Unpopular Opinions

[JMTV]

I was thinking the other day about streaming services pulling shows. I’m not saying I like it, but how is it any different than a channel canceling a show in the pre-streaming era? For instance, when CN stopped planning Mike, Lu, and Og, it was gone. There were no DVD’s you could buy, it was just gone. I wonder if we (in general) have just gotten spoiled.

Maybe, but at least with streaming, you don't have to worry about seeing your favorite show at a certain time or force to sit through commercials when you can watch your favorite show in a snap, anytime I want. At the time, it seems like a great concept. During the time when cable TV has gotten a lot more expensive and lacking variety, watching your favorite shows and movies on streaming services at a cheap price is a safe haven for us. Unfortunately, the concept didn't last forever as the greedy ass companies wanted their own version of Netflix, which led us to massive streaming wars, and later the major bubble burst we are in today.

I don't know, maybe we are spoiled because we love binging our favorite shows and movies on streaming, we didn't think about the consequences. Little did we know, streaming has become cable 2.0.

 

[Darklordavaitor]

I was thinking the other day about streaming services pulling shows. I’m not saying I like it, but how is it any different than a channel canceling a show in the pre-streaming era? For instance, when CN stopped planning Mike, Lu, and Og, it was gone. There were no DVD’s you could buy, it was just gone. I wonder if we (in general) have just gotten spoiled.

I think part of the disappointment in the streaming age comes from the promise of streaming having everything you'll want, whenever you want. It must be highly disappointing if you subscribed to, say, Paramount+ for the new Rugrats, only for its existence to be wiped. With television, you come in expecting a channel's schedule to have a finite amount of space, so things will come and go as necessary, but a streamer should be able to hold the studio's content for as long as it's running, right?

 

[Light Lucario]

I was thinking the other day about streaming services pulling shows. I’m not saying I like it, but how is it any different than a channel canceling a show in the pre-streaming era? For instance, when CN stopped planning Mike, Lu, and Og, it was gone. There were no DVD’s you could buy, it was just gone. I wonder if we (in general) have just gotten spoiled.

I think it's also worse in large part because these shows being removed from streaming are often done as a tax write off. I'm not sure if that's the case for the shows removed from Disney+ or Paramount+, but that was the case for the majority of shows WB removed from Max. It's much more insulting for the creative teams to have all of their hard work thrown away just so that the corporations to save some extra money.

There was still the potential for shows to be released on VHS or DVDs back then too. Not a guarantee, but people having their shows removed from the channel entirely probably didn't think that their work would never see the light of day again. Since there is less focus on physical media nowadays, it's a bigger concern when a show isn't available for streaming because it means that they could become harder to find.

 

[JMTV]

I think it's also worse in large part because these shows being removed from streaming are often done as a tax write off. I'm not sure if that's the case for the shows removed from Disney+ or Paramount+, but that was the case for the majority of shows WB removed from Max. It's much more insulting for the creative teams to have all of their hard work thrown away just so that the corporations to save some extra money.

There was still the potential for shows to be released on VHS or DVDs back then too. Not a guarantee, but people having their shows removed from the channel entirely probably didn't think that their work would never see the light of day again. Since there is less focus on physical media nowadays, it's a bigger concern when a show isn't available for streaming because it means that they could become harder to find.

Yeah, the streaming wars really did mess everyone up, and ruined a lot of things for everyone. Sadly, animation has been taking a biggest hits, and it's going to have long lasting negative effects if things didn't stop much sooner.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

I was thinking the other day about streaming services pulling shows. I’m not saying I like it, but how is it any different than a channel canceling a show in the pre-streaming era? For instance, when CN stopped planning Mike, Lu and Og, it was gone. There were no DVD’s you could buy, it was just gone. I wonder if we (in general) have just gotten spoiled.

It's stuff like this that there's the trope called "keep circulating the tapes" after all.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

I'm not sure exactly where or how to draw the line, but I think there's a practical "statute of limitations" for when reboots/revivals no longer are really in continuity with the original. It's especially true when you consider things like different creative teams involved or changing forms of media. Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe or Cobra Kai are examples of continuations that I think should be looked more as possible futures than definitive ones.

I suppose all of this is just another way of saying this is my head canon...

 

[Fone Bone]

Agreed about Kevin Smith's Masters but Cobra Kai is totally canon. SO many clips from the movies.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

Agreed about Kevin Smith's Masters but Cobra Kai is totally canon. SO many clips from the movies.

