OT: HFPens Community Lounge: Or Ogrezilla and LOGiK's Nerd Thread ;)

[Ogrezilla]

Just finished Arcane season two. Pretty dang good. The series gets a 9.75/10.

I'm kinda upset it's over. But my wife seems open to watching it. I'll gladly re-live it.

It's gorgeous. I wish I had a projector.

Ep 9 was sadly my least favorite(and I still loved most of it) but ep 7 was like a 12/10 so I still agree with your rating.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

When I read about GRRM's ideas for characters in his books that he ended up changing, it's what makes me think the shit show we saw in the final few seasons was him and those ideas but he couldn't sit and marinate on it so he just gave them those ideas and then saw how awful they were and just slid into the bush like Homer to allow the creators to take all the heat.

https://screenrant.com/game-of-thrones-catelyn-stark-books-death-white-walkers-grrm-explainer/

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Arcane season 2 episode 7.

What the f*** did I just watch.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Kind of glad this was only 2 seasons. Because the last 3 episodes make the final season of Game of Thrones look amazing.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Kind of glad this was only 2 seasons. Because the last 3 episodes make the final season of Game of Thrones look amazing.

hard hard disagree.

Arcane season 2 episode 7.

What the f*** did I just watch.

great TV. One of the shows best.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Spoiler: Arcane all

I think Act 2 was generally less focused the whole time, but it really showed up as an issue in the finale for me.

The one thing I think that really didn't land that could have been super easy to change was the Vi/Jinx ending. It was just entirely too telegraphed and really just not satisfying imo. Vi didn't have a single moment of real agency in the finale, and I hate that. Honestly just a conversation between her and Jinx where Jinx decides to leave and Vi stays with Cait would have been enough instead of the sacrifice/escape vague ending.

But I think the real problem with the season is that the whole show was built on two conflicts: Piltover vs Zaun and Hextech Good or Bad. The finale just handwaved Piltover vs Zaun away with a montage to focus on Hextech. And no disrespect to Jayce and Viktor who I liked a lot, but I think the Zaun stuff was pretty clearly the real heart of the show.

I generally like both Ambessa and Mel as characters, but I think this season would have been better without them. They took too much focus away while not being part of the main conflict at all, and their black rose plotline wasn't fleshed out enough to be worth the time it got imo. Just let them die in the jinx missile.

I think Viktor taking Ambessas place in the last battle as the big bad on the ground, leading the Zaun rebellion (planning to dupe them into becoming the husks in the end, obviously the story would need fleshed out) would have really tied it together better. And then Sevika could have actually had a role in the 3rd act. Plus I think the Jayce/Viktor ending could have had a similar main idea without being so scaled up and Ultron/spacey. Through the end of Act 2 it really felt like they were bringing to two conflicts together, but then they just punted on Viktor's connection to Zaun. Actually, Mel dying in the jinx explosion, Ambessa doing what she did up to this point and being killed in Ep 6 would probably work great.

Overall I still really enjoyed it, even the finale. But like I've said, it felt disconnected/unfocused compared to S1 in the end. And the Jinx/Vi ending in particular felt sloppy, even if I'm happy with the general outcome of Vi and Cait together and Jinx off on her own. The Vander bit in the finale just didn't land at all for me though. Honestly I think that bit bugs me more than everything else I said above.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

hard hard disagree.


great TV. One of the shows best.

In the end I was right about Jinx's arc so I feel justified but at what cost mate...

Spoiler

Vi became a passenger in the final 3 episodes, like you feel like her entire build up was pointless and even Jinx until what she ends up doing. It all feels like they kind of just lost focus on a lot of characters and suddenly went back to the Jayce Victor thing as an "ok here let's resolve this for fans..."

I feel like at best they could have made the episodes longer or added 2 more and fleshed it out. Because you jump into the multiverse type shit and Humperdinker or whatever his name is does the whole I'mma stay back bit and then they made a focus of that 4 second time loop bs, it felt like that episode went on too long and you wasted what precious time you had left with the show. I hated that. Because I got really invested like you and then it felt like the final 3 episodes were such a let down for what they built up.

The alternate world episode was ok but in the end I feel like a lot of the arcs were predictable.

Season 1 - 10/10
Season 2 - Episodes 1-6 - 10/10
Episodes 7-9 - 5/10

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Spoiler: Arcane all

I think Act 2 was generally less focused the whole time, but it really showed up as an issue in the finale for me.

The one thing I think that really didn't land that could have been super easy to change was the Vi/Jinx ending. It was just entirely too telegraphed and really just not satisfying imo. Vi didn't have a single moment of real agency in the finale, and I hate that. Honestly just a conversation between her and Jinx where Jinx decides to leave and Vi stays with Cait would have been enough instead of the sacrifice/escape vague ending.

But I think the real problem with the season is that the whole show was built on two conflicts: Piltover vs Zaun and Hextech Good or Bad. The finale just handwaved Piltover vs Zaun away with a montage to focus on Hextech. And no disrespect to Jayce and Viktor who I liked a lot, but I think the Zaun stuff was pretty clearly the real heart of the show.

I generally like both Ambessa and Mel as characters, but I think this season would have been better without them. They took too much focus away while not being part of the main conflict at all, and their black rose plotline wasn't fleshed out enough to be worth the time it got imo. Just let them die in the jinx missile.

I think Viktor taking Ambessas place in the last battle as the big bad on the ground, leading the Zaun rebellion (planning to dupe them into becoming the husks in the end, obviously the story would need fleshed out) would have really tied it together better. And then Sevika could have actually had a role in the 3rd act. Plus I think the Jayce/Viktor ending could have had a similar main idea without being so scaled up and Ultron/spacey. Through the end of Act 2 it really felt like they were bringing to two conflicts together, but then they just punted on Viktor's connection to Zaun. Actually, Mel dying in the jinx explosion, Ambessa doing what she did up to this point and being killed in Ep 6 would probably work great.

Overall I still really enjoyed it, even the finale. But like I've said, it felt disconnected/unfocused compared to S1 in the end. And the Jinx/Vi ending in particular felt sloppy, even if I'm happy with the general outcome of Vi and Cait together and Jinx off on her own. The Vander bit in the finale just didn't land at all for me though. Honestly I think that bit bugs me more than everything else I said above.

Like I said I loved season 1 and season 2 up to the first 6 episodes.

I feel like they rushed the final 3 episodes to resolve things and left a lot out and ignored things they made you give a shit about over a season worth of episodes with. It just jumped over a ton of stuff to wrap it up. I honestly felt like they should have told Netflix to eat a dick and still fleshed it out and then done a movie on Netflix.

That's the route I would have gone. Then you can really wrap it all up. The final 3 episodes left a bad taste for me for a show I really liked.


I'm gonna check out Pantheon, apparently it's supposed to be decent too?

 

[Randy Butternubs]

I'm gonna check out Pantheon, apparently it's supposed to be decent too?

That's next on my list.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Like I said I loved season 1 and season 2 up to the first 6 episodes.

I feel like they rushed the final 3 episodes to resolve things and left a lot out and ignored things they made you give a shit about over a season worth of episodes with. It just jumped over a ton of stuff to wrap it up. I honestly felt like they should have told Netflix to eat a dick and still fleshed it out and then done a movie on Netflix.

That's the route I would have gone. Then you can really wrap it all up. The final 3 episodes left a bad taste for me for a show I really liked.


I'm gonna check out Pantheon, apparently it's supposed to be decent too?

I don’t disagree, I just don’t think it was as big of a problem as you do. At least with eps 8 and 9. I think ep7 was perfect. An extra episode or even just an extra 20 minutes to jinx/vi/ekko would have gone a long way.