Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Reviews for the latest Matrix movie have been all over the place as far as my social media streams go. I’m adding my voice to the choir: It annoyed me. Note, however, that there’s something I find interesting in my reaction to it. I really hate the pretentiousness of the wardrobe and dialogue. The latter is made even more grating by the fact that everyone is either whispering (presumably to sound cool) or yelling (presumably to force dramatic tension without necessarily earning it). There’s rarely any in between, or at least so little of it that I took it for granted. That kind of movie makes me want to punch everyone involved, both in-character and out-of-character. And who wears sunglasses indoors and at night? Someone I want to punch, that’s who.
What I find interesting about this reaction is that I had the same reaction to the other Matrix movies, but with the exception of a few notable quotables, over time the pretentiousness slowly disappears from my memory of them, leaving me only with the parts I liked. That’s a lot, which meant that my honest emotional reaction to those movies was overall positive. (Yes, all three of them.) Resurrections may not be so lucky, though. Part of what I liked about the original were the groundbreaking special effects and visuals, as well as a relatively new story. Resurrections doesn’t have that luxury. There was nothing I noted in there that could be deemed “groundbreaking” by today’s standards.
I’ll mention something that I did like about it quite a bit. Avoiding spoilers, I’ll simply say I liked how meta it was. I also liked a callback to a past character who’s all grown up. So, while the story was good enough, it was marred by a tone that always makes me sick to my stomach. I’m glad I watched it on HBO.
I’ll probably like it more someday. As always, YMMV.
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A while back, I talked aboutBrain Games on Disney+. It’s a great show, but there’s so much science behind how our brains work that close to 10 seasons can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Netflix’s The Mind Explained is a much more focused show — only two seasons so far — that’s a more manageable discussion of anxiety, focus, memory, and other aspects of neuroscience. The human brain is weird (some more than others), and this show does a good job of explaining that. It also targeted a specific issue that hits home for me. You may have a similar experience.
If you watch the episode on focus, maybe you can handle Brain Games. 🙂
Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s a meme appropriate to the aftermath of Christmas.
Okay, I take that back. There’s nothing “appropriate” about this meme.
I was raised Catholic, but I’m, let’s just say, unaffiliated at the moment. Still, if there were any reason for me to engage in holiday traditions, it would be Christmas. In fact, people like me have influenced United States Supreme Court precedent on the Establishment Clause, but that’s a story for another day.
Patrick Stewart likes to talk about Star Trek as the modern human’s mythology, and I guess that applies to me. So, here’s my means to celebrate Christmas. Sort of. It’s all the memes that hit my stream this year, some of which are new to me. This is my mythology.
From one of the best episodes of TNG.
Fortunately, I never have to worry about this sort of thing.
Kirk is such a hound dog.
I would buy this outfit.
Ouch.
Some more decorations.
Humans apparently still celebrate Christmas in 2364, as evidenced by their viewing of Christmas movies.
Worf never got it. He never got anything.
But seriously . . .
Worf I get, but Gowron? I had no idea that Klingons celebrated Christmas.
I was browsing Google headlines today and came across this article detailing my second favorite Stevie Nicks songwriting story. The jist of it is this: Stevie wrote Stand Back while listening to Prince’s Little Red Corvette, and the influence was too great. So, she called Prince and asked permission to use the riff. Not only did Prince grant permission, but he flew out to Los Angeles and played the keyboard part on the song. Prince was credited on the album as Alexander Nevermind and shared 50% of the revenue from the song.
This is a pioneer, right here.
My favorite story? I learned of it only recently. One of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs is Silver Springs. In 1975 or 1976, Stevie was leaving a concert at the Capital Center in Landover, MD, riding along the Washington, DC beltway (I-495). As she passed the exit for New Hampshire Ave. (Route 650), she read the sign, “Silver Spring, MD,” and thought, “What a great name for a song.” (Here’s the longer version of the story. As brilliant and tortured as Rumors was, imagine how much moreso it would have been with Silver Springs on it.)
What’s great about this story was that, because of the time of night, I was almost certainly snug in my bed less than one mile from her as she drove by. I wouldn’t even know of the band, Fleetwood Mac, until 1977, but I was in some small sense there for the start of one of my favorite songs from one of my two favorite bands.
Yesterday, I whined a bit, and I’m going to keep this going. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really annoyed by Star Trek Discovery. It’s probably still better than The Animated Series, but The Animated Series shouldn’t be taken seriously by adults, so it’s got an out. Discovery, on the other hand, should be taken seriously, and it’s finally gotten so bad that I simply don’t like it.
The Triumvirate
As an old guy, I don’t like the way modern storytelling has proceeded. This is meaningless, as I’m no longer the target audience, but I’m going to share why that’s the case. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy represented the ethos, logos, and pathos of Starfleet, all wrapped up neatly in three characters. Focusing on only three characters has the advantage of developing those characters so thoroughly that the viewers’ appreciation of them is maximized. Modern writing focuses on far too many characters, which means there’s less plot and more minutiae. For example, we know that Chief O’Brien’s wife’s mother was born in 2269; we didn’t know Sulu was born in San Francisco until the fourth movie.
I experienced a similar issue with the TV show, The Flash. Among several issues with the show, one that drove me nuts was that over half the show’s runtime (I’m not exaggerating) had nothing to do with the main storyline. Instead, presumably because the writers weren’t talented enough to produce a complex story, over half of each episode had the characters 1) saying how much they loved each other; and 2) saying why they had to leave and never come back. As for number one, I’m all for character development — that’s the strength of the Triumvirate — but as Kirk once told Uhura, “Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn’t necessarily a good thing.” In this case, the “too much” isn’t character development itself, but rather how much of the runtime is dedicated to it. As for number two (huh-huh), there were a couple of characters that kept leaving “forever” but returning as soon as an actor needed another paycheck. It was maddening. (Note: The final straw for the Flash was a different issue altogether: A woman with no superpowers deflecting automatic gunfire with a sword. Even Deadpool couldn’t do that, and he’s utter deus ex bullshitina.)
This is what Discovery does. It spreads its development around the personal storylines of so many characters that the plot takes up almost none of the episode. This is easier writing, of course, which is probably why they write it that way. Most modern shows are like this, as have been past seasons of Discovery, but Discovery keeps adding characters, and it’s now unbearable.
The Characters
I know that Mary Wiseman, the actress playing Tilly, has caught a ton of grief for her continued weight gain. A lot of it has been mean-spirited, and I don’t like that. However, there’s something to be said for placing your trust in someone who’s clearly not physically fit to rise to the challenges Starfleet personnel typically face. In the real world, the US Army has engineers, doctors, and other specialized soldiers, and while they’re not all Ranger qualified, they must do PT and maintain a certain minimum level of fitness. There’s good reason for that. How does Tilly get around that? In season 3, they have her “jogging” around the ship and running laps around the physically fit characters. Is this because Mary Wiseman is in better shape than they? Nope. It’s because, well, the script says she does. Who cares if it makes sense? They want her to be one of the stars of the show, so . . . she just is despite everything cutting against it.
Her physical fitness isn’t her only issue. While I don’t like unqualified viewers flippantly diagnosing on-screen (i.e., make-believe) characters with conditions the scriptwriters don’t understand and probably don’t care to understand, it’s clear that the Discovery scriptwriters intend for Tilly to suffer from some mental disability, probably something along the lines of autism. This has been made exceptionally clear in the current season, where her condition has caused her to break inside. Rather than immediately remove her from duties, the script instead had David Cronenberg tell her that the mission she led showed how great she was. He completely ignored the fact that she created the hazardous situation in the first place, getting someone killed and almost costing the entire shuttle crew their lives. The scriptwriters could have written whatever unrealistic story of heroism they wanted, but they wrote that, and thought they were writing a success story.
The mission was a disaster, though at least the outcome was close to logical: Tilly’s incompetence led at least to one death. So, that particular scene was the worst of both worlds: It had Tilly “win” even though she shouldn’t have, yet their definition of “win” was laughable. There’s no good in there. None.
This is nothing new. For many stories on TV today, many characters succeed not because they employ the most effective and/or skillful path to success, but merely because the script says so. The writers want these incompetent and/or idealistic characters to succeed, so they just do. There’s no rhyme or reason to the success. They get what they want despite themselves, and that poor writing grates on me (as I’m sure mine does on you).
At least I’m self-aware.
Obviously, some of my concerns are generational, so they may not apply to you, but some of it is logical, and if there’s anything a Star Trek fan should demand of a Star Trek series, it’s adherence to logic. As good as its season-opening episodes have been, I think I’m tapping out on Discovery. I’d like to see how the actual main storyline plays out, but it’s not worth sitting through 40 minutes of drivel. Besides, it’ll probably be a cheap ending relying entirely on deus ex machina.
I hope Strange New Worlds turns things around. I haven’t anticipated a Star Trek series this much since The Next Generation.
Play What You Want 