thornsthorns Reviews

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Jane Austen in Space. Wrong Genre: Rainbow Melodrama not Science Fiction

[5/10 · 15 April 2024]

This is such a stupid series, at least if you're a star trek fan. Star trek is a scifi genre show. Science Fiction is meant to take centre stage, not relationship melodrama, and especially not rainbow preaching melodrama.

If i wanted to watch teenage female angst ridden jane austen in space, i would rather watch something else like the twilight twinkle series.

This is not a scifi show. Scifi merely takes a backfoot, backdrop in the series. The few episodes where it takes centre stage are the best rated ones, but they are few and far between.

Majority of the show is rainbow relationship preaching melodrama, will she, won't she, relationship nonsense between all the crews.

If you like relationship nonsense, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with it. But it won't be a scifi show.

Star trek always had very little focus on relationships. It was used sparingly to accentuate a storyline, not drown you in it. This show drowns you in nonsense melodrama.

I would review it lower, if not for being a big fan of star trek. If this was the first star trek show i ever watched, i probably would never jave watched it again.

Avatar (2009)

Cringe clichéd movie

[4/10 · 20 January 2023]

Usual white saviour tropes. Story line is a cross between pocahontas and ferngully the last rainforest.

It's financial success is built purely on social hype and visual effects.

White male has to save native people and does everything better than native people even though rhe natives have been living their forever.

He's so superior, the female natives fall for him.

It's so cringe worthy it's painful to watch.

The only good thing about the movie is the visual effects.

But i don't this series will last the test of time.

A film purely built on visual effects and nothing else, becomes worthless as visual effects improve. This movie is nothing more than overhyped social marketing trick.

Superman: Red Son (2020 Video)

cringey America best propoganda of the red menace

[4/10 · 26 April 2020]

Terrible storyline that should have been an incredible story given its premise.

Given the comic was just as cringeworthy, in its dialogue and storyline, its hard to be surprised.

A real pity. As if it wasn't written by brainwashed people pushing a brainwashed ideology into their work, but actually approached the subject as a neutral, written impartially instead of shoving the superiority complex of blind patriotism into the viewers faces and mouths, it could have been as good as the dark Knight trilogy.

Instead it's a hack job piece.

Designated Survivor (2016–2019)

Everyone Hating on this show cos it's not pandering to their stereotypes

[6/10 · 28 October 2017]

It makes you wonder the level of intelligence of the people who reviewed this show.

That the main reason majority that hated it and reviewed it so low, was because it stereotypes white people as evil, brown people as victims and black people as heroes.

So basically the Hollywood stereotypes of the last 100 years are reversed, and the white folks are hating it. Every review hating on this show nearly always is about this.

It says a lot that those same people, also say in their reviews they love shows like 24 where the exact same racial stereotypes are portrayed, but in the right order. White man good, black man stupid, brown man evil.

So to review the show, depending on whether you are right wing or left wing, you will love or hate this show.

For me, i found it acceptable, though largely idealistic and unrealistic reaction wise.

It is the idealised version of how an American president should be. The great loving father, husband and civil servant, without the ego, greed and corruption that politicians are rife with. With the usual twists and turns, unless they change it up again.

America: Imagine the World Without Her (2014)

Revisionist Garbage marketed as being correcting revisionist history

[1/10 · 15 October 2014]

Revisionist Garbage marketed as being correcting revisionist history Anyone with a semblance of understanding of philosophy, history and logic can tell you the garbage this video puts forth.

It uses logical fallacies such as confirmation bias, circular reasoning, ad hominem attacks, begging the question,equivocation, false dilemma choice etc.

It regularly suggests there is only two options two possible outcomes, either what happened or a horrible second alternative, when in truth there are myriads of 3rd, 4th, 5th and multiple other sequences of events that could have happened or actions been done by America.

It regularly uses the argument everyone else was doping this evil, therefore this wasn't evil. Except any non-biased fool can tell you, two wrongs do not make a right, and evil will always be evil.

And that is the liberal argument, that this film with its slick message tries to discredit.

the liberal argument is not that America is worse than say Nazi Germany, USSR, British Colonialism, just that it is our modern present day remaining Colonialist Imperialist nation.

Throughout history there has always been one, committing horrible crimes on the weaker nations to devour their resources and increase its own imperial agendas. and now in the 20th and 21st century, that nation happens to be the USA. the only remaining nation.

