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I don't think its so much that the Klingons are one dimensional as the depiction of them from TNG onwards became one dimensional. There's obviously more in their culture and society than glorious "die with honor" guys, but we hardly ever see them. Despite existing since TOS, I feel like the Klingons are one of the least fleshed out aliens in Star Trek. We learned more about Bajorans and Cardassians in 7 seasons than we have about Klingons in 28.

So... what's up with the way the Klingons look there? Cause, that's just not what Klingons look like.

 djones520 wrote:
So... what's up with the way the Klingons look there? Cause, that's just not what Klingons look like.

It's just a different house is all

 Pacific wrote:
That's always been the problem with the conception of Klingons though hasn't it, in reality they would barely have made their way out of caves in-between bashing each other over the head, and certainly destroyed themselves long before they managed to get FTL travel and the like.

And always thought them having cloaking technology (and the likes of the Federation and Vulkans not) always a little silly, despite attempts to explain it.

The thing is, Klingons aren't stupid. They're just often portrayed that way. This wasn't just an issue with the Next Gen onwards, though... There was fairly massive outcry when the Motion Picture was released about the Klingons just charging on into the unknown with guns blazing rather than taking the time to study what was going on. Their portrayal in the original series was of a warlike but cunning species, on par with the Federation in strength. But from the first movie onwards, they suddenly because frothing loonies who just want to hit things.

It kinda see-sawed; their portrayal in ST IV and ST VI (and the ambassador in ST V, for that matter) was a bit more than "Charge!".

Deep SPace 9 tried to rein it back too, I think.

I think the Klingon's have generally suffered from what I'd call an obsession with aesthetic over substance. They look cool. They sound cool. They do cool stuff. It all looks cool, but underneath that though its all pretty shallow and even attempts in DS9 to present something more dynamic often still fell back on the generic warrior race guys aesthetic as a stand in for having to actually explain anything.

 insaniak wrote:
I don't get why the Klingons were redesigned if it's supposed to be Prime universe.

If the rumours that have been floating about are accurate - because it's not and was never intended to be Prime, at least not beyond the pilot. Apparently the whole shebang was cooked up essentially as a way for Paramount to preserve their "alternate Star Trek" license going forward given Beyond's underwhelming financial performance(despite it airing on All Access, it's Paramount, Bad Robot, and Kurtzman that are running the show as it were, and the license is a use it or lose it affair). The "big choice event" thing the lead character is being teased as being involved with in the pilot is supposedly basically meant to be Hobus 2.0, shifting Discovery off into essentially a third, also-alternate Trek(without ever actually saying so on-screen, making Discovery a semi-reboot): ostensibly the Paramount license is dependent on them doing "not-Trek", ie their version/s have to differ in aesthetic and tone to a noticeable degree from Prime, with Kelvin they went with Apple Futurism and a more "rip-roarin adventure" for the tone while with Discovery we get a different variation on shiny chrome futurism but this time the tone is "Dark Trek"(Sonequa Martin-Green has been quoted answering questions about the contrast between her experiences on Discovery with those on Walking Dead intimating they're not all that different and that all good storytelling is "gritty", and Kurtzman has made several comments about chucking out the "no petty interpersonal conflicts" rule to "modernise" the show).

CBS apparently OK'd the deal because for them it was win-win-win; they get more money out of the Paramount license which had been looking unlikely, they get a show they can use to bait the hook for their new online service, and best of all Netflix paid for the whole thing.

Basically the whole bin-fire is more corporate garbage.

