March 08, 2005

• 'Tis a good article, and it's refreshing to see actors actually being honest and interesting about shows they're in. (Isn't the holo-novel thing just a rumour at this stage, though? A strong and persistant and quite probably accurate one, yes, but rumour nonetheless...) /doesn't actually watch Enterprise much
• and then i woke up and it was all a dream the end.
• thank you christ. no offense, trekkies. i love you.
• and here I thought it was Roddenberry's nightmare.
• Yeah, I wanted to like the show, but I guess overall I'm in a 'television turnoff' part of my life now. I don't even have cable. I remember the pilot, with what's his name the engineer and Blalock in some 'de-contamination room' rubbing blue gel all over each others bodies, while Neelix, the doctor watched behind a window (doing who knows what out of view). I had to smirk . . . And so did 11 million out of 13 million initial viewers . . .
• Well, that's probably the most interesting thing the series has done. However, I can see that it would piss people off. My mom is still pissed about the last episode of St. Elsewhere.
• Wait, I thought it was a holo-documentary that was true, and then the Enterprise disappears at the end of the documentary and no one knows what the fuck happened to it.
• Yeah... Enterprise totally lost me when the captain visited some "backwards" planet incognito and says something to the effect of: "If only there were some directive, something first and foremost, one could say almost prime, as to how we should deal with new races we encounter" GROAN!!!!!!!! I never saw the show again after that bullshit line.
• but, but, but Scott Bakula!!!
• Has Scott Bakula ever made a straight-to-video vampire movie? Because you know, he should. He REALLY should.
• Scott Bakula was the main reason I couldn't watch it. I can't stand that guy...
• That and that blue gel shower scene in that first episode. L. A. M. E.
• Actually, the entire cast gets arrested and spends the last episode in jail reminiscing about wacky past adventures. /never watched the show
• don't mind Bakula cos I never saw him in anything else. But. His. Halting.. delivery. Style was somehow quite appropriate. I actually disliked the guy who played Sisko a lot more, I thought he was a pufferfish. Whoof, a scene requires some angst from sisko & he puffs up & hyperventilates. Overactor. Whats his name, Aubergine saved that show, tho. They always have *one* good actor in the group. TNG it was Stewart, of course, DS9 Aubergine, Voyager Picardo. Enterprise has the guy who plays Phlox who is a pretty good actor, his interplay with John 'painless Pole' Shuck as the Klingon doctor in the last couple episodes was enjoyable to watch. They wheel out the girls with big boobs, but then the original series had lots of half naked females & yeomen in very short skirts too, so that's nothing to worry about. Kirk was always pulling on his boots after doing some alien girl, so the blue gel scene didn't phaze (pardon the pun) me. I always enjoy watching Star Trek captains have sex, for some reason, & I liked Shatner's way of always putting his butt up first after a fight. I thought the writing for this 4th series of Enterprise was very good, & overall I liked enterprise apart from the tired time travel scenarios - that probably was the killing factor along with the Xindi thing - tho seeing stan winston's son as the time cop & Seth 'Family Guy' McFarlane in cameo role was cool. But then I couldn't ever hate this series as much as I loathed DS9 or Voyager - the latter I thought was bottom of the barrel in just about every respect. But the opening theme song, I must admit, really did suck in a powerful way.
• Never saw Bakula? Come on! Quantum Leap? Lord of Illusions? For Pete's sake, Color of Night? Get thee to the video rental establishment, pronto!
• Well, I generally try to avoid watching crap, you see. I think I may have watched Quantum Leap about twice, mainly for that little guy with the eyebrows.
• Sorry, in the future I'll include joke tags.
• We don't have sarcasm on my planet.
• But. His. Halting. Delivery. Style. Was. Nowhere. Near. As. Good. As. James. Tiberius. Kirk. For. God's. Sake. Bones. Klingon. Bastards. Killed. My. Son.
