Overheard At Work: Celebrity Wedding

I work in a typical office, surrounded by many other workers in cubicles. Although I'm grateful to have a job I like, sometimes the vocal din from the surrounding coworkers is a bit overwhelming. Not to mention odd. Thank the gods old and new for headphones and Pandora.

The following is a 100% true actual conversation I Overheard At Work:

Woman: I couldn't possibly care less about Kim and Kanye's wedding. It's all so stupid; that's all the news sites have been talking about all day. Who cares what designer dress Kim wore... (several hundred words omitted for brevity) ...and who all was there and how much the wedding cost and..."

In fact she cares so little about the affair that she spoke about it for at least twenty straight minutes.

Minor kudos to her, I suppose, for saying "couldn't care less" instead of the bone-headedly wrong "could care less."

If You Have To Ask...

I saw this on the interwebs this morning: a hard-hitting news piece asking if flossing is necessary.

Note that it's from BBC.com. You know, BBC as in England. Pip-pip, tally ho, wot's all this then? That BBC.

Man, the jokes are writin' themselves today.

It Came From The Cineplex: Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla (2014) was directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Max Borenstein (with uncredited input from from David Callaham, David S. Goyer, Drew Pearce and Frank Darabont).

Edwards also wrote and directed 2010's Monsters, which, as the title suggests, is also about rampaging giant creatures (and not a bad little film). If you need to make a movie about oversized monsters, Gareth Edwards is apparently your man.

So what's the verdict? Is this second attempt at making an American Godzilla film any good? Eh, yes and no. It's definitely better than the execrable 1998 version (how could it be worse?). But I wouldn't exactly call it good either.

Unfortunately Godzilla (2014) suffers from the same condition plaguing many current sci-fi and fantasy films-- it's just no fun. 

Whether they were trying to replicate the serious tone of the 1955 original, or this is the only way to get a modern cynical audience to accept such an outlandish premise, I have no idea. All I know is it's a well-made but joyless affair. That's really too bad, because most of the Godzilla films I grew up with reveled in their insanity and goofiness.

I had the same problem with the Christopher Nolan Batman, er, excuse me, Dark Knight trilogy. Slickly produced, grounded in reality films that were absolutely no fun.

KAIJU SIZED SPOILERS AHEAD, INCLUDING THE DEATH OF A MAJOR CHARACTER! I AIN'T KIDDING!

The Plot:
It's a Godzilla movie, with the usual plot. Lots of scenes of scientists wringing their hands with worry, giant monsters knocking down various buildings, humanity powerless to stop them, and Godzilla saving the day by defeating a monster worse than himself. Oh, and there's a lot of talk about man vs. nature and nuclear powers and all that.

OK, OK, I can do a little better. Years ago Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and his wife worked at a nuclear plant in Japan. An accident at the plant kills his wife, and Joe becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened.

Cut to the present, where Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) meets his father in Japan to convince him to come home with him. While there, two massive creatures dubbed MUTOs attack the city. Joe is killed and Ford spends the rest of the film avoiding giant monsters in an effort to get back home to San Francisco and reunite with his wife and son.

Scientists and the military are at a loss as to how to stop the giant monsters. Eventually Godzilla arrives on the scene to put nature back in balance and destroys the MUTOs, saving humanity and the planet.

Thoughts:
• So is this a remake or sequel? We see quick shots of Godzilla's back spines during the opening credits, indicating he was around before the movie begins. Also, Ken Watanabe plays Dr. Serizawa, and there was a character with the same name in the original 1954 film. 

Dr. Serizawa states that Godzilla was first spotted in 1954, which is the year the original movie premiered. Dr. Serizawa and his team find some sort of egg sac or pod inside the skeletal remains of a massive creature. 

These elements all suggest that Godzilla existed prior to this film. So I'm leaning toward sequel.

• The CGI Godzilla looked OK I suppose, but I still miss the "man-in-suit" version from the older films. Part of the charm of these movies was always seeing a man in a suit stomp around miniature sets while battling a giant moth on a string. I know, I know, things were better in the olden days; get off my lawn.

