So I started watching Star Trek Discovery ... Why do people not like this show?
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You are going to have to offer more evidence than that. Tardigrades have been my favorite animal since I wrote stories about them in the 4th grade and have been prominent in science fiction for many years. Simply because someone makes a game about them does not mean other science fiction writers even have to be aware of the existence of the game to write about them as well. Simply because any joe sues when someone else uses a similar topic does not mean they actually had any clue their version existed. They are a popular subject after all. In addition, we have no idea when the story was even written in comparison to his game release and sounds like he does not have much of a case:Jute88 said:
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2018/09/11/understanding-the-star-trek-discovery-plagiarism-allegations/
Reminds me of when I was in high school and wrote a poem then a few years later a song came out that had multiple verses word for word identical to my poem. They didn't steal my work of course, it is just how the human mind works. People often have same/similar ideas, that does not in any way mean they stole them from someone else or even was aware of the other's existence.
EDIT: Also the timing of both the game and Start trek Discovery's script does not surprise me that they were about tardigrades and space travel due to the timing of articles put out at the time about how tardigardes could survive space travel and the possibility of alien origin.
Here's Leonard French, the lawyer who defended against Alex Mercer, giving his run down of the court case against Discovery. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sbmdJbQzKIQAbomination said:
It's from two months ago, so I might have forgotten details. I think CBS won based on the fact that tardigrades are real life animals
I think CBS would have won as well due to the story being completely different and the fact that this guy was far from being the first person to imagine that tardigrades were involved in space travel and at the time both his game and the show were written/ imagined tardigrades were in the news frequently in the science community due to the studies being done on them.trunkage said:
Id have to watch the video again. I'm pretty sure tardigrades in the news is not a legal defense. But I didn't read your link. The original game apparently had a gay engineer too, so there were other similaritiesLil devils x said:
Having a gay character is far from being the same story, in addition the character in Tardigrades has a girlfriend that would be comparable to the primary gay character in Discovery. Two different stories.trunkage said:
In the Tardigrades game, it looks like people traveled the universe inside tardigrades, that never happens in Discovery, instead they travel in a ship on a mycelium network and only use a tardigrade to map it and read it for them.
Then the guy goes and picks out characters that have similar physical characteristics to star Trek cast members, but their actual characters have different personalities and roles. Considering the sheer size of any Star Trek cast, it would not be difficult to find numerous characters that would share similar characteristics to most every story out there. It's like omg she has red hair, How can she have red hair when I have a character with red hair?! Really some of his comparisons are absurd.
EDIT: It gets worse, looks like this guy actually ripped off dune rather than Discovery ripping him:
compare:
tardigrades trailer1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIYbDHt5EfU
Dune opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2Nfvc8WMw
Well that was a big following of responses. Sorry for not replying to my own thread (like the arsewipe that I am) but Ido have a good excuse. I wanted to binge watch more episodes when I had time before talking about it somemore and HOLY SHIT THAT WAS A GREAT S1 of Star Trek!
Why oh fucking why did people bad mouth this series? That is hands down one of the coolest collections of Star Trek episodes in a single season.
It didn't end that great and felt disjointed a bit like the first two episodes, but other than that it was great! And the quality of effects and props does not diminish. The most 'plasticy' looking thing was, ironically, the Terran Emperor's broadsword. Still looked better than some of the TNG Klingon weapons, however, so who's complaining?
So just addressing some random comments...
It was aiming high-drama and an officer that quite literally breaks under the pressure. And I think in a way it sells an idea of Burnham being rogue but with legitimately good (though misled) reasons and motives.
It's a functional opener pair of episodes.
That would have been a fun plot of an amoral captain allowed to be amoral because she was predominantly targeting enemy vessels and installations in exchange for not suffering perpetual house arrest.
Would have been a fun non-juxtaposition with Lorca and a figurative monster getting literal acolades by the Federation just simply by being an uncompromising soldier. The entire Federation chanting her name, Michelle Yeoh drinking it up.
