Star Trek: General Discussion

[Populuxe]

I figured we could use a central thread to discuss all things Star Trek. This is a good time to be a fan. There are currently three shows airing (Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks), with five more in production (Strange New Worlds, Prodigy, Unnamed Section 31 series, unnamed Starfleet Academy series, and Ceti Alpha V based on Khan.).

Television:

Discovery: Season three starts in a week. I've thoroughly enjoyed this new take on Trek. Sonequa Martin-Green is terrific as Michael Burnham. Life 900+ years in their future should be interesting.

Picard: Season two's air date has yet to be announced, but it should be later this year or early next year. The crew that Picard has surrounded himself with is what's going to make this new season fun, I think.

Lower Decks: The first animated series since The Animated Series. The season one finale is today. I think this show is amazingly funny. I'm glad to see Star Trek can laugh at itself and still not lose sight of the ideals behind the show.

Strange New Worlds: Announced this past spring, the pandemic has delayed filming to next spring/summer, so we're likely looking at a fall 2021 debut. I can't wait. Anson Mounts as Pike, Rebecca Romijn as Number One, and Ethan Peck as Spock were phenomenal in Discovery. It was clear they needed their own show, and thankfully they got one.

Prodigy: Another animated series, this one set to air on Nickelodeon next year. A group of kids find a derelict Starfleet vessel and decide to take it over to get their adventure on. Believe me, 13 year old me would have killed to be in that position. At New York Comic Con today, it was announced that Kate Mulgrew will be reprising her role of Kathryn Janeway. Interestingly, she's referred to as Captain, not Admiral. The concept has real potential but like every Star Trek series, the success or failure will be in the casting. I think they've started out well.

Unnamed Section 31 series: Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou/Mirror universe Empress Philippa Georgiou is at turns heartwarming, kind, vicious and evil. Michelle Yeoh shows what a stellar actor she is, and I can't wait for this look at the ugly underside of the Federation.

Unnamed Starfleet Academy Series: I know nothing about this other than it is being developed by Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz.

Ceti Alpha V: a short series based on Khan Noonien Singh and the Wrath of Khan story.

And let's not forget the Short Treks, the beautiful little mini-movies that sometimes tie into the show and sometimes just tell a wonderful story in the world of Star Trek.

Movies:

Fourth Kelvin-timeline movie: At first there was going to be one, then they canned it. Then it was announced that Quentin Tarrentino was going to make it alongside JJ Abrams, but that got cancelled. Then a Noah Hawley written and directed movie was announced, but that was canned two months ago. Still, it looks like one will eventually be made. They just don't want to continue the downward slide the Kelvin-timeline has been on since Into Darkness.

 

[Sander 001]

I am a huge fan of the 90's Treks especially. Grew up with them and saw them in reruns too.

I think Discovery and Picard are a great evolution of Trek. I actually expected to dislike Picard just because I couldn't imagine an offshoot reboot being any good but I was dead wrong.

I am looking forward to checking out Lower Decks. I think I remember a TNG episode with that name

 

[Famine]

Discovery: Season three starts in a week. I've thoroughly enjoyed this new take on Trek. Sonequa Martin-Green is terrific as Michael Burnham.

 

[Populuxe]

I am looking forward to checking out Lower Decks. I think I remember a TNG episode with that name

There is, and it's one of my favorite episodes. It was a great concept and well executed.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Fourth Kelvin-timeline movie: At first there was going to be one, then they canned it. Then it was announced that Quentin Tarrentino was going to make it alongside JJ Abrams, but that got cancelled. Then a Noah Hawley written and directed movie was announced, but that was canned two months ago. Still, it looks like one will eventually be made. They just don't want to continue the downward slide the Kelvin-timeline has been on since Into Darkness.

Paramount pretty much killed the Kelvin timeline, and I don't think some of the actors are all that interested in coming back either, so I would imagine a CBS-era Trek movie is going to stick closer to the timeline they're creating. Say what you want about Discovery or Picard or even Lower Decks, but they at least seem to be making the same effort as Abrams did to say "this is not invalidating what we've seen before, it is its own thing".

 

[Sander 001]

Ugh JJ

I thought Trek was dead, or at least dead to me personally. They had their moments though. The first 12 minutes of Star Trek 2009 provoked me!

