Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Lamont Cranston posted:



this is me posting

dude there's no way your posting is folding space


haveblue posted:

what is this from

dune

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
above all else i would like a big hug from leonard nimoy. i bet he gives the best old man hugs. :unsmith:

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Kirk posted:

barclay owns because he's basically a nerd transplanted from the 20th century and shoved into the 24th

he's you, the viewer

he's the one that's like "WHAT THE gently caress IS GOING ON HERE, WHY IS EVERYTHIGN SHAKING ALL THE TIME WHAT THE gently caress IS GOING ON UP THERE WITH THE BRIDGE CREW" and he's the guy that gets addicted to getting holodeck squeezers from his hot nurse and he's the guy that's like gently caress yeah i fantasize about beating the poo poo out of my boss in this limitless fantasy world and he's the guy that can't talk to girls because he's on space IRC all day

he's not just the viewer, he's one of the executive producers.


that's right. michael piller, who came on board TNG in season 3, said in an interview that when he came up with barclay he wasn't thinking about the fans at all; he was thinking about himself and how awkward he thought he was.


contrast with gene roddenberry who, while senile in his elder years and having a lot of really bad ideas, pulled a hell of a lot of tail

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Amethyst posted:

I love David Lynch and Dune but that movie was bad.

why did he make the weirding way into a stupid sound weapon?

someone, Lynch or one of the studio execs, was afraid of having the climactic finish of the movie turn into a huge kung-fu action set piece. so they decided to go with a huge ray-gun action set piece instead.

keep in mind they were making this in the early 80s and the Star Wars perception of "holy poo poo special effects loving sell movies!!" was still pretty strong.

it also massively simplifies the reason for the emperor getting involved. "the atreides are making a new weapon and they might get too powerful. we need to take them out before that happens."


i can understand people not liking it. i think it's fun, but that's just me.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Kirk posted:

watch the first few eps of game of thrones

some of the gals on that show is sure attractive

one of the ladies that shows up towards the end of the season has been in pornography

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

johndis posted:

man i always forgeta bout underwater sci fihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLtPLFECNw

heh, thought you were gonna post a seaQuest video



holy god all the seaquest videos on youtube are garbage quality



You Am I posted:

she was supposedly found naked and crying in a hallway of a NY hotel just recently.

:smith:

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

axolotl farmer posted:

Karen Gillan is hot as hell and great in every way in Doctor Who but...

Billie Piper/Rose supremacy

rose is basically just a smarter luann (from king of the hill)

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Action Jacktion posted:

That was the one with the "comedy" subplot about one group of aliens trying to eat another, and in the end it's implied they've killed one and are trying to cook it, and the Enterprise crew simply roll their eyes and act annoyed.

it's probably like that scene in Mad Men where the guys are fretting about how a dude managed to get maimed by a riding lawn mower in an office building, and the executive blows it off with

"don't worry about it. somewhere in this business, this has happened before."

it's starfleet, this poo poo happens all the time. hell, it was still a smoother mission than Kirk's diplomatic cruise in Journey to Babel; in that episode, the captain got stabbed by a spy, the first officer had to go under for an experimental blood transfusion to save his dad, who himself was implicated in the murder of another ambassador, and the orions sent a riced-up warship to try and destroy the enterprise, and almost succeeded.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

haveblue posted:

why has nobody mentioned clarke yet

he's even worse at human characters than asimov but holy poo poo read rendezvous with rama and childhood's end and 2001 and the nine billion names of god

do not under any circumstances read the rama sequels tho

i remember trying to read rama 2 several years ago and feeling put off by it shortly into it. i tried again last year and after awhile managed to get sucked in b/c i really wanted to see how things played out. that said, i wouldn't recommend the Rama sequels either, big chunks of them feel like a big couch session for Gentry Lee.

on the other hand, 2010 loving owns owns owns. i remember when i first read it i just sorta found myself in the book totally visualizing the whole thing, then i 'woke up' like three hours later. totally loving awesome. 2061 and 3001 veer off course though; the former is sort of weird, like Clarke really didn't know what to do with the book beyond hitting a couple of key points, and the latter is pretty severely self-indulgent (at least in comparison to the rest of the series)

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
one of the problems I have with later Star Trek is the issue of writers/producers basically going "we've got this idea that wouldn't actually work for production/logic/continuity reasons, but we're just going to bullshit our way through it because we really want to do it and we're too lazy to actually rewrite anything."

