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Linux Pirate posted:Yuuzhan Vong I remember at the time reading all the concept stuff and thinking "Well, it's different in a way none of the other Star Wars poo poo has been for 20 years." Even at the time, the EU and Prequels had made the universe feel very, very stagnant. Clones, Palpatine reruns, everyone's a drat Jedi, the technology is completely locked-in, there's really no variety outside of dumber and dumber aliens. So introducing a Lovecraftian WH40k race was conceptually not a bad move to really shake things up and see what was still Star Wars... but as we've seen that until you go too far, most fans will actively resist anything that changes up Star Wars too much... and the Yuuzhan Vong were definitely too much of a shake-up (and not that interesting besides; they have that shonen anime vibe where they're tailor-made as a response to the status quo).
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Sep 14, 2020 01:05
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SlothfulCobra posted:I get that science fiction often wants to somehow idolize or give tribute to the scientific process, but if the writers don't have the patience to write in scientist characters being total dorks over their fields of study, it's much better if they write some more utilitarian, easily-understandable purpose for the characters to be going through space. But nah, gotta be cool and gotta be "on the job."
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Oct 21, 2021 23:20
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SlothfulCobra posted:Voice controls are inaccurate and buggy and terrible, but they're mostly a cheat for TV and movies because screenwriters are not good at figuring out how to frame user interfaces and screens in a way that the audience can tell what's going on. If the computer is just a voice that you talk to, that makes it much easier to exposit what's happening. Usually the alternative would be to just have people awkwardly explain what they're doing while miming controls. Bit like how up until we actually got voice call technology, it was just assumed that was what humans would want. quote:Usually the alternative would be to just have people awkwardly explain what they're doing while miming controls. Screenwriters are so bad at figuring out how to frame user interfaces, that when one actually did put work into imagining one they made it an entire setpiece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJqbivkm0Ms
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Nov 23, 2021 12:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nY0RCXyLt0 I am not saying this as a negative
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Jan 13, 2022 16:36
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Presto posted:.... Sorry? You got me looking it up because dumb Star Wars EU poo poo is fun: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Callista_Ming Not as interested as I had hoped. Standard pulp "uploaded self into computer to save something or other, got reawakened and fell in love, ultimately farted back into the ether"
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Jan 16, 2022 19:43
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Case in point - the current Trek live action shows. Barudak posted:Was? The disney verse is speedrunning all the bad EU decisions they blew up
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Jan 17, 2022 04:39
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Yes we've literally all seen Lindsay Ellis' video we don't need to front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLOxQxMnEz8 PoptartsNinja posted:That's only a hair worse than Quattro Bajeena and Jamitov Hymen. Lmfao this loving rules.
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Feb 12, 2022 17:35
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Talk about a branding issue
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Feb 25, 2022 10:45
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nashona posted:Am librarian. Can confirm
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Mar 5, 2022 04:21
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Apr 3, 2022 19:03
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nashona posted:and speaking of dumb poo poo. I just watched the new version of the stand. pretty loving dumb and boring. Are there any good samples of anything that anyone can point me to about Randall Flagg? I keep hearing from King fans about how he's this excellent villain but every adaptation that features a version of Flagg seems to suck poo poo and I've never had the patience for going through any of the King work that features him. What's "good" Randall Flagg?
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Apr 4, 2022 23:13
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It's now my headcanon that originally the Death Star was originally called "The Starkiller" b/c R E F E R E N C E but all the workers and underlyings and even officers started to call it a "Death Star" because of lack of safety compliance that the name stuck.
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May 22, 2022 14:17
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Marcade posted:You all missed the obvious. Predator vs. Kevin McCallister. No lie I bet this is like the one concept Caulkin would be down for outside of those commercials he did.
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Jun 4, 2022 19:36
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twistedmentat posted:Anyways speaking of China, loving Firefly where the evil government was the USA and PRC combined but you'd never guess that with the lack of any Asian people on the show.
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Jun 9, 2022 04:28
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Firefly has confederate apologia, incredibly weird and male-gazey sex poo poo, a magical negro, a magical hooker, fearmongering about Chinese hegemony and-one world governments, and writing by a guy who can only write anyone like they're a male teenager and who has turned out to be a tyrannical sociopath. 
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Jun 9, 2022 20:43
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Harold Fjord posted:The criticism about confederate apologia never really clicked with me. Was anything analogous to slavery happening that the space confederates deserve condemnation for? The coding is across-the-board, complete with references to how the cause will "Rise Again," and lots of nebulous vague gestures toward how the Alliance is authoritarian/fascist and all the Rebels want is "freedom." The accents they give characters, the set decoration for anywhere that isn't Alliance, the soundtrack choices are all dripping in Antebellum South iconography. It's extremely not subtle about this either. You'd have to be insane to not notice.The fact that the only black woman of note in the show is the white lead's right hand doesn't help. And it doesn't condemn one bit of it, and in today's climate yeah that's about as bad as "Actual Apologia."