This is why I hesitated on Discovery and especially Picard. Very happy they're in different hands!

 

[TheCracker]

Finished watching Discovery Season 3 and have, out of boredom if nothing else, just begun watching Lower Decks. Discovery S3 was about as much woke as i could handle. I know Star Trek has always leaned that way - the whole concept of the Federation is acceptance and inclusion, and that's no bad thing at all, but this just seems to be becoming more and more diverse for diverse sake as each season progresses. Lower Decks is childish and fun but also very Star Trek in feel. Something that i don't think any of the animated Star Wars series have managed to capture as well.

I'm a bit disappointed that Picard season 2 hasn't even started filming yet (starts Feb 2021) as this has been the most enjoyable Star Trek for a while. IMO.

 

[Famine]

Finished watching Discovery Season 3 and have, out of boredom if nothing else, just begun watching Lower Decks. Discovery S3 was about as much woke as i could handle. I know Star Trek has always leaned that way - the whole concept of the Federation is acceptance and inclusion, and that's no bad thing at all, but this just seems to be becoming more and more diverse for diverse sake as each season progresses.

I haven't watched any of S3. I just couldn't stomach it after two seasons of mindblowing anachronisms that nobody seemed to be aware of, and when they revealed the premise for S3 was yet another insane canonical inconsistency (with a just-as-good but canon mechanism there to meet their needs) I just noped out. Amusingly I read a piece about it which complained that the show was tired despite being so far into Trek's future that it was freed from canon. At no point has Discovery come close to adhering to canon to be freed from it.

I'm not sure about the wokeness thing; all I knew was that one of the lead characters would be transgender because they were Trill and that was the FIRST TIME EVER... except for Dax in Deep Space Nine, who appeared in hosts of both genders (and we just watched Facets today) and was a lead character. It was good to get Ian Alexander in though; I enjoyed his role in The OA.

I'm a bit disappointed that Picard season 2 hasn't even started filming yet (starts Feb 2021) as this has been the most enjoyable Star Trek for a while. IMO.

Definitely.

A lot of Trek fans don't like it because Star Trek is supposed to be bright, hopeful, and idealised - the Roddenberry way... although they seem to forget just how dark some of Roddenberry's stuff was. His last real input to Star Trek was season one of TNG and the Motion Picture - though he did have marginal influence of the other five films. That would include someone being transportered into agonising squelchy death (in the first act!), Ilia being essentially turned into a robot zombie, Decker killing himself for her, and... there's no easy way of saying this... Code of Honor. Roddenberry fired the original director of that episode, but still felt good enough about it that it became a thing. A lot of S1 was weak, but man that was a dreadful episode.

But either way, brightness is nothing without the dark, and we see from DS9 (which has some of the best episodes full stop - the whole run-in on S7, and S6 In The Pale Moonlight so clearly among the greatest 45 minutes of Trek) just how close the bright and hopeful Federation is to darkness. Picard runs with that theme in so many ways.

 

[TheCracker]

The weird thing with S3 of Discovery is that, for better or worse, the first two seasons might as well of never happened. S3 is almost Like a brand new ST series set in the distant future. I’ve pretty much already forgotten everything that happened previously, which wasn’t hard. S4, which will begin with some of the ‘canon issues’ ironed out- not necessarily satisfactorily- can do what it wants now without treading on any toes. Perhaps the series really should have started at this point of time instead?

As I’ve said previously, I’ve never been emotionally invested in Star Trek, but I’m enough of a general sci-fi fan to know enough trek lore to enjoy any of the series, but not so much that any discrepancies in that lore bug me. Perhaps That’s why I enjoyed Enterprise and the JJ reboot films and consider Voyager as the ST high point - yet I’m indifferent to The original TV series and just can’t get into DS9 no matter how much I try. I’ll boldly go on enjoying Discovery and whichever gen-z friendly earnest direction it takes.

 

[EngieDiesel]

I haven't watched any of S3. I just couldn't stomach it after two seasons of mindblowing anachronisms that nobody seemed to be aware of, and when they revealed the premise for S3 was yet another insane canonical inconsistency (with a just-as-good but canon mechanism there to meet their needs) I just noped out. Amusingly I read a piece about it which complained that the show was tired despite being so far into Trek's future that it was freed from canon. At no point has Discovery come close to adhering to canon to be freed from it.

Honestly they just need to straight up say whether Discovery is a different timeline from the Paramount era or not. And frankly it probably should be since what the first two seasons established really doesn't fit in at all between Discovery and TOS. Pushing the series all the way into the far future doesn't really invalidate that all that still happened.

I mean, it's not like they can't have one show that's outside established canon, doing its own thing, and then have another that still holds to the canon we know in some form. I don't mind Picard being considered canonical since that series started post-Voyager, so if it wanders off into the weeds plotwise it's not really conflicting with anything we already knew to happen.

 

[Sprite]

Well I’m a huge fan of the Trek too. Love TNG, Love DS9, enjoyed Voyager and even tolerated Enterprise but Discovery is just bad.

To me Trek has always been mindful of Race, sexuality and general equality, so why they felt the need to ram their super woke agenda down our throats I have not the foggiest. As Trek it fails it’s brief, it’s so far removed from true Trek it really isn’t getting new viewers to the back catalogue of excellent TV. It it’s so far removed from Trek original fans like myself are just not enjoying it.

I have watched all three seasons (only because my partner wanted to) but I’m not sure I can stomach another season.

Picard was ok, and I’m interested to see how season 2 goes, especially with Whoopi coming back.

Lower decks got 1 episode from me before I just rolled my eyes and discarded it.

CBS clearly didn’t draw all the subscribers they thought they would as they’ve now had to do a restructure and change the service name. I really don’t get how a company can mess up such a great foundation. It’s so bad, Orville is what I wanted from a new Trek.

 

[TheCracker]

To me Trek has always been mindful of Race, sexuality and general equality, so why they felt the need to ram their super woke agenda down our throats I have not the foggiest.

S3 was the worst for this. There was just so much time wasted on the Adira character and it's heavy-handed LGBTQ message that just felt so superfluous. Or perhaps that's just my oversensitive Yorkshireman BS-radar doing it's thing.

 

[Famine]

To me Trek has always been mindful of Race, sexuality and general equality, so why they felt the need to ram their super woke agenda down our throats I have not the foggiest.

S3 was the worst for this. There was just so much time wasted on the Adira character and it's heavy-handed LGBTQ message that just felt so superfluous. Or perhaps that's just my oversensitive Yorkshireman BS-radar doing it's thing.

I've not seen any of S3, but is it really that bad?

Part of Star Trek's thing is that there's always been (current) minority characters, but nobody in-universe cares. Paramount kicked off at Number One (in part because she was Roddenberry's girlfriend, but also because of 1960s sexism), but the characters' races, genders, sexuality, and so on, weren't a thing to the other characters. Uhura wasn't defined by being black or female any more than Kirk or McCoy were defined by being white-male. She was just the comms officer.

We've seen it across multiple Treks too. Dax is by all definitions trans, and bisexual (or possibly pansexual). She kissed her former wife in one episode, which got a few people at the time raging (one way or the other), but in-universe nobody cared. Except the Symbiosis Commission, because it's forbidden to rekindle romantic relationships of your former host. There were a few comments about people getting used to Dax as a woman (Sisko, Hudson, Kor) but it wasn't heavily leaned into - more a "this has happened, so, anyway, about those Cardassians".

Of course some of the -isms have simply been transferred to aliens. TOS was fully anti-Klingon and anti-Romulan, and McCoy wasn't exactly shy about hurling close-on racial abuse at Spock ("Why, you green-blooded, inhuman..."), but by TNG we had a Klingon bridge officer and a human arbiter of succession, with the gap all but closing at the end of DS9 - to the point of the archaic Klingons in that episode of VOY seeming ridiculously outdated. PIC closed the gap with Romulans, with just the Zhat Vash keeping a foot in the door, and even the Borg - or at least the XBs.

Religion I suppose is treated differently in that it is a major component of the characters that express it, and visited in The Motion Picture (Vulcan Kolinahr) through to Voyage Home (with Spock's katra), Final Frontier (meeting god!), and of course extensively throughout DS9... but still it's just a thing that nobody else in-universe really cares about. DS9 even demonstrates that the concept of a religious society worshipping beings as deities is not at odds with a society driven by empiricism which knows that the beings are simply another form of life (albeit with seemingly limitless capabilities, through non-corporeal and non-temporal existence).


