Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[DrCorby]

And, yes, "Lil' Abner" was one of the most popular comic strips in America, but I'm not too surprised that younger folks have never heard of it.

For many years growing up, we'd take the metal tinsel (we called them "icicles") off the Christmas tree each year and save them by wrapping them in a sheet of newspaper, which happened to be a color comics page. So every year, I'd refresh my familiarity with a selection of mid-to-late '60s comic strips like L'il Abner, Bringing Up Father, Blondie, The Katzenjammer Kids, Dick Tracy, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, Steve Canyon, etc. I was a little sad when that comics page got too torn up from years of use and was thrown away...

 

[Yistaan]

That would never work, not to a degree that audiences would find satisfying. It takes human talent to create an effective performance. Even the most advanced "computer animation" is animated by humans using computers as their medium. And of course voice work is always done by real actors. Only the most arrogant director would think they were sufficiently skilled in every aspect of filmmaking that they could do it all themselves without collaborating with experts specializing in all the different aspects of film production. Of course, there are directors that arrogant, but their output without collaborators probably wouldn't be very good (as seen by comparing the Star Wars prequels, where George Lucas assumed he could write and direct them nearly all by himself, with the original trilogy, where he had the better sense to trust his collaborators more than his ego).

And after all, the Federation is a society where people don't have to work for basic subsistence and are free to work in pursuit of their dreams and fulfill their best potentials, right? Surely that includes people like actors, set designers, composers, etc. -- people who would want to do that work because they loved it. The talent would be there to draw on, so why not draw on it?

I mean, you might as well say that they could do all space exploration with robot probes. It'd certainly be safer. And yes, they could do that, but they don't, because letting computers do all their living for them is not how Federation citizens roll.

I actually think the prequels are far better than the more recent Star Wars films by Disney. Only Rogue One got things right for me. 7 was basically a remake, and certainly Solo and 8 were worse than the prequels for me. In fact I'm basically here as a former frequent SW poster from theforce net boards (I post under sidv88 there) because excitement for 9 is so much less existent than for movies past.

And Revenge of the Sith is a must-watch for anyone wanting to understand current events. Politician promises a person something they really want, which that person can't get through current authorities (because realistically achieving that goal is unrealistic). Person then throws out practically everything he ever believed in to do what lying politician says to attain that goal.

As far as AI not being able to do human things: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/tech/dangerous-ai-text-generator/index.html

Also, it's canon that the Federation indeed has tried to replace Starfleet crews with computers--The Ultimate Computer. And the only reason it didn't happen was because Daystrom was insane (and thus his computers were as well).

There's a fair argument to say that computers doing exploration might have been better. I imagine Dr. Daystrom pitched to Starfleet Command that the Battle of the Binary Stars and possibly the entire 2250s Klingon War could have been avoided if computers had been running the Shenzhou instead of overly emotional officers like Michael Burnham, and all too mortal commanders like Philippa Georgiou (this after Dr. Daystrom dramatically exposes her impostor as the M-5 scanned her light sensitivity and noted it has no correlation with Capt. Georgiou's previous medical history).

 

[marlboro]

I make a point of subscribing to Entertainment Weekly just so my pop-cultural references don't get too out of date, although what I don't know about modern games, manga, anime, and pop music would fill volumes.

True story: Years ago I was at a publishing sales conference when a venerable editor, with a long and distinguished career, stated that a new thriller novel would "make a great Steve McQueen movie!"

This was in 1995.

I vowed then and there that I would never let myself get that out of touch with contemporary pop culture!

I sympathize with the Steve McQueen guy. "30 years ago" will somehow always mean the 1970s to me and the 21st century will always be the future. The weird elasticity in the way we judge time is the main problem. You just lose track somewhere between how many years you feel like have passed and how many actually have.

One of the last times I tried to find common ground with a young co-worker took place a few years ago. We were talking about Knights of the Old Republic. Now, I knew it wasn't a new game, but I was still taken aback when he referred to it as an "old school" game. To him, it was something he watched his big brother play when he was in grade school. To me it felt like something I played a couple of years ago. 10 years is nothing to me. To him it was practically a lifetime.

I decided then that I was wasting time with this sort of thing. All I was doing was forcing him into a boring conversation while making myself feel ancient.

That would never work, not to a degree that audiences would find satisfying. It takes human talent to create an effective performance. Even the most advanced "computer animation" is animated by humans using computers as their medium. And of course voice work is always done by real actors. Only the most arrogant director would think they were sufficiently skilled in every aspect of filmmaking that they could do it all themselves without collaborating with experts specializing in all the different aspects of film production. Of course, there are directors that arrogant, but their output without collaborators probably wouldn't be very good (as seen by comparing the Star Wars prequels, where George Lucas assumed he could write and direct them nearly all by himself, with the original trilogy, where he had the better sense to trust his collaborators more than his ego).

And after all, the Federation is a society where people don't have to work for basic subsistence and are free to work in pursuit of their dreams and fulfill their best potentials, right? Surely that includes people like actors, set designers, composers, etc. -- people who would want to do that work because they loved it. The talent would be there to draw on, so why not draw on it?

I mean, you might as well say that they could do all space exploration with robot probes. It'd certainly be safer. And yes, they could do that, but they don't, because letting computers do all their living for them is not how Federation citizens roll.




I'm often tempted to have a character in one of my books or stories make a pop-culture reference, only to realize it's unlikely that a character from that far in the future would be familiar with the thing I want to reference, so I have to leave it out.

Pop culture references in futuristic stories rarely work for me. They usually (temporarily) knock me out of the story. Hell, sometimes they are counterproductive within a couple of decades. Stephen King loves to use pop culture references as a quick way to flesh out his characters.


"I'm going out for a pack of Luckys" Jim said, and began to hum "Oakie from Muskogee" while he made his way to his Olds 88.

This sentence could tell you a lot about a character in 1975. But it wouldn't mean much if you were born in 2001. Not to mention things like Pabst Blue Ribbon. If you have a character drinking it in 1968, it's shorthand for him being a redneck. If he's drinking it in 2015 he's a hipster.

So why does Tooth and Nail begin with Geordie quoting "Lions, tigers, and bears" from The Wizard of Oz with Data immediately answering "Oh, my" ? The joke just isn't worth the suspension of disbelief.

 

[Greg Cox]

My (younger) editors catch me on this sometimes. In one of my Librarians books, I had a young, modern character casually reference Emma Peel from THE AVENGERS. My editor pointed out, correctly, that was a somewhat dated reference, so I changed to it "Moneypenny" from the more recent Bond movies.

And then there was the time I referred to a robot as a "walking Erector Set" in a kid's book. My twenty-something editor pointed out that not only would kids today not understand that reference, but that she'd had to look it up on the internet!

Ouch.

 

[Christopher]

I actually think the prequels are far better than the more recent Star Wars films by Disney. Only Rogue One got things right for me.

Beside the point, since that's not a comparison of George Lucas's films specifically. The last thing I want to do is get dragged into another off-topic debate over the relative merits of Star Wars movies. The point is that creators who assume they can do it all themselves are less likely to produce good work than creators who understand that they can benefit from collaborators. Even solo creators like novelists rely on editors, beta readers, and the like to improve their work.

Also, it's canon that the Federation indeed has tried to replace Starfleet crews with computers--The Ultimate Computer.

It's canon that they looked into it and decided that it was a bad idea. No doubt audiences would respond the same way to fully computer-generated entertainment.

Pop culture references in futuristic stories rarely work for me. They usually (temporarily) knock me out of the story.

I try to invent future pop culture that's contemporary to the characters. Like in Greater Than the Sum where a couple of characters dish over a popular historical-drama holonovel series about the Space Boomers.

But on the other hand, Star Trek is full of characters who like 20th-century detective stories or Captain Proton serials or Bond movies or whatever. So there's precedent. Is it really that much more implausible than having them like Shakespeare or Beowulf?

My (younger) editors catch me on this sometimes. In one of my Librarians books, I had a young, modern character casually reference Emma Peel from THE AVENGERS. My editor pointed out, correctly, that was a somewhat dated reference, so I changed to it "Moneypenny" from the more recent Bond movies.

The producers of Riverdale don't care much about that, since Veronica Lodge is a present-day teenager who's constantly referencing old movies from before her parents were born. Although in a recent episode they poked fun at that when Reggie made a pop-culture reference to a more modern movie and she just stared uncomprehendingly.

On the other hand, in the recent Riverdale episode that was a tribute to '40s noir detective movies, the featured song was "Sooner or Later" from Dick Tracy, a 1990 homage to '40s noir detective movies. Sometimes people just know older stuff from the more recent stuff that homages it.

 

[Greg Cox]

The producers of Riverdale don't care much about that, since Veronica Lodge is a present-day teenager who's constantly referencing old movies from before her parents were born. Although in a recent episode they poked fun at that when Reggie made a pop-culture reference to a more modern movie and she just stared uncomprehendingly..

Oh, Riverdale is surreal that way. I'm a season or two behind, but early on these supposedly contemporary teens were constantly making archaic pop-culture references to Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, and so on. And it wasn't just some weird affectation of Veronica's since the other characters seldom looked puzzled by them or asked for an explanation, and sometimes even did the same. (I think it was Kevin who casually mentioned Montgomery Clift in conversation and none of the other kids batted an eye . . . in 2018.)

 

[Christopher]

Oh, Riverdale is surreal that way. I'm a season or two behind, but early on these supposedly contemporary teens were constantly making archaic pop-culture references to Montgomery Clift, Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, and so on. And it wasn't just some weird affectation of Veronica's since the other characters seldom looked puzzled by them or asked for an explanation, and sometimes even did the same. (I think it was Kevin who casually mentioned Montgomery Clift in conversation and none of the other kids batted an eye . . . in 2018.)

Which kind of makes perfect sense, though, for a modern adaptation of a comic book that debuted in 1941. It's in a deliberately timeless reality of its own, one that freely intermingles pop culture from across the 78 years of the franchise's existence.

It's not so different in principle from how Tim Burton's and Bruce Timm's adaptations of Batman conflated modern technology with '40s cars, fashions, and Art Deco designs.

 

[TheAlmanac]

(Do people still talk of "Sadie Hawkin's Day" dances, where the girl asks the boy to dance? That came straight from the old Lil' Abner comics.)

Contrary to many of the other examples mentioned, you'll be delighted to know that this survives into the 24th century.

(And then there was "Forever Amber," which was the scandalous bestseller everyone was talking about back in the 1940s, now largely forgotten except by us bibliophiles.)

Indeed, I'd never heard of this novel. It was interesting to look it up on Wikipedia and see just how many pop-cultural references there were to it in the Forties.

Would Kirk and McCoy even be familiar with movies starring actual actors? I wouldn't be surprised if in their time directors and screenwriters just feed a screenplay into a holoprojector, set their own variables, and then a movie complete with holocharacters is generated. Which is then edited/altered to the director's liking before being released to the public.

That would basically seem to be how the holonovel industry works--though you can't rule out the possibility that actors are still used to establish baseline performances. OTOH, we've also seen characters assembling holodeck scenarios "from scratch," with the computer then doing most of the "performance" work itself.

 

[Greg Cox]

Contrary to many of the other examples mentioned, you'll be delighted to know that this survives into the 24th century.

Wow. In other words, Lil' Abner is canon.

For any confused by this discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Hawkins_Day

 

[Christopher]

Contrary to many of the other examples mentioned, you'll be delighted to know that this survives into the 24th century.

I'm actually not delighted, because if women asking men to a dance is still seen as a special exception to the normal rule, then that means sexism is alive and well in the 24th century.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I'm actually not delighted, because if women asking men to a dance is still seen as a special exception to the normal rule, then that means sexism is alive and well in the 24th century.

Yeah, when I rewatched The Game a while back, I wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea that it still existed for that reason.

Plus, given the varying social customs of non-human races, not to mention non-binary identities, of humans and non-humans, or races with additional genders, I would think that a dance whose concept is based in traditional human gender roles wouldn’t survive.

 

[thribs]

Seems like Control, whatever it is, will be a plot mystery to be solved either during this season or the next (or even during the Section 31 show), and we'll be getting drips and drops of info on Control as the show proceeds.

I'd rather keep the Control reference as that. At the moment, it's fine. They'll just ruin it if they add more to it.
Control is supposed to be more secret than Section 31. Clamfandango telling Pike that much seems like a complete breach of protocol.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Yeah, when I rewatched The Game a while back, I wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea that it still existed for that reason.

Plus, given the varying social customs of non-human races, not to mention non-binary identities, of humans and non-humans, or races with additional genders, I would think that a dance whose concept is based in traditional human gender roles wouldn’t survive.

I could come up with some sort of retcon about how it's a deliberate throwback once per school year which isn't at all reflected in socialisation the rest of the time, but I hear what you're saying...

FWIW, I also wince when I hear the "transgendered species" line in Star Trek: Nemesis.

 

[marlboro]

And then there was the time I referred to a robot as a "walking Erector Set" in a kid's book. My twenty-something editor pointed out that not only would kids today not understand that reference, but that she'd had to look it up on the internet!

Ouch.

Didn't know what an Erector Set was? Well, that's depressing. I think I'll go outside and roll a hoop with a stick to cheer myself up.

upload

 

[Tuskin38]

I'd rather keep the Control reference as that. At the moment, it's fine. They'll just ruin it if they add more to it.
Control is supposed to be more secret than Section 31. Clamfandango telling Pike that much seems like a complete breach of protocol.

They can do whatever they want. They're not beholden by the novels.

And who's Clamfandango?

 

[The Wormhole]

And who's Clamfandango?

He's referring to Tyler. Clem Fandango is the character played by Shazad Latif in the series Toast of London.

 

[JoeZhang]

He's referring to Tyler. Clem Fandango is the character played by Shazad Latif in the series Toast of London.

Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Yes I can hear you Clem Fandango.

Tyler taps combadge: "Captain Leland, this is Ash Tyler."

Leland: "Yes, Tyler. Report."

Tyler: "Can you hear me?"

 

[Stevil2001]

A good example of this is when the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern came out and various people who grew up on the Justice League cartoon couldn't understand why the 'real' Green Lantern had been replaced by a white guy...

Yeah, pre-movie, I had a student who wanted to write a paper about the Green Lantern comics, but had never read one; I recommended Emerald Dawn to him. He came in for his conference; after we discussed his paper for fifteen minutes and he was leaving, he kind of stops and almost whispers, "But isn't he black?"

 

[Greg Cox]

Yeah, pre-movie, I had a student who wanted to write a paper about the Green Lantern comics, but had never read one; I recommended Emerald Dawn to him. He came in for his conference; after we discussed his paper for fifteen minutes and he was leaving, he kind of stops and almost whispers, "But isn't he black?"

Just wait until he stumbles onto an old Nick Fury comic.