Discovery Trailer

[Jester David]

With Voyager, and all the battles they went through, we should have seen the ship more as a character--as it deteriorates more and more as the series goes on. There are no Starbases for repairs refits. The crew has to jury-rig what it can't replicate. That ship should have been held together by toothpicks and gum wrappers, MacGuyver style, at the end of its run. The hull should be discolored at the end, showing alien vessel parts grafted to the hull with a hope and a prayer.

Totally agree.
I was always dissapointed they never slowly updated the model to reflect the damage and repairs, new tech poorly integrated, alien patch jobs, and the like.

 

[Jester David]

Just showed the second trailer to Mrs. Jester. Her reaction:
"They can call it Star Trek all they want, that doesn't make it true. If anything, that second trailer made me less excited. It looks more like that other show we're watching right now [Dark Matter on Netflix] than Star Trek."

Interestingly, when watching the trailer, I had to turn up the brightness on my iPad. Twice. It's such a dark show. While it's been called out as similar to the Abrams films, those were bright and colourful. The ships were all white and full of lens flares. This is just grim and grey and bleak...

 

[Ryujin]

With Voyager, and all the battles they went through, we should have seen the ship more as a character--as it deteriorates more and more as the series goes on. There are no Starbases for repairs refits. The crew has to jury-rig what it can't replicate. That ship should have been held together by toothpicks and gum wrappers, MacGuyver style, at the end of its run. The hull should be discolored at the end, showing alien vessel parts grafted to the hull with a hope and a prayer.

Instead Voyager came back to the Federation as the most powerful ship in the fleet; Borg armour and shields, Borg and Federation weaponry, engines improved via alien tech....

 

[Ryujin]

The esthetic still doesn't strike me as particularly "Star Treky" but it looks much better to me in the lighting of the photo shoot, than it does in the trailers.

http://trekmovie.com/2017/07/27/wat...ery-cover-shoot-from-sets-of-u-s-s-discovery/

 

[Morrus]

The esthetic still doesn't strike me as particularly "Star Treky" but it looks much better to me in the lighting of the photo shoot, than it does in the trailers.

http://trekmovie.com/2017/07/27/wat...ery-cover-shoot-from-sets-of-u-s-s-discovery/

I don’t really know what a “Star Trek aesthetic” is. Are you saying that Wrath of Khan and The Next Generation have a shared aesthetic that this lacks? Or that TOS and Star Trek: Generations look at all similar? That DS9 and ST:TMP look like they’re even vaguely related? There is no single Star Trek aesthetic.

 

[Hussar]

Other than maybe in ship design. Maybe. But as far as anything else goes? Not even remotely.

People tend to forget that once upon a time, Klingons didn't have bumpy heads. Completely radical shift in appearance that was not explained for a very, very long time. Trek canon is pretty darn loosey goosey.

 

[Morrus]

Other than maybe in ship design. Maybe. But as far as anything else goes? Not even remotely.

People tend to forget that once upon a time, Klingons didn't have bumpy heads. Completely radical shift in appearance that was not explained for a very, very long time. Trek canon is pretty darn loosey goosey.

Yep. This is actually the fourth Klingon appearance. TOS, TOS movies/TNG, reboot movies, Discovery. They seem to change in appearance every time somebody has a hot dinner.

 

[Jester David]

I don’t really know what a “Star Trek aesthetic” is. Are you saying that Wrath of Khan and The Next Generation have a shared aesthetic that this lacks? Or that TOS and Star Trek: Generations look at all similar? That DS9 and ST:TMP look like they’re even vaguely related? There is no single Star Trek aesthetic.

I think it's mostly the lighting. Star Trek tends to be bright. Even in the movies it was mostly pretty illuminated, save a few scenes on planets and during Search for Spock. Contrast this with Discovery, where every interiour shot in the trailer seems dark.
Trek is normally the opposite of "The Future is Noir" ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFutureIsNoir ). Discovery looks much more like the Expanse or Dark Matter.

The one exception I can think of was the lighting change between ST:tNG the show and Star Trek Generations where it looks like 2/3rds of the light in the Enterprise burned out. But that was because they were using television sets that were made for far lower resolutions and wouldn't look well on the big screen. Dimming the lights hit the seams and imperfections.

 

[Morrus]

I think it's mostly the lighting. Star Trek tends to be bright. Even in the movies it was mostly pretty illuminated, save a few scenes on planets and during Search for Spock. Contrast this with Discovery, where every interiour shot in the trailer seems dark.
Trek is normally the opposite of "The Future is Noir" ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFutureIsNoir ). Discovery looks much more like the Expanse or Dark Matter.

The one exception I can think of was the lighting change between ST:tNG the show and Star Trek Generations where it looks like 2/3rds of the light in the Enterprise burned out. But that was because they were using television sets that were made for far lower resolutions and wouldn't look well on the big screen. Dimming the lights hit the seams and imperfections.

I dunno. Wrath of Khan - the best Trek movie by far! - is pretty dark. I think the bright stuff is more TOS (series) and TNG.



STVI is fairly dark in palette, too.



And this is the Defiant bridge.

 

[Jester David]

I dunno. Wrath of Khan - the best Trek movie by far! - is pretty dark. I think the bright stuff is more TOS (series) and TNG.

STVI is fairly dark in palette, too.


And this is the Defiant bridge.

The difference is one of contrast. While the movies were darker (having more shadows) there was a lot more colour. The uniforms popped against the darkness. Even in Search For Spock (and the even darker Klingon bridge in Voyage Home they gave Kirk the bright red jacket.

Check out these shots from The Expanse:
View attachment 86445
View attachment 86444
View attachment 86443

And these from Dark Matter:
View attachment 86446
View attachment 86447
View attachment 86448

And Killjoys:
View attachment 86450
View attachment 86449

Dim lighting, lots of black and high contrast, darker costumes, and lots of blue mood lighting.
The future is lit by high contrast blue lights.

For example, go to the trailer of Discovery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPVdbsG4bY
Grab the time button and scroll from side to side looking at the thumbnails at the bottom of the video and just look at how many are dark or outright black.
View attachment 86454

It's hard to tell what's an exterior space shot, a caption, or an interiour shot of the ship.
Then compare that with the Abrams Trek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFUZ10Wmbw
Or the original TNG trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtmsI07AMsE
Or the Motion Picture trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLlV_JVtO5c

And here's Wrath of Khan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJTi7KJPx_E

They're dark, but not noir dark. Heck, in Discovery, even the desert planet was cloudy and overcast...