Reviews
Obliterated, a TV series on Netflix made me wonder early on as the presentation image used on the platform to represent the show has several people walking forward confidently, but several of them ultimately have nothing to do with the actual show? Why is that, what is going on? Anyway, as far as the series goes, even six episodes in it is still largely funny, being a kind of parody of action shows. The whole idea of most or all of the team being blown out of their minds on drugs while doing everything is a lot of fun. The gratuitous nudity is very gratuitous at times, yet they actually use it as a vehicle for moving the plot forward while other times for absolute humor, especially when it’s a guy’s penis showing. Oh yes, equal opportunity gratuity here! Overall, I think the show is pretty amusing and worth a watch.
It’s been a long while since I read the book series Uglies, but the Netflix movie, presumably for the first book, kind of keeps true as best I recall. And despite today’s abilities for CGI and special effects the movie is just bland. They waited a long time to make a movie based on the book so now it will be judged against countless other dystopian books and movies, and these days you have to stand out. And nothing about this movie stands out really; even one little aspect that might have been cool using the hoverboards, they still rely on metal, giving a weird mix of “here is future technology” versus “let’s give a super limited use-case with technology that is just as hard to explain“. The producers could have invested more on the CGI to really bring that scene home, to make it feel like you were there, but it felt more like scaled back cheap CGI at best. So it’s barely even eye candy at best. While I don’t remember if the book was quite so shallow, ignoring that the gist of the book was literally about being shallow, the movie offers a scene where Tally says “You don’t have to trust me. You just have to follow me…”, which duh? That is literally having to trust her to follow her. This is pretty clearly the most insipid, ignorant bullshit of a story line, yet that is what Netflix is passing off as their rendition of a book these days. And if the book actually said that back then, then, yeah, I should not have been half as impressed with the book as I was at the time.
Unpopular opinion: While The Mandalorian is a great show, it is making cults popular. Think about it! The Mandalorians have these ridiculous requirements with always wearing their helmet and they cannot show their face, even if eating or to each other. If you take your helmet off, you’re no longer one of them. But wait, if you do this impossible thing you’re back and you’re one of them again and the person that tells you this is someone who was not really the leader? Because the leader is supposed to be someone who wields a dark saber. But they have to win it in a specific way. And if someone else wins the Darksaber they can’t give it away to that other person who’s supposed to be leader. At least not in season two but in season three, they can do just that. Then you may join our ancestors. Sounds cultish to me.
General Thoughts
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – One thing TV shows tend to get wrong, in my opinion, when they try to be more progressive around race is that black males always seem to have a more traditional black hair that is short and curly. The Rings of Power includes black elves that live in this world born out of fantasy and imagination. Yet, many have short black curly hair. Why don’t you either show the occasional white elf with short curly hair, or give the black elf long flowing black hair like Elron’s? Elves have an affinity for nature and are magical, why not give slight green tints? It’s fantasy with swords and magic and dragons … and you can’t make a black elf’s hair more in line with other elves?
If you ever doubt the power that the tobacco lobby has, consider that in 2023 when a South Korean TV series called Black Knight aired. During episode five of the first season, the only warnings that display before it starts are “Smoking” and “Violence”. Think about that… that’s what the a central body deemed important to warn viewers about, and what writers and producers decided would attract the audience? Or they were willing to change the story to include more smoking perhaps? I ask because I believe the show is based on a comic series, which tend to be geared toward younger people. Also, it’s a dystopian setting where the entire premise is that oxygen is so scarce that couriers have to deliver oxygen to remote villages and towns. Yet, people smoke including the couriers who are delivering trucks full of oxygen. So, is smoking that cool? More so than sex or drugs or anything else that would require a warning? Or is the tobacco lobby wielding enough money to create this scenario? Either way it is off-putting.