Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

[Foo Fighter]

Peter F Hamilton has some great titles and you get a lot of book for the money.

 

[zen]

Oh I'm still waiting for the Stainless Steel Rat, and the Lensemen to be made.

Really feel someone should try to do J.C.Cherryh's Foreigner series too.

 

[sferrin]

I'd like see Iain M. Banks Culture universe and Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth universe brought to the screen. Amazon was rumoured to be having a go at the Culture a while back but I've heard nothing more about it.

Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama would make a good film or mini series. Morgan Freeman and David Fincher were involved at one point but it never happened.

How the hell did I forget about Peter F. Hamilton? I love the Night's Dawn trilogy.

 

[Michel Van]

What i read of Sci-fi

next epic space opera of Perry Rhodan with over 3065 issue

Stephen Baxter, H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clark, Robert L. Forward,
John Varley, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Issac Asimov, Phillip E. High, Joe Haldeman,
Samuel R. Delany, Alfred Bester, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, David Weber,

On Sci-if comic/manga
Yoko Tsuno, Blake and Mortimer, Dani Futuro, everything Juan Giménez made, Valérian et Laureline,
AKIRA, Battle Angel Alita, Astro boy, Cobra, Captain Harlock, everything by Masamune Shirow, Dirty Pair,
everything by Jodorowsky like INCAL & Meta Barons,
Le Dernier Atlas, Simon de Fleuve, Les Naufragés du temps, Barbarella, Vagabond des Limbers, le cycle de Cyann, Metal Hurlant.
Storm, The Trigan Empire, 2000AD, Scarlet Traces, Shakara, Heavy Metal

 

[Justo Miranda]

What i read of Sci-fi

next epic space opera of Perry Rhodan with over 3065 issue

Stephen Baxter, H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clark, Robert L. Forward,
John Varley, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Issac Asimov, Phillip E. High, Joe Haldeman,
Samuel R. Delany, Alfred Bester, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, David Weber,

On Sci-if comic/manga
Yoko Tsuno, Blake and Mortimer, Dani Futuro, everything Carlos Giménez made, Valérian et Laureline,
AKIRA, Battle Angel Alita, Astro boy, Cobra, Captain Harlock, everything by Masamune Shirow, Dirty Pair,
everything by Jodorowsky like INCAL & Meta Barons,
Le Dernier Atlas, Simon de Fleuve, Les Naufragés du temps, Barbarella, Vagabond des Limbers, le cycle de Cyann, Metal Hurlant.
Storm, The Trigan Empire, 2000AD, Scarlet Traces, Shakara, Heavy Metal

El Mercenario by Segrelles

 

[Justo Miranda]

Vicente Segrelles art

 

[Justo Miranda]

Vicente Segrelles art -2

 

[Justo Miranda]

Vicente Segrelles art -3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Vicente Segrelles art -4

 

[Michel Van]

El Mercenario by Segrelles

ARGG i forgot him on my list

 

[Archibald]

Iain Banks culture is rather fascinating...

Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn - shame Lucas (the horror) and Disney (the horror, the horror) prevailed.
Or maybe it's a chance ?
Now that is has been declared "Star Wars legends", any chance it might be adapated as a "side project" ?
something unrelated enough to the "canon" to be actually GOOD - since the canon has become SO BAD.

How about a serie in the wake of The Mandalorian ? series have different public, and this one proved something good can still be done out of the present Star Wars wreckage.

Star Wars Legends: the series.

Star Wars: wrath of Thrawn. Thraaaaaawn !

 

[Justo Miranda]

El Mercenario by Segrelles

ARGG i forgot him on my list

And Ted Nomura

 

[Justo Miranda]

Ted Nomura art

 

[Justo Miranda]

Ted Nomura art -2

 

[Orionblamblam]

How about a serie in the wake of The Mandalorian ? series have different public, and this one proved something good can still be done out of the present Star Wars wreckage.

Star Wars: wrath of Thrawn. Thraaaaaawn !

Ahem:

Star Wars Rumor: Grand Admiral Thrawn To Make The Jump To Live-Action

 

[Archibald]

Good news. Never bought the "star wars legends = non-canon = cast aside" thing. There are multiple ways to get around such issues
- time travel
- multiverse
- time travel and multiverse
Franckly, DC and Marvel have long used this ploys and tricks to get around a major problem. 1940's to 2020's is a lot of authors, each one bringing changes to even Superman or Batman basic storylines, making continuity a complete mess by the 70's.
Solution: infinite Earths, same characters in different TL, multiverse, time travel.

