Looks fantastic - sky high production values, and a very different take on the franchise.
What do you think?
Teaser trailer:
Second trailer:
Full new extended HD trailer:
Last edited by TheFlyingBanana; 23rd July 2017 at 01:19.
So clever my foot fell off.
I just want to know how they explain the third brand image of the Klingons. The Klingons, the Christopher Ward of scifi.
The second brand image (the ridged foreheads) were eventually retconned into the ST canon, but is there any news on how the new Klingon look will be explained? If no explanation then that's a fail right there.
Bear in mind that this new series is set slightly before the time of ST:TOS (I think?), so the Klingons should definitely be smooth forehead, swarthy human-alikes.
wasn't there something in Star Trek Enterprise, where a virus was developed to give Klingons smooth heads??
Never been a huge Star Trek fan, but that looks good to me.
Guess it will appear in the UK on Sky?
Of all the Star Trek series, the one I enjoyed most was Enterprise. To me it seemed to have the most endearing characters, whom behaved more naturally than characters in the other series.
Couldn't stand Voyager, far to much of a 'we are right and you're wrong' moral crusade. Even 7 of 9 couldn't keep me watching.
and don't even mention Deep Space 9?
The production values and acting looks promising from those few brief glimpses.
The biggest problem I have with the prequels to TOS is that they appear little different to series set after this - the technology is just about as advanced etc.
When Enterprise was announced the pre release publicity talked about it being more like conditions on a submarine and the technology being relatively primitive in comparison to TOS. It didn't seem like it me.
It would be nice to see no teleportation being used. This was only there in the first place as a production device to save money in relation to shuttle craft props or special effects showing the main space ship landing on planets. There are no such budgetary constraints now.......
Will give it a try in any event.
"Finally, months after the first trailer for Star Trek: Discovery — the first new Star Trek TV show in 16 years — debuted, the show’s release date has been announced.For UK viewers, the show will launch on Netflix 25 September, with new episodes uploaded every Monday."
The comedy/spoof StarTrek series looks promising too??
The Orville
http://www.fox.com/the-orville
Trailer
https://youtu.be/d8aUuFsXRjU
Last edited by odyseus10; 23rd July 2017 at 10:11.
I like the look of that!Originally Posted by odyseus10
The Orville looks great
Looks like equal quality to ST on effects etc.
They were adapted into sort of supersoldiers. An experiment. That DS9 episode where they redid the Tribbles one was excellent.
Yes, that was the retcon (the 'Augments' virus, iirc).
But it rather conflicts with the new Klingon look which is dissimilar to the smooth head and post-TBG era krinkly head Klingons.
So a new retcon is going to be needed to explain this new Klingon look. If the producers can't find one then they'll have failed at the very beginning.
Last edited by markrlondon; 23rd July 2017 at 10:57.
I thought they did that adequately. The technology was less advanced than both TOS and TNG eras, I felt.
Well, transporter tech was in its infancy in the Enterprise era and this new series is long after ST:ENT and slightly before ST:TOS, so I don't think we can avoid transporters.
But I still want a new-head Klingon explanation. ;-)
Last edited by markrlondon; 23rd July 2017 at 11:31.
I agree, we appear to be stuck with transporters!
This is the technology I have to work hardest on to suspend my disbelief. There is at least a theoretical model behind warping space and exceeding the speed of light but nothing comparable for transportation, at least in the way it is portrayed here.
If only the production budget had been bigger in the 60's - we might never have seen it!
But isn't that one of the most fun of the inventions? Even Iain M Banks had a version in his novels and he was the most respected of our sci-fi novelists. I agree that even as a boy watching ToS on its first showing in the '60s I wondered but - suspension of disbelief. It's the mainstay of most novels of any genre.
Surely when being chased by aliens, it is hard to beat a transporter as a means of escape.
However, if running back to your ship, realistically how long would it take to get out of there?!
I think the transporter is great, and is what makes good science fiction.
Yes, the transporter technology is perhaps the most technologically-improbably tech from the ST universe. It is one thing that really does seem implausible. But hey, it's science fiction so I guess some suspension of disbelief is required.
However, it always seems to me that transporter tech was handily forgotten about and generally much under-used. There's an awful lot of running around in ST and, surely, for a civilisation that seems to have utterly mastered transporter tech, they would simply use it far more than they actually do.
Luckily the writers of some episodes remember to throw in a plasma storm or similar to make transporters unuseable in some stories but, even so, transporters seem not to have had the social and practical consequences that you'd expect from such technology. For example I'd expect transporters to have made turbolifts entirely redundant except as emergency backups.
In a similar vein: Grav-plating! We have the plot device of grav-plating in the floor to simulate gravity. Ok, I'll go along with that as a plot device. But why not allow it to be switched off in an emergency to make moving heavy debris easier!? Instead of just switching off or turning down the grav-plating, they heroically labour with moving the heavy debris.
