On 6/21/2017 at 5:55 AM, Gian-Reto said:

 

Well, I hated the force awakens... but that had nothing to do with the black storm trooper or the female wannabe jedi. Both of which are explainable now that I get that missing information from @deltaKshatriya that storm troopers are recruited by now. Didn't know that. Guess my Star-Wars-Fu is weak.

There are tons of female Jedis already present in the Star Wars universe... maybe not in the original trilogy, but even there there is no reason given why they shouldn't exist.

 

Force Awakens was a very, very poor attempt at creating a reboot-ish cashgrab from Disney. Its basically the original trilogy rolled into one new movie, and everything upped a notch. There are almost zero new ideas or interesting twists. And the amount of back references is way too high and poorly done, instead of becoming a fond throwback to the old movies its a focus test group created mass market crap clearly done by the numbers by people with little respect for star wars.

 

To me, the reason why this movie sucks has nothing to do with the push for diversity which had been started in the Star Wars Universe way, way earlier. It was actually already there in the first trilogy, given the aliens are treated pretty much the same to the humans (which do happen to be primarly white caucasian men besides leia, but aliens fill the role of other ethnicities in these movies).

Yea I was a certified Star Wars geek for a bit. Not so much these days. That's been replaced by 40k, but that, my friends, is a different story, for a different thread.

I wasn't much of a fan of the Force Awakens either. It did well primarily because there are a lot of people who weren't too into the original were suddenly like "OMG I get it now!". My biggest gripe was that it was basically A New Hope redone. I really liked Rogue One, by contrast. That movie was good imo.

On 6/21/2017 at 6:32 AM, Gian-Reto said:

To think how much better games could be if the AAA Studios still knew how to take a calculated risk... how great would the BF1 campaign would have been if DICE concentrated on creating the full campaign the way the first level was done, cut down on some of the more unhistorical crap they pulled (WW1 space marines, rocket launchers on WW1 planes), and instead given the player the ability to play through the FULL WW1 timeline with all the important conflicts covered, and all the various factions visited at least once? If the game played more like a documentary, with players really getting to play with all the different weapons because they couldn't just use the 1919 prototypes in the 1914 parts of the campaign... if players had to use true WW1 strategies to for example take down Zeppelins... which meant getting up close and personal with a plane so the crappy machine guns actually hit the proverbial barn door, or in dire situation even crash the plane into the zeppelin (which, thanks to the player not controlling one guy, but the inevitable death of the character being a planned part of the expierience, could be a winning strategy here).

Let's be fair though: how accurate is BF:1 in general? Most of the weapons in that game are not even remotely accurate imo. True, it shouldn't be a World War 1 game if it isn't accurate, but I just wanna throw that out there.

On 6/21/2017 at 6:32 AM, Gian-Reto said:

Now I think you CAN reverse those roles, don't get me wrong. You can have a badass warrior chick save the young boy. But its a different story, and needs different characters. You cannot just skin Joel as Ellie and the other way around and expect people to go all "yeah, makes sense". That game most probably wouldn't have won as many fans and awards for the inconsistent story alone.

And this is where I think guys like him go wrong. They view Characters as tokens you can just slot into a story and call it a day. IMO if that is true and works, its time to throw away that story and start from scratch. A characters attributes should matter to a story, the character should BE the story. You could ask for the game industry to write more stories around characters of different ethnicities, or female characters, or non straight characters. But they should get their own stories, not just be slotted into the place of default white dude.

Tbh, my opinion is that people are just lazy. Rather than go all the way, it's just easier to "flip the role" and use the same story, even if it looks weird. Problem is that people don't actually want to tell a story.

19 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Yea I was a certified Star Wars geek for a bit. Not so much these days. That's been replaced by 40k, but that, my friends, is a different story, for a different thread.

I wasn't much of a fan of the Force Awakens either. It did well primarily because there are a lot of people who weren't too into the original were suddenly like "OMG I get it now!". My biggest gripe was that it was basically A New Hope redone. I really liked Rogue One, by contrast. That movie was good imo.

Let's be fair though: how accurate is BF:1 in general? Most of the weapons in that game are not even remotely accurate imo. True, it shouldn't be a World War 1 game if it isn't accurate, but I just wanna throw that out there.

Tbh, my opinion is that people are just lazy. Rather than go all the way, it's just easier to "flip the role" and use the same story, even if it looks weird. Problem is that people don't actually want to tell a story.

Uh, I was a certified 40k geek in the 90's and for most of the noughties, but that has turned into a love/hate affair with some of the changes done lately, and with GW most probably wanting to go the WH Fantasy route with 40k also to rekindle interest ("the end times" BS and all), I guess only plastic sisters of battle can turn me around now.

But as you said, food for another thread.

Well, to be fair I haven't played BF1, all I have seen in videos didn't convince me this was the WW1 game I would wanna play. At least in the multiplayer it looked like CoD Modern Warfare: WW1 Skin edition. Everyone running around with semi- or even fullauto weapons in a war were semi-autos were rare and fullautos either stationary or full of teething problems... no, just no.

No WW1 Soldier in their right mind would pick a Chauchat constantly getting its magazin full of dirt, a heavy and cumbersom BAR (which only became a thing very late in the war), or a very short ranged submachine gun over the tried and true repeating rifle that actually just have become a thing decades earlier.

I mean, soldiers were just about warming up to the idea that faster fire = more firepower, and that faster fire > more accurate fire. See the silly try to overwhelm machine gun nests with numbers.

So agreed, BF1 is in my book too a failed attempt at recreating a WW1 setting. Looks good. Seemed to amuse hard core shooter fans for a while. Didn't ever amuse history buffs just as much.

But as said, the opening level was a highly interesting idea. Sadly in a game that failed to meet any kind of historical accuray elsewhere, you see the best and most probably only real way to make a REALISTIC war story campaign, without resorting to cinematic BS like CoD always did (the playr character that survives the war because luck? fate? to imba?). I hope this idea doesn't get thrown away when DICE does make the next BF game, and other war shooter pick up on it.

Done well, over a full campaign, and backed up by more historical accuray in gameplay and gear, it could be so much more than just entertainment for shooter fans.

I guess if ANYTHING is an indicator that we DO need more game devs of different genders and ethnicities, its the way these characters and stories get treated by white male game devs... they rarely seem to hit the happy middle ground.

I have seen studies were women felt that while they were treated well in some male dominated fangroups, they were treated TOO well for their liking, again turning into a polar opposite form of sexism. Put on a pedestal when all they wanted was to be treated as everyone else in the room.

I feel like this is what happened with the GDC panel I linked in my last post. Obviously the guy has best intentions. But IMO overshoots the target by a wide margin.

The laziness then adds on top of that. BECAUSE while I still think you CAN write a story from someone elses perspective if you try hard enough (see for example Tolstoi), its never easy... you can no longer just write from your own life, you have to research other peoples lifes, which means time and energy to invest.

On 2017-06-21 at 6:32 AM, Gian-Reto said:

default white dude

Found the bug.

The term DIEversity comes to mind when this whole diversity horses@#% is forced upon certain industries and franchises.  Because when you brute force it, the result is not a genuine one if you ask me.  More like an obligation.

Btw, I'm black and I just don't care anymore.  Hollywood movies suck royally these days and are often filled with political agendas and social conditioning garbage if you ask me.  Not saying movies didn't before, but at least 20+ years ago, movies were actually featuring some level of originality.

Shogun

9 hours ago, blueshogun96 said:

The term DIEversity comes to mind when this whole diversity horses@#% is forced upon certain industries and franchises.  Because when you brute force it, the result is not a genuine one if you ask me.  More like an obligation.

Btw, I'm black and I just don't care anymore.  Hollywood movies suck royally these days and are often filled with political agendas and social conditioning garbage if you ask me.  Not saying movies didn't before, but at least 20+ years ago, movies were actually featuring some level of originality.

Shogun

When the movie tries to ask a philosophical question, ponder a political system or some historical fact in an intelligent way, you know, without trying to hammer propaganda pieces into your brain, I think we all can appreciate it, no matter if we tend to the liberal or conservative side... because if done well, the movie is merely asking questions, or trying to get the viewer to think about certain things. A 1984 doesn't tell you a police state is bad, or "don't vote <insert party name here>"... it just shows were things could lead if left unchecked. Which, if we are honest, has nothing to do with left or rightwing politics, but with totalitarian systems. Which can come out of both left and rightwing extremism.

The whole story wouldn't be nearly as good if it then turned around and pointed fingers.

I think Brute Forcing is a very good term. Its what story writing, or any kind of creative thinking got replaced with in many creative industries today. And its not only that the creators are getting lazy, they also often assume their audience to be lazy... too lazy to think, to lazy or stupid to get an implied meaning. And too lazy to come to conclusions themselves. Lets not risk that somebody could miss our totally cool point we are trying to make here... lets make it obvious and spell out what the consequences are.

I don't really care one way or the other if something's diverse, but as others have said, I find it extremely off-putting when it's rammed down our throats in any media just for publicity (New ghostbusters/mad max etc).

21 hours ago, conquestor3 said:

I don't really care one way or the other if something's diverse, but as others have said, I find it extremely off-putting when it's rammed down our throats in any media just for publicity (New ghostbusters/mad max etc).

Honest question: in what way is Mad Max pandering to the diversity-fanboys? Because of the female lead character? Didn't mind her, really. Not the best acting, but then the whole movie wasn't the best.... anything besides the pyrotechnics.

New Ghostbusters -> *puke*... swapping out the cast of a beloved classic without any respect for the lore, that is always going great. Even without the gender bender cast, that would have bombed. Even if it was still 3 white and one black dudes it would have bombed if suddenly everyone had a different backstory.