Crisis of the infinite Earths was also a way of cleaning up a lot of bullshit that had cropped up along the years. Well, then time for Star wars to go the same way.

Same for DBZ. Toryiama first let a lot of plot holes and continuity B.S all over the place. Later DBGT and DB Super went into full Jar-Jar-binks level of shit.
Some people got enough and decided to clean the B.S - end result, multiverse and this > https://www.dragonball-multiverse.com/en/accueil.html
Very much "extend universe DBZ" - non canon, but far better than present "official" horse manure.

 

[SteveO]

I remember reading the Dark Empire and Heir to the Empire comics by Dark Horse back in the early nineties and being full of hope for any future SW films. I couldn't get enough of the original trilogy growing up.

Then they made the prequels which I've learnt to live with but have aged badly effects wise. Darth Maul should have been in all 3 and Anakin should have been a teenager in the PM.

Rogue One is almost perfect in my opinion. Solo was enjoyable and I think it would make a good series with Darth Maul, Boba Fett and Hutts appearing and a running gag of fixing up the Millennium Falcon and then wreaking it by the end of each season.

The Mandalorian is OK but lower key than I thought it would be. It's got potential though.

I don't like to talk about the other 3 sequel films

 

[Orionblamblam]

Good news. Never bought the "star wars legends = non-canon = cast aside" thing. There are multiple ways to get around such issues
- time travel
- multiverse
- time travel and multiverse

The most recently announced Star Wars series for Disney+ was reported to be set in an "alternate history" Star Wars. If it gets made and that is in fact the case, then it makes it real easy for the fandom to simply write off the Sequel Trilogy as being set in a different, dumber universe, allowing for some other sequel series, perhaps the Thawn Trilogy, to be considered the "canon" followup to Return of the Jedi. Given that the new series is set to take the level of wokeness to unheard-of levels, being able to ignore large chunks of "offical" Star Wars in discussion of canon will become pretty common, much as it is with comic books. Look at the "Batman" movies: nobody complains that the recent "Joker" movie doesn't fit in with the canon of "Batman" from 1989, because it's just accepted that the Batman canon was broken apart *generations* ago. Star Trek is just about there, with the "Prime timeline" (so-named by the current license holders) including the 2008+ "Kelvin timeline" movies and STD and STP now considered wholly separate by the fans from the "canon timeline" which includes TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY, with "Enterprise" being somewhat debated.

While the exact plot is under wraps, but the series is understood to be a female-driven action thriller with martial arts elements and set in an alternate timeline from the usual Star Wars universe.

 

[SteveO]

A sequel or reboot to The Last Starfighter might work but I'm sure they would find a way to ruin it with an unnecessary underlying message worked into it rather than having a good script and characters. Armada by Ernest Cline might fit the bill but will need a better ending.

I'd like to see Saucer by Stephen Coonts made into a film. It would be like a grown up Flight of the Navigator

 

[Orionblamblam]

A sequel or reboot to The Last Starfighter might work

Sequel, maybe... reboot NEVAR. Enough with the failed reboots already. Did we need a reboot of Robocop? Rollerball? Or Total Recall? Death Race? The Day The Earth Stood Still? Poltergeist? A-Team? Red Dawn? Arthur? Carrie? Childs Play? The Omen?

Sometimes reboots work. But for every "Battlestar Galactica" you get a "Ghostbusters 2016." A reboot of "Last Starfighter" is almost certain to fail. It was a movie of its moment.

 

[Archibald]

Good news. Never bought the "star wars legends = non-canon = cast aside" thing. There are multiple ways to get around such issues
- time travel
- multiverse
- time travel and multiverse

The most recently announced Star Wars series for Disney+ was reported to be set in an "alternate history" Star Wars. If it gets made and that is in fact the case, then it makes it real easy for the fandom to simply write off the Sequel Trilogy as being set in a different, dumber universe, allowing for some other sequel series, perhaps the Thawn Trilogy, to be considered the "canon" followup to Return of the Jedi. Given that the new series is set to take the level of wokeness to unheard-of levels, being able to ignore large chunks of "offical" Star Wars in discussion of canon will become pretty common, much as it is with comic books. Look at the "Batman" movies: nobody complains that the recent "Joker" movie doesn't fit in with the canon of "Batman" from 1989, because it's just accepted that the Batman canon was broken apart *generations* ago. Star Trek is just about there, with the "Prime timeline" (so-named by the current license holders) including the 2008+ "Kelvin timeline" movies and STD and STP now considered wholly separate by the fans from the "canon timeline" which includes TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY, with "Enterprise" being somewhat debated.

While the exact plot is under wraps, but the series is understood to be a female-driven action thriller with martial arts elements and set in an alternate timeline from the usual Star Wars universe.

Fan pressure ledading to marginalization of the B.S as non-canon. I kind of like it, but how much time and movies will it take in the case of Star Wars ?
so far the "2010's trilogy" has been only a marginal improvement over the "1990's trilogy". I mean, Disney still did not listened to the fans, just like Lucas before it, and the nd result was another boondoggle.

Maybe star Wars branching into a live action serie - Mandalorian - is the right way to go. Series are vastly different from movies - different kind of pressure and constraints. Crucially, it is far easier to "save" a serie than a trilogy of movies. Series are like dozens of smaller movies, so if one episode is bad, it is 2% of the lot. Screw one movie in a trilogy, and 33% of the final product is shit.
Considering the present state of Star wars, I would say that it is ruined as far as movies go, but could still redeem itself as a serie.
We are lucky that the frontier between movies and series is far more blurred than in the 70's.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Fan pressure ledading to marginalization of the B.S as non-canon. I kind of like it, but how much time and movies will it take in the case of Star Wars ?

A long time. To wash away the Stain of Abrams from Star Wars, Disney would not have to simply move on, but *replace.* Make movies that are set in a Star Wars universe where the prequels and original trilogy happened, but the Abrams/Kennedy trilogy *didn't.* And I don't see that happening for a long time. And not only will politics have to permit this, but movie-making technology. Let's say that the Thrawn Trilogy is the thing to do. Well... that was supposed to be set, what, 5 to 10 years after "Jedi." Fifty years will have passed in the real world. Ford will be dead. Fisher *is* dead. Hamill will be off in his mountaintop stronghold. Everyone will have to be digitally recreated, and the tech for that isn't there yet to pull it off for main characters for a whole movie.

so far the "2010's trilogy" has been only a marginal improvement over the "1990's trilogy".

That's a funny way of spelling "even Jar Jar was a phenomenally better character with a stupendously better arc than the mains from the sequel trilogy."

Series are vastly different from movies - different kind of pressure and constraints. Crucially, it is far easier to "save" a serie than a trilogy of movies.

Counterpoint: "Discovery." Further counterpoint: the as-yet unnamed Headland Star Wars series. The person running it is not a Star Wars fan, is vile on almost every level and promises to bring her toxicity to the project. How do you save a series with such rancid roots? Hopefully it will truly be in an alternate timeline so that it can be ignored and forgotten like Netflix's "Another Life," a series that is so bad it deserves to be erased from the space-time continuum, paradoxes be damned.

 

[SteveO]

I regret and apologies for suggesting a reboot of The Last Starfighter

I'd be happy to see anything "Rogue Oneish" set closely around the original trilogy (Solo/Kenobi/Fett/Andor/Vader) that fits in nicely and has their spirit. The Mandorlorian is set after Return of the Jedi I think and was pretty decent but not amazing.

The damage has been done though and I don't really get excited about Star Wars projects anymore

 

[Orionblamblam]

I'd be happy to see anything "Rogue Oneish" set closely around the original trilogy (Solo/Kenobi/Fett/Andor/Vader) that fits in nicely and has their spirit.

Kennobi is, IIRC, on hold, but still expected; the Andor series is in production I believe.

 

[edwest4]

For me, the original three Star Wars movies, minus the later upgrades, are it. Bits and pieces from the others but they are all generally forgettable. Leave Star Trek alone.

I think some original ideas and an original setting plus a bunch of good but unknown actors is the way to go. But my years of studying Hollywood shows it would rather attempt to revive original shows with a solid fan base even though the add-ons are, as a whole, inferior. I was fortunate to have met Gene Roddenberry after the original Star Trek. I was saddened after seeing one of his new ideas on TV and wondered where his world-building skill had gone.

