That war/secret room got tossed out pretty early. Wonder if that was a set they had built before they decided on a clear direction for the character.
Won't be nearly as interesting though unless it's mirror Lorca again pulling a double bluff.
Spoilers What do you think of Lorca's Arc?
- Thread starter Saul
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He was a really interesting multifaceted character, and they threw it all away to make him into a 2 dimensional cartoon villain. Call it Dukat-syndrome.
Got no issue with the arc ending, and us showing Lorca the door for good - you're right, Trek needs the guts to close off stories more often. But what was the ending? After all that, Lorca achieved... maybe fifteen minutes in charge of one Imperial ship, followed by his unceremonious death. Great. He deposed the emperor but that must happen all the time, and we know the Terran Empire continues without a wobble. Just seemed like a lot of build-up for, well, no real resolution. Sure, not all plans work out (see also L'rell) but when you're telling a story, '...and it just kinda didn't work' is a rubbish ending.
Lorca was a total jackass the entire Season. I don't get why people are seeing him as this misunderstood hero traumatized by the War. It makes sense he's just a hollow egotistical individual driven by ambition. Because that's what manipulative compulsive liars like him are in real life, they rarely are good people with good intentions. All they care about is themselves.
The people who served under Lorca hated him, look at what Stamets said about "Lorca's Discovery" in the initial episodes. He walked around with a personal bodyguard doing his dirty work. He authorized to experiment and torture a life form. He had an "evil lair" onboard Discovery he never showed to anyone. Dude sent a friggin' Admiral to her death because he was being paranoid about Cornwell discovering his secret. Captain Jellico was an angel if compared to him.
Look at the way he manipulated Paul after he decided to not make any jumps anymore. It was disgusting. No way in hell a guy like that would pass the most basic tests to join a peacekeeping, exploratory expeditionary force like Starfleet. Maybe the unseen Prime Lorca did, since Cornwell confirmed to us he was different. Discovery's Lorca ? Nope.
About his political speech, did you people really buy any of that ? He is a liar in every Universe he stands. If he's in the Prime Universe, he pretends to care about Federation citizens getting killed by the Klingons. I didn't believe one single moment he actually gave two fucks about Miners getting murdered or that he mourned the crew of the Gagarin, all that he cared about was war, war and war. He admitted he was "blinded by the need of winning the war" later on.
Now, if he's in the Mirror Universe, he pretends to love the Empire. It's all for show. He just wants to "mold his little soldiers". All he cares about is his personal fantasy with Michael. I mean, can we really pretend there are no people in real life who are exactly like him ? People who use others, who use politics, religion, etc. for personal gain...
Maybe M.U political views suited him better, just like in real life flawed people generally tend to believe in the enforcement of Social Darwinism. He's a chameleon, though. That's very well established way before we entered the Mirror Universe. I'm not really seeing this "turn coming out of nowhere" people are talking about.
Something else that doesn't make sense is the common complaint "every flawed person in Star Trek doesn't need to be a Villain". It's not like Lorca was the only one who made very questionable decisions in Discovery, is it ? There's always Michael.
I get that people are bummed Jason Isaacs is leaving, he's one hell of an actor. I just don't see the point of lashing out on Discovery writers because of that, just because they didn't make his character a freedom fighter or some cliche like that. Redemption is boring and overly used in Fiction, some people simply are evil and that's it.
The people who served under Lorca hated him, look at what Stamets said about "Lorca's Discovery" in the initial episodes. He walked around with a personal bodyguard doing his dirty work. He authorized to experiment and torture a life form. He had an "evil lair" onboard Discovery he never showed to anyone. Dude sent a friggin' Admiral to her death because he was being paranoid about Cornwell discovering his secret. Captain Jellico was an angel if compared to him.
Look at the way he manipulated Paul after he decided to not make any jumps anymore. It was disgusting. No way in hell a guy like that would pass the most basic tests to join a peacekeeping, exploratory expeditionary force like Starfleet. Maybe the unseen Prime Lorca did, since Cornwell confirmed to us he was different. Discovery's Lorca ? Nope.
About his political speech, did you people really buy any of that ? He is a liar in every Universe he stands. If he's in the Prime Universe, he pretends to care about Federation citizens getting killed by the Klingons. I didn't believe one single moment he actually gave two fucks about Miners getting murdered or that he mourned the crew of the Gagarin, all that he cared about was war, war and war. He admitted he was "blinded by the need of winning the war" later on.
Now, if he's in the Mirror Universe, he pretends to love the Empire. It's all for show. He just wants to "mold his little soldiers". All he cares about is his personal fantasy with Michael. I mean, can we really pretend there are no people in real life who are exactly like him ? People who use others, who use politics, religion, etc. for personal gain...
Maybe M.U political views suited him better, just like in real life flawed people generally tend to believe in the enforcement of Social Darwinism. He's a chameleon, though. That's very well established way before we entered the Mirror Universe. I'm not really seeing this "turn coming out of nowhere" people are talking about.
Something else that doesn't make sense is the common complaint "every flawed person in Star Trek doesn't need to be a Villain". It's not like Lorca was the only one who made very questionable decisions in Discovery, is it ? There's always Michael.
I get that people are bummed Jason Isaacs is leaving, he's one hell of an actor. I just don't see the point of lashing out on Discovery writers because of that, just because they didn't make his character a freedom fighter or some cliche like that. Redemption is boring and overly used in Fiction, some people simply are evil and that's it.
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The only thing I can think of is this was all supposed to have some resonance for us because of how it integrated with Burnham's personal arc. I say this because it's clear that the writers want us to identify with Burnham first and foremost. Therefore we're supposed to see this as a stunning betrayal of Burnham, rather than of the promise of Lorca's character, and want to see him laid low because of jerking her around (along with being creepy once he was "unveiled.")
