Thundercats Roar is objectively bad (and harmful)

Thundercats Roar has been almost universally panned since even before it came out (since the first looks a year before it first aired). This makes sense because pretty much everything about it is bad (read horrible); it has no redeeming qualities. The closest it comes to being good is that its irritating theme-song can become a bit of an ear-worm, but one that you want out of your head, so that’s hardly a selling-point. The biggest problems with it are that Lion-O is an obnoxious idiot and that the overly cartoon-y style seems targeted at toddlers (mentally-challenged ones to be specific).

The two attempts at a defense that a few people (i.e., the makers) have tried levying against critics are that it’s a different show and shouldn’t be compared to the original (or the remake), and that it’s not meant for adults who liked the previous installments, but rather for children. The problem is that both of these defenses are specious at best and simply do not hold.

Arguing that it’s a separate show doesn’t work because looking at this show completely separate from the previous ones doesn’t help it because even if the previous shows didn’t exist, this is still a horrible show because it is just mind-numbingly awful. As many have pointed out, the drawing style is unappealing, its frenetic pace is tedious, the characters are unlikable, and the dialog and plots are stupid and puerile.

That last point leads into the second defense, that it’s meant for children. That argument falls flat in the face of the fact that the original show as well as the remake were also meant for children. Therefore, arguing that shows like this are meant for children is implying that children have become stupider over the years. ¬_¬

Sadly, I can’t argue with that. Not only do today’s children seem genuinely worse than all previous generations in almost every way, but most of the cartoons made in the past 10-20 years are clearly meant for stupider children. It might be a chicken-egg situation, but the fact that there do exist kids who aren’t stupid, but whom usually tend to be from parents who take an active interest in their children’s enrichment rather than just letting TV babysit them seems to indicate that these kinds of juvenile cartoons are making kids dumber. 🤦

Therefore, not only is Thundercats Roar objectively bad, it’s also contributing to making children stupid.

There aren’t enough thumbs-down in the world. 😒

“Thundercats Roar” in a gabage can
A place for everything, and everything in its place

I played Doom 3

In August of 2004, I eagerly played the game Doom 3, but unfortunately, my system at the time was under-powered and could barely run it, so I had to run it at 640×480 with everything down to the lowest possible settings. I ended up playing it with no effects at all and everything was bland, pale, washed-out, and barely textured at all (I still picture it as a bunch of grayish-white, low-polygon, un-textured models in my mind).

In November of 2012, I re-played through all of the Doom games and their mission-packs, and got to Doom 3 in April of 2013. This time, my system was a little better, so I was able to play it with all the settings set to the best and maximum settings at my laptop’s native resolution of 1366×768.

Oddly, looking at the screenshots, the difference is not nearly as stark as I recall. 🤔 I’ve always said that graphics are the least important part of a game. ¬_¬

That is all.

​What? I have nothing more to say about it other than that I played it. 🤷


Actual screenshot from my low-res play-through in 2004
Doom 3 played in 2004 with low settings
Actual screenshot from my high-res play-through in 2013
Doom 3 played in 2013 with high settings

At least “The Mandalorian” flew by… sort of

I don’t know why, but when I finally got around to watching the first season of The Mandalorian a few days ago, I was not very enthusiastic. Maybe it’s because I tend to absolutely despise it when people over-exaggerate things and love them far more than they deserve (*cough*WalkingDead*cough* 😒), or maybe I’m just sick and tired of Star Wars in general due to it being over-saturated since Disney bought it (I haven’t even seen any of the movies that came out since Disney bought, and yet I’m sick of it, that’s how over-exposed it is).

Whatever the cause, I had low expectations despite people saying how good it was (I don’t put much stock in what others say because they frequently love things that are trash *cough*MadMen*cough*). I have noticed in the past that many of the things I loved most were actually things I had the lowest of low expectations for and thus they had nowhere to go but up, and thus I was pleasantly surprised with them, which then translated into positive feelings for it, which I interpreted as liking them. I figured I’d go for that effect again.

Meh.

I watched the whole first season in a few hours and to be honest, it wasn’t bad (the “baby-Yoda” surprise was ruined of course). I didn’t love it and I don’t really care if it doesn’t come back, but I did like that it flew by. It did not feel slow or sluggish; it did not feel like I watched eight episodes of a one-hour show (technically ~40 minutes). Each episode blew by quickly and I made it through the whole thing quickly and moved on. Sadly, I consider that to be a very good thing with most shows and movies these days. That I wasn’t bored is considered high praise. 🤷

There is one huge confounding factor however. I watched the whole thing at high speed. Yup, I watched the whole season at 2×, at 200%, double speed. At one point (episode six, “The Prisoner” to be specific), I suddenly thought that I forgot to speed it up like I do with everything I watch (and listen to), and tried crank it up, when I noticed it was already at double speed. I was shocked because it didn’t feel like it was running at twice the normal rate.

Out of morbid curiosity, I throttled it back down to normal speed to see just how slow it is supposed to be, and my god! was it slow. 😲 It was excruciating. How could anyone ever watch anything so slow‽ 😕 Have Jon Favreau and his cronies never heard of pacing? If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage of deleted scenes of movies, you will constantly hear directors saying that they loved the scene but had to cut it for pacing or that it had to go because it slowed things down. TV shows should not be any different. Just because you have eight hours in which to tell a story instead of 90 minutes doesn’t mean you can waste 80% of the time with boring, uneventful, mind-numbing filler. 😒 Cut the crap and speed it the hell up.

It’s as if directors think we have all the time in the world and theirs is the only thing we have to watch. They’re wrong. That’s why people like Judd Apatow, Brad Bird, and Aaron Paul can shut the hell up about Neflix giving viewers the ability to control playback speed. They should be thankful we’re watching their garbage at all. If they don’t want viewers to mess with the timing, then they should stop making their stuff so slow and boring in the first place.

+200%-speed / 5

Movie tipping-points

Many movies have a tipping-point where all bets are off, illusions are shattered, past the point of no-return, and the (main) characters realize the problems they have to deal with. Some examples: in horror movies, it’s when the main characters find out about the monster/killer; in dramas, it might be when the person finds out they have cancer; in an action, it could be when they begin the heist and start robbing the bank.

Of course, things could start happening before this point, but the tipping-point is when everything becomes clear to everyone. For example, in a horror movie, characters could be dying right from the start, but other characters continue on in ignorant bliss for some time; it’s when they learn of the threat that the movie has reached the tipping-point.

Some movies have multiple tipping-points, and some don’t really have any at all. It’s surprisingly hard to define it, but many movies have a pretty clear one.

Here’s a list of some movies’ tipping-points.

TitleYearT-PointLengthPercentDescription
Wrong Turn 120030:31:321:24:1137.46%They see dead Francine
Wrong Turn 220070:52:171:32:5756.25%They see Kimberly’s tattoo
Wrong Turn 320090:37:581:32:0241.25%Three Toes ambushes them
Wrong Turn 420110:48:081:33:2251.55%They find Porter’s head
Wrong Turn 520120:46:111:30:4850.86%They run over Gus
Wrong Turn 620141:12:231:30:3079.98%They see Bryan being cooked
The Fog19791:01:581:29:4769.02%Dan gets killed
The Fog20051:09:181:43:1467.13%Dan gets killed
The Mist20070:13:042:05:4710.39%Man getting in his car screams
The Possession20121:11:391:32:0077.88%They see face in MRI
Hostel20050:54:351:34:0258.05%Paxton sees dead Josh disection
Hostel II20071:05:551:34:4069.63%Beth sees the room of heads
Hostel III20110:53:381:27:4561.12%Scott and others are kidnapped
Vacancy20070:34:401:25:0040.78%Their room in the video & lights go out
Vacancy 220080:43:351:25:5950.69%They see the tape and get shot at
The Cave20050:37:191:37:1838.35%Jack gets attacked, they see giant claw
Wolf Creek20050:52:551:44:2150.71%Liz wakes up bound
Wolf Creek 220130:25:361:46:1424.10%Rutgar is stabbed (Paul finds Katarina 36:40 34.52%)
Descent20050:58:141:39:5058.33%A crawler attackes them
Descent 220090:24:081:29:5326.85%They see mauled caver (they see cralwer 41:23 46.04%)
The Ruins20080:23:121:33:2524.83%Dimitri is shot (they find Heinrich 25:42 27.51%; they shoot the boy 36:37 39.20%; the plants attack 53:07 56.86%; the plants take Mathias’ legs 1:02:52 67.30%)
You’re Next20110:27:061:34:3128.67%Tariq is shot
Cabin Fever20020:47:461:32:0851.85%Karen starts bleeding
Cabin Fever 220090:52:201:26:0760.77%CDC shoots Principal and everyone coughs blood (0:49:15 57.19% they see bodies in pool)
Cabin Fever 320140:43:051:34:5045.43%Penny bleeds
Cabin Fever20160:51:471:38:2352.63%Karen starts bleeding
Westworld19731:01:501:28:5469.55%John gets killed (0:59:24 66.82% First guest is killed)
We Are Still Here20151:05:331:23:2278.63%Posessed Jacob kills himself in front of them
Evil Dead19810:35:431:25:2441.82%They see Cheryl posessed and floating
Evil Dead 219870:41:191:24:1749.02%They see posessed Henrietta
Evil Dead 319920:46:371:20:4557.73%The flying demon attacks
London has Fallen20160:26:111:38:5726.46%The attack begins
SiREN20160:40:571:22:5049.44%They see Lily get Elliot
Feral20170:16:501:31:3918.37%They find Brie maimed and Matt mauled
Hush20160:19:421:21:4424.10%She realizes that someone is in the house
Haunting19991:28:161:52:4278.32%They see the bed turn into a face
Thir13en Ghosts20010:53:371:30:4859.05%They see the witch ghost
House of Wax20051:13:281:52:3665.25%Paige sees dying Blake
The Woman20110:27:051:43:4326.11%The family sees the kidnapped woman
Bite20151:16:381:28:2286.72%Jared sees (mutated) Casey
Escape Room20190:47:471:39:3447.99%They see Danny drown
Total: 41Average: 50.32%