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Pastamania posted:Trek, being a TV show, could never really go for spectacle in any big way, so it was a bit more thematically ambitious. At least until CGI started to come along. The second CGI became cheap and good enough for prime time TV, the quality of Trek started dropping through the floor. Trek going down the shitter had nothing to do with the CGI whatsoever. It was entirely down to it being driven into the ground as the stories were re-used and watered down. As the entire reason it existed became stagnation and risk aversion. Star Trek became poo poo because Berman et al would not allow it to become anything else.
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Mar 16, 2020 00:48
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Khanstant posted:Does Star Wars have a point or a message? I can't recall ever getting into a discussion about star wars that was about its themes, philosophies, or really anything besides just squabbling over worldbuilding details to pad out an MMO or wiki or something. I would say Lucas’ Star Wars movies are broadly anti-militarist, pro-labor, anti-religious, and skeptical of democracy. They’re not a coherent statement and each of these things come forward in some of the movies more than others (for example, in the original movie the Jedi are straightforwardly positively portrayed through Ben, and it’s only in ESB and on that he starts to be portrayed as Machiavellian and the Jedi as selfish and hypocritical).
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Mar 16, 2020 00:51
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One thing I like about Picard is that it finally shows aspects of Romulan culture that don't have to do with them being arrogant pricks or deceitful. I really like the idea of Way of Absolute Candor as a parallel to the Vulcan teachings, especially how the episode portrays it just as positively.
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Mar 16, 2020 01:25
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istewart posted:Between this and what twistedmentat said, I have to add that the overall production design has always been a core aspect of that world building, and I do feel that it's lacking here. Except for a few elements, there's not a lot here that feels like a direct continuation of what's come before, and I feel that's a shame. I'm thinking mainly the Borg cube, the reuse of TNG's future combadges, the brief appearance of an LCARS interface when Picard searches for the Locutus holo, and arguably the new Romulan birds-of-prey. The hand-wavy holo-interfaces feel like a stab in the dark at reclaiming Trek's futurist cred, but even if we do all end up wearing AR goggles, are we really going to be using something like that? Heh I don't remember what post of mine you're referring to but yea with Sci-fi your production design tells a lot of the story. Like I'll always counter the criticism of the D looking like a Cruise Ship or Hotel with a "yea, that's what it should be". It was built in a time of peace, the Romulans were isolated, the Klingons were friends, minor wars did break out but I don't think the war with the Cardassians threatened to do anything other than lose ships and border worlds. The Federation would not of collapsed if it had lost. Anyways, the point being is the Federation could build a ship that was roomy, comfortable, that had nice pleasing lines and colour tones. It would be able to defend itself but it was more likely doing diplomatic missions, scientific exploration and search and rescue, so that dictated its design. Then as things went pear shaped with the Borg, the Klingons, Cardassians and eventually Dominion, the Federation started thinking more practical. Ships would be designed for combat first, with luxuries being secondary. They could still carry out those other missions I mentioned, but projecting military strength was their primary function. I figure that in the period after DS9 it went back to being peaceful, but there was probably an underlying feeling of "what is going to happen next?" and that was the Romulan Supernova. But to talk more about the boarder scope of the topic, look at Dune. It takes place in a fantastical far off future that is at least 10k years in the future and there are telepaths and mutants who can see the future, humanity can reach its maximum potential though both breeding and training. It's also a fuedal society that is heavily stratified, plus despite the high tech world, its also technophobic. How do you communicate this beyond just dialog? Everythings clunky, but functional, there are lots of natural materials used such as wood and stone. Which is smart because one of the dangers of sci fi is being outdated. LCARS style controls are in everyones pocket, so it just looks contemporary now. And no one could have predicted that GUIs were going to be the staple of computer operation. Just having keyboards everywhere is still weird, and also only having voice coms. What the hell? I remember when the awful Inhumans show, Black Bolt, a being that's voice is destructive, can't use his communicator because he can't talk. So super advanced people don't have texting? I can understand a show from the 90s not figuring that text messages would be a major source of communication in the 21st century. Nodosaur posted:One thing I like about Picard is that it finally shows aspects of Romulan culture that don't have to do with them being arrogant pricks or deceitful. I really like the idea of Way of Absolute Candor as a parallel to the Vulcan teachings, especially how the episode portrays it just as positively. Yea. I like the suggestion that Romulans were not monolithic, but their government made every effort to make it appear that they were. I've speculated why all Romulans had that haircut was becuase no one dared be different so everyone just cut their hair the same. One of the benefits of the fall of the Empire was Romulans could be more themselves. skasion posted:I would say Lucas’ Star Wars movies are broadly anti-militarist, pro-labor, anti-religious, and skeptical of democracy. They’re not a coherent statement and each of these things come forward in some of the movies more than others (for example, in the original movie the Jedi are straightforwardly positively portrayed through Ben, and it’s only in ESB and on that he starts to be portrayed as Machiavellian and the Jedi as selfish and hypocritical). I'd say that its less Skeptical of Democracy but more about being Skeptical of Great Men and the desire to sacrifice freedom for safety. They were written during the Bush era and that what was going on.
