11 ms·

How Science Makes “Rick and Morty” Great

mwulfe 9y ago
Looks good, but exaggerated infatuation. Come on..
dragontamer 9y ago
Rick And Morty has a great number of good "science" jokes, but really its more about general Sci-Fi tropes. (Time Travel, Multiverses, Clones, Aliens, and Androids aren't really "science" as much as they are about "Science fiction") But the hardest thing for me was to get used to the straight up nihilism of Rick. True, there have been plenty of Nihilistic "protagonists" in other shows: Peter Griffin in Family Guy, Eric Cartman from South Park, Homer Simpson (depending on the season of course). But Rick is different: while the other characters are arguably Nihilistic due to ignorance, Rick purposefully and specifically pursues the "I don't care" attitude and gets away with it due to his intelligence (while other characters in other shows seem to get away with it due to literally dumb luck). That difference continuously pisses me off in Rick and Morty, and as such its difficult for me to enjoy a lot of the episodes. Nothing against the fanbase or anything: I recognize that Rick and Morty is a huge following, and the enormous lines at McDonalds for the special Rick and Morty Sauce just a few days ago demonstrates that Rick and Morty are the new "mainstream" cartoon. But its apathetic and malicious main character really grates on me, and I personally an unable to enjoy it as much as everyone else seems to.
- yters 9y ago
  I saw one episode and had the same reaction. I thought Rick was going to be like the professor from back to the future. Instead he's the bright but shallow kid making all the annoying smart alec comments, with a facile outlook on life he gets away with due to not having to live in the real world.
  - dave_sullivan 9y ago
    > I thought Rick was going to be like the professor from back to the future. Well, it started off that way: https://vimeo.com/97680161 https://vimeo.com/97680161 (NSFW) Who knew that little short would turn into one of the most popular shows on TV?
    - thisacctforreal 9y ago
      Super nsfw 45 seconds in The aesthetic gets across in the first 30, though.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    Rick and Morty has a lot of "bad" episodes IMO, where there's nothing in them except Rick being an annoying jerk. I was forced to keep watching since a group of my friends continued to watch Rick and Morty regularly, and I can definitely say that some episodes are way better than others. "A Rinkle in Time" (Season 2 episode 1) was mostly great episode for instance, and I can recommend it as one of the best that Rick and Morty can offer. I haven't seen all of Rick and Morty: there may be some other really good episodes in there. But I've only seen maybe... 6 or 7 episodes across S1 and S2 (and I haven't seen any of S3). I recognize that Rick does occasionally care about Morty, but seriously, his treatment of Morty is downright abusive in the vast majority of episodes. The fact that Rick saves Morty on some episodes doesn't change the fact that Rick's treatment of Morty is incredibly unfair.
    - dwringer 9y ago
      I kind of agree and disagree with the criticisms in this thread. For a while in season 2 I didn't watch much of the show for pretty much the reasons given here. Nevertheless, I watched a good bit of the first and third seasons, including the [IMHO excellent] finale of Season 3 that prompted Elon Musk to get into a twitter discussion with the show about singularities and partying like Kurt Cobain. [1] Rick and Morty are, I think, intended to be more archetypes rather than actual people most of the time, although sometimes their humanity (particularly Morty's, which is leveraged for comedic effect) shows through. Rick is definitely shown to have something of a softer side that he keeps deeply hidden. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424659
- gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
  Yep. They also don't know what to do with him now that his character is, by their own admission, "some kind of fucked up God." This season was originally going to have four more episodes that would address this but Harmon and Roiland didn't know how to resolve it properly. They admitted that the final episode was originally an arbitrary one which they "finale-ized" to wrap up the season.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    I believe The Ricklantis Mixup really should've been the last episode of this season. It was undoubtedly the strongest one in terms of actual story. The rest (S03E01 excluded) just feel like 15 minutes of filler around a 5 minute joke or plotline. They were enjoyable for me, but I can see why someone wouldn't like this season.
    - gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
      I just commented here about how that episode may have gone too far in terms of fan service: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15435761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15435761 I liked the episode too. But the show now has an identity crisis: the fans (you and me) want to see the serious side explored, but it's honestly a bit pretentious and definitely less funny.
      - cyphar 9y ago
        I definitely agree that Rick and Morty is a victim of it's own fan base. A similar thing happened to Mr Robot in S02, where it felt the entire season was just intentionally trying to mess with the audience with no real payoff (because the "big twist" in S01 was what people praised it for, even though it was basically just Fight Club 2.0).
- sschueller 9y ago
  I think the nihilism fits very well because if you could travel to an infinite possibility of dimensions you would see the world as a very different place. All the things people argue and worry about mean nothing.
  - dragontamer 9y ago
    Traditionally, the great people who have seen infinite possibility and understand the world for what it really is have been guiding figures. IE: Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, or the original "Doc" Brown from Back to the Future... or Dr. Who. Basically characters who have grown to understand the world and guides the other characters through the craziness of the world. I recognize that Rick is purposefully inverted from the standard and typical trope here... and perhaps there really is too many Gandalf / Dr Who / Dr. Brown types in media. But still, I find the standard Gandalf / Dr. Who / Dr. Brown type to be more enjoyable to watch than the incarnation brought about in Rick and Morty.
    - jerf 9y ago
      It doesn't appear that Doc Brown, within the scope of the movies that we see, ever came to grips with just how horrifying the universe he lives in is. It's got many of the same issues that proof of and access to an infinite multiverse does. Doctor Who fits somewhere in the middle, where the universe is more mutable than you might like but still is supposed to have some general flows and rules about what can't be changed, albeit presented as being so complicated than only the Doctor can even hope to understand them. And when writers process this properly there is always a sort of manic, edge-of-sanity element to the Doctor which makes sense. Gandalf doesn't live in the same sort of universe, though. He lives in something more like our real universe, where actions have consequences and can't be undone, or sidestepped by just shooting a portal gun and stepping across to the next universe. And also, perhaps even more importantly, he lives in a universe where it is not possible for a time traveler from the far future to suddenly appear or for Rick to step out and just start killing people because he's in a bad mood and who cares about fantasy-era bumpkins? I don't think Rick is too far out of line, in terms of the universe he lives in.
- horusthecat 9y ago
  All this needs is a little bit of misogyny and a Star Wars reference and this comment would everything wrong with nerds in one post.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - webkike 9y ago
    Instead of flippantly dismissing the grand parent, elaborate on why you disagree.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Could you please comment within the guidelines, like we've asked? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
adamnemecek 9y ago
Right, rick and morty is one of the few things that "science" makes great. The rest of the sciency mumbo jumbo, meh, boring. /s
ravenstine 9y ago
I'm getting pretty tired of Rick and Morty fans blowing the greatness of the show way out of proportion. I love the show, but not because it's "smart" or "nihilistic' or because it references science. It's a zany cartoon with witty dialog, and it's hilarious, but to claim it's more profound than that has so far proven to be little more than reading too far into it. Referencing pop culture isn't "smart" in and of itself, and it doesn't require extraordinary intelligence to recognize. By the way, Rick is not a nihilist. He might be very careless and ambivalent, but that doesn't translate to any form of nihilism I'm aware of; in the case of the show, he's definitely not en existential nihilist, and it's arguable that he's not even a moral nihilist. The rest of the characters on the show are not nihilists; myopic would be a more accurate description. You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld.
