fantastic_four

Such as? I heard this from DOZENS of critics about Prometheus, and almost every time that critic was wrong. With a work with a plot as complex as this, or the last two Matrix films, or Lost, or Prometheus, jumping to conclusions seems to be the norm, but until you've worked through everything you're more likely to be wrong about a plot hole than right. I'm not a big fan of plots that are as complex as the works I just listed, but I'm fine with them being available for people who are. Just like I never felt like working through a Rubik's cube but didn't curse the manufacturers for creating a puzzle that was more complex than I preferred to pursue. But I do like working through them to an extent until I get bored, similar to the way I worked through one side of a Rubik's cube as a kid, then two sides, then gave up.

Disagree entirely; they only need to map out the main story points, not write every screenplay for every season a series could ever have. That's an unrealistic expectation no series will EVER live up to given that they never know how many seasons they'll get funding for. All any mystery-based show can do is outline the major points. I also agree with Lisa Joy's point that ideas always develop over time so to think you're going to have your best ideas prior to season 1 and not think up better ones as you go just isn't the way it's ever going to work. An iterative design for a multi-year series is just a better way to write. Lost didn't unravel, people just didn't like the story Lindelof always had in mind. I get why, and I didn't entirely like it myself either. He started it with a VERY realistic, character-driven story, but he always had the supernatural elements planned to be revealed over time and they were always there. People just didn't like what he had in mind, which I agree with. Lindelof is satisfied with entirely supernatural elements that don't always make rational sense, and many fans don't like that, myself included. But I enjoyed the characters enough to keep with Lost until the end. I didn't like his other major work "The Leftovers" anywhere near as much because he focused a LOT more on the supernatural there in what I found to be unsatisfying ways, but I did enjoy the film "Prometheus," although I know most people didn't. By the end of season 2 of the Leftovers I just wanted to punch every member of the Guilty Remnant in the face.

Lisa Joy said they planned out the major plot points from the start and are making up the smaller ones as they go. That's the way Damon Lindelof wrote "Lost," too.

Yea. A prime example is Breaking Bad which has no heroic protagonist, just a villain protagonist. The closest character to a hero in that story is Walter's cop brother-in-law. You can make the case that Dolores is also a villain protagonist, but since Bernard is there doing mostly-heroic things it seems more fitting to call him the protagonist and her the antagonist.

He's not likable, but he's heroic. On a separate note, the main hanging thread I was very surprised they didn't follow was the likely fact that Charlotte is Arnold's kid. We assume that he's a boy because he calls the kid "Charlie," but that can also be a nickname for Charlotte, and we don't know which of Bernard's memories were real from Arnold's life and which weren't so the real Charlie may not have died from cancer. More importantly the resemblance between the kid and Tessa Thompson is clear and obvious as shown in the picture below. The timeframe also works out since Tessa Thompson is 34, Arnold died about 30 years ago, and the kid looks to be about 8 or 9, meaning that Charlotte Hale could easily have been the same kid who would be close to 40 during the show. I kept expecting them to reveal it throughout season two, but now she's dead and they never even mentioned it. Why'd they let this one just dangle as an obvious possibility once you notice the resemblances? Did they plan to use it while working on season one but then later decided not to?

The heroic protagonist of season two is Bernard. In season one it was Ford. On a broader scale the hosts are the protagonists, the humans the villains with a few exceptions like Dolores (goes from hero to villain) or Lee Sizemore (goes from villain to hero).

Last season she was the primary protagonist; this season she was the primary villain, or as Akecheta calls her, "The Deathbringer." That's not an easy rabbit to pull out of the hat for a writer. The fact that you're so confused by that in exactly the way Nolan designed for it to be confusing is representative of how good a job they did at transforming her from relatable to a villain. She's still relatable for the exact same reason she was in season one because she's just fighting against the humans running Westworld who keep her in slavery. But she kills so many humans and hosts to do it that she's ultimately the biggest villain of the show. I continued to think of her as the protagonist well into the first few episodes of the season, but once it became clear how ruthless she is I realized she's the villain of this story, not the hero. The Man in Black is another villain, but Dolores's actions during season two eclipse his by far. She kills and manipulate anyone and everyone to get what she wants. He does similarly, but on a far smaller scale. And I don't think he's killed any of his own kind like she did, at least not intentionally. I now wonder whether she ever cared about anyone but herself the entire time since she's the only host who made it out of the park.

