Steerzing in a New Direction...

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Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3841

Post by Steersman »

Bhurzum wrote:
Steersman wrote: Reprising the nuking of Mecca - from orbit, just to be sure? ;-)
A £50 solution to a £5 problem.

https://rmonrem.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... ning-2.jpg

After the bulk has been dealt with on-site, we can start the door-to-door cleaning... :twisted:
:-) Needs more kilts ... ;-)

But hard to imagine a more barbaric and psychotic "religion" than Islam - should close the borders to them if not deport the lot:


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Though it is maybe moot whether the Texas Taliban are substantially worse than the Kabul version. A pox on both their houses.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3842

Post by Steersman »

John D wrote: For what it is worth, I am very happy with the newly popular terms "transman" and "transwoman". They are easy to use correctly and help with conversation.

Pretty simple really. A Transman is a person that is [or was (FTFY)] a biological female that has decided to identify as a man. This is a very course filter, but it is effective. This definition does not indicate anything about the medical situation of the person. They could be on steroids... or not. They could have had top surgery... or not. Etc.

But, making broad categories is the purpose of pronouns. I am on board with the use of transman and transwoman.
Good show - some progress to report. Though you might note the correction - people who have their gonads removed are thereby sexless; HTH ;-)

But you might note that even Wiktionary endorses or supports the "transwoman" spelling - no space. Although they have another entry with the space along with a supposed justification for it, some of the poor dears being "offended" by the suggestion that they don't qualify as actual women - i.e., "adult human females (producers of ova)":
Trans woman is often spelled with a space, with trans as an adjective modifying the noun woman, similar to Asian woman, tall woman, fat woman, etc. The unspaced spelling transwoman is sometimes used interchangeably,[2] including by a few transgender people. However, it is often associated with views (notably gender-critical feminism) that hold transgender women are not women, and thus require a separate word from woman to describe them. For this reason many transgender people find transwoman offensive.
Tough titties "girls"; suck it up buttercups. Rather profoundly problematic, not to mention idiotic, to pander to the delusional, to give any credence at all to those getting their knickers in a twist, who think that being offended is worth more than a pinch of coon shit, if that:

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John D wrote: PS - Steers is a dick.
:lol: I now have a "cunt" from HunnyBunny and Keating, and a "dick" from you. Do I hear any bids on "nigger", "faggot", or "cracker"? Sold for 1 dick and two cunts! ;)

Apologies and thanks to Lenny Bruce - RIP - for the theme and the perspective:

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Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3843

Post by Service Dog »

John D wrote: For what it is worth, I am very happy with the newly popular terms "transman" and "transwoman". They are easy to use correctly and help with conversation.

Pretty simple really. A Transman is a person that is a biological female that has decided to identify as a man. This is a very course filter, but it is effective. This definition does not indicate anything about the medical situation of the person. They could be on steroids... or not. They could have had top surgery... or not. Etc.

But, making broad categories is the purpose of pronouns. I am on board with the use of transman and transwoman.
fafnir wrote: Bigot! Transmen are 100% men and always were, transwomen are 100% women and always were. There is no need for a new word.

I hate to break it to ya-- but John D's wishful thinking doesn't match the situation on the ground.

fafnir's tongue-in-cheek reply doesn't even cover it.


According to woke-feminist-lesbo dogma a "transman" is NOT merely "a man". That's why you only-hear the slogan "Trans-women are women", not "transmen are men".

Transmen is spelled as one word, no hyphen. It is NOT to be shortened to 'man' or 'men'. The reason-given for this is-that the feminists wish-to preserve the designated-good-person status of transmen. They say the transmen WERE girls (their lived experience remains valid.). They DID suffer from oppression by The Patriarchy. And when they become "transmen", they're not automatically traitors to their gender-- defectors to the "Man" side. Instead-- they're a magical new-form of ubermenschen... they're a new breed of manlike beings in men's clothing... but as 'transmen' they retain the once-a-female-always-a-female seal-of-approval.

Trans-woman is HYPHENATED. That's because a "transwoman" is not a thing. Not a separate thing from "woman". Transwomen Are Women, as they say. "trans-" is just a prefix, an adjective, a modifier, a trivial distinction. But "woman" is the basic descriptor. Trans-women are said to be newly-minted full-blown women. We heard this so much in the Caityln Jenner era, that many naturally assumed the same held true for transmen-- but nope-- they had a whole different set of rules for transmen.

I'm not making this up. They worked it all out like this, years ago.

----

My own recent thought-- regarding those-claiming customized "pronouns"-- is that we should halt their incursion right-there. At the pronoun.
But their foolishness should not be allowed to infect any adjacent words.

So when some cunt demands to be called "They"... if you're gonna give-in to that, fine... but Do Not Disturb the subsequent verb.

According to me, the correct form is to say: "They is asking their father for money to pay rent."

("They are asking their father" would require 2 or more siblings to make such a request. That is a PLURAL conjugation of the verb.)

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3844

Post by Steersman »

fafnir wrote: <snip>
John D wrote: It really is a bunch of blue-pill crap... baggage really. But, at least these pronouns are allowing us to make a "class" of trans people. This is a more sensible outcome then being forced to call a transman a "man".
Making a class out of things that can then be used as a never ending political wedge is a tool of the progressive left just as much as deconstructing old classes. They'll have the government collecting stats on these categories that will eternally show how terribly marginalised trans people are and how oppressive the cis-normative culture is. This is just them having their cake and eating it. They weaken the old categories and insist on unrestricted entry into them and have a special category for themselves that only they can use.
Think you're unclear on the concept of categories, though you're no great shakes on probability and statistics either. But consider Pinker and Helen Joyce:

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If there's no need to "distinguish between things that qualify and things that don't" - as in adjudicating claims to access to toilets, prisons, or to sports; or to determine who might be able to gestate a fetus - then the words "man", "woman", "male", and "female" are pretty much useless. Except maybe to those who want "accessorize" their "identities" :roll:

Lots of ways to categorize, to name and define various categories. But some are clearly better than others - to argue or even suggest otherwise is as idiotic, as Sagan put it, as "disastrous" as saying "that no ideas have any merit".

You might try reading Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker- get a bit of biology and taxonomy under your belt; even Matt would probably endorse the recommendation, although he might have had a different reason in mind.

But in particular, Dawkins illustrates several different hierarchies, but justifies one over the others as being more reflective of probable evolutionary history:

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There IS some rhyme and reason to that process of categorization, of naming groups on the basis of shared traits. Which you apparently don't have a fucking clue about - surprise, surprise. :roll:

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3845

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote: According to me, the correct form is to say: "They is asking their father for money to pay rent."
We must talk like Ali G? This is the hill I die on.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3846

Post by Bhurzum »

fafnir wrote:
Service Dog wrote: According to me, the correct form is to say: "They is asking their father for money to pay rent."
We must talk like Ali G? This is the hill I die on.
Is it cos I is trans?

John D
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3847

Post by John D »

Steers - I take back what I said. You are not a dick. You are a pretentious know-it-all idiot. I do not care what your sexual organ is. But... your posts are feeble and obtuse. You actually post shit about evolution when you are trying to defend you idiotic ideas about identifying pronouns. Just fuck off you retard. So done with your idiocy. You are the most useless person I know.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3848

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

John D wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:51 am
Every day I fall in love again with these three. Ripe and juicy, ripe and juicy. Squeeze ‘em and feel. Plump and firm, squeeze ‘em hard, again and again.

This is not a defect in my character.

What exactly are you saying, my good sir?

Steersman
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3849

Post by Steersman »

John D wrote: Steers - I take back what I said. You are not a dick.
No problemo; you're forgiven ...
John D wrote: You are a pretentious know-it-all idiot.
Hardly; I've often said quite explicitly that I'm no pro from Dover on many issues and topics; I've often said that I'm ready to stand corrected and have often acknowledged when I was shown to be barking up the wrong tree myself. But people who think they know everything piss off those of us who really do ...

Though it's kind of amazing, even if a bit depressing and discouraging at times, to realize that the more one learns, the less one really knows. Reminds me of reading the biography of the "renowned Hungarian mathematician" Paul Erdős who apparently said that his epitaph should read, "I've finally stopped getting dumber." Can't hope for better company than that.

But there's the aphorism about the one-eyed man - a dick, I've heard - in the kingdom of the blind. And the one from Confucius, I think, about the difference between the "one who knows naught, and knows not that he knows naught", and the "one who knows naught and knows that he knows naught".
John D wrote: I do not care what your sexual organ is.
Phew. Was begining to think there may have been some justification to Matt's accusation or suggestion ...
John D wrote: But... your posts are feeble and obtuse. You actually post shit about evolution when you are trying to defend you idiotic ideas about identifying pronouns.
I can try explaining them better if you'd like. Maybe use shorter words? More links? Photographs with circles and arrows with a paragraph on the back of each?

But, pray tell, exactly what "shit" do you think I'm posting about evolution? Always willing to learn something new at the feet of the masters ...

