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Whirlygig

Member Since 04 Mar 2009
Offline Last Active Jul 26 2023 03:05 PM
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#97595 New Star Trek Series starring Patrick Stewart

Posted by Whirlygig on 25 April 2022 - 08:13 PM

You can include beloved characters without pandering though...

I think he is spot on about the fact that everyone on the show seems miserable, when that is a polar opposite to how we were meant to view the future in TNG.  I've said this before myself, in the form of saying this doesn't seem like a future I'd want to live in or a crew I'd want to serve with anymore.  We've now got 2 smokers on the main cast, and as he notes a bunch of apparent alcoholics too...lol.

Spoiler



#97584 New Star Trek Series starring Patrick Stewart

Posted by Whirlygig on 08 April 2022 - 08:22 AM

Just watched the newest episode.

With every episode I feel worse and worse about this season and more and more sorry for the new blood being forced to act out bad fanfic on screen.

Some lows were hit for me this episode (Two of One) that I don't think there is enough runway left to recover from.

I feel dumb even trying to pick out something to complain about at this point because there is so much wrong that any example in isolation may not seem that bad, but taken together they make a complete s#!tshow, and who has time to itemize them all in a thread?  Not I...here's one thing that ground my gears though...(apart from the obvious completely campy, nonsensical, over the top thing that happened)...

Spoiler


Can these things be hand-wave Trek-splained away?  Yeah sure, even I can think of explanations.  But why must I do that every 2.5 seconds on modern Trek?  On classic Trek we sometimes had to explain things away but once we did we were left with a general feeling of "that sure was clever/powerful/moving/entertaining" that made it worthwhile, but in modern Trek all we are awarded with for our efforts is a feeling of "ok...well that was dumb/pointless".


#97033 Current value of early AA figures

Posted by Whirlygig on 01 September 2020 - 11:37 AM

I don't like doing what Gothneo said.  I want to get what they're worth, myself, and if you do what he said, you'll get like the one person diligently following that item sniping it for MSRP at the last minute when if it had been visible for a few weeks the real buyer willing to pay what it's worth would come along.

 

Here's my advice.  If you are listing the only one of anything on eBay, you decide the worth.  Search completed/sold listings to see what it last was going for.  Then add more than that because it's been MIA since then and someone's been looking for it.  If you can't find it, look for something similar.  If you can't find that, or don't know what would be similar, make up a number that makes you happy.  I wouldn't think $60-100 would be an unreasonable place to start any 2000-2010 figure that's hard to find.  It's true more often than not, that it will go for whatever you want it to, within reason.  Start there.  And if it doesn't sell, just lower it slowly week by week until it does.

 

You put effort into maintaining them in pristine condition.  Obtaining them that way in the first place.  Stored them all this time.  They're not on the market anymore.  So you're not scalping.  You're trading in treasures.  The money you receive should equal what you'd be willing to pay for some other missing treasure from your collection from years back of about the same value.




#96526 New Star Trek Series starring Patrick Stewart

Posted by Whirlygig on 31 January 2020 - 09:50 AM

Episode 2 was pretty rough.  That whole scene of exposition with Picard's Romulan friend was awkward as hell and I did not enjoy the phoned-in (GET IT?) technobabble or "ghost in the machine" baloney.

 

I also do not like whoever thought it would be hilarious to add "does not like Sci-Fi" to Picard's character.

 

The rest of it was setting of chess pieces but none of the episode sat well at all with the non-trekkie friend who is watching with us.  He had no idea what they were saying or doing, and I even had to re-watch that part I complained about myself too.




#96423 Terminator: Dark Fate

Posted by Whirlygig on 11 November 2019 - 08:15 AM

I haven't seen this yet, but dropped in to say that the best thing to come out of this franchise since T2 was The Sarah Conner Chronicles.  Well worth watching, cut short right as it was getting epic too.


#96326 CBS and Viacom to merge

Posted by Whirlygig on 21 August 2019 - 08:42 AM

So can we please have an episode of Discovery where it turns out Kirk is still alive in the distant future, and he wakes up from night terrors having just dreamt all of the Kelvinverse events, and exclaims, "Thank God, it was all just a horrible dream...."  After all, in dreams, people look like themselves and yet they sometimes don't.




#96229 New Star Trek Series starring Patrick Stewart

Posted by Whirlygig on 08 July 2019 - 08:30 AM

Just popping my head in quick to say I liked John Carter.

And I don't think the title is responsible for anything...  I mean, audiences went to see "John Wick" and continue to see its installments.  That's a bit of an absurd claim IMO.

No, in my opinion it was simple.  I had no idea what the movie was about due to bad marketing and when I went I was surprised and delighted at all the story elements that I didn't know existed at all, and up until Guardians of the Galaxy, I felt it was the most Star Warsish thing in spirit that I'd seen in a long time.  But most people probably didn't give it a chance because of that lack of understanding of what it was even about.




#96103 New Star Trek Series starring Patrick Stewart

Posted by Whirlygig on 28 May 2019 - 09:08 AM

I always wanted to try my hand at a fanfic novel where Geordi goes on a quest to recover Data's head somewhere out there after being ejected from the Nemesis aftermath and re-assemble him.  Something along the lines of the completion of Data's character arc to become "human", because other humans are willing to (or do) sacrifice their own lives for him...

