Can't we all just get along?
Can't we all just get along?
Inspired by gregorum's post concerning issues with startrek.website, which is ironic as lemmy.world is a bit glitchy right now and isn't letting me upload and had to use my alt here.
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Is it tho? Other than the com badges, every random screenshot I see of Discovery looks like a totally different sci-fi franchise. Especially when the characters are holding phasers.
It, like every series before or concurrently, approaches the universe differently. They all have changes in style, effects, base premise, and acting. It's Trek all the same. Doesn't mean we have to like it.
I can't say if I like it or hate it as a whole; haven't watched the show it yet (so please don't assume this or my previous statement are meant to disparage; that wasn't my intention). But I also haven't seen Strange New Worlds, which still aesthetically looks like Trek to me from images I have seen. The vibe and tone are way different. Discovery looks like it is trying to be dark and gritty, which isn't very trekky IMO. Which is one of the two main reasons I still haven't watched it (the other being Paramount+ fuckin' sucks)
Trek is gritty as FUCK. TOS was quite gritty with ww3, genetic wars, khan... TNG had roving rape gangs. DS9 had apartheid space nazis. Disco is quite tame compared to the darker tones of DS9 by FAR. I think even behind the comedy, Lower Decks is darker than Disco.
Here’s the thing: Trek was never gritty before. Trek acknowledged the hardships of how we got to that utopian place, but only as a… distant abstract. It was in the past. As Trek went on and new series premiered, more history was revealed. It was gruesome. WWIII.The Eugenics Wars. Khan— who we then met, twice, and, who, then became a person of galactic importance.
But it wasn’t until DS9 that we actually got a glimpse of post-contemporary Earth, but pre-WWIII. We saw San Fransisco in 2024. We saw something we had not yet, as a society, yet conceived in the mainstream: Sanctuary Districts.
Today is March 17, 2024.
I’m not gonna lie: in 1993, I was 14. Even then, I didn’t see how we could stop all this from happening.
I’ll be 85 in 2064. I really hope I live to meet the Vulcans.
The whole sanctuary districts thing was a response to what they believed was a homelessness crisis in the 1990s, but was nothing compared to today. The idea was that some president would eventually just corral the homeless into concentration camps.
Have you been to today?
I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me if it helps.
Stop making me feel old
Yeah DS9, specifically the Dominion Wars, is leaps and bounds the darkest Trek. It took the question of "how far must I go before I myself become the monster?" and applied it to a Star Fleet officer. And how far he was willing to go to protect the Federation was truly terrifying.
DS9 screenshots in isolation look a lot different from TOS. Things change.
Things change
I know, I've watched Picard season 3 -- everyone gets old, especially the guy watching! Oh wait ... 😕
Now you’re just being mean 😢
You're kind of right. Discovery S1 was trying to be a dark, prestige drama. It felt a lot more like BSG than Trek. I haven't watched it since it premiered but I don't remember hating it, though I didn't love it either.
They fired their show runner pretty early, so there is another tone shift from S2 onward. The tone becomes a lot more like the new-Trek movies, and later much more like Strange New Worlds. Take a look at screenshots from Season 4 compared to Season 1 to see just how much it shifted stylistically.
The real issue isn't aesthetic or tonal, it's that the writing is excruciating.
Discovery S3 had a really great "let's make a brighter future together!" theme... that then they destroyed by making it end that way.
I really tried to like the series, but no.
So far the only part of DIS I enjoy is Commander Pike (and his Enterprise crew)
Ok, and the parts with the Andorians/Orions