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Retaining Senate control would be a huge boost for Biden – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124

    Charles was forever telling us of the time he was bridesmaid at Mollie Sugden’s wedding.

    He posted usefully on pharmaceutical matters, but was an insufferable snob.

    Who is Miss/Ms Sugden?

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    edited October 2022
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    pigeon said:

    nico679 said:

    Leon said:

    nico679 said:

    Why appoint a Home Secretary who is hardline on immigration if you’re going to want more work visas . Truss is hopeless , aswell as making too many enemies in the early part of her premiership .

    Yes, well spotted: this policy division is bewilderingly inept

    She has to go, no matter how crazy it makes the Tories appear
    I know she had to give her a job but there were plenty of options . Now Braverman has this higher profile job I suspect she’s worked out she could position herself as the next PM if Truss gets ditched . Of course Braverman quitting and playing the martyr might help her down the line . God help us if she got the job . In that instance I would be begging Johnson to come back !
    If the Tories ditch Truss then they need to change the rules to get rid of the membership runoff first. Otherwise I think Braverman has a strong chance of winning from second place as the right wing doubling down candidate.
    Yep. A membership election delivers Braverman and tory MPs must know this.

    I think we need a Bill that bans membership elections unless the party is in opposition.
    Perhaps the problem is that the Party has become so dysfunctional that there is no fix.

    You could certainly make a case for saying that it merely represents a rather narrow segment of middle England and can only win elections by rather far fetched and dishonest appeals to voters that it can never satisfy, such as Brexiteers and Red Wallers. In due course, the lies become too obvious and the Party base dwindles back to its narrow core of aging middle-class voters living predominantly in the shires. Keeping them happy is essential to the Party's future survival but at the same time it hampers any reaching out to other segments of society.

    There is no system of selecting a leader that will solve this problem, nor will any quick fix policy change.

    Perhaps the Conservative Party needs a decent spell in opposition to figure out what it can be, what it needs to be, and how to change. It looks like it's going to get that anyway, whether it likes it or not.
    It's the last stage of the Brexit psychodrama being played out

    The Tories are the Brexiteers, and their job was to deliver Brexit (and save us from the very real nightmare of Corbyn and a second vote) - but now that task is done, and the British people want to forget all the divisions of Brexit, and move on. You can't do that with the Tories in power, ergo they must go

    I see this as a healing process, even if it is unideal on multiple ways. The skin growing over the scar
    If you're right then the next phase will be the disillusionment of the Remainers who thought all it would take to reverse Brexit was to get the Tories out. They will find life under a Starmer government very frustrating.
    I think this is unlikely, speaking from personal experience. I was distraught at the vote in 2016, I cursed the fantastical thinking and incompetence of the series of Tory governments as they bitched negotiations, despaired at the childish jingoism and even went on the big remain March known as the Waitrose queue, but I gave up in December 2019.

    At some point most people realise we are where we are. We still reserve the right to moan and tut, but Britain isn’t rejoining anytime soon. Maybe in the far future it might happen.

    Most remainers will simply be happy to have a government that doesn’t seek to gain partisan advantage by trolling our neighbours. That’ll do.
    @williamglenn is talking about the hardcore Remoaners - maybe 5-10% of the country - who are totally unreconciled to Brexit

    See @Scott_xP's comment directly above yours

    These people will be bitterly disappointed by Starmer. He won't go near the SM for a start because of FoM (I have changed my mind on this, I think Starmer has more nous than I realised)
    That’s a pretty small demographic - not even the entirety of the Lib Dem vote - and when push comes to shove they (we: I am pretty hardcore in my heart on this) will be happy to see incremental progress.

    There will be frustration, as there was frustration from the Bill Cash tendency that previous Tory leaders like Hague and IDS didn’t call for Brexit at the time, but not disillusionment because few people with a brain cell are under the illusion Keir is going to take us back into the EU.

    Single market though..,I think he’ll judge the mood of the country and decide.
    I just can't see it. Going back into the SM is an enormous step. It means we handover vast chunks of sovereignty to the ECJ, except this time we don't even have a say in the formation of EU laws. Plus we have to accept Freedom of Movement. It renders Brexit largely pointless - all that pain - at a stroke

    It's not going to happen. It would be suicidal for Starmer: the one way to instantly energise the Tories again. Rejoin makes more sense, but that is a very distant dream/nightmare

    And I speak as someone who was quite happy with FoM, and fancied a retirement cottage in Iberia or Greece. Sadly - in some ways - it's not coming back
    Next month in principle the UK will sign an FTA with India, which I believe will allow unlimited one or three year visas for work. It is supposedly the same deal as Australia but there isn't the same pool of willing migrants from that country. Expect similar levels of migrant workers from India as previously supplied by Europe but without the reciprocity of UK citizens working and living in the rest of Europe.

    This will have an interesting effect, I think. It will put the lie to the claim that Brexit had anything to do with reducing immigration (which is what people actually objected to, not the ability of Britons to work and travel where they want). On the other hand if there is already a lot of migration from the subcontinent, people may not wish to add Europeans on top.

    I think the Single Market can be sold for future prosperity, but as you say Starmer isn't minded to make that case. But if the Single Market is seen as good for the UK, which looks to be a majority position right now, I doubt FoM will get in the way.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124
    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Totally brainless charge-like-a-bull approach, with no further consideration for anything rational.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    Carnyx said:

    Charles was forever telling us of the time he was bridesmaid at Mollie Sugden’s wedding.

    He posted usefully on pharmaceutical matters, but was an insufferable snob.

    Who is Miss/Ms Sugden?

    Mrs Slocombe in "Are you being served?" a popular 1970s sitcom.
  • Is Madame Whiplash upset by Michael Gove's "sadistic" behavior, because that's HER schtick (pun intended)?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Totally brainless charge-like-a-bull approach, with no further consideration for anything rational.
    Yes. That's what I took it to mean.
    This is supposed to be an inspiring rallying cry?
  • pingping Posts: 3,724

    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Gove has never struck me as a sadist. A masochist perhaps, being married to Sarah Vine for all those years. I thought it was Truss who was into all the weird shit, according to Leon, at least, who ought to know.
    Projection.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124
    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles was forever telling us of the time he was bridesmaid at Mollie Sugden’s wedding.

    He posted usefully on pharmaceutical matters, but was an insufferable snob.

    Who is Miss/Ms Sugden?

    Mrs Slocombe in "Are you being served?" a popular 1970s sitcom.
    Ah, thanks. Never saw it.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Another version of "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes"?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles was forever telling us of the time he was bridesmaid at Mollie Sugden’s wedding.

    He posted usefully on pharmaceutical matters, but was an insufferable snob.

    Who is Miss/Ms Sugden?

    Mrs Slocombe in "Are you being served?" a popular 1970s sitcom.
    Ah, thanks. Never saw it.
    "Being Molly Sugdens bridesmaid" was a catchphrase of a David Walliams character in Little Britain.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124
    dixiedean said:

    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Totally brainless charge-like-a-bull approach, with no further consideration for anything rational.
    Yes. That's what I took it to mean.
    This is supposed to be an inspiring rallying cry?
    Quite.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Woke people are, I suspect, completely incapable of humour

    Could be lifted straight from my golf club. Quite a few chaps think they're amusing down there.
    Yeah. but I am funny. And you know this

    You are funny. It's the only thing that makes you bearable.
    A judgment I have heard throughout my life

    Being funny has got me laid many times. I recommend it, over the alternative

    It is also something that can be learned
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Another version of "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes"?
    As John Major once said, when your back is against the wall, it's time to turn around and fight.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    ...


