I enjoy Gods of Egypt, even have the Bluray. It's a dogshit movie but good junk food entertainment. Kinda gives me The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes which is another crap movie I like.

Not sure why, I think I'm just a sucker for ancient Egyptian themes even when they're butchered to the point of being insulting.

I meant Mariah Carey, not The Game.

The Marvels. The first movie wasn't great but this sequel was genuinely pretty fun.

Danganronpa. (the games, not the anime) It's hard to defend in some places, with its abysmal minigames, nonsensical plot, and anime tropey story that gets very uncomfortable and insensitive at times. I am also of the opinion that to be cringe is to be free, but it's one of those franchises with an online fanbase that turned me off of the entire thing for a long while.

But, when I was encouraged to actually give it a fair shake, I enjoyed it a lot. At its best moments, there's some solid murder mysteries surrounded with entertaining characters and a tense atmosphere. Camp doesn't excuse the worst parts, but it definitely makes them suck a little less.

The third game in particular gets a lot of flack for its ending and I get it, it's not a very satisfying conclusion for the characters or universe and a little up its own ass. But as a reflection on the franchise, I do see what they were doing and thought it was interesting - probably more interesting than if we got actual answers for the worldbuilding questions it bypasses.

Definitely skip the anime covering the first game's events, it's way too compressed and just heinously awful in a lot of ways. Can't speak for the other anime series, the movie, or the books, though I'm still interested enough to give em a try sometime.

Oh right, that song I heard too much Last Christmas

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes which is another crap movie

Awwww man, I really liked that movie. I wanted to see more on their take of captain nemo

Really, a lot of the prequel hate comes from them taking such a huge step down from the OT. In 1999, The Phantom Menace was the first major Star Wars film in 16 years; it wasn't just a cool new thing, it was a cultural event. People expected great things.

Obviously it failed at that. Not once, but twice. Revenge of the Sith barely even got a chance.

And so the backlash was brutal. While the critique wasn't unfair in its points, it also came from a perspective of starkly emotional disappointment. People say the prequels are looked at more fondly now due to 'nostalgia', but mostly I think it's that the emotional pain has faded and we can analyze them more objectively as flawed, but ultimately solid films rather than 'disasters'.

It may be that one day the sequels will be more coldly studied as well, with more focus placed on the issues produced by cycling directorship and management pressures... but I also think even a coldly analytical appraisal of them will still come up as "hollow and emotionless".

Luke’s story hit home in a weird way

IMHO it it home because that is almost the only way it could have been done, especially after what JJ set up in The Force Awakens. We know that Luke blamed himself. We know he ran away. We know not even Leia can locate him via the Force. At least being a grumpy hermit was a way to take back a little bit of agency. When you have a hero's journey, and the hero's journey ends, you're not really supposed to revisit them thirty years later with a massive new threat, because now they have to face it, but not as the hero. Once you decide you have to have Luke in the damn story, there is nothing you can do except make him a mentor or a villain. Villain was right out, but having him fall back into old habits (doomerism, jumping to conclusions, whining) and having all that make him start as an ineffective mentor was actually really clever.

It also maybe hit a little close to home for the generation that grew up idolizing Luke, re-evaluating what he was after reaching his heights in his mid-20s. That said, it also tells that same group, "Yes, you are fatter and angrier and grabbing breakfast and a latte is the most interesting thing you'll do most days, but you have wisdom to pass down, and you have the power to beat back the darkness and learn from your own mistakes, and there is so much more to you than you've come to believe about yourself." I actually walked out of the movie thinking that once you have a Luke that let the First Order arise at all, then this Luke was a god-damn hero and saved the galaxy one last time.

I do think the movie was weak on the handwavium when a few lines could have turned the siege/chase into something a little more compelling. Some of the dialogue skewed a bit Marvel-y, and Finn's TLJ arc was way too similar to his TFA arc, only nudging forward his circle of empathy a bit. I also wish wish wish somebody had simply said the Holdo maneuver worked because she locked onto the hyperspace tracker: BOOM, two birds with one battlecruiser. Casino planet dragged a bit, but I didn't mind it nearly as much as others. Maz was wasted, and in some ways, the whole movie actually mapped too closely to ESB (subversion indeed).

However, Luke's arc hit me exactly right given that they were forced to revisit a Hero's-Journey hero whose journey was done, because JJ Abrams set up the galaxy in possibly the least compelling way possible. Luke's return from backsliding into his own old habits, accepting his failure, and using the energy he had left to secure a future for the next generation... that's good stuff, and a lot of the boomers and older X's who idolized him would do well to heed the lesson.

The initial tone poem with Rose's sister was beautiful. DJ absolutely fit as a tweak on Lando and commentary on what all this is supposed to mean. The Poe arc that he can't simply Maverick his way into leadership, the idea that Rey was no one and yet everything, that Force users and resistance could come from anywhere, and that Ren was on a path apart from Snoke's but equally irredeemable, all these things were HUGE improvements from TFA and were setting things up for a very compelling finale.

