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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 6:53 pm 
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the Cunning Linguist wrote:
They’re apparently going to do two more spinoffs, which IMO makes for way too much Trek. But whatever, it’ll never be as good as DS9, but here’s to hoping it someday gets close.

Just finished Season 1 and I have to say, I really enjoyed the myriad twists and turns. Wasn't crazy about the parallel reverse-Federation storyline, but ok. We've already concluded that no one ever really dies in the Star Trek universe (they just get spun off into their own parallel-universe, or re-booted to take advantage of modern special effects - hell, even young Luke Skywalker makes cameos thanks to advanced CGI tech). Looking forward to S2 and 3.

I guess I may be the exception but I never really enjoyed DS9. So there.[/quote]

I think we've gone over this before--how much of DS9 did you watch? Either way, you're entitled to your opinion, even when it is wrong. :eng101:

Discovery does seem to have a bit of a "comic book death" problem though. We can talk more after you watch season two, which was kind of a mixed bag for me. Some of the issues behind the scenes may have stemmed from some conflict with the showrunners of season 1, who were abruptly fired for alleged toxic behavior on set. Some of the storyline and character choices that were made in that first season kinda/sorta get retconned or outright reversed in season 2. It's because of this that S2 is a bit uneven for me. Still better than fucking Picard though.

The only issue I have with Disco at the moment is that the ship is so insanely powerful that it can do things that ships built a freakin' thousand years afterward can't even touch. It already stretches my considerable suspension of disbelief, and there are times I'm like...well, why even have warp engines (that also get a nifty upgrade in the future) when you just use your mushroom drive to go everywhere? Anyway, the writing is still good on this show and it's never been better than it is right now...sure hope the "big bad" of this current season doesn't end up being a disappointment.

BTW, if you're not digging the Mirror Universe I have bad news for you--they just concluded a two-parter that takes place there. Personally I enjoyed it, you could clearly see the cast really enjoyed playing evil versions of themselves, and it's a fun story that features one very big callback to Trek lore. That's as far as I'll go with that though--just watch it.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 6:59 pm 
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I'm almost to the halfway mark of Mandalorian season two and having a frickin' blast. Got a real kick out of Timothy Olyphant walking around like Raylan Givens while wearing Boba Fett's armor. It was delightfully weird.

Best part so far was the two Scout Troopers trying to hit a target that couldn't be more than ten feet in front of them and missing with every shot. :laugh:

I have one minor quibble about the show...but that can wait for another day.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:21 pm 
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I got pretty excited when I spotted Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Appa/Mr. Kim from Canada's own Kim's Convenience) as an X-Wing pilot in one of the first S2 episodes of The Mandalorian.

So it turns out he is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge Star Wars nerd, to the point that when they were fitting him for the suit and they couldn't get the harness to go, he actually pulled specs out of his phone to help them out because he's a big-time cosplayer and built the whole suit himself from scratch. Also, they broke out the same helmet Luke's doomed buddy Biggs wears for the Death Star run in the original series and he recognized it right away. That's dedication right there.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/p ... -1.5792631


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:06 pm 
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Finished the Mandalorian. I don't think I'm hitting any major spoilers, but here are my thoughts.

That cameo at the end...FUCK YES. I thought it was actually cool that the Darktroopers were built up to be these total badasses only to be laid to waste in short order by *SPOILER*.

This show has been the perfect space western. Mando was basically Paladin in Space (that's the main character in "Have Gun, Will Travel" for you youngins) and the format could not have been more perfect. My big fear is that the show is going to veer away from that now and Djarin will now get sucked into the Mandalorians' quest to reclaim their homeworld (which, frankly, I don't really care about).

Awesome as she was, it kinda bothers me that Ahsoka Tano from Clone Wars is still alive in the post-trilogy universe. I get that you're really limiting yourself by killing off ALL the Jedi in the SW universe, but it takes away from the poignancy of Yoda's line in Return that Luke was the last of his kind. FTR I've never watched "Clone Wars" so it was news to me that Ahsoka, Cobb Vanth, and Bo-Katan were all characters from that series.

