genchang2112

Ok, so I'm probably in the minority when it comes to certain movies that may get almost universally panned. I'm not talking about the "woke" bullshit that no normal person could ever like. I'm talking about movies like "Solo: A Star Wars Story", or "Terminator Genisys" (fuck Dark Fate).

When it comes to "Solo", what I liked about the movie was that it seemed to do a pretty good job of showing the start of Han Solo's career. I thought the actor playing Han did a good job, and even got some of Harrison Ford's mannerisms down. I liked how they kept to some tech-lore, like Han's DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol, which was described in the Lucasfilm Archives as a "broke-down blaster rifle". They took a bit of a liberty with how Han met Chewie, but they also worked in a little bit of the liberation of other Wookiees (and other slaves) on Kessel. Had there been a sequel to this (in my humble opinion) underrated movie, we might have gotten to see Han help Chewie free his brother and sister Wookiees, and find his family, as well as the startings of working for Jabba the Hutt. I also felt that Joonas Suotamo is a worthy successor to the late, great gentle giant, Peter Mayhew. (RIP). Suotamo clearly studied Mayhew, and it shows. You believed he was Chewbacca as readily as if Mayhew himself carried on the role. Emilia Clarke (who stars in the other movie I'm going to talk about) did a fine job as Han's girl, Q'ira. I wish her outfits weren't quite so loose fitting from the waist down, but damn, the outfit we see her in when Han reunited with her at Dryden Voss' yacht.... she looked fine in that! And I did dig the sort of "Audrey Heburn/Breakfast At Tiffany's" look that she rocked as she looked at Han for the last time from the viewport of Voss' yacht that she liberated. Woody Harrelson was a welcome addition as Han's semi-mentor, Tobias Beckett. He was well-suited for this type of movie. I also didn't have a problem with Lando Calrissian's portrayal in the movie. Lots of folks saying he was pansexual, but I viewed his little flirtations with his co-pilot, L337, as eccentricity, and nothing more. Comedic eccentricity. He did care about L337 as a friend, much the way that Luke Skywalker or Leia Organa cared about C-3P0 and R2-D2, or Poe Dameron cared about BB-8. I also thought that the actress who played Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman) was a real cutie. Jon Favreau's voice work as Beckett's pilot, Rio Durant, was well-delivered. I also had to wonder if the character name was a bit of a nod to Duran Duran and their hit song (among many others in their catalogue), Rio? Overall, I enjoyed Solo. I think the Story movies far outstrip the sequel trilogy by parsecs...and Rogue One is my all time favorite Star Wars film over the last 50 years.

Terminator Genisys: The reasons I enjoyed this film were that we got to see more of the Future War that we witnessed in the first two Terminator films, and the excellent video game, Terminator Resistance. (I didn't care for how the Future War was portrayed in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines or Terminator Salvation). But yes, the Future War in Genisys took me back to when I saw Terminator 2 Judgment Day on the big screen for the first time, and I was glad to get to see Genisys in IMAX. I think the time-travel thing was a little over done for one Terminator film, but that was a minor consideration. I loved how it mixed/mashed up the storylines of the first two Terminator films, with the T-1000 appearing in the time of the first film. Arnold Schwarzenegger did his usual good turn as CSM-101 (now called "Pops" by young Sarah). I didn't overly mind Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese. Not great, but not bad. Jason Clarke (Emilia's IRL brother) did a good job as John Connor. J.K. Simmons just rocks, no matter what role he plays. The other major factor in Terminator Genisys was, as with Solo, Emilia Clarke. She might be woke as fuck, but she is easy on the eyes, and a good actress, and I thought she did a fine job as a young Sarah Connor. (I also thought it was sexy hearing her in a more North Americanized accent).

Both of these movies were either majority panned, and perhaps for understandable reasons, or they just didn't do well at the box-office. The reasons behind Solo's failure are as varied as they are speculative. Terminator Genisys, I can kinda understand why it bombed....but I don't think it bombed nearly as hard as the unneeded, woke-trash follow up, Dark Fate.

She isn't even that pretty. She looks like an elf with a thyroid problem. Her songs, judging by reviews, are nothing more than 34 year old Taylor pretending she's a heartbroken 17 year old girl whose body count is somehow "bragging rights".

