Critical Miss: #35

[Greenshoes]

Sweet tattoo.

 

[Dora]

I was going to make a big rant about how wrong that is, but then I remembered my standards for "driest, most boring reading" are skewed. I read books like "Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality" on the subway.

So yes, Dune is not the most gripping, edge-of-your-seat work by any means. It also has some of the best sci-fi ideas ever.

Oh, I'm sure it's absolutely brilliant. Millions of fans and my husband can't be wrong. But even he admits they're not exactly rip-roaring. I can't help it. Within the first few pages my mind starts to wander. "And now he's putting his hand in the box... and now everyone's talking some more... hey, what kind of name is 'Gilligan'?"

Admittedly I'm not much for sci-fi. I'm an armchair fan for most stuff. I liked the movie alright though. I guess. I mean, I don't remember much of it. I may have fallen asleep. I'm just a simple lass, I guess.

 

[Firia]

I've seen Star Wars, and I never understood the referanse this alien shooting first. I know who it is, and what scene it referances, but beyond that, the whole "Greedo shot first" thing leaves me puzzled.

 

[unacomn]

I have seen Star Wars many times, and I don't recall what a Geedo is, or if it shoots first.
Was that one of the umpa lumpas at the end?

obvious troll is obvious

I'm actually not kidding about the Greedo thing. Without looking it up on Google, I don't recall that character/thing. Also, the Ewoks are sort of the umpa lumpas of the Star Wars movies, they're small, helpful and have a fondness for singing and dancing.
I still can't figure how those things were so potent against the armed forces of the Galactic Empire. The rumors must be true, they are descended from Kyle Katarn's beard shavings.
Regardless, I apologize for appearing to be a troll. I am and forever shall be a grunt.

 

[The Wooster]

Ah, but WHICH Dune, one might ask?

The most important one.

(I take this to mean the one with Patrick Stewart and Sting.)

Sting and his badass winged y-fronts.

 

[SultanP]

I wrote hade instead of had

There is an edit button, you know.

OT: I do catch myself looking at people like they soiled themselves if they haven't seen Star Wars, or Aliens. It's just some of the movies you have to have seen. Not only because they are good movies, but because they are so embedded in western culture that references to them are peppered throughout any kind of media, and not even being able to catch the most common references is a damned shame.

 

[Loonerinoes]

If you want to talk about Star Wars or any such 'must see' work of fiction, sure...you'd better have seen it first. But if someone just genuinely doesn't want to talk about it or hasn't even seen it, then why the heck are you so upset about it that you have to go ad hominem on their ass? Okay...doing it in a jokey sort of way is fine, but genuine resentment? Heh...alright, then you need some help.

I mean...I understand it if people start going around saying "Warhammer ripped WoW off" or such, those people really do need to have their ignorance pointed out to them. But even there I couldn't give a shit about which came first to be honest. It's like the whole "Every modern high fantasy fiction is always 100% plagiatist of Tolkien!" thing - stop moaning about it, because the similarities are so retartedly pointless by now that it's not even worth mentioning as anyone, who's done their research, can tell the difference between "inspired" and "plagiarism." Or are we going to go down the road of Tolkien being a plagiatist of the old norse mythologies?...who were plagiazing the elements of nature?...who were plagiazing the whole goddamn universe?

Honestly I sometimes find the elitists, who even bash the uninformed that don't want to talk about their popular idols of worship, as moreso obnoxious than the ignoramuses. So yes...I know who these people are in this comic really. Two of them in fact. Those who want to slag off things based on uninformed opinions, that come from not having examined the 'must-have' works as well as those who just slag off any who hasn't seen them, even when they'd just genuinely had other stuff in their lives than freaking Star Wars.

It's popular, sure, but come the hell on! When elitists automatically think that advertising push and lightsabers and shit have to equal every human being on the planet knowing about it, they're only fooling themselves really. It's symptomatic of the whole myopic Western culture I think, that likes to imagine how it dominates the world now and that everyone must bow down to it. Sure, it's best known...but dominate the world? Heh...not by a longshot I think.

 

[Seydaman]

I used to be like that whenever anyone said they like RPGs and never played a FF game, the sixth being the latest installment at the time.

