NottTheBrave

Went and saw Aladdin (2019) last night. There was a lot of stuff in it that I really liked, and a lot of things I didn't. A bit of a blanket statement, so how bout I break it down? The good: -most of the cast. Everyone is pretty darn great actually. The three main leads in Mena, Naomi, and Will in particular are just fantastic. Will and Mena have great chemistry together and are hilarious, and Naomi Scott is as wonderful as ever. -some of the music. Arabian Nights, friend like me, prince Ali (the clip doesn't do it justice), and speechless are really enjoyable, and have suitably great direction accompanying them. -the changes to Jafars backstory to make him more of a foil to Aladdin. -abu and the magic carpet are pretty great, managing to maintain their animated spirits. Now let's talk about the bad. -Jafar. Okay, so while I liked the ideas behind him, holy crap was this actor just... bad. He overdoes it WAY too much. Jafar is a guy of subtlety. When he's not grinding his teeth into oblivion, he's cartoonishly laughing like a maniac. It doesn't really work. At all. -the other songs. One Jump Ahead is abysmal. Not necessarily the singing, but the staging is just soooo bad. Not to mention they must have miss timed something, because there's a stretch of it where the entire movie is set at 1.5 times speed and it looks so weird. The movie is moving like someone pressed fast forward but the audio is normal. Mena also... he can't sell the lip syncing I know they do on the set. Naomi always looks like she's singing, even when you know that's not how they film these things. Mena is noticeably different in that it's always incredibly obvious his singing was added in post, and it's a bit distracting. -a whole new world flops. It's not the vocal performance, which I actually found to be quite decent. It's the visual aspect. The CG of the magic carpet ride is just so bad. It's a dark blurry mess, and the whole sequence just kind of meanders as you watch two people sing in front of a green screen. -The Horny Genie. This is the weirdest one. While genies relationship with the new handmaiden for Jasmine leads to some of the funniest interactions, it's also super uncomfortable for a reason I can't place. Oh, maybe it's cause I don't want to picture genie being super horny and wanting to get laid. That aspect is so incredibly unnecessary it's unbelievable. Overall I think it's the best of the live-action remakes I've seen. Still doesn't come close to topping the original, but it's a decent enough time. The theater I was in got REALLY into the movie, so it sure seems like a crowd pleaser that'll do very well in the coming weeks. First time in years I went to a movie that ended up selling out because people wandered in, as opposed to selling out online in advance.

They couldn’t even keep to the idea that their forces were depleted. They kept spawning in new soldiers constantly. Not only that, but it really made the focus in season 7 of “we need cersei’s aid to fight!” Seem meaningless when they steamroll both the white walkers, and cersei’s Army. And yes, I’m counting it as a steam roll. Barely any main cast casualties in the fight against the night king, or even otherwise against Cersei, counts as a major victory for the heroes. If the only ones dying are nameless extras and C-tier main cast who most people would find expendable, your battles don’t have a lot of weight anymore.

Just finished part 2 of Words of Radiance. Hot damnation! What a stretch those last few chapters were. Absolutely glued me to the couch. I love the interludes, but I'm glad this next batch is really short. I need to know what happens next!

I just wanted to chime in here. I'm really excited to start this series! I bought book one today. Can't wait to get into it soon! Think I'm gonna finish WoR first, than jump in!

It really is quite strange how this entire final season felt so easy. They skated by killing only the barest minumum of characters, both in the war for the throne, and the war against the white walkers. The battle for winter fell especially shocked me with how few casualties it actually had, and how little bearing the fight had on the remaining three episodes.

I'm really annoyed with this ending. Outside of Dany, the whole thing felt like Disney stepped in. It was shockingly happy for basically everyone except Dany, which made her arc feel even weirder and unnecessary honestly. There was absolutely no consequence to her dying. Jon gets off Scott free with his plot armor, the unsullied sail away to eunuch island, the dothraki... holy crap how are they still around? There's no turmoil, no betrayal... it was such an easy ending for everybody. Even the damnation dragon just flies away and is apparently fine. Although him carrying her body away was super awkward. I don't really want to picture drogon eating Dany, but okay then. They might as well have had Jon talk sense into Dany, have her burn the throne as the cause of all this madness, then fly away together to be rid of the political nonsense she's not cut out for and he doesn't like. Then we'd have really got the full Disney ending, and less people would have been mad. And we wouldn't have had to deal with the trite "man kills woman in loving embrace" trope. Not that I think that ending would have been good either, but with the way it ended, it only felt like they made Dany go mad just so that they wouldn't have a 100% happy ending for the sake of it.

I've made significant progress on my book this past week! I've almost fully outlined it, and I'm so excited about it! A little terrified of how much work I have to do on it though!

The idea of living till the end of the world, and outliving everyone that I love, terrifies me.

Something something I win.

*Wins way any*

Did I win?

As someone who is only about 200 pages into WoR, his progress has me super excited! I frankly love that he's so dedicated to actually writing and getting his books out. I bought TWoK back before Oathbringer was out (although it was like a month from release). When I first heard it was going to be a ten book series, and only the first two were out, I was tempted to just put it down, thinking "great, another series that'll start well then I'll never hear from it again for over a decade." Oathbringer released right after, and I actually did my research on Brandon. The guy is a creative machine, and it inspires the heck out of me. He's got a hell of a work ethic. If the series I'm working on is ever published, I hope to deliver the way Brandon does. Even if it's not Stormlight, there's something every year from the man! Fantastic stuff.

I recently joined up too! This place is super friendly, you won't find it hard to jump in and post. Have a good time!

Really looking forward to this game! I have the Collectors edition pre-ordered from Gamestop. So glad to have the series on a home console again!

I fully agree. I love the costumes, and am still tempted to buy things like the funko pops or mcfarlane figures simply because I've loved the casting, and the costuming, for the characters. If I ever meet any of the cast members, I'd still have them sign photos from the show simply because there's just so many iconic shots and outfits. They're great!

I like the new Aladdin guy. I could see him maybe being Adolin, or Kaladin, or Renarin... assuming his performance is good. I don't really have any interest in seeing that remake so I guess I won't know. I've always read most of the characters as a middle eastern type look to them. Shallan has looked like Jane Levy since I've seen all the art people have drawn of her. It's always been difficult to link faces of actors to stormlight, and I have such clear visions of them in my head. I don't even know where to start. I will say that Diego Luna is FAR to old to be Kaladin though, even though he's one of my favorite actors. I still giggle that Cassian is supposed to be 26 in R1, and Jyn 19. I could maybe see him as Lirin in Kal's flashbacks though. Oscar Isaac has so much of the look I picture when reading Gavilar.

Up to the first batch of interludes in Words of Radiance. So around page 180 or 190 right now. I'm loving it! Really dug that first interlude especially.

Even with the problems in the writing department, the production is still so astounding, even breathtaking. They're going to win many Emmy's for this season, despite peoples disappointment. So much great work was done on GoT the past decade.

For sure. I dropped Octopath when I found out the journey didn't really go anywhere either. Eight stories and they never once really intersect in any meaningful way. I was pretty disappointed in that.

So far all I've read has been Way of Kings. I finished it just yesterday, and knew I had something special on my hands. I have the mist born trilogy as well, and I've read maybe a quarter of the first book. I've put it down to work on SA, but I enjoyed what I read of that as well. I'm reading WoR now, and after I finish that, I think I'm going to work on Mistborn before jumping into Oathbringer. It seems like a daunting task for me. I used to be an avid reader, but as I got older, I read significantly less. Some years would go by without reading a single book for me. The last few years I've done a lot more reading, but these books are among the biggest I've ever read. It feels like a far cry from when I was in high school and read Clash of Kings in a week.

Cookies might be amazing, but what about fluffernutter?

That used to happen to me all the time. I read so much in grade school, I'd constantly have my book out instead of listening to whatever the lesson was, it got me in trouble a lot. I wish I had kept up with reading as often as I used to. By high school it was just a psp, DS, or phone instead of a book.

I was browsing barnes and noble one day, as I tend to do. I was looking through the fantasy section, and I just had this itch to grab a big fat fantasy novel. Way of Kings was big and fat, and had a cool cover, so I bought it. Lol. I wish there was a more in depth story, like I had read some review, or someone threw it at me, but nope. Just randomly picked it up, took it home, and now I'm here.

Days Gone, and grinding a bit in Gears 4. That'll probably lessen, as I've just gotten pretty bored of doing menial tasks in video games for the sake of it. I'd rather read a book than spend six hour playing multiplayer to get my EXP bar up further to re-up and then do the process over again. I don't mind some multiplayer occasionally, and story based games are always a must for me, but man, the repetitive "give your life to this game to get the bare minimum out of it" trend that the industry has pushed towards lately has really turned me off.

Words of Radiance for me! Up to chapter five already.