Starfleet Academy Episode 1+2 Review

They said this wasn’t your parents Star Trek and it isn’t, that was good, competently done science fiction. This is feeling porn. Feelings Porn is a new phrase that I am coining, it is when every episode has to have a character cry, when everyone talks about their feelings, when all the male characters are soft and when masculinity is dead. This show is that in spades..

Honestly I am bringing you my review of these two episodes rather than the series as I don’t think I’ll be watching anymore. As many of you know I didn’t like Discovery but thought Strange New Worlds could be okay at times, but this is just YA slop. I don’t know why Kurtzman is still in a job I really don’t.

It is exactly what you would expect, minimal to no action, lots of quirky one liners and awkward comedy and of course every character is LGBTQ+ something. It is so stunning and brave that you won’t be able to tolerate more than about two episodes of it.

It feels like glee in space, minus some of the singing. I don’t know who thought that this was the way to push the franchise forward rather than you know Kirk and Spock and actual science fiction.

No doubt this show complete it’s 2 season run and then disappear. Hopefully the Kurtzman lead vandalization ends soon.

Overall, not for fans of Star Trek

0/5

Pros.

None

Cons.

It is cringe

It is preachy

They hate the fans

It feels like parody

It is badly paced

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Cinema Issues: The Duffer Brothers Are Hacks, Findings From The Documentary

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the Stranger Things documentary.

Now this article won’t be about how the documentary wasn’t secretly a 9th episode.

This article is about what the documentary says about Stranger Things as a show, and critically the Duffer Brothers.

So let’s consider one thing this documentary came out when the Duffers were unpopular after the season finale, and only made things worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix did this knowing the Duffers were going to Paramount and wanted to salt the ground.

The documentary raised a number of points. It showed that the Duffers did not have a deep plan for the show or a multi season trajectory, the Brothers admit they didn’t have a finished script when going into production, which isn’t abnormal but it does destroy the idea that the Duffer’s had a plan or were all about attention to detail.

Moreover, it shows how the Duffers didn’t understand their own lore or characters as they needed actors and others involved with the show to correct them. One writer even asked why there weren’t any demogorgons, bats, or dogs in the final battle scene, but the Brothers didn’t seem to understand why that would be important. It shows incompetence. They had demogorgon fatigue and so decided against consistency in storytelling.

The actors appeared miserable, and as though they could not wait for the show to be done, this contrasts with the image of everyone being back and happy to have one last trip to Hawkins. It could also suggest behind the scenes dramas and what not.

In a still from the documentary they had ChatGPT open on laptops, so likely the Duffers were using AI to create scenes. Worse yet the maker of the documentary tries to defend them going, “you try keeping track of 19 characters without using it”. Good writers could and have done it before.

They off screen pivotal bits of information such as that Joyce and Hopper went to school with Henry and what happened to the Military in favour of a bloated and indulgent epilogue.

They have tried to play the victim post release of the documentary and said they were under time pressure by Netflix to get the final season out. They had 3 years and 400+ million to make 8 episodes of TV, it’s not Netflix’s fault you’re incompetent.

I have seen theories going around post the end of season 5 and now post documentary suggesting that the Duffers bought the idea of Stranger Things first season from someone else, and then when it became popular have been writing it themselves and blagging. I have also seen the idea that one of the other writers is actually the creative genius not the Duffers and they left somewhere around season 3 or 4 leaving the Duffers to struggle on their own. Even after the final I had some doubt about these theories but after watching the documentary I now believe them.

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Cinema Issues: The Afterlife Of Stranger Things

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about Conformity Gate and what it means for fandom as a broader subject.

So as many of you may have seen many Stranger Things fans expected there to be a bonus episode of the show which would be the true ending. It did not happen.

Fans invest far too much of themselves into shows and see them as an extension of themselves, its tribalism, as such a show not ending on the best note becomes almost a personal failure they cannot accept. This is unhealthy, you should not be this invested in a show.

It also presents as a cognitive dissonance as many of these people who would say it was one of the best shows ever made and that the finale was great- yet it needed to be changed and presented as the real finale.

It also speaks to a broader issue with internet culture, the popularity and belief in theory videos. There are a lot of theory videos for most popular shows but at the end of the day these are just theories they are what one person thinks and are often over done to be dramatic. Omg you’ll never believe what I’ve discovered. These videos are fine if you understand what you’re interacting with. However, it seems a growing contingent of people don’t, they seem to view these theories as gospel and believe they will play out in the show and then when they don’t get upset.

The fact is a lot of the Stranger Things theories positioned the show as far deeper and has having far more subtext then the writers ever did. It was just a goofy science fiction show about 80s nostalgia and ripping off Stephen King, it wasn’t even supposed to go beyond one season. There wasn’t a deep multi layered strategy for the show.

There is a sense of fan entitlement in the idea that they have to include the theory that you think is correct. There is also a righteous expectation of good writing, both can exist. However, there is also a lot of toxic positivity and hero worship wherein the Duffers and Stranger Things are being held up on a pedestal. This is done as people no longer believe they can critique something they like and that because they have spent time watching it or are a fan and it’s a part of their identity that they must defend it.

It was always nostalgia slop, it was never a deep show like Mad Men, or the Sopranos, or even something like Pluribus, but people made it out to be.

There was also a large degree of mental illness and unhealthy parasocial issues tied in.

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Stranger Things: The Final Episode

It is a shame we didn’t get more of this across the season. It would have been nice to have had this set up better, rather than have a 30 monitor Will coming out scene.

The action was good and the scope was good, for the first hour, it was fun seeing the gang fighting the military and Vecna, although the latter didn’t get to do much. Having Eleven’s friend die gave us some stakes. It is a real shame more characters didn’t die to give the finale a more final feeling rather than just to be continued.

I had issues with the ending, it makes no sense that Sarah Hamilton would just let them go, it makes no sense that the show wants you to believe that even with an 18 month time jump Nancy and Robin are good friends despite never sharing a scene together, it is also horribly paced and the ending wrap up takes longer than it does to beat Vecna.

I am glad they didn’t go down the road of oh Vecna was actually a goodie all along or try and redeem him, the scene of Joyce cutting his head off was earned. I really hated that we had to have a follow up scene to Will’s coming out between him and Mike that just added to the needless subplot, but hey they didn’t have him kill Vecna with a rainbow so that’s progress. Also I really hated the Jonathan and Steve scene wherein they set up Jonathan saving him hence why they have been quarreling all season.

It is also incredibly telling they gave Mr Wheeler nothing to do and made Hopper incompetent meanwhile Nancy was a deadeye.

Overall, it was better than the rest of the season but not hugely, they also forgot that Demegorgoans exist in the finale battle.

2/5

Pros.

It had some epic moments

It brought it to an neat end (this won’t be the end they’ll do a sequel series)

Cons.

The Will’s gay plotline went nowhere

Vecna didn’t have much to do

The plot holes

Pluribus: Lesbian Rape

Summary

An interesting show about an end of the world type scenario, which then asks you to sympathise with a rapist.

Lets crack into it, I enjoyed this show until the penultimate episode. Carol was abrasive but you still bought her struggle to restore humanity from the hive mind it had turned into. Carol is a lesbian, and over the course of the show she comes to find a fondness in one of the infected, who is part of the global hivemind and has to do whatever Carol says, this is problematic as this woman is now herself she is part of the hivemind, she may not even have been bi or a lesbian before, she is a person who is not in control of her own body. Then to add to matters Carol sleeps with this woman who is not in control of herself and has to do whatever Carol wants this is rape, it is not informed consent. No two ways about it.

This is a fundamental issue as there is no way to fix what Carol has done or redeem her. The show has her turn against the hive mind in the end as it is stealing her eggs, rather than you know a turn of heroism she now wants to kill it out of spite.

Morality in Hollywood folks.

2/5

Pros.

The first seven episodes are good

The premise is interesting

Cons.

The lead rapes someone and the show asks you to like her afterwards

The character is fundamentally ruined

The writing breaks the show

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Stranger Things Season 5 Part Two: Stunning And Brave

Summary

This ladies and gentlemen is the moment Stranger Things died.

So the first half begun a worrying trend, or focusing on new characters which in turn limited the amount of time we got with the old ones, see Holly and Derek. For the second part you can add in Kai, an older character reintroduced, so technically like a new character, and much like Holly and Derek no one cares about her, she takes up time and gets in the way of character dynamics you actually care about.

Not that much actually happens in these episodes, mainly it is just characters talking in a room, Dustin and Steve have an argument, Nancy and Jonathan break up and then get back together? It is hard to tell, and Will says what every character has known since the first season and once again tries it on with his straight friend who isn’t interested. At times I skipped over some of these long drawn out monologues and pointless scenes as it was just a waste of time. Having Will come out isn’t brave or new it is about ten a penny with most Hollywood shows and films now, it was just cringe. You had a bit of action as Max left the Henry’s world but really that is it. It is just needless character drama.

What is the upside down, the mystery that has span the show, it is just a place in-between dimensions, and it is a gateway to a scary dimension, how clever how original.

Honestly, Paramount who just signed a deal with the Duffer Brothers should cancel it, as this is Game of Thrones all over again.

Overall, this season will make the rest of the show unwatchable.

