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That's not Picard's ship! They're not his guns to give away!!!
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Feb 22, 2020 19:42
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SpeakSlow posted:It's a perfect allegory for post-911 America, to be honest. We know our brand. The same brand we've been selling to others but only pay lip service to. Picard is then what happens when that bright idealism is forced to dig beneath the surface to reconcile sins of the past. It doesn't sound like fanfic at all, I think you're on the money. My issue is that it feels like the showrunners are ignoring the central conceit of the series which is the post-scarcity world and the implications that follow these decisions imply some really simplistic ideas about life and philosophy. The implication that this show is providing is "humanity is inherently selfish/greedy/cowardly/etc." It doesn't matter that we somehow made it out of religious zealotry and explicit inequality, injustice and greed, our worst characteristics that are all defined and exemplified by the reality of our systems are inescapable and it actually doesn't matter if we eliminate them. Of course it's easy for any of us to see modern day countries becoming isolationist and militaristic in response to crisis, because modern day countries are founded upon the ideals of exclusion and exploitation, and its leaders and civilians survival and value systems built upon greed. I never felt that the label of "optimism" fit the star treks, because its established that they got there as a result of conflicts that nearly destroyed everything, and the introduction of practically-free-energy would very easily lead to massive shifts in the culture of the planet. For this show to go back and just erase the implications of that stuff and say "ah, you know what, stuffs still pretty dumb and stop being such a naive baby" is simplistic to the point of meaninglessness. The pew pews are the least troublesome aspect of this show for me. Disco mishandled plenty in their focus on relationships but I don't recall it being this misshapen and trite and it had some genuinely good episodes. Hugh's story was loving great especially with Stamets being a horrible monster. Hugh2 4 life. Picard on the other hand is distorting the universe to portray a tired message and is constantly firing off fanservicey references. It feels like a parody. Pinterest Mom posted:That's not Picard's ship! They're not his guns to give away!!!
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Feb 22, 2020 19:46
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This show’s biggest failure is the same as Discovery- the editing is dogshit and even minor changes to the editing and pacing would make an enormous difference
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Feb 22, 2020 19:51
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FlamingLiberal posted:This show’s biggest failure is the same as Discovery- the editing is dogshit and even minor changes to the editing and pacing would make an enormous difference Can you expound on this, I don’t know much about editing
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Feb 22, 2020 19:58
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Pinterest Mom posted:That's not Picard's ship! They're not his guns to give away!!! Eh, if they weren’t secured then he can’t be held responsible. I doubt he signed for them either so what would he care
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Feb 22, 2020 20:31
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zoux posted:Can you expound on this, I don’t know much about editing just for kicks, I thought I'd flip through the latest ep on double speed to spot the worst crimes - opens with a flashback sequence to an event and location that we have no frame of reference for (but sure is gory! that'll keep butts in seats right?) - cut to two weeks ago, totally different characters and location. wait, didn't we just do this? we're doing a double flashback cold open? - allison pill's character is watching a vid. she sad about maddox. in her bunk. next scene: same character is on the bridge. when did this happen? you couldn't at least start the scene with a shot she's not in so we don't get whiplash? - entire freecloud sequence keeps cutting back to raffi explaining what's happening in flashback. Fine maybe the first couple times, but the scene never gets a chance to work because it keeps cutting its own tension off at the knees to explain what's going on throughout the entire thing - of course we cut back to the flashback of vajazzle getting tortured to death. we couldn't possibly infer that from seven passionately describing exactly that, we have to see it because the audience has no object permanence - this is probably the biggest one: around 33 minutes in, the lizard dude activates his wrist phaser or whatever. cut back to picard, then cut to seven reacting to a phaser flash. THEN we cut to lizard guy getting shot in the back by a guard, then we cut to captain fancy hat lowering his phaser. What in the holy gently caress happened? Everyone is fine except the lizard guy. What was the first shot? We're supposed to assume captain hat shot the lizard, but he didn't pull the trigger. Nothing makes sense. All we needed to see was the wrist phaser reveal, seven's reaction shot and the captain lowering his gun. There are two extra shots that completely ruin the sequence, it feels like a rough cut that got out the door by accident. - maybe it's just me, but that last scene was so telegraphed and so drawn out I was cringing halfway through. More of a script note than an edit note, but it's all bad.
