Comment Stream

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

@MercerCreate There is that brilliant scene when his superior says something along the lines of "the natives are uncivilized fools" and he stays silent, and somehow saying nothing he still conveys "that is what I used to think." Just brilliant.

Without being as well-written as Andor, the Original Trilogy was also capable of defining supporting characters with very few scenes and lines. Wedge Antilles, Boba Fett, Admiral Piett... you almost instantly understand what makes these people tick, which makes the world seem alive. Nowadays we get hours of a prolonged streaming movie and yet all of the characters seem interchangeable.

By the way, isn't Thrawn's actual plan pretty clear? He's putting Nightsisters (which were, by the way, not a Lucas and Filoni invention but a creation of the Expanded Universe) in stasis into those pods, isn't he? The plan is to repopulate Dathomir with witches and use it as a base to wage war, I'd say. Which of course doesn't make sense if the witches are originally from the foreign galaxy and Dathomir was the colony: Why would they care about repopulating it at the expense of leaving their own home? It's as if the US became depopulated and the entire British population decided to move there. I'm still quite confident this is what is being set up here. Filoni just loved having the Nightsisters in his cartoons.

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

Do you guys remember that imperial lieutenant in Andor, who is part of the Rebel cell in Aldhani? I can't remember the character's name and his total time on screen was probably about five minutes. Yet I know far more about his motivations, his moral compass and who he IS as an individual than I do for any character in Ahsoka or basically any other Disney Star Wars show. He feels like a real person because he is written like one.

That is the difference between art and mere content.

Re: Star Wars: Ahsoka

When I see all the online praise this show is getting, I feel a similar puzzlement as I did while watching Picard Season 3: While fans seem to truly find meaning in it, I just see a disjointed mash of memberberries and truly deficient storytelling that has nothing to say. I might be missing something. But ultimately it is this type of content that makes me feel divorced from the fanbase (rather than the obviously bad stuff) that made me stop watching Star Trek. I suspect Ahsoka will stop making me watch Star Wars as well.

Ahsoka is a show about absolutely nothing. There are no themes, no world-building (what political factions exist in the galaxy as the threat of Thrawn looms? We know nothing), no character arcs and no interactions that stand on their own (rather than relying on what happened in the cartoons). Dialogues describe what is happening on screen, with no subtext. It is the death of storytelling. There is only plot: We go from point A to point B, with every step of that boring journey meticulously shown to us.

As a reader of Timothy Zahn's novels, I will also add that the writers severely misunderstand what makes Thrawn's character interesting. Thrawn isn't a MacGuffin threat to unveil in the second act; Thrawn is a riff on Sherlock Holmes and the deductive (inductive) process. Yes, he keeps some carts close to his chest to have some fun reveal at the end, but the whole point of the character is that we follow his reasoning from the very beginning and understand the fully logical way in which he develops his plans. He's not a magical world-ending Thanos villain, he's a thinker that is able to optimize mundane, military resources to one-up the heroes. If you are going to film a show with Thrawn as the main antagonist, we the audience need to be clued into his schemes from the very beginning, and almost feel sympathy towards him. Yet his inflexible belief in knowledge and his intellectual infallibility is also his undoing, as a single datapoint that he is unaware of (in the books, the fact that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker) makes his reasoning faulty. This is a key flaw that Zahn himself seems to have forgotten in later renditions of Thrawn, and not for the better.

To summarize this long rant: I feel about David Filoni the same way I feel about Terry Matalas. So many people see them as franchise saviors, when I just hope they will stay as far away from this material as possible.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Jax "Were men ever seen wearing such things after EAF? Some if it was just the pilot."

Yes, it lasts throughout Season 1 and I believe even some Season 2 shots. It's never very prominent though.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Tim Troi only takes command in "Disaster" because the designated bridge officer gets killed, though, so it doesn't contradict "The Arsenal of Freedom." Which episode goes against that rule?

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Bok R'Mor I'll just say that "masculine woman" and "feminine man" are terms that Jordan Peterson likes to use.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Booming My (non-specialist) 2 cents on this is that the progressive movement itself hasn't made up its mind on this issue of defining the spectrum of gender norms as masculine/feminine or not, and thus it is often trying to reconcile two opposing social programs. I personally find the masculine/feminine framework pretty regressive, but it is also one that has been championed by the weakest strata of society (the trans community) and thus we find ourselves with a political paradox.

On Troi and Crusher being boxed in the "social care" stereotype, I fully agree with you. It is 100% true that these characters weren't pushing the envelope AT THE TIME. It's pretty telling to hear McFadden and Sirtis think bank on these roles and the type of stuff they remark upon (eg. the bras, the uniforms) compared to what Nana Visitor retells as being surprising about her character (the fact that it read as a very ungendered role). So DS9 in 1993 was more successful in breaking away from the male gaze than TNG in 1987, even though the bar was much higher, which speaks poorly of TNG in this respect.

Analyzing the work in its context is crucial if we are to do a political read of it. The kiss between Kirk and Uhura had to overcome big pressure from executives to be aired. By contrast, Discovery being lead by a black woman and including trans characters was championed and advertised by the corporation producing the show. These aren't irrelevant facts. And while progressives initially dismissed claims that there were new "rules" in Hollywood writing, I think now it is undeniable that these exist and are being enforced (women can't be rescued by men or depend on them, minorities can't be portrayed as fully evil etc.). So the issue isn't just that female characters are being botched by repurposing bad tropes traditionally applied to men, but also that the ultimate drive behind it is corporate neoliberalism protecting its commercial interests.

Which is why I think the term "Mary Sue" is a valuable one, but only in its original context: One of self-insertion into an existing IP, which is precisely how corporations are trying to milk old products by opening them up to new markets. Burnham and Rey would likely be hated by a big cohort of sexists, but what has made these characters ultimately fail is how they have been forcefully linked to old beloved ones (Burnham being a secret Spock sister who is the reason for his friendship with Kirk, Rey being more powerful than all the legacy chacaters and unilaterally declaring herself a Skywalker). People can instinctively tell the hidden hand of corporate greed manipulating them.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Silly I mean, I get this stuff in the sense that if you kill off Kirk badly you won't get any more good stories with this character, in the same way that if you ruin Seven of Nine then future stories will likely be saddled by this decision. So in this sense I do understand why someone would want to erase these mistakes.

But when it comes to actors that are too old to realistically be a driving force of cool stories in the future, then who cares? The awful Picard Season 1 and 2 still happened, Season 3 doesn't erase them. And "All Good Things" happened too, if I want that ending I can just go and rewatch it. What is the point of just recreating it to stick it at the end of everything? Can't we get something new for once?

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@CaptainWacky @Booming @Sigh2000 "Here's my take on it: Nostalgia heals wounds. Mike and Rich even said something like that....a repair surgery for all the cinematic ruination that occured after All Good Things (paraphrase).

Nostalgia enabled the RLM guys to regain their enthusiasm after years of abuse. To generalize from their experience, nostalgia is therapeutic for our species. It is a necessary capacity allowing us to recapture positive life aspects which were lost as a result of unwanted change."

What I love about this is that all of the praise that RLM showered upon Picard Season 3 could have been equally achieved if, instead of filming and releasing 10 episodes, Paramount had issued a corporate statement saying "As of now, events after 'All Good Things' affecting The Next Generation crew will no longer be considered part of the official Star Trek canon." Following the RLM arguments, we should all be equally happy and have 10 extra hours in our hands to spend with family and friends.

Have we all become adult children? Instead of brushing aside the films and shows we don't like, we apparently needed to actually SEE them retconned. We need to SEE some new showrunner rebuilding the ship, ressucitating the android and restoring the original Poker Ending Scene we all remembered fondly. Would it not be easier and cheaper to just enjoy the stories we enjoy and discard the rest?

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@Yanks @AP I don't think Jack's responsibility here can be equated to previously assimilated people on these shows. Jack voluntarily goes to seek out the Borg Queen with the objective of killing her but with such a reckless and stupid plan that he must be held responsible for the deaths that are derived as a consequence (also, he knew he only needed to wait one more day for her plan to be foiled!). Furthermore, the fact that he himself is able to reverse his assimilation simply due to the "power of love" shows that he was at least partially complicit in it. This is hardly the same as drones who are forced to murder.

I will agree though that, among all the massive plot holes, this one isn't the worse.

@Booming I think the term "Mary Sue" may not be appropriate here. Being perfect isn't enough to qualify as such: A character is only a Mary Sue when it is inserted into a preexisting universe and proceeds to surpass and obsess preexisting characters. Tom Clancy creating male fantasy stereotypes in his own original books doesn't qualify. I think this point is pretty key to fairly analyze the backlash against some new characters inserted into modern franchises (which, of course, doesn't deny the rampant sexism).

