Post by paulpogue on Jan 1, 2011 14:19:52 GMT -8
Hello, gang! Time once again for the yearly Great Moments in Nerdglee reminiscing. It's pretty wide open: What are the moments, series or things that made you happy, joyful, just plain LOVING to be a nerd this year? This is our time to recall exactly why we spend so much of our time reading comics, playing games, and going to movies -- stuff that made it so damn worth it, even if those moments were few and far between.
My picks:
Toy Story 3: “The claawwwww!” One of the most electrifying finales in kid’s cartoon history – and yes, I will make this statement literally without hyperbole, as this is goddamn classic – hits a perfect crescendo. Every single parent and child and child-at-heart in the world -- knowing full well this is the last of a movie series that has always been surprisingly mature about growing up, change, abandonment and death, created by a crew that sucker-punched us with heartbreaking miscarriage and death in the same TWO MINUTES last year in the OPENING SEQUENCE – is holding their breath thinking “They wouldn’t go there, would they? Would they? WOULD THEY?” Even the longtime moviewatchers among us who knew something was up the minute the Alien Trio got separated from the crew weren’t ABSOLUTELY sure it was going to end happily, as our longtime happy-go-lucky crew faces the end – even Woody, which nicely sums up both of his primary character traits of “hates to give up” and “is always the last one to realize something the rest of the crew figured out already.”
And then? Well, we all know “and then.” A lovely moment and one that nicely calls back to one of the oldest jokes in the series.
Grant Morrison wraps up his uberplot on “Batman”: This is probably the most long-term scheme Grant’s ever come up with, and it probably misfired as many times as it fired. His fixation in the last decade of “don’t really show and don’t always tell, either” is a hell of an audacious experiment, and a wildly uneven one. I still don’t think Dr. Hurt is half as interesting as Grant seems to think we should. But it’s still great stuff. The scheduling bugaboos actually worked to its advantage; I found a certain appropriateness in Bruce Wayne’s first moment in the present to be that ominous “It’s all over” in B & R 15.
By the way, I don’t believe Quitely at ALL when he says it’s a coincidence that one of his covers to “Batman and Robin” is a clear callback to Bolland’s Joker when turned upside down.
Pretty much all of “Red Robin.” Yes, I’m a sucker for what was borderline fanfic, but it really “got” Tim Drake in a way most did not. The writers this year and last really figured out how to make the dynamic of Bruce Wayne’s three sons work: Dick Grayson is his ward, who has always had a certain amount of distance; Damian Wayne is his biological heir without a single trace of the things that make Bruce Batman; Tim Drake is his adopted son. Dick is, ultimately and logically, the most natural heir to the Bat, but Tim is the most like him. Without the leavening influence of being trained by Superman to the extent Dick was, Tim has a scary ruthlessness to him that made him the ideal one to both be absolutely sure Bruce was still alive and to hold off Ra’s Al Ghul’s attacks. Not to mention a single-minded focus that made him miss the big picture of what Ra’s was up to; he never even seemed to notice the questionable distinction of being the only other person in the universe Ra’s deigns to address as “Detective.”
“Siege” #2, the last page: The whole thing was something of a disaster (except for the pretty colors, hi Laura!) – see my other thread for details. But even the most hard-hearted among us had to feel a certain satisfaction, after all these years of Marvel non-heroism, at the sight of Flingy about to knock out all of Norman Osborn’s teeth, in slow-motion panorama no less.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1: Who saw this one coming? “Dobby did not mean to kill. Only to maim, or seriously injure.” One of the few bits where changing slightly made the movie better. We can just pencil in Part 2 for next year’s list as well, depending on how well they hit the mark on the really great moments, particularly John McClane Neville and Ellen Ripley Molly.
The Sarah Jane Adventures, “Death of the Doctor”: SJA has been getting better and better as the years go by; I’ve really grown to like Clyde as the de facto lead sidekick. “Death of the Doctor” – bringing back Jo Grant and also Rusty’s first turn at writing Matt Smith’s Doctor – was the high point of the current series so far for me. Very much a Fourth Doctor adventure, complete with stone-quarry chases and UNIT hijinx. Jo’s reaction to the Doctor’s reappearance was a nice followup to “School Reunion” – particularly her double-take when SJ mentioned she’d seen him more than once.But the particularly interesting stuff was twofold, and almost an afterthought:
1. The Doctor was dying a LOT longer than even we were told in the closing of “The End of Time. “He knew many details about Jo Grant’s life ever since she left him, and directly stated that he’d done so with all his former companions during his long demise. Really? He followed up on EVERYONE? That's an interesting point and one that we may end up coming back to.
2. Sarah Jane keeps tabs on whoever she can as well. Of note: Ace is running a billion-dollar charity to make the world better, and a couple of teachers from the 1960s are still around and apparently haven't aged, which is a rather nice sendoff for Ian and Barbara, who -- WHAT? Ian and Barbara are STILL AROUND? And haven't aged a day since 1965? What? What? WHAT?
TRON: Legacy: Oh, come on! Do I even have to go into this one? The Solar Sailor! Anything involving Jeff Bridges whatsoever! “That is a very big door.” “Survive.” “I’m gonna knock on the sky.” “Change the scheme! Alter the mood! ELECTRIFY the boys and girls, if you would be so kind.”
Bringing us to …
TRON: Legacy: The Soundtrack by Daft Punk: Not a few nerds were actually looking forward to this more than the movie itself. Some were disappointed, both by the fact they were expecting a followup to “Human After All” and an admittedly rather sneaky marketing campaign by Disney – “Derezzed” is pretty much the only song on the album that actually sounds like a Daft Punk song, so of course it gets all the press. But as a longtime soundtrack lover myself, I had mad love for the whole thing, especially the end titles and some of the action stuff.
Doctor Who Series Five: Are we allowed to nominate the whole thing? Steven Moffat rolled into one of the most anticipated Who seasons at full speed, with an episode that established two crucial things, neither of which were obvious at first: He had really, really planned this all through (and we haven’t seen the last of it), and the man who made us all think it was going to be dark dark DARK, since he gave us “Don’t blink” and “Are you my mummy?”, ended up structuring the entire series, and in particular the big apocalyptic finale, as a wacky doors-slamming pantomime stage comedy. From “Man eats fish custard” all the way to “Here, drink this,” he pretty much staged everything for pratfalls and zaniness. Even Rory holding Amy’s dead body in his arms.
Your picks?
My picks:
Toy Story 3: “The claawwwww!” One of the most electrifying finales in kid’s cartoon history – and yes, I will make this statement literally without hyperbole, as this is goddamn classic – hits a perfect crescendo. Every single parent and child and child-at-heart in the world -- knowing full well this is the last of a movie series that has always been surprisingly mature about growing up, change, abandonment and death, created by a crew that sucker-punched us with heartbreaking miscarriage and death in the same TWO MINUTES last year in the OPENING SEQUENCE – is holding their breath thinking “They wouldn’t go there, would they? Would they? WOULD THEY?” Even the longtime moviewatchers among us who knew something was up the minute the Alien Trio got separated from the crew weren’t ABSOLUTELY sure it was going to end happily, as our longtime happy-go-lucky crew faces the end – even Woody, which nicely sums up both of his primary character traits of “hates to give up” and “is always the last one to realize something the rest of the crew figured out already.”
And then? Well, we all know “and then.” A lovely moment and one that nicely calls back to one of the oldest jokes in the series.
Grant Morrison wraps up his uberplot on “Batman”: This is probably the most long-term scheme Grant’s ever come up with, and it probably misfired as many times as it fired. His fixation in the last decade of “don’t really show and don’t always tell, either” is a hell of an audacious experiment, and a wildly uneven one. I still don’t think Dr. Hurt is half as interesting as Grant seems to think we should. But it’s still great stuff. The scheduling bugaboos actually worked to its advantage; I found a certain appropriateness in Bruce Wayne’s first moment in the present to be that ominous “It’s all over” in B & R 15.
By the way, I don’t believe Quitely at ALL when he says it’s a coincidence that one of his covers to “Batman and Robin” is a clear callback to Bolland’s Joker when turned upside down.
Pretty much all of “Red Robin.” Yes, I’m a sucker for what was borderline fanfic, but it really “got” Tim Drake in a way most did not. The writers this year and last really figured out how to make the dynamic of Bruce Wayne’s three sons work: Dick Grayson is his ward, who has always had a certain amount of distance; Damian Wayne is his biological heir without a single trace of the things that make Bruce Batman; Tim Drake is his adopted son. Dick is, ultimately and logically, the most natural heir to the Bat, but Tim is the most like him. Without the leavening influence of being trained by Superman to the extent Dick was, Tim has a scary ruthlessness to him that made him the ideal one to both be absolutely sure Bruce was still alive and to hold off Ra’s Al Ghul’s attacks. Not to mention a single-minded focus that made him miss the big picture of what Ra’s was up to; he never even seemed to notice the questionable distinction of being the only other person in the universe Ra’s deigns to address as “Detective.”
“Siege” #2, the last page: The whole thing was something of a disaster (except for the pretty colors, hi Laura!) – see my other thread for details. But even the most hard-hearted among us had to feel a certain satisfaction, after all these years of Marvel non-heroism, at the sight of Flingy about to knock out all of Norman Osborn’s teeth, in slow-motion panorama no less.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1: Who saw this one coming? “Dobby did not mean to kill. Only to maim, or seriously injure.” One of the few bits where changing slightly made the movie better. We can just pencil in Part 2 for next year’s list as well, depending on how well they hit the mark on the really great moments, particularly John McClane Neville and Ellen Ripley Molly.
The Sarah Jane Adventures, “Death of the Doctor”: SJA has been getting better and better as the years go by; I’ve really grown to like Clyde as the de facto lead sidekick. “Death of the Doctor” – bringing back Jo Grant and also Rusty’s first turn at writing Matt Smith’s Doctor – was the high point of the current series so far for me. Very much a Fourth Doctor adventure, complete with stone-quarry chases and UNIT hijinx. Jo’s reaction to the Doctor’s reappearance was a nice followup to “School Reunion” – particularly her double-take when SJ mentioned she’d seen him more than once.But the particularly interesting stuff was twofold, and almost an afterthought:
1. The Doctor was dying a LOT longer than even we were told in the closing of “The End of Time. “He knew many details about Jo Grant’s life ever since she left him, and directly stated that he’d done so with all his former companions during his long demise. Really? He followed up on EVERYONE? That's an interesting point and one that we may end up coming back to.
2. Sarah Jane keeps tabs on whoever she can as well. Of note: Ace is running a billion-dollar charity to make the world better, and a couple of teachers from the 1960s are still around and apparently haven't aged, which is a rather nice sendoff for Ian and Barbara, who -- WHAT? Ian and Barbara are STILL AROUND? And haven't aged a day since 1965? What? What? WHAT?
TRON: Legacy: Oh, come on! Do I even have to go into this one? The Solar Sailor! Anything involving Jeff Bridges whatsoever! “That is a very big door.” “Survive.” “I’m gonna knock on the sky.” “Change the scheme! Alter the mood! ELECTRIFY the boys and girls, if you would be so kind.”
Bringing us to …
TRON: Legacy: The Soundtrack by Daft Punk: Not a few nerds were actually looking forward to this more than the movie itself. Some were disappointed, both by the fact they were expecting a followup to “Human After All” and an admittedly rather sneaky marketing campaign by Disney – “Derezzed” is pretty much the only song on the album that actually sounds like a Daft Punk song, so of course it gets all the press. But as a longtime soundtrack lover myself, I had mad love for the whole thing, especially the end titles and some of the action stuff.
Doctor Who Series Five: Are we allowed to nominate the whole thing? Steven Moffat rolled into one of the most anticipated Who seasons at full speed, with an episode that established two crucial things, neither of which were obvious at first: He had really, really planned this all through (and we haven’t seen the last of it), and the man who made us all think it was going to be dark dark DARK, since he gave us “Don’t blink” and “Are you my mummy?”, ended up structuring the entire series, and in particular the big apocalyptic finale, as a wacky doors-slamming pantomime stage comedy. From “Man eats fish custard” all the way to “Here, drink this,” he pretty much staged everything for pratfalls and zaniness. Even Rory holding Amy’s dead body in his arms.
Your picks?
There will be some "meh" stuff mentioned in passing here, though.