Why the hate for Disco?
- Thread starter David Hanley
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The Blu-rays have both versions. And you are so right, the CG is so cartoony. I love what they did with the composition and the rest of the FX, but the ships look horrible. To me they look worse than the 50+ year old compositing in the original. If they'd done it well, I'd be sold, but they didn't. So I stick with the originals on BR (which includes the original version of WNMHGB).
A lot of interesting points here to unpack and respond to.
Agree entirely. This is a miss on so many levels!
The bridge crew are background players on this show...and are not meant to be well-known or well-developed. It's part of the different format and formula that DSC has engaged in, rather than the same old- same old template of the bridge crew being all the primary characters. It's intentional to have them as backgrounds. They're the DSC version of Mr. Kyle and Mr. Leslie.
I'm a much bigger fan of serialized / arc driven television these days. Episodic does very little for me. I just can't care enough about individualized, contained stories with no true lasing impacts to the characters or the overall condition of the format.
Yes, I think this is a far more dynamic and kinetic show than the previous Treks...but this is television of a new era. I also don't really care for Star Trek "teaching morals on a weekly basis." If you mean that there's no thought-provoking material, and that the action overshadows that....I'd disagree. But, I think that's a preference thing. I do think DSC's way of exploring ideas is more subtle and less ham-fisted than Trek has been in the past (well...in some cases), and it's often done through the characters rather than the plot.
In fairlness, TOS has had 55 years to imprint itself in our consciousness and culture. DSC Season 3 is less than a year old. I don't think that's a fair comparison at all.
I think it's a pretty high bar to expect every character on a show to be to our liking. I think GoT is a great show...and I probably like about 30% of the characters. Different characters are set to appeal to different target audiences these days. I really like TNG, but I really only "truly" resonate with the characters of Riker, Troi and maybe Worf. Geordi, Data and Picard were "meh" (although the new series has me appreciating Picard a ton more because it humanizes him). Crusher I thought was worse than a wet, cold blanket on a winter day. Yar was weak as well.
Good discussion all around.
Oh understood and agreed on all points. DSC needs time to bake in our consciousness. It makes sense that we have our favorites and those we don't care for. Several seasons later or a few years after we might think a little differently or maybe just the same. The best episodes will probably stand out better though.
The best episodes will not be diminished by any future Trek productions.
I'm not in a position in life yet where I should be double-dipping. Any money I spend on something I don't absolutely need makes me feel guilty. My 30s were pretty rough (financially speaking) and I'm still trying to get out of the hole I dug myself into during that period. Maybe some day I'll get the Blu-Rays.
I never bought TNG, DS9, or VOY on DVD or Blu-Ray either. 21 season sets at over $100 each? No fucking way. Back in the mid-'00s, I bought the three seasons of TOS, the movies, and called it a day.
I have seen the original original version of WNMHGB, though, thanks to YouTube. I really wish they left that narration of Kirk's from the opening scene in, explaining the Enterprise's mission and what they'd been doing immediately before that. It would've made the audience feel really excited about the journey the crew was about to embark on.
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Anyway, on another note, the year was 1979. Maybe 1980. I'm told I used to dance, in the crib, to a show called Dance Fever. So, in fact, I was a fan of Disco from the beginning. Literally.
Just say NO to "Disco Sucks!" Rallies.
Just say NO to "Disco Sucks!" Rallies.
Such as?
My opinion also would be that it's harder to write solely for a single character because sometimes you just don't know where to go. If you look at franchises built around a single character like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, James Bond, etc., they get rebooted so often because so much focus on just one character eventually runs its course.
Old Trek didn't focus entirely on the captain. Some of the best episodes, like the Ferengi episodes of DS9, hardly had the captain in them.
It also gives Sonequa a much more grueling schedule if she's literally the centerpiece of every episode. I really would like to see more Rhys, Bryce, Detmer, Owo, etc.
Clearly not at Meyer is regraded as making some of Treks greatest movies. JJs will never be that
Certainly better than most fans.
Or, actors age and the fact that they keep rebooting in order to tell new stories with these single characters is a testament to how interesting stories about them are...
I'm sure this has been mentioned before but I understand when people dislike Discovery for the lack of 'bottle' episodes, if that's the right description (?). I find it great to throw on something like 'Tin Man', 'Duet' or 'Tuvix' and kick back (although something like 'Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad' actually works for me on that score).
I think it's a legitimate gripe to be honest but I think it's more related to modern TV story telling then something fundamentally wrong with Star Trek, blame the sin not the sinner....
I think it's a legitimate gripe to be honest but I think it's more related to modern TV story telling then something fundamentally wrong with Star Trek, blame the sin not the sinner....
