Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, in light of yesterday’s return to the movie theater for another MCU film, and in preparation for the season (series?) finale of Loki, I give you a new perspective on the number of alternate timelines Dr. Strange viewed in Avengers: Endgame.
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s the crossover I need: Star Trek and the MCU. But do I deserve it?
Some of you may prefer the following. Me? Not so much.
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a few MCU memes that hit my social media streams this week. Two you’ve almost certainly seen. One is pretty new. They all surround last week’s ComicBook.com quarantine watch party of Thor (which was awesome), which was in preparation for the following day’s premiere of Loki on Disney Plus (which was awesome).
Bad start, but young Cap thought old Cap was Loki, so close enough.
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a preview for the next Jurassic Park sequel.
Admit it: this couldn’t be worse than the last movie.
Of course, I had to do some research to make sure it wasn’t a photoshop. It’s real and located in Lancashire, England. As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of a a guilty pleasure of mine, Reign of Fire, which took place in London. According to Rotten Tomatoes, neither the critics nor audience liked it, though Metacritic users liked it. I was disappointed that the article to which I linked didn’t mention Reign of Fire, instead stating, it looked “like a scene out of Indiana Jones or a J.R.R. Tolkien novel,” but I’m not surprised. What’s really interesting about it is that it’s an optical illusion, or at least a trick of the camera lens. It’s actually a flat surface.
I have no idea if anyone has ever discussed this before, but my uncle and I had this conversation during the Next Generation run (I’m guessing around 1991). His idea was that the shape of these ships was influenced by their need to maximize combat efficiency. As a result, the best chances a starship had of winning an encounter is to be oriented face first towards the opponents. The problem is that the opponents had the same design characteristic, and it was difficult to get either ship into a bad position when facing off before combat started. That seemed reasonable to me.
However, it was really about things not looking stupid, or more generally making sure the viewers understood what they saw. For example, there was an episode of Next Generation called Power Play in which the Enterprise approached the “southern polar region” of a moon. In space, the “south pole” is really meaningless, but okay, fine. They approached the south pole. Why did they orient themselves like this?
Look, I couldn’t find a screenshot, and all I have is MS Paint. (Dave, please let me know if you have a problem with me using this modification of your work.)
The ship was shown underneath the planet, still right side up, but up and down make no sense in space. Why isn’t the ship upside down? In the alternative, why isn’t the ship right side up but above the planet (thus reversing the y axis of the shot)? The answer, of course, is to communicate to the viewer that the ship is at the south pole without disorientating them. It’s just a TV show after all.
So yeah, it’s probably about things not looking stupid.
Today’s the premier of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness! Who’s coming with me tonight?
Wait, what? What pandemic?
Today was supposed to be the day the Dr. Strange sequel was to be released. Despite my concerns, I’m a big fan of the original (and the superhero cinematic genre in general), so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, as of this writing, we have another 10 months to go. If I’m cursed with this knowledge, I just wanted to make sure you guys were as well. I hope it’s worth the wait.
Play What You Want 