Dude, the Stormtrooper are clones. Did you ever make a copy of a VHS copy? They're always shittier than the original.
Bobba Fett > Stormtrooper

*ditto

But the invincibility point is nonsense. Most humans die from old age, so, yes, you wouldn't be invincible if you didn't die from aging, but that doesn't mean you'd still live a short or normal lifespan.

Also, WikiPedia says naked mole rats live up to 31 years. Is that when their tunnel cave-in is always scheduled by Naked-Mole-Rat-Jesus?

It'd be something to clone a human with the ability to stop aging like naked mole rats and the ability to regrow limbs like salamanders.

Considering the dick-waiving that the whole Star Trek vs Star Wars thing always devolves into, I actually enjoyed the light-heartedness of this skit.

That said, the purpose of the stories told by each is meant to be completely different. That Star Wars goes for the simpler, classic hero's journey doesn't make it a lesser work, it just has a more singular focus, and the original trilogy did it well. But when you have a strong foundation like that, you really can't expand on it without losing a lot of the charm of the basic story. That's part of why the sequels were so disappointing. They couldn't retell the hero's journey without being a rehash, and by focusing on the hero's downfall, they had to up the complexity of the plot. But how complex can you make a plot before it just drags the movie down? (The exception was Clone Wars, which was able to circumvent this because it had more space to tell the story.)

This is why I am fairly certain that the new Star Wars movies will be lacking. They can either go the simple route and end up with a rehash, or the complex route, and end up with a similar mess to the prequels. There's a fine line they need to ride in order to make a good set of movies, but there are a lot of things working against them, from the expectations of the Star Wars fans, to the concessions writers have to make to appeal to the mass audience of modern movies. (To say nothing of Abrams, whose insultingly abysmal treatment of Star Trek gives me little confidence.)

Now on the Star Trek end, the stories are meant to be more complex, with commentaries on philosophy, modern politics, and the human condition (as well as showing the unique technological possibilities that the future held). Most of the stories were designed for introspection, and that's a major part of what made the show popular.

But if you lose that introspection and focus on action and special effects, the stories become empty. This is why many of the later movies, which again had to focus on mass appeal, were so lacking. (Movies like Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Generations, and First Contact avoided this because they were able to draw on the richness of the show to round out the themes they were trying to express, but even still, they weren't quite up to par to the shows when it came to the fundamental concepts of Star Trek.) The same goes for much of Voyager and Enterprise, which often ended up going more for appeal than intellect. (Perhaps the writers ran out of things to say, perhaps the audience just got dumber, who knows.)

So in the end, which one is nerdier? Star Trek, hands down, and as ChaosEngine said, it's a good thing.

Which one is better? That depends on what kind of story you're looking for.

But in the end, there's no denying . . .


Riker is a freaking boss.

There is a reason to go gender neutral but personally I advocate copying your brain and cloning yourself as both a man and a woman, and then a gender neutral cherub to follow your female and male selves around, shooting love arrows and playing a harp on a cloud with a My Little Pony that carries your personality back ups.

Of course, technologically we aren't there yet, but yeah that's the path to my heart's content.

And while I wait for that time, I'll spend the remainder of my life alternating between male, female, and neutral. Of course... it's hard to alternate sometimes when I have acrylic nails, threaded eyebrows, and henna up and down my arms. People are just confused by my appearance no matter how masculine I act.

The problem I have is that the effort to go through the process of feminizing makes the process of returning to a masculine state difficult. And often times I don't want to return to a masculine state. Though, being masculine is much easier aesthetically, it makes the return to a feminine state easier to achieve than going from my female self to male.

The thing is, I was never super masculine until around my midtwenties when I started hanging out in bars, drinking a lot, and basically mimicking alpha male behavior. I had to really put forth the effort to be a man's man, but once you learn to fake it long enough, you make it become part of your reality.

So in the reality that is my brain, although I am genderfluid, I lean more towards neutrality and femininity aesthetically, even if I also enjoy a good masculine diatribe every now and then. See, on the internet I can be anything I want to be at any time without the material requirements, which MEN do not fully realize (you ignorant pigs). So my genderfluidity is more natural and honest in this realm of 1s and 0s than "the desert of the real."

Edit: As an aside, I would like to point out that I'm not transgender or genderfluid because of Caitlin Jenner. It's not a fad or a trend, it's how I've always been, I just don't make a big fuss about it, unless it is appropriate to do so, such as now.

Maybe. I feel like they all come from a proto vsauce dude, a lost ancestor of the youtube personalities.

The vsauce dude had this assistant vsauce guy who was a direct clone of himself. It was scary. I don't feel that same urgent awareness of fear in this video, so while the pattern is close enough to detect, it's different enough to keep me at ease. Seeing someone actually pattern themselves directly after someone is CREEPY.

