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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday November 03 2015, @05:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the where-no-internets-have-gone-before dept.

Cut and pasted shamelessly from StarTrek.com:

"CBS Television Studios announced today it will launch a totally new Star Trek television series in January 2017."

"The brand-new Star Trek will introduce new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception in 1966."

"The new television series is not related to the upcoming feature film Star Trek Beyond which is scheduled to be distributed by Paramount Pictures in summer 2016."


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:24PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:24PM (#258070)

    has fair amount of SJW tendencies too

    I tried to B5 a couple months ago but it was simply unwatchable. The intro sequence voiceover is comically bluepilled, like its a parody of actual blue pill thinking expressed intentionally poorly to make it look bad. "a parody of Harvard and the UN from 1990 are running things in 2700 AD" or something like that. The other problem is the "hour" show is only 40 mins after commercials and then you have to subtract out the formula parts from each episode, the five minutes of "romance" that was clearly written by KV /r9k/ posters and is best skipped and the five minutes of fist fights. Seriously, every freaking episode at least in the early seasons had precisely five minutes of fist fight. Always fist fight. Must have been some weird anti-gun / blue pilled / network censors won't allow weapons thing. Its from an era before DVD box sets and bing streaming so each episode spends about 10 minutes rehashing past episodes, which is ironic because I missed the boat 20 years ago and was told there's no way I could jump into later seasons, its just too deep. Well, no, not really. Then you need ten minutes of filler to stitch all the crap that should be edited out together. That leaves about 20 minutes at best of watchable TV per episode.

    I was hugely disappointed by the first half of the first season and just couldn't go on with it anymore. My current binges are "Better off ted" which hits disturbingly close to home making it even funnier, and rewatching full metal alchemist which is as good as I remember it.

    B5 has the feel of a miniseries dissected into little short scenes of goodness then bulked up with barrels of formula and filler then stretched into a couple seasons. A five episode miniseries condensation of B5 would be pretty awesome. Maybe five movie version. I'd almost wish for a reboot, but I'd be scared what I'd get... There is a version of Star Wars Eps 1,2,3 where someone simply edited out all the shitty Jar Jar scenes and aside from making the movie a little shorter it brought the average quality level way up, and I get the feeling B5 could be given the same treatment and turned into a pretty awesome long feature film, just drop about 75% of the TV series on the cutting room floor and the remains of B5 would be pretty good.

    I was disappointed by the characters. Admittedly Garak was the high point of the entire Trek genre (bracing for incoming flames) so I can't expect perfection, but as politically incorrect as it sounds all the alien characters (except perhaps the flamboyant diplomat) were wooden indians who pretty much got wheeled on and off the stage and took up volume and oxygen and provided little else. The statue of the preying mantis, oh chills down my spine, oh wait, no he really was about as exciting to watch as drying paint.

    After I gave up hope on the series I "ruined" it for me by reading the plot on wikipedia and its the standard Trek style confusion of sci fi and magical fantasy. Then Merlin waved his wand and they went back in time. Aside from the magic fantasy the plotline reads kinda like world war one, sorta. Kinda distantly inspired by, anyway.

    For 20 years I've heard DS9 was a bad copy, but I kinda liked DS9 and rewatched it a few years ago and still liked it. If DS9 is in response to B5, its sort of a version 2.0 bug fix. Because I saw the bugfix version FIRST the original simply looks bad. That scene from DS9 was a lot smoother than the pitiful first attempt in B5, that sort of thing.

    If there's a reboot, please don't have a special police officer, that's just done. No need for the commander to be a magical voodoo priest.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:58PM

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:58PM (#258085)

    To each his own. I loved both, but if I watched them for the first time now, I probably wouldn't be as into them for many reasons. Some reasons might have to do with being older, and a lot more jaded.

    Fact that it is hyped would probably lead me to look at it under microscope while blowing every negative out of proportion. And I would be comparing any positive to something similar but done better in another show... which is pretty crappy because I'm sure out of hundreds of shows or movies you can find one that did X better than the thing you are watching.

    But at the time when I watched it, the world was a much different place, and I was a different person. Due to this both have become shows that I cherish and re-watch often to try to go back in time and try to get that feeling again, often unsuccessfully.

    I am keenly aware that huge swathes of the shows were filler, and there was plenty of dues ex machina style cop-outs, especially by JMS where he would write himself into a corner and then try to act like he is clever. Other problems were simply life, like the fact that the main actor on B5 developed psychosis and could no longer continue with the show in first season because he was seeing shit, which only complicates a story and makes it hard to fix later on. But I still feel that overall both shows were excellent pieces of Sci-fi and storytelling. And they are precious to me :)

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:25PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:25PM (#258104)

      Fact that it is hyped would probably lead me to look at it under microscope while blowing every negative out of proportion.

      Yes I could see that point of view. If someone told me it was SG:U but the ship doesn't move, I'd be somewhat impressed with B5 in comparison. Or if it was compared to Andromeda. I suppose if someone claimed Knight Rider was sci fi because, after all, "talking car", then B5 would be pretty good in comparison. But its always claimed by its fans to be the best sci fi on TV and so forth. I'm not seeing it the same way.

      I also appreciate the time and place thing. In 1990 competing with the national badminton championship and reruns of Laverne and Shirley I suspect it kicked (relative) butt. But when anything ever made can be downloaded and/or streamed, or so it seems, the competition is going to be brutal.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:05PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:05PM (#258163)

        Or if it was compared to Andromeda.

        Oh my god somebody else has heard of it! :)

        Damn shame they sacked Robert Hewitt Wolfe. He published a script of what the original ending of the show was supposed to be and it was way better than the incomprehensible fifth season.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:38PM

      by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:38PM (#258111) Journal

      A lot of this is 'age' dependent (the jaded thing) as well as personal interest... watch the first 4 episodes of the first Doctor (William Hartnell's Doctor Who): my daughter and wife think this kind of thing is unwatchable where as i thing "Unearthly Child" (and on) is amazing to watch. It is not only the 'birth' of the Doctor, but so telling when comparing to future Doctors.

      eg. Compare Tennants "I never would" Doctor to Hartnells "Yes I damn well would bash this cave mans head with this rock". The evolution, the flow (and putting aside that it was pirates that saved so many episodes That had been wiped/lost for future watchers.
      Doctor Who is a treasure, Tom Baker is my Doctor, Hartnell is the greatest Doctor (he was pre-'the Doctor has to be a role model' and could be as big a bastard as he wanted to be).....

      ...and some people CANNOT watch it: it is dreck to them... bleeech!

      I enjoyed B5, once i got past the 'weird' hair and costumes (again, like the Doctor, a lot came to budget) and once i got past Bruce Boxleitner SMILING CONSTANTLY AS IF HIS TEETH WERE THE FECKING MONEY MAKERS AND NO MATTER HOW MANY PLANETS WERE GOING TO BLOW UP I'LL JUST KEEP ON FECKING SMILING!!!

      A lot of people love Blakes 7, but for me it kind of fell apart when BLAKE was no longer in the show and it became Avon's show.

      To each his own.
      Keep calm and RUN!

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:09PM

        by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:09PM (#258164)

        ...and some people CANNOT watch it: it is dreck to them... bleeech!

        Well, it was filmed in 1966. The quality of the picture, sets, etc. is shit.

        once i got past Bruce Boxleitner SMILING CONSTANTLY

        Heh. What, you mean it wasn't obvious he had multiple personality disorder? Happy Bruce who can't stop smiling and Angry Bruce who's contractually obligated to appear each episode and angrily lecture you about something with poor reasoning.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:21PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @08:21PM (#258102)

    The intro sequence voiceover is comically bluepilled...

    Remember that the show was a five year story from the start. It started in that unicorns and skittles world but without giving too much spoilage a later season opens with "The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed." It really is that sort of show. The first dozen episodes were intended to be stock scifi as the networks expected to see, after they used those to basically establish the universe behind some fairly vanilla plots things got a lot more interesting. But looking backward even those early shows had a lot of development that didn't make sense until later. Sinclair acting like Captain Kirk and just jumping into personal combat every episode like he was expendable or something became a major plot point. It didn't just go unnoticed.

    As noted below (spoilers) the lead changed after the first season. Some say it wasn't planned that way, JMS swears it was, but either way it improved the story. If nothing else it really drove home that nothing was untouchable, no character immune from elimination.

    • (Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:43PM

      by quacking duck (1395) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:43PM (#258200)

      Some say [O'Hare's departure] wasn't planned that way, JMS swears it was, but either way it improved the story

      JMS swore at the time that it was, and I doubt many believed him, but in hindsight that was almost certainly to protect Michael O'Hare's secret mental illness, which JMS was allowed to reveal after O'Hare passed on.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:30PM (#258151)

    Lol at the person that judges B5 based on the first season.

    Try watching the first season of TNG. With a couple of exceptions it is cringeworthy bad.

    Season 3-4 of B5 is the best TV sci-fi we will ever see.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Wednesday November 04 2015, @06:06AM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 04 2015, @06:06AM (#258295)
      Can the show be started at season 3 or do we have to sit through the first two?
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:44PM

        by Hawkwind (3531) on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:44PM (#258388)

        I started watching seriously a few episodes in to season two and it worked for me. Although at some point (during season three?) I did watch season one. There are events in season one that have significant payoffs later. I remember the season one stories being tough to watch on their own but boy did a lot of them pay off.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:02PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:02PM (#258162)

    You may have been better off just skipping the first season, and from what I've heard even the creators were disappointed in several early episodes. B5 did admittedly take awhile to really get going.

    I ended up watching the show up until the fifth season. The thing that annoyed me the most was that once you hit the halfway point, it seemed like the Captain would pin you down and give you an angry browbeating lecture every damn episode. The people they were fighting weren't fun, but many of his arguments boiled down to appeal to authority :P

    And then there was the plot where Garibaldi was just an asshole for an entire season and we eventually find out "oops he was brainwashed." That reads like lazy writing to me.

    I'd almost wish for a reboot, but I'd be scared what I'd get

    Well, they are doing a new version. [screenrant.com]

    P.S: Who modded you Troll? Yeesh. "Disagree" at worst.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:01AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:01AM (#258251) Homepage

    I gotta agree, first season of B5 was fucking awful for just about any reason you can name. It got radically better later on, tho IMO was always rather uneven. But I thought the spinoff Crusade was generally pretty good, at least if you like character-driven stuff, and Peter Woodward was fantastic.

    I mostly liked DS9, tho the tail end made me want to slap someone, to the point that I stopped watching it (I heard later that a great deal of the unpalatable nonsense was mandated by Avery Brooks, who had a rather inflated opinion of Sisko's value to the universe), and I found myself wishing evil on Bajor as the most irritating people ever. Garak and Dukat were my favorites.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.