TV Discussion Fisto's Disco: The LACWAC Social Thread

I have both of those on DVD (well, my dad does) - I should watch them attentively and entirely soon. Perhaps I'll watch them after I finish Churchill's WWII history volumes. I am on 1 of 12 now, and it has been one hell of a ride so far (Mussolini has just invaded Abyssinia and Neville Chamberlain has succeeded Macdonald as PM of Britain).

As for those bushfires: it's actually really stormy and wet where I am, much to my delight. Though, having caught up on them after a busy week, it really is a terrible situation. The smoke from the fires is halfway across the country.

 

Garren Lagann is pretty cool. I liked the over the top mecha and the scale but I never finished it. It used to come on Sci-fi's short lived anime block.

My next animes to get back to and finish are A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun.

 

I've not seen the Pacific. I finished Breaking Bad and now am using HBOGO to re-watch Rome, possibly my favorite television show ever (my avatar is Ciaran Hinds' Julius Caesar from the show). I'm bouncing back and forth between Rome and The Sopranos, the latter of which I am watching for the first time. I'm about half way through season 1 and like it so far. My dad was a big fan of the show and I know the gist of how it ends and that it's apparently an abrupt cop out of some kind -- but on that note I thought Breaking Bad's finale was a let down after how awesome the remainder of the season was.

I liked Band of Brothers well enough. I might give Pacific a shot after Sopranos.

 

Seerow, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood looks pretty decent. Do you know of many animes that have a lot of main non human characters like Sonic X?

 

Umm... Casshern Sins. While the characters are human-looking they are really all robots. Hamtaro?

 

Seerow It seems that on most animes that have a dark tone that most of the main heroes are humans, however I do think it is more common for a lot of the villains to be non human. I'm hoping to find some good sci fi/ fantasy animes like TCW, but where the villains win more regularly.

 

A lot of the principal photography for The Pacific was shot in Australia. And one episode takes place in Melbourne.

I've only seen bits and pieces of Gurren Lagann. I'm not a big fan of Gainax, and I find a lot of their stuff really overrated (or downright irritating, in the case of Evangelion), but Gurren Lagann is pretty decent. It doesn't dip into melodrama and it is fully aware of how silly it is. My favorite Gainax production still has to be Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise. Film about an alternate reality Maybe-Earth-Maybe-Not planet's first manned space voyage. Also features voice work from Bryan Cranston!

 

That is true. I remember at the time (maybe like 2010) that filming was taking place near Flinders Street Station, with all the old trams back in use for shooting.

Are the gruesome parts you mentioned in relation to flamethrowers? Because, my god, CoD:WaW had those and it was horrendous.
I hope Iwo Jima doesn't come up...

 

Iwo Jima does show up, but it isn't a major focus. It appears at the end of one episode focusing on John Basilone. No, I was talking about Okinawa. Human meat shields stampeded into American lines as bullet sponges for the Japanese. Dynamite strapped mothers holding their children out to Marines as bait. Children getting shot in the legs to draw out marines before executing them.

Episode 9 is a nightmare.

 

I haven't been a fan of Gainax since around the time of Nadia: Secret of Blue Water. Wasn't a fan of Evangelion. KareKano was good for the first half of the series, then dropped off a cliff. Haven't bothered with them since.

 

I still think that Production I.G has the strongest lineup of shows and films, at least for the 90s (Except for End of Evangelion, because, as above, **** that noise). Haven't bothered with a lot of their new stuff, but Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is a fantastic movie, and most of the stuff involved with Ghost in the Shell has been great (leotard Major from the first season notwithstanding). I am cautiously optimistic about the new GITS series coming out.

Sunrise also has some great stuff.

Edit: Gotta star out the whole word.

 

So I watched Attack of the Clones again earlier, and found myself not enjoying it all.

What's happening to me? Am I a bitter old man already?

 

I can only watch the Obi-Wan scenes in the film. The Anakin subplot goes absolutely nowhere. Obi-Wan's sections are at least held up by good performances from Morrison and Mcgregor

 

No wonder you guys think I'm dead. Thanks for this grossly exaggerated map of the Australian fires, NBC.

 

That's not a map of fires, that's just a temperature chart.

 

I'd actually say that TPM has aged the best, thanks to their more extensive use of sets and location shooting. to me, CGI will always look better when it is imposed on a real background, rather than real actors imposed on a CGI background. It's why the T Rex in Jurassic Park looks incredible to this day.

 

Jurassic Park has some of the best use of CG out of any movie, IMO, including more modern action films.

Anything that didn't have to be CG wasn't. Like when the T. rex crashes through the glass roof of the tour car to attack Lex and Tim, that looked awesome and still does to me, and it was with the use of an animatronic dinosaur. Had they used CG, I think that shot would have looked far more awkward.

It's been a long time since I've watched any of the OT films in their entirety. But looking at scenes like the Battle above Endor, a lot of those shots still hold up just fine, IMO. Generally it's the laser blasts, or things like the fire atop the Executor's sensor dome, or the shot of the A-wing crashing through the Executor's bridge that really show the age, and the occasional explosion. But a lot of the ships themselves look fine to this day, IMO. And in some cases better than the CG droid fighters or Amidala's ships, IMO/

 

I agree. The effects in TPM are just bad and AOTC looks like a video game, IMO.

 

So as I was driving back to Los Angeles tonight, I caught sight of Disneyland's fireworks show while passing through Anaheim. It then struck me how long it had been since I'd last gone to Disneyland, at least half a decade, if not more. In fact, I have yet to ride the new Star Tours, containing dozens of story combinations and a setting through the Star Wars universe. I suspect I'd see more and more Star Wars attractions in Tomorrowland as well, since Disney owns Lucasfilm. When I next have the time and money, I definitely need to go there with some friends, and ride Star Tours multiple times

 

My mate and I are planning to go to Walt Disney World for the first time ever for our 20th anniversary in a little over a year from now (2015's going to be fun). Growing up in Los Angeles I hit Disneyland at least once a year, especially when they were doing the whole 'Southern Californians get in for $20' promotions every now and then. But since I moved away, I think the last time I went to Disneyland was 1994. I remember because The Lion King had just come out and I bought a t-shirt with Scar on it that said 'I'm surrounded by idiots'. I think one of the things I miss most were those absolutely to-die-for deep fried Monte Cristo sandwiches at The Blue Bayou restaurant just off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

My mate's never been to either so we figured it'd be perfect for our 20th. Definitely looking forward to it.