Knife fight
- Thread starter Jacob
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Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
McGruff said:From shitheel to demibrained googlebeast, I may have skipped a rank.
Interesting. Tell us more about this 'rank', Lieutenant.
Delance
Victory, you say?
Bandit LOAF said:
Well, I was just exploring the issue with more dept. But to answer your question, that depends on what you define as wrong. It failed to make the public in general to care about the whole situation.
Bandit LOAF said:Is it really that rare? It ends up that a grand total of four of the movie's eight or so major characters are "Pilgrims" (Blair, Paladin, Sansky & Wilson).
Lots of the major characters of Star War movies are Jedi, and they are still rare.
In fact, this is a plot point: Kilrathi didn't have Pilgrims and couldn't replicate their skill, Confed had Navcom AI as a powerful resource. If Pilgrim powers were that common, why would they make such a big deal out of it? In fact, would Confed plausibly make its defense dependent on the assumption the Kilrathi couldn't get their paws on it?Bandit LOAF said:
Of course it shouldn't be disregarded. I was simply making some comments about the reasons to why the movie didn’t appeal to the public.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
I think you're missing a plot point. The big deal isn't that the Kilrathi get the NAVCOM because it's 'the mind of a Pilgrim'... it's a big deal because the NAVCOM from Pegasus includes the route through the Charybdis Quasar back to Earth. They certainly don't need the NAVCOM to replace their lack of Pilgrims... since they already have Pilgrim allies -- like Wilson. (Nor do we know that they even lack Pilgrims - it's entirely possible that they already have Pilgrim 'powers' by default. Heck, possibly even probable based on their more aggressive tendency towards evolution...
Edfilho
Cry some more!
Humm... I'm kinda lost right now, what are the sides here? It is interesting and all, but suddenly we are debating cinematographical arts and today's lack of faith.
Well, I'll try a summarize what I dislike about the Pilgrins (NOT THE MOVIE!): They took WC to a direction, a concept which I didn't see fit, considering its past developments.
Concerning Nemesis, the problem is that he kept insisting that I affirmed this or that while I flat out stated otherwise. Simple as that, nothing personal.
Well, I'll try a summarize what I dislike about the Pilgrins (NOT THE MOVIE!): They took WC to a direction, a concept which I didn't see fit, considering its past developments.
Concerning Nemesis, the problem is that he kept insisting that I affirmed this or that while I flat out stated otherwise. Simple as that, nothing personal.
Jacob
Rear Admiral
LeHah said:
I'm under the impression that he was a Pilgrim, not only from how he talked in the Wing Commander movie novelization, but if you look on the cover of the Wing Commander Movie Handbook (whatever it was called), there's a picture of him standing there with a rifle and a Pilgrim Cross.
From the dialouge in the novelization, Wilson makes it sound like only Pilgrims get Pilgrim Crosses, as they seem to be incredibly rare.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Wilson was definately a Pilgrim. The questionable one was Sansky... it's not clear if he's a traitor because Wilson was his friend or if it's because they're both Pilgrims. (They're both Pilgrims in the political sense - so I'm talking about the actual genetic definition in this situation.)
This is not a helpful reply. It almost sounds like you are now saying the Pilgrims cause a simple problem of “chronology and continuity”, which you’ve previously denied. Certainly I can’t tell if I did a fair job or not in my previous post trying to paraphrase your argument (though I find the tense of “kept”, in the quote below, interesting). Perhaps you could relate your summary to either your past posts or mine?
Hardly simple, nor true. In point of fact, you have never, not once, replied substantively to any of my posts in this thread that discuss your posts. Instead, for the third time now, all you seem to want to do is baldly accuse me of mischaracterizing your position, leaving me, and I daresay a good many other people, in the dark.
Edfilho
Cry some more!
