Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?
- Thread starter Annorax849
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Black Mirror's episode did not use Star Trek's "classic look" any more than DSC. In fact, DSC looks much more like Trek than that episode does.
No over designed uniforms, nice even lighting, view screen that isn't a window, solid color uniforms, women's uniforms are more revealing, colorful control panels, smaller scale bridge (Seriously, you can play a game of basketball on the Discovery's Bridge), no lens flare.
So, if the writing was better executed would you have less of an issue with the show adopting the aesthetics of the Abrams films? I don't mind so much of the aesthetics. I think a Trek show should look cinematic in this era of television rather than harken back to what it was in the 60s. Even ENTERPRISE was changing its cinematic language as it moved away from the filmmaking style of TNG/DS9/VOY.
As for being proud of the show, what do you honestly expect the makers to do besides smile for the camera and say everything is great? "Yeah, I'm really not happy with this season"? We're all well aware of how there was a lot of drama behind the scenes of TNG's first season, but I'm sure if asked in 1988 Rick Berman would have told you everything was going great. Many years later I can't wait to hear of what the issues were with Bryan Fuller and his eventual exit, how the writers were trying to finish working on the material he left behind, and what direction they wanted to take with the second season.
I can agree that there can be a better medium. Judging from how the Enterprise looks, I hope the actual bridge set is as faithful as the exterior. Modern for 2018 yet very reminiscent of the classic bridge.
But if I were to make a dramatic change that violates canon? Get rid of the beige uniforms and replace them with red. I get it, that violates canon, but there was a very good reason those uniforms did not last beyond the pilots and were replaced by the gold/blue/red dynamic. It's more visually appealing than gold/blue/beige. It's not a change I would make if this were a one-off episode nostalgic trip, but it would be if I were working on an ongoing series.
I think beige, gold, and blue fit the DSC color-scheme. As well as navy-blue and gray. Red really doesn't. Discovery, as a series, has a colder look overall. The warmest-looking the series gets is on the Klingon ships.
Well, when "Trials and Tribble-lations" (DS9) and "In a Mirror Darkly, Parts I and II" (ENT) recreated the TOS era, they kept it period accurate with zero concessions to modern sensibilities. As point out by @roneill, so did "Flashback" (VOY) in regards to the TOS movies. Even the Abrams movies, as fast and loose as they play with internal consistency, did their homework for Beyond and made the Franklin reasonably accurate in terms of design and tech for an ENT-era ship.
Personally, I feel that that's mixing up two questions, is the show good on its own terms and does the production design make sense in context of the world that the show is set in? DSC could be a good (or bad) show and that would not change that the Klingon re-design doesn't fit the facts of the Star Trek universe (at least not without a retcon that I doubt we'll be getting).
That literally goes against everything that they've ever said about that episode elsewhere.
I have to assume that's sarcasm. There's no other reasonable explanation!
Save for the phasers, but I'll grant that.
But, personally. I see it as expanding upon the Federation and TOS era as a whole.
It fits fine for me, retcon, or no retcon. It makes sense to me, what I know about Trek and what I can presuppose on my own. Now, that is for me and I can speak for no one else. As stated elsewhere, I am far more gracious for a show's failings than most people I have met, and think that DISCO can be made to fit with minor adjustments.
That said, would I like an explanation? Of course. It would be great and silence all my wild speculation. But, I've been wildly speculating for a while now, so this is nothing new
Black Mirror's episode, much like Orville, is intended as a deliberate parody. One darker in tone than the other, but both intended as a lopsided, comic look at the 80s/90s Trek aesthetic. No sci-fi that intends to be taken seriously on its own merits looks like either 60s Trek, or the blandly lit sterility of the TNG era anymore, and DSC is trying to be that - a show that takes itself seriously as a new fresh product, not a parody or a fan film. The same was true of the Kelvinverse films too, for what its worth. Keep the same basic elements and redesign them for a production being made now.
Interesting you should choose the complete do over of the Zephram Cochrane character as being an example of being faithful to the franchise's past. I would actually argue this is an example of doing what we are talking about, taking elements from the past shows and putting them in a contemporary context for a mid nineties movie. Other than the name and the fact he 'discovered the space warp' there isn't much to tie the two characters together.
