Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

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No one is forcing you to watch anything but complaints have value.

Star Trek needs less Issue Advocacy. It needs to be less about living in an apartment complex (Voyager) and more about space exploration.

"emotional validation"? No. Less crying. Yes.
 
You're not talking about the guy who comes to my house and forces me to watch whatever he tells me?

:)
:)
 
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No one is forcing you to watch...
It almost seems like somebody is. Poor dears.
Interesting. So you see "I dislike this" as equivalent to "I am being forced to engage in something I dislike." Are you living in a totalitarian state? Are you being held hostage? Do you need police intervention?

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Most people would interpret the dislike of Star Trek Discovery for what it is: disliking the fact that something good was turned into something bad, and continues to be bad. It is perfectly normal for people to dislike things that are bad, even if they are not forced to engage in that bad thing. The continued badness of STD precludes *good* STD, and that's bad.
 
On another note, I decided to acquire the Orville on dvd, I have seen 2 so far so early days but not really impressed, it does however take a but longer than two shows to properly 'get it' so I will continue and see where it goes. I actually liked the first few seasons of 'heroes' and look where that went.
 
Pretty upset about the preview I saw with the tolkien derived show. Like many I've read his letters and all the history of middle earth and loved Tolkien. I dont think people realize how upset tolkien would have been over this as he did not like the domination of the author over the reader, or in this case the viewer. Now some might take offense or think I am being silly I wont even argue on this but let's just say they wanted their own song of ice and fire clone, found that the first and second age were dreary and dark and full of abilities to insert edgy storylines into tolkiens work. It is just a cynical move to make money off Tolkien, same with the "woke" stuff.

I'd escape to Tolkien in bad times when my sister was in the hospital. His work is so keen, like a sudden breath of fresh cold air when you are still half asleep. Altogether lovely. I hate to see it used and twisted for money and agenda.
 
The Orville season 3 trailer is completely awesome. And I say that as someone perfectly alien (ha ha ha ha) to streaming, TV shows, and the like.
Life is too short even for binge watching series (too many of them since the 1990's), plus I hate greedy producers taking me hostage of their greed. Got my own space imaginary show in my head, so it doesn't help.
And finally, not a Seth McFarlane fan either (his anime at least - meh). Although the man himself looks to be a smartass and pretty wicked and a prankster.

All the above well noted - one can guess only by watching that trailer, the man certainly knows his "sci fi all time classics by heart (Star Trek TOS to DS9 + Star Wars + Battlestar galactica and all the other classics).

You can guess McFarlane absorbed every single bit of these shows as a kid, a teen, and a grown-up; that for a long time he dreamed of making his own take of them;
- and this was the result.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAWJq0fetYw

The main theme all alone smells Star Trek and John Williams, 100%. Again, the guy seems to know his "pompous sci-fi theme" by heart.

John Hammond in Jurassic Park summarized it very well

 
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I tried to like The Orville but the jokes and set-ups were lame. The preview for the Amazon version of LotR was a bit bland. To wax a bit poetic, it was like a faded picture. You could make out what it was trying to be but those who put it together were doing 'paint by numbers' and not real painting.
 
I tried to like The Orville but the jokes and set-ups were lame. The preview for the Amazon version of LotR was a bit bland. To wax a bit poetic, it was like a faded picture. You could make out what it was trying to be but those who put it together were doing 'paint by numbers' and not real painting.
The kindest thing you can say about the Amazon project is that the people making it don't understand the source material... and don't care. They just want their own Game of Thrones and aren't clever enough to come up with their own; they saw that there's a built-in fanbase for LOTR, and simply bought it to appropriate the name and likeness without any of the actual lore or content.

And then you can start saying unkind things... things that are probably still true no matter how unkind you get.
 
Regarding LotR by Amazon, I'll just wait for more trailers before saying more. But that recent trailer just lacks the right feel.

Speaking generally, Hollywood likes to copy the moneymaker, regardless of what it is. And well-known IPs are target number one when looking for source material. Netflix was recently criticized on an investor site for lacking these and just throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. And their production costs are too high. Add in what I call Issue Advocacy and well, some people will never tune in and watch.
 
Amazon occasionally gets it right. Good Omens series 1, based on the Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman book is excellent.
Good Omens series 2 is in production, I hope it will be worth watching. Fingers crossed.

Maybe another petition to Netflix to cancel series 2?
 
Regarding LotR by Amazon, I'll just wait for more trailers before saying more.

