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Author Topic: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.  (Read 8327 times)

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #30 on: November 01, 2021, 03:46:37 PM »
Lucas has big ideas, but he needs to be... channeled. This is typically accomplished with good editing (thanks Marcia) and directors.
I've noticed this with a number of other creators too. Incredibly creative, but in desperate need of editors to reign them in.
Happens with actors, too. I find it really strange that the quality of some actor's ability to act seems to be closely tied to the director, but I suppose it makes sense. Twain's "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead" seems universal across media.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #31 on: November 01, 2021, 06:23:25 PM »
Lucas has big ideas, but he needs to be... channeled. This is typically accomplished with good editing (thanks Marcia) and directors.

Return of the Jedi showcases a lot of the problems Lucas was running into with telling his story. He desperately needed a big reveal on par with Empire Strikes Back, but making Luke and Leia siblings was... not the way I would've done it (it also makes some of the scenes in ESB and even ANH a lot weirder). Meanwhile, Lucas's foray into merchandising really, REALLY shows in ROTJ; as one person put it, consider that the word 'ewok' is never spoken in the film, yet everyone knows what an ewok is.

I will state in defense that Lucas had tapped an incredible gold mine and he'd have been an idiot not to mine it.

The tone of ROTJ tends to wildly skew back and forth. In some ways, it's very reminiscent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but with less control.

So yeah, Lucas hit the motherlode, but that doesn't make him Spielberg.
I've noticed this with a number of other creators too. Incredibly creative, but in desperate need of editors to reign them in.

The plot of the StarCraft games suffers a similar, albeit perhaps opposite, problem: it sets itself up as essentially Warhammer 40,000 lite, but rather than exploring the military, political, and cultural aspects that would appeal to fans of military scifi it immediately deteriorates into a badly written soap opera where there's one hero of the universe who only fights the villains because of either personal vendetta or because the plot tells him to. Tons of backstory and plot hooks gets set up and then immediately bulldozed because the writer lost interest. Not to mention the many retcons, inconsistent characterization, etc.

It's arguably the worst military scifi ever written. No surprise it was the first the author ever wrote. Which is par the course for video game writing, but still. The author was clearly quite creative and the potential for a good story was there.
Keep in mind he was writing a story for an RTS.

That being said, the story could've definitely used some fine tuning for Starcraft 2.
There are plenty of RTS where the writers don’t sabotage themselves by bulldozing their own setting multiple times over. Command & Conquer, Star Trek Armada, Supreme Commander, etc. The writer of SC, Chris Metzen, is mentioned by a co-worker in a book (World of Warcraft Diary) as apparently having severe ADHD and memory problems. No shit.

StarCraft 1 was a mess of writer incompetence and studio inference. They killed all the potential villains, and civilizations, immediately after their introductions. The expansion had to introduce multiple new villains thru lazy retcons because the author shot himself in the foot multiple times.

The whole thing needed rebooting and a franchise bible to be written to keep it on track, not a sequel. That’s like saying that Twilight needed a sequel.

This isn’t rocket science. You have humans, space elves, and bugs, and they’re fighting each other for control of the galaxy because of politics, greed, and philosophy. That’s so effing simple and somehow Blizzard managed to fuck it up multiple times.

I’m not asking for a good plot. I know any plot is just an excuse to blow shit up. But I expect the writer to at least understand what genre he’s written for. Chris Metzen didn’t write an RTS plot, he wrote multiple bad soap operas with plot holes that you could drive a dozen trucks thru side by side. I have watched children’s shows with better writing.

But I could ignore all that if it wasn’t for the fandom being full of fucking morons who think this fanfiction-tier shit is actually good, because everybody with taste has long since left.

And the Starship Troopers game is based on the shitty Sony movies. So for fans of military scifi the video game scene sucks ass.

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #32 on: November 01, 2021, 07:55:11 PM »
I'm doing something similar with franchises that were ruined by incompetent studios before the wokeness took over.
It's entirely possible to not do a franchise, and not be woke at all, and yet still be truly awful. I present to you:

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Ghostmaker

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #33 on: November 01, 2021, 08:43:57 PM »
Lucas has big ideas, but he needs to be... channeled. This is typically accomplished with good editing (thanks Marcia) and directors.

Return of the Jedi showcases a lot of the problems Lucas was running into with telling his story. He desperately needed a big reveal on par with Empire Strikes Back, but making Luke and Leia siblings was... not the way I would've done it (it also makes some of the scenes in ESB and even ANH a lot weirder). Meanwhile, Lucas's foray into merchandising really, REALLY shows in ROTJ; as one person put it, consider that the word 'ewok' is never spoken in the film, yet everyone knows what an ewok is.

