Chinese Censors Ban Time Travel TV Shows

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

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The Chinese Government has prohibited new production of science-fiction genre on TV, specifically plots dealing with the use of time travel. The government contends the overuse of time travel depicted in TV shows can be disrespectful to China of the past.

The producers and writers are treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore."
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quote: following a vogue for shows where modern Chinese people travel to ancient China and discover that it's not a bad place to be (this having some counter-revolutionary subtext)

ah I see know
 
LOL the communists love time travel! It was not unusual for the governments in e.g. the USSR and GDR to go back in time and change facts and history when the current version was no longer convenient. Many people were also "erased" (not just assassinated but removed from space-time altogether).
 
You mean in China people had (note the operative word there: had) some choice in their programming? Hell, I thought China was locked down tighter than a small block 350 that hadn't had an oil change in years... :p
 
So China's media is using time travel as an excuse to use free speech. Then the perpetually frightened Chinese government bans time travel. Ok then.
 
Sure they do, so long as it's nothing too sensitive. For example, stuff about Kuomingtang and the ROC from 1911-1939, Manchukuo and so forth are subject to whether if they upset "harmony" if aired.
 
I predict the Chinese government will also need to ban alternate dimensions.
 
They are eventually going to have to ban themselves, they may begin to dislike each other and decide that the government is also frivolous.
 
I totally support this but not for the same reasons China is probably whining about it. Time travel is an over used plot device that has become stale, lame and cliched as if science fiction wasn't full of enough cliches without falling back on time travel stories.

I hate time travel. :mad:
 
Dan_D said:
I totally support this but not for the same reasons China is probably whining about it. Time travel is an over used plot device that has become stale, lame and cliched as if science fiction wasn't full of enough cliches without falling back on time travel stories.

I hate time travel. :mad:
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That's as absurd as saying you hate the NBA. You should the writers that don't have imagination and had to imitate H.G. Wells. Not the subject itself.
 
China should just replace its population with robots and let the displaced come into other countries so we could all enjoy better Chinese food at the cost of fake hard drives/pork buns.
 
In Communist China, minitrue #1457.63 2011 Comrade Dr.Emmett Brown refs. unperson fluxcapacitor doubleplus unwise sub. 1.21 gigawatts untrue rewrite fullwise Marty McFly end.
 
The real reason for the ban is due to the fact that it highlights the Chinese government's failure to create a time machine.
 
I'm sure this is just some Chinese calendar version of April Fools Day. :)

Dan_D said:
I totally support this but not for the same reasons China is probably whining about it. Time travel is an over used plot device that has become stale, lame and cliched as if science fiction wasn't full of enough cliches without falling back on time travel stories.

I hate time travel. :mad:
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But... but... it's a third of Star Trek plot devices! Ya got yer resonating frequencies, yer new forms of radiation, and yer time travel.
 
Dan_D said:
I totally support this but not for the same reasons China is probably whining about it. Time travel is an over used plot device that has become stale, lame and cliched as if science fiction wasn't full of enough cliches without falling back on time travel stories.

I hate time travel. :mad:
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There is the ocassional interesting take on time-travel plots like ...ohh... memory going blank but the British Comedy of a few guys in a bar whom discover a time-traveling portal in the washroom and end up going to a devestated future and back again a few times.

An idiots guide to time travel? Guide to time travel? I can't remember its title but every so often there's an interesting time-travel movie. Another one from about 4 years ago was several guys in their garage developing time travel and the initial distrust/suspicious of eachother that occurs.
 
Dan_D said:
What? :confused:
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Complaining about something abstract like: "Time travel" makes no sense.

A good point would be to say that the writers that take the subject on lack the required imagination to plot an interesting or enjoyable experience on the subject.
 
over-under on how long the Chinese gov. can keep doing insane stuff like this till it citizens start pushing back hard
 
Ezteh said:
over-under on how long the Chinese gov. can keep doing insane stuff like this till it citizens start pushing back hard
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Stuff like "this" doesn't really matter. But the clock is ticking on total censorship of ideas and information.
 
Lame attempt at stopping information again, it will get through!
Also "Communist China"?? China is hardly communist. They can state that they are all they want but they are not even close. Hell I doubt real communism / Socialism is even possible with humans (possibly some small tribe somewhere for a time)
 
From what I gathered about this, its that shows were using the time travel plot to talk about sensitive stuff in it, like in the future, there is "Free speech" etc among the population

Technically because its just stories/literature, they couldn't throw these people in jail because they wern't openly attacking the chinese government and its totally draconian policies on free speech, people's rights etc

They also didn't like it because time travel shows were skirting the barrier of to what they allow so "You don't disrupt harmony" etc

Basically, anything that eluded to the chinese government doing something barbaric, but skirting around the issue, like instead of calling it tenembaum square, they called it tepsins junction

it would have all the same stuff that happened, but they would just change names to everything

They also didn't want shows dealing with time travel, because they talked about things that they would rather the people forgot, like the persecution of the common working class during the wars in the east among other things, basically anything that talked against the chinese government in anything in a less then flattering light, past, present or future

