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piratepilates posted:This will probably happen in our lifetimes tbh. With the way opinions have started shifting over things like factory farming and animal cruelty, I can see society in a few decades looking back at owning pets as an artifact of a worse era. There's definitely so many times I look at my cats and feel terrible that such athletic, intelligent creatures are cooped up inside most of their lives inside a human-stinking box... but then I consider that for most of my cats the alternative is having been injected with poison years ago so what are you gonna do
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Feb 26, 2020 21:06
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piratepilates posted:This will probably happen in our lifetimes tbh. With the way opinions have started shifting over things like factory farming and animal cruelty, I can see society in a few decades looking back at owning pets as an artifact of a worse era. People are more likely to accept grown meat rather than eating bugs. All the flavor, none of the cruelty.
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Feb 26, 2020 21:15
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Regarde Aduck posted:gently caress that battle is awful. It looks like a lovely video game sequence. In fact that's an insult to video games because the battles in mass effect were better put together than that. I remember that battle scene being well received in the Orville thread.
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Feb 26, 2020 21:46
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Well since this is officially an Orville derail... I tried, I watched the first 4 and while it got the occasional smile or "heh", it was the aping of TNG that bugged me more than the better than average network sitcom comedy. Pure personal taste, I hate fan films and knock offs. No shade on those who do, but it's not for me. Galaxy Quest works as a parody homage to TOS, but I would never watch it as a series without the off camera elements. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 22:28
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Lizard Combatant posted:Well since this is officially an Orville derail... I respect this, but for the sake of "imagine if you judged TNG from the first 4 episodes" I would recommend giving at least 1 S2 episode a shot, the plots and writing get way better and there's less direct TNG knock-off plots. Heck, one ep was written by Joe Manosky and directed by Frakes - dunno if you would consider that a higher or lower bar for "aping TNG" though  e: another big thing is that S2 tones down the wacky humor in favor of funnier/better character interactions and dialogue, a consequence of Seth realizing the show could hold its own ratings-wise without having to shoehorn jokes in for the Fox execs. Plus S3 is gonna be on Hulu which should give them even more freedom to explore new/original plots. Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 23:00
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Regarde Aduck posted:gently caress that battle is awful. It looks like a lovely video game sequence. In fact that's an insult to video games because the battles in mass effect were better put together than that. i remember liking it better than the one out of DISCO from around the same time. what does a good "space battle" space battle look like? star trek 2 has a good one but it is essentially a submarine battle. first star wars had a good one but it is basically a car chase. i think the expanse ship did a pretty sick move once. post them if you got them
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Feb 26, 2020 23:27
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oh but seriously I posted:i remember liking it better than the one out of DISCO from around the same time. what does a good "space battle" space battle look like? star trek 2 has a good one but it is essentially a submarine battle. first star wars had a good one but it is basically a car chase. i think the expanse ship did a pretty sick move once. post them if you got them No comment on the Orville or Disco ones, but just off the top of my head: Battle Of Sector 001, Battle Of Endor, Retaking DS9, Falcon Asteroid Field Pursuit, at least a few from new BSG, some from Babylon 5 (with the tech/budget they had), I’m sure there are other obvious ones I’m blanking on.
