“Under the Skin”
In the spirit of 2014-summaries I’d like to mention Jonathan Glazer’s film “Under the skin”, which was definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, and one of the very best sci-fi movies I have ever seen.
science-fiction
2014
“Shaka, when the walls fell”
Ian Bogost writes about a famous Star Trek TNG episode:
On stardate 45047.2, Jean-Luc Picard leads the crew of the Enterprise in pursuit of a transmission beacon from the El-Adrel system, where a Tamarian vessel has been broadcasting a mathematical signal for weeks. The aliens, also known as the Children of Tama, are an apparently peaceable and technologically advanced race with which the Federation nevertheless has failed to forge diplomatic relations. The obstacle, as Commander Data puts it: “communication was not possible.”
The funniest thing about this particular episode is how polarized opinions about it are. “Darmok” is by far the most controversial of all TNG episodes. While (as Bogost points out) the episode touches upon the very essence of Star Trek and Gene Rodenberry’s vision of utopian human future, most controversy that surrounds it concerns how… unserious it is. I think this might be the only TNG episode that I felt slightly uncomfortable watching, because of how silly it felt.