Nemesis said:
This is beginning to look like a job, or a monograph. Sorry, but have neither the time nor the will to conjure up a summary of my alegations. After all they're there anyway
.Botton Line is: your point is that anyone who dislikes the Pilgrim concept in WC is just redirecting their hate for the Movie. I say that this is not true in my case. Sure, one of the reasons for my disliking of the Movie is the introduction of the Pilgrim concept. But that is the opposite of what you are saying.
It would be insane to argue whether we are allowed to dislike the Pilgrim concept or not. Just as I grant that you might like the whole thing, I dislike it. I wish the movie touched other aspects and themes that are common throughout WC (without repeating again the Traitor thing). That is all I'm trying to say, to you and to LOAF.
It is not a matter of dates and numbers, it is a matter of an entire concept, theme, idea that was retrofitted into the past. It is an issue with which we didn't deal before... And now we're told that we did, and just didn't know. IF the whole pilgrim issue appeared in the WCU AFTER WCP (i.e., the pilgrims left us long ago, long before 2600, and only returned now, in 2690, to reclaim earth or something), I would regard it with different opinion. Because that would have been a smart move. It would have been smarter storytelling and strategy.
After all, I think the issues raised in the WCU from WC1 to WCP (including other medias) were already good eneough for a movie that takes place inside this time frame. Why couldn't CR place the movie after WC4, there is no shortage of new cadets starting their carreers... He picked a young blair as the protagonist because he wouldn't want to alienate the non-gamer audiences, but if that's the case, he could have picked another young pilot. Like people did with WCP... - of course I know some people would bitch about it just as they bitched about WCP, but hey, you can't please everyone. But I do think people would bitch less than they ended up doing ("that is not the Tiger's Claw, that was not a rapier, Bossman didn't die then", etc etc etc).
But all I tried to say here is that I don't dislike the pilgrim stuff because I hated the movie. that is my point in this debate. You might say I dislike pilgrim stuff because of the way it was introduced to us, a way I deem not very skillful.
Nemesis said:
I belive I did answer, but I'm not going back to the "you didn't read what I wrote" playground argument
Nope. That was a claim I made specifically about Delance in replying to his post. I’ve never made such a blanket statement, and wouldn’t. Nor can anything I’ve said be fairly interpreted to imply that. But the burden’s on you–produce my quote.
I never believed that it was, and certainly never said so.
Never said anything of the sort about you. Quote?
No disagreement here. About “whether”, that is. On the other hand, when someone posts “why” they disliked the [INSERT BANE HERE], it invites reflection and comment, in particular about whether it’s a good or a bad “why”.
This is what I’ve always understood your argument to be about. It has nothing (or at least very little) to do with the concept of the Pilgrims, but with the way WC itself was being developed via the introduction of the Pilgrims.
Now that presents itself as trying to be an objective and therefore a very serious criticism, worthy of a professional critic, which is how I took it. And I think it’s unfounded, for the reasons I’ve stated before. Now maybe instead your intention was only to express a simple subjective lament along the lines of: “Well, I wish they hadn’t done that because in terms of what I like about WC . . .” If so, then I’m sorry I took you too seriously. But I’m still not sure which is true, given your next quote.
I don’t know, it does sound to me as though you are shaking your head and asking how anyone in their right mind could have introduced the Pilgrim storyline into the movie, and that “CR” and company were obligated to stay more or less true to WC as already developed. If so, I think that’s wrong, again for reasons I’ve stated before. In a nutshell, the expectations you express are simply unreasonable, and the best analogy would be what famously often happens whenever a popular book is turned into a movie. Different worlds. And so I say we must judge WC as “different art”.
On the other hand, if you’re only saying you wish we lived in the proverbial ideal world, I’m happy to nod heads with you.
No, you didn’t. You did reply to a post I made about Delance’s arguments, but this is the very first time you’ve replied substantively to any of the posts I’ve made about your arguments. And thank you.
Fenris Ulven
Spaceman
Dident like the pilgrim concept, its make things urealistic (how can i call that unrealitsic when the movie plot is about humans fighting cats with spaceships? good question, couldt somebody else answer for me? no?).
