Discoprise won't have TOS "cardboard sets"
- Thread starter Khan 2.0
- Start date
The future is now
Well they have keyboards so at least it isn't all touch screens.
However technology is slowly moving there. More and more planes are switching to touch screen input (with physical backup), both commercial and military.
Space craft as well, at least SpaceX's. Cars are going touch as well.
That technology has evolved and art is emulating real life. I thought we all wanted a Star Trek future where technology is more helpful and not just used for war.
Yeah, for all of Voyager's many faults, it's visual style isn't one of them. Great looking show. Alas, that was it's only standout strength.
Which suggests that the future isn’t the future anymore - it was the future in the 60s
That’s true. My car has a touch screen radio. Since the DSC consoles etc look so similar to that pic is it possible that DSC doesn’t look futuristic enough?
Agreed. The 60s tech seemed to be a projection forward (paper printouts notwithstanding). Is DSC doing the same thing given the similarity to current 21st century tech?That technology has evolved and art is emulating real life. I thought we all wanted a Star Trek future where technology is more helpful and not just used for war.
That's why there's holographic communications. Gives it more of a futuristic vibe in a way that a big screen TV at the front of the bridge can no longer evoke.
Except Star Trek had already done it twenty years ago. So it actually doesn't seem futuristic at all. Which is part of the issue, nothing about Discovery seems "futuristic", it just feels like it is regurgitating the futurism of twenty through fifty years ago. Adding a coat of paint.
Albeit they're doing a bit more effectively IMO than just placing an actor on a platform and shining a light down on them like DS9 did.
$9 million dollars an episode affords you that luxury. Though Star Wars was doing it in the late seventies, in a style similar to what Discovery has now.
I’m not arguing that it’s breaking ground, it’s just trying to look a bit more futuristic than how the 60s show portrayed it. I think TOS had a handful of episodes that had holographic projections.
The two I can think of are Landru ("Return of the Archons") and Losira ("That Which Survives"). It wouldn't be shown as a Federation technology until "The Practical Joker" (TAS).
This seems to be particularly apparent when we consider how similar DSC’s consoles look to current technology.
Since the holograms existed in TOS is it really more futuristic? Especially given the similarity to 21st century tech? And since it’s not breaking new ground wouldn’t it have made sense to root the look and feel of DSC in something that was closer to TOS? Since the consoles and holograms don’t scream “futuristic” any more? Star Trek is so old and so well established in the zeitgeist that having it be a projection of our future from today seems to be contradictory. Holograms were futuristic in the 60s, as were flatscreens and touch panels. Ok, 3D holograms aren’t a thing yet, but do we think it’s going to take 200 and 40 years to perfect them? Or will they be invented in the near future and people will just use them forever like we have used the telephone relatively consistently since its invention? I guess using the phone as an analogous piece of technology may mean that having holograms as “futuristic” isn’t contradictory.
This post is less an argument and more a stream of consciousness, sorry!
For me, at some point in time, I stopped wanting Star Trek to be groundbreaking. Maybe that' smy error but if you're constantly trying to break new ground then eventually you can end up with something ridiculous.
Discovery appeals to me the way TOS appeals to me in that it feels very much possible based upon current understanding of technology. Perhaps this is a byproduct of the understanding that Star Trek was crafted to be a vision of humanity's future but the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek is one feels very fantasy while one feels very obtainable, with a few exceptions, i.e. transporters.
Discovery appeals to me the way TOS appeals to me in that it feels very much possible based upon current understanding of technology. Perhaps this is a byproduct of the understanding that Star Trek was crafted to be a vision of humanity's future but the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek is one feels very fantasy while one feels very obtainable, with a few exceptions, i.e. transporters.
Well, they did have that whole World War 3 thing and then a war with the Romulans so I mean there were bumps in the road.
There's no indication that they were starting again from scratch under either scenario. Neither blew us back to the Stone Age, or even the Industrial Age. Heck, the Valiant from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" had to have launched not long after WWIII, for it to have been lost for two centuries.
The future in the 60's was also now/then.
Star Trek design has always been what can best be described "future-modern" and has never really been "futurist" or groundbreaking for that matter - at least not in terms of the practical technology. Sure there has always been the space magic stuff. But that is really more conceptual framework.
For the more 'functional,' working environment, it basically takes "modern day" style and slots in slightly futuristic techy-tech where needed. The fundamental problem with this is that, because the franchise is 50+ years old, anachronisms occur. You can try and "hide" some with over-stylization like the flip communicators. But that really doesn't work with something like the viewscreens. So they replaced it with a different slightly futuristic techy tech.
For the more 'functional,' working environment, it basically takes "modern day" style and slots in slightly futuristic techy-tech where needed. The fundamental problem with this is that, because the franchise is 50+ years old, anachronisms occur. You can try and "hide" some with over-stylization like the flip communicators. But that really doesn't work with something like the viewscreens. So they replaced it with a different slightly futuristic techy tech.
That's why many like The Orville. That's not a sleight against The Orville because I like it too.
Part of the issue is that no one knows what the future looks like. Even the Wright brothers wouldn't have guessed what a modern airliner looks inside and out and there was no one more familiar with planes than them. That was only about 115 years ago.
ST is trying to predict 300 years in the future!
There's also the issue that the set needs to connect with audiences. The reality is that if we have FTL starships 300 years in the future, the design will be utterly different than with what we're familiar. It will be so different that it probably won't feel real to modern people. We'd have no connection to it and it won't feel like a real, functional place. The pseudo futuristic bridges that we get look a bit futuristic yet retain enough of a look to feel like they are the command centers to modern audiences.
Partly an imagination issue (not guessing the appearance 300 years from now) and partly an audience connection issue!
It doesn't need to be groundbreaking if it is interesting and fun. Discovery needs to work on those two components if its sole goal is to trade on the past.
