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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly not, IMO. There are a few countries that have laws and/or media regulations that restrict or outright prohibit the depiction or use of certain national flags in media, but the US flag is not typically one of them. Especially not in the countries where an American-made series like Star Trek is aired or streamed. There wouldn't really be any other reason to go to the expense and trouble to change the flag in the scene except to avoid a Top Gun: Maverick-type situation. Multiple prior episodes of Star Trek incl. TNG's "The Royale" and VOY's "One Small Step" had already pretty well established that the Americans led the rush to other planets and into extrasolar space too.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Which serves to illustrate how thoroughly the studio missed the point back then. Asking how the military would deal with a (non-supernatural) horror movie monster is a fundamentally tension-destroying premise. Would the likes of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Leatherface be able to generate any real tension or fear if they were up against a platoon of heavily armed infantry instead of a bunch of teenagers and camp counselors? No, they wouldn't. If everyone's got guns and your monster ain't bulletproof, then your monster's not scary anymore. If you try to make it scary again by having a ton of them, all you've done is make your monster into just a dangerous animal and that's just not as scary. 😆 My friend, note that I'm holding Isolation up as the exception that tests the rule there... as the one time the people working on it understood the assignment instead of mindlessly indulging in fanservice like Alien: Earth, Alien: Romulus, etc.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Honestly, I'd even skip Aliens. It was a pretty good or even great action movie but it was a pretty miserable follow-up to the excellent horror movie that was the original Alien. IMO, the only writing team thus far to actually understand the assignment when it came to writing an Alien sequel was Dan Abnett, Dion Lay, and Will Porter. What they understood that James Cameron and every other writer working on sequels failed to grasp is that what makes the Xenomorph work as a horror movie monster is the paranoia it evokes. Like the shark in Jaws, what makes the Xenomorph in Alien scary is NOT being able to see it. They know it's out there. They know it's hunting them. They know that It Can Think. But they don't know where it is until it's too late and the monster is ready to strike. Having the audience know where the monster is because it's constantly mugging for the camera robs it of most of its ability to scare. Combine that with being able to Just Shoot It and the threat it represents is diminished all the way to the level of "just a dangerous animal" like a tiger or bear that escaped from the zoo. Can you honestly say the Xenomorph's scariness and ability to intimidate didn't take another gigantic L when we saw a single guy tase it unconscious and bag it like a ten point buck in deer season? Throw Expanded Universe material into the works and pretty much anything is on the table due to wildly inconsistent presentation over decades of material of varying quality.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    So... it's behaving like the xenomorph from Alien 3, Alien: Covenant, and Alien: Romulus then? Starting episode two... Alien: Earth is so incredibly determined to show off the various gory demises suffered by the Maginot's crew when the ship's menagerie of monsters escaped that it's failing to build any kind of tension. It was at this point that my internet connection went out... as if my modem were desperate to protect me from the remainder of Noah Hawley's inept assault on science fiction. Is Noah Hawley is a first year film student? Seriously asking. This is some dogsh*t-tier writing even by Alien's low standards. It is, in a way, terribly impressive that Alien: Earth is a horror series that has managed to make me this phenomenally bored. I can honestly say this is less engaging television than some of the episodes of Paw Patrol or Blues Clues I've put on while babysitting my nieces and nephews. OK, where was this technology at any point in the rest of the franchise when it would have been insanely f***ing useful? Was it really necessary to bore the already bored audience further with American baseball reruns? Will we get to watch Hermit enjoy some footage of paint drying next? What I'll say for this one is that it's really, hilariously ironic that they chose "Stinkfist" by Tool for the closing credits. One of the first lines in the song is: Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear This series thus far is a phenomenally dull D- by-the-numbers monster horror flick that feels like it was written by a first-year film student who just discovered what "symbolism" is and thinks he's being incredibly clever. The writing is so unbearably tedious and cliched that it destroys any chance of building tension or suspense. Alien: Earth feels like a middle school class's haunted house. It's all dark hallways, strobe lights, and fog machines. The monster can't scare or even properly startle you because it's apparently so deeply insecure it has to keep reminding the audience that it's there in the first place. If the alien gets any more desperate for attention, I'm going to expect it to start tiptoeing shyly out of the woodwork with blush stickers on and speaking in an "uwu" voice to ask senpai to notice it. Did they poach these writers from Capcom or something?
  5. Seto Kaiba
    My weekly watch group is going back through Tenchi Muyo!'s OVA timeline, since most of our group hasn't seen OVA 4, OVA 5, or Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari. We just finished OVA 2 last night, and having translated a bunch of Kajishima's doujins and infobooks about the setting it's extra-freaking weird watching it knowing how all the charactes are related and how many tie-ins there are to Dual!, Photon: the Idiot Adventures, and Spaceship Agga Ruter. The Summer '25 simulcast season really is just a steaming turd. So far, I've dropped: The Water Magician I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability New Saga (Dishonorable mention for being the most generic f***ing thing I've ever seen.) Welcome to the Outcast Restaurant Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra Scooped Up by an S-Rank Adventurer Lord of Mysteries Onmyo Kaiten Re:Birth Verse (Dishonorable mention for being a shameless f***ing ripoff of Re:Zero) Private Tutor to the Duke's Daughter (The worst case of "sameface" this side of Gundam SEED and it feels like the creator belongs on a government watchlist over their prurient interest in tweens.) The Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses Solo Camping for Two (I cannot imagine a worse attempt at a romance plot outside of a Hallmark movie.) Detectives These Days Are Crazy! (Because "comedy" is more than just making funny faces at the viewer several times an episode.) Hotel Inhumans Turkey! Time to Strike That's a new frigging record, by an enormous margin. Crunchyroll's simulcast season page is starting to feel like the front page of the Nintendo eShop. All shovelware all the time. The bar was already low thanks to the overabundance of isekai, but it seems like these studios are holding a ****ing limbo contest. I refuse to even start The Rising of the Shield Hero season 4 because I know it's set past the point where the light novel completely jumped the shark. Dandadan has gone from being fairly interesting to fairly dull as the cast continues to grow with more and more "quirky" characters being added. I'm kind of just showing up for Secrets of the Silent Witch, Ruri Rocks, and Betrothed to My Sister's Ex at this point.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Finally sitting down to watch this one myself... Really going hard on the thematic callbacks in this opening eh? I know Alien is pretty much a creatively dead property coasting on nostalgia and nothing else, but c'mon... at least put in a token effort to do something different. OK, suspension of disbelief is punctured worse than most xenomorph victims at this point. The idea that there is no traffic on the streets at all at midday in future Bangkok is absolutely laughable. Possibly the most unbelievable thing yet. For how absurdly little damage the crash does, I am still going to say "Bangkok without traffic" remains the least realistic thing in the show so far. Anyone else think Neverland looks like ****ing Jurassic Park when they take off? This is a huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to Alien sequels and spinoffs. The original Alien movie was as scary as it was because the crew of the Nostromo were professionals who did (almost) everything right and still got killed by the xenomorph. Every subsequent title in the franchise has seen a sharp decline in protagonist self-preservation instincts to or below standard horror movie levels such that by Prometheus and Covenant you'd swear the humans WANT to get eaten. When it comes to the first episode, I have to say I am not impressed. Bemused, certainly. Even a little disappointed. Is there a story here worth telling, or are they just jerking off like Fede Alvarez was in Romulus?
  7. Seto Kaiba
    "Practically everyone dies" is pretty much the default/only Alien story ending. They all get there sooner or later... the only question is how.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Possible, but unlikely IMO. Aside from the blatant creator provincialism on display the reveal of the ship's origins has little-to-nothing to do with the actual story or its Aesop. The focus of the episode's conclusion isn't the scavengers, it's what James T. Kirk learns about the weight of responsibility that comes with being in command in his first outing in the big chair. The scavengers really could have been anybody and it wouldn't have mattered much in the end. What's far more likely to provoke discussion is that this goofy ****ing thing looks right out of Warhammer 40,000.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" Jeez, the lens flares in this are bad. There's one shot where you can barely see the captain because a (pulsing) spotlight behind her is shining directly at the camera. Remember the Pakled clumpships from the Star Trek: Lower Decks season one finale? Writers David Reed and Bill Wolkoff sure hope you don't.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    It was the YF-22, not the F-22... from 1990 to 1997, when the production F-22 was unveiled and officially named "Raptor".
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, her character's flippant and often silly behavior is a poor fit for the series. It's pretty obvious she was originally conceived as a Guinan-like "wise advisor" character who could dispense the wisdom from her millennia of life to help crewmembers with whatever problem they faced, but she's basically been demoted to comic relief in a series that doesn't really need it. Less a Guinan and more a Neelix. Hopefully come season four she'll end up replaced by Scotty, which is clearly the trajectory they're heading. The writers using her as their vehicle for their latest attempt to brand a new alien threat as "pure evil" is pretty silly too. Star Trek has always favored the idea that hostile aliens are not evil, just operating on different morality or different priorities, but Strange New Worlds tried to make the Gorn into "pure evil" in its first two seasons before walking it back and now we have this race of not-demons doing Exorcist things who are "pure evil" according to Pelia.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    If you look in the credits, it's her actual name. Sandra Yi Sencindiver is playing a character named "Yutani" (no first name given?) who is the current CEO of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in 2120.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    It's after the merger, but before the events of the first film as far as we know. According to articles in Time, USA Today, etc. Alien: Earth is set in 2120. 16 years after Alien: Covenant and 2 years before the events of the original Alien movie (2122).
