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MikeJF posted:I don't think it's an invalid complaint about some of the new shows, Discovery in particular, that the characters spend such a high proportion of episodes with their emotions going to a 10 that it can become a bit meaningless to watch. Without the time at 5, the 10 isn't special. The actors are good. But I still think it's a detriment to the series and a disservice to the actors exactly how much they're writing in crying as an important action the characters take. I would still make this critique if Disco/Picard didn't exist. I would still make this critique if this wasn't a Star Trek show. The mention I made of it after quoting a giant block of text explaining why this latest episode of SNW wasn't entertaining was supposed to be a joke. If you can't find it funny because you're too hung up over the critique that the show has enough crying to desensitize even the most empathic Betazoid, then you're not the audience for my comedy and I apologize. I still think it's funny, though. Maxwell Lord posted:EDIT: I think another wrinkle is that the show, while not outright a comedy like LD, errs on the side of the lighthearted while a lot of contemporary genre dramas tend to go for the intense heart-wrenching stuff (SNW does that sometimes but spaces it out). It's good to have a certain balance and have some colorful, optimistic space opera alongside the dark adult fantasies and the like. But then I think about the random space pockets TNG episode where the lady got stuck in the floor and I think, nah, Trek can do it right, it just doesn't do it right enough. I'd love to see a fresh horror spin on Trek that doesn't involve pure Alien/Monster horror but also doesn't default to "everyone's acting weird" horror, which also seems to happen a lot. DaveKap fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 07:48
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It's not just modern star Trek shows, a lot of modern shows seem to do this, just having life changing dramatic stuff happening constantly. If you take what actually happens to the characters in the say TNG, over the show most of the main characters probably had about as much of this dramatic stuff happen, but there was also far more times of them relaxing, enjoying themselves, even just having boring regular days. This meant when something dramatic did happen it felt more impactful. Sure it's a dramatic sci-fi adventure show at heart, so you know dramatic stuffs going to happen, but you know you can mix up what sort of dramatic stuff a bit other wise it just sort of feels like your constantly playing the same note. I think the short season run times are really hurting here, but even with SNW it's easy to see how much a comedy episode here and there can really lighten a show a lot and help with this. Also just how a lot of the times even in serious epsiodes they'll have very friendly causal briefs at the start helping to keep the over all tone of the show from getting to heavy. I mean poo poo even the wire which dealt with depressing as hell topics and was far more serious, had plenty lot of comedy scenes, and friendly causally banter scenes to lighten the tone when needed. Picard and Disco did have them occasionally but the shows just felt like they were trying to be far heavier than the shows really needed to be. dr_rat fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 07:52
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dr_rat posted:It's not just modern star Trek shows, a lot of modern shows seem to do this, just having life changing dramatic stuff happening constantly. One last thing and then I'll completely drop it. I know nothing about acting but crying feels like a crutch. I don't apply this to the SNW actors because, again, I think they're amazing comparatively to most modern television but there is plenty of television where it feels like a crutch. DaveKap fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 07:55
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CPColin posted:Yes.
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Jul 25, 2023 08:06
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As the old theater joke goes, dying's easy, it's comedy that's hard.
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Jul 25, 2023 08:33
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DaveKap posted:The actors are good. I've said it before, but I don't think it's the Actors' fault for DISCO. The writing is too bad for them to salvage.
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Jul 25, 2023 08:58
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All the new live action shows are definitely going for heightened emotions throughout. It's not just that characters are crying all the time, although that is a thing, every emotional beat is a lot more bombastic than the older shows. Someone would have been sad in TNG, now they're crying. Someone would have smiled in DS9, now they're grinning from ear to ear and laughing loudly. I think it works in SNW because everything else about the show is similarly big, so it all comes together. It didn't fit with Disco because it's got a much smaller focus on one protagonists heroes journey, and spending 10 straight episodes with someone being largely miserable to the point of being outright unlikeable is just unpleasant. And in Picard's case, the plot was so stupid and all over the place you couldn't invest in the emotional stakes, because the emotional stakes made no loving sense and swung wildly episode to episode. Part of me does wish we could get something a bit closer to TNG one day, with a bit more subtlety and leaning more into clever sci-fi plots over big emotional moments, but I don't think it's fair to judge SNW for not being something that's a completely different show trying to do completely different things, especially when it's largely knocking it out the park at what it is trying to do.
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Jul 25, 2023 09:00
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I mean TOS was pretty bombastic- it's late-60s heightened drama, you have that wonderfully dramatic music, you've got something like Balance of Terror which starts with the Captain performing a wedding but then the husband dies bravely manning the phaser banks, etc. TNG moved away from that partly because I think Gene had the idea that people are more chill and get along more in the future and everyone's very well adjusted to the point that there aren't even really arguments, and while DS9 subverted that in many ways I think the more subdued tone stuck.