All I referred to recently about evolution was Dawkins' discussion of taxonomy. You have some specific objections to what he said that I can maybe pass along to him? :roll:

Though, en passant, you might note that "transwoman" and "transman" are nouns, not pronouns; HTH ....
John D wrote: Just fuck off you retard. So done with your idiocy. You are the most useless person I know.
Given that you probably know your daughter and her boy-girl-it-friend, I'd say that's high praise indeed - I like aiming for those superlatives, achievement unlocked! ... :roll:

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3850

Post by John D »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
What exactly are you saying, my good sir?
Just thinking about picking grapes and squeezing grapes and tasting juice. Damn.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3851

Post by Steersman »

Service Dog wrote: Dear Associated Press Fact-Checkers,

I am writing in regard to your Dec 10, 2021 fact-checking column, archived here: https://archive.fo/yC2No ....

Personally, I have explicitly stated that the term "VAIDS" is not something I consider necessary to defend. ....

<snippety do-dah>

This boy eventually deemed himself a Steers-man. And he remains triggered when reminded that he has AIDS. To this day he remains a staunch advocate of the countless veiny 'booster shots' he helped administer to his mother... his record only rivaled by another injection-fluffer, known as 'screwtape'-- THE MAN WITH CUM IN HIS BONES (but that's another story).
:lol: My very own fan-fiction writer! Bit twisted but gift horses and all that ... :roll:

Though no colours? Ran out of crayons? Pro-tip: they last longer if you don't eat them.

But your "not ... necessary to defend" is just a transparent attempt to move the goal posts, to evade that fact that you claimed, falsely if not with malice aforethought, that "AP relies on the similarity of the acronym to 'AIDS'-- to insist that VAIDS must be some form of AIDS" while being able or unwilling to show exactly where they made that claim:

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Not surprisingly because, mirabile dictu, they didn't. And which you refuse to accept or even acknowledge.

All you're doing by such evasions, by your long-winded, if somewhat entertaining, fantasies is to prove that you're a liar, and an intellectualy dishonest fraud, and a cheat. Kinda think that your reputation as any sort of "honest interlocutor" is shot, is in tatters; paraphrasing Paul Newman in The Sting, you won't - or shouldn't - be able to get a game of jacks on any forum anywhere on the internet.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3852

Post by Bhurzum »

John D wrote:
Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
What exactly are you saying, my good sir?
Just thinking about picking grapes and squeezing grapes and tasting juice. Damn.
https://img.ifunny.co/images/bc4c4a1a81 ... 9d30_1.jpg

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3853

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

John D wrote:
Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
What exactly are you saying, my good sir?
Just thinking about picking grapes and squeezing grapes and tasting juice. Damn.
https://images2.imgbox.com/1c/28/zUI38OHZ_o.jpg

Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3854

Post by Service Dog »

https://media.patriots.win/post/FxX9rUrkHHsa.png

oh shit. Even the ChiComs are dunking & scoring meme=points:
https://media.gab.com/system/media_atta ... 90a317.jpg

this guy didn't get everything right. but he gets something right:
https://media.patriots.win/post/PVj3w7l0DAyx.jpeg

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3855

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Order 4 free covid tests from the Feds!

https://www.covidtests.gov

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3856

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Coyne proves yet again he's enamored of scientism qua quasi-religious cult ...
The three things that, when I post about them, draw the most critical emails

1.) Ivermectin (the world is full of pro-Ivermectin nuts, and believe me, I hear from them. I don’t allow most of them to comment as I consider them dangerous).
... and an arrogant elitist who doubts his own readership's ability to engage in critical thinking:
I won’t let people distort scientific data. If you think all of the 73,000 readers of this site are immune to ivermectin talk; think again.

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/01/ ... al-emails/

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3857

Post by Service Dog »

fafnir wrote:
Service Dog wrote: I don't think the current crop of managers is very-good at their job.
Depends on how you look at it. They seem to be pretty good at taking over institutions and making them part of the hive. If an old artisan who could make a car by himself looked at the workers on Ford's production line, he might not have been very impressed with them either.
Last night I finally bothered to watch 2019's Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Episode IX: a Managerial Class product.

The movie is elusive, like releasing a helium balloon-- watching it rise into the sky, and trying to pinpoint the moment you've lost sight of it.

If I blink, I'll lose sight of it. But tracking every moment of it's progress is tedious. So I'll hide it in this spoiler box:
► Show Spoiler
This 'Episode 9' feels like the director/screenwriter quit-- and someone from Accounting called a meeting & told all the actors & fight choreographers & alien-planet-designers that their checks were already cut-- but they would have to complete the movie to get paid. (Oh, and by the way, if the movie doesn't score over 69.73% on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll have to come-back & keep making sequels... until one passes.)

The actors have star-power & chemistry-together, but nothing to do. So they practice their bickering-repartee, just to have something to day. There are awkward pauses... with no underlying subtex, so the viewer can fill in the blanks. Which left audiences asking, 'What's going on? Why are they just looking at each other? Are these two dudes going to kiss?'

It lacked mis-steps. The steps it took... didn't lead anywhere worth going. At least it "felt like Star Wars" to me. But... that's it. Having seen this-- makes the hollowness of The Book Of Boba Fett even-more apparent.

---

Last night, after consuming that evaporating packet of Star Wars freeze-dried-astronaut-icecream, I dreamed I was driving in some unfamiliar suburbia:

Night fell, I parked. Some friend-of-a-friend... a lonely old queen... a stranger to me... let me sleep in a guest room. His bookshelves were filled... but only with crappy Harry Potter spin-off merchandise. 2003 Calendars & Quidditch rulebooks, kitschy 'spellbook' cookie recipes. The old man no longer gave a shit about Harry Potter & knew his possessions were junk. Before dawn, I slipped out his house... and immediately forgot which house it was, on which side-steet. I walked on wet fallen leaves, searching for my car. Not remembering where I'd parked, or even what it looked like. I got lost, trespassed on some family's yard, was chased-off. I wandered to a strip mall-- thought maybe I had parked there. How would I even recognize the rental car, minivan, whatever. I had no attachment to it, or anyone, or anyplace, or anything. No one to call for aid or comfort. No one who would answer or care. I found some car which was allegedly mine. An ugly dullbright blue. A strip mall employee stared at me. I said, "I thought it might be towed." He said, "no, this is where they tow cars _to_." Distressing. End of the line.

I'll finish typing this, throw-out the dried-out christmas tree, drop-off a bag of laundry & musty dried sickness-residue. Nothing in-particular to look forward to. Just the passing of time.

Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3858

Post by Service Dog »

Holy fuck-- the first 5 numbered-comments (and their replies) are dispatches directly-from that dream I had last night. "NPC"s truly exist.

Having banned opposing views from their discussion, they struggle to guess what their opponents think.
It’s not just about them. It’s about all the people their big exposurefests will get sick. And kill.
The point is to minimize social contact to what is necessary. Education is pretty necessary. How is football necessary? Band?

If the state or municipal public health authorities decide not to follow that recommendation and allow those activities to carry on, that is their call.

Of course. We can all aspire to be Ron DeSantis’ Florida at Spring Break if we want. But if our goal is to minimize severe illness and deaths from the virus, that’s not the way to go.
Ban everything. Everyone stay home forever.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3859

Post by Service Dog »

I have a hypothesis-- purely speculation-- about Omicron.

I think the notorious contagious-ness of Omicron might be due-to people remaining contagious Longer with Omicron.

If so, that's at-odds with CDC shorten-ing the advised quarantine period to 5 days.

if so, the short quarantine was an expedient/practical/political act, not strictly scientific/medical advice.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3860

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Service Dog wrote: Having banned opposing views from their discussion, they struggle to guess what their opponents think.

darrelle wrote:Definitely in my experience too. No doubt there are some lefty woomeisters that favor ivermectin but of people I know and see it is nearly 100% Trumpers that are vehemently pro ivermectin and antivax.
John C McLoughlin wrote:I might be entertained to read a bit of their PCC-response commentary here and there. Just to see what makes ’em tick, y’ know. We can sometimes learn a bit from such eccentric correspondents about the mysterious goings-on out there beyond the silo walls,

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3861

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

Kim Iversen is really pissed,and who can blame her, at the negligence of the Covid authorities. Two years into the pandemic, people have been needlessly paniced and there has been no effort to provide meaningful support, just cajoling into vaccination. It's the vaccine and fuck you otherwise.


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3862

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote: Then came the 'prequel trilogy,' "The Phantom Menace" being the last title I'm capable of remembering. Clones. Sith. This is bland corporate committee stuff. I'll agree with the Red Letter Media/'Mister Plinkett Review' guys... at-least George Lucas's prequel trilogy tried to be different movies, telling new stories. But they sucked.
Have you seen this Red Letter Media explanation of the economic issue behind Disney's Star Wars problems:


I broadly agree with their argument here. To make back their money on a $500M budget through a conventional cinematic release, they have to appeal to ordinary people who aren't disgusting man children in the way the Marvel movies have done. The problem with that is the thing that attracted that wider audience in the first place was a lightning in a bottle thing like the original Ghostbusters. You mentioned grandeur, there is definitely that, but there is also the audiences identification with Luke as he and they get to discover the galaxy and rescue a princess. Empire and Jedi had the benefit of an audience who is already invested in the characters. You can't just decide to recreate the unironic, genuine feeling of seeing it for the first time.

Sure, Disney now owns all the extended universe stuff, but those don't appeal to a general audience in the same way. Even if they had the same qualities as a New Hope, you can't discover a universe for the first time repeatedly. Discovering the same universe with a new character isn't the same. You had a young Harrison Ford, and a young Carrie Fisher, that you could see imagined worlds and battles with through the eyes of a young Mark Hamill. Even if they found actors as personally appealing as the originals, you can't just clone the authenticity and naivety of the original.


