For the next Saw movie, Jigsaw should chain a guy to a chair and force him to read these recurring and unending arguments. You know, to get the viewers really squirming in their seats.
The appeal of Torture-Porn and Popcorn?
- Thread starter TheMasterOfOrion
- Start date
RJD, You obviously have your own definition of what "Dark and Gritty" is, or even "edgy" and "Kickass" because I don't think anyone here agrees with your assessment. There is plenty of precedent for bad things happening in light, fluffy, family friendly affairs, and again there's plenty of humour and heart warming things in dark, gritty and edgy movies and TV shows.
What makes them dark and gritty or light and fluffy is a matter of overall tone and how it's played, not whether it contains light hearted comedy or death and destruction.
What makes them dark and gritty or light and fluffy is a matter of overall tone and how it's played, not whether it contains light hearted comedy or death and destruction.
Gep Malakai pretty much covered some salient points already (and better than I did, natch) so I'll just shoot these out:
No, you were actually saying that since the Star Trek franchise is aimed at adults what is considered merely creepy for Star Wars is a sign of dark and grittiness for the Star Trek franchise.
This, as I said, made no sense for a number of reasons, but it is exactly what you postulated. I get the impression that since your argument doesn't make a lot of sense you need to keep shifting the goalposts, otherwise there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in doing it.
Anyway, the fall of the Twelve Colonies is something that has more plot relevance and more time is spent on in BSG then we get for Alderaan in Star Wars - and yet BSG is an even lighter and goofier series than the Star Wars films ever were.
No, you were actually saying that since the Star Trek franchise is aimed at adults what is considered merely creepy for Star Wars is a sign of dark and grittiness for the Star Trek franchise.This, as I said, made no sense for a number of reasons, but it is exactly what you postulated. I get the impression that since your argument doesn't make a lot of sense you need to keep shifting the goalposts, otherwise there doesn't seem to be a lot of point in doing it.
Obviously not, as the destruction is handled with all the detachment and cool sci-fi SPLOSIONS! attitude that one found in Star Wars. Come on, you're the horror fan here, not I, you should have a better understanding of what grisly entails. Antichrist is a far more grisly film than Star Trek, and its death toll is smaller by a couple of billions.
Hardly. It's the driving force for the entire pilot. Humanity gets genocided, we spend some time seeing the Cylons defeat the humans and attack the homewords, and that frames the backdrop of their need to find a new home. We even get to have a scene on the Colonies showing the Cylons attack (this is where Boxer's daggit died - yep, in a scene of genocide we focus on the dead dog. Riight.)
Anyway, the fall of the Twelve Colonies is something that has more plot relevance and more time is spent on in BSG then we get for Alderaan in Star Wars - and yet BSG is an even lighter and goofier series than the Star Wars films ever were.
I'm not big on torture porn but I do love popcorn. Nice, salty, movie theater popcorn. Nom nom. None of that fake butter stuff though.
No contradiction. Again I'll just refer you back to my Old Yeller/Coyote comment, in an effort to stave off carpal tunnel.
Well, it is kind of a big deal, after all.
Subjective? He's driven to a cold, calculated murder attempt and subsequent homicidal rage by a mouthy cadet, then later shrugs off the death of his entire planet. When Old Spock says, "Don't worry about helping out with the nearly extinct Vulcan species-- it's much more important for you to recreate a friendship I had with another guy in another dimension," he replies, "Hokay" and leaves. At least he loved his Mother. But then, so did Norman Bates.
Except for all the rebooted death, doom and assorted chaos that I outlined above, yeah, I got nothing.
Then 10% is for it. How much more do I need? You seem to think that the Johnny Test parts somehow negate the nuBSG parts.
Well, since everything I've read from them doesn't show up on screen, I would say my theory has some legitimacy.
No, it's painfully obvious. It's rather bizarre that anybody would argue the point. Wait, did you say I have traction with nuBSG...?
I feel like I'm being tortured. I'd rather have the Porn.
You're right, of course, but that's not the point. We're talking about context. This is a very obvious, longstanding cultural fashion that has been worsening for over 25 years. Even some of the original architects of the fad are sick of it. It's not subtle, it's not a big secret and it's not my opinion. It's a fact. It's the current state of the culture. When a planet was destroyed on Star Trek in the 60s as part of a story, it was a dark element; when Star Trek is rebooted for the sole purpose of blowing up an established planet, killing off parents and turning the main characters into morons and psychopaths, it's part of the fad.
Yes, that's what I was saying.
