Plot holes.

[Shawnster]

You can’t have a show set 200+ years in our future with tech worse than what we have now in real life.

Buttons and knobs and dials and switches. I think it would look ridiculous.

Flat, slick touch screens are extremely difficult to control without looking at the interface.

In contrast, tactile control interfaces can be operated without looking down at the buttons.

Maybe we will return to tactile interfaces for certain instances

Plus the Ilia android is way sexier than say... Data.

Drunk Tasha Yar might disagree.

 

[Dukhat]

I disagree. I think it's more like a reinterpretation of TOS elements in the DISC aesthetic.

Sure. But my point was that the producers finally saw the inherent value in maintaining a more TOS feel than just a generic sci-fi show feel.

Maybe the parts that were ripped off from 2001:A Space Odyssey. But even then...too "70s in Spaaaaace"

That was really only a factor in TMP. A film like TUC, for example, still holds up rather well.

 

[fireproof78]

Flat, slick touch screens are extremely difficult to control without looking at the interface.

Haptic controls are a thing in TNG.

 

[freethinker]

The holographic air interface is the best IMHO.

 

[FormerLurker]

But is she fully functional?

According to Doctors McCoy and Chapel, she does have all the requisite parts, so probably.



Edited to correct which third tier cast member got a promotion/new medical degree. Rand

 

[Finn]

I didn't know Rand was a Dr.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

According to Doctors McCoy and Rand, she does have all the requisite parts, so probably.

You mean Chapel, right?

 

[NCC-73515]

They could simply show that the TOS jelly buttons were actually little holographic interfaces that can be pushed from all sides, squeezed, turned, etc., which makes them very advanced.

 

[AresB]

They could simply show that the TOS jelly buttons were actually little holographic interfaces that can be pushed from all sides, squeezed, turned, etc., which makes them very advanced.

I think it was explained in the ENT novels that the TOS interfaces were based on Tellarite technology, that proved to be resistant to Romulan hacking and thus was adopted by allied races too.

 

[Weyoun 251]

They could simply show that the TOS jelly buttons were actually little holographic interfaces that can be pushed from all sides, squeezed, turned, etc., which makes them very advanced.

Pretty sure that is how Kryten in Red Dwarf tuned his nipples in to the radio...

 

[FormerLurker]

I didn't know Rand was a Dr.

You mean Chapel, right?

Yes, I meant Chapel. Once again, going on memory, not references. Sometimes they're off a little.

 

[fireproof78]

They could simply show that the TOS jelly buttons were actually little holographic interfaces that can be pushed from all sides, squeezed, turned, etc., which makes them very advanced.

That would be interesting. Usually I need some sort of finagling to make TOS feel more advanced than as presented. Mostly because TOS is the best in terms of stories and characters and world.

 

[RichT]

Flat, slick touch screens are extremely difficult to control without looking at the interface.

In contrast, tactile control interfaces can be operated without looking down at the buttons.

Maybe we will return to tactile interfaces for certain instances

Red Dwarf did this once. As the show started in the 80s it had very much a lived-in cassette futurism vibe based somewhat on the aesthetics of the movie Alien, with obvious bulky CRTs, clicky mechanical push-button interfaces and dials, very basic computer graphics, and even "futuristic" triangular VHS tapes. Holly, the ship's computer, was even revealed to have a backup that was literally a five-foot floppy disk. The show has more-or-less maintained this aesthetic for over 30 years, but eventually lampshaded its increasingly retro-futurism look by stating that humans found more advanced technology annoying and fiddly to use and eventually gave up and went back to clunky old-fashioned tech that was much harder to break.

 

[NCC-73515]

Alien Isolation uses the 1979 designs and it's no problem at all, it actually looks great IMO

 

[fireproof78]

Alien has the one of the worst aesthetics in science fiction. It also looks completely anachronistic and unbelievable as anything other than a horror setting that happens to be in outer space.

 

[Shawnster]

Alien has the one of the worst aesthetics in science fiction. It also looks completely anachronistic and unbelievable as anything other than a horror setting that happens to be in outer space.

You take that back!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I've always thought that Alien's aesthetic was brilliantly conceived and executed.

 

[fireproof78]

You take that back!

Um, no. It has not appealed to me despite decades of research and trying to.