Note to scifi writers: If you invent a plot device then make sure you adapt the society and culture of your stories to fully embrace the changes that the plot device would naturally bring. :-)
Fair enough in emergency situations a transporter could be used more, but we often hear that it can be difficult to obtain a 'lock', and as for replacing lifts, who knows how expensive a single transport is in terms of power, ship's computing resources Not to mention the upkeep of the Chief...
http://chiefobrienatwork.com
Going by what these huge ships are capable of, I would imagine that power and computer processing will be in abundance
Considering that they use it all the time for many tasks, it seems quite affordable. The writers have just not adjusted the culture to properly react to and incorporate the ramifications of the existence of such technologies. ;-)
Indeed.Going by what these huge ships are capable of, I would imagine that power and computer processing will be in abundance
That looks quite interesting - they’ve definitely thrown at lot of money at it. The key will be to create decent season story arcs. I think TV has moved on from simple adventures-of-the-week.
I’m Star Trek agnostic - loved TOS as a kid, but as an adult I found a lot of their storylines a bit preachy and earnest. (Particularly the Federation as a kind of US of the future, when the US more often behaves like the Klingons).
I agree. I felt that Voyager fell into the same sort of preachiness trap at times, although I can't help feeling that it was was knowing and intentional (not sure for what purpose, though).
Maybe they will explain it the same way that Gene Roddenberry did the change and originally explained it? 'I had more money, they always looked that way'.
Anyway if it's set before Kirk and Spock - the big question is who will play Kirk's mum's love instructor (who we know is called James).
Last edited by Alansmithee; 23rd July 2017 at 14:19.
Ah but that's an outside-the-universe explanation and it never did satisfy the fans, hence the in-universe retcon (after Roddenberry's death).
I'd accept almost any reasonably plausible explanation, even (another) new timeline. But there does need to be something plausible to legitimise this new series.
Last edited by markrlondon; 24th July 2017 at 02:15.
My favourite was STNG, but this one looks like it could be good.
I really can't wait for this series, it looks amazing:-)
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Wtf is a retcon???
M
Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
It's where the writers change something about a fictional universe or a character's backstory but on the story the characters treat it as if it's always been this way.
For example - in season 1 & 2 - they establish that the Klingons had joined the federation. In season 3 that was never the case and never had been.
What Alansmithee said but in addition it can be a later story that explains a previously unexplained plot hole of inconsistency. This is how it was used in Star Trek, where the transition from smooth headed, swarthy human-alike Klingons in TOS to crinkly forehead Klingons in TMP, TNG and later was (vaguely) explained many years later in a couple of storylines.
We will need another new retcon to explain how the Klingons in the new series are so different, despite the fact that the series is set shortly before the timeframe of TOS (so the Klings should be the smooth head version).
No some Fans would *like* one - I'm completely happy with it not being explained - from what I have seen the showrunners don't plan to tackle it.
Last edited by Alansmithee; 24th July 2017 at 09:52.
Amazing , it's fiction in case anyone gets carried away..
TBH over the years I've lost track of ST, but this looks like fun,
I'd have preferred it to be ahead of Voyager, maybe a couple of hundred years to see how the Federation developed or grew too big to maintain itself as a cohesive unit. And the future ships would have been brilliant. Organic things that more or less thought for themselves. The mistrust of STNG in the Enterprise's computer, even though it was brighter and astonishingly faster than any of them was way underused. To have a helmsman in a ship like that, in the way it was depicted, was an anachronism.
If they don't tackle it then I predict it will end up as another Enterprise. One of the reasons that Enterprise did not do well is because it wasn't quite right in terms of timeline and consistency.
Indeed, but if it's important enough to change the look and feel of a well known species in the same fictional universe, then it is surely important enough to ask why and expect the question to be answered with a plausible in-universe answer.
This isn't a standalone series: It's a continuation of an incredibly long running sci fi universe with dedicated fans of all ages. Whilst it needs to be fresh and original to succeed, the limited success of Enterprise shows that it needs to fit properly within the fictional universe that it purports to be part of.
Good idea.
Yes, I agree. I think this is similar to the way that the societal and practical impact of things like transporters, replicators, and holotechnology were not properly explored. With those technologies, overall society and the way that space ships were run would look nothing like the universe we see in ST. Things would be far more different compared to the present day.
Yes, yes, it's all fiction. But if you invent a new, paradigm-shifting technology for your scifi universe then I think it only right and proper to follow through and think about how it would change every day life.
Transporters have limited range in the trek universe I believe. Although in the Star Trek reboot Scottie comes up with soemthing that allows him to transport to a ship under warp and seemingly a long distance ( light years possibly rather than AU).