I was especially dismayed to see that once again that every single monster battle occurred at night. Surely CGI technology has advanced to the point where we no longer have to rely on darkness to hide the seams (so to speak)? Would it kill them to show the damn monsters in daylight for once? Last year's Pacific Rim had this same problem. Ah well. At least it wasn't raining in every scene in this film (as seen in Pacific Rim and the 1998 Godzilla).

• Bryan Cranston seemed to be wearing a rather obvious wig. I wonder if he still had his Walter White shaved head when filming began?

• Despite the fact that Cranston is in virtually every scene in the trailers, his character dies about twenty minutes into the film. That was certainly a surprise, but unfortunately not a pleasant one.

Killing off his character was a misfire, in my opinion. He's a terrific actor and brought a much needed level of intensity and passion to his small role. Once he exited the film it definitely suffered for it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was way too bland and just couldn't carry the movie by himself.

• Speaking of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, what the heck happened to him? In last year's Kick-Ass 2 he looked like he was 18 if he was a day. Suddenly in this film he looks like he's in his late twenties.

• One last thing about Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He and Elizabeth Olsen star in this film. The two of them are also going to be in the upcoming Avengers 2. Apparently Congress has passed a new law requiring them to be in all blockbuster films from now on.

By the way, I swear by the old gods and new that I thought Elizabeth Olsen was one of the Olsen twins. She's actually their younger sister.

• The film has a frustrating tendency to cut away from things just when they're getting good. We see Godzilla's first battle with one of the MUTOs after the fact, filtered through cable news coverage on a TV in the background. That's too bad, because what we can see of the fight looked pretty cool.

Later when Ford's wife Elle is running into a bomb shelter, we see Godzilla lunge at a MUTO in the background right as the blast doors close, obscuring our view. Apparently the titanic battle happening outside was none of the audience's concern.

We finally get to see a proper monster a monster battle in the third act, but by then you may no longer care.

• Ford is ostensibly the hero of the film, but he doesn't really do anything all that heroic. In most kaiju films the hero is determined to stop the monsters at all costs. Here Ford's sole motivation is to get back to his family. Admirable, but not really heroic. He's buffeted randomly from set piece to set piece by the random winds of the plot.

He eventually offers his bomb-diffusing services to the military, but not out of any sense of duty-- he only does so in exchange for transport back home!

He does destroy a nest full of MUTO eggs, but only because he accidentally stumbled onto them and saw a convenient way to do so.

It's not until the very end, when he tries to diffuse the nuke and save San Francisco, that he finally does something halfway heroic. 

• I'm happy to report that this film continues the long, rich kaiju movie tradition of containing preposterous science.

For example, we're told that the atomic bomb tests of the 1950s were not designed to try out new weapons, but were instead meant to kill Godzilla (!). 

Later Dr. Serizawa explains that in the past the Earth was "naturally" far more radioactive than it is now, which spawned giant creatures that fed on radiation. As the level of radioactivity faded over time, the creatures burrowed deep underground where the radiation was still prevalent. Now that's science!

Of course no one brings up the point that skyscraper-sized monsters could never possibly exist-- in any era.

• The scene in which Godzilla's atomic breath powers up and is released was quite awesome. Kudos to the effects team. 

That said, they totally botched Godzilla's trademark roar. It starts out sounding kind of like the old school shriek, but there was so much bass added that the characteristic groaning tones were completely obliterated.

• Godzilla fights the MUTOS to a standstill a few times in an effort to pad the run time, before finally deciding to fire up his atomic breath and incinerate them. So why the hell didn't he do that in the first place and get it over with?

It reminded me of every episode of Power Rangers. They fiddle around for most of the episode fighting the monster of the week to a standstill, before finally jumping into their MegaZords and summoning the Power Sword which defeats it. If they'd just skip right to that step first...

• OK, I'm not an expert on electromagnetic pulses, but the way they're handled in this film doesn't seem quite right to me. 

The MUTOs can generate EMPs which disrupt all nearby electronic equipment. So far so good. But it's always been my understanding that such a pulse would permanently fry an electrical system. 

