Larry Wilmore on Nightly Show: "Nerds Hate Change"

[MacLeod]

^What you say is largely accurate but the classic era was dominated by 25min length episode so a modern episode is close to double that so you could say that a modern episode equates to two episodes of the classic era or 28 episodes worth in classic terms. When you get to the Third Doctor era it's about 25 or so episode per season. But I suspect that 1st-4th Doctors had most screen time with the 5th, 10th and 11th being similar with Doctors 6-9 having the least screen time.

But in terms of the length of time an actor Doctor doesn't it go from their first apperance to their regeneration?

This probably belongs in the Doctor Who forum, but I can see where you're going with your argument. I still wish we'd had more time with several of the doctors though.

Which Doctor's in particular do you wish we had more time with?

^What you say is largely accurate but the classic era was dominated by 25min length episode so a modern episode is close to double that so you could say that a modern episode equates to two episodes of the classic era or 28 episodes worth in classic terms. When you get to the Third Doctor era it's about 25 or so episode per season. But I suspect that 1st-4th Doctors had most screen time with the 5th, 10th and 11th being similar with Doctors 6-9 having the least screen time.

But in terms of the length of time an actor Doctor doesn't it go from their first apperance to their regeneration?

If you're going to by frist appearance to regeneration, McCoy ran from 1987 to 1996 and McGann from 1996 to 2013. In truth Pertwee had five seasons and Tennant and Smith had only three.

Perhaps, but in the case of McGann we had seen several regenerations before we say his. and in the case of the period between 89-96 McCoy was the Doctor as no other other actor played him in a live-action role the same applies for McGann for the period 96-05.

 

[Velocity]

About nerds and change....I think that the science fiction genre is about world building and if writers or producers dink about changing certain aspects of that world, it throws the fan out of it and makes it difficult to be comfortable in it again. That doesn't happen so much in police procedurals or mysteries or other types of fiction whose fans aren't called nerds or other derogatory names.

 

[Jax]

when it comes to change and for a group that watches material that preaches open-mindedness, a lot of nerds are racist and sexist. It's very disheartening

I agree with this though more about sexism than race.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Hancock was an original black super hero. Ad as far as new teams you had The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Watchmen, The Specials. None of the newer more original made much of a dent in the box office.

The same argument can be made for people who complain about every new movie being a remake of something else. Instead seems to be that the stuff nobody's ever heard of doesn't get watched with near the regularity anymore.

Doctor Who is kind of the opposite-people seem to like the change of the Doctor, the producers, companions etc. although there was some resistance to David Tennant leaving (similarly with Tom Baker).

So far a lot of the nuWho anger I've seen has been about the showrunners. People were super eager for Moffat to take over from Davies...until he did.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

As for the regenerations, there's usually a gap of a couple months before the new actor truely debuts in a new season. There are a few exceptions to this-Hartnell regenerated into Troughton in the middle of season 4, and Colin Baker's debut serial as the Doctor was the season finale of Peter Davison's last season. McCoy's regeneration was at the start of his first serial (Although it was mainly him in a Colin Baker wig with some FX), and McCoy regenerates into Mcgann in the first half hour or so of the TV movie.


The transition from Mcgann to Eccleston wasn't shown until the Fiftieth anniversary special Day if the Doctor and it's prologue, Night of the Doctor, whch also fit a new incarnation inbetween (Hurt/The War Doctor).



As for the procedurals mentioned earlier in the thread, CSI at least has gone through some cast overhauls in the last couple of years, as well as some changes to the Grissom/Sara relationship which got some fans upset.

 

[Marsden]

3. The recent row about the black storm trooper

There was a row about the black stormtrooper?

Do you mean the man running and sweating in the trailer?

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Yup. Many fans balked at that, claiming that all stormtroopers were still Jango Fett clones. Never mind the fact that by the time of the OT in the continuity timeline, there were people talking about joining the Imperial Army (like Luke), with stormtroopers that were clearly of all different shapes and sizes and voices. This made the legitimacy of many of the "he shouldn't be black" arguments quite dubious. This one was clearly a "Django Fett" clone (the "D" is silent)!

 

[Marsden]

That's something. I always assumed, although I only saw it once, that he had stolen the armor like Han and Luke had in the first movie. But even if he's a trooper with his helmet off, which is unusual*, why assume only one clone stock?

I always believed recruited people would be like those guys with the black helmets, ala "Death Squad/ Death Star/ Star Destroyer Commander" and the "Stormtroopers" were clones, but that doesn't match with the EU, but the EU is kind of out now, too.

*Also, why would a Stormtrooper take of his helmet when they never do/never have before? I read that they are trained to not take them off and feel vulnerable without them.

 

[137th Gebirg]

It is entirely possible that it's not a Trooper at all, like you say, without understanding the context in which the scene operates. Basically, I don't think we will truly know until the film starts unspooling (does film still spool, or is it not even film anymore?). Doesn't matter to me in any case as long as it makes sense in that context.

The whole argument is silly, IMO, like the furor that came up about that three-pronged Sith lightsaber that occurred about the same time the trailer was released. They're clearly looking for something different and visually appealing in this new production - understandably so. Sometimes practicality takes a back seat to such things so long as it looks "kewel" and doesn't obtusely detract from the overall plot.

CoolEddie74's title for "The Nerd Rage Awakens" thread elsewhere on the board is an astonishingly apropos title for Episode VII, in light of all this foolishness.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Actually Luke (and his friend Biggs, who appears in a bunch of deleted scenes but only appears in the movie at the end) were probably going to sign up for the fighter pilot academy. Also part of Han's backstory included in Lucas's notes and used for the original EU is that Han had a very brief career as an Imperial pilot as well, but left or was discharged when he freed Chewbacca or something. (Han was in some early drafts of ROTS as well, but that was thankfully dropped.)


The black helmeted guys seemed to be classified kind of oddly. Some sources establish them as the regular army, with the Stormtroopers being more of an elite unit. Most of the time they seem to be more of a technical unit, as we see them on several consoles in the films. The uniform continuity in the films isn't the best anyway, so who knows.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^ Agreed - they seem to have over-engineered all the different flavors of troopers with their various specializations. There were the Sand Troopers, Snow Troopers, Scout Troopers, gray-uniformed AT-AT and AT-ST drivers, the black-uniformed TIE pilots, etc., etc. It was visually interesting and appealing, sure, but I can imagine that it was somewhat convoluted to keep track of it all for the poor folks in the production/costuming staff. Inconsistencies were bound to happen. Probably why they were mostly all CGI in the second trilogy. Easier to keep track of by just copy/pasting.

 

[the G-man]

In case you missed is, Larry Wilmore on the Nightly Show, attempted to dig into why so many SF/Fantasy fans get so upset when movie studios make dramatic changes - or even minor ones - to their favorite genres.

Is this really unique to nerds or sci-fi? Whenever a book gets adapted into a movie at least some of the book's fans complain.

For example, just a couple of years ago, fans of the Jack Reacher books were complaining bitterly that Tom Cruise was all wrong for the part.

Same thing with remakes and sequels. Before the Coen Brothers' True Grit came out, there were people who thought it kind of sacrilegious that someone other than the Duke might play Rooster Cogburn.