As mentioned in another thread, I’ve been inventorying my comics prepatory to selling them. In the process I’ve been reading over a lot of them, particularly Legion of Super-Heroes, and I’ve been struck by the obvious (to any DC comics fan) similarity of the Emerald Eye of Ekron to a Green Lantern power ring. Both use quasi-mystical green energy to perform a variety of effects, ranging from creating solid constructs to healing the dying. Of course they have different vulnerabilities (Kryptonite for the Eye, the color yellow for GL rings)–yet they are so similar one would think there would be a connection. That said, I can’t recall a single tale that suggests such. I can think of a simple one: the Emerald Eye as drawing its power from the Starheart (which empowered the Golden Age Green Lantern.)
What other plot/characterization opportunities, obvious but for some strange rather never followed upon, can you think of?
It’s always surprised me that Robert Jordan, in his The Wheel of Time series, has never involved outer space or the moon. Especially since there are several references earlier in the series about half-forgotten legends of people going to the moon or the stars, I always expected a character (or group of characters) to return from the moon or appear from outer space, but it’s just been completely dropped as a plot point.
Okay, go ahead and laugh at me, but I spent money to see the recent Walking Tall remake, with The Rock. So shoot me, I like the guy. I don’t see any reason to do spoiler boxes here, but I will anyway in case anybody’s horribly worried about spoiling the end of the action there.
So, it’s the big climax of the movie. The Rock has chased Fred from Scooby Doo to the abandoned factory (maybe a lumber mill or something, I forget). The factory is full of conveyor belts, saws, factory stuff. Inside the factory is a meth lab! It could blow up! So, instead of having a goofy set-piece fight like you expect, like they set up for, they run outside and do it in the woods. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was.
Okay, go ahead and laugh at me, but I spent money to see the recent Walking Tall remake, with The Rock. So shoot me, I like the guy. I don’t see any reason to do spoiler boxes here, but I will anyway in case anybody’s horribly worried about spoiling the end of the action there.
So, it’s the big climax of the movie. The Rock has chased Fred from Scooby Doo to the abandoned factory (maybe a lumber mill or something, I forget). The factory is full of conveyor belts, saws, factory stuff. Inside the factory is a meth lab! It could blow up! So, instead of having a goofy set-piece fight like you expect, like they set up for, they run outside and do it in the woods. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was.
In Stephen King’s It (probably the worst novel he has ever written – he left off the “S” and the “H”) –
at one point, the heroes figure out that what they are fighting is the same sort of creature as the “talus” of Tibetan mythology. If you meet a talus, you extend your tongue, the talus extends his, and each of you bites the other’s tongue. Then you both tell jokes (presumably by telepathy). The first one to laugh loses and dies. Having set that up, I expected that when they finally confronted Pennywise the Dancing Clown in his lair, they would exchange jokes of philosophical and cosmic significance, and the result would be something worthy of a Pulitzer or even a Nobel prize for literature. But, no! One of them simply tears the monster’s heart out of its chest! I mean, fucking Rambo could have done that!
The “Caretaker,” from Star Trek: Voyager. He was the big inconsiderate alien being who brought Voyager to the Deltra Quadrant in the pilot, then croaked. They later introduced his former mate, a similar being doing similar things, who claimed she thought Voyager killed Caretaker, then stole his corpse back, and vanished.
I had kinda thought that they might bring her up again in or near the series finale, having the vengeful all-powerful alien trying to impede Voyager’s return home, or something. Y’know, to really bring the story full-circle.
Nope. Not a thing. I guess the Caretaker’s mate slipped in the shower and broke her neck offscreen during season 5, or something.
During the Emerald Vi arc, one of the time-lost Legionaires (Brainie, maybe? My copy’s not convenient, ATM.) and Kyle are talking. Kyle says, exasperated, and clearly annoyed by being asked again, something like ‘No, I’ve never heard of the Emerald Eye.’
In various Legion incarnations, however, the Emerald Eye of Ekron was linked to the Luck Lords (weird aliens with giant eyeballs as heads), and later discovered that there were a pair of Emerald Eyes (logically enough). So the Emerald Eye did get some obvious plot development.
It was an episode of “Night Court.” I was never a huge fan, but it was on after “Cheers,” so we watched it fairly regularly.
The judge (Harry Anderson) had had his eyes dilated for whatever that eye test is that requires dilating one’s eyes. As a result, he was wearing very dark glasses the entire episode, and even with them he basically couldn’t see; the episode revolved around the comedy in his being unable to see. “Blind,” you might even say.
And in the entire episode, there was not one single joke using the phrase “blind justice.”
In the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the episode “Chosen,” I was pretty disappointed with some of the outcomes of the final battle.
[spoiler]Robin Wood survived, which I was fine with, but it would have been much more dramatic if he had sacrificed himself to save Spike, who he hated because Spike killed his mother back in the '70s. Wood had tried to kill Spike earlier in season 7, but Spike gained the upper hand and let Wood live, because he had changed (he had a soul, and was trying hard to be a good guy. Had Wood learned from this and taken a mortal wound to protect Spike, it would have been one of the great moments of the entire series.
Anya died, sacrificing herself to save Andrew. This seemed like a waste to me, when she should have given her life to save Xander. They had been through so much together over the years, a tumultuous couple for many years until he left her at the altar. It would have been a final, uncharacteristically selfless gesture from the usually self-interested Anya, and it would have shown that she still cared about Xander, owed her humanity to him, and forgave him.[/spoiler]
A few episodes before the finale, Xander REALLY should have been killed in the battle with Caleb, but they wussed out and let him live (which didn’t bother me because I like the character). But to show the villain as a real threat, it would have been another classic Joss Whedon moment to have had Xander die in that scene.