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Post by RED_NED on Sept 25, 2017 18:53:49 GMT
I watched Star Trek discovery, and hoo boy is it a show! I wanna talk about it, but right off the bat i'm gonna tell you i'm not a huge fan. If it weren't star trek and it was written differently, then well it would be another show but it might have promise.
To get it over with at the start, im not gonna try not to compare it to Orville (which is its own bag of balls, i want to like it but the humour doesnt reallywork for me), thats overly pulling from TNG era trek, which is one im a fan of. Also, theres a bunch of social issues surrounding the film with them pushing how progressive the cast is, with actors telling you not to watch it (yes really!) and the klingons are a metaphor for america and trump supporters apparently.
But fuck that noise, its got star trek slapped on it and they are riding that brand name hard so i was gonna watch it!
First thing we are introduced to is the new klingons! Well at least theres no elephant in the room, just hideous space orcs! I guess this is just gonna be a marmite situation – either you hate the new klingons or you like em. Im not fussed – i really like the TNG era version (to anyone who says "but they changed the TOS human looking ones whats the problem?" Thats 3 seasons compared to the 24+ seasons and ALL the films that had them with lumpy dog turds on their heads. Lumpy heads are real klingons! Thats what the name is referencing i assume, the turds klinging on to their heads.)
Anyway, back to the mordor klingons. My main criticism is they are just generic monster men, their outfits are frilly for some reason but have little spikes on that look like they would hurt themselves more than whoever they fought, but whatever. It seems the plan is to make them seem more alien and weird than before (i kinda like my star trek aliens to be character actors with shit glued to their heads, but thats just me).
One thing they did, is give them big spikey Uruk-hai teeth. It goes with their monster mash aesthetic i guess, but it does seem to stop them from talking properly. Slow slurring like they have a lisp while saying slurry nonsense words – yes, they now speak alien and have subtitles. I can barely read so i hate subtitles...
anyway the scene is just a klingon guy spouting race supremecy bollocks and voting for trump presumably. Ok just one joke about that.
Flash! Onto a desert planet where our heroes are. Tatooine? Jakku? Fuck knows? The ship captain and the first officer who she blasphemes and calls number one. Number 1 is riker! You gonna call your doctor bones as well?! References I guess. Anyway the two most important people from the ship are alone on an away mission to shoot phasers down an old well. Because theres a drought and the people on the planet will die if they dont. Seriously.
The number 1 who is the main character is a woman called michael. What the fuck is this joss whedon subverting names bullshit? Well shes been raised by vulcans (as we'll see in a bit) so instead of having a vulcan name has a mans name to be thematic. Well she shows how vulcan she is by estimating when a dust cloud on the horizon will hit them, down to the second.
Wait, im sorry im trying to get to the plot, but why did they put the most important people on the ship on a menial task where they are an hour from danger? They spout meaningless exposition at each other "those eggs are the offspring of the indiginous people" says one (number one) and the captain says "they've lived here over a thousand years". WHO TALKS LIKE THIS. You obviously both know who they are you morons.
So they shoot down the well (clever plan) making water spout out of it for some reason and comm their ship to leave, but the dust cloud is blocking their signal so they are trapped! Tension!
To pass the time they walk in a big circle, leaving footprints in the shape of the starfleet badge. I saw this in the trailer and thought that was a cool visual, thinking they got stranded somewhere after a battle or whatever and they get rescued. Or the start of an episode they would find it on a planet then it would be a mystery. It turns out they are doofuses who trap themselves but immediately the ship flies through the cloud and beams them up. Is this an episode of Orville?
Damn, we are only to the opening credits which aren't bad, it leans on the original theme a bit much but is better than that enterprise elevator music twaddle. I prefer my star trek with an orchestral score and the ship flying past planets though.
I'll post more later...
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 25, 2017 19:01:53 GMT
Tiberia told me about this.
