If you count it as sci-fi, the HBO adaptation of "His Dark Materials" seems to have gotten basically zero attention in the US but was really quite excellent.
Also the original "The Prisoner." (the remake with Ian McKellen was meh)
I mean it's debatable - as with much SF - but if you go by Asimov's definition, "that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology," I think it would have to qualify - heck, the opening chapter involves a researcher asking for money to find a scientific expedition, and discoveries concerning the nature of Dust drive an awful lot of the plot line.
And genre-marker-wise, it involves parallel universes and steampunk-y vehicles / machines / etc, and doesn't really have any of the traditional fantasy ones like elves and goblins and dragons and wizards, or really much of any reliance on "magic" that's not mediated through technology.
Definitely Farscape. A very weird but very good show. Ben Browder did a great job playing the lead role and it's a shame he hasn't done anything like it since.
You're in for a great time! I know people say this about every show, but the start of season 1 can be hit-or-miss. Things really pick up near the end of the season so it's worth sticking until then.
Very glad I got to introduce someone to this show though, I hope you have fun with it.
Same here. There is an element of horror/fantasy in there as well. I recently enjoyed Netflix's Black Mirror, which reminded me strongly of the Outer Limits style.
We never got those on TV this side of the world, South Africa. I did read a lot of his short stories growing up though. Pulp paperbacks with cracked glue and cello tape where their backs used to be. Even the smell of those can feature directly in a Bradbury short.
A lot of sci-fi (at least where TV/Films are concerned) keeps getting too bogged down in what it thinks that it should be, and doesn't actually try to explore new possibilities or expand much, which generally means that the quality of sequels progressively gets worse, and the show ends up being a sort of even mush vaguely resembling the original.
The main example I could think of is probably Star Trek. It's too fixated on everything as it is, so even things that are supposed to be radical changes just re-establish the status quo with a new coat of paint. A radical show with radical viewpoints would never take off, as newer iterations would try to emulate the success of the show, and keep to the old.
It's part of why later Star Trek shows seem to be a bit more conservative, by comparison. Sure, values have changed since the original show, but the level of radical progressiveness has also gradually wound down too. Compared to the original show, which tried to push things from all angles, something like Star Trek: Discovery would seem almost conservative. Most of its more progressive elements are fairly standard for the time period it is set in, rather than pushing the envelope like the original did.
Similarly, all the shows end up trying to emulate the same formula, and even the same rough starship design. The Enterprise was originally specially designed and built to seem future-y, but many other of their starships since them seem to just be iterative designs on the original. Even one of them set 900 in the years in the future seems to have almost identical technologies, polities, and culture as one set in the 24th century. The visuals are different, but everything seems to be effectively the same under the coat of paint.
Not having that baggage is probably why up-and-coming shows, like The Orville, tend to be able to get away with more, since there isn't a previous Orville that it keeps trying to recapture, just yet, which should mean that it gets more leeway.
From a non Star Trek standpoint, it's also rather happened to Star Wars. The newer films are just trying to recapture the older films, rather than expand into their own thing, to the detriment of the films as a whole. The latest trilogy seems like a rehash of the old ones, down to having what is basically another death star, Rebellions, Vader-ish Masked Sith Lord, and Friendpatines.
I don't really have much of a solution, besides wanting the shows to just branch out more. I think Star Trek in the 32nd century should have gone with a brand new slate, where everything was different (from both an ideological, political, and technological standpoint), and the 23rd century ship that ended up there would be woefully outdated, not just on paper, but with the technology it was fitted with.
Star Wars has a bunch of interesting things that it could run with, such as the aftermath of the major wars, where the Rebellion is now having to deal with multiple smaller wars from various factions under the splintering empire, or have to secure its place in the resulting power vacuum.
One show that hasn't succumbed to this as much is Doctor Who, but that had a major revamp in its 2005 revival which drastically changed the nature of the show itself. Still, it doesn't seem to be particularly immune to it either. Behind-the-scenes, they're suddenly going back to the old composer and old showrunners, and the main character doesn't seem to evolve too much beyond "conflicted, but brilliant and eccentric hero". It also seems to be slowly settling into its own ruts, as well, with the most recent run rather resetting a redeemed villain's character development suddenly.
