Star Trek: Discovery

[Chronocidal]

On ‎10‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 11:14 AM, Mommar said:

The people who criticize those scenes lack wonder.

See, I actually never hear the drydock scene criticized that way.  Yeah, it was slow, and it was a special effects budget breaker shot, but between the visuals and the music, it was one of those amazing combinations that I can see fans tearing up at in the theater.

The effects shots I always see get blasted are all the VGER interior bits, the Macintosh Screensaver Sequence, and that sort of thing.  They were visually impressive, but did absolutely nothing for the pacing and plot.

I do wish we could get back to more of the science fiction like in TMP though.  At its heart, it's basically an expansion of the NOMAD TOS episode, just expanded in every direction.

Edited October 4, 2017 by Chronocidal

[Scyla]

Was there any information given why Discovery is a prequel? I have a great dislike about prequel stories so I was wondering why they decided to go that route. I mean you could tell the exact same story set after Nemesis.

Is it because they want to retell the war with the Klingons? If so, why do they have this plot of the Discovery the research of the 

Shroom Network

?

[Scyla]

Saw the summary of the first two episodes from Red Letter Media they bring up a few good points:

 

[Vepariga]

I recently got back from Japan after my stay there for a few months, I got to finally give these episodes a watch.

 

Discovery is a pretty decent show so far imo, I'm not really a trekkie but the holograms walking around part kinda threw me abit. 

Klingons are alright but i'm not completely fond of the designs.

 

overall tho i did enjoy whats been aired so far,so I hope it gets better than worse as it goes on.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

Was there any information given why Discovery is a prequel? I have a great dislike about prequel stories so I was wondering why they decided to go that route.

Nothing substantive, no.  The explanation that Discovery producer Nicholas Meyer gave amounts to an overlong "because we could".  Buried in some of the extraneous waffle of those interviews are a few statements that point to the showrunners opting for a prequel because they didn't want to deal with the high-minded morality and idealism of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.  Gene's utopian vision of the future apparently wasn't conflict-friendly enough for all the dark, gritty, racist, paranoid trash the producers wanted their show to be about... so they went looking for gaps in the prime timeline before TOS to exploit, claiming that they were looking to depict the slow development towards that ideal.

Unfortunately, because the producers waited until much later to bother actually researching any of the prime timeline they seem to have picked their date based on events of the Kelvin timeline (the start of Jar-Jar's first Star Trek movie) without realizing that the rampant militarism of Jar-Jar's riff on Star Trek never happened in the prime timeline because the Narada's unintentional trip back in time created a parallel universe.  So we've got this bizarre, incongruously militaristic Star Trek title trying to set up shop in a prime timeline in a period where that utopian Federation civilization that the producers insist doesn't exist yet had already been a thing for a little over 95 years.

 

 

7 hours ago, Scyla said:

I mean you could tell the exact same story set after Nemesis.

Is it because they want to retell the war with the Klingons? If so, why do they have this plot of the Discovery the research of the 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Shroom Network

 

?

 

They could, but I think the writers are a bit put out by the way The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager went and kneecapped or outright exterminated every established hostile power that could credibly threaten the United Federation of Planets.

Deep Space Nine arguably started it by putting the Cardassians, who had been a credible threat on the Federation's border for much of The Next Generation's later seasons, Cardassian Union was on the brink of collapse even before it joined the Dominion.  The Dominion War arc saw the Dominion itself beaten and forced to surrender, and it took the Breen Confederacy and Cardassian Union with it when it went, with the latter suffering a friendly-fire genocide, and the technically-friendly Klingon Empire and Romulan Star Empire both got mauled worse than the Federation did.

The Next Generation movies took another Dominion ally, the Son'a, out of the picture entirely and started the Borg Collective's badass decay, then delivered the first of two knockout punches to the Romulan Star Empire in Nemesis by having the entire Senate assassinated and a Reman-led coup install a short-lived praetor as dictator.  Then they accidentally blew up a neighboring star and the Romulan home system got wiped out, so they're no threat.  The main anti-Federation faction that existed in the Klingon Empire also lost its leadership, almost as an aside, in Generations when the Duras sisters were killed.

Voyager introduced a pack of mostly-useless antagonists like the Kazon (Klingons Lite) and Vidiians who would only have rated as nuisances were it not for the titular ship being alone and perpetually short of resources.  They ran with First Contact's mistreatment of the Borg and reduced them from The Dreaded to just "the dreadful" before capping it with "Janeway's b*tch".  Species 8472 was the only other really credible antagonist they brought, and they just wanted to be left the hell alone by the Borg.

So who's left?  Basically, it's just a few formerly antagonistic powers that are at least on somewhat friendly terms with the Federation in that period.  The Gorn Hegemony, the Tholian Assembly, the Sheliak Corporate, and the Tzenkethi.  

(This is probably why the relaunch novels try so damned hard to come up with new antagonistic powers and generally fail miserably, thus falling back on rehashing stuff from the shows. The best they could do was having a bunch of minor antagonists band together to form their own evil Federation, the Typhon Pact.)

[Dynaman]

SyFy wire says subscription revenue for CBS all access went up at least 60K a month since Discover premiered.  Of course there are those defending that number as being very good, it was at least 1 million per episode of TNG (2 million?).  That was 25-30 years ago so 4 million an episode at least today.  60k a month is 15k a week - even if the subscription numbers are off by a factor of 10 that is a massive failure and not something to be happy about.

[Marzan]

Like I've mentioned before, I'm a casual ST fan. But I cannot remember any of the previous series having the

SPOILER FOR EPISODE 4

as many deaths of namegiven characters so early in the series? The captain, Klingon chieftain and now the new commander? There's some serious attrition here

[Scyla]

Yeah, after seeing the fourth episode I don't know if I want to continue watching Discovery. I will probably go back to my DS9 marathon instead.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Marzan said:

Like I've mentioned before, I'm a casual ST fan. But I cannot remember any of the previous series having the

SPOILER FOR EPISODE 4

  Hide contents

as many deaths of namegiven characters so early in the series? The captain, Klingon chieftain and now the new commander? There's some serious attrition here

 

Voyager might count, given that...

Spoiler

... in the first episode of that, they introduced and then summarily whacked a bunch of USS Voyager's senior staff including the ship's XO, chief engineer, chief medical officer (and his staff, who went unnamed), and capped it by killing the Caretaker and the Kazon leader who had been harassing Voyager.  Of course, Voyager was supposed to be a darker Star Trek series in the mold of DS9's war arc or "The Year of Hell" but got hijacked by the network execs.

Other than that, TNG only whacked one named character in its entire first season... Lieutenant Tasha Yar.  DS9, same, only whacked one... Kai Opaka.

 

[TangledThorns]

45 minutes ago, Marzan said:

Like I've mentioned before, I'm a casual ST fan. But I cannot remember any of the previous series having the

SPOILER FOR EPISODE 4

  Reveal hidden contents

as many deaths of namegiven characters so early in the series? The captain, Klingon chieftain and now the new commander? There's some serious attrition here

 

I hadn't seen the recent episodes but your spoiler confirms what I hoped where the new Star Trek would go.

[Dobber]

I read some people talking about it and saw a .gif of it but what's with Discovery's counter rotating Saucer? 

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by Dobber

[TehPW]

It's stupid, for one thing.

[Graham]

Artificial gravity........err no wait they already have that.

Maybe it helps deflect phaser shots

Ah, I got it. It's a giant centrifuge for those hundreds of science experiments they said they have running simultaneously.

[renegadeleader1]

9 hours ago, Dobber said:

I read some people talking about it and saw a .gif of it but what's with Discovery's counter rotating Saucer? 

 

Haven't you heard? Spinners are all the rage on the street these days! Bling bling yo!

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, Dobber said:

I read some people talking about it and saw a .gif of it but what's with Discovery's counter rotating Saucer? 

There was an internal memo going 'round the Utopia Planitia shipyards about how fidget spinners are huge in the Federation right now... and some shipwright got completely the wrong idea.

[Knight26]

It is part of their new quantum mushroom displacement drive.  I kid you not.

[TehPW]

9 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

It is part of their new quantum mushroom displacement drive.  I kid you not.

OK that sh*t would be hilarious when they show a beauty shot with the spinners stoped and the hull name NNC #s are facing AFT...ish. Serious, that rotating sh*t is retarded...

[Mazinger]

20 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

It is part of their new quantum mushroom displacement drive.  I kid you not.

How silly!  What next people, magical gut bacteria that allows you to fold through space!  Ha.

[Seto Kaiba]

25 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

It is part of their new quantum mushroom displacement drive.  I kid you not.

So, what you're telling us is the designer was on shrooms?

[tekering]

4 minutes ago, Mazinger said:

How silly!  What next people, magical gut bacteria that allows you to fold through space!

Yes, alien spores from the Flower Mushroom of Life are what powers their dangerously unpredictable fold system... but, as the only ship equipped with such technology, they're humanity's only hope against an aggressive alien race that knows only war and conquest.

Why does that sound so familiar...?  

[azrael]

Shrooms are always magical.

[Dynaman]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

Yes, alien spores from the Flower Mushroom of Life are what powers their dangerously unpredictable fold system... but, as the only ship equipped with such technology, they're humanity's only hope against an aggressive alien race that knows only war and conquest.

Why does that sound so familiar...?  

Careful, something a heck of a lot like it allowed the Vajra to communicate...

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

Yes, alien spores from the Flower Mushroom of Life are what powers their dangerously unpredictable fold system... but, as the only ship equipped with such technology, they're humanity's only hope against an aggressive alien race that knows only war and conquest.

