Leo D.M.J. Aurini - May 05, 2015


Fictional Settings, Baggage, & Telling New Stories


Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

139.61705

Word count

2,608

Sentence count

193

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I explain why I think Star Wars should be put down, and why it s time to let go of one of the most derivative IPs in the history of movies. I also discuss why Star Trek is an IP that has built up too much baggage over the years.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Music
00:00:12.000 Music
00:00:16.000 Music
00:00:20.000 Music
00:00:28.000 So in this video I'm going to explain why I am completely indifferent to the new Star Wars movie coming out and ultimately I think it would be best for all of us if we just put Star Wars down finally.
00:00:45.000 Now, don't get me wrong. I was the biggest Star Wars fan as a kid. I could probably quote most of the movies, the entire script to you. I love those films so much. And they were absolutely amazing films.
00:01:02.000 In fact, honestly, the best way to describe what was so great about Star Wars is to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, who said, never try and be original. You know, don't try and be original. Just try and speak the truth as best you can.
00:01:20.480 Or in this case, just try and write a really good story, even if it's been done a million times before. And if you dedicate yourself to speaking the truth or telling a good story, you might just accidentally become original in the process.
00:01:37.900 And that's the case of Star Wars. Everything was completely derivative of the whole thing. It's got a basic, very simple story structure.
00:01:48.800 All of the aliens and robots and ship designs were lifted from other places. The plot was, you know, the fact that it started with Episode 4 was based upon those old serials that when Lucas was a kid, they'd have a short little adventure story before the main feature.
00:02:08.320 And usually you never saw the first episode. You know, it didn't even come to your local town until Episode 10 appeared and it started getting popular.
00:02:16.060 So you started at Episode 10 and it was designed, they were written in such a way, like the old TV shows from the 90s, where you don't need to see every episode. You don't need to watch it from the beginning.
00:02:27.940 You can tune in whenever and have a roaring good time.
00:02:32.480 That was Star Wars. The most absolutely derivative IP ever created. And because of that, one of the most original.
00:02:41.620 It was just absolutely brilliant and wonderful what they did with those movies.
00:02:48.620 And I think we should acknowledge that and let it go.
00:02:54.560 And see, here's the thing with IPs. Here's the thing with settings that you create to tell a story.
00:03:02.920 When the first Star Wars movies were being crafted, and now I think we can all agree that Lucas did not have that much creative control.
00:03:13.660 We've all seen red-letter media. This is not an excuse to attack Lucas at all.
00:03:20.720 But whoever was involved in creating these things, the universe that they created around them was there to serve the story.
00:03:30.740 It was there, well, initially for one movie, but they expanded it into two more that were just absolutely perfect.
00:03:39.060 Everything that occurs in those films is there for the sake of the story.
00:03:44.200 Not because it makes sense.
00:03:47.100 You know, not because there's innate reasons for it.
00:03:50.980 Not because this is a well-worked out, thought-out reality.
00:03:54.620 The reality is there to serve the story, which is a simple hero's journey.
00:04:01.840 And the longer a series goes on, the more baggage it accumulates.
00:04:11.860 Let's take Star Trek as an example.
00:04:14.780 And I say this as an ex-Trekkie.
00:04:17.920 You know, as a guy, I just absolutely loved Star Trek.
00:04:20.120 I still watch SF Debris' reviews because they're wonderful nostalgia for me.
00:04:25.500 But then we have the recent movies.
00:04:27.400 The 2009 reboot, which was, yeah, okay, it was mediocre.
00:04:31.160 It rebooted the series, which is what it was supposed to do.
00:04:34.000 And then you had the number two, which was just The Wrath of Khan, but a lot stupider.
00:04:41.360 And Star Trek, Star Trek is an IP that has simply built up too much baggage over the years.
00:04:50.120 So let's look at the series one by one.
00:04:53.960 And we can see this baggage growing the entire time.
00:04:58.040 Now, the original series.
00:05:00.500 The original series.
00:05:02.140 Gene Roddenberry's Wagon Trail to the Stars.
00:05:08.760 Now, right off the bat, we have all of these ideas that are put into this,
00:05:12.220 which some of them were forced on it by the production standards.
00:05:17.600 Others were contemporary ideas that were cool at the time.
00:05:24.000 But a lot of them, see, they're all ideas that it becomes canon that you can't contradict.
