Star Trek: Discovery

[Sandman]

2 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Looks like one of those cut scenes from a 1990s live action computer game.

Are you talking about the discovery trailer or the Seth McFarlane thing?

[Focslain]

19 minutes ago, Sandman said:

Are you talking about the discovery trailer or the Seth McFarlane thing?

Betting man says: Discovery

[electric indigo]

Trek is stuck in the iron grip of a zealous fan base that negates any potential innovation, to a point that each new entry is just visually ahead of fan fiction, and sometimes not even that. 

[Seto Kaiba]

18 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

Trek is stuck in the iron grip of a zealous fan base that negates any potential innovation, to a point that each new entry is just visually ahead of fan fiction, and sometimes not even that. 

Really, I'm not so sure it's the fandom that's the reason for Star Trek's lack of innovation.

Ever since the original Star Trek series, the studio and the network have had an established formula for the franchise that they were very comfortable with and resisted deviating from as hard as they possibly could.  Their light, bubbly, moralistic format was a perfect fit for the audiences of the late 1960s, but it didn't play so well when the franchise was revived in the late 80's for a new series that became Star Trek: the Next Generation.  The ratings were garbage, and from then on it was a fight between the studio wanting to take Star Trek in new directions while there was pushback from Gene Roddenberry and the network.  They had to fight to be able to depict the Federation personnel as anything less than saints who roved the galaxy sermonizing to the backwards aliens about superior human morals.  They had to fight to be able to include darker, more serious stories and to have actual story arcs instead of just planet/anomaly of the week stories and two-parters.  They had to fight to be allowed to tackle certain social issues.  They had to fight to set stories somewhere other than a starship named Enterprise.  

The network's intransigence was ultimately what flew Star Trek into the ground in the first place.  Ratings were solid once TNG grew the beard and DS9 got rolling in earnest, but when TNG ended and Voyager was on the drawing board the network flatly rejected pretty much the entire premise of the series because it didn't follow Trek formula... resulting in a massive change in the project's tone from a season story arc-driven series like DS9's latter half to a lighter, exploration-focused episodic format like TNG.  That was when the ratings started to fall... when the audience started to reject Star Trek's stagnation.  Enterprise had the same problem.  Despite being deliberately set before Star Trek and even omitting "Star Trek" from the title, the formula was king and they were quickly forced to ditch the stylistic suck and become a cosmetically advanced prequel, which combined with the insistence on continuity-breaking shenanigans in the name of tie-ins and references to previous shows, flew the ratings right into the toilet.  The network attributed the reduced ratings from DS9's crappy timeslot as the fandom's indictment of its formula-breaking format, and killed innovation stone dead.

[jenius]

I dunno, the thesis for Enterprise's failure was that it got too dark and not episodic enough during the Xindi arc.

[renegadeleader1]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I dunno, the thesis for Enterprise's failure was that it got too dark and not episodic enough during the Xindi arc.

I thought the thesis for Enterprise failing was TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! every other episode.

[jenius]

3 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

I thought the thesis for Enterprise failing was TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! every other episode.

If I was making my own list, that'd be pretty high up there on it. I actually really enjoyed the Xindi story line, I thought it was a nice departure from the usual Trek. 

EDIT - there are two elements about that story line that really bugged me though:
1) The first attack on Earth should have been an attempt to destroy the entire planet that fails instead of some sort of trial run macguffin that seems to only serve to get Enterprise to come looking for them
2) The time traveling shenanigans which were seemingly separate from the other time traveling shenanigans

Edited May 19, 2017 by jenius

[Mog]

Personally, by the time Enterprise rolled around, I was already having Star Trek fatigue.

It didn't help that Voyager pissed away it's awesome premise (which BSG showed how to do properly).  

I also disliked how they just ended Voyager with them coming home.  I wanted to see the aftermath.  How did the Voyager crew react to all the changes (war, etc.) that happened since they left?  How would the former Marquis crew react to the changes?  How would the loved ones react to them finally being back?