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

"How has Seven not earned her position? Years on Voyager, presumably years in Starfleet since we last saw her, one of the greatest scientific minds in the Federation, decades of relevant experience....."

No, I think Season 3 happens relatively shortly after Season 2. A reasonable use of the character would have Seven be more than qualified by this time to be a captain, the problem is that this show's Marvel-esque writing made her be a crazy violent pirate with no experience as an officer because Starfleet is racist. So no, against all odds they managed to make Seven not earn her position.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

"Stealing from Star Wars movies, repeating the old TNG ending. Renaming the Titan to Enterprise, using the sent off for the TNG crew as a set up for a new show. The Federation president is named Chekov. Seven becomes captain for disobeying orders, Jack (a serial liar and hardened criminal) gets an officer commission for free. Defeating the Borg for the 17th time. Turning a franchise finally into this anti form in which it is not people living and being formed in world that is better than ours but where it is all about personal relationships and family which, considering how they tossed all the relationships from the first two seasons, feels really weird. Only the most marketable relationships remained, I guess. Not to forget, nobody is ever really gone."

Amen, @Booming. Yet you must admit you were wrong: In this case, unlike in previous NuTrek seasons, the fandom didn't turn on the show at the end. They love what has been delivered. Unity at last.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

@theBgt It is worse than Jack not earning his commission: He is a criminal whose actions (giving himself up to the Borg Queen) led to the murder of thousands of Starfleet officers. The fact that the show believes this is something to be glazed over comes at about a 9.5 in the Burnham Scale of Forgotten Genocide.

Re: PIC S3: The Last Generation

Fascinating how so many Season 3 fans seem positively obsessed with those of us who don't like it. Some odd psychological issues going on here.

Overall, this was pretty bad. Sure, all the wrap-up moments are fine, but the conclusion of the plot is even dumber than I expected, and I expected A LOT of dumb. Essentially, the Borg Queen creates this incredibly elaborate plot involving changelings, transporters and Fun With DNA, but then forgets to defend her base of operations from a single, obsolete, undercrewed starship (she even invites it in by lowering the shields for reasons!). Ultimately, the clever trekkian solution our heroes come up is... shoot everything. We'll use our plot armor to navigate to the center of the cube and then Escape the Mega-Explosion at The Last Possible Moment™. So satisfying.

Count me in as part of the minuscule minority who wants to keep Terry Matalas' hands very far away from Star Trek.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Bryan Though slightly unfair to both The Last Jedi and Picard Season 3 (because IMO the former has powerful themes and the latter good characterizations) I definitely buy the comparison you are making here. Due to the way they are run, modern franchises echo how corporations think about resources more broadly: It is a dichotomy between "opening new markets by finding the lowest common denominator" in times of largesse and "slash everything! Let's retrench into our core operations!" in times of tight budgets.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

I also don't get the comparison with Star Trek VI here. Star Trek VI is remarkably devoid of memberberries/fan service. There is no commandeering of a TOS-style Constitution class vessel while paying a visit to the Guardian of Forever to go back in time and stop Khan with a tribble-derived biologic weapon. Characters don't constantly reminisce about past events for the sake of the audience.

What we get is a thoughtful action-adventure thriller with grounded political allegories. Yes, characters reflect on ageing and prejudice derived from past events, but this is all restrained and rooted in the themes of the story. The sendoff works not because it parades Star Trek's "greatest hits" but because it's a good movie that effectively develops the theme of passing the torch to new sensibilities.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Silly "Uncritically praising season 3?

We've had so much criticism here we've had critics criticizing critics, and them being criticized back for doing that."

I think that when one's opinion is "none of this makes any sense but I love it, shut up," it is pretty fair to define it as self-admitted uncritical praise. If you have a better term, I'll take it.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Jax "The "this is dumb but I love it anyway" schtick is like sci-fi MAGA..."

This made me laugh quite a lot. Still, we all enjoy dumb crap sometimes and that's fine: consuming it as entertainment (as a opposed to an expression of political action) hurts nobody. So when @Jammer says "Don't care. Shut up. This is fan service of the highest order, and that's the point" I guess that's fine if interpreted this way.

What bothers me is the notion that this can be in any way compared to hours of TV like "The Drumhead," "The Inner Light" or even medium-good TNG episodes. You know, actual artistic creation that stands on its own merits. And make no mistake: this is the nasty implication of uncritically praising Picard Season 3. Did I enjoy a lot of it? Sure. I also really enjoyed the bag of Cheetos I just ate. But I'm aware that it's just well-crafted garbage.

So yeah, maybe "that's the point." And if we rate his creation based on this point, Terry Matalas gets full marks. But hey, perhaps there are other points when evaluating a television show, beyond rating how tasty the garbage was?

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Jax I hasn't, they get that from the original cadaver, remember?

@Huh Indeed. The Dumb is very strong with this show.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

@Huh It's because Picard has a borg receiver in his brain, whereas Jack has a borg transmitter in his brain. They needed Picard's brain to implant the receivers in people, and then have Jack's brain to transmit the commands. Why are both brains different? Reasons.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

This has become just like a soap opera and we are all invested because we've watched the previous 134,065 episodes. But, just like people who watch afternoon soaps, we should have the decency to admit to the world that we are watching pure, unadulterated, guilty pleasure crap.

Re: PIC S3: Vox

Surprised at the positive tone here. Yes, the nostalgia of using all the "greatest hits" works at the primal level if you are a Star Trek fan and the excitement is competently executed... but if we try to analyze this objectively as art, surely we all realize this is hot garbage, right?

Right?

Re: MAND S3: Chapter 23: The Spies

@Roger Ailes Fine, but then why have him ask for the darksaber at all? The point is that the writers draw the parallel with the past in this scene but then don't use it to highlight any character decisions or relevant drama. It's all a waste of potential. I want to like these characters, but they are mere cyphers.

Re: MAND S3: Chapter 23: The Spies

A great episode with a lot of good payoffs... if those payoffs had been set up during the rest of the season.

The Mandalorian seems intent in constantly telling rather than showing. Here we have three tribes uniting to retake Mandalore, but we have no idea why they are fine uniting when they weren't before. Sure, there is The Armorer's design to crown Bo Katan as sole leader, but why now? Bo Katan already used to be the leader. The rifts between the tribes aren't related to any actual political rifts that happened during the Fall of Mandalore, even though in this episode we are told many ways in which those rifts could have feasibly happened. Also, the power of the darksaber as a unifying symbol is suddenly completely omitted here.

There are two egregious examples in this episode of a low-hanging narrative fruit that the writers somehow miss. First we have Bo Katan explaining how she made the wrong decision in trusting Moff Gideon in the past by surrendering to him and handing over the darksaber. The situation is then mirrored later in the episode when Gideon captures the mandalorians and asks Bo Katan to hand over the weapon again... yet he makes no offer of clemency that leads to Bo Katan facing the same decision again. Nor do we know how Bo Katan has grown as a leader to avoid the mistakes of the past. We get some exposition by Din about how the darksaber is meaningless and he only follows her because she has honor, but we have seen no apparent change in the character. This season is structured as a redemption arc for Bo Katan without any actual redemption happening. We don't see any evolution in Din either that exemplifies how he comes to believe in her, beyond her saving him from a cave monster. Everything is solved simply by the plot going from A to B.

Then there is the sacrifice of Paz Vizsla to allow Bo Katan to escape, which somehow happens without any reference to the fact that the Vizla family are historical sworn enemies of the Kryze family in the struggle for the leadership of Mandalore (this is all lore established by Filoni himself!). It seemed obvious to me that this character existed as a foil for Bo Katan, in order to show how she managed to turn even the historic enemies of her clan to her side. Yet none of this is shown this season. Paz puts his trust behind Bo Katan simply because she saved his son from a pterodactyl or something (being saved from a monster is all the character drama this show understands).

It is maddening, because the plot being told here is fine and the overall design of the characters is fine. But Favreau and Filoni simply have no ability to write even the most obvious character drama, and thus everything ends up being a hollow exercise of "things happen."

Re: PIC S3: The Bounty

@Leif The fact they were in the original Federation charter does NOT make them part of Starfleet Intelligence. DS9 was very clear on the fact that Section 31 isn't Starfleet but a rogue organization. NuTrek loves Section 31 and can't help but whitewashing them into being some legitimate intelligence service, thus changing the entire portrayal of the Federation.

@Karl Zimmerman For the above reason, I'm unsurprised if Starfleet officers are depicted tolerating torture. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.

@Jeffrey's Tube Yes, it's deeply odd and I can only conclude Matalas et al skipped Season 1 of TNG. Also unsurprising.