The Terminator series came to a satisfying conclusion at the end of Judgement Day.
Despite seeing the films set after it, that's still where I consider the series over.
Inertia got me to sit there and watch the needless sequels.
Because I am happy with the conclusion I got from part 2, it would take a truly epic revisit to shift my satisfaction.
They have not produced this epic yet and I don't expect them to.
That's kind of the problem with getting it right the first time.
It also leads to apathy from people like me when any news about more sequels hits.
Alien is in this ballpark too.
Sadly, so are Star Wars and Star Trek.
I so looked forward to Star Wars' prequels and a solid, non-canon violating fresh start for Star Trek...
Alas.
C'est la Vie.
The thing about both Star Wars and Star Trek is that these are supposed to be huge universes. Why can't we have lots of stories in them, instead of focusing on just a few people?
ReplyDeleteI thank The Gods that Leonard Nimoy finally died so they can't write him in any more.
DeleteA reboot doesn't need the original actors in their original roles.
But then I remember Peter Cushing...
They had an article in an old Dragon magazine about running a campaign set in the Star Trek universe...aboard a merchant ship. Title was "These are the voyages of the Ginny's Delight," if memory serves me. Yes, I know Traveller covers that sort of thing, but at the time the article came out, Traveller was kind of a brick; this was talking about some Star Trek RPG or other that had come out recently.
DeleteTraveller of the day was only as good as the imagination of the GM. If the GM had a good visualization of the setting, they could transfer that to the players and the fun would happen.
DeleteWorld creation ain't for the faint of heart, even with an outline like a more mature Traveller gave the GM.
This is just a subset of the issue that a poor GM can ruin a great setting and a talented GM can make a shitty setting fun. A good player group can also save a poor setting.
A bad GM blames his setting. The Star Wars regular people campaign is essentially similar to a Traveller one because of the deliberate similarities between the settings.
Star Trek suffers so much from its canon that any GM is going to be confronted with its inherent contradictions and will have to make rulings, one way or the other, that pick one thing to stick with. Otherwise the players will reverse the polarity of the weekly particle and never have to actually face the plot complication the GM has placed on Planet Schwartz.
Then after a few such rulings, you're not playing Star Trek any more... and the players rebel because they remember the problem solved on the show with a means you've forbidden.
DeleteI'm looking forward to The Mandalorian. It takes some of that supposed vast galaxy to play with, and looks like it's getting into the nitty gritty used future that Star Wars does so well. It's not the chosen one, it's not some grand galaxy spanning fight for the universe, it's one badass dude with some fancy armor out to make a buck. Or, so the sneak peeks contend, anyway, I won't say they can't screw it up but I'm legitimately looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the end of "Skywalkers wreck the galaxy; a continuing series" and getting into some of literally anything else in the setting.
ReplyDelete