Instead, we get the further watering down of the Borg, Voyager getting 1989-Batmobile armor, and more time travel.

So by the time Enterprise started, I wasn't willing to be patient.  When Berman and company started spouting off about how the Xindi stories would be a new-fangled arc, I rolled my eyes and thought, "DS9 already did long-term arcs."

I know Manny Coto helped to make Season 4 interesting, but by then, Star Trek was no longer "must watch" for me.

And that series finale for Enterprise was the ultimate slap in the face.  Kill a beloved character for no valid reason, and add something totally unnecessary that skunks the memory of a damn good TNG episode (Pegasus).

Honestly, after so many movies and literally HUNDREDS of episodes, it's hard for someone to come up with an "original" story for Star Trek.

[JB0]

I thought the thesis for Enterprise's failure was "crap writing and a stubborn refusal to follow up on promises made".

Which was also the problem with Voyager, though Voyager was up-front with its refusal to follow up on promises. One episode in and the half of their crew made up of known terrorists  is wearing Starfleet uniforms and happily getting along with the half of the crew sent to arrest them.

[Mommar]

Voyager was definitely a let-down as JB0 said, because they tossed the premise out by the second episode and other than Belana being an angry pain in the ass there was zero of the Federation+Terrorists story in the rest of the series.  I honestly never thought they could pull it off in Star Trek so the fact they dropped it didn't really bother me.

Enterprise had a much easier premise and they screwed that one up right out of the gate.  Time travel was a completely stupid waste of time and didn't need to be there at all.  And they couldn't be bothered to be consistent with other Trek lore at all.  Jolene Blalock used to complain they couldn't get basic facts about Vulcans right and fought with writers/directors about it all the time.

[TangledThorns]

Mommar brought up time travel and Star Trek has gotten to the point of using and abusing time travel so much that the franchise might as well be called 'Time Trek.' For Star Trek to work it needs a Disney/Marvel like treatment to keep it cohesive.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TangledThorns said:

Mommar brought up time travel and Star Trek has gotten to the point of using and abusing time travel so much that the franchise might as well be called 'Time Trek.' For Star Trek to work it needs a Disney/Marvel like treatment to keep it cohesive.

Actually, that's why they're so reluctant to move forwards in the timeline... because, thanks to Voyager and Enterprise, they can't jump very far into the future without landing in the period of the franchise's future history where Starfleet really should be called Timefleet.

 

13 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

I thought the thesis for Enterprise failing was TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! TIME TRAVEL! every other episode.

That's what I've usually seen its failure attributed to... the writers being compelled to throw in continuity-violating shenanigans and then using time travel to excuse it, until time travel-related timeline-screw became a plot arc in its own right.  (Creative bankruptcy brought about by formula, so much so that before the show was canned they were considering tapping the Kzinti from the Star Trek cartoon as a new main antagonist... which officially promoted the show's cancellation to a Mercy Kill.  When your first choice for a new main antagonist is a joke antagonist who can be defeated by remembering your side salad, it's time to take a break and regroup.)

[TehPW]

You know, all that time crap... isn't quite as bad as you think. JJverse's existence shows that you can have different stories going on... as long as you have the execs stay the F away...

[Mog]

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned about Voyager and Enterprise is that Paramount probably leaned heavily on them to prop up their fledgling UPN network.

All that extra scrutiny from the network probably doesn't help to encourage taking creative risks.

Of course, Rick Berman wasn't known for being a risk taker, so the point's kinda moot.  And most of the creative genius responsible for the TNG, DS9 good stuff had left the franchise by then.

Edited May 19, 2017 by Mog

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

You know, all that time crap... isn't quite as bad as you think. JJverse's existence shows that you can have different stories going on... as long as you have the execs stay the F away...

Parallel universe/alternate timeline stories aren't the problem with time travel in Star Trek... it's the inevitable continuity problems that occur when time travel is used (or abused) gratuitously in the bounds of a single timeline/universe.  

