Author Topic: Any Metroid fans here? If so, awesome-looking fan remake of Metroid II inside!  (Read 9679 times)

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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I have long since transferred my hopes for Samus into my own IP: a Star Trek / Metroid ripoff series! ^_^

Ooooooh! I'd play it! Starfleet's finest on planet Xebes?!

Lord J Esq

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Hah! Not quite. For one, I envision it foremost as a series of books (though I would like it to be multimedia and eventually include a video game). For another, it truly is proprietary. I say "ripoff" but really I mean "spiritual successor." It's set in an original universe with original characters and other IP. My goal is to capture the vastness, humanism, optimism, curiosity, exploration, and futurism of Star Trek at its best, and the mystique, desolation, exploration, impersonal societal oppressiveness, and badass space bounty hunter-ness of Metroid.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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Oh god. Now you have me thinking about Trek and Discovery.

Did you see it? I am a lifelong Trekkie (I used to read the ST Encyclopedia for fun) and watched the first half of Discovery, but didn't finish it until a few weeks ago.

Night and day from old Trek. I missed the optimism, the best part of humanity, the swath of sameness it painted the universe in. Discovery failed on that part.

And then it didn't. Nice, strong conclusion at the end. In the beginning I was understanding where Burnham was coming from in defying her captain's orders. Then, by the end, I realized that it really wasn't the Starfleet course of action.

I still think the series could benefit from some personality, but I did LOOOOVE Saru and his fear-oriented prey species... I loved Tilly and how non-traditionally Trek she was (she was Barclay-esque without the Barclay-ism)... I loved the twist with Voq/Ash, even if it was spoiled for me in advance (they did a good job making him sympathetic, too)... And Lorca was my favorite. I can't wait to see him again.

Razig

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Did they ever explain why Discovery Klingons don't look like TOS Klingons OR TNG Klingons?

Mauron

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Discovery never quite felt like a Trek to me. Orville did a better job in that regard.

Tilly was a fun character.

I don't remember any explanation for the Klingons.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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Discovery never quite felt like a Trek to me. Orville did a better job in that regard.

Agreed. Discovery felt like an edgy Trek wannabe, while Orville better captured the best, idealistic interpretation of humanity (with a humorous bend). I did warm to Discovery as the season went on, but yeah, it still doesn't feel like Trek to me. Maybe Season 2 can bring some of the levity and hope I crave.

I mean, I don't need my scifi to be all sunshine and rainbows, but I don't need it all to be gritty Battlestar Gallactica-esque grit and character drama. I want to believe that tomorrow will be better than today, so it's nice to have some of that utopian ideals to shoot for. Especially now that everything is so racially/economically/politically charged in the US.

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I don't remember any explanation for the Klingons.

Nope, there wasn't. There wasn't an explanation for any of the visual changes. Even the SPOILER ALERT NCC-1701 Enterprise at the coda of season 1 was a somewhat different interpretation of what we'd seen before. Heck, even the Andorian and Tellarites (as seen in the mirror universe) were new interpretations.

I think we have to chalk it all up as visual reinterpretation and recognize that it's meant to be taken as subtle re-imagining without lore explanation.

(Although, I don't think it was necessary for Trek to explain the difference in Klingons between TOS and TMP and beyond, Enterprise did as good of a job as any in a season four arc. It was as good of an explanation as we could get, to be honest).

I should also add that if we want to get really nitpicky, there are some justifications that could be applied... For example...

1.) We know that there are hundreds or thousands of Klingon houses, with only 24 great houses on the council. They were constantly infighting and some were removed and replaced at various points in Trek lore. They *could* always argue that these were just some genetically distinct houses and not reflective of the species as a whole. I mean, we only saw 3 or 4 of the houses represented. Personally, add some hair to the DIS Klingons and call it day. I've seen the photoshopped pics of what they'd look like with hair, and it's a far improvement.

2.) The technology. We know that the USS Discovery is a new/prototype science vessel straight out of the garage, so it could be argued that it has some unique technology. Compare that to the Enteprise as seen in TOS, which was already a ship with decades-old tech and experience.

