OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD: where we complain about popular things in media we don't like to feel better about ourselves

[Booyakasha]

He thought they were a cynical bid to sell merch to kids

Pfffft. I don't think there's much of anything cynically calculatingly put into the original flicks just to sell toys. Compare and contrast to Jar Jar (god, that "you know, he's a funnier character than we've ever had before" Lucas sound bite makes me want to headbutt myself in the face), or the Porgs.

River and Max each got one of those super-nice super-expensive lightsabres when the fam went to Disney a couple years back. My lightsabre when I was a kid was a stick, and now that I'm grown I don't even want a lightsabre, I want a HAVOC STAFF!

[EDIT: Aside from action figures, I have never seen an Ewok toy. I have, in the course of my time at Amazon, seen loads of stuffed Porgs and even a fair bit of Jar Jar merch (to say nothing of the million billion different forms of Baby Smelly Yoda stuff), but no Ewok stuff at all. Perhaps you should advise your brother-in-law that he check himself, lest he by misadventure wriggeddy wriggeddy wreck himself.]

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I just usually hate characters that can't talk. I liked Chewie as a kid, but I think he and the Ewoks kinda suck tbh. I know they wanted to lighten things up but it doesn't do it for me.

[Booyakasha]

I know it doesn't do me any good to get hung up on the physics of super heroes, but I saw a clip of X-Men '97 where Cyclops is fighting a room full of dudes, but he's using his optic blasts to maneuver around, propelling himself backwards. I didn't think he had to deal with equal and opposite forces when he shoots those. It would kinda limit his output to the strength of his neck muscles. I've seen him tear through a bunch of sentinels in one shot, and it didn't remove his head from his shoulders.

Wait, what? Ahahaa what the heck? Like he's the fire brigade trying to control a wayward hose? That is peak dumbness--------Cyclops' optic blasts were always just a laser kind of thing. Otherwise he'd constantly be blasting his shades off his head whenever he was out and about, going to the grocery store or the porno theatre or his Bedwetters Anonymous meeting in incognito Dumb Guy Scott mode. That's just bad continuity with both the old cartoon and the comics.

[Booyakasha]

...how the hell did the Wookiee homeworld come to be called Kashyyyk, anyway? Did the Wookiees name it that? I would not expect anything named by Wookiees to be called anything other than 'RAARRGH AAARGLE BLAARF AARWOOO ARF ARF BLAARRGLR'.

[Booyakasha]

I just usually hate characters that can't talk.

The Ewoks talk plenty. You can hear them chattering constantly. C-3P0 refers to it as 'a very primitive dialect'----------I bet he just wasn't prepared for how many different ways the Ewoks can say 'let's murder everyone and then dance on their graves'. It's their version of all the different Eskimo words for 'snow/ice'.

[CaptHayfever]

^Officially, he's immune to his own force, & the beams don't have recoil (supernerd moment: since his eyes are portals to the concussive-blast dimension, the recoil force just happens backwards through said portal instead of taking action on his body). In the scene, he's pushing against the floor with it, not just blasting himself backwards.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

^...okay. That makes sense.

It's probably still real stupid-looking, but fine. It's a tiny detail surrounding a character I don't care about in a cartoon I haven't seen yet. Let's don't have an aneurysm over trivium, me. (*self-hug*)

(*self-french kiss*)

[Deku Tree]

In the scene, he's pushing against the floor with it, not just blasting himself backwards.

That still doesn't make sense. The floor isn't special, and he doesn't push off of every other target.

I mean, it's not an Ant Man level of nonsense, but still.

[Deku Tree]

River and Max each got one of those super-nice super-expensive lightsabres when the fam went to Disney a couple years back. My lightsabre when I was a kid was a stick, and now that I'm grown I don't even want a lightsabre, I want a HAVOC STAFF!

My best lightsaber was a broken broom thing because it had an adjustable length thing that meant it was telescoping.

[Booyakasha]

Nice.

