Those people can watch The Orville
Variety: "Star Trek: Picard Is 'Divisive' "
- Thread starter Danja
- Start date
OR Netflix is their friend...Those people can watch The Orville
Or their friend's Neflix.
This is the only thing I can call refreshing about Discovery, when the original setup of season 1 wasn’t working they tweaked it in season 2. Not completely but it’s different. For season 3 it looks like they’re changing things even more radically. They aren’t changing it enough or in the right place but the change is obvious and better than doubling down on what isn’t working.
In comparison, ENT didn’t change the premise until season 3 and only out of desperation. They gave up in season 4 allowing for yet another premise change but it was too late. VOY never even bothered to change anything substantial.
Picard is an okay show, at worst I would call it less innately flawed than Discovery. Nothing needs to be fixed, they just need to make fewer mistakes. For instance the Borg cube was a repeating Chekhov’s Misfiring Gun. Every time we think something cool will happen it gets averted and it’s menace and power are never established.
Having the rule of cool subverted is not a bad thing.
It is when the subversion is equally as contrived.
Eh, I didn't miss the Borg cube. Must not have been too contrived.
Wow, this is so condescending. A poster politely voicing their opinion and criticism is “diagnosed” by you as having a problem.
There’s definitely an issue in fandom when people are raging at the producers insulting then, calling them stupid, resorting to foul names, using extremely hyperbolic language (“shit show”, “total shit”, “worst show ever”, etc) etc.
But there’s also a problem when fans are so insecure or sensitive about their favorite shows that they go after, condescend, or insult those who don’t like what they like.
I hate to get political, but sadly Politics are playing heavily into this and it's not really the fandom at fault, it's the creators. As someone on the left, something I've noticed increasingly since 2016 are the heads of Liberals disappearing so far up their asses it's crazy and their absolute complete inability to take any criticism whatsoever without some insane hyperbolic reaction about how "decisive" everyone else is being and how anyone that criticises them is either acting in bad faith or are Russians and this sadly has permeated into popular culture critiques. these people can't take literally any legitimate criticism without calling their fanbase reactionary maga chuds, Russians, decisive, despite most of the criticism of Nu-Trek is actually from a left wing perspective and that it's abandoned it's values.
I've brought it up before, but the clear difference between classic Trek and Nu-Trek is that Classic Trek is Socialist and Nu-Trek is Neoliberal. The messaging, tone, material conditions of old Trek are that of Gene's Socialist utopian beliefs and even when he passed, you had Berman, Hurley etc enforce that vision even though they thought Gene was a crazy old coot and that is why I think Classic Trek had far more to say and was far more visionary a show that worked across political lines because it seriously was the show of people imagining "What could the best people from the future, who have moved past all our petty issues of the modern day on a ideological and material level, deal with issues of the modern day, when confronted with it?". Nu-Trek buys very heavily into modern "End of History" Neoliberal ideology and thinks that basically Clinton and Obama were the peak of humanity and the best humanity will ever be, this is why in Discovery you got extremely troubling Neocon foreign policy politics and literally Samantha Power-esque lines about Nation Building, it's why in Picard you have poverty on earth and extremely tone deaf blatant themes around Brexit. "Progressive views" are merely aesthetic, they don't actually mean anything or have deep to say, it's literally "Oh look a gay, look how progressive we are, yum yum".
Both Star Trek and Star Wars stuffer from the new writing staff just not getting the franchises they are working on in a sheer fundamental core level. Lucas should be nowhere near the directors or writers chair ever again, but you only need to look at Clone Wars to see that when Lucas acts as an ideas guy and lets competent writers work with those ideas, you actually get really good Star Wars content with soul. It's actually a lot closer to Trek just thinking about it, Both Gene and Lucas's ideas were completely unworkable when unfiltered, but filtered through others, you get absolutely great visionary works.
Unironically and I never thought I would be saying this, but Nu-Trek needs to bring back Berman or at least some of the showrunners from the TNG/DS9 era. We've had three seasons from this new writing staff/producers now all suffer from the same issue with nothing improving and I honestly don't ever see it improving unless some of that heart is brought back from the older shows.
I have no desire for Berman or Lucas to be at the helm of those respective franchises. Let the franchises continue to move, even if we don't agree with those choices.
But creators are crafting stories that they believe will resonate with the current audience, and politics are way more mainstream now then they were in previous decades. Even in the 90s the average person, especially teens and 20 somethings, weren't following politics like that. Late night shows hardly ever got political.