So yeah, chinese government officials again stomping on people's freedom of speech and human rights, all proclaiming its "To preserve harmony" and other bullshit in japan, sadly its going to take one fucking heck of a civil war in china to end this governments reign of oppression on its people

The sad part is, when there is a civil war (Its coming, tension in china is astronomically high right now with people upset at the current government) the current officials will beg and plead for U.N. aid to "Stop these terrorists" etc etc

According to everything I've read on Wikileaks on the matter, not a single country wants to step into that mess that china is right now, all the countries are upset doing business with them as their officials are corrupt as fucking hell, and the government is willing to crush and destroy any business that enters the country, but is more then willing to produce goods for other countries while making its common worker work in sweatshop like conditions and pay, while the top officials are getting super fat on tons of kickbacks through illegal funds and payouts from these production companies and from their merchandise buyers

Based on tensions between the people and its government in china, I predict a civil war in about 30 years there, and looking at everything I've read on wikileaks about the other countries stances on china, not a single country is going to lift a finger to help them
 
Valagard said:
From what I gathered about this, its that shows were using the time travel plot to talk about sensitive stuff in it, like in the future, there is "Free speech" etc among the population

Technically because its just stories/literature, they couldn't throw these people in jail because they wern't openly attacking the chinese government and its totally draconian policies on free speech, people's rights etc

They also didn't like it because time travel shows were skirting the barrier of to what they allow so "You don't disrupt harmony" etc

Basically, anything that eluded to the chinese government doing something barbaric, but skirting around the issue, like instead of calling it tenembaum square, they called it tepsins junction

it would have all the same stuff that happened, but they would just change names to everything

They also didn't want shows dealing with time travel, because they talked about things that they would rather the people forgot, like the persecution of the common working class during the wars in the east among other things, basically anything that talked against the chinese government in anything in a less then flattering light, past, present or future

So yeah, chinese government officials again stomping on people's freedom of speech and human rights, all proclaiming its "To preserve harmony" and other bullshit in japan, sadly its going to take one fucking heck of a civil war in china to end this governments reign of oppression on its people

The sad part is, when there is a civil war (Its coming, tension in china is astronomically high right now with people upset at the current government) the current officials will beg and plead for U.N. aid to "Stop these terrorists" etc etc

According to everything I've read on Wikileaks on the matter, not a single country wants to step into that mess that china is right now, all the countries are upset doing business with them as their officials are corrupt as fucking hell, and the government is willing to crush and destroy any business that enters the country, but is more then willing to produce goods for other countries while making its common worker work in sweatshop like conditions and pay, while the top officials are getting super fat on tons of kickbacks through illegal funds and payouts from these production companies and from their merchandise buyers

Based on tensions between the people and its government in china, I predict a civil war in about 30 years there, and looking at everything I've read on wikileaks about the other countries stances on china, not a single country is going to lift a finger to help them
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We can only hope. The worst part is when things do finally snap it will be pretty horrible for the people there and when it's all over china will likely split into dozens of countries; since the only thing keeping it together at the moment are chinese made AK's and secret jails.
 
wtiger said:
We can only hope. The worst part is when things do finally snap it will be pretty horrible for the people there and when it's all over china will likely split into dozens of countries; since the only thing keeping it together at the moment are Chinese made AK's and secret jails.
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Not to mention a large Army(P.L.A.N.) & Police force...
 
The use of "harmony of the society" to quell any criticism of the regime is pretty disgusting. The current regime is keen to not mention about the discomforting act of the purges during cultural revolution that all the senior cadre's done (nevermind the people that are now with grown kids who once turned on their own mom and dad...)

That old China of Confucian values was choked out of existence and claiming China today to be the inheritor as such seems laughable as part of that harmony argument. The apologists can heap praises of progress and development, as well as the economical might of China.Inc, but do for for a second forget about the doublespeak going on here.

The fragmentation of China well... sigh. Let's wait and see. The party leadership aren't a bunch of idiots and they do everything they can to curb factionalism or emergence of warlords by solidifying the central committee's clique and through lucrative business opportunities. Whether or not if the energy crisis, earning discrepancy between the interior and the coastal provinces and the corruption will eventually drag China down to another civil war.

Should a civil war occurs, I'd like to see where USA and others might stand on the matter of Taiwan. Will recognition of sovereignty be approved for Taiwan? Will Taiwan even survive for PRC needs something to take attention away from inner struggle? Can Taiwan resist the temptation to play to the inner turmoils of PRC? All of which are things to look out for.
 
Move along people. This is not a ban. The news report being linked is a poor interpretation of what is going on.

The overwhelming majority of new television programs are about time travel.

It's a popular genre but the overemphasis (along with other reasons) has aggravated so many viewers they complained to their gov't.

The gov't in turn is sternly asking productions teams to stop reusing the same crappy plots. Just think back to the early half of the prior decade when reality tv blew up. Now imagine instead of half of new content being reality tv it was more like 90%. *shudders*
 
When will people learn to stop messing with time? It NEVER works out.
 
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