Celebrating Gene Roddenberry's 100th Birthday
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I wish Kurtzman had gotten the memo.
Then (ughh) they brought the Enterprise back for a 2 episode Star Wars wannabe. That should have been my clue things were going back down hill.
Season three was just intolerable, IMHO.
Maybe it's just because I grew up with TNG/DS9/Voyager, but I really don't care about rehashes of TOS timelines, prequels, or any of that rubbish. Or, honestly, pretty much any Star Trek movie. I'm all about the episodic setup that worked so well in the 90s and gave us so many amazing ideas (albeit offset by far too many holodeck malfunction episodes).
I'd love to see some wide-eyed wonder again, and see a true sequel to those 90s shows set in that timeline. Even if it means more holodeck episodes.
[0] Which actually does manage to be funny on occasion. The leg gag, the cigarettes, a few others come to mind.
Occasionally, I want to watch something more for the visual and coolness factor, and I can appreciate when productions don't take themselves too seriously.
However JJ takes it too far, and I've ended up despising everything he has ever had a hand in writing and producing. Aside from the visuals, every single story element is so devoid of any logical coherence, that they are an affront to the mind or anyone who would care about things making sense.
Take a look at some of the amusing "pitch meeting" videos on JJ movies, and you'll quickly see the common thread of nothing ever making any sense. He's a great visual composer, but his story writing abilities is worse than that of an average 10 year old.
There is one exception. Probably the only one, or at least the only one I know of. JJ Abrams was an executive producer on Person of Interest series, which is to date the best coverage of AI in television[0]. I was shocked when I noticed JJ's name in credits, because the show is very good in the cerebral sense, unlike everything else I've seen his name on[1].
I'm not denying his film-making skills. He's sharp. But his specialty is action and visuals, not deep plots.
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[0] - It starts pretending to be a run-of-the-mill crime solving drama with a sci-fi twist - the protagonists receive tips of possible violent crimes from an AI. But very quickly it turns into a discussion of AI ethics, state surveillance (the show managed to depict Snowden revelations before they happened!), information security, pros and cons of black-box vs. glass-box algorithms, and AI control/alignment problem. That's on top of good character development and regular (but not overdone) firefights that keep things interesting.
[1] - Most notably Westworld, which, like PoI, was created by Jonathan Nolan, and had a chance of being a spiritual successor - but it became a repetitive, violent action series from 2nd season on, with a plot that serves mostly as an excuse for characters to murder each other.
However in some ways perhaps it's a blessing that he got to do his own thing with The Orville - without the pressure of being in the official universe he has been free to capture the feeling of Star Trek, rather than retreading the same path.
Spoiler of the topic that impressed me (rot13, spoils a topic from S2):
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As far as I remember, Star Trek never ventured that far. United Federation of Planets did not make such compromises.
Tried Picard as well, its selling point was Patrick Stewart but they had to bolt on a lot of stuff to sell it - injected nostalgia with characters nobody knows yet but they portray it like they go way back, and forced nostalgia that does not advance the plot with some old TNG cast. And a forgettable story. They tried to make something new with an unremarkable cast, then boost it with forced nostalgia. It didn't do it for me. I mean funny to see some of the old actors again, but they already played that card with some of the films that take place after the TNG series. They should have let it rest.
They should have let the whole franchise rest, for that matter. A recurring trend is recasting and reinventing Spock over and over again.
I disagree. Lower Decks and The Orville are both proofs that it's possible to make good Star Trek. Discovery and Picard just aren't good - and not in the same way TNG wasn't seen as good Trek when its first season aired; the new shows are completely disregarding everything that made the previous ones work.
> A recurring trend is recasting and reinventing Spock over and over again.
Wonder what's the franchise owners' obsession with Spock. In my perhaps generationally biased sampling, Star Trek fans would likely appreciate TNG-era shows more. But then, I guess Star Trek producers had a long-standing tradition of purposefully ignoring the fans. I guess it worked, at least for as long Berman and Braga were involved.
