How The Biggest Sci-Fi Franchise Destroyed Itself With The Disco Era
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- With the release of Star Trek: Section 31, Star Trek's Disco era is over. Now, many are calling Star Trek a dead sci-fi franchise. What happened? To find the answer, we have to look into the past to the debut of Star Trek: Discovery on CBS All Access.
Remember when Star Trek was about deep, complex ideas and unstoppable optimism in the face of adversity? Yeah...
it's funny...
I was watching a reaction to "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" earlier today...
And I pointed out the two genres of science fiction there seemed to be.
The Alien/Matrix/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill/PlanetoftheApes/SoylentGreen genre, where man is bad, or weak, or stupid or a threat to... everything...
Then there's the CloseEncounters/ET/Starman/TRON/StarTrekTOS/Babylon5 genre... in which Man is considered by some very respectable people as being pretty cool.
I mean, when a being from a civilization as advanced as the alien in "Starman" tells you he finds your people beauitful and unique... that's a much more positive and optimistic view than "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!"
"Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you?... When things are worst, you are at your very best".
That's a very positive message that _we need to hear_ .
Modern Star Trek seems like Quentin Tarantino took over the franchise. Current Star Trek characters belong in Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction.
Star Trek is not the only franchise to be destroyed by "woke-ness." Once upon a time, there were artists who plied their trade, struggling to produce exceptional works that might touch the hearts and minds of others. Over the years, however, the artistic process has been usurped by businessmen seeking to transform it into a tool for profit and gain. Propaganda and formulaic reiteration do not move the human soul as true art does.
@@khalaq2me when I use meaningless buzzwords.
@@khalaq2 what exactly do you think "woke-ness" is?
Remember when fandom wasn't about toxic rage and bigotry? Yeah...
They all lack the optimism, TOS, NG, original movies, Voyager, enterprise, all portrayed a better future, one you’d hope to live in.
While you’d pray to god you weren’t living in the disco future.
Picard S3 is great for the nostalgia but pretty sucky for the plot.
As a TNG-era kid I definitely liked the nostalgia, but you can't keep a show running on nostalgia. I agree that the actual plot for S3 was just as weak as the previous two, and seeing the Borg defeated was pretty hollow given they've supposedly been around for thousands of years and had trillions of drones in their space in the Delta Quadrant. Force of nature to farce - which started with Voyager and its overuse of the Queen.
@@ijmad Agreed!
@@ijmadWell... to be fair... the war with species 8472 and then the actions of Future Janeway significantly sent them into decline.
The plot was a mixed bag. But it was nostalgia done right. It's the kind of team-up Star Wars woefully never attempted.
The premise of certain aspect were also very intriguing. But there's only so much bad Trek you can undo in one season.
I think the one flaw is that this should have been about 2 to 3 season of stuff that was all crammed into one. Bringing back the changelings like that was a fun idea. It could have used to room to grow and breath. Introducing a next generation of kids was definitely fun. The Borg being behind Picard's rare syndrome was actually an awesome idea.
But the execution of a lot of good ideas crammed into a single season made it better than what we've seen over the last decade but not fantastic in the big picture. Jack's magical powers don't align with Star Trek. Teleport assimilation does seem flawed and problematic. And the easy reversal of that is far too "barely an inconvenience" for a well written story. The age gap, likewise, is cute but a little too convenient.
You ultimately have to suspend a lot of disbelief for a good amount of nostalgia and something that at least feels like Star Trek and acknowledges the past that's come before it.
It would have all been an acceptable trade-off is Legacy was made and improved on the formula and took us into a new Era of Star Trek more aligned with the golden age of the franchise.
The Riker not listening to Picard sub-plot was easily one of the cringiest hours of television in existence. It wasn't inherently bad, but that's just not how these characters would act. Riker was never that unsure of himself and would not have discounted Picard so easily.
Don't get me wrong. It was still possible to get the same result story-wise. But it needed to happen with the characters actually acting like the characters rather than cardboard cutouts.
Which reminds me, what did Beverly do in that season?
If we didn't have that finale with the Enterprise D, Season 3 would have gone down with the other seasons. Thankfully, no matter how utterly ridiculous it was from a story telling perspective, we got to say a proper goodbye to the old girl who had been badly mistreated so many years before.
Goodbye Big E. You were always the greatest character of the show.
For me, it was a mix of nostalgia and Terry Matalas throwing a lot of 12 Monkeys Easter Eggs in. Definitely some contrivances, but he was given one season to get the band back together and have them do something setpiece-worthy. I'll overlook a lot given those facets that I simply won't with the rest of Nu Trek, because that's pure contrivance with member berries sprinkled around in a way that comes off as insulting and retcon-heavy.
Ironically, Prodigy and Lower Decks - both animated and both cancelled - have turned out to be the best new Trek made. And I hate to say this but PLEASE NO MORE WIL WHEATON. He's not even playing Wesley Crusher anymore, he's playing Wil Wheaton being amused at still being involved with Star Trek for some reason...
What do you expect? Wil is so full of himself and hyperpolitical, he and Mark Hamill would make great buddies.
I haven't watched either of those, even though I've given most of the Nu-Trek shows at least an episode or three to (fail to) win me over. Somehow, even though I was excited for the concept of Lower Decks at first, once I discovered it was going to be a parody show, I immediately lost interest and haven't been able to bring myself to even try it. Even though I love Galaxy Quest, which is obviously first and foremost a Trek parody, I feel very strongly that a franchise has no business parodying itself. If the producers of the franchise don't take it seriously and make a show about how silly it all really is, why should I take any of the (ostensibly) serious shows seriously, myself? (I also don't care for North American animation styles of the past 20 years, but I could overlook that if the show was actually good).
