Movie Review: Pokemon - Detective Pikachu

Hey guys, I saw Pokemon: Detective Pikachu a day before its wide release and did up a video review of it. I normally will be relegating Pokemon content to my Youtube channel rather than here, but there is a bit of cross-over here since I often do movie reviews on my blog so I figured I would post it here. Check it out (note: there are some very minor spoilers in the video, just so you know)!


A few additional notes that I have thought since I recorded this:

• The opening scene feels like it was either added in reshoots or was all that remained of a longer opening act - it feels at odds with the rest of the film, introduces a character that we're never going to see again, and only really matters in that it introduces Cubone.
• Having thought about it a bit more, the villain's plan is even stupider than I realized. In addition to the fact that he probably could have initiated it earlier than he does, it's also just extremely contrived writing.
• The writing in general is easily the weakest aspect of the film. There's a big action set-piece near the end of the second act which doesn't really have any bearing on anything, it just happens and goes on longer than nearly any other action scene in the film. It's fun, but when you give it some critical thought it isn't particularly satisfying.
• I geeked out at the soundtrack, there are some classic Pokemon music call-backs in here.
• Where the hell are Jolteon and Chikorita? I saw an ad with Jolteon in it, but we don't see one in the flesh? 1/10, would not recommend.

Game of Thrones, Miguel Sapochnik and the Devolution of Battle Strategy

Last week Game of Thrones fans were finally treated to the battle which the series had been building towards since the very first episode, the biggest battle put to film, the most important battle in Westerosi history: "The Long Night"... and it was, um, something. The battle itself is undeniably a visual spectacle, with incredibly tense moments as our heroes get put in danger and an overwhelmingly bleak tone as all of their efforts to stop the horde of the dead are met with failure after failure. However, if you give the episode any sort of critical thought, the whole facade begins to quickly crumble, assuming that you could even see what was happening (for my part, I watched it on a 10" tablet with max brightness and could see well enough, but can still acknowledge that the lighting was too dark and lacked necessary contrast to be able to tell what's going on). The way that this battle was directed and written just makes absolutely no sense from the characters' perspectives and was obviously designed solely to elicit the reactions that the showrunners wanted at any particular moment. This kind of writing wouldn't be an issue if it was done well, in such a way that you won't notice and can justify it easily. "The Long Night" is not that kind of episode, unfortunately, and it really got me thinking about how Game of Thrones' battle sequences have nosedived since Season 6.

There are a couple elements which are key to the drop in quality of the writing and direction of Game of Thrones' battle sequences. First, and most obviously, the show caught up to and overtook the books in Season 5, meaning that showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff have been having to make up the rest of the story themselves ever since. Secondly, the directing duties on the show's big battles have been passed on from Neil Marshall, who helmed "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall", to Miguel Sapochnik, who helmed "Hardhome", "Battle of the Bastards" and "The Long Night" (among other, smaller episodes).

With this in mind, I want to take a look back at Sapochnik's battles, analyze the writing, the strategies of the characters and then compare them to Marshall's battles. Oh, and I really shouldn't have to specify this, but in case you've gotten this far without realizing, this article is going to contain SPOILERS!