What are you reading, watching and/or listening to?

2449

The main gripe , at least i have , is not IF something is done , but how it is done. First of all Ripley from Alien was an original character , she wasnt just put there to appeal to someone. Second she didint outright punch alien to death with her fists. She was smart, resourceful and a compelling character in general. Ellen prevailed against Alien because she used her advantages and that was believable .

Now take forced female representation these days. 50 kgs / 110 pounds girls beating 120 kgs / 250pounds muscular man without breaking a sweat . How is that not retarded.

By all means, make that girl prevail , but put some effort to make it smart and believable. Make her use her brains, smaller size , superior stealth or something.

One of my all time favorite movies - The Descent has all female cast. But it was done smartly. That is what i can’t tell about most of such media today. It became just a tick box for extra revanue and ‘social points’ .

Anyway, i dont have intention to start a riot here :smiley: I’m just really tired of how everything i grew up and love is slowly turned into … shit honestly.

Prey might not be a part of this trend , but the trend is definitely here and rolling.

6 Likes
2450

Agree. Not going to incite more riot, just want to say a thing and if need be, we can move stuff to a big specific thread.

I’m not upset about the milkers making an Avatar live movie in theory, but I was galled at how it was done. Not about ‘representation’ either, the casting choices just seemed disrespectful to me. Leaving that there.

Being ‘woke’ is kinda meaningless when it’s just done to be trendy, instead of making the audience aware of diversity, or even lending to deeper understanding.

Example, idgaf about Albus Dumbledore’s sexuality - it didn’t contribute to the main books and the follow up movies (money grabs): sigh. Weak plot line. Two of the most brilliant wizards of all time, couldn’t find a way to skirt a spell, until it needed to be “Super Easy. Barely an inconvenience.” I’m an actual HP fan and that crap makes me eye twitch.

I agree with :sloth:, it’s much better to get a good script and produce woke stuff, than to take existing things and slap some random head scratchers in there to capitalize on marginalized groups. There’s plenty of writers out there with good scripts and story, but yeah, it’s easy money to piggyback on recognizable franchises.

PS: On the side of writers and script writers everywhere: it’s apparently a thing to have your peeps kinda vague in description, esp. for scripts. If they have an eye-patch and that’s key to story, then fine. Otherwise, eye, hair colour etc, don’t matter.

Don’t fight me! 007 is a designation to a certain type of agent. I don’t recall skin colour being canon (correct me if wrong with evidence from the books, not emotion and not here). James is a mood and we assume colour because English. ><

4 Likes
2451

Yeah 007 is a designation, James Bond however is a character. You can make a movie with an agent 007 being whomever you want them to be, but you can’t call them James Bond. Therein lies the contention that I’ve seen on the topic.

But of course James Bond is the recognizable brand that you’d want to sell your movie under. So selling a movie about an agent 007 the sentient metrosexual newt Andrew Greenhill isn’t going to really get you the Bond franchise audience into movie seats. But then again if you just called that character which has nothing in common with the character of old “James Bond” for this sake alone then we’re teetering on false advertising aren’t we?

To get back on topic though.

2 Likes
2452

Oh, and don’t worry guys. There’s no riot. We can have a conversation, because we’re all friends and we’re not Twitter people, so we can handle it. :rofl:

@DontBeSilly

As for your point about a lot of the forced stuff today, I agree. There’s a great example in Netflix’s movie “Interceptor”. I don’t know if anyone of you have seen it yet, but oh boy, it was something special. I haven’t laughed as hard as I did watching that movie in a very long time (and it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy).

There’s definitely room out there occupied by these examples, but they don’t represent–at least I think–the true majority. I saw people calling Wheel of Time woke not because of the changes, but because it had the Aes Sedai in it (though it was was made woke lol). They didn’t read the books, sure, but I’m just trying to show how the whole “woke” thing has gotten very out of hand. Now it’s not woke when it actually is woke, it’s just woke if there’s POC/minorities/women in it at all. That isn’t how you might see it of course, but it’s sadly how a lot of people do see it. Case in point, poor Prey.

I’ll put a bit of spoilers for the move in here to discuss a bit more of this example, but if you haven’t seen it etc, don’t click in.

Summary

For example, the movie opens explaining to the audience that she has been training to be a hunter almost all her life, and goes out frequently with her brother or on her own. It estabilishes early on that she’s a capable tracker and it even shows us how etc. But people were calling it quits because she was able to understand how the Predator’s helmet worked, as if just being Native American meant she had to be incredibly dumb or something.

They also call her incompetent because of one slip up during her hunt with her brother and the other men, because in the distance she saw red lightning in the trees. That one mistake, even despite all of the stuff she accomplished, make people call her “incompetent”. If it were a guy that did that, that word wouldn’t even cross their minds. lol

By the end of the day, a lot of people using the “woke” thing include any usage of these “no no” people into “woke”. Like with the Dune movie. Changed one character to a female and people called the entire movie woke, when it didn’t matter one way or another if the character was female/male or that they picked this actor because she was good. She was a woman and thus she was picked for “woke material”. xD

And wait, what?! Silly, you’ve seen The Descent? I agree! They did the whole “girl party” thing so well! That movie is great!

5 Likes
2453

As for why might some people claim that Prey is woke, well might have something to do with the marketing because that’s the sort of image they projected from the start. When you get the main actress to go out and say things like
image
And other things on how the movie is about “breaking free from gender stereotypes” and other 2020’s talking points. I wouldn’t blame anyone discarding the whole thing as woke garbage and figuring this wont be a movie they’ll care to see. They might change their mind after trustworthy voices claim it’s decent, or they might not.

However as much as the movie tries to claim how important it is to accurately represent the native tribes and how well it does so, it sure is full of very modern lingo and ideas. Kind of completely ignoring the fact that in 18th century tribal life gender norms were often a result of necessity. Infant mortality is high and women are important for the stability of the population. Men are more expendable and have physical advantages as hunters, so the norms makes sense and everyone have enough on their plate to just make sure the tribe survive the next winter.

Still I don’t think the movie really establishes that there really ARE any particular gender norms, nor any real oppressive adherence to it. Her peers don’t want her out hunting, not explicitly because she’s a women but because she isn’t very good at it. (However I have not seen it, just taking this from the reviews, there maybe other interpretations.)

2 Likes
2454

Um… found somewhere to watch The Descent. So many horror movie cliches. O_o Sorry to say, I didn’t care for any of the characters, no, not even Sarah.

Just IMO

I think the ending where Sarah sees her daughter with the birthday cake right before dying, and was hallunicating her escape, is a better one. It keeps with all the hinting they were doing in the earlier bits of the movie and once again, I didn’t care for her, at all.

PS: I like how they actually made the set, wow! The girls were pretty badass in the last 20 minutes, I mean the actors for them and the creatures were really good!

4 Likes
2455

Oooh which character did you relate to? :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

3 Likes
2456

Another PS

The Descent 2 which is more alternate ending than sequel. Ugh on the cop out ending of this one. Seriously, Rios is a good character.

The Descent 1 - I liked Juno tbh. She was the only one trying to keep everyone alive. Also, wish a mini plotline they tossed into the “sequel” had happened in the first one. In keeping with the canon ending, I see why the director wasn’t interested in making a “second”.

3 Likes
2457

Yup , i have pretty much seen every horror movie out there and Descent is among the best i’ve seen in my many years or horror escapades.

@Fraggles has put it very well. Prey tries to … represent ? a racially diverse woman of 18th century over layer of modern sensibilites which makes no sense in that setting, neither does her actions .

This movie did put ‘woke’ tag on its own forehead beforehand so i dont see it as strange that people viewed is a Predator for Woke Crowd. It sure did give me those vibes from marketing material.

Speaking about good movies with female leads. ’ Everything everywhere all at once ’ is a gem.

5 Likes
2458

I guess, yea, the marketing kinda screwed up with that. lmao what a shame it’s going to convince people not to watch, because its so good and I rank it #2 in the franchise! xD

I do admit the historical accuracy of the Comache culture is not…well…entirely accurate, but it’s not like we can expect Dances With the Wolves on everything (despite its Lakota not being all that accurate). hehe THOUGH THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

Listening to FFXIV music. Endwalker, especially, left such a huge imprint on me. It was so hauntingly beautiful and incredible, in every way. The writing, the story, the message, the characters, the sacrifices…

I’m so glad they put Yoshi-P and his crew at helm of a singular FF title. It is going to be so amazing, I just know it. Because Endwalker was high-tier story telling and if that can be done on an MMO, imagine what this team can achieve with the budget of a single player entry of a beloved franchise?

(long version of the song btw)

3 Likes
2459

Speaking of Woke garbage, almost curious to watch this just to see how bad it has got to be to get everyone to agree it’s trash. Might be a really important movie, it’s rare that everyone can come together as one like this, might remind us what we’ve lost through this endless bickering and picking of sides.

2 Likes
2460

Goes without saying and I’m sure I’m late for this whilst having a unnecessary panic for everyone here but I honestly think the best policy is just to be quiet about it. I’d just let it die and not give it more attention than necessary. Let’s face it, without the LGBTQIA+ elements and I assume heavy handed and badly handled commentary, from what I understand, it’d be a subpar horror film at its core. Its not going to cause a moral decline or something that drastic when the movie itself is not seen in high regard anyway. Its no better than when Agony and Hatred got a ton of folks talking when in reality it was also subpar really.

4 Likes
2461

MUSIC’S GOT ME FEELING SO FREE, WE’RE GONNA CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE AND DANCE SO FREE

ONE MORE TIME~

5 Likes
2462

Despite being super heavy ( at least from view point of non metal listeners i’d assume ) this is still pretty catchy song actually. Also very technical.

3 Likes
2463

Loving the instruments and how not human the playing is, eheh. Amazing skill. Too much doctor-y stuff in here for me to watch more. >< Had enough of that kind of thing for the year. Myrr.

Great share nonetheless.

4 Likes
2464

Of course since today is a special day I’ll be listening to this:

4 Likes
2465

Found this song just astonishingly beautiful.

Encountered it as the OP for the anime Deaimon, which is a nice little lighthearted comedy slice of life affair. Also interesting because it’s in what I believe to be the Kyoto variant of kansai-ben, a rather different dialect to what you usually hear in anime.

2 Likes
2466

I’ve finally been able to sit down and read Wheel of Time more, now that I have the full set and everything. Just got done re-reading book 3. Wow! I can’t wait to see how the rest unfolds!

Also, listening to tons of music of course!

(yes…I am listening to LoL music! xD)

3 Likes
2467

Been almost 25 years, but book 3 and 4 of WoT really hooked me into reading.

3 Likes
2468

I thought it was fun to listen to. But little did I know that the comments were where the fun began.

It’s over Anakin! I have the dance floor!

Anakin Moonwalker

Also Han Dance Solo

Staying Alive, you are.

Episode 1: The Funky Menace
Episode 2: Attack of the Soul
Episode 3: Revenge of the Synth
Episode 4: A New Beat
Episode 5: The Empire Boogies Back
Episode 6: Return of the Diva
Episode 7: The Groove Awakens
Episode 8: The Last Afro
Episode 9: The Rise of Skateroller

3 Likes