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berryjon posted:Mateo and I actually talked about that off-camera. It's why we make joke about Harry, but we never insult him - unlike everyone else. Garrett Wong, Tim Russ, and Kate Mulgrew I honestly respect. We know Garrett's story, but Tim was a hardcore Trekkie who got the chance to live his dream and play a Vulcan--and what he got was Tuvok. He had arguments with the writing staff nearly every episode trying to keep Tuvok's character consistent and Vulcan, and he did a remarkable job getting writers who couldn't have consistently portrayed a cardboard box as a cardboard box to at least keep Tuvok kinda-sorta consistent from episode to episode. Kate Mulgrew gave up that fight at the end of Season 1 and decided that Janeway was secretly an undiagnosed, unmedicated bipolar depressive. IIRC she tried to use whether or not Janeway had coffee or not at the start of an episode as an indicator of whether the episode would feature Saneway or Crazy Jane.
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Apr 26, 2016 01:21
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PoptartsNinja posted:Garrett Wong, Tim Russ, and Kate Mulgrew I honestly respect. Gotta add Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan to that list. They're both good actors - I loved Ryan on Boston Public - but were saddled with B&B and their staff for far too long. One of the better ways to determine which side of Janeway was going to be in the episode was if whether or not Jeri Taylor was being given credit for the episode. If so, Janeway was going to be RIGHT no matter what happened, even if it directly contradicted a previous episode where Janeway was RIGHT in taking the opposing stance. Stepping away from Voyager, Jolene Blalock (T'Pol: ENT) was another Trekkie who was in the same boat as Russ. Had a chance to have a great character, and got cut off at the knees by the higher ups.
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Apr 26, 2016 01:33
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berryjon posted:Gotta add Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan to that list. I didn't mean to leave them off of it. I mean, most of Voyager's watchable episodes were because of either the Doctor, Seven of Nine, or both of them together.
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Apr 26, 2016 01:40
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And credit where it's due to the writers of this game. Sure, it's a fairly simplistic FPS, and hardly Shakespeare (that's another game, Klingon Academy). But for what it is, I think it works pretty well, and at the very least nobody among the actual show's cast comes off as a jackass... Except for Neelix. For better or worse, they seem to have nailed his character particularly well.
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Apr 26, 2016 02:14
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PoptartsNinja posted:Kate Mulgrew gave up that fight at the end of Season 1 and decided that Janeway was secretly an undiagnosed, unmedicated bipolar depressive. IIRC she tried to use whether or not Janeway had coffee or not at the start of an episode as an indicator of whether the episode would feature Saneway or Crazy Jane. That's kind of funny... But so Voyager was all about just completely incompetent writers that couldn't tell you which end is their rear end in a top hat?
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Apr 26, 2016 04:12
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One good writer, a few who could occasionally remember that characters are supposed to be the same from episode to episode, and the rest couldn't have written a consistent script for an immobile pile of actual lumber.
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 04:16
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I'm... Sort of curious now. I might need to watch this trainwreck because it sounds magical.
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Apr 26, 2016 04:18
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PoptartsNinja posted:One good writer, a few who could occasionally remember that characters are supposed to be the same from episode to episode, and the rest couldn't have written a consistent script for an immobile pile of actual lumber. Threshold
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Apr 26, 2016 04:19
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Voyager's a 'peaks and valleys' show. It's all over the place and sometimes peaks are really good. But the valleys occasionally rival the Marianas trench. Or, to put it in a different but equally telling way: they had an episode with The Rock at practically the height of his film career and they cocked it up!
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Apr 26, 2016 04:21
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Well, for one: I don't think he actually had a speaking line, and if there's one thing the Rock is good at it's playing to a crowd. and for two: They used an episode with one of the most famous pro wrestlers at the time to moralize about violent sports.
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Apr 26, 2016 04:25
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It's all because Berman and Braga are idiots and should never be allowed anywhere near a script. Also one of them loves time travel plots and shoehorns them in even when they're wholly inappropriate. See also: Star Trek Enterprise. Probably Braga, since he was the one responsible for Threshold.
