Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

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Graham1973 said:
A review of the Foundation series by author Caitlin R. Kiernan...

Oh, and Foundation. I was very impressed with the second episode. If nothing else, it was beautiful. And then the second episode was very boring, and then the third episode made the second look exciting. Lee Pace is great, but he can't carry the mess this quickly turns into. Also, I think the creators are dumping certain political commentary into the story that Asimov did not precisely have in mind. So, big disappointment.
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https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1619897.html
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The author lives not far from me, though we've never met.
 

‘Star Wars’ Fans Are CANCELING Their Reservations For Galactic Starcruiser – Here’s Why​

Six grand for two nights always seemed a tough sell, and after seeing the lameass promotional video Disney put out I'm unsurprised that some people are bailing. It doesn't look like "Star Wars" to me; more like "Space Conflict Generic Moviefilm For Screen." Like one of those cheap late-70's Italian Star Wars knockoffs... they *tried* to look liek they were Star Wars-adjacent, but managed to just miss the aesthetic.
 
Orionblamblam said:

‘Star Wars’ Fans Are CANCELING Their Reservations For Galactic Starcruiser – Here’s Why​

Six grand for two nights always seemed a tough sell, and after seeing the lameass promotional video Disney put out I'm unsurprised that some people are bailing. It doesn't look like "Star Wars" to me; more like "Space Conflict Generic Moviefilm For Screen." Like one of those cheap late-70's Italian Star Wars knockoffs... they *tried* to look liek they were Star Wars-adjacent, but managed to just miss the aesthetic.
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I covered an earlier failed attempt by Disney to create 'Star Wars Adjacent' content in post 952
 
The price didn't help-they forget most work two or more jobs and are still poor.
 
 
publiusr said:
The price didn't help-they forget most work two or more jobs and are still poor.
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They clearly weren't targeting most people. They could only cram just so many "guests" in at a time, so it makes sense that they'd charge insane amounts and they were apparently able to completely fill the hotel with pre-orders. But once people got a good look at what their six grand was goign for, some seem to have backed out because the "experience" looks cheap and generic. If I was a bajillionaire AND I was a Star Wars fanatic AND the "experience" looked fun AND authentic... sure, what the hell. But you eliminate *one* of those conditions and it all falls through.
 
Rhinocrates said:
Watching the first episode of the third season of the Lost in Space reboot, a few thoughts occurred to me. LiS is confidently YA (young adult) genre. There's lots of melodrama and coming of age stuff and there is frequently the threat of hugs. However, much of the plotting is also about people working together to find practical solutions to problems. This episode, duct tape and whiteboards even play a part. The solutions (not to mention the problems) may seem absurd if one were to do the math, but the process is usually sound, from observation to diagnosis to solution... and it takes time.

Contrast that with Star Trek Discovery, which is not so clearly YA in its marketing but certainly so in its realisation. Fourth Millennium technology is unfortunately indistinguishable from magic and much of the script is given over to to the affirmations that the YA market is perceived to need. Everything that has the potential dilemma has an immediate 'technological' - that is, magical - solution, bound in a red ribbon of approval. People complain that Michael Burnham is a Mary Sue, but that's not true - every major character is.

I'm middle-aged (if I turn out to be a centenarian, that is) and the target market for neither, but I know for sure which has the more honest writing.
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Started to watch the first episode of Season 3 and remembered why I lost interest. Terrible writing. They constantly invent "suspense" with not a care to plausibility. It was almost comical in the last episode of Season 2.
 
sferrin said:
Started to watch the first episode of Season 3 and remembered why I lost interest. Terrible writing. They constantly invent "suspense" with not a care to plausibility. It was almost comical in the last episode of Season 2.
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True, it's plotted like a roller coater ride or a ghost train - or a game for that matter. I think that they think that's what kids want nowadays. Still, I liked the ethos of problem solving.
 
