Is that from best to worst, or worst to best?
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
Yes.
I mean, I've torn Discovery's second season apart in reviews and sometimes I've watched Strange New Worlds and thought "Why couldn't the other shows have writing like this?" But I think in the end Disco s2 brought me the most joy and SNW s1 made me the most miserable. I would've quit the series there if it wasn't for the crossover in s2.
Interesting how rankings of Kurtzman Trek diverge far, far more than Berman era Trek (like, is someone's favorite TNG season ever 1 or 7, or favorite ENT S2?) or even TOS.
The thing is, though, Spock was an only child until TFF in 1989, and only had one sibling until DISCO in 2017, yet Sarek was against Spock joining Starfleet
I understand we have reinterpreted Sarek (twice) since TOS, but my point is until those times we had to either accept what Trek told us what Sarek had against Starfleet or find a reasonable explanation for his animosity.
And we did. We had 30 years to find it believable Sarek was against his only child from joining Starfleet.
Sure! That was the original intention, and was how we interpreted it until now.
Now more has been “revealed”, and we have this new stuff that adds further nuance to the story.
I don’t see a problem here. It’s okay for canon to evolve.
It wasn’t revealed by the people who actually created the character. For some, it looks like a soulless corporate cash grab. Bolt something never intended onto a character they had no hand in creating.
I have a controversial prediction:
I think the 32nd century (as depicted in DIS & SA) won't have a lot of staying power in the franchise & disappear/be sidelined like the Kelvin reboot-verse before.
That might seem illogical, with a new show (Starfleet Academy) launching in said century. But if "Starfleet Academy" isn't an absolute, runaway mainstream success, Star Trek as a franchise will return to the 23-25th century as it's "present" in the long run, purely because the 32nd century is too far removed from "traditional" Star Trek: visually & technology wise, but also lore-wise (Vulcan/Romulan re-unified, non-Federation military Earth, "time-wars" having happened in the past, Klingons nowhere to be found) and most importantly regarding it's general utopian vision, and the feeling this is "our" not too distant future that we can actually reach if we just solve our ridiculous problems of the present.
It's simply too far removed from what "Star Trek" means to most people. And once that happens - once Star Trek decides it's "present" is the 23rd/24th/25th century again - real life technology, vision and storytelling will have further developed and make the 32nd century look outdated, and missing whatever will get introduced to the Trek verse later. And once that happens - the 32nd century will inevitably be downgraded to a "potential", alternate multiverse future stream, like whatever currently happens with the Kelvin-verse in comics & books.
I think the 32nd century (as depicted in DIS & SA) won't have a lot of staying power in the franchise & disappear/be sidelined like the Kelvin reboot-verse before.
That might seem illogical, with a new show (Starfleet Academy) launching in said century. But if "Starfleet Academy" isn't an absolute, runaway mainstream success, Star Trek as a franchise will return to the 23-25th century as it's "present" in the long run, purely because the 32nd century is too far removed from "traditional" Star Trek: visually & technology wise, but also lore-wise (Vulcan/Romulan re-unified, non-Federation military Earth, "time-wars" having happened in the past, Klingons nowhere to be found) and most importantly regarding it's general utopian vision, and the feeling this is "our" not too distant future that we can actually reach if we just solve our ridiculous problems of the present.
It's simply too far removed from what "Star Trek" means to most people. And once that happens - once Star Trek decides it's "present" is the 23rd/24th/25th century again - real life technology, vision and storytelling will have further developed and make the 32nd century look outdated, and missing whatever will get introduced to the Trek verse later. And once that happens - the 32nd century will inevitably be downgraded to a "potential", alternate multiverse future stream, like whatever currently happens with the Kelvin-verse in comics & books.
When Spock joined Starfleet, at that time, it was an Earth/Human organization under United Earth. At the start of TOS, it was very rare to have even one non-human severing aboard a Starship (at least we see during the entire TOS series that Spock was the only non-human on the Enterprise <we don't need to argue that maybe they were unmentioned others off-screen; for this argument, not seen + not mentioned = not there.> To a Vulcan like Sarek, it would illogical to join a Human space exploratory organization; think of the danger of death based on their history of space wars and missing ships. It is more logical to explore space via the cautious and much safer Vulcan Expeditionary Group. Now, eighteen years later, apparently Vulcan is now part of Starfleet even having Starships (mostly/wholly?) manned by Vulcans, i.e. the Intrepid
. Now Sarek probably thinks his son was right to join Starfleet and be one of its best members. Sarek, the Ambassador to Earth, may have been instrumental in Starfleet becoming the Federation's combined space force during season one of TOS. 
There are two big factors that I think are open questions about the future of Star Trek which will be relevant to how the 32nd century shows and, honestly, all of the Paramount+ era shows are treated; who ends up owning Paramount (and by extension Star Trek) and what happens after Kurtzman leaves.
Arguably, I think TOS and TNG are the baseline for what people think of when you say Star Trek. If Netflix, Amazon, etc., should ever end up with Star Trek, I could see a new ownership either rebooting everything or going with the idea the Paramount+ shows exist in their own universe, and whatever they create proceeds from either TOS or the TNG era and ignores everything else.
Also, whomever replaces Kurtzman is going to have their own vision for this. It could be someone that comes in and wants to build on what's already there. Or it could be someone that wants to take things back to square one and doesn't want to have to live with some of the choices like "The Burn," even going beyond detached nacelles and personal transporters. I'm also curious, if Paramount is not sold and their financial issues persist, whether there will be a "pause" in new material similar to the gap between Enterprise and Star Trek (2009) in order to have a reassessment of the IP.
I would assume that Paramount would want to do something "big" for the 60th anniversary in the form of a movie release. But what exactly would that movie be at this point? Its been 8 years since a Star Trek movie release. Beyond underperformed and lost money. I don't think there's a huge clamoring among the public to get back to the Kelvin Universe. And, if you're a Paramount executive, does any of this sound like a good idea when the entire concept of spending $200+ million on a film is starting to become questionable when people aren't going to movie theaters to watch movies the same way they used to?
That's why I think we get reports about possible movie ideas every 4-6 months. The people at Paramount have all of these ideas that are reported to be in various stages of production, but in the end I think what holds back at least something from it getting made is they can't justify the math of it. The only way I think a big-budget Star Trek movie gets made in the next 2 years is if someone new comes in similar to what happened with (2009), a big name director/producer, who possibly gets big stars interested. And if you bring someone new in, they will probably want to put their own spin on things. And, if that happens, how does that spin filter down to the TV shows?
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Don't hold your breath. Nothing was done for the 50th, which was disappointing.
Still, remain hopeful. We seem to be in a Star Trek upswing at the moment. If that continues another 2 years, then we might get something.
That’s inevitable in any story that runs longer than the tenure of its original creators. DC’s Superman or Marvel’s Spider-Man now have innumerable elements that were bolted on by people other than Schuster & Siegel or Stan Lee. That’s unavoidable.
The only way to avoid it would be to just not continue the franchise — declare a certain amount canon, then stop. That would absolutely be a valid choice, but it’s not what money-making franchises like Trek or Marvel/DC tend to do.
I fully agree! The fate of Paramount+ (and streaming in general) will be the deciding factor. To break down the Trek future, it depends on what happens to:
1) The Kurtzman verse
Which is super weird in that it's pitting it's newest show (Starfleet Academy) in direct competition to it's most popular & least controversial show (SNW). In the end, I think only one of these will position itself as the "main" show, and by extension main "timeframe", of which later spin offs will spring from. And I don't think it will be the one that depends on the "burn" backstory...
2) The post Kurtzman era
And here I see only 2 possibilities: Either full on, honest, complete reboot. Or "canon continuation", either real-time post-PIC, or 50/100 years later if they want a "clean" cut-off point from previous/current lore.
I do not see the 32nd century anywhere here.
3) The movies
I don't see - anything - here currently. All mainstream possibilities (TOS era, TNG continuation, reboot, Academy) are currently covered already in streaming. And no one's really clamouring for a "Romulan War" movie.
However. Wait another 10 years, they can (and will!) do another Kirk/Spock reboot/origin.
Definitely no post-burn content here.
Superman has been rebooted. Marvel/DC are not like Star Trek in that Trek wants to make creative changes while insisting it's the same continuity. Marvel/DC aren't shy about occasionally or regularly rebooting and resetting their entire continuity.
Even the movies keep rebooting their franchises. The Tim Burton Batman is not the same as the Christopher Nolan Batman and how many Spider Man origins have we seen just this century?
When a reboot is used it gets around the limitations some people see in making alterations after the death of departure of the creators.
A reboot is saying, these are our versions of the characters and universe. Which is what both Abrams and Kurtzman Trek are. Even if Kurtzman/CBS don’t want to admit for business purposes.
So what about copyright?
I feel like I'm missing a joke here...
The new people coming in will have their own ideas with what Star Trek is, and they are going to re-write what has gone before or create something new. They aren't going to see Star Trek through the eyes of someone who watched TOS. They aren't going to feel that they have to be faithful to that Star Trek, so even if you have Amanda saying that Sarek expected Spock to follow in his footsteps [rather than go into Star Fleet] as Sarek followed in his own father's footsteps," all that can be rewritten, just as it has been rewritten. SNW's Amanda, Sarek, Spock, Pike are not the characters we knew from TOS--they are based on them, but they are new characters for a different generation of viewers. I just don't see that Kurtzman and any of the others have felt a need to follow any sort of canon. Canon is what you create when you are the producer of a series. Naturally, it will change with the vision of that person, just as a character will change once that actor has a chance to perform as that character. The Kirk we knew in TOS has been re-imagined. And the Federation will be reimagined. Canon is a fluid thing. In fact, is there is such thing as "canon" with respect to Star Trek? I don't think so. If there is, it's always been skirted by one thing or another to serve a plot.
How? They’ve all bolted new elements onto what existed before. Heck, just by existing!TNG and all the other spinoffs would disagree.
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