A place for complete-off-topic conversations that have nothing to do with Star Trek. The rules still apply here, stay civil.
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#599026
Setting aside my critiques about The Mandalorian itself as a series (it's fine but I'll never rewatch it), my ears did prick up extra high when, at the end of the finale, Mando arbitrarily announced a refurbished IG-11 as "sheriff" of Nevarro. Everyone in town (even my beloved Action Jackson as Greef Karga) immediately started applauding. Suddenly I remembered all the recent videos I've seen of growling robot police dogs and back-flipping robot police humans being tested in a lab somewhere here on Earth in 2023.

Am I just paranoid, or does this scene feel like a plug for an impending A.I. police force? Does anyone know if The Mandalorian was vetted by the Pentagon? (They vet all movies involving the military).
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
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1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
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#599124
doctorjoya wrote: Sat May 13, 2023 7:45 pm Am I just paranoid, or does this scene feel like a plug for an impending A.I. police force?
eh, robots/A.I. as authority have been a part of SF in general and SW in particular forever. It's a running joke in my house about how the Astromechs are war criminals, and an earlier episode this year (the Jack Black episode) strongly colored the droids as almost a slave caste, so it's not all positive.

If anything, Data and the Enterprise computers are better "predictive programming" to get people to accept AI overlords if we want to reach for it.
Does anyone know if The Mandalorian was vetted by the Pentagon? (They vet all movies involving the military).
That's both mostly accurate, and a little misleading. The Pentagon doesn't exactly vet all movies involving the military - but they do if the movie wants to use actual military people/ships for filming.

Famous example was "The Avengers", where the Pentagon didn't want to allow using of aircraft carriers as a stand in for filming the SHIELD Helicarrier - because SHIELD is a hazy org with questionable chain of command that doesn't actually answer to anyone.

On one hand, I don't like even the appearance of government giving thumbs up/down to different shows, but on the other, it's perfectly fair to say "if you want to use our stuff to film, we don't want to look bad in it."
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#599260
boromirofborg wrote: Mon May 15, 2023 7:08 pm On one hand, I don't like even the appearance of government giving thumbs up/down to different shows, but on the other, it's perfectly fair to say "if you want to use our stuff to film, we don't want to look bad in it."
BoB :borg: , I'm afraid you've slipped on the propaganda banana peel here. It's not their stuff they often look bad using, it's our tax twinkies.

You're right about Data though. Boy they slipped him through for decades without me questioning anything. Hopefully they'll make the new robot police dogs look less like the terminator and more like Data.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
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#599264
oh, I agree it's marketing/propaganda. I think where we disagree is that the idea of a studio, making a film for profit, has any intrinsic right to use public, tax-paid, stuff.

Ideally, the studios wouldn't be able to use it for anything, and have to build their own sets. But if they are, I don't find it morally objectionable to have requirements, and more then saying, "if you want to film in this national park, it has to be returned as you left it, and you can't make the park look bad."
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