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2026年6月7日 星期日

(Japanese) Spider-Man (1978-1979) 2


"Spider Strings!"

"Spider Machine GP7!"

"Marveller!"

"Change Leopardon!"

Yes, it's time for another round of the Japanese Spider-man TV show, my lowkey sexual obsession with "Amazoness" continuing unabated.

This entry brings me up to 28 episodes out of 41.  That's all I could find on YouTube.  I'd love to watch the remaining 13 episodes, but alas, I couldn't find them online.  

(I even tried searching by スパイダーマン! )



Spider-man helps a boy with a heart condition.  Not much happens in this episode, even if Spider-man FINALLY figures out Amazoness' secret identity as the editor of his girlfriend's newspaper.



Professor Monster and his Iron Cross Army try to blow up a dam AND flood the city of Tokyo with gas that they plan on igniting afterward.  The Iron Cross Army be gangsta like that.

And that's one tough dog.  Not only does it walk off two bullets, but it later falls off the side of a damn and fights off several henchmen.

Not sure what the boy was doing in the mountains in the first place.  Maybe looking for his dad?  But how would he know where his dad was?



A pro wrestler wants to become "the strongest one there is," and ends up getting turned into a "machine bem" that resembles the Thing.



Spider-man helps a boy bullied by classmates while the Iron Cross Army, for inexplicable reasons, commits a series of extremely low level crimes across the Tokyo area.  Can't help but feel sorry for the mom accused of stealing 5 million yen.  That was a low blow, Amazoness, even for you!

And how many boys had fathers killed in car accidents in late 70s Japan?  Judging by this show it was A LOT.



Definitely one of the weirder ones.  I'd put this alongside the cat demon episode.  Spider-man meets an alien boy with mind powers who takes him to a secret village in the mountains where the locals (who can all fly) are planning to sacrifice the boy's sister to a monster in a lake.  Amazoness gets a new outfit in this one, and I'm not a fan of the new look.  Maybe they thought she was too drab in earlier episodes?



Funny how you bad guys keep running into Takuya, isn't it?  It's almost as if he's... Spider-man?

In this one the Iron Cross Army kidnaps a girl (so much kidnapping!) who might have the power of precognition. 



This is one of the more random ones.  An Interpol guy gets caught spying on the Iron Cross Army, and Spider-man helps him escape their clutches.  But why not carry the guy once he's injured?  Isn't Spider-man strong enough?  And why bother to commandeer the helicopter if they weren't going to escape in it?  And why not take the guy directly to the hospital, so he could see his son another day?



One of Professor Monster's more skeletal henchmen goes around stealing people's blood for his boss.  In the midst of that Spider-man rescues a blind little girl.  Can you guess who the little girl's father is?



Watch your back, Takuya, some dude's buying your girlfriend presents behind your back!

Shortly thereafter Takuya stumbles upon - I kid you not - a private club where people gamble on rabbit races, chick races and spider fights.  Go figure.  Was that really a thing in Japan at the time?  I kind of doubt it.

It should be noted that at this point in the series Spider-man not only has a spider sense but also X-ray vision and the completely inexplicable ability to know when someone's trying to contact him.  By this point his powers are pretty much all over the place.

And naturally the "sorceress" running the club turns out to be one of Professor Monster's Machine Bem.  She resembles a lower grade Mysterio.



Spider-man meets A BOY WHO THROWS COCKROACHES ON PEOPLE and who at one point PUTS A COCKROACH IN ANOTHER BOY'S MOUTH.  Yeah, if you enjoy that kind of weirdness this show is for you!

And as you'd expect the machine bem at the end is a cockroach.  Why wouldn't it be a cockroach?  Of course it's a cockroach!!



A former jewel thief is tortured to death by the Iron Cross Army, and they create clone (?) to trick the thief's son into divulging the location of a hidden gem.  But as you'd expect Spider-man shows up, and so much for the missing gem, the Iron Cross Army and their giant crab monster.

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2026年3月30日 星期一

Kamen Rider (1971- 1979)


I would have been all over this show when I was little.  Unfortunately I grew up in the States, and Kamen Rider wasn't really a thing over there.

After Ultraman's (temporary) fading from the public consciousness in the late 60s, Kamen Rider represented a newer kind of tokusatsu,  tokusatsu being a genre of effects-heavy TV shows dominating Japanese television at the time.

What you see below is a discussion of the earliest 12 episodes available on YouTube.  This show had a long run on Japanese TV, and the episodes below represent only a fraction of it.


Kamen Rider (1971-1973) : Episode 1

Takeshi Hongo, one of countless "70s motorcycle dudes" gets kidnapped by Shocker, a worldwide terrorist organization which changes him into a cyborg.

This show has a lot more kung fu fighting than Ultraman, which is also in keeping with the time.  The women in it are a lot more attractive than what you'll find in Ultraman as well.  Nothing against Akiko, who is definitely the cutest member of the Science Patrol, but she seems a lot more remote and hard to relate to than the women of Kamen Rider.

That said, Kamen Rider makes about as much sense as Ultraman - maybe even less so.  The various members of Shocker appear and disappear, reemphasizing a spider/insect theme, but very little is resolved in the first episode.  They don't even bother to explain why Kamen Rider and his motorcycle are able to transform.


Kamen Rider (1971-1973) : Episode 2

Kamen Rider battles the Bat-Man, a batlike creature that infects his victims with a virus for which only he has an antidote.

By this point the professor's daughter finally realizes that Hongo didn't kill her father.  Took her long enough!

One thing Kamen Rider had over the Ultraman show is that it had a manga to draw from.  This meant that story elements carried over into subsequent episodes, making the show a lot more engaging in terms of narrative structure.  Ultraman's predictable silliness is one of its strong points, but after a while it can seem repetitive.  There's slightly more story in Kamen Rider to hold the viewer's attention.


 Kamen Rider (1971-1973) : Episode 3

Continuing the bug theme established in episode one, this episode introduces the evil Scorpion Man, a guy who - freakily enough - is able to unleash an army of man-eating scorpions against his opponents.

Never mind that the "poison" sprayed from the tails of these scorpions melts its human prey instantly.  Man eating?  What's left to eat?


Kamen Rider V3 (1973-1974) : Episode 1

There's no second season on YouTube.  Instead we skip to the third season, which was Kamen Rider V3.

This season retains Hongo from season 1, with the addition of another rider who is, I assume, the star of season 2.  Hongo plays a mentor to the new rider, cyborging him up after yet another botched assassination attempt by the bad guys.

Shocker seems to have been dispatched by this point.  In V3 they're replaced by Destron, a rather Catholic organization also bent on world domination.

Zooka, the bazooka-wielding turtle, and Scissors, the pincer-wielding agents of Destron, outshine the season 1 foes in terms of sheer ridiculousness.  Scissors is also more coldblooded than previous foes, killing V3's entire family before his eyes.


Kamen Rider V3 (1973-1974) : Episode 2

Scissors is also a real d*ck.  He and his cronies are intent on blowing up Tokyo with a nuclear bomb, and to make matters more annoying he feels the need to yell "Scissors!" every time he appears.

V3 finally gets him in the end though, just before the riders from seasons 1 and 2 haul Zooka out into the ocean, where the nuclear bomb he was carrying detonates.  They swear they'll be back, but how?  Are they nuclear bomb-proof?


Kamen Rider X (1974) : Episode 1

Lower and lower budgets, but the weirdness seems to escalate and I'm loving it.  70s weirdness beats all other kinds of weirdness.

In Kamen Rider X we meet X Rider, yet another young man cyborged (or in this case "cyzorged") up by his father, some kind of biotechnology researcher.  His father - as one does - then uploads his consciousness into an undersea lair for his son's future use.

Kamen Rider X pursues a Greco-Roman theme.  X Rider's first opponent is Neptune, a sea-thing that spits deadly bubbles at our hero, and Neptune is followed by Panic, a rather limp-wristed enemy who wields a hypnotizing flute.

One obvious upgrade: this version of Kamen Rider can flip his entire bike, not just his body.  More flipping for your money!


Kamen Rider X (1974) : Episode 2

X Rider tries to figure out who his girlfriend really is while dealing with the whole flute thing.  I dunno man, it doesn't make a lot of sense.  By the end of this one his AI "dad" decides to blow himself up in order to teacher X Rider self-reliance (or something), and we learn that next episode's foe will be Hercules.

And oh yeah, the villainous organization in this season is GOD.  This makes for a lot of fun bits of dialogue in the English translation, phrases like "tomorrow we do battle with GOD in earnest" or "GOD must be defeated."  It's like a philosophical conversation at certain points, with Rider X convincing himself that he can either outmuscle or outsmart the deity.  Can he?  Stay tuned and find out in next week's episode!!


Kamen Rider Amazon (1974-1975) : Episode 1

I don't know what the writers of this season were smoking but I sure would like some.

This Kamen Rider's more like Tarzan.  He gets a blood transfusion (?) that gives him the ability to turn into a lizard (?).  After arriving in Japan (or maybe before that, in the Amazon) he has to contend with the Ten-Headed Demon, a villain who might remind you of the floating head from John Boorman's Zardoz.

Along the way Kamen Rider Amazon befriends a young boy and his two hot sisters.  The bad guys attack these new friends (of course), and the result is a thorough ass whooping administered by the new Kamen Rider.


Kamen Rider Amazon (1974-1975) : Episode 2

Kamen Rider Amazon fights Spider Beastman in episode 1, and in episode 2 he battles Vampire Bat Beastman, a loathsome character who feasts on human flesh.  Kamen Rider Amazon doesn't even kill this foe, instead allowing him to return to his base where the Ten-Headed Demon does the job himself.  A fitting reward for failure!

Kamen Rider Amazon is, I must say, my favorite Kamen Rider series/season by a mile.  It's weird, it makes almost no sense at all, and it's GREAT.  There were 24 episodes in this series, and providing I find them online later I'll be sure to watch the rest.


Kamen Rider Stronger (1975) : Episode 1

Our newest "electric human" is Kamen Rider Stronger, a badass dude with plenty of 70s attitude and bellbottoms to match.  This Kamen Rider comes equipped with a girl sidekick (or is it "sidechick?"), Electrowave Human Tackle, who comes dressed as a ladybug in a miniskirt.

Their enemies in this iteration are Black Satan, a criminal organization also - you guessed it - bent on world domination.

In episode 1 Black Satan tries to steal a hovercraft.  Why?  I have no idea!


Kamen Rider Stronger (1975) : Episode 2

Kamen Rider Stronger and Electowave Human Tackle stop Black Satan from commandeering a lighthouse.  And why did Black Satan want the lighthouse in the first place?  Again, I have no idea.

The villain in this one is a wolf thing that can turn itself into gas.  The wolf who smelled it, in other words, probably dealt it.   Oh, and in this episode we learn about Kamen Rider Stronger's origins, which make about as much sense as all the other Kamen Riders' origins.


Kamen Rider Skyrider (1979) : Episode 1

The Kamen Rider that can fly!  A bit strange how he can basically fly wherever he wants independent of both wind conditions or any source of propulsion... but whatever.

This version of Kamen Rider seems to have scaled back the weirdness a bit, which is either a plus or a minus depending on how weird you like your Kamen Riders.  The Mount Fuji of weirdness, if you will, is definitely Kamen Rider Amazon, and from Stronger onward things are (relatively) more beholden to the laws of physics and causation in general.

Shocker returns in this installment, by the way, rechristened Neo-Shocker after the humiliations suffered in prior seasons.

One has to wonder at these evil organizations bent on world domination.  They keep turning the exact wrong guys into cyborgs.  Maybe a more thorough interview process was in order?  Followed by a background check and psychological testing for evil?

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2026年3月25日 星期三

Thoughts on 1966-1967's Ultraman TV Show 1


First of all this sh*t is GREAT.  It's hokey as all hell, it was made at a time when special effects were strictly DIY, and it's full of countless WTF moments.  If you like old Godzilla movies you'll be all over this show.

Let's dive in, shall we?



Ultraman, the space policeman, crashes on Earth and decides to bond with a human being.  In this episode he battles Bemular, a monster he was taking to a "space graveyard."

Thing is, Bemular is the offended party here.  Thing's just chilling in a lake, not bothering anyone, and the Science Patrol attacks it without provocation.  The record will show that Bemular acted only in self-defense, and its force beams didn't even hit anything.  In my opinion it was just trying to scare the humans away.

At the end of this episode Ultraman throws Bemular back into the lake, though it's entirely unclear as to whether Bemular has been killed and/or defeated.  Hopefully it had time to recover from this humiliation.  I like to think that it did.

Fun Fact: "Bemular" was originally going to be Ultraman's name.  They were also thinking about calling him "Redman" before the show hit the air.


2. Episode 2: Shoot the Invader

Unlike Bemular this Alien Baltan is genuinely bad news.  He rolls up on Earth real quietlike and blasts unsuspecting humans with a freeze ray that turns them green.  NOT COOL, ALIEN BALTAN.

Then he's all like: "I got 2.3 billion MORE of me waiting up on the spaceship, which was formerly huge but is now the size of a bacteria (bacterium?).  Oh, and we're lowkey thinking about taking over the Earth."

Long story short: Ultraman and the Space Patrol ARE NOT HAVING IT.  Ultraman pushes the now regular-sized ship out of Earth's orbit, and I'm assuming that the ship's occupants, in desperate need of the "Spacium" only obtainable on Mars, later die slow, horrific deaths in the vastness of space.

This one's more slapstick than the other episodes discussed here, containing a humorous subplot involving a black eye.  One of the characters even stops to talk directly to the camera.



This kid Hoshino-kun is precocious to the point of needing a spanking.  I realize that he's a stand-in for the show's audience, but as a member of the Science Patrol he's a serious liability.

In this episode Hoshino-kun wakes up Neronga, an invisible, electricity-consuming monster that's been sleeping under Edo Castle for a couple centuries.  Neronga looks a little like the "mind bugs" from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but other than that he's unremarkable.  Hoshino-kun actually manages to blind Neronga in one eye before Ultraman shows up, but then, being the dumbass he is, he falls down and knocks himself out.



So... they were flying nuclear weapons to Jupiter to "develop" it?  In what way?  I don't think six nuclear bombs, however big they were, were going to put much of a dent in Jupiter.

And hold up -- there was a race of "underwater primitive humans" that the Science Patrol was aware of the whole time?  

Anyway, Ragon is one of the cuter Ultraman foes.  It's only too bad they couldn't find music he liked.  Maybe next time try the Beach Boys?  Or the Surfaris?  Or the Beatles hit song "Yellow Submarine," which also appeared in 1966?



Laziest attempt at a monster ever.  It's basically a big piece of carpet they cut a hole into.  The carpet mouth sprays poison (?) onto people.  I'm sure Japanese toy companies, being the completists that they are, have manufactured a Miroganda figure/model at some point, but I doubt that many kids (or adults) have bothered to buy it.



Ultraman pits his might against Guesra, a mutated Brazilian lizard with a love of cacao beans.  Yes, you read that right.

And into the bargain there's "Diamond-Kick," a diamond smuggler who tries to kidnap Hoshino-kun and his young associates.  I'm assuming Diamond-Kick didn't survive Guesra's attack on the warehouse.  The Science Patrol never seems to investigate monster attack sites for survivors.



The Science Patrol has branches in other countries?  Japan, France, India and Turkey?  Kinda wish someone in Turkey or India had jumped on this.  An Indian or Turkish version of Ultraman would have been awesome.

The map one of the Science Patrol members points to puts the "Ancient City of Baradhi" in north Iran, not far from that country's border with Turkey.  This lines up with their sighting of Mount Ararat, the place where Noah's Ark came to rest, in the distance.  The ancient city's psychic princess claims that Baradhi was once a famous trading post along the Silk Road, and given its location this might have well been the case.

There is of course no "Baradhi" on Google Maps, and searches of "Baradhi" on other sites only led me back to Ultraman.  It was an amusing wild goose chase nonetheless.

Plot Twist: Just before Antlar the giant beetle attacks, the Science Patrol visits the "Temple of Noah" inside the ancient city.  And what does their god Noah resemble?  Ultraman!  Hayata, for whatever reason, states that the statue represents one of Ultraman's ancestors.

The biblical connotations of this episode are truly profound, and would shake Western civilization to its very foundations were it not for the fact that biblical scholars don't bother to watch Ultraman.



For some reason volcanism has turned nature upside down on an isolated Japanese island, and the result is... monsters!

Most of the monsters in this one don't even have names.  Ultraman comes in and handles sh*t as usual, and at the end there's a lesson about... nature... or something.

Damn shame about that one friendly monster.  Thing gets crushed by rocks and no one even bothers to see if it's OK!



Gabora marginally disrupts a boy scout outing, and I'm not sure which is more alarming, Gabora or the tightness of the boy scouts' denim shorts.

And how did the Science Patrol get to that island in a car?  Wasn't the bridge out?!?!



The Science Patrol is sent to investigate a lake with an overabundance of fish?  Really?  Doesn't Japan have a Fish and Wildlife Department or something like that?  The trip to Lake Kitayama seems a little below the Science Patrol's pay grade.

This episode is also another instance of Ultraman and the Science Patrol bothering a monster who would have otherwise kept to itself.  This Jirahs, like Bemular above, wasn't bothering anyone at the bottom of his particular lake, and if the Science Patrol hadn't intervened there wouldn't have been any trouble in the first place.

Jirahs is, by the way, a modified Godzilla costume.  They added a frill to the neck.  In the course of their fight Ultraman adds a splash more disrespect to the encounter by ripping off this frill and playing bullfighter with it.



This is one of the weirder ones.  Some kids find a space rock that can turn into anything you wish for -  as long as you continue thinking about it.  Eventually someone steals the space rock and asks it to turn into a monster for "reasons," and after the monster giganticizes he gets knocked out and the monster doesn't automatically disappear.

Wave Monster Gango is one of the more ridiculous Ultraman foes, and that's saying a lot.  He seems less intent on wreaking havoc than just f*cking with Ultraman in general, and I appreciate his inability to take their battle seriously.



Mummy wakes up, shoots a few death rays here and there, and is killed by the Science Patrol before the episode's halfway over.  

But wait!  There's more!

Before the mummy's untimely (second) demise, he summons his dinosaur-bird friend from the tomb where he was discovered, and this dinosaur-bird friend commences to stomp sh*t.

Kinda felt sorry for this monster.  The Science Patrol blinds it before Ultraman shows up, and the whole encounter feels kind of cruel.  Yes, the monster was destroying a power plant and causing a ruckus, but blinding it felt like a step too far.

12 Down, and 27 More to Go!!  Here Comes Our Ultraman!!

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2022年9月30日 星期五

Thoughts on Marvel's She-Hulk: Attorney at Law


"Utter shit!"  

"This show is terrible!"  

"Marvel is going downhill!"  

Etc., etc., etc.

Is that what I'm expected to say?

The thing is, I kind of like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.  I watched episode 7 last night and while yes, this show has problems, it's not that bad.

I have to be real here and say I haven't seen all of the Marvel shows.  I watched the Netflix series up to The Defenders.  I watched bits of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  I tried and failed with Agent Carter and The Inhumans.  I didn't bother with Runaways, Cloak and Dagger and Helstrom.  I probably won't bother with Adventure Into Fear either.

As far as the Marvel Studios shows go, I enjoyed Wandavision the most.  I thought the ending of that show was weak, but it was a good setup for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which should have, in my opinion, featured Scarlet Witch instead of Doctor Strange.

I couldn't get into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Moon Knight.  I still think Loki is terrible.  Hawkeye bored me, and I've only seen parts of What If...?  I might see Ms. Marvel, but then again I might not.  I loved the comic book series, and I'm worried the show will ruin my memories of the comic.

And She-Hulk?  I grew up reading those comics, but I haven't read any of them since I was little.  I was fascinated by the Hulk, and those She-Hulk comics were often a nice sidestep into other aspects of an evolving process of hulkification.

(Whatever that means.)


But yeah, I kind of like She-Hulk.  It's very dumb, but for all its dumbness it's entertaining.  Tatiana Maslany is a great actress, and despite plot holes and other problems with the writing she remains convincing as both Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk.  Is the CGI in the show awesome?  NOPE, but I will say that the CGI in episode 7 looks better, and that moment where Jennifer is at Blonsky's retreat struggling with the dichotomy between Jen and She-Hulk really sold the character for me.

No, I don't know why she didn't just turn into She-Hulk, jump a few miles away and get better cellphone service, and no, I don't know why her car getting smashed was such a monumental problem, but that moment in the group made the show very relatable, and it's a better moment than the best moments in many other Marvel shows.

