I see what you did there.
Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy General Discussion Thread
- Thread starter The Overlord
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* nods in tellarite*We argue EVERYTHING!
That's what we do!
Putting this here for better exposure, but Paramount Plus's YouTube Channel will be premiering the first episode of Prodigy in a few hours, for free (probably just for Americans, though):
Hopefully left somewhere else. Denebian slime heaven for all I care.
The show has gotten some decent notices from niche websites but a thumbs down from Brian Lowry, Senior Writer at CNN and former TV critic for Variety.
...feels conspicuously like a "Star Wars Rebels" wannabe... Paramount+ obviously has ample shelf space, but this Nickelodeon series (where it will play later) doesn't exactly blaze memorable trails... the show mostly just transparently trades off the "Trek" title without feeling like it's going anywhere, boldly or otherwise.
That leaves the program's stand-alone merits, which based on the first few episodes appear fairly weak.
...the relationship to "Star Trek"... is especially tenuous. Indeed, the tone represents such a significant departure the "Trek" label becomes somewhat arbitrary, with composer Michael Giacchino's score representing the best part of the whole exercise.
While it's understandable why Paramount would want to expand the footprint to attract a younger audience, the search for synergy has come at the expense of a prized commodity in "Trek" lore -- namely, logic. And in terms of showing abilities beyond its years, a prodigy this isn't.
...feels conspicuously like a "Star Wars Rebels" wannabe... Paramount+ obviously has ample shelf space, but this Nickelodeon series (where it will play later) doesn't exactly blaze memorable trails... the show mostly just transparently trades off the "Trek" title without feeling like it's going anywhere, boldly or otherwise.
That leaves the program's stand-alone merits, which based on the first few episodes appear fairly weak.
...the relationship to "Star Trek"... is especially tenuous. Indeed, the tone represents such a significant departure the "Trek" label becomes somewhat arbitrary, with composer Michael Giacchino's score representing the best part of the whole exercise.
While it's understandable why Paramount would want to expand the footprint to attract a younger audience, the search for synergy has come at the expense of a prized commodity in "Trek" lore -- namely, logic. And in terms of showing abilities beyond its years, a prodigy this isn't.
Having just seen "Starstruck," I disagree strongly with Lowry. The episode was very much about ST's core theme of diverse people learning to trust each other and working together to better themselves. I think it's doing a great job of introducing Trek concepts and themes to a new audience, and the perspective of a jaded adult critic is probably not the benchmark we should be using.
And every time I see someone compare this show to Star Wars, it just tells me that they sorely need to deepen their pool of cultural referents. Star Wars is, self-admittedly and by design, one big homage to earlier things, a mashup of countless genre tropes and universal story themes. So "reminds me of Star Wars" is the media equivalent of "tastes like chicken."
Honestly, I think the 3D animation here is even better than any of the Star Wars animated shows. The level of detail in the design and rendering is almost feature-quality, though Holo-Janeway is not as convincing as the less human characters.
George Lucas was inspired to create Star Wars after watching Star Trek.
Inspiration and influence does not travel only one way. Ask the Beatles and Dylan; or the Beatles and the Beach Boys; or the Beatles and the Byrds...
And this notion I've been seeing around here that Star Wars has no distinguishing features, that one can't recognize something else as having been influenced by Star Wars, is ridiculous beyond words.
And this notion I've been seeing around here that Star Wars has no distinguishing features, that one can't recognize something else as having been influenced by Star Wars, is ridiculous beyond words.
Well, no; he was inspired to create it when Dino de Laurentiis wouldn't hire him to direct the Flash Gordon movie. And he built it out of references to Flash Gordon serials, Westerns, samurai movies, WWII movies, etc. But he used Star Trek's success in syndication to help him convince studios that it was worth investing in a sci-fi film, and he picked a name for it that would remind audiences of Star Trek and thus ride its coattails.
I'm not saying something can't be influenced by Star Wars; I'm saying that there's so much more out there that things can also be influenced by. I have literally seen people say that Prodigy reminds them of Star Wars because it's gritty and has robots. That's tantamount to saying that one Western reminds you of another because they both have horses and cowboy hats. I mean, come on. It turned out that one of the people who said that is pretty young and hasn't been exposed to a lot of media beyond Trek and Wars. Of course you're going to see similarities if you're unaware of everything else, and that's exactly the problem, that too many people's knowledge of SFF is limited to Trek, Wars, and Marvel. There is so much more out there that's worth learning about, and it's not wrong to point that out.
Perhaps if Lucas had been permitted to direct it, the film would've made money (FWIW, I liked the kicky Queen soundtrack -- "Flash! Aaaah!"
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Zero has quickly emerged as my favorite character. I love their quirky, philosophical reactions to things, like (to paraphrase) “Oh, what a fascinating cosmic phenomenon to be obliterated by.”
Although I keep wanting to call them Echo, which is the name of the non-binary AI character I’ve been writing about for the past year in my new Tangent Knights audio novel trilogy.
Meanwhile, I found it a bit ironic that the action climax of this week's episode of Star Trek: Prodigy was basically a re-enactment of the opening shot of the main titles of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Although I keep wanting to call them Echo, which is the name of the non-binary AI character I’ve been writing about for the past year in my new Tangent Knights audio novel trilogy.
Meanwhile, I found it a bit ironic that the action climax of this week's episode of Star Trek: Prodigy was basically a re-enactment of the opening shot of the main titles of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
I like Rok Tahk (I like the contrast of this eight-year-old girl being inside this enormous body).
So what happens when Murf and Rok inevitably end up in a transporter accident?
Asking4friend.
Asking4friend.
Rurf
Mok
Barf.
Hm, it just occurred to me that we haven't seen any transporter use yet in the show, aside from the replicators. I wonder if these kids even know about transporters, and how they'll react upon learning.
They'll use the transporter, then devote the rest of the episode to a philosophical debate about whether or not they just died.
She's just the cutest.
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