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ST:Discovery - What do you think of the new Klingons?

Doctor Cringelord

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I've still not watched it so I will reserve final judgment.

That said, what I'm hearing doesn't really have me dying to see it any time soon. It sounds like the producers looked at a number of popular, "gritty" shows and just decided to transfer those elements into a new sci-fi show and stick a star trek label on the package.

It's all been down hill since DS9 concluded. Time to let this franchise die and stop dragging it out. As far as main stream science fiction goes, Star Trek has always been the most niche. It has some mainstream appeal but the audience will never be quite as huge and universal as something like Star Wars. Trying to make it such seems to be failing. It's not gaining a huge new audience (look at the disappointing box office for Star Trek Beyond), and at the same time long time fans are abandoning new trek to either

A) watch something like The Orville
or
B) watch any of the countless hours of better, pre-existing Star Trek films and episodes

or both of the above.

Every new official Star Trek release since Voyager (except for Nemesis) ended has been a prequel, reboot, or something in between the two. This shows me that new ideas are in short supply. It's become about milking the most iconic, recognizable elements and remolding it for an audience raised on flashy Michael Bay style films and a Star Wars-saturated culture.

Ad campaigns tell us new trek is "new" and different from what we're used to, that it's not our parents' trek, and yet the irony is that it is very much familiar and constructed from slightly updated elements and tropes mined from our parents' trek.
 

Mal12345

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I've still not watched it so I will reserve final judgment.

That said, what I'm hearing doesn't really have me dying to see it any time soon. It sounds like the producers looked at a number of popular, "gritty" shows and just decided to transfer those elements into a new sci-fi show and stick a star trek label on the package.

It's all been down hill since DS9 concluded. Time to let this franchise die and stop dragging it out. As far as main stream science fiction goes, Star Trek has always been the most niche. It has some mainstream appeal but the audience will never be quite as huge and universal as something like Star Wars. Trying to make it such seems to be failing. It's not gaining a huge new audience (look at the disappointing box office for Star Trek Beyond), and at the same time long time fans are abandoning new trek to either

A) watch something like The Orville
or
B) watch any of the countless hours of better, pre-existing Star Trek films and episodes

or both of the above.

Every new official Star Trek release since Voyager (except for Nemesis) ended has been a prequel, reboot, or something in between the two. This shows me that new ideas are in short supply. It's become about milking the most iconic, recognizable elements and remolding it for an audience raised on flashy Michael Bay style films and a Star Wars-saturated culture.

Ad campaigns tell us new trek is "new" and different from what we're used to, that it's not our parents' trek, and yet the irony is that it is very much familiar and constructed from slightly updated elements and tropes mined from our parents' trek.

You didn't mention the homo-erotica in Star Trek: Discovery. Why?
 

Doctor Cringelord

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You didn't mention the homo-erotica in Star Trek: Discovery. Why?

I don't really have an issue with gay characters. And it wouldn't be the first time Star Trek has dabbled in homo-erotica. DS9 did it. Of course it was adventurous then. Now it's just standard fare, I'm not really impressed if a show does it this these days. No new ground being broken.
 

Mal12345

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I don't really have an issue with gay characters. And it wouldn't be the first time Star Trek has dabbled in homo-erotica. DS9 did it. Of course it was adventurous then. Now it's just standard fare, I'm not really impressed if a show does it this these days. No new ground being broken.

I only watched a few episodes of DS9. This Discovery seems to be made for an audience who has been saturated with violent and sexual imagery all their lives. As for me, I'm not a big fan of any of it. One of the main characters had very painful surgeries done on him by Klingons without benefit of painkillers. This is not the Star Trek I know and love.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I only watched a few episodes of DS9. This Discovery seems to be made for an audience who has been saturated with violent and sexual imagery all their lives. As for me, I'm not a big fan of any of it. One of the main characters had very painful surgeries done on him by Klingons without painkillers. This is not the Star Trek I know and love.

The referenced DS9 homoerotica involved members of the Trill species.

It seems like they really want to make this Discovery series some sort of Breaking Bad meets Walking Dead in space.. just seems boring.
 

Mal12345

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The referenced DS9 homoerotica involved members of the Trill species.

It seems like they really want to make this Discovery series some sort of Breaking Bad meets Walking Dead in space.. just seems boring.

