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Nephilm posted:The beginning is pretty dull because it focuses on Yang doing trite poo poo before he surrounds himself with the interesting characters on his side of the story, but eventually it gets rolling by focusing more on Rienhard and then the good characters on Yang's side getting introduced. If it wasn't clear already by what I just said, the characters are the series' strong point, and truly the only particularly noteworthy thing about it beside the usage of musical pieces, but then I'm also a persona non-grata in this thread because I don't consider it the missed second coming of anime-Christ, along with saying it's not really being a series I'd recommend to other people because, as I just said and you yourself noticed, it takes so long to get moving and then by the latter 3rd/4th it just drags on and you're just kind of keeping at it because you've already invested so much time.
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Apr 22, 2012 02:15
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Mercrom posted:If it just started out slow like HBO shows I wouldn't mind. It's just that what I've seen hasn't been impressive. The two main characters start out stuck in dysfunctional organizations on opposite sides, having to deal with incompetent or indifferent superiors and politics. That's pretty similar to how The Wire starts, except the incompetent characters in The Wire aren't pants on head retarded in order to make the main characters look like geniuses, and the indifference is completely understandable because of how hosed the system is. Yeah, it appears to be an anime trope that incompetence has to be very hamfisted. It eventually disappears as all organization heads are replaced due to the social restructuring that goes on through the series, and instead of everyone with any sort of authority being pants-on-head retarded it's mostly competent people making bad or impossible decisions... but it still takes quite a while to get there and the main named characters never stop being godly übermenschs compared to unnamed chumps. There are certain aspects of the series where you can't go looking for realism in, as it simply isn't there - the justifications for creating the initial conditions (and for playing out many of the setpieces the author wanted to see when it involves sci-fi) are usually pretty weak.
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Apr 22, 2012 05:33
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I'd say about half way through the first season is where you finally have enough established characters and concepts that things really start to get exciting. One of the (few imo) problems with this show is that it's so long and complex it just takes a bit of time to set everything up for the viewer. Once everyone's political and governmental situations are established you can then watch how they change and react to each other. So if you're only on episode 6 give it another 6. If you're still truly uninterested after half a season then political space dramas just might not be your bag man.
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Apr 22, 2012 09:27
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Takes No Damage posted:I'd say about half way through the first season is where you finally have enough established characters and concepts that things really start to get exciting. One of the (few imo) problems with this show is that it's so long and complex it just takes a bit of time to set everything up for the viewer. Once everyone's political and governmental situations are established you can then watch how they change and react to each other. So if you're only on episode 6 give it another 6. If you're still truly uninterested after half a season then political space dramas just might not be your bag man. Nephilm posted:There are certain aspects of the series where you can't go looking for realism in, as it simply isn't there - the justifications for creating the initial conditions (and for playing out many of the setpieces the author wanted to see when it involves sci-fi) are usually pretty weak.
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Apr 22, 2012 14:37
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Mercrom posted:Well yeah, it definitely seems more like space fantasy than legitimate science fiction so realism is out the window. Legitimate science fiction is fiction that uses science of technological concepts to discuss realities of the human condition, or possibilities of the human condition in the future. That is to say, it's not just "things happen, here's my theory on how intelligent robots work in the framework of my setting", it's "things happen, and that's important." Speculative fiction, as it's often called, is intended to be primarily for the purpose of thinking, intellectualism. Does "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman offer extreme justification for its mechanics? Does it need to? Absolutely not, so the point of the work is the thematic one, and the narrative one. The mechanics of the ability to kill anyone at any point in it are absolutely and totally immaterial. It doesn't make it science "fantasy", a ludicrous concept. Fantasy implies a divorce from reality altogether, not necessarily on a scientific standpoint, but on the point of human experience. LOGH is commentary and exploration of human civilization and war on a grand scale, and the morality associated. How exactly FTL-flight works, how their lasers work, or whatever, is grossly immaterial and inconsequential to the audience. The reasons for characters' actions, their politics and the exploration of democracy vs dictatorship, the advantages and failures of both, and the conflicts of morality that come when you have human beings killing other human beings, is the focus. As Yang says himself, "Wars are seldom between a good and a bad. They're almost always been one good and another good."
