Spoilers Season 4 Preview Images Thread

[Agony_Boothb]

I understand - and agree - that Trek isn't hard sci-fi. I also read a lot of classic sci-fi growing up because my mother was a fan as well - Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Pohl, Niven, etc. I understand what was within the normal range of science fiction at the time. Gene wasn't going to use Mission of Gravity or something as a guide to how rigorous Trek should've been. So like, I know that Joseph W. Campbell was into the idea of psychic powers, and the government was doing real research into them at the time, so ESP was not fantasy-coded, but something found in fairly rigorous sci-fi.

By the standards of late 1950s/early 1960s sci-fi, TOS seems...middle of the pack? It's not rigorous sci-fi, but it's not quite pulp either.



Braga was behind Genesis and Threshold. The former shows DNA as a plot device to allow for "de-evolving" - a concept that makes no sense, and the internal rules are even broken due to rule of cool (Barclay as a spider? Why not?). The latter seems to imply that the evolution of humanity is going in a fixed direction. Braga has said in interviews he was influenced by the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould that things don't have to evolve to be more complex, but evolution is shaped by the environment, so the idea that you can just spin the clock forward millions of years is just rocks in head stupid.



DS9 wisely made the decision to try and avoid technobabble once it got to its later seasons. Some of the stuff with the Pah-wraiths and the like got a little too close to fantasy to me, but I appreciated that in general their response to the convoluted nonsensical underpinnings to Trek science and technology was just to mostly avoid it.



No. Star Wars is science fantasy. That's the series with space wizards, laser swords, noble households, destiny, good and evil, etc. It's just a bunch of classic fantasy tropes with a sheen of tech on it.

Star Trek has very dodgy science, but it's mostly written as sci-fi. You have a crew of competent professionals who investigate a problem and troubleshoot a solution. There are rational explanations to things that happen, even if the characters don't get all the answers. Secular humanism is foundational to its ethos. As David Brin noted in this 1999 article:

You can still have a foundation in secular humanism and be full of shit. None of what you said means that Star trek isn't science fantasy. Sure the crew might use their brains to solve a temporal anomaly, but temporal anomalies as depicted in trek are total, fantastical, nonsense.

Star wars and star trek are two sides of the same coin. The difference is that one took itself way too seriously between 1987 and 2004.

 

[Mudd]

You can still have a foundation in secular humanism and be full of shit. None of what you said means that Star trek isn't science fantasy. Sure the crew might use their brains to solve a temporal anomaly, but temporal anomalies as depicted in trek are total, fantastical, nonsense.

Star wars and star trek are two sides of the same coin. The difference is that one took itself way too seriously between 1987 and 2004.

Exactly so.

Fans tend to freshen up their definitions of the magic tech words as time goes by to try to maintain their own sense of the show''s plausibility. Much pretense these days that "warp," originally "time warp," presaged Alcubierre's speculative solution. And "quantum entanglement" gets invoked for more stuff than "DNA" ever did.

All of this is a strength of the format, IMO, rather than a weakness.

If the producers had the time, understanding, and budget to construct the series around more likely interpretations of what physicists and engineers believed to be true of our universe in the 1960s, it would not have worked as well and would have become dated in an entirely different way than it is now.

Merlin's magic, OTOH, is in no danger of being disproven.

 

[Mudd]

IMO, the establishment and maintenance of Trek's plausibility has had less to do with its ever-so-wobbly attachment to science and a great deal to do with the gifts and skills of the visual artists who've worked on it from Day One.

Jefferies was a genius. So was Theiss, and so are Probert, Okuda, Sternbach, Drexler and so many other folk who've visualized and constructed the look and feel of that imaginary world for decades. It looks both right, and is an appealing place to be.

The writers and producers have disappointed from time to time, but the designers? Never.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

Exactly so.

Fans tend to freshen up their definitions of the magic tech words as time goes by to try to maintain their own sense of the show''s plausibility. Much pretense these days that "warp," originally "time warp," presaged Alcubierre's speculative solution. And "quantum entanglement" gets invoked for more stuff than "DNA" ever did.

All of this is a strength of the format, IMO, rather than a weakness.

If the producers had the time, understanding, and budget to construct the series around more likely interpretations of what physicists and engineers believed to be true of our universe in the 1960s, it would not have worked as well and would have become dated in an entirely different way than it is now.

Merlin's magic, OTOH, is in no danger of being disproven.

The Merlin's magic aspect is really why trek works and why it appeals to so many, I think. I also think it does a disservice when fans demand hard sci-fi realism in a show that only works because of how unrealistic it is. I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to make sense of that unrealism as an extension of worldbuilding. But sometimes you just have to say 'this is bullshit, but it's fun' and just go with it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

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[Detached Nacelle]

Well that little teaser put a smile on my face

 

[Mudd]

Puppets!

Good to see the Orion pirates back again! Very pre-TOS.

 

[V'Lias]

I've been awaiting this episode with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. It could be pretty fun! I guess we'll see in a few days, and whether it's bad or good I'm sure the result will be debated until the death of the universe!

 

[Tuskin38]

feels like Rascals except it's everyone (but Spock), but that's not a bad thing.

So why is Paramount Mexico the only one releasing these trailers?

 

[Finn]

Hope puppet La'an gets to punch one of the Orion pirates.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hope puppet La'an gets to punch one of the Orion pirates.

Yes!

 

[Firebird]

It looks like it's gonna be delightful and piss off all the right people.

A win-win, baby!

 

[Mage]

It looks like it's gonna be delightful and piss off all the right people.

A win-win, baby!

I feel bad that I feel that way as well, but yup.

This looks like it'll be fun. But we can't have fun in Star Trek, of course. It is forbidden.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

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I was sceptical about this one, but it genuinely looks hilarious. Also Joe lo truligo as one of the Orion's has me sold. I hope his character goes full Boyle.

 

[Mage]

I was sceptical about this one, but it genuinely looks hilarious. Also Joe lo truligo as one of the Orion's has me sold. I hope his character goes full Boyle.

Yeah I can't believe we're not talking about more!! Joe is amazing, he was brilliant in Paul.

 

[Dar70]

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Looks like they have finally went into Irwin Allen territory now...

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[Tuskin38]

I think I’ve only ever seen him in B99

I didn’t even realize that was him until you pointed it out, but now I can see and hear it.

The Orion woman also sounds familiar

 

[Detached Nacelle]

The Orion woman also sounds familiar

I thought she sounded a bit like Tendi.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Could it be her ancestor?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Astrea_Tendi

 

[Finn]

That would be too much fanwanking.