Max @max@smeap.com

A meeting on Monday drained a lot of my motivation and left me more upset than I’d like to admit at work.

It brought back some existential feelings like I want more direction in my career path and I’m past due for job change (given industry norms). I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t particularly want to interview, nothing sounds exciting this week, or if I could pass interviews if I did. Somewhere between imposter syndrome and burn out and ennui crisis

How long until this Silver Timeline delivers us to an actual Halo, you know like the title teases? This seems years before The Fall of Reach, much less First Halo

I just want a Halo in this Halo show. Too much to ask?

(Catching up on Ep 2)

15 minutes in we finally get a scene good enough to start the movie with. (Not currently Commissioner) Gordon inviting Batman to a crime scene and Batman doing actual Detective Work, a massive surprise for The World’s Greatest Detective. Then the movie ruins it with bad emo soundtrack and awful worldbuilding in the immediate next shot. (Madison Square Garden barely reframed as Gotham Square Garden. The city had better names for a Square? 🙄) I have made it to 19 minutes, bored again

Coca-Cola Starlight does taste like s’mores. Don’t think I’d drink more than one of them but that’s mostly because of the fake tequila hangover sugars. I’d like it better than baseline Coke Zero I think

About my only problem right now is kid me thinks I need to chase this movie with Taco Bell and drunk me also wants Taco Bell right now and it’s too late and too much effort to get Taco Bell right now

Well, Doordash thinks they could still deliver for a very late arrival, but Kid Me thinks I need a Mexican Pizza and a Choco Taco and neither are on the current Doordash’s menu and I’m not waiting an hour plus at 3:30am for not those things

At this point I don’t even think it is nostalgia glasses why I’m enjoying this movie so much. It’s gotten better with age. It’s so very 90s, but now that’s fun rather than cringe. Things I thought were dumb as a kid seen nuanced with layers and jokes. (I had no idea what Clockwork Orange was at the age I was when I first watched this movie.) Things I thought were cool as a kid are still cool. I appreciate all the raw Dad Joke energy in service of selling toys more rather than less.

I love this Fast & Furious Racing Side Plot. Like, what if early Fast & Furious racing scenes but in addition to stereotyped Hip Hop groups and Token Cool White People participating you also had Neon Punks and also a gang of Clockwork Orange-style Droogs just because why not, it’s Gotham

Schumacher’s Weird Skyscraper Statues and Neon Everywhere Gotham is the most interesting Gotham

I kind of hate that Nolan turned Live Action Gotham into boring shots of Chicago and New York City. There’s so much to love about how weird Schumacher’s Gotham is. I love the way the establishing shots of the Observatory are an Atlas style sculpture holding the Observatory higher. I love the way highways just are held up by statues because why not

Holy good actress in weird choice of role, Batman. What even is Vivica A. Fox’s role in this movie? “Ms. B Haven”? 😹

Not a character I even remember being in the movie, but you would think 90s kid me would have remembered Vivica A. Fox acting beside Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze. You would think

Anyway, still bored by whatever The Batman is trying to be.

Switched over to Batman & Robin. Four minutes in: Swooshy title graphics, an overture, suited Batman (and Robin), Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, and Mr. Freeze all introduced/accounted for. Four minutes! Movie still has a cozy two hour runtime, but is it wasting my time? Not hardly.

Is needlessly rushing? Nope not that either. It still bothered with an overture and animated title graphics.

Is this hard?

Note: This Batman starts violence immediately, despite the gang violence only being a threat and not, you know, actually accomplished 🤦 Failed vigilantism

Someone suggested I give it another five or thirty five minutes. At 6 minutes in Batman actually shows up as nervous noir-cliche VO and the only real clue it was Batman VO at first was [Bruce] in the subtitles. I’ve never felt so much that a film was both wasting my time and rushing through exposition SO MUCH, AT THE SAME TIME. Random shots of random city crap. Gang violence threat in subway station. At the 10 minute mark SUITED Batman finally shows up and says Bat cliches.

At this point I know we aren’t likely to convince the suits to give us another Adam West style Batman in our lifetimes, but at this point I would settle for even Schumaker and Clooney style Batman over whatever this pretentious but sloppy as hell five minutes was

This can’t even be blamed on “Cold Open” because this is the hottest open in possibly decades: WB logo, Title card, brief and neither animated and no orchestra overture

Is there connective tissue I’m missing or is this just as badly shot, edited, and written as it seems at face value?

I’ve given it five minutes. I cannot take three of this. I’m tempted to stop here. Normally I’d wait for at least the title card, but uh, saw it already

I’m five minutes into The Batman and so far not a single scene has seemed useful.

- Voyeur with binoculars watching a mansion. Presumably the Wayne Mansion? Who knows? No establishing shots, but Ave Maria for some religious? significance
- Focus on a skylight for no reason
- Guy watching TV footage
- TV footage about issues we don’t have reason to care about and don’t seem relevant to movie yet
- Guy watching TV is randomly clubbed by fetishist we don’t know

I hope all this verisimilitude to the games was cheap. I’d hate to think some VFX teams slaved for years to recreate all these shaders and whatnot. Please tell me Paramount shot it on one of their “AR Walls” using a souped up Halo 5/Infinite renderer? (That is how it much feels)

Spartan HUD graphics and sounds are also funny to me amid this supposed seriousness

These Covenant weapons effects are very accurate to the game, but I’m finding them hilarious around non-CG people and creatures