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Starfleet Academy General Discussion Thread

I dunno man. Andor is/was the most popular (though not necessarily the highest viewed) Star Wars project of the modern era, and it was also the most political Star Wars ever. And hardly got any blowback from the chuds on the internet, compared to largely politics-free shows like The Acolyte.
Acolyte was hardly politics-free but the blowback was surprisingly bipartisan in nature. I've seen videos dissing the show made by people who appear to be, let's say, quite far from right wing.
 
I dunno man. Andor is/was the most popular (though not necessarily the highest viewed) Star Wars project of the modern era, and it was also the most political Star Wars ever. And hardly got any blowback from the chuds on the internet, compared to largely politics-free shows like The Acolyte.

Similarly, a lot of the right-leaning people who hated Discovery loved The Orville, where Seth McFarlane was never, ever circumspect about his politics. Hell, the last season alone had a sledgehammer metaphor about the Trump Administration, and another episode which was a direct allegory for the "debate" about trans kids. Neither of which received any blowback to speak of.

I don't think there's any evidence that people don't want politics in their media. I do think that believing you're addressing politics through casting pleases absolutely no one, however.
The difference between the two was that Discovery's stuff often just didn't make sense within the greater context of the Star Trek universe so it came off as Soapboxing.
 
What bothers me to this day about phasers is that none of them have any safeties installed in them.
A child could technically vaporize themselves if they got their hands on one.
Possibly there were safeties on them if.a.
ohc0g9.jpeg


So Klingons aren’t Star Trek? Their weapons have used bolts ever since TNG.
TOS also used bolts occasionally, and Wrath of Khan the Reliant and Enterprise used bolts.

Either way, in the live action shows Starfleet ships only used bolts in Discovery Season 1. In season 2 and onward (including SNW) they use beams.
Are you talking about the hand held weapons or the ship weapons?
 
Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t recall fan reaction and online debate being this negative and fatalistic for any of the other recent shows’ pre-premiere phases. (With the exception of maybe Section 31, which a big chuck of vocal online fans also seemed to hate right out of the gate.) To a degree I find it understandable how people are kind of pre-judging the show, considering there’s a lot of continuity between this show and previous shows like Discovery, in terms of the setting, who’s writing, producing and even acting in it. So if you’re someone who didn’t like Discovery and how it was made, I guess it’s not totally unreasonable to assume Starfleet Academy will be of a similar quality.

But still, as you’re saying, discourse seems to be incredibly vindictive regarding SFA. And my pet theory for why that is so is that a lot of older fans are just realizing — consciously or not — how this show is just not aimed at them. The visceral reaction to the show’s marketing campaign so far seems to largely focus on how this will be overly emotional teen drama, which is probably just not something fans of a certain age are craving for. These fans often seem to feel entitled that a new Trek show should be made with them very much in mind.

What’s certainly also a factor is how much “Pre-Release Backlash Culture“ is a part of all this. It’s just become incredibly en vogue to hate one something before it’s even released. This just speaks to a more general division in our culture, where there’s always a large group of people who feel new shows are focusing too much on diversity, “woke” themes, or changes to beloved franchises. I don’t think this is just an age thing (with old fans being pitted against younger fans), but I would be surprised to learn it’s not a factor.

Personally, I just decided that I’m going to go into Starfleet Academy with an open mind. I neither like everything about the pre-release marketing campaign and everything we know about the show so far, nor do I hate everything about it. I’m hoping that I’ll like it, of course. But if I don’t, I will most certainly just quietly continue to watch the show and not post about it much. That’s how it was with large parts of Discovery and Picard. I can talk shit about Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks like the best of them and have lots of aspects that I find worthy of critique, but at the end of the day I love those shows and that’s why I like to engage about their merits online. If a show is just not engaging me, I mostly don’t have any interest in talking about them.
One of the reasons the backlash is so strong in online spaces is that this looks a lot like Discovery. The negativity toward Discovery has grown with every season. Meanwhile, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy are generally liked just about everywhere.


I agree with your second paragraph. That said, when it comes to the mix of older vs. newer fans, it’s hard to tell who’s who unless people directly say what their history with the franchise is. Even then, it’s not always clear.


“Woke” is basically a buzzword in online spaces, and it rarely has any real impact on mass-market media. People went after the Barbie movie for being woke, and it didn’t matter at all. You can see the same thing with plenty of other popular movies and shows.


You’ll often see news outlets and directors or producers blaming online toxicity when a product fails. But the general audience isn’t involved in those spaces—they just watch what they like. So when something fails, it’s usually not because it was woke or not woke; it just didn’t appeal to a broad audience.


Like I mentioned in a previous post, you can actually track some of this. The YouTube like-to-dislike ratio (which some people really hate) can be useful data. For example, the live-action Snow White had some of the worst dislike ratios out there, and it bombed at the box office. I can’t think of many cases where something succeeded despite a huge gap between likes and dislikes. A streaming show with a similar gap was The Acolyte.
 
I'm most curious about the transfer student storyline. It's such a anime trope.

What I hope they don't do is kill off interest like RTD did with the last two seasons of Doctor Who. The show shouldn't come across as a PSA. We have the GI Joe cartoon for that. :)
 
What about people who want or like reliable and accurate data, where do we turn to?
Well if you want direct data from the corperations down to the individual viewer, we are out of luck. Though you can get a decent amount of useful data out there like the some of the stuff I have mentioned.

I have yet to see a big enough dislike ratio on piece of entertainment media do well.
 
Well if you want direct data from the corperations down to the individual viewer, we are out of luck. Though you can get a decent amount of useful data out there like the some of the stuff I have mentioned.
There is just absolutely no way by any law of the known universe that anyone, anywhere, ever should consider youtube viewership and its likes ratio any kind of reliable information.
 
There is just absolutely no way by any law of the known universe that anyone, anywhere, ever should consider youtube viewership and its likes ratio any kind of reliable information.
I did a edit above, and I will repeat, I have yet to see a big enough one be proven wrong. Can you provide evidence for it. Something where it has a strong dislike but yet was a success?
 
I did a edit above, and I will repeat, I have yet to see a big enough one be proven wrong. Can you provide evidence for it. Something where it has a strong dislike but yet was a success?
As I rarely use youtube at all I cannot tell you the metrics of any video to corroborate or challenge your assertion. Besides arent dislikes hidden these days?

But the point is more look at how easily manipulated youtubes figures are. You can hide your data and show only what you want to. Then there's bandwagoning, how many dislikes attached to Academy's trailer do you think are from people who will never watch the show at all but have been directed to gang up on it because of 'woke' this and that? Review bombing before a product is out for no substantial reason is very common.

Then there's the fact that youtube itself has cosied up to the far right. "Recommended" videos are full of right wing commentaries and ideologies with such videos being about topics that have nothing to do with what you just watched. And censorship of genuine hate speech has dwindled across the platform.

A show like this is going to be a target because it isnt all straight white men, a sad reality of the world we're in and you can't seriously think the amount of dislikes on this show are not largely because of that or some petty issues from disgruntled fans who just want a reunion show.

And unfortunately viewership may struggle because people see fabricated backlash before it is even out and just believe it. The Acolyte is a prime example of that, campaigns to drive people away can work sadly and not enough people give things a try themselves.

I absolutely believe there are people who will dislike what they've seen of the promo material for Academy thus far for legitimate reasons based on the content of the marketing. But youtube is not under any circumstances where you will find that.
 
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