Topic: Ten Forward - The Star Trek Topic

@FullbringIchigo Thank goodness, there is hope!

@KALofKRYPTON Tilly annoys me, simply because she's a cookie-cutter "prodigy kook" who always seems to be right... but that's fair, at least you always know what you're gonna get. It's safe.

Great actors can sell bad writing, or at least elevate it to mediocre. That's why I really love Georgiou because sure, she may be all over the map in terms of character consistency, but you can tell Michelle Yeoh has a definitive idea of what she should be like, and she's conveying that with conviction and purpose. Same with Pike (who is a little easier to write, what with his established backstory and role as patriarch) and arguably, same with Saru (although his "let's explore my culture" episodes were painfully stilted and, well... boring, for want of a better word).

Stamets and Culber and the whole "death has changed me" thing seems like fabricated tension. If they were actually trying to explore Culber's psychology in any meaningful way, I'd welcome it, but instead it's just being used as relationship jeopardy, which cheapens both characters. Something that sounds great as a bullet-point in a roadmap, but that needs way more mature handling than what we're getting.

And wow, do I enjoy watching Sonequa Martin-Green act (seriously, she's amazing in the little flickers and reactions she crafts) but she is in desperate need of better material. She's just moved from room to room, told to cry whenever somebody else walks in, and occasionally punch things. What a waste.

Section 31 is just bizarre. From the "nobody knows we exist" organisation it started as, turning it into a fleet-owning, special-badge-wearing, openly-discussed spy agency run by Skyn... er, Control feels like a desperate grab to shove a semi-recognised name on a new idea, albeit one executed in stereotypical fashion (black leather and everything). I just keep telling myself that this is a century after Enterprise and a century before Deep Space Nine, so anything can happen to an organisation in that time, but it's a weak sedative that my inner fanboy is rapidly developing a resistance to.

Same with Klingons being expert time-travellers who keep "time crystals" (?!) in their ancient temples. I mean, what the actual f... ek'lhr is going on there?!

I have tea and cake, yes.

@RogerRoger
I certainly agree. Well deployed dialogue can be almost anything. The amount of credence so many previous actors have lent to some occasionally awful Trek dialogue cannot be understated. It's even more evident in the few 'technobabble' bits that STD puts in. Technicalities are often just glossed over as accepted, or just used as macguffins requiring little to no explanation.
When they do try and write for it, even the best of the Disco cast struggle to get the 'wtf?' out of their deliveries most of the time.
No one can sell technobabble like Levar Burton and Brent Spiner together though.

@LN78 Ha! He'll be clouded by the tea and cake.

@LN78 wait you mean it wasn't???????

NOOOOOO that was my bar for greatness, what will i do now?

oh well at least i have Game of Thrones Season 8, now that was an epic ending

@LN78 Well, I'm glad you prepared yourself, because I thought that the finale of Season Two of Star Trek: Discovery was the fines... the fin... no, sorry, I can't type that out, even as a joke!

I think the exact moment I gave up trying to care was when a trademark Michael Bay electric guitar was played as Michael and Spock shared a Vulcan salute in the shuttlebay (which STILL doesn't have a door!!). Despite my love of cheesy, fun, tongue-in-cheek moments across many franchises, that was frankly ridiculous, even for me. My tolerance threshold had already been overwhelmed by the preceding episode's relentless wall of un-earned emotional farewells (by comparison, The Next Generation didn't start using the word "family" to describe its crew until they'd been together for five, maybe even six, years together; Voyager used it a little quicker, but not by much and even then, their isolated circumstances justified a rush to connect). I just switched off my brain and enjoyed the pretty visuals; on that level, at least, Star Trek: Discovery is a resounding success. I might wanna pick apart its version of the USS Enterprise, and the Discovery herself might be awkward and gangly, but they sure looked awesome blowing up all the things with the stuff.

Another highlight was the inventive gravity-shifting corridor fight sequence with Conland / Leytrol (who didn't get half as gruesome a death as he deserved) but otherwise, I can imagine the script for over two hours of television being about six pages thick, with lots of "they fight" or "insert VFX here" to pad out a plot which was described in the first ten minutes. I genuinely expected a few more twists, or at least one final rug-pull but no, both episodes were basically them executing their ridiculous plan. There were zero stakes, especially when the death of Conland / Leytrol resulted in the A.I. powering itself down anyway, so why'd they even need to go through the wormhole? Not even bringing back the effect from The Motion Picture could stop me from going "Eh?!" and reaching for another cake.

The reverse-engineering of the entire season's storyline is blatant, leaving massive plot holes and leaps in logic because it was written backwards (never a good way to write). Occasional scraps of fan service peppered throughout a "trust us, we're gonna fix everything we broke" season is kinda worse than if the show had stuck to its guns and continued to chart a somewhat-original course. Being a well-made, well-funded and well-acted production gives it value on an immediate level, but I'm left wondering what the point of all this was. I certainly haven't learned anything, or questioned any of my perspectives or beliefs, or found any examples worth applying to my own life. I've just laughed at funny lines, watched some impressive stunts and found myself thinking about the making of the show, rather than the show itself... and that's never a good thing with Star Trek. Other franchises, perhaps, but not Star Trek.