• the opening theme song, I must admit, really did suck in a powerful way. Yup, and it was a reminder, with each passing episode and season, that there were some influential producers that refused to admit they had erred. They'd changed openings for the other Star Treks (Next Generation and DS9--and the original for that matter) to jazz them up a little. The whole series got off on the wrong foot, immo (in my monkey opinion) because paramount was greedy, and more than a little obsessed to keep the "franchise" going--as if people would forget Star Trek entirely if some new spinoff wasn't on the air. But instead of giving themselves a bit of a rest and regroup they plunged ahead--out of nothing so much as greed. (please note I don't greed in and of itself--though I'd never classify it as a virtue. But greed without a business plan, even implicit, rarely works and often hurts the company/individual it supposedly benefits. Nothing new for Hollywood I know, but it's a shame all the efforts of some groovy people went into getting Enterprise off the ground when its larger business sense was not considered.) The series creators, now much maligned by the hardcore fans, have all gone on to do other projects, and those ideas, such as Moore with Battlestar Galactica, seem to be bearing ratings fruit. Sigh. I really wanted to enjoy Enterprise, and I thought much of it was improving. But "sustainable development" is about as alien a phrase for the studio executives as "start with a good script."
• I only watched Enterprise once because my friend had a small role. It is perhaps the single worst television show I have ever seen. It would be cool if, after watching the holo-novel, Riker woke up in bed with Bob Newhart.
• Theres... somebody outonthewing... I.. Don't. Know. What. To. Do. You have to do the thrusting hand gestures. Obviously Bakula was nowhere near as good as Shatner, because Shatner is the greatest actor that has ever lived. This goes without saying.
• "It would be cool if, after watching the holo-novel, Riker woke up in bed with Bob Newhart." And Patrick Duffy comes out of the shower with the snow-globe that kid from St Elsewhere was daydreaming with...
• Blalock getting smeared with blue gel didn't work? Dammit, what do the networks have to do?
• Shatner is the greatest actor that has ever lived I love you. You stand on the bridge of my heart, making my tricorder flash with coloured light. Behold! I have lowered my shields - please set your phasers to "lust".
• DOROTHY: No. But it wasn't a dream -- it was a place. And you -- and you -- and you -- and you were there.
• Doris stole my Patrick Duffy joke! *sobs*
• Yeah, they should have done more Blaloc with blue gel stuff, or Blaloc with *any* gel, or just Blaloc, modeling different outfits, with her jersey torn, like Shatners when she gets into difficult battle scenes. Or any scenes.
• Yeah
• Wait, it doesn't end with Newhart waking up next to Emily? At what point do you trekkies just stop watching and declare yourselves done?
• We don't quit till the Tribbles eat us all.
• I really hoped it would pick up, since I loved Quantum Leap and Scott Bakula. Yes, shower scene was super-double-crap. This is the crappiest copout ending ever, though.
• I didn't get into Enterprise when it came out either, and you can probably blame the blue gel for that. Sadly, probably too late, their fourth season had been getting better, with several more complex multipart episodes, some good character development, etc. I was getting a little into it, but then I managed to see Firefly and Farscape, and those just blew all Trek-verse out of the water, no matter that it was getting better. But if they end with ANY kind of dream/holodeck/whatever, that will be just shitting on their whole fictional universe. Just don't do it. When the actors are telling you the final episode is appalling, just DON'T. DO. IT. And William Shatner is great - don't dis the man who showed the world that action heros can have a sense of humour.
• I am ever so glad it's cancelled! I also hope the holo-deck ending is real. I would rather have the entire dismal season be a cop-out than actually be part of the "official" trek storyline. 'Cause that shit, sucked! I was rooting for Bakula, really, I was. But the song, and the ridiculous vulcan chick, and the egregious, unrelenting, unrepentant, unnecessary tampering with the already convulated storyline . . . I could keep going but I want to keep my sanity. Enterprise was so bad I was actually missing Tuvix and Kes. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
• muffin <3s Quantum Leap.
• People still watch Star Trek and it's spinoffs?
• The enterprise enters a supspace black-hole anomaly and the ship is torn apart. The crew asphyxiates in the blackness of space, their eyes popping out and blood spewing from their depressurized jugulars. There are no survivors. Suddenly the captain wakes up, in bed at Starfleet Academy. "It was all a dream" he says. Then the radio snaps on playing Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" and he realizes it's still Groundhog Day!
• I need no further evidence to believe that the people who are in charge of the franchise have finally, quite probably irrevocably, JUMPED THE SHARK. It Was Just A DreamHoloNovel is a worse idea than Jar Jar! The lowest ebb of Star Trek has now surpassed Anakin saying "Yippee!" and My Favorite Gungan.