No, I just misunderstood what you Posted.
I don't get the argument that these things must be mutually exclusive. If I'm wrong, then why did the creators choose to invert the backstory of Trek with a pointless holocaust, dead parents and corrupted characters? Why not just tell the story of how these characters first came together within the context of the Star Trek Universe? There must be a reason, right?
It precipitates the format. I suppose you could say it's the driving force, since they spend the series looking for Earth because of it. But, if memory serves, it's seldom, if ever, really mentioned after it actually happens. It's brushed off pretty thoroughly.
I agree. But it's not really a see-saw. And, again, there's the matter of context. These shows are from the late 70s, so it's more a matter of being shallow than dark & gritty.
The only reason anyone remembers the original BattleStar Galactica fondly is that it was a character based series, which means people wanted to see what happened to some likable characters. Being character based means it could be horribly written.
Perhaps the most glaringly absurd aspect is that the show merely setup the holocaust as a childish way of upping the stakes. The show was written like Brigham Young leading the Mormons to Utah. Lorne Greene was Young of course. And the infamous casino planet was a last warning to avoid the wages of sin is death fleshpots of the Gentiles.
Also, deplorable as it may seem, insofar as the deaths were real, they were the well deserved judgment of God. Hence, they were not to be deplored. Lot fleeing Sodom was justifiably upbeat. Indeed, being sad enough to miss the old neighborhood earned a death sentence for his wife!
Perhaps the most glaringly absurd aspect is that the show merely setup the holocaust as a childish way of upping the stakes. The show was written like Brigham Young leading the Mormons to Utah. Lorne Greene was Young of course. And the infamous casino planet was a last warning to avoid the wages of sin is death fleshpots of the Gentiles.
Also, deplorable as it may seem, insofar as the deaths were real, they were the well deserved judgment of God. Hence, they were not to be deplored. Lot fleeing Sodom was justifiably upbeat. Indeed, being sad enough to miss the old neighborhood earned a death sentence for his wife!
There's clearly no debating you then, as you can look at the same set of claims and come to such a wildly divergent conclusion.
Wait, did you say I have traction with nuBSG...?
Yeah – because nuBSG is actually dark and gritty, and that's an a agreed-upon aspect of the new show by the standards of many people, not just yours.
Now, as far as I and a lot of other people are concerned, nuBSG is also very good, so we disagree there, but that's an entirely separate issue from how dark it is.
^^ 
I can only imagine that you're thinking that D&G elements are an absolute, or they can't co-exist with other elements. Take Firefly for an example. Obviously, much of its appeal lies in its dark and gritty elements. In the first broadcast episode, Mal kicked a miscreant into a scramjet, killing him instantly. The hardcore D&G fans nearly orgasmed over that one. But in the same episode, when Mal learns that he has been tricked into stealing medicine he returns it; and the lawman who catches him, understands the situation and lets him go. No shots fired. So we have Humanistic elements alongside D&G elements. It was a great show, but it definitely incorporated, and owes a lot of its popularity to, the Darker & Grittier fad.
You're the one arguing that the "D&G" elements of Trek XI take precedence above all in evaluating it's it's overall style and the primary intent of it's creators, not me or anyone here who disagrees with you. If you don't want a polarized discussion, don't start one.
^^ I never said any such thing. I specifically said it fails on many levels.
You also introduced it to this topic by lumping it in with every other show and film you consider part of the "Regan-era D&G fad," making no qualitative distinction between it and nuBSG, Dexter and freaking Saw, of all things, and then attributed a dark and gritty faddish motivation to the writers as their numero uno interest in writing the plot of the film. Your "fails on other levels" comment was mentioned once before in a discussion otherwise framed by your D&G issue in a thread about torture porn. It's like you're not reading your own posts.
Kegg, you want to chime in on this? I feel like I'm not making any headway here.
Kegg, you want to chime in on this? I feel like I'm not making any headway here.
^
The problem with RJDiogenes identifying the existence of a dark and gritty component, even if conceded to be a component and not the overriding concern of the film, is, well, it'd be still overselling its appeal. I mean you may as well say the new Star Trek is just another Simon Pegg movie and was big with Simon Pegg fans. Now that at least is inarguable: Simon Pegg is in the movie. I don't know what his fans thought about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if some just went for him and liked him in the movie and also liked it as a whole.
But is it just another Simon Pegg movie or even a Simon Pegg movie at all? No, of course not, he's playing a supporting role.
