Kelvin Timeline all but confirmed

[Saintpat]

Besides, I'm fairly sure that DSC couldn't have been set in the Kelvin timeline even if they'd wanted to. Kelvin is the sole property of Bad Robot and its ilk. They won't let the novelverse deal with it, and so it stands to reason that they wouldn't let DSC do it either.

First off, it seems pretty clear that this series takes place 10 years before TOS in "that" universe.

But as for the quoted post: I see this a lot, but what does it mean?

These things are determined by contract. I gather JJ/Bad Robot own the right (by contract) to make a certain amount of movies within a certain amount of time with (likely) exclusive use of a certain set of characters. And maybe the USS Enterprise.

They obviously DON'T own the rights to the Star Treck franchise exclusively, or there couldn't be a Discovery (without their approval/contracting with JJ/Bad Robot).

And they don't own the exclusive intellectual rights to, say, Klingons or the character Sarek, obviously, which are creations of the TOS timeline.I would assume they legally 'own' or could prevent someone else using things and characters they have created in the three movies.

But in a court of law, I'm not sure how they'd own rights to an ill-defined "timeline." Seems to me it's more something for fans to discuss and debate rather than an actual intellectual property (like the characters Kirk and Spock, the Enterprise and the 'universe' in which Star Trek takes place) that can be protected, sold or contracted out to another entity.

 

[{ Emilia }]

This has got to be the funniest fan reaction I have seen so far.

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Clearly went into it with an open mind.

 

[Jedman67]

Paramount/Bad Robot owns the exclusive right to all *new characters and events that occur in the three films of the Star Trek 2009 franchise.
*new characters would include new iterations of old characters; so for example while James T. Kirk would not belong to PM/BR, the version of Kirk as portrayed by Chris Pine would.
Same thing for ships, sets, locations etc. It's certainly plausible that CBS would come to an agreement with Paramount to allow Discovery to copy visual and design elements; the Uniform seen certainly bears a resemblance to the Kelvin uniform and the Franklin uniform.
The events leading up to and originating from the destruction of the Kelvin by the Narada however would likely not be permitted in Discovery.

 

[DigificWriter]

I was sitting here thinking, and I don't know why we're even arguing about thi any mores. The fact of the matter is that DSC is set in the Prime Timeline. PERIOD. END. OF. STORY.

It doesn't matter how many people insist that it's set in the Kelvin Timeline; those people are wrong, and will never NOT be wrong.

 

[DarthPipes]

I think Enterprise was unfortunate in that it missed the new golden age of television by a few years. If they had waited just 2-3 seasons after Voyager ended before they decided to make a new show the television climate would have been a lot different, and I do think the show would have been better off for it. Television budgets increased drastically and procedural storytelling became obsolete in the span of a couple of years.

What we ended up with, unfortunately, was a show that could compete with neither the strength of the scripts of the old Trek shows, nor with the quality of the new tv shows that were starting to pop up on cable. Even a bad show with good plotting and nice visuals could have been marketable, but Enterprise was geared completely towards a core audience that it ended up disappointing massively.

I think there's less risk for Discovery to share that faith, even if it doesn't turn out to be all that great. With the Netflix deal and a modern look it's almost guaranteed to make a lot of money. Star Trek won't stay off tv for 12 years again this time. It might stay out of the movie theatres though, but I'm not bothered by that at all. The quicker the Abramsverse dies the better.

This is an excellent point. I remember someone bringing this up several years ago. Enterprise debuted around the same time that 24 and Alias did. 24 and Alias were innovative shows that utilized arc-based, recurring storylines and took chances, like killing off characters. Meanwhile, Enterprise was still utilizing the same story format and structure that Star Trek had been using since the 80s (and hell, 60s). 26 standalone episodes with the occasional nod towards a storyline. They were still playing it safe. If you were in the main cast, you signed a seven-year contract and there was no chance that the character you played would be killed off. Hell, they didn't even redshirt anyone the first two seasons of the show.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Apparently it comes as a shock to many people that a 2017 show does not look like a 1960s show.

 

[Galileo7]

I have always been a science-fiction production design fan so I do not mind the changes. When I was a boy in the '70s with TOS/TAS and saw TMP in '79 my only reaction to the changes was positive. All that matters is Discovery has good Star Trek writing so it will build more fans and last for years.

 

[{ Emilia }]

What if Discovery has better stories and characters than TOS but is visually inconsistent with TOS? Will the people who complain now jump ship and consider TOS non-canon?
I mean, why stick to the inferior product, right?

 

[Hound of UIster]

I was sitting here thinking, and I don't know why we're even arguing about thi any mores. The fact of the matter is that DSC is set in the Prime Timeline. PERIOD. END. OF. STORY.

It doesn't matter how many people insist that it's set in the Kelvin Timeline; those people are wrong, and will never NOT be wrong.

Some people just want to grasp at straws. Desperation does that to people.

 

[Philip Guyott]

Logically if it is set ten years before TOS then it has to be prime universe as TOS does not exist in then Kelvin Universe. In the Kelvin Universe Kirk takes command of the Enterprise just three years (not ten years) after the events of Star Trek Discovery.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Apparently it comes as a shock to many people that a 2017 show does not look like a 1960s show.

What's sort of funny is to note that, despite all the moaning that nuTrek (and perhaps DISC) look nothing like the TOS decor, the fact is they DO! Consider e.g. Marcus' office in STiD. The chairs, tables, etc... are all clearly 1960s inspired. The starship bridges are complete with displays of starcharts, bar graphs, and the retro lights with bendable necks.

It's not Star Trek Continues, of course, but thank goodness for that!

 

[Balok's Decoy]

DC Comics fans must look at Trekkies' handwringing over timelines/universes and just laugh and laugh and laugh.

 

[BillJ]

Yeah, exactly. They should just relax and anjoy the show. Star Trek is back on tv. I don't get how some people aren't psyched about that fact alone. I had trouble sleeping yesterday after watching the new trailer.

I think I'm still hungover from the 700+ hours we already have of Trek.

This has got to be the funniest fan reaction I have seen so far.

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One thing I did agree with: it does look like Mass Effect.

Will the people who complain now jump ship and consider TOS non-canon?

TOS will always be canon due to the appearances across all the spinoffs. I just consider Discovery a reboot. People will each deal with the various differences in their own way.

 

[Wowbagger]

Apparently it comes as a shock to many people that a 2017 show does not look like a 1960s show.

I just remain surprised -- continuously surprised, a surprise renewed every day -- that people find the post-2009 aesthetic anything other than ferociously, aggressively hideous.

I wouldn't mind a new look if it were pretty.

One thing Trek always did well was pretty. From 1701 to NX-01, I liked being on those bridges. They felt like home, from the moment I laid eyes on them. The curves of the ships were (well, from 1701 to 74656, anyway) elegant. Even Cardassian architecture had a certain dark beauty to it.

The production design philosophy for this series is apparently just maximum noise. I hate to be That Guy, but the Orville is, visually speaking, much more attractive.

Of course, I'd love to say something intelligent about the story, since a good story can cover a multitude of visual sins, and I still have high hopes for the very talented writer's room... but this trailer was pretty much nothing but visuals, and the visuals were a terrific disappointment, so it's no surprise there's lots of people in here complaining about the visuals.

EDIT:

One thing I did agree with: it does look like Mass Effect.

You shut your mouth! The Normandy doesn't splay its bridge out all over the deck like a squished donut! It doesn't hurl a zillion infographics at my head like some deranged and strangely mathematical monkey! The compactness, elegance, simplicity, and eminent sensibility of (much of) the Normandy's design (particularly the SR-1) is something Discovery could really benefit from. The steadiness of its viewpoint camera (which is helpfully tied to the back of Shepard's head) would help a lot, too.

 

[{ Emilia }]

What's sort of funny is to note that, despite all the moaning that nuTrek (and perhaps DISC) look nothing like the TOS decor, the fact is they DO!

I think JJTrek looks remarkably like TOS in that it uses some of the concepts behind the look without copying everything.
TOS had a clean futuristic look and wasn't super-dark. Clean colors.
The same is true for JJTrek's Enterprise. Very clean look, lots of glass, it's not very dark. Clean colors (uniforms).

Discovery is a bit more of a mix between JJTrek and Enterprise (sadly).

I'm not even a fan of JJTrek, I only loved Beyond. But the look is something I could get behind immediately. It's the perfect update of an iconic look.

 

[Cinema Geekly]

TL,DR

"I like how things look and none of the other stuff doesn't matter to me"

.........no response

"I don't like how the show looks and I don't think this fits with Prime Trek"

"Well you are an idiot and let me tell you how wrong you all are"

Such respect. Much IDIC.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

Don't take this to be a negative post, as I enjoyed the trailer, and am looking forward to the show. There are more important things than art design. But one thing I felt upon re-watching it, was that people were right that it was quite strongly Kelvin/JJ Abrams inspired in terms of visuals. Probably the lens flare/saturation. JJ's movies are only one possibility among many for how to do a modern Star Trek, so it's not necessarily the case that a new TV show would look similar - and it certainly does not mean that people want some sort of faux retro look. What made me think, was when someone posted this:

I was actually expecting (and I know expectations are unwise), after the announcement that it would be in the Prime Timeline, and a CBS production rather than Paramount, that the show would forge it's own unique new visual identity - breaking with the Kelvin aesthetic - with Bryan Fuller and his team at the time taking a fresh look at absolutely everything. Echos of Pike's era perhaps, but with an updated veneer of 21st century production values; deliberately eschewing some things to stay in line with Star Trek's general visual style, but otherwise looking to the latest NASA ideas, etc. I did not really expect quite so many visual callbacks to the Kelvin films, i.e. glassy optical displays on the bridge, lens flare, ships which emerging from clouds just for visual impact, etc. It's hard to tell what the final thing will look like with a new musical composer, on TV, without the trailer cuts every two seconds - but I dunno how I would feel if it also had hyperactive fast cuts and slanted camera angles like the Kelvin films - I kinda want the TV show to be it's own thing.

I do hope the show moves towards it's own visual identity after the pilot has hooked a few viewers from the movies. Hopefully the Discovery herself is a bit different from the Shenzhou, more used future like The Wrath of Khan maybe. I will post this again because it sums up my feelings well:

But anyway, whatever the case, I thought the trailer looked good, and we still don't know anything about the actual substance of the show - it's themes, plot, philosophy, characterization, etc. Let's all hope for the best and hope for many more successful shows to come if this one goes well. Star Trek: Challenger, Star Trek: Endevour, etc lol - we can have our other eras.

 

[{ Emilia }]

TL,DR

"I like how things look and none of the other stuff doesn't matter to me"

.........no response

"I don't like how the show looks and I don't think this fits with Prime Trek"

"Well you are an idiot and let me tell you how wrong you all are"

Such respect. Much IDIC.

Funny.
I criticized the look of Klingons and uniforms, yet nobody even remotely treated me like an idiot.
Maybe it's about how people word things and how dramatic they sound about it?

 

[BillJ]

"Well you are an idiot and let me tell you how wrong you all are"

I haven't seen anyone here say anything approaching this.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

TL,DR

"I like how things look and none of the other stuff doesn't matter to me"

.........no response

"I don't like how the show looks and I don't think this fits with Prime Trek"

"Well you are an idiot and let me tell you how wrong you all are"

Such respect. Much IDIC.

I haven't seen anyone call someone an idiot in this thread. But if you want to take personal offense, I guess infinite diversity in infinite combinations and whatnot. lol