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The Expanse

RoyalNoises said:
Yeah, and as I'm saying, the intention was always to do that. The Expanse as a series was originally going to be an RPG setting where the point was to play as a party of bootstrappers running around in the suddenly expanded sphere of human influence on all those new planets that opened up. They just wrote the background information on the setting into a book and then to their surprise it sold well, so they kept doing it. The Protomolecule isn't a sudden deviation from the setting, it is the original point of it.
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So? The background stuff prior to the protomolecule still is more interesting. Even if the authors and showrunners might not have intended it. It is my personal and subjective opinion that the authors wasted their superb background work.

Mass Effect does the whole Ancient Precursors angle much better and the few glimpses of Firefly that we got portray a much better "dirty" colonization.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Both of those opinions I thoroughly disagree with.
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Be my guest. But Mass Effect actually manages to weave in all the Ancient Precursor stuff without feeling forced because it is a setting element right from the start on top of the interesting political dynamics. And I still remember being amused when it turned out that the Protheans were fucking degenerate assholes that ate the Asari who admire them.

Firefly on the other hand is soft sci-fi enough that I can roll with the colonization theme. Any hard sci-fi basically makes planetary colonization unnecessary because once the required tech-level is reached we have much better options and Transhumanism starts puahing itself in the thematic foreground.

I get that the Expanse approach fills a niche for some people but for me the whole Solar System approach was just more valuable. I think we can all agree to disagree there ?
 
Most Precursor plotlines in Mass Effect ended up being nonsense thanks to the reapers, and the colonization in Firefly was an incredibly lazy 'the wild west BUT IN SPACE' not helped by Josh Whedon's inability to have his characters take anything seriously.

Anchises said:
I think we can all agree to disagree there ?
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Too late. I've already put down a deposit to hire a mercenary army to bend all the users in this thread to my will, and the cancelation clause with them is brutal.
 
RoyalNoises said:
Considering that the entire story prior to the protomolecule is literally just there as window dressing to the story about the protomolecule, this is a bit like reading Lord of the Rings and complaining about all the magic and elves. :p
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Applying the analogy to The Expanse we'd have a situation where people frequently use Hobbiton and Frodo's relatives as their big selling points for recommending the series to others, and the Lord of the Rings in general receives a popular reputation for being literary slice-of-life.
 
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It's funny how this doesn't bother me. Seeing as I am exactly the kind of person who would be bothered lol
 
Cetashwayo said:
I don't really understand though, the first three seasons were extremely well-received and all of them stayed within the solar system? They didn't have good ratings but that was a promotional issue with SyFy, not that the Expanse itself was a bad show. The sheer outpouring of love when it was going to get canceled and the purchase by Amazon reflected that.

And the show is obviously tied to the books which is what I'm really critiquing. I don't think the out of context problem as it was presented was a very good one. It's as if halfway through Game of Thrones America was discovered and the plot of the show was completely abandoned in favor of colonization. It's not the problem of there being an alien thing, it's that the alien thing breaks the entire setting by taking it out of the solar system. Yeah I'm annoyed that a series that tried to be more grounded and imagine a well-realized solar system that grew organically over hundreds of years in-setting suddenly opens up 1700 solar systems with habitable worlds. It loses any thematic resonance or connection to anything real or interesting when suddenly these very real issues we deal with today reflected in sci-fi are dispensed with in favor of stock sci-fi tropes.
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Not really. It's like how in Game of thrones the white walkers were ALWAYS supposed to be the big threat and all the intrigue was just backdrop. Same with the expanse. It was ALWAYS going to leave the system and anyone who didn't see the scope expanding was a fool.
 
LordYam said:
Not really. It's like how in Game of thrones the white walkers were ALWAYS supposed to be the big threat and all the intrigue was just backdrop. Same with the expanse. It was ALWAYS going to leave the system and anyone who didn't see the scope expanding was a fool.
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Yeah but the white walker plotline sucks ass and ended so badly in the show it's a joke.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Yeah but the white walker plotline sucks ass and ended so badly in the show it's a joke.
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That's more to execution. The underlying idea worked. People who thought that the backstabbing was the main point were wrong. Had Cersei fallen before the Night King and than it focused on Dany it would have been better received.

More importantly the backstabbing was NEVER the main point. The writers didn't miss the point in expanse. They were ALWAYS going to introduce the gate system. It was built up over the first three books. The eros incident leads to the structure forming in Mercury which leads to the gate system. That it didn't go the way YOU wanted doesn't make it bad.
 
