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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:42 am

You know, it just occurred to me that despite having some funny lines and 'holy shit' moments (which sadly could all be transferred to some other character), Xykon@Order of the Stick has to be one of the worst villains ever written.
I put him on the same level as Voldemorte or Sousuke Aizen or Uchiha Madara. Maybe a little bit above.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:29 am

I'm totally not sorry that Dollhouse got canned, and I don't think I'm going to watch the finale. While there are some pretty awesome episodes near the end of season one and near the beginning of season 2, all the "big reveals" are just really... really lame. The final tapestry of conspiracy is confusing in a "why the fuck would they bother doing that?" kind of way rather than a "oh my goodness, what's going on, who can I trust?" kind of way.
The questions left open don't make me hungry for more, they make the whole thing seem like shitty writing. It's not that the premise is unworkable. It's that the main story is crap.
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus » Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:40 am

> Lago PARANOIA wrote:
> I put him on the same level as Voldemorte or Sousuke Aizen or Uchiha Madara. Maybe a little bit above.

Hey, Madara isn't as bad as the rest. He isn't working the "OMG I'M SO EVIL" angle like Aizen and Voldemort do/did.
It's interesting when he shows up to talk to someone. Which is more than you can say for Aizen or Voldemort...
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Maj
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Post by Maj » Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:31 am

> Frank wrote:The questions left open don't make me hungry for more, they make the whole thing seem like shitty writing. It's not that the premise is unworkable. It's that the main story is crap.

Yeah... I thought I would keep up with it this season, but it's tiring. I took it off the DVR last year.
My son makes me laugh. Maybe he'll make you laugh, too.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:58 am

> Maxus wrote:It's interesting when he shows up to talk to someone.

Madara is an awful villain for two reasons, one that's not the fault of his characterization, one that is.
The first problem is that his gimmick is overexposed to the point of causing the manga to derail. The Uchiha clan has already had a stranglehold on the plot; making Madara the villain completely negates any chance of the manga expanding its own Myopic vision.
The second one is that he's just not threatening as a villain. He really hurt his image with the Tobi thing--which would be understandable if he was doing it for a reason, but apparently he was just being a moron for no reason. But more importantly is that since then he has done nothing to make us take him seriously. He has had several massive failures under his command and his backstory in a row with no corresponding successes. Pain and Itachi had an aura of invincibility and evil for a good portion of their runs. He did not and does not; if someone who is a massive failure is the BBEG of your story then there's no tension.
He's really as bad of a villain as Xykon.
Xykon's biggest problem is that all of his successes are due to lucky breaks on his part, whether it's from good guys being stupid or just some random luck of the draw. When we actually see him try to be a big bad evil guy rather than just bumble randomly we get to see that he is in fact a huge moron and a goof-off. But we're not supposed to see Xykon as a moron who doesn't deserve his success; we're supposed to see Xykon as a genuinely evil villain whose dark, casual sense of humor is just a gimmick not a flaw.
Now, because Xykon is really funny in a dead baby sort of way, I don't actually hate the character, which is more than I can say for the others on the list. I think he's one of the best things about the comic in fact. I just think that he's a piss poor head villain. Redcloak is much better, in the fact that while he fails you get the sense that he's trying and actually thinking about what he's doing. I'm actually interested in seeing what he achieves and plots; I can't say the same for Xykon.
I don't even have to comment on Sousuke Aizen. He seems to have the opposite problem of the above two. Kubo did a good job getting us interested in his breathless invincibility in a manga where the good guys always win and hooked us with the tease of his real character and motivations. The problem is that a tease only works for so long; you eventually need to back up said tease or your villain becomes stale.
He's not the most awful character in Bleach but he's seemed to have done it the most harm; much like even though Sasuke is not the worst character in Naruto (that would be Sakura, Karin, or Nagato) he's done it the most harm. The author has invested a great deal of time with Aizen making him the focal point of the plot but failed to make the focal point interesting.
Doomsday and Bane had similar functions. Really simple villains who just a 'holy shit' gimmick. Doomsday however never evolved past his original gimmick and is just a waste of space. Bane did evolve and became an interesting character in his own right --although since his motivations evolved beyond Batman it sort of leaves him irrelevant.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Maxus
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Post by Maxus » Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:48 pm