- foota 9y ago
  I think they are making a caricatures of themselves when they talk about how smart the show is.
- dsacco 9y ago
  > You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld. Eh? Do you mean nihilist in the (meta) sense that the show "is about nothing" and has no inherent meaning? Because none of the characters on Seinfeld strike me as nihilist either. That's not to say I disagree with your point about Rick and Morty having nihilist characters; I don't think Rick is a nihilist, but I also don't think nihilism translates well to film and television. It's difficult to maintain compelling character development that can bring in a large viewership if a character is truly nihilist, in my opinion. For my purposes I don't believe it's enough to have a character profess adherence to existential nihilism - I don't agree a character is nihilist unless they also act like it, and that is fundamentally difficult to do convincingly. I very often see writers use stoicism, ruthless utilitarianism, (dysfunctional) cynicism and even atheism as proxies to demonstrate a character is nihilistic, but none of those really hits it on the mark. I consider it like free will: you can make extremely compelling arguments that free will (in the sense of the capacity for non-deterministic decision making) simply doesn't exist (or is at best implausible), but there's not really a convincing framework for altering your behavior even if you claim to believe that. This is unlike atheism or agnosticism, which do have clear behavioral proxies when you abstract them away from considerations of intrinsic meaning - simply don't participate in religious communities, gatherings or activities for its own sake.
onion-soup 9y ago
Yea right, turning into a pickle is very sciency
have_faith 9y ago
Morty seems to represent our inner scared timid self while Rick seems to represent our inner projected/desired self. Nerdy introverts can relate to this duality I think. The science and pop references are just frosting on top of the themes we can relate to, like a broken family struggling to hold itself together, struggling to understand your kids, struggling to connect with your parents, and so on. Similar to Futurama, the science reference where great, but when I think of the show I remember the dog sitting in front of the pizza shop waiting for fry before the science gags.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > Morty seems to represent our inner scared timid self while Rick seems to represent our inner projected/desired self. See, that's interesting, because besides being voiced by the same actor, there is some evidence in the show that Morty is Rick.
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    Do you remember where this is implied in the show? That theory is super interesting.
louithethrid 9y ago
I think the true selling point of R & M is that the plot defies expectations, not by simply going to the contrary but by turning left of the hero road, following a insane idea and sticking to it until the trophe falls apart and something i call messy realism appears. What would happen if you hang around the borg? Oh, turns out the hivemind is people too. And so on, and so forth. Rick and Morty is "just" great Tv showing how much on rails all the other plots in all the other shows usually are. My problem is, that i think the show has no overall arc - and that they desperatly will try to glue one together.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  The hivemind episode was a great deconstruction of pansexualism and open-ended identity politics.
- davidivadavid 9y ago
  No overall arc is the ultimate test of creativity. That's why Seinfeld (or arguably The Office) are so impressive to me. It seems like R&M is headed in a similar direction, since they take a lot of pleasure in pretending like they're building an arc and then resolving it in the most anti-climactic way ("Anyway, that's how I escaped from space prison!").
sever5 9y ago
> Dan Harmon, the show’s co-creator, is a genius Give me a break, the show is pop-culture and fart jokes, this subculture likes to throw around "genius" (at themselves) too easily.
bdz 9y ago
Rick and Morty is a prime example of things that have been destroyed by its own fans. Arrow (Olicity...) or Undertale is also a really good example.
- gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
