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March 29, 2024, 10:35:33 AM

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Star Trek - Picard show

Started by mothman, May 15, 2019, 09:42:58 PM

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Mobbd

#690
Thank Christ. A sensible review from mainstream press at last: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/mar/27/star-trek-picard-is-the-dark-reboot-that-boldly-goes-where-nobody-wanted-it-to

Quotethe idea that the grittiness [...] makes it mature and relevant, while the ethos of yesteryear Star Trek is now naive or too old-fashioned to survive, feels misjudged.

QuoteIn the 90s, the darker spin-off show Deep Space Nine pre-empted Picard%u2019s themes by 27 years, asking what happens when the principles of the Federation are compromised by war. The difference was that Deep Space Nine, much like the best of Star Trek, managed to balance its meatier themes of PTSD, faith and wartime atrocities with episodes where everyone got dressed up to visit a holographic version of 60s Las Vegas.

Quote[What] is fundamentally lacking from modern Star Trek: a sense of tonal texture, a spirit of curiosity about different worlds and cultures, and the crackling chemistry of a warm and interesting crew. Instead, as is the case with Picard, its new characters have felt like broadly drawn %u201Cbadasses%u201D at best and, at worst, downright cold and unlikable.][What] is fundamentally lacking from modern Star Trek: a sense of tonal texture, a spirit of curiosity about different worlds and cultures, and the crackling chemistry of a warm and interesting crew. Instead, as is the case with Picard, its new characters have felt like broadly drawn %u201Cbadasses%u201D at best and, at worst, downright cold and unlikable.

QuoteThe limited length of the series, which %u2013 like so much streaming TV %u2013 plays out almost as one 10-hour story, is also a factor. The benefit of 20-odd-episode seasons in which a crew of characters is faced with a different problem every week lies not only in the soap opera-style comfort of coming to think of a crew as family, but also in the potential to experiment with a variety of different stories and themes. The focus of Picard and Discovery tends to be so narrow that the universe ends up feeling smaller, less alive and less interesting.]The limited length of the series, which %u2013 like so much streaming TV %u2013 plays out almost as one 10-hour story, is also a factor. The benefit of 20-odd-episode seasons in which a crew of characters is faced with a different problem every week lies not only in the soap opera-style comfort of coming to think of a crew as family, but also in the potential to experiment with a variety of different stories and themes. The focus of Picard and Discovery tends to be so narrow that the universe ends up feeling smaller, less alive and less interesting.

Perfect, no?

Mobbd

Quote from: Chairman Yang on March 27, 2020, 01:13:20 PM
There's a really confusing allegory here with slavery and civil rights that conflates the two and positions...

Excellent point.

beanheadmcginty

If they could just knock up a new body and load the consciousness into it no problem like they did with Picard, why had no one to bothered to do it with Data years ago? Why was he stuck in the grey room?

Wonderful Butternut

#693
Quote from: beanheadmcginty on March 27, 2020, 03:08:48 PM
If they could just knock up a new body and load the consciousness into it no problem like they did with Picard, why had no one to bothered to do it with Data years ago? Why was he stuck in the grey room?

One can only assume that because the brains that Maddox' androids have were made from a positronic neuron from Data, they had their own consciousness from their creation and couldn't have another one overwritten onto them (or if it was technically possible, you'd effectively be murdering the original consciousness). And for some reason the Golem that Soong was working on that could have someone's consciousness written onto it was harder to make. Although I think it was implied that, before they decided Picard needed it, Soong planned to put his own mind into it rather than Data's.

But yeah, seems a bit far fetched that they can make 100s of sentient androids but only one blank one, and only after 15 more years research than the sentient ones.

EDIT: Or maybe all the andriods Maddox made up until Soji and her dopplegangers are shit and their brains wouldn't be able to take Data's consciousness. Apart from Soji and Sutra, they're ludicrously passive considering what's at stake. If Picard had told them they all had to die, they'd have probably just sat there and accepted it.

Lemming

That was fucking abominable. Christ. At least it's over.

So, Commodore Oh was essentially the hero, right? If Picard's speech hadn't worked, the Federation would have fought the Romulans while the beacon powered up, and then the Federation, the Romulans, and ALL LIFE IN THE GALAXY would have died because of the tentacle monsters. Why was the Federation protecting the planet and antagonising the Romulans? If a grenade could have taken the beacon out, why couldn't the Federation cooperate with the Romulans to destroy the beacon on the condition that the planetary "sterilisation" not go ahead?