There's at least one instance in the film in which a system that was fried starts up again later. I don't think that's the way it works. If there are any electrical engineers out there who deal with this sort of thing, feel free to chime in.

• Several times in the film the MUTOs seek out nuclear bombs and other sources of radiation and feed on them. There's even one scene showing a MUTO happily chomping away on a nuclear missile. Some have wondered why this didn't cause the bomb to explode in the MUTOs mouth. 

I don't think this is a mistake. Nukes don't go off just because they're handled roughly. I'm pretty sure they need some kind of detonator to set them off.

• After Godzilla defeats the MUTOs, the danger isn't over. The last remaining nuke is on a boat in San Francisco bay, threatening the entire city. Ford jumps onto the boat and tries to diffuse the bomb but can't. Note that the timer on the bomb reads around five minutes. He then somehow starts the boat and sets it on a (very slow) course away from the city.

The next thing he knows he's on a rescue helicopter and being hauled away to safety, as the nuke explodes in the background. Do I need to say that there didn't seem to be time to do all that before the bomb went off?

• Amazingly this film made nearly a $100 million dollars in its opening weekend. I'm frankly astonished by this. I figured the stench of the 1990 film still tainted the Godzilla brand, and expected it to be a colossal flop. I guess the public really does have a short memory these days.

It's been such a success that Warner Bros. has already green lit a sequel. I wonder where they'll go with a follow up film? With the "grounded in reality" tone I can't imagine they'd go the Mechagodzilla route, or pit Godzilla against giant killer moths or three headed dragons. We'll find out in three years I suppose.

Godzilla (2014) is better than the previous attempt at bringing the creature to American shores, but the effort to ground the film in reality renders it dreary and just plain no fun. Offing Bryan Cranston's character early on didn't help matters either. I give it a B-.

The Case Of Batman V Superman

In nerd news today, Warner Bros. released the official title of their upcoming Superman 2 film: Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Whew! What a mouthful. I feel like I need to sit down after saying it.

As I made clear last year, I was less than impressed with Man Of Steel -- aw, who am I kidding, I absolutely hated it. So I have little or no interest in anything to do with this follow up. They can call this one Dark Knightman Clashes Against Hopeman and it won't be any skin off my nose.

I do think the odd wording is kind of amusing though. You know, using "v" instead of the usual "vs." abbreviation. It looks for all the world like Batman is suing Superman.

All rise! The Gotham City Municipal Court is now in session. Case #105, Batman v Superman. The honorable Judge Morris Mendelbaum presiding. Please be seated.

Obviously the subtitle is hinting at a future Justice League Of America movie. Marvel's The Avengers movie grossed an astonishing $1.5 BILLION dollars worldwide, so Warner Bros. wants some of that sweet, sweet super team crossover money. Never mind that Marvel slowly, carefully and deliberately spent five years setting up a cinematic universe before releasing their super team opus. Warner ain't got time for that; they want that dough now, world-building be damned.

And how messed up is it that the sequel to Man Of Steel gives Batman top billing? Jesus, I see people standing on street corners holding "Will Work For Food" signs who could probably handle this film series with more competence. I don't see any hope for this franchise. Even if that's what the symbol on Superman's chest stands for.

Thinking Inside The Box

If you've logged onto the information superhighway at all this week, you've no doubt noticed that every news outlet in the free world is buzzing about McDonald's new Happy Meal mascot.

Without fail, every single news story I've seen has described the new mascot, with its wild-eyed leer and uncanny valley dentures, as "terrifying." Eh, I'm not seeing it. Off-putting and poorly designed, yes. But terrifying? Maybe if you're one of those goats that faints when startled, but otherwise, nope.

The new spokes-box is imaginatively named "Happy," and I can't help but wonder how many millions of dollars some lucky marketing agency fleeced from McDonald's coffers for this concept. Whatever amount it was, it was too much. It looks like thirty seconds worth of work, tops.

When I was art school, the professors drilled into our heads on a daily basis that taking a product and humanizing it (by giving it a face and appendages) was not only lazy, but the lowest form of graphic design possible. I'd have flunked out of school if I'd come up with something like this. 

