Isolation marathon (Part 6).

Man, took me awhile to get to this one, huh?
Sorry 'bout that.
Y'know, stuff going on...
Anyhoo!!
Superhero trilogies!!


Captain America trilogy.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Old reviews-

First Avenger.
Winter Soldier.
Civil War.

Yep, instead of always keeping the whole MCU in one big iceberg all the time, I decided to sift characters out.
Wanted to see how just the Caps play as a trilogy pretending I didn't see any of the others.
Holy shit, do they play!!

Fuck it, I'll say it, best trilogy in the MCU, and tied with Dark Knight for best superhero trilogy, period.

Yeah, the Avengers movies are incredible, but they're a quadrilogy.
Disqualified by math y'see.

Speaking of Dark Knight...


The Dark Knight Trilogy.
Batman Begins (2005)
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Old reviews-

Begins.
Knight.
Rises.

It's like binge-ing a miniseries.
Magnificent.
Goddamned masterpiece.
And for the trillionth time, fuck the "Rises", haters.
With a lotion dipped icicle.


Snyder-verse trilogy.
Man Of Steel (2013)
Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016)
Justice League (2017)

Old reviews-

MoS
BvS
JL

Another epic miniseries.
And no, I didn't watch this cuz of the Snyder Cut of JL coming soon; it was on the list when I started in March after the last one of these.

And the JL Whedon Cut bashers can kiss my balls too.
Is it a perfect film?
Hell no.
But I love the humor, and it's a breath of fresh air after the gloom in BvS.
I love BvS, I'm just saying.
We needed a "Return Of The Jedi", after BvS's Empire.
Maybe the Snyder Cut will be bright and happy too, but I doubt it.


Classic Superman.
Superman The Movie (1978)
Superman II (1980)
Superman III (1983)

Old reviews here.

They still hold up!
And I still defend 3.
It has great moments.

Now, I left out 4, and Returns, cuz the original 3 were planned out as a trilogy.
1 & 2 were shot back to back, and 3 is advertised right in the credits of 2.
4 was a cash grab from Cannon, and Returns was retroactive decades later.


Raimi Spider-Man.
Spider-Man (2002)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Original reviews here.

Love me some Kirsten Dunst.
Although, Mary Jane is kind of a crybaby brat in 3.
Anyway, I didn't get to complete this trilogy, cuz it turns out my DVD of 3 is broken.
It gets to when Sandman re-constitutes himself from mud, and starts to break up, and then when bad-Peter goes to the jazz club, it crashes.
If I bother to replace 3, I may as well upgrade all 3 to blu-ray.
On the list that goes....


Hulk (jury-rigged)
Hulk (2003)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Thor Ragnarok (2017)

Old reviews of the first two here and here.
Ragnarok here.

Now, I explained my logic of why I canonize Ang Lee's Hulk in the second link, but here it is again...

...you can kinda make this work in continuity with the other one.
If you pretend the gamma ray chair is a failed cure, instead of what turned him, and that the reason he doesn't grow three sizes anymore, is Absorbing Man drained off his extra radiation.

Why would you want to keep this one?
Well, all the other heroes have some emotional backstory, but you don't quite get that in the Ed Norton one.
With this one, you get that Banner's emotional baggage comes from his psycho dad.

And, that gives another layer to the Banner/Stark friendship in Avengers, they both have daddy issues.

Yeah, this one is in my canon.

Plus, it was Universal's intention that it be canon.
"Hulk", ends with Banner hiding in South America, and "The Incredible Hulk", picks right up with Banner in South America.

As for Ragnarok...you may as well call it "Planet Hulk".
Marvel was giving the finger to Universal yet again.
Come on, kids, play nice.
Don't make me come up there.

Anyway, of course Ragnarok totally blows the other two away, but it's a fun journey getting there through the other two.


First Class Trilogy.
X-Men: First Class (2011)
X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Old reviews-

First Class.
Future Past.
Apocalypse.

Y'know...these are the only X-Men movies you really need.
There's nothing in the continuity of the others you desperately miss.
These tell the whole story just fine.

Apocalypse is this trilogy's "Superman 3".
Kinda overblown and goofy, but has wonderful moments.
And its flaws aren't nearly enough to ruin the first two.
Also, there's a nice meta moment where they slam their own movie by having Jean Grey walking out of "Return Of The Jedi", and saying "third ones are always the worst".

I leave out "Dark Phoenix", for similar reasons to "Superman 4".
The trilogy was done, we didn't need a tack-on.

Y'know, the X-Men are really meatier richer characters than the Avengers, they deserve better movies.
These are great, but the MCU needs to do the Dark Phoenix Saga right.
In the comics, that shit makes Infinity War & Endgame look like fucking Carebears.
C'mon, Hollywood, get your goddamned shit together.
Bring Comicbookgirl19 on as an advisor.


Dragon Tattoo/Millennium trilogy.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009)
The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009)
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2009)

Old reviews here.

Glorious.
I need to upgrade to the 3 hour cuts on blu-ray.
They either weren't available in the US when I got them on DVD, or they were ridiculously over priced. I can't remember which.

Now, fuck it, I want everything.
The 3 hours cuts of the Swedish ones, the Roony Mara remake, and "Spider's Web".

And, it bears mentioning the TV series is coming.
Again, as with Snyder Cut, it wasn't planned that way, these were on the list way before the news dropped.

So....why does Lisbeth go on a list of superheroes?
I think she's pop-culturally significant enough to count.
Plus, every superhero doesn't have to have powers.
Batman doesn't.
Punisher doesn't.
Hawkeye doesn't.
Black Widow doesn't.
She hacks, he rides a motorcycle, she uses martial arts and gizmos to bring down bigger guys.
She's basically Batgirl.
An R rated anti-rapist Batgirl without a cape and cowl.

Her only flaw is she needed a better writer for her second trilogy.
Maybe the Amazon show-runners will do better.
Here's hoping.


Tenchi Muyo Movies.
Tenchi The Movie: Tenchi Muyo In Love (1996)
Tenchi The Movie 2: Daughter Of Darkness (1997)
Tenchi Forever (1999)

Old reviews here.

Haven't seen these in ages, and it was about time, I figured.
Plus, I needed to get some anime in there.
Plus, classier animes like Cowboy Bebop don't have trilogies.
Bebop did exactly one goddamned movie.
Ditto Evangelion.
So, Tenchi it is.

Think last time I saw these was my 30's.
Been a lot of growth and change since then, and a lot of water under the bridge with this franchise, I needed to see how I saw them as a 40-something.

Well....differently.
A lot differently.
But the nostalgia glimmers were still there.

To be really sure, I also watched these in Japanese with subtitles for the first time ever, so even the American voice actors wouldn't influence me.

Well...

Tenchi 1/TMIL,...is okay.
It's "Back To The Future", meets "Terminator", with the ending of "Ghostbusters".
Tenchi has to go back in time, and save his parents, or he'll get erased, and there's a big "blow up the giant monster", fight at the end.
Pretty shallow and fluffy.
The love story between his parents is sugary bordering on cringe.
You could plug the characters of any anime series into this plot.
Pretty basic.
But..you could do worse.
Again, it's...okay.
Not an unrestrained thumbs up.
Not all the way to wavey-hand.
Just okay.


Tenchi 2/DoD...is, well, it's better than TMIL.
Not by leaps and bounds, but an improvement.
The villain of TMIL was just a paper thin mustache twirler with no backstory or motivation.
He just blew shit up.
The villains in 2 & 3 are mind-fuckers, and that suits the tone of Tenchi better.
Here, we get Yuzuha who clones a daughter for Tenchi, Mayuka, who's an unwitting/unwilling mole agent sent to capture Tenchi to get petty revenge on Tenchi's grandpa.

The story of the Tenchi family warming up to Mayuka is sugary bordering on cringe (like the Tenchi's parents love story in TMIL).
BUT, the sugary cringe is contrasted with really dark shit where Yuzaha tries to force hypnotic incest between Mayuka and Tenchi for...shits and giggles, basically.
Anime is fucking weird.

But, overall, the characters have more depth, and pathos, and drama, and humor than TMIL, so again, it's still flawed, but an improvement.


Tenchi Forever.
Best of the three, hands down.

Plot is, the ghost of Tenchi's grandpa's former girlfriend kidnaps Tenchi to a parallel holodeck fantasy world where they live and fuck in a Groundhog Day forever.
Ryoko and Aeka have to save him before the holodeck-verse absorbs his lifeforce and collapses.

This one held up.
This genuinely plays with your feels without the sugar and/or cringe.
And the animation and score are gorgeous.
I LOVE this score.
They got the formula right this time.
This is the Ryoko and Ayeka I remember.
I wasn't hallucinating.
This franchise did have shining moments to recommend it.
Now I have to re-watch the series.

Well, I have shows for a future episode of these, on that list it goes.


So, there, that iceberg chunk is finally done.
Next up, superhero duologies.
Cuz a surprising amount of great series stalled out at two.
Hopefully, those will fly by quicker.