Star Trek: Discovery

[Sandman]

14 hours ago, UN Spacy said:

If they got Frakes to direct then if they can also nab Levar Burton or Roxanne Biggs Dawson that'd be great as well. 

If they did too much of this I'd be worried that Discovery would drift back to that generic style the 90s ST series had throughout it's run. The one thing I really like about Discovery is the way they are changing up the filming style.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 6/28/2017 at 7:18 PM, Thom said:

But having pointed that out, keeping your main character on a friendly 'leash' certainly keeps down the drama, for good and ill.

For me, the nagging question left by that article is exactly how far they intend to take this new "less nice" riff on Star Trek's setting.

I have no objections to, say, a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine level of ongoing conflict-driven story arc because in there they didn't sacrifice the generally optimistic Roddenberry-esque tone that is Star Trek's most iconic trait.  Starfleet never stopped hoping the conflict could be resolved by diplomatic means and in the end it was.  They still saw themselves as explorers, and the wars as a wasteful distraction from that primary mission.

What they've given us every reason to expect, and what I DO object to, is a dumbed-down Star Trek series à la Jar-Jar Abrams that replaces the franchise's trademark introspective science fiction with a CG special effects extravaganza backed by paper-thin action movie excuse plots.  That dumbing-down is a big part of what ultimately killed Enterprise and it won't endear this new series to existing Star Trek fans either.

[Sandman]

The breaking of the no-conflict mandate doesn't bug me since that was a more 24th century thing than a 23rd century. There was was ton of conflict between characters in the Pike-Kirk era so they are still following canon in that aspect.

 

Anyway here is a new USS Discovery pic I discovered(haha) today.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Sandman

[Chronocidal]

.... Yes.  Because the thing I want to see out of my window is someone else's quarters?

I'm not going to go touting Trek as some pinnacle of engineering practicality here, but there's a difference between something looking "cool but impractical" and... whatever that is.

[Kanedas Bike]

48 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

.... Yes.  Because the thing I want to see out of my window is someone else's quarters?

I'm not going to go touting Trek as some pinnacle of engineering practicality here, but there's a difference between something looking "cool but impractical" and... whatever that is.

Yeah, from a practical perspective that saucer design looks rather silly.

But if you're trying to be different then there's only so much the designers can do with a circle. Especially given the many Starfleet ships that have been shown on film, books, comics, TV, games, etc.

-b.

[jenius]

Is it the first attempt at a separating saucer? 

[TehPW]

you sure this isn't in the same realm as JJ-verse...? cause they already did similar aesthetics with the USS Vengeance from STID....

[Chronocidal]

8 hours ago, jenius said:

Is it the first attempt at a separating saucer? 

Canonically, the Constitution class ships were able to do that as well, it just wasn't something you did every episode as a plot device, because it was more of a warp core ejection and evacuation mechanism than something you'd do for convenience.  It also required a spacedock to reconnect them.

Now, if you mean ones that can reconnect on their own, that may be something they're trying to do.

[Thom]

Just something more not to like about that design, when it didn't need anymore...

[azrael]

Poster to be seen at Comic-con this week.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

.... Yes.  Because the thing I want to see out of my window is someone else's quarters?

I'm not going to go touting Trek as some pinnacle of engineering practicality here, but there's a difference between something looking "cool but impractical" and... whatever that is.

Reminds me of one of the dorms I lived in at university... 

 

 

11 hours ago, TehPW said:

you sure this isn't in the same realm as JJ-verse...? cause they already did similar aesthetics with the USS Vengeance from STID....

They swear blind Star Trek: Discovery is in the prime continuity and a prequel to the original Star Trek... which makes the (re)use of a design meant to be the Constitution-class's successor a little odd given that Discovery is meant to occur BEFORE the original Star Trek.

(IMO, it's taking "Cosmetically-advanced prequel" a little too far for comfort.)

 

 

7 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Canonically, the Constitution class ships were able to do that as well, it just wasn't something you did every episode as a plot device, because it was more of a warp core ejection and evacuation mechanism than something you'd do for convenience.  It also required a spacedock to reconnect them.

Now, if you mean ones that can reconnect on their own, that may be something they're trying to do.