RPGs=/=JRPGs
I can't recall role playing in FF10

 

[The Wooster]

If you want to talk about Star Wars or any such 'must see' work of fiction, sure...you'd better have seen it first. But if someone just genuinely doesn't want to talk about it or hasn't even seen it, then why the heck are you so upset about it that you have to go ad hominem on their ass? Okay...doing it in a jokey sort of way is fine, but genuine resentment? Heh...alright, then you need some help.

I mean...I understand it if people start going around saying "Warhammer ripped WoW off" or such, those people really do need to have their ignorance pointed out to them. But even there I couldn't give a shit about which came first to be honest. It's like the whole "Every modern high fantasy fiction is always 100% plagiatist of Tolkien!" thing - stop moaning about it, because the similarities are so retartedly pointless by now that it's not even worth mentioning as anyone, who's done their research, can tell the difference between "inspired" and "plagiarism." Or are we going to go down the road of Tolkien being a plagiatist of the old norse mythologies?...who were plagiazing the elements of nature?...who were plagiazing the whole goddamn universe?

Honestly I sometimes find the elitists, who even bash the uninformed that don't want to talk about their popular idols of worship, as moreso obnoxious than the ignoramuses. So yes...I know who these people are in this comic really. Two of them in fact. Those who want to slag off things based on uninformed opinions, that come from not having examined the 'must-have' works as well as those who just slag off any who hasn't seen them, even when they'd just genuinely had other stuff in their lives than freaking Star Wars.

It's popular, sure, but come the hell on! When elitists automatically think that advertising push and lightsabers and shit have to equal every human being on the planet knowing about it, they're only fooling themselves really. It's symptomatic of the whole myopic Western culture I think, that likes to imagine how it dominates the world now and that everyone must bow down to it. Sure, it's best known...but dominate the world? Heh...not by a longshot I think.

What you have to remember is that Clutch is a video games journalist. Video games are tied into nerd culture. Western nerd culture is tied into Star Wars. That's not a myopic view. It's a legitimate assessment. Clutch not having seen Star Wars (and then lying about it) isn't acceptable in his particular social circle and it's certainly a weakness when it comes to his profession.

Erin not liking people who haven't seen Dune on the other hand is a little bit extreme. She's not supposed to be always right.

One of the reasons I like working with Cory is that he's the polar opposite of me when it comes to these things. He hasn't seen the majority of the films I consider sacred and is completely nonplussed when I force him to watch them.

 

[Boba Frag]

Greedo was too damn slow to shoot first...

Anyway- Never saw Dune, and after looking at that clip of Sting getting his "in the mood" face on, I'm sort of glad

Heard the book was unreal (cool) so I might give that a shot.

I broke my heart trying to get a mate of mine into Star Wars- he just... he just didn't get it.
:-/

I... I failed him...

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Dune isn't a must-see movie. It's a must-read book.

Agreed. The movie was abysmal.

Even the action scenes were terrible! How do you mess them up that much! Damn it...

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

So I guess I'll nail this on the head. I never saw anything of Star Wars, much less do I want anything to do with the series. When things get hyped up so much by the fans, I despise it. There's a lot of things that fall into this category, most recently Scott Pilgrim. Although I did see LOTR when it came out, and think they're good movies, but not "must-see".

Hell the movies in my "must-see" list would have people going "What?"
1. Neverending Story
2. Pagemaster

That's the entirety of my list.

THE PAGEMASTER IS F***ING AWESOME!! <3

I can sometimes be that guy thats not in the loop, but normally, if I find what my friends are talking about interesting, I look it up and watch/play/listen to it.

(Also I can be the other guy to sometimes as well. (Especially if I hear people calling themselves gamers, and then say they only play MW2, and that its the best game ever
(RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAGE!RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEE!!!!)))

 

[kotorfan04]

Hmm for some reason I am disliking Star Wars being compared to Star Trek and Stargate. Not saying Star Wars is better than Trek, it just doesn't seem like Star Wars is sci-fi. It doesn't really look into the unknown or explore the moral or ethical ramifications of man playing God or talk about the dangers and pros of a new Technology. It had people running around in space ships blowing things up and being awesome. So yeah Star Wars, not sci-fi in my book, Star Trek was and I can't comment on Stargate, but yeah please don't flame me too much, there is more that I want to say but I am sick and can't focus so.

