It's already been done, it was called Enterprise. Like Deep Space Nine before it after a few seasons the entire universe was saved by the hero Captain man.
The (almost) steady increase in "epicness" of Trek...
- Thread starter eschaton
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But Archer, his Enterprise and Discovery were not in the prime universe! So it doesn't affect the TOS reality one bit! There was no NX-Enterprise on Kirk's wall in TMP for starters and the technology shown in DSC is beyond the science shown to us in TOS so the answer is a simple and logical one!
JB
Preach it!
Along with the epic stakes rising, is the disaster porn. I noticed a lot of large scale disasters and destruction that increases with each series.
TOS started with the Eugenics war which killed 30 million. DS9 has the Breen attack earth. TNG makes WW3 a separate incident, 600 million killed. The Cardassians are decimated by the Dominion, close to a billion. The Xindi from Enterprise appear out of nowhere, and attack earth, 7 million.
Then the JJ movies has the entire planet Romulus destroyed, and later Vulcan.
The problem with all this is, the more destruction they showed the less I started reacting to it later. By the time they showed the Xindi attack, Romulas and Vulan being destroyed, I had almost no reaction.
I know I was supposed to, but so much of it was piled on at that point, that I just didn't.
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It’s too easy to show the destruction now. When Independence Day came out it was big news. No one had seen sky scrapers being felled so convincingly. There was a real ‘fuck me!’ factor about it. Now, the vengeance smashing through a city in In To Darkness isn’t even in the trailer.
It’s reached the point where big special effects are the easy option, and it shows. It’s boring.
Epic story lines now are contrived, as others have said, because they centre on a small cast carrying the universe. I know it’s not meant to be realistic, but it’s supposed to be satisfying.
Babylon 5 was epic, but it’s characters were believable because they were all powerful people in pivotal positions, and the setting was where the galactic drama was to be played out. DS9 tried to do the same, but it made no sense. A derelict ore refining station at the mouth of a worm hole, that it neither activated nor taxed. It served no real purpose beyond being the last chance for a piss before the Gamma Quadrant, yet it’s administrators had the most extraordinary adventures.
Big stories need big characters playing the long game, but that doesn’t suit Star Trek formula of a crew on a ship, so we end up with one Borg cube defeated time and again by the Enterprise, or mad man with inexplicable resources hell bent on the destruction of Earth, thwarted by the enterprise. They need to decide what they want. If it’s an enemy power trying to destroy earth, it’s not not gonna be stopped by one ship, so they should give these stories a miss, or change the format.
It’s reached the point where big special effects are the easy option, and it shows. It’s boring.
Epic story lines now are contrived, as others have said, because they centre on a small cast carrying the universe. I know it’s not meant to be realistic, but it’s supposed to be satisfying.
Babylon 5 was epic, but it’s characters were believable because they were all powerful people in pivotal positions, and the setting was where the galactic drama was to be played out. DS9 tried to do the same, but it made no sense. A derelict ore refining station at the mouth of a worm hole, that it neither activated nor taxed. It served no real purpose beyond being the last chance for a piss before the Gamma Quadrant, yet it’s administrators had the most extraordinary adventures.
Big stories need big characters playing the long game, but that doesn’t suit Star Trek formula of a crew on a ship, so we end up with one Borg cube defeated time and again by the Enterprise, or mad man with inexplicable resources hell bent on the destruction of Earth, thwarted by the enterprise. They need to decide what they want. If it’s an enemy power trying to destroy earth, it’s not not gonna be stopped by one ship, so they should give these stories a miss, or change the format.
All the destruction in Independence Day was what made the movie and it became a good old revenge flick that everyone identified with. Now, you can pretty much tell when you see a CGI crash or explosion, and on top of that when it happens every 20 minutes, I don't see how it can have an effect the way it used to.
They showed an explosion in London. Then an attack on Starfleet Cmd, crashes and explosions. Then the Enterprise is attacked and damaged, explosions, loss of life. Then The Enterprise almost crashes into earth. The Vengeance does crash into Earth. I don't want a slow talky movie either, but constant explosions and crashes is what removes the suspense in the first place.
We're supposed to be surprised.
IMO, nowadays, if you're going to do epic-ness and destruction, Game of thrones did it right.
Cersei blew up an entire church (with a lot of favorite characters inside), all to escape being found guilty in a trial. It came out of nowhere. It didn't immediately effect the entire world but it was important.
Everybody talked about it the next morning.
I would prefer Discovery not go in the direction of just an hour of everything getting blown up and lots of mutilation and maiming. That's just not my style of TV. I've never seen Game of Thrones but that's not what I want Discovery taking away from it. But characterization and drama, if it's as great as everyone says it is, then that's what I want Discovery gaining from it.
It's a sci-if action adventure series. It's not "The Piano."
It's also not real. It's entertainment...entertainment about extraordinary people doing amazing things. I don't want to see Captain Bill Smith and the adventures of the unremarkable USS Milktruck, a standard light cruiser with nominal technology and a plethora of currier assignments.
It's supposed to be fun. Not realistic.
It's also not real. It's entertainment...entertainment about extraordinary people doing amazing things. I don't want to see Captain Bill Smith and the adventures of the unremarkable USS Milktruck, a standard light cruiser with nominal technology and a plethora of currier assignments.
It's supposed to be fun. Not realistic.
All of this is why I'm not even going to the next Trek movie until I read reviews. I recently realized Beyond was the first Trek installment I've only watched once. DSC is now on that list. But I like wordsy theatrical drama a la S1 TOS. Tired of special effects. "Let's destroy the Enterprise." Or some really big thing. I'd like some Trek movie someday to resolve things peacefully or with love/hope/wonder. JJ 1 and 3 toyed with me at the end in that regard. But . . . nope. Count me done.
To quibble, the whole "first Vulcan in Starfleet" thing is fanon. In fact, it's canonically wrong because TOS has an entirely Vulcan-crewed ship.
I'm pretty certain this wasn't actually established while TOS was airing though right? Again, it's a later puffing up of Kirk as a character.
I was thinking more about how Micheal Burnham's personal arc was more epic/heroic than anything seen in Trek before. I mean, consider everything:
1. She was adopted by Sarek, and raised as Spock's sister
2. She served as the XO of one of the five most decorated (up to that point) captains in Trek history
3. While she didn't actually cause the Klingon War, she was blamed with doing so by Starfleet. She did directly murder T'Kuvma however, who was at that point the closest that the Klingon Empire had to a titular leader.
4. She then began service on the most technologically advanced ship in Starfleet, which could (as we discover) literally travel anywhere instantaneously. Any point in space and time, in any alternate universe.
5. She enabled the Discovery to finally destroy the Klingon Ship of the Dead, killing Kol, who was again, all but the titular leader of the Klingon Empire and their assault on the Federation.
6. When we get to the MU, it turns out that the evil doppelganger of her deceased former captain is, quite coincidentally, the ruler of the Terran Empire.
7. Both Ash and Lorca had secret identities and were in love with her.
8. She ends up winning in a very contrived manner - essentially setting up a scenario where all of Starfleet is wrong about something in order to ensure that she can be the source of moral rectitude. But as part of her victory she installs the only other Klingon we've been on a first name basis with - whose been rotting in the brig of Discovery for weeks - as the new Chancellor.
As I said upthread, across the whole of DIS maybe 13 characters (including MU alternates) actually had any sense of agency to them. It was a weird contrast - the epic scale yet the same small group of people being responsible for absolutely everything.
There's a reason so many of us found O'Brien relateable.
Human psychology is not just set up to feel empathy on a massive scale. It's why the refugee crisis in Europe didn't really break here until the photo of a single drowned toddler on the beach. We can't comprehend the deaths of tens of millions as anything other than a statistic. But if we see one dead child - just one - it reminds us of our own, or our grandchildren, or our nieces/nephews, etc.
As I said, ultimately the best stakes in fiction are personal. Even when the protagonist is a classic hero who is on a journey to save the world from the forces of darkness, the core of the story is the emotional involvement with the hero, not with the stakes of the wider fictional world. If you don't create a compelling hero - someone we empathize with - all the disaster porn in the world won't change things.
Again, part of my criticism is the bigger you make the characters, the smaller the world they inhabits seems.
I mean, TOS had that amazing feeling of expansiveness in part because of what you don't see. Enterprise doesn't ever go back to Earth. There are run ins with the Klingons, but never anyone seemingly higher than a mid-level functionary. You never see an admiral more than once. You never even get a clear idea of the membership of the Federation. All of this paints one Starfleet ship - even a Connie - as a pretty small cog in the wheel.
Trek has slowly lost this sort of feel over time. A significant portion of that is because the writers don't understand when it's better not to show things, and always want our characters to be at the center of the action, rather than bystanders. While the least "epic" of the shows - VOY's ruining of the Borg is a great example of this. They were truly menacing when first introduced in TNG. But as VOY began treating the Borg Queen more as a singular consciousness obsessed with Janeway, the Borg became steadily diminished.
Game of thrones mainly is drama and intrigue. Things like violence and maiming do occur throughout the series, but it's done very skillfully and in between most of the drama.
The destruction of the Sept scene happened at the beginning of the episode and lasted about 4 minutes. As a quick summary, Cersei is a disgraced ex-queen being tried by the church for a lot of crimes she knew she wasn't going to get out of, but she was pretty much helpless.
The season slowly led up to it, with a lot of drama, back and forths, plotting, scheming insults etc. .
And it looked like she wasn't going to do anything about it, because she couldn't really. Fans were even complaining that season was anticlimactic. This is medieval times so the trial was held inside of a huge church.
At the start of the episode she had arranged for it to be blown up and take a lot of her enemies (fan favorites) with it. No one saw this coming. What shocked people was, that the season was fairly quiet and no one suspected she would do something so drastic or crazy.
So it seemed like the destruction happened in a shocking, unexpected way that drew people in to watch more of the drama itself.
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Star Trek wishes it could have a tense, thrilling love triangle like The Piano. Instead we get T'Pring and Stonn.
We could watch "The Piano..." and Stonn would still be there.
Eminently logical...
This. The occasional big moment, but not as the core of the show. A couple of times per season.
This would disappoint me as a viewer, when alternate Vulcan was destroyed that was a immense failure on Starfleet's part. Better still would be not to have Earth be the target of any more movies or shows.
While your description goes too far the other way, I personally would like to get away from unrelatable superior "evolved" uber-officers, in the newest most advanced ship in the fleet, who can always solve any problem by the fourth act.
Professional Starfleet officers, regular people, in a standard ship of the line, who deal with the episode issue to the best of their abilities ... and sometimes fail. No unbroken list of perfect victories.
Im pretty tired of mirror universes, alternate dimensions, time travel ect. Trek needs to get back to good story telling. Characters with more than 1 dimension yes Universes no, also even in TNG "Social workers in space" they started to realise that not every story has a happy ending and no one is perfect.
I’d very much like to return to the planet of the week format. One ship, out on its. Landing party, bit of a mystery, moral conundrum, but no preaching ta very much, put the pieces together, mystery solved. Next planet.
I’d also like bigger stories, across multiple locations, multiple ships, multiple player, but that’s a different kind of show. A story that unfolds over vast distances, you’d need dispersed characters, some on starships, some planet bound, some federation, some not, ambiguous motives and hidden agendas. Stories that work for the epic spectacle to payoff.
I’d also like bigger stories, across multiple locations, multiple ships, multiple player, but that’s a different kind of show. A story that unfolds over vast distances, you’d need dispersed characters, some on starships, some planet bound, some federation, some not, ambiguous motives and hidden agendas. Stories that work for the epic spectacle to payoff.
Agree entirely.
Actually I was thinking about him being half-human/Vulcan as what is so stand-out about him. He is definitely not a run of the mill Starfleet officer they got on board
As to Kirk being a young captain. I'm not entirely sure, but I thought some of the show had established that too, like what age he'd been, but I'm sure there's people who'd know better than me
The OP has some really good points. It's why I feel more and more that an anthology show makes more sense. A series like that could focus on different crews with each episode, perhaps with an overarching seasonal storyline, with the effect of showing different perspectives and different levels of involvement. I also think it'd be interesting to see a bit more mundane life in space that doesn't always lead to a red alert.
Excellent post and well observed
One point I'll make re: Kirk is that legends are seldom recognized as legends in their own time, or even if they are their legend increases over their life and explodes after their death. We see a little of 'the legend of Kirk/legend of Enterprise' begin to form in the movies (it was written into the format of the abortive Phase II series that Kirk and crew became legends in their own lifetime after the 5 year mission, so that's where that starts) and at the launch of the Enterprise B it's clear that Enterprise herself has advanced from 'merely one of the fleet' to being the biggest and most important.
That being said, I agree 100% about the other crews. DS9 was conceptually meant to be this far flung outpost away from the 'action' but the wormhole made it important before the end of the pilot episode, and it increasingly turned into the most important place in the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager definitely maintained the tone right the way through of 'the little ship that could', but ENT and DISC both are a lot of "this is where legends are made" rather than "ordinary people doing their work". I tend to prefer the latter to the former, but it doesn't make up the majority of Star Trek unfortunately.
Yes. This is part of why Game of Thrones worked well as epic spectacle. The setup involved several dozen characters in a half-dozen different locations over the course of a season. If you're going to tell a big, epic story you have to have a lot of smaller characters who all have their own independent role in the story (e.g., no central protagonist) to really get the scale right.
It's also why the wheels started to fall off the show the last few seasons. As the different POV characters finally ran into each other, the world started feeling smaller, and a sense of scale (and time) began to fall away - particularly last season. Though this could also be attributable to running out of GRRM source material.
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