Behold: the VersusVerse!

It's called the Nostalgia Oblongata, and
for some of us, it's overly active and that's
why I go see dumb, if entertaining movies.

I'm sure this isn't an original observation, but goddamn, we are suckers for nostalgia. Well, I shouldn't speak for you. I am a sucker for nostalgia. Although I've got a feeling you've fallen for it yourself as once or twice. I mention it because I went to see the new Godzilla movie over the weekend and I'm fairly sure I only went because the people who market these movies use some kind of rubric to determine exactly what they need to do and say to stimulate the part of the brain responsible for decision making and then get dumb idiots like me to see their movies.

Above: That time Roland Emmerich
made Jurassic Park only not as good.

Godzilla? Check. Collapsing recognizable landmarks? Check. Charles Dance as the bad guy? Checkmate. Also it helps that the marketing made it clear that this movie wouldn't waste so much of its runtime on people talking about how terrifying all the giant monsters are and instead would focus on the giant monsters doing cool shit. This was kind of a problem with 2014's Godzilla. No, not the Mathew Broderick one from '97. We don't talk about that one. Gareth Edward's Godzilla. It was the first entry in the MonsterVerse and while pretty good, it was kind of stingy with the monsters.

Next up: Godzilla Vs. Kong; a remake of
King Kong Vs. Godzilla huh...they probably
should have called it the VersusVerse.

Huh? Yeah, the MonsterVerse-and yes, it's a 'verse. You know what? I'd like to digress for a moment because we were just talking about this nonsense the other day. Yeah, Godzilla, Skull Island (the King Kong movie from a couple years ago) and now Godzilla: King of the Monsters (the one I saw Saturday) are part of Warner Bros. totally innovative attempt to do exactly what Marvel already did with its MCU, that is, to make a shared movie universe.

Which is dumb for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the cinematic universe, as a thing, is being done to death. Secondly, it was already done to death in the 1960's. And with Godzilla no less. It's complicated, and we've discussed it before so I won't go over it here, but suffice it to say Kevin Feige didn't invent anything.

He just took other people's characters, told other people to go write movie adaptations
filled with crossovers and team-ups which is something movies have been doing
since 1943's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Now if it sounds like I'm being harsh,
remember that Feige made like a trillion dollars doing it, so you know, he's doing ok.

Burr reprised his role of white guy in the
U.S. version of 1984's Godzilla Returns
which was retitled, get this: Godzilla: 1985. 

And thirdly...wait, did I say there was only two reasons why this is dumb? Because there're three. Anyway, it's also dumb because there was already a Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It was the title of the first movie when it was released in America. They spliced in some scenes with Rayond Burr because American audiences back then couldn't handle a movie without a white guy, but it was essentially the same thing. In Japan, it was simply called Gojira, which is the Japanese way of saying Godzilla which was the title of both the 1997 and the 2014 American-made Godzilla movies.

"Recycle!"

-King Ghidorah,
not being wrong

Are your ears bleeding yet? Thought so. Huh? So how was Godzilla: King of the Monsters? I mean, I thought it was pretty good. I wasn't expecting a finely crafted cinematic masterpiece and didn't get one. The premise is ridiculous: Charles Dance wants to free the world's monsters in a Malthusian...well, I guess we say Thanos-ian now. A Thanos-ian plot to keep human civilization, and our destruction of the environment, in check and Ken Watanabe must stop him.

But it was much more fun the 2014 one, and was full of call backs to the Toho movies, even re-using the score because again, they know who their audience is: adults who used to watch poorly-dubbed Godzilla movies hosted by Grandpa from the Munsters on TBS's Super Scary Saturday. Which brings us back to my original point from which I have wandered considerably: that all you need to do as a filmmaker is remind me of something I enjoyed from the past and I will give you money. God, is it me, or is that super-bleak?

Bleak? Maybe, on the other hand, hey look!
It's Grandpa! Here, have some money...

A trilogy? How innovative!

So my problem isn't that Robert Pattinson is the next Batman. Other than that Harry Potter movie where he played Cecil Digglesby or whoever, I don't know that I've seen him in anything else and I don't really have an opinion of him as an actor.

Pictured: Robert Pattison as Cecil Digglesby or whatever
in Harry Potter and the Gobblestone of Azkablam. Or something.
Oh, and I probably should have said spoiler alert. Because he dies.

"Earn sequels? That's ridiculous. Just
for that, there's now going to be six
 Avatars. Six. Wanna try for seven?"

-James Cameron, 

the great sequelizer

What I do care about is the fact that the movie in which he's going to play Batman-supposedly entitled The Batman-is already being touted as the first part of a trilogy. Another trilogy. Everything's a goddamn trilogy, and this is a trilogy before we've even seen the first part. Don't you kind of have to 'earn' your sequels? Huh? You don't? Ok, fine, but I think my point stands: maybe see if people like part one before you start planning your Batman expanded cinematic universe. which, we'll get to that in a second, but first I should probably walk back what I'm sure sounds like unfounded nerd anger about a movie that doesn't yet exist.

"Why don't you just start
an internet petition about it?"

                                   -Some furry

So to be clear, I'm not saying the Robert Pattison as Batman trilogy will be bad. Not at all. In fact, it could be great, I don't know. I hate everything, so it's hard to tell sometimes. I'm just saying that announcing an entire series of movies seems a little premature. My issue is more with planning trilogies and extended universes and spin-offs before the first movie is even out. And this may sound like the fannish overreaction I was complaining about as recently as a week ago, it's not. I mean, I don't think it is. Is it?

As I was eluding to, Pattison's The Batman, is already being pointed to as part one of three and the obvious thing to do in part one of your super-hero trilogy is to retell the origin story. Again. And we know the origin story. We've seen it in like every single Batman movie to date.

Above: three panels that obviate the first forty-five minutes of Batman Begins.

Crisis on Infinite Networks!

But cool. Maybe they'll skip it this time, but it seems kind of inevitable given the beats of trilogy story-telling. Speaking of inevitabilities, there's already internet speculation about a Batman cinematic universe based on this movie. And sure, speculation is just that, but I mean, everything is an extended universe now, so it's not that out of left field. And that's fine, but isn't there like twenty un-related DC comics universes right now between TV and movies There's the movie universe: Superman, Ben Affleck Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquadrogo. Then there's the Arrowverse CW shows which are separate from Krypton, a show about Superman's Grandpa. Then DC has a streaming service with its own shows like Doom Patrol and Titans that share a continuity with each other, but not anything else.

And then there's at least two more Batman-related TV shows, Gotham and Pennyworth, which may or may not connect to each other, but are definitely not connected to any of the other shows.

Hey, I know everyone loves Alfred, but the total
number of TV shows about him should be what? Zero?

"I am Feige, decider of universes!
But you can call me Kevin."

-The dope in the hat

That's like five or six separate DC superhero narrative universes that are unconnected to one another but are all based on the (more or less) shared DC universe. And that's not counting the Christopher Nolan (which, bo-ring, you heard me) or the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman movies, or the Christopher Reeves Superman or any of the dozens of animated series. That's a lot, right? Especially compared to Marvel which has like one or two depending on how Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is feeling about Agents of SHEILD at any given moment.

Although rich people do seem to get
away with shit, so I don't know, maybe
this isn't that unrealistic after all?

Anyway, I mention all this not because I think there shouldn't be more movies about Batman. On the contrary, I like Batman and will totally go and see more movies about Batman (just not his butler). And sure, I know Batman's is a problematic narrative about a rich white guy who acts like he's above the law and literally makes a career out of violating people's civil rights and getting away with it. And that's troubling. On the other hand, Batman is cool, so here, take my money.

The point, from which I have wandered is this: I think it's ok to just make a movie and see where it goes. Maybe they'll make ten more and they'll be great. Maybe it'll suck and we'll just move on and recast in a couple years. It wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't even be the first time in the past five years.

What ever you thought of Ben Affleck's turn as Batman, or about the
choice of Robert Pattison, you have to admit, anything is better than the
gravely-voiced Batman who faked his own death to avoid paying damages.

Here, let me vent about Mitch McConnell:

You know who's just the worst? Well, yes, fans, but that was last time. This time I'm talking about Mitch McConnell, who's even...the worst-er.

He's just a symbol of everything wrong with-oh,
sorry Beeker, I thought you were somebody else...

"No, really. What's so funny?"

-the Paducah tourism bureau

How come? Lots of reasons. Really it's just a lifetime of being an unrepentant shitheel, but his most recent moment of shithellery came at a luncheon at the Paducah Chamber of Commerce. Wait, the where? Paducah. It's in Kentucky. In McCracken county. No, that's not a joke. The Senate Majority leader gave a speech to local movers and shakers in Paducah during which someone asked him about that time he sat on a Supreme Court nomination just in case Trump won the election.

"The American people should have a voice
in-sorry, almost said it with a straight face..."

-Beeker

Remember? And then Trump did, win I mean. Unexpectedly and you know, technically. But the question McConnell was asked was what would he do if another seat opened up on the Court with the 2020 election just around the corner. Keep in mind that in his remarks today, McConnell referred to holding up the nomination in 2016 and claimed that he was just providing providing "...the American people a chance to speak up about who they wanted to make that decision." So take a guess at what he said. No, go on. Guess. It'll be fun. Give up? Ok, here's what he said:

"No, as a matter of fact I have
no shame. Next question?"

-A shambles turtle of a man

"Oh, we'd fill it."

-Mitch McConnell,

noted shitheel

Oh, we'd fill it. Are you for goddamn kidding me? His speech leading up to that was basically him openly acknowledging that his strategy has been to ram as many court appointment through as possible while the GOP is still in power. Something he knows won't last, because of their terribleness.

From the people who
brought you Hoovervilles!

"This opportunity doesn't come along very often for my side. In fact you can go back a hundred years and only twenty of the last hundred years has my party enjoyed the White House, the House and the Senate at the same time. One fifth of the time. So I said to myself, we'd better not waste any time because this may not last very long and sure enough two years later we're back to divided government."

-The Literal Worst, I mean, 

how does he sleep at night?

Well, I hope you're happy...

I know politics is a filthy game played by garbage people, and that it's sometimes difficult to distinguish what we want from what's best for the country but holy shit. That 'opportunity' he's referring to is that time most of us voted for Hillary Clinton but the electoral system we're saddled with because 18th century farmers felt under appreciated, handed us the former host of The Apprentice instead. So now they're going to saddle future generations with as many fresh-faced young conservatives as they can possibly squeeze in before the next election or the indictments are handed out. Whichever comes first.

Anyway, the upshot here is that court cases for the next forty years won't so much reflect the will of the people as they will the will of the crazy fringe of the Republican party because people like Mitch McConnell have so heroically taken advantage of a broken system.

Pictured: A circuit court in the near
future upholding a conviction of witchcraft.

And that's why Sonic is basically Brexit.

We're just the worst, you know that? Fans I mean. There are many other ways that statement can and should be taken: as a country, as a species, but in this instance, I mean fans.

But to be clear, we are, all of us, the worst. In our own ways.

I say that, but still, yikes...

So the computer animated nightmare monster with the uncomfortably sexy legs that is Sonic in the upcoming, but almost certainly terrible movie, Sonic the Hedgehog, should never have been. It's a soulless, market research-fueled re-interpretation of a character that was itself the product of soulless market research. But that said, this re-interpretation had a right to exist, didn't it? Doomed to fail or not, the animators and the film's director had every right to try, didn't they?

Or did they? Evidently not. After the disproportionately rage-filled internet backlash, the studio announced that it was going to 'fix' the character. It will take some time and the movie's been pushed back three months, but according to the director, Jeff Fowler, they're "Taking a little more time to make Sonic just right."

"Get him right? If you figure it out, let us know, ok? We've tried everything, we made him
taller, added new characters, we even gave him a scarf. Frankly, we're out of ideas."

-Sega

Pictured: that time Theresa May resigned
in tears because complex economic
policies were left up to a show of hands.

I think that means that they're going to 'fix' the character to more closely align with fan expectations but I don't think fans know what they want. Not about Sonic, not about Game of Thrones; nothing. We live in a time where everyone's voice can be heard, and that's usually a good thing, except when it's not. Sometimes asking everybody what they think regardless of their level or expertise or worse, despite a complete lack of understanding, can be disastrous.

Maybe the best thing that people who create movies and tv shows and whatever can do would be to just stop listening to fans.

Ok, so it doesn't always turn out for the best,
but I think the principle is sound. 

"Yes, it's another Death Star-but different.
But the same. It's whatever you want it to
be, just please don't sink our metacritic."

-Some Rebel Commander

Take Star Wars for example. First we were upset that the prequels were too different from the original trilogy. Then J. J. Abrams came along and made The Force Awakens, which was better. But it also kind of felt like a retread of the original trilogy. Then Rion Johnson made The Last Jedi and it was even better, but then some people were upset that it was too different from the previous movies. So now J. J. Abrams is back for Episode IX and Obi-Wan's going to be revealed as Rey's secret father or some nonsense.

I made that last bit up, but the point is Disney really needs you to come see the next Star Wars and J. J. Abrams knows how to make safe, crowd pleasing choices so that's why we can hear Emperor Palpatine cackling in the teaser trailer for Episode IX.

J. J. Abrams, a pioneer in the field of knowing exactly what the
fans liked about other movies and then shamelessly recreating it.

Above: Some dumb blog that
you should probably not listen too. 

The phrase 'design by committee' is used to trash something without a clear vision. Sometimes when too many opinions get involved the original idea can get lost. And I'm not arguing against collaboration. I think really great things come out of talented people working together, but there's got to be a balance between artists working in harmony and the shitty results of groupthink. But you can't get there by listening to every idiot with a Twitter account, or an Instagram or say, a dumb blog.

Look, I don't care about Sonic the Hedgehog's calves. And I don't care about how Game of Thrones didn't meet my expectations (which again, it didn't). And if Episode IX sucks, my heart will go on. But I think about these things and talk about them on the internet because sometimes I need a distraction from the shitshow that is the real world. Not because anyone should listen to what I think.

But you've got to admit, those are some sexy calves...

I hope this doesn't Shaka when the walls fell...

Never thought I'd hear myself say this,
but maybe that's enough Star Trek?

CBS's streaming service, as I have previously indicated, is dumb and I hate it. But it's the only way to see new Star Trek. You have to pay extra for it and it's not in fancy 4KHD (like it is everywhere else in the world), but still, new Star Trek so they're getting my money. And in an effort to make sure trekkies don't unsubscribe during Discovery's hiatus, they're making even more new Star Trek shows. Like, five of them, which even I, a fairly hard-core fan, admit is kind of a lot.

One of those shows is the unimaginatively named Star Trek: Picard. A teaser trailer was released today that-huh? Yeah, this whole post is going to be about Star Trek, so if that's not your cuppa tea, now's the time to bail. 

What kind of tea? I don't know,
Irish Breakfast. What do you think?

"Fuck the Prime Directive Mr. Worf!"

-Captain Picard,

actual line

Still with me? Super. So the Picard show will see Sir Patrick Stewart-yeah, he's a knight. The show will see Sir Patrick Stewart return to the role after seventeen years. Well, twenty-one years if you, like me, would just rather pretend Star Trek: Nemesis never happened. Remember? The one where Picard goes off-roading on a pre-warp planet? Anyway, since the announcement there's been very little information about what the show will be like other than executive producer Alex Kurtzman describing it as a more grounded and contemplative show than say Discovery. Which, what does that mean exactly? 

I love Discovery but sometimes I feel like it was written by actual cocaine. Which isn't a criticism I just-ok, it is a criticism, but again it's a great Trek show, I'm just not always sure about what's happening.

Spoiler alert, but in this scene from the season 2 finale, the Enterprise and Discovery
are fighting secret agent not-Borgs who want to become sentient so time travel happens.
And then everyone agreed never to talk about it again. No, really. That was season 2.

You wouldn't think wine-making would
be all that lucrative in a future with both
replicators and a money-less economy but...

So cool, grounded and more contemplative than Disco. Ok. I'm in. But how grounded? Like I mentioned earlier, a teaser trailer came out today and a lot of it was old man hands tending grape vines, which seems a little weird for a Star Trek thing if you don't know that in addition to being a space captain, Picard is also a brand of wine in the future. According to the narration, there was apparently some rescue mission that Picard led, something happened, and then he left Starfleet and went back to France to make wine and I don't know, play his flute. 

"Explain Star Trek? Don't mind if I do!"

-any Star Trek fan at any time 

This all lines up with some of the scant plot details we've been given so far, specifically that the series would deal with the repercussions of the planet Romulus' destruction in the 2009 Star Trek sorta-reboot. How? I'm glad I pretended you asked. One of the running story arcs of the Next Generation was Picard trying to make peace between the Romulans and the Federation. In fact, the two-parter where Mr. Spock returned was all about the Romulan storyline. It's was a big part of the series.

But unfortunately, it never got resolved and then J. J. Abrams esploded planet Romulus out of dubious plot necessity, so it looked like it never would. 

In The Force Awakens, Abrams
blew up five planets. Because stakes. 

Well, no, those are still problems,
but at least TV's pretty great.

But now we live in a world where Full House is back on tv so I guess anything is possible. Even picking up a thirty-year old plot line from Star Trek. See? The future isn't all climate collapse and twitter-based rage. Anyway, using my encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek, I predict that the aforementioned rescue mission referred has to do with Picard saving Romulans from their scientifically implausible doom and that that mission's consequences set up the show's arc.

Ok, cool, so Romulans, old Picard, wine-making. That's what we've got so far. Will it be any good? I hope so. I mean, I hope it's not too grounded. Contemplative is great. I'm all for contemplative, but I also need Picard to get up to some Star Trek-y stuff. Like, come out of retirement, get the crew back together and maybe remark about how he's too old for this merde. Could it be that they're just saving it for the full trailer? I mean, the whole show can't just be Picard tending grapes and aging, can it? 

Somehow after the Borg and Q, drought and
grape mites don't feel like satisfying adversaries.

Today in companies not staying in their lanes:

Hey, remember that scene in Aliens when the space marines encounter the xenomorphs for the first time and start getting slaughtered? And Sigourney Weaver and that useless captain guy were back on that transport watching the life signs on a monitor flat-line one by one? Well soon you may have that very same technology in your own home!

Not only can it save lives, but it also increases dramatic tension.

"Hey, you were in there a long
time. Everything come out ok?"

-Our hilarious future

There's a company testing a new device, similar to an Alexa, that can monitor people's health. It'll have sensors by which it can monitor heart rate and body temperature and send that data back to doctors. It could also detect a fall and summon an ambulance or spot other trouble signs like if a person hasn't gotten out of bed in a long time or is maybe making frequent trips to the bathroom, and-yes, frequent trips to the bathroom. Let's be adult about this. Frequents bathroom visits could be a sign of something wrong, and-oh grown up...

While this'll probably be geared towards elderly and at-risk people at first, it may someday be broadcasting everyone's status and bathroom trips to a call center somewhere. And while that sounds like a terrifying invasion of privacy, I'm kind of on board with it. Like most single people, choking to death alone in my apartment on rotisserie chicken or something is a very real possibility. So maybe this isn't such a terrible idea after all.

Pictured: A very real possibility.

More disliked than companies that
are literally killing people. That's
how much people hate Comcast.

Or is it? Because when you imagine who's on the other end of a home health monitor system like this, you picture doctors, right? Like a team of physicians gathered around computer displays of your personal telemetry, scrutinizing wavy lines and numbers and ready to send in a team of medics at the slightest sign of rotissery-related asphyxiation. You wouldn't say, picture the cable company, right? I ask because that's who's testing this new technology. Comcast, constantly one of the most hated companies in America.