That comment is a reflection on what I hear on a daily basis.
Perhaps my wordage is off, but the stuff coming at us 24-7 is created by studios, not musicians. So much of what I hear is produced by guys sitting at mixer boards and computers.
My comment isn't aimed at every person out there making music, in fact I know there are lots of musicians out there with talent and skill..., but we never get to hear them over all the crap being dealt out by the industry which is breeding Egos as musicians. (I'd choose Beck over Beyonce any day of the week.)

Sure, I know, it may seem like I'm digging a hole and jumping in but the system is broken and the good music is being squelched. Maybe not 100% of the time, but listen to the music. The electronic age is filtering everything out of the music, no more drummer, no guitar, auto tune, synthetic voice. where is all the character? Where are all the happy accidents that real music serves us. How many of today's artistes (on the charts) can serve us music without a guy mixing it to make them sound good, double tracking, and keeping their voices in tune? I know these tricks have been used for years but never to the extent they are being used today.

I remember a quote by Niel Young, way back when he was recording. The guys at the board keep telling him he wasn't hitting the note, and his answer was "Hey, that's my style man!" So they had to leave it in, and the result was great. Pure Niel Young.

So, I guess it's not so much the musicians out there, so much as it is the recording studios, and the system of pump out the next clone hit...

It was Tony James that initiated this era, back when he created Sigue Sigue Sputnik. He had a dream, a vision of what the band looked and sounded like. He hired people that looked like what he wanted, none could play music, he taught them three chords and they they became the number one, unrecorded, unsigned band in history, and EMI finally Won (relative term) by offering them the most money. From that point all the music was produces electronically in the studio. It sounded like crap, but I loved it. It was new and sounded different. And people ate it up. The studios caught on, and realized they didn't need musicians any more, they always wanted money. It made more sense to hire nobodies, they were a dime a dozon and they could be made to sound any way they wanted them too. Just like the Boy Bands and Girl Bands (Spice girls, Pussy Cat Dolls)

Okay... so I'm rambling now..., it's been a long day...
The industry feeds us synthetic garbage because it's cheep, makes money and is easily replaced by the next song/artist.

Meanwhile the real artists are doing everything they can to get recognized and struggle to make a living giving us their soul served in a song and doing everything they can to be heard over the sounds of the industry.

BTW, we do need to prepare cloning data for Billy Dee Williams to ready for this.

What is to stop me from putting up a big cock.gif in tight speedo with the words " 'sup ? " ???

Nothing.

I doubt you all want that.

All it will do is cause problems, you are naive to think this would not be abused, it will drive the peoples away as this place slowly becomes a Reddit clone.

** and how can the definition of appropriate picture be any different than what a video can contain, and that is cock and balls and breasts and vaginas and whole human bodies - if in an artistic fashion. Now let us define what artistic is ? ...

Explain ABC stores in Honolulu now. Teddy was cloned and an army of Teddy was pacified through the promise of retail sales.

Those are clone troopers!

...or are we not talking about those movies?

Interesting, but surely, a part of the brain "lighting" up, having been given certain stimuli, does not necessarily explain root cause. eg;- Why does the light work when it is switched on? A neurological answer would simply attribute it to the necessary connections being made. But we know it is WAY more complicated. The correct bulb must be used, the correct voltage, the connection cannot be broken, the switch must be operable, etc. Any one of these not in place = no light. Similarly with neurology. The light is on, but myriad reasons could account for it. Nature, nurture, peer pressure, obligation, and much more dictate what/who we are. A sadists pleasure neurons light up witnessing pain, but may also light up when helping someone. So which is the true reaction, or are they both, though contradictory, true? I respect science immensely, but trying to map the brain as if it were totally predictable in any given circumstance seems - unless we are all identically cloned have identical experiences, identical parents, and identical hopes and dreams - futile.

Little known fact but Asimov was cloned on the day of his death, and his clone is now 22 years old. The Asimov foundation payed to recreate (with pretty fair integrity) his entire upbringing, location by location and school by school. Just like his predecessor, the new Isaac is finishing his degree in chemistry over the next three years and is taking an interest to writing.

Wow, for years I was under the misapprehension that it was Order 67 that stopped the production of clones. Thanks ParsleySagemind.

Loosing my head every time someone says, "What, a black guy? What happened to the clones?"
The production of clones stopped after Order 66. The clones died off rapidly with their accelerated aging. Once the Empire took over, Storm Troopers were made up of people from concurred planets. All Troopers were human because of the Emperor's distrust of Alien races.

There were no living clones left in Episodes 4-6