I haven't found much to be happy about in any of them. After over an hour of boredom in Civil War, the only highlight for me were two action scenes: the chase with Bucky, Black Panther, Captain America, and Falcon, followed by the odd humorous twist (finally!) during the big airport fight. After that...well, by the end of the film I pretty much hated all of the main characters. I get the film is about friendship, loyalty, choosing to do what you think is right vs what the rest of the world thinks is right (rather like Brexit, and look how that's turning out), and the futility of revenge. But I've never been a Cap fan, and this film didn't change my feelings. I liked the Iron Man films but in the Avengers Stark has become more of a jerk than he started out as (even if he had good reason in Civil War, and that was a great, unexpected twist). My boys enjoyed it, which is okay I guess. But I think I'm done with Avengers films.
I am and have been a much bigger fan of the X-men films, but again Apocalypse left me cold with only Quicksilver and Nightcrawler (and Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult) keeping me watching. I'm confused. Have we now negated everything from the original films? I thought Days of Future Past put the timeline back on track, but Apocalyspe seemed to take it away again. And why didn't Quicksilver tell Magneto who he was?! Surely that would have made for a better turning point that a few memories of Xavier?
Whatever, the characters now seem to have more multiple reality origin stories than Spiderman and Batman. I'm pinning my hopes on Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to restore any faith I had in Marvel. And there's Rogue One coming from Disney: I have high expectations based on The Force Awakens.
As for Brexit... Our PM has resigned, there's no new leader though we're likely to end up with blond buffoon Boris Johnson, our economy is tanking, businesses are abandoning the country, racism has sky rocketed, the Leavers are suffering buyers' regret, and no one knows what the hell is happening next. Apparently not even our government had actual plans in the event of a Leave vote. Kinda thought that was the job we voted them in to do. I'm starting to feel we're entering Neal Asher's Zero Point. O.o Right now we need our very own Toruk Makto to reunite the tribes of our not so United Kingdom. Sigh.
Happenings
The Summer of Magic blog hop starts on the 4th of July, and while there's no fireworks there is a $50 Amazon gift card and ebook bundle giveaway, plus visitors to my blog have the rare chance to pick up a bundle of my short stories. The theme is all things summer so I'm sharing a never-before-published excerpt featuring my characters from Keir's Fall on an all too brief holiday.
And no sooner does the Summer of Magic end than the SFRB Summer blog hop begins! The grand prizes will be three $50 gift cards and book bundles. The theme is Other Worlds so I'll be taking you on a short tour of some of the planets featured in my time travel romance Keir.
And as that ends on the 15th of July, there'll be a stellar SciFi Romance sale event coming up. To receive details on that, please sign up to my newsletter HERE.
In less than three weeks I'm off to the Europe Star Wars Celebration, and I'll be meeting up with another fellow Brigader - Patty Hammond. I'll be going in cosplay, and my equally Star Wars obsessed 11yo will be joining me for one day in his Hux cosplay. I'm so excited!!!
Status Update
Gethyon is ready to go back to my editor but she's taking a well deserved holiday right now. Revived and Reunion are still awaiting my attention.
The Rey cosplay is coming along nicely, but I'm now being held up by lack of funds to buy more fabric. I need to tweak my own Jedi outfit for the Star Wars Celebration in less than three weeks! Then a week later I'm off on my seven week social media break. Eep! Too much to do! *runs away*
Wow! So much on your plate!
ReplyDeleteThe Stars Wars cosplay costume (and stick!) are fantastic, Pippa. As always, your costuming skills are amazing.
I'm not sure how we're going to survive without you for what...seven weeks?...but we'll manage somehow.
I saw Independence Day: Resurgent. Unless you like lots of spectacular explosions, completely unrealistic plot development and returning and much aged characters played for some pretty flat laughs, don't bother! Oh and it's an alternate timeline 2016 (because we learned so much from the original attack, I guess???) that left me scratching my head. I'm usually really selective about what movies I'll go see upon release and I really got sucked in with this one. :(
Gah! See? I was so completely unimpressed with the film I even got the title wrong.
DeleteThanks, Laurie. I'm really happy with the Rey cosplay so far and eldest looks pretty nifty in what's been done even though it isn't finished. Itching to get it done!
DeleteI'll be leaving some snippets to run while I'm away, but I find the breaks really beneficial to my remaining sanity...and my monsters have a lot on this holiday so there'll be much real life to-ing and fro-ing this time.
I did have my doubts over an ID sequel because so much time has passed. It sounds like a good one for leaving your brain at home (like a Transformers film). Hubs wants to see it at the cinema as he reckons it's one that needs to be seen on the big screen. I'm not too fussed.
(And lol: I also spelt it wrong the first time and called it Insurgent. Can't imagine what other dystopia I was confusing it with.) :-P
Well, you're a busy little camper, aren't you? Enjoy your trip with Patty Hammond. That should be awesome. As you know, I wasn't all that impressed with SW7 - but I'm hangin' out for Rogue One.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and there was me planning to wind down for my break! I can't wait to meet up with Patty and really geek out at the Celebration. I know you didn't rate TFA (I unashamedly loved it despite the deliberate nostalgia and somewhat implausible super weapon but I can totally understand it not being successful with everyone) but I like how Rogue One looks darker, and although the mission succeeds we know from ANH that there's going to be quite a lot of tragedy involved. I think that will make for a good contrast with TFA.
DeleteYeah, the SF movie scene has been so dreadful this summer I haven't been able to bring myself to comment on it. Just conflict for conflict's sake, and, as you say, Pippa, you end up hating everyone in the film. Enjoy your SW con--I know your cos will be a big hit!
ReplyDeleteThanks Donna! Ah, the current films have left me sad. Hoping for better things.
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