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Director of Communications
By OKCoyote (Daniel Matteson)
 - Director of Communications
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#396825
Those who have watched it, place your thoughts!

I've watched the first episode; I can't watch the second until tomorrow, so I'll have to come back and read this thread later :-)
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396833
I am going to avoid spoilers - I went in with very low expectations given what I had seen in the trailers on Youtube and at the end of the show I was actually impressed a little. It does have the JJ Abrams vibe with the view screen, and the style of the bridge and technology really does not look like a prequel to Kirk's TOS (I know it was the 60s) but overall the story had me interested and in the end that is all that really matters.

Edit: While I was intrigued, I am still not paying CBS for All Access to watch it.
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#396851
We decided the same thing. It made us want to know what happens next... But not pay for internet (and All Access) to find out.
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By Frimmel
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396893
Well they told us it wasn't "JJ Verse" so that is either a flat out lie or it is an entirely new Trek verse because they've just ret-conned the shit out of TOS--TNG verse.

I HATED the film-making sensibilities of the thing. Shaky cam and constantly moving cam and lots of quick edits and all those horrible dutch angles. Hated the look of the thing. Pick one, light or dark, grainy or HD smooth. Frelling lens flares. The story doesn't matter as I won't be inflicting any more of that on myself even were it not behind the streaming service paywall.

And speaking of the story. **** spoiler ****


I'm supposed to get behind the mutineer? :thumbsdown:

There is also a lot of the cheating I hated in JJ verse. They expect us to be knowledgeable of the ways of this verse but they've obviously shaken the whole thing up and are otherwise wiling to use that stuff to play "gotcha." I seem to have been far too soft on Fuller for the travesty that is Trek '09.

Michele Yeoh was good but I always like her.

:twocents:
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By Cersan
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
2E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E Russian National Second Runner-Up 2016
#396897
Are you sure that you are Star Trek fans? I mean this is the most authentic trek experience i had in years. How can you not be excited?! Maybe our game is in not its best shape lately for a reason.
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By sexecutioner (Niall Matthew)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
1E World Runner-Up 2023
1E European Continental Semi-Finalist 2023
1E British National Second Runner-Up 2023
#396898
Loved it. Flawed, but at least it's not Encounter at Farpoint

The narrative is by far the biggest shake up. I'm sure the non-episodic nature will throw people off a bit (it threw me off not having a decisive conclusion, but it's something I can deal with) Gone are the TNG episodic days...

We've been used to binging Trek for 15+ years. I want to know more about Burnham, Saru etc. But sadly, I gotta get just a tiny snippet per week :(

This seems more like a prologue than a premiere, getting the set up out of the way, I reckon CBS should've sold it as that, or at least a feature length episode.

Spoilery bit...

And it was odd that Discovery or half the cast didn't make an appearance, but once they appear, I'm sure it'll kick in properly. I had a feeling Georgeo would snuff it haha

T'kuvma mentioning Tellarites and Andorians was sweet, wonder if we'll see them later on?

Oh, did anyone get a Bendi Syndrome vibe from Sarek when he was meld talking to Burnham? I thought that was a great touch.


Overall, great set up. Nice tease for some of the main characters. Looks absolutely stunning. Music was incredible. Give me more!

Most of the footage we've seen in trailers comes from these first two episodes. But the after trailer for the series makes the show very promising indeed :)

PS. They are Klingons. Deal with it ;)
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#396903
It was hideously ugly to look at and listen to (the sound design just mish-mashed all sorts of sfx together from all over the timeline with no rhyme or reason -- just a complete garbage fire). It displayed the least TrekSense of any pilot besides "Broken Bow," which was a strangely similar episode if you ignore the aesthetic -- same basic conflict, same basic exposition load, same basic action-movie plot. Give me "Encounter at Farpoint" any day; at least it had some ideas beyond "shooty shooty boom boom." Or, for that matter, I'll take the third episode of The Orville.

