While I can totally see your POV on Star Trek, I really disagree with your very kind reading of Mandalorian. I found mandalorian to be just as reliant on referencing other Wars series. I mean, there’s a dude in season 1 sitting in Han Solo’s seat wearing his clothing. Season 2 has us meet Ashoka, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and other Clone wars characters, often in fairly shoehorned ways. I also agree with your take on Disco from a macro perspective, believe me I have big issues with the world ending stakes and tons of needless fights in Disco, but I think also that it has a ton of really wonderful individual episodes especially in Season 3 that eschewed this, honing in on individual characters. Don’t Forget Me I thought had a wonderful evocation of queer culture. Unification III felt like it moved Trek forward in a way that other series had been afraid to do since Deep Space Nine. Obviously feel free to disagree, but I feel like you analyze the macro issues with Discovery and not the micro successes, and do the inverse to Mando. I also disagree that Spock was fumbled, but you just state it as fact here without analysis, which is… an issue. Anyways, sending you love my friend
Yo! Appreciate the reply. We'll admit to the premise of this video being conjecture or opinion. But...we feel the argument being made is clear. This isn't a video about every little success and sin of each series. Instead, it is about the form factor each show is utilizing to tell its stories, the container...as Nicolas Meyer would put it, the wine bottle holding the different vintages of Trek. Disco and Picard are using the blockbuster format. And Mando is using a format established and embellished by Kurosawa and Leone, a "western" format. We only talked about those forms in our video and not much else. Disco and Picard have fantastic ingredients. The score is phenomenal. The actors are top notch. The ingredients of the story, the concepts, all can work and work well. The visual effects are beyond stunning. The successes you mentioned, on queer representation, are excellent, needed and very Trek. But, all of that is being curtailed to service the blockbuster format the showrunners insist on using...it is limiting the true greatness of all the spectacular ingredients they've assembled. There's no balance in that form as it is currently being used. Those ingredients never get a chance to breathe. The blockbuster format detracts, curtails from the nearly ineffable quality that makes Trek what it is. Is Mando too self-referential? Too much referencing other shows and television? Oh yea...but that is extremely Star Wars. That's the brand. The original Star Wars in 1977 was a giant love letter to Akira Kurosawa. It was basically a colorized version of "The Hidden Fortress" in sci-fi clothing. George Lucas admits as much. So, for the Mandalorian, that is the most Star Wars thing it can do. But Mando re-dedicates itself to those original Star Wars influences and does so in a balanced way. Until the second season, which was basically loaded down with nostalgia and backdoor pilots, Mando stayed true to those original influences and self-referential homage. We aren't pretending to be the end-all-be-all here. This is just conjecture on our part. We can't say of the powers-that-be running Disco and Picard are intentionally using the blockbuster format or if it is so much saturated in the water with them that they don't know any other way to do it. And, film is a subjective medium. Everyone's takeaway will be different, at different ages and time of life. But for our money, after watching four years of the Kurtzman-era Trek, we are exhausted. Just plain exhausted. It can't be the same thing every time or the audience will start to peel away. And it is possible that is what we are seeing...there's lots of division on the newer Treks and different areas of the fandom are devising a variety of reasons as to why they are dissatisfied. I don't think they are able to be nuanced about their dislike - it seems to be that they can't quite put a finger on the "why" of their dislike accurately, so they invent a host of, sometimes, terrible excuses. Hopefully we've made our case here that it is not the ingredients of the show that are the issue but the form factor they are shoving those ingredients into. But, we can't claim to be the authority here. We are just voicing our opinion. But, you know, if you are interested, we'd be happy to discuss it. A rebuttal video would be ripe for conversation.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I deeply, deeply wish that I could feel as enthusiastic about the character work in Discovery as you do. Early in the show's run, I was very strongly in favor of giving it a fair chance and even defended it against detractors who I felt were coming down hard on it for often rather odd reasons (the change in production design, being "too futuristic to be pre-TOS" and other similar complaints that can easily be explained away by increased budgets and the like). Sadly, now that season four is almost here, I have had to come to terms with the fact that this is the first time I have not really looked forward to upcoming Trek. To be blunt, I found season three to be a bit of a mess and its characters (and especially their dialogue) seem to be (at least to me) the core problem. The biggest issue (again, in my opinion as a individual fan) is that the scripts just don't feel very convincing. As an example, let's look at TOS. Even in some of its most infamously bad episodes, the moment to moment dialogue often is pretty solid. Each character has a defined voice and the writers are clearly very comfortable with both utilizing those voices and blending them together into good ensemble cast scenes. There are a lot of times in TOS where characters have very relatable, very normal conversations with each other. There is this sense of normality to the whole thing that lets the audience really immerse themselves in the characters and their interactions. This is something you will see quite a bit of even as you go through TNG, (especially) DS9, Voyager, and (also especially) Enterprise. You get the sense that the characters are well trained professionals who have flaws but can exist on a spaceship together and interact like you would expect people to interact. This gets into something that is somewhat hard to express but I will do my best. Even going back to TOS, there is a sort of "timeless neutrality" to the characters and their interactions. When you watch TOS, you can certainly see various elements drawn from the 1960's but the show isn't really built around expressing those elements directly. It has moments where it does but as a whole, it tries to stick to expressing its own voice independent of its date of production. The same can be said of what we might call the "80's/90's Trek era" where you can watch the shows and see certain elements that directly indicate what timeframe they were written in but as a whole, the shows have a sort of "neutral" quality that makes them feel somewhat "timeless". Perhaps it is that they don't really try to add a strong sense of drama and emotional tension into every scene. Sometimes you just have Kirk and Scotty having a normal, casual conversation. Sometimes you have Riker and Geordi having a subdued, pretty relatable conversation about relationships. Sometimes you have Bashir and O'Brien just being big kids who just like to hang out and indulge in their hobbies. There are all these moments in those shows that are calm and let the characters breath a bit and seem a bit more real and a bit less "overwritten in the script". Discovery is a sharp contrast. While the cast is fine, the story concepts are okay, and the general production design is pretty impressive (even if I find some of it bizarre like the 32nd century ship design logic), the scripts themselves feel very "overwritten". Whenever a character speaks, it feels like something that you might find in the first draft of a script written by a new, very enthusiastic screenwriter that wants every line, every word to be laden heavily with drama and raw, unbridled emotion. When Kirk, Sisko, Picard, Janeway, or even Archer gave a expositional log entry at the beginning of the episode, it sounded like something that you would actually find in a ship's log. When we get logs in Discovery, they feel a lot like a teenager's diary with all the "clever" literary references, excessive whimsy, and emotional outbursts that come with that. When characters are interacting, it is as if the script demands that everything be incredibly dramatic and emotionally charged. Nothing can just be calm and any internal logic takes a back seat to the whims of the writers and their favorite "pet" characters and concepts. To put it another way, Discovery feels like it was written by one of the CW DC superhero show writing teams. It feels like it is written to only really serve a VERY specific subset of the fanbase (the young teenage to twenty-something market) but ends up coming off as a almost patronizing unintentional parody of that market. There are moments (especially in the third season) where the show's writers almost look directly into the camera and tell the audience "our focus testing told us that this line would make the target market "squee" in enthusiasm" but all those lines do is make the show feel incredibly dated even only a short time after it aired. This brings me to a somewhat controversial aspect of Discovery as it compares to other Trek shows. Star Trek has ALWAYS been progressive (though I would argue Voyager is a pretty strong exception since it didn't really have much to say about anything at all) but all those previous shows had a way pretty cleverly imbed those progressive messages in a way that doesn't (often) feel super "on the nose". TOS's 'Let that be your last battlefield' may have some pretty overt racial commentary but it always kept that Star Trek lens in front of the issue so that it still felt pretty natural. You can watch the episode and see that it is talking about contemporary racism (in the 1960's) but you can also watch the episode as another interesting happening on the Enterprise and it still feels solid. It still works. Likewise. You can watch DS9's two-parter 'Past Tense' and see that it is VERY clearly talking about 90's poverty and economic inequity but it also manages to feel pretty natural. It has that "timeless" quality that I spoke of earlier. Even if poverty was no longer a real-world issue, the episodes would still work and still feel well integrated into the larger franchise. DIscovery has problems with that and a lot of them come down to the writers either not trusting the audience to understand more subtle, less overt social issue references or not having a strong script editing process that can really peel away a lot of the clumsiness and make everything feel more cohesive. Whereas other Trek shows would use futuristic characters to explore often subtle contemporary issues, Discovery's writers use very obviously contemporary characters to deal with very obviously contemporary issues that often feel out of place with the larger franchise. Picard also has this issue and in pretty much the exact same way. Everything feels contemporary. The characters could just as easily be 21st century versions of their 23rd, 25th, or 31st century versions. While this description might be overgeneralizing and maybe even hyperbolic, Discovery's characters feel more like modern, stereotypical college-age kids and young adults than they do futuristic members of the Star Trek universe. To go even further, Discovery feels like it is written to target that specific subset DIRECTLY at the cost of everything else. This feels odd since Star Trek had traditionally avoided overtly targeting only specific age groups before (thus aiding in that "timeless" feeling). It becomes even more odd when you consider that CBS's recent push back into Star Trek as a property has largely been biased towards children and teens with Prodigy, The Lower Decks, and Discovery. Even Picard has a feeling that it is very, very specifically targeting young Trek fans who view TNG through the distorted lens of artificial, social media fueled nostalgia and not the audience that actually really engaged with the show directly. I hope that 'Strange New Worlds' will help bring back some of that casual timelessness that made Star Trek last fifty-five years. When Pike and crew appeared in Season 2, it looked like the writers were able to make them feel a bit more natural and casual. This is also helped by having Anson Mount as a lead who will lend a certain "older, more professional, more emotionally mature adult" quality to the franchise that it will quite desperately need. Sadly (and I do mean sadly), I don't have a lot of hope for Discovery and (especially) Picard. I wish I did. I really, really do. I just don't.
Really pleased to see you here Jessie... yourself and Trekspertise are so eloquent I really can't add much other than while I don't have any issues with Star Trek movies using a blockbuster formula, it saddens me when any new series goes down the MCU path cos that just feels churned out to a formula... TNG and Voyager were my first Trek loves (and DS9) and my favourite episodes actually have very little action... I call them the 'quiet' episodes... stories very particular to a Star Trek universe that are just about stuff that happens.. these are the ones I watch over and over again... some have really important subtext and some are just comfy and enjoyable
Oh for sure you are spot on with The Offspring thats a brilliant example... and how 2 androids just trying to exist like everyone else could cause you to feel so much emotion... gotta go now... seem ...to have something in eyes ☹️
The Orville is kind of a spritual successor to Star Trek. The humor is a bit different and the relaxed attitude of the characters is more like in a normal workplace than in starfleet. It has good characters, storylines and a lot of TNG vibes.
@@Siderite Oh, you could find someones to write it - would you find a studio willing to take a chance on it, and be able to withstand the bitching about it?
@@Siderite I totally disagree. Writing is one of the oldest human gifts. We still have lots of good storytellers out there. Mando/Bad Batch/Clone Wars Final Season prove it. And there is an author out there somewhere who knows Trek and how to guide it into the modern aesthetic. Someone just needs to hire me. ;)
I never really wondered why I could barely finish Discovery season 2 while devouring The Mandalorian, even though I consider myself to always be more biased towards a Star Trek setting than a Star Wars one. But after seeing this it all now makes sense to me, just like some long forgotten memory finally surfacing in your consciousness - Mandalorian stands on its own, exploring the greyness between black and white out there without forcing some epic journey to save the universe onto you. I guess this is also what bugged me on Star Trek: Picard, even though I kind of enjoyed the series so far, maybe besides the last episode - but somehow the closest to what I consider a 100% subjective "real Star Trek experience" to me in modern Star Trek is Lower Decks. Sure, it has a very lighthearted surface and caters to nostalgia A LOT, but somehow it shows you some not so epic side of Star Trek with a crew stuck in mundane side quests while the real hero ships are doing important work for the greater good out there - which to me is a really refreshing factor.
Same, that is also one the reasons Lower Decks is so appealing. Some of my favorite Star Trek is the day to day stuff on the Enterprise. Not everything has to be world-ending to be engaging.
I became completely disinterested in Picard when the overarching story arc was revealed. Already had a bit of burnout from "rogue AI becoming a galactic threat" from Discovery Season 2, so for that to be essentially rehashed in Picard was really disappointing. Picard was advertised to be a slower-paced character study, but instead it felt like another blockbuster flick; a single diplomatic monologue from Picard to defuse the situation (instead of a Discovery-style space battle) seemed really superficial.
Kinda ironic that Discovery and Picard are meant to be the flagship series of modern Trek, but so far the most celebrated modern Trek series (at least among dedicated Trek fans) has been Lower Decks.
It might be ironic, but mainly it is rather sad in hindsight. Basically, Lower Decks' success comes primarily from its superficiality. Its aesthetics (the show resembles the pre-2005 shows and films) and its countless heaps of mostly cheap nostalgia/fan service, which was largely dismissed in the video essay above, by the way. I've been a Trekkie for over 30 years now and I really do not need to see recycled stuff I already saw multiple times a quarter of a century ago as a teenager. I've evolved since then and Star Trek needed to evolve too. P.S. - Kyle from Trekspertise hates Lower Decks. You should watch his review of Season 1, here on the channel.
I agree with the sentiment. I have yet to see SNW, but I also don’t need the Dark storytelling in Picard and early Discovery. I did like Discivery Season 4 (particularly the resolution of it all which was not the violent death of a villain for a change. Although the aliens were very similar to Arrival, but that’s a better source to copy from than Marvel :)
Thanks for an illuminating, fun, informed, and satisfying 30+ minutes of commentary that perfectly articulates why New Trek struggles to be good storytelling and a satisfying continuation of the Trek universe while Mando Lone Wolf and Cub (and potentially New TV Star Wars) seems inspired, layered and an evolution of the source material. I eagerly await the next video.
I agree Except for the 'inspired' bit. Mando is heavily reliant on familiarity and nostalgia to obfuscate its anaemic story. I thoroughly enjoyed mando, btw. But its very, very safe, and wisely so in the face of the awful disney star wars movies
@@Bow-to-the-absurd I agree. Mando is heavily reliant on familiarity and nostalgia, both for Star Wars mythos as well as the Samurai genre and Western genre. It does so with a masterful understanding of those genres and its tenants. Disco, however, isn't interested in the mythos or genre mechanics of Star Trek, just nostalgia in the most superficial way -- often in the service of a bait and switch.
