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Exclusive Clip

Rewatching the scene now. While I get better vibes regarding the show as a whole, there's a lot of things in the direction that seem very rough to me - and make me hope that this is an early cut, not a scene from a final episode:
  • As I noted, dude on the bridge notes tachyons are detected, and then we have a giant red "WARNING: TACHYONS DETECTED" flash onscreen (like a close up of what's on his screen). I don't mean to belabor this, but like, why? Nothing about tachyons is ominous, even if you're well-versed in treknobabble. The scene is worse with its inclusion.
  • The use of shields here make no sense. Shields are raised almost immediately, yet the ship still takes direct hits which penetrate the hull, causing a ton of damage (which somehow doesn't seem to kill anyone). Trek has been inconsistent regarding deflector shields in the past, but it was always understood that the "real hits" don't get taken until the shields drop down to zero. Here it's treated more like shields hitting 0% means - the ship blows up? I dunno?
  • Why is the character played by the Irish wrestler talking over the captain, stating out loud each percentage drop in the shields? It doesn't make sense from a command perspective (junior officers shouldn't be talking over a captain when she's giving orders). It also doesn't make sense from a show production perspective (multiple characters talking over one another, while realistic to life, is a big no-no unless you want just a mass of noise that no one pays attention to. While early shows would have a character interject this, it was in like increments of 10%, and spaced appropriately during conversation to allow for rising tension.
  • Did a character say "we just lost helm control?" followed up by Ake saying "emergency evasive?"
  • Second flash of screen, telling us sensors and shields are offline. This is at least not redundant with what's being said (which is more about power fluctuating), but it goes by so quickly you can't read it unless you pause the screen. Which would be fine if it was on a viewscreen and meant as bonus content for the pixel-hunters, but you can't miss it here.
  • I like how Giamatti is playing Braka here, but I find the whole holoprojection thing distracting. When he's walking around the bridge, what's he doing on his own ship? How does he perceive approaching Ake's command chair? Like, is it in his own bridge? I liked how DS9 did it better, where the character projected just stood in one spot. Maybe less dynamic dramatically, but more realistic for how such a technology would work.
Overall, I feel more excited about the show, but the direction here is just downright bad in places. And this probably comes from the first two episodes, which means Kurtzman directed it!
 
I thought the clip was...fine. my only real issue with it is how on two occasions (I think the first was "tachyons detected") we cut to a shot of the viewscreen (?) superimposed to take up the whole damn shot, saying the same thing over again.

It's just...dumb. Redundant, for sure, but it also just makes me think about the director's (poor) choices and not the story.
Agreed, I think the clip is fine and certainly gets me more excited for the show. But there’s definitely some oddities in it, like the unnecessary viewscreen graphic you’re mentioning. I also thought Holly Hunter sounded rather marble-mouthed in this and I hope I’ll be able to understand her on the show proper. I’m also still not a fan of the insta-intra-ship-beaming, but I guess we’re stuck with that from Discovery. Seems a little weird that they are not using it to get the cadets to safety, though.

Those grey greebly elements on the bridge consoles, are they supposed to be similar to the tactile (?) interface Book had on his ship in Discovery?

Also, aren’t Tachyons usually indicative of time travel stuff, or am I confusing them with Chronitons? Would kinda fit, because Nus Braka (really odd name, by the way) is later talking about “time with its infinite sense of humor”, which has me wonder if somehow time travel will be a story element.

Maybe I misinterpreted it, but I think it's a fair inference.
Yes, this has been my understanding as well, both from what they’ve been saying in the trailers and from production sources. To be fair, though, I don't think they have clarified whether the Athena is the academy complex in its entirety or just a part of it. If indeed the ship is supposed to be the entire academy then that is certainly a little stupid. Not stupider than the Enterprise-D having children on board, but on the same level. :lol:
 
, aren’t Tachyons usually indicative of time travel stuff, ore am I confusing them with Chronitons? Would kinda fit, because Nus Braka (really odd name, by the way) is later talking about “time with its infinite sense of humor”, which has me wonder if somehow time travel will be a story element.
Tachyons are used for a variety of things, including opening transwarp corridors.

