Why the hate for Alex Kurtzman?

[fireproof78]

That's been part of what it is.

But if you go through some of what's considered the best episodes of this franchise, it's NOT always action adventure. TNG's "Measure of a Man" is not an action adventure story. It's a bunch of people trying to make sense of the human concept of individual rights within a science fiction setting. "The Inner Light" is not an action adventure episode either.

Those episodes intelligently and thoughtfully deal with complicated topics.

Ok, but if I added more "thoughtful episodes" people wouldn't declare it not Star Trek.

But, if I add more action it is less Star Trek.

This makes no sense. Star Trek is a thing adventure with some thoughtful episodes at times. But it's multiple parts adding up.

There seems to be a desire to toss out the action adventure part which would never be done for the other parts.

TWOK and Balance of Terror is both these things. So is ST 09 and Into Darkness.

 

[Citiprime]

Is that not babblely enough?

Ummm... no, not really.

For the people who like or love that episode, more power to you. But for those that didn't vibe with it, either it fails on the plot (i.e., the solution to what this is, why it's happening, character development, etc.) or the music. From the comments of those that had problems with "Subspace Rhapsody," it falls apart either because the plot is too paper thin to justify the problem and the cast breaking into song, or they don't like the music and think the songs don't stand out to justify a musical.

Personally, I don't think the technobabble and the idea of a musical is bad or unbelievable ... if they had kept it within the area around the anomaly.

Where I think things go off the rails is when they had to make a CRISIS where it's spreading across the entire quadrant and the anomaly somehow needs things to obey the rules of musicals with a grand finale. That's where, for me, any believability of the plot went out the window. Can I enjoy the episode as just an excuse for the cast to sing? Yes. Do I find the plot at all satisfying or believable as a story? No.

There seems to be a desire to toss out the action adventure part which would never be done for the other parts.

Because when people think of Star Trek as just an action adventure show, it becomes so generic as to be indistinguishable from the THOUSANDS of other science fiction IP with people on a ship, going into space, to have adventures and battles with aliens and weird space shit.

That description could be ascribed to countless other works.

What defines and makes Star Trek stand out from other science-fiction properties? It's the elements of its setting and what it wants to say about people and life within a society where things are different and better, but not perfect. And if you just reduce all of that to an excuse to throw punches and shoot phasers and photon torpedoes, it becomes so cookie cutter as to be indistinguishable from any other action sci-fi series with CGI vfx shooting bright lights back and forth across the screen.

 

[Nerys Myk]

character development

Really? The entire episode is character driven and moves relationships forward. Every song is about character conflicts internal and external. What did they watch?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Really? The entire episode is character driven and moves relationships forward. Every song is about character conflicts internal and external. What did they watch?

Indeed, I had been saying right from the start concerning the Spock and Chapel relationship that the writers were going to twist the knife on us with a smile in their heart and a song on their lips. I had no idea how literal that prediction was going to turn out to be.

 

[HotRod]

I mean a huge theme of Star Trek from the beginning has been a group of people venturing out into the unknown and making the "strange" a discovery that's grounded in a scientific reality.

Yeah, you're watching the wrong show. I love Trek, and while certain aspects of it attempt to stay within the realm of scientific possibility, the other 98% of it is absolute pure fiction.

Because if it's just random odd shit that just happens because the plot needs it to happen, without any foundation within the story, then Star Trek veers more into fantasy.

Why do you hate Star Trek?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

To me, Trek has always been a variety show.
It has bits of everything, it's not one specific thing.

 

[Citiprime]

Really? The entire episode is character driven and moves relationships forward. Every song is about character conflicts internal and external. What did they watch?

"Show, don't tell."

There's a difference between whether there's character development and whether the character development within this framework was effective and satisfying. Whether the best way to deal with Pike's relationship issues was him to break into song about it on the bridge.

They're telling us their issues, just in song, instead of showing it to us.

 

[ananta]

Though I cringed a little a couple times during the episode, I don’t think "Subspace Rhapsody" was much wackier in concept than some of the weirder episodes of TOS.

I don’t know, I hear a lot about how TOS was weird and wacky and, as someone who rewatches each episode every year, I feel that’s as much a mischaracterisation as the “Kirk drift”; the idea that Kirk is a hot-headed man whore. An episode like “Spock’s Brain” certainly dents my assertion, but generally, the writers made a real effort to create solid, serious science-fiction. It was far, far from, say, Lost in Space. TOS took itself quite seriously by and large.

For me, however, “Subspace Rhapsody” was just pure gimmick. If it had been the work of, say, a Q-like being, and if the musical numbers were a capella without the magical background instrumentation, I could maybe have bought it.

The SNW producers love boasting about how zany and off the wall they are but I wish they’d just rein it in a bit. That clip they released last year with the Vulcan transformation magic seriously made me doubt whether I’d even watch the next season.

SNW:

 

[Nerys Myk]

I mean a huge theme of Star Trek from the beginning has been a group of people venturing out into the unknown and making the "strange" a discovery that's grounded in a scientific reality. Be

"The Beginning" had illusion casting aliens and a man turned into a god because he has a high "Esper rating". "Scientific discovery" is not a theme of Star Trek. It's a means to propel the plot and create conflict. The virus isn't the theme of "Naked Time" it's a way to strip our characters bare and expose their inner desires and failings. It could just as easily have been a wave of energy from a subspace fold.

