See my post to Sci above. Same goes for you.
VFX Voice article on Picard VFX
- Thread starter Maurice
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While I agree with all of these points, this one stands out to me, largely because I see a lack of empathy for current Trek characters. Now, I am just as guilty of that as anyone but it strikes me that many of the complaints fall solidly around the characters and that empathy is necessary.
While I completely disagree with your view on modern Trek I appreciate at you put this. This is a lot less confrontational and makes a lot more sense.
Thank you.
Then it is a petty complaint. If it doesn't affect your enjoyment of the series, then it does not matter.
Absolutely no one is comparing Lower Decks to Game of Thrones, first off.
Secondly: If you think that Game of Thrones never made production decisions designed to save on visual effects, I'm afraid you are mistaken. GoT, amongst other things, deliberately cut down the role of the Stark Direwolves because the costs of integrating them into shots with human actors was so high; and routinely used plot devices to reduce the amount of visual effects they would need to depict the Army of the Dead or human armies (e.g., the two and a half people Tyrion and Dany bring with them to the gates of King's Landing at the end of "The Last of the Starks"). GoT's setting precluded the possibility of using an unchanging digital asset (since, amongst other things, GoT was set in a pre-industrial society in which products could not be produced en masse like a shuttle), but they certainly took shortcuts whenever they could to save money, too.
Listen, Lower Decks is just never gonna be like other Star Trek shows, period. It is an animated adult sitcom utilizing a subversive sense of humor, told from the point of view of people at the bottom of the Starfleet rank structure. It is inherently going to have things in common with Rick and Morty, because that's the nature of its genre -- and yes, that means it's going to depart from Star Trek tradition. Departing from Star Trek tradition is not disrespectful to the legacy of the franchise. This is not Anatevka, you are not Tevye the Dairyman, and everyone does not have to sing the praising of "Tradition".
And Star Trek: Lower Decks may not be for you! That's fine, that kind of humor doesn't work for everyone. But it's not "disrespectful" to do different things, to expand Star Trek beyond the kinds of stories it's always told before. Hell, half of Star Trek's stories are about the idea that it's good to embrace change and move beyond one's old traditions!
Both the taxi shuttle in "Maps and Legends" and the DIS ship in "Children of Mars" were visible for maybe thirty seconds tops. I could actually time them if you want, but honestly I suspect they were onscreen for less time than that.
What makes you think the series will necessarily have need for either for the length of its run? PIC got off of Earth by its third episode, and there's no real indication Picard intends to go back or to rejoin Starfleet.
You're presupposing a level of utility that is not yet in evidence, in order to justify spending a lot of money to build two digital models that were onscreen for less than a minute of screentime. I sincerely doubt that this is a financially sustainable way of producing a television show.
It's not a shame. I didn't have to do it, because it absolutely does not matter. I did find it fun to speculate, but the particular speculation I came up with is not important because it is not necessary. It's not necessary from an in-universe perspective (there's a shuttlecraft: Its doors close and it flies from one part of Earth to another. Shuttles from the 2250s can do that as well as shuttles from the 2390s), and it's not necessary from a metatextual perspective because Who Cares?.
No, it is not. It is a sign of absolutely nothing except the fact that PIC does not have an endless budget.
Here's the problem: Android rights are almost obligatory if you're building the conflicts of Picard around the conflicts of, well, Picard.
Picard's central conflict is his own emotional dysfunction. I mean, the dude was still afraid of romantic commitment in his 50s. And probably the central relationship of his life was with Data, his surrogate son; you can't bring him back and not have the legacy of his relationship with Data be at the core of the show. Well, if you're looking to create an emotional link to Picard as person and to his ersatz father/son dynamic with Data, then you've essentially got to create a new character who is linked to Data -- and if you're dealing with Picard at an advanced age, then that naturally obliges you to consider how this character who used to lead The Next Generation is gonna relate to a new next generation. Suddenly, the linkages are clear: Picard has to bond with a character who is a child of Data, so as to establish an ersatz grandfather role for Picard.
Meanwhile, you also can't bring Picard back without addressing the central trauma of his life, his assimilation as Locutus. Which means bringing back the Borg in some sense. Well, the problem here is that the Borg are boring, really -- I mean, they're exciting, but they're thematically boring; they're the outer-space equivalent of a tsunami or an earthquake. Characters can't talk to earthquakes. But, hey, Patrick Stewart says he wants the show to comment on the ways in which Anglo-American cultures are embracing fear and rejecting empathy, are acting to further harm the marginalized. Well, suddenly you've got two clear conflicts: Androids that are marginalized... and ex-Borg. The elements click into place.
The nature of the things they wanted to accomplish: A story about an elderly Picard near the end of his life, needing to find a way to start living again instead of waiting to die, needing to connect to the next generation, needing to talk about what happens when nations embrace fear and harm the marginalized -- these threads all connect and make it a practical necessity that PIC S1 be about androids and, to a lesser extent, XBs, and about how those groups are marginalized by society, and how that act of marginalization by society mirrors the way families break down when people on a micro-level embrace fear over empathy. Because those are conflicts are conflicts that directly relate to the life and experience, to the central conflicts, of Jean-Luc Picard as seen in TNG.
I mean, I guess they could have gone with an entirely different plot, but then the Picard they brought back could have just been any other old guy. If you want the conflicts of the show to grow organically from the conflicts of Jean-Luc Picard, then you need androids and you need XBs.
Jett Reno! She's played by Tig Notaro and she is legit one of my favorite characters on DIS! First introduced in S2.
The problem with Tyler is that he doesn't know what he wants, and it's hard to relate to a character who doesn't know what they want.
Burnham is awesome. Full disagree.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
I don't agree in S1, and I especially don't agree in S2.
Stamets was always fun. He's this mix of arrogance and principle that I really love to watch bounce off of Tilly and Jett.
Nhan is not one of the principle or key recurring characters.
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So you're saying they should be free to make as many continuity errors like that because big picture wise it won't affect anyone's enjoyment. Not a great take.
Don't be obtuse. I said modern Trek was being compared to GOT, and considering this is a thread on Picard, it was obvious that's the series we're primarily talking about.
I never said that.
Fgs, read the rest of my point before replying to the opening 3 words...
So you're saying we'll never need to see any more Federation starships or shuttlecraft in the entire series run of Picard. If we don't then I'll concede they didn't need to design anything extra. It seems pretty unlikely we won't though.
When it's a brand new era that needs populating with ships, yes, you absolutely do build ship designs you intend on using more than once. That's a hell of a lot more financially viable than designing something for 1 episode and never again.
It is a shame that the writers or production staff fill the show with continuity errors and leave it to fans to come up with an explanation. The Picard finale was full of holes.
They absolutely didn't need to bring the Borg back. And if they absolutely had to address the main trauma of his life (in addition to the one about losing Data), even though countless episodes and three TNG films didn't mention it, they could have come up with something that didn't involve literally showing the Borg and then doing nothing with them.
Oh right. Yeah she's good, though we've barely seen her. I guess compared to the other Discovery characters she actually has some personality, which helps.
It's also hard to relate to a series that doesn't know what it wants to be. A serious, gritty and violent season about war with the Klingons (without actually showing much of it)? A more light-hearted old Trek values show exploring spirituality and the mystery and meaning of life? A cliched AI wants to kill everyone and take over story? Or season 3 that will, if Frakes is to be believed, involve yet another tonal shift...?
Burnham is a robot, with zero personality, who speaks in statements, not like a normal person, played by an actress who feels the need to over-act constantly. A bland unlikeable character the universe somehow seems to revolve around. I have no idea what people think is so "awesome" about her.
Culber is literally in the show to be a walking billboard about gay couples in Trek. And I say that as a gay man myself fed up with the pandering these shows is giving people like me. Two seasons in, the only thing we know about Culber is that he likes opera. That's it. I don't find him unlikeable, I just think he's a nothing character they desperately need to give some material to in season 3.
Watch his ten minute lecture to Burnham in the shuttle in ep 3, and see if you still think that.
She is relatable to me.
Um, what's the point? The Tomatoes critical score for the Trek shows is very good, and the Mandalorian, like a lot of SW is pretty simple and doesn't have to really be that demanding, so if it gets its simplicity right, everyone is on board.
BTW, the RT fan grades are tarnished, they've been contaminated by bots (Saw it myself first hand) as well as organized downvoting (had a spy tell us about it in the FB groups). I have 4 or 5 other grading sites that I've been reporting on that were not targeted by trolls and the Discovery and Picard grades are much higher, as well as some having a higher sample size than RT.