• My whole thing that I really hate is the whole 'dopey sidekick' thing they've done with Data in Next Generation, Nelex in Voyager, and Flox in Enterprise. That is a really big turnoff for me.
• Is this "Enterprise" something one would need a holodeck to understand? Because I don't have one.
• Personally, I'd have gone for Bakula flying off in the Enterprise, leaving Blalock on the ground with a giant 'GOODBYE' spelled out with rocks.
• Better yet, let's have Blalock fly back, and Bakula abandoned on some distant planet instead.
• This thread is useless without pics of the blue gel shower.
• pic of the blue gel shower scene
• another pic of the blue gel shower scene Ok thats enough of that
• Thas wha ahm tawkin bout . . .
• Despite Ms. Blaylock's prodigious charms, that blue gel shower scene doesn't even look remotely dirty enough to salvage this show.
• You're right, more gel, less clothes *GLORP!*
• That would seem logical.
• *raises eyebrow quizzically*
• See, I hated that scene. But four years later, those two characters actually had a really interesting rapport/relationship, more interesting than Star Trek had had before. And I liked the song. I thought it might be a sign the series was moving in a more contemporary, gritty, wires hanging out and people struggling in space direction. I was wrong - that was Firefly.
• I heard the Enterprise got swallowed by a giant space goat.
• I thought Enterprise was ok. Better than Voyager. However, I saw one of the original series eposides on SciFi channel a few weeks back and I was like, "Man, have the people who write Enterprise even SEEN the original series?" For whatever people might have like about Enterprise, it was so lacking in the pure spirit of adventure that the original series had.
• Yeah, I actually liked Enterprise, it seemed like it had some degree of hope, nice premise for a series, but things just did't take off for it. Could it be we've just outgrown Star Trek *shudder*
• * *
• MonkeyFilter: We don't quit till the Tribbles eat us all.
• Actually, Bakula wakes up next to Dean Stockwell in their old apartment.
• Not being a Star Trek/Wars/Barbecue fan in even the remotest way, I don't really care what gets cancelled or how they end the series. But, I do have a fond memory of responding to a domestic violence call a few years back in which the husband and wife had to be restrained so that she didn't cut the heads off any more of his little Star Trek dolls and he didn't punch her in the face (again) for harming his priceless collection. That house was creepier than Ed Gein's underwear drawer. Imagine row after row after pile after heap of little plastic humanoids, all dressed up in their fancy costumes, many of them missing limbs and such at the hands of a pissed off woman who found out her husband had been screwing some geekess from the planet Desperino.
• Heh, I just told #2 and he is extremely unamused. I believe the exact phrase was "That's. Ultra. Lame." (He's a sci-fi geek of the most geekiest persuasion.)
• Having more free time today than usual, I am moved to share a few snark-laced impressions of my Star Trek viewing experience: Star Trek -- by a country mile my favorite American television series. The only one of the movies I liked was the one I think of as Whales in Space, which really succeeded in capturing the verve and humour of the original. Several of the ST series were truly bombs (the episode of Spock's Brain) but overall it had some still unrivalled moments, thanks some of the finest comic ensemble performances to be seen on American TV in the grim years following The Honeymooners and Mr. Peepers. Next Generation -- plots were formulaic and trite, acting in the case of the series' principals was lackluster. By contrast, minor characters played with intensity could be far more interesting, as in the cases of Q, or Troi's mother. Another serious deficiency was the lack of non-humanoid aliens, such as the tribbles or the horta which had given ST such freshness, vitality, and unpredictability. The NG (he!) scriptwriter's eventual habit of ascribing any unusual occurrence that might be encountered as "an anomly" became unforgivable. NG was overall a series that held almost no surprises as it trudged along. Never cared enough about the characters to see any of the films. Deep Space Nine at least had some capable performances -- but abysmal plots. Actors playing the tall drink of water (almost always), Major K (sometimes), Dr Bashir (often), and (unfailingly) Quark stole scenes. Sisko however was a cardboard cutout, totally unconvincing as an unmedicated human being. Voyager -- so completely dreadful I quit watching it after half a dozen episodes. (Shortly after which, quit watching TV altogether.)