0.5/5

Pros.

Mrs Wheeler finally getting something to do.

Cons.

It is boring

It wastes time with characters you don’t care about

Everything about Will

Nothing happens

What the upside down is

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Cinema Issues: The Problem With Will Byers

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the character of Will in Stranger Things and the idea of negative representation.

Post season three of Stranger Things all Will is is an LGBTQ+ youth. The writing strips him of being able to be anything other than his sexuality. Worse yet it makes him hopelessly in love with his straight friend Mike. It makes him act out over the course of season four and believe there is a future there despite the fact his friend is straight. Will expects to be accepted for who he is and yet does not accept that for Mike thinking instead that he can still win him in the end, despite sexuality being an immoveable force.

Recently the actor who plays Will, said in an interview that we would get good representation for Will, being gay, in the next lot of episodes, as heavens knows we haven’t had that yet. The writing presents Will as being catty and mean and trying to break apart Mike and Eleven, and then wants us to feel bad for him as he gets rejected, the fact that he cannot accept it and move on is not a thing worthy of sympathy but rather one that makes him, and by default the movement the show so clearly wants to appeal to and represent look worse. If this was a young man going after a woman, trying to break her up from her partner, then being rejected, then acting the victim, then being obsessed and not moving on, in the modern parlance you would say that made them an awful and unsympathetic character. Yet the moral framing here is that he is gay so it is fine. Wrong. It pushes the gay people are manipulative narrative line.

The fact that the first part of season five simply had Will and Robin discussing that they were gay over and over again, and then Will embracing his gayness granting him superpowers, it is very clear the show doesn’t want to do actual representation that matters but would rather boil theses characters down to one thing, and then present incredibly moral questionable choices as good because otherwise people on the internet would get mad.

It is very interesting to compare Robin and Will in terms of characterisation, and how they are written, Robin has far more going on outside of just being a lesbian, even if season five muddies that a bit, whereas Will just has the upside down, which increasingly he is irrelevant for and being gay.

Increasingly the character doesn’t show positive representation on the show but rather stereotypes and boiled down cliches. It is tokenism plain and simple.

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Avatar Fire and Ash: The Law Of Diminishing Returns

Summary

An argument could be made that James Cameron has not been a good filmmaker since the turn of the century. His films in the last two and a half decades have not been well written, or well put together, but hey they have done an awful lot to bring 3-D back, oh wait, and they have made digital effects better, they have looked the same in all of his Avatar offerings. He should just retire.

Avatar as a franchise, it should never have been, is in a pattern of diminished returns with the second film making less than the first unadjusted for inflation, with the third expected to make less than the second and you can see why.

In many ways this film reskins things from the second film, one or two new added components. For example take the big water battle at the end of the film, Way of the Water had a very similar battle the only difference is now the Ash clan are also there. Quaritch as a villain is also going through the motions, his character growth in Way of the Water is seemingly retread as he once again has to way his loyalties, at the end of the Fire and Ash he just randomly throws himself to his death, no explanation, that is the depth of the writing here.

There are two unforgivable elements about this film that in my mind show that James Cameron has lost any magic he once had. Firstly, is the horribly written dialogue which is some of the most cringe dialogue I have ever heard, all of the kids in the film, and you spend far too much time with them, talk like human influencers, ‘bro’ being the default response to any question. If you want to make this film more interesting drink every time a character says bro and you will be passed out before the first hour. You also have ‘cuzz’ for some variety. James Cameron clearly doesn’t know young people and doesn’t know to write for them. Secondly is the pacing, which feels more like you’re enduring a torture session than watching a film. Who needs a three hour plus film filled with side stories that you don’t care about that then repeats the same plot beats over and over again. Increasingly it seems based on how low effort things are here that not even James Cameron wants to sit through it.

The only positive I have for it is that Varrang is an interesting new character and I would like to find out more about her fire-bending abilities, not at all ripped off, and that is it.

Overall, not everything needs to be a franchise, James Cameron should retire.

1/5

Pros.

Varrang.

Cons.

It is cringe

It is too long

It has too many needless side stories

It rehashes elements from Way of the Water

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Futurama Season 10 Overview: Dead Behind The Eyes

Summary

Season Three of the Hulu/Disney run may be the worst.

As you know I am a huge Futurama fan, I enjoyed the Fox era, I enjoyed most of the Comedy Central era, I enjoyed the films, however, the Disney/Hulu era for me has been the most contentious. As you know when I reviewed the first season of this era I didn’t like it, outside of one or two episodes, then the second season came out and I was warmer towards it without it being anywhere near the old stuff, I ended my review of last season on a positive note thinking that it was only up from there. Then they made this season……. Which may be the worst in the shows history.

