Quote from: Baron Von Marlon on Jul 02, 2021, 04:34:34 AM
Don't care as long as it's quality. That's all that matters.
Truly. That's what matters.
The only thing about including politics is that, if it's really clearly about pushing a particular viewpoint for the sake of it (as opposed being there to serve the story), it can very easily undo a lot of otherwise genuinely good stuff and can stand out like a sore thumb. That's always the danger of making that stuff a focal point, as opposed to sub-text in the background.
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Jul 02, 2021, 11:02:08 AM
I think it'd struggle a bit if it just went straight forward like that - you know how much I loathe the characters having to play catch-up with the audience, so I'd hope to see something more going off there, something unique and new for the audience too.
I've often said this was a major flaw of '
Predator 2' and I remember reviews of the time mentioning it. While I don't think it got the execution right, it was also a big part of why I liked the
idea behind the '
Hunters' comics: A group of characters who already knew as much about the Predators as the audience do.
Perhaps it could be like '
The Boys' or the 1990s '
Dark Skies' show: An outsider being brought into such an organisation, who serves to represent the view of unfamiliar viewers, while the group represents that of pre-existing fans. Interaction between the two helping to create drama when not enough budget for action scenes exists.
Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Jul 02, 2021, 12:06:32 PM
Quote from: Xenomorphine on Jul 02, 2021, 04:22:01 AM
Heck, even Parker was constantly focused on shares and "the bonus situation". Him and Brett were all about the money. 
Because the corporate/capitalist-fueled society that they exist within is all about the money. Not like they exactly have any other options... which the film is very blatant about.
But nor did we see Parker or Brett lament it. They were happy to be rolling in money and owning shit.
I mean, what are we saying the films were supposedly advocating as an alternative economic model? Communism? A primitive bartering system? Or are we assuming regimes like that of China, Venezuela and North Korea are free from abuses and political corruption, because... No.
Ask people who suffered under it in Eastern Europe how they feel about it and they'll give you some real horror stories.
Either way, the films never really touched on the economic systems of nations. A look at Gateway Station was the closest we got to how things ran back home.
QuoteRemind me again what mentality brought the creature itself on board and lead to... literally every single problem that the characters experience?
Nothing which is peculiar to Capitalism, itself.
I mean, if anything, the way Weyland-Yutani and the USM went about going after the Alien with zero ethical safeguards has far more in common with how the Chinese Communist Party is presently going about conducting genetic engineering and biological warfare research (areas in which it's frighteningly ahead of the West in, for that same reason).
Quote from: Private Buttz on Jul 02, 2021, 01:30:33 PM
The problem with these films having political messages nowadays is that it's almost always entirely one sided. I miss the days when art would present and idea, or start a discussion but ultimately leave it up to the audience to decide. Sure it usually had a point of view, but these days stuff is bordering on propaganda. I'm tired a turning on a film to have someone's politics shoved down my throat. Here's hoping for some subtlety...
It really depends on how much of a focal point this stuff could be. Like you say, politics have often been a part of science-fiction, but they knew not to be too on the nose about it.
One of the great things about '
Babylon 5' was how it was the anti-'
Star Trek' of its time: It openly acknowledged how problems like poverty would reach across not just demographic barriers, but species barriers, too. It represented a more realistic vision of the future, by actively reflecting those issues and revolving some episodes around it in clever ways. But it was always there to serve a story and shape events or a character's personal arc. Major characters and even entire species died because of it and the show made a point to deal with those consequences, which then affected other things.
But it didn't make a point of focusing on that to the detriment of the main story. The moment a show does that and pushes a political agenda in a painfully obvious ways, people are going to cringe and turn off in droves. Case in point being '
Falcon And the Winter Soldier', where a character made a speech decrying how literal terrorists shouldn't be labelled as terrorists (with the only visible response being the entire crowd solemnly nodding their heads in agreement).
Doesn't mean social issues shouldn't be touched on, but nobody's going to tune in because of them. And I doubt Disney is going to even dare to touch on, say, allegories for how slavery, concentration camps and human organ harvesting are widespread in China, even though you could easily use an ET race, like the Arcturians (or the UPP, itself, if they're taking stuff from the board game), to highlight such things and do some serious geopolitical good.
