Disqus - Latest Comments for nulldevice

Re: Rings Of Power to start just getting on with it

nulldevice — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:04:22 -0000

I've found it very hit-or-miss. It's had some very good moments. It's had some very terrible moments.

A lot of it is hampered by the fact that they can't use any of the actual Tolkien prequel material. If it was in the Silmarillion, it's off the table, unless it was mentioned in the appendices of the ROTK. That doesn't leave much, so they have to invent a lot of stuff whole cloth and that hasn't really worked.

Second season was a lot better than first, when they actually start getting to the dramatic parts of the story with the forging of the rings, etc, but it also whiffed a lot of stuff in there too that slowed things down too much.

It looks gorgeous, but for that kind of money, it had better.

Re: The world wasn’t ready for Rey

nulldevice — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:22:36 -0000

I dunno about great, but she could have been quite good. Lived in the shadow of her sister, trying to prove herself, strongly idealistic in the face of adversity, etc...and the writing kind of squandered it. They set up plenty to work with and then went nowhere with any of it.

Re: The world wasn’t ready for Rey

nulldevice — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:18:28 -0000

Rey was a character that could have been very interesting, but there was no coherent plan with what to do with her. Abrams set her up as a walking mystery box (who are her parents?), Johnson dispensed with that almost immediately ("nobody") and then Abrams walked that back again (oh but she's somehow a palpatine anyway). This sort of wishy-washiness took the focus away from her as an actual character, and put it on these questions instead - questions that didn't really matter to the plot.

For all its faults, TLJ took a far more interesting swing at it by breaking the notion that the force favors bloodlines and just saying hey, any humble scavenger or stablehand can be a magical space hero too. But fanboys hated that so much that Abrams rolled that back in the most awkward way possible.

Re: Andy Weir (sort of) apologizes after opening fire on modern Star Trek

nulldevice — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 09:51:33 -0000

Bold assertion, there.

Season 3 _was_ pretty great. Probably the peak of the series. I probably should have been more specific in that "few" meant "two." But Season 1? Pretty bad. Season 2 was hampered by a writers strike, so it's hard to completely fault it, but it wasn't great either.

Look, they all had their bright spots in their early days but they all also had a lot more "Move Along Home" and "Code of Honor" than they had "Duet" and "Q Who." DS9 S1 probably had a higher hit-to-miss ratio than S1 of TNG, and there were fewer outright _bad_ episodes, but nothing like the run of aboslute bangers we got later. (DS9 also finally figured out what to do with the Ferengi, which helped.) Voyager had a mostly decent first season, although I personally never felt that the series scaled the heights of its bretheren.

Enterprise spent the first few seasons faffing about with a "temporal cold war" which we'd never heard of before and frankly, wasn't what everyone who wanted a prequel series was excited about. S4? Precusors to the Romulan war! Birth of the federation! Now that's the shit fans hoped for. If they'd started with that I suspect the show would have gained more than 4 seasons. (Xindi arc was pretty good, although weird that a major attack that damaged earth and killed millions was never mentioned ever again). Also, that theme song...

Regardless, in all the flagship series it always takes time for a large ensemble cast to really gel. TNG was frankly hampered by Roddenberry himself - his edict that there should be no interpersonal conflict in the crew made them all kind of flat characters. It wasn't until later that we got sufficient backstory to all of them. DS9 took a minute too; that's just the nature of big ensembles (TNG had, what, 8 main characters? That's a lot for any show, not just Trek). Modern Trek has ten episode seasons; there's just not the grace period that previous shows got to let things settle in. And again, I'm not saying SFA was good, per se, but it certainly didn't get the chance that TNG or DS9 did to make and fix mistakes before the axe fell.

Being extremely online at the time of those early shows, I remember the _absolute furor_ about how they were "ruining star trek" and how both shows should be cancelled immediately and everyone involved should be fired. Of course back in 1990 nobody at Paramount listened to nerds on the internet.

Re: Andy Weir (sort of) apologizes after opening fire on modern Star Trek

nulldevice — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:21:57 -0000

The biggest problem Trek traditionally seems to have is that it takes a while for the shows to settle in.

TNG had an abysmal first few seasons. DS9 was pretty iffy until Sisko shaved his head. Voyager's first season was rooooough. Enterprise dithered about on stuff we didn't care about until season frickin' four. Discovery didn't really find its "voice" until the 10-C arc in their season 4 (which was only like 30ish episodes in).

Only Lower Decks and SNW really came out swinging - and both had the advantage of having a lot of stuff already established for them (Disco Season2 was basically entirely a backdoor pilot for SNW).

In the current streaming landscape if you're not a megahit by three episodes in, you're likely toast. And with the new standard for ten episode or less seasons, there's precious little time to cover everything that needs to get covered - there's a lot of plot, character development, and worldbuilding to cram into a mere ten hours. Modern trek really gets hammered by that.

Was Starfleet Academy great? No. Was it good? Eh. But it had flashes, though, that made me think that given more time it could have developed into something interesting the way TNG and DS9 did. But that's a luxury nobody has anymore (and it was a super expensive show to make).

Re: Andy Weir (sort of) apologizes after opening fire on modern Star Trek

nulldevice — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:10:12 -0000

"My stuff isn't political" is a WILD take to have for a guy whose stories are about "scientists being heroic with science" in this political climate.

(also, thinking Federation vs Romulans isn't incredibly laden with political symbolism, either)

I've enjoyed a few of his books but wow that's a white guy take.

Re: Morrissey is rock and roll’s biggest flake and there’s data to prove it

nulldevice — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:30:21 -0000

Last time I saw Morrissey live was many many years ago, he and every member of the band was wearing a tshirt that read "Fuck Morrissey-Solo.com." I can't remember what raise his ire towards a fairly comprehensive fansite, but man he seemed pissed off about it.

The fact that those guys are still going, despite Mozzer's endless animosity towards them warms my heart in a way that Morrissey himself hasn't in a few decades.

Re: Rubio: Biden-Era Font Change Was a 'Degradation'

nulldevice — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:50:08 -0000

Calibri: designed in 2004 specifically to look good and legible on a screen. The standard font on literally millions of emails a day.

TNR: designed in 1931 to look profound in a London newspaper. A paper which, notably, doesn’t use it anymore.

But sure, let’s call an industry-standard sans-serif “woke” or whatever.

Somebody just likes Times New Roman and needed a way to justify changing everything.

(The Epstein files should be in Gill Sans. IYKYK)

Re: Trump Helping With Scott Adams' Cancer Treatment

nulldevice — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:46:51 -0000

So what I'm getting is, the only way to make any progress with private health insurance and scheduling, even if I'm battling a life-threatening illness, is to be friends with the president and have him personally intervene?

I'm not sure this is the flex they want it to be.

Re: Trump Helping With Scott Adams' Cancer Treatment

nulldevice — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:44:58 -0000

I know it goes against every boogeyman you've got built, but despite the "defund the police" rhetoric over the course of the past 5 years, police funding nationwide has actually gone up. In supposedly lawless liberal enclaves like LA, SF and Chicago it went up between 10 and 15% over the period, outpacing inflation.

Re: Trump: Seth Meyers' Mockery May Be 'Illegal'

nulldevice — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:39:46 -0000

Hence the part that says "wannabe."

He's not a king. But I bet he'd love to be.

Re: Is This Censorship?: Reactions to the Kimmel Suspension

nulldevice — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:07:26 -0000

His employer didn't seem to care until the FCC director started making threats. That's the scary part.

If ABC had just said "screw you, Jimmy" that would be one thing. It'd suck, but it's not scary. But the fact that ABC didn't bother, and then suddenly they're scrambling because the FCC director is making noise about killing the broadcast licenses of every affiliate...well that's worrying.

Re: Is This Censorship?: Reactions to the Kimmel Suspension

nulldevice — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 09:44:11 -0000

It's probably not legally censorship.

But it sure is mob tactics. The FCC/government didn't actually DO anything. But they basically said "nice network you have there. Be a real shame if something were to happen to it." The FCC directory literally publicly told ABC "we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

In a lot of ways, that's even worse.

Re: ABC Suspends Jimmy Kimmel Over MAGA, Kirk Comments

nulldevice — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:18:10 -0000

Ahh yes, those famously communist billionaire CEO's.

Although usually when someone talks about "radical left cabals running the media" it's just an ethnic dogwhsitle.

Re: ABC Suspends Jimmy Kimmel Over MAGA, Kirk Comments

nulldevice — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 20:05:13 -0000

Legally, it's probably in some weird area, because they didn't actually suspend their license, they just threatened it. The govt took no action, but they pulled the ol' mob tactic of "real shame if something were to happen to this license." And ABC folded faster than Superman on laundry day, which is surprising since the media is supposed to be run by a secret cabal of radical leftists, or so I'm led to believe.

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 19:58:00 -0000

I initially read that as they were touring with IAMX, which would be a whole different thing.

Re: ABC Suspends Jimmy Kimmel Over MAGA, Kirk Comments

nulldevice — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 19:55:26 -0000

Even if they weren't accurate, or were mere speculation, or whatever, the federal government threatening to pull broadcast licenses of a whole network because of it is one hell of an overreach.

It's one thing if he got cancelled because of it his ratings sank over the comments, or if his friends thought it was distasteful and stopped speaking to him or boycotting the show. That's just the consequences of the free market that we're all supposedly in love with. But when it's because of threats from the government, that's a whole new and terrifying area.

Re: Steak 'n Shake Blasts Cracker Barrel for Erasing 'Heritage'

nulldevice — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 09:28:34 -0000

It's all bad. Seed oils sure aren't great, but animal fats are just a different kind of terrible.

Our problem with fats probably has less to do with what kind of fat we're using, and more likely stuff like the $1 Canola Shooters at Applebee's or Wendy's 1/2lb Suet Stacker. Deciding whether seed oils are worse than animal fats in the American diet is like refolding the napkins on the Titanic; sure it might make the experience more pleasant but it's not solving the bigger problems at hand.

Re: Steak 'n Shake Blasts Cracker Barrel for Erasing 'Heritage'

nulldevice — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 08:46:10 -0000

Duck fat is the way to go.

But also, I mean, cmon, they're fries. They'll never be healthy. Anyone who wants healthy fries is missing the point of ordering fries.

Re: Steak 'n Shake Blasts Cracker Barrel for Erasing 'Heritage'

nulldevice — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 08:43:19 -0000

Lord. It's a corporate logo of a giant, soulless restaurant chain, partially owned by wall street fund managers.

And they're feuding with Steak N Shake, which is owned by a holdings company manager who's bitter he couldn't get on the board of CB (he in fact still owns part of CB).

You want, heritage, go eat at a local BBQ.

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:18:42 -0000

(the funniest part about this for me is that "that new stuff" in the sketch is now at least a decade older than any Doors record was when that sketch first aired )

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:16:02 -0000

Well, I heard one of their records at a party last night, and I've always liked "Love Her Madly..."

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:48:03 -0000

Yeah, yeah, I know, I saw it too.

I spent most of the 90's getting really angry about stuff like that.

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:43:32 -0000

All that new stuff sucks. But it's over there.

Re: Reach out and touch faith in IMAX with Depeche Mode’s new concert film, Depeche Mode: M

nulldevice — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:40:50 -0000

Yeah, yeah, I know...I know.