The human cannonball.
Discovery Showrunners fired; Kurtzman takes over
- Thread starter StCoop
- Start date
I was going to make that joke. But I didn't because it was too obvious.
And not funny.
And not funny.
Never stopped me!
mosman said:
I'm sure the show could be rebooted into something that basically was entirely arc-episodes, but like someone else said, I'm not sure I would want to see it, and risk the adaptation losing the magic of the original. On paper though, if you just transplanted all the arc material from the five seasons into a new 10-episode-long season-show on Netflix, with modern production values, it would be a world-beating epic.
Babylon 5's standalone stuff constructed a fascinating layered world with interesting societies however. I dunno how much would be lost if you dropped those Star Trek-like standalone episodes. They build the setting, offering a window onto life in it's universe.
When you look at TV in this alleged golden age, a lot of it is just melodrama surrounding a few memorable moments, so at least Babylon 5 had genuine depth of ideas. Many shows now don't have any deep time historical ideas for example, or big ideas on moral currents, or much world building, they are just endless soap operas for the most part, punctuated by very small and short term concerns.
Intersting thing:
Here is the trailer for DC's television series "Titans":
It is violent and dark as fuck, Robin actually says "fuck" in the trailer, Robin now happily murders people, it is FILLED with gore, and overall looks like the same immature grimdark/gore/over-the-top violence that at the same time takes itself ridiculously serious despite it's goofy-ness...
...and is made by Akiva Goldsman!
Guess at least we know now whom we can blame for all this blood & gore & eternal darkness - shit on Discovery.... Goldsman was one of the guys not coming back for season 2, right? Good riddance!
Here is the trailer for DC's television series "Titans":
It is violent and dark as fuck, Robin actually says "fuck" in the trailer, Robin now happily murders people, it is FILLED with gore, and overall looks like the same immature grimdark/gore/over-the-top violence that at the same time takes itself ridiculously serious despite it's goofy-ness...
...and is made by Akiva Goldsman!
Guess at least we know now whom we can blame for all this blood & gore & eternal darkness - shit on Discovery.... Goldsman was one of the guys not coming back for season 2, right? Good riddance!
Last edited:
Yes, I think so.
I mean, hell, I love Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, John Carpenters "the Thing" and certainly the one or the other schlocky horror movie.
But the difference is those shows are made for an adult audience and handle mature topics.
A fucking comicbook show or a family show like Star Trek does not need this level of on-screen violence. Especially not if it is that childish a show to begin with.
I mean, even comics can handle more serious themes. And if they do so, they are free to do more appropriate graphic depictions. But shit, "Discovery" operates essentially like a Saturday afternoon cartoon from it's quality, and not even one of the really good ones. And there this level of violence is absurdly out of place.
Last edited:
Yeah, I agree that that looks over-the-top dark and violent. I've loved the Titans since I was a kid, and there are parts of the trailer that look good, but I hope it's misrepresenting the grimdarkness of the creative direction. To me it looks more Zack Snyder than CW.
In fact, it reminds me of Snyder's film adaptation of Watchmen. The original was more than sufficiently mature... yet for some reason, in what was otherwise a fairly faithful adaptation, Snyder felt the need to amp up the level of on-screen violence. Snapping bones, spurting blood. Rotary saws instead of knives. It just wasn't necessary, and it certainly did nothing to serve the themes of the source material.
(And hell, Zack Synder is pretty much an auteur compared to Akiva Goldsman...)
In fact, it reminds me of Snyder's film adaptation of Watchmen. The original was more than sufficiently mature... yet for some reason, in what was otherwise a fairly faithful adaptation, Snyder felt the need to amp up the level of on-screen violence. Snapping bones, spurting blood. Rotary saws instead of knives. It just wasn't necessary, and it certainly did nothing to serve the themes of the source material.
(And hell, Zack Synder is pretty much an auteur compared to Akiva Goldsman...)
Yeah, I think it heavily depends on the topic which is handled which level of violence is appropriate.
For example to have a realistic depiction of war, or if you want to really look into the issues of drug addiction or abuse, you HAVE to show the graphic details to fully illuminate the topic at hand.
OTOH if you are doing some childish revenge/power fantasy wish-fullfillment of essentially a kid smashing his action figures against each other, then to include that level of violence is not just wrong, but actually disgusting.
A family show like Trek still can handle adult themes like relationships (friendships, father-son-relationships), the burden of command, xenophobia and the contact with the unknown, all that, which Trek often has done in the past, and graphic depiction really is not necessary there.
But if you are going the violence route, you have to show it all, especially the aftermath. Nog losing his leg, and coping with it, was brutal, but perfectly handled. Because it was about something, and didn't shy away from showing it full.
But in DIS, the violence is not there to comment on war or anything. No. It's just there to show blood splatter across the screen. It's telling we never actually ever see any of the victims again. As soon as they have fullfilled their role - die in the most gruesome way possible to arouse the audience - they are forever forgotten. The violence was empty. Hollow. Not in ANY way meaningfull. Just to satisfy the bloodlust of a few sick people.