I guess with Prodigy, I heard it was geared towards younger kids, so I figured it would be to simplistic to actually be worth while.
@@The_Lucent_Archangel Hamill didn't really get offensive to non-politicians until Trump arrived on the political scene, and I just see him as someone who thinks Trump is bad news and wants to do everything in his power to convince people of that. It's not like conservatives have ever held back on telling liberals they think they are idiots and don't know what they're talking about, even long before 2015, so maybe they shouldn't be so thin-skinned when they get the same treatment.
I'll give you that Wheaton has always been pretty insufferable, although he may have gotten that way from all the hate he caught for the Next Gen writers making Wesley Crusher such a know-it-all kid genius.
Prodigy yes lower decks no
@@paulrasmussen8953 I find most people that don't like Lower Decks stopped watching after a couple of episodes. And I get that for some people the humour just isn't going to gel. But I honestly believe Lower Decks (after season 1) is at the same quality as the best of TNG.
What exactly happened to bring Star Trek to this? Kurtzman and JJ Abrams happened.
Bryan Fuller
True but Kurtzman (and I think goldsmith) were both involved in Fringe which was great character driven SF. Point being they can write good stuff, it is just the zeitgeist killing everything.
Franchise Killers, Klutzman and Jar Jar Abrams.
@@johnmeneses7039 Damn, you beat me to it! I thought I was the only one who called them that.
Did you hear Jar Jar Abrams and Kathleen "Klutz" Kennedy accomplished the impossible! They UNITED both _Star Wars_ and _Star Trek_ fans in COMPLETE APATHY towards their respective franchises they once loved. If only the world had more people with this "talent." /s
Not the "Fandom Menace" extremism are what happened to ruin the fandom.
If I need to watch a modern Star Trek show I watch Star Trek: The Orville.
Well said and so true.
Agreed!
SNW is 90% awesome
So say we all !
That was good real humor, I watched the 1st 2 session then the cable wars started. And I had 4 boys wrestling back then lol. I was surprised to find out it went on for 5? Sessions. I might need to check it out
"Star Trek....It's dead Jim."
No, it ended in 2017 with Discovery. Actually, it ended in 2009 when it attempted to recreate ST, and ignored the fundamental truths of ST. TOS should be watched before any attempt is made in the future. Nurse Chaple was into Spock. Uhura was into Scotty. Spock having a half human sister was simply ignorant. TOS was an "upbeat" vision of a possible future. So was every show until 2009. What was the name of that movie in 2009? Whatever it was it was so close until it went off the rails. It took me a while to warm up to TNG, but I did. There are no words for me to explain how I hated STD. STD was not ST. Period. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't "Trek". You know what was Trek, except for the name? Star Gate SG1 was Trek, minus the Enterprise. An argument could be made that Star Gate Atlantis added the ship. Star Trek is DEAD. It was murdered by an overabundance of CGI, makeup, and lack of storyline. My rant is concluded.
100%! _Star Trash: Disaster_ was made by clueless people who didn't understand the first damn thing that makes *great Sci-Fi:* _Exploring the social and moral implications of technology._ Not this Mary Sue Space Jesus Bullsh!t.
_The Orville_ is the spiritual successor to ST:TNG.
Spot on. It is utterly horrifying what has been done to Star Trek.
Season 3 of Discovery was effectively an old Roddenberry idea previously made about 20 years before as "Andromeda".
Andromeda did it so much better because it was the premise of the show.
Currently re-watching my old Andromeda DVDs, very cool show
There is already a film about Section 31, it's called Star Trek Renegades. A Fan Film that kicks HARD and the only expression I can use to describe it is "Star Trek"
The fan fiction films are of higher content quality than anything from Klutzman and Jar Jar Abrams. The acting could be better, but for amateurs it is not bad. I am very impressed with the work done on Axanar. Firstly it is a solid Star Trek style story. Secondly it is not interfering with TOS in any way. Thirdly, of all the fan fiction out there, it is the best scripted and acted and actually feels like it belongs in the Star Trek universe. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel with unimaginative useless writers, they could have bought into the idea and helped that crew generate something which would have brought back a massive audience of Star Trek fans. But NO, their agenda was more important, so Star Trek: It's dead Jim.
@@johnmeneses7039 also Paramount/CBS set their lawyers on the makers of fan films. Possibly part of this was in response to some of these involving actors and writers from the actual series.
I really want a return to episodic storytelling and ensemble characters. Discovery's focus on a big overarching threat each season and putting Burnham at the center of practically every episode's plot burned me out. Really exploring intersting concepts without tying it to some bigger season storyline and letting other characters take the lead sometimes is the better option, in my opinion.
I agree. It seemed Burnham was the Wesley Crusher for Discovery... for EVERY EPISODE! Most of the rest of the cast fell to the wayside. Remember Airiam? I didn't (I had to look her up to find her name). She was a background officer, then got half an episode's worth of backstory, then they killed her off! And they treated it like we were supposed to care about this character we knew nothing about. At least Sito Jaxa, Lal, The Doctor's daughter and even Tuvix had some heart and soul to their characters.
@michaelfitzsimmons8393yeah 5 season of Burnham and still a paper thin character, all despite Sonequa acting her heart of in every scene.
I didn’t know this was referred to as the Disco era, everyone I’ve known calls it the STD era
No, not everyone.
Have you ever heard of the term "NuTrek"? That one has been used the most.
@@subraxas Everyone with sense, considers it STD.
Disco era?
We called it STD.
I made it to episode 7.
Section 31 only 15 minutes
Alex Kurtzman has effectively channeled the spirit of Kathleen Kennedy and brought the vapid evil of franchise cancer that Disney is renown for over to Trek.
