The Gaming Den

Prak wrote:http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0987.html

"Hey Roy. Thor needs me to go to a giant pile of clerics on Zenith mountain. It's the Godsmoot. Yep, told me this morning when I prayed for spells. Shouldn't take long, and Thor says it's important."


Why would that be so hard?

Thor being helpful and straightforward for once is immediately reason to be suspicious - he's been consistently portrayed as incompetent and half-assed.

When Thrawn's military genius/insight was revealed to be through the study of a species art. It barely had me before that but this was the moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the book was actually overrated crap.

Is there a particular reason why the Fantastic Four movies refuse to have Doom be a Latverian dictator and/or super-scientist without any personal powers?

The studios involved think classic Doom is too camp and hokey for the 21st century movie-going audience. And he's resistant to villain appeal because of the whole hidden face thing.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The studios involved think classic Doom is too camp and hokey for the 21st century movie-going audience. And he's resistant to villain appeal because of the whole hidden face thing.

Yes, because a fantasy villain with a mask, great and mysterious powers on top of personal badassdom and an army of flunkies will never catch on. That "Vader" douchebag was never seen again after the first movie.

rasmuswagner wrote:

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The studios involved think classic Doom is too camp and hokey for the 21st century movie-going audience. And he's resistant to villain appeal because of the whole hidden face thing.

Yes, because a fantasy villain with a mask, great and mysterious powers on top of personal badassdom and an army of flunkies will never catch on. That "Vader" douchebag was never seen again after the first movie.

You need a voice as amazing as James Earl Jones to pull that shit off though. And you cant use James Earl Jones because its already been done. Soooooo who should be the voice of DOOM?

Shady314 wrote:When Thrawn's military genius/insight was revealed to be through the study of a species art. It barely had me before that but this was the moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the book was actually overrated crap.

What ought be studied to gain insight into the psychological foundation of a species?

Shady314 wrote:

rasmuswagner wrote:

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The studios involved think classic Doom is too camp and hokey for the 21st century movie-going audience. And he's resistant to villain appeal because of the whole hidden face thing.

Yes, because a fantasy villain with a mask, great and mysterious powers on top of personal badassdom and an army of flunkies will never catch on. That "Vader" douchebag was never seen again after the first movie.

You need a voice as amazing as James Earl Jones to pull that shit off though. And you cant use James Earl Jones because its already been done. Soooooo who should be the voice of DOOM?

Mark Hamil.

Occluded Sun wrote:

Shady314 wrote:When Thrawn's military genius/insight was revealed to be through the study of a species art. It barely had me before that but this was the moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the book was actually overrated crap.

What ought be studied to gain insight into the psychological foundation of a species?

Probably the same thing human psychologists study to understand humans with about the same level of conclusions being drawn. There's so much wrong with the idea I cant even put it all into words. It requires every single member of that species to think literally the same. There can be no deviants or mental illness. Not surprisingly it operates on the assumption the aliens are a planet of hats. Then Thrawn does it on humans... Fuck that bullshit.

It's pretty fucking ridiculous too because Star Wars already has an easy out for inexplicable natural talent.

If it was crucial for reasons I cant see that Thrawn not have force ability he could be exactly what he is supposed to be. A military genius with a ricockulous memory. A memory that grants him the ability to exhaustively recall the military tactics and strategies taught by other species/armed forces. Armies have manuals. They have operating procedures etc. Thrawn could with excellent intelligence gathering have access to all of that. Hell he could even be aware of particular commanders past engagements.

It stretches credulity his memory and intelligence gathering are that fucking good but it's comic book levels of ridiculousness. Especially with something like what Lobot has. Not the full on retard of I look at the Mona Lisa and that's as good (no better than) having read this enemies field manual.

It's so blindingly obvious the art thing is supposed to make Thrawn look like a cultured badass but then Zahn is so fucking lazy he can't even commit to that and crack open an art history book to let Zahn actually say something (anything!) about the art he is looking at.

And since Im already ranting about this Thrawn has no fucking menace. He's never allowed to have a real fucking victory. Why couldn't his shipyard raid have been a resounding success? Zahn wants to have his cake and eat it too. Our heroes stop him from stealing the ships. Yay they won through blind luck! But the ships are disabled for who knows how long! Oh Thrawn wins too! Im so excited. I think that's what Zahn thinks a Xanatos gambit is.

