Star Trek General Thread II: Strange New Posts

[I am Belch II]

Unfortunately it has kicked off a new round of idiocy, as the Robert April seen in TAS was white.. while the actor chosen for SNW is Adrian Holmes, who is black. Which has led to a lot of "racism disguised as concern for canon" by the usual idiots.

Changing charters for the "modern" times. Even if its in the future and shouldn't of changed. Could of made him some other awesome admiral and nobody would of cared like Cromwell from Disco Season 1 and 2, but new Star Trek cant seem to come up with their own ideas.
 

[Weirdo]

Unfortunately it has kicked off a new round of idiocy, as the Robert April seen in TAS was white.. while the actor chosen for SNW is Adrian Holmes, who is black. Which has led to a lot of "racism disguised as concern for canon" by the usual idiots.

All the people involved with the previous appearances in TAS and the supplimentary books are on board with the casting though.. including the writer who created the character in the first place.

https://trekmovie.com/2022/05/02/star-trek-the-animated-series-writer-welcomes-new-robert-april-on-strange-new-worlds/

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Because of the obvious issues with forum rules, there will be no more posts discussing this particular issue. Feel free to go back to talking about anything else Trek.

[dgorsman]

Airs on Thursday here.  Looking forward to it.   :thumbsup:

[gyedid]

Strange New Worlds title sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndtCicnVvbc

That is, as they say, the good shit.

Enh...not really sold on Mount's delivery of the captain's monologue.  Too deadpan.  I was hoping for something more laid-back, warmer, friendlier.

However, if you want to see the ship itself as the star, hard to beat this.  Like a bigger, bolder, more nimble version of the Voyager intro.

Cheers,

Gabe

[glitterboy2098]

++MOD NOTICE++

Because of the obvious issues with forum rules, there will be no more posts discussing this particular issue. Feel free to go back to talking about anything else Trek.

apologies for straying into dangerous waters wit that post, i should have thought it through a bit more.

[I am Belch II]

Enh...not really sold on Mount's delivery of the captain's monologue.  Too deadpan.  I was hoping for something more laid-back, warmer, friendlier.

However, if you want to see the ship itself as the star, hard to beat this.  Like a bigger, bolder, more nimble version of the Voyager intro.

Cheers,

Gabe

Anson Mount was by far the best thing of Disco Season 2 buy a billion, I hope he gets a chance to shine in his own show, hope not for the bait and switch.
My problem with the Enterprise is just the look it looks flat, like the universe squashed it, the updated is fine it looks better than the JJprize the first time we saw that, and all the other versions also.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Started season 2 of Picard tonight with the first episode, then watched the premier of Strange New Worlds.  Thoroughly enjoyed both.

And while it’s not really spoilery:

OMG, USS Archer (NCC-627) is a single-nacelle ship, like a mini Hermes class!

[Lorcan Nagle]

I'm back in the office full-time as of this week, and the worst thing so far is not being able to just watch streaming shows as they go live.

[JadeHellbringer]

Well... not as thrilled with the end of Picard S2 as I would have liked, but it was decent. Much better, I felt, than Discovery S4 (which I had to choke down, and which my wife finally got up mid-episode at one point halfway through the season, announced 'Nope, I'm out', and went to watch true crime shows in the bedroom).

A few thoughts, with spoilers since the finale just went up a few hours ago:

+I actually really liked Rios' decision at the end. He's right- this is where he belongs. Seeing him as a miserable loner in S1, fine, but seeing him as a Starfleet captain in the start of S2 was jarring- it didn't seem like he fit that role. I'll be sorry to see the end of the character, because he was one of my favorite parts of the show, but as endings go it was a rather good call. I love that he eventually died sucking on a cigar.

+Jurati... I'm iffy on this one, it seems like there are some holes in that whole circular path they gave her to becoming the Queen- Picard was part of the Collective at one point, after all, but never sensed her as part of the whole thing? The Borg found out about Earth via Q's machinations way back when, but wouldn't Agnes have... you know what, fine, whatever. I don't have to like it.

+The whole thing lead up to... a hole in space opening to reveal a horrifying threat to all life in the sector, which was quickly filled via a quick science-y bit in a couple of minutes. Didn't we do this already in this show? No metallic tentacles this time, but it felt like they treaded the same ground.

+Q... I didn't really get the plan with him 'dying', it still doesn't really make sense, but as a sendoff to the character it was pretty good, honestly. The reapport he and Picard had for so long was a lot of fun, and getting an opportunity to say goodbye was actually nice- that last moment of the two of them before the time jump really was emotional, and I get the feeling that it wasn't the two of them acting out their roles so much as genuine friendship between the actors. (Side note, if you ever get a chance to meet John de Lancie, he's one of the nicest and most quick-witted people I think I've ever had a chance to talk to.)

