Are y'all somehow failing to grasp or just forgetting that Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee aren't part of the core series? They're fun little hybrids meant to entice GO players and hold us off until the real heavy-hitting core titles hit next year. You shouldn't be trying to judge them by the same standards or expectations as those core games.
You know, this is pretty much the best possible outcome and exactly what I hoped for. Game Freak is taking their time to develop the new actual core RPG title(s) for next year, and in the meantime we're getting a fun little set of RPG/GO hybrid games. Nice. This will be plenty to tide me over, and hopefully the 2019 core titles will end up the best they can possible be (meaning not dropping to like 10fps whenever more than two critters happen to be on the battlefield at once).
Anyway, which version I get, Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee, will depend solely on whether the games let us evolve the titular critters. If I'm denied the ability to run around with a Raichu on my head in LGP, then I'll be picking up Eevee instead.
Looks like Michelle Syndrome strikes again, huh?
Hell, even the dumb ending of DKR made sense in the context of they were just saying "yeah, this is as close as Nolan would get to having Robin around". Here it just comes off as Disney not wanting the backlash for changing MJ's race and deciding to hide it until the literal last second.
That's pretty much it. I've been seeing this compared to the "Robin John Blake" reveal from Dark Night Rises a lot, but it's not even close to the same thing. The biggest and most obvious point is that "Robin" is just a title that's belonged to multiple characters in the comics and what-not over the years. It's not the designation of a single, unique character like "Alfred" or "Joker" would be. Blake was an amalgamation of traits from several different Robins, essentially served as Batman's sidekick minus the green tights in that movie, and the reveal that his first name was actually Robin was the film's creators saying, "yeah, we know what we did there." THAT is an example of a fun Easter Egg. It was a clever little nod at the very ending of the final movie in a series, just for funsies, and didn't affect anything moving forward.
Michelle is not that. Michelle has none of Mary Jane's defining traits, but has stolen her "MJ" nickname anyway and is likewise being set up to steal her role as Peter's love interest in future films. No. Wrong. Bad. We're not getting a "new take" or an "Easter Egg" with Michelle here, we're getting a wound that doesn't scab over properly and won't be allowed to heal.
I thought she was by far the most fun and compelling MJ we've had. I kept wanting more scenes with her. So nailed likeable.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
As for faithful… what, her hair isn't red? Whooptey doo. Vulture is usually an old bald guy in a skintight suit with feather on it that looks ridiculous, and no one complains that his look was different.
Sure the red hair's part of it. Just like Nick Fury's eye patch, that's one of her defining visual traits; I mean shoot, "Red" is literally Peter's nickname for her in the comics. I've seen the Photoshop mock-ups; Zendaya could have rocked the red hair if the people behind this movie didn't make horrible choices and instead just had her play Mary Jane. But on top of that, the problem was even more so the personality.
Real MJ: Real name "Mary Jane," red hair, gorgeous without even trying. Very outgoing and spunky "alpha female" personality. Doesn't take crap but is actually nice. The type who attracts people to her just as much from her disposition as her looks.
Fake "MJ": Real name "Michelle," messy brown hair, overall frumpy and unkempt appearance. Abrasive, cynical, condescending, a constant downer.
Looks nothing like Mary Jane + Acts nothing like Mary Jane + Isn't even named Mary Jane = Bad "MJ." It's that simple.
Trying out "new takes" on characters is par for the course with these movie adaptations, and I don't mind at all when they do it well. Just look at my praise for Aunt May. But I don't know what the hell they were thinking with Michelle here. This is far from a new take, it's so much worse. This is writing the word "diamond" on a plain chunk of rock and expecting someone to buy it. Unlike with Aunt May or Vulture, there's absolutely nothing of Mary Jane to be found in Michelle, and she doesn't even come close to deserving that "MJ" nickname. It'd take a LOT of reworking and retconning to fix this horrible abortion of a substitute "MJ" they've stuck us with.
To sum up how I feel… It's downright awful that we're almost certainly going to never get to see this iconic Spider-Man moment brought to life on screen now, and it's all the fault of whichever production moron(s) at Marvel/Sony/Disney thought this whole Michelle thing was a good idea.
In googling the actress (I knew the name looked familiar! I found this:
! http://collider.com/spider-man-homecoming-zendaya-mj-explained/
! so I guess we'll see in the next few movies?
! I know. We've been seeing these "Zendaya isn't playing 'Mary Jane,' her character's name is 'Michelle' instead! WINK WINK" articles ever since her casting was announced. They've been bullshitting us the whole time and thinking they're clever for it.
! Yes, it's true that Zendaya's character is named "Michelle" instead of "Mary Jane." But that's the problem. Despite that, they slapped the "MJ" nickname on her anyway in the movie, clearly setting her up as some sort of substitute for the real Mary Jane and essentially broadcasting a message of "this is your new 'MJ' for these movies, you're not getting a likable or faithful version. Too bad."
! Which is complete horse shit, had no good reason to happen, and has now ruined a big part of this new, shared-continuity-focused movie version of Spider-Man.
