Sci said:
The discussion RAMA and I were having was about attention to detail and the quality of production between Trek and Wars. I don't care there was a registry error,
So you admit it is a petty, meaningless complaint.
my point was it's not a great start for a so called "top quality production".
1) That is the sort of error TNG, DS9, and VOY made
frequently back in the day.
2) Has it occurred to you that, given the silliness and outlandishness of the animated sci-fi sitcom genre of which
Star Trek: Lower Decks will be a part, it is possible that the contradictory hull numbers might be an intentional plot element? I'm not saying it definitely will be; but the head writer of
Lower Decks worked on
Rick and Morty, where the existence of multiple universes and extra-dimensional dopplegangers with only minor differences from the main characters, was a regular plot element. So it's really a better idea to keep an open mind and wait until the show actually airs before declaring anything a "mistake."
Kpnuts said:
Sci said:
Kpnuts said:
[Picard/Short Treks using Discovery era ships and shuttles.
This is not an error and is fine, just like it was fine when TNG used TOS era ships.
TNG debuted thirty years ago
I think television production has come a little way since then.
I agree that television has come a long way since then! On the vast majority of programs, the caliber of the writing, cinematography, lighting, visual effects, and even acting has vastly improved. Television is a more sophisticated medium than it was in 1987.
However, certain economic pressures of television remain. Whether it's a physical model or CGI, there is intense pressure not to spend money creating new assets if the existing assets in the production's possession are acceptable to convey the necessary story elements. Just like TNG would not have been financially sustainable 30 years ago if they spent tens of thousands of dollars creating new models every single time a ship or shuttlecraft appeared for even very short amounts of time, modern shows like PIC and DIS would not be financially viable if they spent tens of thousands of dollars paying a visual effects vendor to design and build a new digital model every time a ship or shuttlecraft appeared for thirty seconds.
In-universe? There is no problem with using a 2250s-era DIS shuttlecraft as a shuttle taxi in civilian service in 2399. It is perfectly plausible that civilian taxi co-ops might use old Starfleet surplus hardware.
Further, it is
also plausible that that taxi shuttle could be newer than the 2250s but that it is the same model; the United States Air Force anticipates using the
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress well into the 2040s, at which point the design will be 90 years old, so clearly real life precedent indicates that a mature design that fulfills all vital functions may survive for decades longer than a normal human lifespan today. It's really not that difficult to imagine that Starfleet, upon adopting newer shuttlecraft designs, might have released its 2250s-era designs to the civilian market, whereupon civilian co-ops could have begun using surplus shuttles and building new ones of the same model.
Also, the overwhelming majority of people in the audience, including anybody analyzing PIC as a series work of art instead of a set of data for use in constructing Memory Alpha articles? Does not care.
Call it what you will in this case, it's not the sign of an excellent production.
It is not a sign of a bad or mediocre production either. The re-use of existing digital assets has no bearing whatsoever on the quality of the production.
Oh please. They may as well have been walking mannequins.
I am sad, but not surprised, to learn that you cannot read human emotions.
I've no issue with "different", I loved ENT's opening credits at the time, I loved Star Trek (2009) including the new Enterprise, I love the slower pace and more civilian point of view of Star Trek Picard. I have no hatred, just a dislike for substandard writing/characters/production.
So your defense is that you don't hate what is different, you just have bad taste. Got it.
Rotten Tomatoes is a good resource for comparing like to like, but if we're getting down to the nitty-gritty it's not great. For one thing, all the "Fresh" score indicates is the percentage of reviewers who have given a positive score; it does not give you a meaningful sense of the sample size, nor does it give you the reasons for the positive or negative scores, nor does it tell you how much the individual critics weigh the positives or negatives.
Here's an example. I enjoy both
Star Trek: Discovery and
The Orville. But DIS and ORV have two completely different artistic goals: DIS is a serialized show done in the style of modern prestige dramas, and uses ST tropes to deconstruct
Star Trek and to ask questions about how a nation can live up to its values in times of mass violence. ORV, on the other hand, is trying to re-capture the spirit of TNG, with a mostly episodic structure, featuring characters that are more broad archetypes than detailed and deep, with a reassuring tone and unquestioned thematic assumptions.
So, comparing RT scores for them doesn't really
mean anything. It's like comparing a statue to a painting, or comparing the play
M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang to the musical
The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber: They're doing different things, so what does it even matter if more critics give a fresh score to one than the other?
And RT's audience appreciation score is absolutely unreliable, because it is a self-selecting pool of reviewers and bad-faith actors have been known to attempt to rig the score (as they did with the greatest
Star Wars movie ever made,
The Last Jedi).
If you're gonna make the argument that
The Mandalorian's higher percentage of positive reviews means it's a better show, you're gonna have to get into the weeds of the individual reviews. Do the reviewers who enjoy TM love it as much as the reviewers who enjoy DIS? How do they weigh their own postiive score? Do they mean it's a fun time but they're not super-invested, or do they mean they're on the edge of their seats? Etc.
What imagination and creativity was there in Picard? Rogue AI taking over the galaxy?
While I agree that "Rogue AI" was unfortunately over-used as a plot element between Control in DIS S2 and the Admonition-Makers in PIC S1, I strongly, strongly disagree with your entire conception of what constitutes "imagination and creativity."
Simply put: PIC is not
about the Admonition-Makers or rogue A.I. Those are plot elements, but they're inconsequential. PIC is
really about finding meaning in life as we grow old and face our own mortality. It's about how we who were once young contribute to the next generation -- and the generation after that; it's about children, and parents, and grandparents, and how they relate to each other. It's about learning to live again after you've been waiting to die. It's about the importance of empathy and the disasters that come when we allow fear to take over and violate our empathy. It's about how in-groups oppress out-groups without even realizing it, and how that relationship mirrors our fractured relationships within our own families when we are too afraid to show love.
That is the imagination and creativity of PIC. Imagination and creativity are not about fantastical sci-fi elements; VOY had fantastic sci-fi elements all the time, and it was a piece of shit six times out of ten. Imagination and creativity are rather, as Ira Steven Behr put it, about the human heart in conflict with itself.
have likeable characters (a failure of DIS),
The characters on DIS and PIC are likable. How can you not love Tilly and Jett??
a memorable theme tune (a huge failure of both shows)
I am humming both of them from memory as we speak.
and well told story-telling.
They've both got it.
Don't knowingly put words into my mouth, you know full well that wasn't what I was saying.
You have a consistent habit of insinuating something and then pretending others are putting words in your mouth when they enumerate the implicit meaning of your words.