It's become increasingly common across several franchises that the best projects end up being written and produced by those who are fans themselves (see Picard Season 3, X-Men 97, Andor), and the disaster projects are made by those who have little background or interest in the IP and are more looking to put their own "stamp" on it (see Discovery/Section 31, She-Hulk, the Acolyte).
I'd say that in the case of She-Hulk, that was closer to the proper character than a lot of Marvel characters in the MCU. But it was not going to translate well. A lot of the decisions made where caused by attempting to integrate her own fourth wall breaking into the MCU. And it is brutal when there is another fourth wall breaking hero in Marvel.
You're facing two problems. Most of the producers working in Hollywood today have a Post-modern / Neo-Marxist education. The Post-modernisim is significant because they don't believe in creativity. They LITERALLY believe that everything is derivative, everything is just another copy and any attempt to say, "I have an original idea," is heretical. This accounts for all of the reboots, re-imaginings and gender/race swaps. The second problem flows from their Neo-Marxism. They HATE Western culture because they see it as primarily an oppressive, White, racist, patriarchy. And Star Trek is the pinnacle of Western culture and values. It's where we believe Western culture is taking us. It would be like asking the triple-K clan to remake _Bad Boys._ Their biases would ruin it.
But on a happy note, Fox Studios has in the works, _Sanford and Son the Movie_ staring Leslie Jones as Fredimena Sanford and Rachel Zegler as LaMonta.
Wow, you make an amazing point and yeah it its definitely correct, it definitely explains why we have so many woke movies and race and gender swaps( or just a transgender person altogether) and that just shows you what communist art looks like, in other words, no new ideas. which you would think is interesting from the postmodernist standpoint because when they believe in no original ideas, you would think there would be more variety in movie creativity because reality is determined by how you as an individual see reality, but because they are skeptical of any sort of narrative or truth, they tend to focus on making remakes or parodies of everything just like you said.
@@GiantFreakinRobot Thank. But I fear my comment went down YT's memory hole as I can no longer see it. And if you ever question how these producers can continue to lose money just remember if they are Neo-Marxist then what could be better than to use the White man's profits to put out their anti-Western message AND bankrupt the evil corporation at the same time? To the devoted Marxist that is just a Win-Win.
@@GiantFreakinRobot That is why Star Trek in its pure form died after Enterprise. Anything after that went against Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future and purest Star Trek fans detest it.
I was curious about Star Trek Discovery and hopeful when it first came out. That all faded soon enough when I realized that, not only did I not like any of the characters but that they were prone to crying about anything and everything. Tears, it seemed, would flow at the drop of a hat in every single episode. As a fan of early Star Trek, I kept racking my brain trying to think of any other characters from the other shows shedding a tear. I don't think anyone cried when Tasha Yar was killed, I can't say that I remember Captain Sisko even crying when the Borg killed his wife.
Sisko cried out in rage, but he didn't cry. I'm sure Troi cried on some occasions, Data cried in Generations, and Picard shed tears after his mind meld with Sarek. But those all felt earned to varying degrees, unlike the running 12 Step Program of emotion that was STD.
@@The_Lucent_Archangel I know what STD stands for (Star Trek Discovery), but you could use the better known meaning of that acronym and it would STILL apply...
Possibly the only reason Burnham wasn't kicked out of Star Fleet as a cadet is that she's Sarek's adopted daughter. Since she initially comes over as the antithesis of the kind of Star Fleet officer from any of the previous series. Possibly Discovery would have worked better had not been called Star Trek and instead been it's own thing. Ironically the "parody" of The Orville was more like Star Trek, especially TNG, than actual Star Trek.
@markevans2294 aren't all crew members on ST Stange New Worlds pretty much the same Gen-Z knowitall crybabies as on STD. Dunno why so many give it a pass.
How did the Star Trek franchise get to this point? I'll answer this before I watch this video. Star Trek got here because the new Hollywood writers and Directors threw out Gene Roddenberry's vision of a post scarcity society that solves its problems with its brain and substituted an action/adventure format that involved lots of explosions. Much easier to write and direct that way.
There's no such thing as a post-scarcity society. Scarcity will always exist. There are no free lunches. The idea of a perfect society is boring from a dramatic perspective. All you get is a ship full of preachy bastards poncing around the galaxy telling everyone else they're living wrong and acting all superior. Which is NextGen AND Voyager in a nutshell.
Otoy's Unification wordlessly told a better story and evoked more emotion in a quarter of an hour than all of KurtamanTrek combined.
Section 31 was so bad that I actually stopped watching it about 15 minutes in when it became obvious that it was some teenage fanfic that had zero maturity or depth of character.
As someone who sat through all of it, I can confirm that you made the right call.
I fell asleep like 30 minutes in.
Only 3 words I can think of whenever I see Whil Wheaton: "Shut up Wesley!"
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
They will be chizzled on his tomb stone.
Other projects, probably been mentioned here before, but I still maintain that ST Axanar could still be given a licensing agreement and it was very well received by fans.
Axanar is the Star Trek series we want, that we need.
I grew up in the 70s watching Star Trek on reruns. In the 80s, I was a teen and I was at the theater to watch TOS crew movies and I recorded TNG on VHS every week. I collected toys, books, comics, props, model kits, etc. I watched Voyager and DS9 and Enterprise. I saw the first two JJ Trek movies at the theater. I did not enjoy them. I didn't bother watching the third until it showed up on the DVD shelves at my local library. What a waste of time. I wanted to give Discovery a chance. I watched the first episode. I haven't watched any new Trek since and I don't miss it. I watch TOS with my kids. From what I've seen, I couldn't watch Picard or SNW with children...and now Section 31 is more of the same. Yes, it is a dead franchise. They jettisoned Roddenberry's vision of an optimistic future and a human race that's at least attempting to overcome its base savagery. It's over. They don't even care about the built-in fanbase.
kurtzman needs a boot.