Well I just got home from Spider-Man: Homecoming. Overall, I loved it, but my final score is "only" a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Spoilery details ahoy:
! As you can probably guess, my/the biggest problem with the film is Michelle (I'm not calling her "MJ," at least not without quote-marks, because she's not). She docks a full star from the score all on her own. Not only is she a piss-poor substitute for the real Mary Jane, looking and acting absolutely NOTHING like her, but I found her to be a pretty poor and unlikable character on her own. Michelle was abrasive, condescending, and an all-around downer. Even worse, as far as I can remember she served no practical purpose within the plot. She just showed up to be a snarky bitch to people like half a dozen times, and then dropped the detestable "MJ" bomb at the end.
! It feels like they (Marvel? Sony? Don't really care.) were under some sort of mandate to create a role for their Disney pop princess Zendaya, and completely shit their pants attempting to do so. As a literally-lifelong fan of both the REAL Mary Jane character and of Spider-Man in general, I hate, HATE, HATE that this seems to be the awful excuse for a Mary Jane replacement that we're stuck with in this new movie universe, and it's going to be a major, minimum-one-star-automatically-docked stain on every additional MCU Spidey flick moving forward. Nothing short of a total retcon — where "Michelle" disappears after one film and Zendaya's suddenly playing a faithful Mary Jane in the next — will fix this in my book.
! The other subtracted half-star comes from a few minor things, some of which I couldn't even remember by the time the movie ended. Mostly just more head-scratchers when it came to the supporting cast. Why is Flash Thompson a nerd (but at least he still ACTED like Flash Thompson)? Why does Betty Brant look like Gwen Stacey (and does that mean we're not getting a faithful Gwen down the line, either)? All in all, pretty darn minor compared to the "MJ" problem.
! Now with the negatives out of the way… otherwise, the film was GREAT. It's easily the best Spidey flick since Spider-Man 2. Tom Holland, who actually passes for a teenager unlike Maguire and Garfield before him, nails Peter's character as someone who, sometimes naively, places value in doing the right thing above all else, even at the threat or cost of his own well-being. Michael Keaton was really, REALLY good as Adrian Toomes / Vulture, and this unique, halfway-sympathetic take on the character as a scavenger doing what he can to survive and provide worked quite well. Plus he ended up having a great hero-and-villain dynamic with Peter/Spidey.
! I found Ganke-Ned pretty annoying at first, but he managed to redeem himself and warm me up to him as the film went along. As another example of a "new interpretation" of a character that actually does work, unlike Michelle/"MJ," I've come to really like Marisa Tomei's version of Aunt May. I think it makes sense in a way for her to be portrayed as a relatively young cougar aunt, rather than having one foot constantly in the grave like Aunt May from the comics. In spite of that change, the spirit of the character is still there, unlike with Michelle/"MJ." She's still Peter's doting, over-protective mother figure who's smarter than she lets on, and despite being unsure of herself at times, still tries her best to take care of Peter without Ben around to help anymore.
! The writing was solid, and the four or five big action sequences were really all well-done. All things considered, the movie had a LOT more positives than negatives... it's too bad that the one big negative has left such a noticeable stain on it.
I will never be okay with this Michelle/"MJ" crap they're pulling in Homecoming (especially considering how it could make things even worse fore the real Mary Jane in the comics), and it's ruined a huge part of Spider-Man in the MCU going forward… but I still plan to see it. I've been a Spider-Man fan since I was like 5 years old; I can't NOT go see a brand-new Spidey film.
Good thing I have enough Regal Cinemas points saved up for a free ticket.
Hella excited for the SNES Classic, especially with that Star Fox 2 inclusion. But of course America gets the boring gray-ish purple version again… if its functionally the same, with the same games and no extra censorship or anything, then I wonder if importing the more colorful European version will be a good option.
I'm hearing speculation that Crystal isn't releasing for 3DS VC alongside Gold and Silver because the Japanese version relied so much on that cell phone connectivity stuff for its multiplayer. The rest of the world obviously can't be allowed to have something like this if glorious privileged Nippon would miss out, so no perfectly-feasible international release of Crystal either. Hopefully that's not the case and Crystal just needs more time or something, but if that's the reason for its absence or delay then I'll be pretty miffed.
But with my one small gripe out of the way… I'm hyped. I'm actually perfectly content to play Silver instead of Crystal because Silver was my first Gen-2 game back in the day anyway. Pokkén Tournament DX is just what I was hoping for now that I have a Switch (and now all I need is a Mario Maker port and I'll have nothing left to get for Wii U), but I'm puzzled as to why the new Sun/Moon addition to the roster is Decidueye instead of Incineroar who's literally a showboating arena-fighting wrestler cat.
Then of course Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are quite intriguing… I'm not sure what they're going to do with the story aside from Necrozma apparently trying to assimilate Solgaleo or Lunala, but I'm eager to find out. Also wondering what kind of other new features and critter variations the games might bring. I've seen speculation that there might be more Johto focus including new Alolan forms for Johto Pokémon... if that ends up true, I'm already setting myself up for the disappointment of not getting a Steel/Dragon Skarmory.
