981 replies to this topic

[s8film40]

This is the bridge of the Enterprise during The Cage. Notice the large computer displays, and even a seemingly touch screen displays on the helm/navigation station at the front of the bridge.

 

Discovery's bridge has a fairly similar color scheme, and just has larger displays with different, realistic data being displayed on them.

 

It even has those TOS style buttons and switches sporadically throughout.

Discovery's bridge is more light show and less actual working control center for a ship to me. I don't get the overall feel that if fits with the TOS sets, in fact I don't think it even reasonably represent a realistic ship bridge at all. Again I know I said this earlier it looks more like a night club than a bridge.

[Alteran195]

Its no more or less functional than any of bridges on any other Star Trek series. At least the user interface they designed for the displays is actually functional, and appears to be pretty user friendly.

 

I also don't get your issue with the lighting. Its all above the stations, or on the pillars sticking further out than anything. Its a pretty similar set up to the bridge of the Enterprise E, was its bridge a night club too?

[s8film40]

Its no more or less functional than any of bridges on any other Star Trek series. At least the user interface they designed for the displays is actually functional, and appears to be pretty user friendly.

 

I also don't get your issue with the lighting. Its all above the stations, or on the pillars sticking further out than anything. Its a pretty similar set up to the bridge of the Enterprise E, was its bridge a night club too?

 

Most of the lighting there is above directed down to illuminate the work space as well as foot lighting. Yeah there are some lights on the columns and I'm not a fan of that, but no where near as extreme as the Discovery. I suppose if you look at them Discovery was a natural progression from the E. In any case the point is the lighting is decorative and serves no functional purpose. Anyways my intention wasn't to go down a rabbit hole of complaining about minute details. I used some of these as examples, but it is definitely the series as a whole and many issues like these examples that put me off.

[1701D]

You don't inspire future generations of scientists by telling them the future is going to look like their grandparents' garage sale.

You are absolutely right... so why set the series in a period of time that did look like a grandparents garage sale?

The future for the next generation is beyond Voyager, not before TOS.

[Whirlygig]

Lol...it was called mid-century modern because it represented aesthetics that felt modern *during* the mid-20th-century, not because it would be, or appear to be, modern *forever*. To claim nothing about Star Trek looks 60's is just, well, you've lost me, I can't reason with the unreasonable... I suppose there was nothing 60's about Adam West Batman, either???

Clothing and hair in Star Wars did originally betray the 70s, and sometimes so did similar mechanical toggle switches (mainly on the Death Star), but that was about it. The intentional retro, junkyard, timeless look to most Star Wars elements makes you less able to find a sense of time relative to yourself, and that's the point..it's not our future or our past. Trek on the other hand needs to appear futuristic to its current audience.

As to why it had to be set before TOS...welp, to be honest, why not? I don't think they've done a good job showing us why this story had to be told in that time period... but, I do think someone *could* theoretically do a good job of that and I wouldn't want that person restricted by ancient aesthetics, either.

[s8film40]

Lol...it was called mid-century modern because it represented aesthetics that felt modern *during* the mid-20th-century, not because it would be, or appear to be, modern *forever*. To claim nothing about Star Trek looks 60's is just, well, you've lost me, I can't reason with the unreasonable... I suppose there was nothing 60's about Adam West Batman, either???

Clothing and hair in Star Wars did originally betray the 70s, and sometimes so did similar mechanical toggle switches (mainly on the Death Star), but that was about it. The intentional retro, junkyard, timeless look to most Star Wars elements makes you less able to find a sense of time relative to yourself, and that's the point..it's not our future or our past. Trek on the other hand needs to appear futuristic to its current audience.

As to why it had to be set before TOS...welp, to be honest, why not? I don't think they've done a good job showing us why this story had to be told in that time period... but, I do think someone *could* theoretically do a good job of that and I wouldn't want that person restricted by ancient aesthetics, either.

Well thats your opinion, I disagree. Sure the way we see modern style is always changing and certainly there are some small aspects in the TOS style that are influenced by the 60s, but that doesnt make it any less modern or any less a realistic interpretation of the future. I think the biggest factor is that Star Trek was such an iconic part of the 60s that the show and in turn the style is associated with that time period. I think maybe you and others are confusing these two things. Im not by any means saying that everything as is still stands up today, but certainly with modern production values that style could be used and still look very modern. But yeah, I know if it doesnt have lights shining in your face it doesnt look like its from the future right?

[Whirlygig]

But yeah, I know if it doesnt have lights shining in your face it doesnt look like its from the future right?

 
And I suppose that, to you, it doesn't look like the future if there aren't multi-colored gel lights randomly front-lighting minimalist sets for no apparent reason...right?
 
It's like the Enterprise (and the entire future) is ever-poised to break into the party scene from Midnight Cowboy...can somebody phone up the ghost of Warhol for an opinion please?
 
Television shows, and art in general, are all products of their time, whether that product was due to people of the time trying to evoke a sense of the future, or people of the time trying to capture/reflect the actual present, or people of the time trying to recall the past, or people of the time trying to project an idealistic or artistically filtered view of either (past/present/future).  Regardless of the goal, the people of the time can't help but put a little bit of themselves in the product -- their own technological restrictions, their own limited foresight/hindsight, their own proclivities, aspirations, etc.  It's less that Star Trek looks like the 60's, which is what you seem to think I mean (and to a good extent, it does)...  but more that Star Trek look like it was a product of the 60's.

[s8film40]

 
And I suppose that, to you, it doesn't look like the future if there aren't multi-colored gel lights randomly front-lighting minimalist sets for no apparent reason...right?
 
It's like the Enterprise (and the entire future) is ever-poised to break into the party scene from Midnight Cowboy...can somebody phone up the ghost of Warhol for an opinion please?
 
Television shows, and art in general, are all products of their time, whether that product was due to people of the time trying to evoke a sense of the future, or people of the time trying to capture/reflect the actual present, or people of the time trying to recall the past, or people of the time trying to project an idealistic or artistically filtered view of either (past/present/future).  Regardless of the goal, the people of the time can't help but put a little bit of themselves in the product -- their own technological restrictions, their own limited foresight/hindsight, their own proclivities, aspirations, etc.  It's less that Star Trek looks like the 60's, which is what you seem to think I mean (and to a good extent, it does)...  but more that Star Trek look like it was a product of the 60's.

Well like I said Im okay with higher production standards and slightly updated designs. It just need to still look realistic so that it doesnt become a distraction to the story. This is where Discovery failed, the fact that we even are having this discussion is proof of that. What it comes down to is whether youre able to ignore their mistakes or if they get in the way of the story. I personally would probably be able to get past it if they had some good stories. I lost interest in the stories very quickly. So for me it was a double whammy, bad out of character production design and pretty average stories that dont really push forward any great science fiction. The plus side is I dont feel like by not watching it Im missing out on part of the Star Trek world due to it being so disjointed. It feels like something separate that if you enjoy it great, if not youre not missing anything.

[VulcanFanatic]

So I still wonder how much of CBS's bump in subs is actual paying customers or are they counting a great deal of free trials that may not stick around in their figures? And now that the show is apparently concluded for the season, how many have jumped ship?

[1701D]

As to why it had to be set before TOS...welp, to be honest, why not? I don't think they've done a good job showing us why this story had to be told in that time period... but, I do think someone *could* theoretically do a good job of that and I wouldn't want that person restricted by ancient aesthetics, either.

 

I'm wondering if the story they told was one that would of been better served had it been set beyond Voyager, beyond known canon and continuity. One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Discovery is that it looks too far removed from what we know to be that period of time. 

 

I agree with you that the TOS cardboard 60's look isn't going to cut it in 2018 but that is the established look for that period of canon/continuity so why deliberately go back there, change the look of everything, tell a ham-fisted, hamstrung story that is ultimately going to piss more fans off than generate new fans. 

 

Everything I've said about Discovery being great I truly believe, but there is another side to that coin and it's a bit of a mess to be fair when there was so much potential in either staying true to the aesthetics of TOS (I don't mean cardboard sets, I mean staying true to the colour palette and design style) and telling a very modern, contemporary tale within the time period or indeed setting Discovery 50/100 years beyond Voyager and creating their own vision of the future from our world as it is in 2018... 

 

Having thoroughly enjoyed Discovery despite it's failings IMO, They've redesigned things and for what reason? 