Star Trek: First Contact is a prime example of how the fallout can negatively impact other stories.  It was a fairly benign time travel example on the surface, since only a handful of people in past-Earth had any contact with the 24th century Starfleet crew and their influence could be covered over with a handful of lies at most.  It still caused one of the worst idiot plots in the Star Trek: Enterprise series.  "Regeneration" somehow had Zefram Cochrane try to warn people about cyborgs from the future attacking Earth and not get written off as a crazy person, and the plot entailed 24th century Borg who'd had Starfleet's 24th century finest and their state of the art flagship on the ropes defeated by a 22nd century Enterprise for which phasers were still a new technology and the supposedly nigh-irreversible-by-24th-century-medicine assimilation that doomed almost the entire crew of the Enterprise-E is bested by a single 22nd century doctor via nothing fancier than exotic radiation therapy.  (This, after a Voyager episode where a Borg based on future technology was seen as CIVILIZATION-ENDING GALACTIC DOOM if it got loose...)

(Of course, there was also the timey-wimey ball question of Enterprise's Temporal Cold War resolution... Daniels said the timeline was resetting itself, so does that mean all the crap in the first three seasons just un-happened?  The events of the pilot that changed the circumstances of Earth's first contact with Klingons and Enterprise's launch were Temporal Cold War shenanigans.  Did Trip's sister and millions of others get un-killed when the Xindi attack un-happened?  Did the Paraga II colony come back to life?  Daniels did say "History didn't record it".)

 

At times like these, all I can think of is a line from Red Dwarf about the future...

"Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that. Your bucket's been kicked, baby."

Edited May 19, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[JB0]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  (Creative bankruptcy brought about by formula, so much so that before the show was canned they were considering tapping the Kzinti from the Star Trek cartoon as a new main antagonist... which officially promoted the show's cancellation to a Mercy Kill.  When your first choice for a new main antagonist is a joke antagonist who can be defeated by remembering your side salad, it's time to take a break and regroup.)

Hey, the kzin are hardcore. They could eat klingons for breakfast... assuming that Paramount was willing to pay Larry Niven to use them(and even less likely, Niven was willing to take the cash). Glad they didn't get a chance to mess that up.

[Sildani]

How about the Kilrathi? They're well rested, and Chris Roberts would be all over that cash. 

[MikeRoz]

1 hour ago, Sildani said:

How about the Kilrathi? They're well rested, and Chris Roberts would be all over that cash. 

I can't escape the smug comments anywhere, can I?

[JB0]

1 hour ago, MikeRoz said:

I can't escape the smug comments anywhere, can I?

The internet is naught but smug comments. Anything that seems otherwise is just well-cloaked smug comments.

[Sildani]

Hey. For what it's worth, I'm a diehard Trekker. I truly, honestly, and heartily want Discovery to go over like gangbusters because Trek desperately needs something new, right now, to get NEW fans in. No fandom, however large or loyal, survives simply on its original fan base. Not to be too morbid, but we die. We need to be replaced, and only new and compelling material will truly do that. 

Does my heart tell me that Discovery is that material? Well, it has amassed a good crew of actors (I've loved Michelle Yeoh since... yeah) and they all seem to be doing at least a reasonable job according to a two minute trailer. 

But Trek really lives and dies by its writing, and by how well that writing can hew to the current continuity. The canon. It's what separates Trek from most other SF franchises: that stuff that happened in other shows and movies, on Stardate so-and-so, had effects on current times, and those events are remembered and those effects are taken into account. That a warp engine generates a warp bubble due to titanic energies created by a matter/antimatter reaction, as an example, and that's how FTL travel gets done, with all the advantages and pitfalls that have been explored in other shows. They do no more and no less. Probably a poor example, but I hope my point is made - Trek should be grounded in at least a gram of reality, and long established stuff shouldn't suddenly be granted new powers or act in a radically different manner. 

Translate that point to other ship systems, alien races, galactic politics, bloody time travel, and you get a living and rational universe that should have some rules behind the writing and plot. 

So does Discovery have that? I honestly don't know, because not only must it have it, but it must also have new stories to tell about the human condition, its nobility as well as its horrible, horrible failings and traits. I think telling the story from a Lt. Cmdr.'s position is an excellent first step. It's a rank and position that hasn't gotten must thought or time before, and being a couple steps below the Captain forces a new perspective, not least because the character will have imperfect information and perception, and also there will be less fighting between when it's appropriate for a Captain to go on a new Away Team mission and not. 

Hell, a show based on the "Lower Decks" episode of TNG would have been awesome, if handled well. 

I also think CBS should have convinced Paramount to let them buy Axanar and do THAT up as a 15 episode series. It would have greatly fleshed out existing canon, most of the conceptual work was done, and who wouldn't love a fangs-out portrayal of the Four Years' War against the Klingons?

Those are my earnest thoughts. 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Sildani

[MikeRoz]

7 minutes ago, Sildani said:

Those are my earnest thoughts. 

That all sounds reasonable. I was just triggered by the off-topic and non-sequitur Star Citizen bashing. It pops up in the most unexpected places these days.

Edited May 20, 2017 by MikeRoz

[JB0]

5 hours ago, MikeRoz said:

That all sounds reasonable. I was just triggered by the off-topic and non-sequitur Star Citizen bashing. It pops up in the most unexpected places these days.

It wasn't really a complete non sequitur.

The kilrathi basically ARE the kzin(at best, they were "heavily inspired by"), and Chris Roberts is almost certainly more amenable to licensing them than Larry Niven, so they WOULD be a natural substitute. (assuming Roberts and not EA owns the kilrathi)

...

But it would still cost more to license someone else's alien than to make up your own. There's no way the writers would've ever gotten approval to use the kzin or substitute the kilrathi. 

It also costs more to do an angry Tony the Tiger than it does to make a human with bits stuck to his forehead. So end result: Enterprise would've taken another crap on the lore and figured out a way to bring the hirogen in from the delta quadrant (and rewrite their society) instead of creating a legally distinct race of felinoid belligerents.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, JB0 said:

Hey, the kzin are hardcore. They could eat klingons for breakfast... assuming that Paramount was willing to pay Larry Niven to use them(and even less likely, Niven was willing to take the cash). Glad they didn't get a chance to mess that up.

Eech... you... haven't seen the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon", have you?

The Kzinti from Star Trek: the Animated Series are from a Star Trek screenplay adaptation of Larry Niven's The Soft Weapon, and the episode's screenplay was written by Larry Niven himself.  As they've already paid for them, they shouldn't have a problem using them (and indeed were considering making the Kzinti the Enterprise season 5 main antagonist before the show was canceled).

They're not Niven's Kzin though.  The politest way to describe them would be "too dumb to live".  A more honest assessor might consider them, based on their behavior and their history as explained by Sulu, "the cruelest prank evolution ever played".  They are the polar opposite of being "hardcore", and they make the Pakled look like geniuses.  (It didn't help matters that the episode was directed by Hal Sutherland, who was red-green colorblind, so everything the Kzinti have is an interesting shade of pink.)  Star Trek's version of the Kzinti were gag villains, who'd fought four wars against humanity in the 21st century and lost all four of them so badly that they were forbidden by treaty from having any weapons other than stun-only phasers, and only then for their law enforcement.  They steal a stasis box containing a Slaver spy's multitool from Spock, Sulu, and Uhura, and proceed to be serially outsmarted by all three, their attempted psychic interrogation is foiled by Sulu remembering what eating a salad is like (it drives the Kzinti psychic practically hysterical), and they're outsmarted by the tiny computer in the Slaver weapon and are quickly tricked into blowing themselves and their stolen police ship up.

