Discovery 1x04 – "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For The Lamb's Cry" [** SPOILERS **]

Goodshape

seamus wrote: »

The only thing which annoys me is that the Klingons. Appear. To. Speak. Really. Slowly. Like. They're. Pronouncing. Every. Word.

I'm feeling this too, unfortunately. I was and am a defender of the decision to "update" the Klingons, and other bits/technology in the show, and on paper I love the fact that they're using the Klingon language, but...

Jaysus they do have a tendency to make a meal out of every word. And that "makeup" looks like a rubber mask, with the actor struggling to speak and see through it, let alone emote anything.

Nothing to do with continuity, I don't mind that, but the execution reminds me too much of a Power Rangers villain, only they don't have the pantomime over-acting needed to get anything through the layers of latex.

Change can take time to get used to though. I hope I can get used to this.

Inviere wrote: »

I mentioned previously that once you accept that it isn't set in the prime universe (despite whatever the studio claims), it's an interesting and enjoyable show to watch. It's far more aligned to the JJ-verse

Nah, I couldn't be bothered with JJ-verse. Discovery is prime universe, as far as I'm concerned anyway, and I'm happy for it.

Inviere

Goodshape wrote: »

Nah, I couldn't be bothered with JJ-verse. Discovery is prime universe, as far as I'm concerned anyway, and I'm happy for it.

It really isn't though, not in any observable or meaningful way. If the producers hadn't said it was set in the prime universe, you're telling me you'd make the argument that it was??

seamus

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, there needs to be no questions from anyone. In effect they require that no-one but a couple of Admirals know they were even there.

The battle sims show that they're not a particularly good ship in a firefight. Its not a battleship. They depend on guerilla tactics and the element of surprise to win.

If their existence becomes known then the Klingons can devise a counter attack.

That's actually a good point; someone had mentioned that the move they pulled to kill the Klingon ships was a bit silly - the truth is that they couldn't have faced those Klingon vessels.

TBH it would have felt more naturally unrealistic had they been able to destroy all of those ships in a straight-on fire fight after we just saw them fail a battle sim.

Goodshape

Inviere wrote: »

It really isn't though, not in any observable or meaningful way. If the producers hadn't said it was set in the prime universe, you're telling me you'd make the argument that it was??

I mean there's no reason for me to believe it isn't.

I can handle a technology and special effects update from the 1960s version of the future, and I don't think much anything else which precludes it from being prime universe.

Should probably move it to the other thread if there are.

Inviere

Goodshape wrote: »

I mean there's no reason for me to believe it isn't.

I can handle a technology and special effects update from the 1960s version of the future, and I don't think much anything else which precludes it from being prime universe.

Should probably move it to the other thread if there are.

I'd strongly disagree with that. The effects update is expected, and at this stage has no impact on anything really. The tech update, while again is expected, does contradict a Prime Universe setting though to a certain degree. Again, had the producers not stated this is Prime Universe, the arguments from fans as to where this is set would hold very little weight in terms of it being set in the PU. But yeah, wrong thread

Re ep #4, wasn't as good as #3, but still has me wanting to know more. I really like the protagonist, and think she's very well acted. There's a lot of mystery to the show. I can't see this whole spore/creature thing though being the central plot for a prolonged period of time, and I do wonder where it'll go next.

Johnny Storm

spookwoman wrote: »

It was said at the start that it could handle 300 discrete scientific missions...

I wonder if maybe there are many different speculative and even illegal experiments going on on Discovery at the same time? It could end up as a kind of X Files in space....?

spookwoman

seamus wrote: »

When the motivation of the primary antagonist is racial and cultural purity, it would be a bit ridiculous for them to speak English.

Yes, artistic licence and that. But when you have an entire language that you can use - Klingon - it would be a spit in the face of fans to refuse to use it.

The only thing which annoys me is that the Klingons. Appear. To. Speak. Really. Slowly. Like. They're. Pronouncing. Every. Word.

