Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 12:17:44 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Star Trek Discovery s4, starts 18/19 November

Started by mothman, October 09, 2021, 09:42:42 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

mothman

https://blog.trekcore.com/2021/10/star-trek-discovery-season-4-trailer-poster-nycc/

Woo! There's something mysterious and scary and dangerous! Ooh! Michael Burnham's going to fix it! Yawn! By disobeying orders!

Will still watch. It retains a horrible fascination.

mothman


Malcy

Horrible fascination is a good way to put it. Haven't watched the trailer yet but read there is a redesigned Ferengi. STOP pissing about with species design!

Alberon

I bailed on this last season. Can't see anything to get me back on board.

The bit where they all shot up in the air looks really really shit.

beanheadmcginty

Just realised that I shouldn't be bothered by this. I barely watched Voyager and never saw Enterprise, so actually being completely uninterested in new Star Trek is just reverting to type.

Chairman Yang

Quote from: Malcy on October 09, 2021, 09:48:01 PM
Horrible fascination is a good way to put it. Haven't watched the trailer yet but read there is a redesigned Ferengi. STOP pissing about with species design!

Hah, just when I thought they couldn't bug me any further. Why are all the alien designs so ugly? It's like someone took Star Trek and mashed 'Sharpen More' about twenty times.

Chairman Yang

Maybe he's a half Ferengi/half Gordon Ramsay. I look forward to learning all about him moments before he gets blown out of an airlock during a terrorist attack or shot right in his ringpiece by a Varon-T disruptor.

Pranet

I hope that there is 15 minutes of emotional speechifying in each episode.

mothman

In addition to the combi disjointed-montage-stroke-flashback that accompanies the "When I was a child, my mother once told me..." narration which opens each episode?

Fambo Number Mive


mothman


Fambo Number Mive

Just watched the trailer. I think this Twitter quote sums up my feelings

Quote@EternalVaylin
·
13h
Replying to
@TrekCore
Just let the galaxy threatening anomaly win.

Malcy

I think I'd like it better if it wasn't the Burnham show. Every time she speaks I just think "oh shut up and fuck off". Overacts so much.

Mr Trumpet

As a non-miserable old git, i'm looking forward to this.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Malcy on October 09, 2021, 09:48:01 PM
Horrible fascination is a good way to put it. Haven't watched the trailer yet but read there is a redesigned Ferengi. STOP pissing about with species design!

And a Cardassian with considerably reduced protrusions. I suppose she could be part human or part something else though.

Oh, and Saru possibly demoted to be Burnham's XO. Cos of course.

mothman

I think the semi-Cardassian was initially assessed to be also part-Bajoran but they seem to have rowed back on that - no Bajoran nose I guess.

Malcy

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on October 10, 2021, 05:29:26 PM
And a Cardassian with considerably reduced protrusions. I suppose she could be part human or part something else though.

Oh, and Saru possibly demoted to be Burnham's XO. Cos of course.

Seen that she is part Cardassian/Bajoran & Human.



The Ferengi still looks odd.


Mr Trumpet

There's speculation he might be part Tiburonian like this guy: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/T%27Lor. Or it's just a touch-up of the old design which is 30+ years old, I find it hard to get worked up over stuff like that.

olliebean

TBH, I wish they'd have a lot more variation in the way the aliens look. Specifically, as much variation between individuals of a particular species as there is between individual humans. Within those parameters, that Ferengi in the trailer is believably of the same species as Quark.

beanheadmcginty

I can already imagine the online cunts fuming about Star Trek becoming woke because they've got a brown Ferengi.

JamesTC

I don't think anywhere near as many people would be arsed about redesigns or much of the other nitpicks that Discovery receives if they liked the show.

Look back to complaints about Enterprise Season 1 and 2 and there were loads of similar nitpicks. Much as I love the show, I definitely know the the nitpicks weren't the reason people hated Enterprise. People didn't hate Enterprise because the Vulcans acted a bit different or the theme tune had lyrics. People just didn't enjoy the show and so picked up on the many minor things they found wrong which otherwise wouldn't bother them in another Trek show.

Fans aren't expert critics who can analyse the ins and outs of the structure and substance of a TV show. They just know if they like something or not. And maybe they identify the wrong thing as the issue. Likewise many might not be able to pinpoint what it is they like.

That isn't to say there aren't a small contingent of alt right loons who will hate it regardless because of culture war bollocks despite Star Trek being no further ahead of its time now than it was in the 90s or 60s (and story wise it is sometimes annoyingly less progressive). But they are a small minority, or at least you would hope they are.

I do worry that Star Trek not being good but making a big song and dance about progressiveness plays into their hands. I was very sad a few weeks ago to see a very dear family member complaining about how Doctor Who is rubbish now because it is woke. It genuinely upset me as despite his age, I have always seem him as a very kind, accepting and progressive man. I started drafting an email reply in my head about how Doctor Who has a long and proud history of being progressive and that the problems with current Doctor Who have nothing to do with casting a woman or a non-white companion but it just felt too much like attacking so I just let it go.

Not that Star Trek shouldn't be progressive. If I were in charge of it, it would be woke to the extreme with many stories paralleling modern day issues. I just worry that bad Trek gives people an excuse the way current Doctor Who does.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent there. The email I received a few weeks back from the family member has just been eating away at me and making me consider my own relationship with Doctor Who and Star Trek and how my views on their current incarnation can be misconceived.

Mr Trumpet

FWIW while I disagree with the extreme negativity towards the newer Trek shows (and, to a more ambivalent extent, current Doctor Who) that I see a lot of people expressing on these boards, i'm glad that it's never framed in a shitty right wing reactionary way here. There's certainly a cottage industry of alt-right grifters on YouTube who do nothing but talk utter shite about all of these shows, but actual thoughtful critiques are possible as well.

And you're right that nitpicking is often a symptom of malaise rather than the sole cause - I know I can be unfair when taking the piss out of such commentary because it's indicative of something that's harder to express articulately.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: JamesTC on October 11, 2021, 01:20:16 PM
I don't think anywhere near as many people would be arsed about redesigns or much of the other nitpicks that Discovery receives if they liked the show.

The Klingons were such a big redesign, and of arguably the most prominent alien species in the series, that I don't think it would've escaped criticism even if Disco had been on par with peak TNG & DS9 in terms of quality.

I know it happened already in TOS vs. TMP onwards, but that was always half given a pass cos the real reason Klingons looked like humans in TOS is because it was the 60s, and you couldn't convincingly make something as complex as a TNG Klingon to be used regularly on a TV budget back then. And then they explained it, and explained it pretty well, in ENT. So, I think most Trek fans were happy it was tied up. Then Disco comes along and makes them into orcs? Like, why? And then rolled back on it in season 2 by trying to create some halfway point between Disco S1 Klingorcs and TNG Klingons.

But it would've probably still been let slide after an initial bout of REEEEEEEEEEEEEing if Disco had been good. As a matter of fact people don't really talk about it as a criticism much anymore since there weren't any Klingons in S3 and it was still a confused mess.

(As an aside, I've said with ENT that I didn't like it cos I was watching a crew that consisted of fuckwits and barely relevant characters who got fuck all development - that's not a nitpick, imo. That's fairly fundemental to the show)

Quote from: JamesTC on October 11, 2021, 01:20:16 PM
I do worry that Star Trek not being good but making a big song and dance about progressiveness plays into their hands. I was very sad a few weeks ago to see a very dear family member complaining about how Doctor Who is rubbish now because it is woke. It genuinely upset me as despite his age, I have always seem him as a very kind, accepting and progressive man. I started drafting an email reply in my head about how Doctor Who has a long and proud history of being progressive and that the problems with current Doctor Who have nothing to do with casting a woman or a non-white companion but it just felt too much like attacking so I just let it go.

Not that Star Trek shouldn't be progressive. If I were in charge of it, it would be woke to the extreme with many stories paralleling modern day issues. I just worry that bad Trek gives people an excuse the way current Doctor Who does.

The fact that Disco is a bit shit really does suit the "Woke Trek sucks" crowd. They probably simultaneously ejaculate and shit themselves with delight whenever it drops a complete stinker that they can complain about for the next 3 weeks. If they can stop going on about "Fallopian Georgiou"[nb]Get it? Fallopian? Like part of the female reproductive system? Ehehehehe what clever word play, aren't I clever?[/nb] or whatever long enough to string together a coherent thought, that is.

It's either lost on them, or they just ignore it cos it doesn't suit their narrative, that if you turned the entire crew into white American blokes[nb]ok, you'd have to make Culber into a woman so no homo[/nb] with the same haircut, it would still be 90% the same as it is now, and would still be a confused mess that bears only a passing resemblance to Classic Trek. A white male Michael Burnham dominating every fucking minute of the show would suck just as much as the black female Michael Burnham doing it. I really don't understand why the writers push her dominance of the storyline so hard. They have other interesting characters that they can use for more than 20 minutes of the entire season. I get that TNG had Picard/Data centric spells, especially the movies, and season 4 of Voyager was Seven/Janeway dominated, but it's nothing like Burnham's dominance of Discovery.

Back to the main point though, Disco doesn't suck because of the progressiveness and the LBGTQ+ representation. It sucks because it's written by crazy people.

JamesTC

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on October 11, 2021, 02:37:59 PM
The Klingons were such a big redesign, and of arguably the most prominent alien species in the series, that I don't think it would've escaped criticism even if Disco had been on par with peak TNG & DS9 in terms of quality.