Boring? I guess it depends. I find the series to be grotesque. So I focus on plot. For example, by what means are they going to escape the evil parallel universe? Also, I like the ESTJ captain, so viewing it typologically helps.
 

EcK

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I just love that the name of the show is STD

says it all :D
 

EcK

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I don't really have an issue with gay characters. And it wouldn't be the first time Star Trek has dabbled in homo-erotica. DS9 did it. Of course it was adventurous then. Now it's just standard fare, I'm not really impressed if a show does it this these days. No new ground being broken.

Yeah I don't think star trek has ever been short on being 'progressive' (I don't mean politically, I mean in the original sense of the word).

However the first episodes kind of put me off, everything was extremely mono dimensional.
a) 'strong female character' who is about as feminine as borat. I don't have anything against it but it seems like intensionally pushing some feminist agenda 'just because'. There's plenty of awesome female archetypes that don't seem like men with boobs. It doesn't really add to the show or make for a good character.

b) the klingons might as well say out right that they are how 'trumpers' are seen in the eyes of some demented far leftist's mind. Could they be more transparent...

c) again about the main character - described as 'moral' , smart, heroic etc. Yet her actions are generally perfectly unethical and idiotic, they try to balance it out by saying that she's been raised by vulcans but that's about as believable as Santa - just showing no facial expression while being completly emotionaly unstable is not 'being vulcan' it's bad acting. She just 'thinks she's right' despite all evidence to the contrary. And the writers then just 'twist' the story to make it seem like her decisions and ethics are anything but terrible. (ie: "history the writers will prove that my irrational, short sighted, unethical actions are right by making everyone even wronger')

d) cliche cameos of old character - that vulcan 'daddy' the main character has... they might as well make him appear in a puff of smoke and zoom on his face with a dramatic music as if it was a freaking soap opera.

It just sounds so contrived. If you compare it to a show like Star Trek the Next Generation - it was a far subtler show. The shows culture felt real, ST: D's 'culture' just feels like a writer trying to make a very very obvious point. It's the difference between discussing with a smart person and being condescended to by a pseudo intellectual.
 

EcK

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It's probably by design that the only good chemistry is between gay characters. I don't remember Garak and Barshir. I was paying more attention to giving animal rights to an insect (the tardigrade).

I don't really think anyone (except from some loud nutjobs) would give a fuck about the gay characters. It's one of the only aspects of the show that is not obviously used to make a point - or at least not in a way that is damaging to the show. Though I think the Orville's gay couple is more believable. But that's just a general issue with ST: D - the characters are not very fleshed out as it seems the efforts of the writers are all focused on pushing their ideological agendas with as little subteltly as possible.

However, I think the core issue with ST: D is the total absence of fun in the show - appart from its hilarious name.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I don't really think anyone (except from some loud nutjobs) would give a fuck about the gay characters. It's one of the only aspects of the show that is not obviously used to make a point - or at least not in a way that is damaging to the show. Though I think the Orville's gay couple is more believable. But that's just a general issue with ST: D - the characters are not very fleshed out as it seems the efforts of the writers are all focused on pushing their ideological agendas with as little subteltly as possible.

However, I think the core issue with ST: D is the total absence of fun in the show - appart from its hilarious name.


That's the Orville's strength. The writers actually care about creating interesting characters with some arcs. So it may be set up in a highly derivative format that's borrowing from classic Trek but I find the characters relatable, interesting, and flawed. No Mary Sues. Even the super strong security officer, who initially seems to border on the trope of flawless, badass feminine heroine, evolves into a more complex and interesting character. They even make a joke about her being a diversity hire in the pilot, but that sets her character up for potentially interesting situations where she actually has to prove her abilities (mirrored in the captain's arc, who was basically promoted because his ex wife had connections, and now feels he has to go the extra mile to prove his competence).

Seems a lot of franchises have been infested with the SJW taint so we're getting very bland, one-dimensional characters who exist solely to voice very clichéd slogans that barely conceal the writers' real world politics. Like Vice Admiral Gender Studies in The Last Jedi. Boring, bland, one-dimensional archetypes. This is not how you do good topical sci-fi drama. I guarantee this will date films and TV like STD, Last Jedi, Ghostbusters 2016, et al, and in 20 years they will seem trite and confined to the era in which they were produced, rather than timeless like really good sci-fi and fantasy. There's a reason old John Wayne war films have aged not so well and now come across as cheesy and trite, because they were also barely concealed propaganda films.

