Star Wars / Star Trek Discussion (SciFi In General)

[Collector]

Except that that Star Trek came years before Star Bores.

[Tawmis]

Except that that Star Trek came years before Star Bores.

That's what I said - well, except without the egregious typo!

[Rath Darkblade]

Except that that Star Trek came years before Star Stores.

There, FTFY Tawmis!

[Collector]

[Rath Darkblade]

Uh ... I don't know who that is, but Darth Vader misspells "your" as "you're".

[MusicallyInspired]

That's Q. From Star Trek TNG.

Anyone catch the new Star Trek Picard trailer? Thoughts? It has my attention but it has a lot to prove. I need to see the pilot to see what the tone is like and know what the show is all about (if Trek's soul is intact here) to know if I'm going to support it or not. Lots of 'member berries.'

[Collector]

I am with you. I am cautiously optimistic, but I will have to see it first.

[MusicallyInspired]

Robert Meyer Burnett had some words to say about Star Trek Picard and particularly how it was born. He says it was, once again, Brian Fuller (one of the top producers of Voyager who was involved with a lot of the good story lines) who pitched the idea to CBS years ago when he was still working on Discovery (before he was booted out and Alex Kurtzman took his creation and horribly mutilated it into what it eventually became). He even approached Patrick Stewart AND Jeri Ryan (who is in the show). Apparently the synopsis started with Romulus being evacuated because its star is about to go nova and the whole mission was being led by Captain Data. It also involves Picard's Irumodic Syndrome (which was shown in the future events of "All Good Things..."), the Borg, Locutus, time travel, mistrusting ex-Borg, questioning Data's regard for organic lifeforms as apparently part of his mission was botched based on his decisions, the Vulcans wanting nothing to do with the Romulans, and more. Apparently this is all available to the public to read.

Obviously the new Picard show doesn't carbon copy that pitch, but many many of the ideas all seem to come from it. It doesn't surprise me at all that Kurtzman frankensteined some kind of show from Fuller's pitch just like he did Discovery. Only, the parts of Discovery that weren't Fuller's were lifted straight from Anas Abdin's Tardigrades adventure game. That doesn't necessarily mean the new Star Trek Picard will follow the same complete pattern, but so far it's mirroring Discovery's initial development. I hope it doesn't bode ill...I know that Kurtzman has left the project and now Michael Chabon is the lead showrunner. It's also true that initial test screenings of the show were extremely poor a couple months back (when it was supposed to air in late 2019) and that Netflix rejected the show and toy companies were uninterested in creating merchandise for it because it didn't resemble Star Trek enough. Now there have been whispers of scramblings for reshoots and before when it was stated that no cameos from other TNG cast members were planned, now all the sudden they're splashing the news about Riker and Troi being involved, not to mention Data's role. And now it's pushed back to early 2020. I don't think any of this is a coincidence.

Again, I hope it doesn't bode ill. Still waiting for that pilot before passing judgments. I do know one thing, that original pitch by Brian Fuller sounds fantastic and really ties in with the lore history in Star Trek Online (especially with Data being captain of the Enterprise).

[Tawmis]

That's the problem with Star Trek writers. No originality.......

/runs

(And if ANYONE takes this serious - even for a moment - you clearly do not know me!)

[Collector]

Of the new ones you are not far off. Then again, they don't know how to write for real Trek.

[Collector]

[MusicallyInspired]

The stinger is Bryan Fuller COULD write Trek. But they removed him from Discovery (his own creation) and stole his idea for Picard. I remember when a lot of people were excited for Discovery as it mirrored a lot of what Phase 2 was supposed to be apparently, right down to the ship design.

I wonder what a continuous sustained phaser beam to a lightsaber blade would do to the saber.

EDIT: Another more elaborate video which gets into some interesting details, like Bryan Fuller crying upon viewing the trailer "and not in a good way":

[MusicallyInspired]

This just came up in my Facebook memories today. A thought I had 4 years ago on why early Star Trek is so special. TNG and TOS specifically, as opposed to DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise (and of course Discovery and the new movies). I'm not really expecting this level of storytelling from Star Trek Picard but hopefully something of that Trek Factor manages to survive in it. One last hope for 2020 for one of the best franchises ever. This was Sci-Fi! Not just mere Science-Fantasy.

