General Star Trek thread

Rawr · 26-01-2021 06:29AM

ilovesmybrick wrote: »

Each to their own. I was initially incredibly dubious of the concept of Lower Decks, but for me it got the right balance of reverance to the source material, while pulling the piss out of some of the nonsense. I was engaged with Picard because of Picard as a character, I engaged with Lower Decks because I felt they took the obvious parts of Trek that we can pull the piss out off and made a great homage to it, while also developing characters in a way that I felt works in the universe. How the Barclay's can succeed in a world. all about high achievers. I can't say I engaged with Discovery in the same manner.

Lower Decks was a silly cartoon. Lower Decks was also a stupid cartoon. But....Lower Decks was Star Trek. Which is the first time I could say with confidence for a long while. It was a fun show, and felt like it belonged in the same universe as the pre-Kelvin Trek shows. It felt like it was made by Star Trek fans, instead of a bunch of Star Wars likers who barely even know how that franchise works.

I have no problem counting a cartoon as Star Trek, especially if they do a good job. It's just frustrating / disappointing that the more expensive live-action shows do so poorly in comparison.

JayRoc · 26-01-2021 11:56AM

Rawr wrote: »

Lower Decks was a silly cartoon. Lower Decks was also a stupid cartoon. But....Lower Decks was Star Trek. Which is the first time I could say with confidence for a long while. It was a fun show, and felt like it belonged in the same universe as the pre-Kelvin Trek shows. It felt like it was made by Star Trek fans, instead of a bunch of Star Wars likers who barely even know how that franchise works.

I have no problem counting a cartoon as Star Trek, especially if they do a good job. It's just frustrating / disappointing that the more expensive live-action shows do so poorly in comparison.

The last episode of Lower Decks was ten times more Trek than any of the Discovery I watched

(Edit: and bear in mind I really, really didn't dig it at the start)

Goodshape · 26-01-2021 12:19PM

Rawr wrote: »

Lower Decks was a silly cartoon. Lower Decks was also a stupid cartoon. But....Lower Decks was Star Trek.

I just rewatched it all on Amazon Prime and this really holds true. It's silly hijinks – but it's silly hijinks in the Star Trek universe.

There's jokes and callbacks that tug constantly on your nostalgia cord but, in almost every episode, the setting and set-up is actually a really decent *new* Star Trek story that would be right at home in any of the TNG-era shows.

Mariner is a chore to put up with in those first three or four episodes but even that has a good pay-off.

JayRoc · 26-01-2021 01:54PM

Goodshape wrote: »

Mariner is a chore to put up with in those first three or four episodes but even that has a good pay-off.

It's funny because the experience of Lower Decks was, for me, the total opposite of watching Picard; Picard started really strong and had such potential...which I thought had been almost totally wasted by the time it ended.

Rawr · 27-01-2021 10:45AM

JayRoc wrote: »

It's funny because the experience of Lower Decks was, for me, the total opposite of watching Picard; Picard started really strong and had such potential...which I thought had been almost totally wasted by the time it ended.

Same here. Lower Decks and Mariner herself grew on me over time, and by the time the season ended I was glad to have spent that time.

Picard had me excited at first. This almost felt like a big-budget continuation of the TNG world we remembered...but then over time you start to realise that it was really just a re-badge of a Discovery production with all of the writing problems associated with that other show. I finished Picard bitterly disappointed that my initial excitement for that show was mis-placed and that I would have been better off stopping a few episodes in, oblivious to how badly such a story could be handled.

One of these show deserves a rewatch...the other does not.

Johnny Storm · 28-01-2021 11:16AM

I just rewatched Picard ep 7 (meet the Rikers) and ep 8 (7 powers up the cube). I actually quite enjoyed them. I'm not saying they were perfect by any means but IMHO they are in a different league to Disco S3

pixelburp · 28-01-2021 11:24AM

Discovery is a weird, freewheeling show where even after all the chaos calmed down, Season 3 has struggled to cast off this idea of an ad-hoc production.

