My feelings exactly. It's hard to encounter strange new worlds when we've already discovered them.
Star Trek (2017 series) - analysis, speculation, news, discussion
- Thread starter INACTIVEUSS Einstein
- Start date
A
Amaris
Guest
I'm hoping we're all wrong and it turns out great, but yeah, the initial impression for me is "blergh."
Fuller's record suggests his discoveries will be more on the emotional level, than the "higher stakes" level.
I.E. look at early TOS and how horror-like episodes such as The Man Trap and Where No Man Has Gone Before were. Now add to that Hannibal's famous cerebral mood. I can see them discovering new wonders, and terrors to freeze their soul.
I.E. look at early TOS and how horror-like episodes such as The Man Trap and Where No Man Has Gone Before were. Now add to that Hannibal's famous cerebral mood. I can see them discovering new wonders, and terrors to freeze their soul.
There is a cool unintentional side consequence of the new design being a Ralph MacQuarrie inspired ship - it explains some of the unknown MacQuarrie concept ships seen in the background at Qualor II, and other places, as they may be ships of this era or even of this class:
The presence of the Planet of the Titans study model in spacedock for example, might be an old starfleet ship from this era. The study model which was seen at Qualor II, and even ships lost as Wolf 359 might finally have an explanation.
The presence of the Planet of the Titans study model in spacedock for example, might be an old starfleet ship from this era. The study model which was seen at Qualor II, and even ships lost as Wolf 359 might finally have an explanation.
A
Amaris
Guest
They were kitbashes. This new ship looks like a kitbash, even though it's a McQuarrie design. It is quite ugly, IMO, and I really don't want a show that decides it needs to fill in all the tiny and inconsequential details of history already written.There is a cool unintentional side consequence of the new design being a Ralph MacQuarrie inspired ship - it explains some of the unknown MacQuarrie concept ships seen in the background at Qualor II, and other places, as they may be ships of this era or even of this class:
The presence of the Planet of the Titans study model in spacedock for example, might be an old starfleet ship from this era. The study model which was seen at Qualor II, and even ships lost as Wolf 359 might finally have an explanation.
No, they weren't, they were the actual study models from Planet of the Titans - there were also kitbashes present however.
A
Amaris
Guest
Well, that's the thing: if they look like kitbashes, it doesn't really matter if they are study models. They were likely just filler ships for that scene. I don't want a show that decides it needs to address such things.
I'm sure the callback is completely unintentional - just through it was a cool idea.
A
Amaris
Guest
Eh, and I'm not trying to sound hostile, it's just I don't want a fill-in-the-blanks Trek history show. It may be something completely different, but that teaser just left uncertainty, not excitement.
Yeah, I feel the same way, it's just I wasn't really expecting much from SDCC, because they had Shatner, et al, there, it was always gonna be a bit of a thrown in thing - Star Trek has never been handled quite as well as Star Wars in this respect - so I was expecting a short teaser, and if lucky, the first view of the ship.
Basically we don't know anything more about the substance of the show than we did yesterday.
Let's see if Star Trek Vegas brings more details....
Basically we don't know anything more about the substance of the show than we did yesterday.
Let's see if Star Trek Vegas brings more details....
A
Amaris
Guest
Yes, I know what kitbashes are, hence why I said they looked like kitbashes. You don't have to agree, but it doesn't change the notion that for me those ships look like they were made from leftover model kits.
This number is also higher then USS Heart of Gold, USS Essex, USS Horizon, USS Sherlock Holmes and many others, all of which appeared in TNG-era
I'll be shocked if it doesn't, if not Mission New York in early Sep, if they don't announce casting through cons itll be through Deadline/The Hollywood Reporter
It's amazing how close this concept is to some of the things I was thinking recently - complete with the sweet MacQuarrie asteroid base! I always thought that was a great image - the way the ship seems to be sailing in like a swan. The last time something unexpectedly happened to be close to what I was thinking was with Mass Effect 1 lol; someone designed a video game that basically fulfilled my every dream I've had about what a game should be, since I was a kid, and made a setting exactly like I would have made - down to the aliens (with Revelation Space style sentient machines) and tech (nanotech, cities in arcologies, etc). It ended up being my favorite game of all time.