But no, its mysagonists that badmouthed the movie, sure. Explain all the other non-gender-bender reboots that get totally hated by the existing fanbase. A reboot has to be done VERY carefully or you piss off the existing fanbase, end of story.

As to the guys that say that the girl cast WAS the problem... really? You think that garbage movie would have been any better with a male crew? The movie was a cheaply done reboot, the script was most probably scribbled on a napkin in an evening. This movie would have sucked anyway. The gender bender cast just added insult to injury, really, IMO.

On 6/25/2017 at 4:03 AM, Gian-Reto said:

Honest question: in what way is Mad Max pandering to the diversity-fanboys? Because of the female lead character? Didn't mind her, really. Not the best acting, but then the whole movie wasn't the best.... anything besides the pyrotechnics.

Because Mad Max was such a great iconic character, and they reduced him to a useless/weak person just to push their new lead.

It just felt like they were stuck with a shitty script, and decided to throw in a new character for some controversy (Exactly like how the new ghost busters felt too. Then because they had a new character they wanted to fill out, they had her do all the bad ass stuff mad max was supposed to do, which left him doing nothing.

1 hour ago, conquestor3 said:

Because Mad Max was such a great iconic character, and they reduced him to a useless/weak person just to push their new lead.

 

It just felt like they were stuck with a shitty script, and decided to throw in a new character for some controversy (Exactly like how the new ghost busters felt too. Then because they had a new character they wanted to fill out, they had her do all the bad ass stuff mad max was supposed to do, which left him doing nothing.

Mmmh, that ain't how I perceived the new Mad Max... true, it was no longer Max vs. the world, but then in both Mad Max 2 and 3 Max had help in some form or another. True, this time Max didn't get so much screen time like he still did in Mad Max 3...

But I felt when he finally got his spotlight, he was still the Badass he has ever been. Being abused as Bloodbag for the bad guys at first just gives him so much more justification to headbutt all of these pale suckers to death with the viewer feeling he does the right thing.

That the truck driver was a woman... well, MEEEEH. She also doesn't get to be the badass 100% of the time, often getting either saved by Max, or the weirdo that turns side in the end. If anyone is a badass in the movie, its that weirdo actually, who in the end takes one for the team while the others escape.

If anything, its just "bad script X those focus group suckers like their movies big and loud"... the whole thing looked more 40k / GorkaMorka with the space orks replaced with some weird human looking aliens that where tough as the space orks, and with even less manners than those.

Everything looked like they have taken some 40k models, looked what made them attractive to 12 year olds, and copied that. The "you like fast cars, so we put a fast car on your fast car so you go fasta while you go fasta" approach so to speak.

You could say its the weird Warhammer Fantasy Orcs -> World Of Warcraft Orcs -> Warhammer Fantasy Orcs feedback loop, just this time Mad Max -> 40k Orks -> Mad Max. With the original copying the copy.

I love 40k Orks, I love the loud'n'big approach to the design, and yeah, I really digged the visual design of the new movie. Even though it wasn't really Mad Max anymore. But the script was just... bad. The story had nice ideas, but the execution was "by the numbers". It felt like the story was a bad excuse for all the racing and shooting and gore.

Now I understand that people expected the movie to be more about Max. And yeah, I understand some people jumping to conclusions when one of the persons taking part of the spotlight of Max away being a woman.

But to me, that is the least of the problem this Movie has. Give it a better story, make ANY of the person in the movie (besides the weirdo) have any place in the story (Max and the Trucker Lady are not really fitting in the story), and I know I wouldn't complain about the movie at all.

It wasn't diversity that ruined that movie IMO. It was a bad script and lacking story.

Would see things differently if Max didn't get to kick some superhero level amount of ass in the end while the Trucker lady did so, or Max himself would have turned into a woman Ghostbusters style. In this case that would have killed the movie for me too, no matter how good or bad the story was. Then I would agree that diversity killed that movie.

You can 'get past' a female jedi?  Oh gee, how enlightened of you...  I think your sexism is showing.  Even the OT hinted at Leia having force powers, and being the last hope if Luke failed.

The multiplayer portion of a CoD game doesn't need to be historical, and it's really not going to be, nor should it, so it's a little weird to enforce the, "No women or people of color" rules.  Yes, I'm sure it will drive the weeaboos insane.  I guess they could do something even sillier like with the America's Army games, where everyone always plays the 'good guys', and all the opponents always look like the 'bad guys'  (AKA everyone who is not on your team looks like a Nazi) Though to be honest, I find that disturbing too.  Though a more practical option, would be a way to disable all player customizations -- which might be kind of nice anyway, since i find games where everyone gets to wear an entirely different hat / outfit / painted guns, the games look really garish.

If they wanted to have a historical campaign (SP or MP), and do it from a different and accurate perspective, that'd I'd be all for.  Maybe someone of color from the australian or indian regiments in North Africa, one of the actual famous russian women (yes those are three separate links)