 

[The Wooster]

Hmm for some reason I am disliking Star Wars being compared to Star Trek and Stargate. Not saying Star Wars is better than Trek, it just doesn't seem like Star Wars is sci-fi. It doesn't really look into the unknown or explore the moral or ethical ramifications of man playing God or talk about the dangers and pros of a new Technology. It had people running around in space ships blowing things up and being awesome. So yeah Star Wars, not sci-fi in my book, Star Trek was and I can't comment on Stargate, but yeah please don't flame me too much, there is more that I want to say but I am sick and can't focus so.

Sci fi doesn't really have to do anything of those things. In fact I'd rather they didn't if they're blatantly hitting the usual sci-fi-points-of-interest like Stargate did.

 

[kotorfan04]

First of all I didn't like Stargate, could never get into it, but I LOVED Star Wars, it basically was at least half my childhood, so please understand I am not insulting Star Wars at all, just being an annoying quibler and disputing it being categorized as Sci-Fi. It had Sci-Fi trappings like lasers and spaceships and all but to me it still feels like a reskinned (and awesome) fantasy story. We have our wizards, the soulless empire, the great evil, and of course the farmboy going on a quest of self-discovery and becoming the great hero. The heart of Star Wars to me at least is a fantasy story with some sci-fi trappings thrown on. Yes it adds a nice bit of spice that seperates it from the standard fantasy fare, but I find that it has way more in common with Lord of the Rings than Metropolis or Blade Runner or Inception.

Second of all my thoughts on Dune were it was a bit hard to get into but rewarding as hell if you manage to slug through the book. Movie struck me as weird campy and hilarious.

Finally I loved the comic and almost laughed myself to death.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Bad news crew.

We are all getting older and the must see/read/listen to/know about stuff that was omnipresent during our youth is getting less and less relevant to modern culture.

The discussion in Clerks 2 about Star Wars vs LotR is a great example.

 

[The Wooster]

First of all I didn't like Stargate, could never get into it, but I LOVED Star Wars, it basically was at least half my childhood, so please understand I am not insulting Star Wars at all, just being an annoying quibler and disputing it being categorized as Sci-Fi. It had Sci-Fi trappings like lasers and spaceships and all but to me it still feels like a reskinned (and awesome) fantasy story. We have our wizards, the soulless empire, the great evil, and of course the farmboy going on a quest of self-discovery and becoming the great hero. The heart of Star Wars to me at least is a fantasy story with some sci-fi trappings thrown on. Yes it adds a nice bit of spice that seperates it from the standard fantasy fare, but I find that it has way more in common with Lord of the Rings than Metropolis or Blade Runner or Inception.

Second of all my thoughts on Dune were it was a bit hard to get into but rewarding as hell if you manage to slug through the book. Movie struck me as weird campy and hilarious.

Finally I loved the comic and almost laughed myself to death.

Oh yeah I agree with you there. Star Wars is basically a WW2 movie in space.

I was disagreeing with this part.

It doesn't really look into the unknown or explore the moral or ethical ramifications of man playing God or talk about the dangers and pros of a new Technology.

While some (excellent) sci fi is all about the introspection there's a lot of excellent work that's just telling a story for it's own sake. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson stands out as one.

 

[kotorfan04]

While some (excellent) sci fi is all about the introspection there's a lot of excellent work that's just telling a story for it's own sake. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson stands out as one.

Alright, I will admit that I have never read Snow Crash or even really heard of Neil Stephenson before today. (My nerd cred just took a huge hit.) And I suppose I will do some nifty backtracking by saying that my list was composed on the fly so I guess it isn't completely inclusive and it was also my fault for not coming up with a standard definition of what makes something or another sci-fi before the debate started. So apologies for the confusion, my only issue was with Star Wars being lumped in with all the other sci-finess, so I am bad at wrapping things up so I think I am just going to pass out on my bed for a few hours.

 

[ninjajoeman]

I have seen Star Wars many times, and I don't recall what a Geedo is, or if it shoots first.
Was that one of the umpa lumpas at the end?

obvious troll is obvious

I think hes talking about the ewoks

 

[Sodoff]

Favorite strip of the entire series!

Instant bookmark.

Im going to share this with all my friends.