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hamilton the musical had a similar issue of the obvious place for the actbreak being after the battle of yorktown, but LMM continues it into the new america and everything starting to get all hosed up and complicated, which was deliberate. Nothing ever ends.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 01:52 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:17 |
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It really does feel weird for both the shadow war and the earthican civil war to share the same season, and it makes me think about how they could've had more time to bloom if they had a season each instead. Season 5 has some good bits, but it's not great. And then the finale of season 4 is the big moment that is kind of the big summary of the whole series and a deep look at the whole setting and how nothing ever ends, but it really takes the wind out of the sails of season 5 having to keep on going. The season 5 finale is kinda weak. And then it keeps on going into the movies which are of variable quality, and Lost Tales is just...man I dunno.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 02:04 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:The season 5 finale is kinda weak. What's this now? "Sleeping In Light" is one of the all-time great TV show finales.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 02:11 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:The season 5 finale is kinda weak. This is a typo right?
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 02:35 |
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I'm assuming he means the episode before SiL, since it was taped at the end of Season 4 and while it's a fantastic series finale it's not really a Season 5 finale in any real sense.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 02:51 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:The season 5 finale is kinda weak.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 02:52 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:The season 5 finale is kinda weak. I hope you're talking about Objects at Rest.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 03:39 |
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Midjack posted:Yep, it would make a lot of sense to saw it off once the Shadow War ends. I'll be interested to see how he feels about what happens to Londo and the Centauri in season 5. I think he's going to appreciate it, especially the League involvement. The Centauri get right back to their old tricks and the Alliance members beat their poo poo down.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 04:09 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:The season 5 finale is kinda weak April Fools to you too, sir.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 04:38 |
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Midjack posted:Yep, it would make a lot of sense to saw it off once the Shadow War ends. I'll be interested to see how he feels about what happens to Londo and the Centauri in season 5. Assuming he even gets that far, given how frustrated his notions of how this SHOULD be going seem to be making him.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 06:58 |
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Polaron posted:Assuming he even gets that far, given how frustrated his notions of how this SHOULD be going seem to be making him. This is something that frustrates me in a lot of media criticism; Annalee Newitz in particular is extremely guilty. "This show / movie isn't exactly what I theorycrafted and imagined in my head, so therefore it absolutely sucks."
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 07:55 |
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Polaron posted:Assuming he even gets that far, given how frustrated his notions of how this SHOULD be going seem to be making him. Hence my frustration. But Tom's said he's thinking of bailing before and has kept on going, so we'll just have to hope that he doesn't get Byroned out or something before reaching the payoff.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 09:56 |
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On the other hand, he is not wrong, the later half of season four is incredible rushed and they are running through plot points at a ridiculous pace that does actually makes some of them hit less than they should.
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 14:33 |
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e X posted:On the other hand, he is not wrong, the later half of season four is incredible rushed and they are running through plot points at a ridiculous pace that does actually makes some of them hit less than they should. Time to fire up the 'ol Great Machine, I guess. While we're at it, I can think of a few additional tweaks to make to the timeline....
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# ? Apr 2, 2023 17:36 |
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Y'all have to stop dunking on Tom now, since he likes Neroon, which is the objectively correct opinion.
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# ? Apr 3, 2023 13:01 |
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Tom is cool as hell, I love the way he's engaging with the show. I do think it's interesting that he's so much more enraged at the centauri than the exactly as genocidal minbari.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:19 |
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Minbari did their genocide off-camera.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:25 |
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It's on-camera in In The Beginning.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:27 |
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Also they genocided humans, and as we know those guys suck and deserved it.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:44 |
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SlothfulCobra posted:It's on-camera in In The Beginning. Which he hasn't seen. He did miss that Delenn was the deciding vote for wiping out the humans though, that might adjust his opinion.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 04:54 |
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sebmojo posted:Tom is cool as hell, I love the way he's engaging with the show. I do think it's interesting that he's so much more enraged at the centauri than the exactly as genocidal minbari. I think there's a real difference here. The Minbari were intent on straight genocide, but what we saw in In the Beginning was mostly them hitting military targets. It's mentioned that they shoot down civilian ships I think, and there was this short clip of a Minbari stabbing a human who could have been a civilian, but that's it. They didn't get around to actually wiping out the civilians yet, which was solid military strategy. And then they just stopped and went home. Honestly, I don't think there's any historical parallel. The Nazis eventually stopped genociding the Jews, but they didn't do so voluntarily! And of course, the Minbari didn't reach the actual genocide phase of their plans before they withdrew. The Centauri on the other hand combine some of the worst aspects of both colonizers and slavers. And up to this point in Tom's watch, they are getting away with it, even if they lost their colonial positions. And they are much better off than their victims. That's uncomfortably close to real world colonial empires that it's imho understandable that Tom would find this much more difficult to swallow. And they even got back and colonized and enslaved them a second time. Seemingly without any negative consequences for them! I understand why this is more enraging.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 06:04 |
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I do too, and as presented the space elves are totally the good guys, buttttt once they were done with the military my understanding was they were gonna get going on everyone else, and the only reason they stopped are basically a weird religious one in a million coincidence.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 06:23 |
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Torrannor posted:I think there's a real difference here. The Minbari were intent on straight genocide, but what we saw in In the Beginning was mostly them hitting military targets. It's mentioned that they shoot down civilian ships I think, and there was this short clip of a Minbari stabbing a human who could have been a civilian, but that's it. There was also the bunker scene of a bunch of civilians obviously under bombardment. One man in civilian garb gets up, says goodbye to his family, picks up a rifle and heads out. I read that as "all of these civilians are hosed".
