Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

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Anyone who's read Heinlein knows that there are some stories where the race of characters is important and some where it's not. I know this is subjective, but it seems reasonable that the race of actual civil rights icons is more important than that of fictional multidimensional aliens.

Says who? The BBC, for instance, is going to great lengths to replace actual figures from English/British history with people of impossible ethnicities.

Well, it's subjective. The key thing to me is that the character is treated with respect (this is the best way I can put it), and this will vary with subject matter, tone, and media. It's easy for Samuel Jackson to treat Nick Fury with respect in a comic book movie, it would be impossible for a white guy to treat Martin Luther King Jr. with respect in a serious biography. It would probably be impossible for a black guy to respectfully play a Jewish holocaust survivor. This is just the reality of race. As long as it exists it will be central to some stories.

Anyway, consider that these "impossible ethnicities" are British. Idris Elba, for example, is an incredible classically-trained actor born in London. What roles in the predominately white history of Britain should he be excluded from? Should he only play African thieves like in his first role, or a made-up African prince visiting Henry VIII or something? He's a Shakespearean actor - should he only be able to play Othello?

Maybe one day we'll figure it out, but it seems to me it'll get more complicated as ethnicities mix. What if Tessa Thompson was half-Norwegian, for example? Would she be less suited for the role of a Valkyrie than a blonde from Iowa?

Actors very rarely match the background of their characters perfectly. We've always had chiseled guys playing dumpy kings, 30-year-old English women playing French teenagers, accents are all over the place, some characters are composites, whatever. Skin color really isn't a deal-breaker for me in historical dramas, and especially not with minor characters in comics.

But like I said I might feel differently about serious biopics than fluffy historical drama. It's subjective.


I also seriously doubt there's a "Great Ginger Erasure" because red hair is vastly more common in cartoons and comics than in reality. For some characters its an important part of their identity (Red Sonja, for example), for others its just because red is easier in printing and it's a bright color that contrasts well and easily distinguishes flat background characters. In others its just a visual shorthand for feisty woman or nerdy kid. If changing the weird orangish-mustached guy with a heart on his chest to a black kid in She-Ra threatens any grown man's identity they probably have a serious problem and should take immediate steps to get laid.

Anyway, I like science fiction. I like history. I like other people to feel included because it's more interesting people for me to talk to about these things. Disney likes people to feel included because it makes them more money. If this is woke I don't really care, I didn't even know tumblr was still around.
 
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Anyway, consider that these "impossible ethnicities" are British. Idris Elba, for example, is an incredible classically-trained actor born in London.

His nationality may be British, but his ethnicity is not English.

What roles in the predominately white history of Britain should he be excluded from? Should he only play African thieves like in his first role, or a made-up African prince visiting Henry VIII or something? He's a Shakespearean actor - should he only be able to play Othello?

Why would he play Othello? Othello was a Moor... a Spanish Muslim. Antonio Banderas might work for that.

How about Rommel? Should Elba play Rommel? Should Dev Patel play von Braun? Should Ice T play Himmler?

What if Tessa Thompson was half-Norwegian, for example? Would she be less suited for the role of a Valkyrie than a blonde from Iowa?

Yes. In exactly the same way that, say, a character from Nigerian folklore would be best portrayed by someone who looks like they are from Nigeria, or a Korean tale should be cast with people who look lie they could be from Korea. When you take someone's stories and replace their people in them, you damage both the story and the people. It's cultural vandalism. Because those stories, whether tales of the Valkyrie, or Robin Hood, or the Trojan War, or the Battle of Gettyburg, they are vital elements in particular cultures. The Japanese, for example, seem to take some interest in the tale of a typhoon coming along and wiping out a Mongol invasion fleet. If a movie was made for the Japanese market that replaced the Japanese people with, say, Indonesians or Dutch, it would not only not work, it would smear the original story and the culture around it.

Skin color really isn't a deal-breaker for me in historical dramas, and especially not with minor characters in comics.

Great. Then you will have no problem with Paul Reubens playing Gandhi and King T'Challa (Black Panther) in back-to-back roles.


Disney likes people to feel included because it makes them more money.