Regardless, RT proves nothing about...VFX at all.
RAMA
Eh, I've not seen a single thing proven by you except you have a really simple, backwards idea about Trek. I have no problems with you disliking it, that's fine, but I have demonstrably pointed out this is not the case with critical, fan, and awards in reaction to the shows in general, and to that end, that regarding them as quality shows and yes, rivaling or surpassing previous
Trek is not unprecedented or odd, quite the reverse in fact. As far as I can see I'm the only one who has provided any credible evidence.
Another hilarious thing about your hologram rant....many many years ago on this very board (20 odd years?), there was a poster who argued vehemently with me about touch interfaces and holograms not being viable computer interfaces for the future....fast forward to now where any interface at a kiosk, billions of cell phones, all-in-ones, and tablets, have proven him completely wrong, as are you about holograms.
RAMA
BTW, the RT fan grades are tarnished, they've been contaminated by bots (Saw it myself first hand) as well as organized downvoting (had a spy tell us about it in the FB groups). I have 4 or 5 other grading sites that I've been reporting on that were not targeted by trolls and the Discovery and Picard grades are much higher, as well as some having a higher sample size than RT.
Regardless, RT proves nothing about...VFX at all.
RAMA
And yet everyone loves the Mandalorian.
What imagination and creativity was there in Picard? Rogue AI taking over the galaxy? Not only has that been done a million times in sci-fi, it was literally the entire premise of season 2 of Discovery. Maybe you meant the Borg inclusion... and how they were casually tossed aside when the writers ran out of plot for them. Creativity like Minority Report holographic interfaces that's such a tired cliche in scifi? That kind of thing?
You don't need a convoluted five page storyline full of plot holes to captivate people, just treat the legacy of your franchise with respect, do an excellent job production wise (and don't have basic errors on registry numbers in the first two minutes of footage you show off, or old shuttles in modern series), have likeable characters (a failure of DIS), a memorable theme tune (a huge failure of both shows) and well told story-telling.
As hilarious as you being proved wrong, time after time after time.
Don't knowingly put words into my mouth, you know full well that wasn't what I was saying. I never said holograms were a sure sign of something being awful. I said their execution in Picard is terrible, and that they don't belong in Star Wars in terms of UI, just for display. Simple.
Eh, I've not seen a single thing proven by you except you have a really simple, backwards idea about Trek. I have no problems with you disliking it, that's fine, but I have demonstrably pointed out this is not the case with critical, fan, and awards in reaction to the shows in general, and to that end, that regarding them as quality shows and yes, rivaling or surpassing previous
Trek is not unprecedented or odd, quite the reverse in fact. As far as I can see I'm the only one who has provided any credible evidence.
Another hilarious thing about your hologram rant....many many years ago on this very board (20 odd years?), there was a poster who argued vehemently with me about touch interfaces and holograms not being viable computer interfaces for the future....fast forward to now where any interface at a kiosk, billions of cell phones, all-in-ones, and tablets, have proven him completely wrong, as are you about holograms.
RAMA
None of this makes any sense.
You talk about how high quality a production is, rivalling Game of Thrones, yet completely ignore glaring issues I've pointed out to you. What credible evidence have you offered? You've offered your opinion. Nothing more.
Let me put it simply so that maybe you can understand...
I have nothing against holographics being used in Trek, on the contrary, I think it's an obvious move. My issue is with the implementation itself. These floating screens in front of someone's head where you have to lift your hands up to control. That's what's idiotic, not the use of holograms themselves, but the style of substance approach of they're used, that plagues most of Discovery/Picard's production. Flashy spinning cameras around two people having a conversation, 400 copy and pasted ships facing off against each other, Discovery and Enterprise surrounded by a thousand nonsensical drones all pew-pewing at each other.
I never said it did. I was replying to this:
re: Mandalorian. Even with your opinion that there was a lack of creatity and imagination, it proved extremely popular critically and amongst fans. Meanwhile Trek fandom is torn in half with people loving and hating Disco/Picard.
Still waiting for an explanation how season 2 of Discovery and season 1 of Picard both being centred around the exact same plot device: advanced AI taking over the galaxy is someone "creative and imaginative".
The holograms make sense to me in context of the world.
