Star Trek Discovery in trouble, and a de facto reboot?

[Danlav05]

Well, a re-imaging and updated visuals are NOT the same as a reboot. The former refers to the visual style while the later refers to the narrative universe/timeline in which the stories take place. You can have updated visuals without a reboot.

So, just relax a bit, alright?

Mr Awe

Look at Enterprise, the show was clearly made in 2001 not 1966, rather than go full retro it still looked like the future - things change all the time, the world we live in all the time, so Star Trek has to look like OUR future, hence the 2009 bridge looked like an Apple Store to some.

Of course Enterprise is officially Prime Timeline - In A Mirror Darkly and These Are The Voyages seem to cement that. I wouldn't mind another reboot, I enjoy different iterations of the story, like we've had over the years with Superman and Batman.

 

[sojourner]

Hey everyone! All this talk of things being rewritten got me worried so I went and spot checked my Star Trek collection on DVD. You'll be glad to hear that even with the Kelvin movies on the same shelf, the older stuff is just fine and exactly as it used to be. No worries. It's all still there!!!

 

[Dukhat]

Not necessarily. Pegg has said that the timeline was affected in both directions, which is not unreasonable given the amount of time travel which goes on.

That was only his opinion; none of that was actually mentioned in the films.

 

[mos6507]

they should just make the darn show they want to see. The trouble is, there are a lot of "they's" and don't see everything eye to eye.

Exactly. I see a lot of flag-waving for CBS when even CBS is not a united front. That in and of itself is troubling. The dream team turning into too many cooks spoiling the broth?

 

[mos6507]

Yes it does. TNG was for all intents and purposes a reboot of Star Trek, Roddenberry changed the style of the show completely to fit his new "vision" of the future, less militaritic, no conflict between main characters (which were the bread and butter of Star Trek before TNG) and he had no problem comtradicting the original series while still keeping TNG in continuity with it.

And then in Encounter at Farpoint we had...this.

A stylistic change is not a reboot. They just moved Trek into the future but it was still the same timeline. McCoy, Scotty, Kirk, Spock, Sarek, TOS production design (in Enterprise, Relics, DS9 Tribbles), TOS-movie-era ships and uniform recycling, all of them bled into TNG.

 

[BillJ]

And then in Encounter at Farpoint we had...this.

As much as I love this particular scene, it was nothing more than pandering to original series fans, "there, there... you show still matters."

 

[donners22]

That was only his opinion; none of that was actually mentioned in the films.

His opinion carries a bit of weight, given that he wrote one of those films and undoubtedly used it to inform his approach to doing so.

In the absence of anything to the contrary being said in the films, it is at least a reasonable explanation.

 

[Mr Awe]

A stylistic change is not a reboot. They just moved Trek into the future but it was still the same timeline. McCoy, Scotty, Kirk, Spock, Sarek, TOS production design (in Enterprise, Relics, DS9 Tribbles), TOS-movie-era ships and uniform recycling, all of them bled into TNG.

Exactly! You can have the former without it being the later!

 

[Mudd]

TWOK was a reboot. TNG was a reboot. Enterprise was a reboot. AbramsTrek was a reboot.

Rebooting has worked well and repeatedly for Trek; no reason it shouldn't work again.

 

[Jedman67]

Hey everyone! All this talk of things being rewritten got me worried so I went and spot checked my Star Trek collection on DVD. You'll be glad to hear that even with the Kelvin movies on the same shelf, the older stuff is just fine and exactly as it used to be. No worries. It's all still there!!!

Better move the Abrams films to a different shelf just to be safe!

 

[Jedman67]

Exactly! You can have the former without it being the later!

Discovery is purported to be a total reboot, based on what's been described so far by TPTB. They want it to kinda-sorta stick to the Prime Timeline mainly to let the Kelvin franchise go on in its own direction.
Don't expect it to keep continuity with anything produced previously under the Star Trek brand for several reasons:
1) it's out of date
2) All the TV series of Star Trek performed decently in their captive markets, all of them had to struggle a bit - especially ENT and VOY,
3) visual aesthetics have changed considerably since Enterprise went off the air, let alone TOS, TNG, DS9/VOY.
TV storytelling has matured.
4) Canon is king - to an extant. It's been 50 years since Star Trek first went on the air. With six shows, 10 movies - half of which performed poorly at the box office - and essentially a new generation being the target audience, Canon/consistency to the source material becomes difficult and unwieldy when trying to make a new show from scratch.

Which leads to - since they are throwing out canon (except perhaps in the most superficial sense) and consistency of EVERYTHING that's come before, creating new visual style - therefore it's a reboot.

 

[Mr Awe]

^ Last I heard, they decided to stick with the Prime timeline, which means they're not throwing it out. But, they indicated they'd update the visual style, which makes complete sense given the time that has gone by. So, same timeline but with a new visual style.

 

[captainkirk]

What Fuller said was that it could go in either universe but they didn't want to conflict with anything that happens in the movies, so they chose Prime. However at the same time he said that they would be updating the look of everything.
I had an idea about how to interpret it, depending on exactly when DSC is set. If it's after the destruction of the Kelvin and before the destruction of Vulcan, perhaps we could argue that it is actually set in the Kelvin-timeline.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Plot twist: "Prime universe" doesn't refer to the TOS continuity, but the Discovery one. Old Spock and Nero are from that future.

 

[captainkirk]

Well people have argued before that since we hardly ever saw Vulcans in TNG that it actually takes place in the Kelvin-timeline. And that Enterprise takes place in a new timeline created by the events of First Contact. The bottom line though is that Star Trek continuity is a bit of a mess and it's next to impossible to keep it all coherent.

 

[a thousand-yard stare]

Well people have argued before that since we hardly ever saw Vulcans in TNG that it actually takes place in the Kelvin-timeline. And that Enterprise takes place in a new timeline created by the events of First Contact. The bottom line though is that Star Trek continuity is a bit of a mess and it's next to impossible to keep it all coherent.

Pro-ret-pro-conning across three timelines and the real world.

Berman and Braga - Men Like Gods...

 

[cultcross]

Last I heard, they decided to stick with the Prime timeline

Well, only by default really. They're 'not in the Kelvin timeline' so they don't have to stay true to what the movies do, so they're in Prime because that's the only other one. But in reality, what's on screen is unlikely to resemble the 'Prime' timeline as many are taking it to mean. It will be a fresh interpretation of Star Trek as TNG was, ENT was and JJTrek was.

 

[BillJ]

Well people have argued before that since we hardly ever saw Vulcans in TNG that it actually takes place in the Kelvin-timeline.

Except they went to the planet Vulcan in "Sarek" and "Gambit II".

 

[captainkirk]

Except they went to the planet Vulcan in "Sarek" and "Gambit II".

Well I don't subscribe to that theory, but as I understand it the people who do suggest that it's actually New Vulcan and since it's been their home for over a century they've started calling it Vulcan.

 

[BillJ]

Well I don't subscribe to that theory, but as I understand it the people who do suggest that it's actually New Vulcan and since it's been their home for over a century they've started calling it Vulcan.

With as many long lived races as there are in the galaxy, it wouldn't be logical to revert to the original name and create confusion.

Plus, all the references to TOS used visual cues from that show.