Star Trek: Discovery

[Jaxom 1974]

5 hours ago, red snow said:

 

I'd be all for a Star wars rebels approach to the books. I haven't read the books but there's also a danger of being chained by the books in a similar way to doing prequels. But cherry picking concepts and developments as a spring board is cool. It'd also allow them to use any of the next gen actors willing to guest star.

 

In a nutshell...massive trilogy (after a handful of lead up stories) that dealt with the Borg and eliminated them.  The resulting destruction from the "war" leaves pretty much all of the Alpha and Beta quadrant reeling, resulting in the Romulans, Breen, Gorn, and three or four more powers creating a Warsaw Pact of sorts, with the Klingons and Federation having the Ferengi and Cardassians signing the Khitomer Accords bolstering the NATO aspect...and it goes from there with all manner of stories.  

Set a series about 10 years after Nemesis and have all of that established without going too deeply into is and away the show would go.  A new Cold War, Star Trek style and you've got possibilities that can easily reflect today's real world...it is really the way to go.  They can call me, I'll help run it all for them...

[red snow]

That does sound pretty interesting. It would definitely allow them to alter the tone a little. Sounds like some films of the Borg extermination would be good too. Although I hope the federation wrung their hands over exterminating a species or sought some peaceful resolution? I'm trying to remember if Voyager ever came up with a virus or something that altered the Borg?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

4 hours ago, red snow said:

That does sound pretty interesting. It would definitely allow them to alter the tone a little. Sounds like some films of the Borg extermination would be good too. Although I hope the federation wrung their hands over exterminating a species or sought some peaceful resolution? I'm trying to remember if Voyager ever came up with a virus or something that altered the Borg?

That sounds like Species 8472.

[Jaxom 1974]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

That does sound pretty interesting. It would definitely allow them to alter the tone a little. Sounds like some films of the Borg extermination would be good too. Although I hope the federation wrung their hands over exterminating a species or sought some peaceful resolution? I'm trying to remember if Voyager ever came up with a virus or something that altered the Borg?

Honestly, they way the novels did it was a bit fantastic with an alien species of vast power being forced to merge with some humans...it was kinda complicated...but this race of super powered pacifists was convinced to bring their wayward children home and it essentially eliminated the Borg...

That being said, it doesn't need to be that way, and it can be great unseen events playing into the Cold War aspect of the galaxy. 

[Werthead]

I think anything too politically heavy or focused on a big, galaxy-spanning meta-story in detail would be a mistake. A new Star Trek show should focus on exploration and the basics I think, before revving up that kind of story later on. Certainly have a political background on where the galaxy is at based on the stuff a general audience can understand very quickly, but jumping in with too much mythology will bore the casual viewer.

My take would be to have a situation where the Romulan Empire has fallen (after the hypernova and the destruction of Romulus), with the surviving Romulan colonies divided between a group seeking to rebuild the empire (somehow) and others happy to accept help from the Federation on the basis they need to survive. You could have this tension bubbling away in the background (maybe even have a Romulan crewmember on board). The Klingons would still be allies but would now be recovering from the Dominion War and getting back on their feet and divided between maintaining the allies and wiping out the Romulans forever. Have a situation where our new ship might be forced to defend a Romulan convoy from a Klingon warship and that sort of thing.

You could reference other developments: the Ferengi moving away from ultra-capitalism, a Cardassian renaissance as a peaceful culture (maybe with the Bajorans helping in their rebuilding, sparking a new and unlikely era of peace between them), the Borg toast etc. But one thing that might be interesting would be to look at the inner workings of the Federation. We've seen the Federation as too much of a monolith in the past and seeing situations where the Vulcans, Andorians and humans have very different ideas on how to proceed now the Federation is the most powerful force in the known galaxy would be interesting.

I also wouldn't fuck around: the main ship is the Enterprise-F, it's an awesome top-tier thing and the crew are mainly out to explore new fricking worlds and seek new BAMF civilisations. Get the guy from Swear Trek to do the marketing campaign.

[Leofric]

Looks like CBS may miss their chance by pushing the release of Discovery to the Fall, Fox is airing their own version of Star Trek, and it won't be behind a paywall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 hours ago, Leofric said:

Looks like CBS may miss their chance by pushing the release of Discovery to the Fall, Fox is airing their own version of Star Trek, and it won't be behind a paywall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0

 

 

That does have a very "Galaxy Quest" feel to it.

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That does have a very "Galaxy Quest" feel to it.

Well, it doesn't look anywhere near as funny and it has Seth MacFarlane in it, who was very funny twenty years ago and has been very intermittent since then (Ted was amusing, the sequel was awful, A Million Ways to Die in the West had a funny trailer but the movie was lacklustre, the first Star Wars parody was very funny and the other two were dreadful and so on). I'd be surprised if The Orville was consistently funny or entertaining.

It'll be better than Redshirts though, 3,000%.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 2017-5-24 at 4:15 PM, Leofric said:

Looks like CBS may miss their chance by pushing the release of Discovery to the Fall, Fox is airing their own version of Star Trek, and it won't be behind a paywall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Well, it doesn't look anywhere near as funny and it has Seth MacFarlane in it, who was very funny twenty years ago and has been very intermittent since then (Ted was amusing, the sequel was awful, A Million Ways to Die in the West had a funny trailer but the movie was lacklustre, the first Star Wars parody was very funny and the other two were dreadful and so on). I'd be surprised if The Orville was consistently funny or entertaining.

