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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2017 5:59:44 GMT
This is a place people can come to discuss the new Star Trek Discovery series. If you haven't seen it yet, be aware this thread will be full of potential or actual spoilers. It's a thread for those who have seen the latest episodes, so if you don't want the series spoiled, DON'T READ ON! You've been warned!
So, have at it everyone! Your thoughts on Episodes 1 and 2? Every week after new episodes, feel free to dive in here and leave your thoughts!
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Post by Nola on Sept 26, 2017 7:15:34 GMT
It was not an exaggeration to say I was in tears. That was several orders of magnitude beyond my wildest dreams for this series.
Episode 1
- I think they did an excellent job introducing the two long-term characters from the Shenzhou: Michael and Saru. I was intrigued by what little we learned about Saru's species - I want to know who was herding them. I also like this notion of a sort of evolutionary cowardice, a constant fight-or-flight reflex, as that's essentially what a personality disorder is. I think he's a good opportunity to experiment with that kind of portrayal.
- I'm all-in on Michael as the main character. She's complex without being too melodramatic. They managed to make her relationship with Sarek feel organic. I think a lot of us shared a fear that her tangential relationship to Spock might be a badly shoe-horned ploy. It was not. I'm invested in seeing how she moves forward from all of this.
- Fuck yeah, Klingon Jesus!
Episode 2
- That fucking battle, man. It was like a natural progression from the battles we got in DS9, with gloriously modern and gritty visuals. I think this is what ultimately made me tear up - that shit was legit as fuck!
- They rammed the Admiral's ship with a cloaked ship! Then the Admiral blew up the ship! Diplomacy now OUT THE WINDOW, WHERE IT BELONGS!
- Holy shit, that ending! When they said this was gonna be kind of Game of Thrones-esque, I would not have guessed this was what they meant. I think it's the best possible aspect of Game of Thrones to put in: everything's a giant mess. A venerated Captain was killed. Klingon Jesus was killed. Michael let herself get attached to Captain Georgiou, who lifted her up after an adolescence of constant critique, and once again the Klingons took a loved one from her. Whatever hope she had of ever being able to not hate the Klingons is gone.
- Nooo! Klingon Jesus! Now it's up to the Albino to get revenge - the Outcast now leads!
In closing: Klingon unification on shaky ground. Commander Burnham going to prison. The Federation about to get its ass handed to it. Ordinary civilians caught in the crossfire.
I don't know exactly where we're going, but holy shit do I wanna find out!
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Post by spacedaisy on Sept 26, 2017 17:56:50 GMT
We watched the first episode and I felt kind of meh, but I was more willing to give it a shot than Alex was. But we went on to the second episode and we're both pretty sold on seeing where it goes. The end of the second episode showed there is going to be some really solid character building going on here, and that is awesome. I was never a fan of the darker tones of DS9, yes I know I'm the odd one out here on this opinion I think. So the darker tones/war themes won't get me by themselves. But the set up for Michael's character was fantastic and the teaser for what's coming has me hooked.
Side note, I am a fan of Bryan Fuller in general so I was tentatively hopeful. I'm a big fan of Dead Like Me (probably comes in 4th on my top five list of TV series)and really enjoyed Pushing Daisies as well. While war does not engage me as much as some people, dark themes are not something I shy away from but I usually prefer them when dealt with in a unique way. We'll see how it holds up going forward since I believe Fuller isn't involved in the project anymore, at least I think that's what I read. If the characters are well developed I can see myself really enjoying the series. I'm tentatively satisfied, though I don't think my reaction was as strong as Cj's. I am glad it has that impact for others though and can see why it might, even if it didn't elicit such a strong reaction from me.
Hopefully it can reinvigorate the television franchise, maybe draw some new viewers in even. Hopefully.
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Post by spacedaisy on Sept 26, 2017 18:09:38 GMT
I will say this, I'm glad that it doesn't seem to be making the leap over various eras that apparently Fuller first envisioned. I think that would have been disastrous. I'm all about the characters and if I have to invest in new ones each season... I'd check out.
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Post by Nola on Sept 26, 2017 19:08:22 GMT
I agree that making an anthology series was not the way to go. It's not a terrible idea by itself, but for the first real Star Trek series in over a decade, you want something serial.
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Post by Nola on Sept 26, 2017 20:16:04 GMT
(Needless to say, this is all opinion. I don't mean to say anyone is 'wrong' for their view. I just want to express mine without having to feel like I have to qualify each sentence.)
RE: 'Darker tones'
I'm not going to say that the battles themselves, both in Discovery and DS9, weren't something I enjoyed. Clearly they were, and I certainly understand that not everyone would like them.
HOWEVER...
The violence and 'darker tones' were not what made DS9 great, and they're not what made Discovery feel so promising - it was the character development that derived from it.
Sisko wasn't a great character because he blew things up and did things that were ethically questionable. He was a great character because he was a good man in a bad situation. Sisko was a man of principle and conviction, and the Dominion War tested him (and the Federation) to his very core.
I am not the biggest Roddenberry fan, which I think I've mentioned a few times over the years. It's not that I don't appreciate his vision of the future, or his contribution to the expansion of science fiction as a genre. It's that his Federation's utopia was unearned, at least on screen. We didn't have to see the characters explore why the Federation's ideals were the right ones - they simply were. TNG was a little better at exploring the why of it, especially in episodes like Measure of a Man and The Drumhead.
What made DS9 better than the other series, for me, is that those themes of testing the Federation's ideals were there from the first episode. What made it defining for me was that that Federation's ideals didn't always win out - the Federation was flawed, despite its intentions.
Science Fiction is a lot of things. It's speculation about our future, both in terms of our technology and our culture. It's also an exploration of who we are, and even the most well-meaning of us have our flaws and mistakes. I believe that will always be the case to some degree, and that means there will be conflict. War is an extreme representation of that, and I do think it gets overused and glorified a lot of the time. I don't believe DS9 was one of those times, and I don't believe Discovery is either. Instead, these serve as a way to tell us what we need to hear: the ideal must be earned. A peaceful society takes a phenomenal amount of work, and even if you do everything right, you cannot control everything. There will be conflict. We will fail sometimes, both as individuals and a collective society, but we can still win if we keep our eye on the prize, and continue to question if what we're doing is the right thing.
That is what I loved about DS9. That is what I'm looking forward to in Discovery - Michael's journey following a colossal failure of conviction.
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Post by spacedaisy on Sept 26, 2017 20:29:43 GMT
I would agree completely about the character development. DS9 has far and away the best developed characters of any of the ST series'. I just didn't find the overarching themes as enjoyable to me, as exploration and scientific discovery and problem solving. By no means do I think DS9 was bad, I enjoyed it. But it took a lot more time to appreciate it for me because war, political tensions and religious storylines bogged me down from getting there. Because it is just not something that appeals as much to me, and that's fine. It's all personal preference. The end result is the same, I appreciate it for being so strong in character development, and I see that potential here too so I am excited to see where it goes.
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Post by Nola on Sept 26, 2017 20:37:27 GMT
Agreed, that's all more than fair. I just get a little paranoid about how my statements might be taken (it's a personality disorder thing), and I was worried that maybe I came off a bit too 'ship go boom!'
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Post by spacedaisy on Sept 26, 2017 20:41:37 GMT
Agreed, that's all more than fair. I just get a little paranoid about how my statements might be taken (it's a personality disorder thing), and I was worried that maybe I came off a bit too 'ship go boom!' Not even remotely! I apologize, sometimes I take for granted that people will get my meaning when in reality I have a history of arriving at the same conclusions as most people but I get there by some backwards logic. It make sense to me, so I assume it is obvious. It rarely is. I actually love seeing your response to it. I think I will get there, but it will take me longer.
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Post by Andrew Rice on Sept 27, 2017 0:59:49 GMT
I did not like it, and it really hurts to say that. I had to pause it, and go do other things like make dinner and read the news, just trying to process it.
I didn't like Michael. I don't like the character centric model their going with, that its about her, its her story. And it feels like they came up with the main story first, then added her to connect the dots and lead the plot; whilst attaching her to characters of already established canon, ie Sarek.
I was iffy on Captain Gerogiou for a bit, but I warmed to her, until the the mutiny scene when I realised she was definitely going to die next episode. I did think she would be jettisoned into space, with Michael getting the bridge minutes after, but soon as Klingon jesus started fucking with dead bodies I knew she was gonna die there. Which is a shame, because I would have preferred her as the 'lead', and by the time of her demise, was kinda wanting her as a Janeway. I think they wasted her.
Klingons... eugh... there were little things I liked; like the bellow for a dead comrade. But there was the big thing, and it only made me feel angry as time went on. If they didn't immediately establish that they were Klingons, they would have been generic ugly hulking antagonist monsters, and I wouldn't have been able pull them from a line-up. I think Klingon Jesus looked like Odo if he'd encountered Klingons first, and Albino Peter like the Dark Elves from Thor 2. I was so so on them speaking Klingon all the time; yeah the language is cool, but I was eating and looked away for 2 seconds missing fifteen lines of dialogue and plot crucial exposition... mildly inconvenient, but thats nitpicking.
Doug Jones playing Doug Jones, I didn't really like his character; he Doug Jones'd the fuck out of it, but I thought the whole "We evolved to sense death coming" thing, just a tad wank. I like Doug Jones, he was Cochise; arguably one of the most delightful parts of Falling Skies. Its probably my smallest complaint; because there is always a character that can be annoying, but has their moments why you can like or appreciate them. See Wesley Crusher, Jake Sisko, Malcom Reed.
