He can go to Roman World from TOS for that.
Dixon Hill vs The Royale
- Thread starter Mojochi
- Start date
That's what's stated. But from what we are subjected to on-screen both are equally cliche and terrible.
Well there was Janeway's Jane Eyrie pastiche
I just wish they would have given us sci-fi instead of Picard Larping a Noir Story. I mean if I wanted to see that, I'd watch a Noir show.
Isn't the best part of noir the cliches though?
Interesting question though...what makes "Dixon Hill" good but "The Royale" bad, or whether DH even is especially good or TR especially bad. Would Picard objectively acknowledge that DH is bad if put to the question?
We all have our guilty pleasures...or we wouldn't be in this forum.
I've gotten into trouble by calling films others liked bad before, and I can say why I think they're bad, or why other films are good, but because 'good' and 'bad' are somewhat relative terms, my expressing what might be 'objective' criteria isn't necessarily persuasive.
For instance, I got into a discussion about Rise of Skywalker, and a friend said she thought it was good...and then I went into my issues with it...and she basically finished with 'yeah, but Adam Driver's really nice to look at'....so....
Interesting question though...what makes "Dixon Hill" good but "The Royale" bad, or whether DH even is especially good or TR especially bad. Would Picard objectively acknowledge that DH is bad if put to the question?
We all have our guilty pleasures...or we wouldn't be in this forum.
I've gotten into trouble by calling films others liked bad before, and I can say why I think they're bad, or why other films are good, but because 'good' and 'bad' are somewhat relative terms, my expressing what might be 'objective' criteria isn't necessarily persuasive.
For instance, I got into a discussion about Rise of Skywalker, and a friend said she thought it was good...and then I went into my issues with it...and she basically finished with 'yeah, but Adam Driver's really nice to look at'....so....
They weren't cliches when they first appeared! I can only answer this in relation to Raymond Chandler, whose Philip Marlowe books seem the clearest inspiration for Dixon Hill. It really comes down to style - Chandler was one of those writers who managed to bring excellent writing to what was generally considered a lesser genre. Ian Fleming did much the same with the Bond novels (at least the earlier ones), and John Le Carre continues to put out spy novels that feel more like literature than 'pulp'.
A good answer, though still cloaked in relativism. 
I've written some noir, and have been told that I'm not bad at it (to my shock, since I certainly never consciously studied it), and of course I make use of the cliches, so I wonder whether more objective readers would find my work to be Dixon Hill or The Royale quality.
I've written some noir, and have been told that I'm not bad at it (to my shock, since I certainly never consciously studied it), and of course I make use of the cliches, so I wonder whether more objective readers would find my work to be Dixon Hill or The Royale quality.
A good answer, though still cloaked in relativism.
Well, I doubt we'll come up with a measuring stick for art on TrekBBS. I was going to write more about Chandler's style, but... CBA. I guess the most solid thing you could say is that Chandler actually paid attention to how he was using language and strove to make his style just as interesting (or more interesting) than his plot, whereas the author of something like The Royale probably would not have done so. Honestly, I have a hard time believing Picard would want to roleplay as Dixon Hill, but it's obvious Patrick Stewart wanted to.
I've written some noir, and have been told that I'm not bad at it (to my shock, since I certainly never consciously studied it), and of course I make use of the cliches, so I wonder whether more objective readers would find my work to be Dixon Hill or The Royale quality.
Just make it dark fantasy, introduce a magic system, and use 'morally grey' characters. People will love it.
The first of your planned 14 book series.
Isn't that just the Dresden Files, though?
That's kind of what I was getting at. I mean, terrible Humphrey Bogart & Peter Lorre impersonations is hardly giving any credence to this material being some kind of bygone quality genre literature. The fact that they even used a generic name for it, kind of even made it seem like a knockoff of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, in the same way The Royale is also depicted as a similarly cheap version of the same kind of noir. How is Mickey D any more crap than Cyrus Redblock? From the depictions, we can't really say imho
Redblock speaks (at least a little) French. I'm willing to bet that this puts him MILES above Mickey D in Jean-Luc's book.
Well yeah, I agree with you, both is equally terrible.
The only way you can possibly explain it is that in-universe Dixon Hill is good writing but the show-writers failed to convey that because they weren't very good at writing a Noir script.
See it like this example: in a movie about an extremely gifted, fictional painter, the art he produces might look very mediocre to the audience because the film studio didn't manage to commission or buy paintings of sufficient quality and artistic merit. So to the audience they might look mediocre, but in-universe they are artistic masterworks.
And I kinda understand it, I mean they weren't going to hire an acclaimed noir writer just to write the script of an episode that's basically filler and doesn't even have much to do with the premise of their show to begin with.
Bottomline, both Dixon Hill and the Royale were mistakes and they look even more awkward next to each other.
That's the key. In your example, yes, I agree we suspend disbelief if the art in question doesn't measure up to reality. However, we don't then have another story within that universe, about how terrible some other very similar kind of art is, & then pretty much use the same quality of art to depict it lol. You're begging to be called out on it imho
Tracy Tormé was responsible for both episodes, although "The Royale" was drastically changed by others, IIRC. Hence his pseudonym of Keith Mills.
I mean it's not just the Dixon Hill episodes that look awkward next to the Royale, it's pretty much most of Seasons 1-2 that look awkward next to it.
Like, I just re-watched the Royale and my favourite piece of dialogue is:
Deanna: I can't believe this dialogue! Did humans really talk like that?
Gee, I dunno, Dee-Dee, did any sapient lifeforms ever talk/act like you and your crew mates in Season 1?
Also from re-watching the episode. Unless there are scenes we are not privy to, which likely would need additonal locations, which then should be part of that weird simulation, then it might be a book that mostly consist of that Bellhop (who I will wager is supposed to be a self-insert character for the fictional author) winging/talking/monologing about his girlfriend and that Mickey D fella (who is confirmed by Data to only show up in the climax) + plus a subplot about that stereotypical Texan and the stereotypical dumb blonde squandering her inheritance.
So if that is the whole book, it might really be objectively worse than the Dixon Hill novels, since they seem to have a plot? While the Royale seems to be the type of novel were you sit there at the end and question what the point of the story even was.
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Damn straight! The Royale is an underrated surrealistic romp.
Actually, I don't mind the episode at all. I probably enjoy Riker in this episode maybe more than any other time. However, the narrative of the episode is that the book is trash, & therein the fantasy creation is made from crap writing. I just can't reconcile Picard suggesting that, when he is so enamored with very similar writing, by the look of his cheesy Dixon Hill programs