Yeah, there is that. Naruto stopped being so much about the variety of weird ninja powers, and became "What Can The Sharingan Do This Month?"
But I do believe that the Tobi thing is intentional.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Stratagems
#27. Feign Madness but Keep your Balance: Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your intentions and motivations.
I can understand about the "Not-Threatening." Madara just...does stuff, usually. His scariest moment so far was telling Sasuke & Harem that "I'm really put out with you guys. Keep going this way, and I'll kill all of you."
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus » Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:22 am

So, after waiting two weeks to see what happens in Bleach...
(spoilers)
It's a tense wind-up to Ichigo trying to get a hit in on Aizen. I was actually a little excited. I knew it wasn't going to work, but I want to see Aizen bleed. However, I wasn't expecting Ichigo to do a full-blast attack and then...
Last edited by Maxus on Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:55 pm

> Maxus wrote:#27. Feign Madness but Keep your Balance: Hide behind the mask of a fool, a drunk, or a madman to create confusion about your intentions and motivation

And that's the problem with the whole Tobi persona. He wasn't trying to fool his opponents, he was fooling people on his own side. Which didn't mean jack shit since all of the important people knew who he was and it wouldn't have mattered if he didn't.
Nothing would've changed at all if the character had kept his dignity and just hid behind a mask and an assumed name.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Guyr Adamantine
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Post by Guyr Adamantine » Fri Jan 15, 2010 2:40 pm

> Maxus wrote:So, after waiting two weeks to see what happens in Bleach...
> (spoilers)

I lolled.
Last edited by Guyr Adamantine on Fri Jan 15, 2010 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TOZ
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Post by TOZ » Fri Jan 15, 2010 4:33 pm

what is this I don't even
It's not the trainwreck that Naruto is, but I am so tired of Aizen as a villian. I have no idea how he'll be beaten without ruining the story completely.
I halfway feel he should win, because that would at least make sense, and probably be a complete surprise. But this is Shonen, Ichigo will just power up and beat him with Determination.
Last edited by TOZ on Fri Jan 15, 2010 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:36 pm

> Guyr Adamantine wrote:

> > Maxus wrote:So, after waiting two weeks to see what happens in Bleach...
> > (spoilers)

> I lolled.

This chapter is full of lolworthy material. Someone more determined than I could easily replace the dialogue with an alternate set. Things like...
~Aizen~ "Ichigo, I've fought about ten thousand battles, if you count training, sparring, and hollows. I've used trickery in most of them, and my sword's ability helps with this. However, you're currently immune to my sword's powers, so I figure 'What the hell, I'll just ASK him to do what I want him to do.' And you're the first person to know what I'm doing and who wants to kill me who does what I ask them to. You are an absolute joy to have as the opposing side's only hope."
And then later, well...
Aizen touches Ichigo in a bad way.
Last edited by Maxus on Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:05 am