Hm... not sure if it's actually canon, per se.  Star Trek as a whole normally considers only what's in the show itself to be canon.

The Star Trek writer's "bible" did mention saucer separation as a possibility in some of its revisions, but the concept was never mentioned or used in-series.  There were a few mentions of being able to eject the warp nacelles in TOS though.  They didn't have a visual concept for saucer separation until McQuarrie drew it for the rejected Planet of the Titans feature, and again when Probert did a storyboard sequence showing a saucer separation of the refit Enterprise for Star Trek: the Motion Picture that ended up being dropped before filming.  It almost happened in Star Trek III but Gene Roddenberry got overruled and the whole Enterprise was blown up instead of just the saucer.

Based on what I've read in The Making of Star Trek and a few other books, the concept for saucer separation wasn't an emergency measure.  It was originally drafted as a gimmick for the ship that would enable the saucer to be a separate, sublight-only starship for exploring solar systems.  The later McQuarrie and Probert concepts were for a saucer that could separate to land on planets for exploration and then return to space and reconnect to the stardrive section.  The idea was binned for the same reason it was in TOS... the VFX shots for landing the ship were simply too expensive.  The idea of saucer separation as an emergency measure and unrecoverable landing didn't come along until late in the development of Star Trek: the Next Generation.  Even the Enterprise D did not originally have the capability, it was added late in preproduction.  The original plan was to have a smaller captain's yacht-style lander instead.  TNG also originated the idea of it as a way to save a part of the ship from a disaster aboard the stardrive section, and the unrecoverable landing.

(The first hard evidence for earlier ships having the capability is in Generations... the MSD at the back of the Enterprise B's bridge shows a battle bridge and Enterprise-D-style latches.)

[Chronocidal]

Makes a lot of sense, and I was thinking I'd heard the saucer separation mentioned as an emergency measure at least once in TOS episodes, but the actual lines only talk about jettisoning the warp nacelles.  Or was there a line in TMP about a potential separation? 

[Dobber]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by Dobber
Misread post

[Seto Kaiba]

36 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Makes a lot of sense, and I was thinking I'd heard the saucer separation mentioned as an emergency measure at least once in TOS episodes, but the actual lines only talk about jettisoning the warp nacelles.  Or was there a line in TMP about a potential separation? 

Nacelle ejection is mentioned twice in TOS, once in "The Apple" and once in "The Savage Curtain" (thank you Memory Alpha).  Would've been something useful to have on later ships, considering how often TNG-era ships seem to explode once a nacelle is compromised... which is weird, given that Reliant had an entire nacelle blown clean off in Wrath of Khan and seemed barely inconvenienced by it.

I recently rewatched Star Trek: the Motion Picture when I got the whole batch on Play, and there was nothing in the original theatrical cut or director's cut about a saucer separation.  There was a scene planned near the end where the refit Enterprise would separate, but it was scrapped in the storyboard phase and the only artifacts remaining from it are Andrew Probert's sketches.

The Discovery really does look like it ought to have the capability, from the shape of the hull... I don't think I'd be too put out if it did, as long as it was used intelligently instead of becoming the forgotten gimmick the Enterprise D's was until Generations.

[Focslain]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nacelle ejection is mentioned twice in TOS, once in "The Apple" and once in "The Savage Curtain" (thank you Memory Alpha).  Would've been something useful to have on later ships, considering how often TNG-era ships seem to explode once a nacelle is compromised... which is weird, given that Reliant had an entire nacelle blown clean off in Wrath of Khan and seemed barely inconvenienced by it.

Not that weird since it was blown clean off. Clean off being the primary reason it didn't cause more damage with a secondary denonation that most likely happened a few seconds later (off camera).

[Dynaman]

The Enterprise-D seemed to have a massive explosion every time it was hit by just about anything.  

[Chronocidal]

Funny enough, a large percentage of them were caused by collisions with the USS Reliant's nacelles, even.  (Though it was modded into the Bozeman at the time.)

TNG got more usage out of the gimmick at least, but it tended to be one of those things that wound up seeming not all that useful in the long run.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

The Enterprise-D seemed to have a massive explosion every time it was hit by just about anything.  

