I won’t tolerate the lincoln town car being used as the butt end of a joke. The previous generation lincoln town cars from 1990-1997 are some of the nicest sedans ever made. Super comfortable, good gas mileage (better than the newest generation that we all think of when we hear licoln towncar), extremely easy to replace and maintain mechanics (panther platform) and overall an absurdly comfortable car.
It is probably one of the most genuinely good American cars ever made and they are hilariously cheap (you can get them for <5 grand in good condition) because nobody really remembers them except old people.
American car companies broke the automotive unions and the quality went to shit, but the 1990-1997 run of town cars definitely represent a high water mark of American cars built by people that were truly proud of what they made (because they had some degree of decency ensured by the presence of unions). You can find one on craigslist and chances are everything except the air ride suspension (probs replaced by now with traditional spring suspension) probably still works even though it is a 30 year old vehicle selling for dirt cheap.
Fun fact, the tech bro who jadzia in DS9 convinces to help her in the episode that sisko becomes Bell of the Bell riots rode around in a jet black lincoln town car of this generation.
Awesome car, I almost bought one but went for a toyota sienna instead because minivans are the ultimate power form.
A bunch of people create the most OP way of travelling and barely use it, and don’t tell me that the ship is unique and Stamets is the only person in the universe in the following centuries to be able to use it, because that just doesn’t make any sense, it’s a cheap trick to justify why such an incredible technology has never been mentioned after, not even by a super villain that gives no crap about genetic augmentation.
That wasn’t really the reason, the reason wasn’t nobody else could figure it out or that nobody wanted to do it because it required genetic modification, the reason was that jumping on the mycelial network was actively killing it unless I am misremembering things which is in line with the rest of star trek’s ethos (how about the DS9 episode where they help the dominion destroy a trans warp gate for example? There are other technologies that are abandoned and hidden for the greater safety of the universe all over Star Trek, it can be really silly I agree but I don’t think discovery is unique here.
Stargate: like Star Trek except without any of the interesting ideas, there is a cool scene where the U.S. military bros hold up a sub machine gun and say how it is so cool compared to a lame alien staff weapon. Best moment in sci-fi to some people apparently. It’s fine, but it is an action hero show about war and it rarely even remotely approaches the thoughtfulness of the better Star Trek episodes. I like the characters, I have had fun watching it but Stargate can fade away into obscurity and shrug meh.
Battlestar Galactica: yawnnnnn sorry what oh yeah I fell asleep to the monotonous drone of grimdark, military space war scifi. I am sure it is good but again Star Trek is on a whole different level because of its broadness of vision, ideas, and focus on humanity.
Babylon 5: haven’t seen this one in ages, isn’t it another space war scifi?
Star Trek is great because somehow it managed to escape the fly trap that all sci-fi shows/books seem to go to of grimdark space war scifi where everyone is a miserable f^%k. I’m fine with grimdark space wars, I don’t want 100% of my sci-fi to be about grimdark space wars because then you have idiots like Elon Musk who grow up injecting this stuff directly into their veins and they develop an absolutely shockingly tiny worldview. If they had just read some damn fiction that actually challenged their perception of reality like Virginia Woolf or something…. well they probably still be a&$holes but maybe a tiny bit less?
Because bicycling is pleasant af, why walk when you can glide? Yeah, you can just teleport everywhere but that is kind of something you can say about everything in star trek.
I love when actors do this out of a genuine love for the potential of a character, star trek would be so much worse if it wasn’t for so many actors challenging the ethical and visionary failings of the script both through their acting and directly speaking up. It matters less that the script never ships bashir and garak (I thinkkk I haven’t finished though… hahaha) because the acting makes it true no matter what the narrative says on paper or what dialog happens between them.
It is always about what is implied by what we are being shown isn’t it? Especially if you don’t quitteeee take the words the actors are literally saying at face value as the only dimension of truth.
Nothing is more fitting for garak in a way, though that is more sad than anything because the show would have been richer with an openly queer garak.
It would be a matter of public health policy that people had some kind of access to a short, physical commute to whatever place they worked/spent their day at, right? That is at least how I rationalize why they just don’t teleport people everywhere. They COULD technically teleport everywhere all the time… but the mental and physical health consequences to not getting some kind of mild daily exercise like bicycling are too intense (also having some kind of short, stress free commute helps one get into the mindset of work anyways).
I imagine Riker rolling up to home on his bicycle. He swoops up to Troi on his danish commuter bicycle, and in a stupendously effortless fashion goes from bicycling to standing while barely shifting his body in a reverse Riker sit that draws your eyes into those sweet, high hips if only to admire their power and charisma (that is what you tell yourself). As Riker extends his kickstand with a supple cock of the foot he he looks at the camera, rings the bicycle bell and says “Daddy’s home” with a smile.
It will definitely be a meme in the future that post apocalyptic US movies from the late 20th and early 21st century always have a protagonist driving around some kind of badass exotic car (?!?) that probably gets horrendous gas mileage even if you could get the gas… There is no food, medicine, water or even much oil but everybody is still driving the coolest car they can.
Meanwhile, if you raided a run of the mill bike store you could outfit probably a hundred or more people with easy to repair transportation that could transport them 40 miles in a day if need be.
Idk, I hope those future memes make fun of us good at least.
(I give the newest mad max a pass on this though since the cars are purposefully over the top and lots of people have dirt bikes at least)
Interesting, I have heard the expanse is good and that it is more realistic scifi than most. Honestly the reason I haven’t watched it is that people only really seem to mention the fact that the space combat is realistic in the expanse and I just don’t give two flying sh$%s how realistic a scifi universe’s space wars are… I am watching star trek for a reason and that reason is that it isn’t myopically obsessed with war and gritty dark grim universes like 99% of the rest of scifi is sigh. I am fine with space wars, I am fine with grim or dark visions of the future to a certain extent but most scifi can’t ever seem to tell stories about literally anything else. Everything is just black mirror it feels like.
On the subject of black mirror though, I really want to see a black mirror parody episode where bicycles aren’t invented until the 2020s when a techbro invents the “segway 2.0” which is just a normal bicycle. Everyone becomes so addicted to this invention that it tears apart families, society and economies (no more cars being sold??? no oil being sold?? all the car plants close and the economy crashes). Kids overthrow society because they all get bicycles and become addicted to them first and no one can stop them because they are too fast…
Interesting, for me unless I am riding a road bike with a really heads down sitting posture, I find leisurely bicycling around to be a fantastic way to see explore a place and notice things (as long as the place is bike friendly… which in the US…). Far more than getting around by car.
I was doing some D&D world building a while back and wanted to really dive into transportation of people/goods and found the same problem. Tenser’s Floating Disk is a very low level wizard spell that basically does away with all but the heaviest ships and carts. It’s the same for the trek universe. They have personal transportation methods that mean there’s literally zero need for a bicycle for anything other than recreation.
I mean, its all just “magic” at a certain point, they could do everything with a transporter… but they dont so presumably there are reasons not to (even though the real reason is it is a tv show). I have never seen hovercarts used prominently in the live action shows, especially not as a vehicle.
I am so tired of sci-fi futuristic cities that just replicate a highway in the sky complete with crazy stressful traffic and all. It is kind of embarrassing how big of a flaw this is for sci-fi art when a fundamental aspect of the genre is the attempt to gaze far into real and unreal futures.