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It makes perfect sense, read it again. I have nothing further to add to it. I could take the time to copy and paste lots of things to cite that would make you look foolish, but that's not my goal here. I stand by my claims, feel free to research. 
RAMA
RAMA
Exactly, experts suggest that interacting with how humans really exist in reality, IE: 3 dimensions will be a much better way to interface.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3249605/the-future-of-3d-holograms-comes-into-focus.html
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Now who's putting words in someone else's mouth? I never said they should be free to make as many continuity errors as they like.
1) A DIS-era shuttle in PIC is not a continuity error, because there's nothing that says a 2250s-era design can't be used in 2399. Similarly, a Magee-class starship seen in "Children of Mars" is no more a continuity error than seeing a Miranda-class starship in DS9.
2) Having continuity errors is not the same thing as making creative choices you don't like.
3) A show that contains many continuity errors is a problem, because those continuity errors break verisimilitude. However, there is, for the majority of people, an exception: a discontinuity that facilitates the telling of a quality story that strict continuity would have precluded. Most of us can keep verisimilitude in the face of discontinuity if that discontinuity is justified by the new story being told.
I think Star Trek: Discovery is a good example of this. The Klingons' use of cloaking devices in the 2250s is absolutely a discontinuity from TOS "Balance of Terror" establishing that Starfleet had never encountered a cloaking device before 2266. But, while people are full of complaints about the new Klingons, I rarely see people complaining about the cloaking device. Why? Because keeping the cloaking devices facilitated some really good stories, especially "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum."
The same principle applies to earlier Star Trek entries. Almost nothing about DS9's depiction of the Trill is consistent with TNG's. The make design is different, the meaning of being joined is different, the relationship between the symbiont and the host is different, the physical capacity of the symbiont to be joined is different, and the history of the Trill within the Federation and widespread knowledge of their joined nature are different. They might as well be an entirely separate species. But no one complains about DS9 breaking continuity, because the discontinuity facilitated the telling of good stories that they couldn't have told using the rules laid out in TNG's "The Host."
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country violated continuity. TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise" had established in 1990 that peace between the Federation and Klingons was established when the Enterprise-C sacrificed itself to protect a Klingon outpost from a Romulan attack in the 2340s -- yet TUC totally contradicted that by establishing that the Federation established peace with the Klingon Empire in 2293, fifty years earlier! And, "Yesterday's Enterprise" had itself violated continuity, by establishing that the Klingon outpost was attacked by the Romulans, when TNG "The Neutral Zone" had previously established that there had been no contact with the Romulans since 2311.
And yet, no one complains about "Yesterday's Enterprise" contradicting "The Neutral Zone," or about TUC contradicting "Yesterday's Enterprise" -- because the discontinuities each introduced allowed them to tell good stories they could not otherwise have told. Discontinuity does not break verisimilitude if the story it facilitates is good.
Then I am honestly at a loss for what your point was in bringing up Game of Thrones, since GoT had similar production practices to those you complained about in PIC, and yet its first four seasons are usually considered modern classics of American television.
[qutoe]Fgs, read the rest of my point before replying to the opening 3 words...[/quote]
I did, and my subsequent comment addressed your larger point. But the fact that these elements were blink-and-you'll-miss-it is also relevant to the question of whether or not re-using them indicts the production's quality.
No. I'm saying that that is a possibility, and that if I am a producer, I am not going to authorize spending $10,000 to pay for a new shuttle or new ship to be designed and rendered if I do not know with certainty that it is an asset that we would want to use in the future.
And I may well be willing to spend that money in S2! But if I'm producing S1, I already know we're not gonna see anymore shuttles. And if I'm producing "Children of Mars" for Short Treks, I already know we're not gonna see Starfleet ships until the PIC S1 season finale. So, no, I'm not going to spend a significant amount of PIC S1's budget on a shuttle that's present for maybe thirty seconds, and I'm not going to spend a significant amount of Short Treks's already more-limited budget on a ship that's there for two seconds, especially since there is no actual continuity error except in the minds of over-zealous fans.
I don't think it's likely we're gonna need to see civilian shuttles on Earth again, but, hey, I actively hope we see more of Starfleet next season! But I would also never spend Short Treks's budget on something we wouldn't need until PIC S1's season finale or PIC S2.
