Hacker Cinema
Loki
2021 · TV series · 2 seasons
Created by Michael Waldron
After stealing the Tesseract during the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” an alternate version of Loki is brought to the mysterious Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space and monitors the timeline. They give Loki a choice: face being erased from existence due to being a “time variant” or help fix the timeline and stop a greater threat.
13 positive4 negative3 mixed18 neutralfrom 38 commenters
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39 comments on Hacker News
Is it typical to use language like “split into two” for the many worlds interpretation? There should be oodles of universes forking off constantly, right? Rather than thinking of lines, I think of a vast, almost continuous field of imperceptibly different universes.
> Both world lines won't know about the split, except by observing a large scale extinction event that corresponds to the other world line departing. IMO, that's the idea behind the famous judgement day.
This looks more like the Loki television show’s timeline branching mechanism, than the multi-worlds interpretation of wave function collapse.
The only way I’ll know if the many worlds interpretations the right one is if, through a series of coincidences, I manage to evade death for a preposterous amount of time. Then, I will probably conclude that quantum immortality is the thing. So far, I think it is a bit suspicious that, of all the humans I could have been born as, I happened to have been born as one that lives in an incredibly rich country in an era of rapid technological advancement…
There's definitely a correlation between higher spectacle and poorer storytelling and less artful visuals. I was discussing this recently specifically in the context of less 'cinematic' cinematography in VFX-heavy super hero films and arrived at three primary conclusions:
* There are specific reasons for this correlation driven by the additional on-set shooting requirements placed on the cinematographer, lighting director and camera team to support VFX. This takes time and focus away from artfully lighting and lensing the live action elements and producers don't always budget sufficient time for both. When something has to give, it isn't going to be shooting the VFX plates.
* There are specific aesthetic reasons driving this. On a film with 2000 VFX elements that will later be layered into almost every live action scene, the cinematographer and lighting director are understandably reluctant to light or lens expressively beautiful shots because matching those shots can be more challenging for the VFX teams. It's easier (and faster) for everyone if the cinematographer lights and lenses with a more flat look. I recently saw an interview with the cinematographer on the Marvel series Loki (Season 2) and he said that he talked extensively with the VFX director specifically about this issue and the VFX director was unique in telling him, "Nope, shoot it how you really want to and we'll match you." Obviously, this was enabled in-part by the Marvel-level budget and talent. But it's interesting that it's rare enough to be notable.
* Ultimately, there's good evidence that VFX-heavy films don't have to look "flat HDR boring". We have counter-examples like "The Batman" (2022) proving a VFX-soaked super hero movie with beautifully expressive lighting and principle photography is possible. It's just hard, requires more time and money and you need highly skilled people.
The thread is here and includes links to several good videos with example clips: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43560111
When Corridor Digital was analyzing the really impressive time spaghetti effect in Loki season 2 they said "there are two kinds of CGI artists. The kind that use the buttons and the kind the program the buttons."
> Flagged
If we had to flag submissions for occasional faults...
For that matter, signs of grave intellectual deficiency are at the beginning already, at
> shooting ... debris up to 20 miles (32.1 kilometers) in the air
Where you are told that volcanic debris has 100 meters precision, starting from a figure that has 16 kilometers fault of precision (use of "precision" here imprecise). These people should not be allowed to leave the house, they fail verification of intellectual competence at the basics (use of "verification" here imprecise). Yet... Yet sometimes their effort does not lead to complete disaster. Be very wary as they are wearing flashing warning lights, but do not throw away the good if it miraculously is there.
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Edit: and it contains a chunk, «In episodes of the TV series “Doctor Who” and “Loki”». By coincidence, the next the eyes met came to be the shout of TheConversation: «Academic rigour, journalistic flair». What do we do, we throw away all of it? Probably not. It is a very imperfect world.
A lot of the shows you have listed were created by traditional networks (a lot of HBO and FX).
I haven't seen any of the Apple TV shows yet, but a lot of the other streaming ones I think prove my point. Mandalorian is okay. Loki is okay. (I Think You Should Leave is a good one though).
Which I believe was the inspiration for the Time Variance Authority in the Loki TV Series.