In fact one day a fellow student turned in a concept not unlike this one, and I witnessed the professor pretty much throw him out of class, telling him in no uncertain terms that he was washed up before he even started and to find a new major. And yet here's a multi-billion dollar corporation doing the exact same thing. 

It's patently obvious that McDonald's is trying to copy the look and feel of these goddamned things in a transparent attempt to appeal to kids. No amount of denials or money will ever convince me otherwise. 

I mean look at them. Just look! Same basic proportions, same horrifically bulging eyeballs, even the exact same mouth, complete with disturbingly realistic human teeth and lolling tongue. McDonald's might as well just get it over with and call their new mascot a minion.

That said, the new mascot's still nowhere near as creepy as Willard Scott's original Ronald McDonald.

What's In A Name?

Are you curious as to what was the most popular boy's name in America in 2013? Eh, me either. Just play along, OK?

The map above shows last year's most popular male name in each state, if you can believe Social Security and The Huffington Post. The most popular name in my home state of Indiana: Liam.

Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? Liam? What century is this? I wasn't aware I'd accidentally time travelled and was living in 10th Century Ireland.

It's not just Indiana that's fallen in love with this archaic moniker. Somehow Liam is the most popular male name in eighteen of the fifty states. 

I can't speak for the entire country, but as far as Indiana goes this is nothing but a load of hogswallop. Based on my own observations (which admittedly may be spotty), the most popular male name in Indiana is Bubbie. 

I hear it spoken (make that screeched) on a daily basis. Everywhere I go it's "C'mon, Bubbie, we gotta git home so's I kin fix Daddy's supper" and "Bubbie! What'd I tell you about whoppin' yer sister?" or "Bubbie! Fetch me my beatin' switch!" and so on. 

Who knew there were so many jews in Indiana?

Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Episode 22: Beginning Of The End

And so ends Season One of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's been a slow, long and sometimes painful journey, but we're definitely in a better place now than we were at the beginning of the season.

It took forever for the show to finally find and settle on a tone, but once it did, it improved dramatically. Plus the Captain America: The Winter Soldier tie-in brought major changes to the series, which seemed to energize the writing and plotting. Too bad that didn't occur sooner. 

Let's hope that now that they have an idea of what does and doesn't work, that Season Two will avoid those pitfalls and hit the ground running.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Most of the dangling plot lines are resolved as the Team confronts and defeats Garrett, FitzSimmons are rescued by a very special guest star, May gives Ward a well-deserved beat down, Deathlok goes on walkabout, Coulson gets promoted but may not be totally back to normal.

Thoughts:
• Last week's episode ended on a cliffhanger with Coulson and Co. surrounded by an army of glowy-eyed super soldiers. Ruh Roh! But this week the Team dispatches these enhanced killing machines without even breaking a sweat, like they were an old lady spoon band. 

They were defeated pretty much singlehandedly by May, who grabbed a Dark Elf berserker staff (from a previous episode) from one and literally brought the house down on top of them. That was certainly a convenient! I'm assuming that pesky TV budget got in the way again, and they just didn't have the money (or time) to properly resolve this situation.

Amazingly after crushing the super soldiers, May tosses the berserker staff into the rubble. Might as well, May. I'm sure there's no way a magical super weapon like that would ever come in handy again in the future.

• Hey, ABC, I said it last week, and I'll say it again-- your surprise guest appearances would probably be more of a surprise if you didn't, you know, list the actors in the opening credits. I get that it's probably some SAG regulation, but it kind of ruins the fun.

This reminds me of the BattleStar Galactica remake a few years back. Each week at the end of the opening credits, this tribal drum beat would start up and they'd show rapid-fire images from the episode you were about to watch. Quite often the images would contain major spoilers. Why they did this, I have no idea, but I used to close my eyes during the drums so I wouldn't be see any spoilers. In a similar vein I try to ignore the actor credits at the beginning of most TV episodes, but it doesn't always work. Like this time.

• I was expecting Nick Fury to show up for thirty seconds at the end of the episode, so it was a nice surprise when he stuck around for much longer. That said, it was pretty obvious during his confrontation with Garrett that Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Paxton weren't on the set at the same time. I'm assuming this was due to actor availability.

One last thing about Fury-- when he appears he's not wearing his trademark eye patch and leather duster. Instead he's in "incognito mode," dressed very much the way I imagine Samuel L. Jackson looks on a daily basis. In fact I would not be at all surprised if those were Jackson's own clothes, and he just walked onto the set, said, "Let's film this mother*cker" and started emoting.

• So everyone on the Team believes Nick Fury is dead, killed during the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Then he shows up out of the blue and everyone acts incredibly nonchalant about it. You'd think we'd have gotten at least one "B-but you're supposed to be d-d-dead!" or "It's a g-g-g-ghost!" line of dialog, but no.

Maybe they read the opening credits?

• The May vs Ward fight was very brutal and very well done. I guess the lesson we should all take away from this is do NOT ever betray Melinda May. She will come after your ass with power tools! When she's not swinging a circular saw at your head, she's nailing your foot to the floor.

• Glad to see that Ward didn't heroically redeem himself in the finale. I was a bit afraid they might go that route, and would have been extremely disappointed if they had. He killed far too many people in the past couple of months for all to be forgiven with the wave of a hand. 

I was kind of expecting him to have a last minute change of heart and sacrifice himself to either kill Garrett or save Skye or both. But, being thrown in the slammer and tortured is good too. Maybe they're saving this for Season 2?

So I guess this means he really did kill Buddy the dog (see last week).

• Fury tosses the Destroyer Gun to Coulson so he can finish off Garrett. If you're a fan of The Avengers you'll recognize this gun as the one Coulson used against Loki, right before he was killed. A very cool callback to the movie.

• I just realized that Ruth Negga, the actress who plays Raina-- was also in World War Z. Along with Peter Capaldi (left), the new Doctor on Doctor Who. Cool! 

None of this has anything to do with this episode, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

• After their rescue, Fury tells Simmons that Fitz is in critical condition, as his brain was "without oxygen for a very long time." 

We saw Simmons swim to the surface with Fitz, and it didn't seem like it took all that long. It looked like it took twenty seconds, thirty at the most. Maybe it really took longer and they didn't show us the entire trip to the surface?

By the way, my guess for Season 2: now that Fitz confessed his incredibly obvious feelings for Simmons, his brain injury will cause him to forget he ever loved her, but she'll now have feelings for him. 

• Darn, I was loving seeing Garrett transform into Super Deathlok, and then POOF! He's blown up seemingly for good. Ah well, they probably took the character about as far as they could anyway.

You know, that whole Super Deathlok transformation scene looked about a hundred times better than Anakin Skywalker being turned into Darth Vader in Revenge Of The Sith-- and on a TV budget, yet. Kudos to the effects team.

That said, I'm a little fuzzy on the chain of events here. Deathlok predictably turns on Garrett and seemingly stomps on his head (offscreen). A little later we see Garrett, head intact, being loaded into a coffin or some kind of container and being carried off by... some guys in uniforms. Later still, we see Garrett painfully haul himself into the patented Deathlok Transformation Chair and hit the button.

First of all, who were those guys who carted off Garrett in the coffin? They can't be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, because there ain't no more S.H.I.E.L.D. Are they police? One of those Home Damage Repair agencies? 

Secondly, did they just haul the coffin into the secret Deathlok makin' room and leave it? Or did Garrett come back to life, burst out of the coffin and hobble to that room? As I said, it was all pretty vague.

• Overall I enjoyed this episode and thought it was very well done, with the exception of one major problem. Ever since Coulson found out that Fury forcibly resurrected him, his hurt and anger toward his boss has been simmering to a boil. He finally gets a chance to confront Fury about the horrific things he did to him, and… it's over in ten seconds. In fact the writers apparently didn't even think it was important enough to show us the entire scene, as we only get to see the tail end of Coulson's smack down. 

Fury counters Coulson's rage by giving him a glowing review, telling him he considers him one of the Avengers, and promoting him to director. And that's that!

I don't know… if I died and my boss had me painfully and horrifically brought back to life, then gave me selective amnesia to forget I'd died and been brought back, and then assigned handlers all around me to make sure I didn't go a little nutty, I think I'd be a little more upset than Coulson.

Surely there was a better way to have resolved this major plot line?

• Agent Koenig is back! Woohoo! Did not see that one coming. So are the Koenig brothers twins? Or are they, as most fans suspect, Life Model Decoys (lifelike robots from the comics)?

• So what's with the alien hieroglyphics that Garrett and Coulson were doodling? I'm guessing since they were both injected with alien Kree blood, that it has something to do with the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. Especially since everything in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is connected.

• The best part about the season finale? I can finally stop writing the tough to type "S.H.I.E.L.D." acronym for a few months. 

I'm A Grown Man And I Bought This: Catwoman Classic Batman Action FIgure

It's been nearly five decades since the Batman TV series premiered on ABC in 1966, and toys based on the show are just now starting to trickle out.

Several companies have begun releasing Batman action figures in various scales. Neca got the rights to make 18" figures and Hot Toys is releasing high end 12" figures later this year (huzzah!). 

Mattel secured the 6" license. Last year they released several Batman TV Series figures, including Batman, The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin and Surf's Up Batman, which I reviewed here. They also made a Robin figure, that you can only get in a special two pack with Batman (a blatant marketing move) and a pretty nice Batmobile scaled to the figures.

And now finally they've released the much anticipated Catwoman figure, to complete the line. Why Catwoman wasn't released with the rest of the figures, I have no idea.

At first I thought maybe they were planning to produce less of her to artificially drive up demand so they could charge more for her (which toy companies do all the time), but she cost the same as the other figures. It's a mystery.

Obviously this is the Julie Newmar version of Catwoman, from the first two seasons of the series. As likenesses go, this is a pretty good one. It's definitely Julie Newmar we're looking at here. They even got her odd trifurcated eyebrows down (Really, spell check? You don't flag "trifurcated?"). 

By the way, Lee Meriwether portrayed Catwoman in the Batman movie, and Earth Kitt played her in the show's third season.

I remember watching the show back in the day and absolutely hating Eartha Kitt. Not because she was black, mind you, but simply because she wasn't Julie Newmar. I was a kid and didn't cotton to change. As an adult I've come to appreciate Kitt's performance though.

Actually the show was pretty progressive and probably quite provocative for the 1960s. There was always a degree of sexual tension between Catwoman and Batman, and I'll bet the sight of a black woman aggressively flirting with a white man-- on a kid's show yet-- raised more than a few eyebrows (trifurcated as well as normal).

Catwoman comes dressed in her traditional slinky, form-hugging suit, which in reality was quite a feat of engineering. Kudos to whoever designed it. I have a feeling the amount of dads who watched the show increased dramatically when Catwoman guest-starred.

Her necklace is sculpted into her body rather than being a separate piece, which is probably a good idea. It won't get lost in the shag carpeting that way.

Note that she's also wearing her cat ears, as is only natural for someone who calls herself "Catwoman." You hear that, Christopher Nolan, and your movie in which your no-fun version of Catwoman doesn't wear cat ears, and you don't even call her "Catwoman" in dialog?

I don't really have anything to say about this photo. Let's just sit quietly and enjoy the view, shall we?

I naturally assumed that since Catwoman's wearing heels that she'd never be able to stand by herself. Imagine my surprise when I found out she not only can stand, but is pretty darned stable. It's like a miracle.

Female action figures are typically shorter than their male counterparts, but Catwoman appears to be the same height as Batman. I don't think that's a mistake on Mattel's part. Adam West is reportedly 6' 2," while Newmar is a whopping 5' 11!" Now that's a big gal!

Catwoman is quite flexible and posable, just like the real thing.

Like all the figures in the line, Catwoman comes with a stand featuring one of the sound effect title screens from the show.

And now we come to the mystery of the cards. Each figure came with a photo card, which when laid out formed an image of the Batcave. 

Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how the cards from the first five figures were supposed to line up.

No matter how I arranged them, they just didn't work.

I finally figured out why. I was missing the Catwoman card. Derp! Once she was finally released, the cards fit together perfectly. Mystery solved!

Here's the other side of the cards, featuring paintings of each of the characters. It was nice of Mattel to include these I supposed, but I have no idea what to do with them and honestly they're probably going to go in a drawer.

I'm very happy Mattel gave us a Catwoman-- many times toy companies skip the female characters, as they think young boys won't want to play with a dumb ol' girl toy. I think they realized that this line was only going to appeal to people "of a certain age" though, and that's no doubt why they included her.

And it only took fifty years to get a line of decent Batman TV toys. Bring on Wave 2!

Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Episode 21: Ragtag

Good news, everyone! ABC just announced that they've renewed Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a second season! Woohoo! I was hoping that now that it's finally become watchable that they'd keep it on the air. 

I'm glad I stuck with the show from the beginning. I'll be the first to admit that the first half of the season was pretty "meh," and my attitude was pretty much, "Well, this show ain't gonna watch itself, so I might as well look at it." But for the past couple of months I've actually been looking forward to it. Let's hope they keep up the good work.

The Plot:
In a series of flashbacks we see how Garrett recruited Ward into S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA. In the present, Coulson and the remnants of the Team learn that Centipede, Garrett, and pretty much everything on the show all stem from a common source: Cybertek. Oh, and Garrett was the first Deathlok, his cybernetic organs are failing, and he's desperate to use the GH 325 formula on himself in order to survive.

Thoughts:
• This episode was directed by Roxann Dawson, who, as all good genre fans know, played B'elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager. She directed several Voyager episode back in the day as well.

• Thanks, local election coverage, for obscuring the bottom third of the screen for the entire episode. Jesus, didn't we just have an election around here?

• When Garrett meets young Ward in the flashback, he says, "I work for a secret organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. Ever hear of it?" 

Um… no, Garrett, he's never heard of it. It's a secret organization, remember?

• Garrett's "mentoring" of Ward deserves some scrutiny. He drops Ward (and Buddy the dog) off in the middle of nowhere with no supplies and pretty much says, "Survive or don't, I don't care." And then he leaves him there for six months.

The show's been kind of hinting that some momentous event in Ward's past put him forever in Garrett's debt. Was this it? Yeah, Garrett saved Ward from juvie and possibly being tried as an adult for arson, but... I was thinking of something a bit more momentous.

And why the hell would Ward actually stay out there in the wilderness all that time? Garrett said he'd be back for him in two months, but was actually gone for six. After two months a normal person would have said "Screw this" and hiked back to civilization. It should have been easy enough; Garrett didn't blindfold Ward in the truck, so all he'd have had to do would be follow the road. 

Or how about this: Ward also says he survived for six months by robbing nearby cabins. Why not just stay in the cabins then?

And how exactly does leaving someone to survive alone in the wilderness train them to be a super spy? I'm assuming this must have been some kind of pre-training "toughening up" routine, and the spy and assassin training came later. At least I hope that's what happened.

• So what happened to Buddy? Garrett ordered Ward to kill him, but he fired in the air and let him go. A few minutes later we see Buddy running, centered through someone's crosshairs. Did Ward change his mind and shoot his dog after all? Or was that Garrett's point of view? It was all pretty vague, which tells me we won't know the answer until next week.

• Humorous line by Garrett: Speak up boy, I'm not a mind reader. Wakka wakka!

• So Garrett is a Deathlok. Interesting. In fact he was the very first Deathlok. His implants are starting to fail though, and we find out that just about everything on the show-- Centipede, Raina's super powered formula, maybe even the GH 325-- was all orchestrated by Garrett to help keep him alive.

• Loved the suitcase of old school S.H.I.E.L.D. gadgets, courtesy of Tripp's grandpaw.

• Coulson and May posing as Cybertek applicants was a hoot, especially when they started inadvertently aping FitzSimmons' accents. And it was refreshing to see Ming Na Wen actually smile for a change.

All that said, this comedy relief moment felt a bit out of place in an episode full of fairly serious events.