****

I've just finished the finale to Star Trek TNG "All Good Things" again for the first time in a long while and I'm reminded once again what a genius show TNG is and why it's not only the best series out of all Trekdom but possibly the best show on television and a true testament to Roddenberry's vision for the show and for humanity. The finale to TNG is so different from all the finales of the incarnations of Star Trek that came after it (possibly before it, I can't remember the finale to TOS, but I'm sure it wasn't nearly as epic). Take this dialogue between Q and Picard at the end of the episode:

Q: "Is that all this meant to you? Just another spacial anomaly, just another day at the office?"
PICARD: "What about my crew?"
Q: "The anomaly, my ship, my crew! I suppose you're worried about your fish too?...We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did."
PICARD: "When I realised the paradox."
Q: "Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence."
PICARD: "Q, what is it that you're trying to tell me?"
Q: "You'll find out..."

Picard and the Enterprise's crew's journey and especially interactions with Q were largely based around the idea that it's the spirit of exploration that drives humanity to better itself. What better way to encapsulate that and the wonders to come than by finishing off the whole series by redefining the parameters of what you're exploring even more?

Take the finales to the other shows: DS9, it was the closure to the long war with the Dominion and the defeat of Sisko's nemesis Gul Dukat. Yawn. It was certainly epic, being dragged out for over 12 episodes or something like that and I suppose Sisko does "ascend" into a further stage of enlightenment or something with The Prophets, but it doesn't spend much time explaining why that happened at all. Seemed very tacked on with no purpose. Voyager, the crew makes it back from the Delta Quadrant after 7 years and defeat the Borg...again. Yawn. There's some neat time travelling mechanics involved but not much. Enterprise, no I don't consider the Troi and Riker episode to be the finale. That was a bonus episode. The real finale is the episode that came before it. Now I'll let this one pass because I haven't actually gotten to it yet (I'm still partway through season 4), but what it seemed like was just an end to the Temporal Cold War and nothing more. Yawn. Nothing very "Roddenberry" or "sci-fi" about any of those episodes.

Q was pointing out exactly the flaw in Picard's conclusions that the rest of the finales suffer from, it's focusing too much on just things happening in space. An anomaly here, saving the crew there, just another day at the space office. That's not what Trek was about. And TNG pushed this more than any other Trek (except for TOS), it was about combining the flare of science fiction and special effects with the human spirit's sense of wonder and discovery to reach for something beyond what we have and the hope of getting somewhere and grasping things far beyond what we currently perceive. As Q says "That is the exploration that awaits you." That's what was so alluring about Star Trek and TNG the most and why I kept watching it and keep watching it over and over. I got none of that from any other Star Trek after TNG, including the movies. Motion Picture touched on it (but not well done at all), and even Star Trek V in a way (again, not done very well). But the rest was just science fantasy. Cool as a lot of it was, none of it hit the mark so well as much as TNG did. What a perfect and fitting end to Roddenberry's last Trek. That beats Star Wars any day.

This is why Star Trek is so great and if you can't see that and just don't like it then you're simply stupid.

[Collector]

I remember that "All Good Things" scene with Picard and Q very well. It becomes even more significant when you realize that the entire series is bracketed by the Q. This at the end and from the start with an exchange between Q and Riker in season one's "Hide and Q" that explains the continuum's obsession with humanity.

Q: "At Farpoint we saw you as savages only. We discovered instead that you are unusual creatures... in your own, limited ways. Ways which in time will not be so limited."

Riker: "We're growing. Something about us compels us to learn, explore."

Q: "Yes, the human compulsion. And unfortunately for us it is a power that will grow stronger century after century, eon after eon."

Riker: "Eons? Have you any idea how far we'll advance?"

Q: "Perhaps in a future that you cannot yet conceive even beyond us. So you see we must know more about this human compulsion."


TOS did not have a series finale. It ended in a whimper with one of the weakest episodes of the entire series, "Turnabout Intruder". At that point Roddenberry had already walked away as his baby was being murdered.

[Tawmis]

Sees the fuse lit... nods... walks out, knowing it's going to be... explosive...

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/que ... vie-rated/