so the producers and writers said that discovery will lead into TOS (60's aesthetics and all)...

[STR]

Actually the design of "TOS" isn't all that anachronistic so much as that the quality of the props and sets are inferior to what is used together. They lack much of the detail or slickness you get in modern shows. Also the way shows were filmed back then, before you had things like widescreen and HD camera's and what not is also different. Also the color sceme's of the uniforms are okay but you clearly want uniforms with more detail and the color of the sets you might prefer a more metallic look to them.

I agree about touchscreen's but I think nobody ever considered replacing them even when they have wanted a more 60's look. Simply replacing all the blinkies on "TOS" with touchscreens in fact seems like the very first thing someone would think to do if they were trying to do something retro-futuristic and create a more "TOS" feel to a bridge and sets. I also think on some level that the only set that you would need to really feel like your paying homage to "TOS" is the bridge because that is really the only set anyone really cares about IMO when it comes to trying to capture the sets of that time period. Maybe the transporter room but I don't even think the most ardent "TOS" fans care that much if the corridors look different or the quarters, in part because this ship is not the Enterprise or even a Constitution-class ship so naturally it is going to have a different look than what we saw in the old shows.

Jason

We've got people here insisting "Enterprise" was an alternate reality. A limited retouch of the original bridge is not going to satisfy that kind of purist because it's still a retouch. Everyone else? Doesn't really care and is largely fine (philosophically) with the current aesthetic. You're compromising without satisfying anyone. So why bother?

In fact, let's cut to the chase here: what's happening now is inevitable: TOS is falling off the visual canon. Eventually, someone is going to do another Kirk & Spock show and that will probably kick the whole thing off canon. Trek had a remarkable run of continuity, but it's going to have to end some time. It's probably not going to happen all at once (already tried with JJTrek). Instead, it will probably start with a statement like "assume it happened like before unless we say otherwise" and one by one the old stories get superceded.

And at some point, that's going to be the fate of all Trek, assuming the franchise doesn't die off for good at some point.

 

[Kor]

When it's the 22nd or 23rd century and warp drive still doesn't exist and there are no humanoid aliens, Star Trek will need to be completely rebooted.

Kor

 

[Cyrus]

When it's the 22nd or 23rd century and warp drive still doesn't exist and there are no humanoid aliens, Star Trek will need to be completely rebooted.

Kor

Star Trek is on an alternate timeline, so doesn't have to match ours. For one thing there is no Star Trek TV series in the Star Trek timeline.

 

[Jayson1]

We've got people here insisting "Enterprise" was an alternate reality. A limited retouch of the original bridge is not going to satisfy that kind of purist because it's still a retouch. Everyone else? Doesn't really care and is largely fine (philosophically) with the current aesthetic. You're compromising without satisfying anyone. So why bother?

In fact, let's cut to the chase here: what's happening now is inevitable: TOS is falling off the visual canon. Eventually, someone is going to do another Kirk & Spock show and that will probably kick the whole thing off canon. Trek had a remarkable run of continuity, but it's going to have to end some time. It's probably not going to happen all at once (already tried with JJTrek). Instead, it will probably start with a statement like "assume it happened like before unless we say otherwise" and one by one the old stories get superceded.

And at some point, that's going to be the fate of all Trek, assuming the franchise doesn't die off for good at some point.

I think the compromise would work because I think the issue is about the show being part of the established shared universe more than it is that people dislike the new look. Other than the lights being to dark and to much blue I think we haven't seen much dislike of the look in terms of creativity other than perhaps it's not bold enough and feels like the safe choice you would do when creating a modern sci-fi spaceship. We have already seen the dark and moody style before so it's not exactly original. I think people just want a few straws to grasp onto so the can fit into their head-canon.

As for TOS falling off the visual canon that has been true since TMP. I think Trek though does have a few templates that you got to stay with no matter what else you do to a ship and that is you need a captains chair,main viewer and a transporter pad that kind of looks like the old stuff. IMO just about everthing else is fair game. I agree we will see another reboot with Kirk,Spock etc at some point but I doubt when they do it nobody will be saying it's part of the old prime timeline. It will be the start of something new or maybe a spin-off of something new that has already started. I could see a reboot starting with TNG and then they follow that up with their own prequel of showing the audience their version of TOS. I also don't think the franchise will ever die off. Nothing dies off anymore. It will just wait a few years after it hits a somekind of success failure and then someone else will give it another try. I do think we will see stuff once they reach that point were the show has almost zero connection to anything old with Trek but then this could be so far in the future we will all be dead by then and not see that version of Trek.

Jason

 

[F. King Daniel]

Instead, it will probably start with a statement like "assume it happened like before unless we say otherwise" and one by one the old stories get superceded.

You could argue that's already happened.

TOS "Balance of Terror" no longer fits with ENT and now DSC's depiction of cloaking devices and pre-TOS Starfleet technology ("claoking is theoretically possible", "no ship to ship visual communication", "primitive atomic weapons" etc)

Other episodes no longer fit due to Kirk and Spock not knowing of famous mutineer Michael Burnham (Spock's sister, remember!) when saying Starfleet never had a mutiny.