Sometimes you can see that the producers don;t care right off the bat. When STD turned Klingons into Klingorks, you knew they didn't care. Amazon has made numerous similar decisions with "Rings of power" which show that they don't give a damn about the source material... or they think they know better than Tolkein.

Such as: portraying Galadriel as "young." Sure, she's a few thousand years younger here than in LOTR.... but she's still over ten thousand years old at the time. Turnign her into an Action Hero? Elves and Dwarves, creatures taken from North and Celtic mythology and folklore, turned into non-Europeans? Elves with short hair? Beardless adult Dwarves? Distinctly non-English Hobbits?

When the disdain for the lore is put on such blatant display in the first trailer, you can see where they're going.
 
I've read recent comments from those involved about "non-Europeans" being cast in various roles. They want very much to do these things because they want the original story recast to fit their ideas as opposed to adapting the source material. They know what they're doing.

Among some in Hollywood, the recent fad is to make everything they can into a "modern" and "better" version of the old stuff. To promote their own "modern" view of the world. And they can do this all they want by creating original material that does no damage to any source material. And if that's not good enough, they can produce documentaries.

Much has been written about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Leave it alone and leave those of us who know the material alone. But, apparently not. A built-in audience will walk into the trap, and just as the tripwire detonates the mine - poof - fewer viewers. I am not looking forward to this.
 
I tried to like The Orville but the jokes and set-ups were lame. The preview for the Amazon version of LotR was a bit bland. To wax a bit poetic, it was like a faded picture. You could make out what it was trying to be but those who put it together were doing 'paint by numbers' and not real painting.
The kindest thing you can say about the Amazon project is that the people making it don't understand the source material... and don't care. They just want their own Game of Thrones and aren't clever enough to come up with their own; they saw that there's a built-in fanbase for LOTR, and simply bought it to appropriate the name and likeness without any of the actual lore or content.

And then you can start saying unkind things... things that are probably still true no matter how unkind you get.
Actually it is taken from various bits and pieces in the notes just crushed down from the original 5000 years of history. The Tolkien estate isn’t as cavalier with the property as you seem to think they are and to be blunt they have control of things and not you. It’s the same way social media tried to lecture Neil Gaiman about the Sandman Netflix show even though he appears to have pretty strong control over that. I’ll quote from the Vanity Fair article about the show.

'In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it’s a big swing. “We talked with the Tolkien estate,” says Payne. “If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.”
 
I tried to like The Orville but the jokes and set-ups were lame. The preview for the Amazon version of LotR was a bit bland. To wax a bit poetic, it was like a faded picture. You could make out what it was trying to be but those who put it together were doing 'paint by numbers' and not real painting.
The kindest thing you can say about the Amazon project is that the people making it don't understand the source material... and don't care. They just want their own Game of Thrones and aren't clever enough to come up with their own; they saw that there's a built-in fanbase for LOTR, and simply bought it to appropriate the name and likeness without any of the actual lore or content.

And then you can start saying unkind things... things that are probably still true no matter how unkind you get.
Actually it is taken from various bits and pieces in the notes just crushed down from the original 5000 years of history. The Tolkien estate isn’t as cavalier with the property as you seem to think they are and to be blunt they have control of things and not you. It’s the same way social media tried to lecture Neil Gaiman about the Sandman Netflix show even though he appears to have pretty strong control over that.

Wot? The Tolkien Estate has... ??? Been convinced to go totally woke? Let's put a mustache on the Mona Lisa while we're at it...
 
"lazy" Noooo... no, no. Built-in audience X Woke Nonsense means 'getting the >message< across' -- as if no one will notice.

Puh leez.
 
"lazy" Noooo... no, no.

Lazy, yes. If they wanted a show to get across The Message, they could easily dream up all new characters, settings, worlds. But it's far easier to culturally appropriate things like Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. and corrupt them.

Hollywood is scrutinizing the dollars being put into this. A bit like Walt Disney's accounting people telling him he could be ruined because Snow White is going over budget.

I've been involved with 'dreaming up' all new characters, settings, etc. for a long time. It's not easy. Definitely not.

It's not far easier to just grab a well-known IP and then, while making it vaguely resemble the original source material, put it all together like this. A small army has to be assembled.

Say you were in charge of promoting WoKeneSs. How would you do it? According to my version of the playbook, you take existing IPs and *** modify*** them by uh... what's the word... adding a little poison. Er... I mean, modernizing them.

Who cares if some fan boys complain on the internet?
 
Say you were in charge of promoting WoKeneSs. How would you do it?

