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Poll Do you consider Discovery to truly be in the Prime Timeline at this point?

Is it?

  • Yes, that's the official word and it still fits

    Votes: 194 44.7%
  • Yes, but it's borderline at this point

    Votes: 44 10.1%
  • No, there's just too many inconsistencies

    Votes: 147 33.9%
  • I don't care about continuity, just the show's quality

    Votes: 49 11.3%

  • Total voters
    434
I don't understand your position - you just spent pages and pages arguing that visuals are mere presentation and their consistency is irrelevant...
No, I'm pointing out that visuals only need to be consistent within the context of its own narrative, which (usually) does not include its prequels or sequels. And even then, you have a certain amount of wiggle room when it comes to said consistency, just so long as the differences aren't NOTICEABLE...
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... or, at least, have no consequences for the narrative overall.

TOS and the spinoffs aren't part of Discovery's narrative; the story begins and ends before the events of ANY of those series take place. To the extent that they share a common setting with a common fictional history, Discovery needs to be careful not to include events that would explicitly contradict other series' backgrounds (at this, they have NOT been entirely successful) but the visuals and presentation have fuckal to do with that.
 
They are one and the same when one show is set in the same world as another show.
They're really not. No other property except for Star Wars has ever even attempted this, and Star Wars has the advantage of being a film franchise with an enormous budget, very few installments, and a lot of exotic locations that can look like whatever the hell the producers want them to look like. That Star Trek setting is "supposed" to look a certain way is and has only ever been in the imagination of trekkies.
 
I said it above but I'll say it again. There's a difference between internal show consistency and cross-show consistency.

Tora Ziyal has been played by three different actresses and they didn't look alike at all. In fact, the first time I saw Tora Ziyal number two it took me some time to realize that it was the same character that was being played. When number three came along I was used to it.
 
He knew of Janus IV and simply took an egg because he is from the MU.

But would the egg have hatched years ahead of schedule?

It's a fucking Easter egg. Heck, maybe not even Horta at all unless I missed a very explicit verbal reference.

That could be it, too. The franchise has had Easter eggs like that that we're supposed to pretend are something else (like R2-D2 in the first Abrams movie).

I'm always amused by the idea that Nero's appearance is supposed to be the reason why everything is different in the Kelvinverse and that alone apparently makes fans rest easy at night.

"Of course Christopher Pike is suddenly 20 years older than he should be, it was because of Nero's appearance!"

Honestly, I don't think that the Kelvin Timeline movies work very well in the context of the franchise and the way they're supposed to connect to the rest of the franchise because of stuff like this.
 
Tora Ziyal has been played by three different actresses and they didn't look alike at all. In fact, the first time I saw Tora Ziyal number two it took me some time to realize that it was the same character that was being played. When number three came along I was used to it.
Took me a lot longer than that. I actually didn't realize she was supposed to be the same person they rescued from the Breen until right before she died. I spent like 5 episodes wondering "I must have missed something... why the hell is Kira so attached to this 30 year old Cardassian chick?"
 
Honestly, I don't think that the Kelvin Timeline movies work very well in the context of the franchise and the way they're supposed to connect to the rest of the franchise because of stuff like this.
So blowing up Vulcan, using a completely different stardate system, having a completely different launch date for the Enterprise, having Kirk evolve a completely different personality, and having the Enterprise be the very first starship in history to ever launch on a five year mission at the end of STID are okay...

But Christopher Pike looking way older than Jeffrey Hunter... that just doesn't work!
 
Took me a lot longer than that. I actually didn't realize she was supposed to be the same person they rescued from the Breen until right before she died. I spent like 5 episodes wondering "I must have missed something... why the hell is Kira so attached to this 30 year old Cardassian chick?"

:lol:

How true! The first one was about twenty and was supposed to be a teen.
 
But would the egg have hatched years ahead of schedule?
Given the MU's tendency to eat things, I'd say that's not likely.
So blowing up Vulcan, using a completely different stardate system, having a completely different launch date for the Enterprise, having Kirk evolve a completely different personality, and having the Enterprise be the very first starship in history to ever launch on a five year mission at the end of STID are okay...

But Christopher Pike looking way older than Jeffrey Hunter... that just doesn't work!
Do we really want to go down that rabbit hole? Kirk's personality isn't "completely different" just undisciplined, and on and on.

It works far better than it should.
 
Given the MU's tendency to eat things, I'd say that's not likely.
It's silicon-based... he probably killed it and used it as a slow cooker.

Besides, he didn't eat the tribble. Those things are basically self-replicating meatballs.

Do we really want to go down that rabbit hole? Kirk's personality isn't "completely different" just undisciplined, and on and on.
That's kinda what I meant.
 
I'm always amused by the idea that Nero's appearance is supposed to be the reason why everything is different in the Kelvinverse and that alone apparently makes fans rest easy at night.

"Of course Christopher Pike is suddenly 20 years older than he should be, it was because of Nero's appearance!"

And that argument only works if we assume that Pike went through a HELLUVA lot more stress in the altered timeline post-2233 than he did in the original to look so much older by the 2250s. Because the idea that Nero's incursion changed the timeline in both directions both past and future is just stupid and as much as I love Simon Pegg that's not how Star Trek timelines are supposed to work. I just prefer to believe that Pike is the exact same age as he was in the Prime timeline and was born on the exact same day, but just looks older because [insert convenient in-universe reason here].
 
And that argument only works if we assume that Pike went through a HELLUVA lot more stress in the altered timeline post-2233 than he did in the original to look so much older by the 2250s. Because the idea that Nero's incursion changed the timeline in both directions both past and future is just stupid and as much as I love Simon Pegg that's not how Star Trek timelines are supposed to work. I just prefer to believe that Pike is the exact same age as he was in the Prime timeline and was born on the exact same day, but just looks older because [insert convenient in-universe reason here].

I pretty much regard the nuTrek films as a hard reboot. They really should have been as that's much cleaner without any time travel/time alteration business. I was not a fan of bringing back Nimoy, it felt like a way of trying to appease potentially angry fans with "hey, don't worry, we've got Nimoy's approval! It's okay!". Was even worse in INTO DARKNESS.
 
Into Darkness was just a bad idea from the start. If you're going to revive Khan and his Augments nearly ten years early then that's not the story to use as a framing device to bring back such an iconic and revered villain. I know, War on Terror allegory. Fine. That's irrelevant. The story isn't very good at all and Cumberbatch was miscast. He did the best he could with a mediocre script but almost the entire film with the arguable exceptions of Admiral Marcus and Carol was a well-intentioned misfire.

Even fans of the Kelvin timeline aren't terribly fond of the second film. But I digress. Back to the DSC nitpicking. :)
 
Into Darkness was just a bad idea from the start. If you're going to revive Khan and his Augments nearly ten years early then that's not the story to use as a framing device to bring back such an iconic and revered villain. I know, War on Terror allegory. Fine. That's irrelevant. The story isn't very good at all and Cumberbatch was miscast. He did the best he could with a mediocre script but almost the entire film with the arguable exceptions of Admiral Marcus and Carol was a well-intentioned misfire.

Even fans of the Kelvin timeline aren't terribly fond of the second film. But I digress. Back to the DSC nitpicking. :)

You're DEAD to me sir! :p
 
The Genesis Transporter was the best piece of technology in the entire franchise. Or was it the last world tour Phil Collins was a part of?

Either way, it was a land of confusion.
 
This is what I really groan at when watching Star Trek. When the writers feel the need to justify some change from one series to another. The TMP Klingon forehead change did not require an augment virus explanation in ENT. They looked different in TMP because TMP had a shit ton of money and TOS didn't. The end.
There. Is. A. Difference between an in-story explanation for something, and an out-of-story explanation. Willing suspension of disbelief hinges on the former, not the latter. It is a foundation-level element of competent fiction writing to make sure that things presented within the story make sense within the story.

I said it above but I'll say it again. There's a difference between internal show consistency and cross-show consistency.
No. No, there really isn't. Not when the shows are set in a single, shared, overarching fictional setting.

If you're serious about insisting that there is a difference, you're basically looking at the whole question at the head of this thread and saying not only that DSC isn't in the prime Trekverse, but that no such thing as the prime Trekverse even exists.

No, I'm pointing out that visuals only need to be consistent within the context of its own narrative, which (usually) does not include its prequels or sequels. ...
TOS and the spinoffs aren't part of Discovery's narrative; the story begins and ends before the events of ANY of those series take place. To the extent that they share a common setting with a common fictional history, Discovery needs to be careful not to include events that would explicitly contradict other series' backgrounds (at this, they have NOT been entirely successful) but the visuals and presentation have fuckal to do with that.
It's all one giant uber-narrative... that's the whole conceit of a shared fictional universe. The foundation for it is TOS; everything else is built on that. (And no matter how often you assert otherwise, in a visual medium like TV, things like production design very much are part of the worldbuilding that establishes the parameters of that setting.)

And that argument only works if we assume that Pike went through a HELLUVA lot more stress in the altered timeline post-2233 than he did in the original to look so much older by the 2250s. Because the idea that Nero's incursion changed the timeline in both directions both past and future is just stupid and as much as I love Simon Pegg that's not how Star Trek timelines are supposed to work. I just prefer to believe that Pike is the exact same age as he was in the Prime timeline and was born on the exact same day, but just looks older because [insert convenient in-universe reason here].
Actually, I think Pegg's take on that makes a lot of sense. Reason being: a lot of Trek's in-story history, like it or not, actually depends on temporal incursions into the past (pre-2233) by characters set well after 2233. Change the future that made those stories possible, and you get ripple effects reaching way back into the timeline.
 
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