:maize:
For those of you who haven't seen this one yet:
This one was firmly mediocre folks. Affleck actually gave a good performance (as did Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin), but he was held back by the stilted dialogue and tongue-in-cheek script. That plot-furthering breakup phone-call? Yikes. Did the actress even realize that she was being recorded or was she just "pre-reading" the script?
The movie apparently tried to master the feel of the comics. Having never much cared for Daredevil (not much of a Marvellite at all really), I can't say how title-accurate it was, but it did seem fairly comic-ish. Some halfway-interesting scene transitions and visuals.
The writer & director apparently couldn't decide whether to go for tongue-in-cheek fun or Hollywood ultraviolence. The end result is a movie filled with clichйes and predictability (and a few ridiculous "wow neato" attempts that earn more laughter than "oohs"), but that you still shouldn't bring young children to (graphic deaths and a large bodycount). This one is best to go to just for the visuals, which are legitimately stunning --especially the "sonar" effects. The CGI is fairly obvious in some shots (either DD's wearing really uncomfortable boots, or the model-animator cut corners on some FX acrobatics shots). The fight scenes are variable. Some are good, others are blatant wire acts that would look more at home on Hercules or Xena.
They left the door open for a sequel, though they did kill off two fairly important characters.
Finally, the "franchise" question; could this coexist with the other Marvel movies already out (Spiderman and X-Men)? Eh, maybe. X-Men has that whole air of secrecy built in, but Spidey lives around New York IIRC, so he'd probably have heard about some other costumed vigilante running around killing people.
But who cares about that; the new X2 trailer rocked!! We got to see Nightcrawler! and the scene at the end with Wolverine and the cat earned out-loud laughter.
The Hulk looks okay. Good FX. No clue what the story might be, but in a Hollywood Blockbuster, that doesn't really matter. :roleyess:
And League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Why did no one tell me this was coming?!? :devscare:
Methinks I'll stick to my anime where they actually bother about putting in a decent story XD
Originally posted by Pedro The Hutt
Methinks I'll stick to my anime where they actually bother about putting in a decent story XD
*runs away screaming whilst holding his mouth shut*
I mean that I think that many anime stories are ummm.... how shall I put it.... bad. :D
Which ones have you been exposed to? There's a wide range, so you should tailor your viewing.
And the story for DD is actually pretty good; it's the execution that kinda falls flat. Unless you were talking about Hulk, in which case nevermind.
Originally posted by Boba Rhett
I mean that I think that many anime stories are ummm.... how shall I put it.... bad. :D
If you're referring to DBZ and Pokйmon I agree, those are horrible. And don't say that many anime storylines are bad untill you've actually seen many of them...
And yeah I was referring to the Hulk O_o haven't seen DD yet... lack of theatrical release here in Belgium so far XD
Personally, I'd recommend Escaflowne (but then, I'm a dragon ^_^ ).
Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away --pretty much anything by Miyazaki.
Any Gundam series (though I'm biased toward Gundam Wing, 'cause I've actually seen it :roleyess: ). I've also heard good things about Evangelion, but the whole "Me Canadian" issue means I haven't actually seen it(*).
Personally, I'm also pretty fond of shojou stuff, like Sailor Moon, but that's just my tastes (shojou is generally character-based, while shonen tends to be more action-adventure). I'm also into kids' stuff, like Digimon, especially S3 (I haven't been watching S4 'cause it's only on weekdays, when I have other stuff to do).
I'd also recommend Cardcaptors, 'cause it's like a cross between (the good parts of) Pokйmon and a pre-teen version of Buffy. :shads2:
*To understand this, you must realize that Canada only ever imports animй from the US. So if the US imports like, 25% of animй from Japan (this is probably a generous assessment), Canada only ever imports about 25% of that. Most of this animй ends up being either kiddie fare (because Canadian television can't parse that anyone over the age of 10 would be the least bit interested in cartoons, so airing anything that calls for an older audience is a waste of programming time) or direct-to-video. :disaprove
I don't have cable so I obviously haven't seen a ton of the anime shows on but the ones I have seen I consider sucky. DBZ and Pokйmon being two of them, like you said. I've seen more than what I'd consider a, "few" though so that's why I said, "many". :)
Rhett you should have come to me for te anime story line it goes like this:
Ohhh nice dark world
AHHHHHH oppresion from big dude with bad weapon
YEah here comes the hero with his magical powers
Whooo the hero died but this kid in the street picked up his sword
Yeepeee the kid is 60 yrs old and is highly trained with a weapon
Finally, the 65 yr old kid kills (or did he) the 50000 yr old bad dude
:D
Originally posted by BeastMaster
I'd also recommend Cardcaptors, 'cause it's like a cross between (the good parts of) Pokйmon and a pre-teen version of Buffy. :shads2:
I'd say get the DVDs with the "Card Captor Sakura" title as the dub is a quite hacked up and trashed version of the original.
But really, go and watch Serial Experiments Lain and we'll talk again about anime having simple stories XD
Originally posted by BeastMaster
Evangelion, but the whole "Me Canadian" issue means I haven't actually seen it
It's for the best. Evangelion destroyed my already hardened mind. I can't imagine what it would do to a simple Canadian.
ziing
Originally posted by Pedro The Hutt
I'd say get the DVDs with the "Card Captor Sakura" title as the dub is a quite hacked up and trashed version of the original.
I'm familiar with CCS, and I'm wierd in that I actually prefer the American version. It just seems more realistic in the character relationships.
My problem with CLAMP (the studio responsible for CCS) is that they tend to give everything a fairly "slashy" feel. This really shows in the CCS manga. The original animй downplays it, and the dubs downplay it even more, but actually substitute some character ambiguity.
Frex, in CCS, there's a clear tone of Madison/Sakura shippage. In the American version, that's excised but for one scene that renders it more as "hero worship" or perhaps mild jealousy (and instead, it kinda emphasizes a Madison/Kero 'ship, which is . . . odd even by my standards).
I mean really, Madison is perfect at everything she does. Art, music, design, leadership --heck, she's even rich. Then Sakura opens the Clow book and becomes Clow Reed's heir.
For the first time in her entire (admittedly young) life, Madison is second-best at something! :eek: In fact, she's such a distant second that she's not even in the running at all --she has no magical powers to speak of.
Yeah, it could be a bit of her CLAMP-ish crushage, but it's more likely that Madison's just listening to that little voice saying that "it should be her out there, dammit!"
My only real complaint about the dub is that one of the excised segments is the critical Madison/Li/Sakura moment:
*Sakura is doing something, Li is watching, then Madison hands Li a note*
MADISON: *V.O.* You're always watching Sakura. ;)
*Li turns bright red and crumples the note*
You can see where the scene should be, 'cause after that, Li always gets nervous when Sakura and Madison are out of his sight. It's never clear whether or not Madison actually told Sakura about her observation.
We only get one glimpse of Madison, sitting alone in her theatre, watching her videos of Sakura and saying softly "my hero."
They do the same with the Li/Julian sparkage, making it look more like Li can sense something about Julian, or is perhaps just being protective of Sakura. (Let's face it, Julian's whole "too nice" personality is kinda creepy.)
Tori/Julian is really the only 'ship that's not substituted, though the animй on its own does a pretty good job of making them just close friends.
eh, just be glad that CLAMP didn't include a full on male/male relationship XD (like for example in Tokyo Babylon and X)
Well, the manga does have Tori/Julian. With the covert looks, and the touching, and the bicycle. Great Dragon, the bicycle. :eyeraise:
On screen, they're reduced to one exchange that's ambiguous in the Japanese (it looks like Tori's about to say that he loves Julian), and is completely innocuous in the American (Tori's revealing his ability to see the Spirit Realm, and his knowledge that Julian isn't what he appears).
I can't really hate the manga though, because it includes my favourite badass Li moment. In the animй, Li tells Sakura to use the Sleep Card to put Julian (their chaperone) to sleep so they can use their powers. In the manga, he just suddenly turns around and punches the poor guy into unconsciousness. :dozey:
Lovely XD screw cards, punch'em senseless.