That's what's keeping the show out of my top 20 sci-fi works of all time. It's really good, but the fragmented timelines are tedious and confusing to track without writing down the sequence of events as some web sites have done such as the one I linked a few pages back.

Liked it, didn't love it. Aside from the dino action the most interesting bit was (it's a spoiler, so I'll hide it): I'm surprised that hasn't happened already in our society.

It was good, it was fun, and it was enjoyable. Not a must-watch-again film in the same way the first one wasn't, but very fun for a single watch.

All 20 MCU films have been Rotten Tomatoes fresh, i.e. 60% or above. Only The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World were below 70% at 67% and 66% respectively. I freaking LOVE the Incredible Hulk film. I don't know why people don't like that more. Tim Roth was freaking excellent in it, and the Hulk versus Abomination battle sequence is still the most powerfully impressive one-on-one matchup I've seen in any superhero film. The film overall is meh, but wow, the Emil Blonsky scenes and Abomination battle scenes are absolutely scintillating.

My money is on the first film that comes out after Kevin Feige is no longer working for Marvel Studios...until then it's difficult to see it happening. Age of Ultron or Iron Man 3 are the ones people complain the most about but those were 75% and 80%. DC fans should be yearning for the salad days when they were complaining about how awful Superman Returns was, a film that got solid critical reviews including 75% Rotten Tomatoes. If only they knew the turds they had to look forward to over the next decade they may have appreciated the finer parts of that film a bit more.

43 and 4 now, 91% overall. Historically that suggests it'll be over 80%, and that's a winner of a film. The previews looked entertaining so it's not much of a surprise to me.

Reviews piling in now and it looks like another Marvel winner with 24 positives and 0 negatives so far.

Review embargo is supposed to lift today at noon.

A campaign to reshoot the film has begun. Seems to be coming along well: Not everyone is on board: But Rian Johnson is fully on board.

Question about something I can't remember about the sequence of events that I just realized is important as to the film's intent about whether events happen realistically or supernaturally: I think we see that symbol before that huge event, but I don't entirely remember.

It's not fun from a BIG SURPRISE REVEAL! perspective, but I definitely find it compelling from the perspective of widening the audience's view of artificial life. If technology advances to this point where we can't even tell hosts from humans, shouldn't we respect the sanctity of the hosts' sapience in the same way we respect humans?

Another thing--isn't the title of the movie DIRECTLY misleading? Here's what I mean:

That's a weird score. I totally get it because the ending stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the film, but the critical reviews were REALLY good because the first 80% of the movie is absolutely scintillating. And it's going to be surprising if Toni Collette doesn't get a best actress nomination.

He's such a minor character I didn't think anything of it. The biggest "you think he's human, but he's really a host!" reveal is still Bernard in season one. Dolores being in Charlotte's body in the future timeline was interesting but not a big shock or anything. Maybe if you go back and watch you can see her saying Dolores-type things, but meh, someone's brain-ball in a different body isn't a particularly compelling concept.

I've got one major question about that ending. I'll put it in a spoiler tag since we're within a month of the film's release.

Yea my kids are 2 and I can't wait for them to watch these, right now they think it's too scary when I show them clips. If the one-hour nature documentaries had CGI like this I'd prefer those, but if they're just in these films that's fine, I'll watch the dino action there.

So William wasn't a host, but in the post-credits scene we see him at some indeterminate point in the future he's being conditioned to place into an empty host body. Whatever place it is looks like the same Forge he was going to during the episode except it's dirty, broken up, and the host version of his daughter says the "system's long gone" implying that this is a point well into the future from the last episode of season two. So he goes there to destroy the Delos immortality system but gets stuck in it instead. Nolan's wife Lisa Joy has already said that this scene takes place in the "far, far future," so it looks like Westworld is pretty much abandoned at that point. Since it looks like some or all of season three will take place in human society maybe they'll rename the show to "Westworld: Blade Runner."

I'll watch anything with dinosaurs in it.