My stick was also my GI JOE lazer M16, my Ghostbustering proton wand, my Sword of Omens, my Inigo sword, my Leonardo sword and my Excalibur, amongst other stuff. Mom was fine with it--------------like so what if I was flailing at the air and screaming like a dangerous stupid, at least I was getting some fresh air and sunshine, right.

...ahahaa oh man, I just remembered---------we had these crappy white rubber-coated deck chairs on our back patio, and sometimes on nice days I'd sit outside in one whilst holding another by the back, and I'd pretend I was Luke or Han sitting in one of the Falcon's gunnery bays, firing the old quad-cannons at TIE fighters and space crows and Imperial squirrels and anything else that I could see.

[Booyakasha]

Oh man, flip. I had it backwards. The Ewoks didn't join the Rebellion-------------they made the Rebels part of their tribe. Oh, sh*t, man, that's too much. They weren't fighting the Empire because it was the right thing-----------they fought in order to help out and protect their new family. They care. They took the Rebels in like they was stray dogs, and then they fought and bled and died for them. Good old Ewoks.

All so unwashed greasy-haired uber-dorks online can now look down their bulbous noses and say 'pssh ewoks sukc lol :rolleyes' (whilst listening to 'Duel of the Fates' and wearing their Baby Yoda pyjama pants, no doubt). Typical.

[Booyakasha]

...ugh.

How old is Marion at the start of 'Raiders'? The internet tells us she's 25, which would be perfectly acceptible, if not for her decking Indy and yelling 'I've learned to hate you in the last ten years!' and 'I was a child! I was in love! It was wrong and you knew it!'

...the dumbasses who determine this canon crap could very easily have stated Marion was 29--------------that isn't at all out of the question, Karen Allen was actually 29 when 'Raiders' was filming. But no. The world says Marion is 25 as of 'Raiders', and so now I'm forced to assume that, like, best possible scenario, Indy took Marion only to second base when she was nearly fifteen.

Sometimes I really hate people, who are stupid.

(...the comma was intentional)

[EDIT: 'Marion' is not a girls' name. It is a masculine derivate of 'Mary' and 'Marian'. I am not saying you can't name a girl 'Marion' if you wish--------all I'm saying is I'll probably misspell it through no fault of my own.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

Wait, so Indy is canonically a statutory rapist?

[Booyakasha]

I don't know. We don't actually know what happened between them----------Indy says 'you knew what you were doing', so it's impossible for us to pretend it was something innocent like "kid marion carried a torch for indy, indy rejected her, marion got all bitter as a result".

What we can say definitively is that it would have been very easy for them to avoid the entire question by making Marion twenty-nine (like how Karen Allen was). I don't know what madness drives these evil men.

[EDIT: They never once state her age onscreen! They could literally have it be anything, and they deliberately chose her an age that makes Indy a flippin skeeze! Are they literally retarded?

Is this Disney's doing? Why do they destroy everything they touch?

[Booyakasha]

Screw it. I'm going to go watch classic wrestling. Let's all watch wrestling together---------------feats of athleticism! Derring-do! Luchadores! Racist caricatures! Extraordinary idiocy! The Shockmaster!

[EDIT: There's nothing funnier than hearing Bobby The Brain promise to never do anything bad again, just so long as Ric Flair wins the title. It's a ridiculous take on villainy. 'Please, Baby Jesu, let the bad guy win! I'll be your best friend!'

[EDIT2: Man. I love watching wrestlers fight. I always loved how good Piper and Savage were at selling. Like, Piper wasn't the best actor, but he could sell like nobody's business. That's why everyone loves that fight in 'They Live'------------it's so damn dirty, and Piper and Keith David sold it like champs. It feels real.

[Booyakasha]

...so I've tentatively made a promise to go see the new Ghostbusters with my ma, and I'm so not interested.

The new SWs and Ghostbusters and Indiana Joneses and Disney remakes are never a good time. Like, watching 'Poor Things' and that 'Clue' documentary kind of frigged up my steeze-------------the veil has been lifted, I'm sick of watching movies that are just joyless artless money-making endeavours. It's like watching an apple core turn brown.