But Micheal Burnham does nothing for me. I mean, I don't hate her, but I don't care about her either. Which might be why the end of the arc seems so aborted to me.
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I suspect you're right. We weren't supposed to see Lorca's story as a self contained arc, but as part of Burnham's story. I've got to wonder what the point of casting someone like Jason Isaacs is though if you don't intend/expect the character to become a big deal.
All of this is only obvious in retrospect though, and was subject to interpretation. This is unlike the Ash/Voq arc, which was pretty damn explicit regarding what was happening.
The scene which absolutely kills me in retrospect is in one of the early episodes when someone asks why he doesn't get his eyes "fixed," and he says something to the effect of he doesn't because it it helps him remember what he sacrificed. At the time, it seemed like he was a wounded and complicated man racked by guilt. The show now wants me to believe he was just a pathological liar who was making it all up on the spot. You don't see how that is troubling from a narrative perspective - to take an emotionally touching moment, and make it completely worthless?
I expect more than that from a major character in a modern serialized drama. After spending that much time with him, to turn him into a one-note villain straight out of the worst of TOS is, well, bad writing. We should be past that. I don't think he had to be redeemed, but I do think he should be nuanced.
Khan in Space Seed is infinitely more complex than Lorca turns out to be, and we only spent 48 minutes on his whole story.
I love what the writers did with Lorca; he quickly joined Sisko and Janeway as three of the best command figures in the franchise, and even knowing what we now know, that hasn't changed, at least for me.
Here's a scary thought - Lorca is now going to surpass Dukat and become an alt-right hero. They set him up to be a competent, morally ambiguous badass captain. Then the "shocking reveal" is that he was all about MAGA (sorrry, MEGA) and human supremacy all along. And it it wasn't for a pair of feminazis of color, he would have won too.
You're probably right. I mean if I were to write ( me writing is a joke in and of itself ) but if I were to write a main character, its reasonable to assume there would be some characters that are just satellites around the main character, and the writing would be pushing that way.
That being said I identified and connected with Stamets the most.
To attract attention and convince the public that this is a GOT-style prestige drama, I would think.
Me too. Unfortunately, it's clear that the reason he got the best development in Act 1 is because they needed to establish him as being a three-dimensional human being in order to have a plausible gay relationship in the show. Whenever he's not doing the "gay thing" with Culber, he's basically just a walking plot device for the mycelial network now.
You would think but they could have killed him there and left him on the floor of the throme room. I don't think it's an accident he fell into that spore drive thingy.
Followed closely by the GREEN SPORE THE CAMERA WILL JUST LINGER ON FOR A BIT that of course meant nothing
Followed closely by the GREEN SPORE THE CAMERA WILL JUST LINGER ON FOR A BIT that of course meant nothing
There is that piece too. Definitely hints that all is not as it seems.
Yup. Getting stabbed in the chest, then get vaporized while thrown unto an energy field means you're definetely dead and there's no more resurrection for MU Lorca.
However, for the 'missing' PU Lorca that's another matter altogether.
Yeah, I'd buy that. But my point, I guess, is that if he's back, he's definitely back from the dead. Not that Trek hasn't done that before.
Jason Isaacs sent out a fun Python tweet on this very subject.
At that point, this "touching moment" was already worthless. He was torturing and experimenting on a sentient being some episodes before. He was already established as a cruel and ruthless character, his story about his sensitive eyes were just crocodile tears.
So, because his motivations were purely personal that makes him one-note ? That's not how it works. Not every character that is three dimensional needs to work towards "greater goals". Sometimes they are simply egotistical, just like people can be incredibly egotistical in real life.
What more nuance do you need than the three dimensional chess he played with the crew of the Discovery ? He manipulated every piece of the board and told lies like a master. All of that because he couldn't get his head out of his own ass. The real world is full of "manchilds" like Lorca, I really don't see how he's one dimensional.
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"Less than the sum of its parts" is how I would describe it (and the show as a whole, at this point). I didn't mind the twist but I loathe that the writers used it to undermine Lorca's potential and turn him into a cartoon. All my favorite parts of his characterization prior – the "context is for kings" speech, his certainty in his mission of leading the Discovery, his willingness when push came to shove to defy orders and defend Pahvo – the writers and showrunners didn't mean any of it. All of that stuff was not, apparently, what they wanted the show to be, and instead was just a smokescreen for their real plan to turn the series into schlock. And not fun schlock either but kinda trashy schlock. Boo.
And I also don't buy the stated intent that Lorca was poisoning the PU, making it not feel like the Star Trek we know and love. Because how does his being in command of Discovery cause the PU Landry to be a cruel, impulsive asshole? Or to cause Admiral Cornwell to be a psychiatrist who sleeps with the patients she's supposed to be evaluating? Or make the Klingons into jingoistic, cannibalistic monsters? Or or or etc? There's just no causal connection there between his existence and the overall tone people have been complaining about since day one.
Not that it bothered me as much as it did a lot of other folks, but if this was supposed to be the plan all along they did a terrible job of setting the tone and style of the series to support it.
And I also don't buy the stated intent that Lorca was poisoning the PU, making it not feel like the Star Trek we know and love. Because how does his being in command of Discovery cause the PU Landry to be a cruel, impulsive asshole? Or to cause Admiral Cornwell to be a psychiatrist who sleeps with the patients she's supposed to be evaluating? Or make the Klingons into jingoistic, cannibalistic monsters? Or or or etc? There's just no causal connection there between his existence and the overall tone people have been complaining about since day one.
Not that it bothered me as much as it did a lot of other folks, but if this was supposed to be the plan all along they did a terrible job of setting the tone and style of the series to support it.
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