I know it happened already in TOS vs. TMP onwards, but that was always half given a pass cos the real reason Klingons looked like humans in TOS is because it was the 60s, and you couldn't convincingly make something as complex as a TNG Klingon to be used regularly on a TV budget back then. And then they explained it, and explained it pretty well, in ENT. So, I think most Trek fans were happy it was tied up. Then Disco comes along and makes them into orcs? Like, why? And then rolled back on it in season 2 by trying to create some halfway point between Disco S1 Klingorcs and TNG Klingons.

But it would've probably still been let slide after an initial bout of REEEEEEEEEEEEEing if Disco had been good. As a matter of fact people don't really talk about it as a criticism much anymore since there weren't any Klingons in S3 and it was still a confused mess.

I think what I'm perhaps saying badly is that these design choices wouldn't be a reason to dislike the show in isolation. The constant attack I see of Star Trek fans is that they always redesigned stuff and that they should get over it as if a new Klingon or a Ferengi design is the sole reason they dislike the show. It then has the unfortunate consequence of all negative fans being pigeonholed and in some quarters being grouped with the racists.

I must say I was loving Discovery until they added wrinkles on the Ferengi design and now I think I shall join the alt right.

Any show lives and dies by the writing. If that is bad then everything falls apart around it. Many TV shows have had tiny budgets but excellent writing to offset any unfortunate design choices that needed to be made. Of course, Discovery has a big budget and largely fails from a design perspective (in my view), but my point is that this wouldn't truly matter if the writing was remotely near good enough.

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on October 11, 2021, 02:37:59 PM(As an aside, I've said with ENT that I didn't like it cos I was watching a crew that consisted of fuckwits and barely relevant characters who got fuck all development - that's not a nitpick, imo. That's fairly fundemental to the show)

I bring up Enterprise as an example of a show which is genuinely flawed and accepted as such without a huge backlash. It received many many nitpicks but nobody reasonably claims that people hate Enterprise because humans meet Ferengi before TNG Season 1 or because they don't like the theme tune.

I adore it, but I wouldn't attack somebody who disagrees with me.

olliebean

The Ferengi redesign looks like an evolution of the original design. The trouble with the Klingon redesign was it looked nothing remotely like any Klingon has ever looked before. It might as well have been an entirely new species who happened to be called Klingons.

mothman

I agree with all of you! The redesigns are annoying but I can live with it. I got extremely emotional when the Enterprise appeared at the end of DSC s1. Even the changes didn't matter. It's THE Enterprise. No bloody A, B, C or D. The ship I watched when I was a child.

The more blatant flauntings of Trek canon are harder to ignore but again livable-with. It's just the awful writing.

And I hate that it gives these CUNTS, who aren't even really Trekkies, an in towards pushing their hateful agendas. That someone like me trying to critique the shows runs the risk of being lumped in with them.

Wonderful Butternut

The Enterprise's exterior re-design for Disco was fine. Apart from the swept nacelle pylons and some extra lights in the nacelles and impulse engines, the differences are not noticeable to the naked eye. Did you know that the neck is shorter and the secondary hull smaller relative to the original design? And it was apparently scaled upwards so Discovery wouldn't dwarf it? I didn't.

The bridge was a bit Abramsesque shiny shite, it just needed the lens flare to complete the look, but it's not terrible either.

Quote from: mothman on October 11, 2021, 06:04:37 PM
And I hate that it gives these CUNTS, who aren't even really Trekkies, an in towards pushing their hateful agendas. That someone like me trying to critique the shows runs the risk of being lumped in with them.

Reading the Zone chat in major hubs on Star Trek Online has led me to conclude that, inexplicably, a fair amount of vocal right wing shitheads appear to be into Star Trek. Maybe a bit of 90s nostalgia suits them. The good old days when you could seem 'progressive' but fall spectacularly flat on it by 2020s standards.

mothman

Yeah, the "Discoprise" (not intended as pejorative, just shorthand) is fine. I think if you can accept that the Ent in ST:TMP/TWOK/TSFS is the same one as in TOS, despite some significant changes in proportions etc., then it's not impossible to conceive that the Discoprise is the same ship as in TOS (and the two pilots) and that it's been refitted more than once.

Reading material:

The Enterprise Refit of 2271 - TOS to TMP
The Enterprise Legacy - I don't think EAS has done an-depth look at the Discoprise yet.

mothman

Few people reporting on Twitter that DSC s4 will not be on Netflix at all, but held back to make us all download it illegally subscribe to Paramount+ when it launches internationally next year.

JamesTC

Oh Paramount+, with this content you spoil us.

I actually might sign up for a free trial if they have the 2002 Twilight Zone as I have only seen the baby Hitler episode and would like to see the rest. Obviously I wouldn't pay for it.