I will state in defense that Lucas had tapped an incredible gold mine and he'd have been an idiot not to mine it.

The tone of ROTJ tends to wildly skew back and forth. In some ways, it's very reminiscent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but with less control.

So yeah, Lucas hit the motherlode, but that doesn't make him Spielberg.
I've noticed this with a number of other creators too. Incredibly creative, but in desperate need of editors to reign them in.

The plot of the StarCraft games suffers a similar, albeit perhaps opposite, problem: it sets itself up as essentially Warhammer 40,000 lite, but rather than exploring the military, political, and cultural aspects that would appeal to fans of military scifi it immediately deteriorates into a badly written soap opera where there's one hero of the universe who only fights the villains because of either personal vendetta or because the plot tells him to. Tons of backstory and plot hooks gets set up and then immediately bulldozed because the writer lost interest. Not to mention the many retcons, inconsistent characterization, etc.

It's arguably the worst military scifi ever written. No surprise it was the first the author ever wrote. Which is par the course for video game writing, but still. The author was clearly quite creative and the potential for a good story was there.
Keep in mind he was writing a story for an RTS.

That being said, the story could've definitely used some fine tuning for Starcraft 2.
There are plenty of RTS where the writers don’t sabotage themselves by bulldozing their own setting multiple times over. Command & Conquer, Star Trek Armada, Supreme Commander, etc. The writer of SC, Chris Metzen, is mentioned by a co-worker in a book (World of Warcraft Diary) as apparently having severe ADHD and memory problems. No shit.

StarCraft 1 was a mess of writer incompetence and studio inference. They killed all the potential villains, and civilizations, immediately after their introductions. The expansion had to introduce multiple new villains thru lazy retcons because the author shot himself in the foot multiple times.

The whole thing needed rebooting and a franchise bible to be written to keep it on track, not a sequel. That’s like saying that Twilight needed a sequel.

This isn’t rocket science. You have humans, space elves, and bugs, and they’re fighting each other for control of the galaxy because of politics, greed, and philosophy. That’s so effing simple and somehow Blizzard managed to fuck it up multiple times.

I’m not asking for a good plot. I know any plot is just an excuse to blow shit up. But I expect the writer to at least understand what genre he’s written for. Chris Metzen didn’t write an RTS plot, he wrote multiple bad soap operas with plot holes that you could drive a dozen trucks thru side by side. I have watched children’s shows with better writing.

But I could ignore all that if it wasn’t for the fandom being full of fucking morons who think this fanfiction-tier shit is actually good, because everybody with taste has long since left.

And the Starship Troopers game is based on the shitty Sony movies. So for fans of military scifi the video game scene sucks ass.
Dude, do you like have a grudge or something? Did Starcraft steal your girlfriend?

Seriously, the last time I saw this much salt over a video game was this one fellow who was absolutely assblasted about Darkest Dungeon and couldn't shut the fuck up for five minutes about how it was a walking simulator.

Ratman_tf

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #34 on: November 01, 2021, 09:04:01 PM »
Lucas has big ideas, but he needs to be... channeled. This is typically accomplished with good editing (thanks Marcia) and directors.

Return of the Jedi showcases a lot of the problems Lucas was running into with telling his story. He desperately needed a big reveal on par with Empire Strikes Back, but making Luke and Leia siblings was... not the way I would've done it (it also makes some of the scenes in ESB and even ANH a lot weirder). Meanwhile, Lucas's foray into merchandising really, REALLY shows in ROTJ; as one person put it, consider that the word 'ewok' is never spoken in the film, yet everyone knows what an ewok is.

I will state in defense that Lucas had tapped an incredible gold mine and he'd have been an idiot not to mine it.

The tone of ROTJ tends to wildly skew back and forth. In some ways, it's very reminiscent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but with less control.

So yeah, Lucas hit the motherlode, but that doesn't make him Spielberg.
I've noticed this with a number of other creators too. Incredibly creative, but in desperate need of editors to reign them in.

The plot of the StarCraft games suffers a similar, albeit perhaps opposite, problem: it sets itself up as essentially Warhammer 40,000 lite, but rather than exploring the military, political, and cultural aspects that would appeal to fans of military scifi it immediately deteriorates into a badly written soap opera where there's one hero of the universe who only fights the villains because of either personal vendetta or because the plot tells him to. Tons of backstory and plot hooks gets set up and then immediately bulldozed because the writer lost interest. Not to mention the many retcons, inconsistent characterization, etc.

It's arguably the worst military scifi ever written. No surprise it was the first the author ever wrote. Which is par the course for video game writing, but still. The author was clearly quite creative and the potential for a good story was there.
Keep in mind he was writing a story for an RTS.