• There were parts of TNG and DS9 that were quite good. Perhaps there were good parts of VOY as well; I wouldn't know, I couldn't manage to watch it at all. I have watched a handful of episodes of ENT, and there were one or two decent episodes in their somewhere. Only a few of the TOS movies were any good; I think perhaps there was a good TNG movie, but I can't recall it. I haven't even seen them all. And let's not forget that when TOS was bad, it was very bad. Even so, I think I somewhat consider myself a "trekkie". I don't want a popular culture without Star Trek. I think a new ST series could be very well done, and I'd love to watch such a thing. So, this makes me a bit sad.
• I was really interested in Enterprise when it first arrived, but they lost me almost immediately with the plot events that violated the timeline that had long been established by the earlier shows and movies. The wildcat period between what we saw in, what, First Contact? and the original series could've been interesting, but they tossed that out the window and went time travel a-go-go. They also couldn't lay off the temptation to use today's special effects to make the ships look cooler and more modern than the ships that came later in the timeline, but from a much more primitive special effects era. (This also bugged me about the most recent Star Wars movies.)
• U N S P O I L E R The original post didn't have a link to the source for the BIG FINALE SPOILER, so I did some Googling around. While Ain't It Cool News is propagating the "it was all a hologram" rumor, the allegedly reliable source for all the talk (a disgruntled Trek insider posting to TrekBBS as "quills") is saying something else: edited by me The Enterprise series finale is titled 'These Are The Voyages'. Troi and Riker are in approximately one-third of the episode. The series itself is NOT a holodeck simulation, but most of this finale is. Riker and Troi are on the Enterprise-D, watching a hologramatic historical re-creation of an Enterprise NX-01 event that takes place four years after the rest of Enterprise Season 4. The TNG parts of the finale take place during Season 7’s 'The Pegasus'. Riker could be running the ‘NX-01’ holodeck program in order to help him decide if he should tell Picard about the phase-cloaking device on the Pegasus. By now, Trip and T’Pol’s relationship has ended, but they remain good friends. Trip dies while saving Shran from an ‘aliens of week scenario’ by blowing them up and himself. At the end of the episode, T’Pol packs away Trip's possessions in his quarters. Enterprise is decommissioned. Now, none of us need to watch the show... on preview, I AM SUCH A GEEK!!!
• #2 looks slightly mollified.
• Each series seems to be increasing the depths to which bad episodes can sink. DS9 has been by far my favorite, and pretty much the last ST series that I really enjoyed, at least past the first couple of seasons. Enterprise couldn't resist the temptation to parasitically attach itself to every half-decent plotline of the past and reuse them without even a pretense of modification. We lose Firefly after one season but get years of this?!
• I freely admit to having been a huuuuge geeky fan of the original series, while being fully aware of how much the sucky parts sucked. None of the subsequent series really grabbed me-- I liked DS9 the most of those, but then I have weird taste. (and a soft spot for Avery Brooks, whom I saw play Othello rather well before he was famous.) I wish the later Star Trek series had managed to keep the ambitious writing (which nonetheless knew when to take itself seriously and when not to) which produced the original series' moments of brilliance. As a musician and UK resident, I can confirm that Russell Watson (who sings the Enterprise theme tune) is vocal trailer-trash. And yes, the song is a vast pile of suck. I'll retreat to my geek ghetto now...
• beeswacky reminds me that I don't use the phrase "country mile" nearly enough.
• Tangent off the Firefly references - Is there another reference somewhere in pop culture to the idea "there's only one game in town, it's not very good anymore, but everything good that's similar to it flops because it's already filling that ecological niche due to a giant fanbase who will watch because of the name"? ...because any other parallels I could draw are just as dorky, if not more (video games), and I find that phenomenon interesting in a depressing kind of way. Uh...nothing of substance to add. Not a fan, but I have nothing against it either. Gadgety sf never was my thing.
• I;m not sure if there is such a thing as non-gadgety sci-fi. Sci-fi without gadgetry is pretty much pantomime in space, isn't it?
• Not really... there's time travel, alternate history, what-if-civilization-ended-tomorrow, all sorts of things. Not all sci-fi is in space, either. By some definitions Donnie Darko is sf, and that's about as not-in-space as it's possible to get.
• Yeah, but.. but.. how do you do time travel without a gadget? Alternate history isn't sci-fi, that's fantasy, my brother argues. I've never seen donnie darko. Does it have daleks in it, cuz then I'm there. Since I've never seen it I don't doubt Scott Bakula is in it too.
