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Spoilers Picard Prequel "Children of Mars"

Plus I would think for 8-10 seconds of screen time in a 6 minute Short Trek it was much cheaper to use VFX assets they already had.

To be fair, depending on the production date, it’s entirely possible they had new vessel assets for Picard.
 
but there were no Magees at Wolf 359, any Dominion battle, or the FC battle.

Weren't there? We saw a handful of the ships involved Wolf 359 and FC - but we only know 16 of them. With wolf 359 it took time for the fleet to gather, hence a mere 40 ships were involved as Hanson attempted to buy time for other ships to arrive (including the Klingons)

In 2366, federation tactics were all about ensuring ships didn't encounter friendly fire -- so they attacked in lines and not as a larger group - we didn't see more than 4 or 5 ships attacking at a time. They'd never been so mismatched as going up against the borg cube, and were easilly picked off. This was rectified a few years later in 2373 when tactics massively improved and they managed to inflict heavy losses on the borg cube before Picard even turned up.

We saw one line of ships from the mars defense perimiter, but that was all - it's quite possible that previous lines had included a Magee or two, even if they hadn't been involved in wolf 359
 
"Devastating." -Admiral Picard after the attack on Mars. That's like the least newsworthy quote of all time.

Did those girls get in trouble for fighting? Or did they just drop it because their parents died?
 
Holding them for the REAL show :biggrin:
After the direction They decided to go in with the DISCOVERY starships, I've got a feeling we're not going to see much of anything in the way of 'Berman' Era starships in PICARD.
They'll probably be going with all new SpFx assets with barely a glance of a Galaxy or anything else that has come before.

It's pretty obvious to me that They're just not really interested in continuing the the 'look' of anything previously seen in Trek.
:sigh:
 
After the direction They decided to go in with the DISCOVERY starships, I've got a feeling we're not going to see much of anything in the way of 'Berman' Era starships in PICARD.
They'll probably be going with all new SpFx assets with barely a glance of a Galaxy or anything else that has come before.
:sigh:

I'm okay with that. Got a little tired of the deluge of Excelsiors, Mirandas and Galaxies we saw during the whole of the Berman era. There have got to be other classes of ships out there.

(Although seeing them on occasion would be okay.)

ETA: And before anyone says otherwise, I am aware there were other classes. It just feels as though those were the three we saw the most.
 
It's less than seven minutes long, discounting credits, which means it's a "short short" like the animated ones - not enough time to really tell much of a story at all. I should also note that aside from the opening 30 seconds or so of the short, there's no real dialogue at all - it's all visual storytelling with musical accompaniment.

So, when it begins, we're introduced to two children, both of which have parents who work on Mars. Kima (the alien girl) has a mother who works on a "blue-collar" type job the Utopia Planetia shipyards. Lil's dad is some sort of supervisor at the "Mars orbital facility." While Kima just seems happy to talk to her mom at the start of the short, Lil is furious that her dad told her he's "not going to be able to make it home this year." This (and later aspects of the short) make it clear that the girls themselves are not on Mars, even though their parents work there - it's not even clear if it's Earth.

Anyway, the typical tween drama part of the short begins with Lil bumping Kima (seemingly accidental, since she just looks straight ahead), causing Kima to drop her backpack, and miss the school shuttlebus. Then when Kima shows up late to class all the teachers glare at her. She goes to sit down, gives Lil the evil eye, who in turn draws a nasty picture of their teacher and somehow sends it to Kima's desk display, getting her in trouble. Kima responds later by tripping her in the library intentionally. This results in a fight in the hall of the school. Again Lil instigates, pushing her, which leads to a shoving match. Then Lil punches Kima in the face and draws blood (blue, FWIW). Kima then stats wailing on her, and Lil seems surprised that she is losing the fight. Finally teachers show up and break the fight up, and we see both sitting in an atrium, far apart from one another (detention I suppose) as adults look on. A cover of David Bowie's song Heroes plays, and it takes all of four minutes. It's just setup to make it clear these girls really, really don't like each other much.

Then, a bald Vulcan dude (who appears to be the principal) looks at his phone thing in concern. Other teachers follow. We begin seeing news alerts projected on the floating screens - and an alert goes off. The other kids run into the atrium from their classroom. A brief news clip from "FNN" (Federation News Network?) flashes on screen. It says "Rouge synths attack Mars - 3,000 estimated dead." We see some of the shots of destruction we have seen from the trailers (numerous explosions on Mars, the "kite ships" shooting at everything, etc). There is a brief still shot of Picard on a screen, and some text on the lower third saying he's "devastated." They cut back and forth between images of the girls parents and the attack, with the implication being their mother and father respectively are dead. Kima begins crying, and they both end the short holding hands.