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Jun 9, 2022 22:12
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Anonymous Zebra posted:EDIT: I never really understood the love for Firefly, and would love someone to explain how "the cast" saved the bad writing considering the cast seemed to be pulled from the same 15 people he used for all of his shows, most of whom never struck me as very good actors. The writing itself isn't that bad in terms of structure-- it leads the audience well through a lot of dumb lore bullshit quickly for easy-to-understand genre plots complete with characters whose dynamics and interactions are clear. It's the actual proper nouns and concepts that are dogshit. It's a very rare case where it's not the execution, it's the concept. As far as the cast, well to start while none of them were nobodies or anything Firefly was a landmark in most of their careers and for all (?) of them the very start of working with Whedon, so saying he pulled them from a preexisting bench is  . Like yeah they're old hat now, but to be that, they had to be new hat at some point right?It's also not really about any of them being good/bad actors. Outside of Alan Tudyk they're all pretty middle of the road (l say, like I could ever do better), with some charms as performers that they really know how to stick to. Y'know, like TV actors do. They're the marathon runners of acting. The difference is that all those cast members at that time in their life happened to spark a genuine chemistry and affinity during the limited time they worked together, and that parasocial vibe absolutely makes it up on the screen straight past the garbage concepts. That's what connected to people. You almost certainly don't feel that vibe watching it today, especially because so many other shows/movies/social media personalities have worked very hard to emulate similar vibes and succeeded, but Firefly was a herald for what has become a very common 21st Century genre style. You ain't gotta like it, but it's not like it's that hard to understand.
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Jun 10, 2022 02:48
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Xiahou Dun posted:Quibble that "wait for it to get good" is also true of things that are just slower paced. Like I agree with you in general, but there are other, completely valid reasons why someone might say that about a show/book/movie. A lot of very well written things just need some time to get going and you need to be patient, the difference is they know exactly where they're going and it just takes a bit because they have to get plot machinery or background together. These are also pretty rare. Like "Game of Thrones"-- the actual first book of that series-- is a legitimate example. The book isn't boring but it's a hell of a lot of plotting infrastructure getting laid down for 3/4 of its meaty 800 pages or so (using the small paperback), before the plot really kicks into gear and then sustains that momentum for around 1500 more pages before stalling out and making GBS threads the bed forever. The difference is exactly what you said-- GRRM knew the story he was telling and why, so the majority of the crap that makes up the first book serves a purpose. Once the plot is in motion you understand the world, you presumably care enough to have stuck it out that far, and thus you're able to piece together enough inferences about what *could* happen next that you're compelled to read more. There's also an implicit understanding of episodic storytelling where you include smaller plots and arcs to keep the audience strung along. Unfortunately when that is for a TV show or movie, most of the time "slow burn" is euphemistic for "we didn't have budget to do exciting things, but had to hit a certain amount of content" or "there is no narrative to speak of" and that kind of pretension is what rubs lots of people the wrong way. Like I'm sorry Netflix, I'm sure there are worthwhile reasons why this 10 episode dark mystery set in a small European town is so boring, but for the most part it's just boring.
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Jun 11, 2022 06:46
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Yes a corollary is that older television shows usually required some time before they're figured out wtf they are and what they're about. I think Conan O'Brien once said that it's a big reason he loves the Adam West Batman so much-- right out of the gate that show knew exactly what it was and how it wanted everything on it to be, and that's very rare in television.
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Jun 11, 2022 07:02
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Exactly, in my experience unless a show was very explicitly designed to be serial-only, you can tell a lot about the quality of it as a whole by how easily you can jump into any random piece and both follow-along and feel some level of engagement/narrative satisfaction. That model is definitely going to see a comeback now that Netflix is losing its grasp as King poo poo of Streaming, but unfortunately I don't think it's ever going to quite go back to the way it was where episodes would be produced as completed episodes aired, so audience feedback could change the direction of an entire season before it finished airing. Disney ain't going to do Ms. Marvel Ep. 5 reshoots because something in Ep. 2 fell flat, you know?
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Jun 11, 2022 07:26
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Even at its very best Firefly was always regarded as trash too. The only people who said otherwise were blatantly.... sad. Don't really know a nice way to phrase that.
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Jun 12, 2022 13:31
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I mean yeah. Bite down and deal.twistedmentat posted:I actually don't remember any anime plotting from Firefly but then its been at least a decade since i watched any of it.   I don't think it ever went to court or got settled with a payment, especially because Firefly veers hard into dumb Confederacy Western bullshit while Outlaw Star is episodic action bullshit with catgirls and whatever, but like that one point is pretty hard to quibble over. Cowboy Bebop was also white hot at the time so seeing Joss Whedon-- marketing's proclaimed "champion of the nerds"-- doing a space western was also seen as a kind of pandering. Who the gently caress really knows/cares though.
