Ok, but this is an action/adventure series not a documentary. How do they work in to the story and why them?
Not saying it's necessarily bad, or good, but how do people see it working and why the Breen?
Revisiting the Breen
- Thread starter Nerroth
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Not saying it's necessarily bad, or good, but how do people see it working and why the Breen?
I really don’t want to seem like I’m coming off as argumentative because honestly I think we both have little interest in the relative merits of developing the Breen.
However, I think you’re being somewhat obtuse when you say it’s an action/adventure series, not a documentary. TNG had Klingon focussed episodes that both broadened them as a culture but retained action/adventure elements. Likewise DS9 with Ferengi, VOY with the Borg and ENT with the Vulcans/Andorians. Hell, LD is showcasing the Pakleds of all things. Also recently DIS fleshed out the Orions.
To clarify again, I don’t care either way and I certainly don’t want to argue with you. I really like your posts. I’m just saying there’s no reason to dismiss the idea of a Breen return out of hand.
That's not quite the same. We learned a great deal from BoT about the Romulans and their culture just in that single episode. All we learned about the Breen in every episode they were featured in was that they were just generic cardboard villains used as a plot device to make the Dominion more powerful. They had no personality to speak of, nothing about their culture was stated beyond tidbits of hearsay, and the only thing that made them even marginally interesting was that we didn't know what they looked like, which they played up to death. Beyond that, I see no potential for development that they couldn't essentially do for any other random alien race. And honestly, with the format these new Trek series have, there's really little room for entire alien species cultural development unless the plot specifically calls for it.
Honestly, I think I’m done giving it any more thought. I agree they weren’t up to much in DS9 and there’s little about them that’s intrinsically interesting.
But then, I would have said the same about the Andorians before ENT or the Orions before DIS.
But to yourself and @fireproof78 , I enjoy your posts immensely and I don’t want to get involved in a daft back and forth about something as inconsequential as the Breen.
At this point it’s probably just best to say that I’d be open to it, you guys aren’t interested and leave it there? It’s not a hill I’m willing to die on. :-)
That's fair. I just don't see much value in them as presented on screen thus far.
I'm still rating all Disco episodes 1 point lower until I get an explanation for why the Disco Klingons don't look like the TOS or TNG Klingons and I need it to include an explanation for how Kang and Kor went from TOS to TNG Klingons and why the Enterprise bridge in SNW is not built out of cardboard and how we went from that to the 7 inch screens and anti Moore's law circuitry in TOS. While they are at it, I demand a story with a reasonable accounting of the uniform changes in Generations.
You’re going to be very disappointed.
It's Star Trek. It will happen more and more.
I hope there's a Breen waiter in some episode who just walks into scene, screeches in Nine Inch Nails and then walks out. And just stares motionless at people who try to make small talk. And then some guy has been having a conversation with the Breen waiter for ten minutes but his friend says it's just an empty suit and the Breen left and went home.
Maybe I should accept change and focus on the stories and characters, but my brain wants answers for why things look different on a show that is 50 years old and has been restarted in 3 eras, each with vastly improved technologies in real life and for producing TV.
As for the actual Topic. The Breen were interesting when they were presented as a mystery that I thought might be revealed in the near future. But nothing really happened with them. They are perfectly good fodder for a future story if there is more Trek in or around the Picard era. I wouldn't really ask for a story about them, but I would watch it. I don't think they belong in Disco because we don't know to much about them and it would be more interesting to dive into the evolution of the cultures we know more about.
I definitely understand where you're coming from but expecting explanations for all that is the ultimate pipe dream. They came up with different-looking Klingons for Discovery. Why? Damned if I know. Just because? Seems so arbitrary to me but that's the kind of stuff that they do. They came up with the spore drive. Something that wasn't mentioned in any later Trek. huh?
This all started with Enterprise. The technology that exists in 2151 before looks more advanced than the tech in 2265. I think they never should have done any shows that take place before TOS. Writers and producers aren't interested in that level of continuity though and honestly, that's not what they get paid for.
Whatever. At some point, you just have to switch off that part of your brain and either accept Trek for what it is or move on to something else.
I only want to see them again if we get to see what's under those helmets.
I never liked that whole "it's a myteriez, we'll never tell hurhurhur" trope, no matter what fandom.
I never liked that whole "it's a myteriez, we'll never tell hurhurhur" trope, no matter what fandom.
It would be interesting if there was a 25th century show for a followup. But I like that they are a complete mystery.
Good storytelling would make it all fit together.I definitely understand where you're coming from but expecting explanations for all that is the ultimate pipe dream. They came up with different-looking Klingons for Discovery. Why? Damned if I know. Just because? Seems so arbitrary to me but that's the kind of stuff that they do. They came up with the spore drive. Something that wasn't mentioned in any later Trek. huh?
This all started with Enterprise. The technology that exists in 2151 before looks more advanced than the tech in 2265. I think they never should have done any shows that take place before TOS. Writers and producers aren't interested in that level of continuity though and honestly, that's not what they get paid for.
Whatever. At some point, you just have to switch off that part of your brain and either accept Trek for what it is or move on to something else.
That was the point, though. The Breen really had zero going for them other than the mystery of what they looked like. Once you take that away, they have nothing. Not to mention that anything they showed would not live up to anyone’s expectations.
Even in universe the mystery didn't work. Everyone was always stealing Breen uniforms and running around in them. Surely somebody looked at the Breen when they pulled their still warm corpses out of their getup. Their shtick was being enigmatic and aloof but not completely mysterious to the point of being unknowable. And even if you saw a Breen without a helmet on you could preserve that just by being weird looking, and language not translatable, and have their motives just totally unhuman.
But again, I find crap like that stupid to no end.
And it's s not like it can't be done; Fire lord Ozai was the Faceless during Avatar Season 1 and was revealed in season 2.
Plus, once you reveal the Breen you can develop them and give them more than just the stupid mystery.
I just assume there are multiple layers and they were only able to pry the top layer off.
Here's the thing: A character can be completely unseen and still have good character development. Take Kosh from Babylon 5, for example. Between his cryptic one-liners and the mysteries surrounding the Vorlons in general, he was a great character, and he was just an encounter suit which wasn't even humanoid in shape. You even cared when the Shadows killed him. Now it can be debated whether the final reveal of what the Vorlons look like was a massive letdown from all the hype, but that was always my point: Once you have an unseen character reveal what they look like when the defining trait of that character is that you don't know what he looks like, it will never live up to expectations. But at least Kosh was much more than what's inside that suit.
Now take the Breen. They were nothing but Dominion foot soldiers. They had zero personality to speak of, and you couldn't even understand them when they talked. There was no clue at all to their motivations for joining the Dominion (other than one line about them wanting to occupy Romulus after the war), the info about their ships being organic wasn't true (although that was probably due to an oversight on the writer's part), and as multiple people have already pointed out, it was laughable to state that no one's ever seen the Breen when Kira, Dukat, etc. ran around in Breen suits. Were the suits just sitting on a shelf somewhere?
Unlike Kosh and the Vorlons, the Breen were essentially just a plot device. The only thing going for them was the mystery of what they looked like. Once you take that away, you got nothin.'
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