The MCU Omnibus ThreadFollow

After last night, I consider him the hero Starling City deserves. That thing looked like it was stolen by the Wizard of Oz.

Next Spring when Flash returns they're adding comedian Tone Bell as Iris' new boss at the newspaper. The next Teenage Michael Bay Turtles has an official title, "Out of the Shadows," as well as a trailer and a couple of posters of Bebop and Rocksteady, played by Gary Anthony Williams and WWE's Sheamus. A mutant rhino with lips looks ... really freakin' weird, bordering High Octane Nightmare Fuel. Like those cartoons where they have a static face shot and then they use real lips to talk. Annoying Orange or whatever is the first example that comes to mind. At least the Turtle Van is neat, though it looks like Tyler Perry borrowed Eddie Murphy's fatsuit from the Nutty Professor for his Baxtor Stockman. Green Amell looks okay as Casey Jones, but hell how could you get that wrong? Moving along, the guy who directed Gremlins, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and Innerspace, Joe Dante, has been brought in to direct the eighth episode of Legends of Tomorrow, named "Night of the Hawk." It is unknown whether the episode title is a reference to Hawkman and Hawkgirl or to currently (allegedly) uncast Connor Hawke, who the CW says will be someone who "picks up the mantle of a fallen hero." Possibly an ancestor of Diggle and Lyla since the CW is looking for an "actor of mixed race." Just a cursory look at the lineup shows there isn't a Green Arrow-esque character, so I'd put a chip on that.

Amongst the rumors involving the future Batman movie now involves the possibility that Will Smith, the pretty much guaranteed co-survivor (along with Harley. Maybe Katana. Everyone else is pretty much cannon fodder.) of the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, will appear as Deadshot. Other rumors also include Ben Affleck directing said movie, and working on the screenplay as well. Not unlikely, since we know Smith has a multi-picture contract with WB.

Frank Miller, the Freddy Kreuger impersonator who created and later killed off Elektra Nachosfiesta, claims that the Daredevil Season 2 version of the character that will be played by Elodie Yung is not her without actually seeing the show. The quote being done in English, translated to Portuguese, back to English, something along the lines of "They can do whatever they want, it's not her." He later added that yes, he does consider himself "her father." He also says he hasn't seen Season 1 of the generally beloved Netflix show. So, you know, any complaining about my complaining about actors or representations not being character accurate can bite me.

Edited, Dec 10th 2015 1:31pm by lolgaxe

Crap, Supergirl is basically the only show left to watch until like January, isn't it? Either too much or too little. Okay, IMAX theaters are receiving individual "IMAX Trailer Packs" that contain hard drives with trailers for "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," "Captain America: Civil War," "Deadpool," "Independence Day: Resurgence," Happy Hogan's Jon Favreau's "The Jungle Book" and "Warcraft" to show before "The Force Awakens." You know, for the people who bought tickets last month since apparently they're sold out all over the world according to rumors. Speaking of overhyped, James Cameron says he's taking another run at scripts for Blue Catbunny Sex Fiends Avatar two through four.
Probably the only case of social media not ruining lives. I don't know, I think Luke needs a little levity. But considering I have enjoyed both Netflix shows so far I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos told the French magazine "Premiere" that Doomsday won't be the final act in the upcoming Batman v Superman and that the Trinity will face an even greater threat than a rage monster that evolves to be immune to the last enemy that defeated him. Guess that makes sense considering how easily they show him off in the trailers.

Marvel Studios co-president Louis D'Esposito, Doctor Strange's director Scott Derrickson and executive producer Stephen Broussard on one of the sets. Also the Seal of the Vishanti and possibly an Eye of Agamotto prop.

Edited, Dec 14th 2015 2:25pm by lolgaxe

Also, SyFy is airing both Childhood's End and The Expanse tonight. Both look to be interesting at least.

I watched the first episode of The Expanse on demand, it wasn't bad. We'll see where it goes.

