Do you feel the dialogue is, at times, unfitting of military/science personnel?

[fireproof78]

All in all, I think DSC is slowly evolving; it's not perfect but it's kinda getting there.

This is the best point. Do I think DSC dialog is perfect? Um, no, I don't. I don't think any show's dialog is perfect (except for M*A*S*H) and there is room for improvement.

Now, does that mean I think DSC is unfitting of professionals? Also, no. I work in a professional setting with licensed counselors. We still have slip ups, misunderstandings, moments of unprofessionalism, and the like. We are also no written for dramatic purposes.

I think that a TV show sometimes needs a bit more latitude.

 

[Greg Cox]

To answer the original question, let me just cite a certain Leonard McCoy:

"In a pig's eye!"

 

[Finn]

I feel too much hate and misunderstanding in this thread.

Well, if this thread remains open in the coming days, I will try to explain my position in more detail.

First of all, there's no "hate" happening here.

I think explaining in more detail would probably derail your attempts to convey the message you are trying to make. If you truly understand what you are talking about and if your thoughts about whatever you are trying to communicate are actually articulate. you should be able to write it in a couple sentences.

I suggest less details, not more.

 

[seigezunt]

I would expect nothing else in a not-really-the-military organization.

 

[Spaceship Jo]

The reasons the dialogue is good (and also bad) have nothing to do with being "unfitting of military science personnel". I think I understand what you're going for with this line of thought, but it's just not quite there, at least in the sense we can evaluate any work of fiction. The DSC folks talk as realistically future military science-y as the folks on NCIS talk as realistically as real NCIS agents, which is to say: kinda, but also not, it's TV and so long as they don't sound completely alien (no pun) to their jobs... and even that is still on the table for dramatic purposes occasionally.

I hate to pull the "there's no sound in space" card, but I feel we must here. The crew of DSC sound exactly how the crew of a future military science vessel in this universe would sound. Is that sometimes clunky? Yup. Is that sometimes quite casual? Yup. Is that sometimes weirdly melodramatic and preachy and/or ominous and bizarrely noncommunicative? Yup. Can all those things apply to anything else on TV? If it breaks your suspension of disbelief...

You can argue whether that dialogue is well done or not, as you can argue about the quality of sets, acting, etc, but it's a real uphill battle to argue that the show isn't what it is. It's ok to find that silly, as it's ok to find an exposed bridge on the top of the ship silly. It's a fact of the world whether or not it's well executed (which I am not arguing either side of here).

 

[The Wormhole]

I've only skimmed this thread, so maybe this point's already been made, but there's no reason to expect "realistic" dialogue that sounds like it's coming from science or military people. Realistic science talk basically means flowing technobabble which would make most of the audiences eyes glaze over. Realistic military talk would involve using jargon and acronyms that would be completely indecipherable to the civilian audience, and indeed writers of military fiction (Tv shows, movies, novels) intentionally avoid such dialogue for exactly that reason.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Honestly I don't get the bitching about the technobabble. I get the gist of every bit of technobabble they are discussing. And unlike the clunky strung together babble of TNG and Voyager, the babble in Disco actually appears to be related to what the characters are discussing instead of seeming to be seemingly random strings of word salad that the Berman era shows used as boilerplate.

And at least when they use technobabble here it sounds like people talking to each other, instead of the actors slowly enunciating their babble blocks so that three year olds can follow along as was done in the 90s.

I agree. I don’t mind The technobabble in general on Star Trek. On DSC, it’s often understandable and makes sense.

When I DON’T like technobabble On Star Trek is the times over the years that it’s been used to save the day/solve a problem in a deus ex machina sort of way.

 

[zar]

The crew of DSC sound exactly how the crew of a future military science vessel in this universe would sound.

That's the ticket, laddie. Whether Starfleet is a military organization or not, one thing they are definitely not is a 21st century military organization. I let the show itself define what its own universe is.

 

[Tuskin38]

I feel too much hate and misunderstanding in this thread.

Well, if this thread remains open in the coming days, I will try to explain my position in more detail.

I don’t think there’s any misunderstanding at all here.

 

[fireproof78]

I've only skimmed this thread, so maybe this point's already been made, but there's no reason to expect "realistic" dialogue that sounds like it's coming from science or military people. Realistic science talk basically means flowing technobabble which would make most of the audiences eyes glaze over. Realistic military talk would involve using jargon and acronyms that would be completely indecipherable to the civilian audience, and indeed writers of military fiction (Tv shows, movies, novels) intentionally avoid such dialogue for exactly that reason.

Precisely so. Amusingly enough, an ad popped up on my YT feed that is one of the Master Class programs from Aaron Sorkin. He pretty much says "In real life people don't talk this way."

And drama has been doing that for years. Shakespeare was often attended due to the fact that his language was not that spoken by commoners. It's all a part of the craft.

 

[cooleddie74]

It's Star Trek and set in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries. It's not a U.S. Navy or National Oceanographic Institute vessel conducting research in the Arctic.

This is how scientists and uniformed military and exploratory personnel talk in Star Trek.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

isn't it just awful when characters on TV behave like actual human beings?

And isn't it awful when the scriptwriters and show runners of a current installment of a media franchise do what its fans asked for in previous installments and implement it only to be now accused of not sticking to what was done with the characters of previous installments?

IMO, Disco doesn't feel like its scripts are littered with the classic TNG scripting guide of [INSERT TECH HERE] chestnut to be filled out sometime after the script is otherwise complete. What I hear is actually cognizant to the episode it appears in.

And the same's true of the current Star Trek movies as well, IMHO.

 

[The Librarian]

All modern military officers (to say nothing of the enlisted) are horribly unprofessional by the standards of two hundred years ago, so why would we expect people two hundred years from now to fit our standards?