single "colony" ship. The Foundation was setup over many years. So this is new for the tv show.
• There is a bunch of talk about radiation and babies. Ridiculous, the galactic empires tech is so advanced this sort of idea is just dumb. Writers should have read the books.

Summary

Episode 1 was really good. But episode 2, was a waste of time really. I really felt like they had the heart of the story in 1. Same old crap. Instead of just using what is there in a masterpiece of science fiction, you make up your own stupid crap that just doesn't measure up to the original. Maybe things will get better on Terminus. We'll see.

Spoilery Review of Shang Chi

The most frustrating thing about Shang Chi is it had the potential to be a very good movie. However, there are just too many plot and story problems to kick it up into that category. So here is a list of character names for brevity in the rest of the review.

• Dad - Shang Chi's father. AKA The Mandarin. AKA Fu Manchu. AKA Xu WenWu. Played very well by Tony Leung.
• Mom - Shang Chi's mother.
• Sean - Shang Chi. AKA Xu Shang Chi. Played by Simu Liu
• Katy - Marvel's Katy. AKA Katy. Played by Awkwafina.
• Sis - Shang Chi's sister. AKA Xu Xialing. Played by Meng'her Zhang
• Auntie - Ying Nan. Seans Auntie. Played by Michelle Yeoh

All the acting was good. No complaints there.

Plot Overview

The story is broken in 4 main parts.

Part 1: Meet Dad, Mom, and Sean

So the movie starts out with with Sean's Dad. He finds these magic bracelets (not rings, let's call them bangles) which make him super awesome and immortal. Where did he find these bangles? Don't know. Where did they come from? No idea. He beats up some Babylonians and some Romans. He then decides he wants to exploit the magic kingdom of Ta-Lo. Anywho, his men get killed in the enchanted forest surrounging Ta-Lo. Dad survives. He meets Mom who is the guardian of the forest. They fall in love fighting. End result is Shawn and Sis.

Part 2: Family Trouble (Shown in Flashback)

What happended to Sean's family is covered in flashback so I'll summarize here. So Sean's parents get married and have Sean and Xialing. To his credit, Dad gives up his criminal empire to raise a normal family. Anyway, one day he goes shopping for groceries. Bad guys show up and want revenge. Mom fights them and is beaten to death.

Anyway, Dad returns and is sad. He immediately rehires all his goons and plans his revenge. He begins training Sean ruthlessly to take part in the revenge. Sis however, does not get any training, but trains in secret and become even better than Sean!!! (We know this, she saws so in the movie.) Sean and Sis eventually run away from Dad.

Plot Stuff

No security for your bad guy compound makes no sense. Not a single bodyguard. Not even a dog? Wouldn't you at least have guns? A sling shot? A stick? A knife? Nope. Hell why not run and get the magic bangles? Nope. Just hand to hand, no bangles allowed.

Also, even without her guardian magic, Mom is still a super badass. But the less than impressive bad guys just take her out.

It is implied that Dad blames Sean for not helping his mother. But clearly, Mom and Dad are to blame for not having ANY SECURITY of ANY KIND!!!!

Part 3: Meet Sean and Katy

So 10 years after Sean ran away, he is living in San Francisco and working as a Valet. He spends his nights drinking and doing karaoke with his friend/girlfriend Katy. Like two peas in a pod, they are two slackers in a pod. Its implied both are college educated, but have no ambition.

One day while riding the bus to work, Sean is attacked by bad guys. They want a pendant given to him by his mother. A cool fight ensues with lots of damage to the bus. Sean wins the fight, but loses the pendant. Katy drives the brakeless bus to eventual safety. This was a cool fight scene if a tad a long.

Plot Stuff

Katy has never seen Sean fight, which seems a little ridiculous after 10 years. Also, we never get to see Sean train. How does he stay in shape if all he does is party? Fighting is just like anything else, without practice your skills diminish. It would have been better to show Sean helping people with his skills before the big fight. Maybe leave for the karaoke bar from a dojo or gym? Just a thought.

Travel to Macau

Anyway, Sean realizes these were his Dad's goons. His sister might be in danger! He recieved a postcard from her some months earlier with her address. Sean and Katy immediately hop on a plane for Macau. During the flight Sean explains his past.

They arrive in Macau and go to the address which is turns out to an "underground" fight club in a half finished sky scraper. Sean is immediately drafted into a match against the reigning champ. Who could that be???? Hmmm... Yep, its Sis. She immediately kicks him in the privates and beats him up. Then while explaining how mad she is with him, they are attacked by Dad's goons. A cool fight ensues and the good guys are captured.