Like I said, Bleach and Naruto are both awful, but Bleach is still enjoyable in a Plan 9 From Outer Space bad. It's a trainwreck, but Kubo still does a couple of things right enough to make the manga readable, such as characterization. Actually, I think that's the only thing the manga really has going for it (with the two VERY egregious exceptions of Ichigo and Mayuri, the latter's behavior during the Ulquirroa fight bad enough that it's the second time I actually felt angry at Bleach). Yes, I do feel bad now and again that Bleach has devolved from Genuinely Good (and gets that way again sometimes) to So Bad It's Good, but it's generally enough so that I don't want to sock Kubo Tite in the face when I get done reading it.
Naruto is Matrix sequels bad. Occasionally you can see a glimmer of brilliance in it (like the Merovingian or Agent Smith's spiral into insanity) but it's so obsessed with itself that it chokes out its good points and it's just frustrating.
For example, the Mayuri/Syazel fight was nothing but one long troll on the part of Kubo. But it was hysterical. Same for the Yammy reveal and Kenpo and Aizen instantly adapting to Shinji's shikai and the various Espada/Tousen releases that make them WEAKER. I honestly laughed out loud at the naked chutzpah of those plot twists. But Orochimaru coming back just to be fodder or Itachi being revealed as a good guy or everything involving Nagato makes me just want to shove Kishimoto against the wall and scream at him.
Kubo Tite is a troll and generally a bad writer, but Kishimoto is a goddamn hack who thinks that he's so awesome that he can phone it in. IOW, Kubo Tite is Sean K. Reynolds and Masashi Kishimoto is Mike Mearls.
...
Wait, I had an original reason for--oh, yeah.
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
You know, I don't think there's enough criticism given lately towards how much adaptations fucking butchered Stowe's work.
I've only read the book and the script for the play up until recently, until I actually got to see film adaptations. I honestly didn't know why 'Uncle Tom' was so negative. I mean, you just read the works and Uncle Tom comes off as a religious, kindly, but ultimately heroic man since he refuses to hurt others even at the cost to himself and dies trying to protect runaway slaves. He's an idealized character, but a great one. George and Eliza also come off in the same way. They're, especially Eliza, have simple characterization but they're great characters. Yes, Eliza is just pretty much a stand-in for Stowe's message but she's still a powerful symbol. I didn't even think Topsy was all that bad, but I had always had the mental image of her being 12 or 13, not an adult like in the adaptations.
So I watch a movie adaptation based on UTC and I'm like... holy fucking shit. No wonder why Uncle Tom is such a negative character and a slur of the worst order.
Seriously, I don't know what the fuck happened in the transition between Aiken's script and the theater or big screen, but what we got was bullshit of the highest caliber. I don't do this very often, but the defilement done to Stowe's work deserves a heaping helping of extra-special Lago-brand hate.
I hereby dub thee EVEN MORE OF A HACKISH, CYNICAL, IDIOTIC, DOWNRIGHT MURDERING OF THE SOURCE THAN EVEN FUCKING CHRONO CROSS, Uncle Tom's Cabin adaptation! You better hope that there's no hell, because I'll kick Saint Peter in the balls just to get a chance hunt you down and jam my fingers into your eyeballs.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Crissa
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Post by Crissa » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:13 am

Well, yes, in the book, Uncle Tom eventually redeems himself.
But that doesn't mean he wasn't already of questionable quality.
-Crissa
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K
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Post by K » Sat Jan 30, 2010 7:22 pm

Has anyone watched the last episode of Dollhouse? While the second to last episode was a "and here is the season finale of season 3 that we'll never have", this episode is "Series finale that would have taken place in Season 5 or later if we had been able to push it."
Basically, they do a time jump to several years later and go all post-apocalyptic as a result of zombie apocalypse.
Its actually kinda fun. I might have been more inclined to enjoy that show. I really wonder when Joss Whedon will just give up on these prolonged character developments where his show gets canceled before anything interesting happens?
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sat Jan 30, 2010 7:35 pm

> K wrote:Has anyone watched the last episode of Dollhouse? While the second to last episode was a "and here is the season finale of season 3 that we'll never have", this episode is "Series finale that would have taken place in Season 5 or later if we had been able to push it."
> Basically, they do a time jump to several years later and go all post-apocalyptic as a result of zombie apocalypse.
> Its actually kinda fun. I might have been more inclined to enjoy that show. I really wonder when Joss Whedon will just give up on these prolonged character developments where his show gets canceled before anything interesting happens?