In the Culture novels the "transporter" is basically a force field bubble generated by a ship at distance from the target that is then pushed though higher dimensons (hyperspace for want of a better word although Banks kinda describes it as an underlying energy grid that the universe floats on and the ship's engines kind of interface with it and ride the energy in a wave above and below the normal continuum to build up FTL velocities). The displacement bubble is then travelled usually to a nearby ship a few light seconds away , larger distances are unusual.
Referred to as a displacement. It doesn't involve any destruction to energy and transmission then reconstruction. So its not matter transmission. Its more akin to warp drive spaceship albeit without the spaceship entering warp ; it does kind of blip up and down through n dimensional space though).
Advantages , its fast , ships minds(AIs) are capable of displacing people who fall off high structures before they hit the ground. It can be effected over distances of light seconds if not light years.
Disadvantages , it has an chance of risk deemed unacceptable to most ship AIs in all circumstances other than dire emergency. However this is 1 in several million ( comedy). Its not instantaneous and no faster than employing any common transport ship of Culture design.
Its often used to place munitions into the path of enemies and snatch human agents away from certain death. In the novel "Excession" one ship uses it to transport several thousand inhabitants off ship before it leaves for a risky mission. This is seen as reckless by other ship's minds (super intelligent , and often quite bitchy , AIs). Ironically another ship pursuing it at distance is forced to then displace some of its own crew in order to attempt to keep up with it , right after remarking about how reckless the original action was.
Most often transportation is undertaken via a variety of craft big and small , most capable of FTL speeds ( significantly higher than Trek). This is mainly down to the inhabitants of the culture preferring to use the short voyages as decadent pleasure cruises. Also few of them have any pressing requirement to complete anything in a hurry.
One thing I always hated about transporters from an early age. Why do they need to leave via a transporter bay on a ship when they can be returned from the planet without one at the other end? Why not just beam them from A to B without them having to assemble on those goofy looking pads.
I am looking forward to this I have to say, but I also would have preferred it to be set more in the future... but still the trailers look good.
I had been thinking they would have made a series out of the new film re-boot as that has been pretty good also.
I agree . There is a lot of stuff in Trek that is annoyingly over powered.
Food replicators for example. Even if you assume that there are some raw feedstocks required and its not just assembled from raw energy surely that technology means you have full control over matter and energy ...and can therefor do anything.
Another example, why is transporter technology not used for surgery/medicine. If you get ill or injured all they have to do is feed you through a transporter and edit you to be healthy. How about if you are dead? Just feed you back through the transporter. Even if your body is destroyed given what the can do with the food replicators surely they just need to feed the required energy into the "pattern buffer" of the transporter and reassemble you.
So the tech in star trek that is used for the most mundane things like cups of earl gray tea is actually indicative of fully god like technology that can bend the universe to any whim.
Ironically one of the things about the Trek universe is that its "culturally" vacuous. There are hardly ever any mention of art or cultural ideas or trends beyond some weird comedy alien ceremonies or traditions ( usually depicted in a massively racist way reeking of orientalism).
All the best scifi is about the societal changes wrought in some way by technological innovations. Even 2001 which is an extremely dry film has more depiction of this in one film than Trek has in all its forms. Trek is really just a Space Police show with some soap elements.
Last edited by Mr.D; 24th July 2017 at 16:41.
I did actually know all that, I was simply being brief. The Culture novels are amongst my favourite. His final two were brilliant and went quite some way to explaining the Minds.
As to the transporter pads, site to site transport hardly happened in ToS and not often in STNG. Dangerous. Clearly the pads provided some sort of base for the beam. Yes, it's magic, but who cares?
I'm a fan of Next Gen, not so much the other series.
STTNG is a far more sophisticated show than the others in my view.
Many of the episodes were exceptionally clever and well written, and dealt with some very profound and complex questions about humanity.
In response to some of the points you raise I would recommend a few episodes in particular:
The Inner Light
The Measure of a Man
Data's Day
The Drumhead
Darmok
And of course Chain of Command with its controversial exploration of torture:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai...xt_Generation)
Here's a few more suggestions with depth:
https://www.wired.com/2012/10/star-t...rs-best-worst/
So clever my foot fell off.
I've seen all the episodes of STNG many times, except two episodes. The Drumhead and A Measure of a Man. Hated them with a passion. I found them both improbable, especially the latter. You can't say the Second in Command of the Flagship is not sentient in the true sense. That was an issue that should have been debated in Starfleet Command in the twenty-odd years Data was training. Besides, for me, Data could do no wrong.
Last edited by Glamdring; 24th July 2017 at 23:17.
Yes, the full ramifications of the level of technology presented is just not explored and I find that a little disappointing.
But if it was explored properly then I expect many people might have difficulty identifying with the ST characters and lifestyle.