As a slight tangent, I also feel like that considering the messaging of the show itself, there could be quite a bit of interesting mileage that could be achieved by having a companion who is a species that is normally an enemy. Maybe something like a Dalek.
Arguably the only reason doctor who has lasted this long is because it does change so much. Regeneration, keeping the third doctor on earth, making the 6th doctor an asshole, all the things that changed with the new show, the fairy tale feel of the Matt Smith era, etc. Some are more successful than others ofc but I think if doctor who ever ends (again) it will be what you said - settling into one thing for too long.
I really hope this new run does something unique instead of trying to replicate the original RTD run.
As a slight tangent, I also feel like that considering the messaging of the show itself, there could be quite a bit of interesting mileage that could be achieved by having a companion who is a species that is normally an enemy. Maybe something like a Dalek.
Funny that you mention this; there was a short time during Matt Smith's run where he was friendly with a Sontaran.
As someone who'd read the books before the movie ever came near existing, I wasn't pissed off at all. I loved their representation of Barsoom, the tharks, and Woola. So I'm with you on this one.
John Carter is such a fun romp, I think it really captured the spirit of old scifi, where things were a little silly compared to today bc they were really just flying by the seat of their pants imagining space travel and other planets. It was a real melding of scifi/fantasy. Today, we've seen pictures of the surfaces of those planets, and now current scifi is more like reading a thesis (nothing wrong with that), where the author really delves into the science, so the old stuff does seem corny. But it's great. It's like Jupiter ascending but good
I always thought the biggest problem was the marketing - John Carter is not a name that tells you anything at all about the film's setting and I don't recall anything much promoting it suggesting it might be that John Carter even if you did know the source material at all!
But i am with you, it was a fun popcorn movie, and sometimes that's what you really want
Characters were mostly bad and uninteresting - they had to bring back worf. Limited plots stuck on a station - they had to add a ship. Then start a war just to have something to do.
Now THIS is a bold claim. DS9 is the only consistently beloved Star Trek series I've seen online. I personally enjoyed it more than most of the series.
Also, upon re-watching, the depiction of the Ferengi (especially the Grand Nagus and the ruling council) runs uncomfortably close to anti-semitic tropes. I'm honestly surprised that in a franchise & fanbase as "progressive" as Trek, this was allowed to slide past largely uncommented-upon.
Honestly, the entire gaggle of nerds complaining online that modern Trek isn't Trek should take another look at DS9, because even at the time I thought it was a different show reskinned as Trek and missed the spirit of the thing. I'm assuming the other show is Babylon 5, but I never got into that, either.
A lot of nerds seem super pissed at Star Trek: Picard because it's "not Trek" and "too dark" but I actually like it because it's like "ummm this is colonialism actually???" and I have a tough time watching most older Trek because it is in fact colonialism actually.
It's both. I don't love it when the Federation stands in for the US specifically, but since the pushback against that notion comes and goes, if it is the US then it is colonialism, actually.
But that cuts both ways, I dislike it when Picard does it, but also when TNG does it. Picard has bigger issues than that, though.
2001 book was great. Arthur C Clarke has always been my favorite author. I think Rendevous with Rama would’ve been a more approachable story to adapt into a movie. Full of mystery and curiosity. Creative direction could go wild on art without changing bay of the books story. Starts with a mystery, reveals bits and bobs in the middle, ends with mystery. Leaves you questioning. Chefs kiss.
Haven’t really kept up with modern sci-fi opinion. So maybe my opinions are popular maybe not.
I believe Ilium and Olympos are part of the greatest sci-fi story ever written. Far better than Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. It presents wild and imaginative futuristic ideas with insane scientific basis for them.
I tried Ilium and took a break after the many pages long exposition on a naked teenager at the beginning and then never had the energy to go back. Should I try again?
Hyperion is my number one sci fi of all time and I need to know if I'm missing out
I may have blocked out all of the unnecessary sexual descriptions in older sci-fi. I read so much of it that it just sort of doesn’t register anymore. It’s writing of its time.
I have a deep fondness for Greek mythology so maybe that resonates with me since the story pulls heavily from a bunch of myths. I also like the idea that science evolves so much that it’s imperceptible from magic in a way.