Comment follow-up explaination to orginal post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38418678
More 'neutral' western cultural reference would be greek fates & weaving timelines [0]
So, emacs uses lisp s-expression / tree of lists structure projected onto 2d picture tube plane.
Interactive 3d display allows for 'true' volumetric presentation / interaction with lisp emacs lists/tree nodes/branches without all the extra bulky devices getting in the way (keyboard, mouse, emacs key sequences, etc). Loomless thread weaving.
'Minority Report' interface in a cube box?
Better lead in might have introduced Pal Alto visual programming language where irl objects used to program/as program -- where above device would allow for not just irl but virutal interaction.
Wrong generation for punch lines on punchcard for notational reference, just dry e-ink pixelated spreadsheet points.
Loki tv show spoiler alert
Pehaps the ending of season 2 Loki, where grabs all the timelines/threads is a better 'emacs' picture?
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[0] : https://www.thecollector.com/fates-greek-mythology/
> Even stupid things like searching for the Wikipedia entry of a movie or TV show has become super difficult with Google lately, because Wikipedia is often buried
I'm always amazed to see claims like this, given it's not how my world works at all. Picking some random popular favorites: searches for (verbatim) "Loki", "Hunger Games", "Oppenheimer", and "House of Usher" all return a wikipedia entry in at worst the second spot (generally behind IMDB, though Oppenheimer and Usher showed the real man and the short story ahead of the films, not unsurprisingly).
I mean, sure, there are glitches with all products and nothing is beyond criticism. But "Google buries Wikipedia results" is just beyond weird. It really seems like HN is starting to develop an "alternative facts" syndrome, where the echo chamber starts driving collective memory.
I think they’ve also hit the limits of escalation. That’s the ultimate problem with a large shared cinematic universe. They’ve had to keep escalating the big baddies and now there’s really nowhere to go but down. They haven’t built out the “infrastructure” to focus on the storytelling quality, just what they need to pump out splashy hollywood blockbusters. It’s not like Star Wars where they can tell an infinite number of interesting stories with the endless back and forth between the Empire and Rebel factions in the background.
Where do you go after Thanos wiping out half the universe with the flick of a finger? Thanos 2.0 wiping out 2/3rds of the universe? Who gives a shit. Deadpool is invincible. Scarlet Witch is basically a god. So is Vision. Loki is literally capable of time jumping at will while the universe disintegrates around him. There’s only so much you can lean on zany characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy before they jump the shark too.
All the good TV shows either ran their course (Agents of SHIELD), or were prematurely canceled like Punisher and Luke Cage during the Disney handover. Seriously, what now?
They just keep escalating with Loki. He Who Remains is another one of those deus ex villains that they’ll have to one up even further. Based on the season 2 finale I can’t even tell if they want a season 3 or if thats over too.
/rant
I really like the Marvel stuff but they have two problems that are well known at this point:
Quality and volume.
Some of their recent efforts, like Loki season two and (apparently) The Marvels are quite good.
The problem is we already got burned by a number of poor entries like Thor: Love and Thunder and The Eternals (I mean, wow). It seems rare I hear about a good movie these days, even when they make one, but the bad ones get mentioned a lot. Or the ones that people just dislike for whatever ideological reason like She-hulk: Attorney at Law.
Much like with Star Wars they put things out so fast that it feels like you’re always trying to keep up. Even if DC and others didn’t keep trying to make superhero movies they would have oversaturated the market alone.
Combine those and it can feel like you’re always trying to keep up with a bunch of bad stuff in hopes of finding the rare good one. It’s exhausting.
And all of that is just Marvel stuff. But they’re also up against great TV, great video games, and everything else going on in the world. Trends away from wanting to go to movie theaters.
They drove the audience away with too much cash grabbing. Pure and simple.
I 100% reject the nonsense “go woke go broke” arguments, everything that’s going on can be explained without that perfectly, and there is no actual evidence to back it up.
I think Loki is awesome for a few reasons:
great acting by Tom Hiddleston & Sophia Di Martino and excellent chemistry
Superb writing
Wonderful action and better than movie quality special effects.