Despite this rant, I have high hopes for Star Trek: Picard (simply because I don't think Patrick Stewart would let it become anything less than a worthwhile experience) and will definitely check out the third season of Star Trek: Discovery, now that they actually are boldly going where nobody has gone before. There's a chance here, so much potential with this talented cast and impressive budget, but I'm 50/50 on whether they'll squander it or not. Fingers crossed.

Also tagging @Fullbringlchigo and @KALofKRYPTON as I think they'll (mostly) agree.

@RogerRoger
You remain incredibly generous!

I do agree with you on the whole. I think I probably would do more so if I were to revisit it (I'm going through 'new' Who again at the moment as I never re-watched any of it, and certainly having a nicer time with it than when it aired).

How you managed to go the whole way without criticising the final space sequence though... I'm pretty sure I've never been so annoyed on so many levels at a piece of television

@RogerRoger the only reason they went through the wormhole is because they are basically rebooting the entire franchise. yes they could have stayed but i think they knew no one wanted a TOS prequel again and as much as TOS is loved people have had enough of it now and they want something new

jumping forward 350 years means they don't have to worry or connect to anything that came before it and they can now do their own thing which in all honesty could work for them BUT if the trailers and info is anything to go by the next season is pretty much going to be Star Trek: Andromeda i can even picture the opening speech now

"The Federation, the greatest civilization in history, has fallen. Now one ship, one crew, have vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light of civilization. On the starship Discovery... hope lives again"

@RogerRoger also did you catch the normal looking Klingon?

@KALofKRYPTON Funnily enough, as I may have mentioned before, the whole season reminded me very strongly of the modern Doctor Who. Each episode seemed to revolve around a "moment", be it emotional or twist-based, and then the season finale drew everything together in a big, triumphant, this-was-the-plan-all-along crescendo (when the Klingons and Saru's sister showed up, and suddenly all of the near-death heroes got their second wind, low shields and dead crewmembers be damned).

What was your specific problem with the final space sequence? I assume you mean the battle. It was chaotic nonsense, but very pretty chaotic nonsense. I may have missed something because, as stated, I'd switched off my brain by the time it started (although I think I managed a couple of derisive snorts at the Enterprise sprouting pig-faced robot cleaners and hundreds of drone fighters).

@Fullbringlchigo Yep, fair enough. That betrays the real-world production story and breaks the immersion, as I said; they had to "win" and kill Leytrol because Hollywood demands that villains die, but they also had to jump forward in time because the fans, and canon, equally demanded it.

Was it a jump 350 years into the future? I thought it was 900 years. Again, I wasn't paying that much attention. I had cake. It was nice cake.

@LN78 I'm cruel, I know. But see? I do have some standards! They're low, but I have them!

@FullbringIchigo On the bridge of the Klingon Boaty McBoatface icebreaker ship? Yeah, although his face was still quite defined. But it did get me for a split-second!

@RogerRoger your right it was 930 years, my bad i'm not sure why i said 350 although i was thinking of Andromeda at the time so maybe that was why

@FullbringIchigo Easy mistake to make, especially when I think one of the many random Red Angel jumps was 350 years or something. It was all over the place.

@RogerRoger yeah there was a lot going on in the finale and yet at the same time nothing was going on, it's strange

@FullbringIchigo "Okay, we've got millions in VFX budget and everybody's in costume so, er... look busy?"

At least Michael's trip through time was full of nice trailer shots.

@RogerRoger The 'new' Who similarities are totally there.
The battle I though was utter nonsense. It's shares a glaring quirk of set up and direction with the penultimate (or maybe final) episode of GoT - where scores of enemies are repeatedly depicted swarming the 'hero' characters, while the same 'hero' characters are also repeatedly depicted as flagging, in an unavoidable bind and appearing about to succumb.
As you point out with the 'second wind' - there seemed to be a clear lack of cohesion and continuity amidst the battle outside, the events on the Enterprise, the events on Discovery and of course, the hundreds(!) of(!) shuttles(!).

@RogerRoger @KALofKRYPTON you got to admit through the time travel VFX was really nice, i liked how the whole universe kind of went 2D as she jumped

@KALofKRYPTON Ah, yes. Gotcha.

I think that was indicative of the rushed writing and need for a "big finale" to justify all the forced emotion and dramatic tension necessary to paper over the cracks and sell us on the bizarre, nonsensical plot. There have been seemingly-hopeless space battles in Star Trek before, particularly in Deep Space Nine, but they've never stretched the credibility quite as much as this did.

It did make me chuckle when, clock ticking on the un-detonated torpedo lodged inside the Enterprise, there was still time for Pike to calmly swap places with Number One, allowing Admiral Cornwell two big hero moments. When she first glanced at the manual release, I thought she was gonna close it behind Number One and then maybe, at a push, we'd have gotten her farewell speech to an angry Pike over the comm but no, apparently the episode needed to be an hour and five minutes long and blowing up the forward quarter of the saucer section required Pike's face through some glass.

Give it another ten minutes, though, and those robot pigs would've likely replicated everybody a new saucer section. And twenty more drone fighter shuttles.

@FullbringIchigo Genuinely, I cannot fault the VFX artists' work, at all. Particularly with the second season's new aspect ratio, everything felt cinema quality from beginning to end. Stunning.

@LN78 It betrays how much of my brain I'd been forced to deactivate by that point, when I honestly tell you that I hadn't even thought of that.

Although the old "it can only be done from the inside" trope is such standard fare by now.

@RogerRoger @LN78 why didn't she just tie a rope to it and go stand on the other side of the door?