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#and in such a huge franchise no less

skoulsons · 9 months

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Ray Stevenson has such an incredible presence. He dominates every single scene he is in. You feel him in every scene. Even at the end of episode 3 when the camera pans up and he speaks like two lines and just stands there. It’s incredible. There is a way about him and the way he played this character that is so incredibly powerful. I thought episode 3 was strong, much stronger than I was expecting, but the second I saw his boots I got immediate chills.

I have not (yet) seen anything else he has done, but I believe he played his absolute heart out with this role as Baylan. And what an incredible last one to go out on. Not only did he play it magnificently, but his character is well written and mysterious and nuanced and so, so intriguing

#miss him :/#when I learned he died #I didn’t realize it was him #and the second I made the connection #it honestly upset me #but to know that this last role is #so incredible #and it’s in a fantastic show #and in such a huge franchise no less #ray stevenson #baylan skoll #ahsoka tv

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neroushalvaus · 1 year

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I whole-heartedly agree with people who've noted that Daniel Craig seems to be happy now that he doesn't have to play a serious macho action hero, but what annoys me about the whole thing is that if they never made the new Bond movies that gritty and serious, he wouldn't have had to. I have always disliked Craig's Bond movies because, to me, the best thing about the Bond movies is the silliness and how they almost seem to be a parody of themselves. You wait for the clichés; what kind of gadgets has Q made this time, what will the big chase scene be like, what cool one-liner Bond will say after killing a henchman. Obviously there are diversions from that silliness (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, for example), but the movies were never that grim and the Bond actors were not objectified the same way Craig was in his role. So you know, I get that they wanted to make a new Bond for a new audience, but those movies are not fun at all. Why didn't Craig get to use funny gadgets or have a silly chase scene on skis? I'm sorry Daniel Craig, you would have loved to say "They'll print anything these days" after knocking some poor soul into a printing press.

#there were enough things to change about the franchise; the sexism in every movie and the racism that's present in some is rather bad #and it could be tackled in the new movies #but the new movies are not Hugely less sexist than the old ones #and even if they are a bit i hate that women and minorities will never get to be a part of the funny silly escapist bond movies #only the new gritty ones #ugh #james bond #look i'm a damn loser who has watched all the bond movies many many times and i have been bitter about this for years

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lesbianwithchainsaws · 1 year

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I think one major thing that makes Japanese supernatural horror movies better than American ones is that in American movies, the characters usually have to fight for ages about how ghosts and stuff don't exist and it takes the characters like several paranormal experiences to start believing stuff is happening and it's time to figure things out. While Japanese horror movies are like "Yeah, a haunted tape. Makes sense" and then they go on a movie long journey trying not to die

#I've decided I'm gonna go through the Ringu franchise and this is something i noticed #obviously it's not like the characters believe in the paranormal in every single film #but it feels like american horror movies spend a lot more time not believing in the supernatural thing thats happening #while in Japanese horror it seems to happen a lot less #and it's kinda nice bc i sometimes hate how much the characters try to logic their way through everything #it can be annoying and takes too much time when they should be trying to survive #the one huge exception is the movie 1408; the questioning of the supernatural works there and is kinda important #but in others it just drags on for so long #horror #horror movies #j horror

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coconutcows · 5 months

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Out of every “x came out this many years ago” memes I have never seen one that made me feel old. Nothing on this earth has made me feel old at the ripe age of 27 (nearly 28), until yesterday when I interacted with a kid on Reddit who is young enough to not only not have been around for Pokémania, not old enough to even remember it, this person is so young they think the Pokémon Anime has never been as popular as it is now.

And that, my dear friends, makes me feel so so old

#Pokémon #like there were people who hadn’t watched Pokémon in decades who got mad they changed the artstyle for alola #the Pokémon anime was a huge stepping stone for anime as a whole to start being brought to the west #I felt less old seeing my baby nephew the day before than I did realizing there are generations #who do not realize the sheer mass of pokemania #there wasn’t a store you could go to that didn’t have some form of Pokémon merchandise somewhere #Pokémon was huge with both boys and girls too and the franchise basically saved nintendos ass #I’m actually the same age as Pokémon and that tickles me tbh

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nerdpoe · 7 months

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There's an up-and-coming Tech Giant, called Fenton Works, and Batman is determined to prove that the company is a front for a villain.

Danny, after his parents turned from Ghost hunting to being the first official Ghost Anthropologists, decided to repurpose some of their weapons.

And, well, there was a contest being run by Wayne Enterprises; whoever can design a robot that will help the environment got prize money and a grant.

Danny, in all his mechanical engineering prowess, was bored. So he designed a thing. Repurposed the Fenton Guns into a cute robotic tortoise that would clean the beach.

It spiraled from there, and now Fenton Works is the leading name in green technology that's cleaning up the Earth bit by bit. Sea Dragon robots that clean oil and trash from the ocean; beach tortoises that clean the sand and beach and deposit their hoard of trash into designated receptacles that Danny uses as material to make more robots; Cryptid "stalker" robots with long legs that delicately patrol forests to perform "fuel management" and clear out the underbrush to help manage wildfires; moving gargoyle robots that sit on top of skyscrapers to help clean the air with huge sail-like wings, etc.

Basically, Danny pulls a Doctor Elisabet Sobeck, but with less world ending and more actually helping. (Not that the world ending was Elisabet's fault, of course, but different franchise)

And due to the number of times aliens try to attack and rogues send their own robots to attack people, naturally Danny installed self-defense protocols, along with one single golden rule written into the very OS of every single robot; Save Humans Whatever the Cost.

Problem is, Batman has never seen robots like this not be used for evil purposes, and he knows that their power source (a closely guarded Fenton Works secret) is some sort of liquid that glows green.

He really only knows of one liquid that glows green.

