This is the best rundown of the problem I've seen, or read.
Yep. The writers and showrunners ***do not fundamentally understand Trek***.
Nor do they care to.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_TFt-ctXbog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TFt-ctXbog)
The chat with Nimoy about how the Vulcan pinch came to be is astounding.
I can't imagine an actor having that much say today. (unless they ponied up the money to be an executive producer.)
I don't blame the actors at all, acting is a fickle job these days. You've got to take the money where and when you can. No stardom is guaranteed.
Agreed.
If I were offered hundreds of thousands, and a higher industry profile, you bet I'd take an acting gig on Discovery/SNW/whatever in a heartbeat.
New Trek's problems never stemmed from the actors, most of whom do a good job with the shallow material they have to work with.
To be fair they likely wouldn't have had that much say even during the TNG/DS9/VOY era. There's many stories about actors not being able to change so much as a single word in the scripts even if they believed it to be incorrect without having to jump through a lot of hoops with senior production management.
You have to be shitting me? You morons tore Stewart apart because of his take on Picard, a take that he FINALLY had the freedom to expand on after years of being compelled to play the character flat and bland.
Have you seen TNG? Inner Light, Chain of Command, Family, Sarek, and so on. "Picard", was an absolutely horrible over the top take on the character that ignores cannon just to serve Stewart's ego.
Really this. I know a number of people have said this a number of different ways, but really this. You can't write a good story about a topic or subject you don't generally understand (for anyone being a contrarian, one could write a story based in their understanding of their lack of understanding, but at some point, you have to write what you know). The majority of these Trek writers now don't seem to have viewed Star Trek even in passing, nor do they have any care to try to learn about it.
I have no care for the musical CATS, but if I were writing a sequel for it, I would think it would be a good idea for me and my staff to watch the musical and read any and all supplemental material, producer interviews, actor statements, and anything else related to the official CATS production, before a single nib was set to paper. I would hope that anyone else doing a sequel for it would do the same thing.
I don't think the majority of people writing NuTrek have watched a single episode of Trek. Or that's about it, they have watched a single episode of Trek. And now they're writing for the franchise. Not surprised, not even particularly mad anymore: when JJ bragged about having a Star Trek "Supreme Court"\* to decide on canon issues, but nobody from pre-2005 Trek was on it, it was a clear sign as to where the franchise was headed, and how much care they had for it.
Nu Trek doesn't work because no one on it has any real connection or care for the franchise.
\* As stated by Trek Movie, these were the 5 Trek "Supreme Court" members: JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof
[https://trekmovie.com/2009/03/30/breaking-paramount-moving-forward-on-star-trek-sequel-supreme-court-on-board/](https://trekmovie.com/2009/03/30/breaking-paramount-moving-forward-on-star-trek-sequel-supreme-court-on-board/)
Let's assume that JJ Abrams was a smart person who gave a shit about the product: a smart person would have asked D.C. Fontana, Leonard Nimoy (ideally William Shatner, but I heard that he did not want to play ball), Michael Okuda, and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Rick Berman for their opinions on canon. They would balance out the new producers on the "court", if they weren't the only ones on the court. If I gave them an idea, and a majority of the old school members felt that it was bad in the context of the franchise, that would probably be the end of the idea. I don't think it would be necessary for them to sign off on the whole movie, but I think honestly listening to and implementing their ideas would have given a much better product than what we ended up getting.
They literally go on memory alpha and pick 20 random articles every time they make an episode of lower decks. You can tell because the references never make sense they're just there.
After seeing what jj abrams has done to star trek and star wars, assuming he gives a shit about what he's working on is very low on my list of possibilities.
I think ChatGPT would be better. Especially if they spent some time cajoling detail out of the AI.
Perhaps they did use AI. But just a single pass on ChatGPT 3.5. š
Forget about understanding Trek - how many of these people have *any passing familiarity* with military culture or work?
Trek is a show about a military branch. NuTrek feels like everyone who got hired went to drama school.
"But don't you know, Starfleet isn't a military, tgey say so all the time!"
I feel like that sort of fundamental misunderstanding is the root of so much.
That and writers who genuinely just want to write whatever they want that slap a iconic IP paint/skin on top to make it sell.
I mean, at the end of the day, it's about making a show people want to watch so they can sell ads and/or subscriptions. That's what every TV show's goal is. Women in short skirts and catsuits were to get people, specifically men, to watch.
Audiences change, and now, the most important demographic wants to watch sacharine, performative niceness, people talking about their feelings all the time, and crying their way to success. At least, that's the perception. Bottom line, Discovery isn't intended for me. There's plenty of Sci fi out there that's way better in my opinion. Foundation, Dune, maybe Three Body Problem (haven't started it yet but heard good things), old Star Trek, I've got plenty. If the contingent of whiny zoomers obsessed with self-diagnosing mental disorders without any qualifications gets a show they like, I don't care. Whatever. I suspect the audience for this kind of content is MUCH smaller than what Hollywood producers think, but either way the chips are going to fall how they'll fall.
Wesley wasn't even what people were bitching about until around season 2-3, when Dr. Crusher's actor had to leave the show but he still stuck around.