Only difference being that the Kelvinverse makes it clear it's set in an 'Alternate Reality' where things ARE different, not the same universe that has replaced what had come before. Discovery is doing the opposite of that by taking design elements that the franchise has long since honored and changing it to fit their own style. They are outright declaring that the look of TOS is inaccurate. That is just wrong.
Again, the problem isn't that this series does things differently. The problem is that it's telling you to accept that this is how ALL Star Trek looks from now on. If this series was a total reboot that had nothing to do with anything that had come before it, these issues wouldn't be a prblem. But now, we'e being told that the style of TOS was never a thing, view screens have always been windows, Klingons never had hair and every Starfleet officer had the delta shield badge on their uniform.
And if that plot point wasn't there, would it have looked any different? And the basis of that 'alternate reality' hardly explains much of the difference that we see. It is just a fan-pleasing crutch on which to lean an update and redesign. What the Kelvin movies represent is a TOS update, simply put. TOS by the standards of 2009 big screen blockbuster. Exactly as Discovery represents small screen sci-fi for 2018.
It's really not - they're just making a TV show now, not in 1969. Nothing they do or depict can 'undo' what already exists and Trek has never been one for 'Special Editions' on the scale of Star Wars, limiting itself to effects updates and remastering, so odds are that nothing will ever undo the Original episodes. Even if one day Kirk and Spock are on the small screen again (and I'm almost certain they will be in this backward looking entertainment age) that won't stop the TOS episodes being there to enjoy. But no new science fiction show is going to look like that or use those designs unchanged except for nostalgic glimpses or parody. Discovery is a new show trying to forge a new identity, not make a faithful copy of something decades old. It isn't Rogue One or Solo, filling in gaps in an existing story so small most never realised they needed filling. It's an open ended TV show intended to run for some time.
That's simply how you're perceiving it. Nobody in production is actually saying the look of TOS is "inaccurate". It's all fictional. If having a viewscreen window is the crossing line, boo hoo. I have issues with the show, but the crew having delta insignias is probably the least of them.
No, it really isn't. It is stating that there are other looks used by Starfleet other than just the uniforms seen in TOS.
They were actually supposed to, and it was a production error that resulted with the different badges.
From 'Balance of Terror'
KIRK: I don't see anything. I can't understand it.
SPOCK: Invisibility is theoretically possible, Captain, with selective bending of light. But the power cost is enormous. They may have solved that problem.
So, how does Balance of Terror work now with Discovery saying that the Federation almost lost a war not 10 years ago? Maybe no one on the Enterprise is knowledgable about war and how they were fought?
SPOCK: As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought by our standards today, with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other.
Maybe no one in Starfleet cares about war?
KIRK: I had no idea that history was your specialty.
STILES: Family history. There was a Captain Stiles in the space service then. Two Commanders and several junior officers. All lost in that war, sir.
STILES: Family history. There was a Captain Stiles in the space service then. Two Commanders and several junior officers. All lost in that war, sir.
I guess we should conclude that Balance of Terror never happened.
Actually, no. "We" don't have to conclude that.
ETA: According to the "Star Trek Concordance" the BT cloaking device rendered ships invisible visually but not completely invisible to sensors. Clearly this cloak was a variant that Kirk and Spock had not seen before.
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A production error. You'd think that over the course of three seasons, someone would have mentioned this 'production error' before they kept making more uniforms.
Charlie X
The Menagerie
Court Martial
The Doomsday Machine
The Omega Glory
The Ultimate Computer
Maybe Enterprise would correct that mistake and, OH!
In A Mirror, Darkly Part 1
They even acknowledge different badges in that show! It's almost like different badges for every ship was an intended design choice and not some 'production error'. I've seen production errors before, but I've never seen them this creative or consistent.
Cloaking tech has never been consistent in canon, which is just usually now handwaved as "they figured out how to detect cloaked ships until the tech got better". We already had Archer facing aliens with cloaking tech in the 22nd century (including finding how to detect Suliban).
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