All that said, it seems like it's only intended as a prologue, and that the actual pilot of Discovery is next week. If next week's episode is good and puts this whole mutiny/space-battle thing behind it for a good long while, Discovery could easily end up being as good as Enterprise, perhaps even better. (One wonders why they didn't handle this whole thing as a flashback at the start of the new episode -- there really wasn't much to this two-hour pilot.) I can forgive its horrid appearance if there's a good heart to it. And, hey, I didn't actually hate the pilot, either; I was merely indifferent to it, much the way I'm indifferent to "Broken Bow" now that I look back on it. (And I came to adore Enterprise.)

On the other hand, if Discovery tries to be a season-long war story without the prior emotional investment, big ideas, and occasional respites of DS9 S6 or ENT S3, if it keeps on trying to plunge us into Klingon politics as if anyone cared, then it will be a creative failure. It is trying way too hard right now to imitate other "prestige" television (those opening credits, cripes), and forgets more than once that Star Trek is more than pandering 47 references and the T'Plana-Hath. (Though how it does financially is anyone's guess.)

Like Niall said, the serial nature of this thing makes it really hard to judge without more episodes, and Hell will freeze over before I quit watching new Star Trek of any quality, so I'll be staying tuned and will keep you apprised of which path it chooses.
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By Frimmel
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396904
Cersan wrote:Are you sure that you are Star Trek fans? I mean this is the most authentic trek experience i had in years. How can you not be excited?! Maybe our game is in not its best shape lately for a reason.
I'm not excited because the thing gave me a headache trying to watch it aside from anything else that may be good or bad about it.

On the whole it felt so very "try hard." I didn't find it authentic at all. Logical decisions don't come from that much passion is as succinctly as I can put it.
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By Frimmel
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396906
BCSWowbagger wrote:
It was hideously ugly to look at and listen to (the sound design just mish-mashed all sorts of sfx together from all over the timeline with no rhyme or reason -- just a complete garbage fire).
I worry that it is just me when I hate the audio. I also thought the score was a bit of a mess in the free hour they gave us. I agree about the sound effects. It seemed very haphazard and not like a "this is how these ships will sound." More like they picked from a top ten list of Trek ringtone downloads or otherwise focus-grouped it.

Audio overall wasn't very good. Sloppy volumes and leveling.
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 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396907
Cersan wrote:Are you sure that you are Star Trek fans? I mean this is the most authentic trek experience i had in years. How can you not be excited?! Maybe our game is in not its best shape lately for a reason.
He's asking people on an obscure website for a dead 20-year old card game about a 50 year-old sci-fi show if they're really fans of this franchise.... a little insulting, don't you think? -_-

Not that I really need to give you my "nerd credentials" but one of my very first childhood memories is watching TOS... "The Corbomite Maneuver", to be specific (That Baalok puppet scared the crap out of me as a little kid.) I've been a fan of this universe since I was a little child. My best friend and I used to play "Star Trek" out in the woods behind his house... I would play Spock and he would be Kirk and we would pretend to explore alien planets and go on adventures. Our phasers were sticks off the ground. Hell, I met my best friend talking about Star Trek in the cafeteria in junior high. I took up the trombone at the same time solely because Commander Riker played it. I daresay that our childhood version of Trek playing out in the woods, with twigs for phasers and handmade cardboard communicators, was a more authentic Trek experience that what I just watched last night.

This is clearly written to appeal to the crowd that loves shit like Game of Thrones not for the fantasy aspects, but the overblown soap opera-style "interpersonal drama".