I know what you're saying. To be fair, I only watched the first two seasons of Cobra Kai; I really enjoyed the first season, but the second season was a bit too over the top with too many uninteresting teen characters taking screen time from what us old heads really wanted to see. But my takeaway from watching the first two seasons was that there was too much of a tonal shift from the original movies. Specifically, the original movies were mostly dramatic films. The premise of the first season (in particular) was almost self-parody/satire. Everyone was in on the joke!

Also to be fair, I probably would've embraced the series more if "DaNiEL wAs ThE ReAL viLlAiN!" wasn't a joke being taken seriously by people on the internet. The idea that people would entertain this very much tongue-in-cheek interpretation anything other than ironically just rubbed me the wrong way, I suppose.

 

[Fone Bone]

I know what you're saying. To be fair, I only watched the first two seasons of Cobra Kai; I really enjoyed the first season, but the second season was a bit too over the top with too many uninteresting teen characters taking screen time from what us old heads really wanted to see. But my takeaway from watching the first two seasons was that there was too much of a tonal shift from the original movies. Specifically, the original movies were mostly dramatic films. The premise of the first season (in particular) was almost self-parody/satire. Everyone was in on the joke!

Also to be fair, I probably would've embraced the series more if "DaNiEL wAs ThE ReAL viLlAiN!" wasn't a joke being taken seriously by people on the internet. The idea that people would entertain this very much tongue-in-cheek interpretation anything other than ironically just rubbed me the wrong way, I suppose.

The last three seasons have been funny but played straight. As for Daniel he's a complex character. Neither he nor Johnny are villains and have been building a steady friendship.

 

[BigFatHairyDeal]

The last three seasons have been funny but played straight. As for Daniel he's a complex character. Neither he nor Johnny are villains and have been building a steady friendship.

Yeah, that sounds about right. My personal interpretation of the first season was that stuff like HIMYM introduced into the pop culture landscape the idea of what if Daniel was actually the bad guy all along. For someone whose first exposure to the Karate Kid franchise was s1 of Cobra Kai, the show creators could spin a believable yarn that Daniel was indeed the bad guy, whereas all of us old folks were supposed to laugh along with the irony. So as someone who was already a fan of the series for roughly three decades, I didn't really warm up to the suggestions fans were making that maybe the guy we thought was a (flawed) good guy since 1984 might've been worse than we realized. On the contrary, I think Daniel was exactly what we thought he was, but for the sake of a new show, he could be recontextualized a bit.

I understand that in the end of the day, it's just supposed to be a fun-filled continuation 30 years later. Despite the fact that the movies were mostly straightforward dramas, they still weren't meant to be taken too serious (which applies for most fiction). Anyway, I'll close my controversial opinion and just say a short, self-satire/parody would've been good enough for me. I have a statute of limitations for how much time can pass before I just don't want to see old material recontextualized, retconned, or revived with a huge tonal shift.

 

[Fone Bone]

Been saying a LOT of unpopular X-Men opinions on the board today. Here's a good live-action one.

People HATED X-Men: Origins: Wolverine. I have heard people seriously opine it is the worst superhero movie of all time. And I won't lie. It IS a pretty shabby motion picture when taken as a whole.

But I loved the ending.

Oh yes. Fone Bone went there. The specific thing that fans hated the most is the thing I thought was pure genius.

He lost the memory because he was shot point blank in the eye-socket, the bullet is still lodged there, so his brain cannot heal! And because his skull is currently Adamantium they can't see it through an X-Ray! And even if they could, they could never remove it!

Fans flipped out. "What a lazy cheat cop-out to this complex mystery that the comics have spent decades teasing and revealing clues about!"

I actually think all that sounds overly complicated and convoluted.

And that's why this ending upset the fans. Complicated and convoluted is the entire X-Men brand.

While the fans are creating crime scene corks boards with photos of the Illuminati, President Luthor, Boy Bands, Starbucks, and anklets, connected by colored strings, the very unimaginative (yet audacious and brilliant) creators of that otherwise wretched film said, "Nah, the poor dude just got shot."

Do not misunderstand me. I don't simply love that because it made the fans mad. That's something I laugh about, but it's not something I care about. What I love is the solution is elegant, simple, and explains everything, which NONE of the theories involve mind-erasing Mutants or government brainwashing could ever do. And it take FIVE seconds to explain EVERYTHING we ever wanted to know about the character.

