fantastic_four

Generally enjoyed it, particularly the first 80% of the film, but wow, it sure does change fast during the final act by transitioning very quickly from reality-based horror to the purely supernatural. It's easy to see how many people could enjoy the first two-thirds but absolutely hate the final part...it's like two entirely different movies jammed into a single one.

Shareholders still have to approve, and the July 10 vote has been postponed with no new date set yet.

I heard it put this exact same way months ago, then Comcast came in with a bid and it was suddenly all back up in the air again. Is there something more solid about it this time, or is it all off again if Comcast puts in another bid?

Let Iger do his job, no need to second-guess his understanding of Disney's financials. And as stormshadow said Fox News isn't a part of the deal, nor is the Fox network and its affiliates around the nation, just some or all of the content itself that the Fox network shows. Not sure what they'll show if the deal goes through, my guess would be they'll show the same stuff but pay Disney for it.

They should have bid $65,000,000,001.

I had the C3PO as a kid, but I didn't have that R2-D2, I had the radio controlled version instead. It was pretty fun. I had a lot of 12" figures but even as a 6-year old was always frustrated that they didn't articulate at the knees and elbows, which is why I appreciate modern toys so much in comparison. I mostly forgot about action figures for about 35 years and when I went to buy some a few months ago I was amazed that they bend at the knee, elbow, and in many cases the wrist, ankle, neck, and more.

Since giving them to my two-year old twins is the only reason I'm looking at them there's no comparison--the selection I've got for them now blows away what I had available to me in the 80s. And yes, they both love superhero figures, My Little Pony, Star Wars, and PJ Masks figures. And their 6-year old cousin loves My Little Pony and Disney princess figures.

Having been out of toys since the 80s until looking for some for my kids for the last few months I really can't understand this perspective aside from nostalgia. None of the toys from my youth in the 80s had the articulation, details, or wide selection of styles of the myriad of toy models I now know are on the market today. And that's across superhero figures, Star Wars, everything. Mego superheroes, Star Wars, and GI Joe were the figures of my youth, but subsequent generations of toys blow those all away in most ways.

Since he would be one of the empty vessels with a human consciousness I don't see why he'd have explosives in his neck.

So next week I'm assuming we find out whether or not William is a host since he was digging in his own arm at the end to find out for himself. I don't see how he's survived for days with multiple gunshots including a gut shot, so that suggests he's a host. What is the source of this rivalry between Ford and William? Why'd Ford give him that "profile" card full of all the bad stuff he's done in the park?

The entire design of Watchmen was art, not an ongoing superhero series. So all of the attempts by DC to keep the characters going never interested me. If someone tells me that "Beyond Watchmen" or "Before Watchmen" or whatever featuring those characters is good I'll read it, but I haven't heard that yet so I haven't and just think of Watchmen as a one-shot until someone tells me different. The fact that this series isn't clinging to the characters interests me more, not less, despite the fact that I really did enjoy Rorshach and the Comedian and Nite Owl and the Jupiters. I didn't read Watchmen in the 1980s, I read it in the early 2000s after I saw it on several "best literary works of the 20th century" lists. It's the only comic-related work I've ever seen transcend the medium and be considered seriously by literary critics.

Or was Rorshach created by Moore to be exactly like The Question? I've never read the 1960s Charlton comics to know. Here's The Question's first appearance from 1967:

The whole FF thing is in the air anyway since Fox doesn't own the film rights to them. If Fox sells to someone other than Disney it's entirely possible that Constantin Films could license the production to almost anyone, Marvel included. Has anyone ever figured out why Constantin didn't let Marvel produce FF movies at any point since Marvel Studios began? I can see them not wanting to do it in 2008 when they were new and unproven, but at this point it's clear that Marvel is the major player in comic book movies. Why is Constantin sticking with Fox instead of Marvel, particularly given the epic failure they just experienced with the Trank reboot? I'm guessing it's something contractual for them to stick with Fox through that disaster.

 Or as a fourth alternative and one that's better than a Comcast-owned Fox continuing to produce their own films--do what Sony has done with Spider-Man and just farm production out to Marvel Studios.

I'm open to it being aware that Moore's original design always meant that the characters in Watchmen are based on already existing ones which never made them feel original if you were aware of it. He originally wanted to use Charlton characters after DC acquired the rights to them, but he was convinced to create parallels of them instead since Moore wanted to kill some of them off. Because of this I've always thought of Watchmen quite separately than I think of other superheroes. Moore intended them to be disposable to comment on and change the entire nature of being a superhero, so I never got attached to them. He never intended for them to be ongoing characters so I don't think of them that way either. Here's a list of the original Charlton characters mapped to their Watchmen counterparts: http://watchmen.wikia.com/wiki/Charlton_Comics

It's in the opening credits sequence of both seasons of the show, but yea, it's creepy.

That's because you're a human supremacist. Embrace the rights of artificial life already!

I don't attribute any of Marvel's success to Disney, only to Kevin Feige. There is no way he would have picked Tim Story to do those two films. Feige's name is on both of them as an executive producer, but that's back when Avi Arad was calling the shots, and Arad consistently proved he had no idea who to select to direct, he just did what the Sony and Fox execs do, pick a director and hope for the best because none of them know anything at all about comics. Feige wasn't in control until Iron Man. I want him to have a shot at picking someone like Brad Bird was picked to write and direct the Incredibles.

NO, HE NEEDS TO PUT IN A LAST SECOND EBAY-STYLE THRILL BID!!!

Very frustrating that we're getting a second Incredibles movie before we get an actual good Fantastic Four movie. I really loved the first film, but it's a clear FF ripoff. GIVE ME THE REAL THING!!!

IMDB doesn't show a separate pilot, just the three episodes that have aired with the third being last night a few hours before you posted this.

If Comcast ends up winning this I'm cutting the damn cord out of spite due to the unending rage I'll have over Comcast holding the X-Men and Fantastic Four hostage for what could be another decade or two.

Just glancing at his bibliography it's clear he doesn't like to work on a single story at a time and switches back and forth a lot. He's released multiple books since the last novel and has another 700+ page book coming out later this year that's a collection of content covering the history of the Targaryens. He's already confirmed Winds of Winter won't be out this year, but this one comes out in November: Just be happy he's working on the universe and not necessarily the main story that started it.

I mostly agree. I really want to enjoy Westworld and a ton of it puts it into my top 10 or 20 shows of all time, but the overly-complex narrative structure keeps it out. Usually complex narratives challenge me and I enjoy working them out if the rest of the fictional elements are compelling as they are here in this show, but the time jumps in this one annoy me as they do you. I loved trying to figure out Prometheus, or Lost, or X-Files, or the Matrix films, or even working to penetrate Shakespeare's overly-ornate language, but these time jumps leave me cold and confused. It's still my favorite show on television at the moment though, and using that timeline I just posted should help me enjoy it a bit more, but the fact that you have to work to put each piece of the puzzle into its right chronological order is irritating. At least when you're working with a puzzle you can look down at the board, but you have to keep these pieces they feed you every episode TOTALLY in your head without some external guide keeping track of where the current ones fit.

Found one. It's illegible at the size the forum makes it but huge when you click on it, so if this is spoilery to your attempt to keep track of time in your head just don't click on it.