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Spoilers Section 31 General Discussion Thread

A Section 31 series. Yay or nay?

  • Yay, a Section 31 series!

    Votes: 80 40.0%

  • Nay, give us anything else instead!

    Votes: 120 60.0%
  • Total voters
    200
Phily B said:
First of all, the mansplainer dies in the middle of a mansplaining rant because the talentless hacks who wrote the episode saw it on the news that year. The same clowns who wrote the nazi guy as a pioneer because they saw him on CNN.

Then the two nameless, boring, generic crew members we're supposed to care about get told to do something and start quipping about " haha yeah sure wen can do it" and then do a running commentary on it. Absolute trash.

Which goes back to how this start - adults in Picard S3 actually doing their jobs together and not randomly shouting to create DRAMA.

Section 31 is what we have ended up with because you guys just accept any slop from writers with no background in science fiction led by a guy whose writing credits were mostly Transformer movies which is essentially US military propaganda.
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Does your manhood get threatened every time a male character dies? This scene is standard action bit dialogue. Burnham could be played by a man and it would be the same. The idea it was inspired by “mansplaining” is you once again grasping at straws.

Yeah, Musk was a Nazi way back in 2017. You’ve no idea why they name dropped him or their knowledge of him. You’re making up facts to fit your narrative. Maybe you and Elon have something in common there? :lol:

Picard 3 is horribly written. A paint by numbers and connect the dots story that could have been generated by a monkey using ChatGPT. Jack Crusher is one of the most generic characters ever to appear in Star Trek. He’s everything people complained Kirk was in ‘09 ramped up to 11. Never mind the Soap Opera 101 plot between Picard and Beverly.

Guess what? Being a “science fiction “ writer has never been the litmus test for Star Trek. Gene sure wasn’t. He spent his pre-Trek career churning out westerns and cop shows. He hired writers not just SF writers.

Yeah Kurtzman wrote some Transformer flicks. So what? I watched the first one and bailed. It wasn’t very good. US military propaganda? Maybe. You write what they pay you to write. I wasn’t expecting too much from a film based on a cartoon. Definitely not a critique of US foreign policy and an indictment of the US military.
 
Firebird said:
Last I checked, Section 31 is getting roundly dragged in the mud in every corner of the fandom.
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Last I checked Section 31 was roundly dismissed and many were asking for something else, like Legacy or Lower Decks.

It's not gotten top marks even before the release or the first trailer.
 
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Nerys Myk said:
🥱

And what was Berman's background? He produced a kids show and was a studio suit. Kurtzman has some decent SF creds, including Fringe. Not just two Transformer movies, which for some reason is all you guys can think about, :lol:
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He was also a part of Hercules, Xena, and Jack of All Trades. Anyone that increases the odds of Bruce Campbell being in Star Trek is all right by me.
 
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Ray Hardgrit said:
The problem is that when a series gives a character more appearances and more focus, viewers want to see them more involved in the story as a person. If I started talking about Jemison, Asha or Gallo, no one would know who they are, even though they sat in Owo and Detmer's seats in season 5 and said all their lines. No one dislikes them, but no one thinks about them either. They served their purpose in the episode without being a distraction.

But Owo and Detmer showed up every episode and became more like TNG O'Brien-tier characters in the viewers' eyes. The difference is that TNG would give O'Brien extra little character moments. He'd make quips in the transporter room, he popped up every now and then to play cello, or get his kayaking injury healed, or to attend Worf's Rite of Ascension... he was there as a person. We got some of that in Disco season 3 when Detmer had issues after slamming her head in the crash, but then they stopped again.

So, there was a problem there. And writing them out solved it.
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While some viewers might I seriously doubt it was a majority. And viewers have wildly different views of what they want or like on any series, about any level of minutia. And let's face it there is a very old Hollywood axiom. Always leave them wanting more. If you're wanting more from some characters, guess what. Thats typically a good thing. Compare that to not having any feelings for a character. Honestly which do you think is more valuable for a production to have? I mean seriously. The actresses in question had other opportunities and since Streaming Trek is written far more in advance then Berman era Trek (when the schedule holds, season 1 schedule didn't hold). So they had to plug in other characters to fill there roles and give them an in story reason for their absence (taking the ISS Enterprise back to Starfleet and with old warp tech meaning it would take considerable time, a logical excuse that fits the environment they are set in). Now when they had to months later add an epilogue to the show, both actresses where available and thus appeared in the vision of Michael. While Cruz's schedule didn't allow it so they had to crop in old footage of the actor.

And let's be really clear here. There is a worlds difference in what a show that is designed as primarily a standalone production (and lets be very clear here that applies to almost all of Berman era Trek, with only a small part being plot serialized story telling on shows that were designed to produce 26 episodes a season, to that of streaming shows that were initially designed for 15,13 and 10 episodes a season, in the case of Discovery designed to not only have serialized character arcs, but one serialized plot for each season. Berman's Trek attempted that once with season three of Enterprise and that is the only time a full season was designed to be fully serialized during Berman's time with Trek.

Do you really think that DS9, would have had the freedom to devote so much material to its supporting cadre of characters? They wouldn't they would have to prioritize what plot based stories were the season focus and then tie those to the characters that best serve it. Characters like Rom and Leela, would not be high on that list. Other characters like say Dukat, Weyoun, Garek might thrive, but others would absolutely not. Do you think that using Colm on TNG would have thrived with the schedule the streaming shows have. How much would he have been available for filming when all the other projects he worked on (he did a lot of material outside of TNG during that time), versus his character being easily plugged into episodes as they were being written in the pipeline.

Take the character of Kyle on SNW he was in 8 of the first 10 episodes of SNW. But he got an offer for a larger part on a limited run show. And since he couldn't provide his availability in advance he had to choose to pick one project fully over the other. That meant no more Kyle. That absolutely could happen today with an actor like Colm, who had a lot of opportunities to grow from his very early appearance. And that doesn't even go into the difference of trying to work jobs in the LA Market versus filming in Toronto.
 
There is a greater risk in hiring someone that is "too familiar" with science fiction and especially someone who is a fan of the franchise they're writing for. You run the risk of that person losing objectivity and devoting to fanservice over any meaningful plot. Terry Matalas might do a good job on other projects but he is a very bad writer for Star Trek.

Other than glamorous space battles that thrill me as much now as they did when I was 5 or 6 and the most vivid childhood memories I have are of A Time to Stand and Scorpion, Star Trek thrives on the drama, the mystery and the people involved in it. The story must come first and maybe sometimes you can benefit from someone that can look at it with a little distance.
 
Phily B said:
From a quick google, it looks like the mega brains behind Discovery are now doing this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoey's_Extraordinary_Playlist) show. Explains a lot.
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"Mega brains behind Discovery"? I only see two names involved with that show who also worked on Disco. They were people who were brought on during the second season and fired that very season. Granted, they did think up the premise for that season, but that premise was drastically altered after they left, so I really wouldn't call them the "big brains" behind the show.

You really don't know what you're talking about.
 
Phily B said:
The best thing I can say about Kurtzman's vision of Trek is that it has made me appreciate the older movies more. I thought insurrection was dumb and surface level, but now it looks like art compared to the nonsense he and the talentless writers he worked with has produced.

From a quick google, it looks like the mega brains behind Discovery are now doing this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoey's_Extraordinary_Playlist) show. Explains a lot.
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So you did a Google search and came up with a show from 2020? Four years ago isn't "Now." :lol:

It's also a show with pretty good review scores across several sites. And several wins and nominations for various awards.

Might not be the burn you think it is. ;)
 
I feel like Kurtzman has done a okay, but not great job. His only huge misses were Discovery,Section 31 and Picard season 2. I would hope though that the next person can do even better. I know. The grass is always greener on the other side and all of that. But I still would love for Trek to get someone who could make Trek the best franchise on tv or create a great a show that was on that level.

But IMO I think he should step down for the same reasons I said a few years ago. Success or not I think it's good for Trek to not avoid the Berman mistake where the leader stays to long. It's always good to always bring in someone new with a different approach to always keep things from going stale. He has been in charge for awhile now. It's time to shake things up and get someone with a new vision.
 
JHarper said:
Kurtzman was also involved in the Limitless show which I actually really liked.
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That show was ironically enough showrun by Craig Sweeny, scripter of... S31. I don't blame him for this however. It's again likely some combination of Paramount and Secret Hideout executives that noted this to death.
 
Nerys Myk said:
🥱

And what was Berman's background? He produced a kids show and was a studio suit. Kurtzman has some decent SF creds, including Fringe. Not just two Transformer movies, which for some reason is all you guys can think about, :lol:
Click to expand...

And according to Berman, one of the reasons Gene hired him because he wasn't an existing fan of Star Trek. IIRC he said that the only Trek he'd seen when he was hired was one of the movies.
 
The Wormhole said:
There's no reason to believe the next person is going to be anymore hands on than Kurtzman is, or Berman was. The guy at the top doesn't actually influence the creative directions of the various shows all that much.
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They can be hands on if they want and more important maybe they can hire the right people to make the shows. I am looking at what James Gunn seems to be doing at D.C. One guy with a vision can turn things around instantly. Maybe it's to early to tell but it feels like he is quickly fixing all the mistakes done by Snyder and others who were running things. I wish they would hire someone like Ron Moore or Jane Espenson or Sam Esmail.
 
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