Indeed, he outgrew that arrogant view of all of humanity being "Evolved".
It lets him grow and see people as far more complex & 3-Dimensional characters.
Why the hate for Alex Kurtzman?
- Thread starter HotRod
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It lets him grow and see people as far more complex & 3-Dimensional characters.
DISCO isn't the end all be all of "modern trek." SNW and LD are pretty optimistic and bright. PRO is too. Even DISCO went more optimistic and bright towards the end.
Bad characters being evil and saying bad things isn't a new thing.
Eh. The Berman era of Trek had a more consistent style, that's true. However, I don't think it's fair to say that Berman didn't let the showrunners put their individual stamp on things. TNG under Michael Piller has quite significant differences from DS9 under Ira Steven Behr which has quite significant differences from Voyager under Brannon Braga. Yet, Berman was in charge of all of them.
Yes, I'm not on board with this punching down on Berman that seems to assume that DS9 was just something that snuck out whilst his back was turned for seven years.
I've watched DSC seasons 1-3, gave up halfway through season 4 (no point in hate watching anything is there?). I've watched all of SNW, Lower Decks and Prodigy.
I'll give S31 a go if reviews are good. But I'm not subscribing for it alone.
My views are my own. I'm a life long Trekkie who is sad that Star Trek no longer appeals to me as it once did.
People have been saying the same thing about Kurtzman and Picard.
The differences of DS9 were solidly because of Behr and in his own words because Berman was much more focused on Voyager than he was on DS9, because Voyager was intended to be the flagship show to launch UPN. However both Behr and Moore had to fight tooth and nail to do the stories they wanted to do. So the DS9 we ended up getting was in spite of Berman and had very little support from him. Berman treated DS9 like everyone treated Jan Brady.
"I saw hope, in the stars. It was stronger than fear. And I went towards it."
This is a line of dialogue from new trek and it would fit with the best from TNG. Conversely, 90's trek has stellar dialogue like Archer threatening to piss on some alien races sacred trees. Or what about when Archer threatened to 'knock T'pol on her ass' or that time Deanna asked Bev if her boobs were firming up?
Yeah 90's trek was a real paragon of excellent dialogue all the time.
Your posts don't make it sound like you've seen Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy.
Everything you've ever typed about New Trek, besides Picard Season 3, makes it sound like you have Discovery circa 2019 permanently stuck in your head. It sounds like you haven't seen most of New Trek almost six years.
Unless you want to tell me with a straight face that Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy are filled with darkness and despair. They're not. You know it if you've seen them. So, why are you saying things that haven't been true in years? Other than you just like to say them.
Hell, even with Discovery, the most common complaints about it during the fifth season were that it went too soft. Some people said some of the episodes felt more like late-Voyager, and I couldn't disagree with them.
I've been there. I was there in the early-2000s after DS9 ended. I'm part-way there again. It happens in ebbs and flows. There are ups and downs. But I don't dwell on it when it's not appealing to me anymore.
At one point, in 2023, when Discovery was cancelled, Prodigy was cancelled, and Picard ended without Legacy being greenlit, I thought to myself, "Is Paramount+ trying to make me not like their service anymore?" They'd kept the two Star Trek series I was interested in the least. Lower Decks and SNW. But now even Lower Decks is gone. I'm still on the fence about Starfleet Academy, but we'll see.
So, at the end of the day, I guess I'm more of a Phase I of New Trek type of person. Phase II? Hit and miss.
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And the whole "Yum, yum" thing. It was a stupid throwaway one-liner, played for black comedy laughs. Some people had fun with it, I had fun with it, others were mock-outraged, it was probably a meme for a little while, but no need to constantly bring it up several years later. We get it. You don't like the line. It was silly, and it was stupid, but most of us have moved on.
It's like it's high school and there's that one kid who tells another kid, "Hey! Guess what?! I'm going to keep bringing up that one thing you did back in fourth grade!"
It's like it's high school and there's that one kid who tells another kid, "Hey! Guess what?! I'm going to keep bringing up that one thing you did back in fourth grade!"
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Exactly, the exec always gets blamed for everything people don't like, but anything people like is done in spite of them.
E.g. the Disco Klingons: Kurtzman somehow gets the blame for Fuller's decision to go with a bold new design, but no credit for effectively retconning them out of existence.
I suspect the reality is somewhere in the middle, and you need to look at the totality of work. In my view, Berman largely oversaw pretty good Star Trek. There were highs and lows. The same is true for Kurtzman. And Gene Roddenberry or Harve Bennett for that matter.
This is what Starfleet Academy should be about. In the 32nd century, with no explanation.
Timey-wimey!
Well, what can I say? I'm not lying, that would serve no purpose.
I really liked all the reboot movies with Chris Pine, especially the one that everyone hates, I wrote this review, back when blogging was a thing:
Star Trek Into Darkness: film review
I found Star Trek Into Darkness to be a very good film that addressed some of the concerns raised by fans over the previous film. Star Trek Into Darkness is surprisingly political for a summer bloc…
ryesofthegeek.wordpress.com
As for the new series, a potted summary follows.
DSC season 1: I didn't mind it, and actually, the first half of the season I really liked. Until the Mirror Universe stuff happened.
DSC season 2: Inane nonsense (my opinion)
DSC season 3: A massive course correction, almost a reboot, and a few good episodes actually in amongst the melodrama.
DSC season 4: Unwatchable
Lower Decks: Full of in jokes, it found it's feet when it stopped trying to be funny (much like the Orville). Would seem to have limited appeal though.
Prodigy: In my opinion, the best of the new series, and it's the one for little kids! Likeable characters and, honestly, quite fun. A great little show, especially Season 2!
Picard Season 1: Poor, bleak, dystopian and depressing.
Picard Season 2: Somehow worse than Season 1. Nonsense.
Picard Season 3: Good, but enough with the Borg. I thought that it was going to be the Pah Wraiths returning and I was hoping for an Avery Brooks cameo.
SNW Season 1: I struggle with the heavy redesign elements and I don't like the lack of imagination with the Gorn. But it's an enjoyable season, with just one memorable clunker for me which would be The Elysian Kingdom. It doesn't tie with TOS at all though, so I pretend it's another universe like the Kelvin timeline or something. I wish Trek had a more unified visual language.
SNW Season 2: Disappointing, I wanted them to build on what was good about season 1, overall 6/10. The singing episode was a massive jump the shark moment for me.
I find myself drawn to Apple TV's "For All Mankind", it's a far more adult and meaningful show somehow. I don't mind "The Orville", which is somehow more Star Trek than Star Trek at the moment. The Mandalorian, The Expanse, Fallout - all far superior to the current Trek output, which I think is a shame.
It was the same back when Enterprise aired. I mean, can anyone with a straight face, really argue that Enterprise could hold a candle to Battlestar Galactica? If I were the show runner, I'd seek out writers that worked on BSG, Better Call Saul, Severance, Silo, Shogun - writers who are smashing it.
I agree that one issue is that the writers, as I intimated above, perhaps know Star Trek too well. This means they lean into fan service because it's what they would like to see, but it doesn't satisfy all the fans all of the time. And sometimes is used instead of good drama.
It would be nice to get back to attracting good writers who don't necessarily know Star Trek (the recent passing of Jeri Taylor brings this to mind - she had an established and successful career in TV but knew nothing about Trek), but perhaps this isn't realistic as the amount of "content" now being generated by streaming platforms means that those writers have other opportunities not on genre shows.
I think we actually saw this phenomenon with ENT, when the new writers coming onto staff were often Trek fans, including Manny Coto, the Reeves-Stevenses, Andre Bormanis and Mike Sussman. The apogee of this was ENT S4, which was full of fan service and is popular with the fanbase, but ultimately was the death knell for the long 1990s era. But ironically could now be seen as the precursor to the current crop of shows.
It would be nice to get back to attracting good writers who don't necessarily know Star Trek (the recent passing of Jeri Taylor brings this to mind - she had an established and successful career in TV but knew nothing about Trek), but perhaps this isn't realistic as the amount of "content" now being generated by streaming platforms means that those writers have other opportunities not on genre shows.
I think we actually saw this phenomenon with ENT, when the new writers coming onto staff were often Trek fans, including Manny Coto, the Reeves-Stevenses, Andre Bormanis and Mike Sussman. The apogee of this was ENT S4, which was full of fan service and is popular with the fanbase, but ultimately was the death knell for the long 1990s era. But ironically could now be seen as the precursor to the current crop of shows.
Enterprise was doomed before it got good for a number of reasons, including season 1's new writers losing all the audience that tuned in for Broken Bow.
I think you can point at all kinds of stories to make a case that hiring fans is best or hiring non-fans is best, but I don't think it's that simple. You need someone who gets what Star Trek is and knows what came before, and you also need people with fresh ideas who aren't locked into doing things a certain way because that's how they've always been done.
You need the Star Trek fans, because they know what Star Trek looks like and feels like and what it believes. Even TOS season 1 had the staff heavily rewriting scripts (like City on the Edge of Forever) to make them match the world and characters. But the fan writers also know what came before, so if a new writer comes up with the idea "What if, an admiral is bad" or "What if, we have a trial to determine if an android has rights", then the fans can help steer them to a more original place. If you don't know your history you're doomed to repeat it.
You need the new writers, because they understand what a new viewer is going to think about a story, what needs explaining, what feels archaic, and so on. They don't have a fascination with established aliens and arcs, so they'll naturally pull stories into unexplored directions, and Star Trek's all about exploration. Plus they're bringing all their own knowledge, unfiltered by Trek, so someone with legal experience or military experience etc. can draw from a more authentic place.
Though I think that if a writer has any enthusiasm for what they've been hired to write for, and they're a good match for the series, then they'll probably become a fan anyway.
I think you can point at all kinds of stories to make a case that hiring fans is best or hiring non-fans is best, but I don't think it's that simple. You need someone who gets what Star Trek is and knows what came before, and you also need people with fresh ideas who aren't locked into doing things a certain way because that's how they've always been done.
You need the Star Trek fans, because they know what Star Trek looks like and feels like and what it believes. Even TOS season 1 had the staff heavily rewriting scripts (like City on the Edge of Forever) to make them match the world and characters. But the fan writers also know what came before, so if a new writer comes up with the idea "What if, an admiral is bad" or "What if, we have a trial to determine if an android has rights", then the fans can help steer them to a more original place. If you don't know your history you're doomed to repeat it.
You need the new writers, because they understand what a new viewer is going to think about a story, what needs explaining, what feels archaic, and so on. They don't have a fascination with established aliens and arcs, so they'll naturally pull stories into unexplored directions, and Star Trek's all about exploration. Plus they're bringing all their own knowledge, unfiltered by Trek, so someone with legal experience or military experience etc. can draw from a more authentic place.
Though I think that if a writer has any enthusiasm for what they've been hired to write for, and they're a good match for the series, then they'll probably become a fan anyway.
Hell, I remember Ron Moore talking about the uphill battle that had to be fought to get the holographic communicator on DS9, and those against it still continued fighting even after the idea was approved which is why it disappeared after two episode. Or then there was Ira Behr who wanted Sisko promoted to Admiral at the start of the Dominion War, which Berman refused because "Star Trek is about the Captains." Ironically, that was the very same line Behr had to use on Berman in order to have Sisko promoted to Captain at the end of S3.
Rather ironic then that you complain about the current shows having "un-Trek dialogue" when "un-Trek dialogue" was one of the biggest complaints about the Abrams movies going back to the first trailer for Trek XI. Seriously, there were hella long threads back in the day over how "un-Trek" it was for Kirk to say "why are you talking to me, man?" to Pike. Or how unprofessional Pike's "punch it" line to go to warp was. Hell, I remember one person complaining about "punch it" even saying something like "if these writers did their own version of TNG, instead of saying 'engage' Picard would say 'move the ship, asshole.'"
Lower Decks never stopped trying to be funny. It was a comedy all the way to the end.
Andre Bormanis and Mike Sussman were actually carry-overs from Voyager's writing staff, Bormanis was in fact the franchise's science consultant going back to late TNG.
The first Enterprise episode to be written exclusively by new writers was Breaking the Ice, the eighth episode of the season. Indeed, looking over the first season, only five of the twenty-six episodes did not have a writer involved in a previous Trek series. Hell, there's only seven episodes of that season in which Berman and Braga don't have a writing or story credit. So you can't blame that season's failings on the new writers, as the new writers had next to no influence on the season at all.
I can certainly blame some of the season's failings on the new writers and I wouldn't be alone as most of them didn't come back for season 2. But you're right, the way I phrased it made it sound like I was saying it was entirely their fault, which is not true. Even Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong wrote some bad episodes in that first year.
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