I kinda feel bad for Disco fans. I ain't out there to yuck anyone's yums, but it was such a different kind of show to previous Star Treks, I'm not surprised it didn't land well with many fans. And it's become so commonplace to shit on it (for many valid reasons but also some nasty ones and folks with the latter should fuck right off).
I wore a Star Trek shirt to a wedding and got many compliments, one from a guy who explained his favorite was Discovery, even named his cat after Michael, he felt it was really important to him and asked what I thought about it. I got a battery of polite things to say in this situation, but a more drunken attendee practically lept over to exclaim "Discovery? MAN that one blew chunks!! What were they thinking?? Shoulda been another sci-fi show without the Trek name." and, jeez, read the room!
I guess what I'm saying is, we don't gotta all like it, but Disco fans are Trek fans and we gotta be nice to em, they're here for largely the same reasons we are and, hey, maybe one day they'll go back and learn that the best Trek is Deep Space Nine.
I guess what I’m saying is, we don’t gotta all like it, but Disco fans are Trek fans and we gotta be nice to em, they’re here for largely the same reasons we are and, hey, maybe one day they’ll go back and learn that the best Trek is Deep Space Nine.
I've said many times that the best Trek is the Trek you like the most.
I remember when TNG was "bad Star Trek."
I remember when DS9 was "bad Star Trek."
I remember when Voyager was "bad Star Trek."
I remember when Enterprise was "bad Star Trek."
And you will find people who name any one of those as their favorites.
I can't remember where I saw it, some Star Trek documentary, but it was pointed out that the Star Trek people first watched and grew up with tended to be their favorite one.
The same is true for music, types of movies, and pretty much anything else entertainment related as well. For the most part people like familiar things.
Oh I promise I'm being flippant about DS9 being the objective best, but you're right.
Disco tried something different and that worked for some and didn't work for others. That's alright. Hopefully they can learn from what worked and what didn't and we can all have more future Trek to enjoy because of it.
Awesome take. I tried to push through, but I similarly just didn't see any Trek in it other than a coated layer. I felt especially vindicated when Strange New Worlds came out so amazing.
No need for hate or anger toward it. We want studios to try new things. I was initially very afraid that it was ostracizing trek fans though. Telling them to f off in exchange for a wider scifi action audience
Honestly? Thanks. That's what bugs me the most. People just shit on Discovery for no reason other than to be an asshole and it's incredibly common place. Everytime the show gets mentioned someone has to come in and say how they didn't like it because it sucked for whatever reason. That doesn't happen with anything else. Can you imagine if I rocked up and said how much I hate Deep Space 9 everytime someone mentioned that they loved the show? Because I do. I cannot stand Deep Space 9. There are characters in it that I love but other characters I despise to the point I can't watch it. Personally I think it messed up a lot and made a lot of mistakes and I don't like watching it or spending my time even really thinking about it which is why I post so few DS9 memes.
However.
I've said I don't like Deep Space 9 like three times in the entire time I've been on Lemmy and it's been in instances like this. There's no reason for me to wander around saying "Hey yeah but like this sucks and for this reason and this is also ass and other reasons". Discovery just became 'cool' to hate and is bashed relentlessly. That's why I posted this video. A lot of the complaints are either unfounded or based on a misunderstanding. Not that there are not criticisms, but things like the dark tone and less utopian society (as you mentioned) are misunderstood. People can like it or not like it. Totally their right. My only hope and wish is that people like it for their own personal reasons from experience that are shaped with the full picture and not just based off of misunderstandings or, worse still, things heard from some random cunt on youtube.
The folks that complain about "pandering" or whatever when Disco comes up are morons, plain and simple. Folks that complain about the writing or style of the show, I think that's got more legs, but it's all been said already and it doesn't serve a great deal of purpose to rehash it.
The actors are great, Sonequa Martin-Green in particular has a lot of really challenging scenes that she nails expertly. Doug Jones is so good at being a gangly alien that it's taken for granted but that's because he's so truly incredible he makes it seem easy. Jason Isaacs plays his role so deplorably he's easy to hate which is amazing for a villain, probably one of the best in the franchise only behind Marc Alaimo or Louis Fletcher. Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz have such chemistry on screen, especially in the more mundane scenes they share.
Maybe there will be this kind of retrospective revival for Disco, I dunno. But I do think the actors deserve better than to be associated with the problems the show had, manufactured or actual.
Oh the 'pandering' folks are completely fucking stupid because in the same breath they'll say how the show ruined Klingons and everything else. Bro, either they're pandering or they're doing their own thing. Which is it? Yeah, if you wanna complain about writing or acting or something that's fine but pandering? Pretty sure if they were pandering they wouldn't have pissed off so many people in the fandom saying they did shit wrong.
Also I have nothing to add to the acting other than Mary Wiseman deserves an amazing amount of props for making a character that so many people on the autistic spectrum identified with. And a character who has had so much visible growth over the series that its astounding. I love that woman, both Tilly and the actress.
Also Oded Fehr. But that's just because he's Admiral Daddy.
I always hated the "pandering" argument because it usually was followed by some kind of complaint about social justice. When I was on discord those people would usually end up getting banned.
People are just more likely to comment on what is current, because there is a combination of immediate relevance and the assumption that the current thing is an indicator of how something will be moving forward. The complaints about Discovery were a lot more frequent and angry prior to SNW taking off as having an alternate that someone likes makes it easier to ignore the stuff they don't. Stuff that came out 10 years ago can be easily ignored, and to be honest most people got their frustration out already.
I watched the first couple seasons of Discovery and blame the writing for stopping. The actors did a fine job with what they had, the special effects were great, but boy howdy I did not care about anything plot wise after a while because everything was universe ending stakes and apparently insubordinate leads don't need to succeed to justify being insubordinate. Or learning anything from failure, that is off the table!
The best characters were all the side characters, who acted like normal people that learn things and have rational reasons when they don't listen to authority when authority is wrong. Again, I blame this entirely on the writing.