00:05:31.200 You can't go against these anymore.
00:05:33.500 The big one that stands out to me is the teleporters.
00:05:38.440 The teleporters in Star Trek, why are they there?
00:05:41.620 Why do they have teleporters in Star Trek?
00:05:44.100 Is it because, you know, the science of Trek?
00:05:46.380 We discover tunneling wormholes of nanoparticles.
00:05:50.680 No.
00:05:51.720 The reason they have teleporters on Star Trek
00:05:54.340 is because it saves on the budget of having to use a shuttle
00:05:58.260 to visit the alien planet each time they want to visit an alien planet.
00:06:03.400 You know, if they didn't have teleporters,
00:06:05.320 they'd be stuck on the ship the whole time
00:06:06.840 because there's no budget to have a shuttle going all over the place.
00:06:13.460 That's the simple fact of it,
00:06:15.020 is that it's a production decision. 0.60
00:06:19.220 Teleporters are absolutely ridiculous technological-wise,
00:06:23.500 but from a production standpoint,
00:06:25.360 they give you versatility with the story
00:06:28.020 that wouldn't otherwise be there.
00:06:31.040 So, teleporters.
00:06:32.260 Absolute nonsense science,
00:06:34.600 but we have to include it in Star Trek
00:06:36.820 because it was in the original series
00:06:39.100 and it's foundational to the show.
00:06:41.920 Beam me up, Scotty.
00:06:43.440 Never actually said once,
00:06:45.660 but everybody thinks it was.
00:06:49.000 Next.
00:06:50.780 Rubber-headed aliens.
00:06:52.800 Humanoid-looking aliens. 0.63
00:06:56.180 Once again,
00:06:57.400 even as recently as 10 years ago,
00:06:59.860 trying to create CG aliens,
00:07:03.220 Voyager did it a couple of times
00:07:05.120 and you could tell that they were CG.
00:07:06.900 I mean, still kudos to them
00:07:07.960 for actually using something that wasn't a humanoid,
00:07:11.140 but realistically,
00:07:12.640 these are TV shows.
00:07:15.280 These are about acting.
00:07:17.000 These are about human narratives.
00:07:19.260 Now, if you are a reader of science fiction,
00:07:22.400 you probably like reading about really different aliens,
00:07:27.100 you know, starfish, squid aliens,
00:07:29.780 who eat their own young
00:07:31.780 and have completely different political systems.
00:07:34.060 So, you want something interesting,
00:07:37.040 something different.
00:07:39.720 When you're making a TV show, though,
00:07:42.400 with a plot that has to be resolved
00:07:43.960 in 40 minutes or less,
00:07:45.960 you don't have time to explore
00:07:48.660 these vast, weird concepts.
00:07:50.960 furthermore, you need actors.
00:07:54.520 You need people with faces that can emote.
00:07:58.880 And if you're going to have that,
00:08:00.080 you are going to have humanoid aliens.
00:08:02.780 So, once again,
00:08:06.320 the Star Trek universe is absolutely absurd
00:08:08.440 because of all these rubber forehead aliens, 0.92
00:08:10.640 but it's because of the production.
00:08:15.360 Then you have other aspects.
00:08:17.360 You have things like
00:08:18.280 the fact that aliens can interbreed
00:08:23.220 with one another.
00:08:24.880 Again, this is patently absurd
00:08:26.700 if you know anything about biology.
00:08:30.600 Back in the 60s,
00:08:31.880 it was a little bit more plausible,
00:08:33.500 but it also served the purpose of the show,
00:08:35.980 which was to show humanity,
00:08:38.440 humanity in 400 years' time,
00:08:40.960 how much more advanced we will be.
00:08:42.900 That we won't have the petty saber-rattling
00:08:46.420 and bickering that we have nowadays.
00:08:49.300 You know, as, hey, real world,
00:08:51.900 yeah, you need a standing army
00:08:53.200 to defend your country,
00:08:54.640 but wouldn't we all like to live in a world
00:08:56.940 where we could be a little bit more mature,
00:08:59.040 a little bit less ideological
00:09:00.680 and reactionary about all of these things?
00:09:03.640 Because I certainly would.
00:09:05.220 And this was meant to paint that picture.
00:09:07.520 And so Gene made a point.
00:09:10.340 Cold War's going on?
00:09:11.900 Russian on the command deck. 0.87
00:09:14.180 You know, black woman, 1.00
00:09:16.320 black and woman,
00:09:17.260 treated just like everybody else.
00:09:19.820 A fundamentally decent society
00:09:22.600 where people are actually weighed by the,
00:09:25.560 they're treated by the content of their character,
00:09:28.220 not the color of their skin.
00:09:30.940 You know, certainly the egalitarians nowadays 1.00
00:09:32.760 are completely out of control,
00:09:34.180 but the basic concept of treating people decently
00:09:37.500 is one we can all get behind.
00:09:40.140 And so you have aliens,
00:09:41.900 you have Spock as half human,
00:09:43.860 half Vulcan.
00:09:44.740 made sense back then,
00:09:48.560 although it becomes completely absurd
00:09:51.000 when you look at the progression of Star Trek
00:09:54.420 over the years.
00:09:57.440 Psychic ability.
00:09:59.040 That's another one.
00:10:00.700 The 60s, you have the New Age movement,
00:10:03.480 the human potential movement,
00:10:06.740 all of this stuff.
00:10:07.860 Psychic ability seems like,
00:10:09.480 okay, yeah, we'll have psychic ability.
00:10:10.820 You'll notice that in the modern Trek series,
00:10:15.200 this is one of the things they really toned down.
00:10:18.360 They really start to say,
00:10:20.220 okay, a little bit less of the psychic aliens.
00:10:23.120 You know, we've got the basozoids,
00:10:24.380 they can read emotions,
00:10:26.000 and of course we have the mind meld,
00:10:27.600 whatever that is.
00:10:29.140 But for the most part,
00:10:30.240 they toned down the psychic ability
00:10:31.740 because it's not science,
00:10:34.180 it's magic.
00:10:35.640 It's absolutely absurd
00:10:37.100 for a science fiction series.
00:10:40.820 I mean, the Force in Star Wars
00:10:43.820 at least had some limitations.
00:10:45.200 Only Jedis and Sith could use it.
00:10:47.680 But no, in Star Trek,
00:10:49.140 it was every other alien had it.
00:10:50.860 No explanation why we don't find it on Earth,
00:10:52.880 but it's in Star Trek,
00:10:54.860 so it has to stay in Star Trek.
00:10:58.020 And finally, time travel.
00:11:01.640 The fact that they used a spaceship to fly,
00:11:06.220 in the, what was it, the third movie,
00:11:07.780 they flew back in time to go save a whale
00:11:10.180 because we all know how popular whales were back then.
00:11:14.780 So they can just go back in time
00:11:17.440 whenever they like?
00:11:20.600 Or for that matter,
00:11:21.660 all the other times that they've traveled time
00:11:23.820 throughout all of the series,
00:11:26.120 and yet time travel mechanics
00:11:28.960 constantly contradict themselves
00:11:31.000 throughout the series.
00:11:32.060 Once again, that's because this is about storytelling.
00:11:37.840 Star Trek III was a great story.
00:11:40.280 It was a fun romp in the park.
00:11:43.240 Great movie.
00:11:45.700 Not part of an established,
00:11:48.280 realistic, futurist prediction
00:11:50.340 of where things are going.
00:11:53.780 And so the TOS happened.
00:11:55.800 It was great.
00:11:56.540 It was fun.
00:11:57.940 And it was over.
00:11:59.700 Then we get Star Trek The Next Generation.
00:12:01.800 And yes, there was the animated series in there too,
00:12:03.860 but we'll just group that with the original series.
00:12:06.340 You get Star Trek The Next Generation.
00:12:08.580 And after stumbling a bit,
00:12:10.820 they reinvent the formula a bit.
00:12:13.760 And they establish some new characters.
00:12:16.020 Instead of the Cold War 0.54
00:12:18.860 that was going on with the Klingons,
00:12:20.720 we now have a political competition
00:12:24.320 with the new Soviet Union.
00:12:25.740 In this case, the Romulans.
00:12:28.460 But once again, it was
00:12:30.100 Anomaly of the Week.
00:12:32.200 You know, let's have a cool little
00:12:33.580 science fiction mini short
00:12:35.140 and just explore the universe.
