Julian’s Thoughts: The Avengers: Endgame Review

Julian Cannon Leave a Comment

The wait is over as The Avengers: Endgame premieres in theaters this week and I must say, It is worth seeing. After what happened at last year’s Infinity War, we see the aftermath of Thanos’ wrath and how our heroes grieved with being defeated in such a large fashion. Without going too further, here is my review and there are some spoilers ahead!

I really liked how they structured the story. Things are not okay between Steve and Tony, the defeat of Thanos is brief and anti-climatic, and then life moves on and suddenly it’s five years later and then the story really begins. Love Scott Lang’s part in solving the problem. I never really thought much of his character, but I liked him in this one. Loved the whole getting the team together sequence, and Thor’s physical and mental decline was equally hilarious and sad as hell.

The time heist plot worked for me. When I first heard rumors they might use time travel in the plot, I was both excited and anxious, because it’s easy to mess this kind of plot up. But thankfully that wasn’t the case. The whole New York scene was delightful. Steve fighting himself, Loki taking off with the space stone, ‘hail hydra’, Tony’s run in with the Hulk, the brief return of Pierce and Rumlow, the Ancient One…it all left me giddy. Clint’s and Nat’s scenes were tense (knowing one of them was going to have to die) and I honestly thought it would be Clint. Thor seeing his Mom again made me choke up a little. And Nebula accidentally giving the game away to Thanos was a very exciting little plot twist. Tony talking with Howard and Steve seeing Peggy was some well deserved fan service.

The third act was sublime. When hulk snapped his fingers and fixed the vanishing, I was ready for a lot of things, but Thanos blowing up the entire compound wasn’t it. I literally gasped and clapped my hands over my mouth during that scene. The following battle scenes are probably the best in the MCU. Steve, Tony and Thor taking on Thanos together, Steve picking up Mjolnir, Steve as the last man standing against Thanos’s entire forces (which was also an amazing shot that we see him standing in front of Thanos’ army), and then…then EVERYONE returned. It was one of the most poignant moments in the entire MCU. Holy crap, seeing that gave me goosebumps and made me tear up. So many awesome moments during that battle. Spiderman and Tony hugging, Scarlet Witch vs Thanos, Captain Marvel taking out the ship… so much awesome stuff. And then Tony wielding the stones and dusting Thanos and co. What a moment. Going to miss you, Iron Man. Also, I’m so thankful that they waited all these years to give us the Avengers Assemble in that specific scene.

I’m glad they took their time with the ending, letting all the main characters have a little moment in the spotlight. Tony’s goodbye, Thor’s choice to join the guardians, and Steve allowing himself a simple life with the woman he loves. They all deserved these moments and I’m glad we, as fans, got to see them.

I was a little worried about the 3 hour run time, but I didn’t even notice it during the movie. Time flew by and I wasn’t bored for a single moment. I’m glad they took their time and didn’t rush things. And I’m also glad they did not give things away in the trailers as I believe the trailers of the film were pretty much the first 15 minutes of the film. Such restraint! Well done, Marvel. It was such a treat to go into this movie unspoiled and completely ignorant of the plot details and to just let the story unfold.

Overall, I loved this movie and I think it is a worthy end of an era. Goodbye, Tony, Steve and Natasha. It was a pleasure knowing you.

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content and subscribe to The Wrestling Court as we talk about the latest in pro wrestling, pop culture, and comics along with our live watch reactions to past matches

New Death Stranding Details Emerge At The Tribeca Film Festival

Julian Cannon Leave a Comment

Legendary video game developer Hideo Kojima and “The Walking Dead” star Norman Reedus attended the Tribeca Film Festival today to talk about the upcoming video game Death Stranding at one of the Tribeca Talks events here in the theater of BMCC. The fans waited all day in anticipation of this event since little is known about the mysterious game outside of the trailers.

During the panel that was moderated by Geoff Keighley, Hideo and Norman talked about the development of the game, what we could expect from the characters, how Hideo came up with the idea of the game, the way Hideo Kojima pitched the game to Norman, and much more.

One of the news that came out of the panel is that the name of Norman Reedus’ character of Death Stranding is Sam. Norman also says that much of himself as a person is implemented to Sam. Kojima also stated that it is an open-world action game and that he wants the player to freely make decisions for the character when it comes to actions, story, and traveling. This is similar to Venom Snake in Metal Gear Solid V:The Phantom Pain where you make your own decisions of how you want to complete a mission.

The main theme of the game that is widely discussed about is connection as Hideo Kojima intends the player to connect with other players and characters in the game along with the world. We got a few glimpses of that during the previous trailers. Speaking of trailers, the first trailer of Death Stranding only took two days for Kojima to produce the trailer and Norman Reedus had to get his body rescanned when he got new tattoos and Hideo even joked that he will add tattoos to Reedus’ body on future patches.

There were also pictures shown on the screen for everyone to see what was behind the scenes during the development.

Although there was no trailer, The last and the biggest news of the panel is that next month, we will get new footage of the game. Also, a fan asked if there will be a PC version of the game and Hideo stated that there will not be a PC version.

Although no footage was allowed to be streamed or recorded, I did recorded the audio which you can check below.

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content and subscribe to The Wrestling Court as we talk about the latest in pro wrestling, pop culture, and comics along with our live watch reactions to past matches.

Why 2020 Is The Year of The Walking Dead

Julian Cannon Leave a Comment

The year 2020 is coming very close as we are almost half way into 2019 in a few more months. There has been recent news about the universe of The Walking Dead and I believe it is positive news. Although it will be the final season for Danai Gurira as Michonne, more great things will come along the way for the months to come. How her exit will be on the show is up in the air right now as we do not know how many episodes she will appear in. With that out of the way, here are the reasons why I believe that 2020 will be the year of The Walking Dead.

ISSUE #200 OF THE COMIC BOOK SERIES

By the end of this year, the comic book series of The Walking Dead will be up to issue #198. In Feburary 2020, the 200th issue will be in stores for everyone to read and I have a feeling that there will be something huge to go down on that issue. To refresh everyone’s memory, issue #50 was Carl Grimes’ biggest character development of the series so far, issue #100 was the debut of Negan along with Glenn’s brutal death, and issue #150, Rick Grimes declares that they will go to war against The Whisperers. With issue #200 on the horizon, what do you think will happen and although Robert Kirkman stated in one of the letter hacks of a recent issue that “No one dies in issue #200. There, I said it. Cannon–letters columns count!”, he could either be telling the truth, or hiding something much bigger than we think.

THE 150th EPISODE OF THE TELEVISION SHOW IN SEASON 11

Many people may have not noticed or kept track, but if The Walking Dead gets renewed for an 11th season, then the third episode of the 11th season of The Walking Dead will be the 150th episode! Way back in Season 8, We got the 100th episode which was the beginning of the All Out War arc and that episode also had many callbacks to the first episode of the series. Who knows what they will pull off in season 11, but I believe that the group will go to The Commonwealth any the beginning of the 11th season if the show gets renewed for that season.

THE THIRD SPINOFF SERIES

AMC Network recently announced that there will be a third spinoff series of the universe of The Walking Dead within the next year and the news opened up many possibilities of more crossovers between The Walking Dead and the second show Fear The Walking Dead. The only thing that we do know of now is that it will be a female lead main character. We do not know where it will take place or when in the timeline, but this will be something to look forward to and I have a feeling that the first major details will be revealed at San Diego Comic Con. Speaking of details, this Segways into…

THE MOVIES ABOUT RICK GRIMES

Yes! This is what all of the fans has been waiting for and I believe that we will have the first details about the movies at the San Diego Comic Con panel. There will be three movies in which Andrew Lincoln will reprise his role as Rick Grimes and hopefully, we can and will see what happened when Jadis took him away on the helicopter before the six year time skip begun. The bigger question, is whether if Rick will go look for Daryl, Michonne, and the rest after he is healed up. Since Jadis traded Heath for supplies (You can read about that here ), Will Rick Grimes reunite with him. We should get more information about it in the coming months.

Are you excited for what is to come for The Walking Dead in 2020?

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @julianexcalibur for more content and subscribe to The Wrestling Court as we talk about the latest in pro wrestling, pop culture, and comics along with our live watch reactions to past matches.