Well, we'll find out of the Discovery and/or Shenzhou  are made from Chinese fireworks like the Enterprise D or the sterner stuff of the TOS era sooner or later.

Given the focus on special effects, I'm sure we won't have to wait more than one episode to see someone beat the hell out of either.

[Sildani]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(snip) becoming the forgotten gimmick the Enterprise D's was until Generations.

Surely you're not forgetting The Best of Both Worlds, when the saucer was separated as a diversion for fighting the Borg cube?

[sh9000]

Or in the very first episode of TNG.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Sildani said:

Surely you're not forgetting The Best of Both Worlds, when the saucer was separated as a diversion for fighting the Borg cube?

 

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

Or in the very first episode of TNG.

No, I hadn't forgotten... in fact, it's a nice illustration of my point about it being a largely forgotten gimmick.

Star Trek: the Next Generation had 176 episodes and 4 movies.  In that span, there were just four actual saucer separation events and the possibility was only brought up a handful of times when it wasn't actually used.  Half of the uses are in Season 1, and all but three mentions are before The Best of Both Worlds Part II.  (One in Season 4, one in Season 5, and one in First Contact.)

Outside of the Enterprise D, only one ship has ever been shown executing a separation... the USS Prometheus, a one-episode wonder from Voyager's 4th season.

EDIT: If the Discovery turns out to have the capability, hopefully they'll make more use of it than the Enterprise D did... there should be less obstacle to its tactical utility in the period STD is set in, since that was before Starfleet went back to using the warp core as the power source for the phasers. (They had switched over to using the impulse reactors starting on the NX-class.)

EDIT 2: ... I just now realized that bit of dialog in ENT's "Silent Enemy" is a stealth callback all the way to TMP, explaining why phasers weren't using the warp core until the Constitution-class retrofit.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Seto Kaiba

[UN Spacy]

 

[electric indigo]

Non-geoblocked trailer:

Visuals are not bad, but the narrative is all over the place.

[azrael]

 

[Sildani]

Dunno. I dunno. 

[Mommar]

Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd is inspired casting though.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Mommar

[Dynaman]

Trailer looked decent enough I have to admit, but I'm still not signing up for another streaming service just to see it.

[Dobber]

2 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Trailer looked decent enough I have to admit, but I'm still not signing up for another streaming service just to see it.

Same here. I'm not hating what I'm seeing, though, it's hard to tell what is going on, but I refuse to play CBS's game and pay when the rest of the world gets to watch with an already commonly used service. 

Chris

[lechuck]

On 19/07/2017 at 5:00 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

 

No, I hadn't forgotten... in fact, it's a nice illustration of my point about it being a largely forgotten gimmick.

Star Trek: the Next Generation had 176 episodes and 4 movies.  In that span, there were just four actual saucer separation events and the possibility was only brought up a handful of times when it wasn't actually used.  Half of the uses are in Season 1, and all but three mentions are before The Best of Both Worlds Part II.  (One in Season 4, one in Season 5, and one in First Contact.)

Outside of the Enterprise D, only one ship has ever been shown executing a separation... the USS Prometheus, a one-episode wonder from Voyager's 4th season.

The TNG staff didn't forget, but rather they were forced to forget. They were using models back in the day and any great visual ideas to tie in to the story would have just been too expensive.

If you really want to talk about forgetting then look no further than the latter half of DS9, when for no logical reasons Galaxy class ships WITH their saucer section are being sent in to fight the Dominion, instead of just the stardrive sections. And this being when Star Trek production had switched over to CGI...

Anyway I would take a Galaxy class with neck and saucer separation any day over a spine less Sovereign. Nemesis makes a visually compelling case for this...

[lechuck]

If I jumped into this trailer without knowing the timeline details, I would think this is either an entirely new timeline or that it is taking place post-Nemesis with some decades/a century in between.

The presentation of the tech and ships all feel far to advanced to be a couple of years before TOS.

Edited July 23, 2017 by lechuck

[Sildani]

Modern technology has leapt ahead so much that keeping things to a TNG or Enterprise - level aesthetic would be seen as laughable. Tupac appears on stage as a hologram, MicroSD cards can hold a terabyte of data, etc. Of course things need to look more advanced - we'll see some of that stuff in the next ten years or so, to say nothing of within our lifetimes. The futurism is one of the few things I won't complain about in this series. 