Instead, JJ crammed in his own Episode 8 into the first 45 minutes, left no time to have his own movie make any sense, just channelled Harry Potter and the Avengers for its conclusion, and repeatedly reminded people that TLJ was being undone ("come with us, Rose!" "Can't! Leia gave me homework!"... We picked "Yer a Palpatine, Rey!" from the hat full of fan theories!), thereby reminding TLJ's fans that it was being undone, and its haters that it existed. Just a piece of shit movie all around, and to top it off, with my "ACKSHULLY" cap on, it still didn't connect the tracker with the Holdo maneuver!!!!!

Finally, for what it's worth, TLJ is the only ST movie to engage in good faith with the PT, which is something you need to do, even if (like me) they're far from your favorites.

I enjoyed both Battleship and Battle: Los Angeles. They were fun movies to turn your brain off to.

Just watched it for the second time last month educating the youth of today. Deserves a sequel more than Moana did.

It took a huge chunk of the second act, and it basically amounted to nothing.

Love it or hate it, and the fact that some people will decide they hate it is what I had to come to terms with, this was very intentional and played into the theme of Poe's arc while letting Finn get the small amount of character growth they layered on in TLJ. It also made it clear that Rose is not so much a fully fleshed-out character as she is a stand-in for the entire Resistance, so she gets a chance to make its case and show its impact. Fighting the good fight is worth it even if, in the short term, it seems doomed. Narratively, I thought Canto Bight did a lot.

flawed, but ultimately solid films rather than ‘disasters’.

I think they might still be at least verging on disasters, though certainly more interesting ones than JJ's movies (see elsewhere in this thread for my thoughts on TLJ). The PT actually reminds me a lot of other passion projects (Megalopolis is probably the most recent, and surprise surprise, Coppola is a friend and mentor) that reveal the limitations of deferring to the auteur's singular vision in a collaborative artform.

The "saved in the edit" narrative for ANH is disingenuous I think, inserting a miracle for a particularly strong example of how the workflow for a weird project should work, but it does hint at the truth that somebody like Lucas has as many bad ideas as good ones, and only the ones he can sell to fellow respected professionals should stay in the final product.

I also think it's fair to say that because he was frustrated by the "compromises" with actors, writers, directors, and studios who all felt they were equal stakeholders, the unfiltered Lucas was a jarring departure from the OT, yet ostensibly targeted the exact same demographics, and that made it even harder to evalute the PT on its own terms. For me personally, I could never truly get over the stilted line readings that felt exactly like the cheesy serials that Lucas loved, but that the New Hollywood "kids" and British stage veterans refused to let infect the OT. "You can write this shit, George, but you can't say it."

I really enjoy the original live action Super Mario Bros movie from the early 90s. The production was an absolute mess from beginning to end, but somehow, an actually watchable movie came out of it, and the story is actually somewhat entertaining, even if it has nothing to do with the actual games.

Look, as long as they hire great musicians I don't even care about the actual movie. Best part of their mediocre Tron movies is new Daft Punk and Trent Reznor. Its hard to hate the objectively weak films when they splurge on the other stuff.

All true! Like Jay from RLM said: "they're vehicles for awesome soundtracks". And very interesting visuals too, at least in the first two movies, the third one felt a bit repetitive and too "videogamey" IMO. 👍

Don't forget all the talk of blood purity and the state, media, education system, and prisons all being operated by the same tight-knit group of people for generations.

I could never tell you why, but the hate SAO gets is really obxious and is the reason why I hate the anime community

It was silly like a cartoon. It was deeply flawed on nearly every critical metric but it made us laugh, with it or at it.

I watched it fresh back in the day and I liked it too.

The one thing that really gets me is that in a world that loves gaming, they didn’t have a regulating body or at least Gamers’ Nexus to look over the headset and say, “this could fucking kill someone.” I get that it would kill the entire franchise but I feel like they could have tried harder.

They are so wildly inconsistent, and are nonsensical. If I had to turn my brain off any more, I’d be the zombie.

It’s the ultimate “pop” rock. It really works for a lot of people but anyone who doesn’t like formulaic music designed with the broadest appeal will absolutely dislike it.

This is kind of how I feel about Friends too. It gets hated on for very valid reasons. But I will always remember being a teen watching the episode where Rachel and Monica have 1 condom left in the apartment and compete over who gets it. Then Monica goes to tell Chandler (I think?) that they can’t have sex because Rachel won the condom. He whines a bit, but she holds her ground. It’s one of the earliest pieces of media I remember watching that emphasized the importance of safe sex.

Civ VII. Every version makes changes and people scream and shout - and I'm sure many legitimately don't like the changes. But I do. I started with Civ IV and I liked V, VI, and now VII.

The old Super Mario Bros movie is a fantastic B scifi movie, it’s just a terrible Mario Bros movie. I still love it!

I am not ashamed to admit that I have their first album, and it's a solid one with quite a few solid tracks on it. However, I always hated that song, which by far became the most popular one.

I don't know much about their later stuff, though.

