Things I Don't Understand

[Serenity]

*People who claim Seasons Six and Seven of Buffy were crap. Excellent, highly character driven storylines with awesome villains like Sweet, Dark Willow, and Caleb, all culminating in the most perfect capper to the series and an awesome message of empowerment-if this is crap, then I know why pigs wallow in it.
*People who claim that Spike became an emo woobie. Even a cursory viewing of the show shows that he's still as badass as ever, he just has character rather than just being badass.
*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.
*Why the Wisdom of Solomon made Billy Batson think that it was a better idea to look like a pedophile rather than tell his fellow superheroes his secret identity--especially when most of them know each others secret identities.
*People who hate the epilogue to the seventh Harry Potter book, especially when they whine 'she should have told us what Harry's job was!' And especially when they say 'Albus Severus, what a dumb name, hur hur.' Note that the series isn't the adventures of Harry James, Ronald Bilius, and Hermione Jane. He's called Albus Severus Potter once, in a private moment to make a point. Everyone else calls him Albus or just Al.

More as I think of them. Feel free to explain to me or post your own.

[Closet_Skeleton]

*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.

But no cities get destroyed in the American Godzilla. Everyone evacuates and then the big lizard builds a nest in Madason Square Garden. No buildings get smashed up in the entire movie.

[factotum]

I think one of the main criticisms of the American Godzilla was that it did not manage to be better than its source material, which, as you rightly point out, was made for about three dollars with a bloke in a rubber suit as the monster!

[TheRiov]

*People who claim Seasons Six and Seven of Buffy were crap. Excellent, highly character driven storylines with awesome villains like Sweet, Dark Willow, and Caleb, all culminating in the most perfect capper to the series and an awesome message of empowerment-if this is crap, then I know why pigs wallow in it.
I think the primary complaint about season 7 was the extensive use of deus ex machina. "What? There is: a secret cult of women living under Sunnydale? And they're guarding a here-to-for unheard of ultimate slayer weapon? And Willow can rewrite the entire premise of the series in a 5 minute spell? And Spike can be turned into a nuclear bomb?"

I like season 7 too, but it did kinda strain credibility a bit.
I think the complaints about 6: it was a bit heavy handed (magic-as-drug metaphors), and people like crayon-Breaky Willow, not scary veiny Willow. buffy being all depressed in 6 & 7 got a bit much too.


*People who claim that Spike became an emo woobie. Even a cursory viewing of the show shows that he's still as badass as ever, he just has character rather than just being badass.

Much of the appeal of the Spike character was his snarky devil-may-care attitude. he lost some of that. he's still fun though. "I don't want to be this athletic and good looking... we all have our crosses to bear."


*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.

The new godzilla took itself too seriously. The original was campy and knew it. This one was just stupid. Godzilla also had personality the first time around. This one was, quite litterally, just a big animal.


*Why the Wisdom of Solomon made Billy Batson think that it was a better idea to look like a pedophile rather than tell his fellow superheroes his secret identity--especially when most of them know each others secret identities.
*People who hate the epilogue to the seventh Harry Potter book, especially when they whine 'she should have told us what Harry's job was!' And especially when they say 'Albus Severus, what a dumb name, hur hur.' Note that the series isn't the adventures of Harry James, Ronald Bilius, and Hermione Jane. He's called Albus Severus Potter once, in a private moment to make a point. Everyone else calls him Albus or just Al.

I think its hard to think of Harry forgiving Snape for being such a jerk all those years, so much so that he would name a child after him. There were a LOT of unanswered questions in the epilogue--so many that J.K. Rowling felt it necessary to include it all in a webchat.

[North]

*People who claim Seasons Six and Seven of Buffy were crap. Excellent, highly character driven storylines with awesome villains like Sweet, Dark Willow, and Caleb, all culminating in the most perfect capper to the series and an awesome message of empowerment-if this is crap, then I know why pigs wallow in it.
*People who claim that Spike became an emo woobie. Even a cursory viewing of the show shows that he's still as badass as ever, he just has character rather than just being badass.

You missed season five in that. I liked the first four seasons immensely the end three......not so much. Dawn was pain and oh soooo whiny. And Spike was a great villain and a reluctant hero. When he was beating up demons because that was the only thing that he could beat up he was great. But then he turned... icky. His Buffy crush and buffysexbot... ew. At least he was redeemed in Angel. Season 5 Angel showed a much better spike.

