I think a great example to look at is The Suicide Squad. If you look purely at the numbers, Suicide Squad (2016) brought in ~750m globally versus The Suicide Squad (2021) which brought in ~170m globally.

The first Suicide Squad was one of the worst DCEU films. The second The Suicide Squad was one of the best DCEU films and handed DC Studios to James Gunn (and Peter Safran).

I think looking purely at the numbers Superman is likely to come out as small victory (monetarily). However as a franchise, it’s a solid start.

That’s exactly what piefed does actually.

First, when Mephisto is talking to Parker, Parker asks if he’s going to give him everything he wants. Mephisto responds, “No, I’m going to give you the tools.”

Second, while we never hear the exact terms of the deal, from either party, we get the ambiguous time jump where Riri has studied for months and created a new Natalie.

Riri thinks she has created a new AI Natalie, she even asks it to run diagnostics. Importantly she believes she brought Natalie back.

Now in this moment it looks like she’s rejected the deal. We see a bunch of formulas, some with mathematical notation, but also some that look like runes. Her magical knowledge might have come from working with Zelma.

But then we cut back. Riri and Mephisto talk more and it’s clear that Riri has taken Mephisto’s deal. This is further confirmed later when the scar grows on her arm.

The magical knowledge, at least in part, is a result of Mephisto and not Zelma.

Now maybe the deal only gave Riri the knowledge/power to revive Natalie, but even then she thought she was reviving AI Natalie and not real Natalie. As we saw with Parker the obsession seems to be consuming. I expect, like Parker, she won’t be able to just stop once Natalie is back. Riri, as repeated by Mephisto, wants to be “iconic”. Unfortunately “iconic” doesn’t mean “good”.

Her mom should be pissed that she revived Natalie but didn’t ask for Gary too.

Her mom was amazed when Natalie first appeared and later on in the series asked if she could build an AI Gary too.

Additionally Mephisto didn’t revive Natalie (at the end of the series), he gave Riri the tools to revive Natalie. It is possible Riri will revive Gary next. Riri also didn’t seem to fully understand what she created/revived because she didn’t expect that Natalie could touch her. I expect everyone is just going to be amazed at what Riri did.

As for paperwork, they live in a post-blip society with aliens, androids and wizards. Sure this is weird, but they’ll figure it out. In fact Natalie returning might get the attention of some big names like SWORD or Doctor Strange.

Reddit sorta half did it with the “other discussions” or duplicate tab.

As an example,

https://old.reddit.com/r/news/duplicates/1lvi6kb/a_clicktocancel_rule_intended_to_make_cancelling/

I never saw any apps implement it, but it does look like it was part of the API, but maybe it wasn’t robust enough.

I also know at one point, and possibly still, is that it lacked URL normalization. So for example, exanple.com/headline and example.com/headline#topstory would be treated as two different articles.

Similarly https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ and https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

Would be treated as separate articles.

These are all fixable problems, but require work.

I agree that more time should have been spent developing characters. I got the vibe from several episodes that this was supposed to be an 8 or 10 episode series, but it was forced during editing down to 6.

I don’t think she’s supposed to be a hero or a villain. Look at where Tony Stark is at the start of Iron Man. He runs one of the worlds biggest weapons manufacturing companies. That’s not hero or villain. But he is being used by villains to do villainous things. That’s where Riri’s story is.

She’s trying to figure out life and what she wants is simple, she wants her friend back. She wasn’t planning on it, but it happened.

Apart from being rushed I thought the show really worked well.

The full quote is worth reading,

"I have no real intentions of going back. I say I’m not retired because if something special came up, I’d go back, but otherwise, no.”

He also goes on to say he has a special project that might come together, but it doesn’t sound like a priority.

Obviously he deserves retirement, he’s 80, take it easy.

However it sounds like a cameo or small part is still a possibility. His role in Endgame was fun and excellent use of the existing world. If he wants to keep on being a grumpy old man and have Michelle Pfeiffer take on a larger role in a future Ant-Man movie, I think that works. Just have him yell a few lines.

The marketing for this film has really been all in. It’s been fun and I wonder what else we’ll get before the premiere.

Per an article ~2 years ago Mahershala had been asking for script changes. No question that as an actor Mahershala is fantastic. Additionally I expect as an actor he can recognize when a script isn’t going to work.

Now he isn’t a writer, so it’s possible his suggested changes just made things worse. Knowing something isn’t working and fixing something that isn’t working are two different tasks. It’s also possible it just isn’t fixable.

It sounds to me like the film is probably back to the drawing board and Mahershala, while still attached, will have an option to exit once the new script is written.

It’s also possible that the film has been scrapped completely, but Disney isn’t ready to announce it just yet. I think that’s less likely, but possible.

Re Benedict Mephistobatch, it definitely didn’t sound like Sacha Baron Cohen at first, but I didn’t hear Benedict. I think The Hood/Parker makes a comment about his voice but I assume any voice change is just Mephisto finding which voice they find the most comfortable. When both Parker and Riri are sitting at the pizza table it’s clear they aren’t 100% there with the jarring camera cuts.

