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Post by Erika on Aug 14, 2008 19:28:01 GMT -5
Tread lightly folks - insulting groups of fans of this show is against board rules.
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Post by vicheron on Aug 14, 2008 21:03:08 GMT -5
But equally, that image directly challenges our preconceived ideas and prejudices about both scary robots and human attractiveness - we love Cam - but do we only love Cam when she looks like Summer, or do we love Cam just for who she (to be frank, it) is? This is one of the issues I've had with the series since the start and is often cited by people when drawing attention to the perceived faults of the show. In Hollywood/TV, sex sells, to the point that when it comes to actresses it's arguably the single most important factor on whether or not an actress can go from being used in a small bit part support role to being used to sell a film/series. There's no question that the producers have made liberal use of Summer Glau's sex appeal, be it with the use use of push-up bras and or micro minis. The question is, is this a realistic image of somebody/something that is meant to blend in and remain undetected - hardly. Yes I know teenage girls like to dress up like hookers in training but that's a pretty poor excuse to use to explain why Cameron is always dressed the way she is. When you have an actress like Summer Glau then you have an opportunity to bring a character to life that can go from looking very Plain Jane and dowdy, to being a little sex kitten seemingly without any effort at all. At the moment the producers seem to be relying on the sex kitten formula way to much, no doubt in an effort to hook the young male demographic. The problem is by over playing Summer Glau's looks then it can become trite. If the producers relied more on Glau's ability to look positively ordinary, then when the script genuinely calls for it the transformation from ordinary to sexy becomes far more effective. As it stands at the moment there is a danger that Cameron is at risk of becoming a cliché. I've long held the belief that when characters develop a Shipper following it's a reflection of the fact that while two characters may on the surface look good together there is in fact not much more going on behind the surface veneer. To be fair TSCC as a series is still in it's infancy and consequently the characters are still being developed. Considering what is meant to be at stake with the character in TSCC entertaining thoughts on John/Cameron hook-ups is more than a little ridiculous. If by the end of the second season you still have people entertaining these ideas then that would be a reflection of some very poor writing as it pertains to character development. Television shows and reality have different standards for what is normal. Everything is taken up a notch in television. People pretty much never wear the same clothes more than once. There's no traffic when the heroes are on the road. An attractive person in real life would be considered "normal" on TV and movies. Teenagers have never heard of puberty. The hero just happens to fall for a very attractive person, who isn't a bitch like most of the other attractive people. It may look like Cameron is dressing too sexy since she wears a lot of stuff that are probably against the school dress code but that's just the way it is on television shows. It's no stranger than John having no acne or Sarah being able to get a house the moment they move back to LA.
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traitorsgate
Sergeant
This is Cam. She's trained for an Off-World kick murder squad. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.
Posts: 264
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Post by traitorsgate on Aug 14, 2008 23:03:25 GMT -5
I've no real qualms with regards to suspending my sense of reality in TV/movies, you have to in order to move the story along, otherwise you quickly get bogged down over what is often technical details of no real consequence. Case in point, I used to be in the army and I often have to mentally kick myself when I start grinding my teeth with regards to how actors/actresses handle firearms in TV & film, yes TSCC is just fantasy so nit picking over certain scenes doesn't really achieve anything.
My concern was that the writers were perhaps falling into the trap of allowing Cameron to appear too stylized. Fine if all she was meant to be was some teenager in the latest teen angst melodrama but I think it's safe to assume that the producers of TSCC are aiming higher than that (one hopes). By giving Cameron more scope in how she appears in public then that would likely go some ways to allaying the fears of those who feel that producers too often use a paint-by-numbers approach to character portrayal in TV. Furthermore it would be a visual reference to the fact that Cameron is meant to be an infiltration unit that is not meant to stand out in a crowd, well at least not all the time.
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Post by Derek Reese on Aug 14, 2008 23:30:41 GMT -5
Discussion is moving away from Cameron itself and debating the show's format. While it's interesting discussion. This is a character discussion thread and forum. Not, how or why certain choices were made in regards to the show.
Back to actual character discussion.
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Post by bowman on Aug 15, 2008 6:31:35 GMT -5
I think the S1 promo posters of the various components of Cam are reasonably accurate, at least judging by the armour plating on the forearms and the detailing on the head as you say. She appears to be a smaller version of a T-888? But we know the chip is clearly different to a T-888. The more I look at the picture, the more fascinated I get. I think Cam's skin is incredibly important to her in the sense that without it she loses much of her ability to interact with people and thus her opportunities to learn in that particular way, and also to develop her sense of self compared to those interactions, which is such an important part of what and who she is. You could say that's the true cyborg part, that's the vital organic component. But equally, that image directly challenges our preconceived ideas and prejudices about both scary robots and human attractiveness - we love Cam - but do we only love Cam when she looks like Summer, or do we love Cam just for who she (to be frank, it) is? I like that kind of challenge to our notions. Think of it this way though, when you see a pretty girl you don't think of what her skeleton looks like. Unless you're a bit, well, not all there.
