cageymaru

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Amazon has announced that it has agreed to purchase MGM film studios for $8.45 billion. Some of the intellectual property that Amazon has acquired through the deal include mega franchises such as James Bond, Robocop, Tomb Raider, and more. Amazon intends to allow MGM to operate as usual, but is excited to complement its own streaming services with MGM's award winning catalog of 17,000 TV shows and 4,000 films.

“MGM has a vast catalog with more than 4,000 films—12 Angry Men, Basic Instinct, Creed, James Bond, Legally Blonde, Moonstruck, Poltergeist, Raging Bull, Robocop, Rocky, Silence of the Lambs, Stargate, Thelma & Louise, Tomb Raider, The Magnificent Seven, The Pink Panther, The Thomas Crown Affair, and many other icons—as well as 17,000 TV shows—including Fargo, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Vikings—that have collectively won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmys,” said Mike Hopkins, Senior Vice President of Prime Video and Amazon Studios. “The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”
 
That's quite a lot of money to spend just so they can stream the James Bond movies when they hit theaters :ROFLMAO:
 
Makes sense. D+ is gaining, Netflix isn't really moving... Warner well who knows it might get a big push with recent changes.

I'm just waiting for Amazon to say Prime and prime video are different things. We all know at some point Prime Video is going to get renamed to something silly... BezosTV is going to be 7.99 for prime subscribers, and 10.99 for everyone like they do with Prime music. Having a larger catalog might make that a bit easier sell.
 
I just hope this means I get new Stargate.

Yes I too hope this, but only if Amazon funds it without inserting new social and political garbage into it for whatever the current hot topic is in society.

In other words let the creators who made the series a success originally do their thing again without interfering.
 
Yes I too hope this, but only if Amazon funds it without inserting new social and political garbage into it for whatever the current hot topic is in society.

In other words let the creators who made the series a success originally do their thing again without interfering.
I mean, SG-1 Was full of that type of stuff.
 
ya'll paying for them streaming services?
Families do ya. I could sail the high seas myself... but if I don't want teens using shady streaming sites or downloading god knows what. Its simply easier to pay for Netflix and Amazon. We also have D+ cause we have a couple little ones around.

The number of streaming services is starting to get a bit silly obviously. Amazon most people have by default these days anyway for at least as long as Amazon is still including it with prime. To be fair though paying for the 3 services we do pay for is still drastically cheaper then what Cable used to cost us... haven't had cable for a decade.

I don't even miss news or live sports... as a Canadian I got my free CBC Gem account which covers news and the only sport I care about Hockey. CBC plays 90% of the games I care to watch... they broadcast almost all Canadian team games.
 
Yes I too hope this, but only if Amazon funds it without inserting new social and political garbage into it for whatever the current hot topic is in society.

In other words let the creators who made the series a success originally do their thing again without interfering.
SG1 all the way through was completely filled with that sort of stuff top to bottom… I’m not sure what you are remembering from SG1, but I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.
 
ya'll paying for them streaming services?

I am but only indirectly as part of that free shipping racket.

Would I pay for a standalone Amazon streaming service? Probably not. I don't like streaming. I prefer all of my content in local high bitrate formats incompatible with streaming.

Wake me when they stream full bitrate blurays and I can pre-load them so I don't have any buffering or quality drop issues.
 
SG1 all the way through was completely filled with that sort of stuff top to bottom… I’m not sure what you are remembering from SG1, but I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.
Most Sci-Fi is. I'm rewatching SG1 now on season 5, and it has a lot of that. But so does everything.
 
SG1 all the way through was completely filled with that sort of stuff top to bottom… I’m not sure what you are remembering from SG1, but I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.
Reminds me of how people on this forum have complained about Star Trek: Discovery being "woke" when that's been the premise for the entire franchise since the 1960s. My theory is that the people whining about woke sci-fi are really just complaining that it's challenging their preconceptions and hatreds, not the 'safe' ones their parents and grandparents overcame.

At any rate, I'm nervous about Amazon's MGM acquisition. I won't mind so much watching blockbuster movies at the same time as they hit theaters, or relatively soon afterward. I'm not so thrilled about what it means for catalogs in other services; I'm worried Amazon will hobble things just enough to pressure you into a Prime Video sub.
 
Most Sci-Fi is. I'm rewatching SG1 now on season 5, and it has a lot of that. But so does everything.
I'm always confused by people complaining about liberal ideas in sci-fi. It's not exactly a new phenomenon. Have people forgotten the black woman, Japanese man, and Russian on the bridge of the original Star Trek? It may not seem that unusual now, but in the context of the times it was pretty revolutionary. Have they forgotten literally everything about The Next Generation? Generally sci-fi and fantasy authors are pretty open minded and liberal. Do people expect shows about meeting and interacting with alien cultures to be anything else? I guess someone could make a colonialist/imperialist sci-fi show, but I don't think it would make for very pleasant viewing.
 
Reminds me of how people on this forum have complained about Star Trek: Discovery being "woke" when that's been the premise for the entire franchise since the 1960s. My theory is that the people whining about woke sci-fi are really just complaining that it's challenging their preconceptions and hatreds, not the 'safe' ones their parents and grandparents overcame.

At any rate, I'm nervous about Amazon's MGM acquisition. I won't mind so much watching blockbuster movies at the same time as they hit theaters, or relatively soon afterward. I'm not so thrilled about what it means for catalogs in other services; I'm worried Amazon will hobble things just enough to pressure you into a Prime Video sub.
You beat me to it by a minute!
 
SG1 all the way through was completely filled with that sort of stuff top to bottom… I’m not sure what you are remembering from SG1, but I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.

Yep it was and people complained about it back then. The episode "politics" was basically the most unpopular episode of the whole series and people made such a big stink about it that they had to dial down the political crap in future episodes.

People watched Stargate to get away from reality, not to have it blasted back in their faces. Overall I think they managed the series "ok", but the older seasons were generally better since it was more about discovery than trying to play universe politics.
 
They overpaid for it, and frankly, I am not impressed with the movies catalog from MGM from the last few years.

I couldn't agree more. James Bond films haven't been great for some time, and all indications are this next one will be a complete dumpster fire. The only other thing they've got that I can think of is the Stargate franchise, which they've kept in limbo for almost a decade now. Their one brief low budget outing of Stargate Origins was pretty fucking terrible and it's hard to count that.
 
Reminds me of how people on this forum have complained about Star Trek: Discovery being "woke" when that's been the premise for the entire franchise since the 1960s. My theory is that the people whining about woke sci-fi are really just complaining that it's challenging their preconceptions and hatreds, not the 'safe' ones their parents and grandparents overcame.
This is incorrect on virtually every level. Star Trek: Discovery is a woke dumpster fire. The difference between classic Star Trek up through Voyager and Enterprise and something like STD is striking. When TNG or DS9 presented a progressive or liberal idea, it was done with some subtlety in most cases. Even when it wasn't, the opposite viewpoint was presented as well. While the characters in the show would make their own decisions based on things in the show and based on that character's viewpoint, the viewer wasn't lectured or brow beaten by either side. We were left to decide what was wrong or right for ourselves. The Orville is oddly better at this than even Star Trek TNG or Deep Space Nine were.

Another difference is that more liberal and progressive presentations of ideas and concepts in shows like Stargate or Star Trek were done in a respectful way. As an example: women were presented as equal, but different. (You know, because they are.) Women weren't propped up or elevated above men by tearing men down and lecturing them about how bad or worthless they are. The subtlety in these shows at the time also meant that some of the more progressive concepts were often missed by the viewer or again, because it didn't feel like a lecture, you weren't personally insulted by them.

Where as now, agenda trumps story telling. We have complete and totally nonsensical story elements and characters who aren't even characters. Modern writers actually think a description of a character is a character. The writers today make a character's sexual orientation, political views and race the only aspects of that character which come through. Modern stories are also filled with Mary Sue's that tear men down in an effort to make themselves better. These are poorly written stories that want to focus on women, but the women in these stories do not go through the heroes journey, nor do they earn what they have. Ripley, Sarah Connor, and many others from the 1980's evolved over the course of their respective films and stood as equals or superior to the other characters through actions and deeds that were believable within the confines of the story.

Rey Palpatine, Captain Marvel, Michael Burnham, whatever that chick is in the new Moulan, etc. are all Mary Sue's who often emasculate the men in their films while acting just like men. They are always born with super powers, and don't earn anything they get. Rey was never challenged in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. She never made mistakes and never lost. She never learned anything, and by the end of it, she took the Title of being a Jedi, took Luke Skywalker's land, legacy and fucking name.

The people that "whine" about wokeness in modern cinema and TV shows aren't doing so because these badly written dumpster fires challenge our perceptions. We are simply tired of seeing story telling at the quality level of fan fiction that lectures us about how shitty and worthless we are. We are also tired of seeing legacy characters being shit on by being made weak, stupid, bumbling and ineffective. We are tired of seeing them disrespected, deconstructed and torn down to make way for some female character that in reality, acts just like a man. Characters that aren't badass because they earned it. They are badass because they are chosen. Even Neo in the Matrix had to earn his skills. Luke Skywalker trained for an entire film, lost a hand, made mistakes, lost friends and overcame what seemed like an insurmountable task to get where he was at the end of the original films.

When Rey starts wasting through Stormtroopers, no one cares because we know she's not in any danger and because the viewer isn't likely to have an attachment to her because she's unlikable and unrelatable. Not because she's a woman, but because she's just magically good at everything she does. When Luke Skywalker wastes through Dark Troopers, people got excited. Some people even cried at those scenes as they saw their hero as he was meant to be. Even the dodgy CG at the end didn't take away from it. Luke earned his popularity, and earned his power in the story.
 
<snip>

Another difference is that more liberal and progressive presentations of ideas and concepts in shows like Stargate or Star Trek were done in a respectful way. As an example: women were presented as equal, but different. (You know, because they are.) Women weren't propped up or elevated above men by tearing men down and lecturing them about how bad or worthless they are. The subtlety in these shows at the time also meant that some of the more progressive concepts were often missed by the viewer or again, because it didn't feel like a lecture, you weren't personally insulted by them.

<snip>
That's really all that needs to be said. The writing of these new movies/shows reflect the social media/twitter-twat outrage-shilling in their story telling.
Who needs a storyline when you can gather many more "retweets" and "likes" and "buzz" with obnoxiously shallow "wokeness" instead.
 
Exactly there is a massive difference between progressive and woke. Star trek was always progressive super progressive at times. Progressive is putting a mirror up to something. Captain Janeway wasn't a super hero she was just another captain that trained at the academy and worked her way up to a position of responsibility. She took that responsibility serious and acted serious. (and seeing how a Woman might handle the standard trek complications differently was interesting and they didn't have to point to it like LOOK LOOK see see it worked because it didn't need to be pointed out by every character every second) In discovery we have MB who is a cross between Tom Paris and B'elanna but with pedigree being spooks never before mentioned sister? ... however she never and will never learn a damn thing. Tom and B'elanna on the other hand are both great character who royally screw up their lives in different ways but learn what responsibility is. If they had written MB like Tom or B'elanna it would be less annoyingly annoying. However she never has learned anything always assumes she is right and viewers are expected to agree with that... ah MB knows man just listen to MB. She could have been an interesting flawed character with a hero complex... instead she is Treks marry sue who never needs to take responsibility for anything. In fact why is there any crew around at all... just replace them all with some automation and just let MB run around the ship doing her thing. And on the topic of MB making the crew pointless... the disco crew is horribly under written. Perhaps that has improved a bit over the course, but for the most part viewers couldn't name anyone other then the mains for the first 2 seasons.

The show is filled with 1001 stupid things. It wasn't bad enough JJ blew up Vulcan in another timeline so he could get a angry Spook scene. Now turns out Vulcan is full of xenophobic logic terrorists ??? emm hmm logical. When Enterprise wrote in a xenophobic terrorist group Terra prime and cast Peter Weller that made tons of sense it wasn't illogical at all... but Vulcans logic extremists ???? ok lol

Discovery is guilty of being a terrible show in general.
 
