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Just Chamber posted:I'm sure you sussed he was evil to the point of being a canniballistic pedophile from the get go. It's a post apocalypse show, practically every character gives out i'm morally grey vibes even when they're supposedly the good guy, doesn't mean they'll turn out evil. Tbh it would have worked better if he was just killing people for meat to keep the rest of the town alive, echoing Joel in the sense that Joel has allegedly done some awful things to keep him and others alive. I think turning him into a cartoon villain isn't as interesting. That's why it fell flat for me. I've seen cartoonishly evil cannibals in this genre before.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:10
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He is a preacher monologing to a group of people who are sitting heads down and afraid to meet each others eyes, the young girl is crying but sitting there trying to stay quiet and clearly scared of what might happen. In TV terms that is basically him wearing a badge that says "baddie of the week".
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Mar 6, 2023 23:12
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Taear posted:I dunno if this is the case for Americans but to me "a man talking about religion in a post apocalyptic society in a room of people" is a baddie, there's absolutely no point at all I ever thought David was ever anything but bad. The moment he started being weird to Ellie when they saw her I assumed he was a paedophile too. The cold open was not very subtle about having some hosed up vibes. From the HBO podcast with the showrunners, it sounds like they intended David's first conversation with Ellie to be a momentary head fake of "wait maybe he is just trying to do his best here?" but didn't intend for anyone to be fooled for very long at all. They sounded happy to send a message of 'theocracies are fraught with peril' in direct contrast to 'look at how well this little communist town is doing!'
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Mar 6, 2023 23:12
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DarkLich posted:The bloater was just thrown in with the rest of the chaos. It got a cinematic kill or two, and then ceased to be relevant. Seemed they really bungled the execution of a unique and fearsome foe. It could never be relevant, not in the show as presented. It might be a cool boss in the game or something but what exactly was it ever going to bring to this story? Run after the real characters roaring and smashing for an hour? Its not like you can give the thing a character arc. It was clearly only there as an easter egg, and thats all it should be.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:18
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AccountSupervisor posted:This shows good but it could be so much better if they had paced and structured it to allow for a bit more each ep. Pretty much echoes how I feel at this point. Definitely has a playing it safe, we've seen this sort of show before feel to it and yeah the performances elevate it big time. I'm kind of hoping the second season decides to give us more adventures of Joel and Ellie and let's the show just breathe a bit, more episodic stuff for sure.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:18
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Even if the finale sucks I'll always be glad this series made episode 3. It's in my Top 5 all-time single episodes for sure, I just don't know where yet.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:29
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Even if the finale sucks I'll always be glad this series made episode 3. It's in my Top 5 all-time single episodes for sure, I just don't know where yet. For sure, that episode was fantastic.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:31
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Why'd they go to the trouble of showing Ellie training and learning one of Baraka's fatalities, then not have her do it to David. Fricken lame
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Mar 6, 2023 23:39
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WHY BONER NOW posted:Why'd they go to the trouble of showing Ellie training and learning one of Baraka's fatalities, then not have her do it to David. Fricken lame It was her first time and she messed up the inputs and kept spamming facepunch, we've all been there.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:42
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So what is interesting is I think people want a show about a group of people, or about other people. While episode 3 was absolutely incredible, it was a departure because it is a show about Joel and Ellie. In fact, episode 3 being a departure was still meant to mirror the relationships built by Joel and Ellie, a sort of "this is possible for them just as it was possible for Bill and Frank" kind of thing. Its not a show about other characters, its a show about Joel and Ellie, seen through their eyes, through their experiences. Yes we as the audience get more but I think its a very clear and deliberate decision to only show us as much of these other characters/plots as is necessary for us to further develop Joel and Ellie's relationship, because ultimately, that is everything in this show. If people don't like that, they want a mushroom show about more than just two front and center protagonists, and instead want the supporting cast to get more screen time and development, I get that, but I don't think its a mistake on the show runners part, I think its very clearly an intensly deliberate decision to keep an insanely strong focal point on Joel and Ellie. And in that regard I think they absolutely and completely nail it. I'm here for it. There have been stronger and weaker episodes but I thought its been outstanding so far.
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Mar 6, 2023 23:43
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bucketybuck posted:It could never be relevant, not in the show as presented. It might be a cool boss in the game or something but what exactly was it ever going to bring to this story? Run after the real characters roaring and smashing for an hour? Its not like you can give the thing a character arc. If the show only presented the hulking zombie as an easter egg, then it reinforces my point about it being a misguided effort. People probably don't expect a character arc out of the monster itself, but it's reasonable to expect character moments from dealing with the new challenge. For a TV show about two people bonding on a treacherous roadtrip, we want to see how they deal with different threats. Whether its their environment, clickers, raiders, or whatever. The bloater presented an opportunity to see them being resourceful to overcome a new danger that doesn't fall to conventional tactics. That is what it could bring to the story. Edit: removed something that could be misconstrued as a spoiler DarkLich fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 23:49
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DarkLich posted:If the show only presented the hulking zombie as an easter egg, then it reinforces my point about it being a misguided effort. As someone who has only watched the show, it's just a big zombie. Bringing it back would be weird. You think it's important because it's important in the game, but that's it.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:03
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Taear posted:As someone who has only watched the show, it's just a big zombie. Bringing it back would be weird. You think it's important because it's important in the game, but that's it. You're right, and I didn't mean to imply that it would be coming back. I have no clue honestly. I just love big gross monsters and wanted more from it.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:17
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A game needs new mechanics to keep the shooting interesting and tension up over the course of the game. The drama doesn't need the same ramping up, it can often be detrimental if the stakes are constantly mounting or escalating. Think they've shown a variety of different ways to fight for survival. Not sure what adding in another monster they have to shoot more harder, and that is hard to make any kind of emotional connection with. Most people don't have any strong feelings about parasitic fungus, hard to relate, but religious authorities hurting people is something everyone is impacted by and can relate to. They did more work than necessary to make his demise satisfying, not sure there's any amount of hats to put on a miniboss monster to make it anything more than a whatever monster. I think one of the 28 Time Periods Later movies tried to do that with one of the zombies, it was some ody's dad though and they kept making it not die or do extraordinarily personal menacing things for a zombie so it was still more of a personal connection than just a tough boss zombie. It also didn't work well and was probably the goofiest thing in the franchise for me.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:19
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Mantis42 posted:there are three types of people in the last of us: baddies, the tragically gay, and joel and the people who will not loving stop bringing up points of the game in the non spoiler thread, especially when the game is coming out on PC at the end of the month and it's making me loving nuts
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Mar 7, 2023 00:20
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Ellie emerges from a burning building, covered in blood, panting, obviously distressed. Joel: Time to do the classic "grab someone from behind" move
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Mar 7, 2023 00:36
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Khanstant posted:A game needs new mechanics to keep the shooting interesting and tension up over the course of the game. The drama doesn't need the same ramping up, it can often be detrimental if the stakes are constantly mounting or escalating. Think they've shown a variety of different ways to fight for survival. Not sure what adding in another monster they have to shoot more harder, and that is hard to make any kind of emotional connection with. Most people don't have any strong feelings about parasitic fungus, hard to relate, but religious authorities hurting people is something everyone is impacted by and can relate to. They did more work than necessary to make his demise satisfying, not sure there's any amount of hats to put on a miniboss monster to make it anything more than a whatever monster. There's only 2; that was 28 Weeks later, and the goodies thing was the janitor becoming that infected person from kissing his obviously infected wife who was not guarded at all for some reason, and the nonsensical containment after. The show is very much about Joel and Ellie, and anything that happens in a singular episode is meant strictly to inform the characters or their relationship. It's not going to be about the monsters or draw out the thing they run into that week for that reason. I do think the eps can be a little longer to add a little more atmosphere and stuff, though.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:55
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Haha coulda swore there was a third one I skipped, maybe they'll get around to a 28 years later eventually.
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Mar 7, 2023 01:06
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The directors and other creators have expressed an interest, but apparently the rights to the series are all hosed up
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Mar 7, 2023 01:13
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Taear posted:I dunno if this is the case for Americans but to me "a man talking about religion in a post apocalyptic society in a room of people" is a baddie, there's absolutely no point at all I ever thought David was ever anything but bad. The moment he started being weird to Ellie when they saw her I assumed he was a paedophile too. As a non-US viewer I really was hoping for them to go in a different direction. Like he was a leader of a small religious community but when it turns out some of his folks did some bad poo poo to Joel and Ellie, after capturing Ellie and learning the truth he upholds his religious values, and the community judges that the offenders did wrong by attacking first and brings Joel and Ellie in for some healing and discussion of how religion survives in the face of a global apocalypse. But no, weird religious people eaters. I didn't hate the episode but I was expecting maybe a bit more subversion of the trope that all religious groups are automatically the worst people.
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Mar 7, 2023 01:24
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on reflection, the cult leader being an obvious bad guy was made even more obvious by my streaming service having a content warning about sexual assaultuvar posted:Are you guys going to be like this all week i've been assuming that they're jizzing about some incredibly lame video game twist like "we can make a mushroom zombie vaccine... but it's going to KILL ellie", gotta keep expectations low 
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Mar 7, 2023 01:28
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28 weeks later has one of the most intense opening scenes I’ve ever seen in a horror movie, so it’s worth it just for that IMO. But you’re not missing anything if you just stick to watching 28 days, which still really holds up.
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Mar 7, 2023 01:28
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fullroundaction posted:28 weeks later has one of the most intense opening scenes I’ve ever seen in a horror movie, so it’s worth it just for that IMO. that's the one scene in the film directed by danny boyle, and you can tell lol
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Mar 7, 2023 02:22
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28 Weeks Later sucked
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Mar 7, 2023 02:30
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I'll limply defend 28 Weeks as not that bad, but I watched them back-to-back in a sitting once and oof does that not do it any favors. Days is a classic and still amazing. The first ten minutes of Weeks is right up there with the best of the stuff in Days. And then you still have 90 minutes of Weeks to just bathe in how much happier you were before Danny Boyle stopped directing it.
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Mar 7, 2023 03:09
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I don’t know that I like that David wasn’t a man of the cloth in 2003, that he found religion in the apocalypse.
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Mar 7, 2023 03:55
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Platystemon posted:I don’t know that I like that David wasn’t a man of the cloth in 2003, that he found religion in the apocalypse. He makes it pretty clear that his "finding religion" is just his scam to control.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:01
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That episode was fine. It was intense what Joel and especially Ellie were going through, and it felt great when they finally made it through and got back together. But, Absurdly evil villains are boring. Too much time was spent developing David. And I was playing along thinking, "oh, he values this so he acts this way," and I kept getting this vague impression that he was supposed to be more sympathetic than his obviously evil cult leader introduction implied- which would have been interesting. But nope. He's just a pedophile priest who manipulates people with religion. That's pretty much what we're expected to assume to start with! That's boring! Like with the authoritarian leader of the Kansas City rebels, I feel like the experience might have been better if we never saw anything from David's perspective. Just let him be this absolute creep that Ellie has to deal with. That would have emphasized the good parts of the episode (Ellie dealing with really hard poo poo), without spending all this time developing character only to conclude he is exactly as creepy as he first seems and anything about him that appears not-creepy is a red herring. Oh well. Still, I liked the episode. I think this show's a lot stronger when it's dealing with decent people trying to survive harrowing situations. I know there are going to be people who aren't good, and that's an important part of the setting, but this show seems to wan to tell me all about them, just to make sure I hate them nice and good, and I'm not really into that.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:16
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Yeah, I don't think you can reconcile a pedophile cannibal cult leader with anything but cliched pulp (and if there was a way to elevate the material this certainly wasn't the way to do it).
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Mar 7, 2023 04:26
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A particularly bothersome detail about the dinner scene....quote:When dinner was being prepared in the kitchen, Joyce (the cook) was brought a tub of meat and told it was venison. She may or may not have been one of the individuals who knew it was human meat, but what comes next is unforgivable regardless of whether or not she knew.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:37
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I that's come up in this(?) thread already, but it's a smart move that preserves as much as the nutrition in the meat as possible -- as long as you make sure to consume the liquid afterwards.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:43
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Yeah but is it worth the price.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:46
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Platystemon posted:A particularly bothersome detail about the dinner scene.... TV IV › The Last of Us: Non-Spoiler Thread, but is that any excuse to not take a little pride in the kitchen? Also, I know it's been mentioned by some previous replies, but the food levels of the cult (why were they eating people?) were addressed quite clearly in the episode; Troy tells David at the beginning, (with rationing) they have a week, maybe two left. David says that the winter was worse than expected and nothing is growing and game is scarce. Ellie brought them both a deer and a horse (which is probably what the guy in SLC was going for), but before that they only had three partially-dismembered corpses hanging in a back room. And the woman in the kitchen says that they only have four (five?) cans of tomatoes left.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:51
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Maybe I'm weird, but personally I would have finished the canned tomatoes before starting to eat people.
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Mar 7, 2023 04:59
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AJA posted:Also, I know it's been mentioned by some previous replies, but the food levels of the cult (why were they eating people?) were addressed quite clearly in the episode; Troy tells David at the beginning, (with rationing) they have a week, maybe two left. David says that the winter was worse than expected and nothing is growing and game is scarce. Ellie brought them both a deer and a horse (which is probably what the guy in SLC was going for), but before that they only had three partially-dismembered corpses hanging in a back room. And the woman in the kitchen says that they only have four (five?) cans of tomatoes left. Turns out he knows that they also have a bunch of long pork they can dip into, I guess.
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Mar 7, 2023 05:01
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Eiba posted:Actually, he says they have maybe a week left of "venison, elk, rabbit". I thought that was a really weird scene at the time because his buddy just kind of shrugs and moves on as he delivers the news that their community is completely hosed. I thought it was code for venison, monkey and human.
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Mar 7, 2023 05:02
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Red Rox posted:Maybe I'm weird, but personally I would have finished the canned tomatoes before starting to eat people. withak posted:Yeah but is it worth the price. Eiba posted:Turns out he knows that they also have a bunch of long pork they can dip into, I guess. I'd have to re-watch, but I thought in that scene with Joel the visuals showed they already were dipping into. Also, one of those may have been the guy Joel murked, but the origin of the other two is unknown. Given that only that one guy was noted on-screen as being killed/mourned, it suggests that the David's henchmen hunted the other two.
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Mar 7, 2023 05:14
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AJA posted:I'd have to re-watch, but I thought in that scene with Joel the visuals showed they already were dipping into. Also, one of those may have been the guy Joel murked, but the origin of the other two is unknown. Given that only that one guy was noted on-screen as being killed/mourned, it suggests that the David's henchmen hunted the other two. One appeared to be a woman as well so hunting people is probably the most likely source. Or maybe just eating all their dead.
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Mar 7, 2023 05:17
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20 years in they haven't found a stack of mason jars to do their own canning? and sucking down several cans of tomatoes like they found a Sysco warehouse? what a plothole
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Mar 7, 2023 05:18
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GoutPatrol posted:20 years in they haven't found a stack of mason jars to do their own canning? and sucking down several cans of tomatoes like they found a Sysco warehouse? what a plothole Turns out that only The Gays know how to do growing and canning. NOTE: this is not a bad thing, this is just what gets us one step closer to Full Gay Space Communism. Bill and Frank are the way.
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Mar 7, 2023 05:26
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