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I think Ad Astra kind of wanted to be like that (but it wasn't very good)
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Apr 1, 2020 16:10
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Timeless Appeal posted:The problem with new Trek is that they sort miss what old Trek was about. If you look at some of the best episodes of their respective series "Balance of Terror," "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Who Watches the Watchers," "I, Borg" etc. These aren't action stories. They are character dramas about people who have solid values but no clear answers trapped in difficult quandaries. And it's disingenuous to pretend that modern TV is not capable of that level of character drama because that is clearly not the case. The failure of New Trek is to see where Old Trek really could converge and work with modern prestige television. It's clear Patrick Stewart never understood what made Picard a great character. Or at least, given the choice, he doesn't want to expend the effort to do the hard work of actually acting the role. The movies let the actors pick whatever they wanted to do, and after being locked in a room with Frakes for a few years, all of them just said gently caress it we want holodeck episodes and none of us are going to bother acting:  (riker_shit_eating_grin.jpeg) multijoe posted:Yes, the ending of Voyager sucks. I just don't want people to start trying to use "Picard isn't the worst Star Trek" as some sort of positive argument. Getting my kneecaps drilled is probably worse than having to eat a dog turd, but that thought doesn't make dog turds appetizing. Picard was also only 8 spieodes. Imagine if Voyager was only 8 episodes, so you didn't have so many repeats of the same B-plots like oh hey let's have a Neelix episode, and bookend it with Harry Kim episodes. Ten times in a row. For 3 seasons.
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Apr 1, 2020 17:49
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Comparing Picard unfavourably to Voyager is really stupid. There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got.Peachfart posted:Ban this filth for not mentioning Newsradio. I've no ideal what Newsradio is, but yes not mentioning golden years Simpsons was an oversight.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:18
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marktheando posted:Comparing Picard unfavourably to Voyager is really stupid. There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got. It's not really a fair comparison given Voyager's episodic nature and the sheer volume of content but I'm certain I could pick out 12 hours of Voyager that are more worthwhile than anything in Picard. But I'm not going to because gently caress that
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Apr 1, 2020 18:21
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marktheando posted:There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got. I dunno about better because the storytelling of both series (or of classic Trek vs. New Trek in general) is very different, but I'd consider a ton of Voyager episodes at least on par with or better than Picard. Usually not because of the quality of the writing, but based on the overall Star Trekness of the story being told. Death Wish, The Thaw, Basics (RIP Lon Suder, best character on Voyager), Future's End, Scorpion, Message in a Bottle, Living Witness, Timeless, Bride of Chaotica!, Course: Oblivion, Equinox, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, Blink of an Eye are all ones off the top of my head that I'd rather watch over most of the ten episodes of Picard. Edit: Tighclops posted:But I'm not going to because gently caress that already gotchu fam
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Apr 1, 2020 18:28
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I watched Descent, Part 2, yesterday which I don't remember being a particularly great two-parter, but I enjoyed the callbacks to Hugh (making him a big backstory to the plot) and the tension of how our team was going to get out of the conflict. Instead of shooting their way out they had to come up with a good plan, and the  at least didn't take 4 minutes while humanoids diddled with holographic interfaces, they just recoupled the phase modulators and got on with it.Later in the day I saw a Sopranos episode where I said "wait a minute!" because I was sure the father of some church was Jonathan del Arco. IMDB confirmed it was! Even the NJ crime mob wasn't cruel enough to murder him after being a few scenes of minor character.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:42
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marktheando posted:Comparing Picard unfavourably to Voyager is really stupid. There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got. I don't know... Edit: I mean, half the season was balls because it was filler bullshit. Could probably find five Voyager episodes better than Picard's best five. Timby fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 19:53
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marktheando posted:Comparing Picard unfavourably to Voyager is really stupid. There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got. Voyager is bad but Picard is bad.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:05
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Timby posted:I don't know... Voyager is nothing but filler.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:27