There is something about the fan response to this that annoys me. It's just the film version! It doesn't effect the comics and is not canon. Why does it piss you off so much? It's not like the films themselves were super wedding to the conspiracy, or delved into that mystery in any sort of detail. Why would this movie coming up with a brilliant / stupid answer like that upset you at all?

Sometimes there is no vast conspiracy about Secret Societies trying to control the world. Sometimes dudes just get shot. Sometimes the world is simply ugly and stupid. There is a real-world lesson here. I'm sure of it.

 

[Pooky]

I have a friend who absolutely loves X-Men: Origins: Wolverine, it's one of his favourite films. Can't say I share his enthusiasm, but I'm jealous of his ability to love such films without any self-consciousness about their public/critical reputation (I think his favourite film is Pacific Rim).

 

[Fone Bone]

I have a friend who absolutely loves X-Men: Origins: Wolverine, it's one of his favourite films. Can't say I share his enthusiasm, but I'm jealous of his ability to love such films without any self-consciousness about their public/critical reputation (I think his favourite film is Pacific Rim).

I like to think I'm the same way. I wasn't always. But I like to think I am now.

Edit:

Okay, I'll be that person now. I'll be brave. I'll tell Toon Zone my favorite movie. What @Pooky said really got to me and moved me.

I guess my concern in telling people this is that for cynics who think I'm a jerk and overly critical of stuff you love, you'll be like "How can I take anything bad you say about the thing I love seriously when your favorite film is THAT?" And you know, I'm not embarrassed really, but my credibility is important to me. But equally important to me is honesty and a lack of pretense and b.s.. How can anyone ever really know where my reviews and headspace is coming from if I have never talked about my favorite film?

My favorite film is The Adventures Of Elmo In Grouchland.

At this point in the unpopular opinions thread the opinion offerer is supposed to talk about the fact that the greatly disliked thing they like is actually high quality and lists reasons why.

Even if that were possible for this specific movie, I wouldn't bother. If the movie had good dialogue (it doesn't), was genuinely funny (not really), exciting (climax is meh), or artfully made (it was directed by sitcom vet Gary Halvorson, so no) I still wouldn't bother.

I love the film because it makes me happy. It has very positive vibes throughout the whole thing. The fact that Elmo addresses the viewer often is both jarring and wonderful. It makes me both nervous and happy at the same time. Sometimes when watching it, when Elmo tells the viewer he loves us and goodbye at the end I get a little teary because it's mostly over (Bert and Ernie do some goofing in the end credits). I am a sap and not afraid to admit it.

In 1998, I was 22 at the time the movie came out. I went to the box office and a nice older woman was taking tickets, and they were offering a free poster for the movie if you bought popcorn. I went into the theater with my popcorn and poster. I don't remember much about my first viewing other than the fact that I was utterly charmed (also there weren't a ton of people in the theater, even on opening weekend). But I walked out of the movie after the end credits and back up to the ticket lady and immediately bought another ticket to sit through it again.

She was ALSO utterly charmed by me doing that. I asked if I was entitled to another free poster with the second ticket and she said yes, and I watched the film again. I believe I have seen that film in the theater four times, or maybe even five. It only lasted in its initial run for a weekend or two but I caught it twice more on summer movie revivals at General Cinemas. Both of those posters I got in 1998 currently hang on the wall in my bedroom, next to each other, one showing the front, one showing the back.

To be honest, I haven't seen the film in a few years. Since the Kevin Clash scandal hit, I've worried that seeing it again would be a tainted experience, and I don't want to ruin it in my memory in that way. I hope in the future I'll see it again and still love it. But it's been awhile and I still am not sure I'm ready for it.

Let me put a final idea in your head other than "Matt's favorite movie is a baby movie, and one of the lesser Muppet films even." Let's assume that you are right to disdain me for that and believe I have low standards. What would you say if I agreed with you? What does it tell you if I complain so much about SO much else for every little thing you can imagine? Maybe people thinking my standards are too high have me all wrong. Maybe my actual standards (in wanting to simply enjoy a film) are pretty damn low after all, and it's telling so much stuff cannot pass that specific bar with me.

Maybe my high standards aren't the problem. Maybe I don't even have them. Maybe the REAL problem is current media cannot pass my BAREST standards, the way one of the least-liked Muppet films, one that was a box office bomb no less, did. Maybe that's the real story here.

