Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?
- Thread starter Annorax849
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Do you understand the concept of "burden of proof"? I thought the implications were clear in my previous post, but perhaps not. As you are the one who has made an extraordinary claim (that visual consistency in visual media "almost never happens"), the burden falls on you to provide evidence sufficient to support it. You haven't done that; there is no "mounting evidence" because you haven't mounted any. I don't need to submit any counter-evidence to rebut the assertion; I can merely stand back and let it collapse on its own.
(You have offered a handful of examples of visual inconsistencies. As I noted, we can all stipulate that these exist. That's a far cry from establishing that they represent a norm.)
You continue to use a quixotic definition of the word "connected," and I continue to reject it. Shows don't have to share the same time period to be connected, nor to involve stories that are direct prequels or sequels to other stories (though in fact ENT does do that). It is enough that they are situated in a common setting — a "shared universe," a concept you finally acknowledged as existing despite much tortuous hair-splitting about what it means.
Moreover, your definition of "consistency" is at odds with your definition of "connection." You assert that ENT is visually inconsistent with other Trek series. It's actually not (setting aside some quibbles about the NX-01 featuring anachronistic 24th-century design motifs). It looks different in many ways, but those differences are accounted for in-story precisely by the nature of its connection to other stories, which has it separated by decades of story time; when it incorporates elements from a later time period (as in "IAMD"), it is completely consistent with their previous depictions. But if it were inconsistent, how could that term have any meaning if there were no "connection" to prompt expectations of consistency in the first place?
That remark was a response to Makeshift Python, not to you. The post that followed specifically responded to his argumentative fallacies, which were most certainly present. If you want me to quote and itemize them, I can do that, but I'm not sure why you care. If you imagined that I was responding to something you wrote, you were reading very carelessly.
I literally have no idea what you're trying to say here, nor how it relates to your overall argument. For the record, I tried to launch a discussion into what you meant when you used the word "believability," and offered my understanding of the term, but you never responded to those remarks.
As for the impossibility of believing contradictory things... I'm not the one who's arguing that it's possible for audiences to "pretend" that plainly contradictory visuals (ship designs, Klingons, etc.) "actually" looked different from what they saw on screen (and can continue to see today with the click of a mouse). You are. If you're willing to stipulate what you say, then you're contradicting yourself.
No, it's not. No matter how often you assert it without evidence. "The least you can get away with" is exemplified by Lost in Space or Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers or Blake's 7 or the first decade of Doctor Who. I submit that most genre television, certainly including Star Trek, not to mention Babylon 5 and (modern) Doctor Who and countless "prestige" series, aspires to and usually meets a much higher standard. If you disagree, then you're the one making the counter-intuitive claim (indeed an even bolder one now, with "no [show] in history"!), and the burden of proof falls on you.
You're not just moving the goalposts here, you're trying to change the whole game. Examples like these are matter of narrative conventions, genre conceits, and even the literal foundational premises of specific fictional properties. You might as well have cited FTL propulsion or time travel. If you reject those, you don't read or watch the thing at all, in the first place. That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about inconsistencies within a fictional reality, things that defy a level of suspension of disbelief that has already been established.
There is no "same way," as the preceding paragraph has literally zero relation to how audiences process visuals, but for what it's worth, the rest of this paragraph is outrageously counter-intuitive. Perhaps you find a wholesale makeover of the Klingons or a change in what the TOS-era Enterprise has looked like for 50+ years to be negligible, yet somehow find it hard to swallow a change in actress for a secondary character or tiny differences in a shooting model, things that even most attentive viewers literally don't notice. But if so, your viewing sensibility is very much an outlier. And, frankly, lacking in any sense of proportionality.
This is ironic, because I haven't done the slightest bit of special pleading. All I've said (in a nutshell) is that audiences base their expectations as much on what they see on screen as on what's said, that internal references between stories establish a shared setting that entails its own expectations of internal consistency, and that statements from writers and producers prompt expectations as well. You're the one who's saying SF shows are never internally consistent, so we shouldn't hold them to a reasonable standard of consistency. You're the one who's saying that visuals are somehow not part of fictional worldbuilding and therefore somehow easier to disregard than narrative events. You're the one who's now saying (and contradicting yourself in the process!) that tiny visual inconsistencies are more bothersome than obvious and glaring ones, and that unavoidable visual changes are more bothersome than willful ones. All the special pleading is on your part.
(Perhaps this is another case where you have your own iconoclastic definition of a term? FWIW, "special pleading" is when you apply normative standards or criteria only to others, while exempting yourself from the same scrutiny, without providing justification. IOW, what you've been doing throughout this entire argument.)
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You know what?
