The Problems with Prequels...

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

No honestly @Chemahkuu - if you seriously think you can judge Rogue One - or any movie - without watching it - or that some shiny trailer means anything in this era (every big release has a well edited trailer) - I am the one who should really be laughing - except I won't because I would take no pleasure in Rogue One turning out bad.

This is called the 'Golden Age of TV', an era in which most critics agree that long-form drama has surpassed cinema as a medium - an era in which A-list actors like Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hardy now seek TV roles instead of film, because they actually get to act a deep character for a long arc. As we have mentioned elsewhere, this is not accepted by everyone to be a great era of TV (I'm more a fan of the 1990s and early 2000s) - but one thing that is indisputable is this - a lot of TV drama these days has extreme quality production - and they excel at the characterization/acting side of things - you need only look at Peaky Blinders or Fargo any number of other shows right now, to see something that is Hollywood-quality. Meanwhile major film franchises, such as DC Comics, are continually mismanaged, producing tripe.

You throw enough money at Rogue One, and hire some half competent writers, I'm sure it will be entertaining to sit through. But will it be The Force Awakens? Or will it be Batman vs Superman? That remains to be seen. The post-George Lucas Star Wars universe has one hit so far - but has not yet been tested the way Marvel has.

Will Rogue One be a Batman vs Superman spectacle with no heart, that people watch once, or a genuinely timeless addition to Star Wars? Will Star Trek: Discovery be the next Stargate Universe - a show with acting and production design, but not that entertaining - or will it be something that utterly transforms our critical standards of what Star Trek can be?

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

You throw enough money at Rogue One, and hire some half competent writers, I'm sure it will be entertaining to sit through. But will it be The Force Awakens?

You mean a blatant scene-by-scene remake of Episode IV? I don't know, but it is a prequel of it.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

There is a lot of difference between a remake and a homage - The Force Awakens was consciously the latter - and the reason it was so close in themes, was because they needed to re-establish the fundamentals of Star Wars for a new generation, before moving on. The reputation of the franchise had been damaged. I liked it a lot, and felt that it had a lot of heart, just a simple joy - not all art has to be more than entertainment, although I think The Force Awakens had more than that anyway - and I'm looking forward to some real change in the next one.

But we don't need to go over these internet debates here. The broader point I was trying to make to Chemakhuu is that Discovery might be the Wrath of Khan, and Rogue One might be Star Trek Nemesis, for all we know - yet he suggested that DSC wouldn't be "half as good" - I was literally shocked and mind-boggled by that - because in a race between two unproven teams of writers and directors, anything could happen - surely he isn't suggesting spending is all that matters?

 

[locutus101]

I notice that in each series the captain meets with godlike creatures at one point or another. Kirk met with quite a few of them, including one of his own crew. Picard's main god was Q. Sisko's were the prophets and the pah wraiths. Janeway borrowed Q from Picard and Archer got the Organians (at an early stage of their development).

I wonder if the captain of the Discovery will meet gods too and what those will be.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

This thread is starting to become one of those internet quagmires, in which people debate increasingly subjective minutia in an attempt to win people over to their way of thinking. We are using less and less apt metaphors and comparisons with other films to try to make more and more esoteric points. But actually, I don't want to make esoteric points. The debate surrounding Discovery - that we should wait for it - that people are leaping to hasty conclusions - has gone from healthy optimism and constructive attitudes, to arguments over whether an unreleased TV drama can be as good as an unreleased motion picture drama.

Since critical appraisal of entertainment/art is mostly/entirely subjective to begin with, it's pointless even saying anything, if someone is already convinced of something like that. Just enjoy it, or don't - I can't wait for January.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

Don't you think that with all prequels proposed by Star Trek franchise, in movies and TV, the major risk would be to tire the public, which is going eventually get lost in this maze of previous?!

