“Jean-Luc Picard is back”: will new Picard show eclipse Discovery?
- Thread starter Groppler Zorn
- Start date
I dunno. My experience was that we all knew it was a Marbel superhero movie going in. I will give you that they were playing the Interview With The Vampire soundtrack in the lobby, but that’s the thing...I don’t think the nineties were exactly Vampire movie central like you say (I was a goth at the time. I would have noticed.) there was Interview and Dracula, then a good few years later there’s Blade. There’s an Eddie murphy flop, and Dead and loving it, but both of those are aiming at the Coppola films publicity. Then the Vampire things kick off (oops, I guess there’s Dusk Till Dawn in the middle) in theatres, Buffy is doing good money on TV and the Twilight stuff starts to happen a few years down the pipe along with underworld etc (and of course, Blade and Underworld both have some White Wolf DNA in there.)
There are probably as many mainstream Vampire movies happening in the nineties as there was in any previous decade. It’s the post Blade, post Buffy era that things kick off (oh let’s mention Razor Blade Smile...or whatever it’s called. Cheap and cheeses indie film. And Near Dark. Just because.) before someone realises it’s easier to write scripts for all that zombie bullshit we have been suffering through ever since.
Blade was massive for its demographic at the time. Till Matrix stole its thunder basically. And everyone knew it was a superhero film, because it’s deep in the superhero style of the time (post Burton Batman’s, roughly same time as X Men is a serious pop culture thing and about to hit the movies.)
You also keep ignoring that Blade absolutely has super powers. (A) all the Vampire stuff plus (b) he’s the Day Walker.
Culturally, it’s absolutely the Black Panther of its day, because it has a massive crossover appeal, and representation for a group of people in a big way. It even has sequels. (Ok..2 borrowed from the second crow film, not in a good way, and three was...and odd duck. A very beautiful odd duck, but an odd duck.) But...we rewrite history, because everything of the now has to be the first, and disguise the shoulders being stood on, in the eyes of fandom. DSC is the most amazeballs Trek evah! First Black lead! First female lead! (Ds9 didn’t happen. We imagined Voyager, which bye, still knocks DSC into a cocked hat in terms of on screen characters representing different genders and ethnic groups.) Ghostbusters is retconned into some misogyny category (it really wasn’t) so it’s sort of reboot can take a stand (again, just to clarify, this is all stuff coming from publicity machines at studios or fans, not a comment on the films themselves. And there’s a big backlash against the old films to help push the new in some groups it seems) The old Star Wars is just silly! New Star Wars is so much more progressive (my minds unmade on that one. Probably cos I think they’re all nuts. Admittedly, same is true around the ghostbusters thing and DSC. Never have I seen so much crazy erupting across the surface of geekdom.)
I find it disheartening we can’t just love these new things for what they are, and have to find some flaw in the old things to make the new seem that much shinier.
TLDR; Blade was/is awesome, people need to recognise. Are we going to discount MIB from being a comic book film soon?
I don't think every person in the MCU or the MU with "powers" are superheroes.
For an old guy, he's still quite fit! I bet he watches what he eats and exercises every day.
Just the goodies xD
Nah, Marvel has all sorts of "goodies." Cowboys, monsters, spacemen, aliens... They aren't all superheroes.
Which ones are? Cos I think this going to be entertaining, and possibly confusing,
You want a list?
My definition of "superhero" is pretty inclusive. I think Spock and Data and even Seven qualify as superheroes.
*I think Blade is definitely a superhero. I mean I don't think it's a big leap to him from Buffy, and it would be pretty hard to argue that she isn't one.
*I think Blade is definitely a superhero. I mean I don't think it's a big leap to him from Buffy, and it would be pretty hard to argue that she isn't one.
Again to mirror events in STII:TWoK to a degree. Plus there are PLENTY of TOS TV episodes where one of the main characters die in the episode, only to be resurrected by the end:
Examples:
TOS S1 "Shore Leave" - McCoy
TOS S2 "The Changeling" - Mr. Scott
TOS S3 "The Enterprise Incident" - Kirk
So yeah, seeing it done for Kirk in ST:ID - not a stretch for TOS by any means.