Then you have the further issue, that the Star Wars Universe was created to appeal to people in the 70s and was made by and for people who had grown up on the war movies of the 40s, 50s and 60s and pirate, and cowboy, and Robin Hood movies of old Hollywood. How many people watching the new Star Wars have watched Errol Flynn in tights swing on a rope? It's like reading Alice in Wonderland today, not having grown up on the children's rhymes and characters that it parodied. Can a kid today really get why Luke is swinging to freedom with a princess? Something has been lost. Star Wars is adrift from its roots and can't get back to them. It was that shared language of swashbuckling movies and fighter pilots talking to one another on crackling radios looking out for Japanese fighters that gave the universe it's warmth, familiarity and depth. Lucas wasn't just pulling the story from archetype, he was pulling the world and the characters from it as well. I'd say the bar in A New Hope has more in common with the Spyglass Tavern where we find Long John Silver in Treasure Island, than anything in the sequels.

Fans can get past all of that but it's a huge obstacle to getting a new casual audience. Comics have been in a continuous cycle of renewing their characters and stories for decades. The Avengers have spent 60 years working out what the timeless elements are that can be told and retold in different ways and dropping the rest.

Why is it that we can see Spider Man origin stories where he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, has girl trouble and then has to fight a costumed bad guy in New York while preserving his secret identity over and over with different actors, and still be willing to see it again? Yet, when we see Star Wars showing us a new heroes journey to destroy a spherical space laser we complain we've seen it before? Why did people put up with it in Jedi, but complained the Last Jedi was just a soft reboot?

Superhero movies operate like contrapuntal music. You have familiar melodies that then get creatively shown to you in new and creative interactions with one another. The character explores the same story, but this time instead of having to learn responsibility, subtle changes are introduced and the lesson is different. In this story instead of Batman being driven by the loss of his parents, Batman is now Thomas Wayne, driven by the loss of his son. Star Wars doesn't work like that.

In short, Disney got screwed. They mistook the McGuffin elements of Star Wars for the heart of Star Wars. They did a terrible job, but they were never going to get a working cinematic universe out of Star Wars that had the level of international mass appeal they were banking on.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3863

Post by Service Dog »

faf--

I appreciate you putting all-that into words, because your clarity lets-me react 'i agree' with this part, 'i disagree' with the next part, and so on. But I wouldn't have such point-by-point clarity without you providing the structure.

When it comes to 'recreating the genuine feeling of seeing it for the first time'... I agree that's impossible to achieve. But I question whether it's necessary. People really like the familiar, too. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine-- for example-- kept people happy for a long time, and ended on a strong note.

I think the actors who played Rey, Finn, Poe, & Kylo Ren... had the potential to equal Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. But the Managers never let the new roles emerge into stories. The new kids were put perpetually on-hold, until the clock ran-out. They were squandered.

I think that the Swashbuckling origins of Star Wars are important-- but I don't buy that the audience had-to be versed in the prior material-- to enjoy Star Wars. As a kid-- I didn't really comprehend how 'retro' Indiana Jones was... I just thought it was great. I think all the post 1977 sequel-makers screwed-up by 'updating' the Star Wars world, instead of letting it perpetually exist in the same retro-future king-arthur-in-space realm. Doctor Who is an example-- where out-of-date low-budget charm was maintained.

I don't think there's any difference between the writing for Marvel comics & movies... and the kind of writing which would 'work' in the Star Wars setting. They seem interchangeable to me.

I agree Disney overpaid for 'Star Wars'. Especially-since George Lucas had taken the brand in shitty directions-- away from the original formula. Disney could have developed a star-wars-in-all-but-name & they'd be further-ahead right now/ than where they are.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3864

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote: When it comes to 'recreating the genuine feeling of seeing it for the first time'... I agree that's impossible to achieve. But I question whether it's necessary. People really like the familiar, too. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine-- for example-- kept people happy for a long time, and ended on a strong note.
Sure, but the Wolverine movies, and indeed most superhero movies, are a very different kind of thing. The general formula for a superhero movie is that they exist as independent stories. Obviously Endgame 2 doesn't work like that, but I think anybody could have picked up a random x-men movie and watched it in isolation in a way that you couldn't do with Empire Strikes Back. You get this in TV shows as well, there are TV shows where the overall story told over multiple episodes is important, and you have ones that you can pretty much watch in any order. I think different characters and different stories work better and worse in those different structures.

Wolverine is an archetypal character that has been developed over 50 years to tell stories with. Star Wars is an archetypal story of a proxy for the audience. Logan made it clear how much the Wolverine character is derived from pulp westerns. Think of a classic western like Shane. Wolverine movies are like taking the Shane character and trying to tell more stories with him. Star Wars is trying to take the character of the boy who looks up to Shane and tell more stories with him. If you try and flip Star Wars so Han Solo is the main character, or Boba Fett, you've thrown out the center of the original movie that made it great. If you try and preserve the center by having a Luke character, then it's hard not to make the same movie.

Ignoring the characters, I think that the longer form interconnected story telling of Star Wars just brings problems with it that you don't get in the villian of the week, press the reset button on the continuity at the end of the movie, nature of most superhero movies. The expectation with Star Wars is that there will be an expansive story that develops. In the original, the galactic empire was defeated over three movies, and in the prequels Lucas tried to tell a similar story. It's like if Marvel decided to lead by telling the story of Thanos and the Infinity stones out of the gate and established that grand narrative storytelling as the default. It's hard to come back from that. Star Wars set itself up to have to make something like the Avengers Endgame movies every couple of years. It can't be done, equally.... if you don't then again you have abandoned another key element of Star Wars.
Service Dog wrote: I think the actors who played Rey, Finn, Poe, & Kylo Ren... had the potential to equal Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher. But the Managers never let the new roles emerge into stories. The new kids were put perpetually on-hold, until the clock ran-out. They were squandered.
True about them being squandered. I think though that the "oh, Ray is just Luke" issue is a big one in a way that Tony Stark is quite a lot like Thor is quite a lot like Star Lord isn't. Unlike superhero movies, Star Wars has never been about iterating on the possibilities of an archetype. To turn it into a cinematic universe in the manner of Marvel, it kind of has to be. If they do that, is it really Star Wars?
Service Dog wrote: I think that the Swashbuckling origins of Star Wars are important-- but I don't buy that the audience had-to be versed in the prior material-- to enjoy Star Wars. As a kid-- I didn't really comprehend how 'retro' Indiana Jones was... I just thought it was great.
Sure, I didn't mean to imply that people had to explicitly know that was what they were watching. Since we are quoting RedLetterMedia - "You might not have noticed, but your brain did". The points of reference of kids today are TikTok videos are playing Fortnite. I'm not sure how much exposure they have to the culture in which the old Star Wars movies made sense.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3865

Post by fafnir »


Writing the above, I keep coming back to the above Rich Evans quote from Red Letter Media about the limitations of Star Wars.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3866

Post by John D »

The Star Wars "universe" does not need to be restrictive. Star Wars is basically a story of anti-colonialism. The Empire is a kind of Nazi fascist organization trying to take over everything.

There are lots of opportunities in the framework if you get creative. Every planetary system would have its own culture and its own way of fighting for their existence.

Our human adventurers could get wrapped up each planet and its struggle.

In my view, Star Wars should have gone in the direction of a Flash Gordon style story. This gives you all kinds of opportunities to create interesting stories about different cultures and philosophies.

The problem with Star Wars is shitty and cautious writing and storytelling. Any failure of Star Wars is all the responsibility of Disney.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3867

Post by John D »

Simple way to save Star Wars:

Imagine there are planetary systems that are unexplored. Each of these systems is hard to get to for some McGuffin reason. What is important is that each of these systems has discovered how to use the force in different ways. Each system has unique technologies and force powers. The possibilities are endless. Some people can merge with machines for example. Some people can disrupt energy etc.

Each movie can be an adventure where the Empire finds one of these new planets and tries to take it over. They don't want to just blow everything up with a giant sphere... they want to take over and get resources etc.

The thread with characters is that they try to warn the good guys and also help in the fight.

These could be good movies. There are lots of opportunities for political commentary (like original Star Trek). Each movie would stand alone and you could watch them in any order. There could be lots of politics if you want... and lots of action if you want. A blank canvas really.

Some die hard fans would complain at first because this new stuff does not fit into the Star Wars history... but they would get over their issues if Disney would make good movies.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3868

Post by John D »

And please Disney... no Mary Sue characters. Jesus. A ten year old can write better characters than Rey.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3869

Post by fafnir »

John D wrote: The Star Wars "universe" does not need to be restrictive. Star Wars is basically a story of anti-colonialism. The Empire is a kind of Nazi fascist organization trying to take over everything.

There are lots of opportunities in the framework if you get creative. Every planetary system would have its own culture and its own way of fighting for their existence.
Sure, but it's a bit like if you start by making three epic movies that cover the whole of WW2 from some kid starting out on a farm in Kansas, to him killing Hitler. You've got some tough choices about where to take that. Do you try and tell that story again, only with an even bigger Hitler? Do you try and dial it back down and convince your audience that Ice Cold in Alex, or The Great Escape are part of the same cinematic universe as your epic about the boy from Kansas who kills Hitler.

