Beast with a Billion Backs Official Review Thread

Topic: Nerd in a Shed

Users: @gkscotty @Graham @SuzyQ Beb Chris Enhas fellgrazer Tony

irc.simpworks.com

[Wilde Grey Yonder]

Heh, I agree with a lot of your points (though I do find it a bit ironic that, just once, you're more positive about some cultural item than I), but I'm not sure about your assessment of Yivo's morality. I can see where you're coming from regarding skhler loneliness, but still:

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I like your theory, but I have two problems with it. 1) so many of the characters on Futurama have, pretty much, modern values (late-20th-century WASP North American values, to be precise). Fine by me, I can see it's needed for satire and so on. (It could be a little less USA-based for me, but then, it's made by Americans primarily for Americans, so no problem.) But wonderful as Futurama is in most respects, it's not really the type of show to explore truly alien psychologies or cultures (as opposed to late-20th-century whitebread Americans inhabiting insect colonies). The only non-human character I can readily think of that came off as truly alien would be "God". That worked for me in a way Yivo didn't.

2) You can't have a character use the "you were provocatively dressed" excuse (and gah, how I hate that line! It immediately characterised Yivo as a sub-Alcazar creepball) and then suggest that it's a completely inscrutable and alien being. That line is so tied to a specific culture and epoch. If Yivo is human enough (maybe not the right word in this specific context) to use that line to justify mass rape, shklee is human enough to figure out that mass rape is a bad idea in the first place. Oh, and can you tell I hated that line?

We just have different opinions on Yivo, I suspect. My big problem is that shklee was... not so much unsympathetic as inconsistent. I guess a truly inscrutable alien being might, to my finite human intellect, come off as both a sleazy rapist and a benevolent parent-figure. Either that, or the writers just f***ed up. Occam's razor and all...

Oh, and I think it was lame to give Yivo human-like facial features. "God" was just a collection of glowy spheres, and yet managed to come off as a sympathetic and somewhat interesting character.

And gah, that "provocatively dressed" line...

[Shockwave]

I think that line was more of a case of the writers putting in a bad joke than anything else meant to be substantial to the plot. While the line didn't generate hate in my when I heard it, I do remember it giving me a "WTF?!" kind of moment when I heard it. It is a really stupid line.

The more I think about it, the more I just think the whole thing would have been better if the main universe had broken up with Yivo like they had intended in the first place.

I should probably get around to listening to the commentary to see if the writers actually offer any insight to why they made the choices they did.

I mean, perhaps the whole thing is a satire on the oft human trend of giving a sleazy boy/girlfriend a second chance when they clearly don't deserve it? I dunno.

[Wilde Grey Yonder]

Excellent points. I have nothing to add.

It would have been interesting to see what had happened if they had

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broken up with Yivo.

It would certainly have been more in character. Yeah, more in character for the entire universe.

EDIT: I see what you mean about the "provocatively dressed" line being meant as a joke rather than characterisation. But the writers need to remember that what a character says *does* count as characterisation, like it or not. Particularly if it's one of their first lines in the film. Since that was the first time Yivo spoke in the film, that line ended up defining shkler character, unfortunately.