Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?
Cyberpunk’s reviews paint it as a tire fire. I think it’s a fun game, but it doesn’t live up to the expectation - it’s not the next Witcher 3.
There are many examples of overhyped releases: Duke Nukem Forever, the Matrix sequels, etc. What got hyped and actually delivered?
1,119 comments
[ 861 ms ] story [ 1235 ms ] threadSolid state disks. Huge speed boost.
But golly, Haskell has (had) a lot of hype. Monads, lazy evaluation, random lens stuff is fine and all, but type classes are unreal. you get to specify up front what capabilities you want to buy into.
I guess, just try implementing Num of Float as the first derivative. It's pretty magical how much power the compiler provides. And you _know_ it's doing what you think it's doing.
Haskell opens up a bunch of rabbit holes. but really getting a good grasp on interfaces that don't leak is, well from my background, really really mind expanding. There's a large difference between being real smart and having the compiler enforce assumptions. I dunno. I think the Haskell hype lives up to the claims from type classes alone.
That was an amazing boost that I'm so very glad to have purchased. Ironically enough, it was to have enough space to install Cyberpunk 2077 :)
Funny you should mention type classes-- that's one of the biggest things that Elm, the little brother to Haskell in many ways, doesn't support (and doesn't intend to, for reasons of limiting the footguns available to devs and also keeping to the high standard it sets for itself for error messages IIRC...)
You should have seen the leap from tapes to magnetic disks :)
Since then he's won 4 NBA championships, opened a school in his hometown, and become arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.
LeBron is definitely the best of his era but he's not touching Jordan in terms of greatest player of all time, even if he does pull off two more championships. During the 90s, Jordan was as close to a demi-god in the sports world as you could get.
What you don’t notice is that the gather step is used for many more movements other than a euro step, but the euro step also has a change of direction and change of acceleration that combine to make the movement look illegal to someone who doesn’t understand the rules.
I agree that Jordan was an amazing player, and I think he narrowly tops Lebron as the best of all time, but I also think Jordan benefited from a very precise moment in NBA history: the league's media reach became truly global and the established media was still pretty much the only source of information about NBA players. No TMZ, no random phone videos from clubs, no social media. It was the perfect setup to convince a huge number of people that this dude was a demi-god. If Jordan played today, I think he'd face way more scrutiny of the gambler/"apolitical"/bully parts of his personality, and while he'd probably win plenty of MVPs, I don't think he'd achieve the same iconic status.
All you have to do is go on YouTube and watch the fights from the 1980s. And of course everyone is familiar with how Jordan was brutalized in the 1987-1993 era, playing teams like the Knicks and Pistons. Today's NBA is soft, fragile, weak, and little more than a three point shooting exercise. It's mediocre basketball. Do a comparison on steal figures now vs then; during his prime it was normal for Jordan to have 2.8 to 3.2 steals per game in a season, today the NBA leader will be closer to 2 to 2.2 per game.
Now you can barely sneeze on the offensive player with the ball or it's a foul. Combined with 3-point chucking and zero defense, it fully explains why scores are so comically high now versus the 1990s and so many players average over 20-25 points per game. It's the equivalent to the NFL becoming soft, watering down passing defense, so they can run up scores and turn the league into a 90% passing game so they can pump up ratings for the $$$ (same fraud MLB pulled jacking up homerun figures).
I agree that the NBA was far more physical in Jordan's era and that LeBron has never had to go through that. But the style of play cuts both ways! The biggest difference, I think, is that zone defense was illegal for (almost) Jordan's whole career. This allowed Jordan to showcase his isolation scoring, and I think Jordan was clearly the best isolation scorer ever.
This argument is more or less convincing depending on how you factor in the greater physicality (e.g. handchecking). My hypothesis is that LeBron would have been extremely hard to guard alone even with the relaxed rules. IIRC, Miami Lebron weighed 260+ and was still faster than most wings; Jordan topped out around 220 in the 2nd 3-peat. The available evidence suggests that LeBron is pretty hard to hurt -- unless you think all NBA players have somehow become more injury-prone, his almost spotless injury record relative to his peers is remarkable.
We seem to have different aesthetic preferences for basketball. I think late 90s basketball is ugly as hell! But I'll argue that the cross-era comparisons are not that easy, and both players are hard to extricate from the style of their eras anyway.
It is really hard to speculate on these things.
Lebron put in a long shift and went back to give them a title.
* https://twitter.com/getnickwright/status/1316013808469463041
Lebron likely won't win as many rings as Jordan and Tiger won't win as many majors as Jack.
It's insane how much hype he had at a young age and how he's delivered again and again. The only players with similar [amount delivered] * [hype] values are peyton manning and tim duncan, but lebron's is way bigger.
Also worth mentioning in his accolades: brought a championship to his hometown, has never had any PR disasters (except for "the decision"), has many charities (scholarships, gives out bikes, etc), and elevated his friends and family to make them successful as well. He's basically done everything right.
And I say this as a long time celtics fan and lebron hater.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50054195
2016 had the real threat of both never-Trumpers and Bernie-or-busters, and a lot of weird drama with pizzagate, grab them by the pussy, and her emails. 2020 had nothing anywhere near that and had a comfy and predictable ending.
Another one I can think of is Breath of The Wild, and probably Mario Odyssey. I've also heard good things about the FF7 remake, but haven't played it.
“can you help me?”
“only if you complete this task that makes you look like a bad ass”
repeated 8 times
Sure there's a formula, but few stories, if any at all, are original in their foundations. Their success seems to be more in the execution of such story/production and immersion of audiences.
Or is it more of an issue of the predictability in knowing what the "quest" objectives and items are, and from that extrapolating the outcome? Imo, both cases are understandable, as many times the main story quests can feel on rails/going through the motions, but again those quests seem to be more about the audience's immersion (including player playthrough/execution in games) in the modeled experience.
Tldr: I totally understand your point, and can agree to an extent. Though I believe one can find enjoyment in well curated/executed experiences/productions/writing/immersion, rather than seeking "originality" in story telling, as on rails/predictable as they can be
1) Thematically feels like Star Wars and ties into the established world, and
2) Meets the minimal standard for good writing/storytelling.
"I'll allow it."
Even though the formula is simple, the events didn’t feel predictable to me.
And I could easily imagine more complex plot that would be less satisfying to watch.
This is all I've been thinking throughout the series. The writing is damn good, the character development is on point, it's not forceful (no pun intended) or disingenuous in trending social themes, cinematography is amazing, great casting, it's immersive in keeping to canon. It's something you can point to and say, "That's Star Wars".