New Trek definitely lost what made Trek attractive in the first place, and replaced it with drama, action and expensive SFX. Maybe it's what the current market wants, although I doubt it.
Old Star Trek has self-contained episodes, and it wasn't afraid to dedicate a whole episode to a single character. Discovery and Picard are serialized, yet we know little about the characters and their motivations. Most characters are cartoonish, and the moment a random characters gets a backstory, you know it's because he will die with long and dramatic close-ups very soon.
When TNG's Picard was caught by that admiral in Captain Picard's Day Picard Day, and he says "It's for the children. I'm a- I'm a role model", we knew exactly how he felt without having his face full-screen because his character was well established.
When Picard's Picard reacts, you have to wait to be spoonfed his sentiment, because his character is inconsistent, not only with his canon, but with his current characterization.
Apparently, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" will be in episodic format.
I think Discovery in a time far far into the future had a better chance at exploring "strange new worlds" and they screwed it up with "same old stuff just written even more poorly".
For all the hate it got, Enterprise was a prequel that respected canon, expanded it sensibly, and brought new characters instead of reusing old ones.
And I get tired of universes too. I've enjoyed some of the newer Star Wars material (esp. Rogue One and the Mandalorian) but, for the most part, I'm pretty done with it even if individual stories are interesting. You can only be so fresh within an existing universe.
That said, I understand if not fully appreciate that some/many people are perfectly happy to rewatch familiar settings and characters whether literally or in new plots.
It has a similar structure with 7 seasons 20+ish episodes each, and compelling and diverse characters that grow throughout.
Each episode deals with some ethical or moral dilemma that is often addressed with clever solutions.
There certainly are flaws but the strengths feel very old Trek.
Heck, even a comedy like Ted Lasso is serialized.
I mentioned up thread, but I'd argue the success of Star Wars' Clone Wars animated show proves otherwise.
I think audiences are hungry for people solving problems by sitting around a conference table discussing options from their unique perspectives; especially now.
The first Enterprise should have been even more “early” with artificial gravity that didn’t work well and consequentially Velcro everywhere like in the ISS. It might have looked a bit like a bigger ISS. When power came on the bridge display would show a GRUB boot loader and Linux kernel boot output.
Their experiences should have been total immersion in the frontier. Long range subspace had not yet been mastered, so they are cut off after going much beyond our solar system… or maybe they can by stopping and boosting power achieve like 300 baud text links under proper conditions.
No transporters. EVAs and shuttles only. When they wanted to look at something in space it would be like the space walk scene from 2010 (the underrated 2001 sequel).
… and no weapons worth crap against anyone advanced. Maybe a railgun and a primitive phaser. Weak shields.
This is way before the federation so dark forest and Wild West vibes.
The possibility of main power being something other than antimatter also gives a reason why the TOS Romulan warbird was powered by “simple impulse” (which elsewhere seems to be fusion), and how on Earth Lily Sloane and Zefram Cochrane were able to power the Phoenix given the post-WW3 apocalypse and “six months to scrounge up enough titanium just to build a four-meter cockpit”.
I think your worldbuilding would suit something earlier than Enterprise, but Enterprise was just before the foundation of the Federation, so I think they needed roughly the level of imbalance in the show — that said, one of my pet peeves is the way differences in skill/biology/technology/industrial output get squashed in narratives; the usual example I give is that Hawkeye and Thor shouldn’t be in the same battlespace in the same way that an olympic archer and a main battle tank shouldn’t be, but a developmentally realistic depiction of space battle with Vulcans and NX-01 (given time since becoming interstellar) ought to be similar to putting King Polydorus and his army in a fight with the entirety of all branches of the USA armed forces.
They could have gone the long road and let the series play over the course of multiple decades. Showing longterm development, skip some years every episode and display how people, relationships and technology evolve over time. Could even started with a freshmen boarding the NX-01 and ending it with him becoming captain, Admiral and finally dying after an fullfilled live at the dawn of the new federation. With the long live of the vulcans, time-dillitation and the occasional timetravel they would have even enough tools to hold some characters fresh enough for the whole series.