Many of the other MCU shows & movies are similar in that they have a strong lead, talented villians, excellent writing, easy to understand plot and devices, and great special effects. If we go over the historical heroes and villians across MCU, the vast majority have great presence and we see some phenoms showing up even in bit roles. The MCU has really been a Cornucopia of Who's Who in Hollywood that has acting talent.
Unfortunately, Brie Larson and Teyonnah Parris are not comparable talents to Scarlett Johansson or Elizabeth Olsen, and though I think Iman Vellani is quite talented she is not as experienced as an actress yet. I view the casting of Brie Larson in the role as an epic failure that has led to the rejection of the movie, and her role. She is not comparable to the highly talented folks in the MCU, and I think the only fix is recasting the role.
Sorry, but season 2 of Loki was a nonsensical mess of a show. They used up most of their best ideas in season 1. I think it’s time for Disney to give the MCU a rest and come back to it in a decade or two.
They keep making boring content and using progressiveness as a cover, IE: if you find the stories bland and the characters having no depth then you must be racist, homophobic or misogynistic.
But I think a larger cohort of people have realised that, no, actually people were not slamming these movies because everyone is anti-progressive.
The only issue now is that Disney owns half of all media, so if you like movies or want to go on a date or take the kids to the cinema, you don’t get a seriously large variety.
Loki was truly excellent though, so they can do this; they just choose not to make complex and interesting stories and characters.
Really? I only download/stream via torrent occasionally, but I've not run into that in a very long time. Just this past weekend I wanted to watch the first episode of the new season of Loki. Fired up the Disney+ app on my Sony TV. Black screen, no response.
Went into app settings and force closed the app, restarted app...black screen, no response.
Rebooted TV and opened Disney+ app. Black screen, no response.
Eventually just switched inputs to the laptop sitting under the TV stand. Clicked Popcorn Time icon (I leave VPN always on for this laptop). Clicked Loki. Clicked episode. Within 1 minute the show was playing.
This is one reason why I keep this as an option. Other times I admit I just can't be arsed to subscribe to yet another service to check out a show I heard about. Not claiming any moral high ground. I just don't want to pay for another streaming service when I already have paid access to 3 (at least until they offer something I know I want to watch for a month's subscription at minimum.)
> A Loki season 2 poster has been linked to a stock image on Shutterstock that seemingly breaks the platform’s licensing rules regarding AI-generated content.
A human-made poster uses a stock photo for the background, which is suspected to be AI.
This is such a non-issue.
I suspect it has something to do with Feige pushing out the Russo brothers who seemed to make most of the better MCU films (Captain America 2, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers Infinity War and End Game). After that Feige started putting out movies like the Eternals that were terrible. Nearly all of the tv shows are bad... they lost any quality control. Only Loki and Guardians of the Galaxy have been as good as the films that came out prior to End Game.
A friend of mine just does one service at a time, and it's low-key fairly brilliant. There's a bit of headache with installing / uninstalling apps on televisions and having to log into things once a month or quarter or however long it takes him, but the kernel of the idea is that there are generally only a few new, good shows worth watching for any given network, but all the good shows are roughly equally distributed between networks.
So instead of paying $10 a month to Disney for Mandalorian, Wandavision, Loki, an additional $10 for Peacock for Mrs. Davis, Bel Air, and Poker Face, plus however much else for HBOMax, Netflix, Hulu, etc., he could just pay one network $10 a month, binge the couple of good shows that they had, and then instead of waiting months for the next thing to come out, unsubscribe and switch to another network. Lather, rinse, repeat.
He isn't as current, and sometimes it's hard to chat about whatever the current new thing is, but society has effectively already given up on the concept of the whole nation tuning in to any one thing and it being the topic of watercooler conversations for a myriad of reasons.
Note: He has children, and I have no idea how he handles this other than to note that he also has a digital antenna, so some shows are "always available" (or at least as much as is allowed for)
I had assumed the name was from the 80s-bureaucracy aesthetic of the Loki TV series; TIL there was a (proposed) computer called Loki at that time.
AMC alone doesn't say much about the greater TV industry since people have loyalty to specific shows and not the channel. Breaking Bad didn't become popular while airing, it became popular because it released on Netflix. Cable channels have outlived their purpose. Emulating cable channels by partitioning shows into streaming services is pushing people back to piracy.