I'm really curious what they're gonna do with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I hope it'll be a revitalization of Trek and not just a meager nostalgia trip.
They talked about how they’re going to explore Spock’s feelings and they have Uhura and someone with the last name of Noonien Singh. There will probably be a bunch of annoying “remember this” moments.
You should talk about Star Trek Deep Space Nine and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, and how Ronald D. Moore was allowed to take his style where it wasn't always welcome.
Absolutely fantastic discussion both about elements in the evolution of modern film making and the past and future of one of my favorite franchises. This video essay, like everything on this channel, is dense with insights and clearly a labor of love. There are at least 3-5 other pieces of content under the surface here I'd love to hear more about someday, from a good discussion of Wrath of Khan to the relationship between Star Wars and Star Trek when they competed in theaters in the 1980s. There's no mention here of Lower Decks, save in your analysis of nostalgia - I feel like you'd offer insights there too. Thanks so much - your videos, rare though they are, brighten up whole weeks of months and get me thinking every time.
So glad to see new content. While I like Disco better than I think you guys do, you're not wrong about he Blockbuster Problem. Now, lest we forget, Trek didn't start playing with high stakes, explody loudness with Disco and JJ-Trek. You mentioned TWOK, but I'd include episodes like the Doomsday Machine as possessing many of those Blockbuster tropes. Mando has them too! Crazy shootouts, dogfights and battles make mando exciting and fun. But so do the intimate details, like Grogu and a pregnant frog lady. What would help Disco is not less Blockbuster but more intimate stakes... this does not include weepy childlike aliens with explosive psychic tendencies, but more focus on things it's doing only halfway so far, like Adira and Grey, Michael's mommy issues, and other soapy bits without getting too soapy. Anyway, BIG fun watching a new Trekspertise. Keep it up! Also, pray for Strange New Worlds.
Discovery for me has a similar problem I had with Voyager, it just won't get out of it's own way,solid premises that they just won't run to the finish line with Picard just felt like a waste of time, they should've done the book instead
The most basic problem with Discovery is that it lacks story coherence. You take Mandalorian out of the Star Wars universe and things still make sense. You understand what the characters want, the progression of the story makes sense, they flesh out the world and how things work. Discovery lacks basic logic in character motivation, story progression, and world building. Look at season 3 for example, they're 800 years into the future, the crew is trying to get acclamated to the new time, they spend weeks with the remnants of Starfleet trying to get up to date. Yet, even after their training, they lack basic knowledge of the state of the galaxy. The characters themselves also showed no curiosity about their homeworlds. After weeks in the future and access to Starfleet's database, the characters are surprised to learn basic information about their people in that time. So at no point did any of the crew wonder, "it's been 800 years, I really hope that my homeworld/species are still doing OK." But nope, they have no curiosity or initiative of their own, it's only when the plot reveals that their species is still around that they sigh in relief that their people aren't extinct. There's also a general lack of understanding of very basic science in Discovery and Picard. One example is a really really stupid scene where a Starfleet admiral pointed out that replicated food is made from shit. I guess the writers don't know what manure is. It's basic knowledge that you learn in elementary school. We use shit to grow food, but that doesn't mean our food is shit. The replicator is just a much more advanced form of rearranging matter.
I think this is more a result of the aping of blockbusters. Characterisation is done round archetypes and tropes to make it easily readable for casual audiences, world building is to serve the story and the plot happens in the most dramatic manner for that episode.
oof most of your arguments don't hold water ESPECIALLY the science argument - you do know that tachyons can't really fix a rupture in subspace, right? or that FTL is pretty hard and won't likely be made easier by a fictional analog of what powers your cellphone
@@Exospray while characterization in blockbusters is simplified and exaggerated, they still have room to give the characters nuance and make them more than just agents to drive the plot forward. I don't expect Discovery to have slower character scenes unrelated to the plot like the Enterprise crew holding a concert or Bashir and O'Brien planning their defense of the Alamo. But they can give the characters something. Like, what do we know about the Discovery characters' hobbies and interests outside of their duty to Starfleet? Heck, we know that Data likes to paint and compose music and he's an android who can work non-stop. We know that Captain America is trying to learn about all the pop culture he missed and that's in a 2 hour action blockbuster.
@@KingOfMadCows TNGera series gave characters "depth" due to contractual obligations, filler episodes to pad out a season - and saying characters aren't fleshed out in Disco is I'm hoping your pretending to be naive
From another life-long Trek fan (and filmmaker/cinephile): Thank you, Trekspertise. This is a wonderful parsing of why I was drawn to Mando as a cinephile, and disappointed by Disco et al. as a Trekker. I have so much more to say about current TREK, but this is most I've ever written in a comment. I actually think the only comments I've made on UA-cam (aside from supporting a friend's cooking videos!) are for Trekspertise videos...
@@Trekspertise Upon reviewing my comment history, "only" is an exaggeration. However, I'm proud (too proud?) to say, of my 18 comments: - 8 to support a close friend's cooking channel - 4 for Trekspertise - 3 for random cinematography questions - 1 for a video about Lucasarts' "The Secret of Monkey Island" - 1 for a '90s space channel promo spot prominently featuring star trek that would bring a tear to your eye - I had to hunt it down! Right now, I'm taking steps towards a minimalist TREK fan film, and have a few projects I'm "developing". Otherwise, I would consider myself on indefinite hiatus!;p Thank you for asking! Where can we see your short, BTW?
Now the longest comment I've ever written. A reminder of why I refrain from commenting! I love your literary-style analysis, and appreciate all the work you folks do! Looking forward to the next one.
Thank you for this. It’s difficult to openly criticise the exhausting spectacle that is modern Trek without getting dragged into a debate about wokeness or antiwokeness or whatever.
Not much of what you say is untrue. However, I have nearly finished re watching discovery and I am enjoying it much more this time. The faults are much less bothersome and it is SO Star Trek. I do enjoy the mandalorian, just not as much.
I remember the 'deep space nine' isnt trek broohaha online 20 years ago. Ds9 was different, but it also had great stories. I didnt see any story in discovery. Just rampant infantalism and fast paced stupidity. Picard was even more so.
Mando. Where it is done on a lower budget so they can focus on smaller set pieces and good script and good acting. Discovery has a LARGE budget and focused on massively distracting CGI fests so that the audience doesn't see the bad writing and terrible directing
The larger budget does help. But the concept from the top is what matters. Mando's showrunners are aiming for different territory than Disco's showrunners. It's just that simple.
The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was comparing Star Trek with Star Wars, leading to generations of people who think the shows are similar in some way. I have two words for you: Gene and Roddenberry.
I love your videos so much. Aside from the fact that it's about Star Trek, your work is one of the best in the YT review/analysis genre. You could make analysis of Transformers and I would love it. edit: is that the brother of Ronald D. Moore?
The essay was great. But I need to add one thing to the differences between Mando and Disco… talented creators and writers. Keep all the worn out blockbuster tropes in Disco but find a dedicated and talented writing team…everything changes.
so those creators you probably despise in eps 7-9 that probably now work on Mando are all cool now? Mando is a cool show, but I'm not sure it's bc of the writing - the stories are mostly pretty simplistic, no?
Possibly. It might also be possible that the powers-that-be have chosen for Disco and Picard to stay inside the blockbuster box and that it is limiting a team of highly creative, smart people.
While I largely outright agree with your appraisal of modern (Discovery and Picard especially) Star Trek, I am not sure I entirely agree on your appraisal of The Mandalorian. When I watched the first season, I was pretty happy with the smaller scale and more deliberate overall pace but I also couldn't shake just how overtly it referenced famous westerns. With the original Star Wars trilogy, there were certain moments that drew clear inspiration from Lucas's influences, it wasn't quite as "on the nose" about it. There were shots that referenced Kurosawa and even plot elements but it was packaged in a way that made those references feel more organic. With The Mandalorian, the references are a lot more overt and while that isn't a bad thing exactly, it did make the show feel like it was having a bit of a identity crisis at times. All that being said, I loved the first season. I liked the references (even if I thought they were a bit too "on the nose") and the overall tone quite a bit. The second season of The Mandalorian is another matter entirely. If I could place the blame on one problem specifically, it is that it felt like a season full of backdoor pilots for new shows. This wasn't helped when it didn't take long for Disney to reveal that a lot of it was backdoor pilots and while not all those shows are now going to happen, some of them are. The second season spent a lot of time establishing these new characters in a way that was often seen in Marvel films. It was hard not to see the "Blockbusterization" you speak of at work in a pretty big, overt way. Mando's second season also had another element that you didn't really mention. It does have that "mystery box" in the form of Grogu's origin and purpose and the central villain's (Moff Gideon) motivation for going after him. The mystery box wasn't overt but it was very much there. All this isn't to say it is a bad show or anything. I just think it had a rough second season in some specific ways that very much relate to your take on the blockbuster concept.
Yea, Mando's second season does suffer not just from the nostalgia factor, but from the Marvelization factor, as you rightly point out. Season 2 is about backdoor pilots. We were largely unhappy with those. But as well as it can be implemented, it was done well. Luke's presence made some sense for the story. And Groku's identity and origin are legit dramatic questions the show should spend time answering. In so much as Mando 'has' to do those things, Discovery did them far worse. Spock had no business being there, and Burnham had no business being in Spock's family.
@@Trekspertise As I said, I generally agree with your appraisal of Discovery and Picard. I would even go as far as to say that they are pretty much both lost causes at this point. I am deeply saddened that new seasons of Trek are coming that I am not at least a little bit excited about. My statements about the second season of Mando were not so much to disparage the show but instead to point out that it isn't exactly above the blockbusterization we have seen in other modern films and TV.
Really cool video and I pretty much agree. Star Trek - mind you I still enjoy Discovery & Co. - seems to have lost its identity and is struggling to find a way to link with the times. Be it the blockbuster storytelling you pointed out, the GoT-like darkness and brutality (Especially in the mirror universe episodes), adult comedy or now cg animation for teens and SNW might be a desperate attempt to follow in the older shows‘ footsteps (which might work, I hope at least), but there seems to be no real vision, no „I am Alex Kurtzman and I want to tell that particular story“, unlike The Mandalorian , The Bad Batch or even Star Wars Rebels and yes, also The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and Rogue One and Solo. On top of that, Star Wars is continues to push filmmaking technology with their new projection screens and the results are unreal - my mind was truly blown for the first time in a long time when I realized almost all of it is studio work, because every episode looks so much like location shots and it’s Hard to distinguish between artificial environment, sets and the few real locations they used. The story is also told in a truly cinematic way, requiring very little dialogue and conveying most of the story visually. And I felt most of the cameos and connections to previous elements (Bo Katan, Ahsoka, Cobb Vant and even Luke) worked, because they served an actual purpose in the story of Din Djarin and Grogu, whereas Ethan Peck‘s Spock - as good as he was - feels more shoehorned in than anything. That doesn’t mean, Mandalorian is perfect. I really thought Chapter 6: The Prisoner was a pretty weak episode and am not really sure about the way they brought Boba Fett back, but hey at the very least it feels sincere and fresh and original while also being clearly Star Wars and dealing with the landmark themes selfishness vs selflessness and family. I do wish Kurtzman the creative spark to make something truly unique and interesting with the Star Trek franchise and I felt Discovery Season 3 was a Great improvement over it’s previous two seasons, but right now, I think Star Wars is on a better track imo.
What's funny is that when I was young I was obsessed with Trek and had no interest in Star Wars. Now, as an adult, I find new Star Wars content incredibly engaging, and find myself watching Trek simply out of dedication while hating every minute of it. It makes sense that it's because of the reasons you've outlined, perhaps Star Wars has become a better Trek.
Fantastic video and it warms my heart to see PR referenced and heavily agree with MMPR being overused for nostalgia it's been going for nearly 30 years and the other seasons deserve a shot at stardom
@@Trekspertise sorry I am so used to talking to Power Rangers twitter that I didn't even think about abbreviations. PR is Power Rangers and MMPR is the first 3 seasons. I apologise again.
@@Trekspertise I will suggest trying out the Boom! Studios comics if you fancy a newer take on the show they are a really good celebration of the near 30 years worth of shows.
Not a Star Wars fan at all, but I loved The Mandalorian, and on the other hand, I'm a massive Star Trek fan, but struggled with Discovery and Picard... Let's see how ST: Prodigy fares.
You know new Star Trek is poorly managed if even Trekspertise, which just 2 years ago was optimistic and open minded about the new stories, has some scathing criticism for what they are making.
I agree with pretty much everything you state, but I think another interesting angle to explore is how much more ambitious Trek is being in its stories. While Star Wars is rejecting much of the modern blockbuster style and going retro, it’s also embracing the most simple plot and character choices possible. Everyone is an archetype. Every episode and every season can be summed up in single sentences. It’s excellently executed, but thematically it retreads what’s already been done, it’s greatest depth coming by fleshing out in live action some moral ambiguity that was already brought out in the animated Star Wars shows. Star Trek, meanwhile, is firmly entwined with the modern Marvel-esque blockbuster style, which is an awkward fit, just as arguably it has always been. (This is why Trek movies have always been less interesting than the series for most fans.) Nevertheless, Trek has clearly been trying to build complex narratives and character arcs. We have contemplations of identity and mortality and old age. We have optimism in the face of hardship and the value of holding to ideals when they don’t seem to matter. We have characters whose allegiances and attitudes shift based on experiences and new understanding. Now, I’d argue that a lot of it is better in outline than in execution, but it’s clear what the franchise is trying to do, and it’s ambitious. They’re trying to fit in, but they’re also trying to be important and start conversations. Star Wars, on the other hand, is making great TV but playing safely in their sandbox. In summary, Star Wars is trying to be a fun ride, and it’s succeeding. Star Trek is trying to say something important while being a fun ride and is sort of doing an okay job at both.
Star Trek is trying to say something important while being a fun ride and is sort of doing an okay job at both. This is giving NuTrek way more charity than I'm currently willing to do anymore. Maybe I need different boinking on the head, but Discovery doesn't seem to be saying much of anything coherent to me. It plays like CW shows, where you're only supposed to remember about 2 minutes in either direction of where you are and go for the feelz. In Season 1 of Discovery - what was the complex narrative it was trying to tell? It seemed to basically be Michael Burnham was Mary Sue. The plot was also all over the place - was it about war? Cause they seemed to jump to the mirror universe and then skip the rest of the war when they came back. Was it about Lorca being a Terran? They didn't really do much with that but a heel turn at the end and didn't much examine how the whole ship followed a terran into some pretty bad actions (think Tardigrade). This leads into S2 and S3, they actually save / glorify / love the Terran Emperor FFS. Apparently they learned that the Terrans weren't so bad after all. S2 - That was a muddled mess of a time travel story. At least as bad as Trek usually treats time travel, I can at least follow the loop or whatever. And they are all so stupid throughout that at the end, even after "Control" was defeated, they still jumped into the future. It makes no sense, but worse as I'm watching the show I'm constantly pulled out of the narrative because of insanely stupid choices in writing, characterization, or internal ST logic. I could go on, but when I can't suspend my disbelief for a show, the execution is bad. And if the execution is bad ENOUGH, it makes it a bad show. And apparently it's so bad at communicating, there's a vocal part of the fanbase that can't see anything important NuTrek is trying to say.
