The S2 finale battle definitely sits alongside the final battles in Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones. That's something I never thought we'd ever get to say about CBS's Star Trek revival.
Spoilers DSC S2's final battle holds its own up against Avengers: Endgame and GoT
- Thread starter The Butter Phantom
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I wouldn't know about both (I never cared about the MCU), but The Long Night absolutely shocked me. I was glued to the screen, and even had to stop it to get a little breath. I was constantly terrified at how bleak everything seemed, and truly believed everything would be lost until the very end. As much as I loved and enjoyed Such Sweet Sorrow, it didn't make me as afraid for our heroes' lives as Game of Thrones did. They're competing in completely different leagues; Sorrow was a more-or-less satisfying finale to an action-adventure piece, while The Long Night was a Game of Thrones-trademarked visceral treatment of War Is Hell infused with unholy amounts of zombie horror. Never have I ever felt during a Star Trek episode that this was truly the end and we literally had nowhere to run anymore; only an episodic treatment of "the Borg is everywhere" alternate universe from TNG's Parallels (or the dark future where Control has won) would be theoretically able to achieve something similar.
I only watched the last ep of Discovery a week ago and the only thing I remember was "none of this makes sense". I don't even recall how the Big Bad got stuck in the spore chamber, and why the spore chamber was able to kill him. Did they even stop to explain that one? There was lots of pew-pewing in space, with fighters for some reason, but none of that mattered in the end.
Meanwhile, I can recall most of the story beats of the Battle of the Wall, Hard Home, and likely this weeks ep years later. GOT does battle really well, and a lot of that has to do with their directors setting the location, pace and mood.
Yeah, they do. Georgiou literally tells Leland (and therefore the audience) that she has now magnetized the floor of the spore chamber (which is also the reason she lead him there, because she knew it could be magnetized). And they set up that you could defeat a human infested with Control with this method a few episodes earlier. So it's a good example of setup and payoff.
Pretty incredible how both the Enterprise and Discovery (which is only supposed to be a science vessel) managed to stand up against a whole fleet of ships and drones though. They just had to stay stationary and their shields never failed once despite being pummelled all episode. In other Star Trek incarnations, the hero ship's shields failed after a few blows and they started taking structural damage.
The Scimitar from Nemesis would have probably have exhausted its weapons against these ships before their shields weakened even slightly.
The Scimitar from Nemesis would have probably have exhausted its weapons against these ships before their shields weakened even slightly.
Don’t think about it too much. DIS definitely isn’t the thinking mans Star Trek....
I posted this in the Disco Chat thread before I realized this thread existed. Here's what I posted:
This might be an unpopular opinion... but comparing Discovery's season finale to GOT's climax battle with the Army of the Dead, I feel that Discovery did it a lot better. The battle was extremely epic and easy to follow compared to GOT's dark and confusing battle. And Control, for all the faults of the character, still had more motivation and backstory than the Night King got over multiple seasons.
Yes, I know GOT is more about the iron throne than the army of the dead and an even bigger battle episode might be coming, but I couldn't help think of the similarities between the 2 episodes as I watched them.
This might be an unpopular opinion... but comparing Discovery's season finale to GOT's climax battle with the Army of the Dead, I feel that Discovery did it a lot better. The battle was extremely epic and easy to follow compared to GOT's dark and confusing battle. And Control, for all the faults of the character, still had more motivation and backstory than the Night King got over multiple seasons.
Yes, I know GOT is more about the iron throne than the army of the dead and an even bigger battle episode might be coming, but I couldn't help think of the similarities between the 2 episodes as I watched them.
When did they say the spore chamber was magnetized? Just having two random pieces of dialog separated by a couple of episodes does not make one a payoff of another.
It's not like GOT, where one character hands another a knife, and you know exactly why an episode or so later without someone having to say "Haha, this knife is why I defeated you. Now I will watch you suffer".
The Night King doesn't need motivation. He's a force of nature. You don't ask the hurricane "why?" In fact, the more you know, the more you make him human, and he's not supposed to be human.
As for comparing the battles, I can tell you what's happening and why for every step in the battle from the initial Dothraki skirmish to the ordered retreat to the stuff with dragons. I still don't know WTF was supposed to be happening with the battle in DSC. Just a bunch of pew pew to no effect, some fighters that didn't really do anything, and the only thing that accomplished anything was a fistfight between Hitler and a robot.
And you don't find that half-assed at all?
I think we're getting about 1.5 fewer seasons than the show was originally paced for due to the actors getting antsy and ever fatter paychecks. Given that, I'm fine skipping the doomed love story that turned Anakin Whitewalker into the Night King.
Not that you're wrong or anything - this is really just about personal preferences, and if you like something that much, you like it, and that's the only thing that counts at the end of the day.
But be aware this is one hell of a minority opinion.
Like, personally, I think the submarine-like battle at the end of "The undiscovered Country" was the best space battle Star Trek as a whole has ever done, and neither any of the new JJmovies, DIS, or even Wrath of Khan for that matter match it. But that is probably a very, very minority opinion as well.
One I cared about. The other two I did not.
As such, I am extremely biased and don't think this is a reasonable comparison.
As such, I am extremely biased and don't think this is a reasonable comparison.
I love both, but I couldn't help thinking:
Okay, here is the key difference:
Infinity War was nostalgic about it's own storylines and the character and storylines the Avengers franchise itself told in the last decade.
DIS was nostalgic about other, older shows. About other characters and stories. Not it's own.
That's a key difference, and the reason "Infinity War" succeeds at it (the same way VOY in it's final season had a few nostalgic time-travel stories where they revisited it's own early seasons). Whereas on DIS it was a distraction, and only made people crave for a Pike-show, completely undercutting DIS' own main characters and story arc.
The nostalgia on DIS worked against the new characters of DIS. Whereas the nostalgia on IW was about the characters in IW.
Infinity War was nostalgic about it's own storylines and the character and storylines the Avengers franchise itself told in the last decade.
DIS was nostalgic about other, older shows. About other characters and stories. Not it's own.
That's a key difference, and the reason "Infinity War" succeeds at it (the same way VOY in it's final season had a few nostalgic time-travel stories where they revisited it's own early seasons). Whereas on DIS it was a distraction, and only made people crave for a Pike-show, completely undercutting DIS' own main characters and story arc.
The nostalgia on DIS worked against the new characters of DIS. Whereas the nostalgia on IW was about the characters in IW.
