Long time no read! Recently, I finished the quite long project of watching Deep Space Nine. In a previous post, I mentioned how I always enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never got into DS9. So quite some time ago, I decided to give the series a watch. 173 Episodes later, here is what I think.

Uh-oh! We are running out of ideas. Quick, add some space battles! And get me some movie plots we can copy! MORE FERENGI!

Watching the Series was a bit of a roller-coaster ride. I had some troubles getting into the series initially. Some episode from Season 1 really got on my nerves. Especially 1×18 “Dramatis Personae”, which was basically a cheap re-hash of TNG’s 7×17 “Masks”. And that idea wasn’t very original even back then. But did enjoy some of the characters. Especially Dax and Kira seemed like interesting, multi-faceted female characters. Ideas like the Dominion war helped to make watching the show worthwhile. But I felt like DS9 got very soon into certain habits that I began to loathe. Here are some observations.

• Downfall of the Female Characters – As promising as Dax and Kira seemed, they soon turned into familiar tropes. Kira was pushed from one relationship to another which she always passively accepted. Quite uncharacteristic for a resistance fighter she also remained for the entire series. Dax turned into some kind of super-woman that everybody on the station fell in love with and had no character flaws whatsoever. Only on DS9 can a character be scientific and stoic as well as fun-loving and extrovert at the same time. I absolutely loved Ezri Dax. They did everything right with her that was wrong with Jadzia. But she was way too late.

• Nerd Button – After Season 2 or so the show seems to have been scrapping the bottom of the barrel. The writers used a cheap trick to bring life back to the series – they pressed the “Nerd Button” by bringing in the Defiant. I mean, the ship is a Star Trek nerd’s wet dream. It is made for combat which was something Star Trek was trying to avoid indulging in. It has a cloaking device which was always something reserved for the bad guys. Most importantly, it meant that the crew could do something the show was actually trying NOT to do – to fly around in space. The ship comes absolutely from nowhere and its existence is poorly explained. Later on, the show tried to repeatedly push that Nerd Button again. By the end of the Dominion War, they were practically mashing it whenever they could. There at least 4 major space battles or so. The Defiant itself got destroyed (oh no!) and then re-built immediately (yay!). All of this left me cold. Perhaps it was because it was so obviously sensationalist and ultimately inconsequential. Or perhaps I just really don’t care about space battles anymore.

• Ferengi Epiosdes – The show was full of them. I hate them. The Ferengi originated as a failed attempt at creating a new enemy for the TNG crew. They came out too stupid to be a threat. Instead of letting them go, they not only brought them back as a major part of the DS9 crew, they also decided to center SO. MANY. EPIOSODES. around them. And there is really nothing about the Ferengi that can sustain that amount of attention. All those episodes play out like the “The 3 Stooges” or “Dumb and Dumberer” in space. “Oh look, Quark is being sarcastic and Ron doesn’t even notice. Oh Ron, when will you ever learn”. Also, The Grand Nagus’ voice gave me ear cancer. The only Ferengi episode I did enjoy was 4×08 “Little Green Men”. But that’s more because I liked the play on the Area 51 mythos, not because the Ferengi were involved in it.

• Mirror Universe Episodes – Apparently, somebody liked 1×18 “Dramatis Personae” so much they made an entire concept from it and they repeated it over and over again. So every now and then, it’s that special time for the crew to be visited by the evil version of themselves. I hate those episodes because they are so self-indulgent. They seem more fun for the actors and the writers than for the audience. The writers can cut loose and to get away with cheesy dialogue. The actors get to dress up, they can play a different character and over-act without any guilt. Oh yeah, and they could also bring back dead characters so they could write those old actor buddies a new paycheck.

• Vic Fontaine – “I know what this show needs. Singing!”. Seriously, First the 3 Stooges and now singing? What were they thinking?

