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Four posts in a row, why not.

It's late and I can't sleep and I'm listening to the soundtracks from the different motion pictures since they're all up on Apple Music. Just a few random musings:

- Jerry Goldsmith is really good guys. It would be criminal that he didn't get an Oscar for TMP, if the Oscars themselves weren't a massive joke. He also got screwed by having some of the worst Trek movies being ones used for his scores.

- The music for Search For Spock is so bad/not original that I can't even find a listing for it on Apple Music. So much of it is such a retread they probably thought why bother.

- Dennis McCarthy's work on Generations is really strong. Like, to the degree that I believe he was abused and his talents gone to waste for all the work he did on TNG proper. It's honestly a shame his music got wasted on such a mediocre film, because his Generations music is actually incredible. He deserved to get more work on the franchise, and that he didn't is a shame.

- The B-Side of Generation's OST is all background beeps/boops/sound effects from the movie, and it's a goldmine for anyone who both wants to incorporate those sounds into any homemade thing, and just is a neat overall thing to do in such a nerdy franchise. This should be industry standard, and to my knowledge only this film did it.

- Cliff Eidelman's work on The Undiscovered Country is also crazy impressive, and does a great job of helping build and sustain the tension/drama in that movie. But it's not a great listen independently from the film because of how oppressive most of its tracks are.

- There isn't a single Star Trek film with a bad OST, and every Star Trek movie has really good music through their ending credits.

- I still don't understand why Star Trek Beyond didn't get better advertising. In retrospect, it's ridiculous that Rihanna made a song for the film in her prime, and I had to learn about that while watching the movie itself in theaters.

- There's a track in ST6's OST (IIRC it corresponds to Kirk & McCoy first landing in Rura Penthe) that features a chorus of Klingons chanting "To be or not to be!" in Klingon, and it's just delightful.

- The track "Market Street" in The Voyage Home's OST sounds almost nothing like the version they used in the movie, but oh man am I in love with this song:
80s Gen-X nostalgia bait never sounds like this because it's all hair-metal, R&B, and proto-rap, and it's a shame.

- The track "The Moon's A Window To Heaven" at the end of The Final Frontier's OST is a whole done up version of the fan dance song that Uhura is singing in the film. And OH MAN is it MAGICAL. My people, please listen if you haven't before:
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Oopsies! Let me put this where it belongs. My apologies in advance.

I was watching old episodes of Deep Space Nine on Paramount Plus, and I find it fascinating how Sisko differs from the other Star Trek captains, even in the early episodes where the series was burning off Next Gen scripts and hadn't yet found its own voice. Kirk goes into difficult situations with guns blazing and Picard is a pragmatist, willing to compromise his goals to satisfy everybody. Sisko takes a different approach, though. He's not particularly concerned with what the other side wants, and will take big risks to achieve the best possible outcome for his team. He doesn't do this with brute force like Kirk, but instead plans strategies in advance, and manipulates others to get them to cede control in a tense situation.

Invasive Procedures is a good example. When a team of mercenaries invades the station in an attempt to steal Jadzia's symbiont, Sisko first tries to take one of the criminals by surprise. When that fails, he turns attention to the female partner of the Trill who engineered the heist, using her unrequited love for the Trill against her and eroding her confidence in the mission. When the Trill takes Jadzia's symbiont, Sisko starts putting pressure on him, reminding him of their past friendship and angrily threatening to end it if the symbiont isn't returned to its rightful host. Nothing Sisko says is a lie, and his emotional blackmail doesn't quite toe the line of sociopathy, but it's nevertheless effective in wearing down the kidnappers' defenses and leading to their eventual defeat.

Picard tries to find ways to placate everyone at the table, while Sisko adopts a "winner take all" approach, convincing his adversaries to give him what HE wants without offering anything in return. It's what makes the character compelling. If he weren't fighting on the side of the angels, he would be pretty damn scary.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
Is anybody watching the new one? Strange New Worlds? The entire premise of this one is "oh hey, you don't like New Trek™? We're gonna make a New-Old Trek™!" So, that's me. That's what I want.

