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Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: Discovery
#1
Gotta get this off my chest.

Who's ready for some more "Engage!"-ing space opera in the Prime Universe after more than a decade? Not this guy!

I mean, I'm looking forward to the premier, but - let's see if I've got what happens after that straight.

After paying for cable... and paying for Internet service... I am now going to have to pay for CBS All Access if I want to keep watching Discovery?

CBS is literally giving material-starving fans who have been surviving off of STO and various novels One Single Episode of an actual Star Trek series after over ten years of waiting for free... and then charging them if they want any more after their 'taste'...

CBS has become a drug dealer. Holy shit.

What the fuck, humankind?
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“They opened up a can’a dumbass!” – Jon Stewart regarding Fox News, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.” – Harvey Fierstein
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#2
Does it make them money?

Then they won't care.
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#3
CBS is still pissed at itself for turning down Trek in favor of Lost in Space, and is determined not to miss out on the cash cow this time around. After all, it has 45 years of lost revenues to make up for.
-- Bob

I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber.  I have been 
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#4
True enough.

*Plays "Money, Money"*
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“They opened up a can’a dumbass!” – Jon Stewart regarding Fox News, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.” – Harvey Fierstein
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#5
Back when Netflix first came out, a lot of networks figured it was an easy way of making a few dollars on the side with their old libraries. Then Netflix made a LOT of money. And the networks decided that clearly, they should be getting ALL the money instead of just some of it, which is why we've got Disney, CBS and so on, all trying to make their own streaming services... Except that in the process, they'ere destroying most of the convenience that made Netflix so appealing. Because Greed.
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#6
If the new services aren't profitable, they won't stay in business for more than a few years.

My advice: Pick one streaming service, stick with it, and wait for either (a) the other services' content to show up on the service that survives, or (b) the other services to become niche providers.
--
Rob Kelk

Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#7
In general, it's been an annoyance with the whole "we gotta do our own." Legendary did it this past year, and they choose, out of the Geek and Sundry lineup they recently purchased, to make Tabletop part of the flagship offering. The first episode was posted as usual, then it was a "oh, six plus month delay before it hits YouTube", and it feels like they have to be pestered to do that. I'm actually a bit curious what it's going to do to the next season of that with regards to "promotional consideration", given that I'd be surprised if none of those were provided with the expectation that the episode would have been up for the holiday shopping season.

Obviously, I didn't nibble. I was actually irritated, and part of that was Wil Wheaton making it clear that he was given no information (or input) on that happening. I've been watching most of it as it's come to YouTube, but I also made the decision to unsubscribe if Wil's decided he's had enough of the yanking.

Right now? The only subscriptions we have for online video are Netflix, and Amazon Prime. And that's the way it's staying. And yes, I'm saying that having been a (literally) card-carrying Trek fan at various points in my life.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#8
The Dollars and no sense types in the accounting offices see it as a way to get all access off the ground.

What they have achieved, instead, will kill Discovery and allow Paramount and CBS to try and claim they were right about financial viability all along.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to rock the sky?
Thats' every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry!
NO QUARTER!

No Quarter by Echo's Children
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#9
It's a very modern show...

And Star Trek has always mirrored the asthetic of its times. It's a little bit Abrams,

It's not exactly Emmissary levels of good, and it does veer into the weird sort of fanficcy regime occupied by the 'Why dont starfleet just shoot 'em' people.

Also. Is it me or do How Alien the Klingons look and act directly depend upon the budget?

It's also trying really hard to be cool. Which feels a bit uncomfortabke

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#10
I was kind of hoping that the Klingons would just basically be some white dudes with goatees in the new version.  You know, for continuity's sake.

I'm a bit wary of this series, as I have been of every Trek since Voyager.  I was looking forward to Brian Fuller being a part of this series and thought that it gave a chance of it actually being good.  Now... i dunno.

Dartz Wrote:And Star Trek has always mirrored the asthetic of its times.
And this is really why I'm so worried.  Our times are preoccupied with wars and distractions and assholes.  Our zeitgeist is dividing and unraveling the social order.  Ever since DS9 and B5, every space sci-fi has to have a long war arc, but now it just feels like the wars are done to show how cool war and fighting is, not for its social commentary.  I claim to like science fiction, but maybe I don't, because everything I watch disappoints me.  I guess I still watch Doctor Who, but it only disappoints me for its uneven writing and directing.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#11
With hindsight, TNG can fee very sterile at times. Part of it's the art direction and lighting style - but it's very placid and calming. It's an aesthetic that works for some episodes, especially when there's a lot of thinking involved which needs a calmer environment. It doesn't work for others. TNG was, a lot of times, the anomaly of the week, with a puzzle to solve. It didn't really feel about people.

Except for episodes such as 'The Wounded' were people are the problem. Or the one with the Indians. Or where Troi actually changed into a uniform......

But we do live in a morally ambiguous world, and our stories should reflect that. Because what's the value in doing the right thing if there's no other option? And why do people sometimes do the wrong thing?

We're not asking for Battlestar trek the next Toasterphile or something like that. But humans are better when they are being human - they are flawed on some level and can be challenged by those flaws - and not be the stepford people of TNG era. It's almost like their actions didn't matter. They existed in a vacuum.

They're relatable to people who feel far more depressed and uncertain of themselves and live in a world that feels likes it's on the brink - even as it's subtly getting better. We need to know how people like that can deal with things and overcome them. We need to see that it's possible to become better, even when you're in the shit.

Unlike those smily, happy robots on their cruise liner. It's not a joke, that I think Data was the most human thing on that boat.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#12
...And in this episode, we find out what former Weyland Yutani executives get up to when they get drafted by Starfleet....

By way of the Event Horizon.

It's good in it's own right, without the Star Trek name. But nobody'd watch it without the Star Trek name.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#13
(09-29-2017, 04:47 PM)Dartz Wrote: With hindsight, TNG can fee very sterile at times. Part of it's the art direction and lighting style - but it's very placid and calming. It's an aesthetic that works for some episodes, especially when there's a lot of thinking involved which needs a calmer environment. It doesn't work for others. TNG was, a lot of times, the anomaly of the week, with a puzzle to solve. It didn't really feel about people.
...
Unlike those smily, happy robots on their cruise liner. It's not a joke, that I think Data was the most human thing on that boat.

A certain Tiffany Susan Pompoms would like to have a word with you...

But OK, I get your argument.  But that interpersonal distance is, in some ways, a lot like real life workplaces.  I don't know hardly anything about my coworkers.  I know that one of them has a daughter (or maybe two?), and some people are married.  But mainly we just work together to solve problems.   And yeah, people make mistakes, but then we work together to fix it.  And it's not like there's moral ambiguity in what we do either.  So sure, you can argue TNG is boring, but I don't think you can argue it doesn't reflect reality.

Annalee Newitz Wrote:At one point in the episode, Lorca loses his patience with Burnham's obsession with ethics and barks, "This is a ship of war!" At that moment, the series signaled its complete break with Star Trek series of the past. I couldn't help but hear an echo of Guinan's line from the TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise," when the ship has accidentally slipped into the wrong timeline and become a warship. Only Guinan can sense the change, and she tells Picard, "This isn't a ship of war; it's a ship of peace."
...
Perhaps during troubled times in history, we need a character like Burnham to show us what it means to strive for moral progress, despite personal and political disaster.
Siiiiigh.  The Original Series came at a time that was far darker than now.  Far darker.  CIA and KGB throwing proxy wars across the southern hemisphere.  The Cuban Missile Crisis.  Rampant racism and discrimination across the civilized world.  Regular famines.  Basically everything in "We Didn't Start the Fire".  Smallpox was still around.  Largely, these problems were solved or defused with a liberal helping of modernism in the form of international law, equal rights movements, and science.

I reject the hypothesis that we live in dark times.  We live in stupid times.  We've lost the vision of progress that we used to have, and we need Trek and others to provide that vision.  Back to Dartz:

Quote:They're relatable to people who feel far more depressed and uncertain of themselves and live in a world that feels likes it's on the brink - even as it's subtly getting better.
You're right.  Or at least I hope you're right.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#14
... oh shit, today's Ep nailed it for me. You remember all those lost ships Enterprise would find, with the 'Science has gone wrong!' Plot for the week? That's USS Discovery. Keep your red shirts within sacrifice range...
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RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#15
The telling moment is when Michael deduces something bad is happening on Discovery and promptly nopes the fuck out of it. No Sir, not being party to a treaty violation either - still a Starfleet officer trying to do the right thing, even when not. And then is proving wrong in person....

Never mind the 60's also had Apollo. And it had a real sense that people could take the fight to the 'bad guys' and actually start winning battles. There was a sense of some porogress being made.

While we're more in the 'Resistance is Futile' sort of place. It feels like the Bad Guys we see on telly every night are winning. We aren't really allowed see the good lurking beneath anymore because they want us to be afraid. It's a very strange place to be in.

I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.

One day they're going to ban them.
Reply
RE: Star Trek: Discovery
#16
(10-03-2017, 06:10 PM)Dartz Wrote: Never mind the 60's also had Apollo. And it had a real sense that people could take the fight to the 'bad guys' and actually start winning battles.  There was a sense of some porogress being made.

While we're more in the 'Resistance is Futile' sort of place. It feels like the Bad Guys we see on telly every night are winning. We aren't really allowed see the good lurking beneath anymore because they want us to be afraid. It's a very strange place to be in.

This.

This is the attitude that drives me so often to fanfiction, to anime. To the idea that, hey, maybe life doesn't have to be grimderp, maybe people can try not being arseholes to each other for a while. 

The vibe I'm getting from Discovery episodes 1-3 is straight-on Villain Protagonist, much the same as Death Note, and that the story is going to be how things fall apart for them while decent people go on to win the war without them.

...

Ok, that's probably stupidly optimistic of me. It's more likely to end up Trek meets 24, with Hard Trek People doing Hard Trek Things, because the Klingons just want a war so they're gonna get one.
Sucrose Octanitrate.

Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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