A TON of spinoffs just got announced, which hopefully doesn't water everything down. I got a friend who grew up the biggest Boba Fett fan alive, so much so he named his last cat "Jango." I imagine he is all kinds of pumped for "The Book of Boba Fett" coming out a year from now.

I'm just glad this show was done right...it made me a fan again, as I was rather jaded after so many mediocre movies (Solo being about the lone exception).


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:25 pm 
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I haven't watched Star Wards outside of I think IV, V, VI and I. I might have seen II?

Anam and I really enjoyed the Mandalorian. A friend of us said that it's easy to pick up without any prior knowledge but there is stuff that would be missed otherwise.

Early on we were talking about the stormtroopers and she asked what they are and I just answered "dumb and expendable". Sure enough they really went all in on that :lol: The target practice scene was great.

******THIS NEXT PART MIGHT BE A SPOILER ALERT if you haven't watched until the end of season 1.*****







However, the old "Oh hey we just battled this bad guy, let's just assume he's dead. Oh no! He's not actually dead!" just annoys the shit out of me. Just strikes my as entirely lazy and unoriginal. Of course they'd fucking check to make sure he's dead.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:11 pm 
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What I want to know is, okay, so now it's been established that the Beskar metal that Mandalorians wear is not only blaster-proof, but it's also resistant to frickin' lightsabers, which we've seen can cut through goddamn near ANYTHING. Quite useful, as Din Djarin has proven repeatedly. It takes a frickin' massive explosion to finally wound him seriously.

So what in hell is the point of Stormtrooper armor? It's obviously not blaster-proof, not even close? And as proven in season one, a guy wielding a sandperson Gaffi Stick can use it to either pierce the armor with the sharp end or flat-out shatter it with a hard swing.

I mean, I get that it's just another running joke in the franchise--we know from Return of the Jedi that Stormtropper armor isn't even able to withstand a frickin' Ewok attack--but geez...why even wear that bulky shit that, even according to Migs Mayfeld, is hard to see out of, when it affords you NO protection whatsoever? And yes, I know the real-world reason, but I just wish we could see a Stormtrooper just once show some skill. The one time a guy in white wasn't a pushover, it made for a great action scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hODJV5Y ... eBandWagon

Side note: I love the design of the Shoretrooper armor. It's just a fun riff on the traditional (and also useless) Stormtrooper armor.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:12 pm 
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Oh! Almost forgot. Cobb Vanth has a really awesome speeder bike, and it turns out it has a connection with one of the more enjoyable (albeit pointless) things from the first prequel film.

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/a ... orian.html


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:16 pm 
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We all really enjoyed Mando, and eagerly await S3. This despite the fact that every episode is basically this:

Mando: I need a favor that you can help me with...
Other: Sure, but first you must help me do this seemingly impossible task...
Mando: Ok.
Baby Yoda: *eats something nasty*

As for "Disco" (you young kids surprise me every day), I'm getting a little tired of the on-again- off-again Klingon Empire storyline that won't just go away... And i'm only on S2E5...


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:04 pm 
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the Cunning Linguist wrote:
As for "Disco" (you young kids surprise me every day), I'm getting a little tired of the on-again- off-again Klingon Empire storyline that won't just go away... And i'm only on S2E5...


"Disco" doesn't come from me. It's literally printed on the shirts of members of the crew in one of the episodes. :laugh: Keep watching, you'll see.

It's almost blasphemy to say this as a Trekkie, but the Klingons largely bore me. So much fucking ceremony and carrying on...aw, shut up already. I was actually intrigued by the S1 Klingons because they looked and acted so wildly different than the ones we've become all too accustomed to. I heard that didn't sit well with the established fanbase and so in S2 they've been slowly but surely steering them toward the forms we know quite well. Yawn.