Morgan Freeman had the rights (?) or at least the intent to make a Rama film for many years, with David Fincher attached to direct. Shame it never happened yet, but Villeneuve is clearly a great choice to make it a reality!
My sci-fi unpopular opinion is probably that I don't consider Star Wars to be sci-fi. It shares more with fantasy in that it's more character and story driven and less about philosophy and the way technology changes the human experience which imo is what defines sci-fi.
Star Wars was a reboot of a semi-forgotten genre called sword and planet, which is basically fantasy with technological trappings. It is its own thing, but sci-fi has become so diluted nowadays that it can pass itself as legitimite part of it.
Unpopular opinion: Star Wars is in space and has spaceships and aliens. Good enough, it's sci-fi.
People attribute these silly, gatekeepy characteristics to sci-fi, but sci-fi doesn't need to be about anything. Sci-fi is allowed to be shitty or irrelevant.
Sci-fi is allowed to be shitty or irrelevant, but that is absolutely unrelated to Star Wars not being sci-fi. Star Wars isn’t shitty, and it is relevant.
The reason it isn’t sci-fi is because it a) makes no attempt whatsoever to explore the implications of the differences between its world and ours, and b) it makes no attempt to scientifically explain those differences.
There has been exactly one time when SW has attempted to explain its universe, and midichlorians have been a meme for decades because it was trying to introduce scientific explanations into the wrong genre.
To be clear: this is fine. Saying Star Wars isn’t sci-fi is not an insult. It’s just a genre, and genres aren’t better or worse than each other. If Star Wars did try to be sci-fi, it wouldn’t be able to tell the grand good and evil story it’s trying to tell - that’s the advantage of fantasy.
Agreed. With Star Wars the longer you think about the sci-fi elements, the less sense they make. The force was great as just space magic, it didn't need midichlorians. Droids are another, are they sentient? Are they slaves? Why do they feel pain? Spaceships, hyperspace, distance... how did the Death Star get to Aldoran and Yavin? GAAAAAAH!
Space Opera is a good genre name. Let's stick with that.
Sci-fi and fantasy are genres that naturally bleed into one another, and everyone will draw the lines differently. I'd personally agree that Star Wars is more fantasy than sci-fi, but I wouldn't want to gatekeep anyone who called it their favorite sci-fi franchise.
A thought I've been having that might be more controversial: Star Trek isn't sci-fi.
It's basically a series of morality fables with magical premises. There's always a paper-thin sci-fi explanation, but for all that these matter to the story, they might as well just say "fairies did it."
(And many of Gene Roddenberry's "godlike being" characters, like Q, are almost literally fairies).
There's also its treatment of space. Just as Star Wars' combat was an excuse to do WWII fighter combat in space, Star Trek is an excuse to do WWII submarine combat in space. They're equally unrealistic in that regard.
I agree on the fable argument but not on having to have a scientific explanation. Scifi is about sense of wonder, societal impact etc. Realism is optional as long as things don’t work in arbitrary ways.
True sci-fi is rare most of it is sci-fantasy. Great recent sci-fi is Expanse - author was pissed about these warp nonsense so he grounded it in physics and only added few technologies which could be made in future.
Yeah, usually sci-fi has a point to make about the human condition or some underlying philosophy that guides all of it, or at least a philosophical idea that guides each episode. I find if you ask yourself to finish the phrase "What would society/humanity look like if we had to access to _______?" if the answer to the blank is clear then it's sci-fi. Some sci-fi goes the opposite route though "What if we did NOT have access to ______?"
This was the whole ethos of the first Star Wars films - Lucas made a point of getting everything look worn, to the point of having a term for it: the "used universe". Exemplified by C-3PO's whole look, Luke's clothes or even Han Solos's sweaty shirt.
It's a shame he seems to have completely forgotten this when it was time to make the prequels...
I'd argue it wasn't forgotten in the prequels. Most of the characters and plot revolves around and is supported by very large well funded organizations (Republic, Trade Federation, ect) which means the clothing and equipment they have is less likely to be worn down. The same can be seen in the original trilogy with the Empire, storm troopers and imperial ships are well polished and not "used".
I gave it a read and there's some interested takes but overall disagree and I think this particular read may miss some of the best parts of what make Blade Runner work. To just respond to the surmise, since all 10 points to me are more like 7 and even those 7 kind of just come down to these 3, lol.
First and foremost, its pacing is fine. Bad pacing in a movie is far worse, like Anna, and even pacing in a good one like Dune, doesn't mean anything necessarily - Blade Runner does a fine job if you are able to pay attention, I guess. Personally it seems a little odd to blame being molded by contemporary media to be the reason why an older film no longer holds up. Let me put it this way though - We have Drive (2011) and Baby Driver (2017). In a lot of ways, these movies are exactly the same at times being almost shot for shot early on (likely homage). But Baby Driver is an extremely fast paced movie, and Drive is an extremely slow burn. Both of these movies, like Blade Runner, do something different, so of the critiques there can be I'm not fully on board with this one, unless the argument is that old movies should be able to take any viewer out of their subjectivity mold, I can't really agree with the takeaway from this. I had a harder time watching the new Dune than I did Blade Runner, does that make Dune's pacing worse than Blade Runner or is Blade Runner's pacing better than Dune? See what I mean? I might feel different had there been any examples, but it seemed that it just found a "Blade Crawler" comment and made a point about it, and now that's bad because... movies are faster paced? Nyeh, not sold, lol.
Decker is no more than an analogue for the viewers to be in the world, he may be the protagonist but Decker, IMO, is far from the main character. I also disagree about him lacking complexity, however I would say that it is indeed because he is 100% a foil to the antagonists. Decker isn't meant to be this incredible Blade Runner that no other can live up to - he's good sure, he's alive and has his faculties and limbs, but he quite literally takes the role of the futuristic Desk Jockey, he is just the pencil pusher that grinds up the replicants. More on this later.
Whenever I watch Blade Runner I'm always surprised by how it's such a quiet film with so much exposition in just a few sentences. I don't think anything overshadows anything else. I think there is a strong emphasis on atmosphere which helps with the world building we get from the characters and interactions. It critiques hyper-capitalism by showing a world far in the future that by all accounts is exactly the same, save a few office jobs that have evolved. The underground is still working girls and chefs and the government is still uncoordinated and corrupt. Without the focus on visuals to evoke just how different this world is supposed to be, we don't get snapped back into mundanity when we see Decker ordering food and getting stopped by other officers. Moreover, the depth of the story comes specifically from Roy Batty, who as I mention should be viewed as the real protagonist. I think the movie itself argues this point to the bone, but everyone only ever seems to want to talk about Decker so maybe not.
I find it hard to see a lack of depth when Roy and Pris, literal cybernetic robots, are the most emotive characters in Blade Runner. The only other character we genuinely see some emotion from is the Tinkerer J.F. Sebastian, who has a love for his toys and makes friends with the replicants. They get inhumanly emotive at times, but they more than anyone we see express just how much they want to live. Roy's entire journey is a process of becoming human, until death when he gives birth to Decker by saving him. Roy lived as a human would have. In life, Roy was enslaved, escaped, and lived on the lamb. He sought vengeance towards God (Tyrell), found love, exacts vengeance once more before, in my opinion, realizing and accepting that God was right. There is no extending life. Not his own.
As he sees Deckard about to die, with the understanding that Roy himself will soon as well, Roy saves Deckard not as an act of mercy but as a birth. To extend life. For me, the story isn’t much about Deckard. It’s about what Deckard’s piece represents for humanity. He isn't complex, he doesn't need to be. Not everyone is. Particularly when Deckard himself isn't even the point that the film was trying to make, each and every quintessential moment of philosophy comes from the antagonists musings, not the protagonists inquisitions.
Your final act in death is to give life which you were no longer allowed.
Seasons One and Two were a ton of fun. I enjoyed them quite a bit. Epic, movie quality stories and good plot twists. Lots of space shenanigans. Then things degraded significantly and I am not sure why. It’s been a while, so I’m not as focused about the disappointment I felt during season Three. We changed direction with the story and the lead seemed to be crying about things all the time. Too many discussions about relationships or personal issues. I only saw one or two episodes of season Four as it seemed even worse in that regard. Done.
