fantastic_four

Films can EASILY be bad yet still be lovable. I love pretty much every Michael Bay movie, but that doesn't mean I think they're not full of cheese. Plenty examples out there of bad movies I love--Ben Affleck Daredevil, Starship Troopers, etc. Starship Troopers is an interesting one because it was below 50% for years, but in retrospect younger critics have come to like it and it's now up to 65%. Life Aquatic is one of Wes's lesser films. I enjoyed it, but it's not great. His humor is much sharper in most of his others. 56% isn't a bad score, it means mixed reviews, and that seems appropriate for something idiosyncratic like Life Aquatic. The 60% "fresh" rating means almost nothing to me...anything above 40% to 50% is probably decent because it means half of professionals liked it.

That scene and the show as whole so far reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode called "It's a Good Life" where a boy with omniscient powers controls an entire town and everyone has to kow-tow to his moment-to-moment whims or he will torture them, transform them into creatures of his imagination, or "send them to the cornfield." They also re-made this episode into a segment in the "Twilight Zone" movie. She reminds me of him, except she's an adult with more morality. I also expect that it differs in that none of these people will turn out to be real, which I is all but implied by the fact that Vision is there.

She definitely remembers. When the beekeeper comes out she says "NO!" and time reverses, and when Vision's boss in the first episode starts asking what's wrong with them she blinks and he suddenly starts choking. She seems to be actively attempting to maintain the illusion whenever something threatens to break it.

What characters have that power who would be associated with Wanda? There are multiple hints that elements from an exterior real world are making it inside of Wanda's fantasy, but that they get translated into fantastical elements within the fantasy. The AIM beekeeper with the SWORD symbol with literal bees flying around him is one example, and a helicopter from the real world translated into the fantasy as a toy would be another. A character who could turn a real helicopter into a toy sounds like a nearly omniscient type of power...I can't think of any likely Avengers-related friend or foe like that.

I've enjoyed it so far, yet still agree that if this didn't involved already-established characters I wouldn't have made it through the first episode. It's OK, but it's building upon what preceded it in the MCU so far, and you could EASILY pick two dozen of the best episodes of the Van Dyke Show or Bewitched that are more enjoyable to watch or re-watch than these two episodes.

I read someone hypothesizing that the entire show is an alternate take on the House of M storyline from 2005 in the comics where Scarlet Witch suffers a mental breakdown and alters the fabric of reality in an attempt to re-create her lost children. Maybe, but that doesn't explain all the SWORD, HYDRA, and AIM references. Also House of M involved mostly real events aside from the select elements Wanda manipulated...is what we're seeing real, or all in Wanda's head? I doubt it's a parallel universe, feels far too surreal with all the sitcom tropes.

Yep, that's right. So we've got what appears to be an intentional mix of HYDRA (the watch), AIM (the beekeeper aspects of the guy coming out of the sewer), and SWORD (the beekeeper's symbol) going on. So maybe all of that is being projected by Wanda. Did they ever show ties to ANY of those organizations with Wanda? I don't remember the political ties to Wanda and Pietro from Age of Ultron.

Based upon critical reviews the third one is more of the same. Next time watch it looking the entire time for subtext or you won't enjoy it any more than the first two. I'm guessing by the IMDB cast list the illusion gets broken in episode 4.

AIM scientists were my very first thought once I saw the bees. But this along with the Strucker watch just blurs my already-blurred notion of HYDRA and AIM. My general understanding is that AIM is usually headed up by MODOK and HYDRA is usually headed up by either Red Skull or one of the Barons, particularly Strucker. AIM is a subdivision of HYDRA, isn't it? But mostly independent? Or are they more tightly wound than I understand? I haven't read enough Cap stories to fully know. The few stories I have seen with AIM or HYDRA had them being completely separate with no overlap, but I certainly won't be surprised if they overlap at times--if anyone knows please do share. So...why would we have a reference to Strucker and HYDRA but also a reference to AIM scientists in the beekeeper/hazmat suits? Isn't that mixing apples and oranges? None of this has been defined in the MCU yet, so maybe they're just merging AIM and HYDRA together like I do in my head anyway. In any event I have no knowledge of anything about the show, but the easiest guess solely based upon what we've seen is that Strucker is trying to brainwash Wanda to make her an asset of HYDRA, and Grim Reaper is somehow involved in doing it. I didn't catch that helmet or those bones when I saw the opening animatic in episode 2, but that's CLEARLY a reference to Grim Reaper. Hard to imagine they'd put that in but never use the character particularly given that he's worked with HYDRA in the comics before.

Mojo's productions are all real, aren't they? This appears to be almost pure illusion to this point, presumably in Wanda's mind. I don't remember that being Mojo's modus operandi.

The Din Djarin/Child 3.75" Walmart exclusive 2-pack figures were available on the Walmart web site most of the afternoon. I came here to share that info but couldn't log in here due to maintenance. Gone now.

Yea, Walmart had at least two product pages and two SKUs being used for this thing. I think one was without the bundled free Grogu pin and one was with it, but they're somehow cross-referenced in their system. Any idea why this figure has scuffed Mando armor? I don't remember ever seeing his Beskar look like that in the show. I almost skipped it due to that and bought the unscuffed Beskar version instead, but the SUPERB unmasked head and Grogu sucked me in.