The traditional TV industry is continuing to fail to adapt to the different way in which people watch content. Youtube demonstrates really well how people are no longer loyal to a network, they are loyal to a creator or topic. There have been certain groups of channels that sort of remind me of an old school TV channel, like MatPat and his youtube channels Game Theorists, Film Theorists, and Food Theorists could have been a TV channel in combination with some other video game or theory crafting channels but people don't search by a bigger topic. People find content based on recommendations, either algorithmic or popular things watched by friends. Netflix Originals and Amazon Originals seem better, but I can't understand the metrics Netflix uses when deciding what to cancel.
As someone who has shifted to online media as the main form of content I watch, I can't tell you what makes a cartoon network show a cartoon network show. I know because of the logos between shows and during ads, but I struggle to find a strong underlying identity.
The easier access to international media has also caused an oversaturation of available good media. I no longer need to worry about what part of the world a show is made in, if it's popular enough, you'll be able to find it sailing the seas. HBO Max, the supposed online equivalent to the cable channel HBO will drop Westworld from its online catalog. Some fantastic Disney+ Marvel shows, like the critically acclaimed Loki, have no announced plans of getting a physical release and Loki released back in Jun 2021. When a TV show enthusiast sees those two pieces of news back to back, a normal conclusion is that the only "sure" way to own shows is piracy.
Next focus on quality instead of quantity. Less She-Hulk and more Loki. Maybe every single Star Wars character doesn’t need a six or ten episode backstory. Maybe Cars doesn’t need four sequels. The Lone Ranger has kept his mask on since 1933, the Mandalorian couldn’t do it five episodes.
I recently did a month of Disney+ when they sent me promo for first month for $2.99.
During that month I watched the Pixar movies Soul, Luca, and Turning Red (and rewatched Onward). I also watched the Disney movies Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto. And Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs. Oh, and also the latest Dr. Strange and Thor Marvel movies, plus the Loki series.
Are you seriously claiming that all that was garbage?
Hi! Wanted to share a cool project I have been working on. It is a sentiment analysis of all Disney+ Marvel TV shows released so far. Data was scraped from Metacritic and the analysis was done in the Wolfram Language. The impetus for the project were news reports that Ms. Marvel (the most recent Marvel TV show) was being review-bombed. After looking at the data in detail, there does seem to be significant statistical evidence for this point. It's also interesting to see how the other Marvel TV shows released so far match up too, though (for example, weird random fact: Loki is the oldest show with the most recent Metacritic reviews, about two in June and two in July 2022). In particular, the code I wrote is very general and so can be applied to any Metacritic review. Personally, I am looking forward to adding in data from She-Hulk when it gets released this week.
How can you watch Ms Marvel and think this is copy paste or looks generic? The characters, culture, and art style are pretty unique and make the show quite enjoyable, and I am generally uninterested in the Marvel universe.
Loki was also very different and had a unique look.
Each one of these little series has been pretty enjoyable and different, and I found myself pleasantly surprised. The movies however are not my cup of tea and do seem repetitive and generic with some notable exceptions like Thor Ragnarok.
Disney also has the benefit of being able to makes billions in movie theater that pays for content before if ever gets to streaming. On the other hand, how many people watched Loki and WandaVision to have context for Dr. Strange? It’s the famous “flywheel” that Disney has been talking about since the 60s.
I would comment as follows.
Iron Man - sort novel for setting marvel tone but mostly banal action movie
Iron Man 2 - banal action movie
Thor - banal action movie
Captain America: The First Avenger - particularly banal action movie
Marvel's The Avengers - banal action movie
Iron Man 3 - banal action movie, sort of interesting to see protagonist suffering PTSD anxiety from being a superhero
Thor: The Dark World - banal action movie
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - first interesting take. Patriotism is not the same as government obedience. Real fight choreography approaching a soft john wick.
Guardians of the Galaxy - Early rock and roll aesthetic pretty interesting
Avengers: Age of Ultron - banal action movie, perhaps mcu lowpoint
Ant-Man - superhero heist movie, literally deconstructs larger than life superhero tropes. I think thumbs up
Captain America: Civil War - by this point doing the mcu's own thing, which is novel, but probably not interesting outside
Doctor Strange - banal action movie
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - aesthetic still feels mostly fresh.
