Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

It's Asexual Awareness Week, so a friendly shout out to our members who identify as Ace!

Jodie Whittaker's 13th Doctor will not have a companion in the forthcoming Season 11, she'll have three!

At 57, Bradley Walsh will become the oldest actor to be cast as a recurring Companion, with Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill being distinctly more on the youth side of the spectrum. There has been some whining from the usual portion of fans about how it's "too PC" with a white female Doctor being joined by an older white male, a young black guy and a young Asian woman, but let's leave them to their own devices. It's also a little early to judge, since the show will have a new format (10x1 hour episodes, instead of 13x45 minute ones), and a possible season long story rather than be purely episodic, and we have no idea how these three will interact with the Dcotor ("Are they all companions all the time?" being the most obvious question)... so many questions! :)

Even though a lesser man might have felt making a mess of expressing actual human emotions when speaking to the bereaved families of fallen soldiers was a full time job, the Mangled Apricot Hellbeast is also finding time to take credit for releasing a wodge of documents relating to the JFK assassination later this week, despite the fact he doesn't have much say in the matter as Congress decreed they would be released on this date back in 1992. (Still, they might make for some interesting reading, especially for conspiracy theorists.)

The revelations of sexual predations by senior figures in the entertainment business for several decades continues (To the apparent surprise of nobody other than entertainment journalists), as well it should, with even Sir Tom Jones referencing being sexually propositioned by a record executive early in his career, which he was in a position to turn down safely, and pondering how many others were not so fortunate.

Star Trek: Discovery has been renewed for a second season.

Xi Jingpin has consolidated his hold on the Chinese Communist Party and has been elevated to the same level of authority as Mao Zedong was with his approach "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era" being elevated to the status of "Thought" rather than a mere "Ideology".

LEGO Dimensions is officially finished, with no new characters or sets being released, so any vague remaining hopes that it might get it's originally planned third year are over and done with. Sigh... :( Hopefully, we now won't be tantalised with glimpses of the Year Three product the way that Disney Infinity Fans are STILL facing thanks to the sterling efforts of Disney Infiniteer who has even gotten hold of some concept work for Disney Infinity 5.0!! (Which would have been "Steamboat Willie")

Comments

[lizard_of_aus]

Alas, poor Lego Dimensions.

I last thee to rest, along with my hopes and dreams for a Steven Universe set.

[capnduckman]

I KNOW, RIGHT?

This last wave, Beetlejuce, power puff, adventure time, Teen titans, I was sure we'd get a steven... So much sadness.

Kennedy

[scelestus]

My mom's a serious Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist- she was in high school when the president was shot, and maintains that a single shooter is just not possible. So she's waiting for these documents to be released with baited breath, but honestly? If I was in the CIA and engineered the killing of a president (and, therefore, successfully carried out a coup), why would you leave anything incriminating on paper??

Re: Kennedy

[matrix_dragon]

We're talking about Cold War era CIA here. Let's be honest, it wouldn't be the dumbest thing they've ever done.

Re: Kennedy

[berani00]

And I'm not sure if this is gonna make matters worse, but from what I've heard, Donald Trump has claimed credit for the release of the papers. I'm just praying that what I heard was false since I heard it off Stephen Colbert who took it off FOX News, who are world-famous for being a totally reliable news source who don't exaggerate things or make shit up for their own spin on the subjects they tackle at all.

Re: Kennedy

[icon_uk]

No, it's true he claimed credit for it, in the recent Fox News interview, which somehow managed to NOT mention the fact that he had nothing to do with it, Congress did, 25 years ago.

[scorntx]

Another change to Who's format?
A whole extra fifteen minutes, at the cost of two episodes?
I dunno...

Shame about Dimensions, but frankly, that's probably for the best.
The last year and a bit has been... well... on a technical scale, a colossal flamingo up.
Constant problems with glitches really ruins any fun. (The last level of the LEGO Batman Movie is still buggered up on mine...)
And just making much of the content like an Adaptation Game but smaller...
Still, they might make a sequel.

Tried getting into that All-New Guardians of the Galaxy series, repeatedly, but it's just not happening.
Not because of the constant insistence on synergy, but because of the constant, and astounding, amount of continuity errors.

Found the deluxe Last Knight Megatron at retail the other day.
Pretty satisfied with it. Neat use of the mold, even if it makes no sense.
Nice colours, if you like gold and gunmetal grey.
(Still no sign of the Voyager Last Knight Megs, but... eh.)

[kamino_neko]

Found the deluxe Last Knight Megatron at retail the other day.
Pretty satisfied with it. Neat use of the mold, even if it makes no sense.

*Googles* Oh, hey, they're using the Thrilling 30 mold. That's my favourite Megatron mold. Next time I hate teh moneys, I shall have to see if he's still in stores.

[astrakhan42]

More than likely they're clogging local TRU shelves as we speak.

[scorntx]

Hard to clog shelves when Berserkers and Bumblebees and those "Allspark Tech" things are already doing that.

[janegray]

The DuckTales cartoon is on a roll. It's really, really good!

The latest episode in particular was hilarious. Normally I cringe at ~technology~ jokes, because they are invariably pathetic technophobic bullshit that was already old when Plato was bitching that writing was ruining the youth by making kids lazy and disrespectful because they didn't have to memorize books anymore. This has got to be the first time I've ever seen jokes that make fun of technology and are actually funny. I actually laughed out loud at the YOLO scene!

The episode actually succeeded in making me love Glomgold. I had always found him bland and boring, none of the cartoons and comics I had seen of him in over 30 years ever made me feel more than vaguely "meh" about him. But he was great in this episode XD

Today I'm going to see A Silent Voice with my bf. I'm incredibly happy that anime has been starting to make it into our theaters, even if it's just for a couple days in a small number of theaters.

[icon_uk]

DuckTales has been fabulous. I do love that they're mixing the cast around, so we don't always see the triplets together, sometimes we'll see only one or two of them.

[janegray]

I really love that they gave the triplets different personalities. The nerdy boyscout, the reckless adventurer, the laid-back "bad boy." I've always thought that portraying them basically as the same person in three bodies was obnoxious.

[dustbunny105]

I haven't watched yet-- which is which? Curious if their new characterization takes any cues from their Quack Pack portrayals.

[janegray]

Huey is the nerdy boyscout, Dewey is the reckless adventurer, and Louie is the laid-back "bad boy."

They did a pretty good job differentiating the character designs too :)

https://img.fireden.net/co/image/1500/22/1500223359457.png

[informationgeek]

Michael Bay is producing a live action Dora the Explorer film, where she'll be aged up. Beware folks.

Also, its the Halloween season, so what have you been watching?

[astrakhan42]

I'm assuming that Dora is going to be played by Isabela Moner, because a) she honestly looks like a live-action teenaged Dora and b) Bay forgot to actually make her an important character in TF5 and he should probably make that up to her.

[icon_uk]

An "important character".... in a Bay Transformers movie? (I was tempted to go with "character", but let's be kind... ish)

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Oh, you will NEVER know how much I needed a laugh like that today, thank you!

[ericadawn16]

This^

[icon_uk]

Michael Bay is producing a live action Dora the Explorer film, where she'll be aged up.

Movie-trailer deep-voiced-guy; "From the man who ruined your memories of a prominent 80's children's cartoon series, here comes, more of the same... from the 00's!"

[janegray]

Michael Bay is producing a live action Dora the Explorer film, where she'll be aged up. Beware folks.

You are shitting me. Please tell me you got confused and mixed up Halloween with April 1st.

[icon_uk]

Oh my poor sweet summer child

[janegray]

Oh boy...

It's not even the potential for terrible movies that bothers me. Bay treated Megan Fox like crap, he was horrible to her. And to pretty much any actress he has worked with. I don't want that guy anywhere near whatever girl is picked to play grown-up Dora.

[ericadawn16]

Actually, Nickelodeon already introduced a teenage version years ago.

[cygnia]

Has Vegas got the over/under on how many explosions it'll have?

[dustbunny105]

Michael Bay is producing a live action Dora the Explorer film, where she'll be aged up.

This is the most bewildering movie news I've heard possibly ever. Who asked for this?

[cyberghostface]

Anyone playing the new Life is Strange game?

[nightauditguy]

I have Lego Dimensions and at one point I had about 900 gold bricks collected. Didn't play for a few weeks, came back and after some updates, discovered 400 of those were missing and apparently I have to redownload some worlds.

[icon_uk]

Having to redownload levels packs was one of the most common issues across the various platforms. Once you're redownloaded them though, you'd find your brick counts had been restored.

[thatnickguy]

While we're exposing and firing sexual predators, can someone finally do something about Eddie Berganza?

[starwolf_oakley]

The news about James Toback was mentioned on Twitter along with "We should have known he was a weirdo due to the movies he did, like The Pick-Up Artist, Two Girls and a Guy, and When Will I Be Loved."

If that's a joke, it's a joke. If it isn't, well that's uncomfortable. We don't think John Carpenter is a serial killer. (Place "Well..." joke here.)

I think about the movie "The Pick-Up Artist" whenever I heard about pick-up artists. They also call themselves "red pills" since "The Matrix" is more popular than "The Pick-Up Artist."

Ususally people watch "The Pick-Up Artist" because they're curious about Robert Downey Jr. and Molly Ringwald doing a movie together. It may get more "Bile Fascination" now.

[kamino_neko]

Red pillers and PUAs have serious overlap, but aren't quite the same thing. I'd wager most PUAs are red pillers, but red pillers also include incels, MGTOWs, and other jackholes.

Also, my regular comment on red pillers: It cracks me up that these MRA fucks took their favourite metaphor from a movie made by two trans women.

[tripodeca113]

They changed Doctor Who's format? Don't they know change is bad?
Also the spin-off show Class has been cancelled. Maybe Class would have improved, but we are left with a show which wasn't terrible, but wasn't very good either.

[kamino_neko]

the Mangled Apricot Hellbeast is also finding time to take credit for releasing a wodge of documents relating to the JFK assassination later this week, despite the fact he doesn't have much say in the matter

The bolded part isn't quite true - he could block the release of at least some of them, if he wanted to. But not blocking them (and acting like he took the initiative in releasing them) helps his brand more.

[stubbleupdate]

Ragnarok was amazing.

[deh_tommy]

Despite my initial skepticism and fears, Spongebob: The Musical ended up being good. Like, really good. Like, can't-get-the-songs-out-of-my-head-please-make-it-stop good.

I'm honestly surprised at how well and close the show comes to capturing the look, feel and heart of the original cartoon without coming off as awkward or unnatural (~cough~GrowUpTimmyTurner!~cough~).

[viridian5]

Great! I really miss the "multiple companions" era of Doctor Who since their interactions can be a lot of fun. Now we need to get a long-term companion who isn't from contemporary Earth.

[scorntx]

Does Nardole not count?

[viridian5]

I forgot about Nardole. (He doesn't do much for me as a character so I tend to phase out a bit when he's on.) But he's the first in how many years?

[icon_uk]

Aside from Captain Jack (and arguably River Song), he's the first once since Nyssa, I think

Leela
Romana 1 and 2
Adric
Nyssa
Tegan
Turlough
Peri
Mel
Ace
Rose
Martha
Donna
Amy
Rory
Clara
Bill
Nardole

[viridian5]

Tulough was alien. I still miss the way he and Tegan sniped at each other.

We never have Captain Jack for long though. I don't count River Song as a companion, more as an occasional ally like Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax.

[icon_uk]

Turlough was alien.

Darn, and I KNEW that too. ;)

Jack should definitely count as he 9 and Rose had all sorts of adventures we just happened to not see, as we found out in "Boom Town".

[md84]

Concerning the Kennedy stuff...

I've long believed that the main reason anyone seriously believes in a conspiracy like that is because it's actually the more comforting idea. We'd rather believe that there's some overarching conspiracy out there in control. But as Alan Moore once said, "the world is rudderless".

It just doesn't feel right that the most powerful man in the world could be killed by a single well-prepared gunman acting on no one's orders but the voices in his own head.

[starwolf_oakley]

Some conspiracy theorists think Oswald acted alone, but someone put him up to the assassination. I don't think it was "Oswald was a gun for hire," but someone suggested the assassination it to him.

1, 2, 3, 4. May we not declare a land war?

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

I guess now we all wait to see what Xi Jingpin will do with that much power and what this changes in Asia.

[ironymaiden]

went to "An Evening with G. Willow Wilson" on Monday.

comics-related notes:

• she said it was easier to get published in the New York Times than it was to break into comics.


• her gateway into comics was the 90s X-Men cartoon and the Chris Claremont run.


• she kind of followed Ta Nahesi Coates around the Marvel creators' summit, and she sent Bruno to Wakanda in hopes of planting a hook for a crossover.

not comics: she learned quickly and painfully that she's not a good speaker at interfaith events. instead of being a bridge to other white folks, as an adult convert to Islam she brings out bad reactions across the political spectrum.