Star Trek: Discovery

[sketchley]

23 hours ago, Mommar said:

The special effects are the only praise I could give the first two JJ films.  However, every shot of the Enterprise is too close.  The only time you ever saw the full body of the ship in all of the first two movies is when the hull is being constructed on Earth.  (...)

Due to this conversation, I rewatched the 2009 movie last night, and... well, it doesn't hold up very well now that we're getting a stream of Star Wars movies to fill the craving for sci-fi movies. :wink:

While the characterization and chemistry between the principle cast (that I mentioned earlier) holds up, it struck me that the action scenes (in particular) are a confusing visual mess.  I'm not referring to the lens flare (that just compounded the problem).  On top of Mommar's point (thanks!) about the cameras being too close, there's the split second cuts, and excessive  camera shaking.  Ugh.

It makes me thankful that the Star Wars filmmakers haven't adopted that (and JJ Abrams himself scaled those things back significantly in SW7).

What about Into Darkness and Beyond?  Do viewers have to suffer through the same bad combination of split second cuts, extreme camera shaking, and blinding lens flare?  Or is the 2009 film the worst for that?

[JB0]

17 hours ago, tekering said:

This has nothing to do with ego -- at least, not the actors' egos.  Hollywood is infested with parasitic leeches known as "agents," whose primary purpose is to artificially inflate a film's budget in order to secure a larger salary for their clients (and by extension, themselves), and often negotiate in bad faith with studios just to squeeze every dollar they can out of 'em.  The process is usually kept out of the public eye, but there are some infamous (and well-documented) examples:

And sometimes it goes wrong in reverse. As I understand things, Samuell Jackson fired his agent over Snakes on a Plane, and not for the reasons you'd think.

His agent was insisting they make changes to the movie, up to and including the title, because someone like Samuell Jackson doesn't appear in films with titles like 'Snakes on a Plane'. Jackson thought the title was amazing and damn well wanted a film called 'Snakes on a Plane' on his resume.

 

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm more confused by the allegation that Star Trek: Beyond lost money at the box office.  From what I'd read, it didn't do great but it still represented a significant recovery from the mess that was Star Trek: Into Darkness.  If Beyond really did finish in the red, what the hell is Pine thinking pretending he can ask for more money.

Hollywood book-keeping, man.  Remember, David Prowse gets a letter every year explaining that he isn't getting a royalty check because Return of the Freakin' Jedi still hasn't turned a profit, and this chain continued unbroken from release through at least 2012(date of the interview I saw mention it).

The numbers say what they want to say, and if they want to say Chris Pine needs to step back in line because his last two movies both bombed, then by god accounting will get them the evidence they need.

[Dynaman]

10 hours ago, sketchley said:

 

What about Into Darkness and Beyond?  Do viewers have to suffer through the same bad combination of split second cuts, extreme camera shaking, and blinding lens flare?  Or is the 2009 film the worst for that?

Into Darkness got rid of most of the lense flair.  I don't remember shaky cam so much in either of the first movies so can't comment.  The third movie's director had a much different visual style - still fast but a different style.  I thought it was better.

[TangledThorns]

Maybe fans are tired of the revenge themed storylines? They need to add some originality if they want to revive Star Trek. For example, one of my favorite Star Trek films was about saving whales

[SMS007]

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

Into Darkness got rid of most of the lense flair.  I don't remember shaky cam so much in either of the first movies so can't comment.  The third movie's director had a much different visual style - still fast but a different style.  I thought it was better.

Uh, I think you mean Beyond got rid of most lens flares. Into Darkness was notorious for having them at inopportune moments.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 8/11/2018 at 2:25 PM, SMS007 said:

If each Star Trek movie had its own thread on this forum, then should a mod split this discussion into its own thread?

Eh... it's all but inevitable that a topic about Star Trek: Discovery would periodically boomerang back to the subject of the unrelated* Star Trek movie series and the novel 'verse.