Which is not to say that the pacing in this show isn't an issue.  Whoever's writing the scripts seems to be in a godawful rush to get to each episode's conclusion, almost as if they either didn't know how to reach that conclusion or they didn't want to be writing the script in the first place.  The actors involved are game enough, and the rom-com vibe could have worked, but this show really needs to slow down.  That big, season-ending conclusion needs to be earned.

I just hope they tap the brakes for the last two episodes.  No need to have some world-ending villain appear out of nowhere.  She-Hulk's struggle can remain a personal one, and bringing in some ridiculous bad guy so close to the end of the series will probably do more harm than good.

For what it's worth I'd like to see more of She-Hulk in a feature film.  With better CGI Tatiana Maslany can easily carry the role, and this is one instance where a character's diversity really will make a cinematic universe both more inclusive and more interesting.


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Fun Fact 1: They wanted to include She-Hulk in The Death of the Incredible Hulk TV movie, way back in 1990.

Fun Fact 2: Later still New World Pictures planned on making a She-Hulk movie, with Brigitte Nielsen as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk.  There are photos here.

Sad Reflection: And what about Marvel's other (more) interesting female superheroine?  What about Spider-Woman?  You'd think Sony would make a Spider-Woman film a priority, but no, no plans for Jessica Drew as yet.  Maybe they're doing us a favor?

Update: After writing this I watched the first episode of Ms. Marvel and the first three episodes of the Netflix Punisher series.  Ms. Marvel lost me at the end of the first episode, while that extended torture/interrogation scene in Punisher just started to seem ridiculous.  I'll definitely watch the remaining two episodes of She-Hulk, but I'm not sure about Ms. Marvel and Punisher.
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2021年3月18日 星期四

The Boys (I Know I'm Late to the Party)


Those who've been reading this blog for a while might think I've given up on the superhero TV shows.  This is not the case, though I have to admit that I gave up on the Marvel Netflix shows after The Defenders.  The CW stuff never did much for me.

I did, however, recently watch the first two episodes of Superman and Lois.  The verdict?  I thought they were terrible.  Bad, bad dialogue.  Good production values, a good cast, maybe a decent story, but really bad dialogue.  Sorry to offend fans of the show, but I wasn't into it.

But maybe part of my problem was that I'd already seen the first season of The Boys long before.  After you've seen Homelander murder people it's hard to see Superman the same way.  I (fucking) loved The Boys, whereas Superman and Lois suffered by comparison.

To be more specific, I watched the first season of The Boys not long after it came out.  I was unfamiliar with Garth Ennis' comic series, though I'd read a lot of his work on Preacher, Crossed and various Punisher books.  No, what brought me to The Boys was its similarity to a much older comic series, Marshal Law.

In case you're unfamiliar with Marshal Law, and to be fair, many people aren't familiar, he appeared in the late 80s under Marvel's Epic Comics imprint.  He was a super-powered policeman operating in a world full of deranged superheroes, in the wake of a Vietnam War-style conflict overseas.  The series was written by Pat Mills and drawn by Kevin O'Neill.  Both writer and artist were British, and they used Marshal Law as a way of poking fun at American superheroes.

Marshal Law didn't last long at Epic.  Mills and O'Neill later took the character to other comic book companies, but he nevertheless remained an obscure character, known only to those versed in the adult-oriented comics from the late 80s and early 90s.


Garth Ennis, by the way, was aware of Marshal Law before he began writing The Boys.  But where Marshal Law focuses on a single character, The Boys is centered around a group of anti-supe "terrorists."  Where Marshal Law was full of pyrotechnics and adrenaline-fueled sex and gore, The Boys has more of a story.  I will always love Marshal Law, but it would have been hard to make a movie or TV show out of the original series.

What the Amazon Prime series adds to this mix is some great writing handed over to some great actors.  Jack Quaid (son of Dennis), Karl Urban, Karen Fukuhara and most of all Antony Starr, a kiwi actor who absolutely kills it as Homelander.  I don't know where they found half of these people, but they were well chosen.  Karl Urban was the only obvious choice, given his work on Dredd.

I think the first season of The Boys has the best moments, and the second season tells a better story.  That scene in the first season wherein Homelander is encouraged to breastfeed, the laser-shooting baby in the hospital, and even the way Jack's Quaid's girlfriend is killed in the first episode are all great.  I don't know which of these moments were present in the comics, but even if they were present it's not a given that they'd have the same kind of impact in the same kind of way.