Now,virtually everyone talks politics, regardless of age. This started with Fox News. The average person who normally found politics boring and couldn't be bothered with it now started watching Fox because it was entertaining to hear stiff news anchors yelling it their guests and calling them "pinheads." And younger people who found politics to be boring tuned into Comedy Central for the Daily Show and found it entertaining and suddenly found politics easily accessible.
To be fair, you have a lot of disingenuous people out there, bad-faith actors who appropriate aspects of fandom and nerd culture in order to push their own socio-political agenda. Take Ghostbusters 2016. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't that bad either. A very average comedy flick that was supposed to be a soft reboot to a very unique and iconic classic. There was definitely some valid criticisms made against the movie, but some used the fan "controversy" to be racist and engage in online harassment of one of the actresses, as well as push as misogynistic ideas out there. The line between regular fans who are voicing legit criticism and toxic fans/bad-faith political actors gets blurred.
I'll have to look into "End of History" and neoliberal ideology. Sounds interesting but I'll need to look more into it before I can comment on this.
In some cases that's how it comes across to me. But then again, couldn't that criticism be made in the past? The original Star Wars was criticized for being racist or racially insensitive in 1977. There are no black characters in the film outside of the bad guy who is literally black and voiced by a black actor. Was Billy Dee Williams casting as Lando a response to that? An attempt to tell people, "Oh look, we're not racist"? Because just about everyone loves Lando.
TNG itself has quite a few "Oh look how progressive we are, yum yum"-moments.
Take the gay allegory episode of TNG of the non-gendered species and the one outsider who identifies as female. Was it really believable that Riker would fall for this non-gendered alien? Previously Riker seemed to have a type, and this particular alien didn't seem anywhere close to it. But hey, the writers wanted to push a progressive message so that takes precedence.
Or the climate change episode where they have to curb their warp emissions and it's never really made an issue again. That episode was so eye-rolling and silly, it took me out of the story. Yeah, writers, we get the hole in the ozone layer is an important issue. But tell a good story first, don't make a thinly veiled PSA.
I don't get this. Star Trek seemed to be going stale by the end of TNG. DS9 was it's own thing almost, IMO. But VOY and ENT seemed to be very vanilla. Why bring back someone. What is it a binary choice of Kurtzman or Berman? What about...someone completely different, not Kurtzman or Berman. Or maybe we don't need to bring back anyone and let Star Trek rest.
Why does Star Trek need to go in indefinitely anyways? A lot of people are saying that Star Trek needs to change in order to survive, to stay relevant. Some say it needs to regain it's "heart." Why does it need to survive, or regain something in the first place? Unless I have a financial investment in property what does it matter to me?
Star Trek had it's place in pop-culture, and maybe it's time to move on to something else.
Last edited:
As I didn't read every word spoken by Chabon, I heard about this quote on YouTube:
Sometimes you’re motivated to have things simply because it’s possibly going to piss off or provoke people who seem to have missed the memo about just what exactly “Star Trek” is and always has been all about.
What is this memo he is talking about?
Then, there is this:
And so that when a show in this era asks you to do what you are readily willing to do with a show like “Westworld” or “Breaking Bad” or whatever — somehow, the mere fact that it’s “Star Trek” makes it hard to accept.
If I want to see WW or BB, I would tune into them. I come to see Star Trek.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2020...mits-he-wanted-to-piss-off-or-provoke-people/
Sometimes you’re motivated to have things simply because it’s possibly going to piss off or provoke people who seem to have missed the memo about just what exactly “Star Trek” is and always has been all about.
What is this memo he is talking about?
Then, there is this:
And so that when a show in this era asks you to do what you are readily willing to do with a show like “Westworld” or “Breaking Bad” or whatever — somehow, the mere fact that it’s “Star Trek” makes it hard to accept.
If I want to see WW or BB, I would tune into them. I come to see Star Trek.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2020...mits-he-wanted-to-piss-off-or-provoke-people/
There is no memo. It's a euphemism
Another statement not intended to be taken literally.
I think he's referring to things like the interracial kiss shared between Kirk and Uhura. That probably pissed off a segment of the population back then who had racist views and were outraged about "race mixing" or miscegenation.
I think that's may be the problem I have with Picard. It's a very old franchise trying to compete with new, modern shows and it ends up coming across more like it's chasing trends rather than setting trends.
