For a couple of years maybe, I've been watching the older Star Trek series on Netflix, as a first time viewer. I'm now partway through Voyager, with TOS, TAS, TNG and DS9 under my belt and the only interaction I've had with modern trek is through youtube discussions and parodies. One thing that struck me, as you talked about the dynamic camera and the swearing, is that a lot of what makes all these shows hold up to this day, decades later, is not necessarily the stories or the setting or anything, but the style. For me, Star Trek has an inherent everyday component to it, it's not about seeing characters muddle their way through a seasonal plot trying to connect the dots of their character arcs to the ongoing story. It's about seeing people live these extraordinary lives in the far future, encountering the galaxy and all that's out there. These are regular lives, though extraordinary and at times spectacular and pivotal, but part of the draw of all these older series is getting to see how life could be like for future generations if we can manage to make the future that good a place. I think the theatricality of Star Trek carries with it something important, in that it makes it somehow otherworldly. Not in the way things look, not in the hyper advanced technologies, not in the strange aliens, and not in the spectacle of the stories. Otherworldly, in the sense that the way the people act and talk are viscerally different to how you talk and act normally in our time. It isn't necessarily super pronounced all the time, but it's just theatrical enough in it's everyday life to feel like a different time, a different era. I'm not gonna be surprised if that feel's not present in more modern, productions. I hope I got my sentiment across.
Through the years Trek has had many crutches - Voyager had The Holodeck Again; DS9 had Quark Is Scheming Again; TOS had Look Another Planet Identical To One Of Earths Historical Eras and so on. Undisguised Space Magic, devoid of the mask of Treknobabble, is the current trend. We'll see a new one soon :)
@@juanalbertorocherodriguez2070 Certainly in its last four years, yes. But as a whole, from start to end, it leaned on the holodeck far too often. That's not to say some of them aren't good episodes, there are some solid tales that make extensive use of it. It's just so bloody prevalent.
Ironically enough, if they had said something like "reroute all holography projection systems through the eps conduits and project the image of the ship through La Serena's DEFLECTOR DISH", boom, problem solved, no stupid magic flute needed.
Rusty-1-A.N.S. Good show. Isn't Star Trek supposed to "Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before:? NOT COWARDLY Go where everyone has been before!!!!!! Those who want 60s Trek can watch all the reruns they want and stay and live in the past. The future doesn't need them! Trek should always evolve in many different ways. No patriarchy, Matriarchy, except when encountering other cultures and 'civilizations etc.. Human Characters should live for hundreds of years or more, like their alien counterparts! Where clothing that's fireproof. Have personal body shields like in the 1970s animated series!!! I hope Kurtzman doesn't let the backward fascist, racist sexist types hold him back!!!!!! As a man, I'm striving to 'evolve' away from primitive impulses. A little "Spock" like!. As forward looking "Trans-humans" new Trek characters need No Enslaving, killing and eating animal flesh and blood. No kings, queens, emperors, Pharaohs, >dictator/presidents
These problems tend to reinforce the others. Part of the reason that they had to default to space magic in Picard was because of the scale issue. If the Romulins had sent 3 ships instead of 300 then you wouldn't need to explain how he made 300 holograms of the ship.
Its definitely a feedback loop too. Imagine if they had sent, say, 20 ships instead of 300. 20 is more than sufficient against a colony of fairly peaceful folk armed with giant space flowers out in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't matter, because you can bet your bottom dollar that some uptight nerd on the internet with a stupid bell sound effect would have said "This is the biggest existential threat to your world and you're going to use "only" 20 ships? Plot hole - ding." So they send 300 ships to emphasize how "serious" the situation is. Because a clandestine organization somehow doesn't have a damn clue how to balance force application with discretion.
@@Enforcer6k hehe, you're right - there will always be that one guy ... But that could be avoided by saying "20 ships is what we have left and we throw everything we can at these evil synths". Show the aftermath of the destruction of the Romulus in more detail than just a trip to "Refugee Planet". They could have taken more time to show the despair of Commodore Oh, surrounded by "Starfleet Hippies" who don't want to realise what is at stake and what (in her mind) has to be done. You can easily explain that they have 20 Ships hidden somewhere. But 300! ships, with all the infrastructur required to keep them running and nobody knows about them? That's a bit much. Too much for me. And Commodore Oh running away with her tail between her legs at the end was out of character in my opinion. Up to that point she was a great character.
Your commentary on "canon legitimacy" is actually one of the reasons why I really like Deep Space 9 above all other Treks: while characters from other shows were reintroduced and there were obvious nods to older shows, the show really just focused on its own merits most of the time. We didn't need constant nods to Picard or Kirk to remind us that this was technically a Star Trek show: the show itself was a natural progression of Star Trek simply set in a different area of space. Sisko's character was quickly disconnected from Picard (one of my favorite moments being Sisko punching out Q and saying "I'm not Picard") and he went off to do his own thing and carve his own path, leading to (As Steve Shives has said), probably the most realized and complete character in the franchise history. It's also why I wish Discovery was set further in the timeline: it becomes obvious at times that the writing is a little bit constrained to fit into the narrow window of the time series takes place in and I keep wishing it was simply post-Dominion war so the writers could get away with doing more of their own thing rather than just "we are the show set in between two other shows please remember this is star trek!".
If they had put DISCO 50 or so years after the Dominion War, probably 30% of the gripes people have would've gone away. They could've even made Burnham into "Rebecca Jae Sisko", Sisko's daughter and tied the universe together that way. If the studio believed in DS9, that is.
@@Corbomite_Meatballs not only would a lot of gripes disappear but imo the stories we got would be even better since the writers wouldn't be so inherently constrained.
The opening scene where kirk's dad rams the ship will still make me cry after all this time. So well done. And the line "your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives... I dare you to do better." This is the best line of dialogue in the entire kelvin timeline.
Bad (or great?) crossover idea: George Kirk actually survived, Abrams Kirk finds him, and learns that he is not actually from Iowa, but is half-Asgardian, and his father is the legendary superhero Thor, Norse god of thunder. It is bad. I would watch it, though.
I enjoyed Babylon 5, Dark Matter and the Expanse, but I don't want Star Trek to be either of those things. I don't want Star Trek to be what if 21st century people had access to better technology and could travel through space.
Star Trek is a discussion of America with itself; projected through the lens of future hopes and fears. The older Star Treks may very well be unrelatable to new audiences for that reason; much in the same way that the optimism of many Enlightenment philosophers is difficult to relate to today because we assume we inherited anything more than a poor copy of their vision.
@@mossiegee4674 I was referring to the epic plot lines. Current Trek wants to be so big but rarely has a quiet character moment. DS9 managed to have the big plots AND character development. They also had 22 episodes a season.
@@mutanix And that weekly reset erased those quite moments other than in DS9 which ironically is closest to Discovery in it's Arc building and the constant universe ending Dominion war EVERY week was there too
@@mossiegee4674 When the Domion War got started it was indeed everpresent but the bigger episode count meant that they didn't have to directly deal with it in every single episode. Take Me Out to the Holosuite is a good example of that. I'd love it if Discovery had a smaller scope OR more episodes.
I'm an old school fan but I recognize, intentionally or not, every era of Star Trek is a reflection of the time in which it was made. TOS embodied the optimism of JFK and MLK and a lot of the decade's fashion! TNG embodied the energy and "city on a shining hill" ethos of the 80s. (and a lot of the arrogance as well) DS9 embodied the paranoia of the 90s. Voyager was trying to hard to be TNG so it never really captured the feel of its era. And Discovery and Picard embody the fear, dread, and general sense of impending doom of this era.
Hey Kevin Your exactly right! I really think that’s a major problem some have with New Trek - it’s a matter of semantics - what is or isn’t Trek? If a person has a rigid preconceived idea in their head it makes it awfully tough to accept anything new or ‘different’ I see that criticism all the time ‘Discovery isn’t Trek!’ But it is Trek! It’s just different - and that’s ok! I remember hard core fans in 1982 having issues with Wrath of Khan because Roddenberry had lost creative control and the studio was killing Spock and the studio didn’t understand Trek - Wrath was too militaristic and was a Star Wars rip-off It’s funny to think of that now - to many (including myself) Wrath is the best of the original films I even remember my mom having an issue with the new uniforms - she said if they put a furry hat on them they would look exactly like Russian soldiers - ‘it wasn’t Star Trek!’ But it was Star Trek And so is Discovery- it’s just different - I saw a criticism recently about Discovery - ‘Why are they wearing soccer uniforms!’ Too funny!
@@trekkiedave7910 I think one side goes so over the top with its criticism of Discovery that the other side may go overboard defending it and dismiss ANY criticism of the show as invalid.
Hey Kevin Totally agree For me both Discovery and Picard have issues - lets just say their works in progress But yea - the negativity has been way overblown on both In my opinion Discovery is good Trek overall and Picard has a lot of potential Take care!
I think they just do a really bad job of using the things they set up. For example, they completely forget about the Borg Cube in the last episode of Picard. But they could have easily used the Cube to solve a lot of their problems instead of just introducing new space magic. Instead of the Synths magically building a giant beacon in a few hours, have them take a subspace transmitter and the spatial trajector from the Cube to create the beacon. Instead of having Picard using the magic space flute to create the holograms, have him use the Borg's transwarp core to do a real version of the Picard maneuver where the ship uses transwarp to travel so fast between different points that it looks like there are thousands of them.
IKR? It's like the story was decided by a half-dozen people at a meeting who all go off to write scripts. But then it's just finished! Nobody bothers to go back and tighten this stuff up, make some connective tissue, follow through some implications.
I was certain there'd be a battle between the Romulan fleet and the Borg cube and I was really looking forward to it. They set it up so beautifully. But nope. Not even close.
Escalation of scale is by far and above the thing that bugs me most about "modern" Trek. Notably, I had been really enjoying Picard for its smaller scope and stakes. Yes, there was the synthetic ban and the Romulan conspiracy, but for most of the series that's peripheral to the story. The focus, the core, was Picard's personal journey of redemption, not to save the whole galaxy, not the entire Federation, not even a planet, but just ONE single girl. By the finale, however, we've got a fleet of 300 Romulan ships baring down on one side and an ancient race of super machines threatening galactic genocide on the other, and I just couldn't care less about any of it... it's just distracting noise, an over the top bombastic climax that seemingly exists for its own sake rather than in actual service to the plot and themes that preceded it.
I had never diagnosed the escalation of scale problem before this video, and I really love that it explains so much of what I find annoying. But you know what? It's kind of generational. I'm a boomer who works every day with GenZ kids, and more than any previous generation, to these kids today *everything* is an existential issue.
I'm sort of inclined to give Picard a pass for its escalation of scale purely because it makes sense to me that only something so massive would motivate Picard into action and get him out of retirement. On the other hand, having SO many ships show up for a battle just never feels as earned as it did during the later seasons of Deep Space Nine, and ultimately the part that I remember and the part that moved me from the season 1 finale was Data's death scene, not the thousands of starships all shooting at each other. It makes me wonder if Michael Chabon had some great ideas for a subdued, emotional finale and Alex Kurtzman got scared and decided it needed more spaceships and lasers to stop viewers from getting bored at the elderly man talking to the robot.
@@jonreededworthy7518: Except to reiterate, the massively over blown final had absolutely ZERO to do with what motivated Picard out of retirement. He did have some inkling of the Romulan conspiracy, albeit with no clue just how deep it went. His Primary motivation, however, was just his need to rescue Soji to make up for his failure to save Dahj, and both of them were proxies for the guilt he still felt from Data's sacrifice.
I've heard that Abrams didn't "get" Start Trek, that he found the original too campy and too philosophical. I'd argue that's part of the issues with his era. He's not trying to make a Star Trek movie, so it ends up a lot like the other grand scale movies he's made. Also, I think the torture scene in Picard is much more gratuitous violence compared to the rest of the show. That one scene will be unwatchable for plenty of people who can watch the rest of the show, when it could have been filmed differently to still express the same idea, but without the same level of graphic imagery. Maybe keep the screaming and film it at angles where you get the gist but don't see every detail? I'm sure there are other ways to make it not stick out as much compared to the rest of the show. Part of what I like about Star Trek is that it's a show that people of all ages can watch. Younger kids can watch it for fun action and enjoyable characters, and for older viewers, or those same kids grown up, you can still enjoy those aspects but then you can understand the more complex nuances of it. I'm not saying that all shows have to be all-ages, but there will be people who enjoyed TNG and want to see more of Picard but either can't at all or have to wait to be old enough to handle the level of violence.
I agree with all of these, especially the camera movement thing. I have literally shouted at the screen STOP SPINNING! It makes me kind of nauseous. I would add one more critique, I think they have a problem with pacing. Maybe that's partly an offshoot of the massive world-ending plots, and them still working out the short season thing. I think with a short season they are better off telling smaller-scale stories or make each season a chapter of a larger story. But that might just be my bias towards DS9 as my favourite Trek.
I respect Alex Kurtzman's right to create whatever his vision for Trek he wants. I will never be one to shout "This needs to die now" or similar. However, I'm much more likely to just stop. Which I have done. I still have my DVDs and Blue Rays for the older shows. I watched the first 2 Kelvin movies. Still haven't seen 3. Probably won't either. Stopped Discovery after season 1. Stopped Picard after 5 episodes. I've no interest in Below Decks, the Pike show or anything else. I am no longer the target audience for the show, and that's fine. It was a bit painful to come to terms with, that something that had such a big part in defining who I am today is no longer for me, but they can't take the old stuff from me.
@@JessieGender1 So I understand, and I felt bad for Simon Pegg who I massively respect and love his work doing the press tours begging people to give 3 a chance, that it was different, but I was burned out by then. Into Darkness had done too much damage and I'm too old to give time to stuff I no longer enjoy just because it has a name I care about.
@stemsanson Enterprise was flawed, and took a while to really get going but by season 3 it was really cooking. The thing is that Star Trek still had enough good will built up for me to get through the flawed first 2 seasons to get to that point. It no longer has that good will built up with me.
I can also recommend the third movie as well: they completely changed the people in charge of writing and directing it, and it really showed. The first movie is flawed but still enjoyable, the second one the more I think about it the more I find things that make me hate it. Beyond, however, is really good and I felt it could have been the turning point of the JJ-verse movies and deserved a lot more recognition than it unfortunately received at the box office. It's also the first of the three movie where Pine felt like a proper Kirk, instead of a stereotype of a stereotype of a joke version of Kirk.
In terms of scale, TOS sometimes had galactic import at stake, but that was mentioned rather than shown and the story and action was kept on a small scale where there was more than enough tension and excitement with great writing and charismatic characters and guest stars. The burden fell upon the writing and characters vs. dazzling special effects to make exciting episodes. In Balance of Terror, the Romulans were trying to start a galactic war but the action and story was kept on the two ships following the basic outline of an old-school tension-filled submarine movie. And within that, the writing was so crisp that we really got to know the Romulan commander, not just him being a cardboard character. In Errand of Mercy, the stakes were also of galactic import but we never needed to see the fleets of spaceships. All that was necessary was the tense story on the planet with a surprise twist at the end. And in terms of technobabble, the TOS episodes kept it relatively simple. Warp power was made possible by a matter-anti-matter reactor. The transporter was a matter-energy conversion device (as Kirk explained to Abraham Lincoln in the Savage Curtain). And adding any more detail would have been the writers trying to impress the audience with how smart they thought they were in writing and dazzling with BS.
The technobabble didn't really start getting egregious until the Rick Berman era, particularly when Brannon Braga was lead writer, culminating in Voyager's "Magic Meeting Room".
TBH, the main reason they told rather than show all the massive stuff was due to budgetary restraints. We should be able to get both, the writing describing some things and the effects to actually others. And yeah, they're obviously trying to compensate for the aforementioned budgetary restraints, I believe they're just going through a phase.
@@granudisimo The 1960s was the era when relatively cheap Westerns dominated TV. And scifi on TV then was nothing like what it is today. Then, at best, scifi was a comparatively niche genre (on TV). And trying to sell a very new show with lots of new ideas (A Vulcan first officer with no emotion and having pointy ears?) that was relatively expensive to produce compared to shows on cheap Western lots that never or rarely changed. So of course nobody wanted to throw big money at an unproven show in that era in particular. After years of Trekkie conventions keeping fan interest alive leading to the movies, TNG and the others were able to walk into a ready-made audience already familiar with TOS concepts. So of course the new series had bigger budgets. It is a credit to TOS writers, guest stars and characters that such a global franchise was started with relatively little money for budgets. And I doubt if Patrick Stewart had been the TOS captain instead of Shatner that the show would have lasted more than one episode, assuming it could even be greenlit to begin with. The problem sometimes with big budgets and a built-in fanbase is showing off technical wizardry, big scale and sometimes overwhelming the audience with technobabble while at the same time lacking the writing and directing talent needed to blend in all the new magic effects and scale with a great story.
I've always loved a type of episode called a bottle episode. Basically, in an effort to balance out the budget, you'd write an episode that had as little spectacle as possible. It had to use existing sets and few actors. Most of the time, the characters were locked in one room. It's a measuring stick for me. It takes talent to write something that takes place in one location and making it compelling. All the shows have had examples but, the best would be Duet from DS9 and Tapestry from TNG (Technically, tapestry had a decent budget but it had the spirit of the bottle episode). Modern Trek's attempt, the Short Trek called Q & A, had charismatic actors but, alas, it felt flat. Spock and Number One didn't learn anything about who they are and neither did I. It was just, "Well isn't this just quirky?" I'm still waiting to learn who any of these characters are. Oh, I know their names and their ranks and all that jazz but, that's not who they are. Picard in Tapestry was a Starship captain but, really, he was someone who had a deep sense of regret. He wished he could have avoided making those mistakes. But, throughout the episode, Picard and I learned that his mistakes shaped his life. It made him have an epiphany about "how fragile life is". He started to be less of the stern Starfleet officer and learned how to enjoy life and its every moment.
I appreciate your constructive criticism but as a longtime fan of Star Trek I have to disagree and say that there is a big difference between the JJ Abrams and the Kurtzman itteration. JJ was much more faithful to the positive worldview of the orginal series as Kurtzman's Discovery and Picard is a very negative and dark vision of the future with some of our beloved characters like Picard and Seven of 9 resorting to swearing, killing and revenge. Seven killing in cold blood and Picard allowing his bodyguard to decapitate a Romulan are just a few examples of this. Star Trek always portayed humanity as having evolved past violence and our favorite characters from TOS, TNG, DS9 or Voyager always tried to take the high road which is why it hurts my soul to watch these latest shows and I can't imagine what Gene Roddenberry would think if he saw his creation fall into such darkness where klingons eat their victims and decapitate babies and where humans torture and kill each other for their selfish goals.
I think they're two different Treks as well. Your more thoughtful breakdown of the differences is right on. But also ... in one of them, Spock is played by Zachary Quinto, and in the other one, Spock is played by Ethan Peck. So -- I mean, I think the match checks out. Two different Spocks means two different Treks. Spock spock spock spock spock spock spock spock!
I disagree that modern Trek has escalated in scale -- I'd say that it's escalated in spectacle (and yes, maybe individual ships and sets are larger), but it's made the universe feel smaller (or maybe just emptier). TNG and DS9 did a good job of making the universe feel widely and diversely populated, and they gave a sense of space and time between the various regions of the galaxy. By contrast, I don't get any of that from the Abrams films; e.g., the Enterprise goes to warp, and it feels like it's arrived at Qo'noS a few minutes later in the very next scene. Then back to warp, and they're back at Earth a few minutes after that. And there's no sense that anything else really exists outside of that straight, plot-driven line. Massive space battles were another thing that DS9 did right. This was over 20 years ago, but in its final 2 seasons it managed to convey a grand sense of scale with huge fleets, an enormous variety of ships on-screen, and much better "choreography" -- i.e., fleet tactics that were varied, visually interesting, intelligible, and believable. The battles in modern Trek are flashy, but to me they end up seeming like a cacophony of ships pummeling each other with no discernible pattern or logic. And don't get me started on the fleets in Picard; just amorphous groups of copy-and-paste ships that gave no sense of dynamism or movement. As for galaxy-wide stakes, that's one more thing that DS9 did well. Maybe it's just a matter of taking the time that they needed -- 5 seasons of setup, plus 2 seasons of quadrant-wide war, combined with the points I've mentioned above, allowed that show to tell stories both personal and epic. By contrast, Star Trek: Picard merely *said* that the stakes were epic, but didn't really earn it by properly showing/dramatizing all of it.
You're right. I loathed the Federation fleet at the end of Picard. It felt like they got the FX guys to design one ship, and then copy/pasted it. The fleet battles in DS9 are so much better because of the variety of ships and each type of ship looks like it's performing a different function.
You're not that wrong with the Kelvin Enterprise being ten times bigger: its length is more than doubled, and even a 'only' doubled length (with the same proportions) would mean eight times the size (volume). ;)
Ballad of Bilbo Baggins for the win! When I was younger (in my teens) it was rare that I ever thought anything bad about Star Trek, not because it wasn’t full of problems, but because I was largely blinded to them by my general love of the series. For me the ultimate Trek was Next Gen, but that’s probably because it was the one I started with. It’s absolutely true that in retrospect it has all sorts of problems (including two really shaky seasons) but I didn’t notice or care. Today I am much longer in the tooth and the weight of the world has crushed my spirit, so I’m more critical of my Star Trek. Maybe that’s part of why people don’t like it. If you’re a Doctor Who fan, I like to think of it as the first six or seven episodes with a new Doctor, where you have to get used to the idea that this is Doctor Who now. Most of the time we accept the new actor and new plots, even though we miss the old ones.
"This song is about sex, isn't it?" I just laughed so hard 😂 Listening to old songs you heard as a child and realizing they are about sex is like opening a door and seeing people having sex while you were looking for the bathroom. It's so traumatic
"...like opening a door and seeing people having sex while you were looking for the bathroom." - Ah, somebody else remembers CBGB's from back in the day! XD
Well, it's about being in love, in an obsessive, probably unrequited, and possibly imaginary-relationship sort of way. Typical of a group that specialized in songs about really messed-up people. Though not unrelated to sex, of course.
I have a similar problem with escalation of scale in comics, mostly DC. Every storyline seems to be about saving the universe, the timeline or the multiverse. Batman was a detective and crimefighter, not a multiversal demigod.
Fully agreed on almost all counts... the standout difference of opinion being the f-bombs. Tilly's worked better to me as it played to an unspoken assumption that cursing still exists but is inappropriate in the setting. Admiral Clancy gave off a "grr, Star Trek is tough now" vibe, by comparison. And to be clear, both worked for me on some level... Tilly's just worked better.
When I first saw the Tilly scene, I was confused why it was being played like that. So I skipped back a few seconds to listen for anything I might have missed. It took me a few seconds to realize that the f-bomb was unexpected! I am autistic also, so that figures. The only automatic inhibition I have against swearing is when talking to my parents. Except for those few times I was tripping and couldn't tell if I was swearing or not.
Admiral Clancy's would have worked better if she'd just said "sheer fucking hubris" and forgone the other "fuck" later on. Maybe the writers were going for a Chrisjen Avasarala ["The Expanse"] vibe. Didn't succeed though.
Have to totally disagree with one of your conclusions: Star Trek DS9 treated its female characters (including Leeta) way more maturly than the pseudo-empowered women of modern Trek.
Ehh kinda. Full disclosure, I haven't seen modern trek, but while DS9 was WAY better than TOS and TNG for sure, I feel like it's not perfect. Especially in "Let He Who is Without Sin", Worf treats Jadzia awfully and her usual confidence and wisdom is very noticeably absent during it. There's also a couple other examples, like Kira being groped by the grand nagus that one time. But it was pretty occasional; there's probably whole seasons of DS9 where I can't think of a single "yikes" moment, which definitely cannot say for the earlier trek shows lol (also sorry for dredging up your year old comment I just had thoughts about it)
funny thing that TOS had the fight scenes added bc they thought people wouldn't like a show without it and now again we have circled back to adding action for the sake of action. Like, I love action scenes a lot but when they are good and/or necessary for the plot, best if it's both, but I also like the strategic mind games, so I miss more of that too.
The scale thing kind of makes me excited for season 3 of discovery because when burnham says what’s on the schedule it’s smaller things-taking things to star bases etc. What I miss from voyager/TNG is the character episodes. Everything, like you said, is so big that you forget that these are people in the grandeur. I want more quieter moments. I want an episode where not everything is on the line. Like the po-Tilly episode was one of my favourite things
Don't really know how I ended up here or why the Algorithm chose to suggest me this video, especially because the only two things I know about Star Trek are: 1. it takes place in space and 2. it's not Star Wars. But I enjoyed it and now I'm curious, so... where am I supposed to start?
I honestly think you can pick the start of any Trek series and be fairly well off honestly. Just pick one that interests you and jump in. Deep Space Nine is my biggest favorite and one that I think is the best. I'd just say, the first season of pretty much every Trek series are rough, so if you wanna save time, I'd find a skip list online of episodes you can skip of each show. Otherwise, just jump in at Season 1 of any show.
Unless you really like 60s camp, I'd suggest not getting too much into TOS until you're more certain you like the franchise and want to explore its origins. There's also not many episodes in the first two seasons of TNG worth watching before you know you like the show. Deep Space Nine probably has the most relevant-to-today stories. I've been trying to figure out what one or two TNG episodes to show my wife to give her a flavor of it after we watched The Trouble With Tribbles and she didn't care for it. The Measure of a Man is a great courtroom drama about civil rights, but does it have the same impact on someone who doesn't already love Data? The Inner Light is a beautiful meditation on the life of a dying world, but it wouldn't play the same without the contrast between Picard and Kamin, and it's extremely one-off. The Best Of Both Worlds defines TNG in many ways, but you need to know the characters to really feel how they've been shaken up by the situation.
I think my favourite part of past trek is the exploration of the cultural differences between species and the almost slice-of-life tone that it had (most notable for me in voyager and DS9). I'm warming up to the modern Trek but I still miss that. Not a lot of exploration about aliens for a show about aliens..
My biggest criticism with the Disco/Picard shows is they seem stretched out to fit the story to the 10 or so episodes. I'm not saying they are bloated and should have been shorter, but they belabor the main story and give too short shrift to the subplots. Marvel, Netflix had this with the first few series before breaking up the series into 2 or more main stories over the season allowing the stories to be tighter. As an aside I have an image of Alan Tudyk from Knocked Up "Just,...tighter".
They honestly feel much more like films to me, and not in a good way, because of this. I feel ike I have to watch a season in one sitting because otherwise it's like stopping a movie halfway through and coming back a few days later. I'll have lost interest by then and moved onto something else. But they're too long for me to watch in one sitting. Lower Decks, on the other hand, I actually quite enjoy, which is funny 'cause that's the one I was expecting to like the least.
I've remained on the fence about current Trek, though I am still onboard. I'm a bit apprehensive about Discovery Season 3, but I'm willing to see where they go with it. It doesn't bother me at all that it's so called 'woke', and has diverse characters. In fact, yes. More of that, please. And I do care about canon to a certain extent, but not so seriously that it bothers me that some minor plot detail doesn't line up perfectly. And they can swear all they want, for all I care. I think it says more about our culture that swearing bothers some people than it says about the media itself. But there are things about Discovery and Picard, and Short Treks that just don't feel right. And just when I'm about to give up and stop watching it, something will happen that brings me back, and I realize that Star Trek is still in there somewhere, and maybe the writers and producers aren't completely missing the point, and maybe there's hope for the current incarnation of the franchise after all. I could go into detail, but if I do that, I might as well make my own video, which would require me to not be lazy and unsociable, and also have skills and leisure time. But my main thought, and I think much of what you're getting at, is that they've got to quit doing things just because they can, or because they think they have to. Do things in service of the story, but not to play unnecessarily to a particular story beat or fan segment. Don't contradict or disregard canon just because they can, but do disregard or contradict canon if it plays to the story, or fixes something problematic or unclear about the existing canon. Don't kill off major characters just because they think they need to be Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. If you're going to have major characters, and then kill them off, spend some time developing those characters, so that if they do kill them off, the audience actually gives a damn because we liked the character, and not because we never got a chance to know them in the first place. Don't invent a ridiculous fictional technology that runs on magic mushrooms just because they think the series has to be some kind of trend setting sci/tech prophet that inspires cosmology and cell phones. Don't move the whole series centuries into the future just because they think they need to placate the canon hawks who are frustrated with all the retcons in a timeframe we're already familiar with. Don't invent a magic flute that repairs the ship just because they need a Deus ex Machina device to move the plot along after they crashed the ship showing off magic space orchids that only exist to show off the special effects necessary to create magic space orchids, when they could instead save that time and effects budget to make more than one kind of starship copied and pasted 800 times. I could go on, but I really should stop myself somewhere. But yes, I agree. Trek is awesome in general. The current iterations are still having some growing pains even after 3 years, but they're still pretty good in some respects. Though for a lot of the reasons you mention, and many, many more, there is so much room for improvement.