It's kind of sad that I Have a sneaking suspicion she'll just be relegated to a minor or major villain role in the future as opposed to what she could have been. Basically that necessary evil that Burnham has to 'balance' between ideals and efficacy as the war shifted into a new high gear in the face of a desperate Federation buoyed by her captain's victories.
That the 'Captain's Chair' in Star Trek was, in prior series, treated almost as if escapism incarnate of the viewer to project onto through the qualities of their captains that have taken that chair. So a lot of the characterisation of casts before is purely 'design the captain first, then have other characters as if bounce off them' precisely because of this.
The whole reason why people drone on incessantly about 'which captain is best' without an actual discussion of theme and mood that the specific series is trying to instill.
The greater focus on the quality of the crew actually better helps sell the idea of Starfleet actually living up to its highest ideals. Showing the crew being great by making them feel as if characters that actually had a life outside Starfleet. So that idea of characters in the background both as fully fleshed characters that don't belong to a captain's cult effectively.
Star Trek Discovery actually offers a moral argument that the bureaucracy is necessary. And it sells that idea better precisely by presenting characters that are uniquely talented and recognizably Starfleet calibur, but may not have necessarily been able to live up to Starfleet ideals without the known weight of signing your name down to wear the uniform.
Why oh fucking why did people bad mouth this series? That is hands down one of the coolest collections of Star Trek episodes in a single season.
It didn't end that great and felt disjointed a bit like the first two episodes, but other than that it was great! And the quality of effects and props does not diminish. The most 'plasticy' looking thing was, ironically, the Terran Emperor's broadsword. Still looked better than some of the TNG Klingon weapons, however, so who's complaining?
So just addressing some random comments...
Well yeah, but is it legitimately worse than a lot of Star Trek pilots?Hawki said:
It was aiming high-drama and an officer that quite literally breaks under the pressure. And I think in a way it sells an idea of Burnham being rogue but with legitimately good (though misled) reasons and motives.
It's a functional opener pair of episodes.
I usually hate everything Mirror Universe ... especially the DS9 episodes dedicated solely to it that just felt like filler, but I thought it was handled pretty well. I would have liked the idea of the replacement Georgiou to lead a prolonged war effort over a number of episodes as if the Federation trying to re-instill hope by getting a great captain back who everyone thought was dead into the captain's chair once more. Of a ship that was singularly capable of creating terror and spreading utmost confusion across Klingon space with its spore drive.Agema said:
That would have been a fun plot of an amoral captain allowed to be amoral because she was predominantly targeting enemy vessels and installations in exchange for not suffering perpetual house arrest.
Would have been a fun non-juxtaposition with Lorca and a figurative monster getting literal acolades by the Federation just simply by being an uncompromising soldier. The entire Federation chanting her name, Michelle Yeoh drinking it up.
It's kind of sad that I Have a sneaking suspicion she'll just be relegated to a minor or major villain role in the future as opposed to what she could have been. Basically that necessary evil that Burnham has to 'balance' between ideals and efficacy as the war shifted into a new high gear in the face of a desperate Federation buoyed by her captain's victories.
I guess? But that being said I think it better explores an idea of being human. TOS wasn't all that professional, however. I think the argument and nature for bureaucracy is stronger in Discovery. Burnham's redemptive arc was surrendering to an idea that rules and decorum are there for a reason. The interpersonal drama is more layered. As per the critique in my OP the way that (and TOS is guilty of this as well) Star Trek has handled the concept of a whimsical captain in the chair that simply flicks their hand with a; "Thatta'way..." is kind of at odds of a interstellar organization that at least bases itself on the highest ideals of order and professionalism.Adam Jensen said:
That the 'Captain's Chair' in Star Trek was, in prior series, treated almost as if escapism incarnate of the viewer to project onto through the qualities of their captains that have taken that chair. So a lot of the characterisation of casts before is purely 'design the captain first, then have other characters as if bounce off them' precisely because of this.
The whole reason why people drone on incessantly about 'which captain is best' without an actual discussion of theme and mood that the specific series is trying to instill.
