Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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Prompt Critical said:
Presumably because Brent Spiner is now in his 70s but he's supposed to be playing the same unaging android he was in 1987. I'm not sure if bad makeup and digital de-aging in post is a better or worse solution to the issue than the goofy "oh yeah Terminators get old btw" alternative.

I guess theoretically they could also just make something new people want to watch, instead of dragging geriatric actors out of their retirement homes for terrible unwanted/unneeded sequels that will be forgotten in a year, and avoid the issue entirely. But that sounds like a lot of work.
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What about DeepFake?
 
MagneticTowels said:
What about DeepFake?
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DeepFake is not nearly as good as advertised out of the box, and using it well to re-create TNG-era Data requires both expertise and time, the former of which is diluted throughout the VFX industry after a decade+ of Hollywood throwing people at the problem, and the latter I guarantee CBS has never given their chosen visual effects house. Look at Discovery and Picard and tell me these people are operating in anything but a last-minute fashion.

Even Disney couldn't de-age Leia convincingly, to say nothing of an even more lolcow-ish studio on a smaller budget.
 
Absolutego said:
DeepFake is not nearly as good as advertised out of the box, and using it well to re-create TNG-era Data requires both expertise and time, the former of which is diluted throughout the VFX industry after a decade+ of Hollywood throwing people at the problem, and the latter I guarantee CBS has never given their chosen visual effects house. Look at Discovery and Picard and tell me these people are operating in anything but a last-minute fashion.

Even Disney couldn't de-age Leia convincingly, to say nothing of an even more lolcow-ish studio on a smaller budget.
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DeepFake is free.
 
Prompt Critical said:
Presumably because Brent Spiner is now in his 70s but he's supposed to be playing the same unaging android he was in 1987.
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I coulda swore in one of the TNG Lore/Soong episodes they claimed Data aged at normal human speed so that he would enjoy a normal human life. The only time he stops aging is when he's dismantled and/or turned off.
 
Cyril Sneer said:
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ToroidalBoat said:
Speaking of 70s cartoon, wouldn't a negative universe where time goes backwards be perceived as a positive universe where time goes forward to the inhabitants, and this universe is negative?
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I'm reminded of the Red Dwarf episode. (paraphrasing)

"Santa Claus is a crazy man who breaks into people's houses and steals all the nice boys' and girls' presents."
"Yeah but soon Hitler is going to show up and bring several million people back to life."
 
So, I’ve been watching a sci-fi show about a group of assholes on a small generic looking ship.

There's this young innocent seeming girl who might be more than she appears. A broody tough guy. A badass chick who don't take shit from no man. Some dude who seems kind of a tourist, but provides a little extra morality. A robot girl with identity issues. There's even a space ninja. They're all kind of troubled and have past issues they're working through. They're on their own in an unforgiving universe.

It's called Dark Matter, and I'm actually enjoying it.

(I could also be mostly describing Firefly, but I'm not, because Firefly is fucking trash and a cancer that's infected the entire genre, but that's a separate rant.)

Which brings me to my point:

Picard is the most unoriginal piece of science fiction ever made.

There is not a single original thought in the entire show. Beyond the premise of "Captain Picard is back!" there is no reason for it to exist.

Every concept, every character, every beat of the story is a well-trodden genre trope that others have done better.

I maintain my theory of Peak Geek Culture. That the people writing the trash we're seeing now know nothing BUT geek culture. That they have nothing to draw on but Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, and various video games. That they have no imagination beyond what they've been told to consume.
 
The Gagh Whisperer said:
(I could also be mostly describing Firefly, but I'm not, because Firefly is fucking trash and a cancer that's infected the entire genre, but that's a separate rant.)
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I actually still kind of like Firefly, even if my opinion on Joss Whedon has changed drastically (for the worse) over the years... :/
I can see why you wouldn't though.
 
UnKillFill said:
I actually still kind of like Firefly, even if my opinion on Joss Whedon has changed drastically (for the worse) over the years... :/
I can see why you wouldn't though.
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I see Firefly as a bunch of cheap magic tricks, low skilled stuff put together for the right audience at the right time.

It strikes me as lazy and opportunistic. Clever quips, some fantastic tits, and self aware commentary on a genre that had grown complacent, ultimately hiding a lack of story and character development.

The worldbuilding was pure copy/paste, with little thought about how it fits together. The story was a collection of tropes. The characters were shallow and dull, but said enough clever and funny things that people didn't notice.

At the time it looked great. Attractive smart people kicking ass and delivering lines. But in hindsight it's like watching a street magician when you know all the tricks. You realize how little skill and effort actually went into it, how some dumb fuck just spent a lot of time in his bedroom smoking weed and learning easy tricks on youtube to sucker in a gullible audience.
 