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revwinnebago posted:It's clear Patrick Stewart never understood what made Picard a great character. Or at least, given the choice, he doesn't want to expend the effort to do the hard work of actually acting the role. The movies let the actors pick whatever they wanted to do, and after being locked in a room with Frakes for a few years, all of them just said gently caress it we want holodeck episodes and none of us are going to bother acting: Stewart wanted Picard to be sexy, suave, and badass at times. And I don't think that was necessarily wrong. Stewart was pretty loving dashing and I think it's a nice juxtaposition that this guy isn't a complete rigid fuddy-duddy. What I'll say is that I don't think Stewart is a writer necessarily. Picard going on badass stealth missions can be cool, but riding dune buggies less so. Stewart's understanding of the character is more instinctual. He knows the right pose or register to get across an idea. I think with Picard the show, the problem is that "All Good Things" is the end to the character. Picard, seeing through the future what his rigidity will lead to, makes the first steps at better embracing his own humanity and interpersonal relationships. He also is able to communicate himself over time and proves that humanity still has the capacity for evolution, the core conflict from the first episode and the implicit dramatic question of Star Trek. So, you have a few choices how to present this character after you get to that natural conclusion: 1) You can just retread old territory (First Contact) 2) You can create completely unnecessary tragedy (Generations) 3) You can just not care and let Patrick Stewart have fun, not offering any of the challenging work that lets his better instincts kick in (Nemesis) 4) You can just not really do anything with his character and have him act like it's a random episode of TNG (Insurrection) 5) You can deal with the ramifications of "All Good Things" and have a weird and interesting exploration of time and space and cover territory the show hasn't already covered, really challenging what it means for humanity to evolve (My Dreams) 6) You can deal with the ramifications of "All Good Things" in its most Christmas Carol extreme and just make Picard space-Mr. Rogers (Picard) Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 20:50
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The best Picard moment was in that first episode where he's doing the interview and you can see the conflict between the Picard who's spent 18 years hiding away and waiting to die and the Picard who doesn't cross moral lines.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:57
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marktheando posted:Comparing Picard unfavourably to Voyager is really stupid. There aren't ten episodes of Voyager in its whole run that are better than the ten episodes of Picard we got. I've never seen Voyager but it must be loving horrendous if this is true.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:57
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Voyager mostly sucked because it blew it's premise and wasted most of it's characters but still produced more decent hours of Star Trek across it's seven seasons than the last two series combined. Nothing in STD/Picard approaches Voyager's best stories; the modern stuff's finest moments are predicated entirely on the audience remembering characters, objects or places from series' past and still feeling something positive for them. I mean, you could conceivably marathon Voyager's best episodes only and come out the other side reasonably entertained. Picard Show, you gotta watch the whole thing to get to just as much of a wet fart as Voyager's ending wound up being.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:23
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Tighclops posted:Voyager mostly sucked because it blew it's premise and wasted most of it's characters but still produced more decent hours of Star Trek across it's seven seasons than the last two series combined. Nothing in STD/Picard approaches Voyager's best stories; the modern stuff's finest moments are predicated entirely on the audience remembering characters, objects or places from series' past and still feeling something positive for them. Yeah that was why I originally brought Voyager up. For what an awful show it was overall and despite it's infamously awful ending it still produced a good number of good stand-alone stories over its runtime, whereas a serialised show like Picard is going to have its best episodes defined as still being a part of a quest to a really stupid conclusion, almost entirely without any satisfying endings in themselves.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:27
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I will always love Voyager's ending for how unapologetically half-assed it is. "Yeah it would have taken them nearly 20 more years to get home, and a bunch of folks would have died, but gently caress it Janeway comes back from the future and just future techs them home. And then we instantly end the show, no real examination of what their homecoming is like.". The best part is it's literally a plot point they did before, only with Harry Kim in the Janeway role and only getting them like 10 years closer to home rather than all the way. They couldn't even have an original half-assed ending.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:33
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Timeless Appeal posted:
I can agree with a lot of what you say here. But there are times in this show that the writing simply does not serve the character, and unfortunately I don't feel that Stewart quite rises to the occasion. I'm thinking especially of the scene where Raffi burns a personal relationship to get Picard access to the cube, and Picard then applauds this development... and to a lesser extent, when he backs Elnor into a corner, forcing Elnor to kill in order to save him. The latter was somewhat more palatable, as it's arguable that exhausted old Picard wasn't intentionally manipulating Elnor, and he really is willing to put his life on the line to make a moral statement. But if that's the case, at that point in the story, then just how serious is he about the mission to rescue Soji? It makes him seem confused and at cross-purposes with himself. And the former example with Raffi is just completely baffling. It makes him seem almost sociopathic. No matter how aloof and detached TNG Picard may have been, he would not have applauded or encouraged one of his crew members wrecking their life in such a fashion. I rewatched All Good Things about midway through the run of Picard, and it definitely still stands as the definitive capstone for TNG. It feels so much better-characterized and so much more coherent. I wonder if part of that is having only a 10-episode season, with 5 writers who each must make a contribution to each episode, vs a smaller writers' room with a longer season where each episode will have at most 2 writers. AGT was famously just Moore and Braga, right?
