Arrow "My Name is Oliver Queen" Review

It has been a long and bumpy road, but here we are, the season three finale of Arrow. Ra's plans on releasing the Alpha & Omega bioweapon on Starling City and Oliver and Team Arrow must work together to try and prevent it from happening, Ray releases a vaccine, saving everyone and Oliver fights Ra's and kills him. In the end, Oliver retires from being a superhero to be with Felicity, Thea is now Speedy (called it!), they hint at Diggle getting a mask, Malcolm becomes the new Ra's Al Ghul and Ray apparently blows up...what an odd place to end it. Meanwhile in the flashbacks, Oliver tortures general whatshisface for releasing the bioweapon and the wheels are set in motion for Maseo joining the league and Tatsu going into a life of exclusion, while Oliver says that it's not time for him to go home yet as he doesn't want his family to see him this dark.

So in comparison to other season finales, this is the most underwhelming, they yet again decide to put the city in danger again except the dilemma is solved so quickly that it feels more like a background point, as if they fix the problem just as quick as it arrives, really undermining the danger that this is supposed to have. More focus is given on the fight between Oliver and Ra's, which is great if you want your finale to be smaller and more personal, but trying to have both just weakens each other. The fight itself was underwhelming because of how little detail there is surrounding it, the police officers are on the bridge ready to shoot despite the fact that they have no evidence to prove that these guys are responsible, any reason to know that they are there or why they should shoot on sight instead of arresting them. Not to mention that they just glance over the fact that Oliver kills Ra's despite Oliver not killing, if there was no other option then they should probably put some more emphasis on that fact and give him some reaction, he's gone two years not killing anyone and now he breaks that oath with no worries?

Then there is the wrap-up at the end, i like how they ended things for Malcolm, Nyssa and Thea, they fit perfectly with where they've been developing their characters all season and seems like a logical place for them to end up. Diggle didn't even seem to have any kind of closure apart from them planting the seeds of him wearing a mask, which i guess does reflect how very little he's had to do this season. Ray just blowing up came completely out of nowhere, and didn't he sign over the company to Felicity anyway? They set that up last week and they're already ignoring it? Then there is Oliver's decision to just abandon his post to be with Felicity, now on one hand this does make sense, the whole season has spent a lot of time showing how Team Arrow can function without Oliver, but him just up and leaving, throwing caution to the wind seems like a pretty big leap. Then there is Laurel and Captain Lance, who didn't even get a scene giving them closure, there was a discussion about their alcoholism and Lance now trusts Team Arrow again (even though he says in the episode that he still doesn't) but there was no closure, they don't reunite or say they never want to see each other again, nothing.

I haven't really spoken about Matthew Nable's performance as Ra's Al Ghul, mostly because i was waiting to see the full extent of his role. I can safely say that Matthew did a good job as Ra's, he came across as intellectual, intimidating, physically threatening, i very much enjoyed him in the role. My problems will him lie solely in the writing, that being they pretty much made him an intellectual jesus; by that I mean he always knew what everyone else was planning and what they were going to do before anyone actually did it, why? Because the writers said he knew, except of course when Oliver was going to betray him, he didn't see that coming, yet every move Oliver made after that he knew it every step of the way...how the fuck does he do that exactly? So overall, he was a good villain, not a great one, I still think Deathstroke was a cooler villain.

The flashbacks for this season have been the most pointless, adding very little to the overall plot and being so stretched out that some episodes only give us one flashback scene, showing how little plot they actually had for this story and it probably could have been finished halfway through the season if they didn't feel the need to draw it out so much. Also repeating what they did last year of having the flashbacks have story motifs reflecting what's going on in the present (The alpha & omega weapon) didn't flow nearly as well as last season and it shows a pattern that this show is going to repeat each season. Last season the flashbacks did feed into the overall story of the season but they also had their own story to tell and it was well paced and engaging on it's own, these flashbacks didn't have that.

So given what was set up for next season (which was honestly very little) here's what i except/hope will happen next season. So with Oliver and Felicity gone and Ray apparently blown up, what remains of Team Arrow is Diggle, Thea & Laurel, they'll realise that they can't handle this on their own, the show will play it up that they need Oliver even though really they'll need Felicity. Oliver and Felicity will return but because Oliver can't be The Arrow, he'll have the new identity of Green Arrow (Because it's about goddamn time!). With Ray they'll just do what they did with Barry, put him in hospital until his spin-off show starts. We will see very little of Malcolm and Nyssa because this is where their involvement in the story ends. And Diggle will get a mask and a secret identity finally, whatever that is, i don't know, probably not Green Lantern as everyone keeps guessing (Especially seeing as Flash made a hint towards Hal Jordan yesterday) As for a major baddie or story-arcs for next season, i have no idea because they didn't really give us any clue, this season was obviously going to be Ra's because they set it up that way, next season could be anything.

So overall this was an okay season finale for an okay season. This season has had a handful of great things about it, but the bad stuff sticks out more so. The story this season felt very padded, as did the flashbacks which were very poorly paced, the focus on Oliver and Felicity's romance was awful, Oliver himself wasn't even that good of a character this season and the plot holes were more present than ever. But the good things still remain, the supporting cast were better than ever, both in terms of acting and character growth, the action was still great and the production value has been slowly improving.

I give the season three finale of Arrow a 7/10
I give the whole of season three of Arrow a 5/10

Was a disappointing year, not gonna lie, but hopefully things will be better next year.

-Danny

The Flash "Rogue Air" Review

I don't think i've ever seen The Flash put so much hype behind one of their episodes, here we have a mini-justice league team-up between Flash, Arrow and Firestorm...for about 5 minutes. Here's what happened for the other 40 minutes: Team Flash realises that Dr Wells is going to reactivate the partical accelerator, which doing so will kill the meta-humans trapped in there so the gang attempt to transport them, but of course transporting several supervillains is not an easy task, so they recruit some back up, Captain Cold and his sister Golden Glider, however, Cold betrays Barry and frees all of the meta-humans, killing one of them, and then makes his escape. Then in the end, Wells shows up ready to fight and Oliver and Ronnie show up in the nick of time to fight alongside him.

I've said before that I am not a fan of Captain Cold, I don't think he's well acted, written and his costume is silly (it's just a coat!) and I can say the same thing for his sister, so i wasn't happy about him returning in this episode. The fact that Barry trusted him was stupid, especially seeing as it turns out he didn't need him and if he didn't bring Cold along then everything would have been peachy, but his plan was idiotic in the first place, freeing all of the meta-humans just so they'll owe him a favour. The reason why this is stupid can be explained by para-phrasing him "i'm a criminal Barry, I break my word" so what exactly makes him think that any of these meta-humans are going to feel as if they owe him a debt? As far as they should be concerned, they don't have to do anything for him. I admire Barry's dedication to saving lives, even for criminals, but his desire to be more like Oliver and take risks doesn't make sense, back in the crossover episode, Barry was shown to be shocked at Oliver's methods and disapproved of them, why all of a sudden he feels he should be more like him comes across as very abrupt. Also why they felt the need to kill off the best actor in the group (Doug Jones) just screams bad decision.

Then there is the finale where Oliver and Ronnie show up to help fight Wells, the fact that they both show up at the same time in the same place is already rather silly, but that they fight him and then leave almost as quickly makes this feel very tacked on, and as if this was supposed to be connected to an entirely different script. Yes they say early on that they did contact them for help but they weren't available, so what happened inbetween that time? Seeing the three of them on screen together, ready to fight was a nice treat except next time this happens i hope it is in better context. And while we may not know what's going to happen next week, I guarantee that Wells losing and getting captured was all part of his plan, because of course, this guy plans for everything.

