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[The Orville] is finally out of dry dock - season 3 is on!

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  • MortiousMortious The Nightmare Begins Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    It’s basically identical to Star Trek’s obsession with classical music, shakespeare, and victorian/eduardian literature...

    which doesn’t excuse it, I am mildly annoyed by both

    I actually think it's a hilarious send up of that aspect of TNG. Like why do Picard and folks like the "classic" literature and music with no real effort towards dreaming up future music and media?

    Star Trek had a couple of attempts at "future culture", like music or martial arts.

    It never works well on that budget.

    Move to New Zealand
    It’s not a very important country most of the time
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  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    RT800 wrote: »
    I kinda hate when a story strays too far from relatable references and goes crazy with its made-up shit.

    Like in High Fantasy novels where they start talking about how the Quish of Tribacia arrived in Ulfmaria riding her Golatt and wearing the finest noroclast to treat with the Nooleans and their Smarf.

    Like...

    ...what?

    AKA worldbuilding via word diarrhea. It's usually less creating culture to reference where our own won't suffice and more generating a volume of terminology and calling it backstory. Darmok and Jelad at Tenagra or Aktuh je Melota it usually is not.


    Worldbuilding is usually richer when the author doesn't invent two dictionaries and a thesaurus worth of new words, but it's hard to see that from the inside when you're doing it.

    Hevach on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    see317 wrote: »
    It’s basically identical to Star Trek’s obsession with classical music, shakespeare, and victorian/eduardian literature...

    which doesn’t excuse it, I am mildly annoyed by both

    They really should have gone the B5 route and made up future media stars to reference that nobody today would understand.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMKHf0WM98

    B5 also did the modern stuff too though. Garibaldi was a fan of Looney Tunes, noir detectives, and slugthrowers (aka regular ass guns). He and Lennier built a Kawasaki Ninja.

    It's a way to get the audience to relate to someone, though in B5's defense at least it wasn't the captain in that case.

    In Garibaldi's case, the Looney Tunes and the Kawasaki Ninja where studio mandated. B5 was produced in conjunction with WB and Warners wanted some free advertising, so he became a Looney Tunes fan. The Motorcycle was a honest to goodness product placement.

    The Gun was JMS doing a riff on Checkov's gun; If a gun is shown in the first act, it has to be fired in the third act. Garibaldi mentions the gun and even shows it off, but in the climax he uses a steampipe to fire the bullets instead. He then forgot that he had made the joke because he was sick with the flu and was as surprised as anyone when somebody pointed it out to him.

    (I read a lot of SFX back in the day).

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    DanHibiki wrote: »
    Who the hell picks Taxi Driver as a date movie?

    The first movie I watched with my now wife was Die Hard.

    I feel like I did things right.

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Mortious wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    It’s basically identical to Star Trek’s obsession with classical music, shakespeare, and victorian/eduardian literature...

    which doesn’t excuse it, I am mildly annoyed by both

    I actually think it's a hilarious send up of that aspect of TNG. Like why do Picard and folks like the "classic" literature and music with no real effort towards dreaming up future music and media?

    Star Trek had a couple of attempts at "future culture", like music or martial arts.

    It never works well on that budget.

    what about
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poxW5pFQVEw

    override367 on
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Star Trek Beyond's scene with the "classical" music was one of the best parts of that already very good movie, so i'm fine with that sort of thing. It also helps that the character in question is a gigantic nerd.

    He has a Kermit the Frog plush on his desk ffs.

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    We'll have to agree to disagree there. I absolutely hated the "Beastie Boys jams the alien systems" nonsense. Was just atrocious and cheap to me. I kinda despise the whole JJ-verse though so I am admitting my bias. I got an absolute headache watching Beyond.

  • Big DookieBig Dookie Smells great! Houston, TXRegistered User regular
    Tonight's Orville sure was a Star-Trek-ass episode. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

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  • jammujammu 2020 is now. Registered User regular
    I wonder what this episode would been like
    if it had continued the early episode optimism. No conflicts, no astrology, just pure first contact exploration for an hour

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  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    I can't believe they did "Justice" again.
    How many more times do they have to screw up before they realize that they need to learn about the basic rules of an alien culture before making contact. They already made the exact same mistake in the social media alien episode. This is the kind of thing a tourism agency will tell you if you book a vacation with them.

  • AlphaRomeroAlphaRomero Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I find it hard to accept that a species that would be so rigorously hateful of a particular subset of people would attempt contact with the unknown in space.

    Also is the new security chief the same species as Alara? Or another alien with super strength?

    AlphaRomero on
  • TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I will say, pretty much from the start of the latest episode;
    Between the uniforms a lot of the aliens had, and just something about the vibe, I was definitely thinking, "These guys are going to be space nazis, aren't they?".
    That said, I did enjoy the episode.
    Also is the new security chief the same species as Alara? Or another alien with super strength?
    Same species. I think Kelly has a line about Ed specifically requesting another Xelayan.

    TubularLuggage on
  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    So, how does a species with 3000 years of prejudice against Geminis expect to get over that because there's a new star?
    Seems like it's not the kind of thing a people would just get over because the sky said so.

    Might be kind of interesting to revisit in the future and find nothing has changed except the populations reliance on the stars for fortune telling.
    Maybe the build a ship and discover that the stars actually do lie.

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    but the core samples from the teeth!

    I have a bunch of problems with this episode. The bad guy of the week, really really dumb.

    - Assumes the Union won't take this as a sign of aggression
    - Shows no concern that Mercer will simply *take* his people back
    - Acts really confident when threatening a man whos starship in orbit could casually obliterate all of their cities
    - Doesn't understand that constellations look different on different worlds
    - Even if he believes his dogma, has no reason to think it would apply to aliens

    And I hate Mercer's response. Why didn't he try to bluff, or be less vague about "Thousands of other cultures". Show them a video of what happens when the Krill show up to a world that doesn't worship Avis, mention that the Krill are in a pitched war with everyone else in the universe because of their unwillingness to compromise - and that the minister's people are headed down that route, and unlike the Krill they don't have a fleet of warships to back up their dogma.

    I mean, overall I still liked the episode, but I feel this is the second weakest orville plot. The race of the weak seemed so competent and advanced, until it came to the ISSUE - when even the nazis managed diplomacy from time to time with people they sought the annihilation of

    override367 on
  • Edith_Bagot-DixEdith_Bagot-Dix Registered User regular
    I've always thought it would interesting to do one of these first contact storylines, only the Federation/Union types are the second group to arrive, in the midst of one of these newly discovered cultures having just encountered the Krill (or Romulans or Cardassians or whomever) and screwing around with their landing party.



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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    I've always thought it would interesting to do one of these first contact storylines, only the Federation/Union types are the second group to arrive, in the midst of one of these newly discovered cultures having just encountered the Krill (or Romulans or Cardassians or whomever) and screwing around with their landing party.

    I would love a follow up to this episode where they lock up the delegation from a non union race and get their stupid asses conquered and beg the union for help

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    but the core samples from the teeth!

    The thing that's ridiculous is that this race could be advanced enough to map stars but not realize that constellations don't even look the same in different locations.

    Or that they would just assume the Union was so ridiculously devoted to peace that they wouldn't just take the arrests as acts of war? The prime minister's attitude completely disregards the fact that the Orville could leisurely obliterate his entire species if Mercer was that kind of guy, and he had no evidence he wasn't!

    But that would only vindicate the Gregorian's belief that the sign was an ill omen.
    It was under that sign that a hostile and frankly insane alien ship showed up, and when shown the error of their ways for their own protection, the ship opted to start glassing population centers from orbit. Bad shit happens this month, it's better to lock up the infants born for life.
    Sure, Mercer never mentioned that, but it's what I'm going with.

    And they couldn't lie about the birthday thing until they figured out what was going on, and by the time Mercer got enough information to connect those dots, they had already been taken captive and deported to a concentration camp.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    see317 wrote: »
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    but the core samples from the teeth!

    The thing that's ridiculous is that this race could be advanced enough to map stars but not realize that constellations don't even look the same in different locations.

    Or that they would just assume the Union was so ridiculously devoted to peace that they wouldn't just take the arrests as acts of war? The prime minister's attitude completely disregards the fact that the Orville could leisurely obliterate his entire species if Mercer was that kind of guy, and he had no evidence he wasn't!

    But that would only vindicate the Gregorian's belief that the sign was an ill omen.
    It was under that sign that a hostile and frankly insane alien ship showed up, and when shown the error of their ways for their own protection, the ship opted to start glassing population centers from orbit. Bad shit happens this month, it's better to lock up the infants born for life.
    Sure, Mercer never mentioned that, but it's what I'm going with.

    And they couldn't lie about the birthday thing until they figured out what was going on, and by the time Mercer got enough information to connect those dots, they had already been taken captive and deported to a concentration camp.

