Discovery Trailer

MarkB · Oct 2, 2017

Hussar said:
Although, if you think about it, this could tie into the new Trek movies. How did Khan transport from planet to planet? Well, maybe this will explain that. And possibly explain why we don't do it. Of course, the whole accident thing turning you inside out might be a clue.

Given that Discovery is not (to my knowledge) set in the Kelvin timeline, a direct correlation is unlikely. And the explanation from the movies is perfectly sufficient: It's an advanced application of Transporter technology based upon future knowledge, that is still highly classified.

Hand of Evil · Oct 3, 2017

Hussar said:
And, exactly why did they blow up an entire star ship?

Because that is what they do these days in Star Trek.

Ryujin · Oct 3, 2017

Hand of Evil said:
Because that is what they do these days in Star Trek.

The difference here is that they didn't blow up the ship that they were on.

CapnZapp · Oct 3, 2017

When are they gonna learn adding major new pieces of technology (or empires, or races) in a PREQUEL doesn't work?

Stupid body horror tech aside, this idea won't work, on any level:

In-universe, since we haven't heard about stupidly powerful galaxy-wide personal transport.

As a show, since this capability would negate the very premises Trek is built on: why have ships going anywhere if man could just zip there?

And as televised entertainment, when we KNOW the tech is gonna fail eventually, and to do so in such a fashion it is never spoken of again.

The best thing they could do at this point is to have a nice little story arc, and then kill off the tech and the captain in two episodes, so Saru can assume command, and we can go back to this being a Star Trek show.

---

I do see the appeal of exploring the morality of using a new cool but "edgy" tech to win a war.

But couldn't they have used a Trek tech that later would be clearly established? It would have been so much more satisfying if the experimental tech in question was something later shows had perfected.

Rather than some mumbo jumbo bio soup thing that is clearly too powerful for this show... You would have something not easily dismissed: where we in the audience go "could this actually work...?"

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Jester David · Oct 3, 2017

Ryujin said:
Well close, but not quite, at least where I'm concerned. It's Klingons are different for no reason, look like they're wearing rubber masks and Regency chandeliers, and can't act through the make-up. No attempt was made to make the ships look period, when we were promised "Original Trek." The esthetic of the sets is decidedly Kelvin-verse, which I hated. Universe continuity has been broken in innumerable ways.
vs.
A ST:TNG esthetic with Trek-style stories, coupled with a humorous dialogue.

That's my take-away. The Klingons had so much crap in their mouths they could barely talk but had to recite lengthy passages of Klingon text. So even though they used the classic Klingon language it sounded different.
It's not that they couldn't have tweaked the Klingon make-up and costuming. Done an update. But that only needed a 5 in effort. Or a 4. And they went to 11.

I haven't seen the third episode yet. It's on the PVR but my wife - a TNG fan - did a hard pass after seeing the Klingon make-up on the trailer. I pushed her to watch the pilot episodes, but she was not wowed. And I only have so much time alone to watch TV without her. Really, that's limited to stuff I can watch with my son or stuff on Netflix I can watch on the treadmill at the gym. It will be weeks before I can catch up on Discovery.

The Orville was silly and clearly meant to have wacky comedy stylings (rather than Stargate or other Trek shows where the comedy was more grounded. More... high comedy). But it also managed some very classic Trek-style high concept one-off episodes and did them fairly effectively. In contrast, Discovery managed to have three pilots over three episodes and is only just getting started. And two of the three were a prolonged story on how the Federation and Klingon Empire started a war.

I like the concept of a show dealing with how Starfleet fights a war. The conflict between a nation of explorers and scientists trying to wage a war. That's neat, and wasn't touched on much in DS9. But it works best when you've already established the norm. How Starfleet was and the peaceful exploration aspect hasn't been seen in a decade. And I'm kinda gagging for happy optimistic television and Trek at the moment...

Mustrum_Ridcully · Oct 3, 2017

If I understand correctly, the "crap in their mouth" might not be the only thing that is causing it to sound differently - they are also working harder to not just use Klingon words, but also get the grammar right. Apparently that wasn't much focused on in earlier shows, and it's indeed relatively rare to actually hear full Klingon dialog there.

Ryujin · Oct 3, 2017

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
If I understand correctly, the "crap in their mouth" might not be the only thing that is causing it to sound differently - they are also working harder to not just use Klingon words, but also get the grammar right. Apparently that wasn't much focused on in earlier shows, and it's indeed relatively rare to actually hear full Klingon dialog there.

No, there's definitely some obstruction of proper speech going on. You can hear the lisp and slush that comes from having your mouth constrained. That's in addition to the monotone delivery.

Jester David · Oct 4, 2017

Question for people who have seen episode 3:

Do you think it should have been the pilot. With the events of the previous two episodes instead revealed via flashbacks?
Would that be better or worse as a show? Or too Lost/Arrow?

Morrus · Oct 4, 2017

Jester David said:
Question for people who have seen episode 3:

Do you think it should have been the pilot. With the events of the previous two episodes instead revealed via flashbacks?
Would that be better or worse as a show? Or too Lost/Arrow?

I can’t stand flashbacks.

I think it’s just fine as it is.

MarkB · Oct 4, 2017

Jester David said:
Question for people who have seen episode 3:

Do you think it should have been the pilot. With the events of the previous two episodes instead revealed via flashbacks?
Would that be better or worse as a show? Or too Lost/Arrow?

I doubt that would have been as effective. I think we needed to see how far Michael fell in order to appreciate where she is at the start of episode 3.

And we needed to see what the Federation are up against in order to appreciate Discovery's mission more as a matter of desperation than simply blind ambition.