The biggest issue with TLJ that I don't see brought up a lot is that it left no where for the story to go.

We enter the movie with the First Order the only force in the galaxy after only destroying a few planets in the last movie, and somehow the resistance is even smaller than it was before.

We end the movie without really anything changing (except the resistance is even smaller - like 20 people).

Unless it was going to be four movies, TLJ doesn't leave a lot of directions for the story. It basically has to be Rey trying to decapitate the head of the First Order by killing Ben. Rise of Skywalker fails because TLJ didn't do anything to move the plot, forcing two movies worth of plot into one.

Not that I'm on top of such things but I heard episode 7, 8 and 9 were conceptually laid out together. But the new director for 8 found it limiting or something so threw it in the trash to create something else.

If some mad hatter gives Stephen Norrington a bag of money to direct again I'd watch a sequel lol.

Captain Nemo is an absolute bad ass in that movie.

I hated Civ VII when it first came out. If I start out as Rome, then I will play through to the end of the game as Rome. I tried several times to go through the empire change, but my options were always countries that I have never heard of or ones that I really had no interest in playing.

Now that they updated it, I haven't tried playing again. I did like the game other than that.

I should try again. I really do like the franchise.

I watched both of those and you are right. Fun movies to just turn your brain off and go with the flow.

I watched that movie when I was a kid and genuinely liked it. (I do still have really broad taste, the question can be answered for me with “most media, apparently”)

It has a special place in my heart as one of a few dozen vhs we had that I could watch with no restrictions. (One of the banned movies was A clear and Present Danger, and I still don't know why because I can’t stay awake through it because its boring. Another was Pulp Fiction. Maybe the first was a ruse!)

Is it a good movie? Idk. But smeat is still funny to me in ways that probably would have hit the same if I’d watched it today for the first time, so..

I've tried to watch it, but couldn't.

The lead actor's voice does not match his face, and the lead actress acts like a plastic doll. Both of them have the chemistry as a bag of marbles, with the charisma of a broom stick.

You'll probably hate this then

Oh boy when they dropped anchor and spun that battleship around. Goofy as fuck but it was fun!

Yes, which reminds me of another hated movie I love: The Cable Guy aka Cabo Goobla:

"Dry land is not a myth. I've seen it." Kevin Costner. Waterworld. I don't know what the big fuss is about. I saw that movie nine times. It rules!

- Chip Douglas

So much so that I'm always surprised when they get the quote wrong in Waterworld itself! 😅

I liked it for the world building potential, it does feel like it's the 2nd or 3rd movie in a trilogy I terms of story.

I have to say I enjoy that movie a lot too. I'm not denying that it's a terrible movie, but it's terrible in a very watchable and enjoyable way.

The big problem, at least to me, is that they were massively overplayed on the radio and I grew tired of hearing the same song over and over again.

Now hearing them again after a long break, I can recognize that they made some decent - not great, but still decent songs.

Iirc Ted mosby (the real guy, not his character) asked if they were still doing that original ending.

To this day it still ranks up there with one of the worst final seasons ever for me.

That's one of those shows that I can't even remember anymore because Abridged just overwrote it in my brain.

I usually stick with the same civ, but not always. The variety is fun.

And I have mixed feelings about the two main options on keeping your stuff or not. Both are actually fun.

But I do play with some mods - including cheat ones, although I usually just cheat enough diplomacy so as to be able to participate with all the incoming diplomatic requests, and some limited gold, and sometimes to cheat unit movement (like if I want to adjust my starting area, or if I'm just frustrated with an enemy and I'm like "fuck it, you're out" lol)

Spider-Man 3 (Tobey Maquire). It's not the objectively best movie of the trilogy, but it's the one I had the most fun watching

In my opinion, I will state that co-op RE5 is my favorite way to judge compatibility with someone. I know it sounds silly but playing Army of Two is kind of the same. I played RE5 with my ex-fiance, we beat the game on the highest difficulty, got all the achievements, and she wasn't a gamer--actually didn't touch video games until we were together. Now the person I last dated was a gamer, yet I don't why we struggled so much. So in a way, I had to tolerate that we couldn't work together.

Rosamund Pike, Karl Urban, and The Rock all in one movie? I know what I'm going this weekend now

Remember Me

Lol the "deevolution" ray that turns a dude into a monke. 😂

That movie was bizarre and wild. I like it too. I firmly file it under "Task failed successfully." Lol

There's so many movies / shows that feel like "They just pulled a generic plot off the shelf and branded it with this popular franchise."

I think that's why Paramount Halo was painful. :(

Waterworld, Sahara, and John Carter are all amazing movies that BOMBED... but by what metric? Tons of money in production and/or inept expensive marketing and it didn't make it back.

That's all. It wasn't a "market success." But I'm glad they're a part of culture.

Sahara is the Uncharted movie we deserved. I wish we got more Clive Cussler movies. One of my favorite films.

John Carter is the reason I will never properly pronounce "Virginia" again.

Waterworld's stunt show is incredible and the world building was awesome.