Granted, DIS is roughly in-period with TOS to start with, but nobody in-universe should really care that a character is trans (especially in the 31st Century, or whenever it is). If the other characters are making a huge fuss about it, they can **** off.


Edit: I should also call out the dumbass DS9 episode Profit and Lace.

 

[Sprite]

S3 was the worst for this. There was just so much time wasted on the Adira character and it's heavy-handed LGBTQ message that just felt so superfluous. Or perhaps that's just my oversensitive Yorkshireman BS-radar doing it's thing.

I think if you took out all the Hugging, Woke & Touchy Feely moments from Discovery Season 3 you’d get about half of a full episode of decent Trek. But like you it might be just my Yorkshire sensibilities.

@Famine it’s pretty bad. It became very distracting from what was going on.

Because of Trek I grew up mindful of other peoples feelings around Sexuality and preferences, race and as you pointed out Religion. I didn’t need it spelling out. If people of colour are in a role of power then they earned it and has nothing to do with race, if a man or a woman is in a relationship with someone of the same sex or another race (plenty of mix race relationships between Humans and Alien species) the that’s just who they love, I mean even DS9 had Holosuits that should not be inspected with a black light. I digress I guess it’s just the world as it is now and younger folks can’t understand subtext or nuance and need everything explaining.

 

[kikie]

The only Star Trek shows that I know are:

• The original Star Trek
• The Next Generation
• Deep space nine
• Star Trek Voyager
• Star Trek Enterprise
• Star Trek Discovery (saw the first season last year in January, February.

This is not Star Trek but it is "related" to Star Trek. I really like The Orville and I hope they will continue the show after the pandemic.

 

[Famine]

Here's a fun one. Youngest has been starting to watch Star Trek, starting with TNG. We skipped a lot of the first season because it's... well crap, and just not engaging for a nine-year old. Also it meant not dealing with Code of Honor.

Anyway, I set out a chronology for watching the three series and the four films. Essentially, though Generations came out between the DS9 episodes Meridian and Defiant, it can't appear there chronologically for two and a bit reasons. The first is that the Enterprise D has just been destroyed, but nobody on DS9 asks Riker about it, and the second is Riker wearing the old TNG-style uniform not the new DS9-style uniform that he wears in Generations. So I put it between Life Support and Heart of Stone.

I never previously noticed, but during Generations, the Enterprise crew all starts out wearing the TNG-style uniforms and change into the DS9-style ones for their next duty shifts.

Riker and Worf on the Amargosa Observatory, TNG uniforms (Crusher also in this style, two security officers in DS9 style):

"It is revolting! I hate this!"

"I just got it!" - Data has changed into DS9, LaForge still on duty and in TNG:

Dom Toretto in Crossroads Riker has changed, Worf is still on duty:

Stellar Cartography, and Picard has now changed:

"He must be the only engineer in Star Fleet that never goes to Engineering", but LaForge has changed after his ordeal:

In fact only two of the main crew don't change: Troi and, presumably because the costume department was stretched a bit thin and couldn't accommodate a 6'3", 220lb Michael Dorn, Worf:

Neatly, guess who shows up on DS9, a year later in real time or six month later in universe time, wearing the same uniform he had on when the Enterprise was destroyed having not had to change into a new one because he's been on a religious retreat on Boreth?

 

[EngieDiesel]

Here's a fun one. Youngest has been starting to watch Star Trek, starting with TNG. We skipped a lot of the first season because it's... well crap, and just not engaging for a nine-year old. Also it meant not dealing with Code of Honor.

Anyway, I set out a chronology for watching the three series and the four films. Essentially, though Generations came out between the DS9 episodes Meridian and Defiant, it can't appear there chronologically for two and a bit reasons. The first is that the Enterprise D has just been destroyed, but nobody on DS9 asks Riker about it, and the second is Riker wearing the old TNG-style uniform not the new DS9-style uniform that he wears in Generations. So I put it between Life Support and Heart of Stone.

I never previously noticed, but during Generations, the Enterprise crew all starts out wearing the TNG-style uniforms and change into the DS9-style ones for their next duty shifts.

