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Star Trek Franchise |OT| To Boldly Go.....
- Thread starter Deleted member 3812
- Start date
So I'm a quarter way through S4 of my first foray into Voyager and I have no idea why people hate it. It's comfort food Trek with likable characters.. hell, I'm even liking Neelix now. I might even like the supporting crew more than TNG.
I think the universe has been too hard on Janeway and crew.
I think the universe has been too hard on Janeway and crew.
When CBS relaunched StarTrek.com, they needed to call it something in the database, so called it the Kelvin timeline because it's the timeline where the Kelvin blew up. That's it really. Paramount and JJ didn't have any involvement in the naming.
I really hope the Tarantino movie happens, however I feel like it will just fizzle out at some point and then become a giant "what if" for Star Trek. It probably should be in the Kelvin timeline though. What are the alternatives? Bring back the TNG crew? Cast a new crew? Actually a completely new cast could be really interesting but the Kelvin crew are really good so why waste them to risk casting 7 new people, a new set, new everything, etc.
I think you kind of explained it yourself.
It's a show about a crew cobbled together from Starfleet and Maquis, stuck in the opposite end of the galaxy with hostile species, no contact with home, no resupply, and no backup, and yet it's "comfort food Trek."
It's the most squandered premise in the history of the franchise.
Your experience with Discovery was the same as mine. It was intriguing for all the examples you listed (and I felt like they could've devoted an entire season just to the Klingon and Spore Drive storylines), but as soon as it went to the Mirror Universe, I fell off it. Plus, whenever I was watching it, I wished I was watching The Expanse instead. So that's what I did.
I liked the 2009 Trek movie, and I'd really love to see some kind of TV show set in that universe, and maybe some day after the CBS-Viacom merger it could happen. I mean, they're apparently in this weird experimental mode right now, so why not?
I think I enjoyed the second half of Discovery's first season more than the beginning. To be honest I've still yet to get over the redesigns of the Klingons and their ships/weapons etc. I just hate it all. Movies onwards the Klingon designs and imo had real depth behind everything. The ones in Discovery feel so bland and generic, half the time not being able to tell what I'm looking at.
Yeah I'm not really a fan of the Klingon redesign at all.
I'd say that the Movie/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT Klingon design was somewhat iconic of the Star Trek franchise. Even a non Star Trek fan would be able to go "Oh that's a Klingon" if they saw a picture of one.
To be fair, the Klingon redesign is basically "they lack hair". People have photoshopped TNG-ENT style hair onto the Klingons from Discovery and they essentially look like the Klingons from those eras
Well, I decided to catch up on some of the TNG films before starting Enterprise.
First Contact was really good, probably my second favorite big screen Star Trek. Sure it was a big dumb action movie, but at least it was entertaining. "Assimilate this!"
Insurrection was mediocre. It felt like one of those TNG two-parters that probably should have just been one episode. Still better than Generations at least.
First Contact was really good, probably my second favorite big screen Star Trek. Sure it was a big dumb action movie, but at least it was entertaining. "Assimilate this!"
Insurrection was mediocre. It felt like one of those TNG two-parters that probably should have just been one episode. Still better than Generations at least.
I still tear up at the end of the DS9 episode "Once More Unto the Breach" when the Klingons start singing in tribute to Kor. In my opinion, between TNG and DS9 the Klingons were really well explored and fleshed out moreso than even Vulcans. Still bittersweet that that episode (and the song ending it) is the last time we saw TNG-era Klingons.
Carrying on with my Voyager rewatch and I'd forgotten how good of a two parter Scorpion was. The show may have neutered the Borg too much by the end but that first proper meeting with them was great.
Voyager actually does have a lot of good episodes. It's a shame that the writers squandered the potential of the initial premise.
DS9 is very good. Quite different from TNG but not behind it in quality.
The weirdest thing about the run up to Discovery is the show runners wanting to flesh out the Klingons as they previously felt underdeveloped. There is an argument to be made that there is a severe lack of non-military careers (but that's an issue with the format of trek), but if anything the Klingons were regressed in Discovery. Some people used to ask how a warrior culture could become space faring, but Discovery made it worse by leaning into house divisions. consumption of sentiant meat and all kinds of "monstrous" stuff.
Thing is the history of the Klingons was already fleshed out well enough. Hell, outside of humans they probably had the most backstory of any race in Star Trek. The severe lack of non-military careers is simply a part of their race. We did see Klingon scientists, but it was generally part of Klingon culture to not put those people front and center.
Just as bad is that Enterprise quite neatly resolved the whole without ridges in TOS then with ridges in movies onward issue. Discovery has basically undone that and re-opened a can of worms that had very neatly been closed and sealed.
I wonder what Star Trek 4's "Fuck me that was fucking stupid" moment will be.
Star Trek had child Kirk just stealing a car, flinging the roof off, driving at a cliff and screaming then jumping out at the last second.
Into Darkness had magic Khan Jesus blood.
Beyond had Alien Armada defeated by how shitty this music is.
How do you escalate from there?
Star Trek had child Kirk just stealing a car, flinging the roof off, driving at a cliff and screaming then jumping out at the last second.
Into Darkness had magic Khan Jesus blood.
Beyond had Alien Armada defeated by how shitty this music is.
How do you escalate from there?
The alien armada defeated by music was great, IMO. The convoluted stuff to get to that point wasn't (if you had that fleet of drone ships in the first place why do you need some doomsday weapon?)
"Alien Armada defeated by disrupting its control signal with an opposing signal" is fine.
Using shitty 21st century music to do it was utterly stupid and pointless.
I liked Beyond, but that was just inexcusable and had no place in a Star Trek film.
Using shitty 21st century music to do it was utterly stupid and pointless.
I liked Beyond, but that was just inexcusable and had no place in a Star Trek film.
It was just a call back to the first film...geez lol I thought the scene was great and i'm not a big fan of the beastie boys
And the Khan blood stuff, I mean all the other crazy medical stuff they've done in the shows, Khans blood is on the more believable side.
And the Khan blood stuff, I mean all the other crazy medical stuff they've done in the shows, Khans blood is on the more believable side.
Well probably see some of those Klingons but the whole race wasn't genetically modified.
JJ Abrams-Trek already messed with the Klingon design before Discovery messed with it some more.
I look at it this way: TOS Vulcans were a cheap design, but Spock was iconic so Vulcans get to stay that way forever. TOS Klingons were also a cheap design, so nobody cared when TNG upgraded them, but then Worf was iconic so IMO Klingons should've been allowed to stay that way forever. The shows (both DS9 jokingly and then Enterprise seriously) even found a way to explain the design upgrade, so that should've been the end of it.
But then modern Trek threw that out because modern Trek doesn't give a shit about Worf. Spock and the Vulcans are sacred, but Worf and the Klingons, they're disposable. Which totally explains why Trek producers keep hammering away at that Klingon nostalgia button (oh wait, no, that's the opposite of something that makes sense).
It's just a matter of time before they redesign the Ferengi. And the Borg. And the Bajorans and Cardassians. The Romulans have already taken a turn through the JJ Abrams/Eric Bana filter, and they were borderline sacred due to their relationship to Spock (I was just watching Star Trek 2009 on TV the other day, and almost laughed when Spock spoke of his similarity to the new-Romulans).
One problem I do have with ST is that all the alien races look the same....I can understand that all Vulcans think that hair cut is logical...(that's a stretch though) but all andorians/klingons/romulans/ferengi look basically the same minus the height or weight. It's kind of annoying.
The solution to that is just give us new races, or actually show some old ones. They've mentioned all sorts of non-humanoid species that aren't just different foreheads. Neelix barters with a xeon-based life form.
TNG does actually explain why so many of the races in the galaxy are humanoid though. It's because the original humanoid race of the galaxy seeded multiple worlds to ensure evolution of intelligent life on them followed the same basic humanoid template.
I think its a shame they never linked that back to the Changlings from DS9 given that it was the same actress and extremely similar makeup to the female Changling. Could have been interesting to explore the fact that they'd maybe forgotten that they created all the solids that they ended up hating.
Don't the Changelings mention that they were once a race of Solids that later evolved into Changelings?
What always bugged me about DS9 though and the whole "Mistrust of shapeshifters" angle is that the Federation have had relationships with other shapeshifting species for at least a century by that point and had no problem. All they had to do to prove to the Founders that the Federation was different was just go "What do you mean mistrust of shapeshifters? We've known shapeshifters for ages now and don't hate them"
Those shapeshifters were not part of the dominion- how could you tell which ones were good except for the liquidy badness
True. but the main argument the Founders had was "All Solids mistrust all shapeshifters" which the Federation could demonstrate wasn't true in their case.
Though I guess in the end the Founders just wanted to rule anyone and everyone.
I do wish they'd gotten to interact with some of the Alpha/Beta Quadrant shapeshifting races though. Would they still be considered 'Solids' because they couldn't assume a liquid/gaseous state like the Changelings could? Would they be seen as kindred spirits of a sort that could've bridged the gap between the Dominion and the Federation?
Well I just finished up Discovery. I started it when it first came out and I didn't care much for it, but I pushed through and I've turned around on it now.