No, it wasn't.
They absolutely did. You can't bring back Jean-Luc Picard without bringing back the Borg in some manner. It's the central trauma of his life, and you've got to make it a part of the story, or else you're not doing a story about Picard, you're doing a story about a generic old guy who happens to be named "Picard."
Those episodes didn't go into it because TNG's writing was shallower than PIC's and its characters more two-dimensional. You can't do shallow 1980s-style character writing like that anymore. (Well, okay, you can, but if you do you're writing The Orville and you've been bumped from Fox to Hulu.)
I do agree that the XBs were insufficiently well-integrated into the finale. They dropped the ball there. But I strongly agree with their decision to bring the XBs into the story.
Which I'm under the impression had to do with Notaro's availability in S2. I hope she's more available in S3, because her, Tilly, and Stamets are a delight.
That's a fair criticism. I think it stems at least in part from DIS's difficulty in retaining showrunners; Bryan Fuller is a genius but seems to have trouble fulfilling showrunner commitments, and then it turned out Berg & Harberts were abusing staff. I don't think that the tonal shifts have been so bad as to feel unnatural, but I can understand if the boat is rocking too much for someone else.
I'm not sure how she can simultaneously be a robot and over-act. Personally, I think Martin-Green nails the tone of a Human raised by Vulcans perfectly.
I find this claim bewilderingly irrational. Was Jake in DS9 just there to be a "walking billboard about sons?" Was Quark just there to be a "walking billboard" about bartenders? Was Beverly just there to be a "walking billboard" about women? Was Bashir just there to be a "walking billboard" about Arabs?
I'm into the fact that he's angry. I'm into the fact that he was married and then needed time away from his marriage to find himself. I'm into the fact that he survived essentially losing his sense of identity and building it back. I'm into the fact that sometimes he's kind of selfish. I'm into the fact that he still needs his husband.
That was why I liked him. I liked seeing an asshole who has to learn to be less of a jerk. I love the push-pull between his idealism and his ego.
It's pretty hilarious how you continue to miss the point, over and over and over again. I have nothing against holograms in Star Trek, they make complete sense. My problem is the implementation.
Nothing in that article talks about people literally holding their hands in the air and using them as a user interface for data entry etc, which is what's being portrayed in Picard. That is what's stupid, not the holograms themselves.
Do you understand now?
I've got better things to do thank read your nonsensical post again, thanks.
80 year difference vs 130 year difference but ok. And once again, "just because old Trek did it" doesn't make it ok in the year 2020.
Silly thing to say. You think it was a creative choice to use a Discovery ship and shuttle? Come on. It was a cost cutting measure.
DS9 added a ton of lore to the Trill species, they took something and expanded on it hugely. Discovery made the Klingon's use a cloaking device for a handful of episodes because the writers weren't talented enough to come up with a non-continuity breaking storyline is very different. It didn't add anything to the lore.
But more ship designs were designed. Eaves has said he designed 4 ships to use for the infamous Copy Paste fleet, but for whatever reason only 1 design was used. It made sense to design a new continuity, just like they did in First Contact, 4 new ship classes that ended up being used by future Trek.
Oh please. So anyone who hasn't been assimilated by the Borg is a "generic old person", right. 99% of TNG episodes and 3 films managed just fine without brining up his experience with the Borg.
And let's say they absolutely had to bring the Borg back, what they ended up doing with them and how it related to Picard added very little to the show, so there really was no point.
No because those were actual characters, with depth.
Culber has nothing. Two seasons in we know almost nothing about him. His inclusion is so that the Trek production team can shout about how they've included the first gay couple in Trek.
Did he learn to be less of a jerk? Feels as though the producers just flicked a switch one day and said "tone down the unlikeable jerk routine and smile a bit more".
Alright. As usual, this issue has two ways of looking at it: The Watsonian way (aka, thinking about it in-universe), or the Doylist way (aka, thinking about it metatextually.)
Let's start with a Watsonian analysis:
Watsonian thinking said:
Now, let's look at it from a Doylist/metatextual POV:
Absolutely nothing in canon has ever established that an old ship can't warp. This is not a continuity error. It is a choice of which you do not approve, but it is not a continuity error.
No, but the fact that old Trek isn't condemned for it is a double-standard.