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Exactly there is a massive difference between progressive and woke. Star trek was always progressive super progressive at times. Progressive is putting a mirror up to something. Captain Janeway wasn't a super hero she was just another captain that trained at the academy and worked her way up to a position of responsibility. She took that responsibility serious and acted serious. (and seeing how a Woman might handle the standard trek complications differently was interesting and they didn't have to point to it like LOOK LOOK see see it worked because it didn't need to be pointed out by every character every second) In discovery we have MB who is a cross between Tom Paris and B'elanna but with pedigree being spooks never before mentioned sister? ... however she never and will never learn a damn thing. Tom and B'elanna on the other hand are both great character who royally screw up their lives in different ways but learn what responsibility is. If they had written MB like Tom or B'elanna it would be less annoyingly annoying. However she never has learned anything always assumes she is right and viewers are expected to agree with that... ah MB knows man just listen to MB. She could have been an interesting flawed character with a hero complex... instead she is Treks marry sue who never needs to take responsibility for anything. In fact why is there any crew around at all... just replace them all with some automation and just let MB run around the ship doing her thing. And on the topic of MB making the crew pointless... the disco crew is horribly under written. Perhaps that has improved a bit over the course, but for the most part viewers couldn't name anyone other then the mains for the first 2 seasons.

The show is filled with 1001 stupid things. It wasn't bad enough JJ blew up Vulcan in another timeline so he could get a angry Spook scene. Now turns out Vulcan is full of xenophobic logic terrorists ??? emm hmm logical.

Discovery is guilty of being a terrible show in general.

It's also worth noting that in the world of Star Trek, the United Federation of Planets is essentially a utopia. It doesn't work the way our world does. Violence is less of an issue because an economic divide doesn't exist. Issues of poverty and hunger do not exist. Violence is less likely to even occur and when it does the stun setting on a phaser works most of the time. The track record of less lethal options in today's world is relatively poor. Because they have unlimited energy and replicators, everyone's basic needs are met. You don't have scarcity which would change the landscape of what life would be like. People are generally smart enough and well educated enough to not get involved in drugs or things like that. Although, different types of addictions are sometimes explored, like Barclay's holodeck addiction.

JJ Trek isn't like that as it has dozens and dozens of continuity errors and contradictions with established lore. Let's not forget the failures of logic and badly written characters. I can go on an on about this, but all you really need to do is look up any of my posts on modern Star Trek and you'll see what I mean. In a more general sense, none of these franchises are being handled by people who know and understand the subject matter. The people working on Cobra Kai are too young to have worked on the original Karate Kid films, but they understand the source material and treat it with respect and deference. Most fans of the films tend to like that show, where as fans of Predator, Alien, Robocop, Ghostbusters, Star Trek, and more can't stand their modern incarnations.
 
It's also worth noting that in the world of Star Trek, the United Federation of Planets is essentially a utopia. It doesn't work the way our world does. Violence is less of an issue because an economic divide doesn't exist. Issues of poverty and hunger do not exist. Violence is less likely to even occur and when it does the stun setting on a phaser works most of the time. The track record of less lethal options in today's world is relatively poor. Because they have unlimited energy and replicators, everyone's basic needs are met. You don't have scarcity which would change the landscape of what life would be like. People are generally smart enough and well educated enough to not get involved in drugs or things like that. Although, different types of addictions are sometimes explored, like Barclay's holodeck addiction.

JJ Trek isn't like that as it has dozens and dozens of continuity errors and contradictions with established lore. Let's not forget the failures of logic and badly written characters. I can go on an on about this, but all you really need to do is look up any of my posts on modern Star Trek and you'll see what I mean. In a more general sense, none of these franchises are being handled by people who know and understand the subject matter. The people working on Cobra Kai are too young to have worked on the original Karate Kid films, but they understand the source material and treat it with respect and deference. Most fans of the films tend to like that show, where as fans of Predator, Alien, Robocop, Ghostbusters, Star Trek, and more can't stand their modern incarnations.
Cobra Kai is a good example of how to do "woke" properly. It has all the trappings that anti woke folks are supposed to hate. Diverse cast... strong female roles... they even toy with tinkering with KK lore (if there is such a thing I guess lol). We should hate it... yet no one does. Its shocking. Cobra Kai is one of the best things streaming these days. The main thing you notice when you watch it other then they aren't lecturing... is how every character has an actual story arc. That is what is missing from most woke garbage... character arcs are not important if the only reason a show exists is to show how fantastic X or Y diverse cast hire is. There was a time when even villains grew... now they don't even bother writing growth arcs for heros. They just start the story powerful and by the end they have crushed the effigies of the patriarchy, who have also learned nothing and sulk away like cartoon villains muttering about how they'll be back to oppress again. (if they survive anyway... cause in general the woke heros seem to end things permanent like a lot more then past heros would have been comfortable with)
 
