Picard S3 and the Last of Us..
Feb. 26th, 2023 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Star Trek Picard S3 is really good. Watched the Second Episode tonight, and was impressed. Ed Spellers who plays Jake Crusher - is quite good. And Worf showed up in fine form (considering I'm not a Worf fan and I loved how he was portrayed for once - that's saying something). This is by far the best of the three seasons to date.
S1 started off slow, and was a bit convoluted, but overall was pretty good. It had more interesting villains and better guest appearances. (Ryker and Troi (S1) are more interesting than Wesley Crusher (cameo) and Guinan (I was never a huge Guinan fan) and one does get tired of Spiner's villianous Soong after a bit (S2) - I actually preferred Spiner's roles in S1, and felt they should have ended there.
S2 started off well, but got bogged down in the middle and kind of flew off course. (I can see why they wrote out various characters after that season. Although we could see at least two of those characters again at some point in another series.)
S3 though ...the first two episodes were gripping. Also, we have a great cast. With guest appearances, and not just cameos - but sizable and important roles by Worf, Ryker, and Beverly. Add to that Michelle Hurd's Raffi and Jeri Ryan's Seven actually have something to do besides bitch at each other, whine, and smooch. They are better apart - and their roles are fascinating. They kind of flipped the two characters roles. Raffi is the undercover agent, and Seven is Starfleet Second in Command.
Highly recommend - if you have Paramount Plus. (Paramount Plus by the way is worth getting if you are into: 1) Star Trek franchises (it has all of them), 2) Taylor Sheridan's Modern Westerns - it has all of them, 3) Good Fight, and assorted films here and there. Also Teen Wolf and Wolf Pack.
I subscribed because I like 1 (the Star Trek franchise) and 2 (the Yellowstone Modern Western franchise).
I'm a weird fan - I love Star Trek and Star Wars, but for vastly different reasons. Also for the most part, I think Star Trek has done a better job with continuity and its franchise than Star Wars has - possibly because it was a television series (which kind of requires it), and it's speculative science fiction, not sci-fantasy-western hybrid like Star Wars is. Also Star Wars was aimed at kids, Star Trek was always aimed at adults.
But I still love both. I loved Star Wars first - in the 1970s and 80s, Star Trek - I saw first (in reruns) but it had monsters. Then I rediscovered Star Trek through the films, and then the series through Next Generation and college. I'm mainly an STNG fan. I'd rank them - STNG/Picard, Discovery, Voyager, DS9, Original Trek, Enterprise. I've not seen enough of Strange New Worlds to rank it.
2. The Last of Us Episode 2
Well that episode pretty much went as expected. I fast-forwarded, then rewound when I realized it wasn't that bad. The creatures look kind of fake. (Keep in mind I watched the first three seasons of The Walking Dead, World War Z, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, What's her Name and the Apocalypse (basically the Zombie musical), Zombieland (one of the better ones), Van Helsing, The Passage, I Am Legend...the trope gets old after a while. I skipped 28 Days Later - even though it is Cillian Murphy's break out role - because that one is actually terrifying.)
This episode kind of followed the trope - as I predicted in my last post - almost exactly. No subversions in sight. Not that I expected any. I do wish they'd veer from the trope at some point - but they may not do so, since it is adapted from a video game. And I'm guessing video games work better when you don't veer from established tropes. I mean it needs to have a lot of violent action sequences and scary bits - because otherwise where's the challenge?
Violence level? Let me put it to you this way? If you can handle Andor, you can handle this. Or the Marvel films for that matter. It's no where near as violent as the Walking Dead, which was on AMC not HBO no less. And it doesn't come close to Game of Thrones or House of Dragon. Most of the major violence is off screen.
There is nudity - but so far just a dead body, and it didn't look real to me. And the fungus virus is well scary, but hardly a new idea - the X-men comics have been playing with a Fungus Virus for the last five years now. (Which is why it's not bothering me, I'd already encountered it - in Marvel comic books.) I'm wondering if Marvel stole the idea from the video game? More than possible - there's a lot of cross-over between comic book writers and video game writers.
Tess, we barely knew you. I was hoping she'd make it to the fourth episode, at least. But considering the daughter died in the first thirty minutes of episode one, I figured she was a goner. It's supposed to be a journey with two people, not three. The trope doesn't work with three - they never do it with three. Even the Walking Dead killed off the wife/mother character.
Plus Tess was the logical one, the planner - they had to get rid of her.
But still, I liked the actress. I'd have rather kept Tess over Joel. But oh well. At least I was expecting it. (I did spoil myself - with a recap during it - so I could figure out where to fast-forward if required. But like I said, it wasn't that bad. I've seen far worse. World War Z was worse. Heck, Shaun of the Dead was worse.)
It was a decent episode - got a little more on Elle. How she can't get infected or is immune to the virus. Also how the virus operates as a living breathing organism, a fungi - that communicates across vast distances. Plus we got to see how the virus decimated cities and society - and how humanity tried to fight it. (Basically they quarantined off the survivors, and bombed the cities. It's what I thought they would do. Whomever wrote this most have watched or read World War Z - that's what they did in that film, book. Also I think they did it in 28 Days Later and 28 Months Later?)
I find this take on a pandemic a bit more realistic than either the Stand, Station Eleven, or The Walking Dead. Where it takes a bit longer, and the government is still intact and has turned into martial law. (I've read about viruses and kind of know how the government operates regarding them.)
Here the medical community and the military are a bit brighter than they are in the other pandemic films. Contagion - was possibly the most realistic of the pandemic trope.
(As an aside before the pandemic hit, I liked this trope - I've read Hot Zone, Virus Hunters, and various others, also watched a lot of horror films on pandemics. I was even writing something that kind of referenced a type of pandemic...then the pandemic hit. And well, I didn't want to watch or read anything about it. So I know the trope well.)
The actors are rather good, and the characters interesting. I like Bella Ramsey's Ellie quite a bit. She works for me. And her interactions with Pedro Pascale work - also I like him here, better actually than in the Mandolorian.
So far, I'd say it's okay. It does its job, no more no less than that.
3. Went to church today (actually the society - it doesn't call itself a church any longer even though it is in one, but never mind). The sermon was on Avatar (the movie by James Cameron, not the animated series nor a computer Avatar, it was on Avatar - the Way of Water, and the original film). Apparently the minister had seen it recently with her family in 3D no less. She reports that the 3D is immersive. Also, apparently people - after seeing the first film and after seeing the second, fell into an Avatar related depression. The world seemed gray and depressing in relation to the world of Avatar. They were grieving living on a dying world.
I think people need to travel to a few national parks and star at the mountains. Spend a little less time in dark movie theaters watching CGI in 3D, but that's just me.
Look up at the blue sky. Star at a sunset. Get off social media from time to time. Also stay away from the news, which is depressing. I keep telling Wales to stop watching the news - she ignores me. She's addicted to CNN.
(CNN is basically the liberal version of FOX and just as bad, in a different way.)
I'm really just there for the music anyhow. It was lovely though - more welcoming than I thought it would be. I was kind of scared that I'd go and be all alone. But people greeted me, and two people went out of their way to say hi - who knew me prior to this visit. I met new people. It was lovely. And the activity that I was going to it for - the Artist Way, was much less stressful than anticipated.
Most people hadn't done the Artist Date (they didn't understand any better than I did.) People were doing the Morning pages in the afternoon and evening - I was actually among the few doing it in the morning - folks also forgot about them, just like I did on Saturday and almost did on Sunday.
And most of the people there - were really nervous, hopeful, curious and uncertain. Many decided to do it at the last minute. All were artists in some way. It felt oddly liberating to be among like-minded people. I felt seen?
As an aside? Has anyone seen Avatar:the Way of Water - and do you recommend it? (I only saw the first one, and outside of the floating trees and plants, found it kind of boring and difficult to watch. CGI humans are difficult on the eyes.)
Still struggling with this diabetes thing. Blood sugar is scanning high this weekend. I think I need to stop eating chocolate? I don't know. I'm not eating that much of it - and it is dark chocolate. I'm doing a Mediterrean Style Diet. Very low in carbs. But I have to do some carbs - just for fiber. Anyhow, managed to get the blood sugar down - I think after it spiked at 251. I had cinnamon tea and argula, which apparently brought it back down to 185. This is frustrating. I'm guessing the almond crust pizza (38 grams) and the chocolate (15-20grams) was too much? I took 1000 mg of Metroformin - 2000 mg today. You can't go higher than that. And it could mean I'll run out - I have 1000 mg proscribed.
S1 started off slow, and was a bit convoluted, but overall was pretty good. It had more interesting villains and better guest appearances. (Ryker and Troi (S1) are more interesting than Wesley Crusher (cameo) and Guinan (I was never a huge Guinan fan) and one does get tired of Spiner's villianous Soong after a bit (S2) - I actually preferred Spiner's roles in S1, and felt they should have ended there.
S2 started off well, but got bogged down in the middle and kind of flew off course. (I can see why they wrote out various characters after that season. Although we could see at least two of those characters again at some point in another series.)
S3 though ...the first two episodes were gripping. Also, we have a great cast. With guest appearances, and not just cameos - but sizable and important roles by Worf, Ryker, and Beverly. Add to that Michelle Hurd's Raffi and Jeri Ryan's Seven actually have something to do besides bitch at each other, whine, and smooch. They are better apart - and their roles are fascinating. They kind of flipped the two characters roles. Raffi is the undercover agent, and Seven is Starfleet Second in Command.
Highly recommend - if you have Paramount Plus. (Paramount Plus by the way is worth getting if you are into: 1) Star Trek franchises (it has all of them), 2) Taylor Sheridan's Modern Westerns - it has all of them, 3) Good Fight, and assorted films here and there. Also Teen Wolf and Wolf Pack.
I subscribed because I like 1 (the Star Trek franchise) and 2 (the Yellowstone Modern Western franchise).
I'm a weird fan - I love Star Trek and Star Wars, but for vastly different reasons. Also for the most part, I think Star Trek has done a better job with continuity and its franchise than Star Wars has - possibly because it was a television series (which kind of requires it), and it's speculative science fiction, not sci-fantasy-western hybrid like Star Wars is. Also Star Wars was aimed at kids, Star Trek was always aimed at adults.
But I still love both. I loved Star Wars first - in the 1970s and 80s, Star Trek - I saw first (in reruns) but it had monsters. Then I rediscovered Star Trek through the films, and then the series through Next Generation and college. I'm mainly an STNG fan. I'd rank them - STNG/Picard, Discovery, Voyager, DS9, Original Trek, Enterprise. I've not seen enough of Strange New Worlds to rank it.
2. The Last of Us Episode 2
Well that episode pretty much went as expected. I fast-forwarded, then rewound when I realized it wasn't that bad. The creatures look kind of fake. (Keep in mind I watched the first three seasons of The Walking Dead, World War Z, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, What's her Name and the Apocalypse (basically the Zombie musical), Zombieland (one of the better ones), Van Helsing, The Passage, I Am Legend...the trope gets old after a while. I skipped 28 Days Later - even though it is Cillian Murphy's break out role - because that one is actually terrifying.)
This episode kind of followed the trope - as I predicted in my last post - almost exactly. No subversions in sight. Not that I expected any. I do wish they'd veer from the trope at some point - but they may not do so, since it is adapted from a video game. And I'm guessing video games work better when you don't veer from established tropes. I mean it needs to have a lot of violent action sequences and scary bits - because otherwise where's the challenge?
Violence level? Let me put it to you this way? If you can handle Andor, you can handle this. Or the Marvel films for that matter. It's no where near as violent as the Walking Dead, which was on AMC not HBO no less. And it doesn't come close to Game of Thrones or House of Dragon. Most of the major violence is off screen.
There is nudity - but so far just a dead body, and it didn't look real to me. And the fungus virus is well scary, but hardly a new idea - the X-men comics have been playing with a Fungus Virus for the last five years now. (Which is why it's not bothering me, I'd already encountered it - in Marvel comic books.) I'm wondering if Marvel stole the idea from the video game? More than possible - there's a lot of cross-over between comic book writers and video game writers.
Tess, we barely knew you. I was hoping she'd make it to the fourth episode, at least. But considering the daughter died in the first thirty minutes of episode one, I figured she was a goner. It's supposed to be a journey with two people, not three. The trope doesn't work with three - they never do it with three. Even the Walking Dead killed off the wife/mother character.
Plus Tess was the logical one, the planner - they had to get rid of her.
But still, I liked the actress. I'd have rather kept Tess over Joel. But oh well. At least I was expecting it. (I did spoil myself - with a recap during it - so I could figure out where to fast-forward if required. But like I said, it wasn't that bad. I've seen far worse. World War Z was worse. Heck, Shaun of the Dead was worse.)
It was a decent episode - got a little more on Elle. How she can't get infected or is immune to the virus. Also how the virus operates as a living breathing organism, a fungi - that communicates across vast distances. Plus we got to see how the virus decimated cities and society - and how humanity tried to fight it. (Basically they quarantined off the survivors, and bombed the cities. It's what I thought they would do. Whomever wrote this most have watched or read World War Z - that's what they did in that film, book. Also I think they did it in 28 Days Later and 28 Months Later?)
I find this take on a pandemic a bit more realistic than either the Stand, Station Eleven, or The Walking Dead. Where it takes a bit longer, and the government is still intact and has turned into martial law. (I've read about viruses and kind of know how the government operates regarding them.)
Here the medical community and the military are a bit brighter than they are in the other pandemic films. Contagion - was possibly the most realistic of the pandemic trope.
(As an aside before the pandemic hit, I liked this trope - I've read Hot Zone, Virus Hunters, and various others, also watched a lot of horror films on pandemics. I was even writing something that kind of referenced a type of pandemic...then the pandemic hit. And well, I didn't want to watch or read anything about it. So I know the trope well.)
The actors are rather good, and the characters interesting. I like Bella Ramsey's Ellie quite a bit. She works for me. And her interactions with Pedro Pascale work - also I like him here, better actually than in the Mandolorian.
So far, I'd say it's okay. It does its job, no more no less than that.
3. Went to church today (actually the society - it doesn't call itself a church any longer even though it is in one, but never mind). The sermon was on Avatar (the movie by James Cameron, not the animated series nor a computer Avatar, it was on Avatar - the Way of Water, and the original film). Apparently the minister had seen it recently with her family in 3D no less. She reports that the 3D is immersive. Also, apparently people - after seeing the first film and after seeing the second, fell into an Avatar related depression. The world seemed gray and depressing in relation to the world of Avatar. They were grieving living on a dying world.
I think people need to travel to a few national parks and star at the mountains. Spend a little less time in dark movie theaters watching CGI in 3D, but that's just me.
Look up at the blue sky. Star at a sunset. Get off social media from time to time. Also stay away from the news, which is depressing. I keep telling Wales to stop watching the news - she ignores me. She's addicted to CNN.
(CNN is basically the liberal version of FOX and just as bad, in a different way.)
I'm really just there for the music anyhow. It was lovely though - more welcoming than I thought it would be. I was kind of scared that I'd go and be all alone. But people greeted me, and two people went out of their way to say hi - who knew me prior to this visit. I met new people. It was lovely. And the activity that I was going to it for - the Artist Way, was much less stressful than anticipated.
Most people hadn't done the Artist Date (they didn't understand any better than I did.) People were doing the Morning pages in the afternoon and evening - I was actually among the few doing it in the morning - folks also forgot about them, just like I did on Saturday and almost did on Sunday.
And most of the people there - were really nervous, hopeful, curious and uncertain. Many decided to do it at the last minute. All were artists in some way. It felt oddly liberating to be among like-minded people. I felt seen?
As an aside? Has anyone seen Avatar:the Way of Water - and do you recommend it? (I only saw the first one, and outside of the floating trees and plants, found it kind of boring and difficult to watch. CGI humans are difficult on the eyes.)
Still struggling with this diabetes thing. Blood sugar is scanning high this weekend. I think I need to stop eating chocolate? I don't know. I'm not eating that much of it - and it is dark chocolate. I'm doing a Mediterrean Style Diet. Very low in carbs. But I have to do some carbs - just for fiber. Anyhow, managed to get the blood sugar down - I think after it spiked at 251. I had cinnamon tea and argula, which apparently brought it back down to 185. This is frustrating. I'm guessing the almond crust pizza (38 grams) and the chocolate (15-20grams) was too much? I took 1000 mg of Metroformin - 2000 mg today. You can't go higher than that. And it could mean I'll run out - I have 1000 mg proscribed.
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Date: 2023-02-27 10:54 am (UTC)I wonder if the almond crust digests down to sugars fairly well in the end, hmm. To look out for culprits, maybe keep an eye on the g of carbs on the label.
(Not seen the Avatar sequel yet. Vaguely recall a reviewer suggesting it was more focused on immersing into their world/society than the trailer might suggest.)
Good to hear of . At least (unlike Disney+ series, that I've noticed, bah) it appears on DVD in the end so I can use the by-mail rental services too.
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Date: 2023-02-28 02:52 am (UTC)The difficulty with me and the sugars - is the carbs + the chocolate bars (granted they are dark chocolate bars and low in grams and sugar, but still). Also fruit can spike it.
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Date: 2023-02-27 11:20 pm (UTC)I'm enjoying The Last of Us, too! I've watched quite a few zombie-related things, not quite as many as you, and think this one pretty well done. I like the choices they've made with how society reacts - some people are going to build & give, some are going to tear down & take. I'm looking forward to what you think of the upcoming episodes once you get there. I think I'm 1 or 2 behind as well... *goes off to look
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Date: 2023-02-28 02:49 am (UTC)That said? I agree - the choices they are making about how society reacts are interesting. And how they are handling the dystopian world along with the viral threat - which is still out there and visualized.
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Date: 2023-02-28 06:45 pm (UTC)I read the book several years ago and enjoyed it. I've read others by the author since and found them all very interesting. I've not watched the show yet - but it's in my (rather large) queue.