last week! (Brave, Legend of Korra, Prometheus, and Mass Effect 3)
So last week or so has been pretty crazy. Just about everything I watched made me go "hey I should probably make a post about that, because I have -feelings- about it!" which happens kind of rarely with how lame a lot of things are these days. Everything is probably spoilery, though in rather vague ways.
Brave:
Overall, it was okay. I'm unlikely to have seen it in the theater if my mom hadn't won prescreen tickets from work (movies are expensive), and I'm not the biggest pixar fan in the world. I was actually excited for it though, since its a rebel!princess and pixar's first try at a female protagonist. It wouldn't have taken much to make me happy, but there weren't many scenes where I was sitting in my seat floored by how awesome Merida was or anything. Maybe because there was a retread of the usual rebel-princess tropes about basically just not wanting to get married and arguing a lot? I think the movie had a great concept, but the execution was a bit uninspiring.
It turned into a mother-daughter movie more than anything else, which was different and nice and all (by the end) but it seemed to be weighed down by things that felt like filler. The arguing in the beginning was tedious, Merida's mom spent too much time fumbling around as a bear, there was definitely too much 'big dumb man' comedy going on, and it all kind of stayed surface level with any of the issues that were brought up. I'll admit I really enjoyed the last 20 minutes where Merida's bear!mom got to kick the villain's ass though, and where all the action was. It's just unfortunate the rest of the movie didn't draw me in that way. Still, it wasn't terrible, and I'm all for a revival of female action protagonists of the sort that I would have related to if I was younger (although the movie seemed more about fumbling around trying to fix a mistake than about being "brave" honestly.
Legend of Korra:
Man do I love this show! I have so many feelings for it, so many! Korra herself I love, particularly compared to the protagonist of the Last Airbender. This series I consider overall superior to original Avatar's first season as well. But there's one massive flaw it has, and that's its character development. The season was extremely plot driven, to detriment of every character who was not Korra, a villain, or an adult. This is fine in itself, but jarringly the show tried to cram a love-square in by the fourth episode (or so) that was much too early and forced. I do understand that the characters are teenagers and they will of course think they're in love with someone they've only known for a few months, but the problem is that I doubt the show means to be going that route with it, given their record in the original series. We're actually supposed to believe that Korra has "true love" or something with Mako already.
So this became an issue in the finale, which seemed like it was cramming too much into its conclusion. The resolution of the villain Amon was very well done, the homicide/suicide was also completely unexpected considering it was on nickelodeon. The action was lacking for Korra herself, which felt strange considering how much of it there was throughout the series, and given that she's the main character. Most of the fighting was with planes, which is less fun to watch than people bending elements by far. I also disliked that there were two scenes in a row in which female characters were saved by men (mind you they quickly turn that around), which is not something this show is guilty of doing often (maybe it's supposed to demonstrate teamwork, I don't know).
So the content was somewhat lacking overall, but what killed it was the inevitable forcing of Korra basically getting her love interest, Mako. Mako is easily the most boring character in the show, meant to be "surly yet loyal", who inexplicably has super great bending skills (that his brother strangely does not). Having the final frame of the episode being their kiss just completely uninspired me. I know that if I rewatch the whole season I'll get super hyped up about it again, but at the moment I feel pretty "meh" towards it. I'll still watch season 2, but I hope they fix their character issues.
Prometheus:
Oh god, this was such a terrible movie in so many ways depending on how you read it. Yet I was highly entertained by it. Maybe my standards are just getting low because this is the first legit scifi movie to come out in I don't know how freaking long, and I even went into it expecting to rage, but I rather liked it.
The terrible: The scientists. Nevermind, I refuse to acknowledge that the characters in this movie were scientists. Especially the (unfortunately) main character, who when asked to defend her hypothesis against hundreds of years of darwinism replies "because I want to believe' WTF. Then people are just generally idiotic and not excited at all about shit they're discovering when they REALLY really should be.
The main character was generally kind of an idiot, and I am dismayed at the prospect of her becoming the "new Ripley". Vickers, who was portrayed as a stone cold bitch, was -far- more similar to Ripley than any other character in this movie. But being "cowardly" and not going along with everyone's idiocy apparently meant she had to die by the end.
The fun: SCIFI WEE. I really don't normally get won over by visual stuff, but the designs and everything worked for me. It's just been a long time, okay? Also, Fassbender android was win, being strangely sympathetic yet extremely creepy, he totally stole the movie. The acting overall was generally pretty good too, which carried some of the terrible reasonably well.
The weird thing about Prometheus is that the terrible worked in its favor. I sort of found myself reading it as a horror movie set in space, where everyone exhibits some stupid behavior that makes you actively root for them to die. I really don't go for that kind of movie or trope at all, I don't even like horror movies generally, but not too far into the movie I found myself excitedly anticipating when Shaw's obnoxious boyfriend would get killed off.
Everyone else has mentioned the "abortion/caesarian" thing better than I have, and that it's annoying that this movie only had a female character getting impregnated by the aliens. But I'm less troubled by the potential gender stuff going on it than the anti science bend that's been becoming pretty common in scifi lately. Really hoping a movie or something will come out soon that bothers to portray scientists accurately, or at least sympathetically, and not somehow have to declare existing science horribly wrong (prometheus), or make insinuations about science leading to our own destruction (not something prometheus is guilty of, just a common trope).
Mass Effect 3 DLC:
My overall reaction to the ending DLC is: "you didn't add this before... WHY?" Because it really wasn't that big of an addition, the dlc added maybe 5-10 minutes (depending on the ending) of extra explanation that most of the fans had already thought of themselves. Still, I'm not going to complain about that, it's nice to have confirmed that the entire crew survived, and to be told how they got away in time. They retconned the mass relay thing (YAY) as being "damaged but repairable", and added a scene of your love interest debating putting your name on the wall of death. These tiny changes made everything SO much less bleak, and it's kind of frustrating that this wasn't there in the first place provided it was a part of their original vision (I have some doubts about that, however).
For the huge, hopeless Garrus/Femshep shipper I am though, the part that made it all worth it was the farewell you share on the battlefield before going off to probably-kill yourself in the citadel. I don't know if it was as meaningful for the other love interests, but in the case of Shep/Garrus, Shepard tells Garrus how she feels about him midway through the game, and Garrus being the awkward-with-feelings kind of guy he is sort of fumbles his way out of replying. So, before the final and probably deadly push, your team gets injured badly by falling debris, Shepard freaks out and calls an evac team to get them out of there. Provided your love interest is with you, you have a final farewell before they get taken away, and Garrus actually tells Shepard that he loves her.
This was so -not- what I expected them to add, and in general I don't normally even care if my OTP confesses their love outright (hell I normally dislike it), but you're on a battlefield about to die, and Shepard and Garrus don't think they'll see each other ever again, to the point that they get over their inability to talk about feelings and are just honest with each other. And that fuckin slays me. I really don't think there's a canon pairing I've ever loved more than this one, not ever. Really, Shep/Garrus is practically ideal, and I have even more investment given that the game lets you kind of experience what Shepard does. I also realize that this pairing is basically a slash pairing except that one of them has boobs. It's not surprising, but its nice to have that confirmed for me. I don't just dislike romance or heterosexuality (as I have been accused of by fanboys before), I just dislike it when it's not a relationship of equals, of people who get each other and don't have to be all sappy about it.
I'm also committing so much fanart. With a tablet and photoshop. I can't stop myself, I end up all night working on it. I'm even making a comic to give the ME3 ending even more closure. What is this series doing to me? Its like, I'm actually -in a fandom- again!
Brave:
Overall, it was okay. I'm unlikely to have seen it in the theater if my mom hadn't won prescreen tickets from work (movies are expensive), and I'm not the biggest pixar fan in the world. I was actually excited for it though, since its a rebel!princess and pixar's first try at a female protagonist. It wouldn't have taken much to make me happy, but there weren't many scenes where I was sitting in my seat floored by how awesome Merida was or anything. Maybe because there was a retread of the usual rebel-princess tropes about basically just not wanting to get married and arguing a lot? I think the movie had a great concept, but the execution was a bit uninspiring.
It turned into a mother-daughter movie more than anything else, which was different and nice and all (by the end) but it seemed to be weighed down by things that felt like filler. The arguing in the beginning was tedious, Merida's mom spent too much time fumbling around as a bear, there was definitely too much 'big dumb man' comedy going on, and it all kind of stayed surface level with any of the issues that were brought up. I'll admit I really enjoyed the last 20 minutes where Merida's bear!mom got to kick the villain's ass though, and where all the action was. It's just unfortunate the rest of the movie didn't draw me in that way. Still, it wasn't terrible, and I'm all for a revival of female action protagonists of the sort that I would have related to if I was younger (although the movie seemed more about fumbling around trying to fix a mistake than about being "brave" honestly.
Legend of Korra:
Man do I love this show! I have so many feelings for it, so many! Korra herself I love, particularly compared to the protagonist of the Last Airbender. This series I consider overall superior to original Avatar's first season as well. But there's one massive flaw it has, and that's its character development. The season was extremely plot driven, to detriment of every character who was not Korra, a villain, or an adult. This is fine in itself, but jarringly the show tried to cram a love-square in by the fourth episode (or so) that was much too early and forced. I do understand that the characters are teenagers and they will of course think they're in love with someone they've only known for a few months, but the problem is that I doubt the show means to be going that route with it, given their record in the original series. We're actually supposed to believe that Korra has "true love" or something with Mako already.
So this became an issue in the finale, which seemed like it was cramming too much into its conclusion. The resolution of the villain Amon was very well done, the homicide/suicide was also completely unexpected considering it was on nickelodeon. The action was lacking for Korra herself, which felt strange considering how much of it there was throughout the series, and given that she's the main character. Most of the fighting was with planes, which is less fun to watch than people bending elements by far. I also disliked that there were two scenes in a row in which female characters were saved by men (mind you they quickly turn that around), which is not something this show is guilty of doing often (maybe it's supposed to demonstrate teamwork, I don't know).