I mentioned holotechnology earlier an example of technologies whose ramifications were not fully explored but I should note that this stage that almost the whole of Voyager and some aspects of DS9 involved self-aware holo-characters (and I recall there were one or two stories alone trhese lines in TNG). However, even these characters seemed to be used for amusement rather than exploring the incredibly cultural ramifications of creating new self-aware life forms. (Yes, there was one episude in I think Voyager where the ethical issues surrounding holograms being used as slave labour were examined but it was just one episode).
In short, the producers clearly are aware of the culture-changing possibilities of the technologies they invent but don't want to address them fully. I guess, as I mooted above, that it's to do with allowing the majority of viewers to identify, instead of being shut out due to a genuinely alien (i.e. future) culture and society.
QUOTE=Mr.D;4431334]Ironically one of the things about the Trek universe is that its "culturally" vacuous. There are hardly ever any mention of art or cultural ideas or trends beyond some weird comedy alien ceremonies or traditions ( usually depicted in a massively racist way reeking of orientalism).[/QUOTE]
This reminds me about one of the key 'vacuums' in the entire ST universe, that is economics. We know that the Federation is a money-less system but it is never explained how resources are shared out. We are left to laugh at the money-focussed Ferengi but the practical alternative is never described in detail (although bizarrely 'credit's are sometimes mentioned, so apparently there is some concept of money in the Federation).
I feel that we are left to presume that humanity has evolved so that greed and the desire to materially better oneself in relation to one's peer group are no longer present. However, in itself this would result in a very different culture and society and the Federation characters of Star Trek act too much like present say humans for that to be the case. Just another paradox for which we must suspect disbelief. ;-)
Power and hierarchy are still very evident in the Federation. It isn't by any means a utopia.
It often reflects some of modern America's thinking.
Regarding the replicators and medicine, in the episode where Worf broke his back his spinal cord was replaced by a highly experimental procedure. Clearly, good as replicators are in creating the appearance of flesh, living tissue is problematic for them.
One thing I really admire about Banks work is that the society depicted , unfettered by essentially limitless wealth and resources seem to have divided into decadent sensation seeking socialites or 3 specific roles/castes . Adventurers , scholars and artists.
You do something crazy and reckless . You learn everything you can about something really obscure . You take something and become an practitioner of it as elevated a level as possible.
And also with a distinct measure of decadent , sensation seeker regardless.
In Trek it seems people either do nothing if particular interest .... or work for the higher caste military . Really bland and nasty and not like realistic human beings at all.
I reckon Banks is right: given the means most human type societies would become hedonistic with leisure being the main pastime.
Starfleet isn't the military. The Trek universe has always been very clear about that. It is a civilian organisation with the remit to explore.
The reason you don't see much of the rest of the human race is because the series and films aren't about them. The stories are about a crew on a spaceship.
I am a fan of a wide range of SciFi, from Asimov to Clarke to Philip K. Dick, and Baxter to Roddenbury with Douglas Adams somewhere in between.
I have room in my imagination to enjoy them all in different ways.
So clever my foot fell off.
Acht come on . They have weaponry capable of laying waste to entire planets. They could call themselves the girl guides if they wanted to but they are still the military.
Not seeing the rest of the human beans of the 23rd century is fine but the ones on the ship have very little believability as coming from a sophisticated culture. Ryker playing the trombone and Laforge having a thing for sherlock holmes doesn't swing it.
Where is their contempory culture ? Its like watching cardboard cutouts program a vcr most episodes.
I much prefered the original series. It had some elements of the surreal that hinted just enough of a culture a bit different and odd compared with ours.
Mild spoilers ahead for anyone that hasn't seen Measure of a Man - but it's still great even if you know what's going to happen.
So, maybe you just don't like courtroom dramas? I agree with the former being a weaker episode, but I think you should give Measure of a Man another chance. It is, in my opinion, the single most important piece of sci-fi television ever made.
As for the improbability, it's not a difficult to understand. It simply never occurred to anyone that Data wasn't sentient and therefore couldn't serve as an officer. The fact that by the then letter of the law, he was considered property, was just a legal oversight like loopholes found in present-day laws all the time. It is frequently pointed out (prior to discovering Lore) that Data is unique. If there are no other machines with higher reasoning ability, why would the laws differentiate sentient from non-sentient machines? They set a legal precedent that such a difference could exist. That's the whole point.
The episode is mostly a detailed exploration of what sentience even means in the first place, which is a very deep philosophical & scientific question with no clear answer. We are now approaching a time, though it is probably still more than 20 years away, when such a case could be played out for real. In addition to looking forwards to future encounters with alien or artifical intelligences, it also draws parallels with issues of racism and slavery. It raises questions about how we treat, for example, dolphins, gorillas or elephants.
It doesn't answer any of those questions, but does what good sci-fi is supposed to do: forces you to think about it. This episode meets or exceeds Asimov standards (Bicentennial Man has a fairly similar premise). Almost all TV sci fi falls a long way short of that.
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