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Somewhat off-topic for current tack of thread, but is there a 'canon' blood colour for 'Jabba the Hutt' ??

I know there's a fan-fic which has our least-favourite Hutt being messily eaten by 'Baby Yodas', spilling lotsa 'tomato ketchup'...

Remarkably, that's the only reference I've found...

( I want to know likely spatter colour should Jabba take a 20mm outside 'Bay 25', when his team tries to shake down wrong crew... )
 
sferrin said:
Rhinocrates said:
Watching the first episode of the third season of the Lost in Space reboot, a few thoughts occurred to me. LiS is confidently YA (young adult) genre. There's lots of melodrama and coming of age stuff and there is frequently the threat of hugs. However, much of the plotting is also about people working together to find practical solutions to problems. This episode, duct tape and whiteboards even play a part. The solutions (not to mention the problems) may seem absurd if one were to do the math, but the process is usually sound, from observation to diagnosis to solution... and it takes time.

Contrast that with Star Trek Discovery, which is not so clearly YA in its marketing but certainly so in its realisation. Fourth Millennium technology is unfortunately indistinguishable from magic and much of the script is given over to to the affirmations that the YA market is perceived to need. Everything that has the potential dilemma has an immediate 'technological' - that is, magical - solution, bound in a red ribbon of approval. People complain that Michael Burnham is a Mary Sue, but that's not true - every major character is.

I'm middle-aged (if I turn out to be a centenarian, that is) and the target market for neither, but I know for sure which has the more honest writing.
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Started to watch the first episode of Season 3 and remembered why I lost interest. Terrible writing. They constantly invent "suspense" with not a care to plausibility. It was almost comical in the last episode of Season 2.
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I’ve struggled through the first two seasons but the writing has often felt off with the whole run. It’s one of those occasions where I cannot find what it is about the writing that doesn’t work for me. Cannot say I am rushing to watch season 3.
 
Flyaway said:
sferrin said:
Rhinocrates said:
Watching the first episode of the third season of the Lost in Space reboot, a few thoughts occurred to me. LiS is confidently YA (young adult) genre. There's lots of melodrama and coming of age stuff and there is frequently the threat of hugs. However, much of the plotting is also about people working together to find practical solutions to problems. This episode, duct tape and whiteboards even play a part. The solutions (not to mention the problems) may seem absurd if one were to do the math, but the process is usually sound, from observation to diagnosis to solution... and it takes time.

Contrast that with Star Trek Discovery, which is not so clearly YA in its marketing but certainly so in its realisation. Fourth Millennium technology is unfortunately indistinguishable from magic and much of the script is given over to to the affirmations that the YA market is perceived to need. Everything that has the potential dilemma has an immediate 'technological' - that is, magical - solution, bound in a red ribbon of approval. People complain that Michael Burnham is a Mary Sue, but that's not true - every major character is.

I'm middle-aged (if I turn out to be a centenarian, that is) and the target market for neither, but I know for sure which has the more honest writing.
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Started to watch the first episode of Season 3 and remembered why I lost interest. Terrible writing. They constantly invent "suspense" with not a care to plausibility. It was almost comical in the last episode of Season 2.
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I’ve struggled through the first two seasons but the writing has often felt off with the whole run. It’s one of those occasions where I cannot find what it is about the writing that doesn’t work for me. Cannot say I am rushing to watch season 3.
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Caitlin R. Kiernan may have the answer to that...

"And, in the end, no one ever said anything ever again that could possibly offend anyone, so great was the fear of retribution. It was safer not to speak. No one felt oppressed or triggered ever again. Outrage and offense became a thing of the past, along with comedy and art, literature and casual conversation, film and, for that matter, sex. And there was peace and bland silence and a smothering grey stillness where once there had been a vibrant culture."
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https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1398856.html

The above dates to the 22nd of July 2018.
 