It'll be better than Redshirts though, 3,000%.

Yeah, I half smiled a couple of times in that trailer. I think it will get pretty tired pretty fast.

Sounds like Discovery will be heading to Netflix in a lot of countries. I hope one of them is mine. But the only Netflix trailers I've seen have been for non-English speaking countries.

+1 for Capt Michelle Yeoh. 

[SerHaHa]

On 5/21/2017 at 10:07 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is there a reason why they will not show us the aftermath of the Dominion war and the Federation's recovery from that war?

They did release and awful lot of books which covered this, which they called "The DS9 Re launch", in at least some sort of semi official capacity.  DS9 relaunch has its own wikipedia page, if you want to read about it, or ask Wert about it.

I too wish they would go 5 or 10 years post Dominion War/Voyager, for all the excellent reasons Wert has already mentioned.  If I was placing $ on best, I'd be betting large that Discovery is going to be in trouble ratings wise, and not just because of the content delivery method.

[felice]

2 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

I too wish they would go 5 or 10 years post Dominion War/Voyager

20 years or more would work better for actor ages (I assume we'd want at least occasional guest appearances by TNG-era characters).

[red snow]

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

Yeah, I half smiled a couple of times in that trailer. I think it will get pretty tired pretty fast.

Sounds like Discovery will be heading to Netflix in a lot of countries. I hope one of them is mine. But the only Netflix trailers I've seen have been for non-English speaking countries.

+1 for Capt Michelle Yeoh. 

The UK gets it the morning after and will be showing on a weekly basis - a bit like they do for shows like !Better Call Saul" and "riverdale" but not the bloody "expanse"

I'm pretty sure that's how it's being distributed everywhere except for the US (and possibly canada). Seems a bit unfair considering it's an american show but I'm also glad there isn't another streaming service being added in the UK (there's already 3 major ones in UK which cover virtually everything - i don't want more)

[Werthead]

Quote

They did release and awful lot of books which covered this, which they called "The DS9 Re launch", in at least some sort of semi official capacity.  DS9 relaunch has its own wikipedia page, if you want to read about it, or ask Wert about it.

The books aren't very good. I read the first few and the writing was poor, the storytelling weak and the decision to blow up DS9 and replace it with some kind of utopian super-station was lame. They may have gotten better later on but, as with Star Trek Online, they made this odd decision to go for some kind of epic mega-story which is something Star Trek is not always best-suited for.

If there is any future post-24th Century series, it will disregard all of that material as non-canon.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The books aren't very good. I read the first few and the writing was poor, the storytelling weak and the decision to blow up DS9 and replace it with some kind of utopian super-station was lame. They may have gotten better later on but, as with Star Trek Online, they made this odd decision to go for some kind of epic mega-story which is something Star Trek is not always best-suited for.

If there is any future post-24th Century series, it will disregard all of that material as non-canon.

I guess there's nothing wrong with cherry picking the good parts and putting a different spin on it? Again, it seems to work well in Star Wars Rebels in that it isn't restricted by the books but can use popular characters

[Jaxom 1974]

50 minutes ago, red snow said:

I guess there's nothing wrong with cherry picking the good parts and putting a different spin on it? Again, it seems to work well in Star Wars Rebels in that it isn't restricted by the books but can use popular characters

Exactly.  

Not all the books are as bad as Wert makes them out to be, but it isn't the stories that necessarily be lifted, but the framework of the storylines that could beused...as I argued above.

[SpaceChampion]

Nerdist's review of the cast mentions a rumour that the Klingons in this are a primitive version of the Klingons we know.  Could it be that they are sticking with the genetic engineering idea, and that there was a series of genetic mods to the Klingon species over the course of their history?

[karaddin]

I certainly think not judging a series on the basis of the look of the trailer is a bad idea. I've lost count of the number of things I've wound up loving that I had no interest in from the trailer, they frequently don't do the tone of the material justice. Of course the lens flares and stuff are probably going to be there regardless, so if that and the changed Klingon look is going to take you out of the show (regardless of whether its explained) then it probably won't matter.

I've never really gotten into any of the Treks much. I remember watching Voyager on and off when it was on the tv as a teen, but that was it. When Discovery was announced I went back and tried to watch TNG and while I love Picard I can only manage an express list of the best episodes. I do love how much fun PatStew seemed to be having in the role though, he looks like he's inwardly laughing every time he does the finger point and says "Engage!".

I'll give TNG credit for one thing though, it really called Internet/twitter meme based communication in 'Darmok'. TFW Shaka, and the walls fell.

[Werthead]

Quote

I certainly think not judging a series on the basis of the look of the trailer is a bad idea. I've lost count of the number of things I've wound up loving that I had no interest in from the trailer, they frequently don't do the tone of the material justice.

Yup. And conversely, there's plenty of stuff which had quite good trailers and ended up not being great (with the only good moments already shown in the trailer.

[Rippounet]

Has anyone seen the new (well, newiish) trailer? It's pretty much the same with a few extra shots and without the terrible music. Significantly better imho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PhTS1Vyf6I

 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

So I'm guessing she's half-Vulcan?