So the content was somewhat lacking overall, but what killed it was the inevitable forcing of Korra basically getting her love interest, Mako. Mako is easily the most boring character in the show, meant to be "surly yet loyal", who inexplicably has super great bending skills (that his brother strangely does not). Having the final frame of the episode being their kiss just completely uninspired me. I know that if I rewatch the whole season I'll get super hyped up about it again, but at the moment I feel pretty "meh" towards it. I'll still watch season 2, but I hope they fix their character issues.
Prometheus:
Oh god, this was such a terrible movie in so many ways depending on how you read it. Yet I was highly entertained by it. Maybe my standards are just getting low because this is the first legit scifi movie to come out in I don't know how freaking long, and I even went into it expecting to rage, but I rather liked it.
The terrible: The scientists. Nevermind, I refuse to acknowledge that the characters in this movie were scientists. Especially the (unfortunately) main character, who when asked to defend her hypothesis against hundreds of years of darwinism replies "because I want to believe' WTF. Then people are just generally idiotic and not excited at all about shit they're discovering when they REALLY really should be.
The main character was generally kind of an idiot, and I am dismayed at the prospect of her becoming the "new Ripley". Vickers, who was portrayed as a stone cold bitch, was -far- more similar to Ripley than any other character in this movie. But being "cowardly" and not going along with everyone's idiocy apparently meant she had to die by the end.
The fun: SCIFI WEE. I really don't normally get won over by visual stuff, but the designs and everything worked for me. It's just been a long time, okay? Also, Fassbender android was win, being strangely sympathetic yet extremely creepy, he totally stole the movie. The acting overall was generally pretty good too, which carried some of the terrible reasonably well.
The weird thing about Prometheus is that the terrible worked in its favor. I sort of found myself reading it as a horror movie set in space, where everyone exhibits some stupid behavior that makes you actively root for them to die. I really don't go for that kind of movie or trope at all, I don't even like horror movies generally, but not too far into the movie I found myself excitedly anticipating when Shaw's obnoxious boyfriend would get killed off.
Everyone else has mentioned the "abortion/caesarian" thing better than I have, and that it's annoying that this movie only had a female character getting impregnated by the aliens. But I'm less troubled by the potential gender stuff going on it than the anti science bend that's been becoming pretty common in scifi lately. Really hoping a movie or something will come out soon that bothers to portray scientists accurately, or at least sympathetically, and not somehow have to declare existing science horribly wrong (prometheus), or make insinuations about science leading to our own destruction (not something prometheus is guilty of, just a common trope).
Mass Effect 3 DLC:
My overall reaction to the ending DLC is: "you didn't add this before... WHY?" Because it really wasn't that big of an addition, the dlc added maybe 5-10 minutes (depending on the ending) of extra explanation that most of the fans had already thought of themselves. Still, I'm not going to complain about that, it's nice to have confirmed that the entire crew survived, and to be told how they got away in time. They retconned the mass relay thing (YAY) as being "damaged but repairable", and added a scene of your love interest debating putting your name on the wall of death. These tiny changes made everything SO much less bleak, and it's kind of frustrating that this wasn't there in the first place provided it was a part of their original vision (I have some doubts about that, however).
For the huge, hopeless Garrus/Femshep shipper I am though, the part that made it all worth it was the farewell you share on the battlefield before going off to probably-kill yourself in the citadel. I don't know if it was as meaningful for the other love interests, but in the case of Shep/Garrus, Shepard tells Garrus how she feels about him midway through the game, and Garrus being the awkward-with-feelings kind of guy he is sort of fumbles his way out of replying. So, before the final and probably deadly push, your team gets injured badly by falling debris, Shepard freaks out and calls an evac team to get them out of there. Provided your love interest is with you, you have a final farewell before they get taken away, and Garrus actually tells Shepard that he loves her.
This was so -not- what I expected them to add, and in general I don't normally even care if my OTP confesses their love outright (hell I normally dislike it), but you're on a battlefield about to die, and Shepard and Garrus don't think they'll see each other ever again, to the point that they get over their inability to talk about feelings and are just honest with each other. And that fuckin slays me. I really don't think there's a canon pairing I've ever loved more than this one, not ever. Really, Shep/Garrus is practically ideal, and I have even more investment given that the game lets you kind of experience what Shepard does. I also realize that this pairing is basically a slash pairing except that one of them has boobs. It's not surprising, but its nice to have that confirmed for me. I don't just dislike romance or heterosexuality (as I have been accused of by fanboys before), I just dislike it when it's not a relationship of equals, of people who get each other and don't have to be all sappy about it.
I'm also committing so much fanart. With a tablet and photoshop. I can't stop myself, I end up all night working on it. I'm even making a comic to give the ME3 ending even more closure. What is this series doing to me? Its like, I'm actually -in a fandom- again!