Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

[Christopher]

^"Yesteryear" put a "moon" in Vulcan's sky years before TMP did.

Listing all the contradictions between different Trek productions would take several pages. And the explained changes are vastly outnumbered by the unexplained ones.

 

[F. King Daniel]

What about Vulcan having moons, despite it being stated in TOS that id didn't? And no, the fact the scene was corrected in the Director's Cut doesn't count.

And then un-corrected in ST'09 and ST: Discovery.

 

[E-DUB]

That's no moon.........................

 

[JD]

No, it isn't. Again, designs are not something that just magically pop into existence out of thin air. They're the creations of individual artists. If a makeup artist or production designer chooses to leave the show or is unavailable for a new show (or, hypothetically, is fired for some reason), that's the same situation as an actor change, and is just as unavoidable. The only difference is that it happens behind the scenes so it isn't as obvious to the casual viewer.

If one actor replaces another, the producer or director could make the "choice" to instruct them to imitate their predecessor's acting style as slavishly as possible -- but most people would agree that that's the wrong choice, that they'll do better work if they reinvent the character and make it their own. That way they're embracing their full talent instead of hampering or suppressing the things they do best. What I'm saying is that it's no different for other kinds of artist who work on a show -- that it's better to let them be themselves, to express their own individual design style and technical proficiency, than just copy what their predecessors did.

That's fine, but when you are joining a preexising franchise or series that already has a solidly established design language like Star Trek, then people are going to expect you to stick to that language as much as possible. Even most of the stuff in Discover pretty much sticks to that language, other than the Klingons. I really think that is part of why the Klingons being changed feels so odd, pretty much everything else stuck pretty close to what we saw before.

Now, of course that doesn't guarantee you'll like the results as much as their predecessors' work. Personally, I don't like Discovery's production design at all. But that doesn't mean they did anything wrong by doing their own take on it. It just means that art is subjective. And that's why experimenting with different ways of doing a thing is good -- because even if you don't like the current version, you might love the next one.

I actually love the overall production design Discovery, and I agree there's nothing wrong with new people putting their own spin on things, but just within the preexisting design language of the franchise. They managed to do that on pretty much everything but the Season 1 Klingons.

Every new makeup artist on the Trek franchise has redesigned the Klingons. The only difference is how far they took it. There are clear differences between Phillips's, Burman's, Snell's, and Westmore's Klingon makeups, making each of them readily identifiable as a different artist's work.

And you're forgetting that Neville Page worked on the Kelvin movies and redesigned the Klingons for Into Darkness before he was brought on board Discovery. His and Hetrick's Klingon design for DSC is basically an elaboration on his massive redesign for Kelvin Klingons, sharing multiple elements like hairlessness, full-head prosthetics, bright eyes, and somewhat pointed ears. So it makes no sense at all to say the change started with Fuller. He just let Page take his previous work even further.

No, I am not ignoring pages work in STID, I even acknowleged it in my last post. I actually like the STID Klingons, I thought that was a great way to put a new spin on them, but still leave them recognizeable as Klingons.

If you look at the progression of Klingon designs over the decades, they reflect the advance of prosthetic technique, growing increasingly more elaborate and less humanlike. TOS Klingons were just humans with added face paint and hair; TMP Klingons were just bald guys with the same head-spine piece glued onto each one; TSFS Klingons elaborated the forehead idea by doing individual sculpts for each character; Westmore continued that but added elaborate body makeup on occasions where Klingons were seen shirtless; then Page went to full-head prosthetics in the movies and DSC. Overall, they represent a progressive advance in the ability of prosthetic makeup to convey "This is something alien." (Or at least to do so quickly and economically enough to fit a TV budget and schedule.) As for why they continue that progression with the Klingons and not for other species like Vulcans, maybe it's because Klingons are the iconic "outsiders" in Trek, either as enemies or as allies made distinct by their alien values, language, and exotic culture. So maybe the franchise has embraced their alienness and used advancing makeup technology to keep playing it up and keep them from feeling too familiar and domesticated. The periodic changes keep us off-balance and uncomfortable with the Klingons, and that's how we're supposed to feel.

That's an interesting way to look at it.[/QUOTE]

 

[Christopher]

That's fine, but when you are joining a preexising franchise or series that already has a solidly established design language like Star Trek, then people are going to expect you to stick to that language as much as possible.

Like I keep saying, that argument was thrown out the window in 1979. I was a Trek fan before TMP came out and after, I experienced that wholesale design change in real time, so the "It's wrong to change the look too much" argument is NEVER going to work on me. It just annoys me more every time I hear it.

Even most of the stuff in Discover pretty much sticks to that language, other than the Klingons. I really think that is part of why the Klingons being changed feels so odd, pretty much everything else stuck pretty close to what we saw before.

Tell that to the people who've been complaining for two years about how they have holograms now and aren't wearing drab turtlenecks, or for a year about how different the Enterprise looks. Also, Tellarites have tusks now and Yeoman Colt may or may not be an alien.

I actually love the overall production design Discovery, and I agree there's nothing wrong with new people putting their own spin on things, but just within the preexisting design language of the franchise. They managed to do that on pretty much everything but the Season 1 Klingons.

That's a matter of opinion. Personally I find the change in Starfleet technology design to be just as radical as the change in the Klingons.

No, I am not ignoring pages work in STID, I even acknowleged it in my last post.

Then why don't you see how absurd it is to attribute the redesign to Fuller, who had nothing to do with STID? Like I said, the Klingon redesign in STID was nearly as radical as the redesign in DSC. The main differences in the DSC version are the longer cranium and the doubled nostrils.

 

[JD]

I'm not attributing the design to Fuller, I'm attributing the decision to completely redesign them to Fuller, because I have read at least once or twice in interviews that Fuller decided he wanted to have Klingons completely redesigned.
And I'd say the Disco Klingons are a much, much more drastic redesign than the STID Klingons.

 

[Tuskin38]

Then why don't you see how absurd it is to attribute the redesign to Fuller, who had nothing to do with STID? Like I said, the Klingon redesign in STID was nearly as radical as the redesign in DSC. The main differences in the DSC version are the longer cranium and the doubled nostrils.

He's saying it was Fuller's directive to have the Klingons redesigned. Not that he personally designed them.

 

[JD]

I just want to make it clear once again that I never meant any disrespect to any of the people involved with Discovery's Klingons. It is a really cool design, and the execution of it was phenomenal. The actors who played them all did a great job, especially since they had to do almost all of dialogue in a fictional language.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not attributing the design to Fuller, I'm attributing the decision to completely redesign them to Fuller, because I have read at least once or twice in interviews that Fuller decided he wanted to have Klingons completely redesigned.

And so did J.J. Abrams in 2012, and so did Gene Roddenberry in 1979. There's nothing novel about redesigning the Klingons. It's tradition by this point.

And I'd say the Disco Klingons are a much, much more drastic redesign than the STID Klingons.

That, again, is your opinion. Back in 2012, lots of people complained about how drastic STID's Klingon redesign was. To me, they're both radical, differing only in detail and degree. And since they're from the same designer, I find their similarities to outweigh their differences.

The human memory smooths out the past, so we forget how extreme the events or changes in the past felt to us at the time. So we fool ourselves into thinking the newest change is more radical or extreme than any we faced before. But ten years from now, you'll have gotten used to this change and be talking about how much more extreme the next big change is.

 

[Damian]

No, it isn't. Again, designs are not something that just magically pop into existence out of thin air. They're the creations of individual artists. If a makeup artist or production designer chooses to leave the show or is unavailable for a new show (or, hypothetically, is fired for some reason), that's the same situation as an actor change, and is just as unavoidable. The only difference is that it happens behind the scenes so it isn't as obvious to the casual viewer.

I was thinking of the initial designs on Discovery. Obviously if a new production designer comes on midway through a show they are sort of stuck with what's already there and can maybe exercise their creativity on new sets that may be needed or perhaps little details on the old sets they can add to.

