Pounded in the Butt by Members of a Forum Who Are Discussing a Space Ship's Gender

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Pounded in the Butt by Members of a Forum Who Are Discussing a Space Ship's Gender

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FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Malcolm McDowell openly admits to guesting at trek cons for the purpose of winding up trek fans

onion av club interview posted:

Star Trek: Generations (1994)��Dr. Tolian Soran�
AVC: You�ve gotten some flak for killing Captain Kirk, haven�t you?

MM: I like to razz the Trekkies a little bit. Who doesn�t? It�s trainspotting, isn�t it? But they are very well-meaning, actually. I�ve done a couple of Star Trek conventions, and they�ve only been really welcoming. I don�t do too many of those things, but I�ve found them very cordial and I�m very happy with the film. I think it�s a terrific film, Star Trek: Generations. It was nice to be in [William] Shatner�s last one, and do the dastardly deed myself. It was nice to work with Patrick [Stewart], because I hadn�t worked with him since Stratford-on-Avon, 1965. As I like to say, he was playing old men even then.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 01:30

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 10:10

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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HYMEN.SYS posted:

It wasn't just that. The dude had been working on B5 for the better part of something like 15 years and it really showed. Eventually when you work on something for that long, you kinda lose perspective and everything gets really grandiose and interconnected and really reliant on every other detail.

After the first two seasons, he decided to write the scripts for every remaining episode. So he was writing 22 scripts a year AND running the show AND promoting it AND dealing with the network at the same time. The quality of the writing really suffered, all the characters began to speak in the same (authors') voice, and each episode pretty much existed for the sole purpose of mechanically delivering the overall plot points in order to get to the next episode. It was pretty dire, made even worse when it looked like they weren't going to get a fifth season, so all the plot development from season 5 was crammed into season 4, which meant that most season 4 episodes were just wall to wall plot exposition. And then they got a fifth season, which was all but unwatchable, because he'd used up all his ideas and had to come up with a bunch of new ones in the middle of his understandably complete burnout.

In B5's defense, it was one of the first shows to have a big multi-season metaplot, the CG was pretty impressive for its day (though it's aged badly), and the alien characters (the most important thing for an SF TV series) were great, especially Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas. Oh, and Claudia Christian was fun to look at.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 22:29

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Pram posted:

hmm anime ship or respectable federation craft. u decide

"respectable" now means "front end detaches to quickly vacuum up spills"?

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 22:46

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Shaggar posted:

ds9 is still watchable today because the production quality was so good. b5, not so much.

ds9 also had excellent actors pretty much across the board, so even bad episodes are at least watchable. b5, not so much.

"Shaggar' posted:

g'kar and londo own tho.

shaggar was...right?

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:03

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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mr_jim posted:

there's a few i just can't sit through though. the brigadoon one is probably the worst

the writing quality on ds9 was really variable, particularly on a week to week basis. you'd get a dark episode where Sisko effectively endorses genocide as a way to protect the federation and then next week: lol wacky holodeck baseball hijinks!

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:08

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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mr_jim posted:

that's true, but i think it was intentional. they had a few comedic relief episodes each season. the baseball one was ok, but the tribbles one owns.

they were usually terrible, though, particularly early on. oh those wacky ferenghi! the tribble, james bond, and roswell episodes were gold, though.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:11

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

Kate Mulgrew was a last-second replacement for the Genevieve Nujold, the original Janeway, who was fired after her second day of filming. Check out this footage to see why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0
I thought functional alcoholics were supposed to be, y'know, functional...

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:44

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

remember how they added Jeri Ryan in a skintight silver catsuit to the show in a desperate effort to bring a little Baywatch cleavage action to their flagging ratings? and how the babe cast solely for the purpose of being eye candy was not only a better actor than the rest of the cast, her barely-human robot character was more interesting and better rounded than any of the other characters on the show?