The Gagh Whisperer said:
I see Firefly as a bunch of cheap magic tricks, low skilled stuff put together for the right audience at the right time.

It strikes me as lazy and opportunistic. Clever quips, some fantastic tits, and self aware commentary on a genre that had grown complacent, ultimately hiding a lack of story and character development.

The worldbuilding was pure copy/paste, with little thought about how it fits together. The story was a collection of tropes. The characters were shallow and dull, but said enough clever and funny things that people didn't notice.

At the time it looked great. Attractive smart people kicking ass and delivering lines. But in hindsight it's like watching a street magician when you know all the tricks. You realize how little skill and effort actually went into it, how some dumb fuck just spent a lot of time in his bedroom smoking weed and learning easy tricks on youtube to sucker in a gullible audience.
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You intrigue me.

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The Gagh Whisperer said:
I see Firefly as a bunch of cheap magic tricks, low skilled stuff put together for the right audience at the right time.

It strikes me as lazy and opportunistic. Clever quips, some fantastic tits, and self aware commentary on a genre that had grown complacent, ultimately hiding a lack of story and character development.

The worldbuilding was pure copy/paste, with little thought about how it fits together. The story was a collection of tropes. The characters were shallow and dull, but said enough clever and funny things that people didn't notice.

At the time it looked great. Attractive smart people kicking ass and delivering lines. But in hindsight it's like watching a street magician when you know all the tricks. You realize how little skill and effort actually went into it, how some dumb fuck just spent a lot of time in his bedroom smoking weed and learning easy tricks on youtube to sucker in a gullible audience.
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Ehh.. I don't necessarily agree with all, or even most of that... but like I said, I can understand why people wouldn't like Firefly, especially after nearly 2 decades of hindsight, and seeing how formulaic and cuckish Whedon has become over those years. Point is, I don't think less of you for not liking Firefly, and I hope you don't think less of me because I still do.

I will agree that the some of the characters came off as a little bit shallow... but I mean, come on... Firefly only even got 11 of the finished 15 episodes televised in the first place, and they were aired wildly out of order, much to the detriment of the show.

Imagine if TNG had been canceled after only the first 15 episodes of Season 1 had even been filmed, let alone aired... Now also imagine that the network executives decided to air "The Naked Now" as the first episode of the series (because it was 'more exciting' than "Encounter at Farpoint".) but they also still decided to air "Encounter at Far Point" after that, even though that makes no sense...

And finally, imagine that the rest of the (already below average) first dozen-ish episodes of TNG that we got to see after that, were aired in an order that made the continuity of the show even more difficult to follow, and we didn't even get to see all of the episodes unless we purchased the dvd box set years later...

I do still wholly believe that the first "season" of Firefly, or at least what we got of it (provided you watch the episodes in the correct order) is MUCH better than the entire first season of TNG was. (And I do also believe that "Serenity" was a much better movie than any of the *TNG* Trek movies we got were, even the relatively good one.) Would Firefly have gotten better like TNG eventually did? I guess we'll never know... But hell, I still liked it.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
Remember that episode of TNG where Data gets possessed by those alien characters and one of them is a sun goddess called Masaka?

In Japanese, masaka (まさか) is an phrase meaning "it can't be."
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Yes! That episode used to be terrible. Now I guess it's relatively ok if you count all of Trek as relative -_-

Edit: That's also the episode where this happens...
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MagneticTowels said:
DeepFake is free.
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I believe it is but I don't know how hard or how time consuming it is to do well and is it really capable of doing something realistic in proper lighting other than slightly weird porn scenes? It may be impressive but I think Tarkin and Leia in the Star Wars movies empirically show that it's far from trivial to get this convincing. Those were very high budget big name movies and they failed at it. So regardless of what we think Deep Fake technology should be, logic says Picard couldn't do it if Disney couldn't.


UnKillFill said:
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As someone who has just started watching Enterprise and has only meaningfully watched any Trek from the start of this year (due to this thread), the above is very amusing. I have to say regards T'pol the actress does a pretty good female impersonation of Spock. I notice a lot of deliberate mannerisms and expressions calling back to him. The actress does a fair job of creating a convincing character but I'm unconvinced that she - or other Vulcans on the show - are really that without emotion. It's not a problem of acting so much as it is what a person without emotions would be like. The Vulcans in Enterprise seem more surly than emotionless and it seems to be a general directorial decision.

Cyril Sneer said:
To balance things out, maybe add something about Archer playing water polo? That's a pretty chad sport, right? 😉
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I'll say. I've had three horses die under me.
 
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