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Jun 12, 2022 18:16
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You're thinking of Outlaw Star, which was a dumb loving show but was both completely aware of how stupid it was and just trying to have a good time, and it has legitimately one of the coolest handheld guns in any sci-fi and fits this thread-- the Caster Gun: It's a gun that fires bullets containing magic. And because it fires magic the bullets are rare/expensive as balls so whenever the protag uses one it's an "event." They don't even really live up to the concept but it's kind-of amazing no other property has bothered to try a similar idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThxcIgUYse4 I don't think Firefly took anything direct from Cowboy Bebop per se, other than make some bean counters say "well space westerns are hot right now!"
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Jun 12, 2022 21:48
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twistedmentat posted:Big "Troi should have 3 boobs" Rod. Also now fans can channel their perversions much more effectively, so there's not as much need for fetish satisfaction by-proxy, which was a pillar that pulp fiction stood on. Again it's still there, just not quite as essential. quote:This is why Claremont's X-men has so much weird fetish stuff and gets real horny too, he came from that tradition of sci-fi and fantasy writers that were totally cool and chill with having all your weird kinks out on the page. The difference is that comics were a visual medium so seeing it drawn in excellent late 70s/early 80s marvel style made it way more uncomfortable. The comics still have their virtues, and for the time it was a twisted kind of progressive-- that's why those properties sold so hard and became staples --but man the gross corners are really gross.
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Jun 16, 2022 18:56
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Lawman 0 posted:Uhhhh what the gently caress??? twistedmentat posted:the 70s was the decade of "its totally cool and good for older guys to band younger women, and we mean YOUNGER WOMEN". I've seen way to many 70s boob comedies to not be grossed out by (clearly 20 something actors) playing explicitly 16 year old high school girls that older guys are trying to bang. quote:I never thought that about Starfire but yikes. I was more of a Raven guy. quote:And yea, with more outlets for stuff, writers don't have to have a scene in the middle of a book about conspiracies there being a long, very detailed anal sex scene. That was a big surprise when reading the Illuminatis trilogy. You can see Superman 69ing with Batman in a dozen ways, and someone probably has a renply game of all the over watch characters banging in whatever combo you want so they don't really need to titillate within the content anymore.
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Jun 16, 2022 22:02
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I mean yeah Star Wars is the lowest common denominator of all science fiction trappings. It's dumb as gently caress. Literally every time they try to make Star Wars not dumb it's always a massive controversy with the fanbase and they pitch a loving fit until they make it dumb again. Disclaimer: That's not to say there aren't smart things in Star Wars. The aesthetic design was and remains a massive work of genius. The sound design is legendary and literally became the standard we measure all sci-fi noises against now. There are often nice little moments or touches of affecting writing, character, that showcase a genuine intellect both driving and shining through the material. I'm just saying that as a whole it's a really loving dumb universe with a really dumb and base animal appeal, and there is a lot of empirical proof that trying to do anything other than ride that vibe is met with virulent, tit-grabbing hostility.
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Jun 30, 2022 18:46
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Yeah Avatar sucked poo poo. Still think the mech dude pulling out a Gundam-size bowie knife takes the cake for what I think of when I think "needlessly dumb poo poo in Sci-Fi."
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Jul 2, 2022 16:35
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That's kind-of the fundamental problem with Avatar-- it wants to be seen as this apex of worldbuilding but doesn't have the narrative follow-through to back it up, and everyone everywhere has long mined humor out of the dissonance between sales pitch and product. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ Ironically it'd probably be way more well-received if it didn't have such a shamefully massive price tag and all the associated "James Cameron" prestige baggage. It gives everything this real poo poo "Emperor's New Clothes" vibe.
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Jul 2, 2022 19:21
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I don't know about a full genre but it's clear that some people are really really into that very specific flavor
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Jul 6, 2022 03:56
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:SNW is fun Oh good a warm bath nostalgia show. Can't get any of that in modern geek culture.
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Jul 19, 2022 16:37
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Fair enough, but you've got to admit the sell of aping a half-century old show because modern stuff is either "too expensive," "too depressing," or both says a lot about how dire live action sci-fi has been since the early 00s.