 

[SteveO]

Eon by Greg Bear could work as a sci-fi series.

It's not sci-fi but I would really like a World War 3 story made into a Band of Brothers/Pacific style series. Set it in the 1980's and maybe follow a special forces stay behind unit who witness the action from a distance so the special effects budget can be kept sensible. Realistic tank battles, air strikes, artillery barrages and a few tactical nukes would make for riveting viewing! Plenty of WW3 books to pick ideas from. Latest ones I've read are Chieftains by Bob Forrest-Webb and The Red Effect, Black Effect and Blue Effect trilogy by Harvey Black. I highly recommend them.

 

[drejr]

There is no one from STD I'd want to meet.

This is true... and terribly damning. Some people have pointed to DS9 as the "dark side" of Trek, when other people point out how grimdark STD is... but the *characters* on DS9 are just plain interesting. Even the villains. Especially the villains. None of the mains on the prior iterations of Trek are really awful people. Some poorly conceived/written ones, sure, but nothing on the scale of STD. I mean... apart from Mikey Spock, Lorca and Abe Surupian, can you even *name* any of the main characters on the first season of STD? Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Rand, Chapel... you knew 'em, right quick.

I can't name a single one. I wasn't interested in it, so I didn't watch it.

I imagine meeting a Discovery character would be as excruciating as listening to a grumpy man-child rant about how someone in Star Wars had purple hair or the new She-Ra not having large enough breasts for his taste.

These guys still file in and dutifully watch it, though. They've trained Hollywood not to take risks and churn out crappy sequels.

Most Hollywood blockbusters are bad regardless of their politics, and they're never going to get better. Huge budgets mean art by committee that results in a jumbled mess.

It takes a rare set of abilities to make a decent high-budget movie, and it's fairly difficult. You need a big idea, turn it into a good screenplay, convince a corporation committed to lowering risks to take a chance on your idea, then maintain a cohesive vision with constant meddling from dozens or hundreds of people.

The good news is that a lot of the people with those abilities have migrated to cable TV or streaming services where they have more control and make more money.

There's plenty of great stuff out there, and we have more access to quality entertainment (of whatever form) today than ever before.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I imagine meeting a Discovery character would be as excruciating as listening to a grumpy man-child rant about how someone in Star Wars had purple hair or the new She-Ra not having large enough breasts for his taste.

So... meeting someone from Discovery would be like meeting one of the fever-dream characters invented by panicky PR people to explain why fans don't like the crappy products they churn out to near-inevitable failure? Yeah, sounds about right.... an unpleasant fictional character is about like an unpleasant fictional character.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

so far the "2010's trilogy" has been only a marginal improvement over the "1990's trilogy".

Bullcrap! The Prequels were AWESOME!
AOTC IS THE BEST STAR WARS MOVIE EVER!

While I acknowledge that I am wearing rose tinted glasses an inch thick, I strongly believe that AOTC is indeed, the best Star Wars movie of the nine.

The Prequels showed the scale and scope of galactic civilization, from the wealthy core to the poverty stricken Outer Rim, giving Star Wars the epic scale it deserved (with the exception of silly clone undercounts), and pushing the art of worldbuilding to new heights.

The story of the Republic's fall and the decay of the Jedi Order was executed brilliantly and consistently over three movies, with magnificent action set pieces anchoring the arc.

Issues with acting and characterization are truly miniscule issues in the grand scheme of things, as humans are but actors, swept along by the great socioeconomic amd technological tides of history.

They were truly worthy of the mantle of Star Wars, especially as they flowed from the active (if flawed) imagination of George Lucas, who at least had imagination (and was great at naming things). The Sequels have very little imagination, and even less soul.

 

[drejr]

Which PR firm invented TheQuartering? Sargon of Akkad?

I've seen both of those guys rant at length about She-Ra's boobs.

The new Star Wars movies were pretty bad. But in my opinion this was less because they were "woke" than because they were simply bad and much of this badness is due to the financial realities of the entertainment industry, especially when it comes to blockbusters.

It's hard to get more "woke" than The Expanse, for example, yet it's largely escaped the backlash that I've seen against Star Wars and Discovery. Why? I think partly because it's well-written with compelling characters, partly because it's new. A rehash of something you grew up with is never going to recapture the magic the original had when you're young.

