Star Trek

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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

Something else Discovery has done to Section 31... At their headquarters they had a threat assessment AI system called Control. Starfleet Admirals would upload information to this AI which would then make recommendations of how Section 31 should deal with a given situation. And just like practically every other AI in science fiction, Control eventually gained sentience, goes rouge, and killed off much of Section 31's leadership. Several episodes ago, Discovery encountered a dying alien sphere-lifeform thing in space that uploaded all of its information it had gathered over 10000 years into Discovery, which Control has found out about. Control is now trying to get access to that information in order to gain full sentience... But if it's already able to think and act for itself, isn't already fully sentient? I don't understand what the distinction is here. At any rate, in the next 950 years, Control will evolve and wipe out most of the life in the galaxy, which the Red Angel is attempting to prevent by altering the past.
Spoiler
In this week's episode, Control kidnapped Leland (the highest ranked Section 31 agent left I believe) and is using nanite technology to take control of his body... I really, REALLY hope Discovery is not giving us an origin of the Borg here (Control I guess even declares "Struggle is useless" at one point, which seems like an obvious "Resistance if Futile" precursor). Given the time travel aspect of this storyline, I could see how they end up 'defeating' Control by sending it back in time and stranding it in the Delta Quadrant, despite making no sense in terms of everything else we know about the Borg.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

Sounds like a they've really made a hash of continuity. And I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons Berman wanted to do a prequel after Voyager ended was because he felt the technology had become almost "magical" and could do anything the plot required. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but in any case, from your description, now with Discovery we're getting the same sort of thing in a prequel series. Sounds like they really should have dialed it back.
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Shockwave
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Shockwave »

That's because Alex Kurtzman is a talentless hack who wouldn't know a good story if it bit him in the ass. Seriously, he's the worst thing to happen to Star Trek. Ever.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

Shockwave wrote:That's because Alex Kurtzman is a talentless hack who wouldn't know a good story if it bit him in the ass. Seriously, he's the worst thing to happen to Star Trek. Ever.
I couldn't agree more.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

More blatant rewriting of continuity, and straight up fantasy rather than science fiction....
Spoiler
Turns out, the Klingon's have a planet where time crystals grow naturally. And it's the planet Boreth, which has been in Star Trek before. It's the planet in TNG where Worf went to get a vision of Kahless, and ended up meeting the clone of Kahless that the monks created there. Only, in Discovery, the monks are call themselves "Timekeepers", and they claim that the Empire has no authority over them. They only protect the crystals. Feels like a very weak explanation for why the Klingons never used the crystals to give themselves an advantage. No mention of Boreth being the planet around a star Kahless once pointed to and said he would one day he would return there. Why bother using an established planet if they're just going to completely ignore its purpose? No techno-babble to explain why the crystals exists or do what they do, making them seem more like magic. Even the look of the crystal caverns looks almost like something out of Lord of the Rings. Anyway, Discovery needs one, so Pike negotiates for one. The "Timekeepers" refuse, saying the crystals do not leave. But Pike tells them it'll help save all sentient life in the galaxy. The Timekeepers tell him it'll break him, but agree to let him see the crystals. Pike is shown his future, where the accident (which is somewhat reminiscent of Spock's death scene in WoK) leaves him trapped on life support in a wheelchair. He's told if he takes the crystal, that future will be set... We've always seen how time is fluid in Star Trek, meaning they can always change events. Why would it be any different with the time crystals? At any rate, Pike agrees and is given the crystal.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

I continue to think that they should just declare Discovery an alternate timeline and be done with it. But I do appreciate Captain Pike finally getting some more time on screen after all these years. I'll probably watch this season of Discovery when it's out on DVD, even with all the glaring continuity issues.

I've been re-watching the original series and have just finished the first season. Like so many books that I re-read or shows that I rewatch after a number of years, I pick up new things. Star Trek cannot be called an ensemble show in any way, but the many secondary characters (including McCoy in the first season) that show up in multiple episodes add a nice layer of consistency to the crew. I notice a lot of the same security personnel in multiple episodes. Uhura may not have a lot to do, but she's often in shot behind Captain Kirk on the bridge, giving her more visibility than many other recurring characters. My DVD sets are the ones with the updated special effects, and they really do make a difference, particularly when the Enterprise flies by and you can see people moving inside the windows. On occasion the new effects depict an action described by dialogue that the old episodes did not, such as releasing satellites over Deneva. Overall I've been impressed by just how well the writing and concepts on this show hold up, and how much I enjoy the series, even after having seen every episode many times over the years.

