DIS - Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2

[stellar_coyote]

I've always felt that what made Star Trek, well, Star Trek was the importance of the ensemble cast. Each of the main characters bring in their own unique perspective, background or ideology so even if they're not driving the story they can add a different perspective. But as Chuck pointed out the series is hyper-focused on Michael and the select few characters she's close to. I was honestly racking my brain for times he's talked at length about character's arcs that weren't explicitly connected to her. It honestly feels like the right time to move past her and give the other main characters a chance but that's probably not going to happen.

Another big problem is that the writing at times feels like obvious backtracking on part of the producers. Like they suddenly realized that killing off Captain Georgiou is a waste of the talents of Michelle Yeoh so they went, "Uhhh...I know! We'll bring her back to the series as the evil emperor!" While narratively, it's kind of hard to keep such a terrible person around and have them be on the side of the angels and make it believable. It's the same thing with Stamets and Culber. The show suddenly realized unfortunate implications from killing off the main homosexual relationship in Trek and went, "Uhh...What if we brought back Culber, um. Through...the...spores? Yeah! That's the ticket!" And because of that more time is spent on the trauma Stamets went through from losing his partner and Culber's trauma of coming back from the dead rather than on their relationship.
It all feels so lazy.

[Thebestoftherest]

Can we let the spore drive die

[Mangod]

I've always felt that what made Star Trek, well, Star Trek was the importance of the ensemble cast. Each of the main characters bring in their own unique perspective, background or ideology so even if they're not driving the story they can add a different perspective. But as Chuck pointed out the series is hyper-focused on Michael and the select few characters she's close to. I was honestly racking my brain for times he's talked at length about character's arcs that weren't explicitly connected to her. It honestly feels like the right time to move past her and give the other main characters a chance but that's probably not going to happen.

Yeah, this. I mean, Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko - they are all the main protagonists of their respective series, but there are still entire episodes in each where they never even appear, because the rest of the cast are developed enough that they didn't have to stop and ask where Poochie is whenever he's not around.

[CrypticMirror]

Can we let the spore drive die

That was the stupidest thing Trek ever came up with, even dumber than interstellar cetaceans and transwarp amphibians. Why did anyone think that was a good idea in the first place?

[Thebestoftherest]

Can we let the spore drive die

That was the stupidest thing Trek ever came up with, even dumber than interstellar cetaceans and transwarp amphibians. Why did anyone think that was a good idea in the first place?

Honestly I see the appeal but once you made it a prequel we know that it will have to be remove.

[Zatman]

Can we let the spore drive die

That was the stupidest thing Trek ever came up with, even dumber than interstellar cetaceans and transwarp amphibians. Why did anyone think that was a good idea in the first place?

Honestly I see the appeal but once you made it a prequel we know that it will have to be remove.

They missed an opportunity. They could have derived the jump drive from the Omega molecule, I don't believe it was canonically stated when the incident in the Lantaru sector occurred other than "23rd century." Then tie that into Season 3 (I'd go on, but I'm not sure if talking about the trailers counts as a "spoiler" outside of their threads).

[FrozenRoy]

Can we let the spore drive die

That was the stupidest thing Trek ever came up with, even dumber than interstellar cetaceans and transwarp amphibians. Why did anyone think that was a good idea in the first place?

Honestly I see the appeal but once you made it a prequel we know that it will have to be remove.

They missed an opportunity. They could have derived the jump drive from the Omega molecule, I don't believe it was canonically stated when the incident in the Lantaru sector occurred other than "23rd century." Then tie that into Season 3 (I'd go on, but I'm not sure if talking about the trailers counts as a "spoiler" outside of their threads).

That would be a genuinely good idea to tie into it, to be honest. It'd give a meaningful reason for the spore drive to not be used and not tie it into something ridiculous like "a single spore drive ship can kill the multiverse".

[CMDR_Bob]

Can we let the spore drive die

That was the stupidest thing Trek ever came up with, even dumber than interstellar cetaceans and transwarp amphibians. Why did anyone think that was a good idea in the first place?

Honestly I see the appeal but once you made it a prequel we know that it will have to be remove.

They missed an opportunity. They could have derived the jump drive from the Omega molecule, I don't believe it was canonically stated when the incident in the Lantaru sector occurred other than "23rd century." Then tie that into Season 3 (I'd go on, but I'm not sure if talking about the trailers counts as a "spoiler" outside of their threads).

This could work if not for one snag in your brilliant idea. Your idea assumes anyone involved with nuTrek has ever watched an episode of old Trek.

[FrozenRoy]

I'm not sure if the Alex Kurtzman situation is entirely understood (despite some groups attempting to paint him as the cancer behind everything that's wrong with modern Trek).