On TV, we tended to move forward in the time with Kirk/TOS (around 2260-2270), then TNG/Picard (around 2350) , then DS9/Sisko (around 2360) then Voyager/Janeway (around 2370). And for I do not know which reason, there was a big jump in the past with Entreprise/Archer (between 2150 and 2160), whose the action is previous to TOS -> the fans seemed not to stick to the last Breman/Braga's series and Entreprise was stopped after 4 seasons, besides).
And now, we have Fuller who wants to propose a new prequel, which is supposed to happen between Entreprise and TOS...

=> More we move forward in time, more the franchise moves back. Would the next ST series cover 2000s?!

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

But the Xindi for example were much more than a species mentioned in passing, they were responsible for the murder of seven million people and very nearly wiped out humankind altogether! It's not something that you can just sweep under the rug and never talk about it ever again.

All these events are one among many. The Xindi incident is unique. From the time of Cochrane till the time of Nemesis there never have been that many people killed all at once on Earth, never. Not to mention humankind being nearly extinct if not for Archer's intervention on the Xindi weapon.

I mean the Americans are still talking about the 9/11 massacre and yet it was three thousand people not seven million. Why? Because, it was the biggest mass murder on American soil for a very long time. When something is unique, you remember it. The Xindi incident is unique.

It has only been 15 years since 9/11 and it already comes up in conversation less frequently than it used to. And the conflicts that led to it, and those it in turn led to, are currently still going on! How often will it be mentioned a century from now? Two centuries? Three?

There are many ways to look at the Xindi thing...

I don't at all mean to trivialize the deaths of seven million people, but remember that six hundred million died on Earth in WWIII.

It turned out that the Xindi were manipulated into attacking Earth by those perpetrating the Temporal Cold War (they were told humanity would destroy their homeworld) and they ultimately became our allies and eventually joined the Federation. That couldn't have happened if we weren't prepared to forgive and move on instead of dwelling on it and re-opening the wound. Of course, as we saw in the latest film, there were those who held a grudge with whom this did not sit well, but this was not the prevailing view that persisted in the century that followed.

Further, Leyton's reference in "Homefront" (DS9) to "the kind of war Earth hasn't seen since the founding of the Federation" could readily be taken to include the Xindi attack. Although there was no ground invasion, the Xindi didn't distinguish between military and civilian targets or observe our conventions of war in attacking Earth, which was the specific point of comparison Leyton made to the prospect of a Jem'Hadar landing. I'm not sure what you view as being other appropriate times when it should have come up and didn't. But really, there's no reason why we should think nobody ever talked about it just because it didn't happen onscreen. Again, the characters we observe on the shows are only a handful out of billions, and we aren't even with them every moment of their lives. We can't even truly say that they never mentioned it, let alone that no one did.

Anyway, with respect to DSC we already know that it has a basis in an event that has been mentioned before, so it's not even something you need to worry about in this case.

 

[locutus101]

It has only been 15 years since 9/11 and it already comes up in conversation less frequently than it used to. And the conflicts that led to it, and those it in turn led to, are currently still going on! How often will it be mentioned a century from now? Two centuries?

There are many ways to look at the Xindi thing...

I don't at all mean to trivialize the deaths of seven million people, but remember that six hundred million died on Earth in WWIII.

It turned out that the Xindi were manipulated into attacking Earth by those perpetrating the Temporal Cold War (they were told humanity would destroy their homeworld) and they ultimately became our allies and eventually joined the Federation. That couldn't have happened if we weren't prepared to forgive and move on instead of dwelling on it and re-opening the wound. Of course, as we saw in the latest film, there were those who held a grudge with whom this did not sit well, but this was not the prevailing view that persisted in the century that followed.

Further, Leyton's reference in "Homefront" (DS9) to "the kind of war Earth hasn't seen since the founding of the Federation" could readily be taken to include the Xindi attack. Although there was no ground invasion, the Xindi didn't distinguish between military and civilian targets or observe our conventions of war in attacking Earth, which was the specific point of comparison Leyton made to the prospect of a Jem'Hadar landing. I'm not sure what you view as being other appropriate times when it should have come up and didn't. But really, there's no reason why we should think nobody ever talked about it just because it didn't happen onscreen. Again, the characters we observe on the shows are only a handful out of billions, and we aren't even with them every moment of their lives. We can't even truly say that they never mentioned it, let alone that no one did.

