Phasers SFX Issue with Discovery

[CLIFF2020]

Just watched season 2 on DVD and I liked it very much. Hearing other reviews on some Youtube pages, I expected to be disappointed but am not. As it is fiction, and different writers view of the show, I am a little more flexible with characters and looks being different between shows and decades they were made it.

I suppose if I have a pet peeve, it is inconstancy on technology and some special effects. One area is phasers. Since this is before the original series, why aren't the phaser effects more like that show? The phasers act more like Star Wars than Star Trek, and seem not to have the range of options that they should have (wide stun, vaporize, heat up, etc). Mostly the pistols act like, well pistols.

I implore the writers to watch some of the original series and try and and make a modern SFX equivalent as best they can. Heck, even watch the fan show Star Trek Continues. Let us get away from shooting "phaser bullets" lol. I know there are other Trek technology canon issues, but for some reason sight and sound canon bugs me a bit. Otherwise, I am hoping for a Captain Pike based show. Add my vote to the list of fans wanting that

 

[DonIago]

FWIW, I don't know that any of the writers read these forums, so imploing them here isn't likely to achieve anything.

Otherwise, I do wish the tech in DISCO was more consistent with that shown in TOS (though I don't expect a retro '60s look).

 

[KennyB]

First mistake watching YouTube channels. Second, it is 2020 not 1966. I implore you to look at a calendar. STC is a fan film and shot as an homage to TOS. Discovery and Picard have state of the art SFX, they are not going to move backwards.

 

[CLIFF2020]

First mistake watching YouTube channels. Second, it is 2020 not 1966. I implore you to look at a calendar. STC is a fan film and shot as an homage to TOS. Discovery and Picard have state of the art SFX, they are not going to move backwards.

I expect a more modern look, but turning a Star Trek weapon into a Star Wars weapon has nothing to do with the calendar

 

[CLIFF2020]

FWIW, I don't know that any of the writers read these forums, so imploing them here isn't likely to achieve anything.

Otherwise, I do wish the tech in DISCO was more consistent with that shown in TOS (though I don't expect a retro '60s look).

I agree with you completely. Not looking for a 60's look, just some technology consistancy

 

[The Wormhole]

The phasers act more like Star Wars than Star Trek, and seem not to have the range of options that they should have (wide stun, vaporize, heat up, etc).

A good 90% of all the other phasers in all the other Treks conveniently forget this "range of options" when it suited them to. Wide stun is forgotten a lot more often than it's used, very rarely do phasers vaporize anything, and was it ever used to heat things up besides in The Enemy Within?

And that's before you get into the fact phasers are never used to their full power. Remember in TNG when Riker said a type 2 phaser at full power could take out the entire side of a building? And then we get The Siege of AR-558 where everyone has a phaser riffle in a fight for their lives, but use them at comparatively low settings to re-enact WWII fights.

If Disco is misusing their phasers, they're just following in the footsteps of the rest of the franchise.

 

[DonIago]

I would assume that using a Type 2 to actually take out the side of a building would essentially drain the phaser as well...and if you're trying to protect against an enemy incursion, it's kind of overkill anyhow. Short, controlled bursts.

Though why they didn't use wide-angle beams in those scenarios is left as an exercise for the audience...

 

[F. King Daniel]

1. Youtube videos are awful, and aimed at monitising fanboys who hate the latest version of Trek/Wars/whatever

2. Different phaser settings. We see TOS phasers in the big battle at the end of S2. We see them vaporize people occasionally in Disco and Picard.

Also see ENT season 3 for lots of MACO pulse weapons that fire just like the Disco ones

 

[AresB]

Speaking of phasers, people also complain about the red bolts fired by the ships. But they're actually close to the original FX in the early season 1 of TOS.

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[AresB]

Gah, as a newb I can't edit the post to fix the starting time in the youtube embed. The firing bit happens at 8:45.

 

[drt]

Speaking of phasers, people also complain about the red bolts fired by the ships. But they're actually close to the original FX in the early season 1 of TOS.

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The phasers were pretty boltish in Wrath of Khan as well.

 

[Timo]

Yup. Phaser VFX all over the map; Klingons looking different whenever they appear; uniforms and rank markings being almost but not quite entirely unlike what they previously were... Those things define Trek.

And it's fun to think up in-universe reasons for why this might be. Phasers are simple: they have many settings, and we typically meet our newest set of heroes in a historical setting differing from the previously seen ones, so not only would they have different tech available, they would be likely to apply a different doctrine. The DSC heroes come around to firing solid blue beams towards the end of S2, even if their ships preferred short white pulses when first pushed into combat. Might be a case of experience finally trumping textbook rules on, say, power conservation. OTOH, they wage war with their sidearms on stun, just like Kirk did, eliminating quite a few opportunities for us seeing phaser beams.

Klingons being different is nicely consistent, too. And in TNG we learn their disdain for any "sanctity of body and self" philosophy, while in ENT we learn they are very good at biotech and keen on experimenting on themselves in order to get a physical advantage. DSC just caps that with their enthusiasm for all things House-specific, making it plausible that they modify their bodies as a pure fashion statement.

As for the uniforms... Well, the UFP probably promotes diversity in general. It's not unexpected for them to employ a different costumer every decade; what's odd is them sticking to variants of the same uniform from the late 2270s to at least the 2340s.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[AresB]

Klingons being different is nicely consistent, too. And in TNG we learn their disdain for any "sanctity of body and self" philosophy, while in ENT we learn they are very good at biotech and keen on experimenting on themselves in order to get a physical advantage. DSC just caps that with their enthusiasm for all things House-specific, making it plausible that they modify their bodies as a pure fashion statement.

That's what my headcanon says too. When the Klingons were uplifted by the Hur'q, their genetic structure was adjusted to fit their needs. This left the Klingons with the technology to do extensive genetic modification and malleable DNA that is adjustable, but also made them vulnerable to genetic diseases such as the Augment virus, and the one that the Albino used against the firstborns of Kor, Koloth and Kang.

When the Augment virus struck, the major Klingon houses responded by enhancing the Klingon traits in their genome. This made them hairless, added redundancies to where they weren't exactly necessary (the double male parts!), and with so heavy features it made speech and expression difficult. More human-looking Klingons were shunned and ostracized. T'Kuvma's message "remain Klingon" addressed also this: the unity of the Empire needed everyone to be recognised Klingon, no matter what they looked like. And so, when his followers got to power, Klingons began adjusting their looks back to more comfortable level.

That's my speculation and not official canon, of course. But that's what has always made Trek fun.

 

[CLIFF2020]

The phasers were pretty boltish in Wrath of Khan as well.

Sort of. Still less like "bullets" I thought. The hand phasers were still Trekish

 

[CLIFF2020]

Yup. Phaser VFX all over the map; Klingons looking different whenever they appear; uniforms and rank markings being almost but not quite entirely unlike what they previously were... Those things define Trek.

And it's fun to think up in-universe reasons for why this might be. Phasers are simple: they have many settings, and we typically meet our newest set of heroes in a historical setting differing from the previously seen ones, so not only would they have different tech available, they would be likely to apply a different doctrine. The DSC heroes come around to firing solid blue beams towards the end of S2, even if their ships preferred short white pulses when first pushed into combat. Might be a case of experience finally trumping textbook rules on, say, power conservation. OTOH, they wage war with their sidearms on stun, just like Kirk did, eliminating quite a few opportunities for us seeing phaser beams.

Klingons being different is nicely consistent, too. And in TNG we learn their disdain for any "sanctity of body and self" philosophy, while in ENT we learn they are very good at biotech and keen on experimenting on themselves in order to get a physical advantage. DSC just caps that with their enthusiasm for all things House-specific, making it plausible that they modify their bodies as a pure fashion statement.

As for the uniforms... Well, the UFP probably promotes diversity in general. It's not unexpected for them to employ a different costumer every decade; what's odd is them sticking to variants of the same uniform from the late 2270s to at least the 2340s.

Timo Saloniemi

It is entertainment in the end. Every Trek is one persons vision. For my taste, keeping some sounds and sights helps draw the Trek's together. Just like music has a motif, I like some things to still be in the ballpark. I have not had any issue with how the ships phasers were done, just the handheld a bit. But it is not a deal breaker.

 

[Vger23]

For the record- I hate the phaser pop gun effects as well.

That said, we do see sustained beams at least once (Context Is For Kings- sealing a door) so we know the DSC-era phaser is capable of a sustained beam. Also, the Enterprise shipboard phasers are a lot like those seen in TOS (blue, sustained beams).

I've chalked it up to a preferred setting of the users in DSC. Maybe the sustained beams are thought to be too dangerous to friendlies or equipment in a sustained firefight.

 

[drt]

For the record- I hate the phaser pop gun effects as well.

That said, we do see sustained beams at least once (Context Is For Kings- sealing a door) so we know the DSC-era phaser is capable of a sustained beam. Also, the Enterprise shipboard phasers are a lot like those seen in TOS (blue, sustained beams).

I've chalked it up to a preferred setting of the users in DSC. Maybe the sustained beams are thought to be too dangerous to friendliest or equipment in a sustained firefight.

Might be the sustained beams are more energy intensive, so that's why we see them with the more advanced Enterprise and TOS phasers.

 

[Tuskin38]

Also, the Enterprise shipboard phasers are a lot like those seen in TOS (blue, sustained beams).

As are Discovery's in that episode. Both ships used beams, and so did the Klingon ships. The only ships using pulses in season finale were the fighters, and maybe the S31 ships?

 

[Vger23]

Speaking of phasers, people also complain about the red bolts fired by the ships. But they're actually close to the original FX in the early season 1 of TOS.

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You see quick bolts in "Balance of Terror" as well.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm pretty sure the BTS Instagram posts identified some of the Klingons from S1 as being from the house of Antaak. They had extra ridges on their chins because they were all engineered/augmented and a little different from the usual DiscoKlingon.

There's zero reference to the Augment Virus of course. In Discovery's world, Klingons weren't all made to look human for TOS.