Which kind of makes me glad that the other rumours floating around are that behind the scenes the whole thing is escalating from bin-fire to apocalyptically huge burning rubbish tip. Apparently the showrunners and CBS are gaking bricks because less than a third of the people in the test audiences who weren't existing Trek fans indicated they'd be willing to pay to watch it, and the reaction from both Kelvin and Prime fans was even worse. Supposedly a lot of those involved - both on the corporate side and production including some of the actors - have already written the show off and expect that barring some unforseen miraculous resonance with a new audience it will be cancelled even before season one has finished airing. Merchandising is non-existent, with only a single proposed toy line that is merely an option on a larger Prime license to one company, that wouldn't be out until 2018 even if it does actually get made. CBS are apparently bringing in the guy who directed Wrath of Khan to pull together a second, more fan-oriented show that will replace Discovery if and when that goes tits-up, though all parties involved apparently intend to save face by pushing the line that this was the plan all along and the prior info that Kurtzman had killed Fuller's original "anthology show" idea was incorrect. Netflix are apparently spitting blood because they thought they were buying in on the ground floor of a whole new Trek run, and CBS are reportedly looking at using their stake in CW to locate the replacement there instead.

And the sad thing is I kind of hope all of that is 100% true. Obviously as a fan the thing I most hope is true is that Nicholas Meyer actually has been tapped to produce a new, proper Trek show in the reasonably near future, but with all the sordid licensing garbage coming out the idea that all these besuited numpties and their pet pseudo-iconoclasts will be rewarded for their cynical half-assed maneuverings with a total failure of a show and potentially even a few rolling heads is actually quite a satisfying prospect.

I intend to watch this when it comes out, and pass judgement accordingly. I did the same with every series, this should be no different. As I wound up being about the only person in the galaxy that liked Insurrection, I will probably wind up being okay with this as well. Tell a good story, I'll fill in the canon-blanks with my own ideas. Just don't continuity bomb me like Enterprise did...

 Just Tony wrote:
I intend to watch this when it comes out, and pass judgement accordingly. I did the same with every series, this should be no different. As I wound up being about the only person in the galaxy that liked Insurrection, I will probably wind up being okay with this as well. Tell a good story, I'll fill in the canon-blanks with my own ideas. Just don't continuity bomb me like Enterprise did...

I also actually didn't mind Insurrection - people say it's "just" a two hour Next Gen episode, to which my response was always great, I like Next Gen. I don't expect I'll enjoy this however. It has all the continuity/aesthetic issues I had with Enterprise but magnified and without even the fig leaf of a very large time gap, and the purported shift in tone would make it a hard pass for me - at least Enterprise tried to evoke TOS-era "wonder of exploration" Trek, the idea of "JJTrek: Into Darkness - The Show" hardly appeals.

The common sentiment from the test screenings is supposedly that Discovery feels like "just a normal sci-fi show with some Trek dressing", and maybe at one point that would have been good enough, but we're fair drowning in decent sci-fi and fantasy(not to mention superheroics) TV at the moment with even more on the horizon, so chucking a few delta badges and pointy-ear prosthetics at a growly SG:Universe-alike isn't going to cut it for me.

 Yodhrin wrote:

I also actually didn't mind Insurrection - people say it's "just" a two hour Next Gen episode, to which my response was always great, I like Next Gen. .

When there's no on-going series, that's the next best thing, really. There's a lot to like in Insurrection.

I felt the same about Beyond, to be honest... I can see why it underperformed, particularly after the reception the previous movie got, but it was fun and 'felt' like more like Star Trek then either of the previous nu-Trek movies.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the Klingon's have generally suffered from what I'd call an obsession with aesthetic over substance. They look cool. They sound cool. They do cool stuff. It all looks cool, but underneath that though its all pretty shallow and even attempts in DS9 to present something more dynamic often still fell back on the generic warrior race guys aesthetic as a stand in for having to actually explain anything.

I'm reminded of the TNG episode where Kahless is brought back as a clone. During a duel, he suddenly stops fighting and berates the Klingons watching for focusing on just the fight while forgetting why they fight.

Well you can check off "actors give interviews smugly insisting they enjoy the idea that fans of a franchise will dislike the reboot" on your Troubled Production Bingo cards. I was actually surprised it's Jason Isaacs who's the first to drop the "we luuurve Trek and are so reverent of its history" pretense and start scrabbling for the "no we totes meant it to alienate the core fanbase" button, I had a fiver on it being the showrunners.

 Yodhrin wrote:

If the rumours that have been floating about are accurate - because it's not and was never intended to be Prime, at least not beyond the pilot. Apparently the whole shebang was cooked up essentially as a way for Paramount to preserve their "alternate Star Trek" license going forward given Beyond's underwhelming financial performance(despite it airing on All Access, it's Paramount, Bad Robot, and Kurtzman that are running the show as it were, and the license is a use it or lose it affair). The "big choice event" thing the lead character is being teased as being involved with in the pilot is supposedly basically meant to be Hobus 2.0, shifting Discovery off into essentially a third, also-alternate Trek(without ever actually saying so on-screen, making Discovery a semi-reboot): ostensibly the Paramount license is dependent on them doing "not-Trek", ie their version/s have to differ in aesthetic and tone to a noticeable degree from Prime, with Kelvin they went with Apple Futurism and a more "rip-roarin adventure" for the tone while with Discovery we get a different variation on shiny chrome futurism but this time the tone is "Dark Trek"(Sonequa Martin-Green has been quoted answering questions about the contrast between her experiences on Discovery with those on Walking Dead intimating they're not all that different and that all good storytelling is "gritty", and Kurtzman has made several comments about chucking out the "no petty interpersonal conflicts" rule to "modernise" the show).

If accurate, that's kind of depressing to read. No matter how good the shows in question actually are, I'm kind of burned out on the cynical "unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to other unpleasant people" trend in TV shows over the last ten-odd years, and if anything would be exempt, it'd be Star Trek.

I miss TV shows where you could just enjoy all the characters getting along. Nowadays we'd end up with a Golden Girls reboot where they're all trying to kill each other for their SS checks.

Call it, Game of Scones. House of Social Security Cards. Or just Walking Dead.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I miss TV shows where you could just enjoy all the characters getting along. Nowadays we'd end up with a Golden Girls reboot where they're all trying to kill each other for their SS checks.

This on Fall on NBC

What happens when covert government agencies fight for control of alien technology? It's Game of Thrones meets The X-Files!

I thought it was called Star Gate SG-1. Except one of those government agencies is so brain dead stupid at every turn when you think about it, it's almost immersion breaking to think the NID ever actually got anything done without blowing its own hands off let alone actually manage the cut throat world of budget reconciliation

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the NID never actually did get anything done...

So now that Game of Thrones and Twin Peaks are over for me, I have a bit of time and room for another show. Whether this will fill the void or not...hmm. With less than 20 days left until release it's an odd feeling cause as a fairly big Trekkie you'd think i'd be pretty excited but i'm not. It's more of an apprehensive feeling.

It all comes down to the exclusivity. I want to watch, but I am NOT buying a channel I have no intention of using just to watch this thing for an hour a week before it gets moved or pulled.

 Just Tony wrote:
It all comes down to the exclusivity. I want to watch, but I am NOT buying a channel I have no intention of using just to watch this thing for an hour a week before it gets moved or pulled.

This.

Set aside that I don't want to pay for it. Does anyone really want to live in a market where every channel costs a subscription fee to watch? TV is overpriced as it is, but at least a basic cable package gives me a bunch of stuff to watch. Most channels have only one show I'm even remotely interested in, and I probably wouldn't watch them if they came with a separate fee.

per another article it's about a Klingon/federation war.
http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/07/star-trek-discovery-trump-political-divide/

Sounds kind of like Star Trek undiscovered Country

“The allegory is that we really started working on the show in earnest around the time the election was happening,” showrunner Aaron Harberts says. “The Klingons are going to help us really look at certain sides of ourselves and our country. Isolationism is a big theme. Racial purity is a big theme. The Klingons are not the enemy, but they do have a different view on things. It raises big questions: Should we let people in? Do we want to change? There’s also the question of just because you reach your hand out to someone, do they have to take it? Sometimes, they don’t want to take it. It’s been interesting to see how the times have become more of a mirror than we even thought they were going to be.”

While such topics have been explored across Star Trek‘s six previous series and 700 episodes before, the serialized nature of Discovery‘s 15-episode debut season allows for a greater depth of storytelling. “The thing about the war is it takes Starfleet and the Federation and forces them to examine their ideas and ethical rules of conflict and conduct,” Harberts says. “It provides a backdrop to how we want to be as a society and that analysis and self-reflection is new for Trek. They’ve done it in certain episodes in the past, but this is a true journey for the institution in itself.”

