[Official] Star Trek: Discovery Thread

[FloatingFatMan]

15 minutes ago, Human.Online said:

The people who cite ENT about being the poorest rated are the same who take issue when I note how Into Darkness is joint highest rated.

I actually liked Enterprise, apart from the Time War and Xindi story lines, but otherwise I loved it. I just don't think we need yet another prequel show when Enterprise already did it, and did it better than Discovery is.  The facts and figures are indisputable though, Enterprise WAS the least liked of all the Trek series, and I've always felt it was because people didn't really want a prequel, they wanted a continuation of the TNG era, even if it was without Picard, Sisko or Janeway...

 

Personally, I feel that prequels CAN work, if done with care; but they keep treading on the toes of things already established, and that just pisses fans off.  If you want to do a prequel, fine! Do it somewhere in the Trek universe we've rarely seen.  Maybe Starfleet Academy, or the early days after First Contact but before Enterprise...  Maybe even a direct continuation of First Contact where humans are just learning about Vulcanoids (As they were originally called).

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

1 minute ago, FloatingFatMan said:

I actually liked Enterprise, apart from the silly Time War and Xindi story lines, but otherwise I loved it. I just don't think we need yet another prequel show when Enterprise already did it, and did it better than Discovery is.  The facts and figures are indisputable though, Enterprise WAS the least liked of all the Trek series, and I've always felt it was because people didn't really want a prequel, they wanted a continuation of the TNG era, even if it was without Picard, Sisko or Janeway...

 

Personally, I feel that prequels CAN work, if done with care; but they keep treading on the toes of things already established, and that just pisses fans off.  If you want to do a prequel, fine! Do it somewhere in the Trek universe we've rarely seen.  Maybe Starfleet Academy, or the early days after First Contact but before Enterprise...  Maybe even a direct continuation of First Contact where humans are just learning about Vulcanoids (As they were originally called).

Exactly my point re Star Wars:  Rogue One took a lot of care to "fit into" the existing story arc.  Prequel trilogy didn't.  On that aspect we can agree - IF you want to appease fans.

 

And this is my other point: You seem intent on this belief that CBS/Paramount want to appease fans.  I personally feel that they couldn't give a flying funk about that and are more concerned with making a fun sci-fi show that is part of the same franchise.  This is why our opinions differ - you are coming at it from a "fanbase" aspect and I am coming from a "sci-fi show that trades upon the franchise" aspect.

[FloatingFatMan]

17 minutes ago, Human.Online said:

This is why our opinions differ - you are coming at it from a "fanbase" aspect and I am coming from a "sci-fi show that trades upon the franchise" aspect.

And we have plenty of evidence that shows doing that lead nowhere good...  The prequels are hated by anyone brought up on original Star Wars, and with good reason.

 

If Discovery were a show in its own right, instead of claiming to be part of Trek, then it would be fine.  But as it IS part of Trek, then it should comply with what has gone before or you just annoy the people who you want to give you money. Not generally a smart thing to do.

 

Respect the franchise or pay the price, especially for franchises that are only so massive BECAUSE of the fans and not the show itself.  The Kelvin timeline has already paid that price, Discovery could be next.  

 

Episode 2, directed by Frakes, was a pretty good episode.  Frakes knows Trek, and thanks to his many interactions with fans over the years, knows his audience inside out. He gave them the first Disovery episode that fans were OK with calling Trek.  Bring. Him. Back!

 

Sidenote:  Frakes has an episode of The Orville coming up soon. I can't wait!  

 

 

[Brys]

Eh... I mean, maybe I'm too lax, I just want to explore that world more. To me, Enterprise did that, and it was cool, even though it didn't continue the TNG-era storylines. Discovery also does that, from a completely different angle, and I'm cool with it too.