    Is the answer "I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want"?
    The curious thing is that the allegations seem to be of hand on thigh of a young man in a bar, but also something untoward in a lift with Mel B. Being Bi is fine of course, but that seems a rather scattergun night out.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Another version of "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes"?
    No, I think not. It's specifically used of bulls most often. Though it would suit the analogous dinosaurs too.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_8XE3t3PkU

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    "If you do not soon seize control of this war, my Lord, the crabs will soon dine on all of us!"

    "The crabfeeder and his men have no reason to leave these caves!"

    Achingly awful
  • Real question in 2022 Georgia US Senate race is this - has Hershel Walker achieved Ray Moore level of electoral toxicity?

    Or close enough, given that the Peace State is significantly LESSinclined to GOP in general, and "anti-woke" wack-jobs in particular.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Foxy said:

    ...


    Is the answer "I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want"?
    The curious thing is that the allegations seem to be of hand on thigh of a young man in a bar, but also something untoward in a lift with Mel B. Being Bi is fine of course, but that seems a rather scattergun night out.
    Spice up your life.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,608
    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    The Neuromancer trilogy ranks among the finest achievements of the human mind evah. Sistine chapel level stuff. After that, he learned how computers and internets actually work and became just another guy.

    Fun fact: N, CZ and MLO all written on a manual typewriter.
    100% with you on the sprawl trilogy. Blew my mind when I first read it as a sci-fi obsessed teenager. The Peripheral is the first of his novels I really enjoyed since then. Bridge trilogy was meh and forgettable, all the pattern recognition era stuff feels very much of its time and much less interesting to read now.
    The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.
    The fight at the end of Johnny Mnemonic.

    The New Rose Hotel.

    All edge. Like Steppin’ Razor.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    edited October 2022
    So the DM and DE having backed the useless Truss are now going after anyone who realizes she’s useless .
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    nico679 said:

    So the DM and DE having backed the useless Truss are now going after anyone who realizes she’s useless .

    Hopefully they sink with her into the abyss.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,847
    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Yes, bizarre or what. Plus "spice girl in lift" revelations and there's your Sunday Express ready to pop onto umpteen senior citizens doormats tomorrow morning.

    Don't know about other people but sometimes I get the uncontrollable giggles at the state of it all. And I did just then looking at that front page.

    Stopped now though. It comes, it goes.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    Charles was forever telling us of the time he was bridesmaid at Mollie Sugden’s wedding.

    He posted usefully on pharmaceutical matters, but was an insufferable snob.

    Who is Miss/Ms Sugden?

    Mrs Slocombe in "Are you being served?" a popular 1970s sitcom.
    Ah, thanks. Never saw it.
    I wouldn't try. It wasn't great then and will have aged very badly.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530

    Real question in 2022 Georgia US Senate race is this - has Hershel Walker achieved Ray Moore level of electoral toxicity?

    Or close enough, given that the Peace State is significantly LESSinclined to GOP in general, and "anti-woke" wack-jobs in particular.

    The so called evangelicals are sticking with him as they keep finding more creative ways to justify voting for him .

    Apparently they don’t care if he paid his girlfriend to have an abortion as he’s now found God and will go to Washington and go along with more attacks on women’s abortion rights .
  • dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Another version of "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes"?
    The quote - uttered by Admiral David Farragut USN during the Battle of Mobile Bay (Alabama) in 1864 - is usually rendered as, "Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!"

    Turns out the REAL story is a bit more complicated and less clear-cut:

    https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2014/july/damn-torpedoes
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias tribute act?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uHS7NOTOYU
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited October 2022
    kinabalu said:

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Yes, bizarre or what. Plus "spice girl in lift" revelations and there's your Sunday Express ready to pop onto umpteen senior citizens doormats tomorrow morning.

    Don't know about other people but sometimes I get the uncontrollable giggles at the state of it all. And I did just then looking at that front page.

    Stopped now though. It comes, it goes.
    There's a certain level of unreality. COVID was a traumatic time for all. And there was Boris, openly lying. And then. Like an ocean settling after an asteroid strike suddenly everyone can make out the clear reflection. That the Conservative Party is unfit for government.
    And their stoutest defenders are left arguing that the tsunami is normality. And there is catastrophic danger in a calm sea.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited October 2022
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?

    . .
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    How much money are these companies burning through, on terrible TV?

    Foundation on Apple TV

    The Wheel of Time

    The Mandalorian

    All of them costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And all shit
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    dixiedean said:

    ...


    WTF is "Heads Down and Charge" supposed to mean?
    Another version of "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes"?
    The quote - uttered by Admiral David Farragut USN during the Battle of Mobile Bay (Alabama) in 1864 - is usually rendered as, "Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!"

    Turns out the REAL story is a bit more complicated and less clear-cut:

    https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2014/july/damn-torpedoes
    Fantastic album though.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    How much money are these companies burning through, on terrible TV?

    Foundation on Apple TV

    The Wheel of Time

    The Mandalorian

    All of them costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And all shit
    I'd stick with HotD btw, it does improve very rapidly from the episodes you're describing. Slow start but I'm enjoying it now.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    nico679 said:

    So the DM and DE having backed the useless Truss are now going after anyone who realizes she’s useless .

    Hopefully they sink with her into the abyss.
    Can't wait for the ministry of truth airbrushing that will come when she is replaced at xmas/next summer by someone with a better chance against Starmer.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
  • Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    I love LOTR but wouldn't bother watching films that are based on the books or have anything to do with the books. It's not possible for a film to match up to those books.

    But how was the money wasted? Is no-one buying the adspace?

    Youngsters etc. who think J R R Tolkien was some author kinda like a precursor of G R R Martin are simply morons.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited October 2022
    Thing about black elves and Hobbits is they don't actually exist. Like a gay Spiderman.
    Or a Spiderman.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    A couple of weeks back, somebody here said that if you stick the first four episodes, it gets much better. When I checked, only four episodes had been released at the time.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    The combination of Wokeness and MeToo is destroying western TV and movies. I honestly think it has got into everyone's heads and they are all terrified and this is the result. Shit drama

    That perhaps accounts not only for the terrible casting, insipid scripts and absurd narratives, but also the obvious technical and production errors: many are distracted, and some ae frightened

    It's like watching Russian literature and art being overtaken by Soviet communism. Some good stuff survived: Shostakovitch did OK. But mostly it perished, or withered

    In the future, all TV drama will come from South Korea. Cf Squid Game
  • MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
  • On topic, it might be a good idea once in a while to have a threader that suggested why the GOP might take control of the Senate.

    I'm not betting at the moment one way or the other but looking at what is happening in the individual states, things are on a knife edge - Johnson looks like he will be re-elected in WI, Fetterman losing ground in PA and Laxalt having small but consistent leads in the polling in NV.
  • MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    Poor Tolkers. He must be turning in his grave. It sounds as though they've made Galadriel into a character as one-dimensional as Millie Tant.