• Quasi Religion – I did not enjoy the religious themes of the show. They started out somewhat promising with the worm hole aliens being seen scientifically by the Federation and religiously by Bajor. But they soon dropped the scientific part. And the religious part kinda lost it’s spiritually and turned into fantastic magic. I mean, religion is based on faith. On believing something in absence of evidence. Contemplating the nature of our existence and so on. The Bajoran “religion” quickly turned into spewing out lots of very specific prophecies that somehow always came 100% true. And all that build-up of Sisko being the prophet just fizzled out into meaninglessness. His destiny was revealed to be the dude to push the evil dude of a cliff – something every idiot on the station could have done. Or even better, there were plenty of opportunities and reasons to kill that evil dude way before he even got there. Why waiting until the very last moment?

• Inspired by… – It seems like around season of 3 or so, the writers started to draw heavily upon other works. Perhaps they ran out of ideas. Because they started pretty much taking random movies, plays and novels and turning them into DS9 episodes. We had Silence of the Lambs, Ocean’s Eleven, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Voyage of Kon-Tiki, The Thing, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Bodyguard, Cyrano de Bergerac, And Then There Were None, 12 Monkeys, Donnie Brasco, The Bad News Bears and what not. I know we are standing on the shoulders of giants. And not all of those episodes were bad. But at times, the show felt very much like a re-hash of tired ideas.

But of course, there were episodes I really liked. Yes, 5×06 “Trials and Tribble-ations” was amazing for its special effects and the goofiness of taking the original series at face value. 6×19 “In Pale Moonlight” was dark and had the kind of significance and far reach I was initially hoping to find in the series more frequently. I personally loved 3×05 “Second Skin”. I thought it was superbly well written and suited Keira’s character perfectly.

However, looking back at the series and especially how it ended, I still feel very “Meh” about it. I guess sometimes one’s gaps in knowledge are there for a good reason. The real question is what I liked less, DS9 or Voyager. This is something I have to contemplate as I move on to Babylon 5, another series I never gotten into. It will be interesting to compare the two, as there are some pretty astonishing parallels.

What did you think of DS9?

This time on the Monster Hunter Podcast: Fourcast. It’s the 4th of July and all 4 musketeers are re-united again. They fight four monsters and think a lot about the magic number 69.

ATTENTION: The Podcast has moved to a new YouTube Channel. Please update your Subscriptions. The new channel is called TeamworkCast. We have an announcement up that explains the details.

Get the mp3 of the episode here.
The RSS Feed is here.
Get us in iTunes here.
Visit the new SocialDissonance Website!

Enjoy!

The Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut is out. I haven’t written too much about the Mass Effect 3 endings largely because I agree with all the videos that were made about them. Here is a good one:

Generally, I agree that the ending was horrible. So was the ending to Mass Effect 2. Neither lived up to the rest of their games. I don’t feel like patching Mass Effect 3 was a good idea or something anybody “deserved”. On the other hand, I don’t mind too much if Bioware felt they haven’t quite achieved what they were going for and wanted to have a second go at it. There are plenty movies doing the same with “Director’s Cuts” and whatnot. It is hardly the end of artistic integrity as we know it.

That being said, here are some very specific notes on the new endings. Of course, there will be spoilers. This is intended for people, who already saw the endings in some form.

• The Evac Is Silly – There is a new scene which shows how your team mates get back to the Normandy before Shepard gets hit by Harbinger and goes into slow-mo mode. The new scene shows Shepard requesting evac by the Normandy. I thought this was incredibly silly and really drove the point home that this actually should have never happened. The huge Normandy appears right in front of Harbinger and doesn’t get shot? If getting the Normandy in was so easy after all, why did everybody else walk all the way? Why evacuating just your team mates and not all the other people dying around you? Only one of your team mates seems hurt, why does the other leave as well? There are capable soldiers seen providing cover fire (WTF, BTW?) from Normandy’s entrance. Why don’t they help out storming the beam? Why doesn’t the Normandy give Shepard a lift all the way up to the beam? Surely, it would have been a better idea than running the last few meters without protection. Mass Effect 2 made a huge deal about the fact that all you team mates could die, why not simply doing the same in Mass Effect 3?

• The 4th Ending – I thought the new ending where you say “no” to the Starchild was a a good addition. However, it is clearly a poor man’s ending compared to the other ones. It is an ending where all of the races of the galaxy are exterminated by the Reapers, yet all of this happens off-screen. I think it should have included at least few scenes where the heroes die trying. On a related thought – shouldn’t this ending also appear if Shepard dies before reaching the Citadel?

• Explanations – The more elaborate dialogue is welcome. I also liked the fact that you could get the 4th ending either by choosing the right dialogue or by acting. The dialogue now offers the burning questions many critics also asked. However, Starchild’s answers aren’t quite satisfactory. It just becomes even more evident that the ending is poorly thought-out and doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of the plot. We learn the reason for creating the Reapers was some sort of a conflict very different from the ones we ever experience throughout the trilogy. It would have been nice if the plot centred around learning about THIS conflict and not the Protheans, Krogans, Geth and so forth.

• The Gates Don’t Kill Anybody – It is established more clearly that the Mass Effect Gates are just damaged and don’t eradicate every sentient race in the galaxy. It is also established that the entire fleet of the galaxy doesn’t get stranded on Earth to die of starvation. I do appreciate clearing this up. I never assumed this myself. But I saw many people lose a lot of time discussing it. I can understand how the old endings could have permitted this interpretation. It was a good idea to eliminate the ambiguity.

• No More Indoctrination Theory – The new endings clearly establish that they are meant to be taken at face value. This won’t necessarily stop the Indoctrination Theory enthusiasts, but it should have a chilling effect on the speculation.

• The Gates Are Pointless – That being said, the destruction of the Mass Effect Gates is even more pointless now. They are destroyed only to be rebuilt in the very same cinematic. Nothing changes so why even bother?

• Normandy’s Crash is Pointless – Same goes for the crash of the Normandy. The old ending had the Normandy crash on some planet. The new ending has her additionally start up again and fly off into the sunset? What was the point of having her crash in the first place? Speaking of which, why did she even crash? The “energy wave” emitted by the Crucible seems to affect only the Reapers and the Mass Effect Gates.

• EDI & Geth Are Swept Under The Carpet – There are some additional scenes that show still images, which reflect some of the player’s choices and the fate of the remaining characters and races. I thought they were very good and certainly needed. There was one thing that did occur to me. One of the major points of the “Destroy” ending was the fact that all synthetic beings are destroyed, even including EDI and the Geth. Indeed, EDI and the Geth are missing in the new Destroy ending. However, their sacrifice is actually not commented on. So there is no scene showing the demise of the Geth. EDI is shown among the Normandy’s casualties but her Fate is left to the imagination. Nobody expresses regrets. That’s pretty cold and weird considering the entire “Synthesis” ending is written from EDI’s perspective.

• Synthesis Still Makes No Sense – While all endings are explained more closely and bring more emotional closure, the Synthesis ending still makes no goddamn sense. Everybody is turned partially into a robot? Robots are partially not robots any more? Even plants are robots? We see robot Krogans get robot Krogan children? Robot Quarians don’t need masks any more? Somehow this makes Reapers not want to kill everybody anymore? It’s space magic!

I feel like Bioware did the best they could under the circumstances. Going any further would have been disingenuous. The Extended Cut clears up the vagueness that caused a lot of the speculation in the discussion of the game. But ultimately, it absolutely doesn’t address the core reasons why the ending was and continues to be poor. If anything, the shortcomings are even more apparent now.

Gravity Rush is a game to fall in love with. Wink! But no, seriously, I mean it. The title looked good in trailers. It demoed beautifully. And the final game rationalized the entire purchase price of the Vita to me. Did E3 make you lose your faith in the industry and the video game as a genre? Take a look at the original concept video.

Gravity Rush (or Gravity Daze in Japan) is an open-world 3D action adventure where you control a female superhero character that has power over gravity. By looking in any direction and pressing a button, the gravity affecting your character will switch in that direction. This basically means you can fall “into the screen”. There are some additional powers like being able to lift objects and slide along walls.

The final game doesn’t control as precisely as the concept video suggests. You don’t really fly through the world like a real superhero. More often, you fall awkwardly sideways through the streets, accidentally bumping into streets signs and pedestrians. But that experience taps perfectly into what the game is trying to achieve. You see, the point is that this is supposed to be a comic book superhero story, but not an American one.

I mentioned my love for Bande Dessinée numerous times. The french-beligan comics are the kind of comics I grew up with. I knew Thorgal and Valérian and Laureline way before I heard about Batman or Superman – at least in comic form. Of course, I eventually enjoyed the US comics as well. But they always appeared a little more crude to me. The BDs hat more elaborate illustrations, more complex and mature storylines and relied on their sense of style and wonder rather than on power fantasies and action. The characters in BDs were often clueless, they made mistakes. BDs were not about a character claiming power, there were about losing yourself in a place of intoxicating beauty. To be honest, I often didn’t understand the plot lines. Dare I say they seemed almost as an afterthought?

One of the true Bande Dessinée masterpieces of my childhood.

That’s what Gravity Daze is. The developers took their Japanese sensibility for Mangas and spliced it with the distinct look and feel of Bande Dessinée. The characters speak a fantasy gibberish mixture of Japanese and French. The world the game takes place in looks like somebody took pieces of Paris and suspended them in mid-air. The cut-scenes are comics. The trophy icons are tiny BD covers. The original title was even “Gravité” if the BD heritage wasn’t obvious enough for you. The final result is a mesmerizing mixture of exotic yet familiar ideas. So if you squint your eyes, there is even a bit of Sailor Moon in there somewhere – if the magical girl transformations aren’t a hint, the black cat sidekick certainly is.

And yes, it has a clichéd amnesia plot. And yes, the side characters and mission plots don’t really make much sense. And yes, the battle mechanics aren’t as tight as they probably should be. But all of this just drowns in the noise of me not giving a fuck as I spend hours catapulting myself from monorail girders onto oncoming steamer ship hovercrafts to the music of a jazzy violin solo.

Moebius. Nuff said.

Gravity Rush reminds me of an important lesson about games I have mentioned before. Game designers and gamers tend to focus on those qualities of games, that distinguish games from other media. They focus on interactivity and gameplay and mechanics. All this is good and well. However, the things that make games unique isn’t solely responsible for how they work.

Games are just as much an audio-visual medium as they are an interactive one.

Interactivity alone can carry you just so far. And sometimes, the visuals and music can pick up from there and take you to a magical place.

And if this was too cheesy for you, brace yourself. There is more Gravity Rush coming down the pipe. I still have more to say about Kat as a female protagonist. Do Jade, Chell and Faith have a new BFF? Find out in the next volume! Until then, if you own a Vita, you know what to do. If you don’t own a Vita, this could be a good reason to get one.

I just watched Prometheus. It’s a weird movie. If you haven’t heard about it, how did you do that?! Here is a trailer.

I was looking forward to it a lot and I was quite surprised that it received so mixed reviews. Having watched it, I kinda understand why. What follows are some of initial impressions. Yes, there will be spoilers. If you want to watch the movie with fresh eyes, better stop now.

What really stood out to me were some of the character constellations. I really loved the David / Vickers / Weyland triangle. There were some good religion vs. science bits as well. I would have preferred a more critical approach to creationism and intelligent design. But it certainly taps well into current trends and discussion. It is a US movie after all. The way those philosophies are used does not make them intelligent design propaganda yet.

I really loved the theme of immortality vs. making room for coming generations. Sadly, it seems that there was a lot more the writers wanted to say about it. I guess it’s one of the many things to be discussed in the sequels.

Which brings me to one of the two biggest gripes about the movie. The first one being that the movie feels very much like the pilot of a series. It leaves the audience with more unanswered question than actual answers. Clearly, there is an entire trilogy coming. The movie doesn’t quite stand on it’s own. It is very different from a Star Wars or Matrix that way and incredibly unsatisfying.

By other gripe is that the movie has some serious plot issues. There are huge plot holes. Characters sometimes act in illogical or confusing ways. Here are some bits:

• What does the black goo do exactly? It seems like every infection does something different. Holloway turns into a zombie. Shaw gets impregnated with a squid. The Engineer’s head explodes. The Engineer at the beginning is dissolved. It seems to be a magical substance that does whatever the plot needs at this point. Sadly, because nobody knows what it does, it’s impossible to tell what the Engineers are up to. The crew seems to think they want to destroy Earth. But there is actually no good reason to think that. It makes the plot wobbly and aimless.

• Why does David infect Holloway with the black goo? How does David know that it would do something when ingested? He doesn’t even put it under a microscope or anything. It could have been engine oil for all he knew? If this is Weyland programming – that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would Weyland be interested in killing the crew? How do they even know about the black goo? Weyland seems to be interested in meeting the Engineers. The black goo doesn’t really have anything to do with that. Infecting Holloway doesn’t serve anybody. Even if it was just David’s own curiosity, we don’t see him trying any less drastic experiments first.

• Addendum: It just occurred to me that David could have read the inscriptions on the walls and maybe learned something about the goo we don’t know. Whatever it was, it must have been quite the revelation if it made him kill a crew member. In any case, that would be something to be revealed in the subsequent movies yet again.

• The geologist punk is stupid. First he flips out when they discover the alien body. What the hell? He is a scientist. He should be interested in this as well. There is a corpse of an alien being lying right in front of him. Anybody would be curious about that. Why is he acting like a dick instead? Then, when he and his friend eventually find an actual life form, they are suddenly curious and forthcoming? That goes directly against what we just learned from them. I know they are supposed to be just alien-fodder. But they at least should be consistent.

• The whole treatment for Shaw’s pregnancy is weird. Why does David suggest to put her into cryo sleep? Why do the other crew members agree and help out? Why is she the only one to think of the medical pod? Why does nobody react to her when she comes out of the pod all bloody and cut-up? Why does nobody do anything about the Squid that is loose in the medical pod room? I mean, they wanted to return with the Prometheus to earth at some point, right? It seems a reasonable idea to get rid of the aliens on the ship before going spelunking again.

• There is a moment where Shaw tries to stop Weyland and the others from entering the ship. It’s the “we were so wrong” moment from the trailer. Why the hell would she want to do that? Shaw is a scientist who dedicated her life to figure out what the Engineers are. She should be the last person to suggest to leave now. Leave to do what? Especially as right afterwards, she decides to go back into the ship with the rest. Would’t this be rather the right moment to tell them about the squid? And confront them about the putting her to sleep thing?

• At the end, Shaw decides to trace the Engineers back to their home planet to find out how they crated Humans and why they changed their mind. This makes sense. That was the original reason why they came here. Why doesn’t David understand this? He is an explorer just as she is. In fact, we have been shown David in a lot of scenes being very bold and inquisitive. Shaw’s decision should be perfectly understandable for him. Yet, the writers decided to make this a “You don’t get it because you are a robot.” moment? What the hell?

• Finally, a little nitpick but something that really struck me. The medical pod is programmed for male anatomy only? Whaaaat? The pod was in Vicker’s suite. It was Vicker’s “safety precaution”. Is she a trans-gendered person? In that case, the black captain was in for quite a night. Or was it something that Weyland did without her knowing? In both cases that would yet another setup without a payoff. More realistically, it was just sloppy writing.

That’s it from me. I’m still digesting the movie and I’ll certainly want to watch it again. The movie is certainly not stupid. But it doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders either. At least I do understand the mixed reviews. Perhaps the upcoming sequels will bring clarity. Until then, I’d be interested in hearing other people’s opinion.