"And what the hell? Why is everything in black-and-white? How am I supposed to forget I'm watching an old movie if there isn't any color in it? It looks so fake!"
When did canon become such a hot-button issue?
- Thread starter Amasov
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"And what the hell? Why is everything in black-and-white? How am I supposed to forget I'm watching an old movie if there isn't any color in it? It looks so fake!"
Yes, and DS9 added a full Starship so they didn't always have to deal with just stories on the station or Bajor; (since the Runabouts didn't have much beyond being larger shuttlecraft) - Read: Yes, they KNEW the station itself and Bajor weren't that interesting to viewers, so they added the Starship to bring back the 'Trek' part/feel.
As for what ST: D is about: For better or worse Micheal Burnham's 'Discovery' of who she is; and the events that help her find that out.
Can't resist digressing to tell this story: Years ago, a friend of mine was editing the novelization of an animated film and was having trouble prying cover art out of the studio. "Sorry," they told her. "No art is available yet."
"It's animated movie," she protested. "It's nothing BUT art!"
I think I recall reading back in the day that it was always part of the plan to bring in a starship eventually. The whole reason they set the station next to a wormhole opening up onto a whole new quadrant of uncharted space was because they wanted to keep the exploration angle. The reason they limited themselves to runabouts in season 1, I think, was partly to set the show apart from TNG and partly because they only had so much money per season to build sets, with most of the budget going into the station sets.
(I always felt that TNG should've sent the Enterprise on a long-term exploration mission in the Gamma Quadrant, reporting back to DS9 as their command base. It would've let them do periodic crossovers and share concepts and resources as useful while otherwise staying narratively independent.)
If anything, the change to the original premise was when they made the Dominion the dominant thread and shifted the emphasis from exploration toward intrigue and war.
Reminds me so much of DS9 it isn't even funny.
Also, DSC's premise is exploration of human beings, and not just brave new worlds. It really reminded me of the tag line from TMP: "The Human Adventure is Just Beginning."
Make of it what you will. But, I don't think for a second that DS9 remained true to its base premise for as long presented here.
This. Let's not pretend that DS9 made perfect sense of its premise for inception to production. That's not the way TV shows work at all. Or films, or novels or any other media consumed.
That would have been a better show than Voyager. And I like Voyager.
I assume it would've just been TNG, but with fewer Alpha-Quadrant-politics stories and more DS9 crossovers.
DS9 wasn’t planned out from start to finish, but you can’t compare its gradual shifts to DSC’s breaking, turning and constantly going back to TOS for elements to prop up the show. I mean, let’s be serious, how many people became so invested in the new characters they couldn’t wait to see them in S2 as opposed to Pike’s crew? How much time was even spent developing them in the few episodes available as opposed to starting a war, bringing back Mudd, jumping to the Mirror Universe? And just as it seemed like Discovery would finally have some time away from plot distractions, it had to run into the Enterprise, Section 31, Pike and Spock as main characters (the former being less of a problem since we didn’t know him). S2 even ended from the point of view of the Enterprise, similar to the ENT finale.
Even with the callbacks at the beginning, TNG never surrendered to temptation and lost sight of its main characters; later, I couldn’t care less that I was no longer seeing the TNG cast on DS9. What happened when Worf came aboard as a seeming ratings booster? Not much; he couldn’t bring back anyone else, felt like a fish out of water early on, then became just one of the characters and formed entirely different relationships specific to DS9.
Yes, in S1 of DS9 it seemed like it was going to be about Sisko, Bajor, Cardassians, the Prophets and the exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Then we started hearing reports of the Dominion from the encounters there. Then we ran into the actual Dominion and saw that runabouts don’t cut it, hence the Defiant. The showrunner changed in S3, but the show kept going with increasing tension. Eventually we had the infiltration, the war and finally a payoff to Sisko’s role as the Emissary. A, B, C, D.
Even with the callbacks at the beginning, TNG never surrendered to temptation and lost sight of its main characters; later, I couldn’t care less that I was no longer seeing the TNG cast on DS9. What happened when Worf came aboard as a seeming ratings booster? Not much; he couldn’t bring back anyone else, felt like a fish out of water early on, then became just one of the characters and formed entirely different relationships specific to DS9.
Yes, in S1 of DS9 it seemed like it was going to be about Sisko, Bajor, Cardassians, the Prophets and the exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Then we started hearing reports of the Dominion from the encounters there. Then we ran into the actual Dominion and saw that runabouts don’t cut it, hence the Defiant. The showrunner changed in S3, but the show kept going with increasing tension. Eventually we had the infiltration, the war and finally a payoff to Sisko’s role as the Emissary. A, B, C, D.
Really?
I guess TNG Season 2 must have slipped your mind. You know that's the season when they jettisoned the main character of Dr. Beverly Crusher and brought in WHOLE HOG, the TOS character of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the female form of Dr. Katherine Pulaski who (Like McCoy):
- Didn't like to use Transporters and was afraid it would just beam her atoms into space...
- Was a "Old country doctor..."
- Hailed from the former 'old South' area of the U.S.
And they TRIED (and failed) with said character to recreate the McCoy/Spock 'friendly rivalry' but failed miserably because the writers didn't realize that Data (though like Spock in many respects) wasn't 'worldly'; he was a naive and childlike in his understanding and when Pulaski dug into him (the same way McCoy did Spock), Data didn't defend himself like Spock could/did in TOS and she came across as more insensitively badgering a young but intelligent child; so they quickly dropped that aspect.
I did. Starting with TFA. Another theory, I don't think some of the fans resented it because it was too different, but among other things, because it was too confusing and awkward. And some of them did think it was copying the older movies too much.
The Last Jedi just added to those feelings. Ironically even Mark Hamill expressed frustration with his character and continuity.
Some of the criticisms comes from the crazy "anti-SJW" crowd, but the bulk of it may be from decent fans who just don't get it.
I think enough of them ultimately took it out on Solo when it came out because it reminded them of the series. It was too close to TFA and TLJ, imo.
If it the movie had been "Knights of the Old Republic" or something, set in some other time, it probably would have been another hit. Even if it came out a few months after TLJ.
True, but they did it in a bad-ass way. The first 2 seasons of DS9 could seem pretty boring, but they had some of the most insightful and intense scenes and dialog in the entire franchise.
Separation of church and state, Kira and the war criminal, Sisko making a comment about earth and paradise, The Maquis - it was very meaty.
Oh, sure, Pulaski was a bit of a misstep in that she didn’t have Beverly’s relationships with Picard and Wesley, but she didn’t come with literal callback value (no bringing back Spock for a season) and whatever they may have tried to do became something different, which is a good thing.
I've been trying to put my finger on when Trek fans became so obsessive over the consistency of the Star Trek canon/continuity. The time I started to notice this happening was probably when ENTERPRISE was announced as a prequel and then nearly every Star Trek production being a prequel after that.
Personally, I get so exhausted having conversations with eagle-eyed fans who let canon get in their way of enjoying a new Star Trek series or film. I've found that when it comes to both ENTERPRISE and DISCOVERY, it's not so much there are violating the Trek canon, but that it's perceived as so simply because they were two starships not ever spoken of before in the earlier shows.
I could go on and on, but I won't.
TWOK regarding Chekov not being around in Khan's original appearance?
TOS itself has virtually no continuity strings, though a couple season 3 eps do feature scene callbacks.
TNG generally went out of its way to ignore TOS, apart from remaking a couple scripts (e.g. Naked Now) and keeping "the old Enterprise" at a minimum so TNG could do more to develop itself.
I don't recall much fan furore during TNG's run in checking older TNG episodes when a new development was made and I'm sure somewhere there's a canon inconsistency, though not many. I suppose "The Enemy" had a Romulan commander name turned into a pejorative slur in later episodes might be one thing...
But 1996's First Contact movie did feature, despite the movie's popularity, griping even from fans about the introduction of the Borg Queen and her being retconned somehow into TBOBW despite that ship going boom boom splodey and yet she escaped in such a way that could have been just as useful the other way around (to conquer planets, not just escape when the perfect plans imperfectly fail - though STFC also suggests this by creating the time tunnel, and yet it's common Borg technology and yet Borg don't try again to go farther back in Earth's past, much less send 2 cubes that would ensure success. But nobody's perfect. The movie manages to pull off a one-liner that justifies her retconning silently into TBOBW as well as asking a bunch of questions, which is far better than failing to justify her being retconned in. Keeping in mind what she's hinting at with her three dimensional small mind speech could easily involve trans-dimensional shifting or something other than the crutch-like standby of time trite tunnel.)
DS9 had a few plot remakes but there was enough innovation that DS9 made them their own, for the most part.
VOY is where the canon issues really start to be asked. Usually with the Borg again but not always.
It sounds very linear but it was not planned that way. That's what I take umbrage with.
As far as DSC goes, that story is still being written. I don't think having all the BTS drama going on aided in their forging forward with their story. In this day and age though, we get to see the process more up close and personal. So, I think DS9 did it better (per se-that's certainly a value judgement) but I think they did it far more BTS.
I certainly can see a shift from S1 to S3 and 4 in DS9, and it's enough that it jumps out at me, so I don't think it is a progression as much as we would like to think.
But, regardless, I find it unfair to compare show to show so this exercise is probably fruitless.
Long-term planning is optional even for serialized shows: it’s more about day-to-day management. Breaking Bad wasn’t planned according to its writers, merely built up from the premise by taking the characters where they needed to go. Even the famous Babylon 5 arc remained the same only in general terms (when compared to an early outline published in Volume 15 of the script collections); what really made it work was Straczynski engineering the details as actors came and went and other real-world changes occurred.
Which is where DSC lacks until now. The trust test will be in how they are going forward.
Eh, can't say I can agree at all; Canto Bight is awful important for Finn's story arc. That's how he moves from being only concerned about self-preservation and the well-being of a couple people her cares for to being committed to the cause for it being the right decision in and of itself. Rose and DJ are the angel and devil on his shoulder, with the former acting as an example of the kind of person he could be and the latter as a darker version of where he could end up if taking self-interest to an extreme. (That Rose Tico journal tie-in book actually highlights that, with Rose making the observation that while she finds Finn's main motivation of being in love with a girl he barely knows eyeball-rolling, at best, it's shows more character then DJ possesses.) So, if the point is to show Finn maturing, there's no point to him dying and not being able to make use of the lessons he's learned. (Besides, him and Rey reuniting is kind of the "all with be well" moment of a final act that almost one-sidedly in the First Order's favor.)
Oh, God, yes. I still remember the Great Reboot Wars of 2009. I got no actual writing done the weekend the first Abrams movie opened because I kept getting caught up in heated arguments with fans who were practically livid about the movie. And, yes, some people got very emotional about it. Judging by some of the posts, you'd think that Abrams had personally spit on Roddenberry's grave while slapping every fan in the face at the same time.
(I remember, in particular, one poignant--if hopelessly misguided--post from a young teenage fan who genuinely seemed to feel hurt and betrayed by the movie.)
And, to this day, you still see people describing the Kelvin movies as "Not Real Trek!" or an "abomination" or a travesty or whatever.
And as for Enterprise . . . how dare they cast the Vulcans in such a negative light? It's character assassination, it's "violating canon," etc.
We've been through this all before.
And, at the end of it, it was mostly overreaction. I still don't really understand how ENT breaks canon, given that most of the examples trotted out are either not true or stuff that was already inconsistent in the franchise. I was one of those "Kelvin movies are not real Star Trek" people way back then, and, while I still feel that they still don't capture the stuff that made me like the franchise in the first place and I don't enjoy them that much as movies overall, I now recognize that it's absurd, at best, to insist that they don't have a place. Not everything in a series you like needs to appeal to you and all that.
