Star Trek: Discovery

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, JB0 said:

Oh, totally. He shows Kirk the card in the Director's Cut. It's a very lovely card, with gold filigree and a sound box that plays the Gorn Hegemony Anthem("Drink the Mammal's Blood") when you open it. VERY convincing piece of forged evidence.

Maybe we'll catch that wonderful deleted scene later today.

We've got Star Trek (2009) on in the background while we work on scans and prioritizing documents for translation today, and I tell ya it's easy to see where Discovery got a lot of its bad habits and worse ideas.  This movie's writing is an absolute goddamn mess.  The scene with the Kelvin and Narada at the beginning is so visually busy that it's nigh-impossible to tell what's actually going on.  Young Kirk is an unlikeable arsehole to the extent that I find myself siding more with whomever happens to be beating him up or otherwise making him suffer at the time, be it the four cadets in the bar, the Narada's crew, McCoy, or Spock.  Eric Bana absolutely sleepwalks through the entire film, delivering 90% of his dialog in a voice that sounds like he's either reading it off cue cards held up just offscreen or is coming off a heavy dose of novocaine.  It's kind of surprising how much of this movie's plot was driven by people making absolutely the worst, most asinine decisions possible at any given point in time... as if Nero's temporal incursion lowered the galaxy's average IQ by forty points.

Pine!Kirk and Burnham are definitely cut from the same cloth... 

[Dynaman]

I had no trouble following what was going on when the Narada attacked the Kelvin though it was visually busy.  In general the films budget could probably been cut in half just by taking away or just toning down all those CGI FX shots.  Agree with all the rest - especially Kirk but then he is outdone by Spock throwing him off the ship which makes no sense.  

[SMS007]

I could more-or-less follow what was going on though I was by no means happy with how messy the cinematography was. 

Stupid. Lens. Flares. 

Also, Abrams you fool. A black hole looks like a sphere in three dimensional space. Not a hole in a piece of paper!

[Seto Kaiba]

54 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

I had no trouble following what was going on when the Narada attacked the Kelvin though it was visually busy.

The interior shots aren't too bad, but when they cut to those shots out the window/viewscreen it's bits of black metal moving across a black background with a ton of foreground lens flare... it's a pain in the butt trying to figure out what the hell I'm looking at.

 

54 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

In general the films budget could probably been cut in half just by taking away or just toning down all those CGI FX shots.  Agree with all the rest - especially Kirk but then he is outdone by Spock throwing him off the ship which makes no sense.  

IMO, Spock putting Kirk off the ship was one of the few good moments in the film.  Kirk is so staggeringly petty that the first thing he does when he gets out of his escape pod is to start recording a log entry complaining about Spock.  

 

46 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Stupid. Lens. Flares. 

Made worse by the fact that those are REAL lense flares, not added in post with CG... so there's no getting rid of 'em.

 

46 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Also, Abrams you fool. A black hole looks like a sphere in three dimensional space. Not a hole in a piece of paper!

Not the first time Star Trek has represented physics in an unrealistic fashion... Star Trek: the Motion Picture did something similar with its V'Ger backstory involving Voyager VI being transported across space and time by a "black hole".

[captain america]

 

 

[TehPW]

I'm really glad I don't do CBSAnalAccess… Thank you, Capt. those videos are quite eye opening to the mess Star Trek is... the funny thing? NO MENTION  of Star Trek Online. I suppose it's because the game is most certainly not cannon but... is there any official comment?

[Dynaman]

> IMO, Spock putting Kirk off the ship was one of the few good moments in the film.

But the Enterprise has this lovely thing called a brig, where whinny jerks are meant to go and be forgotten till later.  

[Focslain]

8 hours ago, TehPW said:

I'm really glad I don't do CBSAnalAccess… Thank you, Capt. those videos are quite eye opening to the mess Star Trek is... the funny thing? NO MENTION  of Star Trek Online. I suppose it's because the game is most certainly not cannon but... is there any official comment?

I doubt it. Since STO is on it's own timeline they basically are just needing CBS's ok to use assets (ie ship designs and character likeness) for their own stories.  Honestly it it would sell I'm sure the Cryptic Team would have wanted to do B5 Online instead as several story arcs are very close to that series instead of star trek.

At least the game is doing ok and giving old (and new with the next chapter) actors new work. 

[TehPW]

2 hours ago, Dynaman said:

> IMO, Spock putting Kirk off the ship was one of the few good moments in the film.

But the Enterprise has this lovely thing called a brig, where whinny jerks are meant to go and be forgotten till later.  

You forget that Spock was a weak bit... emotional? between holding in his rage about having to deal with BratKirk not once (getting insulted via the Kobiashi Maru test), not twice (BratKirk still getting on the ship) but three times (Kirk getting a promotion?), He wasn't in his best mind (especially when you consider that Vulcan just went *Puff!*) when he made that order...

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Dynaman said:

> IMO, Spock putting Kirk off the ship was one of the few good moments in the film.

But the Enterprise has this lovely thing called a brig, where whinny jerks are meant to go and be forgotten till later.  

The brig's too good for the likes of Pine!Kirk.  Maybe if they had an Agony Booth...

[BlackRose]

12 hours ago, TehPW said:

I'm really glad I don't do CBSAnalAccess… Thank you, Capt. those videos are quite eye opening to the mess Star Trek is... the funny thing? NO MENTION  of Star Trek Online. I suppose it's because the game is most certainly not cannon but... is there any official comment?

Why would they mention STO?  It's off in its own little reality pocket doing its own thing.

The books of the Relaunch are probably the ones closest to canon with staff from shows working on them and vice versa but isn't Star Trek's hard and fast canon rule is that only the TV shows and movies are 100% canon?

I think the videos are a little alarmist.  Discovery is dumb action most of the time but people are still watching it.  It's too early to start worrying that they'll screw up the Picard series.

[azrael]

17 minutes ago, BlackRose said:

I think the videos are a little alarmist.  Discovery is dumb action most of the time but people are still watching it.  It's too early to start worrying that they'll screw up the Picard series.

As are most talking-head Youtube videos.

The Picard-series is still in Pre-pre-production stage so we are looking at 2020, at the earliest.

[Seto Kaiba]

23 minutes ago, azrael said:

The Picard-series is still in Pre-pre-production stage so we are looking at 2020, at the earliest.

Have they actually confirmed a title yet?  CBS has registered trademarks on two: Star Trek: Reliant and Star Trek: Destiny.

[azrael]

40 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Have they actually confirmed a title yet?  CBS has registered trademarks on two: Star Trek: Reliant and Star Trek: Destiny.

Nope.

[BlackRose]

8 hours ago, azrael said:

As are most talking-head Youtube videos.

The Picard-series is still in Pre-pre-production stage so we are looking at 2020, at the earliest.

What's our ETA to the complaints about social justice casting like we had in Discovery?

I wasn't impressed by STD season 1 so my hopes aren't high for the Picard series.  Whenever Trek tries to push a social agenda in casting the writing takes a dive until they back off.  Like can we get a black woman character who isn't either a strong black woman who don't need no man or a sassy black woman?  I can't stand Michael Burnham because she's totally the embodiment of that one line Nichelle Nichols wouldn't say in Star Trek 6 about "would you let your daughter marry one".  I guess they figured that Burnham's racism would fly under the radar better if it came from someone who was a minority.

[Dynaman]

> What's our ETA to the complaints about social justice casting like we had in Discovery?

Past the shelf life date for Trek since the sixties - remember it was the show that had the first interracial kiss on TV (though it was a terrible kiss and I've heard it actually wasn't).

[Seto Kaiba]

23 hours ago, azrael said:

Nope.

Ah, well... neither title is particularly inspiring.  Star Trek: Destiny is marred by sharing its name with a terrible trilogy in the relaunch novel 'verse about the Borg's origins.  Reliant would be an odd twist... since Picard's earliest-mentioned assignment as an ensign was to USS Reliant.

 

16 hours ago, BlackRose said:

What's our ETA to the complaints about social justice casting like we had in Discovery?

I'd call it a week after the cast is revealed... though hopefully the (over)reaction will be significantly more muted than it was for Discovery.  'course, hopefully whoever ends up cast in the Picard series will engage their brain before commenting on their role to avoid stirring things up.

 

7 hours ago, Dynaman said:

Past the shelf life date for Trek since the sixties - remember it was the show that had the first interracial kiss on TV (though it was a terrible kiss and I've heard it actually wasn't).

Eh... that didn't stop a lot of folks on both sides with Discovery.  There was a lot of fuss and noise on the subject, with folks railing against "forced diversity" and other such nonsense, claiming that CBS was ticking off checkboxes on some kind of mandatory minorities checklist.  It died down a bit after the series started airing and Michelle Yeoh's character got fridged in favor of Jason Isaacs, but it's a topic that still crops up from time to time among Discovery's most vocal critics.

(Weirdly, the folks griping about diversity on Discovery seemed to have ZERO problem with previous casts.  One of my former coworkers still sends me 'round the twist by complaining about Discovery's diverse casting and in the next breath saying he wishes they'd done more with Mayweather and Sato on Enterprise... there's just no rhyme or reason to it.)

[SMS007]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(Weirdly, the folks griping about diversity on Discovery seemed to have ZERO problem with previous casts.  One of my former coworkers still sends me 'round the twist by complaining about Discovery's diverse casting and in the next breath saying he wishes they'd done more with Mayweather and Sato on Enterprise... there's just no rhyme or reason to it.)

*cue that Jackie Chan GIF*

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(Weirdly, the folks griping about diversity on Discovery seemed to have ZERO problem with previous casts.  One of my former coworkers still sends me 'round the twist by complaining about Discovery's diverse casting and in the next breath saying he wishes they'd done more with Mayweather and Sato on Enterprise... there's just no rhyme or reason to it.)

That's the messy paradox of the world we live in, I think.  Trek has never had a diversity problem.  It was one of the founding aspects of the series even.  But now, it's a forced agenda that people both for and against won't shut up about, and it drags the entire franchise through the mudslinging.  Same thing that happened to Star Wars, I think.

I think the biggest problem though?  It's not even related to diversity itself, but the overall quality of the material just isn't there.  Whether that's related to the diversity is irrelevant though, because no matter what the actual reasons are for the show having issues, it's going to be pegged on the diversity angle, because it's the biggest and most obvious target.  "This show is all about diversity.. and it's terrible.  That means diversity must be terrible!"

It's kind of like covering a tank in stuffed animals, and then claiming that the countries shooting at your tanks must have an unbridled hatred of plushies.  No, seriously, it has nothing to do with that.  Holding anything in front of you as a shield means it's going to be the first thing in the line of fire.

Trying to hide behind a hot-button issue like diversity is like hiding in a bunker made out of thermite.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

18 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

But now, it's a forced agenda that people both for and against won't shut up about, and it drags the entire franchise through the mudslinging.

In all honesty, I'm not sure it actually is an agenda on the studio's part... "forced" or otherwise.

I'm inclined to suspect that the studios, being equal parts lazy and greedy, are simply trying to make casts more closely resemble audiences to broaden their appeal.  America's a diverse nation all on its own, and these studios have their eyes on worldwide profits too.  I doubt there's any socio-political agenda behind it.

I think the "diversity agenda" issue is more a question of certain groups with political agendas doing enough projecting that we could use them to show Powerpoint slideshows.  We obviously can't dig into that topic too deeply without delving into the current state of politics and the politics of race in the US right now... 

Having seen how Star Trek develops its characters from development notes, after TOS there weren't many cases of characters where the writers had a specific race in mind when developing them.  That state of affairs isn't likely to have changed much in Discovery.  It's not quite the blind development that was used in Alien (where no references were even made to gender), but it's pretty close.  You'll find WAY more references to female characters having "strip queen" bodies than you will to being any particular race... but that's got Gene's grubby fingerprints all over it.  The only ones I recall being explicitly written as a particular race or nationality from the start after TOS are Jean-Luc Picard (as a Frenchman), Harry Kim (as "Asian" of no specific ethnicity), and Chakotay (as a Native American based on some legendarily bad advice from a new age quack).

[Chronocidal]

Oh, you're absolutely right, the studio may have absolutely no part in any sort of diversity agenda.  It's just that the moment the issue is mentioned from any direction, it eclipses any civil discussion about any other aspect of the series.  You can be making all the relevant points in the universe about good and bad aspects of the storyline or characters, but once the diversity beast rears it's head, no one will be able to hear any of it over the screaming match between people who have nothing better to do than turn the situation into a platform for their personal take on the issue.

I'm not going to pretend it's not a political issue, but much like a parent trying to control a room full of screaming children, the concept of who's right and who's wrong dissolves beneath the weight of the noise, and all they really want is QUIET.  

Edited August 22, 2018 by Chronocidal

[Seto Kaiba]

Last night, @BlackRose and I rewatched Star Trek: Into Darkness... and while we can definitely say that it improved not at all the third time around, it's surprising in hindsight how much of an influence Into Darkness clearly had on Star Trek: Discovery.

(A drinking game was proposed, insofar as taking a drink every time one of the characters said or did something that was obviously stupid even in context... but reinventing suicide as a group activity was deemed a poor way to spend the evening.)