So he's determined to find everything he can about Fenton Works, because there's no way that Daniel Fenton isn't actually a villain in the making.

Danny's just thrilled for the chance to work with Wayne Enterprises.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #story prompt #phanfic #i just really like robot animals okay #sam and tucker are danny's suger babies #sam because she doesn't want to use her parent's money #tucker because he will GLADLY accept a rich person's money being thrown at him #danny cuz he loves his husband and wife and wants them to never want anything

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abnerkrill · 1 year

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fantastic rebuttal to "writers don't deserve better pay because the stuff they write is terrible/unoriginal", full thread here

(to explain, the "Unknown" under his name is from a add-on bot detector; it usually can assign a percentage likelihood that a user is a human being and not a bot, but I think the blue check system disrupted the add-on so it says "Unknown" underneath his name now.)

[image id under the read more:

May 7, 2023 tweet thread from Tom Vaughan @/storyandplot

With #WGAStrong rightfully in the spotlight this week, I've seen some less-than-sympathetic comments focusing on the lack of originality in our projects. This is a fair criticism of the system, but not the writers. A quick history of how we got here (thread emoji)

The first thing to understand is that Hollywood has NOT run out of new ideas. The studio’s preference for I.P. has nothing to do with regurgitating ideas and everything to do with MARKETING.

The late 60s-70s is generally considered the artistic high of the studio system. Ironically, many contribute this to corporations buying up the studios! The corporations knew they had no idea how to run a movie studio, so... they put creative people in charge.

This is how you got the run of so many great films the studios would never make today. They also took bigger chances on young, promising talent (the first "film school generation" of filmmakers.)

But with the success of JAWS and STAR WARS, the corporations demanded more of those kinds of hits. The creative folks insisted such things were unpredictable, and the business folks said let's make them less so.

(Sidenote: This was also the same time a completely different phenomenon was happening. A/C was becoming the norm for theatres, making summer movie-going much more attractive.)

Over the next decade, more and more MBAs and marketing people gained influence in the studio system. Being business folks, huge hits were not a creative problem as much as a product/marketing problem.

The 80s is when the “high concept” became pre-eminent because it narrowed a sales pitch to one sentence, a trailer, and a poster. This made everyone a marketing agent for a movie because everyone could explain what it was about!

In the 90s, marketing became just as important as the film itself (reflected in their respective budgets) when Hollywood discovered they could profit from fifty years of pre-existing awareness for old TV shows and movies.

This allowed the marketing department to move away from pitching a movie and convincing you to go see it (lower success rate), to simple “audience awareness” and building anticipation. (higher success rate.)

The audience knew what THE FLINSTONES the movie was. They just needed to know the casting and when it opened. No one needed to have the remake of GODZILLA explained to them. They just needed to know when it opened.

The marketing department prefers AWARNESS over SELLING because awareness is something you can throw money at. Selling is harder, and it’s less predictable. This is why franchises are so valuable.

Whenever someone says, “That’s something I can sell!” It’s usually something that can sell itself. What they mean is, "I just have to let people know about this!"

Hollywoods's reliance on property the audience is already familiar with is 100% because... the audience is already familiar with it. It is easier to market the product and this increases its chances of success.

This focus on I.P. has become so pervasive, many, including executives themselves, have forgotten WHY it's valuable. They'll option an unknown comic BECAUSE it's I.P., forgetting that it's unknown and lacks the main asset of I.P.

Writers do love writing on an I.P. that means something to them. Every Star Wars fan who became a filmmaker would love to work in that universe. But we do not love it more than our own original work. We would always rather work on that.

So when you see another remake, or reboot, or adaptation, and think, "Can't they come up with something new?"

Remember, the answer is yes. Yes, we can. And we want to. You can blame the market or the marketing, but either way, the widespread production of truly original content is just not the studio business model we're in right now. #WGAStrong

end ID.]

#wga #wga strike #NOW WITH TRANSCRIPT PEOPLE REBLOG THIS ONE

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thankskenpenders · 24 days

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The Knuckles show

The announcement of a live action Knuckles streaming miniseries was surprising, to say the least. I mean, what would such a show even be about in a version of the Sonic universe with no Angel Island and barely any characters from the games around? Is he gonna go treasure hunting with the gang from Montana or something? Would a streaming miniseries have the CGI budget to squeeze in any new game characters, even briefly? Rouge? Amy? At least one member of Team Chaotix? Anyone?

Now the show is finally out, and it turns out what they actually made was a comedy show about bumbling deputy sheriff Wade Whipple, the minor comic relief character played by Adam Pally who you might not even remember all that well from the first two movies, with Knuckles as his sidekick. While, yes, Knuckles does get a decent amount of screentime and opportunities to punch bad guys and do cool moves from the games, large stretches of this show focus on Wade's personal life, to the point that a couple times I almost forgot I was watching a Sonic-related show. If you're judging it purely by the metric of how well it adapts and engages with its source material, this surely must be one of the worst adaptations the Sonic franchise has ever seen.

So then, despite some huge complaints... why do I kinda like it?

(This will contain full spoilers for the Knuckles show.)

A brief summary of what the show is actually about because I know half of you aren't going to watch it

The show picks up not too long after the end of the second movie. Knuckles is now living in Montana with Sonic, Tails, and the Wachowskis out of a sense of debt to them, though he doesn't really see it as his home. He doesn't feel like he belongs on Earth, and his life currently lacks direction. After communing with the ghost of Pachacamac, though, Knuckles is instructed to keep his culture alive by teaching "the ways of the echidna warrior" to a new apprentice: deputy sheriff Wade Whipple, who's currently more concerned about winning a bowling tournament in Reno than anything else.

