Please elucidate.
"Fan Service" label is over used
- Thread starter trekfan_1
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There's a throwaway reference to an obscure volume in the Library's collection: Dragomiloff's Guide to Unusual Weapons.
This alludes to "The Assassination Bureau, Ltd.," an unfinished novel by Jack London that was made into a delightful-yet-largely-forgotten movie back in in 1969, starring Oliver Reed as a dashing assassin named Ivan Dragomiloff.
And, yeah, I seriously doubted that many readers were going to catch that reference, but it made me chuckle.
^^this
90s Trek movies got so lax and really coasted on non-explanations, small universe faff, and contrivances that were not interesting (esp. FC, and NEM only because they thought Picard's big bad would be...*) it's a reason why
the crew, and not all of them, on the Titan-A is a refreshing change. No 1701-FGHIJK with all of them plopped on it for the same non-reasons that the TNG crew fudged in the 90s flicks.
* a botched clone experiment stuck on a prison planet who managed to make an amazing do-all ship with nobody noticing... Scratch the "Shinzon is a Picard clone" and have him as a leader of a rogue Romulan wanting power, and the movie's plotting immediately skyrockets to something one could buy into as the number of conveniences vanish and what's left are easily rendered plausible. Still, that's better than the zilch put into the Borg flick.
(On edit: significant grammatical boo-boo was fixed)
Sequels and world-building to expand the lore are one thing, and can be a biggie. Bringing back any ol' fan-favorite because they were liked at one time becomes a fine line. "Small universe syndrome" becomes an issue when, in the sheer size of the universe, so many disparate elements we've known for years are - all of a sudden - now related and interconnected to one another and it feels like a joke. Just not a good one. It'd be like if it turned out the Doctor was the one who invented the Daleks (and maybe by series 15 he'll have done so, at this point!) I haven't seen "Futurama" in a decade, but some episodes had quite a few coincidences, some of which also included a trope that - since I couldn't find the official one - I'll just e-scribble out as "hollow yet 'SPECIAL' and 'EPIC' DRAMA!!!!!!" - Red Dwarf fell flat by overdoing that for almost every character in series 7, too. RD thankfully returned to its roots... Modern Who has done it way too often, with the timeless child revelation being the latest example.
80s/90s Trek has it with the Borg. They started out as a "po-faced parody" of the Federation in "Q Who", and also (by accident) seemed to have more in common with the Pakleds - only with a more erudite vocabulary. The Borg had slight tweaks applied since then, to become enslavers of species (without their realizing it, they just felt they were doing every squishy blobby organic thing a favor by grafting in some electronic bits) in TBOBW. "I Borg" and "Descent" have a benefit of not trotting down the cliche of "do more of the same", even if coupled with the season 5-7 format of the show it led to some anticlimactic issues (esp "Descent"). Sadly, 1996's big flick movie did go down the "let's do a greatest hits album and redo a big invasion, again" - complete with panacea problem of "selective non-adapting" really came to the fore as they couldn't be bothered to send two cubes, if nothing else... I'm amazed how often VOY managed to revive and kept them going as an effective baddie you don't want to meet in an alley.
Compare the Daleks to the Zygons from doctor Who. Even then, in both classic and modern eras of Doctor Who, it's easy to see when even the Daleks get stale (often by being nothing more than catchphases, and/or used as comedy fodder - flanderization)... but the Zygon return, after decades of "Oh, that was cool cuz they were scary and stuff" was a snoozer. Isn't that the one where the Doctor is hanging onto a helicopter for a pointless stunt? Oh wait, that's another example of the show running out of anything and trying to use empty stunts as a cheap substitute. The Zygons didn't really have anything else to explore, and showing a prequel as to how they developed their abilities and/or desire to conquer (moohahahaha) would be no less flat, too. Not all monsters work out that way.
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Hmm.
My own novel-in-progress shares a universe with my planned model railroad layout. And both the book and the model railroad allude to each other, and also allude to the children's books put out by Edward Stratemeyer and his syndicate of ghostwriters: allusions to places and characters, allusions to the house pseudonyms, and even to Stratemeyer himself.
(What can I say? I grew up on The Bobbsey Twins. And some of those books, especially towards the end of the series, are astonishingly well researched: on my first visit to Colonial Williamsburg, I could find my way around the Historic District just from memories of having read The Bobbsey Twins' Red, White and Blue Mystery.)
This is where I brag about having ghost-written at least one modern TOM SWIFT novel -- as "Victor Appleton" of course!
Well, of course as "Victor Appleton." Everybody who ghost-wrote Tom Swift did so as "Victor Appleton." Just as everybody who wrote The Bobbsey Twins, from Stratemeyer himself to Nancy Axelrad, did so as "Laura Lee Hope."
It’s more like, “Remember X? So do we! But we’re not bringing it back the way you
remember. Instead we’re putting our own spin on what you remember!”
I disagree. I think Prodigy is pretty creative for a Star Trek show.
Oversimplification is oversimplified.
Some of the effects shots and moments in battle scenes awed. Not as much the teal hue but
the portal weapon, a sequel to the Changelings from DS9 (that have a couple unanswered questions), etc. Someone on youtube said that the plot is using and continuing the discarded one from "Conspiracy". If it's done in a compelling way, digging up then-unused ideas doesn't bother me.
That said, there has been some nostalgia-picking and the attempt to do something new earlier didn't work for me as it was too antithetical to the established universe for no reason...
season 3 feels like a partial retcon, which can't explain all, but it's making me want to revisit old episodes and see if it's making sense. I'll admit, if there was a multi-year plan, it was a head-scratcher. And rewatching old TNG and TOS, not all of those episodes follow canonical standards either. It begs the question of how soft the line is and when a gripe is worthwhile.
I don't know how many fans it applies to, but I was watching from the time I could form memories, close to fifty years at this point. In those formative years, Star Trek stretched my imagination in a way nothing else at the time could, which is why I feel so disappointed with it now, as it just incessantly feeds on its own carcass as the current writers seem to have no imagination and CBS has no desire to do anything but wallow in nostalgia.
DSC Seasons 3 and 4?
After "Unification III" and knowing about the Guardian two-parter to follow, I bowed out.
Fair enough.
Seasons 3 and 4 were entirely new. New century, new problems, etc.
Okay a little fan service in Season 3...
New century, but it really didn't feel like anything different, at least as far as I got into season three. I'll probably finish with Discovery at some point down the road, but I'm at odds with Trek right now. Need that time away from it after the last several years with CBS/Paramount.
It has gotten to the point that I have a whole stack of IDW Trek comics, Pocket novels, rest of Picard season 2 and all of season 3, Discovery rest of season 3 and all of 4, Lower Decks season 3 and most of Prodigy still to read/watch.
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