Discovery Trailer

Water Bob · Aug 1, 2017

Morrus said:
I wonder if we’ll see the Enterprise. This is 10 years before Kirk, so the USS Enterprise is already in service, isn’t it? Under Pike?

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Or, possibly, April. Do we really know how long Pike was in command? I've seen conflicting stories.

That link I have above says that Discovery might be yet another timeline all by itself. That is starts in the Prime Timeline and something happens....

And, the lead, the black girl from Walking Dead (whom I like, from what I've seen), is....Spock's adopted sister!

Jhaelen · Aug 1, 2017

Hussar said:
I mean, a LOT of Star Trek is very, very boring. People talking in boardrooms endlessly. It's not like TOS was low on action. There were action sequences in virtually every episode. Kirk had to get his shirt ripped somehow. Then you had ST:TMP, and it was a snooze fest. That was one long, boring movie.

I guess it's true that Star Trek works better as a TV show than as blockbuster movies.
Personally, my favorite Star Trek incarnation was 'The Next Generation'. I suppose I'm just a fan of 'people talking in boardrooms endlessly'. What you found boring I found thought-provoking and interesting.

Jester David · Aug 1, 2017

MarkB said:
That's what I was wondering. The whole point of Star Trek as an anthology show is that it gets to tackle different kinds of stories each week. One episode it's an action movie, the next it's a detective story, the one after that it's a romance or a straight-up comedy.

Which might not be the case here. It's hasn't been sold as an episodic or anthology show, but instead one big story like the Netflix Marvel series.

MarkB · Aug 1, 2017

Jester David said:
Which might not be the case here. It's hasn't been sold as an episodic or anthology show, but instead one big story like the Netflix Marvel series.

It's been sold as having a strong story arc, but that doesn't stop it from focusing on different individual themes and stories each week. Plenty of other shows manage that balance, including previous Star Trek series.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Aug 3, 2017

Jester David said:
Agreed.

Kim was bland as eff. Chakotay had no personality beyond being being First Nations. Tuvok was just a cookie cutter Vulcan, basically Spock with the "science" removed and nothing added.
Nelix wasn't just annoying, but was an unsympathetic, controlling, and abusive boyfriend. Who spent his time on the ship being flagrantly culturally insensitive to Tuvok. Ass.

Voyager just approached its concept poorly. As you say, too many stories were "here's a way home... can you take it?" But, of course, we all know the attempt will fail. Because then the story will end.
Instead, the focus should have been on a Battlestar Galactica survival. They need to find resources, and survive and the how is the issue. What do they do to survive? Where do they draw the line and what hard choices do they make?
It probably would have been better served with more serialized storytelling. Stories in arcs of 2-5 as they pass through the territory of new races and then move on.

Battlestar Galactica is bascially what Voyager had been if Ron Moore had been running it instead of DS9.
Though honestly, I don't think he could have done VOY the way he did BSG then. He needed the experience of DS9 and maybe see what went wrong with VOY, and gain more experience, to make BSG.
Quite possibly it might also have required CGI advances... Stuff like the deterioration of the Galactica over the series (though it's not really constantly happening)... It's not so easy if you really need to reuse old footage.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Aug 3, 2017

Jester David said:
The thing is, every science fiction show in the last five years or so had really cranked up the darkness of the set and contrasted it with bright blue lighting.
Part of that is for Orange/Blue contrast reasons:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContrast
http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/

Battlestar Galactica takes some of the blame of this. Especially for hallways design. (It's CIC was comparatively bright.)
But you can see its influence in Stargate Universe. And the recent cropping of shows on Syfy. Dark, harder futures where the "worn" sci-fi of Star Wars meets the Noir of Blade Runner.

Star Trek has managed to eschew that until now. Doing its own thing and setting its own tone. An optimistic, hopeful tone.
But now, if you remove the obvious Trek logo, the shots look like every other generic sci-if crapsack dark future show on television:

View attachment 86467

How does a generic sci fi "bridge/CIC" setting actually look like?

I can only think of the non-generic ones, like Alien, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Dark Matter, and they all seem just different in their layout and organization to some extent.
I don't think the only distinction is colors... Or that it's even a meaningful one.

Deep Space Nine changed the aesthetics a lot, but it kinda masked that over by being on an alien space station. But the lighting is different, and it's particularly noticeable in space, where there is a stronger contrast between dark and light and the dark is really dark. They basically inverted the color scheme on the uniforms, too, leading to a much darker look, that was later adopted to Voyager. I believe a big reason for the stronger contrast might have been that we had more and more shoots of things that really were in space, and it was basically an attempt to make it more realistic.

Jester David · Aug 4, 2017

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
How does a generic sci fi "bridge/CIC" setting actually look like?

I can only think of the non-generic ones, like Alien, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Dark Matter, and they all seem just different in their layout and organization to some extent.
I don't think the only distinction is colors... Or that it's even a meaningful one.

You don't often just get a look at the bridge. Typical cinematography gives you the 3/4 shot of the cast member at their position, focusing on one crew member at a time for more dramatic scenes. I always knew what the bridge of the Enterprise D looked like because they had these wide shots, but the bridge of Voyager or Ops on DS9 were harder to mentally picture.

Because of that, the colours of the scene and look of the bridge matters as much as its actual layout. In this case, it's the standard gunmetal floors, walls, and consoles and strategic bright blue lighting. All to contrast the faces of the actors in their dark uniforms against the backgrounds.

Water Bob · Aug 20, 2017

There's a couple of new trailers out.

CLICK HERE.

Looks like it could be a mix of Old Trek and Abrams. Or, it could be just Abrams. It's definitely not just Old Trek, as it was advertised.

Still, it could be good. I'm excited about it.

But, Old Trek, it is not. Which is a tad disappointing, too.

I really like the look of the Shenzou. It fills the screen early in the trailer.

At about 0:53, you see the Discovery, which still looks like hell.

Jester David · Sep 14, 2017

CBS Won't Allow Any Reviews of Star Trek: Discovery Before It Airs

http://io9.gizmodo.com/cbs-wont-allow-any-reviews-of-star-trek-discovery-befo-1809073782

That's... not a good sign.

Ryujin · Sep 14, 2017

Jester David said:
CBS Won't Allow Any Reviews of Star Trek: Discovery Before It Airs

http://io9.gizmodo.com/cbs-wont-allow-any-reviews-of-star-trek-discovery-befo-1809073782

That's... not a good sign.

It's understandable if they are trying to use the show as a tentpole production with which to lure people into signing up for their streaming service, and don't want potential viewers to be swayed by potential bad or luke-warm reviews.

... especially if it sucks.