    I mean, there is no "haha but I'm right!" if you piss off an advanced alien species, it just felt clumsy to me

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    see317 wrote: »
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    but the core samples from the teeth!

    The thing that's ridiculous is that this race could be advanced enough to map stars but not realize that constellations don't even look the same in different locations.

    Or that they would just assume the Union was so ridiculously devoted to peace that they wouldn't just take the arrests as acts of war? The prime minister's attitude completely disregards the fact that the Orville could leisurely obliterate his entire species if Mercer was that kind of guy, and he had no evidence he wasn't!

    But that would only vindicate the Gregorian's belief that the sign was an ill omen.
    It was under that sign that a hostile and frankly insane alien ship showed up, and when shown the error of their ways for their own protection, the ship opted to start glassing population centers from orbit. Bad shit happens this month, it's better to lock up the infants born for life.
    Sure, Mercer never mentioned that, but it's what I'm going with.

    And they couldn't lie about the birthday thing until they figured out what was going on, and by the time Mercer got enough information to connect those dots, they had already been taken captive and deported to a concentration camp.

    I mean, there is no "haha but I'm right!" if you piss off an advanced alien species, it just felt clumsy to me

    I had assumed that Mercer was the kind of guy who would stop glassing cities once he got his people back, then maybe flip the planet the double birds while high tailing it out of there.
    Maybe drop a quick "When the scary green starships with lizard people start showing up and killing or enslaving everyone like animals... don't call us."

    But, who knows? That's not the way they went with it.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    see317 wrote: »
    see317 wrote: »
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    but the core samples from the teeth!

    The thing that's ridiculous is that this race could be advanced enough to map stars but not realize that constellations don't even look the same in different locations.

    Or that they would just assume the Union was so ridiculously devoted to peace that they wouldn't just take the arrests as acts of war? The prime minister's attitude completely disregards the fact that the Orville could leisurely obliterate his entire species if Mercer was that kind of guy, and he had no evidence he wasn't!

    But that would only vindicate the Gregorian's belief that the sign was an ill omen.
    It was under that sign that a hostile and frankly insane alien ship showed up, and when shown the error of their ways for their own protection, the ship opted to start glassing population centers from orbit. Bad shit happens this month, it's better to lock up the infants born for life.
    Sure, Mercer never mentioned that, but it's what I'm going with.

    And they couldn't lie about the birthday thing until they figured out what was going on, and by the time Mercer got enough information to connect those dots, they had already been taken captive and deported to a concentration camp.

    I mean, there is no "haha but I'm right!" if you piss off an advanced alien species, it just felt clumsy to me

    I had assumed that Mercer was the kind of guy who would stop glassing cities once he got his people back, then maybe flip the planet the double birds while high tailing it out of there.
    Maybe drop a quick "When the scary green starships with lizard people start showing up and killing or enslaving everyone like animals... don't call us."

    But, who knows? That's not the way they went with it.

    It just felt clumsy to me, unless the first minister was suicidal, but I didn't get that impression - it just felt like he had knowledge about what the union would and would not do that he shouldn't have

    but then again their entire species was tricked by a fancy flashlight put in orbit so maybe they're just terminally dumb

    override367 on
  • King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    A society of your annoying coworker thats way to into horoscopes would be fairly stupid in terms of practical thinking imo.

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  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    The cultural superstition was taken too far in my opinion, not the mention the balls it took for a head of state to lock up two peaceful aliens from a hyper advanced society compared to them. Just fucked up my suspension of disbelief.

    I mean hell. Say we get visited by a hyper advanced culture, but it's entirely composed of brown/black skinned women. I think even Trump could at least keep his impulses below the surface.... For a little bit anyway.

  • TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    It did seem a bit odd how they insisted on locking up Kelly and Bortus and not returning them to the Orville. If they locked up people with that star sign to keep them away from their society, it seems like putting them on a spaceship that's eventually leaving should have been more agreeable to them.

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    The cultural superstition was taken too far in my opinion, not the mention the balls it took for a head of state to lock up two peaceful aliens from a hyper advanced society compared to them. Just fucked up my suspension of disbelief.

    I mean hell. Say we get visited by a hyper advanced culture, but it's entirely composed of brown/black skinned women. I think even Trump could at least keep his impulses below the surface.... For a little bit anyway.

    Eh. It seemed too extreme at first but the more I thought about it - prompted, I think, by the shot of the crowd watching the Prefect's address - the more realistic it seemed.
    If Nazi Germany had won WWII and had prosecuted people born in the month of April or whatever in addition to Jews etc. it probably wouldn't look terribly dissimilar to that planet and that's with less than a century of history. If humanity had been universally biased against any given birth month since ~100 BC those assumptions would be written into all of our cultures, laws, and belief systems. Someone who thinks there's anything wrong with that mode of thought would be seen as hideously deviant.

    The "immediately arresting advanced aliens" part did smell pretty badly of BS, though.
    A belief that deeply ingrained in their culture would probably prompt them to assume that the Union had either somehow overcome the "problem" with people born in the wrong month or that it didn't apply to other species or something. And, failing that, the reaction would probably be to reject the Union and tell them all to leave; not try to keep aliens in a prison camp. If you were going to keep aliens prisoner you'd at least want to study them.

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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    VoodooV wrote: »
    The cultural superstition was taken too far in my opinion, not the mention the balls it took for a head of state to lock up two peaceful aliens from a hyper advanced society compared to them. Just fucked up my suspension of disbelief.

    I mean hell. Say we get visited by a hyper advanced culture, but it's entirely composed of brown/black skinned women. I think even Trump could at least keep his impulses below the surface.... For a little bit anyway.

    There was a stargate episode where they found a planet of genocidal racists purging all the brown and black skinned people from their world (like they were actively engaged in a world-wide genocidal war that they started). They told SG-1 to please have Teal'c leave because his presence made them uncomfortable - which is how one would expect them to act because they were diplomats - nazi diplomats, but diplomats

    I think there's a much better version of this story where the two crew are sent packing by the minister, and the arrival of an alien species not being aware of their dogma shakes the foundations of a society

    override367 on
  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    Yeah that was the other bit that bothered me. They were so open and friendly. Very little caution.

    I don't care how deeply ingrained a superstition is, you don't get to the level of technology they did without dissenters. Sure maybe they were there and we just didn't see them. But to assume an alien civilization held the exact same superstition was supremely dumb

  • SelnerSelner Registered User regular
    It did seem a bit odd how they insisted on locking up Kelly and Bortus and not returning them to the Orville. If they locked up people with that star sign to keep them away from their society, it seems like putting them on a spaceship that's eventually leaving should have been more agreeable to them.

    Yeah, that was a bit off to me as well. They wanted to get rid of the "trash", and the Orville seems like the logical place. Heck, they could even have asked the Orville to talk to the Union about relocating the other people off planet somehow.
    Doesn't understand that constellations look different on different worlds

    The fact that this wasn't even mentioned really bugged me. It would have been the first thing I said. Bring up the Earth astrology signs, show how Kelly was born under Taurus or Cancer or whatever. And how that sign is a completely different set of stars. Show a 3-D model that shows how the "bad" sign looks completely different from other planets and solar systems.

    And there was the "stars don't lie" bit. The First Minister guy said they see proof "every day". They could have asked for some sort of proof. We're left guessing that they found all that during the month of being in orbit.

    Also, the couple Kelly and Bortus met talked like they "belonged" in the camp and no one every escaped. So, uh, what's with the armed guards and the concentration camp clothing. If no one ever tries to escape, do you need watch towers and walls? It sounds like you could lock the doors and just leave them. Maybe send a doctor or two in every so often, if you care a little bit. Heck, you probably wouldn't even need to lock the door.

    It did like the "totally not a Star of David" symbol they had on the camp clothes.

    And the "new star" appearing really undid 3000 years of astrology-focused culture? I guess that was trying to show just how deeply set those beliefs were. That they weren't using the astrology signs as a way to hurt people.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Selner wrote: »
    It did seem a bit odd how they insisted on locking up Kelly and Bortus and not returning them to the Orville. If they locked up people with that star sign to keep them away from their society, it seems like putting them on a spaceship that's eventually leaving should have been more agreeable to them.

    Yeah, that was a bit off to me as well. They wanted to get rid of the "trash", and the Orville seems like the logical place. Heck, they could even have asked the Orville to talk to the Union about relocating the other people off planet somehow.
    Doesn't understand that constellations look different on different worlds

    The fact that this wasn't even mentioned really bugged me. It would have been the first thing I said. Bring up the Earth astrology signs, show how Kelly was born under Taurus or Cancer or whatever. And how that sign is a completely different set of stars. Show a 3-D model that shows how the "bad" sign looks completely different from other planets and solar systems.

    And there was the "stars don't lie" bit. The First Minister guy said they see proof "every day". They could have asked for some sort of proof. We're left guessing that they found all that during the month of being in orbit.

    Also, the couple Kelly and Bortus met talked like they "belonged" in the camp and no one every escaped. So, uh, what's with the armed guards and the concentration camp clothing. If no one ever tries to escape, do you need watch towers and walls? It sounds like you could lock the doors and just leave them. Maybe send a doctor or two in every so often, if you care a little bit. Heck, you probably wouldn't even need to lock the door.

    It did like the "totally not a Star of David" symbol they had on the camp clothes.

    And the "new star" appearing really undid 3000 years of astrology-focused culture? I guess that was trying to show just how deeply set those beliefs were. That they weren't using the astrology signs as a way to hurt people.

    The camp itself made no sense, it was set up like a nazi concentration camp, but this was a society that wasn't at war, was advanced, believed they were doing the right thing by segregating these people, and the confined never tried to escape (and were explicitly NOT on the fascist path that leads to extermination camps, as this had been going on for millenia)

    It should have more resembled a white collar prison or mental institution, not a ramshackle camp thrown up in the middle of a war

    override367 on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    Yeah that was the other bit that bothered me. They were so open and friendly. Very little caution.

    I don't care how deeply ingrained a superstition is, you don't get to the level of technology they did without dissenters. Sure maybe they were there and we just didn't see them. But to assume an alien civilization held the exact same superstition was supremely dumb

    The first minister acting like they knew something the union didn't, and trying to educate mercer, throwing pseudoscience at him would have been a good scene - instead he's just full of blind rage

    They tried to make these people nazis, but forget that the nazis made up all of their dogma and psudeoscience as an excuse to subjugate and murder the people they hate, where as these people apparently legitimately believe the pseudoscience and dogma and that's the only reason they discriminate

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    There are plenty of ways they could have written cultures with outrageous beliefs to make more sense. Star Trek did it all the time. Other sci-fi franchises do it all the time. Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Farscape, Stargate, etc. all had alien cultures with stupid or insane ideas/rules. There are tons of places Orville could have drawn inspiration from. They could have easily gone to the tried and true trope of a super advanced alien influencing the culture and causing it to develop in a certain way.

    What makes things even worse is the idiocy of the Orville's crew. It made no sense why they didn't learn about the planet's culture before deciding to make direct first contact. Most tourists would not be dumb enough to go to another country without learning about basic cultural customs and laws. What's even dumber is that they actually talk about the importance of understanding another culture's rules when they recruited the new security chief.

  • Big DookieBig Dookie Smells great! Houston, TXRegistered User regular
    You guys bring up some good points, but let's not forget that this crew is not known for always making the best decisions. The fact that they just blew right into town without really researching anything about the new society's norms and culture seems pretty much in line with what we know about Mercer and Co.

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  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    There are plenty of ways they could have written cultures with outrageous beliefs to make more sense. Star Trek did it all the time. Other sci-fi franchises do it all the time. Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Farscape, Stargate, etc. all had alien cultures with stupid or insane ideas/rules. There are tons of places Orville could have drawn inspiration from. They could have easily gone to the tried and true trope of a super advanced alien influencing the culture and causing it to develop in a certain way.

    What makes things even worse is the idiocy of the Orville's crew. It made no sense why they didn't learn about the planet's culture before deciding to make direct first contact. Most tourists would not be dumb enough to go to another country without learning about basic cultural customs and laws. What's even dumber is that they actually talk about the importance of understanding another culture's rules when they recruited the new security chief.

    I mean, if we're going to compare to Star Trek, the stupid treatment of the astrology thing could be a purposeful choice as part of their overal ST:TNG homage.

    Season 1 of TNG had both an episode where Yar is kidnapped as part of a weird cultural tradition and an episode where Wesley Crusher is arrested as part of a weird culture's legal tradition, both of which could have been avoided had the crew of the Enterprise taken more time to investigate the culture of the people with whom they were about to interact.

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  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    There are plenty of ways they could have written cultures with outrageous beliefs to make more sense. Star Trek did it all the time. Other sci-fi franchises do it all the time. Babylon 5, Mass Effect, Farscape, Stargate, etc. all had alien cultures with stupid or insane ideas/rules. There are tons of places Orville could have drawn inspiration from. They could have easily gone to the tried and true trope of a super advanced alien influencing the culture and causing it to develop in a certain way.