+WESLEY!!! Just... man, good to see him. My sole regret is that he didn't say 'hi' to JL as part of his cameo.

+OK, one more thing. Elnor. I liked his death. It added some honest-to-god gravity to the season, it made the motivations of characters that much stronger, it meant that the stakes were high as we actually lost a major member of the S1 cast early on. His reappearance as a hologram was a fun 'oh... OH!' moment, but I felt that they'd really done something surprising and clever with axing the character. Having him magically reappear as 'everything is fine over here on a different ship, promise!' kind of felt forced, and while I get that getting rid of THREE characters from S1 might have been a bit much (with Jurati and Rios being out), adding him back in here just didn't really feel like a good handling of the situation to me.

[wantec]

I am with you two on Discovery Season 4.

The whole thing with Jurati, I think they're trying to set it up as some kind of a separate Borg Collective. Using a bee analogy, Jurati's a queen of one beehive and Locutus, Seven, and all the previous Borg we've seen are a different beehive. Same species, but different organization and a different objective. Jurati had told the other queen her plan was to go assimilate volunteers as opposed to mass assimilation. That might limit the spread and technological development of these kinder, gentler Borg. And considering they should have the memories of the bad Borg Queen, Jurati's Borg should have the ability to avoid the bad Borg until the what we see in Picard.

[Lorcan Nagle]

Yeah, I agree with wantec on the two collectives idea.  Overall I enjoyed the episode and the series overall, I think it was a better story overall than series 1, but no individual episode surpassed Nepenthe as a single story.  Still has massive pacing issues - just different ones to series 1 and I doubt they'll be fixed next year. 

Really they just need to space some things out better, maybe introduce the space hole at the start so Starfleet is dealing with two crises and only the viewer begins to realise they're related before Q changes history?, and at the same time compress others, so we're not getting constant distractions and sideplots that just feel like the show is marking time because it's a 10 episode order

Enjoyed SNW a lot.  I've seen a lot of people who really love it and I'm not that hot on it. but it looks great, the cast are fun - both the returning triumverate and most of the new crew members get some moments to shine, and it's a self-contained story, which is refreshing after a lot of not always great serialised storytelling.

[glitterboy2098]

And while it’s not really spoilery:

OMG, USS Archer (NCC-627) is a single-nacelle ship, like a mini Hermes class!

Screencap? Can link to preserve spoiler status.

[Lorcan Nagle]

Screencap? Can link to preserve spoiler status.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Archer_(NCC-627)

[Giovanni Blasini]

Screencap? Can link to preserve spoiler status.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Archer_(NCC-627)

[Lorcan Nagle]

what was that, 45-seconds apart?

[Giovanni Blasini]

what was that, 45-seconds apart?

What's weirder is it didn't give me the alert you'd already posted when I started posting mine.  That's bizarre.

OK, haven't seen Picard S2 Ep10 yet, but I saw a couple clips on YouTube, because I've never met a spoiler I didn't like, evidently:


I freely admit I was openly crying during the last scenes with Q...well, the two snippets I saw on YouTube that appear to be his last scenes.[/quote]

[Kentares]

Finally I enjoyed a Star Trek episode since the start of Disco thanks to SNW.

My only serious complain is too much Pike "flashforwards". A couple of things need to improve but overall I enjoyed it.

Lets see how it goes from here.

[I am Belch II]

The first episode of Strange New Worlds was good, much better for a start of a show but still a pilot and seemed a little more than a episode than normal.  It was basically a the Star Trek version of The Day the Earth Stood Still just replace Klaatu with Pike. Some major plot oversites....A whole ship Archer they sent for first contact had only 3 crew members???

[glitterboy2098]

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Archer_(NCC-627)

when i'd posted before they hadn't had a picture up yet.

not sure i like the hollow pylon there. it looks flimsy and makes the question of "where is the engine room and warp core" way too complex, because there is clearly no EPS pipeline out to the nacelle.. so if it is inthe saucer (where you would have the room for it and its M/AM fuel) it seems impossible you could get the power to the nacelle.. but if it is in the nacelle you run into the problem that there is no way to move the crew down to the nacelle. it also would put a major constraint on the size of the warp coil assembly(s) in the nacelle. and thus presumably things like top speed. other than that not a bad take on the Saladin/Hermes.

[dgorsman]

I liked it as well.  Doctor M'Benga was a nice touch.

A whole ship Archer they sent for first contact had only 3 crew members???