I can tell you that the good news is that the Klingons don't really play a huge part in this season's storyline. They're there, but they're not the main focus. The bad news is, the Big Bad that is eventually revealed is a big dud. That continues to be Star Trek's biggest problem--they just can't seem to create compelling villains. I still say the only two productions that managed this are Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (with Khan, obviously), and Deep Space Nine with Gul Dukat. So far S3 has introduced us to some somewhat interesting rogues and criminals, but no huge villain. I have a feeling we're going to be let down by that eventual reveal as well.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 9:13 pm 
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the Cunning Linguist wrote:
We all really enjoyed Mando, and eagerly await S3. This despite the fact that every episode is basically this:

Mando: I need a favor that you can help me with...
Other: Sure, but first you must help me do this seemingly impossible task...
Mando: Ok.
Baby Yoda: *eats something nasty*


Yeah, I noticed that too, but that's how most serial westerns worked, and that was part of the charm for me.

The one trope that got rather tiresome was the constant double-crossing. I mean, I get the galaxy is a rough place but can we find a way to make bounty hunters interesting without them constantly turning on one another?


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:36 am 
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Pokecheque wrote:
the Cunning Linguist wrote:
We all really enjoyed Mando, and eagerly await S3. This despite the fact that every episode is basically this:

Mando: I need a favor that you can help me with...
Other: Sure, but first you must help me do this seemingly impossible task...
Mando: Ok.
Baby Yoda: *eats something nasty*


Yeah, I noticed that too, but that's how most serial westerns worked, and that was part of the charm for me.

The one trope that got rather tiresome was the constant double-crossing. I mean, I get the galaxy is a rough place but can we find a way to make bounty hunters interesting without them constantly turning on one another?


I kind of see the double-crossing as something Mando knows he just has to live with as a possibility. Doesn't really have a choice.

Him constantly leaving his ship just lying around anywhere after it got picked apart by the Jawas though...

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2020 6:00 pm 
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Bosc wrote:
I kind of see the double-crossing as something Mando knows he just has to live with as a possibility. Doesn't really have a choice.

Him constantly leaving his ship just lying around anywhere after it got picked apart by the Jawas though...


Yeah, the galaxy is just a rough, ROUGH place to be, especially if you're a bounty hunter apparently.

I guess the good news about the conclusion of season two is that, well, Mando don't need to worry about that anymore, does he? That's a spoiler BTW but not a big one.

There's a frickin' mind-blowing episode of Rick and Morty where Rick's flying car is told by Rick to keep Summer safe and it proceeds to do all kinds of crazy shit to protect her. I don't want to go into detail but it was truly one of the darkest and most crazy-ass half-hours of television I've ever seen. Just reading your post about the lack of a security system on the Razor Crest made me think of that.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:53 pm 
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Bosc wrote:
Pokecheque wrote:
the Cunning Linguist wrote:
We all really enjoyed Mando, and eagerly await S3. This despite the fact that every episode is basically this:

Mando: I need a favor that you can help me with...
Other: Sure, but first you must help me do this seemingly impossible task...
Mando: Ok.
Baby Yoda: *eats something nasty*


Yeah, I noticed that too, but that's how most serial westerns worked, and that was part of the charm for me.

The one trope that got rather tiresome was the constant double-crossing. I mean, I get the galaxy is a rough place but can we find a way to make bounty hunters interesting without them constantly turning on one another?


I kind of see the double-crossing as something Mando knows he just has to live with as a possibility. Doesn't really have a choice.

Him constantly leaving his ship just lying around anywhere after it got picked apart by the Jawas though...

Now that I think about it, this serialized storyline is also evident in an old childhood favourite of mine, The Samurai (Onmitsu Kenshi) which was huge in the Philippines back in the day, which in itself is derivative of westerns from the 50s. Yeah, I kind of got tired of the Razor Crest getting brutalized in each episode until it finally got obliterated. I wonder if that's a shot at those same westerns where the hero's horse is always in some sort of gun fight but never seems to catch a bullet even when the bad guys have Stormtrooper bad-levels of accuracy...