00:12:38.260 And Star Trek The Next Generation
00:12:39.700 took that premise,
00:12:40.920 took the premise of, you know,
00:12:43.700 Starship Enterprise,
00:12:45.180 Can't Beam Through the Shields,
00:12:46.660 Proton Torpedoes,
00:12:48.400 Android Buddy.
00:12:49.900 They took that premise
00:12:51.120 and basically did every story
00:12:53.280 you could with it.
00:12:54.680 By the seventh season,
00:12:56.220 the well had been tapped dry
00:12:57.680 and there are very few good episodes.
00:13:00.220 And so they ended it.
00:13:02.620 Then, you get DS9.
00:13:06.180 DS9 takes Star Trek
00:13:07.400 and flips it on its head.
00:13:09.140 Instead of these humans
00:13:10.280 that are so wise and noble
00:13:11.800 and they have everything figured out,
00:13:13.920 you know, because those,
00:13:14.940 the original series
00:13:15.860 was a little bit sexist at times.
00:13:17.420 It's a little bit,
00:13:18.740 a little bit patriarchal.
00:13:20.420 So in Star Trek The Next Generation,
00:13:22.520 perfect equality.
00:13:23.940 For some reason,
00:13:24.580 none of the main characters
00:13:26.900 have any children.
00:13:28.780 Aside from, you know,
00:13:29.920 Crusher,
00:13:30.300 but let's not talk about that.
00:13:34.060 DS9, they flip everything on its head.
00:13:36.680 This wise, enlightened federation
00:13:38.960 gets embroiled
00:13:41.500 in a massive,
00:13:43.780 nearly genocidal war.
00:13:46.720 This wise, noble federation
00:13:48.580 that doesn't need money 0.98
00:13:49.560 constantly needs money.
00:13:52.740 And this federation
00:13:53.960 that's above religion
00:13:55.660 winds up getting involved
00:13:57.600 with religion.
00:13:58.280 They flip everything on its head
00:13:59.680 and do the anti-Star Trek.
00:14:02.340 They invert all the tropes
00:14:03.860 of Star Trek.
00:14:04.520 They flip it on its head
00:14:05.520 and do something new with it.
00:14:07.700 Awesome.
00:14:10.180 Then you get Voyager,
00:14:11.580 which is just the poor man's
00:14:13.820 next generation.
00:14:14.900 And as for Enterprise,
00:14:16.600 the less you say about it,
00:14:17.780 the better.
00:14:21.680 Star Trek was great.
00:14:23.200 Star Trek was wonderful.
00:14:25.740 But I think it's time
00:14:26.700 to put us down.
00:14:28.120 Like, we've done everything
00:14:29.180 we can with Star Trek.
00:14:30.480 We have these teleporters,
00:14:32.120 which are nonsense.
00:14:33.120 We have humanoid aliens,
00:14:34.300 which is nonsense.
00:14:35.540 How about,
00:14:36.700 how about if we take
00:14:37.380 all that creative energy
00:14:38.640 that's been put into Star Trek,
00:14:41.220 which, remember,
00:14:42.760 billed itself as the more
00:14:44.300 scientifically accurate
00:14:45.940 science fiction series,
00:14:47.760 even though it had
00:14:48.360 plenty of magic in it.
00:14:50.920 How about we take that energy
00:14:53.100 and we draw inspiration
00:14:55.020 from Star Trek
00:14:55.720 and we create a new series?
00:14:57.900 In this modern day of HBO
00:15:00.540 with their season-spanning plots,
00:15:04.120 what if we introduce
00:15:05.320 some truly starfish aliens?
00:15:07.860 Some aliens that really
00:15:08.920 think differently than us.
00:15:10.260 And a crew on a spaceship
00:15:12.940 that's actually very heavily based
00:15:14.920 on real science
00:15:16.440 as opposed to the pseudoscience
00:15:18.000 that we get in Star Trek.
00:15:20.780 You know, the warp drives
00:15:21.780 and the teleporters
00:15:22.580 and shields.
00:15:23.860 What's a shield?
00:15:25.160 Like, are you kidding me?
00:15:28.780 How about if we get
00:15:29.440 a new series
00:15:30.520 exploring different
00:15:33.680 science fiction concepts,
00:15:35.000 using modern technology
00:15:36.620 to have really weird-looking
00:15:39.060 alien races
00:15:39.940 that live entirely
00:15:40.800 different from us?