  • nico679 said:

    Real question in 2022 Georgia US Senate race is this - has Hershel Walker achieved Ray Moore level of electoral toxicity?

    Or close enough, given that the Peace State is significantly LESSinclined to GOP in general, and "anti-woke" wack-jobs in particular.

    The so called evangelicals are sticking with him as they keep finding more creative ways to justify voting for him .

    Apparently they don’t care if he paid his girlfriend to have an abortion as he’s now found God and will go to Washington and go along with more attacks on women’s abortion rights .
    The hard-shell evangelical vote in GA is really NOT in play, for the reason you say. Which can be boiled down to, King David was a big-time sinner too, yet Jehovah used him for HIS purposes.

    The voters who votes ARE in play are LESS hard-shell evangelicals (or perhaps more consistent as you imply) and other more-or-less conservative folks, religiously, socially and political. Including significant (certainly given likelihood of narrow result one way or another) numbers of non-White voters, including Asians, Latinos AND especially Blacks. Who of course are in the very unique situation, of having TWO Black candidates to choose between, which was part of the GOP/Trump strategy in picking him to run against Sen/Rev. Warnock in the first place.
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151
    edited October 2022
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    How much money are these companies burning through, on terrible TV?

    Foundation on Apple TV

    The Wheel of Time

    The Mandalorian

    All of them costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And all shit
    I'd stick with HotD btw, it does improve very rapidly from the episodes you're describing. Slow start but I'm enjoying it now.
    HotD is very good. Leon is just jealous that GRRM can write better filler material - while not getting on with finishing Winds of Winter - than any novels he 'may have written'.
    Rings of Power, on the other hand... yeah, am only still watching so I can hate how much its desecrating Tolkien at this point.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
  • MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY
    dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this
    crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of
    wank.
    Ah well, this is what you get when you have a bunch of West Coast liberal media types who are far more bothered about telling their friends at the dinner party at their $50m Malibu home how they've made LOTR or HOTD a standard bearer for progressive values rather than giving a damn what the consumers want.

  • Single market ain’t gonna happen

    Maybe a customs Union first?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    The combination of Wokeness and MeToo is destroying western TV and movies. I honestly think it has got into everyone's heads and they are all terrified and this is the result. Shit drama

    That perhaps accounts not only for the terrible casting, insipid scripts and absurd narratives, but also the obvious technical and production errors: many are distracted, and some ae frightened

    It's like watching Russian literature and art being overtaken by Soviet communism. Some good stuff survived: Shostakovitch did OK. But mostly it perished, or withered

    In the future, all TV drama will come from South Korea. Cf Squid Game
    Wokeness has got into your head. You are woke woke.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
    It's only as high as 6.9 because Amazon (owners of IMDb) deleted a bunch of legitimate reviews with ratings below 5.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    The combination of Wokeness and MeToo is destroying western TV and movies. I honestly think it has got into everyone's heads and they are all terrified and this is the result. Shit drama

    That perhaps accounts not only for the terrible casting, insipid scripts and absurd narratives, but also the obvious technical and production errors: many are distracted, and some ae frightened

    It's like watching Russian literature and art being overtaken by Soviet communism. Some good stuff survived: Shostakovitch did OK. But mostly it perished, or withered

    In the future, all TV drama will come from South Korea. Cf Squid Game
    Or maybe. Folk have extended the fantastical too far? And said all that could be said through that medium?
    How about some Jane Austen or kitchen sink? A bit of microlife exploring bigger themes?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Single market ain’t gonna happen

    Maybe a customs Union first?

    Not compatible with independent trade agreements. Not going to happen.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Interesting essay IMO.

    "Weekend Essay
    How Turbo-Wokism broke America
    Oligarchs and activists are playing for the same team
    BY DAVID SAMUELS"

    https://unherd.com/2022/10/how-turbo-wokism-broke-america/
  • Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    On TV recommendations - I've been watching an Italian series called Il Processo. It's really good, the main characters are all great, they have many flaws and they don't fall into the standard trope of making them perfect and that means you care one way or the other about them. I think that's what RoP struggles with, I've yet to connect to any of these characters on any level. In LOTR it was very easy, beloved characters from an amazing book series with brilliant acting and story telling on screen. In RoP we're just presented with a bunch of randoms and bit part players and told to like them or hate them for no apparent reason. The supermum character in the Southlands village is possibly the worst written character I've seen in any major TV show in ages. It's completely ridiculous that the writers weren't reined in by the producers and told to stick to the source material. There's a moment in the most recent episode which is laughably moronic. Genuine eye rolls.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720
    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    The combination of Wokeness and MeToo is destroying western TV and movies. I honestly think it has got into everyone's heads and they are all terrified and this is the result. Shit drama

    That perhaps accounts not only for the terrible casting, insipid scripts and absurd narratives, but also the obvious technical and production errors: many are distracted, and some ae frightened

    It's like watching Russian literature and art being overtaken by Soviet communism. Some good stuff survived: Shostakovitch did OK. But mostly it perished, or withered

    In the future, all TV drama will come from South Korea. Cf Squid Game
    Wokeness has got into your head. You are woke woke.
    I am woke by Mrs BJ constantly through an SKS speech.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Single market ain’t gonna happen

    Maybe a customs Union first?

    Not in the next Parliament, but the dynamic alignment to SM rules to ease trade at both Irish Sea and Channel will be a big step in that direction. Brexit will be made to work by the salami slice method, until there is nothing left.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
    The uneven acting does get better, I think you should stick with HotD. The last couple of episodes have been really good.
  • Andy_JS said:

    Interesting essay IMO.

    "Weekend Essay
    How Turbo-Wokism broke America
    Oligarchs and activists are playing for the same team
    BY DAVID SAMUELS"

    https://unherd.com/2022/10/how-turbo-wokism-broke-america/

    Joel Kotkin makes a similar point is his book about neo-feudalism and the rise of the new wealthy aristocracy backed by the clerisy of university / media types.

    A big advantage - in fact THE major one - for the oligarchs about speaking about work issues is that it distracts from taking about wealth inequality, which is really where there is true issues that need to be addressed. Anything that distracts from a focus on their wealth is to be exploited

  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846
    edited October 2022
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
    Not at all. In case you missed it many of those 'fans' were already telling people how much they hated it before they ever saw a single second of it. There was a massive campaign against it from the moment it was announced.

    Is it perfect? No of course not. Are there are areas to criticise? Yes of course. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't jump into the action straight away but builds character and narrative. Something I see as a bonus but which doesn't work for many people with the attention spans of a flea these days. And most importantly for me it is true to the 'feel; of what Tolkien wrote. Christ, if you want to read slow burn go read the Council of Elrond in the LOTR. It goes on for bloody ever and in spite of that I still love it.

    Yes there are changes to the original stuff, just as there were in LOTR - but actually these changes are far less than in LOTR because they are more filling gaps on the original stories rather than changing them in the way Peter Jackson did (No Glorfindel? Elves at Helms Deep? The Scouring of the Shire?).

    Do you have to like it? No of course not. But for all the people moaning about it, it is still Amazons biggest hit on record - just go look at the Neilsen ratings for it.

  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 775
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    Last episode but one was okay, I thought, better than the previous two or three. Onto the latest now, and it's okay so far... For the amount of money put in you might want higher praise though. It is definitely a bit all over the place.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    The combination of Wokeness and MeToo is destroying western TV and movies. I honestly think it has got into everyone's heads and they are all terrified and this is the result. Shit drama

    That perhaps accounts not only for the terrible casting, insipid scripts and absurd narratives, but also the obvious technical and production errors: many are distracted, and some ae frightened

    It's like watching Russian literature and art being overtaken by Soviet communism. Some good stuff survived: Shostakovitch did OK. But mostly it perished, or withered

    In the future, all TV drama will come from South Korea. Cf Squid Game
    Wokeness has got into your head. You are woke woke.
    I am woke by Mrs BJ constantly through an SKS speech.
    Deepest sympathies at the moment.
  • Quel surprise, this person is from Southwold:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-63147425

    I wonder if she is actually from Southwold ie grew up in the town or one of the 49pc of people who apparently have second homes in Southwold, with a heavy bias towards wealthier London households .
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530

    Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    I expect Georgia will be incredibly close and will need a run-off in January unless a lot of GOP voters stay at home . The polarization in US politics means more and more useless candidates have a chance to get elected and can get away with a lot of things not possible years ago .

    An interesting point re ticket splitting . This has apparently gone down in recent years which further highlights the polarization and could indeed help Walker , equally the same could be said in Pennsylvania.

  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    edited October 2022
    Leon said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    How much money are these companies burning through, on terrible TV?

    Foundation on Apple TV

    The Wheel of Time

    The Mandalorian

    All of them costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And all shit
    Here you go - your kind of movie critic :wink:

    "... a perfect storm of sh*tiness on every level ..."

    https://youtu.be/416vFlu595Q
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    edited October 2022
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
    The uneven acting does get better, I think you should stick with HotD. The last couple of episodes have been really good.
    I'm going to persist with HotD and also try RoP, out of sheer curiosity that RoP can we WORSE than HotD!

    I hope you are right and the Dragons shite improves

    I'm just now realising that one 60 minute episode of HotD costs £18,000,000 and Threads, in its terrifying 90 minute entirety, cost £400,000!

    The latter is a work of art, the former is a work of the devil. A bored listless devil

    I have really enjoyed some other TV this year. Becoming Elizabeth is great. Vikings Valhalla is a hoot. I hear The Bear is great and apparently Severance, and others, are cool. There is still good stuff out there, thank God
  • nico679 said:

    Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says
    instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    I expect Georgia will be incredibly close and will need a run-off in January unless a lot of GOP voters stay at home . The polarization in US politics means more and more useless candidates have a chance to get elected and can get away with a lot of things not possible
    years ago .

    An interesting point re ticket splitting . This has apparently gone down in recent years which further highlights the polarization and could indeed help Walker , equally the same could be said in Pennsylvania.

    I think there will be more ticket splitting this year because of the quality of the candidates etc - the GOP Governor candidate in PA is a nut job. On the flip side, the GOP are slight favourites to win the Oregon Governorship.

    Re GA specifically, my feeling is the GOP will just nick this. Biden is not popular in the state and there is a question mark over how much the voting rules changes will impact things. More generally, the OPEC+ snub to Biden is not good - fist-bumping with MBS and then getting shafted on the cuts to supply makes you look weak. I do think that will play out into the polls.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
    The uneven acting does get better, I think you should stick with HotD. The last couple of episodes have been really good.
    I'm going to persist with HotD and also try RoP, out of sheer curiosity that RoP can we WORSE than HotD!

    I hope you are right and the Dragons shite improves

    I'm just now realising that one 60 minute episode of HotD costs £18,000,000 and Threads, in its terrifying 90 minute entirety, cost £400,000!

    The latter is a work of art, the former is a work of the devil. A bored listless devil

    I have really enjoyed some other TV this year. Becoming Elizabeth is great. Vikings Valhalla is a hoot. I hear The Bear is great and apparently Severance, and others, are cool. There is still good stuff out there, thank God
    The Sandman is really well done. The Dropout on Disney+ is probably the best dramatised docuseries I've seen, it really captures the industry and start up life. The Boys is brilliant if you haven't already seen it, three seasons of greatness and excellent piss taking of modern media. The Marilyn Monroe dramatisation on Netflix is good too, it's got a lot of criticism for being "abusive" but that feels like shooting the messenger given that she did have a fairly traumatic life and killed herself.
  • Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    Ticket-splitting by US voters in US elections, is more widespread than most PBers realize, I think.

    Our elections usually feature many (at times a plethora) of different candidate races (and measures) often at federal AND state AND local levels on same ballot. This in itself encourages ticket-splitting, and also fall-off (where voters cast ballots in some races but skip others).

    Another major factor is the traditional and still common believe, that one should vote for the best candidate REGARDLESS of party.

    Of course many will interpret this as meaning, the best candidate is ALWAYS (at least this year) a member of _________ (fill in the blank) party. However, most folks will at least keep this though in their minds, and occasionally act upon it.

    PLUS the more engaged/educated/aware of politics & etc., the higher the likelihood of ticket splitting. Indeed, many middle class voters in US actively seek out candidates from BOTH major parties to vote for, or if they are firmly attached to one or the other, they will at least attempt to find ONE candidate from the other side they can vote for in good conscience.

    For example, in WA State the Republicans have been able to retain the Secretary of State's office from 1965 through 2021 with a huge assist from this factor.

    As for 2022, this is the first election since statehood (1889) with ZERO Republican on the ballot for SOS. The state GOP establishment (or what passes for it these days) having decided to put their chips behind a declared "Nonpartisan" candidate, a county auditor running against the (appointed) Democratic Secretary. Who was appointed by the Governor, after President Biden appointed previous SOS to federal election job in the "Other" Washington.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
    Not at all. In case you missed it many of those 'fans' were already telling people how much they hated it before they ever saw a single second of it. There was a massive campaign against it from the moment it was announced.

    Is it perfect? No of course not. Are there are areas to criticise? Yes of course. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't jump into the action straight away but builds character and narrative. Something I see as a bonus but which doesn't work for many people with the attention spans of a flea these days. And most importantly for me it is true to the 'feel; of what Tolkien wrote. Christ, if you want to read slow burn go read the Council of Elrond in the LOTR. It goes on for bloody ever and in spite of that I still love it.

    Yes there are changes to the original stuff, just as there were in LOTR - but actually these changes are far less than in LOTR because they are more filling gaps on the original stories rather than changing them in the way Peter Jackson did (No Glorfindel? Elves at Helms Deep? The Scouring of the Shire?).

    Do you have to like it? No of course not. But for all the people moaning about it, it is still Amazons biggest hit on record - just go look at the Neilsen ratings for it.

