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I feel like there have been a load of episodes of Star Trek across multiple series where it's the racist aliens saying, "You look so much like us but you'll never understand that we have to build the genocide machine because you are not us!" Having the roles reversed was bizarre and not befitting of the Federation. Plus so much dumb Prime Directive nonsense in this one. A fight to the death is the only way to honor their culture.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:43
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"What Lutan did is similar to what certain American Indians once did called "counting coup." That is from an obscure language known as French."
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Apr 3, 2024 03:53
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"For hundreds of years French represented civilization!" This episode had a lot going on. Oh and Picard loving up the dates of the Chinese artifact that he obviously didn't give a poo poo about.
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Apr 3, 2024 03:57
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The version I heard was that the casting director made the decision to cast all black people. Gene was furious when he found out and the casting director was fired immediately, but if they were gonna bang one of these out a week they had to use the hired cast anyways.
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Apr 3, 2024 09:01
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The version I've settled on in my head is that the writer tried desperately to hide the racism, but the casting director took one look at the script and was like "oh I get it, it's a racism"
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Apr 3, 2024 12:12
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Fighting Trousers posted:Which is just so telling considering how many Star Trek aliens over the years have been basically human, not even bothering with weird ears or foreheads. Early TNG does it so much The episode I mentioned before is that even
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Apr 3, 2024 12:57
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The Federation should have merely beamed down marines to seize the vaccine on the pretext that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and then shot Lutan just because.
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Apr 3, 2024 17:50
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Most of early TNG season 1 has felt like aggressively mediocre TOS. I'm not really sure what the purpose of "Justice" was beyond just having sexy times. The Prime Directive episodes have both been pretty goofy and have required Picard to entertain some incredible nonsense. You'd think after 200 years of space exploration, "how are your laws enforced?" would be a standard question to ask before sending down an away team. "Lonely Among Us" was fun. I liked the antics of the two delegate parties and how what would normally be the main plot of the episode is relegated to a goofy B-plot as the real story of the cloud creature unfolds. The episode also felt a lot like the Voyager episode The Haunting of Deck Twelve and the Enterprise episode Vox Sola. I guess this episode was poorly received, but I thought it was fine. "Where No One Has Gone Before" is the most TOS of the lot, it also makes Janeway's journey look trivial. This was another pretty good, very trippy episode. I especially enjoyed the absolutely incompetent engineer who thought he was smarter than everyone.
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Apr 4, 2024 11:36
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It's hilarious how utterly incompetent the TNG crew comes across in Lonely Among Us. The entity doesn't inhabit Picard until around halfway through, if memory serves, but despite acting out of character the bridge crew does nothing until it's too late. It's an example - imo - of the rules governing relief of the captain failing them completely.
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Apr 4, 2024 12:40
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They're bizzarely incompetent in Datalore too, being presented with the most obvious doppelganger switcheroo ever and instead just giving us the 'shut up Wesley!' meme line
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Apr 4, 2024 12:43
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:It's hilarious how utterly incompetent the TNG crew comes across in Lonely Among Us. The entity doesn't inhabit Picard until around halfway through, if memory serves, but despite acting out of character the bridge crew does nothing until it's too late. It's an example - imo - of the rules governing relief of the captain failing them completely. Yea it's loving wild how strange he is. Rewatching TNG has made me feel like what i see as "Star Trek" (and honestly what Lower Decks sees as Star Trek) is very grounded in DS9 rather than the other shows. Where it feels like at least to a degree there's rules and a setting going on in the background. I mean I said it before but with Justice why the gently caress are they even landing on that planet? There's still episodes in series 3 where they're interacting with races that aren't space faring - and not just in Who Watches the Watchers but in The Price.
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Apr 4, 2024 13:15
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No Dignity posted:They're bizzarely incompetent in Datalore too, being presented with the most obvious doppelganger switcheroo ever and instead just giving us the 'shut up Wesley!' meme line Yeah, I rewatched Datalore recently for the first time in years, and the crew come off even worse than I remembered. They're so flagrantly inept that it would read as parody if it weren't unintentional. Even "shut up, Wesley" lands badly, because by that point in the series they've all started liking and encouraging him, only to snap at him for no reason other than "he clearly has a point and the writers couldn't think of a counterargument."
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Apr 4, 2024 13:20
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disaster pastor posted:Yeah, I rewatched Datalore recently for the first time in years, and the crew come off even worse than I remembered. They're so flagrantly inept that it would read as parody if it weren't unintentional. Even "shut up, Wesley" lands badly, because by that point in the series they've all started liking and encouraging him, only to snap at him for no reason other than "he clearly has a point and the writers couldn't think of a counterargument." Ignoring any and all sane advice or suggestions for precaution from the bridge officers and acting cadets is a time honored starfleet tradition that must be upheld.