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:12 pm 
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The whole thing with the Razor Crest struck me as a running joke. The ship itself was pretty unglamorous and ungainly, and at times proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Only the Millennium Falcon was portrayed as more of a jalopy. Hopefully he gets something like the Slave-1 in season 3. I mean...maybe he gets Moff Gideon's Imperial Light Cruiser (I'm guessing Bo-Katan takes that).


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 3:53 pm 
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Star Trek: Discovery ended its best, but still somewhat uneven, season to date.

I loved that they just let loose when it came to production design--set so far in the future they just said "fuck it" and drew up all kinds of crazy shit. Also, nice to be free of all that silly continuity that threatens to choke the life out of every other Trek series/movie.

It ended on a somewhat disappointing note, but still was enjoyable. However, this whole "serialized storyline" thing is not something Trek apparently knows how to do well as of yet because every season so far has ended too conveniently. Whatever contrivances were in place to drive the plot in the first place are magically fixed or done away with by the season finale.

But whatever, Trek has never looked better than it does right now. It's getting damn near impossible to tell the difference between SFX, sets, and costumes from film vs. television. Just wish the writing didn't get so ham-fisted at times (Picard being a prime example).


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 1:47 pm 
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Pokecheque wrote:
Star Trek: Discovery ended its best, but still somewhat uneven, season to date.

I loved that they just let loose when it came to production design--set so far in the future they just said "fuck it" and drew up all kinds of crazy shit. Also, nice to be free of all that silly continuity that threatens to choke the life out of every other Trek series/movie.

It ended on a somewhat disappointing note, but still was enjoyable. However, this whole "serialized storyline" thing is not something Trek apparently knows how to do well as of yet because every season so far has ended too conveniently. Whatever contrivances were in place to drive the plot in the first place are magically fixed or done away with by the season finale.

But whatever, Trek has never looked better than it does right now. It's getting damn near impossible to tell the difference between SFX, sets, and costumes from film vs. television. Just wish the writing didn't get so ham-fisted at times (Picard being a prime example).

Yeah, I was a little disappointed myself. I think the 950 years into the future premise wasn't believable. Really, do they need zippers and seams on clothes when they have interactive matter and nanobots? The first scene with the Indian guy and the floating desk and interactive matter was cool and believable as being well into the future, but after that, not so much. Think back 900 years ago (no, I wasn't there) and today's technology would be all witchcraft and sorcery; when McCoy was brought back in time to the 20th century, he deemed surgery with knives and sutures as barbaric; Scotty tried speaking into a mouse to interact with a PC. If people from the 1100AD saw the kinds of weapons we have today, they'd have surrendered in heartbeat. How could a dhow from the Ming Dynasty have stood up to a modern warship? Not a chance... and that's only 600 years difference... I saw very little of that on the show.

I get the feeling that storylines are wrapped up by season's end in the event that the show gets axed; there's less online harassment for the show to be revived. I didn't mind Burnham's storyline but to see her get [spoiler alert] tapped for Captain was entirely predictable but unnecessary. Really? In the 33rd century, they couldn't find a better Captain for that post?

As for the SFX, I've all but given up on trying to spot the mistakes in CGI or separating the CGI from practical effects; they're just too good. I've heard that something like 90% of what we see on the Mandalorian is CGI... :shock:


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 3:31 pm 
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the Cunning Linguist wrote:
Yeah, I was a little disappointed myself. I think the 950 years into the future premise wasn't believable. Really, do they need zippers and seams on clothes when they have interactive matter and nanobots? The first scene with the Indian guy and the floating desk and interactive matter was cool and believable as being well into the future, but after that, not so much. Think back 900 years ago (no, I wasn't there) and today's technology would be all witchcraft and sorcery; when McCoy was brought back in time to the 20th century, he deemed surgery with knives and sutures as barbaric; Scotty tried speaking into a mouse to interact with a PC. If people from the 1100AD saw the kinds of weapons we have today, they'd have surrendered in heartbeat. How could a dhow from the Ming Dynasty have stood up to a modern warship? Not a chance... and that's only 600 years difference... I saw very little of that on the show.