LordYam said:
That's more to execution. The underlying idea worked. People who thought that the backstabbing was the main point were wrong. Had Cersei fallen before the Night King and than it focused on Dany it would have been better received.

More importantly the backstabbing was NEVER the main point. The writers didn't miss the point in expanse. They were ALWAYS going to introduce the gate system. It was built up over the first three books. The eros incident leads to the structure forming in Mercury which leads to the gate system. That it didn't go the way YOU wanted doesn't make it bad.
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Yeah, but that's always been the problems with these heel turns. In comparison to the white walkers the character interaction and of the early seasons and early books is far more compelling and Martin constructs an absolutely massive social world for these characters to inhabit. It's no surprise people prefer this to the actual main plot which is only vaguely in the background and has little relevance to the resonant character interaction of the books. In the show, well, we saw what happened.

The heel turn wouldn't be as much of a problem if the later books are as good. But they aren't- they have a lot of stupid shit happen and they blow up integral parts of the setting of the first three books without replacing them with anything as interesting. The fact that it ends up being the main point doesn't matter- what makes it bad is precisely that it's pretty poorly executed. I can only hope the show does a better job.
 
I'm talking about expanse as well. The gate plot point was built up from day 1. You complained that the writers missed the point when really it was you. They did what they intended. Sometimes deviating works (Star Wars) other times it doesn't. But you are just complaining that it didn't go the way you wanted.
 
LordYam said:
I'm talking about expanse as well. The gate plot point was built up from day 1. You complained that the writers missed the point when really it was you. They did what they intended. Sometimes deviating works (Star Wars) other times it doesn't. But you are just complaining that it didn't go the way you wanted.
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Yes, I am. I'm talking about my preference and opinion on the books. What else would I be talking about? The objective fact? There isn't an objective fact, I can't prove the later books were qualitatively worse by some statistical method. You're entirely free to disagree about it and I'm willing to give the show all the shots it can get to make em better because I think it's an amazing show.
 
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Anchises said:
Really not that hyped for S4 because of all the Protomolecule/Interstellar colonization stuff. The setting was far more interesting without all the soft sci-fi. A gritty political drama focused on the solar system would have been much cooler. Really a wasted chance to do something new.
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Honestly, the Protomolecule was a really interesting plot point for a series of books set in this relatively hard scifi solar system. It violated the conventions of the Universe it was in and so was a natural main plot thread to drive everything.

With that in mind, the opening of the FTL gate could have easily been a high watermark at which the series road off into the sunset leaving an unknown future to speculate on.
 
I think we can all agree that the later books weren't as good. But as least so far the tv writers have made good changes to the story. So I am willing to have faith for now.
 
Deadly Snark said:
I think we can all agree that the later books weren't as good. But as least so far the tv writers have made good changes to the story. So I am willing to have faith for now.
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Indeed. I actually really liked the preview scene. So while I'm worried I'm excited to see where the show takes it.
 
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New trailer for us



I can't comment on the books because I haven't read that far, but I enjoyed the trailer at least. Nothing particularly new as far as information goes, but the scenes laid over by the Kennedy speech was neat to watch.
 
So, season's out. I really enjoyed it. I am shocked to be the first one reviving this thread, the expanse seems like the most SV of shows.
 
Yeah, the new season's really good. Moving to Amazon hasn't really changed anything about the show, though the setting for this season might put people off.
 
Six episodes in and I'm enjoying it, it's great that Avasarala can now swear as much as her book counterpart.

Murty: "So I'm the bad guy?"

Well, you're a Brit representing Space British East India Company with a charter trying to chase off the Space Boers because they struck lithium. Judging from the conversation with your fellow colonizers on the trip downwell it'd probably have been better if you'd died with them.
[/SPOILER]
 
Jane Dough said:
"Horny elvi subplot"?
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A big chunk of Elvi's plot in the book was her having this really awkward crush on Holden that kept getting in the way of her ability to focus on everything else going on. Holden did nothing to show any real interest or really lead her on in any way, so it just comes basically out of nowhere, and it's ultimately waved off as, basically, her just being horny and starved for physical affection. It's really cringe-y and juvenile, and is honestly the weakest part of Cibola Burn. Not surprised it got axed in the show. Thankfully the authors also seemed to learn from that, as the subsequent books have exactly none of that shit.
 
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