So we did Family Movie Night last night. I gave the kids the option: Alita Battle Angel or Pikachu Pet Detective. I bought both Blu-rays. The kids overwhelmingly picked Detective Pikachu. 4 out of 4 votes to watch this movie. Claire bailed in the first 15 minutes after saying “Why is the opening CG so bad?” and “This is actual dialogue?”
I, too, faded into the background like Homer in so many bushes. We occasionally checked in and finger gunned the kids while they watched. “Hey! Family time!” before morphing into the floor all T-1000 style. I didn’t feel overly guilty since we did stuff all day. And, you know.. I watched the first couple of seasons of the anime way tf back when it came out, but damn was I struggling for this to hold my attention. Claire does a much easier job of that given the option. So yeah, just let them watch and have fun together. Plenty to do tomorrow.
So before bed (movie long over) I asked the kids how they liked it. Both us parents missed the climax and ending… and overall narrative or plot.
4 out of 4 kids…
Ages 5, 10, 11, and 12..
All hated it.
No really. Did not like it AT ALL. Pokemon’s key demo here. I had instant flashbacks to when Toys R Us was closing. Me, Lily and Jack were all hopping aisles in a bustling liquidation. Jack is jumping rows ahead of me. Darts in one aisle and right back out. Me: “What was down there?” Jackson: “Just stupid Star Wars crap.” This coming from a kid obsessed with Star Wars pre-sequel-trilogy.
So, I plead ignorance, and in no way want to instigate strife in the comments within the fanbase, but what went wrong with this movie? I really don’t want to bother viewing it on my own at this point, so I’ll just ask those that saw it. And to reiterate: all my kids love Pokemon. They have the games, cards, and toys. Jack even let out a magnitude 3.5 “OOOOOOOH!!!” when he opened the disc case to find a Pokemon card inside, and claiming it for himself. Where did they miss the mark on this? How is Hollywood taking guaranteed bankable franchises and completely failing to capture their own built-in demos? Are they just taking these fanbases for granted? These are LITTLE kids, and they hated this movie.
Comments were:
“It was sooooooo boring.”
“It didn’t make sense”
“They didn’t explain the toxic gas thing” (I guess they lost the plot?)
“I didn’t like the main guy”
“It wasn’t funny. The jokes were dumb.”
“They kept jumping back and forth between Pikachu and the main guy. I didn’t know what was going on.”
“It was really stupid.”
I mean like, WOW. These kids are acting like they were treated like idiots by the producers and writers of this movie. And that could be the case. I don’t know. Me and Claire talked about it and I theorized it’s the cheapness of Hollywood with paying decent writers for ACTUALLY well written scripts. We’re all just pay pigs, so any ol’ schlock will do. Just slap the label on it and the dumb masses will pay regardless. (Kind of like how my son feels about the new fat-Thor and girl-Thor. He watches these announcements on Youtube and he is visibly frustrated at what they’re doing to his beloved character. “Do they think I want to see that? It sounds STUPID! THOR is THOR. He’s not whatever!” Like, hey guys.. it’s not just some sticker to slap on anything and expect money.) It seems like fanbases are either disposable or flat taken for granted. And it sucks when you see legacy franchises completely incapable of capturing the current generation, or, in some cases, so willing to shelve them for phantom fanbases they don’t even know they can capture to begin with.
Feel free to disagree. You can totally enjoy the direction of these movies, but I’m not influencing my kids, and they are royally checking out on their own. None of the girls like the super hero movies anymore, and my son said he does not want to see the new stuff. Thor needs to be god-like, Hulk needs to SMASH, etc, etc. They also have no interest in the Disney remakes, and they all think the new Star Wars is boring. *shrug*
You guys tell me. Anyone experiencing the same?
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Oh no, he’s in a band. Keep Juniper away from him!
Replied to: TheLastOutlaw | Link | Like
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Nah, this could work. Imagine the post-break-up songs!
“A Dozen STDs with No Names”
“Bloodsucking NIghtmare”
and of course, the chart-topping power ballad:
“Where’s My Wallet?”
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Holy cow, did I just get to be first? Anyway, I didn’t mind Jane Foster Thor as a character, but I never got the whole, “She’s Thor now” thing. Makes me think of that line in Ragnarok, “and are you the good of hammers? “
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Well, she’s the Goddess of Thunder, which technically means she’s not a female Thor, just Jane Foster Goddess of Thunder which in Norwegian equates to one name – Thor.
There was one time when Beta Ray Bill (an alien) was Thor. And Thor has been actually manifesting in another human via possession of the hammer for like years in the comic. So technically anyone who is worthy of wielding the powers of Thor becomes Thor. Weird but that’s how it’s always been.
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Anon was me up there. Even though I entered my creds, it still posted Anon because of my BROWSER.
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IIRC, I remember thumbing through one of Marvels “What If” -type stories some years back, and in that scenario Rogue became Thor, so yes, there has been at least one other female Thor, if only in a one-of comic. (I was mostly into DC back then–this was some 30-plus years ago.)
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Storm was even Thor during X-men/New Mutants crossover.
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Of course, when someone takes up Mjölnir and becomes Thor, it should be the same male Thor if they wanted to be consistent with the Norse mythology. Norsk – er – Norse gods and godesses are quite distinct in their genders. Odin, Tor (Thor), Týr (Tyr), Baldr (Balder) and Loki etc. were all distinctly male. Freyja, Frigg, Sif, and Sól, et al were all distinctly female. That means if a female takes up the hammer, she should be transformed into a very masculine, very fair, i.e. Scandinavian entity. All the Norse gods in mythology are quite fair because, well, Scandinavians are light skinned. The Marvel movies, of course take enormous liberties with this such as having Edris Elba portraying Heimdallr (Heimdall). Tadanobu Satō portraying Hogun is not really an issue since the character doesn’t actually exist in Norse mythology; it’s strictly a creation of Marvel comics. I personally have no problem with Idris playing Heimdallr. He’s a fantastic actor and performed with great skill. We just have to acknowledge that Thor in the Marvel universe is only inspired by the Thor of Norse mythology and as such Marvel can do whatever they want with him. Heck – they could make Thor a transformation of a dung beetle if they want. It’s their property.
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They don’t become Thor, they gain (some) of his powers.
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It wasn’t done with a dung beetle, but it was done with a frog:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/herald-the-asgardians-of-the-galaxy-and-the-return-of-throg
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Bill was never Thor, other Asgardians called him “Beta Ray Thor” as a joke, but he never committed identity theft like Jane did.
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Since your question has yet to be addressed, I will answer it. Although you used the requisite number of words and the word “first”, you did so in reference to personally being first, not via some other usage that does not relate to your status as first poster to follow the rules. For example, if you said: “First, I didn’t mind Jane Foster…”, while leaving out your reference to being first, you would have succeeded. Yet, you did not. Therefore, you are not first.
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Be sure to let us know how they like Alita.
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My wife and I saw it in theaters and have already watched the BluRay a couple times. I won’t say it’s a perfect movie but they did a good job with it. There is so much detail in the world it’s just fun to watch.
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It was a good intro story to the whole series in general, so I liked it but didn’t love it. It had too much to convey in such a short period of time, and they tweened it in the middle, which kept making me roll my eyes.
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From the clips of dective pikachu movie I think ryan renyolds needs to stick to being deadpool his sense of humor is better suited to being DP than anything else tbh.
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…this…this is true. I remember when he tried playing George Lutz in the Amityville Horror remake. Something was very wrong at the time, and now I see why. Because this is DEADPOOL. He cannot play a man who turns into a homicidal lunatic with no jokes.
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In the Detective Pikachu video game, Pikachu is very snarky and very rude. And sometimes cool and sometimes … mean? As mean as a Pokemon can get before the Pokemon Company would put the brakes on his attitude. So Ryan Reynolds wasn’t the worst person they could get to voice act him, since Detective Pikachu is basically a less vulgar version of Ryan Reynolds.
I watched my son play that game and I was sometimes concerned when I heard Pikachu hit on women, drink too much coffee and get surly. I kid you not, there’s one time when he said, “Never rattatta out your friends and keep your mouth shut.” As well as making references to like the tails on various Pokemon, if you catch my drift. Kinda Spongebob level innuendo in there.
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So Ashlii will get off her phone for Austin.
Austin can float… I wonder who he is related to, someone from the mage squad or someone from the league of evil romantic convention planners.
For the love of all parties he better not play wonder wall or I will go through the computer and go John Belushi on his guitar
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He’s the grandson of David Bowie.
I kid you not, if you ever watched a movie or video with David Bowie in it, he usually (or at least appears to move so fluidly) floats when moving.
The only thing that makes Austin different from David Bowie is that David Bowie moves crotch first when he goes places.
(No disrespect for David Bowie – I met him once when he was on tour and he’s the most fantastic guy and artist I have ever met. Period. I think he’d laugh at the “float into a room crotch first” comment)
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The cry of “Not My Iron Man” came up when RiRi Williams first showed up, and it was promptly crushed under cries of “racist!”.