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I mean, SG-1 Was full of that type of stuff.
I think people confuse Politics with Preachy Propaganda. There are some people so far gone they can't tell the difference with How Star Trek handled say Vietnam back then and how it's handled in current year. There's a difference in broaching a topic, looking at it in abstract sometimes to the point of it not being recognizable, debating both sides and finding a common ground solution (SG-1, old Trek for example) and a thinly vailed Orange Man Bad pontification.

So when people say they don't want politics they mean they don't want moralizing on current year politics.
 
Cobra Kai is a good example of how to do "woke" properly. It has all the trappings that anti woke folks are supposed to hate. Diverse cast... strong female roles... they even toy with tinkering with KK lore (if there is such a thing I guess lol). We should hate it... yet no one does. Its shocking. Cobra Kai is one of the best things streaming these days. The main thing you notice when you watch it other then they aren't lecturing... is how every character has an actual story arc. That is what is missing from most woke garbage... character arcs are not important if the only reason a show exists is to show how fantastic X or Y diverse cast hire is. There was a time when even villains grew... now they don't even bother writing growth arcs for heros. They just start the story powerful and by the end they have crushed the effigies of the patriarchy, who have also learned nothing and sulk away like cartoon villains muttering about how they'll be back to oppress again. (if they survive anyway... cause in general the woke heros seem to end things permanent like a lot more then past heros would have been comfortable with)

The problem is that people assume that the "anti-woke" crowd is racist, some sort of phobic of this or that and some ist of one type or another. People assume those are the only possible reasons why someone like me would trash a garbage show like Star Trek Discovery. I dislike that show, not because it has a diverse cast or strong female characters, but because it's bad. It's badly written, illogical, inconsistent with established lore, and tonally different in a way that I don't care for. Yet, I'm a huge fan of Star Trek which had a diverse cast from day ONE. It treated everyone as equals without marginalizing or tearing down another group to do it. I dislike Michael Burnham as a character because she's a Mary Sue. She's badly written in a show that's badly written. I have nothing against women, black women, or the actress herself. She's doing a job and I have no problem with that.

But, me saying: "she's an overpowered Mary Sue and a lazy messiah type character" will get the SJW types crying that I'm racist or a misogynist. As if there isn't any other reason I could possibly dislike the character or the show. They make everything about the themes, politics or race rather than judging the content on its individual merit.
 
So when people say they don't want politics they mean they don't want moralizing on current year politics.
When people say they don't want politics, what they very often mean is they don't want things that clash with their view of what they like. It's an age old argument, like when people bash the liberal media... but then happily watch Tucker Carlson on Fox. Now I'm not saying everyone is like that, but in general it's what most mean.
 
So in the grand list of IP, top-down which do you think Amazon is going to reboot first? I mean I think Robocop is due for a series, and maybe a sitcom about all the lab rats working under Q trying to make the stuff that keeps Bond and all the other agents alive.
 
So in the grand list of IP, top-down which do you think Amazon is going to reboot first? I mean I think Robocop is due for a series, and maybe a sitcom about all the lab rats working under Q trying to make the stuff that keeps Bond and all the other agents alive.
I'm willing to bet we have an new Bond cast by the end of the summer.
 
So in the grand list of IP, top-down which do you think Amazon is going to reboot first? I mean I think Robocop is due for a series, and maybe a sitcom about all the lab rats working under Q trying to make the stuff that keeps Bond and all the other agents alive.
The bond stuff will all get shot down... including releasing movies direct to stream. Bond is only half owned by MGM. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson own 50% of bond and have 100% creative control... they have vetoed Bond TV shows in the past. They can also demand theatrical releases.