• sigh. Never mind; I feel like I'm talking to a chatbot. My original question stands, before the second derail.
• there's only one game in town, it's not very good anymore, but everything good that's similar to it flops because it's already filling that ecological niche due to a giant fanbase who will watch because of the name The Simpsons is perhaps the best comedy show in history, but the last 5 seasons or so are a complete embarassment. Yet people continue to watch, while shows like Futurama were cancelled. Of course, Family Guy has been brought back....
• Hmm, yeah, that's true. That may work. Thanks.
• chatbot? you are not very nice man
• It's also not very nice to take a half-unintelligible, underinformed opinion and sling it at me as though you were trying to cleverly disprove something that is, actually, quite true. But yes, what I said wasn't very nice. This is true. But I can't take your "argument" seriously when you've apparently never heard of Bradbury and have a random chip on your shoulder about crappy SF set in space. I'll drop it, though, since it's pretty pointless. Tea?
• Oh, camomile, please! /buttinsky
• I'll take a nice cup of Jasmine Green tea, thank you.
• Star Trek has the same problem that mainstream, ie superhero, comics have: a horde of picky, obsessive no-life fans who scream and kick and whine and refuse to play unless new material conforms to even the most excruitiatingly absurd continuity points; moreover, those fans venerate the old and are generally uninterested in the new. For example over in comics land, fans of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern have waged a many-year war to get him back that's gone to the level of real-life harrassment and alleged death threats. This is the kind of level of fandom Star Trek, with its "wishing Rick Berman dead" has ended up with. On the other hand, if you want to make a generally viable series for a non-fan audience, you need to accept most of them don't give a flying fuck about whether the make-up on Klingon's foreheads should stay mired in 1960 to appease mouth-breathers living in their parents' basement. In fact, it drives that audience away. Star Trek is managing to fail on all points, of course. Battlestar Galactica is succeeding because it's ignoring the fans who wanted a remake of the 1970s show, and personally abuse the acress playing Starbuck for not being a man, and has put a good spin on the idea that's more broadly accessible and interesting. As for the lack of sci-fi on TV? There are three ansers: one is that Star Trek has pretty much poisoned the well for anything else; when JMS pitched Babylon 5 to Paramount, they weren't intersted because they had Star Trek (although when B5 made it to production, surprise, surprise, Paramount discovered DS9 scripts laying about!). The second is that sci-fi, what most people think of as sci-fi, anyway, is expensive to do. Babylon 5 revolutionised the cost you could do good special effects at the time it was made, but the bar for what doesn't look cheesy keeps geting higher. Shows like Firefly and Farscape cost a fortune to make, and no network is going to blow millions an episode for a small audience when the reality or game show du jour costs a fraction to make and pulls down better ratings. The third answer is, of course, that there has been quite a bit of sci-fi on TV in the last decade. Stargate SG1 (and now Atlantis), Babylon 5, Farscape, the many Star Trek spin-offs, Jeremiah, and now Batlestar Galactica are all doing very well for themselves. The problem isn't the lack of shows, it's that so much of sci-fi fandom is too busy fighting at cons about what "real scifi" is they aren't actually bothering to watch what's there and create the market. (And let's not even go into the question of why so many people who whine about the lack of sci-fi are the people who are downloading episodes via P2P...)
• I'll pretend you didn't make that crack about Hal Jordan. This time. ... When you are ready to have a serious conversation about the Green Lantern, just let me know.
