Spoilers Star Trek: Picard General Discussion Thread

[BillJ]

...the current producers have nothing to apologize for as they are doing what they feel is now a 'modern' take on Star Trek.

Except they should admit that it is a modern take on both the visuals and story. A reboot. Or alternate timelines if one wants to keep it under "one universe".

 

[Noname Given]

Except they should admit that it is a modern take on both the visuals and story. A reboot. Or alternate timelines if one wants to keep it under "one universe".

Why? About the only similar comparison are the long running superhero universes; and overall, while in the last 30 or so years, some have done reboot/realignment stories directly, up to the 1980ies, Superman and Batman existed continiually young and went through a variety of eras with tweaks and unspoken retcons and their fans didn't have huge meltdowns the way some Trek (and Star Wars) fans seem to of late.

 

[BillJ]

Superman and Batman existed continiually young and went through a variety of eras with tweaks and unspoken...

Haven't they rebooted the DC universe four or five times in the last thirty years?

 

[Lord Garth]

"Discovery Apologist"? That's an interesting term. I don't think I have to apologize for anything Discovery did. Nine times out of 10, I like the choices they made. An apologist would be someone who thinks they made bad choices most of the time and is trying to excuse them. That's not me. I legit like the show.

From the way things seem, I'm pretty sure I'll like Picard too.

 

[Noname Given]

Haven't they rebooted the DC universe four or five times in the last thirty years?

You seem to have selectively quoted my post and ignored this part of it:

About the only similar comparison are the long running superhero universes; and overall, while in the last 30 or so years, some have done reboot/realignment stories directly, up to the 1980ies

 

[fireproof78]

Haven't they rebooted the DC universe four or five times in the last thirty years?

At least. It was one of the few times I felt like I could get a handle on it...and then I was lost again.

Star Trek I can follow along with, changes, visual reboots and all.

"Discovery Apologist"? That's an interesting term. I don't think I have to apologize for anything Discovery did. Nine times out of 10, I like the choices they made. An apologist would be someone who thinks they made bad choices most of the time and is trying to excuse them. That's not me. I legit like the show.

From the way things seem, I'm pretty sure I'll like Picard too.

*puts word nerd hat on * Apologies, Lord Garth, but technically an "apologist" is "someone who gives a defense. So, to be a "Discovery apologist" is someone who speaks in defense of something, not just making excuses. Though, depending on the circumstances, no doubt they will be accused of excuse making.

 

[Lord Garth]

*puts word nerd hat on * Apologies, Lord Garth, but technically an "apologist" is "someone who gives a defense. So, to be a "Discovery apologist" is someone who speaks in defense of something, not just making excuses. Though, depending on the circumstances, no doubt they will be accused of excuse making.

I always thought "apologist" meant "apologizing for". Learn something new every day.

So, if that's what it means, I guess I am a Discovery Apologist!

 

[fireproof78]

I always thought "apologist" meant "apologizing for". Learn something new every day.

So, if that's what it means, I guess I am a Discovery Apologist!

Sorry, didn't want to feel like I was lecturing but its a common word error.

 

[NCC-73515]

I’ve figured out what the twist in the last episode will be, the hook for Season 2. I’ll tag it with a spoiler since it depends on spoilers people have shared from the first three.

]

I've had the same thought, but I'm not sure that S2 would continue with that for very long

^^^
Bah - this old TOS fan would have been fine with 'Human' type Klingons being shown on the series "Enterprise" - as the 'updated Klingon look' didn't hit until 1979 with ST: TMP.

We saw some in Affliction and Divergence

 

[Alan Roi]

As to budget size - I really hate when fans try to claim "TOS was done on the cheap and looked it..." because NO - it wasn't.

TOS for it's time HAD SFX shots that were on par with modern (for the time in the 1960ies) sicence fiction outing like "2001: A Space Odyssey" - and the Bridge set was a good (and expensive set to do.) Star Trek was the most expensive series on TV for it's day, and tremaijned so, even as other network science fiction shows (like "Logans Run" and others of the 1970ies).

Actually, as a TOS fan who grew up in the 70s, I do think of both TOS and TNG as cheap looking and did even during the era they were produced. This is because by 1975 I was provided something to compare them to where it come to what could be accomplished with, FX, set design and most importantly CINEMATOGRAPHY: Space 1999, which had a first season that blew an TV science fiction series that came before it and would continue doing so even as far as the mid-1990s and even looks pretty good today in many respects.

Most scifi shows up until the mid-90s were almost exclusively shot the same way that regular television shows were shot back then, and that's why they look as cheap as they do.

 

[Noname Given]

Actually, as a TOS fan who grew up in the 70s, I do think of both TOS and TNG as cheap looking and did even during the era they were produced. This is because by 1975 I was provided something to compare them to where it come to what could be accomplished with, FX, set design and most importantly CINEMATOGRAPHY: Space 1999, which had a first season that blew an TV science fiction series that came before it and would continue doing so even as far as the mid-1990s and even looks pretty good today in many respects.

^^^
IDK - like Trek (IMO) Space:1999 did some good VFX work, but it had some real crappy shots where even on my TV I could tell they were using cardboard cutouts of Eagles in some of the static landing pad shots. Not every shot in Trek was great, but especially by Season 3 - the shots were comparable to films.

 

[fireproof78]

It's not that a lot of the TOS era fans are 'apologists'. It's more that we've been through this VERY thing with Trek many times before and made peace with the fact that Trek changes.

I missed this point but I think it bears repeating. For me, insisting up Trek remaining static is a very troubling thing. I would rather see Trek change than insist that it must always be the same. TMP laid that groundwork and other shows kept it going forward.