Why does that sound so familiar...?  

Don't forget that these special mushrooms make small things much bigger... like that 

Spoiler

killer tartigrade.

 

[Chronocidal]

Maybe we'll get lucky, and the saucer will warp itself into the Delta Quadrant.   Would improve the look of the ship, I think.

[Sildani]

What, then we’ve just got this triangle blasting around space instead of this half-arsed Vulcan IDIC symbol. 

We've enough Triangles... In SPAAAACE! in another franchise, thankyouverymuch. 

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, Sildani said:

What, then we’ve just got this triangle blasting around space instead of this half-arsed Vulcan IDIC symbol. 

We've enough Triangles... In SPAAAACE! in another franchise, thankyouverymuch. 

The original design's even by the guy who specializes in malevolent space triangles.

[azrael]

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Renewed for Season 2 by CBS All Access

[Kanedas Bike]

Meh. From the clips I've seen posted on YouTube I don't feel bad in the least for missing out on Discovery.

Just bring out more movies set in the JJ-verse. Two of the three movies have actually been good, and if it weren't for some really stupid story choices Into Darkness wouldn't have been half-bad either (but it was, it was horrible).

-b.

[derex3592]

I watched the first episode (free) this weekend, I'll get to the rest (for free) eventually..It is a gorgeous show no doubt, but I'm not really liking the cast at all yet.  No way I'd ever pay to watch this.

[azrael]

Six episodes in, it's not bad, but it's not the best. Continuity-errors aside, I'm still not sure what the premise of this series is and this a big chunk of my beef with this series.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 10/23/2017 at 10:00 AM, azrael said:

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Renewed for Season 2 by CBS All Access

Well, I'm disappointed... that means CBS is likely to continue trying to crowbar the mess that is Star Trek: Discovery into the Prime timeline despite it being increasingly obvious that it doesn't belong there.  It's a near-perfect fit for the Kelvin timeline, but all of its xenophobic undertones and Burnham and Lorca's highly flexible morality and "ends justify the means" attitude towards the law is definitely not consistent with what we've seen of other Federation Starfleet crews of the era like Captain Robert April, Christopher Pike, James Kirk, etc.  It wouldn't even be consistent with the nascent Federation Starfleet under Admiral Jonathan Archer almost 100 years prior when the Federation couldn't afford to be that holier-than-thou.

 

On 10/23/2017 at 2:17 PM, azrael said:

Six episodes in, it's not bad, but it's not the best. Continuity-errors aside, I'm still not sure what the premise of this series is and this a big chunk of my beef with this series.

For my money, the biggest problem is that it's a prequel allegedly set in the prime timeline.  If this were in the Kelvin timeline, it'd be no harm no foul because that timeline is a LOT more militaristic and paranoid thanks to the Narada incident, Khan's shenanigans, etc. and was only just getting on its feet and starting to really look at what it'd become around the time Discovery was set.

On reflection, it's so weird that Burnham would cite a Vulcan precedent for shooting first when it came to Klingons... she could only be referring to the strategic doctrines of the Vulcan High Command.  How the hell did Burnham get the idea that the doctrines of a deposed and disgraced Vulcan government that was overthrown because of its rampant, amoral militarism and involvement in all manner of religious and social bigotry was a role model?  There is no way in hell that Ambassador Sarek, a post-Surak Vulcan, was teaching her that the High Command's doctrines were diplomatically sound.

[Sandman]

It was pretty much a given Discovery would get a second season. Otherwise CBS all access wouldn't have anything next year and all the subscribers would bail.

[Vepariga]

Saw the latest episode, was alright, bit dull, hopefully it all builds up into something worth while.

[tekering]

On 10/26/2017 at 1:12 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I'm disappointed... that means CBS is likely to continue trying to crowbar the mess that is Star Trek: Discovery into the Prime timeline despite it being increasingly obvious that it doesn't belong there.

Oh, it's definitely Kelvin, not Prime -- for all the reasons you mentioned and more -- regardless of how disingenuously they try and claim it isn't.  Whenever Spock is mentioned (now that he's been explicitly referenced in dialogue) I picture Zachary Quinto.

In fact, since we're not likely to see another Star Trek film anytime soon, it wouldn't surprise me if Quinto made a cameo appearance on Discovery...

[nanoplasm]

As mentioned in another thread, the Spore Drive principle is basically the zero-time Vajra fold network.

Harness the power of v-virus/spore, for instantaneous communication/travel to any node on the galaxy-wide network, which is formed by colonies of vajra/fungus.

Throw in some cheeky FX (spinning saucer, ship teleportation with afterimage and sentai/kamen sfx), shonen manga combat tactics (wait for enemy ship to charge into you, teleport out, but leave behind some primed torpedo), and that describes the space combat of STD.