One could only wish those two get a shot at making the full lengths.
https://www.thewrap.com/the-mandalorian-ahsoka-tano-star-war...
I think most of my actual exposure was through toys and advertising. The movies were only on TV every couple of years. I remember listening to Star Wars on the radio
Incredibly well executed and fantastic characters.
Disney dropped the ball on every single thing other than R1 and Mandalorian.
1. Rogue One 2. Revenge of The Sith 3. Empire Strikes Back
Playing it at the moment, and I'm nearly done with it. I think it's a great game. Its' beautiful, and has a nice mix of carrying forward old storylines and settings and mixing in new things. It also made a lot of characters more authentic to me than the original one - e.g. the turks felt more like real bad guys. Aerith character is great too.
What I'm not too sure about is whether it was the right decision to stretch the Midgar part of the story that much (I'm already at 45 hours in chapter 17). The original FF7 had a lot more places to offer, and climbing up a buildling or moving through sewers or tunnels for 2 hours isn't that exciting compared to that.
(not contesting thr experience itself, I just don't remember the pre-release hype)
I was a VR buff and a Half Life fan but I was blown away by how good it was and it’s ending.
LotR sequels probably had a lot of hype prior to release.
The latest God of War had a great release afaik.
To be honest, it's hard to remember which things were really hyped up before release and met expectations. I keep thinking of stuff I heard was good after it was release, and things which were hyped and failed, or havr not yet fully delivered on the hype. I can't think of any tech which fits the bill. Maybe raytracing? Most tech tends to be overhyped.
It really didn't. "Let's take a compelling villain and a nice-ish philosophical dilemma, create a world that's reeling in the aftermath of said villain's actions... and just quantum time travel kill the villain with no effort and literally exactly zero consequences for anyone involved." Oh. Right. Boohoo exactly one single character died with exactly zero consequences for anyone because his contract with the studio ran out.
None of the perceived trauma exists, except in the minds of avid fans.
Many (not all) marvel movies lived up to the hype, but I think the challenge was hardest for endgame.
- Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype. The Bible (especially certain books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs), The Quran, The Upanishads, to name a few. Again, don’t just go in blind, or you’ll walk away thinking none of it makes any sense.
- Lifting weights is indeed worth the hype, and its benefits are more diffuse than just “being able to lift heavy things.”
- In terms of old books that are made into modern sci-fi films, I’ve found Philip K. Dick to be absolutely worth the hype. Don’t think I’ve read a bad story by him.
Interesting. About 10 years ago I was tired of modern cinema and completely stopped watching new films. After some pause I decided to start watching classic cinema from 1930 onward in more or less chronological order (in the last year i've stopped at ~1800 movies, up to 1995).
In general, the quality of 1932-1942 american cinema (and, to a lesser degree, 1945-1950) far exceeded my expectations. And, while Citizen Kane is a very good film and deserves to be seen (it was actually one of the few "critically acclaimed" classic films that I've actually enjoyed), but when seen in context of what was filmed at the time, Citizen Kane doesn't really stand out among its contemporaries that much. A lot of technical details (but not all) that are praised by modern critics were more or less a common thing back at the time. I'd argue that Kane wasn't even the best film of the 1941 year (Sullivan's Travel was better and H.M. Pulham, Esq its equal) and definitely not the best film of the 1930-1950 "golden age" that ended at a very high point with Sunset Blvd. before plunging into the abyss in 1950s.
That's all of course only my opinion.
On a related note, if you enjoyed Citizen Kane, I'd highly recommend to see a soviet film from 1962 Nine Days in One Year. One of the most visually stunning b/w films in my experience. Thematically different, but stylistically very similar.
I’m not sure what a modern equivalent would look like, but imagine a $200 million studio film that eloquently attacks the heads of CNN, The NY Times, and another half-dozen top media firms. That sort of thing would never get made today.
Thanks for the other suggestion though, I’ll look into it for sure!
Most critics would, though. And I've never heard that its importance is in any way tied to its production. Welles took film from "filmed stage plays" and literally opened up the genre. He ripped up floorboards to get the right perspective. He innovated direction right and left.
The only aspect of the film being about Hearst was that its debut was canned, distribution was shot, and he would never (really) be allowed to make another film again.
Anyway, here's some from my list from the last year (the list of ones I didn't like is MUCH longer and includes many that are highly rated on IMDB)
"Now, Voyager" (1942)
"Boom Town" (1940)
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1947)
"The Little Princess" (1939)
"Destry Rides Again" (1939)
"Baby Face" (1933)
"Adam's Rib" (1949)
"In a Lonely Place" (1950)
"It Happened One Night" (1934)
"The Woman of the Year" (1942)
"The Awful Truth" (1937)
"Broken Arrow" (1950)
"The Lady Eve" (1941)
"His Girl Friday" (1940)
"12 O'Clock High" (1949)
"You Can't Take It With You" (1938)
"The Far County" (1954)
"Random Harvest" (1942)
"The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952)
"The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
"Cry Danger" (1951)
"This Gun For Hire" (1942)
"Casablanca" (1942). I didn't get it at 23 where as I shook from crying at 50. Basically I needed to truly feel Rick's loss and what he was going through (Bogart's character). At 23 I didn't. At 50 I did. I suppose you could have similar experiences to Rick at a younger age or you could never have them and then not have it do anything for you.
