Well we only saw a handful of Klingons in TOS, really. Not nearly enough to conclude we had seen all there was to see of the Empire, but that was nonetheless the assumption of fans then and now.
Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?
- Thread starter Annorax849
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Problem with Discovery is that they positioned themselves before a known quantity and chose to screw it up.
Changing the look isn't screwing up.
And sometimes it means making things better.
The Klingons just don't fit. However all that aside for a minute was it worth it? When I think to those first few episodes of Discovery the Klingons have been heavy going. Their whole presentation and the writing of them has been a drag. Those blessed, tiresome subtitles were enough to drive the sanest fan up the wall.
I agree that the prolonged subtitling was a bad idea. It would have been fun for a few minutes and then switch to "dubbed" in English but this was just torture.
I didn't care for the changes but I didn't find them drastic enough to demand an explanation. They're more like what we've seen in Berman era than TOS, but whatevs.
Ultimately I didn't care for the Klingon war arc and was relieved that it was put to an end at the end of the season.
Ultimately I didn't care for the Klingon war arc and was relieved that it was put to an end at the end of the season.
Then I must be a crazy fan
Here's the thing though: I'd rather they take the risk and do something new. Klingons don't fit? Yeah, seen that since FASA RPGs, comics and TMP. I at least feel like this is an ancient civilization rather than a single species with only one style.
This. Somehow the 8 or so episodes featuring Klingons meant we had seen every facet of the Empire.
Same reason they "simply aren't used" in anything but two episodes of Deep Space Nine. They never explained it there either. You can assume they all broke down or you can assume they only use them off screen or you can assume those weird tri-screen displays are holograms or literally whatever cuz this happens all the time in Star Trek.
Apparently I'm the only one of the two of us who knows what that concept actually means.
Hardly. But then, the producer's choice of sound effects in a radio show is about as relevant as their choice of visuals in a television show. I realize you struggle with analogies, but here's another one: if somebody was doing a radio show that was supposed to be in the same fictional setting as the Panicked America broadcast, he probably wouldn't use the same sound effects that Orson Wells used in 1938.
This would not, in fact, pose much of a problem, as it is not the SOUND EFFECTS -- nor even Orson Wells' voice specifically -- that makes the 1938 broadcast truly distinct. Because the visual, audio and acting performances are all a medium for telling a story, and the followon story only needs to be consistent with its predecessor in terms of its core narrative.
This is, after all, why Paramount (and now CBS) have said for years and years that Star Trek novels aren't canon. It's not because the novels describe the visuals or the characters incorrectly (although some of them do), it's because the producers have the show have no intention of maintaining narrative consistency with the novels. Interestingly, the producers of Star Wars took a rather different approach and considered the novels to be canon, assuming that future products WOULD try to remain consistent with the work of Star Wars licensed writers. When Disney took over production, they declared the original novel stories no longer canon, for precisely the same reason: the new films and TV shows would NOT attempt to maintain narrative consistency with those stories.
And Star Wars -- even through the novelverse -- is the most visually consistent scifi property in the western world. It's the ultimate example of a phenomenon you are claiming doesn't exist: that narrative consistency trumps all other considerations, and that visual consistency, while undoubtedly nice to have, is a distant second.
Exactly. Significant changes to the Klingons, their technology and their ships with no narrative justification. Same problem as before.
In which case you are well aware that there is a SHITLOAD of discontinuity to be reconciled. You have also encountered situations where a flashback, or even a "retelling" of an old issue recreates a previous story using more contemporary artwork. Spiderman has a few particularly grievous examples in multiple revisits of the Green Goblin story arc, partially because it's been told like a dozen times in a dozen different mediums, but also because it's been revisited in dreams, flashbacks, "What If" scenarios and the like, with the Green Goblin's costume and glider often being modified -- sometimes drastically -- by whoever is doing the artwork.