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Jul 25, 2023 09:10
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mllaneza posted:Also this. I hope Ethan Peck enjoyed the hell out of those scenes because I sure didn't. I hope that's what they were going for because that's what I got. Lol that was the gag
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Jul 25, 2023 09:12
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https://twitter.com/TrondyNewman/status/1683696112224571393
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Jul 25, 2023 13:53
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxn6U3lt6ZQ New season of Lower Decks looks awesome. The last shot had me giggling.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:11
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I only just realised that there's a Tom Paris mannequin on the bridge of Voyager (I'm betting the instant that macrovirus comes out Mariner strips down to the tank top and gets the big gun, Janeway-style)
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Jul 25, 2023 14:33
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Things I spotted: Bynar ship on the LCARS background in Freeman's briefing The Bird of Prey and bridge in the bright light seem to be Ma'ah's ship and crew from the episode wej'Duj T'Lyn has a provisional Ensign rank and pip, same as the Maquis' ranks in Voyager I don't recognize the aliens that Freeman and Ransom meet near the shuttle. Maybe the Wadi? I don't remember their eyebrows being so long. The Sequoia is still in their hangout bay. Not sure what's falling from the sky on the earthlike planet ... maybe a frozen cloud?? Orion dance party with Tendi, T'lyn, and Mariner attending Beautiful art of Ferenginar with the shuttle flying in (matches up very closely with DS9 mattes) In the shot with Tendi, Mariner, and T'lyn, T'lyn now has a proper ensign pip? The shuttle that the women find looks a lot like The Raven, maybe the same class? Badgey's back Rutherford has installed a grappler on the Sequoia, that's probably fine oh god Need that "Romulan Ale O'Clock Somewhere" hat Mariner is wearing her "workout" clothes again in some of the shots, like when she was doing the holodeck escape program ALLAMARAINE! and a Betazoid Gift Box? #blessed
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Jul 25, 2023 14:35
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Also there's
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Jul 25, 2023 14:39
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LinkesAuge posted:Hero worship stuff Obviously this episode being a crossover one is going to be more chock full of the kinds of things you were griping about (every Star Trek episode to cross over between timelines/franchises has indulged in this way, besides maybe that one where Picard is having a drink with Scotty and is all 'actually I don't care about the Enterprise like you do because my cool swashbuckling career was on the Stargazer'). So I understand that it's a lot more in your face in an episode like this where the entire premise is to indulge in the franchise. But I mean cmon it's also the case that if you work somewhere with a storied history where you feel privileged to work, that's a real human impulse to look up at the people that came before you, to find out more about them, etc. If you think about the Enterprise in its different incarnations (or even Starfleet more broadly) like one workplace, it's very natural and obvious, and I think this episode handled it well. Doesn't even need to be someone famous in a mainstream sense, which I think is your point - that people like Uhura aren't going to be these huge celebrities 150 years into the future - but it feels like natural characterisation for people who occupy the exact same place of work as someone like that to want to get into the weeds and get nerdsome about their pioneering forebears. I think it also fits with the way Starfleet operates like a University but with uniforms and weapons of mass destruction, in a sense. But yeah I mean I get how it can feel a lil too close to the whole star wars thing of 'that one bar in tatooine is actually really important', but I think it does work in context. Another important bit of context is that in Lower Decks, supporting characters from across the punchline being treated like heroes of legend is a real regular punchline (which is funny most of the time tbh). So you kind of have to view this episode as Lower Decks energy being injected into Strange New World.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:59
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Tom Tucker posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxn6U3lt6ZQ Is it me or is the narrator supposed to feel like the old "Starrrr Trek: Thenextgeneration" guy?
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Jul 25, 2023 15:22
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Considering how many people still talk about Sully I think something as famous as the flagship that saved the galaxy 100x over, every single member would be a super celebrity.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:26
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nine-gear crow posted:I legitimately think the only way we're ever gonna see Prodigy Season 2 is if some disgruntled current or former Paramount employee just leaks it all online once post-production is finished or nearly finished. I'd love to see mulgrew go to the bat for this show. It was so good :-(
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Jul 25, 2023 15:42
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Kazy posted:Is it me or is the narrator supposed to feel like the old "Starrrr Trek: Thenextgeneration" guy? Apparently so, according to the producer on twitter. (It's lower decks, if it could be a reference it probably is)
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Jul 25, 2023 15:50
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The Grumbles posted:Obviously this episode being a crossover one is going to be more chock full of the kinds of things you were griping about (every Star Trek episode to cross over between timelines/franchises has indulged in this way, besides maybe that one where Picard is having a drink with Scotty and is all 'actually I don't care about the Enterprise like you do because my cool swashbuckling career was on the Stargazer'). So I understand that it's a lot more in your face in an episode like this where the entire premise is to indulge in the franchise. Even super serious Sisko geeked out on the chance to meet Kirk, and all the temporal dudes were like "yeah fair play, i'd have done the same".
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Jul 25, 2023 16:01
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MikeJF posted:Apparently so, according to the producer on twitter.  
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Jul 25, 2023 16:02
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Hey badgie's getting main cast credits in that poster!
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Jul 25, 2023 16:13
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Looking at the ADG submission booklet, I'm just kinda now realising that the secondary hull of the SNWPrise is practically just a big hollow tube split up into three spaces, with maybe a few extra rooms on the side. (I've been out of this thread a lot for SNW so I may have missed this coming up already) It's just engineering in the front half:  Shuttlebay taking up most of everything behind engineering:  and the giant (and extremely storage-space-inefficient) cargo hold taking up all the space under the shuttlebay:   (I think a lot of that's in part because the Matter wall doesn't really work if you have low roof in your AR space, it needs massive vertical clearance above you.)
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Jul 25, 2023 16:25
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Also before I realised the engineering space faces forward I figured the big AR plasma thingies on the side of engineering were setting up the warp plasma to shoot up the pylons but now they're actively in the opposite direction so I have no idea what they're doing. The intermix is the warp reactor and that's just right there on the physical set.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:27
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That's neat. One of my problems with Star Trek ships has always been that the whole thing is pressurized crew space, when most of it should be machinery and storage.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:30
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Grand Fromage posted:That's neat. One of my problems with Star Trek ships has always been that the whole thing is pressurized crew space, when most of it should be machinery and storage. Well this doesn't really solve it. Makes it kinda worse by being largely all empty space. That cargo bay really needs a redesign. And I have to wonder if there's a reason that engineering needs such a large open space that could be filled with stuff. It doesn't seem like the gap gets used for access. Although what you said was one thing I really liked about the original galaxy-class blueprints, they largely depicted the saucer section as being mainly a crust of habitable space at the edges a few rooms deep and then most of the inside just huge swathes of tankage and bays and large areas. (The later Sternbach ones cut back on that a little because they were trying to align with the way the show mostly just showed small spaces)  (they mean 'mall' in the classical sense of a long covered communal area you can stroll down) MikeJF fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 16:38
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Grand Fromage posted:That's neat. One of my problems with Star Trek ships has always been that the whole thing is pressurized crew space, when most of it should be machinery and storage. I disagree. I think most of the space should be pressurized turbolift shaft.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:43
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Trek fans demand more shaft
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Jul 25, 2023 16:47
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socialsecurity posted:Considering how many people still talk about Sully I think something as famous as the flagship that saved the galaxy 100x over, every single member would be a super celebrity. i feel like sitcoms invented Sully wholesale at some point in the early 00s or something and just kept spreading it around like a meme until it became true. you would never hear him mentioned in real life and if you did you would assume they're talking about Monsters Inc.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:50
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SpartanIvy posted:I disagree. I think most of the space should be pressurized turbolift shaft. God every time I go back to look it's dumber than i remember, I keep blanking out how bad it was https://i.imgur.com/D59eMY1.mp4
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Jul 25, 2023 16:52
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MikeJF posted:God every time I go back to look it's dumber than i remember, I keep blanking out how bad it was Thinking back to the poster here who worked on that scene, and the producers giving them pushback when they brought up the interior there makes absolutely zero sense.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:02
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Grand Fromage posted:That's neat. One of my problems with Star Trek ships has always been that the whole thing is pressurized crew space, when most of it should be machinery and storage. It's definitely a general SF thing in addition. Thinking about all the starship maps in TTRPGs where the entire ship is walkable open space I've always thought of the saucer as the place with all the people for the most part, with the secondary hull largely being the warp core and plasma conduits and all the other knickknacks one needs to make ship go (plus the deflector machinery too). That SNW map would be perfect if the engineering and cargo bay sets weren't so huge and taking up most of the volume.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:05
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MikeJF posted:God every time I go back to look it's dumber than i remember, I keep blanking out how bad it was Did they ever try to justify this or explain how the gently caress it makes any sense?
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Jul 25, 2023 17:08
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Nope! The Memory Alpha for that episode has gone 'gently caress it we're just gonna assume the ship's bigger on the inside now despite it never being mentioned elsewhere in Disco'.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:12
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MikeJF posted:God every time I go back to look it's dumber than i remember, I keep blanking out how bad it was what the hell is this? lol
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Jul 25, 2023 17:18
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MikeJF posted:Nope! Wait, I stopped watching Disco after like S1 or S2 but I assumed this was bullshit future tech from the time they went into the future (and still thought it was stupid that they'd have a transdimensional turbolift)
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Jul 25, 2023 17:19
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Wait is the turbolift replicating the rail guide things in front of it as it moves along? How is this worse than I remember.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:19
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Who did she ogle?
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Jul 25, 2023 17:24
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Kazy posted:Wait, I stopped watching Disco after like S1 or S2 but I assumed this was bullshit future tech from the time they went into the future (and still thought it was stupid that they'd have a transdimensional turbolift) That gif is in the future, but the size of the space wasn't meant to be because of crazy future tech, it was just meant to be the standard turboshaft/rollercoaster like in TOS-era discovery season 1 and 2 https://i.imgur.com/7IFPMhm.mp4 except with the rails replaced by programmable matter that I guess travels with the cab and poofs into existence as it goes? but apparently they really wanted it to look fast so they were like FASTER FASTER and as it got faster they needed to make it bigger and pull back and have more space and then that made it look slower so they made them make it faster which made them make it bigger and etc until we ended up with that ridiculous scene MikeJF fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 17:24
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MikeJF posted:God every time I go back to look it's dumber than i remember, I keep blanking out how bad it was No it's true, the ships are made of tron
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Jul 25, 2023 17:24
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