I don't think any of them are "lesser known". Basically I just look up IMDB. If it's rated > 7 and sounds mildly interesting I'll take a look. Tons of them don't work for me. Those above did. As recent examples of ones that didn't "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947), "Waterloo Bridge" (1940), "The Bishop's Wife" (1947), "Spellbound" (1945), "Fort Apache" (1948). Those are just from the last 2 weeks (^^;)
Anyway, If you are interested in classic movies I think the best way to start is with Frank Capra (1932 - American Madness, 1933 - Lady for a Day, 1934 - It Happened One Night, 1936 - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1938 - You Can't Take It with You, 1939 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Preston Sturges (1940 - The Great McGinty, 1940 - Christmas in July, 1941 - Sullivan's Travels), some of Myrna Loy & William Powell films (1934 - Thin Man, 1936 - After the Thin Man, 1936 - Libeled Lady) and possibly Charlie Chaplin later films (1931 - City Lights, 1952 - Limelight). Continue to
Dramas: 1957 - Le notti di Cabiria - Federico Fellini; 1957 - Il Grido - Michelangelo Antonioni; 1957 - Paths of Glory - Stanley Kubrick; 1952 - Ikiru - Akira Kurosawa; 1954 - A Big Family - Iosif Kheifits; 1951 - The Browning Version - Anthony Asquith; 1959 - Les quatre cents coups - Francois Truffaut; 1959 - Room At The Top - Jack Clayton; 1962 - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Tony Richardson; 1962 - Nine Days in a Year - Mikhail Romm; 1960 - The Lady with the Dog - Iosif Kheifits; 1962 - Il Sorpasso - Dino Risi; 1961 - La Ragazza con la valigia - Valerio Zurlini; 1948 - Ladri di biciclette - Vittorio De Sica; 1945 - Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne - Robert Bresson; 1936 - Dodsworth - William Wyler; 1937 - La Grande Illusion - Jean Renoir; 1940 - City for Conquest - Anatole Litvak; 1941 - Citizen Kane - Orson Welles; 1941 - H.M. Pulham, Esq - King Vidor; 1946 - The Best Years of Our Lives - William Wyler; 1942 - Now, Voyager - Irving Rapper; 1942 - Random Harvest - Mervyn LeRoy; 1960 - The Apartment - Billy Wilder; 1950 - Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder; 1962 - Lonely Are the Brave - David Miller; 1964 - The Americanization of Emily; 1965 - The Hill - Sidney Lumet; 1966 - A Man for All Seasons - Fred Zinnemann; 1966 - Nayak - Satyajit Ray; 1968 - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Robert Ellis Miller; 1971 - The Hospital - Arthur Hiller; 1975 - Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick; 1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Milos Forman; 1977 - Saturday Night Fever - John Badham; 1979 - ...And Justice for All - Norman Jewison.
Comedies: 1940 - The Shop Around The Corner - Ernst Lubitsch; 1939 - Destry Rides Again - George Marshall; 1950 - Father of the Bride - Vincente Minnelli; 1940 - Pride and Prejudice - Robert Z. Leonard; 1939 - Day-Time Wife - Gregory Ratoff; 1934 - Little Miss Marker - Alexander Hall; 1935 - The Gilded Lily - Wesley Ruggles; 1935 - If You Could Only Cook - William A. Seiter; 1935 - Ruggles of Red Gap - Leo McCarey; 1936 - My Man Godfrey - Gregory La Cava; 1937 - Easy Living - Mitchel Liesen; 1937 - Topper - Norman Z. McLeod; 1938 - Merrily We Live - Norman Z. McLeod; 1940 - My Favorite Wife - Garson Kanin; 1941 - Ball of Fire - Howard Hawks; 1941 - It Started with Eve - Henry Koster; 1941 - Charley's Aunt - Archie Mayo; 1942 - Larceny, Inc. - Lloyd Bacon; 1942 - The Big Street - Irving Reis; 1942 - The Major and the Minor - Billy Wilder; 1943 - The More the Merrier - George Stevens; 1948 - Sitting Pretty - Walter Lang; 1947 - Miracle on 34th Street - George Seaton; 1947 - Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House - H.C. Potter; 1949 - Little Women - Mervyn LeRoy; 1955 - Marty - Delbert Mann; 1956 - Spring on Zarechnaya Street - Marlen Khutsiev; 1957 - Porte Des Lilas - Rene Clair; 1958 - Mon Oncle - Jascques Tati; 1959 - Some Like It Hot - Billy Wilder; 1960 - Make Mine Mink - Robert Asher; 1963 - Sunday in New York - Peter Tewksbury; 1963 - Il Giovedi - Dino Risi; 1963 - Three Plus Two - Genrikh Oganisyan; 1964 - Walking the Streets of Moscow - Georgiy Daneliya; 1964 - A Hard Day's Night - Richard Lester; 1968 - The Odd Couple - Gene Saks; 1977 - The Goodbye Girl - Herbert Ross; 1978 - Same Time Next Year - Robert Mulligan
Crime/Action: 1969 ...
Funnily enough, my favourite old Hollywood genres are musicals and westerns.
I grew up only really being exposed to post 1960 movie musicals which I never really liked. About seven years ago I thought, "I've never really watched any old movie musicals", and just started watching them. It was a revelation to discover the (to me) amazing stuff from the 30s, 40s and 50s. My ideal movie musical was made in the 1930s, stars Fred Astaire, and has songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.
Some highlights for me would be:
42nd Street (1933) Not the first `backstage musical' but sets the template. One of the things I love about old movie musicals is that people don't randomly start singing and dancing: they sing and/or dance because they are singers or songwriters or dancers or choreographers creating or rehearsing or performing.
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) More Busby Berkeley.
Footlight Parade (1933) More Busby Berkeley. James Cagney stars.
On the Avenue (1937)
Shall we Dance (1937)
Lady be Good (1941)
You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
The Gang's All Here (1943)
Anchors Aweigh (1945)
The Pirate (1948) Don't listen to the naysayers, this film to me is pretty much perfect.
An American in Paris (1951) Contains the amazing sequence in which Oscar Levant is portrayed conducting, playing every instrument, and being the audience of Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra (which I think is much better than the more famous Rhapsody in Blue).
The Band Wagon (1953)
Daddy Long Legs (1955)
High Society (1956)
Funny Face (1957)
Gypsy (1962)
And then a couple of years ago, I asked myself: which film genres have I never really watched? Westerns (and Horror, still haven't gone there) being my answer. Turns out I really love westerns.
Some favourites:
Destry Rides Again (1939)
Stagecoach (1939)
Fort Apache (1948) To me, this is the best of John Ford's `cavalry trilogy'
Red River (1948)
Winchester '73 (1950) My favourite of the Anthony Mann / James Stewart westerns.
Vera Cruz (1954) Action movies weren't invented in the 1980s.
The Man from Laramie (1955)
Seven Men from Now (1956) The best of the Budd Boetticher / Randolph Scott westerns.
Man of the West (1958)
The Horse Soldiers (1959)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
Two Rode Together (1961)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
El Dorado (1966) Rio Bravo gets all the love, but this is the more satisfying result for me.
1. I agree, that final scene in An American in Paris is just mindblowing (for the lack of a better word). I've seen it at least 20 times and it still amazes me. Vincente Minnelli was a one of a kind genius. Another highlight for me was Astair's Puttin' on the Ritz from Blue Skies. And as for Gershwin - I myself prefer his Piano concerto.