Not just to a degree. That was really the whole point.
The prevailing theme across the first two films was "Star Trek is Kirk and Spock's story." Really it was to show that it's KirkandSpock (as one entity) as opposed to Kirk and Spock.
Abrams and Orci (and I suppose Lindelof)** chose to use one of the most famous/popular scenes from the franchise and use it as a visual pivot-point so that the two respective glass panels really do act, as you say, like a mirror. A sort of "For the grace of God..." imagery.
** I wonder how much Krutzy played into this decision as well. One thing Disco shares with the first two films is the use of abstract imagery to invoke theme, which is kind of a new thing for Star Trek (which has historically been much more literal in a Last Battlefield sort of way).
Maybe that's part of why I really didn't like the Kevin movies. Because while Kirk, Spock, and yes McCoy (which the Kelvinverse treated as an afterthought until Beyond) played a big role in the tone of TOS, they really were not central to the story. In a sense they were along for the ride just as we were, but over 80% or so the time they had no personal connections to any of the characters involved in the story of the week.
What made Kirk/Spock/McCoy fun to watch was the "character moments" which were added - the banter between the three characters. But you could just as easily imagine another three Starfleet officers in their stead (albeit perhaps not as engaging).
Perhaps early in the first season that was true when it was a sort of anthology, but I don't think that was true for most of the episodes. Even, so in the first few episodes we had Kirk's best friend, McCoy's old girlfriend, Kirk split in two and the entire crew with their innerselves laid open
The Kelvin films do pretty much all things that TOS had done before, in some fashion or another.Again to mirror events in STII:TWoK to a degree. Plus there are PLENTY of TOS TV episodes where one of the main characters die in the episode, only to be resurrected by the end:
Examples:
TOS S1 "Shore Leave" - McCoy
TOS S2 "The Changeling" - Mr. Scott
TOS S3 "The Enterprise Incident" - Kirk
So yeah, seeing it done for Kirk in ST:ID - not a stretch for TOS by any means.
Well, from someone who wasn't a goth at the time, the mid-late 90s felt like a very vampire moment. And then again in the mid-late 2000s, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
I really don't see that at all. X-men and Blade have almost nothing in common (the movies). And X-men is not actually out yet until 2000. The 'superhero style of the time' is Batman Forever/Batman and Robin.
I haven't ignored that at all. I've stated very clearly: having powers that are just like everyone else in the movies isn't super. It's the difference between Superman on Earth and Superman on Krypton. If Blade were a vampire fighting something other than other vampires all the time he would have a better case.
And the Daywalker thing is a nice 'chosen one' style idea, but it really isn't much of a superpower. Nevertheless it is the reason why I consider Blade as being 'a little bit super', but he's still less super overall rather than more super.
It is the BP of its day. In every way except one: it isn't a superhero movie, and it doesn't provide that same cultural feeling of seeing someone from your group up on the screen as the classic all powerful hero come to save the day.
Again, you can point to Blade, but there have been plenty of other African American led action movies, which have a truly heroic main character fighting baddies who are the same as he is. They aren't superhero movies, but that doesn't mean they're bad or that they've been forgotten.
As for bringing down old things to prop up new ones, I'm sure there are some people who are really doing this, but I think you're strongly discounting the number of people who just never agreed with the common 'wisdom' in the first place. I've always found the original Star Wars trilogy kind of boring. I found the original Ghostbusters moderately funny as a kid, but having grown up I find the humor does appeal to me a lot less and frankly Venkman is a total creep that I'm not really interested in watching anymore, especially since the movie treats him like a true hero who deserves and gets the girl for being so 'great'.
I don't think DSC is better than DS9 (though I do think the potential is there), but as a long time DS9 fan
I do understand that there are plenty of fans who just never liked DS9. I also, as an aside, do not think there is any actual fan who even for a second took that 'first black lead/first female lead' thing even remotely seriously - that was just a dumb statement in an interview. And while I was mildly disappointed by the unimpressive level of diversity on DSC (given the statements/interviews they were making about how seriously they took it) and I do agree Voy is clearly more diverse overall, I don't ignore the fact that Voy itself also has just a very poor reputation. If there seems to be a number of people who've forgotten it - is it not a bit more logical that they might just have honestly forgotten it? Or never even saw it in the first place?