It's not hard to see why the network would consider Star Trek's producers and writers wanting to bring the Kzinti back as a sign of serious shark-jumping malarkey in Enterprise.

 

Let's just hope Discovery, if it lasts long enough, decides to stick with Klingons and Romulans instead of revisiting Niven's pink pussycats.

[JB0]

If I did see it, it was when I was very young and forgiving. I know OF it, and of the color palette issues.

But I am pretty sure they would have legal troubles if they took a single episode as carte blanche to start writing stories about the kzin. They paid Niven for a story, not full rights to what we would now call his intellectual property. Even if the script deal COULD be interpreted as carte blanche, it invites legal headaches while all this is sorted out.  

Were I Paramount's legal team, I would "strongly urge" the writers to create a new, legally distinct race of felinoid belligerents just because no one wants to open that can of worms. The end result is basically the same, only they aren't using Niven's names for things(see also: kilrathi).  Apparently previous attempts to re-introduce the kzinti have ended up featuring the legally-distinct "mirak" or "ferasen" instead.

 

Though... while the Trek kzinti comported themselves poorly, I feel obliged to note that the salad thing is a valid response to a Known Space kzin psychic too. The psychic doesn't get "Oh, he ate a salad", he gets the sensations and experience of eating a salad. The end result is an effect somewhat analogous to force-feeding your interrogator raw turds, because vegetables are utterly disgusting to the kzinti. 

Edited May 21, 2017 by JB0

[Seto Kaiba]

21 minutes ago, JB0 said:

But I am pretty sure they would have legal troubles if they took a single episode as carte blanche to start writing stories about the kzin. They paid Niven for a story, not full rights to what we would now call his intellectual property. Even if the script deal COULD be interpreted as carte blanche, it invites legal headaches while all this is sorted out.  

As noted previously, Paramount was actively developing content for a Kzinti story arc for Enterprise Season 5 before word came down that the ratings plummet had prompted the network not to renew it at the end of Season 4, so they seem to have at least believed they could use make free use of the Kzinti concepts Niven put forward in "The Slaver Weapon".  (Probably with less of a "Petting Zoo People" look, the way they did with the CG Gorn for the Mirror Universe episode.)  That was one of a bunch of plots that ended up in the dustbin, along with a post-facto "fix fic" episode to explain that T'Pol was so emotional even early in the series because her dad is a Romulan deep-cover operative.

Still, Spock's original accolade of "First Vulcan in Starfleet" keeps taking hits... prequel writers can't seem to resist having a Vulcan around for deadpan snark.  T'Pol got 'round it on a technicality, but what about this new girl who's basically ripping off Spock's entire half-Vulcan schtick?

 

 

21 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Were I Paramount's legal team, I would "strongly urge" the writers to create a new, legally distinct race of felinoid belligerents just because no one wants to open that can of worms. The end result is basically the same, only they aren't using Niven's names for things(see also: kilrathi).  Apparently previous attempts to re-introduce the kzinti have ended up featuring the legally-distinct "mirak" instead.

Star Trek's already got several different species of felinoid kicking around the Federation and its neighbors... which, since Paramount reversed themselves on TAS's canonicity to the prime timeline, includes the Kzinti.  (This, sadly, means tons of other Scooby-Doo level BS is also canon, like "BEM" and that one episode where the Enterprise's computer goes nuts and starts handing out dribble glasses and screen-printing insults on Kirk's uniform.)

Actually, in hindsight, I'd love it if Discovery did that.  It'd lend sort of a Red Dwarf feel to the show.  We always see the Federation's shiny new toys with the best crews boldly going wherever, we never see the poor sods who are stuck with the old clunkers Starfleet keeps in service for aeons because they can't be arsed to scrap them (like all those old Miranda-class, Excelsior-class, and Oberth-class ships).

