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The Wheel of Time (2021)
A contempt filled insult to Jordan and his fans
It's clear the producers and writers had no desire to actually make a series based on Jordan's work but to use it as a façade to trick viewers into watching something amateurish and badly written. This story, this faux version of Wheel of Time, couldn't have stood on it's own without his world being used as a shroud to attract people. And the truth is only the names being used have any relation to the books. We instead are given not an interpretation of Wheel of Time but a different story entirely, one which ignores literally every aspect of that world and it's cultural framework. It's disrespectful to the books and the author himself.
It's clear no one involved with this fraud had even the slightest grasp of Jordan's rich world, in fact to create this perversion there must have been a good amount of contempt at the original story. Every word he wrote, down to the smallest of details, were meticulously thought out and given purpose. They threw away his entire vision, caring more about scoring points on social media and inserting sex scenes that never happened than doing the story justice or even remotely being respectful to it. And what has been produced is a show that even most CW writers would be embarrassed to put on their resumes. The heads at Amazon Studios should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this shameful sham to be made and apologize to the viewers for this utterly disgusting insult to Jordan & Wheel of Time fans.
Star Trek (2009)
A Trek film? Nope.
I have been beside myself over the last few years for a decent dose of Star Trek that held to the same level of integrity and classy storytelling as the originals. "Nemesis" destroyed the hope I had that the perfection of TOS/STTNG/DS9 could be rekindled in movie form when it was released.
And so when I heard news of this re-imagining, I had a feeling it would be "Nemesis" in new clothes.
And I was right. Old Trek is gone and may never be back, especially not in this new form. And this mutated form of Trek doesn't have much appeal.
I am no fan of eye candy just for the sake of having it and this movie delivers more than its share. The special effects were well done, the acting decent if you completely disregard the personalities of the original characters. But the notion, the very idea, that this is at all Trek is, well, absurd at best.
The story is sub-par, another psycho from Romulus wants to take his revenge and eventually finds himself trying to destroy earth. The enterprise finds a very contrived way of stopping it. In essence, this is "Nemesis 2.0". They ignore several scientific facts for the benefit of spectacular special effects (though inane and ridiculous) and leave plot holes for the sake of including bits of canon mixed with more effects.
The bits of canon included, however, does not make it a Trek film. Sadly the writing of the film deviates totally from Star Trek in general. Instead, in a very weak attempt to force it to be "Trek", they simply use clichéd lines, or rip them off from the original series. It has an absolute disregard of classic Trek's sensibility while lacking all its eloquence and bringing back Nimoy to reprise Spock doesn't negate that problem. Instead it deviates and twists its origins into something more Hollywood'eske; A special effects driven brainless action comedy complete with gratuitous out of character sex scenes and bad one liners.
It lacks the very part of Star Trek that made it one of the biggest Sci-Fi franchise in history. It's heart. This film is more like a stab into it. And marks the beginning of the end of the future of the franchise. Further outings will only get worse if these are the people who keep control over it.
Watchmen (2009)
Overrated mental disorder eye candy.
I had a friend that own a video rental store who was a huge fan of the graphic novel. When heard Watchmen was being made into a movie he was ecstatic. So I had high hopes this would be good. But first time I saw the trailer, I thought "Huh, that's pretty odd. Superheroes that look like Power Rangers. I thought this was for adults." I hoped the trailers weren't doing it justice. After a few more came out that looked better I started thinking "This might actually be a good movie."
Sadly, that was not the case. The previews before the movie were the highlight of the 3 hours and 30 minutes I spent in the theater. The whole movie dragged on after the first scene, where an old hero is murdered.
Rorschach is the only likable character and the best part of the whole movie. His fight scenes are the most intense, his attitude actually fit the world of "Watchmen". The rest of the characters had no redeeming qualities, nothing to attach any real emotion to.
One is a geeky "rich kid" whose only apparent purpose in the film was to create unrealistic gadgets and be a part of an unnecessary, forced love scene.
Another is an average looking woman with zero emotional depth, wearing an extremely poor looking costume, and whose sole purpose was to strip so the guys watching have something to drool over. I like nude/sex scenes don't get me wrong, but this one was obviously just for show, it had no passion at all.
These two character's big fight scene happens in a jail house. The choreography and style is reminiscent of Power Rangers. (Their stances, how they jump, the way they fly in the air...) None of their punches or kicks looked to have any power behind them, but anything they hit goes flying insanely away. I kept waiting for them to call their zords. The only redeeming quality of the scene was not using a shaky cam as so many movies use for fight scenes these days.