It’s a bad time to be a geek right now, I guess.
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Actually, if I remember right, similar happened with Miles Morales and “Not My Spider Man.”
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It’s a strange thing. I think what most people don’t understand that is that these people are not REPLACING their heroes. Miles is not replacing Peter Park the original Spiderman, he is Spiderman in another universe. Just like Nick Fury in the MCU is African American (which comes from the Ultimates universe) when in the old comics he’s a white guy.
Jane Foster isn’t replacing Thor, she’s becoming a manifestation of Thor in becoming the Goddess of Thunder and Lighnting. She’s not replacing Thor Odinson, she’s just manifesting the powers he had, which technically makes her Thor (since Thor in Norwegian is the God(dess) of Lighting). Thor in the old comics was Donald Blake, who manifested as Thor when wielding the hammer. And then you have Beta Ray Bill who was an alien who had Thor’s abilities and they called him “Thor” and “Beta Ray” at the same time because he’s manifesting the powers of Thor.
In the Marvel Universe, Thor is a concept more than an actual individual, much like Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel manifested in like four people over the course of the comics, and the same goes for Thor. The problem is that non-comic people don’t actually have a grasp on the history of all the characters in the Marvel Universe, so they assume they are “replaced.”
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Miles is now in 616 alongside Peter and the original Nick Fury is now dead, replaced by Nick Fury Jr., his black son.
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See? As I said, they aren’t replacing anyone, they are basically just another version of the same thing. However, non-comic book readers would not know that and assume there’s a conspiracy to change the characters in the movies.
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Well considering that the original Nick Fury was a WWII vet alongside Capt. America (3 issues) and lacked the benefit of spending a few decades floating in an iceberg, it’s pretty much understandable he’s no longer with us even as a comic character.
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TvTropes calls this a Legacy Character ( https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LegacyCharacter ). It is more common than you think. It even happens in real life. The Pope is the chief of the Catholic church, but it is definitely not the same guy since the position was created centuries ago.
There are several examples in media, for example there have been 5 Robins to Batman, which was substituted himself by Terry McGinnis in Batman Beyond when Bruce got too old. Or in The Princess Bride there’s a character called the Dread Pirate Roberts… which had taken the mantle from the previous DPR, which already wasn’t the first. Zorro and the Avatar are other famous examples of legacy characters. None of these were examples of throwing away the old character.
The problem is when they do it to try and gather a new demographic or to pretend they care about a minority (for example, “let’s retcon a beloved character as a [ black guy | woman | gay ] to [ appeal to said minority | show how inclusive we are ]“). Changing it for these reasons alone comes off as half-baked and usually creates a boring and soulless character.
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Miles Morales is not a boring or soulless character. In fact, he’s super popular with the Gen Y and Gen Z. It’s just Gen X and older that are having issues seeing two Spidermans … Spidermen? I believe they didn’t exactly create him to appease anyone either, they had a writer who wanted to explore who Spiderman could be in other realities.
Same with Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers didn’t even start out as Captain Marvel, tbh. No one really understood her origin or actual powerset until later, and that created a backlash of “Captain Marvel’s a maaaaaannnn.” I’m not so sure about Thor as a woman, but I do know that her character was also not boring in the least. She had a great reception. In fact, her popularity is why Marvel re-introduced Angela into the Asgardian lore in Marvel Comics. They wanted more bad-ass Valkyrie/Asgardian characters, and since women warriors were as much a part of Norwegian myth as male ones, they tried to even out the numbers somewhat. Win win in my book.
I really haven’t read many of the other female comic stories, such as the one where the young woman who impressed Tony Stark became an Iron Man so to speak. But like Rhodes, I understood that she also did not replace Tony Stark, just that she wore an Iron Man suit and did heroic things. Because anyone can wear an Iron Man suit. He makes like over 2000 of them at one point (see Universe X and Earth X).
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Speaking here as the last of Gen X, depending on who you talk to, this makes a point.
Maybe Miles Morales just came along at the wrong time, or maybe it wasn’t clear enough what he was trying to do, but it felt like a retcon so hard that Peter Parker was no longer a thing. It looked like pandering at the time.
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Beta Ray Bill was never Thor.
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He filled in for Thor. This is the same thing. She’s not “female” Thor. She has his powers, she’s technically filling in for Thor. Thor is still there, he’s still the ODINSON, he’s not dead, she’s not him. She’s the Goddess of Thunder and Lighting by technicality. Same as Beta Ray Bill. He was not THE Thor but he filled in for THE Thor, so he was the God of Thunder and Lightning until the return of the original person. Odin once told Thor’s human host it was more of a mantle than a SPECIFIC PERSON.
If you want to get even MORE technical, Thor just became Odin after War of the Realms. Not Thor King of the Gods, but he’s now Thor Odin. He’s THE ODIN.
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‘K, maybe those last three sentences were out of line. If so, I apologize to you, Chris, and to all the rest of you. Forget I spoke! Carry on, everyone! 😃❤️♥️!!
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Maybe it is! I know (or at least figure) it’s a great time to be a geek who doesn’t need to own a thing, and who is therefore completely unattached, and who therefore completely/100% ENJOYS comics/movies/EVERYthing. (It’s also a great time to be a geek who knows that he neither owns a thing nor has ANY right to (try to) prevent storytellers/creators/artists from telling their own story their own way. (Would you try this with Chris? Whatcha think, Chris? Is S. Shuffle your baby, or your fans’?)
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In answer to your son’s thoughts on Thor, as with anything comic book related. It’s all artist interpretation. This is not the first time Thor has been female. Take him back to the Thor Corps. Beta Ray Bill.
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If you go back even further, Thor isn’t even really the Thor we know in the movies. He’s Donald Blake who manifests Thor through an incantation and the hammer. And if he loses the hammer for more than 15 minutes, he reverts back into Donald Blake – a powerless human.
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The Donald Blake thing hasn’t been true in a VERY long time, longer than some of the kids in the story have been alive. When Jane stole the hammer, he didn’t lay a hand on it for years, yet he never changed.
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If you want to get even more confusing/technical, Odin isn’t Odin anymore, and Thor isn’t Thor anymore. Odin is now a regular Asgardian and Thor is the new Odin.
Don’t believe me, go read War of the Realms. Odin stepped down and made Thor Odin. And now everyone calls him Thor the Odin, or King Thor the Odin. And according to the writers, it’s been in the works for 20 years to get to this point so it’s not a new concept. Thor and Odin are titles, more than actual PEOPLE.
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I took my girls (8 & 10) to see Pikachu. They enjoyed it. They’re not Pokemon fans, so any inconsistencies were lost on them. I thought it was all right. There were a few scenes that where intensely action filled but pointless, but the story more or less flowed. I think there were a few too many gotcha fake outs with the plot though. As for the changes in the superheroes…I have mixed feelings. Some have been around for 50+ years, so they’re trying different ways to make them more interesting (sort of like how folks keep doing Shakespeare 400 years later, but vastly different from the original productions). They’re trying stuff. Some of it might resonate, some will flop. Personally, I’d rather see them launching new heroes to tell some of these stories, but I can see why they’d do it this way from a marketing approach.
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My son is a huge Pokemon fan and has played Pokemon since Black and White 2 (so I think that covers B & W2, X & Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Sun and Moon, Pokemon Go on my phone and Let’s Go Evee). He also has like 500 cards and plays the game with friends and at the game store. He’s 10, and he sleeps with like 8 stuffed Pikachus and two stuffed Evees. He’s watched EVERY SINGLE CARTOON. He collects their pins, has posters, even has bed sheets and baseball caps with Pokemon all over them. I don’t know how he even functions without wearing something Pokemon (or Pikachu) related.
That being said, I though he’d have the same response your kids had. I watched it with him and was kind of … weirded out by the whole thing since I never imaged seeing them in like a real-life action film. However, he loved it. He loved it so much he got my aunt, my mom and dad, and my wife to take him to it three more times. So he saw it four times in the theater. And we own the Blu-ray so it’s been watched who knows how many times since.
His take was that while the movie story was average, all the Pokemon references and the action sequences were perfect. Maybe it’s because he’s a Pikachu fanatic that he liked it, but he made some good points about Bulbasaur, Greninja and Mew-Two being perfectly rendered, while all the shop signs and such in the movie were great parodies of things ripped from recent Pokemon games. I guess you either have to be a huge fan or a non-fan to like it. Mediocre fans or people who want a deep movie probably aren’t going to like it. Not saying Chris’ kid isn’t a huge fan, but if he’s quoting on the depth of the story and the weird humor created by Japanese writers, then I don’t think the movie was made for him. It was made for fans who like the cartoons and all the stuff. ALL THE STUFF. Not just specific characters and action movies.
Again, I found it incredibly weird to watch. When I was in my 20’s (when Pokemon took off in the States), I had played Pokemon Red and then never touched anything after that. I only lived vicariously through my son’s fandom, so seeing Pokemon rendered in real life was a very bizarre thing for me. So much that I barely paid attention to the plot and took mental notes on all the Pokemon I saw during the movie. Some of them they could have made look less … terrifying (Snubbull is literally creeping me the F out), while Mister Mime and Charizard were genuinely what I expected.
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Whoa, Ashliii didn’t look at her phone this entire strip, that must be a record! :O
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Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a comment.
So anyway, it’s kind of the exact opposite for me. I loved Jane as “Thor” in the comics, but I think it’s because, in many ways, I’m tired of stories with no endings. Comics are perpetually stuck in this endless loop of recycling stories and plot points and returning everything to the status quo and it’s just…old. Aside from soap operas and really bad sitcoms, I can’t think of any other entertainment medium that does that. Manga might go on for 700 chapters but it does eventually end. BBC shows get as much drama out of anything else out of 8 episodes of a show and then bam, it’s over, or they cast a new actor, or do something to keep it fresh. Comics just stagnate, and they’re so caught up in the recognizable characters that it’s hard for a Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales, or other new character to break through. The X-Men alone have introduced and killed off so many “new generations” of mutants it’s insane, all because everyone wants to introduce new characters but they’re too scared to actually and permanently retire the old ones.
I wonder if the Silver Age went through this when Barry Allen and Hal Jordan appeared on the scene.
Anyway, fans went through the same thing when it was announced that Thor: Ragnarok was going to be more humorous, and that partly came from the fact that everybody involved, including Chris Hemsworth, was tired of how Thor was being done. Hemsworth is still in the next one, and I’ll withhold judgment until it comes out.
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I haven’t seen it, but my fifteen year old did. He enjoyed it, but he likes anything where the main characters are constant one-upping jerks with cocky attitudes, which from the way he tells it, this movie had it in spades.
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lol Dumpster wave
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I liked “Class President of the Swim Team!” :)
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Pumpkin sure isn’t having none of that shoujo-manga-love-interest bullshit. Knowing my shoujo manga tropes, that’s a smart move. He’s probably got some tragic incurable disease and a secret twin hanging around somewhere or some other nonsense like that, and that’s not even touching on his pack of fangirls.
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I liked Detective Pikachu. It wasn’t great, but I thought it was cute.
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My Wife ‘n me, both nearly 50 now, who really only play Pokemon GO, both enjoyed the movie….so guessing they made it too ‘adult’ for the target audience, and not accurate enough to the actual premise/setting….but that’s purely a guess, based on who I’ve heard like it, and who *doesn’t* like it :)
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Sometimes an adult view can work for children, other times it doesn’t. Makes me think of why Ellen Raskin wrote the Westing Game: it was for the adult in children. There’s also how universal a lot of background details, called “fluff,” in games are (what I mean is, they appeal to both kids and adults). I haven’t seen the movie, but yeah, I got the impression it was made for older fans.
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Alita is not that great either. Very juvenile dialog from even adult characters.
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I still haven’t seen the new movie, but I read the original Battle Angel manga back in the ’90s and recall it being pretty awesome.
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That was kind of my issue, too. They tweened it up pretty hard in the middle there. I mean, I know this is kind of the origin story, so she’s like a young adult, but it’s clear they aimed this movie directly at the teenage crowd with the dialogue and the way they did the romance bit.
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I can’t speak for Pokémon, since fuck that show, I was too old for it when my brother watched it.
But as a Thor fan I’m excited for the Jane Foster as Thor movie. Jason Aaron’s work on Thor including the Jane Foster run has been excellent and I’m sure “Thor” will be around, just not wielding the hammer for the bulk of the movie. I am surprised Marvel Studios wanted to give Natalie Portman such an important roll and large cheque after all the times she’s made them write around her being unavailable for a cameo but that won’t effect the quality of the movie one bit. But then I also wasn’t upset about fat Thor because if a series of anything lasts long enough I do like some arc and character development rather than a completely static status quo that goes no where and challenges nothing. Typically though children want what they already know they like, the way they know they like it.
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Aaron’s time on Thor was absolutely terrible. To find anything worse in comics you’d have to look at Gabby Riverawriting America Chavez or what that hack Bendis has done to Superman.
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It’s like you took the strangest examples to use. Aaron has won Eisner Awards and has the sixth most sold Marvel comic, as well as one of the best mini-series comics: The Other Side. His work on Dr. Strange is excellent. So you’re either mad that he’s doing really well or that his popular viewpoint of the Marvel universe doesn’t fit yours.
And Bendis was something DC gambled on. I agree that he has issues understanding Superman and the characters in Superman. But that doesn’t undo his vastly popular and accepted work on Spiderman.
