You’re not allowed on the internet period if you aren’t complaining about the Star Wars Prequels.
The first season of Dark Angel was really really good. In the second season the tone of the show completely shifted. It became much less dark and gritty. It sort of became a “creature of they week” type show, and several episodes were devoted to ham-fisted attempts at comparing tolerance towards genetically engineered super soldiers to tolerance towards different races. This has been done a lot in sci-fi, it’s been done better, and frankly it didn’t really fit with what was actually going on in the show.
Thanks, you’ve just suggested my entry to the thread. I’m going to say it, I find Andie MacDowell gorgeous, but moreover, I thought her performances in Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Groundhog Day were great.
I liked both the first Starship Troopers film and the book. The film is really good on its own merits, it only falls short as an adaption of the book.
The Starwars prequels, and especially Episode One.
Jar-Jar Binks was my favourite character. Sure, the character was annoying, but all the other characters found him annoying too. He changes the atmosphere and pacing in a good direction.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Seriously, I consider it the best American animated series running at the moment.
I have found that many works are especially easy to accept if you look at them through a certain lens (whether or not this lens is intended by the creator varies, obviously).
ie: A common complaint of the Star Wars prequels is the general attitude and behavior of Anakin Skywalker. Evidently his behavior is actually quite consistent with someone who is suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, which certainly must not have done him any favors given what all was going on for him on a personal, political, and galactic level in those films.
As far as the Starship Troopers films, they work best if you watch them as films produced in-universe, and thus embrace the Unreliable Narrator fully. They’re really fun to read between the lines on (especially the third film) and try to infer details that you aren’t given (that’s actually pretty much the entire point of the B-Plot about the peace activists in the third film, we only even see that one via the newscasts, which are yet another layer of film-within-a-film and unreliable narrator).
But yeah, enough of that.
I also enjoyed the Wing Commander movie. Watched it twice in theaters, bought and read the novelization (which is actually much better than the movie; its merits include not having the entire traitor plot removed like they did for the film). Now own the film on DVD.
I blush to admit I, a grown woman, watched Pokemon on tv with the kids because I had a RAGING crush on James of Team Rocket. Raging. :o In the real world: too many Bobby Hills, not enough hot anime dudes!
I also like the Matrix sequels. By the middle of the second movie, I decided that I would forget about the quasi-religious philosophy of the movies and just treat it as an action kung fu movie. Enjoyed it much more that way
I liked the Short Circuit movies (even the second one!) and the Bill & Ted movies (ESPECIALLY the second one!) and I even like the dumb tween Disney made-for-TV movies when my kids are hogging the remote. I liked Johnny Tsunami, even watched it twice.
I encourage my four year old daughter to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic so that I can watch it too. It really is quite a good little show!
All right, I’m going to admit it. I like watching the Star Wars Clone Wars 3D cartoon. The animation is really cool.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a good show, but it’s so incredibly bizarre it intrigues me. It’s clearly marketed towards children, and every episode begins with a written moral, like an Aesop’s Fable. But this moral is always based on insane Jedi philosophy, so the messages come out fairly radical. The entire point of one episode was pretty much that pacifists are selfish and retarded. But what do you expect from a religious monastic order that employs child soldiers?
Then you have the hero of this children’s show. He’s Darth Vader! Based on the timeline of the series, Anakin has already admitted to killing defenseless children. An act he will later repeat. Then he becomes horribly disfigured, then he spends three movies committing genocide and torturing people. His darkness is even explored on the show. He tortures a prisoner for information while his Vader music plays. Other Jedi even note that Anakin is quick to kill rather than negotiate and that he seems to enjoy himself an awful lot during combat. But 90% of the time on the show, he’s the good guy, they guy you’re supposed to be rooting for and learning lessons from.
Then there is the ethics of the clone soldiers the heroes lead. In one episode, a clone defector his hauled away to prison by the heroes screaming, “We (the clones) are nothing but slaves to you! You don’t give us a choice! You force us to fight in a war we have no stake in!” The heroes shake their heads in disgust and wonder what went wrong with him. Oh there’s also a deformed clone. They use him as a janitor. Seriously.
I suppose it all makes sense because they are fighting a war to further the motives of a power hungry wannabe dictator. You just don’t see that many shows aimed towards children where the protagonists are pretty much the villains.
Hey, Paradise by the Dashboard Light is an awesome song.
Anyway, Stepbrothers was basically nothing more than a big excuse for John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell to act like a couple of dumbasses. But if I see it while flipping through the channels, I’ll stop and watch. And I’ll laugh my ass off the whole time.