Anyone who has ever actually had to make art on a budget knows that the choices you make to tell the story and stay within that budget are, in fact, creative choices. You're trying to invoke the connotations of the word "creative" that are linked to the idea of being imaginative without concern for practicality, but that's not how real creativity works. Creativity is what you make with limited resources.
They did not expand upon what TNG established; they actively contradicted it. "The Host" established that the actual person is the symbiont, that when a symbiont moves to a new host it's the same person, and that even a human could host a symbiont (hence, Crusher making out with Odan in Riker's body).
DS9 established that each joined Trill is a new person who retains the memories of the previous joining, that the symbiont does not dominate but is instead merged with the host to create a new person, and that only a minority of Trill were capable of hosting a symbiont (though more than the Trill government wanted to admit) and non-Trill could not host them.
That's not an expansion. That's an outright contradiction. And that's okay! The DS9 version was better.
Nope. They just made a decision you didn't like. That doesn't make them un-talented, it means they have different priorities in what kinds of stories they wanted to tell than you or I. (I would not have featured the cloaking device.)
First off: Adding to the lore is not the issue. Star Trek is a collection of works of art, not a collection of data points for writing Memory Alpha entries. The issue is telling a good story.
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" is a wonderful episode with some amazing performances. It comes from a writer named Kirsten Beyer who had already proven she was an amazing writer with a great understanding of and love for Star Trek with her numerous high-quality Star Trek novels (including Full Circle and Children of the Storm). And its plot hinged on the Klingons having cloaking technology.
That is an entirely different issue. We are not talking about the post-production of "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II," we are talking about the post-production of "Maps and Legends" (re: shuttle) and "Children of Mars" (re: Magee-class ship). "Children of Mars" and "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" were released two months apart, which means post-production on them occurred two months separately.
Furthermore, "Children of Earth" was part of Short Treks, not Picard -- which means it has an entirely different budget, since it's an entirely different production. Now, if you can reasonably see a scenario in which a series consisting of episodes ranging from 8 to 14 minutes long has the kind of budget a flagship show like Picard has, great; but I can't. I do not see a reasonable scenario in which the "Children of Earth" budget isn't significantly lower than the "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" budget. And, again, as has been mentioned many times now, the Magee ship was onscreen for less than thirty seconds; the overwhelming majority of audience members will not know and will not care about its refuse from DIS.
So, no, if I am producing "Children of Earth," I am not going to spend lots of money on designing and building the digital model of a new ship for that scene. I certainly would be up for doing so if I'm producing "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II," but you're talking about production decisions involving separate pots of money on separate shows made months apart.
Star Trek: First Contact was a major motion picture with a budget of $45 million ($73.9 million in 2020 dollars) and a running time of 1 hour and 51 minutes. "Children of Mars" was 8 minutes long; whatever its budget was, I promise you, it significantly less than $73.9 million.
And hey! Guess what? They did design and build a bunch of new ship classes with the expectation of using them in future Star Trek productions, just as you suggest. They did it when they made made "Battle at the Binary Stars" for Star Trek: Discovery.
For someone who complains about words being put in his mouth by others, you do it a lot.
Listen, the two best-known and best-remembered TNG stories are "The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II," and Star Trek: First Contact. If you're bringing back the character of Jean-Luc Picard for the first time in 20 years, and you know that Picard is most closely associated in the public imagination with fighting the Borg (just as Kirk is associated in the public imagination with fighting the Klingons), then you've got to bring back the Borg. You just have to.
Because otherwise, you're just inserting Picard into conflicts that have no grounding in his emotional life, in his experiences. And if you're just inserting him into conflicts that have nothing to do with his experiences, what's the point of making it about Picard instead of some other character? If you're inserting him into a conflict that does not resonate with his experiences, then what is the benefit of picking that specific character instead of, say, La Forge, or Riker, or Sisko, or O'Brien, or any number of other characters?
And yet those episodes have not had the resonance and staying power that "The Best of Both Worlds" and First Contact have had.
Listen. I've said before that I agree the XBs were insufficiently well-integrated into the finale. They dropped the ball there.
But their mere presence added a richness and complexity to the theme of how the dominant in-group views the marginalized out-group. The Romulan and borderlanders' oppression of the XBs reflected upon, and intersected with, the Federation's oppression of the synths. And Picard's reflection upon his assimilation into Locutus provided a thoughtful contrast to his later transfer into the body of an android.