For example to have a realistic depiction of war, or if you want to really look into the issues of drug addiction or abuse, you HAVE to show the graphic details to fully illuminate the topic at hand.
OTOH if you are doing some childish revenge/power fantasy wish-fullfillment of essentially a kid smashing his action figures against each other, then to include that level of violence is not just wrong, but actually disgusting.
A family show like Trek still can handle adult themes like relationships (friendships, father-son-relationships), the burden of command, xenophobia and the contact with the unknown, all that, which Trek often has done in the past, and graphic depiction really is not necessary there.
But if you are going the violence route, you have to show it all, especially the aftermath. Nog losing his leg, and coping with it, was brutal, but perfectly handled. Because it was about something, and didn't shy away from showing it full.
But in DIS, the violence is not there to comment on war or anything. No. It's just there to show blood splatter across the screen. It's telling we never actually ever see any of the victims again. As soon as they have fullfilled their role - die in the most gruesome way possible to arouse the audience - they are forever forgotten. The violence was empty. Hollow. Not in ANY way meaningfull. Just to satisfy the bloodlust of a few sick people.
To be honest, the only gratuitous "ultraviolence" I remember from DIS Season 1 was MU Georgiou's snap decision in Vauling Ambition to execute many of her staff gorily just because they overheard something about the Prime Universe. I don't remember much of anything else which would pass for gore. Even in the case of Voq's flashback's to surgery, they didn't amp up the gore anywhere near as much as they could have, considering how brutal the procedure supposedly was.
But speaking of Akiva Goldman, note that the last episode of Season 1 was entirely from him, Berg, and Harberts. He directed, they wrote the teleplay, and all three of them had story credit. None are still employed by the show.
Wow, I didn't realize that. I like it, though
That certainly is encouraging!
There was also gore when they boarded that ship and found the Tardigrade, wasn’t there? But I agree, the amount of blood and guts wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, the show was just “adult” enough to keep kids from watching without adding anything of substance for adults, so it seemed extra pointless.
Re: the Titans trailer, I wonder if, as an actor, you question your career direction when you find yourself delivering a line like “f—- Batman” for a startup comic book streaming service.
Re: the Titans trailer, I wonder if, as an actor, you question your career direction when you find yourself delivering a line like “f—- Batman” for a startup comic book streaming service.
OMG, I guess I've been out of the loop, but this is the first time I realized that Warners is launching a new "DC Universe" streaming service, and this is where the Titans show is planned to launch.
I swear, a much as I hate cable companies (and the near-monopoly power they wield) and see streaming as an improvement for consumers in almost every way, the proliferation of players throwing their hats in the streaming ring these days almost seems enough to make viewers miss the relative simplicity of getting everything through one cable outlet. It's just kind of ridiculous. When this market shakes out, I'll be very surprised if every other player beyond Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime isn't an also-ran or a niche provider.
I swear, a much as I hate cable companies (and the near-monopoly power they wield) and see streaming as an improvement for consumers in almost every way, the proliferation of players throwing their hats in the streaming ring these days almost seems enough to make viewers miss the relative simplicity of getting everything through one cable outlet. It's just kind of ridiculous. When this market shakes out, I'll be very surprised if every other player beyond Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime isn't an also-ran or a niche provider.
There was a little bit every episode - except the pilot. Usually some small things - one of the prisoners in the klingon cell getting it's face stumped in. Usually every redshirt death (Admiral Cornwells compagnions in "Lethe", as well as Lorcas shuttle-pilot) suddenly doesn't die by phaser, but getting his throat slit... Most of the time it wasn't actually very bad. Just unnecessary.
The thing that really spooked me was that it was in every. single. episode. That seemed like a mandate. As if someone higher-up told them every episode needed at least one gore scene. And they delivered. Because then it isn't an accident anymore, or some random incident. It is a pattern. Part of the formula that has to be there for the show, to copy GoT. And I don't like it used that way.
You're right, I forgot about that. It seemed wrong for a Star Trek show to be that graphic, but from a story perspective it was actually needed, because they explained how the bodies of the crew were "twisted" and just seeing piles of extras pretending to be corpses wouldn't cut it.
Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like a few episodes of gore, a single fuck, and some Klingon nips. As if they were just checking boxes or something on being "not for kids" without actually doing anything with it.
My eight year old daughter has started asking about Trek, and I've been loathe to introduce it to her mainly because so many episodes are cheesy (if not outright bad) and I don't want to give her the wrong impression. I would certainly never let her see DIS however.
I let my eleven year old son watch Discovery. He was bored by it. He is a big fan of science fiction and horror.
So, I was busy all of yesterday and only caught up with the SDCC Discovery season 2 news late last night. I was under the impression that we would be getting at least a little bit of wider Star Trek news at ComicCon. Was this just fan speculation and Discovery season 2 is all we will get, or is there some actual basis for this expectation? Other than the peripheral stuff like Mirror universe, toys, and comics - are there any other major Trek events planned this weekend at SDCC?