Picard felt like a show that, good or bad, it knew where it was going and what it wanted to do with its cast. And it HAD a cast, which is important: again, as divisive as (say) Rafi was, she still had an arc, background and a sense of who she was. Good luck divining any identity from Detmer, who really personified that shoulder-shrug of a structure.

Goodshape · 28-01-2021 12:39PM

pixelburp wrote: »

Picard felt like a show that, good or bad, it knew where it was going and what it wanted to do with its cast.

I agree they had a better cast of characters but I still feel they lost the run of the story more than once. The tone shifted from something more serious and "real" (insofar as it's still Star Trek) to just gratuitous nostalgia and then the usual meaningless universe-ending big-bad and deus-ex resolution, with off-the-wall fantasy "sci-fi" saving lives and resurrecting dead characters.

Same with Discovery, I just get the sense that somebody needs to properly plan these seasons and have the resolve to stick with it until the end.

Inviere · 28-01-2021 12:53PM

Johnny Storm wrote: »

I just rewatched Picard ep 7 (meet the Rikers) and ep 8 (7 powers up the cube). I actually quite enjoyed them. I'm not saying they were perfect by any means but IMHO they are in a different league to Disco S3

Save your judgement for the two part finale..... (Btw I was on board with Picard up as far as you've watched....it very quickly fell apart due to people writing the show who have no business doing do.)

pixelburp · 28-01-2021 01:34PM

Goodshape wrote: »

I agree they had a better cast of characters but I still feel they lost the run of the story more than once. The tone shifted from something more serious and "real" (insofar as it's still Star Trek) to just gratuitous nostalgia and then the usual meaningless universe-ending big-bad and deus-ex resolution, with off-the-wall fantasy "sci-fi" saving lives and resurrecting dead characters.

Same with Discovery, I just get the sense that somebody needs to properly plan these seasons and have the resolve to stick with it until the end.

I suspect Picard's cliff dive of quality was born from studio interference; that they insisted the finale was BIG & EPIC, when it was clear the story was a much more personal one - in being a functional retcon of Data's death. Next thing you know we had a bonkers apocalypse plot for no sane reason. The finale did give us space flowers, which instantly became a top 5 "Trek does cosmic exotica" moment.

Bobtheman · 28-01-2021 01:39PM

Stewart is too old at this stage for action shows. He is pushing 80.
I just thought the whole data story was too elongated and full of plot holes.
It's nostalgia at best
Discovery for better or worse is the new trek.

pixelburp · 28-01-2021 03:14PM

Bobtheman wrote: »

Stewart is too old at this stage for action shows. He is pushing 80.
I just thought the whole data story was too elongated and full of plot holes.
It's nostalgia at best
Discovery for better or worse is the new trek.

It wasn't 10 episodes of story, that's for sure, but I gave it a retroactive pass for trying to allow Data a more characterful send-off than "Nemesis" ever was.

As you say though, Stewart's just too old at this stage, so begs the question where the show goes given he's the titular character - yet the scripts made a point of giving it a full cast of characters. The obvious guess would be 7of9 takes over.

That does remind that of that truly stupid moment in Picard's finale (spoilered as some are still catching up):

Soong: "Great news Jean-Luc! We gave you a new body; your disease is cured!"
Picard: "Amazing, so I've been made young agai..."
Soong: "Oh wait. God no. We've made an exact copy of your old, frail body."
Picard: "Even though I'd be lamenting getting old and opportunities missed in life?"
Soong: "Exactly. I see nothing wrong here"
*somewhere in the Picard Writing Room*
Writer: A thematic arc? What's that, some kind of Romulan thing?

Obviously, done to keep Patrick Stewart available but that was such a chance missed for something really brave. It would have been divisive for sure, but kinda nuts in a good way too.

28-01-2021 03:23PM

Bringing back Tom Hardy...:pac:

breezy1985 · 28-01-2021 05:33PM

Discovery really feels like it was supposed to be a one season limited release for the 50yrs of Trek celebration that ended up more popular than expected and in true US fashion got milked beyond it's sell by date.

