Star Trek: Discovery

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Lithose

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Trek has had a very big issue with battle narratives for some time. The original series was very much a naval combat situation in a galaxy where starships were not very common. This was perfected in Wrath of Khan which had the best ship combat sequences.

Then after Babylon 5 and other shows which had swarms of ships Trek suddenly had to have battle sequences with dozens of starships, this could have worked still except they wanted lots of pew-pew-explosions and so made the ships behave as if they were tissue paper. I think in one DS9 battle they went through nearly a century worth of Starfleet academy graduates, even if you restrict the number of officers per ship to be relatively low.

Now in Disco we have people in space scooters and drones which can blow holes in ships and it's all very silly.
Yeah. I liked Original Trek's combat a lot better. Was based on submarine/battleship combat and starships being major assets. Getting a fleet of 40 together was a HUGE deal.

And it really made sense. If you're using particle weapons that move at the speed of light, and are fighting within X range, the idea of a fighter becomes absurd. Fighters only exist in modern navies because our munitions are slow, and can be evaded but also have greatly outpaced other defenses outside of avoidance. But in Star Trek, shields really even up the offense/defense disparity, while the high speed of weapons lowered the ability to avoid. I always liked the idea in Star Trek where shields were really the only answer to more survival, and thus ships got bigger and better shielded to tank hits instead of dodging everything. (I know there were plenty of misses in Star Trek combat but the general rule of thumb was it was submarine combat until the shooting started, battleship type combat after).

Adding fighters who can't possibly have the ability to generate shielding enough to take a hit ruins the aesthetic. Because if beam weapons somehow aren't accurate enough to hit a majority of the time, and the fighters produce enough power to do damage, then the idea of big ships with shields becomes silly--fighters would dominate everything, like they do today in modern naval combat. But if they are accurate enough, then the fighters should do about this well vs a large ship.



Shit was a huge mistake when they started adding corvettes in DS9, wrong way to go. The battleship/submarine aesthetic was really unique.
 
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Fucker

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I'm on E5 of S2 and christ, what a bad show. It's full of scruffy women, too. Is this show where German Goo Girls go to retire?

I think I'll stop here. It's worse than Enterprise.
 
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Sentagur

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I'm on E5 of S2 and christ, what a bad show. It's full of scruffy women, too. Is this show where German Goo Girls go to retire?

I think I'll stop here. It's worse than Enterprise.
You made it all the way to season 2? I couldnt get past the cluster fuck of season 1.
 
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jayrebb

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I'm on E5 of S2 and christ, what a bad show. It's full of scruffy women, too. Is this show where German Goo Girls go to retire?

I think I'll stop here. It's worse than Enterprise.

Some bad news then. CBS is trying to reshoot entire episodes of Picard to be more like Discovery. They are in the process of calculating costs to do that right now.

Not because the masses wanted it-- but because a few test audiences said they preferred Discovery over TNG when they were shown test screenings of the new series. And I completely understand that. Discovery has that "modern series" storytelling and aesthetic. I get it. We're old and we don't matter.
 
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Arbitrary

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They did that already. It was called Star Trek Nemesis and it was so fucking bad it killed the TNG film franchise.

CBS should have done something really basic like eight or ten episodes of geezer Picard doing the kind of stuff television show Picard did while the audience gets a view in to what happened after the Dominion War. Just steer in to the idea that you're making a nostalgia project with opportunities to expand later if it is well received.
 
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Qhue

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Some bad news then. CBS is trying to reshoot entire episodes of Picard to be more like Discovery. They are in the process of calculating costs to do that right now.

Not because the masses wanted it-- but because a few test audiences said they preferred Discovery over TNG when they were shown test screenings of the new series. And I completely understand that. Discovery has that "modern series" storytelling and aesthetic. I get it. We're old and we don't matter.

I thought it wasn't so much that the test audiences preferred Discovery but that the only people who responded well to the Picard test screenings preferred Discovery / Kelvin timeline. The TNG / Original Series folk didn't care for it at all.
 
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Frenzied Wombat

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Yeah. I liked Original Trek's combat a lot better. Was based on submarine/battleship combat and starships being major assets. Getting a fleet of 40 together was a HUGE deal.

And it really made sense. If you're using particle weapons that move at the speed of light, and are fighting within X range, the idea of a fighter becomes absurd. Fighters only exist in modern navies because our munitions are slow, and can be evaded and our weapons have greatly outpaced defenses. But in Star Trek, shields really even up the offense/defense disparity. I always liked the idea in Star Trek where shields were really the only answer to more survival, and thus ships got bigger and better shielded to tank hits instead of dodging everything. (I know there were plenty of misses in Star Trek combat but the general rule of thumb was it was submarine combat until the shooting started, battleship type combat after).

Adding fighters who can't possibly have the ability to generate shielding enough to take a hit ruins the aesthetic. Because if beam weapons somehow aren't accurate enough to hit a majority of the time, and the fighters produce enough power to do damage, then the idea of big ships with shields becomes silly--fighters would dominate everything, like they do today in modern naval combat. But if they are accurate enough, then the fighters should do about this well vs a large ship.



Shit was a huge mistake when they started adding corvettes in DS9, wrong way to go. The battleship/submarine aesthetic was really unique.

This is part of what made Star Trek II the best Trek movie ever, the ponderous tactical submarine combat. Watching slow, lumbering, starships navigate-- the detailed, visceral, image of a phaser slicing through the hull-- is far more suspenseful and impactful than ships zipping around with a million lasers and particle effects you can barely keep track of. Bleh. One is like watching a delicate, detailed, dance, the other is just a massive mosh pit.
 
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Wombat

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while the audience gets a view in to what happened after the Dominion War

Again, this isn't that timeline. Frankly, we have no idea who this Picard is.
Edit: Which I suppose is a handy way to wipe any inconsistencies away.
 
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Arbitrary

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Again, this isn't that timeline. Frankly, we have no idea who this Picard is.
Edit: Which I suppose is a handy way to wipe any inconsistencies away.

So it's an alternate Picard but we're starting off in the future shown to us in the finale of the series? So they want Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc Picard but not necessary THAT Jean Luc? Your explanation makes it even more retarded.

This should have been a basic nostalgia project throwback not too far off the different made for TV movies we used to get for Gilligan's Island or The Andy Griffith Show.
 
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Wombat

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Yes, this is the Kelvin timeline Picard, who joined Star Fleet, reached the rank of Admiral, quit, and also retired to a vineyard, and who we know nothing about otherwise.

explanation makes it even more retarded
This is a CBS All Access Star Trek show. That should have been the assumption all along.
 
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Fucker

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Yes, this is the Kelvin timeline Picard, who joined Star Fleet, reached the rank of Admiral, quit, and also retired to a vineyard, and who we know nothing about otherwise.


This is a CBS All Access Star Trek show. That should have been the assumption all along.

You absolutely have to be shitting me. This would be just as retarded as Discovery.
 
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Chris

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It's a rights issue. Midnight's Edge on YouTube has been covering it.

Something about the parent company splitting into two (CBS/Paramount) with one having rights to the old stuff and one licensing the IP to make the new stuff. The licensed stuff has to be something like 20% different to the old stuff, hence the alternate timeline.

That's every design being 20% different including ships and uniforms. It's something to do with merchandising, one company wants to keep selling the old merch and doesn't want competition. Apparently the new stuff isn't selling merch because it's too different and toymakers are refusing to buy the rights to it.

It's not generating a large enough audience either since Netflix refused to bid on Picard/Discovery 3, that's bad since the Netflix deal for international distribution paid entirely for Discovery 1 and 2. Amazon picked it up with a generic low bid so CBS had to cut the budgets.

Then there's the cast pulling out of Star Trek 4 because the studio couldn't afford their pay... it's a shitshow. How can you ruin Star Trek!?
 
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slippery

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Yes, this is the Kelvin timeline Picard, who joined Star Fleet, reached the rank of Admiral, quit, and also retired to a vineyard, and who we know nothing about otherwise.


This is a CBS All Access Star Trek show. That should have been the assumption all along.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
 
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Arbitrary

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It's a rights issue. Midnight's Edge on YouTube has been covering it.

Something about the parent company splitting into two (CBS/Paramount) with one having rights to the old stuff and one licensing the IP to make the new stuff. The licensed stuff has to be something like 20% different to the old stuff, hence the alternate timeline.

That's every design being 20% different including ships and uniforms. It's something to do with merchandising, one company wants to keep selling the old merch and doesn't want competition. Apparently the new stuff isn't selling merch because it's too different and toymakers are refusing to buy the rights to it.

It's not generating a large enough audience either since Netflix refused to bid on Picard/Discovery 3, that's bad since the Netflix deal for international distribution paid entirely for Discovery 1 and 2. Amazon picked it up with a generic low bid so CBS had to cut the budgets.

Then there's the cast pulling out of Star Trek 4 because the studio couldn't afford their pay... it's a shitshow. How can you ruin Star Trek!?

I hope Patrick Stewart keeps going long enough to see Disney assimilate those companies and add their biological and technological distinctiveness to the intellectual property collective.
 
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jayrebb

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I thought it wasn't so much that the test audiences preferred Discovery but that the only people who responded well to the Picard test screenings preferred Discovery / Kelvin timeline. The TNG / Original Series folk didn't care for it at all.

Since its just a leak nothing is final until the show airs really. Its being interpreted a number of ways depending on which YouTube analyst you're watching.
 
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Qhue

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This is a bad 'review' inasmuch as a number of their 'why is this happening??' points are actually clearly addressed in the show. I suspect they just skimmed summaries of the season rather than actually watching the relevant episodes. These arent even 'blink and you'll miss it' type of revelations, they are just things that don't get mentioned in plot summary articles.

There are big holes in the logic of the season, but those aren't what gets mentioned here.
 
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iannis

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Mike did say that they are average to moderate intelligence viewers.

I think he was just being nice to rich, though.
 

Chris

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Dis they really have "I like Science" and "The power of Math" as lines!? What the fuck cringe is this.

I grew up on TNG and they just showed people doing Science and Math (and Diplomacy).
 
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