You see it fairly often in later TNG episodes too, where some background crewmembers are still wearing the collarless spandex uniforms from the first two seasons. Sadly, the infamous skant never really made a comeback.

If I recall, the in-universe explanation was that when Starfleet changed uniform designs they had a crossover period that allowed for either the new or old design to be worn as personal preference, since it took a while for the new design to reach all the backwaters of the Federation and everyone pretty much knew what Starfleet looked like anyway. The older uniform was sort of a "business casual" in that respect.

 

[Famine]

You see it fairly often in later TNG episodes too, where some background crewmembers are still wearing the collarless spandex uniforms from the first two seasons. Sadly, the infamous skant never really made a comeback.

If I recall, the in-universe explanation was that when Starfleet changed uniform designs they had a crossover period that allowed for either the new or old design to be worn as personal preference, since it took a while for the new design to reach all the backwaters of the Federation and everyone pretty much knew what Starfleet looked like anyway. The older uniform was sort of a "business casual" in that respect.

That was one of the great things with All Good Things... - the original uniforms for the crew in the Farpoint time zone (although Worf didn't have his original prosthesis, and his increased size made the original baldric fit... differently!). So rare to see that kind of attention to detail in continuity!

 

[EngieDiesel]

That was one of the great things with All Good Things... - the original uniforms for the crew in the Farpoint time zone (although Worf didn't have his original prosthesis, and his increased size made the original baldric fit... differently!). So rare to see that kind of attention to detail in continuity!

That's something Paramount-era Trek was almost always good at when the studio didn't directly prevent it, largely because they knew the fans would notice (and complain) if a callback to something wasn't as close to exact as possible. One instance that always stuck out to me was that when DS9 did the TOS throwback episode the production staff went all out in recreating the old sets as accurately as possible, even going so far as to contact the original material suppliers used back in the '60s wherever they could and adding in little injokes that were put in the original sets, like the pipes labeled "GNDN" (Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing) in various places.

 

[MisterWaffles]

I'll preface this rant by stating I've watched every Star Trek series front to back, I'm a huge fan and I've been one since I was a small child growing up with the Original Series that I watched together with my father.

I don't understand all the crap flinging that Discovery and Picard, and to an extent Lower Decks seems to get from fans.

You get some people claiming everything new in Star Trek is some "SJW garbage" with an obvious political agenda. Um, HELLO? This is Trek we're talking about. This is literally the most woke franchise in popular culture and every Trek series has had underlying political themes that dealt with topics of the day. That's no different with new Trek then. Seeing all this homophobia, racism and misogyny come from the extreme crowd is insane. How could such alt-right drivel come from the fans of a franchise that centers around a literal communist utopia from the 60s? Star Trek is EXTREMELY leftist! Always has been. I don't mean to get too political here, but Star Trek from the beginning has ALWAYS been politics in space, and people are suddenly now accusing it of being too political?

Additionally, if your argument for new Trek = Bad is because "muh SJWs", the conversation is over. I'm sorry.

Another related note, Adeira telling people that they prefer they/them is brought up ONCE in the entirety of the show and then that naturally becomes the status quo (and they weren't even rude about it). Then you have Trek fans accusing it of pandering and being too woke? Fans of the same series that from the beginning has taught us to respect these kinds of differences? That's absolutely unbelievable in my opinion. They aren't going out of their way to preach about stuff like that, it was brought up once and handled very realistically and respectfully. I dunno, I have a brother that's gay so maybe I'm more accustomed to that sort of thing.

Then we got people saying new Trek is so "depressing" and "violent" and "I can't handle it." Do people ever stop to think that maybe the show isn't about that stuff, but instead about overcoming that stuff? Wow, crazy to believe the message of these new shows might be the exact opposite of what everyone is accusing it of being. Although I will agree Icheb's death was overly gratuitous.

Deep Space 9 also had a captain who was willing to be an accessory to murder as many times as it took in order to save the Federation. He also poisoned an entire planet just in the pursuit of one man he had a lust for revenge over. "But the new shows spit on Roddenberry's vision so much!" Shut up! By that logic DS9 would make Rodenberry roll in his grave and everybody says that's the best one!