...but I have absolutely zero faith that anyone at the helm of the franchise nowadays can actually do that??? Is this good? Is it ACTUALLY like Old Trek or are they those kinds of people who say a video game is "like Dark Souls" simply because it's hard? Like is this "look we made a episodic series so it's like Old Trek" but then each episode is absolutely nothing like Old Trek? Or...is it like Old Star Trek? I don't know!
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Is anybody watching the new one? Strange New Worlds? The entire premise of this one is "oh hey, you don't like New Trek™? We're gonna make a New-Old Trek™!" So, that's me. That's what I want.

...but I have absolutely zero faith that anyone at the helm of the franchise nowadays can actually do that??? Is this good? Is it ACTUALLY like Old Trek or are they those kinds of people who say a video game is "like Dark Souls" simply because it's hard? Like is this "look we made a episodic series so it's like Old Trek" but then each episode is absolutely nothing like Old Trek? Or...is it like Old Star Trek? I don't know!
Yeah, there is already quite a bit of excitement going on here. ;)

Not quite sure at the moment, but I'm looking forward to watching an episode. We'll see if it is what I want out of on old-style Trek show, but I'm cautiosly optimistic.
 
Is anybody watching the new one? Strange New Worlds? The entire premise of this one is "oh hey, you don't like New Trek™? We're gonna make a New-Old Trek™!" So, that's me. That's what I want.
I'm watching it. I love it personally, but I also love most, if not all of nuTrek so don't take my word for it.

I would say it's a mix of old and nuTrek. There are very obvious attempts at placating fans of the old stuff - attempts that feel so naked and obvious it's honestly a little embarrassing. But if the pilot here is any indicator, it doesn't really feel cynical about it. It just really wants to be something that people like, while also living up to the moral ideology that the franchise has grown to embody among some in pop culture.

The pilot is very much an open and close, one-off story. But there's lots of obvious hooks for character development arcs among most of its cast. The showrunners, writers, and actors all swear up and down that this is the formula to the show, to the frequency, degree, and insistence that it almost feels like a hostage plea.

The moral dilemma here is a classic Prime Directive episode, with lots of things to say about modern social issues. But it does it in a way that honestly feels almost annoyingly naive about maintaining the idealism and faith in the human spirit that is classic Trek for good and bad. The pilot however gets very literal and direct about its morality play here, speaking almost directly to the audience in ways that is actually pretty typical of oldTrek (TOS) but that most Gen-Xers and Millenials who grew up on TNG will feel unaccustomed to. I actually prefer this, obfuscating your moral and societal critiques through vague allegory is for cowards and people who literally fear for their lives/livelihoods.

Almost the whole extended cast gets an introduction in the pilot, already have well defined personalities, and also gets to do meaningful things in the plot in a way that almost feels masterful how it's juggled together. Very obviously trying to reassure the audience that this is an ensemble show, despite Star Trek historically almost never living up to that ideal. There are also a whole lot of obscure, legacy characters in supporting roles that will be fun to peel back the layers on, but I could see annoying some fans due to Small World Syndrome.

The Enterprise looks very familiar to the original sets, but with a very sleek and sensical visual update. It's a good mix of nuTrek modernizing with the outlines of what the old Enterprise looked like.

There's a lot of exploration of the setting/world building in this episode that personally doesn't feel very oldTrek, but will probably feel welcome/at home to the kinds of fans that like to expend copious amounts of energy arguing lore on the internet.

The new characters so far are all really fun. There isn't a single thing I could complain about in the casting, short of generally wanting South Asia better represented in Star Trek someday. Ethan Peck and Anston Mount both continue to kill it as Spock and Pike. Having handsome, white, straight men with classical depictions of masculinity will feel very at home to certain Trek fans.

I found the dialog snappy and engaging. But it's reliant on witty quips and playful banter that feels almost Marvel-adjacent. That's very much a nuTrek thing, but I don't mind it. YMMV.

Overall I think it's a really strong pilot. One of the stronger in the franchise, even. We'll see how it goes from here.

If anybody has any questions about anything specific, or didn't understand any specific nod to this or that in the show, hmu in the SNW thread.
 