Anyway, with respect to DSC we already know that it has a basis in an event that has been mentioned before, so it's not even something you need to worry about in this case.

And Yet Jaresh-Inyo said: "I'dhate to be the president that destroyed paradise." and what he was referring to were a few measures of control. If Earth is such a paradise that two dozen of deaths are considered nearly unthinkable that means that even the murder of one person is something difficult to imagine. Seven million of dead, even if it was two centuries before must seem horrifying and therefore very memorable, much more than it would be to us who are used to learn of people being massacred on a large scale.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Don't you think that with all prequels proposed by Star Trek franchise, in movies and TV, the major risk would be to tire the public, which is going eventually get lost in this maze of previous?!
On TV, we tended to move forward in the time with Kirk/TOS (around 2260-2270), then TNG/Picard (around 2350) , then DS9/Sisko (around 2360) then Voyager/Janeway (around 2370). And for I do not know which reason, there was a big jump in the past with Entreprise/Archer (between 2150 and 2160), whose the action is previous to TOS -> the fans seemed not to stick to the last Breman/Braga's series and Entreprise was stopped after 4 seasons, besides).

For some reason fans seem to blame Enterprise's cancellation on the fact that it was a prequel. Let me tell you something. Enterprise didn't last "only four years" because it was a prequel. It was cancelled because it was BAD. Star Trek was on air
continuously for 18 straight years. But the writing and character development was stale. It had become a sci-fi soap opera, where it didn't matter if you had missed a single episode or a whole season, things were still exactly the same. DSC promises to change exactly that.

By the way, Nemesis was a sequel, it moved Star Trek forward into the future, to 2379, I don't remember it being a success, now was it?

 

[locutus101]

For some reason fans seem to blame Enterprise's cancellation on the fact that it was a prequel. Let me tell you something. Enterprise didn't last "only four years" because it was a prequel. It was cancelled because it was BAD. Star Trek was on air
continuously for 18 straight years. But the writing and character development was stale. It had become a sci-fi soap opera, where it didn't matter if you had missed a single episode or a whole season, things were still exactly the same. DSC promises to change exactly that.

By the way, Nemesis was a sequel, it moved Star Trek forward into the future, to 2379, I don't remember it being a success, now was it?

Voyager was very much this way.It took about two minutes to get up to speed when you had missed a couple of seasons.

 

[T'Arwen]

For some reason fans seem to blame Enterprise's cancellation on the fact that it was a prequel. Let me tell you something. Enterprise didn't last "only four years" because it was a prequel. It was cancelled because it was BAD. Star Trek was on air
continuously for 18 straight years. But the writing and character development was stale. It had become a sci-fi soap opera, where it didn't matter if you had missed a single episode or a whole season, things were still exactly the same. DSC promises to change exactly that.

By the way, Nemesis was a sequel, it moved Star Trek forward into the future, to 2379, I don't remember it being a success, now was it?

That changed in season 3. Starting with the Xindi story, you needed to watch a few episodes to know what's going on. Unfortunately, not enough people came back after they made these changes.

Serialized stories can hurt if it's on a normal channel (some people can give up if they miss some episodes) but with streaming, that shouldn't be a problem.

And Yet Jaresh-Inyo said: "I'dhate to be the president that destroyed paradise." and what he was referring to were a few measures of control. If Earth is such a paradise that two dozen of deaths are considered nearly unthinkable that means that even the murder of one person is something difficult to imagine. Seven million of dead, even if it was two centuries before must seem horrifying and therefore very memorable, much more than it would be to us who are used to learn of people being massacred on a large scale.