And yet, their form of "inclusion" begins with "expulsion." Taking characters or historical figures and race bending them, especially when the race bending is in one highly predictable direction, is not only exclusionary to the people like the character, it is also insulting to those being "included." Whenever you take, say, Superman and make him black, or take James Kirk and make him gay (which is reportedly what they're going to do with ST:SNW, just as people are pushing for Spock to be rendered gay), you are admitting to the "included" people that "I'm sorry, but *you* *people* are just not intrinsically interesting enough for us to create an entirely new character; the best we can do is some cultural vandalism and scrape the serial numbers off an existing established character and give them a new coat of Inclusion Diversity Paint."

There are ways of doing it *right.* Look at "Into The Spiderverse:" the main character was a black/Puerto Rican kid. And who complained? Nobody, that's who, because the main character was not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales. What's more, Miles was not simply a badly photocopied Peter, but his own well developed and interesting character.

As for Disney: if they want to make money moving forward, it looks like their days of Diversity are about to end. Now that China has declared that effeminate "girlie" men are verbotten from movies on Chinese screens, Disney will have to delete such characters and return to traditional masculinity. If they even know how.
 
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I did not believe I could be classed as a traditional Trekkie but with the outpouring of diversification I am beginning to wonder. How many times can the franchise be rewritten and altered to fit someone else's idea of the franchise. Star Trek, RIP?
 
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There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
 
First we think, then we try, eventually we succeed. Nothing is done without a beginning.

Yeah, and the beginning is usually pretty boring. Nobody ever goes back in time and gives the Greeks moldboard plows for some reason.
Boring? Slow perhaps but life is like that and there are people who do math problems for 'fun'. Has anyone suggested going back in time? I did not see it anywhere.
 

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There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
Compared to Sean Connery, Daniel Craig looks like the watchman of a supermarket, the series should have ended when the cooler gadgets, the super girls and Spectra were eliminated by political correction. In these times when good and evil are relative and attempts are being made to decriminalize theft from the media, 007 has no meaning.
 
Anyway, consider that these "impossible ethnicities" are British. Idris Elba, for example, is an incredible classically-trained actor born in London.

His nationality may be British, but his ethnicity is not English.

English is quite a specific ethnicity! He's in an odd situation, where a different ethnicity can portray his culture better than he can I guess.

What roles in the predominately white history of Britain should he be excluded from? Should he only play African thieves like in his first role, or a made-up African prince visiting Henry VIII or something? He's a Shakespearean actor - should he only be able to play Othello?

Why would he play Othello? Othello was a Moor... a Spanish Muslim. Antonio Banderas might work for that.

Neither Moor nor black meant the same thing in Elizabethan English as they do today, so anyone with skin darker than the typical 16th century Englishman would work I suppose. Othello never says where he's from.

How about Rommel? Should Elba play Rommel? Should Dev Patel play von Braun? Should Ice T play Himmler?

Ethnic Germans only!

What if Tessa Thompson was half-Norwegian, for example? Would she be less suited for the role of a Valkyrie than a blonde from Iowa?

Yes. In exactly the same way that, say, a character from Nigerian folklore would be best portrayed by someone who looks like they are from Nigeria, or a Korean tale should be cast with people who look lie they could be from Korea. When you take someone's stories and replace their people in them, you damage both the story and the people. It's cultural vandalism.

Are you sure you aren't on tumblr?

The Smurfs episode "Trojan Smurfs" didn't turn all the characters in the original Iliad blue. I've checked.

What if took all the characters from a Japanese movie based on an English play based on Celtic pseudohistory and changed them? I might get Star Wars.

With historical films I don't know. It seems quite strange to tell someone who's been born and raised in a particular culture "You can't play this hero because we know he didn't look like you even though we don't know what he looked like or even if he existed."

Because those stories, whether tales of the Valkyrie, or Robin Hood, or the Trojan War, or the Battle of Gettyburg, they are vital elements in particular cultures.

So characters from American pop culture should look like Americans. Got it.

Should Robin Hood only be played by Saxons, or is he part of British pop culture at this point? Certainly Idris Elba is more culturally English than Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, or a talking fox.

The diffusion of stories between cultures and their retelling in the process is what creates culture. I sincerely doubt anyone exists solely in one culture anyway. There are layers and diffusion, otherwise everything would be pretty stagnant.

The Japanese, for example, seem to take some interest in the tale of a typhoon coming along and wiping out a Mongol invasion fleet. If a movie was made for the Japanese market that replaced the Japanese people with, say, Indonesians or Dutch, it would not only not work, it would smear the original story and the culture around it.

Much more likely that the fleet would be vaguely Japanese, led by Ken Watanabe, but saved from the Mongols by the heroic sacrifice of Tom Cruise.

Skin color really isn't a deal-breaker for me in historical dramas, and especially not with minor characters in comics.

Great. Then you will have no problem with Paul Reubens playing Gandhi and King T'Challa (Black Panther) in back-to-back roles.

Yeah, he should play Captain Kirk and Thor too.

Or what about this? I'm casting Captain Kirk and Idris Elba and Paul Reubens are the only ones who show up. Who do I pick?

or take James Kirk and make him gay (which is reportedly what they're going to do with ST:SNW, just as people are pushing for Spock to be rendered gay),

I'm pretty sure Kirk-Spock gay fanfic has existed since the 60s, nothing's ever come of it.

you are admitting to the "included" people that "I'm sorry, but *you* *people* are just not intrinsically interesting enough for us to create an entirely new character; the best we can do is some cultural vandalism and scrape the serial numbers off an existing established character and give them a new coat of Inclusion Diversity Paint."

I agree with this to some extent but some characters are always going to be the standard by which all others are judged. Nobody wants to be Alternate Universe Superman.

There are ways of doing it *right.* Look at "Into The Spiderverse:" the main character was a black/Puerto Rican kid. And who complained? Nobody, that's who, because the main character was not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales. What's more, Miles was not simply a badly photocopied Peter, but his own well developed and interesting character.

I'm not really into comics so I had to look this up.

Peter Parker and Miles Morales exist in different universes. The Spider-Man played by Tom Holland exists in another universe with the MCU characters.

Characters can change radically between continuities. In one Peter Parker is the Hulk! In the prime Marvel comic continuity Heimdall is an actual Norse God, in another he's a alien mutated by the Celestials, in another he's a cyborg with a transparent brain dome. Black Heimdall seems mild in comparison.

This kind of drastic change in characters between continuities isn't rare, it's been happening since Homeric times or even earlier. I suppose the question is when literally everything about a character can change between retellings of a story, when is race or whatever the one essential characteristic that must be retained?

This isn't an easy question to answer. It's clearly important sometimes in ways that don't have to do with historical accuracy, otherwise it wouldn't matter for fantasy or science fiction.

So once again it's subjective. It probably depends on how much the viewer identifies with or feels a sense of ownership of a story, which will depend on a variety of factors.

I don't know myself. I've been wary of fan-rage since the Star Wars Leonardo DiCrapio backlash when he was rumored to play Anakin instead of one of the worst actors of all time.

As for Disney: if they want to make money moving forward, it looks like their days of Diversity are about to end. Now that China has declared that effeminate "girlie" men are verbotten from movies on Chinese screens, Disney will have to delete such characters and return to traditional masculinity. If they even know how.

Do you?
 
English is quite a specific ethnicity!

Yes, just as "male" is a specific sex. "JAmes Bond" or "George Washington" played by a woman would be wrong, unless done as some sort of bad joke.

He's in an odd situation, where a different ethnicity can portray his culture better than he can I guess.

Hardly odd. What people look like matters.


Ethnic Germans only!

Or those who could pass, or those who simply look like the subject.

What if took all the characters from a Japanese movie based on an English play based on Celtic pseudohistory and changed them? I might get Star Wars.

And you'd have characters who are essentially entirely new. You can cast who you like.

It seems quite strange to tell someone who's been born and raised in a particular culture "You can't play this hero because we know he didn't look like you even though we don't know what he looked like or even if he existed."

But you know what the local ethnic group, the group that produced the hero, looks like. Casting someone from a distinctly different group is called "cultural appropriation."


Should Robin Hood only be played by Saxons,

Or someone who looks like a Saxon.




Or what about this? I'm casting Captain Kirk and Idris Elba and Paul Reubens are the only ones who show up. Who do I pick?