All the other nations are too weak individually to do it, and suffer from the problem of Mutually Assured Destruction if they try to. So America leads the way, and the other nations follow like the sidekicks of criminals.

Sadly this program seems mind opening with its flash marketing skills, and the verbosity of its words, and deliverance, but when it comes to the staple of its argument it is deficient.

Much like modern American junk food, nutritiously non-existent, artificial, chemically laced, poisonous, and laced with hyper fat, hyper sugar, hyper stimulants, addictive agents and feel good compounds.

keep on a diet such as this and you will end up suffering from its consequences.

or you can wake up, and realise what this tripe is for what it is, accept the truth and improve your body, your nation.

Or leave it as it is, and let America the nation die of obesity, diabetes, hearth disease, liver failure and every other metaphorical example you can think of.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Great film - Only reason critically slammed by the Hollywood institutions is because it doesn't pamper to western patriotic revisionist history of the wild west

[9/10 · 9 October 2013]

Great film - Only reason critically slammed by the Hollywood institutions is because it doesn't pamper to western patriotic revisionist history of the wild west.

The critics were slamming this film from the beginning, but for only one reason. This film shows reality as it really was back then and is now.

Hollywood likes spewing out propaganda, this film doesn't spew out jingoistic revisionist rhetoric that you see in the films of Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg or George Lucas or the others like to brainwash the stupid masses with.

Excellent writing, directing, and storytelling. Only problem that modern MTV generation might have with it, is the slow pace to the storytelling.

If you can't stand to watch films, that do not to have an action scene, explosion or sex scene every 5minutes, then you probably won't like this film. As the film is spread out over 2hrs for a reason. Good stories usually need time to sink you in.

Zeitgeist (2007 Video)

Ignore the first 36minutes which are misleading and poor to be honest

[9/10 · 24 March 2013]

The first 36minutes or part 1 factually, logically, historically very poor (though not completely, but enough to make it cringe-worthy when they mention links that are poorly related like Buddha's mother and the constellation Virgo or Jesus having 12 disciples when actually it was much much more), but once it gets past the Christianity bashing, it gets into the juicy bits.

the rest is must see viewing, as it is the best summary of the present political world climate we are in. It will give you basically in a nutshell everything you need to know about why your government behaves the way it does.

You may find it unbelievable, but once you read all the information, past and present, the picture is pretty obvious.

The Expendables (2010)

Bollywood action movies of the last century make a Hollywood comeback

[5/10 · 13 November 2012]

Bollywood action movies of the last century make a Hollywood comeback.

Seriously ridiculous movies both expendables. if it is deliberate then great spoof, if it was meant to be taken seriously then *face palm fail*.

Just loud, brass, obnoxious, crude, ridiculous, and corny. The fight scenes remind me of something out of a Bollywood Rajnikunth movie, where an old man beats up a hundred people with machine guns with nothing but his hands and fist, without getting shot or scratched at all. Whilst doing ridiculously corny cool poses and tough guy lines.

If this was a movie done by anyone other than big Hollywood names, it would be laughed out of the box office as a pile of tripe.

But the big names, make it a big movie.

Entertaining enough, but nothing special. A 6 at best when history will look back on it.

The Expendables 2 (2012)

Cheesy Action movies of the last century makes a Hollywood comeback

[7/10 · 13 November 2012]

Bollywood action movies of the last century make a Hollywood comeback.

Seriously ridiculous movies both expendables. Expendables 2 seems more like a deliberate spoof than expendables 1, and wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

But its still loud, brass, obnoxious, crude, ridiculous, and corny. The fight scenes remind me of something out of a Bollywood Rajnikunth movie, where an old man beats up a hundred people with machine guns with nothing but his hands and fist, without getting shot or scratched at all. Whilst doing ridiculously corny cool poses and tough guy lines.

If this was a movie done by anyone other than big Hollywood names, it would be laughed out of the box office as a pile of tripe.

But the big names, make it a big movie.

Entertaining enough, but nothing special. A 7 at best when history will look back on it.

