What do they add?
Spoilers R rated content - what does it add?
- Thread starter Smoked Salmon
- Start date
Perhaps more human element? People talk about the Orville and their characters being more human, but I hear real people say "fucking cool" more often then I hear them talk about "glory holes". And space as always been depicted as a violent and dangerous place. This is simply the depiction that it should have had all along.
For a franchise which has often dealt with mature themes, and has often had mature content, I think it is quite unremarkable.
I find it strange that people focus so much on visuals - would the previous episode have been perfectly fine for a child viewer without a few seconds of an apparent rape (and, attracting the most attention, a glimpse of breasts which I didn't even notice on a first viewing), with Tyler "merely" talking about being raped for months?
If it is okay for a child to watch Kirk attempting to rape Rand, or Picard being tortured, or the crude sexualisation which is prevalent in Enterprise, etc, then I don't see anything in Discovery which is worse.
I'm just glad to have a show which deals with a topic like rape in a mature, adult fashion, rather than the juvenile way that TNG and Enterprise in particular did.
This. We have a Star Trek show that is dealing with male victims of sexual assault and PTSD in a sensitive grownup, and stark manner. This is worth some NSFW visuals.
Fingers crossed for January
Since you brought it up, what a child should watch. I think the scene with Tyler remembering being tortured and the sexual twisted aspect of his memories is not something I think a child needs to see. I don't care about other depictions. Discovery is not previous Star Trek. It is not rated that way, nor is it depicted that way, so hiding behind the sensibilities of the past is mostly irrelevant. If a past scene was rated (as apparently one is) as Restricted, so be it.
I hear there will be a 3 episode arc detailing why Klingons no longer have two penises in TOS
why is that even a question? people swear and curse in real life. people have sex in real life. and in a war situation, life is pretty gory. so what does te r rating add? realism, or at least a sense of realism. it helps us suspend or disbelief if bodies that went through a battle look that way and are not polished and clean and unharmed. it helps us suspend our disbelief if people talk naturally instead of VOY-level ridiculous technobabble. the added layer bridges the gap a little bit between the more unbelievable concepts of a sci-fi show and reality
Tilly said what she did as a part of her character - she's inappropriate and blurts things out at times. She's young and doesn't always have a filter.
And now for some spoilers and speculations.
And now for some spoilers and speculations.
The rape scene made a ton of sense. It gets you inside Tyler's head and it gives you an idea of what happened. Of course it's ambiguous. Is it rape of a human male? Is it ever consensual with said human male? Does L'Rell show any signs of affection? Or is it Voq being turned into Tyler, so it's business as usual sex between Klingons? Which is now recalled as something else because the transformation ended up going far too well? Did L'Rell jump into the transporter beam because she loves Tyler or Voq or both manifestations? Was it to further torture a human male? Activate the Manchurian Candidate of Trek? Take over Discovery? Save her miserable hide because she knew Kol and the sarcophagus ship were goners?
Just showing Tyler and a bunch of whirring saw-like instruments would have been creepy and scary but it would not have gotten across as much as the rather brief rape scene did. It also doesn't discount his experiences.
Trek has shown attacks on women numerous times, and then it turns into everything's cool in the next episode, as if nothing happened. A lot of that is due to how episodic a lot of the other series were, but man oh man is that troubling. For all of the people who complained that older Trek had no consequences (Voyager, I am looking at you), Discovery has them in abundance.
I also think we need to see the rape scene, however, briefly, to know that Tyler is telling the truth, at least so much as he understands the truth to be. If he is Voq, then his memory has been altered but he still believes this to be the truth. If he is Tyler and Tyler alone, then his memory should be believed and we as the audience bear witness to that.
Just showing Tyler and a bunch of whirring saw-like instruments would have been creepy and scary but it would not have gotten across as much as the rather brief rape scene did. It also doesn't discount his experiences.
Trek has shown attacks on women numerous times, and then it turns into everything's cool in the next episode, as if nothing happened. A lot of that is due to how episodic a lot of the other series were, but man oh man is that troubling. For all of the people who complained that older Trek had no consequences (Voyager, I am looking at you), Discovery has them in abundance.
I also think we need to see the rape scene, however, briefly, to know that Tyler is telling the truth, at least so much as he understands the truth to be. If he is Voq, then his memory has been altered but he still believes this to be the truth. If he is Tyler and Tyler alone, then his memory should be believed and we as the audience bear witness to that.
That fucking scene was fucking cool. They scienced the shit out of something, and were fucking excited about it.
I don't hate it, but don't think it's necessary. It's too middle of the road. There's just enough Klingon rape scenes to say I won't let my kids watch it. But it's not so bad that I would consider this an adult show. Yes, there's swearing, but it's not like it's a part of everyday vernacular to these characters, it just pops out every once in a while.
I would guess that this year is kind of a test year to see how some things are accepted by the audience at large.
I would guess that this year is kind of a test year to see how some things are accepted by the audience at large.
It's a far, far better reason than "because it isn't needed" is a reason to remove anything. This is entertainment, not a targeted military operation.
There is no "need" for anything. They didn't need tardigrades, Pahvans, Vulcans, or Klingons. They didn't need PTSD, and they didn't need war. They could have told a story about Romulans exploring the Beta quadrant, or a Bolian family living in a farmhouse.
But they didn't. They did this instead. Because they can. Gore and rape are part of this story, because the creators decided to tell such a story, thus gore and rape are depicted.
Why don't you tell us why these elements need to be removed?
Exactly.
^This, at least to a certain extent.
My daughter is 11 now and is an avid ST fan. She started at age 7 and since then has watched all the series and movies, and always with me. I've sat there where I knew there would be some butt shot of T'Pol and I just fast forwarded through that content, but those moments were far and few between. With Discovery, say with the last episode, I didn't fast forward through the Klingon rape scene, but it was awkward watching it with my daughter. If she had been 7 I doubt we could be watching DSC and I guess I feel it's a shame, because it's been a great experience for my daughter to grow up watching ST, and me watching it again with her.
It is TV-MA because it is rated for that which is most potentially challenging for a family. We are pretty dedicated to being able to watch the show with our families. Having said that, in [“Context Is for Kings”] we had some swirled up bodies. They were not entirely palatable to my ten-year-old daughter. So, it is those kind of reasons.
We are very thrilled about the new boundaries that are offered to us by streaming, but not because we can do a lot of sex and violence. It is because we can do more serialized storytelling. We can do deeper, more emotional stories. On occasion if those take us into territory that feels a little bit more risky than would typically be seen on network TV, we just stamp it [with TV-MA]. It is always stamped for the most extreme. It is Star Trek, so for us that means we want to be able to have your whole family talking about it after.
We are very thrilled about the new boundaries that are offered to us by streaming, but not because we can do a lot of sex and violence. It is because we can do more serialized storytelling. We can do deeper, more emotional stories. On occasion if those take us into territory that feels a little bit more risky than would typically be seen on network TV, we just stamp it [with TV-MA]. It is always stamped for the most extreme. It is Star Trek, so for us that means we want to be able to have your whole family talking about it after.
Thank heavens for this. I can finally fire my editor. She's forever going on about how this disrupts the narrative flow or that bit of dialogue or action pulls the reader out of the story or the other is simply unnecessary for advancing the story. Never mind that she's nearly always right. Any writer worth their salt knows that removing the stuff that isn't needed (or simply doesn't work at all) is every bit as important as getting the ideas on the page in the first place.
True. Military operations don't require nearly the same level of planning and precision.
Language: As I have said in other threads, the language they have used reflects the way real people speak. Real people say shit and drop F-Bombs. Previous Star Trek didn't because that was not the audience they were going for. Discovery is going for a different audience that allows them to speak more authentically. Gore: Because when a monster starts killing things, odds are there will be gore. Unlike previous iterations of Star Trek that would just show a body laying on the ground which could just as well be sleeping, Discovery opted to go for the more realistic option of showing what the monster would actually do to the bodies. Discovery is made for a more mature audience, so why WOULDN'T they show a more realistic depiction of the aftermath?
Discovery is not. Discovery is not for families, it is not necessarily about hope and positivity. It is a more mature Star Trek, thus TV-MA. You are looking at it through the lens of what it was instead of what it is. It has changed. You can like it or not, watch it or not, but this is what Discovery is. Asking why the tone of Discovery isn't like previous Star Trek's tone will get you nowhere, because the simple answer is because this is the tone the people in charge of the franchise have chosen to take. And they chose it I would imagine for a variety of reasons, because they want All Access to have more mature programming as opposed to what is on the CBS network (The Good Fight also features adult language); because they are trying to be in the same category as current cable fare such as Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead, etc which feature more adult themes and language; because they think it will sell better overseas. Regardless of their reasoning, this is what it is. It seems to be reaching CBS's goals this way, so it is unlikely to change.
Similar threads
- Locked