3.) SPOILER ALERT The Enterprise herself. Visually different, it could be chalked up to having a refit in the 10 years between DIS and TOS.

Lord J Esq

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Oh god. Now you have me thinking about Trek and Discovery.

Did you see it?

I don't subscribe to the service so I haven't seen full episodes, but I've seen enough clips to get the idea.

You have to understand, for me I went through a painful, years-long divorce from Star Trek. DS9 disappointed me. Voyager estranged me. Enterprise infuriated me. And so finally I just quit. I said "My headcanon is that Stark Trek ended with "All Good Things..." in 1994. The TNG movies didn't happen, the last four years of DS9, the entirety of Voyager and Enterprise...they didn't happen at all.

So when the Abrams movies came around in 2009, it didn't bother me, because I'd severed the blood bond we shared. I'd have been furious if I'd still cared about new Trek. But since I didn't, I didn't care about the new movies either. They were cheap entertainment flicks that don't merit a second thought (or viewing). And there are most definitely not Star Trek.

Now, along comes Discovery, and we're at a different moment culturally:

Discovery is the first innovative Star Trek in a long time. Everything is reimagined, but not for the sake of crass entertainment value the way the reboot movies were. Here, the re-imagining is in the service of a new concept, a different kind of Trek. (And I firmly believe that a series in a franchise needs to have the right to do that, to completely reinvent itself.)

It's not Star Trek. It's not that magical idea of some beautiful starship out there in the future that represents what we have to look forward to if we choose to live wisely and well today. But it's ambitious, and it has more depth than any series since DS9. It's also progressive, taking the conflicts of today and really scrutinizing them, in a way that's more effective, I think, and more thoughtful, than any Trek series since TOS itself.

Just look at the enormous numbers of edgelords who are seriously upset at this show. Like, the amount of butthurt is off the scale. It reminds me of how mad I got at Enterprise back in the early 2000s, except with me my outrage came from a genuine love of Star Trek's ideals and anger at the abandonment of these ideals, whereas with these edgelords it comes from a hatred of others. And they'll cloak their true motives a thousand different ways, but they're still incredibly easy to see through.

I want to see Discovery continue. I think it has more promise than any series since TNG. And you raise an excellent point here:

Night and day from old Trek. I missed the optimism, the best part of humanity, the swath of sameness it painted the universe in. Discovery failed on that part.

And then it didn't. Nice, strong conclusion at the end. In the beginning I was understanding where Burnham was coming from in defying her captain's orders. Then, by the end, I realized that it really wasn't the Starfleet course of action.

I had a similar reaction. At first, with the premiere and earlier episodes, I was like "Yep, nope, this in no way resembles Star Trek." But, very gradually, it turned out that, actually, there's a little more going on in this department than we initially realized. And I'm interested to see what direction it goes in.

I still think the series could benefit from some personality, but I did LOOOOVE Saru and his fear-oriented prey species...

Everyone loves Saru except me. He's too flat for me, plus I don't think he had Captain-level gravitas, so I don't like to see him in that chair.

Georgi...oh god I have to look up the spelling...Georgiou is my favorite character--sadly, her Prime incarnation, though the Mirror one is compelling too. Lorca is also really interesting, though he's also dead now. (We'll see what the Prime version of him is like.) Burnham has been held on a very tight leash and I really haven't had the chance to invest in her yet.

The only two others who stand out for me are are Stamets and

I loved Tilly and how non-traditionally Trek she was (she was Barclay-esque without the Barclay-ism)...

Tilly is awesome! First of all, after all that ink I spilled on Fat Celes, you can imagine how hyped I am that we've got a fat female regular in Star Trek. It has literally never happened before. Like, you don't know how much it bothers me that that has never happened before. The implications of sexism here, and social inequality, and many other injustices, run really deep.

