First Impressions of Ricky & Morty

Rick & Morty is a show i've been meaning to get into for a while now, being co-created by Dan Harmon, the creator of my all time favourite television show Community (Side Note: Watch Community) and has received none stop praise, people comparing it to Community, Adventure Time & Futurama...so that's pretty big praise for this show, and after watching the pilot episodes i have to say...I don't know what to make of this show. It made me laugh, but I was also uncomfortable with laughing at it, the show is mean spirited, the show is ugly, the show is dark, the show is completely doing it's own thing and i like all of those facts. If i were to compare this pilot to the Futurama pilot i would say this is better, so i'm interested in seeing where it's going. Those are the most important things to take away from this pilot, i laughed, it did a good job at setting up the world and characters and i'm interested in seeing more. Maybe once i've finished the first season i'll come back and review it in full. As for right now, I enjoyed it.

-Danny

Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year One - Cheap Thoughts

Injustice: Gods Among Us was a video game released in 2013, based around an alternate DC universe where Superman became a totalitarian leader of the world, long story short it was a great story with good gameplay behind it and was a lot of fun...but that's not the product we're talking about today. The game also had a tie-in comic building up to the videogame that despite the game being two years old, the comic is still being released on a regular basis and is going strong. The story behind why Superman becomes a dark and ruthless leader all starts with the Joker tricking him into killing Lois, their unborn baby and all 11 million people in Metropolis. This causes Superman to snap, kill the Joker and now we have Superman slowly being corrupted into becoming darker and creating his own dictatorship. Now for this review i've chosen to talk about the first two trades of the series that sum up the first of five years worth of stories. As i'm writing this i've only read the first three years and the fourth one is currently being released, but the reason why i'm only talking about the first year is because it's the one with the most story and character development, and is my personal favourite. I can honestly say that Injustice: Gods Among Us is the best comic book being published by DC currently.

What makes these comics so great is the analysis of it's characters, their morals, their roles and their relationships. Superman has always been the symbol for hope, he never kills and will always do the right thing, i've said before that one of Superman's many goals is to be seen as a human, and his relationship with Lois Lane is what made him more human than anything, with her death, by his hands no less, he loses his humanity, he becomes cold and unforgiving. What makes it work so well is that the transition doesn't happen instantly, he kills the Joker but that doesn't instantly mean he's going to kill all his problems and anyone who disagrees with him is instantly his enemy, but now he's not afraid to use that as an option, he will kill if he deems it necessary. More than that, he lost his reasoning to why he fights to save humanity, he did it because he believed they could be better, they deserved the chance to live and he was their beacon of hope so they could better themselves. Now he's much more controlling, instead of inspiring them to be better, he demands it and enforces his ways on them. All while still maintaining he is the hero that the world needs and he is the same person he is before.

This leads to the next great thing about this comic, the conversations. Usually characters just sat around talking about the difference between right and wrong can be incredibly boring, but here there are legitimate points to be made on both sides and a lot is at stake. Superman and Flash have a conversation about getting rid of all guns in the world and Flash points out not only how implausible an idea that is, but that it's impossible to make the world completely safe. Superman and Batman also have a great conversation where he tries to justify his killing of Joker, Superman argues that if Batman had done it sooner then literally millions of people would still be alive right now, that is a good point. While Batman states that if you can justify one death, then you can justify two, then three, then four, and so on, and so on. That's what makes these arguments so great, they both have legitimate reasons why they believe what they believe and neither is technically in the wrong, Superman has made the world safer, but he's also taken away their freedom and replaced it with fear.

Then there are all the other characters reactions to Superman's new regime. Most of the heroes are on Superman's side of course, mostly because they're still blinded by who Superman was and find it impossible to believe what he's doing is wrong because...well he's Superman, he's the embodiment of everything good. That is of course except for Flash, the heart of the Justice League and more than anyone else, the one who wants to do nothing but good, he above all else is conflicted on what is right and what is wrong. He doesn't want to believe Superman can be corrupted, but he's smart enough to understand that he's different. Despite it being in an alternate universe, the fact that all the characters still behave the way they would in the main universe is what makes the story so effective, everyone's opinions match what it would be in the main continuity, (minus Wonder Woman who is more aggressive in this version, but no major differences) and every action and plot point is shocking yet realistic.