Put succinctly: Too much yappin, not enough zappin!
It’s funny, your exact review is why some people dislike “new” Trek.
I’ve found Discovery to be solidly OK over the seasons, and find it’s best when you can binge it so the bad episodes are immediately replaced by a new and hopefully better episode.
Think back to TNG. Yes the early season saucer separation was neat, and we’ll all remember Locutus of Borg and the Battle of Wolf 359. But do you know what I’ll really remember? How Picard becoming Borg affected him for years. When Picard argues in court “What it means to be man?” and if Data deserves personhood. Torture, ideals and the four lights. Learning to communicate with Darmok. The FLUTE episode!
These are the stories that made Star Trek, Star Trek. DS9, Voyager, & Enterprise would continue this trend.
Discovery? A little bit, but not really. Picard (the show)? Kinda but mostly no.
Strange New Worlds? Absolutely! Lower Decks? Again, yes! PRODIGY??? Amazingly, yes. It’s for children so it’s toned down but absolutely.
I don’t think Discovery is terrible, but it’s just solidly OK. They touch on some interesting topics, but ultimately they waste a lot of time.
I don’t get the hate. It’s no Andor, but it’s not painful to watch. Certainly better than S1 of TNG. And I say that as someone that grew up on TNG.
They tried something different, focusing on someone besides the captain. But it’s still Trek. It’s the gayest Trek I’ve ever seen, but that certainly doesn’t make it not Trek. They invented a new technology and hand-waved every Deus ex machina that ever existed and if that’s not Trek then you don’t know a tachyon emitter from an inverted warp field.
Enlighten me, angry nerds. I am a Zen geek, and i don’t understand your hate
I get where you’re going but my favorite part or Trek is the exploration of different cultures and ways of thinking. Strange New Worlds is the return of to form I want while Discovery felt more like Enterprise.
I get that, and thank you for giving an actual reason for the dislike. Enterprise never clicked for me, but at the time i was watching it on broadcast television and other things were competing for my attention. I’m gonna give it another shot soon.
Strange New Worlds is freakin amazing. Still haven’t seen S2
But fuck them klingons in Disco though, that was the wrong culture and way of thinking to explore. They can't change klingons like that, klingons are static unchanging aliens in trek, they never changed once before disco and it didn't make sense.
Lol word. Yeah they didn’t change Worf. They played with a concept. Also the Kelpians (or however it’s spelled) was a pretty great story. Felt a lot like classic Trek, that arc did.
See? At least this is a reason. Thank you! So many responses here are saying it sucks without saying why. (I re-read the comments and I’m just not good at paying attention)
You get a silver star. I don’t completely agree, but hey! I get it
It's not the gayness that people don't like about it. I wasn't even aware that there was all that much gayness in it, and most of what I know about the show is what people say when complaining about it since I don't watch it.
While Trek is often like a stage show with some over the top performances, Discovery went the extra mile and made the primary lead into space Les Mis. I blame the writers though, since the problem was the plot not justifying the performance.
The trek boards on reddit were seething when disco came out because 'how dare a black woman be in a leading role in trek' and 'I can't relate to the show any more now' and 'why are there so many females on the bridge'.
There was a lot of very bitter 'it's just not trek' from folk with poor reasonings as to why too.
Folks on the internet love to blame its unpopularity on gayness, or on a black main character, or plenty of other red herrings. You always see those brought up by people defending Discovery ("everyone who hates it is just racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever"). I'm sure those people did hate Discovery if they even watched it.
But plenty of woke progressives also hate it, for plenty of other, legitimate reasons. And its very annoying that most of the time any discussion about the show's problems get derailed by people who accuse any haters of just being prejudiced. Whether it was the bad storytelling, butchering of beloved races like the Klingons, an egregiously Mary Sue main character, the constant stream of manufactured melodrama, constant bickering and in-fighting among the crew, and the less-easy-to-pinpoint general way the show doesn't "feel" like Trek.
Discovery feels like an attempt to drop the "baggage" of past Treks and invent something new and bring in a new audience. Which might make economic sense, but feels like a slap in the face to many lifelong Trek fans who love the old series.