She has some concerns.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 25, 2017 19:43:11 GMT
So the plot thickens, or actually the plot begins because nothing has happened yet. Having a cliffhanger before the opening credits is for losers. It turns out a space relay has a hole in it, so they have to go investigate. Obviously its klingons whodunit because we saw them in the intro. I'd say its like prometheus where they showed the engineers and ruined the surprise at the start, but if you've seen any trailers you know already star trek discovery is gonna be a klingon fest. Oh they are on the USS Shinzon (Shenzhou?) which you might notice isn't the USS Discovery. I'm guessing the captain who it says was guest starring for this episode and the space ship who isn't in the title of the show will be fine. Also only one of the crew gets any characterisation. LALALA they will all be fine. Anyway, they find a signal in a nearby asteroid field but convenient particle doo-whats mean they can't scan it properly. Number one treats the alien science officer like anyone on TNG treats worf, pushes him off his controls and does his job better than he does immediately. Now this is amazing, but because they can't scan it... they look at it through an old telescope that they apparently have on the ship. This must come up a lot. This is the kind of shit that annoys me. The footprints in the sand, the random telescope lying around, they would be fine plot points in a mid season TNG episode, but they are just thrown in this pilot and seem so random with nothing established. But unlike TNG where they would launch a probe to scan the signal, or send a runabout, Michael (I would make a play on riker/rikHER but that doesn't work in text so whatever. Her surname is Burnham so lets call her that), well Burnham puts on a space suit and flies out there alone. She has 20 minutes before her DNA will be turned into noodles apparently because of the radiation. Awesome plan. She flies to a huge alien construct and scans it, but decides to land on it for some reason. This activates parts ofit to move, and a warrior is suddenly standing to fight her. This is obviously a klingon and it looks... Awesome. Seriously that is a great scary suit. So Burnham stabs him with his own batleth making him seem like a tool and flies away and bangs her suit. She gets back to the ship but is fucked up from radiation. We see the klingons do a death ritual where they fly the body in a sarcophagus and put them all over their ship. Whatever floats your boat. Or spaceship. We get a bunch of klingon exposition, an albino one becomes the right hand man of the lead klingon. This shows these guys value loyalty rather than family bloodlines like the other klingons. Then we get a standoff between the klingon ship and the human ship – the klingons shot the relay cos starfleet are predictable and would send a ship they could fight. They send a message to get reinforcements from starfleet. The klingons send a signal for help too with some photon pulse. This sends bright white lights blinding the federation crew (not literally but their windows are just pure white). I always assumed spaceships wouldnt rely on literally looking out the window but use sensors and scanners but maybe it messes with those too. I'm gonna go with the idea they just eyeball everything and look out of literal windows cos that's hilarious. They get deafened by loud static too, so have to mute the audio. I guess they dont have any volume control on their speakers either. Loud noises and bright lights apparently screw this crew over. So number burnham runs off and messages sarek (there were boring flashbacks earlier where we learnt klingons orphaned her or something). Now this irks me – his hologram immediately appears like he was waiting for her. No ring tone just BAM! standing there to talk. Well he tells her of the Vulcan Hello (the name of the episode no less!) which is that vulcans shoot klingons on sight and thats the only way to deal with them. They wont respect you otherwise. Thats... not how i remember vulcans but ok... The trigger happy vulcan hologram also sits on her table which is amazing. Burnham tells the captain about this, and the captain says shes not firing first, cos thats not the starfleet way. Burnham kicks off and gets dragged to the command room to get chewed out. so... she vulcan nerve pinches the captain!! No, im not kidding, shes knocks out the captain, then rushes to the bridge and orders them to fire. Only the science officer alien says this is weird (as the onlyone who gets any personality), and the captain drags herself out of the command room, gun in hand and orders burnham to the brig for mutiny. Just then, the klingon fleet warps in and they are surrounded, cut to credits! Well it ends on a cliffhanger for damn sure! But the main character burnham appears to be mental. This episode is part 1 of 2, the second part is just as batshit, if no more so.
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 25, 2017 19:48:54 GMT
So you've seen part 2 eh? Oh dear.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 25, 2017 19:55:07 GMT
Haha, with such an amazing first part, how could I not?
I'll do part 2 tomorrow, then talk about the visuals and stuff that I didn't really go into here (its full of dutch angles and lens flares which don't bother me but isn't really the star trek i'm used to)
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 25, 2017 19:57:14 GMT
Ahem. Clearly the Vulcans shoot first policy was smart and logical AND moral.
They weren't being morally/culturally imperialist. They treated the Klingons as the Klingons wanted to be treated! The Federation is and always was a culturally imperialist scumbag bunch of people trying to make everyone behave as they believe best. Whether or not that is their culture.
Clearly the First Officer is of the correct opinion and route of behaviour when dealing with the Klingons and Starfleet's dogmatism is a symbol for their fascistic oppression and desire for assimilation.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 26, 2017 7:37:01 GMT
Episode 2 is called "Battle at the Binary Stars", so we know this is going to have a peaceful resolution. Maybe with an awesome Picard style speech to teach us morals and a way other than violence.
