Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[SteelPlatedHeart]

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/wil-wh...-detailed-star-trek-lower-decks-pitch.118271/

Wheaton trying REALLY hard to get back into Star Trek shows.

 

[Retink]

DS9 was still Star Trek because even during war, what mattered the most in each episode where the morals and ideas that were contrasted to each other. Every other episode of Star Trek, from TOS to VOY, is about a group of people encountering others with different moralities and the cultural clash. Sometimes that cultural clash is funny, sometimes is meant to be drama. But the idea is that the audience thinks "mmm, what would I do it if I was in that situation?" And there were instances when Starfleet was plain wrong.

To me, my favorite episode to portray this was Pen Pals. The whole crew discusses why they should or shouldn't help the planet that's about to blow up and I think all the positions they took were very valid, from "no, we can't navigate the galaxy saving people like we're God" to "maybe our presence at this precise moment is part of the cosmic plan".

New Trek is about how we humans in the 21th Century are all wrong and the writers of the show are right.

This is very much the case, as the point of Star Trek is to explore the complexities of a situation, so even in a case like DS9, the war isn't just constant action, it's a lot of the down time where there's sabre rattling, planning, what happens after a battle, and so on. The other thing is, is that the war didn't conflict with the established universe, as the Dominion was an external threat and not just some evil Federation faction wanting to genocide Datas because they hate black people or something.

A show that really captures the Star Trek vibe at times without being Star Trek is Stargate: Universe. It's a lot more about exploration and the weakest parts for me were the ones where they fell back on old Stargate tropes. It was also a show that really explored a lot of weird sci-fi stuff in new ways which can show that there's more ways to approach the topic than pew-pew lasers.

 

[Muppetstudios]

One thing DS9 did that is completely underrated was originality created an entirely new civilisation in the Dominion with its distinct races and expanded on minor species like the Ferengi and the Breen

It's a bit like Marvel making lesser known characters like Guardians of the Galaxy popular by just giving them screen time

At least when the Borg where in Vouager they had interesting stories that built on established canon (the conflict with species 8472 for example)

It's the Star Wars thing of everyone being related to a previous character, I enjoyed Sulu's daugter on the Enterprise B in Generations as a nice nod but we don't need Brent Spiner playing 30 ancestors of Dr Soong)

I haven't watched Picard I'll just wait till The Orville

 

[Captain Syrup]

Even the other actors know he's deranged. de Lancie wishes he could be disappear for real.

They saw him for what he was.

Wheaton keeps trying to put himself over, at the expense of people he's "interviewing."

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Everyone can see Wheaton for what he is

It's why the only mainstream, non voice gig he could get in the past 30 years was a role on Big Bang Theory, because he's the only person that could be more insufferable than those 4 autismos.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

As funny as it sounds, I know want a canon explanation of what the borg do with obese people.

Rendered down for biofuel. The borg are all about green technology.

Look how green their tech is.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

It's the Star Wars thing of everyone being related to a previous character, I enjoyed Sulu's daugter on the Enterprise B in Generations as a nice nod but we don't need Brent Spiner playing 30 ancestors of Dr Soong)

Current writers don't get that the reason to make Brent Spiner play Soong was because, in context, the original Dr. Soong wanted to preserve his own legacy and identity through Data (and Lore). The idea behind was that we, the audience, know Brent Spiner as the robotic version of a human, and when we finally met him, the human is how Data should have looked if he had been born a real human being. Basically, Soong's "son" as he intended.

I know other treks have done the same, but it's equally cheap and retarded.

They saw him for what he was.

Wheaton kept trying to put himself over, at the expense of people he's "interviewing."

It's sad that, despite he was part of the original cast, his character is not more relevant than Q. Q is what sets the story and the final episode. Q is also more likeable and well remembered by fans than Wesley. Boo hoo.

 

[Oats12345]

Honselty I don't blame the actors. Even it I had the same political views as Wheaton (which the cast does) I would still view him as a sperg (which I have a feeling the cast does as well).