I get the feeling that storylines are wrapped up by season's end in the event that the show gets axed; there's less online harassment for the show to be revived. I didn't mind Burnham's storyline but to see her get [spoiler alert] tapped for Captain was entirely predictable but unnecessary. Really? In the 33rd century, they couldn't find a better Captain for that post?

As for the SFX, I've all but given up on trying to spot the mistakes in CGI or separating the CGI from practical effects; they're just too good. I've heard that something like 90% of what we see on the Mandalorian is CGI... :shock:


It's kinda neat though what some of the costume designers did for the newfangled uniforms. I saw a quick video about it on IG and the lead designer said they used a variety of methods not normally associated with costume design, like using 3-D printers for some of the elements. Only gripe I have with the new suits is that they're...REALLY gray. Just go with black, folks. It's much more flattering. And Trek has gotten into a lot of trouble when they try going a little too futuristic--Roddenberry insisted the TNG uniforms be made of spandex, which led to all kinds of problems behind the scenes. There's a reason those finally got ditched and they went with regular wool getups in season 3.

As for technological progress, you make a valid point, but I'd just like to point out that measuring progress ain't quite as cut-and-dried as comparing us to, say, Medieval times. There have obviously been big leaps over the course of human progress, but the twentieth century blew everything we know away. In the 1800s, for instance, medical technology was horribly outdated. They were still "bleeding people" and treating ill folks with fucking strychnine FFS. Also, some technologies progress faster than others, and some progress to a certain point and then...stop altogether. Look how boats haven't really evolved a ton in the last couple thousand years, and yet it took us roughly 66 years to go from flying an airplane for the first time to landing on the goddamned moon.

But I will say that it seemed kinda ridiculous to me too that the galaxy had been using warp drive and dilithium crystals for well over 1000 years and they...never found anything better? Nothing? The spore drive is still, like, the most advanced form of propulsion ever 1000+ years later...? Also, I thought it was implied in TNG that they had figured out how to make their own dilithium. Oh well, as contrived as the major maguffin it was sometimes, it was still kinda neat seeing a Star Trek story where the characters didn't have a Federation or Starfleet to lean back on. Voyager could have and should have had storytelling on this level, but for some weird reason...they didn't.

As far as serialized storylines go, they should take a page out of DS9's book. A lot of episodes were self-contained but a lot of them furthered a larger storyline. And unlike TNG and their super-annoying season finale cliffhangers, DS9 would definitely leave a lot of things up in the, but you felt satisfied with the storyline and season as a whole.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 3:52 pm 
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Extenuating circumstances, of course, but I feel like I'm watching too much TV these days and it's preventing me from truly enjoying anything I'm watching because I feel like I should be doing more useful things with my time at home.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:25 pm 
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E.L. wrote:
Extenuating circumstances, of course, but I feel like I'm watching too much TV these days and it's preventing me from truly enjoying anything I'm watching because I feel like I should be doing more useful things with my time at home.


I'm watching more TV than ever thanks to the little velcro munchkin. I pass the time I'm rendered immobile with The Prisoner, Rick and Morty, and Steven Universe. Not doing nearly as many podcasts as before--I tried a paid membership to Stitcher and it just wasn't my thing.

The wife and I are on Community Season Four, which I'm told is by far the worst one. So far, still enjoyable. Almost to the "Chevy Chase gets fired" episode.

Also chanced upon an old classic--Aeon Flux. Such a deliciously fucked-up show. There's a lot of stuff on there that just wouldn't fly today.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:29 pm 
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Also, I don't watch Riverdale, but I'm fairly certain that This Is Us has become even more ridiculous than that show.


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