Thrawn has Luke in the palm of his hand a few times. Nothing comes of it at all. Leia is almost literally right under his nose once. Nothing happens.

Thrawn doesn't kill underlings like Vader (Cuz hes refined) and even says so. Until he does do it but that just makes him look like a disingenuous fuckhead rather than dangerous.

Is the menace supposed to come from his stupid alien bodyguards? The ones that fail every mission we see them go on despite the constant fappery to how badass they are?

He thinks he is in control of Joruus when he clearly is not which makes him look foolish. It all culminates in his death at the hands of a character we barely know and could not give less of a shit about. A character who served as his right hand (sort of) in what is clearly supposed to be a nod to Vader turning on the Emperor except terrible in every way. Truly a terrifying villain.

I could rant about every chapter of these books.

name_here wrote:Mark Hamil.

He's a great Joker and a talented voice actor but VaderDoom? I will require links to youtube clips of something comparableDOOMworthy to be convinced.

Shouldn't have said Vader. I meant any voice that would work for Doom.

James Spaeder did a great villain with a robot face. You don't need super deep voice to be bad ass.

Shit! Boba Fett had about zero lines and was cast as a faceless bounty hunter and people still ate him up.

Amon is a great masked villain. Big Hero 6 has a masked baddie as well.

A mask is not a problem.

If Doom is too campy and hokey then give it the GotG treatment. They made it work just fine.

Hamil doesn't have to be Vader. We need a DOOM.

I would have Charles Dance voice Doom. I don't know anyone else who does aristocratic scorn quite as well.

erik wrote: A mask is not a problem.

I agree with that and all of what you said. He's not even completely masked either. The classic look has clearly visible eyes.

You can add the Force Awakens to that list. People seem interested in
Kylo Ren.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I would have Charles Dance voice Doom. I don't know anyone else who does aristocratic scorn quite as well.

I could see that. And having just come off GOT you can probably get a studio behind him.

Shady314 wrote:

Occluded Sun wrote:

Shady314 wrote:When Thrawn's military genius/insight was revealed to be through the study of a species art. It barely had me before that but this was the moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the book was actually overrated crap.

What ought be studied to gain insight into the psychological foundation of a species?

Probably the same thing human psychologists study to understand humans with about the same level of conclusions being drawn.

Art is one of the things psychologists study to get insight into individual's states of mind. Particularly art they create.

[bemused]

Occluded Sun wrote:Art is one of the things psychologists study to get insight into individual's states of mind. Particularly art they create.
[bemused]

No shit. Psychologists study basically everything humans create and do. That was my fucking point. If you could just study "art" (as if that wasn't an unbelievably vast and lifelong endeavor to sample even a single species entire cultural output) and understand an entire species so intimately you could use it to decide not just your entire military strategy but even the tactics you use in a battle we wouldn't need to study anything else for humans either.

You admit how fucking stupid it is within your own post. Thrawn never studies art anyone has created. The closest he gets is art someone may have had in their office at some point in their career. And aside from that one time he doesn't draw insight into the artist or the purchaser. He makes broad sweeping statements about the entire species as a whole and is never once shown to be wrong.

As I said before it's all about why they study something like art and the conclusions they draw. It's not the only thing they study. But it's all the Great ZahnThrawn needs. Are you trying to defend this stupid shit? No one studies art to learn the tactical mindset of an entire species or even a single person. ZahnThrawn declares because he studied their art he knows the Elohim are helpless to a Marg Sabl attack pattern. He barely even tries to explain how that works and still sounds like the dumbest shithead ever.

Here this is from the SW wikia. As Thrawn's popularity means it was of course used again.
It was a simple maneuver that was obvious to spot, but when properly executed, it had a highly unstructured attack profile. As a result, most experienced opponents would not fall for it, though species with a psychological blind spot for unorthodox tactics, such as the Elomin or simple-minded OOM command battle droids

That's all paraphrased almost word for word from the books. Only the last bit about droids is added because someone thought it'd be fun to add that to the clone wars only hilariously using it on a robot is a lot less stupid.
This is the real key to Thrawn's power. He isn't smart. His opponents are all childishly fucking stupid robots. Because only a robot should fall to not just not a particular tactic but a particular type of tactic 100% of the time.