Edfilho
Cry some more!
Nemesis said:
Hum... Granted, you're right. I re-read the stuff and now I know why did I get this impression. LOAF said that Delance disliked Pilgrims because he disliked the movie. Then You agreed... Then I answered and LOAF included me in this category of people. But neither LOAF nor you ever said that "people dislike pilgrims because they dislike the movie".
Nevertheless, at some point, someone acused me of that
But I think this particular issue is dealt with. Nemesis said:
Fair enough. That's what we're doing then.
Nemesis said:
Ok, so we are discussing how skillful it was to introduce the pilgrims into WC in this particular manner.
I say it could have been better worked into the whole thing. This is a serious objective statement. Besides that, I say that I also don't think the whole theme goes with WC concepts. That's subjective.
Nemesis said:
This would be correct IF we were talking about a book-movie relationship were no continuity is involved. Say, Mystic River is one of those very common instances. One might expect more from the movie, and that falls under "Different Worlds" thing. This works are about people, psychology, philosophical matters etc, they're art for the art.
It is different when you have a multimedia fictional continuun that is being built along several years and works, and these different works done by different artists are added together. These fictional universes atract a specific reader/player/movie-goer base related to their concepts and underlying themes. Gameplay paradigms do matter, but they grow to be more than just that. Lots of SW fans hate ST and don't care about WC... Even though they're all Sci-Fi universes, their themes and questions are very different (even if WC's gameplay was supposed to be SW back then). Same thing happens with Fantasy works like Tolkien, Lewis, Moorcock and Zimmer Bradley. Not all Middle Earth fanatics like Darkover stuff. They're about different issues. When you shift the focus of a fictional universe from one issue to another, you alienate some part of the fanbase, even if the creator/owner has every right to do that. If you want to do such a thing, fine, but you should do it in a way that is less problematic.
continuing along this line, suppose MZB wants to turn the SciFantasy world of telepathic lesbians that is Darkover into a Space Pirates with Lasers hooks in their hands... What would be smarter from a storyteller point of view: to write a new book about Jolly Starship starting after the last one, or to work all this new ideas into the established past of the franchise?? The second option ends up bothering even some of the people who wouldn't have been bothered by the shift in the first place.
So, as I see it (in a position of being a student of storytelling techniques), it is quite different from complaining that "The book was better than the Movie!!"... Like people do with LotR... I see the movies as an interpretation of the work of tolkien, not something that adds to the mythology.
If we are to consider the WCM as such (another interpretation), then we cannot factor its new things into the WCUniverse... If we consider it as something adding to the universe, then I have the right to question CR's wisdom in the way he introduced the new elements into the WCU.
Like complaining about Greedo shootign first.
Concerning what loaf said about adding background to Blair: Sure, some background is better than nothing, but what if CR had stated that blair was a Musketeer in Louis XIV court's instead? I bet you wouldn't like it (granted, it is a wild hyperbole, but then again...) BTW, Blair just stood there while Thrakath gutted him beacause it didn't matter... and wrestling is not very useful against 9feet tall super kats with long arms, it is more of a sport than a real life useful fighting skill.
Nemesis said:
Well, certainly there are different art forms, with different characteristics, and different audiences. But the same dynamic of art underlies all of them in that what draws an audience is always the nature of the entertainment or the characters or the psychology or the philosophy, etc. that the artist has created. It’s all “art for the art”.
It seems to me that the issue you’re raising here under the mantle of “continuity”, and also “consistency”, is whether an artist has a certain obligation to his/her/its audience to “remain true” to the nature or conception of the art that drew that audience to begin with. But beyond admiration for its “good taste”, an artist owes an audience nothing, because artistry is not a democracy.