It's not that you can't tell stories about the struggles of the people on a forest moon that is definitely no where near Endor, but do enough people give a shit? Even in the 80s, did people really care about the Ewok movies? Was this wider universe actually what gave Star Wars it's value? I really don't think it was. There just aren't enough people who care about the wilderness years Obi Wan Kenobi to justify Disney's money.

Generally, I think, Marvel movies use the wider MCU to develop characters, Star Wars seemed to be trying to use characters to flesh out the wider Cinematic Universe.
John D wrote: In my view, Star Wars should have gone in the direction of a Flash Gordon style story. This gives you all kinds of opportunities to create interesting stories about different cultures and philosophies.
Maybe, but then that is a huge risk and the whole point of paying $4B for a known property like Star Wars and having a cinematic universe is to avoid risk and be able to create the same movie over and over again for a guaranteed audience. My ideas for it had been that you look at the Empire as Imperial Rome and then steal various stories of generals vying for power and barbarians crossing the danube to generate stories with a consistent tone. Nobody is making Roman epics, so there would be a unique tone to them. Anything other than what they did in The Force Awakens and try to just make another New Hope is too much of an obvious risk though from the perspective of thinking they were buying a cookie cutter for making movies that made money.
John D wrote: The problem with Star Wars is shitty and cautious writing and storytelling. Any failure of Star Wars is all the responsibility of Disney.
Perhaps, but the point of having a cinematic universe is that it takes the risk of needing people to be creative out of it.

With most Marvel movies you know the basic plot regardless of which superhero the movie is about. The number of them where you have some kind of handsome hero who is a bit too full of himself. There will be a powerful MacGuffin and a bad guy who wants it. You then have an initial battle that doesn't defeat the bad guy and establishes the heroes emotional connection to the challenge ahead and the conflict in the soul of the hero that must be resolved. There will be a second battle where the hero is defeated and the bad guy gets control of the MacGuffin. The hero then resolves the conflict in order to win the final battle. This happens over and over.

With Star Wars, this has never really worked. Everybody talks about The Hero's Journey with Star Wars, but are they honestly going to tell that every movie? If they don't, then you are back with the problem that a Cinematic Universe is supposed to be a vehicle for making the same product with minor variations over and over and still having people buy it. The reason Empire is brilliant is that it somehow managed to think of a different story to tell that allowed the original hero's journey to continue a little longer. By Jedi they were already running out of ideas and destroying another Death Star.

People talk about the possibilities of the Star Wars Universe. You could do heist movies, you could do spy movies, you could have a romance, you could have a prison break, you could have a great war.... That's not really how the MCU operates though. It's not that there aren't heists, spies, romance, prison breaks, or great wars..... but those aren't the genres of the MCU movies that contain those plot elements. The genre is superhero movie. You could tell a story in the MCU that was just a romantic comedy with no big bad guy to defeat, and no threat to the city, but what would be the point? Same with the Star Wars universe.
John D wrote: Some die hard fans would complain at first because this new stuff does not fit into the Star Wars history... but they would get over their issues if Disney would make good movies.
Making good original movies is hard and not what Disney do. Break down the plot of every one of their princess movies and see how often they use basically the same story. What they are good at is being a machine that churns out high quality iterations on reliable established templates. They are to creativity and originality in movie making what the Ford production line was to the skill of the individual craftsman.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3870

Post by MarcusAu »

I like the Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge stories.

Both the short and long form.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3871

Post by fafnir »

John D wrote: Imagine there are planetary systems that are unexplored. Each of these systems is hard to get to for some McGuffin reason. What is important is that each of these systems has discovered how to use the force in different ways. Each system has unique technologies and force powers. The possibilities are endless. Some people can merge with machines for example. Some people can disrupt energy etc.
Why pay $4B to George Lucas for this? He doesn't have a copyright on alien planets and space wizards.
John D wrote: Each movie can be an adventure where the Empire finds one of these new planets and tries to take it over. They don't want to just blow everything up with a giant sphere... they want to take over and get resources etc.

The thread with characters is that they try to warn the good guys and also help in the fight.
If it was easy to produce the same movie over and over, everybody would do it. People tolerate it with Disney Princess movies, they tolerate it with the MCU, they tolerated it with romantic comedies starring Meg Ryan.... you can't do that with all stories. Having the Empire turn up every film and find the new rebel hiding place would turn it into 1970's Battlestar Galactica. These are the sort of window dressing details that the MCU switches out every movie. I can see it as a mid budget TV show, I can't see them turning out a movie like this every year and getting a general audience to hand them a billion dollars.
John D wrote: These could be good movies. There are lots of opportunities for political commentary (like original Star Trek). Each movie would stand alone and you could watch them in any order. There could be lots of politics if you want... and lots of action if you want. A blank canvas really.
Are these Star Wars movies though? I'm not sure they would be in a sense most people would care about. Why would Disney give George Lucas $4B to remake Battlestar Galactica?
John D wrote: And please Disney... no Mary Sue characters. Jesus. A ten year old can write better characters than Rey.
Even the Marvel formula isn't immune from the desire to make the female lead practically perfect in every way, that's another problem entirely.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3872

Post by John D »

Yeah. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvell. Interesting shit to chat about.

At the end of the day I don't really care. I am probably just old. I would rather watch a re-run of original Star Trek than any new sci-fi fantasy movies. This is just where I am at in my life. Why should I spend two hours watching the same shit I watched 30 years ago?... just with better graphics. Fucking boring.

I think this is why I like reading old books. I guess there is just not much new under the sun. The old stuff created the whole genre. Ivanhoe or Middlemarch.

When I watched the new Dune movie (part 1), I almost fell asleep. Nothing surprising.

I guess it is just how I am. My wife can watch TV dramas and mystery series continuously... all day. This is her hobby. Wow. I can't watch two shows in a row before thinking that I have seen this show before. I sometimes yell at the TV and say "Entertain me!" It doesn't help. I find it more entertaining to watch Joe Biden stumble and grin through his press conference. Haha. Now that was entertaining.

I do like the sci-fi fantasy format for my war gaming. I am starting to play a game called "Dracula's America". It is a hoot. Dracula came to America during the Civil War and took over the Federal Government. Now... set in the 1880's... America is full of vampires and daemons and gunfights. Now that's entertainment!

But finally, Disney knew what it was buying. I don't give one shit if the Star Wars saga fails for them. I don't have any Disney stock.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3873

Post by John D »

This guy is pretty good in my view.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3874

Post by fafnir »

John D wrote: Yeah. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvell. Interesting shit to chat about.

At the end of the day I don't really care. I am probably just old. I would rather watch a re-run of original Star Trek than any new sci-fi fantasy movies. This is just where I am at in my life. Why should I spend two hours watching the same shit I watched 30 years ago?... just with better graphics. Fucking boring.
For Sci-Fi, the only pulp stuff I would go for is Philip K Dick.
John D wrote: I think this is why I like reading old books. I guess there is just not much new under the sun. The old stuff created the whole genre. Ivanhoe or Middlemarch.
You mentioned Middlemarch before. I smile every time. It was one of my dad's favourite books.
John D wrote: When I watched the new Dune movie (part 1), I almost fell asleep. Nothing surprising.

I guess it is just how I am. My wife can watch TV dramas and mystery series continuously... all day. This is her hobby. Wow. I can't watch two shows in a row before thinking that I have seen this show before. I sometimes yell at the TV and say "Entertain me!" It doesn't help. I find it more entertaining to watch Joe Biden stumble and grin through his press conference. Haha. Now that was entertaining.
You and me both.
John D wrote: I do like the sci-fi fantasy format for my war gaming. I am starting to play a game called "Dracula's America". It is a hoot. Dracula came to America during the Civil War and took over the Federal Government. Now... set in the 1880's... America is full of vampires and daemons and gunfights. Now that's entertainment!
It's a stupid movie, but I had fun watching Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Similar, but better, is Helen Keller vs Nightwolves and FDR: American Badass!.

John D wrote: But finally, Disney knew what it was buying. I don't give one shit if the Star Wars saga fails for them. I don't have any Disney stock.
Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3875

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

The first Star Wars Trilogy worked because it was campy and fun. It incorporated an homage to the old serialized sci fi, and had archetypical good vs. evil. The special effects were amazing for the era, and the score was top-notch. Empire Strikes Back was the best of the three, and could stand alone.

Star Wars' demise was its success selling toys. Half of Return of the Jedi was a toy ad.


I know little of the second trilogy, other than I fell asleep during The Phantom Menace (which my sister and I renamed 'The Phantom Plot.') I think Natalie Portman played a Princess who was replaced by a robot but the real princess was as robotic as the robot. I do remember Jar Jar Binks, a character created solely to sell a toy a la the Ewoks. Trouble is, Hollywood is run by aspberger jews who as kids were on the chess team, so it has no clue how real children think or act.

Also, Lucas was given more creative control, which revealed that he was a big doofus, that his storyline was unintentionally hokey, but had been rescued by the creative minds behind the original trilogy, who'd gone tongue-in-cheek hokey. The SFX were early gen CGI, and you could tell.


I've watched none of the third trilogy. From what I can tell, Mark Hamill looks like crap. But I do know from his ruination of Star Trek that JJ Abrams is a shit Midas. Because he's another aspberger jew kid who was on the chess team.