@@jamespulver3890 I agree that the messaging gets somewhat lost in the spectacle, but I do think there is enough there to still understand what they have been going for: DSC 1 culminates in the juxtaposition of the Federation vs the Terran mentality. Do we choose a path of self-sacrifice or one of using/abusing others to further our ends? It’s not just the Mirror episodes; the same theme shows up with the tardigrade and the awkward Klingon homeworld bit at the end. It’s all about as subtle as a sledge hammer, but it’s definitely trying to make a point. I do think that it was a good use of the Mirror universe and a timely question to ask, given the current political climate. DSC 2 is much more interesting, I think. It started by asking questions about faith in something greater - a god or ideals - and ultimately answered those questions by putting faith in people who care about us and in ourselves. Personally, I would have liked more exploration of the earlier questions, but again, I can see how the progression and ultimate answers reflect a Roddenberry Humanism. PIC 1 had not only the themes of mortality and old age but also asked questions about the consequences of idealism. Picard’s idealism ran up against institutional cynicism, and this caused him to temporarily give up. What happens when good people turn their backs or do nothing? The answer ultimately seems to be that idealism is always worth upholding or reclaiming for the good of the self and the good of everyone else, and that self-sacrifice is again the greatest virtue. I’ll not argue that any of the seasons are masterpieces. I still don’t understand several aspects of the DSC 2 time travel plot, and I’m pretty sure that DSC 2, 3 and PIC 1 were all well underway before anyone tried to figure out how to wrap up the plots they were weaving. But yes, I do think they are trying to put forth messages that line up with the legacy values of Star Trek. I don’t think Star Wars has ever tried to do much of this beyond the ideas that bad guys can be redeemed, that evil can be hidden in institutions, and that sometimes good and evil are more nuanced than we believe.
I haven't watched the Mandalorian, but I do feel like this successfully articulates some of the dissatisfaction I've felt towards new Trek series. I keep feeling like now is a fruitful time for a Trek series that went back to its roots for a new generation. A Next Next Generation, if you will. In many ways, TNG did it the right way (despite the first 2 seasons being very shaky), with a reluctance to rely too heavily on references to the old. You had Old McCoy in the premier episode and then very little direct reference until "Sarek". Instead, it forged its own path using the same ethos that had been built up. I just want one season of Discovery where it doesn't feel like the world is going to end or the ongoing problem is going to need solved at the end of the season. The Klingon Civil War in TNG was a 2-part episode. The Dominion War went on for several seasons. Trek can do long arcs that don't fit into a season structure. The part where Discovery really lost me for a while was its insistence on ending the Klingon-Federation War on a time schedule rather than where it made the most narrative sense
Future of Star Trek? It's dead Jim. There was a committed and dedicated audience largely starved of content, ST:D decided to abandon that audience in pursuit of a new larger demographic that I don't think they actually bothered trying to research or understand (my guess is that they just assumed it was people like them?). Unfortunately they way they have pursued that new audience has done a really effective job of alienating the existing one and they appear to be failing to establish much of a new one - though they are throwing a LOT of capital at trying to crack it (I think largely because CBS dont have many other viable options) Between Mando and Disco, as a long term Trek fan and ambivalent Wars watcher, there's no competition. Mando is in a different league. Simply better.
Disco got 50% fewer tv eyeballs than enterprise did. Yet its still somehow got a series 4. Nu trek is a failure, On tv and film. The teenage girls who miraculously went to the cinema for star trek 2009, did not return. Nu trek on tv has alienated a large percentage of its existing audience yet failed to atract a new one. Nu trek has less genuine representation than the pilot of ds9 in 1993
@@Bow-to-the-absurd It's not a mystery or at all surprising that Disco got renewed and will continue to do so. Just take a look at CBS's investor reports, the IP is a central component of their content licensing strategy. It doesn't matter if it's not doing the numbers, to back away from BR or Trek at this stage raises questions about their entire strategy and be harmful to the share price. I think thats the bit of analysis that everyone misses, if something doesn't make sense look for the money and these days money isn't revenues and expenditures it's the share price and being "a growth company". In this context it makes perfect sense. So we can (sadly) look forward to much, much more Nu Trek. One thing you have to admit, Kurtzman is a shred businessman.
@@Bow-to-the-absurd the jj films made more money - almost all the eyeballs that did watch disco/"nu-trek" PAID to do so - and "nu-trek" is carrying a subscription service that doesn't have much exclusive content, besides "nu-trek" - cbsaa/paramount+ has enjoyed double digit growth - none of that is failure - are there some upset fans, sure - but most of the fans I see upset are ones Id be happy to see leave the franchise
I'm not going to defend Discovery, because you are correct that it relies too heavily on Blockbuster trappings, world ending stakes especially and mostly shallow characters. But I will defend Star Trek Picard, because the blockbusterism to me appear to be tacked onto it by studio execs, I think what Michael Chabon had was a very trek story and the things put on the end like synth robot arms appearing through sky holes and copy and pasted romulan fleets and incestuous Tal Shiar operatives distract from good bones and the story could have been toned down and told without them. The show was about dealing with regret. Picard is an extremely changed man due to having his bluff called over the Romulan evacuation mission. He is full of regret and loss over the man he was, his own actions took him from an admiral with history of being possibly the greatest captain in the fleet history, to a nobody writing history books. To him it is a loss like the alternate timeline at the end of the TNG episode Tapestry, except this time no hand waving will undo his mistakes. It is a journey for him to get back some of what he was, that perhaps he still is the man he was. But his regret colours much of what he does in the series. Everything else unfortunately is just Star Trek / Scifi window dressing and nostalgia, which is the show's biggest weakness, as much as I loved the Nepenthe episode. I'm not saying the show is perfect, it does suffer from a lot of modern trek's short falls, but I find a lot of people complaining about Picard have missed the forrest for the trees. I know you have compared modern trek to the mandolorian before, and they are very different shows - one Science Fiction the other a Science Fantasy Western so kudos on reframing it under blockbuster. This is clearly your much deserved love letter to the mando. good work
Which to some degree makes sense. It isn't so much about the fandom, but they are leaning into what used to work with Star Wars, but doesn't anymore. These same blockbuster tropes are why the recent Star Wars trilogy wasn't good. Mando is the first departure from that. Disco and Picard are that all over again.
Nu-trek, instead of looking into current trend like social issues as every star trek does to help understand, they end up integrate it and never seem to look into the problem at all ,becoming the problem itself. edit: "Somehow.."
I'd argue OG trek held your hand and painted the social issue of the day with a very large brush and gave you an obvious villain - modern trek does the same thing, just with less hand holding
Your take on the two franchises is spot on, as usual. I was surprised at how good Mando was, especially coming on the heels of the last Star Wars movie, which made every mistake in your 33-minute inventory. Foundation is a bigger budget version of Disco, with casting really good actresses to fight each other constantly. The biggest problem is JJ Abrams and his crew. They have been tapped out of ideas for years, and they seem to control both space franchises. We live in a golden age of astronomy and they seemed not to have noticed. I await your take on the Expanse, made by people who respect the science in science fiction.
Both properties are dead, Jim, sorry couldn’t avoid the Star Trek reference, notably due to J J Abrams and his infernal mystery boxes. Add a dash of horrid writing, inclusion and diversity and you have a great start to killing a franchise. J J has been tragically involved with both franchises and is now headed to DC. Good luck with a Superman that in zero in common with Superman’s of the past.
Now that all of season one of Strange New World has been out, I wonder what is your opinoin of it through this particular lense... I personally enjoyed it a lot more than Disco or Picard, and it felt like they realized that the marvelization of trek is a very short sighted strategy, so they adjusted. I feel comfortable saying that Strange New Worlds is the most Star Trek thing that has come out since 2009
I'm still waiting for that Garak video. Is he a foil? A reluctant ally? A heart of gold veiled by an unfeeling and Machiavellian demeanor? Why do we like him so much if he is so morally bankrupt?
I agree and disagree about Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was certainly a reaction to the success of Star Wars, and the studio was no doubt hoping for a similar blockbuster. But as a film it's the antithesis of Star Wars, for better or worse. It takes its cue more from 2001: A Space Odyssey and feels much more like an Arthur C. Clarke story than anything else. It's probably the most "Star Trek" piece of Star Trek that exists and likely will ever exist. It's a shame the makers of the current Star Trek TV series don't take similar licence to do their own thing once the shows were commissioned, though given Alex Kurtzman (sigh) is in charge that's not surprising. Hopefully Strange New Worlds will be The Mandalorian of this iteration of Star Trek, moving it back to the original ethos and style. But with Kurtzman in charge I'm not hopeful.
It is saturated. There are great films, tho. Seriously - go check out "The Last Black Man In San Fransisco" or perhaps "Sorry To Bother You." Such great movies.
Talking about your feelings and running around acting like tweens with little story and weak characters is everything that's wrong with modern ST. I know every line of every TNG DS9 and VOY. DS9 was an incredible series you can't match on any level. Dude any "real" star trek fan especially of the Golden Era has commented on how sad we all are that CBS and crew especially the master mind has all taken the franchise. Literally ANYONE could of done better. I dont understand how Jonathan Fakes and Patrick starwort can't be aware of this?
While your position is entirely justified from your POV, I have to disagree with most of what you have to say. But let's start with the one aspect I TOTALLY agree with. SW is a trendsetter and Trek has been a trend follower for decades. And that may have kept the franchise from truly fulfilling its purpose, its mission. Also pretty accurate is your stance on TWOK being a masterpiece on its own. However, that movie's success and following is part of the problem Star Trek movies have had ever since. So many big screen outings have tried to copy-paste TWOK in a more modern way and THAT is what kept the movie franchise themtically limited. Every villain set out to be a new Khan, every movie had to include another nebula battle... But that's TWOK's influence, not Indiana Jones' or the Avengers' fault. It's got nothing to do with imitating blockbuster style in general... See, if Trek movies hadn't tried to emulate TWOK time and again, we would have gotten a much greater variety of themes. There are many "blockbusters" Trek could have emulated instead: Avatar, Valerian, Alice in Wonderland, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars PT, John Carter, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Peter Pan etc... and that would have given Trek a much more interesting variety of themes and settings than xeroxing the TWOK formula ad nauseum. Because I honestly believe that the generic "blockbuster format" does NOT exist the way you look at it. Yeah, big budget movies follow a certain shared visuality and some plot elements are present in most of them. But no, the world-ending superthreat is NOT present in each and every blockbuster. That's mainly a Star Wars and comic book movie thing... On the contrary: For example, James Bond has cut back on "world ending threats" significantly in the modern blockbuster era (compared to its origins in the 1960s) and many big-budget space movies have done so too. Also violence - while being present in modern-day Trek in a more bloody, gory way I happen to dislike A LOT - has always been a HUGE part of Trek since Kirk's early fistfights on TOS. Only the style and FX have changed. Sex appeal on DSC and PIC? It's hardly visible compared to 1960s "less is more" Theissian wardrobe of TOS. If anything, Trek has been way too tame for decades. The influence of comic-book movies and their looming world-ending threat on NuTrek is clearly there, especially in DSC S2 and PIC S1. But I disagree upon its omnipresence in DSC S1+3... On the contrary. In S1, the world-ending threat was a minor side plot and in S3 it wasn't even there... The Burn was an accident caused by an innocent creature mourning the loss of his mother. It doesn't get any more Star Trek than this! The main villain Osyra was a side plot. I also disagree on Mando being entirely different. It is riddled with nostalgia through and through and it produces piles of dead bodies along the way. Mando may be a stylistic departure from what you call the blockbuster formula but it's not better than Disco, it's just different. You seem to have an ongoing struggle with what you call "nostalgia"... The return of Spock and Pike - a dream-come-true beyond words for me - seems to be your personal white wale. No wonder you weren't able to get into LDS. The thing is... I don't even see much "nostalgia" beyond some minor cameos like with Spock or Riker in a few episodes... NuTrek has many issues but "nostalgia" for the sake of it is NOT one of those. If anything, there has been too little of that nostalgia on the visual and canonical frontline. If anything, DSC tried too hard to look and feel different. It tried too hard to appeal to a modern-day audience visually and conceptually, with all its gratuitous TV-MA elements. Apart from some minor ideas, it was never nostalgic about Old Trek. Spock appeared in only a handful of episodes, "Baby Yoda" was the driving force in Mando. So no, I don't see ANY trace of an overabundance of nostalgia and am eagerly waiting for SNW to deliver a full dosage of it shortly... The issue with your assessment is that you overgeneralize the term and significance of "blockbuster style", applying that term to almost every high budget movie of the last 40 years. If you say that every genre movie that isn't a specialized arthouse gem emulating far-eastern silent movies, is a formulaic blockbuster, then yes, every movie will look and feel the same to you and you will find traces of that style in all of modern Trek or even the Next Gen movies or VOY... I for once can see a BIG difference between Star Wars 8 and 9 or even Transformers 1 and 2... It does NOT look and feel the same to me, whereas most "arthouse" movies I've ever tried to survive DID look and feel the same... Also, Trek has NEVER been hard sci-fi. It started as an outer space action program "in living color" and it was never about realism and stories that made sense to an astronomy scholar. Trek used to be about scantly dressed beauties using supernatural abilities to turn people into stones! It was about Kirk fighting a Gorn and a Mugato, space battles with Doomsday Weapons and invisible Romulans. It was about amok-running computers, colorful superbrains giving you illusions, energy creatures possessing kids and a giant pizza protecting its children... in other words: easy to summarize tropes! TNG and DS9 may have had their cerebral moments deep-diving into morality and philosophy but even in those shows I prefer living oil taking on away teams, ancient masks turning the Enterprise into a space maze and even campy 3D adventure games on DS9: Allamoraine! So that difference between Trek and Wars is simply not that much of a gap. The aspects of Old Trek I loved as a kid used to be very Star Wars-y. I love Trek being weird, campy and corny space adventure with lots of action and explosions. It is PERFECT for emulating the comic-book or Star Wars formula, I only wish they'd give us more truly strange new worlds along the way... Trek brought us Apollo and his green space hand decades before Thor made it to big screen... Trek does NOT have to "apollogize" (pun intended!) for trying to get a piece of the action in our comic-book ridden day and age! We had Apollo first! NuTrek has serious issues with anachronistic tech inclusion and incoherent story arcs. It suffers from an initial outburst of making it too contemporary, distopian and "mature" in imagery. But neither nostalgia nor its modern cinematic filming style are a huge issue in my book, basically because I happen to like both and "nostalgia" isn't even a huge thing in NuTrek. And also, as much as I try to get your point... modern "blockbuster" cinema is far too diverse in style and substance to regard it with such oversimplified generalization. Even the MCU encompasses a subtle diversity of style and theme. But yeah, I am glad we got three "blockbuster" KT movies to "assimilate" that era of movie making into our franchise collective. You know, I see it just the other way round. Not Trek turned into "blockbusters" but blockbusters became part of Trek. It's explosions on the outside and Star Trek at its core, not vice versa. But I think the most important difference between us is that I DO like the overall state of modern movie-making a lot. You think these movies and franchises are tiresome corporate film-making. I think that they still offer a wide range of styles and themes in general with CBMs arguably having become a little too dominant and influential in recent years. But that's what people want. I consider it tiresome and pointless to complain about mass appeal from an elitist POV. I hear you and I take you very seriously but I disagree with most of what you have to say. Sorry...