Orionblamblam said:
edwest2 said:
The Drinker is an idiot with displays of bad hygiene, bad taste, bad language and general bad behavior.
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And now you, yes, YOU, can own a Critical Drinker of your very own:

The Critical Drinker Plush​


The_Critical_Drinker_Plush_Toy-2_1000x.png.webp

Now, when it comes to movie critics, who should I listen to? Do *you* have a plushy of your own? Well, do ya?
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I think the correct reply is: Blarf...
 
Graham1973 said:

Caitlin R. Kiernan may have the answer to that...

"And, in the end, no one ever said anything ever again that could possibly offend anyone, so great was the fear of retribution. It was safer not to speak. No one felt oppressed or triggered ever again. Outrage and offense became a thing of the past, along with comedy and art, literature and casual conversation, film and, for that matter, sex. And there was peace and bland silence and a smothering grey stillness where once there had been a vibrant culture."
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https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1398856.html

The above dates to the 22nd of July 2018.
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Ever more so. I'm a fan of her fiction and I find a lot to appreciate in her observations.
 
Great stuff. An aside-we have a Stratofortress...did anyone coin the term "ionofortress" yet? There is your military Starship...
 
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMepjjkL5zc


I have high hopes that *someday* Hollywood will figure out that mutilating a popular existing property in order to force it into a vehicle for The Message just isn't profitable, and that instead maybe they should make *good* movies and TV shows again. It's a dream I have.
 
I watched one episode of Cowboy Bebop and thought it was good. I saw the original anime when it was first released and thought it was the last good thing to come out of Japan in anime - an end of an era. Everything after seemed less inspired.

I did not expect a perfect 100% analog though. I thought the leads were well cast and the action and pacing were good. I never became a "everything has to match perfectly or I'll GO ON A RANT" type of person.

That said, Hollywood's current obsessive/compulsive disorder: the message or issue has to get crammed in somehow, is them doing what they want to do. I read the Hollywood trades almost daily and "messaging" is at the top and deadly important. Followed by some scandals and occasional bits about movies and TV shows. I too would very much like to see good, meaning well-told, interesting stories, well acted, as pure entertainment return. But the current Hollywood 'disorder' has not yet run its course. I have this vision of Hollywood executives meeting, and after decades of good stuff, with some bad, someone says: "I'm tired about news about the business! I'm bored! Let's do something different!" Then someone says: "I know! How about issue advocacy?" Everyone heartily agrees except for one guy in the back who says, "But we're in the entertainment business, not advocating issues!" He is promptly sacked.
 
Getting back to SF Artwork, Adrian Chesterman's brooding cover picture for 'The Space Merchants'. Reputedly Penguin books used this image on a promotional poster for their Science Fiction line.
 

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Orionblamblam said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMepjjkL5zc


I have high hopes that *someday* Hollywood will figure out that mutilating a popular existing property in order to force it into a vehicle for The Message just isn't profitable, and that instead maybe they should make *good* movies and TV shows again. It's a dream I have.
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I just didn’t think it was that great a show. Nothing to do with any message or not. Just that it was a pretty average in general. And I wish for the day when people online could review shows without bringing politics into it. But then I blame social media for that. Thank the heck that didn’t exist when I was growing up.
 
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Watched the last Star Wars yesterday evening, with the wife. L'ascension de Skywalker - Skywalker ascending, or whatever the title in English language.

My feelings: mixed. Much better than the 1990's / 2000's horror trilogy (not too difficult): better CGI, better, more spectacular show overall. Much less politics and blah blah blah (to spoof Greta Thunberg).

Still a vague feeling the saga has run its course. And Rey was annoying as hell, she should learn to relax and smile a little. That hairdo is ugly, and I noticed in the flashback scene with her (unfortunate) parents, she already had that hairdo as a kid. Was she born with it ?

And boy, how ugly is the actor playing Kylo Ren. He looks like straight out of a Jerome Bosch painting from the dark middle ages.
 