They moved in this direction a bit, particularly in S4, which was ultimately my favorite and makes me wish the show continued on. In particular, the evolution of Earth-Vulcan relationship was some deep worldbuilding.
I do agree though - it could have been a very interesting show if they went earlier. There have been a number of anime in particular (such as Planetes) that capture that near-future space exploration vibe really well, and it could work well in the Star Trek universe.
But it, like the show itself, only works in context of prior Star Treks. If this was the first show I've ever seen, I'd have balked at the intro and would probably be disappointed by the series.
The Burn was a really good idea. It fundamentally changed the rules of space travel in the Trek world and provided a great mystery and possible existential threat that could lurk in the background for several seasons. It also gave future!starfleet a reason to take the main cast with their 1k-years-out-of-date ship seriously (even though I think the spore drive is kinda stupid in general). Instead it was all the power of some child's grief and we fixed it already.
Osyraa could have been the next Dukat. She was introduced as a 1 dimensional villain, but her plan to unite the Emerald Chain and federation showed us that there was more to her. Maybe she was only as cruel as she was because that's what it took for her to attain enough power to make meaningful change for the betterment of the galaxy? If Admiral wossname had accepted the plan it would have been interesting to see federation idealists struggle with having to compromise those ideals if they want to achieve their goals, and to have to work with someone they think of as a monster to do it. There could have been several In The Pale Moonlight moments, and maybe not all of them end with "I can live with it". Instead we kill off Osyraa (death by Burnham even) and hit the fucking reset button on the Emerald Chain.
Burnham could have been Han Solo. She was never Starfleet material: she can't follow orders, has no discipline, and displays no leadership abilities whatsoever. She can't motivate people, she doesn't inspire confidence, and she does her best work alone. She even had her own Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca, plus Grudge. Tilly is clearly the better leader: she projects confidence even when terrified, she keeps her cool under pressure, she inspires loyalty, she can motivate people, and her crew knows she cares about them. Yeah, she's an Ensign so it's a little wild she ended up in the chair at all, but you know what? Those people have been through some shit and when it comes right down to it, chain of command or no, people are going to follow the person who can lead them and Tilly can do that. Burnham can't do that, she spent 2 seasons and change proving it. So what do we get? Burnham in the captain's chair and Tilly edited into a Science uniform. What the fuck?
...I could go on, probably for several hours, but I'll just say one more thing:
The hack writers working on this show are actually a great fit for the Mirror Universe stuff. Their brand of ridiculous just works in that place. They should hire replacements who can actually write to do Discovery and have this group do a Mirror Universe series.
Makes me wonder what the demographics are of Picard and Discovery’s viewership. Is it mainly younger viewers who didn’t experience trek before? For reference I’m early 30s and so are my friends.
They should have just let Seth McFarlane be showrunner.
Short Treks also felt strong to me. It showed that the people making Discovery can make Star Trek work, if freed from the constraints of having to build a season long plot and appease the right focus groups.
Discovery itself, on the other hand... It can be enjoyable at times, but one needs to forget that it's supposed to be Star Trek.
I agree. In my opinion, the season peaked at the two big Picard speeches. Avoiding spoilers I will say they should have not hit the reset button on a significant last-episode event and the series would thereafter be the crew carrying on the in the spirit of that event's significance.
Once the Entrerprise made it's first appearance (ughhhh), people were looking for nostalgia.
Ironically that really turned me off.
I mean, the Enterprise was enough. Even that I was disappointed to see make an appearance (although a wonderful homage to the original ship, it looked great!). Then the Guardian of Forever in S3 complete with a sound clip straight out of TOS? After that, I gave up.
This is what finally turned me off during season 3. It got way out of hand. Somebody got a standing ovation every chance possible, and it got sickening. What initially drew me to Discovery was that darkness it had, while not being overly dark.
Fortunately S3 reminded me I had yet to catch up on The Expanse, and once I got back into season 4 I couldn't stop.