I will say that this episode does have it's focus in the right place, everything here is to progress the main plot, but I feel as though releasing the villains is just going to lead to a lot of back peddling next season and a lot of the choices that Barry makes in this episode seem out of place, yes he's in a desperate situation but he's still a logical person, and this doesn't make any sense. I will say I am glad that Eddie has ended things with Iris, because this means that the writers may actually have to write her an actual character next season and give her something to do that doesn't involve Eddie or Barry in some way. Nevertheless, for a lot of the build up that this episode got, the payoff was severely lacking. 6/10.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Ed

There are two TV shows above all else that i would say have influenced me comedically, The Simpsons and Ed Edd N Eddy. Well, I already talked about Homer Simpson on this show, so let's talk about my favourite Ed-boy, it's Ed. What makes Ed one of my favourite characters is very similar to what makes Homer one of my favourite characters, he doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel when it comes to his style of comedy, but in my opinion he does it better than anyone else.

Ed is the dumb one, he always says and does stupid things, he's the innocent, wide-eyed, loyal, catch phrase spouting dumbass who almost always makes things worse because he's an idiot, and it makes me laugh harder and more consistently than any other character like this. A great way to imagine him is Soos from Gravity Falls meets Bam Bam from The Flintstones. It's not that Ed is physically strong, but he is so dumb that he doesn't understand physics, he can lift things because he doesn't realise they're heavy, he can float in the air because he doesn't realise he's supposed to fall down. Somehow the show is able to use the same formula almost every episode and it is always funny, he constantly has me laughing, he is always doing something silly and over the top and hilarious, and mostly because of how he plays off of the other Eds. Edd is intelligent and Eddy is aggressive, the complete opposites of Ed and that allows some great comedy from all three of them but Ed above all else, he is almost always the punchline to the joke and as you can see in that picture above, they can have some pretty bizarre jokes in this show.

But again, very much like Homer Simpson, Ed has a lot of influence on me comedically, as a kid, I wanted to be Ed, someone that funny, that innocent and that likeable meant a lot to me. As someone who was a misfit as a kid, as well as not being very smart, i related to Ed a lot and i wanted to be him, i would try to be funny like him, behave more like him (not to the extent of that picture, but still) Ed was practically my idol growing up, and to an extent he is still a character who influences me today, especially on my comedic timing or whenever i behave childish for a joke i pretty much revert into Ed.

Ed was my idol as a kid, he is an insanely funny character and has done a lot to shape my sense of comedy over the years and he is one of my all time favourite characters.

-Danny

IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE (isn't everything?)

Pick any film, TV show, videogame whatever that is set in the future, as far into the future as you can think, usually those products will be several hundred years into the future. For some reason, when telling a story set in the future, we seem to be afraid to explore the far future, i'm talking thousands of years into the future, if not millions, so why is that? My theory is that we imagine if we go too far into the future, it'll become less relatable, we imagine humanity will have evolved both mentally and physically to the point where they would seem as a completely different species. Usually products set into the future are used to reflect something of our own civilisation, environmental messages, issues of prejudism, etc, so we imagine if we were to travel 100,000 years into the future, all of those problems will be obsolete or we'd be dead. The oldest film that I could find was Wizards (1977) set in the year 2,004,977, and before that was Dune (1984) in 21,592, that's a near 2 million gap, and before Dune is Journey to the Center of Time (1967) in the year 6,000, leaving huge gaps of human history to work with. The same can be said for videogames, the furthest game that I could find (And i doubt anything could overtake it) is Boombots (1999) set in the year 15,000,000 but of course that's a comedy game, not meant to be taken seriously, most videogames cut off around 2,500. (For more information on videogames, check out Game Theory's take on it here). As for television, the furthest that a show has gone, (and again, nothing will top it) is Doctor Who, who once literally travelled to the end of time, we're not given a specific date, we just know it takes place trillions of years in the future. However, Doctor Who has done this before, back in 2005 when the series was brought back to television, on his first outing to the future he goes to the year 5,000,000,000, where the last "pure" human is nothing more than a rug of skin with a face on it.

