I know you haven't been on here in while, but that's fair I haven't been around much either, but if you do happen to come by I wish you a merry christmas my friend.

Today I saw the Captain Marvel movie, and all I can say is it wasn't as good as Wonder Woman. Joking aside it was a fun movie, the marvel universe has the superhero thing down pretty well at this point, though it did suffer from being a prequel since it meant most of the plot twists were easy to spot if you'd seen the other movies. But there were some neat things, like the opening instead of doing stills of a bunch of comic scenes they did stills of Stan Lee as a tribute to him since his passing which was genuinely touching. I was also impressed by the de-aging effects done on Samuel Jackson to play the younger Nick fury, combined with Jacksons performance it really did feel like the younger version of the man was on stage. I never was really into the character (Marvel mostly keeps promoting them for copyright reasons) so I don't know how accurate it was to the comics, but I came away liking Carol Danvers okay and look forward to seeing her turn up for infinity way.

Thanks for your perspective, that's interesting.

I also liked the Allita/Ido sences, if you decide to start role-playing again I'd definatley consider trying to do a roleplay out of them

Me and flatmate have recently been bemused by Chris Waltz in a couple other films (inglorious bastards, zero theorem) so we were excited to see him on the screen again with some more quotable humorous lines. "No more free tune ups!“

The one armed fight was extremely satisfying to watch.

I was a bit shocked and disturbed by the breif scene where we see the harvested organs. So that stood out as something creepy.

I think my fav scene was right near the start where Alita first discovers Dr. Ido is a hunter warrior. There is a nice sequencing of events were we are suspicious of him. Then we realise his weapon isn't the same as the sycthe we saw. Then a moment of dramatic irony were we realise the doctor isn't a killer but Alita doesn't yet know. I thought that was nicely done.

Well Hugo in the manga is a darker character in general, I mean he wasn't just jacking cyborg limbs he cut out peoples spines to sell, and there was no redemption arc where he called it off either., and I recall him seeing rather whiny. I think you're right about him rejecting his cyborg body too (been a while since I read the manga) which changed the context of him climbing the Zalam tubes and the tone of his final death. I recall it was indeed heartbreaking for Alita to deal with, and it lead to Alita running away from Dr. Ito and becoming a motor ball player (I don't think the sport even gets introduced int he manga till after Hugo's death, and she never plays it till then) to get away and vent her angst, instead of as a step to confront Nova. Actually now that I think about it the manga was probably tricky to adapt because at least early on it has a bunch of unrelated story threads, so maybe the somewhat weird plot structure was inevitable as a way to try to weave the pieces into a coherent narrative. Anycase back to Hugo I think the movie made the (probably correct) decision to lighten him up so he'd be more likeable, but that just made him seem like kinda a generic love interest. You're right though that its fitting for our teen hero protagonist to have a teen crush (given both her past and present circumstances), and I did like how they used him as a way to introduce her to parts of the world Dr. Ido would be to protective to show her, since that meant the main plot and world building moved along at the same time as the romantic subplot, so perhaps with some rewriting (or a more charming actor) his character could have worked, or maybe it would have been better to cut him and focus more on Alita's own growth, hard to say.

A little off subject but what were your favorite parts of the movie, mine were the relationship between Alita and Dr. Ido, that scene where her body is cut up but she still fights with one arm, and McTeage, the hunter warrior with the robo dogs

Yeah chance of snow laying near the coast. I used to think it was because the air is salty but now in hindsight I realise its probably the warming effect of the sea. Particularly in the British Isle and Ireland where the transatlantic current means we have temperate weather at a latitude similar to Scandinavia or even Moscow (places not renown for warm weather lol).

I agree with you regarding the Hugo charcter. Although I rebutted myself that it was probably quite natural for Alita to form a teenage romance, Hugo's character was uninteresting. I can imagine an abridged version with all his scenes edited out and Alita's story still being solid by itself.

Interestingly I think in the manga, Hugo rejects his cyborg body and goes insane. Certainly a more dystopia take on the concept and it would have been heartbreaking for Alita whom acted out of desperation to save Hugo, only to find rejection where she thought she had found someone who accepted her as a cyborg.

Ok, finally say Alita, was a really fun movie, actually I recall I read some of the manga years ago so I recognized some of the stuff in the movie as adapting parts of the manga storyline. I will say I think I see why the critics are kinda lukewarm on the movie, it has a really weird flow to it, which I think might be a result of all those storylines mashed together, also I wasn't a big fan of Hugo (her love interest, I mean he's less of a jerk than I recall, but he still feels a bit bland) but his relationship with Alita is cute, I actually found the cheesy on the nose symbolism bits about her heart endearing. Lots of good acting, again except maybe Hugo and even he's not bad, the girl who plays Alita in paticular gives a great performance. Great visuals, especially the way the cyborgs look, great action, I had allot of fun. I hope they make a sequel to pay off the ending. Thanks for recomending it to me.

didn't realize the sea made a difference to snowfall, but I guess it makes sense,

I'll definently let you know, I'll probably go see it on wednesday

I'm near the sea so we never get bad snow. There is some at the moment in the hills but I wouldn't have any need to drive out there, so thankfully enjoying snow free roads.

Hence the snow in the GOT stuff filmed here is presumably as fake as the dragons

It's a James Cameron film and uses the same motion capture technology as Avatar. The big difference being that in Avatar you had CGI characters in a CGI background. In Alita, for the most part you have a CGI character (Alita) against a photo real background, he it a set or location, interacting with live proformance actor/ess's.

When I first saw the promo trailers for the film I thought it was gonna be a case of 'uncanny Valley'. The CGI for the Alita character looked really nice but she has big anime eyes and doll-like propertions that make her look odd standing next to live actors.

So I went to see the movie thinking it was gonna be interesting but not that I'd love it.

Turned out Alita is supposed to stand out from the others but you quickly overcome this because she's genuinely likeable.

If you go see it, let me know what you think?

I'm doing okay, we got allot of snow the last few weeks (more than the rest of winter) which made for some dangerous driving, but its finally starting to letup and melt. Did you get much snow this winter?

I haven't seen Alita, I remember watching the ova and was curious about the movie, I guess if its that good I really should go and take a look.

Hi smilekat, how have you been lately?
I went and saw Ailita: battle angel at the cinema, I thought it was amazing!