Starfleet Academy General Discussion Thread

[Michael]

Exclusive: Director Jonathan Frakes Talks “Lots Of Levity” In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’

The Trek vet also talked about Academy stars Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

trekmovie.com

Could be good, could be bad.

Agreed. I guess it really depends on whether the jokes / humor they incorporated into the scrips is actually going to be funny or not. Humor is of course a very subjective thing, so I can only go by what I find funny in Trek. I loved the comedy of Lower Decks (so it will be interesting to see if Tawny Newsome being part of the writer’s room has a noticeable impact), and Strange New Worlds’ jokes make me chuckle more often than not. I can’t remember having any hearty laughs when watching Discovery or Picard, though, so if the humor is similar to those shows I’m not sure how well I’ll like it.

 

[eschaton]

Late to the party, but I'm not sure that I agree that Starfleet Academy is just a military academy. The TNG episode Coming of Age shows a pretty rigorous written text for examination, implying that pretty much everyone who is in Starfleet are MENSA level. Not that military academies are full of dullards, mind you, but the Academy seems to simultaneously be the most prestigious university in the Federation (or, at least, in the Earth/human focused part) and be military.

Which is why I'm a bit nervous regarding the cast, TBH - or more honestly, the characters. The kids should mostly occupy a giant nerd to tryhard spectrum, given this is supposed to be the best and brightest. I'm worried that in an effort to make them more relatable, they'll (for lack of a better way to put it) dumb them down a bit.

 

[Set Harth]

The TNG episode Coming of Age shows a pretty rigorous written text for examination, implying that pretty much everyone who is in Starfleet are MENSA level.

Which should have immediately elicited from anyone who has ever watched Star Trek.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Do you think there are people who attend it planning not to stay in Starfleet from the start, then, or at least put in a minimum tour of duty and use the Academy as a stepping stone to go elsewhere?

 

[eschaton]

Do you think there are people who attend it planning not to stay in Starfleet from the start, then, or at least put in a minimum tour of duty and use the Academy as a stepping stone to go elsewhere?

I think it's important to remember that while we tend to only see Starfleet officers who are on ships, the vast majority of Starfleet operations are certainly either on starbases or planetside. This is particularly the case given nothing like private military contractors (or hell, a private sector in general) exists, meaning all basic research, R&D, and construction is done directly by Starfleet.

 

[The Wormhole]

I've found it's generally better to ignore what Coming of Age established about Starfleet Academy's entry requirements, as if we go by that episode then Starfleet Academy is so hella hard to get into it raises genuine questions about how Starfleet even meets basic staffing requirements, especially if you go with the belief that everyone in Starfleet is an officer who has graduated the Academy. Indeed, much of the franchise has since moved on from that, what with enlisted ranks being made canon, the existence of other training facilities or even Starfleet granting officer commissions to people who never even attended the Academy.

But even putting all that aside, given this is supposed to be a newly restarted Academy after over a century of being dormant, it stands to reason they would be doing things different than what was shown in the 24th century.

 

[Set Harth]

if we go by that episode then Starfleet Academy is so hella hard to get into it raises genuine questions about how Starfleet even meets basic staffing requirements

 

[Farscape One]

I look at "Coming Of Age" and the requirements to get into the Academy as more there was only one slot open for someone on that planet to go to the Academy, and it being so extremely competitive there (and not many people at Relva to begin with) that it only appears the overall requirements are so insanely high, not that this was normal across the board. In Wesley's case, it was the only planet in range of the Enterprise's current location during the time for Academy applications/testing.

Plus, some politics might have skewed the results in Mordock's favor, him being one of the only (possibly THE only) Benzite to go for Starfleet. (Tal Celes on VGR's "GOOD SHEPHERD" says pretty much this as a reason why she got accepted.)

 

[fireproof78]

Exclusive: Director Jonathan Frakes Talks “Lots Of Levity” In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’

The Trek vet also talked about Academy stars Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

trekmovie.com

Could be good, could be bad.