The last character worth mentioning is the blue man. The explanation of his powers is he got "trapped" in a vaulted door machine that sends bolts of electricity at him. But what the machine's purpose was is pretty much disregarded. As he gets trapped a group of people just stand and watch. I guess they never heard of an emergency shutdown. The character's special effects are great, but his explanation is lacking any depth. He ends up with near god like powers; the ability to teleport himself and others, to see his past and future, telekinesis in the extreme, and genius intellect.
After his change he begins disassociating himself with humanity (Although the exact reason for this is shady at best), but he keeps a girl friend, until he cheats on her. I guess even gods who are above humanity still get horny. Maybe he's Greek.
He even attempts to develop technology that will stop a global nuclear war. But again, they portray him as uncaring and beyond humanity the entire movie. It was like a yo-yo. I care, no I don't, yes I do, no I don't. As though the writer had a split personality, each taking control at different moments and wanting a different story.
It didn't make sense. The highlight of his disassociation is when he is made to believe he is causing all the people around him to get cancer and die (yet the time line it happens in doesn't make sense) so he freaks out and goes to of all places... Mars. (Because he doesn't care, yet it upset him). While there, he waves his hand and magically creates a pointless eye candy clock like thing, which serves no purpose but to look cool. Another pointless aspect of him, which is done solely to look "cool" is the way he goes around blowing people up, popping them like balloons full of blood. As apposed to teleporting their guns away, or knocking them unconscious. Even removing limbs would make more sense and be more logical. Otherwise, he just walks around nude the whole movie.
There are no real explanations as to how any other character's come by their powers. There is, however, a long unneeded sequence at the beginning of the movie that shows a previous bunch of superheroes who are almost identical to the current bunch. These "heroes" act like a bunch of degenerates, raping and beating each other, as though the entire bunch has bipolar disorder. One of the so called heroes even goes so far as to try and seduce his own daughter. In a way it's as though the movie is an allegory as to what if the people who ran Hollywood were superheroes.
The ending made no sense what so ever. The "heroes" allow millions to die because they are too crappy at being heroes to save the world. And the whole idea is that an American which the whole world is afraid of and is why they are about to go to war then blows up half the earth but this is what causes all the other nations to decide to disarm their nukes is ridiculous. Its like saying "Well the U.S. bombed the entire world, and themselves, so we are going to just forget about the supposed nuclear war we were just about to have cause this is different since it was done by a U.S. citizen that we were all supposed to be afraid of because the U.S. might have him use his power against the world, but now that he did, we aren't going to retaliate, like the whole premise of the movie was in the first place........." WTF?! Did we lose track of our own convoluted plot?
I could go on for days about how bad the rest of this movie is and all the problems it has. It is no where near as epic as the previews pretend and fans of the graphic novel claim. Unless the film butchers the source material in which case I feel sorry for fan's of the novel. The idea of anti-superheroes with adult themes may have been great, but the story is ridiculous and lacks logic. If you must see it, save your money and wait to rent it. At least then you can fast forward through all the needless dialog and shoddy explanations of nothing. If you are into eye candy, pointless passionless love scenes, poor dialog, convoluted plots and zero explanations, you will love this film.
Beast Wars: Transformers (1996)
Better than all but the original
What in the world is wrong with people??? I see some of you saying you dislike this series because of animation, and then go on to say that the original was the best. I also see griping about character development and so on...
Are you guys even looking at the screen? Did you mute the tv when you watched the shows?
This series had A LOT of character development, and it had pretty dang good animation considering that this type of computer generated animation was still in its baby stage. The animation in this series was practically experimental when this series was released, especially when you think about the battles.
They did great for what they had.
Also, if you really want to compare it to the original Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, there were so many mistakes made not only with the animation but also with the sound effects and the voices, it's funny. I mean come on, sometimes there were REALLY bad times, like in the very first episode, when the Decepticons are boarding the Autobots ship, Optimus Prime speaks in Megatrons voice. Star Screams colors never really stay the same in the entire series, their mouths moved when words weren't coming out.... I could go on and on.
Now, understandably, they had ALOT to do on that show, and even if the colors were off at times, the detail they went to on the Trasformers was amazing for a hand drawn cartoon. The stories were great, but still had lots of plot holes. One of the best thing about the series was its voices.
Which brings me to one of the bad things about Beast Wars. It needed a few better voice talents.
Another thing it was lacking was the amount of transformers there were, which they remedied later on, but then they all changed to Metals or whatever, and then it ruined the show. Not to mention the complete idiocy of Beast Machines, but that is another story.
Now I do say the original is by FAR the best, but this series is an EXCELLENT follow up to it. Optimus Primal has alot of emotion at times and the stories are pretty good considering.
Beast Wars gets 9/10 and when it changed to Metals it gets 6/10 in my book.