Yeah it would fail if it looked like a cheap fan film.
USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?
- Thread starter EJD1984
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Yeah it would fail if it looked like a cheap fan film.
The DS9 and ENT episodes didn't look like those.
FWIW I found myself enjoying DSC by (mostly) increasing amounts through the first half of the season, and then by (rapidly) decreasing amounts through the second half of the season.
To the extent that I've enjoyed it, though, all along it's been despite its quixotic design choices, conflicts with Trek continuity, and plot-driven writing style, though, not because of these things.
Going into the season, based on the show's choice of setting and format, I was hoping for something that captured the look and feel of original Star Trek (which I love, unapologetically), paired with the sophisticated storytelling techniques of today's long-form serialized television (like, say, GoT or Sense8 or The Expanse or the new show Counterpart or name-your-favorite). Instead the final product has been a disappointment on both counts — something that falls back on tired and predictable TV writing tropes, dressed up with production values that look expensive but are overly stylized and only nominally related to Trek. It's got potential, but most of it remains unrealized, and it has a long way to go to win me over.
And to tie this to the thread topic... as far as how that unrealized potential might play out, I cheerfully admit that I loved seeing the Enterprise at the end of the season finale... except that I didn't actually see the Enterprise, just a deliberately altered imitation of it. (At least they didn't change the TOS music. That evoked exactly what it was meant to evoke.)
Oh, c'mon, that's bullshit. Star Trek is one of the most widely recognized fictional franchises on the planet. It has a massive body of TV episodes and movies, not to mention books and other merchandise, that continues to sell, and to attract new fans on an ongoing basis. It wouldn't "die" even if not a single new Trek show or film were ever released... and it's not as if that's going to happen, because it is so widely recognized, and its owners are going to make sure new product is released on a regular basis. In the last 39 years, Trek has never gone more than four years without some new project being put in front of audiences.
That doesn't mean we, as those audiences, are obliged to worship at the altar of any or every new Trek project that comes along, or even to watch them. I thought VOY was crap, and I said so. I thought the Abrams films were crap, and I said so. I think DSC is better than either of those, but also not without serious flaws, and I'm hardly going to refrain from criticizing it.
Star Trek will survive, no matter what. If DSC isn't a popular success, CBS will come up with something different before long. If CBS can't make money on Trek, then (first) they don't deserve to be in the entertainment business, and (second) they'll sell it to some other company that will. In the meantime, if we as fans don't criticize versions of Trek that deserve criticism, then we deserve whatever second-rate material we get.
(Consider, just by way of comparison, Sherlock Holmes. The canon there is 56 short stories and four novels, period, and nothing new will ever be added to it. All that's been created in the last 90 years are pastiches and adaptations, and most of those adaptations frankly suck. That does not in any way, shape, or form diminish the brilliance of the originals, however, nor their ability to attract new fans. Holmes is the single most famous fictional detective in the history of fictional detectives, and he's never going to "die." Even though he's a period piece, and Victorian settings aren't "in trend.")
Yes, Trek has changed its design aesthetic over time. Usually fairly cautiously and incrementally (TMP notwithstanding). When it introduces new material — ships, settings, time periods. What it has not ever done before (with the notable exception of the Klingons) is retroactively change the look of something already established.
I would dispute, BTW, that these changes have "matche[d] the style of other sci-fi products of the time." TNG, for instance, had a look distinctively different from anything else that defined SF in 1980s media. It didn't look a thing like Star Wars. Or Blade Runner. Or V. Or Max Headroom. Or Aliens. It was, on the other hand, instantly recognizable as an update of the already established and distinctive look of Star Trek.
No, it really, really doesn't. Trends come and go, often with little or no connection to whether more than a few people actually like them.
(I hate to imagine what the Doctor Who relaunch would have looked like in your hands...)
Really? You honestly think that network executives are making reasoned decisions based on careful analysis of valid data? Your faith is touching. Perhaps you have never read anything at all about Hollywood?
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They did to Mirror Mirror. Besides, they really didn't look much different from Star Trek Continues or New Voyages. (because they looked like TOS)
And neither of those shows look like garbage. Maybe they're not straight out of the ILM effects department and the ships and visuals are faithful recreations of the originals from 50 years ago, but they don't look bad at all. They may not be everybody's taste, but then they don't have to be. No series or film is.
I'm sure there are people who think that DSC looks like crap and that nuBSG wasn't very impressive from a visual standpoint. That's their choice, but they don't get to decide the visual direction of an entire genre.
I'm sure there are people who think that DSC looks like crap and that nuBSG wasn't very impressive from a visual standpoint. That's their choice, but they don't get to decide the visual direction of an entire genre.
The Retro ones, yeah they did. They looked cheap as all hell. Campy, and dated.
Yes, to me they did, because they were. No one looking at those sets can honestly claimed they looked anything but what they are.
I think I agree with this. I mean, they definitely looked how they looked.
It's getting really tiresome hearing you call TOS designs cheap. They certainly weren't cheap when they were first created, nor were (what you're really talking about) the effects used to realize them. On the contrary, they were state of the art at the time.
Nor were their (re)creations in DS9 and ENT cheap — on the contrary, those were done with state of the art techniques for their time.
Nor were any of them "campy." Both the original series and the episodes that revisited it in later series were meant to be taken just as straight as anything else in Trek. (Although the tribble episode did, obviously, have its lighter moments.)
Dated? Yeah, the DS9/ENT eps do look dated — but not because they evoke some specific period of 20th-century design deemed unpalatable (by some people), but because they're deliberately evoking a specific period in Trek's own history. They pulled that off very convincingly, with consummate skill.
All you're doing here with pejorative terms like these is — as you do regularly, as I've posted before — revealing your passionate disdain for all things TOS. At some level, it must really gall you that it's the irreducible, inextricable foundation on which all later Trek is built.
Nor were their (re)creations in DS9 and ENT cheap — on the contrary, those were done with state of the art techniques for their time.
Nor were any of them "campy." Both the original series and the episodes that revisited it in later series were meant to be taken just as straight as anything else in Trek. (Although the tribble episode did, obviously, have its lighter moments.)
Dated? Yeah, the DS9/ENT eps do look dated — but not because they evoke some specific period of 20th-century design deemed unpalatable (by some people), but because they're deliberately evoking a specific period in Trek's own history. They pulled that off very convincingly, with consummate skill.
All you're doing here with pejorative terms like these is — as you do regularly, as I've posted before — revealing your passionate disdain for all things TOS. At some level, it must really gall you that it's the irreducible, inextricable foundation on which all later Trek is built.
But they are cheap now. They look dated, they look poor made, they look campy and cheap. They look like something a high school group would put together on a budget man. So much so, fans do it all the time.
They are always gonna look like a cheap, low budget old TV show.
Yeah, they are fine for a fan film, as those are giving homage to a 50 year old TV show. But they do not work for a modern TV show. I think its cool fans made stuff for TOS, I was as upset as anyone those stupid new rules more or less killed fan films. But not all trek fans even watch fan films, some don't watch TOs, some have never seen TOS.
The Dated and cheap looking ( for a modern sci-fi show) look just does not work for a TV series from an actual studio. It simply could never get enough viewers to make it worth while.
lulz
Calm down.
It's not from scratch if it borrows some of the same wireframe. The saucer is essentially the same, with some elements altered or removed. I noticed it immediately in the initial battle. Flip the video upside down. The bridge is flattened, but that's about it, and the pylons aren't very different, just modified. The rest is different, I'll give you that.
Well we're not seeing the same thing, then, because the saucer's the main part that's near identical. It's at least part kitbashed, which was my point. If the bottom of the saucer was different (and it's ugly because of it) it wouldn't be so bad. It's unfortunate because I like the ship.
I really like the Shepard-class starship. The Gagarin is my second-favorite ship in DSC after the Enterprise. But she is very similar to the Shenzhou and it's pretty obvious that design elements were reused to create a better-looking vessel in the Gagarin.
The Shepard looks to me like an upside-down Shenzhou with a minimum of alteration.
Careful, this is how they got the tsar.
Yep, it ultimately boils down to this blatant fallacy.
I'd really like to know how Mirror Mirror thinks new trends start or how old things come back into fashion...
And of course not everyone is chasing the trends anyway. Star Wars doesn't, and its visual presence is much stronger for it.
I kinda like them both. I obviously love the original, and I like this new design for staying in many ways close to the 60's look while adding the details. Though I can't say I like the new engine pylons, and the shortened neck. I really want to get more pictures of it to make a proper judgement. But at this point I can already say that I certainly like it more than Kelvinverse Enterprise (though that had better surface texture.)
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