The single biggest problem with modern Star Trek is because of its focus on both action and pessimism. Picard - the show, not the character - started out with one of the most bleak first seasons of any show I've ever watched, with it seeming to continue dipping more and more into darkness till the writers realized they needed a happy ending. Discovery was just as bleak, with action-oriented plots and not much in the way of optimism, at least in the first several episodes (I wasn't able to watch the whole thing). Only Lower Decks seems to really get what Star Trek is all about, with optimistic characters and plots that revolve around the principles of the Federation and true exploration. Even the last season with its mystery villain that seemed nigh-unstoppable turned into a truly human plot where Beckett ended up trying to save the villain even as he was intent on blowing himself up. That's what Star Trek should be, not about weird bloodthirsty emperors who eat *eyeballs* on toothpicks!
100 % agree. The era of the Michael Bey school of Star Trek needs to end. And just how many times do we have to be reminded that this show set in space is set in space with a camera flip fro.e upside down to right side up?
I tried to watch Disco, but after a while I found that I just didn't care what happened.
Picard was just soooooo dddddddaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmnnnnn slow. The entire first season could be done in a TNG episode. And having a black set with black uniforms and black weapons and block instruments left me wondering WTF was going on.
SNW has potentials, BUT NO MORE MUSICALS.
Passing on Star Trek Legacy is when I cancelled my Paramount + membership.
I'm sure you would have been disappointed anyway.
All things post voyager have been interestingly disappointing with Enterprise being the closest to
@ I don't think so, I thought Picard Season 3 was amazing. A couple of episodes where a little off but overall it was amazing. I really liked the idea of Seven as captain, with Jack Crusher being a briliant but completely off the rails ensign having to be kept in line. Terry knew what he was doing.
@@dussan2 If you haven't seen Matalas' TV adaptation of 12 Monkeys, do so.
@@dussan2 Crusher should have been sent to prison, not given a commission.
Starfleet Academy is set in the 32nd century.
Hey, no hate for Enterprise! Once they found their footing, the show actually became pretty good, with the 4th season having some of the best Star Trek in years. Even at its worst, it was still great to have the Star Trek universe feel mysterious, strange and untamed again.
Paramount will forever be known for destroying Star Trek.
Star Trek (real Star Trek) is optimistic. TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, Ent, Voy, Picard S3, even moments of the Abramsverse have the optimism that is key to the franchise. And thirty plus years ago Star Trek was bad when they forgot the optimism (ST V, ST Nemesis). STD and most of the STD era of Star Trek are bad because there is no optimism for the future.
And the STD era uses woke-ism in place of writing, dialogue, character development, plot/narrative structure, and everything a tv series or movie needs to be successful. Old school Trek had themes of social justice and environmentalism, but had good writing, dialogue, character development, plot/narrative structure, and the themes were part of stories that worked on the merit of the story itself and characters. The STD era has gone the Disney/MCU route of the past five years- release movies and tv shows with high production values and nothing of value in the areas of story, dialogue, character development, etc and claim fans are racist/sexist/____phobic when a terrible movie or tv series flops.
Oh God stop coming up with pretentious nonsense, just to say it sucks. Paper thin characters with incoherent pacing, there much easier.
I wanted a Section 31 series, but I wanted it to be cloak and dagger, not daggar and daggar. I like moral ambiguity and complexity...like on Enterprise. I did not want the "fetal alcohol syndrome baby" of Star Wars and Marvel.
It's literally called STD
Who's bright idea was that?!
They were trolling us. They new what they were doing. This is about destruction of legacy. Destroy the cultural touchstone that was Star Trek so that new generations won't be able to connect with previous ones because they share nothing.
and they had a season dedicated to "the burn"!
@@NeoTechni 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Best observation of the day.
It is officially called either 'DIS' or 'DSC'.
Infantile prats refer to it as 'STD'.
Star Trek: Voyager is also shortened to 'VOY' and not 'STV'. Star Trek: Enterprise is 'ENT' and not 'STE'.
Do you finally get it?
Spacialey transmitted Dysentery?
Section 31 operated far more quietly on DS9 than in that movie.
Starfleet Academy wont be a prequel it will be set in the far future after the end of Discovery with Tilly as a teacher
Your trek vids are better than anything the studio has come out in the last 20 yrs. Keep up the great work 👍
Star trek died when JJ and his minions got their grubby little hands on the franchise. The 09 film is for ADHD ridden big bang theory fans. It was popcorn fare and made money, teaching the wrong lesson that leads to this inevitable result. Everything after that is a progressively worse horrible mockery of Trek. The films were bad star wars with a trek skin suit. Once it went to a streaming show it got monumentally worse. It became dark, uninspired, preachy, violent, hateful, and hyper political. It was made by non trek fans for non trek fans. May it rest in piss
Also it will forever be STD.
Agreed, it should’ve been renamed Trek Wars. You can’t only blame JJ because I’ve zero doubt Trek owner Paramount long known for creating franchise rights issues with toys and games and stuff so Abrams differentiated as much as possible right down.
He just did it so well everyone copies his detrimental success ruining lore and Trek itself
@@SciFiDavey69 although I think Kurtzman is the person that dealt the death blow.
Star Trek has ALWAYS been preachy and political, since 1966. You're just mad that it's not Trump-y enough for your liking.
JJ literally said that Trek was like classical music and Star Wars is like rock music and that while classical music is all well and good, it doesn't sell & its not what people want. Then went on to say how he changed Trek to be more rock n roll.