"But the Federation is so heartless now, they're out of character and make tons of bad calls!" Seriously? You really think having a future full of infallible organizations and characters makes for good drama? What about all those times in TNG and other shows where literally every admiral was a corrupt S.O.B.? Vance is the only admiral in the history of Trek that I think I actually like for a change. That guy really embodied the core ideals of the franchise.

It's fine if you don't like the new stuff because you don't like the writing, or the characters, or the setting, or the visual designs etc. Those are all perfectly reasonable arguments to make towards new Trek being bad. I can disagree, but I really just can't stand all of these lazy, contradictory bad faith arguments that make up most of every Trek-related comment section nowadays.

I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of Picard or the first few seasons of Discovery. But I don't think they're horrible or impossible to watch like many other people claim. They're probably lower on my list but I honestly don't think there's such a thing as bad Trek. These new shows have been ok at worst for me and I think when they really get something right, they really get something right. Data's (second) death from Picard was a standout moment for me personally.

 

[Populuxe]

I have very much enjoyed Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks. Star Trek is going through its third renaissance and I couldn’t be happier with what we’re getting. There are occasional sub-par episodes and inexplicable decisions (the turbo-lift fight scene in the last episode of Discovery S3 defies logic), but the overall quality of writing, acting, and direction is still superb. Sorry, @Sprite, you’re a good guy and I like you, but if you use “woke” disparagingly to describe the show, then what I’m really hearing is your bigotry is being challenged by the show and you’re uncomfortable with that. Like @MisterWaffles said, Star Trek has always been incredibly progressive. That’s when the show is at its best.

 

[Sprite]

@Populuxe Cowboy I appreciate your comments. I wouldn’t consider my points based on bigotry however from someone else’s point of view I guess they could be seen as such. I’m more than happy to see gender politics, same sex relationships & race politics played out on the big and small screen. Trek has always been at the front of all those topics which are subjects which need to be discussed. I’m glad they’re still trying to tackle these subjects, however I can say for certain a good friend of mine who is gay and huge trek fan feels the same way as myself and felt writing pushed too hard.

 

[Populuxe]

@Populuxe Cowboy however I can say for certain a good friend of mine who is gay and huge trek fan feels the same way as myself and felt writing pushed too hard.

Fair enough. But as @MisterWaffles pointed out, Adira asked to be addressed with gender neutral pronouns. Paul and Hugh said yes, and that was it. I have a hard time imagining a less pushy way of bringing it up.

 

[Sprite]

Fair enough. But as @MisterWaffles pointed out, Adira asked to be addressed with gender neutral pronouns. Paul and Hugh said yes, and that was it. I have a hard time imagining a less pushy way of bringing it up.

when I spoke with my friend about this over teams at work he said.

“If Star Trek is so far in the future and the struggles of the LGBTQ communities, Race Equality & Religious Bigotry are a thing of the past (our present) then why did they feel they had to show a Pronoun request at all. If the future was so forward thinking they wouldn’t need to add a scene in to show this request Hugh & Stamets could quite have easily just started using the Pronoun of Adira’s choice, the audience is clever enough to pick up in this slight change and run with it”

He felt that by adding in the Pronoun request it’s a purposeful point, to show how down with the times the show is and if anything add further division because some people will see it as such and put them off the show and in turn start feeling like the LGBTQ & Woke/SJW communities are trying to take over a beloved show of theirs.

Unfortunately that is how some people feel, now to what extremes those people go to kick off about it is a different matter. There are some like me who accepts the show has always been about personal justices and collective struggles of people of colour, religion & LBGTQ, but I take a critical eye at why the need for heavy handed plot points and bad story choices just to try and placate a certain group in the audience at the expense of what is supposed to Star Trek, also I’m not dumb and I’d say 90% of the Trek audience isn’t either and we can see subtext and nuance in good stories and writing and Trek has done this well in the past.

Other will be a lot more extreme and that certainly isn’t called for and is dangerous.

My friend made quite an amusing comment about how Star Trek had people F*%#$€g robots long before Star Wars and that’s why it’s better. He also said his husband who hates Star Trek but watched some Discovery with him noticed the above mentioned plot points and ask if it was needed. I guess subtlety is the key.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Well we got our first screenshot of the upcoming Nickelodeon animated series Star Trek Prodigy today. The series stars Kate Mulgrew as Janeway and the writing is helmed by Emmy award winners Kevin and Dan Hageman. Sounds like something to possibly get excited for?

