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Cynic Jester posted:The idea that a gigantic intergalactic confederation of planets is entirely reliant on an old, privileged white man not giving up to avoid turning into speciest isolationists Gene Roddenberry?
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 09:02 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 10:19 |
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Arglebargle III posted:Star Trek has been bad for a long time my friend. I guess these two good things were so great they killed their respective series out of goodness.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 10:28 |
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Drunkboxer posted:I guess these two good things were so great they killed their respective series out of goodness. Lol! I haven't seen Enterprise past bits of season 1 and I don't really intend to, so I can't speak to whether it ever got "good". Beyond was aggressively bland. If they literally had a week to write it (I doubt it, I'm assuming that's a joke) then that's an impressive feat, but I couldn't tell you a thing about the plot or themes after just seeing it the once in theatres. Into Darkness definitely alienated the fans and killed that film franchise, Beyond needed to be a radical new direction and it wasn't. Plus by that point no one cared, least of all Paramount who farted it into theatres. I guess we have Into Darkness to thank in part for the demise of Robert Orci at least.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 10:47 |
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Drunkboxer posted:I guess these two good things were so great they killed their respective series out of goodness. Both of those were essentially DOA before they even premiered. Enterprise’s 4th season was probably always going to be the last since Berman & Braga had so thoroughly poisoned the well for Coto before he even took over. Beyond had precisely zero promotion because Paramount somehow managed to not take advantage of the franchise’s 50th loving anniversary, it only got one badly edited trailer and a handful of tv spots (which aired all of a month before the movie’s premiere), and the movie made no money as a result. Beyond and Enterprise season 4 are both good. Their financial/ratings failures have nothing to do with their actual quality.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 10:48 |
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Enterprise was probably hosed no matter what since UPN would have gone under anyway
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 10:58 |
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Tighclops posted:Enterprise was probably hosed no matter what since UPN would have gone under anyway Enterprise might have gotten at least one more season, but by then it was finally weak enough for Les Moonves to justify dropping the axe on it, something he’d been waiting to do since mid-Voyager because he personally despised Star Trek that much but couldn’t justify killing it to Paramount at the time. Ironically Star Trek Beyond was the last piece of Star Trek-related media produced before Moonves got the boot from CBS for being a sexmonster, and then suddenly, coincidentally, once The Man Who Hated Star Trek was out of the picture there was a bajillion newly approved Star Trek TV shows flying out of Paramount at warp speed
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 11:03 |
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Unfortunately they’re still being hosed by Les Moonves because they’re only debuting on his brainchild nightmare of a streaming service.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 11:05 |
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I’m rewatching Enterprise now and just got a few episodes into season 4. It’s a little better than 3 but it’s still a post-911 mess. Yes I know that fun mirror episode is coming down the pike but so is the shitshow of a finale. It’s bad. It’s a comfortably watchable bad to me, but it’s still bad. IMO Beyond is also an improvement over its predecessor but only because Into Darkness was the most creatively bankrupt piece of poo poo I’ve ever seen. I still felt embarrassed while watching Beyond but I guess I can see how someone might enjoy it’s manic cartoony energy.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 11:06 |
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Drunkboxer posted:I’m rewatching Enterprise now and just got a few episodes into season 4. It’s a little better than 3 but it’s still a post-911 mess. Yes I know that fun mirror episode is coming down the pike but so is the shitshow of a finale. It’s bad. It’s a comfortably watchable bad to me, but it’s still bad. The Mirror and Augment stuff is dumb fun, but the Vulcan, Andorian/Romulan, and Terra Prime arcs are genuinely good. The Xindi wrap-up (Home) and Organian (Observer Effect) episodes are solid. Season 4 isn’t any more or less uneven than the rest of the show, but imo it has higher highs. Uhhh also lower lows though, thanks to the Orion stuff and TATV.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 11:15 |
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Khanstant posted:I read a take on another site earlier today that's kind of worming its way into my perspective, with regards to the jarring shifts between 90s Trek and Disco/Picard People are going to look back on this little time period of media, where everything has to be super didactic and beat you over the head with a Very Important Message About Hope Because The Orange Man Won as one of the most embarrassing time periods in pop culture writing. It'll be up there with Post-9/11 Insanity and the 2007 Writer's Strike as having a deleterious effect on the stories people were telling. It's like people need their entertainment media to swaddle them in clothes and pat them on the back and tell them, hush hush, that it'll be okay. But like, not by creating new media - no, that'd be a financial risk. By taking old properties and twistin them so you can Make A Point.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 12:10 |
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Embarrassing didacticism in Star Trek? Well, I never!