I'm pretty sure this was in the directors commentary for the first reboot movie (if it wasn't there, it was an interview I watched). At the least, I'll give him credit for outright saying that this was what he was doing. Also, at least the JJ movies had people who can act and did a great job casting everyone but Uhura. Whereas the stuff since then hasn't had a single person that could act their way out of a paper bag. (I honestly think Yeoh is one of the most overreated actors of the last 25 years or so.)
edit: That statement about acting includes Picard. With the exception of Frakes and Dorn. Sirtis was never the best and the rest have really lost it. Maybe Spiner isn't a lost cause, but he needs to go to a summer acting camp or something.
There is a reason why fate named it STD.
Disco was a slap in the face to original fans
I've never felt like so.
@@subraxas Probably just numbed by a good few years of bad Trek prior to it premiering, or your taste just plummeted since the TNG era.
@ I'd watched 'Spock's Brain', 'Sub Rosa' and 'The Final Frontier' on repeat for long months and afterwards virtually everything came across as a masterpiece. 😀
Two words: Alex Krutzman.
Star Trek Prodigy was better than Discovery
ABSOLUTELY
and like fools they got rid of it.
LOWER DECKS!!! LOWER DECKS!!! LOWER DECKS!!!
Dont know what everyone is on about Section 31 was amazing. The writing, plot, directing, costumes, props, practical effects, and acting all top notch.
Wait it wasnt a high school production for some senior trying to graduate? WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!!!??? This was horrible for all the reasons i listed. The writing, plot, directing costumes, practical effects and acting was all atrocious. It wasnt even fan flick levels of poor quality, at least you can see passion in those, this was a movie made of what should have been a 15min mini episode in the background of a better show.
AKA a 'Short Trek', agreed. Short Treks have vanished from Paramount UK
STD killed the star trek property
STD is *NOT* Star Trek.
Not only not Trek, it sucks as any sci-fi because it is so preachy and what it preached sucked with wokeness and liberalism 🤮
@SciFiDavey69
if you think "wokeness" and "liberalism" sucks, you obviously have no understanding of what Star Trek has ALWAYS been. smh. That's just sad.
@@DrewbieBernard It's almost amusing how the critics of DSC all too often end up coming back to 'TOO WOKE' as their issue with it (and I say this as a not-too-much-of-a-fan myself, but for several issues unrelated 'woke').
Yes it is and it is crap.
@@DrewbieBernardyeah, making up virtually all the bridge crew with women and the few men they had were either gay or emasculated/feminine is something every Trek show did prior to STD. Yes, Star Trek was very progressive but not preachy and condescending - that's on the new writers who obviously had little if any love of the older series.
The best (and only)thing to say about the Disco Era is that it led to the creation of Strange New Worlds.
I'd prefer to treat it akin to ST5. Where people will literally say "We don't talk about that one here'" when people try to bring it up.
I also think "disco era" is too nice. Call it what it is the STD or Disease era. (Yeah, whoever thought up a title that initialized as STD, was an idiot)
Species 10C is good sci fi
I'm Luke warm on SNW. There have been some really bad episodes. There are some really good episodes, too. I'll give S3 a watch.
SNW is the epitome of Mid.
"Anyway! Moving on!" Lol. That was great! 😂😂😂😮
Seems to me that younger people unfamiliar with older Star Trek liked Diso, while most older fans did not.
Definitely seemed like a show designed for people with short attention spans and with more "fluid personalities." 😅
I watched the CBS premier of Discovery, but wasn't impressed enough to follow it to the streaming platform. The big screen trilogy was fun, stupid but fun. One bright spot in the franchise has been Lower Decks, which was thoroughly delightful.
Alex Kurtzman's career makes me think he must know where a lot of bodies are buried. It can't be based on talent, because he has none.
We have 80 years of Trek that could have been explored (between TOS and TNG). In those years we could have seen the Romulans retreat back to their usual xenophobia and what made them return to their old M.O., the rise of the Cardasians and occupation of Bajor, Worf being rescued, Data being found.... so on.
I've been saying this for absolutely YEARS. I always wanted to see an Excelsior series, but they passed on that idea, too. I mean, who doesn't want to know about this time period? The Lost Era series of novels, I thought, were fantastic (Especially, "Serpents Among The Ruins", which, I thought, was a great take on the otherwise throwaway reference of The Tomed Incident), and could have taken absolutely tons of angles since it's a wide open space (no pun intended). But, nope...Paramount is apparently much "wiser" than what the fans might want...
Paramount said there was (supposedly) no interest in an Excelsior series, so they scrapped it...yet, they have no problem throwing money away on this entire dead end set. I guess I just don't get it, but apparently it's also not for me to get.
One of the ideas being kicked around prior to them settling on STD for whatever reason, was an anthology style approach set during that "Lost Era". Enterprise-B for a season or two, then the C up to her destruction at Narendra were theories. Instead we got another bad prequel full of retcons, f-bombs, and agenda-driven "plot".
Lifelong hard core Star Trek fan until Discovery, I haven't watched a single hour of Star Trek since the first episode of the aptly named STD.
Section 31 was so bad I couldn’t even finish watching it, Lower Decks was the best Star Trek show in years.
A movie based on an extreme lore deep cut put on the backburner for years and then released only in stream on an obscure platform that doesn't even exist on most of the planet and that barely anybody subscribes to.
The epitome of showing faith in a project!
31 isn't just a bad trek movie, it's easily one of the worst movies ever made.
You haven't seen many movies then. 😀
@subraxas yeah, I was too busy with your mom.
@@subraxas😂😂😂
Yet I just saw several critics say the exact same thing. 😮
That's an understatement. But they have at long last achieved something. All fans of both new trek and legacy Trek agree on something. Star Trek Section 31 sucks.