The magic is still out there, though, and it seems better to me to look for it than wallow in performative hypersensitivity like the guys peddling nerd rage on YouTube.

 

[The Artist]

In my opinion, both franchises' problems are of their own making. Star Wars became a smash hit because it was a different spin on the hero myth. Sure, it had great spacial effects shots from the 'bag-guy' ship nearly filling the entire screen to the jump to hyperspace. However. The effects alone would not have made it the hit it became. It became a hit because it used those effects, those cool spaceships, and the white-clad Keystone Cops to support a telling of a story that everyone, not just the sci-fi geeks, could feel comfortable with. The Hero Myth. Yet, Star Wars was, in the minds of the production crew, the fun gig that wouldn't amount to much. (Go back and read some of the interviews with lower ranked behind the scenes people.) Twentieth Century Fox didn't fully realize what they had until they started getting results from test screenings. In a sense, Star Wars was like what Springtime For Hitler was in The Producers. It was the expected flop that became a hit despite all that was against it. The big mistake was Lucas and Fox, then Disney focused on the wrong things as the series went along. With each movie that followed, they focused on the bigger grab for the WOW from the audience along with the something different. With each movie (and I mean in production order, not in chapter number) they have gotten farther and farther from the basic hero myth. These later movies are more like cotton candy - fluffed sugar and no substance. Yes, I had fun watching The Last Jedi while sitting in the theater, but after getting back in line and buying the ticket for the second movie I wanted to see that day, I started thinking about what I had seen in TLJ. By the time Coco started, I had decided that I had no need to see TLJ again and that I'd not be getting it on home video.

In looking back at the whole series, I feel that the only one that came close to capturing what the first (in production order) one had was Rogue One. That one had a story that was stronger than the effects and the technobable.

Star Trek, in my opinion, started getting into trouble (though it wouldn't be evident for a while) when they decided to let each movie have a different look - new uniforms and new ship interiors that quickly? But they really got into trouble when they found themselves going up against Stargate SG-1. I believe that is part of what led to the mess that was Nemesis. However. Their biggest mistake was in going with more militaristic storylines with Enterprise. They tried to pull in the SG-1 fans and in doing so, they had long-time fans, like me, asking 'What's happened? This is not my Star Trek.' True, there were some episodes that had the feel of the original series, or Next Generation, (Northstar for one) but the overall feel of the series was lacking in that feel.

The JJ movies (the Kelvin Timeline) revived the franchise at the box office, but they are not truly Star Trek for old timers like me. I can enjoy watching them, but I do not think of them as part of the realm of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager went to great lengths to show us new things for that WOW effect, but they also maintained a storyline consistency with the Original Series. DS_9's Past Tense two perter did not negate City On The Edge Of Forever. The pre-JJ movies may have stretched things a bit, but they did not negate the Original Series.

What I think happened was that the studio heads got tired of Star Trek being Star Trek and wanted it to be continuously bold and different like Star Wars. They wanted to go for the bigger box office returns that the Star Wars films were getting. Logic like that would say that Robin Hood should be more like The Vikings. Personally, I can accept the realities of the current state of the entertainment industry. They have to follow their rules. I do not HAVE to watch any of the new Star Trek, or Star Wars. I have plenty of old Star Trek - in which Starfleet Officers were expected to be the Knights of the Old Code - to rewatch. And there are plenty of other things for me to explore. The Ron Moore Battlestar Galactica was fantastic. The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance was a fun wild ride. I'm currently having fun watching The Troll Hunters, and The Letter For The King.

Star Wars and Star Trek can become whatever they are becoming. I have other things to watch, and books to read.

Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to say all that I wanted to say about this before the other discussions in this thread get too hot and this thread gets locked.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Which PR firm invented TheQuartering? Sargon of Akkad?

I've seen both of those guys rant at length about She-Ra's boobs.

Having only seen some of their vids, all I can say is that I've seen them complain about how the new She-Ra looks like a 12-year-old boy rather than an adult woman... which is true. I was never a fan so I have no real dog in that fight but, man, you can tell that the new She-Ra was designed to appeal to... well, not the original target audience. Take a look at THIS and tell me that that looks anything like the original. Or that it even looks like a woman. Similar disdain was shown by fans when Star Trek: Discovery unveiled the KlingOrks. Shudder.

