Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Black Wolf on February 11, 2014, 01:11:51 am
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Not sure if anyone else has been watching this series, but the most recent episode "Lolani" was released a few days ago and it's really, really good.
http://m.youtube.com/user/StarTrekContinues
Without any spoilers, the basic plot is classic Trek, with Orions, a mystery on board an alien ship, a moral dillema and a resolution that makes you think, if in a slightly cliché fashion.
They are going for as faithful as possible a TOS replication (which keeps both costs and, to a certain extent, expectations down) and they absolutely nail it. Everything from the sets and costumes to the way the music works, the character interactions, even the plots and scripts feel like they could have been pulled directly from the 60s series - with all the good and bad that entails I suppose. And even as someone who never really enjoyed TOS as much as TNG and (in particular) DS9, I really found it very watchable.
The previous episode was okay, but had a few weak acting and editing moments - those problems are largely gone in the followup, partly because the episode just happens to focus on the better actors in the cast, partly because it doesn't have any major effects shots and is pretty much a character piece, and partly as a result of gradual improvement.
If I were the guys at Viacom watching this, Id probably be very seriously considering funding these guys, canonizing the series and profiting off DVD sales. They've already proven they can make quality Trek on a budget, and there's a massive, nostalgia-hungry audience who'll pay for the DVDs of a web series if it has the official trek logo on it and a modicum of quality, which this really does have (in spades).
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This is the one with Grant Imahara from Mythbusters as Sulu, right?
I'll have to see if I can find a non-YouTube link then.
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Karajorma, you're thinking of Renegades (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/145553614/star-trek-renegades?ref=live), the successful kickstarter that is currently in production.
This is something else entirely, and just from the first few seconds of EP1, looks very promising...
EDIT: Yes, this is exactly that thing
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i saw one episode of it. it was obviously cheep but still on par with an episode of tos. doohan's son makes an excelent scotty too.
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I managed to watch the first episode (downloading the second one now) and I must admit that if I mentally replace everyone's face with the original TOS actors, I could be watching an episode of the original Trek. I have a fellow teacher who is a trekkie, I'll have to hand her the episodes too.
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i saw one episode of it. it was obviously cheep but still on par with an episode of tos. doohan's son makes an excelent scotty too.
It might be because TOS was cheap, too. :) Probably why they took on that era - compared to other Trek series, it was done on a shoestring budget.
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I suspect they took on that era cause it's the best loved era.
Also while TNG was great but it's much harder to find someone to do a good Picard than a good Kirk. Enterprise and Voyager aren't worth continuing and since B5 is finished they won't be able to find plot lines for a DS9 fan show. :p
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and since B5 is finished they won't be able to find plot lines for a DS9 fan show. :p
I love it... Deep Sleep nine can rest in peace. B5 was awesome and I grew up watching TOS first runs so I really like the chemistry between Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
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b5 started out really good, but they ruined it towards the end. ds9 was the other way around. it was slow to get good then it got really good and they put an end to it before they could ruin it and had the decency to tie off all the loose ends. ds9 was ultimately the higher quality show, but b5 clearly had more interesting plot lines. i watched both and regret neither (i wish i could say the same thing about voyager).
i saw one episode of it. it was obviously cheep but still on par with an episode of tos. doohan's son makes an excelent scotty too.
It might be because TOS was cheap, too. :) Probably why they took on that era - compared to other Trek series, it was done on a shoestring budget.
i like to think of this as evidence that you dont need to throw down a large wad of cash to make a decent sci-fi series. i would love to see a resurgence of sci-fi series. right now this genre seems to be severely lacking. i keep crossing my fingers hoping that amc will come up with a new scifi series (the walking dead doesn't count, i always put zombies into the horror category, great show though).
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Have you guys seen this, ST Phase 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=419hNYe2OaY Its pretty good, the effects are like the remastered TOS.
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Person of Interest is the best SF show on TV right now.
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I like Almost Human... but yeah there is not much in SciFi these days
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b5 started out really good, but they ruined it towards the end. ds9 was the other way around. it was slow to get good then it got really good and they put an end to it before they could ruin it and had the decency to tie off all the loose ends. ds9 was ultimately the higher quality show, but b5 clearly had more interesting plot lines. i watched both and regret neither (i wish i could say the same thing about voyager).
Well once B5's story arc had completed with the Shadow war it went down hill fast after that and in the 5th season it almost sucked.
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Doctor who for me, but what has happened to scifi? Why are we getting all these supernatural, paranormal shows? What happened to the space scifi shows ie star trek, stargate atlantis, why dont they make shows like that?
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ive been watching classic who. recently finished the first doctor. i might skip the second and jump right into doctor 3. there were a lot of missing episodes. some were found but i dont think they have been made available yet. so i might hold of on #2 for a bit.
id love to see a hard scifi space opera type series. that would be totally awesome.
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Nuke dont jump past the second doctor there are some brillant gems, the moonbase, tomb of the cybermen, seeds of death, the invasion.
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b5 started out really good, but they ruined it towards the end. ds9 was the other way around. it was slow to get good then it got really good and they put an end to it before they could ruin it and had the decency to tie off all the loose ends. ds9 was ultimately the higher quality show, but b5 clearly had more interesting plot lines. i watched both and regret neither (i wish i could say the same thing about voyager).
Well once B5's story arc had completed with the Shadow war it went down hill fast after that and in the 5th season it almost sucked.
Meh. B5 was all-around great until season 5, where I concur, it went downhill fast.
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Nuke dont jump past the second doctor there are some brillant gems, the moonbase, tomb of the cybermen, seeds of death, the invasion.
im just waiting for the recently recovered material to come out. its doctor who, time wimey, etc. its actually easier to follow than a tarantino plot.
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Meh. B5 was all-around great until season 5, where I concur, it went downhill fast.
The main reason for that is that they faced cancellation right up until they'd filmed all of season 4, only to be told that they would actually get a season 5 right at the end. Had they been told earlier Season 4 was to have ended with the episode where Sheridan is tortured, season 5 would probably have contained the best episodes of season 5 (towards the end, the show did start to pick up again).
The reason why B5 was so great is that the whole plot line for the entire series was already decided in rough before they started making the show. So you shouldn't get moments like in BSG season 4 where it's quite obvious they had no idea what the Cylon Plan they'd been going on about actually was. Or DS9 where they have to pull a literal Deus Ex Machina to resolve the Dominion War. That all falls apart if you're forced to condense everything from the last two seasons into season 4 and then later get told to make a season 5 with whatever you have left over.
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In spite of all that, I still rather like Season 5. For one thing, I love its opening theme, and for another, Season 5 has this scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8MjQ5Z7ZNo).
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I still think B5 at its worst is still head and shoulders above most Sci-Fi. Garibaldi's scene with the Edgar Industries board is another favourite scene of mine, not to mention his hiring policy for its replacements.
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Vir was always one of my favourite character's along with G'kar, while season 4 was very good I didnt quite enjoy it as much as the first 3. Season 5 I didn't enjoy, well except for the last episode. I like in the beginnig and thirdspace but didnt like any of the other films, crusade premise was good, but poorly executed and dont even get me started on rangers that just sucked.
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Person of Interest is the best SF show on TV right now.
SF?
The tech on that show is oh so already obsolete.
e: On the original post, wow I am actually amazed at the production there. The visual is spot on. The acting.... well...
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It's definitely SF dude, we don't have strong AI.
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Strong AI?!? Clearly I haven't reached that point. I just remember the guy from Lost being a rich hacker and this lost policeman soul being the dirty job guy doing the "hard" work. Saw several episodes not sequentially and I don't recall any AI... so I'm kinda more interested now.
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Check out Almost Human as it is way more SciFi than Person of Interest. It probably has the most future tech than any show on the air at the moment. Intelligence is another show that has future tech and lastly SHIELD also has a lot.
I love person of interest but never considered a SciFi show. Sure the "Machine" is AI but its not something you can see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns91hBJqsDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjgObuY_EOk
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As an SF writer I don't think calling things 'more SF' or 'less SF' is really useful, especially when you're just talking about the number of gizmos on screen. It's about the questions the story engages with.
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Indeed. Science fiction is a diverse and adaptable genre that can easily focus as much (or more) on the interpersonal relations between characters, the setting of the story, and even the vehicle of plot progression (amusingly, that last part is meant both literally and literally).
As a very, very easy counter-example to "It's obsolete so it isn't SF" is the entire steampunk sub-genre. Almost by definition anything in a 'mundane' steampunk setting is already obsolete, and has been for decades if not longer. It's still science fiction.