Voyager is basically obsolete because their holographic doctor couldn't exist outside of sickbay because there only the ultra advanced prototype USS Prometheus had holoemitters outside sickbay. The USS Shenzhou, an old ship by Discovery's standards, has them everywhere. DS9's "For the Uniform" no longer counts because O'Brien explicitly says holographic communications are new.

Although that plot line has yet to conclude, one could also argue that the spore drive renders DS9 and Voyager's base premise obsolete, having a starship teleport itself anywhere galaxy-wide over a century before.

 

[Mechanoid1]

one could also argue that the spore drive renders DS9 and Voyager's base premise obsolete

This has been brought up before and the reply was don't worry "They (producers, writers) have promised it will all be cleared up at the end.
Has something changed? Honestly if this current mess of a Star Trek show doesn't fix all the improbability issues. I know it will be very easy for me to shut down my CBS subscription. Im sure many will do the same.
Curiously waiting to see if they can get out of the hole that they have dug with Disco.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

When the showrunners said that Discovery was set in the 'Prime Timeline' I think it was meant to discern it from the abrams movies and also as an ill-conceived attempt to not alienate fans by calling it a reboot. No doubt if a series that was set before TOS was announced as a reboot, people would have been up in arms about it somehow invalidating the previous incarnations, particularly TOS. I don't think even a post-nemesis series would have been free of complaints. The fans would have found something to bitch about.

The showrunners and CBS were damned the minute they decided to revive Star Trek as anything other than a Berman era clone. I think segments of the fanbase need to come to terms with the fact that Discovery or any other future tv series or movie, will never fit in with previous incarnations whether it be visually, aesthetically or in terms of 'canon'. But, they can still fit in with the stories they tell. That is what people should be worried about, not whether a series made in 2017 will ever match visually with a series made in the 1960's, but whether the stories they are telling fit in with trek at it's best. Discovery has a bit of a ways to go in this regard, but it has potential to be great, just like another Star Trek series did in 1987.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

TOS has already fallen off the visual canon and/or continuity? Then so do these shows then...

 

[CaptainMurdock]

Can't have that 2017 audiences won't accept it! Just kidding, I don't care what 2017 audiences think. It's a fine design.

 

[Tuskin38]

Then so do these shows then...

Yep they do.

But it is fine here because they're one offs, not set in that century and are homages.

DSC is set in that era, so it wouldn't work because you would be seeing it all the time.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Yep they do.

But it is fine here because they're one offs, not set in that century and are homages.

DSC is set in that era, so it wouldn't work because you would be seeing it all the time.

DSC is already light years ahead of TNG (and DS9 and VOY) in both aesthetics and technology so whatever argument stands against TOS, stands against TNG (and the rest) as well.

Let’s face it. (If we go by all the arguments above) DSC has de-canonized all past Trek, with the exception of KelvinTrek and ENT.

 

[Tuskin38]

Let’s face it. (If we go by all the arguments above) DSC has de-canonized all past Trek, with the exception of KelvinTrek and ENT.

Not at all.

TNG is all touch screens, no physical buttons almost anywhere. DSC still has physical buttons.

There is a clear room of advancement from DSC 23rd century and the 24th.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Yeah right! No de-evolution of technology at all!

2250s:

2370s:

 

[Dukhat]

But the whole theme of BSG was that this has all happened before and will happen again. So original BSG could have been in the same universe but the new BSG was thousands of years ago - a previous iteration of man vs. cylon. I have always assumed that is what they were driving at.

Yes, I've heard that theory before. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention. Why? Because in the original BSG, the Cylons were not created by humans, but by alien lizard men. So the whole "THHBAWHA" thing doesn't quite work, since the whole point of that was to show that man created artificial life, which then rebelled and killed man. That's not what happened in the original show.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Yes, I've heard that theory before. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention. Why? Because in the original BSG, the Cylons were not created by humans, but by alien lizard men. So the whole "THHBAWHA" thing doesn't quite work.

That was the original intention yes. But if I remember correctly that was never actually explained or acknowledged in BSG:TOS so it’s not exactly canon.

 

[Dukhat]

That was the original intention yes. But if I remember correctly that was never actually explained or acknowledged in BSG:TOS so it’s not exactly canon.

The Cylon Imperious Leader was a lizard man.

 

[mos6507]

DSC is set in that era, so it wouldn't work because you would be seeing it all the time.

Love these attempts to force people to prove a negative. These "one offs" were really gimmicks to get ratings...and they worked. Don't tell me nostalgia doesn't sell.

 

[Dukhat]

Love these attempts to force people to prove a negative. These "one offs" were really gimmicks to get ratings...and they worked. Don't tell me nostalgia doesn't sell.

Of course it does. That was the whole point of CBS laughably saying that DSC takes place ten years before TOS.

 

[mos6507]

The Cylon Imperious Leader was a lizard man.

With a badass brillo-pad-looking afro and the calming voice of Patrick MacNee. You just can't improve on perfection.

 

[fireproof78]

Let’s face it. (If we go by all the arguments above) DSC has de-canonized all past Trek, with the exception of KelvinTrek and ENT.

The Dream of JJ Abrams