That being said, the story could've definitely used some fine tuning for Starcraft 2.
There are plenty of RTS where the writers don’t sabotage themselves by bulldozing their own setting multiple times over. Command & Conquer, Star Trek Armada, Supreme Commander, etc. The writer of SC, Chris Metzen, is mentioned by a co-worker in a book (World of Warcraft Diary) as apparently having severe ADHD and memory problems. No shit.

StarCraft 1 was a mess of writer incompetence and studio inference. They killed all the potential villains, and civilizations, immediately after their introductions. The expansion had to introduce multiple new villains thru lazy retcons because the author shot himself in the foot multiple times.

The whole thing needed rebooting and a franchise bible to be written to keep it on track, not a sequel. That’s like saying that Twilight needed a sequel.

This isn’t rocket science. You have humans, space elves, and bugs, and they’re fighting each other for control of the galaxy because of politics, greed, and philosophy. That’s so effing simple and somehow Blizzard managed to fuck it up multiple times.

I’m not asking for a good plot. I know any plot is just an excuse to blow shit up. But I expect the writer to at least understand what genre he’s written for. Chris Metzen didn’t write an RTS plot, he wrote multiple bad soap operas with plot holes that you could drive a dozen trucks thru side by side. I have watched children’s shows with better writing.

But I could ignore all that if it wasn’t for the fandom being full of fucking morons who think this fanfiction-tier shit is actually good, because everybody with taste has long since left.

And the Starship Troopers game is based on the shitty Sony movies. So for fans of military scifi the video game scene sucks ass.
Dude, do you like have a grudge or something? Did Starcraft steal your girlfriend?

Seriously, the last time I saw this much salt over a video game was this one fellow who was absolutely assblasted about Darkest Dungeon and couldn't shut the fuck up for five minutes about how it was a walking simulator.

Yep Blizzard has always been shit storytellers. That ship sailed decades ago, sank, and is full of Murlocs now.

But in his defense, we are bitching about 20(ish) year old Star Wars movies too.
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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #35 on: November 02, 2021, 11:51:59 AM »
Dude, do you like have a grudge or something? Did Starcraft steal your girlfriend?

Seriously, the last time I saw this much salt over a video game was this one fellow who was absolutely assblasted about Darkest Dungeon and couldn't shut the fuck up for five minutes about how it was a walking simulator.
Sorry. I used to love StarCraft as a kid because kids are stupid and can't critically evaluate fiction. As an adult, I came back to StarCraft, started evaluating it critically and grew disgusted and frustrated with the world building and writing. When I tried talking about this on the fan forums, around the time that SC2 LotV was in full swing, I got deeply burned by flame wars. I'm still healing.

I got re-invested in games like Five Nations, which is basically StarCraft except all the units are spacecraft and the plot is more political and military-focused. It's a very blatant pastiche of the scifi genre and full of plot points identical to other scifi like Star Trek, Babylon Five, StarGate SG-1, and the new Lost in Space, but the stories it has genuinely feel like they fit the military scifi RTS format. It's not a superhero soap opera shoehorned into the wrong genre.

Right now I'm looking forward to Immortal: Gates of Pyre, which seems like it will have a much better handling of politics and conflicts than the Blizzard games did. That's not saying much since Blizzard writing is bottom of the barrel despite their financial successes, but still. It has civilizations with ideologies, and it intends to let you play as Lovecraftian aliens trying to invade the planets.

Yep Blizzard has always been shit storytellers. That ship sailed decades ago, sank, and is full of Murlocs now.

But in his defense, we are bitching about 20(ish) year old Star Wars movies too.
At least SW has a community willing to critically evaluate the writing. There must be countless essays trying to understand the politics of the Empire even though it was never intended to be a well constructed fictional state.

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #36 on: November 02, 2021, 04:01:29 PM »
Dude, do you like have a grudge or something? Did Starcraft steal your girlfriend?

Seriously, the last time I saw this much salt over a video game was this one fellow who was absolutely assblasted about Darkest Dungeon and couldn't shut the fuck up for five minutes about how it was a walking simulator.
Sorry. I used to love StarCraft as a kid because kids are stupid and can't critically evaluate fiction. As an adult, I came back to StarCraft, started evaluating it critically

That was your first mistake.

Quote
and grew disgusted and frustrated with the world building and writing. When I tried talking about this on the fan forums, around the time that SC2 LotV was in full swing, I got deeply burned by flame wars. I'm still healing.

And your second.

