I suspect more because it's animated and thus "less canon" or somesuch. Imagine how they'd react to a Trekverse Orville, basically. Hellfire and brimstone.
They seem to like the Orville as well, which is not animated. And in the Star Wars world, the same is happening with the mandalorian.
The Orville is basically inoffensive. It is not actual canon to Trek which makes it a beautiful substitute because it doesn't actually impact Trek. The Mandalorian is the pinnacle of inoffensive shows when it comes to use of nostalgia and a protagonist whom the audience gets is pretty much a cipher, so they can be whatever the audience wants. Nothing new, no risks, no harm done. It also highlights the Star Wars value of the underdog fighting against the establishment.
On the other hand, I DO find both much more well written and more enjoyable than most recent live-action Trek or the last Star Wars movie…
And that's fine. It's still very safe and takes no risks. I find the Mandalorian very uneven in terms of writing and characterization. It goes out of its way to make the main character a cipher. The Orville I find just as uneven, because Mercer goes from sad sack to hero to sad sack again. He's not that dynamic.
I enjoy The Mandalorian but I'd say it was functionally written. The stories move forwards, but it's all veneer with not much below the surface. I found that quite jarring for the first few episodes but once I realised it was going to be quite a shallow experience I was able to get onboard more and enjoy it. It takes no risks though. Sometimes it seems to solely exist to dispense Easter Eggs. Maybe that's what's easier to enjoy? Nostalgic shows that don't take risks? No offence meant by that, I'm not aiming anything at you personally, but pop culture really does seem to be eating itself on an unprecedented scale right now and more than ever people seem to seeking comfort blankets from their entertainment. Another fandom which I've just had to stop away from for a while is Doctor Who. That's a show that's been upsetting it's own apple cart in the same way Trek has these past few years and the fan community is presently dominated by toxic people it seems. Oh, and guess what the favourite word is over there right now... "canon". That's why Trek fans can get behind The Orville whilst hating on "NuTrek". The Orville satisfies a TNG Nostalgia wish whilst not upsetting canon.
I tend to agree. The few times where there is small amounts of character development almost immediately get overshadowed the next episode by the main character returning to his killer self. Honestly, I think so. I think it isn't just nostalgia but nostalgia that is largely inoffensive. It can't go to far in any one direction because that would be straying from the familiar. It strikes me that many just want safe, familiar and not having to think too much. And before I get accused of being against comfort food viewing I will say that I have no issue with comfort food view but I don't want that to be the only thing in a particular franchise. I don't want Trek to lean on TOS or TNG for forever like an poorly formed fan film, and I don't want the characters to remain locked in their roles while so much wax figures in a museum. Yes, Orville does the best thing a Trek series can do-be safe and secure without disrupting the precious canon. Mandalorian is the same way, and in fact is welcome to be disrupting canon because evil Disney dared to do something different. SMH.
You're right about the The Orville and The Mandalorian being resistant to complaints about canon. The Orville hasn't been around long enough to have a canon to contradict, and The Mandalorian is like a historical drama focused on absolute authenticity to its setting. The Mandalorian isn't going to be everyone's thing and the stories aren't flawless, but there aren't any gaps in the armour for people to attack it with canon as it's just too faithful to what's come before. In fact the second season got me watching The Clone Wars and Rebels, because I was craving more context, and they didn't disappoint. Nothing is contradicted as far as I can tell, everything fits together in a satisfying way to tell a larger story. It's even faithful to the visual design of the cartoons, which is awesome. This is entirely what I want out of a franchise like this, and my interest has nothing to do with nostalgia for the cartoons because I watched them afterwards. The same with Doctor Who. I started with Matt Smith, I've got no nostalgia for the classic series, it's not a comfortable cosy memory from my childhood, but when stories like The Timeless Children start retconning things it's frustrating for me. I get a lot of satisfaction out of a properly connected story that isn't messed up with reboots and retcons and visual reinterpretations. That's how my brain's wired.
Which defines comfort food. It isn't doing anything new with the material. It's basically saying that the world needs to remain static in order to satisfy. Which again, is fine, but it leaves very little room for growth, and repeats the notion that the only way to tell a Star Wars story is for the heroes to always been the outsiders against the big bad. Ultimately, it will depend on investment in the world itself. Which, for Star Wars, means not changing it. In Star Trek it has always meant change.