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Apr 1, 2020 21:43
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Mulva posted:I will always love Voyager's ending for how unapologetically half-assed it is. "Yeah it would have taken them nearly 20 more years to get home, and a bunch of folks would have died, but gently caress it Janeway comes back from the future and just future techs them home. And then we instantly end the show, no real examination of what their homecoming is like.". The best part is it's literally a plot point they did before, only with Harry Kim in the Janeway role and only getting them like 10 years closer to home rather than all the way. They couldn't even have an original half-assed ending. Not even a moment on earth for our crew. But plenty of time to show alternative timeline future versions of the crew back on earth, in a future that will now not happen. And also the story is mainly about alternative timeline future Janeway getting Voyager home, the Janeway we know does gently caress all.
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Apr 1, 2020 21:49
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It's already been said, but Voyager has a lot of good episodes. The lows are terrible, but the highs can be drat good at times. It's not as good as TNG or DS9, but it's better than Enterprise, and has some great characters as well.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:15
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PostNouveau posted:I've never seen Voyager but it must be loving horrendous if this is true. It's what makes the werreting about Picard in this thread so myopic. No matter how much you may disdain Picard for subjective reasons, Voyager is always objectively worse. And that poo poo went on for seven long years. In Voyager nothing has the moral strength of Picard's interview or his speech in the penultimate episode. Nothing has the emotion of Troi seeing Picard. Nothing has the imagination of the space flower defence system battle. Nothing has the charm of Rios' hologrammatic engineer having a deliberately terrible Scottish accent. Voyager is nothing but beige carpets, beige writing, and Janeway making Jurati look like an emotionally stable moral paragon.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:32
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Voyager is nothing but beige carpets, beige writing, and Janeway making Jurati look like an emotionally stable moral paragon. Voyager definitely never hit as high as Picard's last conversation with Data.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:51
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:It's what makes the werreting about Picard in this thread so myopic. No matter how much you may disdain Picard for subjective reasons, Voyager is always objectively worse. And that poo poo went on for seven long years. Hey!  Voyager's carpets were gray.As for the rest, yeah, no real objection.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:54
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istewart posted:I can agree with a lot of what you say here. But there are times in this show that the writing simply does not serve the character, and unfortunately I don't feel that Stewart quite rises to the occasion. I'm thinking especially of the scene where Raffi burns a personal relationship to get Picard access to the cube, and Picard then applauds this development... and to a lesser extent, when he backs Elnor into a corner, forcing Elnor to kill in order to save him. The latter was somewhat more palatable, as it's arguable that exhausted old Picard wasn't intentionally manipulating Elnor, and he really is willing to put his life on the line to make a moral statement. But if that's the case, at that point in the story, then just how serious is he about the mission to rescue Soji? It makes him seem confused and at cross-purposes with himself. And the former example with Raffi is just completely baffling. It makes him seem almost sociopathic. No matter how aloof and detached TNG Picard may have been, he would not have applauded or encouraged one of his crew members wrecking their life in such a fashion. His performance in Logan is such a great inverse of him in Picard. He's given this incredibly tragic fate for Charles Xavier and runs with it to make a really great performance. Because he's a good actor who can work with interesting material, but also because he had such a good handle on Xavier that the tragic and humiliating ending for the character still felt true.
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Apr 2, 2020 00:35
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fadam posted:Bad TV has obviously always existed but I think Discovery and Picard are lovely in a way that’s unique to this era but I can’t really articulate why. People are interested in Star Trek type stories (see: the Orville) and good sci-fi (See: the Expanse). CBS doesn't want to make either of those shows, they want a cash cow. Modern Star Wars provides the model: 1. bring in established fans on nostalgia, 2. new fans with ZOMG CGI explosions 3. don't offend the former or confuse the latter 4. spend way less on production than you expect to take in That leaves writing the odd man out. They can sell it because classic Trek is campy and even the really celebrated shows (TNG-DS9) had their fair share of stinker episodes. In reality though the lovely TNG and DS9 episodes were the result of asking people who understood the material to prioritize quantity over quality. It's not a good strategy because while you can make a show that lots of people will tolerate, nobodies going to love it and as we're seeing with Star Wars, you'll eventually burn through your good will. It makes sense to kill the golden goose if your bonus depends on how dinner tastes tonight I guess.
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Apr 2, 2020 00:35
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:It's what makes the werreting about Picard in this thread so myopic. No matter how much you may disdain Picard for subjective reasons, Voyager is always objectively worse. And that poo poo went on for seven long years. Yes, this. All of this. mllaneza posted:Voyager definitely never hit as high as Picard's last conversation with Data. Also, this. God drat, this justified the bad parts of the season. Of which there were quite a few.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:01
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Yeah, it has flaws certainly, and broadly speaking they are the same flaws as in Discovery, but toned down. Picard is a large iterative improvement over Discovery, and already has that scene with Data, which I think will stand alongside other franchise high points when the dust settles and the performative self-soiling by 'fans' ends.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:16
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And like those other moments you'll be able to find it on youtube after the fact, so you don't have to bother with watching Picard.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:24
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That conversation would have been nice if it had been attached to a good show
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Apr 2, 2020 01:25
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Picard is just alright. Remember when it was possible for a show to be just alright? Have you guys never seen a truly bad piece of media before? When I think of dogshit terrible, I think of stuff lile "Food Fight" or those straight-to-Redbox mockbuster movies. Or any number of incoherent, terribly produced local or student films I suffered through in film school. Or the "sexy" parts of Enterprise and Voyager for that matter. Seems strange to beat up this thing so much. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 01:38
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Arglebargle III posted:I always enjoy the stage of the thread where people renegotiate the meaning of good. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 2, 2020 01:39
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revwinnebago posted:It's clear Patrick Stewart never understood what made Picard a great character. Or at least, given the choice, he doesn't want to expend the effort to do the hard work of actually acting the role. The movies let the actors pick whatever they wanted to do, and after being locked in a room with Frakes for a few years, all of them just said gently caress it we want holodeck episodes and none of us are going to bother acting: Didn't I already post Patrick Stewart riding a dune buggy happily in this thread, because you can tell he really loves it.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:43
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Picard is just alright. Remember when it was possible for a show to be just alright? Have you guys never seen a truly bad piece of media before? A sane, sensible post. 
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Apr 2, 2020 01:46
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Der Luftwaffle posted:I know preconceptions are unfair, but when the show was first announced I was pretty stoked about all the cool directions it could go. My partner and I were hoping for for some stylish neo-noir story where Picard gets to go all Dixon Hill on some galactic conspiracy. Jean-Luc Picard's career ends as a fall guy. Negotiations over a disputed colony with the Romulans blow up after he pulls StarFleet back from the area in a show of good faith. Some rogue StarFleet officers attempt to profit off the deal and the peace falls apart. The colony is massacred and while the Federation decisively wins the resulting war there are thousands of Federation and hundreds of thousands of Romulans dead. He's the public face of failure.amd while he still has friends at the Admiralty, there's only so much they can do. Pulling back StarFleet was against orders, and the rising militant faction of the Federation Council wants to make an example out of him. He's busted down to Lieutenant Commander and allowed to retire. We don't know any of that yet though. Show opens the same way, with Picard walking though the vineyard with a pup named Number One and his nephew Rene. This is offputting given that Rene is long dead, but before the audience has much time to react he's interrupted by a harsh chime as his holosuite time runs out. Chateau Picard is gone, sold to anonymously benefit Alien widows and orphans who spit at his name. He's not on Earth, rather a world on the fringes of Federation space where he's rarely recognized and never expected. He heads home to a single bed in a spartan but tidy room in a depressing space