>>> SPOILERS FOLLOW <<<

As much as they declare that this show "is totally canon, guys... seriously!" there is just no possible way that is the case. The ships are just insane. Everything is somehow an over-designed and over-engineered mess that hurts to look at and also too dark and grainy to even see well. There is no conceivable way that any of this technology evolves into the tech from TOS. It's just too futuristic. And you can't argue that the way the tech looks in TOS is "apocryphal" or an "abstract representation" beacuse Dax points out how much she loves the way it looks in "Trials and Tribble-ations". The effects are totally overblown. They're all the worst excesses of JJ-Trek and Nu-Wars combined. The show looks like someone threw Star Trek '09 and Mass Effect into a blender and ran it on high for hours. And that overly-shilled, award-bait, artsy-fartsy opening is awful... it makes Enterprise's opening credits look like TNG's credits (and I really, really despised ENT's opening because of that stupid song) but I'll take something dumb and schmaltzy like "Where My Heart Will Take Me" over this crap any day.

Burnham is just ridiculous. Her backstory is the most contrived thing I think I've ever seen - and yes, I hated Sybok, too. Her character is straight out of the worst self-insert fanfics - "She's the secret human sister of Spock you've NEVER EVER heard of in 50 years, guys!" She's too coldly logical to sympathize with at certain points, and too emotional in others. She's ridiculously eager to make a show of force to what is in all likelihood a superior foe in both numbers and tactics. "What's the most logical course of action here? Well, it's not negotiation or diplomacy like the Federation should be doing... that's stupid. Mutiny and fire phasers! That's the most rational response!" And before anyone even brings up Spock and "The Menagerie" - yes, he took control of the ship and broke a serious protocol in the process, but he did that to give a dear friend the ability to live out his final days in peace and happiness, and didn't start a fucking war in the process.

Saru is transparently the "anti-Spock"... an officer who is basically an inveterate coward who relies on his "death feefees" and emotions to make decisions. I like Doug Jones, but I think the make-up is bad and the character is weakly written.

The Klingons would have worked just as well if they had kept their standard design. They look more like Remans than Klingons to be honest. The worst part is that there is literally no reason for the way they look... they're not an off-shoot, they're not mutants, they're not hybrids. They're just different solely for the sake of being different. And this "isolationist" bullshit is just stupid. The Klingons were always an aggressive, expansionist empire in all prior media. It's the Romulans who are the isolationists. This plot point makes no sense at all. And that sarcophagus ship looks like it was ripped straight out of Warhammer 40k... something as over-the-top as corpses nailed to a ship's hull and lighting a fire inside your ship is less "Klingon" and more "Chaos Space Marines."

And of course, for an extra dose of "edgy" and "this is not your daddy's Trek", we kill off the likable, rational, reasonable Captain Phillipou - the closest thing to a traditional Trek character in this farce of a series and whom I would have personally enjoyed as the main character of this show - at the end of the second episode. Why? Because "Game of Thrones"-style "Aha! You didn't expect us to kill off such a major character, did you?! NOBODY IS SAFE!!!" that's why. (Not to mention that between Star Trek Online and JJ Trek '09 the "captain gets killed and you're in charge now" plot is totally played out).
Are we going to have a "Women in Refrigerators" discussion about the Asian female being killed off to introduce a white male captain? No, because we have a black female, so that's okay.

Thankfully, at least, this show bears so much more of a resemblance to JJ-Trek that if necessary, it can be dismissed as non-canon. I've never canceled a free trial of something as fast as I did last night.

