Primeval, District 9, and omg bands clashing evil
While searching Google images the other day for Cobra Starship-related stuff I found THIS. Which is one of the most disconcertingly WRONG things ever. There is a woman trying to teach the Jonas Brothers how to do fangs up. (It is however also a perfect illustration of the different ways in which the various Jonas Brothers are evil. You will note that Kevin and Joe are not even trying but are just doing whatever dorky thing they want to. This is because they are evil like flaily mad scientists whose plots all go horribly wrong and Kevin ends up destroying the world while trying to do something to save the exotic woodland creatures he is besotted with, and Joe destroys the world while trying to, like, make breakfast in bed for his brothers or something. Then Nick is actually concentrating very hard on getting it right, because he is the one with the brains whose plans actually succeed and he uses his SOCIOPATHIC CHARM to conquer everything because he is more evil. (Although probably the extra littlest one is the most smartest and most evilest but hopefully the world is safe from him for a few more years.) DO NOT ASK WHY I ACTUALLY HAVE CONSIDERED THEORIES ON THE VARIOUS EVILS OF THE VARIOUS JONAS BROTHERS. I BLAME DISNEY.)
I also watched District 9 with Tristan this weekend and it was not as good as I had hoped. Trying to be non-spoilery: It looked like it could have had a unique and original version of alien first contact and some very interesting socio-political-philosophical musings on how humans treat other groups of humans, but instead it just mainly went in for gore and blowing shit up. Also I was very annoyed by the gendering of the aliens both in a scientific accuracy sense and in a "oh Hollywood why you so sexist" sense. Plus I'd just read some critic's list of the most entertaining movies of the summer, and they were all manly movies about mens, so yeah. Oh Hollywood why you suck so much and why I'm still so enamored of you?
I also just watched all of Primeval. And liked it. This was one of the fandoms I got for strangefandom, so though I had had people tell me it was good, all I knew about it was that it involved dinosaurs somehow. Then I watched killabeez's great vid All These Things That I've Done, and what I learned from the vid is that the characters are awesome and adorable, and there is a team, and people with deep feelings for each other, and some attractions and antagonisms mixed up, and (one of the most emotionally affecting SPOILERS in under five minutes ever, she really hit it in the vid) one of them DIES TRAGICALLY. So I was all like "oh, do I really want to watch a show and have them kill someone off?" but I watched it anyway, despite that spoiler.
And now I still think the characters are awesome and adorable, and full of great team, and nicely tangled relationships, and I love that the team entrance criteria seems to be "brilliant and beautiful" ha ha. I like the mix of genres, with the sci-fi premise and the character drama and the humor moments and the horror movie moments and everything. I mean, one episode had me go from "HILARIOUS it is goa'uld inside DODO BIRDS" to "omg they killed Connor's friend" so I do appreciate that range. And I really thought it was great that it turned out to be their own campsite they had found earlier.
Anyhowtown, though the vid was slash I wouldn't say I exactly slashed anyone, but in S1 there were so many multi-person romantic tangles, with Nick and Helen and then him liking Claudia and her and Helen having some great aggro moments together, and then Nick and Helen and Stephen and can I just say, when Stephen was all "if she was my wife..." and "she was important to me too" and I was all WAIT are you implying what I think you're implying? And then they were checking each other out and had that little technically not sexual but still surprising kiss and then it's all OH YES WE DID MEAN THAT. And then Stephen, like, chose Nick and the whole thing was very intense. And of course Connor liking Abby and her liking Stephen. S1 was full of the possible threesomes.
Then S2 and Claudia is replaced by Jenny and Nick never quite processes that EVERYONE is different now, which was a little sad. And in that universe Stephen went with more baggy cargo pants and fewer well-worn jeans. Oh, AUs are tragic, ne? But I like how the plot kept developing with even more danger from the future and all. And turning out that they caused the danger, excellent idea. And of course Connor and Abby are very cute together. And Rex, too. Then what I knew would happen happened and Stephen died. That was all totally sadface and complicated, with Helen's lies and Nick and Stephen both thinking the other had betrayed them and being all estranged and only reconciling for about five seconds before the death.
At the beginning of S3 I was very glad to see people still talking about Stephen (unlike those shows that don't want to confuse the "casual viewer" and so never mention the ex-characters), and Sarah showed up and that was cool. Because any intro of archaeology and ancient mythology, even if it's a bit cheesy, is good by me. I was happy. But then... They killed Nick! Which I totally hadn't seen coming and was very surprised by. And then Jenny left. And after that they didn't mention Stephen and only mentioned Nick and Jenny a bit.
And suddenly it was a whole new team and even though I really liked Sarah and Becker and Danny, I didn't feel that they had as many awesome intense interconnections, you know? They worked together and they got along and had each others' backs, but there wasn't all the history and STUFF there had been before. Maybe if they had had longer to gel it would have gotten more so.
I was quite pleased when Connor and Abby finally kissed. Okay, and I was amused that Becker flirted with everyone.
