Discovery Series

[SciFiFan]

It's a shame they changed it. I liked the way she looked at the end of season 1. As for the possible reasons for the aesthetic changes, I had seen a video that suggests that Paramount wasn't the only one that had to change the style for new movies. It is possible that even CBS had to change the style for any new series. If this is true, then the new looks is a legal issue more than a production choice. Even so, I still think they could have changed the style but stay true to the feeling of what TOS was.

 

[Archonon]

As far as I know, all of the changes that have been made are due to "creative" choices. They simply want to update the looks to make them more "futuristic" and "Sci-Fi-ish" than recreating the 1960s aesthetic pallets.

Now with the JJ films, I don't care; it is an alternate universe and frankly I don't see why there is a necessity to have technology/designs have to mirror things at all. They can share similarities or even be identical, but they don't "have to". So when I see a Galaxy Class sized Connie with a bridge that looks like the Apple Store, I can accept it; it's a different universe which developed differently for different reasons.

But alternate universes is where I draw the line. If you're gonna tell me that the show is in the Prime Universe and then change the whole aesthetic just because you want to update the look, then you lost me.

Everything from the Klingons to the holo communications/holodeck, the look of the ships, the uniforms, every choice screams alternate universe. They even have their own version of the food replication (Syntheziser?) whereas in the movies the ships in TMP still have kitchens and therefore cooks.

Do I think Klingons should look more alien, absolutely. One of Trek's most laughable concepts has always been how pretty much every alien is a human with a tiny distinguishing attribute changed (Wrinkled foreheads, noses, ears, etc; colored green, purple, orange, etc; a tattoo here or there, bam, alien). But, if the series has locked in these looks as the canon appearances of these races then stick to them, no matter how much technology and make up has advanced.

Klingons in STD should look like humans and not a crossbreed of Mon Calamari and Enemy Mine. Established Trek went so far as to painfully make Enterprise come up with an absurd backstory for why Klingons looked human in TOS with their superhuman experiments by Soong's ancestor. And STD is like, nope, Klingons look even more alien just before TOS begins, but hey, Prime Universe! Even their they shave their heads for war concept is ridiculous. And of course they have cloaking devices but are not true cloaking devices, cause reasons. The Federation gets similar retcons just cause.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind these changes at all if they just make STD another reality. But their insistence of these changes in the Prime Universe just doesn't fly.

 

[TUB_Husker]

Archonon, I thank you for your post

 

[Majestic]

As far as I know, all of the changes that have been made are due to "creative" choices. They simply want to update the looks to make them more "futuristic" and "Sci-Fi-ish" than recreating the 1960s aesthetic pallets.

I won't quote your whole post but your post sums up my thoughts as well. Star Trek has rules that really if you're doing a prequel you can't just change for creative licence. You need to stick to them simple as that. Want to play the artistic licence card do a new unique sci-fi series like Farscape etc. Want to do a Trek series, stick to established canon otherwise you'll alienate the fans and the series will bomb.

 

[CABAL]

I'm going to post something from somewhere else:

(regarding secondary materials)
it's the DSC team's tendency to ignore those kinds of widely accepted secondary materials that's the cause of the claims that the show violates continuity. Sure, it sticks to what's explicitly said on-screen pretty well, but it ignores much of what was implied in the shows and several decades of off-screen material, such as interviews and tech manuals or the more consistent elements of the expanded universe. This is why to certain people it feels like it violates continuity even if it technically doesn't.

And, indeed, DSC doesn't technically contradict TOS itself (except visually) even if it plays fast and loose with a boatload of implied things.

Personally, I think the DSC team just doesn't think anything that wasn't on-screen is relevant, including their own words and genuinely don't understand why this stance might be an issue for such a long running franchise. However, this wasn't exactly clear from their early interviews and I've only come to this conclusion from their tendency to contradict themselves, a trait that took a while to become noticeable.

And this is why I don't have much faith in their ability to manage this kind of franchise. Even when Disney announced they were wiping the old Star Wars EU, keeping just the movies and The Clone Wars, and starting fresh, they had the good sense to take cues from the old EU and use it to guide the creation of the new one. CBS isn't doing that with Trek, though. They threw out everything. They even (temporarily) tossed out the fifty year old 289 meters figure for the Enterprise's length because it wasn't explicitly said on screen. You can't even trust what they say about the show in interviews, a problem that previous Trek shows never had and other current major shows don't have. That kind of thing makes me think that CBS simply doesn't know what they're doing. They seem to be trying to run the show like NCIS and Big Bang Theory.

 

[kjc733]

The truly annoying thing is though that all they needed to do was say "post Nemesis." Instead of Klingons call them something else and voila. The sets, the ships, the tech, easier to swallow as post Nemesis. Then they wouldn't have even needed to bother making nods to TOS.

 

[Jetfreak]

I believe it doesn't help that there's like 10-15 producers on the show. As opposed to the max of 3 during the TNG days.

Imagine the contradictory meetings, creative work like Star Trek can get stuck in the reefs if there's no unified direction on how the entire damn ship (pun intended) will sail. A successful example is The Clone Wars - case in point: there's just no Dave Filoni-like figure behind Trek today.

 

[CABAL]

I believe it doesn't help that there's like 10-15 producers on the show. As opposed to the max of 3 during the TNG days.

Imagine the contradictory meetings, creative work like Star Trek can get stuck in the reefs if there's no unified direction on how the entire damn ship (pun intended) will sail. A successful example is The Clone Wars - case in point: there's just no Dave Filoni-like figure behind Trek today.

And the direct showrunner for DSC keeps getting rotated out. First it was Fuller, who only did three episodes (which were then revised by the next showrunners), then it was Berg and Harberts, who were fired midway through season 2, and now it's Kurtzman, who is supposed to be running Trek as a whole so we can probably expect them to find another showrunner for season 3. There are supposed to be season-long arcs, but it's hard to do that properly when the people making the arcs don't stick around for a full season.

 

[Archonon]

Definitely there are too many cooks in the kitchen and they keep going back and forth between what is that they want to do, as Jet says. And as CABAL mentions, there isn't a cohesive vision pulled together through leadership. This is like the DC mess where they are all over the place with their universe versus Marvel's organized universe (DC committee versus Marvel's Feige = DC dumpster fire vs Marvel's streamlined system). There is no Roddenberry to ground things, ugh, I miss JMS and Babylon 5 where everything made perfect sense aesthetic, narrative, technology and creative wise.

This being said, I don't hate the series. I don't love it, but I don't outright hate it. I didn't particularly like Burnham through season 1, so I am hoping that her character gets better in season 2. The whole spore drive concept was absurd, given that it has never been mentioned in Trek continuity as existing and way too many people (From Federation to Klingons) have seen it to suddenly forget its existence. And I won't accept the they covered it up and the universe never found out as just about everyone and their mother knew of the Discovery's "special ability". No Men in Black went around the Alpha and Beta Quadrants making everyone look into their neurolizers (Or whatever they were called).

I have a lot more issues with STD but I can also enjoy it for what it is. I pretend it's not the Prime Universe and I can accept it much more; certainly I can tolerate it much more than the aberrations that have been produced in the main saga of Disney Wars, of which I like only the two spinoffs (Rogue One and Solo).

I don't even know what to think about with the Picard series. I read that the tone is going to be different than Discovery but that's not really saying anything. With Discovery season 2 I am trying to enjoy it now as a more purely Sci-Fi series than an actual Trek series. I am glad that there is new Trek being made and hope to see more shows and movies but I really wish the creative teams would just get their acts together and either use the established universe if they are going to insist on prequels/inbetweenquels or just space it out well past the existing shows. Do a "next generation" to the TNG universe and have a show 100 years or more after Voyager arrived home and then you can have weird new aliens, designs and tech. Heck, given me 1000 years later and have the Federation expanding beyond the 4 Quadrants and exploring Andromeda. Then you can make it as weird as you want.

My two cents.

 

[Majestic]

Totally agree @Archonon I'd like to see a series where they are re-exploring the Delta Quadrant on mass. Maybe 50 years after Voyager and new worlds in the Delta Quadrant have joined the Federation. Could even throw in some curve balls and would be close enough for a Captain Harry Kim, Captain Tom Paris, Captain Ezri Dax etc to make appearances.

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
I agree, and considering the likely ages all those actors might have by now, it would make them believable as they would already get tons of experiences (like Picard in TNG) and reay to take on new challenges.

 

[Terra_Inc]

Totally agree @Archonon I'd like to see a series where they are re-exploring the Delta Quadrant on mass. Maybe 50 years after Voyager and new worlds in the Delta Quadrant have joined the Federation. Could even throw in some curve balls and would be close enough for a Captain Harry Kim, Captain Tom Paris, Captain Ezri Dax etc to make appearances.

I like this idea. I really do.

 

[FlowRellik]

I am kinda hoping the Discovery gets destroyed in season 2 and they get a new Discovery that looks more TOS like to help fix the mistakes that they did at the beginning. Would improve the series ten hold imo.

To that I agree with. It would be rather interesting to see how a self-destruct will look with Mycelial spores.