It's hard to get more "woke" than The Expanse,

Disagree. Expanse is "diverse," but it's not hammered home as a political message. The diversity there is just a natural consequence rather than a goal. And that in an important way is "woke-agnostic."

The magic is still out there, though, and it seems better to me to look for it than wallow in performative hypersensitivity like the guys peddling nerd rage on YouTube.

You'll find more fake-nerd rage peddled on Twitter, such as the outrage when the Mandalorian turned out to be a guy, or when the protagonist in "Fallen order" turned out to be a white guy, or when Rose Tico - an objectively bad character - was largely written out of Skywalker.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The JJ movies (the Kelvin Timeline) revived the franchise at the box office,

Not so much. The first one did sorta-ok ($258 million domestic, $128 million furrin on a $150 M budget); "Darkness" slipped ($228M domestic, $238M international on a $190M budget); and "Beyond" did dismal ($159M domestic, $185M intl on a $185M budget). Hollywood accounting on these - the studio gets half of the domestic box office, a quarter to a third of the international box office, and marketing doubles the production budget - shows that JJTrek freakin' *tanked.*

Math: first one made $172 M for the studio (0.5*$258M + 1/3*$128M), for a cost of $300M ($150M * 2). Given that the first one seems to have lost the studio more than a hundred million, I'm baffled they made a second, astonished they made a third, and utterly unsurprised that the fourth got cancelled.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

The magic is still out there, though, and it seems better to me to look for it than wallow in outrage like the guys peddling nerd rage on YouTube

The magic is pretty thin on the ground in the ST, what with the stripping of any sense of economic and demographic grandeur from Star Wars and the imbecilic setting/galactopolitics (although it was nice of TROS to remember that the rest of the galaxy has waaay more ships than Palp's shiny new fleet). But yeah, it's not all doom and gloom - the new stuff set in established settings is extremely good - the Clone Wars Season 7 and the Mandalorian's final three episodes (I found the rest terribly boring) attest to that.

The wokeness is not necessarily a problem, since storytelling is the storyteller's prerogative (within the limitations of the setting, as usual). The problem is godawful worldbuilding and setting/fake history issues (which is where storytelling and setting intersect), and a criminal lack of imagination.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The wokeness is not necessarily a problem,

It has been weaponized against the fans. Recall when the first trailer for Ghostbusters 2016 came out. It just looked *awful,* as if the people making the movie had no idea what made the original any good (which seems to have been true). But anyone who complained that "this movie looks like neon dog barf" was immediately tarred with "you just don't like women." Wokeness was used as a shield against valid criticisms... and now it's a firmly established feature. Look at "Last Jedi." I defy you to point me to a competent male protagonist in that movie. There weren't any. Every male was depicted as either evil, or criminally arrogant, or fundamentally useless. While Rey had the Mary Sue factor cranked up to eleven... and anyone who pointed out that in a franchise that had always had a largely male fandom it was odd to mock males was again called a misogynist. Star Trek Discovery has taken that notion and *run* with it, where a good chunk of season two is largely devoid of positive male role models. In, again, a franchise historically aimed at males.

And then there's Star Trek Picard, which can be accurately retitled Star Trek: Shut Up, Old Man. I was always more a fan of Kirk than Picard, but what the writers did to Picard here was just a travesty. Fortunately, STP does not take place in the TNG universe, so it can be ignored.

 

[drejr]

It's hard to get more "woke" than The Expanse,

Disagree. Expanse is "diverse," but it's not hammered home as a political message. The diversity there is just a natural consequence rather than a goal. And that is an important way is "woke-agnostic."

No, it's actually woke. Like Star Trek at its best it directly confronts injustice of varying types, militarism, and colonialism with compelling stories and characters. Both franchises are far more political than Star Wars in my opinion.

"Woke" in quotation marks is just tokenism. There's no reason diversity isn't a "natural consequence" of the Star Wars universe, but the characters are so poorly written and developed they could seem forced - the story is so formless you can read anything you want into it. I think they act so randomly it's hard to see any coherent feminist message. Ultimately the movies seem to revolve around Kylo Ren, who isn't really a feminist icon. Nor is he a great character.

With more creative focus the movies could have been incredible without changing the cast at all. A couple of women and a black guy didn't ruin everyone's childhood. Bad writing did. Bad writing has become the rule even in large-budget movies that don't have any pretensions to PCness at all.

You'll find more fake-nerd rage peddled on Twitter, such as the outrage when the Mandalorian turned out to be a guy, or when the protagonist in "Fallen order" turned out to be a white guy, or when Rose Tico - and objectively bad character - was largely written out of Skywalker.

Rose was bad, but whoever Benicio Del Toro played was bone-gratingly bad.

So many people live in a state of perpetual outrage online you can find someone upset about everything. In the real world the growing popularity and inclusiveness of science fiction and fantasy has been a good thing, at least for me. It's much better to talk to women about these new universes they're discovering than things most guys aren't interested in like Grey's Anatomy or things most women aren't interested in - Hammer's Slammers isn't great date material.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

No, it's actually woke. Like Star Trek at its best it directly confronts injustice of varying types, militarism, and colonialism with compelling stories and characters. Both franchises are far more political than Star Wars in my opinion.

The Expanse tries to show nuance and even-handedness. It shows militarism, revolutionary extremism, and colonialism within a realistic-ish setting, and portrays everyone as acting reasonably in their own self-interest, with plausible and reasonable motivations for all parties for their respective colonialism, discrimination, extremism, and militarization, instead of going for "EVULZ!".

On a side note, real-world colonialism and war included random reprisal shootings (Singapore, IJA), mass reprisals against villages (Wehrmacht), chopping off the arms of people who didn't meet their sap quotas (Belgian Congo), and permitting famine and millions of dead (British India). Colonialism in the Expanse is bad, but pretty tame. Also, wait till you see Season 5 (Book 5 was awesome).

These days, much "wokeness" (definitions differ, and this is strictly my own opinion) appears to involve intolerance and blind hatred of those who do not share the same (often ultra-progressive) values, rather than true attempts to build common ground, permit mutual understanding, and achieve reasonable outcomes for everyone - which should be goals of any society. All people think differently, and have different values as a result of their upbringing and station (why else is freedom good?). That is where much of the "outrage" stems from - there is intolerance on both sides of the aisle, and the media tends to heap blame on the less-popular side. But these are political questions, best left to another forum.

It has been weaponized against the fans.

Be that as it may, it is a storyteller's prerogative to dump on the fans. It's jackassery, but it's their movie. And they can make up for it.

Consider James Cameron's Avatar. I hate hate hate the demonization of economic growth and human progress, rampant technophobia, fetishization of nature, blind ideologically-driven idealism, and disregard for human life and cumulative human happiness that the vile movie tries to brainwash people with, attitudes which have led to untold suffering through lack of support of policies that promote economic growth and which have driven forward the intolerant anti-practical ideological movements of the 2010s, especially on the left.

I love the movie all the same - a masterpiece of worldbuilding with beautiful tech and settings. If we dumped on everything we disagreed with, we'd all end up bitter and lack things to like and people to be friends with. Not everyone thinks like oneself, and that must be accepted.

*And come on, Orion, you know as well as I do that ten-year-old boys dig pretty girls as much as anyone else. Making action girls the main characters in cartoons pays off in so many ways, and has broad appeal to male and female audiences of all ages. To each their own.

Oh, and speaking of excellent sci-fi:
The Humanist Inheritance by Matthew J Lineberger featured a slow-mo nuclear war, Zubrin nuclear saltwater rockets, and an actual nuclear attack site before it got pulled off the internet by the author.

 

[edwest4]

As someone with some experience with Hollywood, I just see a lot of uninformed whining among a small portion of the fans. In the past, what was a private conversation stayed private, as God intended. Now, with the internet, the whiners can get together and do what? Whine into the ether? In my early convention days I would see the occasional creative wannabe complain "If only I had the money." Then, "If only I had access." No one has greater "control" either. Not when 100 million plus is on the line.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

No one has greater "control" either. Not when 100 million plus is on the line

Amen to that. Still, some movies have turned out better than others, suggesting that some variation in decision and product quality is possible within the stringent limits of the movie production process while maintaining profitability.

 

[Foo Fighter]

It's weird with Trek costing so much to make, a bit like the SAAB/GM debacle. There are plenty of sci-fi films/titles that cost much less and are successful at getting the atmosphere across as well or better. Is it a mind set among production teams that needs change or do they see a Trek film and start adding zero's?