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:55

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

i'll always love Voyager for allowing DS9 to become great. DS9 was solidly mediocre until Voyager started up, whereupon all of the studio's attention became focused on the flagship of their new broadcast network (lol UPN), leaving the ds9 writers more or less ignored and unsupervised - and the show went from ok to great.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 23:56

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Kirk posted:

also

y'know

Roddenberry died and stopped demanding stupid poo poo

that happened at the end of TNG season 2 (he had an incapacitating stroke and Braga et al seized control of the franchise), which is also (not coincidentally) the moment TNG stopped being these airless little morality plays and started being a sci-fi action show.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 00:01

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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HYMEN.SYS posted:

Only in like the three episodes anyone remembers. In all the rest it was always "awkward sexual tension with [Harry Kim/Tom Paris/Chakotay/The Doctor]"

that's still three more episodes of solid character development than Chakotay and Harry Kim got combined.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2011 00:02

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Kirk posted:

finished dune a couple days ago and watched the david lynch movie of it

yeah if i hadn't read the book beforehand i woulda been the whole time

and even then i was doing it for large parts.

you should check out the cable miniseries adaptation. they have enough time to adapt the entire book, and to fully explain everything that's going on.

it's incredibly boring, and it really doesn't help.

dune just may be an unfilmable book, and the lynch film might be as good an effort as possible. it's hard to imagine a better cast.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 18:53

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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z0ratio fartboner posted:

yeah

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 19:11

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

the SciFi network did a six-hour miniseries version of Dune where they included much more of the exposition and background detail. it was excruciatingly dull to watch.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2011 01:22

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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iamthejeff posted:

i have a bunch of sci fi books on my shelf that i've never read/finished reading. which one should i start and hopefully finish???

dune (read maybe 1/4, got distracted)
the foundation (read maybe 1/2 twice, got distracted both times)
neuromancer (read maybe 1/4, got distracted)
i, robot
snow crash

those are all good.

read snow crash after neuromancer (in a lot of ways snow crash is a parody of the kind of fiction exemplified by neuromancer).

# ¿ Jun 28, 2011 23:07

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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relative_q posted:

also larry niven fucken owns

niven is fun because of the sixties-ness of it. drugs and free love and dolphins and psychic powers and dwi libertarianism!

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 01:14

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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relative_q posted:

i think you're confusing larry niven with robert heinlein

no, it's in niven too.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 01:28

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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relative_q posted:

which books? i don't remember anything like that from having read the mote in gods eye and the ringworld books. p much all his stuff anyone gives a poo poo about was written after 1970 and definitely reads like it

sex: ringworld and the sequels made a big deal out of explicit interspecies sex games ("rishathra"), louis wu was always getting his bone on, and so on. nudity was a big thing, too.

dolphins (and orcas, and whales) are fully sentient beings that we discovered how to communicate with around 2000AD. i think they play a role in world of ptaavs.

psychic powers show up all over the place. gil hamilton has a telekinetic arm, there was another novel whose main character was psychically invisible, event he ftl drives requried a psychic connection to navigate.

dwi libertarianism: lots of heinlein-flavored tidbits, including regular appearances of 'tanstaafl'. i remember one story had 'freedom parks' - plots of land set aside where there were no laws.

all this is half-remembered from when I last read his stuff twenty years ago.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 01:52

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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axolotl farmer posted:

Kurt Vonnegut wrote rules for writing stories. this is the one that Asimov fails:

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

I like Asimov as a human being, and I enjoy his non-fiction, but they guy couldn't write characters at all.

he had some interesting idea, but I ended up not giving a poo poo about any of the people or robots in any of the books I read.

my favorite asimov character was the science guy who explained things. i also like the clever guy who was kind of smug.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 02:21

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

i remember trying to read rama 2 several years ago and feeling put off by it shortly into it. i tried again last year and after awhile managed to get sucked in b/c i really wanted to see how things played out. that said, i wouldn't recommend the Rama sequels either, big chunks of them feel like a big couch session for Gentry Lee.

on the other hand, 2010 loving owns owns owns. i remember when i first read it i just sorta found myself in the book totally visualizing the whole thing, then i 'woke up' like three hours later. totally loving awesome. 2061 and 3001 veer off course though; the former is sort of weird, like Clarke really didn't know what to do with the book beyond hitting a couple of key points, and the latter is pretty severely self-indulgent (at least in comparison to the rest of the series)

2010 is the rare exception to the rule that sequels and follow-ups after a long period are universally terrible; i also think the movie is underappreciated. 2061 and 3001 were loving dire, though, as were all of the rama sequels.

childhood's end is the second best sf novel ever (the forever war is the best).