Pretty much.
That's funny because I didn't get the impression that this was written and intended for an older, more mature audience whatsoever.Michael Chabon said:
This series seemed to be aimed at a younger demographic, and even followed the Disney Star Wars formula of bringing in the old characters, while introducing newer younger ones who would be somewhat mentored by the old ones, but also doing the mentoring.
The overall tone of TNG comes across as much more mature and thoughful than PIC.
The Romulans/Zhat Vash/Commodore Oh/Narissa/Bjayzel are all one-dimensional villains, Saturday Morning Cartoon caricatures. The A-Team needs to stop the the super powerful lazer-portal-opener from being activated and unleashing the prophesied armageddon that will destroy all life as we know it! After our heroes save the day we get a nod to nostalgia, a new
Last edited:
I think the larger themes of death, purpose and legacy are maturer themes that are there, even with all the supposed action/adventure set pieces.
What I like about Picard is that it is rather gray in terms of the world it paints. There are very few easy answers that avail themselves to Picard, and he has to own his mistakes in a way that sucks. All of that resonates with this guy a lot more than Picard speechifying at aliens in TNG.
The primary source is right there, anything less is letting yourself get manipulated.
https://variety.com/2020/tv/features/michael-chabon-star-trek-picard-1203544717/
As the years rolled by following the NEM disaster, I never thought we'd get the TNG cast back together for a live-action film or TV project. Dead and done.
I'm not thrilled with every creative decision and its not without its flaw but overall, I'm very happy with PIC.
It's already a better ending for the TNG story than NEM.
I'm not thrilled with every creative decision and its not without its flaw but overall, I'm very happy with PIC.
It's already a better ending for the TNG story than NEM.
Subversion, especially lately, is just as much of a trope as anything else.
I'm speaking about the series as a whole. The whole idea about artificial life and identity is glossed over, at least in regards to Dahj, Soji and Picard, and this was a 10 hour season. Compare that to something like 1995's animated film Ghost In The Shell. It was also heavy on the action sequences, but in the 82 minute running time it managed to delve deeper into the concept of identity and artificial intelligence.
What themes of death, purpose and legacy were there in PIC that were fit for a more meant to be enjoyed by a more mature audience? Other than the fact that Picard is an old man who acts like an old man.
I think everyone we see die on-screen dies violently. Icheb gets killed of Hostel style, and 7/9 gets sweet, sweet revenge and kills Bjayzel. And makes her way through a swarm of armed guards like nothing, John Woo style.
Hugh is killed off by femme fatale Narissa. 7/9 gets sweet, sweet revenge and kills Narissa. "This is for Hugh."
But she regrets it because...she had an opportunity to incapacitate and handcuff Narissa? Because Narissa was giving up and pleading for her life? No. It's because good guys don't kill...or something like that.
It comes across as a bit juvenile. This is stuff you read in the most generic of superhero comics.
I think the finale is the definition of an easy answer. Starfleet or the Federation had a ban on all synths because of their version of 9/11. Picard is treated like a crazy old coot and told that Starfleet "decides who lives and dies."
The Zhat Vash have dedicated their lives for thousands of years to preventing the Elder Ones from returning and destroying all life as we know it.
Sin-Cheneb has already activated the beacon calling forth Cthulhu and the Shoggoths. Too late humanity.
The Cthulhu has already received the message and is coming through.
Picard makes a speech. Riker shows up with 200 copy and pasted ships.
Soji learns compassion and turns off the beacon. Cthulhu retreats back to it's dark void. The Zhat Vash give up and go home.
Picard dies though.
But wait...we got a cheat code! Picard is a new body, with no Irumodic Syndrome, and no immortality! Awesome! After all that death, the massacre of the xBs, Dahj and Maddox's violent death, we get a warm, happy, Hollywood ending, complete with Hollywood sweet heart kiss.
Picard saved the day and Starfleet is once again acting like itself again.
But that's just what he does in ep. 10. He uses super power of speechifying to convince Soji not to kill off all organic life.
PIC is maybe my fourth favorite series atm. Fourth of eight. Only ten episodes in. I think it would be higher still if nostalgia didn't play a role in those above it, and I suspect it will climb with time. This series is a gift from Heaven in so many ways, and I appreciate it so so much. Whatever its shortfalls, of which there are its share, I hope it addresses those it can in the future, but I love it dearly, even if they don't shoot another minute of it.
Similar threads