• Farscape did cost a fortune - about $1 million an episode, though I don't know if that is in Australian or American dollars - it was cheaper filming in Australia than it would have been in California. But cost was one of the reasons SciFi cancelled it and kept Stargate (which costs only about $400,000 per episode). That, and the fact that Stargate isn't as just pure weird or convoluted in its arc plots (which is one of the main reasons I love Farscape. That, and the muppets.) But was Firefly that expensive? They did build the whole ship in sets, but it was a very small ship. I thought its cancellation was part of that Fox pattern of undermining then cancelling interesting/challenging shows no matter what genre. They also cancelled Wonderfalls, created by one of the writers from Firefly - was that genre? I don't know enough about it. I would actually also consider Firefly as not very gadgety sci-fi. Definitely space based - actually, one of the best depictions of space I've seen since 2001 - silent, black, deadly. But the ship is much less gadgety than it is like watching an old broken down trawler - the only gadget I remember was the poor compression coil, which looked remarkably like a random part of an engine. Which, of course, it was. Other than that, lots of guns, some chopsticks, the occasional knife - oh, there was the doctor's encyclopaedia, but that fortunately was only used as a bad plot device about once. To go back to Wurwilf's question - I don't think other sci-fi is cancelled because of Star Trek. Star Trek is supported by the fact it is a franchise, but also because it is the flagship show of a fledgling network. I think sci-fi shows struggle because they can never really draw mass audiences - the genre isn't well known/understood enough. It's like trying to pull in a mass audience for Greek Tragedy - no matter what the quality, you just don't have the people who understand the conventions well enough to relate to the artwork. (Yes, I know, that is an extreme example - some sci-fi is enjoyed by a great many people, but I think that only a minority really know/like the genre beyond sci-fi as gadgety action). Also, it seems the most sucessful of the sci-fi series are those which are most comfortable for the casual viewer, who can come in for an episode now and again (Star Trek, especially Next Gen, X-Files, Stargate to some degree). Series with heavy arc based plots or very strange environments (notably B5, to a lesser degree Firefly, Farscape) can attract very loyal fans, but a much smaller number - which is not good for advertising or ratings. I think this is true, regardless of genre - 24 works by getting just enough of an audience, and by carefully trying to hype the audience to increase ratings (only showing each episode once, no repeats, began the current season with 4 hours in two days at once to hook viewers). Add to that the genre barriers - how weird/alien a show is (again, the most sucessful, like X-files, are set in our own time or, like Star Trek, exceedingly familiar human culture - as sci-fi goes, Star Trek rarely pushed the alien frontiers) - and I don't think you can ever expect a large audience in challenging genre television. Of course, there are so many television shows created and cancelled every year - I wonder if Sci-Fi actually has a much better lasting power (in terms of length of run) than non Sci-Fi, but we hear about them being cancelled because the fans are so vocal and well-organised?
• I enjoy Guy Gardner.
• That said, Wurwilf, there is no reason to be rude regarding Doris's comments. If you feel like an answer is not what you were asking about, you can either clarify your comment, or just ignore it. The definition of what is SF and what is not is by no means set, and is a perfectly legitimate topic for discussion. Personally, I realised years ago that I much more prefer sociological fiction or fantasy set in space to what I would consider actual science fiction, that is fiction based around some kind of science whatif, rather than just using the genre as a framework to ask other questions. Donnie Darko isn't very good science fiction, but it is excellent fantasy/myth. On the P2P issue: I'll be first to say that yes, I download Sci-Fi television. But I am skeptical of the connection between my downloading a show and its poor ratings/failure to survive. So far I have downloaded 2 series, both of which were already cancelled at the time, and because of the downloading, bought the DVD set of one series, and will attend the feature film in September (Serenity). The DVDs for the other series are currently at the top of my Amazon wishlist, and will be likely bought over the next few years (they are in the process of releasing a new edition). I would not have bought either before becoming a fan, and neither are in syndication (not that I have cable television, or indeed any television during the time the shows were airing). So as far as I can see, downloading has made the creators of one show money, and will soon make the other show even more. Next I will download Blake's 7, aired in another country when I was an infant. I may buy the DVDs if I like it, and they are ever released in my region (like much anime, you cannot buy Blakes 7 on DVD in North America). The debate on what impact p2p sharing has on sales is an interesting one - I don't think it is well understood. If I were to hypothesise, I would suggest that it takes away from the profit of widely marketted media (blockbusters, to 40) which lose audience/purchasers to file sharers, but gains market to lesser known media by gaining them a market share. This is an argument famously made by Janis Ian, who says that her sales have increased since p2p sharing. I know my CD and DVD purchases have gone up since I started downloading - too much in fact, I really can't afford to, but downloading whetted by appetite. Similarly, there is effort to start a filesharers' boycott, by people who believe that they can demonstrate that file-sharers are customers as well as pirates. Argghhhh.
• I enjoy Guy Gardner. You take that back, you son of a bitch. You take that back right now.