I enjoy visiting this thread because I remember being bored rigid and a mate of mine nodded off totally during the first Star Wars movie at an Oxford cinema in the 70s. Whereas I was glued to the much panned "Logan's Run" film and later TV series purely because of Jenny Agutter/ Heather Menzies.
Years later when Star Wars was rebooted in the 90s I watched it with a workmate and his nine year old son. I was still bored rigid and my friend was picking holes in it as an SW fan. His son, however, was loving every minute and completely focussed on the screen.
Fast forward to the present day and I use YouTube to re-watch the best bits of my favourite films and TV. Even before Covid I had stopped going to the cinema unless it was raining and nothing else was available.
During lockdown earlier this year I was able to spend an evening with my "support bubble" aka drinking buddy eating a pizza, drinking beer and watching "Demolition Man". Pure pleasure.
 
chimeric oncogene said:
The Prequels were great, TESB is overrated, and AOTC and ROTS are the best Star Wars movies.
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33d.gif


if you wanted really *quality* bait, you would have up-sold the sequels. Example: "The Last Jedi" is a cinematic masterpiece and "the Rise of Skywalker" makes complete sense both logically and narratively.
 
A review by Caitlin R. Kiernan of the 'Wheel of Time' adaption...

Generally, when I trash a TV show, I like to name at least one of two things in particular that made it so fucking awful. But last night we watched suffered through the first episode of Wheel of Time, and it was so bad there's no way to single out any one thing. It just sucks, top to bottom, stem to stern. How shit like this gets made, I'll never know. Oh, wait....
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https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1635455.html
 
Some science fiction railroading in Chris Foss's cover to the last of Jack Vance's 'Demon Princes' series 'The Book of Dreams'
 

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chimeric oncogene said:
The Prequels were great, TESB is overrated, and AOTC and ROTS are the best Star Wars movies.
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Lol is that a provocative joke ? :p

Personal opinion
- never been a die-hard fan of Star wars
- the 1970's-80's trilogy is lovable and fun
- the second trilogy is awful, notably Phantom Menace
- and only vaguely redeemed by Anakin final change into Vader
(Mannequin Skywalker, uh, meh, only that joke is funny)
- never quite understood Attack of the clones, and it's boring
- Jar-Jar should have died, or never existed - or been revealed as the Sith Lord having masterminded the entire trilogy backstory
- new trilogy is passable, but I'm no longer interested, and Rey is boring

What really piss me in the recent trilogy is how they try to redeem themselves and the 90's second (and awful) trilogy by paying hommage to the first, loved trilogy - at every corner.

-scenario and scenes being carbon copy
- bringing back old but lovable characters (Lando)
-"Rey, take luke laser sabre"
-"Rey, take Leia laser sabre"
-"Oh look ! A new R2D2 funny droid, BB8 !" (I often want to kick it like a softball)
-"every new character is the offpsring of a character from the old trilogy: Hans, Luke, Leia, and even freakkin' Palpatine"

They say they do that to "pass the torch to a new generation" (of spectators and characters, altogether)
-but every time I can't help thinking "this is to please and appease the old fans that hate the second and third trilogies so much. Let's throw them a bone."

As with a lot of things in this world, the Simpsons perfectly nailed what was and still is wrong in the New Star Wars. And George Lucas. And Jar-Jar (Jim Jam Bonks !)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lPG1u6EbiY
 
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I know one thing after Cowboy Bebop I am dreading the live action One Piece show Netflix is working on as that’s a much harder concept to adapt.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Flyaway said:
And I wish for the day when people online could review shows without bringing politics into it.
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There is a simple solution to that: shows stop bringing politics into it. Specifically, *bad* politics.
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Bad politics = politics I don’t agree with. You just pointed out another thing I cannot stand about internet culture the rampant absolutism.
 
Flyaway said:
Bad politics = politics I don’t agree with.
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Sometimes. Sometimes it's politics that advocates stuff that your culture is appalled by. Sometimes it's politics that denigrates a sizable chunk of your own customer base. If your comic book or TV series says that "anyone that believes as 50% of the current population does is a degenerate monster," that's *bad* politics.

And sometimes "bad politics" is any politics, no matter how bland and vanilla, that torpedoes your business. Attend:

Your company makes Toy Widgets. They are popular. They sell well. They appeal to boys *and* girls, they are affordable to the poor, they are safe, they are carbon neutral, emit a fresh pine scent, cures cancer via proximity and improves your chances of salvation. They are *wholly* apolitical. And then your company twitter tweeter tweets out support of Proposition 12, the "Let's all be nice to each other on Wednesdays" amendment. This *promptly* starts your customer base screaming at each other... some freaking out that the reference to Wednesday means you're an Odin-worshipping pagan organization; half of the people freaked out about that are cheesed off that you are non Judeo-Chrislamist pagans, the other half are cheesed off that you're the *wrong* pagans, clearly white nationalists. And some people are PO'ed that you clearly don't support the "Let's be nice to each other on Thursday" proposition. Some are PO'ed that you want to be nice to *those* *people* on any day of the week. And so on; there's nothing so crazy that someone won't glom onto it for the purposes of fightin'.

Now, the politics you advocated was, objectively, bipartisan, nice, friendly. Ain't nothin' wrong with it. It's not "bad politics" by any *rational* metric. And yet, by injecting *any* politics into your business, you have just dropped your business by fifty percent, and tomorrow there will be protestors setting fire to the cars in your company parking lot. The day after, your factory will be torched, and your insurance company will deny your claim because, since the protest was the result of a company-authorized tweet that antagonised the crazies, the fires are *your* fault.

Thus, the bland, nice politics *was* "bad politics."
 
edwest2 said:
I watched one episode of Cowboy Bebop and thought it was good. I saw the original anime when it was first released and thought it was the last good thing to come out of Japan in anime - an end of an era. Everything after seemed less inspired.

I did not expect a perfect 100% analog though. I thought the leads were well cast and the action and pacing were good. I never became a "everything has to match perfectly or I'll GO ON A RANT" type of person.

That said, Hollywood's current obsessive/compulsive disorder: the message or issue has to get crammed in somehow, is them doing what they want to do. I read the Hollywood trades almost daily and "messaging" is at the top and deadly important. Followed by some scandals and occasional bits about movies and TV shows. I too would very much like to see good, meaning well-told, interesting stories, well acted, as pure entertainment return. But the current Hollywood 'disorder' has not yet run its course. I have this vision of Hollywood executives meeting, and after decades of good stuff, with some bad, someone says: "I'm tired about news about the business! I'm bored! Let's do something different!" Then someone says: "I know! How about issue advocacy?" Everyone heartily agrees except for one guy in the back who says, "But we're in the entertainment business, not advocating issues!" He is promptly sacked.
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When people paid to see movies in movie theaters, Hollywood gave them good, well-told, interesting, well-acted stories. Now they make films for people who have become accustomed to not paying, it is natural that in return they only receive propaganda.
 
Movies are a bit like the traditional British Pantomime shows put on at theatres in the UK over the Christmas holidays to make money out of families looking for a seasonal treat.
People have been saying for years that Pantomimes are on the way out. But each year a fresh supply of rugrats and frazzled parents ensures that local theatres will turn to them, Covid permitting.
Movies are there for kids, teenagers, lovers and people with nothing better to do. The demise of picture houses has been prophesied since TV arrived in the 50s.
Hollywood knows this and follows every fad and fashion of the day to please this ragbag audience.
As a Brit I never got Superhero comics or movies (ok the 60s Batman TV show maybe) but I am in a minority and Superheroes have gone from strength to strength.... (Oh dear I have been reading too many Archibald posts).
 
Courtesy of an unknown artist working for 'Look & Learn' Magazine, a Christmas themed image. Santa's new sleigh looks strangely familiar...
 

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