Star Trek: Discovery - Pre-release discussion [** NO SPOILERS **]

AtomicHorror

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Didn't it already do something like that in ST:TNG?

Nate

The Outcast touched on it. As did The Host, in a less direct way.

Links234

Nate--IRL-- wrote: »

Didn't it already do something like that in ST:TNG?

Nate

Eh, kinda... The episode "The Outcast" where there was an androgenous race, but it was a bit hamfisted and a weak episode. I'd actually say Jadzia Dax was a better counterpoint, especially her interpersonal relationship with Sisko, having a previous friendship with Curzon.

AtomicHorror

Links234 wrote: »

Eh, kinda... The episode "The Outcast" where there was an androgenous race, but it was a bit hamfisted and a weak episode. I'd actually say Jadzia Dax was a better counterpoint, especially her interpersonal relationship with Sisko, having a previous friendship with Curzon.

Yes, Trek has done these things via allegory and metaphor many times before, and there is value in that, but I don't think an allegory racism played out between warring alien species is at all as powerful as simply showing people of all ethnicities living and working together as if there's no problem.

Similarly for LGBT people, there's greater power in putting the Starfleet uniform on them than there is in either writing a story about genderfluid aliens or doing the gender/sexuality equivalent of Uhura and Kirk's kiss.

degrassinoel

idc what they do so long as it's good sci-fi, and doesn't bollocks up trek's timeline

_Kaiser_

I'll go against the consensus here and say that the notion of casting actors or developing characters with particular sexual traits to push an agenda is completely wrong.

As said above, if a trans actor/character is "just there" and good at their role, then fine - however I fear it would just have to be highlighted to show how "progressive" we are, rather than letting their performance speak for itself.

Links234

Some would've said that having a Russia character a decade after the end of McCarthyism was pushing an agenda, or for that matter a Japanese actor/character, or having an interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura was agenda pushing, or having a black captain or a female captain was agenda pushing. Trek was always about imagining a future to aspire to, and as such was always progressive.

Kirby

Personally, I'd rather they concentrate on the making the show the best it can be....and not pushing agenda's. It's distracting. You want people talking about how good the show is.....not how the new star trek show has a disabled-trans-alien captain.

AtomicHorror

Kirby wrote: »

Personally, I'd rather they concentrate on the making the show the best it can be....and not pushing agenda's.

Star Trek without an agenda would be a pretty significant departure.

Kirby wrote: »

It's distracting. You want people talking about how good the show is.....not how the new star trek show has a disabled-trans-alien captain.

Hypothetically, if the captain were transgender and the audience and critics didn't focus on that element but just praised the quality of the show in general, would you be happy with the captain being transgender?

Optimus Prime

Looks like its pretty much confirmed its set before Kirk\Spock now.. if it wasnt already.

I hate aintitcool.com these days.. but..

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/75876

To be honest im disappointed a bit.

_Kaiser_

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Looks like its pretty much confirmed its set before Kirk\Spock now.. if it wasnt already.

I hate aintitcool.com these days.. but..

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/75876

To be honest im disappointed a bit.

Think it's a mistake going with ANOTHER prequel myself. It didn't work for ENT (despite the improvements in the last 2 seasons), and the reaction to the JJ movies and their messing with established timelines and mythology is well documented.

squonk

I'm a bit disappointed too but looking at the bigger picture, if they're going to follwo a theme through multiple seasons of this show set in different eras then it could work very well. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a Section 31 series. Also promising though is that it could be an Official Axanar series. Again this would be promising.

Goodshape

Section 31 and time travel... aren't they sort of the antithesis of good exploration, discovery (heh), occasionally cerebral, Star Trek?

Not going to judge before seeing or learning more but those really wouldn't be my first choices at all.


But also this doesn't sound like any sort of confirmation; just another person speculating based on the ship registration number. Those have never meant much in the past.

Optimus Prime

Speculating on the ship number yes, but based on the fact Brian Fuller said that indicates when its set, but your right i guess its not a confirmation.

If its an anthology show, i guess , with section 31 being the centre of it but a running arc through 100s of years, then maybe only the first season is set pre spock\kirk. who knows! Maybe we will find out more info on the 10th.

Sad Professor

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Think it's a mistake going with ANOTHER prequel myself. It didn't work for ENT (despite the improvements in the last 2 seasons), and the reaction to the JJ movies and their messing with established timelines and mythology is well documented.

The problem with ENT wasn't the premise though it was the execution. The premise had a lot of potential which was squandered on TNG/VOY reject scripts. Berman/Braga were just collecting paychecks.

I'd have lot more faith in Fuller to make this work.

Myrddin

Weren't there several TOS era ships with registries not much higher, and indeed lower than, 1031?

I tend to agree though, it's looking pre-TOS with a Section 31 slant on it. Not the inspiring, positivity laden adventure I was hoping for...

degrassinoel

i think you're all wrong, this is where Fuller gets to make up for Enterprise's flaws. I'm really hopeful (for a change)

Potentially this could be, birth of the federation, the return of Archer - you KNOW they'll do that one with Bakula and some of the Enterprise crew, Fed/Klingon hostilities and maybe even mid/late war given the design of the ship.

Just please, for the love of the prophets.. don't go back to the temporal cold war shyte again. We've had nazi aliens twice already

Myrddin

degrassinoel wrote: »

We've had nazi aliens twice already

If they go down that road again I'm finished with Trek*






*probably not true

The_Valeyard

I actually liked this review of the teaser!

The comments:

"You could've done something better in Space Engineers."

"fugly"

Links234

Kirby wrote: »

Personally, I'd rather they concentrate on the making the show the best it can be....and not pushing agenda's. It's distracting. You want people talking about how good the show is.....not how the new star trek show has a disabled-trans-alien captain.

If you believe that including a trans character would district, prevent the show from being the best it can be, or otherwise being to the detriment of Trek, then that in and of itself is a resounding reason to include a trans character. I've a lot of faith in Fuller, and having Nicholas Meyer onboard isn't just icing on the cake, it's a whole other cake in addition to the cake we already have, so I'm sure the show will be the best it can be.

AMKC

Looks like its a prequel set before TOS. August 10th going to be a big day we should find out a lot more about it on that day. Bryan Fuller says he is going to spoiler it up.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/75876

Hmm... more than a bit of the Blakes 7 school of ship building....

degrassinoel

Deleted User wrote: »

Hmm... more than a bit of the Blakes 7 school of ship building....

lol i only watched that last year, there is a distinct similarity but ye know yerself, Blakes was all about the characters too

Finding Hank

Seriously, why the resistance to make a seri3s set after Voyager and Nemesis. There is great potential there, dealing with the fallout from the dominion war being one example.

_Kaiser_

Links234 wrote: »

If you believe that including a trans character would district, prevent the show from being the best it can be, or otherwise being to the detriment of Trek, then that in and of itself is a resounding reason to include a trans character.

Why? To show that they can do the job just as well? I don't think anyone disputes that. Where the issue lies is that in the 24th century this would pass unremarked, but in the 21st it smacks of "look at how progressive we are" attention seeking... the headlines would indeed be "New Trek show breaks new ground by having trans actor/character front and centre" rather than "x actor is outstanding as y role".

Personally if I were a trans actor being considered or recognised for a role based on tokenism rather than my abilities I'd be rather insulted.

_Kaiser_

Finding Hank wrote: »

Seriously, why the resistance to make a seri3s set after Voyager and Nemesis. There is great potential there, dealing with the fallout from the dominion war being one example.

There's loads of stories there... the decimation of the Cardassians and the Romulans after the war and Shinzon, the fate of the Borg etc.

Far more interesting than retreading established ground where we know how it ultimately turns out, or where the writing is constrained by what's already been established.

AMKC

Finding Hank wrote: »

Seriously, why the resistance to make a seri3s set after Voyager and Nemesis. There is great potential there, dealing with the fallout from the dominion war being one example.

I agree but the problem with that is they then have to assume that the viewer knows what happened before unless they but an intro in the first episode about previous events. It is grand for us trekkies who know and love Star Trek and what has gone before we don,t need the intro but if they want to get in new viewers they would have to do it maybe something similar to the intro on DS9 in Emissary where we see Sisko and the other ships fighting the Borg Cube and the reason why he choose DS9.

I do think its forward they should be going not backwards to another prequel. Star Trek is about looking to the future to a better and brighter time for the human race. That said it can,t always be all good. They should have went I think maybe 50 to 100 years after Voyager and Nemesis and went from there. There is so many storys they could tell. For all we know the Federation then could be in disarray and falling apart not that I want that or they could have multi generational ships that can cross into other galaxy's or even transwarp. There is also the cool ship designs they could have designed they would not have had to try and pigeon hole it between to times like they are trying now and ten maybe getting it wrong and upsetting the fans.

AtomicHorror

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Why? To show that they can do the job just as well? I don't think anyone disputes that.

On the contrary, I suspect lots of people think exactly that. Discrimination against transgender people is indisputably real and prevalent and very serious today, so yeah, plenty of people dispute that, sadly.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Where the issue lies is that in the 24th century this would pass unremarked, but in the 21st it smacks of "look at how progressive we are" attention seeking... the headlines would indeed be "New Trek show breaks new ground by having trans actor/character front and centre" rather than "x actor is outstanding as y role".

Did the characters in DS9 remark on their black captain? Did it smack of progressive attention-seeking? Did the media comment on Sisko's race? Probably "no" or "not much" on all fronts. If the answer to any of those questions is "yes", does that mean they shouldn't have cast a black captain?

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Personally if I were a trans actor being considered or recognised for a role based on tokenism rather than my abilities I'd be rather insulted.

Fuller has said the casting will be colourblind, genderblind... that's not tokenism. It is a method other shows have used effectively though (Grey's Anatomy afaik).

I suspect Star Trek engaged in deliberate casting of minorities in the past, which is tokenism, and probably drew some complaints at the time. I didn't complain and I suspect you didn't either, so why would tokenism suddenly be bad now, just because we're talking about a transgender captain instead of a black one?

AtomicHorror

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

There's loads of stories there... the decimation of the Cardassians and the Romulans after the war and Shinzon, the fate of the Borg etc.

Far more interesting than retreading established ground where we know how it ultimately turns out, or where the writing is constrained by what's already been established.

I agree- and I think the most disheartening thing about prequels in general is that you already know the stakes. The heroes aren't going to change the world, of if they do, they'll change it into the one you've already seen. The stories have to be smaller, and while that can work with good writing and great characters, it's harder to get right. Enterprise is a sad testimony to that.

Myrddin

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Did the media comment on Cisco's race?

Doing a bit of networking lately? :P

AtomicHorror

Myrddin wrote: »

Doing a bit of networking lately? :P

The first black router! Pure tokenism!

I'll just go fix that...