A "bottle" episode is something different from a standalone episode. It basically means an episode where they keep production costs low by only using standing sets (and in some cases not having guest characters).
Lots of Season 1 was effectively bottle episodes - almost certainly to keep down costs after the huge wad they blew on the opening two episodes. There was location filming in maybe three episodes across the entire season. The crew seldom got off the ship, and they found ways to reuse sets (having episode 3 take place on a "twin" of Discovery, re-using the Shenzhou sets in the MU, etc.).
Sadly, many fans see TOS as an institution to be mocked. Old = garbage, according to far too many people born after the internet age started. It's like that with Doctor Who fandom, as well.
The problem is that the Discovery production people keep blathering that at some point Discovery will "mesh seamlessly" with TOS.
That's utter bullshit. It cannot possibly mesh with TOS, seamlessly or otherwise. Too much has been retconned, and too much is more akin to a prequel to TNG, rather than TOS. I posted the same complaint about Enterprise - it's as though the events and conventions of TOS are being ignored, yet we're supposed to believe it's all a "seamless" whole.
Captain Frat Boy, who never gave the impression of having actually grown up.
At its very best, Star Trek makes the audience think about new ideas, or old ideas in a new way.
All I thought about when watching DiscoTrek was how irritating the whole thing was, and what a relief it was when the episode was over.
Kyle was definitely memorable, as he appeared in multiple episodes, including the Mirror universe, and even appeared in TWoK.
That's what I really hated about some of the TNG episodes. Human emotions were absolutely stifled to the point of absurdity. No conflicts, and the episodes where young children lost their parents were ludicrous. It just defies common sense that a little boy whose only parent dies is left on his own in the family quarters (we never saw, to my recollection, any scenes of an adult crewmember or extended family or even a civilian neighbor supervising him), and is scrubbed squeaky clean, hair unnaturally neat, and showing no emotion. I don't care what century it is - kids are just not wired that way.
Yep. I became a Trekker in 1975, at age 12. People who became fans after the premiere of TNG have no idea how spoiled they are, pretty much never having to wait for anything, and always having some kind of video library of episodes available to rewatch, and not having to depend on reruns.
One of the TOS analogies that was often used is that Kirk = Horatio Hornblower. So it's more than apt for a director to be into 19th-century literature.
Heh. I have an audio recording of one of Shatner's early Star Trek convention appearances on 8-track. Unfortunately, I no longer have an 8-track player to listen to it.Crap, if only I could have back my 1968 Camaro RS with the 8-Track, her and be 16 again. That car would be worth a shit-load of $ today.
Prequel to TMP. I think DSC doesn't mesh too bad with the TOS Movies. The design for the Discovery itself actually comes from the unused design for Planet of the Titans, an undeveloped Star Trek movie in the '70s, back when they were volley-balling between the idea of whether or not Star Trek would come back as a TV series or a movie. The black and dark-blue computer graphics fit right into Post-TUC. If they'd set this show in the Early-24th Century, it would look seamless.
The moment I saw the look of DSC in the first preview, I thought, "visually, this can't line up". So I disregarded the idea immediately. Someone tried to come up with some bullshit explanation or rationale for how it all visually fit together, when I came to this conclusion to 2017, and I dismissed it on the spot one time and had to shut someone else up another time. I think of DSC's first two seasons and SNW as leading into some hypothetical version of TOS with modern production values. Anyway, I think those two people I just mentioned thought I was going to hate the show, until they realized better, and then no one bothered me about it. You don't piss off one of the people who's defending the show the hardest, after all.
When I see the Enterprise in DSC, I don't think "this leads into actual TOS". I call a spade a spade. It's three timelines. CBS says it's Prime, so I call TOS something else. Classic. It's just a name.
I know they said it all fits together. But I listen to PR from Studios the same way I listen to PR from Politicians and their staff. I listen to it the same way I listened to Rick Berman's "We're very pleased." I make my own judgments and decide for myself.
I think people tend to look the other way if they like something. I didn't like ENT, so I didn't look the other way. I like DSC, so I thought, "It's three timelines" and called it a day.
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Yep, and we all know it just can't. It's a 1960s TV show with better production values than many shows of the era but it will still always look the way it does. I'm convinced the voices are saying it to help sell it (obviously) but they're secretly thinking..
I wouldn't say that I hated Discovery. But I don't like it because *to me* it isn't Star Trek anymore. To me, it's not coherent with what went before. I will say that I very much dislike the fact that they redesigned the iconic Starship Enterprise, messed with Spocks backstory and showed technology way in advance of even TNG. For me, continuity is important - this guy that worked on TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT sums it all up nicely.
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