"we need the warp drive to be a ticking time bomb"
"well, there's a whole lot of effort the Federation put into designing it so it won't do that."
"well it just is. ejection system? oh that failed. off switch? yeah that failed too. BOOM! see, that was simple. this is why you nerds aren't writers like us."

"we have this plot which is p. much just a war story but we need something to make it 'trek', ideas?"
"some bullshit about 'subspace mines' they can poke around at with tricorders, which eventually helps their bros out"
"gj, have the boys down in arts & crafts whip up some technobabble for it. and add some scenes in that 60s bar, i fukken love the 60s"

"my episode's bullshit external threat subplot hinges around some gimmick where the ship can't turn at warp speed"
"uhhhhhhhh"
"gently caress you i'm making this happen *takes a huge poo poo*"

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

haveblue posted:

this is why we have no idea how the galactica's hyperdrive works

ron moore was sick of writers coming up with good story ideas and some nerd saying "that could never happen because [technobabble from two seasons ago]"

yeah but the writers have themselves to blame for that one because they would invent bullshit technobabble resolutions to those earlier episodes' problems in the first place

also that last example i gave is kind of the opposite problem you described. we saw star trek ships turning at warp speed before, no explanation given about how or why it works, then for some (voyager, poo poo) episode they decided to do some retcon technoexpository bullshit about how "nope you can't actually do that because of [tech]"


FMguru posted:

tng script drafts literally had sections that just said "[technobabble]" in them. there was a guy who'd fill it "phase-adaptive plasma channel" and "multi-mode inflection sort algorithm" later on.

i can only imagine that by voyager, the scripts were basically

"a [tech] thing happens

the crew uses [tech] to [tech] the [tech] and [tech]

seven and/or holodoc uses [tech] to explore humanity

the end ([tech])"

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

quote:


i have this, completely owns

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

coaxmetal posted:

Speaking of Dune, I forgot he was rejected by over 20 publishers before some tiny one took it. Kind of crazy.

It was Chilton. As in, the DIY car repair manual publisher. That's what's kind of crazy about it.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Lamont Cranston posted:

own this, this owns



my old man gave me his first edition copy of it. definitely owns.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

qirex posted:

The one that came in the vinyl folder and had the "letters" printed separately?

that's the one

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Amethyst posted:

everyone post how many wheel of time books they made it through.

4

holy poo poo dude i barely made it through the first one


"congratulations, you're the kwisatz haderach"

brilliant ending. fives all around.



i hear the wot fans are pretty crazy too.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Kirk posted:

ahaha i just looked it up, wot still isn't done are you kidding me. i thought that guy they brought in to pick up where jordan left off was supposed to be quick about that poo poo

that's what he thought too, the problem is he went in with the objective of closing all the plot threads that Jordan left open


so the new guy just kept writing... and writing... and writing...


he got to about 400,000 words and realized he was maybe halfway done, and they had to split it into a trilogy because even robert jordan wouldn't have been able to get an 800,000+ word book published, his biggest book ever was just under 400K words

some other book wordcounts for comparison:

2001 A Space Odyssey: 61,487
Dune: 185,723
Battlefield Earth: 387,953
The whole Lord of the Rings trilogy: ~454,000
War and Peace: "over 560,000"
Atlas Shrugged: ~645,000
The Bible: ~775,000


haveblue posted:

9

don't know how I made it that far, but when I realized that book 9 took almost 800 pages to cover the events of maybe a day or two I said gently caress it I'm not doing this any more

yeah i'm pretty sure 350K+ words to describe a couple of days is the definition of grinding to a halt

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
and even if they somehow had convinced the publisher to try printing a book that couldn't be issued as a single paperback, there's no way the bookstores would have stood for it. i guess there's already something of a minor revolt against huge fantasy books taking up a lot of shelf space

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
"zombie apocalypse" trash is just survivalist poo poo for nerds


it's a fun, childish kind of disaster for them to think about because:

- it won't actually ever happen
- the zombies are dehumanized, so there's no guilt or trauma about the thought of having to kill them to survive
- the zombies lack human intelligence, meaning they won't be shooting back at you with guns or grenades
- the zombies typically have magical properties that make melee weapons (swords) much more useful than they would be against humans
- unlike a nuclear war, there will be no radioactive fallout to inflict radiation poisoning or contaminate food and water supplies
- unlike a nuclear war, massive earthquake, or meteor strike, their house/"zombie survival outpost whatever" won't be randomly struck down despite their best preparations
- unlike any other disaster, they won't be competing with everyone else in the city for basic necessities like food and medicine, because most of them will be dead/undead that don't consume these things and can be killed without conscience, and most homes and businesses can be freely looted because the owners will be dead/undead

and of course the big one:
- it won't actually ever happen

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

CHARONS BOAT RIDER posted:




fuckin' love that gif

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
lost: hey guys, we don't even need to try to write consistent good stories any more! we can just throw audiences a random stream of poo poo and they'll eat it all up just the same as long as they like the characters!

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

haveblue posted:

best part of both endings were the spluttering "SPIRITUALITY??? IN MY SCIENCE FICTION??????" nerd rants

best part of the bsg ending for me was some nerd on the internet going "well, who says it has to be god did it? maybe an inscrutable super-AI did it!"

"oh okay. so now it's god A WIZARD did it! that changes everything."

Farmer Crack-Ass fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jul 20, 2011

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

lost: hey guys, we don't even need to try to write consistent good stories any more! we can just throw audiences a random stream of poo poo and they'll eat it all up just the same as long as they like the characters!

internet fans: yeah! i loving loved it! that means literally anyone who criticizes a writing decision or points out a plot hole must have asperger's syndrome!

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Trig Discipline posted:

yup

once lindelof and cuse started giving interviews where they said "it's really all about the characters maaaaaaan" it was instantly apparent that they had written themselves into a corner they didn't know how to get out of

also, that lovely ending was lovely from a character point of view as well

lol there was an interview with one of the bsg writers who said one day during season 4 ron moore had a mini-meltdown and basically said "gently caress it, it's just all about the characters anyway, we can do anything we want"


welcome to the post-plot media

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

graph posted:

me too

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
did anyone ever watch the earthworm jim cartoon as a kid? that show fuckin owned.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

axolotl farmer posted:

I watched it in my 20s and it still owned.

Earthworm Jim and Eek! the cat are the most underappreciated 90s cartoons.

It never hurts to help! :buddy:

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Sneaking Mission posted:

still lovin this cover. wish i could be like that spaceman. i wish i could be with him :allears:



a world ... built upon dope and vice



holy poo poo we need to fuckin' jump-start the manned spaceflight program, right away

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Brace posted:

I think I might go out drinking, except not actually, I'll go out pretending like I'm gonna drink, get really wasted and come home and then just not post on yospos while watching 2001 a space odyssey

there, now it's a good plan

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
you guys might enjoy this: Painting the Enterprise


quote:

My artwork has always been 'dimensional'---trying to fool the eye on a two-dimensional surface...now I was confronted with the real thing and it was a very expensive, one-off, custom-built Real Thing worth 350 grand that was the centerpiece of the whole movie in the bargain. So it was really worth millions.