• *bonks middleclasstool with his homemade Green lantern Battery
• The argument that p2p vastly damages profits seems to assume that the people who are downloading the shows (or songs) WOULD buy the dvds (or CDs), IF they weren't downloading them. Which I don't think is necessarily true. I think the "folks who download" and "folks who would buy it" demographics overlap very little, and where they do, it's in the "folks who would buy the dvds after downloading a show." But others have said this before me.
• *paints ass yellow, moons Guy Gardner*
• You know, I've always wondered about that. How yellow would something have to be to negate Green Lantern's powers? Pale yellow (like flax)? What about something lemony off-white?
• I am curious (pale yellow) would defeat Green Lantern due to his unseemly infatuation with Swedish pubic hair.
• "The power ring created by the Guardians of the Universe was one of the most advanced weapons ever devised, but due to a necessary impurity in the power ring it possessed a vulnerability to the color yellow. An experienced Green Lantern was aware of this limitation and did his, her, or its best to compensate for the weakness, but even a Green Lantern can make mistakes. In the hands of a novice with absolutely no experience results may differ..."
• IN RE: Swedish pubic hair: Fer chrissakes, he's only HUMAN. Or was...until he became the Spectre or some shit...
• *paints ass yellow, moons Guy Gardner* That's a dangerous course of action; what if he turns into Warrior, gets covered with that weird war paint, and charges your moon?
• Is science fiction all about gadgets? Well, is science all about gagdets? From here, I'd say the answers are no and no. (Just watched 2001 the other night was astonished to recall just how quiet a movie it is. God, it's beautiful, but I can't image something that sparce being made today. I mean, to trust a viewer to go all the way through the Blue Danube? The only other directors I've seen with that type of skill are Tarkofsky and Ozu).
• No, js, science-fiction is not just about gadgets, though sometimes it is. But it is about science. Star Wars isn't really science fiction; neither is a great deal of Star Trek. The former is an epic set in the future, the later a show more often about sociological issues than those of natural science. This is why the term "speculative fiction" is handy - it covers speculation on all sorts of things (alternate history, time travel, magic, future history).
• Oh - and yes, 2001 is a very beautful film, particularly the space bits.
• Well, now we're getting into a tricky area. There is hard sci-fi (Such as Arthur C. Clarke's work) or 'soft' (I guess) sci-fi, which is everything else that involves lots of spaceships, aliens & all that glorious golden-age stuff. The latter relies heavily on gadgetry & technology to a greater or lesser degree, and this is definitely part of its appeal, sometimes the plot of the story itself resolves around a deus ex machina deriving from some invented technology of the author. For example, Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories always rely on advanced technology to help their hero, Jim DiGriz, escape from whatever problem he's in. As for Star Trek, it can, at it's best, be drama set in the future using the backdrop only as a colorful set for interesting stories. At most mundane, it relies on technobabble, aliens-of-the-week or cobbled-together plot solutions involving technology, so yes, in those cases, gadgetry is very much involved. Roddenberry solved a lot of production & cost problems via use of imaginative gadgetry, such as communicators & most notably the transporter, probly the most brilliant solution to budget problems ever conceived in tv shows (too expensive to have fx shots of the enterprise landing on a planet each week). Star Wars is science fiction by default, but its storylines and overall feel is much more in the line of fantasy. There is never at any point an explanation of how the technology works (except in the books), it is left up to assumption of the viewer, however Star Trek by comparison spends a lot of time trying to, if only vaguely, explain how things work. We never learn how Han Solo's hyperdrive runs, but we know the enterprise uses dilithium crystals. This is gadgetry. To me it always seems like there is a series of different genres that overlap in sci-fi, each with distinct differences. A lot of what we term sci-fi is strictly just fantasy with different costumes & weapons, the technology taking the place of magic with little or no explanation of mechanism. Hard Sci-Fi is rooted strictly in conceivable, objective science. This is probly why it is rather boring for most audiences. 2001 is mainly silent because there is no sound in space. Modern popular audiences, tuned (by Star Wars, mainly) to screaming jet sounds and explosions in space, would not tolerate a largely accurate depiction of space travel, these days.
• I'm with ya, JB. I never really considered Star Wars or Star Trek scifi... Star Trek's closer, I guess, but SW is just a space opera. Things like Outbreak are closer to scifi for me...