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Feb 22, 2020 20:53
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The whole idea of ‘we’re going to intercut the planning of the plan with the actual plan going down’ is done so horribly
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Feb 22, 2020 21:02
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FlamingLiberal posted:The whole idea of ‘we’re going to intercut the planning of the plan with the actual plan going down’ is done so horribly way better in badda bing badda bang
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Feb 22, 2020 21:04
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FlamingLiberal posted:The whole idea of ‘we’re going to intercut the planning of the plan with the actual plan going down’ is done so horribly It's such a tired trope at this point you'd either have to do it really, really well to get any impact out of it, or play it off as parody. Neither thing happened here. My guess is they didn't have enough coverage to make either scene interesting, so this was how they "fixed" it
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Feb 22, 2020 21:08
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Pinterest Mom posted:That's not Picard's ship! They're not his guns to give away!!! Now I’m going to be mad if, two or three episodes down the road, Rios is pissed to suddenly discover they’re short on phasers.
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Feb 22, 2020 21:09
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There was never a good sense of momentum or even rising tension during the oceans 11 bit
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Feb 22, 2020 21:10
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TheCenturion posted:Now I’m going to be mad if, two or three episodes down the road, Rios is pissed to suddenly discover they’re short on phasers. Or they're chased the gently caress down by people whose poo poo was shot up by phaser rifles traceable to La Sirena, by Seven
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Feb 22, 2020 21:13
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kidkissinger posted:There was never a good sense of momentum or even rising tension during the oceans 11 bit
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Feb 22, 2020 21:22
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:- entire freecloud sequence keeps cutting back to raffi explaining what's happening in flashback. Fine maybe the first couple times, but the scene never gets a chance to work because it keeps cutting its own tension off at the knees to explain what's going on throughout the entire thing This, right here is the core of what the problem with new Trek is. The producers constantly assume you're stupid. The TNG films fell into the same trap, and Disco was especially bad. (I give the JJ films a pass, because there was never the slightest hint that they were supposed to be anything other than dumb space action adventure films that had no reason to exist after GotG came out. And on those terms, 2/3 of them were pretty good dumb fun space action films!). Disco is the worst offender, simply because it's clear there were about 10 different competing visions of what the show is, and rather than pick one they sorta sellotaped everything together and then committee-edited the thing into a paste. Picard is the same thing, only they are all trying to be 'Prestige TV' rather than 'dumb action space adventure'. The second the Vash-whatever siblings relationship was played as incest it was obvious someone, somewhere was trying to ape GOT while only having the most completely superficial understanding of why GOT worked.It's the exact same creatively bankrupt process that lead to every other action figure in the 1980s having a lightsaber, or every video game from 1992 to 1995 featuring an anthropomorphic mammal mascot. The most frustrating thing is, both shows have some good ideas in them. A big budget sci-fi series that's a character study of....well, any character portrayed by Patrick Stewart - sounds amazing. Disco is at it's best when it goes absolutely batshit mental. But there's no direction, nothing creative about either show - just hints of what could off been if there were 3 producers instead of 30,000. Star Trek isn't back because someone wants use that universe to tell a story, it's back because Metrics and Analytics say to do it. Just occurred to me, I wonder if the reason the ship looks so much like The Normandy is because some data analyst somewhere looked at the metrics for Star Trek and Mass Effect and realised there was cross over.
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Feb 22, 2020 21:27
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FlamingLiberal posted:The whole idea of ‘we’re going to intercut the planning of the plan with the actual plan going down’ is done so horribly It was such an odd moment to decide to use that "heist plan montage", the plan itself was so simple that what explanation do you need? You dress as a local, tell the security guy you're there to trade some goods, and take a muscle relaxer so you don't seem nervous. There's nothing intricate about it. Also unrelated but just a random tidbit I noticed, the "Icheb torture planet" at the beginning is called "Vergessen", which is just the German verb for "to forget"
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Feb 22, 2020 21:41
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man, for people who love optimism so much, Star Trek fans sure love to talk negatively about things
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Feb 22, 2020 21:41
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Drink-Mix Man posted:man, for people who love optimism so much, Star Trek fans sure love to talk negatively about things i'm optimistic that you can improve your posting if you work hard at it
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Feb 22, 2020 21:43
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Drink-Mix Man posted:man, for people who love optimism so much, Star Trek fans sure love to talk negatively about things The future is now old man
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Feb 22, 2020 21:47
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Just saw the next 3 episodes' titles on Memory Alpha, could be an interesting guess as to what the episodes will be about. The five we've already seen: Remembrance -- first episode, remembering the past, Data, the attacks, etc. Maps and Legends -- set up of the legend of the Zhat Vash The End is the Beginning -- the end of their starfleet careers is the beginning of their rogue-ish journey? and the introduction of "the destroyer" label for Soji, which is the beginning of the set-up for whatever this terrible and profound secret is Absolute Candor -- the absolute candor of the nuns telling JL his idea is stupid and he's definitely going to die on this stupid mission Stardust City Rag -- Stardust City The next 3: The Impossible Box -- the episode preview had a puzzlebox or something that Soji was holding, and I'm sure is just a symbol for her story being "impossible" in some way, that was set up by incest brother in Absolute Candor. also the borg cube itself, and why it disconnected from the borg Nepenthe -- "(archaic) Alternative form of nepenthes (“a drug that relieves one of emotional pain, grief or sorrow”)." so I really hope this isn't just an episode about Raffi because I find her whole story unbearable and uninteresting Broken Pieces -- I'm sure has something to do with the broken pieces of glass/mirror of JL in the credits, and the broken identity of Soji, and maybe the actual destruction of the borg cube, or the breaking up of the conspiracy, or the breaking up of some bigger stability when everyone learns the secret so terrible and profound that just knowing it will break a person's mind
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Feb 22, 2020 22:00
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I just realized that this show has literal mystery boxes in it
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Feb 22, 2020 22:06
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One thing that has bugged me the past couple episodes has been the scenes where the whole crew convenes in Picard's holo-chateau. The dialogue makes them feel like a straight ripoff of the diner scenes from Seinfeld, rather than anything from Star Trek. Structurally, I get that they're meant to serve the same purpose as the conference room scenes in TNG, but it's such a grating contrast from the cool professionalism of the TNG characters. There's nothing in these scenes that makes the characters likeable, or even indicates that they like each other. That better not be the last we see of Seven. Besides the eyeball scene, so much of what we learn about what's happened to her is told instead of shown. It's a credit to Jeri Ryan's acting skill that she was able to convey so much through the character's emotions, but it still feels low effort on the part of the writers and producers. I too definitely got the vibe of a failed romantic relationship between Seven and Vajazzle, or perhaps that Vajazzle had seduced Seven in order to take advantage of her. Also, Bjazel or however you spell it is just Jezebel with the syllables rearranged... why can't we go back to creatively weird space names like Groppler Zorn? The thing is, it's obvious that Frakes still has a solid handle on how to direct Trek. The battle scene last week was on point, however brief it was, and the bar scene in this episode felt like anything that had ever happened at Quark's, shady TNG settings like in the forgettable Gambit two-parter, or even the bar where McCoy tries to book passage in Search for Spock. It's just that he's being given very inconsistent material to work with... it felt like parts of this episode wanted to be relatively light hearted, but the body horror at the top of the hour, Seven going full murderhobo, and the scene with Raffi's kid really contrasted with everything else. I can agree that Raffi's scene was well-acted, but it also felt kind of shoe-horned in, like they didn't quite have a clear outline for how her emotional arc develops.
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Feb 22, 2020 22:13
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the more i think about it the more i can convince myself this whole season is an adaptation of the terrible secret of space
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Feb 22, 2020 22:13
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FlamingLiberal posted:Nope, the only thing that was a potential hiccup was the lizard alien's sense of smell and they immediately cut to the doctor giving him a blocker for that This is one of the bigger disappointments about the whole episode. I was expecting that Rios would have to do something clever, and very carefully and selectively use true statements to imply the false story that the lizard guy is expecting to hear. Hell, even the joke at the end writes itself -- as they part ways, Rios says "It was nice to meet you" and lizard guy's nose turns up like he just smelled a dead woodchuck. Rios gives a "guilty as charged" smile and wanders off to the bar. End scene. That would have been fantastic. The other way to handle this, like someone in the thread suggested, is to have Picard and company lie through their teeth to Elnor, and then send Elnor down to tell "the truth" (as far as he knows) to lizard guy. That would have been workable. Instead the writers built up this whole thing about the guy who can smell lies, only to not-even-technobabble their way out of it before it even happens. Hell, they could have used the "nice to meet you" joke anyway. Or even played it serious, in order to to throw a monkey-wrench into the plan: lizard guy realizes that drugged-up Rios doesn't smell like a liar when he says it, which makes him instantly suspicious. e: I just went back and re-watched that scene, and it's even worse than I remembered. The only actual lie he tells is when he says the business with Mr. Quark and the Breen was "quite the fooferaw". Everything else he says is true, assuming that he doesn't secretly have a high opinion of the moral standards of the Tal Shiar. So in other words, the whole thing was pointless anyway. e2: Okay, "I've come to offer your employer alternative remuneration" is a bit of a tight squeeze, I suppose, but you could work out how technically they're "offering" some phaser stuns and a hasty retreat with Maddox. Powered Descent fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Feb 22, 2020 |
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Feb 22, 2020 23:16
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My main issue with Picard is the editing/pacing and to a lesser extent story structure is all over the god drat place, one minute its giving me exactly what I want in a "Modern Trek", or at least something that feels close enough to right to work for me. Next minute I am taken out of this by super sloppy pacing/editing or poorly thought out structure overall. That nasty cold open should have been saved for later on in the episode, then it would have been nasty AND made sense to drive Sevens plot thread. Having it as a cold open made it seem like a cheap shot or something. Also Picard being seemingly so self righteous regarding use of violence is very odd. I remember over the corse of TNG he became much more pragmatic/flexible (not sure of the right word here ?) triggered by his Borg experience .. the culmination of this being pretty much all of First Contact. Will they ever explain this change back to the more "rigid" Picard ? because so far I am not seeing anything.
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Feb 23, 2020 00:16
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I'll say it again, the premise of Picard is 'what if the exact events of The Undiscovered Country happened again, except Starfleet goes with the 'let them die'' option'. Trek is inconsistent on lots of things depending on what series/film you are looking at, but almost every time the issue has come up the Federation has actually always been depicted as two missed meals away from 'gently caress it, genocide is now acceptable policy'.
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Feb 23, 2020 00:52
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Alchenar posted:I'll say it again, the premise of Picard is 'what if the exact events of The Undiscovered Country happened again, except Starfleet goes with the 'let them die'' option'. Trek is inconsistent on lots of things depending on what series/film you are looking at, but almost every time the issue has come up the Federation has actually always been depicted as two missed meals away from 'gently caress it, genocide is now acceptable policy'. thank god for those replicators
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Feb 23, 2020 01:18
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Eiba posted:Or are you going to tell me that when a writer puts gory explosion conspiracy aliens in one episode, and has a random guy from the 80s be incredulous about a lack of currency in another episode, that there was a coherent world being created and not just everything being thrown at the wall to see what sticks? istewart posted:There's nothing in these scenes that makes the characters likeable, or even indicates that they like each other. Picard needs a ship so OK, he hires Rios. But he's a chartered pilot, so why is he risking his life for this crackpot mission? Raffi believes in the conspiracy but she was ready to abandon it to reconnect with her son. She only came along for the ride to Freecloud. So why didn't she just take a different ship? This can't be the only one available. And why now? Picard offers her evidence that the conspiracy is real and that galvanises her to... give up? Powered Descent posted:e2: Okay, "I've come to offer your employer alternative remuneration" is a bit of a tight squeeze, I suppose, but you could work out how technically they're "offering" some phaser stuns and a hasty retreat with Maddox. But as you pointed out, the whole thing was basically a wasted opportunity because the lie-detecting alien was never a problem since they introduced the method for defeating him at the same time they introduced him, and there was never any secondary complication for them to overcome. The whole thing plays out exactly the same if he can't detect lies.
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Feb 23, 2020 02:17
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So could someone tell me why there's a marked focus on camera angles in the thread? Seriously curious.