I thought that the Romulans would overshadow the Xindi, much like the Civil War did to 1812. Have you read the statistics on how little most Americans know about history? Important events and people get swept under the rug all the time. By that logic, Alexander Hamilton disappeared from the timeline before Lin Manuel Miranda got people to talk about him again. He was the architect of America's financial system. That's extremely important but was swept under the rug all these years anyway. What does the tell you?

And even if you're a history buff, it doesn't make for good small talk.

 

[locutus101]

That changed in season 3. Starting with the Xindi story, you needed to watch a few episodes to know what's going on. Unfortunately, not enough people came back after they made these changes.

Serialized stories can hurt if it's on a normal channel (some people can give up if they miss some episodes) but with streaming, that shouldn't be a problem.



I thought that the Romulans would overshadow the Xindi, much like the Civil War did to 1812. Have you read the statistics on how little most Americans know about history? Important events and people get swept under the rug all the time. By that logic, Alexander Hamilton disappeared from the timeline before Lin Manuel Miranda got people to talk about him again.

And even if you're a history buff, it doesn't make for good small talk.

The thing is that we have a lot to remember with all the violence that happens constantly in the world. This world is very far from being a paradise On a peaceful earth. a violent act sticks out like a sore thumb and people will remember it since it's unique. People remember the civil war, don't they?

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

For some reason fans seem to blame Enterprise's cancellation on the fact that it was a prequel. Let me tell you something. Enterprise didn't last "only four years" because it was a prequel. It was cancelled because it was BAD. Star Trek was on air
continuously for 18 straight years. But the writing and character development was stale. It had become a sci-fi soap opera, where it didn't matter if you had missed a single episode or a whole season, things were still exactly the same. DSC promises to change exactly that.
By the way, Nemesis was a sequel, it moved Star Trek forward into the future, to 2379, I don't remember it being a success, now was it?

Voyager was very much this way. It took about two minutes to get up to speed when you had missed a couple of seasons.

Exactly. Voyager, a sequel series, was equally bad at times and mauled by fans for it but people seem to have forgotten that!

That changed in season 3. Starting with the Xindi story, you needed to watch a few episodes to know what's going on. Unfortunately, not enough people came back after they made these changes.

People never came back because by that time they didn't care anymore. They already had suffered two awful seasons of ENT. That's unfortunate because Season 3 was Enterprise's best season. (The only Trek (besides TOS) that I was binge-watching.)

 

[T'Arwen]

The thing is that we have a lot to remember with all the violence that happens constantly in the world. This world is very far from being a paradise On a peaceful earth. a violent act sticks out like a sore thumb and people will remember it since it's unique. People remember the civil war, don't they?

You didn't get the point.

Xindi and War of 1812= skirmish
Civil War= full blown dragged out war.

They're completely different conflicts with different durability in our collective memory.

People never came back because by that time they didn't care anymore. They already had suffered two awful seasons of ENT. That's unfortunate because Season 3 was Enterprise's best season. (The only Trek (besides TOS) that I was binge-watching.)

I was one of those who didn't come back until season 4 because 2 was mostly boring. Thanks to Netflix, I found out I really missed out. While I like season 4, 3 was definitely more consistent.

 

[locutus101]

You didn't get the point.

Xindi and War of 1812= skirmish
Civil War= full blown dragged out war.

They're completely different conflicts.



I was one of those who didn't come back until season 4 because 2 was mostly boring. Thanks to Netflix, I found out I really missed out. While I like season 4, 3 was definitely more consistent.

Seven million dead is not a skirmish not today and definitely not on a peaceful Earth which we currently can't really imagine.

 

[T'Arwen]

Seven million dead is not a skirmish not today and definitely not on a peaceful Earth which we currently can't really imagine.

Compared to the ROMULAN WAR, it is. It wouldn't just kill people on Earth. Some of the dead would be from human colonies, and others would be aliens. In other words, a LOT MORE than seven million.