Of course it wouldn’t be a new Star Trek production if the oldheads of the fanbase didn’t invent new and stupid ways of hating something that barely exists.

Common “criticism”, if you can even call it that, of the show at the moment seems to consist of either “it doesn’t look like Star Trek” (because how dare we get new species outside of established lore) or “the other two Kurtzman shows are garbage so there’s no way this one can be good” (Everyone loves the Mandalorian but Kathleen “the Devil” Kennedy is still in the same position she’s always been in).

This isn’t directed at anyone on this forum in particular, but chill people, it’s a screenshot. Maybe if you don’t try to prematurely eviscerate the single morsel of info we have on the show, you might actually enjoy watching it.

 

[TheCracker]

“If Star Trek is so far in the future and the struggles of the LGBTQ communities, Race Equality & Religious Bigotry are a thing of the past (our present) then why did they feel they had to show a Pronoun request at all. If the future was so forward thinking they wouldn’t need to add a scene in to show this request Hugh & Stamets could quite have easily just started using the Pronoun of Adira’s choice, the audience is clever enough to pick up in this slight change and run with it”

He felt that by adding in the Pronoun request it’s a purposeful point, to show how down with the times the show is and if anything add further division because some people will see it as such and put them off the show and in turn start feeling like the LGBTQ & Woke/SJW communities are trying to take over a beloved show of theirs.

Unfortunately that is how some people feel, now to what extremes those people go to kick off about it is a different matter. There are some like me who accepts the show has always been about personal justices and collective struggles of people of colour, religion & LBGTQ, but I take a critical eye at why the need for heavy handed plot points and bad story choices just to try and placate a certain group in the audience at the expense of what is supposed to Star Trek, also I’m not dumb and I’d say 90% of the Trek audience isn’t either and we can see subtext and nuance in good stories and writing and Trek has done this well in the past.

Other will be a lot more extreme and that certainly isn’t called for and is dangerous.

My friend made quite an amusing comment about how Star Trek had people F*%#$€g robots long before Star Wars and that’s why it’s better. He also said his husband who hates Star Trek but watched some Discovery with him noticed the above mentioned plot points and ask if it was needed. I guess subtlety is the key.

I think that's the issue. It doesn't need to be discussed seemingly over and over again. As has been stated previously, Trek has always been on the pulse of contemporary political and humanitarian issues, but they've always been 'This is what it's like in the future. Deal with it' It hasn't needed to be explained. It hasn't needed to be mentioned at all. It just is what it is - and that's exactly how it should have been dealt with in Discovery, instead of it been constantly dwelled on as it felt like it was. It is a feature of Trek that is usually managed subtly and tactfully, but in this case it was heavy handed and almost apologetic and it didn't have to be that way.

 

[Famine]

Of course it wouldn’t be a new Star Trek production if the oldheads of the fanbase didn’t invent new and stupid ways of hating something that barely exists.

Common “criticism”, if you can even call it that, of the show at the moment seems to consist of either “it doesn’t look like Star Trek” (because how dare we get new species outside of established lore) or “the other two Kurtzman shows are garbage so there’s no way this one can be good” (Everyone loves the Mandalorian but Kathleen “the Devil” Kennedy is still in the same position she’s always been in).

This isn’t directed at anyone on this forum in particular, but chill people, it’s a screenshot. Maybe if you don’t try to prematurely eviscerate the single morsel of info we have on the show, you might actually enjoy watching it.

Soooooo... you're complaining here about complaining elsewhere before anyone here has even commented on it?


Kurtzman has indeed been responsible for some of the worst-written Trek - the 2009 reboot, Into Darkness, Discovery - but also some of the worst written stuff in general. Transformers 1 and 2 anyone? The "Dark Universe" Mummy reboot? But he's also a writer on Picard, which is far better, and the only people who bitch about that are the ones who think Trek should be light and fluffy because it's Roddenberry's show of hopefulness and don't remember any of the heinous stuff Roddenberry was responsible for, or a good chunk of DS9.