EDIT: Thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed how bad the audio mixing was! I'm partially deaf in one ear, and poor audio quality and mixing is one of the many reasons I stopped watching Nu-Who. The terrible audio is just one more reason I won't give this show another chance.
sexecutioner wrote:Loved it. Flawed, but at least it's not Encounter at Farpoint
Farpoint, for all its' flaws, introduced one of the most compelling and memorable characters in Trek history in the first episode. The Farpoint stuff was crap, sure, but the Q Continuum is an incredibly interesting concept, and Q himself was brilliant... so much so that he's one of the best characters in Trek. There is nothing of the sort to be found here, as the Klingon leader was killed off far too soon, and I don't think Mudd will be a comparable character to Q in any way.
BCSWowbagger wrote:It was hideously ugly to look at and listen to (the sound design just mish-mashed all sorts of sfx together from all over the timeline with no rhyme or reason -- just a complete garbage fire). It displayed the least TrekSense of any pilot besides "Broken Bow," which was a strangely similar episode if you ignore the aesthetic -- same basic conflict, same basic exposition load, same basic action-movie plot. Give me "Encounter at Farpoint" any day; at least it had some ideas beyond "shooty shooty boom boom." Or, for that matter, I'll take the third episode of The Orville.
Agreed on all counts. The sound design was awful...most likely due to the disjointed, confused, rushed nature of the show's production. You make a damn good point about Broken Bow, too... I hadn't realized that, but this entire premise was basically lifted straight from Broken Bow, 'dumb action movie" elements and everything! And I agree, the Q Continuum elements alone make Farpoint the superior first episode. And also agree that third Orville ep was damn good.
Last edited by Legate_Damar on Mon Sep 25, 2017 4:43 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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By Cersan
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
2E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E Russian National Second Runner-Up 2016
#396909
Sorry guys, but you sound like bunch of very grumpy old people complaining that kids are running on their lawn.
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By KillerB (John Corbett)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Architect
Community Contributor
#396910
I got tired of Sasha's fake Vulcan talk after 15 minutes. New Sarek was the most irritating thing about the reboot Star Trek, and I get another dose of a fake Sarek. And fucking lens flares.... for fucks sake.

I like Crouching Tiger Hidden Captain Lady, but I know she's gone soon. I actually liked the Klingons, but a Kahless Kult leader is right in my wheelhouse.

Like Enterprise, I'd watch it just cause Trek is like pizza. Even if it's bad I'm eating it. But I'm kind of insulted that Euros get it on Netflix but they expect me to pay. Fuck off, CBS streaming will fail like Yahoo and I'll have it on Netflix by next year.
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 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#396913
Cersan wrote:Sorry guys, but you sound like bunch of very grumpy old people complaining that kids are running on their lawn.
I wrote out a long, well thought-out, compelling argument as to why this show isn't really true Star Trek and will most likely fail. All you have done is attack people by saying they're "just grumpy", and more insultingly, they're not "real fans". Come back with a good well-written defense of the show and I just might listen to you. As it stands I really don't have to tolerate those insults.

If you liked it, great, you're entitled to your opinion. But I didn't, and I don't have to care what you think.
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By JamesValEson (Barry Windschitl)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#396914
I am only able to see The free h our, so I'll hold off on talking about that whole thing for now. My Main problem right now with ST:D (huh...) is how CBS has handled the broadcasting: Why not put the Whole pilot on the CBS network if its meant to only be a prologue?
Why put the One Free Episode on an evening where it is Likely to get pushed back due to football running long, and thus Effing over people who had to set a DVR to record it? (Luckily, I figured it would get pushed and set NCIS to record as well).
Why not give us the ability to see The whole series on the network at a later date?

I'll go into my issues with the series as related to cannon later, but this simply looks like CBS throwing the name and story onto a general sci-fi series and calling it good.

There's word that Nick Meyer (sp?) Is working on a Khan short series, here's hoping they don't bollix that up.

BDubs
Last edited by JamesValEson on Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By JamesValEson (Barry Windschitl)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#396916
Legate_Damar wrote:
Cersan wrote:Sorry guys, but you sound like bunch of very grumpy old people complaining that kids are running on their lawn.
I wrote out a long, well thought-out, compelling argument as to why this show isn't really true Star Trek and will most likely fail. All you have done is attack people by saying they're "just grumpy", and more insultingly, they're not "real fans". Come back with a good well-written defense of the show and I just might listen to you. As it stands I really don't have to tolerate those insults.

If you liked it, great, you're entitled to your opinion. But I didn't, and I don't have to care what you think.
Well, at least he didn't call you a "RACIST, Sexist, Homophobe" like a few publications were calling people who made early negative reviews of the series. Lol

I'll give him credit for that.

BDubs
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