Too many TV shows start without knowing where they want to go which is why The Expanse is so good and GOT was during the book seasons

Goodshape · 08-02-2021 02:59PM

Major Grin cuts a good YouTube video, makes the point with archive interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRxmkfD2X10

(the quick editing starts to get annoying but calms down after the first 5 minutes)

Bloody depressing what they've done to the thing.

breezy1985 · 08-02-2021 03:12PM

Goodshape wrote: »

Major Grin cuts a good YouTube video, makes the point with archive interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRxmkfD2X10

(the quick editing starts to get annoying but calms down after the first 5 minutes)

Bloody depressing what they've done to the thing.

All that Genes vision crap is just as annoying as the people who think Discovery is the greatest thing ever.

That Titan scene at the start really is one of the stupidest plots in Discovery. Surely the human from Titan knows that he looks like a big scary alien with a robot voice and would take the helmet off when he is trying to communicate with earth

Goodshape · 08-02-2021 03:24PM

breezy1985 wrote: »

All that Genes vision crap is just as annoying as the people who think Discovery is the greatest thing ever.

I'd tend to disagree. What else have you got apart from that? Just another dystopian "sci-fi" action show.

breezy1985 · 08-02-2021 04:06PM

Goodshape wrote: »

I'd tend to disagree. What else have you got apart from that? Just another dystopian "sci-fi" action show.

I don't mind it being uplifting or humanity being better than we are today. I meant there are an awful lot of these youtube fellas or whatever who drone on about Genes vision. Discovery sucks but it ain't because Genes vision was molested and it certainly wasn't the first time some holes were put in the perfect future humans idea either.

Genes vision was for better humans but it was also for making sure Troi shows a bit of cleavage and mandatory push up bras for the rest of the ladies. Gene was no angel

Goodshape · 08-02-2021 04:11PM

breezy1985 wrote: »

I don't mind it being uplifting or humanity being better than we are today. I meant there are an awful lot of these youtube fellas or whatever who drone on about Genes vision. Discovery sucks but it ain't because Genes vision was molested and it certainly wasn't the first time some holes were put in the perfect future humans idea either.

Are you dismissing the video I shared or just 'an awful lot of these youtube fellas'? The only point the video makes is that it is no longer uplifting or showing humanity as any better than we are now.

Not sure what you're arguing against.

it was also for making sure Troi shows a bit of cleavage and mandatory push up bras for the rest of the ladies. Gene was no angel

That's a straw-man tbh

pixelburp · 08-02-2021 04:18PM

The problem is, Gene's vision came born from an era when nuclear annihilation was very much a real prospect (and came close to happening with incidents ala the Cuban Missile Crisis), while internally America was at ground zero of huge societal changes. The yearning for better days felt more acute given the immediacy of the danger - you counldn't Fake News your way into ignoring the possibility of WW3.

While the abstract of a Utopia isn't itself archaic, the idea of humanity pulling itself from the brink seems ... well, too late. We probably won't destroy ourselves via nuclear war but instead seem intent on a painful, slow bleed of the species through climate collapse, while Late State Capitalism has strangled any notion (at least in America) that ordinary people might create a better tomorrow. Meanwhile, factions have politicised something as simple as "let's not poison our only planet", so even acknowledging there IS A PROBLEM has become a battle. Turn off the cloud and we'd hit middle ages in a few years. It's no wonder Apocalypse Fiction took over.

Within that context, Trek's ideals feel positively quaint, and further away than ever. That's not to say it shouldn't be present in the show, just that it has never felt so distant IMO and I kinda get why its writers aren't leaping to scribble tales of Happier Times. Well, that's just me, today. The world may have finally ground me into the dirt

breezy1985 · 08-02-2021 04:25PM

Goodshape wrote: »

Are you dismissing the video I shared or just 'an awful lot of these youtube fellas'? The only point the video makes is that it is no longer uplifting or showing humanity as any better than we are now.

Not sure what you're arguing against.

That's a straw-man tbh

Im saying I can't listen to the Genes vision thing anymore and having to listen to Frakes in particular go on about it despite him being a Discovery writer bores me.