As to her character, yeah, she's a total derp. Hard to imagine how she got into the Academy in the first place, let alone billing on a starship. Just like Barclay. Except Barclay truly did not belong in the vibe of TNG, whereas Discovery reimagines Star Trek enough that I think there's room for Tilly in this show in a way that there wasn't for Barclay in that show. I hope we see a lot more of her character in Season 2.

I think they squandered a big opportunity with Yeoh. Georgiou (Prime) should have been the permanent regular captain on this series. No one else has the gravitas, not even Isaacs (though he does pass the minimum bar; I can buy him as captain of a small science ship like the Discovery). This was a problem in TOS too: All the other characters were written so that the Enterprise was headless whenever Kirk wasn't in command. Count me firmly in the camp that believes Star Trek is at its strongest when the first officer makes a convincing and inspiring commander when they're in charge. (Spock did get close a few times, like in "The Doomsday Machine," but I don't necessarily want to drill down to that level of granularity here.)

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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I don't subscribe to the service so I haven't seen full episodes, but I've seen enough clips to get the idea.

Me either. That's where a VPN and a torrent comes in.  :twisted:

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Discovery is the first innovative Star Trek in a long time. Everything is reimagined, but not for the sake of crass entertainment value the way the reboot movies were. Here, the re-imagining is in the service of a new concept, a different kind of Trek. (And I firmly believe that a series in a franchise needs to have the right to do that, to completely reinvent itself.)

I totally believe this. I do think that Star Trek needed to evolve and change. After TNG set such a tall bar to follow:

DS9 (which I firmly believe is a Babylon 5-inspired knockoff) took a very dark and metaphysical turn that felt very un-Trek-like. I did watch through it from end to end about a year ago and I do admit that I really, really enjoyed it. The fact that they could implement so many B-characters that were engaging was truly impressive. In fact, I now believe that DS9 probably has the best, most engaging primary and secondary characters of all Trek.

VOY was the series that really pulled me into Trek, although at the same time I was into TNG in syndication. In hindsight, however, VOY really misses the mark. It devolved too much into heavy, non-realistic science and technobabble, and the whole "ship lost in the Delta Quadrant with no help, no infinite resources of the Federation, no friends -- and the ship itself is made up of two very different sects of crew members" was lost. Battlestar Gallactica was far too dark to be Trekian, but it would have been nice to see some of that challenge to survive in VOY. This was my favorite series growing up and now, in hindsight, it's probably my least favorite.

ENT was... well, I ignored it at launch like most people. Trek fatigue, I was in my teenage years and cared more about chasing girls and punk rock than scifi. Farscape was able to keep me engaged during those years, but barely. Regardless, I decided to watch ENT a few years ago on Netflix and... to be honest, it's now my favorite series. It has some very serious, glaring flaws -- dat themesong (which does grow on you, although Archer's Theme would have made a better theme song), some dopey characters (I'm looking at you, Travis Mayweather!), and shoehorned writing (to make it contextual in canon) -- but by and larger I LOVED it. I was caught off guard by just now vitriol I was towards it and sad I missed it for over a decade. Looking at it now, I love seeing the contrast of what was versus what is (the Vulcan enlightenment, Andorians versus Vulcans, etc), the foundation of the Federation, and some of the characters are absolutely stellar (even if the Archer-Trip-T'Pol star billing should have given way for the other characters). Besides, who can't love Shran!?!?

To me, season four of ENT is the epitome of Trek. It's stellar. The entire series gets bonus points for having actual continuity from episode-to-episode (sometimes so much as showcasing damage to the ship from one episode to the next), but the mini-arc approach of season four was amazing.

Which brings us back to Discovery.

I look at Discovery so much differently than the others. I guess because the format is so different. I think I said it before, but I watched only the first half of the season when it aired; I didn't see the second half until a month or two ago. The season benefits greatly from seeing it all together, as SOOOO MUCH of the first half is preamble for the second. I think a second season watch would be even better, since I can more easily identify those foreshadowing/setups.

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It's not Star Trek. It's not that magical idea of some beautiful starship out there in the future that represents what we have to look forward to if we choose to live wisely and well today. But it's ambitious, and it has more depth than any series since DS9. It's also progressive, taking the conflicts of today and really scrutinizing them, in a way that's more effective, I think, and more thoughtful, than any Trek series since TOS itself.

