Star Trek (Dis): Battle at the Binary Stars

[bronnt]

The psychic thing isn't true. Distance has never mattered in Star Trek telepathy.

That's exactly why, when Spock showed up on Romulus, they were just able to mind meld with him from across the galaxy to discern his intentions. It was clearly much safer than trying to sneak Starfleet operatives onto Romulus to make contact with him.

[Revolverman]

On the visuals, they are too busy for me. It seems like everything so over-designed that it looks more like a high-tech version of 40k then Star Trek, which always to me, was nicely understated in much of its looks. The seemingly religious reverence for lens flare is also worn out its welcome, back in the rebooted Star Trek movie.

Characters? Seem good. Bit worried the show might start bending backwards for Michael but that's not happened, and that's just a worry from how I've seen other main characters done in Star Trek. I also don't like that she seems to be the only focus, but that might because we're doing a build up to Discovery proper, and the new crew.

By far my biggest problem is the setting. How in the fuck does ANY of this fit pre-TOS? In DS9 holocommunication was literally invented (and scrapped) in the middle of the series and here its just casual tech, before as far as I know, the holodeck even bloody exists! You also have Michael's backstory which is so fucking shlock it was banned in Fan-fiction! Then you have the mammoth continuity problems that this show is going to cause. You think Worf, a fairly religious Klingon might have said something about a religious sect attempting to reunite the houses, claimed to have the reincarnation of Kaheless (Which, again, doesn't seem to have been a thing for Klingons) and had radically different ideas on the treatment of bodies?

I'm so sick of TOS naval gazing in Star Trek. Almost all my major problems could be easily solved by setting the show post VOY/DS9 (it'd easily explain the radical shift in behavior in the Klingon). Just more big corporations jerking themselves off and playing it safe.

[CareerKnight]

The psychic thing isn't true. Distance has never mattered in Star Trek telepathy.

That's exactly why, when Spock showed up on Romulus, they were just able to mind meld with him from across the galaxy to discern his intentions. It was clearly much safer than trying to sneak Starfleet operatives onto Romulus to make contact with him.

I haven't seen any of Discovery yet (cause I live in America where its not on Netflix cause some other idiot company wants in on a already crowded market without thinking any of it through) so correct me if I'm wrong but Chuck implied that the show said they only reason they could do that was because of a previous mind meld to save her life, Spock never mind melded with Sarek so objection overruled.

[bronnt]

By far my biggest problem is the setting. How in the fuck does ANY of this fit pre-TOS? In DS9 holocommunication was literally invented (and scrapped) in the middle of the series and here its just casual tech, before as far as I know, the holodeck even bloody exists!

Honestly, I can't care too much about that. It's essentially a cosmetic change that doesn't essentially affect the way they're able to communicate. Sure, they said it was brand new in DS9, but it wasn't like it was a world changing development there; it was used in maybe 3 episodes. Even if it is discontinuity, the implications for the rest of the universe are fairly minor.

You also have Michael's backstory which is so fucking shlock it was banned in Fan-fiction!

Yeah, there's something very narmy about all the trauma in her backstory. I'd be completely fine with a character with a relatively normal childhood who is interesting solely because of their personality, who they are, and the choices they make, rather than relying on sympathy-baiting. When that stuff gets too over the top, it's just funny.

[TrueMetis]

There's more of a difference than just the hair. That's a pretty significant change to the ridges and the nose. Now this could all be explained very easily, given that these Klingons act very differently from all other Klingons we've seen they could just be a subset of them, but that doesn't appear to be wear they are going with this.

It honestly doesn't really bother me if they want to update the look of Klingons. If they want to create a new visual style for a new Star Trek, that's all surface-level crap and doesn't really imply much about the quality of the show or the story.

My only problem is that these guys look like Space Orcs. I can't watch a scene of them without hearing Lord of the Rings' soundtrack playing in the back of my head. I'm not married to the look of TNG Klingons, but I also can't think this is a good change.

It normally wouldn't bother me either, but the other series decided to keep the aesthetic from TOS. If DS9 hadn't explicitly pointed out that Klingons had no head ridges for a while, and had ENT not explicitly switched to TOS style visuals for their mirror universe episode I wouldn't give a shit.