I’m not really sure where you are going with Gabby Rivera, since Chavez is a Latin American gay character that was literally designed to represent the ongoing diversity of characters in Marvel. Her creators Joe and Nick both praised Gabby’s writing. So if the creators of the character love what someone did with their character, I’m not sure what disaster you are referring to …
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I didn’t even think that anonymous opinion was worth responding to. Completely unsupported hate, an ad hominem attack on 2 titles I didn’t bring up and completely ignorant as most of what Marvel (DC, Image and all the indy’s) publish is worse than Jason Aaron’s Thor.
The God Butcher/Godbomb arc is easily in my top 5 Marvel stories ever written. I’m not happy Aaron’s run goes into a clusterfuck of a crossover but that doesn’t change that he wrote consistently high quality Thor comics for years and you could throw a rock in a comic store and be almost guaranteed to hit something worse.
If he doesn’t like Jason Aaron’s work that an opinion but it’s a quality comic whether he likes it or not.
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I know. It was like, “So he doesn’t like Aaron’s work, but then goes on to make points about … two more popular and well-loved comic book authors?”
I think primarily Anon hates the female version of Thor, and went and looked up two more comic book authors who changed comic women characters just to have examples. Bad, weird examples that don’t really … have anything to do with what was said.
In fact, I was comparing criticisms for Gabby’s America run, and most of the negative comments focus on the fact that:
1) The hero is a woman – “y r there so many female supes now, this is dumb.”
2) The hero is gay – “I can’t wank to the more openly version of Chavez now, damn it!”
Replied to: EmCeeKhan | Link | Like
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I wasn’t invested enough to speculate on why he hates one well written comic that I like and two I know nothing about (although I’ve read some Bendis elsewhere and wouldn’t say he’s a bad writer).
How can you even argue with some one who doesn’t site a reason for not liking some thing, easier to just assume their opinion doesn’t have merit. Especially with the worst thing in comics drivel.
Their are endless actually terrible comics and he picks on one of the top writers in comics writing an impressively long arc for a company that seems to actively push against on going stories (Jason Aaron on Thor), one of the top names in comics on a character that any comic writer will tell you is near impossible to write for (Bendis on Superman) and something I know nothing about (America Chavez by somebody). Hard to believe he knows anything about storytelling or writing when instead of offering a reason not to like Jason Aaron’s Thor, he instead just throws out random insults against other presumably reasonably good books.
Even if you don’t like Jane Foster Thor, it’s a small part of Aaron’s run with actual Thor being Thor on both sides of it. And not only did it tell an interesting story about Jane and her struggle with cancer and how being Thor made it worse for her. But Thor not being Thor and having to watch some one else be worthy was necessary for Aaron’s ongoing arc for Thor, on what it means to Thor to be worthy of the hammer. Which he started right off the bat with young Thor interacting with the older worthier Thors.
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I’m not really arguing per se, as much as I am trying to either understand the point or rectify why the point being made is bad so when others read it, they don’t think it’s the definitive response.
For example, the person who keeps stating that Donald Blake, Beta Ray Bill and Jane Foster “aren’t Thor.” Well, that is technically correct, but in the same vein, they were his replacement or carried his manifestation when big blondie could not be there. Going by the reasoning of the comic, the God of Lightning and Thunder is Thor. If someone stands in for him, they are THOR for all intents and purposes (mostly by belief in a God of Lightning and Thunder). In the MCU, Thor Odinson is not dead. He’s not being replaced. Jane is found worthy to be the Goddess of Lightning and Thunder, so that is what she is. She’s not “female Thor.” She’s Jane Foster – Goddess of Lightning and Thunder.
To make everything more nebulous now comic-wise, Odin just proved that their names as gods are primarily TITLES and MANTLES and not actual monikers. After the War of the Realms and Thor’s bravery, Odin makes Thor “Odin.” Thor is now Odin, King of the Asgardians. The old man is no longer Odin – he’s an old man with another name who is now a regular Asgardian. Thor is the Odin. And Thor is contemplating giving the title of “Thor God of Lighting and Thunder” to someone else. As if comics didn’t confuse non-comic readers enough. LOL
But I only engaged this Anon because I wanted to point out to anyone who read what he said who might know nothing about what he speaks that he’s clearly not an expert or a real … fan if he uses such poor arguments.
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I’ll admit that while at first I thought the Marvel Cinematic Universe thing of spanning several movies with connections in the plot and the same actors was a great idea and really enjoyable.
Now, however, I’m behind and don’t want to watch the new ones without seeing the previous to the point that it just seems like a chore and I’ve given up on it all.
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Above was me, just forgetting to fill in my info.