This is an excellent summation. I'll have to borrow this in the future when talking about the show. :D

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Everyone loves Saru except me. He's too flat for me, plus I don't think he had Captain-level gravitas, so I don't like to see him in that chair.

There's no way Saru will be captain in season two. He took command in the series briefly only because both Georgiou and Lorca were out of the picture and he was Number Two. I think a fresh captain is needed.

By the way, with the reveal of the 1701 Enterprise being around in season two, plus Spock, plus Christopher Pike... I have heard theories that the original Star Trek pilot's Number Two (played by Majel Roddenberry) could be a character. Which I would totally be down for!

Razig

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It's not Star Trek. It's not that magical idea of some beautiful starship out there in the future that represents what we have to look forward to if we choose to live wisely and well today. But it's ambitious, and it has more depth than any series since DS9. It's also progressive, taking the conflicts of today and really scrutinizing them, in a way that's more effective, I think, and more thoughtful, than any Trek series since TOS itself.

I haven't actually seen the show, so I may be pontificating out my posterior here, but...

How did Discovery justify the Federation's gunboat diplomacy toward the Klingons? I know the Klingons were supposed to represent Trump supporters with their isolationist attitude, and thus the writers assume we'll see them as the bad guys. But aren't they a sovereign species? Don't they have a right to self-determination? Forcing them to open their borders makes the Federation into imperialist bullies.

To me, making a straw man caricature out of a group you disagree with isn't progressivism, it's petty politicking. It's sour grapes over the writers' favored candidate losing* the election. And to make matters worse, they didn't even bother to think their metaphor through: the "bad guys" have the moral high ground.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawmanHasAPoint

As cringe-inducingly campy and ham-fisted as TOS's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" may be to modern viewers, the message behind it is still worthwhile: Racism is bad, okay? That message is still applicable 50 years later and will probably remain so forever. The same could be said for most of TOS's messages.

But when somebody watches Discovery 50 years from now... What, if any, message will they even be able to take from it? Will any of the Trump stuff even register with them? I very seriously doubt it. Without that context, this series won't have the timeless appeal of TOS or TNG.

But that's just my uninformed opinion, based solely on what hype managed to reach my ears, which almost entirely revolved around the Klingons (along with something about space mushrooms). What other messages were there?

* "Losing" must be noted with an asterisk, because the Electoral College system is crooked as hell.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 01:01:25 pm by Razig »

V_Translanka

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The mod in me wants to move all this Trek discussion to a separate thread. lol...If Metroid crosses over w/anything it should either be the series that directly inspired it: Alien...or maybe Castlevania so we can finally have a game called Castleroid/Metroidvania.

I've only seen the aired ep of STD (no, I'm not calling it DIS, mainly because I find that sounds even more stupid). It seemed alright, but had the feeling of the Kelvin movies rather than carrying the spirit of any of the original series...which I guess was their intent. I don't have anything against the Kelvin movies and have high hopes for whatever Tarantino is gonna do...

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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How did Discovery justify the Federation's gunboat diplomacy toward the Klingons? I know the Klingons were supposed to represent Trump supporters with their isolationist attitude, and thus the writers assume we'll see them as the bad guys. But aren't they a sovereign species? Don't they have a right to self-determination? Forcing them to open their borders makes the Federation into imperialist bullies.

WANING! MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!

You know, I never once got that this was supposed to represent Trump or his policies. This is, to be honest, media bias trying to stir the pot. Anyone who tries to make that claim clearly didn't watch the entire season or has an EXTREMELY biased point of view. Not once while watching the show did I ever even consider any parallels to Trump; the only correlation would be the fact that the Klingons are isolationists, which definitely isn't unique to Trump or the current US administration. It could be Russia just as soon as it's be Trump. Let me tell you why and how...

In the pilot, the crew goes to investigate a derelict ship near the edge of Klingon space (but still entirely in the Federation). They have no idea it's a Klingon ship but can't get close to it, so the protagonist, Michael Burnham, takes a space suit with a jetback and flies over to investigate. While exploring the external hull, a Klingon comes out the ship and attacks her, and she kills the Klingon warrior in self-defense (almost accidentally).

Thus begins a stalemate between the two ships: Klingon versus Federation. Michael Burnham wants to avoid war and has a telepathic link to Sarek (Spock's father; the how of this is later explored in the series), and Sarek tells her that the Vulcans avoided war with the Klingons by simply striking first. By killing the Klingons first on a sizable scale, they won the Klingon's respect and the Klingons knew not to mess with the Vulcans. Thus, Michael Burnham is led to believe that the only way war can be avoided is to blow up the crippled Klingon ship first, winning the other Klingon's respect. However, the Federation policy is never to instigate and always seek a peaceful solution, so Burnham's captain refuses to fire first, preferring diplomatic peace.

As a result, a frustrated Michael Burnham tries to stage a mutiny to destroy the Klingon vessel, essentially going against the spirit of communication, peace, and diplomacy of the Federation. This is why she is viewed negatively by the rest of the crew for much of the season.

Bunham ultimately fails, more Klingon ships arrive, more Federation ships arrive, and full on war breaks out. This sets the story in motion and is the catalyst for all of the series that comes after. There are massive casualties on both sides and Michael Burnham (who is a female btw, despite the name) is arrested for mutiny and sentenced to a Federation prison.

Just to add more context of this event -- we later learn that the Klingons, as a species, are essentially constantly in disarray. The great houses that control Klingon culture are always fighting for power, and the government isn't very stable overall. One of these Klingons, a great house named T'Kumva, wants to unify the Klingon great houses, seeing the Federation and their inter-species unity as an ideological threat. Thus the isolationism (which has ALWAYS been a theme of the Klingons; in fact, they were based as a parallel for the Russians during the Cold War). T'Kumva prefers complete isolation, fearing that contact with the Federation will dilute and destroy Klingon. The only way to save the Klingon way of life, then, is to unify the Klingon great houses ("stop fighting each other to save our way of life, and the only way to unify is to have a common enemy").

Thus, we eventually learn that all of this was a prelude to war -- the Klingon vessel was merely powered down and looking for an excuse to fight the Federation, wage war, and unify the houses. It was all intentional on the Klingon's part.

As for the Klingons as villains, they definitely do not paint the Klingons as outright villains. There's a few that are good and want to stop the war. In fact, by the end of the season the Federation is the villain!

Late in the season, there is a time jump and it's at the tail end of the war. The Klingons are winning and the Federation is about to crumble entirely. As a result, the Federation has decided to bomb Qo'nos (the Klingon homeworld) and completely wipe out the species (or at least the majority of them). The Discovery crew are unknowingly assisting in this, not realizing that they are delivering a WMD. Once they realize, however, they ally themselves with one of the Klingons that wants to preserve the Klingon way of life, but doesn't think destroying the Federation is the right way.

As a way of stepping out the situation, they give the good Klingon the detonator for the bombs and lets her do what she wants. She then essentially blackmails the other great houses, threatening to kill all of the Klingons if they don't put aside their petty internal bickering. She thus fulfills T'Kumva's original request with the need for destroying the Federation. She unifies the great houses under her fearful rule, but she also ends the war and allows the Klingons to continue in their nationalistic ways, which is where we find them in the original series with Captain Kirk and co.

The thing I'd like to point out about DIS is that all of the characters are various shades of morally grey. They forego the utopian idealism of TNG and show that even the best of characters can make questionable and bad choices in the name of good -- it's all about vantage. I think just about every main character on the show has to make those tough calls -- cannibalism (yes, really), illegal genetic manipulation (on both Federation and Klingon sides), torture and sexual abuse, sabotaging the Federation war efforts in order to save a neutral species, etc. No one on this show finishes the season with a squeaky clean palette, except for maybe Tilly, and even then she got to party hard with illegal(!) drugs.

I know that's long winded. Suffice to say, the writers may have been anti-Trump, but by no means was that reflected in the show at all in any way I could detect.

That explores the main content and question regarding any potential parallels between Trump and Trek. It was no more anti-Trump than, say, Star Trek Into Darkness, DS9's covert Federation war efforts (with Sisko even lying about certain events to get the Romulan's to join the war effort), TNG and VOY's potential genocide's against the Borg, etc. The thing about Star Trek is that the Federation is still fallible, and it's only by a few good people drawing their line in the sand that a better future is rewarded. That's ultimately the lesson for all on Discovery.

There are episode-specific themes that I touch on above (cannibalism, genetic manipulation, etc). That ties back into the spore drive and all that jazz. I can gladly go into it with you, but doing so would have sidestepped the bigger conversation piece about the Klingons.

TLDR; Klingons were bad, then Federation is bad, in the end we all suck but can overcome it with cooperation.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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Sorry for double post --

@V_Translanka or Kodokami!

YES, please move these Trek posts into it's own Star Trek thread. It's definitely worthy of it's own thread. :)

Razig

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V: I'd be okay with this thread becoming its own thing.

Boo: Thanks for that summary. It seems the story was a lot more nuanced than I was led to believe. However, regarding the Trump connection:

“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.”

http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/07/star-trek-discovery-trump-political-divide/

He backpedals by saying "The Klingons are not the enemy," but I'm not convinced. As you said, the Klingons were deliberately looking to pick a fight. They're clearly the aggressors, which firmly establishes them as bad guys, but their objective is simply to be left alone. Why would you go picking a fight if you want to be left alone? I can't make any sense of it.

Aside from that, another thing that bugs me is the fact that Spock has yet another sibling he never bothered to mention. Because Sybok went over so well in The Final Frontier.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

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“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.”

That's really interesting and something I wasn't aware of! I had to go back and read the entire article. All in all, I still don't think it was overtly specific to Trump; I could see it be more inspired by the polarizing bipartisan social/political conversations taking place today. The isolation conversation is more of a Right versus Left than Trump versus everyone else. At least in my opinion -- but I'm pretty moderate in my political approach and think that both Democrats and Republicans are full of shit and ruining this country with petty bickering and a lack of aisle friendships, so there's always the possibility that my own views are thusly biased into not recognizing what's in front of me.

Also, to be fair, I think there's been a lot of media manipulation regarding Discovery. As media tends to do, and has always happened with Trek. Trek definitely likes to push the boundaries on social/political commentary (ie, first interracial kiss), but it also touts a better, more tolerant humanity in the end. That could be SJW, depending on who you ask. But regardless, that piece read to me like a little bit of intentional pot-stirring. No telling what was taken out of context. Having viewed the entire season, that article makes it sound more polarizing than it really was. Then again, that could have been intentional on the Trek side to drum up interest in the controversy.

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As you said, the Klingons were deliberately looking to pick a fight. They're clearly the aggressors, which firmly establishes them as bad guys, but their objective is simply to be left alone.

I get that. I guess they were the aggressors, but they viewed the Federation like many view the United States -- we get into messes we have no right involving ourselves in and continuously encroach on, well, everyone. The American international policy is sometimes, "do as I say, not as I do" in regards to nuclear policy and the like. I think this same parallel came from the Klingons. It was the Klingons who struck first (well, technically it was the Federation, but it was a setup to get the Federation to strike first), but they viewed it as self-preservation. They come across like, "these humans and their Federation and tiptoeing closer and closer into our way of life and we are losing ourselves as a result."

Even if they were painted as villainous in the beginning, by the end they are made out to be more sympathetic. One of the Klingons, an albino outcast named Voq, really helped bring this point home. Like I said, in the end it was the Federation who was willing to go into far worse territory than even the Klingons. Sure, the Klingons were willing to torture their prisoners, but in the end, they weren't willing to go for an all our annihilation. It was the Federation and their values who prove hypocritical; as the least the Klingons had their honor.

