How does Lower Decks compare to Star Trek the Animated Series?

[Tim Thomason]

I would personally love it but if they did it that way they'd also have to copy the animation style of the Filmation studios circa. 1973

I'd love it if they did a time travel episode in that vein and explained the change in animation style as a temporal effect. If they could get any of the original TOS actors to lend their voice talent to the episode that would be a plus IMO.

but I doubt anything like that whatever across their minds are that they'd want to go that far to pull something like that off

I imagine they could just ape alot of the basic character designs, while modernizing movement, dialogue, and special effects. Trials and Tribble-ations is a good primer, as they paid homage to the original episode, while developing 1990s-TV appropriate ships and stuff.

 

[Cyrus]

Not seeing it as any kind of violation. Who knows? He could’ve pissed Kirk off and was scrubbing Enterprise urinals during TAS.

My comment was tongue in cheek. Obviously Chekov being on Enterprise is not a canon violation. He was also cleaning the urinals when Khan went to take a leak.

It would be cool to have Keonig finally do an animated Chekov. Looking back I wish they had used him as a voice actor instead of a writer. Didn't he write the giant Spock episode?

 

[NCC-73515]

Farragut was a nice revival of the TAS style:

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[Cyrus]

Now is as good a time as any to admit I've never really seen TAS. I've tried a few times to watch it but can never get through a single episode. I didn't like it as a kid either. One of the UHF stations would play a three-hour block: one TNG rerun, two TAS and then TOS every Sunday afternoon. I always skipped TAS.

I didn't watch it either for a long time. Eventually I watched it when Nickelodeon started showing it. It is worth watching. Yes, there are some silly episodes, but some really good ones too that could have easily been TOS episodes. They had some good writers. They even got the great Larry Niven to write an episode, which added his Kzinti to Star Trek canon.

 

[dupersuper]

if Chekov appears it would be a canon violation. He was not in TAS.

Maybe he went back to engineering for a rotation, or was working for something for Spock, or getting security training he'd use later...at some point Checkov really became a jack of all trades.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Apples and oranges, in my opinion.

It's like GRAVITY FALLS was an homage to Twin Peaks and the X-Files but also silliness and growing up with ridiculous energy. This is the Star Trek equivalent. I don't think of it as Rick and Morty-esque despite some similarities because it's much more optimistic despite its many horrifying zombie apocalypses or, as they say on the Enterprise, Friday's.

In my headcanon, Lower Decks is basically a children's television series adapting the experiences of some actual ensigns in the universe all shoved together. I would even go so far to say its a holodeck program written by Barclay for his kids and he is explicitly the inspiration for Brad Boimler.

 

[thribs]

Waiting for the episode they go back in time and it reverts to the old TAS animation style.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Waiting for the episode they go back in time and it reverts to the old TAS animation style.

I think that makes three of us. So far.

 

[Christopher]

In my headcanon, Lower Decks is basically a children's television series adapting the experiences of some actual ensigns in the universe all shoved together.

Except it's not a children's series. It's aimed at older teens and adults, rated TV-14 for language and violence. Come on, we've only had The Simpsons for like 300 years now -- we should be over the myth that "animated" = "children's."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The animation is superior. So is the voice work.

Let's be honest, being made almost 50 years later, if LDS isn't superior to TAS on every technical level, then they're LDS-ing wrong.

Will LDS displace TAS on my list of ST favorites? Time will tell. I am certainly enjoying at least some of the LDS characters more than most of the TAS characters at this point. As for the stories? Well, I like the first two LDS eps better than some TAS eps, but not all. It's still early, yet.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Except it's not a children's series. It's aimed at older teens and adults, rated TV-14 for language and violence. Come on, we've only had The Simpsons for like 300 years now -- we should be over the myth that "animated" = "children's."

I'm 40 so I consider teenagers to be children. These young whipper snappers with their tricorders and their holodecks.

It helps that the series literally came out while my 14 year old nieces were visiting.

 

[Christopher]

I'm 40 so I consider teenagers to be children.

I'm 52, and I quite clearly wrote "older teens and adults."

 

[publiusr]

Sealab 2021 once did an entire episode in the exact same style of Sealab 2020 (it was a serious dub without any of the usual gags except at the end, I believe). Perhaps Lower Decks can do an entire episode in the style of TAS, with all the music and action one would expect from 1973 animated television.

That’s a great idea.

LD is really Teen Titans in space

 

[Christopher]

LD is really Teen Titans in space

Do you mean 2003 Teen Titans, or Teen Titans Go!?

I'm not sure I see either comparison. I still feel it's more like Futurama in the Trek universe. And I've seen it described as an office sitcom in space.

 

[publiusr]

A mix of all the above.

 

[Mike McDevitt]

TAS was only a handful of years after TOS which inspired it, while LDs has been decades since TNG. There’s greater buildup of nostalgia and of time to mull it over. Also each series has different approaches, different target audiences, a lifetime of advances in animation and storytelling techniques. Both have a lot to offer, and I’ve appreciated the TAS callbacks in LDs.

 

[1001001]

I know only 2 episodes of Lower Decks has been released (we can expand this topic as new episodes come out), but so far, how does Lower Decks compare to Star Trek the Animated Series?

How does a space shuttle compare to a Big Wheel?



Obviously the visual quality can't be compared. I haven't watched TAS in a very long time, but I remember it as being a fairly straightforward continuation of TOS.

I think Lower Decks is a whole new animal for the Star Trek franchise.

And a welcome one at that.

 

[Ronald Held]

Who first designated it as an office sitcom in a space?

 

[TrickyDickie]

It's a bit like comparing a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 to a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach 1....they are quite different from each other, but you want both in your garage.

 

[NCC-73515]

I just watched The Survivor again - damn it was clumsy compared to LD!
The stories also seemed to have little relevance or meaning in the end, it's all quite shallow somehow.
I do remember some good stories that were more interesting, though.