Re: Random Thoughts

[Cable]

John Wick 4 currently has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is impressive because how often does a film franchise maintain highest quality that long into its run? Off the top of my head the only other example I can think of is Avengers 4 (aka Endgame) was at 94%. All other franchise examples are below 90%, and often much lower, by that point in their run.

[Blackcyclops]

Well with Creed3 and this film, online hot-takers are saying CB movies are dead and are supplanted by non-CB franchises

[P-90]

I don't know how high the percentages on RT are but for me the Mission Impossible movies went from good to great with the fourth movie and have maintained that high quality since.

Edit: As for comic book movies, I do agree there has been a downturn in general quality of the MCU since End Game (with notable exceptions such as the two Spidey movies) but I'll wait to see how well GOTG3 and Deadpool 3 do before I believe they've had they heyday.

[Cable]

I don't know how high the percentages on RT are but for me the Mission Impossible movies went from good to great with the fourth movie and have maintained that high quality since.

Good call P-90. Mission Impossible 4 (Ghost Protocol) was scored at 93%.

Well with Creed3 and this film, online hot-takers are saying CB movies are dead and are supplanted by non-CB franchises

Didn't Ant-Man 3 like double the box office of Creed 3?

[Anna Raven]

I went to see the Dungeons and Dragons movie last weekend in a sneak peak. If word of mouth and viral reviews spread around enough, I think this might be a really big non-comic book hit, albeit just at another end of the nerd spectrum.

[Spectral Knight]

John Wick 4 currently has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is impressive because how often does a film franchise maintain highest quality that long into its run? Off the top of my head the only other example I can think of is Avengers 4 (aka Endgame) was at 94%. All other franchise examples are below 90%, and often much lower, by that point in their run.

Hmm... What about the Bond flicks? Not sure if it counts or not, but aren't the Daniel Craig movies are generally very well regarded compared to some of his predecessors? But this is a franchise full of peaks and troughs, and so much longer than most others.

Re: General quality of comic book movies...I don't think they're dead... we might just need a period of readjustment but I remember the period before the MCU took hold, Elektra, Spider-Man 3, Last Stand, the FF movies etc. The quality had dropped significantly compared to Blade, Spider-Man 1&2 and the first couple of X-Movies.

I think unfortunately for the MCU, its own successes has created a problem in expectation management. Not every MCU movie has to be cosmic or world ending in scope, nor do they need to be CGI crazy. It's a shame that they didn't draw on the lessons of the Netflix shows in where the MCU could go - and I don't just mean ultra violent, but more how different scales, tones and budgets can show different perspectives of the same universe. Like my favourite Ms Marvel episodes were the ones with all the pop-art almost neon animation overlays. Sure that was kinda lost by the end but visually it was a treat to see an MCU property that looked so different. We know the Marvel comics universe doesn't all look the same, or sound the same... there's room for broad interpretations even within the same canon universe.

[Cable]

John Wick 4 currently has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is impressive because how often does a film franchise maintain highest quality that long into its run? Off the top of my head the only other example I can think of is Avengers 4 (aka Endgame) was at 94%. All other franchise examples are below 90%, and often much lower, by that point in their run.

Hmm... What about the Bond flicks? Not sure if it counts or not, but aren't the Daniel Craig movies are generally very well regarded compared to some of his predecessors? But this is a franchise full of peaks and troughs, and so much longer than most others.

The James Bond movies occurred to me but if you start at the beginning then the fourth movie is Thunderball which has a good but not great 85% critic score. If you go by only the Daniel Craig ones then the fourth, Spectre, has a quite mediocre 63%.

[P-90]

John Wick 4 currently has 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is impressive because how often does a film franchise maintain highest quality that long into its run? Off the top of my head the only other example I can think of is Avengers 4 (aka Endgame) was at 94%. All other franchise examples are below 90%, and often much lower, by that point in their run.

Hmm... What about the Bond flicks? Not sure if it counts or not, but aren't the Daniel Craig movies are generally very well regarded compared to some of his predecessors? But this is a franchise full of peaks and troughs, and so much longer than most others.

Re: General quality of comic book movies...I don't think they're dead... we might just need a period of readjustment but I remember the period before the MCU took hold, Elektra, Spider-Man 3, Last Stand, the FF movies etc. The quality had dropped significantly compared to Blade, Spider-Man 1&2 and the first couple of X-Movies.

I think unfortunately for the MCU, its own successes has created a problem in expectation management. Not every MCU movie has to be cosmic or world ending in scope, nor do they need to be CGI crazy. It's a shame that they didn't draw on the lessons of the Netflix shows in where the MCU could go - and I don't just mean ultra violent, but more how different scales, tones and budgets can show different perspectives of the same universe. Like my favourite Ms Marvel episodes were the ones with all the pop-art almost neon animation overlays. Sure that was kinda lost by the end but visually it was a treat to see an MCU property that looked so different. We know the Marvel comics universe doesn't all look the same, or sound the same... there's room for broad interpretations even within the same canon universe.

With the exception of the two Spidey movies and the Hawkeye and Loki shows (and maybe I could even stretch that to the Black Widow movie) I genuinely believe the MCU should have had a break of a few years after End Game. Give the fans some time to digest what's happened, sort of 'mourn' the loss of the established characters they were emotionally invested in for so long. With a couple of exceptions they probably should've at least given more time between the death/retirement of those characters and introducing their replacements.
This gap would also give those making these movies and shows some breathing room, ease the pressure on them a bit and allow them to come back creatively renewed.

Also, it does feel to me as if much of what made the MCU so successful was kind of ignored in some of the content released post End Game. Don't get me wrong not everything released in the Infinity Saga was great, there's several movies I personally thought were meh at best but it did feel as if it was mostly quality over quantity (for example, phase 1 was just six movies released over a period of four years) The introduction of the main characters on their own first prior to putting them in a team setting and the genuine, although slow build up of the connections between all the different parts of the franchise that came together to make the whole (most noticeably the shared threat of Thanos)

[das_boot]

I kind of feel like what the comic movies aren’t QUITE doing right is that the last few movies have felt a bit like shoe-horning in origin stories in to existing franchises within the main franchise.

Like, Eternals— yep, ALWAYS had to be an origin movie. Ditto Shang Chi. Excluding Spider-Man and Love and Thunder (which, actually? Was almost a soft origin for Jane Thorster and the end of Spider-Man is basically a soft reboot of his status), the rest of the movies and shows so far have felt like an origin for characters that will carry the legacy, like Cassie, She-Hulk, Ms Marvel, Kate, America…

I think what’s difficult is that nothing seems new anymore. It all feels like we’ve seen it all before. In my humble opinion they need to look at what’s worked in this phase (like the elements of where an origin has also been a genre film/series, like Shang-Chi onstensibly being a Kung-Fu movie), and what hasn’t (Ant-Man straying from the feel of it being a heist movie like the previous two), and figure out where they’re going from there.

I’m also a little skeptical about them moving to focus so heavily on time-travel/alternative universes which are typically the more confusing storylines that actively turn off readers of the comics for becoming too convoluted— if it turns off the readers of the source material, how can they expect it to not have the same effect on the fans of just the movies?

[Spectral Knight]

I'd agree with that - it feels like films are becoming 'MCU style' and theme, rather than the MCU accommodating different themes (the martial arts of Shang-Chi, the heists of Ant-Man 1 and 2, tech industrialism in Iron Man 1-3, the war movie of Cap 1, the espionage of Winter Soldier and to an extent, Black Widow, the space opera pastiche of GOTG etc.)

The time-travel / alternate universe I don't see as as much of the risk, but I feel the 'seen it all before' elements are the risk. I feel having a solid 'theme' to riff off allows each film to move beyond the 'superhero' film. It's a little like the grounding of each film/character has been lost a bit.

[das_boot]

Yeah, and honestly I’d really like to see them be a bit more experimental again. There’s absolutely a time and a place for the BIG super hero movies but that should be at the culmination of a phase or the mid-point of a multi-phase story arc.

Honestly I feel like they’re almost using this phase to figure stuff out. Like, if they take what works (ie: make the supernatural stuff actually more scary like Scarlet Witch Vs Doctor Strangeface, or super campy schlocky like Werewolf by Night), and figure out the tone and general vibe of each sub-genre? It would work so much better.

I feel like the recent phase is mostly “missed opportunities”. Like, a throwaway scene in Eternals showing that they introduce genetic manipulation in to early humans to make them more resistant to disease or something having the impact that it also makes some of them more susceptible to changes that would grant powers introduces not only the concept of mutates but also mutants down the line; stuff like that. It would also explain why the vibranium infused plants effected the Atlanteans more in BP2 and just.. ugh. I dunno. I haven’t been as impressed with this phase as others and I dunno whether it’s burn out due to the quality, the rate they’ve been churned out, or both.

[Blackcyclops]

I don't know how high the percentages on RT are but for me the Mission Impossible movies went from good to great with the fourth movie and have maintained that high quality since.

Good call P-90. Mission Impossible 4 (Ghost Protocol) was scored at 93%.

Well with Creed3 and this film, online hot-takers are saying CB movies are dead and are supplanted by non-CB franchises

Didn't Ant-Man 3 like double the box office of Creed 3?

Good call on the MI movies…

On the opposite end you have the Fast & Furious franchise…whose scores have gone down but make more money each time.

[tokenBG1009]

I went to see the Dungeons and Dragons movie last weekend in a sneak peak. If word of mouth and viral reviews spread around enough, I think this might be a really big non-comic book hit, albeit just at another end of the nerd spectrum.

Same. I went into that movie with moderate expectations. We're in an era where superhero movies are actually good so I thought a D&D movie could be passable at least. It ended up exceeding my expectations. I really hope it does well at the box office.

[EphemeristX]

I'm going. It looks fun and I'm a fan of most of the cast.

[das_boot]

I think I’m meant to be going to see it with my D+D group, oddly enough

[Anna Raven]

I think I’m meant to be going to see it with my D+D group, oddly enough

That would be the best way to see it for sure. I wish I could have, but my group is spread out all over the place.

[Blackcyclops]

I wish I had friends who would teach me to play D&D…

[AntiBody]

I wish I had friends who would teach me to play D&D…

Me too!! I had some friends in middle school who played, but it fizzled out for them. I have yet to find people who play and would help me relearn and build upon what I used to know.

[das_boot]

I wish I had friends who would teach me to play D&D…

It’s honestly not that difficult, I think it just depends on finding a DM who you vibe with. Mine’s quite chill and helped with character creation (I’m currently playing as a half-elf pansexual bard, but using the interpretation of a bard as a spy of sorts), and basically has really helped me with “well, these are some concepts that would fit in my world and the story I’ve got going, how about you take a run at some of that and see what you come up with”.

So within about ten minutes I ended up with a character who was on the fringes of both the local crime lord and the local police, who would look after orphans and train them how to pick pockets and gather information. I also named him Zevran, as a nod to Dragon Age

[EphemeristX]

I wish I had friends who would teach me to play D&D…

It’s honestly not that difficult, I think it just depends on finding a DM who you vibe with. Mine’s quite chill and helped with character creation (I’m currently playing as a half-elf pansexual bard, but using the interpretation of a bard as a spy of sorts), and basically has really helped me with “well, these are some concepts that would fit in my world and the story I’ve got going, how about you take a run at some of that and see what you come up with”.

So within about ten minutes I ended up with a character who was on the fringes of both the local crime lord and the local police, who would look after orphans and train them how to pick pockets and gather information. I also named him Zevran, as a nod to Dragon Age

That's fun! I recently decided to try out DnD with some friends, and I'm currently playing a half-orc barbarian who has a "securities" business (she's a smuggler). She has a flaming axe and wrecks shit, but has a weakness for tiny cakes and pastries and provides protection to a bakery in exchange for free desserts.

[Spectral Knight]

I honestly didn't think people still played D&D.

I thought Warhammer replaced it as the hobby of choice for super nerds. D&D strikes me as something from a bygone age.

[Blackcyclops]

I honestly didn't think people still played D&D.

I thought Warhammer replaced it as the hobby of choice for super nerds. D&D strikes me as something from a bygone age.

Oh dude D&D is huge again actually…there’s lots of news about it all the time on the comic sites. About as much as anime/manga news…

[Anna Raven]

I honestly didn't think people still played D&D.

I thought Warhammer replaced it as the hobby of choice for super nerds. D&D strikes me as something from a bygone age.

Oh dude D&D is huge again actually…there’s lots of news about it all the time on the comic sites. About as much as anime/manga news…

Very much so. D&D never actually went away, but it's experienced a boom in the last 5 years or so for several reasons.

1) Stranger Things made it trendy among the "in-crowd"
2) Twitch has provided a platform for people to stream game sessions - some of these sessions have started going overboard on the production value, and also the most popular streams involve celebrities, either voice actors, or actual movie stars like Vin Diesel, Joe Mangianello, Jack Black, Karen DeWoll, Brian Posehn, and many others
3) The most popular of these streamed shows, "Critical Role" had one of the most successful Kickstarters ever and raised enough money to create an animated tv show about their campaign which now has two seasons on Amazon Prime called "The Legend of Vox Machina"
4) The pandemic caused a lot of people to want to find ways to connect with friends and family online, and people discovered you could play D&D online easy enough using computer tools known as "Virtual Tabletops" or "VTT"s for short - Roll 20 is the most popular of these but there a ton of them to choose from
5) Warhammer satisfies the tactical/combat crowd well enough but D&D scratches another itch, which is storytelling - much of the appeal of Tabletop RPGs like D&D is the actual roleplaying aspect - there are some campaigns which feature almost no combat at all - this part of D&D appeals to theater/emo kids a lot more than the hardcore nerds who want to calculate all the damage their Chaos Warrior army can do in one round

I actually just took on a part-time job as a "Professional Gamemaster" at a new store that is opening up here in Northern Virginia/Fairfax called Dragons Concord. The store is focusing less on selling the game materials/books and more on providing a location where people can come in and play a game in a great atmosphere with a curated selection of Gamemasters who are really good at what they do. In case anyone is wondering I have been playing D&D and other tabletop RPG's since I was about 7-8 years old which means I have about 40 years of experience in the hobby. I lived through the satanic panic, the acquisition by Hasbro, and the most recent kerfuffle with the Open Gaming License and I can tell you the game is very healthy today, and most definitely outsells Warhammer (not trying to throw shade on that hobby - I've played a little bit of it as well, it's just not my jam).

[das_boot]

SK, it really is super fun but you HAVE to be able to let go of the meta and just play the character.

So, my new character is a replacement for my previous character who died. My previous character was a monk with points in “spot” and “heal”. We investigated a dead body and my DM was like “okay, roll using spot or heal, whichever is highest”, and basically due to my rolls, I turned about half an hour of our session in to “CSI: swords and sorcery” and it was totally unintentional on anyone’s part, but it did add extra elements to the game. Also, monks are meant to be “lawful good” alignment or lose some of their abilities— but hello it’s me I’m not lawful good… so my DM let me come up with an in game reason for why my actions were lawful good and I explained that my order were basically an order of bastards so I was lawful good by THEIR definition of the term.

Our party is currently two bards, one fighter, one ranger and two wizards— our DM likes us to have a vague idea of the character in personality traits only before rolling for stats, so when I rolled really well for everything other than strength when building my character I kind of felt like bard was the way to go— compared to my monk who I rolled high for dexterity and intelligence; average for strength but terribly for everything else.

The previous group I played in bored me after a while. Everyone wanted us to be super good and I like my characters a bit more morally variable. It really really depends on the GM. Mine has thought nothing of allowing us to build plot on the fly, and after each session we tend to be sent private messages on something our character might have noticed or done individually away from the party, stuff like that. I feel like you need to have someone running the game who has a start and end goal in mind but absolutely flexible on how the party get there

[Anna Raven]

Do we want to set up a new topic thread for our best characters? Or shall we just discuss them here for a bit? Haha

I also love bards. I've played two bards recently, one was a kenku bard (think a little crow-like bird-person who cannot fly, and cannot speak on his own, but can only mimic speech back that he has heard previously). His backstory was that, while most kenku are quite insular, this one had a more adventurous spirit and when his flock was visited by a traveling aarakocra minstrel (an aarakocra is a much larger, much more impressive, eagle-like bird person) - he followed him into the world and became his apprentice. Then when the aarakocra died, he adopted his look with a magic spell, began to mimic his voice and songs, and basically assumed his whole persona. So to the rest of my party and the world, I was playing this charismatic, outlandish bird-person performer, when in actuality, I was really just a meek little unassuming crow-person in disguise.

My current character is also a bard, this one is a BIT more traditional, but while most bards are happy-go-lucky, flamboyant types, my bard is centered around tragedy. I like to think of him as much more Johnny Cash than Freddy Mercury. He's also a multiclassed fighter, so he can throw some mean daggers, but what makes him kind of unique is his tragic backstory, which makes him very self-loathing and a bit of a masochist. For inspiration I adapted the Miller's tale from Chaucer a bit, and said he was originally a carpenter who met a woman on her way to a convent, that he fell in love with while on a sea voyage. This woman and he got along really well, and had amazing chemistry but of course since she was a nun-to-be, she became coy, anytime things got romantic. One night along the voyage though, a horrible storm was brewing, and to distract themselves, the passengers decided to entertain each other with songs and tales. My character sang a song (he was already a bit of a musician even during his carpenter days) that was well received, but the miller on board told a rather bawdy tale about this unfaithful, unchaste woman from his hometown, and it became obvious he was speaking not so subtly about the girl that my character had an eye for (having been spurned by her as well and wanting to "get back at her"). After having her reputation ruined, this poor girl ran off and my character found her at the prow of the boat, ready to throw herself overboard. After an attempt to reach out and pull her back, the ship lurched, and whether she fell or jumped, my character never found out. He gave up on life as a carpenter after that, blaming himself for her death, and has become an old man now, but life has been rough for him. He sings songs of tragedy and the hardships of life, and the fact people love him for those songs makes him hate himself even more. I developed my own subclass for this particular character, The College of the Open Road, and the features are meant to be be able to let him manipulate people emotionally.

Anyone else have any other interesting characters?