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From: Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-11 (Saturday)
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 10:45:16 -0800
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On 1/12/2025 9:45 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
> I barely feel recovered enough to do one these, but here goes.
> 
> Yesterday, my fever did break around noon. Unfortunately, it's more 
> complicated than that, but I can say the worst of the fever does seem to 
> be over. So I seem to be recovering, just not as fast as I hoped.
> 

It's never as fast as we'd like.  :-(

> So, while my fever still raged before that, I watched nothing in the 
> morning and was barely awake.
> 
> For lunch, I watched - DOOL: Thur's ep. Tate and Sophia share a bonding 
> moment of sorts - Tate proposes adoption, but Sophia doesn't want to try 
> that out on her control-freak mom just yet. Dumb Holly gets beaten dumb 
> Doug III to Dr. Sarah after the thugs work him over, and lie to Sarah 
> about going to the cops - then Holly and Doug share a moment of "sexual 
> tension". Brady and Kristen seem to come to a rapprochement/ 
> understanding about Rachel (I wonder how long this will last!?!). Xander 
> and Philip clash about Titan.
> 
> Wild Card football - In an absolutely pathetic effort, the Chargers went 
> back to playing like they did before Jim Harbaugh took over as coach. 
> One of the worst Chargers efforts I have ever seen, and that includes 
> the previous Wild Card loss where they blew a 33(?)-point lead!
> 
> I did not watch Ravens-Steelers, because I knew I would jinx the Ravens 
> if I did - the Ravens did hold on to win the game by 14.
> 
> More soaps: GH - Thur's and Fri's ep's. I love how dumb Willow is 
> finally seeing how shitty Carly & company (e.g. that awful cow Josslyn) 
> are and have been for years to Nina. Luckily they are so awful that when 
> they take temp custody of Willow's kids, it finally thrusts Willow into 
> action and she asserts her control of Michael's medical care - love that 
> there's nothing Carly can do about it... Not that it matters - at the 
> end, Cyrus Renault shoots Michael full of digitalis, so he's probably 
> toast anyway... Jack Brennan subtly puts Josslyn on Cyrus' trail for 
> Dex's murder - I wonder if Brennan has figured out that Joss will 
> probably kill Cyrus once she figures it out.
> 
> Then I finally started season #2 of "The Rings of Power" on Prime.
>     Ep. #2.1 is probably the best episode they've ever done 

This is encouraging to hear.  I still need to start season 2 myself.


> 
> What did you watch?
> 
> 

I watched:

Appleseed Alpha (blu-ray) 2014 Japanese/American animated sci-fi movie. 
This is a prequel to "Appleseed."  The movie is set after World War III 
and follows Deunan and her cyborg partner Briareos.  The two work for a 
warlord in what's left of New York City.  The warlord sends them on a 
mission and they two get caught up in saving the life of a pair from the 
city of Olympus, which was a rumored city rebuilt after the war where 
society is thriving.  Deunan wants to go to this city buy Briareos is 
skeptical the city actually exists.  They all end up having to save New 
York from a doomsday weapon left over from the war.  This was my first 
time watching this since the original release.  It was pretty good, and 
great CGI.  Although this is a prequel, it completely retcons 
established details from the first movie.  The main retcon is in this 
movie Briareos is already a cyborg whereas in the first movie he starts 
out human.  The fact that when he leaves Deunan he's human and the next 
time she sees him he's been injured and turned into a cyborg is a pretty 
big plot point that this movie just retcons away.  This movie also 
retcons the war's status.  In this movie the war is clearly over whereas 
when Appleseed opens, there are people still fighting it.
Here's a sample from the movie.  Like I said, it looks great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcZEfJN4mDU


Appleseed (blu-ray) 2004 Japanese animated sci-fi movie.  This is a 
remake of a 1988 movie of the same name, but I've never seen the 
original.  This movie is set after World War III and follows Deunan and 
her cyborg partner Briareos.  When the movie opens Deunan is fighting in 
a post apocalyptic wasteland, unaware that World War III actually ended 
and she's now fighting meaningless battles.  Her old partner Briareos is 
now working for Olympus, a city that is rebuilding civilization, and now 
runs the world.  Deunan is rescued from the wasteland by Briareos, and 
the two work for the city's paramilitary police force.  And soon enough 
the two have the save humanity from an evil threat.


Appleseed: Ex Machia 2007 Japanese animated sequel to "Appleseed." 
After her cyborg partner Briareos is injured in the line of duty Deunan 
is forced to team up with a clone of her partner to hunt down a 
terrorist group threatening their city.  The terrorist posses technology 
that allow them to hack into both normal people and cyborgs turning them 
into essentially Borg.


Vexille (blu-ray) 2007 Japanese animated sci-fi movie. This is from the 
same team behind "Appleseed" but otherwise no relation.  Set in the year 
2067 the movie follows an American spy(?), "Vexville" who is sent to 
infiltrate Japan 10 years after Japan closed its' borders and set up an 
electronic blackout that prevented all electronic surveillance as well 
as prevented any signals from leaving the country.  Once inside the 
country Vexille discovers Japan has been reduced to a desolate wasteland 
and something horrible has happened to the people of Japan.  And the 
evil corporation that did it to Japan plans on doing it to America next. 
  I saw this in 2007 when it first came out and generally liked it, but 
there was a scene or two that just creeped me out so much that I've 
avoided watching this movie ever sense.  But it has been on my revisit 
list for a few years now and watching it again after all this time it 
held up very well, and didn't creep me out this time.


Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (blu-ray) 2007 animated movie based on 
the popular 80s TV series.  I never watched the 80s series when I was a 
kid.  But back when this first came out I rented it from Netflix and at 
the time I liked it and found it was easy enough to follow.  Watching it 
again I still found it more or less easy enough to follow, but it's 
definitely convoluted!  This is a sequel to the original series and when 
the movie starts Earth has been conquered by an alien race known as the 
Invid.  Humanity has a full military space fleet and uses it to launch a 
massive attack to retake Earth.  The fleet is equipped with advanced 
weapons from a different alien race and it turns out that different 
alien race is plotting against humanity as well.  So as soon as humans 
are done fighting the Invid, they immediately are in a shooting war with 
the aliens they thought were their allies.  And of course those advanced 
weapons have been sabotaged so they're no help.  I guess it was OK.  I 
mainly wanted to just cross this off my watch list.