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USS Enterprise (eventually) on Discovery?

Here’s the problem with that kind of thinking: everyone keeps underestimating the popularity of TOS. Everyone keeps telling me to just “ignore it.” Well, screw that. Retconning a show that has been in the hearts and minds of generations of Star Trek fans for over 50 years just for the sake of “realism” is a flawed concept. I’m 46 years old, and have been a fan of Star Trek in all its iterations my whole life. And I’d be the first one to say that it would have been totally awesome to see a new Star Trek series in 2018 that looks similar to TOS. I don’t give a shit about “realism.” I care about good storytelling, characters that I can relate to, and ships that look like they belong in the friggin’ era that I’m used to seeing.

Pretty much this.
 
Here’s an analogy. Let’s say I’m a car designer, and I was given the job of designing a car that might be built in the year 2050. First I would research how cars look now and extrapolate a futuristic design based on various factors. Then let’s say that later I was given the job of designing a fictitious car that would have been built in the 1930’s. Do you think that the first thing I’d do is take my design for a 2050’s car and extrapolate backwards from that to come up with a design for a 1930’s car? No. I would research what cars looked like in the 1930’s and extrapolate based on that.
And here is one of the great Star Trek divides, that I cannot see how the two camps can find middle ground. Should Star Trek be the future from now, or should Star Trek be the future stuck from 1967? Personally, much like Marvel and James Bond, I have Star Trek on a sliding timescale so that it is always the future from now. I just really don't care about a retro-futurist science fiction series, and I don't think there is a single person who has produced Trek that does either. But I don't know how those two groups of fans can find a way to tell stories in the TOS era that will make both sides happy.
 
And here is one of the great Star Trek divides, that I cannot see how the two camps can find middle ground. Should Star Trek be the future from now, or should Star Trek be the future stuck from 1967? Personally, much like Marvel and James Bond, I have Star Trek on a sliding timescale so that it is always the future from now. I just really don't care about a retro-futurist science fiction series, and I don't think there is a single person who has produced Trek that does either. But I don't know how those two groups of fans can find a way to tell stories in the TOS era that will make both sides happy.
If only they had the courage to actually reboot Trek, and say that Disco is a Gotham to TOS' classic Batman series, none of this would be an issue. There are zero continuity issues that way, versus everything being a nonsensical broken wreck when you try to reconcile it with the rest of the Trekverse.
 
^^^ I concur.

Instead, it’s like CBS has tried to have their cake and eat it too (IMO) by insisting the Discoverse is Prime.

The only thing I can do to reconcile the Discoverse with the Prime is to take what Lorca said (in series) to stamets about the existence of multiple and pocket universes / alternate realities evidenced by the spore drive, and to draw the conclusion that at least visually the Discoverse is but one version of the Prime, but not the same one as seen in the TOS.
 
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And here is one of the great Star Trek divides, that I cannot see how the two camps can find middle ground. Should Star Trek be the future from now, or should Star Trek be the future stuck from 1967? Personally, much like Marvel and James Bond, I have Star Trek on a sliding timescale so that it is always the future from now. I just really don't care about a retro-futurist science fiction series, and I don't think there is a single person who has produced Trek that does either. But I don't know how those two groups of fans can find a way to tell stories in the TOS era that will make both sides happy.
Write good stories.
 
TOS had good stories for the most part. TNG became the hottest show on television for a while by giving audiences quality storytelling that took the best from the legacy of TOS and spun a new tapestry around fresh, untested characters from a century later. It preserved much of the spirit of TOS while realizing that they could produce better special effects and use the modern computer technology of that time to give viewers an Enterprise that was both recognizably a starship named Enterprise and modern for audiences of the late '80s and early '90s.

Don't run from your past. Embrace it and improve upon the things you think can stand to be tweaked and refined without losing the flavor and spirit of the timeframe in which the preceding series is based. Bryan Fuller had every right to want to throw out the book on televised Trek as we'd known it up until 2017 and few will dispute that he couldn't do that. The wisdom, however, in doing so is completely up for debate and DSC would be a better series had the original premise of the show not run from TOS like sophomore pot dealers from a college drug bust.

To hell with the "25% different" edict and debate, which is moot regarding adding more visual continuity nods while still steering a new aesthetic direction. They could still have connected the two series more strongly and made audiences a lot happier.
 
And here is one of the great Star Trek divides, that I cannot see how the two camps can find middle ground. Should Star Trek be the future from now, or should Star Trek be the future stuck from 1967? Personally, much like Marvel and James Bond, I have Star Trek on a sliding timescale so that it is always the future from now. I just really don't care about a retro-futurist science fiction series, and I don't think there is a single person who has produced Trek that does either. But I don't know how those two groups of fans can find a way to tell stories in the TOS era that will make both sides happy.
Of course they could have easily sidestepped this issue just by not setting the new series in TOS era.

Personally I feel that Trek should (kinda) remain as 'our future' so I'm fine with retconning the date of the Eugenics War or obviously outdated tech. But that doesn't apply to visual style (style, not technical quality, can we for once avoid that strawman?) You could easily make future show with retro aesthetics. Fashions come and go, and 60s style is no more inappropriate for three hundred years in the future than 2018 style. In fact, I think some retrofuturism may make the aesthetics feel fresh to the modern audiences, as it is something that is not done that often.
 
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It's ironic. I have spotted plot holes galore in previous Trek shows and movies. And I mean all of them. "STAR TREK DISCOVERY" must be the first Trek production I have encountered in which many fans have made a big deal over how faithful it is.
 
It's ironic. I have spotted plot holes galore in previous Trek shows and movies. And I mean all of them. "STAR TREK DISCOVERY" must be the first Trek production I have encountered in which many fans have made a big deal over how faithful it is.

Then I guess you weren't here around 2001-5 because Enterprise had the franchise at each others throats more than this.
 
It's ironic. I have spotted plot holes galore in previous Trek shows and movies. And I mean all of them. "STAR TREK DISCOVERY" must be the first Trek production I have encountered in which many fans have made a big deal over how faithful it is.

Then I guess you weren't here around 2001-5 because Enterprise had the franchise at each others throats more than this.
Yup, though I find it funny how those who defended Enterprise are so vitriolic over Discovery.
 
Here’s the problem with that kind of thinking: everyone keeps underestimating the popularity of TOS. Everyone keeps telling me to just “ignore it.” Well, screw that. Retconning a show that has been in the hearts and minds of generations of Star Trek fans for over 50 years just for the sake of “realism” is a flawed concept. I’m 46 years old, and have been a fan of Star Trek in all its iterations my whole life. And I’d be the first one to say that it would have been totally awesome to see a new Star Trek series in 2018 that looks similar to TOS. I don’t give a shit about “realism.” I care about good storytelling, characters that I can relate to, and ships that look like they belong in the friggin’ era that I’m used to seeing.



It’s not a coincidence if he’s known for doing that.

I'm a huge TOS fan as well. I actually believe rather firmly that it is the single best series in the history of television. As far as Star Trek goes, there's TOS and then there's everything else.

And, as far as I'm concerned, none of the stuff you're pissed about makes a damn bit of difference to me. I love stuff like "Star Trek Continues" that emulates that era nearly perfectly, but I also love what JJ Abrams and DSC have done with the TOS era.

Doesn't phase me in the slightest. So YMMV on this.
 
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