Spider-Man: Homecoming - super down to earth high school drama, frustrated working class villains suffering the fallout of superheroes, seems interesting to me
Thor: Ragnarok - great film, very genre savvy. Rare achievement to make godly strength brutes feel really engaging to watch. Taika Waititi is a genius.
Black Panther - pretty good. interesting aesthetic. directly addressing racial tensions.
Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame - Mostly fan service and not too surprising but honestly still novel.
Ant-Man and the Wasp - Ehhh I really don't remember
Captain Marvel - Beginning had some great hard sci fi imo. Thought the ending message of newly apotheosizied female not needing to prove herself to her evil male mentor was a solid take, whereas a classic "mano a mano" kind of showdown would be so typical of the genre
Spider-Man: Far From Home - Villain emphasizing themes of the power of deceptive media? heck yeah.
Wandavision - Really bizarre and interesting start. Unfortunately non-self-aware conclusion
Falcon and Winter Soldier - Active discussions of race and the problematic nature of superheroes being supremacists? Very good.
Loki - kind of a super cliche topic (time cops) that is also somehow really rare? eh.
honorable mentions for Logan and Deadpool for being just great; and the Amazing Spiderman for its excellent aesthetics despite terrible writing.
A Few Observations :
I initially searched for marvel shows presently in limelight. Loki -> Not available What If -> Not available The Falcon and the Winter Soldier -> Not available Wandavision -> Available
Marvel Shows are more discussed in marvel subreddits like /r/marvelstudios than individual subreddits like /r/wandavision
After sorting out by No of comments only i found out, author of the website has actually grouped them together under Marvel. So Wanda vision Discussions are shown under two places but not linked to each other.
Another one aspect the website fails to capture is the discussions going on in multiple subreddits created for the same TV Show.
For example game of Thrones had individual subreddits for each houses in the show, out of which /r/freefolk was very famous (1M+ Subscribers) and had in depth discussions going on when each episode aired.
Just to clarify, there has been four MCU TV shows this year so far: Wandavision (great), Loki (great), Falcon and the Winter Soldier (terrible), and What If (good and sometimes great).
All four are made by Marvel Studios (not Marvel Television like Daredevil and Agents of Shield) with actual Marvel actors and firmly take place in the MCU.
It's worth checking out What If. If you don't like the show, I still recommend watching the fourth episode (Dr Strange).
Loki was probably better quality entertainment than a lot of the MCU movies. It's amazing that we live in an era when TV production can rival theater movies in all aspects acting, cinematography, visual effects and scale of story.
I'm usually in the cinema for opening night of new MCU movies, so this isn't said from a place of hatred of disgust of the movies. They're cookie-cutter corporate media that does the bare minimum to not be entirely the same movie every time.
The acting isn't high quality across the board -- it's average. The plots and their twists are, frankly, banal in every aspect apart from being vehicles of spectacle. There's no real moral gray-ness to the characters, Wenwu from Shang Chi being an obvious exception to the rule.
The shows, which were supposed to come in with a fresh, long-form perspective on main characters and their struggles start out with interesting premises and then quickly falter because of their adherence to the MCU mythos. Wandavision and Loki completely fail in the latter half of their seasons to pay off any of the character beats in favor of big spectacle and exposition dumps.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is like a TV show.
Each episode may not be that great, but the series as a whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.
And like any serialized TV series, you can't really skip episodes without missing key parts of the story, so once you commit to the show you're on the bandwagon.
And given the success of the MCU, it's carved itself a powerful place in popular culture that won't disappear for a long time.
Also, even the Marvel TV shows can be surprisingly high quality (I absolutely loved Loki and Wandavision, but hated Falcon and the Winter Soldier)
Don't forget Loki, or WandaVision for that matter.
I think there's been both qualitative and quantitative changes to American pop culture. Today's audience is able to handle more sophisticated or just convoluted complex narrative structures than in the past. From comic book cinematic universes to Christopher Nolan's gimmicks, we've come along way from straightforward standalone popcorn films. Now even dumb action movies have to be not just a sequel but intertextual, living within a cohesive fictional space. Everyone knows what "canon" refers to and most know common tropes. (Speaking of R&M, that show seems to be an example of running out of tropes to the extent of burning itself out, imploding into bigger and more meaningless reveals.)