All those years later. I still HATE this. It's the ONE truly awful thing from a production standpoint I hate in the TOS movies the most. The revamp in TMP? Is truly unlikely, but they at least adressed it in-universe on-screen. The new Earth spacedock in STIII? Well, they just didn't show it before. The new Enterprise bridge between ST:IV and ST:V? Annoying but nothing severe, since they only showed it for a few seconds. But this? I still hate it. I can see why the did it. But I still think it should have been handled vastly different. It breaks my personal suspension of disbelief.
Coincidentally? I am a person that hates the DIS-redesign of the klingons with a passion, and hope they just do away with it in the future, to be forever forgotten and never mentioned again. To be replaced with "real" klingons for all later appereances. The same way we forget about this, up until we get annoyed by it again when we rewatch it/stumble upon it on the Internet.
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I guess the Vulcans - being OCD freaks and sticklers for uniformity - wanted to retrofit the bridge of the Bird-of-Prey to look like others they'd seen. Three months on Vulcan with technicians going over your ship with every tool available could result in that look and layout. "Let's make it look more like the bridge of the Enterprise that they were used to."
Okay, I don't buy that, either.
Okay, I don't buy that, either.
This. At this point in time, DISCO isn't going to do anything to change minds about this topic in either direction and neither are long, meandering, verbose, posts.
I can buy that as the bridge for a Romulan ship, though. There are lots of stories about the Klingon Bird-of-Prey originally being a Romulan ship and that Nimoy later changed it to Klingon for the purposes of the script. The colors of the bridge and the circular layout of the crew stations do seem more Romulan than they do Klingon.
Right? This is a sci-fi television show we're talking about here, not a religion.
If only I had a dollar for every time Trek goofed. Seriously think about all the times whether it be in production, casting, writing, whatever category's you can think of where they did something you didn't think was the right path. How many times... Tens? Hundreds? Thousands of times? What did you do? You either got angry and quit or got over it and moved on.
There was once a time I actually thought the owners should keep track of every Trek fact in some sort of ledger that would be referenced before creating new Trek just to insure perfection.
Yeah, I had it bad. It took a while for me to grow out of that silly stage. It took understanding that Star Trek is a business, it needs to make money to survive and excessive pandering to fans such as I desired would only eat into its profits.
Now sure, would it have been so hard for them to give Klingon's hair or fix whatever else doesn't make the grade... probably not, but remember Discovery experienced upheaval mid stream.
Who knows how much money was lost from those problems I don't know but I do know that Company's usually shit bricks over any lost revenue so to expect them to throw more money down the shitter correcting course after the fact just to appease fans is unreasonable.
Isn't it possible it is a miracle the show survived it all? What if Netfilx had not been throwing cash at them, could that have caused the ax to fall altogether? Maybe rather than counting continuity gaffs we should be counting our blessings for getting the show at all.
It is not uncommon for series to improve with time, perhaps corrections to issues they could not initially afford after the break up with Fuller will be phased in over time.
There was once a time I actually thought the owners should keep track of every Trek fact in some sort of ledger that would be referenced before creating new Trek just to insure perfection.
Yeah, I had it bad. It took a while for me to grow out of that silly stage. It took understanding that Star Trek is a business, it needs to make money to survive and excessive pandering to fans such as I desired would only eat into its profits.
Now sure, would it have been so hard for them to give Klingon's hair or fix whatever else doesn't make the grade... probably not, but remember Discovery experienced upheaval mid stream.
Who knows how much money was lost from those problems I don't know but I do know that Company's usually shit bricks over any lost revenue so to expect them to throw more money down the shitter correcting course after the fact just to appease fans is unreasonable.
Isn't it possible it is a miracle the show survived it all? What if Netfilx had not been throwing cash at them, could that have caused the ax to fall altogether? Maybe rather than counting continuity gaffs we should be counting our blessings for getting the show at all.
It is not uncommon for series to improve with time, perhaps corrections to issues they could not initially afford after the break up with Fuller will be phased in over time.
Just go to ditl.org and look at their episodes. Almost all have a YATI (Yet Another Trek Inconsistency). Some are nitpicks and some are ridiculous oversights.
Yet, we're still here.
If only...if onlyThere was once a time I actually thought the owners should keep track of every Trek fact in some sort of ledger that would be referenced before creating new Trek just to insure perfection.
I've been there. You'll get three episodes in, though, and then you have to start deciding which contradictory Trek fact you're going to be beholden to.There was once a time I actually thought the owners should keep track of every Trek fact in some sort of ledger that would be referenced before creating new Trek just to insure perfection.
On the other hand, this situation is pretty amazing. I've never seen anything like it before. Not on here, anyway. Usually a thread like this would've ended up closed a long time ago.
No, I'm just acknowledging that they were large enough to leave people wondering "What the fuck happened to Gotham City?" That "Forever" is supposed to be a direct sequel to "Returns" has been pretty firmly established in the narrative, but why Gotham City went from Tim Burton Nightmare to EDM music video between films is not well explained.
It's a bad choice, but it doesn't actually break the narrative.
OK, well in light of that, ans since they different productions (not that it matters), can you finally answere if this is correct:
Considering I have gone out of my way to post examples in TV and cinema consistent with my statement, I would say I do.
Considering you have not posted any examples from TV and cinema consistent with your counter-claim, I would say that you do not.
I make the assertion "Cats do not have wings." I provide you examples of ten cats which do not have wings and are incapable of flight.
Your counter-argument is "You have offered a handful of examples of wingless cats. We can stipulate that some cats do not have wings, but you have not established that flightless cats are the norm." This is basically the Special Pleading fallacy: "Just because there's a flaw in my argument doesn't mean it's wrong!"
If you think it is "the norm" for films in an expanded or shared universe to have tight visual consistency between installments, you should have no difficulty finding examples of this in more than 70 years of motion picture history. I am having no trouble finding INconsistencies, after all.
That makes no sense. Superman comics, movies, and TV shows have been very consistent in the (general) depiction of superman's outfit: he always has some kind of red cape and a blue suit with a symbol that looks like an "S" on the chest (and the "S" logo has the same basic shape in almost every installment).
And yet the various superman TV shows and movies, while consistent in many ways, are not CONNECTED at each other at all. Most aren't even in the same continuity, which means they have no NARRATIVE association whatsoever despite having most of the same characters. Moreover, "Superman Returns" is highly consistent with the original Christopher Reeve films, but has a huge chronological and narrative gap between them (large enough that Superman 3 and 4 could simply disappear into a cinematic black hole and we never have to speak of them again)
Well, okay, it only uses completely different costumes, different props, different sets, different starships, different locations, different actors, and the set designs that are meant to be similar to the show that succeeds it share almost nothing in common with it...
But it's consistent with the other series because:
This is like arguing with a biblical literalist at this point. "The bible contains no contradictions! All of the seeming contradictions can be explained if you just approach it with a humble spirit and pray hard enough!"
They don't obviously contradict anything else in Discovery, at least not obviously, in much the same way they didn't obviously contradict anything in Enterprise. Special pleading fallacy: You're trying to come up with a rule that only applies to this case but can't think of a reason why it doesn't apply to every other identical case.
Babylon 5 does not, as evidenced pretty clearly by the shifting design conventions and composition of its various spinoffs.
More importantly, B5 itself has one very explicit case that contradicts your claim: there are literally two completely different versions of "The Battle of the Line," one of which is depicted in a flashback in season 1, the other is depicted in one of the TV movies with VASTLY different special effects and graphics.
More importantly still: Babylon 5 went through a major revision in the design of its props and exteriors between its pilot episode and its actual first season. The most extreme of these was the design of the Plasma Cannon prop, the security team's riot gear, and the makeup and costume designs for most of the key aliens.
And you even ATTEMPTING to name modern Doctor Who as an example of tight visual consistency is, to put it bluntly, the most absurd thing I have ever seen on this board.
Was that really necessary to bring religion in to it?
I don't much like it either, but it is what it is.
You know what?
All those years later. I still HATE this. It's the ONE truly awful thing from a production standpoint I hate in the TOS movies the most. The revamp in TMP? Is truly unlikely, but they at least adressed it in-universe on-screen. The new Earth spacedock in STIII? Well, they just didn't show it before. The new Enterprise bridge between ST:IV and ST:V? Annoying but nothing severe, since they only showed it for a few seconds. But this? I still hate it. I can see why the did it. But I still think it should have been handled vastly different. It breaks my personal suspension of disbelief.
Coincidentally? I am a person that hates the DIS-redesign of the klingons with a passion, and hope they just do away with it in the future, to be forever forgotten and never mentioned again. To be replaced with "real" klingons for all later appereances. The same way we forget about this, up until we get annoyed by it again when we rewatch it/stumble upon it on the Internet.
And if one is honest, it has to be acknowledged that the reason we don't like it is because we can't really bullshit our way out of it. It breaks the ILLUSION a little bit too much, and on some level we all recognize that we, as viewers, have our own part to play in creating that illusion.
If you don't WANT to suspend your disbelief, you won't. Simple as that. But that's a decision you make hours if not days before the title sequence even rolls, yes?
Biblical literalism is not religion. Neither, for that matter, is Star Trek.
Uh-huh.
Your posts have degenerated into word salad and paralogia at this point. The posters saying we should give it a rest are right.
There doesn’t even seem to be a coherent point of view you can articulate any more, much less defend. It seems like you’re arguing just for the sake of being argumentative.
I know exactly what kind of standards I like to see my entertainment uphold, I’ve articulated them to my satisfaction, and they’re not at all out of keeping with normative expectations for such things. When someone is so completely off-the-reservation as to compare me to a Biblical literalist, it's time to give it a rest. 'Nuff said.
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