And funny thing, McFarlane is a liberal, but we don't see him trying to gloss his show with a political narrative or lecture us about one specific point of view. Even the most obvious episodes like the one touching on the all male species and sex change were still done in a way that didn't feel like I was being preached at. Rather, they set up the situation and never really tell the viewer who to side with. It's left for the viewer to ponder and think about. TNG did this a lot, especially with episodes touching on the Prime Directive. Sometimes it pit two or more main characters' beliefs against one another and it was up to the viewer to determine which character they agreed with. If viewed with a group, it might lead to some interesting discussions or debates.
 

EcK

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That's the Orville's strength. The writers actually care about creating interesting characters with some arcs. So it may be set up in a highly derivative format that's borrowing from classic Trek but I find the characters relatable, interesting, and flawed. No Mary Sues. Even the super strong security officer, who initially seems to border on the trope of flawless, badass feminine heroine, evolves into a more complex and interesting character. They even make a joke about her being a diversity hire in the pilot, but that sets her character up for potentially interesting situations where she actually has to prove her abilities (mirrored in the captain's arc, who was basically promoted because his ex wife had connections, and now feels he has to go the extra mile to prove his competence).

Seems a lot of franchises have been infested with the SJW taint so we're getting very bland, one-dimensional characters who exist solely to voice very clichéd slogans that barely conceal the writers' real world politics. Like Vice Admiral Gender Studies in The Last Jedi. Boring, bland, one-dimensional archetypes. This is not how you do good topical sci-fi drama. I guarantee this will date films and TV like STD, Last Jedi, Ghostbusters 2016, et al, and in 20 years they will seem trite and confined to the era in which they were produced, rather than timeless like really good sci-fi and fantasy. There's a reason old John Wayne war films have aged not so well and now come across as cheesy and trite, because they were also barely concealed propaganda films.

And funny thing, McFarlane is a liberal, but we don't see him trying to gloss his show with a political narrative or lecture us about one specific point of view. Even the most obvious episodes like the one touching on the all male species and sex change were still done in a way that didn't feel like I was being preached at. Rather, they set up the situation and never really tell the viewer who to side with. It's left for the viewer to ponder and think about. TNG did this a lot, especially with episodes touching on the Prime Directive. Sometimes it pit two or more main characters' beliefs against one another and it was up to the viewer to determine which character they agreed with. If viewed with a group, it might lead to some interesting discussions or debates.

Yeah I enjoyed the security officer bit.
ie: they acknowledge that the idea of a 20-year-old-looking tiny skinny women as the security officer would be a bit incongruous. They also set her up as 'dumb' - at least related to her family/species etc (you find that out in one episode when her parents call in or smthing).
But they twist it by making her part of a species that's actually several times stronger than humans.

It makes the character setup multilayered. Rather than the usual "she can beat up 10 bigger guys just 'because', she's smarter etc. better at everything than men because equality' bullshit we're usually served.

They make the black guy into a super genius, but make him act like a complete goofball idiot nerd. And make it hard to believe for other characters because of his personality - without giving us some long exposition about racism etc. etc.

It's ironic that a light-hearted slightly comedic show actually takes the viewer more seriously than the 'gritty and dark' ST: D - taking us by the hand and condescending to the viewer.
 

Mal12345

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I downloaded and watched Discovery episodes 13 and 14 on my Xbox One over the last week. I was not displeased. One reason is that Tyler wasn't shown as much, because as a character he brings to the series some very dark and disturbing "music." Earlier he had murdered the ship's doctor because of the brain-washing technique used on him by the Klingons. And the show kept backflashing to his torture. But "kids these days" probably enjoy seeing that and are frustrated by the lack of detail in the images, whereas I was raised on reruns of Leave It To Beaver, and my favorite show growing up was either The Mary Tyler Moore show or The Paper Chase. (I was devastated when these shows were canceled.)

These latest two episodes of ST: D contained an unexpected plot twist. The plot twist was a welcome relief to a series burdened by so much death, torture, and destruction, although it ended up by removing one of my favorite characters in the series.