It's called relativity. The bigger event blows the smaller one out of the water. The Xindi would get overshadowed by Romulans, just like the War of 1812 got overshadowed by the Civil War.

 

[The Wormhole]

If fuller was set on doing a prequel why not just pick up ENT. I'd much rather see the events and build up to the federations founding than a prequel ten years before Kirk. At least you could be epic and do some interesting world building and historical events.

Does it really need to be explained the appeal of telling a new story over revisiting an unpopular show over a decade after it was cancelled because of low viewership?

I am still wondering if Discovery will try to explain previous or later events or will simply do its thing without caring about any of it.

If the writers know their shit, it will do its own thing.

Rogue One is unproven, and has already done some re-shoots - it's directed by the director of Godzilla, a film that met with mixed reviews. It is by no means guaranteed to be a critical success.

Seriously, critical success? No one's worried about that, certainly not the Mouse and his underlings. Rogue One is guaranteed to be a financial success. Hell, the prequels certainly weren't critical successes, but they brought in the money.

That being said, Rogue One looks hella awesome and I know it's going to rock.

Rogue (as I understand) is going to have characters and situations pulled from the SW novels, cartoons, and comic books, which I'm unfamiliar with, This alone will reduce my enjoyment of the movie.

Entirely wrong. Aside from one main character who did appear in the Clone Wars animated series and known cameos by at least three characters from the live action movies, Rogue One features a cast of completely new characters. And while it's true the general storyline of the Death Star's origins has been covered in Star Wars tie-in material before, that all part of the "Expanded Universe" or "Legends Continuity" which Disney nullified in 2014, making this the first time this story has been told in Disney's Star Wars canon. If this movie is the first Star Wars movie someone sees, they will have the same experience watching it as the die-hard Star Wars fans in the audience.

 

[BillJ]

On TV, we tended to move forward in the time...

But we didn't really move forward. We just hit the same structure and storytelling tropes over and over. TV moved forward, Star Trek continued to be stuck in the 60's. Patting itself on its collective back for having a minority and a woman as series leads, when other shows had been doing it for twenty years.

I like what I'm hearing from Fuller, except for going to the Klingon well again. He seems to realize that Star Trek has to evolve.

 

[Degra1]

For some reason fans seem to blame Enterprise's cancellation on the fact that it was a prequel. Let me tell you something. Enterprise didn't last "only four years" because it was a prequel. It was cancelled because it was BAD. Star Trek was on air
continuously for 18 straight years. But the writing and character development was stale. It had become a sci-fi soap opera, where it didn't matter if you had missed a single episode or a whole season, things were still exactly the same. DSC promises to change exactly that.

By the way, Nemesis was a sequel, it moved Star Trek forward into the future, to 2379, I don't remember it being a success, now was it?

Enterprise was mediocre Trek not because it was a prequel or episodic. The problem was weak writing

If you have a talented writing staff like TNG had you can successfully do weekly episodes that were standalone with no arc. TNG did consistently good esp from seasons 3 4 and 5 with episodic storytelling g Ent had weak writing relying in the first two seasons on recycling ideas from earlier Trek which had done those stories before and did them BETTER

And there have been plenty of tv shows that were full on serialized with small episode orders that sucked--post season 1 heroes, caprica, true blood, the strain, under the dome, heroes reborn, prison break, vampire diaries, true detective , once upon a time, fringe to name a few

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm still looking forward to Discovery but this is something I typed up elsewhere one time. So don't read anymore into this than benign poking fun...

How Prequels Work:

Person: "What are you up to these days?"

Me: "Here's what I did back in 1996."

Person: "Yeah, but what are you doing now?"

Me: "Well... um... skipping ahead, here's what I would've done in 2006 if things had gone differently."

Person: "Okay, but... "

Me: "Here's what I actually did in 2006. This is a story I never told you about before."

Person: "But what are you doing now?! In 2016?!"

Me: "Who wants to talk about that?"

Person: "I do!"

Me: "But look! Here's how this thing from 2006 ties into when we first met."