    I'm going to watch it and give an honest account

    I am not a huge fan of the books, I rather enjoyed the Jackson movies. I generally find Tolkien fantasy quite tiresome, even as I appreciate the toil of the writer. I am in the "not another fucking elf" category

    Give me bitter wild reality or a gripping plot or Joycean prose: in a book. Not elves

    But on the screen I am more forgiving. We shall see
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,880
    Slow horses on apple TV would be my TV recommendation. Gary Oldman is great. Captures the farce and comedy of an institution in decline in a way I suspect we will all empathise with pretty soon.
  • MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
    The uneven acting does get better, I think you should stick with HotD. The last couple of episodes have been really good.
    I'm going to persist with HotD and also try RoP, out of sheer curiosity that RoP can we WORSE than HotD!

    I hope you are right and the Dragons shite improves

    I'm just now realising that one 60 minute episode of HotD costs £18,000,000 and Threads, in its terrifying 90 minute entirety, cost £400,000!

    The latter is a work of art, the former is a work of the devil. A bored listless devil

    I have really enjoyed some other TV this year. Becoming Elizabeth is great. Vikings Valhalla is a hoot. I hear The Bear is great and apparently Severance, and others, are cool. There is still good stuff out there, thank God
    The Sandman is really well done. The Dropout on Disney+ is probably the best dramatised docuseries I've seen, it really captures the industry and start up life. The Boys is brilliant if you haven't already seen it, three seasons of greatness and excellent piss taking of modern media. The Marilyn Monroe dramatisation on Netflix is good too, it's got a lot of criticism for being "abusive" but that feels like shooting the messenger given that she did have a fairly traumatic life and killed herself.
    The Boys is utterly brilliant. As was Preacher before it. Both of course from great source material by Garth Ennis.

    I also really like The Expanse and was pleased that it was able to fulfil its arc over the seasons
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,212
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    The black elf character is one of the better parts of Rings of Power.

    Agree with Max in general. It's a bit rubbish.
    It doesn't particularly bother me that there's black elves, dwarves and hobbits. What bothers me is that they've written terrible characters and a story that doesn't make a lot of sense to build up some kind of cliff hangers at the end of episodes. But it doesn't need that.
    I don't give a fuck if there are black elves, tartan dragons, or Muslim-Martian supergalactic dragon-princelings - it is fantasy - just make them entertaining. And make sure they are good actors

    The black actors in the early episodes of Dragon Wotsit are fucking terrible. And they look like they are diversity hires

    At least in Bridgerton everyone can really act
    The uneven acting does get better, I think you should stick with HotD. The last couple of episodes have been really good.
    I'm going to persist with HotD and also try RoP, out of sheer curiosity that RoP can we WORSE than HotD!

    I hope you are right and the Dragons shite improves

    I'm just now realising that one 60 minute episode of HotD costs £18,000,000 and Threads, in its terrifying 90 minute entirety, cost £400,000!

    The latter is a work of art, the former is a work of the devil. A bored listless devil

    I have really enjoyed some other TV this year. Becoming Elizabeth is great. Vikings Valhalla is a hoot. I hear The Bear is great and apparently Severance, and others, are cool. There is still good stuff out there, thank God
    The Sandman is really well done. The Dropout on Disney+ is probably the best dramatised docuseries I've seen, it really captures the industry and start up life. The Boys is brilliant if you haven't already seen it, three seasons of greatness and excellent piss taking of modern media. The Marilyn Monroe dramatisation on Netflix is good too, it's got a lot of criticism for being "abusive" but that feels like shooting the messenger given that she did have a fairly traumatic life and killed herself.
    Yes, it's the smaller drama series which stand out, in recent times

    In the last 3 years - since Covid arrived - two dramas have really done it, for me

    THE GREAT and SQUID GAME

    They are - for me - head and shoulders above anything else. The first is simply hilarious, the second is brutally compelling. Both are tremendously unWoke, but that may be coincidence

    And now I must abed. Night night, PB
  • nico679 said:

    Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    I expect Georgia will be incredibly close and will need a run-off in January unless a lot of GOP voters stay at home . The polarization in US politics means more and more useless candidates have a chance to get elected and can get away with a lot of things not possible years ago .

    An interesting point re ticket splitting . This has apparently gone down in recent years which further highlights the polarization and could indeed help Walker , equally the same could be said in Pennsylvania.

    All good points. Ticket-splitting IS down, generally.

    BUT it ain't dead yet. And it is in just the kind of situations we've got in GA and PA (and some others) where it can REALLY make THE difference.

    One interesting factor to look out for, is the number of ballots, in theory (and likely in practice) mainly by Black people, with votes for Walker for US Senate and Abrams for Governor.

    BTW, in my career observing elections - that is, the election process, in particular the tabulation and canvassing of ballots, I've seen PLENTY of examples of ticket-splitting. Some so weird, that entire faculties of political scientists might well judge them impossible. Yet voters DO do the strangest things!
  • nico679 said:

    Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says
    instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved - in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    I expect Georgia will be incredibly close and will need a run-off in January unless a lot of GOP voters stay at home . The polarization in US politics means more and more useless candidates have a chance to get elected and can get away with a lot of things not possible
    years ago .

    An interesting point re ticket splitting . This has apparently gone down in recent years which further highlights the polarization and could indeed help Walker , equally the same could be said in Pennsylvania.

    I think there will be more ticket splitting this year because of the quality of the candidates etc - the GOP Governor candidate in PA is a nut job. On the flip side, the GOP are slight favourites to win the Oregon Governorship.

    Re GA specifically, my feeling is the GOP will just nick this. Biden is not popular in the state and there is a question mark over how much the voting rules changes will impact things. More generally, the OPEC+ snub to Biden is not good - fist-bumping with MBS and then getting shafted on the cuts to supply makes you look weak. I do think that will play out into the polls.

    OPEC action only hurts POTUS to extent gas prices go up. With Putin & Ukraine & domestic stuff just too little bandwith in most voters heads to worry about diplomatic optics.

    PLUS fact that right now, Hershel Walker and his personal "Father Knows Best?" classic sitcom remake 21st-century style, is sucking up most the the oxygen in GA at the moment, and likely for a bunch more moments from now through November 8.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891

    GIN1138 said:

    TimS said:

    This next election will be an interesting experiment in alternative history. Because it strikes me it’s like a 1997 election if it had been contested between John Smith and John Redwood.

    To a degrees but SKS is no where near as effective as John Smith IMO.
    John Smith was a brilliant politician, but also a seriously heavy drinker. What a loss to Parliament he was, and to the drinks industry.
    What can you expect with a name like that?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
    Not at all. In case you missed it many of those 'fans' were already telling people how much they hated it before they ever saw a single second of it. There was a massive campaign against it from the moment it was announced.

    Is it perfect? No of course not. Are there are areas to criticise? Yes of course. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't jump into the action straight away but builds character and narrative. Something I see as a bonus but which doesn't work for many people with the attention spans of a flea these days. And most importantly for me it is true to the 'feel; of what Tolkien wrote. Christ, if you want to read slow burn go read the Council of Elrond in the LOTR. It goes on for bloody ever and in spite of that I still love it.

    Yes there are changes to the original stuff, just as there were in LOTR - but actually these changes are far less than in LOTR because they are more filling gaps on the original stories rather than changing them in the way Peter Jackson did (No Glorfindel? Elves at Helms Deep? The Scouring of the Shire?).

    Do you have to like it? No of course not. But for all the people moaning about it, it is still Amazons biggest hit on record - just go look at the Neilsen ratings for it.

