StillPaisleyCat

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I’m not attributing anything here. You’re arguably the one clinging to your head canon.

I’m an older person who was around to hear other OG fans complain about this ‘alternate universe/timeline for TNG’ theory in the late 1980s. And to see how the Great Bird himself responded.

Roddenberry went on the record saying that the timeline had to adjust to always keep the show’s future as a possible future for the audience. He defended the shift in the timing of WW3.

Goldsman, who has been a fan longer than almost any of his detractors, would have heard this more than I did. Goldsman organized one of the very first clubs and fanzines as a preteen, and attended the first ever convention in New York City.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Roddenberry himself was adamant that Star Trek’s history had to remain a possible history for viewers. So, the dates can slip as long as the major events don’t.

That is why he put WW3 later than implied by TOS, delaying it to the mid 21st century in the TNG pilot ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ even though that led to a contingent of TOS fans insisting that it ‘had to be a separate universe from the one of the original series.’

While writers never explicitly resolved this onscreen during the Berman Era shows, preferring to weasel with offscreen head canon in interviews saying that perhaps the Eugenics Wars were covert and going on unknown in the 90s, the new shows have dealt with this problem head on by acknowledging that temporal incursions do affect the timing of major events without making it a separate timeline.

SNW and Prodigy have been able to make this clear onscreen in canon with the expert help of the franchise’s excellent physicist science advisor Dr. Erin Macdonald. (She did her PhD with the team in Scotland that got the Noble prize just a couple of years later. She’s truly on top of modern theoretical physics.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

McCoy was in Encounter at Farpoint with one meta purpose - to counter the TOS fans that were campaigning hard to say that it ‘wasn’t the same universe.’

McCoy’s presence was a nice Easter Egg, but not much more. But he did the job of saying that it was the new Enterprise in continuity with the legendary ship on which he served.

Fans argued that because Roddenberry insisted on moving WW3 back to the mid 21st century as of Encounter at Farpoint, TNG had to be a different timeline.

TOS fans understood the Eugenics Wars to be the precursor to WW3, so they just didn’t accept WW3 was going to be another half-century away. Roddenberry’s directive was to always keep the Star Trek future in our future so WW3 had to be shifted to later in time and any specific mention of the date of the Eugenics Wars was avoided.

They also hated the carpet and many other things about the ‘luxury hotel in space’ Enterprise.

Yup, that happened and continued to happen until well into TNG season 3. The brigading Berman-era fans who rail unrelentingly against ‘Nu-Trek’ don’t sound any different, they’re just more visible than the 1980s fans that relied on mimeoed fanzines and Usenet. Fans that liked TNG kept quiet at cons until at least 1990, and vendors didn’t bring TNG merchandise.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

No need to fuss about calendars. Just need to revisit Dr. Macdonald’s Temporal Mechanics 101.

There have been several temporal incursions since the DS9 crew did theirs - Voyager, Picard, SNW and Prodigy, not to mention the rippling effects of the Temporal Wars established in Enterprise and Discovery.

Dates and details can slip as long as the major events stay more or less the same.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

From what I can tell Americans used to use scales for dry measures (in ounces) but somewhere along the line, they switched to volume measures for everything.

As a Canadian, it’s really frustrating because often will get the American versions of UK cookbooks here which are both not metric and not weights.

I enjoy my Australian cookbooks with metric weights.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Cook in metric and use a scale!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If anything, Lower Decks has intentionally lifted some 7-note sequences from the TAS title theme.

The title theme for Lower Decks almost does a bait and switch riff of the TAS one.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Yea that was TOS.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Glad to have you. You should be warned though that this crew has already sucked in meme-lookers into watch the show and becoming fans.

As I was sucked in by the kid across the hall with a colour tv back in 1965, I can attest to the risk of wondering “What’s that pointy-eared guy doing with his hand on that monster?”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I couldn’t resist. Glad you appreciated it, and that new Neelix image is all the thanks I needed.

By the way, in the meantime, I have done some more research only to discover that there are in fact TWO Earth root vegetables that are already viable as hydroponic crops: red radishes and beets.

The idea that Leola root is a cross between radish and beet is now firmly fixed in my mind.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Or, Leola root is the hydroponic equivalent of zucchini.

This video seems like something Neelix would make for his morning show.

What to do with too much zucchini!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (5 children)

That’s what I thought. Leola root is a high carb root that will grow quickly on mats in a hydroponic bay.

Currently, real life intensive vertical hydroponic gardening is great for leafy greens, but not so much for starchy or other caloric carbs.

 

/ Film is continuing to report and opine on key points in the oral history book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams," edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross.

For those of us who haven’t (yet) invested in the book, these extracts and reflections can prompt some interesting discussion.

In this case, it sounds like Nimoy’s hesitation led to a much less action-oriented integration of Spock’s presence. An interesting thought experiment.