There's also a great section of the book focusing on a boy named James, just an average kid that was saved from a biking accident by Superman a few years ago, no life threatening issue, just a kid about to fall off his bike. It shows one of the great things about Superman, that no issue is too small and all he wants is to help people in anyway possible, it also humanises the citizens of the Earth, showing what he meant to them personally and contrast that with how they've lost faith in him now. It's a small moment but incredibly effective and is one of the major highlights from this book. Another small thing is the unlikely friendship between Harley Quinn and Green Arrow, he keeps her hidden away from Superman for her own protection and the banter between the two is hilarious. "What do you have a boxing glove on your arrow for?" "incase I wanna punch something really far away" "I can relate". It's a unique relationship that I haven't seen before and would have liked to have seen more of, also the scenes between Harley and Lobo were also entertaining.

But then we get to the best moment in this comic and what may be the greatest panel in comic book history...Alfred headbutting Superman! After developing a special pill that gives people a portion of Superman's strength (A plot point introduced in the game), Alfred takes one after Superman just fought Batman and straight up headbutts him in the face. Not only is it funny as hell, but shows why Alfred is the coolest character ever, not only is he incredibly sassy yet charmingly polite and efficient at his job, but he has the gonads to headbutt Superman in the face! Damn I didn't think I could love Alfred more than I do already.

As for the artwork, it's great for the most part, there's a lot of dynamic shots and badass fight sequences, my only real issue is sometimes the facial expressions can be quite strange, but that's only on the odd occasion. But with that being said, i'm not exactly an expert on analysing artwork, story & character is where I have more experience in, so when I say I like the artwork here, that's coming at it from a more amateur view point. As for any other problems I have, I will say certain character deaths (which i will not spoil) i feel are unjust. For anyone who played the videogame, you knew these deaths were coming, but i don't think they all work. One character gets their neck broken accidentally, but i feel they would have been agile enough to not die such a clumsy death, though the emotions around the death are effective. Another has the character trying to reason with Superman and then a split second later decide to try and kill Wonder Woman so of course Superman vapourises them. The only one that works is the final death, a character who was so good hearted and pure that even Superman can't justify their death, showing how far he's fallen and leaving a hole in the world.

Overall, this comic was phenomenal from beginning to end, every character is written very well, the story was executed perfectly, the action and dialogue is excellent, the artwork is good and there are multiple stand out moments. The story remains strong in years two and three and maybe i'll get round to reviewing them one day, but as for now, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year One is one of the best DC comics i've ever read. 10/10.

-Danny

The Unplanned Hiatus

So yeah...it's been a while since i've posted anything on here, well, I say a while, it's been just under 2 weeks, but considering this is supposed to be a daily blog, that's a while for me. The reasoning behind this hiatus is...well, I just haven't had anything to write about. There hasn't been any major news or trailers to talk about, no new episodes of TV shows, and I can only do so many cheap thoughts and favourite character sections before it gets redundant. I've missed days before, but usually that was just because i was too busy to write anything or was struggling to think of anything, but those were usually only one day at a time and i would have enough ideas the next day to write something up to make up for lost time. In this case, it's just been a bad case of writer's block, which gimme credit, the year and 2 months i've been doing this, this is the first time it's happened. And you know, the fact that no one reads this also helps me feel less pressure about writing up stuff for this blog, i do it for fun and that's really it. But I am going to try and get back onto my regular schedule from now, though it's hard to tell for now so i don't want to promise anything, but you can expect more blog posts for the next few days at least.

-Danny

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Cheap Thoughts

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of those movies that did okay when it was first released but over time has risen a lot more in popularity, often considered to be the best of the post-Disney renaissance of the late 90's. A lot of the criticism of the time was that the story was too mature to appeal to Disney fans, but not mature enough to appeal to fans of the original book (which is much darker might i add). But with audiences craving more mature stories in kids entertainment, people these days actually love how different this film is, they love the dark themes, they love the mature conversations and gruesome implications and religious imagery. So does the movie deserve all the attention it's getting or were audiences right the first time around?