I think Childhood's End is just a short mini-series. I haven't read the book, but I can pretty much guess where it will go. I only hope it does it well.

I may check out Childhood. That the one where someone shines a floodlight at a kid in a wheelchair and he can suddenly walk? And yeah, Badlands has been exactly what I expected it to be, and I'm for one happy about that. Kara screaming, crying and eye laser blasting a hologram that looks like her mother over not getting some information she wants is probably a step backwards in a show trying to hammer progressive messages weekly. Overall, Clark should have taught Kara the secret to secret identities. It seems to be kind of an issue.

In a move that seems almost a decade late, Paramount and Hasbro to create a interconnected movieverse of their own. Presumably involving GI Joe, Rom the Space Knight, and My Little Pony. And here we have Ryan Reynolds in a not so PG rated and even less well animated GIF. I'll keep saying it, the guy is on Cloud 9 over this project."Doctor Strange" director Scott Derrickson's "Sinister" collaborator, writer C. Robert Cargill, announced on Twitter that he's spent the "better part of the last year" working on the screenplay for the mystical Marvel movie. Also Iron Fist is getting closer to starting, as it now has both a production name ("Kick") and showrunner in Scott Buck. Just like the production name, the character names are also coded: The first is obviously Danny, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say the second is Orson Randall, one of the previous Iron Fists and a totally awesome Gun-Fu fighter which would be totally awesome to see in action.

In a slight reversal, Chris King, Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hinderaker, the scriptwriters for the third season of the Showtime ... show ... "Penny Dreadful" are working on a comic book based on the show, with artwork from Louie De Martinis.

Edited, Dec 15th 2015 2:05pm by lolgaxe

Space Satans were such gentlemen about causing the Rapture and destroying the world.

Most "news" has been sidelined by Star Wars the last few weeks, so let's just do that. Since Wednesday it has made $14m, and it hasn't even opened in the major markets yet. I imagine it'll hit top five All Time World Box Office Grosses, but as it stands I still don't understand how Avatar is the top of that list. It's an okay movie, but come on ... Anyway, I'm not even a fan of space sci fi flicks and I'm kind of curious. Of course, I could just turn to social media, as apparently a ton of people are Harry Pottering it (SpoilerSNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE), and admittedly I'm on the fence on that.

Edited, Dec 17th 2015 1:11pm by lolgaxe

Yeah. It looked to me like they really really wanted to be able to use the same actors through the whole series (if you're paying them, you may as well use them). The unfortunate side effects of this choice were that we got:

1. A lot of extra filler that didn't really add to the story at all. SpoilerAnd frankly, the entire bit with Ricky having to chose to use the suspiciously "rare" healing item from a race that has shown the ability to instantly heal a gunshot wound through the chest (and cure paralyzed legs) remotely using some kind of beam, to save one of said aliens who has been shot in the chest instead of on himself to heal some illness that frankly also made zero sense and added nothing to the story. When that scene ended, I had hoped that the writers were going to have the whole thing be a test Karellan made up to see if Rickey was worthy of healing or something (perhaps to see if humanity was sufficiently past their selfish stage maybe?), but I had a sad feeling it was just writers artificially and stupidly putting in extra drama for the sake of drama. Sadly, my lack of faith in sci-fi writers has once again been held to be true.

2. A compressed timeline for the story, which made it far far less believable. In the book, 50- years passes between the Overlords arrival and Karellan revealing his appearance. This is actually kind of an important thing because it means that most people have lived their entire lives with the Overlords present and the benefits their presence has caused, and explains why their appearance as traditional devil figures causes more of an intellectual curiosity rather than panic and fear. But more on how they muffed/ignored that entire part of the story later.



I'm actually a bit curious about something. Having read the book, I went into the series already knowing what it was about, and what the big "reveal" was, so it's hard for me to judge what someone who didn't know how the story ends already would come away with. It seemed to me that they didn't really explain the connection between the Overmind and the human race, and what humanity was evolving into at all. And unless I totally missed it (which apparently is quite possible), they never explained why the Overlords look like devils. Which is a huge part of the story itself (and again, ties into the purpose meaning and relationship between the Overmind and humanity).