Butchering the Klingons I understand (although from what I understand, they’re into that kinda thing). I also understand not liking the interpersonal dynamics as written. Out of curiosity, can you quantify bad storytelling? I’m guessing it’s more than just the technological Deus Ex Machina that Trek is famous for?
Hard disagree on the MC being Mary Sue. But to each his own, I asked and that’s one of your problems with the show.
One thing I don’t understand is your last statement. And I mean that as the general principal behind the statement. When an IP does something new, it’s hated. When it does what it’s always done, it’s stale. Somehow Strange New Worlds walks that tightrope. But I don’t see a problem with innovation and experimentation within a franchise. Especially with a new series that isn’t ruining existing character arcs (cough Rise of Skywalker cough). How, exactly, is a new series that goes a different direction a slap in the face of existing fans? Was DS9 a slap in the face? The Mandalorian? Without experimentation you don’t get innovative things.
Anyway, define bad storytelling. I’m not being antagonistic, I genuinely want to know. I like film theory and the art of storytelling, even if I don’t fully understand it at times and can’t do it myself
Sure. To be fair though, it's been several years since I've watched DISC and it's nowhere near fresh in my mind now... I watched up until they went to the future, and then like one episode of that was all I could take. So I'm just going off of what I remember hating back when I watched it.
The bad storytelling goes hand-in-hand with what I see as Michael being a Mary Sue. Since you don't see her that way, you'll probably disagree. But she got away with everything to an unrealistic degree in season one. She was insubordinate and rebellious. I think I remember things like her talking back/questioning the captain on the bridge. Other Treks showed things like that, and showed how it was not tolerated by anyone, even superior officers. Michael got away with it at every turn. She was technically a traitor to Star Fleet and she basically started the Klingon war, and she suffered zero repercussions for that. This is bad storytelling on several fronts. First off, it makes it feel like Starfleet has convenient blindness to whatever the main character does (aka plot armor), so it makes Starfleet seem comically unbelievable. Second, it starves the viewer of what should be major plot and character points. Other Trek shows occasionally had bad characters like Michael, but we got to see them feel the consequences of their actions. Ro Laren did some traitorous things, and that developed into a fascinating plot. There are plenty of other examples... Barclay, Geordi, Worf to name a few... But Michael never seemed to suffer any consequences as a character, and it felt unsatisfying as a viewer to watch that.
Then, plot stuff. The Lorca bait-and-switch was really lame. The Empress Giorgio/mommy issues subplot was really annoying. The superweapon that was the spore drive was a bad idea. The intelligent nano machines sucked. But the biggest issue with all of these is that they were underdeveloped and just got written off lazily. Each of these had a bad start, but they could have been turned into something interesting with good writing. But they never got the story development they deserved. Maybe this is because DISC's seasons were shorter than old Trek, and they just didn't have enough time to develop all these subplots. But they just sucked and felt half-assed.
(I'm sorry I can't get more specific than that... it's a memory issue. I honestly have put most of those problems out of my mind now, and I can't remember specifically why I hated them after so long...)
Also, Michael in general... besides being a Mary Sue character. Sonequa Martin-Green is just not a good actor. It might be that I hate the character of Michael, or it might be that she was just not capable of carrying the show on her back, but DISC was at its best when Michael was in the background. Saru was an awesome character and the highlights of DISC were when he took charge of the ship. But just about any time the show got good, Michael came in and spoiled it somehow, either by poor acting or by Mary Sue-ish plot garbage.
The best thing to come out of DISC was the spinoff Strange New Worlds, which really captured the feeling of the old Trek series. DISC feels like the JJ Abrams movies, which are also trash and feel like a slap in the face for long-term fans. I'm all for experimentation, and I am certainly not saying that doing something new is necessarily bad. The shows you mentioned (DS9, The Mandalorian) tried new things and nailed it. And I love SNW, so that nullifies that theory. DISC isn't bad because it tried new things. It's bad because it failed at executing those things well, and it did so on so many levels.
I get it, thank you, appreciate it. I can see the reasoning and it makes sense. And I understand your Mary Sue perspective a bit more.
I can see an argument could be made for her having repercussions at the beginning of the series. But I can also see that being a traitor didn’t have long lasting effects (because of Plot) and that she never learned from her mistakes. That tracks.
I don’t really have an issue with the Lorca or Giorgio plots, and I’ve watched/read/played enough Star Wars to not be phased by stupid superweapons lol. Still I can see your reasoning on the sloppy writing and development.
As far as the Abrams movies, I’m with Plinkett. Star Trek the Star Trek was… a pretty decent action movie actually. It’s not high art, but it’s fun and high energy. It’s not Real Trek™, but it doesn’t have to be. We have Real Trek™ movies, and they’re great. Let the kids have some junk food. I’ll be over here eating Wrath of Khan again, and liking it.
I think you make really valid points, and as I said, I appreciate the time you took to do the write-up. I think my standards are lower for Entertainment. If I want to escape for an hour or two I don’t really mind if it’s fuzzy along the edges. By having the goal of being distracted from my life’s cares for a bit I wind up very pleasantly surprised when a show like Andor or Asteroid City comes along and knocks my socks off with actual Art. Or when a quality piece of Entertainment like Strange New Worlds land at my feet. “Ooh, neat!” I think, “I wanted a hot dog and was delivered Filet Mignon.” Which means, if I get a hot dog, I’m not terribly disappointed.
I think Discovery was a Coney Dog, with some average meat sauce and a really sharp cheddar. But the beef dog at the core was pretty okay and it didn’t make me sick. The bun was stale though
Not angry, just isn't star trek to me. In my mind star trek, for each episode has: an external threat or issue the crew has to overcome and an internal conflict or issue to overcome. Neither will have any obvious solution at the start and are often very difficult topics or philosophical in nature. The crew then solves these creatively and reflect on their situation a little. Very seldom are there multi-episode story archs, but even those fairly closely follow that formula.
I was excited at first because the Klingon wars with modern CG sounded like fun. But star trek isn't about that in the end. Even when war is at the forefront of a story in there, it is still often more about resolving it rather than indulging in it.
Not to mention (but this is an issue of a lot of modern SciFi) why in the world is everything so darn dark in that show? Why is everything inside the ships so black and shiny? Don't like that design at all. Difficult to watch and just far too depressing. Star Trek is hopeful, not doom and gloom to me. It is about the best of humanity, even when they struggle.
Respect. I do like that they tried new things, and didn’t “ruin” existing characters in the process. And sometimes a show doesn’t click and your time is better spent elsewhere. That’s The Office for me. Nothing wrong with it, just not my cuppa
The dark thing was a major turn off for me too. It just didn’t FEEL like Star Trek (even before getting more into the story lines themselves). I started watching The Orville around the same time and actually continued watching that despite a pretty rocky start because they nailed the Star Trek feel.
In my career of 20 years doing this, reviews have never equated to performance. A movie will either perform or it won’t. People will either love it and be connected to it, and I think what this movie has is an emotional drive and a core and characters that are vulnerable. And of course, there’s sequence and action and visual — it’s a magnificent looking film. But I think that at the core of it, it’s got emotion. There’s an emotional engine and a currency that runs through the film that I think works, so I’d invite people to check it out.
Well, it is nice that he believes in Rebel Moon.
I think it was a pretty weak film but not Batman vs Superman level of bad. Definitely deserves criticism for its poor story, bad dialogue, awful special effects, non-existent editing, and general lack of anything resembling excitement or a soul. Should it be critically panned and/or ridiculed? Absolutely.
Rebel Moon loses a lot of credit in my book for the hentai tentacles, the Buckbeak scene, and the constant feeling I had throughout the entire movie of "I am looking at actors acting solely on a digital stage." OK, I get that digital backgrounds are commonplace these days, but if a film is unable to hide it well it completely prevents me from suspending my disbelief. For whatever reason, no matter how high budget a Netflix film is, it's like they hire the cheapest green screen guys to do it for every single production and it always stands out to me.
Yes. You can always tell when an exterior shot is done fully green screen or on a "Volume" style LED back projection stage. The blocking is always a little too claustrophobic (Kenobi was the worst offender) and something about the lighting and shadows still doesn't hit quite right.
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