But then the end I felt was not as strong as it could have been. Like that final showdown between Danny and Helen... He didn't KNOW her. He didn't love her or hate her or both. He was just trying to save the world from some crazy woman who wanted to wipe out humanity. (And Helen had a point, but was still crazy and ruthless (and cool that way).) He didn't know her, he'd barely met Nick, he'd never met Stephen, he'd only known Jenny a little... The scene earlier in the episode with Connor and Abby and Helen, and Connor talking about how she'd killed Nick... that was more intense. The Danny and Helen scene was just plot, not character drama. (And btw, that modern human tangled with the velociraptor in the middle of the pile of early hominids is really going to fuck up the fossil record and confuse whoever excavates it.) So they'd sort of ended the show and team and villain they'd originally started with and hadn't quite settled into their new show and team, and then it was canceled. Ah well. :(
Overall, though, quite enjoyable and I think also highly rewatchable, I'd definitely go through it again.
Anyone wanna talk about it?
I also watched District 9 with Tristan this weekend and it was not as good as I had hoped. Trying to be non-spoilery: It looked like it could have had a unique and original version of alien first contact and some very interesting socio-political-philosophical musings on how humans treat other groups of humans, but instead it just mainly went in for gore and blowing shit up. Also I was very annoyed by the gendering of the aliens both in a scientific accuracy sense and in a "oh Hollywood why you so sexist" sense. Plus I'd just read some critic's list of the most entertaining movies of the summer, and they were all manly movies about mens, so yeah. Oh Hollywood why you suck so much and why I'm still so enamored of you?
I also just watched all of Primeval. And liked it. This was one of the fandoms I got for strangefandom, so though I had had people tell me it was good, all I knew about it was that it involved dinosaurs somehow. Then I watched killabeez's great vid All These Things That I've Done, and what I learned from the vid is that the characters are awesome and adorable, and there is a team, and people with deep feelings for each other, and some attractions and antagonisms mixed up, and (one of the most emotionally affecting SPOILERS in under five minutes ever, she really hit it in the vid) one of them DIES TRAGICALLY. So I was all like "oh, do I really want to watch a show and have them kill someone off?" but I watched it anyway, despite that spoiler.
And now I still think the characters are awesome and adorable, and full of great team, and nicely tangled relationships, and I love that the team entrance criteria seems to be "brilliant and beautiful" ha ha. I like the mix of genres, with the sci-fi premise and the character drama and the humor moments and the horror movie moments and everything. I mean, one episode had me go from "HILARIOUS it is goa'uld inside DODO BIRDS" to "omg they killed Connor's friend" so I do appreciate that range. And I really thought it was great that it turned out to be their own campsite they had found earlier.
Anyhowtown, though the vid was slash I wouldn't say I exactly slashed anyone, but in S1 there were so many multi-person romantic tangles, with Nick and Helen and then him liking Claudia and her and Helen having some great aggro moments together, and then Nick and Helen and Stephen and can I just say, when Stephen was all "if she was my wife..." and "she was important to me too" and I was all WAIT are you implying what I think you're implying? And then they were checking each other out and had that little technically not sexual but still surprising kiss and then it's all OH YES WE DID MEAN THAT. And then Stephen, like, chose Nick and the whole thing was very intense. And of course Connor liking Abby and her liking Stephen. S1 was full of the possible threesomes.
Then S2 and Claudia is replaced by Jenny and Nick never quite processes that EVERYONE is different now, which was a little sad. And in that universe Stephen went with more baggy cargo pants and fewer well-worn jeans. Oh, AUs are tragic, ne? But I like how the plot kept developing with even more danger from the future and all. And turning out that they caused the danger, excellent idea. And of course Connor and Abby are very cute together. And Rex, too. Then what I knew would happen happened and Stephen died. That was all totally sadface and complicated, with Helen's lies and Nick and Stephen both thinking the other had betrayed them and being all estranged and only reconciling for about five seconds before the death.
At the beginning of S3 I was very glad to see people still talking about Stephen (unlike those shows that don't want to confuse the "casual viewer" and so never mention the ex-characters), and Sarah showed up and that was cool. Because any intro of archaeology and ancient mythology, even if it's a bit cheesy, is good by me. I was happy. But then... They killed Nick! Which I totally hadn't seen coming and was very surprised by. And then Jenny left. And after that they didn't mention Stephen and only mentioned Nick and Jenny a bit.
And suddenly it was a whole new team and even though I really liked Sarah and Becker and Danny, I didn't feel that they had as many awesome intense interconnections, you know? They worked together and they got along and had each others' backs, but there wasn't all the history and STUFF there had been before. Maybe if they had had longer to gel it would have gotten more so.
I was quite pleased when Connor and Abby finally kissed. Okay, and I was amused that Becker flirted with everyone.
But then the end I felt was not as strong as it could have been. Like that final showdown between Danny and Helen... He didn't KNOW her. He didn't love her or hate her or both. He was just trying to save the world from some crazy woman who wanted to wipe out humanity. (And Helen had a point, but was still crazy and ruthless (and cool that way).) He didn't know her, he'd barely met Nick, he'd never met Stephen, he'd only known Jenny a little... The scene earlier in the episode with Connor and Abby and Helen, and Connor talking about how she'd killed Nick... that was more intense. The Danny and Helen scene was just plot, not character drama. (And btw, that modern human tangled with the velociraptor in the middle of the pile of early hominids is really going to fuck up the fossil record and confuse whoever excavates it.) So they'd sort of ended the show and team and villain they'd originally started with and hadn't quite settled into their new show and team, and then it was canceled. Ah well. :(
Overall, though, quite enjoyable and I think also highly rewatchable, I'd definitely go through it again.
Anyone wanna talk about it?