    What makes things even worse is the idiocy of the Orville's crew. It made no sense why they didn't learn about the planet's culture before deciding to make direct first contact. Most tourists would not be dumb enough to go to another country without learning about basic cultural customs and laws. What's even dumber is that they actually talk about the importance of understanding another culture's rules when they recruited the new security chief.

    I mean, if we're going to compare to Star Trek, the stupid treatment of the astrology thing could be a purposeful choice as part of their overal ST:TNG homage.

    Season 1 of TNG had both an episode where Yar is kidnapped as part of a weird cultural tradition and an episode where Wesley Crusher is arrested as part of a weird culture's legal tradition, both of which could have been avoided had the crew of the Enterprise taken more time to investigate the culture of the people with whom they were about to interact.

    And those were terrible TNG episodes. "Code of Honor" is considered one of the worst episodes in all of Star Trek and is infamous for being incredibly racist. "Justice," while not as bad, was still trash.

    They can pay homage to old Trek without copying all the bad parts, or at least make fun of it like in Galaxy Quest.

    Also, old Trek learned from their mistakes. TNG made the crew more professional and had them make fewer and fewer of those types of mistakes. They even made an episode called "First Contact" about how much they study a species before deciding to make formal first contact.

  • VoodooVVoodooV Registered User regular
    VoodooV wrote: »
    Yeah that was the other bit that bothered me. They were so open and friendly. Very little caution.

    I don't care how deeply ingrained a superstition is, you don't get to the level of technology they did without dissenters. Sure maybe they were there and we just didn't see them. But to assume an alien civilization held the exact same superstition was supremely dumb

    The first minister acting like they knew something the union didn't, and trying to educate mercer, throwing pseudoscience at him would have been a good scene - instead he's just full of blind rage

    They tried to make these people nazis, but forget that the nazis made up all of their dogma and psudeoscience as an excuse to subjugate and murder the people they hate, where as these people apparently legitimately believe the pseudoscience and dogma and that's the only reason they discriminate

    see the bolded part. That was what I found hilarious. How dare you bring these people, they're violent, they're irrational, now watch as I prove it to you as I point guns at your crew and haul them away and scream bloody murder at the thought of calmly discussing the situation.

  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    What I noticed and AV club review pointed out is that they actually set up a pretty good reason for the system IN Episode: It is that its actually a form of caste system. The Gemini people are the untouchables, while the people in the next month are the Leader types. So in effect the president guy and all the people around the table owe their rank to the system. Which explains why they enforce it as much. Its kind a variant of segregation and divine right of kings.

    Which could also have played into the ending, bet there are a lot of people stuck in dead end jobs who would love to change the status quo, with a new star giving them the reason to demand change. So there was a missed opportunity,

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    The most recent episode felt a lot more early stargate than TNG honestly. Just the wild abandon with which they jumped into encountering a new group of people. Like they are speaking American English and we only see 1 government that represents the entire planet unanimously. The solution to the problem is wacky space science magic that not only resolves a diplomatic issue but also upends an oppressive world order almost over night. It just felt very stargate the whole way through, flaws and all.

  • SchrodingerSchrodinger Registered User regular
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    The logic of this episode assumes that every planet in the galaxies have years that are all the same length, and that they all point to the same constellations.

    As someone with a tendency to overthink shows, this is definitely not a show that you should try to overthink.

  • KingofMadCowsKingofMadCows Registered User regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    The most recent episode felt a lot more early stargate than TNG honestly. Just the wild abandon with which they jumped into encountering a new group of people. Like they are speaking American English and we only see 1 government that represents the entire planet unanimously. The solution to the problem is wacky space science magic that not only resolves a diplomatic issue but also upends an oppressive world order almost over night. It just felt very stargate the whole way through, flaws and all.

    I'd say that Stargate is funnier. The fact that it's set in modern day earth also excuses a lot of their actions. They don't have the technology to learn about other cultures before making first contact. Plus, they're under constant threat from the Goa'uld and they need to find technology and advanced civilizations that can help them defend earth so they don't have time to learn about other cultures before making contact.

  • King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    They could have easily gotten out of the situation by lying and saying that birthday or birth means something different in human and moclan culture. Just say that humans celebrate the day they are named and moclans celebrate the day their egg is laid, not the day they hatch.

    The logic of this episode assumes that every planet in the galaxies have years that are all the same length, and that they all point to the same constellations.

    As someone with a tendency to overthink shows, this is definitely not a show that you should try to overthink.

    Well at least the logic of this planet. The union probably uses a standard calendar system

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