The Perfect Human Diet (2012)

Misguided and Flawed - Goes from one extreme to another extreme

[8/10 · 25 September 2012]

The entire documentary is all built on flawed logic, flawed assumptions and flawed conjectures. basic gist is, since evolution and history says that for 99.9% of human history we humans have been hunter gatherers, our diet should be like that. But that is a very flawed way of thinking. Just because our ancestors were meat eaters doesn't mean meat is better than vegetables for us. Our ancestors were not exactly optimizing their potential, just because they were living like animals. Evolution does not create perfect scenarios and perfect species of perfect health, that is a fallacy this documentary is based on. It assumes our ancestors were eating a diet, that they had perfectly evolved into. Which is not the case. While i agree with half the documentary (the half condemning modern diet of processed foods), the other half of it is a load of pile of false truths and false logics. I present here some of these flaws the documentary ignores. 1) Our ancestors no doubt starved many months, many weeks, many days of the year, through winter, when they could not find hunt food to the point where many no doubt died. This documentary completely ignores this fact when promoting this high meat diet theory. 2) Our ancestors also ate insects, larvae, and other unhealthy and disgusting things, at no point do they start promoting a diet of insects. Which again is another example of picking and choosing history. 3) Our ancestors also didn't bath or clean themselves at all. No one would say poor hygiene and living and eating like a wild dog is better for us, just because our ancestors did it for millions of years. So why use the same premise for dieting? 4) another example since our ancestors never exercised and only exerted themselves when hunting, optimal health means we should not exercise unless chasing a deer. Which they probably only did once a month for a few minutes and only in large groups. 5) historically human societies have been fishermen rather than hunters. This a fact the video ignores, as game food was not guaranteed whist fish from the ocean or rivers largely was. Thus most civilizations were situated on coastlines and near rivers. Ultimately the point is, our ancestors did not have an optimal best perfect diet, trying to mimic them is like trying to copy a C student in an exam, you are not going to better a better grade. This is the poor logic used in this DVD, which is flawed. If you look at native aborigine populations in south America, Australia who are following very much our ancestors diet, and look at the athletes from the Olympics, anyone with half a brain can tell that the athletes in the Olympics are healthier and better. Our ancestors also rarely lived beyond 40, average lifespan was probably around in the late 30's. so evolution hasn't engineered the paleo-primal diet to exactly keep our body ship shape beyond 40 (going by their own logic). So that's another flaw in using the logic of our ancestors diet is evolutionary wise the best for us. Frankly documentary is a load of baloney. But they are right in that the paleo-primal diet is a million times better than the modern processed sugar, salt, spices, oils artificial chemical diet we have in the 21st century. But they need to De-emphasise the meat intake, as our ancestors if anything like normal hunter gatherers would most likely have not had much meat in their diet as consistently as modern lifestyles or the paleo-primal diet likes to infer. As you can't exactly catch and cook a deer with a spear 3 times a day. Even lions eat only once a week in the wild, sometimes once a month periodically, and even starve when the herd migrates. As hunting eating food isn't exactly on the dot, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner time like we have made nowadays. Saying completely no to wheat is a fallacy as no doubt our ancestors must have eaten wild grain, in order for them to become farmers of the stuff. So it was part of their diet, which documentary ignores.

Gattaca (1997)

probably the most realistic and likely depiction of human social future in the short term

[8/10 · 17 October 2011]

Whilst the film itself is not the most entertaining. It is quite slow, not many twists and turns, no action, etc. It is nonetheless a very interesting depiction of the future.

In my opinion this film may end up being seen as prophetic of human society. Much like how 1984 and brave new world are considered. So for this reason alone it would be interesting for anyone to watch.

So i have bumped up the film from what i would normally give as a 7 to an 8.

Whilst the film itself is not the most entertaining. It is quite slow, not many twists and turns, no action, etc. It is nonetheless a very interesting depiction of the future.

In my opinion this film may end up being seen as prophetic of human society. Much like how 1984 and brave new world are considered. So for this reason alone it would be interesting for anyone to watch.

So i have bumped up the film from what i would normally give as a 7 to an 8.

The World Without US (2008 Video)

Very biased and One sided look at US role in the world, and what could potentially happen if the US became isolationary.

[1/10 · 13 April 2011]

To be honest the documentary is quite entertaining enough, but due to its excessively biased viewpoint (hidden by an air of neutrality) it frankly made the whole program a worthless endeavour on an educational front. A more realistic neutral outlook of the US and what would happen to the world without the US would have been better. Its really A 1.5 hr long justification of US military imperialism.