Plot Stuff

The fight club thing is just kinda strange. Gambling in Macau is legal. Fighting probably is too. Didn't seem like they were fighting to the death, so why the cloak and dagger? Of course Sis is the bestest ever with better Kung Fu skills. Why not make her the hero of the 10 rings? The movie should be Xialing and the 10 rings as she is a better fighter and definitely not a slacker.

Part 4: To the Magic City of Ta-Lo

Well the Shawn and the gang meet Dad. He has sorta gone crazy. He believes his dead wife is in Ta-Lo waiting for them. Anyway, he puts the necklaces in a statue and it activates a magic map showing a way through the enchanted forest. Kids tell Dad that Mom is dead and they will not help him. So he throws them in jail.

In the rather run down jail, they find Ghandi hanging out with a faceless winged magic animal, a rabbit-chicken. The rabbit-chicken talks to Ghandi telpathically and says he can get them through the forest. So the good guys eaisly escape from jail and head to the enchanted to forest. Using a standard SUV, they eaisly avoid the trees and come to a tunnel that is the entrance to Ta-Lo. No guardian is posted so they just drive in and voila! They are in Ta-Lo.

Plot Stuff
This is where stuff really starts to fall apart. Just driving through the magic woods with a rabbit-chicken and you can get to the tunnel any time. Where is the new guardian? There are no guards posted??? Dad apparently does not like guards either, because back at Dad's compound, not a single guard outside. Escaping sure was easy.

Back to our Story
Well there are magical creatures in Ta-Lo, but the people seem to be magic free for the most part. The seem to be living at a medievil level. Steel weapons, swords, staffs, bow and arrows. Sean meets his Auntie. She explains that Ta-Lo is another dimension that was once a vast advanced civilation. But they were attacked by some evil dragon thingy. Ta-Lo sealed the evil dragon thingy in a nearby cave, but it wiped out everyting but the 100 people in the village.

Every so often, the evil dragon thingy tricks someone from Sean's world into trying to let it go. Alas, this is what is happening to Dad. So Sean and gang hang out in Ta-Lo and wait for Dad to arrive. So to prepare, Katy learns archery, Sean learns Ta-Lo kung fu and Sis ties a knife to the end of chain to make a really dumb weapon. Their weapons and armor are made of super duper tough dragon scale. Where they got the armor?

So Dad shows up with 5 SUVs full of bad dudes. Drives into town and announces he is gonna release the evil dragon thingy. A fight ensues. They bad guys fight with electric staffs that can shock you. The Ta-Lo with their weapons.

Comment
The fight village fight scene is just pathetic. Basically, the good guys and the bad guys just sort of pair up and fight one on one. They mostly seem to be using staffs. But no modern weapons. Boy what would happen of you brought a gun perhaps? Or what if the village posted guards at the tunnel entrance? Or at the tunnel exit? The whole thing is just silly. No real weapons. No real stakes. Heck if that had ACTUALLY used their bow and arrows, they could have killed all the bad guys the moment they stepped out of their SUVs.

Back to the Story
So Dad slips past the fighting and heads to the cave with the evil dragon. Sean goes to stop him. They fight. Sean loses. Dad cracks the cave and flying face sucker things start flying out of the cave. The immediatly attack the people at the village. They attach themselve to a person, then suck out their soul killing them instantly. This is bad.

Dad evenutally ruptures the seal on the cave. The evil dragon grabs Dad and starts sucking out his soul. Before he is killed, he realizes his mistake and gives Sean his bangles. The evil dragon knocks sean into a lake and he starts sinking. The face suckers start giving the evil dragon souls making it stronger. Things look grim.

Before Sean drowns, he notices a dragon is with him at the bottom of the lake. It turns out to be a good dragon! Yay! Sean hops on the good dragon. A very confusing dragon fight ensues that is very hard to follow. Anyway, Marvel's Katy shoots the bad dragon with an arrow. The weakens the bad dragon enough for the good dragon to win. Yay!

The movie ends with Sean and Katy eating dinner with friends explaining their adventures. Then Wong from Dr Strange shows up and tells them they are super heroes now and life will be different. Yay!

Comments
I could not follow the last fight at all. The bad dragon was winning. Why? Beats me. Anyway, at lost after Katy shot it.

Anyway, the biggest problem with the movie is Sean has no agency. He basically is just pulled through events by the other characters. What motivates him? Does he want to be a hero? Is he good or bad? We know more about Dad, Sis, and Katy than we know about Sean.

Anyway, not a terrible movie, but probably not a movie I would add to my collection.

tags: #movie #fantasy #marvel #action

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Geeks and Gamers

Ryan Kinel

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Salty Nerd

tags: #fridaynighttights #las vegas #meetup

So What Happened

First off, it appears the movie is just not very good. After watching a few reviews (see links), a quick trip to IMBD reviews found a general trend of ratings from 1 to 5 mostly. Mostly cited were unbelievable action scenes, not enough ScarJo, and a generally not very good story. Matt McGloin from Cosmic Book News details this pretty well.

Hollywood has blamed piracy, direct to Disney+ sales, and the 'rona for the poor performance. The piracy excuse is a joke, as there have been pirated copies of movies for 20 years. Disney+ sales also not much of an excuse (see Comsmic Book post). But there does seem to be less theater traffic since the 'rona. That includes me, as there hasn't been any movie that sounded enticing enough to go. There still is a lot of And don't forget, the movie has not been released in China, and might never be.

Anyway, folks estimate that the movie would need to make around $500M to break even and after a $10m 2nd weekend, that looks like a tough mountain to climb. It might be a long time before we see the likes of Infinity War or End Game again. We need better movies and more folks wanting to return to the theater experience.

Reviews

• Screen Rant Pitch Meeting: https://youtu.be/VVxocz5bCms
• Critical Drinker Review: https://youtu.be/0c5ynKJxnWI
• Gary from Nerdrotic Review: https://youtu.be/o0T9cEzz8uw

tags: #movie #marvel

Well here is my review of the Snyder cut. I'm not sure I'm including any big spoilers since the movie is pretty similar to the Joss Wheedon version. This version is 4 hours long and available on HBO Max.

Review

Well to start, this version of the movie is really good. Justice League is a movie about the initial creation of the DC Justice League, composed of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Cyborg. This new version is much more focused and cohesive.

Likes

• Characters have better back stories and the story flow is much tighter.
  • Cyborg's story is much better.
• Steppenwolf is MUCH better with the additional of Darkseid as his boss.
• Action scenes are much better. Wonder Woman's action scene in the beginning is amazing!
  • Improved villains produces better fights.
• Special effects are great! Everything looks really good.
• Superman has a cool black super suit.
• Flashback to ancient time fights much improved.
• Amazons.

Nitpicks

• Aspect ratio is 4/3? Why? Just kinda weird.
• 50 Amazons stand in a circle guarding their box for 5000 years. Really????
  • Makes no sense.
  • The storage building makes no sense either.
• Ezra Miller doesn't know how to run. lol.

My rating: 4.5/5. Definitely worth a watch if you have HBO Max.

tags: #movie #dc #justice-league

Time.com thinks Creating Project for Fans is Dangerous!

Time.com: The Snyder Cut Is a Better Version of Justice League. But It Sets a Dangerous Precedent

• Read the story for the details, but fans are called every name in the book.

Zach attacks Fans

To top it off, Zach Snyder called into a fan charity stream and calls his fans a "hate" group. Get the details from Bounding.

Bounding into Comics: Justice League Director Zack Snyder Attacks His Fans, Implies They Are Part Of A Hate Group

• Lots of links to tweets denouncing fans in the story.

tags: #movie #dc #justice-league

The Incompetence is Strong

After the last episode, which I thought was great, we get this episode. Ashoka Tano sends Mando to the planet Tython to put baby Yoda on a rock with the hope that a Jedi might show up. So Mando does this, and the empire shows up along with Boba Fett and Ming Na Wen.

I didn't care for this episode much. Too much incompetence and nonsense:

• Mando never checks his ship for trackers, knowing that the empire is searching for him.
• Boba Fett and Ming show up so Boba can get his armor. Why follow him to Tython? Why not ask him for the armor on Tatooine? Or Navarre? And how the hell is he tracking Mando? Yet another tracker?
• The empire shows up with 2 troop transports and troops start pouring out like a clown car in the circus.
  • The ships looks like they should hold about 10 troopers each.
  • Instead, there is about 50 on each one.
• Not a single storm trooper can shoot or fight. All 100 get cut down by 3 people.
  • Their armor is useless.
• Baby Yoda is protected by a powerful shield so Mando can't get him. Until the bad guys show up, then the shield disappears. lol.
• Moff Gideon blows up the Razorcrest in one shot, but never shoots at Slave 1.
• The "Dark" troopers fly down and grab baby Yoda, but none of the good guys shoot that at all. (Like maybe shoot them BEFORE they grab the baby).

I'm beginning to think I should start cheering for Moff Gideon as he is the only one who actually knows what he is doing.