Put another way: How do we know "The Amazing Spiderman" isn't a sequel to "Spiderman 3?" For that matter, how do we know "Spiderman Homecoming" isn't a sequel to "The Amazing Spiderman?" It actually has nothing to do with the costumes, the actors or the setting (the latter of which is fairly consistent across all installments). It's because all of these versions have contradictory NARRATIVES: they're not stories that follow each other, they're stories that attempt to describe approximately the same period in Peter Parker's life, but in drastically different ways. Much the same way the upcoming "Venom" movie is not going to be a sequel to Spiderman 3.
On the other hand, Star Trek Discovery could easily have aped TOS in every possible way; if they faithfully copied the props, uniforms, makeup and set designs. And yet, if Discovery showed us an episode where, say, Vulcan was destroyed by a planet killer and the entire fleet had to rally around the Enterprise to prevent it from destroying Earth, there would be no doubt whatsoever that Discovery isn't in the same timeline as TOS. The visuals don't mean JACK SHIT in that case, because the narrative progression simply cannot be reconciled.
You are once again trying to push a subjective point of view as if it was a universal concept. You DON'T LIKE the way things look, that's fine. But you're not in a position to argue that the things you don't like about it are of paramount importance to the integrity of the product, anymore than you could plausibly that Discovery's background music is unforgivably un-treklike (to be honest, you'd be on far sturdier ground in that case).
The reason is obvious: they couldn't afford to show regular use of holograms on a 1968 TV budget.
Writers don't do makeup design.
Your theory doesn't explain why we couldn't make these different casting choices, though. You insist that story is paramount and that visual presentation simply does not matter. If that is true, then why would it matter if I cast Lawrence Fishburn as Burnham or as Mirror Georgiou? His appearance on screen is just presentation, afterall.
I'm perfectly sane and I prefer Klingons speaking Klingon with English subtitles.
Because the story would have to be written to be in some way consistent with the actual presentation. It doesn't make sense to have Georgiou played by Michelle Yeoh and Mirror Georgiou played by Tyler Perry in drag and then have Sarek say "The resemblance is remarkable!" That would be weird and confusing.
It's jarring enough when they recast actors with vastly different ages to play the same character. It's even harder to get away with casting someone in their mid 30s to play high school students. TV and film producers do this on a shockingly regular basis, but nobody COMMENTS on it because it's not part of the narrative and the audience just rolls their eyes with a collective "Yeah, right. Whatever."
Yeah there's a huge difference between internal show consistency and cross-show consistency. I want a series to be consistent with itself. Outside that, meh.
Exactly.
Exactly WHAT? Georgiou doesn't have to be played by Michelle Yeoh in every future incarnation of Star Trek. Just in the episodes where where her mirror universe counterpart obviously looks exactly the same as she does. Hell, they could probably get away with someone who looks SIMILAR to her if Michelle Yeoh refused to reprise the role; that would be sub-optimal, but hardly unprecedented:
This point becomes especially relevant when you consider that Jeffrey Hunter and Leonard Nimoy are most decidedly NOT available to reprise their roles as Christopher Pike and Spock in Discovery's second season. This will not even be the FIRST time those roles have been recast.
So long as the presentation is at least consistent with itself, the audience can follow the story. As long as Michal Burnham isn't being (noticeably) played by five different actresses in any given scene, it works out pretty well.
I'm always amused by the idea that Nero's appearance is supposed to be the reason why everything is different in the Kelvinverse and that alone apparently makes fans rest easy at night.
"Of course Christopher Pike is suddenly 20 years older than he should be, it was because of Nero's appearance!"
"Of course Christopher Pike is suddenly 20 years older than he should be, it was because of Nero's appearance!"
I don't understand your position - you just spent pages and pages arguing that visuals are mere presentation and their consistency is irrelevant. Now you are claiming that visuals are significant and that their consistency is relevant, which is what I have been arguing (and that's why I said "exactly").
I said it above but I'll say it again. There's a difference between internal show consistency and cross-show consistency.
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