Star Trek Picard/Discovery - Discussion Thread

[Kheren]

I am making this thread so as to unlock an actual free discussion venue to anyone wishing to express likes, dislikes, hopes and disapointements with the current state of Star Trek in general and in particular the iterations we are currently having.

By now, everyone is aware of my stance regarding this subject. I will sumrize it in the following post, which will be my overall review of the first season of Star Trek Picard. Once we have Star Trek Discovery Season 3 aired, I will discuss it here as well.

I want to emphasize here that here is only my opinion. And as Dirty Harry once put it with his unique eloquence: ''opinions are like a-holes; everyone has one.'' But then again, it is what makes a discussion worthwile; not building up an echo chamber, so trendy these days, but truly sharing ideas, perspectives, divergence as much as agreement. It's from all the angles that we may truly see the value of the coin. I thus invite everyone to participate and contribute.

You like Star Trek Picard? You are a huge fan of Discovery? You dig Abrams movies? Good for you. Please let us know why, so that we can appreciate the reasons for your enjoyement and discuss it.

You hate it? Don't just say so; please explain what is wrong with it so that we can discuss it as well.

You look forward to Lower Decks? To Axanar? You dread it? You couldn't care less? The why is what is interesting, whatever your stance on any of it.

It is discussing those actual reasons, good and bad, that will help us cultivate our critical thinking and our love and appreciation for Star Trek, it's more than half a century of unique storytelling quality, what drew all of us to it and all of us here.

So let's get into the ready room and bring your Earl Grey, your Kanar, your Bloodwine or your Romulan Ale. What is the situation, Admiral?

[Kheren]

STAR TREK PICARD season 01 review

(NOTE: Go to the bottom and click the link if you apprehend reading all this).


''Your failure is now complete.''

Bad Reboot destroyed Star Wars, making it the rise and triumph of Palpatine. And now, this Emperor can congratulates it's Vader, Screwing Hideout, for doing the same with Star Trek:

''It has been foretold. I have seen it.''

The opening credits of Star Trek Picard are the first sign: a clear blue sky (Canon Universe utopia) suddenly cracking (destroying it) and a piece falls off (the fall of Picard and thus our hopes and dreams) revealing darkness behind (Prime Universe dystopia).Then, every episode foreshadow the dark plan.

Episode 01; Fractured Neuron; Data and Picard playing poker on the Enterprise D; this wonderful opening scene is but a dream; the metaphor of the show; TNG is a dream. Roddenberry's utopia is an illusion. Now you have Kurtzmantrek's dystopian vision of an ugly, anachronistic, corrupted future of losers and murderers.

Episode 02; The F***ing Hubris; an uppity female admiral of a corrupt, inept Starfleet, dresses down the legendary Federation savior like a first year cadet. This is a metaphor of Kurtzman himself berating fans demanding real Trek. NO it's NOT Star Trek and you will NOT have it AGAIN. EVER!

Episode 03; The Failure of J L; drug addict Raffi built her absurd, anachronistic, ugly mobile home right in front of the Vasquez Rock; an iconic location of Canon Trek. This is as blatant an act of desecration of the real life landmark as of Canon Trek.

Episode 04; Return to Mordor; a gratuitous decapitation; the beheading of Trek; no morals, ethics, intelligence, rationality, logic, compassion, pacifism, cunning, knowledge, understanding. No eyes to see ugly STD aesthetics, no ears to hear awful dialogs and accents, no mind to criticize bad storytelling.

Episode 05; A Retched Hive of Scum and Villainy; the slow, horrible gory ripping out of an eyeball from a Canon character not even played by the original actor. This truly un-Trek scene is the metaphor of Kurtzman's aim; slowly ripping out everything you saw before, painfully, and enjoying it.

Episode 06; The Improper Box; everything wrong encapsulated here; early 21st century talk & behavior; matriarchal incompetent Starfleet; Game of Thrones Lite in Space; sword vs disruptors; disregard of canon; nothing looks or feels like Trek. The message: THIS is NOT Star Trek.

Episode 07; No Pants Hey?;We see Kastra and Soji walking and talking with Picard shuffling silently behind, out of focus; women in front, leading, talking, important, man behind, trailing, silent, inconsequential. The metaphor that this is only superficial SJW propaganda, not the enlightened, humanist morality play of genuine Star TRek..

Episode 08; Useless Pieces: Picard doing virtually nothing to advance the plot; you can take him completely out and the story plays out just fine. Perfect metaphor of this entire show: Picard is not the hero of this story; he is just shoehorned in there to exploit nostalgia.

Episode 09; To Serve Kurtzman's Ego: a ''son of Soong'' cometh, when TNG clearly established that Data's creator never ever had a child. This alone is the metaphor that this show is NOT anywhere near the Canon Universe but firmly entranched in the Prime universe of Abrams and Kurtzman.

Episode 10; To Serve Stewart's Ego: so, Bruce Maddox is dead – because meaningless - Hugh is dead - because no longer needed - Data is dead – again – and Picard is dead – only remains an aged copy with an expiration date. The metaphor is pretty obvious: Star Trek is dead.

The last scene is also quite revealing. They engage but with no destination. That is exactly the state of the show after this first season.

Saturday morning cartoons are better written than Star Trek Picard. Not only is it absurdly negative through and through, but right within their own show, they turn their own story into utter nonsense:

The synth revolt (episode 01) should have been stopped dead in it's track... with a remote, as Inigo Soong does with Sutra (episode 10), the most powerful among them all. Something we even saw way before in Insurrection. Why would not the Federation (and Romulans) have this? How can there be  any Synth armageddon? 

Even in this Abrams Prime Universe, the Romulan crisis (episode 01) should have never happened. The fallen Romulans (episode 04) can muster hundreds of state of the art warships in mere hours (episode 10). Why would they depend on enemy Starfleet to build them mere cargo ships during the prime of their Star Empire?

In perfect Rise of Skywalker fashion, the former heroes (Picard and the Federation) are now the villains of the story. The Romulans are in the end (episode 09) proven right all along in what they did since episode 01. All murderous criminals (7of 9, Elnor, Jerati) go unpunished despite the death toll of a Tarantino film.

All ''missions'' would succeed easily with transporters; there is only one small colony of a handful of unarmed, unprotected Synths to capture/obliterate to stop the Armageddon; all stupid commando operations would succeed in seconds since nothing prevents them to beam out their target. Obviously they know nothing of Trek.

In a bewildering incompetent portrayal of SJW propaganda, women, most of them pointedly showcasing diversity for diversity's sake, control this universe; and they are all shown as corrupt, incompetent, prejudiced, small-minded, arrogant, condescending, failed, ruthless and/or deceitful. This show states that, thanks to women and people of color, the future is a dystopia, as bleak, grim, petty and pessimistic as our present day, down to the crummy, ugly 21st century dialog.

STP was not just bad Trek; it was not just bad sci-fi; it was bad, period.

Star Trek Picard stole the iconic hero Jean-Luc Picard and turned it into pathetic JL, a weak, broken old man letting himself meekly be chastized by just about everyone he meets:This is NOT Jean-Luc Picard. This is NOT Star Trek.

The good things out of all this:Now that they have made their JL a synthetic copy of his pathetic self, it is easy to claim that this is not Jean-Luc Picard at all and ignore the whole mess from now on.

They distanced themselves so much from canon that canon is saved. They can dwell in their Prime universe. Real Trek can bide it's time, let this greedy parody die and return with showrunners and writers caring for the vision of hope in the future and humanity that Star Trek is.

It also definitely shows that they chose, again, the wrong formula of storytelling. A Game of Thrones style of season-long story arc only works when you have an already brilliant epic story with a gifted writer and talented showrunner who all care about the story; and don't loose that writer or you will fall hard, like GoT did. Without it, you get stuck with a shitty show from end to end instead of moving on to another better story the following week. Imagine if TOS season 1 had been only Miri. If TNG season 1 had been entirely made of Code of Honor, DS9 just about Move Along Home for 20 episodes or ENT started with a full year of Two days And Two Nights or even VOY Caretaker stretched thin over 10 episodes?

What helped much to make Star Trek epic is it's episodic nature. It allowed over time to build an epic universe bit by bit with the good parts while ignoring the worst ones. That's what The Orville understands (among a great many things) and make it the only real Star Trek we still have except in name; and overall a far better show at it's worst than STP is at it's best.

To those who like STP, good for you. Hope you truly enjoyed it. You are perfectly free and entitled to do so. This is all just to state why I myself did not. And if you find this too long and boring to read, here is a more entertaining presentation I agree with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsgnyxpzlfY&t=23s

[Redding]

And I thought 'I' hated ST:D! You make me feel like a slacker.
And I argue with people nearly daily on Star Trek sites.

Expert work as always Kheren.

[Sorripto]

My thoughts on Star Trek Picard involve the words I promised myself I would never truly say. I defended the JJ Abrams movies even though I did not like them and they were action films with no message. I defended Discovery even though I did not like it and it was a canon obliterating mess of shitty plot. I cannot defend Star Trek Picard. There is only one way to describe it. Star Trek Picard... is not Star Trek. I know that sounds cliche, but in this case it is true. Regardless of plot, story, actors, or setting Star Trek has always had one central undertone. The words of Gene Roddenberry best describe what Star Trek is:

“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”

STP not only ignored decades of universe building, but ignored what makes Star Trek actual Star Trek and not just another sci fi show. STP had racism, bigotry, poverty, ignorance, social jealousy and countless other issues. From Raffi angry that Picard has a nicer house than her, which makes no sense in a world where it has long been established that quarters and apartments are readily available for anyone, to entire narrative for the series being based on racial phobia. STP can only exist by ignoring the fundamental principles of the Star Trek future. STP is not Star Trek, not anymore.

From the first moment we see Picard, to the last moments of the show nothing ever feels right. In a world with androids, robots and sentient holograms an entire species is banned. Billions of lives are lost because Starfleet wants to punish the Romulans for past wars and actions. Picard, the stalwart fighter who would die before seeing even the smallest injustice just up and quits after Starfleet says he's not welcome. He is finally motivated by a weak story and assembled a cut and paste crew with no interesting motivations, no chemistry and so much lame forced narrative that any room for natural development gets lost. There are scenes which make no sense and make those characters less likable for it. This is where the biggest flaw comes to pass. STP is about Picard who, at the end of the story, is the least important character in the entire narrative. He is led by the nose, and spends most of the series as a background character in his own mission. This is not only not Star Trek, but this man on screen is not Jean Luc Picard. No amount of shoehorned backstory changes that.

STP suffers in one other major way. It had moments that were perfect, and it did not earn those moments. Data's finale, Riker, and other moments showed us what this show could have been... no what it should have been. The best description I have heard of this is the idea of reharvesting. For those non nature people reharvesting is when creatures in the wild will eat another creature's excrement to get the bits of nutrients still inside. That is what this was. There were bits of nutrients that were amazing, but to get to them we had to dig through a giant pile of shit. Terrible characters, for some reason a treasonous murderer is forgiven, a weak plot, and a narrative which shits in the face of everything Roddenberry built. I promised myself I would never use the words, but here I must. STP was not Star Trek. The Trek I grew up with is dead. 

[Kheren]

Well, The Orville is about to launch it's third season and so far it has shown itself a worthy successor to Star Trek so, it could be said it still lives on there.

The Axanar two-part movie is about to come out; so far what we have seen is incredibly good, true to Roddenberry's vision yet modernized in a way to blend wonderfully with old TOS and reach out to modern aesthetics and sensibilities. Star Trek may not be quite dead yet.

And if we want for quality sci-fi, we still have The Expanse; something even Classic Trek could take a lesson or two from.

Moreover, rumors be true, the current situation worlwide and back home is shaking up things massively at CBS; we may yet see official Star Trek shift into better hands in the near future... and STO is still offering a worthy Trek gaming experience, even incorporating bits of STD and STP in a quality framework way beyond their failings as TV shows.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8kkk0Boiww&feature=em-lsp


So despite our recent massive disapointment with the treatment of our beloved Captain Picard, I would not close the coffin quite just yet.

[Kheren]

STAR TREK DISCOVERY SEASON 3 DELAYED - BUT STILL COMING


The teaser trailer for the upcoming third season of Star Trek Discovery has been out for some time now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIKAkge9Trg


Star Trek Picard Season 1 is over and, despite Alex Kurtzman's declared goal of having some Star Trek on the air at all times, there is nothing new available at the moment and this next installment has been delayed for undisclosed reasons.

Certainly not the current pandemic; the wrap up has already been announced.; not just once but twice over three months from one another. Sets have been dismantled. Some post-production work left? Scrambling for a course correction a la Rise of Skywalker? As usual, CBS is very tight-lipped about it's claimed flagship show... to put it politely.

But from what we know and from that teaser, we may speculate about what to expect. Sure the technical aspects looks good enough; every dollar of the alleged budget, 40 million per episode no less, is visible; the sets, the photography, the effects, the acting, the music, the costumes, the make-up, all is top notch. But any of that has never been the flaws of this Trek iteration. And the major flaws are still there:

1- Season long arc-story; instead of the proven traditional episodic structure of Trek, which does not hamper overarching arcs (i.e. DS9) or multi-parter storylines (i.e. the Augments episodes of ENT), they go again for the Game of Thrones formula; one that has failed in basically every TV show made like this so far, even GoT itself, and most of all STD.

You need a great story (like A Song of Ice & Fire) from a great writer (like G.R.R. Martin) and a great showrunner (like Favreau for The Mandalorian) to see it through to film. Lack or loose one of those (as with GoT Loosing all three after season 6) and you risk crash and burn (as GoT season 7 and especially 8 came to be).

Unfortunately for STD, it never had any of these three critical components to begin with. No indication that any was corrected. Stubbornly holding up to this formula will risk see them get again to a warp core breach as in the previous seasons if their storyline is weak.

Rumor has it that, when they did test screenings, people exclaimed: ''dear God, tell us that this was before the reshoots.''

Maybe that's why there is a delay?


2- One Central Protagonist: again going against the grain, they center the whole show on one character instead of the Trek-famed ensemble cast. And again, if that character is bad, even if the actor is excellent, your whole show will crash down with it.

That has always been the case with STD and another major reason of it's failures. Michael Burnham is a despicable character in every sense of the word, and to make matters worse, she is the current best TV example of a Mary Sue; everything happens around her, to her, because of her and thanks to her. Even when she goofs, she is praised. Everyone loves her, even those she brings down. If any other character dares stand up to her, that character is chastized, brought down or even killed for it. 

The trailer makes it crystal clear that she is to be the savior of the universe and everybody is thrilled to share this universe with her. Sonequa Martin-Green is apparently giving her usual excellent performance, but she has a shitty character to play and her talent can not redeem how badly conceived and written it is. So this is Star Trek Picard all over again: this is the story of ''The Mostest Bestest Girl Ever Who Is The Key To Everything.''


3- No captain; They also said a good part of the show will be about finding a Captain for the USS Flying Saucepan; of which of course Burnham is to be a top contender (despite being the least qualified by far). Yep, three seasons still without a captain and the most eligible and only competent guy (Saru) is not (again) going to have it except maybe by interim.

Metaphor about the way this franchise has currently been run? Is Lorca the metaphor for Fuller and Pike for Paradise?

Kurtzman said way before STD aired that this would not be centered around the captain, again not following Star Trek's established structure that made it so good and so famous.

That's one promise he could have broken and we would not hold it against him. We miss you Captain Georgiou (not you, Empress 31).


4- Ripping-off other properties: the plague of Kurtzmantrek in general and STD in particular. After season 1 (ripping off Anas Abdin's Tardigrades game) and season 2 (ripping off the MCU, especially Iron man and Age of Ultron) and even Star Trek Picard ripping-off the Mass Effect III game and countless bits of other sci-fi franchises, it looks as if they want to do everything but Star Trek. 

Star Trek has always been unique among all TV shows, among other things, for it's original setting, sets and props, stories and characters. But that requires talent, creativity,vision, dedication and love for the thing. 

None of that is evident here. The trailer is showing us exactly the whole plot of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda; a ship of the past finds itself in the far future where the great spacefaring civilization that spawned it is no more, and it's up to it's brave and fearless leader with his (now her) crew of misfits to bring it back and shine the light of hope in a dark, fallen universe.

One of those notorious Short Treks showed even an AI in the ship in this same future timeframe; just like the Andromeda Ascendant had.

The original struggled with it and rebooted itself after three years then again the year after before wrapping up in a strange, convoluted, unsatisfying way. Hoping that Kurtzman and Co will at least do as good, they will face the same problem Game of Thrones had when it ran out of books to adapt; leave it all to incompetent, talentless, greedy, politically-driven writers and showrunners to try make something out of someone else's ideas.

And mind you, Andromeda was episodic in nature, with a ''redeem the universe'' theme infused in it, not trying to tell one single story over ten+ episodes.

Star Trek Picard showed us how much a recipe for disaster this is, especially in the hands of Kurtzman.


5- Disregarding Canon: Star Trek is a fictional universe with one of the richest lores ever conceived and expanded over half a century with countless books, comics, games and fan work. To have this at your fingertips is a wonderful gift for any creator loving it. But it's a nightmare to those not owning it, too lazy to learn it, don't care about it (as Kurtzman confessed years ago) and only want to make money out of it and exploit it for their own socio-political agenda (as again Kurtzman stated).

Bringing season 3 into the far future was explicitely chosen to free Secret Hideout from the restrictions of canon; meaning, to avoid paying licence fees to CBS for anything Canon Trek and solely profit from merchandizing their own stuff ripped-off of it (which currently has trickled down to almost nothing, even that of Canon Trek because of what they did with STD and Picard).

So again, expect the recurring ''this is not Star Trek'' complaint when this show will air. They just found an excuse to perpetuate their problem because it is not love of Trek that motivates them but greed and SJW propaganda.


So, everything that was wrong with STD season 1 and 2 is still clearly there. The so little good that was in (i.e. Captain Pike) will not be. Despite all this, did they finally manage to find writers and directors good enough to turn this into a surprisingly entertaining, thought-provoking, inspiring show worthy of the name Star Trek?

We shall see.

Anyone having thoughts about this, especially if they diverge from my analysis and misgivings, please share. This is what this is for after all

[Kheren]

Something interesting might be going on that may offer us a glimmer of hope:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG-gzfOaoDk


Still far from being a done thing... but with this and the other rumor of CBS wanting to sell the Star Trek brand itself and the other rumor that Seth McFarlane and NBC (the firm that created Trek in the first place) want to buy it, and what the actual failing of Trek is on all fronts (streaming revenue much lower than expected, merchandizing shut down, massive loss of audience, marked loss of  public interest etc),  it seems reasonable to assume that; Star Trek is indeed seen as a failure currently; that Star Trek is still seen as a profitable brand despite it's current failures; that the current failures have highlighted what true (and profitable) Star Trek is supposed to be; and serious people are willing and able to bring it back.

Star Trek: A New Hope...

[Jeff T]

A purge of Bad Robot, Secret Hideout, and all of those associated with them needs to occur asap. They are like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers: they go into the skin of a franchise as a mindless, soulless entity and destroy it and everything surrounding it from within.
Star Trek will never be anything reminiscent of it's former glory unless this occurs and the franchise is then placed into the hands of those who sincerely understand and respect its origins.

[Kheren]

At this point, and with the current economic situation the pandemic is causing, CBS managers and shareholders are certainly keenly aware that they can't afford to feed any and all of Kurtzman's white elephants. And with the loss of revenue from merchandizing, once their golden goose, and outside investors like Netflix and Amazon pulling out, all because of Kurtzman's mismanagement of the IP, money will talk and talk loud.

We can't get worse than Kurtzman; but we could get just as bad, as there are too many others like him; Kathleen Kennedy of Disney's Lucasfilm for one, the woman who drove Star Wars into the ground with the help of Rian Johnson and, yes again, Jar jar Abrams... and still at it now, with Leslye Headland, former personal assistant to Harvey Weinstein due to head a female-centric Star Wars series... And there is DC and Marvel Comics completely disfiguring their own properties with the same identity politics and SJW agendas. Could you have ever imagined Bruce Wayne as a Half-Chinese high-schooler heir to his mother's fortune ( not Martha but Ma Ma from Hong Kong now), Selina Kyle latino and Alfred gay? Yep, that's a thing now.

And the newest superheroes at Marvel are called... Snowflake and Safespace. Never mind over 300,000 viewers shot down their promotional Youtube vid.

But that being said, I agree with you; first Kurtzman and co have to go and the sooner the better. Star Wars found John Favreau to possibly save the franchise. We might yet see Seth ''The Orville'' McFarlane and NBC (creators of TOS) save the day for Trek the same way.

If there is only one Corona Virus victim I wish for, it is Secret Hideout. 

[Sorripto]

Kheren I actually unliked your post just so I could like it again. When you see characters like Snowflake and Safespace and then realize that it is not a parody, you know the market is doomed. For as much as people want to push certain facets of Star Trek, the fact is that money is talking. No merchandise for Discovery was made because test balloons showed that no such merchandise would sell. You were spot on when you said that outside support is pulling out too. When you have no major companies wanting to air your show, you can't even make toys for your own products, and you hide ratings then the evidence is clear. The Kurtzman trek has been a failure. Hopefully one day money will talk and we can get something more in line with the Prime shows. I would buy merchandise for that just to support such a show.