Neither. You either cast Bill Shatner, or you cast a body double who you can deep-fake Shatners face onto. We *know* who Kirk looked like, because he was one specific guy. Nobody else can compare.



Nobody wants to be Alternate Universe Superman.


Really? If you put out a casting call for "Alternate Universe Superman, paying $20 million," are you sure nobody will show up?




I don't know myself. I've been wary of fan-rage since the Star Wars Leonardo DiCrapio backlash when he was rumored to play Anakin instead of one of the worst actors of all time.

Disney will have to delete such characters and return to traditional masculinity. If they even know how.

Do you?

Maybe. Read my stories and judge for yourself.
 
Simple thought experiment:
1: You make a serious historical drama set in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. One of the producers suggests having the Legion move about on bicycles.
2: You make a straight World War One flick about aerial combat. One of the producers suggests a dogfight between Fokkers on one side, and Hawker Hurricanes on the other.
3: You make a Civil War drama about the battle of Gettysburg. One of your producers decides that the Rebs should be armed with bows and arrows, while the Union has crossbows.

Do you laugh the producer out of the room? Get rid of him? Or accomodate him, go ahead with the weird ideas, and then accuse any fans who complain of being istophobes?
 
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Simple thought experiment:
1: You make a serious historical drama set in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. One of the producers suggests having the Legion move about on bicycles.
2: You make a straight World War One flick about aerial combat. One of the producers suggests a dogfight between Fokkers on one side, and Hawker Hurricanes on the other.
3: You make a Civil War drama about the battle of Gettysburg. One of your producers decides that the Rebs should be armed with bows and arrows, while the Union has crossbows.

Do you laugh the producer out of the room? Get rid of him? Or accomodate him, go ahead with the weird ideas, and then accuse any fans who complain of being istophobes?

Since the producer is the the guy paying for everything, including your salary, you say, "yes sir, that sounds like a great idea and I'll get right on it". :D
 
Since the producer is the the guy paying for everything, including your salary, you say, "yes sir, that sounds like a great idea and I'll get right on it". :D

YOU are assumed to be a producer. I could admit to having not mentioned that, but it would be Current Year of me to accuse you of not checking your privilege, and thus the cause of the confusion is *you.* Because you're just an entitled fanboy.

That's how it's done, right?
 
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Maybe you should have a lie down for a little while and relax, you seem a little...overwrought.
 
Yep, you got me. You'll have to explain how though. Unfortunately, a light hearted tone can sometimes be difficult to convey accurately in this medium.

When someone starts blathering on about "check you privilege" and similar brain-free modern catchphrases, there are really only two options:
1: They are a woke nightmare
2: They are mocking the woke

Check context.
 
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Yep, you got me. You'll have to explain how though. Unfortunately, a light hearted tone can sometimes be difficult to convey accurately in this medium.

When someone starts blathering on about "check you privilege" and similar brain-free modern catchphrases, there are really only two options:
1: They are a woke nightmare
2: They are mocking the woke

Check context.

Hmmmm. Think I'm gonna go back to suggesting you have a little lie down anyway... ;)
 
There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
Compared to Sean Connery, Daniel Craig looks like the watchman of a supermarket, the series should have ended when the cooler gadgets, the super girls and Spectra were eliminated by political correction. In these times when good and evil are relative and attempts are being made to decriminalize theft from the media, 007 has no meaning.
Which is why each generation watches its own version or versions of the Franchise. Moore in Live and Let Die was arguably better than Connery in Diamonds are Forever. I prefer Stewart in STNG to Shatner in the Movie ST. My choice from the Menu. But having a full Menu pleases a wider audience.
The cast of the new Star Trek movies are fine by me. Its like watching Keira Knightley play Lizzy Bennet instead of Helen Mirren. What I hate is CGI. But again thats just me. I can eat Chips/Fries/Pommes Frites with Curry Sauce/Catsup/Mayonnaise depending on my mood and place
 
the turbojet of Coanda
It wasn't a turbojet, merely an attempt to use piston-powered compressor instead of propeller. There was no fuel injection & ignition; the compressor just pumped air from front to back. While Coanda in his patents suggested to use piston engine hot exhaust to heat the compressed air, the plane actually build have nothing like that.
 
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Can I just interject into this spiraling thread, English is NOT an ethnicity. English is a NATIONALITY full stop, period. Sorry folks but this is a factoid. I would also like to ask Justo just what the cartoon is supposed to mean. Progress always begins slowly and picks up pace, no idea what you are suggesting. NB. NOT taking anything at all seriously, I have the feeling that would be quite pointless.
 
Another reason to live in a bubble. Far too much horse poo around. PC and Woke have a lot to answer for.
 
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But you know what the local ethnic group, the group that produced the hero, looks like. Casting someone from a distinctly different group is called "cultural appropriation."

who simply look like the subject

Or someone who looks like a Saxon.

Culture is shared traditions and values, not what someone looks like, which you're placing above culture and ethnicity. What someone looks like is just skin (or hair) color, it's not even race.

Sure, Robin Hood or King Arthur started out as Saxon or Brythonic culture heroes, but they're part of larger British culture now. The Iliad and the Greek myths are so pervasive they're an integral part of Western culture, which is incredibly broad. I'm not sure about She-Ra's Etherian culture and the specifics of Etherian concepts of ethnicity.

What people look like matters.

It absolutely does, especially in a visual medium like film or comics. But giving skin color absolute primacy seems to me as absurd a use of cultural appropriation as saying white people can't eat tacos.

Some characters are strongly associated with a certain actor. Captain Kirk, for example. Someone else is just weird even if they closely resemble each other. But Captain Kirk was still Captain Kirk when he was Janet Lester, and Mirror Captain Kirk wasn't when he looked like William Shatner. Is Shatner an essential part of Captain Kirk's character or just our internalized perception of it? To what extent are these the same? These questions go deeper than race or politics I think.

Others have strong visual identities, like Superman. He doesn't really have a ethnicity as we understand it, but he's been portrayed as looking a certain way for nearly a century. A black Superman would be as weird to me as one with blonde hair or a purple Mickey Mouse, but at the same time skin color doesn't define Superman - it's truth, justice, and the American way despite his alien origins.

With historical figures it's more complicated. For some race is an integral part of their story, for others we know exactly what they looked like and their actual appearance is part of our conception of them. If you're going for historical accuracy your casting choices might be different than a loose adaptation of history where everything else is fudged.

Of course I know Achilles or someone wouldn't look like a black guy any more than he would have looked like clean-shaven Brad Pitt in a leather miniskirt, but is that culturally appropriating one of the foundational texts of...Western culture?

Something like Shakespeare belongs to the cultural heritage of all English speakers, if not the entire world. I could care less who plays Hamlet.

I can see how black Heimdall or Valkryrie might be weird, but these aren't the same characters as the ones in the Eddas. They're alien comic book characters created by a Jewish guy based on an incredibly loose interpretation of Norse mythology. What they look like doesn't really matter to me. A supporting character from a fantasy world in a kid's cartoon that was drawn a certain way 40 years ago matters even less.

If I enjoy something I enjoy it. I don't care if someone with weird pronouns on Twitter tells me Lord of the Rings is racist or some guy on Youtube who looks like he can't fit under a car to change the oil tells me traditional masculinity is under attack because he's mad about a cartoon.

People should take more walks and it's a nice day, so I'm going to enjoy it. Thanks for spurring my thoughts on this.
 
Culture is shared traditions and values, not what someone looks like, which you're placing above culture and ethnicity. What someone looks like is just skin (or hair) color, it's not even race.

Culture can be "acted." It's what "actors" do. But you can't "act" short if you're tall.

So if you want to cast Robin Hood, feel free to hire some backwoods yokel from Appalachia, or a Russian from Vladivostok... so long as they can *act* like a Saxon, and look the part. They need not have ever heard of Robin Hood or ever spoke a word of English, or believe in a single aspect of traditional British ethics. But if you hire a Korean feller, good luck getting him to *look* like a Saxon.

Of course you can always use makeup. But before you cast Idris Elba as Robin Hood, cast Anthony Hopkins as Nelson Mandela, and use the magic of makeup to make him look like Mandela. And make sure you hire extra security to protect your home and businesses from the resulting firestorm of protestors. You can't deny that Hopkins couldn't act the bejeebers out of the role.

The "culture" of the actor is monumentally irrelevant. Otherwise, nobody would *ever* be able to portray a Vulcan or a Hobbit or a Klingon or a wood elf. But the appearance of the actor matters: someone morbidly obese would make a *terrible* elf.

People should take more walks and it's a nice day, so I'm going to enjoy it.

"Taking walks is white supremacy."
 
Yes ! Ice T should play Himmler along with Snoop Dog as the Desert Fox Rommel. Strange I thought I was one of the few in a state imposed 4 month long COVID lockdown. Seems stir crazy is common.
 
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One of the film portrayals of Rommel was given by a Yorkshireman (there are as many of them as Scotsmen seemingly) called James Mason.
As far as I know no German has ever suggested that Curd Jurgens or Hardy Kruger should have been given the role.
HM the Queen is a tiny lady of German/Scottish heritage. Ms Helen Mirren is rather taller and of Russian heritage. Clearly "The Queen" was miscasting.
I would, however, like to suggest Idris Elba for the lead role in the forthcoming "Trump the Musical" not least because I have never heard him sing.
 
Offtopic alert:

The tittle of the the thread is "Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi", supposedly related to unbuilt projects, which is the forum's subject. Please note that many posts ago, we entered into the ethnicity, identity, and nationality realms.
 
New teasers for Macross Frontier: Labyrinth of Time and Macross Delta: Zettai Live

 
Culture is shared traditions and values, not what someone looks like, which you're placing above culture and ethnicity. What someone looks like is just skin (or hair) color, it's not even race.

Culture can be "acted." It's what "actors" do. But you can't "act" short if you're tall.

Of course you can't act tall. It's not an action.

Since we've been noted I'm only going to discuss my general dissatisfaction with things like the Star Trek reboot and other big-budget science fiction in the most general terms.

Actors were originally called actors because they acted - they played moral characters with ethical agency who took actions that drove the plot. What they looked like didn't matter, they were wearing masks anyway.

Shatner isn't a great actor. But Kirk made tough ethical decisions. He acted.

Now, with huge budgets, the Enterprise is shinier, nobody's pants rip, but Pine's Captain Kirk just beats up aliens. This Kirk is mostly judged by how well he impersonates the original. Character, or ethos, has been submerged by the least important element of drama explained by Aristotle, Spectacle. Spectacle is the sensory portion of a production, what the characters look like, the special effects, the setting, and so on.

Actors are judged now by how well they impersonate a fictional or vaguely historical character, massive budgets are spent to make settings look "real," which is really verisimilitude - how well it matches the concept in our mind, which is shaped by past fictional continuities.

But there's not much acting in the Aristotelian sense. The characters look incredible, get beat up, they go look for some magic item, then they beat up the bad guys. It's all Spectacle.

Maybe this is why the classics are still around while nobody really remembers the $300 million reboot from a few years ago.

People should take more walks and it's a nice day, so I'm going to enjoy it.

"Taking walks is white supremacy."

I always wondered why only one side of town has sidewalks down here.
 
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Maybe this is why the classics are still around while nobody really remembers the $300 million reboot from a few years ago.

EXACTLY. Things Like ST:TOS and Star Wars *are* classics. They're modern myths for our civilization, like Gilgamesh and King Arthur, or even the Founding Fathers and Cowboys. They will last as long as our culture does (so... another ten years???). But the Big Gigantic Mega Blockbusters? Meh. Remember "Avatar?" It was the biggest thing ever. Now it's almost completely vanished from the cultural consciousness. Similarly, Star Trek: Discovery and Picard had unquestioned spectacular production values... imagery in the service of wholly empty and bland stories filled with characters ranging from the forgettable to the execrable. That's why they want to dig up legacy characters like Kirk and Spock and mutilate their memories... because the people working on modern "Trek" can't create iconic characters or stories to compare.
 
There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
Compared to Sean Connery, Daniel Craig looks like the watchman of a supermarket, the series should have ended when the cooler gadgets, the super girls and Spectra were eliminated by political correction. In these times when good and evil are relative and attempts are being made to decriminalize theft from the media, 007 has no meaning.
To me Connery always looked like a CIA agent, while Craig looks like a KGB agent. Moore was the perfect balance of Britishness, seriousness, and humor.
 
