A thought about Avengers: Infinity War (***SPOILER ALERT***)

First, let me be clear, I loved the movie. A lot. It paid off in the biggest way possible everything that was set up in the 10 years and 18(?) movies that brought us to this point.

With that said, let me get hyper-critical.  One issue I had with the movie was Thanos’ motivation in the movie versus his motivation in the comic books (specifically Infinity Gauntlet, where we first see Thanos collecting the Infinity Stones/Gems). In the comic book, he wanted all the gems/stones to kill half the universe to impress Lady Death. That motivation in the comic book makes sense, Lady Death wants people to die. She's Lady Death, killing lots of people is her thing.

In the movie, Thanos’ motivation is lack of resources, which leads to suffering and death. BUT, with all the Infinity Stones he’s nearly omnipotent. Meaning instead of killing half the population of the universe he could just as easily (with the snap of his fingers) doubled the universe’s resources. Boom! Problem (lack for resources) solved. It seems like the writers could have had some type of explanation as to why Thanos’ only option was to kill half the universe instead of just creating more resources. Just sayin’.

Is my criticism valid? I think so. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know.

Just curious if anyone ever comes to this site anymore. I'm just posting this here since I thought of it and wanted to jot it down. 

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 = Empire Strikes Back. Well not exactly but here are 11 plot points in common...

1. The "team" splits up.
Quill, Gamora and Drax go on a trip without Groot and Rocket. Just like Han, Leia. Chewy and C3PO went on their own adventure while Luke and R2D2 went to hangout out with Yoda.

2. There's a big chase scene through an asteroid field.  Pretty simple, but there are asteroid chase scenes in both movies.

3. One team hangs out in a natural forest after their ship crash lands there.
Rocket, Groot and Nebula are in the forest repairing their damaged ship.  Luke and R2D2 are on Degobah where they crash landed.

4. While the other part of the team goes to a wonderful place and is in the lap of luxury.
Quill, Gamora and Drax go to Ego's planet, which on the surface appears to be paradise. Han, Leia, Chewy and C3PO literally go to a city that floats in the clouds.

5. The paradise is not what it seems. Ego and his planet try to kill Quill and his team. Darth Vader is waiting for Han and company in the Cloud City. Whoops on both counts.

6. The forest team tries to rescue the part of the team in paradise. Rocket and co. go to Ego's planet to try and save Quill. Luke goes to the Cloud City because his friends are in trouble.

7. The main character has daddy issues. Quill's dad Ego wants him to join him and take over the universe. Luke's dad Darth Vader wants him to join him and take over the galaxy.

8. Both the dads killed the main character's mom. Ego killed Quills mother with cancer. Darth Vader broke Luke's mom's heart when he turned to the Dark Side, which killed her (somehow. Of course, Padme had to have known Anakin had some anger issues, he did kill all the Sand People, even the women and kids).

9. A bad guy turns out to really be a good guy deep down. Yondu turns out to not be too bad of a guy. Lando turns out to not be too bad of a guy.

10. There's significant loss for each team. Yondu dies. Han is frozen.

***SUPER BONUS THING THEY HAVE IN COMMON***

11. They are both sequels that at least some people think are better than the first movie in their respective franchises.

I really hope there are teddy bear looking aliens that turn out to be cold blooded killers (Ewoks) in the the 3rd Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - spoilers ahead.

The Force Awakens v A New Hope: 18 plot points are the same. EIGHTEEN!  JJ Abrams pulled a Wrath of Khan with the Star Wars franchise. By that I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that JJ Abrams borrowed heavily from A New Hope and the beginning of Empire Strikes Back. He remade Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (and called it Star Trek: Into Darkness) and no one called him on that so why not recast and tweak A New Hope?  

To be clear, I liked Force Awakens OK. It's just startling how much they based the story on the original movie. 

How to reboot the #FantasticFour movie the right way:

When they again reboot the #FantasticFour movie series (which they will) they should set it in the late 50's to early 60's space race era & stay true to the source material. For better or worse Reed is an egotistical, chauvinistic genius Madmen-type super scientist that steals a rocket ship and gets them all (Sue, Johnny and Ben) to go along with him. And they get irradiated by cosmic rays and get their powers. Then they battle Dr. Doom, Reed's old rival, who is a despot ruler of Latveria. Doom was scarred back in college and injured when an experiment he was conducting goes wrong. He blames his classmate Reed for the experiment's failure. At the end of the movie the FF defeat Doom but only by pushing Doom into the Negative Zone. Problem is they get sucked in with him.

End of the movie: Reed figures out how to get them back but time is different in the Negative Zone and they come back to our present day. After credits: Doom figures out how to get back too in the present day. Sequel set up.

What do you think?

N. Korea suffers massive Internet outages,

One can only wonder what persons, organizations, multinational corporations and/or nation states might have an axe to grind with North Korea. I mean who would do something like disabling a whole country's internet infrastructure?

