No, it's the movie where the director uses the conflict between the Joker and Batman in the larger context of the collapse of the traditional Gotham City power structure to tell an allegorical story about the seeming collapse of the American social contract after the Iraq War and the Bush Administration. You should actually engage with the material before you dismiss it.
And to be clear, the makeup for the Joker in The Dark Knight is supposed to look cheap, because he just put clown makeup on to make himself look weird. It's the Glasgow smile that serves as his originating physical deformity rather than skin that's been bleached in-universe.
I don't care about the material when I find the movie boring and don't like the way The Joker is portrayed. They've turned a great and interesting character into an insane loser, basically a non-succesful punk rocker with bad make-up.
You are thinking of Elementary, and he is not "an ordinary guy." He's still a super-genius detective.
And I don't understand how a British detective from the 19th century can turn up in the 21st Century USA. That's not bad storytelling, just downright silly. Why not create a new 21st character who is
inspired by Holmes instead?
You are wrong -- there are not more contradictions than before.
Oh yes, it is.
I don't really care if you like the storytelling in the context of this discussion, because the point isn't whether or not you liked it. The point is whether or not your assertion that it's all gloom-and-doom is accurate. It is objectively not accurate. You may not like recent DIS seasons -- though how could you know that if you haven't seen it? -- but it's still objectively not all doom-and-gloom.
What I saw of it was doom-and-gloom, weak characters, bad storytelling and those Mutant Ninja Turtles. Enough for me to quit watching, something I'm happy that I did considering that outrageous event which I mentioned in the spoiler.
It is not an echo of TNG. It is doing completely different things than TNG. It's not an echo -- it's a completely different paragraph.
It's still built on TNG characters.
None of that matters. What matters if whether or not your assertion that PIC is all doom-and-gloom is accurate. It is objectively not accurate.
A lot of it is gloomy, especially compared with TNG. And I don't like doom-and-gloom scenarios in series and movies.
Then you're using words inaccurately. Many things that you or I enjoy may be of objectively poor quality, and many things that you or I don't enjoy could be of objectively high quality. I happen to enjoy Tommy Wiseau's film The Room, but it is by any reasonable measure a terrible film. I do not enjoy Mad Men, but it is by any reasonable measure a television series of enormously high quality. Quality and enjoyment are entirely separate things.
There are very few people who are objective. Everyone is affected by his or hers way of seeing things. I try to be objective now and then but I'm not 100% objective and honestly, I don't think that you are it either.
Well, first off, I think Lower Decks has depth, but one only sees that depth over time after engaging with its subtext. I also think that Prodigy has a lot of depth. "A Moral Star, Parts I & II" are wonderful episodes.
As for "accurate" animation -- what is the point of animation if it's not stylized?
I haven't watched that much of
Lower Decks and I haven't watched
Prodigy yet, therefore I can't go into any deeper discussion about the content in the series, if they had depth or not. I only experienced
Lower Decks as a bit cartoonic. That was not criticizm, just an accurate observation.
As for accurate animation, I find that a fantastic opportunity for the future. Then we can have, let's say a sequel to, let's say Deep Space Nine where all important characters are involved, no matter if the actors are deceased or their looks have changed.
I'm sorry, but you're objectively wrong about that. Now, you may not enjoy the artistic purposes behind those creative decisions. You may argue that the decisions do not function well within the story. You may argue that the decisions do not achieve the goals the writers set for them. You may reasonably just respond, "I am too emotionally attached to these fictional settings to engage with the material so I didn't enjoy it." All those responses would be valid. But saying the writers didn't have an artistic purpose behind those decisions? That's not a matter of taste, that's a matter of objective fact. And it's just false.
So if I blow up my neighbors house, it could be called "artistic" or "creative"? Unfortunately, I would end up in a very bad place if I did that and no one should see me as "creative", instead I would be labeled as rather insane.
OK, destroying a planet or killing off a character in a fictional universe won't be considered a crime as such but count on that a lot of fans and followers of that fictional universe would be very p***ed off, as I am about certain events which I find both unnecessary and downright stupid.
Star Trek writers have always tried to maintain continuity but they have also always had to balance that goal against the goal of telling good stories in a limited production timeframe and on a limited production budget. Sometimes they make decisions that fit our personal evaluations of how to balance those two goals. Sometimes they don't. But it's not a matter of them "not learning" or of "ego."
That may be true but sometimes they fail miserably. And sometimes I get the impression that they are out to put trheir special mark on the product which can be labeled as "ego". Not to mention when that includes totally unnecessary character destruction and humiliation of a character.
Then you maybe give the Star Trek writers the same level of grace you would ask for yourself in their shoes?
To be honest, I can do that. I've been very critical to berman and Braga in some of my posts, especially when it comes to VOY. But I've also given them a lot of credit and good words when it comes to TNG.
There is also a difference. First of all, I'm just a simple fan-fiction writer, not a writer and producer for a show which is watched by millions of people. Second, even my half-a**ed explanation in story 2 about events that were different from what was written at the end of story 1 was at least an explanation or an attempt to make an explanation for what could be seen as a continuity error. Third, I actually try to avoid continuity errors and contradictions in my stories. However, that might change a bit since I might revive Lt. Carey (VOY), Weyoun (DS9) and Gowron (TNG, DS9) in possible stories. Who knows, maybe Dukat too! The best Star Trek villain ever! Hello
Lynxverse!
Oh jeeze. The worst uniforms in ST history as far as I'm concerned!
I happen to like them! But Security should be separated from Engineering and have its own color. Light green maybe.
I think you would probably like the show on the whole, even if you didn't like some elements of it.
I think so too.
A good, well-thought story is defined by its dramatic effect.
And, again, you don't have to like their creative decisions to not attack their character as individuals. I'm not here to tell you it was an inherently good decision to destroy Vulcan. I'm here to argue that:
1) Destroying Vulcan opened up as many new avenues for quality storytelling as it closed, and therefore is not an inherently good or bad creative decisions; and
2) That it is inappropriate to attribute creative decisions you don't like based upon your subjective aesthetics to poor character on the part of the artist. I don't happen to enjoy impressionism; that doesn't make Monet a bad person.
But bad dramatic effects can ruin a show. Just think of the movie
Con Air. An excellent, exciting movie-until the last minutes. That Fire engine ramming one house after another over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I remember watching it, thinking:
"Yawn! Oh, there goes another house. "Isn't the movie over soon?" "I wonder what I will have to dinner tomorrow?" "How can my favorite hockey team win tomorrow's game?" "Oh, another explosion" "I really love the guitar solo in Iron Maiden's Aces High". Isn't the movie over YET? "Darling, wake me up when the movie is over." Yawn!"
Compare instead with the masterpiece
Alien (the first movie). No ten minutes with explosions. Few real effects and the monster doesn't really show up until in the last minutes. OK,
Alien was a bit doom-and-gloom but it was supposed to be a horror movie, not Star Trek so I can forgive that.
In my opinion, destroying Vulcan was a stupid move because it contradicted
everything in what we see in the series after TOS and it was an over-exaggerated action from the producers, as stupid as if I should blow up my neighbor's house and call it "artisti creativity". Not to mention that it created a new timeline which also was totally unnecessary.
In fact, my criticizm against certain unnecessary destruction is not criticizm of the
persons involved as such but criticizm of the
action and why it was done.
I consider Keith Moon of The Who a brilliant rock drummer. But he was also a lunatic who trashed hotel rooms, abused drugs and alcohol and sometimes behaved badly. But if I criticize Moonie's destructiv acts and call them lunacy, it's not an attack on Moonie himself as a
person. I never knew or met Moonie so I can't judge him as a person. What've heard and read, he could be very nice from time to time, especially to his fans. He was always nice to this fans.
"Necessary?" No, but for that matter it's not "necessary" to hire actors or construct sets. They could just as easily write a short outline of each episode and then just transmit to everyone's screen.
Now, that was an exaggerated comment!
They wanted to create that dramatic effect. That's the fundamental impulse behind almost every creative decision on a TV series. If you don't want that dramatic effect, that's legitimate. But the Klingon makeup redesign is a completely subjective thing -- your dislike of the design is neither objectively right nor objectively wrong. It's just aesthetics.
Whatever, I find it stupid and short-sighted.
It is not character destruction and it is not stupidity. It is, again, inappropriate of you to attribute creative decisions you subjectively dislike based on your personal aesthetics to personal flaws on the part of the creators. If you don't like the Klingon redesign, that does not make Bryan Fuller et al egotists or stupid; if you do not like impressionism, that does not make Monet a narcissist or stupid.
I think they ruined the Klingons by making them monsters. That's bad storytelling if any and downright childish too. The Klingons were great characters, both as villains and later allies to the Federation. No need to do them worse than they might have been back in those days. It's like making a WWII movie where the Germans have horns and fangs.