Is there anyone here who never read the book, or heard about what it was about, who saw the series and could write about what they think it all meant? I'm really curious if their alterations to the story resulted in the main concept actually being missed. Again, it's hard for me to tell, because I was waiting for a clear bit of explanation of what I knew it to be about, and then the show ended without what I thought was enough explanation. But maybe there were sufficient subtle hints that someone who didn't already know the story would get it. Hence why I'd love to hear from someone who only saw the series to see what they took away from it.

SpoilerOh, yeah. I did kinda miss it because it was just him speculating (just as the religious chick was speculating all sorts of stuff and came up with a very different assumption). He also took a very scientific approach, when the reality was somewhere in between. I guess I was waiting for the scene where this is actually explained in full, and it wasn't there. I'll explain below.



SpoilerThis is kind of what got glossed over in the series, but it's pretty significant to the work. The concept isn't just that humanity is evolving into a form that can meld with the Overmind, but that it actually kinda always was a part, just not a complete part yet. The Overmind is the sentient consciousness of the cosmos, and parts of itself are still developing in the form of various species evolving at different times and places. The key point is that we were always part of the Overmind, just not yet capable of individual conscious awareness of our "greater whole", if you will. As a race, we're still a child (hence the title of the book). And just as a child, we may be aware of that future change into an adult, even if we don't understand it. The Overmind is described as transcending space and time, thus our future connection to it causes imperfect premonitions to occur in our less evolved selves. Individual humans have over time interpreted that knowledge in various forms, resulting in the formation of a belief in a higher power (cause it's us really, or our future selves as a species), complete with imagery associated with it. And, much like a child we might fear that eventual change to an adult, thus associating fear to those we knew would be involved (the Overlords).

The Overlords are actually a separate species (not speaking physically here, but in terms of connection with the Overmind). They can't evolve that way. They are not children of the Overmind, and can never "grow up". But they are aware of the Overmind, and have chosen to assist it in helping its children/parts/whatever find their way (and presumably help them not wipe themselves out before they can do so). In particular to the story, and humans, they still hold out hope that maybe someday they can find a way to evolve, so they take every opportunity to learn all they can of the process. This is their motivation for doing this, and it's why they help Milo. It's also why Milo chooses to stay on Earth and die witnessing the transformation. So he can maybe help the Overlords learn a bit more about it.

This information/explanation makes the whole thing much more clear and less ambiguous. I'm glad at least that you got that humanity did actually ascend and not just die meaninglessly. The lack of any sort of obvious "look at us ascending!" scene had me a bit concerned (and based on some comments on review sites, it looks like some people didn't get that). In the book, Milo (different name for the character IIRC) could feel the minds of the children as they joyfully ascended, first merging into a single consciousness (actually, they were already in this state when he arrived IIRC), and then merging with the Overmind. I can only assume that the writers felt that this might be seen as too religious or something. They certainly went out of their way to say that the Overmind isn't god (it's not, but it also kinda is), and that there's no afterlife. So I suppose showing humanity ascending and merging into a big white ball of energy or something might have stepped on the message.

Which I found somewhat annoying. Part of the story was to basically integrate religious belief into a more scientific format. So not a bearded guy in heaven, but a cosmic mind with vast power and knowledge instead. And not individuals going to heaven based on arbitrary ethical alignment, but all of humanity going there once sufficiently advanced, with the remainder (and the earth itself) just cast aside as part of the process of getting there. You really can't tell the story properly without more or less saying "religion got the details wrong, but the base concept right, and that's not a surprise because religion was created out of a need for less evolved humans to explain a future they can't currently understand". I can understand why they might want to shy away from this, but it still disappointed me a bit.