Things are complicated by the interference of two rogue GUN agents - Agent Willoughby, played by Ellie Taylor in a bad wig, and Agent Mason, played by Kid Cudi. (Yes, the artist behind the second movie's credits song is one of the bad guys in this.) They want to steal Knuckles' power and sell it to a former associate of Robotnik's played by Rory McCann (The Hound from Game of Thrones), who now works as a black market arms dealer. Yes, they're still doing the thing where Sonic and friends' quills radiate some kind of super-energy that the bad guys all want. No, I don't particularly love this element of the Paramount Sonic continuity. Anyway, they go after Knuckles and Wade, complicating their straightforward road trip to Reno. Antics ensue.

The Wade show

So here's the thing. While the first episode focuses largely on Knuckles, the entire rest of the show is very much the story of Wade, and by extension the other original human characters invented for this miniseries.

Episode 2 is about Wade having to rescue Knuckles from captivity after the GUN agents get him. Knuckles spends most of the episode in a cage.

Episode 3 is about introducing Wade's Jewish family, including his slightly overbearing mother and weird sister, so that Knuckles can learn about their family traditions and have Shabbat dinner with them (and then save them from bounty hunters that the GUN agents hired).

Episode 4 only features Knuckles at the very beginning and very end of the episode, probably for less than a minute total. Wade is captured by a bounty hunter he personally knows, and Knuckles decides to let that be a trial for Wade to overcome on his own.

The last two episodes feature the climactic showdowns with the GUN agents and their arms-dealing ally, who comes in with a mech for the obligatory final boss fight. You'd think this would be Knuckles' time to shine, but really, these episodes are mostly about the bowling tournament in Reno where Wade encounters his estranged father, wrapping up his own personal arc. While Knuckles does get some fights, a lot of the finale is spent on lengthy bowling scenes where Knuckles isn't in the room or even mentioned. It frequently feels more like a spiritual successor to '00s sports comedy movies like Dodgeball, Talladega Nights, or Blades of Glory than it does a part of the Sonic franchise, and the presence of ESPN 8: The Ocho commentary in the finale only drives those Dodgeball comparisons home. They get so immersed in the bowling stuff that it's genuinely hilarious when the show suddenly pivots and remembers "oh shit we still need to do the final boss fight"

Throughout all this, Wade is the protagonist. He's the character we spend more time with, he's the character who drives most of the major events, he's the character who gets more of an arc. The emotional core is Wade's journey. Knuckles is still present - sometimes, at least - but he's there as Wade's wingman, and also just as the excuse for there to be some fight scenes.

How much Sonic stuff is actually in this show?

Honestly? Not much.

Sonic and Tails are only in the first episode. Sonic gets some good scenes, but Tails gets a grand total of five lines. I counted. Unsurprisingly, Jim Carrey is absent as Robotnik, though he does get mentioned a fair bit. (For that matter, basically the entire established human cast beyond Wade is absent, even including Tom, though Maddie is there in episode one.)

GUN is involved in the story, which helps it feel slightly more connected to Sonic, but it kind of feels like it's GUN in name only. They don't use any recognizable GUN tech, and they don't call in the military. It's just two agents in suits. They might as well be the Men in Black.

The Master Emerald is mentioned as something Knuckles has to guard, but it's never seen. Angel Island is pictured as a drawing during the show's intro, appearing exactly how it does in Sonic 3, but it's never referenced at all beyond that.

I guess the climax taking place in and around a Reno casino is a reference to Sonic's many casino-themed levels. That's something. I'll give them that.

Oh, and if you're wondering if this is the point where we finally start to get actual music from the games: no, it's not. The soundtrack consists of a lot of '80s needle drops, many of which are generic Hollywood picks like "Holding Out for a Hero" for the billionth time, thought it at least has some slightly less obvious picks than the Mario movie. The theme song is '80s rock song "The Warrior" by Scandal. You'll hear it many times. You'll hear the Adventure era Knuckles raps zero times in this. You'll briefly hear classic A Tribe Called Quest song "Can I Kick It?" before Knuckles takes the question too literally and breaks the radio in Wade's car.

Beyond a handful of surface level references for nerds (one of which is admittedly wild - we'll get to that), this is probably the least an officially licensed adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog has ever tried to actually engage with its source material. I struggle to think of another Sonic adaptation that has less to do with Sonic. For as much shit as I and countless others have given Penders for seemingly ignoring the content of the games in favor of building his own convoluted mythos, his Knuckles comics honestly included way more elements from the games than this show does.

Somehow, the one new(-ish) Sonic character introduced in this is the ghost of Pachacamac of all characters. Not even Tikal! Pachacamac! A very minor character nobody has particularly strong feelings about! You can't even use the excuse that they already had the character model, because they completely redesigned him compared to his cameo in the first movie to better match his Sonic Adventure design. And he's voiced by Christopher Lloyd! Honestly, so many of his lines are strained that it sounds like he's on death's door here, but then he'll surprise you with a more casual line like "just do it, man" and it catches me so off guard that I can't help but laugh.

Pachacamac here has basically nothing to do with the game character he takes his name and appearance from. Where the game character was a cruel warlord who kicked off a 3000 year cycle of violence, Paramount Pachacamac is now just this chill old man who gives Knuckles (and later Wade) advice in two episodes of the show. Hell, he also feels completely disconnected from his established role in the movies, where he's literally the guy who shot Longclaw. The show will not grapple with this contradiction at all. He's just here to be a thing fans like me will recognize from the games. Again, if that's all they wanted, it's kind of baffling that they didn't just use Tikal.

I don't love Knuckles in this

But what about Knuckles himself? Well, he doesn't feel all that much like Knuckles to me. Ironically, he sometimes feels like one of the weaker elements in his own show.

Back when the second movie came out, I noted that Knuckles' characterization seemed to be pulling heavily from MCU Thor as a gallant warrior from an archaic alien culture who doesn't really understand modern day Earth stuff. That worked for me in that movie. It was just there for spice. Just a little extra flavor for the character in what was otherwise a very faithful adaptation of Knuckles' storyline in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Without those familiar elements grounding him and with a much higher reliance on comedy, Idris Elba's Knuckles becomes a pretty one-note character in this.

In damn near every scene with Knuckles, he's going to say something about being a proud, honorable echidna warrior, or brag about his glorious feats of strength, or be confused about some Earth thing and call it sorcery, or act like every other character is also a member of some noble warrior clan. He still has his moments for sure, but this schtick kinda gets old fast, and it just doesn't feel like Knuckles to me. His entire character feels derived from the scene in the diner where Thor smashes the cup on the ground and goes "Another!" Sure, I can picture game Knuckles smashing a radio to turn it off and being a little too gung-ho about busting holes through walls. That's Knuckles behavior. But building a barbarian combat pit in the living room so the Wachowski family dog can fight the mailman? Nope. That's some other guy now. It really does just feel like them taking a broad character archetype from something popular that kinda sorta fits Knuckles and just running with that, rather than trying to actually adapt the character.

Oh, but don't worry, he wears the OVA hat for like two minutes! AND he loves grapes! See, Sonic nerds? We read the wiki! That's his favorite food! Grapes! This is gonna come up like five times!

Knuckles kind of gets an arc here, but not as much as Wade does. I think the stuff about him starting to feel at home on Earth thanks to Wade's mom and the way he connects with their Jewish family traditions is oddly sweet. This arc is kind of let down, though, by the fact that Knuckles' heritage is treated as a complete joke. He's a cartoonish pastiche of various historical warrior cultures stuck together in a blender and used mostly for comedic effect. When Pachacamac's ghost appears, he's reading a newspaper and bemoaning the fact that the Mets lost again. This is not the place for a serious examination of Knuckles' feelings on being the last of his kind.

This is far from the only time the show undercuts itself with its jokes and attempts at self-parody. In the first episode, for instance, Knuckles clashes with GUN Agent Mason and his tech-enhanced punches, leading to an extremely on-the-nose inversion of the "Do I look like I need your power?" scene showcased in the trailer for the second movie. Except this time, Agent Willoughby butts in and points out how stupid that line is in this new context, since they're literally trying to steal Knuckles' power. The fight can't just be cool, they have to get cute with it. A lot of stuff like that happens in this show.

Given all these complaints, the first two episodes left me thinking I'd be fairly negative on this show overall. This seemed like the version of the show from the fandom's collective nightmares, one that undoes all of the progress the movie series seemed to have been making towards faithfulness to the games. Like, just look at these cast posters. Is this what you want out of Sonic? Do these excite you?

But then, something strange happened. Over time, I just kind of let the jokes and shenanigans wash over me and basked in how fucking weird this show is.

And I started to actually enjoy it.

Look. The Wade & Knuckles Show was never going to be peak Sonic. But that sure as hell doesn't mean it can't be entertaining.

This show is so fucking goofy

Here's the thing.

The show is funny.

Unlike a lot of other people, I didn't hate all the wedding stuff in Hawaii in Sonic 2, because I thought a lot of it was funny, both in its actual jokes and in the ways in which they tied everything back to Sonic. Tom looking wistfully at some bodybuilders doing Top Gun shit and spraying each other with beer and being like "I wish Sonic had that" is weirdly funny. The twist that those muscle bros are all agents of the newly formed GUN, who orchestrated the wedding as an elaborate scheme to catch Sonic, is funny. Mr. Olive Garden becoming the fucking GUN Commander is VERY funny. Are any of these elements of my dream Sonic movie? No, of course not. But my dream Sonic movie was never gonna happen in live action.

The Knuckles show follows up on the comedy of the previous films by being probably the funniest live action Sonic release yet. Did every joke land for me? God no. There are some stinkers in there that made me roll my eyes. But enough of them landed that it worked out for me overall. A big part of this is the fact that they've got a good cast of actors and/or comedians here.

Adam Pally is funny as Wade, and I found myself liking him more and more as a character as the show went on. He becomes an oddly endearing loser, with some sweet moments in his personal arc that made me feel for the guy. I like Wade more than Tom now, thanks to this show. I will now be happier to see Wade in Sonic 3 than I would have been previously.

The supporting cast is frequently great, too, many of whom are playing completely cartoonish, over-the-top characters. They took a cue from how exaggerated Carrey's performance was as Robotnik and decided to just abandon all pretense that this is the real world. Stockard Channing as Wade's mom is funny, and carries some of the more sincere parts of the show. Cary Elwes as Wade's very British dad who abandoned him as a child to run off and be the world's most egotistical professional bowler is funny. Edi Patterson as Wade's sister Wanda is... well, she's kinda trying too hard, but she has her moments. The Mighty Boosh co-creator Julian Barratt(!!) as a scenery-chewing bounty hunter, who was also somehow Wade's former best friend and bowling partner, is VERY funny. I love this guy.

(Honestly, they should let more people who were on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace be in Sonic stuff. Where's Matt Berry)

This is kind of a stacked cast for a bunch of stupid side characters in a live action Knuckles show! And honestly, that just makes it funnier to me. Even when they're not funny, the fact that this exists makes it funny. They somehow convinced Paramount to give them a bunch of money to make a spiritual successor to Dodgeball about a schlubby guy who wants to beat his dad at a bowling tournament... except also Knuckles the fucking Echidna is there as his personal life coach. My life is richer for the fact that I can say that sentence. I think about all the little kids who are probably watching this show this weekend, going in expecting a show about Knuckles the Echidna and having to sit through extensive bowling scenes and lore about Wade's family, and sorry kids, but I just have to laugh. Wade isn't even on the poster! The poster is just a picture of Knuckles!! They punked those kids!!!

In a franchise where every single aspect is so carefully micromanaged these days, it feels truly special to get an adaptation this bonkers. It frequently appeals to the same part of me that enjoys the fact that there's an officially licensed Knuckles comic in which Charmy Bee's best friend (also a bee) dies of an accidental LSD overdose from a drug-laced chili dog. Or like, everything about the original 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. Or the fact that they made seven direct-to-DVD sequels to Alpha and Omega, one of which is half a retread of the adventure from the first movie (with more annoying supporting characters in tow this time) and half a literal clip show of the first movie. The sheer absurdity of the fact that these things exist is charming to me. Except, with the Knuckles show, it has the added benefit of frequently being funny on purpose! This is why I'm not sure I'd call it "so bad it's good." Like, it's not amazing, but there were a lot of parts that I enjoyed in the exact way I was supposed to enjoy them.

Look. Here's a list of real lines of dialogue from the Sega-approved Knuckles the Echidna streaming show that they're billing as a pillar of the Paramount+ lineup, to drive this point home. Let these marinate for a minute:

"I only eat grapes, and Cool Ranch Doritos™."

"Annihilate this little girl, Wade. Crush her spirit. Humiliate her so badly her parents won't even look at her again." "Doesn't that seem like we're going a bit far?" "Not far enough."

"So is he Jewish?" "Half, I think."

"I had a friend who when he listened to Alien Ant Farm he could lift a Toyota Corolla over his head."

"I'm in dire financial straits. Due to my lawsuit against an unnamed rainforest-themed restaurant franchise, I don't have two pennies to my name."

"We're here in sunny Reno, Nevada, which is so close to Hell you can smell the sparks."

"You can't threaten me with your Jewish karate chops because I am a federal agent."

"I will say, regardless of how you feel about child abandonment - and I'm against it! - the deals at TJ Maxx can't be beat."

This is a Sonic show in which they got Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel to appear as ESPN 8: The Ocho commentators.

This is a show where Wade's mom insists upon pronouncing "Knuckles" with the throaty Hebrew "ch" sound, and declares that Knuckles is basically Jewish. Later, they watch Pretty Woman together while enjoying a nice slice of key lime pie. Knuckles comments: "I don't understand. This young streetwalker with a heart made of gold, why do the others treat her with such disdain? Is it so wrong to walk the streets?"

This is a show where the fourth episode is directed by one of the guys from The Lonely Island and features a hallucinatory low budget rock opera stage musical put on by the ghost of Pachacamac. It recounts Knuckles' life story, with Wade playing Knuckles and the "evil" Longclaw played by the bounty hunter guy who's played by the Mighty Boosh guy.

Look at this.

And also, Knuckles' singing voice is provided by Michael Bolton, which they proudly announce in the middle of the musical.

And also...

Also...???

IBLIS IS IN IT????????????

Yes, Iblis!

From Sonic '06!!

Knuckles is said to have looked for a mythical power called the "Flames of Disaster" to avenge his clan, which ended up being the power that was within him all along that lets him do fire punches yadda yadda yadda. As part of this, he apparently fought Iblis off-screen at some point, as conveyed with the giant singing papier-mâché Iblis in the musical.

...Then Iblis sings about hitting up Facebook Marketplace

How? How does any of this exist? Why reference '06 of all games? How did Iblis get into the live action Sonic movie universe before Amy and Metal Sonic? Why are they using Iblis and the term "Flames of Disaster" in such a goofy way that completely disregards their original context?

I don't know. I don't know how any of this happened. But I love it. We got a Knuckles miniseries in which Michael Bolton sings the phrase "the Flames of Disaster." The world is a beautiful place sometimes.

Some people will tell you to skip episode four. "Knuckles is barely even in it," they say. "It's dumb and pointless," they say. "They clearly just ran out of special effects budget," they say. These are people whose opinions you should disregard. The episode with the least Knuckles in it is somehow the most entertaining episode of the show. I would, in fact, go as far as to say that if you only decide to watch one episode of the Knuckles show to see what goofy bullshit they get up to, it should be this one.

I cannot be mad at this show. It's so dumb, but it completely owns the fact that it's a dumb and unnecessary spinoff. Inferiority is baked into its very DNA. It's very self-consciously redoing the premise of the first movie, but stupider. It's about The Other Cop from the movies, instead of the competent one. Instead of being into a "cooler" sport, his life revolves around professional bowling. Instead of going to Vegas, he goes to Reno. Even his tragic backstory that shaped his entire life sucks. He was abandoned by his pro bowler dad in a TJ Maxx. Not even a nicer department store. A fucking TJ Maxx. This whole show is a Dril tweet.

They put a ton of effort into making it dumb in an occasionally spectacular way. So much effort was put into that joke rock opera that fans will just write off as stupid filler. They put their whole pussies into it. This is not a poorly made show. This has better production values than half the shit made for Disney+. This was made with love. Maybe not as much love for the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games as we'd like, but it's love nonetheless.

Maybe this show broke me and these are the ramblings of a madwoman. Maybe I'm just really nostalgic for the '90s and '00s comedy movies all the Wade stuff is modeled after. Maybe the Alan Wake fan in me just really loves it when a story pivots to a silly rock opera for no real reason. I won't discount any of these possibilities. This isn't high art. This isn't something I would recommend to anyone with zero interest in Sonic, and it also isn't going to sway Sonic fans who hate the Paramount universe. I really can't blame them for being bewildered by this show. But for a specific type of person, this is the absurd three-star Sonic-adjacent comedy miniseries of your dreams. It's a mid masterpiece.

Again, I just have to step back, realize the fact that this shouldn't exist, and smile. Sega's too afraid to do stupid bullshit with the franchise like this these days. And I can't blame them, after years of Sonic being a treated as a laughingstock. But part of me misses some of the goofy shit. No matter how much I tore some of the Archie comics apart as I was reading them for this blog, I just look back on stuff like Cal and Al or the Many Hands issues and laugh. And that same part of me looks at this show about Knuckles being the sidekick to this fucking guy, and just goes...

"We're so back."

In conclusion, I genuinely think this was a more enjoyable TV show than Sonic Prime.

I wouldn't go back and rewatch Sonic Prime anytime soon, aside from maybe, like, a couple of the Shadow-heavy episodes. Huge stretches of that show bored me to tears. The writers squandered all of that show's potential. But I would rewatch the Knuckles show, which takes a terrible premise and has a lot of fun with it, in a heartbeat. Even the bowling parts. The bowling scenes in the Knuckles show are more engaging than 70% of the fights in Sonic Prime. I am not trolling. I mean that sincerely, with all my heart. Don't @ me.

Stray observations

There is effectively zero meaningful setup for the third movie in this, unless Wade's family or the two GUN agents come back or something. Project Shadow is not mentioned in this. There is no secret post-credits scene with Gerald

The CGI in this is pretty good. Not quite on par with the movies, but pretty good. Sonic's weird forehead wrinkles are distracting in his scenes though. Please fix that

I wouldn't say I liked this as much as the second movie, which obviously gets a ton of points for, you know. The Cool Sonic Shit. But I had more fun with it than the first movie, which I still feel is a painfully generic family movie that was only saved by Tyson's redesign

"Grapes are an interesting choice for someone who doesn't use his individual fingers."

Agent Willoughby was apparently the one at GUN who had to buy the Olive Garden gift cards and set up the fake wedding. Her origin story is that she hated doing shit like that and wanted to go fight aliens

This miniseries contains another Keanu namedrop because Wade's childhood bedroom has a Speed poster on the wall. I swear, if Sonic doesn't say Shadow sounds just like Keanu...

Knuckles is familiar with Paul Blart Mall Cop

Near the end the ESPN 8: The Ocho commentators say that the 1974 Reno bowling championship was also interrupted by an extraterrestrial, and given that was exactly 50 years ago I can't write off the possibility that that was Shadow. Please for the love of god give us a sequel series after the third movie where Wade takes Shadow the Hedgehog bowling. I need this more than I need air

#tkp post #other media

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rex101111 · 9 months

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Things that happen within the first few hours of AC6:

1. You get shot with a huge-ass laser mid-atmosphere entry. You barely survive this, landing several miles away from your intended landing zone. Welcome to Rubicon 3.

2. You have a mech built with bargain bin parts, barely held together with hope and spite. It has a energy sword though, so that’s nice.

3. Not even two seconds after your, very rough, landing, you get a call from your “Handler”. He is ostensibly in charge of your well-being. This begins and ends with him sending you off on missions he’s fairly certain you’ll survive and charges you for the damage you get to your mech, the bullets you use, and he’s also cut out a piece of your brain to put in augmentations that will make you a slightly better mech pilot. In the top Most Horrible People On This Planet contest, he wouldn’t make it to the top 10.

4. You make your way through a derelict hunk of junk that’s threatening to collapse on top of you. Not even two minutes into this journey, you’re getting shot at with missiles.

5. You finally reach your intended destination, a burning husk of a city filled with scavengers and low lives who will shoot you on sight. You are here to grave rob.

6. The reason you are grave robbing is connected to the fact you got shot in orbit, you are here illegally, and you need to find a license from any fresh corpse so you can steal the identity on it and be able to do mercenary work.

7. You go through four corpses before you find one with a license that can pass muster.

8. Mid corpse robbing a gunship sent by The Space Police spots you and you have to shot it down so it can’t kill you or, even worse, stop you from stealing the identity you just found.

9. As soon as you get registered in the Mercenary Rolodex, which takes less then a second of an A.I taking a look and saying “alright checks out”, you have two missions. One of them has you killing a bunch of resistance fighters from the planet’s native population on behalf of a weapons company that really wants to do business here. 10. The next mission has you going to a base owned by that very same company and blowing up everything you can find there. This does not anger that company one bit, if anything it just convinces them you are a very thorough worker. 11. Very shortly after that, you are tasked with destroying a prototype mech by another company before it can get into mass production. That mech is being piloted by what can only be described as an Anime Protag who is in the worst possible franchise for his type of character. You can murder him in less then two minutes if you know what you’re doing. You can hear him desperately fight for his life the entire time. 12. After that, before you even get to clean the blood and oil and broken dreams off your robot, you get a call from a merc group leader saying that he’s seen you murder that guy real good, a guy who was auditioning to join his group, and likes the cut of your jib. He gives you the callsign he was gonna give Anime Protag before you blew him the fuck up. He laughs and tells you to be careful since it’s an unlucky number. This is the least morally repugnant thing you’ll do all game.

13. A while after that, you go into a power plant and destroy the generator, it promptly blasts you in the face with the red radioactive Super Fuel that toasted this planet a few years back.

14. You survive, somehow, and you get a disembodied voice of some girl in your ear. You tell your handler about this and he just shrugs it off with “oh yeah that’s probably a symptom of the lobotomy, don’t worry about it”. The voice is probably the most moral person on this fire blasted hell scape of a planet.

#Armored Core #Armored Core 6 #this game is nuts #fromsoft knows how to make you feel like the world is horrible #armored core does not in any way fuck about

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findyourlovely · 2 months

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Can I just say

As a dark skinned black woman with locs, it really feels like I won the shipping lottery

To see a character who looks like me getting loved so intensely by such a good man is more than I expected to ever see, much less on such a huge franchise

This is some of the best writing on tv I’ve seen in years and its specifically for us, incredible

#the ones who live #twd towl #richonne #towl #the most iconic power couple on television #the most beautiful people on television #the greatest romance I’ve ever seen #otp: you never have to thank me ever #ugh my heart

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astermath · 1 year

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"So? Whatever." Pt.2

pairing: dave lizewski x popular!fem!reader

summary: after closing a deal with dave to let you borrow his comics while he pretends to tutor you, he finally comes over to your house. he’s confronted with the fact that despite your reputation of being damn near perfect, you have your own insecurities and issues. you’re confronted with how much you enjoy his company, despite having your reservations about him before.

word count: 2.4K

♡ LANDING PAGE ♡

notes: thank you for the likes and the reblogs, I really appreciate it! I really enjoy writing for this reader, there’s something so fun about being able to be so playfully mean. Please let me know if you’d like a part 3, and comments are greatly appreciated too!

[unknown]: hi, it’s dave! hope I typed in the right number lol

You look at your phone as it buzzed, squinting to see if you recognized the contact as you dried your hair off from the shower. You sat down on your bed and swiped up, smiling at the name. At least he didn’t forget to text. You saved his number under a new contact and started typing a reply.

[y/n]: sorry, I know a lot of daves. are you the one from the party last saturday, or the one from the football game?

[dave]: lizewski? the one who lent you the venom comic? brown hair, glasses?

You grinned to yourself, laying down on your stomach on the bed.

[y/n]: I’m just messing with ya, nerd. I remember you, how could I possibly forget?

[dave]: right

[dave]: sorry

[dave]: could you send me the address? and what type of comics you want me to bring?

You sent him your location and a couple of screenshots of your favorite franchises.

[y/n]: think you can work with that?

[dave]: yeah, totally! I’ll be there at 2 on saturday, is that ok?

[y/n]: totes, see ya then x

Dave stared down at his phone, eyes fixated on the little “x” you added to your last text. Everything from that day had already felt surreal, and now he was actually texting you. Or, well, he assumed so. This could all very well still be part of some really shitty prank, but you did seem genuine in your request. And what kind of guy would he be to just assume you were out to get him, just like all the others?

A smart one, probably.

But it was too late for second thoughts now, as he stood in front of the driveway to your house. It was huge, nothing like the houses in his neighborhood. He guessed that’s what all that lawyer money was good for. He walked up to the front door, his hand shaking a little as he reached out to ring the bell. He heard footsteps, taking a deep breath in and mentally prepared himself to be met by you as the door opened.

Instead, he was met by the eyes of an older man, slightly taller than him, who seemed less than pleased to see him at his front door. He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow as he looked him up and down. “Can I help you, son?”

Dave gulped, hands getting clammy inside his coat’s pockets. He was not ready to be confronted by your dad, especially because he’s the one you were primarily hiding things from. “I-I’m here to tutor—”

“My daughter?” He cut him off before he could say your name. “You the kid that’s tutoring her?”

“Y-Yes sir, that’s me.” He pulled out his hand, silently cursing himself for not wiping it on his pants before because of how sweaty it was.

Your father looked down at his hand, but before he could even shake it, your voice was heard from behind him. “Daddy, that’s for me!” You walked down the stairs, making eye contact with Dave as he tried not to melt right then and there because of what you were wearing. He usually saw you wear your cute, well put together outfits at school, but seeing you in your cute comfy shorts, with your hair put up… He only realized he was staring when your dad addressed him again.

“Alright, get inside. And shoes off.”

He obliged, quickly taking his shoes off as your dad walked back into the living room.

Not long after, he was met with the sight of your room. Shelves adorned with trophies, a vanity, a queen sized bed with a TV in front of it, a plush sofa, and a huge closet… He was pretty sure he’s seen whole apartments less nice than your room. But nevermind that, he was in a girl’s room, in your room. That was intimate no matter the scenario.

You sat down on your desk chair, legs crossed as you turned it on its wheels to face the boy scanning your room. He looked like he had landed in another dimension, eyes wide as he examined his surroundings.

“What’s so interesting?” You asked, not sure if he was looking for something or if he was just genuinely this impressed by your room.

“You have… A lot of trophies…” He fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt.

You looked over to the shelf, smiling proudly. “All from cheering.” You pointed to the tiara on the shelf above it. “Besides that one.”

He remembers when you won prom queen in your junior year, though he’s not sure if he’d count that as a trophy. He’d never tell you that, though.

“So, you gonna give me my comics or are you just here to inspect my private property?”

Your comment snapped him out of his daydreaming and he quickly took off his backpack to take out a plastic bag filled with comics. “I-I didn’t know which ones you wanted specifically, so… I just took all the ones from the franchises you showed me.” He took the pile out of the bag and you got up to take them from him.

“Careful, it’s—“

Your arms almost gave out to the sheer heft of the pile before he caught them. “Jesus christ Dave!”

“S-Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realise they weighed that much combined!” He looks panicked, hoping you didn’t hurt yourself when the weight pulled you down.

“You carried these all the way here?” You looked at him in shock. There was no way he was that strong, not without you knowing about it. “What are you, some kind of secret body builder?” You watched him put the pile down on your desk, seeing the muscles in his forearm. Maybe you were wrong, you just hadn’t been paying as much attention to Dave as you apparently should have been.

He avoided the question, simply sitting down on the carpeted floor across you with his back against the side of your bed. Frankly, he knew he’d be better off saying nothing when it came to his physique, afraid it might reveal too much relating to his vigilante activities.

You looked through the pile, finding the sequel to the previous comic you had borrowed from him and pulling it out. Dave took his own comic book out of his backpack, and when he looked back at you, something had clearly changed.

Your face was now adorned with a pair of round, thinly rimmed glasses.

He blinked a few times to make sure his own eyes weren’t deceiving him, but no, he was seeing things right.

You look up from your page and raise an eyebrow. “Didn’t your mommy ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”

“You wear glasses.” He said, eyes fixated on your face. His usual aversion to eye contact seemed to have vanished all of a sudden.

“What?” You realized you hadn’t thought about it when you put them on. You didn’t usually have company over while you were reading stuff. “Oh.” Your face suddenly felt a lot warmer, embarrassment washing over you. “Yeah, I uh… I need them to read, at least. I get through the rest of my day without em just fine, they just look so… Stupid.” You paused, looking back at his face and realizing how mean that must have sounded to him. “Not that you look stupid! You look, uh… You look smart! Real smart, it’s just… They don’t suit me and I…His expression hasn’t changed one bit since you had put on your spectacles. You looked so different, in a good way. A really good way.

“Pretty.” He muttered.

“What?” You broke out of your embarrassed rambling.

“I think you look pretty. With the glasses. They suit you.” He smiled demurely, hoping that didn’t gain him some creep points.

You stared back at him. You’d been called hot before, sexy, gorgeous… But hearing him call you pretty, it was something else. There were no intentions behind it, he just needed to say it, like it felt right. You blink, trying to cope with the fact that the nerd you thought you had an upper hand on had turned your brain to mush with a single compliment.

“Yeah, uhm… Whatever…” You went back to reading. “…thanks.”

He smiled to himself as he picked up his own comic book again. You were surprisingly fun to talk to, it was almost as if he didn’t feel like he was getting judged for everything he was saying anymore.

And he could definitely get used to that.

A few hours pass as you both peruse through the pile. The silence is comfortable, only being broken if someone flipped a page or grabbed a new comic. He looked up and saw you holding the Spider-man collector’s edition he took a page out of, seemingly very immersed in the story.

“Do you like Spider-man?” He spoke up, hoping he didn’t annoy you by taking you out of the story.

“Oh, uh…” You adjusted the glasses on your face as they kept slipping down your nose a bit. “Yeah. He’s like… pretty cool I guess.” You had so much to say about him, so much you wanted to gush about, but you couldn’t help but still feel a little ashamed about your interest.

Dave looked at you expectantly. He knew that look, the same look he had whenever someone would call him any type of name at school for being a top shelf dork.

And in that moment, you realised you both had something in common. Except he lived his life unashamedly being a dork, and you were concealing it.

“Alright, so,” You got up from your chair and sat down on the floor next to him, your shoulders touching as you held the comic to your chest. The excitement nearly poured out of you as you couldn’t contain your words, going over everything you liked about him. His background, his personality, his originally handmade suit, his unique powers…

Dave watched you speak with a dreamy smile on his face, your face glowing with happiness. He never thought you’d looked more beautiful, just unapologetically being yourself in front of him. He didn’t once try to interrupt you, he wouldn’t dare to, you just looked so cute gushing about this comic book hero.

“And the fact that… He’s just some kid, right?” You looked into his eyes as he nodded along with you. “Like, he never got any special training, or fancy gear, or anything like that. He could have lived every day of his life pretending he never got bitten by that spider, and live happily ever after, but no! He took matters into his own hands, because he wanted to make a change, because he cared about the people around him.” You smiled, not realizing you had grabbed Dave’s arm and were squeezing it a little to emphasize your words.

He blushed, feeling like that description fit his own endeavors pretty well. He looked into your eyes and for a second, felt the urge to lean in. It took about as much strength as it did to carry those comics to not do so.

You let go of his arms and held your legs close your chest. “But that upside down kiss with MJ… That’s gotta be bullshit. There’s no way you can kiss someone like that.”

“I don‘t know,” Dave responded. “I feel like it would be kinda fun. It doesn’t look that hard.”

“Oh yeah? How would you know?” You turned your head to look at him and gave him a cocky grin.

His face flushed pink and he regretted saying what he said. He just gave you the perfect bait to tease the ever living hell out of him. “W-Well, I… I can imagine that… From my experience… It’s…” He stammered.

You let out a soft giggle, amused at his embarrassment. “You’ve never kissed a girl, have you?”

Dave gulped, words stuck in his throat. But you had opened up so much to him, it wouldn’t be fair to not do the same. “I, uhm… No. I haven’t.” He let out a bit of a defeated chuckle.

An idea sprung alive in your head, a dangerous but intriguing glint in your eyes as you bit your lower lip slightly.

“Would you want to?”

Dave had heard you say a lot of shocking things, but that might just take the cake. His cheeks burned hot as the blood rushed to his face, his hands staying steady on his own thighs to not show they were trembling a little. He didn’t know what to say, this was all happening so quickly.

Before he could respond, you were leaning in, eyes on his soft lips, only inches apart—

“Sweetie! Come down for dinner!”

Your eyes snapped open and you pulled back, looking at Dave before glancing over at the door. Thank god they didn’t come up to knock, that would have been the death of you. You take a deep breath and get up, gesturing with your hand for him to do the same. “You should uh… Probably head out.”

He sat there a bit longer than he should have, a million thoughts going through his head before the sound of your voice finally got through to him. “Right, sorry… Don’t wanna overstay my welcome.” He gathered his comics and went downstairs with you to put on his shoes and coat again.

You opened the door for him and he looked back at you to say goodbye. “Thanks for having me over, I had a good time. I hope you did too.” He smiled shyly, hands in his pockets.

You smiled back, reaching up to ruffle his brown curls. “Don’t mention it. And don’t die on the way back, shit’s dangerous out there these days.”

He nodded, giving you a quick wave before heading out, the feeling in his chest warming up his entire body. He felt like he could take on anything, a feeling that would absolutely come in handy later when he’d be face to face with New York’s criminals.

You went back upstairs and sat down at your desk, noticing he’d left something. It was the special collector’s edition you’d been gushing about earlier. You ran your fingers across the damaged front page, smiling to yourself.

Dave was looking in the mirror, adjusting his costume a little and checking if he had everything he needed with him. A buzz of his phone got his attention, and a giddy boyish grin spread across his face.

[y/n]: so, same time next week? xx

@nephilimsss

(lmk if you'd like to be added to the tag list for this fic and other dave lizewski works!!)