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Apr 22, 2012 19:27
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Zorak posted:Legitimate science fiction is fiction that uses science of technological concepts to discuss realities of the human condition, or possibilities of the human condition in the future. That is to say, it's not just "things happen, here's my theory on how intelligent robots work in the framework of my setting", it's "things happen, and that's important." Zorak posted:Speculative fiction, as it's often called, is intended to be primarily for the purpose of thinking, intellectualism. Does "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman offer extreme justification for its mechanics? Does it need to? Absolutely not, so the point of the work is the thematic one, and the narrative one. The mechanics of the ability to kill anyone at any point in it are absolutely and totally immaterial. It doesn't make it science "fantasy", a ludicrous concept. Fantasy implies a divorce from reality altogether, not necessarily on a scientific standpoint, but on the point of human experience. Mercrom fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 22:15
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Mercrom posted:I haven't watched enough to judge, so I'm probably wrong. It was just my impression. However, the bolded part seems like something any other kind of fiction, including fantasy, could explore. Then it's not the detail of the FTL drives and lasers that I find lacking, but their relevance. Yes, and you could do a plot on how obsession with punctuality is bad in a "normal" setting too. That doesn't mean Repent Harlequin is pointless or abberent. Turns out you can approach themes and explorations in a variety of ways! Speculative fiction is one of those ways to approach it.
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Apr 22, 2012 23:13
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Mercrom posted:I took your advice and now I've watched 12 episodes. You're right, there's politics now instead of just space soldiers doing space soldier stuff. It seems worth watching. I was like you about it at first. I picked it up 2 years ago, watched the 1st 5-6 episodes, got turned off by the animation and the kinda slow plot and stopped watching. Then I saw something about it again a year later and watched through the 1st 10-12 episodes or so and got hooked, finishing the entire thing in a few days. It's a great show. Maybe more hyped here than it should be, but it really is good good stuff and I don't regret watching it at all or recommending it to others.
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Apr 23, 2012 18:34
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Zorak posted:Legitimate science fiction is fiction that uses science of technological concepts to discuss realities of the human condition, or possibilities of the human condition in the future. That is to say, it's not just "things happen, here's my theory on how intelligent robots work in the framework of my setting", it's "things happen, and that's important." However, the fulcrum of such analysis rests on the POV of clearly superhuman individuals (with a few exceptions, and in those it's mostly due to the author's failure to portray competence than actual intent) and even throwing aside all the techy sci-fi, you're looking at events and situations that simply don't stand up to common sense. There are battles where they're habitually throwing away millions of lives, yet their own population sizes on a civilization scale are not large enough to make such numbers non-trivial, making you wonder how their societies can even function the way they do (particularly the Alliance) without crippling war weariness given that the war has been going on for over a hundred years. Even worse, you have characters portrayed as heroic and noble, lamenting the bloodshed and choosing to sacrifice themselves... along with the hundreds of thousands of people under them that are just completely ignored. It's total disconnect of the scales involved, and it's not and analysis on numbers and the meaningless of human life if you're no important in history... no, it just comes off as sheer incompetence and selective values dissonance. And this is actually something that'd have been great if brought to fore, you know? How society would have evolved given that humanity has almost wiped itself out twice already and space war has evolved into having to throw millions into the meat grinder by necessity (again, just skirting around the issue of the author's own attempts at explaining the mechanics of it being awful)? But no, because this is your little faux USA and faux 19th century Germany, and you most definitely don't want to alienate the audience by having your characters introducing values/moral mindsets that they can't relate with, you just try your hardest to not look at it and hope nobody notices the elephant in the room. That is fantasy.
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Apr 23, 2012 20:33
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Nephilm posted:However, the fulcrum of such analysis rests on the POV of clearly superhuman individuals (with a few exceptions, and in those it's mostly due to the author's failure to portray competence than actual intent) and even throwing aside all the techy sci-fi, you're looking at events and situations that simply don't stand up to common sense. There are battles where they're habitually throwing away millions of lives, yet their own population sizes on a civilization scale are not large enough to make such numbers non-trivial, making you wonder how their societies can even function the way they do (particularly the Alliance) without crippling war weariness given that the war has been going on for over a hundred years. Even worse, you have characters portrayed as heroic and noble, lamenting the bloodshed and choosing to sacrifice themselves... along with the hundreds of thousands of people under them that are just completely ignored. It's total disconnect of the scales involved, and it's not and analysis on numbers and the meaningless of human life if you're no important in history... no, it just comes off as sheer incompetence and selective values dissonance. No one in the series was superhuman. Nor does the "100 year conflict" discuss that the high loss of life was constant during that time, just that the 2 states were in opposition of each other for that long. The series uses a future / space background to illustrate / argue the pros and cons of a monarchy or dictatorship vs a democracy. It's pretty standard Asimov type science fiction. There's no magic or telekenesis or fairies.
