tigertooth

But if you want to write a political rant, you'll go to a comic book movie forum on a pro wrestling site

For whatever it's worth, here are the Rotten Tomatoes critics ratings of live-action superhero movies: Black Panther 2018 97 Dark Knight 2008 94 Avengers: Endgame 2019 94 Spider-Man 2 2004 94 Iron Man 2008 93 Superman 1978 93 Logan 2017 92 Avengers 2012 92 X-Men: DoFP 2014 92 Wonder Woman 2017 92 Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017 92 Thor: Ragnarok 2017 92 Shazam 2019 91 Spider-Man: Far From Home 2019 90 Guardians of the Galaxy 2014 90 Captain America: Civil War 2016 90 Doctor Strange 2016 90 Captain America: Winter Soldier 2014 89 Spider-Man 2002 89 Superman 2 1980 89 Ant-Man and the Wasp 2018 88 Dark Knight Rises 2012 87 X-Men 2 2003 87 Hellboy 2 2008 87 X-Men: First Class 2011 86 Batman Begins 2005 85 Avengers: Infinity War 2018 85 Chronicle 2012 85 Deadpool 2016 84 Sparks 2014 83 Deadpool 2 2018 83 Guardians of the Galaxy vol2 2017 82 The Crow 1994 82 X-Men 2000 82 Darkman 1990 82 Batman Returns 1992 81 Hellboy 2004 81 Ant-Man 2015 80 Captain America 2011 79 Iron Man 3 2013 78 Dredd 2012 78 Captain Marvel 2019 78 Split 2017 77 Thor 2011 77 Superman Returns 2006 76 Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015 74 V for Vendetta 2006 73 Amazing Spider-Man 2012 73 Iron Man 2 2010 73 Batman 1989 71 Wolverine 2013 69 Unbreakable 2000 68 Incredible Hulk 2008 67 Thor: The Dark World 2013 65 Aquaman 2018 65 Watchmen 2009 65 Dick Tracy 1990 64 Swamp Thing 1982 64 Spider-Man 3 2007 63 Rocketeer 1991 62 Hulk 2003 62 Blade 2 2002 59 Brightburn 2019 57 X-Men 3 2006 57 Man of Steel 2013 55 Blade 1998 55 Amazing Spider-Man 2 2014 53 X-Men: Apocalypse 2016 48 Constantine 2005 46 Daredevil 2003 45 TMNT (1990) 1990 44 The Phantom 1996 43 Hancock 2008 41 Batman Forever 1995 41 Justice League 2017 40 X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2009 38 Tank Girl 1995 38 Glass 2019 37 Fantastic Four 2 2007 37 TMNT: Out of the Shadows 2016 37 TMNT 2 1991 36 The Shadow 1994 35 Return of Swamp Thing 1989 33 Venom 2018 29 Punisher (2004) 2004 29 Batman v Superman 2016 28 Fantastic Four 2005 27 Punisher: War Zone 2008 27 TMNT 3 1993 27 Suicide Squad 2016 25 Blade 3 2004 26 Green Lantern 2011 26 Ghost Rider 2007 26 Superman 3 1983 26 Punisher (1989) 1989 24 Dark Phoenix 2019 23 TMNT (2014) 2014 22 Spawn 1997 19 Ghost Rider 2 2012 18 Judge Dredd 1995 18 League of Ex Gents 2003 17 Hellboy v2 2019 17 Howard the Duck 1986 15 The Spirit 2008 14 Crow 2 1996 12 Batman & Robin 1997 12 Jonah Hex 2010 12 Steel (Shaq) 1997 12 Elektra 2005 10 Fantastic Four (2015) 2015 9 Superman 4 1987 9 Catwoman 2004 9 Captain America (1990) 1990 9 Supergirl 1984 8 Max Steel 2016 0

I voted for Threshold, but my first pick would have been Force of Nature. Many episodes of ST are terrible, but at least they're usually terrible for interesting reasons you can laugh about (like people becoming salamanders). But Force of Nature was just dreadfully dull. I even support the politics of the allegory they were making, but the episode was soooooo borrrrrring.

FWIW, with a current RT score of 23, Dark Phoenix is not only lower than any other X-verse movie, but also lower than any superhero sequel movie other than: Ghost Rider 2 - 18 Crow 2 - 12 Batman & Robin - 12 Superman 4 - 9

I wonder if there was ever an option to let D&D go do their thing and let GoT continue with a different showrunner? Maybe the contracts made that impossible - I have no idea how that stuff works - but if D&D already had the SW gig signed, sealed, and delivered, I'd think they'd be fine with letting someone else take over. Even after season 7, I'd think that if someone else took over and the ending didn't go well, the blame would be on the new person, not D&D. Seems pretty win-win for them. Whereas now they're known as the guys who finished things up hamfistedly.

I actually kind of rolled my eyes at that shot. But not as much as I rolled my eyes at the hackneyed trope "What brings us all together? STORIES!" Sooooooo played out.

