Star Trek Discovery Renewed For Season 3

I am just saying the scope of "Star Trek" in this episode is pretty limited. One person lived a long lifetime in a dream and got a flute. Federation got history archive of a long dead planet. It's good, but not great. The Inner Light is a great example of the whole being greater than sum of it's parts. It's GREAT because of Stewart, the plot is nothing special. He showed off the range of acting, emoting, everything that makes and actor great. Anyone else (think SMG) would have made it nothing worth remembering.

 

I agree that Stewart's acting elevated it, but I think the plot would have worked just as well on the page (with or without the tiny bit of Star Trek framing. A retrospective of someone's life till old age will be emotionally resonant regardless because it taps into human universals, and it's hard not to feel with the whole "slowly dying culture" trope.

It's also worth noting that one of the cowriters (Peter Allan Fields) was responsible in part for many of the best episodes in DS9, including Duet, Necessary Evil, and In The Pale Moonlight. Thus I really can't say that the writing was "nothing special."

 

Jett Reno would like to apply some duct tape to the holes in that statement. But.. what if Jett Reno is Burnham in disguise?! In any case you're wrong about that and you probably know it.

But for the purpose of discussion Burnham, while exceptional, has been an exceptionally flawed character in many cases. She's caused problems, made existing problems worse. She's not perfect and that makes her interesting. Or you can just hate her. Either way.

There is also a video on YouTube of a cat singing "Old Don Piano" in recognizable English and one of a quinceanara doll coming to life and scaring its owner. Thankfully careful editing and lack of context are the keystones of proper understanding. Let me hurry this up as there are a lot of dashboard crash videos I want to view to ascertain how well people drive, country by country.

Landry had it coming. Prime Landry is one of the most foolish characters in Trek until the prophesied arrival of saint Connolly, may he ride the asteroids forever.

Star trek is a show about exceptional people. One would imagine due to the high stakes involved, the important star trek ships are filled with exceptional people and the fools fall into the garbage disposal very quickly.

 

Stewart exists on another level where acting is concerned. Probably the best actor Trek has ever seen, and I have an intense love of the work Shatner and Nimoy did.

I can like Ryan Tannehill as a Quarterback, it doesn't mean he works on the same level as Dan Marino.

 

Come on Travis was a great pilot and Harry was... ah.... Lemme get back to you.

 

I think there's a few stars in the franchise who could have pulled it off effectively, pretty much all of them being in the cast of DS9, though, or say, Chris Plummer. Stewart existed on a different level because, excluding DS9 and TOS as the least of this, we got a whole lot of daytime soap level acting across the franchise.

 

The CONSUMMATE Ensign<--- Which was why (as I understand it) he was never promoted above said rank in 7 years.

 

Personally, I'd say Brent Spiner is better than Stewart in acting ability; and overall I would still place Shatner above him in acting ability as well. Yes Shatner 'chews scenery' but hey Stewart 'speechifies' practically every time he delivers more than one sentence of dialogue.

Bot Shatner and Stewart were more classically trained, and BOTH did A LOT of Shakespeare in their early careers.

 

I just think it is tough to hold Martin-Green to the standards of Spiner, Stewart, Shatner or Nimoy (regardless of the order we individually place them). Especially with the material they've given her to work with. Being tagged as Spock's big sister would be pretty tough to pull off even with the best of material.

 

I'm actually one of those people who thinks Shatner is absolutely top-notch. The man is an extremely talented entertainer. He may not have the gravitas of Stewart or the versatility of Spiner, but he's loaded with magnetic charisma and he just fucking entertains.

I think, for all the criticisms he gets for over acting and being a ham....he actually is an excellent actor in the area of subtleties as well. In TMP, he does some subtle physical things that just totally sell his state of mind in that moment, for example. In TWOK, I always love how, after he gets the "I'm Dr. Marcus" declaration as he battles David, he walks to Carol and his fist remains balled up and ready to deliver a blow...even after the fight is over. He has some tremendous moments in TSFS ("David is dead") and his "I need my pain" lines in TFF are brilliant too.

Guy is a fucking rock star and a virtual superhero with his energy and drive at this age, and he doesn't get NEAR enough serious credit.

 

YOU MONSTER!

 

He is talented in that 30s born Canadian kind of way which can be pretty damn universally entertaining.

 

Oh, come on, have you not Seen Brent in his "Fresh Hell" series?

 

Spiner is middling at best. Hollywood is full of people who could do his job.

Shatner was exceptional in BL. But the role was as tailor-made for him as one of Denny Crane's suits and limited to a few punctuational scenes per episode. Playing opposite Spader and Bergen didn't exactly hurt either. Other than that, his career was turbulent (See what I did there?) to say the least. I'm as much of a fan of a good Shatnerism as anyone, but his portrayal of Kirk only worked because of Nimoy.

Pat Stewart, however, is a once in a lifetime talent.

 

Interesting how folks who have never acted a day in their life, think that they are the final arbitrator as to someone else's talent.
Your just a couch critic, and any assertations you may espouse, are not worth much in the grand scheme of things.

You can say in your opinion you don't like the way a particular person has portrayed a character/role, but you have no authority to declare how good or bad it is, without actually trying it for yourself and succeeding or failing on your own merits.
Then you MIGHT be able to make a informed judgement.
(but at that point you'd probably realize that it's not as easy as you may think)

Hollywood Producers with the responsibility of creating Multi-Million Dollar shows and/or movies do not on the whole hire "bad" Actors.
(and if they do, it's usually discovered long before any of us see any of their product, and dealt with)

Many of the Professional Actors that are being compared in this thread, have been PAID to do what they do for decades.
And many of them began in Professional Shakespearean Theater Company's where only the Good Ones Survive.
NONE of them would still be getting Paid Roles if they weren't more than competent at it.

