They could have done darmok another way. The fluff of mass effect has the vorcha be a race that communicates primarily through violence. Wouldn't the episode have been that much better if instead of trying to talk to Picard the alien would smack him upside the head to say hello?
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Good episode, all in all, but I wished he had talked more about Jayne's view of himself in regard to the sacrifice of the young man, because I thought that was one of the best aspects of the episode.
edited 27th Oct '11 7:16:55 PM by eX
So how do you do math, calculus & engineering (which ya'd need to become a Warp-capable civilization) through metaphors and storytelling? And this is a race whose ships are a match, if not superior, to the Enterprise.
As I said, it's a good episode, Picard needing to overcome a linguistic barrier to reach an agreement with someone through a trial by fire works. It works really well. Just that the reason behind it are stupid.
It's as dumb as the interpretive dance aliens from Voyager, which he's already mocked and proclaimed his hatred for.
Sooo, Klingons again?
edited 27th Oct '11 7:20:11 PM by Ghilz
The klingons were physical, but they didn't base their communication on it. Although the image of a klingon hello being a dive tackle is amusing.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?DS9: Call To Arms
Review, kicking off a 7 week long view of the start of the Dominion War.
edited 29th Oct '11 7:50:24 AM by Ghilz
<3 DS 9. The first season was really meh but by season 4 almost every episode was great.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Huh, and Matthew has started his blade runner review too.
http://www.confusedmatthew.com/Blade-Runner.php
I wonder if this was planned.
Probably, Chuck mentions Matthew's review.
'course it'll be a long, cold day in hell before I bother to watch whatever Confused Matthew has to say. The man's voice and ego irritates me.
Fair enough.
Now let's talk about something more important: When can we get Chuck to review Q's episode of MLP:Fi M?
So, what is the metaphor for "Course 312 mark 11, warp 6," or "set phasers to frequency 54.87 terrahertz,"? A purely metaphor based language doesn't work once you've moved passed the point where your entire population is a single tribe of hunter/gatherers. They have to have a non-metaphor based language to even construct the metaphors in the first place and if your metaphors aren't working why not use the non-metaphor based part of your language? Never mind that relying on metaphors their entire species can understand means their language development halted right after the first tribe of sapient Tamarians got large enough to need to split.
Even the ending proves how stupid the whole thing is. They reduced the entire encounter on El Adrel to "Picard and Dathon at El Adrel." Well guess what, the only way to relate that to their language is to "Darmok and Jalad at Tamagra," completely wiping out any special meaning Picard and Dathon at El Adrel might have had since the only way they can relate it to the rest of their species is to use a neolithic metaphor.
IT'S STUPID. It makes quite possibly one of the best episodes of Trek as a whole almost unbearable to watch because of how stupid it is. It's such a perfect episode that so encapsulates everything Trek is about and yet it runs smack into one of the stupidest contrivances in the history of Trek to do it. So in one episode you've got the best of everything Trek is about lashed irrevocably to an example of the worst offense Trek committed on a regular basis.
edited 3rd Nov '11 12:00:18 PM by Tyyrlym
"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit
I tried watching CM, stopped very quickly, I just can't stand him. It's one thing to not like a movie, it's one thing to bash every possible failing of the movie you can find. But when you start going out of your way to find failings that don't exist. And i'm not talking about find ways to interpret events so they look worse then they are, I'm talking about bitching about plot holes that are clearly addressed in the movie.
I started at the beginning of his Blip archive, made it to the Matrix sequels and said fuck it, he's an idiot, when he started bitching about how it was a massive plot hole that in 2 they said they would need every ship they had to help fight the machines, but the battle sequence in 3 had no ships. WHISKEY! TANGO! FOXTROT! it was only a massive plot point at the end of 2 that every ship that was in there armada was taking out by Bane!Smith before the fight started. That just proved he doesn't care about reviewing or addressing issues, he just wanted to bitch, be it about real or imagined stuff.
edited 3rd Nov '11 1:30:20 PM by Seraphem
As I said, my dislike of CM has nothing to do with his opinions, or humor. I do watch/read serious reviews too (and heck, too much humor/storylines/whatever annoys me too. Part of the reason I stopped watching Linkara).
Anyway, your words on Darmok encapsulate my opinion about it. It's a GREAT TNG episode, in terms of themes. But it is centered on such a stupid gimmick that falls apart the more you look at it.
But another flaw I did want to point out regarding Darmok is that metaphores based on stories have various meanings to various people. Take the one Troi suggests:
'Juliet on her balcony'. Does it mean...
- ... Romance?
- ... Love?
- ... Starcrossed Lovers?
- ... Foolish teenage infatuation?
Or let's pick another, say, 'Luke and Vader on Bespin'. What comes to your mind when I say that?
- ...Revelation of a previously unknown family revelation?
- ...Shocking Plot Twist?
- ...Amputation of a hand?
- ...Fighting between father and son?
How do they even agree on what a metaphore means so it becomes standard amongst their species? What if half the crew decided "Picard and Dathon at El Adrel" means "overcoming linguistic barriers through cooperation", while the other half of the crew decides it means "One person bravely gives his life to give another a better understanding of his people"? How do they sort that out?
edited 3rd Nov '11 2:38:30 PM by Ghilz
Whatever, I still liked that ep. I can't wait to see his review of it. Did he confirm to donator if he choose to do review?
As for CM (I mean Confused Mattew, don't confuse with Complite Monster or Cutie Mark :P) I don't think this tread is good place to talk about him (even if Chuck mentions him few times), I hate this guy but better complain about him in tread CM (if he have one).
I like the concept of Darmok and the overall plot and theme. I love it, I think it's a 10 all the way. Then you bring in the metaphor and it's a 1. What you wind up with is an episode that's not so bad I turn it off, but not so good I stop whatever else I'm doing to watch it.
And if you don't really care about this well... you're probably not going to like Chuck's review because this is exactly the kind of thing that he will harp on and rip.
"Tyyr's a necessary evil. " Spirit
same, only really one review I can think of that I thought was just 'meh', Twin Peaks and I didn't think it was bad, just, not as good as any of his other reviews, not even sure why.

That's what I liked most about it: a story examining that just because a universal translator may let us hear the words, doesn't mean we'll understand the contexts, idioms etc.
EDIT: And Chuck (in the latest firefly review) mentions Supernatural! Hurrah!
edited 27th Oct '11 5:45:38 PM by NateWinchester