I watched Rogue One and almost liked it. Problem was, there was too much in it. Beautifully choreographed space combat that flashed by too fast to appreciate. Too many subplots that led nowhere, way too many characters who did nothing to move the story along. All flaws sadly too common in Hollywood today, which I attribute to prima donna script writers who are too pampered to allow anyone to edit their bloated script.

All I know about the Mandalorian is Disney sent Gina Carano to an Ughyr concentration camp, so fuck that shit.


The general problem is, you can make a shit movie, but if it has a modicum of flashing images and loud noises, people will watch it. So you make money. So even though you suck at making movies, you are considered a fucking genius by the other aspies who also suck at making movies. And Hollywood now is entirely comprised of aspies who suck at making movies.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3876

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

One wonders how the MSM are going to spin this, if they are forced to acknowledge it. The UK death rate where there is no other causative factor listed is bugger all and the average age of death in 2020 is higher than the average life expectancy. A UK doctor estimates about 50 000 excess cancer deaths due to lockdown.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3877

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

I also want to add that the first trilogy had fantastic, classic story arcs. The rest -- and most big movies nowadays -- have less story arcs than two minute story hand jobs in the back seat of a parked car.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3878

Post by fafnir »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: Hollywood is run by aspberger jews
This is like the Henry Ford explanation of why Star Wars failed :-)

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3879

Post by fafnir »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: I also want to add that the first trilogy had fantastic, classic story arcs. The rest -- and most big movies nowadays -- have less story arcs than two minute story hand jobs in the back seat of a parked car.
At least a two minute hand job in the back seat of a parked car only takes two minutes. Rise of Skywalker was nearly two and a half hours.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3880

Post by fafnir »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: One wonders how the MSM are going to spin this,
You don't have to spin what you don't talk about.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3881

Post by Service Dog »

fafnir wrote: The general formula for a superhero movie is that they exist as independent stories.
This is false. All the Marvel superheroes live in a shared reality, and they always have. The D.C. superheroes live in their reality.
All the WWF wrestlers are a pantheon in one reality, etc. 'Star Wars' is a place, 'Star Trek' is a different place.
fafnir wrote: If you try and flip Star Wars so Han Solo is the main character, or Boba Fett, you've thrown out the center of the original movie that made it great.
You're defining Star Wars in a self-defeating way. I don't buy it. A young Luke Skywalker is Peter Parker. A veteran Luke is Captain America. Luke's squeaky-clean character begs to flip him into Dark Luke, then flip him back. Space-Hitler Darth Vader could EASILY return from the dead. The black S&M suit simply rises from the floor... filled only with an evil spirit & James Earl Jones voice... declaring, "Luke... I am NOT your father!" Pure darkside.

The rebels get to 'keep' their victory in high-profile 'big city' planets... Luke gets bogged down in a desk job/ trying to fill potholes & keep the garbage trucks running. But he's not suited to that... so we get a story where he re-discovers his youthful taste for adventure... like Bilbo Baggins. Lando IS well-suited to that shit & becomes the Galactic President... but he's too embedded in the Victorious Regions (like Apollo Creed at the beginning of Rocky)... he doesn't see that flyover states are still shitholes.

We get a whole storyline of Darth Vader retreating to some planet, nursing his wounds, re-building his power, & enslaving the poor locals. He's like Scarface. Then the planet gets liberated (but Vader escapes-- his power restored-- of to do be even-worse somewhere-else.)

I typed all that in minutes-- without pausing or conscious effort. I think it's pretty good. All it took was... your prompting-me by saying-stuff which I dispute.
fafnir wrote: Unlike superhero movies, Star Wars has never been about iterating on the possibilities of an archetype. To turn it into a cinematic universe in the manner of Marvel, it kind of has to be. If they do that, is it really Star Wars?
How much does this 'really Star Wars' concept matter? I don't know if it was "never" about iterations: Luke changed across the first 3 movies. We always knew Obi-wan was young once, and Yoda. And Darth-before-he-was-evil (tho the prequels botched telling that story). We knew the great old Republic was 'fallen'.
fafnir wrote: With most Marvel movies you know the basic plot regardless of which superhero the movie is about. The number of them where you have some kind of handsome hero who is a bit too full of himself. There will be a powerful MacGuffin and a bad guy who wants it. You then have an initial battle that doesn't defeat the bad guy and establishes the heroes emotional connection to the challenge ahead and the conflict in the soul of the hero that must be resolved. There will be a second battle where the hero is defeated and the bad guy gets control of the MacGuffin. The hero then resolves the conflict in order to win the final battle. This happens over and over.
I don't buy this reductionism. I think Marvel's 1960's success was in defying this formula. For example: The Thing's story hasn't been told on screen yet... and it would be great. He's a low-self-esteem, lower-class, ugly-mug... who is unwillingly tranformed into an orange rock monster. Which only confirms his hard-luck self-pity. But-- despite himself-- he shambles-along & does the right thing because he has a good heart. But even-tho he's immensely powerful... he's a tragic freak/ convinced no woman could love him. Then a blind chick doesn't care what he looks like, hooray. He hates his old neighborhood, but it also made him what he is... and it's the only place that's truly home. This is 'Dead End Kids' and 1950's-social-justice-noir.

In recent years-- Ant-Man was a good 'caper' film with a light PG-13 deviousness. Deadpool dialed the deviousness to Rated-R. Thor is G-rated. Loki is for pretentious intellectuals who think they're too-good (and too devious) for all-this (while getting sucked in!). And Iron Man put the original 'devious' spin on the Marvel brand. D.C. has many onscreen failures... including trying to copy the deviousness in Suicide Squad. But D.C. is strong when their brand actively eschews snark-- such as the straightforward, sincere Justice League Unlimited cartoons.
For Sci-Fi, the only pulp stuff I would go for is Philip K Dick.
And _that_ is what disqualifies you... and anyone who agrees with you... from 'management' of Star Wars.

If you don't respect the material-- if it doesn't 'speak' to you-- then don't think you Know Best about it.

That's who director Rian Johnson was, and fucking Kathleen Kennedy. J.J. Abrams is partly like-them, but he's got a shred of affinity for all-this.


I'm chagrined to say it... but I'm fundamentally a 'Star Wars Kid'. I watched re-runs of Star Trek... but I always knew it was firmly mid-60's... a little 'before my time'. I heard pretentious-types say 2001 was the great science-fiction masterpiece... but I could plainly see it was a snoozefest.
Yet I was sophisticated-enough to know Star Wars was the real deal-- and Battlestar Galactica was a rip-off. And 'Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century'. And the Dune toys were "are you fucking kidding me?!!"

What I'm saying-is... Star Wars is the default-setting for "Outer Space". Just like Dungeons & Dragons is the default setting for "Fantasy". As long as your MMORPG game franchise conforms to that default-setting... you'll have a big success like Everquest, World of Warcraft, Skyrim.


But I gotta adamantly say that I'm not the kind of 'Star Wars Kid' you see at those fucking Star Wars Celebration events, or celebrating 'May The 4th' or getting Star Wars tattoos. Those doughy neckbeard pudgetards with their feminist loser wives. The strike me as the LAST audience that star wars should cater-to. Because they'll eat anything... and like it. Ignore them... they'll come-along.

I think Jon Favreau must-be exactly my age... he seems to 'get it'. This happened at Marvel comics... in the 1970's & 80's... when the WW2 generation which created the Fantastic Four & Avengers & X-men... were joined by young guys who had come-of-age consuming those comics... they were Native Born in that Imaginary Space... it came naturally to them to 'think' in those terms.

FWIW... I would guess that John D. & I both think it's easy to make-up good Star Wars stories... because we've delved deep into the the tabletop pen&paper rpg hobby... we've spitballed storylines beginning-middle-end in just a few hours. Taking a productive shit isn't as difficult as giving birth.

(i can't believe talking about Star Wars is enjoyable in 2022. I certainly didn't think-so... in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2015, 2012, 2009... 2003... I guess the real world got crummy-enough again... that 1970's circumstances demand 1970's escapism.)

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3882

Post by Service Dog »

fafnir wrote:
Writing the above, I keep coming back to the above Rich Evans quote from Red Letter Media about the limitations of Star Wars.
I greatly-appreciate you finding that clip. Like you, it made a strong impression on me when I first saw it.
I didn't recall when & where it was said... (but my brain did.)

--

'Rick & Morty's' Dan Harmon is from Milwaukee, as-are the Red Letter Media guys. Dungeons & Dragons originated in nearby Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. My last couple years of high school (and a stray year of college, later) were in Madison, Wisconsin. I knew Dan Harmon... tangentially... because he was active in the same Improv Comedy troupe-for-teens as my close friends (who cast me in the plays they wrote & performed at school.) I was in-the-mix with the founders of The Onion-- and the 2nd generation of editors who brought it to prominence. (Dan Harmon later hired editor Carol Kolb as a writer on Community.) All these same Onion and improv-comedy kids made ambitious home-movies on VHS camcorder (the 1980's equivalent of the J.J. Abrams/Spielberg film "Super 8")... and so my younger brother & his camcorder buddies are indistinguishable from the Red Letter Media guys' teenage years. Another Madison highschool friend of mine was girl named Wendy-- who went off to NYU film school. Then to LA, where she discovered the 'Clueless' screenplay (along with the guy who later produced the highest grossing animated film: South Park). She landed in NY, produced Harmony Corrine movies & her career flopped when the year-2000 version of Godzilla flopped. But, until then, she hired me-- to vet screenplays & ghost-write her replies to the screenwriters.

What I'm sayin' is... I'm nobody. I'm a pipsqueak... but I also stumbled-in to the right-time/right-place to know that there WAS a certain cultural-moment. A specific geographic location...

I saw a bunch of kids look at the Managerial hollywood 'borg' which ran culture back-then... and contort themselves... trying to figure-out how & if they could assimilate into the Winner Take All manager class.

I saw a Gen X misfit-kid mentality turn some of those kids into semi-outsiders (The Onion, Red Letter Media) still interfacing with success. Some like Dan Harmon-- (who, in LA, connected with stars like Jack Black) & went full-insider.

I know their strengths (While she was at NYU-- Wendy one-day schooled me that 'no one cares' about Fellini or Shakespeare. They all want to make hundreds of millions of dollars & win 5 oscars, like Silence of the Lambs. Then later, for pennies, she hired-me to whisper what she needed to know-- about Fellini & Shakespeare. She looked down on me as an Iowa redneck with a high school education (not a _real_ Wisconsinite with a fancy college scholarship)... but she was also awed when I was the only person in her entire weekly betting pool... who predicted that the first Fast & The Furious movie would be #1 at the box office. She thought I was psychic. I said, "you guys almost never make movies for regular dumb straight men. So we just go to see whatever you're making. There used to be lots of movies about cool cars in fast car chases. This is the first one in a long time. We actually got excited by this jumping-car trailer."


I've told all this before. I'm telling it again because I'm re-thinking it all again, thru the lens of The Machiavellians & Managerial-Class Star Wars.

Keating
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3883

Post by Keating »


Service Dog
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3884

Post by Service Dog »

(whatever cultural-critique I thought I was building-toward... talking-about all those Wisconsin-ites working in media & entertainment...
just kinda trails-off into a blur. Jump forward to our current cultural bankruptcy-- whether Disney or Biden-- and I think the Wisco cheeseheads have
_nothing_ to offer. Dan Harmon is the most braindead hollywood sjw/ degenerate pantyhose fetishist #metoo perp. All the rest are just a bunch of Stephen Colbert audience-members, politically. They're pro-actively out-of-touch... to avoid the difficulty of engaging with reality. Wendy the movie producer quit Hollywood 20 years ago & became a boots-on-the-ground NGO twat, saving the 3rd world for Soros, or whatever... she went all-in, but I don't think she questions whether her 2nd career was entirely misguided. She just keeps doing-it.

---
As the afternoon wore-on... I thought more about my earlier words & began to question my assumption that Star Wars is the 'default setting' of Spacefantasy. So much ugly crap has been added to that world. Samuel L. Jackson. Galactic Trade Federation. Those 'roger-roger' robots. 'Gungans'. Yuck.
---

I think it's funny that everyone has as Why Star Wars sucks link to offer... and they're all correct.

---

I've never really given Harry Potter a try. The books & movies seemed-like an entry-level pastiche of every fantasy trope... with no depth. I couldn't quite be bothered with Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett did that, before. Those-of-you who would rather read the source-material have the right idea.

--
Anybody read George R.R. Martin's 'Wild Cards' anthologies of super-hero short stories, 30+ years ago? George got so-into creating fictional worlds for his super-hero pen&paper tabletop rpg gaming... and his D&D fantasy games... that his friends urged him to turn all that 'worldbuilding' into sellable product. Wild Cards was born, then Game of Thrones. Another pastiche... a golem which only marches a certain-distance before decomposing.

--
shout-out to Warhammer 40k for developing such a giant, kooky, deformed, mythos... and remaining slightly under the mainstream radar/ tho I've heard even-they are going sjw lately.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3885

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote:The general formula for a superhero movie is that they exist as independent stories.
This is false. All the Marvel superheroes live in a shared reality, and they always have. The D.C. superheroes live in their reality.
Sure they live in a shared reality, but you have an expectation on the audience of The Empire Strikes Back that they will have watched A New Hope that you don't get in Iron Man 2. Star Wars movies seem to naturally want to come in trilogies and are expected to tell an overarching story of a group of heroes who you meet in the first movie battling a single bad guy and his hangers on. We must have about a century of plot now. Apart from Infinity War, how often do the heroes in a Marvel movie have to battle the same vilain two movies in a row? Is there anything like the century of overarching Star Wars plot in the MCU that the audience need to know?

Even in the comics, in a shared story arc, the writers don't assume you are following the events in the Avengers, Dr Strange, Spiderman and the Fantastic 4 comics simultaneously. The level of dependency is typically pretty minimal. The movies take that further by compressing a whole story arc into a single movie.

When the different discrete groups in the shared reality meet, it's a big deal. Pick a random Marvel movie and watch it with somebody who isn't into superhero movies, and I'd expect them to understand what is going on, the motivation of the villain etc (though I think this is becoming less the case now, and I think spells trouble for the MCU). What would the same random person make of The Rise of Skywalker or Attack of the Clones? Wouldn't the beginning of Return of the Jedi be confusing if you hadn't seen a New Hope or Empire? Did they even bother to properly explain who Palpatine was in The Rise of Skywalker? Have any of the movies actually worked on their own since A New Hope? I haven't seen Solo. Maybe the Ewok movies, that I dimly remember?
Even an independent movie like Rogue One doesn't really make sense story wise without the assumption that the audience understands it's significance to the wider story. It's like if you told the story of Endgame from the perspective of Black Widow and ended it when she dies. The overwhelming bulk of superhero movies make sense and work as stories if you didn't watch the films that came before or after it.
Service Dog wrote: All the WWF wrestlers are a pantheon in one reality
Sure, but you also have to make wrestling plots accessible enough that they function in isolation. The plot lines grew up in an environment where they couldn't rely on you having been there last week and the week before so you would understand the arc. If the heel is the babyfaces father and it's important, they are going to make absolutely sure you understand this. Same with superhero movies.
Service Dog wrote: 'Star Wars' is a place
Barely. It's a place like Neverland is a place. Turning George's hokey space opera setting into a real fleshed out universe is a contradiction in terms.
Service Dog wrote: 'Star Trek' is a different place.
Sure, and Star Trek stories function much more like Marvel movies in terms of what discrete, independent things they were. Yes, it's a single universe, but the vast majority of episodes might as well not have happened from a universe continuity, or audience understanding point of view. The only meaningful dependency I can think of between the classic Star Wars movies is the death of Spock in the second one and his rebirth in the third.
Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote: If you try and flip Star Wars so Han Solo is the main character, or Boba Fett, you've thrown out the center of the original movie that made it great.
You're defining Star Wars in a self-defeating way. I don't buy it. A young Luke Skywalker is Peter Parker.
No he isn't. Peter Parker exists out of in universe time. Peter Parker was decoupled decades ago from living in any decade. He doesn't age. You could make a retro Spiderman movie set in the 60s. You could make Spiderman black, or a girl, or an alien. Luke Skywalker exists at a particular time in the in universe timeline. You can't tell a Luke Skywalker story set in the old Republic without some radical explanation of why he is there. You can't tell a Luke Skywalker story where he is a girl (not explicitly anyway). Luke Skywalker hasn't been abstracted down to a reusable Platonic ideal in the way Spiderman has.

OK, the current MCU Spiderman exists within the continuity of Endgame. That was an aberration. Think of all the MCU movies that could have taken place at any point pre-Endgame in any order without it making any difference. Your typical MCU movie exists largely independent of the main continuity.
Service Dog wrote: Luke's squeaky-clean character begs to flip him into Dark Luke, then flip him back.
The world isn't crying out to find out what happened to Luke between Jedi and The Force Awakens. The character doesn't need this story telling, and is he actually a good vehicle for telling other stories?
Service Dog wrote: <snip>plot ideas</snip>
Who is crying out for this? Not nearly enough people for it to make sense turning into movies. The original story was what worked. Trying to extend it out into a wider universe is like trying to make Casablanca 2. Just because one can imagine plots with the characters doesn't mean the things that worked about the original can be brought across by just having it be in the same universe. Casablanca and Star Wars are both too specific to turn into workable cinematic universes while preserving any of what made the originals worthwhile to most people.