I won't say he's a good writer, but the writing on Bayformers 1&2 was very much dominated by Michael Bay, and it never got any better after Kurtzman & Orci left the franchise (not until Michael Bay left). On the contrary, the K&O-produced Transformers Prime is debatably the best Transformers ever. For ASM2, Kurtzman was hired by Sony to salvage a broken mess, and he failed. For The Mummy, Universal hired him and asked him to deliver their own Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he failed. As a producer (not a writer), it's been suggested that Kurtzman knows what it's like to write for overbearing producers, so he doesn't want to be that kind of producer, and he gives the writers a lot of creative freedom, which makes the writers like him.

Star Trek Discovery wasn't created by Alex Kurtzman, it was created by Bryan Fuller, Kurtzman was kept around "as insurance" by CBS because he had experience working on Trek movies (like STID), and CBS was worried about their huge investment. Then Bryan Fuller had an explosive fight with CBS and was fired. Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts took over, but then they were abusive towards the writing staff, until they too were fired. Kurtzman didn't create Discovery, he just stepped up and did the job after everything around him exploded repeatedly. And he carried S1 of the show to a successful completion, CBS loved him because he wasn't Bryan Fuller, while the writers loved him because he wasn't Gretchen & Aaron. IIRC, someone (might've been Chuck) said that in the comic book industry, you can either be talented, well liked by your co-workers, or get your work done on-time and under-budget. If you can land two of the three, then your job is secure.

For S2 of Discovery, it wouldn't really have been Kurtzman's place to flip the table on the entire show (which Kurtzman didn't originate), especially not while it's commercially successful as-is. In that case, the smartest thing to do would be to let the Discovery writers keep on writing Discovery, because they know more about making "Discovery" than Kurtzman does, which is allegedly Kurtzman's MO anyways. Let the people do their jobs. And, S2 of Discovery did wind up being a bit better than S1.

For "Picard", one could say that show's all Michael Chabon. There's no indication that he got any pushback from Kurtzman. Picard is kind of distinct from Discovery, and love it or hate it (I personally hate it), one could say that Kurtzman let Chabon make the show that he wanted to make, and that's admirable.

And then Lower Decks is again an entirely different animal. It doesn't feel like Discovery or Picard, it feels like exactly what you'd expect from Mike McMahan, the guy who used to write the "TNG season 8" parody twitter account (and I think it's great, the best new Trek by a massive amount, even better than the JJ Abrams movies).

Basically, assuming that the theory is true, that Kurtzman gives writers a lot of creative freedom, then his own personal failings as a writer aren't to blame for the things people hate about modern Trek. Although you could blame him for not being a strict enough gatekeeper. In any case, I wouldn't expect Chuck to comment on such poorly-sourced rumors and innuendo.

That seems a bit disengenuous as to what happened with Bryan Fuller. For one thing, Fuller was let go before Discovery even launched and it is specifically mentioned by Fuller along with other inside sources that the aspects of his show that got cut are exactly the kind of things missing from Discovery: the storyline was meant to be more complex, have more allegory and be more thoughtful, the kind of things that are missing from Discovery as it is. Not only that but he wasn't let go over the quality of his work but over aspects such as the originally quite fast-tracked release schedule which Fuller wanted to push back (and, TBH, I don't think he is wrong for wanting some more time, it'd have been a fast release), or wanting a different director with a more auteur quality over a more CSI-y one.

Berg and Harberts on the other hand deserved to be fired and, frankly, could also come up in some discussion on the series. Having an abusive head of a writing room can cause some pretty obvious issues writing a series, after all.

Considering Kurtzman has publically talked about his hand in shaping Star Trek Picard, I don't see how one can say it is all Michael Chabon. He's discussed his hand in pitching the story to Patrick Stewart and then changing it based on Stewart's feedback. Chabon has mentioned that pushing characters into new conflicts and drama was a mandate that everyone was given for the series, I'm not even saying that is bad but more pointing out that mandates definitely happened. Alex Kurtzman has said he helped write the initial pitch to Patrick Stewart alongside Akiva Goldsman and Michael Chabon. These aren't speculation, these are from the man's own mouth. He's made many statements talking about what the writing room was doing and he has discussed elements of the show as if he was involved in writing them. He's credited as a co-creator. I'll even quote the man himself here:

"I very much enjoy it. My involvement, it’s not just in the writing of it. I post all the shows, so that means I cut them, and I’m involved all the way down to the color timing and mixing. That’s a lot of work."

Note that he is specifically talking in the Star Trek Picard Official Collector's Edition. This isn't some random source a Trekkie heard from their aunt or whatever, it is the man's own words. There is absolutely nothing to suggest Kurtzman has not had at minimum some level of involvement in Star Trek Picard. And it would certainly seem like Picard and Discovery both have had issues people discussed, and even Chuck has discussed, which can be seen in other works by Alex Kurtzman and so isn't out of place to suggest he is involved in those issues.

[Enterprising]

Can we let the spore drive die

Not before we get Voyager back home in the pilot:

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSRk2nxjYHM[/url]