Spoilers Lower Decks General Discussion Thread

Only if the merchandising gets better. They got a long way to go before that happens.

 

I have determined, after much internal thought and debate, that this isn't something that excites me too much. I will, of course, check out the first several episodes with an open mind.

 

That's a false choice, there is a huge middle ground between just repeating the TNG formula like Voyager did and trying to turn Star Trek into Futurama or Rick and Morty.

 

Feh...they're trying something new and I applaud them for it. I just hope it's good and, ergo, successful. They're will always be those who claim that it's "raping their childhood", blah blah whatever. If it sucks they'll quickly kill it and it will be relegated deep beneath TAS, which will then likely be raised in prominence in the canon as "how to do animated Trek".

 

As someone who experimented with animated sketch comedy Trek fan-films, I think this is a good idea and thought it was only a matter of time before we saw it. However, I hope it isn't done stick-figure style ala Rick & Morty. I would prefer it done in CGI.

At the end of the day, though, I'm wondering whether, with The Orville entering season 2 and Galaxy Quest in development that the novelty of Trek humor will be lost. Out of all of this I am really looking forward to the GQ series. I think that is the gold-standard and it has the meta- aspect.

 

R&M is pretty far away from "stick-figure style," so I'm not sure what you mean here.

 

Two points about this:
- The US military needs lots of people, lots of young people, to go out and get shot at. Sure they get the best of the available labor pool that they can, but it's not like they are Google recruiting for the best programmers, or MIT accepting applicants. Starfleet, despite the dangers of its military roles, is more of a research/exploratory/diplomatic/problem solving organization.
- It's not clear that there are any non-automated janitorial or similar positions. Sure, there could be, but with the level of automation, AI, replication technology, and general materials technologies, there might be no need for such activities on a starship or starbase - just the need for more engineering staff to maintain those systems. As for food prep, there are replicators, Yoyager didn't even have a common crew mess until Neelix made one, and like we see with Joseph Sisco there are people who still like to do basic activities like food prep provided there is enough personal fulfillment with those activities.

And none of this argues that the people that Starfleet gets are less than stellar. Like I said, they only have to recruit 0.0006% of the available talent pool - they can be 60 times as selective as MIT in terms of applicant quality and still fill all of their needs. Now that would be the world's best janitorial candidate!

I am not convinced that this show will be adult like "Rick and Morty". The showrunner being from R&M could easily make it that way, but his @TNG_S8 account is very family friendly. And since the various news articles disagree and/or are imprecise in describing the show as "adult" comedy - I think we all have to just wait for clarification on family vs adult.

 

Nice to know Michael Dorn got that Captain Worf thing, after all

 

Come on. The arms in R&M look like pipe-cleaners. Rick & Morty style art, however you classify it, is simply unsuitable for Trek, even comedy Trek. It looks even cheaper to produce than Filmation was. It works for that sort of show, but not for Trek. I'm worried that CBS is looking to just bang something out on the cheap and hiding cheapness under the banner of ("lighten up!, it's a comedy!") is one way to get away with it.

 

Starfleet is a military. Just because it also does things like exploration and research doesn't make it less military, as these are all things militaries have done and in some cases still do.

Voyager had a mess hall in Caretaker, seen while the ship is still in the Alpha Quadrant. It just didn't have a galley in it, and instead featured a wall of replicators in its place.

 

It always had the Mess Hall, but the area Neelix setup his Galley in, was the Captain's Private Dining Room

 

Why do you assume the drawing style of Justin Roiland will be the standard for the new series? Or for any animated series not created by Roiland?

 

Well there is nothing saying this new series won't be family friendly.

 

Well, I'm absolutely taking the descirption of "adult-oriented" (in a Rick-and-Morty kind of way) with a huuge grain of salt. Nothing in StarTrek.com's description matches that.

That being said: The concept of following "lower decks"-crew members on a fantastic starship - the weird mixture of mundane jobs in a crazy environment - really seems like it's aimed at a more meta-friendly crowd.

For an animated kids-show (which was my original assumption), I would have expect a more straight-forward concept (like "Pike and Spocks further adventures - animated"), instead of something like "Star Trek meets The Office".

 

I don't think CBS All-Access is aimed at preteens, so I suspect Lower Decks will be aimed at the same kind of general audience that the original animated series was. Adult in as much as "not young children" rather than "Rick and Morty"

 

CBS has openly said they want to start a sausage-factory of Trek shows. I doubt they want to spend what it takes to give this a high budget look. Heck, even Star Wars: Resistance looks cheap as heck and Disney has a lot more resources than CBS. So while it may not look like R&M per se, I predict it is going to look just as cheap. Maybe it will look something like this, realistic proportions but cheep. I'll be happy to be proven wrong, though.

 

"Sausage factory"? What an oddly peculiar choice of words on their part...

 

I disagree.

 

Then I guess our discussion has come to an end as our metrics are vastly different.

 

It's one thing to create an animated series in which the producers are trying to take it seriously as a full-fledged canon show (think: the Japanese Space Battleship Yamato series). It's another thing if the producers just want to make some goofy crap without a whole lot of thought behind it (think: the Spaceballs animated series). The first thing that will be sacrificed in a situation like that is the animation style. Why spend lots of money on first-rate animation if they just consider the show to be a big joke?