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Spoilers General Disco Chat Thread

What is wrong with someone wanting to command a starship?

I never said there was anything wrong with it?

I was suggesting they didn't us much of her longing to be a senior officer to chew on, and then all of a sudden, promotion. Yay.

Kind of covered that in the part of my post you didn’t quote.

The part where you said a story "either moves the viewer or it doesn't"? I didn't realise that was supposed to be an explanation.

It goes without saying that a character storyline will hit harder after 100 episodes of getting to know them, than 1 episode.

Simple.

No idea who EC Henry is and why his opinion matters.

His opinion matters as much as anyone else's. The only reason I brought him up because he's a very popular voice on Trek and Star Wars and 90% of the time he's extremely positive about either. He made a great video about how none of the emotional beats in Discovery work because the series is trying to fast forward drama and development.
 
Because that's how story-telling works? Emotional moments pay off a lot more if they're earned through past development. It should go without saying that emotional beats hit harder the more invested you are, but Discovery doesn't seem to care about doing the work getting us there, and just telling us to feel for these characters. It's forced and un-earned. The pace of DIS means that characters are a secondary priority to action and plot twists.

EC Henry did a brilliant video talking about this a while back but he seems to have taken it down.
This is just hogwash. If it took an entire season to develop emotional investment, why does Romeo and Juliet work? Or The Notebook? Or Pixar's Inside Out? The first 10 MINUTES of Pixar's Up? My Girl? Titanic? Marley and Me? Or the original TNG Lower Decks episode? Or O Henry's The Gift of the Magi? Writers can elicit emotion using storytelling techniques in ANY amount of story length. I will give you an example. An emotional story told in 6 words.
For Sale.
Baby shoes.
Never used.
Anyone who says you need an entire season to build up an emotional reaction just doesn't understand good writing. Airiam's final episode made me weepy. So it worked well enough. It worked for a good number of people judging by the grading episode. Didn't work for you? It happens. Doesn't mean "they didn't do the work." Some people don't cry at the end of Titanic. Others may not be affected by Steel Magnolias (I wasn't). That doesn't mean it's bad or not crafted well, it means that for some reason the material didn't connect with you. Not everything connects with every person. It happens. Doesn't make it bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that it was either forced or un-earned.
 
This is just hogwash. If it took an entire season to develop emotional investment, why does Romeo and Juliet work? Or The Notebook? Or Pixar's Inside Out? The first 10 MINUTES of Pixar's Up? My Girl? Titanic? Marley and Me? Or the original TNG Lower Decks episode? Or O Henry's The Gift of the Magi? Writers can elicit emotion using storytelling techniques in ANY amount of story length. I will give you an example. An emotional story told in 6 words.
For Sale.
Baby shoes.
Never used.
Anyone who says you need an entire season to build up an emotional reaction just doesn't understand good writing. Airiam's final episode made me weepy. So it worked well enough. It worked for a good number of people judging by the grading episode. Didn't work for you? It happens. Doesn't mean "they didn't do the work." Some people don't cry at the end of Titanic. Others may not be affected by Steel Magnolias (I wasn't). That doesn't mean it's bad or not crafted well, it means that for some reason the material didn't connect with you. Not everything connects with every person. It happens. Doesn't make it bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that it was either forced or un-earned.

You'remissing the point. Of course emotional investment can happen in a short space of time, but most of those things you mention are a couple of hours long. Discovery has the luxury of SEASONS to tell their story. Why fast forward emotional development and drama?
 
Airiam's final episode made me weepy. So it worked well enough. It worked for a good number of people judging by the grading episode. Didn't work for you? It happens. Doesn't mean "they didn't do the work." Some people don't cry at the end of Titanic. Others may not be affected by Steel Magnolias (I wasn't). That doesn't mean it's bad or not crafted well, it means that for some reason the material didn't connect with you. Not everything connects with every person. It happens. Doesn't make it bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that it was either forced or un-earned.
Exactly. Titanic didn't get me, but as I alluded to above, I was sobbing before the opening title card with ST 2009. Discovery also hits me where I live.

Mileage clearly varies.
 
You'remissing the point. Of course emotional investment can happen in a short space of time, but most of those things you mention are a couple of hours long. Discovery has the luxury of SEASONS to tell their story. Why fast forward emotional development and drama?

While I don’t agree with much that they’ve done, especially in regards to Michael Burnham, it is their call to make. And since CBS keeps renewing the show, they’re obviously successful at it, regardless of what I think.
 
