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avortac4 (3504)
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Is Spock Vulcan.. was David wrong?
Transporter (etc) makes no sense
Normalizing the 'abnormal' makes no sense
Viewing Failure because moviemaking makes no sense
"America" (Or even USA) makes no sense
The Biggest Problem
Cure for those that HONESTLY think this was good (or 'not bad')
One power NO ONE has (makes no sense)
Slingrings are the Force(tm) and Mauler is better
Peter Parker's decisions make no sense
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My point is, that after I have seen and analyzed both shows quite deeply in my opinion, both shows are FACTUALLY GOOD.
Your viewpoint, opinion, experience, lack of watching either properly, may vary, but please do not let THAT dictate what you say on the forums about the shows.
If the USA version was bad, I would say it, and I would gladly join the chorus of 'UK version rulz', but because it is factually good, anyone disparaging it here only shows their own ignorance, their own lack of investment and understanding of its VERY DIFFERENT humor style and so on.
I suggest you give it another chance, watch the seasons from two to maybe six, and really get into the characters and all, and THEN tell me it's bollocks.
I dare ya.
For the first season and maybe the second to a degree as well, the USA version seems to try to copy the UK version, and as such, falls a bit flat on its face.
If people form their whole opinion about the USA version based on the first two seasons, they are doing a great injustice, but I understand their 'UK version rulz'-opinion in that case.
However, if they were to watch it a bit more, know the characters, see the sometimes surprisingly intelligent and well-crafted subtleties, that can pass by so fast you might miss them, the show can grow on you.
It took me MULTIPLE viewings to even start appreciating the show, and then I started noticing how funny certain things actually are, that I had missed because I didn't see the subtle structures that the show had been building and then utilized for humor. When you understand the characters deeper, you realize the humor that can come from just a couple of stares, that you might not have understood previously.
This means that many people might, and in my opinion, definitely are, judging the USA version unfairly without quite understanding how to get into it, without getting the humor, without understanding the situations fully, partially maybe because they don't understand the characters.
In the end, Michael Scott is the shining gem of the show for me. I would not watch it without him, any more than people would probably not watch the UK version without David.
He really makes the show shine, and his 'misunderstandings' and 'innocent blurtings of unconvenient truths' are absolutely brilliant, and the more you watch this show, the more details of this and other types you will notice, the more you will enjoy it, the funnier it gets.
It's easy to just say the USA version sucks, because it's not as intelligent or whatnot, but the reality is, there IS a lot of subtle, funny intelligence in there, even if there are awfully 'vomity' moments peppered in, too. The american audiences, after all, are different..
This means that the UK version, unless you are very well versed in the overall gloominess of the country, can 'woosh' over some people's heads easily, and they 'just don't get it'.
A Californian surfer valley girl with a sunny disposition is probably not going to get the 'depression-based self-depracating subtle humor'.
From this viewpoint, it is also possible that 'UKians' might not always get the american humor style, that may look more brainless, less subtle, more crass and obvious, maybe more cartoony and dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. Some people seem to even be proud for NOT watching the American version, while still having strong opinions of how 'bollocks' it must be.
I can understand that to a degree, and from my perspective that does not rely on either side's cultural humor, it was very tough to get into BOTH of these. At first I watched both out of curiosity, and honestly, did NOT get it.
I did not laugh, I did not find David Brent funny, I did not understand what I was supposed to laugh at with Michael Scott or Dwight, which seemed like a more cartoony, less realistic version of Gareth, except Dwight did not seem to dare say as controversial things with such an innocent face and conviction.
The pranks Jim would pull on Dwight also did not seem as relatable, realistic or 'participatory', for the lack of better word (I felt I am almost participating in the prank when Tim and the blonde woman make Gareth say 'that kind of things').
So I understand people not getting either show, they are not easy to digest, even the American one IS actually pretty subtle a lot of the times, and with first viewing, you can EASILY miss so many interesting subtleties that you can catch with later viewings.
It's sad that people have to take sides like this - in my opinion, they are both so strongly culturally tied to their own style that they can't really be compared beyond the couple of seasons that are very similar.
I don't get why people think their opinion is some kind of fact.
So, you LIKE a certain stuff more than other type, that doesn't mean the stuff you like is BETTER.
Both shows ARE good, but in their own, very specific, sometimes hard-to-see ways.
It's very, maybe even extremely possible, for someone to watch the UK version and not see the humor in it, not understand why anyone would find it fun, funny, or anything other than cringy, depressing, boring and 'repulsive-realistic' at best. It's not easy to get into, if you are not tuned into that sort of humor, that sort of mindset, worldview, and cultural understanding of the differences between the shows.
