Star Trek: Into Darkness

[palmer_eldritch]

It looks like this is the thread to just mash nerd IPs together. As such:

Why is Starfire out of Teen Titans there too?

[palmer_eldritch]

The only thing I got from this thread is I'd really like to insult Doctor Who because I agree 100% that Stateside people fellate it because omfg european obscure shit they can claim they have watched even the ancient versions but to be honest I've never even tried to watch it beyond a random half a episode on tv once or twice. So where would I even start if I wanted to watch it? I'd seriously appreciate a recommendation.

To me Doctor Who being the longest running scifi means its probably as crap as  the longest running anime always are but that people are really trying to say its good-good surprises me somewhat.

There's an episode called Blink which somebody quoted from earlier and that's a contender for best standalone episode of recent years. I'd get hold of that somehow.

[Ironwood]

Blink is utter awesomesauce.  It's probably in the top ten episodes of Who ever.

Also, if you just want the new improved stuff, Girl in the Fireplace is also awesome (and written by the same chap, I think).

Dalek is a really good episode despite a teeny-tiny bit of handwaving and magic.

If you want to check out 'Old' episodes, you really can't go far wrong with anything that happened to Tom Baker, particularly the Origin of the Daleks and the follow up with the Movellans.  Watch the original Silurian or Sea Devil episodes with Pertwee, I remember those fondly.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It looks like this is the thread to just mash nerd IPs together. As such:

Why is Starfire out of Teen Titans there too?

  or 

[Lakov_Sanite]

On Dr. Who one thing which american audiences do a lot, or perhaps geeks in general is say "I love Dr Who-Dr Who is awesome etc, etc"  It's like saying "I love star Trek" No, you don't.  You may love the concept but loving the whole of it is near impossible because it has varied so much in quality over it's decades long run.  Who has has as many or more bad runs than star trek, can anyone ever defend enterprise or voyager?

Blink was a good episode and there were plenty more good ones but on the whole it's just become trendy, overrated and in my opinion a series with more bad than good episodes which, ironically the same could be said for star trek, even though I love me some TNG and DS9.

[sickrubik]

On Dr. Who one thing which american audiences do a lot, or perhaps geeks in general is say "I love Dr Who-Dr Who is awesome etc, etc"  It's like saying "I love star Trek" No, you don't.  You may love the concept but loving the whole of it is near impossible because it has varied so much in quality over it's decades long run.  Who has has as many or more bad runs than star trek, can anyone ever defend enterprise or voyager?

Blink was a good episode and there were plenty more good ones but on the whole it's just become trendy, overrated and in my opinion a series with more bad than good episodes which, ironically the same could be said for star trek, even though I love me some TNG and DS9.

NO ONE who is a fan of something says I LOVE ONLY 35% OF SOMETHING. People say "I love this thing".

[Lakov_Sanite]

But there are people wearing Who T-shirts joining Matt Smith fan clubs and wearing fedoras that have only see 10% of the thing they are claiming to love.

[sickrubik]

But there are people wearing Who T-shirts joining Matt Smith fan clubs and wearing fedoras that have only see 10% of the thing they are claiming to love.

So? They still love it. That statement borders closely to "I liked it better when it was underground".

[Lakov_Sanite]

I see it more like twilight fans who proclaim to love vampires.

[Ironwood]

Well, anyone who says they love Dr Who based solely on the last couple of seasons needs knifed.

But I'm a moderate on these matters.

[sickrubik]

I see it more like twilight fans who proclaim to love vampires.

But.. they do! No matter if WE might not like said vampires, they still like that shit. As for twilight fans.. the ones I know really like vampires. Hell, my fiancee is obsessed with Bela Lugosi and twilight.

Well, anyone who says they love Dr Who based solely on the last couple of seasons needs knifed.

But I'm a moderate on these matters.

Eh. I look at much more optimistically. "Hey, the crazy stuff I watched when I was growing up is now popular and packing convention centers! I'm glad people like it, because I always thought it was awesome!"

It probably also helps that the two newest doctors are roguishly handsome... OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT MY FIANCEE WOULD SAY HAHAHAH *coughs*.

[palmer_eldritch]

Obviously real Dr Who fans are busy debating the relative merits of Zoe vs Victoria but you can't expect today's young people to appreciate the fuzzy black and white stuff.

[Lakov_Sanite]

When time is meaningless, both is an acceptable answer.

[Ratman_tf]

You're only a REAL Dr. Who fan if you can take an alien made out of paper machie and a shower curtain seriously.  

[Ironwood]

Eh. I look at much more optimistically. "Hey, the crazy stuff I watched when I was growing up is now popular and packing convention centers! I'm glad people like it, because I always thought it was awesome!"

Except that it always was popular and packed convention centers.

Maybe just over here tho.

[Ratman_tf]

Eh. I look at much more optimistically. "Hey, the crazy stuff I watched when I was growing up is now popular and packing convention centers! I'm glad people like it, because I always thought it was awesome!"

Except that it always was popular and packed convention centers.

Maybe just over here tho.

In the states, Dr. Who was this incredibly obscure show that got put on PBS because anything from the BBC was "culture". 
Just now with the Who revival, and BBC America, and the interbutz,  it's much more out there.

[01101010]

My mother dragged me to every Star Trek convention that was within 200miles of Cleveland when I was growing up. I had no idea I should have been ashamed of it all - but who cares, I got to shake Leonard Nimoy's hand and mom got his autograph on a picture of the NCC-1701. Have to dig that up from the attic archives at some point.