Shatner, in particular, is very good in this season. There are none of the dialogue pauses that parodies often give us. He's often serious and restrained when the situation calls for it, but can banter with his friends. Kirk is also highly intelligent and capable, and is such a far cry from the version Chris Pine plays in the modern movies. People forget that Kirk can beat Spock at chess, and has some engineering knowledge, and that he and Spock often work out complex problems by bouncing ideas off each other. As Spock, Leonard Nimoy shows more emotion than I had remembered, usually a bit of a smile or a bit of sarcasm. It's a more layered performance than we might expect.

There's also a lot of early terminology oddities. The Enterprise is in space under the authority of the United Earth Space Probe Agency in a few episodes. Spock is a Vulcanian rather than a Vulcan. Sometimes the phasers look like photon torpedoes. It's clear that to some extent, the writers were making things up as they went along, before standardizing the backstory and terms late in the season.

Season one contains some of my all time favorite Trek episodes of any series:
- Devil in the Dark
- The Galileo Seven
- City on the Edge of Forever
- Balance of Terror
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

The Enterprise returned to Discovery this week, finally repaired and giving us more of a view of the interiors of the ship. In some ways, I do like the look of the redesigned bridge. It is much more faithful then the JJ films were. It is still much bigger than TOS bridge though. They added this little corridor that goes around the outside edge of the bridge, which I don't understand the point of, other than to artificially make the bridge seem smaller when it's actually over sized for what they need it to be. The consoles are all their own units now, rather than being built directly into the walls. They also added another set of (turbolift?) doors next to the science station. Which admittedly, I always felt they should have more than one way on/off the bridge. And of course, there is a giant window viewscreen taking up the entire front wall of the bridge. The color balance feels really off to me. The red especially I feel sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the bridge, where as I never thought that about the red on the original set. So in all, not a bad looking bridge, but it could still be better.
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andersonh1
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Re: Star Trek

Post by andersonh1 »

Found a picture of it here: https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/04/12 ... enterprise

I can see where they took the layout of the original bridge and gave it the modern aesthetic. I preferred the 90s/2000s Trek approach of exact duplication. It's not a bad redesign/update, but it does create distance between this show and the original, even though they're meant to be the same.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

I remember I'd seen comments about how they wouldn't use jellybean buttons on the Enterprise bridge, because it wouldn't work and be out of place on a modern bridge. Yet low and behold, they used jellybean buttons, and it still works. Just goes to show, just because something might seem like it'd be dated, doesn't mean that it will be.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Star Trek

Post by Sparky Prime »

Discovery's writers are lazy....
Spoiler
In the 2 part season finale, Control has taken over Section 31's entire fleet and is on its way to take the Sphere data from Discovery. Realizing they can't protect the data, the crew decide to blow up the ship and call the Enterprise to evacuate everyone. Only, the sphere AI deactivates the self destruct. So Pike opens fire on Discovery, but the shields are up. So they give up trying to destroy the ship. Yup, rather than firing until they collapsed the shields, or trying any other methods of destroying Discovery, they decide they have to do something entirely different. So their plan? Send the ship into the future. But first they need to buy time to build a new Red Angel suit and charge the time crystal, so they use the spore drive to jump several hours away. Earlier this season they established using the spore drive kills life forms that live in the mycelium network... why are they still using it?! And what happened to dismantling it at the beginning of the season? Anyway, the Enterprise rendezvous with them, and 10 minutes later, the Section 31 fleet arrives. A battle ensures, where Discovery and Enterprise get an assist from the Klingons, and Ba'ul fighters (lead by Saru's sister). Burnham opens a wormhole, and Discovery travels to the distant future.

In the aftermath, Enterprise returns to Earth for repairs (having had a large chunk of the saucer destroyed by a torpedo that lodged in the hull, in a scene that makes no sense), and they lie to Starfleet saying Discovery was destroyed rather than went to the future. Spock suggests all mention of Michael Burnham, Discovery and the Spore Drive be classified and anyone that knows about it be under a gag order, NEVER to mention them again. This is the worst way to plug some of these continuity holes. Meanwhile, Tyler/Voq is put in charge on Section 31, with an implication the organization will get a radical overhaul. Spock and the Enterprise return to service, detecting another of the Red Signals, letting them know Discovery is alright whenever they are.
By the way.... Is Number One's name actually "Number One"? There's a scene where she, Pike, and Tyler/Voq are debriefed by an Admiral, and she gives that as her name. I always took it as just a nickname, that everybody uses for her.

With it announced Discovery will be getting a 3rd season... Not really sure what they're planning on doing with it, given this ending. I'd rather them just leave it alone personally, given their blatant disregard for continuity, and laziness in trying to explain away continuity problems.
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