The whole program is merely geared towards justifying US occupation of other nations on the 3 grounds 1) The world needs the US to police it, as no one else is willing to do it 2) US is doing it out of global interests including the invading peoples interests, and other countries benefit. And these people want them there. 3) The world would descend into ww3 if the US became isolationary

Frankly I found the documentary to be just to ridiculous. While it makes a few interesting points its really all just propaganda.

Examples of its biased arguments are

1) Kuwaitis live better than Americans, therefore invasion of Iraq and liberation of Kuwait was a good thing and not about stealing oil.

Completely ignores how Iraqis' were murdered in their millions due to the occupation and their oil was and is being stolen by the billion. It's just disappearing. Completely ignores the fact that Kuwaitis number only a million people, and stealing trillions of dollars of oil from Iraq and Kuwait, whilst keeping a million Kuwaitis happy with no taxes is not hard. Try doing that to a nation the size of Iraq, and the whole of Middle East it's not so easy.

2) If US does not interfere genocide will occur in these countries like in Yugoslavia, that is why the US interferes militarily. And the people of these countries want them to save them.

It delves into the collapse of Yugoslavia and justifies US military interference of other nations, on the reasoning US was the only one that stopped the civil war there, no one else did. And tries to imply that is why the US is invading other countries. But then brushes over the fact that the US chose not to interfere in many other instances of genocides. Which occurred before and after Yugoslavia and still do to this day.

3) WW2 started in Asia with the invasion by Japan? Where the hell did they get this oxford professor from?

The oxford professor (Niall ferguson - who seems to have this habit of justifying the crimes of western imperialists too often from rothchilds to kissinger) they use in this program really has a skewered version of history, it's almost laughable if it wasn't for the fact he is being taken seriously as a professional. WW2 started in Europe, anyone with half a brain knows that. WW2 militarily started in Europe with the axis and allies forming their little groups, which then guaranteed war. They were militarising their armies and industries 10 years before the war even started, both sides, both the allies and the axis. WW2 economic and political causes lay in WW1 another world war started by Europe. Japan joined the axis, but did not start the war. This program tries to lie about this.

4) Israel will be wiped off the face of the map quite easily if the US did not protect it, due to its weak and small military.

This is such a HUGE lie. The Israeli military has NUCLEAR weapons, state of the art military navy, air and land force. The entire Middle East could not stand more than 1 week against the Israeli military, and that is a fact that this program lies completely about.

5) Middle east would descend into chaos, and the Middle Eastern people want the US there. They do not feel it is right for the US to benefit from their oil, without guaranteeing civil peace there.

Again another huge lie. The vast majority of people in the Middle East do not want the US or any western country on their soil. Whilst it is true if the US left, the Middle East would potentially descend into chaos. That chaos would not last for more than a few years if not more than a few months. The Middle East does not have a manufacturing industry unlike the west, and a sustained war is not possible without bullets, guns, tanks, grenades, missiles, choppers etc. So none of the nations in the Middle East would last long in a war with their neighbouring nation for long. If they had to rely on their own military and manufacturing industries. They would be forced into becoming 1 giant nation either by 1 side winning, or by the need for peace.

This of course assumes the US also leaves the Middle East militarily and financially by not selling arms to both sides, etc. One of the reason the Iran Iraq war last for nearly a decade was due to the fact that the US-EU were selling arms ILLEGALLY to both sides, Iraq and Iran, so no side gained an advantage. And trying to drag the war out for as long as possible to destroy their industries and get them into usury debt. Known as the Iran-contra affair.

…………………CONTINUED ON FORUMS DUE TO WORLD LIMIT FOR FULL REVIEW

House of Saddam (2008)

I'm no fan of Saddam, but the level of propaganda and lies in this program stops it from being anything but complete fiction

[1/10 · 9 December 2009]

I'm no fan of Saddam, but the level of propaganda and lies in this program stops it from being anything but complete fiction.

He is shown like a cross between an Hitler, godfather and a coward.

The film really seems to serve no purpose other than as a propaganda tool.

Again i am no fan of the guy, but history and programs pretending to historical or based on history, should remain factually true, or at the very least spiritually true to the events.

This program is neither, but nonetheless is entertaining enough i suppose. But if you want that kind of entertainment your better off watching sopranos or the original godfather trilogy.