[1701D]

Most of the lighting there is above directed down to illuminate the work space as well as foot lighting. Yeah there are some lights on the columns and I'm not a fan of that, but no where near as extreme as the Discovery. I suppose if you look at them Discovery was a natural progression from the E. In any case the point is the lighting is decorative and serves no functional purpose. Anyways my intention wasn't to go down a rabbit hole of complaining about minute details. I used some of these as examples, but it is definitely the series as a whole and many issues like these examples that put me off.

 

I think the Discovery bridge and the whole look of the show is gorgeous... If you take TOS out of the mix as not part of canon, then the look of this show fits right in there between Enterprise and TMP with some exceptions being the modern displays and view window. I agree though that because it's a show made 16 years after we last saw the Enterprise E on our screens, then yes this show absolutely fits design wise, perfectly into canon 16 years after the events of Nemesis.

 

I don't get how you can see night club with this bridge though. It's darker, more modern than any of the other bridges and the luminous displays perhaps could give off that vibe, but I must admit, the care and attention to detail here is something Star Trek really lacked during the 90's due to budget constraints. 

[Gothneo]

Purely hypothetical but in the vein of rebooting something... If I were going to re-boot Star Trek... and try and make it grittier... I think I might go for a look like they have in SyFy's "Expanse" That is some gorgeous space renders... and the way they use bullets in space fights really adds some real grit to it... if you could somehow overlap a more positive, unified and humanitarian theme on to it... I think you might have a very interesting reimagined and reboot.

[1701D]

I think a lot of the different issues fans have with Discovery and certainly the Abrams movies is down to one particular issue and the opinion many have that Star Trek actually never needed rebooting in the first place...

[Gothneo]

Yes... but thats why I was saying from a pure hypothetical... I think the mistake in any reboot is perhaps is not being bold enough to throw out tech and ideas that while maybe theoretical in the 60's are clearly not possible now... for example... we know warp drives can't work the way they are portrayed... So throw it out and really rethink it all from the ground up.

 

At least if it was a reboot that really threw out pretty much everything and re-imaged it from the ground up keeping just Roddenberrys Humanist Ideals... I wonder what we'd get?

[s8film40]

 

I don't get how you can see night club with this bridge though. It's darker, more modern than any of the other bridges and the luminous displays perhaps could give off that vibe, but I must admit, the care and attention to detail here is something Star Trek really lacked during the 90's due to budget constraints. 

Really!? I would say the care and attention to detail was at it's highest level ever during the 90's. Most of my issue with these newer sets especially from the movies is they're very shallow, they're designed to look flashy but very little thought is put into them. They just slap them together, throw some lights in them and that's it. That of course is only when they're not shooting in a brewery or some industrial facility. Andrew Probert had a really nice post where he basically ripped apart everything in the Abrams sets and highlighted how it didn't appear to serve any purpose and was poorly designed. That's the big difference in how they did things during that time they thought out how all these things actually functioned. Even if it wasn't obvious or seen there was a reason for it. That kind of care and attention detail is something that helps make the world they create feel more real.

[Gothneo]

I doubt many sci-fi sets would pass a modern Human Factors Engineering (HFE) analysis.

 

I agree that things like LCARS developed in the 90's was at least attempt to put some type of HFE trappings in Trek... I also loved episodes of DS9 where when they capture a Jem'Hadar ship and they point out the bridge is organized and optimized for tactile and fighting efficiency and not comfort. 

[MisterPL]

In space, no one can here you moan:

 

http://sciencefictio.../no-phone-gone/

[Alteran195]

Deleted scene from the finale:
https://youtu.be/1r04XSf6UGs

[Gothneo]

Interesting. That certainly would have closed the loop on many questions. It could imply that sec 31 knew what was going on all along.

 

I certainly think a section 31 inspired cloak and dagger / spy show could be interesting, but I also think most Trek purest have a real issue with the whole section 31 concept as real deviation from Treks peaceful Humanist theme... if indeed that is a core tenant of Trek?! Certainly I think GR intended humanism to be core tenant, but I think sec 31 embraces a more militant humanism, which while not necessary a contradiction to GR... it certainly is a deviation from the type of humanism previously portrayed on Trek. 

[Alteran195]

New shot of the Enterprise thanks to the Ships of the Line calendar: