Poll How positive are you about Discovery now?
- Thread starter Mage
- Start date
Because Star Trek is about exploring NEW things? Too many Trek fans seem to think Trek is a nostalgic show about the past. It's not, and never has been. If anything, having so much Trek from 1987-2005 made us expect things we had no right to expect. The problem was the illustrators, art directors, set designers, costumers, make-up artists, composers and FX personnel pretty much stayed on board with only a handful of changes from start to finish, and what resulted was that it all looked the same...but it only looked "the same" as itself. It didn't look like TOS, or even some of the films.
TNG shook things up. It changed things and took risks. DSC is the first new Trek in over a decade, so it needs to do the same. It needs to shake us OUT of our comfort zone, not coddle us.
The problem is a large majority of non-Trek fans don't give a shit about the show, at least the ones I've talked to.
They're the same people who showed up to the Abrams films, gave DSC a look because of the Abrams films, and in the end, decided they don't really care.
If anything, DSC isn't new enough.
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I've been hearing reports of people who haven't watched Star Trek but do like sci-fi binge-watching the existing series on NetFlix. According to Larry Nemecek, they tend to like DS9 and ENT the best, because they weren't around when those shows were first running and "don't know they're supposed to hate them".
What did TNG shake up and what risks did they take? Beyond casting new characters? And that really wasn't a risk, it was an eventuality if Star Trek was to survive as an IP.
Star Trek should feel like Star Trek, there's no point in someone like me watching it if it is just another show (Game of Thrones) wearing a Star Trek skin.
Not only is this correct, but they are doing two premieres.
You're looking at it in the rear-view mirror. At the time, the idea of a Star Trek that didn't have Kirk and Spock and the familiar characters was very controversial. As for continuing as an IP, a lot of fans were concerned that a new series would hurt the film franchise!
Other risks: an older captain, significantly different visuals, a Klingon as a heroic character, a larger cast with more focus on the supporting characters rather than solely focusing on the "big three", a (somewhat short-lived) refusal to rely on existing alien races and instead introducing new ones (like the Betazoids, Ferengi, et al).
Believe me when I say that your insistence that "this doesn't look or feel anything like Star Trek" is EXACTLY what people said about TNG. In fact nothing you've said hasn't been lobbed at some previous Trek series in the past.
Which no one in their right mind would pay for.Well, that's why we have The Orville.
And which isn't Trek, and won't become it just because fans need familiar aesthetics.Which no one in their right mind would pay for.
There is very visibly a desperation amongst some fans to shoehorn it into being Trek, when not only does it not feel like Trek (despite it's trappings) but it also is just poor TV in general, a fact recognized by the critics who are not desperate for it to succeed, while the fans sort of overinflate it to fit their vision.
There are in fact lots of quality sci-fi shows on, Expanse is the best ever, but Orville sadly isn't one of them.
RAMA
To be quite frank: The first season of TNG was a mess. If I would have been on Internet forums at that time, I most likely would have been one of the critics. It took a major retooling of the series right around the time Riker grew a beard to become the universally beloved series it now is.
DIS currently looks like it is in dire need of such a retooling for the following seasons.
TNG had the advantage of a very interesting, diverse crew, even if it took time for me to cozy up with them, or accept the abysimal make-up for Data and see him as the unique, interesting lovable character he is. But it had one thing going for it that made me stay with it right from the very first episode: A bursting of creative ideas, wild, imaginative plots, super strange new aliens and civilisations, and a very exploratory, wide-eyed tone towards the unknown. That's two(!) major things I'm currently missing from DIS. Currenty, as in I don't know the characters yet, but they look somewhat promising, but I sure as hell miss the tone and focus on exploration - something I hope DIS will finally get when it "grows it's beard".
If a familiar-looking bridge and colorful uniforms are all they need to declare something "more like real Trek" and start trying to pretend it is...well, I won't finish that sentence. But it would be like suggesting, say, that it isn't really Lord of the Rings if Gandalf doesn't wear his hat.
TNG's "interesting diverse crew" included six humans, only one of whom had a different skin tone from the rest, an Android designed to look like a human, a half-human, half-alien woman who looked 100% human, and a Klingon. Real diverse set there.
DSC has a vastly more diverse crew than TNG. I also cannot fathom how you can declare that it doesn't have "a bursting of creative ideas, wild imaginative plots, super strange new aliens and civilizations, and a very exploratory, wide-eyed tone towards the unknown". You. Have. Not. Seen. It. Yet. All you've seen are brief trailers and if I were to judge TNG's qualities you just named by the trailers, I would have said it has neither of them either.
Again, all you're doing is the same thing people have done to literally every single new Trek offering; leaping to conclusions based on knee-jerk reactions. I used to think Trek fans were open-minded but people like you have proven that to be utterly false.
I'm sorry, but come on.
TNG - Day of Premiere Promo (and this was the station I watched it on too):
^^^
Yep - that REALLY showed a lot about the tone and era teh show was set in...oh, wait...
DS9 Day of Promo:
^^^
Yep - that promo really makes it look that the majority of story (1st Season) takes place on a Space Station, or the planet Bajor...oh, wait.
Honestly, the ST: D promos shown here on this google page (link)
Show more about ST: D then TNG or DS9 promos did up to their premiere dates. Maybe they just want viewers to actually WATCH an episode and decide what they feel the 'heart' of the series is?
A dire need? Major things missing? as Ensign Ogahd Ahmganadai said above, none of us has seen Discovery yet. It's a little early to make such declarative statements.
And I do think we all appreciate it when a Trek series grows the beard.
Exactly.
Sorry, but no.
That may have been what you happened to see the day that the show premiered locally. In fact it's a generic early ad that was cleared for air weeks before the early October premiere. There were a whole set these produced as a ten-day countdown, and most of them revealed a good deal more about the show than the one you selected:
In fact, this ad was available in September of 1987 as an add-on to the home video release of "The Voyage Home," as well as having been provided to stations carrying the series for promotional use as early as August of that year:
That gives you the look and flavor of Season One TNG pretty nicely.
(There was also a video synopsis of "Encounter At Farpoint" attached to the station PR packets, which I have somewhere on a now-unviewable VHS duplicate but have never found online).
Cherry-picking examples doesn't work.
LOL, that video had shots from the freakin' movies! That trailer was so bad, and no, it didn't give me any sense of the show, just the characters, most of which were barely described in any meaningful way.
I have a VHS player and could port it to DVD or digital for you