Maybe that's how it's spoken, but it comes across like actors speaking phonetically rather than speaking naturally.

T’Kuvma especially seemed to be having issues speaking the language, the others are doing better. Give it time and I'd say it will come to them easier.
The masks remind me of the Engineer race in Prometheus

PhiloCypher

Rewatching the episode again Discovery looks to be exploring similar moral conundrums in this, and most likely over the rest of the season as TNG did in its heyday . However Due to the serial nature of the narrative, and the point in Burnhams character arc we are, we don't get the TNG style round table discussion on the rights and wrongs of torturing a living creature for tactical advantage at this point, as Michael has yet to find her voice, and as such the episode ends with a . . . rather then a more conclusive exclamation point on the matter.

If this were a TNG episode on the other hand, they would have had a big round table discussion where everyone would hash out the pro's and cons of using a living creature for tactical advantage with Worf advocating heavily towards it's continued use and Picard ultimately deciding against it in an eloquent speech about federation principles . It's interesting to note Worf was always used in this manner, to give voice to the morally unpalatable option, I don't think he was ever on the right side of an argument in 7 seasons of TNG. But the characters and fandom never thought less of him unlike just about every Discovery character. Klingons get a pass I guess.

Looking at the trailer for next week and based on the apology Burnham made to Riptard at episodes end it looks like the telescope and the message from Cpt Georgiu, has triggered something in Burnham and made her give voice to her moral qualms over what they are doing to poor Riptard which is good to see.

Other odds and ends :

The Klingons scenes are an utter chore. I had to fast foward through them on rewatch. The look and stilted way they talk continues to grate. They have gamechanging cloaking tech but were just abandoned there for 6 months ? Didn't the torpedo gambit in "the battle of Binary stars" decapitate Tkuvma's ship, seperating the bridge section from the neck, or am I misremembering ? it seems to have been re-attatched in any case.

While I understand the importance of the Last will and testament scene in getting Michael back in touch with her moral center, could she not have been gifted something other then the telescope that we saw in her ready room , because that either means Michael retrieved it before abandoning ship and failing to scuttle her(surely starfleet protocol) or Starfleet did likewise.

expectationlost

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, there needs to be no questions from anyone. In effect they require that no-one but a couple of Admirals know they were even there.

The battle sims show that they're not a particularly good ship in a firefight. Its not a battleship. They depend on guerilla tactics and the element of surprise to win.

If their existence becomes known then the Klingons can devise a counter attack.

except he said give them something they wont' forget (or something like that)

expectationlost

can we excise doing "incredible stupid things" in order to make a plot point from screenwriters playbooks, opening the forcefield by their security person was so stupid.


how was the glen doing all this work and not telling them about it?

Evade

expectationlost wrote: »

how was the glen doing all this work and not telling them about it?

It's possible Starfleet had them competing against each other by intentionally having each crew pursue a different line of research to get different approaches to the dash drive problem.

Like the Glen using dried spores while the Discovery harvests (grows?) fresh ones.

silverharp

seamus wrote: »

When the motivation of the primary antagonist is racial and cultural purity, it would be a bit ridiculous for them to speak English.

Yes, artistic licence and that. But when you have an entire language that you can use - Klingon - it would be a spit in the face of fans to refuse to use it.

The only thing which annoys me is that the Klingons. Appear. To. Speak. Really. Slowly. Like. They're. Pronouncing. Every. Word.

Maybe that's how it's spoken, but it comes across like actors speaking phonetically rather than speaking naturally.

in fairness they have dumped on core fans by changing the Klingons personality, I dont think them speaking Klingon will help. The general sifi or TV/Movie convention is to have the first line in the other language and then switch back to English, everyone understands that...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that :pac:

expectationlost

Evade wrote: »

It's possible Starfleet had them competing against each other by intentionally having each crew pursue a different line of research to get different approaches to the dash drive problem.