 

[Chiletrek]

To that I agree with. It would be rather interesting to see how a self-destruct will look with Mycelial spores.

Who knows? Maybe that is how they'll end-up sealing the 7 Red Bursts

 

[Archonon]

Or you know...maybe CBS can get their collective sticks up their butts out and cancel Discovery and instead give a series/movies deal to the Axanar team.

Just saying...

 

[Majestic]

Or you know...maybe CBS can get their collective sticks up their butts out and cancel Discovery and instead give a series/movies deal to the Axanar team.

Just saying...

One would hope aye.

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
The Anti-Trekker made a video proposing a way to fix the inconsistencies (of course assuming STD is not the prime timeline)... not sure if this video was posted here before, but here it is! ->

 

[TUB_Husker]

Hey for a new model I made, I searched for shiplengths and discovered that the Discovery 750m or 480m long is?! WTF, larger then a Galaxy Class. So I measured some Pictures and here is my Result: ca the Discovery is ca 320m long, ca 30m longer as the Constitution:

I believe the Designer haven't a plan about her own show
What you mean?

 

[SciFiFan]

I believe at the start of the show, the ships were supposed to be comparable in size to the Kelvin timeline ships. You know, grossly oversized. With all of the fan backlash and studio turmoil of last season, the studio decided to put everything back in line with what they were for TOS.

 

[CABAL]

I believe at the start of the show, the ships were supposed to be comparable in size to the Kelvin timeline ships. You know, grossly oversized. With all of the fan backlash and studio turmoil of last season, the studio decided to put everything back in line with what they were for TOS.

For instance, the length of the DSC Enterprise according to Eaglemoss, who got the numbers from the DSC team, is 442 meters. The length of the ship has been 289 meters according to literally everything for fifty odd years, but they felt they could change it because it was never actually mentioned in the show. It would appear they rolled back that change according to a screenshot I posted on this thread earlier.

If we can assume that the length given for the Discovery in interviews and such (which is also the one used by Eaglemoss) is also being thrown out, then according to this old Reddit thread the revised length is probably about 566 meters based on number of decks. For comparison, the stated length was 750 meters, 108 meters longer than the Galaxy-class and 65 meters longer than the Sovereign-class.

 

[kjc733]

If I recall correctly they actually revised the Connies length in the Mirror Universe episode of Enterprise. When they did the MSD they realised that you couldn't fit everything into the original size.
Not that it makes the size of the Discovery any less ridiculous. BUT... most of that length is down to those ridiculously drawn out nacelles.

 

[TUB_Husker]

When they did the MSD they realised that you couldn't fit everything into the original size.

And this I don't understood, how many Deckplans exits in the Web, made with love to details e.c.

 

[SciFiFan]

Sadly those deck plans were all created by unofficial sources.

 

[Archonon]

Frankly, at this point I don't even bother paying attention to anything STD says or does as it relates to canon. STD is an alternate universe and that's it.

If they had any intention of building within canon and having any semblance of continuity with the Prime universe, then Discovery would be equal if not smaller than the old Constitution specs of 288.6 meters.

Now my main gripe with this is the breaking in continuity yet again by STD with TOS canon and insisting on shoehorning it in there. I wouldn't care about the size of Discovery should it be in an alternate universe.

For this reason, I find the criticism of the Kelvin ship sizes amusing. It's an alternate universe, they don't have to follow the design parameters, aesthetics, technological development or architecture of the Prime universe at all. That universe developed differently, things look different. They are different sizes, different levels of advancement in technology, even different attitudes and missions. Kelvin ships could be Death Star size planet ships and I wouldn't care (See Starbase Yorktown); it's its own thing, let them be it's own thing. I don't want Kelvin to be TOS, I have TOS for TOS. I want the Kelvin universe to be familiar but different, not another damn rehash of TNG like every ST show has been up until Discovery.

And frankly if you can accept with a straight face that the Prime universe can take such a minuscule design such as a 12 manned B-Rel Bird of Prey of 157.76 meters and upscale it laughably four times to a 1500 crewed K'Vort which spans 678.36 meters, considerably larger than the Galaxy's 642.51 meters, then I have no idea why an alternate universe Connie being 700 or 600 meters long is an issue.

And don't get me started on the complaints of the windows on the bridge.

*Bird of Prey specs taken from DS9 Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach, Herman Zimmerman and Doug Drexler.

 

[Majestic]

And frankly if you can accept with a straight face that the Prime universe can take such a minuscule design such as a 12 manned B-Rel Bird of Prey of 157.76 meters and upscale it laughably four times to a 1500 crewed K'Vort which spans 678.36 meters, considerably larger than the Galaxy's 642.51 meters, then I have no idea why an alternate universe Connie being 700 or 600 meters long is an issue.

One of my biggest gripes with TNG that and the Regula starbase design upscaled to be used as a starbase larger than a Galaxy.

 

[Archonon]

I had forgotten about the Regula stations, ugh! You're right Maj!

I really respect what Discovery is doing as a series in branching out beyond the standard Trek formula. My only issue is its insistence in retconning existing Trek where it would benefit so much more standing on its own merits.

This is what I want with Star Trek, give me different shows and different films expanding the mythology with their unique tones and styles.

So yeah, I love that season 1 was dark and gritty. My issues with the show stem from other things such as poor character development, retcons, and oh I thought this was about the Klingon War? Really? Cause about two episodes into the season the show became more about the spore drive experiments and all the mirror universe bs. I had hoped they would have actually focused on the war, ala Space Above and Beyond, as the narrative arc instead of only using it as a window dressing backdrop. But no, we needed to go back to the boring mirror universe, yet again, and use it as a crutch. I swear if I see a single red angel in a Nazi uniform in season 2, I'm done with the series.

The dark tone, the seriousness, the grittiness and the adult themes? Yes, sign me up. Keep Discovery like that but let go of the Prime Universe; package it into the Kelvin-verse or make it its own multiverse. Then give me Picard's new series and make that totally different than all other Trek shows; make it a character study and introspective. The Kelvin films? Yes, that's pure pulp scifi action-adventure. They are Guardians of the Galaxy or Farscape but in the Trek universe. Make it stand on its own feet; use easter eggs here and there, some characters or situations similar to TOS but with its own life. Give me "The Balance of Terror" re-conceptualized like "Hunt for Red October" or "Crimson Tide" but in Trek in the big screen. Then give me a different tv series that follows the standard Trek formula of exploring new worlds and wagons in space but 300 years AFTER the Dominion War in the Prime Universe, exploring characters and situations completely detached from any existing ones.

I want to see Trek really expand past its crutches. Really explore the infinite possibilities of this world through different perspectives and different narrative tones. Hell I want this from Star Wars too, after Disney demolished everything I loved of the Original Trilogy with its carbon pasted copies.

Yeah, I can dream. Looking at the current state of Trek and its fanbase makes me sad.

 

[TUB_Husker]

What made me angry about Discovery or other Series is not the scale of a damn ship. It is the poor writing of stories. A Example of the last episode: a pixalated pictures is a pixalated Pictures and if you have 200 or 1000 percent visual acuity you see only a pixalated pictures, it is incredibly stupid.
And as an Artist (Pseudo), I love style loyalty. If I say it is Prime, then I must consider the Style, other is a reboot.
You never change Batman with a frog in a SM costume and call it Batman.

I hate not the show she is B( C ) quality SciFi (Stories )with poor writing (Charackters and Science), thats the only reason I watch this: Sci Fi, ok Fantasy Fi. Ok this is my opinion, perhaps I am to stupid for this series and can't recognize the progress to the older shows.

But disagreements should always articulate!

Ok, I'm a consument, but I'm not stupid and I hate Liar! They say it's Prime, no! It is a reboot, a new "interpretation" (Nogons), like Battlestar Galactica was a new interpretion (I like the old and the new series). And I have my problems, that every say, that both universe JJ-Trek, Star Trek Discovery play in the same universe, they rape a franchise, because of iconic charackters, Kirk and Spock every knows, it is only a marketing thing, other I can't expalin why they do a prequel to TOS.

Ah style loyalty, In the Trilogie Beneath the Raptor's Wing it gives a logical explanation of the TOS Style, justified through the Romulan War. Yes, ok, this are books, not cannon, but creative.
I miss creativity today.

Third, nothing goes over Farscape, I think it is fantastic (ok I think)

A Series after Nemesis, two, five centuries after nemesis, it could very fantastic, now you have holograms, mushrooms drugs in the past.

Picard, I don't care, Discovery I don't care, it hurts to write that. But I have my own head, my own fantasy, my own fan fiction, and this is the only true Star Trek for me, my own

 

[Majestic]

TBH Last friday I watched episode 1 of season 2 and it was quite good, for what it is. Going to be watching episode 2 tonight. Kinda looking forward to it. Hopefully this season picks up a bit and is enjoyable for what it is, just a sci-fi series with an interesting storyline.

 

[SciFiFan]

Wish I could watch it. I am not paying for a service for one show. Not worth it.

 

[Hellkite]

Or if you have Amazon Prime you could just use the Trial and cancel it before the seven days is up

See

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