The Some Like It HOT TAKES thread

I came to this realization after a re-watch during lockdown. It might be the nerdiest opinion I have.

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

Grenn wrote:

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

I need to make it past season 1.

*Legion* wrote:
Grenn wrote:

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

I need to make it past season 1.

It really opens up after season 1, yes.

Weird fact: The guy who played Commander Sinclair was diagnosed with severe mental illness in the middle of filming season 1 and was having full on paranoid delusions the whole time. It's why he left the show and only comes back for a couple of episodes to tie up the loose ends of his character arc.

*Legion* wrote:
Grenn wrote:

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

I need to make it past season 1.

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If any show needed an update where they could put a ton into special effects, cut some garbage episodes, and in general get the Netflix treatment, this is that show.

Grenn wrote:

I came to this realization after a re-watch during lockdown. It might be the nerdiest opinion I have.

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

AMENDED HOT TAKE: If you're considering about halfway through season two (starting with "The Coming of Shadows") through the end of season four, you are correct. It's an amazing show with huge stakes, all sorts of great arc moments that really pay off, and so many phenomenal episodes. Messages from Earth - Point of No Return - Severed Dreams are just an insanely good three-episode run. Season one is really rough, but has enough nuggets that you can't really skip it, because it sets up so much Londo/G'Kar stuff alone. It's worth powering through, but that show really did take about a season and a half to really get moving, and then it's about the best 2.5 seasons of TV ever.

Spoiler:

WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT SEASON FIVE.

My last rewatch of B5, I cut straight to the end of Season 1, cherrypicked episodes of Season 2, then watched the entirety of Seasons 3 and 4.

*Legion* wrote:

Anti-disco sentiment was deeply rooted in bigotry.

It's not an accident that the kind of dance music that rock fans found especially objectionable was put forth and supported largely by minority and gay communities.

It's no accident that the expression of those objections - destroying disco records in bonfires - resembled Nazi book burnings.

It's no accident that albums from black artists that weren't disco in any way - Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, etc - also ended up in those burning record piles.

There's a reason "disco's dead" was perpetuated as a meme in a way few other musical styles which fell out of popularity were ever subject to. Disco didn't die of natural causes. Disco was hate crimed.

Some people take exception to this interpretation of events, claiming it a "woke" revisionist history. From what I've gathered, the gay and black people of Chicago who lived through Disco Demolition Night tend not to be part of that group.

Totally. The recent Bee Gees documentary on HBO drives this home in addition to being generally entertaining.

I have to admit, I haven't seen a ton of coverage of this fact. I'm actually reading a book on disco for this very reason ("Love Saves the Day"). I think I was just somewhat caught off guard, once I knew what to listen for, to hear it in Pink Floyd.

Rat Boy wrote:

My last rewatch of B5, I cut straight to the end of Season 1, cherrypicked episodes of Season 2, then watched the entirety of Seasons 3 and 4.

So, yeah, doesn't sound much like the best scifi show out there, but definitely sounds like it has higher highs.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Grenn wrote:

I came to this realization after a re-watch during lockdown. It might be the nerdiest opinion I have.

HOT TAKE: Babylon 5 is better than any version of Star Trek. DS9 included.

AMENDED HOT TAKE: If you're considering about halfway through season two (starting with "The Coming of Shadows") through the end of season four, you are correct. It's an amazing show with huge stakes, all sorts of great arc moments that really pay off, and so many phenomenal episodes. Messages from Earth - Point of No Return - Severed Dreams are just an insanely good three-episode run. Season one is really rough, but has enough nuggets that you can't really skip it, because it sets up so much Londo/G'Kar stuff alone. It's worth powering through, but that show really did take about a season and a half to really get moving, and then it's about the best 2.5 seasons of TV ever.

Spoiler:

WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT SEASON FIVE.

Agreed on all points. I will put the middle three seasons of B5 up against any three seasons of Trek. Taken in its totality, it's less clear-cut.

I'm talking B5 as a whole, warts and all. I enjoyed the whole thing, season 5 included, more than any Star Trek series as a whole. The highs were much higher, and the lows much lower. The production value was sh*t, the CG space scenes were PS1-level at best, and some of the acting was truly horrendous. That said, it had a much more compelling narrative, most of the characters were deep, and Starfury combat was unlike anything I'd ever seen. Star Trek has some truly amazing acting and writing, but I never want to do a binge watch. I just cherry pick the best episodes for an evening and move on afterwards. If I want a much more engaging long-form sci-fi story, it's B5 I run to (before The Expanse scratched that itch in recent years).

I enjoyed Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I thought Denis Villeneuve's visuals were fantastic in both. I have high hopes for Dune, but however it turns out, I know it's going to be pretty.

‘Dune’ Character Posters Have Us Hungry For Spice

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The IMAX trailer is supposed to drop later this week.

deftly wrote:

I enjoyed Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I thought Denis Villeneuve's visuals were fantastic in both.

As were they in Sicario.

Dune might actually get me back to a theater.

The "might" depends on the run time, doesn't it?

Seth wrote:

There's a pretty cool podcast called You're Wrong About that has an episode on Disco Demolition Night. They spend quite a bit of time drawing a very clear line in music progression from enslaved/indigenous music --> jazz/blues --> rock n roll --> disco --> edm that's quite convincing. Love him or hate him, most of Kanye's library is disco influenced, too.

Thanks for this link. I listened to this episode while working today and it was very interesting and entertaining. I also gave their episode about the Y2K Bug a go and enjoyed that too. I'll have to remember this podcast for times when I'm working but want something other than music playing.

Glad you like it! They also do several deep dives on maligned women of the 90s (Jessica Simpson, Anna Nichole Smith, Vanessa Williams, Amy Fisher, Shannon Faulkner, and others) that are all worth listening to.

Their coverage of the OJ Simpson murder is pretty riveting too, but it spans 6+ episodes so you’re looking at a pretty big time commitment.

The Amy Fisher story is interesting from a critical thinking standpoint. I’ve met people who are 100% convinced that she’s guilty and gotten away with murder and this is after they’ve seen the movie or read the book. So odd.

RawkGWJ wrote:

The Amy Fisher story is interesting from a critical thinking standpoint. I’ve met people who are 100% convinced that she’s guilty and gotten away with murder and this is after they’ve seen the movie or read the book. So odd.

I’m confused. Do people incorrectly think she killed Mary Jo Buttafuco? I mean, she still shot her in the head. I wouldn’t put her in the same ‘maligned’ list with any of those other women.

One of the things the podcast brings up is that Buttafuco has joked - joked - that he’d still be in jail for raping a child if he’d raped her a decade later, due to changes in laws that happened between when he raped her and now.

And yet everyone remembers her as the Long Island Lolita.

That guy was utter garbage. He got off way too easy.

PaladinTom wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

The Amy Fisher story is interesting from a critical thinking standpoint. I’ve met people who are 100% convinced that she’s guilty and gotten away with murder and this is after they’ve seen the movie or read the book. So odd.

I’m confused. Do people incorrectly think she killed Mary Jo Buttafuco? I mean, she still shot her in the head. I wouldn’t put her in the same ‘maligned’ list with any of those other women.

Oops. :embarrassed: I was confusing Fisher with the American college student Amanda Knox who in Italy was accused of satanic ritual murder.

Spoiler:

I was convinced that Knox was innocent as soon as I got to the part where the Italian police brutally beat a confession out of both her and her boyfriend.

Then was it tabloids that made this into an international event? Something like that. So people who were invested in the story through the tabloids still think she did it even though both her and her boyfriend were exonerated after spending years in prison.

For some reason there are people who still think she got away with murder.

I remember the whole Fisher business being a thing, but I have no clue what any of it was--my strongest memory is Andy Dick on NewsRadio dramatically pronouncing "Butafuco" correctly to prove he could.

SpacePProtean wrote:

I remember the whole Fisher business being a thing, but I have no clue what any of it was--my strongest memory is Andy Dick on NewsRadio dramatically pronouncing "Butafuco" correctly to prove he could.

She was a high school student (and a minor) who had an affair with a married man. She showed up at the man's house with a gun to confront his wife. During the confrontation she shot the wife in the head when she was allegedly pistol whipping her, but she claimed that the gun went off “accidentally.” The wife was left permanently paralyzed on one side of her face.

Amy Fisher was obviously no angel, but many people (me included) believe she was manipulated and encouraged to kill this woman by her husband - the piece of garbage Joey Buttafuco. He got off with only a statutory rape conviction when it should have been something akin to attempted murder.

Have never used this thread before, urged here from a comment I made in response to someone’s reference on another thread.

So here it is:

I can’t say that They Might Be Giants is the most boring very popular band ever, but only because I am nowhere close to having listened to songs of every very popular band.

Argument: Woody-Guthrie level compositions and technical ability, Weird-Al oddball lyrics, and a lead vocalist who shouldn’t have been allowed to escape his role as church choir soloist. All the songs of theirs I’ve heard—20 of them maybe?—are incredibly repetitive, melodically. Do they even change keys in the middle of any songs? Even if so, I don’t think I’ve noticed. And do they have any technically impressive solos of any kind? Some GWJers pointed out that their lyrics to some of their songs are geeky fascinating, to which I said oh, so their songs are for people who listen to and value lyrics, but then even that was challenged by folks like me who said they don’t listen to lyrics, but liked their songs anyway.

No real end to this other than to say, they’re the most not-for-me band maybe ever? Note: I love many Squirrel Nut Zippers songs, and listen to lots of 8-bit and video game covers, which I think gives me some modern-geek music familiarity.

*Legion* wrote:
deftly wrote:

I enjoyed Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I thought Denis Villeneuve's visuals were fantastic in both.

As were they in Sicario.

Is this a hot take? Sicario sucked. A lot.

It starts off great: FBI agent seems talented, gets recruited on some weird black-ops agency to do real work. But by the end

Spoiler:

it’s just another fantasy violence movie. Super agent John Wick Neo guy is able to kill the bad guys instantaneously with basically no help from the original heroin.

Well if you read it more closely, you'd see it was a statement on the visuals of the movie, not the quality of the entire film.

Keithustus wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
deftly wrote:

I enjoyed Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I thought Denis Villeneuve's visuals were fantastic in both.

As were they in Sicario.

Is this a hot take? Sicario sucked. A lot.

It starts off great: FBI agent seems talented, gets recruited on some weird black-ops agency to do real work. But by the end

Spoiler:

it’s just another fantasy violence movie. Super agent John Wick Neo guy is able to kill the bad guys instantaneously with basically no help from the original heroin.

That’s one of those movies I struggle with, because the claim is that the main characters are not heroes, but they’re sure portrayed as heroes. See also: “Wolf of Wall Street”.

Only some of They’s songs sound like folk. This one certainly doesn’t.

RawkGWJ wrote:

sound like folk. This one certainly doesn’t.

Is that a song? Sounds like a toy-commercial theme for 4-year olds, or written by 4-year-olds. The only thing not folk about it is the instrumentation. Well, that’s not true. Folk music has some kind of narrative or theme.

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I think we get it--you don't care for They Might Be Giants.