That's also because of quantity. We've simply got too much content, across both films but TV shows, games, tie-in novels, comic books, and other media. Merchandising has been huge since the original Star Wars, but now every franchise has a Wiki and dedicated scholars. It's a whole new level of meta. Maybe that's the only way we can handle the scale of content we are bombarded by; to try to fit them together into cohesive contexts.
I don't know what that means for us as a society or as a culture, but I do note that The Matrix, or at least its sequels, helped to accelerate this process. Back in 2003, the series had both the Animatrix animated shorts and the Enter the Matrix video game that added to the story depicted on-screen, even introducing key characters that movie-only viewers would be confused by (such as the Kid).
I would say that dense intertextuality and cross-media world-building, not so much the Gnostic question your reality themes (which are old hat now), is the current defining legacy of The Matrix.
I try to like it, but I don't. It drags out. I really enjoyed the first two seasons of JoJo, but the others feel like they're stretching a 4 episode story across 40 episodes.
Modern anime feels a little like Clash of Clans. It's highly commercialized. Instead of making you feel good, it gives you just enough of a feel good dose and hides the rest, so you'd face enough withdrawal to consume more.
It works for something to watch during lunch break, when I just want something mindless to clear my brain and not something philosophical like Loki.
Anime movies are good but rare. I really enjoyed Spirited Away and The Wind Rises.
I have watched the first two episodes, and found it to be both interesting and entertaining. Tom Hiddleston is a gem of an actor. He plays the character of Loki really well!
Haven't seen Black Widow yet (I'm getting "wait 'till it's free" vibes), but opinions of Loki are... not universally good. I, for one, was skeptical about the other two shows and ended up loving both except for the last episodes (which was still OK for Wandavision, but outright bad in F&WS), while Loki was the one I was most interested in, but I've spent almost the whole time furrow-browed thinking "how is this so bad? How? Why did they make that choice? Why is this scene still going on?"
What's best and what's worst in Marvel tends to draw opinions that are all over the place, excepting that rarely does anyone rank the two Guardians movies near the bottom. Like Star Wars, I guess. You can get rankings that are wildly different, except for a few things (almost no-one is going to rank Empire very low, and almost no-one is going to rank AOTC higher than the middle, for instance).
This is actually where I've drawn the line.
I am willing to pay to watch your movie/show/series, but if there is no way to do that then I will pirate the show.
Only reason I got a month of Netflix was Inside
Only reason I got a month of Disney+ was to check out Loki
Neither will be renewed.
I tried to search platform where I could watch the new Rick & Morty, but I wasn't able to find one in EU. I'm sure it exists, but if Google can't get me the answer within resonable time (like this time it failed to) I just downloaded the episodes (actually I was able to watch the S5E1 from AdultSwim's website) [BTW if someone knows EU streaming site where I can watch these as they get released I'd like to know so I can pay for couple months]
Those shows most definitely assume prior knowledge of the universe. That said, having avoided "superhero movies" for years (due to not being impressed with random one-offs that I watched), I finally bit the bullet and watched the whole set in order with my kids and it made a huge difference, with enormous payoff in Infinity War and Endgame. FWIW, I think both WandaVision and Loki are fantastic.
> I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me.
I recently started watched Loki on Disney+, 3 episodes in, I still have no idea who Loki is, where he comes from, what his intentions are and what he is capable of...
Same problem with WandaVision. I agree, it's exhausting.
I think it's a whole genre that was finally allowed into mainstream. For a long time we had very black/white view on the superheroes in movies. Only relatively recently Batman got a bit interesting, Star Wars had someone turn "bad", Ironman was a good jerk, Starlord... was a good jerk, Loki and Deadpool are pretty chaotic, now Sandman is soon coming out. We have a number of "that bad character had reasons" movies like Cruella.
Those existed for ages in comic books, but I don't think mainstream / Disney would touch them.
Unsolved until today. The first episode of Loki reveals that the God of Mischief was D.B. Cooper, escaping via Bifröst.