But when creating the show that's where I thought Discovery missed the mark. And part of that was the show runners like Bryan Fuller. For instance on the Klingons he made the decision to redesign the Klingons as much as they did. I'm sure if he said he wanted some consistency with prior Klingons then the make up designer would have obliged. Ditto for some of the set designs. I don't really blame the designers so much. It's probably more show runners call than anything else.

Now, of course that doesn't guarantee you'll like the results as much as their predecessors' work. Personally, I don't like Discovery's production design at all. But that doesn't mean they did anything wrong by doing their own take on it. It just means that art is subjective. And that's why experimenting with different ways of doing a thing is good -- because even if you don't like the current version, you might love the next one

Well, I can't disagree with you there. I actually always liked Zimmerman's designs and would have been thrilled if someone like him, or he himself, were retained by the current producers. I was really impressed with Enterprise's designs--how he threaded the needle there of making it futuristic--yet less primitive than the original series. He...and his team...also always did a good job of thinking through their designs---why is there an EPS conduit here for instance. It wasn't just fantasy. Some thought went into every design. Now I'm not saying those same thought processes aren't occurring with the now shows even now. I just don't care so much for the final result.

But I know that's just my personal opinion. I've seen complaints that some fans didn't care for Zimmerman's designs. I've seen complaints that people thought they were too sterile (which always confused me personally--it's a closed in ship...in space, I don't think you'd want it to be dirty or messy, but I digress). Trekkies disagree on many things. I express my thoughts here but I don't really believe my opinions register...and maybe they shouldn't. Obviously Discovery is popular. I admit I enjoyed other elements of the show despite my complaints. I don't think it's terrible. It's watchable for me in spite of some of the issues I have. We'll see where it goes. I admit I'm curious to see how season 2 plays out once I get it, esp. seeing the Enterprise appear at the end of season 1 and knowing Captain Pike and his crew make an appearance. And I'm curious to see what happens with the Klingons now that the war is apparently over.

 

[Damian]

And no, the fact the scene was corrected in the Director's Cut doesn't count.

Worked for me . In all seriousness though I think some of the novels went with the idea that it was actually a planet (was it called T'Khut?) that was locked to Vulcan or something along that line.

Listing all the contradictions between different Trek productions would take several pages. And the explained changes are vastly outnumbered by the unexplained ones.

Yeah, true. I'm a contradiction myself. Some of that stuff doesn't bother me as much. I probably can be frustrating because the spore drive, intraship beaming, and set design might drive me nuts. But something else, like some of the changes in Data over the years in TNG...nah, doesn't bother me at all. The Giger-Klingons in Discovery drive me up a wall....but adding forehead bumps to Romulans...or even the more drastic change in the Trill when DS9 started....nope, doesn't bother me (it probably helps that some novels added an in story explanation for the Trill---maybe that one bothered me a teensy bit I'll admit before then ---thank you novel writers for fixing that one).

Like I keep saying, that argument was thrown out the window in 1979. I was a Trek fan before TMP came out and after, I experienced that wholesale design change in real time, so the "It's wrong to change the look too much" argument is NEVER going to work on me. It just annoys me more every time I hear it

I have to ask, as I am a fan that came on board after the movies started, were you like WTF in 1979 when you saw the Klingons?

I wonder how fans took that back then. It's funny to think Roddenberry wanted fans back then to pretend that's how they always looked. But he had to know Trekkies would want some sort of explanation. I know even some of the early novels in the 1980's tried to address it in some fashion.

For me it was the reverse. I saw the first 3 movies before seeing the TV series and the very first Klingon I saw in the TV series was the one in "Friday's Child". Imagine my surprise--it took me a moment to figure out just who the Klingon was. I kept looking for some bumpy headed guy. And I kept thinking Kruge would eat that Klingon for lunch. Not only did he not "look" Klingon, he didn't act it either. Kor and Kang were much better representatives I thought for the Klingons. They were tough and fearless, and were even respectable (and in retrospect with what we now know of Klingon honor you could see just a touch of that honor code in them). Maybe Koloth too, but in "The Trouble with Tribbles" there just wasn't much there for him--other than he didn't seem smarmy.