*Spoilers Ahead*

The film takes place in 15th century France where Quasimodo, a deformed and ugly man is locked away in the Notre Dame bell tower for his entire life, raised by his master Frollo (The town Judge) in secret and is forbidden from travelling down to the city and interacting with other people. Eventually he sneaks out during a festival and befriends a gypsy woman named Esmeralda. Frollo soon finds out and becomes infatuated with Esmeralda and calls for a witch hunt to execute all of the Gypsy's and find Esmeralda. Quasimodo with the help of a soldier named Phoebus find Esmeralda and protect her from Frollo's wrath, everyone lives happily ever after with Phoebus and Esmeralda getting married and Quasimodo being accepted by the public.

So just from that quick description there was something that I instantly noticed...Tangled totally ripped this movie off, the villain kidnaps the main character as a baby and raises them as their own, cutoff from all of civilisation despite the fact that they're a free spirit who wants to see the world. I mean i know Hunchback wasn't the first to use this plotline, but come on Disney, be less obvious about it. But that's not really a problem with this movie, i just wanted to bring it up. In reality this is a very functional plot, i say that because for the most part you can predict where everything's coming from a mile away, you know how every relationship is going to end, you know where the story is going to go, there's not much to discuss there. The only major issue I have with this film's plot is the Gypsey's for how...inconsistent they are. At first they love Quasimodo, but then they all turn on him in an instant, and the film makes a point how they're mistreated and misrepresented as thieves, but then it turns out they are thieves, and are just as quick to judge as the villains, but we're supposed to be on their side yet they're acting just as bad as the actual bad guys.

As for characters I could say the same for most of them, Quasimodo is likeable but simple, Esmeralda is nice but cliched and Phoebus is respectable but generic. Then there are the gargoyles, the comic reliefs that interact with Quasimodo, a lot of people hate these characters, and consider them to be some of the worst comic reliefs Disney has ever made. I personally don't hate them, they could have been better, but they could have been worse. I'd say the worst thing about them is when they interact with people other than Quasimodo, i mean for the first 2/3rds of the film they make it look like they're not real and it's all part of Quasimodo's imagination, but then in the climax they start interacting with other people and i thought how stupid that was because it was actually pretty clever before to have them just be imaginary.

But none of this matters, let's get to Frollo. Good god, this is one of the great Disney villains, everything about him is fantastic. He has a devious voice, he has a dark view on life, he's supposed to be keeping the law of god, but is so blinded by his own bias that he's actually the one committing the most sin. Not only is his manipulation of Quasimodo enough to make him a great villain, I mean in Tangled the mother at least pretended to love Rapunzel, here, he completely convinces Quasimodo that he is a monster, and it only get's worse from there. He wishes to kill Esmeralda because he lusts after her (Yeah, they actually use the term 'lust' in this movie) and if she doesn't be with him then he'll burn her alive. And he doesn't love her, the film makes it very clear that this is just physical attraction, and of course that's a sin, and he blames her. That's another great thing, he never believes he's at fault, when he does acknowledge he's committed a sin, he always has an excuse, he always has someone else to blame, his conscience is clear and he legitimately feels no guilt. Hell, the death of Quasimodo's mother is surprisingly one of the most disturbing, there's no dramatic murder, Frollo just accidentally pushes her down some steps and breaks her neck, and of course feels no guilt about it, what makes it so effective is how normal of a death it is, she's not getting trampled by wildebeests or stabbed by a friend, it's a quick and ordinary kill, and that makes it feel more real and disturbing than any of the other parental deaths. He murders, arrests, bribes and kidnaps for his own selfish gain and is able to claim he's doing it all in the name of god. What a sick bastard, but damn do i love him for it.

But Frollo is one of the big draws to the themes of the movie, safe to say the film does have a bit of a religious message, but what I like about it is that it's not saying religion is bad, after all, the archdeacon is probably the kindest character in the movie, offering shelter and protection for everyone as long as they're good in the eyes of god. Religion can be a good thing, it can bring people joy, hope and safety but it can also bring corruption and selfishness if not viewed in the right way. When it comes to any debate, especially one as topical as religion it's always important to show both the good and bad parts of it. But despite the heavy religious imagery and setting of the film, that's not actually the message people take away from it, but rather the idea of dealing with heartbreak, yeah, Quasimodo doesn't get the girl, and that's surprisingly one of the more striking images in this film (and that's saying something) is when you can see the shock and pain in his eyes when he realises Esmeralda is in love with another man, in fact, it's scary how accurate that is to how it feels in real life. Give credit where it's due, Disney so often will end things with the happy ending, while granted this one still does, it's really more of a bittersweet ending, atleast by Disney standards.

Then there are the songs, the best way to describe them is think back to the Circle of Life from The Lion King, it was grand, bombastic and felt larger than life...now imagine an entire soundtrack like that. Or atleast, that's what they try and go for with this film, because every single song tried to be like this, a lot of the middle songs just sort of blend together. But the ones that stand out are the opening song Bells of Notre Dame, which screams epic in more ways than one and is probably the best opening song to a musical...ever, the follow-up Out There which really doesn't do much from a narrative or compositional stand point that's all too unique, it's just a good listen and the villain song Hellfire, a song that has such gothic imagery, such creative visuals and such a dark tone to it that it may be my favourite villain song of all time.

Then there's the animation, well it's a Disney movie so you know it's going to be phenomenal, but then again this is just after they did Pochahontas which I maintain is one of the worst looking Disney movies. But this film looks amazing, the movement is fluid, the designs realistic, but the best part is the backgrounds, the architecture of France, and the angles of the cathedral, the lighting, the shadows, the grand epic scale of everything, oh good god, it looks so good.

Overall, while the plot & characters may be standard (Except for Frollo who rocks) the music, atmosphere, themes and animation more than make up for this, and make this film worthy of the Disney title to be held above it's name. 8/10.

-Danny

OTHER Changes I Want In Marvel Comics

A few months ago I talked about the changes that I want to see in the Marvel Universe after Secret Wars ended, but really there's more to talk about. So let's take another crack at this. The big thing that i want to change is that i want things to change. By that I mean i want the equilibrium to be disrupted, i want characters to grow, i want them to change, i want decisions to be permanent. The biggest problem with mainstream comics by Marvel & DC is nothing ever changes, no relationship is permanent, no event will leave an everlasting effect and no death will stay dead. Marvel has an opportunity to change that now, do something new, make characters interesting again by forcing them to change. In my original post i said that I didn't want Peter Parker to go back to school, but really I do want to see that, I want to see him go to school, i want to see him go to college, i want him to get a job, i want him to marry Mary Jane, I want him to have a family, I want to see Aunt May die of old age. I want Peter to be a human being, I want him to age and see him actually become an adult. You don't have to have characters stay the exact same to keep them interesting, I'm not saying Peter has to lose his essence, I've done an entire essay on the essentials on the character, but age isn't one of them. You can have Spider-Man swinging about and making jokes but worried about how he's going to do at school, or you can have him swinging around making jokes but worried about paying bills and supporting his family. I want him to age every year and grow as a person, and i want this to be for everyone.

If someone dies, i want them to stay dead, that way characters won't die as often, but when they do, it will leave a massive impact knowing that we won't see them again. That goes for heroes and villains. I want to see new heroes and new villains, create new dynamics, make new iconic characters for people to attach themselves too. I want some people to behave differently. I want Ben Grimm to actually be perfectly fine being The Thing and actually enjoy the power, I want Wolverine to not be in love with Jean Grey, I want Steve Rodgers and Tony Stark to get along, I want characters to get married and stay married. I want consistency, i want cause & effect, i want something new, and sometimes that something new can simply be things staying the same, because in the world of comics where they're afraid to do change things up for characters and always have to reboot them, i want characters to go through experiences that will effect them in the future and the writers stick to those stories.

Will these things happen? Probably not. If anything, this reboot is just happening to make it easier for new people to read comics, so that means more of the same stuff that we've seen happen time and time again. But if Marvel does this for even one of their books then that will instantly become my favourite comic they make.

-Danny

The Hateful Eight - Trailer Review

I initially was not going to talk about this trailer because i didn't have anything to say about it...turns out, the fact that i don't have anything to say about it, is what i want to say. The Hateful Eight is the 8th film directed by Quentin Tarintino, he initially wasn't going to produce the film due to a script leak but ended up going through with making it. When this trailer came out, my twitter exploded, everyone talking about how great it looks and they can't wait to see it...it looks fine. Don't get me wrong, I am super excited for this movie and I love Tarintino, but if i was to judge my excitement for this movie based on the trailer alone, so pretending that I had never heard of Tarintino before, this trailer would have done nothing for me. I didn't see anything about the characters that interested me, or the story, or the visuals, or the cast, it just looks like an average movie. Again, basing that entirely on the teaser trailer! Am i going to see this film when it comes out? Absolutely, but that's because of the power of Tarintino, not the marketing of this movie so far, maybe the next trailer will impress me more, i don't know, but for as of right now, consider me unimpressed with what i've seen.

-Danny

Wet Hot American Summer - Cheap Thoughts

With Netflix's new prequel series to Wet Hot American Summer, I decided to watch the original film and see what the big deal about it is. WHAS is a satirical teen comedy set in the last day of summer camp where a large ensemble of characters are all trying to achieve different goals before they have to leave. Now despite the fact that this movie is listed as a satire, i would say it learns more towards straight up parody along the lines of Naked Gun or Airplane, not saying it's as good as either of those two, but it has a similar style. Satire is usually much more subtle, has more commentary too it, while this film here has characters put in silly and over the top situations that obviously couldn't happen in real life. I also feel it's important to make that a known fact about this film because if you don't know what the film is, then you might be fooled into thinking it's just a regular teen comedy because that's what the film's tone and opening feels like, instead of throwing you into a silly environment the film takes it's time to introduce you and i feel this works against the movie, because when the film starts to use cartoonish jokes but it's still playing it straight faced, it feels out of place and bad.

The biggest problem with this movie is its tone, it's trying to be a parody film but maintain the tone or a coming of age teen comedy and they don't blend well and sometimes the movie takes itself seriously, sometimes it's more of a goofball comedy and because of this some of the jokes suffer and don't come across as funny as they could have if they had just gotten the tone right. Take a film like Hot Shots, my personal favourite parody movie, straight away that movie nails it's tone, being a goofy parody movie, but also having enough elements of Top Gun to have a perfect blend of the two. However, though it may sound like i disliked this movie, i enjoyed it a fair amount, when the comedy does work i was laughing quite a bit, including a capture the flag sequence which i thought was great. The film's comedy i would say is 50/50, some of the jokes were really funny, while others feel half-baked or unnecessarily long, for example, Paul Rudd's character has this trait where every time he kisses someone he licks them an insane amount, and while that may get a chuckle the first time round...why did they keep doing it? Did they honestly think that was funny enough to deserve a recurring joke?

Speaking of Paul Rudd, wow does this movie have a massive cast, it's hard to believe so many people involved would end up becoming such massive stars. Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Amy Poehler, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Lo Truglio, Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper! For such a small movie at release, it has a really big cast of characters. Out of all the characters I would say David Hyde Pierce as an astro-physicist was my favourite character, his performance nailed what the tone of the movie should have been, playing it completely straight-faced and overly serious, he was easily the funniest part of the movie. While there were some inconsistencies in characters, for example Paul Rudd was at points the cool guy of the camp that everyone respected (Like Fonzy), while other times he was the douche bag that was the obstacle in the way of two characters falling in love. Also one of the subplots in the film has a counsellor going through a divorce and the kids acting as her therapists, funny set up, but the final punch-line is...inappropriate, that's as far as i can say without spoiling it, if you've seen the movie then you know what i'm talking about.

There were also some continuity errors, for example in one shot there would be raindrops or damp wood but in the next it was completely dry. I understand why this was because it was a small movie with a limited shooting schedule and according to the cast & crew it rained for 80% of the shoot, which is especially bad when the majority of your film takes place outside. So i give them a pass for that but it is still technically a problem big enough that it's worth pointing out.

Overall the film had enough good jokes that i did enjoy myself, but also a fair amount that i disliked and the tone didn't have enough focus to make it a great parody. I'm giving Wet Hot American Summer a 6/10.

-Danny