I think the main thing ruining Futurama in the current moment is the modern dayisms and the lectures, older episodes took political problems or concepts and made them into something fun or treated them as an aspect in a wider adventure, like classic Star Trek. Here it just becomes the writers talking at you.

I will go through this season quickly to make my point. The first episode opens with one of the famous Bender being insecure or threatened episodes, these are always good, and this one is serviceable, its about his height rather than one of his long standing insecurities. There is a better Bender episode later in the season. You will see he is one of the two bright spots of the season. The second episode may well be the worst of the series as a whole. It is a climate change episode wherein they repeatedly say if only this information, that the earth was heading for a climate emergency, was available in 2025, and then go it is over and over again. They also condemn the people of our modern age for not doing more to stop it despite having the information. Despite trying to put this in an adventure it just turns into a lecture its awful. Then you have a horrible Fry and Leela episode where episode now being engaged, she just decides randomly she doesn’t like him as the episode needs a conflict and then sets up a narrative that she is going to get into a relationship with someone else, again. How many times across the show have they done this, it is not trolling the audience it is just disrespecting the world and the characters at this point, they are a couple you went there stick with it, stop breaking them up for episode drama, It is cheap and lazy. The double whammy of these two episodes back to back almost made me stop watching all together. Then you have a very generic and forgettable adventure with talking numbers, it isn’t good but at least it isn’t as horrible as the two previous episodes. The fifth episode of the season starts out as an episode about the parents being upset that kids today are on their phones, you can feel the age of the writers, but actually ends up turning into a delightful tale about Kiff and his son bonding. Kiff, Amy and Bender are the bright spots of the season. The Sixth Episode is about the rapture and has a very solid premise but the payoff is weak and feels like some of Rian Johnson brand audience expectations subversions. The seventh episode is a commentary on Pizzagate, multiple years after it happened and you could interpret it to be an attack on MAGA, it is boring, cringe and played out. Then you have a Zoidberg episode, which despite messing with cannon and still not bringing back his girlfriend, is sweet and does land in the feels. Then there is the second adventure of Bender where he becomes a truffle farmer which is entertaining, it is Bender being Bender. Finally you have an incredibly dull finale that has an overly convoluted premise.

So out of ten episodes you have two strong episodes in Sacred Screenless and Crab Splatter, Two entertaining episodes with Bender in the Trouble With Truffles and Destroy Tall Monsters, then a few mixed bag or generic episodes with The Numberland Gap, Wicked Human and The White Hole, then three outrightly bad episodes with Murderoni, The World Is Hot Enough and Fifty Shades of Green. As such there are only four entertaining or good episodes in a season of ten episodes, that means you are more than likely to find a bad or generic one, that is a shocking inditement on the show.

The worst thing about this season is how it has moved away from being from science fiction adventures to the writers lecturing the audience about what they saw in the news, or some political event that has already faded from memory. This is what happens when the magic is lost from the writing and you are just writing to fill an episode count.

I would say that if the next season is not better I hope this series ends as I don’t want to see it further tarnished.

Overall, a truly bad season.

2/5

Pros.

The four good episodes

Bender, Amy and Kiff’s character work

Cons.

The lectures

It is dated

It ruins the Fry and Leia engagement.

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Stranger Things Season 5 The First Batch: Without Stakes

Summary

Stranger Things begins its final season.

Really, I think this should have been released all at once rather than in parts, the issue with this approach is I can’t really feel favourably to the first batch of episodes, as it feels like they are building to something that never comes. The Vecna fight is cool I guess when he destroys the military, but it also makes how easily the gang beat him in season four seem incredibly poorly conceived.

The big ‘epic’ reveals of this batch are mostly either pretty meh, one of the bad kids Eleven hung out with in season two is back, or cringe such as Will feeling okay in himself means he gets psychic powers. Neither of these things land.

Then you have the fact that like most seasons the series would rather focus on other people rather than developing out the cast we already have, herein represented by the focus on Holly Wheeler, you need to have a child character so the kids can still watch it even though they don’t. As well as Linda Hamilton who seems to be playing Sarah Conner from Terminator Dark Fate. You could have given those roles in the story to Erica and possibly a somehow alive Brenner and it would have made much more sense.

The hellfire stuff was dumb and boring last season and should have been scrapped the fact it is still being rehashed here, as they can’t think of anything else for Dustin to do is a further show of bad writing.

Overall, it moves the pieces around the board and has some good moments, but it can’t give us surprises we care about and feels the need to force in yet more boring needless characters.

2.5/5

Pros.

Finally giving the Wheelers something to do

Having all the characters in one place

A darker feel

Cons.

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