 

[Christopher]

I was thinking of the initial designs on Discovery.

Well, yes, obviously, that's my point. It's a new show, a new generation of Trek productions, so of course it has different creative staffers, and of course different artists have different design sensibilities, because that's how art works. It's just that Michael Westmore was in charge of Trek makeup for so long that fandom got used to a single artist's style and are surprised by the change.

But when creating the show that's where I thought Discovery missed the mark.

I don't personally care for the new designs either. But that absolutely does not mean they were wrong to try something different. Any more than it was wrong for TMP to completely reinvent the Klingons 40 years ago.

Well, I can't disagree with you there. I actually always liked Zimmerman's designs and would have been thrilled if someone like him, or he himself, were retained by the current producers.

*sigh* You've totally missed my point. It is good for different artists with different styles to get to try their hand at creating in a particular franchise. Comic-book fans understand this -- the difference in style between different artists is recognized as a feature, not a bug. I wish Trek fans wouldn't be so damn afraid of change and novelty, because that's missing the entire point of a franchise about exploring the new and different with an open mind.

The purpose of a new version of a franchise is not merely to satisfy the older generation of fans. It's to introduce it to a new generation. So it's supposed to be new and different and up-to-date, not merely trapped in nostalgia and pandering. Hell, DSC's biggest problem to date has been that the writing and plotting were far too dependent on bringing back characters and ideas from TOS rather than moving forward and innovating. No previous Trek show has been so overwhelmingly mired in continuity porn. So it's a good thing that at least their production design wasn't stuck in the past and pandering to the old guard. I might not care for it, but I'm not the audience that matters.

 

[Christopher]

I have to ask, as I am a fan that came on board after the movies started, were you like WTF in 1979 when you saw the Klingons?

I don't remember, but I suspect not, because I was a 10-year-old child and thus smart enough to understand that fiction was just made-up, unlike adults who forget how imagination works and assume fiction has to be as consistent and logical as reality. When you make stuff up, you get to change it as you go. The moment you start pretending something, it becomes the way it's always been. Children understand that instinctively, because society hasn't crushed their imaginations yet.

So I probably had no trouble understanding that they'd just decided to improve the look of the Klingons because they had more money and could do a better job. Heck, I'd discovered TOS and TAS within maybe just a few weeks of each other when I was 5, so I'd always known Trek as a series that was sometimes live-action and sometimes a cartoon. I was used to it switching between different visual interpretations of the same things. And TOS was stagey enough, and its effects imperfect enough, that it never looked entirely convincing and it was up to my imagination to interpret what I saw and imbue it with "reality" in my own mind. So I never took what was onscreen too literally anyway. Modern production values have gotten so realistic that audiences today have forgotten how to suspend disbelief.

 

[Damian]

The purpose of a new version of a franchise is not merely to satisfy the older generation of fans. It's to introduce it to a new generation. So it's supposed to be new and different and up-to-date, not merely trapped in nostalgia and pandering.

Ok, maybe retaining the old designers was a bit much. I believe I saw somewhere John Eaves is actually on the team as an illustrator, isn't he?

My preference is for a balance. I don't need a trip down nostalgia lane (though one off trips like "In A Mirror, Darkly" is fun). I'd like to see a bit more balance. Some of the old, some of the new. Discovery was a bit too newish for my tastes.

But I know I'm just one fan. Maybe there are some others, but even those that might feel as I probably disagree about finer details--or even how much old to keep, how much new to add.

I gripe here but I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It's interesting to read how others feel--to see how many might feel as I, how many might be in the opposite and so forth.

And it sounds as though maybe the current show runners feel they have to readjust a bit. I've done a good job avoiding major plot points about season 2, but I have seen some hints that some adjustments were made in season 2 regarding some of the issues some of us have mentioned here. And frankly every Star Trek show has had some readjusting as seasons past. TNG, DS9 and other shows did some adjustments as the seasons wore on, as does any show. As you find things that work and things that don't work you obviously are always making adjustments.

 

[Damian]

I don't remember, but I suspect not, because I was a 10-year-old child and thus smart enough to understand that fiction was just made-up, unlike adults who forget how imagination works and assume fiction has to be as consistent and logical as reality. When you make stuff up, you get to change it as you go. The moment you start pretending something, it becomes the way it's always been. Children understand that instinctively, because society hasn't crushed their imaginations yet.

Interesting. I was about 12 when I became a Star Trek fan back in 1986. I guess you're probably right. Once got over the difference in appearance I just went with it. While I was a bit surprised at the Klingon in "Friday's Child" when I eventually saw "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove" they at least seemed more "familiar" as Klingons (at least compared to TSFS and TVH which had come out by the time I saw those) even if they didn't look like Klingons. Even at 12-13 years old I soon realized the reason Klingons in the films looked different was the greater budget and make up work by that point. And I was already reading the novels which speculated a bit on the change of appearance here and there. I seem to recall one early novel actually speculated it might have been genetic---which we now know is the in story reason in canon for the change--and even back then that reasoning was the one that made the most sense (as opposed to some other ideas I read that it was surgery--it never made sense to me that the Empire would surgically alter entire ships crews just to mess with Earthers).

And it probably helped that there was a lot less continuity back then than there is nowadays. All the Star Trek we have today is great in many respects. I can watch a different episode of a series every day and not see the same one twice for what, 2 years at least. But the other side of that is there is so much continuity these days if someone does want to make something in the continuity it's more likely to be inconsistent with something in the past. So that's probably a challenge for any writer/showrunner that wants to make a show or movie within the existing continuity.

 

[Greg Cox]

I have to ask, as I am a fan that came on board after the movies started, were you like WTF in 1979 when you saw the Klingons?.

I was nineteen and had grown up on syndicated reruns of TOS (or, as we called it back then, STAR TREK). As I recall, my response was less "WTF?" and more "Ooh, interesting!"

I raised an eyebrow at the new Klingons, of course, but they didn't bother me because the real-world explanation was plainly obvious: big new movie, bigger makeup budget.

Honestly, that was good enough for me, then and now. I didn't need any sort of "in-universe" explanation because, well, it was just a movie, not a documentary. And this was back in the day before "canon" had become a fannish obsession and every movie in every franchise was expected to fit into some sort of seamless universe. It's not as though PLANET OF THE APES or LOGAN'S RUN or BATMAN had airtight continuity, especially when you compared the movies to the TV versions.

Truth be told, I was more bothered by Lee Meriwether replacing Julie Newmar in the first BATMAN feature film than I ever was by new-and-improved Klingons. "That's not the real Catwoman!"

Mind you, I was six at the time . . . .

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Listen, nobody really has a problem accepting reimagining if that’s the precedent. However, the one from 1987 to 2017 just happened to be “We’re massive fans of TOS and will reverently keep it as-is even as our production values have improved.” The conference room wall on TNG could’ve omitted the TOS Enterprise but didn’t. Scotty could’ve visited a more colorful ST V bridge but didn’t. These things add up, so when a new production breaks the precedent, you have to wonder why even as you adapt. Because TOS is safest but also embarrassing?

 

[Christopher]

And this was back in the day before "canon" had become a fannish obsession and every movie in every franchise was expected to fit into some sort of seamless universe. It's not as though PLANET OF THE APES or LOGAN'S RUN or BATMAN had airtight continuity, especially when you compared the movies to the TV versions.

The first two of those were cases where the TV series were overt reboots/alternate continuities, but even later shows that pretended to be direct sequels to movies, like Starman and Alien Nation, took liberties with the specifics of the movies. And of course the Planet of the Apes films themselves have many mutual contradictions, since none of the first four was made with sequels in mind and so the sequels had to rewrite the facts of the universe to allow for their existence (e.g. the first film showed unambiguously that the astronauts drifted in cryogenic stasis for 2000 years, but the sequels retconned it into falling through a time warp).

