Those past stories are what brought many of us into Trek. If they don't respect them, they risk loosing any fan of earlier Trek. If they think they can get enough new viewers that the risk is worth it then I understand, but the fact remains.
Does it get better?
- Thread starter gakelly
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Those past stories are what brought many of us into Trek. If they don't respect them, they risk loosing any fan of earlier Trek. If they think they can get enough new viewers that the risk is worth it then I understand, but the fact remains.
@fireproof78 you said "the past doesn't need respect."
Huh? Dude, the past is everything. It's the light from which we learn and grow.
Huh? Dude, the past is everything. It's the light from which we learn and grow.
Learning does not mean respecting. It means awareness, it means making peace but it doesn't require my respect to learn.
I was brought in to Trek by TOS. I do not want TOS to be the definition of Trek for the rest of its production. Because when I see respect the past it seems to create the expectation to never change. The past is a fixed point and nothing will take it away. But, Trek was always about looking to the future, imagining possiblity and exploring human nature, the potential for growth and change. Well, it is very hard to look forward if you're constantly checking backwards.
There's a spectrum between being the "definition of Star Trek" and not respecting it.
I look at Picard strictly in relation to TNG/DS9/VOY. What matters is how Picard builds upon TNG, deconstructs it, and examines it. Some people are not going to like hearing this, but (except in one area I'll get to later) TOS doesn't matter much in relation to Picard. TNG does. Sorry.
If you look at where DS9, VOY, and Nemesis left things, if you look at what "All Good Things" foreshadowed, and if you look at what the 2009 Film said happened to Romulus in the Prime Timeline, then Picard is the end result of what all of that would be like.
And if the visual style is similar at all to the Abrams Films or Discovery, that's because things made around the same general time will look similar-ish no matter what.
The most impact TOS has on Picard is with the Romulans. The Romulans were the least-developed of the major Star Trek races. So Michael Chabon and his writers had to pull from everywhere they could. The Romulans in Picard act a lot closer to TOS Romulans, they still have the TNG/DS9 backstory, and now all the new elements developed for the Romulans specifically for this series.
TOS and TNG's attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence couldn't be more different from each other. And Picard continues the TNG path. Compare Picard continuing his life in the Gollum Body to Dr. Korby continuing his life in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In Picard, it's portrayed as a positive. In TOS, it's a negative. But, like I said, Picard -- by the nature of being a follow-up to TNG -- isn't following TOS, and it shouldn't.
If you look at where DS9, VOY, and Nemesis left things, if you look at what "All Good Things" foreshadowed, and if you look at what the 2009 Film said happened to Romulus in the Prime Timeline, then Picard is the end result of what all of that would be like.
And if the visual style is similar at all to the Abrams Films or Discovery, that's because things made around the same general time will look similar-ish no matter what.
The most impact TOS has on Picard is with the Romulans. The Romulans were the least-developed of the major Star Trek races. So Michael Chabon and his writers had to pull from everywhere they could. The Romulans in Picard act a lot closer to TOS Romulans, they still have the TNG/DS9 backstory, and now all the new elements developed for the Romulans specifically for this series.
TOS and TNG's attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence couldn't be more different from each other. And Picard continues the TNG path. Compare Picard continuing his life in the Gollum Body to Dr. Korby continuing his life in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In Picard, it's portrayed as a positive. In TOS, it's a negative. But, like I said, Picard -- by the nature of being a follow-up to TNG -- isn't following TOS, and it shouldn't.
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I always just thought that we were learning something new about the Borg. Liked it at the time but now I think the queen was a misstep.It's actually quite funny that a lot of the people who say that Disco and Picard don't stay true to etablished Trek canon find that FC is the best Star Trek movie.
The movie that completely gave a fuck about what we learnt in TNG about the Borg and gave them a massive overhaul
Edit: Not to talk about the issue that Zephram Cochrane was a entirely different character compared to how he looked like and behaved in TOS
For my young mind Cromwell is the real Cochrane as I had very limited memory of the TOS one. Same thing with Khan in TWOK busty Mad Max Khan will always be my Khan
Imho not just the Queen but also the introduction of assimilation by nanoprobes.
Instant assimilation took a lot of horror away from the Borg, compared to the use of surgery as seen in BOBW.
Your mileage may vary but the zombie like Borg seen since this movie aren't as scary for me as the uncaring and really alien collective we've seen in TNG.
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Yeah, I remember catching "Best of Both Worlds" with a TNG fan friend and finding the Borg completely unsettling. Watching First Contact was laughable in their presentation. They lost something, both with the Queen, as well as the surgery style assimilation.
Though, I think, if I recall on VOY there was still some measure of surgery that Seven witnesses.
Thank you but I didn't ignore the characters' emotional states. I just rejected them because they didn't come across as believable to me, especially Picard and Seven. And it's notable about reaming, that Picard was the person that got reamed the most. Raffi got a little from her son, but this season was about finding and throwing stones at all the supposed or freshly created flaws of Picard as part of the trendy deconstructionist storytelling of iconic characters. After Kirk and Spock, Picard is arguably the most iconic, and was the ripe choice for this kind of tearing down, and Sir Patrick was very willing to hand Chabon, etc. the dynamite.
The past might not need respect, but not respecting the past after selling a new series based largely on nostalgia for a revered Trek hero, from the past, doesn't make much sense. If CBS Trek doesn't want to respect the past then why go back to Picard at all? This could've been a series about Rios, Jurati, Elnor, and Raffi aboard the La Sirena. And CBS Trek swaddled itself in nostalgia as well when it came to DISCO, by setting it a decade before TOS, making Burnham Spock's sister, bringing in Spock and his parents, Pike, Number One, and the Enterprise. So to me if you are going to go back to the past, make it consistent with what came before, and if you don't, or going to tweak it, be as careful and respectful to the past as you can while also telling a good story.
I'm an amateur writer, and I've written a lot of fan fiction that I've posted at TrekBBS over the years, and so the way I look at PIC and character development stems from that. Things need to flow in an organic, explainable manner, and even if there are swerves, one might go back and find some seeds planted for those seemingly out of the blue changes. It helps with suspension of disbelief. I can buy Seven's depressed state more easily than I can Picard's because we saw years, if not decades, of Picard's resilience. It's easier to see Seven turn her back on a humanity that been taken from her and she found difficult to fully embrace again, than Picard stewing in his vineyard for fourteen years, while the Romulans were suffering.
I disagree that The Mandalorian is the same kind of story Solo was. Solo was an unnecessary excursion that IMO screwed up Han Solo's character arc in A New Hope. Mandalorian shed new light on what was happening right after Return of the Jedi, things we hadn't seen in live action before, while also introducing new characters, and expanding on Star Wars lore. While not without flaws, it is has been, thus far, a prequel series done right. It hasn't felt shoehorned in, it hasn't overturned what came before, it's been respectful of established characters, while creating new and interesting characters that hold their own. I can barely say that for CBS Trek, though the casting has been good for both their live-action series, but the execution (definitely with PIC) has thus far been lacking. DISCO started off stronger and has gotten better, in many respects, each succeeding season, but it's still hasn't hit the sweet spot for me.
Then we will not see eye to eye. Picard's character lines up well enough for me to believe. As to the deconstructionist idea I just don't see it quite so negatively. Picard suffered loss and gave up. He reflected back that maybe his life hadn't been what he thought, largely because his identity was so tied in to Starfleet. And he had to remake it, and needed people in his life would be willing to tell him the truth, in a brutal fashion, that he still had his capability.
Sorry, it's closer to real life and people I know than a lot of other Star Trek.
In my opinion Mandalorian is completely unnecessary because a show is supposed to be about characters not events. I want events I'll read one of the myriad of books people swear at me are better than what Disney has produced.
Because I do not give a single care about the characters in the Mandalorian. So the lore is expanded and very hollow.
It doesn't require respect. It requires awareness. Respect breeds limitations. And, yes, I think CBS is dumb for wrapping in nostalgia because it will get demanded that the past be replicated, down to the last button.
That's okay. I can't say we've ever agreed on anything, or agreed much. We just have two very different ways of seeing entertainment, if not the world itself.
Again I don't buy the premise that his failure to convince Starfleet to keep helping the Romulans would make him question his entire life and his lifelong commitment to Starfleet and to throw it all away or consider himself a fool or failure. To do so he would have to discount all of the good things Starfleet did, and we saw him and the Enterprises D and E do as well. I can accept a moment or several of great doubt, frustration, or even anger, and even him stepping away for a period to find himself again, but not for as long as PIC wants us to believe he would.
Picard was getting reamed by people who were telling him he was a failure for the most part, not pumping him up. He had two very nice Romulan helpers at his vineyard who could've done that, and it was one gigantic oversight for PIC not to make them more of a presence in the series.
I do agree that there was a real world, contemporary feel to PIC, but that was to the season's detriment. As garish as the 24th century fashion was for Berman Trek it sold the idea that this was the future. Too much of the fashion on PIC felt 21st century.
Disagree again about Mandalorian. I know that you've been a fan of the Star Wars sequels and do you believe those were about characters and not events? The Mandalorian created the most popular character for the franchise in decades in Grogu and the other Mandalorian characters, while not deeply developed, made mostly positive impressions. In just a handful of scenes in one episode Bill Burr's character got more development than two-thirds of the sequel Trinity did in three movies. The sequels were driven by events far more than Mandalorian, which was telling a far simpler story. It was Star Wars stripped down and more focused on a very small part of the galaxy and revolved around characters more than the sequels which were about bigger events and the fate of the galaxy.
So popularity equals characters I should care about now?
The Mandalorian is about Din. I don't care about Din. I don't know how else to express save for that very simple, rather blunt, fact. He is not a character in the sense that I believe he is real and goes through stuff. He feels more like a Neo than a Han Solo.
And, yes, I would say the sequels are driven by characters. I think there is an underlying theme of feeling out of place and finding one's place that both Rey and Kylo are struggling with. I don't think they are perfect and the Mandalorian illustrates that more could be done with the New Republic. But I at least buy in to the main characters. The Mandalorian I do not buy in to the main characters.
And that's fair. I don't think it was just that failure but every single thing and it all added up to him feeling like he didn't measure up. And so depression set in and instead of seeking help he hid. It's a very human thing to do.
Another reason I highly recommend Picard fans to read the Picard novel, The Last, Best Hope. That novel gives a lot of back story into Picard, including the circumstances of Picard's resignation. In a sense, it started as a threat, his last stand. Stop helping and I quit...and he honestly thought he had them there. He was caught a bit flat-footed when they called his 'bluff' and so he resigned.
I thought the novel enhanced my viewing of the show (esp. since I read it before seeing the show...it didn't give anything away, but served to give a good foundation for the show).
So popularity equals characters I should care about now?
The Mandalorian is about Din. I don't care about Din. I don't know how else to express save for that very simple, rather blunt, fact. He is not a character in the sense that I believe he is real and goes through stuff. He feels more like a Neo than a Han Solo.
And, yes, I would say the sequels are driven by characters. I think there is an underlying theme of feeling out of place and finding one's place that both Rey and Kylo are struggling with. I don't think they are perfect and the Mandalorian illustrates that more could be done with the New Republic. But I at least buy in to the main characters. The Mandalorian I do not buy in to the main characters.
And that's fair. I don't think it was just that failure but every single thing and it all added up to him feeling like he didn't measure up. And so depression set in and instead of seeking help he hid. It's a very human thing to do.
Who you buy into or not is a matter of opinion and personal preference, and if the sequel characters float your boat in ways the Mandalorian don't that's your right. Just like it is mine and others who might not love PIC to have our own opinions.
