Topic: Ten Forward - The Star Trek Topic

@KALofKRYPTON good thing about the Trek ones though is they ain't required at all, they just expand the universe, you can jump into any of the Trek films without having to read them, they are just trek adventures unlike what Disney are doing with Star Wars, you pretty much have to either read all the expanded universe stuff or look up what happens online to get whats going on in the films and like you it's something i don't like

a film should be able to stand up on it's own

@FullbringIchigo @KALofKRYPTON In fairness to Disney, whilst the novels and comics they're releasing do expand a lot, they're holding a relatively solid line between "movies and television" and "everything else". Their biggest mass market nod was when Maul turned up at the end of Solo, but it made perfect sense to me, somebody who watches all of the watchable Star Wars but never bothers to read any of the books.

I haven't felt the need to read any of the novels surrounding their new trilogy, even if they might paper over some of the cracks. I still get what they're trying to do.

Because I agree, I shouldn't have to do homework to enjoy a trip to the cinema.

@RogerRoger i watch the shows too because it's Star Wars and because they were really good and i have a few of the comics but in my opinion the stories just ain't as good as the shows are. perhaps Star Wars is just one of those franchise they is better watched rather then read

so as for Maul in Solo that was something i really liked but i can see why those who only have interest in the films would have been confused after all as far as they knew he died in The Phantom Menace

the thing is i do think expanding the universe in other mediums is a good thing BUT they shouldn't be used as a crutch to hold up the main part which in this case is the films, that's why i like the way Star Trek does it, they add and build to the universe but they don't act as a medium for important, must know information

still ever since the MCU Disney are all about having huge interconnected universes, it's all about that bank after all

@LN78 ...er, yeah. I really want to embed a clip from Star Wars: Rebels for you here, but it'd be a massive spoiler about Maul's storyline. Might make you look forward to the Obi-Wan series a bit more, though. Do you care about knowing a random bit of established, albeit animated, canon?

@LN78 Okay, well... let's just say that there's no chance of Maul showing up in the Obi-Wan show. Like, at all.

So you might actually end up liking it!

@LN78 @RogerRoger he probably wont, if he hates the prequel stuff he wont like Obi-Wan as it's based on the Prequel Obi-Wan after all

of course discounting EVERYTHING based around a era because you don't like the films is pretty dumb, no offence of course but it's silly to discount everything that has a link to the prequels, Clone Wars is considered some of the best Star Wars stuff ever put to film

@FullbringIchigo Apologies, I missed your post up there!

I think the same can be said of anything starting life in the cinema, or on television; the Star Trek books have never captured my imagination in the same way, just like the few Star Wars ones I've tried. They always come across as too bizarre, too outlandish for me to take seriously... says me, somebody who writes fan fiction, but hey. Established characters always seem to act out-of-character and new elements are always "things we could never show on the screen" but to me, that means they don't belong in that universe to begin with.

You're absolutely right, though; there should be a post-credits "if you liked this and want more" ability for such big franchises, so I'm not against the books or comics existing to begin with. They're obviously popular, just not for me personally. But it should always be that way around, that kinda film-first, book-second relationship.

Good ol' Disney.

@LN78 It's actually a really tense, cool tribute to the samurai films of old, and a surprisingly mature scene for what many dismiss as a kid's cartoon, but yeah... he gone for good now.

@FullbringIchigo Hey, c'mon, each to their own. There's awesome stuff in all parts of Star Wars, even the new films, but it's up to the individual consumer to, well... consume whatever they'd like to. Watch something once and if you like it, watch it again. If you don't, then don't.

For anybody so obviously offended by an experience, I won't begrudge them trying to avoid it in future.

@RogerRoger @LN78 don't get me wrong i understand that someone may not like the films but to never try the show just because it uses the same characters and say you wont like it just because it does have those characters or is tied to those films is a little silly

i know you say "i know for a fact" but if you NEVER even watched an episode how can you really know for a fact you don't like it, to me that's prejudgement, you very well might end up hating it but would watching one or two episodes really hurt to actually see if you will or not?

i just find it odd how people can say something like that without actually experiencing the thing the say they hate, if you had said you watched it and didn't like it i would understand but to never watch it and still say you hate it doesn't make sense, surly you have to have experienced something to hate it?

@LN78 yep now you have explained it i understand and yes the movie was pretty dull i admit although the show has a much better pace and much better writting

although i did't have much anticipation for the Phantom Menace because i was raised in a no Star Wars house, my parents hated it so we never rented the VHS and when it came on TV we never watched it, the Phantom Menace was my first ever Star Wars film as i was old enough to have my own money when that came out and i really enjoyed it, yeah it had issues but afterwards when watching the original trilogy on VHS i saw just as many of the same issues in those too, bad dialogue, wooden acting and dumb moments in fact Return of the Jedi is full of them, i mean Ewoks still make NO sense, how can throwing a small rock at a fully armoured trooper kill him? and Luke "i can bring him back to the good side" line is a lot worse and a lot more cheesy that the "I hate sand" one

i have said may times before Lucas knows how to create a world but he needs someone else to bring it to life but that doesn't stop me enjoying all the films, they are all imperfect messes that somehow still work