Incidentally the mirror universe episode caused me to have a problem with the look of the Enterprise and uniforms in ENT. Apparently at some point they're going to switch to some weird ass retro-futuristic style for some reason and then basically back. The uniforms I suppose I can see, fashion takes some weird turns, but the ships? That's way to much work and way to much inconvenience. Though given Starfleet is a large organization and organizational inertia is a thing it amuses me to think that they got those changes through just as the fade was fading out in the federation and Starfleet spent a couple decades looking like jackass in ridiculous clothing to everyone they met.

[Revolverman]

Honestly, I can't care too much about that. It's essentially a cosmetic change that doesn't essentially affect the way they're able to communicate. Sure, they said it was brand new in DS9, but it wasn't like it was a world changing development there; it was used in maybe 3 episodes. Even if it is discontinuity, the implications for the rest of the universe are fairly minor.

Its not that example itself that bothers me (I mean, I agree with Chuck, why are we still using TV screens at this point?) Its the fact it shows the writers/producers' mindsets. "Don't care about anything, because if its convenient to do so, then it'll be wiped from history." and THAT'S the mindset that makes me turn off the TV. (which sums up my problems with most comic books now-a-days really)

[bronnt]

Its not that example itself that bothers me (I mean, I agree with Chuck, why are we still using TV screens at this point?) Its the fact it shows the writers/producers' mindsets. "Don't care about anything, because if its convenient to do so, then it'll be wiped from history." and THAT'S the mindset that makes me turn off the TV. (which sums up my problems with most comic books now-a-days really)

The more world-breaking elements to me are things like: the ability to telepathically communicate across EXTREME distances, or the fact that they had to use Sarek instead of just creating a new Vulcan (which brings up the question of why we never before heard of Michael), or the fact that the Shenzhou casually flew into the atmosphere (reminding me of that mind-numbingly stupid scene in Into Darkness). It's doing things like that without thinking about the massive implications which are more concerning than changing a few visual, surface level things.

[Revolverman]

Its not that example itself that bothers me (I mean, I agree with Chuck, why are we still using TV screens at this point?) Its the fact it shows the writers/producers' mindsets. "Don't care about anything, because if its convenient to do so, then it'll be wiped from history." and THAT'S the mindset that makes me turn off the TV. (which sums up my problems with most comic books now-a-days really)

The more world-breaking elements to me are things like: the ability to telepathically communicate across EXTREME distances, or the fact that they had to use Sarek instead of just creating a new Vulcan (which brings up the question of why we never before heard of Michael), or the fact that the Shenzhou casually flew into the atmosphere (reminding me of that mind-numbingly stupid scene in Into Darkness). It's doing things like that without thinking about the massive implications which are more concerning than changing a few visual, surface level things.

As I said, its not the exact snarl that's the problem, its the mindset. As you brought up, much stronger examples of how the show clearly doesn't really care about established mythos of Star Trek just so it can say "TOS prequel!" and get all the corporate board members wet.

[Mickey_Rat15]

The psychic thing isn't true. Distance has never mattered in Star Trek telepathy.

Spock sensed V'Ger across the Quadrant
Lxanna Troi talked about how the two people had a psychic connection across multiple Star Systems their entire lives

And the pseudoscience behind quantum physics-based telepathy is quantum entanglement.

Spock also sensed the Vulcan crew of the Intrepid die. His link with T'Pring telling them that his Pon Farr was on him. It is not completely unprecedented, but at those distances all that had been suggested previously was a vague sense of mental state not full communication (more like Troi's empathic senses), but I believe the show tries to justify it by saying that the nature of the link between Sarek and Michael is unusual due tp the emergency that it solved.

[Durandal_1707]

By far my biggest problem is the setting. How in the fuck does ANY of this fit pre-TOS? In DS9 holocommunication was literally invented (and scrapped) in the middle of the series and here its just casual tech, before as far as I know, the holodeck even bloody exists!

Honestly, I can't care too much about that. It's essentially a cosmetic change that doesn't essentially affect the way they're able to communicate. Sure, they said it was brand new in DS9, but it wasn't like it was a world changing development there; it was used in maybe 3 episodes. Even if it is discontinuity, the implications for the rest of the universe are fairly minor.

Even if they acted like it was brand new then... I mean... this sort of thing happens all the time in real life. Think about how everyone acted like Apple Pay was a brand new thing even though the Japanese had had NFC payments for about a decade.