Thing is, most experts would try and predict the future only by a few decades, meaning that no one knows what's going to happen 100,000 years in the future, billions of variables could change humanity, meaning writers could literally do whatever they want, invent whatever they want, make whoever they want. Yet we seem to be stuck in the rut of doing things only a few hundred years, too afraid to try anything new. So i say if you're planning on making a film set in the far future, try experimenting with it, and pick a time that hasn't been done yet, see what you come up with.

-Danny

Shovel Knight and the Exploitation of Nostalgia

Shovel Knight has been said to be one of the best videogames to come out of last year and I recently played it, excited but also cautious, because what I hear above everything else when people say how good of a game it is, is how nostalgic it is. The game looks and plays like a traditional 2D platformer from the 80s and early 90s, which is not a genre that I grew up with. In my life I have only ever played no more than 5 games in this genre from that time period. So looking past that nostalgic aspect, I still enjoy the game a fair amount, but I do not consider it to be one of the best games of last year, it was a fun 2D platformer, but it does nothing to reinvent the genre, nor does it have an engaging story. So this does make me think that a lot of the praise of this game does come from the nostalgia factor of it, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. You have no idea how many times i've criticised something of nostalgia and people's defence is "you just didn't grow up with it, that's why you don't like it." surely that should be a good thing, i didn't grow up with it so i can go in with a more objective view point and then make a fair assessment. Saying you like it because you grew up with it is basically saying "i'm going to ignore everything wrong with this because it's something from my childhood". I am the type of person who thrives on my nostalgia, but i don't let it cloud my judgement; I absolutely love things like Pokemon and I always will, but i acknowledge it is a crap show, again, i love it with all my heart, but i acknowledge that it's not good, and i won't argue against someone who says that it's a bad show.

What this has to do with Shovel Knight is that even though I think it's a good game, when I say people are looking at it with nostalgia and letting that improve their viewpoint on it, what I hear back is "you didn't love it because you didn't grow up with it!". Again, it's the same point, if you were to take away the nostalgia, is this still one of the best games of the year? It's not the gameplay aspect that bugs me, but it's the style. The game was made in modern times yet tries as hard as it can to look like something from the 80s, the art design, the music, everything, it's not something from your childhood, it's something exploiting your childhood. If the game looked like it was made today but still had the same gameplay style, it wouldn't have had as many lauded reviews as it did, still positive reviews, but not as positive.

What i'm trying to say is, nostalgia is a good thing, but always acknowledge that there is a difference between something being nostalgic and something being good. They don't have to be separate, but it's important to know when they are.

-Danny

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior - Cheap Thoughts

If you saw my review of the previous Mad Max film, you could tell I was not a fan, i thought the story and characters were bare boned and predictable and the low budget really ruined the mood, here, they have a real budget, a bigger scope and a wider audience, so how is this one? Probably even worse. *Spoilers Ahead* The Road Warrior takes place several years after the first film where Max has become a hardened fighter who cares for nothing except two things: his dog and himself. Eventually he comes across a community of settlers who hold him prisoner, suspecting him to be a member of The Marauders, a gang of outlaws who seek gasoline and threaten to kill the settlers to get it. The settlers settle (Puns!) a deal with Max to help them out and they'll let him go free with as much gasoline as he can carry. Eventually Max is able to kill the Marauders as the settlers escape and start a new home by the coast, leaving Max to wander the desert yet again as a lone wolf (the dog died).

This story clearly takes inspiration from Westerns, it's like Magnificent Seven except...there's only one of them. The problem with a story this simple is that it's so predictable, so cliched that you can see everything coming from a mile away, even killing the dog, a cliche as old as time, and yes, the dog has no purpose other than to be killed off, the story is not interesting at all. I will say it's very well paced, when i checked the time, i expected it to be 20 minutes in when we were over double that time, but that is really the only positive thing i can say about the story. Another problem that I had with the original that carried over here, is that if gasoline is such a scarce resource in this post apocalyptic future then WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE DRIVING SO MUCH!? There was even a point where characters were doing doughnuts, maybe you shouldn't be wasting so much gasoline if it's so scarce. I will say it's much more believable that this is a post-apocalyptic world now, I fully believe that society has crumbled and humanity is on the brink of extinction.

But even then, I can get past a predictable story if they have good characters to back it up...they don't. Max is one of the most boring protagonists i've seen in a film like this, he's the stock "lone wolf" type character. He doesn't say much, he's closed off to the world and only cares about himself; again, a character we've seen a million times before, he's not engaging, he's not interesting and there's nothing special about him. The same can be said for the settlers, we're not given a legitimate reason to care about them apart from the fact that they're not awful people, but that's not enough for me to care about them in the context of the film, lot's of people are dead, what makes these guys so special? No one is developed and they're rather annoying. Even Max doesn't seem to really give a shit about them, and if our protagonist doesn't give a shit about the people he's supposed to be protecting, why should the audience give a shit about who he's protecting? The only kind of interesting character is this little feral kid, he doesn't speak and acts almost like an animal, except he has a boomerang that is sharp enough to kill people. He's the closest thing this movie has to a unique character. Even the villains, who i've heard a lot about, don't have much that makes them interesting or memorable apart from how they dress, but apart from that, there is no personality behind them and they don't make any attempt to make them threatening beyond being general thugs.

And for an action movie, my god the action is boring, but more than that, it is really poorly shot, so many shots were clearly sped up for the sake of making it look most intense but because it's so obvious, it just looks silly. So really, what is there to like here? If the story and characters suck then they should atleast be able to rely on the action, but in fact they're the most boring parts. The fighting is slow, visually uninteresting and the sound design is terrible (glass is shattered and doesn't make a noise, what the fuck). Also could this score be anymore obnoxious? I would like just one action scene where the music wasn't blasting at full volume and distracting me from the actual movie, it doesn't help that the score is generic as shit.

Story: Basic Characters: Generic Action: Poor. I don't like this movie, i may even like it less than the previous movie. The production design is better but atleast the last movie had character arcs, it attempted to give me a reason to give a shit. I do not give a shit about anything in this movie and my final rating is a 3/10.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Rupert Giles

Buffy is one of the best ensemble cast of characters that I have ever seen in a television show, almost every character is loveable, but my personal favourite is Giles. Giles is Buffy's Watcher, his job is to train her and prepare her for fighting demons, keeping her physically fit and knowledgeable, he also plays the role of her surrogate father, comforting her when she needs advice and protecting her when she can't help herself.

Throughout the course of the series, Giles goes from the uptight British librarian to the charming and caring father figure of the group. The best kind of relationships are the ones where both people grow because of the other; Giles makes Buffy more responsible while Buffy makes Giles more relaxed, they go from a teacher and student to a father and daughter. The father-daughter relationship between the two is what makes them work so well together, it's charming and you believe the connection, Giles wants to be there to protect Buffy and fight her battles for her, but deep down, as the show goes on, he realises that there is little left he can teach her and he is more than likely just going to end up being a burden to her. But that doesn't change the fact that he is always there for her should she need him for anything, even if he isn't Buffy's real father, he has certainly done more for her than her father ever could.

Giles' first instinct is to always try and talk his way out of a situation, do his research and find a way to solve a problem without violence, but that doesn't mean he won't fight when he has too, he knows how to use weapons, magic and knows every weakness for every demon, he always fights to protect and always gives his opponent a chance to give up peacefully. Personally, those are the best kind of fighters, the ones that don't go out looking for a fight and will always give someone a chance to repent for their mistakes. Because boy Giles is one tough bastard, having to face imprisonment, humiliation, torture and never giving up.

Some other points about him worth mentioning are that he is a very funny character, though mostly there to be the punchline to everyone's joke, especially early on when he is just the snooty exposition master who feels out of place, but as the show goes on and he becomes more comfortable with the Scooby Gang, he also is seen more of an equal, meaning he can deliver the jokes just as quick as being the focus of them. Also he's a damn good singer, seriously, that's one hell of a voice.

Giles has most of what I look for in a character, he's the one that I sympathise with the most in Buffy and also has the most layers to him, he's the best character in the show and one of my favourites.

-Danny