Latest notion bumping around the tubes: after the failure of the White Walkers, the Children of the Forest created the Three-Eyed Raven as a second attempt to retake the realms of men. And this time it worked. Now Bran/3ER is ruler for life (which could be centuries, based on the previous 3ER). And he's off to warg up Drogon.

Yeah, they conveniently did a time skip over the period where the Unsullied and Dothraki reacted. I wonder exactly what Jon did after leaving the throne room. Did he immediately go and confess? With no body and no murder weapon? He could've said that Dany melted down the throne and flew off (she's randomly flown away before, so it's not implausible).

This is a great article about what kind of show GoT was and what kind it became when it outran the books - a sociological story vs. a psychological story: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/ The appeal of a show that routinely kills major characters signals a different kind of storytelling, where a single charismatic and/or powerful individual, along with his or her internal dynamics, doesn’t carry the whole narrative and explanatory burden. Given the dearth of such narratives in fiction and in TV, this approach clearly resonated with a large fan base that latched on to the show. In sociological storytelling, the characters have personal stories and agency, of course, but those are also greatly shaped by institutions and events around them. The incentives for characters’ behavior come noticeably from these external forces, too, and even strongly influence their inner life.

At one point during the destruction of King's Landing, I had a flashback to the execution of Ned Stark. In re-watching, I get it. There was a moment right after Dany went ham and Grey Worm followed when the camera was on Jon and he was clearly like "WTF, I was honorable and whatnot, yet everything went to hell?" At that moment, the sound of everything around Jon went mute and all you could hear was his breathing. Looking back at Ned's execution, the exact same thing happened. It's like that's the moment when each Stark man realized that being true to his word led to a complete clusterfuck.

I guess it's because the last time they fought, one of the dragons was killed (and they didn't play up the idea that it was because he was injured - in fact, the way it was shot made it look like it could have just as easily been Drogon's fate) and then Dany fled in fear, allowing her entire fleet to be ripped to shreds. So Dany thought they were a fearsome threat then... she didn't. And they didn't explain why her mindset changed. So yeah, people will ask questions.

Yikes, the radically different treatment of the scorpion threat this week makes it even more clear that they totally screwed up Rhaegal's death. They just needed to make it clear that he was targeted so easily because he was beat down from the battle at Winterfell. Dany still could have freaked out at the loss of her next-to-last 'child' and fled (as she did after Viserion was killed), leaving the Grey Worm fleet to get sliced and diced by Euron. Then it would make more sense that Dany/Drogon can wipe the floor with the Iron Fleet etc as long as Drogon is healthy and they get the drop on the scorpion-wielders rather than vice versa.

I was thinking the easiest time to do it would be right after Tony did his snap. Everybody's focused on Tony. If, let's say, T'Challa stepped up to tend to the gauntlet while others tended to Tony, nobody would think much about it. So if it turned out that was a future T'Challa coming back to borrow the gauntlet to fight future Galactus or whatever, easy peasy.

Going back in time did change things in their universe. It let them get the Infinity Stones, allowing them to bring back half of all life in the galaxy. That's a pretty significant change! I get that it didn't let them make the original snap never happen, but it allowed them to do exactly what they wanted to do - bring back all the snapped people. I agree about not being able to go back and prevent Galactus from arriving to the planet after he eats the Earth, but if Galactus shows up and is about to eat the Earth, they could go back in time and snoop around his ship to find some sort of weakness, then return to the present to bring him down. Heck, even after he eats the Earth, they could go back and grab the Infinity Gauntlet again to snap the Earth back into existence. The only downside would be that it would probably kill the person who snapped the Earth back, but relatively speaking, that'd be a small price to pay. Maybe this will crystallize the issue: the time machine gives you access to the Infinity Gauntlet, and the Infinity Gauntlet gives you access to do literally anything. That's a loophole they'll need to close.

Except it totally did work? It did everything they were hoping it would. They went back in time and fixed the Thanos problem, then Cap went back in time to (seemingly) fix the timeline problems. It worked. They got what they wanted. To put it another way - do any of the Avengers think that using the time machine wasn't a good idea in retrospect? Of course not - it was a great idea. So far, we haven't seen any negative consequences. Is it possible they've screwed over some other parallel timeline? Maybe! But they don't seem too worried about that possibility at the end of the movie. Why wouldn't they use the time machine to fix the next catastrophe when it worked so well this time? I mean, I think it will turn out that there are more problems than they're currently aware of - the Loki thing being a big one - but as of right now, there's no reason for them not to use the time machine again. And that's an issue that will have to be addressed, since you don't want the "why don't they just use the time machine?" question hanging over everything.

I was surprised to see some people (several pages back) say that the time travel in Endgame makes it less likely that Kang is the next big bad. To me, that makes it more likely. The good guys now have a time machine. So now anytime anything bad happens, the question will be "Why not just go back in time and reverse it?" The MCU is going to need to close that loophole. They'll need to show that messing with the timeline has really bad consequences in order to explain why they don't do it anymore. That doesn't require Kang, but he'd be one way to get there.

I feel like they had a nice metaphor with the killing of Rhaegal -- who was barely able to fly -- as a symbol of Dany's foolish failure to wait and allow her forces to heal up. But the way it played out didn't even involve Rhaegal's weakened state. There are a bunch of ways they could have blocked out the Euron ambush that would have been better logically and thematically. After the Night King was killed, I was thinking that the only logical thing for the Dany crew to do would be to wait. They needed to heal up, re-stock, re-arm, etc. Nobody was saying that they needed to get to King's Landing ahead of the winter, right? I'd have liked it if the Golden Company was still assembling and getting ready to head off to King's Landing and the Dany group was trying to get to King's Landing first, with the idea that if things were well in hand by the time the Golden Company got there, the GC would realize they weren't going to get paid by Cersei and turn around. That said, I can buy Niners' explanation - that Dany feels like the clock is ticking before people decide they want Jon on the throne instead of her. But it's harder to buy that Dany's people would accept it so easily. She didn't even give any sort of plausible excuse, and nobody said "But why?". I guess that will likely play into the schism between Dany and her people, but I wish she'd had some sort of cover story, even if it's not a great one.

So if the Night King's plan was to use Jon & Co as bait, when did he come up with that plan? Did he know they were coming? Did he plan to encounter them right by the semi-frozen lake so he could trap them? If so, why did he let the dead attack when they did? Did he know Dany was nearly there?

Interesting that you mention that the Night King might have been keeping Jon & crew as bait. I was wondering why a) the Night King would bother stopping his entire army's march just to hang out and glare at them indefinitely b) if they have range weapons, like ice spears, why didn't they just pick off the crew from a distance? So it makes sense that they didn't want the group dead... except that once they were able to attack, the army of the dead kinda seemed like they were trying to kill them. I guess it would make sense that NK just wanted to capture his staring contest buddy. I'd have to rewatch to see if the dead seemed more like they were trying to kill or capture Jon. It's clearly true that the dead didn't manage to drown Jon, so we got the second episode in a row with a drowning nearfall that nobody bought as a finish. And while I dig Benjen generally, it was a bit sad that his last-minute rescue (his signature spot) happened minutes after Dany's far more spectacular last-minute rescue.

I've never assumed that because they cut from one scene to another, that means they're happening at the same time. Maybe this season *is* two years long, and maybe sometimes they cut from a Winterfell scene to a King's Landing scene that took place 6 months earlier. Other than the dragon run in this week, I haven't seen anything that feels especially implausible time wise. Granted, I'm not spending a lot of time thinking about it. I'm sure plenty of folks are doing elaborate timelines to try to explain things, and I look forward to seeing them.

I also thought that for all they've done to build up Brienne as a badass, it did more to bring her down than put Arya over as a sudden ninja. I think they could have done a deal where Arya did better-than-expected at dodging, but not necessarily getting much offense in. Would've pushed Arya without jobbing Brienne as bad. So in the big battle, where were the other dragons? Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought the previous episode they established that Dany and her brood are a set. You don't send some dragons off without Dany. I guess maybe they're willing to hang out at Dragonstone, but can't be sent out on a mission without her? I was also a little bummed that Dany came in perpendicular to the shield wall rather than attacking at a 90 degree angle so Drogon could hit one strafing run to light up the entire wall. Dammit, Tyrion, learn how to fight.

As far as good things Jamie did pre-kingslayer, what about helping Tyrion lose his virginity? While his methods were a bit morally questionable, wasn't that essentially done out of the goodness of his heart? And it was Tywin that was the asshole?

Are interviews with the producers considered spoilers? This is pretty low on the spoiler scale, and I can't figure out how to do spoiler tags anymore, so: The producers said the scene with the wolves was about showing that Arya, like Nymeria, is a lone wolf. If that's true, it's hard to see how it makes sense for her to rejoin her family in Winterfell. I figure she turned back around. EDIT: while I was trying to figure out spoiler tags, piranesi said it first

If Jamie is the one that ends up killing Cersei, he better pull of his mask to reveal Arya. I figure the white walkers might be held up because they're waiting for full on winter to come before they make their attack.

So which of these options do you think is correct?: 1) They're releasing the imprisoned fighters to fight against the white walkers (which would be an act of mercy quite different from Arya's actions) 2) There are some extra fighters that didn't fight in the Battle of the Bastards for some reason 3) Every fighter worth anything is dead or imprisoned so the white walkers are just going to run over the kids and Jon Snow is essentially doing the same thing as Arya/Freys only slightly less directly Also, if Jon is planning on the Karstarks and Umbers being the front line cannon fodder, that's perfectly good strategy. But why wouldn't he mention that to doubting Sansa? "She clearly said she invited every Frey that matters to that feast, and odds are all of them were involved." If you poison a large supply of wine, you're going to have some collateral damage. She saved the one woman next to her, but you know some other wives or servants or kids or somebody would have snuck some of the wine, too. It's pretty clear that Jon and Arya treated the folks that betrayed their family entirely differently. The contrast was rather... stark.