There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
Compared to Sean Connery, Daniel Craig looks like the watchman of a supermarket, the series should have ended when the cooler gadgets, the super girls and Spectra were eliminated by political correction. In these times when good and evil are relative and attempts are being made to decriminalize theft from the media, 007 has no meaning.
To me Connery always looked like a CIA agent, while Craig looks like a KGB agent. Moore was the perfect balance of Britishness, seriousness, and humor.

"Is this really the forum to waste bandwidth on discussing fantasy movies?" - martinbayer ;)
 
There are analogies between the Star Trek and James Bond franchises.
I was lucky enough to share my childhood with Sean Connery and his Corgi Toys Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 followed by Captain Kirk. I still have my Viewmaster set from the "Omega Glory".
I know that younger folk will have grown up with Roger Moore or Daniel Craig or Patrick Stewart. If another generation grows up with Idris Elba or whoever then that is how Franchising works.
Compared to Sean Connery, Daniel Craig looks like the watchman of a supermarket, the series should have ended when the cooler gadgets, the super girls and Spectra were eliminated by political correction. In these times when good and evil are relative and attempts are being made to decriminalize theft from the media, 007 has no meaning.
To me Connery always looked like a CIA agent, while Craig looks like a KGB agent. Moore was the perfect balance of Britishness, seriousness, and humor.

"Is this really the forum to waste bandwidth on discussing fantasy movies?" - martinbayer ;)
If you can't beat them, join them.
 
Offtopic alert:

The tittle of the the thread is "Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi", supposedly related to unbuilt projects, which is the forum's subject. Please note that many posts ago, we entered into the ethnicity, identity, and nationality realms.
Yeah, the Hollywood producers who like to intentionally miscast roles and similarly intentionally misportray any technical stuff are laughing very hard at this thread.
 
The ability of the profit motive to spur innovation and advancement should not be discounted. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to look at the aeolipile and realize the true potential.
It’s use in cute toys might have **been** the hold up. Graybeards today lament the computer replacing manpower. We undervalue manpower today but we may have over-valued it yesterday.

How many MEN do you lead, Spartan? How many man-hours or man years will this take?

Honest toil made the pyramids…what is Heron’s toys to that? —they said…
 
Exactly what I'm talking about. Massive, inefficient machinery, capable only of performing parlor tricks. There are cheaper ways to open the door, you know.
All new technologies have difficult beginnings
 

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Simple thought experiment:
1: You make a serious historical drama set in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. One of the producers suggests having the Legion move about on bicycles.
2: You make a straight World War One flick about aerial combat. One of the producers suggests a dogfight between Fokkers on one side, and Hawker Hurricanes on the other.
3: You make a Civil War drama about the battle of Gettysburg. One of your producers decides that the Rebs should be armed with bows and arrows, while the Union has crossbows.

Do you laugh the producer out of the room? Get rid of him? Or accomodate him, go ahead with the weird ideas, and then accuse any fans who complain of being istophobes?
If the idea is sufficiently amusing, its all good. After all, turning king Arthur into a women was a great idea in some markets.

You are also applying your sense of wrongness based on your own knowledge. If you ask a medieval, the standard historical drama would have be gross errors in breed of horse, the combination of weapons and armor (off by hundreds of years), clothing, language, architecture, agriculture methods, actual functionality of political structure and on and on.

If the above stories are marketed to say, women, would "anyone" but spergy milcel nerds notice it at all? After successfully making Pearl Harbor into a love story, anything is doable since history is just scenery. If anti-F35 Crown Victoria is a thing, Fokkers are tame: Also Iron Eagle III.

The main problem with modern casting isn't failure to conform to history, but it is based on utterly banal ideas that isn't interesting at all, unless someone sneaks in a in-joke past the humorless censors.
 
You also have people put into a role because they are box office draws. Tom Cruise plays Reacher. Anyone read the books? Not great writing but reasonable story's. Reacher is well over six feet tall with "Dinner plate fist's". Tom Cruise, respect to the man aside, is well, not.
 
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