The 50 Most Boring Opinions In Geek Culture - Part I

[rickynumber24]

Remember, Verhoven didn't even read the book...

He didn't read the book?! Oh god! This is why our culture sucks. It's 288 pages, it would have taken him an afternoon!

As I have heard the story, he didn't so much "not read the book" as he refused to read the book after getting a few pages in. (At a guess, it was either citizenship-through-[military-]service or the scene about part about participation medals that offended him.)

Or, the actual story, according to tcm.com, tossed out as an aside in their article: "The screenplay is credited to Edward Neumeier; Verhoeven, for his part, says he tried to read the novel but got bored and tossed it aside."
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/152604|0/Starship-Troopers.html

Full disclosure: I haven't actually seen the Starship Troopers movie. Nor, while I wouldn't want to implement any of Heinlein's political ideas, do I have much of a desire to do so. (If you want out there politics and presently unacceptable but apparently progressive for their time social ideas, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land are go-to books.)

 

[RA92]

I'm guessing Bob still hasn't actually played ME3.

 

[Nouw]

I came here for one thing and one thing only, Starship Troopers. While the film was more entertaining, and thought [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQcUa38KNFo]- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMXu3O4Va2c]provoking [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBlgzN9ZOnA], the book was great in its own right because it featured the Mobile Infantry. It was entertaining, at least, to read about how the suits functioned and how they were deployed. The Mobile Infantry would go on to heavily influence Military Science Fiction, from Gundam to Halo.

Note: The links above show an in-depth analysis of the film which I implore you to watch. Quite frankly it's mind-blowing how much effort Verhoven and Neumier put into the film.

I thought it was the other way around for Starship Troopers? The book was all about sayin how much better life would be in a fascist society where the only people who were allowed to have opinions are those who serve their planet. The movie makes a point to show how fuckin terrible that idea is.

Yes, and no, but mainly yes. [http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf] It's up to interpretation really.

 

[RedmistSM]

I appreciate the effort to remove these subjects in order to make conversations more interesting, especially the ones that very definitely feel like thruths, but I don't feel like life leaves a conversation the moment someone expresses their frustrations with something. It's usually new to them, and it's good to air one's grievances.

If the #1 omegawyrm posted ends up taking first place, I get that. For the rest of the list, I'd guess something along the lines of "Oh Japan", but that's just my personal annoyance.

 

[irishda]

I saw Ghostbusters when I was a kid (the first thing that injected fear into me as a child in fact). I also saw Batman: The Animated Series, Batman (Tim Burton version), The Tick, Fellowship of the Ring (middle school), all the movies in the Disney and Pixar Renaissance, Jurassic Park, Braveheart, The Matrix, Hook, and the Princess Bride. Gee, what a bunch of shitty things that I only liked cause I was a kid.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I can't tell what Bob is trying to do in this article. I mean, if they're boring arguments, then why do we have to know about them? And since they all seem so controvertial, won't this create a boring flame war?

Oh well, I don't understand Japanese culture enough to like it, I never saw the allure of the Simpsons, and I never read Starship Troopers. Basically, I'm not enough of a nerd/geek yet to worry about most of this. Although I must say that I enjoyed Adam West's interpretation of Batman.

And a guess for one of next week's opinions- "Firefly/Invader Zim/other cancelled show was the best show ever, it never should have been cancelled." But it was, there's nothing you can do about it. And now we'll never know how good it really would have been.

 

[Farther than stars]

* George Lucas is evil (so guaranteed to be number one, I bet he'll bump it down the list just to surprise people).

I'll take that bet. What are your terms?

* Hatred of Twilight, Nickelback, Big Bang Theory, Call of Duty, insert other popular things with a huge divide between mainstream and "geek" opinion here.

But... the Big Bang Theory is geek. It's 100%, un-watered-down, woah!-I-recognize-this-from-my-life geekishness. It's also mainstream, but then geek stuff has been entering into the mainstream for a long time now, especially in Hollywood. Just look at "Lord of the Rings" or "The Social Network", not to mention "The Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones".

* Where is Half-Life (Episode) III?

This one just matters, OK? Its historic background can claim great responsibility in giving games depth and fidelity. The fact that it's highly anticipated is only logical when viewed in such an emotional context.

* MTV doesn't play music any more.

Who the hell watches MTV anymore?

 

[Vault101]

I agree with the "no talking thing"

like with Samus Arran, its not that she shouldn't talk, she could talk but its quite easy to fuck that up (other M)

 

[Sylocat]

A lot of FFVII mentions in this thread, and by an odd coincidence, #50 applies to that as well...

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

MovieBob, why? You've escalated the deterrence of The Escapist forum's members into a full scale HOT WAR!

IT's like you wanted to cause controversy among the commu- OOOOOOOHHHHHHH.

 

[Erttheking]

I can't help but feel that Movie Bob is being just a little bit...ah...what's the word I'm looking for...judgmental?

Another word you might be looking for is 'lazy'. As in, so lazy as to substitute a long string of empty opinions with little justification as 'content' that users would care about or that he might be 'paid' for.

Huh, never thought about it that way. Yeah, that too.

 

[Erttheking]

41. More like "Because JAPAN likes cutscenes they ruin games" Though no one has the balls to actually just ADMIT they're a bigot

Not gonna lie, that's one of the most bizarre and unfair generalizations that I've seen in awhile.

 

[Grospoliner]

This article. What crawled up Movie Bob's butt? Holiday blues?

 

[Sacman]

Well this is by far the most pretentious thing I've read in months... what a waste... completely devoid of any actual intelligent debate against popular opinions... and just a load of self righteous sarcasm and hipster ideology without the comfort of irony or ridiculous unintentional self parody... just frustrating to read all the way through...

 

[Nazulu]

Not surprised the answers you gave are as boring as the opinions. The only time this doesn't look immature is when you solve things, so if you can't do it then you just make it worse.

 

[Nazulu]

I agree with the "no talking thing"

like with Samus Arran, its not that she shouldn't talk, she could talk but its quite easy to fuck that up (other M)

Holy hard nipples! That's the first time I've seen someone say that besides me. Time to celebrate with a coke.

 

[WiseBass]

I think I'm going to like next week's post.

1. The Simpsons never really got bad. It's just that the ratio of mediocre episodes to good ones got worse over time, until most of the episodes in recent Simpsons seasons are completely forgettable (even if they have a few laughs). Having watched a bunch of them, what's interesting is that the Simpsons rarely has actually -bad- episodes that completely suck.

2. The rib-poking at Dragonball Z is mostly affectionate. I love it, even if it's ridiculous and so bloated that parts are near unwatchable.

3. Starship Troopers The Movie and The Book are just different. One is a parody of a fascist society, the other is a thought experiment channeled through a young man being molded into a soldier (it's important to keep that in mind when reading it - he's not 100% reliable).

4. The Virus in Independence Day might actually makes some sense . . . if you don't watch the extended cut where they ruin any hope of justifying it. They've been studying the spaceship for 40+ years, to the point where they managed to integrate it into their computer systems. It's also possible that the Aliens are a "hive" civilization (implied by the novelization), where the idea of someone accessing information and files they're not given authorization for from inside the external firewalls would be completely unthinkable.

5. With comic book continuity, it's more about how annoying it is that they even try. Why not just re-boot characters every time they change authors, after winding up the departing authors' storylines?

6. It would be pretty cool if Link spoke - I've always imagined Johnny Yong Bosch (who voiced Ichigo in Bleach) as his english-language voice actor. I can see why they don't do that, though - it would turn him into an independent character instead of a player-surrogate.

7. Shymalan gets way too much hate. All of his movies except the The Happening had great atmosphere and tension, and occasionally some thought-provoking ideas. Sure, the plots were often loaded with holes, but people give a pass to other movies with that if they like the characters and mood (just look at Star Trek 2009).