 

Now I really don't think that has anything to do with the plot of Picard...

But from what we know so far, I can imagine in my head that's what is going on.  Picard left Starfleet after realizing the total loss of his friend and student in humanity...  and now he's on a quest to assemble a rag tag crew and go put him back together.

 

Except like I said, I know that's not where it's going.  But fun to imagine?  :P




#95931 Star Trek: Discovery. Series talk and discussion

Posted by Whirlygig on 12 April 2019 - 09:29 AM

Yep.  But I'm finding myself wondering...

 

Spoiler



#95929 Star Trek - The Official Starships Collection

Posted by Whirlygig on 11 April 2019 - 08:21 AM

Sure would be nice if any day now I could order the two F's and the Bonaventure.

 

I see they have the mirror AGT-D up for preorder, maybe I should jump on that before it meets the same fate.

 

Does anybody know if the "E-MAIL ME WHEN AVAILABLE" actually works?  I tried that a month or two ago and have been wondering if it works or not.




#95894 Star Trek: Discovery. Series talk and discussion

Posted by Whirlygig on 23 March 2019 - 01:16 PM

The Dept of Temporal Investigations knows what we all know...none of this show is of any real consequence.  :P


#95755 Star Trek: Discovery. Series talk and discussion

Posted by Whirlygig on 19 February 2019 - 02:54 PM

These episode move way too fast - and yet somehow nothing of much consequence really happens in them either.

That's not even old age talking.

There was no time whatsoever to figure out what was going on as a viewer.  None of this "blah blah fungus dimension blah blah tree bark blah blah" stuff came across very well, nor does it make any sense.  And we are supposed to empathize with these characters via nothing but "shorthand" mechanisms in the script.

Seriously.  Weak, weak sauce people.

GET BETTER.  :P




#95691 Star Trek: Discovery. Series talk and discussion

Posted by Whirlygig on 06 February 2019 - 05:47 PM

Seriously though...one has to wonder why whenever a team sits down lately they only manage to make matters worse when it comes to not only canon but consistency of plot/themes/atmosphere/message?

 

How many actual dedicated fans with writing talent would it take to sit down and start a spinoff series from scratch and instead make matters better, or at least no worse, or at least worse at a reduced rate???




#95608 Star Trek: Discovery. Series talk and discussion

Posted by Whirlygig on 21 January 2019 - 09:14 AM

I'm going to go ahead and give the first episode of S2 a couple of critiques....though I may get tarred and feathered...

 

It was a flashy episode with a cinematic feel.  And it was better than most of S1.  I'll give it all that.

 

I've watched the episode twice now.  I feel it was a bit of a mess, like an episode designed in committee.  I feel like the script (and Pike) did a piss poor job explaining what was going on with 1701 (and don't tell me it was intentionally ambiguous, Pike still could have given a clear cover-up explanation) and why they came aboard, the episode was all over the map pacing wise, and some guy on the committee just kept insisting that the episode had to have that "pod" sequence (or whatever they are called).

 

I can't point to specifics as to what was off about it, for me, but it just kind of felt like an episode of ideas thrown in a blender.

 

Remember back when things followed a clear, logical progression and you had time as a viewer to think about whether things made sense or whether you would do the same thing in that situation?  We don't have that anymore.  Full speed ahead and just let the what-ifs roll off your back, it won't matter anyway, we'll have a new exciting episode next week.  Also missing was a well defined subplot.  Instead of characters getting nice little arcs of their own to help us get to know them, they all get roughly 3 minutes of a micro-plot scene (e.g. Stamets in this one) which cumulate into far less development than we deserve over the course of a season.  It still feels largely like a show solely about Burnham and yet Burnham still hasn't managed to do enough to earn that right IMO.  You said it seems like a bridge crew you'd want to be with, and yet, the only bridge crew we know anything about are Saru and Burnham -- the others are just background dressing -- the writers can't even give a single answer on what's up with the droid-like character yet.

 

Also the pod sequence was just kind of ridiculous.  There's absolutely no reason whatsoever those pods couldn't just fly out of the shuttle bay like every single other shuttle-like object in Star Trek history.  Instead they waste deck space with an elaborate series of launch tubes that for some reason all have to come together into a single tube?  I think whoever came up with that is no longer interested in making the starship design make any practical coherent sense whatsoever.  And that will probably be the first and last time we see those used, and yet, it was so important as to make a rotating elevator platform for it.

 

Lastly.... I think it kind of makes Burnham's character look weak that over, and over, for some reason we are now going to be subjected to tormented "but why doesn't Spock love me" themes.  It feels cheap to me that the crux of this season is so far etched out to be what feels not unlike a Mary Sue "Spock loves me, Spock loves me not" situation.

 

Yeah I'm griping I know but that's what we're supposed to do, or we just wouldn't be Trek fans.

 

Again I am on board, don't get me wrong, but I'm not just going to take the medicine and not report to the doctor if it gives me any momentary nausea.




#95567 Status of DST's Star Trek license.

Posted by Whirlygig on 16 January 2019 - 09:32 PM

Not sure, that one still has a lot of questions


If we are talking about the TNG phaser and if the questions revolve around toy gun legislation then market it as a toy dustbuster.  We will still buy it.