General / Off-Topic Star Trek Day .... what a show!

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

That threshold varies (using your example, I would be strongly opposed to a Female Bond).

Yes and I don't think that has ever been seriously proposed. A Bond type character made my the same people that make the Bond film was, iirc, proposed but the fact that the character's name is James, simply means you won't get a female James Bond. And @lysan is stating, it would have been a different but related franchise.

Secondly, youve got people whove seen the lazy paint by numbers way mainstream movie making has been done in recent years:

1. Reboot or continue established franchise.

Agreed

2. Put PoC/minorities/women into lead roles.

Nothing wrong with it. It should happen.

3. Round peg-square hole a social justice message into a story.

Tragically, it appears we have to do this to some extent. Blacks, gays and other minority groups are still suffering violence and sometimes death because of who they are. Films should reflect society and the issues that arise in it. I'm sure as part of a side story in numerous films or TV shows, we have seen the tainted soldier back from some war, broken and treated poorly by the govt, for example, that is a social justice message. We still have to remind people this is real. erasing it from film and TV or just not including it does those real soldiers no good.

4. Make small safe profit and garner easy media attention.

Agreed.

But why do we need to replace a character with something else? what is the idea behind it? why not just make a new story about person X doing stuff person X is doing and let it grow, why is it so important to replace well established characters with something that has nothing to do with the original?

So you are opposed to The Muppets Christmas?

 

[Stigbob]

But why do we need to replace a character with something else? what is the idea behind it? why not just make a new story about person X doing stuff person X is doing and let it grow, why is it so important to replace well established characters with something that has nothing to do with the original?

Unless you want to change.....nah, that a conspiracy theory !

Without change it can't grow.

"Indeed, in a 2012 interview, Nichols revealed that tensions were very high. First off, while they were shooting, William Shatner kissed her, and after the shot, the director came up to ask Shatner just what he thought he was doing, and then started furiously whispering with each other. Soon after, NBC sent over officials to discuss the scene, which led to Roddenberry asking directors to shoot the scene over, one shot with the kiss and one without. The only reason NBC aired the scene was because Shatner, in all alternate takes of the scene in “Plato’s Stepchildren”, was cross-eyed and goofy, disallowing the use of any other shot (Nichols). In the end, NBC allowed the original take of the scene, especially since the kiss was forced. As Nichols tells Tyson in her interview with him, “I didn’t kiss Bill Shatner. Bill Shatner kissed me, but actually, Uhura and Captain Kirk were forced, people had kinetic powers. That was the only way they could get it by back then.”

Well done William Shatner.

 

[Old Duck]

I don't know about Star Trek, as I don't get CBS where I'm at, but I have lost all interest in Doctor Who in the last couple of years. While I have mixed feelings about making the Doctor female (I'd rather they made a spin-off show based on his daughter Jenny), I actually had high hopes for Jodie Whittaker in this role. Unfortunately the writers have given her nothing but rubbish to work with. Though to be honest, Calpaldi was also given a lot of crap stories, but I enjoy him so much as an actor that it help make up for it, mostly. And then the writers had to go retcon foundational Whovian lore solely to push an agenda, which really was the last straw for me.

Regarding "wokeness", my problem is when writers choose to mock and belittle "straight white men" in order to lift up other groups. For example, the way the writers neutered Superman in the new Supergirl series. They didn't need to do this. If anything, making Supergirl a strong female by making her "competition" weak and dumb is counter-productive. I much rather have a strong female character who can stand her ground in the presence of a strong Superman, because that actually makes her come across as stronger. Even a fool can look wise when put in a group of other fools. Put that same person in a room full of wise men and women, and then you'll see what that person is made of.

