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Ask the Tropers:
openMulan YMMV
Are we allowed to make entries that reflect our own opinions, or do we need to only put things that have a general fandom consensus? If someone has an alternate interpretation, does this mean that they are allowed to put their own entries?
openAndYouThoughtItWouldFail too soon?
- And You Thought It Would Fail: The film was fairly controversial throughout its development in regards to everything from general fatigue of the live-action remakes to the choice to forgo some elements from the animated movie to Liu’s statements about democracy in Hong Kong. However, the film has gotten good reviews from both critics and general audiences and the deviations from the original movie are generally considered to be for the best.
And You Thought It Would Fail requires it be financially successful as well. It’s only just releasing worldwide so too soon to say. It’s also releasing Direct-to-Video (purchase through Disney+) so is there even a way to measure it’s profitability? (It has unlimited time to recoup its budget.) At least it’s means Disney need not give the statistics to determine its successful ness.
I also asked "No Recent Examples Please" cleanup
.
openMisuse / Complaining?
Mulan (2020) has attracted some suspect additions.
- Critical Dissonance: As of opening day, the film's Rotten Tomatoes critic score is at 75% compared to a user score of 56%. Critics have largely agreed that the film is a respectable but flawed work. General audiences were far less forgiving of the flaws.
If the user score is the “general audience", I question if that’s a big enough to count (most examples I’ve seen are closer to 90/50% gap). I’m more concerned about it contradicting this objective entry.
- Killer App: Even if it meant also paying a $30 dollar premium, people wanting to watch the movie led to a 68% weekly spike on
Disney+ downloads.
That this many are so interested in the movie makes me suspect the “general audiences” are not the general audience but a Vocal Minority. Should someone be done?
- Box-Office Bomb: Thanks to both the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of buzz around the film due to pre-existing controversies, Mulan opened to a miserable 5.9 million dollars. In China
it barely made over 1 million dollars, with optimistic guesses aiming the film would only make 20 million total there.
Box-Office Bomb requires the work complete it’s box office run. Given the messed up state of the box office I can’t tell if this applies. The “lack of buzz” seems suspect as trivial compared to the impact of COVID and The Lion King remake did great at the box office despite it’s controversy.
openComplaints Magnet? Film
The Critical Research Failure section under Mulan (2020) is getting quite long and nitpicky, in excess of even what the most flexible interpretations of the trope allow. While a lot of people have correctly called the film out for failing to get basic aspects of Chinese culture correct despite advertising itself as more authentic, a lot of these examples come off as less informed criticisms and more an excuse for certain users to kick the film while it's down by parroting criticisms they saw elsewhere, some of which may misunderstand the actual reason for why the mistake was such an issue in the first place, or introduce Critical Research Failure of their own.
This despite scholars of Chinese culture and people of Chinese descent themselves pointing out that these aspects of Chinese culture get subjected to Artistic License within Chinese-created media all the time, and are not as clear-cut or even the worst crimes the film commits.
Edited by AlleyOopopenBroken Base Misuse from a Recurring Problem Editor? Film
I looked over the Mulan YMMV page to do some cleanup now that the live-action film has given it new attention. A while back I went through the Broken Base to adjust some of the harsher language regarding the "Mulan as trans allegory" interpretation (I strongly disagree with that take and consider it to be an example of Misaimed Fandom, and am considering moving it there, but nevertheless I still believe that it should be documented and discussed in a respectful way).
Afterwards I noticed that Marikusu added a very lengthy and wanky addendum
, which first off, is incredibly long and detailed for the point it needs to make, and comes off as overwhelmingly biased towards one side, basically being to rebuff the other (again, I agree with their take, but not with their writeup). The second part of it ironically has the opposite problem, but clearly reads as personal venting that doesn't bother to fulfill any of the requirements for a Broken Base. I tried to deal with some of the misuse by rewriting it under Alternative Character Interpretation, as well as some related wank from different tropers, but I'm tempted to just nuke the damn thing.
The name sounded familiar, and looking it up there was a previous incident
I brought up here in which I had to correct a rather bad example of trope misuse. When I pointed out their issues they sent me back an incredibly rude response accusing me of character bias, which I rebutted by pointing out their issue was with blatant misuse. Thankfully, they did not start an edit war after that.
But based on their current behavior it seems like they haven't gotten any better with their issues regarding trope misuse, using tropes pages as an excuse for personal venting, or Clear, Concise, Witty issues.
So if anyone else has had run-ins with this troper they'd like to bring up, please let me know, because it seems like they have persistent problems with proper editing etiquette.
Edited by AlleyOopopenToo small a page? Film
Memes.Mulan 2020 seems too small to be its own page, having 6 examples of dubious quality/memeage.
open Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy in Star Trek Picard.
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy has been added to the YMMV page of Star Trek: Picard with the following argument:
"The Federation no longer holds the moral high ground after abandoning the Romulan rescue effort and banning synthetic lifeforms inside its space, a major world (Mars) is rendered uninhabitable openly and on-screen, beloved side characters are tortured to death in graphic detail, and the idea of a better future is being strained to the breaking point. As a result, viewers may find it difficult to care about what happens to anyone. The season one finale walks some of this back, with Starfleet coming to the rescue of the synths on Coppelius and the Federation repealing the ban on synthetics, but for some viewers that's too little, too late."
