On this, the last Friday of February 2022, the year that saw a palindrome in February and in which Vladmir Putin proved he was the world's biggest bully, I'm posing questions instead of answers. These are questions that plague me, for which I have no explanation. So, I'm sharing them with you. However, all of them are related to speculative fiction, so there is that. Now...on with the show:
1) Why did Spiderman: No Way Home make 1.84 billion dollars during a time when other movies are even struggling to make ends meet? It happened during the pandemic. Would it have been even bigger had it not? Like...what gives? Someone explain this pile of crapola for me. Please...I just don't understand.
2) I read that Howard the Duck was going to make an appearance in the Marvel series called She-Hulk. The news broke on Picsou, which is...wait for it...an officially licensed Scrooge McDuck magazine from France. Okay...what? So this led me down an internet rabbit hole and I discovered that Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck and I guess ducks in general (like Howard the Duck) are just enormously popular in Europe. Like...what?! Really? Why? Am I missing something here, because Howard the Duck doesn't even appeal to me whatsoever. Why is Howard the Duck more popular than people in costumes like...I don't know...Hawkeye or something?
3) Berkley Breathed's Bloom County is heading to television. What? Why has this taken so long? I was a huge fan of Bill the Cat, Opus, and Steve Dallas in the eighties! I had all the books, Bloom County Babylon, Billy and the Boingers, Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things, The Night of the Mary Kay Commandos, etc. You get the picture. And yes, I'm going to watch it. I'm just stunned that a television network took until now to realize its worth.
4) Why does every live-action Star Wars tale seem to spend inordinate amounts of time on Tatooine? Is the desert just better for space opera? And also...why is Star Wars just unable to remove itself from the Skywalkers? I hear that the latest series centered around Obi-Wan Kenobi is going to heavily involve a very young Leia Organa. Why? Why do this? You could spend years with some other character?
5) Why is every season of The Flash about time travel? It's always about time travel. I'm getting sick of time travel. I suppose there's only one real reason why I continue to watch this show, and that's Grant Gustin. I know...it's a very shallow reason.
6) Why is the DC expanded universe trashing the Snyder-verse and soft rebooting everything. I guess that the upcoming Flash movie is going to time-travel its way to fixing everything so that they can move forward from the Snyder stuff. For what it's worth, the Snyder version of Justice League is awesome, and I'm sad that we don't get to see more of that vision.
If you have any answers to my questions above and care to share them with me, I'll be grateful. Otherwise see you next week.
Ducks and Jerry Lewis - the French are just weird.
ReplyDeleteSnyder's Justice League was perfect. You're right, shame there won't be more.
And no idea how Spider-Man made that much in the midst of what was happening...
Well first to be fair, Spider-Man came out in December, when most places did not have many restrictions in place and the competition was somewhat lacking compared to pre-pandemic Christmastimes.
ReplyDeleteDesert is cheaper to film in than a big city and also when you're a sci-fi series and need special sets it's easier to set up in the desert than trying to film in a contemporary city. We all complained about the CGI sets in Phantom Menace so that's probably figuring into their thinking.
I really don't know enough about the actual Marvel Howard the Duck to really comment on what they're doing.
The Snyder Cut was far from "perfect" and at this point the Snyder stuff is old news. They might as well move on from it. Even Marvel is largely moving on from the early phases of the MCU. Having another Iron Man in the Dr. Strange trailer points to that there will probably be a non-Downey Jr Iron Man sooner rather than later.
DC is doing what it is always doing: starting over. The problem is that they won't actually fix any of the problems they have and will just let someone else fuck everything up the same way Snyder has because, honestly, the Snyder stuff is shit. Almost everything DC has put out is shit. Explosions in favor of story.
ReplyDeleteSorry, it's the truth.
I don't actually have any answers. But I have thoughts...
ReplyDelete3. I suppose there are so many worthy properties to adapt that the truly good ones get overlooked? And, considering how the adaptations go, what are the chances that they'll do it justice?
4. It's probably cheaper to shoot in the desert. At least on the west coast, there's ample locations to shoot from.
5. Just when we thought that Barry had learned his lesson about messing with time... But that's a totally valid reason to watch. I don't find him that attractive, but you do you.