Pre-watch comment: modern Trek and Star Wars is fun on first viewing, kinda bad on second, and nearly intolerable on third viewing when kool-aid where's off and reality sits in - let's see if my prediction is correct. *pushes play*
I think this is some of the best and most well rounded critique of modern Trek myself, as somebody that usually loves it. I will say that I do love seeing the darker side of the Trek universe, but I also understand the criticism for it as well. I wonder if it’s partially a function of not being confined to FCC regulations like the older shows might have been. Either way, I think you were on point with a lot of the nuanced and loving critique.
Personally I'd just like it if they didn't do it to everything. I can get behind a 'darker Trek' for one show, that's pretty much what DS9 was to the Berman era, but when the only non-dark and edgy Trek we have is Lower Decks (which I do like to be fair) it feels like a different franchise to me. I have high hopes for Strange New Worlds though
I had the opposite reaction to the F Bombs in Discovery and Picard. I like that the cadet had an over-expressive moment of excitement. And her superior officer had that thought of "No, we're going to embrace this excitement. Because you know what? I'm excited, too!" It felt completely unprofessional and out of place in Picard. He makes his request and she loses it on him. He lays out what he wants and she just goes immediately to that line. No conversation. No compromise. Nothing. I get where she's coming from for the most part, but the way she reacts doesn't work for me for someone in that position.
Very well thought out and a great, insightful & thorough critique of ‘modern’ Trek. I’m going to be boring here and say that - pretty much on all accounts - I agree with you. Probably the “easiest’ watch for me would be the Berman Era Trek but I think each era has been appropriate for the generation who are/were it’s target audience. Those who were kiddies in the 1960s relate to style of presentation in TOS that invokes memories of their youth. Those growing up in the 70s & 80s got hooked by the Berman Era Trek and the teenagers of today - I’m sure - feel a greater connection with the more angsty and generally darker and more challenging modern era Trek. I love the fact that we have these three very distinctive eras where Gene Roddenberry’s original vision has been re-interpreted with fresh eyes and unique writing styles and delivery. Yup, I agree with all the “flaws” in modern Trek presentation but without them........perhaps the Abrams Era would not have that fresh, new and therefore EXCITING feel. Great video as always Jessie and I’m sure it will get us all debating the salient points. Well done 😁
Hello, Jessie. Great vid. So far, "Prodigy" is my #1 current "Star Trek" show. "TNG" is my #1 golden-age *and* overall "Star Trek" show. I'm not against profanity in modern "Star Trek," either. I neither despise nor trust Alex Kurtzman, nor do I have anything against those who do, nor do I have anything against those who despise modern "Star Trek." Yet, I'm more hyped about season two of "Prodigy" than the final season of "Discovery," to be honest. Keep up the good work and may you and yours live long and prosper. Happy 2024! 🖖
I got about 2 episodes into Discovery, but it wasn't for me, this was largely due to the over the top camera movement. Then they add in all that lens flair. I also didn't like the redesigned Klingons. I believe they are like that in the new movies too, but I didn't watch those as I didn't like the recasting of those classic characters. That said, I didn't like Enterprise either. That felt like a misstep. Maybe it's a prequel thing.
This video sums up why I love Star Trek so much: Because the die hard fans of the Star Trek universe are such nerds that they understand the necessity of honestly criticizing the things they truly love!! How else are we supposed to grow as people and advance as a civilization if we can't have these open and honest conversations!! It's a meta-reflection (maybe not so meta) of the ethos of Star Trek itself. Great video. Keep it up!
Wow... you just beautifully articulated a lot of the things that bug me about Modern Trek, even some things that I didn't realize bugged me. I definitely agree with all your critiques. For me, pacing is also an issue. Some episodes feel like they are just trying to cram too much plot into too little time in a way that feels exhausting. I miss the quieter moments, the funny moments, the sad moments, and the small moments of earlier Trek. Also the overarching plot across each season of DIS and PIC kind of confused me. There was so much set up for not a lot of pay off. Stories don't need to be big and flashy to be powerful.
The Abrams/Kurtzman era noticeably improves (at least in my opinion) once Kurtzman and Orci were no longer writing partners. While Kurtzman still has his issues it seems to me that Bob "9/11 was an inside job, the Boston Marathon Bombing was a False Flag" Orci was a real albatross around his neck. The only thing all three of those people were involved with that's truly great is Fringe.
"The only thing all three of those people were involved with that's truly great is Fringe." - But can it truly be _the only thing,_ if there's more than one of everything?
I think you've expressed this as as well as anyone ever could, and most importantly as fairly....it's all subject to personal taste, but at it's core it's all Star Trek. I suppose we owe Samuel Peeples for one of our era's overused trope....the Starship Fesarious from The Cornomite Maneuver set up the easy escalation used to good effect in The Doomsday Machine, etc, so we see them when it's critical for us to buy the next transition: V'ger for the first film era, Giant Jellyfish and force fields for TNG, and the Narada for the JJ/K era. Space magic? Yeah, well, it's all space magic to me, but they really should reign that shit in, shouldn't they. They were just BEGGING to be made fun of when Rios said "Nothing that makes sense." ;D Darkness for darkness sake however, is just today's form of exploitation...the Orion slave girls of the '60s that sold Trek when sex was a hot commodity and violence was taboo is today's Icheb eye-gouge now that exploitative sex is more of a turn off than a turn on. Your work keeps getting better and better, Jesse. You're taking a mere reversal on job status and building it into a big personal advancement. THAT'S how it's done!
My biggest problem with Picard is that there is some really great ideas but with absolutely no follow through.Take seven as the Borg queen for example yes I grant you it looked cool but in the end it was empty, the Borg were all spaced 30 seconds later it added nothing to story really, and while it could have added hugely to seven’s character arch they chose not to explore that, they took something with so much promise and I got nothing more than a cool screen shot. It’s a problem I had with Moffat’s Doctor who as well, things were done to look cool but when ultimately everyone and everything comes out of it in the exact same place they started, I was just left feeling empty afterwards. Also the synth ban made no sense what so ever when holograms were just as vulnerable to having their program hijacked but were not banned.
RE watched Star Trek Enterprise . When it ran originally , I stopped watching after the 2nd season. Things really took a dramatic turn for the better in season 3. Too bad !
Oh gosh that camera spinning around at 7:12 truly made me queasy. For me, the one thing I wish modern Trek (and I'm mostly talking Discovery here) had more room to breathe. All three seasons of Discovery felt like they needed a couple episodes for the characters to felt truly well thought-out. I know we'll probably never return to the 22-24 long seasons of Treks past, but even a couple more episodes would allow the pacing to not feel too rushed, the stakes to not feel like they're at '11' all the time, and the characters to have on-screen bonding moments instead of implied familiarity (like that funeral scene in Discovery Season 3).
"Cynical" is the word the describes the foundation of these shows imo (I haven't had the joy of watching the Kelvin movies yet). It feels like an arbitrary jumble of modern sci-fi cliches (many of which are contrary to the nature of Trek). Some of my favourite stories are the ones surrounding Barclay's character development, the ones surrounding the EMH in Voyager, "The Measure of a Man", "Who Watches the Watchers", etc. These are stories that focus on philosophical issues and character dynamics, and I just don't see how similar stories could emerge from Discovery or Picard.
Part of what I personally love about Next Gen and DS9 is that it has a lot of one off episodes that explore a sci fi concept and then they move on, so if one doesn't feel like it isn't fully working, you can just move forward to the next "odo and quark have to climb a mountain together", "Disaster", "OBrien has to pretend to be an olde timey gangster" "holodeck shenanigans" The only Disco episode that seemed to tap into that was the time loop party, but even then it had to tie into the rest of the plot so we didn't really get a complete story. I know a lot of people like mysteries that they can solve but I honestly couldn't have cared less about who the "angel" was or the klingons. However, in all fairness, I didn't properly get into either of those until about season 3 or 4 so hopefully there'll be more anthology type episodes soon!
That song is about sex, isn’t it? Omfg. You made me laugh so hard I almost forgot my point about Space Magic, which is: Star Trek has always relied on magical technology and even more magical human beings. But of course there is the old Arthur c Clarke chestnut: any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. The true magic of Trek lies in its ability to inspire, scientifically and socially. Ok now I’m babbling. Your joke threw me off, dude!
It is only one scene at the beginning of Season 1 episode 5, if you skip about the first 5 minutes you won't see it. If you decide to watch the show, which is entirely up to you.
I absolutely love the way you put it with regards to the "Escalation of scale"! Yes! We need more small-scale plots! I love Star Trek TV shows as TV shows. This looks like a series of movies, and I want TV. Voyager had The Thaw. Amazing TV, using the stakes of 3 strangers' lives. Amazing. Beautiful. TNG had an episode that primarily focused on Data's life on the ship. Yes please. Small moment. Small stakes. Make me honestly care about the characters. In small ways.
excellent and well-written video that helped me articulate some issues I've had with modern trek. I would love to hear you talk more in depth about showrunners & writers of trek. I'm particularly curious about your thoughts on Bryan Fuller and how modern trek was effected by him stepping down (something I personally still mourn) and how having a more anthology type storytelling could (or couldn't) have worked for trek. Anyway, keep up the amazing work!! Love hearing your thoughts and insights on everything trek!
I try to ignore the space magic part by reminding myself of the Arthur C. Clarke quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
You've absolutely nailed many of my critiques of Nu Trek. I still watch and enjoy it, but I rarely get through an episode without an eye roll or two. I also don't think I've finished watching an episode and been left pondering the issues brought up by the story. Nu Trek often tips it's hat at morality plays or philosophical dilemmas, but it almost never actually digs into them. It's always in too much of a rush to get to the next manufactured cliffhanger.
With respect to their cannon issues, I’ve felt like modern Trek often uses it as a narrative crutch. They pull something from canon and halfway reimagine it. Which is not to say they should never reimagine canon, but I think it’s often a matter of execution. For example, with DSC’s Klingon, so much work went into reimagining their aesthetics and culture that I think it suffers from not being more (re)developed. Had they been a completely original species, I believe it would’ve been cleared what further developments were needed. And I get it when there’s minor tweaks to existing canon, it’s not always a good idea to reintroduce everything as if it were new information, but there’s a point at which you’ve changed enough things that the audience can no longer rely on previous knowledge to project on their current iteration. As another example the Borg were re-imagined in First Contact, but they were developed enough so that the audience wasn’t relying on previous knowledge to understand what they’re deal is.
I watched the Next Gen episode Lower Decks and I was so excited by how fun and heart felt it was and then I realized newer Trek was lacking that heart.
A very thoughtful critique. The problems I had with Picard were perfectly summed up by Ketwolski; the direction created errors in story logic (particularly the finale). However, the character pieces sold me on the series as a whole.
Wow, this is *the* most intelligent commentary I have heard about "new" Trek on any channel, ever. I came expecting . . . well, I don't know what. But from beginning to end this was just incredibly thoughtful. I cannot believe that 23 months after posting this you have less than 10,000 views on it.
Point number 3 is a big one for me. I remember the season 2 finale of Discovery being really frustrating to watch (in spite of its interesting setup and exciting ending) because of how the action doesn't fall into a rhythm and doesn't build momentum effectively from scene to scene. They basically just took what would have been the 10/15-minute action climax of a Kelvin film, stretched it out to an hour, and awkwardly slotted in scenes of the characters talking to each other while standing in place. Having said that, I do like how the hand-to-hand combat scenes in modern Star Trek episodes are, you know, actually good. I also fully agree with point number 2, it's totally gratuitous.
Your point about Modern Trek having to connect back to established canon really hit a chord with me. Because, it strikes at the core of niche media and nerd fandom. So many die-hard fans of sci-fi, fantasy and such want to be REWARDED for their knowledge. Connect this thing to that thing, and that thing to this thing, and have lore on top of lore on top of lore on top of lore. Michael Burnham just being a Starfleet Science Offer who has a story to tell works great on its own, but you have to admit that there are fans out there who want everything to connect to everything, otherwise, they won't care as much. Making Burnham could be seen as a bold move to FIRMLY establish "yes. This is Star Trek." or it's cynical nerdbait. I'd hope more people would examine their desire for, as I saw it described once, being rewarded for knowing the minutia on the fan wiki. And Jessie, remember this. If they didn't want you to try every flavor of ice cream, they wouldn't give you those tiny sample spoons. ;)
I lost love of the Jar Jar Abrams Trek when they flipped the Spock sacrifice in the engine room. It wasn't well set up, didn't make sense from character OR in universe lore and made me so upset that I was shaking leaving the theatre. Boo on that. Otherwise. Star Trek is my jam.
Lorenz Winterhoff Point of Order. “Jar Jar” was portrayed by a hardworking actor who was nearly driven to suicide by years of unrelenting backlash for being on the bleeding edge of MoCap characters. “Jellyfish” Abrams has no spine, no brain, and caved under the slightest pressure to make the train wreck that was TROS.
Weird, I really liked the F-Bomb moment in DISC, but really felt the admiral using it was super out of place. Because honestly, what they were doing in that DISC scene was F'ing cool! And Tilly is just the kind of character that would not filter that out of her speech. The Admiral should have more composure, and I actually think it would've been more effective putting the emphasis on 'Hubris'. She would've been a lot more effective by saying "Dismissed, admiral" with Picard wanting to interrupt, "I SAID DISMISSED!" Anyways, just my 2cts.
Great video, Jessie, you really highlighted three of the main overarching problems with modern Trek. One that I think needs adding to it though, is the use of lighting. In the Kelvin Universe films they go overboard with solar flares everywhere and in Discovery a lot of scenes are so dark, It's difficult to see exactly what is going on. Picard seemed to get a better balance.
I thought this video was absolutely excellent. I’m very defensive of modern Star Trek, because the hatred aimed at it is so often just for clicks, but your issues are valid and the way you deconstructed the issues was logical and constructive. Thanks.
Great video Jessie. Like you I love Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard. One thing I've always said about Star Trek Discovery as much as I like it I wish it had taken place after TNG DS9 and Voyager.1. it's visually stunning 2. The characters of Discovery are all strong and you didn't really need to connect them to original Trek. That's one thing that Gene Roddenberry purposely did that's why he made the Next Generation so far in the future from the original Star Trek because he said he didn't want it to be the children or even grandchildren of those people.3. My biggest problem with my beloved Discovery was they should have never ever never change the Klingons. Klingons pretty much look the same since 1979 they updated the makeup from time to time but that's about it. And instead of people being able to focus on this beautiful new show with visuals that rival the movies all people are talking about is why do the Klingons look so different. Not to mention going out of their way to try to say that humans and Klingons can't mate which we saw lots of half Klingon half humans but okay. 4. My final thing discovery and Picard are guilty of what's so are a ton of other sci-fi franchises the whole end of Life as We Know It. Still love my Discovery looking forward to season 3 still love Star Trek Picard looking forward to season 2.
Hey Jessie Excellent video like always! And all your points on New Trek is legit criticism and fairly expressed by you Each generation of Trek has had issues With TNG you would have A and B plots with lots of technobabble... I think one reason I have tried to be as patient as possible with New Trek is to allow it time to find its footing - previous Treks had 24 to 27 episodes per season - In 2 seasons Discovery hasn’t yet hit 30 episodes and Picard has had only 10 I think both shows have done a lot with the time they have had And I like overall what I’m seeing but there is definite room for improvements Take care!
Well Lore reloaded liked your tweet so I found your twitter looked good, checked your YT looks awesome... Now if I could just have more hours in a day to watch all the awesome stuff people keep showing me I would be happy
15:20 - 15:48 Agreed. And during the Berman/Braga era DS9 shows not only you could create a Trek series with a darker turn, and done it well. I'm sure writers of 'Discovery' and 'Picard' must've learned from it.
100% agree with all this points. I would also add modern Trek is very much 'Tell' story telling over 'show' story telling. For example it tells us why we should care about certain characters instead of showing us why we should care. It needs to spend less time on OTT action and more time on character moment. Picard looked like is going to do that then after episode 3 it stopped (for the most part.).
I think the biggest problem is they are putting more time and money into action special effects and not enough time into writing or money into set & sound design. I think with the exception of the Picard pilot my first thought have always been "If you had just don't another pass at the script to tighten thing... use your set to help tell a story... and why do you think you don't need put any money into music & sound design?"
The thing I dislike the most is the fact that there is going to be a Section 31 show, which is horrible because SECTION 31 IS HORRIBLE. There is a reason Julian Bashir helped destroy it. BECAUSE IT WAS THE CIA IN SPACE.
You just made me realize why I hate the whole use of Section 31 -- it's a writer's cheat. In DS9, whenever they needed to up the stakes with that Bashir-Sloan storyline, they would just have Sloan basically do an "Ah ha! You think you have beaten me but I have a super secret trick up my sleeve because I am a super secret spy!" You can only do that a few times before it overstays its welcome.
Oh god, YES about the Michael randomly being Spock's sister, a sister that we had NEVER FREAKING HEARD ABOUT BEFORE EVER, in "Discovery". It was just so...fanficy. Like, the bad kind of fanfic. It felt like the kind of thing that should stay firmly on OUR side of the screen. I found myself immediately flashing back to a parody play of Star Trek V (yes, THAT movie) at a convention, when they introduce Sybok, Spock's out of nowhere brother. Sybok says some line about "Don't you remember? Your father also raised me!" And Parody-Spock is like: "My father also raised corn. That does not make IT my brother!" (putting aside for the moment whether the image of Sarek as a (Vulcan equivalent of?) "corn" farmer is ridiculous or not...) So unfortunately, Michael's introduction as Spock's sister _in an actual Trek show_ made me immediately quip to the screen: "Sarek also raised corn. That does not make IT Spock's sister!" That...is not a good sign. If you're quoting fan-made productions that were meant to MAKE FUN OF a franchise at the _real_ thing on the first episode... That plus the messed-up Klingons, and it's kinda hard to cover up an ENTIRE MAJOR RACE being that different, to everyone in-universe who would've remembered and/or documented it...I mean, I can get past _little_ continuity errors (or in some cases not even be aware of them) but big things that would've changed the story significantly...no. That's why I'm glad they went ahead and said the Kelvin movies were in an alternate universe. I mean, cheesy as it was, at least Enterprise took a STAB at the "why they had bumps and then they didn't" thing re: the original Klingons and the movie-onwards ones, and then that plot point was incorporated pretty decently into the "Rise of the Federation" books, so I can't really hate on _that_ bit of back-continuity. Heck, in those books they even show how the Classic-Trek style Klingons started taking over! That said, I SO want to _actually see_ Discovery go way into the future. Doooo iiiittt... EDIT: Oh god, the "red matter". That bugged the crap out of me, because it didn't even have a properly science-fictiony _name_ . Like, could they have come up with a name that sounds MORE "It just works like this...BECAUSE, okay? Shut up!" if they tried? What's wrong with _strange_ matter? It's an actual science concept and it would be insanely dense and possibly dangerous--and the name sounds cooler too! And YES, on the "darkness for its own sake" thing. That's exactly what chased me off from _multiple originally-good genre shows from the 2000's onwards.
Thank you for your honest and balanced critique. I truly appreciate your opinion. As a new Star Trek fan, I’m more of a fan of Picard and Discovery in lieu of the plodding of TOS.
This was a great video and I think it fills an important role in modern Trek discourse - we need critique that isn’t just “SJWs bad.” One thing I really miss about older-era Trek is the sensory gentleness. I understand why the new era has gone the Bigger, Louder, Faster, More Violent route, because that’s kind of a stylistic norm of the time. But I’m autistic, and I’m really sensitive to violence on TV/film (not in a moral way - I just can’t stand to watch it because I can almost feel it happening to me), and I can experience sensory overload when things are just too loud/bright/busy/etc. Older Trek is so safe and comfy for me, but newer Trek isn’t. I’m not sure I’d characterize that as a flaw of the shows, but it’s just something I don’t personally enjoy.
Wow - I don't think I've ever agreed so completely with a review of Trek I've seen/read. Nice to know I'm in good company with regards to my enthusiastic fandom/criticisms of the latest incarnations of Trek.
Thanks for this video, really appreciate you’re views. I find the newer versions of Star Trek quite difficult to get on board with in general, for most of the reasons you give in this video and others, but I’ve given them all a fair crack with an open mind and tried them. I love Lower Decks! Ambivalent at best to Picard and Discovery. Really didn’t like Star Trek Into Darkness! Anyway, keep putting up the great content! I especially love your Sacred Treks 😍.
People don't complain about adherence to canon because they are inflexible. Stories create worlds and those worlds are governed by rules. When someone changes those rules it means that the lessons you thought you learned from a story has to be reevaluated. The reevaluation is where a lot of the consternation originates. It's difficult to read a book when Chapters 1 and 2 say this but 3 and 4 say that...
12:17 - Of course it's talking about sex. As my uncle says, "you're always talking about the only thing". EDIT: Quite agree with your criticisms, particularly with the "saving the galaxy every other day" one. I would add one. I love new era Trek, but I think it was not a good idea to name a whole series after one character, even if it is PICARD (in well deserved capitals). "Star Trek: Synths" or "Star Trek: Fall of Federation" (FoF) would have been better, for example. I quite like the last one! Anyway, I also still would go to bat for the new era Trek any day, if i knew the slightest thing about baseball, which is not the case. LLAP! 🖖🖖🖖
Thank you for articulating the point about cannon. There really wasn’t a need to connect burnham to Spock. In fact I would like new trek to move away from previous versions of trek. My take is why couldn’t discovery from the beginning be set 25 years after nemesis? (It would unfortunately mean no pike) and you could have had Picard show up as a guest star for a 3 episode arc or something to that effect. Clearly the brain trust realizes this by setting discovery 900 years in the future. My hope for Picard is that there is a hand off to a new crew and Jean Luc rides off in the sunset.
Wow.....seriously you nailed it..by golly you nailed it, you actually succinntly described my problems! I hate the "everything has to be huge and epic!!" it's so ...childish.. (not being negative...) The idea of "well...here's a super super Duper ship!" it just is too much CGI vomit... And the Burnham Spock thing... I have no problem with Burnham, but I FULLY agree that the need to have her be Spock's sister is....so bizarre and left field and it just felt forced... New and different is good...we don't need some connective umbilical to the prior stories. And don't get me started on the "Sonic Screwdriver" .....
Totally agree on your points, though I tend to be bit harder on it. Many of the issues with new Trek arise from a general cynicism on the part of the show runners. I don't just mean that the storytelling is less optimistic and hopeful -- if that's all it were, it wouldn't necessarily be a fatal flaw that ruins everything, like you point out. Picard is maybe a bit less cynical than Discovery in this sense which is one reason I liked it more. But there's also a cynicism in terms of the assumptions and expectations about the audience, which feed into how the show is made and marketed. It underestimates what take to get us to like it and get hooked on the show long-term, so as to keep subscribing to it and keep those dollars coming. Most problems, whether they're deal-breakers or not, are rooted in this. Examples include the overuse of high stakes, the way that nostalgia is teased and employed, the mystery boxes that string us along but don't always hold up to scrutiny when the cat is finally let out the bag, and the baiting of the target demographics in ways that aren't well-earned or borne out through the story (historic gay kiss, then killing off the love interest; possible bi- or lesbian tendencies for Seven that are teased for a split second without ever being established in a meaningful way), and so on... Basically it's cynical, because taking short-cuts, trading in short-term pay-offs and generally half-assing it is both considered and framed as "enough" to earn our buy-in, and I'm afraid that for a lot of people, it just isn't.
I think one thing you didn't touch on is the wokeness of today's trek. I'm a social worker, and I'm all for progressive thinking, but it was often forced and gratuitous. You can be woke without turning it into a spectacle. It's like they're overcompensating for all the guilt of society. The denigration of Picard is one example. The scale of everything, as you pointed out, is a big issue. It's just ridiculous. There's nothing they didn't go overboard with. The techno babble, especially in Discovery, just numbs the brain. In Picard, moving eight stars to create an octonary??? WTH??? I like the writing, at times. Unfortunately, it seems like for every one good thing we get two bad. There is SO MUCH that could have been done with the borg cube and it was wasted. Hugh could have been an awesome addition to Trekdom. There was a lot of sloppiness too. Did they have to start the Nepenthe episode with a rabbit? Are we supposed to surmise that a few pets escaped from their owners while visiting the planet and then bred, and bred etc? That's just lazy, and unforgivable. And it draws away from how really good all the Nepenthe stuff from the episode was. I've watched that episode at least ten times, and that rabbit really sucks. Just edit it out. When I first started watching Discovery, I was so hopeful. The first four or five episodes had a more cerebral quality to them. Dark at times, but appropriately dark, given what Burnham had gone through. Then they shifted out of it and I think it went down hill from there. I have to disagree with you on Discovery. I thought the whole second season was just ridiculous. It was almost unwatchable. If not for being a die hard Trekkie, desperate for Trek, I'd have just turned it off. The scale issue was everywhere. Plots had to have a hundred twists and turns, and they were all crazier than the last. The technobabble made it near impossible to follow the plot at times. And they were always making up some over the top crazy stuff to enable their over the top plots and twists, to work. I think they put four or five good episodes together, at the start of Discovery, so we know they're capable of sustaining quality writing. So I'd like to know what the issue is with them? Too many cooks, or what?
Your critique is on the point, especially concerning the problem of scale. It become boring when again and again at least the whole Federation - or even the Galaxy is on the brink of Armageddon. Not only in Star Trek i think, i have the impression that this is trophe overused in other Franchises as well. I. m. o. less is often better. It is like the overused planet-/solar-killing weapons in Star Wars...
For a couple of years maybe, I've been watching the older Star Trek series on Netflix, as a first time viewer. I'm now partway through Voyager, with TOS, TAS, TNG and DS9 under my belt and the only interaction I've had with modern trek is through youtube discussions and parodies.
One thing that struck me, as you talked about the dynamic camera and the swearing, is that a lot of what makes all these shows hold up to this day, decades later, is not necessarily the stories or the setting or anything, but the style.
For me, Star Trek has an inherent everyday component to it, it's not about seeing characters muddle their way through a seasonal plot trying to connect the dots of their character arcs to the ongoing story. It's about seeing people live these extraordinary lives in the far future, encountering the galaxy and all that's out there. These are regular lives, though extraordinary and at times spectacular and pivotal, but part of the draw of all these older series is getting to see how life could be like for future generations if we can manage to make the future that good a place.
I think the theatricality of Star Trek carries with it something important, in that it makes it somehow otherworldly. Not in the way things look, not in the hyper advanced technologies, not in the strange aliens, and not in the spectacle of the stories. Otherworldly, in the sense that the way the people act and talk are viscerally different to how you talk and act normally in our time.
It isn't necessarily super pronounced all the time, but it's just theatrical enough in it's everyday life to feel like a different time, a different era.
I'm not gonna be surprised if that feel's not present in more modern, productions.
I hope I got my sentiment across.
I'm gonna catch hell for saying this but making Burnham Spock's secret sister felt more like a marketing decision than a creative one.
Hell, they could've made her Saavik's mom, or Uhura's sister, and that would've been good.
@@Corbomite_Meatballs You know there's a story behind those relations!
Truth.
agreed. Burham could have been a human raised on Vulcan. her parents friends of Sarek and she knew Spock as a kid.
they really need to stop the universe/world ending threat. That really gets on my nerve
I feel the same about 'time travel' in Trek..it's okay very occasionaly.
Through the years Trek has had many crutches - Voyager had The Holodeck Again; DS9 had Quark Is Scheming Again; TOS had Look Another Planet Identical To One Of Earths Historical Eras and so on. Undisguised Space Magic, devoid of the mask of Treknobabble, is the current trend. We'll see a new one soon :)
Doctor Who has gotten even worse about it. I call it "farcical stakes"
@@phoenixheart79 I think that Voyager more than a Holodeck, had a Borg Again crutch.
@@juanalbertorocherodriguez2070 Certainly in its last four years, yes. But as a whole, from start to end, it leaned on the holodeck far too often. That's not to say some of them aren't good episodes, there are some solid tales that make extensive use of it. It's just so bloody prevalent.
Ironically enough, if they had said something like "reroute all holography projection systems through the eps conduits and project the image of the ship through La Serena's DEFLECTOR DISH", boom, problem solved, no stupid magic flute needed.
Or say it's a small replicator that works via a wireless neural interface with the user instead of just "use your imagination".
Rusty-1-A.N.S. Good show. Isn't Star Trek supposed to "Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before:? NOT COWARDLY Go where everyone has been before!!!!!! Those who want 60s Trek can watch all the reruns they want and stay and live in the past. The future doesn't need them! Trek should always evolve in many different ways. No patriarchy, Matriarchy, except when encountering other cultures and 'civilizations etc.. Human Characters should live for hundreds of years or more, like their alien counterparts! Where clothing that's fireproof. Have personal body shields like in the 1970s animated series!!! I hope Kurtzman doesn't let the backward fascist, racist sexist types hold him back!!!!!! As a man, I'm striving to 'evolve' away from primitive impulses. A little "Spock" like!. As forward looking "Trans-humans" new Trek characters need No Enslaving, killing and eating animal flesh and blood. No kings, queens, emperors, Pharaohs, >dictator/presidents
These problems tend to reinforce the others. Part of the reason that they had to default to space magic in Picard was because of the scale issue. If the Romulins had sent 3 ships instead of 300 then you wouldn't need to explain how he made 300 holograms of the ship.
Its definitely a feedback loop too.
Imagine if they had sent, say, 20 ships instead of 300. 20 is more than sufficient against a colony of fairly peaceful folk armed with giant space flowers out in the middle of nowhere.
It wouldn't matter, because you can bet your bottom dollar that some uptight nerd on the internet with a stupid bell sound effect would have said "This is the biggest existential threat to your world and you're going to use "only" 20 ships? Plot hole - ding."
So they send 300 ships to emphasize how "serious" the situation is. Because a clandestine organization somehow doesn't have a damn clue how to balance force application with discretion.
@@Enforcer6k
hehe, you're right - there will always be that one guy ...
But that could be avoided by saying "20 ships is what we have left and we throw everything we can at these evil synths".
Show the aftermath of the destruction of the Romulus in more detail than just a trip to "Refugee Planet".
They could have taken more time to show the despair of Commodore Oh, surrounded by "Starfleet Hippies" who don't want to realise what is at stake and what (in her mind) has to be done.
You can easily explain that they have 20 Ships hidden somewhere. But 300! ships, with all the infrastructur required to keep them running and nobody knows about them? That's a bit much. Too much for me.
And Commodore Oh running away with her tail between her legs at the end was out of character in my opinion. Up to that point she was a great character.
Your commentary on "canon legitimacy" is actually one of the reasons why I really like Deep Space 9 above all other Treks: while characters from other shows were reintroduced and there were obvious nods to older shows, the show really just focused on its own merits most of the time. We didn't need constant nods to Picard or Kirk to remind us that this was technically a Star Trek show: the show itself was a natural progression of Star Trek simply set in a different area of space. Sisko's character was quickly disconnected from Picard (one of my favorite moments being Sisko punching out Q and saying "I'm not Picard") and he went off to do his own thing and carve his own path, leading to (As Steve Shives has said), probably the most realized and complete character in the franchise history.
It's also why I wish Discovery was set further in the timeline: it becomes obvious at times that the writing is a little bit constrained to fit into the narrow window of the time series takes place in and I keep wishing it was simply post-Dominion war so the writers could get away with doing more of their own thing rather than just "we are the show set in between two other shows please remember this is star trek!".
If they had put DISCO 50 or so years after the Dominion War, probably 30% of the gripes people have would've gone away.
They could've even made Burnham into "Rebecca Jae Sisko", Sisko's daughter and tied the universe together that way.
If the studio believed in DS9, that is.
@@Corbomite_Meatballs not only would a lot of gripes disappear but imo the stories we got would be even better since the writers wouldn't be so inherently constrained.
Hmmm... What do you think of Season 3?
The opening scene where kirk's dad rams the ship will still make me cry after all this time. So well done.
And the line "your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives... I dare you to do better." This is the best line of dialogue in the entire kelvin timeline.
Bad (or great?) crossover idea: George Kirk actually survived, Abrams Kirk finds him, and learns that he is not actually from Iowa, but is half-Asgardian, and his father is the legendary superhero Thor, Norse god of thunder. It is bad. I would watch it, though.
@@oneoftheorder Clever.
Im tired of the modern trek "world destruction" plots. Thats why I love so muuuuch Short Treks.
I enjoyed Babylon 5, Dark Matter and the Expanse, but I don't want Star Trek to be either of those things. I don't want Star Trek to be what if 21st century people had access to better technology and could travel through space.
Star Trek is a discussion of America with itself; projected through the lens of future hopes and fears. The older Star Treks may very well be unrelatable to new audiences for that reason; much in the same way that the optimism of many Enlightenment philosophers is difficult to relate to today because we assume we inherited anything more than a poor copy of their vision.
Modern Trek is just trying to hard. Not everything has to be Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. Let your characters breathe!
Yes 👏👏👏👏
You mean like classic Trek when they hit the reset button at the end of each episode and all character development was lost?
@@mossiegee4674 I was referring to the epic plot lines. Current Trek wants to be so big but rarely has a quiet character moment. DS9 managed to have the big plots AND character development. They also had 22 episodes a season.
@@mutanix And that weekly reset erased those quite moments other than in DS9 which ironically is closest to Discovery in it's Arc building and the constant universe ending Dominion war EVERY week was there too
@@mossiegee4674 When the Domion War got started it was indeed everpresent but the bigger episode count meant that they didn't have to directly deal with it in every single episode. Take Me Out to the Holosuite is a good example of that. I'd love it if Discovery had a smaller scope OR more episodes.
I'm an old school fan but I recognize, intentionally or not, every era of Star Trek is a reflection of the time in which it was made.
TOS embodied the optimism of JFK and MLK and a lot of the decade's fashion!
TNG embodied the energy and "city on a shining hill" ethos of the 80s. (and a lot of the arrogance as well)
DS9 embodied the paranoia of the 90s.
Voyager was trying to hard to be TNG so it never really captured the feel of its era.
And Discovery and Picard embody the fear, dread, and general sense of impending doom of this era.
Hey Kevin
Your exactly right!
I really think that’s a major problem some have with New Trek - it’s a matter of semantics - what is or isn’t Trek?
If a person has a rigid preconceived idea in their head it makes it awfully tough to accept anything new or ‘different’
I see that criticism all the time
‘Discovery isn’t Trek!’
But it is Trek!
It’s just different - and that’s ok!
I remember hard core fans in 1982 having issues with Wrath of Khan because Roddenberry had lost creative control and the studio was killing Spock and the studio didn’t understand Trek - Wrath was too militaristic and was a Star Wars rip-off
It’s funny to think of that now - to many (including myself) Wrath is the best of the original films
I even remember my mom having an issue with the new uniforms - she said if they put a furry hat on them they would look exactly like Russian soldiers - ‘it wasn’t Star Trek!’
But it was Star Trek
And so is Discovery- it’s just different - I saw a criticism recently about Discovery -
‘Why are they wearing soccer uniforms!’
Too funny!
@@trekkiedave7910 Some people go overboard with their criticism of Discovery but I don't think any Trek series is above criticism.
@@trekkiedave7910 I think one side goes so over the top with its criticism of Discovery that the other side may go overboard defending it and dismiss ANY criticism of the show as invalid.
Hey Kevin
Totally agree
For me both Discovery and Picard have issues - lets just say their works in progress
But yea - the negativity has been way overblown on both
In my opinion Discovery is good Trek overall and Picard has a lot of potential
Take care!
@@trekkiedave7910 Yes. As a first season, I'd put Picard above DS9 and TNG's. Maybe around Voyager's first season.
I think they just do a really bad job of using the things they set up. For example, they completely forget about the Borg Cube in the last episode of Picard. But they could have easily used the Cube to solve a lot of their problems instead of just introducing new space magic. Instead of the Synths magically building a giant beacon in a few hours, have them take a subspace transmitter and the spatial trajector from the Cube to create the beacon. Instead of having Picard using the magic space flute to create the holograms, have him use the Borg's transwarp core to do a real version of the Picard maneuver where the ship uses transwarp to travel so fast between different points that it looks like there are thousands of them.
IKR? It's like the story was decided by a half-dozen people at a meeting who all go off to write scripts. But then it's just finished! Nobody bothers to go back and tighten this stuff up, make some connective tissue, follow through some implications.
I was certain there'd be a battle between the Romulan fleet and the Borg cube and I was really looking forward to it. They set it up so beautifully.
But nope. Not even close.
Escalation of scale is by far and above the thing that bugs me most about "modern" Trek.
Notably, I had been really enjoying Picard for its smaller scope and stakes. Yes, there was the synthetic ban and the Romulan conspiracy, but for most of the series that's peripheral to the story. The focus, the core, was Picard's personal journey of redemption, not to save the whole galaxy, not the entire Federation, not even a planet, but just ONE single girl.
By the finale, however, we've got a fleet of 300 Romulan ships baring down on one side and an ancient race of super machines threatening galactic genocide on the other, and I just couldn't care less about any of it... it's just distracting noise, an over the top bombastic climax that seemingly exists for its own sake rather than in actual service to the plot and themes that preceded it.
I had never diagnosed the escalation of scale problem before this video, and I really love that it explains so much of what I find annoying. But you know what? It's kind of generational. I'm a boomer who works every day with GenZ kids, and more than any previous generation, to these kids today *everything* is an existential issue.
I'm sort of inclined to give Picard a pass for its escalation of scale purely because it makes sense to me that only something so massive would motivate Picard into action and get him out of retirement.
On the other hand, having SO many ships show up for a battle just never feels as earned as it did during the later seasons of Deep Space Nine, and ultimately the part that I remember and the part that moved me from the season 1 finale was Data's death scene, not the thousands of starships all shooting at each other.
It makes me wonder if Michael Chabon had some great ideas for a subdued, emotional finale and Alex Kurtzman got scared and decided it needed more spaceships and lasers to stop viewers from getting bored at the elderly man talking to the robot.
@@jonreededworthy7518: Except to reiterate, the massively over blown final had absolutely ZERO to do with what motivated Picard out of retirement. He did have some inkling of the Romulan conspiracy, albeit with no clue just how deep it went. His Primary motivation, however, was just his need to rescue Soji to make up for his failure to save Dahj, and both of them were proxies for the guilt he still felt from Data's sacrifice.
@@EmeralBookwise Yeah, you’re right.
It’s actually quite contrived when you put it that way 😕
I've heard that Abrams didn't "get" Start Trek, that he found the original too campy and too philosophical. I'd argue that's part of the issues with his era. He's not trying to make a Star Trek movie, so it ends up a lot like the other grand scale movies he's made.
Also, I think the torture scene in Picard is much more gratuitous violence compared to the rest of the show. That one scene will be unwatchable for plenty of people who can watch the rest of the show, when it could have been filmed differently to still express the same idea, but without the same level of graphic imagery. Maybe keep the screaming and film it at angles where you get the gist but don't see every detail? I'm sure there are other ways to make it not stick out as much compared to the rest of the show.
Part of what I like about Star Trek is that it's a show that people of all ages can watch. Younger kids can watch it for fun action and enjoyable characters, and for older viewers, or those same kids grown up, you can still enjoy those aspects but then you can understand the more complex nuances of it. I'm not saying that all shows have to be all-ages, but there will be people who enjoyed TNG and want to see more of Picard but either can't at all or have to wait to be old enough to handle the level of violence.
I agree with all of these, especially the camera movement thing. I have literally shouted at the screen STOP SPINNING! It makes me kind of nauseous. I would add one more critique, I think they have a problem with pacing. Maybe that's partly an offshoot of the massive world-ending plots, and them still working out the short season thing. I think with a short season they are better off telling smaller-scale stories or make each season a chapter of a larger story. But that might just be my bias towards DS9 as my favourite Trek.
TNG had the deflector dish and VOY had a tachyon beam lol
Not to mention that when in need, you can always reverse the polarity!
I respect Alex Kurtzman's right to create whatever his vision for Trek he wants. I will never be one to shout "This needs to die now" or similar. However, I'm much more likely to just stop. Which I have done. I still have my DVDs and Blue Rays for the older shows. I watched the first 2 Kelvin movies. Still haven't seen 3. Probably won't either. Stopped Discovery after season 1. Stopped Picard after 5 episodes. I've no interest in Below Decks, the Pike show or anything else. I am no longer the target audience for the show, and that's fine. It was a bit painful to come to terms with, that something that had such a big part in defining who I am today is no longer for me, but they can't take the old stuff from me.
I will say, 3 is the best Kelvin movie imo
@@JessieGender1 So I understand, and I felt bad for Simon Pegg who I massively respect and love his work doing the press tours begging people to give 3 a chance, that it was different, but I was burned out by then. Into Darkness had done too much damage and I'm too old to give time to stuff I no longer enjoy just because it has a name I care about.
@stemsanson Enterprise was flawed, and took a while to really get going but by season 3 it was really cooking. The thing is that Star Trek still had enough good will built up for me to get through the flawed first 2 seasons to get to that point. It no longer has that good will built up with me.
Though a positive was that if I can walk away from Trek, walking away from Harry Potter was really quite easy in comparison.
I can also recommend the third movie as well: they completely changed the people in charge of writing and directing it, and it really showed. The first movie is flawed but still enjoyable, the second one the more I think about it the more I find things that make me hate it. Beyond, however, is really good and I felt it could have been the turning point of the JJ-verse movies and deserved a lot more recognition than it unfortunately received at the box office. It's also the first of the three movie where Pine felt like a proper Kirk, instead of a stereotype of a stereotype of a joke version of Kirk.
In terms of scale, TOS sometimes had galactic import at stake, but that was mentioned rather than shown and the story and action was kept on a small scale where there was more than enough tension and excitement with great writing and charismatic characters and guest stars. The burden fell upon the writing and characters vs. dazzling special effects to make exciting episodes.
In Balance of Terror, the Romulans were trying to start a galactic war but the action and story was kept on the two ships following the basic outline of an old-school tension-filled submarine movie. And within that, the writing was so crisp that we really got to know the Romulan commander, not just him being a cardboard character.
In Errand of Mercy, the stakes were also of galactic import but we never needed to see the fleets of spaceships. All that was necessary was the tense story on the planet with a surprise twist at the end.
And in terms of technobabble, the TOS episodes kept it relatively simple. Warp power was made possible by a matter-anti-matter reactor. The transporter was a matter-energy conversion device (as Kirk explained to Abraham Lincoln in the Savage Curtain). And adding any more detail would have been the writers trying to impress the audience with how smart they thought they were in writing and dazzling with BS.
The technobabble didn't really start getting egregious until the Rick Berman era, particularly when Brannon Braga was lead writer, culminating in Voyager's "Magic Meeting Room".
TBH, the main reason they told rather than show all the massive stuff was due to budgetary restraints.
We should be able to get both, the writing describing some things and the effects to actually others.
And yeah, they're obviously trying to compensate for the aforementioned budgetary restraints, I believe they're just going through a phase.
@@granudisimo The 1960s was the era when relatively cheap Westerns dominated TV. And scifi on TV then was nothing like what it is today. Then, at best, scifi was a comparatively niche genre (on TV). And trying to sell a very new show with lots of new ideas (A Vulcan first officer with no emotion and having pointy ears?) that was relatively expensive to produce compared to shows on cheap Western lots that never or rarely changed.
So of course nobody wanted to throw big money at an unproven show in that era in particular.
After years of Trekkie conventions keeping fan interest alive leading to the movies, TNG and the others were able to walk into a ready-made audience already familiar with TOS concepts. So of course the new series had bigger budgets.
It is a credit to TOS writers, guest stars and characters that such a global franchise was started with relatively little money for budgets. And I doubt if Patrick Stewart had been the TOS captain instead of Shatner that the show would have lasted more than one episode, assuming it could even be greenlit to begin with.
The problem sometimes with big budgets and a built-in fanbase is showing off technical wizardry, big scale and sometimes overwhelming the audience with technobabble while at the same time lacking the writing and directing talent needed to blend in all the new magic effects and scale with a great story.
@@Chuck_Hooks Thanks for the historical context man.
I've always loved a type of episode called a bottle episode. Basically, in an effort to balance out the budget, you'd write an episode that had as little spectacle as possible. It had to use existing sets and few actors. Most of the time, the characters were locked in one room. It's a measuring stick for me. It takes talent to write something that takes place in one location and making it compelling. All the shows have had examples but, the best would be Duet from DS9 and Tapestry from TNG (Technically, tapestry had a decent budget but it had the spirit of the bottle episode). Modern Trek's attempt, the Short Trek called Q & A, had charismatic actors but, alas, it felt flat. Spock and Number One didn't learn anything about who they are and neither did I. It was just, "Well isn't this just quirky?" I'm still waiting to learn who any of these characters are. Oh, I know their names and their ranks and all that jazz but, that's not who they are. Picard in Tapestry was a Starship captain but, really, he was someone who had a deep sense of regret. He wished he could have avoided making those mistakes. But, throughout the episode, Picard and I learned that his mistakes shaped his life. It made him have an epiphany about "how fragile life is". He started to be less of the stern Starfleet officer and learned how to enjoy life and its every moment.
I appreciate your constructive criticism but as a longtime fan of Star Trek I have to disagree and say that there is a big difference between the JJ Abrams and the Kurtzman itteration. JJ was much more faithful to the positive worldview of the orginal series as Kurtzman's Discovery and Picard is a very negative and dark vision of the future with some of our beloved characters like Picard and Seven of 9 resorting to swearing, killing and revenge. Seven killing in cold blood and Picard allowing his bodyguard to decapitate a Romulan are just a few examples of this. Star Trek always portayed humanity as having evolved past violence and our favorite characters from TOS, TNG, DS9 or Voyager always tried to take the high road which is why it hurts my soul to watch these latest shows and I can't imagine what Gene Roddenberry would think if he saw his creation fall into such darkness where klingons eat their victims and decapitate babies and where humans torture and kill each other for their selfish goals.
I think they're two different Treks as well. Your more thoughtful breakdown of the differences is right on. But also ... in one of them, Spock is played by Zachary Quinto, and in the other one, Spock is played by Ethan Peck. So -- I mean, I think the match checks out. Two different Spocks means two different Treks.
Spock spock spock spock spock spock spock spock!
I disagree that modern Trek has escalated in scale -- I'd say that it's escalated in spectacle (and yes, maybe individual ships and sets are larger), but it's made the universe feel smaller (or maybe just emptier).
TNG and DS9 did a good job of making the universe feel widely and diversely populated, and they gave a sense of space and time between the various regions of the galaxy. By contrast, I don't get any of that from the Abrams films; e.g., the Enterprise goes to warp, and it feels like it's arrived at Qo'noS a few minutes later in the very next scene. Then back to warp, and they're back at Earth a few minutes after that. And there's no sense that anything else really exists outside of that straight, plot-driven line.
Massive space battles were another thing that DS9 did right. This was over 20 years ago, but in its final 2 seasons it managed to convey a grand sense of scale with huge fleets, an enormous variety of ships on-screen, and much better "choreography" -- i.e., fleet tactics that were varied, visually interesting, intelligible, and believable. The battles in modern Trek are flashy, but to me they end up seeming like a cacophony of ships pummeling each other with no discernible pattern or logic. And don't get me started on the fleets in Picard; just amorphous groups of copy-and-paste ships that gave no sense of dynamism or movement.
As for galaxy-wide stakes, that's one more thing that DS9 did well. Maybe it's just a matter of taking the time that they needed -- 5 seasons of setup, plus 2 seasons of quadrant-wide war, combined with the points I've mentioned above, allowed that show to tell stories both personal and epic. By contrast, Star Trek: Picard merely *said* that the stakes were epic, but didn't really earn it by properly showing/dramatizing all of it.
You're right. I loathed the Federation fleet at the end of Picard. It felt like they got the FX guys to design one ship, and then copy/pasted it. The fleet battles in DS9 are so much better because of the variety of ships and each type of ship looks like it's performing a different function.
You're not that wrong with the Kelvin Enterprise being ten times bigger: its length is more than doubled, and even a 'only' doubled length (with the same proportions) would mean eight times the size (volume). ;)
And the engine room looks like a brewery, or a particle collider. 8-)
Ballad of Bilbo Baggins for the win!
When I was younger (in my teens) it was rare that I ever thought anything bad about Star Trek, not because it wasn’t full of problems, but because I was largely blinded to them by my general love of the series. For me the ultimate Trek was Next Gen, but that’s probably because it was the one I started with. It’s absolutely true that in retrospect it has all sorts of problems (including two really shaky seasons) but I didn’t notice or care.
Today I am much longer in the tooth and the weight of the world has crushed my spirit, so I’m more critical of my Star Trek. Maybe that’s part of why people don’t like it.
If you’re a Doctor Who fan, I like to think of it as the first six or seven episodes with a new Doctor, where you have to get used to the idea that this is Doctor Who now. Most of the time we accept the new actor and new plots, even though we miss the old ones.
"This song is about sex, isn't it?"
I just laughed so hard 😂
Listening to old songs you heard as a child and realizing they are about sex is like opening a door and seeing people having sex while you were looking for the bathroom. It's so traumatic
The song is indeed about sex.... Because it was written by Captain Jack Harkness.
Ruins childhood memories, don't it?
"...like opening a door and seeing people having sex while you were looking for the bathroom." - Ah, somebody else remembers CBGB's from back in the day! XD
Well, it's about being in love, in an obsessive, probably unrequited, and possibly imaginary-relationship sort of way. Typical of a group that specialized in songs about really messed-up people. Though not unrelated to sex, of course.
Isn't pretty much every pop song about sex?
I have a similar problem with escalation of scale in comics, mostly DC. Every storyline seems to be about saving the universe, the timeline or the multiverse. Batman was a detective and crimefighter, not a multiversal demigod.
Fully agreed on almost all counts... the standout difference of opinion being the f-bombs.
Tilly's worked better to me as it played to an unspoken assumption that cursing still exists but is inappropriate in the setting.
Admiral Clancy gave off a "grr, Star Trek is tough now" vibe, by comparison.
And to be clear, both worked for me on some level... Tilly's just worked better.
When I first saw the Tilly scene, I was confused why it was being played like that. So I skipped back a few seconds to listen for anything I might have missed. It took me a few seconds to realize that the f-bomb was unexpected! I am autistic also, so that figures. The only automatic inhibition I have against swearing is when talking to my parents. Except for those few times I was tripping and couldn't tell if I was swearing or not.
Admiral Clancy's would have worked better if she'd just said "sheer fucking hubris" and forgone the other "fuck" later on. Maybe the writers were going for a Chrisjen Avasarala ["The Expanse"] vibe. Didn't succeed though.
Have to totally disagree with one of your conclusions: Star Trek DS9 treated its female characters (including Leeta) way more maturly than the pseudo-empowered women of modern Trek.
Ehh kinda. Full disclosure, I haven't seen modern trek, but while DS9 was WAY better than TOS and TNG for sure, I feel like it's not perfect. Especially in "Let He Who is Without Sin", Worf treats Jadzia awfully and her usual confidence and wisdom is very noticeably absent during it. There's also a couple other examples, like Kira being groped by the grand nagus that one time. But it was pretty occasional; there's probably whole seasons of DS9 where I can't think of a single "yikes" moment, which definitely cannot say for the earlier trek shows lol
(also sorry for dredging up your year old comment I just had thoughts about it)
Well, "the sheer f*cking hubris" has become sort of a meme - that's an accomplishment on it's own :)
funny thing that TOS had the fight scenes added bc they thought people wouldn't like a show without it and now again we have circled back to adding action for the sake of action. Like, I love action scenes a lot but when they are good and/or necessary for the plot, best if it's both, but I also like the strategic mind games, so I miss more of that too.
The scale thing kind of makes me excited for season 3 of discovery because when burnham says what’s on the schedule it’s smaller things-taking things to star bases etc. What I miss from voyager/TNG is the character episodes. Everything, like you said, is so big that you forget that these are people in the grandeur. I want more quieter moments. I want an episode where not everything is on the line. Like the po-Tilly episode was one of my favourite things
Don't really know how I ended up here or why the Algorithm chose to suggest me this video, especially because the only two things I know about Star Trek are: 1. it takes place in space and 2. it's not Star Wars. But I enjoyed it and now I'm curious, so... where am I supposed to start?
I honestly think you can pick the start of any Trek series and be fairly well off honestly. Just pick one that interests you and jump in. Deep Space Nine is my biggest favorite and one that I think is the best. I'd just say, the first season of pretty much every Trek series are rough, so if you wanna save time, I'd find a skip list online of episodes you can skip of each show. Otherwise, just jump in at Season 1 of any show.
It depends if quality of production bothers you. Some of the older ones have dodgy effects but great stories.
Unless you really like 60s camp, I'd suggest not getting too much into TOS until you're more certain you like the franchise and want to explore its origins. There's also not many episodes in the first two seasons of TNG worth watching before you know you like the show.
Deep Space Nine probably has the most relevant-to-today stories.
I've been trying to figure out what one or two TNG episodes to show my wife to give her a flavor of it after we watched The Trouble With Tribbles and she didn't care for it. The Measure of a Man is a great courtroom drama about civil rights, but does it have the same impact on someone who doesn't already love Data? The Inner Light is a beautiful meditation on the life of a dying world, but it wouldn't play the same without the contrast between Picard and Kamin, and it's extremely one-off. The Best Of Both Worlds defines TNG in many ways, but you need to know the characters to really feel how they've been shaken up by the situation.
Welcome to the Trek family! Hope you enjoy it 😊
I started with Voyager and I don't have no regrets.
- What is a sonic screwdriver?
- It's a metaplexically transposed lead writer's red pen.
I think my favourite part of past trek is the exploration of the cultural differences between species and the almost slice-of-life tone that it had (most notable for me in voyager and DS9). I'm warming up to the modern Trek but I still miss that. Not a lot of exploration about aliens for a show about aliens..
My biggest criticism with the Disco/Picard shows is they seem stretched out to fit the story to the 10 or so episodes. I'm not saying they are bloated and should have been shorter, but they belabor the main story and give too short shrift to the subplots. Marvel, Netflix had this with the first few series before breaking up the series into 2 or more main stories over the season allowing the stories to be tighter.
As an aside I have an image of Alan Tudyk from Knocked Up "Just,...tighter".
They honestly feel much more like films to me, and not in a good way, because of this. I feel ike I have to watch a season in one sitting because otherwise it's like stopping a movie halfway through and coming back a few days later. I'll have lost interest by then and moved onto something else. But they're too long for me to watch in one sitting.
Lower Decks, on the other hand, I actually quite enjoy, which is funny 'cause that's the one I was expecting to like the least.
I've remained on the fence about current Trek, though I am still onboard. I'm a bit apprehensive about Discovery Season 3, but I'm willing to see where they go with it. It doesn't bother me at all that it's so called 'woke', and has diverse characters. In fact, yes. More of that, please. And I do care about canon to a certain extent, but not so seriously that it bothers me that some minor plot detail doesn't line up perfectly. And they can swear all they want, for all I care. I think it says more about our culture that swearing bothers some people than it says about the media itself. But there are things about Discovery and Picard, and Short Treks that just don't feel right. And just when I'm about to give up and stop watching it, something will happen that brings me back, and I realize that Star Trek is still in there somewhere, and maybe the writers and producers aren't completely missing the point, and maybe there's hope for the current incarnation of the franchise after all.
I could go into detail, but if I do that, I might as well make my own video, which would require me to not be lazy and unsociable, and also have skills and leisure time. But my main thought, and I think much of what you're getting at, is that they've got to quit doing things just because they can, or because they think they have to. Do things in service of the story, but not to play unnecessarily to a particular story beat or fan segment. Don't contradict or disregard canon just because they can, but do disregard or contradict canon if it plays to the story, or fixes something problematic or unclear about the existing canon. Don't kill off major characters just because they think they need to be Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. If you're going to have major characters, and then kill them off, spend some time developing those characters, so that if they do kill them off, the audience actually gives a damn because we liked the character, and not because we never got a chance to know them in the first place. Don't invent a ridiculous fictional technology that runs on magic mushrooms just because they think the series has to be some kind of trend setting sci/tech prophet that inspires cosmology and cell phones. Don't move the whole series centuries into the future just because they think they need to placate the canon hawks who are frustrated with all the retcons in a timeframe we're already familiar with. Don't invent a magic flute that repairs the ship just because they need a Deus ex Machina device to move the plot along after they crashed the ship showing off magic space orchids that only exist to show off the special effects necessary to create magic space orchids, when they could instead save that time and effects budget to make more than one kind of starship copied and pasted 800 times.
I could go on, but I really should stop myself somewhere. But yes, I agree. Trek is awesome in general. The current iterations are still having some growing pains even after 3 years, but they're still pretty good in some respects. Though for a lot of the reasons you mention, and many, many more, there is so much room for improvement.
Pre-watch comment: modern Trek and Star Wars is fun on first viewing, kinda bad on second, and nearly intolerable on third viewing when kool-aid where's off and reality sits in - let's see if my prediction is correct. *pushes play*
I think this is some of the best and most well rounded critique of modern Trek myself, as somebody that usually loves it. I will say that I do love seeing the darker side of the Trek universe, but I also understand the criticism for it as well. I wonder if it’s partially a function of not being confined to FCC regulations like the older shows might have been. Either way, I think you were on point with a lot of the nuanced and loving critique.
Personally I'd just like it if they didn't do it to everything. I can get behind a 'darker Trek' for one show, that's pretty much what DS9 was to the Berman era, but when the only non-dark and edgy Trek we have is Lower Decks (which I do like to be fair) it feels like a different franchise to me. I have high hopes for Strange New Worlds though
I had the opposite reaction to the F Bombs in Discovery and Picard. I like that the cadet had an over-expressive moment of excitement. And her superior officer had that thought of "No, we're going to embrace this excitement. Because you know what? I'm excited, too!"
It felt completely unprofessional and out of place in Picard. He makes his request and she loses it on him. He lays out what he wants and she just goes immediately to that line. No conversation. No compromise. Nothing. I get where she's coming from for the most part, but the way she reacts doesn't work for me for someone in that position.
Gee thanks, it was super easy to pay attention to the rest of the video with The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins playing on loop in the back of my head.
Very well thought out and a great, insightful & thorough critique of ‘modern’ Trek. I’m going to be boring here and say that - pretty much on all accounts - I agree with you. Probably the “easiest’ watch for me would be the Berman Era Trek but I think each era has been appropriate for the generation who are/were it’s target audience.
Those who were kiddies in the 1960s relate to style of presentation in TOS that invokes memories of their youth. Those growing up in the 70s & 80s got hooked by the Berman Era Trek and the teenagers of today - I’m sure - feel a greater connection with the more angsty and generally darker and more challenging modern era Trek.
I love the fact that we have these three very distinctive eras where Gene Roddenberry’s original vision has been re-interpreted with fresh eyes and unique writing styles and delivery. Yup, I agree with all the “flaws” in modern Trek presentation but without them........perhaps the Abrams Era would not have that fresh, new and therefore EXCITING feel.
Great video as always Jessie and I’m sure it will get us all debating the salient points. Well done 😁
Hello, Jessie. Great vid. So far, "Prodigy" is my #1 current "Star Trek" show. "TNG" is my #1 golden-age *and* overall "Star Trek" show. I'm not against profanity in modern "Star Trek," either. I neither despise nor trust Alex Kurtzman, nor do I have anything against those who do, nor do I have anything against those who despise modern "Star Trek." Yet, I'm more hyped about season two of "Prodigy" than the final season of "Discovery," to be honest. Keep up the good work and may you and yours live long and prosper. Happy 2024! 🖖
I got about 2 episodes into Discovery, but it wasn't for me, this was largely due to the over the top camera movement. Then they add in all that lens flair. I also didn't like the redesigned Klingons. I believe they are like that in the new movies too, but I didn't watch those as I didn't like the recasting of those classic characters. That said, I didn't like Enterprise either. That felt like a misstep. Maybe it's a prequel thing.
"Down in the doo-bi-li-do." I take it you are a fan of John Green and Hank Green?
This video sums up why I love Star Trek so much: Because the die hard fans of the Star Trek universe are such nerds that they understand the necessity of honestly criticizing the things they truly love!! How else are we supposed to grow as people and advance as a civilization if we can't have these open and honest conversations!! It's a meta-reflection (maybe not so meta) of the ethos of Star Trek itself. Great video. Keep it up!
Also Thank you for critiquing the new era! You can do it without being dismissed as a "hater"!
Because she wasn’t a hater. That’s why.
PS, I also love your "asides" on the red background with the demon voice. LOL!!
There is nothing more star trek than introducing a previously unknown relative of spock.
Next series will have a Romulan with a Brooklyn accent: "Aaaay, I'm Frankie de Spigot, Spock's 3rd cousin twice removed. Howudoin'?"
I need a character to talk the AI into self destruction. That would be so Trek to me.
Wow... you just beautifully articulated a lot of the things that bug me about Modern Trek, even some things that I didn't realize bugged me. I definitely agree with all your critiques. For me, pacing is also an issue. Some episodes feel like they are just trying to cram too much plot into too little time in a way that feels exhausting. I miss the quieter moments, the funny moments, the sad moments, and the small moments of earlier Trek. Also the overarching plot across each season of DIS and PIC kind of confused me. There was so much set up for not a lot of pay off. Stories don't need to be big and flashy to be powerful.
The Abrams/Kurtzman era noticeably improves (at least in my opinion) once Kurtzman and Orci were no longer writing partners. While Kurtzman still has his issues it seems to me that Bob "9/11 was an inside job, the Boston Marathon Bombing was a False Flag" Orci was a real albatross around his neck. The only thing all three of those people were involved with that's truly great is Fringe.
"The only thing all three of those people were involved with that's truly great is Fringe." - But can it truly be _the only thing,_ if there's more than one of everything?
I think you've expressed this as as well as anyone ever could, and most importantly as fairly....it's all subject to personal taste, but at it's core it's all Star Trek.
I suppose we owe Samuel Peeples for one of our era's overused trope....the Starship Fesarious from The Cornomite Maneuver set up the easy escalation used to good effect in The Doomsday Machine, etc, so we see them when it's critical for us to buy the next transition: V'ger for the first film era, Giant Jellyfish and force fields for TNG, and the Narada for the JJ/K era.
Space magic? Yeah, well, it's all space magic to me, but they really should reign that shit in, shouldn't they. They were just BEGGING to be made fun of when Rios said "Nothing that makes sense." ;D
Darkness for darkness sake however, is just today's form of exploitation...the Orion slave girls of the '60s that sold Trek when sex was a hot commodity and violence was taboo is today's Icheb eye-gouge now that exploitative sex is more of a turn off than a turn on.
Your work keeps getting better and better, Jesse. You're taking a mere reversal on job status and building it into a big personal advancement. THAT'S how it's done!
My biggest problem with Picard is that there is some really great ideas but with absolutely no follow through.Take seven as the Borg queen for example yes I grant you it looked cool but in the end it was empty, the Borg were all spaced 30 seconds later it added nothing to story really, and while it could have added hugely to seven’s character arch they chose not to explore that, they took something with so much promise and I got nothing more than a cool screen shot. It’s a problem I had with Moffat’s Doctor who as well, things were done to look cool but when ultimately everyone and everything comes out of it in the exact same place they started, I was just left feeling empty afterwards.
Also the synth ban made no sense what so ever when holograms were just as vulnerable to having their program hijacked but were not banned.
RE watched Star Trek Enterprise . When it ran originally , I stopped watching after the 2nd season.
Things really took a dramatic turn for the better in season 3. Too bad !
Oh gosh that camera spinning around at 7:12 truly made me queasy.
For me, the one thing I wish modern Trek (and I'm mostly talking Discovery here) had more room to breathe. All three seasons of Discovery felt like they needed a couple episodes for the characters to felt truly well thought-out. I know we'll probably never return to the 22-24 long seasons of Treks past, but even a couple more episodes would allow the pacing to not feel too rushed, the stakes to not feel like they're at '11' all the time, and the characters to have on-screen bonding moments instead of implied familiarity (like that funeral scene in Discovery Season 3).
"Cynical" is the word the describes the foundation of these shows imo (I haven't had the joy of watching the Kelvin movies yet). It feels like an arbitrary jumble of modern sci-fi cliches (many of which are contrary to the nature of Trek).
Some of my favourite stories are the ones surrounding Barclay's character development, the ones surrounding the EMH in Voyager, "The Measure of a Man", "Who Watches the Watchers", etc. These are stories that focus on philosophical issues and character dynamics, and I just don't see how similar stories could emerge from Discovery or Picard.
Part of what I personally love about Next Gen and DS9 is that it has a lot of one off episodes that explore a sci fi concept and then they move on, so if one doesn't feel like it isn't fully working, you can just move forward to the next "odo and quark have to climb a mountain together", "Disaster", "OBrien has to pretend to be an olde timey gangster" "holodeck shenanigans"
The only Disco episode that seemed to tap into that was the time loop party, but even then it had to tie into the rest of the plot so we didn't really get a complete story. I know a lot of people like mysteries that they can solve but I honestly couldn't have cared less about who the "angel" was or the klingons. However, in all fairness, I didn't properly get into either of those until about season 3 or 4 so hopefully there'll be more anthology type episodes soon!
That song is about sex, isn’t it? Omfg. You made me laugh so hard I almost forgot my point about Space Magic, which is: Star Trek has always relied on magical technology and even more magical human beings. But of course there is the old Arthur c Clarke chestnut: any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. The true magic of Trek lies in its ability to inspire, scientifically and socially. Ok now I’m babbling. Your joke threw me off, dude!
When I watched TNG as a kid I thought PADDs were magic and it would take hundreds of years to get them. Now I watch TNG on my network connected PADD.
Wow, after seeing the clip of the torture scene, I don't think I can watch modern Trek because of my PTSD. 😔
It is only one scene at the beginning of Season 1 episode 5, if you skip about the first 5 minutes you won't see it. If you decide to watch the show, which is entirely up to you.
Sara Ezzat Thanks for the tip!
I absolutely love the way you put it with regards to the "Escalation of scale"! Yes! We need more small-scale plots! I love Star Trek TV shows as TV shows. This looks like a series of movies, and I want TV. Voyager had The Thaw. Amazing TV, using the stakes of 3 strangers' lives. Amazing. Beautiful. TNG had an episode that primarily focused on Data's life on the ship. Yes please. Small moment. Small stakes. Make me honestly care about the characters. In small ways.
I agree with your criticisms and conclusions. Overall I like modern Trek, but I hope these storytelling issues get addressed in future seasons.
3:09 And it was at that moment Jessie became THE MASTER CONTROL PROGRAM!!!
excellent and well-written video that helped me articulate some issues I've had with modern trek. I would love to hear you talk more in depth about showrunners & writers of trek. I'm particularly curious about your thoughts on Bryan Fuller and how modern trek was effected by him stepping down (something I personally still mourn) and how having a more anthology type storytelling could (or couldn't) have worked for trek. Anyway, keep up the amazing work!! Love hearing your thoughts and insights on everything trek!
I try to ignore the space magic part by reminding myself of the Arthur C. Clarke quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
You've absolutely nailed many of my critiques of Nu Trek. I still watch and enjoy it, but I rarely get through an episode without an eye roll or two. I also don't think I've finished watching an episode and been left pondering the issues brought up by the story. Nu Trek often tips it's hat at morality plays or philosophical dilemmas, but it almost never actually digs into them. It's always in too much of a rush to get to the next manufactured cliffhanger.
With respect to their cannon issues, I’ve felt like modern Trek often uses it as a narrative crutch. They pull something from canon and halfway reimagine it. Which is not to say they should never reimagine canon, but I think it’s often a matter of execution. For example, with DSC’s Klingon, so much work went into reimagining their aesthetics and culture that I think it suffers from not being more (re)developed. Had they been a completely original species, I believe it would’ve been cleared what further developments were needed.
And I get it when there’s minor tweaks to existing canon, it’s not always a good idea to reintroduce everything as if it were new information, but there’s a point at which you’ve changed enough things that the audience can no longer rely on previous knowledge to project on their current iteration.
As another example the Borg were re-imagined in First Contact, but they were developed enough so that the audience wasn’t relying on previous knowledge to understand what they’re deal is.
I watched the Next Gen episode Lower Decks and I was so excited by how fun and heart felt it was and then I realized newer Trek was lacking that heart.
A very thoughtful critique. The problems I had with Picard were perfectly summed up by Ketwolski; the direction created errors in story logic (particularly the finale). However, the character pieces sold me on the series as a whole.
Wow, this is *the* most intelligent commentary I have heard about "new" Trek on any channel, ever. I came expecting . . . well, I don't know what. But from beginning to end this was just incredibly thoughtful. I cannot believe that 23 months after posting this you have less than 10,000 views on it.
Point number 3 is a big one for me.
I remember the season 2 finale of Discovery being really frustrating to watch (in spite of its interesting setup and exciting ending) because of how the action doesn't fall into a rhythm and doesn't build momentum effectively from scene to scene.
They basically just took what would have been the 10/15-minute action climax of a Kelvin film, stretched it out to an hour, and awkwardly slotted in scenes of the characters talking to each other while standing in place.
Having said that, I do like how the hand-to-hand combat scenes in modern Star Trek episodes are, you know, actually good.
I also fully agree with point number 2, it's totally gratuitous.
Your point about Modern Trek having to connect back to established canon really hit a chord with me. Because, it strikes at the core of niche media and nerd fandom. So many die-hard fans of sci-fi, fantasy and such want to be REWARDED for their knowledge. Connect this thing to that thing, and that thing to this thing, and have lore on top of lore on top of lore on top of lore. Michael Burnham just being a Starfleet Science Offer who has a story to tell works great on its own, but you have to admit that there are fans out there who want everything to connect to everything, otherwise, they won't care as much.
Making Burnham could be seen as a bold move to FIRMLY establish "yes. This is Star Trek." or it's cynical nerdbait.
I'd hope more people would examine their desire for, as I saw it described once, being rewarded for knowing the minutia on the fan wiki.
And Jessie, remember this. If they didn't want you to try every flavor of ice cream, they wouldn't give you those tiny sample spoons. ;)
Come for the discussion of Star Trek, stay for Jessie's impression of a chicken when talking about Spock...