2. As far as I know, musicals were the most popular genre in 1930s-40s and a lot of talent was put in their creation (and it shows). That said, I just don't like the genre for two reasons:
- Astair/Rogers-style, where actors suddenly transition from dialog to dancing, just seem too weird and far fetched to me;
- Busby Berkeley-style extravaganzas are, indeed, better and, as a rule, visually stunning. But for me they fail as films simply because there is usually not enough plot/dialogues (that is, the whole plot is just a vehicle to show dancing sequences). These type of films are better enjoyed as short clips on youtube :-) Uncharacteristically, I've enjoyed much later Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing, both made in this style. Although I think these two films could have been even better if their creators were more ambitious. There were a lot of unused potential in them.
3. I have no objections to the westerns as a genre. I've included both Destry Rides Again and Stagecoach. It's just that I've seen ~10 westerns from 50s and 60s, didn't like any of them and decided to skip the genre altogether. I might return to them some time in the future.
Survivorship bias? I'm sure there was as much schlock produced back then as there is now, it's just we elevated the best and have forgotten the rest.
Revisiting the bad stuff is the entire premise of MST3K:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000
I don't have enough cinema culture to comment on cinema specifically, but I believe this is pretty obvious in music. Comparing things like Beethoven's 5th and 9th symphonies to any modern music (especially if comparing only the main themes, given today's preference for very short form music), it's obvious that there is nothing similar, and even modern audiences generally recognize the superiority of the older one.
As a more focused comparison, it's also obvious and largely uncontroversial that the amount of good rock music being produced has plummeted since at least the 1970s-1980s. There are still a few good bands (Rammstein has been an unexpected highlight for me), but compared to a period when you had Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple, Metallica, The Rolling Stones and a good many others, it's obvious that something has gone down in the highest highs of music.
And indeed, the large & majestic sound of a symphonic orchestra has no parallels with the modern music. But on the other hand I think we can easily compare classical chamber music with jazz/tango/rock. And in this field I'd rather listen something like [1] than any classical quartet/quinter regardless whether it was written by Beethoven or by Shostakovich.
[1]https://youtu.be/XGeLtdmviGM
1. The best films of this period far surpassed my expectations from the technical point of view. And there were a lot of decent-to-exceptional films produced at the time; I could name at least 50 american films worth watching from 1930 to 1950. In comparison, I could hardly name 10 films from 1951 to 1960 that are at least decent (and yes, Paths of Glory, named below, is the best).
I think it was mostly due to the fact that all personnel, connected with the creation of a film at the time were still largely pioneers at the field and they had all possible expertiese in it (films in the 60s and especially in the 70s became noticeably more amateur; 50s suffered due to McCarthy). Movies were still relatively new and there were a lot of innovation in it each year. On top of that, it was a time of the Great Depression and high unemploymend. Hollywood were one of the better off industries and so were able to easlily atrract best of the best.
2. Even B-movies from rich studios had high production values. From the same 1941 I could easily recommend for example The Gay Falcon - Irving Reis - RKO/Nothing But the Truth - Elliott Nugent - Paramount/Charley's Aunt - Archie Mayo - 20 Fox. All are relatively simple, but well worth the watch.
3. What's more important, the 30s and 40s cinema had its own unique style and dynamic, very different from later decades. I'd say it was closer to Imre Kalman and Franz Lehar operettas, rather than more convential movies we are used today. It was, if I may say so, a thing-in-itself, hardly comparable with what came later.
It was also neat to see the film shot just like a play where there are very particular sets each scene. I wish I could have the scene the original play once.
A few things I didn't like though was the flashback. There was no subtlety and poor writing. They could have started the film with their time in France. The real plot point wasn't that the two characters knew each other but _why_ she left him.
And it was also odd to me that the general was in his headquarters when he learned about the escape attempt but then showed up at the airport... without any men.
Anyway, I did enjoy the movie and am grateful to it for introducing As Time Goes By.
To me, the `La Marseillaise` scene[1] is incredibly powerful. The crowd trying to out-sing the German soldiers with the French national anthem, and the sheer raw emotion of the scene. Amazing character moments from Ricky, Victor, and Illsa.
I haven't looked into the veracity, but the legend around the scene is that most of the extras in the bar were French refuges - and the emotion of the scene was very much present on set. Casablanca was filmed during the height of WW2, and came out in 1942, so it does seem plausible.
Louis's brief "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Handed a pile of his winnings by the croupier - "Oh, thank you very much." exchange [2] is also a fantastically memorable comedic exchange.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
All art is produced in a specific historical moment.
But like many great works of art context can add even more to their enjoyment and impact.
They really haven't. Not a single one of them. There is, however, organized religion around them that has twisted those book to mean whatever it is that brings the flock.
Are they influential? Yes. Have they stood the test of time? Hell, no
Its just one of those things that is so popular that people find any way possible to criticize.
The Bible a huge book of ancient texts with little structure and inscrutable context that is as alien to a modern person as Mesopotamic cuneiform. Ah, yes, inhabitants of Maktesh, and son of Pethuel, and Cyrus king of Persia, and Sheshbazzar, and... what's for dinner?
Separating the social structures around the bible from the book and trying to talk about it as if it is a product following the same rules as Tom Clancy's next novel is gross and laughable.
There’s probably a reason the Bible was the only available book instead of no books being available in Europe.
And that 5 billion number includes a very significant chunk of bibles which are just distributed through various religious centers (same goes for all other religious texts).
And, of course, the number of books sold says literally nothing about whether a book has stood the test of time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books?wpr...
None of that makes the Bible "stand the test of time" or make it popular in the same sense as Harry Potter is popular. Compare Bible's "popularity" to Quotations from the Works of Mao Zedong (emphasis mine) [1]:
--- start quote ---
It has been reported that 800 million copies of the red-covered booklet Quotations from the Works of Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) were sold or distributed between June 1966, when possession became virtually mandatory in China, and September 1971, when its promoter Marshal Lin Biao died in an air crash.
--- end quote ---
I doubt any significant number of Bibles are actually sold anymore (especially in what's called "developed world"), but are distributed via churches or other religious organisations. Gideon distributes 50 million bibles per year [2]. Most available statistics talk about "printed" or "distributed" when talking about number of bibles sold which is definitely not the same.
For example [3] (emphasis mine):
--- start quote ---
The Bible is by far the worlds best-selling book of all time. No other book, fact or fiction, even comes close. Most estimates place the number of Bibles printed each year at over 100 million. 20 million Bibles are sold each year in the United States alone.
--- end quote ---
The United States is quite religious, and it still only manages ~20 million books per year for a population of ~400 million people. This number will be significantly smaller in less religious countries, and higher in more religious countries. But once again it hardly makes it popular in the same sense as Harry Potter is popular.
And, of course, once you make more and more books available to people, you will inevitably have smaller numbers of those books sold, but a greater number of them in total. There are 650 million books sold in the US each year. [4] There are 300 thousand new titles each year [5]
But yeah, the Bible is "popular" because it's pushed through an organised religion and has for centuries been a required reading for everyone (for everyone who could read that is, as literacy was scarce at best). And even today it's possible that most bibles go to the same people ("The average American Christian owns 9 Bibles and wants to purchase more" [2])
[1] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-sell...
[2] https://brandongaille.com/27-good-bible-sales-statistics/
[3] https://thebibleanswer.org/bibles-sold-each-year/
[4] https://www.statista.com/topics/1177/book-market/
[5] https://www.theifod.com/how-many-new-books-are-published-eac...
- Only 1 in 3 Bible owners know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Billy Graham is a more popular answer than the correct answer.
- 12%. That’s the percentage of Christians who believed that Noah was married to Joan of Arc.
https://brandongaille.com/27-good-bible-sales-statistics/
:)
For more garbage please visit https://www.sacred-texts.com/
Listing parts of those books and linking to their texts proves nothing about them standing the test of time.
This was unexpected, but true. I started a few month ago, because I moved and noticed that carrying the goceries in the 4th floor interrupted my whole day...
Every movement includes moving weight. It basically makes the whole life easier
The sooner one starts the better.
Seeing as how the Quran was "written" over decades and the Bible over millennia, they DON'T make sense. They're both self-contradictory, with various authors pushing various purposes depending on what they wrote and when. There's value in each, but let's not pretend they're towering forks of art with a singular purpose and vision.
Humans started to stay in one location after the invention of agriculture which is quite recent about 10000 years. The mass gathering and agriculture Only after the invention of agriculture some people were able to have leisure time and mass organization became necessary. Bible is roughly 2000 years old. Islam is probably 800 years old. The vedic caste Hinduism is about probably 600 to 800 years old.
Maybe OK Computer too, but I don't know how much hype there were because I was too young then...
I believe this was a 'first' and there was more hype about that than the album itself.
In Rainbows is my favorite Radiohead album for sure, closely followed by the Bends.
Therefore, there was virtually no hype...
The other half see them as bandwagon music.
I think they're music is alright but I think most people dive into like it's the bible or something and you can't say anything bad about them.
The other half see them as bandwagon music.
They are both right. OK Computer and Kid A deserve all their praise and more. They were like nothing else in popular music at the time. After those two records, they were rather bandwagonesque, although to their credit, they did create the bandwagon they have ridden on since then. Although the self-release they did for In Rainbows certainly changed the artist relationship with fans and media companies. How they released that album was far more the game changer than the content.
tons of people copy this now, it’s not even notable. but at the time, the idea that they would let you type in $0 was shocking.
I think of Radiohead as our late stage Beatles. Experimental and exciting, even if there's a jagged edge now and then.
In Rainbows was very accessible and holds up in my view.
OK Computer was more of a surprise. Listen to The Bends first, and you will hear what a break it was in quality and style. Their next release, Kid A, was the one that was hotly anticipated. It was also a huge departure, but when they were the biggest band in the world.
Kid A holds up too.
I think Radiohead lives up to the hype. One way to check on this is to watch them live (say, on YouTube) or pick up some of their concerts on etree (a free taper sharing site). They make headphone records, and then they replicate most of their sounds in real time.
But as more information has come out it seems like the hype has actually increased.
If I was mainly writing and doing some simple graphical work I’d ditch my other devices in a heartbeat.
As a Chromebook fan (and I used one as my daily driver), it seems like Apple has out-Chromebooked all Chromebooks with the M1 MBA. Unless AMD or Qualcomm pulls a rabbit out of their collective hats in the next 6 months, the MBA will be my next laptop.
They're both locked down with fury and will eventually be rendered useless due to no software updates.
You can attempt to install Linux to those but... Will you succeed?
https://wiki.mrchromebox.tech/Unbricking
The M1 seems to fit the bill. But I'm hesitant to buy into something that I can't run linux on.
Exactly. Apple is even introducing further restrictions on macOS, to turn it into a closed system like ios totally under Apple's control. (They've already crippled all application firewalls so that they cannot block any apple authorised software from accessing the internet, and they can even bypass VPNs, all in the marketing speak of "security" while the real reason is to better spy on its users).
Not really. Apple's vice is the tendency to lock down their platforms too much and we're seeing this with the new laptops; their track record with regards to privacy is pretty good.
So was Google's. Till they decided to screw their users. Once bitten, twice shy.
If Apple was serious about user privacy, it wouldn't be crippling application firewall on the new macOS to allow Apple apps to bypass them, even if the user is explicitly blocking them. Nor would they be forcing us to create a unique id to track and record our every activity on their device (yes, they treat it as their device by giving you an illusion of ownership). Nor would they be crippling Safari to not allow you to block all coookies or cripple its extension apis that would have allowed better ad blockers and trackers to be developed. Nor would they be forcing us to use App stores, forcing themselves in between u users and developers to gauge us both of money, while also invading our privacy.
Apple Silicon was hyped and that hype was backed by some early benchmarks; I still was sceptical because it goes against all my Ryzen logic essentially :D
Got my hands on the Air M1 this week finally and this thing is absolutely impossible. Single-core math benchmarks (scimark4) are 10-15% faster than my trusty ryzen 3900X. Synthetic tests apart - C/C++ compilation is more than 2 (two!) times faster than macbook pro with 6core i7 CPU, that is a huge deal for me. All that with passive cooling!
On a different not another hyped thing that I really want (and waiting for) is a new Raspberry Pi 400 - it is a quite capable tiny computer embedded in a keyboard, those things are a piece of beauty I think :)
There are still some rough edges: for serious development a lot of things are not quite there yet: e.g. last time I checked, there's no native release for NodeJS, and home-brew is still hit-or-miss. A lot of things work with Rosetta, but it surely takes more tweaking and trial and error to get things running than normal. But I've been programming mostly in Rust lately, and that works flawlessly on nightly, so I haven't really thought about compatibility since I was kicking the tires the second day I had it. YMMV depending on which tools you use.