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Jul 19, 2022 17:04
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Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:I think good Trek is just really hard to make cause it has to perfectly capture the zeitgeist of it's era in order to be relevant while still being true to what makes it Trek to begin with: optimism and hope. And that is a really fine line. It's also because Trek hit the impossible problem of not being able to have predicted the upsurge in telecommunications, internet, and storage archiving and they kind-of backed themselves into a corner with the Replicators, Transporters, and Holodeck. It's hard to really go anywhere from that conceptually without just turning the Federation into The Culture. Plus some dirty narrative facts-- older Trek wasn't shy about being aspirational figures for children (ok mostly boys, granted) where you'd look at Riker, Spock, even Dax or Tom Paris and think "I'd want to be them" but some time during VOY and ENT they just dropped that. Plus-plus a lot of the very best Star Trek doesn't have its roots in opera, but in stageplays as a matter of necessity before CGI, and the rise of that has made it easier to just run with dumb ideas instead of being forced to really access the drama/melodrama of the plot and force the actors to really play with each other.
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Jul 21, 2022 01:38
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Defiance Industries posted:There's a much better way to do an evil Federation, it's the Dominion. Not only are they an interesting inversion rather than just being cartoonishly evil, they have a cohesive ethos.
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Jul 23, 2022 16:14
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Improbable Lobster posted:First contact was made with Klingons, and the Klingons became so enamoured by human society that they tried emulating it immediately  stuff they show on DIS well before they started their interstellar empire. They'd take a look at WWIII-scorched Earth and go "lmao" and turn humans into a vassal state/slave class until enough humans figured out their tech to mount a rebellion and go on the run. Hell sounds like a good show if you really want to make a show involving Trek poo poo but gets to also be all grimdark and "edgy."
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Jul 23, 2022 22:32
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Fivemarks posted:So you want a Star Trek Show that isn't about Star Trek. That's what most of NuTrek is already. Prodigy and TLD in-particular are aggressively "not your daddy's Star Trek" while simultaneously begging Daddy to see it as Star Trek by dragging out Janeway or O'Brien. It is possible and even cool and good to have a show about a science vessel that doesn't have the fate of the galaxy or an entire civilization fall into its hands. It's possible and even cool and good to have a show about the immense resource and energy needs and the struggles it takes to make those happen for everyday people. Hell, you can just do a ranch show on some alien backwater world in the California desert just like grandad Roddenberry envisioned and show the Maqius-style perspective as various Big Government type bodies like the Federation and Cardassians hassle the gently caress out of them.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:32
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CainFortea posted:Yea i'm very confused how LD isn't one of the trekiest things ever made. quote:Also pretty sure everyone would dislike a non-starfleet trek show.
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Aug 4, 2022 18:33
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SlothfulCobra posted:They actually got really into that with the Marvel Ultimate continuity, where they made a rebooted universe with modernized versions of all the characters. One of the big ideas was that they could take the arcane and ridiculous storylines that built up the characters in the original continuity and do versions of the stories that were actually planned from the start, with complex foreshadowing instead of pulled out of their asses on the spur of the moment. And as part of planning out, at least half of the superheroes have the super soldier serum as their origin. Hulk was the result of Bruce Banner trying and failing to reproduce the super soldier serum, Spiderman came from Oscorp experimenting with using spiders to recreate the super soldier serum, Nick Fury got some serum, somehow Wolverine and the entire mutant race were the results of Canada trying to recreate the super soldier serum, even Sandman had some super soldier serum. It was nuts. That was one of the few fun bits of the Ultimate Universe when Mark Millar wasn't trying to "edge" it up or "just 616, but slightly redesigned." Like sure, roll your eyes at Kraven the Hunter now being an X-Treme Russian Steve Irwin who gets his genes modified to become a man-hyena in the hopes of taking down Spider-Man, but it's different. All too often the writers would literally just import the 616 versions with no care.
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Oct 19, 2022 02:33
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:It's tied into the Eternals/Deviants thing I think? It's all a bit of a mess. That's not incorrect but SlothfulCobra was more correct in practice in saying that Mutants basically just come from everywhere for any reason at any time. The Eternals/Deviants bullshit is classic late-addition hack work that will only ever be as important as the story being told at that exact moment decides it is, and very very few X-Men stories are going to require Eternals/Deviants bullshit to show off hot people escaping their provincial backwaters in order to jet set around awesome exotic locales while being hot.
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Oct 19, 2022 16:39
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It is amusing how because of the Eternals remaining unfinished it's essentially become this "fill in the blank" exercise at Marvel and no version has truly figured out how to square it.
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Oct 23, 2022 07:35
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:It did, but in a rare miss for a well written show, DS9 ran the Mirror Universe into the ground. It worked for an episode or two but the more you keep returning to the MU, the more diluted the premise gets each time. Yeah it was very fun the first time. The second time has Sisko loving Mirror Dax to keep his cover, which is  , and after that it just gets tiresome.Plus while seeing Michael Dorn do just about anything is a fun time, their conception of Worf as essentially "Worf as you know him, but if he were raised by Klingons and went full Kubla Khan" felt a bit like a resignation because they couldn't think of anything more fun to do. There are still elements from latter DS9 MU episodes I like, but as a whole I usually skip them.
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Nov 4, 2022 02:31
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