I had to pause so many times because you made me think. I like thinking. I actually fell asleep during the first season of Mando. Never finished it. Only watched season 2 to avoid spoilers. (This is consistent. When I was a kid, Star Wars was on TV (A New Hope), and I fell asleep.) PS: I'm a Trekkie.
Yo, bullshit. I say this as a Madolorian fan and, someone who deeply hates STD/Disco. Mando absolutely has puzzle box story telling, nostalgia bait, world shaking stakes and, gratuitous sexy characters there to be wall dressing. It's just good execution. It's just trash like every other piece of Star Wars.
I just realized why I don't like Star Trek Discovery, and a lot of other shows. It lacks an underlying moral center. Offensive things are always happening, but instead of serving as context for the struggle of the hero it's just "Hey, look at all this awesome injustice, isn't it great? Let's watch the human suffering. Should be fun." I never could get into that, and that's why I don't like horror movies. I'm a good person.
The only reason I've watched superhero movies from the last decade or so is to humor my brother who thinks they awesome and amazing and "the best thing since sliced bread". Section one covered a lot of the reasons that I don't like them. I find almost all of them trite and boring and not worth going to the theater to see even one time. _Dune_ on the other hand, I've heard so many good things about (from people with similar tastes to my own) that I'm seriously considering braving the crowds to go see it in theater. The main factor that that makes or breaks a modern blockbuster (at least as far as my personal enjoyment of it) is the soundtrack/score. if the soundtrack selection really "fits" or if the composer makes good use of lietmotifs and really can match what's going on visually, even a mediocre movie can become enjoyable (or at the very least, tolerable).
As with many comments made already, I'll echo some disagreement. Or rather, it feels the arguments made here aren't entirely iron-clad. One thing I'll highlight is I feel TNG is being held on a pedestal, which I would have done had I not been rewatching it over the past year. And while there's certainly good stuff even relatively early on, the first couple seasons are overall pretty terrible and clearly trying too hard to be TOS but flopping (which in fairness DS9 tried to be TNG and VOY tried to be DS9 at the beginning of their respective shows).
So I'm going to address things point by point: 1) Action - you claim that Mando doesn't rely on action and violence and spectacle as Disco, yet that's not entirely true, Mando has plenty of action sequences just as much as Disco has, and this does not address also that Disco's action sequences are used to also at times explore character, just as much as Mando does. 2) Quippy one-liners - you slam Disco with the charge of having quippy one-liners but ignores that Mando has quippy one-liners as well, this is not a phenomenon that is adherent to one show and should be fairly placed on both shows. 3) World-ending stakes & puzzle box storytelling & plot twists - yes Disco and Picard does have world ending stakes and puzzle box storytelling, but Lower Decks (and Prodigy) does not, I think this video's failure to include Lower Decks is questionable and at least to me, seems due to because you have a thesis statement to prove about Star Trek that Lower Decks does not fit into so two seasons of the show is just not counted in this discussion of the future of Star Trek versus Star Wars. But non-world ending stakes in Trek stories does exist just as it does in Mando, and if anything, Lower Decks has a lesser puzzle box storytelling than Mando which puzzle boxes over Baby Yoda is still not solved and ultimately left unsatisfying. And as for plot twists, even Disco's most big plot twist were things that it laid the breadcrumbs for that when it happened, it wasn't even a twist as simply a story folding out the way it directed viewers to think it would be. 4) Streamlined stories and characters & sex appeal - Both Mando and Disco have streamlined stories and sex appeal, if anything, Mando has more streamlined simplicity while Disco actually has complicated character journeys and dynamics that aren't always easily solved. And picking out one villainous character from Picard while ignoring other Trek villains who aren't made for "sex appeal" is again very disingenuous. It ignores how characters are used for the show and does not question that Mando has sexy but emotionally distant villains and anti-heroes as well. 5) Nostalgia - this is perhaps where the disingenuous painting of Trek and Wars to be most egregious, for Mando, you only bring up Luke Skywalker and only paints him in a way that he's there to reward fans and broaden the core audience and thus it's okay, but you do not criticize at all how Mando has had a revolving door of nostalgia cameos, most of them actually serve very little purpose in the narrative nor does it deepen anything about the nostalgic characters themselves. You bring up Disco, Picard, and even Lower Decks to criticize their use of nostalgia, yet not addressing how each of those nostalgic characters are used to serve the narrative and that those characters actually grow and change and become something new and does not remain static "point and look at something familiar yay!" type of memberberries. You criticize Disco's use of Spock and say the show "fumbled" without providing any depth to that argument and acting as if it's a fact. You do not address that Spock's inclusion in Disco's story provided a new family dynamic perspective to Michael and Spock's lives when they were kids, and that it gave new layers to both of these characters' struggles and even to that of Sarek and Amanda. Does "fumbled" nowadays means a fan campaign to push for a show that would include that very "fumbled" Spock as a main character? You do not address that Picard's usage of Seven shows her in a different stage in her life dealing with different traumas of her past and how she reconciles with the state of the galaxy, or that Riker and Troi's appearances further humanizes both characters and gives them new layers and complexity as parents that they never had before. Even Lower Decks, a show intentionally made to play in the Trek reference sandbox, uses old characters to service the narratives of their main show characters. You seem to count the quantity, without analyzing its quality, all the while ignoring that Mando was from day 1 steeped in nostalgia but that seems to be easily excused, we don't even get mentions of Ahsoka or Boba or Bo Katan or the dark saber or death watch or Cobb Vance or a bunch of other easter egg stuff. Mando may be a soft lighthearted easily digestible fare, but it is ultimately made to be safe and inoffensive and reuses old elements rather than doing anything truly new whether in terms of narrative or even in terms of representation. It relies heavily on the nostalgia factor, often uses that in place of actually doing anything with the story, thus leaving its characters often static and never moving forward. Ultimately, I find this video to be unfairly biased and overly critical of new Star Trek while unwilling to extend the same critical view towards new Star Wars, and by ignoring other new Trek shows like Lower Decks (which has had two seasons already) and Prodigy and the eventually upcoming Strange New Worlds, it paints a disingenuous picture of the future of Star Trek which already has stories that eschews the very modern blockbuster problems you criticize Trek to have. You say it can't be the same thing every time or audiences will peel away yet Picard, Disco, Lower Decks, and Prodigy are all different shows, and you don't criticize that Mando does the same thing both seasons and repeats beats and plot points. And if the blockbuster format is the problem, doesn't another format being repeatedly used also come into the same repetitive problem that the blockbuster format comes into? Something that seems already happening with Mando.
I love star trek but star wars not so much. Now its the other way around. The new "Star Trek" ist so undemanding, bad written and dull. I really hope strange new worlds is better but I don't expect it to be. Same with Picard. First Episodes were promising but it got so worse...
huh episodic ensemble in sci-fi clothes broke the mold? I have issue with TNGphiles! TNG was a good show, but I argue it didn't do anything ground breaking, just had a handful of really good episodes
At the time (and even into the 90's) TNG absolutely was groundbreaking. Not only in regards to how it compared and contrasted with TOS but also in its production value and pacing in comparison to other genre television shows at the time. It is easy for us to forget that as fans (especially younger fans who might not remember what the world was like when TNG started) but it was very much a big deal for a lot of very real reasons.
@@startrekmike being slightly different than the original is NOT groundbreaking! was it a "big deal", I'll grant you that - bit episodic ensemble pieces are not - as I said TNG hand a handful of standout episodes, but it didn't break the mold
TNG was groundbreaking, but a re-dedication to TOS, at the same time. A perfection of the original, cancelled show. Both of these things are true. And another true thing is that maybe Trek hasn't been as good since TNG / DS9. Perhaps.
@@SC-mq1eh Are you speaking from a modern perspective as a fan who has watched TNG alongside all of the shows that have come after or are you looking at TNG as it fit in the overall television ecosystem of 1987 specifically? That distinction is important. When I look at TNG from my perspective as a 2021 fan of the franchise that has seen every episode, film, and read a ton of stuff about the production of said films and TV, I will inevitably see TNG as part of a larger trend that continued long after it went off the air. From that perspective, TNG does lose a lot of its luster. In contrast, when I think back and look at TNG as it premiered in 1987, it was absolutely ground breaking television at the time. I may not think it was Trek's finest show overall but I can't pretend that it wasn't a massive, breakthrough event for TV as a whole. There really wasn't anything else on TV that was doing what TNG did (at the time of its premier). It had massive production values, a new style of writing that Trek had not really seen and wasn't really present in 1980's programming, and it managed to do all that under INTENSE scrutiny from fans. Perspective is very important here. It is important to recognize how one's perspective is influenced by familiarity and the passage of time. For those that remember TNG's premier, it is hard not to see how groundbreaking it was when you look back and really consider the larger television scene at the time.
@@startrekmike hype and budget aren't ground breaking - the storytelling wasn't new - Buck Rogers and OG BSG did the same thing in the 80s - TNG was sometimes more clever and sometimes much better - and sometimes just as bad
This is pretty cynical. You bring up good points but I don't think you've realized that you've defined blockbuster as things you don't like, and not blockbuster as things you do.
While I can totally see your POV on Star Trek, I really disagree with your very kind reading of Mandalorian. I found mandalorian to be just as reliant on referencing other Wars series. I mean, there’s a dude in season 1 sitting in Han Solo’s seat wearing his clothing. Season 2 has us meet Ashoka, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and other Clone wars characters, often in fairly shoehorned ways.
I also agree with your take on Disco from a macro perspective, believe me I have big issues with the world ending stakes and tons of needless fights in Disco, but I think also that it has a ton of really wonderful individual episodes especially in Season 3 that eschewed this, honing in on individual characters. Don’t Forget Me I thought had a wonderful evocation of queer culture. Unification III felt like it moved Trek forward in a way that other series had been afraid to do since Deep Space Nine.
Obviously feel free to disagree, but I feel like you analyze the macro issues with Discovery and not the micro successes, and do the inverse to Mando.
I also disagree that Spock was fumbled, but you just state it as fact here without analysis, which is… an issue.
Anyways, sending you love my friend
Yo! Appreciate the reply.
We'll admit to the premise of this video being conjecture or opinion. But...we feel the argument being made is clear. This isn't a video about every little success and sin of each series. Instead, it is about the form factor each show is utilizing to tell its stories, the container...as Nicolas Meyer would put it, the wine bottle holding the different vintages of Trek. Disco and Picard are using the blockbuster format. And Mando is using a format established and embellished by Kurosawa and Leone, a "western" format.
We only talked about those forms in our video and not much else. Disco and Picard have fantastic ingredients. The score is phenomenal. The actors are top notch. The ingredients of the story, the concepts, all can work and work well. The visual effects are beyond stunning. The successes you mentioned, on queer representation, are excellent, needed and very Trek. But, all of that is being curtailed to service the blockbuster format the showrunners insist on using...it is limiting the true greatness of all the spectacular ingredients they've assembled. There's no balance in that form as it is currently being used. Those ingredients never get a chance to breathe. The blockbuster format detracts, curtails from the nearly ineffable quality that makes Trek what it is.
Is Mando too self-referential? Too much referencing other shows and television? Oh yea...but that is extremely Star Wars. That's the brand. The original Star Wars in 1977 was a giant love letter to Akira Kurosawa. It was basically a colorized version of "The Hidden Fortress" in sci-fi clothing. George Lucas admits as much. So, for the Mandalorian, that is the most Star Wars thing it can do. But Mando re-dedicates itself to those original Star Wars influences and does so in a balanced way. Until the second season, which was basically loaded down with nostalgia and backdoor pilots, Mando stayed true to those original influences and self-referential homage.
We aren't pretending to be the end-all-be-all here. This is just conjecture on our part. We can't say of the powers-that-be running Disco and Picard are intentionally using the blockbuster format or if it is so much saturated in the water with them that they don't know any other way to do it. And, film is a subjective medium. Everyone's takeaway will be different, at different ages and time of life. But for our money, after watching four years of the Kurtzman-era Trek, we are exhausted. Just plain exhausted. It can't be the same thing every time or the audience will start to peel away. And it is possible that is what we are seeing...there's lots of division on the newer Treks and different areas of the fandom are devising a variety of reasons as to why they are dissatisfied. I don't think they are able to be nuanced about their dislike - it seems to be that they can't quite put a finger on the "why" of their dislike accurately, so they invent a host of, sometimes, terrible excuses. Hopefully we've made our case here that it is not the ingredients of the show that are the issue but the form factor they are shoving those ingredients into. But, we can't claim to be the authority here. We are just voicing our opinion.
But, you know, if you are interested, we'd be happy to discuss it. A rebuttal video would be ripe for conversation.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I deeply, deeply wish that I could feel as enthusiastic about the character work in Discovery as you do. Early in the show's run, I was very strongly in favor of giving it a fair chance and even defended it against detractors who I felt were coming down hard on it for often rather odd reasons (the change in production design, being "too futuristic to be pre-TOS" and other similar complaints that can easily be explained away by increased budgets and the like). Sadly, now that season four is almost here, I have had to come to terms with the fact that this is the first time I have not really looked forward to upcoming Trek. To be blunt, I found season three to be a bit of a mess and its characters (and especially their dialogue) seem to be (at least to me) the core problem.