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I like the actors in Almost Human (especially Michael Ealy), but there appears to be two forces at work in the writing staff; one that writes good things, and one that writes stupid things, leading to almost Voyager-esque quality shifts.
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I like the actors in Almost Human (especially Michael Ealy), but there appears to be two forces at work in the writing staff; one that writes good things, and one that writes stupid things, leading to almost Voyager-esque quality shifts.
QFT.
It doesn't help that the episodes appear to be airing out of order, either.
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QFT.
It doesn't help that the episodes appear to be airing out of order, either.
Indeed; but what can you expect from FOX?
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Or DS9 where they have to pull a literal Deus Ex Machina to resolve the Dominion War.
First of all, that incident didn't end the entire war, and second, the arc was planned that way. To quote Memory Alpha:
When this show aired, there were some criticisms of it having a deus ex machina ending, something which infuriated Ira Steven Behr; "I felt it was the perfect next step in the evolution of the relationship between Sisko and the Prophets that began in the pilot. Hearing people refer to it as some dopey deus ex machina is really annoying because I would think they'd give us more credit for being on the ball. We didn't have to end it like that, we chose to end it like that. Because we wanted to say that there was something going on here. And ultimately, that would lead to our finding out that Sisko is part-Prophet. They wouldn't have done this for just anyone. This was the man going out into the wilderness and demanding God to interfere, to do something for crying out loud. The corporeal characters had done so much in the episode; surely they'd earned the help of the gods." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
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Yeah they hinted the whole time that the wormhole aliens could have done that and decided not to. I never said that the ending came out of nowhere. But the fact remains that they deliberately chose a bad, Deus Ex ending. Do they want points for foreshadowing their ****ty ending?
Hell if anything, that comment makes the whole thing worse. This wasn't that they'd written themselves into a corner like BSG did. This wasn't that outside forces forced them to end the story before they could in a meaningful way. This says they deliberately set out to have a ****ty ending.
Now compare that against the ending of B5's Shadow War and you see what I mean. That superficially seems to be very similar but in fact it is very, very different. This isn't about a race of godlike aliens finally deciding to do something, Sheridan isn't screaming at the gods to do something (He'd already done that with Kosh in season 3 and we'd quite clearly been shown that there were severe consequences for the gods if they did act) this is about the godlike aliens realising that they were failing in their role as guides for the younger races. Failing in the only reason they had for their existence. They were shown that their war was pointless and that they were undoing their own goals. The end of the Shadow War wasn't a Deus Ex. It was the man going out into the wilderness and demanding God NOT to interfere.
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Ahh, now I realise why I never bothered much with DS9. Pretensious babbling with godlike creatures. At least in TNG, Q was fun and Picard taunted him appropriately.
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To be fair in DS9 when he turned up Sisko punched him. :p
To be honest I never much liked Q. I only really thought him worth it for the first episode with the Borg. That one really did make the character worth putting up with.
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Q was also the only thing interesting in the Farpoint episode and let's not forget him in "All good things...". He was also edible in "Hide and Q" and excellent in "Tapestry".
And then there's this of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XZBTv5yrmA&list=PL7CA617586FAE1F61
The less said about his appearances in Voyager the better.
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Yeah they hinted the whole time that the wormhole aliens could have done that and decided not to. I never said that the ending came out of nowhere. But the fact remains that they deliberately chose a bad, Deus Ex ending. Do they want points for foreshadowing their ****ty ending?
Well, now we're getting into opinions. If you don't like the ending, that's your call. But I will say that there was a major arc over the course of the entire series dealing with Sisko's relationship to the wormhole aliens. That episode was intended as taking the next step in that relationship. Previously, Sisko was coming to terms with who he really was; in that episode, he finally takes the next step from theory to application: if he is the Emissary, then he is going to use his position to demand something from them.
So it makes sense, whether or not you personally like it. And really, it would have been trivial for the writers to resolve the arc without a Deus Ex Machina: just have Rom sabotage the station in the nick of time rather than a few seconds too late. Choosing the option they did allowed them to tell a deeper story.
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i really need to watch ds9 again. i haven't seen any of it since the original tv run.