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Apr 26, 2016 04:27
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Kurieg posted:Well, for one: I don't think he actually had a speaking line, and if there's one thing the Rock is good at it's playing to a crowd. It was also a story about Seven growing as a person, being forced into a situation she never had to deal with before. I actually liked that one, even if they underused their guest star. However, anyone thinking about watching Voyager expecting something so bad it's good, turn back. The bad things about it are utterly unfun bad things. A lot of it is character inconsistency, as has been mentioned previously. More has to do with ideas that just don't hold up under scrutiny. So watching it, you will know it's not that great. But to truly comprehend its failure requires thought and attentiveness. It's not a recipe for a good time. You may even start to like it at first, but then its failings will just hurt you. Better to watch SFDebris's reviews of the episodes. They'll tell you everything you need to know, and be a lot more entertaining at the same time.
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Apr 26, 2016 06:05
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For fucks sake even Kes got a good character development episode in season 3 before someone pointed out that having a literal 3 year old as a love interest was more than a little creepy.
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Apr 26, 2016 06:22
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I liked Kes.  I also like this game it felt a lot like an actual episode.
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Apr 26, 2016 06:39
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PoptartsNinja posted:Probably Braga, since he was the one responsible for Threshold. So that's twice Threshold was mentioned... Why is it bad?
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Apr 26, 2016 13:49
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Zain posted:So that's twice Threshold was mentioned... Why is it bad? One of the things they changed in TNG was the warp scale, while in TOS they went faster than warp ten all the time, in TNG actually going warp ten via warp drive was impossible, not to mention going faster than it. So Paris builds an experimental warp drive, slaps it in a shuttle, and gets to like, warp twelve or something. Except going that fast "accelerated his evolution" and he's now starting to change. At the climax of the episode he kidnaps Janeway, and takes her on a shuttle ride, by the time the ship finds them they've turned into these huge salamander things and Janeway has popped out a couple of kids. The doctor fixes them, somehow, but they leave the salamander kids on the planet they found them on. At the time Braga thought that "maybe evolution is cyclical and if we evolve too far we'll evolve backwards." Since then even he's agreed that the episode is a flaming pile of dog poo poo and doesn't like talking about it.
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Apr 26, 2016 14:36
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Zain posted:So that's twice Threshold was mentioned... Why is it bad? just watch this: http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v832.php
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Apr 26, 2016 15:18
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PoptartsNinja posted:Kate Mulgrew gave up that fight at the end of Season 1 and decided that Janeway was secretly an undiagnosed, unmedicated bipolar depressive. IIRC she tried to use whether or not Janeway had coffee or not at the start of an episode as an indicator of whether the episode would feature Saneway or Crazy Jane. after years of watching Sfdebris' characterization of Janeway, finally a diegetic explanation is ... heartening Is there a schadenfreude-like word, for the feeling of respect earned for persevering though a absolutely lovely situation?
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Apr 26, 2016 15:35
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PoptartsNinja posted:We know Garrett's story, but Tim was a hardcore Trekkie who got the chance to live his dream and play a Vulcan--and what he got was Tuvok. He had arguments with the writing staff nearly every episode trying to keep Tuvok's character consistent and Vulcan, and he did a remarkable job getting writers who couldn't have consistently portrayed a cardboard box as a cardboard box to at least keep Tuvok kinda-sorta consistent from episode to episode. Worth noting, this is also the story of Jolene Blaylock who played T'Pol in Enterprise, except she had far less success keeping her character vaguely on track. According to her, the writers only told her after she signed the contract that T'Pol's primary character trait was to be sexy.
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Apr 26, 2016 15:43
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mateo360 posted:just watch this: Wow, that was sure a thing....
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Apr 26, 2016 18:41
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Star Trek Online has an expansion called Delta Rising, with players going into the Delta Quadrant. It's a pretty good mission series, using a race introduced in Voyager becoming the Big Bad. Just about everyone from the Voyager series provided voicework for the missions, and overall did a good job of showing how Voyager affected things during its trip home.
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Apr 26, 2016 19:39
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Rabidredneck posted:Star Trek Online has an expansion called Delta Rising, with players going into the Delta Quadrant. It's a pretty good mission series, using a race introduced in Voyager becoming the Big Bad. Just about everyone from the Voyager series provided voicework for the missions, and overall did a good job of showing how Voyager affected things during its trip home. Right but didn't STO also do a bunch of other poo poo like de-borgify Seven of Nine and turn her into a recluse. And turn Janeway into the new Borg Queen?