There were good points in season 7 like the musical episode. That was the exception though. Willows crazy drug/magic addiction. Xanders inexplicable leaving of Anya. The trio. Seasons seven theme seemed to be lets do the absolute most depressing things possible to the cast. And then gouge Xanders eye out. Bleh. And yeah a lot of dues ex machina.

One Ubervamp was giving Buffy immense trouble, and she only barely managed to beat it due to huge planning and a set up battlefield. They must be following the ninja rule because suddenly once theres thousands of them they're getting chumped by rookie slayers. I could go on for a while.


*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.

I think that hype really killed Godzilla. It was expected to be a super awesome Godzilla in NY movie and it ended up with them fighting raptors? Bleh.


*Why the Wisdom of Solomon made Billy Batson think that it was a better idea to look like a pedophile rather than tell his fellow superheroes his secret identity--especially when most of them know each others secret identities.

This I completely agree with. Its not as if they arent used to kid heroes anyways. He could have at least told Alan and Jay.


*People who hate the epilogue to the seventh Harry Potter book, especially when they whine 'she should have told us what Harry's job was!' And especially when they say 'Albus Severus, what a dumb name, hur hur.' Note that the series isn't the adventures of Harry James, Ronald Bilius, and Hermione Jane. He's called Albus Severus Potter once, in a private moment to make a point. Everyone else calls him Albus or just Al.

I liked the epilogue. Really people were going to whine no matter what happened. And I thought that Albus Severus was a sweet touch. It made me go 'awww'.

[Serenity]

I never minded the junkie-Willow arc because I never saw it as magic itself being the drug--rather the power it granted and the temptation to misuse it. And then Rack dealt in a specific form of powerful magic that was addicting. This is why Giles got all Dumbledore with Willow in England--the solution to her problems with magic weren't to stop using it but for her to combat her addictive personality.

As for Spike, I liked his 'Buffy crush' as you call it, and once we accept the premise that he's fallen for Buffy, everything else follows logically. Yes, Buffybot was icky. That was the point. Even Spike realizes that eventually, which is why he can't stand to be around it at the start of Season 6.

[North]

Angel was a big deal as the vampire with a soul. Spike became Angel-lite, with out a soul. It was much too contrived. He shouldnt have stopped hating Buffy at any point. At the end of season four when he sold them out to Adam was perfect Spike. Hed been around for 100+? years and then all the sudden he changes, nah I dont buy that.

[EvilElitest]

Angel was a big deal as the vampire with a soul. Spike became Angel-lite, with out a soul. It was much too contrived. He shouldnt have stopped hating Buffy at any point. At the end of season four when he sold them out to Adam was perfect Spike. Hed been around for 100+? years and then all the sudden he changes, nah I dont buy that.

I think Spike should have been killed by buffy, in the same manner Greed was in FMA. A villian who you honestly hate to have die, but still dies fighting the main character. He was a great villian, and a niffty anti hero, but he would have been a great character to kill off in a dramatic manner, instead of overusing him
from,
EE

[North]

I think Spike should have been killed by buffy, in the same manner Greed was in FMA. A villian who you honestly hate to have die, but still dies fighting the main character. He was a great villian, and a niffty anti hero, but he would have been a great character to kill off in a dramatic manner, instead of overusing him
from,
EE

Yeah his own popularity killed him.

Also I really hated the way they just killed off Anya in the finale. Her death was a foot note.:smallfrown: I was huge Anya fan but they really just destroyed her and her character in the last season or two.

[warty goblin]

What I personally found annoying about the Harry Potter epilogue was that it was too happy. One of the things that made LOTR an interesting story was that the ending was not entirely happy, victory came with cost, and some wounds would not heal. There was no sense of this in HP, we never saw how George delt with Fred's death, or indeed anybody dealing with any sort of loss. After the awesomely dark and epic Battle for Hogwarts it just felt artifical and out of step with the rest of the story. I wasn't looking for gloom and doom, but some sense that people were actually affected by the events of the series would have been nice.

[Closet_Skeleton]

It makes sense that the epilogue was happy, since it was many years afterwards. The epilogue was about a new start for the next generation, so the mourning of the dead had no real place in it.

I think a long list of how everybody turned out would get dull and a few chapters afterwards dealing with shell shock would lessen the impact of the finale (which the epilogue may have done anyway) and be... like Lord of the Rings.

[TheEmerged]

*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.

You accidentally answered the question. He wasn't indestructible, and he didn't destroy the city.

Confession time -- I'm a Godzilla geek. I went to a fair amount of trouble to get my hands on sneak-preview tickets to this movie, and drove faster than I've ever driven (before or since) to get to said sneak-preview in time. I was trying very hard to accept the movie for what it was without judging it by my expectations. I'd even managed to maintain this effort after the "it's the only place in the world he can hide" statement.