And plenty of TV series played fast and loose with their own continuities. The pilot movie of The Six Million Dollar Man said that Steve Austin was a civilian and he was given bionics by Oliver Spencer, but the later movies and series changed him to an Air Force colonel working for Oscar Goldman, and also retconned his love interest from the pilot into a different character. Audiences back then were used to TV series rewriting their own histories, or treating each episode as a standalone entity with no ties to other episodes so that it didn't matter if they disagreed on the facts.

 

[Greg Cox]

Exactly. Pop fiction in general took a more laissez-faire approach to continuity back then, so the new-and-improved Klingons, while noticeable, were not exactly a dealbreaker by 1970s standards. We were more accustomed to such things back then, long before fandom started losing sleep over "canon."

Heck, compared to the DARK SHADOWS feature films, TMP was a model of fidelity to the original TV series!

 

[Damian]

I raised an eyebrow at the new Klingons, of course, but they didn't bother me because the real-world explanation was plainly obvious: big new movie, bigger makeup budget.

Honestly, that was good enough for me, then and now. I didn't need any sort of "in-universe" explanation because, well, it was just a movie, not a documentary. And this was back in the day before "canon" had become a fannish obsession and every movie in every franchise was expected to fit into some sort of seamless universe.

Yeah, even though my experience was backwards, I knew, even at 12 to 13, that the movies had a bigger budget and better make-up. Though I found myself curious for years if there would ever be an in-universe explanation for that--partly fed by some novels I read. I know some fans complain about "Affliction/Divergence"...or may think why bother. But I liked that there was finally some canon explanation of the change. For whatever reason the change in appearance of Klingons was a source of speculation for years. It was nice to see it addressed on screen once and for all. That differs I think from something like forehead bumps on the Romulans. I haven't heard of any great need on the part of fans to have that explained. In a way Klingons were sort of an anomaly. Perhaps because it was the first radical redesign of an alien on Star Trek, or they were the biggest Star Trek villain up to that time. Whatever it was that Klingon design was something that Trekkies speculated on for years. I was glad Enterprise addressed it, even if some think it was gratuitous for fans (sometimes it's nice to do fannish episodes--as long as you don't get carried away ).

Planet of the Apes films themselves have many mutual contradictions, since none of the first four was made with sequels in mind and so the sequels had to rewrite the facts of the universe to allow for their existence (e.g. the first film showed unambiguously that the astronauts drifted in cryogenic stasis for 2000 years, but the sequels retconned it into falling through a time warp).

Well, they did note Hasslein's theory in Planet of the Apes as well. While 2000 years had passed for the rest of the universe, only about a year and a half or so had passed for the astronauts, according to the clock on the ship. What they retconned was the year. I believe PotA had them landing on Earth around 3978 while Beneath....and Escape....retconned it to 2355 (or thereabouts)...frankly I'm not sure the reasoning for that. Did Paul Dehn just make a mistake when writing Beneath....I can find no reason in story for retconning the date. And of course in Escape....when Cornelius is telling them the history of Apes evolution he terms it as taking centuries, when according to Conquest....and Battle....it's only about 2 decades before Apes revolt and maybe another 15 to 20 years before they create their treehouse civilization.

And of course in PotA no one but Dr Zaius knows the true history, yet in Escape...Cornelius has intimate knowledge of Earth history, including man's downfall and ape's ascendance. It's hard to argue that Cornelius learned all that in the brief time on Beneath...before the final destruction of Earth.

The TV series is hard to look at in the same continuity of the movies....except that Dr Zaius did state in the first film that at one time apes kept man as 'pets'. In the TV series mankind is not kept as pets, but more as slaves. It's possible the TV series, esp. since it's 1000 years prior to the original film, was an intermediate step between apes ascendance and mankind's degeneration into mutes. And of course there's no mention of the lawgiver which supposedly lived on Earth in the 27th century (according to Battle....) and apes do kill apes, at least judging by the execution order on Galen, something that is a no-no esp. according to Battle. But you could argue there is a loose connection between the TV series and movies if you look at it as a sort of intermediate step between the time of Conquest and Battle...and Planet of the Apes and Beneath.