Star Trek (Dis): Context Is for Kings

[Grill13]

Rey wasn't the lead of The Force Awakens and she honestly was barely a side character. You could remove her from the film and nothing would chance. Fin was the closest thing to a real lead the film had but he got sidelined in his own movie. He wanted to be a Jedi and even tried to use a lightsaber but I guess he wasn't born with the right color ... ahem ... I mean he was born with a Y chomo ... oh, still wrong. Now I see. He wasn't born with the correct number of midiclorians to be a Jedi so the force is off limits to him I guess. That sucks. He actually had an interesting story going. We see him and his struggle, we learn about not knowing his parents, we witness his escape from captivity. I was digging it. Then the always dishonest JJAbrams want us to swallow that this other character who is the cinematic equivalent to sugar free, gluten free, fat free, TASTE free white person is somehow the real hero because of how she was born not anything she'd ever done with her life.

[thisithis]

Fanboys have always been resentful of change. But that applies even when the change remains White.

Then why do most Star Trek fans like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine so much which has a black male character?

[thisithis]

Rey wasn't the lead of The Force Awakens and she honestly was barely a side character. You could remove her from the film and nothing would chance. Fin was the closest thing to a real lead the film had but he got sidelined in his own movie. He wanted to be a Jedi and even tried to use a lightsaber but I guess he wasn't born with the right color ... ahem ... I mean he was born with a Y chomo ... oh, still wrong. Now I see. He wasn't born with the correct number of midiclorians to be a Jedi so the force is off limits to him I guess. That sucks. He actually had an interesting story going. We see him and his struggle, we learn about not knowing his parents, we witness his escape from captivity. I was digging it. Then the always dishonest JJAbrams want us to swallow that this other character who is the cinematic equivalent to sugar free, gluten free, fat free, TASTE free white person is somehow the real hero because of how she was born not anything she'd ever done with her life.

The funny thing I find funny about Finn in the last two Star Wars films was that George Lucas did have a good explanation why there was a black man in a stormtrooper uniform in the extended universe. But Disney has been the dumbasses they have killed the extended universe along with the story that clearly explained why the stormtroopers where now Random people and now clones anymore. Even that there were still some clones left. When you kill your only real explanation, you kinda failed.

I'll say this about Star Trek Discovery that did better than Stargate Universe, at least they didn't have civilians and mid-level scientist thinking that they could fight hardly trained Marines with there bare hands. that was like watching Robot Chicken Ep with the One-sided fist fight.

[J!!]

The funny thing I find funny about Finn in the last two Star Wars films was that George Lucas did have a good explanation why there was a black man in a stormtrooper uniform in the extended universe.

Why would that need an explanation?

[Meushell]

The funny thing I find funny about Finn in the last two Star Wars films was that George Lucas did have a good explanation why there was a black man in a stormtrooper uniform in the extended universe. But Disney has been the dumbasses they have killed the extended universe along with the story that clearly explained why the stormtroopers where now Random people and now clones anymore. Even that there were still some clones left. When you kill your only real explanation, you kinda failed.

Star Wars: Rebels makes it clear that recruits are used instead of clones since the Empire started. They also state that clones were used until they were deemed “too old” and forced out of service. Finn himself says he was taken as a young child. New canon books also expand on this.

[thisithis]

The funny thing I find funny about Finn in the last two Star Wars films was that George Lucas did have a good explanation why there was a black man in a stormtrooper uniform in the extended universe. But Disney has been the dumbasses they have killed the extended universe along with the story that clearly explained why the stormtroopers where now Random people and now clones anymore. Even that there were still some clones left. When you kill your only real explanation, you kinda failed.

Star Wars: Rebels makes it clear that recruits are used instead of clones since the Empire started. They also state that clones were used until they were deemed “too old” and forced out of service. Finn himself says he was taken as a young child. New canon books also expand on this.

And all you have to do is play the original BattleFront 2, Not that EA BattleFront 2 port that came out a few months ago. But in the game's Single player in the original BattleFront 2 you play a Clone trooper and in one of the stories, you learn that the people on Kamino the cloning planet decided to make there own Version of clones. Clones that did not have order 66 and were under there complete control, and not the Empire. They made these clone at the same time there were making the clones for the Empire. They seemed to not trust Palpatine, so there side free clones where made as a precaution, and they failed, the newly develop StormTroopers beat the Clone Troopers and Palpatine order to let volunteers be Storm Troopers and that the DNA be slightly altered to make different troopers of various looks and personalities.

[MixedDrops]

As a self-proclaimed "SJW," I didn't see a lot of people taking issue with Discovery's focus on a black woman as the lead aside from the racists and the sexists (the kind who think Star Trek is just pzew pzew Kirk beds alien women and not anything of substance) and they were easy enough to drown out considering Star Trek is a show ALL ABOUT equality, social justice, and bringing people of different backgrounds together.

I really hate the term "SJW" (as a general rule I think anybody who uses it without any hint of irony is likely not worth taking seriously), but I'd probably be considered one myself with some of the things I believe. Really, if you go by how trolls use it at this point the term basically just means any form of media that has a female or minority character in a major role.

One of the issues in cases like this is that yes, the blatantly obvious racist/sexist trolls are easy to filter out, but I really like to think that some of the things happening in real life should have taught people at this point that a lot of racists and sexists aren't actually that stupid and they'll instead crouch it in more reasonable terms (or relatively vague ones) in order to lead you down their rabbit hole (ie dog whistling, concern trolling etc).

An example I'll cite was the Ghostbusters remake- in my view it was a godawful film and there was lots and lots of legitimate complaints to be had, but when you compare it to the backlash on the torrent of terrible remakes or sequels we've had, it doesn't take a lot of thinking to spot what the difference is. It's not even just that Ghostbusters was a beloved movie, because we've had things like that mediocre Robocop reboot, that terrible sequel to ID4 or the recent trainwreck of the recent Mummy movie trying to jumpstart another stupid cinematic universe- all of these are related to movies which are beloved by some part of moviegoers, so what made Ghostbusters so different?

In Discovery's case, even once you get past the "they changed it, now it sucks" type complaints typical of any new entry of a long franchise, you'll often run into generic complaints ("the characters are unlikable", "the writing is bad") where dishonest people will either constantly avoid answering directly or just quickly change the subject when you press them to elaborate.

In that light I don't think it's hard to misunderstand why some people might get tired of the dog whistling and start seeing dishonesty where there isn't any, so I do think it was important for Chuck to put that in the review. Being that I'm a long-time viewer I pretty much always assume good faith on Chuck's part so I don't need him to put that bumper in, but for anybody who isn't, it can be good to have that there.

No, the complaints people have had across the board are the perfectly legitimate ones - the continuity issues both in tech and look, the unnecessary amounts of "edginess" (swearing, nudity, pop culture references that Star Trek has tended to shy away from because we're several hundred years removed from it), or indeed - how everyone kinda starts as a jackass.

I think everyone coming off as an asshole is the complaint I can agree with the most. I think it was great of Chuck to have this big theme about hindsight and correcting past mistakes in his anniversary shows. It does make me wonder that, with all the things being revealed that put a lot of things from the earlier episodes into place, does that make up for how awkwardly the show introduces these characters to us? I'm surprised that Chuck didn't even bring up the title of the episode- it wouldn't surprise me that this benefit of hindsight being applied to the early episodes was completely intentional on the part of the writers.

Stamets in particular comes off as being a real douche in his introduction, yet understandable because he thinks he's dealing with the the most infamous criminal in Starfleet history who started the war that derailed his career. The recent episodes have really helped soften him and now I like him quite a bit.

Like other people have mentioned though, I don't think Tilly is autistic. I mean, she might be, but nothing in the show confirms that. Rather than Wesley Crusher, she reminded me a lot more of Barclay- a socially awkward crew member who dreams of making it big. The way Tilly runs her mouth reminded me of when Barclay talked about never knowing how to stand and where to put his hands. I can see the Crusher comparison though.

Fanboys have always been resentful of change. But that applies even when the change remains White.

Then why do most Star Trek fans like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine so much which has a black male character?

There were plenty of people who complained about the fact that DS9 only took place in a station when it first started. That aside, early DS9 did a lot of TNG-type stories. It was still very much in the episodic structure Trek had done for decades and didn't go into serialized overdrive until like, season 6 (and IIRC Behr talked about how even at that point anytime they were playing around with serialized storytelling Berman would start wagging his finger at them).

Discovery, on the other hand, completely changes the way Trek is shot and presented (cinematic lighting as opposed to the even TV lighting that entire era of shows had) and the story format is different right from the outset.

[unknownsample]

The funny thing I find funny about Finn in the last two Star Wars films was that George Lucas did have a good explanation why there was a black man in a stormtrooper uniform in the extended universe. But Disney has been the dumbasses they have killed the extended universe along with the story that clearly explained why the stormtroopers where now Random people and now clones anymore. Even that there were still some clones left. When you kill your only real explanation, you kinda failed.

Star Wars: Rebels makes it clear that recruits are used instead of clones since the Empire started. They also state that clones were used until they were deemed “too old” and forced out of service. Finn himself says he was taken as a young child. New canon books also expand on this.

Also in the film Hux says his men are trained from birth.

[penm]

I think this is probably you're finest episode at least since endgame. Very funny, interesting and I really liked you addressing the elephant in the room head on. Keep up the good work.

[Fixer]

As a self-proclaimed "SJW," I didn't see a lot of people taking issue with Discovery's focus on a black woman as the lead aside from the racists and the sexists (the kind who think Star Trek is just pzew pzew Kirk beds alien women and not anything of substance) and they were easy enough to drown out considering Star Trek is a show ALL ABOUT equality, social justice, and bringing people of different backgrounds together.

I really hate the term "SJW" (as a general rule I think anybody who uses it without any hint of irony is likely not worth taking seriously), but I'd probably be considered one myself with some of the things I believe. Really, if you go by how trolls use it at this point the term basically just means any form of media that has a female or minority character in a major role.

So, if people declare themselves SJWs and then people call them SJWs that's bad? Is it only the context of whether or not they support or oppose the politics that matters because by your own statement just now says that Linkara's isn't worth listening to.

This is probably going to derail the conversation further into the identity politics angle here but this increasing tribalism is part of the problem that makes discussing modern sci-fi and fantasy online for the last 5 years so nasty.

Like it or not people are going to aggressively defend against every criticism made against a character or media solely because of identity politics as much as others rail against them for the same.

Your example is the Ghostbusters movie. Look at what happened, James Rolfe AVGN, made one video saying he thought the movie looked awful from the trailer. Instead of doing what his fans expected, he said that he wasn't going to watch it and then make a video talking about how bad it was. He was just not going to see it and explained why. After that he said hey it could even be good. In response he was labeled a sexist, misogynist woman hater that was just hiding his sexism.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/ghostb ... to-review/

The Ghostbusters backlash was increased exponentially by a feedback loop of an overly hyperbolic defense which attacked the original movie's fanbase. To the point that you had to declare your support for a pretty awful looking movie or be declared a heretic by the end. To which a lot of people who would have been ambivilent for the movie were now actively wishing for it to fail.

If anything should have been learned by that whole ordeal, it should have been how not to make a trailer and how not to attack a fanbase or critics.