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Apr 26, 2016 20:10
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Kurieg posted:Right but didn't STO also do a bunch of other poo poo like de-borgify Seven of Nine and turn her into a recluse. And turn Janeway into the new Borg Queen? Wait... What? It's been years since I played STO.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:16
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Kurieg posted:Right but didn't STO also do a bunch of other poo poo like de-borgify Seven of Nine and turn her into a recluse. And turn Janeway into the new Borg Queen? That sounds hilarious. Would Janeway really change all that much? STO does have a lot of bad or worse, boring things in its storyline, but the loading screens sometimes drop hilarious and/or depressing retcons "WESLEY CRUSHER IS BACK! Nobody cares in the slightest." or "So yeah, Data downloaded himself into B4 and he's fine. gently caress Nemesis". Also, IIRC, the Voyager EMH and all holo-crew are now considered fully sentient citizens of the Federation. Even Moriarty got a trial again for his rights. No updates on Pulaski, because no one cares about Pulaski.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:19
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mateo360 posted:Wait... What? It's been years since I played STO. The Star Trek EU is a completely hosed up mess and the fact that STO has set an endpoint for them has just turned it into even more of one. Janeway was turned into the Borg Queen but was killed but then the Female Q resurrected her somehow as a gift for her Son. Seven of Nine met the creators of the Borg who removed all of her implants but replaced them with things that aren't implants but look exactly like implants so her appearance is still the same.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:30
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Kurieg posted:Right but didn't STO also do a bunch of other poo poo like de-borgify Seven of Nine and turn her into a recluse. And turn Janeway into the new Borg Queen? I think that second thing was in the novels. Also, Pluto got eaten.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:31
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berryjon posted:Mateo and I actually talked about that off-camera. It's why we make joke about Harry, but we never insult him - unlike everyone else. Poor guy has had enough. Wait, they make you pay for autographs? I've never been to any kind of convention with actual stars around, I thought it was just making sure you were in line early.
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Apr 26, 2016 20:58
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Carbon dioxide posted:Wait, they make you pay for autographs? It depends on the person in question, their agents, and if the convention gets a cut or not. In my case, there was a fee to get his autograph, which I did not pay.
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Apr 26, 2016 21:09
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Carbon dioxide posted:Wait, they make you pay for autographs? Generally, any convention you go to is going to, the guest will charge for an autograph and pictures. I want to say Wong's was $30.
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Apr 26, 2016 22:04
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In STO, when Starfleet disbanded it's anti-Borg taskforce Seven quit and joined the Daystrom Institute. She eventually becomes Starfleet's liason to the Borg Cooperative, a group of freed Borg drones who actively try to free more from the Hivemind. As for Janeway I've only ever seen brief references to her, she's never actually made an appearance. One continuity example is the Malon, the guys who go around dumping their warp reactor waste everywhere. They shot down Janeway's attempt to give them technology to properly recycle it, one mission in the Delta series has you protecting a Malon research facility trying to develop their own version of the tech from saboteurs trying to protect their corporate interests. I liked how the researchers say that they know if it works it would throw their planet's economy into chaos, but in the long run would do a lot more good for their race. Rabidredneck fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 26, 2016 22:33
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Cythereal posted:Worth noting, this is also the story of Jolene Blaylock who played T'Pol in Enterprise, except she had far less success keeping her character vaguely on track. According to her, the writers only told her after she signed the contract that T'Pol's primary character trait was to be sexy. I used to think that Blaylock was one of the weaker actors on Enterprise, but if that's the sole reason they hired here, then yeah, I wouldn't bring my A Game to the show as an actor either. Goddamn. Double goddamn if they'd also gone through with their original plan and had T'Pol actually be T'Pau. How much of a hack do you have to be to potentially reduce one of the most fascinating lore characters from the original series to "Stand behind Scott Bakula and point your tits at the camera". The more I hear, the more empathy I have for everyone in Star Trek hell. I recommended this book to a friend, but if you've never read it, find and download Michael Piller's "Fade In". It's a memoir about how Star Trek: Insurrection basically fell apart underneath him to his impotent horror. It actually made me reevaluate my opinion of Rick Berman from "the man who destroyed Star Trek" to "the man who honestly tried to save Star Trek, but couldn't" for a whole swath of reasons. As for the game, I honestly liked Elite Force 2 better than EF1. EF1 felt like I was playing a Voyager episode, EF2 felt like I was playing a Star Trek episode. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 03:18
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nine-gear crow posted:I used to think that Blaylock was one of the weaker actors on Enterprise, How can you think that when Phlox exists?