Gulp.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl



hw2 owned

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
i read starship troopers several years ago and thought 'ehhh, i guess its an okay pulpy book. dunno why internet nerds get so outraged about the movie though.*'

then i read 'the moon is a harsh mistress' last year and was all 'ehhh, it's kind of lolbertarian and he's bad with women, but it's a fun pulpy look at how a lunar colony could rebel. okay.'

then i read 'stranger in a strange land' and thought 'shiiiiiit, this guy is messed up and way too full of himself.'


so yeah i'm glad i read some heinlein but i think i'm done with him.



one of my friends gave me one of those honor harrington books, it was pretty bad. like the dude writes a good space battle but his fiction politics are so grossly and totally unsubtle, and the title character is embarrassingly perfect (except for allegedly not being very pretty, except still attractive to someone with good taste, and of course she's a total babe on the cover) and is so incredibly super-special that she gets to bend the rules and have a cat that goes with her on her military starship command worth like a billion spacedollars or whatever.

i simultaneously was sad and glad that i had not read the book when i was twelve, because on the one hand i would have completely ate it up at that age, but on the other hand i would have been really embarrassed in retrospect for getting into such a childish series.



(* this is false, i actually know exactly why internet nerds get huffy about it: because they didn't get to see little mini-battlemechs jumping around and hurling mini-nukes all over the drat place

or they have terrible ideas about politics)


Kirk posted:

call me when someone drops off that vhs series of the original movies where you line em up and its the enterprise

man i remember that, that was boss

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
wait that image isn't a photoshop? someone literally wrote and had published a book titled "the color of her PANTIES"???

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

FEMA summer camp posted:

hey what about peter f. hamilton

what about him?

right?

i read fallen dragon once and it seemed really severely self-indulgent

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

FEMA summer camp posted:

how'd'ya figgger?

one of the main characters, as a (fat, nerd) teenager, falls in love with a superhot teenage girl, has a lot of hot sex and transforms into a confident and fit young man (while still being brilliant), fucks it up (kinda), then goes on to have an enormously successful career as a nigh-impervious supersoldier mercenary, then at the end of the book gets to go back in time and have a do-over where he lives happily ever after with the girl he loved


also somehow it's the colony founded by CALIFORNIANS who (heh of course) become the ultra-youth-obsessed genetically engineered animal people who are supremely interconnected with their environment (although admittedly it was fun reading them kicking the poo poo out of the rear end in a top hat mercenaries... hey there's that indulgence again!)

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
oh i forgot, he also kind of has a smug "heh, reality kicked in, interstellar travel isn't actually profitable at all" attitude about macro-level technology, but he has no problem with just furiously masturbating over how loving awesome nanotechnology is.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
it was FTL


and it wasn't just like "oh we established a colony, then it went to poo poo when we realized we couldn't make money off it", it was "we somehow blew the money to establish and heavily develop a bunch of colonies before figuring out that we weren't going to make much money off this"

which then turned into "welp might as well just start literally plundering and looting the colonies every few years, gotta turn a profit somehow (b/c most of the colonies were corporate-founded iirc)"

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl
which on further thought doesn't make a huge amount of sense; i mean if you're going to go the whole "bean counters rule the world" thing, someone should have immediately pointed out that you don't need to blow a trillion dollars to establish a settlement light-years away, you could just build orbital O'Neill stations and excavated lunar bases for a fraction of the cost, and use robots to mine the solar system's asteroids


it's been awhile since i read the book though, maybe there's something i'm forgetting. the nanowank and the teenaged sex and the happy ending are still enough to shove the book solidly into "severely self-indulgent" in my opinion.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

rotor posted:

im mostly just mad that he's using RR as his middle initials


i mean, ok, so like fantasy novels have been stealing ideas from tolkien since forever, now they stealin his initials too?? that aint right.

drat i never even realized that :wth:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Trig Discipline posted:

:hfive:

  • Locked thread