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Mar 16, 2020 03:44
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twistedmentat posted:So super advanced people don't have texting? I can understand a show from the 90s not figuring that text messages would be a major source of communication in the 21st century. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfkIe8Cwmqk
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Mar 16, 2020 04:23
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twistedmentat posted:I'd say that its less Skeptical of Democracy but more about being Skeptical of Great Men and the desire to sacrifice freedom for safety. They were written during the Bush era and that what was going on. And the original trilogy was a reaction to Nixon and the Vietnam War.
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Mar 16, 2020 04:29
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One incredibly goofy moment during the climax of Nemesis is Picard ordering Troi to prepare ramming speed basically via text message instead of just muting the hail or making the order after he cut the hail off.
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Mar 16, 2020 04:32
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Powered Descent posted:You're right that for the huge majority of shows, viewers aren't going to get obsessive over the exact order of things. But the episodes are clearly presented as events in the lives of the fictional characters. Interesting or funny things seeming to happen to them weekly like clockwork, never really overlapping and only rarely referred to afterward, is just part of the convention of the format. Star Trek TNG, in particular, often starts with a voiceover explicitly telling us that the Enterprise has been doing stuff off-screen. Khanstant posted:Does Star Wars have a point or a message?
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Mar 16, 2020 07:54
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Tiggum posted:Shows occasionally joke about that but I doubt there's a single show where each week's episode is supposed to be happening an actual week after the previous one from the characters' perspective. You have episodes that cover multiple days, weeks, or more of the characters' time, and you have episodes that take place anywhere from immediately following the previous one to weeks or months later. Quantum Leap is one of the only examples I can think of.
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Mar 16, 2020 08:46
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Delsaber posted:One incredibly goofy moment during the climax of Nemesis is Picard ordering Troi to prepare ramming speed basically via text message instead of just muting the hail or making the order after he cut the hail off. This was probably just another example of them trying to badly ape Wrath Of Khan. In this instance, the view screen/hail subterfuge with Kirk and Khan and the prefix code or whatever it was I can’t remember all of a sudden.
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Mar 16, 2020 11:36
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twistedmentat posted:I'd say that its less Skeptical of Democracy but more about being Skeptical of Great Men and the desire to sacrifice freedom for safety. They were written during the Bush era and that what was going on. The original movies are also pretty dismissive of the idea. There is no meaningful political opposition to the empire—representative government is abolished offscreen in the first movie and the only politician who is unambiguously positively portrayed is Leia, who ignores her job and exploits her aristo status to go help the terrorists blow the empire's poo poo out. The prequels certainly have a lot of anti-Bush subtext but I don't think it's that Lucas was seriously saying Bush was making himself a dictator or anything—rather, his point there (somewhat coopted from Dune, but what isn't) is more generally that the choices of the mass aren't a guide to what's right. skasion fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Mar 16, 2020 |
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Mar 16, 2020 12:45
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Oh man, I'm finally watching Discovery now that I have time and I'm absolutely loving the idea of mirror Tilly
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Mar 16, 2020 17:57
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:Oh man, I'm finally watching Discovery now that I have time and I'm absolutely loving the idea of mirror Tilly Killy is life. Or death if you displease her. I wish they had actually shown her on screen, Mary Wiseman would have killed being utterly evil.
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Mar 16, 2020 20:03
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It's an absolute shame that Discovery has so many great characters aside from Ash Tyler and Michael Burnham, who could be all right if not for the continual soap opera-style family drama contrivances in place of the personality-driven plots that everyone else gets I would have liked to have seen more of Ariam, instead of it all being concentrated in the episode where she was killed off galenanorth fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Mar 16, 2020 |
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Mar 16, 2020 20:11
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Discovery has a top notch cast. Shame about everything else.