As a short, it's surprisingly effective. The girls are not real characters - they're cipers meant to stand in for all of us, with the viewer only getting the most sketchy idea regarding their relationships. But enough emotional connective tissue is provided to make you feel for them. I ended the short just a bit misty eyed, which I believe was its intent.

But as a "prequel" to Picard, it just raises more questions than it answers. It doesn't tell us much other than a literal attack on Mars happened (which we already knew from the trailers) at a time Picard was still an admiral. The "rogue synth" thing is especially head-scratching, but it suggests there's a whole different side to the show besides the Borg/Romulan stuff we're already aware of. I'm not sure how it links up to the prequel story the Countdown comics are telling at all - unless perhaps the Romulan faction's access to Federation's security codes allows them to compromise not only ships, but AIs.
 
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To be fair TNG "look" is 30 PLUS years old. We did not see many TOS ships in Berman era Trek........Things change.
We didn't see anything resembling TOS assets because They didn't (don't) want to pay royalties to the Franz Joseph Estate.
I'm getting very tired of each new iteration pretty much completely ignoring what has come before.
Their 'cherry picking' of what They choose to use is beginning to cause me to lose interest.

Would it have been so horrible if we had seen an Excelsior or Classic Enterprise in the mix at the Mars yards.
:shrug:
 
We didn't see anything resembling TOS assets because They didn't (don't) want to pay royalties to the Franz Joseph Estate.
I'm getting very tired of each new iteration pretty much completely ignoring what has come before.
Their 'cherry picking' of what They choose to use is beginning to cause me to lose interest.

Would it have been so horrible if we had seen an Excelsior or Classic Enterprise in the mix at the Mars yards.
:shrug:
Come, come, Mr. Scott. Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant!
 
My question is, are the Magee and tug ships supposed to be part of the Federation evacuation fleet ships for Romulus? If so, then they’d be brand-new ships. Is this a case of the producers thinking that since we barely saw these designs, the audience will be stupid enough to think they’re new? (especially since we saw a Magee class ship prominently in “The Trouble With Edward?”)
 
@The Old Mixer can correct me if wrong but I do not THINK we need to spoiler code everything in thread clearly marked SPOILERS........Only in unmarked threads for 2 weeks after the air date.
That would be my take on this thread...it's spoiler tagged, it's for the short, ergo, this is the place to discuss the short sans spoiler tags.
 
My question is, are the Magee and tug ships supposed to be part of the Federation evacuation fleet ships for Romulus? If so, then they’d be brand-new ships. Is this a case of the producers thinking that since we barely saw these designs, the audience will be stupid enough to think they’re new? (especially since we saw a Magee class ship prominently in “The Trouble With Edward?”)
I'm thinking that They just don't give a chit anymore about maintaining any of the aspects of previous Trek Starship incarnations of Trek.
Nor do They really care if the older fans are bothered by it.
:sigh:
 
My question is, are the Magee and tug ships supposed to be part of the Federation evacuation fleet ships for Romulus? If so, then they’d be brand-new ships. Is this a case of the producers thinking that since we barely saw these designs, the audience will be stupid enough to think they’re new? (especially since we saw a Magee class ship prominently in “The Trouble With Edward?”)

Why would they necessarily have to be brand-new ships?

And I didn't realize the design was an old one until people started complaining about them here. That doesn't make me "stupid." I honestly just don't care. Then again, the technology in Trek is not as important as it once was to me. To each his own, of course.
 
Why would they necessarily have to be brand-new ships?

Because it was established in the Picard prequel comic that the Romulan evacuation fleet was under construction, not that they were scrounging around for any old ships they could find.

And I didn't realize the design was an old one until people started complaining about them here. That doesn't make me "stupid." I honestly just don't care. Then again, the technology in Trek is not as important as it once was to me. To each his own, of course.

I think you misunderstand. I wasn’t calling you or the audience stupid. On the contrary, I think the audience is far smarter than Star Trek production personnel give them credit for. Which was my actual point.

And while Star Trek’s ships and technology have been one of the reasons why I love the show so much, I’m also resigned to accepting that they’re going to reuse stuff in STP from a show set 150 years before it, because the look and tech are essentially no different. But these are CGI models. At the least there could have been some tweaks to make the ships look somewhat different from their appearance in DSC.
 
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