I posted this the other week when the New Enterprise debuted...
The design is an apt distillation of the show's approach to canon and why I find it all frustrating.
I find the whole "sort of canon" approach of the show tiresome. They should just shit or get off the pot. Either go full on reboot or stick to canon properly within the confines of modern abilities. What I mean by that is I do accept that some things would have to be updated. I get that. But there is necessary updating and then there is just playing with shit for the sake of it. This Enterprise looks nice. It's vastly superior to the JJPrise. But the showrunners have made a rod for their own backs by insisting this is prime universe, and in that respect some things just don't fit. Case in point, why go to all the effort to make the ship largely faithful, such as the deflector dish and strobing bussard collectors, but then just randomly add different shaped pylons, impulse engines and fancy extensions near the shuttle bay? It's such an inconsistent approach, like how they go to the effort of designing props like the phasers, with a clear TOS influence that would make sense, and then just shit the bed with the Klingons. The Klingons could be made to work in canon with such little effort. All it would take would be to show different species and have a few hairy Klingons in the background. Job done. Same with The Enterprise. This ship and the level of detail could've been just the way it is and yet retained the original shaped pylons, impulse engines, etc. There is nothing old fashioned looking about them with the updated surface detail and certainly no more out of date than the bussard collectors. The whole thing comes across as little more than "because we can" and I find it all a bit sad given the efforts of the previous Trek spin offs to fit together as seamlessly as possible.
Discovery in so many ways gives with one hand and takes with the other. If they want to piss around with things then they should just be honest and do full reboot on instead of telling those of us who enjoy canon, and the remarkably consistent world the franchise was until now, that this somehow all fits in, when it clearly doesn't.
It's clear to me that effort is being made by the writers to stick to canon and make things fit, but that those responsible for the visual look of the show are more interested in a reboot. It's almost as if there is an internal conflict within the production staff as to what the show should be, prime universe or a loose reboot.
What remains disappointing to me are the changes that are unnecessary. I have heard all the arguments over and over again from the Discovery can do no wrong crowd and I am still not convinced. As some have said over the past few pages, there are simply things that are flat out inconsistent that don't need to be. As I said in the quoted post, while I accept there is an argument for some updating things like the surface detail of the Enterprise, why randomly change the pylons when the original Enterprise design is perfectly fine with just a little bit more surface detail? You don't need to change the pylons for any other reason than doing it for the sake of it.
Same with the Klingons. Redesign them all you like, just include the other Klingons occasionally in the background as other species in the Empire. Job done. It then fits with canon easily. The redesign stays, but those fans who care about continuity have a satisfactory explanation. Same with their ships. Just include one or two Klingon ships that carry a bit of design lineage from previous shows and then you've bought a licence to otherwise introduce completely new designs. But no, instead we get some generic sci-fi abomination directly called a D7. It's so annoying.
Then there are things like the uniforms. They would make sense if they were half way between Enterprise and TOS, but with it in the Cage era why not at least try to make them more of a cross between the two eras, rather than something that is a clear visual contrast with the era (and you just know if we see Enterprise characters they'll likely have a version of them rather than something more Cage like)? Why go to all the trouble to design things like phasers that would make sense continuity wise as direct predecessors of the TOS phaser and then otherwise make pointless and necessary glaring errors elsewhere? At least you can still give a canon explanation for the uniforms right now, but you know once we see an Enterprise officer in one that'll pretty much throw any canon argument out of the window and be another glaring canon violation.
Two things about this whole debate pisses me off. The first is the fact that the showrunners have constantly insisted that its all prime universe and fits canon - and worse still that as the show goes on canon inconsistencies will be ironed out. This is a blatant lie. It's been a lie since they first uttered it and it remains one now and the canon inconsistencies are becoming greater, not less. Like someone said above it feels like a broken promise. I think some of us would be more tolerant if they were just honest about their intentions and then we'd have expectations in line with what we've been told. As much as I am very mixed on the Kelvin films, at least Abrams went to the trouble of providing an in universe explanation that allowed for canon changes and was honest about it so you knew what you were getting going in. With Discovery you are expecting one thing and getting another, which just leads to disappointment and frustration if canon matters to you.
Second element that pisses me off are some of the fans who like the show and don't care about canon or continuity. Why? Because they keep telling those of us that do care about canon and continuity that they don't care and it doesn't matter. Well, if it doesn't bloody matter why to they expend so much energy trying to convince us that it doesn't? Sure, some arguments make sense. You can't have TOS sets complete with dayglo colours and cardboard walls. I get that (although you could have sets that are more TOS influenced so it has some lineage). But it's when they start making arguments to defend unnecessary changes, like the subtle changes to the Enterprise, and the Klingon redesign that gets my goat. If they don't care about continuity and canon why are they even trying to make a case for the changes? But they do anyway. And so we get some of the most ludicrous arguments for unnecessary cock ups like the D7 mess because these people feel it is their personal mission to convince us we are either people who should not like an element of the franchise we should like, or even more offensive, that we are old farts stuck in the past. These people are welcome to not care about canon and continuity. That is their right. But if they were in any way honest they would accept that those of us that do have been let down with some of the decisions made and claims offered by the showrunners.If they don't care about canon then it should not be a big deal with them to acknowledge that. Also, why do they need to make a counter argument for changes? If, again, they say they don't care about continuity, then by default it should not matter to them if a D7 looks a bit more like a Klingon Battle Cruiser and not a mini Imperial Star Destroyer because, ya know, they don't care! If there is no option to change things then I will swallow it. But when changes aren't necessary I really don't need to hear some BS rationalisation for it and I don't need to be spoken to as if I am committing a crime every time I use the words canon or continuity.
The bottom line is that just a little bit of effort here and there from the showrunners to make it all fit together a little bit better doesn't do anybody any harm. It doesn't stop them telling their stories. It doesn't harm those fans who say they don't care and it has the added benefit of making things fit together a little bit better for those of us who value the hard work put in by previous people to work on the franchise to try and make things fit together as much as possible. How can that be anything other then a more preferred scenario?