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Mar 16, 2020 20:50
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Anthony Rapp was an inspired casting decision as the (more or less) chief engineer, but he's rocked it so far. I can't really think of a bad casting decision on Discovery.
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Mar 16, 2020 21:36
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I take back what I said, the visual effects are also quite good.
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Mar 16, 2020 22:06
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MichiganCubbie posted:Anthony Rapp was an inspired casting decision as the (more or less) chief engineer, but he's rocked it so far. I can't really think of a bad casting decision on Discovery. Sure, I guess, except we know almost nothing about anyone who isn't one of the main characters. There's an entire bridge filled with cyphers. One grew up as an atheist in a neo-Luddite colony as we find out from the two minutes of screen time she got on the away team, the heterochromatic crackerjack pilot appreciates Airiam making her feel more human about her augment, and there's that guy sitting behind the screen who occasionally...opens hailing frequencies, I think? At least Airiam is fully developed, well, sorta, and only in the space of 45 minutes because the plot demands it. I mean you generally don't want to go the Chekov route and make a character a one note joke for characterization but maybe that would have been preferable to putting the same people on screen each episode and letting us know nothing about them. I guess I'm not so much bitching about the casting as the writing, but let the actors do something!
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Mar 16, 2020 22:14
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MichiganCubbie posted:Anthony Rapp was an inspired casting decision as the (more or less) chief engineer, but he's rocked it so far. I can't really think of a bad casting decision on Discovery. He can keep on doing weird science - isn't the science officer slot open now that Burnham is XO and Saru is Captain? - but Reno for chief engineer please.
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Mar 16, 2020 22:25
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Maybe it's because I haven't actually seen Clem Fandango but that casting choice seems bad It may just be terrible writing, I don't want to condemn the man, but yuck
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Mar 16, 2020 22:53
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The Bloop posted:Maybe it's because I haven't actually seen Clem Fandango but that casting choice seems bad  Tilly also started kinda rough, but I like that actress in other stuff and the character has definitely improved over the course of her arc. I honestly don’t mind having a bubbly and overeager cadet/ensign and I think it’s a good character for the show because she introduces much-needed levity in a lot of otherwise dour episodes.
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Mar 16, 2020 22:58
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Disco is super weird because especially in the first season it felt like they intended to do a Lower Decks thing with the main cast mostly being specialists and second-stringers, but they didn't fully commit to it, so instead it was a mix of that and the usual Star Trek bridge show, except the bridge crew rarely talked. Maybe that's yet another Bryan Fuller concept which never completely settled after he left. Season 2 is better about this, those bridge people get more to do or at least more to say, but by then the show became more about its big mystery box, so they still never quite got the focus they needed or they crammed it all into one episode and hoped for the best. It's just another symptom of this show not really knowing what it wants to be, probably thanks largely to the revolving door of showrunners, so it tries to be everything at once and does it all haphazardly at best.
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Mar 16, 2020 23:39
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Discovery is mostly good except the overarching plot is garbage. It didn’t feel like Start Trek but more “The Adventures of Michael Burnham and Her Coworkers” Also the super saturation of Michelle Yeoh by the end is really overdone. (spoilered for the guy just watching the series now I guess) I know I jokingly said I tried to forget as much Disco as I could but I actually did enjoy (most of) the characters and the visuals are hella nice even though they have all the NuTrek stuff going on.
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Mar 16, 2020 23:41
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The Mudd episode from Season 1 is still the best episode of Discovery and I eagerly await the day they try to top it. I think it's a decent show but there are too many small things that you can easily point out as "stupid," too much drama that fails to invest the audience enough to nail the landing, and poorly planned long-term plotting that tries to make the show seem like it's prestige television when it's really not. Plus they killed off the best actor and character in the show at the end of season 1 and, despite leaving an opening to bring him back, didn't.
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Mar 17, 2020 10:25
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DaveKap posted:Plus they killed off the best actor and character in the show at the end of season 1 and, despite leaving an opening to bring him back, didn't. If you mean who I think you mean, I think it's been mentioned before in this thread that he was probably only ever meant to be in the first season and something about not being able to afford him/schedule him for a second. Edit: vvv the cynical TV production side of me would bet money on that being a budget decision that influenced creative, and not vice versa. Longbaugh01 fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Mar 17, 2020 |
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Mar 17, 2020 10:33
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Probably something that is mentioned before, but something that really takes me out of Picard is any scene involving him living inside his recreated winery chateau in the holodeck whilst aboard the ship. It just seems like such an odd choice, and definitely out of character. It colours him as a frail old man who can't bear the leave the comfort of his home, and also provides (definitely intentionally) a stark distance and opulence compared to his crew. Which is appropriate to the themes, but it seems like the wrong way to go about it. It doesn't really fit with the explorer / archeologist Picard we know. He never really wanted to follow in his family footsteps in the series, and him sulking in a virtual recreation of his house seems at odds with the other way they're portraying him, as someone driven and intent on saving the universe.
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Mar 17, 2020 12:38
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he should be living on a cot inside a private detective office in 1940's los angeles but new trek ain't got the guts to do anything that fun
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Mar 17, 2020 13:04
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I think they spent the money creating that set, and so they have to use it. Other sets looked pretty cheap with thrown together Ikea furniture, but the one has real stuff in it, so they need to get their money's worth. It is really weird that everyone else on the ship is using it too, like Picard locked the holodeck to only run that program.
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Mar 17, 2020 16:54
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To be honest, if I had that capacity I'd spend most of my travel time living in simulated luxury as well. It seems like a far more sane and sensible way to live in space than in a pokey cabin with a view into the infinite void slowly but inexorably driving you mad. Think of it as the post scarcity version of this  The "don't go confinement mad with anxiety" rec room on an Oscar-II class (Kursk) Soviet ballistic missile submarine. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Mar 17, 2020 |
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Mar 17, 2020 16:59
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If you really wanna think too hard about that set: when Seven first visits, Picard offers her a drink (presumably tea) and to his surprise she orders bourbon. But the bottle is ready to go on his drinks caddy, did he replicate it ahead of time or are we to assume this is a magic holodeck? Boy I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Think of it as the post scarcity version of this Awesome!
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Mar 17, 2020 17:07
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 Time travel confirmed!
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Mar 18, 2020 00:53
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Zushio posted:
Precisely what I saw lol
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Mar 18, 2020 00:58
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Lizard Combatant posted:If you really wanna think too hard about that set: when Seven first visits, Picard offers her a drink (presumably tea) and to his surprise she orders bourbon. But the bottle is ready to go on his drinks caddy, did he replicate it ahead of time or are we to assume this is a magic holodeck? Boy I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder. Um. He probably just had bourbon (among other synthahols) in the real version, so they exist in the holo version.
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Mar 18, 2020 01:49
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Despite the utter shitshow that is the fall of Western Civilization we seem to be living through, there is evidence that we are, in fact, in the Best Timeline: https://thegww.com/exclusive-captain-pike-star-trek-discovery-spin-off-series-in-the-works/ quote:A ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ spin-off series centered around Captain Christopher Pike is officially in the works. We have also done some digging and discovered several details about the show. quote:The series is currently in pre-production, with the scripts for the first season having already been written. A release date is currently unknown. 
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Mar 18, 2020 02:52
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Star Trek: Enterprise, huh? That’s a pretty unique title
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Mar 18, 2020 02:57
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What the gently caress lmao How is that gonna work
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Mar 18, 2020 03:03
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I mean, a Pike 5 year mission or whatever is something I could tune into. If I was A BIG IDIOT.
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Mar 18, 2020 03:07
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Working titles are working titles, especially early on but... ...gently caress it. They should just go whole hog on being confusing and unoriginal and title it STAR TREK. Still. That’s good news I suppose. Anson Mount was an obvious bright spot and I’m much more excited for that than a non-DS9 Section 31 take.  Can’t help but think though that there’s more room for a more traditional present in the timeline show than just Picard.
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Mar 18, 2020 03:07
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Longbaugh01 posted:Um. He probably just had bourbon (among other synthahols) in the real version, so they exist in the holo version. So is Seven drinking holographic bourbon?! in case it isn't obvious to anyone, no i'm not serious "Star Trek Enterprise"... huh... i guess it's been a long time, but Pike's time is finally here.
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Mar 18, 2020 03:12
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could you imagine kurtzman and co writing something like 'the cage'? lol
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Mar 18, 2020 03:22
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