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Is anybody watching the new one? Strange New Worlds? The entire premise of this one is "oh hey, you don't like New Trek™? We're gonna make a New-Old Trek™!" So, that's me. That's what I want.

...but I have absolutely zero faith that anyone at the helm of the franchise nowadays can actually do that??? Is this good? Is it ACTUALLY like Old Trek or are they those kinds of people who say a video game is "like Dark Souls" simply because it's hard? Like is this "look we made a episodic series so it's like Old Trek" but then each episode is absolutely nothing like Old Trek? Or...is it like Old Star Trek? I don't know!
It's great
It's episodic, but in the new design and feel of NU. MCU quips, overly WIZ BANG wonder (i'm here for it, but none of that "TNG" feel: slower pace, debate based, chamber drama?)

So it's cool and I recommend - but if you want that early 90s trek feel, watch or re-watch Orville.
 
I have to groan when people recommend the Orville. It gets a lot of the superficial trappings of Berman-Trek down. But:

1) 80% of the time it just straight up lifts plots directly out of old Trek shows without even pretending to hide it. It's nakedly creatively bankrupt. If you're just going to remake this episode of Voyager, why don't I just go rewatch that better episode of Voyager instead?
2) It gets the spirit wrong sooooo much of the time. Be it incessant toilet humor, or watching the Beverly Crusher character get raped by a goo monster, the captain constantly slut-shaming his first officer/ex-wife in front of the rest of the crew, it's frequently problematic and dismal.
3) I'm pretty sure Seth MacFarlane is a sex-pest.

I would say there are plenty of moments in the SNW pilot where the pace slows down, you can breathe in the atmosphere, and it's just two or a handful of characters just having a conversation. It just isn't that the *whole* episode and picks up the intensity of things when there's action or conflict on screen.
 
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ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Crass and derivative sounds pretty on-brand for Seth MacFarlane, so I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised.
 
I have to groan when people recommend the Orville. It gets a lot of the superficial trappings of Berman-Trek down. But:

1) 80% of the time it just straight up lifts plots directly out of old Trek shows without even pretending to hide it. It's nakedly creatively bankrupt. If you're just going to remake this episode of Voyager, why don't I just go rewatch that better episode of Voyager instead?
2) It gets the spirit wrong sooooo much of the time. Be it incessant toilet humor, or watching the Beverly Crusher character get raped by a goo monster, the captain constantly slut-shaming his first officer/ex-wife in front of the rest of the crew, it's frequently problematic and dismal.
3) I'm pretty sure Seth MacFarlane is a sex-pest.

I would say there are plenty of moments in the SNW pilot where the pace slows down, you can breathe in the atmosphere, and it's just two or a handful of characters just having a conversation. It just isn't that the *whole* episode and picks up the intensity of things when there's action or conflict on screen.
It still rules though. I dislike Seth McFarlane in general, but show was cool. And yes it's the superficial resemblance... But I don't care? It was nice to have this alternative take for a couple of years.

As for SNW.. I have no complaints, but it is very much the style of the time (now). A lot of complaints about nutrek is that it is stylistically dissimilar to the Berman era. And while I love that era, glad we've moved on.

In closing:
Orville:
Look: Yes / Spirit: No

SNW
Look: No/ Spirit: Yes
 
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Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
It's episodic, but in the new design and feel of NU. MCU quips, overly WIZ BANG wonder (i'm here for it, but none of that "TNG" feel: slower pace, debate based, chamber drama?)

So it's cool and I recommend - but if you want that early 90s trek feel, watch or re-watch Orville.
Okay cool, will pass. Give me slow paced morality plays or give me something else to watch

Orville...I never watched because I'd heard such wildly WILDLY mixed things about it, and some of that is already popping up in this thread. In general I'm not a fan of McFarlane, though I do know that he loves Star Trek and could see him wanting to do a good job, but the entire show's marketing campaign was "GET READY FOR POOP BALLS *fart* ON FOX" so like...even if that's just bad promoting, the fact that toilet humor is in there is really unappealing. I dunno, I can't be bothered.
 
