The problem is that I can't tell the difference between the writers setting up themes and messages, or just remembering previous episodes very differently to me, so I could do with a little bit there to make sure we're all on the same page.
Paramount apparently still doesn't get it...
- Thread starter IRW Bloodwing
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I don't think that's even remotely fair to Sydney, for the reasons I stated.
That is something about the current era of live action shows that I miss... subtlety.
A great example: in "IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT", when Sisko is talking to Vreenak , Vreenak said the drink he had was not quite what it should be. As Sisko was making point after point to him, Vreenak took another sip and said that for a moment, the drink seemed like the real thing. It was a subtle way of showing that Sisko was starting to make sense to him.
I miss scenes and moments like that. It truly enriches shows.
Sarcasm not your thing?
Except we never are all on the same page. That's point of diversity of opinions is to see what does this episode means to you? Really, that's interesting and here's what it means to me. And we share in the mutual experience of seeing how the episode works for each of us.
My go to example is ST 09. That is a film that is often derided as shallow and action focused. Yet the theme of fatherhood and necessity of mentorship to create great leaders is so strong in there to me it makes me tear up at every single rewatch. Pine does such a great in the cave with Prime Spock, his face communicates a previously hidden pain and it's wonderful.
Indeed and goes to verisimilitude. People don't speak in "as you know scenes" but they use nuance, turns of phrase, and subtlety to communicate emotions and motivations that may be they don't know or don't want to reveal yet.
Okay, I want to make sure we're all in the same room as the book which has the page. Like as a hypothetical example, if a writer is going to introduce Section 31 into a story, I need to know what they think it is before I can start to judge what the story is saying. Is it Starfleet's special operations team or an illegal conspiracy? Because that makes a lot of difference to what they're saying about the people who support it and Starfleet in general.
Why not both?
Even in DS9 Section 31's existence was nebulous. It's a feature, not a bug.
Granted I agree that knowing what the writer is putting down is fair, but that's a far, far, different thing than you and I being on the same page. We don't even have to have the same book.
To use an example from this thread Shaw is a fine Starfleet captain. Why? Because that's what the writers are presenting in the show. Anything else is fan supposition, i.e. do I like him, do I hate him, is he unreasonable, etc.
To be honest, I think none of them have seen the entirety of Star Trek.. That would be a ridiculous burden.
It often feels like they have a reference catalogue lying around - like a cliff's note of previous Trek lore ("Section 31 = shady Starfleet spies"; "Khan = Kirk's genetically engineered arch enemy"; "Kirk = womanising hero guy";...). They are constantly referencing stuff. But it rarely feels they actually watched the stuff they reference. A bit like the MARVEL catalogue where the MCU writers come to to pick up names, ideas & scenes, without needing to read decades of rubbish comics.
Shows the good side of the TNG era approach, where previous Trek was mostly ignored & referenced sparingly, as new writers could come in with their own ideas easily. Now every new thing somehow needs a connection to an old thing, and the connection itself often feels kind of wrong. Too much focus on IP & lore, too little on story.
Such a great post.
The 80s shows ignored tons of continuity from TOS, because it was inconvenient and limited story telling. Can you imagine the uproar if something as key as the Organian Peace Treaty was to TOS was completely ignored today?
Oh, the "Not Real Star Trek" crowd would have petitions and memes to show their disgruntled opions.
Sure it is. It's just swept under the rug with no reference to the Organians ever again. The Klingons are just assumed to be part of the Federation until they no longer are.
And yet what do fans cry for in a new show? Where are the Klingons? Where are the Romulans? Where is this character, or that character? Why can't we hear about all the previous lore.
Damned if you do; damned if you don't. I pity the Trek writers.
I think we're a lot closer to agreeing about this stuff than we seem to be a lot of the time. I don't want to go visit the reference museum every episode, what I want is for the events of past stories to resonate in the future. I don't want to keep having hyped up appearances of fan favourites so we can see their painful deaths, I want to feel like the people we've met carry on living in this world and have stories left to tell.
And when it comes to the Klingons and Romulans:
I mean, it'd be a bit weird if they didn't show up, at least in the pre Disco eras. They're two of the biggest splats on the space map, our most important neighbouring nations. Plus I liked how TNG passed its political stories onto DS9 to carry, and I feel that a series should be there to pick up the baton.
And when it comes to the Klingons and Romulans:
I mean, it'd be a bit weird if they didn't show up, at least in the pre Disco eras. They're two of the biggest splats on the space map, our most important neighbouring nations. Plus I liked how TNG passed its political stories onto DS9 to carry, and I feel that a series should be there to pick up the baton.
You could've chosen a better example. That's not subtlety. It has nudge-nudge wink-wink written all over it. I could pick that up even when I was 18. Doesn't take away from the episode in any way, but a spade is a spade.
Maybe it will eventually. It's not a requirement.
Two things about that, though.
1. Since Roddenberry was (at least initially) behind TNG, it gave the series more leeway to go in new directions, since it's harder for the people who feel "betrayed" to argue with the creator of the thing about what is and isn't Star Trek. Although, you can get there with that kind of thing (e.g., look at Star Wars fans and what they were saying about George Lucas after the prequel trilogy).
2. If I remember correctly, Roddenberry specifically wanted to distance TNG from anything that had come before, and people had to fight with him to use any elements from either TOS or the movies, like the Klingons, Romulans, etc., in stories.
And from everything I've read either in stuff like the TNG companions or online, the writing staff of the time HATED having to abide by that edict and felt the show suffered for it.
I stand corrected. Sarcasm doesn't translate to written very well.
In a live stream Monday, Todd Stashwick said the way he played it was as the character thinking Picard and Riker "poked the bear" when they initially encountered the Borg, and acted irresponsibly
Another YouTube theory is that that on top of that, Shaw was "Ten of Ten", so any parallel reference would trigger the survivor's guilt.
And Raffi is practically a brand new character in season 3 with the very different writing.
It follows along as well as any of the shows. They’ll always do what they want in regards to continuity, This has been true since TOS.
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