No, I believe you really don’t, not objectively anyway, because what you end up criticizing is not the art but the creative process that produces the art, which is pretty much the artist’s province. Imagine, in a recast of my example from an earlier post, that we’re looking over J.K. Rowling’s shoulder as she writes the first Harry Potter book. We see the story unfold in a piecemeal fashion, with passages about poor Harry being ill-treated by his relatives, and references to his parents having been killed by someone, and dialog about Hogwart’s architecture and Hermione’s personality, and all that is more than enough to keep us enthralled. We dearly love this contemporary (verisimilar!) drama about a boy growing up and facing adversity and we can hardly wait to see what further adventures, not to mention additional background facts, will be conceived and revealed. And then, horror of horrors, we start seeing passages about wizards and curses and so on and so forth and we exclaim: “It’s becoming a fantasy! Ugh! This isn’t Harry Potter!”
Some of us will undoubtedly leave in disgust, hoping the so-called Harry Potter story is roundly condemned as “dumb” by all who thereafter read it. But some of us will stay, though we’ll have any number of things critical to say about the “change in direction”. How “unwise” it was. How sudden and “problematic” it was for the drama that existed before. How if only those new elements had been introduced early on or much later on we probably could have easily accepted them, but now we will barely be able to tolerate them.
As objective as those criticisms might sound, however, they’re really nothing more, and never can be more, than subjective laments along the lines of: “Well, if I had been the artist, I would have written . . .” But of course we weren’t the artists in that case, and we aren’t the artists now in regard to WC.
Blair as a Musketeer in Louis XIV’s court? Sure, if that’s what EA/Origin wants. (I, for one, would continue as a WC fan, since the challenge of reconciling that storyline in the canon would be irresistible.)
Note: I’ll have to be content to let this age through the weekend. Not for that reason, but because I won’t have the time to drink it.
Edfilho
Cry some more!
Nemesis said:
You didn't really address my point. I do not deny that art is art, but I believe I employed several usefull examples to illustrate my point.
Please note that I also pointed that the artist owes nothing to the fans. Of course, it would be his best interest to avoid alienating his core followers, especially if his art is more a product than art for art's sake. Come one, WC is first and foremost an industrial mass product, sold by the millions (used to be) in retail chain stores.. We are talking of revenue here.
I'm not saying that the artist CAN'T do whatever he damn pleases, I'm saying that it is smarter and more skillfull to implement the CONCEPTUAL changes in the least painful and least confusing manner possible. I'm talking about how can a storyteller can keep his audience gripped and happy. That is not subjective, the tricks of the trade are older than the alphabet.
Again, note that I refer to the underlying THEME or CONCEPT of the work, which is NOT necessarely related to factual coherence or consistency. The difference is quite clear. Again, I don't mind the FACTUAL divergences between the movie and the rest, (bossman, maniac, ship design etc). I'm refering to the CONCEPTUAL SHIFT that was done in a clumsy manner. He ended up alienating fans who would have liked this conceptual shift if he did it in a more inteligent way. That is objective, I am one very interested in narrative techniques, something that can be commented and criticized.
Please re-read my post, I state again and again that the author may do whatever he pleases, but he/she might do it in more inteligent or dumb ways.
Nemesis said:No, I believe you really don’t, not objectively anyway, because what you end up criticizing is not the art but the creative process that produces the art, which is pretty much the artist’s province. Imagine, in a recast of my example from an earlier post, that we’re looking over J.K. Rowling’s shoulder as she writes the first Harry Potter book. We see the story unfold in a piecemeal fashion, with passages about poor Harry being ill-treated by his relatives, and references to his parents having been killed by someone, and dialog about Hogwart’s architecture and Hermione’s personality, and all that is more than enough to keep us enthralled. We dearly love this contemporary (verisimilar!) drama about a boy growing up and facing adversity and we can hardly wait to see what further adventures, not to mention additional background facts, will be conceived and revealed. And then, horror of horrors, we start seeing passages about wizards and curses and so on and so forth and we exclaim: “It’s becoming a fantasy! Ugh! This isn’t Harry Potter!”