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Apr 27, 2016 05:08
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nine-gear crow posted:As for the game, I honestly liked Elite Force 2 better than EF1. EF1 felt like I was playing a Voyager episode, EF2 felt like I was playing a Star Trek episode. In retrospect, EF2 was like a JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, complete with shots of people getting blown out into space. I would have liked it better if the weapons weren't agonizingly underpowered, especially on the harder difficulty levels, but to each their own.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:01
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Carbon dioxide posted:Wait, they make you pay for autographs? It's a pretty regular thing. Some combination of conventions not generally able to pay for travel/accommodation of those they manage to book, make sure the guests are paid for their time, and to stop any swarming.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:04
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Kurieg posted:How can you think that when Phlox exists? John Billingsley at least had a screen presence. He seemed to have the opposite reaction to Blaylock when he realized he was playing a live action Dr. Zoidberg and gleefully played it to the tee.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:20
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Montegoraon posted:In retrospect, EF2 was like a JJ Abrams Star Trek movie, complete with shots of people getting blown out into space. I would have liked it better if the weapons weren't agonizingly underpowered, especially on the harder difficulty levels, but to each their own. Elite Force 2 was one of those games where playing on the hardest difficulty was more of a chore than an actual challenge, you lost health so easily that some of the puzzles that came later were loving agonizing. The one I immediately think of is when you have to use your tricorder to find where gas is coming from and then weld all of the vents shut, but depending on the layout and if you don't have a lot of health you are restarting from about 30 minutes to an hour previously because ffffffuuuuuuuuck. I think I enjoyed EF2 purely because Patrick Stewart was around, he automatically elevates anything for me
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Apr 27, 2016 06:44
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nine-gear crow posted:I used to think that Blaylock was one of the weaker actors on Enterprise, but if that's the sole reason they hired here, then yeah, I wouldn't bring my A Game to the show as an actor either. Goddamn. Double goddamn if they'd also gone through with their original plan and had T'Pol actually be T'Pau. How much of a hack do you have to be to potentially reduce one of the most fascinating lore characters from the original series to "Stand behind Scott Bakula and point your tits at the camera". According to her, when things finally started coming together in the final season between the writers and actors, it was Blaylock's idea for T'Pol to be revealed in the next season to be, unknown to her, half-Romulan. She was a huge Star Trek geek and thought that was the only possible explanation for why T'Pol had been written to be such a lovely Vulcan.
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Apr 27, 2016 11:09
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Cythereal posted:According to her, when things finally started coming together in the final season between the writers and actors, it was Blaylock's idea for T'Pol to be revealed in the next season to be, unknown to her, half-Romulan. She was a huge Star Trek geek and thought that was the only possible explanation for why T'Pol had been written to be such a lovely Vulcan. We also would have got Jeffrey Combs hired on to the main cast. Which would have great because the man deserved to have title billing in a Trek series after all his hard work, AND it means we would have got Sharn hovering over Archer's shoulder insulting him non stop, and more insulting of Jonathan Archer is always a good thing.
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Apr 27, 2016 13:51
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nine-gear crow posted:John Billingsley at least had a screen presence. He seemed to have the opposite reaction to Blaylock when he realized he was playing a live action Dr. Zoidberg and gleefully played it to the tee. I seem to remember a lot of the actors being awfully wooden and the first two seasons still being kind of crappy. People weren't willing to give it the two years of Teething time that the previous three shows got because they were retreading a lot of literally old ground and didn't have another Star Trek show going on concurrently to keep them interested. By the time Season 3 rolled around most people had already given up, and season 4's move to the Death Slot did not help matters in the least. nine-gear crow posted:We also would have got Jeffrey Combs hired on to the main cast. Which would have great because the man deserved to have title billing in a Trek series after all his hard work, AND it means we would have got Sharn hovering over Archer's shoulder insulting him non stop, and more insulting of Jonathan Archer is always a good thing. I remember stumbling across Combs playing a character in The Secret World and squealing with glee because he's got such a recognizable voice and his delivery for the character was spot on. He really needed more screen time.
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Apr 27, 2016 16:02
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Kurieg posted:The Star Trek EU is a completely hosed up mess and the fact that STO has set an endpoint for them has just turned it into even more of one. Janeway was turned into the Borg Queen but was killed but then the Female Q resurrected her somehow as a gift for her Son. Seven of Nine met the creators of the Borg who removed all of her implants but replaced them with things that aren't implants but look exactly like implants so her appearance is still the same. Creators of the Borg? You mean THE BORG? Like didn't they start out as a species that was like "Tech implants are the way of the future!" And then went to far and they become the borg?
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Apr 27, 2016 23:21
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