The truth about Discovery and the Prime universe.

[cultcross]

I think it's clear by now that Star Trek is not OUR future. In the game of predict-the-future Star Trek lost* a long time ago. It no more needs to hold to OUR vision of the future than Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Firefly.

Well that's blatantly untrue. Star Trek is the only one of those franchises (except possibly firefly depending on your take) overtly presented as being our future. And with some tweaking of technology, still could be. Yes, the older series made predictions which have now been overrun by events, partly because they never imagined anyone would still care in the actual 1990s whether there was a real Eugenics War, but then those issues are part of exactly what I'm talking about - the show needs to adapt to our updated view of tomorrow to stay relevant as an optimistic portrayal of humanity in the future. Why make a show in the 21st century, set in the 23rd century, that is based on the future imagined in the 1960s? That's mad.

What you really means is that it needs to look kewl, neat-o, pew-pew so people who have been programmed with short attention spans don't find something else to watch and we can bombard them with advertising.

Thanks for telling me what I mean. Entirely incorrectly.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I think it's clear by now that Star Trek is not OUR future. In the game of predict-the-future Star Trek lost* a long time ago. It no more needs to hold to OUR vision of the future than Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Firefly.

Star Trek has always pretended to be our future. That's part of the appeal. It's only in the minds of some fans a pro or two that it's some alternate future. ( to make the "wrong" predictions right)That's why when they travel to the past ( be in the 60's, the 80's or the 00's) it looks like our present.

What you really means is that it needs to look kewl, neat-o, pew-pew, with an extra dose of greeblies; so that people who have been programmed since birth with short attention spans don't find something else to watch and we can bombard them with advertising.

No, no one is saying that. So lets leave the generational stereotypes at the door. I was born in 1959 and my attention span is fine as are that of people born decades after me.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

What is it about new shows that makes people so angry at everyone under 30?

 

[Kemaiku]

I'm 32 and they're pretty damn angry at me right now.

 

[Nerys Myk]

What is it about new shows that makes people so angry at everyone under 30?

 

[cultcross]

I have a personal distaste for the trend in movies to be twenty minutes of setup followed by 90 minutes of explosions. I certainly wouldn't wish that on Discovery. But TV hasn't followed suit, streaming TV least of all. So I have little in the way of concern that Discovery will be a mindless shoot em up. What I do hope it is though is a 2017 production based on an optimistic vision of our future as humanity explores strange new worlds and seeks out new life and new civilisations and maybe learns a thing or two about itself along the way. I call that 'Star Trek'.

 

[uniderth]

No, no one is saying that. So lets leave the generational stereotypes at the door. I was born in 1959 and my attention span is fine as are that of people born decades after me.

But that's exactly the stereotypes comments like this engender: "If CBS strictly adhered to the canon and aesthetics of The Original Series in 2020, people in their teens, 20s, and 30s wouldn't give the show a second look and the show absolutely needs people in their teens, 20s, and 30s to watch for it to thrive."

The attitude of "we have to make it look so touchscreen and greeblie or else nobody would watch it." If the stories are good and the acting believable, then it doesn't matter if it looks like '60s Star Trek, '50s Rocky Jones Space Ranger, or shot with a home movie camera in the '90s. So why not go for the bonus points and make it consistent with what has already been established?

 

[Amasov]

Well that's blatantly untrue. Star Trek is the only one of those franchises (except possibly firefly depending on your take) overtly presented as being our future. And with some tweaking of technology, still could be. Yes, the older series made predictions which have now been overrun by events, partly because they never imagined anyone would still care in the actual 1990s whether there was a real Eugenics War, but then those issues are part of exactly what I'm talking about - the show needs to adapt to our updated view of tomorrow to stay relevant as an optimistic portrayal of humanity in the future. Why make a show in the 21st century, set in the 23rd century, that is based on the future imagined in the 1960s? That's mad.

And that, my friend, is a reboot. And I would be totally ok with that; a Star Trek series updated for TODAY that depicts the future as we see it TODAY.

Go make it. Green light.

 

[uniderth]

And that, my friend, is a reboot. And I would be totally ok with that; a Star Trek series updated for TODAY that depicts the future as we see it TODAY.

Go make it. Green light.

Just make sure its no longer than 30 mins in two parts

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The only reason that TOS doesn't look more "modern" with touchscreens and LED screens and even 'splosions, is that there simply wasn't money or the tech sufficient to do it. That's also why Klingons got forehead ridges in TMP -- because all of a sudden Roddenberry had a real budget. TOS only looks the way it does because they had barely enough money to dry-clean the uniforms.

So worrying about how updated or modern the show is going to look just seems like wasted energy. Expecting Star Trek prequels to look exactly like TOS is just kind of funny to me.

 

[Nerys Myk]

But that's exactly the stereotypes comments like this engender: "If CBS strictly adhered to the canon and aesthetics of The Original Series in 2020, people in their teens, 20s, and 30s wouldn't give the show a second look and the show absolutely needs people in their teens, 20s, and 30s to watch for it to thrive."

The attitude of "we have to make it look so touchscreen and greeblie or else nobody would watch it." If the stories are good and the acting believable, then it doesn't matter if it looks like '60s Star Trek, '50s Rocky Jones Space Ranger, or shot with a home movie camera in the '90s. So why not go for the bonus points and make it consistent with what has already been established?

As established, I'm closing in on 60 and I don't want to see a show with the aesthetics of the 1960s that's supposed to be set in the future. That doesn't mean touch screens and greebles. It means a future that extrapolates from the present not 50 years ago.

 

[uniderth]

Expecting Star Trek prequels to look exactly like TOS is just kind of funny to me.

Expecting a Star Trek series set in about the same time as Pike's adventure(s) to look different from what was seen in "The Cage" is just kind of funny to me.

So...high five.

 

[Kor]

I still want it to look, not exactly like "The Cage," nor 2017 contemporary, but like Mad Men in space.

Kor

 

[Mudd]

Except by overtly contradicting what has already been established a production makes itself not really Star Trek.

Not so.

 

[cultcross]

But that's exactly the stereotypes comments like this engender: "If CBS strictly adhered to the canon and aesthetics of The Original Series in 2020, people in their teens, 20s, and 30s wouldn't give the show a second look and the show absolutely needs people in their teens, 20s, and 30s to watch for it to thrive."

To you maybe. But what is actually meant is that those who grew up in the 90s and 00s (and hopefully, while Discovery is still on the air, the 10s) have a different vision of the future than the audience of TOS, and so do the audience of TOS, because they've grown up. The future envisaged by the 1960s isn't the future envisaged today, we're half a century further on now and the focus of technological development, social progress and geopolitics has changed. A show about how people now in their 70s thought the world would develop when they were young is a hard sell to what is a critical new audience for Star Trek itself to have a future. Good Sci-fi is about the time in which it is written, and it's 2017 now. The swinging sixties in space with USSR allegories in boot polish as bad guys just isn't relevant anymore to potential new audiences. Nostalgia alone won't carry the series.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I still want it to look, not exactly like "The Cage," nor 2017 contemporary, but like Mad Men in space.

Kor

Sounds like Ascension, which had potential but turned to crap. I also like the faux 60's style of the Man in the High Castle

 

[Mudd]

Everyone is more sophisticated now, not just people under 30, because older people haven't spent five decades of our lives rozen in ice waiting for the Avengers to thaw us out. I like the way TOS looks but that's tinged with nostalgia; I don't expect a contemporary production to look like that.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Everyone is more sophisticated now, not just people under 30, because older people haven't spent five decades of our lives rozen in ice waiting for the Avengers to thaw us out. I like the way TOS looks but that's tinged with nostalgia; I don't expect a contemporary production to look like that.

 

[uniderth]

Not so.

Funny how people in the Fan Fic section say that just putting Star Trek in the title isn't enough to make a story Star Trek; but in this section apparently it is.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Funny how people in the Fan Fic section say that just putting Star Trek in the title isn't enough to make a story Star Trek; but in this section apparently it is.

No, it's just that what makes Star Trek isn't the surface details, it's the stories, the characters, and the vision of the future.