Rooster Teeth's gen: Lock

I file any complaints on that front into Reality Is Unrealistic. Pretty much all of the voice actors to my knowledge are playing characters with ethnicity identical or similar to their own.

There's actually three if you count the briefly-seen "Skeleton" of the Holons that's seen in the character reveal shorts. My guess is we won't see the final product in action outside of the opening sequence until this season's final battle.

Bleye knows Sabers.

That wasn't the take at all. The problem is that he's faking the accent and he's bad at it when they could have very easily gotten someone who actually has the accent that the character is supposed to have.

I'm aware that Miles has Hispanic background, but he isn't speaking with his natural tone with Miguel and he's doing a terrible job of trying to speak with a Hispanic accent. I'm saying that if you want the character to have an accent, then get someone with the appropriate accent to voice them.

My bad about the phrasing in my original post; I didn't mean to imply that Miles isn't "really" Hispanic and I admit that it came off that way, which wasn't my intention.

David Tennant (Dr Weller) is English, Golshifteh Farahani (Yasmin) is Iranian, and Koichi Yamadera (Kazu) is Japanese, as are their respective characters, so that fits. Maisie Williams (Cammie) is English voicing a Scottish character, so that accent is fake, and Asia Kate Dillon (Val) is American voicing a Ukrainian character, which isn't even close.

Edit — RIP, forgot that David Tennant is actually Scottish, his Doctor Who voice wasn't his natural tone either.

Edited by NativeJovian on Jan 30th 2019 at 5:11:13 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I found a Newsweek interview from Gray Haddock, the head writer.

He notes that while Season 1 won’t focus excessively on government leadership, we will be getting some backstory for why the war broke out. He also mentions the need to balance the bleak with lighter elements and hints the war began because of a “cultural divide”.

This could go several ways, so I’m taking the guy at his word he doesn’t want to be ham-fisted about it. Real Robot shows have a strong history of political messaging, be it good ideas that are warped, or Wars for resourcss, or people fighting because they literally can’t think of a time where they did live in harmony with their enemies. So it’s actually part of that tradition.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jan 30th 2019 at 5:23:13 AM

Yeah the Union seems to be less a rogue state and more of a worldwide uprising. They seem to have some sort of philosophy they're fighting for, but certainly no morals.

The show wasted no time showing how hateable they are. At least other villains I've seen pulling Sink the Lifeboats had the excuse of being aliens.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Jan 30th 2019 at 5:39:02 AM

Bleye knows Sabers.

I used to watch a show which had an episode that covered the following subject of a war that had been waged because of a 'cultural divide':

The heroes visited a world where the locals were very much in need of trade with another culture. They had been at war for a long time, and they were low on deuterium which wasn't as abundant on their planet as it was on Earth. So, the heroes helped out and learned a bit more about the war, but there were little things happening here and there that started to make them suspicious (such as snubbing one of the heroes for vague reasons).

Anyway, it turns out that these besieged people who were holding out against the evil foreign force were not the innocent party — they were the cause of the war because they believed in genocide and ethnic cleansing to ensure that people fit a certain acceptable standard of appearance and lineage.

It was very much one of those storylines which had the premise: what would happen if you arrived on Earth in the middle of World War II and your first contact was with a struggling Hitler, who was entirely courteous and polite and interested in trade... but, you later realise, that's only because you fit the Aryan mould and have something he needs that will allow him to drop the A-Bomb first.

But I've been given the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory to read up about, so I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 30th 2019 at 12:30:34 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

From what we've seen of the Holons in the intro, Chase's mech stays mostly the same but gets a jetpack wings upgrade. Iida's gets bulked up and has a general bull motif to it. The purple one becomes sleeker and gets a camo cloak, probably designated scout/sniper. Cammie(?)'s mech gets bunny legs and seems to be customized toward being an agile ground fighter. Yazamin's becomes Master Gundam, gold paint job and all.

Isn't that Stargate SG-1?

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

@Wyldchyld: Personally I'm hoping the Union isn't just the alt-right. Not because they wouldn't make good villains, but because I can't really square the mechanical, faceless armies of the Union with the lowbrow mob and the the equally vulgar demagogues leading them that comprise the alt-right in real life.

Strauss-Howe Generational Theory is mostly associated with those sort of wingnuts these days. It was never really taken seriously in academia to begin with given how earlier attempts at grand unifying theories of history* have consistently produced little more than compelling sounding narratives with no predictive power.

* Orthodox Marxism, Whig history, and so on.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:04:25 AM

In sci-fi, authoritarian regimes tend to be sophisticated, often more-so than in real life. It was born out of the 'science is bad, futuristic science is worse' history of storytelling — but, tropes aren't always bad, and it's produced some interesting stories over the years (and some absolute howlers, of course). Besides, this isn't always the exclusive province of the right.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 31st 2019 at 1:16:56 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

The status of the Union as a monocultural movement makes it sound distinctly right wing as opposed to say a communist dictatorship. Which is weird since it seems like the union is more of a global uprising than a rogue state, which implies a distinctly internationalist ideology, hence the weird contradiction.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Jan 31st 2019 at 8:53:44 AM

My vernacular is infecting you.

Bleye knows Sabers.

So in a bit of depressing Trivia, there is a reason why there was a four year time skip.

What time is gen:LOCK actually released?

I'm not necessarily talking about monocultural regimes. Authoritarian regimes in sci-fi aren't guaranteed to be monocultural.

Edit: Nevermind, it looks like it's uploaded at 10am Central. So, I guess it's taking RWBY's slot now that RWBY has finished.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 2nd 2019 at 4:05:16 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

So we get the new pilots' first experience with gen:Lock, pretty cool. Uptime limits sound ominous, presumably bad things start happening once you go over them.

Yep. Also Kazu is now Kazoo lol.

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 2nd 2019 at 11:40:23 AM

Huh episodes out?

Alright so its weekly then.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Is Cammie supposed to be Scottish or Irish? I thought she was Scottish, but when she sings 'Happy birthday' it sounds like the Irish version she's singing. The subtitles are no help because the spelling is wrong in both Irish and Gaelic.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Scottish.

Right. I think they were using the Irish. I'm not fluent in either Irish or Gaelic and I'm partially deaf so I'm not quite sure what I heard (I have been struggling with the sound on this show as a result, so I don't hear all the English lines either).

It sounds like she's singing "Breithlá sona duit" (or maybe "Lá breithe sona duit", I'm not sure), which is Irish instead of "Co-latha breith sona dhut", which is Gaelic.

The subtitles just say "Breithla hona dhuit", which is... well.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 2nd 2019 at 5:15:02 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

So do we want to use spoilers or folders for FIRST releases and no spoilers for general release?

Also found out on Twitter that Val is genderfluid, so that's neat and hope they work it organically into the show itself. For those interested people figured this out on account of Rooster Teeth having only used gender neutral language when talking about Val in press releases.

Edited by Shaoken on Feb 2nd 2019 at 9:10:06 PM

There's no general release with Gen:Lock, at least for now it's a first exclusive. Incidentally, should we switch Val's pronouns to they/them?

Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 2nd 2019 at 5:49:04 AM

Datz racist, Cammie. So I guess she's as much of a geek as you'd expect from a programmer.

I'm guessing with the level of tech they're working at, given that even Chase's situation isn't considered too far gone to be able to walk again, changing your physical sex is only marginally more difficult than getting your hair cut. Val I assume is one to switch occasionally? Actually a good trait for a spy. Explains how you make a Five-Man Band with a 50:50 gender ratio.

Speaking of, I really like the team dynamic they're building up. Everyone's approaching their situation from a unique and understandable angle. I really bought everyone's reaction to the chaos from last episode and their eventual come around.

Little bits like that are endlessly endearing.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Feb 2nd 2019 at 7:34:25 AM

Bleye knows Sabers.

A bit of a cool down from last time but this show continues to do the right things so far as it keeps the focus on the characters and what the robots do. Also they let Cammie say fuck. So that’s good. Everyone has a different reason and even a different preference for why they’re going out there and what they want to do. So that’s good.

All that being said, while I get them airing the first runs exclusively on RT, if this isn’t available on You Tube or Netflix or something once the season is over they will be leaving money on the table.

Edited by Beatman1 on Feb 2nd 2019 at 8:04:16 AM

And I guess Weller reprogrammed ABLE just because.

Edited by VutherA on Feb 2nd 2019 at 8:27:43 AM

Episodes should be available to the public on their site a week after FIRST release.

As for them not putting it on You Tube meaning they're leaving money on the table, they have stated that they were losing money on all of their animation videos on You Tube due to all the nonsense about their ads and monetisation. Putting it on Netflix would be a good idea and probably will happen.