For example, culturally speaking, it's more common for the british or 'UKians?' to make fun out of how pathetic they are, so when Tim talks about his genitalia size, he does not boast how big it is, ha ha - but instead, he does the opposite, and diminish its size for humor. He is self-depracating, and that's funny.
An american would do what Gareth tries to do, and instead of doing the culturally expected self-loathing thing and remark how small his genitalia is, boast how big and enormous it is. This is why the old meme video about how all problems dissolve when I look at 'my enormous wiener' is funny.
So you can't really appreciate either show fully without understanding not only this kind of cultural differences in the humor, but also how the very dull, dark, grey and depressing look of Slough IS part of the comedy and humor - you are supposed to find it funny, not depressing (or maybe you are supposed to be depressed about how funny that is supposed to be).
UK is a gloomy, cold, rainy, foggy place, so people get depressed more. USA has so many varieties, because the country is pretty big, so there's no 'similarity' between people - tropical side has different culture than the more northern points, but no place in that country is quite as dark even in the winter as UK, or as foggy, rainy - you get the idea
Q does not want some other entity or problem destroying Enterprise or killing his 'favorite crew', so this means that even when Q does not officially exist in the episode, we know nothing too bad can happen, because Q would simply PREVENT it, because he knows everything, including the future and past of the whole Enterprise and its crew in all the detail that ever has, does and will happen to it.
This means, we KNOW there simply are no high stakes, because Q would intervene, if something truly bad were to happen. Q is like an omnipotent, ever-present force that spoils every episode by killing the stakes.
The implications of Q and the stupidity of Borg, the implications of transporters - I would say those are the biggest problems of this show that made it much worse than it had to be. Had Q not existed, there had been stakes. Without transporters, you could take 'injuries' seriously. Without Borg, you could actually take the 'other civilizations' and mystery of destroyed outposts seriously.
I mean, the transporter problem goes even further - they can disassemble anything into atoms and reassemble them. Why can't they do that on a large scale? Just disassemble the whole borg ship, game over for Borg. But nope.. we just shoot 'photon torpedoes' insted. Sigh.
How can you have transporter and replicator tech, but no cloaking ability? Just capture all the photons around your ship and bend them accordingly, there, now you are invisible.
Can't you ask Q for stuff like that? Hey, could you tell us how to cloak the Enterprise? Hey, Q, could you please remove Borg from existence or at least wipe their memory of The Enterprise and confuse where Earth is so they can never find it? Cloak Earth from the Borg? Freeze all Borg until other civilizations can fight them?
Wouldn't Borg be more intimidating with a less stupid name, more interesting ship design and if they could actually work on a more etheric or spiritual level, taking over people by possession?
.. that the writers obviously did not think about. They just needed a quick way to go from spaceship to planet and back, and they did not have the budget to do it any other way, or so I heard.
But this kind of quick decision just happens to have ridiculously MASSIVE implications they should have addressed.
So when I watch these shows, I just can't wrap my head around why anyone would just remain looking like Picard, when they could look like ANYTHING they want every second of their existence and never grow old, bald, injured, wrinkly, etc.
It boggles the mind people do this dull job when they could just live their BEST, optimal life in holodeck all day long.
There should never be any medical problems, when you can just beam someone into health almost instantly. No one should need any medicine, because you can become 100% healthy with perfect immune system for all eternity and never even grow old, just by beaming a little bit.
It's hard for me to feel the immersion or understand why anyone would be 'dying' or why Beverly Crusher is even needed, or why the transport would REASSEMBLE SOME FACE INJURY EXACTLY AS FACE INJURY instead of healthy face, so it takes me away from the story instantly.
Of course a lot of this show is like that - if you take Q, for example.. this show BEGINS with Q, it ENDS with Q... has a lot of Q inbetween. This means, the whole show, EVERYTHING that happens, could be simply a dream Q had, or completely orchestrated, created, etc. by Q. There's nothing indicating it couldn't be, and there is NO problem in ANY episode that could not be solved by Q - you know, the entity that KNOWS everything and IS everywhere and can see the future and has the power to change anything and everything!
In other words, there is NO problem the Enterprise and its crew face that Q even CAN be unaware of. This means, even in non-Q-episodes, Q's presence exists, because Q is all-knowing, and Enterprise is his 'favorite toy'. He knows every episode.
"Wow what fools. So they wanted Michelle to win because she's Asian. Not because she gave the best performance."
You are generous giving this a D.
Also, you missed the Oxford Comma after the word 'Wow'.