Some of us will undoubtedly leave in disgust, hoping the so-called Harry Potter story is roundly condemned as “dumb” by all who thereafter read it. But some of us will stay, though we’ll have any number of things critical to say about the “change in direction”. How “unwise” it was. How sudden and “problematic” it was for the drama that existed before. How if only those new elements had been introduced early on or much later on we probably could have easily accepted them, but now we will barely be able to tolerate them.
As objective as those criticisms might sound, however, they’re really nothing more, and never can be more, than subjective laments along the lines of: “Well, if I had been the artist, I would have written . . .” But of course we weren’t the artists in that case, and we aren’t the artists now in regard to WC.
Blair as a Musketeer in Louis XIV’s court? Sure, if that’s what EA/Origin wants. (I, for one, would continue as a WC fan, since the challenge of reconciling that storyline in the canon would be irresistible.)
Note: I’ll have to be content to let this age through the weekend. Not for that reason, but because I won’t have the time to drink it.
Sorry, your fantasious HP analogy does not refer to whatever I talked about. I tried to employ examples which refered specifically to actual instances similar to the WCU that reinforced my point, while you crafted a completely fictional simile which could be twisted to fit your opinion... I'm talking about established and published fictional universes, not first drafts of the first instance of a fictional work that could have falied and generated no sequels (we know it did now, but back when she wrote it...).
BTW, the book-movie relationship of Harry Potter falls *right* into the "different interpretations" kind of art... The movies add no new reality to the books, they are just new interpretations.
Now picture if JKR decides to change Harry potter's theme with the 6th book: Instead of being fantasy books about a boy coming of age and maturing, suddenly she shifts focus to the underworld of Malaysya drug lords, and Harry is now a detective working for the Japanese government. He can't even remember being a magician. Ah, this new story takes place between books one and two, and NOT after book 5.
Sure, it is her right to do it, but she would simply piss off 90% of her fans, instead of pissing off just 70% (if she had made the new thing take place after 5 and not between 1 and 2).
This is an analogy which fits what happened to WC and pilgrims, I may have exagerated in the magnitude, but it is the same kind of thing.
I may not have the right to argue if JKR had the right to do it, but I can surelly question her skill and her way of doing it.
Otherwise, you are saying that art criticism is not correct.
Yes, I really did. But it appears you and I have some differences over how not only WC but art in general should be criticized. When I say the artist owes the audience nothing, I mean that any criticisms of the art, in order to be objective, can have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not someone liked it or would buy it. (It doesn’t seem that you agree with that.) In any event, rather than get only deeper into generality and abstraction, I want to try to get to the heart of what we’re specifically disagreeing over when it comes to WC. (If you want to pursue the other issues, or feel I’ve unfairly overlooked a particular point or points, I’ll be happy to respond to them.)
No, I don’t think I buy that at all. I don’t know how else “theme” or “concept” exists beyond the extent to which it “drops out of” or “is reflected by” the coherence or consistency or continuity of a storyline. I also don’t buy the implication that it is static. I see it instead as always dynamic and potentially evolving.
Not at all objective. But I think I can point you to the core of our disagreement. You refer to narrative techniques. I do not see WC as any typical narrative, and therefore do not recognize the sort of aesthetic criticism you raise, which is sometimes leveled at serial narratives, as applicable to WC.
But I reject the claim WC is any such “established” universe. Indeed, I reject that the art form you describe in general as a “multimedia fictional continuum” can ever be “established” as you seem to mean the term, and that’s also at the heart of our disagreement.
Now to my way of thinking that’s the true nature of a “multimedia fictional continuum”. If one doesn’t like that, one can either (try to) argue the “MFC” is not a legitimate or true art form, or be “grateful” it doesn’t exhibit that nature all the time. But one cannot argue objectively that its “ill-timed” story elements (that may cause “pain and suffering” to the audience) are bad because they are “ill-timed”. In sum, I argue WC is a different art form from your typical storytelling narrative, and so must be subject to a different aesthetics. We apparently disagree about this.