[Booyakasha]

You know, I'm going to lay it on the line--------------even when a miracle occurs and a Disney remake is good, it's never good enough.

I liked that recent-ish new live-action 'Jungle Book' well enough when I saw it in the theatre, but it was missing most of the songs and several characters, so like why would I ever revisit it? Weak imitation 'Jungle Book' is no substitute for the real thing. Bill Murray's Baloo isn't on par with the Phil Harris version----------it can't even compete with the John Goodman iteration from the smelly straight-to-video sequel. I respect Idris Elba's attempt at Shere Khan, but he's no George Sanders or Tony Jay.

I honestly don't know what Disney is trying to achieve with these live-action remakes. I can't think there's anyone who likes them better than the originals. What did the pathetic new 'Dumbo' accomplish, aside from making people wish they were watching the original, warts and all?

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I'm just glad a lot of these are flopping recently. It should be all of them because they're uniformly terrible with very few outliers. The new Ghostbusters flopped even harder the original reboot, which is pretty good evidence that people are finally getting tired of this Weekend At Bernies-ing of our favorite franchises.

The problem isn't even continuations of franchises though, it's the total lack of respect for the material and audiences. Sequels have always been sort of bemoaned, but often they weren't purely cynical cashgrabs or vehicles for messaging. I remember my dad wasn't a big fan of the Star Wars prequels, like many weren't, but they certainly tried with those movies. Lucas wasn't just cashing in, he was telling a story, people just didn't like it.

[Booyakasha]

...I just don't understand some of this stuff. Like, a lot of people hate on Martin Scorsese for saying these 'cinematic universe' movies barely count as movies, and I get it. It sounds like sour grapes when an old guy like Scorsese criticises 'Avengers' at the same time that he isn't getting near the same box-office as 'Avengers'-------------it's like when Roger Ebert refused to admit the possibility of video games being art. They sound like mean out-of-touch old men yelling at clouds. But on the flipside of that...like, Marvel advertised that there were 38 "main characters" in 'Endgame' as though that were a selling point. How the hell does anyone keep track of 38 main characters? How do you write a compelling narrative around 38 protagonists? That sounds bewildering. For heaven's sake, even Tolkien kept it to nine, or fourteen at most, and that dude loved completely pointless characters.

One of my favourite moments in all of SW is at the start of the lightsabre duel in 'Empire'. Vader and Luke cross swords a couple times, Vader knocks Luke down, Luke gets back up, and he advances half a step, and Vader retreats half a step.The scene is taut, because there are only two characters------------we know Luke intimately because he's the hero, but we can still only conjecture what's going on with Vader because he's flippin scary and all we know is based on circumstantial evidence. Imagine if we had to jump around to 37 other characters, flying around in starfighters or shooting stormtroopers or having lightsabre fights of their own. Or if all 38 main characters were there fighting Vader at the same time. It's jokes, man.

People criticise that 'Transformers' and 'GI JOE' were basically big toy commercials, but evidently they're just fine with 'Avengers' making a billion dollars at the box office. "Oh, but it's different, because it isn't advertising a toy line, it's advertising the next hundred MCU flicks, and also the multiple toy lines!" Whom do you think you're fooling?

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I still think games can be art, some of the best around in fact, but in retrospect I kinda wish Ebert's sentiment resonated with people. I think that kind of thinking keeps out the wrong kind of people, ironically doing the hobby a favor.

I get where Scorsese is coming from. I was never into the MCU, it just never did anything for me like the old standalone Marvel films did, particularly Spiderman. I think crossovers are cool but the MCU is frankly exhausting, it really does seem like a perpetual motion device kinda thing. They exist infinitely just to set up the next one, I can't possibly invest in something that doesn't even pretend to be working towards a conclusion (which may partially be why fan enthusiasm tapered after Endgame).

Speaking of Transformers, another criticism of it (which I shared) was that it was too chaotic, too much action on screen at once. In some of the Marvel films I can't even follow the mess of CGI crashing together, just like Transformers. I think it would be refreshing to see a movie with more conservative use of CGI and shift back to more of a practical effects kinda direction.