When I go to the page at the link below on my Windows computer I see the option for an in-stock email notification. https://www.walmart.com/product/739125148 When I bring that same page up on my Android phone, or in the Android Walmart app, I don't get the option for a notification. So that surely does suck with how inconsistently it's available. One irritating thing is they kept changing the number you could order. During the first time block you could order 20, then it went back up for sale for an hour or so in the late morning and you could order up to 99. Whenever it went back up for sale I would add it to cart, try to type 99 in the quantity field, and it would auto-correct to various numbers like 24, 41, etc, which I assume was how many they had just put back online for sale. And it was letting me buy ALL of them. SCALPING PARADISE! I didn't buy any after my 5 AM order, I just wanted to see how it was going down to know better what to expect next time.

It also should still show up in stores but hasn't yet. Release date was supposed to be 1/15 so it showing up online was a surprise. I had an in-stock alert set, so when I got up to pee around 5 AM I had an email timestamped 3 AM EST, so that's when it went up. Bought mine, and it stayed available online until around 8 or 9 AM EST. It has also been popping back up for sale periodically all day long. I set ten in-stock alerts just out of curiosity and all ten went off. I don't think there was an hour in the day when it didn't go back up for sale.

Oh wow, you're right now that I compare it to the others in the pic. Since I just started buying Black Series I didn't even know they were putting 1:18 figures in big Black Series boxes at some point in the past...any idea when they were doing that?

A note about the Black Series I've learned over the last few months--Hasbro has SIGNIFICANTLY improved their articulation, sculpts, and paint for the line in 2020. I mention that now because I see you have Admiral Ackbar there, but it's the old version. They re-released a new version this year, and it is WAY better in terms of articulation. I've heard that old one can barely move at most of its joints. You can find pre-2019 figures at steep discounts these days, but there's a reason for that--collectors are realizing the old ones are far worse than recently-released upgrades. Because of the huge improvements this year I'm skeptical of buying ANY Black Series figure made before 2020 or 2019. I will only buy one if I see Youtube reviews affirming that it's great for its time.

To start pruning my collection to make space for new incoming stuff, particularly Slave I, three Haslab Sentinels, and the Disney Toy Box Hall of Armor sets I bought pictured below. The set comes with 5 armor bays and 1 rotating pad, and the pic below shows two of them hooked together. I bought six total but only have enough action figures of Stark tech to support three; the extras are for future use if I want to. First step will be to sell off my statues to make room, but I also need to make more room for storing stuff on display--and that may delay the need to sell off as many statues. Right now I use two six-foot glass display cabinets I bought twenty years ago, but I need more shelf space.

The entire idea of a "Galactic Empire" is tough to grasp at all. The Milky Way is estimated to have hundreds of BILLIONS of stars in it...even if only one in a thousand stars have habitable planets that's still hundreds of millions of planets. Keeping track of that many worlds sounds impractical.

Yep...I've heard this all made Iger abandon his plan to start lighting his stogies with flaming Bitcoin receipts and go back to just burning $10,000 bills.

Where was this established? Ahsoka definitely didn't say it--was it during the Rebels or Resistance series they said that?

Wish we had gotten SOMETHING about Grogu's background. The name of his species, how he ended up on Coruscant, how much interaction did he have with Yoda and Yaddle (he MUST have seen one or both), how did he escape Order 66, etc.

I understand that

If anyone sees something about how they edited the young Luke in please do share. I'm wondering if the voice was new audio or re-used old audio, if the voice was new was it Hamill and was there editing involved, whether or not he did motion capture with his face, and what his entire involvement in the episode was.

I started collecting 6" Black Series figures about three months ago. I've gotten all of the majors aside from those with bad scaling, articulation, sculpt, or paint (there are a few majors like that, particularly Obi-Wan and Anakin), and just this week I started army-building Stormtroopers, Clone Troopers, and Battle Droids. My issue with the lines is that compared to the other Hasbro figure lines like Marvel Legends, GI Joe Classified Series, or Power Rangers Lightning Collection the articulation, sculpt, accessories, and paint are noticably worse, particularly the accessories and articulation. And while all of this remains true through the latest waves--although I have to say they've improved a bit over the last few released in the second half of 2020--the irony is that Hasbro is increasing the prices on Star Wars figures to $22, $25, and $30 with tons of "premium" or "deluxe" releases that aren't all that premium or deluxe, or at least less so than what you get at the same price points from the other lines. I often wonder if the licensing fee Hasbro is paying for selling Star Wars merchandise is steeper than the one they're paying for Marvel. Hasbro owns GI Joe and Power Rangers so their profit margin is highest on those leaving them freer to spend more on design and production for those lines, and GI Joe really shows that off having the finest figure design of all their lines. But I remain surprised and confused that the Marvel Legends team keeps doing a better job on their figures than the Star Wars team does with theirs, and I suspect a lower production budget is the source of the problem. But I'm picking nits there because I do love the line. The only hesitation I have about the Black Series is that I'm wondering if the 1:18 scale is just far better for Star Wars since there are almost no powers to render aside from Force lightning and any sort of Force telekinetic effects, but vehicles are a MAJOR aspect of Star Wars, and rendering vehicles in the 1:12 scale makes them far too large. Anyone seen the 1:12 scale TIE Fighter Hasbro did a few years ago? It's HUGE as you can see in the pic below, yet TIEs are one of the smaller Star Wars vehicles. Imagine a true 1:12 scale Millennium Falcon...it's over 100 feet long, and the easy math on 1:12 just means turn feet to inches, so it'd be over 100 inches long, i.e. 8 to 10 feet.