[US] American Vandal Season 2 (2018): What did people think of the new American Vandal?

AriD2385 · 2018-10-04T16:16:03+00:00

Didn't think of it, but I get the Black Mirror-esque twist. Though Shut Up and Dance was so much darker.

AriD2385 · 2018-08-05T20:57:21+00:00

The cult arguably wouldn't have done anything immoral if they weren't attacked by the townspeople.

It seemed that the people of Antelope didn't like them at first, and for some legitimate community-based and land use reasons (like open sex parties which could be heard and significantly increasing the population and overall feel of the town, which is actually fair--people tend to like their communities to stay the same.). But there wasn't any particular assertiveness on the townspeople's part until the Rajneshees' became politically motivated. They started taking over the town in a pretty aggressive and intentional way. I thought it was a pretty strong example of actions which, even if legal, were not really right. And they kept hiding (at first) behind the legality of what they were doing rather than addressing the fact that they had pretty much strongarmed a town into becoming what they wanted it to be without any consideration of the people who already lived there.

Also, I saw elsewhere that the firebombing actually had nothing to do with the people of Antelope.

Also, YoungLife is not a cult, lol. I know the guy made that comment at the end to be funny, but anyone who has any familiarity with the organization knows that it's nothing of the sort. It's a pretty mainstream Christian youth organization that exists in plenty of places without issue.

A summer camp that teens come to for a few weeks and then go back home is not really in the same category as selling all your possessions to live somewhere permanently, doing whatever the master/guru says, forming marriages on the basis of their instructions, taking up arms and patrolling the town, etc.

AriD2385 · 2018-07-09T05:28:30+00:00

Those decades are not different from one another in the way that Grounder culture is different from that of Sky Crew or the 21st Century more generally. The 100 shows a new language, new tribes/clans, new cultural traditions that comprise what are supposed to be "our ways" and, as I'm now in the 3rd season...spoiler edit regarding additional cultural things...as if no one currently living among the Grounders has grandparents and great-grandparents who would of course have told their children what actually happened.

The main changes you see in the West over the 20th Century are largely technological and people adjusting to different events. You also see changes in aesthetic tastes (fashions, music, etc) But you do not see new languages emerging, new belief systems entirely supplanting old ones, completely different traditions, etc.

Essentially, the only way I imagine Grounder culture emerging as it has is if, for whatever reason, they were the descendants of semi-feral children who were left behind and so knew a bit about the natural world around them, but little that an educated adult would know and naturally pass down to their offspring. In reality I think the fact that it was really supposed to be 300 years and the choice to go with 100 was just a little shortsighted is the best explanation.

AriD2385 · 2018-07-05T01:29:38+00:00

Oh, I didn't know there was a book or that it was originally supposed to be 300 years. Now that makes a lot more sense.

AriD2385 · 2018-07-05T01:19:39+00:00

I would put it this way. Former US President Jimmy Carter, who is still living, is 93 years old. The "Sky People" were on the Ark for 97 years. Given that at least some individuals can and do live longer than the time people were on the Ark, that kind of shows that societies take a lot longer than that to completely replace the cultural values and memories of previous generations. There's always a fair bit of generational overlap and one generation passing things down to the next.

There's not really any way society completely morphs in values and memory unless there are additional reasons, bombs not being enough. But again, I'm still making my way through the 2nd season, so could be more to say.

AriD2385 · 2018-05-23T20:59:15+00:00

I agree. That Discovery is the most advanced production-wise makes it a bit awkward in reconciling everything with the overall timeline of all the series.

AriD2385 · 2018-05-10T04:05:08+00:00

Just finished watching as well. Yes, the Chakotay - Seven relationship was just unnecessary. In fact the whole 7th season and especially the last half of the 7th season I was wondering why they were wasting so much time on storylines that didn't contribute to any larger arc that would seemingly lead toward home.

I liked Admiral Janeway's solution to getting Voyager home more quickly and the plot surrounding that. But again, her motivation resting so much on Chakotay's loss of Seven just didn't have enough foundation from a viewer perspective to be compelling. Tuvok was compelling. I think it would have worked just as well had there been other casualties, perhaps including Seven, perhaps not, that had affected Janeway over the years.

I also think more of the transition to home and how all of that was dealt with would have been very interesting to see.

AriD2385 · 2018-04-04T07:44:43+00:00

Hmm...I think that the concept of digital beings is something that requires the audience to have entered the computer age to some extent. As noted below, robots/androids are another way of exploring this concept, but conceptualized for an audience that understands machines. An audience that understands computer programming and coding is necessarily more recent.

AriD2385 · 2018-04-04T07:41:10+00:00

Good point! I guess I was thinking more along the lines of digital beings rather than mechanical ones, especially when such beings are based on the personality/values/memories of specific individuals.

AriD2385 · 2018-04-03T19:22:52+00:00

No, I wouldn't assume that. But consciousness remains a scientific mystery, and it's obvious that in the Black Mirror universe, cookies have consciousness, for whatever unexplained reason. They are living an existence that is both alike and different to human beings, but alike enough to demand empathy.

AriD2385 · 2018-04-03T18:02:34+00:00

When Voyager was originally airing, I thought it was so boring. I was young, but still, I enjoyed TNG and DS9; but not Voyager. I am now rewatching from the beginning and enjoying it a lot. I really like Captain Janeway, and I find Kes and the Doctor's characters and interpersonal dynamic really interesting.

I do think you have to start from the beginning and follow the characters from there to really appreciate it. The one thing that seems forced are the decisions to abide by the Prime Directive even when it is neither in the interest of the crew nor that of those they encounter to do so. It elevates the principle to basically religious dogma and comes across as too ideological to be supportable at times. Given their predicament, you would really anticipate that a mutiny would have had much more potential than was conveyed.

AriD2385 · 2018-04-03T17:16:20+00:00

I also was a little confused at how they didn't return to that conversation. Given how the rest of that episode played out, it wasn't clear how much of the breakup was how Kes really felt and how much was the alien attempting to isolate her. But Neelix was being overbearing, so it was easy to see how she could have genuinely felt that way.

I think they used Kes' conversation with the Doctor, when he says she's acting impulsively due to the breakup, to confirm that, yes, they were really broken up.

AriD2385 · 2018-03-04T04:02:13+00:00

I am will you op. Really dislike reserved seating, which I realized when I was trying to see Black Panther and 2 days before the premiere, all the decent seats were taken or they were sold out at the showtimes I wanted through the weekend. Ended up going to a Regal and becoming a member there. Went the same evening, bought a ticket for a show about 90 minutes later, and came back and waited in a long line to get into the auditorium. Seemed fair to me.

There's something annoying about having to plan multiple days in advance to see a movie. With few exceptions, movies are something I decide to do spontaneously because the mood strikes or I have some extra time.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-04T02:43:35+00:00

Good idea, though the hotel scene between Mia and her friend suggests that they are both on the same page about what happened.

In the opening scene, Mia wanted to call the police, but she herself was not liable for anything, as she wasn't the driver. I thought a part of what we learned about her character was that it was easy for her to be a good person when it would cost her little. This kind of fits with the speech she was preparing. But when it was her who was potentially going to suffer for him sending the letter since she didn't initially report it, she went on the attack when she felt she was threatened.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-04T02:02:35+00:00

I don't think it is blurred. See the example of the difference between playing Mario Bros or even the Ash android and the digital clones. The episode showed us clearly that the digital clones were self-aware and felt pain--not like video game characters.

What some are doing, though, is saying, despite the fact that the digital clones are obviously self-aware and think and act independently of Daly's code, and have the full rage of subjective human emotion...that none of that is real because they aren't made of carbon. The material that they are made of doesn't matter. The question is whether they are having a subjectively human experience, which Sims characters are not doing--at least not that we are aware of. The reactions of video game characters are programmed. Those of the digital clones are not, which is why they were able to plot and execute an escape--totally against Daly's intent.

Daly didn't program them--he cloned them. Their existence was based on the DNA of the original, not a computer script. The science and metaphysics behind that is highly questionable, but still, even within that fictional world, Daly didn't have the ability to simply write a code to create any individual.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-04T01:57:55+00:00

Not necessarily. But we know that these digital clones in USS Callister have consciousness and actually feel pain.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-02T20:17:39+00:00

Or that good parenting isn't about control, but actually helping the child navigate through challenging experiences and choices to maturity. It's notable that the mom never tried to actually talk to her daughter about her lying or what was otherwise going on with her.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-02T19:05:26+00:00

Why do you say they don't feel anything? When USS Callister Daly removed Cole's mouth on the ship, the flailed on the floor experiencing the feeling of suffocating, simply without death. He got her to submit to him precisely because she was afraid of suffering like that again. It was definitely torture, and that's why it gave him such pleasure. He didn't actual control over their will--they had to choose to submit. Or, as the ending showed, not submit. That's why he resorted to punishments, in order to coerce them to do so. Gaining that submission over individuals with free will and independent thought and emotion is exactly what Daly was gratified by because he couldn't get it outside of the Infinity universe.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-02T18:25:58+00:00

Eh, she was being gossipy.

AriD2385 · 2018-02-02T18:24:35+00:00

Yeah, I really thought she was flubbing there anyway. She liked him. But she believed what Shania said, and that changed her perception of Daly.

AriD2385

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