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I adore Pumpkin’s complete indifference to this guy.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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Not to mention Francis’ indifference. Figure there’s something there?
Replied to: Steve | Link | Like
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Pumpkin’s gay and Francis isn’t?
Replied to: E. Arby | Link | Like
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Entirely possible. And maybe Francis is actively straight for Pumpkin.
Replied to: E. Arby | Link | Like
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Or Pumpkin’s somewhere on the asexual spectrum. There was an earlier comic where she discussed this possibility with Quinn (For Those Who Wait”, Dec. 21, 2014).
Either way, I think she’s very smart for not being taken in by shallow personalities.
Replied to: KaiserFrazer67 | Link | Like
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Aces can be gay-aligned romantically. Pumpkin’s goofy face while drawing a comic about Quinn saying boys are dumb and girls are way awesomer points to as much despite her denial when confronted.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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He’s stealing her thunder on her own birthday.
Isn’t Pumpkin’s signature sin “Pride”?
Replied to: SeanR | Link | Like
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I thought Tara was Pride.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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My understanding is Tara is Envy.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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http://shotgunshuffle.com/comic/the-honorary-one/
There, in the Author commentary.
Huh. A webcomic’s own URL should probably be whitelisted when blocking link-only comments.
Replied to: SeanR | Link | Like
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I stand corrected, well, that’s not true, I’m sitting down. I sit corrected. You get my point.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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Most of us were surprised to find that Tarra wasn’t pride. The other five were more than clear enough, but the revelation that Tarra was envy was out of left field.
Replied to: Steve | Link | Like
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Not completely. She does have an apparent obsession with David (among other things), and Summer alluded to this during her recent beatdown of Tarra.
Replied to: KaiserFrazer67 | Link | Like
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True, but at the time a lot of us thought that was a function of pride rather than envy.
Replied to: Steve | Link | Like
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I was a little shocked at first too, but then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
Tarra wants to be the most successful out of all of her sisters (and teammates), but she gets the least amount of attention from her family for it. She’s envious because everyone pays more attention to her sisters (and members of her many teams). Her boasting and gloating is all about “You should be looking at ME not THEM. I’m the one saving the world.”
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I found the Detektive Pikatchu not bad per se, more like a standard run-of-the-mill standard Hollywood production where they finally get some writers who know what their doing for the story.
As I only watched part of the Anime in the Day and played really only the Gen1 GameBoy games as am adult, I found it not that bad (loathed and hated the old movies btw), though I wouldn’t go to the cinema for it.
I find it quite funny how different the target demographic reacts to a more modern take of the universe ^^
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Not a huge pokemon fan, but i did watch the movie. It was bettervthan i expected. I thought the plot was pretty ok. Although the giant pokemon were ridiculous.
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While I agree with you on the other stuff.
I enjoyed the Detective Pikachu movie, and didn’t experience any of the problems your kids did. Same goes for my brother
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Oh, hey! It’s the returned of my favorite purple-haired character, Two-Eyed Leela!
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I saw the movie in theaters. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t that boring. As to the plot, your kids may not have been paying attention and may have wanted more Pokemon battles, which really, the movie wasn’t about the battles.
Pretty simple plot, which, I have to say, I liked the Ditto twist.
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Weird that what’s her face isn’t on the phone again. Must be a new record for her
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Just testing to see if my icon changes
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Kids weren’t the target demographic of Detective Pikachu mate, adults who were kids when Pokemon was first a thing were. I mean one short look at the trailer and how fucked up wierd it was would tell you that.
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A shame they’re not older.
It’s the ten year anniversary of “Redline” after all.
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So I’ll chime in here on the movie. Pokemon may have kids as the main demographic in most instances. Detective Pikachu though they were a secondary focus. The main focus was my demographic and it wasn’t perfect, but it was very very promising.
The plot, wasn’t horrible but also wasn’t incrdible. It did have one nice twist and things were explained, but I’d suggest young teens and up for it. From the comments your kids made it does sound like they either got bored early on or simply lost the plot.
The most impressive part of the movie though was the world building, the rendering of the pokemon wasn’t bad at all. Seeing a city with pokemon were well intermingled into the city rather than just being there was nice. They used remixes of old pokemon themes and the subtle references to older material was very good. It looked very promising for whatever future films they make.
I went with an interesting mix, myself being the perfect target audience for it, mid twenties pokeholic since Red/Blue. My boyfriend, 30s and complete non-pokemon fan. And his best friend who is new to pokemon, played a little of it back in the day and then came on the GO train. Best friend and I thoughly enjoyed it, and even boyfriend felt it wasn’t bad and understood he was not the target audience.
The main problem with Pokemon is you now have a split in demographics. You have kids who were the orginal focus and still are the limelight for most products: anime, games, toys, pokemon Go. But you also have the adults who have played Pokemon for years, and we don’t get a whole lot of focused products towards us, but they’re actually noticing us more now. We’ve had the ongoing manga which is darker(don’t let your kids read it unless they can handle stuff like an Arbok getting literally sliced in half). They also made the Pokemon Origins anime miniseries which is less kiddy than the main Anime.
I guess to tie this long post up, it feels like they tried to bridge the gap between the two big parts of their fanbase. Which is no easy feat, and I think it’s arguable that the full sum was more adult nostalgia focused, than on the kids for Detective Pikachu. I also would argue that rather than just liking pokemon, you have to like the entire world lore of Pokemon.
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ATB walks into a bar. Bartender says: ‘Command?’
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I can definitely see why you have noticed a change in regards to movies and such… And a large part of it has to do with th embarrass focusing on ideology and such over story. Narrative and character development are taking a backseat to pushing stuff down people’s throats… Which inevitably ends with lashing out when consumers don’t immediately accept what they put out. Look at the backlash to criticism of the Ghostbusters reboot and The Last Jedi… To Captain Marvel. Even valid criticism was met with verbal abuse and such. Some developers and companies in Hollywood seem to feel like they are entitled to our money, that when they put out anything we should simply throw out money towards it.
And then when they get pushback, they can’t handle it.
You can see this in all entertainment mediums… Such as video games and comics.
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Which is really too bad, because, apart from our still sizeable military, it’s our entertainment, and through it a glimpse into what we term “American Values”, which is probably our largest export, and strongest means of influence over the world.
Say what you will about America the Policeman, it’s America the Entertainer who wins hearts and minds.
Frankly, I think the CIA should be quietly bankrolling MGM, Fox, Disney, Etc., whenever they don’t bend over for foreign government “requests”.
Replied to: SeanR | Link | Like
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This reply is so obvious it *had* to be made …
“How can you be sure they aren’t bankrolling them?”
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My kids are 10/8/6 and know about Pokemon from the GO phone game. The two oldest ones liked the movie, enough to suggest we buy it. The youngest got too scared of all the action and attempts to kill each other, but that’s typical of her with any movie. I thought the story had too many twists to it, but it was okay. I thought the realistic rendering of all the Pokemon was great, and the “one world” idea was interesting. I wouldn’t have paid the money to see it in the theater, and I wouldn’t rent it again, and if my kids want it, they’ll have to pony up for it themselves.
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I give the pretty boy 3 more pages before he cracks from the crazy lol
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Also, I can’t believe I didn’t make this comment in regards to Austin at first but…
Look at that Yo-yo, that’s the way you do it.
Replied to: D. M. Jeftinija | Link | Like
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He plays de git-tar on de EM TEE VEE.
Replied to: Steve | Link | Like
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aaaaaand on the last page we saw the mama who’s going to stick it in the camera – Juniper.
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Uzbek wrestler is 60th London 2012 athlete disqUzbek wrestler is 60th London 2012 athlete disq
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Am I the only one getting a Scott Pilgrim meets FLCL vibe from this kid?
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Pretty much all of the above. MC is entirely to whinny to be likeable. Plot makes no sense at all (when the villain explained his masterplan during his vliiain speech, my only tough was “Why the F would you want to do that?”), and I fell asleep during what’s supposed to be one of the main action sequence of the move (lab sequence). Oh, and Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu? That’s some uncanny valley stuff right there.
I did find the CG palatable tough.
Replied to: François Buisson | Link | Like
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Ash in the cartoons is also very whiny, as is Team Rocket. And so is most of the primary characters in the Detective Pikachu video game.
Yet … kids love them, so they are in a lot of Pokemon cartoons.
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Chequered Flag podcast: Hungarian Grand Prix pChequered Flag podcast: Hungarian Grand Prix p
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Portrush looks great but it can make you cry Portrush looks great but it can make you cry
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Did anyone get a 500 Server Error this morning?
Replied to: mR. Blue | Link | Like
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Yep! Thought there was an update, and something went awry.
Replied to: Steve | Link | Like
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I love the 500 Server Error script though. It tells you that you’ve done something wrong and you need to come clean about it.
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I get a sense that Pumpkin’s at war with her femininity. I’m sort of curious as to how that came about for her.
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OKay, if they used to be kindergarten playmates, then I will go out of my way to pour myself a glass of milk in order to do a spittake.