so hbo max just took raised by wolves (and westworld, ffs) offline completely.

honestly i dont even pretend to get it, why are they so fucking petty

I finished first season and enjoyed. any point watching second season now (Canadian HBO still has the show)? I'm thinking not.

If you haven't see Andor yet, that would be better use of your time. The first season of Raised by Wolves had potential. I think they mostly wasted it with the direction they took.

I mentioned somewhere that Willow wasn't the worst thing ever. I think I should clarify that it's still pretty close. From the cast and crew there was maybe 3 members that took the project seriously. There could have been more but they're just incompetent/mediocre enough that I just couldn't tell. The title character is shown at the end of the first episode and even though he gets to replay his most known (or only) character it sounds like he's reading his lines from a teleprompter.

Lucasfilm is obv big enough that the name doesn't mean anything anymore regarding standards esp. with tv shows. Everything good I heard about Andor I just assumed meant like Mandalorian type of quality. I was wrong. Andor is the most political Star Wars title ever made, but since it's not blasting the viewer with identity politics even maga type reviewers are praising it. There's barely any nostalgia/eastereggs or any other memberberry type of things. You don't have to know anything about previous titles. The shows budget was roughly in the region of Mandalorian.

Andor did the thing where they spent their money on building sets and shooting on location. They spent time to ground the viewer instead of never ending establishing shots from a drone perspective. Majority of the CGI supports the real physical components of scenes with sensory feedback. Basically the Dune treatment. I just personally preferred the writing of Andor over Dune.

Some random dweeb who's better at explaining cinematography/editing related thingies...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhgXXhcPQEM

...it shouldn't have any major spoilers. You can do everything just the same using predominantly a soundstage/volume, but it's much more demanding and costly. That approach is cost effective for reaching the 80% mark. After that it becomes very time consuming. Volume partly fixed the issue of reflective light, but there's a million little things that you mostly get for "free" when shooting on location. You lose some control, but there are less things you need to control. Oh and most actors aren't aware of all the little things they do when they are interacting with tangible physical surroundings. Not just objects, but things like wind, temperature, light and dozen other elements I can't think off. It gets very intuitively noticeable bigger the difference is with the environment where the scene is shot and where it's supposed to be.

Warner Brothers is kinda broke. They have around 45b net debt. Discovery paid off some of their debts but that's included in than 45b figure. They can't pay residuals and from certain titles they can ask more if exclusivity is on the table. That pretty much covers the recent purge wave.

They are preparing for a cold winter. Some months ago they axed the Batgirl movie that had mostly finished shooting and was deepish in post. They didn't have the faith for the title to invest in finishing post and something resembling marketing. I have no idea how much it sucked that instead of trying to recoup the sunk costs they instead just took the tax write off. I don't think there's a way paint that decision in a positive light.

I semi randomly looked up stuff relating to Euphoria and I think the most optimistic release schedule for S3 was end of 2023. Relating to previous post Euphoria shoots most of it's scenes on soundstages. It works with a sensory overload angle. There's a parallel thing with recording music. Analog is clearly ahead with relatively few tracks, but once you get say in the 60+ track region digital catches up. You don't completely ever fix the issue of instruments playing off each other, sharing the same space in real time and natural mixing as a result, but usually just having a lot of stuff is enough for most people. Digital just represents a cheaper barrier of entry and more control for production.

Might have to rewatch S2 of Euphoria soonish. Majority of the critique for it just seems bizarre to me. I remember liking EP1, EP5 and I didn't hate the ending. I already assumed that Levinson isn't very good with endings. Also not that strong with dialogue in general. I think I watched 30m of the movie he made with Zendaya that's pretty much all dialogue. But anyways the Kat thingie was like wtf is the issue? If you don't feel like following the script, why are you on the set? Then the variety of nudity related revelations. Do these actresses not have contracts and/or does no one bother to read them? Did they remove the nudity clauses?

The most retarded thing was some simp objecting to a former adult stars nude scene on her first day. I think that dainty flower didn't need a white knight to defend her honor when her background involves nudity on the set on the first and last day of filming since it's been a minute when porn shoots took more than a day.

Then the shooting schedule that was criticized for being industry standard. Dunno how it works out for singling out whatever show you object on that given day. Take it with the union, if you can't show negligence. Or just accept that you're going to have to work long hours, when the shooting schedule needs to accommodate availability of talent that are booked for far more expensive projects.

i love how Levinson gets dragged for being some sort of borderline sex pest slave master while an executive producer (Zendaya) is not only on the set the entire time but never once mentioned in those complaints.

Bit the bullet and got free disney plus for 6 months so that will keep me busy for quite some time. Like the first season of American horror story so may give some of the other seasons a try.

Also new season of Alice in Borderland is out (took a long time to make as first season was like 3 years ago. It's a guilty pleasure for me. Similar ideas to squid game but a little more video game meets ridiculous japanese tropes. You have to be willing to suspend your belief around a lot of stuff but if you can manage to do so its good. Certainly not at the top of my list but a good recommendation for people who like those sorts of shows.

Andor, Wandavision and Loki was decent and that's everything I can think of that you would find in most Disney+ regions.

I'll likely watch Alice at some point, but after watching live action Kakegurui series I've filled my quota of weird Japanese things for the year.

Mandalorian was pretty neutral. I like things it was based on and if you have some affinity to Star Wars things then it ticks most of the boxes. Never watched Obi-Wan or Boba Fett. Didn't hear anything good about them. Mostly just doom and gloom variations.

For Marvel things the two shows I mentioned were the only ones that had honest mixed reception. Everything else was mostly universally hated. I think I only watched the new Captain America show out of those. It didn't even function as background noise. I don't have enough time to watch She-Hulk or Ms. Marvel. I waste a lot of time, but there's still a limit. I consider fast forwarding as saying there's something I still look forward to seeing.

You can criticize the 3 shows I mentioned in the post above, but it would a spoil them and I think they were still all worth watching. Only thing worth mentioning before watching them is that Andor starts off really slow. I would have personally cut some scenes and either make episodes longer or trim them a bit to squeeze arcs more towards 2 EPs vs the 3 EP model it mostly follows. I don't like to build expectation too much either, but even with it's "flaws" or stylistic decisions I disagree with, I still consider it a 9/10 show.