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Apr 23, 2012 20:49
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Nephilm posted:making you wonder how their societies can even function the way they do (particularly the Alliance) without crippling war weariness given that the war has been going on for over a hundred years. Did... you fall asleep for half the story? That was largely the point of the whole thing on the FPA side. There basically are no young men left in the Alliance. War weariness is super high, but those in political power are twisting public sentiment via information control. It's a massive amount of people dying, yes, but the population is equally massive. It's like you're arguing the internal point here. The war has been going on for a long time, but it's been on and off, with battles and skirmishes sometimes being decades between. Reinhard is the one who really kicked poo poo off into full on "The Empire... can actually win?" which resulted in the crazy amounts of bloodshed that's been happening on both sides in recent history. Yang aimed for peace negotiations with the Empire for the explicit purpose of achieving another one of those peaceful periods of a few decades by using Iserlohn, and that was like what, seven episodes in? quote:Even worse, you have characters portrayed as heroic and noble, lamenting the bloodshed and choosing to sacrifice themselves... along with the hundreds of thousands of people under them that are just completely ignored. It's total disconnect of the scales involved, and it's not and analysis on numbers and the meaningless of human life if you're no important in history... no, it just comes off as sheer incompetence and selective values dissonance. Yes, and that's one of the major failures of Reinhard (internally) and one of the major criticisms of him and strong points of Yang; Reinhard is a dictator, one who acts ultimately on self-interest. Even if he's ultimately "doing it for the good of his people" or out of some moral obligation, he's still ultimately wielding lives out of petty concern. It's one of the things that Oberstein even criticized about him, what drove Annerose away from him ultimately even. Annerose is kind of emotionally hosed up since she's basically been the causa-bella for the death of hundreds of millions of people. That's not fantastic, that's just human nature: greedy and self-centered. "The death of an individual is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic", as the classical phrase of dictatorial apathy goes. Yang on the other hand tries to minimize casualties as much as possible. He hates that he is throwing people away. He doesn't are about money or power, he just wants to minimize casualties. At the same time, democracy and freedom is important, so he feels the need to ask people to fight alongside him for the sake of defending it. He ultimately wants to end the war and give humanity a chance for democracy. He's a stellar individual, true, but he knows the cost of what he does, and it's probably the paramount reason why he repeatedly attempts to retire. quote:But no, because this is your little faux USA and faux 19th century Germany, and you most definitely don't want to alienate the audience by having your characters introducing values/moral mindsets that they can't relate with, you just try your hardest to not look at it and hope nobody notices the elephant in the room. No, fantasy would be in essence to do what you are saying. Ultimately what this is is commentary on all modern democracies/republics, all modern dictatorships and tyrannies. For good and for the bad, and how ultimately these cycles of government are inescapable, as all societies fall. Even the united empire of Reinhard will one day fall. This is the explicit commentary being made.
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Apr 23, 2012 20:52
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Furthermore everyone does notice the elephant in the room, CONSTANTLY. Oberstein notices it, Reinhard notices it, Yang notices it, Mittermeyer notices it, they all do. And when are the massive deaths treated as trivial? The failed Alliance invasion less than a quarter of the way into the show alone is treated as goddamned catastrophic. Sure sometimes commanders/politicians act like nobody dies under them, but that is sort of truth in television/the nature of warfare. Did you only watch the fights or something? Because the goddamned nature of war/society/history, all that, is only what EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE ENTIRE SHOW. Jesus.
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Apr 23, 2012 21:13
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Zorak posted:Did... you fall asleep for half the story? That was largely the point of the whole thing on the FPA side. There basically are no young men left in the Alliance. War weariness is super high, but those in political power are twisting public sentiment via information control. It's a massive amount of people dying, yes, but the population is equally massive. It's like you're arguing the internal point here. I'm saying that it wasn't heavy enough. quote:Yes, and that's one of the major failures of Reinhard (internally) and one of the major criticisms of him and strong points of Yang; Reinhard is a dictator, one who acts ultimately on self-interest. Even if he's ultimately "doing it for the good of his people" or out of some moral obligation, he's still ultimately wielding lives out of petty concern. It's one of the things that Oberstein even criticized about him, what drove Annerose away from him ultimately even. Annerose is kind of emotionally hosed up since she's basically been the causa-bella for the death of hundreds of millions of people. I wasn't even talking about Reinhard, guy's clearly bloodthirsty as gently caress, and Yang knew where he stood, but consider every other leader in the series. And I'm aware of the phrase, but now acknowledge it from the context of a guy on the ground - with battles with attrition rates of over 20%, you're talking that on average one person out of every 5 that Joe Soldier personally knows within his immediate peers just died. This is simply huge from an organization level, specially since all these men are trained, professional soldiers, not conscripted, ignorant peasants with nothing to live for told to charge machinegun nests in WWI trench warfare. quote:No, fantasy would be in essence to do what you are saying. Ultimately what this is is commentary on all modern democracies/republics, all modern dictatorships and tyrannies. For good and for the bad, and how ultimately these cycles of government are inescapable, as all societies fall. Even the united empire of Reinhard will one day fall. This is the explicit commentary being made. It's a fantasy setting, it's what I'm saying. In order to be able to deliver its message it distances itself so much from reality (be it through intent or incompetence) to create this impossible setting that it's hard to gauge it otherwise. It's on the same vein to why Star Wars can't be considered science fiction just because it has spaceships and lasers.
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Apr 23, 2012 21:32
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Holy poo poo and a massive diss on the regular men and women that died in WWI out of nowhere. You are aware that most of the poor fucks that died in the trenches are just as intelligent as you or me, right? They had dreams and aspirations too. And yes massive casualties take a toll on the system, that's what industrial warfare is! Stalingrad wasn't a walk in the park either, and the Soviet army didn't fall apart. This idea that the scale of the deaths in LoGH makes it less reaslistic somehow is really bizarre, especially since previous deaths are a huge driving factor of the story.
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Apr 23, 2012 21:45
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Nephilm posted:This is simply huge from an organization level, specially since all these men are trained, professional soldiers, not conscripted, ignorant peasants with nothing to live for told to charge machinegun nests in WWI trench warfare. You are a piece of human excrement. Go read "All Is Quiet On The Western Front" and try not to be such an ignorant monster.
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Apr 23, 2012 21:49
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DamnGlitch posted:You are a piece of human excrement. Go read "All Is Quiet On The Western Front" and try not to be such an ignorant monster. gently caress this go join the army and never post again
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Apr 23, 2012 21:51
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Rakugoon posted:Holy poo poo and a massive diss on the regular men and women that died in WWI out of nowhere. You are aware that most of the poor fucks that died in the trenches are just as intelligent as you or me, right? They had dreams and aspirations too. And yes massive casualties take a toll on the system, that's what industrial warfare is! Stalingrad wasn't a walk in the park either, and the Soviet army didn't fall apart. This idea that the scale of the deaths in LoGH makes it less reaslistic somehow is really bizarre, especially since previous deaths are a huge driving factor of the story. I literally give no fucks about their dreams, aspirations or how intelligent they were, I care about where they came from. You want to make a deal out of industrial warfare? Yes, it was loving brutal. Yes, LoGH does a fair representation of it. And yes, it's unrealistic as gently caress, because the context is entirely different. This isn't the start of the industrial revolution, pressing uneducated masses out of plowing the fields into lubricating the grinding gears of war with their blood, these are modern societies. I mean, you can kind of make a case for the GE as they actually show colonies filled with peasants, but not for the alliance. Can you seriously imagine a modern country engaging in that sort of war? When soldiers are a much heavier investment of resources than giving them an uniform and a gun and letting God sort them out? It's utterly unsustainable. And don't give me "oh but the Alliance was on the brink of collapse", no, this is the kind of poo poo where you need an Orwellian population control not to have a complete system collapse after the first lost battle... and the series is trying to compare that to loving babbys first media blackout.
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Apr 23, 2012 22:08
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"Was" brutal. Industrial warfare sure was awful, good thing large scale wars never happen anymore. Thank God. Soldiers in World War II did all sorts of training. Wars have always been unsustainable and inefficient-- senseless bloodbaths that cost huge amounts of time and money are just exactly what they are. And guess what? The last hundred years of history have more people dying in wars than the rest of history combined so YES I CAN TOTALLY SEE IT HAPPENING. IT HAPPENS. IT'S AWFUL. And it's not just the two world wars either, poo poo has happened all the time in the 20th and 21st century and it's been getting progressively worse, not better. Rakugoon fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Apr 23, 2012 |
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Apr 23, 2012 22:23
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Rakugoon posted:Soldiers in World War II did all sorts of training. Wars have always been unsustainable and inefficient-- senseless bloodbaths that cost huge amounts of time and money are just exactly what they are. And guess what? The last hundred years of history have more people dying in wars than the rest of history combined so YES I CAN TOTALLY SEE IT HAPPENING. IT HAPPENS. IT'S AWFUL. And it's not just the two world wars either, poo poo has happened all the time in the 20th and 21st century and it's been getting progressively worse, not better. You name dropped Stalingrad. You're comparing American, British and German forces (and losses) of the era to the Red Army - the Red Army that immediately conscripted 6 times as many people as it had at the start when poo poo hit the fan, in order to win by attrition. The one nation that was representative on WWII of the actual conditions of WWI by being the one behind on starting its industrial revolution. And that was the last time we had bloodshed on that scale from conventional combat, because after that armies evolved into what they are now. Society finished changing into what it is now. All soldiers became, to a degree, professionals - because modern nations no longer posses the bulk of, excuse the term, uneducated pissants necessary to wage wars of attrition (compounded with the fact that human wave tactics were actually rendered obsolete by technology). Modern wars are pretty tame in comparison from a battlefield perspective - the bulk of casualties has shifted to non-combatants, and the armies that take huge attrition are not from modern societies, but those of 3rd world nations where combatants are still peasants with guns. Now, don't misrepresent. War is a terrible thing, sure, they're a huge expenditure of lives and resources, right, PEOPLE DIE, OKAY... My point is, a modern (democratic/faux-democratic) society CANNOT engage in the type of warfare depicted in LoGH without some very fundamental shifts in mindset/values and structure - shifts that aren't at all apparent or even implied in the series.
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Apr 23, 2012 22:56
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Well first the idea that casualties "shifted" to non-combatants is blatantly wrong, situations where two armies are relatively equally matched are just less common. Second, if you don't want to triviliaze people from less developed (and I hate using even that term) societies, don't call them pissants. That is literally a term that means someone is worthless. Third, modern warfare can be extremely messy on the battlefield. Look at the Ethiopian-Eritrean War. That wasn't a bunch of savages armed with machetes, it was human beings in nations that spend the majority of their money on modern weapons. Fourth, modern societies are just as warlike as they've ever been. The United States alone has been constantly fighting since WWII, with Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more killing soldiers and destroying the economy--and I don't recall our democracy ever teetering over the brink. Hell if we had some menacing foreign power like the Sovie--I mean, the Empire-- to justify our bloodshed I suspect keeping the populace under control would be even easier. Basically your implication that modern societies are any more peaceful than they ever were before is just completely and utterly wrong, to the point of being offensive.
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Apr 23, 2012 23:27
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Point to me where I ever said peaceful. This isn't about the enlightenment of modern civilization, it's about people not wanting to loving die. In a modern society, as it has traditionally done throughout most of history, the military works as a path of upwards social mobility for those of lower socioeconomic status - but few would join a modern army if there was a 20% chance of dying anytime you got front-line duty. For most people upwards social mobility isn't worth those odds, not when even the poor can stay fed and sheltered. Just look at those odds. Even if you built up a national fervor against a clear external enemy, in the proud tradition of police states like Israel, with those kinds of casualties you'd be looking at draft resistance and desertion numbers through the roof... specially since this is an ideology war. The GE isn't looking to genocide the FPA, they haven't even lost any core worlds; for the bulk of the population it'd be a distant war if not for the fact that everyone who goes to it stands a huge chance of dying.
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Apr 23, 2012 23:46
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I get the impression that you're trying to argue about whatever you can in regards to the show because you're upset that no one agrees with your opinion of it.
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Apr 24, 2012 00:20
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Breaky posted:I get the impression that you're trying to argue about whatever you can in regards to the show because you're upset that no one agrees with your opinion of it. Or perhaps I'm just arguing about the things I didn't like from the show? It's only natural that people who liked almost everything about it would disagree with me on those points.
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Apr 24, 2012 00:29
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LoGH shows its age as a setting placed in the future, a lot of things have changed since the Berlin Wall and the Internet, and it does not live up to modern realistic standards in my opinion. But there are no actual fantasy elements in it. Granted a lot of the elements in the show would work better if it were about dudes with swords and bows instead of ships in space, but it does not really affect the core themes of the show, which are pretty grounded in standard science fiction fare. As for how those themes are handled? I think it is pretty terrible that the show had to resort to criminally incapable leadership as a motivator for war, it is completely disconnected from modern warfare and honestly it is a pretty bad message to give because there's so much more at play than people being entitled megalomaniacs. It is still one of the most memorable things that came out of Japan in the past century, though, and it says a lot that many of its characters are better than those from newer attempts at space wars. e: clarity. GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Apr 24, 2012 |
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Apr 24, 2012 10:13
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Nephilm posted:I literally give no fucks about their dreams, aspirations or how intelligent they were, I care about where they came from.\ Why does this matter in any way shape or form?
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Apr 26, 2012 22:45
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Dickeye posted:Why does this matter in any way shape or form? Pretty sure it's not an esoteric question, just a everyone should be used up by now thing. Actually, I kind of felt this throughout the series as well. The Alliance lost so much at Amlitzer(?) that every time they scraped together a fleet to throw against the newest Reinhard offensive (Or themselves) it kind of bugged me.
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Apr 26, 2012 22:56
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linall posted:Pretty sure it's not an esoteric question, just a everyone should be used up by now thing. Actually, I kind of felt this throughout the series as well. The Alliance lost so much at Amlitzer(?) that every time they scraped together a fleet to throw against the newest Reinhard offensive (Or themselves) it kind of bugged me. Imagine if D-Day had failed. Now remember that most of the Allies' troops weren't near there.
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Apr 26, 2012 23:52
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TK-31 posted:LoGH shows its age as a setting placed in the future, a lot of things have changed since the Berlin Wall and the Internet, and it does not live up to modern realistic standards in my opinion. But there are no actual fantasy elements in it. I'm not sure if I agree as one of the major themes that the series deals with is the inevitability of war in humanity's existence so having the series set in a science fiction setting really sets that point in. It's not just the inefficient leadership that drives the war but differences in ideology and beliefs that serve as the main motivator.
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Apr 27, 2012 00:17
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Yeah, it being placed in the future really works a lot better in the end. As for the motivator? A lot of the conflict in the show comes from people who have no idea what they're doing getting themselves or their subordinates killed out of pride, ignorance or both (Every noble during Reinhardt's rise to power, Reuental's last betrayal, everything ever done by the FPA when Yang and friends are not in charge) to the point that at the end both sides come to an agreement after the leaders actually talk to each other. Once. Of course this is not always the case, and the space battles are a lot more interesting when it isn't. I would say those are the show's strongest arcs, at least as far as I'm concerned. For all its praise, I can't say it portrays war or politics all that well, though it certainly is engaging. My hat is off to any TV show that has a scene where a peaceful protest is lethally suppressed though. GimmickMan fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Apr 27, 2012 |
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Apr 27, 2012 01:37
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Rakugoon posted:Imagine if D-Day had failed. Now remember that most of the Allies' troops weren't near there. Yeah except the Amlitzer offensive would be better represented by a D-Day that succeeded and then involved the Nazi's wiping out the initial invasion force and all the reinforcements that followed. The Alliance loses entire fleets to Reinhard's counter-offensive. Not really the same thing as D-Day being repulsed at the beaches.
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Apr 27, 2012 01:37
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To me it seems weird that anyone would expect newsreel level accuracy in political machinations between two future space superpowers in a series like this. It paints in very broad strokes in order to convey it's themes within a very very very large in-show universe. I think the disconnect that occurs for a lot of people who find it underwhelming may come from the fact that there are an insanely small number of shows that would go into this much detail to begin with, so some people would understandably describe it as being extremely realistic when mentally they are comparing it to the way other shows, movies, books, etc. handle the same sort of subject matter. Then people with more than a passing knowledge on the subjects come in expecting all the world from it due to the glowing praise and are disappointed by the fact that it's still just entertainment. Nonetheless personally I still think the show does a hell of a job of chronicling and satirizing the most basic tenants of government and war for a general audience from it's point of view that "in every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same".
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Apr 27, 2012 15:40
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Grenadier posted:To me it seems weird that anyone would expect newsreel level accuracy in political machinations between two future space superpowers in a series like this. It paints in very broad strokes in order to convey it's themes within a very very very large in-show universe. I think the disconnect that occurs for a lot of people who find it underwhelming may come from the fact that there are an insanely small number of shows that would go into this much detail to begin with, so some people would understandably describe it as being extremely realistic when mentally they are comparing it to the way other shows, movies, books, etc. handle the same sort of subject matter. Then people with more than a passing knowledge on the subjects come in expecting all the world from it due to the glowing praise and are disappointed by the fact that it's still just entertainment. I'd call that an accurate assessment; I liked the show, but as with all things it's not perfect, and giving praise were undue is against my principles. Discussing the merits and flaws of a piece of media is only fair lest the conversation becomes nothing but a circlejerk.
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Apr 27, 2012 17:46
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^My problem with you specifically however is that you think you've stumbled upon some unseen flaw in this show and that your vast intellect has gazed through the mists of hype and seen the reality which...in reality everyone already knew. It's bound by the structure of video entertainment but your critiques of its supposed problems are ridiculously petty and misguided, and it's message is much more valuable and universal than you give it credit for.
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Apr 27, 2012 18:09
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Glad to see having an inflated sense of self-importance isn't against your principles. Criticism is fine, don't get me wrong, but you seem to do pretty much nothing but sit in this thread and go "WELL PERSONALLY" whenever someone posts in the thread to say they really loved the series.
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Apr 27, 2012 21:36
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You know a circle jerk is when a bunch of guys touch each other's peepee's, right? It's not when a bunch of fans get together to praise a show they love. Think about it like this: If you go to say, a commodore 64 convention, and everyone is super excited about the commodore, and they sing its praises, and they want to show other people why the commodore is really cool, and why they love it, and they are telling stories about how they got into it, if you are the guy who comes in and goes "YEAH IT'S OKAY I GUESS BUT THE SNES IS WAY BETTER, C64 DOESN'T EVEN DO 3D RIGHT" you aren't a loving sage you are an annoying dick.
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Apr 27, 2012 21:39
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DamnGlitch posted:You know a circle jerk is when a bunch of guys touch each other's peepee's, right? It's not when a bunch of fans get together to praise a show they love. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 28, 2012 01:50
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You can disagree, fine, but don't just completely ignore what I'm trying to convey.
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Apr 28, 2012 03:40
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Grenadier posted:^My problem with you specifically however is that you think you've stumbled upon some unseen flaw in this show and that your vast intellect has gazed through the mists of hype and seen the reality which...in reality everyone already knew. It's bound by the structure of video entertainment but your critiques of its supposed problems are ridiculously petty and misguided, and it's message is much more valuable and universal than you give it credit for. Except, my posts consist primarily of just off-handedly commenting on how some of those things are ridiculous and conflict then originates from people coming in to justify them instead of just accepting it's ridiculous, perhaps one of the flaws of the show if trying to see it from a hyper-realistic angle or just a meaningless quirk, laugh about it and move on. DamnGlitch posted:You can disagree, fine, but don't just completely ignore what I'm trying to convey. Completely ignoring a retarded strawman is doing it mercy, but if you're desperate to have someone play along, I'll do it: I'd be the guy that reminisces on how he had fun with the C64 but found the joystick clunky and recalls giving him sore thumbs, at which point a couple fat, cheetoh-stained neckbeards snarl "THE CONTROLLER WAS AN ENGINEERING MARVEL YOU WERE HOLDING IT WRONG GET THE gently caress OUT!"
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Apr 28, 2012 21:31
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This is a pretty slow moving thread since the show was completely subbed. I used to see double digit new posts and say to myself "Oh cool something new must have been released or maybe a new viewer came to the thread with some questions all us long time fans can answer" but no, it's just Nephilm again 
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Apr 28, 2012 21:40
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HAHA WHY YES I AM THAT MUCH OF A DOUCHEBAG. Everyone else being satisfied with something is just such a heavy cross for you to bear.
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Apr 28, 2012 21:48
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