What no comments on prodigy
What fans really want is is Star Trek Next Next Generation. We've had the Kirk era, we've had the Picard era, which includes DS9 and Voyager, but now there needs to be a new era. I think the producers are afraid to take that step, they'd have to cast a new crew, come up with new factions and villains, etc. In doing prequels, they can just rely on available canon material.
What's sad to me is there were elements in the first season of Disco, if rearranged that could have made for a compelling series. You take a young girl raised by Vulcans after her family's tragic death and put her on a ship with Michelle Yeoh as the captain and Jason Isaacs as the first officer keeping the same personalities as what we saw in the first season, minus the mirror universe crap. The story then becomes about what kind of human will Sonequa Martin-Green's character become as she'll start out as basically a blank slate and the captain and first officer would be her pseudo parental figures.
But... Enterprise (and the first and third Kelvin movies) were excellent. So that part of the plan, at least, was creatively solid, IMO.
I'm personally glad ST: Legacy didn't go ahead because at the end of the day, it would have been tied to ST: Picard which was tied to STD. It would have just been a continuation of more bad writing and more bad ideas. Star Trek needs to die off. Disappear for 5yrs then come back and make REAL Star Trek continuing on after the events of Nemesis. Its what Trekkies actually want and have been asking for since 2017. No more prequels. No more reinventing the franchise for "modern audiences". Just give us what we want which has proven the test of time at being a timeless classic series.
I thought an STDs 😂 were a hole different thing😮😂😂😂
Counterpoint: Nemesis isn't canon.
Star Trek: Section 31 with Michelle Yeoh would have been great if it'd had Star Trek, Section 31, or Michelle Yeoh. Unfortunately it didn't have any of those elements.
Thank you. This was spot on. I watched the pilot of Discovery and that was it. Love Strange New Worlds. We need more Trek like that.
I hate the repeated prequel notion, as if Kirk and Spock are the only Trek characters worth considering and sod the rest (hint: many people do).
At first I thought the thumbnail was Palpatine falling down the shaft in ROTJ.
People clammoring for Legacy just want that nice feeling of nostalgia. Nostalgia is how good ideas die. Denying nostalgia is how we got TNG, which was tonally different than ToS, which was why fans, at the time, were up in arms.
Captain Shaw was the best thing in Picard S3 and they killed him.
@@qui-gonrick7002 He was great. One of those characters you initially hated but then grew on you thanks to an excellent performance. But still, Wolf 359 survivor who also had an axe to grind against Picard? It's like they just couldn't get Avery Brooks to cameo. Memberberries.
The reason people were up in arms is because in all honesty the first season of TNG was shite but Trek faithful rallied hoping for better and TNG rid itself of Roddenberry influence and escaped his lost utopian vision and dived deeper into character development that evolved the series into the success it became launching further franchise expansion with Voyager and the best Trek ever, DS9.
I just wanted Matalas. I don't care what characters were involved. I think that's what most fans who were lobbying for it wanted. He gets Trek. In a perfect world, I'd have liked a series entirely about Captain Shaw.
Don’t you mean TNG season 10?
I just got an idea for a Star Trek series/movie project...
Let's call it, "Star Trek: Reunification".
The Federation is descending into chaos, and is at risk of breaking up. There are both internal political battles, and the occasional starship battle.
The various governments making up the Federation are largely corrupt and suicidally self-loathing. (think of the western world of 2025...)
Out on the edge of explored space is a collection of 3 inhabited star systems; We'll call them "The Republic".
At one time, the Republic was 3 star systems at war; corruption abounded, millions died.
Then, a TNG era Galaxy class starship encounters them.
The Federation united them, helped them form The Republic. And because they were so far away... lost contact.
But the Republic didn't forget the Federation. They watched and listened and recorded the goings-on in Federation space over the years.
And now they see what is happening to the Federation.
A grand council is held among the 5 inhabited worlds of the 3 systems making up the Republic... and it is universally agreed and proclaimed:
"We're going to save the Federation".
And so the storyline is about how the Republic goes about infiltrating the Federation; posing as either inhabitants of member worlds, or random traders and explorers, keeping their identity hidden, but cementing new alliances, reminding people of their principles and values... not through expository speeches, but by examples. By coercing, tricking, or flat-out forcing Federation members to reclaim their honor, to remember their mission. To accept responsibility once again.
To Make the Federation Great Again.
At the end of the movie (or, more likely, in the final episode of a series), The Republic is revealed. While some members of the Federation plan an invasion and war with the Republic for their "interference"... other members who've regained their honor leap to their defense, refuse to fight them...
And eventually invite them to join the New Federation of Planets.
I wish I had seen this before watching Section 31. Having a lot of issues removing its 'stank'....
When you start out your new Star Trek franchise swearing to fans that you’re going to adhere to continuity so much that you’ve hired people to make sure everyone sticks to established continuity then pivot to tell us about your new show that centers on Spock’s Human adopted sister that we never knew he had you know you’re in for a ride and hope for the best.
Sadly, that best was not to be. The two-hour premiere saw our main character Michael Burnham commit mutiny, start the big Klingon/Federation War, and get her captain killed. Not the best way to introduce your newest main character.
And it just never got better.
We still have "Strange New Worlds" holding down the fort, and that's been a lot of fun.
I'd like to see a Christian character introduced into Star Trek. Not for comedic purposes, not for "representation", but because I think it could make some good scenes, if treated respectfully as it was in Babylon 5: Passing Through Gethsemane...
*Engineer McAndrew* ::enters the bridge::
*Captain* (teasing), "Ah, McAndrew, I didn't expect to see you today. Isn't it Sunday back on Earth?"
*McAndrew* (smiling gently), "The Good Book says to set this day aside and keep it holy. I spent a half hour praying when I awoke this morning."
*Captain* (with a small smile on his own face), "Ah, I see. And what did you pray for?"
*McAndrews* (still smiling, looks directly in the captain's eyes) : "For you, my Captain. For you."
I could foresee an entire episode about an incident where "McAndrew" is expected to subsume his own Christian faith in order to participate in an alien religious ceremony, that by its nature would be in conflict with his Christian faith.
He's chastised by his captain, belittled by fellow crewmen, and ordered by starfleet to participate.
As he's about to surrender his commission... the alien ambassadors show up, and somehow have heard about his objections and the pressures to make him conform... and demonstrate their own respect for religious liberty, by defending McAndrew and insisting he not be coerced into violating his conscience... even for the sake of their own religion. Showing the federation's bigotry in thinking the aliens not "enlightened" enough to be tolerant of different beliefs.
They have forgotten the core of what Star Trek is, a show about space exploration with occasional battles etc and not complex plots. Go back to basics and what the fans loved that got them into it. Same as other franchises the writers just write what they want then try to merge it into a universe
RIP Star Trek Legacy
When you have a good thing staring you in the face and you just say, "Nah"
🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂🤦🏻♂
Weird how Whill Wheaton is even more annoying than Wesley Crusher.
It seems as if Paramount has done their level best to piss off the fan base and perform the reverse Midas touch, turning what was gold into 💩. It started with there draconian measures against fan films, when they went after the folks producing Star Trek: Axanar. When they could have partnered with them and made an extraordinary addition to the mythos, Paramount instead went on the attack with some really restrictive and damaging directives, and garnered a lot of animosity from the long standing fan base. It has just gotten worse since then. As a fan since 1967, I am pretty much fed up with their shenanigans.
It's such a shame.
SNW and Lower Decks are the only Post Disco ST worth watching.
They would have been better off re-instating Enterprise. But I'm glad they didn't; the people they got to run the modern shows would have ruined Enterprise.
SNW already contradicts things from TOS, so for me, its a NO it is not worth watching.
@@johnmeneses7039 That's totally fair. For me, it isn't perfect for sure and I doubt I will ever re-watch it the way I do the series from before Disco, but I like the characters and they generally make choices that make sense and the plots aren't total gibberish or full of unnecessary violence or gore. These are all vast improvements on Disco and ST:Picard, the latter of which I found almost physically painful to watch. SNW does mess with the timeline a bit but again not as badly as Disco.
@@benlime1235produgy was rhe mist like classic trek
Disco. The name itself should have been enough foreshadowing for anyone to know it would fail
STD you mean?!
The only way I could stand DISCO, was to maintain head cannon that it was an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, then I could stand it.
I made it through Section 31, took three attempts. For an organization that is so secrete that many believe it to be a myth, the team in this movie made absolutely no sense. A full size robot drone that looks like a Vulcan but acts like and insane Romulan? A dolt running around in flashy armor? Yeah I know James Bond and Clark Kent move through the world without anyone knowing who they are but this is Star Trek. The over the top crouching dragon fight scenes. I get it your going for the younger crowd but come on even they should get some semblance of decent story. Nothing against the actors, they are doing what they are asked/told to do. Its about writing/producing.
The problem is simply today's "goth Hollywoood" never thought to go to the roots of what Star Trek stood for. Even Enterprise, an actual prequel, spent its run crafting what Star Trek became in the 1960s. IT showed how hard it was to have a society that rose above petty desires for the greater good. None of the other series, including Strange New Worlds followed that beascon. What made Star Trek unique was gone from every incarnation this century.
Does no one remember the hate that Voyager and Enterprise got when they were on-air? It blows my mind, this rose-tinted glasses phenomena. Maybe you guys were all little kids at the time?
I must have missed that 😅 I love voyager❤ from the start 🎉
All new trek shows get a bit of hate at the start.... but only Discovery is still hated after 5 seasons
I don't remember Voyager getting hate. I do remember TNG, DS9, and Enterprise getting hate at first because they sucked for the 1st 2 seasons at least. TNG didn't get good until Riker grew a beard. DS9 didn't get good until Sisko shaved his head. Janeway should've shaved her head and Chakote(sp?) should've grown a beard.
@@kevboss1592 mostly because after 5 seasons it was still poorly written AND still not Star Trek
@@DrewbieBernard to baldly go where no one has gone before 😂
Star Trek Section 31...
Pros:
1) It's Star Trek
2) Michelle Yeoh did good with what she was given.
Cons:
1) Too many to list.
It is extremely premature to conclude that the Section 31 film ends the franchise.
Star Trek Picard was great, the best Star Trek since the last Star Trek movie with Picard. I never saw Discovery after hearing it was crap. I saw the first season of Strange New Worlds and thought it was rather boring, and did not like not using the original Enterprise decor. I gave up on the movies after the first reboot which was boring. The old Star Trek, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, all worked well. But after that not so good, except for Picard.
At least S3 Picard gave us a great finale... but everything leading up to that felt lacking. I still enjoyed Prodigy and Lower Decks though.
I just think Discovery worked best as a vehicle to get us to Strange New Worlds. This one felt better as a prequel.
But yeah, TNG-DS9 is when we were eating best as a fan.
Star Trek died the moment they got rid of Jennifer Lien and Terry Ferrell. It had a couple of years of death throes.
I still can’t believe crap like Discovery and Section 31 have “Based on Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry” in the credits
Something is dead when anything new is only nostalgic callbacks or parody.
GFR, I needed to hear that take on Into Darkness. I went to see it with a mate who loved it. And I very much did not.
I don't regret spending that time with that friend. But even while it was running, I regretted driving across town; bringing my 2D glasses, so I could pay money; to watch that abomination that was only screening in 3D at the time.
Writers need to do their homework by studying how and why the movies of the 1940s and 1950s did so well. Back then these movies depended on talented scripts and talented acting. "Special Effects" did not carry the story - talent did. Also, take "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" they tried to edify us. That worked. Now, Hollywood tries to "entertain" us with superficial screen effects that dazzle the eye but leave the mind and soul empty. Until future writers of Star Trek realize this, they will fail. However, I am an optimist. Sometimes things go in cycles. We are overdue for a renaissance.
Do you feel like Anson Mount has a monkey paw and he wished to be in a marvel series and a Star Trek series?
If it took you until the Section 31 "film" to figure out Trek is dead, what took you so long? Trek was killed when JJ made his first film and tries to turn it into Star Wars. But the Kurtzman era starting with Discovery is just horrible. Nonsense plots, hammy acting(no Shatner comments, he also does some top tier acting in Trek), taking Picard and making a series even TNG faithful like me had no interest in watching. This is all Trek in name only, it isn't actually Trek and for sure isn't set in the same universe as the real series. Trek has been dead for a while. Worst part of all of this - they had things like Nick Meyer's Khan series that they never did so we got a bunch of crappy Trek no one asked for or was interested in but they denied us things that could actually be good.
Jar Jar Abrams' Star Trak (a nod to the non-Trekkie mangling of the name) in 2009 was the end for me. Went to see it for my birthday. Pretended it was a knock-off space opera using the TOS characters.
My friends got a DVD of Into Darkness for xmas. Two years later it was unopened. They were gonna throw it out, but I happened to be there. "You want this?" "Sure, maybe I'll watch it." Several years later I found it, still unopened. Trash.
I didn't even know Jar Jar had made a third movie until years later. Belatedly watched reviews and confirmed my resolute indifference to its existence.
I gave Disco a try. Painfully watched the first half season. The mirror universe was past my limit. My wife, far less critical as a consumer, had no interest to watch the rest. When CBS released S2E1 on youtube I watched it. Partway through I sped it up to get it done sooner.
I never watched any of the other products since. None. "But Riker and Deanna and all them in P3..." Nope, not ST. "But this farewell to Spock thing..." Nope, that fake Spock in Jar Jar's fake Star Trak.
I can sum things up very very simply. Star Trek is GENE RODENBERRY'S hopeful vision of the future not Bryan Fuller, not Alex Kurtzman, not CBS/Paramount, not even the fans. It was Gene Rodenberry's hopeful vision of the future that has allowed the franchise to endure and sadly the people in charge of Star Trek content want to attract new fans with their vision if what they think Star Trek should be and how is that working out for them? Fans were deeply divided and disappointed with Discovery especially when CBS shut down fan films. Then came two disappointing seasons of Picard. Lower Decks also divided the fans because Star Trek was not supposed to be a comedy. Fans greatly enjoyed season three of Picard as it gave the TNG the send off they deserved. Then along the way they created the absolutely grotesque Star Trek Very Short Treks as a way to HONOR 😱🤯 Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek the Animated series. When in fact all that was accomplished was an animated sickening and unwatchable set of images not fit for anyone. Then in a final indignity we now have section 31. A streaming movie that everyone actually agrees is the worst Star Trek to date. Strange New Words thus far is the only thing that resembles Gene Rodenberry's hopeful vision yet some of the stories are......well not exactly something fans are proud of. The singing klingons didn't win any hearts of long time fans and SNW season 3 with a preview of the crew making light of the Spock character is also agrivating a fan base already sick of Star Trek eppisodes that continue to disappoint them. Is the franchise dead? It will until the idiots at CBS and Paramount allow Alex Kurtzman to destroy their IP. Fans are not looking forward to Starfleet Academy when what they wanted was Star Trek Legacy. I think fans enjoyed Prodigy but 🤣🤣🤣 like the idiots they are they got rid of it and allowed Netflix to finish it. Kate Mulgrew is completely mystified at the decision as are most of us. If Star Trek is to return to its former glory it must return to that which fans once enjoyed. A hopeful and positive vision of the future. One divoid of DEI and what many believe as a woke agenda. Only time will tell but I am not seeing fans getting excited for future Star Trek projects especially in light of the disappointing Section 31 movie. More and more fans are changing the channel and even Strange New Worlds may soon find itself a casualty in light of tweets made by Anson Mount regarding those that support President Donald Trump. At a time when the franchise your apart of is slowly withering away attacking Americans that overwhelmingly voted for the next president just doesn't sound like a good idea. But hey who cares right. The executives at CBS and Paramount obviously don't.
A proper Mirror Universe film or series would be fine in principle. But not in the way Klutzman and co. would do it.
Section 31 is to movies as Veilguard is to games
I only watched the first two seasons of Discovery. (I could've watched s3 but didn't care enough before it all disappeared from Netflix, and went to streaming services I'm absolutely not paying for.)
Those two seasons hurt. I loved (almost) all the characters. The actors and writers nailed that bit. But I hated the season plot arcs and design decisions. And with individual episodes ranging from Star Trek at its worst, to okay-ish at times.
The only thing I feel like missed out on is Lower Decks and maybe Strange New Worlds.
To be fair the Starfleet Academy series seems to be set in the 32nd century with some of the case of Discovery returning. Whether it'll be good or not is different matter, only just saying it's likely not another prequel.
First 3 seasons of DISCO where great and the 1st season of SNW is one of the best of all time. I grant you it's fallen off a cliff recently but it's by no means all bad.
Bad Robot, Abram’s and Kurtzman, the talentless hacks happened.
Let us be honest, that is not "Disco" era but the STD era.
Discovery should have never, EVER...made it past the pilot episode.