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 12:25 |
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Lizard Combatant posted:very satisfied that "vajazzle" is catching on, my work here is done Alchenar posted:I'm starting to get a bit of a Culture novel vibe from the series. Not as good, but I think I can see how you could take the initial script treatment and instead make it a culture story. zoux posted:I don't buy that Agnes had never seen such an ad. Delthalaz posted:Making this show about the individual Picard is looking like a big mistake. zoux posted:Picard haters: what's the most recent star trek thing you actually liked
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 12:45 |
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Tiggum posted:I would guess that about 90% of people who watched this episode had the thought "wait, did they just say that character's name is 'Vajazzle'?" Prove it.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 12:53 |
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Musta been a while since anyone else watched DS9, because the depiction of space outside the Federation or any other major power being a hypercapitalist hellhole absolutely has precedent.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:00 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Musta been a while since anyone else watched DS9, because the depiction of space outside the Federation or any other major power being a hypercapitalist hellhole absolutely has precedent. Yeah I honestly don’t get that criticism. This is a mystery show featuring Picard set in the Star Trek universe. I definitely sympathize with people wanting trek to return to utopian* story telling but I never expected this show to be that, and I don’t know why anyone would. *it was never a utopia and Picard was always in morality fights with other federation assholes but that’s beside the point
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:07 |
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Lizard Combatant posted:Star Trek always reflected our world, but it didn't embody it. Picard has the Federation morph into present day America apparently in a vacuum with no thought as to how something like Trump actually happens. New Trek should absolutely reflect modern issues, but a lot of people aren't happy that it needlessly abandoned the ethos which defined the show more than any singular character. From what I've watched, if anything Picard is a repudiation of isolationist political movements. In fact, even the isolationism is given a practical face with us getting actual insight into the political AND practical reasons that the decision was made. The decision to isolate is still very wrong, but it seems every criticism of this large rear end plot point seems to ignore the world building in favor of criticism seen through a lens of things Star Trek never was. Sure, the Federation was about a higher calling and bold faced values, but TNG itself dealt with the meathook realities of reconciling the ideal versus the reality. loving hell, Q was basically the author (in a grand sense) commentating on that very conceit. Right from episode one. No one hates Q for pointing that out, I've noted. 😉 SpeakSlow fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:09 |
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It seemed like a real oversight to not have any Ferengi on a casino planet.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:23 |
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ghostwritingduck posted:It seemed like a real oversight to not have any Ferengi on a casino planet. Seems to me Jaz ran the place... and Ferengi playing games and not owning the place makes zero sense.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:33 |
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Also I assume the Quark’s Bar we saw in the flyover was where they probably were...
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 15:40 |
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SpeakSlow posted:From what I've watched, if anything Picard is a repudiation of isolationist political movements. In fact, even the isolationism is given a practical face with us getting actual insight into the political AND practical reasons that the decision was made. Ok but you're only quoting half my post, specifically the part that was replying to I totally agree the point of TNG was about reconciling its ideals with reality, and DS9 was just the logical extension of that. I don't see the two shows as being incompatible with each other at all. I agree that the point of Picard the series is to comment on present day isolationism through the analogy of the Federation, but I'm saying that it's doing a poor job of actually exploring this. How does a centuries old force of altruism and egalitarianism make such an about face in the space of 2 decades of relative peace? And don't say the shipyards attack, because it had already changed before that point and they've weathered far worse setbacks in the past. There's no organic link between the Federation today and the Federation we've previously seen, and by similarly ignoring the conditions that actually shaped our own situation it has nothing meaningful to say about the present - which would have at least been a trade off for making the Federation just as weak as we are. So how do we get out of it at least? Well again I think the show is muddled in what it's trying to say. But along the way I think it's making a clear case (whether intentional or not) for the idealism of old Trek being naive talk and illequipped to take action, particularly in its framing. For example: Lizard Combatant posted:The message of the show is very much that Picard and the idealism of old Trek is naive and incompatible with reality. Vajazzle is shown to be someone absolutely worth killing and Seven is framed as the badass hero with accompanying Voyager fanfare. I've included the exchange you partially quoted since it doesn't make much sense devoid of context: Drink-Mix Man posted:I think the extent of the show's meta-critique of Star Trek was showing Picard daydreaming about the good ol' days as a stand-in for fans who want to keep living in the 90's. Lizard Combatant posted:And by repeatedly demonstrating that his way of thinking is a naive by-product that is yet to be anything but ineffectual in the harsh light of reality. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:24 |
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The funny thing is that the implication is Quark was bribed to give a false character reference- and dealing with the Breen makes sense for bullshitting since no one knows poo poo about the Breen. I thought the episode was fun and pretty classic, though disappointed Seven seems to be written out as quickly as she showed up. They could bring in someone from DS9 and maybe even someone surviving from TOS and Enterprise and have a reconciliation show.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:25 |
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Travis Mayweather just appears to be piloting the La Sirena in several scenes. He says nothing, and no one acknowledges him.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:30 |
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e: quote is not edit
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:30 |
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HD DAD posted:Travis Mayweather just appears to be piloting the La Sirena in several scenes. He says nothing, and no one acknowledges him. You mean the Emergency Evasive Maneuvers Hologram?