@LN78 watch a film like Samurai Cop and you will be saying that line is like Shakespeare, Episode 2 might be the weakest of the series but trust me, there is a LOT of films out there that makes even the Star Wars Holiday Special look like a masterpiece

@LN78 seriously though Samurai Cop is one of those movies someone HAS to experience at least once, it is SO bad that you will love watching it because it's so funny with how bad it is

same with R.O.T.O.R and anything made by Ed Wood like Plan 9 from Outer Space

anyway back to Star Trek news, i think we derailed this thread enough

it seems that the Character being played by Michelle Hurd in Star Trek Picard, Raffi Musiker was actually acting as his First officer during the mission that caused Picard to leave Starfleet

i guess we finally know how they know each other although i wonder want went down during this mission that was so bad that Picard leaves Starfleet and that, by the next time they meet she is pointing a phaser at him

@LN78 also i want to say i hope you don't think i was getting on at you, i was just trying to understand your reasoning, it's probably one of my biggest flaws but i kind of need to understand how things work and why people think they way they do about certain things but i admit i can be a bit tactless about it

sorry

so some Trek news Section 31 has a writers room so i guess it's still a thing and Picard is apparently going to be a "Modern Adult Drama" whatever the hell that means

https://trekmovie.com/2019/11/29/kurtzman-section-31-show-has...

so a couple of quotes

We are very excited about the Section 31 show and Michelle Yeoh is excited to do it. She is in the current season of Discovery so she’s working on that right now but we have scripts getting written, and Alex has a writer’s room. We love what we’ve heard so far. It’s yet another tonality of Trek. As Alex has mapped it all out, each show has its own unique sort of voice and vision.

so it sounds like it's still in the early phases right now

as for Picard

The show is inspired by Next Gen, and it’s written by people who grew up loving it but it is very much not Next Gen. It feels like a modern adult drama in the world of Star Trek, which has not actually really happened before. It’s also singularly about a man in his emeritus years and there are very few franchises that would allow you to have an almost 80 year old lead and tell his story.

i'm not sure what to make of this, of course being so focused on one character it wasn't going to be like a traditional Trek show but this literally tells us nothing at all, i really wish these PR people would look at the real world, stop smoking whatever magical mushrooms they have and see this kind of fluff does nothing but confuse people

@FullbringIchigo The intricacies of modern marketing aside, I do quite like the sound of Picard, not least for being a show about an elderly gentleman and his not-quite-so-elderly-but-still-not-exactly-MTV-material friends. When the twenty-something Kirk was given command of the brand-new Enterprise in 2009, suspending my disbelief to enjoy the rest of the film was a big ask.

Last night I finally started the second season of Star Trek: Discovery. Am three episodes in.

Early impressions are much, much improved over Season One. I won't go into too much detail, but I think now that I've gotten over my initial knee-jerk reaction of "this feels wrong" I can settle into a more disposable, glossy take on the franchise. I also now understand why everybody is begging for a Christopher Pike series, based solely on his first couple hours in command. Michelle Yeoh is awesome as always, so now there are two characters I actually like.

But yeah, every time somebody mentions Spock, my eyes glaze over. I hate how everything must revolve around him, one of the most overrated and overused characters in the franchise (not to diminish Leonard Nimoy's forever beautiful work, mind). I quite like Michael Burnham when she's part of somebody else's plot, but this whole "Search for Spock" thing is annoying me no end.

Thankfully, there's plenty more going on to keep me entertained. I'm mostly on board, and will likely enjoy the rest of the season as this week continues.

***

After deciding not to push a fourth episode last night, I randomly flicked around Netflix for clips of the other Star Trek shows available (okay, fine... my OCD likes having all the Trek shows lined up in my "Continue Watching" list, paused on episodes with good thumbnails of my favourite characters). I selected an early episode of Star Trek: Enterprise and noticed the resolution was much, much improved from the Blu-Ray. Whilst the effects shots are still a little blurry, I think the rest of it 4K, or at least upscaled to as near as possible. It looks incredible, so might add a re-watch of its early seasons to my schedule.

@RogerRoger thankfully that kind of presence Pike has carries through the entire season, he really was a breath of fresh air in that show, he was well written and Anson Mount was great in the roll a perfect choice

if ViacomCBS turned around and said that they was doing a Pike series or film i would be first in line on it's release day

@FullbringIchigo Me too. He's definitely a highlight.

Despite seeing early signs of the "unearned emotion" criticism I'd heard about, I'm still with it three more episodes down the line. Some of the Saru stuff was... well, not weak exactly, but not exactly original either. He's kinda fitting into the same box in which I keep my opinions of the Klingons and Vulcans; they're cool and iconic but dear goodness, their dedicated episodes are dull.

But it's also nice to see a modern spin on a couple of familiar tropes, like the "anomaly of the week turns out to be alive" episode. I just hope they hurry up and find Spock; not because I want to see him, but because the amount of delays and excuses for not seeing him are becoming laughable.

@KALofKRYPTON @RogerRoger not sure what this"day dedicated to all things Star Trek" is but it sounds interesting