I think you should at least check SNW out. The story is a morality play. But if I can give one word to describe TNG's style it's "staid". This isn't that.
 
That was a relief. Spoiler zoned Strange New Worlds and came out of the first episode liking it a lot. Enjoyed Pike from the moment I saw him in DISCO, and that prolly counts for a lot. Spock too! I really really hope they don't botch Nurse Chapel (runaway fav so far,) I can hear her saying "but.. did you die? ;)" after some nonsense relating to medical stuff and demand it, hehehe.
 

JBear

Internet's foremost Bertolli cosplayer
(He/Him)
So I just watched episode 1 of this new Star Trek thing. I really liked it! It was initially a bit off-putting that it is very obviously in continuity with a show that I didn't watch (Discovery), but other than that, it was just... Star Trek. Too shiny, and maybe 20% more tongue-in-cheek than old Trek, but this is the first Star Trek property since Voyager ended that has felt like Star Trek to me.
 
So I just watched episode 1 of this new Star Trek thing. I really liked it! It was initially a bit off-putting that it is very obviously in continuity with a show that I didn't watch (Discovery), but other than that, it was just... Star Trek. Too shiny, and maybe 20% more tongue-in-cheek than old Trek, but this is the first Star Trek property since Voyager ended that has felt like Star Trek to me.
Only thing you gotta know is
he sees his "The Menagerie" fate in an EP of discovery. And discovery shot into the future at end of disc S2.

And both of these things adequately explained in the EP!
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
I think you should at least check SNW out. The story is a morality play. But if I can give one word to describe TNG's style it's "staid". This isn't that.
I am still EXTREMELY dubious about it, but I looked into it and I guess they're gonna put the first episode up for free on Youtube tomorrow. They did the same thing for Picard's first few season 1 episodes. I don't wanna sign up for ANOTHER streaming service if I don't have to so I'll check it out sometime soon. Expectations are low! Will they be met??? Tune in next time to find out!
 
Just watch it, I'd say that episode will prolly summarize things well enough to determine your take. I've sure seen worse.
 

fun-will-now-commence-seven-of-nine.gif


Also Episode 2 was pretty decent
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
I really like that one of the first things they establish is Yes, Spock indeed DOES fuck and also his actor is ripped

Then they get on the Enterprise and there's a throwaway line of dialogue where Spock is EXTREMELY CASUALLY like "I'm fine, but I must confess that my sister's death* is making me feel a lot of feelings" and it's like...he's VULCAN????? No Vulcan would ever say that?????????????????????? Like yeah they have emotions but their entire THING is that they never ever admit to it and do every single thing they can to pretend that they don't???? And he's just like "fuckin'...yeah man, I'm sad" just right off the batttt?!?!!?

???
??

?@?@?/??? QUESTION MARKKKKKKKKK

hahahahaha what the fuck, man. I guess they're trying to establish that Spock is comfortable enough with Pike that he's willing to admit that to him, but also, they're just like IN A HALLWAY so literally anyone could hear and it feels weird to have an extremely On Guard At All Times™ character just casually blurt out something intensely personal in, like, a hallway with people in it. But also I don't trust these writers at all so maybe I'm just putting more thought into it than they did? Who knows. I'm like 15 minutes in and it's so far Fine™ but the cracks are already showing that it is indeed NuTrek™, so my expectations remain extremely low. Okay back to it

(Also the theme song is boring MCU shit, petty I know but you can't start off with The Speech™ and then go into generic ass MCU shit, come on)

* Presumably something that happened on Disco
 
"I'm fine, but I must confess that my sister's death* is making me feel a lot of feelings" and it's like...he's VULCAN????? No Vulcan would ever say that??????????????????????
I don't trust these writers at all so maybe I'm just putting more thought into it than they did? Who knows.
No offense, but the writers thought about it a lot more than you did.

Spock is only half-Vulcan, and has pretty consistently described himself as having had more trouble managing his emotions while growing up versus full Vulcans.

Spock also canonically displays a lot of emotions in the original TOS pilot "The Cage". Behind-the-scenes reasons being that the idea of Vulcans at that time hadn't been developed fully yet to include no-emotions/only-logic attributes that they're now famous for.


