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DC's Legends Of Tomorrow |OT| Macho Man Vandal Savage - Thursdays 8/7c

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L

legendaryskitch

Member
I'm kinda sick of Stein's shit with Jax. First you offer him alcohol that's spiked in the first episode and now you're all "lol too young to drink". Make up your mind, geez.
 
J

Joni

Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
It would be quite a coincidence if it keeps happening - it is not just two people the bounty hunter killed, there are numerous faceless goons they've been blasting with energy weapons and kung fuing without stopping to check the effects. Even if we assume that the absolute cold gun was set to stun and all of the goons are just sleeping, the huge number of changes being made to these people's lives that would not ever have happened if not for the time interlopers will build up over time. Increased health insurgence premiums on Vandal's rent a cops. A goon sent into a coma that fundamentally changes the lives of his children and the path they take. They simply don't care about these time disruptions because the plot says so, not because there is a mechanism of chronology protection that is logical.

On the other hand, if there is a chronology protection mechanism in force which made sure that 'roughly the same thing happened' with respect to things that humans arbitrarily deem 'important', why is it applied inconsistently? For example, why can Savage reverse engineer future tech to completely alter the timeline and take over the world hundreds of years sooner, why doesn't a meteor just coincidentally just fall from the sky and destroy the future tech to prevent the disruption? It is inconsistent - sometimes you can change the timeline radically and sometimes the timeline bends back into shape with minor alterations. Since metatime was solidifying with these new radically altered futures, we know it is conceptually possible for it to happen.
Click to expand...
There might need to be a strong change to actually impact the timeline. If they fail to find something, maybe Savage just kills them all. For instance, he kills all the prisoners and guards if the professor continues to fail to win the war. Hitler wins the war or Savage shoots him for losing. The mechanism preventing change might be Savage being a huge asshole. He lengthens the lives of his subordinates, but where did they go after the 70s when he turns up in Russia?

ThoseDeafMutes said:
The whole mission is based on the idea that you can kill Vandal Savage in the past, which will cause a major alteration to the future timeline, very likely to the point of preventing Rip Hunter's birth. Had he succeeded in killing him in Ancient Egypt, the disruption would be even more vast, given that he was an adviser to so many influential figures across history and his impact is undoubtedly far reaching.
Click to expand...
It is at the same time very unlikely they will kill Vandal Savage before 2016, they are going to change the future but only in such a way that the actions never changed the lives of those involved, outside of Rip. Whatever they do, they can't stop him before Oliver and Barry stop him.
 
F

foxtrot3d

Banned
Supermanisdead said:
Jax and Kendra are such bad actors like wow.
Click to expand...

It truly is astonishing how bad they are then again none of the other actors are particularly great except for maybe Bradon Routh and Victor Garber. Wentworth treads a thin line between hammy goodness and straight cringe.

ThoseDeafMutes said:
It would be quite a coincidence if it keeps happening - it is not just two people the bounty hunter killed, there are numerous faceless goons they've been blasting with energy weapons and kung fuing without stopping to check the effects. Even if we assume that the absolute cold gun was set to stun and all of the goons are just sleeping, the huge number of changes being made to these people's lives that would not ever have happened if not for the time interlopers will build up over time. Increased health insurgence premiums on Vandal's rent a cops. A goon sent into a coma that fundamentally changes the lives of his children and the path they take. They simply don't care about these time disruptions because the plot says so, not because there is a mechanism of chronology protection that is logical.

On the other hand, if there is a chronology protection mechanism in force which made sure that 'roughly the same thing happened' with respect to things that humans arbitrarily deem 'important', why is it applied inconsistently? For example, why can Savage reverse engineer future tech to completely alter the timeline and take over the world hundreds of years sooner, why doesn't a meteor just coincidentally just fall from the sky and destroy the future tech to prevent the disruption? It is inconsistent - sometimes you can change the timeline radically and sometimes the timeline bends back into shape with minor alterations. Since metatime was solidifying with these new radically altered futures, we know it is conceptually possible for it to happen.

The whole mission is based on the idea that you can kill Vandal Savage in the past, which will cause a major alteration to the future timeline, very likely to the point of preventing Rip Hunter's birth. Had he succeeded in killing him in Ancient Egypt, the disruption would be even more vast, given that he was an adviser to so many influential figures across history and his impact is undoubtedly far reaching.
Click to expand...

It's a show about time travel, plot holes are expected. For all we know the series ends with them accomplishing nothing as everything they did was always supposed to happen and they are the ones responsible for Vandal Savage becoming so powerful in the future by leaving behind future tech and knowledge. It already seems like Vandal Savage only became aware of and intentionally targeted Rip Hunter's family because he's tried to kill him so many times in the past.

But whatever:

DPLHiXo.gif
 
K

Kid Kamikaze10

Member
Man, those Jax/Kendra scenes really showed how much this series is being carried by the Rogues, Martin, and Sara.

Rough. I still really liked the episode though.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
Did Captain Cold and Heat Wave know that Oliver was Green Arrow in 2016? If not, I think Ray just made a huge mistake name-dropping like he did.
 
C

Chariot

Member
MrRemyJe said:
Did Captain Cold and Heat Wave know that Oliver was Green Arrow in 2016? If not, I think Ray just made a huge mistake name-dropping like he did.
Click to expand...
Ray is dropping shit left and right, it's actually in-character. This is not the guy you want to tell secrets to.
 
J

Johndoey

Banned
Ray is coming across as braindead in this episode so far, it's too much. Evil Russian lady is boring as all hell.

Hawkgirl's actress looks perpetually confused.

Jax ain't doing it for me.

WC is uninteresting but the fight scenes are fun.

Heatwave da bes.

Minor Ray-demption.

Low class Iceman is the real MVP.

Rory has really lost control since Amy left.

They really don't care about fucking with the timeline. Stein dropping too much shit.

The bromance is real.

So if one Firestorm person gets like a tat will a rough impression appear on the other? Because that should cause enough trauma right?

She flew that low, that close and they didn't see her?

God Jax your plan was just to fucking run at the breaker box?

Sera just shoot the fucking guards with him.

God Jax you suck.

None of those people who got nuked are important huh?

Fuck off Taco Bell.

Did Cold and Wave store that shit in the negative zone?

Is Darvill just drunk?

Ray is like "that sly mofo stole my company"

Conner so aggro.
 
L

Lucreto

Member
I am a bit behind in watching Arrow and The Flash, is there an episode in either series I need to watch before I start watching this?
 
E

Error

Jealous of the Glory that is Johnny Depp
Jax actor is pretty bad, I can only imagine how hard is it for Victor Garber to do scenes with him.

I enjoyed the episode overall, it's a good thing they finally succeded in a mission without massively fucking things up.

Heatwave and Captain Cold are killing it, though
 
Strife In a Teacup

Strife In a Teacup

Member
I liked the episode quite a bit, probably because I enjoyed Prison Break (at least the first couple seasons). Miller and Purcell definitely carried it for obvious reasons.
End with future Green Arrow/Connor Hawke was awesome.
 
M

Magwik

Banned
Lucreto said:
Thanks,

I need to catch up then. I am like episode 4 or 5 in each series.
Click to expand...

To be more specific, for Arrow you should be good only watching through episode 6, then episode 4 of the Flash, episode 8 of the Flash, followed by episode 8 of Arrow.
 
K

Kard8p3

Member
So..My question is: Assuming that our heroes get off the ship at the end of the season, when is Rip going to drop them off? The same time he picked them up? If so how could one reasonably expect these characters to get not involved in the Flash/Arrow stuff we're currently seeing? On the other hand, the heroes would get pretty pissed if he dropped them off several (weeks? months?) after he picked them up. Though I could see him being an ass like that.
 
S

ShadowSwordmaster

Banned
Kard8p3 said:
So..My question is: Assuming that our heroes get off the ship at the end of the season, when is Rip going to drop them off? The same time he picked them up? If so how could one reasonably expect these characters to get not involved in the Flash/Arrow stuff we're currently seeing? On the other hand, the heroes would get pretty pissed if he dropped them off several (weeks? months?) after he picked them up. Though I could see him being an ass like that.
Click to expand...

You gotta watch the show to find out :p
 
M

mechashiva

Member
For a second I had a problem with the people in the gulag then thought about the fact that it was the worst Russian gulag. People didn't leave those things.
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
Joni said:
There might need to be a strong change to actually impact the timeline. If they fail to find something, maybe Savage just kills them all. For instance, he kills all the prisoners and guards if the professor continues to fail to win the war. Hitler wins the war or Savage shoots him for losing. The mechanism preventing change might be Savage being a huge asshole. He lengthens the lives of his subordinates, but where did they go after the 70s when he turns up in Russia?
Click to expand...

What I'm sayin' is that the show is trying to have its cake and eat it too. If the future "must" be protected so there is only one single timeline which all time travel takes place in (i.e. a stable time loop), you cannot make changes, period, no matter how small they seem to humans. If chronology preservation is necessary, the precise position of a rock on the ground of a national park is just as important to preserve as whether or not Hitler lives or dies in 1933. On the other hand, if the timeline does not "need" to be protected physically speaking (the time masters care about the events of the timeline but they are humans and have an anthropocentric view of things), then there is no actual reason for these cutesy time conveniences to happen whereby people who die were going to die in 24 hours anyway. These represent two different, logically incompatible physical principles. On the one hand the timeline cares, on the other hand it does not. It cares about things that are significant to humans, but not about things that are considered "small potatos" by humans. If you want to change big things, you've gotta try harder! Why is it harder to change them? No real reason except that it adds drama when people can't change things until their final super dramatic attempt.

As the SF Chronophysics guide writes on "elastic" timelines (basically what we're talking about):

This is essentially a muddled compromise between Types One and Three, and requires an implausibly purposive history‐defending force. But as it makes modifying the future more of a challenge, it is common in Time‐Cop and Temporal‐Imperialist scenarios such as “The Legion of Time” (Williamson), “The End of Eternity” (Asimov), or “The Big Time” (Leiber), as well as in comedies such as (recent) Red Dwarf.

Plots set in Type Two Time Lines make use of both Closed Loop and Loose End paradoxes, which are logically incompatible – hence the proliferation of unnatural causal glitches and duff chronophysics in such stories. Ancestricides can never be sure what will happen; often they vanish or mutate to fit the new history, for no clearly apparent reason beyond literary tradition. Part of the problem here is the vagueness of motivation in the change‐resisting force. What are its priorities? Is it trying to minimise the degree or duration of the divergence, the improbability of its corrections, or the number of witnesses? Is it allowed for instance to preserve recorded history by annihilating all incoming Time Machines via quantum miracle?
Click to expand...

Indeed, we've already seen this exact stuff in the CWverse - In Flash S1, the finale is an auto-ancestricide to kill the main villain. The main villain is erased from history... but all of the things he already did are still real, despite him having never been born and being killed by it. So local history was unchanged, literally completely unchanged, but the dude was never born. Meaning that we have the loose ends of a mutable timeline, while also preserving all of the things that the now non-existent character did, without any kind of alternate explanation. In reality, the reason is "bad writing".


It is at the same time very unlikely they will kill Vandal Savage before 2016, they are going to change the future but only in such a way that the actions never changed the lives of those involved, outside of Rip. Whatever they do, they can't stop him before Oliver and Barry stop him.
Click to expand...

I agree that they won't, but only because it would narratively disrupt the other shows, while Legends is supposed to be self contained. They will probably have a crossover at the end of the season where they take him out in "the present day" or similar.

Also, I don't think they're going to go for a "they can't change things" type twist, because as an apparently brilliant Time Master with the aide of a time travel-experienced AI, Rip should have intimate knowledge of time travel physics. It wouldn't make sense, given what we've seen for that to happen.
 
S

Skux

Member
Is this the first time they've actually shown Heat Wave's burns? Pretty sure they've never even mentioned them before.
 
B

BewareTheBatsie

Member
Joni said:
Someone like Heatwave wouldn't be weird to have tattoos
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Tattoos either seem like fine for an actor to have, or an absolute hell for the make-up team. I know there's one show I watch where the lead actor is inked so much that it must be hell when he's in a tank-top. They actually had to work in one of his tattoos as a plot-point because they knew they wouldn't be able to cover it up every episode.
 
Z

ZeroX03

Banned
Why didn't Cold and Jax go shirtless this episode? That's more important than silly time travel rules.

BewareTheBatsie said:
Tattoos either seem like fine for an actor to have, or an absolute hell for the make-up team. I know there's one show I watch where the lead actor is inked so much that it must be hell when he's in a tank-top. They actually had to work in one of his tattoos as a plot-point because they knew they wouldn't be able to cover it up every episode.
Click to expand...

Stephen Amell's scars and tattoos on Arrow are very time consuming to put on. And when actors go shirtless they obviously want to work out a lot beforehand. Nobody likes the shirtless stuff except the audience, but boy do we love it.
 
B

BewareTheBatsie

Member
ZeroX03 said:
Stephen Amell's scars and tattoos on Arrow are very time consuming to put on. And when actors go shirtless they obviously want to work out a lot beforehand. Nobody likes the shirtless stuff except the audience, but boy do we love it.
Click to expand...
I had to laugh when Oliver lost the dragon tattoo in the premiere and he's gives this bullshit reason and I'm just like 'between this and the wig going, someone on the make-up department is getting tired'.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Sara going in the Lazarus Pit got rid of her own scars since she had a decent set herself.
 
H

Hours Left

Member
ZeroX03 said:
Stephen Amell's scars and tattoos on Arrow are very time consuming to put on. And when actors go shirtless they obviously want to work out a lot beforehand. Nobody likes the shirtless stuff except the audience, but boy do we love it.
Click to expand...
But then they had an opportunity to explain away all the tattoos for Oliver, and they only got rid of the least intrusive one. :/
 
B

BewareTheBatsie

Member
Hours Left said:
But then they had an opportunity to explain away all the tattoos for Oliver, and they only got rid of the least intrusive one. :/
Click to expand...
The dragon tattoo was one forcefully given to him by Slade as a mark of shame so I can see why he got rid of that one. One tattoo comes in handy for whenever Oliver needs help from the Russian mob and the other is probably only there since in either the flashbacks or the present, the
lettering given to him by Constantine will come to play for something.
 
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