We begin with another flashback. we get quite a lot of these. 'Show, don't tell' is meant to illustrate the idea of having characters act in a way that explains the plot. Halting the narrative to tell exposition through a flashback isn't the answer. We learn Burnham came to the ship after being raised on vulcan. She does a terrible vulcan cosplay impression, but ends up complementing the captain at the end so I guess they are good friends. Pointless flashback over and we are back at the bridge with the captain pointing a gun at burnham. How emotional... this isnt. Opening credits roll! As do my eyes.
Back on the klingon ship, the klingon leader ironically called 'T'Kuvma the unforgettable' talks to holograms of the klingon council and convinces all of them but 1 to follow him with a lame speech. The one who doesnt claims vengeance on T'Kuvma, and logs off. Another pointless flashback is thrown in there to show that T'Kuvma got his ship from his daddy after he died, which makes him seem like less of a self made man. Maybe he also got a small loan of a million dollars. We also learn that this ship has cloaking technology, which the other klingons dont have. No reason why, but fair enough.
Then the federation reinforcements arrive, and the 2 fleets have a standoff. The federation captain hails the klingons to sue for peace but because thats a boring way to resolve conflicts in star trek, the klingons fire on them. A space battle ensues with high budget CGI but the pacing is slow and both fleets are dark metal so dont really stand out making it pretty dull. Also I dont give a flying fuck about anyone involved. Don't worry though, because this is trek so at least when they get shot the bridge shakes and all the consoles explode in peoples faces.
Burnham is now in the brig as the ship gets blown to pieces. Sarek mindmelds with her from across the galaxy (yes really!) because theres a bit of him in her from mindmelding when she was a child or some nonsense. He just says shes gifted and live long and prosper. What? Why? What was the point of that?
Back to the exciting space battle and both fleets are damaged. The admiral of the federation fleet messages T'Kuvma for a ceasefire. The klingons agrees, but instead cloaks his ship and rams the admirals ship, which is pretty cool. Battle won, the rest of the klingon fleet withdraws, except the klingon flagship. T'Kuvma hails the remains of the federation fleet telling them to remember his name.
Burnham is trapped in the brig, and has limited air so needs to get out. She activates the computer's ethics protocol and convinces it to open a hole in the force field so she can fly through space vacuum to a nearby shielded corridor. She flies from one room to another through the vacuum of space as though shes skydiving. Don't worry though shes fine.
T'Kuvma stayed behind in the flagship to pick up all the dead klingons drifting in space so he can put them on his ships hull (like he did earlier if you remember) then he's going to personally prepare them for burial. I'm pretty sure it would take ages for one ship to retrieve all the dead from space, let alone prepare them but whatever turn the brain off I guess.
Burnham gets to the bridge, and makes up with the captain by saying she acted like a twat to save the crew, because shes good and star fleet doctrine is bad. The captain wants to blow up the klingon ship using torpedoes loaded onto a shuttle, but Burnham says killing T'Kuvma would make him a martyr and make defeating the klingons impossible.
So the morally superior federation instead plant a bomb on a dead klingons body, so that when the klingons retrieve their dead it will explode inside their ship and knock out their shields – allowing them to beam over and capture T'Kuvma. Now, maybe i'm missing something here, but surely planting bombs on the dead soldiers your opponent is retrieving is a most heinous war crime? And anyone who would do such a thing is totally lacking in morals? But I guess this is a more modern federation where being morally reprehensible is the new cool.
The plan works obviously allowing the captain and Burnham beam across to the klingon ship. Starfleet doesnt have any security personnel or aliens with super strength so they send the 50 year old woman captain to fist fight with the 7 foot klingon T'Kuvma. And she keeps up with him for a good few minutes, trading blows like they are on an equal footing. A 50 year old woman and a klingon warrior who looks like an uruk hai. Finally she somehow gets stabbed, but I just cant figure out how she got overpowered.
Burnham sees this, and remembering how she said just moments ago that killing T'kuvma would make him a martyr switches her phaser from stun to kill and blasts him. I guess they are going for an angle about her racism against klingons and how she is irrational when it comes to dealing with them, rather than her usual logical vulcan taught self. But even if thats the case, shes an irrational mutinous killer who fucks up their plans, so I don't know what to believe.