 

[TRON JA307020]

I thought it was rather silly, but I didn't think it was the end of Trek as we know it.

It's an anomaly from a "subspace fold" that impacted people's behavior beacuse " the song created a resonant frequency and dislodged something from the fold, a quantum uncertainty field." and "an area of space where quantum uncertainties collapse so rapidly and randomly that new realities are created. In one such reality, people sing uncontrollably." Is that not babblely enough? Or their first attempt to solve the problem?

"Zippers work both ways. Could we use it to close the improbability field back inside the fold?"

"Potentially. If we combined shield harmonics with the Heisenberg compensator."

"You would have to connect both to the deflector array and generate a beam."

Or their final solution

"Look. It's a pattern. Every time someone sings, the state of quantum improbability
in the field spikes. It's almost imperceptible, but it's there. So I ran the simulations, and if we can get this spike to giga electronvolts..."

"It would shatter the field. You found the improbability breaking event."

Standard Trek problem solving.

It was silly.

Yeah they gave an explanation for the singing so it at least made the episode palatable to watch. But its not one im excited to see again. We only have 10 episodes a season. More than one comedy or silly episode takes away from the serious episodes that trek is known for. If there were 26 episodes a season or even 20 I wouldn't care but we get so few its best to have 1 comedy every season at the most.

 

[Citiprime]

Yeah, you're watching the wrong show. I love Trek, and while certain aspects of it attempt to stay within the realm of scientific possibility, the other 98% of it is absolute pure fiction.

Why do you hate Star Trek?

How many episodes is them telling some planet they're not worshiping a "god." They're sacrificing themselves to a goddamn computer.

Going back all the way to TOS, the themes of this franchise are that reason and logic through science, tempered with compassion, is the way to deal with issues and observe the universe. Not through superstition and just believing in mystical koalas. Is some of it fantastical? Yes, because it's FICTION and allegory about a future where they imagined technology and science which doesn't exist

It's believable enough in its own setting and rules, because when it's at its best the drama is built (for the most part) around believable characters behaving in believable ways within the show's ethos when thrown into strange situations. Nowhere does Picard or anyone just accept Q's assertion that he's omnipotent. They question his "parlor tricks" and assert there must be some reasonable explanation that they just can't figure out yet. In that way, it's consistent within its own themes.

 

[James Cole]

Thought experiment... Imagine Rick Berman, Ira Steven Behr, Ron Moore, Rene Echeverria, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, and, yes, Brannon Braga had:

• 3.5X the budget per episode
• Could go full serialization
• Twice the seats to fill in the writing staff
• Could shoot roughly two episodes in twenty days instead of three in twenty-one
• Only needed to produce 10-13 episodes per season instead of 22-26

Imagine how great the Berman era would have been.

Now, realize that the Kurtzman era has had all of the resources that could have made it happen... Has anything like that ever come close to being delivered?

 

[Nerys Myk]

"Show, don't tell."

There's a difference between whether there's character development and whether the character development within this framework was effective and satisfying. Whether the best way to deal with Pike's relationship issues was him to break into song about it on the bridge.

They're telling us their issues, just in song, instead of showing it to us.

I think you misunderstand the concept of "show don't tell".

 

[Turtletrekker]

Thought experiment... Imagine Rick Berman, Ira Steven Behr, Ron Moore, Rene Echeverria, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, and, yes, Brannon Braga had:

• 3.5X the budget per episode
• Could go full serialization
• Twice the seats to fill in the writing staff
• Could shoot roughly two episodes in twenty days instead of three in twenty-one
• Only needed to produce 10-13 episodes per season instead of 22-26

Imagine how great the Berman era would have been.

Now, realize that the Kurtzman era has had all of the resources that could have made it happen... Has anything like that ever come close to being delivered?

BermaTrek would have still been BermaTrek.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Thought experiment... Imagine Rick Berman, Ira Steven Behr, Ron Moore, Rene Echeverria, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, and, yes, Brannon Braga had:

• 3.5X the budget per episode
• Could go full serialization
• Twice the seats to fill in the writing staff
• Could shoot roughly two episodes in twenty days instead of three in twenty-one
• Only needed to produce 10-13 episodes per season instead of 22-26

Imagine how great the Berman era would have been.

Now, realize that the Kurtzman era has all of the resources that could have made it happen... Has anything like that ever come close to being delivered?

I'll take SNW, LD and PRO over a large chunk of TNG, VOY and ENT.

 

[fireproof78]

What defines and makes Star Trek stand out from other science-fiction properties

Optimistic attitude that humans can overcome problems.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I'll take SNW, LD and PRO over a large chunk of TNG, VOY and ENT.

Without question.

 

[Firebird]

"Show, don't tell."

There's a difference between whether there's character development and whether the character development within this framework was effective and satisfying. Whether the best way to deal with Pike's relationship issues was him to break into song about it on the bridge.

They're telling us their issues, just in song, instead of showing it to us.

Have you never seen a musical before?

 

[Nerys Myk]

More than one comedy or silly episode takes away from the serious episodes that trek is known for.

Do you prefer "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield" over "The Trouble With Tribbles?

 

[Birb-of-Prey]

I'll take SNW, LD and PRO over a large chunk of TNG, VOY and ENT.

I'll certainly take them over DIS and PIC.