Just a Face and a Caption: What A Piece Of Junk

Title Glitch. Should be What a Piece of Junk.

This whole trope is problematic. The main event is the picture. Because of Popcultural Osmosis, we would never associate the Millennium Falcon as befitting the trope (an alleged junky car that has awesome performance).

Also, the name. Too ambiguous. I suggest The Alleged Piece Of Junk.

edited 25th Jul '13 8:13:51 PM by darkton

I fixed the link. I agree, the current is essentially JAFAAC with a ship. I also agree that the title needs tweaking but that's a TRS issue.

edited 25th Jul '13 8:52:53 PM by Willbyr

That is just an image of the trope namer. And since the trope name and the pic convey only half of the trope, I'd argue that they are misleading. Yank them.

I can think of an example from this season of Futurama. The professor refurbishes the ship from the junkyard, only to look like a piece of junk. However, all the junk falls off, revealing it to be a supped up racer. Juxtaposition with a before and after could work.

Yeah, JAFAAC. By in-universe standards it's supposed to be a rather unclassy freighter, but from the audience's perspective it's just as much a Cool Ship as the X-Wing is.

How about this?◊

It's a drag race between a beat up, rusty old pickup truck, and nice looking sports car. Might be a bit unclear, but the girl in front clearly shows they're about to race, I think.

I don't think so... that pick-up truck doesn't look particularly rusty from this angle. Maybe it's just my monitor being too dark, but they both look like they're in fair condition.

"Mode of transport is a lot cooler than it looks." In 6 just because they're going to race doesn't mean that there's anything cool about it and 4 would only apply in the before picture. If the vehicle looks cool it becomes a Cool Car. What this needs is either a car outperforming another car or a person looking proud of the vehicle.

Could something like this◊ work?

^ Hilarious. Also reminds me of Herbie The Love Bug, though that's not so much a piece-of-junk car.

Though I was personally imagining something like the trophy podium with a piece-of-junk car sitting on the top spot.

edited 26th Jul '13 10:13:26 AM by Stratadrake

That could definitely work.

Wheelie Beetle works.

The only problem is that freeze-frame effect; those tires need to look spinning.

The Beetle works for me.

Potential caption: "Punchbuggy pale baby-vomit green with rust patches!"

What's a punchbuggy>?

A Volkswagen Beetle.

"When the paint was still there, it said '53'."

edited 26th Jul '13 1:19:33 PM by AnotherDuck

It's a car-game where the first person to spot a beetle and call out "Punchbuggy (whatever color it is)" gets to hit someone else. Also called "Slugbug." It's apparently not as universal as I thought, so it's probably not a good idea. Ah well.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with keeping the Falcon. It looks somewhat imposing, maybe, but it lacks any sense of being designed for sleekness (like the Enterprise, for instance), power (like the Axiom), or even realistic functionality (like the Discovery One or the ISS). It looks like it could have been a flying saucer at one point before suffering years of repairs that amounted to welding patches everywhere and haphazardly bolting on extra rooms and a new cockpit without regard for appearance, efficiency, or even symmetry and weight distribution.

In other words, it just looks like a piece of junk that isn't very good?

Yes. I don't understand the objections that it actually looks like a Cool Ship.

edited 26th Jul '13 4:54:00 PM by Noaqiyeum

Pretty much anything looks cool by someone's standards. Especially if they have previous knowledge about it.

Anyway, if it looks cool, it's misleading. If it just looks like a piece of junk, it only shows half of the trope. The bug shows both.

I think the man standing behind the car is confusing. If only there were a version of the image where he is painted out.◊