The biggest issue (again, in my opinion as a individual fan) is that the scripts just don't feel very convincing. As an example, let's look at TOS. Even in some of its most infamously bad episodes, the moment to moment dialogue often is pretty solid. Each character has a defined voice and the writers are clearly very comfortable with both utilizing those voices and blending them together into good ensemble cast scenes. There are a lot of times in TOS where characters have very relatable, very normal conversations with each other. There is this sense of normality to the whole thing that lets the audience really immerse themselves in the characters and their interactions. This is something you will see quite a bit of even as you go through TNG, (especially) DS9, Voyager, and (also especially) Enterprise. You get the sense that the characters are well trained professionals who have flaws but can exist on a spaceship together and interact like you would expect people to interact.
This gets into something that is somewhat hard to express but I will do my best. Even going back to TOS, there is a sort of "timeless neutrality" to the characters and their interactions. When you watch TOS, you can certainly see various elements drawn from the 1960's but the show isn't really built around expressing those elements directly. It has moments where it does but as a whole, it tries to stick to expressing its own voice independent of its date of production. The same can be said of what we might call the "80's/90's Trek era" where you can watch the shows and see certain elements that directly indicate what timeframe they were written in but as a whole, the shows have a sort of "neutral" quality that makes them feel somewhat "timeless". Perhaps it is that they don't really try to add a strong sense of drama and emotional tension into every scene. Sometimes you just have Kirk and Scotty having a normal, casual conversation. Sometimes you have Riker and Geordi having a subdued, pretty relatable conversation about relationships. Sometimes you have Bashir and O'Brien just being big kids who just like to hang out and indulge in their hobbies. There are all these moments in those shows that are calm and let the characters breath a bit and seem a bit more real and a bit less "overwritten in the script".
Discovery is a sharp contrast. While the cast is fine, the story concepts are okay, and the general production design is pretty impressive (even if I find some of it bizarre like the 32nd century ship design logic), the scripts themselves feel very "overwritten". Whenever a character speaks, it feels like something that you might find in the first draft of a script written by a new, very enthusiastic screenwriter that wants every line, every word to be laden heavily with drama and raw, unbridled emotion. When Kirk, Sisko, Picard, Janeway, or even Archer gave a expositional log entry at the beginning of the episode, it sounded like something that you would actually find in a ship's log. When we get logs in Discovery, they feel a lot like a teenager's diary with all the "clever" literary references, excessive whimsy, and emotional outbursts that come with that. When characters are interacting, it is as if the script demands that everything be incredibly dramatic and emotionally charged. Nothing can just be calm and any internal logic takes a back seat to the whims of the writers and their favorite "pet" characters and concepts.
To put it another way, Discovery feels like it was written by one of the CW DC superhero show writing teams. It feels like it is written to only really serve a VERY specific subset of the fanbase (the young teenage to twenty-something market) but ends up coming off as a almost patronizing unintentional parody of that market. There are moments (especially in the third season) where the show's writers almost look directly into the camera and tell the audience "our focus testing told us that this line would make the target market "squee" in enthusiasm" but all those lines do is make the show feel incredibly dated even only a short time after it aired.
This brings me to a somewhat controversial aspect of Discovery as it compares to other Trek shows. Star Trek has ALWAYS been progressive (though I would argue Voyager is a pretty strong exception since it didn't really have much to say about anything at all) but all those previous shows had a way pretty cleverly imbed those progressive messages in a way that doesn't (often) feel super "on the nose". TOS's 'Let that be your last battlefield' may have some pretty overt racial commentary but it always kept that Star Trek lens in front of the issue so that it still felt pretty natural. You can watch the episode and see that it is talking about contemporary racism (in the 1960's) but you can also watch the episode as another interesting happening on the Enterprise and it still feels solid. It still works. Likewise. You can watch DS9's two-parter 'Past Tense' and see that it is VERY clearly talking about 90's poverty and economic inequity but it also manages to feel pretty natural. It has that "timeless" quality that I spoke of earlier. Even if poverty was no longer a real-world issue, the episodes would still work and still feel well integrated into the larger franchise.
DIscovery has problems with that and a lot of them come down to the writers either not trusting the audience to understand more subtle, less overt social issue references or not having a strong script editing process that can really peel away a lot of the clumsiness and make everything feel more cohesive. Whereas other Trek shows would use futuristic characters to explore often subtle contemporary issues, Discovery's writers use very obviously contemporary characters to deal with very obviously contemporary issues that often feel out of place with the larger franchise. Picard also has this issue and in pretty much the exact same way. Everything feels contemporary. The characters could just as easily be 21st century versions of their 23rd, 25th, or 31st century versions.
While this description might be overgeneralizing and maybe even hyperbolic, Discovery's characters feel more like modern, stereotypical college-age kids and young adults than they do futuristic members of the Star Trek universe. To go even further, Discovery feels like it is written to target that specific subset DIRECTLY at the cost of everything else. This feels odd since Star Trek had traditionally avoided overtly targeting only specific age groups before (thus aiding in that "timeless" feeling). It becomes even more odd when you consider that CBS's recent push back into Star Trek as a property has largely been biased towards children and teens with Prodigy, The Lower Decks, and Discovery. Even Picard has a feeling that it is very, very specifically targeting young Trek fans who view TNG through the distorted lens of artificial, social media fueled nostalgia and not the audience that actually really engaged with the show directly.
I hope that 'Strange New Worlds' will help bring back some of that casual timelessness that made Star Trek last fifty-five years. When Pike and crew appeared in Season 2, it looked like the writers were able to make them feel a bit more natural and casual. This is also helped by having Anson Mount as a lead who will lend a certain "older, more professional, more emotionally mature adult" quality to the franchise that it will quite desperately need. Sadly (and I do mean sadly), I don't have a lot of hope for Discovery and (especially) Picard. I wish I did. I really, really do. I just don't.
Really pleased to see you here Jessie... yourself and Trekspertise are so eloquent I really can't add much other than while I don't have any issues with Star Trek movies using a blockbuster formula, it saddens me when any new series goes down the MCU path cos that just feels churned out to a formula... TNG and Voyager were my first Trek loves (and DS9) and my favourite episodes actually have very little action... I call them the 'quiet' episodes... stories very particular to a Star Trek universe that are just about stuff that happens.. these are the ones I watch over and over again... some have really important subtext and some are just comfy and enjoyable
Oh for sure you are spot on with The Offspring thats a brilliant example... and how 2 androids just trying to exist like everyone else could cause you to feel so much emotion... gotta go now... seem ...to have something in eyes ☹️
You enjoy Lower Decks. Therefore, almost all of your opinions are invalid.
I hope some day we'll get an old school star trek series again. Without the blockbusterization you described here.
Strange New Worlds might have it.
Unfortunately, there is no one to write something like that anymore.
The Orville is kind of a spritual successor to Star Trek. The humor is a bit different and the relaxed attitude of the characters is more like in a normal workplace than in starfleet. It has good characters, storylines and a lot of TNG vibes.
@@Siderite Oh, you could find someones to write it - would you find a studio willing to take a chance on it, and be able to withstand the bitching about it?
@@Siderite I totally disagree. Writing is one of the oldest human gifts. We still have lots of good storytellers out there.
Mando/Bad Batch/Clone Wars Final Season prove it.
And there is an author out there somewhere who knows Trek and how to guide it into the modern aesthetic. Someone just needs to hire me.
;)
I never really wondered why I could barely finish Discovery season 2 while devouring The Mandalorian, even though I consider myself to always be more biased towards a Star Trek setting than a Star Wars one. But after seeing this it all now makes sense to me, just like some long forgotten memory finally surfacing in your consciousness - Mandalorian stands on its own, exploring the greyness between black and white out there without forcing some epic journey to save the universe onto you. I guess this is also what bugged me on Star Trek: Picard, even though I kind of enjoyed the series so far, maybe besides the last episode - but somehow the closest to what I consider a 100% subjective "real Star Trek experience" to me in modern Star Trek is Lower Decks. Sure, it has a very lighthearted surface and caters to nostalgia A LOT, but somehow it shows you some not so epic side of Star Trek with a crew stuck in mundane side quests while the real hero ships are doing important work for the greater good out there - which to me is a really refreshing factor.
Same, that is also one the reasons Lower Decks is so appealing. Some of my favorite Star Trek is the day to day stuff on the Enterprise. Not everything has to be world-ending to be engaging.
I became completely disinterested in Picard when the overarching story arc was revealed. Already had a bit of burnout from "rogue AI becoming a galactic threat" from Discovery Season 2, so for that to be essentially rehashed in Picard was really disappointing. Picard was advertised to be a slower-paced character study, but instead it felt like another blockbuster flick; a single diplomatic monologue from Picard to defuse the situation (instead of a Discovery-style space battle) seemed really superficial.
Kinda ironic that Discovery and Picard are meant to be the flagship series of modern Trek, but so far the most celebrated modern Trek series (at least among dedicated Trek fans) has been Lower Decks.
It might be ironic, but mainly it is rather sad in hindsight. Basically, Lower Decks' success comes primarily from its superficiality. Its aesthetics (the show resembles the pre-2005 shows and films) and its countless heaps of mostly cheap nostalgia/fan service, which was largely dismissed in the video essay above, by the way.
I've been a Trekkie for over 30 years now and I really do not need to see recycled stuff I already saw multiple times a quarter of a century ago as a teenager. I've evolved since then and Star Trek needed to evolve too.
P.S. - Kyle from Trekspertise hates Lower Decks. You should watch his review of Season 1, here on the channel.
I agree with the sentiment. I have yet to see SNW, but I also don’t need the Dark storytelling in Picard and early Discovery. I did like Discivery Season 4 (particularly the resolution of it all which was not the violent death of a villain for a change. Although the aliens were very similar to Arrival, but that’s a better source to copy from than Marvel :)
Thanks for an illuminating, fun, informed, and satisfying 30+ minutes of commentary that perfectly articulates why New Trek struggles to be good storytelling and a satisfying continuation of the Trek universe while Mando Lone Wolf and Cub (and potentially New TV Star Wars) seems inspired, layered and an evolution of the source material. I eagerly await the next video.
Our pleasure!
I agree
Except for the 'inspired' bit.
Mando is heavily reliant on familiarity and nostalgia to obfuscate its anaemic story.
I thoroughly enjoyed mando, btw.
But its very, very safe, and wisely so in the face of the awful disney star wars movies
@@Bow-to-the-absurd I agree. Mando is heavily reliant on familiarity and nostalgia, both for Star Wars mythos as well as the Samurai genre and Western genre. It does so with a masterful understanding of those genres and its tenants. Disco, however, isn't interested in the mythos or genre mechanics of Star Trek, just nostalgia in the most superficial way -- often in the service of a bait and switch.
Yeah, they didn't fumble Spock. He was SO well done there in DIS
I'm really curious what they're gonna do with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I hope it'll be a revitalization of Trek and not just a meager nostalgia trip.
Us, too.
They talked about how they’re going to explore Spock’s feelings and they have Uhura and someone with the last name of Noonien Singh. There will probably be a bunch of annoying “remember this” moments.
Maybe, Lower Deck is full of nostalgia and works quite well, imo.
I needed this. Definitely worth the wait. Can't wait to see what's coming up next!
Several nice videos :)
I really enjoy your videos, I hope they keep coming🤘🏽
Got a new one dropping today! At 1730 US Central Time!
@@Trekspertise YAY you've always been my favorite Star Trek go to 🤘🏽next to Jesse Gender
You should talk about Star Trek Deep Space Nine and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, and how Ronald D. Moore was allowed to take his style where it wasn't always welcome.
GREAT topic!
DS9 and Galactica are masterpieces!
Great Video. Thanks for creating!
Thank you a whole bunch for watching it!
Good points. It will be interesting to see how the 2 franchises continue to develop
Absolutely fantastic discussion both about elements in the evolution of modern film making and the past and future of one of my favorite franchises. This video essay, like everything on this channel, is dense with insights and clearly a labor of love. There are at least 3-5 other pieces of content under the surface here I'd love to hear more about someday, from a good discussion of Wrath of Khan to the relationship between Star Wars and Star Trek when they competed in theaters in the 1980s. There's no mention here of Lower Decks, save in your analysis of nostalgia - I feel like you'd offer insights there too. Thanks so much - your videos, rare though they are, brighten up whole weeks of months and get me thinking every time.
Much obliged, friend! Thank you for taking the time to watch all this. Makes our hearts warm =)
Should we do a patron hangout?
God damnit I just realized the "ads" weren't actually ads, I skipped them for nothing lmao
~*laughs in filmmaker*~
Brilliant essay/video, thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it!
So glad to see new content. While I like Disco better than I think you guys do, you're not wrong about he Blockbuster Problem. Now, lest we forget, Trek didn't start playing with high stakes, explody loudness with Disco and JJ-Trek. You mentioned TWOK, but I'd include episodes like the Doomsday Machine as possessing many of those Blockbuster tropes. Mando has them too! Crazy shootouts, dogfights and battles make mando exciting and fun. But so do the intimate details, like Grogu and a pregnant frog lady. What would help Disco is not less Blockbuster but more intimate stakes... this does not include weepy childlike aliens with explosive psychic tendencies, but more focus on things it's doing only halfway so far, like Adira and Grey, Michael's mommy issues, and other soapy bits without getting too soapy. Anyway, BIG fun watching a new Trekspertise. Keep it up!
Also, pray for Strange New Worlds.
Great work (as always) Kyle [and the team]!
Thank you for watching!
Discovery for me has a similar problem I had with Voyager, it just won't get out of it's own way,solid premises that they just won't run to the finish line with
Picard just felt like a waste of time, they should've done the book instead
What doesn't work? Turning Star Trek into Gilmore Girls in space.
Oooph, right in the jugular.
The most basic problem with Discovery is that it lacks story coherence. You take Mandalorian out of the Star Wars universe and things still make sense. You understand what the characters want, the progression of the story makes sense, they flesh out the world and how things work.
Discovery lacks basic logic in character motivation, story progression, and world building. Look at season 3 for example, they're 800 years into the future, the crew is trying to get acclamated to the new time, they spend weeks with the remnants of Starfleet trying to get up to date. Yet, even after their training, they lack basic knowledge of the state of the galaxy.
The characters themselves also showed no curiosity about their homeworlds. After weeks in the future and access to Starfleet's database, the characters are surprised to learn basic information about their people in that time. So at no point did any of the crew wonder, "it's been 800 years, I really hope that my homeworld/species are still doing OK." But nope, they have no curiosity or initiative of their own, it's only when the plot reveals that their species is still around that they sigh in relief that their people aren't extinct.
