@UrLogicFails
@beehaw.orgI remember hearing about "Pebble" for the first time about a month ago when it showed up in an article in my "all" feed (https://pawb.social/post/2688668).
Its name before its rebrand was already questionable as I think T2 already has strong associations with the Terminator franchise; and its new name was not any better. "Pebble" is too generic a term to get people to understand the platform's concept and in the tech space, I think everyone would think of the wearables first.
All this to say I am zero percent surprised they went out of business. I'm only surprised it happened so shortly after their rebrand (though at this point I'm starting to think that must have been some sort of Hail Mary).
Speaking as someone who joined during the "Reddit Exodus," when I left Reddit I was not anticipating (or actively searching out) a direct Reddit replacement. I was happy to look for forums that worked for me, but wound up stumbling on Lemmy first.
All this to say that I was already ready to face accounts on different sites (or at least browse different sites) and I don't think not being federated would be a dealbreaker for me.
I would certainly be concerned about the level of discussion without federation, though. To me, as an individual who has not had to deal with the struggles of Lemmy mod tools (or lack thereof), the contributions from other instances definitely help get a conversation going. And with troublemaker instances blacklisted I find more often than not they are adding and not detracting.
Obviously that's all with the added benefit of me not having to be a mod. I guess at the end of the day, my hope is that PenguinCoder's developing platform will play nice with ActivityPub, so we can still work with other instances. I suppose if it worked really well, other instances may want to even migrate to it (assuming it was robust enough).
I do think it's interesting that in two seasons of addressing "hot-button" issues, Apple had no concerns; but drew the line at AI and China. I really wonder what it was he was going to say that made Apple take such a hard stance.
Jon Stewart hosted The Daily Show for so long, I'd honestly be surprised if he ever needed to work again. To me, this means he only started the show because he really wanted to; and as such he can walk away pretty easily. I'm sure Apple knew that as well, so this must've been VERY important to them...
I'm honestly pretty tired of the live-action reboot trend. It feels like Hollywood has never got over the notion that anything animated must be for kids, and adults will only watch live-action productions.
Having said that, it sounds like Dauberman has had a number of productions by Atomic Monster, so I wouldn't expect much friction between the two parties, which probably means a pretty low drama production cycle. On top of that it sounds like they are a team who is very comfortable working with the horror genre, so hopefully this bodes well for Gargoyles fans.
After reading the article, I'm not surprised First Class was my favorite of the X-Men franchise; it really seems like Matthew Vaughn understands what was needed. Putting DoFP right after instead of letting the younger cast stand on their own for a while always felt like a mistake to me, and I missed the lighter tone from First Class as well.
I also found it interesting he was thinking of Tom Hardy for a young Wolverine, since I've seen that thrown around as a fan-casting for a while.
Anecdotally, I find I get better discussions on posts if I include quotes from the article I find particularly relevant or poignant. I also like to comment my own feelings on the article in the comments as well. I don't think the issue was the title of the article necessarily.
In this case, what sections did you wish people were discussing? To me, the section about the exclusives did not feel particularly engaging since the number of exclusives mentioned was actually pretty high since most games on a console trend to be third party.
If there is an argument being made you would like to highlight, I would certainly be interested in seeing it.
Michael Caine has been acting for as long as I can remember and while it's not surprising he would retire from acting since he's 90, it kind of felt like he would just keep acting forever.
Having said that, I think he's gotten all he can out of acting and I can see why he would want to retire. I guess we'll see in a few years if it was a real retirement or a Miyazaki retirement.
While Afterparty was not my favorite show, I loved watching Sam Richardson on screen and the show seemed to have a lot of fun with itself and its fans. I'm definitely pretty bummed about this news.
It feels like the steaming bubble is finally bursting and studios are realizing they can't support a unique streaming service by throwing money at as many series as they can. The sad thing is that means plenty of smaller shows are being cut regardless of their quality; the studios have just reached a point of tightening their belts. I'm sure the combined writers/ actors strike probably hurt as well (even though it was completely necessary).
I know they say they'll do both; but with finite money, I have to assume some of their art-house pictures will have to be cut. Over time, I would assume if the blockbusters make enough money, I would assume they would scrap even more prestige films for more blockbusters.
This actually reminds me a lot of the "enshittification" cycle. Develop a strong brand at a loss that consumers respect, then lower the quality as much as you can to maximize profits.
As an aside, I wonder how their reputation will affect their ability to produce blockbusters. If you could get your movie made by a larger studio, would you be likely to make it with A24 just because they have a history of prestige films?
In any case, it will be sad to see A24 go this route. Hopefully a new studio is able to fill the void, should A24 move out of the art-house film space.
It's a bit of a long read, but I thought it was interesting what a mess the Marvel production was.
Marvel Studios has always had a tough relationship with TV cough Inhumans cough. I think Agents of SHEILD being their only successful non-Netflix show before launching a plethora of shows on Disney+ (and even that one was a little rough around the edges).
Since launching Disney+, I have personally found the Marvel TV quality to consistently hit C+/B- quality, with occasional highlights (the first half of Wandavision, most of Loki); which surprised me since I felt the movies hit higher quality more consistently.
It makes sense the TV landscape has been hard with Marvel after reading this article, though. Committing to a whole season/ series with no pilot seems risky enough, but combine that with no show-runner and a fix-it-in-post attitude, and it's a shock the shows came out as passable as they did.
It sounds like Disney is planning to change that, but I'm not sure how much I believe that to be honest. It's also worth noting that I only think it's happening because of the recent negotiation with the WGA.