If Zahn wanted to pull this off he should have had Chiss/Thrawn be the greatest social chameleons ever and go full on Pretender. He also shouldn't have seemingly limited himself to sculptures and paintings. Pellaeon could come in to find Thrawn consuming all kinds of ridiculous and crazy shit from alien cultures.

T'be fair, the Chiss were one of the original Mary Sue races of the novels.

Shady314 wrote: You need a voice as amazing as James Earl Jones to pull that shit off though. And you cant use James Earl Jones because its already been done. Soooooo who should be the voice of DOOM?

John de Lancie. He has that smug, aristocratic asshole cadence that believes that what it says is right and proper. He's honed it for years, playing Q, Discord, and Sam Profitt, just to name a few. Alternately, Walter Koenig; while he may forever be tainted by "nuclear wessels" to some people, his showing as Alfred Bester as the PsiCorps mastermind with multiple layers to his plans shows he knows how to play a Doom-like individual and is damned good at it.

Walter Koenig is too 5'6" short and too 78 years old to play Doom. If we didn't already have the perfect Mxyzptlk in Gilbert Gottfried, Walter Koenig could play him. Also, in an unrelated but ontopic matter: Babylon 5 Sucks. JMS was never a good author, and the fact that people keep treating B5 as if it wasn't kinda shitty and unexceptional is what keeps setting us up for travesties like One More Day, Sins of the Past, and Grounded.

-Username17

Doom should obviously be Christoph Waltz.

There are few things that would get my ass in a seat to see a Superman movie, but Gilbert Gottfried as Mr Mxyzptlk is one of them.

A film adaptation of "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" is another.

FrankTrollman wrote:One More Day

You know what? I think that I've finally suppressed the trauma of that comic. I mean, I'm still kind of torqued about it but you-know-who doing the you-know-what with guess-who no longer sends me into paroxysms of ADAMANTIUM RAGE. Mostly because in that time period I've seen plenty of endings or stories that fuck shit up even harder than that, but still. Progress.

Darth Rabbitt wrote:My favorite part in that movie is when

the doctor trips and shoots himself.

Seriously, I couldn't take the movie seriously after that.

Was that what happened? I just finally watched it last night and I thought he tripped and cracked his head open on the metal floor.

I actually liked WWZ, and the only real problem for me, once you just accept the frenzy zombies and it's complete non-relation to the book.

Babylon 5 Sucks

Fuck you, burn at the stake, heretic, etc., etc. I enjoyed B5, even if the later seasons veered off into entirely too predictable plotlines. You don't watch B5 for the main plot, you watch it to watch the transformative effect that the events have on the characters - more specifically, Londo Mollari and G'Kar, both actors that should be lauded for their acting once shit started getting real. Peter Jurasik and Tomalak Andreas Katsulas took the hackneyed crap that the writers fed them and turned it into something beautiful, with wonderful guest performances by Koenig. The rest of B5 is just set dressing for their performances, and I'm okay with that.

Ancient History wrote:Doom should obviously be Christoph Waltz.

I'm sure Christoph Waltz would be into that...

Prak wrote:Was that what happened? I just finally watched it last night and I thought he tripped and cracked his head open on the metal floor.

I thought the same. It was a stupid way to die since they already had plenty of zombies to provide death.

My biggest annoyance was Israel being handed the idiot ball as soon as Brad Pitt shows up. They have absurd overnight construction of 100' walls around the entire country on the rumor of zombies, but can't be fucking bothered to monitor and defend the walls despite having active helicopters up and roving.

erik wrote: I thought the same. It was a stupid way to die since they already had plenty of zombies to provide death.

My biggest annoyance was Israel being handed the idiot ball as soon as Brad Pitt shows up. They have absurd overnight construction of 100' walls around the entire country on the rumor of zombies, but can't be fucking bothered to monitor and defend the walls despite having active helicopters up and roving.

I knew he shot himself because seconds before, he was warned to keep his finger off the trigger while passively carrying the gun. But yeah, it did seem unnecessary.

That whole Israel thing bothered me the most. Mainly that they had the foresight and ability to get the walls up that fast, they weren't monitoring the walls, and the zombies were drawn by music, but not all of the other noise that had been happening the whole time.