[HaemishM]

Nightmare was very good but it got put on a really high pedestal but I can't be the only one thinking Dr Who is overrated...really? I mean yes my opinion and all, maybe I'm that one guy but it really does nothing for me and I LIKE scifi.

Doctor Who is rated or overrated depending on who's writing it and who is playing the Doctor and who the companions are. For instance, right now, I'd rate the stories as FUCKING TERRIBLE with Moffat as the writer, but have enjoyed both Matt Smith's Doctor and the companions. The Tennant run was really fucking good right up until the last two movies/specials with only a little wankery. For Americans who watched Doctor Who in their childhood, it wasn't the hipness of watching Euro programming so much as the absolutely alien sensibilities of the English writing and cast that made it so attractive.

[HaemishM]

There was a Russian running about San Francisco looking for Nuclear Wessels.

What's not to love

Let's not forget that Star Trek IV is the most commercially successful Star Trek movie UNTIL the JJ Abrams version released last year. According to Wikipedia, only Star Trek: The Motion Picture grossed more worldwide but less in America. The series was doing respectable numbers before IV but the one with whales and Russians in San Fran looking for nuclear wessels actually made Star Trek a bigger iconic series than it had ever been. It's cheesy as fuck and creatively bankrupt, but it was fun and I liked it.

And it wasn't V, which story wise was actually closer to traditional Trek (right down to Space God villain) but was a terrible, horrible abomination.

[Nevermore]

It looks like this is the thread to just mash nerd IPs together. As such:

Why is Starfire out of Teen Titans there too?

That's one of the many incarnations of Jean Grey.

Also, why the fuck is there so much arguing about Dr. Who in a Star Trek thread?  YOU'RE CROSSING THE STREAMS!

[Ironwood]

Mostly because the Dr Who thread is dead to me.  It became very boring.  For everyone else listening to me, mostly.

[HaemishM]

I enjoyed hearing your dreams for Moffat's painful and debilitating exit from the show. But then I felt the same way.

[DraconianOne]

Blink is utter awesomesauce.  It's probably in the top ten episodes of Who ever.

Also, if you just want the new improved stuff, Girl in the Fireplace is also awesome (and written by the same chap, I think).

Yeah, who was that who wrote those two episodes again? What did he go on to do?




 

[Ironwood]

Thanks for taking my point and ruining it by removing the subtlety.

[DraconianOne]

Croeso mawr ichi

[Sir T]

He was also the guy who kept insisting that the Ferengi be portrayed as moronic perverts who had a thing for naked humanoid women and other dumb bits in the early TNG episodes.

Actually that was Rick Berman. Berman created the Ferangi as a serious threat race that ate the people that they had dealings with. Only when they were finally shown on screen he went nuts that people actually laughed at these stupid looking dwarves with big ears. And then the writers turned them into comic relief becasue they were stupid looking dwarves with big ears. So when he ripped off Babylon 5 created DS9, he set up Quark as a mafia crime boss that would provide a lot of the villiany on DS9... and then had to watch as Arwin Shimmerman and the writers rapidly turned Quark into comic relief. What a surprise.

[Ratman_tf]

ate the people that they had dealings with

I know when I go to Wal-Mart I want to go to the one with the cannibal checkers known to take bites out of the customers. 

[Sir T]

I know when I go to Wal-Mart I want to go to the one with the cannibal checkers known to take bites out of the customers. 

Well hey wouldnt anyone? 

And before Someone accuses me of whatever, here's a direct quote from Encounter at farpoint

"Captain, the Ferengi would be very interested in a base like this!"
"Fine. Let's hope they find you as tasty as they did their past associates."

[Ingmar]

So when he ripped off Babylon 5 created DS9

Look, I'm a B5 fan, but this is just nonsense. DS9 started *before* B5, other than the pilot, which is utterly terrible and nobody would have ever been inspired to copy it. When you account for the lead time in creating a show, etc., there's just no credible argument to be made for this. The best case you can make is that they noticed that having a series story arc was working well for B5 and decided to add one of their own. That's hardly a 'ripoff'.

[Sir T]

JMS had been pitching the idea around for several years before he finally got someone to sign the dotted line, and yes he pitched it to Rick Berman. Sorry and all. But I'm sure that Rick independently came up with the idea of a space station after hearing the Idea from JMS.

NERD FIGHT!!

[tgr]

"Huh. Someone made a tv series in space on a space station with a story arc, it must be a complete b5 ripoff"

[DraconianOne]

Wake me up when we get to the "Voyager ripped off Red Dwarf" fight.

[Sir T]

The early seasons of DS9 had a story arc? I thought it was about random episodes about the wormhole and watching runabouts rapidly gaining the firepower of a galaxy class. Until the shadows turned up in B5 and suddenly they heard about the Dominion which was a huge empire no-one had heard of before, and then they sat there for 2 years while the writers sat there in a panic making character driven episodes trying to figure out why these guys were not obliterating the entire alpha quadrant inside a week.

Seriously you could turn off DS9 in the first 5 minutes for the first 2 years. If there was something to do with the wormhole, preferably a ship coming through the wormhole, leave it on, otherwise it was a character driven filler episode about some unlikable character and you could turn it off.

And of course there were tons of science fiction series about space stations before DS9 and B5.  

[Ironwood]

Wake me up when we get to the "Voyager ripped off Red Dwarf" fight.

Red Dwarf was never really lost.

[Sir T]

Yoyager didn't have a cat or a Robot. Or guitars. Or a sarcastic computer. And Red Dwarf didn't have a changeling hidden aboard hiding as the Captains hair.