Does anyone actually think that people who have never watched Star Trek would hang in past the first hour of this show? Most of the content is fanwank. Mudd! War with Klingons! Mirror Universe! Woot!
USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
- Start date
Does anyone actually think that people who have never watched Star Trek would hang in past the first hour of this show? Most of the content is fanwank. Mudd! War with Klingons! Mirror Universe! Woot!
One of my coworkers is like this. Loves the show, thought all plot twists were surprising and engaging, and I had to explain to him who Mudd was. So, there's at least one.
Yes.
Not necessarily. The nebula made tactical view nonfunctional and presumably other viewscreen functions as well, such as zoom, image enhancement, target finding, and alternate angles. With these turned off the viewscreen is just a window, practically useless in space combat. Assuming the refit's viewscreen is a window, at least.
Is it really fanwank if someone is coming into the show cold, without the historical context?
I agree, I mean you likely could not see anything. Space is big, without the auto zoom they must use, something 1000 KM or more away might as well be invisible.
I mean, yeah. Literally every person I know who watches it is someone who would never have watched an episode of Trek before this.
There's fanwank, and then there's content fans will enjoy that also functions as a coherent story for new viewers. Seems that the show is doing the latter just fine.
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As a general note about this thread, most of what I've just read through seems to be "It's garbage!" followed by rebuttal, with not much discussion of the actual show. How much more fun it might be if we spent more time asking, "How does it work?" and leaving aside some of the love and hate? Y'know, lit-crit style? Oh well. I don't remember things here being so...non-constructive in the Enterprise years, but maybe that's nostalgia.
Many did. The same can be said for ST09, many people who watched it and enjoyed the hell out of it had no clue who the people were. I mean they may have heard the names, but had zero clue about them. DSC was not just made for long time trek fans, but to bring in new , modern fans. And it seems to be working.
Nope.
Honestly, I can't fathom what you're saying (or seeing) here. "Primitive" in what way? How exactly does the original-design Defiant, as seen in the shots from "IAMD," look primitive compared to the NX-01 next to it, or to the revamped DSC Enterprise we saw last night? Can you explain what design features create that impression for you? Is it just that you don't like smooth shiny surfaces, and think textured metal panels look more sophisticated for some reason?
This is a frustrating answer.
First of all, it just throws things back to a question I posted earlier, namely: how do you define "modern scifi design sensibilities"? Do they look like something designed by John Eaves? Like something designed by Ryan Church? IMHO Rick Sternbach was and is a better ship designer than either one. Or how about the stuff Ron Thornton did for Babylon 5 back in the day — which still looks brilliant, despite the limited CGI used to realize it — and which was deliberately designed to represent different levels of technological advancement and different cultural design preferences, despite all being designed at the same time IRL?
Which of the ships on this famous Starship Comparison Chart look more "modern" and "technologically advanced"? Who can say?
Second, it's ultimately just circular reasoning. Why do people expect X to look a certain way? "Because that look is more advanced." Why do you say that look is more advanced? "Because it's what people expect to see." If we (not unreasonably) expect people to be most familiar with whatever they've seen most recently, then they'll probably think of whatever that is as "advanced," regardless of its actual design features.
But that's a ridiculous principle for a designer to work from... it's like the old joke about the politician saying "I must see where my people are going so that I may lead them!" It's even worse when you're not talking about the opinions of real people, just speculating about the opinions of hypothetical random people. (And who are these random people who (A) have never watched Star Trek, yet (B) are otherwise familiar enough with Hollywood SF to have opinions about what fits its "modern sensibilities"? Seems like a contradictory sort of crowd.)
Personally I think that a smooth, sleek design looks far more advanced than one covered with greebles and visual clutter. The main purpose of detailing is to establish scale; beyond that it's often superfluous. Does that put me out of step with "modern sensibilities"?
Again: so what? So the Discovery is implausibly oversized. Why does that mean the Enterprise needs to be bigger? Bigger isn't better. Bigger isn't prettier.
The two classic sizes assigned to the original Enterprise are 947 ft (289m) and 1080 ft (329m). (There's lots of debate about this on the Trek Tech forum.) I am partial to the latter, because it's a better fit for what we've seen of the internal sets. But either way, it doesn't need to be scaled up just to compete with the Discovery. Either way, the Enterprise is still plenty big enough to contain 400+ crew and lots of other interesting stuff. Scaling it up while leaving the proportions the same — for window placements, the shuttlebay, the bridge — just creates a mismatch with the interiors, as was so obviously the case with the ST09 version of the ship. Why do that?
Okay, you've made me curious. What social media, and what sort of reaction(s) did you encounter?
This kinda blows my mind, because it seems clear to me that the show is made primarily to appeal to (yet also sometimes to frustrate) the long-time fan. I literally don't know a single person who's watched it who wasn't already familiar with Trek... with the solitary exception of my current girlfriend, who I personally introduced to the show. (And she grew up in China, so she has a reasonable excuse for having no prior familiarity.) Who are these new people, and how did they stumble across the show, and how do they make sense of the obviously very dense lore it's built on?
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By observing modern sci-fi movies. In general, modern design features
- Layering of complex shapes
- Compound curves
- Chamfering at the join of one part or component to another
- Use of small details over all, or details packed into certain areas
- Highly detailed paintwork and weathering
- Increased use of texture, such as rough or grooved or worn surfaces
- In general, more. More details, more parts, more layers
So if I came out with a brand new scifi TV show, and I said the year was 2100, and my spacesuits and space craft looked EXACTLY like this, you would COMPLETELY AND WITHOUT IRONY realistically buy this as future tech? Cause who's to say it looks less advanced than the Falcon Heavy? Hmmm?
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How did they even fit in that thing? It looks tiny!So if I came out with a brand new scifi TV show, and I said the year was 2100, and my spacesuits and space craft looked EXACTLY like this, you would COMPLETELY AND WITHOUT IRONY realistically buy this as future tech? Cause who's to say it looks less advanced than the Falcon Heavy? Hmmm?
No joke. When I was four I thought black and white shows were before some mutation or event caused the world to become colored
Only the best CGI surgeons money can buy in Hollywood
It could be worse. A lot worse. 
Go to 7:19.
Go to 7:19.
Except for all the instances where there was static on the view screen that literally obscured the view of what was directly in front of them. Nothing about that battle depended on any kind of viewer enhancement. It all boiled down to seeing what was in front of the ship whenever the static cleared up a bit. If it was just a window, there would be no static.
I don't think it's inconceivable that nebula radiation could have caused static on an augmented reality window. Or it's impressionistic and not meant to be viewed literally, like ship distances (which often don't match dialogue). Or the Enterprise refit really did have a "traditional" screen instead of a window. Ten years ago, I had a burning hatred for bridge windows, but it's just not something I care that much about anymore.
It's anecdotal (like most reports on the internet) but my wife, two siblings, and a friend (none of whom have seen an episode of TOS and have only caught a smattering of TNG on Netflix) love the show and have never asked me about the backstory of any of those things. Nor did they care about Burnham being Sarek's "ward," the tech, the ships, or the sets. These are four new fans that have watched the season religiously without a smidgeon of background knowledge.
Don't be ridiculous...no one would ever send someone to look at something on a starship...
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