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Why the hate for Disco?
- Thread starter David Hanley
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I don’t hate it. I do think they kill characters off way too quickly (T’Kuvma, Osyraa), which hurts the universe building, and don’t really develop the crew outside of Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Stamets and Culber, but that’s an issue with the writing.
I do wish it had followed though on being retro callback to TOS with the uniforms, ship design, and sound effects to begin with when the show was first announced. Even the jump can be made to sound like it would in the TOS era. Instead, the show is a subtle continuation of ENT. If TPTB wanted ENT, then why not bring back ENT? Or set Disco a few decades after ENT instead of an entire century? TPTB opened themselves up to criticism when they made the choice they made.
At this point Disco is coasting off of being better than most things on tv (which it is, imo), when itself is the weakest of the Kurtzman era Treks.
I do wish it had followed though on being retro callback to TOS with the uniforms, ship design, and sound effects to begin with when the show was first announced. Even the jump can be made to sound like it would in the TOS era. Instead, the show is a subtle continuation of ENT. If TPTB wanted ENT, then why not bring back ENT? Or set Disco a few decades after ENT instead of an entire century? TPTB opened themselves up to criticism when they made the choice they made.
At this point Disco is coasting off of being better than most things on tv (which it is, imo), when itself is the weakest of the Kurtzman era Treks.
There was no choice they could make without criticism.
100% absolutely true. The "time period" it's set in is meaningless in terms of "fan criticism" factors. It was just an easy thing for people to latch ahold of and bitch about. If it wasn't that, it would have been something else.
Bottom line- they wanted their main character to be a contemporary "adopted sibling" of Spock (for better or worse). That's not nearly as effective if it's set in a different timeframe than they put it in (pre-TOS)
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Honestly, the biggest thing I see is simply that Discovery doesn't treat the familiar pieces as sacred. Spock struggling with a learning disability? Sacrilegious!
I'm beginning to think that even in some bizarro world where the studio did consult with fans on making the Perfect Star Trek series, you'd only end up with fans bitching about the Stupid Studio Suits relying on amateur consultants.
Which fans would they consult with, though? The ones who need consistent starship sizes and just want to see 42 minutes of technical specifications scroll up the screen? The ones who want maximum pewpew and to see who'd win a fight between 111 Jem'Hadar fighters and 2 Borg cubes? The ones who want a TRUE sequel to TNG? The ones who want Enterprise back? The ones who want whole new episodes of TOS using Deepfake tech?
Yikes.
No. I see this with other entertainment franchises that are not Star Trek. Even with video games, I see the amateurs upstage the professionals with better graphics. And all it really means is that the best talents aren’t being hired by those responsible for hiring. If Trek can get better graphic designers and animators and even better writers, they should.
And IIRC, Disco was just following what a lot of fans wanted to see, hence why the first season was what it was. The headcanon just did not match with what was produced onscreen to a number of them.
This is largely what my experience as been. Or, in other words, what Star Trek should be according to head canon.
There's some legitimate major problems with DISCO, but I also think there's some people who will automatically hate any Trek that's too dark, main characters who are too emotional, or in any way not conforming to their prescriptive expectation for Trek.
DS9 was accused of being too dark, sisko accused of being too emotional, and the show said to be something that would go against what roddenberry wanted. Yet I rate ds9 not only the best trek of the lot but one of my all time ever favorite shows.
I did not like discovery because I do not think its a good show.
I am sure plenty others feel that way and not because its dark etc.
I'm sure plenty of others think a variety of ways people feel about Discovery as a show.
And, for too dark I would put First Contact as far darker than Discovery.
And, for too dark I would put First Contact as far darker than Discovery.
Game design, much like CG effects in movies is a nightmare sweatshop dictated by deadlines. Leading to cheap-looking effects in movies like Black Panther and awful unfinished buggy messes like, well, too many games to count.
Fan stuff is a labour of love, made under zero pressure.
Of course, there's legitimate problems with it.
But I think a lot of those who feel negatively toward it for legitimate reasons have those negative feelings amplified by those kinds of things, and are harder on it than they would be if the same show wasn't called Star Trek.
And the people who go out of their way to crap on it in every thread or news article where it comes up aren't the ones with legitimate criticisms of it. People who reasonably dislike DISCO are the ones who are fine letting other people enjoy it. The ones who hate bomb every mention of it they see are not.
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"I would like to talk about a secret passion of mine, the exquisite art of Japanese Origam..."
"STD SUUUUUUUUUCKSSSSSSSSS!"
(a lot of discussions that I read here)
I don't think it's so much that people are harder on Discovery because it's a Star Trek show. If Discovery was an independent IP, most "Disovery critical" people either never would have watched it, or would have dropped the show after just a few episodes. But because it has the Trek name, it captured a lot of eyes, along with the hardcore element of the fanbase which has to watch everything Trek.
I tend to agree. Star Trek carries with it a huge amount of weight of expectations. Those negative feelings get build up further because the expectations are so much higher and therefor further to fall when it doesn't go as desire for "Star Trek's sacred canon" (trademark pending).
Now, does Discovery have its problems? Um, yeah, a whole lot and that is owing largely to BTS troubles and not anything on the production values side or even the writing. I think Discovery started out as one thing, and that got completely abandoned at Fuller's firing/separation. But, his shadow loomed long due to how much money was put in to the production design.
But, I do think that Discovery is also just the current favorite target because Star Trek must be treated as so special. If it was another show then it would be ignored. And, if people don't like a show then it should be ignored. It doesn't merit my attention because "Star Trek."
Yep, double-edged sword. If it weren’t “Star Trek,” it would probably have joined the new Twilight Zone on the scrap heap as just another of CBS’ efforts to get people to watch their low-value streaming service. The Star Trek brand got people to sign up and continuing paying, which is a testament to the devotion of the fanbase. With that devotion comes expectations ... and criticism.
I'm convinced one of the reasons the first two episodes of Discovery seem so...incoherent...is there were extensive rewrites after much of the footage was already filmed. For example, the writing made Burnham's "mutiny" out as being much worse than what was shown onscreen. Maybe she originally successfully fired on the Klingon ship, but they edited it out because they thought it reflected too badly on her character? All of the Sarek scenes were unnecessary for the narrative and seemed to have been ported in at a later time - maybe after they decided Michael was Spock's sister. "Part 2" being so short seemed odd as well...as if they left a lot of footage on the cutting room floor, or else added a bunch of stuff in post-production and realized it was too long for a single episode.
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