I was thinking that it would be nice to see the designs of Ralph MacQuarrie on screen. I wondered what era those interesting designs would fit best in (also considering they appear in the background in some scenes in previous Trek, such as very briefly in Earth Spacedock in the movies), and thought pre-Kelvin TOS, post-Kelvin TOS or The Motion Picture, would be about right. I thought that Fuller would probably go for a show that was more about TOS style discovery, given his part comments and stuff, with maybe some Undiscovered Country style Cold War politics mixed in, given what Nicholas Meyer said about TUC being a touching point.
The only thing that shocks me (and I am still shocked a day later) is that they have set it in the prime universe. It was always a possibility, but I utterly did not expect that; I thought it was "closed for business", as someone recently said. I thought that to give themselves maximum latitude, and to expand Star Trek sideways, into multiple alternate universes like Gundam, they would probably go with a show set in Kelvin Timeline (contemporary to Kirk, to expand the setting, such as on the USS Reliant), or a Full Reboot (with gender and race blind casting, etc). I honestly thought that was what the game would be now; not to return to the Prime TImeline, but to expand into other possibilities. I honestly thought they would go with something like a Kelvin Timeline USS Reliant! Aside from that, I love the MacQuarrie designs, and even advocated it for this new series - but I was shocked that it's the other design they have chosen (the Star Destroyer), rather than the one with the long neck I liked more:
I wish the nacelles of the USS Discovery were a bit higher on their struts, then I think it would be a very pleasing retro design - it currently looks great from the front - a really nice profile from that angle - but not so great from below (and presumably from above). Just a little bit of tweaking would solve that - making the nacelles a little less massive, and putting them on struts:
Other than that, I would love it, and it's retro MacQuarrie look. This has the coincidental side effect of explaining the appearance of these strange Ralph MacQuarrie designs in the Prime Timeline, where they occasionally appeared in debris fields, or decommissioned in storage areas, or were seen in the background. I always thought they must have come from somewhere around TOS or TMP. But a new question that arises from this, is where, if anywhere, those pieces of Final-Fantasy-esqe, Yoshitaka Amano-like concept art fit in (perhaps the first season's story arc will deal with some kind of archaic Klingon ship being discovered, and leading to a diplomatic spat with the Federation?):
I'm looking forward to more news on the series - we don't really know anything of substance yet - we don't know the themes of the show - we don't know anything more than we did 24 hours ago really. We can guess from the inclusion of Nicholas Meyer on the staff, that the show will be trying to go for that literary tradition, like The Wrath of Khan. We can guess from Bryan Fuller's work on Hannibal, that the show might play up the early TOS horror elements, such as in The Man Trap, and give us terrors to freeze our souls. There were three eras in the prime universe which have never been filled with material: pre-TOS era, TMP era, post-TUC era. We are getting one of the three (probably), and who knows, it might just be the start - like Marvel, we could have three shows running at once if this does well.
The new design being so retro and 80s looking, reminds me of the amazing museum in the game Star Trek: Judgement Rites:
If you are a Trek fan, you will love the descriptions of the relics in that place. Maybe some of the old ships systems refer to our new ship class?
Last edited:
Looks like an experimental design to me although the registry number does suggest otherwise. Perhaps they should retain the ship design and making it a running joke where other members of the crew occasionally comment on it just to wind up the Chief Engineer.
I like the version of the teaser that Andy Cole did with the music from ST VI.
https://twitter.com/AndyCole84/status/756994951997566976 (scroll down)
I'm also expecting Klingon-war era.
I like the version of the teaser that Andy Cole did with the music from ST VI.
https://twitter.com/AndyCole84/status/756994951997566976 (scroll down)
I'm also expecting Klingon-war era.
I've seen the test footage a couple of times now, and the design is really growing on me! Give it time everyone! The Ent-D and Voyager also took time to grow on many people, and those designs became classic! I'm really starting to love the Discovery, and in the end: if the series is good, does a ship design really make that much of a difference?
Well, yeah it kinda does if part of what makes a series good is the prop and model design. Of course, all of the different aspects of a production contribute in different ways to the overall quality of a series, some more important than others. It's all subjective, yes -- but sometimes what one personally sees as a deficiency in one area can be made up in another area for the same person. I didn't like NEM very much, but I probably would have liked it just a LITTLE better if I didn't have to see the ugly-ass Enterprise-E
Also, I don't mind this ship design. It's not spectacular, but it's not going to put me off watching the show. I really don't like Voyager's design at all, but the show is fine.