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All Things Star Trek — Page 147

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Mike O said:

I thought it was suppose to be one of those Trek situations where, at least in theory, the idea was that both characters were supposed to have a somewhat valid moral point and there weren’t easy answers.

I would prefer if they would do it like that. The most memorable Trek stories IMHO are stories where we’re not told what is the “correct” solution of a problem.

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chyron8472 said:

Bingowings said:

pittrek said:

I’ve seen the first episode. I loved the first part and hated the second half. By the way this might be the first Star Trek lead I absolutely hate, she belongs to jail, why is she a hero?

She was right.
She correctly assessed the situation and did everything she could to prevent the conflict.
If Kirk did this it would be typical Kirk stuff and we would all be patting him on the back for disrespecting the chain of command as usual.

But Kirk is the captain, and TOS is incredibly cheesy, so over-the-top is expected. Plus, we have had enough time with Kirk and his crew to assess their personality. Meanwhile, this is the pilot episode of Discovery. We know very little about this crew; why they act the way they do; why they distrust and bicker with each other, et al.

The captain may have made a bad decision, but she’s the captain. It’s her call. It doesn’t matter if the first officer was right and ignoring her would get everyone killed. That’s not how a command structure works.

This is not TOS. In TOS, the characters are endearing. Plus, to have a mutiny now is like having “The Menagerie” two-parter be the actual TOS pilot, including the parts where Spock mutinied (not just “The Cage” bits). If that were the pilot, why do we know anything about Spock? Why would we care? Does Spock do this all the time? Is it normal on a starship for people to mutiny? Or it could be like if The Best of Both Worlds was the TNG pilot. Cmdr. Shelby went over Riker’s head, straight to the captain when Riker disagreed with her, and Riker called her on it. Is Riker always like this? Is Shelby? Is this normal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOnC0dgHNDA&t=1m28s <-- I mean seriously, imagine this episode is the TNG pilot. It would give a whole different vibe to the characters.

It’s too early in the Discovery characters’ development onscreen to have this drama because we don’t have a baseline for what is supposed to be normal for this crew in interacting with each other.

You asked why she was the protagonist. Kirk was a captain but he frequently disobeyed the chain of command and was the ‘hero’ of the piece. I think all of the main protagonists have adopted this mode.

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 (Edited)

Bingowings said:

chyron8472 said:

Bingowings said:

pittrek said:

I’ve seen the first episode. I loved the first part and hated the second half. By the way this might be the first Star Trek lead I absolutely hate, she belongs to jail, why is she a hero?

She was right.
She correctly assessed the situation and did everything she could to prevent the conflict.
If Kirk did this it would be typical Kirk stuff and we would all be patting him on the back for disrespecting the chain of command as usual.

But Kirk is the captain, and TOS is incredibly cheesy, so over-the-top is expected. Plus, we have had enough time with Kirk and his crew to assess their personality. Meanwhile, this is the pilot episode of Discovery. We know very little about this crew; why they act the way they do; why they distrust and bicker with each other, et al.

The captain may have made a bad decision, but she’s the captain. It’s her call. It doesn’t matter if the first officer was right and ignoring her would get everyone killed. That’s not how a command structure works.

This is not TOS. In TOS, the characters are endearing. Plus, to have a mutiny now is like having “The Menagerie” two-parter be the actual TOS pilot, including the parts where Spock mutinied (not just “The Cage” bits). If that were the pilot, why do we know anything about Spock? Why would we care? Does Spock do this all the time? Is it normal on a starship for people to mutiny? Or it could be like if The Best of Both Worlds was the TNG pilot. Cmdr. Shelby went over Riker’s head, straight to the captain when Riker disagreed with her, and Riker called her on it. Is Riker always like this? Is Shelby? Is this normal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOnC0dgHNDA&t=1m28s <-- I mean seriously, imagine this episode is the TNG pilot. It would give a whole different vibe to the characters.

It’s too early in the Discovery characters’ development onscreen to have this drama because we don’t have a baseline for what is supposed to be normal for this crew in interacting with each other.

You asked why she was the protagonist. Kirk was a captain but he frequently disobeyed the chain of command and was the ‘hero’ of the piece. I think all of the main protagonists have adopted this mode.

I did not ask that. And because Kirk is the captain, it’s his ship. Plus, he respects and cares about his crew. There is no indication that Burnham has any respect for her crewmates, nor is it obvious why she is second in command of the ship. The show casts her as basically the captain’s pupil, which devalues her authority as first officer over the rest of the crew.

Also, Star Trek has always previously tried to weave some level of a morality tale into most of its stories, whereas Discovery is just a treknobabbled space drama.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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This was the prologue to the larger story. We didn’t even see the Discovery for gods sake. This is going to be a redemption story for Burnham. I believe we’re not supposed to like her yet.

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 (Edited)

Well, I finally watched episode 2, and it was certainly better. And given that Michelle Yeoh does not captain the Discovery, that may fix one of my gripes since I thought the thickness of her accent got in the way of the emotion behind her dialogue.

I still say the Klingons were the most interesting part. Oh, and apparently the ugly “lateral transporters” is a technology that had already been phased out by Starfleet, so I gather they will not be on the Discovery.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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Listen to that well-dressed Porg up there, he’s talking sense. Discovery is designed to be one long arc which is a different to most* of the other series story structures. It stands to reason that the characters will develop as things progress doesn’t it? If everyone was fully formed by the end of the pilot and the rest of the series was them just getting into adventures it would be a bit dull (and Voyager kind of already took that approach.)

*yes, I know what Enterprise did in its third season.

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A more self contained pilot might have helped make a better first impression. Getting half a story on tv the other night felt like a ripoff. It certainly wasn’t enough to make me say “take my money!”

I’ve only seen two episodes of The Orville so far, yet those are the characters I’d like to hang out with.

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Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

Okay wait. I’m 5 minutes in to the first episode of The Orville and I’m hooked. It feels like Stargate SG-1 if the writers had dirty minds.

That gag with accidentally eating the marble is something I could seriously see Jack O’Neill doing.

JEDIT: …aand the Chief Medical Officer is Kasidy Yates from Deep Space Nine. Faaantastic. Sold.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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The Orville has left me nothing but bored. I don’t get the praise for that, I think it must be the low expectations - if that were actually Star Trek people would be complaining.

Going to try to watch Discovery tonight.

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I did go into it with low expectations, thanks to misleading promos by FOX.

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Where were you in '77?

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For me it’s the adventure. I like lighthearted adventure. And space. And interesting characters.

The humor is crass, but that’s… that’s Seth MacFarlane. I just really do hope it doesn’t devolve from crudely obnoxious into deliberately offensive like some of Seth’s other stuff has.

TV’s Frink said:

chyron just put a big Ric pic in your sig and be done with it.

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I don’t even mind the humor, it just seems like an afterthought.

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Orville will give you your moral of the story episodes and Discovery will give you your grand arc. But I’m sure Discovery will get into their own moral of the story episodes once they get going.

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I don’t see that ever happening. They’ll probably end up going with their plan B and replace it with the Nicholas Meyer series and claim that was the plan all along.

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doubleofive said:

Orville will give you your moral of the story episodes and Discovery will give you your grand arc. But I’m sure Discovery will get into their own moral of the story episodes once they get going.

I don’t see why you can’t do both.

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chyron8472 said:

For me it’s the adventure. I like lighthearted adventure. And space. And interesting characters.

The humor is crass, but that’s… that’s Seth MacFarlane. I just really do hope it doesn’t devolve from crudely obnoxious into deliberately offensive like some of Seth’s other stuff has.

Seems pretty mild compared to his animated shows.

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Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

Was it just me or did the Klingons sound odd? Like their voices were processed in some way. They also came off a bit stiff, like actors speaking another language phonetically. Which they are of course, but Klingonese sounded more natural in the short bits we’ve had in previous series. As some people really hate subtitles, if they don’t start using the ol’ Universal Translator soon, such long stretches of Klingonese may get tedious.

I find the whole reverence for the dead body aspect odd since TNG era Klingons seem to have had little regard for what they considered empty husks.

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 (Edited)

They had a budget and time to do some accent couching for Discovery so the enunciation of Klingon you hear is actually much closer to how Marc Okrand designed it. The previous series would usually just write some Klingon words (without any real grammar), and have the actors do their best with what was on the page. The movies were better in this regard. The reason it sounds different than before is because Klingon is designed to use lots of sounds not found in English enunciation. (It has a weird consonant aragment which is dissimilar to most human languages).

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As I’m no Seth fan, I’m as confused as you are, believe me!

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Where were you in '77?

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Well, just saw first two eps of Discovery and am pretty meh so far, but it is far too soon to be sure.

I guess I will give The Orville a chance, but I have my doubts, even after hearing what all you non McFarlane fans have to say…

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I’m not a fan of McFarlane, except the first few seasons of Family Guy. HOwever I really liked Orville