We know at least as much about Culber as we did about Beverly by this point in TNG. I think you're just refusing to see what's there.
It was a gradual evolution, not a sudden one-and-done flip switch like with Soval in ENT Season Four.
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If there was a trigger though, I think it was the one-two punch of realizing he had to get to know his fellow crew members if he was ever going to escape the time loop in "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" and then encountering his Mirror Universe doppelganger in the Mycelial Network. That bout of empathy and then the shock of seeing a version of himself with very little empathy, I think prompted him to re-thinking his relationships with other people.
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I love how people complained about ships looking "too advanced" for a show set Pre-TOS and how "Discovery looks like it's Post-Nemesis!" It's NOT what I've thought, but it's what they've thought. So now we have these ships in Picard. So, according to the reasoning they previously used, these ships are now in the "correct" era because last time I checked, Picard is Post-Nemesis. So what they're really saying -- without actually saying it -- is that they've accepted the ships from DSC as being Pre-TOS. They've accepted them as being Mid-23rd Century when before they were screaming, "No! They should be Late-24th!"
And thus goalposts have been shifted. First these ships "should've" been Post-NEM and now they "shouldn't" be. I guess it all depends on which forum we're in. And their opinion is whatever runs counter to the series we're talking about. "If they're for it, we're against it." That's the way hyper-partisanship works. Not just in politics, but also in fandom. It's baked into our present day culture and mindset, no matter what. No benefit of the doubt is to be given to that which we're against. Any explanation must automatically be wrong on the grounds of "I don't agree with it." Well, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt.
I'd just rather think of them as generic ships whose designs don't change a lot because they're not the hero ship. And "Children of Mars" probably also had a lower budget than an actual episode of Picard. "It's 2020!" isn't a magic cover explanation for everything. Economics don't change. You work with the budget you have. And Short Treks aren't as largely budgeted. And with a tighter budget, you have to prioritize where you want to spend your time and money. They chose to spend it on Mars itself.
And thus goalposts have been shifted. First these ships "should've" been Post-NEM and now they "shouldn't" be. I guess it all depends on which forum we're in. And their opinion is whatever runs counter to the series we're talking about. "If they're for it, we're against it." That's the way hyper-partisanship works. Not just in politics, but also in fandom. It's baked into our present day culture and mindset, no matter what. No benefit of the doubt is to be given to that which we're against. Any explanation must automatically be wrong on the grounds of "I don't agree with it." Well, I would like to give the benefit of the doubt.
I'd just rather think of them as generic ships whose designs don't change a lot because they're not the hero ship. And "Children of Mars" probably also had a lower budget than an actual episode of Picard. "It's 2020!" isn't a magic cover explanation for everything. Economics don't change. You work with the budget you have. And Short Treks aren't as largely budgeted. And with a tighter budget, you have to prioritize where you want to spend your time and money. They chose to spend it on Mars itself.
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As convoluted an argument as the plot of Discovery season 2 or Picard season 1.
Ship designs looking too advanced for pre-TOS and 130 year old ships showing up in modern Trek are two separate issues. I didn't personally subscribe to the former view, but if people did they're allowed to have a problem with both. They're not mutually exclusive.
I'm certainly not losing sleep over them using a 130 year old ship in Children of Mars, it was a small thing that barely anyone will notice, but it's just another entry in a long list of issues I have with the production. I just expect a little more from Trek that's all.
As convoluted an argument as the plot of Discovery season 2 or Picard season 1.
Ship designs looking too advanced for pre-TOS and 130 year old ships showing up in modern Trek are two separate issues. I didn't personally subscribe to the former view, but if people did they're allowed to have a problem with both. They're not mutually exclusive.
If they're going to commit to modern looking ships belonging in the Discovery era then OWN IT. Don't then put them over a century later. It's just weak and indecisive.
I mean I'm certainly not losing sleep over them using a 130 year old ship in Children of Mars, it was a small thing that barely anyone will notice, but it's just another entry in a long list of issues I have with the production. I just expect a little more from Trek that's all.
Okay, good. It's not always easy tell on a board like this in general.
EDIT: This is going to be the part where someone else to is bound to ask, "Wait a minute. How the Hell did you do that?" I have my ways.
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