Why did the Romulans magically stop firing immediately when the illusory ships disappeared, leaving only the defenceless real ship? Why did Raffi ask what the Gammadon was after HEARING WHAT IT WAS TWO MINUTES EARLIER? Why did Elnor et al insist that it was just a myth WHILE THE BEACON WAS BEING CONSTRUCTED WITHIN EYESHOT?

Is Jurati just getting away with murder? And is Soji getting away with the attempted murder of everyone in the entire galaxy?

Also Picard's speech at the end about how humans are alright despite "violence and rampant corruption"... is violence and rampant corruption particularly widespread in the Federation now?

Whatever. It's over. And hey, Seven and Raffi - two characters who have virtually never spoken - looked pretty into each other at the end there. Exciting romantic possibilities for season two!!!

Let's just enjoy the respite before Discovery season three kicks off. Did anyone else see the little preview at the start of the episode with Burnham holding up the tattered Federation flag? Gonna be great, everyone. Gonna be excellent.

Wonderful Butternut

I tried to sustain an argument that Burnham's "Mary Sue" label was arguably unwarranted in season 1 and wouldn't have been slapped on if she'd been white bloke (called Michelle Burnham because the female one has a boy's name). Certainly it went on her from some after one episode, when it wouldn't have with a male lead.

Then season 2 happened and she was the biggest Mary Sue ever.

In season 3, she'll be the future's saviour, no doubt, re-educating the future on what the Federation is and should be.

Idk, maybe they'll find a way to make it work and we can write off season 1 as a failed abortion and season 2 as the emergency surgery to save the resulting birth. But I doubt it for some reason.

Poobum

That quippy brother and sister can fuck off. Romulans are arrogant and Imperial, they're not smug little quippy bastards.

If you're the Romulans and you believe this beacon is the harbinger of space Cthulu then you don't arse about fighting tiny ships that have offered no threat, you warp your ships into the fucking planet. Commodore Oh finding reasons not to say "fire" went past parody.

Lemming

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on March 27, 2020, 07:52:08 PM
I tried to sustain an argument that Burnham's "Mary Sue" label was arguably unwarranted in season 1 and wouldn't have been slapped on if she'd been white bloke (called Michelle Burnham because the female one has a boy's name). Certainly it went on her from some after one episode, when it wouldn't have with a male lead.

Then season 2 happened and she was the biggest Mary Sue ever.

In season 3, she'll be the future's saviour, no doubt, re-educating the future on what the Federation is and should be.

Idk, maybe they'll find a way to make it work and we can write off season 1 as a failed abortion and season 2 as the emergency surgery to save the resulting birth. But I doubt it for some reason.

I liked Burnham in some parts, despite being as erratically written and shallow as all the other characters in Discovery. The Mary Sue label was unwarranted for sure, especially in season one. And it definitely is partially a result of sexism - TOS-era Kirk never gets called a Mary Sue despite 90% of episodes having him always in the right, portrayed as better and wiser than everyone else, and personally overhauling entire planetary societies through sheer force of will, which is far more ridiculous than anything Burnham ever does. Sonequa Martin-Green tries to give Burnham a lot more character than the scripts do, I think, going for the raised-by-Vulcans angle that the writers abandoned pretty quickly.

There's little doubt that Discovery season three is going to just be yet another of our scheduled doses of Kurtzman-induced pain that we've been getting every year since 2017, but there's still room for a miracle to occur and for them to salvage it. The trailer looked alright, the only alarming aspect being that Burnham is indeed apparently the focal point around which the Federation will be reborn.

Wonderful Butternut

#698
Quote from: Lemming on March 27, 2020, 08:43:48 PM
I liked Burnham in some parts, despite being as erratically written and shallow as all the other characters in Discovery. The Mary Sue label was unwarranted for sure, especially in season one. And it definitely is partially a result of sexism - TOS-era Kirk never gets called a Mary Sue despite 90% of episodes having him always in the right, portrayed as better and wiser than everyone else, and personally overhauling entire planetary societies through sheer force of will, which is far more ridiculous than anything Burnham ever does. Sonequa Martin-Green tries to give Burnham a lot more character than the scripts do, I think, going for the raised-by-Vulcans angle that the writers abandoned pretty quickly.