Sounds kind of interesting. However, I declared that I was going to stop watching after the bullshit reveal that the head of the organization was their branch security chief. Because that was so fucking stupid and insulting that when I turned it off I told myself that I was not going to turn it back on again.
I mean, that was supposed to be some sort of titanic mindfuck, but really it made me wonder what the fuck was wrong with him putting himself in actual harm's way repeatedly over a plan that makes no sense. None of the decisions involving cost/benefit analysis seem to make any sense. The things people do in that show seem obviously unprofitable. I can accept pretty much any amount of resources sunk into sabotage and espionage, but productive ventures have to justify themselves. Nothing in Dollhouse, and I mean nothing, meets that criteria.
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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:51 am

Did anyone else find the 'Teen Titans in Tokyo' movie to be in bad taste?
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
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Mount Flamethrower on rear
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shadzar
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Post by shadzar » Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:42 am

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:Did anyone else find the 'Teen Titans in Tokyo' movie to be in bad taste?

How so? Ten Titans were basically done in anime style form the beginning. All the characters are built around former or current comic book characters.
Manga (comics) are most popular in Japan, so having the villian be an actual comic book type villian literally that uses comics as opponents, made good sense.
Are you saying it was insulting to mangaka or Japan in anyway, or insulting to comics and comic readers outside of Japan, even though manga (Japanese/Chinese) and manwa (Korean for manga) heavily influenced the design of Teen Titans, as well the songs were done by J-pop groups?
Play the game, not the rules.

> Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.

> Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.

good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
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Nicklance
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Post by Nicklance » Sun Jan 31, 2010 3:59 am

The 'driving into the sunset' ending of Daybreakers wrecked the already precarious timebomb of a movie.
There ain't no rest for the wicked.
befriend (v.): to use mecha-class beam weaponry to inflict grievous bodily harm on a target in the process of proving the validity of your belief system.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:35 am

> Catharz wrote:Did anyone else find the 'Teen Titans in Tokyo' movie to be in bad taste?

I did.
Some highlights:
- Robin reverting to his Season One characterization despite going through a fucking season and a half where he reverted out of that shit.
- The Titans getting all of the way to Japan and not having enough of a brain to realize none of them speak Japanese.
- The writers going overboard to sink the Raven/Beast Boy ship to the point where it interfered with the story.
- A show that's known for the creative use of powers and gadgets has the Titans revert back to using tactics and moves we've seen a thousand times before.
It's awful. Unless you're a Robin/Starfire shipper and you're still feeling all nerdragey from Season 4 there's no reason to watch it.
Speaking of which, I try not to get too involved with the shipping stuff, but I really hated the Robin/Starfire ship over the course of the show; I don't mind the other ships like Robin/Raven, Beast Boy/Raven, or BB/Terra but that one really rubs me the wrong way. The entire thing was insanely cliched and boring and ended up doing nothing but smothering Starfire's character--Robin's character was able to evolve without Starfire, but all of Starfire's major episodes (except for the one with Silky) revolved around her infatuation with Robin.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:42 am

> CatharzGodfoot wrote:Did anyone else find the 'Teen Titans in Tokyo' movie to be in bad taste?

I certainly did not. It takes place outside the continuity, so it's ambiguously before or after events in any particular episode and doesn't rely upon the audience having seen any particular episode. It's pretty entertaining, and reasonably good looking throughout.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:51 am

I don't quite agree with that, FrankTrollman, because the whole point of that movie seemed to be to put a Final Note on the Robin/Starfire ship; otherwise Cyborg's 'Finally!' comment wouldn't have made any sense considering all of the episodes devoted towards that plot point in the show.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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shadzar
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Post by shadzar » Sun Jan 31, 2010 7:20 am

> Lago PARANOIA wrote:I don't quite agree with that, FrankTrollman, because the whole point of that movie seemed to be to put a Final Note on the Robin/Starfire ship; otherwise Cyborg's 'Finally!' comment wouldn't have made any sense considering all of the episodes devoted towards that plot point in the show.

That's what they call in the 'biz' fanservice, such as was most of the movie...Beast Boy finding a girl that wasn't Terra, etc....
Play the game, not the rules.

> Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.

> Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.

good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 7:58 am

> Lago PARANOIA wrote:I don't quite agree with that, FrankTrollman, because the whole point of that movie seemed to be to put a Final Note on the Robin/Starfire ship; otherwise Cyborg's 'Finally!' comment wouldn't have made any sense considering all of the episodes devoted towards that plot point in the show.

Yes, but that's the point: that was a lot of episodes. Someone watching the movie is supposed to be familiar with the show (that is: having seen some episodes), but not have to have watched any particular episodes. If you missed the right (wrong) episodes, you'd think Beast Boy's approved of girlfriend was Tara. But if you saw any episodes, you know that Robin and Starfire are destined to be a thing.
Beats the comic continuity, where Starfire was in the Titans with the Dick Grayson Robin and got thoroughly shipped in that book while in the largely separately written Gotham continuity Dick Grayson was thoroughly shipped with Barbara Gordon. By having the Teen Titans Robin be Tim Drake and shipping him with Starfire, they make Robin into less of a cad. Also: Beast Boy and Raven broke up during 52 and Beast Boy went back to the Doom Patrol. Beast Boy and Raven are not allowed to find and keep romantic happiness. Hell, even Ravager isn't allowed to find romantic happiness now that they killed off Red Devil and Kid Flash. The only people allowed to find romantic happiness in the Teen Titans are Robin, Starfire, Superboy, and Wondergirl. Everyone else has to suffer. Oh, and I guess Blue Beetle, but that's because his girlfriend is not in the Titans and therefore off camera and immune to harm.
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Post by Username17 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:11 pm

So I'm going to talk for a little bit about why Blade is an awesome movie, Blade III is a problematic movie that you should probably watch alone so that noone catches you laughing at the vampire dog or Hannibal's terrible jokes, and Blade II is an abortion that should have never been brought to any screen. Blade is set in the action genre, which means that there are all kinds of things involving jumping cars, super flips, and chopping peoples' fucking heads off that we are willing to give a suspension of disbelief pass to without a second thought. But beyond that, we expect it to fit our expectations pretty well.
The core conceit of the Blade universe is actually pretty simple:

- You << Vampires << Blade

That is to say that vampires are totally hard core, and totally winning. And that's why rational people become "familiars" (toadies of the vampires), and also why we need Blade to flip out like a ninja and murder vampires with a sword in the middle of kung fu action sequences. Blade's character is similarly simple: he fucking hates vampires and kills them wherever he can, and goes out of his way to save humans except familiars. It's a simple formula, and when they stick to it, it practically writes itself and keeps the viewers in their seats rooting for the hero to stab a dude in the face.
But if you stray from the formula, it becomes questionable why any of this is going on. If Blade leaves a human body count, or the vampires do not appear to need Blade's interference to go down, the viewer is left questioning why any of this is happening or why they are supposed to care what Blade does. And since it's an action movie, and thus at its core makes very little sense, having the audience questioning instead of cheering is a recipe for disaster.
So let's start with Blade II, because it did everything wrong. It really only had two core issues, but they were so big that they completely sank the movie. The first was that the main antagonists were immune to kung fu. The weapons you used to fight them were just lights. They required no strength, no speed, no choreography, and no named characters to deliver. The bad guys could have been fought as effectively by children with flash bulbs on pull cords. There was no reason for Blade to be there. They also brought in a bunch of kind of awesome vampire super ninjas, but there was no reason for them to be there either. So like, the entire movie you're left wondering why these guys are posturing with giant hammers and twin sword styles and shit, because it was already established that they do not do anything. The second problem is that Blade falls in love with a vampire hottie for no reason and then gets all torn up about her dying at the end. Blade does not give a fuck about sexy vampire ladies. He had a few moments of genuine confliction before he killed his own mom for being a vampire. So that whole subplot just rang really hollow. But mostly it's the fact that none of the protagonists are ever presented a single reason to interact with the A plot at all. The entire movie is a puzzling waste of time.
Blade III has numerous problems, but they are all minor. None of those problems is enough to sink the movie and the movie as a whole is "stupid but watchable" - which puts it in the realm of most action movies to be honest. But if it had cut out some of the worse offenders, it could easily have been an A-list action/vampire movie, which in a way makes it more tragic than Blade II. Where Blade II needs a rewrite of "set the script on fire and have the entire movie rewritten by someone who understands what the fuck they are doing" - Blade III just needed a few scenes cut or tweaked.
So here goes: the Villain had nothing, at all to do with Dracula. None. He did not look, sound, act, or identify with that character. In fact, he had been asleep for hundreds of years before any of that Vlad Tepes shit happened, so there wasn't even a mists of mythology connection. But he was otherwise a fine villain. You could call him Dagon, and cut out the grand total of 2 scenes in the movie where he mentions Dracula and move on your way. His name is Dagon, he's the first vampire, and he's a total badass. Done. Instantaneously, like half the scenes in the movie that make you go "Huh?" vanish and we can go on with our lives.
Secondly, the vampire hunting humans were way too effective. When Abigail Whistler can dispatch 4 vampires in hand to hand combat while listening to an iPod, you totally have to ask why we give a shit what Blade does. Sure, Blade is better than her, but so is having 12 more of her, which since she is a human and the population is over six billion is totally an option. The Nightstalkers had a whole Scooby Gang of dudes, but only 2 of them actually do any fighting. If instead they had sent the whole crew to Bram Stoker vampires one at a time (gang tackle him while someone delivers a coup de grace and heroes are getting thrown across the room left and right), it would have driven home the point of the basic futility of their cause and the reason that they look up to Blade. They can still prove their individual badassery by taking on human familiars four at a time. Just use individual vampries as frickin boss monsters so that the entire war doesn't feel so trivial. They ended up doing that anyway when they had the first vampire stalk through the ship and murder everyone. Just needed to have a couple "My True Power" scenes for normal vampires to establish Blade's badassery.
Thirdly: the warehouse attack went on too long and painted the hero in a bad light. Those were in many cases, normal cops. As in, not familiars. Which means that Blade's own statement immediately afterwards (and basic character concept) that he keeps a running track of the humans he kills, but they are familiars, is false. If you're going to have that scene at all, Blade has to use non-lethal force. That means no blowing up the building, no having Whistler shoot human police with a shotgun, none of that.
And Fourth: the gadgets were goofy and pointless. There was nothing wrong with the whip dagger except that after Blade gave it his endorsement it never appeared again. There is nothing nice to say about the UV Arc at all, and that is best forgotten, full stop. But even the inhibitor inhaler... what was that for? As far as I could tell, it was no better or even different from the iconic blue injection tubes he used in all previous incarnations. So... what the fuck? The time could have been better spent having Abigail Whistler take a longer shower. I am not even kidding.
So yeah, four problems. Each of them immersion breaking in one way or another, but each of them really easily fixed.
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Post by Juton » Sun Jan 31, 2010 3:09 pm

Huh, that's the first time I've seen Blade III espoused over Blade II. I saw both in theatres, and I would say Blade II is better than III, while first is still the best.
Your major complaint about #2 is that the monster killing weapon could be used by my Grandma, That's true. The heroes don't know that's their only weakness in the first set piece at the bar, so it's an excuse to have a bunch of different character concepts look bad ass on screen for a few minutes. The second set piece wasn't all about killing the creatures in the sewers, it was about the double cross that both sides where hinting at before. Action piece #3 was them raiding the castle. So when I watched it I didn't think to myself 'hey, I could do that' for most/any of the movie.
You're right about renaming the villian in Blade III, that would have made a ton of difference. I also hated the side kicks, they where both too cutesy and it didn't feel right to me that the could take out vamps so well. I accept Whistler being able to kill the occasional vamp, because he's been doing it all his life and he oozes the grizzled vet vibe. The original script was set to take place after the Vampires had conquered the world, I think it would have been a better movie than Daybreakers so it's what I'd like to have seen.
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