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jmoorenec
Reviews
Willow: The Gales (2022)
Concerning
There are many problems in this episode which linger throughout the show. Unllikable new characters, severly damaged old characters, breakneck pasing, poorly filmed/choreograft fightscenes, and extensive modernisms.
The writers didn't seem to understand the history of either the world or the characters. Fans of the original movie or the books will most likelly not recognize the world portrayed in this show, whist new watchers will be lost due to not having the history and lore explained to them properly.
When it comes to characters, I fear few people will sympathise with many of them. Kit is a spoiled, vain brat who can stand anything not going her way. Her best friend, Sorsha, her mother, is stalward in her naivety, refusing to let the prophesized magic child train in order to destroy the forces of darkness. Many other characters possess equally infuriating faults. Meanwhile, almost all the dialogue of these characters is unfitting fot the setting they're in.
The only character that didn't feel either out of place, or unlikable was Jorgen Kase, the virtuous, brave old knight. He is one of two characters in this show that doesn't have a distinct "modern" feel to his dialogue.
In short, Willow S.1 E.1 is a concerning start to a show.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: A Distant Echo (2020)
Plot armour beyond silly
I always find it dissapointing when writers/directors feel the need to provide their characters plot armour. This episode has that more than many others. The fact that the droids just refuse to shoot the team, even though they had plenty of oppertunities, destroys any stakes the episode could've had. I know many of these characters appeared in projects which takeplace later, but that is no excuse to make the enemy blind, deaf and dumb. Another related issue is that there aren't actually things happening ofscreen. In the scene that Anakin is surrounded by two droids, only one droid fires, and only when Anakin turns around, does the other one fire. It is all very absurd and cheap.
Asside from the animation and acting, I find this episode to be incredibly flawed.
Loki (2021)
An MCU Loki show, that hates both
Let's get the good things out of the way first.
Music, cinematography and other parts of the production are done really well for a comicbook tv show (unlike most of the CW stuff). Furthermore, the actors are mostly doing a good job. None of the main or sidecharacters are being acted out poorly.
The other parts of this production, predominantly the writing, are however of very poor quality. It seems that very little care has been taken by the writers. I don't know if they were lazy or just incompetent, but they seems to have not really thought anything through. The Multiverse War is deffinetly the most bizzare part of this story, other than maybe Alioth, the purple smoke poodle who eats time and space. Some guy just happens to not only find out there is the multiverse, but also in his lifetime manages to find a way to travel through this multiverse. Next up, enitre universes rallied to take up arms to fight other universes (somehow). Somehow Kang (He who remained) won(?) and formed the TVA to control multiverses from happening. This is about as much explanation we've gotten into what happened and how it happened. It's not a lot, is it? How does one rally a entire universe into open war with another universe? How does one win such a war (given the infinite nature of the Multiverse)? Why are they shown to be fighting with sticks and batons? Are ranged weapons not better in every way?
How about another, simpler example. The presentation of the TVA. It is clear that the only reason the TVA looks like that, is because it's a neat visual. It is not that Loki simply can't fathom how it looks, and this is what his mind makes up, similairly to the Q Continuum in Star Trek, which looked to humans like the 50's Midwest. The TVA look like a 60's police station/office because it is a "fun Aesthetic". The writers clearly haven't thought about how horribly inneficient it would be for people to monitor the enitre timeline constantly whilst using fysical documentation and 60's computers.
Another aspect that is obscene is the portrail of Loki. The first scene (from the show (not Endgame)) has him getting beaten by some random, overweight human, just for the sake of a "funny visual". The man who could catch Hawkeye's arrow without looking let's himself get hit by such an obvious and telegraphed attack? The rest of the show has this "god of mischief" appear as a completly emotionally unstable, subservient, fysically inept pathetic person who gets outwitted by almost everyone. He gets beaten by trainpersonel for god's sake.
All in all, this show has a lot of problems. Mostly writing and character related. I don't recommend this show for fans of Loki, or the MCU, as it, quite frankly, stomps on both.