Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x09 - "Subspace Rhapsody"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
When you found out did that news really change everything?
When you found out did that news really change everything?
As much as I love “Subspace Rhapsody” and its songs, you are not wrong and there really are a number of odd or cringey lines in some of the lyrics and you are listing many of them here. The lyrics are the one aspect of the songs where I feel they could have benefited from another pass and more critical revisions.
For me personally the line that feels the most off is when Uhura sings “They ruptured into a million shards of light” about here dead family. I don’t know, but “a million shards of light” weirdly sounds like trying to paint a beautiful, poetic picture of something truly horrible; and why would she do that? But then also the music sounds so cheerful or melancholic in this moment, which totally clashes with her singing about her dying family. Musically and in terms of singing this is one of the best songs, but the lyrics just don’t feel right to me.
I'm not sure what it says about me (on many levels) that I was listening to Sgt. Pepper's yesterday and thinking "Why didn't Subspace Rhapsody" have lyrics this good?
I get annoyed when people compare Star Wars: Rebels animation to Pixar (instead of something comparable). Not the same class in terms of talent, time, or budget. I have to remind myself to not do the same thing with SR.
OTOH, Once More with Feeling IS comparable and still had better lyrics.
I get annoyed when people compare Star Wars: Rebels animation to Pixar (instead of something comparable). Not the same class in terms of talent, time, or budget. I have to remind myself to not do the same thing with SR.
OTOH, Once More with Feeling IS comparable and still had better lyrics.
Even Sgt Pepper can be ruined in the wrong hands. **RobertStigwood**
Listening to Sgt. Pepper's just says you have good taste.
But yeah, comparing nearly anything to The Beatles at the top of their game is just not fair. It's like comparing any random RomCom to Much Ado About Nothing. 
Once More With Feeling worked so brilliantly because each song was integral to where the overall story and where each of the characters was going. In SR, there are some songs that move the characters' arcs forward (La'an, Spock, Chapel), and some bits in other songs, but as a whole they just aren't as necessary to the story.
Even in that mess, the brilliance of the songs often shine through. I'm thinking especially of "Carry That Weight" during the funeral.
I've only seen parts of Sgt. Pepper's. I said to a friend "I've just seen the worst movie ever made." He said "I highly doubt that." I said "I saw Sgt. Pepper's the movie." "Oh! You actually HAVE seen the worst movie ever made."
I am annoyed at how emotional La'an's song makes me. It's not a good song. But that arc stomps on all my feels.
I am annoyed at how emotional La'an's song makes me. It's not a good song. But that arc stomps on all my feels.
In the recent TrekMovie interview with Kay Hanley and Tom Polce, they actually talked about that line specifically.
H/T to Apple Podcast for the auto-transcription, which is also why there are typos and this is just one wall of text instead of attributing who said what:
Like all of these things, they will smartly, of course, they made us, you know, made us privy to, so that we could incorporate these things. And sometimes it was just so that we had a general feel, but other times, right, Kay, they would just be like, we want you to mention, for instance, like Hammer, and what happened, and we want to mention what happened to Uru's family. And, you know, I think the first time we hit them with a lyric, it was like, we were very on the nose with, I think instead of saying, it was something where, like, you know, instead of shards of light, it was like, you know, they blew up in the sky, you know.
Right, right, because I think, because in that specific example, the original lyric was shards of light, but then we were like, oh, that might be too, like, abstruse for like it. Because it's hard to know in television, like, you do have to be a lot more literal when you're writing for a script. When you're writing, when you're writing in the musical format, you know, you it's it's much more narrative.
And so it's sometimes it's hard to know when to like give like a really delicious metaphor, or just like say the shit, you know, yeah, sometimes it goes the other way.
Anyway, I don't think Subspace Rhapsody can beat the quality of the Beatles.
Sgt. Pepper's can at least be laughed at. The Worst Movie I sat all the way through was Ishtar. The Absolute Worst Movie I ever saw was the direct-to-video Addams Family movie with Tim Curry(!) and Darryl Hannah. I turned it off 10 minutes in. *Humor not found*
I am not annoyed with how emotional La'an's song makes me. It hits waaaaay too close to home for me. So while it may not objectively be a good song, hitting all my feels makes it good to me. Plus, Christina just nails it.
At least that makes a little more sense.
Don't rock the boat Lucy.
Hey, Alice Cooper singing "Sun King" is (unintentionally) funny!
Most of the songs that don't involve Frampton and the Bee Gees are pretty good. Most
You almost make me want to find the movie online somewhere. Almost.