Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 2x04 - "Watcher"

[Jayson1]

None of that is important to the story they're telling or they would have done it.

It's not just about story it's about texture. It's about making a scene come to alive and feel realistic. I do know Trek does have a history of characters just standing next to each other talking with their hands to the side and instead of moving the camera around or finding ways to make something more realistic they just rely on bunch of close ups and those over the shoulder shots. Character details or maybe you want to call them idiosyncrasies can enhance a story by making it feel realistic.

You know with different framing and writing I could even buy into this guy using a taser because he is a bully but only if you make him feel like a real bully and the situation feel like a real situation instead of a tv one. I could also buy it they were going for a more surreal approach. One of those things were style supplants realism but they weren't doing that either.

 

[jackoverfull]

I do know Trek does have a history of characters just standing next to each other talking with their hands to the side and instead of moving the camera around or finding ways to make something more realistic they just rely on bunch of close ups and those over the shoulder shots.

Please stop moving the camera around like they often do on discovery: it doesn't make the shot "more realistic", it makes me feel seasick. Have the characters do stuff, if you have to…Or just write interesting dialogue.

You know with different framing and writing I could even buy into this guy using a taser because he is a bully but only if you make him feel like a real bully and the situation feel like a real situation instead of a tv one.

You seem under the impression that these things don't happen in reality. The problem is that the DO. A lot.

 

[eschaton]

In my opinion, how we treat each other and how we treat our planet cannot be truly separated from each other, specifically because we're not conserving the planet for our own selves but for everyone. Ultimately, global warming is just as much a symptom of humanity being on the wrong path as economic and political issues and stems from the same internal logic of the current system that places consumption and the material gain of the individual before everything else. In 2022, a truly just society cannot allow itself not to be green as well.

I mean, I don't disagree, I just think that "modern progressive politics is logically and morally correct in all of its particularities" isn't really the most hard-hitting message they could have here. One or two issues at a time is far more impactful.

 

[eschaton]

Please stop moving the camera around like they often do on discovery: it doesn't make the shot "more realistic", it makes me feel seasick. Have the characters do stuff, if you have to…Or just write interesting dialogue.

I actually did like the 360 degree rotation they did around Renee Picard though at the end of the episode. I usually hate those things when they serve literally no purpose, but here it made things seem queasy and "off" in some manner - particularly because the camera behaved in a way that we do not expect cameras to be able to.

 

[jackoverfull]

I actually did like the 360 degree rotation they did around Renee Picard though at the end of the episode. I usually hate those things when they serve literally no purpose, but here it made things seem queasy and "off" in some manner - particularly because the camera behaved in a way that we do not expect cameras to be able to.

oh, I don’t mind if it happens now and then, it’s the continuous rotation that happens in many discovery episodes (most notable many directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi) that irks me.

 

[gweeps]

I actually did like the 360 degree rotation they did around Renee Picard though at the end of the episode. I usually hate those things when they serve literally no purpose, but here it made things seem queasy and "off" in some manner - particularly because the camera behaved in a way that we do not expect cameras to be able to.

This, the score, and Q's voiceover made the scene unnerving as hell.

I hope Thompson directs more episodes.

 

[Jayson1]

Please stop moving the camera around like they often do on discovery: it doesn't make the shot "more realistic", it makes me feel seasick. Have the characters do stuff, if you have to…Or just write interesting dialogue.

You seem under the impression that these things don't happen in reality. The problem is that the DO. A lot.

If all it took to make interesting art was to capture things that happen in real life it would be easy for anyone to do it. All one would have to do is just start filming things with their phone. It still has to be dramatic and the actors have to do a good job and all of that. If you want to show a bully using a taser on someone you still have to make it so it's not boring to watch.

I understand what people are saying but I don't understand why the sentiment isn't more along the lines of. "I like what they were going for by showing us the cruelty of ICE but they just didn't do it that well." Unless of course people actually think they did do a good job but then that goes back to art being subjective.

 

[jackoverfull]

If all it took to make interesting art was to capture things that happen in real life it would be easy for anyone to do it. All one would have to do is just start filming things with their phone.

they tried that, it doesn’t work. And it wasn’t me who said things needed to be made “more realistic” by moving around the camera.

If you want to show a bully using a taser on someone you still have to make it so it's not boring to watch

wasn't boring to me. It was a very brief scene done perfectly well imho and totally fitting with the situation.

 

[Jayson1]

they tried that, it doesn’t work. And it wasn’t me who said things needed to be made “more realistic” by moving around the camera.

wasn't boring to me. It was a very brief scene done perfectly well imho and totally fitting with the situation.

Moving the camera was just one idea and I wasn't just talking about shaky cam. I am talking about things like tracking shots or even without the camera moving how about creating more movement in the characters. Basically making sure a scene isn't static with just people standing around saying lines to each other. That is what I was going for. As for not being boring I am glad you liked it. Just didn't work for me.

 

[BillJ]

I do wonder if Guinan might be an ex-Q that renounced most of her powers at some point and settled on El-Auria?

 

[137th Gebirg]

And the father that she mentioned in "Time's Arrow" may be her adopted father? Possibly. Outside of being a "good listener", Tolian Soran never seemed to demonstrate a similar catalog of abilities that Guinan has.

 

[Kevman7987]

I hope at some point Whoopi's Guinan appears again and stabs Q with a fork again.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I'd like to see what this was all about...


Does Guinan actually have the ability to go toe-to-toe in a fight with Q?

 

[BillJ]

Does Guinan actually have the ability to go toe-to-toe in a fight with Q?

I imagine if she's a former Q, there'd be quite a grudge there. Especially since they would've likely clouded her vision on the future of El-Auria, leaving her to the tender mercies of the Borg.

I do wonder why the Gary Mitchell Appreciation Society seem to dislike her so much?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'd like to see what this was all about...
View attachment 26948

Does Guinan actually have the ability to go toe-to-toe in a fight with Q?

She's five seconds from unleashing Force Lightning

Hold on

I'm being informed that's a different franchise.

 

[fireproof78]

She's five seconds from unleashing Force Lightning

Hold on

I'm being informed that's a different franchise.

Star Trek did it first.

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[Nerys Myk]

Star Trek did it first.

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Darth Mitchell.

 

[Timofnine]

I hope at some point Whoopi's Guinan appears again and stabs Q with a fork again.

This scene horrified me as a child! I never understood why this black women was stabbing one of my favourite recurring characters! But now I’m thinking maybe she had a good reason to fork him? Did Q have something to do with the Borg assimilation of her people perhaps, he loved to introduce people to the Borg! Maybe he is the collective consciousness pimp? Even I would stab him with a fork if he was somehow involved in that! Maybe a spin off series can explain Guinan’s hatred of Q, starring young Guinan and Seven of Nine with a recast young Q!

My next question is why are people being ‘disappeared’ in episode 02x04? Is this like a code word or politically correct (we all know how politically correct Star Trek is!) way of saying that people are being secretly disposed of or even killed/hunted for fun as they are undocumented thus no accountability for their deaths? Or are they taking the undocumented and putting them in to a type of 1930’s style ‘concentration camp’? Either way it all sounds a bit sinister to me….

Where is Gabriel Bell or Benjamin Sisko when you need him the most???

I have just worked something out as a random addendum to this post…..

Benjamin Sisko never travelled back in time to start the Bell riots just like the Times Arrow Guinan encounter never happened as a result of Q’s meddling…

 

[BillJ]

Benjamin Sisko never travelled back in time to start the Bell riots just like the Times Arrow Guinan encounter never happened as a result of Q’s meddling…

Well, they never got the original Gabriel Bell killed, so he kept his place in the timeline.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But now I’m thinking maybe she had a good reason to fork him?

Of course....

Guinan forked Q!​

It's canon.