From the few clips I've seen of the new Star Treks, it seems the writers are resorting to the same "make our stereotypical heroes look like idiots in order to make our [insert token minority representation] look superior" trope, and that does disservice to everyone IMO. Making Picard a bumbling, self-doubting old fool (based on reviews) so that a female superior can "put him in his place" not only does a disservice to the man, it also does a disservice to the woman, making her look mean, nasty, and petty. Now give us a female who can stand toe-to-toe with a strong male lead, and then you've got both representation and potential for a good story! This example pops into my head:

I quite enjoyed Shelby's character and wish we saw more of her. Her interaction with Riker was "tense", but in a good and realistic and ultimately respectful way. Of course, this was in a show where writers knew how to actually write good stories. Too many writers these days churn out rubbish not fit for a grade school homework assignment.


PS - if Ripley was gay or a woman of color, the two first alien movies would still have been amazing (assuming they used the exact same script), and the rest would still have been trash. I rest my case.

 

[lysan]

Watched a new movie called AVA, it started out pretty well, interesting character a woman who was an assassin, then there was a scene where she took out a bunch or male soldiers, I just left, unreal, ruined the movie, no why do we accept John wick can do the same? well first of all the stunts are more "realistic" second of all a man fighting a man is a 50/50 fight, I've never seen a woman take out a grown man, not talking about dwarfs, and walked away, not in the military not on the streets, some kind of multiplier must be added. Yeah Ripley was believable, it was a great story, now they all need to be some-kind of super women they clearly are not. Like Ray in SW what a POS that movie was.

 

[Stigbob]

I don't know about Star Trek, as I don't get CBS where I'm at, but I have lost all interest in Doctor Who in the last couple of years. While I have mixed feelings about making the Doctor female (I'd rather they made a spin-off show based on his daughter Jenny), I actually had high hopes for Jodie Whittaker in this role. Unfortunately the writers have given her nothing but rubbish to work with. Though to be honest, Calpaldi was also given a lot of crap stories, but I enjoy him so much as an actor that it help make up for it, mostly. And then the writers had to go retcon foundational Whovian lore solely to push an agenda, which really was the last straw for me.

Regarding "wokeness", my problem is when writers choose to mock and belittle "straight white men" in order to lift up other groups. For example, the way the writers neutered Superman in the new Supergirl series. They didn't need to do this. If anything, making Supergirl a strong female by making her "competition" weak and dumb is counter-productive. I much rather have a strong female character who can stand her ground in the presence of a strong Superman, because that actually makes her come across as stronger. Even a fool can look wise when put in a group of other fools. Put that same person in a room full of wise men and women, and then you'll see what that person is made of.

From the few clips I've seen of the new Star Treks, it seems the writers are resorting to the same "make our stereotypical heroes look like idiots in order to make our [insert token minority representation] look superior" trope, and that does disservice to everyone IMO. Making Picard a bumbling, self-doubting old fool (based on reviews) so that a female superior can "put him in his place" not only does a disservice to the man, it also does a disservice to the woman, making her look mean, nasty, and petty. Now give us a female who can stand toe-to-toe with a strong male lead, and then you've got both representation and potential for a good story! This example pops into my head:

I quite enjoyed Shelby's character and wish we saw more of her. Her interaction with Riker was "tense", but in a good and realistic and ultimately respectful way. Of course, this was in a show where writers knew how to actually write good stories. Too many writers these days churn out rubbish not fit for a grade school homework assignment.


PS - if Ripley was gay or a woman of color, the two first alien movies would still have been amazing (assuming they used the exact same script), and the rest would still have been trash. I rest my case.

They don't mock and belittle straight white men, they mock and belittle outdated attitudes which has always been a comedy foundation.

 

[Old Duck]

Watched a new movie called AVA, it started out pretty well, interesting character a woman who was an assassin, then there was a scene where she took out a bunch or male soldiers, I just left, unreal, ruined the movie, no why do we accept John wick can do the same? well first of all the stunts are more "realistic" second of all a man fighting a man is a 50/50 fight, I've never seen a woman take out a grown man, not talking about dwarfs, and walked away, not in the military not on the streets, some kind of multiplier must be added. Yeah Ripley was believable, it was a great story, now they all need to be some-kind of super women they clearly are not. Like Ray in SW what a POS that movie was.

You should watch the Mandalorian. Cara Dune, a female wrestler IRL, could kick all our aft quarters, I'm quite certain. She's "female empowerment" done right, a terrific character played by a great actress for this role. And Mandalorian is Star Wars done right, produced by someone who cares about the lore and is a master story-teller.

This is the way.

 

[Old Duck]

They don't mock and belittle straight white men, they mock and belittle outdated attitudes which has always been a comedy foundation.

EDIT: Well I've said my piece / peace, and dancing with you and others who insist on making everything a fight for fighting sake no longer entertains me like it used to (I've got MSFS to pass the time now), so I'm out.

 

[lysan]

You should watch the Mandalorian. Cara Dune, a female wrestler IRL, could kick all our aft quarters, I'm quite certain. She's "female empowerment" done right, a terrific character played by a great actress for this role. And Mandalorian is Star Wars done right, produced by someone who cares about the lore and is a master story-teller.

This is the way.

I've watched it, and I like it, however she is never like an overpowered person who can take down 10 guys, and to be honest in the same weight class, there is no chance 101, we are not build to do the same unless you add a lot of chemicals, and that's ok, I've been teaching my daughter to fight, but she knows to win she need to use a different strategy than pure power because that is just doomed to fail in the real world.

And returning to Ripley, she was smart, and was winning because she could use her intelligence to get the upper hand.
That's also why I actually love Gangs of London, great characters great story writhing.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Some things just run out of gas.

 

[Stigbob]

EDIT: Well I've said my piece / peace, and dancing with you and others who insist on making everything a fight for fighting sake no longer entertains me like it used to (I've got MSFS to pass the time now), so I'm out.

I find the inevitable "don't like equality" whinging that now accompanies every single film or series with tedious regularity makes all of us sci-fi nerds look bad to be honest.

Sci-fi has always tried to look to the future, that's pretty much the point of it. Trying to keep it firmly rooted in the past seems bonkers.

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

I have lost all interest in Doctor Who in the last couple of years. While I have mixed feelings about making the Doctor female (I'd rather they made a spin-off show based on his daughter Jenny), I actually had high hopes for Jodie Whittaker in this role. Unfortunately the writers have given her nothing but rubbish to work with. Though to be honest, Calpaldi was also given a lot of crap stories, but I enjoy him so much as an actor that it help make up for it, mostly.

I get that the distinction between actors can make or break. I grew up watching John Pertwee, who was fairly serious in the role, not nearly as serious as Troughton before him but when Tom Baker came along, he made it quite a bit sillier. I suppose the thing with the Doctor is, each actor does appear to have been written slightly different. As I say, I grew up with Pertwee (I loved Tom Baker also) but for the new Doctor, Eccleston was/is unbeatable. I know it is personal opinion but no one has matched him since. To my mind, either the writing (and a bit of actor choice) just progressively got worse.

And then the writers had to go retcon foundational Whovian lore solely to push an agenda, which really was the last straw for me.

I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about here, I'm making a guess (as I only watched a couple of episodes with the female Dr) that there was some female agenda brought up and really, I'm not surprised. I've seen this in other shows where 'outside show' stuff gets the nod 'in show'. Their own cultural significance becomes part of the in show stuff. I think a couple of the recent Bonds suffered from this, though the clear example that made me notice this, escapes me right now.

I suppose that bringing a female into the previously male dominated role, again before an inch of film was shot, raised an amount of upset and comment about it. So the writers may well have been going full steam ahead to address issues raised outside of the show (simply announcing the casting) to further cement their views that this was the right thing to do.

