Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814
I don't think we hold Star Trek to a high standard. I think we just wish they'd make Star Trek again.
Star Trek, at its core, is a low budget space adventure the whole family can enjoy. It specialises in morality plays. The best Trek involves putting characters in impossible situations and testing them. There are many examples, but just some famous ones:
Picard has to argue before the Federation that Data is a new life form and has the right to self determination.
Kirk, Spock and McCoy have to decide to let Edith Keeler die or let Hitler win the war.
Sisko enlists the services of Garek to get the Romulans into the Dominion War and ends up betraying everything he believes in.
Janeway makes a deal with the Borg to destroy the squid aliens.
Star Trek is not about special effects. It's not about space battles. The best episodes of Star Trek could be performed as a stage play. Can you imagine any of the Abrams Treks as a play?
All of the original series films were cerebral stories first, and the action was secondary. Even the Final Frontier, a film that's a complete disaster from beginning to end, is kicking around some weighty ideas about god and the meaning of life. You know, Star Trek stuff. Prior to the 2009 film, the highest grossing Trek film of all time was Star Trek IV - the one with the whales.
Every show builds up to people having a fight with each other. Star Trek is often about getting people to recognize they can't punch their way out of a situation - thus they have to cooperate. Communist, maybe. But it's good tv.
When I hear this Discovery show is going to be TV MA, it is yet another reminder the suits don't understand this property. Star Trek doesn't need boobs, it doesn't need cursing, it doesn't need a spike through the chest. It needs to be Star Trek. Go on an adventure, learn about yourselves, send the audience a message, come back again next week.
It's a high standard, but it's not one you can fix by throwing money at visuals or talent - the show has to know what it's meant to be, or it doesn't work.
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I hate the myth that Star Trek was low budget. Part of the reason NBC cancelled Star Trek was because it was so fricking expensive. They had Star Trek and Mission: Impossible as to high budget (for the late 60s) TV shows, and felt they had to chose one of the other. The impression that Star Trek was low budget is revisionist history because though a modern lens, we see 'cheap' foam rocks etc. Sure they had to budget savvy back then, but that's because Desilu was spending so much on the show.
I was also surprised when I saw the TV-MA rating on the DSC promos. The showrunners had previously stated that the show would be more PG-13ish. Something must have spooked the studio into the rating (TV ratings work a little different from film). So I don't think DSC will be 'tits and dragons' TV-MA like Game of Thrones.
Cynically I wonder how much having an openly gay couple on the Discovery scares a network like CBS. I am sure there mere existence of those characters is enough to get the show boycotted in Trumpland.
From what I've read, I think your point about compromise is a good one, and one that I expect DSC to demonstrate despite what we've seen in the Trailers. The Klingons are alleged going to be extremely nuanced and not a Trek movie villain style big bad.
You also cherry picked one of the best TOS stories that was a little more cerebral than most. TOS wasn't TNG, or even the first 6 movies. TOS was a space adventure show grounded in Post War Triumphalism. Starfleet, or Star Fleet or the United Earth Space Probe Agency or whoever the writers decided the Enterprise worked for that day was Marshall Plan era US foreign relations.
The Federation didn't take on the pluralistic of TNG until Roddenberry had believed his own hype for 15 years and basically became a lesser L Ron Hubbard.