Starfleet Academy General Discussion Thread

[Michael]

Exclusive: Director Jonathan Frakes Talks “Lots Of Levity” In ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’

The Trek vet also talked about Academy stars Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti.

trekmovie.com

Could be good, could be bad.

Agreed. I guess it really depends on whether the jokes / humor they incorporated into the scrips is actually going to be funny or not. Humor is of course a very subjective thing, so I can only go by what I find funny in Trek. I loved the comedy of Lower Decks (so it will be interesting to see if Tawny Newsome being part of the writer’s room has a noticeable impact), and Strange New Worlds’ jokes make me chuckle more often than not. I can’t remember having any hearty laughs when watching Discovery or Picard, though, so if the humor is similar to those shows I’m not sure how well I’ll like it.

 

[eschaton]

Late to the party, but I'm not sure that I agree that Starfleet Academy is just a military academy. The TNG episode Coming of Age shows a pretty rigorous written text for examination, implying that pretty much everyone who is in Starfleet are MENSA level. Not that military academies are full of dullards, mind you, but the Academy seems to simultaneously be the most prestigious university in the Federation (or, at least, in the Earth/human focused part) and be military.

Which is why I'm a bit nervous regarding the cast, TBH - or more honestly, the characters. The kids should mostly occupy a giant nerd to tryhard spectrum, given this is supposed to be the best and brightest. I'm worried that in an effort to make them more relatable, they'll (for lack of a better way to put it) dumb them down a bit.

 

[Set Harth]

The TNG episode Coming of Age shows a pretty rigorous written text for examination, implying that pretty much everyone who is in Starfleet are MENSA level.

Which should have immediately elicited from anyone who has ever watched Star Trek.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Do you think there are people who attend it planning not to stay in Starfleet from the start, then, or at least put in a minimum tour of duty and use the Academy as a stepping stone to go elsewhere?

 

[eschaton]

Do you think there are people who attend it planning not to stay in Starfleet from the start, then, or at least put in a minimum tour of duty and use the Academy as a stepping stone to go elsewhere?

I think it's important to remember that while we tend to only see Starfleet officers who are on ships, the vast majority of Starfleet operations are certainly either on starbases or planetside. This is particularly the case given nothing like private military contractors (or hell, a private sector in general) exists, meaning all basic research, R&D, and construction is done directly by Starfleet.