Oh. Which brings me to one thing that really bugged me (and doesn't need to be spoilered since it's right out of the series). Karellen preventing Ricky and his wife from having children. Ignoring that this was all made up by the series writers in the first place (for "DRAMA"), it also makes zero sense. Karellen tells Milo that there's no afterlife, but that we all live on in the memory of others. His species (for obvious reasons) would hold to this concept, since they themselves have no hope of anything "higher" than their physical lives. So it would be really odd for him to prevent Ricky from having children, doubly so since these children are going to evolve and exist forever. He basically just ensured that his friends memory would be lost because he would have no children to remember him. No one with a close connection to him would remain.

Which makes no sense. He says he did it to spare him the pain, but again, given his own later stated views on living on through the memories of others, and his role in helping humanity ascend, he would not logically make such a choice. He's literally there to cause massive pain for all the humans of the last generations prior to ascension, knowing that the resulting ascension more than makes up for it. We can presume that he and his species can justify doing this precisely because they know those who die out physically will live on forever in the Overmind via their children. Why deny that to Ricky? What possible purpose could sparing pain accomplish in the context of the work he's doing? And would he even see it as pain? For someone like the Overlords, it would seem that the worse pain would be dying without ever having any children. Dying knowing your children will move on would be the greatest joy they could experience. And it is, in fact, the one thing they are most jealous of humans over.

Dunno. Just seemed like the writers didn't actually understand the source material. Or at least didn't think it through. Then again, that whole character was pure fluff after the first part, so it's not much surprise that it's inconsistent with the rest of the story. I just really really wish they'd cut his entire presence out of the second and third parts, and spent more time showing the audience what the Overlords were doing and why. IIRC, in the book there were parts told from the pov of Karellen, where he's basically explaining what's going on, what he feels, etc. I could be remembering wrong though. It's been like 25+ years since I read it. I just think you get a much broader sense of the story from the book than from the series. The series seemed to focus far far too much on things that ultimately don't matter (everyone dies, right?), and skimmed over the parts that do. Then again, Clarke is not known as a great character author, so maybe the series writers felt that was a problem and tried to spend more time on that. Um... I honestly think this is the wrong story to do that in though, but I can see why they might try anyway. Formulas exist for a reason.

SpoilerThe kids floating up into space seemed about as painfully obvious as the rest of the Rapture signs. All I got out of it was the writer trying to connect science and religion, specifically Rapture and Evolution, together. But the minute Space Satan showed up my attention drifted so I probably missed the vast majority of the subtlety. I did see a commercial for the Fantastic Four blurays and immediately knew what my white elephant gift this year was going to be.

Lawrence Fishburne was spotted on the set of John Wick 2, so expect tons of Matrix references in the near future. In Star Trek news, Simon Pegg doesn't like the Star Trek Beyond trailer and is telling people to "hang in there," while George Takei and Wil Wheaton both feel the trailer doesn't "feel" like Star Trek, which only half of their opinions really matter on the subject. I challenge anyone to find a single redeeming factor in Weasley Crusher. Challenge.




And finally for now: The Force Awakens Wednesday/Thursday take passes $50m domestically ($130m worldwide), breaking the domestic record set by Harry Potter Deathly Hallow 2. Megalyn Echikunwoke will be playing Vixen the next season of Arrow. She is also Vixen's voice from the animated Vixen show on CW Seed, which I'm assuming no one saw. I know I didn't.

Matt Nable, Arrow's Ra's al Ghul version 1.0, will be reprising his role as Batman's displaced villain in Legends of Tomorrow ... still not fighting Batman.

Edited, Dec 18th 2015 3:19pm by lolgaxe

SpoilerThe end of Earth was more of an implosion/disintegration. I believe Milo mentions Jennifer turning it into Energy, with the Blue/White light she began when she first arrived (which was very similar to the light of the Overmind, showing the connection there). The Earth begins to break apart, but not really splintering as much as actually turning into Energy. I believe once the Overlords left, there was nothing at all where Earth used to be. Well, nothing physical. Somehow they do leave the song, at least in the emotional sense for some being to hear (or feel) later.