Yup.

Which is why I'm a bit nervous regarding the cast, TBH - or more honestly, the characters. The kids should mostly occupy a giant nerd to tryhard spectrum, given this is supposed to be the best and brightest. I'm worried that in an effort to make them more relatable, they'll (for lack of a better way to put it) dumb them down a bit.

Please know. Various jobs regard more than a nerd archetype. Starfleet has a huge variety of assignments, tasks and needs so just the try hards seems artificially limited.

Though Starfleet recruitment often looks very stupid so who knows.

Do you think there are people who attend it planning not to stay in Starfleet from the start, then, or at least put in a minimum tour of duty and use the Academy as a stepping stone to go elsewhere?

Yes. Voyager showed this.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Interestingly, the first arc in the The Last Starship comic, set during The Burn, will be setting up the status quo for the Klingons in Starfleet Academy .

The Team Behind 'The Last Starship' Break Down Their Audacious New 'Star Trek' Comic

Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Heather Antos sit down with io9 to talk about bringing Captain Kirk back from the grave, and more, in 'The Last Starship'.

gizmodo.com

 

[Jayson1]

Exclusive: Director Jonathan Frakes Talks “Lots Of Levity” In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’

The Trek vet also talked about Academy stars Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

trekmovie.com

Could be good, could be bad.

But will any of this levity actually be funny.

 

[Turtletrekker]

But will any of this levity actually be funny.

It wouldn't be that hard to be funnier than The Orville.

 

[eschaton]

Exclusive: Director Jonathan Frakes Talks “Lots Of Levity” In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’

The Trek vet also talked about Academy stars Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

trekmovie.com

Could be good, could be bad.

Interesting that Frakes directed the penultimate episode of the season and Giamatti isn't in it. It's a hopeful sign for the pacing of the season, as I don't think any season of DIS or PIC did the same.

The question is, is Giamatti absent from much of the back half of the season until the finale? Or (maybe more interestingly) is he a red herring antagonist defeated earlier in the season, and there's another villain we've not seen yet?

 

[fireproof78]

It wouldn't be that hard to be funnier than The Orville.

Just throw in a substance use joke and pot brownies and humor!

 

[Jayson1]

It wouldn't be that hard to be funnier than The Orville.

I think that show had lots of decent humor. Not so much jokes but more character related stuff. I think DS9 though is the Trek show with the best overall humor of them all. Which is funny since it is considered the dark and moody Trek show.

 

[Jayson1]

Just throw in a substance use joke and pot brownies and humor!

What made the pot brownie funny is because it is something we had never seen in Trek before. It was a modern spin.

 

[fireproof78]

What made the pot brownie funny is because it is something we had never seen in Trek before. It was a modern spin.

It was not funny. At all.

Pot brownies are not funny.

It didn't even elicit a sensible chuckle. And if we saw it on Trek people would say that in the future humans have evolved past the new for substances.

 

[Jayson1]

It was not funny. At all.

Pot brownies are not funny.

It didn't even elicit a sensible chuckle. And if we saw it on Trek people would say that in the future humans have evolved past the new for substances.

I am not a big fan of drug humor in general but in some cases it can be funny. I feel this time it worked. It's not even really a drug joke. Nobody gets high and starts acting funny. It's more of a Trek joke. Something that shows that this show is a little different in it's sensibilities than old school Trek.

 

[fireproof78]

I am not a big fan of drug humor in general but in some cases it can be funny. I feel this time it worked. It's not even really a drug joke. Nobody gets high and starts acting funny. It's more of a Trek joke. Something that shows that this show is a little different in it's sensibilities than old school Trek.

And it doesn't work for me. Period. Drugs are not funny.

 

[Jayson1]

And it doesn't work for me. Period. Drugs are not funny.

Not even the LDS joke in Trek 4?