OK, I haven’t read the thread. Has anyone mentioned the Klingons?
Seriously. The Tolkien estate should sue. ‘Look. If you dress them up as Egyptians, they’re still orcs!’ I’m not diggin’ 'em.
Discovery takes place about 10 years before Star Trek. In that time, the Klingons looked like dark-complected humans. They became the way we know them today in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was fine. Everyone knew the original series was cheesy. And in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine they acknowledged that species had changed in the hundred years between Kirk and Picard. (Worf: ‘We do not discuss it with outsiders.’) But the Klingons didn’t change through three series and I-don’t-know-how-many movies. They’re established. The writers had to come up with something to explain the difference in appearance between Star Trek and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that were caused by differing budgets and make-up techniques, so they could make ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’. I don’t think that established that Klingons are quasi-shapeshifters.
When ST:TNG came out, it was easy to change things up. The series took place many decades after Star Trek. Everyone accepted that aliens’ appearances would change because the show actually had a budget. And Star Trek (the original series) didn’t get a lot of airplay. Today, there the Star Trek marathons, BBC America shows various series about eight hours a day, and H&I shows episodes from all of the series (plus the cartoon version on Saturdays). It’s too late to radically change a major species in the series.
Also, I think the uniforms should be closer to the original series.
Regarding Burnham’s mutiny, all I can fan-wank is that she is continuing to suffer from some kind of trauma from her childhood (and Sarek had tried to plaster over with his mind meld). Her actions in regard to the Klingons, therefore, isn’t rational. In fact, it over rides her years of training in the Vulcan disciplines. The backstory to the “Vulcan Hello” gives her the final push to do what she wants to do anyways.
She tries to explain to the Captain (and others, at the very end) that her loyalty to her crew mates super-ceded her oaths to Federation/Starfleet Regulations, as necessary to “save lives”. That seems to me to be a little bit at odds with what I imagine to be whatever Vulcan and Starfleet Academy training she may have had. I wonder if they will explain this better.
“Star Fleet does not fire first.” Really, Captain? I suggest that, odds are, that an ironclad adherence to this doctrine is a good way to end up dead some day. (And doesn’t Kirk shoot first a couple times? )
Star Trek whatever series has always tried to address issues that are current when the show airs. It didn’t surprise me that the writers were invoking things like The Iraq War and the situation with North Korea and even Black Lives Matter (White Klingon Lives Matter, too!).
Well, now I’m interested. I think the critics are right about The Orville, and I honestly don’t understand why people are swooning over it. I may have to check out this new Star Trek.
The CBS All Access thing isn’t an insurmountable issue for me. I’m a cord-cutter and get no usable over-the-air signal, and there are a few other CBS shows I’d watch (like Survivor). However, I think the business model is shaky and I can’t see it lasting more than a couple of years.
Which ST universe is this supposed to be taking place in? There is the original Trek, with its established history. There is the ST:Enterprise which, while supposedly set in the past of Original T, brought in history, science and whole alien species which are never referenced in its own supposed future. There is ST: Reboot-The Movies.
Or is this another complete reboot that isn’t going to follow any of other established timelines?
edited to add: Capt. Michael seems she was taken straight from fan fiction from 20 years ago-Pure Mary Sue.
I read somewhere (maybe a comment here?) where someone was looking forward to Discovery because they were tired of all the modern grim SF shows and wanted some positivism.
For me, I feel like TO has more of the feel of TOS/TNG, which is what I grew up with. I don’t bond to the Trek universe Abrams created for the movies. They just seem like a generic action movie in space with characters and ships from Trek in name only. TO seems like Trek, but a comedy version. STD seems more like a TV version of the Abrams movies.
The thing that really tanked STD for me was the mutiny scene. The captain would have been justified executing her on the spot. The mutiny scene failed here for a couple of reasons: 1) Her justification was flimsy and based on her rigid view of Klingon behavior, and 2) We had not built up any trust in her judgment. Sure, there are plenty of times when past crews did their own thing, but that was for more justified reasons. Plus, we had long histories with that crew and trusted their decision. And it was dumb of CBS to make that be a cliffhanger, because I’m not going to sign up to see how she get out of her stupid mistake.
“Modern” Klingons appeared in the TOS movies (without explanation, of course.)
I don’t recall it being even mentioned until that show, where they kind of had to.
Yes. I watched Trials and Tribble-ations recently, and it struck me how much brighter TOS was, especially uniforms. I suspect they can’t get away with miniskirts any more, but it is all so damn gloomy.
The Klingons reminded me of the Romulans in Nemesis. The special effects were interesting, but it all requires too much suspension of what I already know about Trek.
I’m not sure I’m the one you’re thinking of, but I did say that, too. And based on this thread, I will not be watching this latest butchering of the ST concept.
If each Star Trek iteration reflects the times of which it was made, what does this series say about current day? That we all hate each other, and can’t get along even in the simplest things? That every problem can only be solved by violence? Is this Donald Trump’s Star Trek?
I’m honestly puzzled about the critical response here (likewise with the post-2009 movies, so maybe I just don’t get it anymore). I mean, even ignoring that I just don’t think this was very Star Trek, I frankly don’t see how this was any good, let alone worthy of the 90% rating it currently has on Rotten Tomatoes. The characters were inconsistent and flat, the plot paperthin: humans meet aliens, they shoot at each other for nebulous reasons.
Still, I’m gonna give it a shot; it doesn’t seem like much from the first two episodes is going to carry over into the series proper, so I’ll wait and see.
No, that wasn’t the specific comment I was thinking of–someone had actually used the term positivism or positive SF. I’ve seen the second episode and preview of the rest of the season through (cough, cough) alternative sources, and Discovery is to classic Trek what Rouge One is to the Ewok scenes in Jedi. (Not in a positive way, but in a “that much more grim and taking-itself-seriously” way.)
The timeline confuses me a little. At one point, they mentioned the date was 2200-something. 2240 or some such? Then they mentioned they met the Klingons like, 200 years ago. So it sounds like we meet the Klingons sometime this century, in the 2000s. Seems too soon in the future for us to be developing warp drive and galavanting around the galaxy.
Speaking of galaxy, how was the beacon supposed to alert the other Klingons around the galaxy? They even mentioned they’d be coming from across the galaxy. No way warp drives in this universe can cross whole galaxies that fast and a light beam, no matter how bright, would take 100,000 years to get to the other side of the galaxy. Sarek mentioned they’d detected “a new star.” Well, no you wouldn’t have for a number of years, if it was just normal ol’ light.
As for the Vulcans concluding it’s perfectly logical to shoot first when it comes to Klingons - I like that actually. To me, that feels very Vulcan. I’ve always thought the Vulcans, while choosing to be generally peaceful and minding their own business, would nevertheless be a very advanced and dangerous species to mess with. I’ve always thought the Vulcans should have some ridiculously deadly warships they don’t use often, and you reaaaaally don’t want them to.
The logical part yeah i agree. But otherwise they’re seemingly explore-averse and seem to have been in a tech rut, hamstrung perhaps by logic navel-gazing.
I do wish we had seen more of Earth-Vulcans ‘special relationship’ over the various series.
Also again for the purposes of fanwank, I’m going to point out that (And i dont care what the writer of the TNG ep ‘First Contact’ says) the first ep of Enterprise destroys the timeline we knew before it aired. The movie First Contact does it again. There’s a little ‘circular temporal activity’ possibly, but we cant know all that was meant to happen.
I feel like I watched the first decent Star Trek movie in many years.
No, it’s not TOS or even the Next Generation’s Star Trek, but that ship sailed many years ago.
This is Star Trek for people who have been watching Game of Thrones, post-BSG, and other modern TV: the style and pacing is different, but that’s a generational change in the medium itself.
It was not perfect – nothing is – but when you consider that these two episodes are just the set up for a series about a different vessel… well I’m plenty intrigued, and will be watching next week and for the next two months.
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