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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Star Trek First Contact is so good. That is, if you can ignore the Borg queen. OMG the Borg queen is so bad. On the other hand, we have:
Do you mean the concept? In which case I agree. Borg Queens make no f'n sense, and by giving them a figurehead with a recognizable face and unique personality it completely undermines the fundamental reason they were so terrifying in the first place: Their complete lack of individuality, and having no way to interact or reason with them in any meaningful way.
Or do you mean the acting? In which case I strongly disagree, since Alice Krige is great, and did the best she could with the lackluster material she was given.
I wouldn't put any blame on the performer, but the Borg Queen displeases me for numerous reasons, and the incongruence with the concept of the Borgs is only part of my distaste.
What are the other parts? (genuinely curious, since nitpicking over Star Trek is one of my favorite pastimes!) ;)
In comparison to the other plots, her scenes were badly written, and largely disconnected from the narrative.
Conceptually, even if I accept that a Borg Queen might exist, why should it be like that? The Queen is jealous, passional, and sensual. I've read an interpretation according to which The Queen serves the collective and not the opposite.
So she's like a public relations. But why does she have boobs? Why does she fucks Data? What is the goal there? Where's that coming from? In what way does playing mind games and reciting bad philosophy advance whatever the Collective wants?
Heh, yeah the kissing (sex?) scene was absurd. And yeah, if a Queen exists then it would have been so much better if she was just as cold and emotionless as the rest of the collective, and merely acting as an interface to facilitate proper communication with non-collective species. It wouldn't have been nearly as "dramatic" but it would have made so much more sense, and still kept the mystique surrounding the Borg.
The other option would have been to make Borg Queens a bit like the Hybrids in Battlestar Galactica; Speaking in riddles (or gibberish), and clearly experiencing things none of us as individuals could ever hope to truly comprehend.
I truly believe that, if there had to be one, an inhuman Queen as you describe would be way scarier and, therefore, more dramatic. A creature for whom I am nothing more than a pathetic fly is way scarier than a being that hates me. Because hate is inherently human, and indifference is not.
EDIT: and yes it is very evident just by watching that the Queen fucked Data, and if there's any doubt, Frakes (William Riker/director of this movie) confirmed it.
I actually agree... hence my air quote around "dramatic". :P
But unfortunately sex sells, and the movies have always tended to chase after market appeal more than the series ever did (not counting the new ones, which also don't give a shit about intellectual depth or lore consistency). :(
While the actress is very attractive, the only thing the Queen causes in me is aversion. She's disgusting. She probably caused many confused reactions of the erotic kind, though :P
I'm more of a Deanna Troi kinda guy. She's stunning in this movie.
I'm more of a Janeway fan myself, even though Voyager isn't my fav series. Dax is a close second though. ;)
No one can complain of a lack of eye candy on this franchise.
It's that smokey Janeway voice and her stern personality that does it for me. :P And Sisko too, for much the same reasons. ;)
I watched Barbarian, which was a great horror movie. If you like horror, give it a watch and don't read anything about it.
Not really plot related musing about the etymology of the movie's name.
Online I read several questions where people asked where the name came from, which I felt was obvious. The movie takes place on Barbary Street, hence "Barbarian". That got me to thinking about the word Barbarian and I guess I always assumed that the etymology of that word was related to the Barbary Coast, but then I looked at it and I found that the word Barbarian is from the greek *barbaros*, a derogatory term for all foreigners. The Barbary Coast, by contrast, is a reference to the Berbers, a group of people endemic to that region. I was gobsmacked that Barbarian and Barbary were unrelated words... until I looked at the etymology of the Berbers, and it turns out that it is from, as you've probably deduced, from the greek *barbaros*.So I went full circle, and the words are related again. And they can have a deeper meaning about who is the Barbarian; whether any particular individual is, or all of the people are since it takes place on Barbary Street, whether Mother is the Barbarian, or Toxic Masculinity, or even America. But etymologically it's pretty solid that you can call people on Barbary Street Barbarians.
Over a relatively short period of time I watched Saw 1 - VII. I remember not liking anything after Saw 2 when originally watching the movies, but after watching them all within a month, I think they actually form a somewhat cohesive interwoven story. Is it a good story?
No.
Just the other day I watched Wendell and Wild on Netflix. I found it strangely refreshing; Henry Sellick producing and directing this stop-motion animated film made it feel a bit nostalgic in style; it almost feels like it could be in the same world as Nightmare before Christmas. I especially loved that it managed to bring a complex real-world problem into something that a child could understand and even still it managed to have a bunch of interesting twists that meant the story was never boring. Also love that even though it's a spooky halloween-time movie, it's mostly violence-free; it's a movie featuring devils who are actually better people than the human antagonists.