Uniforms mismatched? Hey, look, I see pilot style uniforms in "The Man Trap." Inconsistencies? Vulcan has no moons, Vulcanians, Klingonese, United Earth Probe Space Administration being in charge of Starfleet, and on and on. And that's just TOS and off the top of my head.

Klingon make up changing doesn't change the fact that they are aliens. They are still aliens. That's the important part, not how the ridges move up their head, or having four nostrils.

 

[JD]

Yeah, there was no way they were going to stick with designs from the '60s and '80s. The only change that bothered me was the Klingons, and that was because it was such drastic change from what they had been. I think they could have found ways to update the design without changing things as drastically as the did. I did eventually accept, and actually grew to like the new Klingons, but it was still a shock at first.

But this is a pretty tired old discussion, isn't it? I agree that Klingons never looked the same, but budgetary differences between 1960s and 1980s/1990s/2000s TV production aren't quite the same as changing things solely for artistic reasons. Enterprise made an attempt to reconcile the differences in the looks, and even though it wasn't perfect, I can appreciate the effort. If Discovery had featured only human-looking Klingons, it would have been consistent with TOS and the Enterprise explanation. If Discovery had featured some TNG-style Klingons, too, perhaps descendants of Klingons who didn't contract the virus, that would have been fine, too. For that matter, it could also have featured some more bizarre-looking Fuller-type Klingons, with an understanding that these were individuals whose ancestors were affected by the virus in different, less predicable ways. All of this could have been done very easily, with a small bit of dialogue. What bothers a lot of us about the Klingon look on Discovery is just that—that little to no effort was made to reconcile the looks—not the look itself or the mere fact that there is a different look. There is a big difference between that, and claiming that all Klingons need to look like they did in TNG and that that's how they always looked (an equally stupid opinion).

I would have preferred if they ancknowledged the change and explained it, but once I realized they weren't going to I eventually just decided to go with it.

I think the Fuller hire will be seen as a massive misstep a few years down the road.

I loved what Fuller did on Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, but with Discovery it seems like every bad idea in the early stages of the show were his. I don't know what happened there, but it seems for some reason his ideas for Discovery just didn't work. The show has steadily improved as they have moved farther and farther away from his stuff.

My knowledge of the exact events may be foggy due to not paying all that much attention while things were developing back then.
But I thought Fuller was the one who started things off by approaching CBS with Kurtzsman in tow and CBS preferred that the latter be the one handling the overall production.

My understanding was that Fuller was mainly interested in developing his specific ideas of the show while Kurtzman would be the go-between.
But again, I may be mistaken.

According to the wikipedia article on Discovery, Kurtzman and Heather Kaden were announced as EPs in November 2015 and Fuller was announced as showrunner in February 2016. I'm not sure what that means for when they joined the show.

I have no idea what was going on with Fuller, but he sure seemed like he was going through some sort of meltdown around the time he was fired from Discovery. He also left American Gods after the first season, abandoned The Vampire Chronicles, exited Amazing Stories, etc. As far as I can see, he's basically done no real work since 2016 which has come to fruition.

To me, this smacks of developing some sort of substance abuse problem. Though I suppose it could be something related to mental health as well. It's just kinda rare that you see someone who is capable of quality work fail at four different production projects in a period of 3-4 years.

I was just wondering if it was just that he had gotten full of himself and if the people he was working with didn't agree to his ideas then he threw a fit and left. Either way there was definitely something odd going on with him in that period.

Except they should admit that it is a modern take on both the visuals and story. A reboot. Or alternate timelines if one wants to keep it under "one universe".

In the case of Picard, I don't really see where things are different enough for it to need to be a reboot or alternate universe. We're jumping ahead 20 years and a lot can change in that time, just look how different the early 1990s were from today.

 

[The Old Mixer]

TOS for it's time HAD SFX shots that were on par with modern (for the time in the 1960ies) sicence fiction outing like "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Nope. 2001 blew TOS out of the water.

And FWIW, the correct form for decades is 1960s, 1980s, etc. You're already getting thie "ie" sound in those.

 

[Alan Roi]

^^^
IDK - like Trek (IMO) Space:1999 did some good VFX work, but it had some real crappy shots where even on my TV I could tell they were using cardboard cutouts of Eagles in some of the static landing pad shots. Not every shot in Trek was great, but especially by Season 3 - the shots were comparable to films.

I respectfully disagree regarding TOS and the first season of Space 1999. There's nothing in TOS that touches the cinematography of S1 of Space 1999. However, once Freiberger took over in S2 Space 1999 did go downhill even harder than Trek did under his control. There's not much in Freiberger's tenure in Space 1999 that's watchable.

 

[Noname Given]

Nope. 2001 blew TOS out of the water.

And FWIW, the correct form for decades is 1960s, 1980s, etc. You're already getting thie "ie" sound in those.

I disagree - the shot of The Discovery is beautiful and it's insane what they had to go through to get it done; but the shots of the Moon Shuttle Bus; or the Pan Am shuttle to the Space Wheel and the transport to the Moon are on about the same level as Star Trek managed with its best VFX shots.

 

[The Old Mixer]

TOS has nothing to compare with the opening Earthrise shot alone.

 

[itchyscratch]

Rios clip is up now. Looking shady and smokey.

https://twitter.com/CBSTVStudios/status/1217882034091122688?s=20

 

[thribs]

He’s smoking. Must be very sinister.

 

[itchyscratch]

If he refuses to sort out his recycling bin we’ll really know he’s evil.