    I haven't seen it, but my eleven year old son thinks it's great.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Andy_JS said:

    "State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo Issues New mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has announced new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines. The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety.

    This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

    As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take particular caution when making this decision.

    “Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health,” said Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”"

    https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLDOH/bulletins/3312697

    https://xkcd.com/1252/
  • nico679 said:

    Politico.com - GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee.

    HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.)

    NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. . . .

    Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” . . .

    Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.”

    “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.”

    For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. . . .

    For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says
    instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.”

    And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.”

    Yes, looks like Walker's had a grim week. One thing interesting is whether you get a rose again in ticket splitting due to the individuals involved -

    in GA, Kemp has a healthy lead over Abrams in the polls and Shapiro ditto in PA even as the Senate race tightens.

    GA might be interesting though. Bear in mind, Warnock is not without controversy given his own past history. I think this race may be closer than expected.

    I expect Georgia will be incredibly close and will need a run-off in January unless a lot of GOP voters stay at home . The polarization in US politics means more and more useless candidates have a chance to get elected and can get away with a lot of things not possible
    years ago .

    An interesting point re ticket splitting . This has apparently gone down in recent years which further highlights the polarization and could indeed help Walker , equally the same could be said in Pennsylvania.

    I think there will be more ticket splitting this year because of the quality of the candidates etc - the GOP Governor candidate in PA is a nut job. On the flip side, the GOP are slight favourites to win the Oregon Governorship.

    Re GA specifically, my feeling is the GOP will just nick this. Biden is not popular in the state and there is a question mark over how much the voting rules changes will impact things. More generally, the OPEC+ snub to Biden is not good - fist-bumping with MBS and then getting shafted on the cuts to supply makes you look weak. I do think that will play out into the polls.

    OPEC action only hurts POTUS to extent gas prices go up. With Putin & Ukraine & domestic
    stuff just too little bandwith in most voters heads to worry about diplomatic optics.

    PLUS fact that right now, Hershel Walker and his personal "Father Knows Best?" classic sitcom remake 21st-century style, is sucking up most the the oxygen in GA at the moment, and likely for a bunch more moments from now through November 8.
    Well, gas prices are going back up again which is why the WH Press Sec got caught out this week by Fox - if Biden was claiming credit for when prices were going down, why shouldn't he be blamed for when prices rise again?

    Walker is definitely taking the heat at the moment and his campaign may implode. However, at this stage, it doesn't look like a slam dunk issue, more one that may escalate.

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    On topic, it might be a good idea once in a while to have a threader that suggested why the GOP might take control of the Senate.

    I'm not betting at the moment one way or the other but looking at what is happening in the individual states, things are on a knife edge - Johnson looks like he will be re-elected in WI, Fetterman losing ground in PA and Laxalt having small but consistent leads in the polling in NV.

    I agree it could go GOP, but Fetterman is still doing OK with what you might call a medium-sized persistent lead - +18 in the latest poll!

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/pennsylvania/

    I agree that Johnson and Laxalt are both mostly shown as edging their states, though it's very close.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    It's far, far worse. Every man is a semi-moron, every woman is all action and knows all of the kung fu regardless of the character. The scale is completely stupid, it feels like they're having a mega battle over a territory that has about a 100 people in it. The characterisation of Galadriel is particularly terrible, for a character described by Tolkien as the wisest if elves she's ignored by men who are obviously sexists and wrong to ignore her, she's turned into a mad action hero but we're given nothing on how this happened, she's just a terrible person in it, absolutely no subtlety or wisdom just a straight arrow that won't be deflected.

    They really had such a great opportunity with the series but they've completely fucked it. My wife is more upset than I am as LOTR was the first series of books she read in English so it holds a really special place for her. The Silmarillion is something we were both really looking forwards to being visualised but sadly this is a pile of wank.
    That would be the Galadriel who according to Tolkien had to leave Valor because she was one of the leaders of the rebellion by the Noldor elves? The same Galadriel who stated that she was wanted to claim a kingdom for herself in Middle Earth so she could reign supreme?

    The Galadriel being portrayed in the Rings of Power is from thousands of years before LOTR and is far more in keeping with the character written by Tolkien for that time than the wise elf of Lothlorien portrayed in the films and the book.

    Rings of Power is extremely good, particularly for someone who has enjoyed reading all the first and second age stuff Tolkien wrote and that was collected and published by his son. It is not entirely true to the books but that is what happens when you dramatize something. Those criticising the characterisations do seem to be thinking that LOTR was the only 'true' portrayal of these characters.
    It's got 6.9 out of 10 on IMDB

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/

    And 3.2 out of 5 on amazon UK

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lord-Rings-Power-Season/dp/B09QH97PTF

    For a reworking of an absolutely BELOVED TV series and book, on sites which attract fans and positive reviews, those are utterly terrible ratings. Suggests you are wholly wrong
    Not at all. In case you missed it many of those 'fans' were already telling people how much they hated it before they ever saw a single second of it. There was a massive campaign against it from the moment it was announced.

    Is it perfect? No of course not. Are there are areas to criticise? Yes of course. A lot of people don't like it because it doesn't jump into the action straight away but builds character and narrative. Something I see as a bonus but which doesn't work for many people with the attention spans of a flea these days. And most importantly for me it is true to the 'feel; of what Tolkien wrote. Christ, if you want to read slow burn go read the Council of Elrond in the LOTR. It goes on for bloody ever and in spite of that I still love it.

    Yes there are changes to the original stuff, just as there were in LOTR - but actually these changes are far less than in LOTR because they are more filling gaps on the original stories rather than changing them in the way Peter Jackson did (No Glorfindel? Elves at Helms Deep? The Scouring of the Shire?).

    Do you have to like it? No of course not. But for all the people moaning about it, it is still Amazons biggest hit on record - just go look at the Neilsen ratings for it.

    I haven't seen it, but my eleven year old son thinks it's great.
    So is the kid wacked out on woke? OR has he woke'n up!
  • rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo Issues New mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has announced new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines. The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety.

    This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

    As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take
    particular caution when making this decision.


    “Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health,” said Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”"

    https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLDOH/bulletins/3312697

    https://xkcd.com/1252/
    I have no knowledge when it comes to vaccine technology.

    However, coming from a financial analysis background, I can tell you that a situation where (a) a new product gets rushed through at unprecedented speed, which (b) is a potential goldmine when it comes to revenues and profits and (c) is protected from liabilities relating to failings in its product, is usually a recipe for something going wrong.

  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited October 2022

    On topic, it might be a good idea once in a while to have a threader that suggested why the GOP might take control of the Senate.

    I'm not betting at the moment one way or the other but looking at what is happening in the individual states, things are on a knife edge - Johnson looks like he will be re-elected in WI, Fetterman losing ground in PA and Laxalt having small but consistent leads in the polling in NV.

    I agree it could go GOP, but Fetterman is still doing OK with what you might call a medium-sized persistent lead - +18 in the latest poll!

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/pennsylvania/

    I agree that Johnson and Laxalt are both mostly shown as edging their states, though it's very close.
    Nevada is 50/50 according to 538 and it's currently held by the Democrats. Slightly unexpected AFAIK.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/senate/nevada/
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Allies of the MP claim he had injured his ribs the weekend before the party conference and was on heavy medication to manage the pain.

    They suggested the prescribed medicine made the effect of the alcohol worse.

    It is not disputed by the former minister's friends that he had been drinking or that he flirted with the young man who had joined him, who, we understand, was not known to Mr Burns.

    The MP was sufficiently drunk that he had to later be taken back to his hotel by a friend.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63187793

    He groped some guy's thigh when pissed

    Is that it? Does that now end careers?

    We have become absurdly puritanical. His drunken fumblings are more sad than menacing, and merit a proper ticking off, not cancellation. Unless there is more to it
    If that's all it was he will get the whip restored in time, so his career won't be ended.

    In the meantime he'd be a distraction as a minister, and if he chooses to get that pissed whilst on medication to boot clearly lacks the judgement to be one.

    The days of people unable to control themselves whilst serving in office are indeed over (at least when it comes to light). Is that puritannical? Perhaps, but all they have to do is not get shitfaced at public events.
    But how are you ever going to get laid if you aren't allowed to furtively grope someone in a bar?

    A lot of my best relationships have started with a bit of ludicrous, embarrassing, very drunken fumbling under a table. The lady thrusts your hand away, but in an equivocal manner which says Hmmm, maybe, but come back to me when you're sober

    And so it goes
    Good grief. Are you joking?! Ever tried striking up a conversation?
    He's literally on the cusp of advocating assault. I won't be part of this site whilst he is posting so I am off to the pub
    Go for it and just remember: Grab 'em by the pussy.
    He wasn't always wrong, the Donald

    Right on Nordstream, right on grabbing?
    You've painted yourself into a bit of a corner there.
    Donald Trump is an odious creep who was, awkwardly, absolutely right about quite a few things: discuss
    He was right about Germany and Ru energy reliance.

    Anything else?

    Jared would get raped by white trash if he tried to go camping. He was right about that.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo Issues New mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has announced new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines. The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety.

    This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

    As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take
    particular caution when making this decision.


    “Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health,” said Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”"

    https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/FLDOH/bulletins/3312697

    https://xkcd.com/1252/
    I have no knowledge when it comes to vaccine technology.

    However, coming from a financial analysis background, I can tell you that a situation where (a) a new product gets rushed through at unprecedented speed, which (b) is a potential goldmine when it comes to revenues and profits and (c) is protected from liabilities relating to failings in its product, is usually a recipe for something going wrong.

    I also have a finance background, but I can tell you that inflation of the heart is a pretty common side effect of any infection - and it's certainly a very serious risk of Covid 19.

    So, I don't think it should be surprising that there's an increase in myocardial infractions in the 28 days following a Covid vaccine. But let's not forget we're probably talking half a dozen cases (or less) across the whole State.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,161
    kinabalu said:

    Where's Charles? Miss him SO much.

    running the Uk branch of the Marjorie Taylor Greene fan club
  • On topic, it might be a good idea once in a while to have a threader that suggested why the GOP might take control of the Senate.

    I'm not betting at the moment one way or the other but looking at what is happening in the individual states, things are on a knife edge - Johnson looks like he will be re-elected in WI, Fetterman losing ground in PA and Laxalt having small but consistent leads in the polling in NV.

    I agree it could go GOP, but Fetterman
    is still doing OK with what you might
    call a medium-sized persistent lead - +18 in the latest poll!

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/pennsylvania/

    I agree that Johnson and Laxalt are both mostly shown as edging their states, though it's very close.
    Mmmm Nick, the 18 point lead is from a PAC who, while they claim to be non-partisan, seem to do have a bias in their picks:

    https://centerstreetpac.com/races/

    I'd trust that pill as much as some say on here about Trafalgar.

  • Hello_CloudsHello_Clouds Posts: 97
    edited October 2022

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    I love LOTR but wouldn't bother watching films that are based on the books or have anything to do with the books. It's not possible for a film to match up to those books.

    But how was the money wasted? Is no-one buying the adspace?

    Youngsters etc. who think J R R Tolkien was some author kinda like a precursor of G R R Martin are simply morons.

    Regarding "Game of Thrones" and the written version "A Song of Ice and Fire", which have been so seminal, I have to admit that my attitude is "F*ck freedom". I'd love to see this illiterature banned. The books are aimed at those with a reading age of 11, meaning children plus adults who are literally retarded. (You can check this by applying the SMOG readability test.) I'd love to see retrospective legislation and the makers and distributors jailed for life without parole, with all their profits seized. I know a young person with mental health difficulties that reading these books caused to deteriorate drastically, snowballing to cause consequences that are far too horrible to describe here. This wasn't the only cause, but one is reminded of the saying "Kill one person and they call you a murderer; kill 10000 and they call you a conqueror." Writing stab stab stab rape rape rape stuff and feeding it to a single youngster would get a parent into deep trouble with social services - and rightly so. Feeding it to millions wins a team of people cultural accolades. There has to be some social responsibility somewhere along the line.

    Libertarians can call me a Stalinist or a Nazi or whatever. Some literature should be banned by the state - sorry.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Asia | Victims fleecing victims
    The gangs that kidnap Asians and force them to commit cyberfraud
    Syndicates in Cambodia and Myanmar have coerced thousands into scamming others"

    https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/06/the-gangs-that-kidnap-asians-and-force-them-to-commit-cyberfraud
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    On topic, it might be a good idea once in a while to have a threader that suggested why the GOP might take control of the Senate.

    I'm not betting at the moment one way or the other but looking at what is happening in the individual states, things are on a knife edge - Johnson looks like he will be re-elected in WI, Fetterman losing ground in PA and Laxalt having small but consistent leads in the polling in NV.

    I agree it could go GOP, but Fetterman
    is still doing OK with what you might
    call a medium-sized persistent lead - +18 in the latest poll!

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/pennsylvania/

    I agree that Johnson and Laxalt are both mostly shown as edging their states, though it's very close.
    Mmmm Nick, the 18 point lead is from a PAC who, while they claim to be non-partisan, seem to do have a bias in their picks:

    https://centerstreetpac.com/races/

    I'd trust that pill as much as some say on here about Trafalgar.

    I think the Dems will win Pennsylvania because the Republicans have not just one poor pick, but two.

    I'd back the Republicans to pick up Nevada, mind, and Georgia is genuinely 50/50.
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 3,866
    edited October 2022

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    I love LOTR but wouldn't bother watching films that are based on the books or have anything to do with the books. It's not possible for a film to match up to those books.

    But how was the money wasted? Is no-one buying the adspace?

    Youngsters etc. who think J R R Tolkien was some author kinda like a precursor of G R R Martin are simply morons.

    Regarding "Game of Thrones" and the written version "A Song of Ice and Fire", which have been so seminal, I have to admit that my attitude is "F*ck freedom". I'd love to see this illiterature banned. The books are aimed at those with a reading age of 11, meaning children plus adults who are literally retarded. (You can check this by applying the SMOG readability test.) I'd love to see retrospective legislation and the makers and distributors jailed for life without parole, with all their profits seized. I know a young person with mental health difficulties that reading these books caused to deteriorate drastically, snowballing to cause consequences that are far too horrible to describe here. This wasn't the only cause, but one is reminded of the saying "Kill one person and they call you a murderer; kill 10000 and they call you a conqueror." Writing stab stab stab rape rape rape stuff and feeding it to a single youngster would get a parent into deep trouble with social services - and rightly so. Feeding it to millions wins a team of people cultural accolades. There has to be some social responsibility somewhere along the line.

