Hacker News Reader

Comment by crooked-v | Hacker News Reader

It's not just movies. There was an episode of The Mandalorian with cave scenes so dark that they were literally unwatchable for me with the shades open. You'd think people would have learned after the mess with Game of Thrones.

View on HN

The new live-action Star Trek shows have taken to this madness as well. Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager were both bright, open shows. But you'd think with Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard that we hadn't invented indoor lighting. Babylon 5 in its heyday was visually brighter than any of these three and no one can say that B5 was going for an "optimistic" plot worthy of such luminosity.

It's frustrating to watch and I empathize with people who feel like their cherished shows of before are being "ruined" by spin-offs or reboots.

When the Next Generation switched to movies, Generations did have that odd yellow filter though, which apparently made it more cinematic. While realism clearly doesn't have anything to do with this decision, the science fiction set of the bridge might just look fake when it's well lit. I miss the 90s look too.

As far as people who say their shows are being ruined, the studios are still chasing younger audiences and mainstream popularity. A starfleet academy show was announced the other day for example, so teenage drama here we come.

>While realism clearly doesn't have anything to do with this decision, the science fiction set of the bridge might just look fake when it's well lit.

How so, we are already used with Federation ships having a lot of lighting, so now with the new cool style they also need to somehow explain why they decided that Star Fleet prefers to walk in semi-darkness on the bridge, corridors and working spaces. I can maybe understand the Game of Thrones or Mandalorian caves need to be dark for realism excuse but for Star Trek is obvious a stylistic choice to use the cool new styles and shit on the bright optimisitc one from the past.

I think the thing you're missing here is that Picard isn't about the optimistic Starfleet of the past, it's a lot darker and insular than the old one. A key plot line throughout the first season was Picard's failure to avoid that happening. Strange New World's Enterprise is brightly lit, with a clear nod to the original series' design.

Season 3 is still dark on the bridge, it is a Star Fleet bridge not alternative timelines and they are bringing all the old crew back, I think is OK so far but I wish I could see the bridge.

This is based on no evidence whatsoever, but I think they just focus grouped the decision of how much lighting to use. The neon displays do pop a lot more in dim lighting so making things look futuristic and glowy is an important part of the shows.

Not sure, in Discover for example when you go to the far future the Star Fleet command is very well light, dark lighting was used before in Trek in Klingon ships or other shady aliens. IMO is the people in charge that impose their aesthetic, and maybe it looks good on their giant home cinema. Anyway the issue is you can't see things, if they want to emphasize something they need to do it without hurting accessibility. We also have Strange New Worlds and Lower Descks where they can appear futuristic and be bright.

> You'd think people would have learned after the mess with Game of Thrones.

Given how ridiculously dark House of the Dragon was in some episodes, with the entire season only set in candlelight, I don't think they've learned anything.

I just press 6666666666666666666 on mpv to get an image that I can see.

Thank you! I wish I knew one tenth of what mpv does! Every time I launch mpv I'm afraid to press any buttons, lest I inadvertently summon up an overlay showing air particle pollution in Yokohama.

You are right, and it works quite well in the dark months to just watch it later when it's dark outside, but that won't work for everybody.

I wonder how many people pull up brightness on their TVs only for that reason and ruin the experience for all that actually bright content just because they have to see something in that darkness.

If you're watching TV with shades open, you should adjust your gamma settings. The standard 2.2/2.4 gamma is meant for watching in a dark room.

The new Willow series had this problem as well

Haha, amazing. I started watching this with my kids tonight, and they said "it's so dark I can't tell what's happening" and we turned it off.

It's like they filmed it with no light source and figured they could fix it post production (and failed). Either that they filmed it in a bright setting and tried to use post production to simulate a dark scene. Same as you, I couldn't see what was happening.

I find I just automatically disengage when it's a "lots of scary/violent sounds and unidentifiable people committing violent acts against other unidentifiable people" scene and I feel like I'm somehow expected to be keeping track of who's hitting who and who's got the upper hand. I end up in this "ok, it's an indecipherable skirmish, can we just skip to what the results are" attitude.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com