Star Trek: The Quest for Fans

[paleologos]

(Are there any ST fans in this forum to begin with?)

Hey people, I recently viewed the released episodes of Star Trek: Picard, Season 2.
The action did captivate my attention while it lasted but it feels there are more holes in the plot than there are stars in the galaxy.
I suppose I am not the only one who feels this does not live up to the name of the show but I would like to read and discuss opinions on the show.

[antaeus]

I find that every new Star Trek franchise seem to be all good for 2 or 3 episodes then they go off the deep end of plausibility and I lose interest. To be fair, they've always been like that. But I'm probably less tolerant

[Bande Nere]

I'm just happy there are new ST shows, even though the second season of Picard seems like it was put togheter while on lsd. I'm now about to watch the 9th episode and it gets better given time.

Also, a third Star Trek show has just been released! Strange New Worlds seems like a return to the old school shows.

[paleologos]

The first episode of SNW was to my liking.
It seems the makers are returning to more optimistic tropes and the show will probably be marked as well produced, well cast and well acted.
It remains to be seen whether they will come up with original material for the rest of the episodes, while at the same time respecting the canon.

Has anyone watched the animated show "Lower Decks"?
Comments?
Here are my comments on it:
It too, seems to have been made in anticipation of critique by woke/postmodernist critics and aiming to placate them and only them.
(According to them, a work of art is to be evaluated as good or bad on the basis of whether it aggrandizes and inspires members of formerly oppressed categories of people.)
In LD, all the initiative seems to come from female characters while the male characters are beefheads and/or nerdy/geeky.
The character that receives the most attention is someone who could have attained captaincy due to a combination of competence and experience, yet shirks the higher responsibilities and acts like a big kid.
The creators did try to make it fun but all the main characters are repetitive/tedious and in two seasons have shown little-to-no development.

We saw similar patterns in Star Trek: Discovery, where all the strong characters were female while the male characters were either weak or criminal.
In SNW, things seem to be returning closer to a position of balance, though not quite there yet:
If an alien observer had to infer gender specialization in the human species by the observing the composition of the bridge officer crew, they would probably guess that men in the 23rd century had no interest in exploration and the females are the venturing gender, something that would baffle them given the particulars of sexual dimorphism in the human species.
Maybe I am nitpicking but it seems to me it is acceptable to let fiction fill the gaps of science only when such gaps exist.

[Sar1n]

(Are there any ST fans in this forum to begin with?)

My hopes were slashed by Abramsverse and destroyed by the first season of STD. No more new Star Trek for me until there's a real change.

[Flinn]

Just finished watching Picard season 2.. only slightly disappointing, but in line with the logic of season 1. I'm betting for a 3rd and last season (Stewart is already 82 IIRC), which will close the narrative arc, see the spoiler below*.

Overall it's a good show, well acted: ofc the plot has some holes (intended or not) and some characters have been simply pushed in (Wesley for instance), but the story is solid. Don't forget what the name of the show is: Picard, his story and the people he met during his career, are central to it under every aspect.

Spoiler for on season 3: 

The end of season 2 clearly calls for a sequel. Considering what I said above about Picard being central to it and the whole Borg arc, I'm leaning towards a final series that will finally explain their origins and will also give them a definitive place in the Stat Trek universe. Borgs have been present in both season 1 and 2 already and don't forget that Q was the one who initially introduced, so to say, Borgs to Humanity. Makes sense to me that this series is aiming at closing that arc, which afaik is the only one left open from Picard's Enterprise..... assuming that Q is really dead, ofc).

About Lower decks: it's a cartoon in a series of movies and tv shows, and so it has to be interpreted IMO. I was and I'm not expecting anything else than some laughs and some entertainment, it is just intended to be so, a space version of Family Guy or the Simpsons, nothing more.

Haven't watched Discovery (other than few videos here and there) and I'm not impressed, to be honest. Same goes for the SNW, only watched a trailer so far. I'm not expecting anything new from them, the "travel the space and find out" theme has been exploited for 60 years now, time for something new I guess, such as real politics and the like, much in line with what they started to do in the second and last part of DS9 (the Dominion war, for instance). Picard is also different because it offers a lot of introspection and "non-scientific" dialogues.

[paleologos]

SNW is a return to the more classical format of telling one self contained story per episode, with some information introduced to propel character development. It is characteristically Star Trek optimistic about the future.

I just finished Discovery season 2.
What bugged me:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The second half of the season saw the crew trying to stop an AI from becoming sentient because if it did it would destroy all life in the galaxy.
Though this AI is already competent and willful enough to plot and commit mass murder.

The other thing I didn't like was the all too frequent melodrama.

And I started watching season 3.
There is a departure from previous tropes, new or old.
If you liked the setting of Firefly/Serenity you may like season 3
However, the premise for the big shift in the way of things is disregard for canon:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The setting is cyberpunk, that is coexistence of high-tech and low life.
An event called "The Burn" resulted in deactivation of most dilithium in the galaxy.
Dilithium supposedly regulated the matter-antimatter reaction inside warp cores and when it got deactivated all active warp cores in the galaxy exploded.
So if you like cyberpunk you are going to like this setting.

The departure from canon (departures from canon always annoy me) is this:
According to canon Romulans did not use dilithium regulated, matter-antimatter based, warp cores.
Therefore, even after the Picard season 1 plot line, they would be in an excellent position to dominate the galaxy.
Or that's what I think, I've only watched two episodes so far.
And there is the silliness of pirate/bandit old wild west style captains with phasers in the shape of sawed off shotguns and spurs in their cowboy boots.

If anyone else has watched season 3 of Discovery pitch in your opinions, I don't mind spoilers.

[conon394]

I find that every new Star Trek franchise seem to be all good for 2 or 3 episodes then they go off the deep end of plausibility and I lose interest. To be fair, they've always been like that. But I'm probably less tolerant

And umm TOS does not fit that bill - implausibility or god from the machine endings?

[paleologos]

We are 6 episodes in ST: SNW.
So far it is not a bad show, for me that is, though I do miss the exploration of moral/ethical questions that was the hallmark of TNG and I do miss the political prescience of DS9.
Anybody else interested in pitching any opinions on this?

[Knight of Heaven]

I found that The Orville is a better star trek show then the modern trek. So im currently watching it instead.

[paleologos]

I found that The Orville is a better star trek show then the modern trek...

[conon394]

then the modern trek

What is non modern Trek?

[Knight of Heaven]

What is non modern Trek?

It is as it sounds, Star trek made in modern day... let say, since 2009 onward, everything JJ ( the hack) and his Bad Robot produced really.

[conon394]

It is as it sounds, Star trek made in modern day... let say, since 2009 onward, everything JJ ( the hack) and his Bad Robot produced really.

Not sure I see that. A lot of The TOS and Next Gen and most of the movies before a basically cheese unless you are invested in the fandom and the fiction.

[paleologos]

Not sure I see that. A lot of The TOS and Next Gen and most of the movies before a basically cheese unless you are invested in the fandom and the fiction.

There have been 13 films in the franchise, Abrams made only 3 of them.
In a franchise that had 10 films before Abrams, some of those would be bad.
If making something good was easy then we wouldn't need ST as an outlet for our escapism because we wouldn't need to escape anything.

Below are three lists of rankings of all the Star Trek films.


Star Trek movies ranked from worst to best:
According to Tomatometer:
_____________________________________________Critics-Audience
#13 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)__________22% 24%
#12 Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)___________________38% 49%
#11 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)__________49% 42%
#10 Star Trek Generations (1994)_________________47% 57%
#09 Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)________________54% 44%
#08 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)______79% 64%
#07 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)_________82% 81%
#06 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)__82% 83%
#05 Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)________________84% 89%
#04 Star Trek Beyond (2016)_____________________86% 80%
#03 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)_________86% 90%
#02 Star Trek: First Contact (1996)________________92% 89%
#01 Star Trek (2009)____________________________94% 91%


Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best:
According to space.com: (https://www.space.com/star-trek-movi...-worst-to-best)

#13. Star Trek Into Darkness
#12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
#11. Star Trek: Insurrection
#10. Star Trek: Nemesis
#09. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
#08. Star Trek: Generations
#07. Star Trek Beyond
#06. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
#05. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
#04. Star Trek (2009)
#03. Star Trek: First Contact
#02. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
#01. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan


Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best:
According to Collider: (https://collider.com/star-trek-movies-ranked/)

#13. Star Trek Into Darkness
#12. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
#11. Star Trek: Insurrection
#10. Star Trek: Nemesis
#09. Star Trek: Generations
#08. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
#07. Star Trek Beyond
#06. Star Trek (2009)
#05. Star Trek: First Contact
#04. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
#03. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
#02. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
#01. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan


Personally, my best three are The Undiscovered Country, First Contact and The Wrath of Khan.

There is also this comment that I can contribute with confidence.
Star Trek is not "just a show" or "just a franchise".
To the audience that made it profitable to begin with, it is a legendarium (as in Tolkien's legendarium).
I suppose that anyone who might read this already knows a few things about that and that Tolkien does not give Elves pointy ears in one book and round ears in another.
In other words he respects his canon.
The Abrams films most certainly were technically more consummate and visually more attractive, this cannot be easily disputed.
They are, however, outside of canonical continuity.
I do find it rubs me the wrong way that an opportunity was lost -so nonchalantly- to move along the history of the ST legendarium and I strongly suspect we saw the end of the "Kelvin timeline" back in 2016.
Other than the visuals and the technicals the only positive thing I can say about the Abrams films is that they were not In-Your-Face-Woke-With-A-Vengeance like the latest shows.
And I think it says a lot that we have come to count as a positive the mere absence of a feature that we have come to anticipate with dread.

SNW has been more restrained than Discovery in making wokeness the salient point of the show, though, admittedly the ante was placed below ground level by Discovery.
Still, there was some foul play with the seventh episode in the scene of the pirate captain advising Spock that he does not need to be Vulcan or Human (that is a binary choice) but something else (implying that he could choose that something else arbitrarily).

I suspect everyone understands that I could rant for hours about all the things I don't like in the latest shows and all the things I didn't like in the Roddenberrian ones, so I should stop here, unless there is a desire for more discussion.

[Flinn]

I don't get how so many people consider Into Darkness as a bad movie, in fact it's probably the best ever filmed in the franchise. Each to their own, I guess.

I keep watching Lower Decks, it's a good show honestly... in a time when every successful cartoon is extremely violent (and visual), it's a blessing to see that it's still possible to entertain without the constant need to show blood and the like.

[Flinn]

Picard, season 3: I'm only into the first 2 episodes, but it's not what I expected (no Borgs so far). It can change ofc, but till now I find it pretty dull (apart from the usual appearances from old glories). If they are really pursuing that plot, it's a wasted opportunity.

Lower decks, finished season 3: I wish I had a cartoon like this when I was a kid. My daughter, who is 8, is loving it (it's rated 13+, but honestly you can get much worse at tv without any real control). A must see if you want a lighthearted, classical Star Trek entertainment.

[Flinn]

So, finished to watch Picard S3. I'm of mixed feelings, to be honest.

From one side, it's a 4/10: I mean, wasted opportunity under many aspects; also there's a big plot hole between S2 and S3 which has no logic, IMO, and the finale is a bit rushed.
From the other side, for someone like me who grew up with TNG (and later DS9 and VOY) it's a blast, because you get to see all those past heroes of yours again, and still cool AF as they used to be (damn, Worf is so hot! ).

Anyways, overall it's a 7/10, for me. Worth my time and will probably re-watch it sometime in the future when I'll feel bored.

Ps. As far as I understood there could be a new series spinning of from Picard, if so that will make sense for them to have left some plot holes behind them. It's speculative, anyways.