There's also a general lack of understanding of very basic science in Discovery and Picard. One example is a really really stupid scene where a Starfleet admiral pointed out that replicated food is made from shit. I guess the writers don't know what manure is. It's basic knowledge that you learn in elementary school. We use shit to grow food, but that doesn't mean our food is shit. The replicator is just a much more advanced form of rearranging matter.
I think this is more a result of the aping of blockbusters. Characterisation is done round archetypes and tropes to make it easily readable for casual audiences, world building is to serve the story and the plot happens in the most dramatic manner for that episode.
oof most of your arguments don't hold water ESPECIALLY the science argument - you do know that tachyons can't really fix a rupture in subspace, right? or that FTL is pretty hard and won't likely be made easier by a fictional analog of what powers your cellphone
@@SC-mq1eh I think you responded to the wrong comment.
@@Exospray while characterization in blockbusters is simplified and exaggerated, they still have room to give the characters nuance and make them more than just agents to drive the plot forward.
I don't expect Discovery to have slower character scenes unrelated to the plot like the Enterprise crew holding a concert or Bashir and O'Brien planning their defense of the Alamo. But they can give the characters something. Like, what do we know about the Discovery characters' hobbies and interests outside of their duty to Starfleet? Heck, we know that Data likes to paint and compose music and he's an android who can work non-stop. We know that Captain America is trying to learn about all the pop culture he missed and that's in a 2 hour action blockbuster.
@@KingOfMadCows
TNGera series gave characters "depth" due to contractual obligations, filler episodes to pad out a season - and saying characters aren't fleshed out in Disco is I'm hoping your pretending to be naive
From another life-long Trek fan (and filmmaker/cinephile): Thank you, Trekspertise.
This is a wonderful parsing of why I was drawn to Mando as a cinephile, and disappointed by Disco et al. as a Trekker.
I have so much more to say about current TREK, but this is most I've ever written in a comment. I actually think the only comments I've made on UA-cam (aside from supporting a friend's cooking videos!) are for Trekspertise videos...
The only comment on UA-cam?! Wow.
Glad you liked the video. Took a lot of work. Are you currently working on anything?
@@Trekspertise Upon reviewing my comment history, "only" is an exaggeration. However, I'm proud (too proud?) to say, of my 18 comments:
- 8 to support a close friend's cooking channel
- 4 for Trekspertise
- 3 for random cinematography questions
- 1 for a video about Lucasarts' "The Secret of Monkey Island"
- 1 for a '90s space channel promo spot prominently featuring star trek that would bring a tear to your eye - I had to hunt it down!
Right now, I'm taking steps towards a minimalist TREK fan film, and have a few projects I'm "developing". Otherwise, I would consider myself on indefinite hiatus!;p Thank you for asking!
Where can we see your short, BTW?
Now the longest comment I've ever written. A reminder of why I refrain from commenting!
I love your literary-style analysis, and appreciate all the work you folks do! Looking forward to the next one.
@@42specialboy You will soon be able to watch our short film! Oh yes!
You'll be able to watch our short film tomorrow :)
You put way too much effort in these videos for the amount of views you get. You definitely deserve more exposure. Keep up the great work!
Again, he never fails. The closer makes it an excellent episode!
Well done! Appreciate that reflection.
Thank you for watching!
Excellent essay as always Kyle and his gang did a great job analyzing Star Trek. Dif-tor heh smusma Kyle 🖖
Ha ha! The Wilhelm scream ironically used in a video about movies banking on nostalgia.
Glad someone noticed =)
Thank you for this. It’s difficult to openly criticise the exhausting spectacle that is modern Trek without getting dragged into a debate about wokeness or antiwokeness or whatever.
Exactly.
Yep, woke is good. Social Justice IS Star Trek. Multiverse rocking cataclysm is not. Not every season.
But its so overt in the show , how can any genuine discussion be had without it?
Not much of what you say is untrue. However, I have nearly finished re watching discovery and I am enjoying it much more this time. The faults are much less bothersome and it is SO Star Trek. I do enjoy the mandalorian, just not as much.
Fair enough!
I remember the 'deep space nine' isnt trek broohaha online 20 years ago.
Ds9 was different, but it also had great stories.
I didnt see any story in discovery.
Just rampant infantalism and fast paced stupidity.
Picard was even more so.
Mando. Where it is done on a lower budget so they can focus on smaller set pieces and good script and good acting. Discovery has a LARGE budget and focused on massively distracting CGI fests so that the audience doesn't see the bad writing and terrible directing
Mandalorian has a much larger budget than Discovery lol.
@@Ushio01 Really? Is that why it's so much better? Because it got more money?
The larger budget does help. But the concept from the top is what matters. Mando's showrunners are aiming for different territory than Disco's showrunners. It's just that simple.
@@Trekspertise Good point. One show doesn't blow all its budget on being flashy while the other blows what little budget it has for CGI effects
Kyle et al... It's been too long. More Trekspertise already. Thank you!
We've got two rich, big essays being done up right now!!
@@Trekspertise Love this. Long overdue. Your work is up there with my favourite on UA-cam.
Still waiting for Trekspertise to make a video about The Orville
Yea, well. It'll be a little while. And you likely won't like it.
The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was comparing Star Trek with Star Wars, leading to generations of people who think the shows are similar in some way. I have two words for you: Gene and Roddenberry.
Don't follow...
I love your videos so much. Aside from the fact that it's about Star Trek, your work is one of the best in the YT review/analysis genre. You could make analysis of Transformers and I would love it.
edit: is that the brother of Ronald D. Moore?
Wow, thanks! Wait, who is the brother of Ron Moore?
@@Trekspertise The dude in the white shirt that was the spokesman in the pharma "ad".
Amazing video, and agree wholeheartedly.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Ok, whats that end credits music?
Power Rangers Vs Godzilla: Battle for the Moon, is a movie i would love to watch!
P.S. After that ending and the excellent content, I yelled out aloud in my kitchen, "That was fucking awesome. I'm having a GOOD DAY now." hahaha
Haha. Thanks! Glad you dug it.
STAR TREK all the way!
"Live long and prosper" with your imagination & Sci-Fi reality.
The essay was great. But I need to add one thing to the differences between Mando and Disco… talented creators and writers. Keep all the worn out blockbuster tropes in Disco but find a dedicated and talented writing team…everything changes.
so those creators you probably despise in eps 7-9 that probably now work on Mando are all cool now? Mando is a cool show, but I'm not sure it's bc of the writing - the stories are mostly pretty simplistic, no?
Possibly. It might also be possible that the powers-that-be have chosen for Disco and Picard to stay inside the blockbuster box and that it is limiting a team of highly creative, smart people.
@@SC-mq1eh The stories are NOT simplistic. If they appear that way, it is because the filmmaking team are really good at their jobs.
@@KyleSullivan
saying Mandos story beats aren't simplistic is like saying Discos story beats aren't overwrought
@@KyleSullivan
and isn't Mando also Spielbergian by basically being a westerrn genre E.T.!
While I largely outright agree with your appraisal of modern (Discovery and Picard especially) Star Trek, I am not sure I entirely agree on your appraisal of The Mandalorian. When I watched the first season, I was pretty happy with the smaller scale and more deliberate overall pace but I also couldn't shake just how overtly it referenced famous westerns. With the original Star Wars trilogy, there were certain moments that drew clear inspiration from Lucas's influences, it wasn't quite as "on the nose" about it. There were shots that referenced Kurosawa and even plot elements but it was packaged in a way that made those references feel more organic. With The Mandalorian, the references are a lot more overt and while that isn't a bad thing exactly, it did make the show feel like it was having a bit of a identity crisis at times. All that being said, I loved the first season. I liked the references (even if I thought they were a bit too "on the nose") and the overall tone quite a bit.
The second season of The Mandalorian is another matter entirely. If I could place the blame on one problem specifically, it is that it felt like a season full of backdoor pilots for new shows. This wasn't helped when it didn't take long for Disney to reveal that a lot of it was backdoor pilots and while not all those shows are now going to happen, some of them are. The second season spent a lot of time establishing these new characters in a way that was often seen in Marvel films. It was hard not to see the "Blockbusterization" you speak of at work in a pretty big, overt way.
Mando's second season also had another element that you didn't really mention. It does have that "mystery box" in the form of Grogu's origin and purpose and the central villain's (Moff Gideon) motivation for going after him. The mystery box wasn't overt but it was very much there.
All this isn't to say it is a bad show or anything. I just think it had a rough second season in some specific ways that very much relate to your take on the blockbuster concept.
Yea, Mando's second season does suffer not just from the nostalgia factor, but from the Marvelization factor, as you rightly point out. Season 2 is about backdoor pilots. We were largely unhappy with those. But as well as it can be implemented, it was done well. Luke's presence made some sense for the story. And Groku's identity and origin are legit dramatic questions the show should spend time answering. In so much as Mando 'has' to do those things, Discovery did them far worse. Spock had no business being there, and Burnham had no business being in Spock's family.
@@Trekspertise As I said, I generally agree with your appraisal of Discovery and Picard. I would even go as far as to say that they are pretty much both lost causes at this point. I am deeply saddened that new seasons of Trek are coming that I am not at least a little bit excited about.
My statements about the second season of Mando were not so much to disparage the show but instead to point out that it isn't exactly above the blockbusterization we have seen in other modern films and TV.
@@startrekmike You are right on the money.
Thanks Great stuff!!
Thank you, Modern Blockbusters are Amazingk!
top video! tgank you so much for this
07:35 captain proton!
Really cool video and I pretty much agree. Star Trek - mind you I still enjoy Discovery & Co. - seems to have lost its identity and is struggling to find a way to link with the times. Be it the blockbuster storytelling you pointed out, the GoT-like darkness and brutality (Especially in the mirror universe episodes), adult comedy or now cg animation for teens and SNW might be a desperate attempt to follow in the older shows‘ footsteps (which might work, I hope at least), but there seems to be no real vision, no „I am Alex Kurtzman and I want to tell that particular story“, unlike The Mandalorian , The Bad Batch or even Star Wars Rebels and yes, also The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and Rogue One and Solo. On top of that, Star Wars is continues to push filmmaking technology with their new projection screens and the results are unreal - my mind was truly blown for the first time in a long time when I realized almost all of it is studio work, because every episode looks so much like location shots and it’s Hard to distinguish between artificial environment, sets and the few real locations they used. The story is also told in a truly cinematic way, requiring very little dialogue and conveying most of the story visually. And I felt most of the cameos and connections to previous elements (Bo Katan, Ahsoka, Cobb Vant and even Luke) worked, because they served an actual purpose in the story of Din Djarin and Grogu, whereas Ethan Peck‘s Spock - as good as he was - feels more shoehorned in than anything. That doesn’t mean, Mandalorian is perfect. I really thought Chapter 6: The Prisoner was a pretty weak episode and am not really sure about the way they brought Boba Fett back, but hey at the very least it feels sincere and fresh and original while also being clearly Star Wars and dealing with the landmark themes selfishness vs selflessness and family. I do wish Kurtzman the creative spark to make something truly unique and interesting with the Star Trek franchise and I felt Discovery Season 3 was a Great improvement over it’s previous two seasons, but right now, I think Star Wars is on a better track imo.
DISCO, DISCO, DISCO, DISCO ! ! ! ! :)
What's funny is that when I was young I was obsessed with Trek and had no interest in Star Wars. Now, as an adult, I find new Star Wars content incredibly engaging, and find myself watching Trek simply out of dedication while hating every minute of it. It makes sense that it's because of the reasons you've outlined, perhaps Star Wars has become a better Trek.
Seems to be the flavor right now.
Fantastic video and it warms my heart to see PR referenced and heavily agree with MMPR being overused for nostalgia it's been going for nearly 30 years and the other seasons deserve a shot at stardom
Thank you for taking the time to watch it!
Wait, PR?
@@Trekspertise sorry I am so used to talking to Power Rangers twitter that I didn't even think about abbreviations.
PR is Power Rangers and MMPR is the first 3 seasons.
I apologise again.
@@Jogproof Hah! No worries. Was a staple growing up. It didn't know people talked about it enough to abbreviate the title!
@@Trekspertise I will suggest trying out the Boom! Studios comics if you fancy a newer take on the show they are a really good celebration of the near 30 years worth of shows.
Not a Star Wars fan at all, but I loved The Mandalorian, and on the other hand, I'm a massive Star Trek fan, but struggled with Discovery and Picard... Let's see how ST: Prodigy fares.
Same.
And Prodigy is surprisingly good.
@@Trekspertise Trek will start getting it right at some point, the great cycle of life
You know new Star Trek is poorly managed if even Trekspertise, which just 2 years ago was optimistic and open minded about the new stories, has some scathing criticism for what they are making.
Leaving aside the debate over how good the stories actually are, popular streaming shows do not qualify as blockbusters. They're couchbusters.
Well. William Shatner ain't no astronaut, as long as we are clarifying things.
Love the after credit scene lol
Those guys were fantastic.
a post-credits sequence...I knew there had to be one as soon as it was first mentioned. lol
=)
You mean good storytelling carries the day? Shocker.
Every time.
I agree with pretty much everything you state, but I think another interesting angle to explore is how much more ambitious Trek is being in its stories.
While Star Wars is rejecting much of the modern blockbuster style and going retro, it’s also embracing the most simple plot and character choices possible. Everyone is an archetype. Every episode and every season can be summed up in single sentences. It’s excellently executed, but thematically it retreads what’s already been done, it’s greatest depth coming by fleshing out in live action some moral ambiguity that was already brought out in the animated Star Wars shows.
Star Trek, meanwhile, is firmly entwined with the modern Marvel-esque blockbuster style, which is an awkward fit, just as arguably it has always been. (This is why Trek movies have always been less interesting than the series for most fans.) Nevertheless, Trek has clearly been trying to build complex narratives and character arcs. We have contemplations of identity and mortality and old age. We have optimism in the face of hardship and the value of holding to ideals when they don’t seem to matter. We have characters whose allegiances and attitudes shift based on experiences and new understanding. Now, I’d argue that a lot of it is better in outline than in execution, but it’s clear what the franchise is trying to do, and it’s ambitious. They’re trying to fit in, but they’re also trying to be important and start conversations. Star Wars, on the other hand, is making great TV but playing safely in their sandbox.
In summary, Star Wars is trying to be a fun ride, and it’s succeeding. Star Trek is trying to say something important while being a fun ride and is sort of doing an okay job at both.
