Anybody see ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ yet?

Did it suck?  I am given to understand that Star Trek: Discovery is not even remotely canonical on a few key details. And the reviews that I’ve seen so far have been distressingly short in the “it had me at the edge of my seat” category.  But the world is full of poor reviews of stuff that I ended up liking.  I mean, if it kicks butt then that’s the important thing, right?

9 thoughts on “Anybody see ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ yet?”

  1. Haven’t seen it. But I’ve seen stuff about the cast.

    For instance, after the premiere, the cast tweeted a picture of themselves taking a knee, with an associated hashtag.

    And according to the Independent, Sonequa Martin-Green is the first black lead in Star Trek!

    (in fairness, I haven’t read the article in question, and I’ve no reason to believe that the actress herself doesn’t know who Avery Brooks is; I’m guessing that the error is purely on the part of the Independent)

  2. Watched it, and found it .. watchable.
    .
    Sonequa Martin-Green does a solid job of approximating a young wet-behind-the-ears James Kirk, with a much snarkier sense of humor and without the. signature. punctuated. speaking style.
    .
    That said .. and while the DVR is already set to catch the rest of the season .. it does not – to steal Howard Tayler’s line – clear the Threshold of Awesome.
    .
    The truly sad part is .. so far, Seth MacFarlane’s “The Orville” does “Star Trek” as well as *or better* than “Discovery”.
    .
    Mew

    1. The main caveat is ..
      .
      The canon, for any given piece of fiction, is a result of the times in which it was written.
      .
      Tolkien’s “Middle Earth”, for instance, was an effort at writing a “new mythology for post-war England”.. C.S. Lewis was writing at slipping evangelism in the side door to a populous who’d slammed the front .. J.K. Rowling may have set out to tell her kids bedtime stories, but her very nice blend of a Japanese “magical girl” tale with English/European fantasy tropes is a very nice bedtime story for a whole new (and somewhat frightened about the world) generations’ kids..
      .
      The point I’m after is .. yeah, they’re *gonna* break the traditionalist Star Trek canon. If you can’t get past that, you’ll hate it. If you can, it’s .. watchable.
      .
      Mew

  3. It was… alright, though I’m not going to be signing up for CBS’s service to watch any of the episodes, just what comes out on actual TV.

    The lighting was a constant low-level annoyance, everything was too dark on the ship. Though I did really enjoy the aesthetic of having the bridge be underneath the saucer. It just felt so interesting.

    What really turned me off was all the scenes where the Klingons were chewing up the scenery (including a very face palming comment on racism among Klingons) entirely in Klingon. I actually turned to my wife and asked if it was weird that I felt like I couldn’t understand what they were saying, in the context that I don’t know the language. Why not engage in the standard TV conceit? Have them engage in a few lines of dialogue in the foreign language, and then switch over to everyone speaking English, for the audience’s sake? Everyone will get that they’re still speaking Klingon, and the actors get to actually act.

    1. I actually liked that! They did a good job of not really having any action while the guy was talking, so you could focus on the closed captioning.

      The thing I didn’t like much–but it’s pretty common–is that none of the actors could really speak the Klingon lines in a realistic cadence, instead doing bad James T Kirk impressions.

      Another point in the show’s favor: too often, the dialog in Star Trek is wooden, and the actors emote like they’re on stage, so you don’t feel like you’re watching an actual conversation real people would have. Other than Sonequa’s somewhat wooden performance, which, admittedly, was informed by…well, people who saw it know why…the dialog mostly felt realistic-ish.

      1. Really? I know that the Trek VI scene where Chang is prosecuting Kirk isn’t the best example (because Kirk has a translator), so the conceit is that we’re shifting from hearing Chang to hearing the translation of Chang’s words, but thats exactly how I would like a scene in Klingon (or any subbed language) done.

  4. I only watched the piot and it was ok, has a lot of potential. Am I the only one that thought that they hired Weta to do the Klingons and they just re-purposed all of the Orc masks and makeup?

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