 

21 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Though... while the Trek kzinti comported themselves poorly, I feel obliged to note that the salad thing is a valid response to a Known Space kzin psychic too. The psychic doesn't get "Oh, he ate a salad", he gets the sensations and experience of eating a salad. The end result is an effect somewhat analogous to force-feeding your interrogator raw turds, because vegetables are utterly disgusting to the kzinti. 

Yeah, they were pretty explicit about that in the dialog... the Kzinti psychic decidedly did not enjoy the experience.

That new alien in the Discovery trailer who was raised to sense the approach of death... that may be replacing the Kzinti as the new apex of narm in the Star Trek franchise.  They'd better hope the show lasts, otherwise the jokes about sensing cancellation will be unending.

[pengbuzz]

This is why I created my own Star Trek "series"; it may never see the light of day past my own artwork and whatnot, but at least I don't need to worry about salads and cats.

Edited May 21, 2017 by pengbuzz

[TehPW]

Spock can still be The First... STD is only 10 years prior to TOS. Spock have been in Star Fleet a decade or more before STD itself...

[Sandman]

50 minutes ago, TehPW said:

Spock can still be The First... STD is only 10 years prior to TOS. Spock have been in Star Fleet a decade or more before STD itself...

Hmm that's a good point. But still it seems weird they'd try to push another half human half Vulcan who is connected to Sarek in someway.

[renegadeleader1]

Another half vulcan could work as a kind of foil to Spock. Seeing Spock's success in starfleet this new hybrid decides to follow him into starfleet except instead of embracing their vulcan side like Spock does they reject it and embrace their human side.

[mechaninac]

^Not another Sybok type, half-blood or otherwise , just no!...

Edited May 22, 2017 by mechaninac

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Another half vulcan could work as a kind of foil to Spock. Seeing Spock's success in starfleet this new hybrid decides to follow him into starfleet except instead of embracing their vulcan side like Spock does they reject it and embrace their human side.

 

2 hours ago, mechaninac said:

^Not another Sybok type, half-blood or otherwise , just no!...

What mechaninac said... honestly.  We had the whole "Vulcan who decides to explore their emotions freely" schtick several times before, and it led to two of the most contentious/hated Vulcans in Star Trek... that prat Sybok from Star Trek V, and Subcommander T'Pol from Enterprise.  (The latter being a case like that of Wesley Crusher or Chakotay, where even the actor hated how the character developed.)

They also kind of overplayed the whole "The Vulcans are racist (speciesist?) a-holes" in Enterprise and the J.J. Abrams movies, which was entirely out of character for what was ostensibly an alien species whose "hat" was being mercilessly and entirely rational.  (Mind you, Spock was having "all the other reindeer" moments as far back as TAS, but those were more because he was kind of an undisciplined kid who had trouble maintaining control of his emotions until his future self - via the Guardian of Forever - taught him a few life lessons while pretending to be a cousin from afar.)  Even factoring in the Syrranite reformation in Enterprise, by 10 years before TOS the Vulcans should be the milder, friendlier breed of TOS and TNG.

Having a Vulcan or Vulcan-equivalent merciless logician on the bridge is definitely a nod to the old formula (Spock, Data, Tuvok, T'Pol), but as Discovery looks like it's going to have more of an action focus than previous shows (in an easy bid for viewership) one has to wonder if the logical space pacifist isn't going to be a wet blanket.  (At least as much as Mister "I sense the approach of death", anyway... that would've been so much funnier if he'd been a redshirt.)

 

[Mazinger]

32 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They also kind of overplayed the whole "The Vulcans are racist (speciesist?) a-holes" in Enterprise and the J.J. Abrams movies, which was entirely out of character for what was ostensibly an alien species whose "hat" was being mercilessly and entirely rational.  (Mind you, Spock was having "all the other reindeer" moments as far back as TAS, but those were more because he was kind of an undisciplined kid who had trouble maintaining control of his emotions until his future self - via the Guardian of Forever - taught him a few life lessons while pretending to be a cousin from afar.)  Even factoring in the Syrranite reformation in Enterprise, by 10 years before TOS the Vulcans should be the milder, friendlier breed of TOS and TNG.