I would take their money, drag the process out for as long as possible, bleed them dry. If at all possible, do such a fantastic job of malicious compliance that their entire business is ruined, all the employees laid off, those funding the project driven to the poorhouse and, if at all possible, the madhouse. Then, having scraped up every last nickel of theirs, I'd go through the list of laid-off employees and contractors, bring them all in for a giant All Hands Meeting, and re-hire the ones with actual skills that are useful, and shame those who were only onboard for political reasons.

I begin to suspect why I might not be hired to promote that nonsense.
 
Oh... well... since you put it that way...

Oh dear. I think he's serious.
 
Oh... well... since you put it that way...

Oh dear. I think he's serious.

Why wouldn't I be? The people pushing that ideology are the worst people on the western world. They are entirely awful and do not receive a tenth the pushback they should. They will, if allowed to get their way, bring civilization crashing down into a new dark age from which mankind will never recover.
 
"... new dark age..." "...mankind will never recover..."

Let me put it this way. You wake up one day with billions of dollars and little imagination. You are the king of your world. What you say goes. You decided that you want The Lord of the Rings done your way. Your billionaire buddies agree because they are caught up in the current thing going on - wokeness. So, you do it. Not rain, not snow, not a bunch of fan boys on the internet, will stop you. You go to bed at night and see the earth from space. Over the North Pole is a sign that reads: An Amazon Company.

Meanwhile, the unenlightened masses look at all this and some know exactly what's going on. Those people will deny the creators of things like this money. The end. Mankind is saved. And so on...
 
"... new dark age..." "...mankind will never recover..."

Indeed. Civilization falls today... how will it recover? Nuclear power, solar are out; they are beyond the technical ability of anything but the most advanced. Fossil fuels will no longer be an option: coal and oil and gas are now beyond easy recoverability. What's left? Wind? Too low density for industry. Wood burning steam? You'd rapidly deplete the forests. Shut down civilization now, and we are stuck forever in the 17th century.

The worst people in the western world today are quite open in their goals of ending the things that make western civilization function: science, engineering rigor, the work ethic, objective facts and reality, in favor of emotional outbursts, irrational beliefs and simple insanity. You can't run a coffee stand on that, never mind a factory or a powerplant.
 
I check technology related news regularly. Somehow, Virgin Galactic is starting space tourism. There's a problem with tracking spent boosters, but apparently, enough trained people around to figure things out. A lot of people are going to work every day and doing their jobs, otherwise the grocery store shelves would be bare. Advanced battery storage that can be used for solar energy and other renewables exists but why roll it out now? Wait till a maximum profit can be made. Meanwhile, the U.S. is exporting liquid natural gas to Europe.

Rest assured, the emotional outbursts can be ignored. Irrational beliefs can be examined and dismissed on a case per case basis.

I think most people are aware that there is a work ethic. Otherwise, you end up on the street.
 
What I see is too many ego's making their own 'version' of films and tv. They have to give it THEIR spin because they are better than the original. From my point of view, meh.

It really is sad the way they treat successful projects the way they do but money talks, anything else takes the long walk back to the cutting room floor and bin 13.
 
I've read recent comments from those involved about "non-Europeans" being cast in various roles. They want very much to do these things because they want the original story recast to fit their ideas as opposed to adapting the source material. They know what they're doing.

Among some in Hollywood, the recent fad is to make everything they can into a "modern" and "better" version of the old stuff. To promote their own "modern" view of the world. And they can do this all they want by creating original material that does no damage to any source material. And if that's not good enough, they can produce documentaries.

Much has been written about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Leave it alone and leave those of us who know the material alone. But, apparently not. A built-in audience will walk into the trap, and just as the tripwire detonates the mine - poof - fewer viewers. I am not looking forward to this.
In the universe everything is in motion, in life everything changes, in art everything evolves... except Star Trek and avant garde theatre.
 
"in art everything evolves"? I think it's more like "Just make sure it doesn't look like the old stuff."
 
Never underestimate the power of J.R.R Tolkien. The first teaser trailer for Amazon's The Lord of the Rings television series — subtitled The Rings of Power — set a new Super Bowl viewership record within the first 24 hours of debuting online. Per the company's official announcement, the minute-long footage racked up a whopping 257 million online views across the planet, the highest number of any entertainment trailer (film, television, or streaming) that has ever premiered during a telecast of the Big Game.
 
Two images by Michael Whelan, one is for a H Beam Piper reprint, the other, I'm not sure, could be 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'...
 

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