Likewise, the movie is rock and roll; adolescent, teenage rebelliousness; and there are parts of the script that are frankly sloppy. And honestly that which he calls dark and gritty are falsely identified, to wit:
Spock loosing his cool and attacking Kirk is because he insulted his mom, dude. Which is also why he totally zinged the Vulcan Science Academy and earlier still beat up those kids. But 'tude is not dark and gritty, and he's recasting those moments as if they're homicidal. Sloppy writing is important because, well, Kirk being shot off the Enterprise doesn't make any sense, but it's just done to keep the plot moving and is clearly not intended by the writers to be seen as an intentionally lethal act - but the possibility to read a dark interpretation into something doesn't make it so.
Another Star Wars example: The infamous Endor Holocaust argument, where someone asserted that the moon of Endor would be laid barren and uninhabitable by the destruction of the Death Star. Definitely not the reading Lucas and co. intended.
Which leaves us with Vulcan. To that:
You don't think Abrams' Star Trek is shallow?
The problem with RJDiogenes identifying the existence of a dark and gritty component, even if conceded to be a component and not the overriding concern of the film, is, well, it'd be still overselling its appeal. I mean you may as well say the new Star Trek is just another Simon Pegg movie and was big with Simon Pegg fans. Now that at least is inarguable: Simon Pegg is in the movie. I don't know what his fans thought about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if some just went for him and liked him in the movie and also liked it as a whole.
But is it just another Simon Pegg movie or even a Simon Pegg movie at all? No, of course not, he's playing a supporting role.
Likewise, the movie is rock and roll; adolescent, teenage rebelliousness; and there are parts of the script that are frankly sloppy. And honestly that which he calls dark and gritty are falsely identified, to wit:
Spock loosing his cool and attacking Kirk is because he insulted his mom, dude. Which is also why he totally zinged the Vulcan Science Academy and earlier still beat up those kids. But 'tude is not dark and gritty, and he's recasting those moments as if they're homicidal. Sloppy writing is important because, well, Kirk being shot off the Enterprise doesn't make any sense, but it's just done to keep the plot moving and is clearly not intended by the writers to be seen as an intentionally lethal act - but the possibility to read a dark interpretation into something doesn't make it so.
Another Star Wars example: The infamous Endor Holocaust argument, where someone asserted that the moon of Endor would be laid barren and uninhabitable by the destruction of the Death Star. Definitely not the reading Lucas and co. intended.
Which leaves us with Vulcan. To that:
You don't think Abrams' Star Trek is shallow?
Well, it's the topic of the Thread.
I also lumped in Lost and Firefly and maybe some other things that are influenced to a greater or lesser degree by this fad. To some degree, it would probably be difficult to find something that isn't influenced by it in the current climate, but these are things that are influenced in a very obvious way.How can that be, considering how omnipresent it is? The vast majority of shows, movies and comics-- especially genre ones-- are created, conceived, imagined, reimagined, rebooted or at a minimum promoted as "dark," "edgy," "gritty," "not your father's x" or various other terms apparently aimed at grim adolescents. Cliches such as the "shocking" death of a major character, the corruption of a once-noble character or the revelation of corruption in his past, and the general portrayal of adults as demented adolescents have become inescapable. To say nothing of visual designs that have all the appeal of abandoned factory basements.
True enough; but, again, these elements are not mutually exclusive.
This is a valid point. Certainly the writing was very bad, and it's very possible that the writers were clueless as to the implications of Spock's behavior. However, there is still the fact that they chose that behavior-- that they wanted Spock to jettison Kirk, that they wanted to show Spock strangling Kirk with his bare hands, that they included a scene with Kirk and Spock mocking the ideals of the original series. At a bare minimum, and in context with the other over-the-top negative elements, it's hardly far-fetched to attribute motivation. But even if all these elements were not the result of conscious decisions, they still must be influenced by the current tone of Pop Culture. Seriously, there's no way around the fact that the D&G fad is a large factor in the nature of the reboot.
Oh, I definitely think it's shallow. The point is that both Star Wars and Galactica predate a fad that began in the early 80s. Given that, and the tone of Pop Culture at the time, I think it's safe to attribute the creepy elements to thoughtlessness rather than an attempt to appeal to an appetite for "edginess."
Is it really a fad if you claim it's been going strong for thirty years?
I was thinking that myself... How long can a fad last before it's no longer a fad? I'd think 30 years is well past the point of fad myself... and as has already been pointed out there are examples of "dark and gritty" stories going back as long as there have been stories.
Well, at my age, thirty years doesn't seem so long.