Also, it sounds like tapping nostalgia and interlinking shows has been a constant pressure from senior executives at the IP holder. It’s well known that Roddenberry resisted close callbacks to TOS, and was determined for TNG to stand on its own in its own era. Even five seasons into TNG, Paramount senior executives though still weren’t convinced it didn’t need a TOS-connection boost.

Considering the amount of callback mining and IP nostalgia mining in the current era shows, it seems as though Kurtzman’s got a hard road to convince Paramount to give new characters and eras a chance to stand on their own.

 

This was included in the Star Trek Day content, but released separately a couple of days ago.

It’s nice to see Discovery getting a lot of love in this. It also really shows how great so many of Discovery’s vfx heavy scenes have been.

 

Leaving aside bias towards the American market and critics, this latest criticism of Rotten Tomatoes influence comes from this September 6th piece from Vulture. The report provides new evidence of PR firms paying critics and persuading them to keep negative reviews off of Rotten Tomatoes tracking.

The Bunker 15 employee replied that of course journalists are free to write whatever they like but that “super nice ones (and there are more critics like this than I expected)” often agreed not to publish bad reviews on their usual websites but to instead quarantine them on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.” If done right, the trick would help ensure that Rotten Tomatoes logged positive reviews but not negative ones.

Collider has its own overview and retrospective on previous examples of corruption in reviewing, headlined “Rotten Tomatoes has always been mouldy at its core.’ It notes the inherent vulnerability of RT as it is owned by NBC Universal and Warner Brothers. Collider summarizes the recent criticism and analysis of RT as follows.

THE BIG PICTURE

Rotten Tomatoes' binary system oversimplifies complex works of art and diminishes the role of nuanced film critics.

The recent controversy surrounding Rotten Tomatoes reveals the site's susceptibility to manipulation by PR companies.

The dominance of Rotten Tomatoes in film discourse has led to a diminished appreciation for the human element and individuality in film criticism.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/1569624

Because it’s the weekend and Star Trek’s new Moopsy is possibly the most frighteningly inspired adaptation/extrapolation of Pokémons to hit the screen.

 

Because it’s the weekend and Star Trek’s new Moopsy is possibly the most frighteningly inspired adaptation/extrapolation of Pokémons to hit the screen.

 

It appears that this is a promotional feature in Smithsonian Magazine for a a new book Reality Ahead of Schedule: how science fiction inspires science fact.

This seems a good fit for Daystrom Institute, but happy to relocate if it’s a better fit for another community.

 

Earlier this week Disney announced (whinged) that it expected a $ 300 million revenue loss attributable to the strike.

Today, The Hollywood Reporter says sources are reporting cost-cutting at Warner Brothers Television Group.

the studio has suspended a number of overall deals for its top creatives including J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot (Duster), Greg Berlanti (Superman & Lois), Chuck Lorre (Bob Hearts Abishola), Bill Lawrence (Shrinking), John Wells (Maid), Mindy Kaling (Sex Lives of College Girls). Sources say Lorre’s multiyear pact with his decades-long studio was quietly suspended in May, a week into the strike, with Wells’ deal a month later.

Deadline has a similar report but interprets the news as more likely ‘suspend and extend’ arrangements.

One has to wonder why the major content producers are continuing side with Netflix, Amazon and Apple which are primarily streamers.

 

As previously advertised.

 

The rebranded Star Trek magazine Explorer, published by Titan, is including original fiction.

For those who are fans of @DavidMack@[email protected], this month’s issue may be one to add to your purchases if you’re not planning to already.

 

In honour of Star Trek day, this month Simon & Schuster is offering 23 ebooks at discount prices.

Books from every era are represented. (A special shout out from me for the Diane Duane one.)

As usual, look for the discounts in the US, Canada and UK through the major ebook platforms.

Enjoy!

 

An interesting, deliberately thought provoking 🤔 question for a lazy long weekend Sunday morning…

Setting aside whether specific fans like specific ‘gimmicks’ (crossovers, musicals, bringing back Kirk or Khan) or tropes (transporter malfunctions), Space.com is posing the hypothesis that the proportion was too high in Strange New Worlds second season.

There’s no arguing that the season was successful in drawing in large audiences week after week. Taking a look back though, was there too much trippy-Trek(TM) dessert and not enough of a meaty main course? YMMV surely.

For my part, I can both agree that trippy Trek is something I’ve been wanting more of, and that I would have welcomed 2 or 3 more episodes were more grounded or gave the opportunity to see more of Una as a leader and dug into Ortegas backstory.

The 90s shows seemed to be bit embarrassed by trippyness, although Voyager found its pretext allowed even stern Janeway to pronounce ‘Weird is our business.’ One can argue that the high proportion in SNW is a feature, not a bug.

I’d still prefer a 12-15 episode season though.

 

Interesting extract from a longer /Film interview with in-demand director Roxann Dawson.

I appreciate how she speaks with respect for the shows of the new era.

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