Star Trek: Discovery in trouble?

[Karha of Honor]

Full disclosure: I am an unabashed Trek fan. I want more Star Trek on TV. I am willing for fork out for a streaming service if that's what it takes to get it. I'm...hopeful about Discovery. Mostly because hey, at least someone is actually making SOMETHING. It's been 12 years since we had Star Trek on television. There's a whole generation of kids out there who have never seen a contemporary Trek show.

Now, I admit I got a very 'Mass Effect' vibe from the trailer, but that's to be expected - Mass Effect is far and away the best Sci-Fi franchise I've seen launched in the last decade and a half. Of course it will be looked to for a certain amount of inspiration.

I'm going to echo certain previous posters when I say that I think the biggest hurdle for the new series is going to be that we have a very different zeitgeist today than we did when Trek has historically succeeded. There seems to be very little optimism about the future these days - very little sense that science is going to deliver us into anything but an even bigger mess than we're already in. If there's one thing the left and the right can agree on, it's that the future is going to be awful. Each side imagines different flavors of terrible, but it all ends in Dystopia either way. Star Trek, even Deep Space Nine, always had a strong ray of hope in the human condition at its core. Will that resonate today, at all, with anyone?

I dunno. But I hope so.

Great characters and scripts can also save it, not just people buying it's optimism.

[1701EarlGrey]

Tell me one thing; WHY CALL THIS THING A STAR TREK? If you change so much, then you could just make a new franchise! Why bother with "Star Trek" licence in the first place? Of course I'm talking about other reasons than just wanting to milk the fans...

[Karha of Honor]

Tell me one thing; WHY CALL THIS THING A STAR TREK? If you change so much, then you could just make a new franchise! Why bother with "Star Trek" licence in the first place? Of course I'm talking about other reasons than just wanting to milk the fans...

Didn't DS 9 and TNG change a lot of things?

[Admiral X]

Not in the same way. As Nick Meyer put it, you can pour different things into the glass, but you can't change the glass. Abrams Trek changed the glass and Discovery is falling in line with that.

As for why they keep using the name - brand recognition. It gives their show a leg up from what it might have had otherwise if it was just another "Space Adventure: In Space" show.

[Karha of Honor]

Not in the same way. As Nick Meyer put it, you can pour different things into the glass, but you can't change the glass. Abrams Trek changed the glass and Discovery is falling in line with that.

As for why they keep using the name - brand recognition. It gives their show a leg up from what it might have had otherwise if it was just another "Space Adventure: In Space" show.

If there is Starfleet on it, the Humanitarian armada as far as i am concerned it's Trek.

[Admiral X]

Humanitarian armada

Sorry, I can just never get over this contradiction in terms that Abrams Trek tried using.

[1701EarlGrey]

Tell me one thing; WHY CALL THIS THING A STAR TREK? If you change so much, then you could just make a new franchise! Why bother with "Star Trek" licence in the first place? Of course I'm talking about other reasons than just wanting to milk the fans...

Didn't DS 9 and TNG change a lot of things?

Sorry, but answering question with another question is not the answer. Sure, DS9 was - in some aspects - different than TNG, but it was also worthy continuation; it have few familiar faces like Miles O'Brien, Keiko and Worf, not to mention the fact that Sisko's past is directly linked to battle of Wolf 359. And there was this silly episode in which they all travel back in time - "Trials and Tribble-ations". But more importantly, aesthetically and even thematically it wasn't that much different than other Trek series - it mostly remind me of "Undiscovered country".

On the other hand "Discovery" remind me of anecdote told by Kevin Smith, about "Superman Lives" movie - apparently, producer told him that: 'I don't wanna see him in the suit and I don't want to see him fly, and I want him to fight a giant spider in the third act..." It's like CBS is ashamed of "Star Trek"brand, but they also have no faith in their own, original ideas and they must rely on brand recognition. And it's yet another prequel/reboot - "Enterprise" was cancelled, "ST: Beyond" flopped, and yet they keep trying. Like the wise man said; "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

[Karha of Honor]

Humanitarian armada

Sorry, I can just never get over this contradiction in terms that Abrams Trek tried using.

Orci wanted to close the trilogy with an exploration story but the studio wanted something else.

Tell me one thing; WHY CALL THIS THING A STAR TREK? If you change so much, then you could just make a new franchise! Why bother with "Star Trek" licence in the first place? Of course I'm talking about other reasons than just wanting to milk the fans...

Didn't DS 9 and TNG change a lot of things?

Sorry, but answering question with another question is not the answer. Sure, DS9 was - in some aspects - different than TNG, but it was also worthy continuation; it have few familiar faces like Miles O'Brien, Keiko and Worf, not to mention the fact that Sisko's past is directly linked to battle of Wolf 359. And there was this silly episode in which they all travel back in time - "Trials and Tribble-ations". But more importantly, aesthetically and even thematically it wasn't that much different than other Trek series - it mostly remind me of "Undiscovered country".

On the other hand "Discovery" remind me of anecdote told by Kevin Smith, about "Superman Lives" movie - apparently, producer told him that: 'I don't wanna see him in the suit and I don't want to see him fly, and I want him to fight a giant spider in the third act..." It's like CBS is ashamed of "Star Trek"brand, but they also have no faith in their own, original ideas and they must rely on brand recognition. And it's yet another prequel/reboot - "Enterprise" was cancelled, "ST: Beyond" flopped, and yet they keep trying. Like the wise man said; "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

You want this futurist series to be shot on film and still look like the Future? DS 9 in terms of of it's main theme was radically different.

You think if Beyond is more Treky it would have sold better?

[1701EarlGrey]

You want this futurist series to be shot on film and still look like the Future? DS 9 in terms of of it's main theme was radically different.

You think if Beyond is more Treky it would have sold better?

How is DS9 so much different than, let's say "The Undiscovered Country"?

Whether or not "Beyond" could be better received by moviegoers, if it was more Treky, is open to the debate - I honestly don't know. What I do know, is that this approach of prequel/reboot, aimed at mainstream audience, clearly doesn't work. And that's not an opinion, that's a fact - you know when you consider that both "Enterprise" and "Beyond" failed miserably. People like me, who watched Trek for couple of decades don't care about this "new and improved" Trek and there is not enough of new viewers to make it successful. And yet, they keep trying...I just don't get it! Why would you want to copy a bad idea?

[GandALF]

How is DS9 so much different than, let's say "The Undiscovered Country"?

It isn't, because they both reject the Roddenberry utopianism that was so heavily emphasised in TNG and which is supposedly the main event in Trek.