Star Trek is trying to say something important while being a fun ride and is sort of doing an okay job at both.
This is giving NuTrek way more charity than I'm currently willing to do anymore. Maybe I need different boinking on the head, but Discovery doesn't seem to be saying much of anything coherent to me. It plays like CW shows, where you're only supposed to remember about 2 minutes in either direction of where you are and go for the feelz. In Season 1 of Discovery - what was the complex narrative it was trying to tell? It seemed to basically be Michael Burnham was Mary Sue. The plot was also all over the place - was it about war? Cause they seemed to jump to the mirror universe and then skip the rest of the war when they came back. Was it about Lorca being a Terran? They didn't really do much with that but a heel turn at the end and didn't much examine how the whole ship followed a terran into some pretty bad actions (think Tardigrade). This leads into S2 and S3, they actually save / glorify / love the Terran Emperor FFS. Apparently they learned that the Terrans weren't so bad after all.
S2 - That was a muddled mess of a time travel story. At least as bad as Trek usually treats time travel, I can at least follow the loop or whatever. And they are all so stupid throughout that at the end, even after "Control" was defeated, they still jumped into the future. It makes no sense, but worse as I'm watching the show I'm constantly pulled out of the narrative because of insanely stupid choices in writing, characterization, or internal ST logic.
I could go on, but when I can't suspend my disbelief for a show, the execution is bad. And if the execution is bad ENOUGH, it makes it a bad show. And apparently it's so bad at communicating, there's a vocal part of the fanbase that can't see anything important NuTrek is trying to say.
@@jamespulver3890
I agree that the messaging gets somewhat lost in the spectacle, but I do think there is enough there to still understand what they have been going for:
DSC 1 culminates in the juxtaposition of the Federation vs the Terran mentality. Do we choose a path of self-sacrifice or one of using/abusing others to further our ends? It’s not just the Mirror episodes; the same theme shows up with the tardigrade and the awkward Klingon homeworld bit at the end. It’s all about as subtle as a sledge hammer, but it’s definitely trying to make a point. I do think that it was a good use of the Mirror universe and a timely question to ask, given the current political climate.
DSC 2 is much more interesting, I think. It started by asking questions about faith in something greater - a god or ideals - and ultimately answered those questions by putting faith in people who care about us and in ourselves. Personally, I would have liked more exploration of the earlier questions, but again, I can see how the progression and ultimate answers reflect a Roddenberry Humanism.
PIC 1 had not only the themes of mortality and old age but also asked questions about the consequences of idealism. Picard’s idealism ran up against institutional cynicism, and this caused him to temporarily give up. What happens when good people turn their backs or do nothing? The answer ultimately seems to be that idealism is always worth upholding or reclaiming for the good of the self and the good of everyone else, and that self-sacrifice is again the greatest virtue.
I’ll not argue that any of the seasons are masterpieces. I still don’t understand several aspects of the DSC 2 time travel plot, and I’m pretty sure that DSC 2, 3 and PIC 1 were all well underway before anyone tried to figure out how to wrap up the plots they were weaving. But yes, I do think they are trying to put forth messages that line up with the legacy values of Star Trek.
I don’t think Star Wars has ever tried to do much of this beyond the ideas that bad guys can be redeemed, that evil can be hidden in institutions, and that sometimes good and evil are more nuanced than we believe.
I haven't watched the Mandalorian, but I do feel like this successfully articulates some of the dissatisfaction I've felt towards new Trek series. I keep feeling like now is a fruitful time for a Trek series that went back to its roots for a new generation. A Next Next Generation, if you will.
In many ways, TNG did it the right way (despite the first 2 seasons being very shaky), with a reluctance to rely too heavily on references to the old. You had Old McCoy in the premier episode and then very little direct reference until "Sarek". Instead, it forged its own path using the same ethos that had been built up.
I just want one season of Discovery where it doesn't feel like the world is going to end or the ongoing problem is going to need solved at the end of the season. The Klingon Civil War in TNG was a 2-part episode. The Dominion War went on for several seasons. Trek can do long arcs that don't fit into a season structure. The part where Discovery really lost me for a while was its insistence on ending the Klingon-Federation War on a time schedule rather than where it made the most narrative sense
Future of Star Trek? It's dead Jim. There was a committed and dedicated audience largely starved of content, ST:D decided to abandon that audience in pursuit of a new larger demographic that I don't think they actually bothered trying to research or understand (my guess is that they just assumed it was people like them?). Unfortunately they way they have pursued that new audience has done a really effective job of alienating the existing one and they appear to be failing to establish much of a new one - though they are throwing a LOT of capital at trying to crack it (I think largely because CBS dont have many other viable options)
Between Mando and Disco, as a long term Trek fan and ambivalent Wars watcher, there's no competition. Mando is in a different league. Simply better.
Disco got 50% fewer tv eyeballs than enterprise did.
Yet its still somehow got a series 4.
Nu trek is a failure, On tv and film.
The teenage girls who miraculously went to the cinema for star trek 2009, did not return.
Nu trek on tv has alienated a large percentage of its existing audience yet failed to atract a new one.
Nu trek has less genuine representation than the pilot of ds9 in 1993
@@Bow-to-the-absurd It's not a mystery or at all surprising that Disco got renewed and will continue to do so. Just take a look at CBS's investor reports, the IP is a central component of their content licensing strategy. It doesn't matter if it's not doing the numbers, to back away from BR or Trek at this stage raises questions about their entire strategy and be harmful to the share price.
I think thats the bit of analysis that everyone misses, if something doesn't make sense look for the money and these days money isn't revenues and expenditures it's the share price and being "a growth company". In this context it makes perfect sense. So we can (sadly) look forward to much, much more Nu Trek. One thing you have to admit, Kurtzman is a shred businessman.
@@Bow-to-the-absurd
the jj films made more money - almost all the eyeballs that did watch disco/"nu-trek" PAID to do so - and "nu-trek" is carrying a subscription service that doesn't have much exclusive content, besides "nu-trek" - cbsaa/paramount+ has enjoyed double digit growth - none of that is failure - are there some upset fans, sure - but most of the fans I see upset are ones Id be happy to see leave the franchise
@@SC-mq1eh speechless
@@Bow-to-the-absurd
yeah when you combat hyperbole with facts, that's what usually happens
good vid, earned a sub, too bad the book of bobba fat was a stinker, regards from a malaysian utuber
“…even the original Star Wars.”
(Has to use footage from a Special Edition because Lucasfilm/Disney are twits)
Yea, that's a whole box of evil kittens, isn't it? George Lucas must be stopped.
A.K.A. Star Trek forgot how to be a TV show instead of a Blockbuster movie.
I'm not going to defend Discovery, because you are correct that it relies too heavily on Blockbuster trappings, world ending stakes especially and mostly shallow characters. But I will defend Star Trek Picard, because the blockbusterism to me appear to be tacked onto it by studio execs, I think what Michael Chabon had was a very trek story and the things put on the end like synth robot arms appearing through sky holes and copy and pasted romulan fleets and incestuous Tal Shiar operatives distract from good bones and the story could have been toned down and told without them.
The show was about dealing with regret. Picard is an extremely changed man due to having his bluff called over the Romulan evacuation mission. He is full of regret and loss over the man he was, his own actions took him from an admiral with history of being possibly the greatest captain in the fleet history, to a nobody writing history books. To him it is a loss like the alternate timeline at the end of the TNG episode Tapestry, except this time no hand waving will undo his mistakes. It is a journey for him to get back some of what he was, that perhaps he still is the man he was. But his regret colours much of what he does in the series. Everything else unfortunately is just Star Trek / Scifi window dressing and nostalgia, which is the show's biggest weakness, as much as I loved the Nepenthe episode.
I'm not saying the show is perfect, it does suffer from a lot of modern trek's short falls, but I find a lot of people complaining about Picard have missed the forrest for the trees.
I know you have compared modern trek to the mandolorian before, and they are very different shows - one Science Fiction the other a Science Fantasy Western so kudos on reframing it under blockbuster. This is clearly your much deserved love letter to the mando. good work
Some people get it, some don't aka Disco doesn't get it ...or Picard o.0 Funny thing is the people running Trek are Star Wars fans lol
Which to some degree makes sense. It isn't so much about the fandom, but they are leaning into what used to work with Star Wars, but doesn't anymore. These same blockbuster tropes are why the recent Star Wars trilogy wasn't good. Mando is the first departure from that. Disco and Picard are that all over again.
Blockbusters, No Feelings Allowed!
*Shows a clip from Fury Road a movie about feelings and, their consequences.
Nu-trek, instead of looking into current trend like social issues as every star trek does to help understand, they end up integrate it and never seem to look into the problem at all ,becoming the problem itself.
edit: "Somehow.."
I'd argue OG trek held your hand and painted the social issue of the day with a very large brush and gave you an obvious villain - modern trek does the same thing, just with less hand holding
@@SC-mq1eh Sorry if i missed your point but how is OG trek give an obvious villain?
@@alternative915
the guys in brownface, the guys in the Nazi uniforms, the bad admiral etc that was the "allegory" for the social message of the week
Your take on the two franchises is spot on, as usual. I was surprised at how good Mando was, especially coming on the heels of the last Star Wars movie, which made every mistake in your 33-minute inventory. Foundation is a bigger budget version of Disco, with casting really good actresses to fight each other constantly. The biggest problem is JJ Abrams and his crew. They have been tapped out of ideas for years, and they seem to control both space franchises. We live in a golden age of astronomy and they seemed not to have noticed. I await your take on the Expanse, made by people who respect the science in science fiction.
Both properties are dead, Jim, sorry couldn’t avoid the Star Trek reference, notably due to J J Abrams and his infernal mystery boxes. Add a dash of horrid writing, inclusion and diversity and you have a great start to killing a franchise. J J has been tragically involved with both franchises and is now headed to DC. Good luck with a Superman that in zero in common with Superman’s of the past.
Abrams remains an excellent producer. All else, not so much.
Jar Jar Abrams should
Never Be Allowed Near A Movie Set
Until Armageddon has come and gone.
Everyone who was a teenager in the '70s
knows that DISCO SUCKS!!!
Amazing!!!
Thanks!!
Now that all of season one of Strange New World has been out, I wonder what is your opinoin of it through this particular lense... I personally enjoyed it a lot more than Disco or Picard, and it felt like they realized that the marvelization of trek is a very short sighted strategy, so they adjusted. I feel comfortable saying that Strange New Worlds is the most Star Trek thing that has come out since 2009
The most Star Trek thing since 2001, even.
@@Trekspertise is that telegram thing a scam? It looks scammy...
ST: Discovery is ruined by the "Kelvin-verse" version of JJ's Star Trek dragging it down...
Same ole comments
@@blacknrd05 but true.
That was great! Could you give Foundation some attention too please? I think it is a great new Sci-Fi series with a still too small fan base ... :(
We'd LOVE to.
I'm still waiting for that Garak video. Is he a foil? A reluctant ally? A heart of gold veiled by an unfeeling and Machiavellian demeanor? Why do we like him so much if he is so morally bankrupt?
The performance is why. No need to make a video. That actor is just a joy to watch.
@@Trekspertise Expertly avoided. Well done.
I agree and disagree about Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was certainly a reaction to the success of Star Wars, and the studio was no doubt hoping for a similar blockbuster. But as a film it's the antithesis of Star Wars, for better or worse. It takes its cue more from 2001: A Space Odyssey and feels much more like an Arthur C. Clarke story than anything else. It's probably the most "Star Trek" piece of Star Trek that exists and likely will ever exist.
It's a shame the makers of the current Star Trek TV series don't take similar licence to do their own thing once the shows were commissioned, though given Alex Kurtzman (sigh) is in charge that's not surprising. Hopefully Strange New Worlds will be The Mandalorian of this iteration of Star Trek, moving it back to the original ethos and style. But with Kurtzman in charge I'm not hopeful.
I think Section one and all the ingredients listed perfectly sums up why I hate movies :P
It is saturated.
There are great films, tho. Seriously - go check out "The Last Black Man In San Fransisco" or perhaps "Sorry To Bother You." Such great movies.
Talking about your feelings and running around acting like tweens with little story and weak characters is everything that's wrong with modern ST. I know every line of every TNG DS9 and VOY. DS9 was an incredible series you can't match on any level. Dude any "real" star trek fan especially of the Golden Era has commented on how sad we all are that CBS and crew especially the master mind has all taken the franchise. Literally ANYONE could of done better. I dont understand how Jonathan Fakes and Patrick starwort can't be aware of this?
While your position is entirely justified from your POV, I have to disagree with most of what you have to say.
But let's start with the one aspect I TOTALLY agree with. SW is a trendsetter and Trek has been a trend follower for decades. And that may have kept the franchise from truly fulfilling its purpose, its mission.
Also pretty accurate is your stance on TWOK being a masterpiece on its own. However, that movie's success and following is part of the problem Star Trek movies have had ever since. So many big screen outings have tried to copy-paste TWOK in a more modern way and THAT is what kept the movie franchise themtically limited. Every villain set out to be a new Khan, every movie had to include another nebula battle... But that's TWOK's influence, not Indiana Jones' or the Avengers' fault. It's got nothing to do with imitating blockbuster style in general...
See, if Trek movies hadn't tried to emulate TWOK time and again, we would have gotten a much greater variety of themes. There are many "blockbusters" Trek could have emulated instead: Avatar, Valerian, Alice in Wonderland, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars PT, John Carter, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Peter Pan etc... and that would have given Trek a much more interesting variety of themes and settings than xeroxing the TWOK formula ad nauseum.
Because I honestly believe that the generic "blockbuster format" does NOT exist the way you look at it. Yeah, big budget movies follow a certain shared visuality and some plot elements are present in most of them. But no, the world-ending superthreat is NOT present in each and every blockbuster. That's mainly a Star Wars and comic book movie thing...
On the contrary: For example, James Bond has cut back on "world ending threats" significantly in the modern blockbuster era (compared to its origins in the 1960s) and many big-budget space movies have done so too.
Also violence - while being present in modern-day Trek in a more bloody, gory way I happen to dislike A LOT - has always been a HUGE part of Trek since Kirk's early fistfights on TOS. Only the style and FX have changed.
Sex appeal on DSC and PIC? It's hardly visible compared to 1960s "less is more" Theissian wardrobe of TOS. If anything, Trek has been way too tame for decades.
The influence of comic-book movies and their looming world-ending threat on NuTrek is clearly there, especially in DSC S2 and PIC S1.
But I disagree upon its omnipresence in DSC S1+3... On the contrary. In S1, the world-ending threat was a minor side plot and in S3 it wasn't even there... The Burn was an accident caused by an innocent creature mourning the loss of his mother. It doesn't get any more Star Trek than this! The main villain Osyra was a side plot.
I also disagree on Mando being entirely different. It is riddled with nostalgia through and through and it produces piles of dead bodies along the way. Mando may be a stylistic departure from what you call the blockbuster formula but it's not better than Disco, it's just different.
You seem to have an ongoing struggle with what you call "nostalgia"... The return of Spock and Pike - a dream-come-true beyond words for me - seems to be your personal white wale. No wonder you weren't able to get into LDS.
The thing is... I don't even see much "nostalgia" beyond some minor cameos like with Spock or Riker in a few episodes...
NuTrek has many issues but "nostalgia" for the sake of it is NOT one of those. If anything, there has been too little of that nostalgia on the visual and canonical frontline. If anything, DSC tried too hard to look and feel different. It tried too hard to appeal to a modern-day audience visually and conceptually, with all its gratuitous TV-MA elements.
Apart from some minor ideas, it was never nostalgic about Old Trek. Spock appeared in only a handful of episodes, "Baby Yoda" was the driving force in Mando. So no, I don't see ANY trace of an overabundance of nostalgia and am eagerly waiting for SNW to deliver a full dosage of it shortly...
The issue with your assessment is that you overgeneralize the term and significance of "blockbuster style", applying that term to almost every high budget movie of the last 40 years. If you say that every genre movie that isn't a specialized arthouse gem emulating far-eastern silent movies, is a formulaic blockbuster, then yes, every movie will look and feel the same to you and you will find traces of that style in all of modern Trek or even the Next Gen movies or VOY...
I for once can see a BIG difference between Star Wars 8 and 9 or even Transformers 1 and 2... It does NOT look and feel the same to me, whereas most "arthouse" movies I've ever tried to survive DID look and feel the same...
Also, Trek has NEVER been hard sci-fi. It started as an outer space action program "in living color" and it was never about realism and stories that made sense to an astronomy scholar. Trek used to be about scantly dressed beauties using supernatural abilities to turn people into stones! It was about Kirk fighting a Gorn and a Mugato, space battles with Doomsday Weapons and invisible Romulans. It was about amok-running computers, colorful superbrains giving you illusions, energy creatures possessing kids and a giant pizza protecting its children... in other words: easy to summarize tropes!
TNG and DS9 may have had their cerebral moments deep-diving into morality and philosophy but even in those shows I prefer living oil taking on away teams, ancient masks turning the Enterprise into a space maze and even campy 3D adventure games on DS9: Allamoraine!
So that difference between Trek and Wars is simply not that much of a gap. The aspects of Old Trek I loved as a kid used to be very Star Wars-y.
I love Trek being weird, campy and corny space adventure with lots of action and explosions. It is PERFECT for emulating the comic-book or Star Wars formula, I only wish they'd give us more truly strange new worlds along the way...
Trek brought us Apollo and his green space hand decades before Thor made it to big screen... Trek does NOT have to "apollogize" (pun intended!) for trying to get a piece of the action in our comic-book ridden day and age! We had Apollo first!
NuTrek has serious issues with anachronistic tech inclusion and incoherent story arcs. It suffers from an initial outburst of making it too contemporary, distopian and "mature" in imagery. But neither nostalgia nor its modern cinematic filming style are a huge issue in my book, basically because I happen to like both and "nostalgia" isn't even a huge thing in NuTrek.
And also, as much as I try to get your point... modern "blockbuster" cinema is far too diverse in style and substance to regard it with such oversimplified generalization. Even the MCU encompasses a subtle diversity of style and theme.
But yeah, I am glad we got three "blockbuster" KT movies to "assimilate" that era of movie making into our franchise collective. You know, I see it just the other way round. Not Trek turned into "blockbusters" but blockbusters became part of Trek. It's explosions on the outside and Star Trek at its core, not vice versa.
But I think the most important difference between us is that I DO like the overall state of modern movie-making a lot. You think these movies and franchises are tiresome corporate film-making. I think that they still offer a wide range of styles and themes in general with CBMs arguably having become a little too dominant and influential in recent years. But that's what people want. I consider it tiresome and pointless to complain about mass appeal from an elitist POV.
I hear you and I take you very seriously but I disagree with most of what you have to say. Sorry...
A Star Wars vs Star Trek video? You're better then that. Cool Mandalorian puff piece though.
Huh?
Disco is terrible and Mando is good. This i s the way
Picard is awful and Mando is enjoyable. I have spoken.
I had to pause so many times because you made me think.
I like thinking.
I actually fell asleep during the first season of Mando. Never finished it. Only watched season 2 to avoid spoilers.
(This is consistent. When I was a kid, Star Wars was on TV (A New Hope), and I fell asleep.)
PS: I'm a Trekkie.
Yo, bullshit. I say this as a Madolorian fan and, someone who deeply hates STD/Disco. Mando absolutely has puzzle box story telling, nostalgia bait, world shaking stakes and, gratuitous sexy characters there to be wall dressing. It's just good execution. It's just trash like every other piece of Star Wars.
👏👏👏
I just realized why I don't like Star Trek Discovery, and a lot of other shows.
It lacks an underlying moral center. Offensive things are always happening, but instead of serving as context for the struggle of the hero it's just "Hey, look at all this awesome injustice, isn't it great? Let's watch the human suffering. Should be fun."
I never could get into that, and that's why I don't like horror movies. I'm a good person.
The only reason I've watched superhero movies from the last decade or so is to humor my brother who thinks they awesome and amazing and "the best thing since sliced bread". Section one covered a lot of the reasons that I don't like them. I find almost all of them trite and boring and not worth going to the theater to see even one time. _Dune_ on the other hand, I've heard so many good things about (from people with similar tastes to my own) that I'm seriously considering braving the crowds to go see it in theater.
The main factor that that makes or breaks a modern blockbuster (at least as far as my personal enjoyment of it) is the soundtrack/score. if the soundtrack selection really "fits" or if the composer makes good use of lietmotifs and really can match what's going on visually, even a mediocre movie can become enjoyable (or at the very least, tolerable).
Tldw ones on hiatus and the others cancelled
All of these shows are renewed for further seasons.
As with many comments made already, I'll echo some disagreement. Or rather, it feels the arguments made here aren't entirely iron-clad. One thing I'll highlight is I feel TNG is being held on a pedestal, which I would have done had I not been rewatching it over the past year. And while there's certainly good stuff even relatively early on, the first couple seasons are overall pretty terrible and clearly trying too hard to be TOS but flopping (which in fairness DS9 tried to be TNG and VOY tried to be DS9 at the beginning of their respective shows).
So I'm going to address things point by point:
1) Action - you claim that Mando doesn't rely on action and violence and spectacle as Disco, yet that's not entirely true, Mando has plenty of action sequences just as much as Disco has, and this does not address also that Disco's action sequences are used to also at times explore character, just as much as Mando does.
2) Quippy one-liners - you slam Disco with the charge of having quippy one-liners but ignores that Mando has quippy one-liners as well, this is not a phenomenon that is adherent to one show and should be fairly placed on both shows.
3) World-ending stakes & puzzle box storytelling & plot twists - yes Disco and Picard does have world ending stakes and puzzle box storytelling, but Lower Decks (and Prodigy) does not, I think this video's failure to include Lower Decks is questionable and at least to me, seems due to because you have a thesis statement to prove about Star Trek that Lower Decks does not fit into so two seasons of the show is just not counted in this discussion of the future of Star Trek versus Star Wars. But non-world ending stakes in Trek stories does exist just as it does in Mando, and if anything, Lower Decks has a lesser puzzle box storytelling than Mando which puzzle boxes over Baby Yoda is still not solved and ultimately left unsatisfying. And as for plot twists, even Disco's most big plot twist were things that it laid the breadcrumbs for that when it happened, it wasn't even a twist as simply a story folding out the way it directed viewers to think it would be.
4) Streamlined stories and characters & sex appeal - Both Mando and Disco have streamlined stories and sex appeal, if anything, Mando has more streamlined simplicity while Disco actually has complicated character journeys and dynamics that aren't always easily solved. And picking out one villainous character from Picard while ignoring other Trek villains who aren't made for "sex appeal" is again very disingenuous. It ignores how characters are used for the show and does not question that Mando has sexy but emotionally distant villains and anti-heroes as well.
5) Nostalgia - this is perhaps where the disingenuous painting of Trek and Wars to be most egregious, for Mando, you only bring up Luke Skywalker and only paints him in a way that he's there to reward fans and broaden the core audience and thus it's okay, but you do not criticize at all how Mando has had a revolving door of nostalgia cameos, most of them actually serve very little purpose in the narrative nor does it deepen anything about the nostalgic characters themselves. You bring up Disco, Picard, and even Lower Decks to criticize their use of nostalgia, yet not addressing how each of those nostalgic characters are used to serve the narrative and that those characters actually grow and change and become something new and does not remain static "point and look at something familiar yay!" type of memberberries. You criticize Disco's use of Spock and say the show "fumbled" without providing any depth to that argument and acting as if it's a fact. You do not address that Spock's inclusion in Disco's story provided a new family dynamic perspective to Michael and Spock's lives when they were kids, and that it gave new layers to both of these characters' struggles and even to that of Sarek and Amanda. Does "fumbled" nowadays means a fan campaign to push for a show that would include that very "fumbled" Spock as a main character? You do not address that Picard's usage of Seven shows her in a different stage in her life dealing with different traumas of her past and how she reconciles with the state of the galaxy, or that Riker and Troi's appearances further humanizes both characters and gives them new layers and complexity as parents that they never had before. Even Lower Decks, a show intentionally made to play in the Trek reference sandbox, uses old characters to service the narratives of their main show characters. You seem to count the quantity, without analyzing its quality, all the while ignoring that Mando was from day 1 steeped in nostalgia but that seems to be easily excused, we don't even get mentions of Ahsoka or Boba or Bo Katan or the dark saber or death watch or Cobb Vance or a bunch of other easter egg stuff. Mando may be a soft lighthearted easily digestible fare, but it is ultimately made to be safe and inoffensive and reuses old elements rather than doing anything truly new whether in terms of narrative or even in terms of representation. It relies heavily on the nostalgia factor, often uses that in place of actually doing anything with the story, thus leaving its characters often static and never moving forward.
Ultimately, I find this video to be unfairly biased and overly critical of new Star Trek while unwilling to extend the same critical view towards new Star Wars, and by ignoring other new Trek shows like Lower Decks (which has had two seasons already) and Prodigy and the eventually upcoming Strange New Worlds, it paints a disingenuous picture of the future of Star Trek which already has stories that eschews the very modern blockbuster problems you criticize Trek to have. You say it can't be the same thing every time or audiences will peel away yet Picard, Disco, Lower Decks, and Prodigy are all different shows, and you don't criticize that Mando does the same thing both seasons and repeats beats and plot points. And if the blockbuster format is the problem, doesn't another format being repeatedly used also come into the same repetitive problem that the blockbuster format comes into? Something that seems already happening with Mando.
I love star trek but star wars not so much. Now its the other way around. The new "Star Trek" ist so undemanding, bad written and dull.
I really hope strange new worlds is better but I don't expect it to be. Same with Picard. First Episodes were promising but it got so worse...
I hate disco with a passion ...almost as much as disco hates real star trek.
Seriously tho star trek is dead to me
IYO
@@1978rharris oh yeah it's all my own opinion if you like disco good for you.
I just want to get off my chest how much I LOATHED it.
@@burner9147 I don't know if this helps at all, but I don't like STD either. So, atleast you're not alone.
😳😳😳
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The video starts at around 16:00. The first half can safely be skipped.
Perhaps for you, friend.
huh episodic ensemble in sci-fi clothes broke the mold? I have issue with TNGphiles! TNG was a good show, but I argue it didn't do anything ground breaking, just had a handful of really good episodes
At the time (and even into the 90's) TNG absolutely was groundbreaking. Not only in regards to how it compared and contrasted with TOS but also in its production value and pacing in comparison to other genre television shows at the time.
It is easy for us to forget that as fans (especially younger fans who might not remember what the world was like when TNG started) but it was very much a big deal for a lot of very real reasons.
@@startrekmike
being slightly different than the original is NOT groundbreaking! was it a "big deal", I'll grant you that - bit episodic ensemble pieces are not - as I said TNG hand a handful of standout episodes, but it didn't break the mold
TNG was groundbreaking, but a re-dedication to TOS, at the same time. A perfection of the original, cancelled show. Both of these things are true. And another true thing is that maybe Trek hasn't been as good since TNG / DS9. Perhaps.
@@SC-mq1eh Are you speaking from a modern perspective as a fan who has watched TNG alongside all of the shows that have come after or are you looking at TNG as it fit in the overall television ecosystem of 1987 specifically?
That distinction is important. When I look at TNG from my perspective as a 2021 fan of the franchise that has seen every episode, film, and read a ton of stuff about the production of said films and TV, I will inevitably see TNG as part of a larger trend that continued long after it went off the air. From that perspective, TNG does lose a lot of its luster.
In contrast, when I think back and look at TNG as it premiered in 1987, it was absolutely ground breaking television at the time. I may not think it was Trek's finest show overall but I can't pretend that it wasn't a massive, breakthrough event for TV as a whole. There really wasn't anything else on TV that was doing what TNG did (at the time of its premier). It had massive production values, a new style of writing that Trek had not really seen and wasn't really present in 1980's programming, and it managed to do all that under INTENSE scrutiny from fans.
Perspective is very important here. It is important to recognize how one's perspective is influenced by familiarity and the passage of time. For those that remember TNG's premier, it is hard not to see how groundbreaking it was when you look back and really consider the larger television scene at the time.
@@startrekmike
hype and budget aren't ground breaking - the storytelling wasn't new - Buck Rogers and OG BSG did the same thing in the 80s - TNG was sometimes more clever and sometimes much better - and sometimes just as bad
This is pretty cynical. You bring up good points but I don't think you've realized that you've defined blockbuster as things you don't like, and not blockbuster as things you do.
No, we like some of those things. The form is fine, if done well.
One of these 2 shows is deliberately lying to you.
Thats the main difference.
Every show, every series, every film is a lie.
@@Trekspertise star trek is now a platform for ideology, made by people who detest star trek.
Yes, but Star Trek as always been that platform. Always. Created that way intentionally from day one in the 60s.
@@Trekspertise great pulp sci fi stories.
And inclusion.
Noe its trash fantasy stories with segregation and poison.