 
Also, aren’t Tachyons usually indicative of time travel stuff, ore am I confusing them with Chronitons? Would kinda fit, because Nus Braka (really odd name, by the way) is later talking about “time with its infinite sense of humor”, which has me wonder if somehow time travel will be a story element.
Tachyons are hypothetical. Chronitons are fictional.
 
Too bad they didn't do an extended, finished, uninterrupted and uncut/spliced scene, but it does look well produced at the very least. Not sure about Holly Hunter's acting as the principle yet, and the doctor shouting like that was a little off-putting, but maybe those two things were the result of too much going on in those 4 minutes and obviously not one continuous scene. I'm hoping Giamatti will be a little more nuanced than he was here... Nowadays with just 10 episode seasons, fair or not, a show has to nail it early, not like in the good old, find-your-footing, 26 episode seasons. We'll see.

Edited to add: The preview was much, much better...
 
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Pretty much. I don't recall any petitioning for an Academy series like I did with Strange New Worlds and Legacy. People very much wanted to see an Enterprise with Seven in the captain's chair. They were not clamoring for a show about cadets. That's why the response to the show's previews have been very lukewarm.
Eh, people did want an Academy show.

They just didn't want one that took place in Discovery's bad future.


The use of shields here make no sense. Shields are raised almost immediately, yet the ship still takes direct hits which penetrate the hull, causing a ton of damage (which somehow doesn't seem to kill anyone). Trek has been inconsistent regarding deflector shields in the past, but it was always understood that the "real hits" don't get taken until the shields drop down to zero. Here it's treated more like shields hitting 0% means - the ship blows up? I dunno?
Same team as Discover, so expect a lot of disconnect between CGI scenes and what's actually going on.
 
That's not an entire generation. Enterprise was one ship full of cadets. SFA is apparently establishing that the entire Academy student body is traveling on one ship.
Just remember that for 120 years there was no physical academy. The implication being that cadets were being trained on active Starships. Before Discovery arrived 32nd century Starfleet was pragmatic, hawkish and dedicated to one thing, survival. There were no 5 year missions and exploration was in Vance's words "a luxury they could no longer afford'. That probably meant kids had to be trained up to be soldiers and to be able to deal with a hostile galaxy. Real world, hands on experience will always trump book learning and I imagine that Starfleet saw the benefits of this kind of teaching. Risk after all is Starfleet's business.
 
Just remember that for 120 years there was no physical academy. The implication being that cadets were being trained on active Starships. Before Discovery arrived 32nd century Starfleet was pragmatic, hawkish and dedicated to one thing, survival. There were no 5 year missions and exploration was in Vance's words "a luxury they could no longer afford'. That probably meant kids had to be trained up to be soldiers and to be able to deal with a hostile galaxy. Real world, hands on experience will always trump book learning and I imagine that Starfleet saw the benefits of this kind of teaching. Risk after all is Starfleet's business.
  • Capt. Kirk: They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings, but he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great grandfather used to. I'm in command. I could order this, but I'm not because Doctor McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this, but I must point out that the possibilities - the potential for knowledge and advancement - is equally great. Risk! Risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her. You may dissent without prejudice. Do I hear a negative vote? (Return to Tomorrow).
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I never actually gave my position on whether I thought it made sense to put all of the Academy student body on one ship, I was just correcting what I thought was a flawed comparison to TWOK. If Enterprise blew up in that film, it would be terrible and many young people would have died beyond Scotty's nephew. But there would still be an academy and many more cadets to fill the ranks in the aftermath. An entire generation was not at risk.

That said, I don't think the risk is the issue. It's the concentration. Ships are blown up all the time, via hostile action or random environmental hazard. One space shark away from all your future dead in an instant. The eggs in one basket metaphor does seem apt. Doesn't seem that wise, but what do I know?
 
This clip really exemplified just how horribly designed Discovery Era starships are.

It also shows just why Starfleet Academy was based on a planet instead of a starship.
The Enterprise in Wrath of Khan was a cadet training ship, and the Republic was spoken of in TOS and DS9 as another such vessel. The Athena is no different. It's a 50 year old part of the lore that SFA has training ships.
 
People very much wanted to see an Enterprise with Seven in the captain's chair.

I seem to have to exlain this once a week.....

That is a fringe group, a small part of a large fandom. However, they shout. A lot. Online. And that gives them the impression they are the majority. They are, in fact, not. Like with many extremist groups across the globe, people think that the once that shout the most in any form of media are the representatives of the whole.
This might shock you, but most Star Trek fans simply watch the shows and movies..... and that's it. They don't go online, they don't debate it on forums or social media. They just enjoy it.
The people on this forum are already a fringe group. Than there is the smaller group within that group, that think ALL fans WANT a show with the Enterprise-G and Captain Seven. They really don't.
I can promise you now, if you start a topic in the General Star Trek Discussion part of this forum, so NOT the Picard section and add a poll if people want a Legacy show with Captain Seven, most people will say no.
 
The Enterprise in Wrath of Khan was a cadet training ship, and the Republic was spoken of in TOS and DS9 as another such vessel. The Athena is no different. It's a 50 year old part of the lore that SFA has training ships.
Republic and Enterprise were training ships. They were not Starfleet Academy itself.
 
The Enterprise in Wrath of Khan was a cadet training ship, and the Republic was spoken of in TOS and DS9 as another such vessel. The Athena is no different. It's a 50 year old part of the lore that SFA has training ships.

At some point in that clip to the students are called to go back to there dorms. And simply looking at the size of this ship, it is more than just an old ship used on a training cruise.
 
As I said earlier, the line in the trailer implies the school is a ship, or at least something that looks mobile. Caleb thought a "thing" might take them to the school, which the captain told him was the school. Of course, it's a trailer, so it could be a fake out, but I feel like it's a fair inference.
 
According to this the ship is “integrated into the Academy campus”:
“In Starfleet Academy, the USS Athena is integrated into the San Francisco campus when it reopens after over a century. The ship will be a major setting of the series, with co-showrunner Alex Kurtzman likening it to a teaching hospital. At NYCC in October, he said the decision to make a ship part of the Academy freed up their storytelling:”​

According to this the ship is “part of the Academy”:
“… the U.S.S Athena, which is part of Starfleet Academy …”​

Here Kurztman explains “the school is the ship, and the ship is part of the campus”:
“I’m sure there’s been some questions about the trailer in terms of, what did I just see up there? Why is there a ship that’s landing in San Francisco? And the answer is, the school is a ship! And the ship is part of the campus in San Francisco. So they go to class in San Francisco. They go to class in the ship. And because resources are lighter in the 32nd century, think of it like a teaching hospital. The ship gets to deploy with the fleet, in real-life situations, so they can learn in the field. So this is not just theoretical classrooms.”​

Sounds to me like the ship is not necessarily ALL of the Academy, but certainly part of it.
 
Before Discovery arrived 32nd century Starfleet was pragmatic, hawkish and dedicated to one thing, survival. There were no 5 year missions and exploration was in Vance's words "a luxury they could no longer afford'. That probably meant kids had to be trained up to be soldiers and to be able to deal with a hostile galaxy. Real world, hands on experience will always trump book learning and I imagine that Starfleet saw the benefits of this kind of teaching. Risk after all is Starfleet's business.

You're bound to stumble upon discoveries while out fighting in unknown territory - you may not have time to make an in-depth study, but you'll have to learn enough about something to deal with it and move on alive and safe to the next battle.
 
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