Texas theater to show Team America in Place of The Interview

I love #GreatBadMovies

For example, my favorite great bad movie is #BigTroubleInLittleChina (though liked now, it was a box office bomb and panned when it 1st came out) starring the great Kurt Russell. Just realized I have not watched many great bad Xmas/holiday movies. That will be remedied posthaste. First up Christmas with the Kranks, then Surviving Christmas.

Remember how geeked you were when you 1st saw the #StarWars Phantom Menace trailer? Just saying, let's see the new one before we decide it's great.

I'm going to nerd out here:

Dr. Zola in the new Captain America movie achieved in the 1970's what, according to the previews, Johnny Depp's character in Transcendence achieves in the present day.  Is it weird/bad for the movie Transcendence that the whole, "uploading a consciousness into a computer," thing was just a subplot in Captain America Winter Soldier that fictionally occurred about 40 years ago?  I'm going to say yeah, it is weird/bad for the movie Transcendence. Not only did the writers of the comic book character Dr. Zola beat the Transcendence writers by decades regarding the "uploading a consciousness into a computer," but then the Marvel movie writers did too, and made it a subplot in a movie that came out before Transcendence.  Ouch.

Seeing Carrie Underwood in an NBC produced remake of The Sound of Music sounds as bad as Seeing Carrie Underwood in an NBC produced remake of the Sound of Music.

Halloween Hangover: Here's One More Halloween Thing

A local Boise Idaho sports anchor dressed up as and did a mean Ron Burgundy impersonation during a local news broadcast.  "Can I have everyone's attention please, I have a very important announcement!"  Enjoy the greatness:

8-Bit Version of The Shining - Happy Halloween!

Movies In Real Life: Indiana Jones & Star Wars, great YouTube series

Funny/Great Montage of Dance In Movies

I was really surprised how many of these clips I recognized from some movie I really like, don't think of many of these movies as having "dance numbers," and I loved the sitcom that the video ends with:

Speaking of Star Wars...

Patton Oswalt did a great, hilarious improvised bit that was Star Wars/Marvel-centric to say the least on Parks & Recreation:

Guardians of the Galaxy Movie, yeah, I'm pretty geeked about this...

...especially since James Gunn (writer/director of Slither, favorite of mine) is set to direct it and Chris Pratt (star of Zero Dark Thirty and Parks & Recreation) is set to star in the lead role as Star-Lord/Peter Quill.

Ben Affleck to Matt Damon: Suck it Jason Bourne, I have one more Oscar than you do!*

*at least that's what I hoped he would have said in his acceptance speech.

iphone photo(s) - Star Wars Is Back - New Movies Coming Soon

An Honest Trailer for the Avengers (Which By the Way Was Released Today on DVD/BlueRay)

"Prometheus" vs. "Alien vs. Predator (AvP)"

So I had never seen the "Alien vs. Predator" (2004) movie until today.  Basically, a rich billionaire, Charles Weyland, has found an ancient pyramid thousands of feet under the ice in Antarctica and finances a team to go with him on an expensive expedition to check it out.  Turns out this ancient pyramid is one of the Predator race's hang outs here on earth and oh, by the way their pets are the Aliens.  And oh yeah, the Predator race taught us humans how to build pyramids all over the place and we worshiped them as space gods.  The Predators circle back around to Earth every so often, use sacrificial humans to hatch Aliens and then the Predators would hunt their pet Aliens.

No, I know it's not exactly like Prometheus. But, Ridley Scott apparently laughed off a question about whether he'd seen Alien vs. Predator and said he'd never seen it.  And I'm not saying Prometheus is a bad movie (even though it does have some big plot holes in it).  I am suggesting that maybe Scott should have watched Alien vs. Predator, especially since on at least a superficial level the plots aren't all that different, in fact their pretty darn similar (aliens, Predators/Engineers, visit earth and are worshiped as space gods by us humans since ancient pre-history and the Predators/Engineers are the makers/masters of the Aliens; then billionaire Weyland wants to check it all out and finances an expensive expedition to do so and dies in process).  

Let me put it more simply, because they share many of the same over-arching plot elements Prometheus is essentially the same movie as Alien vs. Predator.  OK, that's an overstatement but, you could argue that Prometheus is a "re-imagining" of Alien vs. Predator.  The only big differences are who the alien gods are (Predator vs Engineer), the time period during which the movies take place (present day vs. near future), and the location of the story (desolate isolated Antarctica vs. desolate isolated planet), and the directors' "vision" of the movies (Scott vs. Paul W.S. Anderson).

Or how about this, if Ridley Scott had watched Alien vs. Predator and not just laughed off such a silly notion (according to him at least) then, maybe Scott could have have avoided some of the huge plot pitfalls Prometheus landed in.

Here's the funny Red Letter Media video re Prometheus' plot holes: