As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Penny Arcade - Comic - Expansion
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Expansion
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
Unknown User on
+8
Posts
At 6,000,000$ per episode. No.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I'm surprised about this comment on the sets, specifically the Roci. It's a pretty great set.
Anyway, love PA. Expect some cool sets next season
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
*The list of "Sci-fi shows filmed in a random forest in british columbia" is really really long.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Goodness... Is this post Amazon production? The strip makes it seem like the show existed prior to Amazon taking over production
That's pre-Amazon.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
How does it compare to the list of "alien planets that look suspiciously like a quarry"?
About 4 times as long, almost rivalling "This wilderness looks suspiciously like Bronson Canyon"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
pleasepaypreacher.net
We do need to see more Belter ships with 'Clean Me' traced int he dirt on the viewports though
I think, The Expanse has a quite good setting for a TV show.
Read all the books so far and am really looking forward to seeing it going on - they did a very good job in adapting the books for TV. There was not a single change that wasn't reasonable due to the different format and ruined the story line.
Everyone complaining about it not being shiny enough should have a look at some other SF masterpieces first: Alien, Firefly. This is how the future will look like, and not as shiny as in "2001".
Naomi Nagata isn't tall, but with the exception of Dawes almost all belters have this thin, hollow look with a pointy jaw. Ok. Miller is kinda an exception, but if you compare Thomas Jane as Miller to Thomas Jane you can see that they really tried to de-emphasise his jawline.
Compare that to many of the people cast as earthers or martians, who have a lot fuller faces with rounder and meatier cheekbones and just generally more padded bodies, not necessarily well trained but definitely more meat on their bones.
Amos is pretty much the Anti-belter, with a face and body like a tank, a thick-boned frame with shorter limbs and a generous layer of muscles on top of it.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It was beautiful.
I haven't watched much of The Expanse, and I kinda held off once I heard it was getting cancelled, but now I'll give it another shot. Sci-Fi channel can suck a dick though, what with cancelling Dark Matter in favor of The Expanse, and then tossing that in the garbage a year later. Bunch of morons.
Don't you mean Syfy?
I keep seeing this, but IS anyone complaining that it looks dirty and not shiny? I haven't seen it here. I think most people realize that the grimy world of Star Wars IV-VI was far more skillful and believable than Star Wars I-III. I don't think that's what anyone means when they say they wish there was more money (and therefore hopefully work) put into the sets.
What is Gabe comparing it to anyway? Battlestar? The Cylons in battlestar look like game engine demo assets. I expected them to t-pose when they die because someone forgot to set the animation trigger.
Movies, I'd expect. Particularly good movies.
I think people are coming from it from two different approaches. One says "this looks good/great, given the budget." The other is more of a "no excuses" approach. It's kind of like when you have a video game, and say "this is amazing given that one person coded it in six months." We've seen plenty of times where that resonates with Jerry, but for Mike it doesn't mean anything. He just sees the flaws. You can rail about it all you want but it's just a matter of different tastes. No amount of arguing is really going to talk someone out of it.
I usually agree with Gabe & Tycho (except for politics and such, but that is to be expected, no biggie), but this? I couldn't disagree more.
Call me blind, but I actually think The Expanse has the best sci-fi visuals I have seen on TV. Even more, because of the realism, the FX rival those of more expensive movies. Just recently, I was watching Rogue One with my better half and commented how unrealistic and cheap the CGI looked after having watched too much Expanse. She did not disagree, either.
But Naomi looks cool in the comic so at least we have that...
Anyways it can't be that bad - but then I'm also used to having watched sci-fi shows where the budgets got real cheap as the show went on even as it started off cheap to begin with(basically anything Roddenberry made that wasn't Star Trek) so quality in my sci-fi serials is more of a pleasant surprise than an expectation.
I think that's what the comic is getting at. That's how I took it anyway.
It seems like Mike is either all in for any given art style, or rejects it completely. Like there's no middle ground, so I can understand if he just doesn't like the way things are presented. But the middle panel seems to imply that they've got really bad cardboard cuttout windows, things like that going on, and that's really not the case.
@Donnicton
It is in fact on Prime now. I finished season 2 last night and it queued up the first ep of 3 for me. They changed the thumbnail for it for some reason so it looks like a different show.
Yeah, I just don't get how anyone could think that. You can have a stone age show with a really cheap looking set, and it has nothing to do with it not being "shiny". To me, the signs that something is low budget has more to do with things like the walls wobbling when people are walking next to them, or the same locations being repeated over and over. That's really totally orthogonal to the cleanliness of the setting.
As far as the cardboard cutouts: as Tube would say, the thing is, it's a joke. Sometimes humorists use hyperbole. It's the visual gag equivalent to Gabe saying the Rocinante is someone's Prius.
(He doesn't literally think it's a Prius.)
It's on Amazon Video but it's not on Prime. The web site wants me to buy the season. I just checked to be safe but that's still the case as of right now.
Oh, butts. I didn't try to play it so i didn't catch the distinction. I will join you in brandishing torch and pitchfork then.
In the series, I initially only liked Amos and Avasarala. Then Alex a little bit. The series Holden seemed like an idiot for a long time and the series Naomi was a bitch.
I kinda know why they are doing this, but I still miss the instant chemistry from the books.
There's a lot of little things I could complain about on The Expanse, especially in relation to the book but the Rocinante looks fine to me. If anything it looks amazing. This joke flew right past me into "uhm... what?" territory. It wasn't a "joke". It makes me think the guys need an eye exam, or a better TV maybe?
Are they trying to be clever like those stupid af ctrl+alt+del 'controversy' comics and make a shitty 'joke' to see if people will kiss their ass enough to pretend it's funny?
Or did I miss something?
It should be noted, this 'comic' confused me SO MUCH that I bothered to sign in to this forum and ask- something I haven't done in literal YEARS.
@Donnicton Seasons 3 can't be prime until a specific amount of time has passed. It's part of their contract with syfylis. Just buying the rights to the show doesn't change pre-existing contracts. Well, I mean sometimes it does, but if you dig around a bit you'll find syfy is a notoriously bad company. Netflix wanted to buy Dark Matter but syfy refused to sell the rights, despite the writer/director supporting the sale. Syfy isn't hated by a huge portion of the science fiction community purely because their name sounds like a space std. They're also greedy af. They like to 'bake' shows and sell them off for a profit. The ones they retain long term are the ones that are really cheap to make, like Wynona Boring.
Very true. I will never forgive them for the Dark Matter fiasco.
Gabe is categorically wrong in this strip. The Expanse had some of the best set, costume and prop designs of any show I've seen in the past couple decades. If someone thinks this looks low-budget, then they need either a bigger screen or better prescription lenses:
For instance: I'll never forget sitting there watching the Expanse with my friend, who was vaping at the time. (Not actively, I just mean... he's quit since then.) The show whips out this "syringe", which is, incidentally, the exact vape tank he uses. They made ZERO visual alterations to it. It can be seen in the scenes where they're urgently delivering an antidote. So my friend, he takes a spare tank out of his pocket, jabs himself with the "injection" end of the vape tank, and cries out, "IT'S NOT WORKING!!" then starts prodding me with it. We were laughing so hard we had to stop the show for a bit.
So... Gabe's point is entirely valid, but you might have to be paying closer attention than the average person. I've noticed the budget props several times.