Like the Glen using dried spores while the Discovery harvests (grows?) fresh ones.

competition does't mean secrecy

Evade

expectationlost wrote: »

competition does't mean secrecy

It doesn't have to but it can if you don't want your teams to influence each other.

Evade

Evade wrote: »

It doesn't have to but it can if you don't want your teams to influence each other.

I was thinking that segregation of duties would allow for independent discoveries and also prevent confirmation bias.

Also silo based environments prevent information leaks

silverharp

silverharp wrote: »

in fairness they have dumped on core fans by changing the Klingons personality.

Sweet jebus can people not assume that they are the only true fans (on all sides of this tired argument)

seamus

expectationlost wrote: »

except he said give them something they wont' forget (or something like that)

Probably reading a bit too much into it tbh
That said, the goal of using Discovery in battles would be to create a legend, a myth. A ship that appears out of nowhere, devastates and disappears again.
Remember TNG when there were ships and colonies being wiped out along the neutral zone, by causes unknown? That's intimidating and it's terrifying.

So as much as Discovery wants to defeat the Klingons and remain hidden, they still needs news of the battles won to reach the Klingon empire. That the five ships who appeared to have the colony beaten, just suddenly disappeared like a fart in the wind.

silverharp wrote: »

in fairness they have dumped on core fans by changing the Klingons personality, I dont think them speaking Klingon will help. The general sifi or TV/Movie convention is to have the first line in the other language and then switch back to English, everyone understands that...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that :pac:

I think this is the biggest problem of any star trek prequel. So many fans who have decided what the ST universe looks like and won't accept anything which deviates the slightest from that personal vision. Indeed, the bulk of the criticism I see here and elsewhere online are about canonical issues - be that the look and feel of the Klingons, up-to-date technology, or questions about where it fits in the timeline.

Very few comments or criticisms of the production, except for maybe Commander Jarhead's rash suicide.

I guess in many ways Abrams had the right idea; reboot the universe and then your canon can go fnck itself. Every continuity issue can be written off as being due to the altered timeline.

Blazer

seamus wrote: »

Probably reading a bit too much into it tbh
That said, the goal of using Discovery in battles would be to create a legend, a myth. A ship that appears out of nowhere, devastates and disappears again.
Remember TNG when there were ships and colonies being wiped out along the neutral zone, by causes unknown? That's intimidating and it's terrifying.

So as much as Discovery wants to defeat the Klingons and remain hidden, they still needs news of the battles won to reach the Klingon empire. That the five ships who appeared to have the colony beaten, just suddenly disappeared like a fart in the wind.

I think this is the biggest problem of any star trek prequel. So many fans who have decided what the ST universe looks like and won't accept anything which deviates the slightest from that personal vision. Indeed, the bulk of the criticism I see here and elsewhere online are about canonical issues - be that the look and feel of the Klingons, up-to-date technology, or questions about where it fits in the timeline.

Very few comments or criticisms of the production, except for maybe Commander Jarhead's rash suicide.

I guess in many ways Abrams had the right idea; reboot the universe and then your canon can go fnck itself. Every continuity issue can be written off as being due to the altered timeline.

Can you imagine the backlash if JJ rewrote Star Wars and destroyed the canon? This is what he did to Star Trek.

pixelburp

Huh; well, if Episode 3 felt like the de-facto pilot, then the fourth certainly came across like the typical 'getting to know you' format that typifies most follow-ups after the premiere. We got a bit of a whistle-stop tour of the broader cast, along with a small crisis to solve that broadened out into what looks like being the larger arc, one that I suspect will inform the rest of the season. Discovery feels like it's edging towards an ethnical dilemma as its key pillar, with the inner conflict from Burnham writ large, underlined by Michelle Yeoh's big posthumous speech, containing all those issues in bold letters, in case we weren't paying attention :rolleyes:

If I extended the 'second episode' analogy further, it's often the case that the sophomore adventures end up being worse than the pilot, given the amount of narrative, character & structural heavy-lifting they have to do - I think Discovery was no different. Definitely the weakest episode so far by a large margin, but there were enough seeds planted that I could forgive its sloppy pacing, slapdash plotting and near teeth-grindingly bad dialogue.

