Star Wars I-III, Gotham, and DSC: a study in prequels (and how DSC isn’t a TOS prequel?)

[Groppler Zorn]

By (perhaps unfairly) comparing 3 prequels that are totally unrelated, I thought it might shed some light on DSC’s status as a Star Trek prequel. Yet, these three prequels have enough in common to compare them *as prequels* to their better known “prime” eras, so please see what you think to the following.

Star Wars episodes I-III do a good job of setting up how the galactic empire came into being and was a great study in how a republic can be taken over by a ruthless maniac with delusions of grandeur. The main problem with the SW prequels for me is the characters. The turning of Anakin Skywalker is not handled very well imho. He was basically a bad apple from the start (see Plinkett videos for better analyses). But the political stuff is believable and even touched on social commentary at the time.

Gotham for me has a great story and great characters. It sets up things that will become important later in the Batman time period, and illustrates how some of the most iconic characters of Gotham City came to be how they are - in a gritty and dark way that somehow balances realism with the bald-faced weirdness of Gotham’s criminal underworld.

DSC (so far) has great characters but a poor story imho. The events of s1 don’t seem to have much of a relevance to TOS. Other than the Klingon-federation Cold War, that was explored via interactions with Kor in TOS, so didn’t need to be retold in DSC, I don’t see much in DSC that sets up anything in the TOS era.

In that sense it doesn’t feel like DSC is a true prequel to TOS - it’s more like “adventures in the pre-TOS era”. Which is fine I suppose - but maybe looking at DSC as a prequel to TOS is not productive. DSC should perhaps be viewed as just a separate set of events that happened to occur before TOS.

This may all change in s2 mind you, but as it stands, based only on s1, I’m tempted to say that DSC isn’t as much of a direct prequel to TOS as SWI-III and Gotham are to Star Wars and Batman (Begins, arguably) respectively.

As ever, I’m happy to have my mind changed about this - I’m eager to hear what other think on this topic.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I think the term prequel has just become a catch-all for any series or movie that is set in the past of an established franchise regardless of how they relate to the existing body of work. This could be the case with DSC but as we know season 2 will be using elements of TOS so there may be some set up. Maybe we will see what makes Pike the weary Captain who is tired of losing people? Perhaps we'll see the reason for why spock shouts 'THE WOMEN!'?

 

[Tuskin38]

New
I think the term prequel has just become a catch-all for any series or movie that is set in the past of an established franchise regardless of how they relate to the existing body of work.

Well that is the definition in a few dictionaries. Doesn't say it needs to be directly related.

The DSC is both a sequel to Enterprise and a prequel to TOS and every other series chronologically after it.

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't think of Discovery so much as a prequel as I do a spin-off that takes place earlier. The same as I view Prometheus in relation to Alien. We won't get into Alien: Covenant because calling that movie "total shit" would the understatement of the millennium. To use Star Wars, you have to think of Discovery as a Rogue One not a Revenge of the Sith.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

I think the term prequel has just become a catch-all for any series or movie that is set in the past of an established franchise regardless of how they relate to the existing body of work. This could be the case with DSC but as we know season 2 will be using elements of TOS so there may be some set up. Maybe we will see what makes Pike the weary Captain who is tired of losing people? Perhaps we'll see the reason for why spock shouts 'THE WOMEN!'?

I was wondering the same thing re: s2 as they seem to be introducing more TOS elements (Pike, Spock, etc.). I’d love to think the red swirlies are related to something in TOS but I guess they don’t have to be.

Well that is the definition in a few dictionaries. Doesn't say it needs to be directly related.

The DSC is both a sequel to Enterprise and a prequel to TOS and every other series chronologically after it.

Looking at DSC as a sequel to Enterprise is an interesting idea. Particularly since Enterprise did try to be a prequel to Star Trek in the sense that it showed us species not getting along at first but those relationships improving following interactions with humans (laying the groundwork for the federation). We also see planets like Babel mentioned and Axanar, etc. I’m not saying Enterprise necessarily did the best job at these things, but at least it was trying. DSC doesn’t seem to be trying to do the prequel thing to the same extent. Maybe a sequel to Enterprise is the better way to look at it.

I don't think of Discovery so much as a prequel as I do a spin-off that takes place earlier. The same as I view Prometheus in relation to Alien. We won't get into Alien: Covenant because calling that movie "total shit" would the understatement of the millennium. To use Star Wars, you have to think of Discovery as a Rogue One not a Revenge of the Sith.

I’m inclined to look at DSC in the same way: a spinoff that happens to take place before TOS (based on s1 alone - s2 may change all that). Your SW analogy is interesting though - since the whole of Rogue One was entirely in service of a plot point from Star Wars and even ended mere moments before SW begins (spoiler alert?). DSC doesn’t seem to be doing the same thing regarding any particular story in TOS, which brings me back to DSC as “adventures in pre-TOS times” - which is fine I guess. Unless s2 deliberately sets something up that is a direct foreshadowing of something in TOS (like both the SW prequels and Gotham have tried to do to varying degrees of success) then DSC is a different kind of prequel- to me at least. I’m curious to see where they go in s2. At what point do prequel plot points become the dreaded “fan service”?

 

[dahj]

It takes place before TOS, it was made after TOS. By definition it's a prequel.

Not got much more to say on that.

 

[Lord Garth]

I’m inclined to look at DSC in the same way: a spinoff that happens to take place before TOS (based on s1 alone - s2 may change all that). Your SW analogy is interesting though - since the whole of Rogue One was entirely in service of a plot point from Star Wars and even ended mere moments before SW begins (spoiler alert?). DSC doesn’t seem to be doing the same thing regarding any particular story in TOS, which brings me back to DSC as “adventures in pre-TOS times” - which is fine I guess. Unless s2 deliberately sets something up that is a direct foreshadowing of something in TOS (like both the SW prequels and Gotham have tried to do to varying degrees of success) then DSC is a different kind of prequel- to me at least. I’m curious to see where they go in s2. At what point do prequel plot points become the dreaded “fan service”?

The way I was looking at Rogue One was more it's a spin-off in the sense that it doesn't focus on the Skywalker family. Like how Discovery's main setting isn't the Enterprise.

If there was ever a Pike Series, it would be a spin-off of Discovery but also a direct prequel to TOS or some form of visually-rebooted "TOS". I don't think DSC will ever be a direct prequel. They're just borrowing Pike for S2.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

It takes place before TOS, it was made after TOS. By definition it's a prequel.

Not got much more to say on that.

Good point. I suppose I was interested in discussing how DSC behaves as a prequel. Relative to other stories like those in SW or Gotham. Or even Enterprise relative to Star Trek.

But in a very broad sense you’re correct. The Klingon war is just something that happened before TOS. DSC hasn’t really shown us how the Cold War situation that existed in TOS came about (yet - it’s early days). It’s not really done much to set up anything that we saw in the original series and explain how that came to be (again, at this point - s2 may change that). So at this point, based on s1 alone, DSC isn’t acting as a prequel in the same way that the SW prequels, Gotham, or Enterprise acted as prequels. So in that superficial sense alone, DSC seems to be doing a different thing to other prequels.

The way I was looking at Rogue One was more it's a spin-off in the sense that it doesn't focus on the Skywalker family. Like how Discovery's main setting isn't the Enterprise.

Ah ok I agree with that. I suppose DSC is different to Enterprise in that sense in that it’s set before TOS but not even on a ship called Enterprise (let alone the Enterprise from TOS!).

I guess having DSC as a direct prequel to TOS would limit the storytelling somewhat as they’d have to link in with pre-established events from specific episodes etc.

 

[cultcross]

It's as much a prequel as TNG is a sequel. Which is to say, they are set before/after the anchor property, the Original Series. Trek not being just one story or about one person, the scope is much wider than, say, Batman, or the Skywalker story.

Imagine a Star Wars Story movie set during the old republic, but not tie into the main arc. That's an equivalent to a Trek prequel.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Discovery is as much a prequel to TOS as Gotham is to Batman Begins. Same world, many of the same characters, you know roughly what's going to happen but the details have all been changed, new stuff added, other stuff removed etc.

Leonard Nimoy's Spock doesn't have a sister, that's Ethan Peck's. The TOS Federation didn't have a war with the Klingons a decade before, where the Klingons had cloaking devices and looked looked like bipedal space lobsters, that's Disco's version of things. Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne didn't meet and have fist fights with various versions of The Joker before even becoming Batman, that's David Mazouz's version.

I'll never understand why some Trekkies have a need for it to all line up in one universe, going to the extreme lengths of insisting how everything looked in TOS was wrong and pretend Klingons, their ships, the Enterprise, the uniforms and whatnot always looked the way they do in Discovery. Or invent ridiculous theories about the Enterprise being refit after "The Cage" and then de-fit prior to TOS in order to reconcile everything. It's disrespectful to the show that begat Star Trek. TOS is one version of Star Trek. The Kelvin movies are another and Disco is yet another, blending elements of both.

Or to put it in terms of Supermen (again):

TOS

Kelvin

Disco, which at first glance looks a lot like Kelvin but the details don't line up, and takes more of its lore from the original but it's still it's own thing.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I hate when people bring up Gotham, as if it's some amazing point and explains everything.

Gotham has never claimed to be a prequel to the Nolanverse (or Burtonverse or DCEU or Batman '66, for that matter). It has always been a new take on the Batman mythos. Poison Ivy, the Penguin, Catwoman, all the origins don't meld with anything from the getgo and that was always the intention. The same with Smallville (its spiritual predecessor) and the various Superman media it spun off from.

The only real comparison would be Superman Returns, which, as I recall, was presented as a direct sequel to Superman II (even if it ignored the other two sequels and was set in the modern-day). Because of discrepancies, most treat it as its own universe, but that doesn't seem to be the intention. It's hard to imagine Returns as existing in the same world as Superman I and II, but that's what Warner Bros. told us was happening.

 

[dahj]

Discovery is as much a prequel to TOS as Gotham is to Batman Begins.

 

[Tuskin38]

Leonard Nimoy's Spock doesn't have a sister

You're technically correct, he has an adopted sister.

 

[Groppler Zorn]

Trek not being just one story or about one person, the scope is much wider than, say, Batman, or the Skywalker story.

Imagine a Star Wars Story movie set during the old republic, but not tie into the main arc. That's an equivalent to a Trek prequel.

That’s essentially what I was trying to get at DSC is different to Gotham and SW for precisely for that reason - in that way it’s not a *direct* prequel to TOS (yet) as the universe is bigger than that.

Discovery is as much a prequel to TOS as Gotham is to Batman Begins. Same world, many of the same characters, you know roughly what's going to happen but the details have all been changed, new stuff added, other stuff removed etc.

This is what I was (poorly) trying to say. Gotham is directly related to the batman characters (with a Nolan slant obviously), DSC isn’t to the same extent, because there are all different characters to deal with and (so far) only Sarek is an actual character we’ve seen before (or again...)

I'll never understand why some Trekkies have a need for it to all line up in one universe,

Apologies if my post came across as detrimental. I don’t want to get lumped in with “some Trekkies”. I just noticed that DSC seemed to have a different approach to being a prequel than SW or Gotham.

I hate when people bring up Gotham, as if it's some amazing point and explains everything.

Gotham has never claimed to be a prequel to the Nolanverse (or Burtonverse or DCEU or Batman '66, for that matter). It has always been a new take on the Batman mythos.

Again, apologies if it seemed that my post was somehow negative. I only intended to compare the differences in approach that Gotham and DSC take to being prequels. It wasn’t part of an argument that explained how Gotham is the same as Batman Begins. Only that there are more overt links to pre existing characters in both the SW prequels and Gotham than in DSC. And in that sense DSC is a different kind of prequel. That’s all I was saying. I wasn’t trying to “explain everything”. Just trying to have a discussion

 

[dahj]

You're technically correct, he has an adopted sister.

To get even more technical, there isn't any conclusive evidence to say that Spock hasn't a biological sister as well since he's so notoriously secretive about his siblings...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Leonard Nimoy's Spock doesn't have a sister, that's Ethan Peck's.

Yeah...that's not how it works. Peck and Nimoy are playing the same character.

 

[Tuskin38]

One could argue that so is Quinto, biologically anyways, since he was born 3 years before Nero crossed over.

It's just the personality and life experiences that are different.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Leonard Nimoy's Spock doesn't have a sister...

Neither did Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (which wasn't originally titled Episode IV: A New Hope, either).

And as long as we're repeating memes from other threads...

-MMoM

 

[BillJ]

I see Discovery as "Star Trek", I don't see it as a prequel to the original. I see it as its own thing, and if they make this version of Spock interesting, I'll have interest in the character. I have no interest as this being pre-TOS Spock.

Reading Star Trek: Lost Scenes currently, it really rams home just how different they (TOS, Discovery) are from each other.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I see Discovery as "Star Trek", I don't see it as a prequel to the original. I see it as its own thing, and if they make this version of Spock interesting, I'll have interest in the character. I have no interest as this being pre-TOS Spock.

Reading Star Trek: Lost Scenes currently, it really rams home just how different they (TOS, Discovery) are from each other.

Here again, by such logic Return of the Jedi can't be regarded as a true sequel to SW...because if scenes deleted from the original count, then Jabba the Hutt looked like this:

-MMoM