Being perfectly honest, I'm getting to a point where I feel so different from so much of the fandom that I'm not sure this conversation is even productive. That being said I'll at least try to address some of the more glaring points of contention.
I don't appreciate the term "knee-jerk". That implies that my reasons for not liking Discovery or Enterprise or nuTrek are shallow and not for any reason other than a quick glance and a "ewww!" reaction (okay, that is the reaction I had to the "Klingons" but from what some are saying here, I'm hardly the only one to have this reaction).
A lot of the statements I make are about the fandom in general, or at least what I perceive coming from the fandom in general. Unless I name you personally I'm usually not referring to something you yourself said, nor am I ascribing the general feeling to you. However, where the fandom is concerned, it's undeniable that each new offering of the franchise has been met with suspicion or even outright hatred from the moment it was announced. You've offered up some anecdotal evidence from your own life and personal circle as if it speaks for the whole. It doesn't. There were entire news stories about fans' rejection of TNG, and check out Larry Nemecek's video where he reads directly from 1980's fanzines entire letters from fans about why a new Trek series is a terrible idea and isn't even real Star Trek. I don't know if the term "fanfic" was in widespread use at the time, but the term "really bad fanfic" and "not real Star Trek" are conveying the same idea, and that is precisely what these fans were denouncing the series as.
Strongest in what way? Only the first episode was available to the general public.
In what way does availability have anything to do with quality? If you don't have HBO you can't watch
Game of Thrones, yet it's a hugely popular, award-winning, critically praised series (and I am
not interested in getting into whether or not it deserves its reputation). If you don't subscribe to Hulu, you can't watch
The Handmaid's Tale, one of the best-reviewed series of the past year. For the better part of 20 years, the best TV series out there are those you could not watch unless you were a premium cable subscriber. I don't see how this is any different.
Strongest, story-wise? The visuals on the desert planet grabbed my attention, but that's likely because I thought, "Hey, those two actresses would look great in a Dune movie!" (I could actually imagine them as Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers in a movie version of Heretics of Dune, for example).
Yes, strongest story-wise and character-development wise. It sounds like you haven't watched beyond the first episode, and if that's true, then you need to stop talking about it until you know what you're talking about. I've seen all the episodes thus far, and this is the first one that feels like it knows from the outset what it wants to do. It actually has a goal in mind besides "here's some characters and a ship/station, and they're exploring stuff. Come back next week where we'll do it all again, but with a different planet and race this time."
The Klingons? Sorry, but if I wanted to watch Doctor Who-style monsters, I'd watch Doctor Who.
Again, these Klingons have hardly been changed at all, and certainly in no meaningful way.
Michael and Sarek? Been there, done that with nuSpock and NimoySpock. It was a Phone-A-Friend moment, which was silly in nuTrek, but this version of Sarek came across as totally different from how his character was established in TOS, TAS, TNG, and the movies. They should have just gone with a new Vulcan character.
Again, sounds like you haven't watched past the first episode, so you don't know.
I am aware that it's not a documentary, thank you.
You might point that out to everyone who complains about details regarding various ships or weapons' effects - those are things I barely notice, and I don't understand why there are long threads complaining about them. But then I'm not someone who notices details on any sort of vehicle (I don't drive, and never have). Ask me what kind of car I got a ride in, and unless it's one I'm very familiar with, I might answer, "I think it was blue."
Again, that was a response to the general complaints, and in particular, Uniderth, who actually does think "real Star Trek" should play out like some kind of documentary. He really does think that everything, visuals included, in a Trek prequel should line up to what we see in "The Cage". He even gets upset that prequels use terms that weren't used (but aren't contradicted, either) in TOS, such as "warp core" or "nacelle". This isn't meant as an attack on him (though I thoroughly disagree with his outlook on the series as a whole) as I've said nothing about him he hasn't said about himself.
Of course life in the real 2260s isn't going to look like TOS. But this is a show that is set a mere TEN YEARS before TOS, so it should damn well look something like TOS/"Cage"
Where it counts, it does. They even use those silly colored disks instead of modern storage. But they purposefully wanted it to be a "visual reboot", which does
not mean the same thing as "new timeline" or "story reboot". Actually, the further it's gone, the more nods to the series there have been, which you would know if you would bloody watch the show instead of watching fifty minutes of it and making up your mind. The producers have stated that they are aware of how different it looks and that the transition to a more TOS-esque flavor will be a gradual thing that happens over the course of the series.
and the characters should not be unrecognizable as people who could be from that time. Sure, you can always have one or two odd ones in a crew; all the series pretty much had their odd characters. But when the entire crew is odd, that's when it gets into the realm of "really bad fanfiction."
Now, here I don't know what on Earth you're talking about. No one's "odd" on this show. There are some character quirks, sure, and Saru, being an alien, is, well, actually an alien, rather than just a human with a funny looking forehead or nose. There have been complaints from fans that they "don't act like Starfleet officers" because they're a bit more snarky with each other rather than becoming fast friends who are closer than family practically by the first episode, but that just makes them more real. And yes, there's open conflict in this show, just like there was on TOS.
I was in junior high as well, when I got hooked on Star Trek (age 12, in Grade 8). But that was 42 years ago (as of the end of this month; I date it by when I bought my first Blish adaptation on November 28, 1975). At that time, TOS was all I had. I was able to see TAS later, but still... that's all there was, and this was pre-VCR, so fans were dependent on reruns. I didn't live anywhere near the large cities where conventions happened, so I didn't have that sense of information overload and everything being readily available, until much later. And then it did get to be information overload, so I had to decide to ignore parts of it.
This is similar to me, but once I became a confirmed die-hard fan, it was all Star Trek to me. If I didn't watch it, I wanted to, and was sorry I missed it.
That's why I stopped collecting a lot of the novels.
Well, the novels aren't really canon, so as much as I enjoy them I can understand people wanting to skip them.
Too much interconnectivity in the modern novels (I prefer not to need a flowchart so I read them in the right order and wonder WTF is going on if I've missed one)
See, I like this. Worldbuilding, again.
But I would never expect any FF fan to accept my writing if I suddenly turned the world of Titan, or well-known parts of it, into something unrecognizable, or made any of the well-known canon characters into something they're not, with inconsistent personality traits, motives, and even physical appearance.
The Discovery writers have not done this, either. I thoroughly reject that premise, and you have in no way backed up your statement with any kind of objectivity. Sarek is very much the same character, just played by a different actor. I fail to see any difference at all. I don't want to guess at your motivations, but it does seem, regardless of what you said, that you do tie visuals into interpretation. James Frain is playing Sarek just as Leonard would, but his voice and face look different, so you claim he's "nothing like Sarek". But, again, you have only watched the first episode (it would seem, at any rate).
There is plenty of scope in Voyager for expanding the mythos, if you're into exploring some of the things they could have, but didn't. I do agree that they let some golden opportunities slip by (Year of Hell is the obvious one, and if they were going to do a C/7 romance they should have had it start much earlier).
Two of my more major problems with Voyager. It's funny how you say "there is plenty of scope in Voyager for expanding the mythos" but
only if you account for things they could have done but didn't do. THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT. They not only
could have done those things, but they
should have. Instead, they just remade TNG with different characters.
But consider TOS. Every criticism you just made of Voyager is what TOS did - planet of the week/anomaly of the week.
And that right there is the crux of the problem.
It's been done. TOS had never done what it did when it did it. It was fresh, it was new, and it became a cultural touchstone. TNG refreshed it for a new generation of fans. DS9 went completely off the beaten path and greatly expanded the universe and the possibilities therein. VGR...just became a retread of TNG and TOS. All the potential for expansion was utterly wasted.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy Voyager, I think... there's more room to explore the characters, instead of everything being handed to the viewers.
Only if you're into VGR novels and/or fanfic. You went the fanfic route (I understand much of it contradicts the series, such as one story where Mezoti stays with
Voyager and Seven becomes her adoptive mother) while plenty of others read the novels and really enjoyed them. But the series should not depend on the novels to make it interesting. VGR the TV series played it safe, avoided almost all risks and as a result was dull as dishwater.
Retcons are something I expect in soap operas...It's not what I expect with Star Trek, at least not the stuff presented on TV and in the movies...
Nearly all ongoing shared universes have them. You're either going to have to learn to live with that or stop watching/reading
any long-running shared universe.
Star Trek seems to wave it away with "modern audiences don't like older stuff and we have to be edgy." In other words, change for the sake of change, and not because it makes sense in the context of the overall in-universe continuity.
I reject the idea that DSC's writers are "just trying to be edgy". There's little that's truly "edgy" or "dark" about DSC, but people started saying that about it, so people decided it had to be true. The most "edgy" thing about it is a couple of uses of the f-word, which in 2017 is about edgy as short skirts were in the 60's.
I just don't understand what is so wrong with making a 2260's ship look like a 2260's ship, even though it's over 50 years between shows.
Because they frickin' look like they're made of cardboard and plastic. I
always assumed that if I could have somehow stood on the "real" bridge of the
Enterprise, it would look more like something real instead of the painted plywood I was watching. For what it's worth, Roddenberry would agree; he always took the stance of "if you can make it look better, do it" and didn't care at all about visual continuity. And you, despite claims to the contrary, clearly
do consider visuals to be an important part of canon.
It smacks of "the audience is stupid and won't understand why a show made in 2017 looks like a show made in 1967."
Or "the audience expects a show made in 2017 to look like a show made in 2017". I don't see why that's so wrong. It's more wrong-headed, to me, to think that a show made in 2017 that's the lynchpin of a new viewing platform would look like something made in the 60's.
Does a traditional Shakespeare play have characters using cellphones instead of sending a messenger or herald? No. Does Henry V ride to war on a motorbike or in a tank instead of on a horse? No. Did his soldiers use machine guns instead of longbows and swords and pikes? No. Does the audience enjoy traditional Shakespeare? Yes. No "modern edge" is necessary.
First, even if your premise was correct, and it's not, apples and oranges. Shakespeare didn't write sci-fi. His stuff wasn't set centuries from now. However, your premise also has a problem as tons of Shakespeare adaptations, even on stage, have modernized the setting.
This whole thing puts me in mind of a conversation that happened in the general media forum here many years ago. Someone went on a rant about how terrible black and white movies and TV shows were, and the reason they were terrible was because they weren't in color and they were made a long time ago. I'm not suggesting that everything has to be black and white to be good (although some things should never be colorized since they look ridiculous; the old Richard Greene Robin Hood series is a prime example), but I am saying that there's nothing wrong with the older stuff.
Some stuff is meant to look retro on purpose.
The Artist looked retro because it was about the silent movie era, so it was filmed as if it were a silent movie.
Good Night and Good Luck was also trying to evoke the feel of a movie made in the timeframe it was set. This is not, and should not be, the goal of
Star Trek. It's not about nostalgia, it's about the future.
I watched "Encounter at Farpoint" with a group of about 20-30 people...The response was overwhelmingly positive...and I didn't hear a single negative comment about the show that night...So that's my experience of TNG, season 1. Overall it wasn't anywhere near as bad as a lot of people here claim it was.
You seem to think your own experiences were universal. They weren't.
TNG was mostly okay until it became the "Worf's Klingon Soap Opera Show" and DS9 was mostly okay until Worf's Klingon Soap Opera infested that show as well. Thank goodness they never put Michael Dorn into Voyager.
Different strokes to the extreme. What you call "soap opera" I call "character-driven drama", which is
always what I care about the most. If you give me compelling characters and strong character arcs, I can forgive a great number of other things. To me, TNG only got good once they started focusing on character development as opposed to trying to create compelling drama with yet another "here's a random planet and problem to solve". DS9's focus from the start was more heavily on character and story, which roped me in quicker, and I thought Worf fit in better on DS9 than he did on TNG.
DS9 was okay until Worf showed up. He brought TNG baggage with him, and once he and Jadzia hooked up... sheesh. I already didn't like her (part of it was the actress and her attitude; she went on a rant in an interview, whining about how the writers did storylines for the minor characters like Rom and Leeta and they didn't write more for her) and after Worf turned up they became ten times more insufferable. I think about the only thing in their relationship I did like was his reaction when they first met: "Nice hat."
Actually, a lot of that was her trying to express frustration without saying what was really happening: she was treated abysmally by Rick Berman, who told her explicitly she was there for sex appeal and that she needed to have breast implants, et al, and at one point telling her she should be grateful to him because without him she'd be working at Target or something.
I'm not a fan of either Tuvok or Kes, but other than that, I have no serious issues with Voyager (okay, Chakotay is more boring than watching paint dry, but some of the fanfic authors fixed that). And speaking of fanfic, guess which Star Trek series has the most stories posted on fanfiction.net? Voyager.
Really, no issues with Neelix? The most bloody annoying character in Trek history? Yes, even over Wesley? At least they sometimes acknowledged it, with Tuvok blatantly losing patience with him (in a Vulcan way, of course). I loved to narrate Tuvok's inner thoughts whenever he had to interact with Neelix:
Neelix: We're roomies!
Tuvok: (Like fuck we are) There must be some mistake.
Neelix: Chakotay said you were the only one not partnered up.
Tuvok: (I have died and am now in Hell. It is the only logical explanation.)
So Robert April is the character Scott Bakula played? Funny, that's not the show I remember. If they'd done a show about Robert April and his wife, Sarah Poole, and the adventures they and their crew had, I'd have been perfectly happy, provided that there were no egregious retcons or making the ship and show look like a modern action movie.
Robert April isn't "head canon". He's a character in the TAS episode "The Counter-Clock Incident" - the first Captain of the Enterprise. He's mentioned in The Making of Star Trek as one of the names of the captains Roddenberry was considering.
A canonista to beat all canonistas.
First of all, TAS's canon status is questionable at best. Roddenberry himself said it wasn't and it was actually only much later than any of the writers started including elements of TAS stories (starting with "Unification") within "real" canon. Second, Robert April has now officially been canonized by Discovery, that show you hate that "isn't real canon". Third, you do know that the NCC-1701 was merely the first FEDERATION STARSHIP to be named
Enterprise, right? That doesn't preclude any vessels being called that at all prior to that, and while it does require a bit of retcon, there is no real issue fitting Archer's
Enterprise into canon.
Third, no, you wouldn't have been okay with a show about Robert April because it wouldn't have looked like you expected.
Admittedly I didn't watch more than about a dozen episodes, if even that, before getting thoroughly bored. But I never got any sense at all that Enterprise was doing Voyager stories.
Why do you feel you can speak about stuff you admit you don’t watch?
Enterprise, for the first two seasons, rarely gave us a single plot that couldn't have been a rejected TNG or VGR script re-worked for the new setting. While people talk about how it was a series about laying the groundwork for the Federation, it was never that until Manny Coto took over. In fact, Braga openly said he wasn't interested in the "Birth of the Federation" story. So why did he want to do a prequel?
So what was this "giant revelation" that supposedly makes sense of an 18-year-long ostracism (and apparently one that was rekindled after Spock started his own ambassadorial projects)?
Watch the show and find out. I'm not doing your homework for you.
Why wouldn't they use chairs? Didn't the Relativity (the time ship in Voyager) have chairs? Are you suggesting that ships of the 26th or 27th century will have their artificial gravity turned off and everyone will float around in zero-g? That's not very smart; they wouldn't be able to beam down to any planets or anywhere else without a very strict exercise regimen. Or will the human anatomy be so changed that nobody sits? Since we've seen humans from later centuries, that's obviously not happening without a retcon of epic proportions.
Well, first, the
Relativity was comically low-tech. And second, I was only kinda kidding. A series set in the 26th or 27th Century should have tech that seems like magic. Holographic communication? How about rooms where everything in it is a hologram, but a hologram that actually interfaces with real components? Doug Drexler talked about how the
Enterprise-J would probably not even have a real warp core and would be powered by the body heat of the crew, or something. I can't find the exact quote. This is partly why I think the furthest into the future a possible 7th series should go is, say, mid-25th.
If I hadn't been told they were Klingons, I wouldn't have recognized them as Klingons. These ones look and sound like Doctor Who monsters who talk.....very.....slowly.
First, it's the same language they've always spoken in, we're just not used to whole scenes where they speak in it. Second, with hair, they have hardly changed at all. Again, the change from TOS to TMP was a much bigger change, and we all accepted it.