And then there was the helicopter scene.

In a theatre full of Godzilla geeks, people were jeering the screen openly by that point. Walking out afterwards, I realized someone had been paid money for that script and vowed to start taking my writing more seriously. So it wasn't all bad :smallconfused:


*Why the Wisdom of Solomon made Billy Batson think that it was a better idea to look like a pedophile rather than tell his fellow superheroes his secret identity--especially when most of them know each others secret identities.

The following is hearsay. Hearsay from a source I generally trust, mind, but hearsay nonetheless. I don't remember all the details but what it boils down to is, this was an editorial thing not a story thing. That is, the writer was made to cut the relationship short (much like every male romantic lead in the Wonder Woman comic pre-I-Crisis).

[sealemon]

Having never actualyl watched Buffy, I'll forgo the first two questions.


*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.

The American remake actually managed to make godzilla MORE rearded (Not in a good way), by trying to take itself seriously. Other major flaws:

1. The movie isn't really about Godzilla. It's about Mathew Broderick and some really annoying supporting characters dealing with Jurassic Park (See below).

2. The movie shamelessly rips off JP by havign Godzilla's kids--velocaraptors...it's sad.

3. Godzilla can headdodge missles and machine gun fire. Seriously, the army cannot HIT her...she's Lizard Ninja! Sadly, this is nowhere nearly as awesome as you'd think.

4. The Star Warz---I mean, helecoptor first person perspective chase scene...with, again, thousands of bullets issing a mutli-story lizard. Godzilla then destroys the helicoptor by turnign a corner, digging underground, then hiding inside another building before bursting out and destroyign the coptor

5. The remake is about the ARMY destroying the city, because, again, they can't hit the broadside of a multistory barn, apparently.

6. They couldn't even get Godzilla's breath weapon right.

7. The end title song is Puff Daddy sampling Led Zepplin.


Why the Wisdom of Solomon made Billy Batson think that it was a better idea to look like a pedophile rather than tell his fellow superheroes his secret identity--especially when most of them know each others secret identities

The power of the plot compeled him for dramatic tension. Seriously, he sould have come clean but for whatever reason is supposed to keep his ID secret...except Superman and possibly Batman already know it, so why NOT Jay and Alan? I got nuthin', except I DID find the arc interesting.

[....]

Buffy as a whole is underrated by most poeple, but sorely overrated by its fans.

When you were talking about Spike, I first assumed you meant Spike Speigel from Cowboy Bebop and I was really confused.

As stated before, Godzilla didn't destroy any cities, he got killed, and his newborn rapotor offspring got more screentime than him. They also made him a girl. Stupid.

I think that was just the obession with secret identities they had in comic books back in the day. Also; Captain Marvel > Superman.

The Epilouge of Deathly Hallows is fine. People will never be happy with any ending to the Potter series, which is why Rowling and her children and their children will live off of it for the next hundered or so odd years (barring nuclear war), sort of like Tolkien's family.

[Machete]

I have beef with Godzilla.

The cables on the suspension bridge were destroyed.

ITS A SUSPENSION BRIDGE! THIS IS MADNESS AND SPARTA AND CRAZYTOWN!

The bridge should have fallen but really that was only the coup de grace on on otherwise cruddy movie.

[averagejoe]

The HP ending was a bit nauseating. Not just that it was super-happy, but that it was super-happy in a, "High school goes on for the rest of your life," sort of way.

Well, really, it started going downhill for me around the point when Harry died, and then there were some really stupid/staged fights where people talked too much. Really, that whole bit. I mean, seriously, Harry dies and then he just kind of gets better, with absolutely no lingering emotional trauma, even though his mood/character has been getting darker and darker? I mean, magical deus ex or not, death shouldn't be something that just gets better, whatever the circumstances.

[warty goblin]

The HP ending was a bit nauseating. Not just that it was super-happy, but that it was super-happy in a, "High school goes on for the rest of your life," sort of way.

Well, really, it started going downhill for me around the point when Harry died, and then there were some really stupid/staged fights where people talked too much. Really, that whole bit. I mean, seriously, Harry dies and then he just kind of gets better, with absolutely no lingering emotional trauma, even though his mood/character has been getting darker and darker? I mean, magical deus ex or not, death shouldn't be something that just gets better, whatever the circumstances.

You put your finger on all of my issues with book seven right there. The first part (up to the spoilered event) was really good and different from previous books, but after that it just went downhill IMHO.

