Mileage will vary.
Well, the goal is ultimately to entertain the largest group possible.
What has the new series done to ruin Star Trek this time?
- Thread starter Ray Hardgrit
- Start date
Oh, I always thought the ultimate goal was to make as much money with it as possible
I'd have no problem with that, and I'll tell you why below.
AMC's recent Interview With The Vampire series cast Black actors as Louis and Claudia, as well as making Claudia a little older. This allowed them to add far more depth (IMO) to the characters and their backgrounds than there had been in either the 80s movie or the original novel. So I'm quite open to reinterpretation like that. What would be different about a Black James Bond? Or yes, a Black Scotty? What would be the same? I'm genuinely curious.
As for the "is it a different timeline" thing... I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and say it's all the Prime timeline, but I grew up on DC comics where backgrounds and sometimes personalities could change with a new writer, so I'm rather flexible on this.
However, if YOUR enjoyment requires you to say, "nope, different timeline," that's more than OK. We're all here because we love Star Trek. IDIC
I would have preferred the fan theory that its just a code name, filled by different men in different time periods, but the thing with the wife is always used as proof that it is one continuity. I know some people have deep dived into the lore and dates, and have determined that the connery bond movies match up with dialogue and dates in The Rock, and its a nice send off for Connery, but its not an official movie of course. I think i've seen people draw a line before Brosnan, and I've seen people say Casino Royale was a complete reboot, but I don't have much invested in Bond fandom, other then the car, the catch phrases and the parodies in other works.
I still think the best way to have dealt with it, and also would have helped people like me accept "visual retcons" would have been to have Dorn look like a TOS Klingon from the moment they got into the 23rd century until the moment they left, without anyone saying ONE DAMN WORD.
It doesn't, and they don't. A couple button panels or a chair or a phaser, and the general shape of the ship's exterior, but nothing else is even close.
That would've ruined the episode for me to be honest. The Lower Decks crew going from animated to live-action makes sense, that's a change in medium, the DS9 crew going from 90s film stock to 60s film stock was subtle and necessary to blend the footage together, but having Worf's makeup change would've been like having a message on the bottom of the screen saying "NONE OF THIS IS REAL. YOU ARE WATCHING A FICTIONAL TELEVISION SHOW."
Yeah.... you're welcome to your opinion. I certainly don't agree with it, but whatever. If you can't accept at all the obvious intent of the those behind the production, there's no point in arguing.
the intent behind those in the production is that the entire timeline has been altered due to time traveling Romulans from the year 2022 onward at MINIMUM. If you can't accept all of the obvious examples created by those behind the productions, there's no point in arguing.
and yet it would have been the only way to truly get across the point that "this is what they always looked like." I think it would have been insanely clever and it would have made me love the episode even more. YMMV.
The whole "Connery's character from The Rock is the same person as Connery's James Bond" theory gets shot down by anyone who knows anything about James Bond or The Rock. Specifically, Bond's military service is that he served in the Royal Navy and made the rank of Commander. Connery's character in The Rock meanwhile served in the Royal Army, got into the SAS and made the rank of Captain. So even if you ignore the intent that all the Bonds from Connery to Brosnan are supposed to be the same person or that The Rock is not officially part of the Bond universe, Connery's character in The Rock still can't be James Bond. At all.
Casino Royale was a reboot. That's well publicized and official. Even if you're not into Bond, that fact was rather inescapable to anyone who paid any attention to the entertainment industry in 2006.
The theory about The Rock is kinda fun but it doesn't hold water, and neither does the "Code Name Theory" to explain the change in Bond's appearance every handful of movies. They just hired a new actor to play James Bond and over the first 20 films in the franchise he's meant to be the exact same man from Dr. No to Die Another Day. You're just told to ignore how he ages once you get to the transition from Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton and pretend he didn't suddenly get almost 20 years younger. 
But same continuity. Even Moneypenny was the same actress for the first 14 films in a row and Q was Desmond Llewelyn for 17 of the 20.
But same continuity. Even Moneypenny was the same actress for the first 14 films in a row and Q was Desmond Llewelyn for 17 of the 20.
Oh, I always thought the ultimate goal was to make as much money with it as possible
If a series is going to have continuity references, you cannot go wrong (or establish a stronger connection) than the most important event in the main character's screen stories. For Your Eyes Only's cemetery scene forever silenced the Bond-conspiracy theorists who (for whatever reason) claimed each new Bond actor meant a different life/reality/universe for the character, which was a silly notion.
Agreed; SNW is as organically connected to TOS (and the timeline it spawned from TAS/TOS movies) as a random fan film. IOW, not at all.
I suspect SNW (like Disco before it) is a lot more fun and a lot less of a headache if we treat it as a reboot.
Because that's pretty much what it is. A prequel that's doing it's own thing, with a few nods to fans along the way.
Because that's pretty much what it is. A prequel that's doing it's own thing, with a few nods to fans along the way.
SNW is fine as a connection to TOS.
It's also fine as a standalone thing.
Star Trek is better as a standalone thing rather than trying to force things to hang together perfectly. I'm ok with this being another variation of the "Battle of Midway" or Shakespeare play with different production values. It hangs together just fine like that. The only thing that causes a barrier is perception around production values.
It's also fine as a standalone thing.
Star Trek is better as a standalone thing rather than trying to force things to hang together perfectly. I'm ok with this being another variation of the "Battle of Midway" or Shakespeare play with different production values. It hangs together just fine like that. The only thing that causes a barrier is perception around production values.
Or (in my opinion) alternate realities, SNW especially shows more advanced technology than TOS. Change some names and SNW could have easily been set after the TOS movies.
I think the problem has always been that back in 2017, CBS All Access decided to use the words ‘prime universe’ simply to differentiate their new Trek show from the Kelvin Timeline films, rather than some all-encompassing plan to shoehorn DSC into the TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY continuity. They cared far less about making the show adhere to what an actual ten-years-before-TOS prequel would actually look and feel like, and instead made a show that looked and felt nothing like TOS. And then proceeded to decree that it in fact does take place in that continuity despite the massive fundamental differences between those continuities. And then they got caught up in their own bullshit and kept insisting that it will ‘all fit together; trust us!” to the point where they needed to add DSC-esque stuff to the first seasons of other shows like PIC and PRO which definitely did take place in the prime universe continuity. It was almost as if they were afraid of actually calling their show a reboot, and couldn’t get out of that rut of trying to convince us that it all fits together when it clearly didn’t. Which was why the decision was made to move the show 900 years in the future, because the TOS era wasn’t working for them.
Exactly my thoughts.
A perceived negative reaction to the Kelvin timeline led them to feel the need to reassure fans it was all good, all ‘prime’ again when no such thing needed to be said…
Over the years now, everything has just gone into a blender. DSC Klingons being remodelled for DSC S02, a season which features our new Pike/Number One/Spock, only for SNW to dial back to TNG style Klingons years later.
It’s all done now, I suppose. It’s not a deal breaker for me in terms of enjoying the shows. Just a stupid list of niggles which didn’t need to exist in the first place had they been a little bit firm about their intentions in the beginning.
They could have launched with a DSC universe and spun that into its own thing while still appeasing parts of the fanbase with shows like PIC. They could have had their cake and eaten it too, but they didn’t.
Ah well.
Largely unfounded fears. There would have been those who rejected the idea… most of whom would have watched anyway.
Lots of shows/franchises have survived and thrived through hard-reboots.
Fear is rarely rational or founded in reality.
Star Trek has constantly flirted with reboots and redesigns throughout its history. It's tried to have its cake and eat it too, but constantly serving multiple masters, and trying to find that balance. But, driven by fear means they landed in a cycle of overcorrection on various excesses, either too far to the new, or driven back to the old.
The Kelvin Timeline movies scared me into thinking that the Prime Timeline was over, and we'd never get another story in that universe outside of novels.
Then Discovery scared me into thinking that the Prime Timeline had been seriously retconned, with things like the Klingons being unrecognisable. Now I had to imagine that Worf and B'Elanna had giant bald heads this whole time.
Now Strange New Worlds is scaring me that they're going to rewrite TOS with their new actors. That they'll outright say "The Temporal Cold War means those 79 episodes never happened, and now we're showing you the actual story. PS. You still have your DVDs so you actually can't complain, lol. PPS. We need to do this to grow the audience, they'll accept nothing but Spock, please understand."
Honestly, when I look at it like that, the future of Trek is actually getting less scary over time. Picard ended before we could get Dangerous Renegade Naomi Wildman, so we're safe from that. Lower Decks and Prodigy have been working hard to pick up threads from the 90s shows and tidy stuff up. We've had confirmation that the starships Defiant, Voyager, Enterprise-A, Enterprise-D, Enterprise-E, and so on haven't been reimagined like the NCC-1701 apparently was (plus we got to see an old school Constitution class, which actually made me so happy I had to come back to the forum after a year away just to talk to someone about it).
As long as the producers of Star Trek are too scared to properly reboot the franchise, I don't have to be scared that it'll collapse into a giant pile of confusion and contradictions that no one can untangle, where nothing truly matters because it'll just be reset after 5 years. Like what happened with my beloved DC Comics.
Then Discovery scared me into thinking that the Prime Timeline had been seriously retconned, with things like the Klingons being unrecognisable. Now I had to imagine that Worf and B'Elanna had giant bald heads this whole time.
Now Strange New Worlds is scaring me that they're going to rewrite TOS with their new actors. That they'll outright say "The Temporal Cold War means those 79 episodes never happened, and now we're showing you the actual story. PS. You still have your DVDs so you actually can't complain, lol. PPS. We need to do this to grow the audience, they'll accept nothing but Spock, please understand."
Honestly, when I look at it like that, the future of Trek is actually getting less scary over time. Picard ended before we could get Dangerous Renegade Naomi Wildman, so we're safe from that. Lower Decks and Prodigy have been working hard to pick up threads from the 90s shows and tidy stuff up. We've had confirmation that the starships Defiant, Voyager, Enterprise-A, Enterprise-D, Enterprise-E, and so on haven't been reimagined like the NCC-1701 apparently was (plus we got to see an old school Constitution class, which actually made me so happy I had to come back to the forum after a year away just to talk to someone about it).
As long as the producers of Star Trek are too scared to properly reboot the franchise, I don't have to be scared that it'll collapse into a giant pile of confusion and contradictions that no one can untangle, where nothing truly matters because it'll just be reset after 5 years. Like what happened with my beloved DC Comics.
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