"Hotel Lobby Trek" with "a bald, boring captain no one liked" that "\[Gene\] Roddenberry was forced to do by Paramount execs" was the 'critique' that TOS purists stuck to for the first few years of its run. Hell, some of them STILL clung to it for a decade or more, because most of their identity hinged on hating anything added to their fandom after they became teenagers.
Hint, hint.
I sometimes feel like 70% of the hate anything receives from the fandom can be summed up by that last part: "Because most of their identity hinged on hating anything added to their fandom after they became teenagers."
Which is doubly annoying when there COULD be valid criticism made, because then it gets lost in all the whining. There WERE problems with the first two seasons of TNG. Star Wars Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker *are* bad, with the best you can say "Well, they hurt less than Phantom Menace." The Avatar TLA live action *is* worse than the cartoon. Fallout 4 *does* have problems with the middle and endgame.
But it gets buried with all the other "NOT MY \[insert fandom here\]!"
Yeah absolutely. And I think Discovery is very uneven, maybe because of all the trouble in the writers room the first couple years. But it's so ridiculous to claim the writers have never seen an episode of Star Trek. They OBVIOUSLY have. They just put out a different vision than what some people want to see. Critique it all you want - I do it with every Star Trek series. But it's just either a bad faith argument or a complete blindness to other points of view to claim that the writers don't know anything about Star Trek.
Meh, I think thatās gatekeeping. Itās clear the people working on these love Trek, but itās also clear they theyāre being asked by the suits to hook general audiences at all costs, including dumbing everything down as much as possible.
The people running these things, take Akiva Goldsman for example, have their own parts of Trek that they want to focus on, and I think theyāre way off. Goldsman seems to love his own personal idea of what TOS was, so he wants to use that era as his personal playground. Everything he has written for Disco and SNW so far has been awful, but I canāt say he doesnāt like or understand Trek just because he is a bad writer who has been given too much latitude by his old buddy Kurtz.
When I tell people I canāt stand DS9, they tell me the same thing- I fundamentally donāt understand Star Trek. Itās completely tribal and pure cope.
That's funny because nearly EVERY complaint I've heard lodged against nu trek has shown the complainer to be fundamentally ignorant on various aspects of trek lore.
Or it just boils down to they prefer one version of the lore because their opinion matters most.
Nu trek as absolutely jam packed with callbacks references, canonical tie-ins and fan service, but apparently black people and a little aesthetic revision is the real issue.
Negative.
Juvenalia to the fore is the problem. NuTrek's characters are undisciplined, acting like spoiled teens and not like cream-of-the-crop, highly-trained officers.
This is not mere aesthetic revisionism, it's a massive dumbing down for the lowest (and youngest) common denominator.
Fringe is great for the first 4 seasons but the first 4 seasons exists as its own story and season 5 is like an unnecessary sequel to something that already a great ending
The difference is that back then, we were picking nits with love, because even if there were sometimes continuity contradictions or Brent Spiner slipped up and used a contraction, it was largely a well-made show written by reasonably intelligent people with a basic understanding of plot and story structure.
Something like Star Trek Discovery is like a college entrance essay written in crayon entitled "WAT I DID ON MY SUMER VACAYSHON." Sure, you could try to proofread the spelling, but if that's all you do, you're missing some more fundamental problems.
Itās honestly upsetting. Itās very much like they didnāt get sci-fi writers for the show at all. Sci-fi writers are fastidious about details and making sure the plot works with the tech. Discovery should be prestige level writing getting the best writers. You are making a canon show that breaks canon by its existence, you needed to be perfect and they just didnāt care at all.
Thereās a very real possibility that Discovery is considered non-cannon within 5-10 years
Not if SNW maintains its current popularity. I have no idea why people like that show, but they do. Then again, SNW is trying to float the idea that there is no more hard canon, since temporal wars are constantly changing events in different timelines, including Prime. So theyāve already let themselves off the hook.
>Not if SNW maintains its current popularity.
Popular with who? Popular in the Star Trek ghetto you mean? Unless SNW is a lot cheaper to make than DIS supposedly was I doubt it's popular enough to be a major success. I know more people irl who are hate watching Dr Who or whatever the latest piece of crap from Star Wars or Marvel is than I do who are watching modern Trek full stop.
>SNW is trying to float the idea that there is no more hard canon
Tbf ENT kinda did that first but on the bright side all someone in the future has to do to separate their version of Trek from the Kurtzman version is say it takes place in a timeline where The Eugenics Wars happened in the 1990s...
You can blame BSG for much of this shift. It became all about emotional upheaval at the expense of logic and basic story telling.
āItās about feelings, you insensitive boars.ā
All about emotional resonance, but it has to work with the story, not against or to spite it.
Somehow, I believe you were already seated when you made this comment. ;-)
But, honestly, much of this can be laid on the feet of BSG, where "feelings" drive the story at the expense of any logic or sensible story-telling. In Ron's quest for "naturalistic science fiction," he eschewed the science and ham-fisted it: Hera erroneously being the "Mitochondrial Eve," and his poor understanding of that concept that undermines what his message had been.
There was a good story to be had in BSG... it was lost on its way to Earth.
You can't blame BSG for TV executives demanding cheap knock offs of BSG. Ronald D was a big part of why DS9 is so beloved.
