Paramount apparently still doesn't get it...

[CorporalCaptain]

Just a few upgrades between each of the pilots and the series, but mostly the same ship.

That would be perfectly cromulent explanation, were it not for the stock footage being interleaved so that the upgrades appear, disappear, reappear, re-disappear, all in the same episode.

 

[The Wormhole]

That would be perfectly cromulent explanation,

Ah, cromulent. That word embiggens me.

 

[Picard578]

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.

Uh, properly done, "building" approach is actually far superior. Look at Tolkien: he started with Silmarillion, and built upon it to create a massively expansive, detailed yet internally consistent universe. That approach is far better than "discard everything" approach, because it results in very deep universe with complex relationships.

But it is difficult to do properly.

 

[Orphalesion]

Uh, properly done, "building" approach is actually far superior. Look at Tolkien: he started with Silmarillion, and built upon it to create a massively expansive, detailed yet internally consistent universe. That approach is far better than "discard everything" approach, because it results in very deep universe with complex relationships.

Technically he started with the intention of creating an "English/Anglo-Saxon" mythology that was supposed to lead to and incorporate Arthurian mythology and accounts of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England. It later became the Silmarillion.
Though Middle Earth is not completely internally consistent. There are multiple, mutually contradiction accounts and descriptions of much of the events. And I don't mean that in the way of "different in-universe accounts" but multiple authoritative statements by Tolkien that contradict each other. Some of them can even be found within the Lord of the Rings itself.
So no fictional universe is wholly internally consistent, but I ended up embracing that and stopped worrying a lot about contradictions like that.

 

[fireproof78]

So no fictional universe is wholly internally consistent, but I ended up embracing that and stopped worrying a lot about contradictions like that.

Indeed. If I'm thinking about contradictions in a story then the story has lost me. And that's not good.

However, if a story and characters is engaging then contradictions are fine. I accept them in MASH or Night Court or Rules of Engagement just as well as I accept them in Star Trek. Humans are not perfect tellers of stories. Fiction is no different.

 

[Orphalesion]

Indeed. If I'm thinking about contradictions in a story then the story has lost me. And that's not good.

However, if a story and characters is engaging then contradictions are fine. I accept them in MASH or Night Court or Rules of Engagement just as well as I accept them in Star Trek. Humans are not perfect tellers of stories. Fiction is no different.

Exactly, to get it back to the Lord of the rings example. For the narrative of the Lord of the Rings, and even for the chapters set in Lorien and the interactions the characters have with Galadriel and Celeborn it doesn't really matter that their backstory is a giant mess that contradicts itself in just about every aspect, down to how/where they met, how many kids they have (and in turn which characters were their kids beyond Celebrian) and where they spend the First and Second (and most of the Third) ages.
Since none of those aspects ever really factor into the story of the Lord of the Rings I don't perceive them as problematic for the narrative.

 

[Picard578]

Technically he started with the intention of creating an "English/Anglo-Saxon" mythology that was supposed to lead to and incorporate Arthurian mythology and accounts of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England. It later became the Silmarillion.
Though Middle Earth is not completely internally consistent. There are multiple, mutually contradiction accounts and descriptions of much of the events. And I don't mean that in the way of "different in-universe accounts" but multiple authoritative statements by Tolkien that contradict each other. Some of them can even be found within the Lord of the Rings itself.
So no fictional universe is wholly internally consistent, but I ended up embracing that and stopped worrying a lot about contradictions like that.

True, but Tolkien put in massive effort to keep his work consistent. When it comes to actually published works, you can count contradictions on fingers of one hand. The reason why his overall mythos has a massive number of contradictions is because, well, he was a perfectionist and a tinkerer: he never was happy with what he had written, so he ended up writing a million of different stories to set up the background, and each of these had a dozen different variants. Be it backstory of Numenor, of Celeborn and Galadriel... there is a lot to pick there. And no matter the story, internal logic and message is actually consistent - the slow decay of the world, magical past giving way to mundane present. By contrast, I'm not sure how much new Star Trek manages - or tries - to keep the spirit of the original alive.

 

[fireproof78]

By contrast, I'm not sure how much new Star Trek manages - or tries - to keep the spirit of the original alive.

The spirit of the original was action/adventure in a scifi setting with social commentary woven within it. Also an optimistic outlook that the human race would survive what everyone felt was imminent nuclear war.

That's it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

By contrast, I'm not sure how much new Star Trek manages - or tries - to keep the spirit of the original alive.

Does quite well for this 64 year old fan for fifty-seven years.

 

[Picard578]

The spirit of the original was action/adventure in a scifi setting with social commentary woven within it. Also an optimistic outlook that the human race would survive what everyone felt was imminent nuclear war.

That's it.

My point is precisely that optimistic outlook.

 

[Ovation]

Clearly humanity survives. Optimism rewarded.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My point is precisely that optimistic outlook.

Not seeing a lack of optimism. The characters for the most part are positive people with positive attitudes who face adversity but remain optimistic, Just like the old shows.

 

[1001001]

DSC is almost goofily optimistic.

 

[Nerys Myk]

DSC is almost goofily optimistic.

 

[fireproof78]

My point is precisely that optimistic outlook.

I still see it.

 

[Dukhat]

Amazing how people demand that spin-offs of a television series produced almost sixty years, ten U.S. presidents, and twelve British prime ministers ago display a level of visual continuity that that almost-old-enough-to-collect-Social-Security television series did not itself display.

Well, DSC was advertised as a ten-years-before-TOS prequel. So it stands to reason that people might have assumed the show would at least have made even the smallest bit of effort to mimic some of the things from that '60's visual continuity, rather than making it look absolutely nothing like TOS.

But not me, of course. I had no illusions whatsoever that DSC would look or feel anything like TOS.

 

[donners22]

Ah, Gene's Vision, or variations thereof. It's the Trek equivalent of Godwin's law.

There seems to be a convenient amnesia regarding how dark TOS was at times, how TNG's utopia was often limited to the bubble of the Enterprise, and how DS9 went out of its way to deconstruct the supposed utopia/evolved humanity.

 

[shyborg]

Academy wasn't high on my list of show choices. But I've become a fan or appreciated a lot about the various Trek shows. DS9 isn't my thing, but it brought a lot to the table. Even if Academy isn't for me, I just hope there are fans for it and it builds up on the universe/fandom like the others have

 

[Mudd]

Eh, TNG humans were Americans in space, too.

They all still are Americans in space.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Ah, Gene's Vision, or variations thereof. It's the Trek equivalent of Godwin's law.

There seems to be a convenient amnesia regarding how dark TOS was at times, how TNG's utopia was often limited to the bubble of the Enterprise, and how DS9 went out of its way to deconstruct the supposed utopia/evolved humanity.

Quoted for truth.