Discovery and "The Orville" Comparisons

[F. King Daniel]

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Kelvin Timeline all but confirmed

 

[Jedi_Master]

Can I please avoid the return of beige?

Beige is amazing, as is gentle, soft, somehow completely even lighting.

 

[fireproof78]

Beige is amazing, as is gentle, soft, somehow completely even lighting.

Not when its every where.

 

[Mudd]

Tng is very much a descendant of the cleaner areas of things like Aliens Nostromo, and that style is very much coming back in across the genre.

No.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

Can I please avoid the return of beige?

I worked for a face paint company that had a colour called "Barely Beige"...

 

[queerTrekker]

Raise your glasses to whoever actually came up with this line.

I think its Stephen King related.

 

[queerTrekker]

Teddy fricking ruxpin. I didn't know if I wanted one or was afraid of it.

its fun putting a cassette tape of death metal in one of those.

 

[fireproof78]

I worked for a face paint company that had a colour called "Barely Beige"...

Could, because I can barely stand it...

I'll show myself out.

 

[queerTrekker]

One is streaming online, so no scheduling conflicts, unless in Canada.

Being in Canada, I will likely favor the online uploads of the less official variety to deal with scheduling conflicts, or live streaming.

 

[queerTrekker]

I have spent some (too much) time reading through reactions to the Discovery trailer, and I have noticed more than a few reactions that are, in essence "I am really looking forward to The Orville, I'm not all that excited about ST: Discovery."

As these thoughts are coming from people who are ostensibly Star Trek fans, I have found their reaction worth speculating about, and here's the heart of what I think is motivating them: The Orville looks and feels like TNG.

Although many of those who complain about the look and feel of the Kelvin - era films express a desire to see a return to the aesthetics of The Original Series, most of them grew up watching the Berman era Trek series - TNG, DS9, VOY. Those series had a very distinctive and repetitive look and lighting. TNG in particular had flat, almost even lighting in virtually every interior shot, a sort of bland uniform with little variation, and a particular design aesthetic (curves, soft angles, sweeping angles, pastels/creams) that wasn't varied much. DS9 made some changes (varied lighting levels, more angular designs) but most of the onboard ship shots were very close to either the "somber/serious" lighting levels or the "regular" lighting levels pioneered by TNG. Voyager maintained a similar lighting structure as DS9 and TNG, and didn't vary much on the design cues set by both series.

That look and design aesthetic is VERY familiar to a certain age bracket of Trek fans, and without fully realizing it, that the is the "real Trek" they want and when they don't get it, it bugs them.
The Orville looks like it took almost every single TNG cue and expanded on it - the lighting, the costumes, the alien makeup, everything is a homage to TNG.

ST: Discovery, on the other hand, really seems to take most of it's cues from ENT and the Kelvin era films.

So at the heart of this whole issue is that Seth has made a show that triggers the happy nostalgia button in most folks close to my age (mid -30's) and that warm fuzzy feeling is what is making them choose a spoof comedy over actual Star Trek.

To weigh in on the whole The Orville vs. DSC issue.

Other then the fact that Orville is parodying Star Trek Franchise and that McFarlene is a fan, these are two distinctly different shows. Both have distinctly different styles, different genre's and different narrative formats. They should be taken equally on their own merit as they are two different and distinct things. its hard to equally compare two things when one is drama-esque and the other is comedy.

 

[Noname Given]

The Orville absolutely boasts both superior production quality and story writing compared to what we have seen so far from Star Trek: Discovery. Hopefully it will be the Galaxy Quest TV series of our generation.

Hahahahahahahahaha!...oh, wait, you're serious??!!

And yes, TNG aesthetic is pretty damn good, and in fashion.

^^^
No, it isn't...it just isn't. It always reminded me of The Love Boat lounge set.

 

[jaime]

Would you mind providing some photographic evidence? Apparently, I don't watch a lot of "current SF space operas" and I'm not entirely certain what you mean. I didn't feel a huge TNG influence from either Passengers or Alien: Covenant.

Firstly, TNG itself is heavily influenced by the original alien....beige, cushioned surfaces etc. You can also see it's influence in things like Dark Matter and in a different way Killjoys, especially when looking at the various luxury surroundings on various 'planet of the week' settings. In terms of the enterprise itself....the inside of the Raza, with the exception of its bridge, is like a grunge version of the enterprises interior, with a liberal dose of tiger surface texture. This was especially true in season one....where combined with the technobabble, it was very much a descendant of tng era Trek.
I can't comment on movies...I am usually a year or so behind, so haven't seen either of those yet. Though the ship in passengers looked in the trailer even more like a hotel in space than the enterprise did.

 

[jaime]

No.

Am gonna guess you don't follow design much.

 

[jaime]

Ginger not tiger. And the JavaScript bug means editing posts just crashes my browser.

 

[jaime]

And logs me out,

 

[Mudd]

Am gonna guess you don't follow design much.

You would be mistaken.

Looking at two things and connecting them by "beige and padded!" does not suggest any notable power of observation regarding design. The aesthetics of the Alien movies and TNG are completely different; having made the initial mistake of trying to justify a claim about the fashion resurgence of TNG's designs by scattershot references to other films, it's also a mistake to keep digging in as you have.

 

[Jesse1066]

The beige padded look was very common in the 1970's. I think it originated in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it may have been around even earlier.

 

[Campe]

Okay, since you won't post pictures to prove your point, I'll post pics to disprove them.

Firstly, TNG itself is heavily influenced by the original alien....beige, cushioned surfaces etc.

First, let's see a few TNG pics...

To discuss cushioned sets, go back past Alien to 2001 (as @Jesse1066 beat me to the reference...)

There also seems to be quite a bit of beige there.

Meanwhile, Alien (in the living quarters particularly, which is what I assume you're talking about) seems to have more of a white/off-white color scheme to it as opposed to the beige of TNG...

You can also see it's influence in things like Dark Matter and in a different way Killjoys, especially when looking at the various luxury surroundings on various 'planet of the week' settings. In terms of the enterprise itself....the inside of the Raza, with the exception of its bridge, is like a grunge version of the enterprises interior, with a liberal dose of tiger surface texture. This was especially true in season one....where combined with the technobabble, it was very much a descendant of tng era Trek.

The only thing I can remotely see from Dark Matter that looks similar to TNG is the corridor as presented here:

But, really, while I can see that, it actually harkens back to the design as first put out in TMP:

However, I can see some influence in Klingon design as well on this ship. But again, that goes all the way back to TMP...

I can't comment on movies...I am usually a year or so behind, so haven't seen either of those yet. Though the ship in passengers looked in the trailer even more like a hotel in space than the enterprise did.

That was kind of the point of Passengers, but I'll let you see it yourself.

Edit: Working to shrink some images. Sorry about that.
Edit #2: And done. Let me know if they need to be even smaller.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The forced perspective fail is strong in this one. /sidebar