  True and succinct, although "destroyed" is excessive -- its still just as possible to enjoy undertale on its own. R&m though really is a victim of its fanbase. I tried watching the fan favorite s3e01 with my dad, who has seen all of seasons 1 and 2, and he really couldnt follow the plot. It made me realize that I probably only liked it because I watched each episode of seasons 1 and 2 at least twice (the dvd commentary is great). I'm just going to skip watching the council of ricks episode from season 3 with him, it's really self indulgent.
  - captn3m0 9y ago
    Maybe do a rerun of the council of ricks episode from Season 1 with your dad instead? As one of my favorite episodes, it feels bizzare that you'd rather skip it just because it references a previous episode.
cyberpunk0 9y ago
Honestly I'd rather have the ridiculous fans than pretentious people here arguing and nit picking stupid shit to sound more intelligent. It's a show, watch it, enjoy it, stop trying to hold everything against some fictional ideal model. "Ooh but it's not really THAT existential and nihilistic" who the fuck cares you hipster; what elements it has in those areas goes well beyond most other available shows. Much like creating a government to hide from the government, it's pretty damn hypocritical for you all* to sit here and complain about other peoples opinions gumming up the show by complaining about the show with your own overblown armchair drivel. Watch it or don't but shut the fuck up and move on with your day. * Of course not actually everyone
- ravenstine 9y ago
  I feel like you're missing the point that people are making. I personally agree with you when you say "It's a show, watch it, enjoy it, stop trying to hold everything against some fictional ideal model." I don't even have a problem with people seeing something in a form of art that I don't. If someone sees a lot of nihilism or even meaning in Rick and Morty, there's nothing wrong with that. My gripe with Rick and Morty fans, as a group, is that they seem to make a lot of claims that come off as arrogance against people who "just can't understand" the show as they see it. I know a lot of Rick and Morty fans in real life, and I do like the show myself, but I've even met people offline that seem to believe that being a fan of the show means you're of some apex intelligence. I nitpick these claims because they're often made through an objective standpoint, not a subjective one. I have no problem with subjective views, but once I'm told "Oh this thing is so nihilistic, so intelligent, so smart... you just don't get it", of course I'm going to refute those points when I find little basis for them. I normally don't let public opinion dictate what I should like, but a lot of fan behavior I've experienced is so toxic that I'm now having difficulty having anything to do with it. I mean, waiting in line at McDonalds and even jumping the counter for some freaking sauce packets mentioned one time in the show? That's so over-the-top pathetic, I feel kinda gross even thinking about it. I shutter to think that they, many of whom are grown adults, are going to become parents. > what elements it has in those areas goes well beyond most other available shows What are some of those elements?
dkarl 9y ago
Science was one of the few classes that I really responded to in grade school. You’re learning all the cool, big stuff, about evolution, and we were seeing those Pillars of Creation, that amazing Hubble image. It was so fascinating, hearing these big, broad ideas. It would be like, “Now we’re going to talk about DNA and Lamarckian genetics.” But when you had to be smarter for it, like, “Now we’re going to use pipettes and study pH balances,” I was like, “Eh, science is getting a little too sciencey for me.” I think this nicely captures the appeal of fun sci-fi adventure series like "Rick and Morty" and "Doctor Who." Learning mind-blowing new things becomes harder and rarer as you get older, and sci-fi keeps the experience fresh for us. (Also, I was surprised to see them mention a dozen or so sci-fi shows and authors without a single nod to Doctor Who, which seems like the most direct inspiration for Rick and Morty. The inscrutable but often joyous magician traveling space and time with a magical device, constantly getting into mortal peril yet overcoming armies when he needs to, changing the fate of civilizations, encountering reminders of his colorful past, traveling humbly yet openly reveling in his power when he's forced to wield it, his callous facade complicated by his compulsive and somewhat careless habit of bringing an ordinary person along. And of course the theme song is an obvious homage.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Looks good, but exaggerated infatuation. Come on..