All of the crew are likable which is rare for me and Trek, Tilly and Statens were my favorites. It borders on a little too much fan service and even though the next season will probably have a lot too judging by how this season ended I dunno. I guess I'm okay with it but I would like to see some more originality going forward.
All of the crew are likable which is rare for me and Trek, Tilly and Statens were my favorites. It borders on a little too much fan service and even though the next season will probably have a lot too judging by how this season ended I dunno. I guess I'm okay with it but I would like to see some more originality going forward.
We don't see that many shapeshifters in the Alpha Quadrant. In STVI Marta is believed mythical until Kirk sees her change form in front of her.
There's the energy-sucking guys in "Time's Arrow", and the lifeforms in the Romulan singularity in "Timescape", for what I recall. There's also wonkiness like Garth of Izar in TOS learning how to do it. But for the most part they're all rare, one-offs, or special circumstances. The Founders appear to be the first time the Federation ever encountered shapeshifters en masse.
I think with the modified Suliban and some other examples ENT had more shapeshifters, but I haven't rewatched it in a while and that's the usual prequel wonkiness to watch out for.
Yeah Wesley fell in love with a shapeshifter, but their whole race is insular and not a Federation planet or protectorate. Shapeshifters are quite uncommon in the Alpha Quadrant, and frankly the Dominion doesn't want to hear that they're wrong, so nothing will work on them.
Good lord, the end of "Lonely Among Us" is batshit crazy
The crew have just managed to retrieve Captain Picard from being disembodied in Space and that's swell, but Yar dashes into the Transporter room to advise Riker and Picard that a Political delegate they've been carrying has almost certainly been murdered by the delegate of another species on board, and a chef onboard the ship has been asked to actually cook the delegate's corpse! This should be an insanely serious interstellar incident that could provoke a war.
You'd think this is going to set up an incredibly important plot for the following episode as the crew attempt to not only solve the murder properly but avoid a war that could very well involve the Federation.
Oh no no, what happens is that Riker admonishes Yar for interrupting his chat with the Captain and asks if it couldn't have waited, Picard declares he's going to go and have a nap and then some jaunty music plays to end the episode as if all that happened was Data doing one last Sherlock Holmes impression to amuse everyone.
The crew have just managed to retrieve Captain Picard from being disembodied in Space and that's swell, but Yar dashes into the Transporter room to advise Riker and Picard that a Political delegate they've been carrying has almost certainly been murdered by the delegate of another species on board, and a chef onboard the ship has been asked to actually cook the delegate's corpse! This should be an insanely serious interstellar incident that could provoke a war.
You'd think this is going to set up an incredibly important plot for the following episode as the crew attempt to not only solve the murder properly but avoid a war that could very well involve the Federation.
Oh no no, what happens is that Riker admonishes Yar for interrupting his chat with the Captain and asks if it couldn't have waited, Picard declares he's going to go and have a nap and then some jaunty music plays to end the episode as if all that happened was Data doing one last Sherlock Holmes impression to amuse everyone.
Yeah, it was awful, and that ending stood out.
It's shit Star Trek as well as Riker specifically says he knows Picard's possessed but won't do anything because of regulations, which is the antithesis of Trek.
I mean we've seen episodes of Star Trek build an entire episode's worth of plot around a setup like that. Yet here it's just all "Ambassador is dead and these guys are trying to eat his corpse, lol"
So Talaxian's reproduce through some kind of Facehugger style process?
I mean, throw it on the pile with the rest of crappy S1 TNG . . . still using modified Phase-II scripts . . . yada yada. I think the most important thing that happened to TNG post S1 was the production team allowing some continuity to happen even though it was still a fairly one-off episodes show. It was definitely more than TOS did with the universe unless you count the TOS film "trilogy". I also think it was genius to have the first definite continuation of a storyline between consecutive episodes (so far as I recall) be "Family" after "BOBW2". Complete tonal shift but totally appropriate.
But then "Conspiracy" was a great episode. Quite probably the best episode in Season 1. Hell, 3rd best behind Q-Who and Measure of a Man from the entirety of Seasons 1 and 2.
The shot of Remmick's head fucking exploding and then his open, hollowed out torso.
Season 1 really was a rollercoaster at times.
Most of them being the two-parters. And Timeless. Oh, and Blink of an Eye.
I'll fight anyone who says Macrocosm, Scientific Method, Living Witness, Hope and Fear, Critical Care, Shattered and The Void aren't fantastic Voyager one off episodes.
I'm not really a fan of "Conspiracy" actually. I haven't watched it in a while, but I remember thinking it made little logistical sense. I mean, the Enterprise fails to get a response from anyone at Starfleet upon returning to Earth - indicating a far larger infiltration of the organization than is alluded to by the episode. I mean, I can give it a pass, but meh.