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy only applies when both sides involved in the main conflict are equally unlikeable or when the heroes' efforts ultimately amount to nothing and the universe still sucks. If the story features clearly defined heroes and villains and the ending delivers a positive outcome, then it doesn't qualify. If people are complaining about the overall darkness in the show, then Angst Aversion (which is already featured in the YMMV page) might be the better fit. Also, that part about the show taking a more hopeful and optimistic rout towards the end of its first season but some viewers refusing to accept that comes off as needless criticism. What do you say?
openNo Title
A few days ago joshmandreza
added the following to YMMV.Star Trek The Next Generation S 5 E 24 The Next Phase:
- I really believed that it was supposed to be Star Trek Universe standard to get all significant plot points resolved before the episode ends; but one could guess either Creator Backlash or Executive Meddling would have taken care of that.
I removed the example as Left Hanging is not a YMMV item, but joshmandreza has since then added it back.
Looking through their edit-history also shows that they have a habit of adding non-YMMV items to YMMV pages, making a lot of complaining and nattery edits, as well as violating the Example Indentation rules regarding formatting.
openFanonDisconinuity example?
- Fanon Discontinuity: A number of Star Trek fans consider the Federation choosing not to help the Romulans escape their supernova as being the final nail which allegedly destroys the ideals at the very core of Star Trek, and as a result reject this series as being canon.
This was commented out citing "Last time I checked, FD only applied to entries that supposedly violated continuity with previous installments of a series." I don't believe FD is restricted to fans rejecting it's canonicity for just objective continuity violations. Thoughts?
openStar Trek: Debt of Honor reversions Print Comic
Need to ask permission to partially revert a couple of changes on Star Trek: Debt of Honor, both to avoid edit-warring (I made most of the page) and because mods did them.
𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 deleted this example:
- Mixed Ancestry:
- As T'Cel explains, her mother, a full-blooded Romulan, was rescued from an escape pod as a child and mistaken for a Vulcan, as nobody in the Federation knew they were the same species yet. T'Cel, like Saavik, is half-Vulcan, but chose to rejoin her mother's people and embrace her Romulan half (whereas Saavik is shunned by some of T'Cel's crew for hewing to her Vulcan half).
- T'Kir is as well. However while the book openly establishes that she's of mixed race, and T'Kir is keen to learn more about her father's people, the clues as to what the other half actually is are far more subtle. It's heavily implied that she's Kirk's daughter.
I think I can use Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid for this.
Second, Septimus Heap changed "Part of Volume 2 of the Star Trek (DC Comics) series." to "The markup is: Part of..." while removing a wick to Needs Wiki Magic Love, which is just weird wording. I want to change that to "The comic is part of..."
openQuestion about potentially off-color remark in Mulan Film
Misogynist character in Mulan had this quote at the end - "In Asia, the women come second."
Now Listen, I'm not asian. I don't know if this is problematic. Heck, maybe the troper who wrote is asian themselves. I don't know if any harm was meant. But I've seen asians, by the by, complaining about the hypocrisy of the West and whatnot. I just want to know is this comment...it's so generalizing, I want to figure out if this was a problematic thing before confronting them.
openContinued GDV misuse?
Deleted this misuse from Generic Doomsday Villain:
- Nero from Star Trek (2009). Hailing from the future of the Prime Timeline, Nero is set back into the past with a massive Eldritch Starship, the Narada and gunning to destroy Vulcan and the Federation as a whole. While we understand why — Romulus is destroyed by a supernova and he blames Spock for it — we don't know much beyond that. The initially-canon Star Trek: Countdown explains that the Romulan Senate ignored Nero's warnings and Spock was too late to save the planet, it wouldn't be until Star Trek: Picard that we would get an official answer. We still don't know where he got the ship from.
It outright states they have a clear reason/motive, which means they're not an examples. Also deleted this under Sturm from Characters.Nintendo Wars:
- Generic Doomsday Villain: No one really knows much about him and a lot is merely implied. The only solid, known facts about him are that he wants to conquer the world and he's extremely skilled at warfare. That said, he still turns the game in a very dark direction the moment he takes the reins.
Sturm is an approved Complete Monster meaning he's been deemed to have enough personality to disqualify (sadism and power hungriness are basic but enough motive to count).
Awhile back there was a TRS
on how to fix this, splitting between "villainous Flat Character" and Feral Villain. I'm not sure if there's been improvement on the issue. Thoughts? (And might "Powerful, But Motiveless" be a better name for the intended use?)
openDoes this count as an example?
I was listening John Mulaney's The One Thing You Can't Replace and I don't know if this counts as an audio version of Gilligan Cut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv_1zr3ydFQ
(skip to 3:10)(also puyo version cause why not)

Star Trek: Picard
I first removed it per Repair, Don't Respond as a bullet was added that "On the other hand, the Romulans believed they were acting for the greater good of the galaxy, even going so far as to sabotage the relief efforts of their own homeworld in their cause. And they were all acting under the influence of implanted alien memories. The Synths, meanwhile, were also either acting under the influence of those same memories or convinced by circumstances that it was the only option for survival. And when presented with an alternative they back down. It is ultimately shown that conflict between organics and synthetics, while likely, is in no way inevitable." It was added back, re-deleted, than added back attempting to address the issue "While this doesn't justify the bigotry toward individual synths like Soji, it still presents them as a group capable of causing disproportionate chaos and death at a moment's notice, making the Federation and Romulans' wariness of them somewhat justified."
Thought on this? Would Strawman Has a Point fit this better? I'd ask the Aesop Cleanup thread but it's been inactive for weeks now.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught