Don't want to be a downer, but this looks to confirm my worst fears about the series.
That looks nothing like a ship of the TOS/Pre-TOS time should look. An elongated-X-axis elliptical saucer section which looks like it belongs in the TNG era. Complex nacelle shapes that look like they belong in the post Voyager era. Maybe with the skin on it looks a little more TOS, but I'm not hopeful.
Also uniforms that look nothing like the TOS ones, if the clip is correct.
*sigh*
I wish I could like this show. I really do.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
I'm so worn out with the early complaining about the look of the show, I'll withhold judgement until I get to see the acting and the writing. If the acting is good and the characters and story compelling, I won't. Mind. So much.
While CBS evidently chose not to go the rogue one route of "update the look but don't look like you're updating the look," I've found I don't have the energy to complain. While it's not what I would have done, CBS refuses to hire me.
"All this has happened before --"
"But it doesn't have to happen again. Not if we make up our minds to change. Take a different path. Right here, right now."
The sad thing is that both DS9 and Enterprise recreated the TOS look, with a few subtle tweaks here and there - and it worked brilliantly and gave both shows one of their best episodes. But the suits doubtless don't think further than "we need something modern", so that's that.
And yet, needing something modern, they decide to make a prequel. Again. After it worked out SO well last time.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
Sonic Glitch wrote:I'm so worn out with the early complaining about the look of the show, I'll withhold judgement until I get to see the acting and the writing. If the acting is good and the characters and story compelling, I won't. Mind. So much.
While CBS evidently chose not to go the rogue one route of "update the look but don't look like you're updating the look," I've found I don't have the energy to complain. While it's not what I would have done, CBS refuses to hire me.
You have to understand that everyone feels that way - if there are kick-ass stories and great characters, nobody give's a skinny rat's ass about the uniforms. People are willing to jump through all sorts of mental hoops to justify things like that, if the quality of the show merits it. The reason you see so much complaining about "that stuff" is not that Graham is such a geek for nacelle structure (though he is, a little, but...) not am I such a fanboi regarding hull alloys... but it's hard to believe that the production will have much respect for the legacy that's been laid out prior if they can't be arsed to have any respect for the simple cosmetic history that's been laid out prior. There might be a shit-hot reason for the new unis looking like they do - but until we have it, those minor niggling trifles are simply indicative of an overall willingness to ENT all over the 'Trek that has come before.
I can't stand nothing dull
I got the high gloss luster
I'll massacre your ass as fast
as Bull offed Custer
I actually do care about nacelle shapes and stuff. One of the things I think I've said before here is something this whole discussion has crystallised for me. Which is that when you make a show set prior to the others, what you are doing is making a period piece. And you really need to treat it like a period piece.
If you made a Sherlock Holmes series set in Victorian London, you would have Holmes and Watson driving around in a horse drawn carriage, not a Ferrari. You would dress them in Victorian era clothing, not modern suits. And the argument that "modern audiences expect something rooted in Holmes, but cooler and more up to date" would not be a valid one to use here. If you want the modern look, do what Sherlock and Elementary did and set your show in a modern - i.e. post Voyager - era, and go crazy with it.
The nacelle shape of that ship irritates me in just the same way as a Ferarri in a victorian Holmes would. And for the same reason - the lack of care about these things is indicative of a lack of care overall.
I'm probably reacting so strongly to this because I've been through it before. I don't know how many here remember Enterprise first time round. They published a couple of pics of the NX design a good few months before the show came out. I spent that entire time arguing against that ship. So did a LOT of other fans. There were petitions. Write in campaigns. People literally begged them to change it. All went completely unheeded. And it's not just because I couldn't think of a way to justify it or anything; rather, it was that the second I first saw that ship, I knew the series would suck, because I knew the people in charge of Star Trek had stopped caring about it.
I felt exactly that way when I saw the Discovery. The people in charge of this show do not, to judge from that design, want to make a pre-TOS Star Trek show. They want to make a show that's a bit like Star Trek, and call it Star Trek to try and pull in nostalgia viewers. And virtually everything I have seen so far about this show gives me that exact same feeling.
And honestly, even if it has great, enjoyable episodes with great acting and characters, it won't change my opinion much. See my review of Regeneration, which summed up to "A fun and exciting episode that should never have been made."
At this point I honestly wonder if I'm even going to keep watching the show after the first couple of episodes confirm my feelings about it. And that from somebody who has watched every first run episode since TNG season 1.
Give a man a fire, and you keep him warm for a day. SET a man on fire, and you will keep him warm for the rest of his life...
I immediately jumped to Centaur as well. Though the angles are a little sleek it's got that triangular/parallelogram style shaping going on from the Ent-A's nacelles but rotated to be on the same axis as the strut.
I remain incredibly sceptical about the entire affair.