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:31 |
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:The M in M-class planet stood for metaphor. As silly and corny as this is (and Star Trek was frequently silly and corny) can you imagine how enraged crusty old fans would get having to look inwards like this? gently caress I kind of wish this was actually the show.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 16:54 |
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Horizon Burning posted:People are going to look back on this little time period of media, where everything has to be super didactic and beat you over the head with a Very Important Message About Hope Because The Orange Man Won as one of the most embarrassing time periods in pop culture writing. It'll be up there with Post-9/11 Insanity and the 2007 Writer's Strike as having a deleterious effect on the stories people were telling. It's like people need their entertainment media to swaddle them in clothes and pat them on the back and tell them, hush hush, that it'll be okay. But like, not by creating new media - no, that'd be a financial risk. By taking old properties and twistin them so you can Make A Point. Haha get 'em! Lizard Combatant posted:As silly and corny as this is (and Star Trek was frequently silly and corny) can you imagine how enraged crusty old fans would get having to look inwards like this? And this is another bad impulse for modern TV writing. Somehow if we make it so that a theoretical fan hates it, we have done a service to the world. It's almost like the famous underpants gnomes. 1. Subvert expectations 2. ??? 3. Critical success! Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:26 |
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Arglebargle III posted:And this is another bad impulse for modern TV writing. Somehow if we make it so that a theoretical fan hates it, we have done a service to the world. It's almost like the famous underpants gnomes. Calm down, I'm not being serious dude. I actually wrote something similar pages back about the idea of people cheering a "sticking it" to Icheb's dickhead actor as meta point scoring not being compelling when the same scene also expects you to care about the characters' relationship. Even if I don't think that's ultimately what the show intended, folks were probably just protecting that. But I do see value in a show that makes unapologetically overt political statements like TNG and DS9 used to do. I think Picard has stripped a lot of that away by making the social ill so vague and unmotivated, to the point that some viewers are even defending the Federation's actions as justified. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:37 |
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Lizard Combatant posted:I agree that the point of Picard the series is to comment on present day isolationism through the analogy of the Federation, but I'm saying that it's doing a poor job of actually exploring this. I think you're overlooking just how bad the Dominion War was, and how close to falling to fascism the Federation was. If Sisko and company fail on their mission to Earth, then Starfleet takes over the Federation as a military dictatorship. I'll agree that it could be developed more, but we have events shown on screen to draw a line between. From the Starfleet Plot in DS9 to a full isolationist turn after Mars 9/11 isn't as much of a leap in my view as it is in yours and you don't need much exposition when the historical parallels are so clear. There's a great deal in common between the last twenty years of Federation politics following that line and all the poo poo that went down in the twenty years between WW1 and WW2. WW1 for America and the Dominion War for the Federation both involved entanglement in foreign affairs, shocking military casualties, and a need to prop up former allies. In twenty years Japan went from an ally against Germany to the next enemy of America. In twenty years two whole countries did fall to fascism, and there was a strong pro-Fascist movement in America. We don't have to see the equivalent of the American Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden for something like it to have plausibly happened. We really don't have anything to "get out of"
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:43 |
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Orange Man Bad npc meme
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:46 |
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Lizard Combatant posted:Ok but you're only quoting half my post, specifically the part that was replying to another poster suggesting people are mad that Picard is a political show. Which is not the case. Pardon, but I'll absolutely use the shipyard attack as a prime example. The Borg, Dominion, Sphere Bulders, etc all took direct action against Earth, creating a "Fight Or Die" scenario for Starfleet itself, if not the entire Federation. The attack on the Utopia Planitia Shipyards wasn't a Death Of The Federation attack, it was an attack on the ability for Starfleet to respond to ANY crisis. On top of that, the rescue fleet was likely made up of a massive coalition of unarmed ships all clustered in the same area. IMHO, the shipyards attack was meant to cripple The Federation, not destroy it. The series so far has given us the full, practical reason why an altruistic, generational force for peace and justice could turn away from it's ideals. Pulling back to the wide view, there have been plenty