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Feb 26, 2020 23:39
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Snow Cone Capone posted:I respect this, but for the sake of "imagine if you judged TNG from the first 4 episodes" I would recommend giving at least 1 S2 episode a shot, the plots and writing get way better and there's less direct TNG knock-off plots. Heck, one ep was written by Joe Manosky and directed by Frakes - dunno if you would consider that a higher or lower bar for "aping TNG" though Ok I will. But it wasn't the actual writing that was putting me off so much, it's just... I have 7 seasons of TNG with characters and actors I like, I wasn't asking for more of it + weed jokes and a Panaphonic/Sorny setting. I know that's being simplistic, but taste is taste. That said, I'll give it another shot. Juuuuust one more thing though, and this is more to do with "prestige" (ugh) drama than network sitcoms, I do think it's completely fair to judge a show by its first season. Hell some shows do their best work in one season. TV has an air of legitimacy these days that affords them bigger budgets, shorter episode quotas to fill, and poaching creatives from film. It's become the better medium for drama with studios less willing to invest in anything but brand name tentpoles for theatres. With that comes the expectation that shows are fully realised out the gate (with the usual allowance for a certain amount of exposition in ep1) and they don't have the luxury of finding their voice over 2 seasons any more. I can't think of a modern show where you'd expect anyone to hang around until season 3 for it to "get good". Star Trek is no exception just because it's a beloved franchise for whom the old rules used to apply. I'll always watch a full season to give it a chance, but the "TNG had a bad 1st season" argument is losing relevance. And what that argument often forgets is that TNG only got better because it listened to the (useful) criticism (not the idiots just complaining it wasn't TOS). Discovery got better with its characters, but I'd say its stories and dialogue in season 2 were on the whole much worse, with the exception of maybe the Mushroom Kingdom being a little better than anything in season 1. It's had 2 seasons and it's lost me, I don't think it's capable of improving without a major overhaul in its writers room, showrunners and producers. Lovely Joe Stalin posted:I think they should have stuck with Fuller and let him have his try. By bottling it they left us with a worst of both worlds situation for Discovery. Basically this. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 00:51
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In the best traditions of TNG, to which Seth sticks a lot, first season sucks donkey balls. A lot. S2 is way better. Erulisse fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 01:00
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Lizard Combatant posted:Ok I will. Honestly, call me simple or basic, but I didn't hate TNG S1. So I usually try to avoid the argument, it just seemed like an apt comparison given the context In this case though, I would say that the constraints of getting the show made in the first place would be a valid reason to give S1 a bit of a pass. Given Seth's history and success with the cruder side of humor on Fox, I think it's absolutely believable that a lot of the cornier jokes came at Fox's behest. Also, I have no actual evidence to back this up, but after S2 ended I went back and rewatched S1, and I honestly feel like it was deliberately safe and unremarkable as far as aping TNG. For all the negatives about him, Seth is a loving gigantic Trek nerd, and I think he made an effort to stay within known space at first, given the insane dream-come-true scenario he was given (seriously, there's an old home movie Trek thing he did floating around Youtube, he's super loving into it) Another thing I would argue, is that between 7 seasons of TNG they covered a lot of ideas and plotlines. I mean, even Voyager and Enterprise aped TNG plots a few times. But I think your take goes a little deeper in terms of off-brand TNG than just the straight-up plots. Anyway, I'm genuinely curious to see your take on an ep or two from S2. High points from that season IMO would be ep4 (Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes, although be advised/warned it's a Braga/Andre Bormanis episode), ep6 (A Happy Refrain, written and directed by Seth so a good idea of what he can do from those angles), or ep12 (Sanctuary, written by Menosky/directed by Frakes). I dunno if you would consider the Trek names a positive or a negative, but there it is. e: I was looking up the info and I realized that FWIW like half of S1 was directed by Braga lol e2: not only are there multiple Frakes-directed episodes, but there's a couple directed by Robert Duncan McNeil. I didn't even know he directed! Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 01:18
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Snow Cone Capone posted:Honestly, call me simple or basic, but I didn't hate TNG S1. So I usually try to avoid the argument, it just seemed like an apt comparison given the context No fair enough, you just reminded me of it being used in the context of Discovery. Snow Cone Capone posted:Anyway, I'm genuinely curious to see your take on an ep or two from S2. High points from that season IMO would be ep4 (Nothing Left on Earth Excepting Fishes, although be advised/warned it's a Braga/Andre Bormanis episode), ep6 (A Happy Refrain, written and directed by Seth so a good idea of what he can do from those angles), or ep12 (Sanctuary, written by Menosky/directed by Frakes). I dunno if you would consider the Trek names a positive or a negative, but there it is. I'll put those three on the list. Menosky is a bit of mixed bag, but Conundrum and Darmok were fun episodes and Data's girlfriend (don't remember the name of the ep) had some pathos, I don't remember any of his DS9 eps being remarkable? Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 01:29
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Longbaugh01 posted:No comment on the Orville or Disco ones, but just off the top of my head: Battle Of Sector 001, Battle Of Endor, Retaking DS9, Falcon Asteroid Field Pursuit, at least a few from new BSG, some from Babylon 5 (with the tech/budget they had), I’m sure there are other obvious ones I’m blanking on. I'm going to pick out your first example to draw out 'what makes a good space battle?'. First Contact's space battle contains maybe 20 seconds of graphics of ships shooting at each other. It's good because the event is all about the effect the battle has on the characters. There's the excellent tension on the bridge of the Enterprise as they have to sit and listen to the battle start. Then we have a cut to the cube and it is clear that the battle is not going well. Worf is about to commit himself and his crew to a kamikaze attack. Picard asserts himself and we get some important exposition dump that his connection with the borg isn't psychosis, there's something lingering and real there. The cube blows up but even in successfully blowing it up we see some Federation ships get caught in the explosion The point is that in the first 5 minutes of the film we establish that the Borg are an appalling existential threat that our heroes the Federation is willing to accept casualties it wouldn't accept in any other context to stop. The battle sets up the mood for the rest of the film. The Orville battle sequence is just several minutes of laser beams.
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Feb 27, 2020 01:57
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The Orville battle is the climax of a 2-parter so it doesn't have to do a bunch of heavy lifting and mood-setting like the example you just described though Sometimes space battles are shooty lasers, it happens
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Feb 27, 2020 02:03
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oh but seriously I posted:i remember liking it better than the one out of DISCO from around the same time. what does a good "space battle" space battle look like? star trek 2 has a good one but it is essentially a submarine battle. first star wars had a good one but it is basically a car chase. i think the expanse ship did a pretty sick move once. post them if you got them Snow Cone Capone posted:The Orville battle is the climax of a 2-parter so it doesn't have to do a bunch of heavy lifting and mood-setting like the example you just described though The choreography of the Orville one is terrible though. The large fleet shots are very static, and the close up dogfights are just two or three ships moving along like they are carriages on the world's slowest Disney ride. While monotonous coloured lights constantly flicker about and a loving awful pew pew noise goes off (that sound designer should be sacked). The Expanse and Battlestar managed to deliver facsimiles of real space manoeuvring and tactics, combining them with a sense of speed, brutality and impact, while also having some gorgeous wide shots. Babylon 5, with its insanely primitive CGI managed to create excitement, scale, and kineticism that puts that Orville scene to shame. And that's without going into the entirely subjective factor that I think those Orville ship designs are incredibly bland and ugly The hero ship looks, to me, like something a child drew. There is no good excuse for a space battle to be shot as slowly and blandly as it is in that Orville clip in the modern day. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 03:59
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I mean that's fair criticism. I haven't seen Battlestar or B5, and while I agree that the Expanse has phenomenal space travel/battle stuff, it's an entirely different beast from Trek-type space battles. I liked it, but I don't think any of your complaints are invalid, and I admittedly have low standards for that sort of thing.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:17
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The best space battle in TNG is the one that happens in your head when they come across Wolf-359 I guess growing up watching Star Trek where at most you'd have four or five different ships on screen because they had to be physical models, once it became possible with CGI, seeing poo poo like the TS/OO attack on the Founders "homeworld", the battles of Chintoka and Cardassia Prime were like nothing I'd seen in ST before and it blew me away. I guess if you came to those shows after seeing stuff deeper into the CGI era, they might not look as good, but man when the Defiant does that loop with the camera pinned to its POV 
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Feb 27, 2020 04:28
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Man the Picard theme is so good, but it fits an entirely different show. When the violin kicks in it makes me think we're getting a bittersweet Picard looking back on his life and all the good he's done as the space cancer takes him.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:39
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zoux posted:I guess if you came to those shows after seeing stuff deeper into the CGI era, they might not look as good, but man when the Defiant does that loop with the camera pinned to its POV The USS Odyssey getting hosed up to establish the Dominion as a big bad blew my mind. After spending all this time on a station with runabouts a Galaxy class ship seemed massive then boom. I distinctly remember kid me thinking holy gently caress that could have been the Enterprise.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:48
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Man the Picard theme is so good, but it fits an entirely different show. When the violin kicks in it makes me think we're getting a bittersweet Picard looking back on his life and all the good he's done as the space cancer takes him. It's a nice piece of music but buddy that is a cello, the melancholic Irish poet of the orchestra.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:49
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:The USS Odyssey getting hosed up to establish the Dominion as a big bad blew my mind. After spending all this time on a station with runabouts a Galaxy class ship seemed massive then boom. I distinctly remember kid me thinking holy gently caress that could have been the Enterprise. Oh for sure and that was totally the point. Especially how rarely we saw Galaxy classes that weren’t the Enterprise. Like Worf getting his rear end kicked by the antagonist of the week.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:01
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zoux posted:Oh for sure and that was totally the point. Especially how rarely we saw Galaxy classes that weren’t the Enterprise. To the point that the mailroom was inundated by letters from angry fans demanding to know why they let some pissant little ship ram into the Enterprise and blow it up.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:08
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Lizard Combatant posted:It's a nice piece of music but buddy that is a cello, the melancholic Irish poet of the orchestra. I will always appreciate music that gives cellos an actual melody instead of just the same two measures repeating in the background ad nauseam. I was in orchestra for seven years and I think we played maybe half a dozen interesting pieces in that time.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:13
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I stand corrected as a repentant Philistine.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:15
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Snow Cone Capone posted:I mean that's fair criticism. I haven't seen Battlestar or B5, and while I agree that the Expanse has phenomenal space travel/battle stuff, it's an entirely different beast from Trek-type space battles. I liked it, but I don't think any of your complaints are invalid, and I admittedly have low standards for that sort of thing. There's a major spoiler in the title of the video, but gently caress it, the show is decades old. Here's what B5 could do when it set out to show a whole battle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWl1ZteUS8U
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Feb 27, 2020 05:29
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Big Mean Jerk posted:I will always appreciate music that gives cellos an actual melody instead of just the same two measures repeating in the background ad nauseam. I was in orchestra for seven years and I think we played maybe half a dozen interesting pieces in that time.  what up fellow cello dork
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Feb 27, 2020 05:30
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oh but seriously I posted:i remember liking it better than the one out of DISCO from around the same time. what does a good "space battle" space battle look like? star trek 2 has a good one but it is essentially a submarine battle. first star wars had a good one but it is basically a car chase. i think the expanse ship did a pretty sick move once. post them if you got them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZvyfLC-LU&t=44s I haven't seen the movie, so I must assume the rest is just like this. I bounce off of every other big fleet space battle scene (even the ones people rave about, like the big Orville one, or any DS9 big fleet one), but I really enjoy this one.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:48
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The thing that struck me about the Orville battle was that I was really not expecting them to bust out something like that at all, and by the time they did they got me invested enough in the characters and setting to care about all the little blinking laser pews
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Feb 27, 2020 06:20
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The Orville sequence lacks impact for me, and not just because the CGI is a bit weightless. There aren't emotional stakes. There's a brief moment where it seems like Victor Garber might have croaked, but then he just fucks off and it's back to the same glowy deconstructed lavalamps fighting robo anuses. The battle during the Discovery finale may have been guilty of having waaaay too much stuff on screen, but it consistently tries to ground the action in emotional stakes. Those stakes are frequently cliched (Admiral Cornwallis being the worst offender; she has by far the longest "it is I who must stay behind and die with this bomb" realisation in living memory, twice) but they're also trying their absolute hardest to make the show work. Same with the best sequences in BSG, Babylon 5, The Expanse...
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Feb 27, 2020 06:48
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A big problem with the Orville battle is it's a fleet of all the same ship vs a fleet of all the same ships
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Feb 27, 2020 06:53
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zoux posted:A big problem with the Orville battle is it's a fleet of all the same ship vs a fleet of all the same ships When you unlock the tech for your faction's one overpowered unit you don't build anything else
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Feb 27, 2020 08:58
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zoux posted:A big problem with the Orville battle is it's a fleet of all the same ship vs a fleet of all the same ships But is it bad or is it concurrent with nowadays trends?   (mercedes C vs E vs S classes) ps Seth is The Biggest ST nerd. Besides having his homebrew ST fan movie, he was a redshirt engineer in ENT. Twice! Sometimes I think that he got into tv production just so he can shoot his own trek one day.
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Feb 27, 2020 09:00
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Picard episode 6: Stupid sexy Rios  Sometimes you just need to bang your troubles away.Elnore continues to be the best. All the scenes on the borg cube were great. Narek trying to understand why Soji would have dreams and then pushing her towards discovering the truth, the scenes with Picard and Hugh. I wonder who is running the mom hologram. Can't be Maddox since he's dead. It isn't the Romulans either. CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 09:09
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Ok, now we’re back on track. Good episode. I was extremely skeptical given the first few minutes but the plot really advanced and Picard and Hugh’s reunion was sweet, as was Hugh helping him cope with being on the Cube and showing him the reclaimed Borg.
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Feb 27, 2020 09:29
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Picard episode 6: Stupid sexy Rios My impression is that the Mom is just an AI built into Soji. Whether she’s unknowingly sending a transmission to the holoscreen (in case others are nearby) or she just thinks she is seeing and hearing her (and subconsciously only ever calls when people aren’t in the room).
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Feb 27, 2020 09:55
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Hoo. Boy. As someone with a touch of (medical related, also when I say a touch it's me saying I got off easy compared to so many) PTSD this episode is hitting some poo poo. Also Hugh is a loving boss.
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Feb 27, 2020 10:31
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A fun episode, at least with how it turned out Hugh may not be completely boned, Elnor not just escaping with them didn't make sense to me in the moment, but hey gotta cover those tracks and keep Hugh alive . I like that we saw The golden nugget at the center of the Borg tech on the cube. Get that advanced transporter tech and make spaceship travel obsolete, like it pretty much could be in the Kelvin timeline movies based on the beaming feats we saw in those.
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Feb 27, 2020 11:09
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Here goes the watch: -Didn't Soji get into an argument with Narek and why they are back to sleeping together? I thought they broke up after that. They are talking about way too uncomfortable things for a beginning friends with benefits type of relations :< -Traitor bitch lying and they didn't check the EMH logs. How convenient -At least they got Picard's feeling about being a borg and visiting the cube again right. Borg is cancer, thanks for reminding the audience -Nice overlay still of Locutus over JL's face. I almost hear dark grim 'this is what you are'. Picard crying, huh -Where is Rios' scar on his right shoulder? He refused dermal regenerator back in his first scene. -Team Incest gets some bits of character development. I feel bad for scientific and curios mind of Narek being part of team bad guys. He is fascinated by Soji and does well portraying it -So much for being sober and clean, I suppose. Raffi being Raffi vOv. -TNG tune kicks in. Are we finally actually making some progress? Yay! No Elnor, no fun for you. -70 seconds should be enough for anyone to understand that their life was crafted some 37 months ago. -Picard initial cube scene was intense. Mildly intense and it was wonderful. Also caring borgs and Hugh <3 -Clearly they shrugged films off with how impactful being among and near borgs is for Picard. He wasnt so worried back in first contact. So shouldn't we. Its how it is and it's all right. -Oh c'mon Soji you're failing it. You decided to check your personal stuff for age because....? No reason? Yeah neat. You realise that all you belongings are fabricated, you get strange intraborg connections and your boyfriends is asking you questions about your identity and you are still clueless? -Emotiborg, reclamaborg and happyborg. Picard, his eyes open and wet, his arms wide. -"THIS IS NOT CANON THEY NEVER SHOWED ROMULANS LIKE THAT" spiritual practices with a glooming view from the incestous sister that is making sure that her beloved brother is faithful to her. Is voyeurism normal among romulans or they put up a camera just for Soji? Also lol at wooden Soji doll. -Yeah lets kill a supermegafast and strong synth with good old thalaron radiation. The next best bet is waiting when her power cell dies  -A tidbit of Hugh's character development or a writing mistake, but a borg called a race by it's name. -Oh god Elnor you're a treasure. -WAIT WHAT NO DONT LEAVE HIM BEHIND -Reeee marysue supertech on cube -Also Riker. Is this bad writing or actual spoon feeding done specifically for broader audiences? It's definitely the latter. While watching ST PIC just as a cool serial, everything is normal. But when you start dissecting an episode, half of stuff doesn't make sense until you have finished watching it. Yeah there are some stretches and bad writing, but its for good, not for bad. Erulisse fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 11:12
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NowonSA posted:A fun episode, at least with how it turned out Hugh may not be completely boned, Elnor not just escaping with them didn't make sense to me in the moment, but hey gotta cover those tracks and keep Hugh alive . I mean an Iconian gateway style thing that's on demand and you can pick the end point? That's a spicy meatball. Also loved Alice Krige getting a few moments of time during the episode.
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Feb 27, 2020 11:13
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Snow Cone Capone posted:Sometimes space battles are shooty lasers, it happens No it doesnt happens because none of these space battles are real, they are components of a story someone is trying to tell. If your space battle is minutes of shooty lasers then that means you are filling time because your story is crap and you are a bad storyteller. Another example; theres that one battlestar galactica episode that's entirely based around one dogfight between starbuck and the scarred raider, but the space action bit isnt good because its shooty lasers, it's good because it's also invoking Starbuck's inner struggle on whether she wants to live.
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Feb 27, 2020 11:53
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AntherUslessPoster posted:Is this bad writing or actual spoon feeding done specifically for broader audiences? It's definitely the latter. I think the fact that they're drip feeding this series out instead of netflix style binge-enabling made them make choices about episodes that aren't really optimal, like revealing the Zhat Vash and conspiracy with the Federation insanely early just because they thought they needed to keep the viewer's interest going. My thoughts on the episode: The stuff on the Cube was mostly really good, though the resolution felt, oh, off. I like the concept but i think it might've been better with something other than a super teleporter- something to give Elnor a real reason to stay. Picard and Hugh worked really well together. Everything else was very meh. That conversation with the admiral doesn't really feel like it would lead to that result. I almost would rather have just cut to the end of the conversation rather than go through it all because it didn't reveal much about anyone. It might be that Picard's companions just aren't very interesting.
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Feb 27, 2020 11:57
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