Burnham gets beamed back to the federation ship, the klingons crowd round T'Kuvma and make him a martyr and we get the final scene. Burnham is in front of a federation tribunal who are covered in shadow and scary exactly how i imagine federation courts to be. They sentence her to life imprisonment and the show ends.
HAHAHA
Yes, you can stop watching the show after the 2-part pilot, and treat it as the maniacal ramblings of a mentally unstable first officer who fucks everything up then goes to jail.
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 26, 2017 7:58:26 GMT
Well, okay then, that sounds like shit.
So uh, did Babylon 5 have better space battles? Because it sounds like Babylon 5 had better space battles. That's hilarious.
Basically Burnham was right, shoot first. Bad cultural imperialism from the Federation, not treating the Klingons as Klingons. Better to shoot on sight to be just like them.
I dunno, just, oh well. I can't wait for Tiberia to tell me all about the horrid warcrime perpetrated by the totally not a dystopia Federation. Even better is that this isn't Abrams verse, this is actual canon Star Trek original timeline verse.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 26, 2017 8:45:09 GMT
Babylon 5's space battles usually looked terrible, but you were invested in the situation and characters. Also, because it was basic, it meant the different ships were big bold colours and easily differentiated.
STD's space battle on the other hand is really well made, but its going for a gritty realistic look so things are less clear and more chaotic which works in some shows like BSG). The main problem i had is you have a bunch of starfleet ships you've never seen before, fighting a bunch of klingon ships we only just met so my investment was pretty low.
Its been commented that Burnham embodies the 'new' JJ Abrams style of trek that is about action, whereas the captain stands for a more classic gene roddenberry trek where she wants to solve issues through peace and diplomacy. Naturally, the screenwriters make their Burnham point of view the correct one.
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 26, 2017 8:48:26 GMT
I developed a love of beam weapons thanks to Babylon 5. Its great. This doesn't seem like it has any of that. Maybe that's what happens when you just start big and flashy but with no development time, I dunno.
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Post by RED_NED on Sept 26, 2017 9:54:54 GMT
Beam weapons in B5 are awesome, though its unfair for me to compare B5 to STD cos it's one of my favourite shows.
The space battle is competently done, and has that modern grimy feel to it. It's just thats not what I personally want from my trek, cos i can get that from a million other places (and often done better).
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Post by Canuovea on Sept 26, 2017 10:06:33 GMT
Pzeeeew! Bvwaaap! Zzzzewp! Mwwwooowp! Bchzzzew! Erm... what were we talking about? Sorry... Oh right, unfair comparisons. Yeah, totally. B5 probably is my favourite of the Sci-Fi (ish) TV shows. Firefly comes in second. Anyway, maybe I'll grab some popcorn and watch the space battle when it comes out on Youtube. I imagine I won't be missing too much, but I'm a sucker for Space Battles, so it might be well worth the viewing.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 26, 2017 15:46:33 GMT
Canuovea is right. Those beam weapons were really, really cool.
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Post by Horsie on Sept 27, 2017 2:08:28 GMT
Pretty sure exposure to a hard vacuum would cause all the fluids in her body to boil off.
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Post by Harkovast on Sept 28, 2017 1:55:23 GMT
Christ I just watched it and if Red Ned hadn't snarked on it already I would have. That was some god awful shit.
The main character- Ignores orders to fly by and observe a strange vessel and instead lands on it. The pilot of the vessel (a klingon) comes out to attack her (she is, after all, walking around on his ship!) So she rams him with her jet pack, impaling him with his own weapon.
Getting back to the federation ship she advises to target all their guns on the small klingon ship. Then a big klingon ship shows up. She then advises to attack this one as the only way to deal with klingons is to attack them on sight according to her (no really, that's what she argues.)
She knocks out the captain and tries to take control of the ship to attack the klingons.
The show continues to act like we are meant to like her and think shes right.
This ends up leading to the klingons attacking the federation, which she clearly provoked.
And in the end she shoots the one klingon they said they needed to capture not kill because shes angry....after they disabled the klingon ship by putting a bomb on a Klingon dead body which is a war crime by anyones estimate. Better hope the federation dont try gathering their dead after a battle, because now booby trapping the dead is fair game.
But apparantly she is NOT meant to be the villain after all this.
I don't know what the bad guys will have to do to top this homicidal war mongering racist!
I dont say this lightly, but that was worse than Enterprise. This was on par with Into Darkness.
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