Or maybe I'm just being optimistic, since fads are transitory. Really, how long can a culture go on with such a cloud of negativism hanging over it?Of course there have, many of which are very good; when I was a kid we had Harlan Ellison, Galaxy magazine, Dangerous Visions et cetera. But these were all part of a complete breakfast, not the overriding trend. And an additional point that could be made is that these stories were still motivated by the same concerns as the Peace & Love culture that was ascendent at the time, while the current D&G "fad" (or call it what you will) has darker motivations.
Well, at my age, thirty years doesn't seem so long.
Of course there have, many of which are very good; when I was a kid we had Harlan Ellison, Galaxy magazine, Dangerous Visions et cetera. But these were all part of a complete breakfast, not the overriding trend. And an additional point that could be made is that these stories were still motivated by the same concerns as the Peace & Love culture that was ascendent at the time, while the current D&G "fad" (or call it what you will) has darker motivations.
Bull. There is nothing darker at work than wanting to entertain in a way the audience responds to, and people respond to dark because life is dark and miserable and full of pain. People also respond to light because even in the trenches people can have a laugh, and experience the good of life. There's just as much light around as there has always been, it's just now with serialised story telling and the media literate generation who've grown up with episodic "good vs evil and the good guys win" stories we feel the need for something different... and that's the change.
Of last year's top 10 grossing movies you had Alvin & The Chipmunks 2, Up, Monsters vs Aliens and The Hangover, I'd hardly call them "Dark and Gritty" in the top 20 there's Pall Blart, The Proposal, Night at the Museum 2, and Ice Age 3. So of the top 20 at least 40% of it is in no way dark or gritty... and the rest are pretty debatable.
Overselling its appeal for the movie. Hence the Simon Pegg analogy. You can't tell me it's basically a Simon Pegg movie, but we could agree Simon Pegg is in it.
We've had Spock get angry and attack Kirk before. Like so much in the movie, it's sort of a riff on that, just given its 'rock 'n roll' attitude.
It's about as relevant as the way giant pink elephants played a pivotal role in making the film. And definitely vastly inferior to the factor Simon Pegg comedies played in the nature of the reboot.
Tone! Thank you. I've been pointing out the whole time it's the tone that precisely makes it not so, as it were.
Basically the logic of this comes down to Star Trek is contemporary. You don't have any real reason, but since it's modern, it's dark and gritty. It's something inherently in the wind, not something you can pin down and explain how that's different from what Star Wars and old BSG did.
After all, when Star Wars and BSG did it it's different because they're childish and shallow, while Star Trek was... childish and shallow! Wait, what?
It's quite easy, given that it's your opinion and in no way a fact at all. Here, I'll do it: I disagree with you.
Again, you seem to think you're psychic, able to read the minds of writers and producers across space and time to reveal their motives for creating exactly the same kinds of work. This is where I get really annoyed by this entire argument, because it's not about the evidence of the content of the works, or the writer's own claims about them; it's about the forgone conclusion you've reached about a cultural trend, and how otherwise similar story types and tropes from all eras will be reinterpreted to support what you already "know" to be the case. Perfect circular logic: you can prove the cultural trend is dark and gritty because the stories are dark and gritty, and you prove the stories are dark and gritty by saying there's a cultural trend that makes them so. And if there have always been stories like that since the beginning of history, well, then there's a bunch of extenuating circumstances that mean they don't count.
Since he didn't get it when I quoted his own words, I seriously doubt he's going to get it now.
So you're telling me that the most notable trend in Pop Culture over 30 years, which isn't a fad because it's been around for 30 years, doesn't exist?
I don't know what you mean by overselling it. It's a major cultural trend that influenced the total package. The point isn't really breaking it down into percentages or anything.
The only time I can think of was when he inhaled some spores.
No, I'm pretty sure the reverse is true.
I never disagreed with you about tone. Remember Old Yeller and Coyote? I'm talking about cultural context.
Thank you! It's contemporary. It's in the wind. That's my point.
And that's my point. You're getting it!
Right. And the 60s culture had no influence on TOS. I believe, Lord, I believe.
No, I don't claim to be psychic. I claim to have a basic understanding of how culture has always worked in the past, works now, and will always work in the future. I claim to know there are trends and cycles in the Arts that influence all contemporaneous works. I claim to know that no man is an island. I claim to be in touch with reality.
How can I not get it when it's my point?
Now, seriously, gentleman, am I being punk'd here or what? What is it about this subject that gets some people so bent out of shape?