    Libertarians can call me a Stalinist or a Nazi or whatever. Some literature should be banned by the state - sorry.
    Not a libertarian, but I think I'd go with a simple "nutter".
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    I love LOTR but wouldn't bother watching films that are based on the books or have anything to do with the books. It's not possible for a film to match up to those books.

    But how was the money wasted? Is no-one buying the adspace?

    Youngsters etc. who think J R R Tolkien was some author kinda like a precursor of G R R Martin are simply morons.

    Regarding "Game of Thrones" and the written version "A Song of Ice and Fire", which have been so seminal, I have to admit that my attitude is "F*ck freedom". I'd love to see this illiterature banned. The books are aimed at those with a reading age of 11, meaning children plus adults who are literally retarded. (You can check this by applying the SMOG readability test.) I'd love to see retrospective legislation and the makers and distributors jailed for life without parole, with all their profits seized. I know a young person with mental health difficulties that reading these books caused to deteriorate drastically, snowballing to cause consequences that are far too horrible to describe here. This wasn't the only cause, but one is reminded of the saying "Kill one person and they call you a murderer; kill 10000 and they call you a conqueror." Writing stab stab stab rape rape rape stuff and feeding it to a single youngster would get a parent into deep trouble with social services - and rightly so. Feeding it to millions wins a team of people cultural accolades. There has to be some social responsibility somewhere along the line.

    Libertarians can call me a Stalinist or a Nazi or whatever. Some literature should be banned by the state - sorry.
    Which state might that be? Would it be Russia, perchance?
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,993
    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    House of the Dragon is a bit shit

    Zero interest in watching it, after Game of Thrones completely trashed their brand with the final series.

    The upcoming show that interests me the most is The Peripheral, based on William Gibson's 2014 book of the same name. Released later this month on Amazon Prime. Gibson's work has always translated terribly to the screen in the past, but this looks interesting.

    Without spoilers - AI, near future, semi-apocalypse (known as "the jackpot", where most people just die out due to a combination of famine and war) and a Russian kleptocracy in charge of future London (a bit dated in that respect).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdkRQzcrrc
    It's a mystery tho. The script is so.... dull

    They had essentially infinite amounts of money and surely hired the best screenwriters. Yet the characters are flat and the dialogue is all sub-par cheapo fantasy Dungeons and Dragons wank

    "The realm will not tolerate the end of these shipping lanes, my liege!"

    Everyone knows that Game of Thrones worked because it was funny and outrageous and the dialogue crackled along. This is boring. A bit Woke, I fear

    But it's not just mild Wokeness, the CGI isn't very good. The dragons are unconvincing. Odd
    The infinte amounts of money are probably the cause. The original game of thrones came with far fewer expectations, so probably the creators had a great deal of creative license.

    This sequel, though, will be written by dozens of people, whittled down into bland mediocrity, and given the death-by-a-thousand-notes treatment by studio execs. Too many stakeholders and too much at stake. Leading to utter blandness as every choice becomes a compromise between many differing opinions.

    Great art is created by individuals and auteurs - I imagine Dungeons and Dragons or whatever it is called is designed by committee.
    Yes, you are almost certainly right

    Too many people with too much money invested, all offering an opinion, like a hundred chefs chucking in their own ingredient, you end up with a mush

    It's mush. What a waste of money

    Also quite shit direction and production. Some of the props and scenery are laughably, comically bad, which is near inexplicable
    Definitely agree the dragons are shite.

    There's something strangely detached about the whole thing.

    Yes, it is peculiar. Like watching a movie through a grey gauze. It is inert and dull

    Game of Thrones was regularly confusing, annoying, irritating, outrageous... but never boring. NEVER BORING

    But there are other things: I just saw a prop horse carriage, it looked like something comedically shit from a cheap BBC medieval-scifi drama in the 70s. What is that about? They have endless money



    Although Paddy is brilliant. That might be part of the problem. It's like a serious top drawer RSC actor has wandered onto the set of the twelfth and possibly final series of some middle grade cable TV fantasy show.
    Meh. He does quite well with an awfully inane script

    It honestly feels like someone sabotaged this. It is that bad. Someone tunnelled in and made sure they got a shit Woke script and some eerily terrible SFX and a totally lacklustre plot and.... everything. It's really REALLY dismal

    How much cash did they spunk on this crap? This is the Ukrainian invasion of TV series. A colossal waste
    Only $20m per episode.
    Sweet Jesus Christ. And it's TERRIBLE

    It's a crime
    Nah, try Rings of Power if you want terrible. My wife and I are hate watching it at this point. It's so awful. Terribly written, full of the most idiotic tropes, characters that make absolutely no sense and an overall disregard for the outstanding source material that Tolkien wrote.
    OMG I hoped that was slightly better. I am going to have to abandon this Game of Dragons SHITE

    And Wokeness is *one* of the problems with this series (but far from the only problem). They have cast black actors who are clearly shit, and slow down the action, and are squirmingly not good, and they are there for WOKE REASONS

    Is the Rings of Power the same? Sounds like it is

    So that's about half a billion dollars wasted on terrible Woke TV drama. The West is finished
    I love LOTR but wouldn't bother watching films that are based on the books or have anything to do with the books. It's not possible for a film to match up to those books.

    But how was the money wasted? Is no-one buying the adspace?

    Youngsters etc. who think J R R Tolkien was some author kinda like a precursor of G R R Martin are simply morons.

    Regarding "Game of Thrones" and the written version "A Song of Ice and Fire", which have been so seminal, I have to admit that my attitude is "F*ck freedom". I'd love to see this illiterature banned. The books are aimed at those with a reading age of 11, meaning children plus adults who are literally retarded. (You can check this by applying the SMOG readability test.) I'd love to see retrospective legislation and the makers and distributors jailed for life without parole, with all their profits seized. I know a young person with mental health difficulties that reading these books caused to deteriorate drastically, snowballing to cause consequences that are far too horrible to describe here. This wasn't the only cause, but one is reminded of the saying "Kill one person and they call you a murderer; kill 10000 and they call you a conqueror." Writing stab stab stab rape rape rape stuff and feeding it to a single youngster would get a parent into deep trouble with social services - and rightly so. Feeding it to millions wins a team of people cultural accolades. There has to be some social responsibility somewhere along the line.

    Libertarians can call me a Stalinist or a Nazi or whatever. Some literature should be banned by the state - sorry.
    Which state might that be? Would it be Russia, perchance?
    The desire to ban ideas you don't like is fairly core to every intellectually weak belief system. Whether it's Putinists, Islamists, Bolsheviks or National Socialists, they all know their ideology can't actually withstand criticism so other ideas have to be forbidden so theirs can maintain hegemony. People with good ideas are much happier to have them debated, because they know their ideas will come out on top.
This discussion has been closed.