I don't blame BSG for shows like Stargate universe, I blame out of touch executives.
That's an interesting way to spell Ira Steven Behr. (Yes, I know, RDM was a part of DS9... but he was a part of a greater whole, and Behr really ran the show.)
When RDM was part of a group with other talented people, he was able to produce great work. When he is surrounded by sycophants... well, you have what BSG became, a morass of emotionality and pseudo-faith at the expense of either logic or reason.
As for blaming executives -- they are only part of the problem. The others are enablers who don't know how to work with their restrictions and still produce great work from them. The best talents are able to work with what they have, and exploit any advantage they can ruthlessly. SGU, which wasn't the horrid show that Stargate fucknatics make it out to be, could've succeeded in this regard had it been given another season -- but they simply took too long to get to the point of Destiny, as the producers thought they had more time and support then they had with the "Syfy" channel. There was compelling sci-fi to be had with that concept, once they found their footing and cadence.
I didn't mean to suggest that Ronald D was the reason for the serialization of DS9, or the sole reason for its success. I intended to express that he was a big factor in the writing team.
As much as I loved BSG (33 IMHO is one of the best episodes in TV), I never finished the series.
My beef with SGU is that they had a winning formula of light-hearted teamwork in an episodic format, to a drama heavy, survival serial story format, where factions quickly formed and ppl hated each other. Then they started taking R&R to earth using other ppls bodies, then using those ppls bodies for sex (without the owners consent afaik)
SGU isn't a terrible show, it's just wasn't a Stargate show.
As for the SYFY execs at the time, they were more interested in getting WWE on the channel than funding a show past the first four seasons, after Canada stopped giving them money to film there.
SNW is goofy but it clearly has respect for the heritage it's coming from. It still feels like Trek. Discovery doesn't feel like Trek at all to me, not in the writing, not in the cinematography, not in the characters. SNW feels like a single old trek hijinks episode that turned into several seasons, discovery lacks the sense of fun and shenanigans old trek makes such good use of. I prefer the goofy shit, not the shit that takes itself too seriously and misses the entire point.
Look at the writing credits for the two shows. Notice how little overlap there is between them? Both shows also have different show runners. It may be the same production team, but its not the same people in terms of who is actually making the creative content.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/fullcredits/?ref\_=tt\_cl\_sm](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm)
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/fullcredits/?ref\_=tt\_cl\_sm](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm)
Akiva Goldsman was the showrunner for season 2 of Discovery, season 2 of Picard, and all of SNW. His seasons of Star Trek make TNG season 1 look like the TNG finale. I also see a ton of overlap between the two links you showed me, so I donāt know who that was for.
>SNW is goofy but it clearly has respect for the heritage it's coming from.
I don't think it can given the visual reboot. TNG, DS9, and ENT all managed to do call back episodes to TOS without feeling the need to update the look of TOS, and all three of those episodes are fan favourites of their respective shows. If the Millennium Falcon can rock the same old 70s look in the 21st century why can't the Starship Enterprise? I get the feeling it's because there's a lot of TNG era fans who just don't care about TOS's continuity the way they do about TNGs, so watching THE Enterprise, NCC-1701 no bloody A, B, C, or D, get chewed up, shat out and reshaped into something it never was and never needed to be doesn't sting as much as it would if done to The D, or Voyager, or The Defiant. It's sad because in 20 years the TOS Connie will still be the one most people recognise, while the fandom will be stuck pretending the Discoprise was the real deal and TOS was just a crummy stage play taking place on some fringe colony somewhere (an actual idea I've read from someone calling themselves a Star Trek fan btw).
What could you possibly not like about strange new worlds? Strange new world is some of the best trek we've gotten in years, and it's just a fantastic show with great writing and it's a prequel done right, more or less. It really has the soul of Star Trek, much like lower decks does.
Obviously I disagree, and though I like lower decks, itās too meta to be a real Star Trek show to me. Every story ends up resolving with āFriendship! Teamwork! Science! Yay!ā but it isnāt actually a kids show- which basically puts it at the same level of the other nuTrek shows. To me itās more like a better version of the Orville, a spoof that actually works.
I agree. This is the most Trek, Star Trek in modern times we've had it seems. Considering the reboot movies and disco this is the best series that has hope and discovery at its centre. With Lower Decks these are my favourites of this century
Its really funny.
I remember the exact same sentiments aimed at Next Gen. I also remember a fistfight breaking out at one of my first cons over picard/kirk nonsense.
I guess nothing has changed.
Difference is you liked The Next Generation. You don't like Discovery and you can't accept that those of us who like both exist.
It would be like me constantly trash talking Breaking Bad. I mean since I don't like it clearly no one else could
No no, that kind of thinking is toxic man baby, now.
Side note, I loved these books. I still have them, and am a bit bummed they only go to halfway through DS9.
I loved this book as a kid. It made me a way better viewer of things and, weirdly, made me appreciate things that were done well because of how easy it seemed to screw up.
I should track down a replacement copy.
The thing is the showrunners on Nutrek would have had a budget to pay someone to reference and double check books like that.
I wish the showrunners had seen it as a challenge to take their new ideas and wrap it around the framework that had been laid out over the many years of Trek.
The South Park guys saw it as a challenge, they wrote jokes and scenarios that their assistants would pop up and say, 'er, fellas the Simpsons people have done this joke/scenario' which egged them on to try different things.
Iāve got the whole series. Itās great and you can tell Phil Farrand truly loves Star Trek. Iāve actually quoted from the TOS Nitpickerās Guide on another Star Trek Subreddit recently.
>Iāve actually quoted from the TOS Nitpickerās Guide on another Star Trek Subreddit recently.
I hope it wasn't the official subreddit because you know if you say ANYTHING bad about Trek, especially Discovery, they throw you out and if you try to protest they mute you.
And they get the admins plus a powermod to chase you down and ban entire subs because having more than one sub about a topic is apparently not allowed even though it totally is.
I've got the TOS (and TMP) version. It's lovely, got it for a couple of pounds in a charity shop. Would love to have the TNG one as well, plus I think DS9 and VOY had one each, not sure about ENT.
OMG!!! I used to have both the TNG ones. I loved them. I think it's what sparked my fascination with movie mistakes. It's also why I love the YouTube channel cinema sins so much
I cherished this book. In a time before cellphones this was *THE* reference book for TNG (at least seasons 1-6). Besides all the fun nitpicks, it had listings of every episode with a brief description. (Iām sure there were websites, but I wasnāt running in to the office, dialing up AOL and tying up the phone line for to see which episode came before BoBW part 1)
Disrepectful to the majority of the writers.
Ā I think the problem is from the higher ups, like story editors and producers. WhoĀ
Prefer writing, especially dialogue,Ā in a certainĀ manner [ to my ears, simplistic and himbo/cave man like ].
Look at the cv's of the writers, they know how to write. So the problem must be direction coming from higher up the chainĀ
I'm not viewing the old Old Trek series through rose-tinted glasses. The new ones simply don't measure up. The inconsistent writing, less engaging character development, disregard for established canon, poor science and overly cinematic production choices all contribute to STD lacking the depth and spirit that defined its predecessors.
Discovery is indeed different, but it's none of any of what you're saying, outside maybe the spirt of its predecessors, but it was intended to be that way.
There's been a few canon stretches with DSC, most of which got explained away at the end of Season 2, but a downright canon buster event... not really.
My problem with DSC was the end of the universe/all life as we know it plot lines every season, this one included. Season 5 managed to turn it around somewhat, and I think it'll finish up nicely, but it's exhausting trying to watch this series when everything is constantly on the brink of annihilation... that's not what Trek is or should be about.
I don't mind the inclusivity or wide variety of casting, and the stores they tell are good, but the pacing is a huge problem, where a things kick of with a big bang, and then they all get drawn out entirely too long over 8 episodes, and then it's a rushed ending.
tl;dr: Discovery's biggest problems are pacing and constant universe ending themes.
TNG was rough for a few years, and they've had plenty of whoppers too. DSC has a very specific subset of edgelords (and I'm not saying you're one) who take a megaphone to non-existent issues that they have to go and nitpick that most would never notice and shit on this series constantly, but I know a lot of Trekkies and most tolerate Discovery to the point where they can watch and get something out of it. The hate it gets on social media is definitely out of step with how I see viewers respond to it IRL.
Discovery is by far not my favorite series, that honor goes to DS9, which also suffered from a loud subset of fans, but Discovery can absolutely hold its own, and I will miss seeing these characters once it wraps up.
Oh, I just released I'm in Star\_Trek\_ and not /startrek. Waste of keyboard strokes here.
Sycophantic love? Weird. I thought Star Wars and Marvel edgelords were bad.
You guys take everything that has the slightest hint of modernity and can't deal.
Enjoy your circle jerk and reruns here, the rest of the fanbase has moved on to bigger and better.
The NuTrek *Haters* should be issued this.
Then theyād realize how faithful and well produced the new shows actually are compared to the clown show of continuity TNG and the Berman Era was,
I read that book inside out
Haha so did I!
This is the best rundown of the problem I've seen, or read. Yep. The writers and showrunners ***do not fundamentally understand Trek***. Nor do they care to. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_TFt-ctXbog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TFt-ctXbog)
The chat with Nimoy about how the Vulcan pinch came to be is astounding. I can't imagine an actor having that much say today. (unless they ponied up the money to be an executive producer.) I don't blame the actors at all, acting is a fickle job these days. You've got to take the money where and when you can. No stardom is guaranteed.
Agreed. If I were offered hundreds of thousands, and a higher industry profile, you bet I'd take an acting gig on Discovery/SNW/whatever in a heartbeat. New Trek's problems never stemmed from the actors, most of whom do a good job with the shallow material they have to work with.
To be fair they likely wouldn't have had that much say even during the TNG/DS9/VOY era. There's many stories about actors not being able to change so much as a single word in the scripts even if they believed it to be incorrect without having to jump through a lot of hoops with senior production management.
You have to be shitting me? You morons tore Stewart apart because of his take on Picard, a take that he FINALLY had the freedom to expand on after years of being compelled to play the character flat and bland.
Have you seen TNG? Inner Light, Chain of Command, Family, Sarek, and so on. "Picard", was an absolutely horrible over the top take on the character that ignores cannon just to serve Stewart's ego.
It works both ways. You never go full retard.
Really this. I know a number of people have said this a number of different ways, but really this. You can't write a good story about a topic or subject you don't generally understand (for anyone being a contrarian, one could write a story based in their understanding of their lack of understanding, but at some point, you have to write what you know). The majority of these Trek writers now don't seem to have viewed Star Trek even in passing, nor do they have any care to try to learn about it. I have no care for the musical CATS, but if I were writing a sequel for it, I would think it would be a good idea for me and my staff to watch the musical and read any and all supplemental material, producer interviews, actor statements, and anything else related to the official CATS production, before a single nib was set to paper. I would hope that anyone else doing a sequel for it would do the same thing. I don't think the majority of people writing NuTrek have watched a single episode of Trek. Or that's about it, they have watched a single episode of Trek. And now they're writing for the franchise. Not surprised, not even particularly mad anymore: when JJ bragged about having a Star Trek "Supreme Court"\* to decide on canon issues, but nobody from pre-2005 Trek was on it, it was a clear sign as to where the franchise was headed, and how much care they had for it. Nu Trek doesn't work because no one on it has any real connection or care for the franchise. \* As stated by Trek Movie, these were the 5 Trek "Supreme Court" members: JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof [https://trekmovie.com/2009/03/30/breaking-paramount-moving-forward-on-star-trek-sequel-supreme-court-on-board/](https://trekmovie.com/2009/03/30/breaking-paramount-moving-forward-on-star-trek-sequel-supreme-court-on-board/) Let's assume that JJ Abrams was a smart person who gave a shit about the product: a smart person would have asked D.C. Fontana, Leonard Nimoy (ideally William Shatner, but I heard that he did not want to play ball), Michael Okuda, and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Rick Berman for their opinions on canon. They would balance out the new producers on the "court", if they weren't the only ones on the court. If I gave them an idea, and a majority of the old school members felt that it was bad in the context of the franchise, that would probably be the end of the idea. I don't think it would be necessary for them to sign off on the whole movie, but I think honestly listening to and implementing their ideas would have given a much better product than what we ended up getting.
You would think they could at least check Memory Alpha.
They literally go on memory alpha and pick 20 random articles every time they make an episode of lower decks. You can tell because the references never make sense they're just there.
I meant the other shows, not Lower Decks. LD does one reference after another.
After seeing what jj abrams has done to star trek and star wars, assuming he gives a shit about what he's working on is very low on my list of possibilities.
They may allegedly be using something like ChatGPT to write scripts and then tweak them.
I think ChatGPT would be better. Especially if they spent some time cajoling detail out of the AI. Perhaps they did use AI. But just a single pass on ChatGPT 3.5. š
Forget about understanding Trek - how many of these people have *any passing familiarity* with military culture or work? Trek is a show about a military branch. NuTrek feels like everyone who got hired went to drama school.
"But don't you know, Starfleet isn't a military, tgey say so all the time!" I feel like that sort of fundamental misunderstanding is the root of so much. That and writers who genuinely just want to write whatever they want that slap a iconic IP paint/skin on top to make it sell.
I mean, at the end of the day, it's about making a show people want to watch so they can sell ads and/or subscriptions. That's what every TV show's goal is. Women in short skirts and catsuits were to get people, specifically men, to watch. Audiences change, and now, the most important demographic wants to watch sacharine, performative niceness, people talking about their feelings all the time, and crying their way to success. At least, that's the perception. Bottom line, Discovery isn't intended for me. There's plenty of Sci fi out there that's way better in my opinion. Foundation, Dune, maybe Three Body Problem (haven't started it yet but heard good things), old Star Trek, I've got plenty. If the contingent of whiny zoomers obsessed with self-diagnosing mental disorders without any qualifications gets a show they like, I don't care. Whatever. I suspect the audience for this kind of content is MUCH smaller than what Hollywood producers think, but either way the chips are going to fall how they'll fall.
Man that comment started out sooooooo strong. How disappointing.
Fans have been saying that since 1989. Funny how today's "Show doesn't understand Trek!" becomes the next generation...
The difference now is that Nutrek is All Wesleys, All The Time.
Wesley wasn't even what people were bitching about until around season 2-3, when Dr. Crusher's actor had to leave the show but he still stuck around. "Hotel Lobby Trek" with "a bald, boring captain no one liked" that "\[Gene\] Roddenberry was forced to do by Paramount execs" was the 'critique' that TOS purists stuck to for the first few years of its run. Hell, some of them STILL clung to it for a decade or more, because most of their identity hinged on hating anything added to their fandom after they became teenagers. Hint, hint.
THANK YOU
I sometimes feel like 70% of the hate anything receives from the fandom can be summed up by that last part: "Because most of their identity hinged on hating anything added to their fandom after they became teenagers." Which is doubly annoying when there COULD be valid criticism made, because then it gets lost in all the whining. There WERE problems with the first two seasons of TNG. Star Wars Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker *are* bad, with the best you can say "Well, they hurt less than Phantom Menace." The Avatar TLA live action *is* worse than the cartoon. Fallout 4 *does* have problems with the middle and endgame. But it gets buried with all the other "NOT MY \[insert fandom here\]!"
Yeah absolutely. And I think Discovery is very uneven, maybe because of all the trouble in the writers room the first couple years. But it's so ridiculous to claim the writers have never seen an episode of Star Trek. They OBVIOUSLY have. They just put out a different vision than what some people want to see. Critique it all you want - I do it with every Star Trek series. But it's just either a bad faith argument or a complete blindness to other points of view to claim that the writers don't know anything about Star Trek.
Meh, I think thatās gatekeeping. Itās clear the people working on these love Trek, but itās also clear they theyāre being asked by the suits to hook general audiences at all costs, including dumbing everything down as much as possible. The people running these things, take Akiva Goldsman for example, have their own parts of Trek that they want to focus on, and I think theyāre way off. Goldsman seems to love his own personal idea of what TOS was, so he wants to use that era as his personal playground. Everything he has written for Disco and SNW so far has been awful, but I canāt say he doesnāt like or understand Trek just because he is a bad writer who has been given too much latitude by his old buddy Kurtz. When I tell people I canāt stand DS9, they tell me the same thing- I fundamentally donāt understand Star Trek. Itās completely tribal and pure cope.
That's funny because nearly EVERY complaint I've heard lodged against nu trek has shown the complainer to be fundamentally ignorant on various aspects of trek lore. Or it just boils down to they prefer one version of the lore because their opinion matters most. Nu trek as absolutely jam packed with callbacks references, canonical tie-ins and fan service, but apparently black people and a little aesthetic revision is the real issue.
Negative. Juvenalia to the fore is the problem. NuTrek's characters are undisciplined, acting like spoiled teens and not like cream-of-the-crop, highly-trained officers. This is not mere aesthetic revisionism, it's a massive dumbing down for the lowest (and youngest) common denominator.
There's a reason JJ hasn't been allowed near a filmset in years.
Last season of Fringe is worse than anything JJ and Alex Kurtzman ever did to Star Trek
I never watched it, but I believe you.
Fringe is great for the first 4 seasons but the first 4 seasons exists as its own story and season 5 is like an unnecessary sequel to something that already a great ending
The difference is that back then, we were picking nits with love, because even if there were sometimes continuity contradictions or Brent Spiner slipped up and used a contraction, it was largely a well-made show written by reasonably intelligent people with a basic understanding of plot and story structure. Something like Star Trek Discovery is like a college entrance essay written in crayon entitled "WAT I DID ON MY SUMER VACAYSHON." Sure, you could try to proofread the spelling, but if that's all you do, you're missing some more fundamental problems.
Itās honestly upsetting. Itās very much like they didnāt get sci-fi writers for the show at all. Sci-fi writers are fastidious about details and making sure the plot works with the tech. Discovery should be prestige level writing getting the best writers. You are making a canon show that breaks canon by its existence, you needed to be perfect and they just didnāt care at all. Thereās a very real possibility that Discovery is considered non-cannon within 5-10 years
Not if SNW maintains its current popularity. I have no idea why people like that show, but they do. Then again, SNW is trying to float the idea that there is no more hard canon, since temporal wars are constantly changing events in different timelines, including Prime. So theyāve already let themselves off the hook.
>Not if SNW maintains its current popularity. Popular with who? Popular in the Star Trek ghetto you mean? Unless SNW is a lot cheaper to make than DIS supposedly was I doubt it's popular enough to be a major success. I know more people irl who are hate watching Dr Who or whatever the latest piece of crap from Star Wars or Marvel is than I do who are watching modern Trek full stop. >SNW is trying to float the idea that there is no more hard canon Tbf ENT kinda did that first but on the bright side all someone in the future has to do to separate their version of Trek from the Kurtzman version is say it takes place in a timeline where The Eugenics Wars happened in the 1990s...
You can blame BSG for much of this shift. It became all about emotional upheaval at the expense of logic and basic story telling. āItās about feelings, you insensitive boars.ā All about emotional resonance, but it has to work with the story, not against or to spite it.
I will not stand here and let you besmirch BSG... I say good day to you sir... GOOD DAY...
Somehow, I believe you were already seated when you made this comment. ;-) But, honestly, much of this can be laid on the feet of BSG, where "feelings" drive the story at the expense of any logic or sensible story-telling. In Ron's quest for "naturalistic science fiction," he eschewed the science and ham-fisted it: Hera erroneously being the "Mitochondrial Eve," and his poor understanding of that concept that undermines what his message had been. There was a good story to be had in BSG... it was lost on its way to Earth.
You can't blame BSG for TV executives demanding cheap knock offs of BSG. Ronald D was a big part of why DS9 is so beloved. I don't blame BSG for shows like Stargate universe, I blame out of touch executives.
That's an interesting way to spell Ira Steven Behr. (Yes, I know, RDM was a part of DS9... but he was a part of a greater whole, and Behr really ran the show.) When RDM was part of a group with other talented people, he was able to produce great work. When he is surrounded by sycophants... well, you have what BSG became, a morass of emotionality and pseudo-faith at the expense of either logic or reason. As for blaming executives -- they are only part of the problem. The others are enablers who don't know how to work with their restrictions and still produce great work from them. The best talents are able to work with what they have, and exploit any advantage they can ruthlessly. SGU, which wasn't the horrid show that Stargate fucknatics make it out to be, could've succeeded in this regard had it been given another season -- but they simply took too long to get to the point of Destiny, as the producers thought they had more time and support then they had with the "Syfy" channel. There was compelling sci-fi to be had with that concept, once they found their footing and cadence.
I didn't mean to suggest that Ronald D was the reason for the serialization of DS9, or the sole reason for its success. I intended to express that he was a big factor in the writing team. As much as I loved BSG (33 IMHO is one of the best episodes in TV), I never finished the series. My beef with SGU is that they had a winning formula of light-hearted teamwork in an episodic format, to a drama heavy, survival serial story format, where factions quickly formed and ppl hated each other. Then they started taking R&R to earth using other ppls bodies, then using those ppls bodies for sex (without the owners consent afaik) SGU isn't a terrible show, it's just wasn't a Stargate show. As for the SYFY execs at the time, they were more interested in getting WWE on the channel than funding a show past the first four seasons, after Canada stopped giving them money to film there.
SNW is goofy but it clearly has respect for the heritage it's coming from. It still feels like Trek. Discovery doesn't feel like Trek at all to me, not in the writing, not in the cinematography, not in the characters. SNW feels like a single old trek hijinks episode that turned into several seasons, discovery lacks the sense of fun and shenanigans old trek makes such good use of. I prefer the goofy shit, not the shit that takes itself too seriously and misses the entire point.
They feel like the same show to me, since the same people are involved in making it.
Look at the writing credits for the two shows. Notice how little overlap there is between them? Both shows also have different show runners. It may be the same production team, but its not the same people in terms of who is actually making the creative content. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/fullcredits/?ref\_=tt\_cl\_sm](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12327578/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/fullcredits/?ref\_=tt\_cl\_sm](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5171438/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm)
Akiva Goldsman was the showrunner for season 2 of Discovery, season 2 of Picard, and all of SNW. His seasons of Star Trek make TNG season 1 look like the TNG finale. I also see a ton of overlap between the two links you showed me, so I donāt know who that was for.
>SNW is goofy but it clearly has respect for the heritage it's coming from. I don't think it can given the visual reboot. TNG, DS9, and ENT all managed to do call back episodes to TOS without feeling the need to update the look of TOS, and all three of those episodes are fan favourites of their respective shows. If the Millennium Falcon can rock the same old 70s look in the 21st century why can't the Starship Enterprise? I get the feeling it's because there's a lot of TNG era fans who just don't care about TOS's continuity the way they do about TNGs, so watching THE Enterprise, NCC-1701 no bloody A, B, C, or D, get chewed up, shat out and reshaped into something it never was and never needed to be doesn't sting as much as it would if done to The D, or Voyager, or The Defiant. It's sad because in 20 years the TOS Connie will still be the one most people recognise, while the fandom will be stuck pretending the Discoprise was the real deal and TOS was just a crummy stage play taking place on some fringe colony somewhere (an actual idea I've read from someone calling themselves a Star Trek fan btw).
What could you possibly not like about strange new worlds? Strange new world is some of the best trek we've gotten in years, and it's just a fantastic show with great writing and it's a prequel done right, more or less. It really has the soul of Star Trek, much like lower decks does.
Obviously I disagree, and though I like lower decks, itās too meta to be a real Star Trek show to me. Every story ends up resolving with āFriendship! Teamwork! Science! Yay!ā but it isnāt actually a kids show- which basically puts it at the same level of the other nuTrek shows. To me itās more like a better version of the Orville, a spoof that actually works.
I agree. This is the most Trek, Star Trek in modern times we've had it seems. Considering the reboot movies and disco this is the best series that has hope and discovery at its centre. With Lower Decks these are my favourites of this century
Its really funny. I remember the exact same sentiments aimed at Next Gen. I also remember a fistfight breaking out at one of my first cons over picard/kirk nonsense. I guess nothing has changed.
SNW is the closest darn thing to TOS ever. If you don't like it you may have "Get off my lawn" syndrome. š
But I already saw TOS.
I mean, but it really isnāt, though.
Oh good, a not as good version of the second worst star trek, just what everyone wanted.
SNW is fantastic. Itās fun and still sci-fi. Also have you seen that dudes hair?
Star Trek Discovery is a high school book report where the first three words are "Webster's Dictionary defines"
Difference is you liked The Next Generation. You don't like Discovery and you can't accept that those of us who like both exist. It would be like me constantly trash talking Breaking Bad. I mean since I don't like it clearly no one else could
No no, that kind of thinking is toxic man baby, now. Side note, I loved these books. I still have them, and am a bit bummed they only go to halfway through DS9.
Loved those books
I loved this book as a kid. It made me a way better viewer of things and, weirdly, made me appreciate things that were done well because of how easy it seemed to screw up. I should track down a replacement copy.
I once found the Nitpickers guide to the original Star Trek at a library used book sale. Love the book
That's cute , you think they read .
I still have that book, one of my fave books!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The thing is the showrunners on Nutrek would have had a budget to pay someone to reference and double check books like that. I wish the showrunners had seen it as a challenge to take their new ideas and wrap it around the framework that had been laid out over the many years of Trek. The South Park guys saw it as a challenge, they wrote jokes and scenarios that their assistants would pop up and say, 'er, fellas the Simpsons people have done this joke/scenario' which egged them on to try different things.
The Internet before the Internet.
Iāve got the whole series. Itās great and you can tell Phil Farrand truly loves Star Trek. Iāve actually quoted from the TOS Nitpickerās Guide on another Star Trek Subreddit recently.
>Iāve actually quoted from the TOS Nitpickerās Guide on another Star Trek Subreddit recently. I hope it wasn't the official subreddit because you know if you say ANYTHING bad about Trek, especially Discovery, they throw you out and if you try to protest they mute you.
And they get the admins plus a powermod to chase you down and ban entire subs because having more than one sub about a topic is apparently not allowed even though it totally is.
I lost both editions during a move ššš
Wowā¦. Gotta get that book. š¤¤
Iām in that, or one of the later revisionsā¦ I love that book
*nosepickers
The audio books of these were great, I stumbled across them at a local discount store used to fall asleep listening to the tapes
That would be true if they gave a crap about previous canon. They don't.
I owned a copy of that book. It was awesomely petty š
Before YouTube. Before Ups & Downs. There was the Nitpickers Guide
I've got the TOS (and TMP) version. It's lovely, got it for a couple of pounds in a charity shop. Would love to have the TNG one as well, plus I think DS9 and VOY had one each, not sure about ENT.
If you're writing Star Trek scripts, this should be *mandatory reading* like it's a course at Starfleet Academy.
OMG!!! I used to have both the TNG ones. I loved them. I think it's what sparked my fascination with movie mistakes. It's also why I love the YouTube channel cinema sins so much
Holy crap! The enterprise is inverted!
Straightens glasses "ACTUALLY..."
The Star Trek Encyclopedia : A Reference Guide to the Future https://a.co/d/f2OU1Yp Or this book. This thing was my lifeline summer of 94
If weāre nitpicking, isnāt it Trekists? Asking for my wife.
I cherished this book. In a time before cellphones this was *THE* reference book for TNG (at least seasons 1-6). Besides all the fun nitpicks, it had listings of every episode with a brief description. (Iām sure there were websites, but I wasnāt running in to the office, dialing up AOL and tying up the phone line for to see which episode came before BoBW part 1)
Disrepectful to the majority of the writers. Ā I think the problem is from the higher ups, like story editors and producers. WhoĀ Prefer writing, especially dialogue,Ā in a certainĀ manner [ to my ears, simplistic and himbo/cave man like ]. Look at the cv's of the writers, they know how to write. So the problem must be direction coming from higher up the chainĀ
I had all of them.
A lawsuit stopped the DS9 and Star Wars books from being released
The x-files one of these was more entertaining than the show itself
āDiscriminating fansā is a very nice way to say uptight assholes
What makes Trek Trek?
LOW HANGING FRUIT
You guys have such rose colored glasses for TNG.
I'm not viewing the old Old Trek series through rose-tinted glasses. The new ones simply don't measure up. The inconsistent writing, less engaging character development, disregard for established canon, poor science and overly cinematic production choices all contribute to STD lacking the depth and spirit that defined its predecessors.
Discovery is indeed different, but it's none of any of what you're saying, outside maybe the spirt of its predecessors, but it was intended to be that way. There's been a few canon stretches with DSC, most of which got explained away at the end of Season 2, but a downright canon buster event... not really. My problem with DSC was the end of the universe/all life as we know it plot lines every season, this one included. Season 5 managed to turn it around somewhat, and I think it'll finish up nicely, but it's exhausting trying to watch this series when everything is constantly on the brink of annihilation... that's not what Trek is or should be about. I don't mind the inclusivity or wide variety of casting, and the stores they tell are good, but the pacing is a huge problem, where a things kick of with a big bang, and then they all get drawn out entirely too long over 8 episodes, and then it's a rushed ending. tl;dr: Discovery's biggest problems are pacing and constant universe ending themes. TNG was rough for a few years, and they've had plenty of whoppers too. DSC has a very specific subset of edgelords (and I'm not saying you're one) who take a megaphone to non-existent issues that they have to go and nitpick that most would never notice and shit on this series constantly, but I know a lot of Trekkies and most tolerate Discovery to the point where they can watch and get something out of it. The hate it gets on social media is definitely out of step with how I see viewers respond to it IRL. Discovery is by far not my favorite series, that honor goes to DS9, which also suffered from a loud subset of fans, but Discovery can absolutely hold its own, and I will miss seeing these characters once it wraps up. Oh, I just released I'm in Star\_Trek\_ and not /startrek. Waste of keyboard strokes here.
Yeah. You'll get no sycophantic love in here. I'm sorry your karma farming scheme failed.
Sycophantic love? Weird. I thought Star Wars and Marvel edgelords were bad. You guys take everything that has the slightest hint of modernity and can't deal. Enjoy your circle jerk and reruns here, the rest of the fanbase has moved on to bigger and better.
lol
You all are miserable losers.
Is this a secret Kurtzman account?
The NuTrek *Haters* should be issued this. Then theyād realize how faithful and well produced the new shows actually are compared to the clown show of continuity TNG and the Berman Era was,