It doesn't need to match 1:1, it is a visual reboot.
Nothing against you in particular, but I am getting exceedingly tired of seeing people post this, as if it explains or excuses anything. As far as I'm aware the very concept of a "visual reboot" was never even coined until DSC came along; at least, I'd never encountered it before. It seems very much like special pleading. Is there
any other popular creative property that has claimed to be telling new stories in an otherwise familiar and established setting, while completely revamping the visual sensibilities of that setting?
Seriously, what does the phrase even
mean? Seems to me that the key word involved here is "reboot"; the modifier that establishes the specific
way the property is being rebooted is kinda secondary. After all, a reboot isn't something that can be done halfway; either the fictional reality in which you've set your stories is the same as what came before, or it
isn't the same. So what difference does it make if the difference is primarily "visual"?
It's not as if if we're talking about a prose novel, or a radio show, or even a stageplay, which rely on audience members using their imaginations to supply the visual details. With a TV show or a movie, especially in this age of technically advanced special effects, and even
more especially for SF, where the worldbuilding is intricately intertwined with the storytelling, the whole idea is verisimilitude — immersing the viewers in a setting that is as visually
real as possible. The producers spend literally
millions of dollars to achieve this. Saying that viewers can just use their imaginations to pretend some things look different undermines the whole enterprise (no pun intended).
Moreover, this form of apologia for DSC often seems to come joined at the hip with the argument that the visuals
had to be changed in order to appeal to the tastes of "modern audiences." This strikes me as especially disingenuous — it says that on the one hand, for Audience Subset A, the visual details shouldn't matter, but on the other hand, for Audience Subset B, they can and do matter, a lot. It's an obvious double-standard. And when the double-standard is applied so as to insist that visual details don't matter for
fans of the show, while allowing that they matter for
new or casual viewers, it seems particularly bass-ackwards. How is this defensible? What is the logic?
Then that makes every series and movie a reboot.
No, it really doesn't. A change that can be explained as an
in-story development is by definition not a reboot. A change that retroactively contradicts something that's
already established is a horse of a different color.
Your comment stands only in alternative reality in which there is no Enterprise series.
So, in other words, with the "alternate reality" that was known as "Star Trek continuity" for the first 35 years of its existence?
In our reality this series exists and DSC must be compatible with continuity in which cloaking tech is nothing special in 2150s.
That's a gross overstatement. Such cloaking technology as was seen in ENT was very special indeed. It was either the product of very advanced future tech (by way of the Temporal Cold War), or it was something in very early development by the Romulans, imperfect and arguably subordinate to the holographic camouflage technology they were shown to rely on. That's still an annoying retcon of TOS, but it's at least plausibly reconcilable with the way it was introduced in "Balance of Terror" and Spock's statement that it was "theoretically possible." The way DSC handles it, on the other hand, simply
isn't reconcilable with that.
Certainly, whoever had cloaking in ENT, it was always clear that the
Klingons didn't. The notion that they did completely undermines both "Balance of Terror" and "The Enterprise Incident."
Stealth technology, not cloaking, per the actual dialogue in the episode. (Never mind what MA says; check out the episode transcript.) The "hidden" ship could be seen as a silhouette against a bright light source.
Besides, even if
were some form of cloak, the Xyrillians were specifically described as a species much more advanced than humans. What they were able to do could still plausibly be only "theoretically" possible from Starfleet's point of view, even a century later.
There is simple truth that many elements of TOS are not compatible with later series.
Well, then, that's a damn shame for the later series. Too bad for them.
If certain fans can't live with this then blame all time travel staff for changes in prime timeline.
As it happens, I do. The "prime timeline," technically speaking, is simply the one from which ST09 branched off. That's by no means the same thing as the
original Star Trek timeline.
This is your opinion. Too bad for you Roddenberry was of the opposite opinion and since that times it is to newer series/movies that we should look.
Good thing I really never gave a tinker's damn what Roddenberry thought about Trek continuity — not even back in 1990 when he was still alive, never mind today. Why should I?
1. DSC
2. ENT
3. VOY/DS9/ST09/STID
4. TNG/STB/The Cage
5. TOS movies
6. TNG movies
7. TOS
8. TAS
YPB?
Wow. So, in other words, your taste is... well, I don't want to describe it in a way that you'd take as a personal insult, so let's go with "quixotic." Suffice it to say that your ranking is almost the exact opposite of mine; out of thirteen items listed, the only thing we have in common in the top five is DS9.
They kind of can't be given the Defiant reveal. That's a solid link at least between those three series.
Well, all that actually reveals is that the future of ENT contains something that
looks like TOS. (Which is more than DSC allows for, but still... it doesn't mean there aren't other subtle differences from the version we originally saw. Same goes for the TNG-like future glimpsed in the series finale.)