Rick And Morty has a great number of good "science" jokes, but really its more about general Sci-Fi tropes. (Time Travel, Multiverses, Clones, Aliens, and Androids aren't really "science" as much as they are about "Science fiction") But the hardest thing for me was to get used to the straight up nihilism of Rick. True, there have been plenty of Nihilistic "protagonists" in other shows: Peter Griffin in Family Guy, Eric Cartman from South Park, Homer Simpson (depending on the season of course). But Rick is different: while the other characters are arguably Nihilistic due to ignorance, Rick purposefully and specifically pursues the "I don't care" attitude and gets away with it due to his intelligence (while other characters in other shows seem to get away with it due to literally dumb luck). That difference continuously pisses me off in Rick and Morty, and as such its difficult for me to enjoy a lot of the episodes. Nothing against the fanbase or anything: I recognize that Rick and Morty is a huge following, and the enormous lines at McDonalds for the special Rick and Morty Sauce just a few days ago demonstrates that Rick and Morty are the new "mainstream" cartoon. But its apathetic and malicious main character really grates on me, and I personally an unable to enjoy it as much as everyone else seems to.

yters 9y ago
I saw one episode and had the same reaction. I thought Rick was going to be like the professor from back to the future. Instead he's the bright but shallow kid making all the annoying smart alec comments, with a facile outlook on life he gets away with due to not having to live in the real world.
- dave_sullivan 9y ago
  > I thought Rick was going to be like the professor from back to the future. Well, it started off that way: https://vimeo.com/97680161 https://vimeo.com/97680161 (NSFW) Who knew that little short would turn into one of the most popular shows on TV?
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    Super nsfw 45 seconds in The aesthetic gets across in the first 30, though.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  Rick and Morty has a lot of "bad" episodes IMO, where there's nothing in them except Rick being an annoying jerk. I was forced to keep watching since a group of my friends continued to watch Rick and Morty regularly, and I can definitely say that some episodes are way better than others. "A Rinkle in Time" (Season 2 episode 1) was mostly great episode for instance, and I can recommend it as one of the best that Rick and Morty can offer. I haven't seen all of Rick and Morty: there may be some other really good episodes in there. But I've only seen maybe... 6 or 7 episodes across S1 and S2 (and I haven't seen any of S3). I recognize that Rick does occasionally care about Morty, but seriously, his treatment of Morty is downright abusive in the vast majority of episodes. The fact that Rick saves Morty on some episodes doesn't change the fact that Rick's treatment of Morty is incredibly unfair.
  - dwringer 9y ago
    I kind of agree and disagree with the criticisms in this thread. For a while in season 2 I didn't watch much of the show for pretty much the reasons given here. Nevertheless, I watched a good bit of the first and third seasons, including the [IMHO excellent] finale of Season 3 that prompted Elon Musk to get into a twitter discussion with the show about singularities and partying like Kurt Cobain. [1] Rick and Morty are, I think, intended to be more archetypes rather than actual people most of the time, although sometimes their humanity (particularly Morty's, which is leveraged for comedic effect) shows through. Rick is definitely shown to have something of a softer side that he keeps deeply hidden. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424659
gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
Yep. They also don't know what to do with him now that his character is, by their own admission, "some kind of fucked up God." This season was originally going to have four more episodes that would address this but Harmon and Roiland didn't know how to resolve it properly. They admitted that the final episode was originally an arbitrary one which they "finale-ized" to wrap up the season.
- cyphar 9y ago
  I believe The Ricklantis Mixup really should've been the last episode of this season. It was undoubtedly the strongest one in terms of actual story. The rest (S03E01 excluded) just feel like 15 minutes of filler around a 5 minute joke or plotline. They were enjoyable for me, but I can see why someone wouldn't like this season.
  - gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
    I just commented here about how that episode may have gone too far in terms of fan service: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15435761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15435761 I liked the episode too. But the show now has an identity crisis: the fans (you and me) want to see the serious side explored, but it's honestly a bit pretentious and definitely less funny.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      I definitely agree that Rick and Morty is a victim of it's own fan base. A similar thing happened to Mr Robot in S02, where it felt the entire season was just intentionally trying to mess with the audience with no real payoff (because the "big twist" in S01 was what people praised it for, even though it was basically just Fight Club 2.0).
sschueller 9y ago
I think the nihilism fits very well because if you could travel to an infinite possibility of dimensions you would see the world as a very different place. All the things people argue and worry about mean nothing.
- dragontamer 9y ago
  Traditionally, the great people who have seen infinite possibility and understand the world for what it really is have been guiding figures. IE: Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, or the original "Doc" Brown from Back to the Future... or Dr. Who. Basically characters who have grown to understand the world and guides the other characters through the craziness of the world. I recognize that Rick is purposefully inverted from the standard and typical trope here... and perhaps there really is too many Gandalf / Dr Who / Dr. Brown types in media. But still, I find the standard Gandalf / Dr. Who / Dr. Brown type to be more enjoyable to watch than the incarnation brought about in Rick and Morty.
  - jerf 9y ago
    It doesn't appear that Doc Brown, within the scope of the movies that we see, ever came to grips with just how horrifying the universe he lives in is. It's got many of the same issues that proof of and access to an infinite multiverse does. Doctor Who fits somewhere in the middle, where the universe is more mutable than you might like but still is supposed to have some general flows and rules about what can't be changed, albeit presented as being so complicated than only the Doctor can even hope to understand them. And when writers process this properly there is always a sort of manic, edge-of-sanity element to the Doctor which makes sense. Gandalf doesn't live in the same sort of universe, though. He lives in something more like our real universe, where actions have consequences and can't be undone, or sidestepped by just shooting a portal gun and stepping across to the next universe. And also, perhaps even more importantly, he lives in a universe where it is not possible for a time traveler from the far future to suddenly appear or for Rick to step out and just start killing people because he's in a bad mood and who cares about fantasy-era bumpkins? I don't think Rick is too far out of line, in terms of the universe he lives in.
horusthecat 9y ago
All this needs is a little bit of misogyny and a Star Wars reference and this comment would everything wrong with nerds in one post.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- webkike 9y ago
  Instead of flippantly dismissing the grand parent, elaborate on why you disagree.
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please comment within the guidelines, like we've asked? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

adamnemecek 9y ago

Right, rick and morty is one of the few things that "science" makes great. The rest of the sciency mumbo jumbo, meh, boring. /s

ravenstine 9y ago

I'm getting pretty tired of Rick and Morty fans blowing the greatness of the show way out of proportion. I love the show, but not because it's "smart" or "nihilistic' or because it references science. It's a zany cartoon with witty dialog, and it's hilarious, but to claim it's more profound than that has so far proven to be little more than reading too far into it. Referencing pop culture isn't "smart" in and of itself, and it doesn't require extraordinary intelligence to recognize. By the way, Rick is not a nihilist. He might be very careless and ambivalent, but that doesn't translate to any form of nihilism I'm aware of; in the case of the show, he's definitely not en existential nihilist, and it's arguable that he's not even a moral nihilist. The rest of the characters on the show are not nihilists; myopic would be a more accurate description. You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld.

foota 9y ago
I think they are making a caricatures of themselves when they talk about how smart the show is.
dsacco 9y ago
> You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld. Eh? Do you mean nihilist in the (meta) sense that the show "is about nothing" and has no inherent meaning? Because none of the characters on Seinfeld strike me as nihilist either. That's not to say I disagree with your point about Rick and Morty having nihilist characters; I don't think Rick is a nihilist, but I also don't think nihilism translates well to film and television. It's difficult to maintain compelling character development that can bring in a large viewership if a character is truly nihilist, in my opinion. For my purposes I don't believe it's enough to have a character profess adherence to existential nihilism - I don't agree a character is nihilist unless they also act like it, and that is fundamentally difficult to do convincingly. I very often see writers use stoicism, ruthless utilitarianism, (dysfunctional) cynicism and even atheism as proxies to demonstrate a character is nihilistic, but none of those really hits it on the mark. I consider it like free will: you can make extremely compelling arguments that free will (in the sense of the capacity for non-deterministic decision making) simply doesn't exist (or is at best implausible), but there's not really a convincing framework for altering your behavior even if you claim to believe that. This is unlike atheism or agnosticism, which do have clear behavioral proxies when you abstract them away from considerations of intrinsic meaning - simply don't participate in religious communities, gatherings or activities for its own sake.

onion-soup 9y ago

Yea right, turning into a pickle is very sciency

have_faith 9y ago

Morty seems to represent our inner scared timid self while Rick seems to represent our inner projected/desired self. Nerdy introverts can relate to this duality I think. The science and pop references are just frosting on top of the themes we can relate to, like a broken family struggling to hold itself together, struggling to understand your kids, struggling to connect with your parents, and so on. Similar to Futurama, the science reference where great, but when I think of the show I remember the dog sitting in front of the pizza shop waiting for fry before the science gags.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
> Morty seems to represent our inner scared timid self while Rick seems to represent our inner projected/desired self. See, that's interesting, because besides being voiced by the same actor, there is some evidence in the show that Morty is Rick.
- ravenstine 9y ago
  Do you remember where this is implied in the show? That theory is super interesting.

louithethrid 9y ago

I think the true selling point of R & M is that the plot defies expectations, not by simply going to the contrary but by turning left of the hero road, following a insane idea and sticking to it until the trophe falls apart and something i call messy realism appears. What would happen if you hang around the borg? Oh, turns out the hivemind is people too. And so on, and so forth. Rick and Morty is "just" great Tv showing how much on rails all the other plots in all the other shows usually are. My problem is, that i think the show has no overall arc - and that they desperatly will try to glue one together.

humanrebar 9y ago
The hivemind episode was a great deconstruction of pansexualism and open-ended identity politics.
davidivadavid 9y ago
No overall arc is the ultimate test of creativity. That's why Seinfeld (or arguably The Office) are so impressive to me. It seems like R&M is headed in a similar direction, since they take a lot of pleasure in pretending like they're building an arc and then resolving it in the most anti-climactic way ("Anyway, that's how I escaped from space prison!").

sever5 9y ago

> Dan Harmon, the show’s co-creator, is a genius Give me a break, the show is pop-culture and fart jokes, this subculture likes to throw around "genius" (at themselves) too easily.

bdz 9y ago

Rick and Morty is a prime example of things that have been destroyed by its own fans. Arrow (Olicity...) or Undertale is also a really good example.

gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
True and succinct, although "destroyed" is excessive -- its still just as possible to enjoy undertale on its own. R&m though really is a victim of its fanbase. I tried watching the fan favorite s3e01 with my dad, who has seen all of seasons 1 and 2, and he really couldnt follow the plot. It made me realize that I probably only liked it because I watched each episode of seasons 1 and 2 at least twice (the dvd commentary is great). I'm just going to skip watching the council of ricks episode from season 3 with him, it's really self indulgent.
- captn3m0 9y ago
  Maybe do a rerun of the council of ricks episode from Season 1 with your dad instead? As one of my favorite episodes, it feels bizzare that you'd rather skip it just because it references a previous episode.

cyberpunk0 9y ago

Honestly I'd rather have the ridiculous fans than pretentious people here arguing and nit picking stupid shit to sound more intelligent. It's a show, watch it, enjoy it, stop trying to hold everything against some fictional ideal model. "Ooh but it's not really THAT existential and nihilistic" who the fuck cares you hipster; what elements it has in those areas goes well beyond most other available shows. Much like creating a government to hide from the government, it's pretty damn hypocritical for you all* to sit here and complain about other peoples opinions gumming up the show by complaining about the show with your own overblown armchair drivel. Watch it or don't but shut the fuck up and move on with your day. * Of course not actually everyone

ravenstine 9y ago
I feel like you're missing the point that people are making. I personally agree with you when you say "It's a show, watch it, enjoy it, stop trying to hold everything against some fictional ideal model." I don't even have a problem with people seeing something in a form of art that I don't. If someone sees a lot of nihilism or even meaning in Rick and Morty, there's nothing wrong with that. My gripe with Rick and Morty fans, as a group, is that they seem to make a lot of claims that come off as arrogance against people who "just can't understand" the show as they see it. I know a lot of Rick and Morty fans in real life, and I do like the show myself, but I've even met people offline that seem to believe that being a fan of the show means you're of some apex intelligence. I nitpick these claims because they're often made through an objective standpoint, not a subjective one. I have no problem with subjective views, but once I'm told "Oh this thing is so nihilistic, so intelligent, so smart... you just don't get it", of course I'm going to refute those points when I find little basis for them. I normally don't let public opinion dictate what I should like, but a lot of fan behavior I've experienced is so toxic that I'm now having difficulty having anything to do with it. I mean, waiting in line at McDonalds and even jumping the counter for some freaking sauce packets mentioned one time in the show? That's so over-the-top pathetic, I feel kinda gross even thinking about it. I shutter to think that they, many of whom are grown adults, are going to become parents. > what elements it has in those areas goes well beyond most other available shows What are some of those elements?

dkarl 9y ago

Science was one of the few classes that I really responded to in grade school. You’re learning all the cool, big stuff, about evolution, and we were seeing those Pillars of Creation, that amazing Hubble image. It was so fascinating, hearing these big, broad ideas. It would be like, “Now we’re going to talk about DNA and Lamarckian genetics.” But when you had to be smarter for it, like, “Now we’re going to use pipettes and study pH balances,” I was like, “Eh, science is getting a little too sciencey for me.” I think this nicely captures the appeal of fun sci-fi adventure series like "Rick and Morty" and "Doctor Who." Learning mind-blowing new things becomes harder and rarer as you get older, and sci-fi keeps the experience fresh for us. (Also, I was surprised to see them mention a dozen or so sci-fi shows and authors without a single nod to Doctor Who, which seems like the most direct inspiration for Rick and Morty. The inscrutable but often joyous magician traveling space and time with a magical device, constantly getting into mortal peril yet overcoming armies when he needs to, changing the fate of civilizations, encountering reminders of his colorful past, traveling humbly yet openly reveling in his power when he's forced to wield it, his callous facade complicated by his compulsive and somewhat careless habit of bringing an ordinary person along. And of course the theme song is an obvious homage.)

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