So I just finished watching episode 6 and I just wanted to ask why there is so much negativity around this reimagining about the series? It has complexity, heart, interesting character dynamics, shot competently, pretty good effects, I really like Stamets. Stamets is like a real scientist. I've worked with people like this personally. A bit of ego, and inexhaustible energy for all the things that excite them. The whole reason why they spend their lives dedicated to that one thing despite a perpetually crappy pay cheque.
Now the first two episodes had some pacing and weird plot issues, but what exactly is wrong with that?
It's obviously trying to plumb some deeper character drama than most Star Trek series, thus making it seem more interpersonal focussed. But surely that's a good thing on its own, right?
Not only that but by having it focus on the character of Michael Burnham it helps sell the idea of a person caught between the class layers between a somewhat disturbed captain, a neurodivergent Tilly and Stamets, a sharp-tongued Saru, the (likeably) stoic soldier in the form of Lieutenant Tyler... which helps sell the idea of what it means to serve and be in service to something greater in terms of the moral complexities of war and belonging to an interstellar society that in its own sense of ruthless performance and 'esteem of the uniform' would create a streak of 'the weird' in people. Something that wasn't really captured in other takes of the property.
In a lot of Star Trek series it sells the meritocracy of Starfleet, but always paints an escapism of a central, commanding authority by which the viewer is meant to project a latent egotistical connection to that has a uniquely liberal bent that, in truth of belonging to such a massive interstellar institution, wouldn't actually exist. An escapism that is directly contradictory to that meritocracy to begin with. Service begets merit--not whim.
And it's kind of refreshing for Star Trek to actually examine that idea of an element of being shackled by the obvious bureaucracy that would exist ... and also quietly admonish the egotistical escapism of viewers of the past projecting onto former captains of past series, painted as if larger than life when in truth they would be no less shackled by the systems that made them in the first place. The systems that demand decorum and regimentation of service that all of us face regardless of our personal successes that is the reality of our lives.
Lorca's mental illness, for instance, even going so far as to allow the capture of the one person that by design sought to ground him and the show painting that as if a manifestation of his broken mind is a pretty searing indictment on how prior series have treated the role of once central figures.
And sure ... I can get why people might be pissed off with such commentary, but it's pretty good commentary IMO about a key weirdness of Star Trek that it has always seemed to pander to that egotistical escapism the viewer secretly desires. That captain's chair as if an infantile idea of what it actually means to be in command and the laundry list of responsibilities that come with it that are, in truth, far more restrictive than one would like to actually imagine they are.
Prior antagonists that sought to challenge such characters in the past have been painted as villainous or petty-minded. And no, this is a person that genuinely cares about him and he betrays her and it has real consequences. His paranoia for self-preservation goes so far as to hurt the people that truly want him to get better.
I don't get the hate, personally. I feel like the set up and premise are pretty damn tight.
If the key reason why people don't like it is purely because it gets progressively worse, that I can understand--But there seemed to be a kneejerk negativity about the series from day 1.
Now the first two episodes had some pacing and weird plot issues, but what exactly is wrong with that?
It's obviously trying to plumb some deeper character drama than most Star Trek series, thus making it seem more interpersonal focussed. But surely that's a good thing on its own, right?
Not only that but by having it focus on the character of Michael Burnham it helps sell the idea of a person caught between the class layers between a somewhat disturbed captain, a neurodivergent Tilly and Stamets, a sharp-tongued Saru, the (likeably) stoic soldier in the form of Lieutenant Tyler... which helps sell the idea of what it means to serve and be in service to something greater in terms of the moral complexities of war and belonging to an interstellar society that in its own sense of ruthless performance and 'esteem of the uniform' would create a streak of 'the weird' in people. Something that wasn't really captured in other takes of the property.
In a lot of Star Trek series it sells the meritocracy of Starfleet, but always paints an escapism of a central, commanding authority by which the viewer is meant to project a latent egotistical connection to that has a uniquely liberal bent that, in truth of belonging to such a massive interstellar institution, wouldn't actually exist. An escapism that is directly contradictory to that meritocracy to begin with. Service begets merit--not whim.
And it's kind of refreshing for Star Trek to actually examine that idea of an element of being shackled by the obvious bureaucracy that would exist ... and also quietly admonish the egotistical escapism of viewers of the past projecting onto former captains of past series, painted as if larger than life when in truth they would be no less shackled by the systems that made them in the first place. The systems that demand decorum and regimentation of service that all of us face regardless of our personal successes that is the reality of our lives.
Lorca's mental illness, for instance, even going so far as to allow the capture of the one person that by design sought to ground him and the show painting that as if a manifestation of his broken mind is a pretty searing indictment on how prior series have treated the role of once central figures.
And sure ... I can get why people might be pissed off with such commentary, but it's pretty good commentary IMO about a key weirdness of Star Trek that it has always seemed to pander to that egotistical escapism the viewer secretly desires. That captain's chair as if an infantile idea of what it actually means to be in command and the laundry list of responsibilities that come with it that are, in truth, far more restrictive than one would like to actually imagine they are.
Prior antagonists that sought to challenge such characters in the past have been painted as villainous or petty-minded. And no, this is a person that genuinely cares about him and he betrays her and it has real consequences. His paranoia for self-preservation goes so far as to hurt the people that truly want him to get better.
I don't get the hate, personally. I feel like the set up and premise are pretty damn tight.
If the key reason why people don't like it is purely because it gets progressively worse, that I can understand--But there seemed to be a kneejerk negativity about the series from day 1.