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Honselty I don't blame the actors. Even it I had the same political views as Wheaton (which the cast does) I would still view him as a sperg (which I have a feeling the cast does as well).

Didnt he supposedly have some, shall we say, "inappropriate" interactions with a not-interested Roxanne Dawson? I remember hearing a story about that once.

Politics notwithstanding, as the archetypical washed up chd star still obnoxiously clinging to his minor celebrity he'd be intolerable to work with.

 

[Oats12345]

Didnt he supposedly have some, shall we say, "inappropriate" interactions with a not-interested Roxanne Dawson? I remember hearing a story about that once.

Politics notwithstanding, as the archetypical washed up chd star still obnoxiously clinging to his minor celebrity he'd be intolerable to work with.

I never heard about that story. I wouldnt be shock if he had problems with Roxanne Dawson considering she's one of the few Trek actors who are not a liberal.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

Tomorrow. Tomorrow we find out just how bad it can get.

 

[Allanon]

Isn't this the plot of that black thing that killed Tasha Yar?


As funny as it sounds, I know want a canon explanation of what the borg do with obese people.

The serious answer to this question is that obese borg will slim down over time. Because Borg don't eat but are instead sustained, either their own metabolism or the nanotech inside them will burn off the excess fat. If they are so morbidly obese that they're useless as drones and it is safe to do so (that is, their species isn't Hutt or some other naturally tubby thing) they'll likely immediately convert the fat to energy, or remove it surgically, whichever is more expedient and useful. You, too, can get fit and healthy with zero effort for the low cost of extreme, sometimes lifelong, trauma. (assuming you are eventually freed from the collective)

I would assume it involves a high-energy plasma chamber and a phosphorous reclamation process?



Their attitude with Star Wars was that it isn't much of a big deal that the franchise took a nosedive, now that it has happened to a franchise they actually care about, it doesn't look like such a small issue anymore, I guess.

I've voice Mike's opinion in the SW thread a few years ago, the new stuff might not be something I have to watch or even consider canon, but it is going to be the foundation of everything going forward and for instance knowing that Han Solo will be a deadbeat loser dad, who lost his wife, son and ship for being stupid, dying like a bitch at the hands of his whiny school-shooter son... well, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth when watching the old stuff.

Star Trek used to be this optimistic version of humanity's future, where we might have to deal with problems both external (such as alien threats) and internal (conflict of interest within the Federation), but overall, it was a worldview of a unified humanity that for the most part tries to learn and grow, only ever falling back to the use of weapons when every other possibility had been tried.
Every person was allowed to grow and do what they want. Every person was free to live life in a way that benefits them and others. Sure, some unfortunate implications could be twisted into a view where this Utopia is utterly dystopic if you fail to life up to the Federation's expectations, but that was essentially making bad faith arguments, since it's so clear that the whole thing is supposed to be a Utopia for mankind. Exploring those unfortunate implications and showing the bad side of the Federation could be interesting, but we didn't get that, we got Admiral FUCKING HUBRIS and whatever the fuck this Cuddle-Borg-Bullshit of Picard's latest episode is.

What did these modern writers make of Star Trek's setting? A fascist Federation and Starfleet, terrible people doing terrible things, everything's WHOA CRAZY ACTION BULLET TIME EXPLODING HEADS DECAPITATION EXTREME EXTREME LOOK AT THIS OH GOD BLOOD GORE EXPLOSIONS SPARKS EXPLOSIONS FAT TILLY EXPLOSIONS CORPSES DESTRUCTION HATE HATE H A T E .
I am so sick and tired. What is this setting? What did these people think they were doing? NuTrek is so dumb. It lacks any nuance and it is a child's idea of AWESUM.

The social commentary is so painful and bad, too. It manages to be insanely bland and vapid at the same time. POLICE BRUTALITY BAD RACISM BAD. Sure. Thanks for the amazing insight. Never would have guessed that. It's just such a massively brave statement and opinion to publically express in face of all the overwhelming consensus. It is STUNNING and -dare I even say it?- BRAVE to make such bold claims in a sea of identical opinions.

The snippet of Will Wheaton (that cock-gargling abomination) doing an interview and asking the actors if it wasn't too intense to play alongside those ICE characters. Give me a fucking break. Not only are these ICE dudes in nuTrek so comically, cartoonishly one-dimensional and evil, they make Gargamel look like a complex character, but also it's fucking actors portraying these garbage characters.

Stop treating grown-ups like fucking toddlers.


Genetically engineered curvy Borg-chicks that possess perfect mighty mommy milkers?

In fairness, I think if something goes bad and its separated by tv shows, it's easier to ignore than if it goes bad during the same show - or arguably even movie series. What I mean is: Let's say you want Luke and Leia to hook up. Return of the Jedi ruins this formostpeople because it shows they're siblings. It's almost impossible to ignore this watching the earlier movies in the trilogy because it's information revealed in that trilogy. By comparison, it's less difficult to ignore Luke will become another Yoda or that Luke's mom died of sadness while watching the movies, and it's easy to ignore that the New Republic is incompetent according to Mandolorian, or that Luke will marry Mara Sue according to the books.

Doctor Who takes this approach directly to its own canon, where it doesn't even bother to retcon the time the Master turned into a snake or when the Eighth Doctor said he was half-human, it just ignores it entirely because that was a movie and not the show. The female Doctor and the fact that the Doctor used up a bunch of regenerations basically offscreen, though, we're stuck with, because the bad writers there were with the TV show. Getting on topic: new stuff for Star Wars isn't that big of a deal because you can ignore it, and with Star Trek you can also basically just ignore it all. Picard isn't TNG, it's even less than a parallel timeline shown in the tv show. TNG doesn't even end on a cliffhanger that Picard resolves - like you could argue if they made a show about Sisko coming back or how the crew handled returning to the Alpha Quadrant in Voyager - so there is no reason to ever think about Picard in the sense of 'tainting' the characters. Understandably because he cares about the show he feels more dramatic about it, but his take that it ultimately doesn't matter much is the accurate one.

I think this is what DS9 gets right. It's suspicious of how the Federation works and can see some corruption and lack of empathy toward groups like the Maquis who get stomped underfoot treaties and being told "lol just move to a new planet lmao." But DS9 ultimately comes down on the side of the Federation's (and Star Trek's) ideals. Despite all the things wrong with the Federation, humanity can and will improve itself and can and will do the right thing in the end. Nu-Trek just believes it all sucks and is bad and is a dystopia.

DS9 examined and explored the flaws that must still exist even within a utopia - and it did it in the obvious way of removing characters from their utopia and putting them in a dystopia and seeing how they function. To a certain degree all of Star Trek has been about this, DS9 just took a stronger magnifying glass to it, and looked at more extreme situations. It never argued that the Federation was bad or wrong inherently, just that it was ill-suited to handle certain challenges because of how long it lived undisturbed in its little utopia. And while it challenged a lot of those views it generally settled on 'although the answer may not be perfect it is still the best one'. NuTrek ignores that it's a utopia at all, and then it criticizes the Federation for being out of touch and insular. The entire tone is wrong, because DS9 came from the perspective of "The humans are doing something right because they live in a successful utopia and if left alone they are beyond the flaws of the current human condition....but what happens when they are removed from their utopia, or they attempt to address a situation that is dystopic from the assumption of utopia?" - Picard comes from the perspective of "The humans act as if everything is perfect, but in fact this is far from the truth - even on Earth there is extreme disparity of weath, drug addiction and mental illness, bigotry, physical sickness and even slavery. They then look down upon the rest of the galaxy as if they are superior to it and refuse to give aid even when there is no reason not to do so."

The first one takes existing canon and expands on it. The second one ignores existing canon, rewrites it to what it wants, and then criticizes the new thing as if it were the old. Also note that the former one is built off of a fictional idealized utopia informed by many of the ideals of America but also by things like the idealized version of socialism, which are distinctly non-American ideals. The latter one is literally just a criticism of America. It takes away all of the Federation and Starfleet's individuality (and the unity of the world that it symbolizes) and projects America on top of it so that Patrick Stewart can rant and rave about America.

View attachment 3246300

It fits perfectly with Star Trek. Nobody can really agree on why SW is so hated, and a lot of the criticism came way later.

For one thing, Mando is doing pretty well. For another, SW itself is pretty divided, with a lot of fans blaming the media for amplifying criticism of the prequels, or foisting blame onto the other fans for not paying proper attention to what George was trying to say. (This is why it's so frustrating hearing feedback from the majority of sequel haters. As soon as someone else trashes the prequels, they give you the "toxic" speech. They will also rarely admit that those were bad films.)

View attachment 3246292

I'd say the prequels were mediocre at worst. They had bad points, but they were about the same quality as the original trilogy. Also it was never explicitly stated, but considering that none of the people are human, it is entirely possible Padme simply comes from a species who can die on the spot if they're too sad. If they were going to use that mechanic they should have included that information somewhere to set it up, obviously, but it isn't as bad as a human spontaneously kicking the bucket from sadness.

This is very much the case, as the point of Star Trek is to explore the complexities of a situation, so even in a case like DS9, the war isn't just constant action, it's a lot of the down time where there's sabre rattling, planning, what happens after a battle, and so on. The other thing is, is that the war didn't conflict with the established universe, as the Dominion was an external threat and not just some evil Federation faction wanting to genocide Datas because they hate black people or something.

A show that really captures the Star Trek vibe at times without being Star Trek is Stargate: Universe. It's a lot more about exploration and the weakest parts for me were the ones where they fell back on old Stargate tropes. It was also a show that really explored a lot of weird sci-fi stuff in new ways which can show that there's more ways to approach the topic than pew-pew lasers.

I was going to say that while SGU is a bad Stargate show it could be a good Star Trek: Voyager, but then I realized it's actually a bad Star Trek: Voyager on the opposite side of the spectrum for why Voyager was 'bad'. If Voyager took the promise of the conflict of ideals and struggle to maintain professionalism at the edge of space with no way home and immediately turned all the Maquis into good little Starfleet officers with nary a sign of their old rebellious ways, Universe would be if Torres pulled an Agent Smith and immediately turned everyone on board into copies of her - all of them as angry, unprofessional, incompetent, and horny as she was in season 1. Both lack the dynamic of professional vs unprofessional, civilian vs military, and trying to maintain the ideals of their home in the new and unfamiliar place. Universe had military members, but they were as incompetent, unstable, and unprofessional as all the civilians on board. The fact that they managed to stop having sex with each other or punching each other long enough to do repairs on the ship would be mind boggling if not for the fact that I'm pretty sure only one or two characters ended up doing most of the repairing, and both were either in a on-again-off-again love triangle or maidenless.

(Obviously this is with the generosity of ignoring the whole thing where they abducted random bodies back on Earth with their communication stones and used those bodies to get drunk, high, and have sex with random people)

Current writers don't get that the reason to make Brent Spiner play Soong was because, in context, the original Dr. Soong wanted to preserve his own legacy and identity through Data (and Lore). The idea behind was that we, the audience, know Brent Spiner as the robotic version of a human, and when we finally met him, the human is how Data should have looked if he had been born a real human being. Basically, Soong's "son" as he intended.

I know other treks have done the same, but it's equally cheap and retarded.


It's sad that, despite he was part of the original cast, his character is not more relevant than Q. Q is what sets the story and the final episode. Q is also more likeable and well remembered by fans than Wesley. Boo hoo.

I think they get Brent Spiner to always play Soong because at this point it's what the audience expects. Like a wink-nudge of 'it's a Soong. Of course he's played by Brent Spiner'. That doesn't excuse his android daughter looking the same as Data's, or the Romulan ancestor looking identical to her descendant, though. In fact, those two things actively detract from the 'all Soongs just look like Brent Spiner, don't ask questions' running joke. If it had just been him, I don't think anyone would have questioned it, only commented something like 'of course he's played by Brent Spiner.' I would have forgiven the other ancestor shenanigans, though, if Picard's ancestor were also played by Patrick Stewart. Especially if it was still supposed to be a young woman.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Tomorrow we find out just how bad it can get.

Yet one more time where Kurtzman, if he really wanted to question, might realize he's on a bad path. But he does not want to question.

Also, much like Londo and Gaius Baltar, initially I thought Kurtzman was there for comedy. Wrong...

 

[Retink]

I was going to say that while SGU is a bad Stargate show it could be a good Star Trek: Voyager, but then I realized it's actually a bad Star Trek: Voyager on the opposite side of the spectrum for why Voyager was 'bad'. If Voyager took the promise of the conflict of ideals and struggle to maintain professionalism at the edge of space with no way home and immediately turned all the Maquis into good little Starfleet officers with nary a sign of their old rebellious ways, Universe would be if Torres pulled an Agent Smith and immediately turned everyone on board into copies of her - all of them as angry, unprofessional, incompetent, and horny as she was in season 1. Both lack the dynamic of professional vs unprofessional, civilian vs military, and trying to maintain the ideals of their home in the new and unfamiliar place. Universe had military members, but they were as incompetent, unstable, and unprofessional as all the civilians on board. The fact that they managed to stop having sex with each other or punching each other long enough to do repairs on the ship would be mind boggling if not for the fact that I'm pretty sure only one or two characters ended up doing most of the repairing, and they were both in either a on-again-off-again love triangle or maidenless.

(Obviously this is with the generosity of ignoring the whole thing where they abducted random bodies back on Earth with their communication stones and used those bodies to get drunk, high, and have sex with random people)

I agree to a point but think they did a decent enough job explaining some of it, though the drama was played up and some aspects were forced into the show, probably due to low ratings which is why it started falling back on some Stargate Tropes.

The show focused on drama and the fight for survival so the military members it looked at were the ones with the most issues usually, though someone like Grier for all of his Unbreaded black rage usually did fine enough and only really caused problems when he was too aggressive in his duties and even then it was easy enough to reign him in. Colonel Young started the show with the stress of an ugly divorce, being tricked into what he saw was certain death, then framed for murder, and finally having to assist a member in suicide which resulted in his breakdown but by the end of the second season he mostly cleaned up and buried the hatchet with Rush. That's what I think made is Star Trek like, that it was about exploration and that at the end of the day the big conflict of the show wasn't some huge battle but the fact that Rush stopped trying to take control and Young came to actually siding with Rush in that the mission of the ship was something worth it.

As far as taking a more lighthearted show and giving it a sense of darkness of drama, SGU is miles ahead of Picard, and when it hits those Star Trek moments it does them very well. I still remember things like the time loop episode and the ghost ship very well, this speech also comes to mind which has a lot of spoilers if you haven't seen the second season:

 

[Allanon]

I agree to a point but think they did a decent enough job explaining some of it, though the drama was played up and some aspects were forced into the show, probably due to low ratings which is why it started falling back on some Stargate Tropes.

The show focused on drama and the fight for survival so the military members it looked at were the ones with the most issues usually, though someone like Grier for all of his Unbreaded black rage usually did fine enough and only really caused problems when he was too aggressive in his duties and even then it was easy enough to reign him in. Colonel Young started the show with the stress of an ugly divorce, being tricked into what he saw was certain death, then framed for murder, and finally having to assist a member in suicide which resulted in his breakdown but by the end of the second season he mostly cleaned up and buried the hatchet with Rush. That's what I think made is Star Trek like, that it was about exploration and that at the end of the day the big conflict of the show wasn't some huge battle but the fact that Rush stopped trying to take control and Young came to actually siding with Rush in that the mission of the ship was something worth it.

As far as taking a more lighthearted show and giving it a sense of darkness of drama, SGU is miles ahead of Picard, and when it hits those Star Trek moments it does them very well. I still remember things like the time loop episode and the ghost ship very well, this speech also comes to mind which has a lot of spoilers if you haven't seen the second season:

I will give SGU credit that in season two it started to clean up its act and it's very possible that had it continued it would have moved on to be much more like the 'Good Voyager' it had potential to be (though while describing Voyager's pitch I realized that Atlantis was probably already that). Season one, though, was just determined to focus only on the messes. Ostensibly there were normal, well-adjusted, professional people on the Destiny during season one, but you sure didn't get to see them. It had a lot of the problems people criticize NuTrek, especially Discovery, for. A lot of the decisions like Young and Rush burying the hatchet in season 2 and them getting control of the ship via the bridge were things I think they decided to do because they saw the show was sinking and they had to make compromises. I think if they wanted to do the Voyager thing they needed to contrast the people breaking down with people who weren't breaking down and were consummate professionals, and I can't think of a single character whose arc wasn't about drama, fighting, or sex at least in season 1. The characters cried and countermanded and questioned orders, were derelict in duty and distracted by sex. About the only thing it had that Discovery doesn't is that it attempted to also incorporate politics in the BSG/GoT sense, instead of the identity sense. They did play with them a little, but it's hard to stand on a soapbox lecturing people about being problematic when your characters are hijacking other people's bodies and having sex using them.

I would also agree it's better than Picard, but I would argue that Picard is....barely even a show. It's so bad at keeping internal consistency and track of its own plot threads, especially in season two, that it feels like some kind of mess of loosely connected twilight zone episodes more than a normal show. And in fact that's basically what What If? was, and that had way more consistency than Picard.

 

[ditto]

Wheaton trying REALLY hard to get back into Star Trek shows.

Maybe he should go back to shilling for Video Toaster.

 

[FatMebius]

DS9 also still felt like Star Trek at the end of the day. The tone was there, the great ideas and creative concepts were there, and the fascinating thing about that show was that it showcased all the different perspectives (Ferengi, Bajoran, Cardassian, Shapeshifters, etc) when before, just about everything was from Star Fleets perspective, so it allowed for The Federation to have its ideas challenged without betraying anything.

DS9 was different and true all at the same time.

Man, I'm powerleveling a bit, but I remember when people on forums back when DS9 was still airing were going full "not muh Trek". But, I dunno. It didn't disregard continuity and it did a better job of showing how the Federation's ideals did (And didn't) stand up to a full-on war as well as tell some really nuanced stories with a lot of subtlety. "In the Pale Moonlight" is such a fantastic episode in particular.

 

[Great President of McHell]

Man, I'm powerleveling a bit, but I remember when people on forums back when DS9 was still airing were going full "not muh Trek". But, I dunno. It didn't disregard continuity and it did a better job of showing how the Federation's ideals did (And didn't) stand up to a full-on war as well as tell some really nuanced stories with a lot of subtlety. "In the Pale Moonlight" is such a fantastic episode in particular.

If nutrek taught us anthing its that the majority of star trek fans are just stupid.

 

[HarryHowler]

Also, much like Londo and Gaius Baltar, initially I thought Kurtzman was there for comedy. Wrong...

If there's any actual comedy to be found in the situation, it's that while Kurtzman clearly wants his version of Star Trek to be the antithesis of Rick Berman's, the two actually ended up in charge of the franchise via pretty much the same manner.

Berman wound up in charge of the franchise because Roddenberry died, Majel Barrett didn't have any interest in getting involved with the creative side of the franchise (apart from writing that one really terrible and disturbing episode of DS9), Roddenberry's lawyer was a complete shitheel who no-one wanted to deal with, and Maurice Hurley got fed up of dealing with Roddenberry and stormed out.

Kurtzman wound up in charge because J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof wanted to move onto screwing up other franchises, and whatever Roberto Orci did to get himself fired from Star Trek Beyond fucked up his career so badly (the dude has pretty much zero writing credits after Amazing Spider-Man 2) that Paramount decided they'd rather trust the franchise to his tag-along.

 

[Miller]

I'm glad to see that people enjoyed SGU. I guess I'm not alone.

Spoiler: Picard finale

Oh fuck off Goldsman.