Jenny Nicholson

My lord is this... legal

The answer is Fifty Shades of Grey.

As in, "It depends on if the actual licence holder bothers to press charges"

"That is not what the Force is for, you guys." XD

Anyway, yeah, fanfic and the like continues to exist in a legal gray area where as long as license holders don't prosecute nothing's going to happen. Stephanie Meyer turned out to be pretty chill about 50 Shades, and Disney probably doesn't know this thing exists. As long as it's not explicitly porn of their characters sold for money, Disney likely isn't going to bother.

Very YMMV for that. Disney has prosecuted daycares for having Mickey painted on the wall.

Which subsequently resulted in said Daycares turning to WB properties when WB didn't give a shit and realized it was free advertising.

I'd also point out that these things also exist on a scale of worth litigating. This book sounds like its self-published, by an unknown, and is probably not big enough to be worth persuing a lawsuit over even assuming anyone high up enough at Disney is aware of it.

Now, if it was something that got 50 Shades level of attention and popularity resulting in a multi-million dollar movie deal... THEN we'd probably be seeing some court cases.

None of which changes that Disney does litigate aggressively. Thought I suppose you expect the fanfic to do like the daycare and turn into a Stat Trek rip off if it happens.

Considering it's not at all the same (Paint jobs can be redone pretty easily) no, no it's not going to do the same. But like, if no one catches this, no one's going to bother with it.

Really, it's going to take something like 50 Shades worth of popularity getting sued for this kind of thing to start being regulated more strictly. I mean, didn't Amazon start with advertising for selling fanfic at some point a couple years back?

Well, yes, that was Kindle Worlds. Which also had very strict rules on accepted works as most romance (extending down into erotica) was not allowed and only certain I Ps with... basically no fan fic fandoms were allowed to sell their wares. Basically, in trying to legally sell fan fiction, it was done in a way that doesn't appeal to fan fic writers.

Yeah, it'd probably take a fan fic getting to 50 shades level of popularity AND NOT being ok with the original IP holders to see a change in how this is handled. Or at least a dramatic one.

I can't see Disney going after this fan fic unless it gets to that point. Because, while yes you need to protect your I Ps and such, going after every single person is going to cause problems. It'll quickly become a never ending money sink for starters. Its not worth it unless it actually challenges something.

Lots of interesting suggestions for new Star Wars costumes to stand out from the rest of the crowd at cons.

I look forward to all the Life Day wookie costumes that fans are surely at work making.

It seems the asshole Deadpool phenomenon is a pretty common thing.

this

look

Edited by HottoKenai on Apr 8th 2019 at 10:34:49 PM

My interactions with Deadpool cosplayers have all been very fine. They are no worse than any other cosplayer.

Must be an American thing.

Or they got way worse since the last film.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 8th 2019 at 2:17:46 PM

I have heard folks complain about Deadpool cosplayers specifically before.

Most Deadpool cosplayers also don't seem to understand that if you wear spandex, you need to wear a dance belt or compression shorts under the suit. I've seen the outline of way too many dicks over the years.

Skipping over all this month's big pop culture tentpoles to talk about Dumbo, which slaps

Okay the Carnie who hates elephants and then kills himself to stage Dumbo's mom as a rampaging elephant really sounds like the best thing ever.

That does sound amazing. This entire film sounds hilariously terrible.

Edited by Aquaconda on Apr 24th 2019 at 9:58:52 AM

Dear god. That heckle scene. "Ear Baby Dumbo". Subtlety is for cowards◊, am I right Mr.Burton?

Edited by HottoKenai on Apr 24th 2019 at 10:44:52 PM

It feels they really did not care one bit how they adapted this movie

its my favourite Disney movie too

Loved the review

Ghilz

She's exaggerating. He doesn't frame anyone, he just dies when the tent collapses during Mama Jumbo's rampage, which is why they send her away (Danny Devito's character even say's something to the effect of "Nobody want's to be reminded of death at the Circus.", it's kind of funny actually).

Aquaconda

It really isn't. She makes it sound a lot worse/over-the-top than it actually is, when it's just kind of really forgettable. The performances are... """passable""", the effects are nothing new for Tim Burton, the story gets from point A to point B with about a dozen uninteresting subplots tossed in to pad out the runtime, etc, but it's all fairly functional.

The plot is actually super-straight forward: a lot of her issues with dropped plot points were more likely just her forgetting them (again, it's kind of a forgettable movie). That's not to say that the story beats are original or work well together, but they are there. Like the Danny Devito wanting a "brother" thing: Danny wanted a partner, and it's the villain establishing how circuses are "fake dreams" (Danny playing make-believe that he has a brother) compared to the theme park which "makes dreams into realities". He offers Danny a partnership, fulfilling his dream, and he makes similar appeals to the dad and kids in order to get Dumbo.

That all said, what, if anything, themes about dreams and realities and such has to do with themes about animal rights is... a stretch, to say the least. Or, as she points out, whether or not a circus was the best choice to represent "the little guy getting screwed over", considering how sucky they are in real life.

Don't care. Like her version better.

Obligatory Star Wars video for May 4th about laying out why she thinks Kylo Ren will be redeemed in Episode IX

I disagree with most of the redemption counterpoints especially because I don't think neither Trevorrow or Abrams were thinking that far ahead but the last one has blown my mind and I am completely on board provided Kylo's arc follows those beats to the letter.

Edited by Nouct on May 4th 2019 at 11:46:14 AM

I don't know. After the video I'm mixed. On one hand, I think Kylo has done so much awful that he's irredeemable and there is merit to a lesson that some people are not worth sinking your time, energy, and life into saving as they'll only drag you down. That's a GOOD life lesson. And one that really applies to people like Kylo in real life.

But... Ugh, pretty people always get to be sexy and redeemed and stuff. And I don't want to ignore the fact that Luke does say that "No one ever is truly gone".

Idk. Maybe they'll best of both worlds is where, while Palpatine isn't gone and is clearly force ghost influencing Kylo, "Ben" isn't gone either and is the shoulder angel of it? Maybe that's all Luke's line might be talking about?

Edited by InkDagger on May 5th 2019 at 7:08:17 AM

She brought up something interesting about the storm troopers of the new trilogy. The heroes receive zero criticism for mowing down people who are confirmed to be abused child soldiers, many whom are still relatively young (iir Finn is only 20).

It's weird, because Force Awakens explicitly brings this up to make Finn a sympathetic character, but none of the other storm troopers receive that kind of sympathy. You'd think at least Finn would have a "you don't have to live like this, join us!" moment when he sees them.

And I'm not saying this in defense of Kylo, I just think it's weird that Force Awakens goes out of it's way to drop all of this Storm Trooper child abuse info, but still treat them as completely expendable.

To be fair, this isn't even the first time. Look at the prequels, no one bats an eye at the Clone Troopers, who are quite literally indoctrinated child soldiers and slaves. Some of the expanded universe media does occasionally dip their toes in it but for every time it does there's a million other EU media going "Check how cool the clone troopers are! Wow!" The Prequels at no point says that the Jedi are literally slavers.

Even the clone Wars cartoon, whos best episodes are about the clone troopers, is very cavalier about how they are totally disposable properties to their masters.

Edited by Ghilz on May 10th 2019 at 10:30:21 AM