Has Trek become too safe?

[Yukaphile]

For the sake of not alienating Makeshift Python and Mixed Drops any further, I'll restrain myself as much as possible, but I was sitting here musing on our threads, discussing how STD and the Kelvin films won't explore concepts past what's popular and well-established, like Section 31, Klingons, Romulans, or what their interpretation of those characters are, instead of stuff that's more obscure and has a lot more potential, and my mind couldn't help but go to what Ron Moore had said about playing it safe, which resonated with me on a similar beat to what Q had told Picard in "Tapestry." It's like a microcosm of the franchise at this point, and it got me thinking? Has Trek become too safe? I feel as if those corporate cronies in charge are too terrified to do anything new that made Trek so beloved in the first place, like really get down into the nuts and bolts of places that have never been explored yet, like First Federation, Gorn, and Tholian culture. Granted, there's every possibility they would ruin it, but still, there's every chance it could turn out fine too. That really just made wonder... has Trek become too safe? Hell, it was only four years after Enterprise ended they rebooted the franchise... in an era of reboots. Shit, even TMP came out only a decade after TOS went off the air. That was far more time. And if Trek is playing it safe, how do we proceed?

[MixedDrops]

If anything, one of the primary complaints about Discovery that I see is that it's too different. It's why so many people keep praising The Orville and its TNG-fanfic ways (To be clear, I watch and mostly like The Orville, but it shouldn't be controversial to call it a TNG-fanfic, that's pretty much a mission statement).

But you can't really have it both ways IMO. Exploring old Trek stuff is either too safe, or too risky. I do understand that you mean that there's well-known stuff like Klingons and Romulans that are recognizable to the general public, but I'd say S31 is a little less so, they only appeared in one subplot of DS9 and showed up a little in Enterprise, rather than being something that appeared in every iteration of Trek like Klingons and Romulans, I don't think it's that bad to explore them a little more. Having multiple episodes being pseudo-seuqels to The Cage, an unaired pilot, is also pretty obvious fanwank rather than playing it "too safe". Sure fans know about The Cage, but how much of the general public have seen it? I guess many people have watched The Menagerie, but that's still one specific episode of TOS. To me, that would be like calling TWoK too safe because it was expanding on an episode of TOS.

Personally, I don't think exploring well-established Trek stuff is a problem, but I do agree they need to branch out more. Discovery does have Saru of course, and the episode involving his home planet is one of my favorites of the show so far, with a strange culture and a moral dilemma that reminded me very much of "A Taste of Armageddon".

As far as fanwanking goes though, I actually would love to see the Gorn, and not in that cheesy CGI rendition they got in ENT. I want to see that shitty bug-eyed design from TOS. Slightly updated is fine, but that abomination that was cut from Trek '09 was a travesty. Give me bug-eyed lizardman now.

[Nessus]

As far as fanwanking goes though, I actually would love to see the Gorn, and not in that cheesy CGI rendition they got in ENT. I want to see that shitty bug-eyed design from TOS. Slightly updated is fine, but that abomination that was cut from Trek '09 was a travesty. Give me bug-eyed lizardman now.

Yes! Every time the Gorn have shown up in a modern version (to what little degree they have), the producers always seem to miss the point and turn them into another lithe velocerapter-ish creature.

I feel like an important part of the iconic "look" of the Gorn is that sort of weird angular beefiness. Even STO got it wrong: STO Gorn are beefy, but they're just regular human "superhero" bodies with a crocodile skin texture. Proper Gorn= beefy, with a thick core and slightly angular silhouette to the muscles, horizontally flat muzzle (like a lizard, not vertically flat like a dinosaur), skin like thick buffed leather (not scaled), and compound eyes.

[clearspira]

In fairness, safe describes VOY and ENT very well.

[clearspira]

As far as fanwanking goes though, I actually would love to see the Gorn, and not in that cheesy CGI rendition they got in ENT. I want to see that shitty bug-eyed design from TOS. Slightly updated is fine, but that abomination that was cut from Trek '09 was a travesty. Give me bug-eyed lizardman now.

Yes! Every time the Gorn have shown up in a modern version (to what little degree they have), the producers always seem to miss the point and turn them into another lithe velocerapter-ish creature.

I feel like an important part of the iconic "look" of the Gorn is that sort of weird angular beefiness. Even STO got it wrong: STO Gorn are beefy, but they're just regular human "superhero" bodies with a crocodile skin texture. Proper Gorn= beefy, with a thick core and slightly angular silhouette to the muscles, horizontally flat muzzle (like a lizard, not vertically flat like a dinosaur), skin like thick buffed leather (not scaled), and compound eyes.

Of course, a real race of people would have differences between them. We can have both beefy and agile Gorn.

[Yukaphile]

Interesting. So the captain would have been, like, the ruling class of lizards? That could work.

Also, Mixed Drops, seriously? I have many complaints against STD, but too different? Every Trek series is inevitably going to be that. My feeling is that it started out as a Kelvin Timeline show despite their claims it was a Prime Timeline show (refer to the Klingons' looks) which they are only now attempting to rectify. I think these people are having a hard time expressing their opinions, so "different" is the word they use.

Section 31 also appeared in the reboot films, so refer to my views above about this starting out in the Kelvin Timeline, to which, even fans of STD (I saw one person's article) had to admit it wasn't the Prime Timeline. Look, it's not fans of STD I dislike, it really isn't, it's just those in charge mismanaging this, and the fear this will get popular enough to actually spawn off a whole series of shows with poor writers. Look how easily it happened to Voyager and Enterprise. They're already planning a Picard series, which terrifies me, and if that gets popular, well, who knows where they go from there? But all good things come to an end, and what goes up, must come down? It will inevitably crash like it did with Voyager and Enterprise. And how will the continuity stand at that point? Probably shredded all over the map. At least for hardcore nerds like me and clearspira. And as I've said elsewhere, we're past the point of "people who just see this as a job should be allowed to work on it." I want hardcore nerds. Even being fans of some of the Trek shows and movies isn't enough. There is a lot of continuity you need to keep track of, and I don't think they're doing a good job. Or take how CBS basically killed a bunch of fan projects? I read about that, and it just reminded me what corporate cronies those in charge of the franchise are. Anyway, back to my point. I don't think exploring Section 31 is that bad, either, tbh, so long as it's handled carefully, like everyone who was involved in trying to stop them was killed or framed, so they came off as mad or something. From what I hear, that's not the approach they're taking. It's the crew of the Discovery trying to take them on, isn't it? Hell, one idea I think that would have potential, and if STD does this, I will praise them to high heaven, is Pike was trying to stop them, and that's where his "tragic accident" came from. It's why he's in a wheelchair. They silenced him.

[Yukaphile]

Sticking to what's popular is never safe. Of course, it could just be a case of prequel fatigue. We've had prequels since 2001. That's eighteen years. Jesus, that's the length of time we've been at war over in the Middle East. Which is why the Picard series scares me, that people might actually like it, expand out past traditional fans and just toss the old ones to the side, even if they do things like ignore or redesign the Dominion and interpret TNG and DS9 in a different way than how they actually were. I know other fans are sharing these fears, and how people might swallow that garbage if they bring to the Picard series what they've done to STD. A lot of these fans are also unhappy what they did to Luke Skywalker, so that also makes them nervous. And Kurtzman telling people "Picard will be different" and him staying on in a huge leadership role is bad.

[Karha of Honor]

They are straight up head first are jumping into the wrong kind of risks...

It's not to safe.

[Yukaphile]

Can you elaborate?

"Yeah, who cares about a fancy ruler?"

LOL. Sorry, sorry, sorry...

[Yukaphile]

Oh no... please don't tell me this isn't more "Trek is pandering to SJWs" crap? Trek has always been forward-thinking and progressive, with the possible exception of women's rights, but then, blame Gene. Or LGBT representation, which hey, reached its peak in the 1990s.