Again, you may not care for the way a particular role is being portrayed, but you certainly may not define your assertions as being factual.

 

Huh? How is this any different from the way marketing has always been done? From the beginnings of TV marketing, it has always been about associating identity with products. That's why you never saw racial minorities used to sell anything on TV, the reason you saw women promote kitchen supplies and appliances exclusively, and no obvious LGBTQ folks at all.

But now, because marketing has been expanded to aspects of communities it used to ignore, it's gets a special name like "Woke Brands"? Total BS.

Did the doc explain why it considered marketing to, and consumption by, the LGBT community to be "political"? Seems to me that in the old days of TV marketing, using straight (appearing) white men to sell to the wealthy and "cool", is no less "political" than marketing today to reach racial minorities, women (cars, sports equipment etc). If you think it's different please explain why.

So, when Nike ran that ad with Colin Kaepernick, it was not Nike simply reaching out to their core demographic using a person considered an iconic figure to that demo? Nike's core demo and others who respected, loved, and related, to Kap went out and bought the hell out of Nike gear. I don't see how using a controversial and arguably political figure to sell your product is any different from the cult of personality method of selling marketers have always used on TV.

So, this doc is claiming that even though the marketing appears to be directed at minorities and women, the real purpose is to piss off conservatives? The doc doesn't think the purpose of a commercial featuring a gay couple, or minority, is calculated simply to sell products to those people the same way the Marlboro Man was used to sell cigarettes to "cool", straight (appearing) white men? It's all being done to piss off conservative white people. That is a ridiculous claim.

I can't say that there hasn't been a company or perhaps even more than one company, that may have done some of the type of marketing described in this doc, but most of this sounds like more alt-right hogwash.

 

Anything that caters to maintaining the status quo, reinforces strict gender roles, or panders mainly to white, straight males as the default consumers = not political.

Supposedly.

It just goes to show how ingrained and insidious the conditioning at a societal level is. As soon as other people's stories start getting told more often, as soon as marketing gets directed at other demographics, as soon as other consumers start getting their tastes and expectations catered to....OH NO IT'S FORCED POLITICIZATION OF MUH ENTERTAINMENT and a bad thing.

 

The argument is more that, as adblockers and DVRs have gained widespread use, corporations have begun to deliberately trigger conservatives and alt-right types by embracing "woke" messages, not out of a desire to "expanded to aspects of communities it used to ignore" but to make themselves the subject of social media furors. You can't be adblocked if alt-righters and the left wing folks they target do the marketing for you by yelling about your brand!

The aforementioned HBomber whose video was referenced is a left-wing YouTuber who identifies as a socialist and has partnerd with other progressive media analysts such as Dan Olson of Folding Ideas and Lindsay Ellis of...herself. So don't think the critique is coming from some place of wanting to marginalize PoCs or minority communities. It come from frustration and anger with how corporate capital is manipulating a battle over the shape of our culture for it's own ends, without concern about the effect it's having beyond what those efdects do for their profits.

Personally, I find it a compelling view as it lines up with things I started to notice about the marketing of Marvel and Star Wars movies versus their actual contents – specifically the claims made at panels and on social media that various characters are bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise non-binary that is then not supported at all in the texts of the movies themselves. I can't help but notice that it whips social media into a frenzy over the progressive wokeness, while not putting anything in the films that could alienate Billy Joe Bob in Alabama or any of the censors in the Chinese government. Because Disney still wants their dollars too, you see, and they're perfectly happy to inflame cultural divisions online to get it. They have no loyalty, no ethics, and no real commitment to liberal values beyond what nets them $$$.

 

You make good points, but these are companies and corporations. Of course they will be looking for free publicity via social media. It's part of their marketing strategy which, surprise, surprise is aimed at increased profits.

It's of course a cynical endeavor, but I don't think people are expecting these companies to be doing what they're doing for purely altruistic reasons. For the most part they are based in capitalist societies, where the bottom dollar still rules supreme. The expectation that for-profit corporations should only change their marketing strategies and content if their motives are based on true social justice and wanting to better society just seems a tad naive to me.

If expanding diversity and upping the voices and representation of minorities in entertainment can only be implemented because corporations finally see the $$$ in doing so, then so be it. It still means more diverse stories being told and heard. It still means I'm more likely to see media which caters to me for once, thus having more choices as to how to spend my money. It still means more opportunity for those who used to be passed by because of their identity. It still means some people used to the way things were will be faced with new 'norms' and have their comfort levels challenged.

And they can still choose not to consume that product/media anymore, if they don't like it.

I'm okay with that.

It seems weird to me that people assert how old Star Trek greatly influenced their childhood or gave them certain values on the one hand, and then argue that now that Discovery is pushing similar societal boundaries again, it's just a cynical cash grab this time.

TOS was no different. TNG was no different. DS9 was no different. The bottom-line is still what drives these shows. The fan idealization of Gene and his Star Trek Vision (tm) makes me a bit nauseous at times. I personally think that Trek became great franchise despite his influence, not because of it.

I guess what I am trying to say, and probably very badly, DISCO can be a primarily for-profit enterprise while still making waves in ways which can benefit society as a whole in how it views itself. It's not a zero sum game.