Spoilers Visual continuity - Does Discovery strictly need to show past designs... at all?

[CorporalClegg]

One thing is about that gif is it really shows how much better the science silver looks than the gold and bronze.

I think a welcome visual continuity violation would be to keep those, ditch the other two, and just not have department colors.

 

[jaime]

That is likely done, those last movies flopped.

Hey, we’re all watching ENT 2.0 atm, so I wouldn’t count my chickens.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Hey, we’re all watching ENT 2.0 atm, so I wouldn’t count my chickens.

It was not the look that Killed ENT. Really we only got DSC because of the Kelvin movies.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But if it's the same continuity, plot-wise? And "thematically" is a bit abstract and subjective.

Bottom line: old chronology, new visuals. And, to my mind, the visuals are just the window dressing. The actual story stuff is still the same.

(No disrespect intended to the many talented people, past and present, who have labored on the production end of things for all these decades. But the "timeline" doesn't change just because the props and costumes and ship designs got a makeover.)

I've argued for months that they've broken future stories with their technological upgrade. Voyager doesn't have holographic emitters outside sickbay when a ship 120 years older has them everywhere? And now O'Brien looks really stupid when he's bragging about the USS Defiant's "new" holographic communicator in "For the Uniform"

Then we get onto stuff like why is the Discovery a massive 750m long when Kirk's Enterprise was a tiny 300? Why didn't Spock mention a human sister? Why didn't Janeway build a spore drive to get home (admittedly, they're likely to render the spore hub useless so I don't really count this one)?

And why does everyone act like it's the first time war has broken out between Klingons and humans in "Errand of Mercy" if they were at war just a decade before? And why is cloaking an amazing new theoretical breakthough technology in "Balance of Terror" when all the Klingons were using it during this war nobody speaks of?

Yes, you can wank up explanations for each inconsistency if you really want to, with various levels of success. But there are so many, a sheer bloody wall of them. I find it infinitely easier to say this is a separate Trek universe. A prequel akin to Gotham or Smallville where we all know where it ends, but they're getting there in their own incompatible way.

 

[jaime]

It was not the look that Killed ENT. Really we only got DSC because of the Kelvin movies.

I think the look helped. General Hammond of Starfleet, TNG rank pips before TOS, TNG styled shapes on uniform. Akiraprise. Bumpy head Klingons (later explained). Engineering made of car parts. Sexy catsuit TPol. Decon chamber sexy time. (You can sing that one like peanut butter jelly song.) baseball caps. All CGI ships, not respecting canon designs (Romulan flea) Tech too advanced/too similar to stuff post-TOS.
I am not these were my bugbears, they weren’t, (well..not majorly) but they were and are topics of...debate with ENT visuals, that we see again almost note for note with DSC. Once you throw in a ‘not Starfleet enough/they are in the process of becoming Starfleet that we know’ discussion, it’s basically a full house.
And there is no denying that DSC definitely visually resembles a sequel to ENT (because it is one. Natch.) with its blue jumpsuits and body armour.
I think the popularity of Trek on streaming services has more to answer for than the KT. CBS wants a streaming service, in essence a new channel, and whenever that company under whatever name, wants a new channel, Trek is its go-to property. (See Phase 2 and Voyager) given existing services are also similar to a syndication model (they buy in shows and have a lot of money and power) you also end up with Trek as a go-to for that pie, look at TNG.
basically...it was Treks time, the pieces aligned.

Unrelated, but since the whole ‘Starfleet Infantry’ was heavily fuelled by the MACO in Ent, and we see the body-armour visual used again DSC....DSC has shown why ground troops are pointless in Trek. That must be a discussion waiting to happen elsewhere again.

ENT 2.0.
With a hint of Voy, but now we are in MU not the Delta Quadrant. DSC is like a punk cover of Treks greatest hits, which may be what they are going for. That sounds more complimentary than it is.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Yeah, some outrage it did not look old, and treks aging, hostile fan problem was some of it. But it was a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that killed ENT. And Yeah DSC uses ENT, you can see that in the ships and such, because it damned well should use ENT and not look like a cheap campy fan film.

The Kelvin films solved one of treks issues, getting new fans into trek and if you don't think it played a major role, I don't know what to tell ya.

 

[jaime]

Yeah, some outrage it did not look old, and treks aging, hostile fan problem was some of it. But it was a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that killed ENT. And Yeah DSC uses ENT, you can see that in the ships and such, because it damned well should use ENT and not look like a cheap campy fan film.

The Kelvin films solved one of treks issues, getting new fans into trek and if you don't think it played a major role, I don't know what to tell ya.

I don’t think, bringing in new people wise, that theKT did anything that any new iteration of Trek did/would do. I reckon VOY probably brought in more new fans than anything since TNG tbh, and probably more than the KT films.

Yup..ENT was totally killed by the behind the scenes stuf...I think it’s that same stuff that kept Trek off for so long. I don’t even like ENt, and it lands slap bang in middle of me basically being too busy and too ‘grown up’ for Trek. (Basically, in first couple of jobs, have discovered the mysteries of ‘going out’ and ‘having a girlfirned’ and ‘working unsociable hours’. Aka the late teens early twenties period. I am sure I am not the only person who drifted off from fan-fervour in this period.) but even I knew it wasn’t that bad...even if I didn’t like it. It was no worse than its contemporaries...smallville, Roswell, charmed....though Farscape was better and even that got killed.
The resolution and changes behind the scenes are also what has brought it back, and why we have a bit of a Space Opera boom these last few years. (Defiance, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Expanse, Orville. Though the bastards killed Dark Matter. A show so good and positive, it was like it fell through time from 1999. And was killed for it.)
DSC I think has misread the mood slightly, and needs a little more light in its mix, and that goes designwise too...the overwrought Klingon visuals are actually out of step with current trends, which are actually more retro-styled than the organic cathedrals we see here. (Also, they are rubbish. The designs were rubbish, the finished products are rubbish, and I can’t shake a feeling of them being lazy designs.)

 

[Tuskin38]

Why didn't Spock mention a human sister?

Why didn't he ever mention his father was a prominent Ambassador? Or that he had a brother?

Voyager doesn't have holographic emitters outside sickbay when a ship 120 years older has them everywhere?

Because 24th century holo tech was more advanced, it was harder to install everywhere?

And why does everyone act like it's the first time war has broken out between Klingons and humans in "Errand of Mercy" if they were at war just a decade before

Give me an example where they act that way. It's actually been a while since I watched the episode.

 

[Mirror Mirror]

Because 24th century holo tech was more advanced.

That one is not even hard to explain. If you sit and think for more than a min, you can easy explain that one away, I have saw some very well thought out explanations on here.

 

[Hythlodeus]

I've seen and heard people boast about their newest TV set multiple times, HD here, screen width there, yadda yadda yadda. Doesn't change the fact that TV is around for what? 8 decades now?

 

[Tomalak]

Holograms weren't a new thing by TNG, but the sophistication was. Riker was dumbstruck that the Enterprise-D had solid holograms you could interact with rather than just the images we see on Discovery. O'Brien's holocom is probably similar, the EMH certainly is - there's no evidence a hologram can perform intensive surgery in DIS.

We're also forgetting that the TNG viewscreen was supposed to be a deep holographic display. It's due to the limitations of eighties tech that this rarely came across on screen, but there are clearly some early efforts to show this.

If you watch The Emissary, you see the viewscreen from an acute angle, and actually see the side of the Klingon commander's face rather than just a distorted view of his face on a flat screen. There were also a couple of desktop holographic displays in the first two seasons (Last Outpost and The Child IIRC).

There's no reason the producers of DIS should feel restrained by the budgetary and technical limitations of previous shows from fifty or thirty years ago, and it's ridiculous for fans to suggest they should.

 

[Longinus]

I'm visual person too. My training/education is The Fine Arts, painting and drawing, yet I've no problem accepting new and different looks as long as they work for me on various levels. The DISCO uniforms still aren't working form me. The ship has grown on me. The various props have worked for me from the start.

'Works for me on various levels' is a kinda vague and hella subjective. Though I actually agree with you on your specific examples. The uniforms are definitely the weakest part of the Fed side design, though they don't bug me nearly as much as the Klingons and their ships.

I too have art training, and I am the sort of person who just cannot ignore the visuals. Though I'm more concerned about overall look and feel rather than every minute detail matching. And of course I want the new show to look great; I never wanted Star Trek Continues style recreation of the original look. But when they announced that it would be set in prime close to TOS era, I certainly expected more homages to TOS look in the design, if not for another reason than to milk the nostalgia.

 

[jaime]

Holograms weren't a new thing by TNG, but the sophistication was. Riker was dumbstruck that the Enterprise-D had solid holograms you could interact with rather than just the images we see on Discovery. O'Brien's holocom is probably similar, the EMH certainly is - there's no evidence a hologram can perform intensive surgery in DIS.

We're also forgetting that the TNG viewscreen was supposed to be a deep holographic display. It's due to the limitations of eighties tech that this rarely came across on screen, but there are clearly some early efforts to show this.

If you watch The Emissary, you see the viewscreen from an acute angle, and actually see the side of the Klingon commander's face rather than just a distorted view of his face on a flat screen. There were also a couple of desktop holographic displays in the first two seasons (Last Outpost and The Child IIRC).

There's no reason the producers of DIS should feel restrained by the budgetary and technical limitations of previous shows from fifty or thirty years ago, and it's ridiculous for fans to suggest they should.

Even the TOS displays were supposed to be 3D. Look at the turned off screen in TMP, think about the three sided screens in the meeting room. It’s just never overtly talked about, but it’s such an accepted thing that it’s mentioned in the novels I think. All photos in Trek seem to be referred to as Holos often enough, even if this usually takes the form of a photo with holographic decoration tape round the edge. That’s stuff that also implied on padds, which of course use color electronic ink displays, and for all we know are entirely made of biodegradable components.
First contact has the fully photonics viewscreen, but looking at a blank wall was probably so depressing they change that later....
It’s really not too much of a leap, though it is a bit annoying when they push it too hard in DSC, granted. I can also why it would be dropped in short order...a Screen is easier to manage, and it’s one more thing that can break. There’s probably a new drive for KISS along with a retro nineteen-seventies skeumorphic fashion trend that brings in black and silver and leather on the design front later.

 

[BillJ]

I was watching "In a Mirror, Darkly" last night and thought the Defiant sets looked great.

It doesn't mean Discovery needed to copy them, but the argument they wouldn't stand up to modern filming techniques bogus.

 

[Tomalak]

I was watching "In a Mirror, Darkly" last night and thought the Defiant sets looked great.

It doesn't mean Discovery needed to copy them, but the argument they wouldn't stand up to modern filming techniques bogus.

It did look great, in the same way the sets in Trials and Tribble-ations looked great.

But both were aiming for a self-consciously retro feel, which probably isn't sustainable for a new series hoping to attract new viewers who have no nostalgia for the sixties series. JJ did the same thing with his Enterprise - the sets were completely different.

 

[jaime]

I was watching "In a Mirror, Darkly" last night and thought the sets looked great.

It doesn't mean Discovery needed to copy them, but the argument they wouldn't stand up to modern filming techniques bogus.

It’s just lighting and detail levels. What people really mean is it’s not to their taste. It’s something that’s sort of true when TNG goes to the films...yes, most of those sets would have been fine for film, because they were built for TMP. Really it was about standing sets between films, and Voyager needing that stage (and some of Voyagers sets were still on those all sets at their base...engineering and the transporter room I think. The Transporter room apparently had pads from the sixties in the ceiling.) Generations itself uses even the sets that were made for TV really well, because of lighting and detail upgrades.
Part of the reality is, if you are a makeup or set design dude, you want to put your mark on things and not just work to someone else’s patterns. That’s why DSC has a lot of the Klingon stuff. You can feel the Neville Page in those Klingons, no question. You can’t feel much Klingon in some of them, because it’s there but buried under his tastes. I wonder if they approached Westmore and he just gave them his daughters buddies number because he’s retired.
The Klingon designs...yeah...those ships...they are just someone really effing lazy with their pattern brush in photoshop. Literally the laziest ship designs I have ever seen, and I have looked at a ton of ships in my time. Oddly beneath both these things is lazy uses of computer imaging...Neville is a ZBrush junkie. It’s almost like people can’t draw or sculpt anymore in these jobs, and it’s short circuiting any artistic talent they may have had.

 

[Hythlodeus]

I was watching "In a Mirror, Darkly" last night and thought the Defiant sets looked great.

It doesn't mean Discovery needed to copy them, but the argument they wouldn't stand up to modern filming techniques bogus.

it looked 'great' from the viewpoint of nostalgic trek fans, those who will watch the show anyway. but, you know, it has to look good for the 80% of the rest of the viewers too

 

[F. King Daniel]

Why didn't he ever mention his father was a prominent Ambassador? Or that he had a brother?

That his entire story arc has been reconciling his human and Vulcan heritage in two timelines, you'd think a human sister would come up somewhere.

Because 24th century holo tech was more advanced, it was harder to install everywhere?

Be nice if they actually showed some limitation of the technology in Discovery, rather than leaving it to fans to blue-sky excuses.

Give me an example where they act that way. It's actually been a while since I watched the episode.

At no point do they mention being at war with the Klingons "again", nor do they ever refer to a previous hot war with the Klingon Empire. Obviously, because when "Errand of Mercy" was written, it was the intent that this be war finally breaking out between the two superpowers and not a resumption of a war from a decade ago.

That one is not even hard to explain. If you sit and think for more than a min, you can easy explain that one away, I have saw some very well thought out explanations on here.

Is it normal to have to go to such lengths to justify every teeny thing in a TV show? Isn't it a bit weird that there's pretty much nothing that doesn't need a convoluted excuse to work in the Trekverse??

 

[BillJ]

it looked 'great' from the viewpoint of nostalgic trek fans...

No, I think they looked great. There aren't CRT's and LCD's hanging everywhere that make the other shows already seem dated. There is a uniqueness, a simplicity, a futuristic vibe to the design that Trek has yet to really recapture.

It doesn't mean I think Discovery should've directly copied those sets. There's a lot of factors that go into making shows, merchandising being one, and it's hard to sell merchandise that has already sold multiple times in the past. But, there's a lot more to work with off of those sets than some people here want to admit.

 

[Tomalak]

Is it normal to have to go to such lengths to justify every teeny thing in a TV show? Isn't it a bit weird that there's pretty much nothing that doesn't need a convoluted excuse to work in the Trekverse??

Come on, Trek fans have been coming up with convoluted excuses for nearly fifty years! It's part of the fun.