So the writers, wanting to both reconcile and respect this incongruity in canon decided hey, let's not just retcon this and pretend it never happened, let's explore Spock in his youth before he had mastered his emotions. And show how we went from "The Cage" to TOS proper.

* Presumably something that happened on Disco
Disco's main character, Michael Burnham, was adopted into Spock's household as a child. Spock was very close with Michael early on, but as you can imagine, a household headed by Father of the Century Sarek ended up messy, so they were somewhat estranged until Plot Events forced the two to interact and reconcile in Season 2. Season 2 also saw a grey goo near-apocalypse started by Section 31 threaten the galaxy, and the crew of the USS Discovery found themselves being forced to escape the galaxy by jumping 900 years into the future. And since this was a Section 31 catastrophe, it all got listed as Top Secret. Written out, it admittedly sounds hilariously messy and ridiculous, and it is, but the emotional resonance of it all was pretty well done. There's a reason why SNW ended up getting made, because the Pike/Spock/Enterprise bits of Season 2 of DISCO was really, really good.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I'm a fan of Yesteryear from the Star Trek animated series, because it dives back into Spock's past and reveals what he had to go through as a child of mixed lineage, and the events that shaped him as an adult. The voice acting for child Spock is a little flat, and he's dressed like Astro Boy for some reason, but overall I think the episode brings a lot to the Star Trek mythos. The creators of the recent films must have agreed, because they borrowed from it liberally in their Spock's origin story.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
Watched the first episode. To get it out of the way, the irritating stuff was:
- agreed with Alixsar on the intro, that song sounds so weirdly generic-action-y, I think? Whatever.
- I never liked, that Discovery used Spock, because I never could separate him from Nemoy. I still don't like it, and wished they hadn't used that character. BUT I was happy to see Nurse Chapel (surprisingly, as I never cared too much about her, in TOS) and even happier to see Uhura here (who never got the time she deserved, in TOS). So I guess that hang-up with Spock is just me.
- I'll probably never get to terms with the fact, that shows now all look kinda like big-budget movies. Maybe that just looks to me that way, because I don't really watch much big budget stuff, so? I simply miss how tv shows looked in the 90s, but that ship has sailed long, long ago.

These small gripes out of the way, I really, really enjoyed waht I saw. Loved the very first scene, showing the First Contact from the point of few of the aliens., and it all DID feel like classic Trek to me. Slow and heady enough for me. Very much looking forward to more, it was really a big surprise, how much I enjoyed what I saw.

I realize that, despite my gripes being small, there is way more of them than of me gushing about how much I enjoyed the episode. I simply have trouble putting it into words. It feels like Trek, in a way I haven't experienced in a long time, like DISCO and PICARD didn't, not even Lower Decks. It feels old school, in a way, I think? Point is, I loved it, and simply don't really have the words to explain it in any sensible way.
 

Alixsar

The Shogun of Harlem
(He/him)
Okay well aside from one minor thing that I'm not even gonna mention, thankfully the rest of the episode was good? I liked it? We'll see???? It is a little quippy and Dreamworks smug grin-y at times but not as bad as I expected. The stuff I already complained about were my biggest complaints. Not having a handle on Spock and/or not liking this version of Spock is KINDA a big deal, but whatever. I still think that the whole idea of the security officer being a descendant of Khan's is pretty dumb...like you could've made that character's backstory (sole survivor/loner/trust issues type) with literally anyone, but instead they went with THAT because they were like "oh people will recognize that name". Does not inspire a lot of confidence in future endeavors, but we'll see. It's not a bad starting point but Trek is ultimately only as good as the ideas-of-the-week are and how they work character work into that, so lots of room to fuck up as well. Expectations are slightly higher but still quite low. It does feel more like Trek than Disco and MASSIVELY more so than Picard (good Lord...). So yeah, cautiously optimistic. I'll wait till it's done and then chip away at it.

And Felix I ALSO hate how "slick" and "big budget" it looks, but as you said that ship sailed ages ago. Pike has a fucking fireplace in his quarters, what the fuck is this?
 
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