Get back to me when Romulans don't have that dumb forehead ridge in TNG+
Word. Except you seem to be using this example to suggest the exact opposite of what I think it signifies. After all, one annoying dumb-ass pointless change made in the past does
not serve to justify any other annoying dumb-ass pointless changes made in the present. The change in the Romulans was pure change for change's sake — it didn't make them look any better, it didn't make any logical sense, and there was never the slightest story justification for it. If it exemplifies anything, it's the importance of
avoiding significant visual changes that don't have a strong story justification.
TOS didn't have the budget, I bet if Gene had a lot more money we would have seen a lot more aliens and ship designs.
We saw what Gene would have done with more money in TMP. Unless that's what you want Trek to look like, it's water under the bridge.
At any rate, better budgets and tech aren't an excuse for changes the way they were 40 years ago. Ship designs and makeup techniques and special effects haven't really changed or improved dramatically in the last couple of decades, and throwing more money at them today isn't necessarily going to improve anything.
You're just thinking too hard.
I have often been accused of that over the years. Sorry, I'm a rational/analytical personality type, and that's just what I do. I can't turn it off, and I wouldn't want to if I could.
You're too focused on the small stuff.
"Small stuff" is what makes stories. They're not told in broad strokes. The devil's in the details.
Ten years is a long time. Not sure why this is a point of contention. I don't need everything to be perfectly 100% consistent to accept the broader strokes as existing within the same time line.
Nobody does; that's a straw man. I think it's fair to say we all agree that perfect 100% consistency is impossible, if for no other reason than that human beings are flawed creatures and mistakes happen when you're doing creative work under tight time and budget pressures.
However, I think it's fair to say that
avoidable inconsistencies should in fact be avoided. And going out of one's way to
introduce new inconsistencies obviously flies in the face of any attempt at consistent continuity.
I don't need an explanation
I do. After all, one of the key attractions of fiction is that it offers us worlds where events add up to
make sense, rather than being arbitrary and inexplicable the way they are in reality.
The Mirror Universe in DSC is intended to be dark, literally and metaphorically. Lorca, being of the dark, can't stand the light. And can't stand the exposure. Not just literally but also figuratively. Lorca doesn't want to be exposed for who he really is, he doesn't want to see the light, and brightness goes against his blackened outlook.
Hmm. Interesting point... but I think there's another read on this. It seems to me just another example of hamfisted writing. The writers really don't seem to get the distinction between symbolic darkness and literal darkness (or they think the audience doesn't). So they turn one into the other, and drive the point home with a sledgehammer.
This really wasn't necessary. It served no story purpose. There were all kinds of more subtle ways to reveal Lorca's character traits,
and to reveal the plot twist that he was actually from the MU.
In other words...
Anyone who's being too literal is missing out on the touches to Lorca's character...
...that "anyone" would be the show's writers.
What they're consistently doing is consistently adjusting. I notice they tweak things once it becomes clear we'll be seeing them on a more regular basis instead of just once.
Yeah, that's not unusual for any show. Mostly it's how you smooth over "early episode weirdness," and it's pretty easily excusable. Changing something that was seen or heard once is a whole lot less disruptive than changing something that was seen or heard dozens or hundreds of times. The Trill look is a classic example of the former (and really, I've never heard of anybody minding that); DSC aside, the Romulan foreheads mentioned above are an example of the latter.
TNG outright contradicted TOS multiple times, especially in its early stages, so why isn't that in a different universe?
Not sure what you're alluding to here. Examples?...
I find it interesting how people jump to "They didn't do their homework!" as opposed to "They did their homework, are aware of the discontinuity but chose to do something different."
The second option really isn't an excuse anyway, since the official line from the producers was that they were working within the established continuity,
not doing "something different."
Awhile ago I tried to catalogue Trek's timelines, and make a swirly visual chart not unlike Daniels' Temporal Observatory from "Cold Front". Problem was, when it came to Voyager I realised it was completely impossible to make sense of anything...
Now add in Enterprise, whose time travels include a pre-TCW timeline where the NX-01 is destroyed in "Cold Front"...
And so on. Which one is the Prime Universe again?
...
It never got anywhere because I pretty quickly realised it was impossible
I feel your pain. I've made a similar effort. However, I don't think it's
completely impossible. Certainly the later Berman-era writers (Braga especially!) became
far too enamored of time-paradox stories, especially given that they didn't seem to be able to resolve those stories in any kind of logical way, or even keep the rules consistent...
but on the other hand, most of those stories pretty much self-corrected or resulted in timeline changes that were marginal at most. (For instance, one can handwave away "Year of Hell" with the argument that its timeline changes didn't affect anything outside the Delta Quadrant — indeed they literally couldn't given the distances involved — so although they might have been pretty dramatic for the species affected, they don't really impact the larger Trek timeline.)
That still leaves the ones that did make a lasting difference, of course. I have a spreadsheet of them, with annotations. I keep saying that I'm going to post a thread discussing the implications for Trek continuity... one of these days I'll actually get to it.
if by fans you mean diehard TOS-or-Bust types, no, you dont risk anything by offending them. They are so insignificant compared to the audience they want to obtain
You seem to think the producers of DSC have some clear idea of what audience they're aiming to attract. I remain unconvinced.
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