 

To keep working on your parallel with star wars, I may not be the biggest fan of the sequels but I liked seing the world before the rise of the empire, we discovered new elements that fit in that universe. Rogue one was more focused on fitting inside that universe, and yet it still managed to show us newer things (the force-worshiping monk is the main thing I'm thinking about). We kept exploring and seeing new parts of that universe. Episode 7 on the other hand was just a rehash of the themes and things we saw in previous episodes, and I felt like there was nothing new.

 

Now back about star trek, this is kind of my feeling too : if we had a new TNG-era show that was set after ds9 and voyager, I feel after 21 seasons in the TNG-Era, if we want to feel like it's new, it would really need to bring something different. Or maybe it should be yet another generation later. That's already what DS9 and Voyager did, by the way, "this time it's not a spaceship its a space station", "this time it's not in federation space it's stranded in an unknown quadrant of the galaxy". That's also why I'm ok with prequels, they work in a different place than the previous shows, they can explore things that other shows didn't explore. (Of course the difference is now the canon may be kinda bruised (e.g. if the federation had that spore drive thing sooooo long ago why couldn't they just use it to teleport to the voyager and save everyone ?), and maybe some of it is what annoys fans, so maybe having a sequel instead of a prequel would have been a better plan)

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

The prequels were panned - but in retrospect and watching them now - I have less of an issue.  They made some poor decisions as far as "Let's make a blockbuster movie" went but they added a lot to the universe.  I would say the same of Enterprise.

 

I feel DIS is very much of the JJ Trek way of thinking.  Let's make a fun bit of sci-fi.

 

Comment's of "Respect the franchise or pay the price" just come off as nerd-rage.

 

But yes, Frakes makes damned good Trek.

[FloatingFatMan]

3 hours ago, Human.Online said:

Comment's of "Respect the franchise or pay the price" just come off as nerd-rage.

It's not nerd rage.   It's carefully thought out and reasoned argument that's backed up by evidence... the movies are dead, Discovery is in danger of cancellation, and there's no one running the show (or anything else really) at CBS...

 

Edit: Something else comes to mind too.  I suspect part of the anti-Discovery feeling is a result of the whole Axanar debacle and the resulting changes to fanfilm rules that effectively killed off fan productions. A LOT of people are extremely angry at the way CBS & Paramount have treated the fans since that all broke, plus the tardigrade plagiarism lawsuit hasn't helped...

Edited February 5, 2019 by FloatingFatMan

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

14 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

the movies are dead

4 has been shelved, not killed.  The Tarantino idea is still gaining traction.  Not dead.

14 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Discovery is in danger of cancellation

No it's not, that is the type of nerd-rage comments that hold no water.  Nobody of any value has claimed this - just the usual negative clickbaiters who offer their interpretations.

 

14 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

no one running the show (or anything else really) at CBS...

Well yeah, that entire company is a mess right now - no denying that!

14 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

the whole Axanar debacle

Legally had to happen - CBS had a duty to protect their IP.  I don't like it, but I know it had to happen and only nerds knew about it.  

 

14 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

plus the tardigrade plagiarism lawsuit hasn't helped

It's basically gone away and only really the nerds noticed.

[Brys]

Do we know what the audience is like for this show ? Because you keep saying "only the nerds know" about some things, but it only has value if there's an audience outside of nerds, and I don't know about the general audience but in my circles only nerds even care about star trek in general.

[FloatingFatMan]

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

4 has been shelved, not killed.  The Tarantino idea is still gaining traction.  Not dead.

No, it's been officially cancelled, not shelved.  The 2 lead stars have walked away as Paramount couldn't pay the salary they CONTRACTED to pay when they signed them for 3, and the financial backers pulled out. It's dead; period.

 

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

No it's not, that is the type of nerd-rage comments that hold no water.  Nobody of any value has claimed this - just the usual negative clickbaiters who offer their interpretations.

Nothing official, but plenty of inference for it.

 

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

Legally had to happen - CBS had a duty to protect their IP.  I don't like it, but I know it had to happen and only nerds knew about it.  

Axanar was well within the long established official rules of fan productions as they existed at the time.  The same rules productions like Star Trek Phase II and all the others were made under and they had no issues. The ONLY reason CBS balked at Axanar was due to the quality, and that they were covering the same period THEY wanted to cover with Discovery.

 

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

It's basically gone away and only really the nerds noticed.

No, it really hasn't gone away and are you really condoning plagiarism just because it's a big corp verses a lone indie game developer?

 

Even if it HAD gone away (it hasn't), that's irrelevant.  It's going to court and CBS have very little to stand on as the plagiarism is blatant. Hell, the actors even resemble the game characters!

 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

3 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

No, it's been officially cancelled, not shelved.  The 2 lead stars have walked away as Paramount couldn't pay the salary they CONTRACTED to pay when they signed them for 3, and the financial backers pulled out. It's dead; period.

It has not.

 

3 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Nothing official, but plenty of inference for it.

So it's not.

 

3 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Axanar was well within the long established official rules of fan productions as they existed at the time.  The same rules productions like Star Trek Phase II and all the others were made under and they had no issues. The ONLY reason CBS balked at Axanar was due to the quality, and that they were covering the same period THEY wanted to cover with Discovery.

When engaging with a piece of IP, the owner has a legal obligation to protect it.  That is the law.  That is indisputable.

 

3 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

No, it really hasn't gone away and are you really condoning plagiarism just because it's a big corp verses a lone indie game developer?

I apologise on this one, I had believed it was being settled OOC.

[FloatingFatMan]

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

When engaging with a piece of IP, the owner has a legal obligation to protect it.  That is the law.  That is indisputable.

For literally decades, the official rules for fan productions were set as essentially anything goes as long as you don't make any profit and make sure everyone knows you're a fan production that's not affiliated with official Trek in any way.  Axanar was following the same rules as 100's of other fan productions which CBS & Paramount either ignored or in some cases, even praised, for years.  Many of them even used former official Trek actors and production staff who donated their time. 

 

Then along came Axanar, and suddenly CBS/Paramount decided HELL NO and not only slapped a lawsuit on them, but also pretty much choked off ALL other fan productions by changing the rules so dramatically that several others had to shut down.  It's now virtually impossible to make any kind of fan production of Trek as how the hell can you tell much of a Trek story in no more than two 15 minute parts?

 

The ONLY things different with Axanar were 1) Professional quality production and 2) Using the same time period as the then secret Star Trek Discovery.

 

Yes, they have to protect their IP, but it wasn't until Axanar unwittingly chose the same time period CBS were planning to do that they decided to do so.  Axanar tried to work with them, they offered to change the ships, change the characters, remove anything that referred to known and copyrighted ships and characters but remain in the Trek universe, but CBS/Paramount refused to deal.  They've decided to be the schoolyard bully, and refuse to let anyone else play with their ball. 

 

This is why so many fans are angry at CBS/Paramount and, no doubt, has had a significant influence on all the hate for Discovery. That the show itself isn't very good is just gold for those upset.  CBS/Paramount would have been wiser buying into Axanar and making THAT official; they'd have made a clanking fortune for virtually zero work or investment...

 

 

[FloatingFatMan]

1 hour ago, Human.Online said:

It has not.

Yes, it really really has.  I guess I'm more informed than you on this.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/01/10/paramount-has-canceled-star-trek-4-and-disneys-star-wars-is-to-blame/#1ab535321dc2

 

[shockz]

Discovery isn't getting canceled lol. It's CBS All Access anchor show, it's not going anywhere, unless you know from all those "inferences" that All Access is getting canned too. lol

 

Also, ST 4 isn't canceled, it's shelved... and the other movie is still moving along on planning.

7 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

This is why so many fans are angry at CBS/Paramount and, no doubt, has had a significant influence on all the hate for Discovery. That the show itself isn't very good is just gold for those upset.  CBS/Paramount would have been wiser buying into Axanar and making THAT official; they'd have made a clanking fortune for virtually zero work or investment...

 

 

Axanar lol. No. Please.  And the prelude looked pretty lousy outside of the ships being used. It was empty, silly nonsense.

[FloatingFatMan]

1 minute ago, shockz said:

Discovery isn't getting canceled lol.

 

Also, ST 4 isn't canceled, it's shelved... and the other movie is still moving along on planning.

The Tarantino movie, if it ever gets made, is unlikely to be in the Kelvin timeline.

[shockz]

4 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

The Tarantino movie, if it ever gets made, is unlikely to be in the Kelvin timeline.

Good, it'll shut up the people who constantly moan about it. Noticing a theme? Seems any new star trek, even if it was post TNG and aligned someones's narrow vision of canon, they'd still moan about it. I have no doubt that even the picard series will be ###### on. Different make up for the borg? No way. OH wait, they've done that. And yes, people moaned about it.

 

Social media is the only difference between then and now. Trekkies complain about EVERYTHING.

[FloatingFatMan]

3 minutes ago, shockz said:

Good, it'll shut up the people who constantly moan about it. Noticing a theme? Seems any new star trek, even if it was post TNG and aligned some's narrow vision of cannon, they'd still moan about it. I have no doubt that even the picard series will be ###### on. Different make up for the borg? No way. OH wait, they've done that. And yes, people moaned about it.

 

Social media is the only difference between then and now. Trekkies complain about EVERYTHING.

Surprise surprise.  Fans of a long established fandom get upset when the money men decide to break it.  Whodathunk?

 

Show me one fandom that's been drastically changed and NOT had complaints about it.

[shockz]

27 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Surprise surprise.  Fans of a long established fandom get upset when the money men decide to break it.  Whodathunk?

 

Show me one fandom that's been drastically changed and NOT had complaints about it.

That’s what I’m saying though. Even in established prime canon people hated nemesis, generations, hell even first contact movies. The people directly involved with gene back in the day making things around it got ###### on “fans” back then. Trekkies just bitch over the stupidest things. And I use trekkies loosely. Most trekkies I know are really enjoying discovery. 

 

Its been two years. Get over it.

 

Enterprise? Klingons? Klingons that looked like Klingons without 60s style makeup and dresses? The horror. People boycotted it as soon as the first scene aired. So silly.  And then the time changes that happened really made people ###### bricks. For all we know enterprise is the only canon show and the rest is a paradox. People get bent out of shape over the stupidest things. It’s just a show. Enjoy it. 

 

I know some people that can’t get past TOS. Refuse to watch TNG after seeing the first season, let alone voyager or DS9, and then I see them on Facebook bitching about discovery. You just can’t win. 

 

Unless Gene rises from the dead and uses cardboard sets, nothing with please them. Even then I’d be skeptical. Lol

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by shockz

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

39 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Yes, it really really has.  I guess I'm more informed than you on this.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/01/10/paramount-has-canceled-star-trek-4-and-disneys-star-wars-is-to-blame/#1ab535321dc2

 

An opinion piece that I stopped reading as soon as I realised it's an opinion piece that references an article that doesn't say what you think it says (heck the same article praises Discovery).  It's shelved, not cancelled.  It's still listed as pre-production by the studio but they have halted production.  There's been no official word on cancellation.

 

35 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Surprise surprise.  Fans of a long established fandom get upset when the money men decide to break it.  Whodathunk?

Change - not break.  That's just nerdy perception that somehow you dictate what it should or shouldn't be.

34 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Show me one fandom that's been drastically changed and NOT had complaints about it.

Case in point - nerd rage!

[shockz]

45 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Show me one fandom that's been drastically changed and NOT had complaints about it.

Also, again? What’s drastically been changed?

[FloatingFatMan]

24 minutes ago, Human.Online said:

Case in point - nerd rage!

Why is it that a fan of a particular TV show has to be referred to as a nerd?  Leave the derogatory language out of it please.

15 minutes ago, shockz said:

Also, again? What’s drastically been changed?