“In times of stress and conflict it can bring out the best of us and the worst of us,” adds fellow showrunner Gretchen J. Berg. “But but ultimately brings out the best in our Starfleet officers.

So basically a really bad chance of it being crap.

 Frazzled wrote:

While such topics have been explored across Star Trek‘s six previous series and 700 episodes before, the serialized nature of Discovery‘s 15-episode debut season allows for a greater depth of storytelling. “The thing about the war is it takes Starfleet and the Federation and forces them to examine their ideas and ethical rules of conflict and conduct,” Harberts says. “It provides a backdrop to how we want to be as a society and that analysis and self-reflection is new for Trek. They’ve done it in certain episodes in the past, but this is a true journey for the institution in itself.”

Get right away tae feth, ya hubristic balloons. Even setting aside that this was a big theme of DS9 overall, I will bet right now(if I'm wrong in this assertion I will subscribe to their moronic streaming service yet never use it, it's a bet with them without them knowing basically) that any one of those single episodes they handwave away to try and pretend they're doing something of unique storytelling value here handles the concept with more depth and intelligence than this whole series, and further that taken collectively all the individual episodes and storyline that have covered this concept before in Trek will make Discovery look like the very worst kind of patronising Young Adult Novel-level fiction by comparison.

I shouldn't be surprised of course, this is the natural endpoint of vacuous "Im With Her"-style (neo)liberal centrism getting its claws into an IP that used to be radical.

 Yodhrin wrote:
If the rumours that have been floating about are accurate - because it's not and was never intended to be Prime, at least not beyond the pilot. Apparently the whole shebang was cooked up essentially as a way for Paramount to preserve their "alternate Star Trek" license going forward given Beyond's underwhelming financial performance(despite it airing on All Access, it's Paramount, Bad Robot, and Kurtzman that are running the show as it were, and the license is a use it or lose it affair). The "big choice event" thing the lead character is being teased as being involved with in the pilot is supposedly basically meant to be Hobus 2.0, shifting Discovery off into essentially a third, also-alternate Trek(without ever actually saying so on-screen, making Discovery a semi-reboot): ostensibly the Paramount license is dependent on them doing "not-Trek", ie their version/s have to differ in aesthetic and tone to a noticeable degree from Prime, with Kelvin they went with Apple Futurism and a more "rip-roarin adventure" for the tone while with Discovery we get a different variation on shiny chrome futurism but this time the tone is "Dark Trek"(Sonequa Martin-Green has been quoted answering questions about the contrast between her experiences on Discovery with those on Walking Dead intimating they're not all that different and that all good storytelling is "gritty", and Kurtzman has made several comments about chucking out the "no petty interpersonal conflicts" rule to "modernise" the show).

Discovery is going to be Star Trek: Got Ham or Star Trek, by Warner Movies? Except you have to buy each episode as Pay Per View?

It gives me slight hope due to it have 15 episodes, that allows more time to develop the characters and get things going. If it was like 8 episodes i'd be even more worried. I'm just not sold on the aesthetics yet, the ships look sterile and cold and not home-like. DS9 pulled off a more grey and brown palette and it still felt right.

Oh god... It sounds like it's Stargate Universe all over again.

 Compel wrote:
Oh god... It sounds like it's Stargate Universe all over again.

Take everything great about Star Trek, throw it out the window and get canceled after taking two seasons to finally get mildly interesting?

Seems like they're not even going to get to two seaons.

Be like Thundercats 2011....

Main character blue balled repeatedly, time after time.

 bbb wrote:

 Compel wrote:
Oh god... It sounds like it's Stargate Universe all over again.

Take everything great about Star Trek, throw it out the window and get canceled after taking two seasons to finally get mildly interesting?

Seems like they're not even going to get to two seaons.

You forgot "Layers and layers of added Grim Dark for no good reason."