I say all this not to justify it, I might add. I think the story was somewhat poorly handled. I feel like, when they were writing their story, they didn't have a full vision on the story they wanted to tell. It jumped around a lot and although there nuance, some of it felt hollow. It was almost like they had ideas and were trying to make A connect to B and then to C without (as set pieces) without consideration to the whole.

It left a lot of plot holes -- namely, the spore drive (which allows a ship to ride a sort of quantum universe network of "mycellum network" and nearly instantaneous jump from any point in the universe... or into other universes), which is still unresolved and they didn't give an adequate explanation to why it doesn't have a wider use in the future.

The Spock sibling thing also irks me. I didn't mind Sybok nearly as much, but I grew up in the 1980's so all of my Trek learning came almost at once. I learned about Sybok about the same time as Sarek, so it wasn't taking decades of lore and turning it on it's head. That being said, they have planted some very intentional seeds to why this is...

So Michael Burnham's parents were on a planet that was ultimately attacked my Klingons. She was orphaned and Sarek took her in. She and Spock were sort of pitted against each other; Michael was raised to be Vulcan despite being fully human, sort of furthering this unexplored concept that Sarek sort of liked to explore human-versus-Vulcan capabilities. Both Michael and Spoke applied for the Vulcan Science Academy, but only of them would be permitted, so he made the decision for Spock to go (hurting Michael, who was always left to feel second fiddle to Spoke in terms of capabilities). Spock, of course, declined the position (pissing everyone off, as no one had ever declined the opportunity) in favor of Starfleet; Michael wasn't about to join the VSA as a consolation price, so she, too, joined Starfleet.

Details are thin about what else transpired, which is supposedly to be explored in season 2. We do know, however, that Spock and Michael had a very heated rivalry and did not like each very much.

One of the books (which I haven't read) also showed that part of their discourse stems from the fact that Spock, being half-human, craved his father's love, but never received it because, you know, Sarek = as Vulcan as it gets. Meanwhile, Michael, being fully human, was better able to illicit and receive empathy and "love" from Sarek that was denied to Spock.

All in all, this is sort of silly and it would have been better to have made no connection to Spock. If anything, make them old Academy lovers or something. That would have been better than siblings. That being said, I'm curious to see now if they can change my mind. I'm definitely open to having my mind changed.

I may be coming across as overly positive of Discovery. That's definitely not the case. I have a ton of complaints and feel like the season was REALLY rough. Like, TNG season 1 level rough. Weird writing, pacing, flat characters, boring characters, etc. Even their Harry Mudd was almost *too* different from the TOS version of Mudd which we're supposed to shrug at and say, "a lot can happen in 10 years," but that doesn't appease me.

Razig

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I may be coming across as overly positive of Discovery. That's definitely not the case. I have a ton of complaints and feel like the season was REALLY rough. Like, TNG season 1 level rough. Weird writing, pacing, flat characters, boring characters, etc. Even their Harry Mudd was almost *too* different from the TOS version of Mudd which we're supposed to shrug at and say, "a lot can happen in 10 years," but that doesn't appease me.

I certainly don't mind the positivity. I was led to believe that the show was bogged down with real-world politics and had been avoiding it for that reason. The other stuff I can let slide.

Although... TNG season 1 level rough? I really hope you're exaggerating... But the whole fungus-based teleportation thing sounds dumb enough to qualify.  :P

My beef with Sybok was that there was absolutely nothing in the story that would have required him to be related to Spock. It was just tacked-on and pointless. But the worst part was the movie's own justification for why Kirk has never heard of him:

                                           KIRK
                             But why didn't you tell us this
                             before?

                                           SPOCK
                             I was not prepared to discuss...
                             matters of a personal nature. For
                             that I am sorry.

Kirk and Spock have been best friends for 20 years, but the mere existence of a half-brother is just too personal a matter to discuss.  :roll:

I guess with Sybok being an exile and Michael being a mutineer, the case could be made that Spock is just too ashamed to talk about them... But really, it's the writers who should be ashamed.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 06:41:08 pm by Razig »