My money would be on some lesser known old TV shows... something like in the heat of the night or something.
 
I for one just want to say fuck before I see this thread in soapbox potentially. Cheers.

In my world Star Trek ended after DS9. Man I used to love watching DS9.
 
I came to this conclusion 3 episodes in. That's all I've watched. When I tuned in to The Orville, even with the crude humor, I realized this was the Star Trek I wanted.
It took me like 6 or 7, once they toned down the Klingons or I got used to them, not sure which. But after that, it took off S2 is where it starts getting really good and S3 was dope.
 
When people say they don't want politics, what they very often mean is they don't want things that clash with their view of what they like. It's an age old argument, like when people bash the liberal media... but then happily watch Tucker Carlson on Fox. Now I'm not saying everyone is like that, but in general it's what most mean.
Like I said, Star Trek used to do a good job of showing progressive ideology and not making it feel insulting or patronizing. I never felt like Star Trek The Next Generation lectured me and told me what to think and tried to guilt me into feeling or thinking a certain way. We hate the liberal media because its one sided. It insults us and tries to brow beat us into thinking a specific way. The lack of subtlety and poor quality writing and undeveloped characters make this stuff more obvious. You can't help but analyze it. It's not that it clashes with what I like, it's that it tries to lecture or evangelize at every turn. It fails to entertain and all it does is espouse one viewpoint over another, regardless of how illogical that point of view is.

People are sick and tired of seeing all this political pandering, agenda pushing and evangelizing in media. To give you an idea of how out of hand this crap is: Last night I was leaving the grocery store and the electric vehicle charging station scrolled George Floyd's name across the screen over and over again. Though there was no additional context to the message, I still felt like I was getting lectured by a charging station. Some greedy advertisements would have been a welcome sight at this point.
 
So I am looking over the long ass list of MGM releases over the past 100 years or so
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_films


And that gets them a lot more IP than I thought was there, but I think the assets are more valuable to Amazon than the IP for much of it. Especially if they want to get into content creation more than just serving it out.

How long till either Amazon or Disney buy Paramount at this rate?
 
It took me like 6 or 7, once they toned down the Klingons or I got used to them, not sure which. But after that, it took off S2 is where it starts getting really good and S3 was dope.
The first episode of STD Season 2 is the dumbest shit I think I've ever seen. They need to travel towards a pulsar to rescue people from a crashed ship. This is a bad idea for several reasons, not the least of which is the gravitational pull of such a thing. This makes little sense as is, but then they decide a shuttle craft with a somewhat durable hull and shields would be a bad idea for the rescue mission. So instead, they launch a bunch of single seat craft with no shields and glass bubbles for cockpits. It's a rescue mission and they take single seat craft to pilot through a dangerous asteroid field towards a pulsar. Transporters don't work, so how in the hell are they supposed to bring anyone back on these single seat craft? How could they move all the equipment and resources they need for a rescue in what amounts to single seat craft? These craft aren't armed either nor do they have any shields. They have glass bubble cockpits rather than a fully enclosed hull with armored shields that can cover the windows if necessary.

When they arrive at the wreckage (after one guy dies mansplaning to Burhman), they find an engineer performing complex surgery and caring for aliens. When questioned about how she's doing this she just responds with: "People are like machines. And I read a lot." This explanation isn't challenged either. So all those years of Starfleet Medical training are apparently unnecessary when you work on warp drives for a living. This character is another Mary Sue, but not to be outdone, Burnham can suddenly make the ship's transporters work in a massive gravitational field with chunks of asteroids and minerals scattering the beam. This is something she fixes in about a minute and a half because the story needs it to happen. This is the level of writing we are dealing with here.

Season 3 is the one I haven't seen. Frankly, after the shit show that is Season 2, and Picard getting the Luke Skywalker Sequel Trilogy package treatment, I'm done with JJ Trek.
 
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I came to this conclusion 3 episodes in. That's all I've watched. When I tuned in to The Orville, even with the crude humor, I realized this was the Star Trek I wanted.
Has Orville come back? I largely cut the cord during season 2... getting my fix online... but yeah I liked that show. And while I won't go so far as say that was the Star Trek I wanted, it was a fun show for what it was.
 
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