Overall tone is, I think, where Into Darkness's influence is most evident in Discovery.  The optimism in previous prime continuity Star Trek is almost entirely absent in favor of Into Darkness's grim, fatalistic attitude towards war with the Klingon Empire.  Commander Burnham and Admiral Marcus would get along famously, since they both seem to agree that the Klingons not only can't be trusted but that a preemptive strike is the only way to deal with them and NOBODY seems to really question this until it's way too late.  Lorca and Marcus would get along pretty well too, since their militaristic attitudes foreshadow the obvious reveal that they were Evil All Along and are thriving in a Federation that's a stone's throw from deteriorating into outright xenophobia.

Aesthetically I admit it's not until I rewatched the film that I appreciated exactly how much DNA from the Dreadnought-class USS Vengeance can be found in the Crossfield-class in Discovery.  The smooth curves and soft angles are entirely replaced by hard, threatening edges.  The usual off-white starship hull paint favored by the Federation is instead replaced by a darker, more ominous hue.  There's the funny business with cutouts in the saucer section going on as well.  The engineering hull even looks like it's shaped similarly, if you discount the absence of traditional nacelle pylons on the Crossfield-class.  The security personnel even wear black including black starfleet deltas like Section 31's.  It's massive and has a suspiciously small crew for such a large ship.  

Now, more than ever, I'm convinced Discovery is not a prime timeline show.  The Crossfield-class is something that makes way more sense as a parallel program for the Dreadnought-class.

[Omega Prime]

STD and CBS sued for... PLAGIARISM!

 

 

 

[Omega Prime]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Omega Prime said:

STD and CBS sued for... PLAGIARISM!

Well... this should be interesting.

And to think, just the other day I was musing on how Star Trek: Beyond was an even-worse ripoff of the worst TNG movie, Star Trek: Nemesis.

[Dynaman]

What a shock, a plagiarism lawsuit against a movie/TV company.  

Edited August 27, 2018 by Dynaman

[Omega Prime]

9 hours ago, Dynaman said:

What a shock, a plagiarism lawsuit against a movie/TV company.  

Well it is shocking considering how CBS dropped the hammer on all Fan made Trek films because they were worried about damaging their "Intellectual Property", only to have they themselves (CBS) literally damaging their "Intellectual Property" by copying and pasting verbatim elements of someone else's Intellectual Property and threaten them with a promise that they "won't sue them" (current situation with the Indie Game Dev).

So get the popcorn out this will be fun!

 

[TehPW]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well... this should be interesting.

And to think, just the other day I was musing on how Star Trek: Beyond was an even-worse ripoff of the worst TNG movie, Star Trek: Nemesis.

How does Nemesis have ANYTHING to do with Beyond? 

[TehPW]

1 hour ago, Omega Prime said:

Well it is shocking considering how CBS dropped the hammer on all Fan made Trek films because they were worried about damaging their "Intellectual Property", only to have they themselves (CBS) literally damaging their "Intellectual Property" by copying and pasting verbatim elements of someone else's Intellectual Property and threaten them with a promise that they "won't sue them" (current situation with the Indie Game Dev).

So get the popcorn out this will be fun!

 

If things go well, Mr. Abdin will very rich for CBS's discomfort.

[Omega Prime]

43 minutes ago, TehPW said:

If things go well, Mr. Abdin will very rich for CBS's discomfort.

The unintended consequences of this are how Netflix (who paid almost in entirety for Discovery in season one) will deal with CBS from this point on with Discovery.  I'm pretty sure they don't want to be dragged down in this. 

As well as Paramount (the holder of the Movie licenses) who is struggling to find funds for Star Trek 4, how will they be hit since they need as many big franchises to stay afloat and they were pinning their hopes on a Star Trek 4 Thor and JJ Kirk reunion.

And will Les Moonves (spelling, but don't care enough to find the right spelling) will he be given the axe since he's why modern Trek is a mess?!

Also will CBS play dirty as they has subtly threatened Abdin with a law suit? 

[JB0]

Here's what I don't understand. Why, in the infinite multitude of things to rip off, would you choose something as distinctive(and weird) as giant blue star-hopping space tardigrades? You simply can't argue independent evolution with that. 

[SMS007]

2 hours ago, TehPW said:

How does Nemesis have ANYTHING to do with Beyond? 

I believe the line of thinking is that they tried really hard to be Star Wars-esque action movies. e.g. Ground vehiccle scenes unbecoming of Trek.

[Omega Prime]

3 hours ago, JB0 said:

Here's what I don't understand. Why, in the infinite multitude of things to rip off, would you choose something as distinctive(and weird) as giant blue star-hopping space tardigrades? You simply can't argue independent evolution with that. 

The writers if memory serves credits were "drama" based, I think they were most notable for writing for "Gilmore Girls".  Also I don't think they watched much of Star Trek beyond a few casual viewing.  So I believe and it's been attributed I think in from Midnight Edge, that when Brian Fuller was removed by Mooves, the writers deciding to pay "homage" to the Indie Gamer out of desperation due to some sort of contraints and being thrown into something that wasn't their strong suit.

And I think on Trekyards one of the hosts surmised that because Steam is swamped with games, no one would put two and two togehter.  And let's not forget CBS's Legal Department, I also believe on Trekyard one of the hosts pointed out that the Legal Department has a building larger than the Animation Department.  So it's possible that if it wasn't for the whole "Axanar" and STD backlash, this might have been swept under the carpet.  Again the Indie Gamer during discussions with CBS legal was offered as a compromise to "not be sued by CBS".

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, TehPW said:

How does Nemesis have ANYTHING to do with Beyond? 

Strip out the little details and unnecessary effects sequences, and they're basically the same story... even the macguffin the plot centers around is virtually identical.

The Federation Starship Enterprise is invited/drawn to an ambush on the edges of its territory by a dark mirror of its captain, who has spent most of his life living in isolation in a hostile environment and has decided an appropriate response to his discontent is to destroy the entire Federation as a means to exorcise his existential angst.  To that end, he has a ridiculous plastic outfit and a bizarre, poorly-explained radioactive doodad which somehow selectively destroys organic matter at a level that isn't possible (as if quarks knew if the subatomic particle they formed was part of a living thing or not).  He attempts to use that weapon against the Federation to depopulate whole planets, and only ends up being stopped when he loses a fistfight to the captain... which is the only fistfight the captain actually wins in his respective series.  Bonus points awarded for both having indoor flying scenes, zero gravity solo maneuvering without a spacesuit, and Krall's "tainted veins" effect being basically the same thing Shinzon got, but in reverse.

Admittedly, Krall/Balthazar Edison has even less of an excuse than Shinzon/Jean-Luc Picard (clone) had.  Shinzon was driven mad by his slow deterioration.  Edison was apparently just so stupid that he'd forgotten the only reason Earth won the Romulan War was because they got reinforcements from the Federation co-founders (Andoria, Vulcan, and Tellar).

This kind of short bus-worthy writing is all over Star Trek: Discovery too... especially the second half of season one, with their hilariously stupid jaunt into the Mirror Universe.

 

11 hours ago, SMS007 said:

I believe the line of thinking is that they tried really hard to be Star Wars-esque action movies. e.g. Ground vehiccle scenes unbecoming of Trek.

While that is well-reasoned and eminently accurate, it's not quite what I was getting at.

[TehPW]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Strip out the little details and unnecessary effects sequences, and they're basically the same story... even the macguffin the plot centers around is virtually identical.

The Federation Starship Enterprise is invited/drawn to an ambush on the edges of its territory by a dark mirror of its captain, who has spent most of his life living in isolation in a hostile environment and has decided an appropriate response to his discontent is to destroy the entire Federation as a means to exorcise his existential angst.  To that end, he has a ridiculous plastic outfit and a bizarre, poorly-explained radioactive doodad which somehow selectively destroys organic matter at a level that isn't possible (as if quarks knew if the subatomic particle they formed was part of a living thing or not).  He attempts to use that weapon against the Federation to depopulate whole planets, and only ends up being stopped when he loses a fistfight to the captain... which is the only fistfight the captain actually wins in his respective series.  Bonus points awarded for both having indoor flying scenes, zero gravity solo maneuvering without a spacesuit, and Krall's "tainted veins" effect being basically the same thing Shinzon got, but in reverse.

Admittedly, Krall/Balthazar Edison has even less of an excuse than Shinzon/Jean-Luc Picard (clone) had.  Shinzon was driven mad by his slow deterioration.  Edison was apparently just so stupid that he'd forgotten the only reason Earth won the Romulan War was because they got reinforcements from the Federation co-founders (Andoria, Vulcan, and Tellar).

This kind of short bus-worthy writing is all over Star Trek: Discovery too... especially the second half of season one, with their hilariously stupid jaunt into the Mirror Universe.

 

While that is well-reasoned and eminently accurate, it's not quite what I was getting at.

actually that makes a hella lot sense. Carry On!