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Apr 4, 2024 13:32
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I'm literally only now realising there was a longer cut of Measure of A Man on the TNG blu-rays, some of the additions feel like they were good cuts (Maddox being a cartoon villain crashing Data's going away party, for example), but a few others are nice to see, like Data giving Geordi his pipe from his Sherlock cosplay, and even, surprisingly, Pulaski. She has a nice little moment of offering advice to Data about what to do if he resigns, and it feels like Snodgrass might be the only writer to really nail what they were aiming for with her, because Muldaur delivers the little bits of dialogue very well, a little bit of smugness tinged with some warmth.
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Apr 4, 2024 20:56
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Riker stopping Worf from ripping off Maddox's head was pretty good though
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Apr 4, 2024 21:08
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I also really like the actor playing Louvois, I wonder why they never brought her back, she had decent chemistry with PStew, and the character had a nice bit of sass.
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Apr 4, 2024 21:10
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Atlas Hugged posted:The original premise of them being lizard people may have worked, but good lord is this episode a stinker. It's more boring than anything else, but Christ whose loving idea was it to change them from truly alien aliens to just African-inspired humanoids? I mean throughout a lot of Next Generation and the entirety of TOS, a lot of aliens are basically just humans, often without even the fig leaf of minor makeup additions. The only real difference is that instead of a bunch of white actors playing the part of the human aliens of the day, it's a bunch of black actors, and also they use more directly African inspired costumes as opposed to more generic alien tunics. I feel like the actual plot of the episode is fairly basic interaction with a random alien civilization, and not really intrinsically racially charged. If you took the alien cast of Code of Honor and stuck them into like Symbiosis, Justice, When the Bough Breaks, or The Hunted, would they be ruined by the new racial implications?
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Apr 4, 2024 21:44
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Justice would become Picard lecturing the “natives” on their outdated savage laws and how they must accept the leadership of the White Man to be educated. It would absolutely be worse.
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Apr 4, 2024 21:58
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The trick is understanding alot of TNG is implicitly racist and about a crew of pompous largely white westerners lecturing inferior alien species about their moral shortcomings, Code of Honour just doesn't bother with the subtext and says the quiet part loud
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Apr 4, 2024 22:05
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Yet another reason to love DS9, specifically the scene in season 1 where Kira and Bashir are traveling to Bajor and he's excited about doing "frontier medicine"
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Apr 4, 2024 22:15
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Sir Lemming posted:Yet another reason to love DS9, specifically the scene in season 1 where Kira and Bashir are traveling to Bajor and he's excited about doing "frontier medicine" DS9 really does own for taking a bunch of TNG cardboard cutout species and making them really nuanced three dimensional cultures. The Cardassians and Ferengi especially end up being two of the most well realised and human species through the whole franchise for it
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Apr 4, 2024 22:21
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No Dignity posted:the most well realised and human species through the whole franchise RACIST
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Apr 4, 2024 22:22
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No Dignity posted:DS9 really does own for taking a bunch of TNG cardboard cutout species and making them really nuanced three dimensional cultures. The Cardassians and Ferengi especially end up being two of the most well realised and human species through the whole franchise for it Human. if you could only hear yourselves.
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Apr 4, 2024 22:23
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Of all the prosthetic forehead aliens, they were the most................. human. 
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Apr 5, 2024 00:24
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Wadi forehead supremacy: ALAMARAINE!
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Apr 5, 2024 00:27
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SlothfulCobra posted:I mean throughout a lot of Next Generation and the entirety of TOS, a lot of aliens are basically just humans, often without even the fig leaf of minor makeup additions. The only real difference is that instead of a bunch of white actors playing the part of the human aliens of the day, it's a bunch of black actors, and also they use more directly African inspired costumes as opposed to more generic alien tunics. Looking at Memory Alpha, it appears that this is Wil Wheaton's take on the episode, so you're not the first person to put this idea forward. Unfortunately for me, I have a hard time looking at the literal text of a piece of media and ignoring what it is directly saying to me. Why does the Ligonian culture need to be depicted as explicitly African? What is the show saying about the societies or peoples it is clearly basing this culture on? Why is it that when the away team beamed down, they only sent the white actors to meet the representatives of the African planet and not LeVar Burton or Michael Dorn (who doesn't even appear in the episode!)? How did they intend audiences to interpret "tribal Africans literally steal a white woman"? You can look at something like the Klingons, who have a vague Orientalizing about them, with the honor code, the contradictory but inherit duplicity, presence of bladed weapons when firearms are common, a diet that makes (predominantly white) humans uncomfortable, and the bronzed skin, and you can definitely read in some uncharitable stereotypes from various human societies. However, a lot of that is surface level, or varies from Klingon to Klingon, or depends on what era of the show is depicting them, or is intended to be holding a mirror up to the audience about our own biases. The Klingons themselves also get heroic and sympathetic depictions, and are developed enough over time that regardless of wherever they started, they're a distinct concept at this point that are only superficially similar to any Earth culture. Plus, they're depicted by actors from across racial, national, and cultural lines. It's not necessarily fair to compare the Ligonians to the Klingons because they only get that one episode compared to decades of developments for the Klingons, but sadly what we do see is some total bullshit. They're almost naive and childlike when talking about technology with the Federation, but they have something the Federation is desperate for that for unexplained reasons can only be had on this planet, which has a load of imperialist and colonialist undertones only made the more explicit by having them costumed in the cultural attire of colonized peoples. Their interaction with Yar is modeled heavily on fears and stereotypes of Black men in American society: he's simultaneously a savage who has kidnapped a woman while she's captivated and drawn in by his raw, animalistic masculinity, so much so that Troi points out she's too horny to think straight. If you look at the races in Lonely Among Us, the aliens are genuinely alien, and you'd have a hard time saying they're an obvious depiction of any specific Earth culture. If you kept them as reptilians and canines, which as animals come with their own cultural connotations, but slapped them into the traditional dress of an Earth culture, then you'd end up with a lot of the same types of criticisms early depictions of the Ferengi (and Klingons...) had. These can be overcome with good writing in time as we've seen, but at least the starting point with Ferengis and Klingons is implicit rather than explicit. The Ligonians are starting from "we want the audience to identify this species with Africa and we are putting lines of dialog in the show to make it clear what our intention is" which is even worse than if they added a more human costume to aliens that aren't obviously just human. The show actually sidesteps directly unflattering comparisons between the Ferengi and any specific human race by comparing them to a component of an economic system, Yankee Traders, as opposed to a cultural/ethnic/racial group. In short, using a specific race of actors isn't really the problem. Using cultural signifiers to indicate a more tribal society isn't the problem. Depicting specific negative behaviors isn't really the problem. It's the combination of a specific race of actors with specific cultural artifacts with specific stereotypical attitudes and behaviors that tell us the show wants us to make this comparison, and that's the problem. This isn't a random combination to create something new and, well, alien. It's all from column Africa and white fears about Africans/Blackness. Atlas Hugged fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 00:33
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It's been forever since I watched Datalore, but the way I remember it, most of the bridge crew, or at the very least Picard, was already suspicious of the Lore switcheroo, and were quietly setting a trap to either catch him or confirm their suspicions, and Weasley just barges in making accusations and nearly fucks the entire thing up. Maybe I should rewatch it.
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Apr 5, 2024 02:16
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No Dignity posted:The trick is understanding alot of TNG is implicitly racist and about a crew of pompous largely white westerners lecturing inferior alien species about their moral shortcomings, Code of Honour just doesn't bother with the subtext and says the quiet part loud What's your dirtbag left twitter handle
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Apr 5, 2024 05:14
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Atlas Hugged posted:Stuff A great post, honestly.
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Apr 5, 2024 08:34
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Happy First Contact Day to those who celebrate  
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Apr 5, 2024 16:27
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Just 39 years until we can shoot those vulcan fucks and usher in the true timeline
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Apr 5, 2024 16:39
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We’re actually already part of a third, worse timeline.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:41
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zoux posted:Just 39 years until we can shoot those vulcan fucks and usher in the true timeline Until then I have to slake my Terran thirst for conquest by shooting BBs at bargain bin Zachary Quinto action figures.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:42
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The_Doctor posted:Happy First Contact Day to those who celebrate Now do you mean First Contact?  Or First Contact? 
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Apr 5, 2024 16:49
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Sorry what's that you said about first contact day
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Apr 5, 2024 16:57
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I said the real First Contact Day (Q fingering the goo) Perfection
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Apr 5, 2024 17:00
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The real test will be if Sinn Fein can pull it off by the end of the year
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Apr 5, 2024 17:10
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zoux posted:Just 39 years until we can shoot those vulcan fucks and usher in the true timeline Just got to burn in worldwide hellfire first!
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Apr 5, 2024 18:55
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Big Mean Jerk posted:We’re actually already part of a third, worse timeline. Yep it's gonna be Donald Trump III shooting the Vulcans.
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Apr 5, 2024 20:24
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I've been trying to do my part but genetically engineering perfect human leaders is a lot more complicated than I thought.
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Apr 5, 2024 20:39
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