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Reviews
Shôgun (2024)
This is a pleasure to watch
I'm 6 episodes in and this show is amazing. I don't know how the rest will unfold, but so far the 6 hours I have spent watching this were a blast.
The dialogue is great. The scenery and props are beautiful. Actors are top notch. Actions and consequences are believable and even the action scenes are bloody and realistic.
It feels like a mini version of Game of Thrones, but less chaotic. It has its own little chaotic elements that can catch the viewer off guard, but (so far at least) those don't affect the plot in any significant way.
This is historical fiction, but don't let that dissuade you from the fact that it beautifully presents (part of) Japanese history and is based on real characters and events from that time period.
I especially recommend this to people who haven't dipped their toes in non-english speaking production.
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
If Murphy's law was a show, this would be it
Murphy's law states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".
This statement is at the core of Battlestar Galactica.
I haven't watched the original series and I cannot draw any comparisons, so I'm reviewing this as a standalone thing.
To put it simply, this show is overly negative. It reeks of hopelessness, anxiety, misfortune and a cocktail of some of the worst human traits.
In small doses and as a contrast to a great story this can be a good thing, but the show tries too hard to make grittiness and anticipation of something bad the main focus instead of a consistent and good story.
From the fast paced shaky action camera, the soundtrack, gloomy surroundings, to random accidents happening to random characters, very unstable main characters, SEVERE alcohol abuse (my God its a lot) and everything in between, one cannot escape the thought that everything else seems like it was built around those elements.
I get that the humanity just survived a mass genocide and only tens of thousands of humans are left, but even considering that, the show focuses too much on dark elements and the worst of humanity, and not enough on hope and building likeable characters that the viewer can care about. Its too unrealistic in that way.
Show is plagued by betrayal, murder, cheating, prejudice and presenting the democracy in worst light possible by making colony representatives too out of touch with reality, unreasonable and shortsighted.
Some of the shows main characters are absolutely miserable drunkards that you wouldn't believe their imaginary livers would survive all these seasons.
Speaking of alcohol, I have never, ever seen so much alcohol screen time and abuse in any show to date.
I kid you not, in around 80% of the episodes, you have AT LEAST one main character taking screen time getting absolutely hammered while sobbing away over some past event or something they are currently going through.
Take Starbuck for example. When there are no circumstances where she can be a bada** that saves the day, she is either busy getting plastered with booze and being miserable, and/or wh***ng around the ship, even while married at one point. And she is one of the main characters and considered likeable by a lot of people.
Lets not even mention Colonel "wheres the bottle" Tigh, but at least he is more likeable and somewhat grows along the ride.
Also, show never stops reminding the viewer that even with all their technology; the FTL (faster than light) drives, artificial gravity, ability to create artificial lifeforms and everything in between - the cure for breast cancer is out of the realm of possibility for this sci fi universe.
I actually really liked the show for first season and a half and would give it 8.5 up to that point. But bad inconsistent writing, hard to like characters (with some very few exceptions), dark tone of the show, some obvious holes in the story (Baltars nuke that everyone forgot says hi), and a really meh ending really put a damper on the whole experience.
To be fair there were some good memorable moments, like Chiefs tendency to unionize the workers and go against the grain no matter what, Lee's commendable pursuit of justice and following his heart, Athenas consistent moral compass and patience with people that took her child and in general hate her. Also, the All Along the Watchtower song, a banger for sure.
If you are depressed and a sensitive person and you want to binge some sci-fi (more like a space drama than a sci fi, but whatever) to pass the time, I would recommend skipping this show entirely as it might just take you over the edge. Or maybe watch the first season or so and leave the rest to your imagination, as I can guarantee that you will come up with a better, more sensible story in your head than the writers of this show did.
One Piece (2023)
Thank you Netflix and please stay the course.
My expectations were low when I heard about this, since the history of adaptations is pretty dark to say the least.
This not only blew my expectations out of the water, but it genuinely became the best live action anime adaptation I have ever seen.
You can tell a lot of effort, love and attention to detail went into this. Everything just fits and the pacing is great and I couldn't imagine a better actor for the Luffy role (these were also Oda's words).
I don't mind that this isn't a totally 100% scene by scene manga / anime copy, as long as the main memorable scenes are adapted and it has that One Piece spirit. Sure I would've like to see Hachi and his Six Sword Style, but I perfectly understand that fitting 5 story arcs within less than 8 hours of screen time is a challenge and some stuff needed to be dropped.
I watched 1000+ anime episodes in Japanese and although its weird hearing different names and attacks in English, I'm very happy with that trade-off, provided Netflix adapts other arcs just as great as these 5.
I'm also happy about the choice of not completely shying away from gore, as its very nice to see Zoro do his thing and seeing visual feedback lol.
Please Netflix, you have an amazing opportunity here. Just keep giving love to future seasons like you did with this one and you will have happy audience and a masterpiece in your catalogue.
Edit: Using Aurora in "My Sails Are Set" song is just a cream on top.
Violent Night (2022)
Boring, gory and full of cliches.
I expected some violence, being that the movie has "Violent" in the name, but this was just too much, for no pay-off.
I also expected, being that it's touted as holiday movie, some actual comedy and goofiness, but there were none to be found, besides some "witty" lines during the marathon of violence and gore, if you find that funny.
The story of this movie can easily fit into 10 minutes. This movie requires you to turn off your brain and just expose yourself to murder in a lot of different forms, but it doesn't have anything else going for it.
I made a habit not to watch trailers, because some can reveal too much, but oh boy was I mistaken in this case. Instead I relied on few great reviews and overall rating for this movie.
Lesson learned, but the movie will be forgotten in few weeks.
Star Trek: Discovery: Such Sweet Sorrow (2019)
The most lazy written episode in the series so far.
If you haven't noticed, or are not bothered by this obviously bad writing, then your standards are too low or you simply need to think more.
So, the Discovery crew has to keep Control from accessing The Sphere data, but can't delete it because the Sphere's self defense mechanism preventing them. They activate auto-destruct, move over to Enterprise, say bye-bye to Discovery and guess what ? it doesn't work, because The Sphere somehow merged with the Discovery and stopped it. Ok so far.
Lets forcefully destroy Discovery by torpedoing it with Federations flagship, Enterprise. Sure, why not, a logical thing to do. Oh wait, it doesn't work, because Discovery got her shields up and we all know that once a starship gets its shields up, it is impossible to destroy /s.
They have AN HOUR before the Control ships arrive. In front of them is a Discovery, a sitting duck that doesn't fight back, and Michael yells "STOP" at Captain Pikes orders to torpedo it, and they all stop and don't think twice about it.
Michael suggests they should remove Discovery from this time completely, using the time crystal and they have a meeting discussing how will they accomplish that complicated feat. No one even mentioned the idea of simply destroying the Discovery with Enterprise.
Their plan is to create a new time traveling suit, using the specs they have, and have Michael pilot it on a one way trip. Oh and don't worry about the suit being made of material they can't synthesize, they will just melt a part of cargo bulkhead and just cast a mold. Simple, definitely more easy than destroying Discovery.
Remember that Discovery got her shields up to prevent them from destroying it ? Well forget about that, they just beamed back onto Discovery to chase another Red Angel signal that appeared. It's not like The Sphere would let them come aboard in the first place because they just wanted to destroy it. It's not like they could arm a few torpedoes inside the ship then get back onto Enterprise, no no, that would be thoughtful writing, and we cant have that.
Also, remember how THEY WERE RUNNING AWAY FROM THE CONTROL AND DECIDED THEY WILL DESTROY DISCOVERY BECAUSE THEY CAN'T OUTRUN THEM ??
Well forget about that too, because they JUMPED WITH THE SPORE DRIVE onto the new red signal, that just happens to be in the same range from the pursuing Control ships. It's not like they could JUMP ANYWHERE IN THE GALAXY TO ESCAPE THE CONTROL, right ??
The place where signal led them to is a planet with a Queen tech Jesus that has history with Gilly. With her help, they make an elaborate plan to charge the time crystal while protecting the crew from it's visions at the same time. Enterprise joins them, they decide to stand their ground against incoming Control ships, while the crystal charges.
They somehow summon a FLEET of shuttles and weaponized landing pods to defend them against the attackers. They get surrounded, Pike commands "Battle stations" and the episode ends.
I remember when Star Trek Enterprise got canceled and why it happened. Last 2 seasons of that show were better in every way than this. It is only a matter of time before it is canceled.
Into the Badlands (2015)
No effort in the last episode of season 2
*spoiler*
Last episode messed up entire show in my opinion. The fight with Quinn, his master plan and everything related to it just seemed illogical, undeveloped and the tragedy that came from it just seemed more tragic because the circumstances leading to it were very annoying.
HOW MANY TIMES DOES QUINN NEED TO COME BACK UP FROM A FATAL WOUND BEFORE SUNNY FINALLY CHECKS HE IS DEAD FOR CERTAIN ?!?!?!?
Well, we will never know, because Veil is the one who made sure he died, together with her.
I could get on-board that she had to die in the last episode, but in a more thoughtful way, other than killing herself to kill a guy who should've been dead 3 times by that point.
I've followed this show from the moment it came out. Even though most of fight scenes in season 2 were beyond fantasy, that was never a problem for me, as I have embraced that world and everything it had to offer.
I would've rated this show 8-9 BEFORE the last episode, however, after watching it, it gets no more than a 5 from me.
Such a shame, really....