Like others, the Klingons were the low-light of the episode; tediously paced and inherently uninteresting. The death of K'vuma left a big gap in what was already a thinly sketched story, and his replacement is even less defined, yet twice as dull & just as sanctimonious as his dead leader. The prosthetic teeth are clearly getting in the way of pronunciation and the diction of the actors, and just leaves the scenes a chore to get through. I suspect we'll be dropping in on - god, you know I don't know this albino Klingon's name - again in the future, so maybe in time we'll get some characterisation. He's no Worf mind you.

Still though, it wasn't all bad; at this stage I thoroughly reject any accusations that 'this isn't Trek', because while the execution leaves the show floating in the murkier borders of the Federation utopia (but even THAT is hardly new ground), the spirit of exploration and science is right there - albeit in this episode where it was advertised in neon. Burnham's discovery of the true nature of the giant tardigrade again felt like a quintessential Trek moment. I'm not even sure what the 'fans' rejection is even about at this stage - fair enough if you don't think the show's any good (this episode was pretty weak), but feels like there are snap rejections going on over the most trivial of reasons, or because this show has the temerity to look like a modern TV show with a decent budget. The horror!

Bacchus

I'm still between two minds on this. Episode 4 was just such a mixed bag. I liked Michael's journey in this with science winning out over "weaponise it" and in general character wise its all very promising. I also like that they've already tied up how spore travel doesn't become mainstream - they need the alien, this makes alien sad/angry, that doesn't fit with nicey nice Federation values. The potential conflict that the use of the alien as a navigator will clearly be a central plot point which is great. However, I'm already bored of the Klingon stuff and their stunted speech. Not to mention the double cross was immediately obvious. The CGI for the attack on the mining colony was weak and the rescue plan by Lorca was confusing (maybe I missed him outlining his trap but I had no idea why he was waiting so long to spore jump). The death of the security chief has to be one of the worst in Star Trek history. She knows exactly how dangerous the alien is but 2 seconds after initiation sedation protocol she just opens the door. Dumbass. Pity too because I liked that actress on BSG.

silverharp

Deleted User wrote: »

Sweet jebus can people not assume that they are the only true fans (on all sides of this tired argument)

the Klingons have always been "space Vikings" , its about the best description Ive come across, I don't like the personality change. #notmyklingons

FutureGuy

Imagine being told prior to Discovery airing that this series tells the story of a state-of-the Federation science vessel which was re-purposed to be a black ops war ship, and that the mysterious Captain Lorca may have links to a group that will do anything to win the war.

That would scream of being Star Trek. It would be a view of a different side of Star Trek that we would have seen before and would be exciting on many fronts, but still Trek.

But people seem to have judged that it is not "Star Trek" without taking into account that that the above is an ongoing reveal through a serialized season.

silverharp

I came across 1 idea that this is the alternate universe where everyone is p1ssy, was it a Next Gen episode? seems a bit out there though

Evade

FutureGuy wrote: »

Imagine being told prior to Discovery airing that this series tells the story of a state-of-the Federation science vessel which was re-purposed to be a black ops war ship, and that the mysterious Captain Lorca may have links to a group that will do anything to win the war.

That would scream of being Star Trek. It would be a view of a different side of Star Trek that we would have seen before and would be exciting on many fronts, but still Trek.

But people seem to have judged that it is not "Star Trek" without taking into account that that the above is an ongoing reveal through a serialized season.

Isn't showing the darker side of things why a lot of people didn't consider DS9 "real" Star Trek?

STD seems to want to jump into the gritty war parts of DS9 without having shown the main cast being typical Starfleet officers for the previous three or four years. I think that's why it's not working for some people.

pixelburp

FutureGuy wrote: »

Imagine being told prior to Discovery airing that this series tells the story of a state-of-the Federation science vessel which was re-purposed to be a black ops war ship, and that the mysterious Captain Lorca may have links to a group that will do anything to win the war.