CBS's protestations to the contrary, we all know that Star Trek: Discovery is absolutely taking its stylistic and thematic pointers from the movies in the Kelvin timeline rather than any of the previous Star Trek Prime timeline TV shows.  Any ongoing stupidity from the Jar-Jar Abrams movies is going to inevitably have knock-on effects for Star Trek: Discovery.  Likewise, I think it safe to say that news of CBS's efforts to develop other Star Trek shows will inevitably come up in the course of discussing Discovery given that they'll follow where Discovery has led on CBS All Access and, depending how you want to look at it, they're either coming to fruition because Discovery is a troubled production or because they think it proved that CBS All Access is a viable platform.  Same deal with the novel 'verse, since Star Trek: Discovery was part of the licensing SNAFU that nearly lost Pocket Books the license.

That and we're all too f***ing lazy to go necro other threads.  

 

16 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

But if they give Sulu the Excelsior in #6, it’ll be awesome.  

I don't even want to think of how ugly the Excelsior will be with the J.J.-verse's aesthetic applied to it.

Hell, I don't want to see it with Discovery's aesthetic applied to it.  U-G-L-Y, it ain't go no alibi, it's UGLY.

[David Hingtgen]

I like the Discovery Enterprise, comparatively.  10x better than JJprise, and still much nicer than what a pure NX-01-esque version could have been.  

I’d probably be “ok” with a Discovery-Excelsior.  But a JJcelsior would be an eldritch horror.  

[Mommar]

Isn't The Vengeance pretty much the JJ version of the Excelsior though?

[SMS007]

2 hours ago, Mommar said:

Isn't The Vengeance pretty much the JJ version of the Excelsior though?

Haha, when the Into Darkness trailer debuted years ago, that was my reaction to our first glimpse of the Vengeance.

But other than size, the Vengeance has nothing in common with the Excelsior. NX-2000 and its class are a legally and publicly developed next generation Starfleet multipurpose explorers, not warships with ominous colors and mind-blowingly powerful weapons that scream evil.

[Mommar]

5 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Haha, when the Into Darkness trailer debuted years ago, that was my reaction to our first glimpse of the Vengeance.

But other than size, the Vengeance has nothing in common with the Excelsior. NX-2000 and its class are a legally and publicly developed next generation Starfleet multipurpose explorers, not warships with ominous colors and mind-blowingly powerful weapons that scream evil.

Like everything else in JJ-Trek has some sort of parity?

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

I like the Discovery Enterprise, comparatively.  10x better than JJprise, and still much nicer than what a pure NX-01-esque version could have been.  

That, I'll admit, is the one bright spot among Star Trek: Discovery's designs... the show's rendition of the pre-refit Constitution-class USS Enterprise is absolutely gorgeous.  So much so that it makes the new classes of ship in the series (Crossfield, Walker, Hoover, Malachowski, Cardenas, Nimitz, Engle, Magee, and Shephard) look even uglier by comparison.

It feels a bit like being cheated, really.  They've been able to produce gorgeous material all along... but for the actual series they insisted on using ugly, blocky stuff that in more than one case was an actual reject from a prior Star Trek show?

 

Quote

I’d probably be “ok” with a Discovery-Excelsior.  But a JJcelsior would be an eldritch horror.  

If the JJ-Enterprise is any indication, it'd look like a spacegoing Edsel.

 

2 hours ago, Mommar said:

Isn't The Vengeance pretty much the JJ version of the Excelsior though?

It hits a few of the same notes, but mostly no.

The USS Vengeance never gets treated as a buttmonkey the way Excelsior did in The Search for Spock, and it doesn't seem likely to be a next-generation Starfleet multi-mission explorer when it was set up almost exclusively for Admiral Robocop's preemptive war with the Klingons.

 

10 minutes ago, SMS007 said:

Haha, when the Into Darkness trailer debuted years ago, that was my reaction to our first glimpse of the Vengeance.

A more charitable reaction than mine.  My take was "What is this enormous nonsense?" 

It's just so... fanfiction-y.  It's an enormous, super-powerful Starfleet ship somehow developed and built entirely in secret by the Federation's most clandestine intelligence service, more advanced in every way than Starfleet's best production starships, three times faster, so heavily armed it may as well be unstoppable, able to run with a one-man crew, and it's painted all in black because that's super edgy.  

(Plus the whole thing was kind of silly as a covert project... if you're building a starship to secretly go wreck an enemy's sh*t with plausible deniability, building it to a configuration associated exclusively with your own government and recognizable as such at a glance seems like a really terrible idea.)

The Crossfield-class hits a lot of the same fanfiction-y notes with its super-powerful experimental stardrive, secret experimental operations profile, stock of planet-cracking weapons, and its edgy, amoral crew.

[David Hingtgen]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 three times faster, so heavily armed it may as well be unstoppable, able to run with a one-man crew, and it's painted all in black

Should've been red. 

[Sildani]

Plus the class name itself. SO EVIL!

[TehPW]

Not t mention they might have been closet Battletech fans: They used the same gimmick to hide their facility that the Word of Blake did for 'Ruins of Gabriel' (right in plain sight)...

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

Should've been red. 

It wouldn't be the first time Peter Weller played a "dead" man in a metal mask out for revenge...

 

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

Not t mention they might have been closet Battletech fans: They used the same gimmick to hide their facility that the Word of Blake did for 'Ruins of Gabriel' (right in plain sight)...

It's a popular trope... it was also used in Warhammer 40,000's Horus Heresy series, except the secret shipyard was built into the (very real) Jupiter-orbiting asteroid 279 Thule.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[Focslain]

11 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a popular trope... it was also used in Warhammer 40,000's Horus Heresy series, except the secret shipyard was built into the (very real) Jupiter-orbiting asteroid 279 Thule.

What was built there? Only up to Shadows of Treachery, yes I'm waaaayy behind.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Focslain said:

What was built there? Only up to Shadows of Treachery, yes I'm waaaayy behind.

Much like the USS Vengeance in Star Trek: Into Darkness, a completely over-the-top warship built in secret and meant to go toe-to-toe with entire fleets on a mission of approximate genocide.

Spoiler

The Furious Abyss, the first of three Abyss-class super-dreadnoughts secretly commissioned by the XVII Legion primarch Lorgar and Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal.  The Abyss-class massively outclassed the Gloriana-class super-battleships that served as Astartes Legion flagships at the time.  They were built to overcome the orbital defenses of the Imperium's most secure worlds through sheer brute force, and equipped with state-of-the-art, experimental, and illegal tech. 

It may have been the inspiration for the Planet Killer, and its captain was just as inept as our boy Failbaddon.

 

[Focslain]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Much like the USS Vengeance in Star Trek: Into Darkness, a completely over-the-top warship built in secret and meant to go toe-to-toe with entire fleets on a mission of approximate genocide.

  Reveal hidden contents

The Furious Abyss, the first of three Abyss-class super-dreadnoughts secretly commissioned by the XVII Legion primarch Lorgar and Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal.  The Abyss-class massively outclassed the Gloriana-class super-battleships that served as Astartes Legion flagships at the time.  They were built to overcome the orbital defenses of the Imperium's most secure worlds through sheer brute force, and equipped with state-of-the-art, experimental, and illegal tech. 

It may have been the inspiration for the Planet Killer, and its captain was just as inept as our boy Failbaddon.

 

I had a feeling that was the vessel you were talking about. Only issue was that it wasn't a secret construction. Most of the Jovian yards knew of it and was proud of it. Granted the most of locals didn't know how it was ultimately used. But it was widely known during construction.

Edit: I will own up to my mistake. Did a little research and guess I didn't remember correctly. The celebration was of the construction crews, but their project was black.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Focslain

[UN Spacy]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, UN Spacy said:

Huh.  Well... that's a thing that is happening.

I'll admit I'm surprised CBS went for a relative unknown for an important role like Spock.  I expected them to go all-in on someone with more experience and a serious reputation.  His filmography is a genuinely depressing read.  Most of the films he's been in were box office flops or at least critically panned, with the high water mark apparently being either an Olsen Twins direct-to-video movie in '99 or a Mariah Carey vanity project.  The only TV role he's had that wasn't a bit part was in the 10 Things I Hate About You series that bombed and was canceled by ABC after just one season.

Either this is Mr. Peck's big break, or Star Trek: Discovery has gone full Springtime for Hitler and he's their L.S.D.

EDIT: Or maybe someone is just being terribly savvy by hiring someone who can't act to play an emotionless character...

 

 

3 hours ago, Focslain said:

I had a feeling that was the vessel you were talking about. Only issue was that it wasn't a secret construction. Most of the Jovian yards knew of it and was proud of it. Granted the most of locals didn't know how it was ultimately used. But it was widely known during construction.

Edit: I will own up to my mistake. Did a little research and guess I didn't remember correctly. The celebration was of the construction crews, but their project was black.

Admiral Marcus was, at least, nicer about it than Kelbor-Hal... he didn't blow up the dock and kill all the construction workers to keep it secret.

Still, the "top secret super-powerful ship constructed without anyone knowing" schtick is pretty bad writing IMO... unless you've got a galactic-scale civilization where something the size of a city could legitimately fall through the cracks, someone is going to notice either the small mountain of money that's gone walkabout or the enormous number of material requisitions being delivered to a space P.O. box and start asking questions.

Proper prototypes like the Excelsior or the Crossfield-class strain suspension of disbelief way less.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

1 hour ago, UN Spacy said:

 

So they pick Gregory Peck's grandson to play Spock

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Huh.  Well... that's a thing that is happening.

I'll admit I'm surprised CBS went for a relative unknown for an important role like Spock.  I expected them to go all-in on someone with more experience and a serious reputation.  His filmography is a genuinely depressing read.  Most of the films he's been in were box office flops or at least critically panned, with the high water mark apparently being either an Olsen Twins direct-to-video movie in '99 or a Mariah Carey vanity project.  ...

They should be filming the end of the season now so that’s where he will likely show up. Zachary Quinto is coming off a Broadway show and will doing In Search Of so I think that was an automatic “No”. Plus, he probably cost too much just for a short appearance. 

[SMS007]

Well, regardless of his lack of resemblance to young Leonard Nimoy, we will find out soon enough whether he can capture the Spock performance to our expectations. That is what will truly matter.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, SMS007 said:

Well, regardless of his lack of resemblance to young Leonard Nimoy, we will find out soon enough whether he can capture the Spock performance to our expectations. That is what will truly matter.

The two big questions there being "Which Spock?" and whether Peck's negligible acting talents will prove to be an asset while playing a character whose most iconic trait is a refusal to emote.

On the former score, I sincerely hope the Spock we get is in line with Leonard Nimoy's dignified and reserved Spock rather than Zachary Quinto's paradoxically emotional snobby Spock.

[TehPW]

52 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The two big questions there being "Which Spock?" and whether Peck's negligible acting talents will prove to be an asset while playing a character whose most iconic trait is a refusal to emote.

On the former score, I sincerely hope the Spock we get is in line with Leonard Nimoy's dignified and reserved Spock rather than Zachary Quinto's paradoxically emotional snobby Spock.

You have to admit why ZQ's Spock is different: Pan Far access isn't as much a issue for him, when the need arises LOL...

[anime52k8]

Well, I like the USS Vengeance. I think the Vengeance looks sexy; evil sexy.

 

 

[tekering]

Oh, are we still talking about the Vengeance?  Good, I can spam the thread with more unsolicited Eaglemoss pics.  

The Aztec tampographs are significantly simplified compared to the CGI model, but still consistently and cleanly applied.  

As is often the case with Eaglemoss, the ship was assembled rather sloppily, requiring me to crack it open, sand down some rough seams and edges, and glue it back together properly.

Definitely my favorite design of the Kelvin timeline trilogy (which isn't saying much, I realize), but the lack of hull designation markings is disappointing...

I know it reflects the stealth nature of the vessel, but its distinctly Starfleet configuration cries for the usual Federation stripes and lettering.

[Sildani]

Was there ever an explanation given for the hull cut-out?

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Sildani said:

Was there ever an explanation given for the hull cut-out?

Well, Admiral Marcus wanted to make sure that there was no way anybody could trace the ship back to the Federation after its planned preemptive strike on the Klingon Empire... so he made it look like Starfleet's most iconic ship class scaled up and carved a giant Starfleet delta into the saucer section.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[Dynaman]

I don't remember the Revenge looking so hideously ugly.

[Chronocidal]

I always kind of figured that the Vengeance was JJ's attempt to further turn Star Trek into Star Wars.  Between the bloated ship dimensions, rigid aesthetics, and color scheme, that thing would fit right in with the First Order.

Sad thing, it's still a better looking design than any new ship designed for the new trilogy.  

[JB0]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, Admiral Marcus wanted to make sure that there was no way anybody could trace the ship back to the Federation after its planned preemptive strike on the Klingon Empire... so he made it look like Starfleet's most iconic ship class scaled up and carved a giant Starfleet delta into the saucer section.

Exactly! It was an ingenious ploy to make it look like the gorn were trying to frame Starfleet!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I always kind of figured that the Vengeance was JJ's attempt to further turn Star Trek into Star Wars.  Between the bloated ship dimensions, rigid aesthetics, and color scheme, that thing would fit right in with the First Order.

Y'know, I can't honestly say that I could lay 100% of the blame for the Vengeance at Jar-Jar Abrams's door.  Section 31 was responsible for its design and construction, and they were a hilariously unsubtle pack of drama queens with a complexity addiction even when they were first introduced in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  Doing something like secretly constructing an enormous state-of-the-art warship for a clandestine preemptive strike on one of the Federation's enemies and making it incredibly conspicuous by forgetting to not design it like a Federation starship, designing a giant Starfleet delta into the hull, and then lazily painting it black and not applying markings is 100% in-character for them.  (It's not much worse than what the Obsidian Order and Tal Shiar did in Deep Space Nine, really... they just skipped the coat of black paint in favor of a cloaking device and building more than one.)

After all, Section 31 are the guys who think "inconspicuous" means going everywhere in a black pleather two-piece suit like some kind of business gimp.

 

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

Sad thing, it's still a better looking design than any new ship designed for the new trilogy.  

Nah, I'd have to say Snoke's big flying wing mothership was way better looking than the Vengeance... even after Vice Admiral Bad-at-her-Job turned it into a wreck and a line of ultra-velocity shrapnel.

 

58 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Exactly! It was an ingenious ploy to make it look like the gorn were trying to frame Starfleet!

So that's why he keeps a model of the USS Vengeance on his desk in his office where anyone can see it!  It must have come with a lovely card that read "To the filthy mammal Admiral Marcus with love, from the Gorn Hegemony".

[JB0]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So that's why he keeps a model of the USS Vengeance on his desk in his office where anyone can see it!  It must have come with a lovely card that read "To the filthy mammal Admiral Marcus with love, from the Gorn Hegemony".

Oh, totally. He shows Kirk the card in the Director's Cut. It's a very lovely card, with gold filigree and a sound box that plays the Gorn Hegemony Anthem("Drink the Mammal's Blood") when you open it. VERY convincing piece of forged evidence.

Edited August 18, 2018 by JB0

[anime52k8]

19 hours ago, Sildani said:

Was there ever an explanation given for the hull cut-out?

Because it's sexy and evil.