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Feb 23, 2020 02:51
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I get what people are saying, I don't think anyone is looking for just more TNG episodes with better CGI but I think Picard is missing a few things that make a show feel like star trek. This feels like a marvel tv series with star trek references. I'm still going to watch it but just with they'd tone down the dramatic music and throw in a few more anbo jyutsu tournaments. Also if anyone has played STO it's explained that the romulan supernova was actually caused by technobabble that made the explosion travel at warp speed, not giving the romulans much time to react.
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Feb 23, 2020 02:57
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SpeakSlow posted:So could someone tell me why there's a marked focus on camera angles in the thread? Seriously curious. What do you mean? I know people complained about the spinning camera in Discovery but no one has really mentioned the camera work in Picard have they?
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Feb 23, 2020 03:51
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Camera work seems fine to me, the editing on the other hand ..
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Feb 23, 2020 08:03
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I'd let myself believe Picard was a return to the Star Trek I love but it turns out to be extremely grim and dark.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:14
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SpeakSlow posted:So could someone tell me why there's a marked focus on camera angles in the thread? Seriously curious. Same reason there's a marked focus on pork belly futures in the thread. There isn't one. What the gently caress are you talking about?
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Feb 23, 2020 18:20
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mfny posted:My main issue with Picard is the editing/pacing and to a lesser extent story structure is all over the god drat place, one minute its giving me exactly what I want in a "Modern Trek", or at least something that feels close enough to right to work for me. Next minute I am taken out of this by super sloppy pacing/editing or poorly thought out structure overall. Well, for starters, I think they are ignoring movie-era Picard (as they should). The only two anti-violence lectures that I remember are telling Elron he didn't need to chop that guy's head off, and telling Seven that gunning down an unarmed person in cold blood won't make her feel better. Am I forgetting anything? Given he also grieving the deaths of Data and all those millions of Romulans he feels he let down, it seems pretty motivated to me.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:28
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TNG was about an ensemble and the movies kinda failed at doing much other than Picard/Data stuff. Frakes' direction definitely seems fine, it's just the show doesn't have a lot else going for it- it feels more like Patrick Stewart does Firefly than anything else.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:37
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Well, for starters, I think they are ignoring movie-era Picard (as they should). In both instances he arguably deliberately sets in motion both events. He sets up the confrontation at the cafe, and then, aside from going "yeah take those two phaser rifles you've told you me you need for... reasons" and looking right at Seven as she visibly charges them up, he's operating the transporter controls as he beams her back into the room where Bjayzl is. It's weird because Stewart doesn't play either scene as if Picard is acknowledging responsibility for this violence, but the script absolutely makes it clear he has to know what he's complicit in.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:38
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Paxman posted:I'd let myself believe Picard was a return to the Star Trek I love but it turns out to be extremely grim and dark. Do you really think the show is just going to be a gritty exploration of Picard realizing how out of touch he is to the morally ambiguous and messy realities of the world? I think it's pretty clear that the arc of the story is going to be that Picard is unambiguously correct and good with a moral that history isn't the inexorable march towards progress and that you need to guard and be vigilant about society losing its way rather than retreating from that in the face of setbacks. Telling the story through the vehicle of a sometimes superficially Star Trek flavored version of Firefly might not have ended up being the best choice, but I think the people disappointed that it isn't an exploration of how rad fully automated luxury gay space communism is are a little misguided.
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Feb 23, 2020 19:33
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Same reason there's a marked focus on pork belly futures in the thread. There isn't one. What the gently caress are you talking about? Oh come on. Let's not be defensively obtuse. Run a few pages back and you'll see it. Just felt odd to be critiquing Star Trek, of all things, from that angle.
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Feb 23, 2020 19:39
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SpeakSlow posted:Oh come on. Let's not be defensively obtuse. Run a few pages back and you'll see it. Have you seen Discovery? They really shat in the Star Trek camera angle well and most of the discussion I've seen about camera use in Picard has been to the tune of "Well, at least it ain't Discovery" or "I'm surprised the camera didn't spin in scene X".
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Feb 23, 2020 19:55
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SpeakSlow posted:Oh come on. Let's not be defensively obtuse. Run a few pages back and you'll see it. I don't really know what your critique is because I'm not scrolling back to pick out posts about camera angles. If you're responding to something, quote it.
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Feb 23, 2020 19:58
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