retirement community. He puts himself to bed and the camera lingers on his communicator pin on the the nightstand, the sole indication of who he once was. Cut to him back in a holosuite, this time in character as Dixon Hill. He's going through the motions and it's clear he knows the sim by heart. He pauses the simulation and everything stops except for Vic Fontaine who drops out of character and he's concerned. He pours Picard a drink and draws a metaphor about alcoholism and addiction building to the point. Picard's spending almost all of his meager pension on holosuite time reliving the past, at the winery, on the Enterprise, in the negotiation room on Whatever 4. Picard doesn't take it well and asks "if all I do is relive the past why am I here in this fantasy with you?" "This is the past too, from back when we were frie-" "Resume," snaps Picard and Vic goes back into character. Picard takes his drink over to a gangster NPC sitting at a corner table and half-heartedly continues the story. Close in on Picard's face as he sips his drink and loses himself in thought, distractedly keeping up his lines. He doesn't notice the first time he answers a question the gangster didn't ask, or the second. He looks up to see that now the gangster is distracted looking suspiciously at someone who has just walked into the bar. Picard follows his gaze and turns to see Chef Boyardeez Nuts fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 02:20
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Drink-Mix Man posted:Picard is just alright. Remember when it was possible for a show to be just alright? Have you guys never seen a truly bad piece of media before? Even allowing for us living in a time where the discourse is dominated by petty sectarianism, why people seem to be so offended by, or invested in trying to out-group, others for enjoying an alright TV show really does baffle me. I mean, I have posted before, as have others, what we suppose the driving force is for it, but at the end of the day accepting that there is a genuine motivation behind this sort of word salad gotcha: Tighclops posted:That conversation would have been nice if it had been attached to a good show Or repeatedly posting of this: Arglebargle III posted:I always enjoy the stage of the thread where people renegotiate the meaning of good. ...is to accept a level of aberrant emotional investment so pathetic as to be contemptible. Nevertheless, every time an actual discussion starts in this thread here come the same old names to hold a dirty protest until it stops again. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 02:25
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Part of it is that old and bitter me will never reclaim the sense of wonder that made TNG click so hard. Also, holy poo poo Sisko just poisoned a whole world by droping a bio weapon on a Maquis colony because he kept getting owned by a former featured extra. It's really mind-blowing how much hosed up poo poo went right over my innocent little head.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:37
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Just ignore the self-quoting white noise garbage dipshits then, I dunno 
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Apr 2, 2020 02:37
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While I don't really think Star Trek is a socialist show, Star Trek shows would actually be good under socialism. We can only hope President Xi has seen Darmok and finally does what is right.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:42
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nine-gear crow posted:Just ignore the self-quoting white noise garbage dipshits then, I dunno I believe in a Star Trek style utopia where they either post like emotionally stable adults, or hop back on the Mondor and go explore strange new pastimes.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:49
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thrawn527 posted:Also, this. God drat, this justified the bad parts of the season. Of which there were quite a few. I suspect that the whole show was built around getting to that scene. But the outline was put together by hacks, so we ended up with poorly-paced filler and characters doing questionable things to advance the plot in the right direction.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:55
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:Picard is a large iterative improvement over Discovery Drink-Mix Man posted:Picard is just alright. Remember when it was possible for a show to be just alright? Have you guys never seen a truly bad piece of media before? Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:Chateau Picard is gone, sold to anonymously benefit Alien widows and orphans who spit at his name. Your fanfiction could work though, if you come up with a different reason for why he's not at the vineyard. Like, maybe it's a condition of occupation that you have to maintain it and keep it operational and he was kicked out for not doing that.
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Apr 2, 2020 05:15
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Tiggum posted:If you hadn't watched TNG, Riker, Troi and Data would just be people who show up out of nowhere whom you're supposed to care about for no reason. You not enjoying Picard doesn't mean it had no good episodes. It means you didn't enjoy it. It is fine to just say it wasn't your cup of tea. As to criticising it for including characters from TNG, in a programme about the character from TNG, that is a specious complaint. If I watched the Return of the King without seeing Fellowship I might wonder why the old guy is hanging around with all those little people. But I am familiar with the characters from Lord of the Rings for the same reasons people are familiar with the crew of the Enterprise. A) I watched the preceding part of the story, and B) it is a pillar of pop culture. Oh and Rios and the holograms aren't 'decent' characters, whatever the gently caress that entails? Come on. Surely you can do better than sweeping, lazy, assertions like that. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 05:42
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