I say this not to mock, but to actually put it into perspective. Sometimes you outgrow the things you loved as a kid. You can either turn off your adult brain and enjoy them as a kid-at-heart again, or move on. I have my nerdy nitpicks that get me going on message forums, but they'll never be resolved.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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Ghostmaker

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #37 on: November 02, 2021, 09:24:14 PM »
I do feel for BCT though. Trying to watch 80's Transformers cartoons nowadays is kind of wince-worthy, except for a few notable ones.

Ratman_tf

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #38 on: November 02, 2021, 10:04:22 PM »
I do feel for BCT though. Trying to watch 80's Transformers cartoons nowadays is kind of wince-worthy, except for a few notable ones.

A lot of 80's cartoons are wince. I loved Robotech, but I can't watch it nowadays. The inane, repeating dialog just drives me insane now.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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DocJones

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #39 on: November 02, 2021, 10:27:37 PM »
I'm doing something similar with franchises that were ruined by incompetent studios before the wokeness took over.
It's entirely possible to not do a franchise, and not be woke at all, and yet still be truly awful. I present to you:


That's the most retarded story concept since "Space 1999"

Ratman_tf

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #40 on: November 03, 2021, 01:08:57 AM »
That's the most retarded story concept since "Space 1999"

I had an Eagle One toy. I never watched the show. I only found out the premise many years later, and went, "Man wut?"

Your post has me watching the series on youtube. :D I love Gerry Anderson's stuff, despite the crazy idea of the moon getting knocked out of orbit and carrying them to Space Adventures.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung

Ghostmaker

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #41 on: November 03, 2021, 06:50:12 AM »
I do feel for BCT though. Trying to watch 80's Transformers cartoons nowadays is kind of wince-worthy, except for a few notable ones.

A lot of 80's cartoons are wince. I loved Robotech, but I can't watch it nowadays. The inane, repeating dialog just drives me insane now.
Are we talking the original Macross, or the Robotech adaptation crapped out by Harmony Gold?

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #42 on: November 03, 2021, 07:58:41 AM »
I do feel for BCT though. Trying to watch 80's Transformers cartoons nowadays is kind of wince-worthy, except for a few notable ones.

A lot of 80's cartoons are wince. I loved Robotech, but I can't watch it nowadays. The inane, repeating dialog just drives me insane now.
Dude, do you like have a grudge or something? Did Starcraft steal your girlfriend?

Seriously, the last time I saw this much salt over a video game was this one fellow who was absolutely assblasted about Darkest Dungeon and couldn't shut the fuck up for five minutes about how it was a walking simulator.
Sorry. I used to love StarCraft as a kid because kids are stupid and can't critically evaluate fiction. As an adult, I came back to StarCraft, started evaluating it critically

That was your first mistake.

Quote
and grew disgusted and frustrated with the world building and writing. When I tried talking about this on the fan forums, around the time that SC2 LotV was in full swing, I got deeply burned by flame wars. I'm still healing.

And your second.

I say this not to mock, but to actually put it into perspective. Sometimes you outgrow the things you loved as a kid. You can either turn off your adult brain and enjoy them as a kid-at-heart again, or move on. I have my nerdy nitpicks that get me going on message forums, but they'll never be resolved.
Different stories age differently. I don’t feel the same way about other RTS franchises like Command & Conquer. There are many genuine children’s shows that I can watch and turn my brain off with. Or appreciate without turning my brain off.

And as I said, my problem is more that the fans who didn’t leave in disgust are idiots with shit taste who take criticism of the bad writing as a personal attack. Fuck those guys.

Ghostmaker

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #43 on: November 03, 2021, 09:15:06 AM »
Different stories age differently. I don’t feel the same way about other RTS franchises like Command & Conquer. There are many genuine children’s shows that I can watch and turn my brain off with. Or appreciate without turning my brain off.

And as I said, my problem is more that the fans who didn’t leave in disgust are idiots with shit taste who take criticism of the bad writing as a personal attack. Fuck those guys.
I think I'm in the middle. If I play SC I'm barely paying attention to the story, beyond 'who am I gonna swarm with my top-tier units next?'.

Hell, I have more fun making up my own stories in my head for games like Stellaris.

Ratman_tf

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Re: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Your Beloved franchise is dead.
« Reply #44 on: November 03, 2021, 12:29:18 PM »
I do feel for BCT though. Trying to watch 80's Transformers cartoons nowadays is kind of wince-worthy, except for a few notable ones.

A lot of 80's cartoons are wince. I loved Robotech, but I can't watch it nowadays. The inane, repeating dialog just drives me insane now.
Are we talking the original Macross, or the Robotech adaptation crapped out by Harmony Gold?

Is there a fan out there that hasn't been letured on the difference? :) Yes, I meant Robotech and not Macross.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung