Yes I remember that! And then as now, I would totally watch Star Trek 90210, essentially the first half of ST09 anyways.
Please lower the stakes
- Thread starter urbandk
- Start date
Yes I remember that! And then as now, I would totally watch Star Trek 90210, essentially the first half of ST09 anyways.
I really don't find the Academy idea appealing, but then again I'm sure good writers could make it to work. But in the context of this thread, there are stakes between whether Cadet Jenkins can pass Xenobiology 101 and whether the whole universe will be destroyed.
The tone makes a big difference. Repeated huge stakes with a lighter, more pulpy tone is doable. Repeated huge stakes with a tone of "this is serious and everything is INTENSE" is unsatisfying because there are no highs and lows. There's a reason only Hulk gets to write in all caps.
Even the biggest threats of super high stakes can be fine when couched in something more personal. There are huge stakes in TCOTEOF, but what matters is that it hinges on one life, one decision. Same with Yesterday's Enterprise. This is why the Pike moment worked better than many others this season.
If the focus had been more on any one relationship - saving Spock, saving Burnham Sr - and the battles and tech took a backseat to that, it could have been the biggest stakes ever and no one would bat an eye. A battle could happen and be huge, but it would have been so much more satisfying if the climax was letting her mother go or something like that - those things can even be intercut. (The climax of LOTR has a battle, but the big battle isn't the climax.)
Also, huge stakes are better when felt than stated. So many terrible things could happen if the Dominion won the war, and some characters may voice specific what-ifs, but those maybes are so much more intense than hearing "the end of all life in all the multiverse" which comes across not as intense but silly.
Even the biggest threats of super high stakes can be fine when couched in something more personal. There are huge stakes in TCOTEOF, but what matters is that it hinges on one life, one decision. Same with Yesterday's Enterprise. This is why the Pike moment worked better than many others this season.
If the focus had been more on any one relationship - saving Spock, saving Burnham Sr - and the battles and tech took a backseat to that, it could have been the biggest stakes ever and no one would bat an eye. A battle could happen and be huge, but it would have been so much more satisfying if the climax was letting her mother go or something like that - those things can even be intercut. (The climax of LOTR has a battle, but the big battle isn't the climax.)
Also, huge stakes are better when felt than stated. So many terrible things could happen if the Dominion won the war, and some characters may voice specific what-ifs, but those maybes are so much more intense than hearing "the end of all life in all the multiverse" which comes across not as intense but silly.
If people want to lower the stakes then I guess the idea of Burnham having to save God from ever being created is off the table. God has gone missing and she has to take on it's powers and perform it's duties until it is found or all of existence of all time is erased but she can't use her powers to help with the mission or else God will instantly explode wherever God is. Meanwhile the crew only has 14 hours to do it and the season has 14 episodes so one episode represents a hour. Also the ship blows up in the season opener and the only thing they have to use is a bunch of wood and nails found out on a Hoth like planet filled with King Kong size Snake Monsters in the billions!
Jason
Jason
Actually, despite the term 'pulpy' having become meaning mostly campy this day and age, the old pulps which engaged in this sort of stakes were immensely intense with the drama starting at a high level, and only ramping up chapter after chapter. When I got into reading Spider, Master of Men pulps from the 30's were serious to a fault. I can honestly say that reading one of the better ones, I was wondering how the titular character was going to survive to the next chapter, despite knowing that there were another hundred or so novels in the series. And I can agree that Discovery did feel like that experience, which is no small feat, to be honest. And no, this is not the way Star Trek used to be written, but its still an artform which is difficult to attain and hard to maintain and as such requires as much skill as the kind of contemplative musing most people appear to associate with Trek..
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I wish I wondered how the characters were going to survive to the next chapter in DSC!
Real old pulp stuff varied in particular types, but they are unified in their quality of being "elevated" which I wouldn't call DSC at all.
Trek can be fast paced! Fast paced isn't the same as having highs and lows though, you can have both!
Sure, old Trek often Teched the Tech to solve problems, but in terms of story structure, that's just a tangible detail (Voyager notwithstanding). They (generally) did not introduce problems and then immediately solve them with no trial and error.
That's OK, I think we're getting this with the final season of Preacher coming later this summer.
Next season will lower the stakes...
...into the (Salt) Vampire King who has taken over the Galaxy!
...into the (Salt) Vampire King who has taken over the Galaxy!
Buffy and Smallville had the leads save the world repeatedly, I've no doubt that the cadets of a Starfleet Academy series would do the same.
Shatner's Star Trek Academy novel was supposedly originally pitched as a TV series, and it ended with cadets Kirk and Spock stealing the Enterprise and saving the day.
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