Kirk is largely what I mind with the comparison. Between having all the women, from semi-feral 14 year old girls to early 20th century Social Workers, fall for him, the time he beat up a genetically engineered superman by hitting him with a big thick rod (oh-er) and the all the hostile computers he literally talked to death.

Also there was the complaint that she was able to fight Voq hand to hand, because he's a massive Klingon and she's only a tiny little girl. Guess everyone had their eyes closed during this bit of Way of the Warrior: https://youtu.be/wHmXStJmB2A?t=74

Another thing on Oh, the Synths and the Heavy Metal Tentacle Rape coming through the wormhole: These extra-dimensional super Synths must suck as protectors of Synths throughout the multi-verse. First of all, the only reason the Synths on Aia only know about the Admonition is because Sutra melded with Jurati. And Jurati only knows about it because Oh melded with her. If Oh had, I dunno... not fucking mind-melded with Jurati just to get to her to ingest a tracking device, Sutra would've had no way to know that their potential protectors even really existed, much less how to summon them for help. And they'd have been reliant on Starfleet to save them, who were a dramatic pause away from being too late.

And secondly, when the wormhole closes, they just shrug their shoulders? Have they no way to re-open it to see are all the Synths they were apparently about to wipe out trillions (quadrillions, even?) of people to save are all right?

Cloud

Dunno I quite liked it but tend to be the black sheep around here when it comes to not hating everything :p

Interesting homage to the deactivation of HAL when Data died again.

I think the whole show really was meant to address real world issues, as always with Trek.  Synths were basically the equivalent of the Muslims and the Mars attack kind of 9/11.  And it's about Sir Pat saying look humanity stop letting yourself be consumed by fear and your fear turning to hate etc etc

The two things that bugged me were:

1) The series long issue of Evil Bond Villain Romulans.  If it's about them being consumed with fear, why are loverboy, Oh and wotserface all purring comicbook baddies?

2) The comment about humanity (still) being a nasty destructive horrible lot.  Sorry what?  This is Star Trek, not Reddit, we don't need the misanthropy.  The LITERAL FIRST EPISODE of TNG (and in fact the last) was about proving to Q (and the viewers) that humanity had evolved beyond all that nonsense.  I know the retcon of humanity in modern Trek is to make us look at ourselves but.... Ehhh yeah it's not great.

Other than that I thought it came together fairly well. Time will tell as my longer term opinions on these things tend to take a while to settle.

Lemming

The synths being intended as a comparison with any real world minority groups feels pretty dodgy when literally all the synths on the planet either supported the doomsday beacon that would have wiped out everyone except them in the galaxy, or just didn't care enough to try and stop it from being constructed. Since building the beacon appears to be trivial, and could be done again by any synths anywhere anytime, and we don't have any indication that the rest of the synths shared Soji's sudden change of heart, it's really hard to argue that the Zhat Vash are wrong that synths present a genuine constant existential threat to all life everywhere. They would have killed trillions of people if Soji hadn't decided to change her mind on a whim at the last minute.

I still can't figure out Starfleet's plan. Show up and stop the Romulans, but then do nothing to stop the beacon themselves, resulting in the deaths of the entire Milky Way galaxy?

The other apparent real world comparison - Romulan refugees - didn't seem to go anywhere either.


grainger

That was atrocious. Properly shit. So bad that it was properly insulting. There was so much wrong I can't cover it all, but here're some things that jumped out and I don't think have been discussed yet.

All the stuff at the end about dying seemed to be someone's pet philosophy, or just something they cooked up quickly, either way having nothing to do with the rest of the show. Fake profundity.

"Now that the synthetics ban has been lifted" was a proper Scooby Doo line. Risible.

Worst of all, in episode 1 (or was it 2?) Picard was literally told to fuck off by Starfleet for asking for one ship to go on this mission. In episode 10, Riker turns up with a reinstated command and a whole armada of Star Fleet's "best ever" ships. You - just - can't - do - that. It would be like Sherlock Holmes ruling out a line of evidence suggested by Watson on page 1, then on the final page using that evidence to solve the case and everyone going "hurrah". Either they didn't notice they had done this, or hoped we wouldn't remember because 9 episodes had sat in between.

Picard suddenly remembers his illness and starts to die. Then they say he "sacrificed himself". Only because of some contrived bollocks about a drug that cut short his life but conveniently happened to allow him to stay in command.

The characters were either stock stereotypes and/or simply rubbish. I hate cigar-chomping captain. I hate Legolas. I hate hipster Romulan (how is he not simply a Human? What is alien about him?). I hate hipster Romulan's sister. I hate son of Soong. I hate the evil android. I hate the stupidly intense Romulan admiral. I hate "badass" Riker. Bollocks to it all.

A lot of stuff certainly happened. Not much of it made any sense, or even had anything to do with any themes they might be trying to convey. There was some emotive music to tell me what to feel about it. That's about it.

One final thought. Seeing TNG-era Picard next to Data at the end was the first genuine emotion I felt during the entire show. But this show didn't earn that moment.

Camp Tramp

Doesn't the Federation now know the Romulans were behind the bombing of Mars?
Act of war surely?

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: Mobbd on March 27, 2020, 01:09:18 PM
Oh wait, not that Romulan. I may have misremembered who said what in that first episode. I'm not curious about he of the sister (Narek, I believe he is called). I'm curious about the lad who was standing up on the gantry and said something like "there could be active drones here. If you see a drone on the loose... run."

No never appeared again, neither did the badges or her nervous friend, or the dynamic that they were visitors in a slightly bureaucratic-ish romulan controlled research installation.

Watching that specific scene does have a weird more polished (and comfortably boring) tone to it, since those gantry sections were amongst the initial promo photos I wonder if it's not a remnant from before the cheap as chips reshoots and greenscreen it's fairly reusable scene setting if you forget that most of the elements it introduces vanish.

Pranet

Initially I thought the borg cube was an interesting idea. They didn't really do much with it in the end.

I didn't hate this series- I mostly enjoyed it. It did end badly for me. Much preferred the first half of the series to the second half.

sirhenry

Just to check I didn't miss something...

Admiral O presumably spent her adult life working her way through Starfleet to become Head of Security. And then, in a blink of an eye she was given the job of being top Battle Admiral of the Romulan Clone Fleet, for which she had no experience. No wonder she couldn't work out how to shoot a sitting target.

Maybe they'll retcon it in a comic, though after the prequel comics I'm not sure if I could bring myself to read the graphic Story of O.

Trying to work out the optimism/pessimism shifts over time in the Star Trek timeline seems to imply that the future is weirdly, and massively, bipolar.

beanheadmcginty

Watched the TNG episode where they find Scotty on a Dyson sphere last night. It was a million times better than this series.

Chairman Yang

Was it established why/who was faking the Twins' hologram Mum? And does that square with what we learned later on?

Zero Gravitas

I don't think any of the reason either of the twins thought they were human along with associated fakery was covered unless I tuned out during some soong exposition, we'd have to assume it was Maddox but he didn't get much chance to explain.

JamesTC

Quote from: Chairman Yang on March 28, 2020, 08:44:43 PM
Was it established why/who was faking the Twins' hologram Mum? And does that square with what we learned later on?

I thought that was explained as being part of their programming?

I dunno. So much shit wasn't explained that I don't know what they did explain and what was explained on some fucking instagram Q&A.

Alberon

Quote from: sirhenry on March 28, 2020, 08:39:46 PM
Just to check I didn't miss something...

Admiral O presumably spent her adult life working her way through Starfleet to become Head of Security. And then, in a blink of an eye she was given the job of being top Battle Admiral of the Romulan Clone Fleet, for which she had no experience. No wonder she couldn't work out how to shoot a sitting target.

Yep, she blew her cover to stand on a Romulan warbird bridge (or in front of a CGI background of one) just to keep saying wait for her order rather than blasting a defenceless planet or Picard's ship.

Good thing the Romulans put someone so useless in charge of it all. Anyone halfway competent would have blown all the synths and Picard to atoms before Riner and his beard could get there.

And if they really believed they were fighting for all organic life in the galaxy why would they have given up when Riker's fleet dropped in?

The first half of the season was mainly competent but the last four episodes looked like it was scribbled down on the back of a fag packet in five minutes.

And Picard and co seem absolutely fine jetting off with a murderer in their crew. Also Soong seemed to kill the murdering synth and no one batted an eyelid.

Utter mess.

Blumf

If they had squeezed the whole main thread into a 40min stand alone episode, I would have accepted it.

"Oooh, planet of androids. Oh no, they're calling in super-androids to kill us all. Whew, we Picard speeched them into seeing sense. <daa-da-da-daah-da-dah-daaaa>"

But for a whole season, of a supposedly sophisticated and adult new show, utter nonsensical wank. Could have delved into some political intrigue. Could have actually tackled the refugee issue. Could have given a million-and-one interesting ideas at least a half-arsed go.

But nope, nothing makes sense, here's a load of identical CGI ships going pew-pew and a unearned emotional bit with some beloved characters who've been raped in front of you. And token lesbians!! Woot! ~/~We're so progressive, We're so progressive~/~

Lemming

All the supposed benefits of serialisation completely failed to materialise with this show. It's almost impressive.

We've got something that, if it had actually been squeezed into a 45 minute TNG episode, would probably be mid-season filler. On rewatches, you'd see it on the episode list and think "oh yeah, that's the one where they go to that android planet and Seven's on a cube, that wasn't up to much" and skip it. Or more likely it'd be a two-parter like Descent that nobody likes because it's full of dumb callbacks and is a plotting disaster. "Oh yeah, that's the two parter where there's a Romulan samurai kid and Hugh comes back. That was shit". Amazing.

Chairman Yang

Picard is so deliberately superficial as to make any ultimate criticism impossible. It's a fractal of lazy decisions, a perfect crystal of corporate fiction. It's entirely and obviously bad and I was a complete gimboid to give it the benefit of the doubt.

It was pitched as Relic Hunter with an 80 year old man, what the fuck was anyone thinking?

sirhenry

Quote from: Blumf on March 29, 2020, 12:53:55 AMAnd token lesbians!! Woot! ~/~We're so progressive, We're so progressive~/~
Ah, but it's alright, they're only lesbians because they're damaged goods[nb]I'm sure there's a name for this trope but I'm not going to depress myself further by looking it up.[/nb].

Does anyone know if there were issues behind the scenes?  It has that feel, too many different ideas coming together with no coherent voice. There do seem to be a high number of showrunners.

Chabon is a good writer, in novel form at least, and doesn't seem the type to have all the plot holes in his own work: add the other hacks though and you might have the answer to why it's so incoherent. Similar to Fuller and Discovery, perhaps they just didn't like the cut off his jib.

Malcy

#716
https://trekmovie.com/2020/03/28/michael-chabon-answers-fan-questions-about-star-trek-picard-finale-loose-ends-season-two-and-more/

More Chabon Q&A. I reckon he set these up so he could just fill in as much shit as he could since he wasn't bothered to put together a good tv show or anything remotely Star Trek.

Glad this waste of space is mostly moving on but seeing what's coming up in series 2 I won't be watching. I'll stick to fast forwarding to cameos on the future.

Wonderful Butternut

QuoteWas the end moment between Seven and Raffi romantic? Was there foreshadowing that I missed?

To both questions: apparently so!

Is this just an outright lie or did Chabon forget that something he's referring to was left on the cutting room floor? I re-watched the one conversation they had when they were getting ready for their failed heist on Freecloud and unless Raffi saying "I admire what you do." in response to Seven's comments about peacekeeping with the Fenris Rangers is code for "let's scissor!" there is no subtext between them.

Quote from: Wentworth Smith on March 29, 2020, 09:03:45 AM
Does anyone know if there were issues behind the scenes?  It has that feel, too many different ideas coming together with no coherent voice. There do seem to be a high number of showrunners.

One source said there were serious negative reactions to how the series looked in test screenings, and they had to do a lot of re-shooting and change the CGI. But the same source was convinced that Discovery season 3 wouldn't see the light of day, so a pinch of salt is needed. Plus I don't remember it saying anything about the writers. Problem could be that the same overall production company handling Disco, Picard, the new Section 31 series (fucking hell, btw), overseeing Lower Decks, and are allegedly doing concept work on two more Star Trek series and they're not allocating writers properly. Too many people could have their finger in more than one Star Trek pie.

JamesTC

Remember when Section 31 tried to commit genocide?

Now Section 31 get their own show. The people who don't understand Star Trek are in charge of Star Trek. They think Section 31 is just a generic secret organisation. And they have a hard on for secret orginsations.

Lemming

As laugh out loud funny as the Seven/Raffi scene was, mostly due to being two seconds of footage that came out of literally fucking nowhere, Michelle Hurd and Jeri Ryan are clearly two of the best actors working on the show. If anyone can pull off a nonsensical, out-of-nowhere, written-by-committee romantic arc, it's them.

And yeah, Chabon apparently trying to claim it was foreshadowed is just risible. Maybe both characters looked at each other for a split second in a blurry background shot or something and we were meant to take that as expertly laying the groundwork for romance.