Tilly expressed an idea that I had thought of myself: why would anybody want to join Starfleet and deal with all the hassles of going to war in space? Whatever happened to exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations? It seems like you can't have science fiction in space anymore without space ships blowing each other to pieces and red shirts dying in droves.
 

rav3n

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Loved ST series my entire life, particularly Next Gen and Voyageur. Tried desperately hard to get into Discovery but gave up after Episode 9. The Klingons were horrible in the first few episodes since they were too stiff in body language and diction. They smoothed out after a few episodes but IMO, still screamed fake so I couldn't suspend disbelief. My fave character was the cute tardigrade/Ripper and its space/time traveling abilities. Can't stand the rest of the cast, except Lt. Stamets who's okay or at least was an okay character up to and including episode 9.

I think this series will destroy the ST franchise since it tears apart the humanitarian, egalitarian, merit based and science focused fabric of the ST universe that I so loved. Rather than being open and welcoming to new cultures, it's warlike and hostile.
 

Totenkindly

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I really enjoyed the idea of ST: Discovery and watched the entire first season, but I think it fell victim to the showrunner upheaval. SO what began as a pretty cool idea and something I was excited about just grew more and more negative to me up to and including a disastrous (IMO) season finale. I might not bother to watch anything more of the series.

I'm not even going to discuss the Klingon appearance aspect, as I think it's a superficial and tangential detail. (Personally, I was okay with it, but I understand why others were turned off by it.) Basically Fuller was doing something counter-grain to typical Trek here, so it was the show for those who were sick of the same-old Trek rehash. So you get a mutineer (whose reasoning I did understand, it just didn't pan out) who isn't actually in command of the ship (Yay!) so now it makes sense for her to be on the away team. You get a lot of behind the scenes of Klingon politics. You get the spore drive. You see the opening of the war. You get a war captain who is more about practical and pragmatic issues, lurking around the "edges" of the ad nauseum Federation ethical code --- and is there room for someone like that when a situation warrants it? And so forth. Jason Isaacs was one of my favorite parts of Season 1. ANd I guess I should give a nod to DOug Jones too, who has a huge speaking presence on this show as a unique and important character but who often in his film roles doesn't get many lines to work with since he's a more physical actor.

But then Fuller leaves after providing the vision and the early foundational stuff, and either the continuing showrunners don't grasp what he was trying to do and/or corporate tells them they need to get things back to well-trod territory, so what happens is that all the interesting off-beat Fuller stuff gets resolved too quickly and by the last episode everything is back to status quo. Screw this show, this is why I quit watching Star Trek a season into Voyager and never went back until now.

So there are two great plot twists in Season 1. One of them, the fanbase figured out ahead of time -- although it was telegraphed a number of times and so shouldn't have been a HUGE surprise. The other was truly great and caught me off-guard... but ended up being one of the most disappointing twists in hindsight for me. The thing is, both twists deserved better. One problem with Discovery is that it was too plot-based (and tried to resolve too much plot in too few episodes) rather than character based. There was really little time to learn about the characters, grow with the characters, really learn to CARE about the characters, before both of these twists (which are based on the nature of two of the characters) were brought to fruition. This is stuff that really should have been saved into Season 2-3, after you really get comfortable with both characters and feel like you really KNOW them -- so then when these twists come to light, it's like a total devastating gut punch. But nope, for some reason these things both got rushed into and resolved in the space of 13 episodes. WTH?

Also, for a show that was trying to do something new as well, we get yet another old Trek trope -- the Terran universe. Wheee. I mean, this trope has even appeared in the unofficial Trek spinoffs. It's overused... and somehow this big thing only lasts a few episodes! And I guess here I will go into spoiler mode since there's another reveal too to discuss...



There's a gay relationship, which was nice -- but the writing for it was awful, it was like someone's idea of what a romantic relationship looks like if they have never been in one. (Like, it was bad regardless of whether the relationship was het or homo.) And then, well, just a dumb way to resolve it.

I really can't talk much about the finale, except it was one of the most terrible things I think I've seen on a show like this. It had a few fun moments, but plotwise it was just dumb, and it failed to really face the magnitude of any hard questions, and the characters didn't act as you'd expect them to, and then the last ten minutes is basically a reset/repudiation of the entire series concept, and THEN suddenly it has to return to yet another one of the most overused tropes ever on Trek. If I had been wearing shoes at the time, I would have taken one off and thrown it at the television.

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by this experiment and I had badly wanted it to work. It just didn't have the vision once Fuller stepped out, it would have been like if Fuller had left Hannibal partway through Season 1 and tried to hand off showrunner to a CSI guy.
 
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