What TV SHOWS are you watching?

RobertB wrote: I read that the LotR series wasn't allowed to use The Silmarillion. That they could use a lot of Tolkien's Second Age notes, plus footnotes in The Lord of the Rings novels.

No way! I thought Amazon dropped 250 MILLION on the rights alone and had to commit to multiple seasons at 100 mill a pop or more. That had to be more than notes.

Anyway, we'll see in 6 months or so.

Finished up BOOK OF BOBA FETT. Remarkably mediocre and the finale was quite dumb. As some of the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy, you’d think they’d have more advanced tactics than “stand completely exposed in the middle of the street and fire at bad guys.”

The Mandalorian is a good character, but Boba is just milquetoast. A boring nothingburger who wants boring things for uncompelling reasons. He used to be so cool back in 1983.

n815e wrote: Futurama is coming back again!

I don't know. I'm less enthused than you might expect about that news. I love Futurama but it ended perfectly three or four times already. The most recent finale was an amazing capstone to the series. Can they stick the landing another time?

Edit: I also found out John DiMaggio (Bender's VA) isn't coming back but it also sounds like negotiations are ongoing. That seems like a challenging one to recast.

Watched a few episodes of Reacher. If Duke Nuke 'Em cosplayed as Sherlock Holmes and forgot any witty quips, that would be the main character. It reminds me of Will Sasso's take on Steven Seagal on Mad TV. The guy playing the detective has apparently been typecast as it is the same character he played in iZombie. Reacher is such a Gary Stu, but has no charm to get away with it. Just an action figure doing his 'gym walk' through the scene.

jason10mm wrote:

RobertB wrote: I read that the LotR series wasn't allowed to use The Silmarillion. That they could use a lot of Tolkien's Second Age notes, plus footnotes in The Lord of the Rings novels.

No way! I thought Amazon dropped 250 MILLION on the rights alone and had to commit to multiple seasons at 100 mill a pop or more. That had to be more than notes.

Anyway, we'll see in 6 months or so.

Tolkien's 'notes' are probably 300,000 words, give or take a few, with three whole new languages in there.

On my viewing front, the wife and M-I-L are now on Game of Thrones S8. I'm bowing out - I've seen it twice already, and I think that's enough for the last two seasons.

ETA: $100M for the contents of Tolkien's trashcan might be a sign of Too Much Capitalism. I don't want to go all Marxist, but something isn't right if Joe Rogan gets a $100M contract for his podcasts, and people are paying 6-figure amounts for Bored Ape NFTs.

dysjunct wrote: Finished up BOOK OF BOBA FETT. Remarkably mediocre and the finale was quite dumb. As some of the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy, you’d think they’d have more advanced tactics than “stand completely exposed in the middle of the street and fire at bad guys.”

The Mandalorian is a good character, but Boba is just milquetoast. A boring nothingburger who wants boring things for uncompelling reasons. He used to be so cool back in 1983.

I told my brother, "I heard Bobba Fett was kind of mediocre." He lost his mind. Inchoate rage. I might have to rattle his cage a little more.

RobertB wrote:

dysjunct wrote: Finished up BOOK OF BOBA FETT. Remarkably mediocre and the finale was quite dumb. As some of the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy, you’d think they’d have more advanced tactics than “stand completely exposed in the middle of the street and fire at bad guys.”

The Mandalorian is a good character, but Boba is just milquetoast. A boring nothingburger who wants boring things for uncompelling reasons. He used to be so cool back in 1983.

I told my brother, "I heard Bobba Fett was kind of mediocre." He lost his mind. Inchoate rage. I might have to rattle his cage a little more.

About six years ago, I noticed that a vocal segment of the the Star Wars fan base is completely toxic. I liked three of the Star Wars movies (including Solo and Rogue One), but that's a pretty low hit rate for such a large franchise.

Come on, Fett has KNEE missiles!!

And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't read Tolkien's trash, conveniently collected in the 10 volume History of Middle Earth encyclopedia set.

If the Amazon LOTR show doesn't have a hobbit Ranger named Trotter I'm gonna be pissed!

edit: I recall now that the original concept for Aragorn/Stridor was the Hobbit Trotter. Anyway, how a nod to that initial idea makes it into the show since the latest news dump about it is making me less excited (compressing the timeline into the span of just a few years to allow for the same humans to stick around in particular seems to be troublesome).

sornars wrote:

n815e wrote: Futurama is coming back again!

I don't know. I'm less enthused than you might expect about that news. I love Futurama but it ended perfectly three or four times already. The most recent finale was an amazing capstone to the series. Can they stick the landing another time?

Edit: I also found out John DiMaggio (Bender's VA) isn't coming back but it also sounds like negotiations are ongoing. That seems like a challenging one to recast.

I do agree that the show’s end was perfect.

I think it’s actually amazing that this show has been killed and resurrected multiple times over the last 23 years.

I don’t want to see them ruin what we already have, but they have also been consistently good to great throughout each revisit. So I’m going to be positive.

I never saw the appeal of Boba Fett. He is just a loser bounty hunter. He takes a job with Jabba but can’t complete it on his own, gets paid for the work that others did, lounged around the gangster bar, then gets “killed” in a really embarrassing way.

What about that sequence of events makes that character appealing in any way?

So I kind of don’t expect much from the show. It’s actually disappointing that they brought him back at all.

n815e wrote: I never saw the appeal of Boba Fett. He is just a loser bounty hunter. He takes a job with Jabba but can’t complete it on his own, gets paid for the work that others did, lounged around the gangster bar, then gets “killed” in a really embarrassing way.

What about that sequence of events makes that character appealing in any way?

So I kind of don’t expect much from the show. It’s actually disappointing that they brought him back at all.

In a franchise with few mysteries, Boba Fett debuted as an enigma with distinctive armor. (On the Star Wars Christmas Special, can you dig it?) There was a fair amount of hype about him leading up to The Empire Strikes Back, but most of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. And he was ultimately scaled back from being a major villain to a minor character. So there was this weird disconnect for the fanbase, with this cool-looking dude who seemed important but rarely appeared. Fans are going to fan so the thirst for more Boba Fett continued until now we are getting this weak show.

Shellhead wrote: In a franchise with few mysteries, Captain Phasma debuted as an enigma with distinctive armor. There was a fair amount of hype about her leading up to The Force Awakens, but most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. And she was ultimately scaled back from being a major villain to a minor character. So there was this weird disconnect for the fanbase, with this cool-looking chick who seemed important but rarely appeared.

History repeats itself. Looking forward to The Book of Captain Phasma someday.

Good Star Wars parody :

ChristopherMD wrote: History repeats itself. Looking forward to The Book of Captain Phasma someday.

Thats a good joke but I kinda think there is a big missed opportunity (so far) to show the stormtrooper POV. They totally whiffed it with Finn, but they could go back and have young Phasma or even OT era Imperial Academy/storm trooper stuff. Obviously adding significant nuance to what is basically blaster/lightsaber fodder is probably anathema to the Mouse, but I think it could have some interesting angles about the power of perspective, limiting/mis-information, indoctrination, or even how the Rebels were actually ruining a kinda good thing for a lot of planets. That little stretch of dialogue at the end of season 1 of Mando was about the most "behind the mask" we ever got for a stormtrooper, other than the guys that casually backed out of Kylo's tantrum in ANH.

Anyhoo, at the rate D+ is kicking out SW shows, we should be desperate enough for this in about 4 years once they get done with the "Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina" series

Stormtrooper POV would certainly be interesting, as long as Disney resists the urge to have a cameo from some famous good guy like Obi Wan or someone who mows down Stormtroopers like so many mooks.

Of course one of the very first SW fan films is told from the Stormtroopers POV and still holds up to this day.