What has the new series done to ruin Star Trek this time?

[cooleddie74]

Well, that's a judgment call. Some folks like those characters, though one-off guest stars rarely return. All eras of Trek revisit concepts that are generally uninteresting (DSC and PIC made habits of banging on about AI and time travel to extents that bored and alienated even me).

 

[fireproof78]

I'm a continuity maniac and even I know when to let things go and stop worrying too much.

Indeed. The hyper fixation on things fitting perfectly well presents as worrying too much in forcing things together.

Again, I go back to the hyper literalism, which is selectively applied. I mean, the way I read it sometimes here is that Prodigy and TAS and Lower Decks don't really happen because they are animated. It's...an interesting stretch of suspension of disbelief.

 

[BillJ]

Well, that's a judgment call.

It all is.

Some folks like those characters.

They served story points, but were generally uninteresting, from my POV.

 

[cooleddie74]

I just picture Robert April as looking exactly the same in both SNW and TAS. Sure, he's white in animation and black in live action but it's literally the same man. I just imagine everyone in both series see him the same way. The "James Bond effect."

 

[BillJ]

The hyper fixation on things fitting perfectly well presents as worrying too much in forcing things together.

There is no one to blame there, except CBS/Paramount.

 

[fireproof78]

I just picture Robert April as looking exactly the same in both SNW and TAS. Sure, he's white in animation and black in live action but it's literally the same man. I just imagine everyone in both series sees him the same way.

Which is where the dramatic presentation is really important to remember. If we take it as strictly literal history we are now accounting for a lot of details that don't line up. In "The Menagerie" is there are time jump between Spock taking Pike to the Turbolift and Kirk seeing Pike on the screen, since the episode has it happened in mere seconds?

 

[HotRod]

Sometimes they're just TV shows

This.

 

[BillJ]

I just picture Robert April as looking exactly the same in both SNW and TAS. Sure, he's white in animation and black in live action but it's literally the same man. I just imagine everyone in both series see him the same way. The "James Bond effect."

It was just something else that was forced for no good reason, except "memberberries". They easily could've created a new character or had the character be someone like Commodore Stone.

 

[fireproof78]

There is no one to blame there, except CBS/Paramount.

There's no need for blame, period. I don't regard TMP and TOS and TWOK as lining up together. No doubt the powers that be would argue otherwise.

CBS is doing what's right by them in what they think will sell, and it was selling so clearly if they take some "blame" they would be like, "Yup, we did that because we thought it would make us money."

IDIC-another money making venture.

 

[cooleddie74]

Again, I wouldn't have changed the external appearance of Pike's Enterprise or moved the dates of the Eugenics Wars. "But the modern audience" can be one of the weakest and laziest arguments in any filmed or recorded entertainment. But it is what it is and I see it all as one continuity, just viewed through different creative lenses.

The bridge in TOS is pretty much the same bridge as in SNW, just a slightly smaller module installed after the events of the current streaming series. And Starfleet changes uniforms every time some Admiral in the Quartermaster division scratches their rear end, so yeah, the shirts have ribbed necks again in 2265.

 

[Citiprime]

I mean...would I have changed the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s to the 2030s or thereabouts? Hell no. It's a fictional universe anyways so in a made-up universe Khan can easily fit into the 1990s. But the decision was made and until it's again retconned (please don't, once is enough) I'm at peace.

But that's the point. Once you basically open everything up to a retcon, then it's all wide open to a retcon. And that's the reason I used the example of the USS New Jersey.

If people are going to squint and make excuses for how "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" makes sense with "Space Seed" and Wrath of Khan, then my speculation about the USS New Jersey as being a TOS Constitution Class in the 25th century is just as valid an explanation as their personal head canon in covering over the differences.

Basically, when you have to make excuses to believe in a continuity since it becomes something that has no permanence beyond the whims of the current showrunner, then there really isn't any continuity. OR ... you discount the changes based on the timeline changes you see in the story that's presented onscreen, and reason it's not the same continuity.

 

[fireproof78]

Basically, when you have to make excuses to believe in a continuity since it becomes something that has no permanence beyond the whims of the current showrunner, then there really isn't any continuity. OR ... you discount the changes based on the timeline changes you see in the story that's presented onscreen, and reason it's not the same continuity.

Dude.

That's been TOS for years now. Especially in to TMP. Excuses were made. People papered over the continuity, because there wasn't really that much of one as it was presented as very episodic. This is presenting an extremely black and white as "either all continuity or no continuity."

And that's just not how drama works, how even history works.

 

[cooleddie74]

The New Jersey is just proof two different appearances of Connies happen during the 2250s and 2260s. No retcon necessary. Starfleet liked playing around with new tech so some Connies look like the SNW Enterprise and others like the TOS Enterprise.

 

[BillJ]

If nothing in Prime is important, then why is it so important that these shows be Prime?

 

[BillJ]

Starfleet liked playing around with new tech so some Connies look like the SNW Enterprise and others like the TOS Enterprise.

And sometimes, they look like both, even in the same series.

 

[fireproof78]

If nothing in Prime is important, then why is it so important that these shows be Prime?

Because the authors chose it.

The New Jersey is just proof two different appearances of Connies happen during the 2250s and 2260s. No retcon necessary. Starfleet liked playing around with new tech so some Connies look like the SNW Enterprise and others like the TOS Enterprise.

Or it's just a different holodeck program

 

[cooleddie74]

I said it several years ago: my edict as studio head would be "make it look as much like TOS as possible, no radical changes just because kewlness and the Snapchat era." But I wasn't the studio head and I can make it all work in my head. I don't like it all, and a few things still bug me, but I can make most of it work.

 

[BillJ]

Because the authors chose it.

That doesn't really answer the question on a personal level, it is just passing the buck.

 

[BillJ]

But I wasn't the studio head and I can make it all work in my head.

I can too. It is all part of the vast multiverse. No messy discussions about characters changing races, ships and sets changing appearances, or character back stories or in universe details changing.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Indeed. It's funny how some things get excused away, i.e. early installment weirdness, or writer mistakes, but others are treated as wholesale ruination of the continuity. Note: not canon. That was a production team member's "mistake."

There are two ways of looking at this.

1. This person is inconsistent with their opinions.
2. This person didn't care that Starfleet and the Federation weren't nailed down until partway through TOS season 1. They got over Trills being different in DS9 and all the inconsistent years mentioned in stories like Star Trek 4 and Dr Bashir, I Presume. They even accepted Prodigy and Lower Decks existing in a heightened animated reality. So if this person is bothered by something, then Trek must have actually crossed some kind of line for them this time.