It was botheirng me so I had to look it up. It seems like John Locke was the one who asked Riker about his beard in Pegasus.
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19837/what-prompted-riker-into-growing-the-beard
First look at Klingons in 'Star Trek: Discovery'?
- Thread starter JacksonArcher
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It was botheirng me so I had to look it up. It seems like John Locke was the one who asked Riker about his beard in Pegasus.
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/19837/what-prompted-riker-into-growing-the-beard
When did it reboot its canon? At a stretch it decanonised TAS for a while but that's it....
I don't have to make excuses for anything, since I like the direction that the show is going and expect it to be successful regardless of how much complaining some folks do about having been misled.
If the folks who are reacting as if this Klingon revelation is some sudden reversal or betrayal had been paying close attention to what Fuller and others really said, and showed, instead of projecting their own expectations onto those public statements they'd be a lot less surprised.
He said the opposite. We're discussing what he really said, with quotes, in another topic.
The so-called "Prime" setting is little more than a fig leaf, a decision made in the service of avoiding tying the series to the movies as distinct from a decision to tie Discovery to the older TV shows. May as well define it as "non-Kelvin" rather than as "Prime."
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It was in Enterprise. Voyager actually did interesting things that brought something new to table the few times it focused on Klingons. Which wasn't that often, all things considered.
Prime Universe in that Enterprise likely happened before it, TOS is happening alongside it, characters names and basic information will be there, races we know of and the general geopolitical landscape of the early Trek era.
A framework, everything filling those gaps, appearing on the screen, will be a fresh new 2017 version.
A framework, everything filling those gaps, appearing on the screen, will be a fresh new 2017 version.
Oh, they know. The entire world knows.
The issue would not be awareness. It's how high so-called 'loyal Trek fans' are on the list of prioritie. Historically, the answer has been 'not very.'
And Enterprise futilely grasping for any attention in the midst its death throes, is hardly a strong precedent.
Ah..Yes, Thanks. It was Dr. Phlox in Enterprise.
I knew that, just a little brain fart.
I've seen people say they won't watch Discovery because they don't like the shape of the ship. Now I've seen people say they won't watch Discovery because the Klingons don't look right. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that we still don't know a goddamn thing about this show with any degree of confidence, and maybe it's kind of, I don't know, premature or stupid or something to judge the actual TV series based on random bits out of context.
I get saying, I don't like that, or I hope there's an explanation for that, or maybe that isn't what we think it is, or whatever. But saying this means the show is gonna suck... well, candidates for the ignore function who make their eligibility so clearly known are actually sort of a good thing, I guess.
I get saying, I don't like that, or I hope there's an explanation for that, or maybe that isn't what we think it is, or whatever. But saying this means the show is gonna suck... well, candidates for the ignore function who make their eligibility so clearly known are actually sort of a good thing, I guess.
It's almost as if people are trying to find reasons to boycott the damn thing. My opinion of this show will be based on the actual show.
Whether they look great or not is a matter of opinion and not the point of this. The point is, they are far more alien-looking than what was possible in previous outings. I'm sure if budgets allowed, there would have been far more alien diversity in the franchise.
The juggling act is always keeping your fan base and growing it. Take them for granted and it can end badly, cater too much, and it won't grow. If your product is good enough to have a decent sized fan base in the first place, then you shouldn't need radical changes to start with....you need to bring your fan base along, and show new viewers why people become fans. It's a thing you see with NuWho slowly pulling itself back to the classic series over its first few years, and it's what you don't see with the Kelvin Universe in some respects...there's no fan groups that I have seen that just like the KT. (She caught the KT, left me a mule to ride.....) Instead you get the KT highlighting the original more and more, trying to capture those from the existing fan base who didn't go along when it first happened. It makes money, but it's creating its not own fan base, not creating an enduring longevity beyond the next movie (almost no merchandise or tie in presence. Even Elementary and Doc Martin managed a novel or two.) This is probably one of the reasons why we are back to Prime....it's just to big to consign to history, ignore, or attempt to replace. You have to work with that, or sink. Look at Ghostbusters...that wasn't taken into account there either.
Now...having your cake and eating it is hard, but that's the game you play with franchises and fan bases. You want to supplant a well-loved original in any way, you better be white hot with talent and some genuinely good ideas. Which is how TNG eventually eclipsed TOS in its time.
Those people can stay in their bubbles by watching all 700+ episodes over and over again and not embrace anything new.
I think part of the problem is the shadow of enterprise and The KT. Some people took that approach there, and did t like what they got, in a franchise they love. If this was a post TNG show, and these were Klingons, the only real question would be 'man...what happened to the, to make them like that?' Rather than 'so...we are meant to believe they looked like that, then that, then that, then that again....'. It's a different kind of disconnect. I still think, if they are Klingons, they will find a story reason. You don't mess with iconic things just for the hell of it if you have any sense...otherwise, why bother with twin nacelles and delay shields, why bother doing a new Trek at all?
I agree with this, but another thing that has to happen is the fanbase also needs to grow with the franchise and not get stuck in one point in the franchise's life. Fandoms, and imho Trekkies in particular, have a bad habit of holding on to a very fixed, specific idea in their heads about what Star Trek should be and anything that deviates outside that little box is heretical. I think ENT suffered from this phenomenon unfairly and most detrimentally, but TNG, DS9, and I think even VOY all had to overcome that whole "this isn't my Star Trek" stuff. I hope DSC is able to overcome it. The onus for a franchise's growth and continued relevance isn't just on the creators -- the fanbase has to release their vice-grip a little and let things grow.
Yup. Thing is, you can only push an envelope so far before it either tears or turns into something that isn't an envelope. ENT and the KT did that for me to greater or lesser extents, and the biggest reason was...I wasn't a TOS fan as such. Sort of...but 'my' era was the movies and the TNG era stuff. TOS was part of its history, but it was sort of the embarrassing uncle I eventually liked more as I grew older. Prequels can sometimes seem like casually disregarding the thing they are supposed to lead into...you see the same hate over in Star Wars (yet I think those prequels were better than people let on, and better than almost everything in TFA. I can even make that argument sound objective on a good day.)
The key is always 'this isn't your dads Star Trek! (But is enough like it that he might like it a bit too)' as opposed to the mistaken 'This is sort of a lot like your Dads Star Trek! You should probably like it....' which is what happens with prequels or 'sort-of-reboot-remake-who-knows....Red Matter! I like Star Wars!' Which actually require way more work than people who make them initially seem to think. Automatically with going back you are saying 'this isn't your Star Trek, because we are going back to your Dads Star Trek' (without understanding that has been done, Shatner exists, it's not going to happen again) but also 'because we are redoing it, it's not actually his Star Trek either'. Fish nor fowl, and they shoot themselves in the foot because it's hard enough not to accidentally mess up continuity behind you, without also dodging the incoming traffic in front of you. So reboots change lane, but all too often find they are still on the same journey and face a different 'not as good as the original/too much like the original' sort of problem. Beyond just about got itself out of that, but only by tying itself hard to the original continiuity behind itself rather than dancing next to the old like the previous two films had.
If DSC has a hardcore plan about what it's going to do, then it can be pretty good as a kind of interquel. If it doesn't, it's gonna hit walls that exist simply because of the kind of work Star Trek is. It's gonna need some good writers, and damn dedicated researchers. (Something else Beyond got right, Pegg did his homework.)
Also...we have Trek fans complaining Trek wasn't enough like their real life, so that's even harder to deal with than continuity. Often though, it's not people who live in actual grimdark corners of the world complaining about the lack of grimdark humans. Funny that. XD
Off topic - but many franchises have manged to grow new audiences whilst completely satisfying existing ones - the choice does not necessarily have to be one or the other - it can be both. A good writer simply writes around what they don't like, and can make any franchise fresh, because great themes and ideas have nothing to do with continuity - they are all timeless and about the human experience. I think people skilled enough can overcome that false dichotomy of fan vs. mass appeal (Kevin Feige and co. for example) - but here on TrekBBS in particular, many people seem to be convinced that the two are absolutely in opposition. Some people have next to no faith in the existing value of Star Trek, as if it isn't one of the most influential works of mass culture ever created (it bloody well is, and then some). I sympathize with those who feel Star Trek died around 2004, since I also felt the flaws in VOY and ENT had dealt serious blows to Trek's reputation (it felt like such a shameful waste of potential too), but Hollywood and western culture in the decade since, increasingly realizes the value of shared settings with a depth of history - it's been demonstrated in recent years how such settings can be carefully shepherded and fostered into multi billion dollar media empires. Even the people who play down their loyalty to the old material must know that Star Trek is capable of the same level of attraction, or wouldn't be writing about it passionately after years here on TrekBBS.
Thats nothing to do with Discovery however, I'll find enjoyment in whatever it turns out to be - the appearance of Klingons matters less than the caliber of the show.
Thats nothing to do with Discovery however, I'll find enjoyment in whatever it turns out to be - the appearance of Klingons matters less than the caliber of the show.
People keep bringing up previous instances in which the designs of certain aliens were altered as a way of justifying this latest apparent change, but there's a significant difference between what Star Trek was then and what it is now. At the time previous design changes were made, there was actually "room" to make said changes because the "visual Canon" was less rigidly defined because of the size of the franchise at the time.
With over 700+ hours of released content having defined a much more rigid "visual Canon" by this point in time, making sweeping changes to the way that certain species look is far less doable than it ever was in the past, making what has apparently happened with regards to Discovery fundamentally different than what has happened previously.
With over 700+ hours of released content having defined a much more rigid "visual Canon" by this point in time, making sweeping changes to the way that certain species look is far less doable than it ever was in the past, making what has apparently happened with regards to Discovery fundamentally different than what has happened previously.
I agree. I also think it has everything to do with DSC and why it's being made. That Trek had something very similar to the MCU (that is now raking in the moolah and some acclaim) about twenty years ago, and has much claim to 'half a century of history' that helps market that, must have been noticed by someone at CBS. The slight bump is that Trek already exists as a visual medium franchise, isn't an adaptation, and the shine is wearing off reboots and remakes everywhere (even in gaming...we use the term Remasterstation 4 for a pretty good reason, and deride certain Indy games for similar. We would like to be on a train moving forwards to our next destination, not constantly told how great the last place we stopped at was, so let's go on a diversion to see it again now the suns come out.)
They want the money, fans want to give them money to see these things again....but....how to make more fans to get more money? Will the new fans give you more money? But the existing fans have already been giving you money for a long time, we don't want that to stop.....
Must be awful being in charge of that ship. Let's peek below decks...
'I want to make something that has a lot of cool stuff like Star Trek, but if I make my own stuff, I can't call it Star Trek....and then not as many people will watch it and no one will give me money to make it. I could make Star Trek, but then I can't make something like Star Trek, I will have to make actual Star Trek, and that's kind of big...'
'I like Star Trek. I want to make more Star Trek. But the money people are worried that it won't make enough money. Maybe I can like...make it like something else...but then it won't be Star Trek, and I really want to make Star Trek.....'
Man. Catering is gonna be a bitch on that ship. Six kinds of toast and three religious figures to pray over the grub, no one wants to just go outside and get an apple from a tree.
The only thing differentiating this from a full-on reboot is that it's not the Enterprise with Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with 21st century production values. Expecting anything to stay the same when it's been explicitly declared to have a new visual aesthetic is willful blindness.
In terms of official, follow up series/movies/tv shows, TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager are dead. Elements from ENT may have an appearance in the new show - interestingly enough, the aliens believed to be DSC's new klingons share a similarity to the "Reptilian Xindi" - but if you're hoping for a TOS revival, you're better off watching the fanfilms Continues or New Voyages and turning off your cable.
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