Nobody said he wasn't awesome. Also, nobody said he wasn't a comic book character. Any movie based on a comic book is a comic book movie by definition, whether it's Captain America, Blade, MIB, Wanted, The Walking Dead, or Archie.
But that doesn't make them superhero movies. Not every comic book character is a superhero. Blade, imo, isn't really (though I believe it's a close call, and I understand how some people can see him differently), Jay and Kay are even farther away from being superheroes than he is, and that kid from Wanted is definitely not one in the slightest.
It's not a big leap from the US to Canada, but that doesn't make them the same.
As I already said, I see superhero-ness as a spectrum. From, to take random examples, Superman on the high end (call it 100/inarguably a superhero) to Walter White on the low end (0/inarguably not a superhero). Buffy and Blade are arguably closer to each other than they are to Superman on that scale, but Buffy is still definitely well above 50, while Blade hovers right around the middle. Buffy's powers stand out much more in her environment because she fights all sorts of different things (including evil humans), and her motives could be selfish sometimes but she rarely ever fought just for revenge and she usually honestly was fighting to protect innocent people. She is the more heroic character and the more super character.
Spock and Seven, of course, aren't super at all. They're perfectly normal for their backgrounds and their backgrounds aren't that strange in the context of their stories. Vulcans are a dime a dozen in the Federation, and while Seven is technically unique, her abilities definitely aren't. She's simply a very smart person with lots of knowledge and some residual technology in her body that occasionally shields her from some random space phenomena or other in exactly the same way that having different biology has done for various other characters throughout the franchise. Data is definitely more a cut above the world. But in the end, he's still a professional explorer/scientist, not a superhero. He doesn't go out looking for people who need help or villains that must be thwarted. He just does his job and maybe once in a while runs into a situation where he can help people. And even then, if his Captain orders him not to, he's as likely as not to obey.
Into Darkness = Winter Soldier. It's as close to the same movie as summer blockbusters not featuring the white house get. Government conspiracy, supersoldier, best friends, a giant crash finale.
Let's start analysing Marvel movies thusly and see where it takes us
Into Darkness = Winter Soldier. It's as close to the same movie as summer blockbusters not featuring the white house get. Government conspiracy, supersoldier, best friends, a giant crash finale.
Let's start analysing Marvel movies thusly and see where it takes us
Ouch!
Furthermore, so I get it that Khan is a universal donor, IE his blood is mistaken by every human body for their own and thus knows to create every possible antibody for every possible disease (including death) but how does that make it capable of reviving a tribble?
STID (cut scene):
Khan: I can save her.
Guy: Really?
Khan: I just need a little favor.
Guy: What is it?
Khan: You have to kill yourself along with forty other people and blow up your working place in the process.
Guy: That's ok I don't like them anyway and I like myself even less.
Guy(Thinking): Wait maybe I could pretend to go along with his plan and when he gives me the cure, have him arrested for what he is trying to make me do.... Nah! That wouldn't be honest!
....
Khan: I can save her.
Guy: Really?
Khan: I just need a little favor.
Guy: What is it?
Khan: You have to kill yourself along with forty other people and blow up your working place in the process.
Guy: That's ok I don't like them anyway and I like myself even less.
Guy(Thinking): Wait maybe I could pretend to go along with his plan and when he gives me the cure, have him arrested for what he is trying to make me do.... Nah! That wouldn't be honest!
....
IMHO the whole "superhero" thing has become full of enough of its own tropes that it's pretty identifiable as its own form of speculative fiction these days. It usually borrows heavily from sci-fi and fantasy, but isn't really all that concerned with rigorous worldbuilding. This is because the stories are almost invariably closely wound up with the personal arcs of the heroes themselves. This sets them very far apart from classic sci fi (where the characters were often an afterthought to explore the setting), high fantasy (where worldbuilding is very important) or modern day "epic" speculative fiction (which generally features loads and loads of characters with their own small plot arcs).
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