  14. Seto Kaiba
    She probably has people for that. 😆 Her tour crew has to have a fair few administrative staff dancing attendance on her wants and needs, as well as the hotel concierge staff wherever she's staying, as well as any personal shopper benefits her black card might afford her. And if that's not enough to get through preorder madness with her sanity intact she's got Grace and/or Brera, both of whom have a literal cyberwarfare suite in their brains. Hell, in Master File, Sheryl is able to get the SMS branch in Macross Olympia to not only assign a pair of VF-25s as her personal guard but to repaint them in custom livery and change their modex numbers purely for symbolic/nostalgic reasons. (To match her and Alto's birthdays... 1123 and 727 respectively.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    It's happening all over for the last week or so, so much so that a bunch of web hosts are now saying they will block AI crawlers by default.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Ruri Rocks continues to be excellent edutainment. IMO, it's great that it's not just gushing about mineralogy. The series frequently delves into the geology behind the formation of the minerals du jour and the scientific method(s) used to identify them and track samples back to a larger vein or deposit. Most importantly, it shows the pitfalls of taking shortcuts, using sloppy or improper methodology, and making assumptions and shows that even the experts can be wrong if they draw conclusions without all the facts. It's not just Ruri being on the receiving end of a lecture, she's actively involved and learning and making worthwhile contributions in her own right by thinking outside the box. (It's kind of making me miss Mythbusters, in a way... particularly in the sense that there's nothing wrong with being wrong as long as you're applying the scientific method and applying what you learn to refine your hypothesis.)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Well, it looks like we're getting at least the first half of the Alabasta Saga there... Reverse Mountain, Whisky Peak, and Little Garden are all in the trailer. One thing to love about Netflix's One Piece adaptation... their attention to detail. It's hard to see, but you can see in that brief shot that they've even included the bands of cigars on smoker's arms and on the front of his coat.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Catching up on a bunch of titles this week... finally got to My Dress-Up Darling S2. I'm vexed beyond words that it took so long to get a season two for My Dress-Up Darling. That one was so popular it's flat astonishing it didn't get green-lit immediately. My group (re)watched the entire first season before starting the second, and had a great time with it. Betrothed to My Sister's Ex had another good one this week, it seems our protagonist is finally coming around to realizing that being treated the way her family treated her is nothing remotely approaching "normal" never mind "healthy". Secrets of the Silent Witch also had another good episode, with Monica dealing with the practical etiquette classes and predictably freaking out over such niceties as tea parties and formal dances.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Undoubtably... though it's entirely possible what Sheryl spent on that operation itself could equal or exceed the GDP of a small country in its own right. (You'd be surprised how small the GDP of some of the smallest countries is!) (Never mind her own net worth.)
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Bit of a horror-heavy season, eh? All in all, I'm pretty disappointed by this episode. It's not awful or even particularly bad... but it is painfully mediocre and terribly cliched. Its only real purpose seems to be setting up Dr. Korby's TOS-era fascination with finding a practical way to achieve physical immortality (c. "What Are Little Girls Made of?"), which I have to say doesn't feel particularly necessary or value-added.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Assuming Sheryl's "VEGA" black card works the same way as its real world equivalents, that wouldn't be a concern. That Sheryl has a black card is a pretty clear indicator that her status as the galaxy's #1 idol has made her fabulously wealthy. That the card issuer, "VEGA", doesn't decline Sheryl's attempt to charge what must have been a literal fortune to her personal card in order to hire an entire PMC is proof that she has absolutely ridiculous amounts of money at her disposal. That she's still stunned rigid by the size of the invoice is a pretty solid argument that hiring a PMC like SMS must be a hugely expensive undertaking in its own right too. 😆
  22. Seto Kaiba
    From my experience, that's a generic message that's used for a variety of minor logistical issues on FedEx's side that result in the package being delayed in transit. I've seen this status get used for things like delays caused by severe weather or natural disasters that prevent a shipment from leaving a depot, delays due to mechanical breakdowns (e.g. unscheduled aircraft maintenance or in one memorable case a train derailing), handoff issues between local contract carriers and the backbone freight service, issues in customs paperwork in inbound/outbound customs processing, or just delays in customs processing.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    It's being said that it was to avoid having to worry about correctly showing long hair moving in that brief zero gravity shot as the Enterprise...
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Being trapped inside is fairly common, as are the safety protocols not working, but usually how it plays out is that some outside force somehow screws up the holodeck and the main characters have to stall for time while folks outside try to fix things or otherwise escape the holodeck through irregular means. I don't recall any offhand that required the characters to explicitly finish the program. I'm no style guru for sure... but that new hairstyle they tried out in "Shuttle to Kenfori" definitely has a lot of people saying it's not the right look for the actress. A lot of folks seem to think it looks less like a wig and more like some kind of weird hat.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Yep, I made a similar remark in my original response to the episode. They managed to work in a nod to TAS and do a holodeck episode in a way that not only doesn't contradict any prior series continuity but also provides an explanation for a remark made way back in season one of Voyager about holodecks having dedicated power systems incompatible with the rest of the ship. If only Star Trek: Discovery had showed half as much attention to detail, it might've been a vastly different and far better show.
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