Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Canon-Strike IX: Star Trek

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #16
    Still have not watched the first two seasons of Discovery...I will admit the constant Klingon subtitles were off putting and the spore drive plot at the beginning was not strong enough to hold my interest, but I have heard it picks up considerably. Picard was much more accessible.

    Let's be honest everyone is still waiting for the version of TNG to TNG. A quantum leap in history and technology that moves things forward like TNG did to OTS. New ship, new tech, new Federation and most importantly new villains and a new exploration of the galaxy. Guest appearances by aged Patrick Stewart in first episode ala Deforest Kelly plus recurring roles for Admiral Riker and Captain Worf would have worked as well.

    It has been 33 years since TNG longer than the gap between TOS and TNG. Last time they had Gene Roddenberry to breathe life again into the idea, this time for a distinct reboot of the universe they do not.

    I have actually been watching TNG again and even the early seasons 1-2 have some real gems in them like Elementary Dear Data, The Big Goodbye, Peak Performance, Conspiracy, The Battle, 11001001, A Matter of Honour, Contagion, Time Squared, Q-Who, The Emissary.

    It really gets going in the third series as the tone changes slightly with Roddenberry taking more of a back seat. The strength of TNG and why it is still broadcast along with DS9 and Voyager is the heart of the storytelling and tight script writing.

    Classic TNG episodes can be rewatched again and again as the production and set of actors were literally perfect. I remember the wait between the original Best of Both Worlds series finale broadcast and watching it live. It was like a 90 minute movie on your television set back in the early 90s.

    DS9 was different in an excellent way and had an equally strong cast of talented actors. I even grew to appreciate Voyager in retrospect in honesty.

    An updated TNG to TNG is what everyone really wants but Paramount and CBS have just done their very best to distort things in my opinion.

    When I heard they were going back to a similar era as Enterprise with Discovery I was pretty disappointed in honesty. I will give it another outing this week though.

    I think they may be bold enough to hit the future reset button once Discovery finishes actually and they have concluded Picard after 3-5 seasons.

    Singer's Star Trek Federation might have been interesting as well.

    https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Federation

    What we left behind is also worth watching the documentary on DS9. Shows you what an HD remastered version of DS9 would look like as well. No Sisko appearance though.

    Last edited by CAPCOM; 21-06-2020, 13:50.

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by CAPCOM View Post
      Shows you what an HD remastered version of DS9 would look like as well.
      This is one of the weird things about TNG on Netflix; if you think it looks better than you remember, you're actually right. The show was shot on film, so when they did the digital transfer, they were able to make a very high quality version.

      Voyager was shot on tape as a cost-cutting measure, and as a result, it looks soft and has that classic American TV feel; you might be able to improve it with a bit of visual trickery but it'll never be as sharp as TNG.

      Comment


        #18
        Star Trek: The Animated Series
        After the cancellation of the original show it succeeded in garnering popularity whilst in syndication, a win that led to this next incarnation. Bringing back most of the original cast, the two seasons of episodes largely covered the fourth year of the USS Enterprise's five year mission. Meant to please fans and be accessible enough for children, the show doesn't really contain much that contributes to the canon or deviates from the original series but in its time it was critically acclaimed as an adaptation and is now an often overlooked part of the franchises history and still its only animated series until the upcoming Lower Decks series debuts.



        Did the animated series add much to your appreciation of classic era Trek?

        Comment


          #19
          I haven't seen it in decades and was slightly tempted to pick it up on DVD or Blu-ray when it was released a while back but I do remember being pleasantly surprised by it many years ago. The animation is atrocious but some of the stories were surprisingly good. It really did feel like a continuation of the original show.

          Comment


            #20
            Star Trek: Federation was an undeveloped Star Trek spin-off to be produced by Bryan Singer. Set in the year 3000, the show was to chronicle a period of decline and rebirth for the United Federation of Planets, spearheaded by a crew on a new USS Enterprise.

            "Utopia as a goal is like the fire in a nuclear engine. Utopia in practice is stagnation; it's dry rot; eventually it's death. Which is precisely where we find the United Federation of Planets a few centuries after the last Age of Discovery."

            Humanity has become complacent, and many worlds have left the Federation because of its Human-centric nature. Starfleet is stretched thin and many of its ships are outdated. A new enemy called the Scourge attack and destroy the USS Sojourner and two colony worlds. The only survivor is Lieutenant Commander Alexander Kirk. The authorities refuse to believe his story, a state of affairs that causes Vulcan, Bajor, and Betazed to leave in disgust at the corruption of the UFP, leaving it with only twenty systems under its control.

            The Ferengi become the dominant power in the galaxy, and make money by spreading the Bajoran religion and making Bajor into a major place of pilgrimage. The Vulcans reunify with the Romulans. The Cardassian and Klingon societies have evolved into more mystical and less warlike cultures, though the Klingon Empire is expanding once more (but they are still on good terms with the Federation).

            Admiral Nelscott commissions a new USS Enterprise to return the Federation to its goal of going boldly, but with the ulterior objective of finding the Scourge. After its captain and first officer are killed, Commander Kirk (third-in-command) is promoted to captain of a crew of four hundred.
            Sounded different at least but also way too similar to some aspects of Enterprise with the Zindi arc, even though it was developed afterwards. Not sure how much of an influence it had on Discovery as just at episode three of season one, although some want to link it to elements of Picard, not really seeing that to be honest.

            Comment


              #21
              Originally posted by CAPCOM View Post
              Star Trek: Federation was an undeveloped Star Trek spin-off to be produced by Bryan Singer. Set in the year 3000, the show was to chronicle a period of decline and rebirth for the United Federation of Planets, spearheaded by a crew on a new USS Enterprise.
              I dunno; part of me really likes the idea that Trek is set in and around a Utopia, of sorts. The edges of the map are starting to fray but the core is quite solid.

              I used to like that proposed idea of a show where an Omega explosion destroys warp drive in the Federation, leading to a cataclysmic scenario. And I get it. I get the idea that Trek is like a really nicely made stained glass window, and it's fun to see how where the pieces will land if you throw a brick at it. But that's why Battlestar Galactica exists.

              Comment


                #22
                Picard feels like another move towards dismantling the utopian element of the Federation given it's idea that Picard is last standing bastion of old Federation ideals and opposed to what it has now become.

                Comment


                  #23
                  Well he opposed a major decision because he didn’t get his way but, since back in classic Kirk days and movies and all through Next Gen and beyond, even with the utopian idea the Federation commodores and admirals and people in charge have often been antagonists. That’s not really a new thing even though, yeah, Picard chucked in the entire idea in his show.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Originally posted by Dogg Thang View Post
                    That’s not really a new thing even though, yeah, Picard chucked in the entire idea in his show.
                    I think it's fair for people to be surprised, though, if they're not dyed-in-the-wool Trek fans, because it's the first time "the fraying utopia" has been a solid, core theme of a show, rather than something which goes on at the fringes.

                    Sure, there were definitely elements in mid-series Trek which punched "through the curtain", as it were, such as rogue admirals, Section 31, that 2-parter with the artifact-hunters, the plot of Insurrection, all of Quark... But these were always depicted as a bit out-of-step. To give a comparison, in Star Trek 6, the Federation wants to save the dying Klingon race, and Kirk wants to let them die; I think this is the classic Trek paradigm, where the characters wrestle with those evolved sensibilities. Picard is the opposite of this, where the Federation chooses to let the Romulans die, and Picard opposes that.

                    It's totally true that the Federation's "utopia" has always been a bit of a veneer. Take Star Trek 5, with those people who are left to suffer on that planet at the start, far from the quartet of Earth/Vulcan/Andor/Betazed; they're basically forgotten about. Or the Maquis. Or how the Federation could've helped Bajor. But Picard really made this theme its business.

                    I don't feel it was a huge departure for the show, personally, but it's not the direction I'd prefer to see Trek go. Then again I'm not running it and I enjoyed the show for what it was, so we'll see what they do in Season 2.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Even back in TOS, Starfleet was often presented as interfering, obstructive and frustrating when Kirk actually had to interact with them. You knew when a commordore came on board that Kirk would clash with him. The Federation was presented as a utopia in its ideals but always hampered by having people not able to live up to those ideals. This is what makes Roddenberry's insistence of lack of conflict in the writing of the first seasons of Next Gen quite interesting because it doesn't match what he established in TOS at all. Although even in those first two seasons of Next Gen, we saw Starfleet get totally compromised (was it the Conspiracy episode? I think so). While you're right that it often did good things (Star Trek VI where, again, it was a foil to Kirk even when they were right), I can't think of a Trek era where it was truly presented as any kind of practical utopia.

                      Edit: Should be noted that I loved this. Some of the commodores in TOS are my favourite guest characters across the entire run because they often have a layer of complexity, wanting to do the right thing but not quite getting there.
                      Last edited by Dogg Thang; 23-06-2020, 10:03.

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Picard has a really odd tone overall. It'll never not feel awkward having a senior Federation figure drop F-Bombs at Picard.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Yeah, I still don't know what the purpose of the swearing is in Discovery and Picard. It really feels out of place.

                          Comment


                            #28
                            That and Picard being called an arrogant git every two seconds, Stewarts reactions to it are fun but Picard was no Kirk on that front and he's far from the bad boy of Star Trek.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Finished Picard last night. It's generally a bit all over the place but I liked it.
                              I agree with the F-bombs, it's like they got the greenlight to have 1 per episode and shoehorned them in. They very rarely landed.

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Can we talk multi part episodes of TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise?

                                Which extended episodes do you enjoy the most or pushed the format to its limit, provided something different or even your least favourite?



                                TNG: Farpoint, Best of Both Worlds, Redemption, Unification, Time's Arrow, Birthright, Chains of Command, Gambit, All Good Things

                                DS9: The Emissary, The Circle Trilogy, The Search, The Maquis, The Search, Past Tense, The Die is Cast, The Way of the Warrior, What you Leave Behind (DS9 seemed to dispense with 2 parters from 4-7 as the elongated narrative took over)

                                Voyager: Caretaker, Basics, Future's End, Scorpion, Year of Hell, Equinox, Unimatrix Zero, Workforce, Endgame

                                Enterprise: Broken Bow, Shockwave, Storm Front, In a Mirror Darkly
                                Last edited by CAPCOM; 23-06-2020, 22:10.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X