In any case, I never liked Michelle Yeoh that much. She does some very cool stuff in Police Story III, but Jackie outperforms and outshines her in any case. Her screen presence is what I would call 'slightly repulsive', and when I compare her to Moon Lee (one of the cuter Hong Kong kung-fu stars) or Cynthia Khan (I can only describe her as the coolest female action star I know of), Michelle just doesn't quite compare.
Now that she's old and wrinkly, there's nothing about her I want to watch.. in this movie, she displays just how ugly and ridiculous she can be, but I don't see much talent there, at least compared to the people I already mentioned, plus some others.
You are right, of course, but since do modern audiences or modern people in general DARE to 'defy the message'..? Heck, they even got critical (or should I say 'not-critical enough') drinker praising this trash and her, even though 'the message' is strong with this one and white, heterosexual men are just punching bags in this movie. Go figure..
So even though I can probably understand around three-ish languages very easily, I would NOT want someone to speak to me swapping between them constantly and expect me to conform to that kind of madness!
It also starts to really not make any sense soon, there's no reason for it, it just convolutes an already convoluted movie further.. if it served some kind of purpose AND the subtitles included everything, so you don't have to keep switching from reading to listening, but you could keep reading also the english comments, it would not be so bad.
So what I am saying, even if it was english, japanese and another language I understand, I would not want to keep swapping between them in such a rapid fashion, and it can't make a lot of sense in the long run, because languages have different cultural basis (basises?), and thus use different word orders and sentence structures, so your mind has to orient and re-orient between oriental and non-oriental languages and cultures constantly.
Furthermore, you can't translate, let's say deeply cultural japanese phrases, like 'itadakimasu' into english very easily, or american idioms into some european language with completely different word order.
It's best to stick to ONE language, until you talk with someone else that does not understand it, and THEN swap to that language they understand.
But they are both chinese, right? So why can't they just speak chinese? I have no problem reading subtitles, but the language swapping is just draining for no reason, other than flexing how well the actors have learned to speak english.
They still don't speak it all that fluently, though, so maybe stick to chinese with english subtitles...
Yeah, your brain has to constantly switch from reading to listening to reading to listening, it's exhausting, and because there's never any warning or sign as to when this is going on, AND the subtitles do not show what's said in english, you are destined to miss a lot of what is said, especially since you might not even realize whether something WAS said in english or not amidst all the chinese (especially with the not-so-perfect-intonations and pronunciation).
"Now you know how it feels like to be bilingual."
This comment makes no sense. I am almost tri-lingual, and it NEVER feels like that.
You can completely compartmentalize the 'lingualness' (the language modes) in your mind, you can speak japanese to someone, then you can switch to english for someone else, and then a third language for yet someone. THIS is no problem.
Being 'bilingual' (how pompous to assume that only people who don't know 'how it feels to be bilingual' (AS IF THIS IS SOME KIND OF PROBLEM OR VICTIM STATUS ANYWAY!) are annoyed by this constant, unnecessary switching) DOES NOT FEEL like that!
Being 'bilingual' (or how about using a word like 'polyglot' just to be more INCLUSIVE?) has NOTHING to do with being annoyed with someone constantly switching languages!
It's not JUST that they switch languages, it's that you have to juggle between a language you understand and a language you don't, a language you READ and a language you LISTEN to, and also, that they DID NOT BOTHER to include the english lines into the subtitles (where's inclusivity when you need it?)!
So there are MULTIPLE problems created by this language-swapping, and NONE of them are because of not being 'bilingual', OR solved by being bilingual!
You just used this post to boast about your own 'bilingualness' for the gratification of your massive ego, didn't you?
I have never understood why anyone would voluntarily swap languages back and forth - that worsens your skill in all languages, only works with few people..
I hate when people end a statement in a question mark?
See, what I mean! (This kind of lack of doing that to an actual question is almost as irritating)
Michelle never could FIGHT. She is one of those Jackie Chan-type 'wushu' theater actors, not actual fighters. She can do some cool stunts, just like Jackie Chan, but she really is like a poor man's female Jackie Chan.
Should I have said "poor woman's"?
In any case, she can't fight - women don't have to learn. She can 'perform wushu' (purely theatrical kung-fulike movement system that has no application in an actual fight), but she can't FIGHT (put her against any actual, skilled Kickboxer or whatnot, and she'll die from the pure trauma of being near that individual).
I could be wrong, of course, I don't know her, but that's the impression I have from watching her movies and her general public image.
Cynthia Khan, however... well, not sure about her actual fighting ability, either, but she does Yoga and looks really cool in movies, I recommend watching Cynthia Khan's Hong Kong movies if you want to see cool female-type Kung-Fu!
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