Re: "Starship Operators" disk 1: tech review

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In article <5mmvv1572i1m9t2h8fq9jutmrdbn1g8vko@xxxxxxx>, Phillip Thorne
<thorne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My assessment based on episodes 1-4: Sober storytelling, decent space
combat, poor worldbuilding otherwise.

Note: hardly a gushing thumbs-up. :)

Yeah, but my complaints weren't with the worldbuilding--actually, I don't
know what you meant by "worldbuilding."

My complaints are about how it looked. Kinda ugly. First rule of sci-fi is
that the spaceships should look cool.


But, hey, that's a key advantage of Netflix -- you can take a chance
on a title and if it's not to your liking, you're out, what, $1.00?
Depending on your rental plan and how many disks per month over which
you amortize it.

Yep. Netflix is great that way. I got it primarily to watch TV shows that
my Hollywood Video did not carry. No way that I would buy all those shows,
but I could save money by going the Netflix route. The big problem,
however, is finding enough time to watch stuff and return it fast, in order
to make it pay for me.


"The rest?" There's only one other available through Netflix (#2),
and it's not released until 7 March. (The Geneon site lists #3.)

Really? When I put it in my queue, it listed something like four disks.
After watching part of the first one (and skimming through the other
episodes), I returned it and canceled the rest.


The thing about the blackness of space is, y'see, it's *black*. :)
Not nearly as many emission nebulas as "Babylon 5" for a ship to splay
itself against, or cloaked spotlight-ships flying alongside. What,
you didn't get enough views of it in the opening credits?

I'd like to actually _see_ it in the show.


weren't any smaller ships alongside for comparison. OTOH, none of the
Treks gave us onscreen measurements, either.

The Treks, however, had windows. That provides some scale--you realize that
they are as tall as buildings, but not miles long.


Checking the credits, the ship designer also did "Gundam SEED" and the
_Amaterasu_ shares a family resemblance with the _Archangel_,
including the gigantic snout and the vertical fins.

You did note that the standard route that anime is taking is to do the
characters as cell animation and the spaceships as CGI. This is a good
compromise, I think. They do it with airplane animes too.

For instance, Yukikaze has all the planes done as CGI. The story is
virtually incomprehensible, but the air to air battle scenes look really
cool. However, I recently rented Area 88, about mercenary pilots fighting
for a country in the African desert. The battle scenes look lousy. Any
scene where they have to move a three dimensional object in three dimensions
quickly looks totally unconvincing. It's like having a flat paper drawing
of an airplane that you fly in front of you--it never looks real.


Nit: there's a difference between animation and character design.
I.e. a good design can be animated poorly.

Eh, this wasn't character design, it was costume design. And that's still
drawing.


OTOH, if you want to see unattractive character designs, see Gonzo's
"Yukikaze." Not intentionally *ugly* like e.g. Spumco ("Ren &
Stimpy," "Rippin' Friends") but the proportions and lines are just
enough off... and the noses appear too close to the mouths. They're
not happy characters, and they look it.

Will have to look at that one again. I really wondered what the heck was
wrong with the story, because it seemed to expect the viewer to simply
comprehend what was happening without ever giving us a clue. Okay, the
moody pilot (the Japanese have an obsession with sullen 20-something males,
don't they?) is in love with his airplane. Why?

And it was yet another example of the story where the fate of humanity rests
in the hands of a bunch of misfits, BY DESIGN! (See Stratos 4 as another
example.) Since when would a military unit deliberately recruit losers and
stoneheads to perform the most important job in the world?


I'm trying to recall if they were properly in visible, or if they gave
an explanation about not seeing them coming.

Not invisible. They had a character explain that they couldn't see them
before they hit, because they traveled at the speed of light.




D


.

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