It's been explained often enough over the last few years. Perhaps you should actually do a bit of research?

[George P Global Moderator]

It's interesting how if you go back and look at it, at some point in time each new trek show had something that split the fans at some point or another.   Times change, heck our own tech changes and since trek is suppose to show our future, it also has to keep up.   I made this argument when season 1 aired, about the use of holograms to communicate and not just using view screens.  Well, it's 2019, and the use of AR in the real world is growing day by day.   So is it really hard to envision the technology of today in use in the future?    I get that counter argument that it's not in use in TNG and later shows but the tech itself wasn't around in the real world yet.   Also maybe you can make up for it not being used by saying they found out it wasn't safe, or by the time of TNG and later shows federation space has grown to the point that distance plays a issue?   I don't know, but my point is that it's the type of little thing some moaned about that I don't see a issue with.   A show, specially a scifi show, has to keep up with current tech at least, you can't ignore it.

[Peresvet]

On 2/5/2019 at 6:17 PM, FloatingFatMan said:

I actually liked Enterprise, apart from the Time War and Xindi

I loved those story lines.

 

For the record, my cats are called Xindi (female) and Xindus (male).

 

 

[shockz]

1 hour ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Why is it that a fan of a particular TV show has to be referred to as a nerd?  Leave the derogatory language out of it please.

It's been explained often enough over the last few years. Perhaps you should actually do a bit of research?

Or instead of coping out to a response, list what you feel is extremely different? You don't have a leg to stand on if you can cite some examples (and you know I've provided plenty on my end, that you conveniently skip over... still waiting for a response to your canon discussion, where I asked if Voyager's entire premise was a canon violation since it takes voyager 75 years to get home, yet a 100 year older ship can travel to the center of the galaxy in hours/days).

Edited February 6, 2019 by shockz

[LOC Veteran]

3 hours ago, Peresvet said:

I loved those story lines.

 

For the record, my cats are called Xindi (female) and Xindus (male).

 

 

I thought the Time War stuff could have been SO much better than it was though. They ruined it halfway through then dropped it like a hot potato when the showrunner shift thing happened and then they tried "rebooting" the show with the Xindi storyline which I also enjoyed. Especially one episode named Twilight, where the Earth literally blows up and there are weird time dimension altering parasites in Archer's brain and he can't remember anything past the infection time and yeah it was a great episode of Trek. In fact I put it up there with some of the great episodes from all the series.

 

In any event, Discovery is just a show. If you take it so seriously that you can't just either enjoy it for what it is, or just stop watching it and leave it alone - you might wanna re-evaluate your watching habits and how you spend your time

[FloatingFatMan]

11 hours ago, shockz said:

Or instead of coping out to a response, list what you feel is extremely different? You don't have a leg to stand on if you can cite some examples (and you know I've provided plenty on my end, that you conveniently skip over... still waiting for a response to your canon discussion, where I asked if Voyager's entire premise was a canon violation since it takes voyager 75 years to get home, yet a 100 year older ship can travel to the center of the galaxy in hours/days).

I'm not "copping" out of anything. It's all been said many many times by me and plenty of others across the net.  If you want to go over some of it, watch JP from Egotastic Funtime (who IS trying to give Discovery a fair trial).

 

 

As for the distance issues with Voyager and the galactic barrier, have you ever looked at a map of the Trek galaxy? Perhaps you should... UFP territory is a LOT closer to both the edge AND the core than it is the Delta quadrant...  Voyager ended up on the far side of Borg space...

 

 

For clarity. In TOS, the Enterprise went to the Galactic Barrier from Earth, not that far really.  In Trek V, the Enterprise went to the barrier at the core from Nimbus 3, located on the border between UFP, Romulan and Klingon space, not that far from the core.

 

As for the TNG episode with the Traveler.  Watch it again.  By the end of the episode you find out it was never the Enterprise's engines pushing the ship to that velocity, it was 100% the Traveler doing it with his abilities

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by FloatingFatMan