 

[Dantheman]

So, what's your opinion on Follow That Bird?

 

[Fone Bone]

So, what's your opinion on Follow That Bird?

The story bugs the crap out of me. Like the Count is a vampire, right? So like he should be using those sick Kung Fu vamp moves and beating the crap out of the bad guys who are being so mean to Big Bird. The fact that the bad guys do not wind up the film dead by vampire karate chops and fangs feels like a huge plot oversight.

Edit:

In other words, it was not the nice, relaxing experience the second film was. The bad guys made me too angry.

And Huxley from Grouchland is a monster. But I feel like he was fairly dealt with.

Edit:

Also Easy-Going Day gets stuck in my head for a few days every time I hear it.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Complicated and convoluted is the entire X-Men brand.

But I thought their brand was to trust a few and fear the rest.

 

[Pooky]

In terms of Oliver Stone's filmography Alexander*, while certainly heavily flawed, is a lot more entertaining and is, despite being much longer, a much easier sit than The Doors (an all too accurate representation of spending 2+ hours in the presence of a talented but deeply pretentious and unpleasant man), Natural Born Killers (a very occasionally amusing but obnoxious and very dated satire on very obvious and now rather hackneyed targets) or Savages (just plain rubbish, highlight was Salma Hayek wearing a cool wig or something).

*Should note I guess that I've only seen the Director's Cut of Alexander, which is actually slightly shorter than the theatrical version but apparently largely the same. I haven't seen either of the 2(!) further Director's Cuts he's somehow been permitted to do since, which add a further 40 minutes or so and apparently significantly restructures the film in a way that some say is a revelation. I would quite like to see one of them.

 

[aegisrawks]

The story bugs the crap out of me. Like the Count is a vampire, right? So like he should be using those sick Kung Fu vamp moves and beating the crap out of the bad guys who are being so mean to Big Bird. The fact that the bad guys do not wind up the film dead by vampire karate chops and fangs feels like a huge plot oversight.

Edit:

In other words, it was not the nice, relaxing experience the second film was. The bad guys made me too angry.

And Huxley from Grouchland is a monster. But I feel like he was fairly dealt with.

Edit:

Also Easy-Going Day gets stuck in my head for a few days every time I hear it.

I dont know how I feel about the whole movie, but I LOVED the part where Big Bird is told to jump onto a moving car but he refuses because its so dangerous it is verboten to him. But Gordon calmly explains there are moments where there does come a time when this doing such a dangerous thing is NECESSARY, and that he gives Big BIrd the permission to do so. This is a sound lesson, and it applies in many scenarios that may come up in real life.

 

[Fone Bone]

Yeah, that sounds about right. My personal interpretation of the first season was that stuff like HIMYM introduced into the pop culture landscape the idea of what if Daniel was actually the bad guy all along. For someone whose first exposure to the Karate Kid franchise was s1 of Cobra Kai, the show creators could spin a believable yarn that Daniel was indeed the bad guy, whereas all of us old folks were supposed to laugh along with the irony. So as someone who was already a fan of the series for roughly three decades, I didn't really warm up to the suggestions fans were making that maybe the guy we thought was a (flawed) good guy since 1984 might've been worse than we realized. On the contrary, I think Daniel was exactly what we thought he was, but for the sake of a new show, he could be recontextualized a bit.

I understand that in the end of the day, it's just supposed to be a fun-filled continuation 30 years later. Despite the fact that the movies were mostly straightforward dramas, they still weren't meant to be taken too serious (which applies for most fiction). Anyway, I'll close my controversial opinion and just say a short, self-satire/parody would've been good enough for me. I have a statute of limitations for how much time can pass before I just don't want to see old material recontextualized, retconned, or revived with a huge tonal shift.

Thinking more about this. Anybody who watches Cobra Kai and think Daniel is the villain and bully of the Karate Kid films doesn't understand the show or what it's trying to say. It's not saying that Daniel was the bully. Clearly he wasn't. The show is saying Johnny had legitimate reasons for seeing it that way, even though he's wrong. But people confusing him for right aren't getting the messaging of the show.

 

[Goldstar!]

I would/will never watch a 3 hour YouTube video. I don't understand why anyone would want to make a YT video that long, let alone watch one. If someone wants to make a YT video that's the length of Avengers: Endgame, that's their business, but don't expect me to sit through it. I have neither the patience nor the attention span for that.