That would scream of being Star Trek. It would be a view of a different side of Star Trek that we would have seen before and would be exciting on many fronts, but still Trek.

But people seem to have judged that it is not "Star Trek" without taking into account that that the above is an ongoing reveal through a serialized season.

The trick is separating people who have legitimate concerns about the direction or approach of the show, with the fundamentalists who just don't see any good. Discovery has its problems, and so far its messy structure betrays the initial production problems, but its still a fresh take on a demonstrably stale TV franchise.

Honestly, I think whatever the pop-culture item, there's always a small but noisy cadre of 'fans' who are so stuck in the past, have such a static view of their own personal fandom that ANY deviation is tantamount to heresy & it's easier to tear something down for what it ISN'T, than discussing rationally about what it IS. You got the same response from the same quarters in fandom when Dr. Who came back on the air in 2005; it had its problems too, but for some the changes were too many & too extreme to stomach.

And as Star Trek has been off the air for so long, it has just allowed this rigid notion of what Trek should be to take root & poison the well slightly. Then the Abrams version came along and it was such an extreme deviation from the norm, it kinda became a rallying cry for those worried about not just major changes, but ANY change to that persistent myth about the established canon as holy writ. Along comes Discovery, the ostensible prequel that has the nerve to try and up-tech the mythology a little, jettisons what would have been ludicrous bakelite diode sets, and suddenly to the hardcore nothing is safe anymore. The barbarians are at the gate. It's Abrams Trek again, even though it clearly isn't.

And that's not saying anyone not onboard this show is some raging fanboy or anything - the show HAS its issues - but it's trying a new approach, starting from an admittedly wobbly production background & given Trek's norms are always so engrained in pop culture to begin with, shouldn't need its ideals reminded of all the time. We know what the Federation should be, already it's making Discovery intriguing in its own right.

DubTony

Blazer wrote: »

I’m thinking about the Falcon platform which Musk has revolutionized, well hopefully so tempted to get them a pass on it. At this stage the writing is pretty poor. Maybe they should just hire the Orville writers and remove the jokes.

There are jokes in The Orville

seamus

Blazer wrote: »

Can you imagine the backlash if JJ rewrote Star Wars and destroyed the canon? This is what he did to Star Trek.

But the multiverse / time travel is not a thing in Star Wars. It is in Star Trek. In fact, it too is established canon, there have been multiple altered timeline scenarios both within a single episode but also across huge arcs.

So Abrams' is a wipe-and-reboot, but it started from the original universe. Which means it's entirely within canon.

Other fantasy series do this a lot - reading a Marvel or DC wiki entry for a character is a ridiculous web of universes and scenarios. And their fanbase don't get in a huge twist about it.

But Star Trek seems to almost be regarded as future history by some people - actual real events that have/will/do occur. And by altering that, you're engaging in some kind of revisionism, stating things which aren't true.

When in reality it's sci-fi/fantasy and should be given the flexibility to tell a good story rather than sticking religiously to canon. Some things are needed for continuity, otherwise you're having a laugh - e.g. making it turn out that Scotty is LaForge's father or something would be ridiculous.

But small things which can be retconned with relative ease - such as Spock having a secret human sister (and indeed brother), or Starfleet running black ops with secret unethical propulsion systems - need to be overlooked in order to allow a good story.

_Kaiser_

silverharp wrote: »

in fairness they have dumped on core fans by changing the Klingons personality, I dont think them speaking Klingon will help. The general sifi or TV/Movie convention is to have the first line in the other language and then switch back to English, everyone understands that...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that :pac:

Not sci-fi, but I always liked how they handled the language change here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEvwbxcRaCQ

Still a great movie btw!

silverharp

^^
that was the movie I was thinking of , once the Klingons don't have a Scottish accent

PhiloCypher

Another example of language transitioning .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVURiaVgG8