Kurtzman gets 5 1/2 year deal with 3 new shows in the works

[Jeyl]

I feel like you're confusing passion with ability. My daughter is SUPER passionate about painting. She (to date) is not very good at it and it is very possible no amount of art classes (Federation help) are going to change that. I encourage her to paint as much as she wants, because she enjoys it. Your interpretation of Roddenberry's vision would have the Federation come and (nicely) slap the paint out of her hands and tell her to go find something more suited to her talents. That is about as far away from Utopia as I can think of.

Not a very good analogy. Unless the 'not very good' part is her inability to connect the paint brush with the chosen canvas she wants to paint on, I would argue there isn't really a level of 'good' when it comes to art in general. It either means something or it doesn't. As long as she's conveying something, who cares if it's on the level of Picasso or Vincent Van Gaph?

 

[The Wormhole]

And what influence was Captain Vandermeer under when he murdered two people and later committed suicide? We go from a Starfleet where the death penalty is forbidden with one exception (Visiting a planet) to "You will murder whoever we order you to without question or we will murder you and your whole crew." I mean, I had no idea it was that easy to get a Captain of a starship to commit atrocities. Kind of hard to convince anyone that alien mind-control is the way to go when all you need to do in order to get a seasoned Starship Captains to commit atrocities is a simple text message with a 'directive' in the title.

You are aware what blackmail is, right? Captain Vandermeer was blackmailed. It happens, and happened to him. That's the influence he was under when he did what you mention.

 

[mswood]

Yes Burnham's sentence included some aspect of penal labor duty But the wonderful thing about 50 plus years of Trek, is that Tom Paris, and others in his penal facility were also on some form of labor duty. He's line of dialogue, "I'm already doing a job for the Federation." Ring any bells.

Then humanity gets along works together and generally likes each other. Well of course except for the federation and Starfleet examples, who bully, torment, are racists, are sexists, who get into fights with each other, who sabotage ships, who puts there crews into fighting rings, who attempt to murder each other, or who actively kill others, and others who commit mass murder.

People who claim about Jurati getting off Scott free. You mean like Worf an active duty officer, who leaves his posts, and commits premeditated murder.

People who claim the Federation would never not render aid when requested (ie Romulans), did you watch Deep Space Nine, do you remember them talking about losing whole star systems and not being having the resources to attempt to take them back. Are you just assuming no one in those Federation worlds ever asked for assistance? Picard literally mentioned that after the destruction of their rescue fleet they couldn't divert more resources, and to move that many people (not to mention the number of planets impacted by a super Nova would require diverting a huge amount of ships that would be performing all sort of services (including security of the Federation).

I mean seriously people.

You can honestly hate, dislike, be indifferent, like or love any version of Trek that appeals to your own tastes. But almost every single moral choice shown in either the nuTrek films, or the Discovery-Picard shows has a similar example used in previous versions of Trek. Now you can thank it was presented in a better manner, or even a manner that is more palatable for your own sensibilities. For example violence over the decades has tended to be presented in a more graphic nature . Sex and sexuality are presented more openly as the decades have progressed. Language tends to get more colorful as the decades pass.

But the base moral choices, aren't an aberration to previous Trek.

 

[fireproof78]

And what influence was Captain Vandermeer under when he murdered two people and later committed suicide? We go from a Starfleet where the death penalty is forbidden with one exception (Visiting a planet) to "You will murder whoever we order you to without question or we will murder you and your whole crew." I mean, I had no idea it was that easy to get a Captain of a starship to commit atrocities. Kind of hard to convince anyone that alien mind-control is the way to go when all you need to do in order to get a seasoned Starship Captains to commit atrocities is a simple text message with a 'directive' in the title.

Seems pretty easy to me, especially given TOS' track record. See also the crazy Admiral trope. Starfleet Command has not always demonstrated sane officers, and throwing it all at Kurztman Trek is disingenuous, at best.

Yes Burnham's sentence included some aspect of work duty. But the wonderful thing about 50 plus years of Trek, is that Tom Paris, and others in his penal facility were also on some form of work detail. Thus you can't rationally blame teh producers of Discovery for using material that is in prior Trek.

You can of course not like story ideas, or execution, you can dislike acting, writing, and directing, but bringing up a complaint about how worse humanity is in Discovery versus prior Trek generally will fall utterly apart.

Exactly. Almost all behaviors ripped apart in current productions could be found in past Trek's. This isn't new. Mind control, poorly acting Starfleet officers, little to no consequences for crimes, penal colonies, and on and on it goes.

Just now it's new and therefore...I don't know what.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Selective memory.

 

[Tuskin38]

I had no idea it was that easy to get a Captain of a starship to commit atrocities.

I guess you haven't watched much of the previous series?

Starfleet itself has a general order to wipe out all life on a planet if it is considered a threat.

Picard almost committed genocide on the Borg, and Admiral Nechayev chewed him out for not going through with it, and told him if there was ever chance to do it again, to take it.

Sisko poisoned (for Humans) the atmosphere of a Maquis colony, and was never punished for it.
He tricked the Romulans into entering the war. While he wasn't the one who killed the Senator, he was an (unwilling) accomplice.

Not to mention all non-main character admirals and captains that have done shitty stuff over the last 50 years of Trek.

 

[Steve Roby]

Yes Burnham's sentence included some aspect of work duty. But the wonderful thing about 50 plus years of Trek, is that Tom Paris, and others in his penal facility were also on some form of work detail.

In a society that's all about self-actualization, self-improvement, and all that (bearing in mind the Second Gospel of Roddenberry doesn't apply to something set before the First Gospel), you'd want prisoners to have something useful and meaningful to do. Their understanding of work details may be a long way removed from working on the chain gang. Considering people still die in fires on 24th century utopian Earth, and just about every major TNG character has at least one dead parent, even ordinary life in utopia is still dangerous. So the nature of the prison work detail mentioned in Discovery may not be any more risky and strenuous than, say, owning a vineyard.

 

[The Wormhole]

just about every major TNG character has at least one dead parent,

Actually, I think it is every character. Which is odd, the other Treks have at least one character we know still has both parents still alive, yet everyone on TNG has lost a parent.

 

[Tuskin38]

Actually, I think it is every character. Which is odd, the other Treks have at least one character we know still has both parents still alive, yet everyone on TNG has lost a parent.

Picard's parents seemed to have died of old age. The rest of them yeah, at least one or both parents died when the characters were young (or presumed dead in Data and Worf's cases).

A deleted scene implies Picard's father died while Picard was at the Academy, but it's a deleted scene.

Edit: Oh not Geordi, his mother was presumed missing when he was already an adult.

 

[Gravitas]

If you compare the first 50 episodes of TNG to what Kurtzman's done to date (it may all add up to slightly more than 50 episodes across the 3 series at this point after three years) - the first two Season of TNG were garbage, and they couldn't even keep the writer's room stable UNTIL Season 4.

And not until TNG S3 "Yesterday's Enterprise" did some fans start to look at TNG as a 'decent' Star Trek show. "Best Of Both Worlds" was really when those that hated it started to give it a second look. (I know because I was in a big group a Trek fans back in those days. That 2 1/2 seasons and 60+ episodes in before the 'tide' started turning.) I stuck with it because after 13 years of no Trek on TV I really WANTED Trek on TV to succeed but the first two TNG seasons (comprising 48 episodes SUCKED HARD and still do for me.) I liked Seasons 3 and 4 better and yes that was due to Michael Piller AND the fact GR was too ill to really ride herd over the scripts the way he did in Season 1 and 2.

As an original series fan (watching since 1969 at age 6) , I enjoyed Star Trek Discovery from day one, and LOVED Season 2. I thought Picard started out ok but the more it went on, the more it sucked. I'm interested in Season 2 because they seem to be going with an alternate timeline story for the season that effectively jettisons Season 1 for the most part; and while I hated the 'Q' character until TNG S2 "Q-Who" I'm curious enough to want to see what they do with Q for an entire season and there's also the fact that we may be seeing Guinan (played by Whoopie Goldberg again unless her schedule/Covid-19 scuttled her being able to participate after accepting Stewart's on air invitation to appear in Season 2.) Lower Decks actually got me to start liking the 24th century setting because even with the outlandish comedic situations at times; it's doing what TNG only did occasionally (and DS9 did more often in it's later seasons)- and that's write 24th century like relatable human beings and not the utopian perfectly adjusted walking mannequins that GR always wanted for TNG. Part of what made TOS good was the crew conflict COUPLED with the fact that in the end they usually worked through those issues and solved the plot complications by the end and were all better for the experience. GR utopian garbage was just plain boring and Picard's sermonizing often completely hypocritical and wholly self serving.

Kurtzman and Co, have done a better job overall with the Star Trek franchise in 3 years then either Berman or Braga did in their 18 year run. This old Star Trek fan who saw TOS first run is enjoying their work on the current Star Trek franchise more than I ever enjoyed anything Star Trek after TOS, TAS, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Oh, and I also enjoyed the JJ Abram's Star Trek films more than anything from the Berman era, but still not as much as TOS or the first 4 TOS films). I'm also really excited to see how "Strange New Worlds" as it's in my favorite era of teh Star Trek franchise.

But that's me. YMMV.

And finally, for those TNG fans who all during its run often told TOS fans to "Hey, get with the times, Star Trek has updated itself for the times..." <---- Yeah, you got a taste of what 'change' was like with JJ Abrams - and hey, overall Box Office wise after ST:TMP those films are the most popular films (adjusted for inflation) of the franchise:

( Here's the unadjusted numbers: https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Trek#tab=summary )

The adjusted for inflation list:

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979):$534,900,313
2. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013): $530,327,946
   
3. Star Trek (2009): $479,387,934
4. Star Trek Beyond (2016): $369,731,936
5. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): $317,013,840
6. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): $265,512,134
7. Star Trek First Contact (1996): $254,583,088
8. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984): $223,746,629
9. Star Trek Generations (1994): $214,422,510
10. Star Trek Insurrection (1998): $190,264,434
11. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): $188,674,987
12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): $151,773,767
13. Star Trek Nemesis (2002): $99,244,852

So, yeah - to you hardcore Berman and Braga era revisionists:

Alex Kurtzman was involved with all 3 JJ Abrams films. Overall to date, he's been way more successful at keeping the Star Trek IP going and kept it more profitable at a faster pace than either Rick Berman or Brannon Braga ever did. THAT'S why he gets a huge $160 million 5 1/2 year contract extension - AND is getting even more Star Trek series made for Paramount+.

So as many a TNG fan said to me back in 1987 - 1994 as I lamented how different TNG was compared to TOS/TAS/The TOS Feature Films - "Get with the times, or move on and find something you do like...you can watch your TNG reruns all you like..."

Completely true

 

[Jeyl]

Starfleet itself has a general order to wipe out all life on a planet if it is considered a threat.

Yes, General Order 24. An order that Kirk threatened to use for a very specific reason... to stop people from killing each other! General Order 24 shares the same principle as a doomsday machine. As Kirk himself put it,

Kirk: It's a weapon built primarily as a bluff. It's never meant to be used. So strong, it could destroy both sides in a war.
​

And that's exactly how Kirk used it.

Picard almost committed genocide on the Borg, and Admiral Nechayev chewed him out for not going through with it, and told him if there was ever chance to do it again, to take it.

This was during a time when the Borg were a relentless enemy who were intent on assimilating every species they encountered. They would physically and mentally violate you, strip you of everything that made you unique, use what you know against the people you care about. And they are driven into doing this because they believe they're doing us a favor. Of all the pain-in-the-rear Admiral moments, this one from Nechayev was the most understandable.

Sisko poisoned (for Humans) the atmosphere of a Maquis colony, and was never punished for it.

A poison that will last for 50 years. Good thing Humans can live passed 138. I mean, Star Trek has no less than two planets that are exact duplicates of Earth, not to mention the near countless other M-Class planets that Humans could live on.

He tricked the Romulans into entering the war. While he wasn't the one who killed the Senator, he was an (unwilling) accomplice.

Sisko didn't want it to go that way, but nothing he did was working. So when Garak stepped in, Sisko had to accept a hard truth. War can make good people do bad things for the sake of victory. The moment he erased that log entry, he was no longer an unwilling accomplice. He doesn't like it, but this war has to be won.

Not to mention all non-main character admirals and captains that have done shitty stuff over the last 50 years of Trek.

That's why the franchise never made them the main characters... Until Archer.

 

[fireproof78]

Amazing how justifications can be made.

 

[Tuskin38]

A poison that will last for 50 years. Good thing Humans can live passed 138.

That is a flimsy justification and you know it. He committed what we would probably consider to be a war crime.

You're ignoring all the time old trek has done thing like new just because you don't like the new.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Amazing how justifications can be made.

But let’s not use the same energy for Disco or Picard, cuz, ya know, Star Trek sux now lolololol

 

[Mirror Tuvix]

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[The Old Mixer]

Alright, @Mirror Tuvix , this thing of just posting video after video is getting spammy. If you don't have anything to discuss yourself, arrivederci.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

She's in self-exile, but hardly destitute.

Precisely. It's quite utopian to allow people to wallow, if that's what they want.

 

[fireproof78]

But let’s not use the same energy for Disco or Picard, cuz, ya know, Star Trek sux now lolololol

Nope. That would be too much of realizing past Trek's downs and we can't have that.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Precisely. It's quite utopian to allow people to wallow, if that's what they want.

If she’s allowed to wallow in a literal landmark like Vasquez Rocks, that sounds like a utopia to me!