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Post by taurus on Aug 16, 2008 18:30:16 GMT -5
I think the S1 promo posters of the various components of Cam are reasonably accurate, at least judging by the armour plating on the forearms and the detailing on the head as you say. She appears to be a smaller version of a T-888? But we know the chip is clearly different to a T-888. The more I look at the picture, the more fascinated I get. I think Cam's skin is incredibly important to her in the sense that without it she loses much of her ability to interact with people and thus her opportunities to learn in that particular way, and also to develop her sense of self compared to those interactions, which is such an important part of what and who she is. You could say that's the true cyborg part, that's the vital organic component. But equally, that image directly challenges our preconceived ideas and prejudices about both scary robots and human attractiveness - we love Cam - but do we only love Cam when she looks like Summer, or do we love Cam just for who she (to be frank, it) is? I like that kind of challenge to our notions. Think of it this way though, when you see a pretty girl you don't think of what her skeleton looks like. Unless you're a bit, well, not all there. the human skeleton doesn't look nice
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Post by driftlight23 on Aug 17, 2008 5:01:03 GMT -5
Humans need their skin to survive. Terminators basically don't. Unlike me, for example, Cam could lose all her skin and carry on waltzing down the road. But Cam's higher learning functions may have a very close tie to her skin, rendering it much more important to her than other Terminator models. She's not a pretty girl. She's a very scary robot. Seeing the endoskeleton underneath the skin keeps that in mind.
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Post by vicheron on Aug 17, 2008 21:45:44 GMT -5
Also humans can't replace the skin they have with a new set of skin to look like whoever they want, except Cher.
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taffy13
Refugee
Summer 08 Wallpaper Challenge Winner!
lost along the way
Posts: 29
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Post by taffy13 on Aug 20, 2008 5:32:15 GMT -5
What I personally love the most about Cameron is that she doesn't only do things that are mission related. She danced, she read the notes, she wrote a note...she's actively trying. She asks questions, she observes, she has little traits that appear to have sunk in. Such as, she tried to give Jordan a present in the bathroom. She tried to tell Sarah to write a note, because that's what she'd been told helps. She told John he had a lot of friends in the future (though this is a point of discussion between me and a friend because there are conflicting reports on that...)
But Cameron's trying. She kept John's secret for him about Cromartie showing up, she winked at him. She was painting her nails, she just very much seems to be doing her damndest to understand everything, and incorporate all the little things she has learned. She doesn't always manage to incorporate things correctly, but the effort is very much there.
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Post by vicheron on Aug 20, 2008 9:40:34 GMT -5
But being a better infiltrator is a part of her mission. Unlike Uncle Bob, who was reprogrammed at the last minute to protect John, the Resistance has had plenty of time to tamper with Cameron's programming.
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Post by aceplace57 on Sept 11, 2008 1:39:22 GMT -5
I try hard not to nitpick TSCC. People often remind me; "That it's only a tv show for goodness sake." I have chosen to ignore several issues in S & D for the sake of dramatic license. The writers certainly need freedom to tell the story. One item is worth discussing. Seeing Cameron limp in S & D poses unique story problems. It's endoskeleton is made of hardened alloy and actuated by a powerful network of hydraulic servomechanisms (wikipedia). It seems unlikely an explosion would damage the endoskeleton. But, let's assume it did twist the femur, tibia, fibula or damaged a knee / ankle joint. Cameron would certainly limp. Is she going to limp for the rest of the series? How would that be repaired? Is the local blacksmith going to heat the femur in a forge and hammer it straight on an anvil? I've been a hard core Trekkie for over 20 years. I love sci-fi. I wrote Trek fan fiction in high school (early 1990's). Sci-fi stretches the imagination and shows the potential of the future. Good sci-fi can create worlds far different from our own. Fans accept that because they operate consistently within certain rules established by the writer. Starships travel slowly with impulse drive, faster at Warp 1 and even faster at Warp 6. Roddenberry created a writers bible as a reference for guest writers. He knew the importance of keeping the make believe world consistent. They screwed up once in awhile, but not very often. I have a hunch Cameron won't be limping in the next episode. I hope the writers spend a couple minutes showing some sort of repair. Maybe John can straighten the femur with a sledgehammer. ;D Well deserved payback for the attempts on his life in S&D. Or, maybe Cameron can hammer it straight herself. She's much stronger than John. I hope they don't just ignore it.
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traitorsgate
Sergeant
This is Cam. She's trained for an Off-World kick murder squad. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.
Posts: 264
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Post by traitorsgate on Sept 11, 2008 1:58:59 GMT -5
She didn't appear to be limping after she had her chip reset when she got out of the car where she was meant to be torched, so that was that with regards to the limp even before the 1st episode was finished.
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Post by aceplace57 on Sept 11, 2008 2:33:44 GMT -5
I guess the limp gets attributed to her chip malfunction. Odd, that all her other limbs operated normally. ;D Adding a hand tremor or even a head twitch would have made it clear that her motor functions were impaired. Still, a couple lines of dialogue (in s2e2) would clarify it for the fans. It would show that the writers take canon seriously. It's not hard. Kirk or Picard often sent repair crews to fix damage after battles. 10 seconds of dialogue keeps the story believable. They didn't even hire an actor. A voice on the intercom gave a damage report. Simple as pie.
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Post by jen22 on Sept 11, 2008 3:36:07 GMT -5
When she ran a test on herself still in the blown up car it did say 'lower extremeties damage'. So something was screwed up down there that had nothing to do with her chip.
Lets take the easy way out of this. When Sarah smashed Cameron into John's truck everything was put back in order again. *shrugs*
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t101
Major
Posts: 716
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Post by t101 on Sept 11, 2008 3:43:13 GMT -5
There were only a few brief short steps at the end. Don't make too much of it. But it would be nice if next episode for example we see a bandaged knee or something, to imply that she cut it open and worked on it.
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