I think that's the issue. It doesn't need to be discussed seemingly over and over again. As has been stated previously, Trek has always been on the pulse of contemporary political and humanitarian issues, but they've always been 'This is what it's like in the future. Deal with it' It hasn't needed to be explained. It hasn't needed to be mentioned at all. It just is what it is - and that's exactly how it should have been dealt with in Discovery, instead of it been constantly dwelled on as it felt like it was. It is a feature of Trek that is usually managed subtly and tactfully, but in this case it was heavy handed and almost apologetic and it didn't have to be that way.

Nobody on the bridge cared that Uhura was black (and a woman), Chekov was Russian, or Sulu was Japanese, in the time when the general public really did care a lot about these things. Nobody much cared that Worf was a Klingon, or Data was an android, or that La Forge was blind, or that Picard was bald (something Roddenberry famously addressed by saying the same thing). Beyond her friend Sisko and the episodes in which Trill biology was an issue, nobody cared that Dax was a 300-year old genderless slug last seen in a late-70s man but currently residing in a mid-20s woman; she even married Worf.

Again, I haven't seen the episodes in question, because Discovery wore me out after two seasons, and the basic premise for the third was just a straight up non-canonical mess which had a real canonical alternative - after two seasons of stupendous anachronisms and non-canon targ manure. However there ought to be no more than an in-passing reference because nobody in the 23rd, or 31st, century would care what gender you are (it'd be realistic if you told everyone you met your pronouns - they've never met you, so they don't know - but it would be poor writing to show this), just as they didn't care about black women, Klingons, genderless slugs in a woman's body, or the blind, or the Japanese.

 

[MisterWaffles]

@Famine, I'm surprised you consider the 2009 Star Trek to be poorly written. I've seen every Star Trek movie and personally I'd put it in the upper tier of the franchise along with The Wrath of Khan and First Contact. Personally, I found the writing in the 2009 movie to be a very respectful homage to The Original Series, and the changes that each actor made to their characters' performances made sense and worked very well. I mean it is a pretty typical revenge plot but the story I think is more about the main characters' growth arcs throughout the movie than anything.

 

[Famine]

I'm surprised you consider the 2009 Star Trek to be poorly written.

I quite liked it the first time I saw it - bit too Michael Bay in places - but as time has gone on and rewatchings have happened, I've totally changed my mind.

I've gone over how utterly awful it is as a Trek film before. With... some exceptions (prior to Discovery, which then chucked in a load more), Star Trek is internally consistent to itself. You can walk from The Cage through to Nemesis and find that *thing x* does *action y*. The nearest it gets to an anachronism is the change in the Klingons between TOS and TNG; we know that pre-TOS Klingons look like Worf (because they clone Kahless), in TOS they don't, and in TNG they do again. In Trials and Tribblations, the DS9 crew sees TOS Klingons, and Worf says "we do not discuss it with outsiders". Enterprise actually solved this with the Klingon Augment Virus, only for Discovery to take a dump on it all over again.

I can point to a few things that don't seem entirely consistent across that 40 years of television and film - the fact that the Cytherians and the Final Frontier "God" entity of Sha Ka Ree live in the same place beyond "the Great Barrier", has always bothered me, though I guess the Galactic Core is a big enough place - but you literally have to look at events on different shows separated by decades at times. I mean, Enterprise was poor generally (and the theme tune makes me want to punch kittens) but it did a solid job of sticking to this same single narrative consistency.

Reboot Trek just punts this particular ball out of the park. It's not even consistent with itself; every single thing needed to drive the plot forward behaves exactly as it needs to do to drive the plot forward at that particular point in time. I could give you several paragraphs breaking down just about every cut in the film in which "red matter", black holes, time, distance, and speed all behave differently throughout the plot. Honestly it'd be weak in any sci-fi film*, but in a series which has been consistent to itself over multiple casts, crews, series, films, and books over 40 years, it's unforgivable.

A funnier version of my total disdain for the writing is below:

​

Although I do have far more than they cover there


*Quick example: do black holes cause ships to travel through time or be destroyed by tidal forces? Trek XI's answer is of course "that depends on whether we need ships to travel through time or be destroyed by tidal forces".

 

[Har1MAS1415]

I was brought up on Star Trek, my father got me into it.