Spoilers Main Title Sequence

[Timo]

...I think the "do better" argument is quite apt here. Doing is trivial nowadays - anybody can draw and animate with little more effort than that involved in typing a critique. If not otherwise, then by taking the piece under criticism and editing it to their liking.

At the very least, any argument of "X and Y are wrong with the thing here" should be accompanied with "I would specifically fix X this way and Y that way" or the one making the argument is just plain lazy. It may take rare skill to act out a scene, so poor performance there may be critiqued without posting a YouTube rendering of How I Would Do It. It may take somewhat more common skill to sing a song like it should be sung, and YouTube is full of sad attempts at "improvement" already. But it takes no skill to describe a cool graphics sequence, and very little skill to create one (certain irrelevant final touches notwithstanding).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Orbing Master]

I found the music sounds like the Fringe theme...

Yes! I'm glad it wasn't just me!

I'm also wondering, if they'll take a cure from "Babylon 5"'s various opening titles, and have a different one each season (fingers crossed that it does carry on), which somehow plays into whatever arc or story the season has focused on...

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

The theme starts and ends with familiar tunes but is otherwise bland and unremarkable.

All but the last four bars of it would be right at home in any pharmaceuticals advertisement.

 

[zar]

Enterprise's opening told a story. The history of exploring. From the first ship Enterprise, to the first starship Enterprise. It may not be as polished visually as this one is (and I acknowledge its an artistic and well-produced sequence, even if unfitting for Trek IMO) but had substance, history, and an aspiration for our future. That is the optimism and grounding Trek has compared to other sci-fi shows.

I hope that the themes of construction, for the Discovery which ground the whole sequence, have some place in the series, but to me, it feels like "prop porn" from a group of fans showing off their designs - and doesn't contain a message or substance that has been present in past Trek title sequences.

I didn't say ENT's opening was bad. I just don't understand how it meets your criteria better than DIS. Where is the story and characters? Exploration is a theme, not a story, and there's nothing there that relates specifically to any of ENT's characters.

We haven't seen the so-called second pilot yet, but we know the season focuses on Burnham, the Klingon war, astromycology, and we know the Discovery is a new ship and Lorca was saying something about "creating a new way to fly". I see all of that in the opening. Out of 1 minute 30 seconds, about 10 seconds of it may be "prop porn" as you say, but the rest depicts the creation of Discovery, Burnham, and symbolism for the war and other things I'm not sure how to interpret yet (the flower and hands touching). The background at 0:20 looks like it might be something under a microscope which could relate to mycology, and there are what I assume are dilithium crystals floating around. But ENT's montage of stock footage and ship models has more "story and characters" than this? Okay...

 

[bigdaddy]

The title screen and music was my favorite part of the premiere, followed by the neat bridge design.

 

[mdtauk]

I didn't say ENT's opening was bad. I just don't understand how it meets your criteria better than DIS. Where is the story and characters? Exploration is a theme, not a story, and there's nothing there that relates specifically to any of ENT's characters.

We haven't seen the so-called second pilot yet, but we know the season focuses on Burnham, the Klingon war, astromycology, and we know the Discovery is a new ship and Lorca was saying something about "creating a new way to fly". I see all of that in the opening. Out of 1 minute 30 seconds, about 10 seconds of it may be "prop porn" as you say, but the rest depicts the creation of Discovery, Burnham, and symbolism for the war and other things I'm not sure how to interpret yet (the flower and hands touching). The background at 0:20 looks like it might be something under a microscope which could relate to mycology, and there are what I assume are dilithium crystals floating around. But ENT's montage of stock footage and ship models has more "story and characters" than this? Okay...

I did say I hope it will be relevant to the plot.

maybe the aesthetic approach is intertwined with the plot, but i'm not hopeful...

We will have to look back at it, once the story has been told, to know if it bares any resemblance and hidden meaning. I suspect they took elements they had already designed, and then made a sequence from that, before much of the show was filmed/written.

I can't help having a gut reaction, and even after Breaking Bad, I am still not a fan of the titles - despite the show being awesome.

 

[PicardSpeedo]

I went back and watched this again, and yeah, I'm still just as baffled by it. What the heck is going on in this opening sequence? The first part of it is "hey, check out some concept art and the CGI wireframes for our spacewalk SFX," along with a really-out-of-place closeup of someone's dry skin. Other elements that follow include an eyeball, a miniature version of the spaceship being bitten at by a cartoon dragon or something, what looks like a blast of sperm flying out of a vortex, the Vulcan peace sign, and...ugh. I can't keep going. It's like a really-ineptly-executed, LSD-infused ripoff of the Game of Thrones intros.

I feel like this title sequence is basically representative of their entire creative process - a highly-derivative stream-of-consciousness project wrapped around modern politics and grimdark philosophy.

 

[O_Kav]

I feel like this title sequence is basically representative of their entire creative process - a highly-derivative, free-thought project wrapped around modern politics and grimdark philosophy.

And what part of the title sequence has to do with modern politics and grimdark philosophy ?

 

[marsh8472]

I said before somewhere that this intro doesn't have a single star in it. But it probably does if you look really close

 

[cooleddie74]

That's good to know. Faint and hard to see are better than none at all.

 

[OpenMaw]

Not sure if this was posted here yet or not, probably, but here it is(again) anyway. Someone did a more traditional styled intro for Discovery with their own music:

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I do have to say, the end credits theme for Discovery is actually growing on me. I like it's low-key vibe. It really feels like Trek. There's some heart of Star Trek in there. Particularly it feels like it's scratching around the edges of the original series theme.

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[Nerys Myk]

That's pretty good.

 

[Midquest]

The star criticism I've heard confused me - there are stars in quite a number of shots in the opening, and I'd say pretty clear ones, too. Not labeled, but what seems to be a starfield.

 

[MadeIndescribable]

I said before somewhere that this intro doesn't have a single star in it. But it probably does if you look really close

Now I wanna see the whole opening in negative....

 

[Succubint]

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[Nerys Myk]

Blueprinty

 

[David cgc]

The line art and translucency effects on stuff like the phaser and spacesuit look really good that way, but the reversed shading on the ships and face and eyeball are deeply disturbing. It'd be interesting if someone who actually made it did a hybrid version that kept the dark parts dark where they needed to be.

 

[Dutchymvl]

Didn't read the entire post so sorry if this was asked before but what is the meaning of the flower in the intro?
And is it just me or are they adding more notes from the TOS theme every week?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didn't read the entire post so sorry if this was asked before but what is the meaning of the flower in the intro?
And is it just me or are they adding more notes from the TOS theme every week?

Space whale

 

[Dutchymvl]

Space whale

ah ok thanks