With all the new content coming out, I'm not looking forward to the new "it's not 'real'/good/breaks canon/destroys the franchise/whatever that's sure to come. I'm actually kinda hoping that that Lower Decks cartoon gets set outside of canon so there's none of this to fight over (I also think it might be able to explore its premise to the fullest if it's not ostensibly supposed to be happening in the same world as the live action TV shows and all that, but that's just me spitballing without any concrete evidence.)
Interesting idea. I kinda like that the shows turned out the way they did, but that's quite the "road not taken" idea.
I don't see that as a means of propping up the show; I see it as adding history to preexisting characters because the show was set during a time period that allowed it to do so. And my opinion on this may be varied, but, I wouldn't consider turning to Harry Mudd as a way of propping a show up. Mudd is a character who appeared twice in TOS (and once is TAS). He is hardly an all-star Star Trek character who is going to add something fresh and exciting to a perceived-struggling Star Trek series.
How many times has that happened anywhere else? Between watching Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise in first-run, never at any point did I actively get "excited" to see the characters again between seasons. In my case, it's the lore and the world. And for me, Discovery DOES fall into that realm.
The show was primarily focused on Michael in the first season, so, she was developed the most. And while she may be hated by some, there's no denying that her character grew immensely from the moment she arrived on Discovery until the finale of season one.
From day one it was established that Michael was related to Spock; that was the initial draw-in of the show. You couldn't expect to NOT see Spock at some point.
That's fine, though, I would've preferred it ended on Discovery finding something upon their arrival that was the hook for the finale.
I don't know if you're a gamer, but, things like this remind of what's called The Zelda cycle, from The Legend of Zelda. See below.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...9680113.png/revision/latest?cb=20120416162808
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Marvel’s Netflix shows are also set in parallel with the film MCU, yet they don’t spend any time fleshing out even minor film characters, and neither do the shows rely on one another for too much support. That’s how I would’ve done DSC if the year had to be 2256: no Sarek, no Mudd (who is a fan draw if not one for the general audience), nothing. The show would live or die on its own merits, as it presumably will from S3 onward.
For me, DSC is precisely about the lore and the world, but I recognize all the time that it’s not what TV should be for. That’s just a franchise aberration, something that ensures even flawed TV will be watched, and it’s not what I’m feeling with TOS, TNG and especially DS9.
Yes, the show focuses on Michael, but while I wouldn’t use the word ‘hate’, the character takes the Starfleet derring-do to extremes; it doesn’t help with character identification. And of course there was no reason for the Spock connection, which only served as a hook and turned S2 into a vehicle for fleshing out a famous legacy character (we saw more of Saru, Tilly and the bridge “extras”, but every second of the short seasons should’ve been spent on DSC’s original chararcters). Michael Piller had a rule that every episode had to be about a TNG character, even if it brought in a guest appearance for that purpose.
For me, DSC is precisely about the lore and the world, but I recognize all the time that it’s not what TV should be for. That’s just a franchise aberration, something that ensures even flawed TV will be watched, and it’s not what I’m feeling with TOS, TNG and especially DS9.
Yes, the show focuses on Michael, but while I wouldn’t use the word ‘hate’, the character takes the Starfleet derring-do to extremes; it doesn’t help with character identification. And of course there was no reason for the Spock connection, which only served as a hook and turned S2 into a vehicle for fleshing out a famous legacy character (we saw more of Saru, Tilly and the bridge “extras”, but every second of the short seasons should’ve been spent on DSC’s original chararcters). Michael Piller had a rule that every episode had to be about a TNG character, even if it brought in a guest appearance for that purpose.
What should TV be for then?
DSC is still about characters, and while lore and canon exploration are part of the appeal, Michael is my main draw into it, which is not something I could say for TNG or DS9 at the same point in their run.
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