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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the boldly-go dept.

Phoenix666 and looorg have both written in with stories about 'Star Trek: Discovery':

'Star Trek: Discovery' Producers: Be Patient With Us

The Fine Article contains spoilers for those who haven't seen the show:

The lightness and easygoing chemistry among the "Discovery" cast present a stark contrast with the characters of "Discovery." In the first few episodes, the show has turned Burnham into a shunned mutineer, introduced a suspicious skipper in Capt. Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) and given us an arrogant and snappy scientist in Lt. Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp).
star-trek-discovery-starfleet

It's the darkness of the characters and the background, which is set amid a war with the Klingons, as well as potentially continuity-bending aspects like Burnham being the adoptive daughter of Sarek, Spock's dad, that have some longtime Trekkies nervous.

If you're among those worried about the changes brought on by "Discovery," the producers have some advice for you: Just wait a little bit.

"We are canon," executive producer Alex Kurtzman said in an interview Saturday. "You'll have to be patient with us."

Kurtzman addressed the notion that the show would be grittier, assuring fans that the core themes of Star Trek remain.

Is it Game of Thrones in Space?

Windows into the Future

So this is a sure sign of the apocalypse. Windows will still be around in 2256 according to Star Trek. Guess we have to wait for that year of the Linux desktop for a few hundred more years.

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/10/3/16412372/star-trek-discovery-cbs-windows-code-command-line


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:45PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @05:45PM (#581237)

    I really don't understand how so little apparent effort can go into a show where countless millions were undoubtedly spent on the production values. Even the fundamental plotline is broken.

      - The fundamental motivation for the lead is that her family was killed by Klingons. So she was raised by Romulans. So she presumably doesn't like Klingons very much and I guess being Romulan is supposed to explain some of her Mary Sueness, but that's another issue. Now for the dumb thing. The fundamental plot is that Klingons haven't been seen for more than 100 years. 'I'm 20 something and my [human] parents were killed by Klingons.' 'Klingons haven't been seen for over 100 years.' It's unbelievable nobody in their prescreening process pointed this out. It's painfully sloppy.

      - Our ship. It is a special ship. It has a state of the art drive (powered by a giant tardigrade which another just ughhhh moment) that's the only one in Starfleet. And the captain has an implicit right to do anything, get anyone, to achieve his victory. So they assign a bumbling insecure idiot to the ship? Michael's room mate in particular. OKayyy. And he decides to float around the entire system to go get a mutineer to join his crew? Okayyy. Well I guess her Mary Sueness is already legendary across all of the universe. Which leads to the next thing.

      - A "hero" character. Sisko was not a hero, Picard was not a hero, Janeway was not a hero. Star Trek is not a hero show. Star Trek has a lead character, but that lead is not a hero that magically solves every problem and is an expert in everything. Michael's character is completely boring since it is designed to be a Mary Sue. Her only flaw whatsoever thus far is, "I was willing to risk everything to try to do the right thing. Oh woe is me."

      - A "hero" perspective. Similar to above. Star Trek is again about the crew. The lead plays a generally prominent role, but in many instances is little more than support. STD seems to be just seeing the world through Michael's eyes. Factor in the bland perfection of her character and it's not a very interesting ride.

      - At the same time that Michael is shown to be perfect, everybody else is shown to be bumbling idiots for the most part. The captain decides to keep a live beast, capable of shredding starship metal, in a 'cage' behind little more than a single forcefield because 'we'll make weapons out of it!' Okay, that's not entirely absurd. But now enter the chief security officer, who has shown some degree of aptitude in tactical battles. She decides it'll be a good idea to put some completely untested gas in the creature's forcefield, open it up, and then go in with a plasma rifle - after it's already been shown such weapons are useless against it. She dies and I guess the producers were hoping to go for some sort of game of thrones 'wow, even a bridge officer can die' type effect. Instead, it was just stupid and annoying that they killed off one of the few characters in the show that has shown some sort of somewhat interesting personality.

      - The "Klingons." Hey guys I have a great idea! Let's completely change how they look. And let's stick them in prosthetics so thick that they're incapable of conveying any emotion whatsoever. And to make it even better, let's run everybody's voice through a really annoying synthesizer so they all sound like darth vader on an intercom. It'll be great!

      - The Klingon backstory is completely nonsensical. So they haven't been seen in "more than 100 years." And now the Klingons are going to go fight the federation because they're worried the federation, whom literally not a single Klingon alive has apparently ever had an encounter with, is going to "take away their individuality" even though they're all currently engaged in some massive (and completely undescribed) war between the 12 houses? Oh yes, and advancement among Klingons is determined not by might but by petty backstabbing and bickering? Oh and perhaps the best part of all. Klingons have always had no regard for death. They give a yowl, but then a dead klingon body is just an empty shell - trash. Now they're apparently so sacred as to justify collecting each and every dead klingon from space, putting them in coffins and strapping them on a ship. I have some hopes this could be an intentional bastardization of canon and describe a tradition/belief system that died along with these religious fanatic klingons - but I have my doubts given the "quality" of this show.

      - The klingons are black and white evil. There has been zero effort to even hint at any sort of moral ambiguity (that essentially defines Star Trek) or frame the conflict in any way other than 'We're team Federation. Gonna kick some pure and completely malevolently evil ass. Hell yeah!' Again this is something that could happen later on the series, but once again - I doubt it.

    And I could go on. I really wanted to like the show. I even managed to make myself like Voyager. But this is just awful.

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  • (Score: 2) by rleigh on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)

    by rleigh (4887) on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:57PM (#581288) Homepage

    I've watched the four episodes out so far on UK netflix. It's awful, agreed. I'd hoped there might be some small positives which would allow it to redeem itself, but no. I tried to approach it with an open mind, but it's truly dreadful. In addition to all the amateur plot holes you identified, I feel zero affinity to or empathy with any of the cast; they are all thoroughly unlikeable and show precious little common sense or basic humanity, yet at the same time are supposed to be highly trained starship officers. At least Janeway and Neelix were only a bit annoying rather than being outright horrible people! And there's also zero humour; all the other series had a lighthearted side to them but this seems to have no time for it (no, I don't count the stereotypical deliberately annoying roommate as humour, it's just annoying; could they not have any characters with some actual depth to them?).

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 13 2017, @04:14AM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday October 13 2017, @04:14AM (#581546)

      yet at the same time are supposed to be highly trained starship officers. At least Janeway and Neelix were only a bit annoying rather than being outright horrible people!

      Janeway was annoying, and personally I thought she was probably miscast. Neelix however wasn't supposed to be a trained starship officer, but rather some goofy alien they picked up by accident, so that at least made sense.

      But yeah, while I haven't even seen this yet, and don't really want to now, the common thread I'm hearing and reading from people who have, including on long YouTube reviews, is that the characters are simply unlikeable, especially the main one. (And as the parent said, on Star Trek there isn't supposed to be a main character, it's always been about bridge crew (plus doctor), and how they work together.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:27PM (#581329)

    Looking at all these comments, I see that "Mary Sue" is now the hip flavor of the month.

    Can't wait to see what it is next month.