The second season?  Man, there are so many twists and turns there.  Stormfront and her backstory are front and center in the second season, and I veered between hating her and feeling sorry for her.  The ending of this season, with the beatdown and the way a major character dies really sets it above the first season.  But both seasons are great in different ways.  

Going from this kind of show to Superman and Lois isn't easy.  Wandavision?  Maybe, but Wandavision also isn't on the same level as The Boys.  I could still watch and enjoy Wandavision, whereas a helping of Superman and Lois just made me wonder why nobody says "fuck" in that universe, and how such wholesome people (even their "troubled" sons) can stand to be around one another.  I get that the caustic humor present in The Boys puts a lot of people - especially religious people - off, but once you've gotten into The Boys it's hard to take Superman and Lois all that seriously.

I will say that doing a spinoff of The Boys is worrying.  This kind of move usually indicates a loss of quality.  But I'm looking forward to the third season of The Boys just the same.  Between now and then I suppose I'll have to tide myself over with The Snyder Cut, provided of course that The Boys hasn't corrupted that for me as well.


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P.S. Here's a thought: what's preventing anyone from including Marshal Law in The Boys universe?  He's now owned by his creators, and all they need to is sign off on the inclusion.
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2017年5月3日 星期三

Legion vs. Westworld

I think Aubrey Plaza was the best thing about Legion.

 What did I do last weekend?  I spent most of it in a TV coma, watching the first seasons of both Legion and Westworld.  I'll admit that I'm a bit late to the party on both of these shows, but I was waiting until I could get the full first season.  Waiting between episodes just kills me.

 In a way it's not fair to compare these shows.  This is for three reasons.  First, Legion was made with a fraction of Westworld's budget.  Second, Westworld's budget allowed the producers of that show to attract top-notch stars.  Third, Legion's first season consists of only 8 hour-long episodes, whereas Westworld's consists of 9 hour-long episodes, plus an hour and a half long finale.

 Westworld is/was a big deal.  It is the most-watched HBO original series ever, it's won dozens of awards, and the critics loved it.  Legion, by contrast, is a much smaller-scale affair, with fewer awards to its credit.  The RT score for Legion is actually higher than that for Westworld, though the discrepancy may have something to do with the smaller number of critics reviewing Legion.

 For the record, I loved both shows.  Legion, though hampered by a smaller budget, was wonderfully surreal at times, and I'm looking forward to the second season.  Westworld meanders a bit, but the performances are great (especially Thandie Newton).  The plot twist involving Ed Harris's character in Westworld was one of the most inventive things I've seen in any TV show, ever.
Westworld - get ready for a whole lotta nudity!

 This said, my biggest complaint about Legion is that sometimes the show feels like watching a college (or worse yet, high school) drama class.  The first episode of that show is, in my opinion, better than any episode of Westworld, but after the second or third episode one begins to notice the less-than remarkable sets, and the fact that the show is especially talky.  "Show don't tell" is an important guideline for storytellers, and at times Legion tells much more than it shows.

 Another weak point of that show is the central character.  David isn't very likable, and a little slow on the uptake.  One begins to wish he would get on the ball, and figure more things out.  Jermaine Clement's character also doesn't have enough to do, and instead of watching him passively respond to events, it would have been better to give him more of his own agenda, and to make him more necessary to the story.

 With Westworld, my only issue is that there's a little too much "walking around," and although the "walking around" narratives converge at the end, I found myself wishing that the show's writers would get to the point already.  Shortening these narratives in favor of Thandie Newton or Anthony Hopkin's characters would have made the finale more powerful, and far less repetitive.

 Both series are great, and I'd encourage you to watch them if you haven't.  Both are superior to most of the movies that came out last year, and both left me wanting more.  How is David going to get out of that orb?  And will the next season of Westworld be set in feudal Japan?  Are the "corporate" elements in Westworld part of a larger park experience?  Will the Shadow King also pop up in the next season of Legion?  Or will they save him for later on?  I'm sure that in both shows, in different ways, reality will hang in the balance.  And whatever happens, they can only get weirder.
...and not only the ladies, either!
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