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First episode of ST Picard is on Amazon Prime now. Watched it this morning (cos I'm off sick from work at the mo), and it looks very promising.

 

Had it on first thing at work today whilst marking. I thought it was quite brilliant. Effortlessly embraced canon, expands on ideas brilliantly and a very thought provoking if unsubtle critique of contemporary issues.

Edited by Colinjb
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  • 3 weeks later...
First episode of ST Picard is on Amazon Prime now. Watched it this morning (cos I'm off sick from work at the mo), and it looks very promising.

Had it on first thing at work today whilst marking. I thought it was quite brilliant. Effortlessly embraced canon, expands on ideas brilliantly and a very thought provoking if unsubtle critique of contemporary issues.

Seven of Nine just turned up. :):):)

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Season 2 of Altered Carbon is out on Netflix now. Only watched the first two episodes so far but it looks decent.

 

Got a new lead actor playing Kovacs, but the whole premise of re-sleeving means this fits perfectly well into the AC universe.

 

Still got the AI hotelier guy though, and he was great in season 1.

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23 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

ST Discovery Season 3 just started on NETFLIX, new episodes every Friday.

Yep, watched the first one and thought it looked really good.

I really don't get the hatred some people show towards Disco. It's far from perfect, granted, but the biggest problem people seem to have with it is "It's not Star Trek". But it very much is IMO. Much more so than the Kelvin timeline movies anyway. It's a shame people have to judge it based on their own expectations rather than on its own merits. When TNG started, a lot of people hated it and dismissed the idea of a balding English actor playing a reserved French captain of the Enterprise, and its first two seasons were mostly awful. But after it had found its feet and fans grew more attached to the characters, it eventually it became the best loved ST series of them all. 

Disco feels much different because it's much more cinematic looking than previous ST series, and due to the on-demand nature of TV viewing, it is serialised rather than the episodic "alien of the week" format that people were used to previously.* We've had the first two seasons of character development now, and the producers rectified the continuity problems at the end of S2 (explaining why nobody had ever mentioned the spore drive or Spock having a human sister before). Now we get to see this crew in a time period that has never been explored before in ST canon, and I'm really looking forward to how it pans out.

* - on that note, I'm looking forward to seeing the Strange New Worlds spinoff show, featuring Pike and Spock. The studio have said this will be much more like the episodic and optimistic vision of the original series, and I thought Anson Mount as Pike was really good in S2 of Disco.

 

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On 21/10/2020 at 22:26, Sheaf Saint said:

Yep, watched the first one and thought it looked really good.

I really don't get the hatred some people show towards Disco. It's far from perfect, granted, but the biggest problem people seem to have with it is "It's not Star Trek". But it very much is IMO. Much more so than the Kelvin timeline movies anyway. It's a shame people have to judge it based on their own expectations rather than on its own merits. When TNG started, a lot of people hated it and dismissed the idea of a balding English actor playing a reserved French captain of the Enterprise, and its first two seasons were mostly awful. But after it had found its feet and fans grew more attached to the characters, it eventually it became the best loved ST series of them all. 

Disco feels much different because it's much more cinematic looking than previous ST series, and due to the on-demand nature of TV viewing, it is serialised rather than the episodic "alien of the week" format that people were used to previously.* We've had the first two seasons of character development now, and the producers rectified the continuity problems at the end of S2 (explaining why nobody had ever mentioned the spore drive or Spock having a human sister before). Now we get to see this crew in a time period that has never been explored before in ST canon, and I'm really looking forward to how it pans out.

* - on that note, I'm looking forward to seeing the Strange New Worlds spinoff show, featuring Pike and Spock. The studio have said this will be much more like the episodic and optimistic vision of the original series, and I thought Anson Mount as Pike was really good in S2 of Disco.

 

Well it seems my optimism was very much misplaced.

 What a load of utter shit this season has turned out to be.

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4 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

I do find Burnham has become very annoying.

I hoped they might try and take the focus off her a bit this season and give more screen time to some other characters, but they've gone the opposite way and made it even more about her. And none of the other characters are much cop anyway. The only slightly interesting one is Giorgiou, but the writers don't even have a clue what to do with her and it's a shameful waste of Michelle Yeoh's talents. The rest of the Discovery crew are just glorified extras.

Oh well, S5 of The Expanse starts in a couple of weeks. I recently binge-watched all of Series 1-4 again while I was off work for a bit and everything about it is better than any of the current ST series.

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1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Anybody watched Raised by Wolves yet? It's all on Sky/NowTV now.

I read about it and saw a trailer a while back and it looks like it could be excellent. Plenty of people raving about it online anyway.

For a while I thought you were talking about the sitcom based in Wolverhampton that was on C4 a few years ago.

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On 07/12/2020 at 17:35, Sheaf Saint said:

Anybody watched Raised by Wolves yet? It's all on Sky/NowTV now.

I read about it and saw a trailer a while back and it looks like it could be excellent. Plenty of people raving about it online anyway.

Travis Fimmel reprises his performance as Ragnar Lothbrock.

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On 07/12/2020 at 17:35, Sheaf Saint said:

Anybody watched Raised by Wolves yet? It's all on Sky/NowTV now.

I read about it and saw a trailer a while back and it looks like it could be excellent. Plenty of people raving about it online anyway.

Watched it right through. Thought the premise was original and it started quite well. It ran out of steam about two-thirds through and ended a little farcical. Did I mention a flying eel?

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15 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Why are the mirror universe uniforms in Disco so much sexier than those in the Prime ?

I think it's more a combination of the uniforms and the evil looking make-up and facial expressions. Was always that way with DS9 as well. Mirrorverse Kira - the Intendant - was smokin' hot.

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13 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

I think it's more a combination of the uniforms and the evil looking make-up and facial expressions. Was always that way with DS9 as well. Mirrorverse Kira - the Intendant - was smokin' hot.

Sex is power ?

Edited by badgerx16
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First 3 episodes of The Expanse season 5 on Amazon Prime now.

I can't love this show enough. Watched the first new episode last night, and while it was just a scene-setter with very little actually happening, it just looks amazing. The visual effects, which were already excellent, have been stepped up a level, and it looks incredible in 4K.

Really looking forward to the rest of the season.

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On 17/12/2020 at 20:28, View From The Top said:

The Mandalorian, however, is bloody brilliant still.

I was a bit worried by the first few episodes of season 2, in that it seemed to have become cliched; firstly, Star Wars meets Dune ( Giant sand worm ), secondly Star Wars meets Aliens ( cave full of eggs that hatch into evil critters ), but it steered away and built up a good momentum. Excellent example of Girl Power in the last couple of episodes.

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On 01/01/2021 at 00:12, badgerx16 said:

I was a bit worried by the first few episodes of season 2, in that it seemed to have become cliched; firstly, Star Wars meets Dune ( Giant sand worm ), secondly Star Wars meets Aliens ( cave full of eggs that hatch into evil critters ), but it steered away and built up a good momentum. Excellent example of Girl Power in the last couple of episodes.

I'll be interested to see how they develop it from where they are now.

 

Also, the book of Boba Fett. Yes please.

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Second season of Love Death and Robots out now on Netflix. 

For those unfamiliar it's an anthology series of animated short sci-fi films, and apart from a few not-so-good ones here and there, it's mostly excellent. The animation in season 1 was very good but in season 2 it's incredible.

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The new Dune movie finally gets released next month, after being delayed from last December.

I've been cautiously excited about this ever since it was announced a few years ago, because Denis Villeneuve is a brilliant director who did an outstanding job with the Bladerunner sequel. But given how difficult the story has proved to be made into a film previously (I liked the Lynch version but I can see why it was so widely criticised), there was always the possibility it would be another dud and a massive disappointment given how long we've had to wait for it.

However, I've read a few reviews of it in recent days and they are absolutely raving about it..

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dune-review-b1913870.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/sep/03/dune-review-denis-villenueve-venice-film-festival?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Can't wait.

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19 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

The new Dune movie finally gets released next month, after being delayed from last December.

I've been cautiously excited about this ever since it was announced a few years ago, because Denis Villeneuve is a brilliant director who did an outstanding job with the Bladerunner sequel. But given how difficult the story has proved to be made into a film previously (I liked the Lynch version but I can see why it was so widely criticised), there was always the possibility it would be another dud and a massive disappointment given how long we've had to wait for it.

However, I've read a few reviews of it in recent days and they are absolutely raving about it..

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dune-review-b1913870.html

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/sep/03/dune-review-denis-villenueve-venice-film-festival?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Can't wait.

I like Arrival as well, so he does seem to have a knack with the genre.

There is also Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov's books, coming up on Apple TV, though I hope to find a way to get to see it.

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16 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

I like Arrival as well, so he does seem to have a knack with the genre.

There is also Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov's books, coming up on Apple TV, though I hope to find a way to get to see it.

Yeah Arrival was also very good. Loved the twist. 

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I know it doesn't alter the story line, but in the new Dune film why is Dr Liet Kynes, most definately male in the book, played by a woman ? It's the sort of non-canonical detail that really annoys autistic pedants like me, in the same way that Peter Jackson's bringing the elves to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers did.

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4 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

I know it doesn't alter the story line, but in the new Dune film why is Dr Liet Kynes, most definately male in the book, played by a woman ? It's the sort of non-canonical detail that really annoys autistic pedants like me, in the same way that Peter Jackson's bringing the elves to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers did.

Perhaps they just couldn't find the right man during casting, but they were impressed with Sharon Duncan-Brewster when she auditioned for a different role? Who knows.

Like you said, it doesn't really alter the story, and maybe even that character works better as a woman? When Herbert wrote Dune in the early 60s, it was still very much a male-dominated world so maybe it didn't even occur to him to write Kynes as a woman.

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7 hours ago, skintsaint said:

oh nooo

 

 Image of Now I know there's a twist.

 

Watching Man in the High Castle at the moment. Very watchable and interesting concept. Not many episodes in so far though so potential to go down hill.

I binge watched that a few months ago. Something like forty hours or more. An interesting concept and probably worth discussing once you’ve watched it all.

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7 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Meh. Can't say I'm too enthused about this. Looks like they've just taken the Disney approach to Star Wars and re-hashed the original film with the same cast for a new generation.

It looked great when released 20 odd years ago. Sure the new one will look amazing. Storyline I'm not hoping too much of.

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5 hours ago, skintsaint said:

It looked great when released 20 odd years ago. Sure the new one will look amazing. Storyline I'm not hoping too much of.

Oh yeah, the first film massively raised the bar for visuals against which all other sci-fi films were then judged. But the CGI in the sequels was overdone and looked very silly at times (like when Neo fought off a few dozen Agent Smiths all at once), and I thought they were very poor overall.

This new one certainly looks good on the eye, but yeah I'm not expecting a great plot. From what it shows in the trailer, Neo seems to have been re-inserted into the matrix and had his memory wiped, so he has to go through the whole process of discovering he is The One again. Just seems like lazy writing IMO.

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2 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

From what it shows in the trailer, Neo seems to have been re-inserted into the matrix and had his memory wiped, so he has to go through the whole process of discovering he is The One again. Just seems like lazy writing IMO.

That does sound pretty shite and lazy. Hopefully not. Then again didn't the Architect say he has destroyed Zion before?

Edited by skintsaint
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On 30/12/2021 at 22:02, badgerx16 said:

Just signed up for 5 months free AppleTV, so can give Foundation and For All Mankind a try. I am disappointed that Disco S4 isn't easy to get to - I know it's on PlutoTV but there isn't any catch-up service so you are bound to their schedule.

Finding Foundation a big disappointment. They have taken a classic Sci-Fi story and almost totally rewritten it, turning it into just another Star Wars clone - to the extent that the baddies struggle to hit anybody despite advancing en masse with high tech automatic weapons. They have taken every key part of the story and reinvented it - other than the title and certain planetary names almost everything has been altered, to no apparent purpose.

Sometimes screenwriters are just too damned clever for their own good.

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The Expanse comes to an end with most threads in the Solar System neatly tied off, but the other sides of the rings left vague and loosely sketched. Knowing how the books develop this isn't much of a problem, but as an ending for those unfamiliar with them is it sufficient, or has the Laconia story line simply been left hanging ?

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On 05/03/2022 at 18:50, badgerx16 said:

Season 2 of ST Picard just started on AMAZON Prime.

Very much enjoyed that first episode. Probably the best single episode of Trek since the TNG/DS9/VOY era.

Was just great to see some of the Starfleet ships from that era again, only in glorious 4K. The new Stargazer is a thing of beauty.

Looking forward to how the season pans out. I enjoyed S1 very much but the finale was a bit of a let-down.

I saw on my feed this morning that S3 has wrapped production, so hopefully we won't have such a long wait for that as we did between 1 and 2.

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