Sci-Fi Malady

So RageMaster and Corey are out again this week, which means I continue reviewing the so called bad Star Trek odd numbered Star Trek movies. This week it is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This movie is roundly hated by most for being slow and lacking action. They are not wrong that movie is slow and lacking action, they are wrong that the pacing and dialogue driven story makes it a bad movie. 

The story is essential for the character of Spock and has a simple message that attempts to answer to question humanity has been asking for all of time - what is the meaning of life. 

I challenge you to listen to Symptom 35 and then rematch The Motion Picture, its not as bad as you might remember. 

So this podcast idea started life conceptually as a discussion of proper writing techniques and how the Star Wars Expanded Universe writers failed to employ them. It transformed into a bashing of Star Wars Episode 7, Rogue One and the author Chuck Wendig. 

Rage master found a Gizmodo article that referenced the writers guide for the West End Games Star Wars roleplaying game. It emphasized such pro tips as: don't rely on cliches, don't discuss the past, don't write Anakin Skywalker's back story, don't write about the purge of the Jedi and don't invent the next biggest and baddest thing ever. 

These are great tips for writers diving into the expanded universe of a franchise like Star Wars. The books will always be the sideshow to the main show - the movies. So to avoid having your novel become completely irrelevant, don't write something like oh say, Chewie dying saving Han's son Anakin, because, well, the new movie might come after set after that book with a very alive Chewie and Han and Leia having only one child (well maybe only one child) name Ben. Oops. 

We however, being ourselves, could not resist pointing out where Episode 7 and Rogue One failed in handling the tips that should apply to all writing - cliches, the biggest and baddest, know the history of the franchise you are writing for, etc. 

So here's Symptom 34 - a return to one of our favorite things - crapping on JJ Abrams, because he is, a douche. 

This week we are discussing disaster movies, particularly Armageddon and Deep Blue Sea.  Ragemaster hates them both, Scott attempts to defend Armageddon as an action/thriller movie.  Disaster movies, or extinction level event movies tend to be excellent fast paced thrillers and do well at the box office, because they deal with high intensity human emotions. They tend to be horrible science fiction because generally the science needed to save the day is, well, less believable than if we cloned Merlin to wave a magic wand and mother nature and make her behave. There is your problem. There is no science that save Earth from  a gamma ray burst, if the core stopped spinning, we would just die, and if we didn't see an asteroid the size of Texas until is passes Mars, well, good bye civilization as we know it, but that doesn't make for a very good film so, wizardtastic!

Enjoy Symptom 33. I did some cringeworthy lingual gymnastics to try to salvage Armageddon, a pretty much universally reviled film, that I may regret later. Should just said, ah, its a guilty pleasure and ripped it. 

This week is a treat for our sickies who happen to be  tabletop gamers.  We had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Kask, one of the founders of TSR and Dungeons and Dragons.  Dungeons and Dragons went on to inspire countless stories and games and created a generation of friendships.  If you like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, or even modern sci-fi, you can thank individuals like Tim for taking the risk to create. 

Well after a week off we are back. No RageMaster, but he will be back for next week, but this week Scott and Corey discuss intelligent machines and how the way they are portrayed in science fiction might not actually be realistic. 

Sci-Fi generally shows us two types of intelligent robot, an altruistic and good being, like Bishop in Aliens or Data in Star Trek, or it shows us something that is pure evil, like Ash in Alien, Data's brother Lore or SkyNet. 

The thing is good and evil behaviors are essentially driven by emotion, as are all behaviors. Our emotions are determined solely by chemicals and hormones and without these physiological reactions we could not experience them. Since a robot or sapient computer could never have a chemical or hormonal reaction it can't actually exhibit emotionally driven behavior. It could simulate emotional behavior, but it is difficult to believe that it could be emotionally driven to take either altruistic good actions or selfishly evil actions. How would an intelligent machine intelligence behave. Scott and Corey dive into this question this week on Sci-Fi Malady. 

Also, stay tuned at the end for the trailer for our upcoming new segment - Nerd Duels!

Science Fiction portrays two possible visions of the future usually, utopian, where everything is perfect, and dystopian, pretty much hell on earth. In this symptom we are exploring dystopian science fiction and what makes it great. Dystopian sci-fi generally can deliver the more powerful messages, because usually the events discussed have occurred, although to a lesser degree. It tends to be more relatable to the average viewer or reader because being the flawed creatures we are, we have real life examples of nightmare societies and oppressive powers to compare it to. Utopia's though, just don't exist. 

So here is symptom 30, we talk a lot about Demolition Man, have a great side bar conversation about Aliens and discuss Planet of the Apes, all excellent examples of a flawed, dystopian future. 

It is the movie that fans like to forget. Trekkie's pretend it never happened and there are running arguments that if you struck it from the canon nothing changes and there is zero lasting impact. They are right, but the movie did happen and it is canon. Of course, I am talking about William Shatner's tour de crap, Star Trek 5 The Final Frontier. This is the movie that almost killed Star Trek on the big screen. It certainly is a terrible, with a rambling and non-sensical plot full of holes and special effects that look like a graduate student with a C average was contracted for this film. THe thing is though, if you can push all of that aside, there is some amazing stuff in this nightmare and with a re-write or five and an Earnest Hemingway approach of removing unneeded garbage, this film could have an amazing discussion of religion versus humanism. Unfortunately this filmed failed to accomplish that and we would have to wait until the mid 90's with Deep Space Nine for Star Trek to truly tackle this one. 

So here is Symptom 29, a discussion of the steaming pile of garbage that is Star Trek 5 and how close it came to being truly epic. Its the amazing movie we almost got but didn't. Thanks Bill. 

The most recognized symbol of xbox is that of Master Chief.  The Halo series redefined the first person shooter genre while mixing modern combat themes with sci-fi troupes.  With a sleek gameplay, great multi-player options, a dirge of great weapons and enemies, there isn’t much not to like about this series.  However, in recent years, the series has taken on a new direction when it was taken over by a different company.  This new direction was not received with the fanfare of the originals.  Can the series retain its former glory?  Nick, Corey, and the Ragemaster give their take.  As Scott has never played these games, he has been tied to a chair and kept quiet lest he contribute less than nothing to this symptom.

Movies have many different non-verbal methods of advancing the story. An actor or actress does not always need to be speaking for the director to be conveying information to the viewer. In Symptom 27 Scott and The Ragemaster discuss the use of score, panning, set and art design and other non-verbal clues that make up good movie making. There is also a song or two about fidget spinners.

Science Fiction has a mono-culture problem. On one hand it is a proven and reliable story telling and world building device that allows talented writers to tell deep stories which examine the flaws of humanity through actions of the alien races. This, in a show like Star Trek, allows the writers to portray humanity as the hero and the perfect society that it hopefully evolves into, while exposing the flaws of our current society through the actions of the aliens. 

The downside to the use of monocultures is that it reinforces, passively, stereotyping. In Star Wars all Radians are bounty hunters, all Jedi are selfless and all Sith are selfish. In Star Trek all Vulcans are morally upstanding and emotionless, all Klingons are warriors obsessed with honor and ritual, all Romulans are cunning, deceitful and paranoid and all Bajorans worship the Prophets.  These portrayals, albeit passively, support the reliability of stereotyping a person by race or cultural identity. 

So on one hand, the use of a monoculture allows a progressive thinking show, such as Star Trek, to tell smart, heady, deep morality plays which explore the strengths and weaknesses of current human society and the perfect society we hopefully will one day evolve into. It is both a good and bad thing, hence, science fictions problem with the story telling device of a monoculture.