"She's so relatable!" scream uncounted (physically, and more-often, mentally) preteen girls everywhere, apparently. Wow, has Taylor pulled the wool over their eyes. Swifties need to wake the fuck up from being woke before she drags them all to hell with her.

Swift has amassed such an undeserved power base that if somebody wrongs her in the slightest way, her "Swifties" do everything in their power to try and bring the "offender" down. Let's get it straight, folks. Taylor Swift is not a goddess.

Why is the Biden regime so concerned about her image, also? Just because she's a misguided, Leftist never-Trumper who turned her back on God and Christianity to embrace the demonic "woke-culture"?

Give me Jennette McCurdy or Jewel Kilcher anyday and twice on Sunday over lil Ms. Swift.

This review is for the Xbox Series X version of Ark Survival Ascended....the visually and gameplay upgraded version of Ark Survival Evolved. This is for Single Player mode only.

As a lot of players know, there was some serious drama regarding the Xbox Series X/S versions of Ark Survival Ascended....especially in the area of game saves being lost...especially after hours of work. Thus far, I have been fortunate in that I have not lost any of my save/progress.

When I adjust the settings for my own single player experience, yeah, I do some tweaking to make the game a bit more of something I can relax to (as opposed to the hardcore survival experience....someday, I'll brave that, but for now, I just want something to take my mind off the woes of this fucked up world).

Graphically, from what I can see, this game is gorgeous. Creatures and environments look a lot nicer, even from Ark Survival Evolved's own beautiful environs. I love the sounds of the game as well, which seem to still be the same as Survival Evolved, but at least that creates more of a sense of familiarity. If I have but a couple minor gripes about Survival Ascended's environment, it's that the foliage and rock formations are much more dense in areas I became familiar with in Survival Evolved. This sometimes makes it a bit more difficult to negotiate once familiar terrain. Also, the nature of finding oil in the game has been changed. I rather liked it in Survival Evolved when you could dive into the water, and see oil streams wafting up to the surface from an oil deposit. Now, it's kinda become guess work. Again, minor gripes. There's also an occasional minor frame rate dip in traveling caves, but at least it was not a debilitating frame rate dip. (Edit: Correction.....undersea oil deposits still do leak oil to the surface, so they are easier to find. Guess I just didn't dive deep enough...LOL!)

My biggest rejoice with this game are the Quality of Life improvements made with Survival Ascended. The ability to pick up assets after they've been placed is a welcome change. In Evolved, you only had 30 seconds to pick up an item after placement, otherwise, it was stuck there, and all you could do after was demolish it. (The only item in Evolved that I'd noticed you can still pick up after placement was the wooden chair.) But yes, now in Ascended, you can pick up any item well after being placed. Another big QoL improvement in Ascended is the ability to determine exactly what you need if your raft/motorboat takes damage. Before, in Evolved, it was guess work, and you never knew what materials, or how much of those materials you needed to fix your water craft if it took damage. (Wild Card did create a patch in the latter dying days of Evolved where boat repair was made easier, with fewer resources involving the primary component for the boat.) Now, that has been taken care of in Ascended. Other QoL improvements include waypoint visibility in the HUD, being able to use the map while traveling in a water craft, being able to toggle waypoint visibility (and you can do this without a GPS) snapping when building bases/boats allows you to place assets far more neatly, which reminds me, much of the construction aspect of Survival Ascended is very much Fortnite-esque, generators are now wireless transmitters of power, so long as your assets that receive power are within the transmission range of the power generator.

So far, I am enjoying this game. I've only been killed a handful of times, and that was usually to my dumbassedness, or simple ignorance of my environment. I would still advise Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware) in case some Xbox Series X/S versions of the game still have save issues. As I said, thus far, I've not had that problem.

Imagine being a man who hasn't even achieved mediocrity in your own class in a sport among other men, and the deciding that you're going to pretend to be a woman, and taking advantage of the culture war climate of today, you compete against young women. You have an obvious physical advantage over most of them. Without remorse you proceed to crush young women's athletic and collegiate dreams by blowing them all out of the water, and then going into the women's locker room to show your junk in front of a bunch of terrified young women. That is the piece of shit that is William Thomas. In his own class, he was ranked some middle 400th place. Beneath mediocrity. He pretends to be a girl, swims against young women, and crushes most of them easily, many of whom were very highly ranked or accomplished in young women's swimming. They were devastated because of his narcissism, his criminal lewdness, and his desire to attain the tiniest of victories in his otherwise pathetic life.

One young woman tied with him in the winning swim meet. That young woman is Riley Gaines. A very highly accomplished young female swimmer who had qualified for the Olympics at age 15. (She is 22 now.) She tied with him when they swam against each other, and the woke-ass committee said that she could pose with the trophy but she would go home empty handed since: A. They don't account for ties. B. Because it would be better that the trophy go to William Thomas. (I refuse to call him by his "girly" name.) Like the other young women before her, Riley Gaines' athletic dreams were crushed in an instant. Not because she couldn't keep up with his unfair physical advantage. She held her own, and went the distance with his sorry ass. No, her dreams were crushed by a woke NCAA, a woke swim-committee, and a illegal regime currently occupying the White House.

Over the last couple of years, Riley has gone to various hearings and conferences to take up the fight for young, biological women.... not just for athletics, but for the safety and security of young girls and women, all biological females. She has destroyed opponents in debates and discussions regarding the unfairness of competitions, and the criminal actions of men who pretend to be women. In one city, she was threatened by a mob of Left-wing, militant LGBTQIAGP thugs who were demanding a ransom be paid in order for her to leave alive. She was barricaded in a small room for three hours until the situation could be brought under control. Did the university punish those who attacked an invited guest-speaker? No. They praised the attackers. (May they all burn in hell.)

Riley is a very well-spoken, intelligent young woman who has done her research, and can mop the floor with any woke pundit in a debate. She is also a very compassionate young woman. She bears no ill will toward William Thomas, or toward the militant LGBTQIAGP thugs, or their "community" in general. This speaks well of her.

As for me..... God forgives...I do not. William Thomas and his ilk honestly need to have their titles and accolades stripped, and quite honestly, need to be jailed for their criminal indecency.

I don't mind Lady Gaga. She can write some really beautiful songs when she wants too, and has a voice to match. After all, she wrote a beautiful song for the best movie to have been released in easily the last 2 decades, that being "Top Gun: Maverick". She can tug at the heartstrings when the muse hits her.

I've seen pics of her from her role in the remake of "A Star Is Born". Some pics she looks a little cute. From what I've heard, she did a great job in her role.

But Harley Quinn? Hard pass! (At least, at this point in time) I was really interested in a Joker 2 (loved the hell out of the first one) until I saw the pics for Harley Quinn, and ....yeah..... hard pass!

Harley Quinn is supposed to be stunning, sexy hot and batshit crazy! (Some really talented deviantartists, and those who utilize AI generated imagery have created/generated some interesting versions of Harley where the hawtness was gone, but the psycho madness was there, and I think those are great.) I'm sure Lady Gaga can get the batshit crazy part down. I don't have any doubts about her as an actress....but I won't be able to stomach seeing her as Harley Quinn. Heh...I'm surprised they didn't try to get Billie Eilish....but that would've been a hard pass as well for me.

Margot Robbie did a great job (IMHO) in the first Suicide Squad movie. She had the sexiness and the batshit craziness going on all at once! (Then she went on the whole "I wanna avert the male gaze" trip, and shit just went downhill from there.)

They should pick actresses that have the beauty and the gravitas to pull off a role like Harley. I think they hit a homer when Mia Sara played her in the one-season show "Birds of Prey" back in 2002, and as stated before, Margot Robbie did a bang up job in the first Suicide Squad. Yes, I know, the court-jester outfit from the Batman The Animated Series is the outfit that more hardcore Harley fans will cite as THE Harley costume, but for me, it's definitely the torn baseball shirt, hotpants, and stockings from the first Suicide Squad that will always be the default Harley outfit. (I did like her sexy nurse's outfit from the Batman Arkham games)

Maybe I just need to see a few more images, or wait for the trailer for the upcoming Joker 2. Perhaps they can change my mind, but for now.....hard pass.