The Genes vision thing was thrown at Wrath of Khan and DS9 too and I think Discovery actually tries to do the Genes vision thing but like everything else it failed

Goodshape · 08-02-2021 05:07PM

pixelburp wrote: »

The problem is, Gene's vision came born from an era when nuclear annihilation was very much a real prospect (and came close to happening with incidents ala the Cuban Missile Crisis), while internally America was at ground zero of huge societal changes. The yearning for better days felt more acute given the immediacy of the danger - you counldn't Fake News your way into ignoring the possibility of WW3.

While the abstract of a Utopia isn't itself archaic, the idea of humanity pulling itself from the brink seems ... well, too late. We probably won't destroy ourselves via nuclear war but instead seem intent on a painful, slow bleed of the species through climate collapse, while Late State Capitalism has strangled any notion (at least in America) that ordinary people might create a better tomorrow. Meanwhile, factions have politicised something as simple as "let's not poison our only planet", so even acknowledging there IS A PROBLEM has become a battle. Turn off the cloud and we'd hit middle ages in a few years. It's no wonder Apocalypse Fiction took over.

Within that context, Trek's ideals feel positively quaint, and further away than ever. That's not to say it shouldn't be present in the show, just that it has never felt so distant IMO and I kinda get why its writers aren't leaping to scribble tales of Happier Times. Well, that's just me, today. The world may have finally ground me into the dirt

Trek's utopian ideals were born out of a world in despair but now that the world is in despair there's no room for utopian ideals?

pixelburp · 08-02-2021 05:16PM

Goodshape wrote: »

Trek's utopian ideals were born out of a world in despair but now that the world is in despair there's no room for utopian ideals?

No, more that we may have simply gone past the brink of mere despair. What do Utopian ideals offer when the world is already burning, and half its population either attack the teenager warning us, or go to great lengths to well-actually.

This could be the Monday talking so you might be best ignoring me

I'm not sure how you arrest a decline as abstract as environmental collapse.

Goodshape · 08-02-2021 05:30PM

Yeah, it's difficult -- but it's always been difficult. That's what made it great, and if it's more difficult today then that's just all the more reason I'd like to see it.

1000+ years in the future and still fighting over resources and shooting your way through problems. Another universe in disarray with trouble around every corner. We've all that to look forward to, I guess. Inspiring stuff it is not.

Might as well watch Star Wars. At least that has the good grace to pretend it's not *us*.

Wedwood · 08-02-2021 10:51PM

I’m old enough to remember the original Star Trek being described as ‘Wagon Train to the stars’. It imagined humanity had overcome issues like poverty, war and racism and this new enlightenment had enabled them to journey to the stars.

When you look around at the mess being made of our planet and it’s environment, Roddenberry’s vision of what’s required of humanity to have a good future is just as relevant today.

AMKC · 09-02-2021 04:43PM

Anyone else she the Star Trek Superbowl trailer? ,

https://youtu.be/3Z4epgwCePc

That's it there.

09-02-2021 05:59PM

What’s March 4th?

corkie · 09-02-2021 08:12PM

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

What’s March 4th?

Paramount Plus, ViacomCBS’s new rebranded version of CBS All Access, launches on March 4th

A special event will be held on February 24th

Sleepy · 11-02-2021 01:31PM

After finishing Deep Space 9 last week (what a shame they decided to include such a focus on the Bajoran religious bollox), I've started a re-watch of Voyager. As a lot of it's run on Sky1 was at the same time as my Leaving Cert and first years of college I reckon I missed a lot of episodes of it at the time. I'm currently 10 episodes in and enjoying having a general arc (being stranded in another quadrant of space) while still maintaining an episodic format.

Having episodes get to use that arc as a jumping off point (e.g. needing to find sources of energy or food, the crews isolation etc.) keeps a cohesiveness to the series while still giving the writers the freedom to develop the characters in stand alone episodes without needing to mangle reason in order to explain a season long mcguffin etc.

11-02-2021 01:58PM

I never understood the crap about fuel etc.

They were constantly coming across space races (even Neelix) showing that Antimatter could not be THAT rare a commodity.

General Star Trek thread

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