Kelvin Timeline all but confirmed

[captainkirk]

Something I still find weird is how people who see this as prime universe might have that opinion just because Brian Fuller said so. Nobody thinks the show runners might be lying or maybe don't even care about things like Prime universe or Kelvin Universe?

Jason

Well Simon Pegg said that Cumberbatch was Khan, and that the villain in Beyond wasn't out for revenge. Obviously both of those turned out to be untrue, but that just means don't believe Pegg. With regards to Fuller, in years gone by when discussing the possibility of working on a Star Trek series he said that given the chance he would set it in the Kelvin-timeline. He then also said that he would drop everything to work on Star Trek, and then drops Star Trek to work on everything else.

 

[urbandefault]

Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence on a MacBook

That would rock.

 

[Jarvisimo]

Do you think it could be set in either, and it won't matter within the show?

But maybe the best way to think of it is an adaptation of the primeverse...? It's set in the primeverse, but it is an adaptation of it also. In the way that Fuller's Hannibal was an adaptation of the novels, set in their world, but not beholden to them?

 

[Mudd]

Do you think it could be set in either, and it won't matter within the show?

For the most part, yes.

But fans who expect fealty to the old continuity when the producers and writers get an idea they want to incorporate that doesn't track with the old stuff will be in for a letdown.

 

[Trekkin]

Well, it's obvious we've reached a point in society where we've been slapped down by so many reboots/remakes etc....

So true. I blame The Wizard of Oz.

'Technological advances' they said. 'Adapted for the times' they said. 'Our own artistic vision' they said.

Well where has that brought us, I ask you?! Look at what bloody chaos thou hath wrought!

 

[BillJ]

I want to know why a starship set in the 23rd century uses technology that went obsolete in the 1980s. Data tapes, tri-corner CRT monitors, and clock readouts using gear based systems instead of digital technology that emerged in the 1990s.

Which is why you simply do a reboot. Keep what works, put the rest out to pasture. That way you also open up story possibilities without conflicting with what came before.

From what I've seen, I can't make the round peg that is Discovery fit into the square hole that is TOS. Doesn't mean it won't be a spectacular/entertaining series, but it makes little visual sense as part of the Prime timeline.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

In my own alternate reality would I have wanted a show in this era that was definitively in the prime universe and held to the sort of look The Cage had? Absolutely I would have loved that.

I also realize doing that would have alienated a lot of regular people, as in non hardcore Trek fans. They had no choice but to update the look and I'm totally cool with that and excited for the show. The trappings are all still there, phasers, starships, Klingons, etc.. and that is all that is needed. Maybe the show will be amazing and maybe it won't be but I am sure as hell giving it an honest chance.

 

[Jarvisimo]

For the most part, yes.

But fans who expect fealty to the old continuity when the producers and writers get an idea they want to incorporate that doesn't track with the old stuff will be in for a letdown.

I understand, but I think we have to accept that the use of setting means different things to different fans - of which the production team is 1005 composed of. I loved Star Trek Vanguard, for example, which put the 60s aesthetic of TOS in a very modern lens, sometimes critiquing TOS, but often elevating it. It also used, in literary form, the production and fashion design of the period well:



But ... for the fans making this show, adaptation of the setting means something different. And - apologies - i'll quote a post I put in the consolidated thread explaining the impetus to 'modern design in the Kelvin verse', which stems from Fuller's own fanfiction approach to writing adaptations, as well as broader issues in tv adaptation theory:

--

For anyone interested, the academic book Television and Serial Adaptation
by Shannon Wells-Lassagne may provide some context to the feelings we are all having, and does discuss some of Fuller's work:



In addition, it's good to talk about Fuller's self-described "fanfiction" approach, for example in discussion with Alan Sepinwall:

You and Mads had several years to present your own spin on Hannibal, and he wasn’t really that much like the Cox or Hopkins versions. Did you have any pause about having him recite a lot of those familiar taunting lines of dialogue when Will and others visited him in his cell?

Bryan Fuller: I did. There are definitely scenes where I was like, “Wow, this is exactly the same,” but I felt a certain obligation to hardcore fans of the book. Despite us altering the story in our fanfiction approach to the novels, there are still iconic scenes that I as a Fannibal wanted to see Mads do. I wanted to see him put on those sweaters.

Hannibal is a character who’s had a long and successful run in other media. Why do you think this one didn’t connect with a larger audience?

Bryan Fuller: I wanted to be very authentic to the tone of the books, and very authentic to Thomas Harris. And I think there is a version of Hannibal, say if you cast James Spader, or Hugh Grant as Hannibal Lecter, and leaned into the slightly campier, more accessible aspects of the films that we began to see in the later movies, then that might have connected in a way that pop culture understood Hannibal. But I chose to go back to the source material and make it as genuine to the source material and my fanfiction approach as I could, and give it a level of sobriety and dignity, even I look at the show as a very black comedy. It was very literary, it was very pretentious, and very niche. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised that it didn’t find an audience. Initially, there was a lot of fatigue with the character, and people felt the character was played out, and I heard from countless people how they weren’t even interested in seeing the show because they weren’t interested in Hannibal Lecter again. But the casting of Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter gave us, for me, the best version of Hannibal Lecter. But perhaps not the most commercial.

Or with Complex:

I was just talking with a writer friend of mine this morning about Hannibal and Will's relationship, and how whatever sexual energy could exist is sublimated through other outlets. For instance, I was re-watching the sex scene in "Naka-Choko," and it’s like Alana is less an object of desire for both men and more a way to mediate their connection.

We frequently refer to her on set as Geneviève Bujold between two Jeremy Irons's. We went through that phase where we used her kind of like a proxy for their intimacy, but I'd say the homoeroticism is more me just cackling in the editing room, as opposed to something that the characters are genuinely feeling when they're in the room with one another. Will Graham is a heterosexual character, and Hannibal Lector is the devil and would probably be able to eroticize everything from his perspective because he’s in awe of the human condition. Of course, that’s not to say that they’re going to be falling into bed—I’ll leave that to the online community. They’re doing what we’re doing with the show, because the show for me is very much fan fiction of these characters that I adore. So that’s why I’m very respectful and appreciative of fan fiction and fan art that positions these characters in ways you wouldn’t see them on the show.

You can read further about that online, in several articles and posts. For example, KT Torrey of Virginia Tech:

Throughout the series’ three-season run, Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller has asserted that he regards the show as fanfiction: an affectionate remix of elements from Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising, as well as from previous adaptations of those works. Hannibal, then, is transparent about being one of many “proliferations of shared sources” that comprise the “metaphorical archive” of the fandom’s fiction (De Kosnik 119). In positioning the series as fanfiction, and he and his team as fanfiction writers, Fuller claims the identity and ethos of not just a fan, but a feminine-gendered fan, those most maligned and oft-mocked in many media depictions of fandom. With that ethos in hand, Hannibal-as-fanfic has chosen to intertextually and ardently acknowledge both the practices and the affect of its primarily female fandom—allowing Fannibals to see some part of themselves, of their fannish identity, reflected back with love from within the series itself.

Hannibal treats the repetitive nature of fanfic—stories that “play out” a multiplicity of variations of the same basic story—as a source of narrative strength: because in repetition, the series suggests, there is possibility (ibid). Within a fandom’s archive, as Will puts it: “Everything that can happen, happens. It has to end well and it has to end badly. It has to end every way that it can” (Hannibal, “Primavera” 3.2). The archive is always in the act of Becoming, and, as Abigail De Kosnik argues in “Fifty Shades and the Archive of Women’s Culture,” that ongoing evolution asks fans to repeatedly engage with the archive’s contents, old and new, and to determine for themselves which stories “satisfy, which . . . liberate, and which . . . alienate” (De Kosnik 120). In this way, fans perform a careful cultivation of their preferred variations of the narrative and sketch out their own corner of the archive—their “fanon”—which captures the story elements they most enjoy (ibid).

As fanfic—as a fan-authored text, albeit a network televised one—Hannibal openly acknowledges that it’s both a product of fannish cultivation and a participant in a wider ecology of fannish production. The events of episode 3.9, “…and the Woman Clothed with the Sun,” for example, underscore Fuller and company’s awareness of—and affection for—contributions that fans themselves have made to this shared archive during the series’ run.

Of course Fuller isn't in charge of the show anymore, but I think we have to let go of 'canon' as a reason for disappointment or enthusiasm - this is an adaptation, and it is doing something different, starting from Fuller's own fan-ish lens (and experience of much creative development since working for the franchise in the 90s).​

==

However, to return to Vanguard as a 60s-formed adaptation, and Discovery as a late 2010s one, I am interested that David Mack, who co-conceived Vanguard with then-Pocket (now Tor) editor Marco Palmieri, is writing the first Discovery book in cooperation with the show's writer room through fellow Treklit writer and producer Kirsten M. Beyer. I wonder how his depiction of the modern 2250s will meld with his excellent 60s-esque 2260s.

 

[Jayson1]

I honestly don't care about timelines, technology not being right or changes in art direction. It's all pointless because the show is fiction and doesn't have to be historically accurate. Some people are acting like this is a movie where Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence on a MacBook. Every series is a product of its time and should remain that way.

I agree for the most part but I do think when your dealing with a franchise with multiple shows and movies those things do become a little more important than if you were doing a show starting from nothing. Part of Trek's appeal that shouldn't be underestimated is that for the most part it has felt very connected.

I think it started in TNG when you would see character stuff and stories be revisted a great deal. It began to feel more like a real place and less like a fictional setting were continuity didn't matter. You also had alien races that would show up many times.
This of course expanded with each spinoff to point were you would have character crossovers to each show along with all the same aliens.
The bigger a established universe gets the more canon becomes important to fans. I think we forget because of nitpicking is that canon can be a good thing. For example when the Klingons turned against the Federation and sort of became enemies again in season 4 of "DS9" think about how canon helped that story.
They broke a treaty established in Trek movie 6, They stopped being allies which was a big thing in TNG and they are a alien race that has been in every show of Trek. You could do a story about a long time alley turning on you and becoming a enemy but all that canon gives the story a extra level of texture that is hard to get from a regular tv show.
That is one of the biggest flaws IMO of making "Discovery" be prime and radically different. You don't know how anything you see might really mean to anything we have seen before because we can't trust that a huge amount of established stuff isn't going to be tossed out. A reboot allows you to create your own canon and continuity and all you have to really do is be a good show and feel like a Star Trek show.
Jason

 

[Jayson1]

Do you think it could be set in either, and it won't matter within the show?

But maybe the best way to think of it is an adaptation of the primeverse...? It's set in the primeverse, but it is an adaptation of it also. In the way that Fuller's Hannibal was an adaptation of the novels, set in their world, but not beholden to them?

That's what I think we will get but isn't adaptation and reboot basically the same thing? Maybe half of the confusion is coming down to nothing more than people using different words to describe the exact same thing.

Jason

 

[Jarvisimo]

That's what I think we will get but isn't adaptation and reboot basically the same thing? Maybe half of the confusion is coming down to nothing more than people using different words to describe the exact same thing.

Jason

Yeah, indeed that why I linked to Television and Serial Adaptation. I like how the first chapter of Wells-Lassagne's book is about defining terminology. That would help this kind of debate.

However, a lack of fixed need to adhere, but to build intertextually within existing structures, is why I like Fuller's past use of 'fanfiction' from his Hannibal days, and why I pointed above to either his words or analyses of his works (and other adaptations). And one of the important things about Hannibal, or tie-ins or adaptations, is that some are lauded as high art (most often televisual or film adaptations), others are not, and fans - or viewers - form their own personal fictive universes. For myself, I appreciate how Fuller's use of 'fanfiction' destablisises the canonicity or authority of a given property - for Fuller, it seems, all adaptations are 'fanfiction', ultimately, melding new narratives from existing structures - a novel, a playtext, an old teleplay, a movie, a series - which come from the author/makers' own 'fan' perspectives of what is right for the text.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I agree for the most part but I do think when your dealing with a franchise with multiple shows and movies those things do become a little more important than if you were doing a show starting from nothing. Part of Trek's appeal that shouldn't be underestimated is that for the most part it has felt very connected.

I think it started in TNG when you would see character stuff and stories be revisted a great deal. It began to feel more like a real place and less like a fictional setting were continuity didn't matter. You also had alien races that would show up many times.
This of course expanded with each spinoff to point were you would have character crossovers to each show along with all the same aliens.
The bigger a established universe gets the more canon becomes important to fans. I think we forget because of nitpicking is that canon can be a good thing. For example when the Klingons turned against the Federation and sort of became enemies again in season 4 of "DS9" think about how canon helped that story.
They broke a treaty established in Trek movie 6, They stopped being allies which was a big thing in TNG and they are a alien race that has been in every show of Trek. You could do a story about a long time alley turning on you and becoming a enemy but all that canon gives the story a extra level of texture that is hard to get from a regular tv show.
That is one of the biggest flaws IMO of making "Discovery" be prime and radically different. You don't know how anything you see might really mean to anything we have seen before because we can't trust that a huge amount of established stuff isn't going to be tossed out. A reboot allows you to create your own canon and continuity and all you have to really do is be a good show and feel like a Star Trek show.
Jason

That's established story though. They couldn't do an episode where a young Kirk shows up and gets killed. But I really don't care that the uniforms and sets are different and don't fit in with a show made in the 60s. That's just pointless and it's really absurd to expect those sets on a modern show.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

I honestly don't care about timelines, technology not being right or changes in art direction. It's all pointless because the show is fiction and doesn't have to be historically accurate. Some people are acting like this is a movie where Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence on a MacBook. Every series is a product of its time and should remain that way.

Well, to be fair, there is such a thing as suspension of disbelief. I don't care all that much which timeline is which, but the "it's fiction so we don't need to bother making an effort" excuse is not a good one. If you're going down that path, you could argue that everything retold by people is, in essence, fiction, even so-called documentaries. It has to make sense in-universe, otherwise it's nonsensical and not worth my time.

That being said, I agree that things will always be a product of their time. Like I said, to me, it matters most that the stories told are interesting, but that doesn't mean people don't have a point when they notice that shit doesn't add up visually.

 

[JasonJ]

That's established story though. They couldn't do an episode where a young Kirk shows up and gets killed. But I really don't care that the uniforms and sets are different and don't fit in with a show made in the 60s. That's just pointless and it's really absurd to expect those sets on a modern show.

I would hope that they don't become exactly like the uniforms and sets we saw in "The Cage/Menagerie" in the Pike era... if the uniforms go from what we see in this trailer into mock turtlenecks and ill-fitting sweaters, I'm out! lol.

Of all the nitpicks presented in 14 pages thus far, it's not the uniforms, grey hulls, lens flares, holographic imaging displays, etc that bothers me. The thing that irks me is the use of non-cylindrical nacelles. Again, we're nitpicking here.

DSC is not, nor should it have the production value or set design of a show limited by 1960s resources. I think what we've seen so far is a good bridge forward from Enterprise and what remains to be seen is the actual U.S.S. Discovery itself and it's final designs, and how we continue this bridge and get to something kinda sorta like TOS ship designs and instrumentation.

As for the Klingons and their design; holy speculation Batman! Granted I skipped form page 8 to 14 here on this thread due the repetitiveness of the conversation, but we aren't even sure these are Discovery era Klingons at all.. as said, there's a sarcophagus ship... they may be ancient variations, they may be genetic mutations, abhorrations, or alterations... perhaps in trying to offset the augment gene therapy, they went too far and were made into grotesque versions of their former appearance. WE DON'T KNOW YET.

We should just take this for what it is and see where it takes us. Into the unknown should be a familiar concept for most us, what being 'Trek fans and all.

 

[skip bittman]

So true. I blame The Wizard of Oz.

And yet in the ensuing 77 years, despite hundreds of attempts in all mediums, no one has even gotten remotely close to the impact of the musical.

 

[Ralphis]

It's all Barry Allen's fault. If he'd stop messing with the timeline, DSC would look just like The Cage.

Bad joke aside (apologies), I kind of feel like they're taking a best of both worlds approach to DSC. They've put it in the narrative of the Prime Timeline, but gave it a Kelvin Timeline flavor with the aesthetics - at least that's the vibe I'm getting.

I still think it would have been easier to place it in it's own timeline, but I understand why they didn't.

Regardless, I totally dig the trailer! I want more! I want more!

 

[Balok's Decoy]

 

[Jayson1]

That's established story though. They couldn't do an episode where a young Kirk shows up and gets killed. But I really don't care that the uniforms and sets are different and don't fit in with a show made in the 60s. That's just pointless and it's really absurd to expect those sets on a modern show.

But if "Discovery" was a reboot you could kill young Kirk much like how the Kelvin Universe destroyed Vulcan. To me that is one of the good things about a reboot. They way I see it both aproaches can work. Reboot gives you almost unlimited flexibility in telling a story and prime universe gives you and extra level of texture and depth.
As for uniforms and sets and stuff like that I feel like they are kind of important somewhat in a established universe but only in terms to how close they are to and exsiting show. Which is one of the reasons I think a prime prequel is almost impossible to pull off unless you go way back like "Enterprise" did. That's not to say you can't do something in "TOS" time but if you do I think it only feels credible if it is a reboot instead of pretending the slick new shows is taking place along side of the old dated looking 60's show.
It's also why I think "TNG" can look so different from "TOS" and that is because it is set 80 years after the first show. I got a question. What do you think is more credible? If the teaser we got was for a show set 20 years after "Voyager" or 10 years before "TOS?" Reboot makes the question irrelevant but a show that wants to be set in a existing timeline I think does make it a somewhat important question.

Jason

 

[Armus]

I like the costumes of the new movies but it does seem odd that Discovery looks like an outtake from the new movies if its supposed to be set in the original timeline. But no big deal. Discovery could break new ground and entertain but Id be more excited if it wasn't a prequel. Star Trek is about going forward. New aliens, new ideas, fresh looking aesthetics, ect. Visually I'd like to see a reimagining based on where technology is now; Star Trek should look sleek, minimalist, and believable, as Rodenberry intended.

 

[Mudd]

Star Trek is about going forward. New aliens, new ideas...

No it's not. It's about doing the same thing over and over, for fifty years.