The greater focus on the quality of the crew actually better helps sell the idea of Starfleet actually living up to its highest ideals. Showing the crew being great by making them feel as if characters that actually had a life outside Starfleet. So that idea of characters in the background both as fully fleshed characters that don't belong to a captain's cult effectively.
Star Trek Discovery actually offers a moral argument that the bureaucracy is necessary. And it sells that idea better precisely by presenting characters that are uniquely talented and recognizably Starfleet calibur, but may not have necessarily been able to live up to Starfleet ideals without the known weight of signing your name down to wear the uniform.
The knowledge of how to send people between the universes is unknown; it happened by chance and Lorca realises a way to do it deliberately.Lil devils x said:
So by the end of Discovery, the Federation knows it can be done and how to do it, but no-one in the mirror universe does because the only mirror universe person with that knowledge - Lorca - died. However, the minute the Federations sends Georgiou or anyone else back, at minimum they'd be telling the mirror universe it can be done, the mirror universe would work on trying to do it, plus a risk it might try to interfere or invade the Federation if it succeeds.
It's therefore safer to restrict the knowledge by keeping Georgiou in Federation universe and making sure she can't get up to anything dodgy. She dies, and the whole issue can sit in quiet, ultra-top secret Federation vault.
* * *
Although I would dispute whether it's an alternate "universe". The universe after all is the entirety of space and time etc. If we have two parallel "bubbles" of space and time between which energy/matter/etc. could be transferred - difficult as it may be - it would mean they are not independent bubbles and thus necessarily comprise the same universe.
We talking about pilot seasons or pilot episodes? If the former, no. If the latter, yes.Addendum_Forthcoming said:
Functional, maybe, but I find the opening episodes very flawed as in:
-The acting feels very stiff. I know that Michael is emotionally reserved, but this extends to the cast as a whole (compare the chemistry between Spock and Kirk for instance)
-It feels very rushed. There's a constant high pace that extends to what moments of downtime we have left.
-It has to dump a lot of exposition very quickly, especially with the klingons and giving the viewer insight into how they operate.
Now, these kind of problems are common for pilot episodes, especially in fantasy/sci-fi (where the setting has to be established along with the characters), but all the flaws you'd expect from a pilot are on full display here.
Pilot episodes ... and what? Really? As much as I like DS9 and Voyager (for different reasons), both of them had really weak starts as well. Though it would be incorrect to call them pilots ... but regardless ... both of them had really weak starts.Hawki said:
Kind of?I kind of wish there was more banter between the prisoners. I honestly don't get why they would, at that moment in the mess hall, decide to attack her. Also I like Lorca and Burnham's relationship. It helped sell the idea that, at the start, there was an edge of darkness that Lorca helped foster in the people around him and that maybe Burnham wasn't entirely on the level and created this alienating idea that something was wrong, only to not go that far ... rather pulled the reins back and sell the idea of genuine affection (however twisted it turned out tobe).
It helped sell the idea that they were only one or two shades of grey from an imagined line.
To be fair they obviously had a very different idea of what they wanted their Star Trek to look like. You need to set up up that;
A: This is in the past.
B: This is not going to have a similar tone to Enterprise.
C: This is not going to have a crew of which feels Enterprise-adjacent. The crew has quirks, less polished around the edges, etc.
It's a lot to ask when prior series have tried to maintain a sense of cohesion that the recent movies have utterly tried to dismantle and reimagine, and Discovery felt like a compromise between the two.
I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that is it essentially a new take with a lot of baggage. That it will (and I believe unfairly or inconsiderately) be compared to other Star Treks, and that the IP itself that has become 'up there' with something like Star Wars in terms of being one of the first things you think when you say 'sci-fi' in terms of mass consumption.
It is unknown in this universe, however it is unknown if Phillippa from the mirror universe either knows how or knows how to find out. That is also unknown. In addition, she is extremely resourceful, intelligent, ruthless, and likely capable of finding ways to do things that others would not be, she was the emperor after all so setting her free means she could go figure out how to move between universes on her own, in addition to her being able to cause all sorts of trouble. Being an Emperor after all, would make her highly unlikely to remain content in some subordinate or peasant role for any amount of time. She isn;t dead, and that is why it is so dangerous to let her roam free, in addition, it is not like she is easy to kill. If they change their minds later any attempt to terminate her would be likely to fail.Agema said:
That's a pretty big leap to make. Though I'd argue the bigger threat of just letting her go is that she's literally wearing the face of one of the most celebrated captains of Starfleet history and few know that she isn't that same person. Secondly she knows how the Mycelial network draws power and can blow up planets and transport a ship anywhere in the universe.Lil devils x said:
Whether she could build it or not is immaterial, someone with more resources and access to enough talent may be willing to buy that power off her. I would argue, however, that with that power she'd be content to stay in this universe if only because she's not being hunted and it's a new challenge to carve out a new empire out of.
There's the flipside that I'm actually kind of hoping for. That in the future she takes up a sweetheart deal commission with Starfleet because the Federation thinks they can keep her under thumb. I was honestly hoping for more episodes ofthe war continuing on with her in the captain's chair as if a morale booster to the battered Starfleet forces, and Burnham as if trying to keep her on the straight and narrow. As she ends up solidifying more public support through her accolades and begins undermining on the side the ideals of the Federation by being such a prominent face and 'heroine' of the war and she using that prestige to foster a streak of militarism amongst humanity.
I reckon that could have been a fantastic plot. Plus it would have been better than the whole bomb thing. And given that Mirror Georgiou has every reason to prosecute the war brutally, is a better way for certain prominent Klingons to reach out looking for peace to sympathetic characters and thus formulating a calculated plan to discredit Georgiou who has every reason not to seek peace, but rather prosecute the war as long as possible to maintain her political aspirations. A human that reflects the Klingon's aspirations of unity through naked strength and beats them at their own game through her calculated savagery. Someone who acts as both an enemy agitator as well as a 'champion' of the Federation.
That way it serves as a better admonishment of the Klingon's rage and militarism that is perfectly reciprocated in Georgiou. War begets war, Federation ideals, peace > strength, we can be our own worst enemy, yadda yadda yadda.
Not only that but the story would have flowed better. And it also seems like something she would have done. If she were forced to live in this universe, why wouldn't she try to reshape it in her image? Starfleet practically gave her the key to do so by creating a fallacy of her heroic return, as if from death itself emerging at the Federation's darkest hour.
I mean, c'mon. Put yourslf in her shoes. That would be something she'd do, right?
Get some shades of Kirk in The Undiscovered Country, only by design.
I always figured the Klingon/Federation "neutral zone" with apparent kill-on-entrance treaty rules kind of implied a big, fat war in the not-too-distant past, a la the Korean peninsula demilitarized zone.
What bugs me the most is that it isn?t post DS9/Voyager.
Star Trek to me is about forward thinking, looking at what comes next etc. They could have done the new show as 200 years after the most recent, and that big gap means you can fix idiosyncrasies and issues with the setting.
Deciding that the new series meeded to take place between the red headed stepshild series and the original gangster series was dumb.
Star Trek to me is about forward thinking, looking at what comes next etc. They could have done the new show as 200 years after the most recent, and that big gap means you can fix idiosyncrasies and issues with the setting.
Deciding that the new series meeded to take place between the red headed stepshild series and the original gangster series was dumb.
Because it's not a Trek show and they ripped it off from an indie game. It's a lot more than just the Tardigrade.
I got lost in between the quote wall.trunkage said:
Where'd you find that info? I'm not seeing it in the previous posts and the only recent item I can find in a search might be in a 2 hour long podcast. Part of the issue here is that I have not seen the show myself, so I can't form an opinion from experience. All I've heard relates to the similarities between the two and a lot of it explaining some of the weirder things in the first season. That, and CBS busting their ass to rewrite and reshoot scenes for the second season.
I haven't watched it and don't plan to. I do love Michelle Yeoh, certainly her older martial arts films at any rate, but don't know or care about the rest of the cast. The only Trek series I liked was TNG, and never watched any of the later series.
While I cannot speak first hand, I have heard what people are saying about the show. Most of the criticisms are combination of one of more of:
- It plays out as any sci-fi action show, not like Trek.
- It's shot more like a Hollywood production than Trek, generally very dark. The lighting in general is a frequent cause of complaint.
- Individual scenes are poorly established and don't look or feel like previous shows. Bad cinematography.
- Changes that "contradict" (or make no sense in the context of) established canon. The new drives for example as well as the different look of the Klingons everyone's familiar with.
- Having major plots already in the shows first season, before it's even had a chance to find its feet.
- Social justice, diversity, inclusion. A "gay storyline" is very prominent.
- Behind the scenes shenanigans. Showrunners already replaced, lots of other controversies.
- People don't care much for the characters/casting.
- Not appealing to fans of old Trek, trying to appeal to a different/broader audience.
Those are all the ones I can remember hearing. There were probably others I've forgotten. Discovery might have had more success without the Star Trek name attached by all accounts...it's a "good sci fi show" but a bad "Star Trek show". Doesn't appeal to me, but then I didn't watch DS9, Voyager or Enterprise either and even TOS I'm not so fussed for, while crediting it for the undoubted cultural influence it's had. TNG was IMO lightning in a bottle, made by the stellar main cast playing characters we cared about.
While I cannot speak first hand, I have heard what people are saying about the show. Most of the criticisms are combination of one of more of:
- It plays out as any sci-fi action show, not like Trek.
- It's shot more like a Hollywood production than Trek, generally very dark. The lighting in general is a frequent cause of complaint.
- Individual scenes are poorly established and don't look or feel like previous shows. Bad cinematography.
- Changes that "contradict" (or make no sense in the context of) established canon. The new drives for example as well as the different look of the Klingons everyone's familiar with.
- Having major plots already in the shows first season, before it's even had a chance to find its feet.
- Social justice, diversity, inclusion. A "gay storyline" is very prominent.
- Behind the scenes shenanigans. Showrunners already replaced, lots of other controversies.
- People don't care much for the characters/casting.
- Not appealing to fans of old Trek, trying to appeal to a different/broader audience.
Those are all the ones I can remember hearing. There were probably others I've forgotten. Discovery might have had more success without the Star Trek name attached by all accounts...it's a "good sci fi show" but a bad "Star Trek show". Doesn't appeal to me, but then I didn't watch DS9, Voyager or Enterprise either and even TOS I'm not so fussed for, while crediting it for the undoubted cultural influence it's had. TNG was IMO lightning in a bottle, made by the stellar main cast playing characters we cared about.
This is probably not a bad summary of the complaints. I'll go one by one
I do like that we AREN'T follow the captain on some misadventure becuase that's never made sense.
Not like TNG or TOS. Very much like DS9, and I know a lot of people hated that series because it was different from TNG. I see that as a plus, because I don't like TNG.KingsGambit said:
Very true. I personally think TNG looks likes a hospital ward. Clinical, clean, uncaring. I don't know whether this is better though, as it isn't much better.
I'd like to find more info about this. Just in general? Compared to the old series? I don't think they were that great either but anyway. Discovery's story doesn't flit all over the place, so maybe that's part of it.
Literally happened in every series. But being forewarned that they are changing it again would be a good idea for anyone.
Absolutely like the show more because of this.
gay people existing is always a problem
Ah, that explains why the first episode is terrible and so mismatched with the rest of the series
Yeah, I'd agree. Saru and Tilly are the only interesting ones. But TNG kept on having Crushers involved and that was the pits. Or Troi. Couldn't care less about Worf or Riker either. Data was the only character that grew, but had a stick up his ass (see also holographic Doctor.) Picard is so pompous... Sorry, I'll stop now
I do like that we AREN'T follow the captain on some misadventure becuase that's never made sense.
See point 1. Its not like TNG or TOS but is like the later series