I don’t see how you can reduce something like Lower Decks to just “nostalgia”. Especially given how it has been working both with its characters and storylines.
It's inoffensive. It doesn't dare to change anything within the Star Trek mythos and allows the characters to stay out of the way of the big heroes. It looks "close enough" while not offending sensibilities. That's the nostalgia. Obviously, the details are different but that is how it skates by is by looking inoffensive and ticking nostalgia boxes.
Can’t agree at all. It’s presenting deep characters and well done, relatively complex, storylines, often subverting expectations (the pakled as serious bad guys?!) and delivering much more character arcs than any of the current shows, or, for what matters, the berman Trek, ever did. does it look a bit like tng? Sure. Which makes sense, since it’s set almost in the same era. Does it uses classic Trek tropes? Sure, but in a self-aware way, elaborating on them to make them more interesting. And, interestingly, episodes where the characters’ actions are hard to justified have been extremely rare, as rare are situations where something just shouldn’t occur with the technology presented, while both things have been a staple of discovery.
This isn't to say it isn't well done, because it clearly is. But, the question is why does it get by not is it well done. It plays it safe enough, and doesn't stray outside the Trek sandbox, while being animated which means that it won't be taken strictly seriously. Lower Decks obviously offers more, but the reason why it skates by in the canon wars is because it presents itself as inoffensive.
It's not entirely inoffensive. There was quite a bit of pearl clutching going on after the Mugato masturbation and Boimlerhole incidents. I think the main reason LD seems to skate by the canon wars is because it's got a strong visual continuity to the Berman era and that's what people really care about. If the California class ships didn't look 'right' I think we'd be hearing stuff like "they can't just invent a new ship and say it's been there for decades! The Federation would have had all hands on deck for the battle of sector 001 and I didn't see any Cali classes!"
True, but that was after the series had launched. I would expect a lot more push back, like what you describe below, than actually occurred. Honestly, I am surprised that this didn't happen. The rather innocuous way that LD was just accepted points far more to what you describe-the visuals line up and all is forgiven. I have long suspected that if Discovery had done a bridge set like the SNW one, and ships that looked like TOS, and uniforms similar to Pike's from the get go the pushback would not have been as extreme. It's an extremely shallow analysis but that appears to be the case. Same thing with the Mandalorian. As long as the illusion of visuals is made "close enough" fans will tolerate more changes. But, because Discovery was created by the bastard Kurtzman, who is an unholy joining of Abrams and Berman, and didn't try at all to create a connection to past Trek design he clearly hates Star Trek, spits on Roddenberry's grave, and hopes to destroy all Trek which came before him.
That's almost certainly true. The visuals are a huge part of the experience (take them away and you've got an audio drama), and when things don't look right it can be very offputting.
It can be, which I can appreciate, but it also disproves the notion that the writing alone defines what people accept as Star Trek. For me, TMP isn't Star Trek by visuals alone. It doesn't fit. But, Star Trek is not a period piece, nor is it an historical documentary which means that visual updates are going to happen. How a person tolerates that will depend and vary, but it proves the point that people actually don't give as much of a hoot about "good writing" when all it takes is a small tweak to the visuals and it's accepted. It's vapid and shallow and annoying.
I think that everyone's got a different idea of what good writing is, and how much bad writing they're willing to tolerate, though I wouldn't say people don't care about writing. In fact I think if you filter out all the idiots complaining that women exist or whatever, then the scripts are usually the internet's main issue with any TV series. Sometimes people have to be happy with the visuals before they can really settle in and be annoyed by a weak script, but writing is absolutely important to people.
It's not as important as often claimed. That's my larger point. The constant claims of Discovery is bad writing, and Burnham is bad, are not nearly as important and that would have been illustrated if they did faithful recreations of TOS uniforms. Instead, the focus is on all these things are so super bad but really would be forgiven if you had green-gold/blue/red uniforms. It makes it very difficult to take seriously. Well, as seriously as it is often presented. Not saying people don't value it, but it is much lower down the list if the visuals were done correctly. Not that I have much room to talk. I would like TMP and TWOK much better if the uniforms were TOS style ones.