fantastic_four

I've missed so many time jumps now that I barely remember what the "current" timeline even is. I assume it's the time immediately following the last episode of season 1 where everyone got whacked and pretty much any scenes we see with Dolores, William, and Maeve, but every time I see Bernard I'm confused about whether it's the main time or a few weeks later where he wakes up on the beach. If anyone finds a good visual timeline, please share it because I don't enjoy keeping track of it. Never seen an author do what Nolan and his wife are doing with time so I'm just not used to it.

Why would they pick a period so far removed from all events from the first series? Picking up at some point during the rise of Aegon Targaryen seems like more of a crowd-pleaser.

This is actually back from episode 4, but since it's from Akecheta I didn't take note of it until after this week's episode.

AWESOME episode. They need more mostly ship-in-a-bottle standalone episodes like this one.

Ford said that "Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin never died, they simply became their music" at that event in the last episode of season one shortly before Dolores killed him. So in this episode we finally see Ford as a part of his own music. Maybe we'll see Ford eventually enter a host body too. We still don't know whether or not Ford ever solved the problem that was demonstrated a few episodes back when they showed Delos repeatedly failing in a host body. One hypothesis is that the Bernard who wakes up on the beach in the first episode of this season is a fully-realized Arnold and not the Bernard recreation of last season. Maybe that's why Ford allowed himself to be killed, because he had his immortality tech fully worked out and his consciousness saved into the Cradle. But why he wouldn't just live out his life naturally is the remaining question. Maybe he really did know or believe that the consciousness-copying technique was exact and living in a host body was better than living in his aging human body, or maybe he just likes the idea of living in the Cradle without any body at all.

I think the red balls are a reverse-engineered human consciousness, and the black ones are an artificial intelligence not based upon a living (or formerly living) human. The red one Bernard found a few episodes ago and was carrying around was probably Ford. What was the color of the one that got lifted out of Bernard's head this episode? I think it was darkish red, but I wasn't sure and can't rule out that it was black.

He's an android so he was designed to be bald...maybe the people of Bespin all look like Telly Savalas.

I took it as him saying, for him, pain is just a program. Like he knew it wasnt really real, but a part of the "game", if you will. If that makes sense. Functionally that's all it is for you or I, too. Feedback to the brain to let you know something's happening that you probably shouldn't let happen. But it really sucks, doesn't it? Or maybe you're tougher than me. Next time you go into surgery use that line--"no anesthesia for me, it's all just a bio-evolutionary program to protect me from harm, but I trust you, so I'll just ignore it." Bernard never sounded more like Arnold than in that moment. Since Arnold died a while back, ~35 years ago from the start of the series if memory serves, I'm still thinking of him as some early attempt at copying human consciousness in a host body that still isn't working right. But since we now know all of the AI and human consciousnesses are stored in "The Cradle" shown below to be a glowy-red server room in Sunday's episode so they could presumably download his consciousness into a new host at any time, is he really the state of the art? Is he an older attempt they haven't upgraded to the latest process? Or is there better tech and his consciousness was never recorded with enough fidelity to ever work right?

I want headphones like that...the sound must be phenomenal. No, really, what the heck is that thing supposed to do for him? I always thought of it as generic tech attached to his head to look gawdy/impressively futuristic that serves no practical purpose.

Yeah, it's a crapshoot. These particular Joes were just soooo pretty when I saw them, I had to have them. I have a lot of nostalgia for the carded figures for sure, fond memories of seeing them on the pegs, digging them out of bins, etc. But yeah, the potential downfall means that they're not something I actively pursue. If I run across a good deal on a carded figure, I won't turn it down, but I am primarily a collector of loose/mint/complete figures. Plus, as was noted above, they're just so much fun to play with and pose! Could just be ignorance on my part though. If I approached comics from a simplistic perspective like I'm approaching figure boxes then I'd probably assume the cheap pulp comics are printed on wouldn't last more than 30-40 years and stay away from comics too, but obviously we know that under many if not most storage conditions even the 1939 Detective 1 or Action 1 issues have copies whose pages are still as white as the day they came out. And unless they were stored in attics or outdoors none of them are brittle and falling apart.

Nolan might be trying us to go so crazy in figuring out who's a human, who's a host, and who's on who's side that we just start thinking of humans and hosts as different sides of the same coin. One really interesting moment in Sunday's episode was when Bernard sat down to have his black brain ball removed, Elsie told him it would hurt, and he replied "Eh, it's all just a program anyway." As if it were Arnold talking in some disconnected way about the host body he was in while still mentally identifying himself as a human who is separate from that body. Really bizarre way to put it since presumably the pain is similarly if not exactly as intense as if it were to have happened to a human body.

This is the main reason I have never even mentally entertained the idea of buying carded figures. They seem so much more fragile and susceptible to damage or decay of the weaker parts than comics.

I took it as now she is the master and she was evaluating if Bernard was conforming to her memories how Arnold interacted with her. So the 'human' ensuring the machine was repeating its tasks consistently. When was that supposed to be--the past, or the future? If it's the past where they were working on perfecting the technique of uploading a human consciousness into a host body, then Dolores isn't "woke" yet and she's just working on Bernard at probably Ford's direction. But if it's the future, what the heck is she trying to do? Is Bernard supposed to be Arnold v1.0 that doesn't work right in some more functional yet similar state to the way the James Delos copy didn't work, and she's working on Arnold v2.0 that hopefully works in some future where presumably she came out on top? And if so, why? Because he's her creator, I suppose, who seemed to sacrifice himself for her in season one? Or is it something else?

From another thread: Unless you know why Arnold allowed Dolores to kill him, why Ford allowed Dolores to kill him, or why William is continuing to play Ford's game with Ford taunting him via various hosts then I don't see any clear way to call which of the main characters started out as hosts but have become human or which started out as humans but are now hosts. All I feel certain of is that the Nolans are attempting to show us that the line between human body and soul and artificial body and soul are arbitrary as they travel down a path of the humans becoming more artificial and the AI becoming more human. I think William is human and has been throughout seasons one and two, but I'm not going to be shocked if it turns out he's a host. Or that he was human but then died at some point and now he's in a host body. He was a host in the original film, so it'd be a parallel plot twist to make him a host here, too. Anybody have a guess why they showed Dolores running one of the same "fidelity" tests on Bernard/Arnold that William ran repeatedly on Delos?

As a Marvel fan I'm hoping the July 10th shareholder vote is the definitive squash on the Comcast bid.

Their stock has been down all year before all of that you listed, and ESPN has been declining for the last decade so it's not exactly a surprise. Their stock's performance this year is following a similar trend from the past three to four years. It's a fine time for a merger if they want to compete with Netflix as they're currently aspiring to do. I'm still surprised they haven't just outright bought Netflix, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they talked to them about it and Netflix's price was insanely inflated given their explosive growth over the past decade. Fox set a vote to happen on July 10th for shareholders to approve or disapprove the deal so we'll see then.

Thinking of the cow in this scene as being Star Wars, Luke as being Bob Iger, and Rey as being nostalgic Star Wars fans works as a pretty good metaphor for Disney's relationship with Star Wars. Since that seemed like a cynical post, I should add that I'm completely fine with this and it's what I wanted for DECADES before Lucas finally sold off his company. He was selfish to hold onto his babies so far into their adulthood...he should have passed on the mantle to someone else in the 1990s, or at least after he was done with the prequels in the late aughts. I'm also fine with the milking scene. I laughed when I saw it.

Not really a spoiler there so I'll keep it out of tags--I'm aware of that, but it's just so dumb. I'm going to need more than they provided in those episodes to believe he didn't die instantly after being cut in half.

Thinking of the cow in this scene as being Star Wars, Luke as being Bob Iger, and Rey as being nostalgic Star Wars fans works as a pretty good metaphor for Disney's relationship with Star Wars.

One part of the film I really liked was Qi'ra's character arc. Specifically this (spoilers): Has Disney confirmed there will be a Solo sequel?

That's what I figured. All the 2017 figures I just bought for my kids appear to have pins in the joints. I hope they're plastic and not metal though because they insist on taking them into the bathtub.

The directors cut of the movie is a much better film. I definitely prefer it, but it's not like it solves all of the film's problems. It also doesn't really change Affleck's performance, they didn't leave his best work on the cutting floor or anything. And I really like the film despite the bad parts. I've probably seen it a dozen times and find it to be a really enjoyable re-watch. The pacing is really great, and the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. It was on my personal top ten list of superhero films until the late aughts when Iron Man, Dark Knight, etc started to push it off. The Marvel Universe films have pushed it down into the #20 to #30 range now, although I wouldn't put it on a top 30 list from an objective perspective, just a personal one. Too many problems to rank it without taking my bias for the character into account.

I agree with him. Affleck's performance isn't on the list of problems I have with that film. Matt Murdock is a reserved character, and Affleck played it reserved. Not sure what people were expecting.

Saw Solo on Saturday, Deadpool on Memorial Day, liked Deadpool more. Just as funny as the first and roughly as good, but one minor quibble:

Do action figures still use the rubber bands?