It can work as books, it can work as cartoons, to some degree it can work as a TV show because the audience that are interested in what happened to Luke after Return of the Jedi may well be big enough to support that and is much more of a tightly defined target. It can't work as movies costing hundreds of millions of dollars with an audience with wildly different tastes and expectations.
Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote: Unlike superhero movies, Star Wars has never been about iterating on the possibilities of an archetype. To turn it into a cinematic universe in the manner of Marvel, it kind of has to be. If they do that, is it really Star Wars?
How much does this 'really Star Wars' concept matter? I don't know if it was "never" about iterations: Luke changed across the first 3 movies. We always knew Obi-wan was young once, and Yoda. And Darth-before-he-was-evil (tho the prequels botched telling that story). We knew the great old Republic was 'fallen'.
The number of people who care about what Obi-Wan Kenobi did when he was young is far too small to justify making a movie about it. What is so compelling about the story in itself, for people who aren't particularly into Star Wars that justifies the movie? Every Iron Man movie was fun on its own and worked on its own. Cut off from the connection to all the other movies, is Obi-Wan Kenobi a compelling character in the way Iron Man was? Iron Man is a character who was created to tell stories with. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a character who was created to advance somebody else's story.
Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote: With most Marvel movies you know the basic plot regardless of which superhero the movie is about. The number of them where you have some kind of handsome hero who is a bit too full of himself. There will be a powerful MacGuffin and a bad guy who wants it. You then have an initial battle that doesn't defeat the bad guy and establishes the heroes emotional connection to the challenge ahead and the conflict in the soul of the hero that must be resolved. There will be a second battle where the hero is defeated and the bad guy gets control of the MacGuffin. The hero then resolves the conflict in order to win the final battle. This happens over and over.
I don't buy this reductionism. I think Marvel's 1960's success was in defying this formula.
I was talking there about the movies, not the comics. The comics have a much more limited audience and different rules apply to them.
Service Dog wrote: For example: The Thing's story hasn't been told on screen yet... and it would be great. He's a low-self-esteem, lower-class, ugly-mug... who is unwillingly transformed into an orange rock monster. Which only confirms his hard-luck self-pity. But-- despite himself-- he shambles-along & does the right thing because he has a good heart. But even-tho he's immensely powerful... he's a tragic freak/ convinced no woman could love him. Then a blind chick doesn't care what he looks like, hooray. He hates his old neighborhood, but it also made him what he is... and it's the only place that's truly home. This is 'Dead End Kids' and 1950's-social-justice-noir.
Wasn't that told in the Fantastic 4 movies? I don't remember it too well. If they do make another movie with The Thing, I doubt it will be a wild departure from the formula. My guess would be some plot along the lines of him being transformed, he's upset, some threat appears that he has to accept his new form in order to defeat. Standard stuff. All the stuff you like in the comics is what gives the movies the depth that allows them to iterate over and over on the same simple story and still be interesting.
Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote:For Sci-Fi, the only pulp stuff I would go for is Philip K Dick.
And _that_ is what disqualifies you... and anyone who agrees with you... from 'management' of Star Wars.

If you don't respect the material-- if it doesn't 'speak' to you-- then don't think you Know Best about it.
There are not remotely enough people with the type of interest in the type of Sci-Fi that the Star Wars extended universe represents to justify the kind of investment Disney made and the size of movies Disney wants to make. They could start adapting the best of the extended universe books tomorrow, but they would operate at a massive loss. This isn't about respect. There isn't going to be a Philip K Dick extended universe either.
Service Dog wrote: That's who director Rian Johnson was, and fucking Kathleen Kennedy. J.J. Abrams is partly like-them, but he's got a shred of affinity for all-this.
Perhaps, but if they were going to sell Star Wars globally to markets like China, they were always going to have to throw the fans under the bus and hope that so long as there were x-wings and lightsabers, the poor saps wouldn't realise. They did it in a stupid way, but it was always going to be a deracinated Disney sausage of a movie wearing a Star Wars mask.
Service Dog wrote: I'm chagrined to say it... but I'm fundamentally a 'Star Wars Kid'. I watched re-runs of Star Trek... but I always knew it was firmly mid-60's... a little 'before my time'. I heard pretentious-types say 2001 was the great science-fiction masterpiece... but I could plainly see it was a snoozefest.
Yet I was sophisticated-enough to know Star Wars was the real deal-- and Battlestar Galactica was a rip-off. And 'Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century'. And the Dune toys were "are you fucking kidding me?!!"
The original Star Wars movie was terrific. I'm with you on that. Better than all of Star Trek even when they rip of Shakespeare or Melville for stolen pathos. All that is good in the other Star Wars movies is just the reflected glory of the first one as far as I'm concerned. I admire the writing achievement of Empire in finding a way to continue the story.
Service Dog wrote: I think Jon Favreau must-be exactly my age... he seems to 'get it'. This happened at Marvel comics... in the 1970's & 80's... when the WW2 generation which created the Fantastic Four & Avengers & X-men... were joined by young guys who had come-of-age consuming those comics... they were Native Born in that Imaginary Space... it came naturally to them to 'think' in those terms.
I'm sure Favreau is a great improvement. It's going to take a lot of consistently good product to dig Star Wars out of the hole it's in. I'm doubtful that this is a path that leads to a functioning big screen cinematic universe like Disney intended. Getting him involved has been about the only smart decision they've made.
Service Dog wrote: FWIW... I would guess that John D. & I both think it's easy to make-up good Star Wars stories... because we've delved deep into the the tabletop pen&paper rpg hobby... we've spitballed storylines beginning-middle-end in just a few hours. Taking a productive shit isn't as difficult as giving birth.
Maybe, but successfully creating a cinematic universe seems to be quite a bit harder than giving birth. DC keep trying and failing, Star Wars looks to have failed at least for the moment, Universal failed with their monster movie universe in a single movie. My prediction is that the MCU are going to have a much harder time from here on in as well now they are doing longer form stories and the Eternals.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3886

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote: What I'm sayin' is... I'm nobody. I'm a pipsqueak... but I also stumbled-in to the right-time/right-place to know that there WAS a certain cultural-moment. A specific geographic location...
You make Milwaukee sound like the bright centre to the universe. I guess I've known people who came close enough to move in the same circles as people who became politically and culturally important in the UK. I don't think it did them good. They don't talk about it in the way that your stereotypical war veteran doesn't, and I don't ask. It is hard not to want to make the movie that wins five oscars or to be in the room where it happens, particularly when you see the schmucks that make it, but there is a price to be paid. I never had the drive. I both regret that and don't.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3887

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote: I've never really given Harry Potter a try. The books & movies seemed-like an entry-level pastiche of every fantasy trope... with no depth. I couldn't quite be bothered with Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett did that, before. Those-of-you who would rather read the source-material have the right idea.
I had that opinion of Harry Potter for a long time. I was leaned on to see the first shitty movie when it came out. Then my kids were got old enough and I read it to them. No question they are books for kids, and she doesn't have the skill to write simultaneously for both adults and children at the same time. Having said that she builds to a far better ending than one has any right to expect. It's like the opposite of Game of Thrones.

For children's books the most impressive modern series I found was Lemony Snicket. He wrote two series. He absolutely manages to work at two levels simultaneously while respecting both. Really unnecessarily well written for comic children's books.
Service Dog wrote: shout-out to Warhammer 40k for developing such a giant, kooky, deformed, mythos... and remaining slightly under the mainstream radar/ tho I've heard even-they are going sjw lately.
I heard this too, though I really struggle to imagine how you could make it SJW friendly without a hard reboot of the universe.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3888

Post by Service Dog »

fafnir wrote: You make Milwaukee sound like the bright centre to the universe.
Definitely not. My actual opinion is-- that generation of Milwaukee kids mythologized themselves as nothing-more than bystanders/consumers/critics of NewYork/LA/Tokyo/London bigtime culture. Wearing a nametag, working at a videotape-rental store, re-watching all the movies 1000 times & being unsung experts who no-one listens-to. Maybe they'd dare to make some quirky/offbeat/b-list 'alternative' project... which would win cult critical acclaim in photocopied 'zines & among other video-store nametags/ but no real riches/power/fame.

Then it turned-out that A-list culture was bankrupt of ideas & voraciously hungry for new blood... so ALL those kids got their shot at operating in the Bigtime (as-did like ex-videostore clerks Kevin Smith & Quentin Tarantino.) I have no idea whether the path they took still exists, in today's landscape. Maybe it went-away with Harvey Weinstein.

Our horse Matt might know... he seems to still have connections to Hollywood.

----

All our talk of Marvel & Star Wars & Disney overlooks the missing-link between them: Guardians of the Galaxy.

There's your billion-dollar space-fantasy-fun franchise for normies & nerds alike.

And I think it's an open-ended default-setting of endless possibilities... which I tried-to claim Star Wars was, before. (But probably hasn't-been... since about 1981.)

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3889

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog wrote:
fafnir wrote: You make Milwaukee sound like the bright centre to the universe.
Definitely not. My actual opinion is-- that generation of Milwaukee kids mythologized themselves as nothing-more than bystanders/consumers/critics of NewYork/LA/Tokyo/London bigtime culture.
All of a sudden you got me thinking of American Movie and Mark Borchardt freezing his ass off in his shitty car typing a script for his loser mates to act out.
Service Dog wrote: All our talk of Marvel & Star Wars & Disney overlooks the missing-link between them: Guardians of the Galaxy.
Indeed, I left that out on purpose. It kind of sticks out, doesn't it?
Service Dog wrote: There's your billion-dollar space-fantasy-fun franchise for normies & nerds alike.
Absolutely, I'd pay to watch as many movies of that as James Gunn, Chris Pratt and the others choose to make. To base the new MCU on it though, Disney need to find a way of both keeping it fresh and making movies like that using the sausage machine. I don't think they can. Honestly, how many more Guardians of the Galaxy movies do you think that team has in them?
Service Dog wrote: And I think it's an open-ended default-setting of endless possibilities... which I tried-to claim Star Wars was, before. (But probably hasn't-been... since about 1981.)
Maybe they should give Bruce Vilanch another run at it?

Seriously, my thought on getting the fans back on side would be the release of the original movies before Lucas fucked with them, and then release a bunch of Tag & Bink : A Star Wars Movie films. They could just film it like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Most of the shooting is already done, most of the script is basically there. They could make a bunch of movies for pennies and show the fans that they give a shit. It would be so cheap to produce they couldn't fail to make money. The only thing it would cost them is pride. At this point, I think they'd rather produce some Andy Warhol knockoff of a bunch of naked man silently urinating on Mark Hamill for interminable hours filmed by a single fixed slightly out of focus camera.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3890

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Your WEITardation of the Day:
Chris Johnston
January 20, 2022 at 10:17 am
Jordan Peterson is a pseudo-intellectual who cares about persuasion insofar as it feeds his ego. Much like the Weinstein brothers, Gad Saad, PZ Myers, Geoffrey Miller, Glenn Greenwald, Douglas Murray, Ezra Klein and Ben Shapiro.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3891

Post by fafnir »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote: Your WEITardation of the Day:
Chris Johnston
January 20, 2022 at 10:17 am
Jordan Peterson is a pseudo-intellectual who cares about persuasion insofar as it feeds his ego. Much like the Weinstein brothers, Gad Saad, PZ Myers, Geoffrey Miller, Glenn Greenwald, Douglas Murray, Ezra Klein and Ben Shapiro.
Quite flattering for PZ to be lumped into that mix. Makes him look borderline relevant.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3892

Post by Service Dog »

fafnir wrote: All of a sudden you got me thinking of American Movie and Mark Borchardt freezing his ass off in his shitty car typing a script for his loser mates to act out.
Oof... that hits close to home. I almost mentioned Mark Borchardt-- in that list of Wisconsinites. Pull the string & I recite the tale...

As I mentioned-- I moved there for the last couple years of the 80's-- to finish high school. Then I came to NYC & hung-around kids who were attending Columbia, Barnard, Julliard, NYU. I formed a rap group of white college boys... we had hundreds of fans. In '92 I returned to Wisconsin for a year of college... and Grunge exploded. Butch Vig operated a music studio to record local 'college rock' stuff... and he produced Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album, then Hole, then he formed Garbage. I lived in a neglected old house near campus-- with a bunch of longhair guys in flannel. We had drums & guitars set-up in the attic & sounded atrocious. Across the hall was a hippie-ish kid from Iowa (where I'd lived-before, so I felt affinity for him.) Sometimes his grunge-y friends would come visit from University of Iowa. One of those kids was named Chris Smith... he was majoring in film. He would piece together discarded loops of film-- from old 1950's nature documentaries... into nonsensical pseudo-narratives, with kitchsy music-- like Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass... in the background. I thought he was brilliant. He gave me a VHS compilation of his student films-- offering to make a music video for my rap band in NYC... but I couldn't convince them to hire him. I also suggested that Butch Vig produce our album... but (pre-Nirvana) I couldn't convince them. I also wanted a guy named Mark Venezia to produce us-- again I lost the band vote (and he produced Pavement's 'Crooked Rain' album instead. I felt like Cassandra from mythology-- doomed to see the right future collaborations/ but unable to convince the band. Chris Smith offered to come to NYC & follow-us around & make a documentary. The band wasn't interested. SO Instead Chris Smith Started Following Around Mark Borchard And Made American Movie, instead. Argh. Then Chris Smith became the guy who actually operated the camera & conducted many of the common-folk interviews-- which comprised Micheal Moore's political documentaries. (Michael Moore's face & voiceover were added later.) In 2020 Chris Smith produced the Tiger King series about that Joe Exotic guy, for Netflix.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3893

Post by fafnir »

Service Dog, you are like a latter day Forest Gump.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3894

Post by fafnir »

The being there in the background part, not the retarded stuff.... :-) That's Steersman.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3895

Post by Service Dog »

Tonight, as we ate dinner, GF told me she'd read an interview with Bono in Vanity Fair. He said he doesn't like U2's songs. He thinks the band name is dumb. He doesn't like his own over-the-top singing.

I see a similarity between that band's decades-of schlock, a quantity-over-quality cog in the entertainment machine... and the accumulated 'Star Wars' pile of product.

(and-- just to clear up a loose end from above-- I don't think the Star Wars Extended Universe is a gold mine. It always-was junk.)

--

Yesterday-- Joe 'Exotic' Biden gave the 2nd formal, solo press-conference of his presidency. This morning Vice-President Kamala did damage control-- by giving 2 interviews to early-morning news shows. Funny to see her recite her canned talking points twice, verbatim.

I'm Trying To Establish Some Thread Of Connection Here... some thesis of Krap Kulture, with Kamala Harris as a warmed-over vacant 'soft reboot' retread... no substance propping her up.

MOST DEFINITELY Biden&Kamala's saber-rattling regarding Russia/Ukraine... is as rote & shallow as the geopolitics & military strategy in a Star Wars sequel.

In the first clip-- you could skip to 6min30sec to see Kamala unravel... but, for my purposes, I wanna highlight the 8 minute mark... where Vice President Kamala Harris claims that the United States is A 'Role Model' to the rest of the world-- and they Look Up To Us to see what a Democracy is & for inspiration and guidance. OH MUH GAWD... that's like saying the world universally admires the US for Elvis, blue jeans, and Star Wars. ...what an expired heap of out-of-touch narcissism!






"A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion."


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3896

Post by Service Dog »

Staaaaaaaaaar Waaaaarrrrs

nothing but

Staaaaaaaaaar Waaaaarrrrs

gimmie those

Staaaaaaaaaar Waaaaarrrrs

don't let them end

Staaaaaaaaaar Waaaaarrrrs...

ahhh



https://media.patriots.win/post/nZUMouTA9Mq0.jpeg


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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3897

Post by Service Dog »

.

Motorcyclist killed live on-air in high-speed crash... 2nd video shows his clothes spin-off his flying body.

Best comment: "Would have been much-worse if he wasn't vaccinated."

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/m ... ve-on-air/

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3898

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Service Dog wrote: Tonight, as we ate dinner, GF told me she'd read an interview with Bono in Vanity Fair. He said he doesn't like U2's songs. He thinks the band name is dumb. He doesn't like his own over-the-top singing.

I see a similarity between that band's decades-of schlock, a quantity-over-quality cog in the entertainment machine... and the accumulated 'Star Wars' pile of product.
Back in the nineties, I was trying to write a story, working title S@COnD_COm|G!N, about this Mong girl in a near-future dystopian, world-gone-to-shit Ireland, whose parents buy her a used typewriter to keep her occupied banging out random shit. But one day, she starts typing what is interpreted as Christian prophesy of Christ's imminent return. An Irish music star gone bonkers (think Shinehead O'Conner) abandons her successful career to become a John the Baptist/Joan of Arc figure, wandering through the slums of gone-to-shit Irish cities proclaiming. Meanwhile, a once hugely popular, now washed-up rock star (Bono, but all resemblences to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental, but Bono) plays his old repertoire at local pubs in exchange for drinks and adulation by punters. Said washed-up rock star is approached by an old acquaintance who cajoles him to sober up and start recording again, but said washed-up Bono-esque once rock star gets it into his head that He is the prophesied one.

Were it a movie script, I'd pitch it as Last Temptation of Christ meets The Commitments meets Death in Venice. But of course, it's all already happened, and no one would believe I made this shit up out of whole cloth in 1994.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3899

Post by Service Dog »

Shin-aid really fell apart. A wreck.

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Re: Steerzing in a New Direction...

#3900

Post by Service Dog »

Pfizer CEO: "And we know that the two doses offer very limited protection, if any at all."

1min35sec:
https://youtu.be/lhMbKyDq9_w?t=95

The Pfizer CEO goes-on to claim that Three Times Zero adds-up to More Than Zero.

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A study in Israel, which no one has yet denounced as misinformation, found that four vaccine shots do not work as well against Omicron as natural immunity does.

Professor Cyrille Cohen is head of Immunology at Bar Ilan University and a senior member of the advisory committee for Vaccines for the Israeli Government:

- He says the vaccine passport concept is no longer relevant post-Omicron, and should be phased out
- He and his colleagues were surprised and disappointed that the vaccines did not prevent transmission
- He called closing schools and education 'the biggest mistake' of the pandemic, and apologized
- Natural herd immunity is the future of immunity
- Omicron has accelerated the pandemic into the endemic phase, in which Covid will be “like flu”

https://youtu.be/bnMMYJKZvnU

As nice as it is to hear Dr. Cyrille Cohen at-long-last speak some sense on these 'Vaccines' ... this interview also shows why he was so easily fooled until-now.

He is a very stupid smart person. For example, he describes a scenario at 6min30sec...

two rooms... one full of vax'd people/ the other room full of un-vax'd people...

he flatly claims that, in the vax'd room, "the impact at the end of the day on the health care system is less because the vaccine can prevent severe disease".

The idiocy of this claim is that, according to Pfizer's own data, each 'room' would contain 100,000 people. Of those-- 88 would test positive in the Unvax'd room. 4 in the Vax'd room. That's TEST POSITIVE... nothing more.

And so this dumbass looks at the 84-out-of-100,000 (vax'd) people who do not test positive... and declares that a clear win.

But he's not taking into account how many people were harmed by the the vax.

Even worse, he's marshaling this argument in defense of the 'Green Pass' vax passport system... which has it's own enormous costs to life, health, longevity... everytime a 'passport' blocks a person from doing a life-saving job, or delivering a life-enhancing product. Everytime it causes stress to someone trying to earn a living. Every week month and year an elderly person is withheld visits from loved-ones. Fuck these stupid smart people.

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Locked