StillPaisleyCat @ StillPaisleyCat @startrek.website

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2 yr. ago

It’s only available to purchase - either as a DVD set or through an Apple,Amazon etc.

At least until it finds a new home.

Sorry She-Hulk didn’t work for you.

Won’t ask what put you off but suggest seeing it through to the end.

As someone who read the comics it felt very comic-accurate while adding in the clearly feminist perspective of its creator/showrunner. Basically, it took a female action hero created by men and gave her ownership by women.

An Inverse review provides another take, and reports on comments from Straczynski and Boxleitner about what the ending means for a future Bab 5 semi-reboot/reimagining. (There’s some kind of discussion bonus feature on the DVD.)

It’s a huge spoiler. Both for the new animated story but also the future of the Babylon 5 franchise. Not sure how I’m feeling about this. Adding this here more as a content warning for those who don’t want to be spoiled.

Spoiler

All of these platforms skew male, white, heterosexual, older etc.

It’s a major concern when AI’s are using them for training data. Or, when studio executives take them into account in decisions about what to greenlight.

Reddit is actually relatively better balanced at 2/3s male. Review aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb are more heavily male.

I’m finding the conversation on Lemmy more civil, but unconscious bias is a thing.

For me the feeling happened first when I saw Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley was going to be the survivor in the original Alien.

Now, movies conceived and produced by men starring female action heroes are their own trope and don’t have the same impact.

She-Hulk however gave me that joy. I hope Marvel looks at the actual viewership numbers of She-Hulk and the success of Barbie when making a decision on a second season.

Some additional context is being reported by the WSJ (via a report in Variety).

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company announced Wednesday that it would end the bidding process for the unit — which includes VH1 and BET Studios, streamer BET+ and the BET channel —because “a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet,” people familiar with the matter told WSJ. Paramount Global had received bids ranging from approximately $2 billion to $3 billion.

This really spotlights that the driver for the sale of major non-core business-related assets has been lowering the leverage ratios of the remerged firm. Sheri Redstone has had to pay a steep price to reverse her late father Sumner’s decision to break up Paramount and CBS.

It also raises questions around the barriers for Tyler Perry, Byron Allen and Diddy Combs efforts to consolidate Black-focused media production and distribution.

If WSJ is correct about the lack of debt reduction potential for Paramount Global in a $2-3 billion sale of its equity stake in BET+, it sounds like the sale transaction would not have had a sufficient proportion of cash necessary to retire enough debt to balance the reduction in equity. So, how did the prospective buyers think they were going to finance the deal?

What does this mean for Star Trek? Again, it counters the wild fire-sale rumours of earlier this spring that Paramount Global might sell off the rights to a major IP to save the rest. Unless a deal brings more cash to reduce debt without reducing the equity value, it will be a nonstarter. It also means that Paramount will remain significantly invested in equity-focused programming.

The anomaly force people to sing about hidden emotions but it also pushed them to sing in a popular human style.

I’m working through my backlist of things I have never watched, but don’t have a dedicated alternate Thursday evening replacement.

I’m also slowly working through a few shows, including Foundation, with my spouse who is a very occasional television viewer. Thursday SNW has been the very rare ‘appointment television’ watch for them.

I intend to give Lower Decks season three a rewatch before season four premieres.

I’m always stunned to hear from Star Trek fans who haven’t tried any of the animated shows. They may not be to everyone’s taste - but…not to even give them a try?

I understand that there’s a real bias among some against animation as a media form, but even TAS rose above the norms for American Saturday morning cartoons to get the franchise’s only series Emmy.

Anyhow, I keep finding myself encouraging fans to at least give each of the three animated series a run through. Even the two intended for younger audiences - TAS and Prodigy - are really designed to appeal to all ages.

Especially now, with Star Trek Prodigy needing to find a new home, it’s all the more important to give them the support of views. #SaveStarTrekProdigy!

@GreenMario@lemm.ee, I seem to have discovered that you are my Star Trek preference twin.

Although, I would personally put Star Trek (2009) a bit ahead of V The Final Frontier, our teens profoundly negative reaction to it would make put it at the back or at best tied. There has been utter refusal from them to even attempt to watch Into Darkness and Beyond. Stuck watching them on my own, Beyond is a head shaker that spends all its time distracting from what could have been a good story with utter silliness like a motorcycle found randomly on a ship.

Into Darkness is in its own way as much a complete head scratcher as The Final Frontier, but with A list casting and more appalling results. In both cases, you can see the traces and structure of what might have been an interesting movie if only a massive train derailment hadn’t beset production somewhere and somehow.

I did however see Insurrection at first release as a family outing with the in-laws. It was fine, and worth a watch at home. In fact, its main issue is that it felt like it should be a made for cable movie rather than a cinematic release. There so much more awful stuff out there by comparison. Nemesis for a Trek example. By half way through I was was wanting to get back the ridiculously self indulgent Picard dune buggy opening sequence.

My final ranking.

1./ VI - The Undiscovered Country

2./ II, III, IV the complete trilogy

3./ First Contact

4./ I - The Motion Picture (I enjoy it more as I age and it’s remastered.)

5./ Galaxy Quest

6./ Insurrection

7./ Generations (It happened.)

8./ TIE V - The Final Frontier & Star Trek (2009)

9./ TIE Nemesis & Beyond

10./ Into Darkness

You’re most welcome.

I suggest starting with the Memory Alpha entries on the Kzinti and the TAS episode The Slaver Weapon.

I also strongly encourage everyone to watch TAS at least once. I had largely forgotten it until I introduced our kids to the DVD set when they were at the age, but it holds up remarkably well.

TAS = The Animated Series. It ran for a season and a bit, 22 episodes, on Saturday mornings on NBC. It’s the only Star Trek franchise show to win a series Emmy.

At the time it was in development, there was also a writers strike. DC Fontana was the supervising producer, and she took advantage of the provision in the contract that allowed writers who have never previously written an animated television script to write one, and only one episode, without violating the strike.

Larry Niven was one of the science fiction authors whom she reached out to, and he was game to do it. He’s written on the StarTrek.com official site since then, even going so far as to confirm that the Caitians in Star Trek are a related species, much as the Vulcans are related to the Romulans.

M’Ress was a Caitain officer in TAS. The currently running animated show Lower Decks has a Caitian Chief Medical Officer T’Ana and a Kzinti crew member occasionally appears.

As a young person watching TAS in first run the colours never bothered me, they were actually very on trend at the time.

It was the early 70s (The Slaver Weapon first ran in December 1973) and the mod colours had progressed to the bright Panetone red, blue, gold and orange of mid 60s colour television to a broader mix that included ‘hot’ and fluorescent colours, especially ‘hot pink’.

While I would have been curious to see a Puppeteer, given the role of the Kzinti aggression in motivating Dr. Keniclius 5 to create the giant Spock (TAS ‘The Infinite Vulcan’), it was important for TAS to show us a direct interaction between Spock and the Kzinti in ‘The Slaver Weapon.’

Not to mention that Niven may have needed to make some changes for his adaptation of his story “The Soft Weapon” to get the original story credit.

I’m just glad that the Kzinti are acknowledged as canon in the franchise again.

Edited: just recalled that the reproductive imperatives of Pierson’s Puppeteer’s are enough to make the biological imperatives of the SNW Gorn seem less monstrous. What was Niven thinking?

I’m still thinking ‘darn strange.’

You would need to ask the mods. Trekyards can be very negative and get stuck on points that aren’t based in fact. I can see their videos getting deleted in those cases. This is an analysis of a specific new ship in show they are generally positive about.

TAS seems to be a cultivated taste.

I’m all for encouraging franchise fans to make the effort.

I’ll be curious to know what you think

Definitely a different perspective. I get the sense that this is one of those situations where viewer reactions can be quite polarized.

BTW I liked the role, and was very much looking forward to the show after the original pilot aired with the original first officer. I just didn’t find O’Hare’s acting in the actual show met the standard they were looking for.

It’s interesting that this is only available as a purchase rather than through a streamer. Seems like WB is trying to build demand for a new live action product.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed hearing Bruce Boxleitner’s voice in the promo clip. Having him join in the second season of Babylon 5 really saved the show for me. I’m curious to see where this leads, if they will transition with newer younger characters and if B5 can morph into a more viable franchise.

(I found Michael O’Hare’s performance in season one unbearable despite a strong pilot. Knowing his health issues, explains it, but he still pulled down the excellent efforts of all those around him. I still skip most of the season on rewatch.)