To be fair in DS9 when he turned up Sisko punched him. :p
To be honest I never much liked Q. I only really thought him worth it for the first episode with the Borg. That one really did make the character worth putting up with.
q was really an interesting character. initially it seemed like he would be a villan throughout the series. he is essentially getting them ready for a lot of future problems. namely the borg and the anomaly in all good things. if you put all his episodes perspective its more of a guiding role. initially they get vague warnings and then a face to face introduction with the borg around season two. of course the latter q episodes kinda departed from this until the final episode. all in all i dont think tng would have been the same without him.
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Well, now we're getting into opinions. If you don't like the ending, that's your call. But I will say that there was a major arc over the course of the entire series dealing with Sisko's relationship to the wormhole aliens. That episode was intended as taking the next step in that relationship. Previously, Sisko was coming to terms with who he really was; in that episode, he finally takes the next step from theory to application: if he is the Emissary, then he is going to use his position to demand something from them.
So it makes sense, whether or not you personally like it. And really, it would have been trivial for the writers to resolve the arc without a Deus Ex Machina: just have Rom sabotage the station in the nick of time rather than a few seconds too late. Choosing the option they did allowed them to tell a deeper story.
I just don't think it was particularly deep to be honest though. B5 was deep. Everything you thought the war was about was completely turned on its head in season 4 when you realise you're not watching the simple good vs evil story you'd be led to believe all along.
Sisko's confrontation with the wormhole aliens is to be honest rather predictable, the comment about him being part prophet actually makes that less interesting than if he was just a man doing it. I was left wondering why he hadn't simply asked them months or years ago. What makes it worse though, is that we've already seen this confrontation executed in a far superior method more than three years previously in B5. Sheridan is just a man, he's going out there demanding that Kosh does something, he doesn't just happen to be in the same place as Kosh is and think "Well I might as well give it a shot", he walks into Kosh's quarters and confronts him about the lack of Vorlon involvement in what is supposedly their war against evil. And unlike Sisko he walks in willing to die for his cause if that's what will tip the balance (and damn near does).
I thought DS9's ending was **** previously, but if they planned it all along, then this is just really, really bad scriptwriting.
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And Sheridan's intervention with Kosh came at a steep and foreshadowed price, which is Really Good Storytelling in the classic mythic sense when you're dealing with effectively divine powers.
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meh idk. I just have this biased distaste for seeing humans going all-out morally outraged at what superior species are doing.
This is why for all these beings, I dislike Q the least. Think about it for a second. What kind of a civilized human, if not under some contrivance or with some contingent problem, is going to be eaten by a (say) Lion? No way. We know what to do with Lions. We encage them or nurture them and decide exactly where and how they might live. There's no further reason to engage with them, taunt them, etc. How will this civilized human being ever be in contact with this creature? Only if he is a jackass and decides to play with it, taunt it, engage in some barbaric hunting just for the fun of it (and subsequent family photo), etc.
This is how Q appears to the federation. You never know how much he is playing or being serious, and when he's serious he's deadly. However, you never get the notion that he's not doing it for fun. The major mistake the writers did was to mistake this behavior with humans (which was absolutely proper) with his general characterization, and then make a caricature of him. Voyager was just gross in this.
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I just don't think it was particularly deep to be honest though. B5 was deep. Everything you thought the war was about was completely turned on its head in season 4 when you realise you're not watching the simple good vs evil story you'd be led to believe all along.
Fine, you like B5 better than DS9; we've established that already. :p
DS9 has twists like that though. The "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" two-parter is one of them. "In the Pale Moonlight" is another.
Sisko's confrontation with the wormhole aliens is to be honest rather predictable, the comment about him being part prophet actually makes that less interesting than if he was just a man doing it. I was left wondering why he hadn't simply asked them months or years ago.
Well, first, because the Dominion War hadn't started by that point, obviously. Second, because the relationship hadn't progressed to that level yet.
And unlike Sisko he walks in willing to die for his cause if that's what will tip the balance (and damn near does).
Wrong again. Sisko makes it very clear during the confrontation that he's willing to die to protect the Alpha Quadrant, regardless of whether the wormhole aliens do or don't do.
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The ending to DS9 wasn't great, but I didn't think it was **** either. Plus, the journey getting there was very enjoyable.
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DS9 has twists like that though. The "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" two-parter is one of them. "In the Pale Moonlight" is another.
"In the Pale Moonlight" is the greatest Star Trek episode of all time. Of all time.
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I have a little problem:
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