Re Dormammu summoning & agreements. I think that works out and I like it. I did a little digging and due to the events of Spider-man FFH and NWH we know those take place in 2024, and Multiverse or Madness right after also in 2024. Wakanda Forever has a deleted scene that has it starting in 2024, but since it has a “one year later” scene, would put it in 2025. Then Ironheart is supposedly six months after Wakanda Forever. However Multiverse of Madness ends with Strange growing a third eye, then the mid credits has him not worried about and utilizing the third eye. So that scene could have happened anytime. (Although that scene talks about incursions, but it could still tie in).

Re BARF I wonder if she built her own or borrowed and improved on Tony.

Re Taking the deal. As soon as she asked the clarifying question, “And you only want me, it will only affect me?” I knew she was going to take the deal. At that point she’s already accepted it in her head and was trying to talk herself out of it, but she couldn’t. It was such a great scene.

Re Generational Curse. I expect Mephisto helped Agatha obtain the Darkhold, but I think the family curse was just Agatha. Any manifestation of the curse that we saw was just Billy.

Re Mysterio. I hope he faked his death and returns someday. He’s one of my favorite villains.

Re Once in a lifetime genius. Shuri and Wakanda don’t make themselves known to the larger world. Outside of Wakanda few know who Shuri actually is and even if they do, she just has Wakanda technology, no one knows Shuri made it,

Re Natalie. Riri fails to create a duplicate Natalie after the first one is deleted in the magic deal. Riri has no idea why it fails a second time. To me this means someone else (Mephisto) was involved the first time. Second the new Natalie isn’t aware of the old Natalie or what is going on, which is to say a different Natalie, but I’m not sure Riri knows what she’s brought back since she was surprised Natalie could interact with her. Since one of the themes of the show was death/acceptance, I think she brought dead Natalie back.

Re Zeke. To destroy the flowers again. He hates flowers.

Re Connections. Also Thor and his hammer.

Lost 4 or had 4 total?

1. Wakanda Forever MIT Suit (Built before the film)
2. Wakanda Forever Wakanda Suit (Built with Shuri)
3. Ironheart MIT Suit (Student ID required)
4. Ironheart Car Suit (Family)

Also Tony did way better/worse in Iron Man 3 when he had them all self destruct at the end.

That was excellent. Also…

Mephisto

Wanda didn’t meet him, but Riri did.

If the Marvel films aren’t going to reference the TV shows (much) then Mephisto and magic can be our TV villain, our TV BBEG.

Also I’m so glad The Hood (or I guess just Parker) gets to stick around. I’m always bummed when a villain is one and done. I get it practically speaking, but a few should survive and I think he’ll be a fun choice.

The first 15 minutes out this episode where everyone is trying to kill Riri felt like it was supposed to be a whole episode. The Ezekiel turn just feels way out of place and unearned.

However the rest of the episode, where it’s clear someone made a decision “it we only get six episodes, we’re keeping Riri rebuilding and The Hood losing everything (else).” was a great choice.

I’m makes it more clear that Ezekiel just made a deal to get out of prison. The rest of the gang turns on The Hood. He then uses his admin powers to control Ezekiel. It works much better by the end.

Also siphoning power from Dormammu/The Dark Dimension is such a terrible idea, I’m a huge fan. Also the cost, I didn’t see that coming. I hope the AI stays “dead” but now that character can be used to tempt Riri.

The Hook/Parker backstory tease! I really thought we’d get more than a minute, I hope we get more in each of the two episodes, although I expect the biggest reveal will be saved for the finale, whatever it is.

Inexperienced witch is my new favorite character. Strange & Wong are experts and even while training Stranger was too good. Agatha All Along gave us some witch/magic learning but even they were were pretty good at it. But this new girl? Just trying magic out and seeing what works. Messy is much more fun.

Also Ezekiel should probably password protect his… science body? Whatever is being uploaded to him or something.

But here’s a bonus feature: many platforms allow you to easily migrate your account to a new instance.

But Lemmy isn’t one of those platforms. Right?

Generally I agree with the article that the shutdown of lemm.ee isn’t a big deal. It sucks for sure, but the Fediverse survives.

Personally I don’t care about account migration. Export/import works fine, but I get that it’s a little clunky for some.

Community migration is something that I think is more important and as I understand PieFed handles this. Hopefully Lemmy will someday and even better between Lemmy & PieFed.

FWIW You weren’t that out of the loop, you only skipped/missed one film, “Captain America Brave New World”.

Moving from August 6th to August 27th, and having shown one episode to a small group means it’s ready now.

I’m guessing the shift is to ensure it isn’t hidden by Fantastic Four. (And was probably decided some time ago, they’re just announcing it now.)

The first three episodes are already out and the next (and final three) are out later today in ~2 hours.

So if you started right now you could watch them all.

Three episodes all at once, then a week later the other three episodes.