Oh, the animated series!  Love that it is now considered cannon by many.  Some really good eps in there.  If I recall correctly, wasn't the time-travel, cousin visit referenced in one of the JJ movies? I seem to remember it mentioned in a live action setting.

[Mommar]

13 hours ago, TehPW said:

Spock can still be The First... STD is only 10 years prior to TOS. Spock have been in Star Fleet a decade or more before STD itself...

Yeah, we already know he was the Science Officer and second in command under Captain Pike for two full five year missions prior to Kirk taking over and there was another Captain of the Enterprise prior to Captain Pike.  Not that Spock was necessarily on The Enterprise prior to that but it's pretty clear he was already well established having a Star Fleet Career long before he ever served with Kirk.  As a matter if fact I believe Spock was given his post under Pike specifically because he was so well regarded from his previous roles.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Mommar

[Focslain]

On ‎5‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 11:53 PM, JB0 said:

If I did see it, it was when I was very young and forgiving. I know OF it, and of the color palette issues.

But I am pretty sure they would have legal troubles if they took a single episode as carte blanche to start writing stories about the kzin. They paid Niven for a story, not full rights to what we would now call his intellectual property. Even if the script deal COULD be interpreted as carte blanche, it invites legal headaches while all this is sorted out.  

Were I Paramount's legal team, I would "strongly urge" the writers to create a new, legally distinct race of felinoid belligerents just because no one wants to open that can of worms. The end result is basically the same, only they aren't using Niven's names for things(see also: kilrathi).  Apparently previous attempts to re-introduce the kzinti have ended up featuring the legally-distinct "mirak" or "ferasen" instead.

Actually couldn't they just use the Caitian/Fersaen from STO? Most of that game needs to go through CBS legal anyway. Plus it wouldn't be too hard to make them as the prostectic would only need to be slitly better then the old 90's Beauty and the Beast level.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Mazinger said:

Oh, the animated series!  Love that it is now considered cannon by many.  Some really good eps in there.  If I recall correctly, wasn't the time-travel, cousin visit referenced in one of the JJ movies? I seem to remember it mentioned in a live action setting.

Yeah, I was floored when Paramount announced it was no longer non-canon... it had its good moments ("How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth") and its lousy moments ("Bem", "The Slaver Weapon"), but for most fans it was firmly in discontinuity territory even if it did basically introduce the holodeck.  I only got to see it because my dad got some bootleg tapes at a con.

I don't recall the cousin thing in the Abrams movies, but I confess I barely paid attention to any of them once it became apparent they were just sci-fi/action movies with the Star Trek name slapped on.

 

5 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Yeah, we already know he was the Science Officer and second in command under Captain Pike for two full five year missions prior to Kirk taking over and there was another Captain of the Enterprise prior to Captain Pike.  Not that Spock was necessarily on The Enterprise prior to that but it's pretty clear he was already well established having a Star Fleet Career long before he ever served with Kirk.

Spock was a fresh-out-of-the-academy ensign when he joined Pike's first five-year mission partway through... so if Discovery is 10 years before Kirk's tenure as the Enterprise's captain that means this half-Vulcan Lieutenant Commander in Discovery has to predate Spock by no small margin.  After all, Discovery is set just one year after Spock's assignment to Enterprise.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Actually couldn't they just use the Caitian/Fersaen from STO? Most of that game needs to go through CBS legal anyway. Plus it wouldn't be too hard to make them as the prostectic would only need to be slitly better then the old 90's Beauty and the Beast level.

The Caitians existed way WAY before Star Trek Online... they go back at least to TAS, where Uhura's relief officer on the Enterprise's bridge communications station was a Caitian.  The Caitians are long-time Federation members too, so they wouldn't be a good choice for a hostile power.  (The Kzinti's backstory had them as having around a century of bad blood between themselves and Earth in "The Slaver Weapon".)