of attempts to swat The Federation on the nose in all series. Those attacks were fended off, usually in the space of a single episode. The point then being, Picard is then about what happens when justice blinks. Then the fallout, sense of betrayal and general chaos that ensues when the gatekeepers are away. I don't think I'm reading too much into this as the points above have been explained fairly well so far in the series itself It's possible then that a suggestion of a rewatch with wider eyes is needed, but I don't want to tell you your business so I'll leave it at that. quote:There's no organic link between the Federation today and the Federation we've previously seen, and by similarly ignoring the conditions that actually shaped our own situation it has nothing meaningful to say about the present - which would have at least been a trade off for making the Federation just as weak as we are. Allegory, from my understanding, doesn't need every specific event to be in-line between story and reality to be effective. In all honesty, it feels like the main negative reaction here could easily be reconciled through the lenses of time, distance and the nuts-and-bolts of producing a TV series in the eras those shows aired. The criticism feels arbitrary to me, but I'm not you and your criticisms are likely very valid in the framework you present them in. Please just be aware that your framework feels limited from my perspective. Valid and useful, but limited when the scope changes. quote:So how do we get out of it at least? I felt that I addressed that point, but to be clear it feels like that sub-discussion is putting the proverbial cart before the horse here. From what I've gotten from the series, Picard is more of a tempered idealist who is betrayed by the very support structure that used to buoy him in TNG and the movies. What he's finding now is that while those ideals are right, just and good, in a pinch people will fall back into isolationism given enough of a threat and no real enemy to go out there and sock in the nose/Picard speech away in the space of an episode. It's a perfect allegory for post-911 America, to be honest. We know our brand. The same brand we've been selling to others but only pay lip service to. Picard is then what happens when that bright idealism is forced to dig beneath the surface to reconcile sins of the past. I hope that all makes sense and doesn't sound like fanfic. I've grown-up on TOS pining after BOP and Enterprise models sold only at auto shows, then watched every Star Trek show released since TNG started. TNG was a great portrayal of the hope for the future, but I feel the limitations of the medium severely hamstrung the ability to tell stories dealing with human, biological, red meat issues that we could never truly breed/educate ourselves away from. SpeakSlow fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:49 |
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I'd say the Federation has consistently been portrayed as failing to live up to it's own ideals, with an endless parade of shady decisions and evil admirals, needing to be corrected by our hero captains. So it's pretty silly acting like the Feds portrayal in this show is some huge departure. Anyway, here's Chabon responding to people asking about the violence in this weeks episode. https://twitter.com/TrekCore/status/1230925053518327808?s=20
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 17:51 |
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marktheando posted:I'd say the Federation has consistently been portrayed as failing to live up to it's own ideals, with an endless parade of shady decisions and evil admirals, needing to be corrected by our hero captains. So it's pretty silly acting like the Feds portrayal in this show is some huge departure. sounds like he's not really on board with the eye gouging stuff. man that was a stupid thing to include. i didn't think about it when it was happening (was mostly just thinking 'ugh, gross'), but i was on the bubble going into this episode and that mutilation scene definitely contributed to me just being done with the show by the episode's end.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 18:03 |
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large_gourd posted:sounds like he's not really on board with the eye gouging stuff. It was doubly stupid because they called back to it later in the episode. Why didn't they just wait to do this scene until Seven is flashing back to it while staring down Dr. Vajazzle? Instead of having her shout, "You killed him! You carved him up!" or whatever, just flash back to that scene as she's gearing up to double-barrel blow the doc away. This series is just such a massive failure of storytelling. We just spent five episodes to find Bruce Maddox, who contributed nothing to the plot that the audience, at least, didn't already know. They should have cut all the Borg cube stuff from previous episodes and not even let us know Soji was out there until Maddox confirmed it. Also, "Should we deal with our stowaway?" *wry smile* "Hey Raffi, you in there?" "GO AWAY!" *wry smile* What the gently caress was the point of calling that much attention to Raffi being back on board? Also also, enough with the telling us stuff we already knew! We had multiple characters in this episode repeat the same line, three different ways, to a character who already knew the information! Or how about this: "Those aliens can smell when you're lying!" Cut to: "Hi, I'm the alien you're looking for. I can smell when you're lying!" Cut to: *zaps Rios with hypo* "Here, just in case you run into one of those aliens who can smell when you're lying. You know, like the specific guy you're trying to meet with." *doesn't zap Picard or Seven* Cut to: "I'm not lying. How do I smell?" I really hope a fan edit comes out that condenses this whole season into three hours or so, because