• I sincerely doubt that FitzSimmons is (are?) really dead. Especially since Fitz still had his old school secret S.H.I.E.L.D. coin radio/tracker in his pocket. They're the comedy relief in most episodes, and two angles of the Fitz/Simmons/Tripp love triangle, so I'd be very surprised if they're killed off.

• Raina tells a story about "monsters in China that had a baby girl" or something, obviously referring to Skye. I can't think of anyone from the comics that this could be. Must be some new plot line.

• I'm honestly curious as to where the whole "S.H.I.E.L.D. Is No More" storyline's going to go.  S.H.I.E.L.D. was once a huge spy organization that employed thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of agents all over the world. Now they're down to about six. 

Are the writers planning to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. in Season Two? If so Coulson's got a hell of a recruiting drive ahead of him. Realistically it would take years to rebuild it to its former state. They don't have years though, so I'm betting it'll be miraculously back to normal in just a handful of episodes.

• Hey, ABC-- your surprise cameos would be more of a surprise if you didn't spoil them in the previews.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Star Wars Barrel Update

Way back in 2010 I posted an entry about what I considered to be the all time lamest Star Wars action figure.

That figure was of one Mr. Willrow Hood, a denizen of the Cloud City of Bespin, who was fond of running up and down corridors while carrying his beloved ice cream maker.

But suddenly a new contender enters the playing field...

Meet Jocasta Nu, chief librarian of the Jedi Archive. Oops, sorry, she's not just a librarian, she's a Jedi librarian. 

Imagine the fun you'll have as you make Miss Nu pretend to loan out books to patrons. Thrill as she uses the Dewey Decimal System to shelve returned books. Gasp in amazement as she shushes rowdy children. Swoon in your chair as she chases homeless people from the library common room.

Hilariously she even comes with a goddamned light saber! Better pay your overdue fees on time, or you might lose a hand!

It's hard to believe, but this figure was made in response to fan demand! Did you hear what I said? There were enough Star Wars fans that wanted this senior citizen action figure made that Hasbro actually went to the trouble of manufacturing it. And yet George Lucas still won't release the unaltered Original Trilogy on home video...

It's All In The Title

I've been seeing the trailer for Tom Cruise's latest scifi opus for what seems like a year now. It looks OK I suppose, and it's got an interesting, if derivative, premise. But that title…

Edge Of Tomorrow. Egad. That's the title? That's what Warner Bros. has decided to call their $110 million science fiction extravaganza? Jesus, I could come up with a better title by throwing those magnetic word tiles at my refrigerator door and writing down what sticks.

The movie's based on an acclaimed manga (or comic book, as they're known in America) called All You Need Is Kill. Warner Bros. inexplicably decided to ditch that title and substitute the blandest one humanly possible.

I'm not sure what was wrong with All You Need Is Kill as a title. Sure it's semi-nonsensical and probably not grammatically correct, but you've got to admit it's memorable. Plus it sounds like some kind of lost, twisted Beatles song or a James Bond film.

Edge Of Tomorrow is the dullest title they could have possibly come up with. It sounds like a 1970s soap opera. In fact back in the day my mom used to watch a soap called The Edge Of Night. Every time I see the trailer for the Cruise film that's all I can think about.

In addition to being incredibly bland, it tells you absolutely nothing about the film. Which do you think of when you hear Edge Of Tomorrow? A tear jerker in which one or both characters is dying? Or a futuristic action movie about a time-travelling soldier? I know which one I'd pick.

This is reminding me of the whole John Carter debacle from a few years ago. I'm still convinced that the massive box office failure of that film was due to its uninspired and lackluster title. I have a feeling we may see a repeat of that here.

Maybe they could have called it Groundhog Day In Space? Run, Cruise, Run? How about Lather, Rinse, Repeat?

This Week In Bizarre Beverage Containers

Welp, this exists. Marvel Comics is now licensing figural coffee mugs of some of their more prominent characters. 

Here we see they're selling a coffee mug in the likeness of Loki, straight from the Thor franchise. It doesn't look much like fan-favorite heartthrob actor Tom Hiddleston, but I can still see the appeal. What comic fan wouldn't want to drink their morning coffee from the open skull of the God Of Mischief? It'll wake you up better than a poke in the eye!