I lost love of the Jar Jar Abrams Trek when they flipped the Spock sacrifice in the engine room. It wasn't well set up, didn't make sense from character OR in universe lore and made me so upset that I was shaking leaving the theatre. Boo on that. Otherwise. Star Trek is my jam.
Lorenz Winterhoff Point of Order. “Jar Jar” was portrayed by a hardworking actor who was nearly driven to suicide by years of unrelenting backlash for being on the bleeding edge of MoCap characters. “Jellyfish” Abrams has no spine, no brain, and caved under the slightest pressure to make the train wreck that was TROS.
Weird, I really liked the F-Bomb moment in DISC, but really felt the admiral using it was super out of place. Because honestly, what they were doing in that DISC scene was F'ing cool! And Tilly is just the kind of character that would not filter that out of her speech. The Admiral should have more composure, and I actually think it would've been more effective putting the emphasis on 'Hubris'. She would've been a lot more effective by saying "Dismissed, admiral" with Picard wanting to interrupt, "I SAID DISMISSED!"
Anyways, just my 2cts.
Great video, Jessie, you really highlighted three of the main overarching problems with modern Trek. One that I think needs adding to it though, is the use of lighting. In the Kelvin Universe films they go overboard with solar flares everywhere and in Discovery a lot of scenes are so dark, It's difficult to see exactly what is going on. Picard seemed to get a better balance.
I thought this video was absolutely excellent. I’m very defensive of modern Star Trek, because the hatred aimed at it is so often just for clicks, but your issues are valid and the way you deconstructed the issues was logical and constructive. Thanks.
Great use of that ST2009 musical crescendo...
Is what I thought until you played TAS over PIC. That one is definitely for the win 😂
I pretty much agree with all of this, and I also loved Discovery and Picard in spite of these issues. Even if they don't 'fix' them, I'm on board.
Great video Jessie. Like you I love Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard. One thing I've always said about Star Trek Discovery as much as I like it I wish it had taken place after TNG DS9 and Voyager.1. it's visually stunning 2. The characters of Discovery are all strong and you didn't really need to connect them to original Trek. That's one thing that Gene Roddenberry purposely did that's why he made the Next Generation so far in the future from the original Star Trek because he said he didn't want it to be the children or even grandchildren of those people.3. My biggest problem with my beloved Discovery was they should have never ever never change the Klingons. Klingons pretty much look the same since 1979 they updated the makeup from time to time but that's about it. And instead of people being able to focus on this beautiful new show with visuals that rival the movies all people are talking about is why do the Klingons look so different. Not to mention going out of their way to try to say that humans and Klingons can't mate which we saw lots of half Klingon half humans but okay.
4. My final thing discovery and Picard are guilty of what's so are a ton of other sci-fi franchises the whole end of Life as We Know It. Still love my Discovery looking forward to season 3 still love Star Trek Picard looking forward to season 2.
Hey Jessie
Excellent video like always!
And all your points on New Trek is legit criticism and fairly expressed by you
Each generation of Trek has had issues
With TNG you would have A and B plots with lots of technobabble...
I think one reason I have tried to be as patient as possible with New Trek is to allow it time to find its footing - previous Treks had 24 to 27 episodes per season - In 2 seasons Discovery hasn’t yet hit 30 episodes and Picard has had only 10
I think both shows have done a lot with the time they have had
And I like overall what I’m seeing but there is definite room for improvements
Take care!
Loads of great points, Jessie! Thanks & well done. So glad we're here to experience this era!
Well Lore reloaded liked your tweet so I found your twitter looked good, checked your YT looks awesome... Now if I could just have more hours in a day to watch all the awesome stuff people keep showing me I would be happy
15:20 - 15:48 Agreed. And during the Berman/Braga era DS9 shows not only you could create a Trek series with a darker turn, and done it well. I'm sure writers of 'Discovery' and 'Picard' must've learned from it.
100% agree with all this points. I would also add modern Trek is very much 'Tell' story telling over 'show' story telling. For example it tells us why we should care about certain characters instead of showing us why we should care. It needs to spend less time on OTT action and more time on character moment. Picard looked like is going to do that then after episode 3 it stopped (for the most part.).
I think the biggest problem is they are putting more time and money into action special effects and not enough time into writing or money into set & sound design. I think with the exception of the Picard pilot my first thought have always been "If you had just don't another pass at the script to tighten thing... use your set to help tell a story... and why do you think you don't need put any money into music & sound design?"
The thing I dislike the most is the fact that there is going to be a Section 31 show, which is horrible because SECTION 31 IS HORRIBLE. There is a reason Julian Bashir helped destroy it. BECAUSE IT WAS THE CIA IN SPACE.
You just made me realize why I hate the whole use of Section 31 -- it's a writer's cheat. In DS9, whenever they needed to up the stakes with that Bashir-Sloan storyline, they would just have Sloan basically do an "Ah ha! You think you have beaten me but I have a super secret trick up my sleeve because I am a super secret spy!" You can only do that a few times before it overstays its welcome.
Late to the party on this video but I am sure this will be good as always.
Ps. Love the hoodie.
Bonus points for the hobbit song!
Oh god, YES about the Michael randomly being Spock's sister, a sister that we had NEVER FREAKING HEARD ABOUT BEFORE EVER, in "Discovery". It was just so...fanficy. Like, the bad kind of fanfic. It felt like the kind of thing that should stay firmly on OUR side of the screen.
I found myself immediately flashing back to a parody play of Star Trek V (yes, THAT movie) at a convention, when they introduce Sybok, Spock's out of nowhere brother. Sybok says some line about "Don't you remember? Your father also raised me!"
And Parody-Spock is like: "My father also raised corn. That does not make IT my brother!" (putting aside for the moment whether the image of Sarek as a (Vulcan equivalent of?) "corn" farmer is ridiculous or not...)
So unfortunately, Michael's introduction as Spock's sister _in an actual Trek show_ made me immediately quip to the screen: "Sarek also raised corn. That does not make IT Spock's sister!" That...is not a good sign. If you're quoting fan-made productions that were meant to MAKE FUN OF a franchise at the _real_ thing on the first episode...
That plus the messed-up Klingons, and it's kinda hard to cover up an ENTIRE MAJOR RACE being that different, to everyone in-universe who would've remembered and/or documented it...I mean, I can get past _little_ continuity errors (or in some cases not even be aware of them) but big things that would've changed the story significantly...no. That's why I'm glad they went ahead and said the Kelvin movies were in an alternate universe.
I mean, cheesy as it was, at least Enterprise took a STAB at the "why they had bumps and then they didn't" thing re: the original Klingons and the movie-onwards ones, and then that plot point was incorporated pretty decently into the "Rise of the Federation" books, so I can't really hate on _that_ bit of back-continuity. Heck, in those books they even show how the Classic-Trek style Klingons started taking over!
That said, I SO want to _actually see_ Discovery go way into the future. Doooo iiiittt...
EDIT: Oh god, the "red matter". That bugged the crap out of me, because it didn't even have a properly science-fictiony _name_ . Like, could they have come up with a name that sounds MORE "It just works like this...BECAUSE, okay? Shut up!" if they tried? What's wrong with _strange_ matter? It's an actual science concept and it would be insanely dense and possibly dangerous--and the name sounds cooler too!
And YES, on the "darkness for its own sake" thing. That's exactly what chased me off from _multiple originally-good genre shows from the 2000's onwards.
Thank you for your honest and balanced critique. I truly appreciate your opinion. As a new Star Trek fan, I’m more of a fan of Picard and Discovery in lieu of the plodding of TOS.
This was a great video and I think it fills an important role in modern Trek discourse - we need critique that isn’t just “SJWs bad.” One thing I really miss about older-era Trek is the sensory gentleness. I understand why the new era has gone the Bigger, Louder, Faster, More Violent route, because that’s kind of a stylistic norm of the time. But I’m autistic, and I’m really sensitive to violence on TV/film (not in a moral way - I just can’t stand to watch it because I can almost feel it happening to me), and I can experience sensory overload when things are just too loud/bright/busy/etc. Older Trek is so safe and comfy for me, but newer Trek isn’t. I’m not sure I’d characterize that as a flaw of the shows, but it’s just something I don’t personally enjoy.
Wow - I don't think I've ever agreed so completely with a review of Trek I've seen/read. Nice to know I'm in good company with regards to my enthusiastic fandom/criticisms of the latest incarnations of Trek.
Thanks for this video, really appreciate you’re views. I find the newer versions of Star Trek quite difficult to get on board with in general, for most of the reasons you give in this video and others, but I’ve given them all a fair crack with an open mind and tried them. I love Lower Decks! Ambivalent at best to Picard and Discovery. Really didn’t like Star Trek Into Darkness!
Anyway, keep putting up the great content! I especially love your Sacred Treks 😍.
People don't complain about adherence to canon because they are inflexible. Stories create worlds and those worlds are governed by rules. When someone changes those rules it means that the lessons you thought you learned from a story has to be reevaluated. The reevaluation is where a lot of the consternation originates.
It's difficult to read a book when Chapters 1 and 2 say this but 3 and 4 say that...
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12:17 - Of course it's talking about sex. As my uncle says, "you're always talking about the only thing".
EDIT: Quite agree with your criticisms, particularly with the "saving the galaxy every other day" one. I would add one. I love new era Trek, but I think it was not a good idea to name a whole series after one character, even if it is PICARD (in well deserved capitals). "Star Trek: Synths" or "Star Trek: Fall of Federation" (FoF) would have been better, for example. I quite like the last one!
Anyway, I also still would go to bat for the new era Trek any day, if i knew the slightest thing about baseball, which is not the case. LLAP! 🖖🖖🖖
3:08 Good Overlord reference
Interesting and great video! I'm just curious though... were you shading overlord dvd? 👀
Thank you for articulating the point about cannon. There really wasn’t a need to connect burnham to Spock. In fact I would like new trek to move away from previous versions of trek. My take is why couldn’t discovery from the beginning be set 25 years after nemesis? (It would unfortunately mean no pike) and you could have had Picard show up as a guest star for a 3 episode arc or something to that effect. Clearly the brain trust realizes this by setting discovery 900 years in the future.
My hope for Picard is that there is a hand off to a new crew and Jean Luc rides off in the sunset.
If you think the Enterprise in 2009's Star Trek is large, consider the Red Dwarf - six miles of mining craft on an interplanetary loop.
Also, would Kinetic Camera be the eventual evolution of CamBot From MST3K?
Red Dwarf has changed size several times over the years, not unlike the Enterprise!
Wow.....seriously you nailed it..by golly you nailed it, you actually succinntly described my problems! I hate the "everything has to be huge and epic!!" it's so ...childish.. (not being negative...) The idea of "well...here's a super super Duper ship!" it just is too much CGI vomit... And the Burnham Spock thing... I have no problem with Burnham, but I FULLY agree that the need to have her be Spock's sister is....so bizarre and left field and it just felt forced... New and different is good...we don't need some connective umbilical to the prior stories. And don't get me started on the "Sonic Screwdriver" .....
Totally agree on your points, though I tend to be bit harder on it. Many of the issues with new Trek arise from a general cynicism on the part of the show runners. I don't just mean that the storytelling is less optimistic and hopeful -- if that's all it were, it wouldn't necessarily be a fatal flaw that ruins everything, like you point out. Picard is maybe a bit less cynical than Discovery in this sense which is one reason I liked it more.
But there's also a cynicism in terms of the assumptions and expectations about the audience, which feed into how the show is made and marketed. It underestimates what take to get us to like it and get hooked on the show long-term, so as to keep subscribing to it and keep those dollars coming. Most problems, whether they're deal-breakers or not, are rooted in this.
Examples include the overuse of high stakes, the way that nostalgia is teased and employed, the mystery boxes that string us along but don't always hold up to scrutiny when the cat is finally let out the bag, and the baiting of the target demographics in ways that aren't well-earned or borne out through the story (historic gay kiss, then killing off the love interest; possible bi- or lesbian tendencies for Seven that are teased for a split second without ever being established in a meaningful way), and so on... Basically it's cynical, because taking short-cuts, trading in short-term pay-offs and generally half-assing it is both considered and framed as "enough" to earn our buy-in, and I'm afraid that for a lot of people, it just isn't.
Okay I know there's a good, important discussion here, but... damn girl, that earring is awesome.
I think one thing you didn't touch on is the wokeness of today's trek. I'm a social worker, and I'm all for progressive thinking, but it was often forced and gratuitous. You can be woke without turning it into a spectacle. It's like they're overcompensating for all the guilt of society. The denigration of Picard is one example. The scale of everything, as you pointed out, is a big issue. It's just ridiculous. There's nothing they didn't go overboard with. The techno babble, especially in Discovery, just numbs the brain. In Picard, moving eight stars to create an octonary??? WTH??? I like the writing, at times. Unfortunately, it seems like for every one good thing we get two bad. There is SO MUCH that could have been done with the borg cube and it was wasted. Hugh could have been an awesome addition to Trekdom. There was a lot of sloppiness too. Did they have to start the Nepenthe episode with a rabbit? Are we supposed to surmise that a few pets escaped from their owners while visiting the planet and then bred, and bred etc? That's just lazy, and unforgivable. And it draws away from how really good all the Nepenthe stuff from the episode was. I've watched that episode at least ten times, and that rabbit really sucks. Just edit it out.
When I first started watching Discovery, I was so hopeful. The first four or five episodes had a more cerebral quality to them. Dark at times, but appropriately dark, given what Burnham had gone through. Then they shifted out of it and I think it went down hill from there. I have to disagree with you on Discovery. I thought the whole second season was just ridiculous. It was almost unwatchable. If not for being a die hard Trekkie, desperate for Trek, I'd have just turned it off. The scale issue was everywhere. Plots had to have a hundred twists and turns, and they were all crazier than the last. The technobabble made it near impossible to follow the plot at times. And they were always making up some over the top crazy stuff to enable their over the top plots and twists, to work. I think they put four or five good episodes together, at the start of Discovery, so we know they're capable of sustaining quality writing. So I'd like to know what the issue is with them? Too many cooks, or what?
Your critique is on the point, especially concerning the problem of scale. It become boring when again and again at least the whole Federation - or even the Galaxy is on the brink of Armageddon. Not only in Star Trek i think, i have the impression that this is trophe overused in other Franchises as well. I. m. o. less is often better. It is like the overused planet-/solar-killing weapons in Star Wars...