The popularity, i.e. mass appeal, of Grogu speaks to that character appealing to a lot of people, which is about character. And none of the sequel Star Wars characters have made that kind of impression. They have been more divisive instead. Of that bunch, I think Ben Solo was the best developed and largely because of that the best realized (in the acting department). I don't see the sequels driven by characters at all, because the movies were more victim to top down decision making and behind-the-scenes drama and the stories and characters suffered as a result. I just saw a few weeks ago that Daisy Ridley was saying she thought that they were sticking with Rey Nobody going into Episode IX and it just is another example of how disjointed and poorly thought out the sequels were. The actors were shortchanged because they didn't have clear direction having to whipsaw between Abrams to Johnson and back to Abrams.
Back to Picard, depression isn't rational so there is that, but it's hard for me to buy that Picard would tally up everything else, on top of his failure to convince the Federation to save the Romulans, and see himself as a complete failure. Now I could perhaps buy that he takes on an oversized burden or sense of blame for the failure of the Federation to do that, but once again, we haven't seen much evidence of him shouldering that kind of massive burden to a crippling degree. He barely took anytime off after his assimilation and the Borg invasion of Earth and he didn't take on personal blame for other Federation failures or misdeeds that were the fault of someone like he does in PIC. In TNG he definitely believes strongly in Federation values and wasn't afraid to speak truth to power if his superiors were out of step with those values-which we do see in PIC-however it's Jean-Luc's reaction that's different than in times past, and then for the premise to work, we have to believe he's a broken man because of it, and there's not much evidence to make that make sense when you look at the man in full from TNG. He bounced back from the destruction of Stargazer, from Borg assimilation, from the loss of his family in GEN and destruction of the ENT-D, from a Borg reunion in FC, and even the loss of Data (there was the glimmer of a smile, of a renewed commitment to life and exploration at the end of NEM after all). So, in just a short span of years after NEM, he goes from that to a man who throws all the good he did the past and the future good he could do being part of Starfleet, away because he didn't get his way (albeit, costing thousands to millions of lives perhaps) and runs away for almost 20 years? I maybe can buy it with better set up, but we didn't get that. I can get depression, I can get going away, but not for so long. Would he really turn away Troi, Crusher, Guinan, or any of the other crew who might reach out to him and try to get him out of his funk? Other what about Q or Vash? There's a lot here we don't know, and that leaves the door open to speculate and assume and doing so makes the hermit Picard premise even more lacking. Maybe if they had given him the tragedy they gave Troi and Riker I could go with Picard's actions a bit better, but they didn't. Also if they had made his neurological disease more prominent I could buy the personality changes better as well.
I did read the PIC comic prequel (which was too short) and I'm about half-way through Last Best Hope. That book is just dull to me (which sucks because I liked McCormack's Brinkmanship novel a lot) so it's a struggle to get through. As Damian was saying it does provide some backstory, though so far it's not that satisfactory. It jumps right into the Raffi calling Picard "JL" thing so that prequel series has already made some leaps in terms of Jean-Luc to make him fit the PIC premise. This Picard felt so different to me that sometimes I imagine this version is being played by Vincent Cassel.
It is unfortunate that the actors didn't know and that sucks. But, I definitely have scene, anecdotal though it might be, Rey being a very popular character, especially with my kids and their friends. I think Rey made a larger impression than we know. But, as I said, anecdotal. As for the films themselves, I still see it as character driven.
Grogu is tough to figure out largely because of the cuteness factor. My 8 year loves the plush but has little interest in the character. So, it's hard for me to say "Oh, that's because it's the character."
He also wasn't in the same developmental stage either. There is a level where depression will take people further simply because they are looking at being old and feeling that legacy threatened by possible failure. So, I see it as a compounding effect on the depression.
But, as you say, we each take away what we want from the characters and the shows. For me, I don't need to see it (or read it) to believe it.
Seems to be pretty popular with kids of the buying and beating each other with lightsabers age and as a Halloween costume for kids.
Grumpy old me liked her too and herself and Kylos relationship was the big takeaway from the movies
But, if I'm a fan then I won't stop being a fan because of new Trek. TOS got me in to Trek. DSC isn't going to get me out, or PIC, or LD or whatever else comes next.
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