[spacemanoeuvres]

I was a big TNG fan and this doesn't appeal to me at all. I'll check it out but not enthusiastic about it.

Reminds me of the last film; all action and no sci fi. A complete miss on the spirit of Star Trek. 

I noped out of the current ST incarnations when folks started doing motorcycle jumps in the last film. Seriously WTF lol

[sh9000]

1 hour ago, spacemanoeuvres said:

I was a big TNG fan and this doesn't appeal to me at all.

Same here.

[derex3592]

2 hours ago, Dobber said:

Same here. I'm not hating what I'm seeing, though, it's hard to tell what is going on, but I refuse to play CBS's game and pay when the rest of the world gets to watch with an already commonly used service. 

Chris

100% agree... looks decent enough, but not paying. 

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, azrael said:

 

Well, if that trailer is indicative of the direction they intend to take with the series then I think my choice is clear... PASS.

This barely even looks like a Star Trek series at all, let alone one that is supposed to be set just ten years before Star Trek season one.  I hope they're not serious about making this a Star Trek war story, because that only ever worked once in Deep Space Nine and the only reason it did work there was because the war-centric plots were heavily broken up by more traditional plots used as breather episodes.  By now, you really ought to be able to expect that Star Trek's writers knew better than to grab the conflict ball... every time they try, it turns into garbage as it did many times in the relaunch novels and anything penned by Shatner.  Enterprise grabbed the conflict ball for a season and it nearly got them canceled it was so badly written.

The part that really has me raising an eyebrow though is the rumor going 'round the net that this new lead is attempting to borrow appeal by way of "Remember the new guy?" as yet another undisclosed half-sibling of Spock's.  If true, that punts this from fanfic territory down to bad fanfic territory.

 

 

4 hours ago, lechuck said:

The TNG staff didn't forget, but rather they were forced to forget. They were using models back in the day and any great visual ideas to tie in to the story would have just been too expensive.

They used it when circumstances permitted, and even just mentioning it as a possibility counts... but it was almost never brought up.

 

 

4 hours ago, lechuck said:

If I jumped into this trailer without knowing the timeline details, I would think this is either an entirely new timeline or that it is taking place post-Nemesis with some decades/a century in between.

The presentation of the tech and ships all feel far to advanced to be a couple of years before TOS.

The phasers and transporter effect look like they're from the right time period at least... but the all-forcefield holding cell thing?  That's way too advanced even for Voyager or the TNG movies.  They didn't even have holding cells with forcefield doors until after Kirk's era, the cells aboard the refit Enterprise and Enterprise A still had physical obstructions in the doorway.  I kind of like the dropping-out-of-warp effect, it looks like it came right from one of the old Probert sketches (and probably did).  If they told me this belonged to the Abrams timeline I'd believe it.

 

 

4 hours ago, Sildani said:

Modern technology has leapt ahead so much that keeping things to a TNG or Enterprise - level aesthetic would be seen as laughable. Tupac appears on stage as a hologram, MicroSD cards can hold a terabyte of data, etc. Of course things need to look more advanced - we'll see some of that stuff in the next ten years or so, to say nothing of within our lifetimes. The futurism is one of the few things I won't complain about in this series. 

Problem is, no less than three previous Star Trek shows in that timeline affirmed that the TOS visual aesthetic does in fact come to pass totally unaltered from its 60's appearance.  Star Trek: the Next Generation had Scotty call up a hologram of the TOS bridge on the holodeck, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had an episode that was a side story to "The Trouble with Tribbles" set aboard the Enterprise and space station, and the Star Trek: Enterprise series had a two-parter devoted to showing the Terran Empire's rise was down mostly to a prime continuity Constitution-class ship looking exactly as it did in TOS fall into the mirror universe in Mirror Archer's time and being captured by the NX-class Enterprise.

They're going to have to do some serious mental calisthenics to explain why the Discovery and the Shenzou look more in line with the design aesthetic of the 25th thru 31st centuries than the early 23rd.  Most of the displays and other hardware look right out of Daniels' 31st century temporal observatory.

The Axanar fan-film did a much better job of looking appropriate to this period of time than Discovery is.