Is it Orwellian though? I mean, Big Brother
wasn't billing you, so in a way this is worse.

You're probably most familiar with then as the company you pay for cable. Not because you need or even watch cable, but because it's part of some nonsense package they insist you buy in order to have internet. Yup, they're the ones we might all one day be entrusting our health and bathroom itineraries to. Which...I mean, at what point do we agree that the commercialization of healthcare has made the transition from absurdity to straight up Orwellian dystopia?

I don't want to be an alarmist but-wait, screw it. I do want to be an alarmist. I mean, what's to stop Comcast from offering different tiers of monitoring based on how much you shell out? Will they let someone die because they didn't opt for the premium cable/internet/life-saving medical assistance package? Or could they flat out cut your grandma's service for failure to pay? Also, Comcast is sort of famous for terrible customer service, so are these really the people we want monitoring our health?

"Ok Mr. Weiss, I see on my monitor that you've suffered a massive drop in
blood pressure and-what's that? Bleeding profusely? I see. I can have someone 
there between the hours of noon and four next Tuesday. Will you be home then?"

-The person between you and medical assistance

It's not worth it Dylan...

Better get on that HBO, or people
might not tune in for season nine.

I personally don't love season eight of-huh? Yeah, Game of Thrones again. See, there's a petition. Change.org. Some guy called Dylan in Fort Worth Texas, outraged at the direction his favorite show about murder and magic dinosaurs has been taking, took to the internet demanding that HBO re-shoot the most recent season. How come? Because David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are-in Dylan's words-incompetent. And a million people have signed. A million. So what percentage of that do you suppose is people with their own subscriptions?

I ask because GOT is sort of famously the most pirated thing ever and even when people are watching it on a legitimate subscription, it's often one they share around with friends or family and I'm just not sure you get a lot of room to rail against a TV show if you're stealing it? What? Me? No. Never...

...well, maybe I share my CBS All Access around. But seriously,
$9.99 a month for Big Bang Thorey and like six NCIS shows when
all I watch on it is Star Trek? Seriously, who're the criminals here?

"See? If you never finish something,
people can't hate you for it."

-Some off-duty mall Santa

dressed like a train conductor

Anyway, on the petition, Dylan lays out his case about how Benioff and Weiss are useless without source material and that's why HBO should immediately throw away millions of dollars and months of work from hundreds of talented artists:

"This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen HBO!"

-Dylan, from the internet

Uhhh...I guess you don't necessarily have to have a realistic goal when you set up an internet petition, but wouldn't re-shooting a season of this show cost like, a shit-ton of money? Which is exactly 1,999.99 shit-pounds more then HBO would want to spend given that this is the last season and it's not like they need fans to come back next year.

"Alright people, let's call the cast back in. We're going to re-shoot
season 8 and this time, it's going to make sense. We are goingt
to subvert Dylan's expectations no matter how much it costs!"

-HBO's board

The 'We Shouldn't Have Let
Them Back into the Union" State.

I know that the internet is functionally infinite when it comes to space and that there isn't a limit to the number of causes we can use it to call attention to, but the President is clearly guilty of crimes ranging from obstruction of justice to violating the emoluments clause, Bill Nye is rolling out fuck bombs to call attention to how on fire the planet is and a number of southern states are trying very hard to turn themselves into the Republic of Gilead, so maybe this isn't the hill to die on?

Look, I don't know that I love season eight of Game of Thrones either but I've done the fan outrage thing. Remember the Transformers movies? Or The Hobbit? Or when J. J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek and Spock fought Khan on top of a flying garbage truck and I lost my shit? Well, he did, the did and I did, and it's not worth it Dylan. It's not worth it.

I mean, you've got to admit, it was pretty ridiculous. And what was with Spock shouting
Khaaaan? He sure yells a lot for a Vulcan...like, has J. J. Abrams even seen Star Trek before?
So incompetent! Someone should petition them to remake...oh God...I'm doing it again...