Sméagol

Look, it can work, Black Panther in Civil War worked fine, because it made sense in the overall story. But The Flash's introduction in Batman vs Superman was just shit. And I have no expectations of his solo film being a good one either. I want to care about the character, probably being the most interesting character for me in the DC universe I don't know about.. But they haven't given me anything. Maybe in Justice League, but they didn't convince me hard enough to go watch that one.

Doesn't mean a current version of a character doesn't need a proper introduction. Doesn't need to be an origin story no, but prefarably it's a solo film with a good enough story. Wonder Woman googling some meta humans wasn't a proper introduction. We doneed to get to know the characters. So start with something easy, then build up. Again I forgot to watch Justice League, so don't know if Flash got some proper screentime there, but having Flashpoint as his first solo film isn't good. This is using Batman (and as I understand, Keaton's Batman even) as a crutch, to make a character they properly fucked up look interesting. No with Big guns I mean the actual first Avengers film. Sure, they were limited by what characters they could use, but it doesn't really matter. If they could use bigger characters like Spider-man right away, they would have had more success with the solo films from the start, but having them come together in an Avengers film was the plan. They would have build up hype regardless of which characters they chose, to some extent. I actually do think it's the only way to build a shared universe like the MCU. But you're right, there are a few other factors, Marvel has almost godly casting choices, although I don't actually think DC does much worse in that regard. But yeah, bad filmmaking is a problem. Though I suspect that's mostly due to studio medling. They don't have a good plan, but also abandon their failures way to quickly. At this point I seriously think it's too messed up anyway, and the only way to recover from this is to stop making universe films for at least 5 or even 10 years, and then try again from scratch. The potential is there, there's no reason they can't make it work as long as the people making the decisions think long term rather than short term. I would love to see a proper DC universe. I was too busy ranting. May also indicate I don't associate Thor with the myth he's based on at all. Probably a good thing. Edit: And those sneakpreviews look desperate. I think they're actually so bad they were better off not showing anything at all.

Because the guys making the decisions are retarded. Only able to plan for the short term. They see the Marvel successes, all the Avengers films, and they try to replicate it by immediately bringing the big guns, their equivalent.. Failing to understand you need to build hype with the smaller films before it. Avengers was the big hit, but was big because Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain america came before it. But they see "Avengers == $$" so they bring out Batman vs Superman. I'm not a comic guy. At all. Why do I like the Marvel films? it went like this: Hulk? I know him, sure I'll watch it. Iron man? Vaguely familiar, but seems cool, I'll give it a go. Thor? Comicy version of greek myths? No thanks, hard pass. Captain America? Seems dumb, no thanks. .. Avengers? They all come together? Ok, I kind of want to watch that, and I'll give Captain America and Thor a chance afterall. And it should have gone like that with DC, if they had any idea what they were doing. Batman with Ben Affleck? Sure, he's cool, I'll watch that. Superman? I'm not super into superman, I kind of forgot to watch this one. Wonder Woman? Not super familiar, but she's super hot, so sure, why not. Robot man? No. Flash with Ezra Miller? Hmm, vaguely familiar with the Flash, I like Ezra Miller, so sure. .. Oh they all come together? Ok cool, I'll watch that, and I'll catch up on the other films as well. No one at DC knows how to build up to something. I'm now a huge fan of Marvel films, despite not having any interest in any of the comics. Since Avengers, I haven't missed a single one in the cinema. Are they all great? No, definitely not. But even the worst are still somewhat entertaining, and it's cool when they finally show up in other films like the Avengers. I'm familiar enough with the Flash to know Flashpoint is a big thing.. Huge even. So that's ridiculous premise to start with, because what are they're going to do next? (we all know the answer, they'll reboot it next time with another actor). And the DC universe in general, what remains of it anyway.. Hype is long lost (or to be precise, never gotten). I even forgot to watch Justice League, and with all the stuff I heard about it, I'm not sure I still want to. I may go see the Flash, or I may not, I'll decide when it's out. The sneakpreviews aren't doing it for me. I have no interest in Black Adam whatsoever, so I'll skip that. The Batman.. Ugh. I don't know. I like Batman, I like Robert Pattinson, but that trailer isn't doing it for me either, and I'm tired of all the DC rebooting stuff. And Joker was terrible. I have not seen a single thing of The Flash, except the bit in Batman vs Superman.

Am I the only one who really enjoyed MK64 then? I'd pick it over SNES MK, MKDD, and Diddy Kong Racing. In fact, I'd choose having no game over playing MKDD or Diddy Kong Racing. 4 player MK64 sessions were definitely one of the highlights back then. That said, I'm not really into racing in general, so I haven't played most other arcade racers, and I'm interested in trying those, like Beetle Adventure Racing and Ridge racer. The other one I really liked was Extreme G, and yes I'd pick that up over FZero 64. I seem to have an unusual taste in racers.

There are whole topics for it on the other forum I go to. I don't use a dedicated office desk chair, but the ones I see mentioned often are Ahrend, and even Ikea. And some Herman Miller. You could look into refurbished or 2nd hand to keep the cost down. The one I'd want if I had plenty of money: one of the chairs in the Arper Aston series. Edit: Oh and forgot to mention, it's apparently preferable if you can test the chair first. You may want to go to a physical store rather than order from Amazon.

Your not a cool ape unless you're an ape with a cape.

The son of a friend is recovering from a stroke (21 years old..), but he's able to read, and was asking for some manga recommendations. I can't really help here, as I'm out of the loop on anime, and never really looked into manga in the first place. Some recommendations from you guys? I think he's looking for shonen stuff (edit: "School/slice of life/ superpower/action/ drama/fantasy/martial arts"). Probably not too obscure, but also not too popular, or he'll have already read it. I mentioned The Promised Neverland as I remember it being mentioned here and sounding interesting, but he's already read that, to name an example. He's open to reading graphic novels too.

I ehh.. can't specifically recall the soundtrack. I think I liked it, but yeah, can't specifically remember any of it. That said, like I said I loved the atmosphere, and the music probably played a part in that too. Oh and to mention one more thing, cast is great. Timmy Chammely never made a huge impression on me, but he popped up in some films I've seen. This is the first film where I thought he was really suited for the role. Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson are great. Stellan Skarsgård and Charlotte Rampling excellent though they're not seen much in the film. Zendaya barely plays a part in this film, neither does Javier Bardem. Have fun when you finally get to wacth it, and I'll try to pay attention to the score more if I go see it a 2nd time.

Wut? Why? Isn't it out yet in the UK? Despite the (earlier) trailer not making me enthousiastic (despite being a Denis Villeneuve fan), I thought the film was fantastic, and I may go see it a 2nd time. One point against it though, is that it's clearly a part one. The climax of the film isn't a super interesting event to end the film on, and leaves you with wanting more. Another thing I thought could be better, was I wanted to see more of the politics. I thought they really glanced over some things that could do a bit more explaining, and googled them afterwards to get some references from the book. Also not a fan of the shield effect. But.. The atmosphere and worldbuilding are amazing. I loved the hopeless feeling of the battle, and the very creepy vibe of House Harkonnen. Looking forward to part two.

Well, they already had the themesong..

If @Will decided to start a gofundme, I'm willing to put 5 euros in.

I don't believe they sell those anymore (edit: apparently they still do), and it's a bit over his budget.

And like I said before, it's not about choosing one alternative over the other, it's about not putting all your eggs in one basket. The internet is all encompassing. Their customers are everywhere. Just like that whatever protocol was a single point of failure for facebook, so is relying on only facebook for all your business a single point of failure for all those businesses who were seriously affected by this. So hopefully this taught them a lesson.

They do have a choice. First of all, it's fine to use facebook etc. as a method of communication, but don't rely on it for all your business. Secondly, there are plenty alternatives. Facebook's own business is not even facebook anymore, if you want to reach the younger generation, you'll need an alternative anyway. And yes, one of them is owned by facebook, but others aren't. Twitter usage apparently shot up after facebook etc. being down. Signal saw more downloads. The alternatives are there. And again, you still shouldn't rely on social media for all your business in the first place. A small website doesn't cost much, and e-mail and telephone aren't going to go away.

Even funnier is that, despite my increasing disapprovement of big tech, I'm technically still using facebook, and I did download whatsapp on my new phone. it says more about my social life that I didn't notice anything unfortunately. Which hopefully is a wakeup call for those small companies.