Found that questionable as well.  Another lesser point was leaning a little too heavily on DISCO for previous knowledge of relationships and the flashback.

[Kentares]

Found that questionable as well.  Another lesser point was leaning a little too heavily on DISCO for previous knowledge of relationships and the flashback.

Those are my "couple of things" that need to improve. And why they got a Samuel Kirk and a Khan descendent in there also bothers me but... lets see where they go with those.

[glitterboy2098]

A whole ship Archer they sent for first contact had only 3 crew members???

guess it depends on how big the ship is. not having seen the episode, and going just by the picture, it is possible the ship was tiny like the novel continuity Archer class scouts seen in the Vanguard and seekers series of novels. which was only 45m long. that saucer on the SNW ship could have only had a single deck, and been only a few dozen meters wide.

i don't know where the memory alpha claim it is a hermes class came from.. i've seen people online claiming it is one based on the registry number matching the old (non-canon) franz joeseph technical manual for the hermes class, but that book had the class as a larger ship at 242m with a crew of a hundred plus.

[VhenRa]

Those are my "couple of things" that need to improve. And why they got a Samuel Kirk and a Khan descendent in there also bothers me but... lets see where they go with those.

Samuel Kirk is James T.'s brother. Showed up in an episode of TOS.

And... honestly I have my doubts is a Khan descendent tbh. I think it's them faking us out.

[Garrand]

It's not like Khan is exactly an unusual or unique name either. According to Wikipedia, some 45 million people worldwide (usually originating from South Asia) have Khan as a last name.

Khan was originally a title given to people that were warchiefs in South Asia.

They may have been putting in an easter-egg lampshade (like they did with Kirk), but at the same time, it really isn't remarkable that someone would have that last name (& neither is it for Khan to have that last name, for that matter, & ISTR every Sikh male would have a last name of Singh as well).

Damon.

[dgorsman]

Wait - granted, I had a little trouble following the dialog in places but where is this "Khan descendent" coming in?

[gyedid]

Samuel Kirk is James T.'s brother. Showed up in an episode of TOS.

And... honestly I have my doubts is a Khan descendent tbh. I think it's them faking us out.

Christina Chong has confirmed that La'an is indeed a descendant of Khan:

https://trekmovie.com/2022/05/04/interview-christina-chong-on-how-laan-is-and-isnt-like-khan-in-star-trek-strange-new-worlds/

So that's how they're doing it but not sure why it's necessary.  Like I said previously, this feels like something Manny Coto would've done for season 4 of ST:ENT, trying to create a forced continuity among different eras of Trek.

Cheers,

Gabe

[Lorcan Nagle]

Wait - granted, I had a little trouble following the dialog in places but where is this "Khan descendent" coming in?

The security chief in SNW is La'an Noonien Soong

[Kentares]

It's not like Khan is exactly an unusual or unique name either. According to Wikipedia, some 45 million people worldwide (usually originating from South Asia) have Khan as a last name.

Khan was originally a title given to people that were warchiefs in South Asia.

They may have been putting in an easter-egg lampshade (like they did with Kirk), but at the same time, it really isn't remarkable that someone would have that last name (& neither is it for Khan to have that last name, for that matter, & ISTR every Sikh male would have a last name of Singh as well).

Damon.

Not sure why you bother to write that essay about "Khan" when all I wrote was "she was a descendent of Khan" (La'an Noonien Soong).

About Kirk brother... unless theres a brilliant plot point later hence I wrote "lets see where they go with those" (both Samuel and La'an) I think they're unnecessary "cameos".

[I am Belch II]

I think the Samuel Kirk is just a little too much for the show. Starfleet and the Federation is huge, yet everyone knows each other and are really close with each other.
 
The La'an story might be pretty good, but we will see. Do I think it shouldn't be there yes...but this is a prequel show and I think lore and history of the show before is out the window. Like the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

[gyedid]

Well... not as thrilled with the end of Picard S2 as I would have liked, but it was decent. Much better, I felt, than Discovery S4 (which I had to choke down, and which my wife finally got up mid-episode at one point halfway through the season, announced 'Nope, I'm out', and went to watch true crime shows in the bedroom).

Well I guess there's just no accounting for taste.  I was pretty much the exact opposite. 
Picard S2 just so thoroughly lost the plot in episodes 4-7 that it burned up any goodwill from the first two episodes.  Haven't gotten to episode 10 yet and it's no priority. I must be one of the very few who actually thinks S1 was better overall!  While I agree that the burn (haha) to get to the reveal and first contact with the Ten-C was a little too slow, I still felt DISCO S4 had a better payoff than Picard S2.

Cheers,

Gabe