You'remissing the point. Of course emotional investment can happen in a short space of time, but most of those things you mention are a couple of hours long.
No, respectfully, YOU seem to be missing the point. I very specifically alluded to everything from a 2 hour movie, 1.5 hour movie, a TV episode, the first 10 minutes of a movie, a short story. to 6 words. To show emotional connection can happen at ANY length.
Discovery has the luxury of SEASONS to tell their story. Why fast forward emotional development and drama?
This is a different question. Could they have done it over the course of two seasons? Of course they COULD have. But probably due to a frequent change in showrunners or possible because they felt the shorter seasons didn't allow for a lot of supporting character work, that just wasn't an option they felt was available to them. But whether they COULD have done it a different way, doesn't mean the way they DID do it was unsuccessful. Again, good writers can elicit emotion in just about any length. The Gift of the Magi doesn't suffer for being a short story, but could probably have been stretched to a full novel. UP could have stretched the entirety of Ellie and Carl's relationship across Act 1, but they chose to compress it down to about 10 minutes, and it was beautiful and made me cry. Airiam's development could have been stretched over seasons 1 and 2, but they put it all in one episode and it was beautiful and made me cry. And the writer of that episode is the new showrunner for season 3. That makes me very hopeful.
 
The part where you said a story "either moves the viewer or it doesn't"? I didn't realise that was supposed to be an explanation.

It goes without saying that a character storyline will hit harder after 100 episodes of getting to know them, than 1 episode.
Why wouldn't it be?
@EnderAKH last two posts pretty much echos how I would've responded to your second point.

His opinion matters as much as anyone else's. The only reason I brought him up because he's a very popular voice on Trek and Star Wars and 90% of the time he's extremely positive about either. He made a great video about how none of the emotional beats in Discovery work because the series is trying to fast forward drama and development.
Never heard of him in my 50 plus years of fandom.
 
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His opinion matters as much as anyone else's. The only reason I brought him up because he's a very popular voice on Trek and Star Wars and 90% of the time he's extremely positive about either. He made a great video about how none of the emotional beats in Discovery work because the series is trying to fast forward drama and development.
I’ve only been watching Star Trek since the TOS reruns and neither know or care who he is. I audit media and decide for myself if I like it and why.
 
His opinion matters as much as anyone else's. The only reason I brought him up because he's a very popular voice on Trek and Star Wars and 90% of the time he's extremely positive about either. He made a great video about how none of the emotional beats in Discovery work because the series is trying to fast forward drama and development.

I’ve never heard of EC Henry, and I doubt you would care what he thought if you didn’t agree with whatever he has said.
 
Let me guess: "Jar Jar Abrams!", "STD sucks!", "Orville rules!", "What have they done to Picard?" "SJWs!" "Mandalorian rules!", "Lower Decks is childish!"... the usual stuff? Am I in the ballpark?

I didn’t click on anything. I figure if people want to see what he is, they should do it without my thoughts clouding what they see.
 
I didn’t click on anything. I figure if people want to see what he is, they should do it without my thoughts clouding what they see.
I don't mind being clouded. But if Kpnuts likes him, I'm going to assume he's of that variety. I've got enough recommendations in my YouTube feed that I don't want to watch.
 
Why wouldn't it be?

Because it's kind of stating the obvious? Of course a storyline will move someone or it won't. Of course it's possible to move someone in the space of a two hour film, but when you have the luxury of dozens and dozens of hours, I expect better.

The Airiam episode made a poster cry, great, I suspect it would have hit an even higher note had Discovery spent one of those mirror universe episodes actually getting to know her.
 
The Airiam episode made a poster cry, great, I suspect it would have hit an even higher note had Discovery spent one of those mirror universe episodes actually getting to know her.

We will never know. But the episode does seem to be fairly popular here. You are going to have to accept that people are different, and aren’t necessarily looking for the same things you are.
 
Because it's kind of stating the obvious? Of course a storyline will move someone or it won't. Of course it's possible to move someone in the space of a two hour film, but when you have the luxury of dozens and dozens of hours, I expect better.

The Airiam episode made a poster cry, great, I suspect it would have hit an even higher note had Discovery spent one of those mirror universe episodes actually getting to know her.
Quantity doesn't equal quality. There are probably hundreds of characters in serialized TV who's development over seasons pales in comparison to what was done for Airiam in one episode.
The Airiam episode did exactly what you requested. :shrug:
 
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