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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AmerginLiath" data-source="post: 8204556" data-attributes="member: 777">The Scotty bit in STIV I think has to be looked at not simply as a programming language issue (computer programming being so new) but as a question of wrangling with old syntax in language and its presentation. I’m reminded of editing 16-18th century business and property records (complete with the sort of abbreviations common to inked shorthand that we don’t encounter in an age of modern pens, much less typing) for publication or on the side for genealogical research, parsing and structuring meaning within a syntactic formula built for a use in that era’s market program (to coin a term). Heck, consider on a much smaller scale how often here we’re all going back and forth between stat-blocks of different systems (including from over a half-century of versions of D&D) and cross-translating rules and characters. As we begin to transition to an AI-heavy interface in the 21st-century, we’re all reacquainting ourselves with the sort of natural language requests (Boolean if not Aristotlean language) with which we interface with our smart speakers and the like; Scotty and other 23rd-century engineers are always depicted doing the further developed version of that same process, so he’s going to think in terms of global syntax rather than particular language when approaching communicating with machines.The other thought I have on this discussion is whether “threequel” and third movie are terms that aren’t always necessarily the same. You may well have a series of films with a character or set of characters but not a story which evolves around them (effectively a series of serials, like episodes on the big screen): the Star Trek films are largely like that aside from II-IV, which operate as a trilogy in the series (such that IV is the threequel here, not III). But series like Mad Max and to a degree Indiana Jones are basically “here’s another adventure of...” (Last Crusade has an element of Indy Is Getting Old added to it, but it more series finale of a series of episodes than a true conclusion to one story). The Marvel films are an odd bag where some other films interpose in between the 1-2-3 of series (the classic CA:CW as Avengers 2.5 notion, but even how IM3 is as much a sequel to Avengers as a follow up to previous IM films, and its big conclusion is quickly turned back in the Avengers series).The classic threequel formula is the Standalone + Expanded Two-parter that the Star Wars trilogy created. There’s always the question of how the second film raises the stakes versus overturns what the first presented (I’ve always personally viewed the Matrix trilogy as being uneven in that the revelations of 2 and 3 take away from what‘s good about 1 without making something better, while I remain torn about the expanding of the John Wick mythology in 2 and 3 compared to symmetry of character and story in 1). I personally find it hard to find many good threequels of this sort (BTTF comes to mind perhaps) simply because it’s a particular structure (and a closed one at that) that requires a specific — often Campbellian of a sort — style of storytelling (BTTF wasn’t written to be mythic like SW, but it’s time-travel core lent an element of leaving and returning home; there’s a surprising amount of Hero‘s Journey in that series). That doesn’t mean third films, as creators become more comfortable with characters can’t be great: I’ll always love Last Crusade, for example. It’s just that I’m not sure the two terms are exactly synonymous here.</blockquote>

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