Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-06-10 (Tuesday)

On 6/11/2025 6:37 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

Fringe S4E19 'Letters of Transit'
IMDb sez: "In the future, the Observers rule and humans that survived the purge serve them. There are still a small number of people fighting for the resistance, and one of them has discovered one of the original Fringe team in the form of Walter protected in amber. As the resistance attempts to get rid of the Observers, we get a glimpse into a rather dark dystopian future."
 The glyphs for this episode spell out: QUAKE
This episode follows the pattern established in season two: The fourth- to-last episode of a season is "the weird one". Season two (23 eps) had #2.20, Brown Betty, a musical, whereas season three (22 eps) had #3.19, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, a partly animated episode. And this one is a flash-forward episode.
When Simon and Henrietta are taking Walter to the city, they get stopped by a Loyalist officer. During this Walter says "These aren't the droids you are looking for" which is a line from Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). Fringe creator JJ Abrams would go on to direct two Star Wars films - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
"Crazy Credits": Opening text which scrolled upward on screen: 'They came from the future. At first, they only watched. Arriving at key moments in human history. We called them OBSERVERS. But in 2015 they stopped watching... and seized control. Citizen uprisings proved bloody and futile. Those who survived became known as "Natives." In an attempt to show their allegiance, some Native factions became "Loyalists" and were marked by the OBSERVERS. The original FRINGE TEAM fought the invasion, but was quickly defeated. FRINGE DIVISION was allowed to continue at a reduced capacity, but only to police the Natives. The resistance was quickly overcome ...or so they thought.' [the word "OBSERVERS" was written in red text, while all other text was white against the black background.]
 Dr. Walter Bishop: I am not a number. I am a free man.  (I wonder where he got that from.)
 

:-)

Dr. Walter Bishop: Have you seen it?
Simon Foster: Monkey feces? No. I can't say I've had the pleasure.
Dr. Walter Bishop: I wouldn't say that it was a pleasure.
  Fringe S4E20 'Worlds Apart'
IMDb sez: "Multiple earthquakes are happening simultaneously around both our world and the alt-world. Walter believes he knows what the end game of David Robert Jones is. And, even though Olivia has a connection to one of the players Jones is using that she thinks she can utilize, in the end it leads to some hard decisions for the Fringe team."
 The glyphs for this episode spell out: ALIVE
 Olivia Dunham: I knew Nick when we were kids. We shared an emotional bond. I'm hoping that through you we may be able to reconnect and find him.
Nick Lane: And this makes perfect sense to all of you?
Lincoln Lee: I find it's best if you just go with it.
  What Did You Watch?
 

I watched:
A Fabled Holiday (Hallmark) Another old movie I've had sitting on the DVR since 2023.  And it's another Christmas movie.  This one stars Brooke D'Orsay and Fyan Paevey as two childhood friends who as adults drifted apart.  They run into each other and briefly rekindle their friendship, then they run into each other again when they both wind up at the same Christmas resort town.  Brooke insists there's something familiar about the town and their traditions, then realizes it's all exactly like the Christmas book she and Fyan used to read as children. But the people who run the town say the similarities are because they stole the ideas from the same book.  Paint by numbers Hallmark wackiness ensues.  It was an OK Christmas movie.  I'm not spoiling anything to say the town really was magic.  They never hid that fact.  Part of the amusement was Brooke noticing the magic while the people who ran the town made excuses for it.  They said something like, of course it's similar, you can't copyright ideas from a book.  At one point when Brooke said all the guests read the same book, even I was thinking that's not proof of anything!  How many people at a "The Cat in the Hat" or "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" themed town would have read that book as a child?
There's something fishy about this Star Wars themed ride at Disneyland. Everyone in line for this ride has also watched a Star Wars movie.  How is that possible?
Zack Snyder's Justice League (4K disc) Picking up after the events of "Batman v. Superman" and "Suicide Squad," Batman (Ben Affleck) assembles a team of heroes to protect Earth from Darkseid's pending invasion of Earth.  Batman ultimately assembles Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Aquaman (Jason Moma), and The Flash (Ezra Miller).  In spite of being dead, Henry Cavill's name shows up during the opening credits, so I guess Superman is in this too.  And this being the Synder cut we also get Martian Manhunter and Ryan Choi (who would become The Atom) because why not.  Overall, it holds up great and is probably the best movie in the DCEU franchise.  But Snyder could have *easily* shaved an hour from this movie and it wouldn't have been missed.  Well, shave 30 minutes to be on the safe side.  I don't mind giving the movie room to breathe, but did we really need so many slow motion shots (that weren't the Flash)?
The other annoying thing is Snyder released the movie in open matte 1.33:1 ratio to mimic the IMAX ratio.  But he didn't film the movie using IMAX cameras.  It's purely an aesthetic choice, and it's an aesthetic choice that I hate!  It's one thing watching IMAX ratio in an IMAX theater, or watching the frame open up for scenes shot using IMAX cameras, but the 1.33:1 ratio (which isn't even true IMAX!) just makes it look like you're watching something shot for TV in the 90s.  :-/ Anyway, it's still a great movie and by far the superior version of Justice League.  I wouldn't spit on the Joss Whedon version if it was on fire.  That version is *dead* to me!