[Totally Guy]

It was only after I told my friends that they weren't really casting spells in their bedrooms that my aura happened to go bad. They won't hang out with people with bad auras like mine. I call it the "too much Buffy" problem.

[DraPrime]

*People who scream and cry about the American Godzilla. I haven't seen it, and I'm ready to accept that it's a bad movie, but how is the source material so superior? Any way you slice it, it's a movie about a giant, indestructible lizard destroying a big city because of radiation.


As a Godzilla movie it sucked. As just a movie about a huge lizard it was average. It kind of sort of had some plot, cool special effects, and some nice fight scenes. But it wasn't anything special.

[TSGames]

*I don't understand how anyone has ever bought a Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears album or, at the very least, how they didn't commit seppuku upon the realization of what they had done.

[Closet_Skeleton]

*I don't understand how anyone has ever bought a Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears album or, at the very least, how they didn't commit seppuku upon the realization of what they had done.

Some people just don't have the interest in looking for actually good music so they just buy what's in front of them. These people are often 12-14 year old girls, not real music fans.

Anyway, some genres just aren't for everything and there's a lot of crap to put you off certain genres.

[....]

*I don't understand how anyone has ever bought a Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears album or, at the very least, how they didn't commit seppuku upon the realization of what they had done.

I'm bringing sexy back, too.

[DraPrime]

*I don't understand how anyone has ever bought a Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears album or, at the very least, how they didn't commit seppuku upon the realization of what they had done.

These people are referred to as "idiots." You may have heard of them before.

[horseboy]

I stopped watching Buffy around Glory. I just got bored with it all. So I didn't notice much of the Spikeification (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.Spikeification).

Why was Godzilla bad? Bowdlerisaztion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.Bowdlerise).

Now for my question: "Why is it on any of the CSI shows, the people are STILL wearing their bloody clothes three days later?"

[Jorkens]

Well, really, it started going downhill for me around the point when Harry died, and then there were some really stupid/staged fights where people talked too much. Really, that whole bit. I mean, seriously, Harry dies and then he just kind of gets better, with absolutely no lingering emotional trauma, even though his mood/character has been getting darker and darker? I mean, magical deus ex or not, death shouldn't be something that just gets better, whatever the circumstances.
Plot twist =/= deus ex. Seriously. She'd been setting this one up since book one - everything with the links between Harry and Voldemort, the horcruxes and soul splitting and so on. Plus "sacrifice yourself / pass through death and out the other side before you can save the world" has a lot of resonance throughout legend and fantasy (not to mention religion), so it seemed quite natural to me. Narnia, anyone?
I found the epilogue unsatisfying, though. Trying to rationalize this, I think I'd have preferred something a bit more general and less specific. Something that suggests that the characters (all of them) are going to recover and move on and start rebuilding their worlds, and that they have hope and a future without neccessarily going into the kitchen sink domestic details of what that future is.

*thinks a bit more*

Actually, I think my issue is that the characters have suffered a lot of pain and Bad Stuff throughout the last few books, and for a proper emotional resolution I'd find it more satisfying to see them actually getting over that pain and recovering and looking to the future. What we actually get is "oh yeah, they got over all that death and destruction and stuff and now they're fine and they've managed to procreate."

[ray53208]

i loved every episode of every whedon show.

one simple reason: it was joss's sandbox and i was just happy to be there. were some episodes stronger than others? of course. do i hate anything done? no. not one bit.

i dont hate anything about them. they did what they were supposed to do: evoke feelings, make me think, make me care, let me forget that i wasnt actually there fighting side by side with them... for an hour.

[Turcano]

*I don't understand how anyone has ever bought a Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears album or, at the very least, how they didn't commit seppuku upon the realization of what they had done.

Speaking of committing seppuku over terrible music, what the hell's with J-Pop? It's like American Idol and 80s techno had an ugly, ugly bastard kid.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Speaking of committing seppuku over terrible music, what the hell's with J-Pop? It's like American Idol and 80s techno had an ugly, ugly bastard kid.

Not all J-Pop is like that. J-Pop is kind of an artificial genre for wierd Japanese stuff, there are some crap J-Pop songs and there are some crap western Pop songs.

[Artemician]

Not all J-Pop is like that. J-Pop is kind of an artificial genre for wierd Japanese stuff, there are some crap J-Pop songs and there are some crap western Pop songs.

Yea. It's far too wide of a genre to make any generalizations. In fact, as you said, it's not really a genre at all: J-Pop simply refers to Pop songs that are composed in Japanese.