What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him]

That's what I said! That's why you need to watch the extended edtions!

[leinton]

As I said before, Galadrial's gift to Frodo IS in the non extended version of the movies. None of the other gifts are, but his is. It's done in a flashback, though, while they are leaving Lothlorien.

[Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him]

I am sorry Leinton, but you are wrong. In the extended editions, ALL of the gifts are shown being given through flashback. In the theatrical release, NONE of the gifts are shown, not even Frodo's. In The Return of the King, you hear Galadriel's voice as Frodo pulls it out, just so you know where he got it.

Silus, am I right?

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I dunno, I haven't seen it yet! I'm only two chapters into the book of Return of the King!

The Two Towers should get here from netflix any day now, so I'll see how it works out.

I saw Tangled this weekend and it was really good!

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I saw Tangled last week, I loved the scene with them on the boat.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Tangled is so adorable. I just rewatched the first part of Chicago tonight, and last weekend I finally watched Inglourious Basterds with my family. Awesome movies!

[leinton]

I am sorry Leinton, but you are wrong. In the extended editions, ALL of the gifts are shown being given through flashback. In the theatrical release, NONE of the gifts are shown, not even Frodo's. In The Return of the King, you hear Galadriel's voice as Frodo pulls it out, just so you know where he got it.

Silus, am I right?

Nope, just found it in the not extended edition. The scene starts at about 2:25:19, and you can check it on Netflix if you want. I think it's the only one of the movies that you can stream. The line is different than in the extended version I think, though.

[Zayde he/him]

I can also confirm it being in the non-extended versions of the movie. Since I've seen it like a hundred billion times. It's there.

[leinton]

I can also confirm it being in the non-extended versions of the movie. Since I've seen it like a hundred billion times. It's there.

Exactly why I knew it. XD Pretty sure I have Fellowship of the Ring memorized.

[SOM1else he/him]

I went and bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 today actually I guess yesterday. and am watching the special features right now.

[leinton]

Ooh, it's already out? Sweet!

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

My dad got it for less than five bucks at walmart today. He had a ten dollar gift card and they were having a sale. We haven't watched it yet, though.

[SOM1else he/him]

Yeah it was pretty cheap at Wal-Mart, If you get it on Blu-Ray make sure to watch the Maximum Movie Mode. It's like a commentary but instead of people talking with the movie playing in the background It stops the movie at certain points and cuts out showing how a lot of stuff was done in making the movie.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

I just watched The Social Network (the facebook movie) over the weekend. Excellent. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone. Really awesome movie.

[SOM1else he/him]

If any of you guys watch the big bang theory you have to see this video, it is so funny

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Okay, did anyone ever watch the show Code: Lyoko? I absolutely love that show! Last summer, I watched all 96 episodes over the course of a week. It's so awesome!

[Emeralis00 she/her]

Okay, did anyone ever watch the show Code: Lyoko? I absolutely love that show! Last summer, I watched all 96 episodes over the course of a week. It's so awesome!

I have. My cousin and I would watch it a lot. Of course, we never got to see all episodes, so that has been on my list of Things To watch.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I used to watch Code Lyoko, though never consistently. I suppose that should go on my Things To Watch list, too.

[Chaos he/him]

I saw Thor today and enjoyed myself. It was standard comic movie fair, but it worked well enough.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I've started watching the fifth season of Doctor Who again. Matt Smith and Steven Moffat make the best combination.

[Chaos he/him]

Saw Priest. My intelligence has been insulted.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I really expected as much. Care to elaborate?

Saw Megamind today. Gotta say I really didn't expect the movie to be like this. I was expecting it to be a rather derivative, though entertaining superhero romp, but it actually became a highly entertaining, with some real laugh out loud moments, character study. Great stuff.

[Chaos he/him]

I really expected as much. Care to elaborate?

Saw Megamind today. Gotta say I really didn't expect the movie to be like this. I was expecting it to be a rather derivative, though entertaining superhero romp, but it actually became a highly entertaining, with some real laugh out loud moments, character study. Great stuff.

Well, religious people shouldn't see this movie. You will be offended. Heck, I'm offended anyways.

The plot is stupid, because there is no rational reason why the abducted girl needs to stay alive. The dialogue is lame. The setting could go so many more interesting places than this movie.

Karl Urban is less lame in this movie. He makes a great villain, which would be good if the writing did not suck. The actors did what they could.

Basically the whole movie insulted my intelligence, thematically, character-wise, story-wise, setting-wise, dialogue... you get the picture. Everything that makes a story good is absent from this movie. Even the action scenes weren't memorable, and sometimes offended my intelligence. There are so many reasons why I hated it that it's hard to distill it down. I guess you could just say, "was dumb, waste of money, and 3D wasn't even a gimmick, just nonexistent."

Only reason I even went because I got to hang with a friend who I hadn't seen in a while. You, however, should not see this movie even if it was free.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I was never intending to anyway, so I'm in a good spot. Why would you say don't see it if you're religious, specifically? I'm used to having religion in film suck, and by the very nature of this movie (I mean look at the title), I would expect it. Does anything set it apart in that regard?

[Chaos he/him]

Well, let me give you the quick rundown of what the backstory to the movie is. Humans and vampires fought forever, even with incredibly modern weapons. People started living in walled cities under the Church's protection. Then the Priests arrived and started kicking vampire butt. (I was never entirely clear what their special powers were. It wasn't even obvious. I guess he's good with cross-shaped shurikens, but really, it just seemed like an excuse to have some "cool" action scenes. Why they would be more effective than, say, machine guns is beyond me.) Vampire war is won and they are forced onto reservations, and the Priests are disbanded.

So, the setting is basically a Church controlled dystopia written by someone who doesn't understand religion at all. Oh gosh, what was the line they kept using? "If you reject the Church, you reject God." This isn't quite the line--I think they used a different word than "reject"--but you get the idea. By the fifth time they said this, I was rolling my eyes. The Church completely ignores some vampires breaking free from the reservations (guards are useless, I guess) and act as stupid as you'd expect cliched dystopian leaders to be.

Our main character Priest (they apparently don't get names) disobeys the Church to go rescue his niece, who was captured by vampires. We have a scene of Priest praying, saying that he didn't want to offend God. Fun fact: the girl is actually his daughter!!!!1! (Super great plot twist, except it doesn't matter, and I don't care) So in retrospect the movie seems a lot like revenge-fueled vampire kill-fest.

So, to review:

• The Church thought the most efficient way of controlling the masses was to say "Church is God" in literally every scene that we are in the Church-controlled cities. I don't know about you, but I think people would catch on that the Church is obviously evil. Hell, the Lord Ruler did a better job than this Church.
  
• There is no reason to even bring up this conflict of faith with the main character, because it doesn't matter.
  
• I'm not sure how the writer managed it, but when you say "Warrior Priest" to me, that sounds like the natural story involves a conflict of faith/tolerance vs. violence. This never appears in the movie at all.
  
• The Church is worldbuilt very poorly. We have a ton of cross-related imagery, so are they Christians? No, clearly not. Christ isn't mentioned, and there is no actual references to the Bible referring to, you know, good things. There wasn't any scripture quoted in this movie at all. So while you have places named Jericho, I couldn't for a second believe that this Church evolved naturally.
  
• There is no character where religion helps someone and they actually do good things. Sure, Priest kills vampires, and they are obviously evil, so that is good, I guess? Except for the fact that it's referenced in the movie that Priest enjoys the killing. It happens in one scene and then that crucial character point never matters.

So yeah, I get pissed off when religion is the obvious straw man. That by itself is a mortal storytelling sin, but you know what else is worse? When religion doesn't even matter in the endgame.

Karl Urban had a line of dialogue that seemed reminiscent of a smart movie with smart conflicts. He's a human vampire (not to be confused with humans who are bitten by vampires--those are Infected), and the villain. But yeah, he said "I've looked into the soul of the vampire, and saw that it is more pure than any of ours." Now doesn't that suggest an awesome movie? It would, but like most of the dialogue in this movie, it is totally inconsequential.

It was based off of some Korean comic book, and I think, judging by lines like that, the comic is much less stupid and attacks these conflicts head-on. Still, from what I saw, the worldbuilding was lame.

You know what would be a better movie? One of those eternal vampire wars, only with lots of guns. They showed this in the opening (animated) narration, and that seemed like a much more awesome movie than anything we got.