00:15:41.900 How about we move away
00:15:43.820 from the silliness
00:15:45.180 that was in Star Trek
00:15:45.920 and do something new?
00:15:49.520 But instead,
00:15:51.120 everybody's going to see
00:15:52.960 Star Trek 2009,
00:15:55.300 Star Trek 2,
00:15:57.240 and they're mildly disappointed
00:15:58.380 in them
00:15:58.680 because they're not very good.
00:16:00.580 You know,
00:16:00.980 where Star Trek,
00:16:02.560 Star Wars,
00:16:03.440 again,
00:16:04.020 we did everything we could
00:16:05.480 with that story.
00:16:06.820 Though the premise,
00:16:07.580 the setting,
00:16:08.220 is actually quite absurd.
00:16:11.180 There's a lot of internal logic
00:16:13.840 that's wrong with it.
00:16:16.160 How about we put it down?
00:16:17.920 How about we say
00:16:18.460 we had a good time
00:16:20.000 watching that,
00:16:21.120 and if we feel like it,
00:16:22.300 we go back and watch it again.
00:16:24.100 But we don't remake it.
00:16:26.940 You know,
00:16:27.240 we don't put the Millennium Falcon
00:16:28.500 in another movie.
00:16:30.020 You know,
00:16:30.240 we don't take Harrison Ford
00:16:31.580 who's getting older by the day
00:16:33.080 and put him back
00:16:34.360 as Han Solo.
00:16:35.540 You know,
00:16:35.780 we don't need to see
00:16:36.980 another X-Wing.
00:16:38.440 It was cool,
00:16:40.240 but the X-Wing's actually 0.58
00:16:41.160 a pretty silly-looking ship
00:16:42.700 if you get right down to it. 0.65
00:16:47.540 The longer a series goes on,
00:16:49.460 the more baggage it accumulates.
00:16:52.860 You know,
00:16:53.080 there's nothing that frustrates me more
00:16:54.840 than seeing people
00:16:55.960 trying to rationalize
00:16:57.360 the inconsistencies
00:16:58.480 between different Star Trek episodes
00:17:00.220 or different iterations
00:17:01.480 of Star Wars.
00:17:04.380 Like, listen, folks,
00:17:05.500 it's one thing
00:17:06.240 if you're arguing this stuff
00:17:07.340 for fun 0.99
00:17:07.860 as a form of mental masturbation. 0.99
00:17:10.900 You know, 0.99
00:17:11.120 you're just doing it.
00:17:12.280 That's fine.
00:17:13.100 All right?
00:17:13.360 We all have our things
00:17:14.900 that we like to do,
00:17:16.040 like to imagine.
00:17:17.200 But there's people
00:17:17.740 that are deadly serious
00:17:19.660 about trying to find
00:17:21.780 any realism
00:17:22.660 in these universes
00:17:24.060 that the longer they go on,
00:17:26.040 the more they contradict themselves,
00:17:27.980 the more absurd they become,
00:17:29.980 the harder it becomes
00:17:31.240 to write in them.
00:17:34.940 The story needs to come first.
00:17:37.560 Even with science fiction,
00:17:38.760 you can do a science fiction series,
00:17:40.620 but it needs to end
00:17:41.400 at some point.
00:17:42.500 It's going to get too much baggage,
00:17:44.240 too much stuff going on,
00:17:45.580 and it's time to put that down
00:17:47.080 and write something new.
00:17:49.940 The setting served its purpose.
00:17:51.660 It created a great story.
00:17:53.660 Now let's tell the next great story
00:17:55.580 instead of trying to
00:17:57.360 relive our childhoods
00:17:59.640 and being mildly disappointed
00:18:01.280 that it's never quite as good
00:18:02.540 as the first time.
00:18:04.040 Anyway,
00:18:05.080 that's why I'm not going to see
00:18:07.300 the new Star Wars movie,
00:18:08.480 and that's why you shouldn't either.
00:18:09.660 As long as we keep going to see 0.99
00:18:11.340 this rehashed crap, 1.00
00:18:13.160 they're going to keep making it. 1.00
00:18:16.140 Or,
00:18:17.680 you could feed the machines, 1.00
00:18:19.140 you sloppy cunts. 1.00
00:18:23.000 Arrini out. 1.00
00:18:23.800 Arrini out.
00:18:37.480 Arrini out.
00:18:39.680 Arrini out.