Yea, I also think they should have left out the prosthetics so the Klingons sound clearer. It is really jarring and you can distinctly tell when something has been redubbed.
Overall I liked it more then I thought but it is clearly not a classic Star Trek series. Feels a bit like the Rogue One of Star Trek. That can be good or bad. Some decisions I found questionable (What’s that thing looking like a member of Daft Punk?). I am not versed in the Trek lore and wonder how much they retconned besides the Klingons?
It looks absolutely stunning, the ships federation ships are cool. Klingons again questionable but very cool looking, just not what I want from Klingons. But If you can take the series on its own it will hopefully be worth it. End of EP 2 actually surprised me. Will be back next week for another round. I would not subscribe to another service just for it though.
Just finished watching. As with @ImaTarget I’m a bit surprised at the direction where things went. It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
I thought the Star Fleet stuff all looked terrific and Star Fleet officers acting was top notch. They definitely did a quality job on the sets and the effects. In the photos I thought the uniforms looked odd, but they all looked pretty good in actual action.
I hated the Klingons. Completely agree with @rei and @ImaTarget. Hard to understand what they are saying, just a mumbling monotone. On the one hand it kind of doesn’t matter because they’re speaking Klingon and there are subtitles, but the monotone just made it hard to convey any emotion through their speech, And I hated the design of both the Klingons themselves and their ships. The scenes with them were just jarring in sharp contrast with the rest of the show.
Definitely a very strong start. Let’s hope they can keep the quality up.
Is there a way to sign up for a free trial so I can see the pilot without giving them my credit card info? The only free trials I see require me to sign up for an auto-renewing monthly subscription first.
I signed up for a trial within the app on iOS. It still uses an auto renew after a week, but you aren’t giving them your billing info as Apple is doing it for you. App has chrome cast built in too.
An interesting article that shows the rather convoluted ownership of Star Trek and how that plays into its Prime vs “JJ Verse” rebooted movies. Something I didn’t know Paramount and Bad Robot(JJs company) make and actually own the show not CBS.
I really enjoyed that pilot. The opening credits are nicely done too. The production values are amazing compared to all previous Trek series. The acting so far is really good, except for some scenes with the Klingons as mentioned above. The actors seem to be really hampered by that makeup.
One point of confusion: The white beacon that the Klingons lit: On the U.S.S. Shenzhou, they were completely blinded, and thought the light was coming from the Klingon ship. But the one or two exterior shots they showed the audience seemed indicate that it came from that vessel that the main character flew to, did I get that right? So that vessel was the beacon?
I’ve been watching older Trek series because of this and noticed something I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about. TNG and especially Voyager have a really nice emphasis on science, critical thinking and discuss HOW to think a lot. I was watching an episode where the crew has to think their way out of a problem and the answer was of course “tachyon emissions” or some bullshit. But the WAY they got there was to listen to each other, work synergistically, challenge assumptions, make sure they had accurate metrics, all the stuff that you learn when becoming a scientist. They also have a lot of episodes and plots that involve respecting other cultures and traditions while still being proud of your own. This theme repeats again and again. It sets the tone of the series. Especially with children and families on TNG, I just love the tone and themes of the 90s shows. Its constantly promoting curiosity and critical thinking.
And that is what separates (or used to) Star Trek from every other sci fi series, including Star Wars. Its about science, not lab science but science as a way of life, a way of thinking.
The Abrahams movies were entertaining and looked really great, but they skipped right over this and made Star Trek into Star Wars. All bluster and explosions and conflict resolved with explosions. No diplomacy or critical thinking or controlling your anger and prejudices. To me, this (and TOS had some of this too, just not at much) was what defined Star Trek. Its what inspired two generations of nerds and geeks to become JPL scientists, chemists, mathmeticians, and especially computer scientists.
So is this new series more like entertainment Trek, or more like science trek? Cause what TV needs desperately right now is science trek.
Abrams admitted he was never a ST fan and never really watched any of it. For him directing the movies was at the time a chance to basically make a SW movie without the actual IP. Personally I’m very glad they look to be dumping that mindset and using traditional Trek themes as the basis.
It’s too early to tell based on the first episode. I agree with your analysis of TNG especially. It’s the reason why I enjoyed even the first two seasons of TNG and the first two seasons of DS9. They might not be as good as the later seasons of those shows, but they still had emphasis on being a show about science, like you said.
One other thought, I really liked the science officer that Doug Jones played (forgot his name already). I thought he was going to be cheesy with the whole “sensing death” thing but I liked the bit of backstory of his race being bred as cattle, and how it leads to his first response to trouble being “let’s get the hell out of here.”
I haven’t watched Ep2, so maybe I missed something there, but the whole cattle thing made very little sense to me. First, why would cattle be bred to sense death approaching? You’d think you’d do the exact opposite to keep them docile. Second, why would you breed cattle for intelligence and sentience?
I got the impression from his discussion that it was more metaphorical than I had originally thought, just taking that line out of context. Not that he can literally sense death coming but more of a foreboding.
I agree. I thought having a sentient race evolved from a herbivore prey-animal was a really neat concept.
Taken in context my impression was that it was really a mind-set. What he was saying is that as a prey-animal he’s constantly thinking defensively and is concerned with potential impending death. A herbivore eats random plants and spends a lot of time concerned with where potential predators are going to be coming from to kill him. It’s a very different mind set from a sentient species evolved from a hunting carnivore.
In context I thought he was saying, “Captain your hunter-evolved brain is trying to work the problem and figure out how to turn this to your advantage; my highly evolved herbivore, prey-animal instincts are telling me we should get the hell out of here, because we are about to get swooped down on by a predator and turned into someone’s dinner.”
He specifically said “bred”, not “evolved”. I can follow the concept of prey animals evolving sentience. Heck, I suspect man was as much prey as hunter (if not more so prey) for much of our evolutionary lifespan.
What didn’t make sense was the “bred” part for both hyper-awareness of threats and intelligence.
Well hell, if you’re going to get all analytical about the breeding thing, why was he so tall and skinny? Wouldn’t you want your food kinda plump? Who knows what the predator species is looking for in their food, though.
That’s a good catch. But bred doesn’t necessarily imply bred by an outside force. He could come from a society that practices eugenics and controls its own breeding.
[quote=“ydejin, post:984, topic:77660”]
I thought having a sentient race evolved from a herbivore prey-animal was a really neat concept.
[/quote]You might enjoy this book. I fucking hated it (for various reasons nobody else seems to have with it), but it’s been well received.