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 05:05

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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rotor posted:

its not a very good book

the noise of spinning drive platters seems to have disordered your brain functioning - forever war is the best book, and i will fight any man who claims otherwise.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 06:30

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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rotor posted:

its not like its fine literature, you can probably read it in like 4 days, it's not exactly a huge time investment.

one of its many, many virtues is that it's only 200 pages long.

writers knew how to get to the point back before word processors became common.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 06:50

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Kirk posted:

i read transmetropolitan and though "heh this owns"

then i tried reading it again recently and it wasn't as good

the first half of planetary is pretty good, hunter s thompson analogue running around edge-of-the-singularity new york. then it turns into an amazingly ham-handed political allegory about the nixon years, and it finished off with such a cheat of an ending.

great art throughout, though.

quote:

warren ellis still owns tho, planetary 4 lyfe

my favorite warren ellis character is the chainsmoking badass whose profane and cynical manner is a mask for their frustrated idealism.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 07:07

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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tng script drafts literally had sections that just said "[technobabble]" in them. there was a guy who'd fill it "phase-adaptive plasma channel" and "multi-mode inflection sort algorithm" later on.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 08:44

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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rotor posted:

np but dont read that, read this instead

quote:

He was aroused from his stunned inaction by the entrance of his colored laboratory helper, and silently motioned him to clean up the wreckage.

"What's happened, Doctah?" asked the dusky assistant.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 03:30

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 04:03

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 05:10

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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mr_jim posted:

This is on my list of books to read.

oddly enough, this image is from http://www.tomswift.org/

CANTICLE owned.

The posthumously-reconstructed sequel did not own.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 21:57

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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an actual book you can purchase

# ¿ Jul 7, 2011 00:27

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Good fantasy without elves:

Robert E. Howard: Conan stories and others. Howard was actually kind of an amazing author, particularly given the limitations of the markets he was publishing in.

Glen Cook: The Black Company books (ten novels). Tales of a mercenary company that has no problem working for the bad guys. Gritty, nasty, realistic, fun. The first three are best, after that Cook kind of loses the plot.

Glen Cook: Garrett, PI series (thirteen novels). Pastiches of classic noir/detective fiction, set in a sprawling fantasy city. Noir fiction maps to fantasy fiction in a surprisingly easy way. There are a couple of elvish characters, but they aren't typical elves, and they play a minor part in the stories.

Jack Vance: Dying Earth (four books). One of the grand masters, and the rare writer who could pass for actual literature. Much of his work was looted by Gygax for D&D (the magic system, in particular). Also check out his Lyonesse series.

Joe Abercrombie: The First Law (a trilogy, plus two standalone follow-on novels). Gritty, realistic fantasy, very well told, owes a lot to Cook. The final book of the trilogy is just plot twist after plot twist, every single one of which is legitimately foreshadowed and makes logical sense, which is drat impressive for a first-time writer.

Barry Hughart: Bridge of Birds and its two sequels. A fantastic novel set in an imaginary China. Pretty much the best thing I read last year.

Gene Wolfe: Book of the New Sun (four volumes) and its follow-ons. The other fantasy writer that deserves literary consideration. Difficult, brilliant.

Terry Pratchett: Yeah, yeah. His fan club is goony and horrible, and his later novels vary in quality, but his good books are very good indeed. Try Mort, Going Postal, Intersting Times, Pyramids, Small Gods, and The Last Hero as entry points.

Diana Wynn Jones: The Tough Guide To Fantasyland. A hilarious A-Z collection of every single fantasy cliche, done in the style of travel guidebook.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 06:57

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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ADINSX posted:

The one where data learns about humanity

get it, its a subtle joke suggesting that they're ALL GOOD WATCH THEM ALL FOREVER

i liked the one where riker is a smug prick.

and the one where worf gets beaten up.

and the one where troi is useless.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 08:39

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

i also really liked that one twilight zone with the twist ending!

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 08:41

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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axolotl farmer posted:

The Earthsea books by Ursula le Guin.

No elves, some dragons. Even if they were written for younger readers, they're actually really good.

note: this only applies to the original trilogy (which is pretty great). she wrote a couple of follow-on novels and a short story collection more than a decade after the original three books, and they're not nearly as good.

mid-tier fantasy that i remember enjoying that still holds up, somewhat: the Thieves' World anthology books and Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series (the first four, anyway).

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 20:25

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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reminder:

wikipedia posted:

The first thing detectives from the Toronto police sex crimes unit saw when they entered Roderick Cowan's apartment was an autographed picture of William Shatner. Along with the photos on the computer of Scott Faichnie, also busted for possessing child porn, they found a snapshot of the pediatric nurse and Boy Scout leader wearing a dress "Federation" uniform. Another suspect had a TV remote control shaped like a phaser. Yet another had a Star Trek credit card in his wallet. One was using "Picard" as his screen name. In the 3 1/2 years since police in Canada's biggest city established a special unit to tackle child pornography, investigators have been through so many dwellings packed with sci-fi books, DVDs, toys and collectibles like Klingon swords and sashes that it's become a dark squadroom joke. "We always say there are two types of pedophiles: Star Trek and Star Wars," says Det. Ian Lamond, the unit's second-in-command. "But it's mostly Star Trek."[50]

# ¿ Jul 8, 2011 23:38

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Nigel Danvers posted:

brought this on a whim

hoping it won't suck.

Mirrorshades is superb, you made a good choice.

axolotl farmer posted:

that anthology has William Gibsons story The Gernsback continuum in it.

also Mozart In Mirroshades and Red Star, Winter Orbit.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 00:12

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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golgo13sf posted:

Editors have less power as authors get more popular, ie. Stephen King. Seriously, who's going to tell Stephen King his endings are poo poo?

the other reason is that editing is a time-consuming process. the next book by rowling/king/clancy/martin/jordan will sell the same whether it has 550 pages or 800 pages, so why spend a couple of months going back and forth with the author to tighten it up when those months could be used by the author to write their next best-seller. quicker turnaround = more money. also, it's easier to get people to pay $28.99 for an 800 page hardcover than a 550 page one.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 04:36

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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CHARONS BOAT RIDER posted:

this is yospos

replace "clock" with "yostop" and it all makes sense.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 09:25

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Lamont Cranston posted:

i dont' remember the part where harry murdered all the muggles by accident

looks like someone needs to re-read Order of the Phoenix more closely :smug:

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 09:30

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Action Jacktion posted:

Apparently at the end the Texas Rangers defeat the Mexicans and then go on to take on the Muslims.

it's too bad - simmons has written some great stuff, especially the Hyperion books, but after 9/11 he fell headfirst into islamofascism/eurabia paranoia like he had ten thousand posts on freerepublic. sad.

orson scott card is another one whose post-9/11 output has been about treasonous leftists joining with muslimofascists to build a new american caliphate and how brave american freedom fighters fight back, but he's been well known as a right-wing crank for ages. it would have been surprising if he hadn't gone full freeper.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 03:23

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 10:10

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
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Amethyst posted:

I'm reading the first one now. pretty good, It's weird how he mixes in modern figures of speech, is it meant to be on a future earth or something?

nah, he's just trying to show people talking without sounding like ren faire rejects or using a bunch of made-up nonsense words. it's just soldiers talking like soldiers do.

the later books are worth reading, although none are quite as good as the first trilogy. the silver spike ties up some loose ends and finishes the stories of some of the characters who didn't head south. I liked the first two books of the south more than graham - a long travel narrative and some interestingly exotic cultural analogues you don't usually see in fantasy (you'll meet not-zulus, not-veitnamese, and spend a lot of time in a sprawling not-indian city, complete with three conflicting religions). plus, one of the books is told from the lady's perspective.

the final four books drag on forever and i found them to be a real chore. many of the main characters from the early books are barely present in them, and cook has this habit of bringing back characters that everyone thought were dead. if you've read the first three and you're interested in more, definitely read all the rest, if only to find out how everyone ends up. but be prepared for a somewhat bumpy ride.

some of cook's other books are worth reading. i'm particularly fond of his garrett, p.i. novels, and the standalone "the tower of fear". his current series (three books and counting) "instrumentalities of the night" is pretty good, too. i'd suggest avoiding his dread empire books, though.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2011 06:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Pounded in the Butt by Members of a Forum Who Are Discussing a Space Ship's Gender

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