My MVP goes to James Frain. As an actor he has the perfect range and style to be a Vulcan; the emotionless smug that they have. I found him very relatable, and the best part of the whole thing. And the Mindmeld stuff actually stuck with how I've always understood it to work. Although, thinking on 'The Link' as explained in Enterprise, I now think I've watched too much Game of Thrones.
There were other little things I wasn't really keen on, like the Jumpsuits, and that weird robot person, the one who was wearing the same helmet the Romulans put on the Aenar for the telepresence unit. And speaking of Romulans, how the fuck do they not know what a cloaking device is; other than them (and the Earth Romulan War that came with them), Archer encountered the Suliban and at least 1 or 2 more races that employed some form of them. I 'what the fuck''d so loud at that, I woke my mum up; and she snores like an actual sawmill.
The overall theme I pulled from all of it, was hopelessness. It mad me feel sad, and not in a revelationary way like the latest episode of Orville made me feel (but that is a different discussion). I watched Star Trek growing up, because it made me hopeful, it took me away from my crappy life on this crappy planet, with mostly crappy people, and taught me that one day we will have fixed atleast some of the things that are broken with us. This made me feel like life will still be a bleak, hopeless mess. It dragged me along and spoon fed me, and there was no emotional payoff in the big moments.
It's visually spectacular, yet it loses something in the charm, with the big budget they clearly put into it. Its the make-do attitude of the people backstage that made Star Trek what we remember, I think, their budget was usually fairly small, yet they used every scrap to make everything, corny here and there, but in some case absolutely believable. Maybe I'm opposed to change. I liked the Reboot films; the lens glare did get me in the first one a bit, but it did everyone... but they're films, they're meant to be flashy. Wasn't keen on the Uhura-Spock thing, but goddamn I love them all in it. They were different to all the films and series before yet still felt like Star Trek, and altogether something this wasn't... fun.
This tried to be flashy like the Reboot films and deep and meaningful like the Series, yet it came off to me as empty and hollow; bright lights, loud noises, no identity. I had to watch it like it was a completely different program to see the enjoyment in it, I had to pretend it wasn't Star Trek. And I have maybe never felt more passionate about something, than this, which is sad in and of itself (a discussion for later (possibly with a doctor)), I have never had a reaction to something like this before. Normally, you'd have to beat me before I'd write an essay, and I just did... and I just feel like such a dick for doing it, like I'm maybe ruining other people's joy. For anyone who has never seen anything Star Trek before, not that that's the case here, I would recommend it, because it fits with today's model of television.
I will try to give it more of a chance... but I'm not hopeful. Which is the sum of the problem.
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Post by antoniomb on Sept 27, 2017 11:47:39 GMT
As I replied on your Facebook post, I found it really bad for a lot of reasons that I will probably be putting in a video. They are really too many. But just to summarize, it doesn't feel like Star Trek. At least, not the TRUE Star Trek. It feels like they set this series in the JJ-verse, which, in my opinion, is horrible. Plus the myriad of canon errors and other stuff that is completely unbelievable and unrealistic (holocommunicators before DS9? Really? Sensors that can't pick up transporter signals but can pick up a tiny shape in the middle of a desert during a sandstorm? Seriously?)
But anyway, as I said, I will be more detailed in the video.
What surprised me the most, however, was how (almost) everyone ganged up on me just because I had a different opinion than the others. That's not something I expected from Star Trek fans, and you guys in particular. I don't think I'd been arrogant, aggressive, or abusive when I expressed my own thoughts. It's a shame, really.
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Post by Nola on Sept 27, 2017 18:11:33 GMT
Just to be on the safe side, I'd like to ask that we all keep it civil. Friendly debate is good, but we should avoid any heated arguments.
Thank you.
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Post by Nola on Oct 2, 2017 4:32:52 GMT
Episode 3: Curiouser and curiouser... (You'll get it)
- I did my best to temper my expectations for this episode due to my exuberance regarding the first two. I was a little on-guard for the first watch-through (I'll watch it again tomorrow), but I still came away with a positive sense of the episode.
- We are all Cadet Tilly
- I think we have a pretty good idea how the Mirror Universe is going to come into play, now.
- I think we also have a pretty good idea what a black Starfleet badge means.
- Jason Isaacs is our premier actor of pretentious assholes.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2017 8:06:41 GMT
I didn't know there was going to be some mirror universe stuff. :/
My thoughts on the episode: I thought it wasn't as good as the first two episodes, but I'm still curious to see where it goes next. Lots of questions have been asked, I'm looking forward to seeing the answers.
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Post by Nola on Oct 2, 2017 8:10:29 GMT
Frakes let it slip at a convention. The showrunners' response was:
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