All in all, I think this is the most I have really had fun using a laptop since I got my first MBA in 2012 or so. It was so light to travel with, and powerful enough for everything I needed, so it pretty quickly replaced my other laptop for pretty much everything.
Marketing can do that. And as Apple seems to be betting its future on ARM chips, you can bet that they will "market" the hell out of it.
It was highly anticipated but when it was initially announced everyone including HNers were up in arms about how it's going to kill Vue. I can't find the thread but I do remember it vaguely.
Thankfully the release not only lived up to its hype (faster, smaller, easier) but also put to rest almost all objections about backward compatibility. I really think the Vue team did an awesome job with their next release.
Since React I'd say maybe Svelte delivered the most in relation to it's hype. Otherwise nothing special happened in the frontend framework world.
My theory was that not having the router and vuex ready on day one had hindered the hype. Maybe I've been wrong.
I have no doubt Vue 3 is the bee's knees, but I'm rather enjoying React.
Actual video from the game doesn't qualify as hype! And the code is rock solid and wicked efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR01YdFtWFI&ab_channel=Facto...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVvXv1Z6EY8&ab_channel=Facto...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqaAjgpsoW8&ab_channel=Facto...
I would say to enjoy the game you really have to play it to the point where you build robots. Factorio is a game that is amazing for many reasons, but to me the main one is exponential growth.
At a certain inflection point you can basically tear down everything you've ever built by hand, and have robots recreate it all in a minute or two.
The combination of blueprints and robots turn the game from some tedium to a game purely of mind and very little tedium.
Also, a lot of the stuff that's kind of tedious and awkward, like laying out complex belt systems, gets a lot easier when you get construction bots and can start building from blueprints. It's like a different game from that point.
A theme of the game seems to be to make the player do things that are hard or laborious but which can be accomplished in an easier way by using the the tools at hand more effectively, or eventually the problems can be worked around with new technology. It's not quite like a puzzle game where you have to solve each problem in front of you correctly before you can advance; rather you can keep advancing until the point where you're overwhelmed by technical debt (e.g. you end up spending most of your time running around fixing train deadlocks).
Not everything that's awkward or hard is a deliberate game mechanic, though. In the 1.1 release they've said they're planning to change some things that have been pain points for users.
It turns out the UI is fairly configurable and after I made it so right click cancels I sort of adapted.
But yes, when I first played it the UI was horrible. It needs some sane defaults like more common RTS games.
I am looking forward to its complexity :)
The multiplayer gameplay also reveals a lot of fundamental truths about collaborative engineering as the player must debate architecture, prioritize and balance between the short term and the long term, join individual efforts into a group product, discover Schelling points, and so on.
You factory isn’t big enough if the game is still very performant ;) The factory must grow.
[0] The overwhelming majority of what you make gets thrown into a blender and turned into Science Juice.
One of my recent side projects has been building out a modded multiplayer server that allows me to sell plots of land to players. My idea is to create a city of player-owned museums and shops, all with the backdrop of a custom story narrative in a high-end designed mall of sorts. My inspiration for doing so has been from watching first person videos of people walking in Japan, wanting to experience that but being unable due to the lock-downs. My favorite aspect has been creating an in-game 'paid' train line that lead the player out of the dense concrete shopping district and into one of the beautiful blue and green tree parks, the visual switch-up makes the experience fantastically enjoyable. I'm not really sure I'll end up making any real income from it but the process has been a complete blast. Playing the game in this fashion feels the same as Minecraft did, just with more automation and potential for world building.
Although not strictly Factorio related, something else I've pursued within the game has been setting up a semi-interactive self in my room. I have a few small monitors all linked up playing, and I just set my character to hang out in various places online. One game sits in a train-world just cruising along, another sits in a beautifully animated forest, another still hangs out on a pristine beach that I found. Sitting inside a small room day after day due to the pandemic has been brutal but this setup has greatly improved my sense of connection to the outside. Apart from getting to look over and see something that is visually appealing (and green now that bleakness of winter is here), I'll occasionally see random people join a server and become friends trying to build something together, it's awesome! My shelf has become an interactive, aquarium, IRC, hybrid, all thanks to this game.
It’s almost a perfect game for a software developer. Unlike software which is difficult to visualize, factorio is all about the visualization. It makes it really easy to see your “hacks”, your “scaling”, and your “async”. It also makes it really easy to see your bugs as well. It’s like working on a program that is always running, in a debugger, but with the ability to dynamically add and change the running code in real time.
Another observation: it’s kind of like Excel. The sheet is always live and the sheet acts as a debugger (you see the data and not the code, you see the outputs not the transforms).
Can’t recommend it enough.
[1] https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/1339257751873064961?s=21
Which is actually pretty true of actual real world environments like SmallTalk.
Rimworld is all about character management and anecdote creation in my view. The challenge and interest is about managing randomness and character driven conflict in a game designed to produce conflict.
They play very differently in my experience.
Rimworld is much more of a social/survival game, with hunting, gathering, cooking, diseases, invaders, exploration, character emotions, etc.
Factorio has basically none of that; it's much more about plumbing together inputs and outputs into increasingly complex and useful items. The survival aspect of Factorio is just that you are surrounded by bugs that will attack you if you pollute too much or antagonize them.
Factorio is fantastic if you love automation and building complex production pipelines. The game gives you incredible control over building and controlling the manufacturing of stuff. The main motivation is to optimize that, and there are many avenues to do so. You care very little about your “person” (the being that you control) except to keep it alive.
Rimworld is much more rich in what you can choose to do, since it’s primarily a story generation game. You have a lot less control over your manufacturing pipeline. You also have to deal with the humanity of your pawns, who need to eat, sleep and enjoy recreation. You have to keep them alive through natural disasters and raids. Your pawns may die but the story doesn’t end there.
They’re really different games. When I get upset with stupidity of pawns and want more precise automation, I switch to factorio. When I get bored with the dreariness of an automated factory churning out trinkets, I switch to rimworld.
It doesn't matter anyway. A good copy can be better than the original.
If you want want an economy simulation MMO then checkout prosperous universe.
I have to imagine that if you tried to take a Factorio mega-factory (like a 1 rocket per minute factory) and load up the equivalent in Satisfactory, with its 3d graphics and off-the-shelf rigid body dynamics, it would crash to desktop immediately.
Don’t get me wrong, Satisfactory looks like a fun game! But nothing can match Factorio’s depth.
http://www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory/
Designing big factories in Satisfactory feels awkward - it’s very hard to refactor and redesign because the buildings are so big and you need to build them one by one. The engineer in me is always vaguely dissatisfied with what I make in satisfactory. Satisfactory’s world is beautiful to explore - but that makes it a different sort of game.
And shapez was ok, but it lacks factorio’s loop. In factorio you build things out of what you mine and construct. Shapez needs its artificial level structure to motivate you to do anything - and I find that much less satisfying because it saps my intrinsic motivation. Factorio feels grounded in the world, whereas shapez feels like a puzzle game with almost no constraints.
The factorio modding scene is also incredible. Their are so many alternate ways to play factorio - complete with way deeper tech trees, or a base that teleports between planets every 10 minutes, Seaworld - where you start on a tiny island with nothing but ocean in every direction. And as others have mentioned, the game is rock solid. Multiplayer is an absolute blast.
...and after a few minutes, a new goal comes to mind: Launch one rocket every minute. And that’s when the deep game begins. You’ll need massive power production and manufacturing infrastructure, you’ll start using the online calculators to figure out ratios of this to that, and when you get to 1 rocket per minute, you’ll want to see if you can design a system that does that while running completely untouched for 24 hours.
I experienced exactly what you meant on my first run. Launched a rocket after a lot of slog, and lost interest after that. But I never got to actually use eg the nuclear tech very much, which itself makes me want to go back and try it again.
Personally, I wish there were more combat/enemy dynamics involved rather than “just” insectoids swarming the base. And that’s just one angle: other compelling reasons to build more efficient factories would have made me want to go back too.
I try every now and then to start from scratch, but just the idea of starting from the basics seems so daunting and not motivating enough so I kinda just give up after the first day.
Before that, it was amazing.
"Do I fumble my way forward with my current way of doing things or try this new thing? (struggle struggle) Oh wow!"
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When the seventh book came out in 2007 there was this fear among the fandom that JK Rowling couldn't deliver a great ending. I think most people agreed she did very well (even more than expected, considering the complexity of the story in the prior six books).
- Breaking Bad last season / last episode: there aren't many tv shows that can end in a high note (check Game of Thrones, for example). I think Breaking Bad - and in general, what separates the best tv shows from great tv shows - is that they are able to have a good ending.
Man... there is way too much deus ex machina at every plot point of that book to give it any credit. If you have the end of the 6th book as a starting point and the end of series that Rowling had in mind as an end, then Deathly Hallows is just connecting those two points using plot conveniences at every single opportunity. Too many fortunate coincidences in a very short period of time. (Half-Blood Prince is still peak Harry Potter IMO).
I'm sorry, that's plain incorrect. First, they're at Privet Drive, then the Burrow, then Grimmauld Place, then they camp for a few weeks-months but it's highly condensed plot-wise. They don't "run around the woods" at any point, that silly chase scene with the snatchers is onlyin the film.
Why do they hide? Because there is ZERO safe-space in the rest of the UK. They are forced into hiding to maintain their safety until such time as the horcruxes are gone and battle can commence. How is that much different from Frodo and Sam wandering the wilds alone at the last 2 LotR books? In HP, they are in society and non-wilderness far more than Frodo and Sam. And then they do a lot of epic shit at the end that has nothing to do with the woods.
Re-read the book, the woods part is a very small aspect.
Well, ok, second most if we're going by the books, there was the two chapters of bombadil
Why was the book centered around a children’s story that we didn’t hear about until book 7? Why were the deathly hollows items not mentioned at all throughout the entire rest of the series? Why do we not find out until the last book that the invisibility cloak should have faded a long time ago? That last point especially irritates me because it just smells like lazy writing.
I love Harry Potter. I have read the series many many times. I sincerely wish I had never read the last book. It felt rushed, unplanned, and almost desperate.
There is a fluid cohesion between books 1-6 that completely disappears in book 7.
While HP:DH does have a "summary" vibe, going back to all the old places and seeing all the old characters' plots wrapped up nicely, I do think she needed SOME new material in there. She needed to create new tension, she needed new suspense; simply wrapping up things she'd already devised wouldn't have been fresh enough for her, or for us, I think.
If I had to change just two things about DH, I think I'd remove the epilogue (it could just be an online essay, there's no need to put a second bow on top of the present, you know?) and I'd remove wand lore. The idea that your wand changes allegiance whenever someone bests you in any way, physical or magical? Come on, that is borderline plot manipulation. Now, Harry wins the fight at the end because Voldemort's wand knew that Harry's hands pulled some wands out of Draco's hand, who in turn disarmed a Dumbledore who wasn't trying to not be disarmed? I mean, ugh, wand lore was a sort of hand-wavey MEH aspect, IMO.
I think Book 6 and Book 3 are the pinnacles...they don't feature battles with Lord Voldemort, they're nicely self-contained, they have fantastic endings, I'm getting chills thinking of them.
Little, if any, mention is made of wizards/witches from other countries unless absolutely required, and none are portrayed as being equal to the one based in England. There is not even a mention of Ministries of Magic of other nations (China?) or in former colonies (US? India?).
I believe there's very little deus ex machina. The main point is that Voldemort delved too greedily into dark magic, weakening himself very much, while Lily's love magic was pure and protected her son against Voldemort's evil magic. This is why Harry can see into his mind and why he manages amazing feats like Gringotts or escape at Godric's Hollow, because Voldemort's hubris handed Harry the tools. It's all explained in the chapter "King's Cross", re-read that chapter and you'll gain fresh clarity.
JKR does introduce new concepts and history unknown previously to Harry, but name a book she doesn't do that. She'd be raked over the coals if she didn't offer anything new in one of her longest of the seven books. She needed the Deathly Hallows as a new mystery, a new suspense that creates tension throughout the book, pulling you onwards and competing for the horcruxes. It also highlights Harry's temptation to attain that which Dumbledore sought, but ultimately Harry chose the wiser path than Albus.
The other new concept was wand lore, which was not very fleshed out before DH. I don't love that wand lore dictated the final duel so heavily, why does Harry have to win based on overpowering a 3rd wizard, the wand truly knows that? Why not just have Harry's courageous, love-inspired magic overcome Voldemorts? It's kind of a letdown that Harry beats Voldy because he took 3 wands from Draco's hand...
Other than these two concepts, I don't see anything new and cheap like a deus ex machina. That term would literally mean that Harry is defeated by Voldemort in the end (he never was), only to be saved by a God at the last minute (he never was). Harry won on his and his allies' courage, and Voldemort lost due to his own hubris and his own determination to focus on wands and to tell all his servants not to kill Harry.
> Deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.
Examples from Deathly Hallows.
Having no idea how to proceed on your quest of finding and destroying Horcruxes? The only soul who was there with Voldemort when the locket was planted, happens also to be magically bound to Harry and have obligation to obey Harry's every command.
Need to impersonate someone? Just pick a hair off your cloak for the potion.
Don't know where the next horcrux is? Immediate vision from Voldemort's mind to help you.
A character who has crucial information is killed? Well no, instead of using a spell like any other time, Voldemort decides to leave Snape to slowly die giving him just enough time to share his memories with Harry.
Need to check if your mortal enemy is really dead? Don't verify yourself but send the only person in the group who has any incentive to lie to you about it. (And you're supposed to be able to magically tell when people are lying by the way).
The way to destroy a horcrux is hidden in a place accessible only to those who speak parseltongue? Nope, Ron can just guess his way into an ability that was previously established to be hereditary or transfered through magic.
I could go on... the point isn't any single one of these, it's more about how they accumulate throughout the book.
- Yeah finding the locket was a bit too serendipitous but Kreacher has been shown before to obey Harry _contemptuously_. When asked to report on Draco's activities in HBP, he reports the most mundane things, making his report essentially useless without breaking his obligation. He only finally cooperated when Harry looked at him as a creature with feelings, not just a servant. Ties back to when he asked Dobby to sit down in CoS, which sends the elf wailing at the decency.
- Polyjuice has been established since CoS, along with the cost of using/making it and its limits. Hardly sudden and hardly an unfair advantage.
- Did a Voldyvision ever lead Harry directly to a Horcrux? I don't remember so. The closest I recall is Harry willingly slipping into this trance to verify Voldemort's anger at discovering the loss of the locket---not a huge advantage and a reasonable tactical move. The diadem, Harry had to rack his brains for that, even empathize with a ghost.
- Voldemort couldn't Avada Kedavra Snape because he believes Snape is the Elder Wand's master.
- Snape lied to Voldemort to the very end, his legillimency is not infallible. Sending Narcissa Malfoy is a bit of good luck, I'll grant, though it also emphasizes how one of Voldemort's weaknesses is his inability or plain refusal to read people. He failed to see that Snape loved Lily so, which caused him to turn for the good, and he failed to see how much Narcissa cared for her son---he didn't consider she'd have a reason to lie to him.
- Ron "speaking" Parseltongue as a plot turn feels a bit rushed and unsatisfying indeed but is not at all miraculous. I can say "Spasibo" to thank my Russian coworkers even if I'm not Russian and hardly has training in Russian.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson
'Booktuber' Merphy Napier recently did two videos on magic systems in fantasy novels:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcMQk4ltJa0
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6f3tAOUHk
Sanderson has lectures on a system of rules for magic in books to balance their coolness against deus ex machina: https://stormlightarchive.fandom.com/wiki/Sanderson%27s_Laws...
The books deliver a fantastical, childish view of morality where the world will always save you from having to make difficult decisions.
Almost like they were written for children...
To this day i'm pretty confident I could pick up a Harry Potter book and enjoy it. There are different types of storytelling, and not every kind has to have balanced stakes or world-building that stands up to scrutiny. And it's not like Asimov's work doesn't have similar flaws: as much as I love the scope of the Foundation series, it does settle into a bit of a pattern of setting up seemingly insurmountable challenges and then resolving them through neat changes to the rules of engagement of psychohistory (though as a much more ambitious series than HP, it's more understandable).
[1] Literally; I was ravenous
On the subject of tv shows, ‘Peep Show’, the British sitcom, also had a very strong final season and final episode.
I agree the last season felt rushed but overall I felt the whole course of the show was more cohesive than most series.
"Dexter" has made this painfully clear.
https://news.sky.com/story/dexter-one-of-tvs-best-known-seri...
It was a great time, having midnight release parties for a book!
Also it doesn't hurt the MCU's legacy that there is the obvious comparison with Game of Thrones that magnificently failed a very similar task the exact weekend that End Game came out.
I watched End Game in the theatre and have not seen it again since. I really didn't enjoy the whole "goofy time travel" aspect, and re-visiting all the prior movies/events.
It is certainly more comic-booky than some of the other MCU movies and the acceptance of that will vary from person to person. It also isn't a completely unique concept. They basically stole it from Back To The Future 2 which was also a big hit.
That Rise of Skywalker and the final season of Game of Thrones came out in the same year helps to contrast how much most things don't stick the landing.
Someone who was a teenager when it came out could easily be in their thirties now. So could someone who started in on the series when they were a kid, and kept up with it as they grew.
[1]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(The_Tale_of_the_T...
[2]https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Three_Br...
I actually thought BB went downhill and quit mid-way through the last season, but I understand I'm in the minority.
> A dispute with his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, led to his offering the work to William Collins in 1950. Tolkien intended The Silmarillion (itself largely unrevised at this point) to be published along with The Lord of the Rings, but Allen & Unwin were unwilling to do this. After Milton Waldman, his contact at Collins, expressed the belief that The Lord of the Rings itself "urgently wanted cutting", Tolkien eventually demanded that they publish the book in 1952. Collins did not; and so Tolkien wrote to Allen and Unwin, saying, "I would gladly consider the publication of any part of the stuff", fearing his work would never see the light of day.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings#Receptio...
It wraps up all the existing plots, and introduces new ones. There's a lot of hints on what went wrong with time travel, and if you read up on Marvel lore, there are plenty of villains who are able to maneuver time travel better than the heroes.
Also I was so looking forward to how they were gonna manage to track down antman
Then it’s a rat ex machina
Vision really disappointed in the penultimate. I think his character was hyped up a lot in Age of Ultron. Became disappointing seeing him go so easily.
Older Thanos was a really well-thought and played villain. One which many people got to identify with (based on his goals in the movie). Captain America delivered when he proved worthy. I think Captain Marvel was an arrogant addition that needed to fill in pieces to the story, like how Stark and Nebula get saved.
It's going to be a classic series in the decades to come. Marvel delivered.
To be fair most overpowered characters where nerfed in Endgame. eg. Fat Thor, Dr. Strange aside of the battle containing a flood, Captain Marvel arriving last minute and being knocked out immediately, Hulk as Prof. Hulk. The stakes can't be that high if all superheroes are at their full performance.