And I have very little respect for Bryan Fuller since he participated in writing and producing the most awful, disgusting and insulting episode ever made in any TV series. Still, I don't judge him as a person. I would actually like to sit down and talk to him over a nice cup of coffee and in my most pleasant and polite voice ask him:
"How could you possible come up with an episode which was the most horrible and insulting piece of s**t I've seen in my whole life"?
Because Bryan Fuller wanted to get people to associate the idea of Klingons with the idea of aliens that look scary again. He felt that the Klingon makeup design of the TNG era was too familiar and no longer scary, and he wanted Klingons to be scary in the war story he wanted to tell with them.
If you don't subjectively like that idea or it doesn't work for you, that's totally legitimate. But it doesn't make your creative impulse in this circumstance superior to his.
I think tjhat his re-make of the Klingons was destructive and even downright childish.
And I might sound or more correctly look very arrogant, big-headed and full of myself now but I'm actually superior to him when it comes to the aspect of that horrible, disgiusting episode he was involved in which I mentioned. "Why?", you might ask. Because it took me just one minute to repair the damage he had done in that episode!
I strongly disagree. They have made both of them more interesting than just doing the same damn thing over and over again with them.
No, they have totally ruined two great and important species in the Star trek Universe and turned them into some thing half-done, lukewarm, second-rate people.
What I'm taking from this is that you don't like change, and you want Star Trek to be a static franchise that hits the same basic creative beats over and over again.
That's a legitimate subjective aesthetic preference, but it's clearly not one the producers of DIS share with you. And the desire for evolution and change is just as legitimate.
I don't like change just for the sake of changing. It's often stupid, counter-productive and devastating. Like when the then bosses for the hockey team New York Islanders changed their outfit and logo, replacing the classic logo with a bad drawing of a fisherman. The fans went crazy, which was most understandable. One of them wrote: "How can they be so stupid that they change a classic logo which with the team have won four Stanley Cups to a bad drawing of a sardine salesman"
It took some years but after a while, the club had to admit their mistake and back with the old Jerseys and logo.
Bottom line:
You don't change a winning team and a winning concept!
What the producers may think and not share with me is actually something I don't care about. They should be thinking about why Discovery never will be as popular as TOS, TNG, DS9 and even VOY.
Which goes back to what I said earlier: With so much Star Trek on the air today, there really can be something for everyone. I tend to want evolution and change over time -- Discovery and Picard are probably more to my tastes in that regard. You want the traditional formula -- Strange New World is probably more to your tastes. And in a world where we have five different Star Trek series on the air simultaneously, there should be a lot of room to meet both sets of subjective preferences.
In that I can agree. I'm still waiting and hoping for that 24th century series which will take place after the Dominion War. A series with new characters but where some favorite character from TNG, DS9 and VOY can show up.
And Vulcan society still exists and is rebuilding in the Kelvin Timeline, and Romulan society still exists and is rebuilding in the Prime Timeline.
I don't care about the Kelvin Timeline because as it is now, I will stay away from that.
But the Romulans have been destroyed and if that affects future 24th century storytelling, then it is something I can't accept.
And what about the Romulans we have seen in TNG, DS9 and VOY. Didn't they exist? It looks like Discovery has created its own timeline with lukewarm Romulcans and Mutant Ninja Turtles instead of Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons. That is destructive if anything
you just went into politics. Your statement there is inherently political. In particular, it is political because the consequence of never re-imagining old white legacy characters as POC in a world where legacy media dominates popular culture, is that characters who were made white because they were created at a time when TV producers considered whiteness the "default" setting for American culture, will always outnumber POC characters. Which reinforces the unconscious assumption in the mass audience that white people are the default setting for the human race and that white domination of society is natural.
That's why it is often a good thing to reimagine white characters as POC characters: It undermines white supremacy.
I don't want to go into politics here because it's very off-topic. But please spare me from that "white supremacy" talk. Personally I'm sick and tired of the political correctness and tendency to verbally atttack white people and accuse us for what happened in the 19th century and in some cases up toi the 60:s. I had no part of it and neither me nor the generations after the 60's should be hold responsible for that.
Or should today's Germans still be spat on for what Hitler did in the 1930's and 1940's?
How can we create a world of better understanding and move forward if we continue to constantly look on the mirror after what was wrong?
). Anyway, later on I got a mail from a person who had read the story and appreciated it, telling me that the dictator reminded him of Fidel Castro. I found it a bit odd since I didn't ebven think of Castro when I wrote the story but I could clearly see the point in the message I got.