I think if you really didn't pay attention, you would think it was nothing more than an Alien species arriving at Earth to transform the children and have them destroy the planet. But you'd have to ignore a lot of stuff to think it was only that. I think that while a book spelling it out may work, for a visual depiction, having the characters just come out and say things would kind of take away from the experience.



Who knows, maybe this series is one of those things that you watch a second time and you'll pick up on some more subtle hints before Milo and the Overlord explain things during his 90 day / 80 year hiatus.

Edited, Dec 18th 2015 5:47pm by TirithRR

I think the Shannara series were probably my favorite fantasy novels growing up.

I preferred the Heritage books myself. Walker Boh and the Shadowen who took on the form of the Four Horsemen sealed that one as my favorite.

Out of the original Trilogy, I seem to recall Wishsong being my favorite. Elfstones is probably #2. I've only read The First King, the original Trilogy, and the Heritage books. I didn't read anything beyond that. And it was back probably 20+ years ago, so I am not too fresh on which events happened in which. Other than Walker Boh. I think he was my favorite character from the Heritage stuff, and his ordeals there really stuck with me over the years.

I am a bit iffy about MTV... even if they do a good job I just don't think that channel gets enough viewership from the audience that should be targeted by a series like this. I mean, this series really wouldn't appeal to the type of audience that is going to be watching a show about the jersey shore or one about people explaining the man code or what ever crap MTV is airing these days.

Edit:
Thinking about it. It is a single book, and a single story that is resolved. So if MTV doesn't succeed in making it popular and ongoing, at least the story can be resolved and not left hanging. Though I would like to see the other books made.

Edit2:
I was grabbing the remote off my window sill last night and saw sitting under it "Angel Fire East". And remembered a whole portion of the Shannara world that I really enjoyed. The whole world being a distant future, one where technology had lead to ruin and was abandoned. Angel Fire East being I think the 3rd book of what ended up being a prequel to the Shannara books set in a modern time, where magic was hidden.

I did see a few relics of modern times in the trailer. A piece of a truck frame I think. I always thought that the time between modern days and Jerle and his descendants was huge though. I don't recall any set time lines in what I read, but felt it was long enough that everyone except the Druids had completely forgot about the ancient world, and most relics of the modern times would be long gone, definitely not sitting out in a forest lightly covered by plant growth.

Edited, Dec 30th 2015 6:21pm by TirithRR

The Dark Dimension is where Dormammu resides. His sister, Umar, also resides in the Dark Dimension. Umar has a daughter named Clea, who was both a student and occasional lover of our esteemed doctor. Just the whole hippy dippy Dark Dimension is good news, but the possibilities this bit of information can lead to are astronomically more, as it were, far out. He also said that the movie "couldn't be any more different than any of the films that have come before it ... There are more things that lurk in shadows in this movie, perhaps, than our other movies."

In show news, Diggle will be showing up in an episode of "The Flash," to help combat King Shark (who we briefly saw earlier this half-season). Episode 15, to be exact. I'm not particularly sure what he brings to the fight other than being chum, but there you have it. iZombie drags another Veronica Mars star, Enrico Colantoni for a recurring role. Jeremy Renner, who apparently does absolutely everything, will be an executive producer and guest star in a History Channel drama called "Knightfall," which apparently has nothing to do with Frenchy eXtreme '90s Batman but the Knights Templar during the Crusades. Jewel Staite, best known to geeks as Kaylee Frye from Firefly/Serenity, to join the cast as Rachel Turner, described as a "tech genius/roboticist who exists in a future in which technology has an even firmer grip on our lives than it does today" in the better-be-soon Legends of Tomorrow.

Daredevil Season 2 hits Netflix March 18^th.

M Night Shamalamayamadingdongbingbang to bring back "Tales From The Crypt" to TNT as a two hour horror block this Fall, which should be a real scream.


Edited, Jan 7th 2016 3:51pm by lolgaxe