As I said, I've not watched more than 2 episodes with her in it, mainly because I had long lost interest in it before then but I wanted to watch a couple to see it. If every series they make with her in the role does have to rotate or reference female equality (heavy handedly) then yes, that would become tedious, the odd quip in an occasional episode would be ok IMO just as a male DR making the occasional quip about his female assistant having a fetish for shoe shopping or something. It would be a natural thing. I'm sure however that the not insignificant backlash they got from some quarters for having the audacity to cast a female in the role only strengthened the feeling that it was still a subject that had not really been resolved.

She's "female empowerment" done right,

I'd like to know how females feel about that stuff. I'm not sure a bloke is well placed to make that call. Not saying it's impossible, just that I would like to hear the views of more women on the subject.

 

[metatheurgist]

Watched a new movie called AVA, it started out pretty well, interesting character a woman who was an assassin, then there was a scene where she took out a bunch or male soldiers, I just left, unreal, ruined the movie, no why do we accept John wick can do the same? well first of all the stunts are more "realistic" second of all a man fighting a man is a 50/50 fight, I've never seen a woman take out a grown man, not talking about dwarfs, and walked away, not in the military not on the streets, some kind of multiplier must be added. Yeah Ripley was believable, it was a great story, now they all need to be some-kind of super women they clearly are not. Like Ray in SW what a POS that movie was.

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[Ca$hback]

The main problem I have with modern media is that the message isn't genuine. It hurts the real message by cashing in on it cheaply. It encourages a backlash to justify it's existence. It has a very negative effect on both sides of an issue by first simplifying it for those who can't be bothered to put in a lot of effort to learn and then teaching simple "hate the other guy" rhetoric.
We still call black people black people and nobody has a problem with it. Why is that okay? "Well, we have to call them something" and nobody seems to see the issue here. No, they want to complain that they got fired for being trans when they actually got fired for being lazy.
That's why Idris Alba will sadly never be James Bond. He'd be known as "the black James Bond" even if he knocks it out of the park. People that have a problem with him being black might be simple-minded bigots, or they might see that a fine actor and a fine performance will still be in the shadow of some white guy instead of being his own badass action hero that would leave James Bond in his shadow.
The sanctimony is see-through and it's about one-upmanship and demagoguery, disresepecting all those who actually deal with the real problems day by day.
So no, it isn't woke or even "woke", it's sniveling, pandering and to quote Picard: "obvious and vulgar."
Kids want to act like they invented ethics.

 

[Morbad]

why do we accept John wick can do the same? well first of all the stunts are more "realistic" second of all a man fighting a man is a 50/50 fight

Keanu Reeves was about 6'1" and 180 pounds during the filming of the John Wick films. Wick repeatedly overpowers and kills larger men, occasionally much larger men, sometimes while outnumbered half a dozen to one, while being wounded/exhausted to varying degrees. The fight choreography is good and that goes a long way, but it's still quite fantastic.

I've never seen a woman take out a grown man, not talking about dwarfs, and walked away, not in the military not on the streets, some kind of multiplier must be added.

in the same weight class, there is no chance 101, we are not build to do the same unless you add a lot of chemicals, and that's ok,

This is more due to the low odds of finding a woman that has any fighting experience than to biological sexual dimorphism. You have to go about three standard deviations above normal (meaning about a 1 in 20 chance) in size to find women big enough to reliably compete with slightly above average men when it comes to the biomechanics of physical strength. However, the portion of women in most societies that have been allowed, let alone actively encouraged, to become front-line warriors or serious practitioners of combat sports, is minuscule. Hell, until relatively recently, even basic athleticism was strongly discouraged for women...using the old excuse that they weren't physically suited for it.

There was, and still is, a strong tendency to use the results of biased treatment as a justification for continuing that bias.

now they all need to be some-kind of super women they clearly are not.

The conflicting demands of casting a stereotypically attractive female lead in the role of a warrior who excels in a close quarters melee. The only way to make a bunch of short, skinny, dolled-up people seem like credible physical threats is to given them supernatural abilities and/or keep them at distance.

By and large hollywood caters to the lowest of all common denominators, for profitability reasons. They embrace some forms of diversity, while at the same time prioritizing physical attractiveness and adhering to very conventional standards of beauty, especially when it comes to women.

The main problem I have with modern media is that the message isn't genuine.

The profit above all message feels pretty genuine.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Some things just run out of gas.

Agreed.

I think Trek was relevant in '66. Cold War, Space Race, stuff. The premise is everybody won the Space Race, and the Cold War is now with the Klingons.

It could be redone to be pertinent to today, but a new vehicle would do it better. Like the first Matrix movie that replaced Outer Space with VR, and was much more connected to our current life, because in 1999 Cyberspace had replaced Outer Space as the zeitgeist, and coorporate work life seemed soul sucking.

There's no substitute for the writing.

If there's anything everybody agrees on, it's better writing as the first needed ingredient. It's why cardboard and paste sets in the City on the Edge of Forever beats out anything vastly more technogically advanced in today's Drek.

 

[metatheurgist]

Agreed.

I think Trek was relevant in '66. Cold War, Space Race, stuff. The premise is everybody won the Space Race, and the Cold War is now with the Klingons.

It could be redone to be pertinent to today, but a new vehicle would do it better. Like the first Matrix movie that replaced Outer Space with VR, and was much more connected to our current life, because in 1999 Cyberspace had replaced Outer Space as the zeitgeist, and coorporate work life seemed soul sucking.

There's no substitute for the writing.

If there's anything everybody agrees on, it's better writing as the first needed ingredient. It's why cardboard and paste sets in the City on the Edge of Forever beats out anything vastly more technogically advanced in today's Drek.

I think it's still very relevant today. The key premise of original trek was that humanity could do better. Look around and say we can't do better. It's always been that message of optimism that I liked about it. It needs to be modernized for sure otherwise it can come across as patronizing which the 60s version got away with the unbridled optimism that era had. But, the funny thing about Trekkers? A lot say DS9 was the best ever trek, the same trek that trod those basic principles into the ground - reducing humanity back to another bunch of apes grubbing in the dirt. That's where the rot started.

 

[Morbad]

I think it's still very relevant today. The key premise of original trek was that humanity could do better. Look around and say we can't do better. It's always been that message of optimism that I liked about it. It needs to be modernized for sure otherwise it can come across as patronizing which the 60s version got away with the unbridled optimism that era had. But, the funny thing about Trekkers? A lot say DS9 was the best ever trek, the same trek that trod those basic principles into the ground - reducing humanity back to another bunch of apes grubbing in the dirt. That's where the rot started.

I liked DS9 a lot and I don't feel it trod on the principles laid out in ToS or TNG. Rather, it showed their limits. The heart of the Federation was still a paradise, and humanity, by and large, still held to it's high-minded principles. However, the Federation didn't hold sway everywhere, and when push came to shove, sometimes those principles were at odds with pragmatism. Showing credible conflict here is part of what made DS9 so good and is a key point of contrast with Kurtzman's Trek. Picard just threw out or retconned these core human and Federation attributes away as a lazy shortcut to bring caricatures of modern issues to the forefront, rather than spending the time to put them in proper context.

 

[Ca$hback]

I think the real tragedy that ended star trek for me was the torpedoing of Axanar.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I think it's still very relevant today. The key premise of original trek was that humanity could do better. Look around and say we can't do better. It's always been that message of optimism that I liked about it. It needs to be modernized for sure otherwise it can come across as patronizing which the 60s version got away with the unbridled optimism that era had. But, the funny thing about Trekkers? A lot say DS9 was the best ever trek, the same trek that trod those basic principles into the ground - reducing humanity back to another bunch of apes grubbing in the dirt. That's where the rot started.

I lived that optimism, and look what it got me...

 

[metatheurgist]

I lived that optimism, and look what it got me...

Yeah, sadly the promise was not fulfilled.