The Star Trek Thread

[Smiler]

Still can't believe that in the middle of all of that grimdark Trek stuff in the trailer they decided to remind us that Captain Picard Day happened.

[Friday]

It's garbage.

Lasers lasers lasers.

It's not even remotely TNG. It's garbage STD lasers lasers explosions family faith lasers friendship lasers lasers EXPLOSIONS THE CHOSEN ONE SHE WILL DESTROY US ALL bullshit with TNG trappings sprinkled on top to fool smart people who miss Trek before it became utterly (and yes I mean utterly) worthless.

Sorry, I'm not usually this adamant or doom and gloom. But come the fuck on. Look at how the sets are, look at the fucking dipshit fistfight shit. I don't fucking care about this at all, because The Borg Cube will show up and they'll say THE KLINGON TIME CRYSTALS at it until it explodes or some other beyond horseshit crapfuck nonsense shit-fuck-REALLY FUCKING BAD. Cerebral Trek is dead. Silly fun Trek is dead. It's dead and this show is fucking the corpse while saying the word "faith" over and over so that fucking idiots will think the show has "deep themes".

Here, let me put it another way.

It's STD with Picard in it.

I look forward to people telling me "it's not that bad, it has good production quality" as they desperately defend the 4th grade level writing. The Stephanie Meyers level writing. The Bad Episodes of ENT and VOY writing.

Lasers.

Lasers.

Lasers.

Explosions.

Character says the word "faith."

Character says "THIS IS THE POWER OF MATH!!" and then high fives an alien.

Picard says "Engage."

A Borg Cube explodes.

the end.

[Mongrel]

I just want to know why Patrick Stewart agreed to do this. That's the sad part.

[Thad]

Silly fun Trek is dead.

I dunno, this one has Jon Benjamin screaming about Tribbles.



Maybe it's only mostly dead.

[mharr]

I still think most of what went wrong with nerds in the last decade was because Picard left our screens. He was our memetic immune system.

[Angry Beaver]

I just want to know why Patrick Stewart agreed to do this. That's the sad part.

To quote another famed actor: "Money, dear boy".

Edit: I mean, wasn't his last major role a literal piece of shit?

[Blossom]

Because Patrick Stewart is not Jean-Luc Picard.

Remember that the off-road muddin' scene in Nemesis was put in at his request, because he wanted to ride ATVs in the mud.

[Mongrel]

I just want to know why Patrick Stewart agreed to do this. That's the sad part.

To quote another famed actor: "Money, dear boy".

Edit: I mean, wasn't his last major role a literal piece of shit?

I thought he had enough self-generating income at this point? Wasn't there something about him and Ian MacKellen palling around on some extended do-nothing tour again? I mean I get the type that never turns down paying work (and wow could he ever ask for a lot for this), and that's perfectly respectable, but I thought Stewart specifically had actual plans that involved not-acting.

Because Patrick Stewart is not Jean-Luc Picard.

Remember that the off-road muddin' scene in Nemesis was put in at his request, because he wanted to ride ATVs in the mud.

Well, silly action and good Trek need not be mutually exclusive. In theory.

[Mothra]

I was a little off-put by how chuckling and jovial Stewart is in the trailer. I'll have to see it in the ep, but, yeah, I'm terrified of seeing the return of dual-pulse-rifle-weilding ATV-ridin' everyone's-best-friend Movie Picard.

[Upthorn]

Because Patrick Stewart is not Jean-Luc Picard.

Holy shit. Reading this sentence made me realize I literally have never separated the actor from that role. This recontextualizes every disappointment I've ever had in the man.

[Mongrel]

His appearance on The Extras cured me of that.

[mharr]

But then his skit on the European Convention on Human Rights conflated them again.

[beatbandito]

I know it's not helpful for anything but I only saw part of the trailer and the audio made it seem like somehow Picard was in Seven-of-Nine's body and I was like "okay sure, I never saw Nemesis maybe that happened".

So anyway now you all also have to deal with the disappointment that it isn't true.

[beatbandito]

Yes, hello again.

I would now like to add that I just learned this will not be the resurgence of Seven of Nine directly from Voyager. In the meanwhile the character has made appearances in other shows such as:

Dilbert
Family Guy

...

oh that was it

Anyway that seems like a good omen.

[Thad]

I am not caught up on Discovery.

Last night I watched Project Daedalus, which serves as an excellent reminder why I am not caught up on Discovery.

The best thing I can say about it is I think the cast and director Jonathan Frakes did the best they could with the script they were given. But oh God, that script.

I'll start with Spock shouting and knocking over the chessboard. That's some goddamn bullshit right there. Now, "character does something totally out of line with how he's behaved in the past to show just how serious the current moment is" can be a useful trope -- Aziraphale shouting "FUCK!" in Good Omens, Batman shakily picking up a gun in the opening minutes of the first episode of Batman Beyond -- but nine times out of ten, it's some hacky fucking bullshit. I legitimately can't think of a better/worse example than this.

There's other shit. The thing where Admiral Cornwell* says she's reviewed the source code of the video** of Spock murdering the dudes and there's no way it was faked***, and then later in the episode it turns out there's a trivial way to check whether the people in it are holograms and nobody's bothered to try that up to this point. The hacky "Pike uses a weird turn of phrase that causes Burnham to have an epiphany" moment. The part where Nhan is asphyxiating on the ground and Burnham decides it's a good time to monologue and not, you know, try to help her or check to see if she's okay or anything.

And, of course, the entire episode revolving around acting like we should give a fuck about one of the Bridge Randos who haven't had a dozen lines among them in the series to date.

And then silent credits? Silent fucking credits? YOU HAVE NOT EARNED SILENT CREDITS, BRIDGE RANDO. Adric earned silent credits. The Red fucking Wedding earned silent credits. BRIDGE RANDOS DO NOT DESERVE SILENT CREDITS.

I am not the kind of person who gets angry about Star Trek. Project Daedalus made me angry. Like, in a way that the final season of Game of Thrones never did. The final season of Game of Thrones made me exasperated, but not angry. There were definitely places in GoTS8 where I felt insulted as a viewer, but never like this.

* a character who has met at least two Mirror Universe doppelgangers and one Klingon who has been surgically transformed into a human

** huh?

*** Should've read your Ken Thompson, Kat.

[Friday]

Discovery is worse than GoTS8 yeah.

I mean, I never thought about it before, but you're not wrong.

That's how bad Discovery is. Worse than Season 8.

[Thad]

An Obol for Charon was good, unlike any single episode of GoTS8.

Whether the better good episodes make up for the worse bad episodes is a subjective value judgement, I suppose.

[Mothra]

God are you in for a treat as you continue to plow through season 2 of Disco. It is a wild and baffling ride.

Please continue to hit us up with writeups as you slowly spiral into madness.

[Thad]

Look, I know this alternates between silliness and nostalgia-bait.

But he has a pit bull named Number One. I'm not made of stone.

[Friday]

I think me rolling my eyes at Seven dual wielding incredibly oversized prop plasma rifles while her narration says "I help people who have no one else to help them" and my deep, giddy excitement when I recognized Riker's voice accurately sums up my mixed feelings about this show