1 - It has been difficult, time consuming, and expensive to depict aliens as other than people in costumes. Aliens in scifi novels of the even of the past were often much more non-human appearing than the on screen counterparts.

2 - Many stories featuring aliens have elements of morality plays or other abstractions of human interactions which are ported to a scifi setting for the purposes of abstracting them.

3 - Some stories with humanoid aliens are wholly unconcerned in exploring the aliens as something truly alien, so aliens are simply different people more or less.

The “Bond is a codename” theory is something that very organized people come up with to try and make sense of things, when really the theory crumbles under scrutiny.

The old movies and most audiences were much more accepting of a kind of floating timeline where Bond seemingly operates from the 1960s to the 2000s without aging. The movies had some continuity but didn’t really concern themselves with details.

I think it is hard for modern audiences to wrap their heads around that. Nowadays we are so used to franchises at least attempting to be coherent and internally consistent. A new Bond outing would probably benefit from using the codename theory from here on out for the sake of modern audiences.

I think also older audiences were more forgiving of the fuzzy, sometimes contradictory continuity between the older films. Somehow Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery were the same guy and everyone just kind of rolled with that.

The future of Bond should tighten up continuity from here on out, because for better or worse I don’t think modern audiences are as able to just fuzz away discrepancies.

My idea would be to pull from the “James Bond is a codename” fan theory- which currently doesn’t work, but to say Daniel Craig is the original James Bond and all the Bonds after him take up the name as a code name. This can open up some possibilities and just make it easier to keep things straight. Old Bonds don’t necessarily even have to die, they can retire or be moved out of the roll. You can bring them back as villains, or make one into the new Q or something.

I watched only the first one ages ago. I barely remember it. I think the “twist” was that the main detective chasing the group was actually in on the heist? I remember being annoyed because it was the sort of thing where the audience wasn’t allowed to figure it out themselves and it was more of a random last minute reveal.

Like with Die Hard. First one is good, second one is shit, 3rd is arguably the best in the series.

That’s quite an opinion.

TLDR “I liked this movie and everyone else are stupid dum dums for not falling over themselves about it.”

The article continually acknowledges and then hand waves away the critiques of Furiosa.

When people enjoy something I much prefer when they just stick to talking about the things they enjoyed about it, and have the confidence to allow readers to be won over. It is exhausting when someone is making an appeal that has the texture of a condemnation for not already agreeing.

This might be something to think about since I’m contemplating making videos I promote directly to Lemmy and/or to my blog subscribers. I want to have a page, but I am not concerned about growing and audience for the profit.

This is the sort of thinking I’m looking for although videos area projected to be 30 minutes to an hour.

There can only be one.

He seems like he follows whatever gives him the best position. Projecting moderation to the west is a no-brainer, but he also has to contend with projecting the correct stance to the groups inside Syria and that is likely going to be a much less moderate one.

There is also the outside factors of Russia, Iran, and the US. There are a lot of considerations for all of them and I won’t even pretend to predict how they will all act and react, but I do want acknowledge they can and likely will all drastically affect Syria.

I see your meaning, and this kind of confusion is exactly why Section 31 is so tricky to put in a story. It’s a secret handshake club, which may well go to the highest levels, but it doesn’t have official paperwork. There are likely varying levels of being in the know. Certainly many high ranking members of Starfleet know of S31, but opinions may vary in a sliding scale from “actively partaking in it” to “knowing it exists but choosing to look the other way” to “hearing it exists but assuming it’s mostly overblown rumors”.

Nobody is going to FOIA request the Section 31 files from Starfleet some day. That’s the difference between it and “CIA but in Space” that modern writing treats it as.

Backing by high individuals is a still a conspiratorial entity.

What I don’t like about the trailer is the implication Section 31 has official Starfleet oversight to reel it in from being too crazy. The whole idea is that it is a rogue entity with no oversight.

Likely the HTS, which is the main rebel group that lead the new offensive and which has already absorbed or eliminated many other groups in Syria.

They are a Sunni Islamist group, but they also are against Al-Queda. But only opposed to them since 2020. But HTS is still considered a terrorist organization by the US, UK, and Canada. But Timber Sycamore shows historically that the US may publicly designate a group as terrorists in Syria while style still supporting them privately. HTS is strongly opposed to Russia and has spilled a lot of blood to prove it.

So, in short, is this a good or bad event: I dunno.

“31 is a Black Ops division.”

Jeez, I really can’t stand how the modern writers have made Section 31 an official arm of Starfleet. The entire point of the original idea was that it was a parasitic conspiracy hiding within the ranks, but not actually part of the ranks. Starfleet already has an intelligence agency for running covert operations, which is seemingly totally forgotten by modern writers.

The only time Section 31 has worked on screen after DS9 is when it appeared in Enterprise, because those writers understood how to handle an organization that existed as an under the table, in-the-know-only network.

Beyond that, I really, really, really can’t stand how Section 31 looks like it is getting the glorifying treatment. It is not supposed to be a cool, awesome entity. Section 31 was a dark, broken, and ultimately misguided element. It was something to be overcome and dismantled, not celebrated.

“You were great in Death Wish 3!”

Do you know where my Marina Sirtis action figure is

I lost it.

I appreciate the 1985 movie Creature, which shamelessly rides the coattails of Alien. The special effects, while done on a budget, are surprisingly good. Many details are very similar to the 1986 Aliens, because the effects designers for Creature went on to be hired to work on Aliens.

As a concept the idea of allowing total autonomy seems sound.

Implementing it as a practice where the government assists could see some perverse incentives to get people to kill themselves. Here’s a real example

If the system can safeguard against these, perhaps, but it isn’t a one and done safeguard but constant vigilance. Allowing others to put down people raises even more need for scrutiny.

This one isn’t stupid, it’s incoherent. If you’re going to make up terms, it helps to define them for the rest of us. Otherwise any answer you get will be people scratching their heads and giving a guess, but who knows if it’s actually answering the question or not.