Spoilers Strange New Worlds General Discussion Thread

[NCC-73515]

Lot of posts in just 19 h that are quite worthy of a response. I'll shorten them as much as I can...

You keep arguing based on the assumption that canon is something that can be "violated", that if something becomes a part of it, then it is "established", and anything that would contradict that specific part (like the Enterprise looking one specific way at one specific point of the timeline) would then contradict the canon itself.
That's unfortunately not how it works. Something is either part of the canon because it is declared to be a part of it by the holder of the copyright, or it isn't.

a simpler example: everything trekcore shows on their screencaps pages is canonical, because they are screencaps of the very thing that makes up the canon.
a contradiction is a contradiction, even when both versions are part of the canon. the old and new testaments are quite different, and yet both are part of the bible. where did I say that something that contradicts previous canon information is not canonical itself?

As an aside, I find it particularly strange that fans who grew up with TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise and have expressed a disdain for TOS would choose to fight so hard to protect the 60's visual continuity as if it were some Holy Grail to be protected.

I like TNG, VOY, and DS9 more than TOS and ENT, but I only disliked TOS when I was a kid. And if TOS hadn't been the same in its appearances in TNG, DS9, and ENT, but they had already changed it back then, perhaps looking different in each of the appearances, the discussion would've happened back then. It's them breaking with the tradition now that any new appearance of TOS would still look like TOS that creates the whole debate now.

I wish people could just enter into this in the same frame of mind that some of us have with the novels, or the comics, or what some of us did each time a new show diverted from our own perception of how the canon fits together: just roll with it.

Novels and comics and games never had to fit and never were expected to. People can roll with it and still express their desires. I'll watch all episodes immediately when they come out, and will probably watch many of them several times (unless they turn out like those in Disco S3 and 4, which I mostly only watched once). Wishing for A doesn't mean that B is the end of the world, or destruction of a holy grail, or whatever some people like to call it.

What I would have done - not that anyone asked but hey, that's what this board was designed for - was do more or less what ENT did for the TOS Defiant.

TOS tech was so futuristic in so many respects I can totally buy some blinking Jolly Rancher buttons on a console doing far above and beyond what real life, modern day computer keyboards accomplishing or even what we saw in ENT.

One-up that with more touchscreens on the blinking indicator light displays and constantly changing information readouts and images on the duty station upper monitors and you have a 1966 design that works very, very well in the 2020s.

Exactly. Show that the jelly buttons are holographic interfaces that can be pushed, squeezed, turned, twisted, pulled, etc. Much more than just a button. It takes 3 seconds to show something like that. TNG also didn't have labels you could read on the TV screen. I only know some of the buttons on the bridge consoles because I love LCARS in general, looked at them in detail, printed and painted my own to play with, etc.

I have three main issues with the DSC Enterprise when compared to the TOS version: the slanted pylons, the size of the bridge and the Discovery viewscreen.
We’ll see if they address any of them.

Mine are the pylons and the compressed neck. Bridge modules changed in every movie, so they are apparently regularly changed in-universe

Yep. Whatever other disagreements we have on Trek tech those turbolift shafts in DSC are so bad they're either deliberate trolls on the part of the producers to have fun with the hardcore nerds or they're one of the dumbest concepts to come out of Trek in the entire width and breadth of the franchise. Either way they're best to ignore.

What if Fuller wanted them? Then there's a very good reason for them!

It seems like many people are more concerned with canon and, the horrors of horrors, something looking like it might have come from the 1960's than they are with good storytelling.

Yes, it's often the same people who say stories and characters are what matters and looks are just window dressing, but at the same time the looks are pretty damn important to them.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old or apathetic? In my younger days, seeing a redesigned Enterprise or a reimagined 23rd century design aesthetic probably would have triggered me into writing entire walls of text here going on about how utterly wrong it is and that it's a betrayal of the Spirit of Star Trek or something. Hell, I'd have done that as recently as five to ten years ago.

I like that - it means I'm simply staying young

Yeah, but TV series like Star Trek go to a lot of effort and expense to convince you that everything that you're seeing actually is real and you're encouraged to play along and willingly suspend your disbelief. The Enterprise absolutely is real, at least during the hour or so that I'm watching TV, and its general appearance has been established.

And you can see it in the Smithsonian of all places, among the most important planes and spacecraft in real history.

 

[fireproof78]

Yes, it's often the same people who say stories and characters are what matters and looks are just window dressing, but at the same time the looks are pretty damn important to them.

Yes, because I want to grow the fanbase not appeal to diehard fans.

And you can see it in the Smithsonian of all places, among the most important planes and spacecraft in real history.

It still doesn't have real history. It's fake, mutable, and can change if decided it's a part of the story.

 

[Tuskin38]

The Strange New Worlds Enterprise looks like the toy your parents got you because it was cheaper than the proper one and they couldn't tell the difference.

It looks like an evolution of the design, just like the Refit.

The DSC Enterprise bridge has both touch screen and jelly switches.

https://twitter.com/TrekCore/status/1194369409986506754

And it looks like they kept them for SNW (and I think those might be library tapes to the top left of the circle?)

Fun fact, those jelly switches were given to them by the TOS Set Tour people up in Ticonderoga.

 

[cooleddie74]

I have issues with the DSC and SNW Enterprise bridge but those jelly buttons are gorgeous and make those consoles shine so much. I love how bright and retro they are and they're almost precise replicas of the originals.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I have to be honest, my main issue with the SNW Enterprise bridge is that the screens showing the blinky indicators are above the big monitor screens and only a Kelpian would be tall enough to have a hope of reading what they're indicating. They're supposed to be making the bridge more practical and believable, not less! Also those bright lights on every console might make the actors look better, but it doesn't help when they're trying to see what buttons to press. It's a good thing they're all physical jelly buttons or else they'd never be able to find them with their hands.

Anyway I don't want to be negative about Star Trek, I love Star Trek and I'm sure I'll come to like Pike's Enterprise as well. (Just as long as they don't end the finale with a message saying "THE ENTERPRISE WAS DIRECTLY PASSED ONTO CAPTAIN KIRK WITHOUT A REFIT AND THE SHIP CARRIED ON LOOKING EXACTLY LIKE THIS THROUGHOUT HIS FIVE YEAR MISSION. THIS IS CANON NOW".)

 

[F. King Daniel]

For me seeing the Enterprise reinterpreted is like seeing a 1940s Spitfire reinterpreted for the 21st century. Or a banana reinterpreted for the 21st century. I want to see it in more detail not less accuracy!

On the left is a banana as the Gene Roddenberry-like God intended. On the right is the cultivated banana that the Alex Kurtzman-like Man developed.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Well, uh, obviously I was referring to the banana that was designed by man!

 

[BillJ]

Yes, because I want to grow the fanbase not appeal to diehard fans.

I’ve been around when the fan base increased and when it decreased, and honestly just don’t care either way. Neither are important to my enjoyment of the product.

Besides, the way they are writing the shows, they are driving hard for the hardcore fan. The reason they changed the Enterprise has nothing to do with art or expanding the fan base, it is so they have a new trinket to sell to those hardcore fans.

 

[dupersuper]

What is so sinful about filling a hole

The church insists you wait until marriage.

 

[Noname Given]

They just took inspiration from The Final Frontier. Since when does the Enterprise has 78 decks?

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That was done after Gallifrey joined the Federation.

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm going on record again to say I like the TOS Enterprise bridge better than the DSC Enterprise bridge. But it's just not a deal-breaker. This is what I said before.

I'm not too keen on the DSC Enterprise Bridge.

Technically it does what it's supposed to do: it mashes up the TOS Style with the DSC Style, and does it just about evenly. I just don't think it's that great of a combination. And it's way too busy-looking. I don't hate it and I won't mind seeing it in SNW, but it's not a favorite of mine.

Even in Real Life, I don't like when things look too cluttered and too busy.

And why isn't it a deal-breaker for me? Two things.

First

An oldie but a goodie: They should just say there are three Star Trek timelines and be done with it. Arguments about visual continuity resolved on the Official Record.

The Kelvin Timeline
The Classic Timeline (mid-23rd Century looks like TOS)
The Prime Timeline (mid-23rd Century looks like SNW and the first two seasons of DSC)

Second

I think "They messed up continuity!" is another way of saying "I don't like it!" I can prove it too, because I've been on both sides of the fence. So I'm someone who actually knows how both sides think.

In 2001, I didn't like ENT and I made a big deal about how much it looked like Berman Trek and how little it looked like TOS. Even though intellectually I knew ENT couldn't look like series from the '60s and that there was more than 100 years in-continuity for the look of ENT to sync up with the look of TOS. There was plenty of room to work with. Didn't matter. I still took issue with it.

In 2017, all of a sudden that went completely out the window. I loved DSC. I thought it was the best Star Trek since DS9 ended. Period. And then how much I liked the series grew even more from there. It was 10 years before TOS. No room to work with at all for visual continuity. So I said, "It's a visual reboot!" and moved on. I was too busy enjoying the show.

If you like something, you'll look the other way. If you don't, you won't.

So everything's been resolved in my head, I've moved on (even if others haven't) and, for me, I consider it to be a dead issue.

Sorry for all the cutting-and-pasting but, like I said, there isn't anything here that I haven't said before.

EDITED TO ADD: And even if they were to be slavishly loyal to exactly how the Enterprise was depicted in the 1960s, it still wouldn't look like the Enterprise in Regular TOS. It would look like the Enterprise in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", given that SNW Season 1 probably takes place in 2260.

 

[BillJ]

Sorry for all the cutting-and-pasting but, like I said, there isn't anything here that I haven't said before.

Okay?

 

[Lord Garth]

Okay?

Gotta work in the one-liner, don't you?

 

[BillJ]

Gotta work in the one-liner, don't you?

Better than trying to stifle discussion...

 

[fireproof78]

And even if they were to be slavishly loyal to exactly how the Enterprise was depicted in the 1960s, it still wouldn't look like the Enterprise in Regular TOS. It would look like the Enterprise in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", given that SNW Season 1 probably takes place in 2260.

Agreed. To me slavish adherence basically begs the question of why create this thing in the first place?

I’ve been around when the fan base increased and when it decreased, and honestly just don’t care either way. Neither are important to my enjoyment of the product.

Besides, the way they are writing the shows, they are driving hard for the hardcore fan. The reason they changed the Enterprise has nothing to do with art or expanding the fan base, it is so they have a new trinket to sell to those hardcore fans.

I don't agree.

 

[BillJ]

I don't agree.

You can buy the DSC version on Eaglemoss' website for $60. I should know, I have one sitting on my shelf.

Never underestimate studio greed and fan stupidity.

 

[Mudd]

I blanched at the annunciators being misplaced because it suggests that the designers didn't understand the function they were supposed to represent.

Generally though I think the new version of the TOS bridge is magnificent. It's the CG model of the ship that's clumsy and mediocre.

 

[cooleddie74]

If you pay attention the DSC annunciator/indicator light readouts are actually lower-tech than the TOS sets'. They don't blink in the appearances we've seen thus far. They're just static light rectangles. TOS may have been little more than blinking light bulbs behind a wood and glass prop but they actually shifted and moved and were in constant rotation on the set.

 

[fireproof78]

If you pay attention the DSC annunciator/indicator light readouts are actually lower-tech than the TOS sets'. They don't blink in the appearances we've seen thus far. They're just static light rectangles. TOS may have been little more than blinking light bulbs behind a wood and glass prop but they actually shifted and moved and were in constant rotation on the set.

Yes but that honestly doesn't mean a whole lot.

 

[cooleddie74]

Just pointing it out. Frankly none of this means a whole lot as it's all popular fiction but it can be fun and interesting to point out the little details here and there.