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 18:18 |
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SpeakSlow posted:Pardon, but I'll absolutely use the shipyard attack as a prime example. The Borg, Dominion, Sphere Bulders, etc all took direct action against Earth, creating a "Fight Or Die" scenario for Starfleet itself, if not the entire Federation. No, you're winning me over. Keep going. I read great posts like this and immediately want to re-watch the whole series so far. But then I do and all the potential of that great first episode just seems to slip through their fingers in favour of shadowy puppet masters plots. But I'll concede that a lot of my problems with the show are mostly structural and concerned with the way it chooses to convey information (I can't help that, it's my job). I still think the show has made Picard the sole avatar for old Trek since his viewpoint seems to be completely unrepresented in the Federation, which if we take your historical parallels reading seems extremely unrealistic. The Federation itself (not just the neutral zone/former Romulan empire) should be going through a period of extreme internal turmoil, of which there seems to be no evidence. It seems like billions of people across thousands of Federation worlds just rolled over en masse, or were otherwise unconcerned. But I will try to watch the next episode with your interpretation in mind first. Lizard Combatant fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Feb 22, 2020 |
# ? Feb 22, 2020 18:38 |
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You guys are putting more thought into this than the people writing this show you know that right Guns akimbo blam blam blam blam blam
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:00 |
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Tighclops posted:You guys are putting more thought into this than the people writing this show you know that right Eh, I have to give people the benefit of the doubt, or else there'd be little point in watching at all, big flashing warning lights notwithstanding. I'd much rather have to eat my words in the event that the show actually pulls off a thematically consistent and poignant conclusion.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:08 |
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Tighclops posted:You guys are putting more thought into this than the people writing this show you know that right I mean, a former borg with targeting implants? Way too farfetched for me. Must be the cynical answer. (Which is valid as well...just seems short-sighted considering she's an actual Space Ranger and all.)
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:12 |
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SpeakSlow posted:I mean, a former borg with targeting implants? Way too farfetched for me. Must be the cynical answer. i think you're putting more thought into this than the writer did pew pew
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:27 |
Tighclops posted:You guys are putting more thought into this than the people writing this show you know that right If you want to seriously speculate about intentions, there's probably a ton of them. And one intention is probably the one you're describing, to be honest. But with all the stuff Chabon is saying, it's clear at least one person writing this cared enough to come up with justifications after the fact (to give the least charitable interpretation), and that's not nothing. But honestly, imagining the mindset of the writers has clearly ruined this for you. They don't matter. What's actually there matters, what connections a viewer can see are as real as anything in Star Trek. I see a pretty interesting commentary on the pretty interesting world of Star Trek. A compelling world that, if we're going to be obsessed with intentions, is in large part unintentional. Or are you going to tell me that when a writer puts gory explosion conspiracy aliens in one episode, and has a random guy from the 80s be incredulous about a lack of currency in another episode, that there was a coherent world being created and not just everything being thrown at the wall to see what sticks? The lovely ideals in Star Trek are, in part, intentional. But so much messy poo poo was intended, and we've just latched on to the coherent story that we can dredge out of that. Star Trek Picard is just more Star Trek, in every way. You would probably enjoy it more if you were less hung up with trying to read the writers minds and feeling smug when you think they're dumb.
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:28 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 10:19 |
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Admiral Bosch posted:i think you're putting more thought into this than the writer did That's what I mean nobody gives a gently caress about targeting implants or whatever Picard: don't forget your humanity Seven: yeah okay whatever can I borrow some phasers Picard: but of course Seven: *beams down and vaporizes somebody* Next time on Staaaaaar trek! Lol
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# ? Feb 22, 2020 19:32 |