mycot posted:

I don't think "the female lead goes evil and crazy and has to be killed" and "a random kid becomes King" are generic crowd pleasers either, the problem is that they obviously just dropped in the book ending regardless of how much sense it made for the show. Like I guarantee those things are 100% GRRM.

Aphrodite posted:

Which is fine because the problem with Daenerys was the abruptness in the show. Her ending would be fine with longer development.

CapnAndy posted:

I absolutely don't understand any take that Scott ending up Knives would be a good ending or good for either of them. It's a destructive and unhealthy relationship and presented as one from, almost literally, page 1. Scott is reeling from a breakup and has retreated into immaturity, dating a girl who's way too young for him that he can casually manipulate, because she's had a sheltered upbringing and this is her first relationship, so she has no experiences to judge what's going on here against.

And Scott is a really bad person; again, they've got characters saying this right out loud, to his face, in Volume 1. He's charming enough to get away with it, at least at the start, but he's awful. He mooches off his friends for everything, he pays for nothing, he has no job, he takes no responsibilities.

Ramona is introduced to jolt Scott out of his rut. She initially comes across as a prize to be won and verging on Manic Pixie Dream Girl status, but that's because that's how Scott sees her. She's actually very much a foil to Scott himself. She's got more experience than he does (definitely in relationships, possibly in life; she certainly comes across as being older than him). She's reeling from an even worse breakup. And, crucially, she's an even better manipulator. Whereas Scott was merrily leading Knives around, Ramona has him jumping through hoops, and he's immediately roped into dealing with her bullshit for her.

Scott dating Ramona forces all three of them to grow up. Knives has to confront that she's not living in a fairy tale where she marries the first cute boy who smiles at her; she gets her heart broken and discovers that actually, the relationship she thought was loving was really lovely. Ramona, who is a bit further along on her path than Scott is on his (she's willing to admit past wrongdoing and that she can be a bad person) has to get off the goddamn sidelines and start dealing with her own bullshit, and then learn to stay still and take a blow rather than running away and transforming herself in the hopes that her past won't find her again.

Scott, who is the protagonist and thus has the most to learn, does the most growing. Rather than running from his sins, he's so in denial of them that he disassociates from them, externalizing them into "Nega-Scott". But it's a lie and it can't survive. Nothing's the same for Scott after Envy bitterly tells him that no, she's not okay, he just headbutted her boyfriend to death. All of a sudden, he sees that Knives is not okay, and Kim starts getting through to him, and Ramona's not happy, and his band is breaking up, and his friends are sick of his poo poo. Eventually, isolated, he's forced to confront "Nega-Scott" and realizes that it's just him. He accepts his flaws, starts apologizing, and begins improving himself and mending fences.

With where each of them ends up, Scott getting back with Knives makes no goddamn sense. He never even wanted her, she was a convenient placeholder, and they both know it. He was horrible to her, and they both know it. She's much too good for him, and they both know that too. Scott and Ramona, on the other hand, had given each other a real chance. For Scott, Ramona was an actual return to adult relationships and opening up his heart again. For Ramona, Scott was a willingness to stay in one place and be just one person, even at the risk of drama. It didn't work, sure, because they were both too flawed for it to, but now that they're healthier, they can look back and realize that what they had was pretty good and, crucially, the worst case happened -- they broke up in rather bitter circumstances -- without the worst case happening. Scott didn't retreat back into false adolescence, he actually gained self-respect. Ramona didn't run back to Gideon and Scott didn't turn into an Evil Ex. Scott and Ramona didn't have to end up together again for the ending to be good, but there's nice grace notes that make it work really well, in my opinion. The fact that even after they broke up badly, they were both more unhappy apart. The cute joke that they reacted to the breakup in the exact same strange way. And the very literal metaphor of how Ramona's bag is destroyed in the final fight with Gideon, scattering her baggage all over the floor, and they just walk away and leave it there. They don't promise each other, and the ending doesn't give us, anything more than a second chance. They'll try again, and they fade to white. It's as good as you can hope for.

The movie loses a lot of the nuance because of how the entire sequence of events seems to get collapsed into a very eventful week, how Ramona does run back to Gideon, and how there isn't enough runtime for Scott to do basically any of his self-improvement and Ramona gets no time at all to have an inner life, and Scott and Knives have that Ninja Ninja Revolution sequence in the final fight showing that they're in sync now and they make a good team, but... I think test audiences revolted because it's still a bad idea. "Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler" was never a good thing.

muscles like this! posted:

Want to see people's minds being blown by an adaptation of The Invisibles "Best Man Fall" where it seems like the story is just following some random guy's life and then at the very end you learn that he was one of the guards at the school from the first arc and the story ends with King Mob shooting him in the head.

Fangz posted:

*Nods fervently*. Good post.

Jamesman posted:

In the comic, does Scott sexually assault that one ex-girlfriend like he does in the movie?

I know that might be considered an exaggeration since we're talking about him touching the back of her knee, but it's kinda weird and gross that he defeats the one woman by intentionally sexually stimulating her against her will and she is killed by it.

Aphrodite posted:

Similarly from what I hear Bran has a lot more in the books that wouldn’t turn it into a nothing side character taking the throne.

Aphrodite posted:

Yeah but aren’t there two more due?

Soul Glo posted:

lmao

Aphrodite posted:

Yeah but aren’t there two more due?

BornAPoorBlkChild posted:

i was just thinking about all these 'Barbenheimer' memes and thought if I were a good Social Media marketer I'd use this opportunity to advertise that margot robbie Tank Girl reboot. Seems like a NoBrainer

site posted:

Spider-verse infecting every single form of Spidey media needs to die tbh

muscles like this! posted:

Not a huge surprise with what is going on but Beyond the Spider-Verse has been delayed with no new release date.

Parkingtigers posted:

Opopanax posted:

Terrible news, everyone! Kraven has been delayed until next August. I hope we can all get through this difficult time together

Jamesman posted:

Instead of re-opening negotiations and actually paying actors and writers, they're going to delay everything indefinitely and cost themselves and countless others unfathomable amounts of money in the hopes that the unions will simply relent and let themselves be paid pennies to train their AI replacements.

Lobok posted:

I hope the series includes the "best fighter in the province" line. Always loved that.

Vandar posted:

Late to Scott Pilgrim talk but I hope the upcoming animated adaptation is a bit more faithful than the movie was.

I like the movie, and like I get they had to compress the entire thing down to a single film and they didn't have the ending at the time, but man there's so much plot and characterization that's just not there in Wright's version that really hurts the whole thing overall.