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 06:28 |
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I always felt the show should have done more with the idea that the anti-alien movement on Earth isn't just ignorant bigotry, but a fairly understandable reaction to narrowly surviving a war against a genocidal alien empire. I kinda feel the reporter in "And Now For A Word..." kinda had a point calling out Delenn's transformation as a pretty insulting gesture given what the Minbari had tried to do.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 06:59 |
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sebmojo posted:I do too, and as presented the space elves are totally the good guys, buttttt once they were done with the military my understanding was they were gonna get going on everyone else, and the only reason they stopped are basically a weird religious one in a million coincidence. Don't get me wrong, what the Minbari were up to was monstrous. And yes, they were going to go after the civilians, but simply didn't bother as long as their was an Earth space force still undefeated. Which makes sense, since those civilians were mostly trapped on planets that the Minbari could later bomb with impunity, once they eliminated the fleet. And they likely did do some war criming, as I alluded in my post, we just don't see it. That's where the disconnect comes from. Defeating somebody else's military forces is seen as an uncontroversial thing to do. And the Minbari didn't do the monstrous things yet, for believable reasons in-story. But they were totally going to. It's just so different from any of the horrible historical stuff we can look back on as humans. So it's easier to disregard this. And their reason for stopping was not enlightenment, but as you said, a weird coincidence. But so there isn't that much to forgive, and humanity seems to have fared pretty well regardless of the war. If you think about it, the whole Earth-Minbari war should make the viewer more vary of the Minbari. But it's a cerebral thing, contrasted to the visceral feelings that the former colonizer dropping rocks onto Narn and then re-enslaving their people evokes. That's what I'm saying, that it's not a surprise that there's a much stronger reaction to the Centrauri's crimes.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 07:32 |
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mllaneza posted:There was also the bunker scene of a bunch of civilians obviously under bombardment. One man in civilian garb gets up, says goodbye to his family, picks up a rifle and heads out. I read that as "all of these civilians are hosed". This scene seems to conflict with the dialog where I think Lefcourt or someone else says that the Minbari have left the human colonies alone and have only gone after the military, possibly because the Minbari caste system dictates the warriors die first and then the they move through the civilians. It's more a scene to where Londo can talk about humanity's resilience and willingness to fight the impossible. Angry Salami posted:I always felt the show should have done more with the idea that the anti-alien movement on Earth isn't just ignorant bigotry, but a fairly understandable reaction to narrowly surviving a war against a genocidal alien empire. I kinda feel the reporter in "And Now For A Word..." kinda had a point calling out Delenn's transformation as a pretty insulting gesture given what the Minbari had tried to do. Definitely. From the average human's perspective, they went from being heroes after helping defeat Space Mengele and his Space Nazis and a few years later suddenly having an alien race no one has ever heard of killing them while never asking for anything and everyone else, especially the people you just helped, go "wow that sucks" while making a show of patting their pants for change and then walking away. V-Men fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Apr 4, 2023 |
# ? Apr 4, 2023 08:01 |
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Torrannor posted:And their reason for stopping was not enlightenment, but as you said, a weird coincidence. Minbari souls were the unavoidable excuse for stopping. Delenn had already come to regret her angry decision and the madness it had brought upon the Minbari, and I doubt she was alone in wanting to stop the war sooner than it did stop. But as Kosh said: the avalanche had started, it was too late for the pebbles to vote.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 08:18 |
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Jedit posted:Minbari souls were the unavoidable excuse for stopping. Delenn had already come to regret her angry decision and the madness it had brought upon the Minbari, and I doubt she was alone in wanting to stop the war sooner than it did stop. But as Kosh said: the avalanche had started, it was too late for the pebbles to vote. Yes, some people wanted to stop the war, and the vote to attack in the first place was as close as it gets (Delenn's vote making it 5 in favor, 4 against). But that's cold comfort to the victims, especially if that excuse hadn't been found and the Minbari had wiped out humanity. Of course, the Minbari are at most sometimes a bit dickish to outsider during the years of the show (2258 and later), while the civil war was an internal matter. They are unquestionably one of the good guys. Of course, for the humans, the Earth-Minbari war was just 13 years ago in the beginning of the show. So the anti-alien sentiment absolutely makes sense. Unfortunately, it served/serves as a good stand in for xenophobic attitudes, so it couldn't be examined on it's own.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 08:39 |
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Torrannor posted:And they likely did do some war criming, as I alluded in my post, we just don't see it. We do, just the kind against military personnel not the general population
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 09:59 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:We do, just the kind against military personnel not the general population I concede this point. It still doesn't compare to recolonizing and enslaving your former colonial victims again, after you've just bombarded their homeworld with rocks.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 10:23 |
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Torrannor posted:I concede this point. It still doesn't compare to recolonizing and enslaving your former colonial victims again, after you've just bombarded their homeworld with rocks. I mean, there's a good reason that we don't instinctively see war crimes against armed forces (either formal or informal) as war crimes, because western nations do them constantly
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 10:31 |
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MrL_JaKiri posted:We do, just the kind against military personnel not the general population Which is why I find it kind of funny when the Minbari act like Sheridan is a war criminal and monster for blowing up the Black Star when it's implied that they were doing worse things and were planning to genocide the humans.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 10:52 |
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Eighties ZomCom posted:Which is why I find it kind of funny when the Minbari act like Sheridan is a war criminal and monster for blowing up the Black Star when it's implied that they were doing worse things and were planning to genocide the humans. They think he's a monster because he fought dishonourably by luring the Black Star into a trap. Never mind that he couldn't possibly have fought them head on - it's the sneakiness they don't like. And to be fair, the Warrior caste are quite consistent in being open handed with opposing forces. It's how the war got started in the first place.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 11:04 |
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It was a war crime, to be fair.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 11:05 |
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mossyfisk posted:It was a war crime, to be fair. It just seems a little hypocritical for them to complain about warcrimes when they were committing their own. Jedit posted:They think he's a monster because he fought dishonourably by luring the Black Star into a trap. Never mind that he couldn't possibly have fought them head on - it's the sneakiness they don't like. And to be fair, the Warrior caste are quite consistent in being open handed with opposing forces. It's how the war got started in the first place. Okay yeah I can see that.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 12:14 |
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The Black Star was going in to kill a bunch of a crippled ships. It's not like it was coming in to render aid and take the survivors as POWs.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 12:16 |
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The Black Star could have survived if its captain had decided not to come back and murder the nearly-helpless Earth ships broadcasting maydays. It's not like those were false maydays, the Lexington was genuinely hosed and IIRC the other big ships in their formation were at least as badly off.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 12:30 |
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Yeah the Minbari came in to slaughter a crippled, defenseless ship. They wanted to shoot fish in a barrel and they're pissed the fish had a claymore. The Minbari can absolutely go gently caress themselves on that one.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 12:32 |
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Polaron posted:The Black Star could have survived if its captain had decided not to come back and murder the nearly-helpless Earth ships broadcasting maydays. It's not like those were false maydays, the Lexington was genuinely hosed and IIRC the other big ships in their formation were at least as badly off. That's what makes it one of the rare funny war crimes.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 14:10 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 06:17 |
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sebmojo posted:I do too, and as presented the space elves are totally the good guys, buttttt once they were done with the military my understanding was they were gonna get going on everyone else, and the only reason they stopped are basically a weird religious one in a million coincidence. In fairness, the show depicts the Minbari as essentially going mad, and that's how Delenn characterizes it (though once we learn she was the deciding vote the context of that characterization changes). Whereas the Centauri colonialism/enslavement of the Narn/War Crimes/Nazi Bullshit doesn't seem like something they get over in the same way. Londo may apologize to G'Kar, but he never really manages anything on the scale of what Vir did, and in the end his big sacrifice is for his own people and not for the Narn. We presume that Vir institutes reforms but we never get any acknowledgement of that, and though I'd never really thought about it before, there's no Narn at the table in "Sleeping in Light." To rephrase, it's plausible to believe that the Minbari end the series in a "Never Again" situation, while the Centauri seem to be rebuilding on the same institutions that allowed them to cause so much trouble in the first place, and the Narn seem sidelined. It's realistic, and it also is suggesting that the Narn don't really recover over 20 years as well as the Centauri do despite two disasters on their homeworld, at least by omission and implication. Humans are still strongly in the running for "worst," though. Only the Dilgar and the Centauri offer any real competition, though the Drazi make a few attempts.
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# ? Apr 4, 2023 17:00 |