More rubbish from people who do not understand Star Trek. Characters who do not adhere to the duty of their rank, visual effects that make no sense, stories that feel as if they were written by a classroom of children passing around paper without seeing the previous lines, and ultimately nothing to offer other than a poor understanding of the franchise we're all fans of, but yet to have seen any evidence of. There is no understanding of how Trek operates.
Here's the secret sauce to Star Trek's success, presumably they need it spelled out to them because it's clear STD is so far from success that it's living on borrowed time:
The ship is the body, and the main characters are aspects of human psychology. The logical to analyse situations without emotion, the emotional to analyse situations without logic, the tactical to react to threats, the Doctor to repair the mind, the Engineer to repair the body, the navigator to direct the body, and the communications officer to make contact with other people. The captain is the conscious mind making decisions based upon the input of all these senses.
This is the basis of every Star Trek show across the 20th and 21st centuries, and the reason for it's success. Whether the logic is Spock, or the android who does not understand emotion, or the changeling who has no experience with relationships OR emotions. Tech changes, so does futurism. That's why one generation of Trek hands off to the next, set even further into the future, but connected to the last. It doesn't try to rewrite the last iteration because it shamelessly wants to cash in on it.
It matters not if the engineer is a white Scotsman, a blind American man of color, an Irishman, or a mixed race Klingon/Human woman. They are all representative of the same, the physical body's sometime miraculous ability to heal, as well as it's functional limits.
The navigator moves us forward in our lives where there is nothing in our way, and tries to avoid danger where possible, but sometimes can no longer move onward, which risks coming about and going backwards to the person we used to be against our will. In the past this was depicted as a Russian character averse to danger, and a child genius with no experience of danger.
The communications officer is the voice to the outside world, portrayed in the past by a man of color, a woman of color, an Asian woman, and a fresh-out-of-starfleet Asian man. The emphasis has been on a typecasting stereotype of a perceived foreign person who might have better understanding of languages and communications. Their role is to not only understand what other people are saying, but also how to best respond to them.
They all report to the captain, the conscious mind, where everything is evaluated, struggles occur, and ultimately command what to do.
It is within these characters that all the human drama of Star Trek takes place. Each part of the human psyche features in each episode in various measures, ie the lead characters feature in various episodes in order to approach moral dilemmas.
You simply can't do that by following one character. Sure, have an episode like "Data's Day" that focuses on one of them for a glimpse of what their world is like after getting used to them for a few seasons and actually wanting to see it to expand their character. Data's case a struggle without emotion, unable to understand how to react in a serious relationship.
BUT not for multiple episodes, or in Mikey Spock's case the whole show every week, week in, week out. That's NOT how to make a character endeering. What kind of idiot thinks that any viewer would want to spend all of their time with a stranger, at the expense of getting to know anyone else for the entire season? For goodness sake, what is wrong with these writers? Do they not have any friends?
Back to STD. None of the above applies to STD in any way at all. There is simply no knowledge or understanding of the format in ANY way whatsoever. The people involved have been appointed by transient board room directors due to their work in complete contradiction to this franchise's successes.
The writers are not suitable for this franchise at all, the reason for Trek's success completely escapes them, and it frustrates them why they are doing what they consider to be their best work, and yet have managed to alienate (no pun intended) the entire franchise's substantial audience of millions. Again, that is millions of people who either don't want this, or have lost interest in caring.
Star Trek has never, ever been about bombastic action scenes, and outrageously obsessive reliance upon visual effects. You can find that anywhere on any day of the week in any movie multiplex. STD isn't at all case of brining new people into the Trek franchise, as it has done so successfully in the past, STD is in fact a case of giving the franchise away to generic industry professionals so they can create a generic show for a generic audience. It is then of course no wonder at all that Star Trek's audience have not only abandoned the show and the television studio, but now actively pushing for cancellation altogether with a complete embargo of STD as far as they are concerned. With such a large unsatisfied fanbase clearly outnumbering the limited audience of STD not only in volume, but also in passion, STD can only go one way, cancellation, while CBS desperately try to reel in Patrick Stewart to take Discovery's place as CBS All Access's last hope at creating relevant content.
In fact it's become public knowledge that these "short treks" have been made to secure additional funding needed to finish off production of STD's second season. Production stopped at episode five, and yet it's full 14 episode run is supposed to be airing in just 11 weeks time. As has also become apparent recently, Netflix refused to pay the $30m price for these shorts, and so it simply hasn't aired at all internationally. STD's options are now reduced to virtually nothing. There's no money to finish the season, there's virtually no one willing to pay for it, and even fewer actually watching it.
One thing however is profusely clear. The various Star Trek shows are all a product of their time, be it visually or thematically. While a fun part of Trek lets us occasionally use time travel as a means to grab a bit of nostalgia and juxtapose modern sensibilities with those of, or depicted in the past, it's an absolute impossibility to do so as a prequel for more than one or two episodes without running into virtually unlimited problems ending in the same ridicule, much less total violation of continuity and canon in literally every frame. There are very few Star Trek fans who don't care about canon, let that fact inform your future productions.
Speaking of which, while Trek fans 5 years ago would have jumped at a chance to see Picard in action once again to hand over the reigns to a new crew of the Enterprise, now we are so concerned at CBS's utter misunderstanding and mishandling of Star Trek that we really would rather that you didn't go anywhere near Sir Patrick while the writers and producers you selected for STD have any influence whatsoever.
We have no trust in your ability to select the right people for the job, and we don't have any genuine belief that Star Trek is anything other than a brand name to be exploited. You had a Trek fan as a show runner, and you fired him. You then went on to fire another show runner, and writers walked out too. Much like the productions, Trek fandom has been expunged from the production teams too.
Alex "I'm a real writer" Kurtzman will be the permanently documented individual who destroyed Star Trek, and I'm sure many years from now he will blame others for the choice of putting him there in the first place.
Here's the secret sauce to Star Trek's success, presumably they need it spelled out to them because it's clear STD is so far from success that it's living on borrowed time:
The ship is the body, and the main characters are aspects of human psychology. The logical to analyse situations without emotion, the emotional to analyse situations without logic, the tactical to react to threats, the Doctor to repair the mind, the Engineer to repair the body, the navigator to direct the body, and the communications officer to make contact with other people. The captain is the conscious mind making decisions based upon the input of all these senses.
This is the basis of every Star Trek show across the 20th and 21st centuries, and the reason for it's success. Whether the logic is Spock, or the android who does not understand emotion, or the changeling who has no experience with relationships OR emotions. Tech changes, so does futurism. That's why one generation of Trek hands off to the next, set even further into the future, but connected to the last. It doesn't try to rewrite the last iteration because it shamelessly wants to cash in on it.
It matters not if the engineer is a white Scotsman, a blind American man of color, an Irishman, or a mixed race Klingon/Human woman. They are all representative of the same, the physical body's sometime miraculous ability to heal, as well as it's functional limits.
The navigator moves us forward in our lives where there is nothing in our way, and tries to avoid danger where possible, but sometimes can no longer move onward, which risks coming about and going backwards to the person we used to be against our will. In the past this was depicted as a Russian character averse to danger, and a child genius with no experience of danger.
The communications officer is the voice to the outside world, portrayed in the past by a man of color, a woman of color, an Asian woman, and a fresh-out-of-starfleet Asian man. The emphasis has been on a typecasting stereotype of a perceived foreign person who might have better understanding of languages and communications. Their role is to not only understand what other people are saying, but also how to best respond to them.
They all report to the captain, the conscious mind, where everything is evaluated, struggles occur, and ultimately command what to do.
It is within these characters that all the human drama of Star Trek takes place. Each part of the human psyche features in each episode in various measures, ie the lead characters feature in various episodes in order to approach moral dilemmas.
You simply can't do that by following one character. Sure, have an episode like "Data's Day" that focuses on one of them for a glimpse of what their world is like after getting used to them for a few seasons and actually wanting to see it to expand their character. Data's case a struggle without emotion, unable to understand how to react in a serious relationship.
BUT not for multiple episodes, or in Mikey Spock's case the whole show every week, week in, week out. That's NOT how to make a character endeering. What kind of idiot thinks that any viewer would want to spend all of their time with a stranger, at the expense of getting to know anyone else for the entire season? For goodness sake, what is wrong with these writers? Do they not have any friends?
Back to STD. None of the above applies to STD in any way at all. There is simply no knowledge or understanding of the format in ANY way whatsoever. The people involved have been appointed by transient board room directors due to their work in complete contradiction to this franchise's successes.
The writers are not suitable for this franchise at all, the reason for Trek's success completely escapes them, and it frustrates them why they are doing what they consider to be their best work, and yet have managed to alienate (no pun intended) the entire franchise's substantial audience of millions. Again, that is millions of people who either don't want this, or have lost interest in caring.
Star Trek has never, ever been about bombastic action scenes, and outrageously obsessive reliance upon visual effects. You can find that anywhere on any day of the week in any movie multiplex. STD isn't at all case of brining new people into the Trek franchise, as it has done so successfully in the past, STD is in fact a case of giving the franchise away to generic industry professionals so they can create a generic show for a generic audience. It is then of course no wonder at all that Star Trek's audience have not only abandoned the show and the television studio, but now actively pushing for cancellation altogether with a complete embargo of STD as far as they are concerned. With such a large unsatisfied fanbase clearly outnumbering the limited audience of STD not only in volume, but also in passion, STD can only go one way, cancellation, while CBS desperately try to reel in Patrick Stewart to take Discovery's place as CBS All Access's last hope at creating relevant content.
In fact it's become public knowledge that these "short treks" have been made to secure additional funding needed to finish off production of STD's second season. Production stopped at episode five, and yet it's full 14 episode run is supposed to be airing in just 11 weeks time. As has also become apparent recently, Netflix refused to pay the $30m price for these shorts, and so it simply hasn't aired at all internationally. STD's options are now reduced to virtually nothing. There's no money to finish the season, there's virtually no one willing to pay for it, and even fewer actually watching it.
One thing however is profusely clear. The various Star Trek shows are all a product of their time, be it visually or thematically. While a fun part of Trek lets us occasionally use time travel as a means to grab a bit of nostalgia and juxtapose modern sensibilities with those of, or depicted in the past, it's an absolute impossibility to do so as a prequel for more than one or two episodes without running into virtually unlimited problems ending in the same ridicule, much less total violation of continuity and canon in literally every frame. There are very few Star Trek fans who don't care about canon, let that fact inform your future productions.
Speaking of which, while Trek fans 5 years ago would have jumped at a chance to see Picard in action once again to hand over the reigns to a new crew of the Enterprise, now we are so concerned at CBS's utter misunderstanding and mishandling of Star Trek that we really would rather that you didn't go anywhere near Sir Patrick while the writers and producers you selected for STD have any influence whatsoever.
We have no trust in your ability to select the right people for the job, and we don't have any genuine belief that Star Trek is anything other than a brand name to be exploited. You had a Trek fan as a show runner, and you fired him. You then went on to fire another show runner, and writers walked out too. Much like the productions, Trek fandom has been expunged from the production teams too.
Alex "I'm a real writer" Kurtzman will be the permanently documented individual who destroyed Star Trek, and I'm sure many years from now he will blame others for the choice of putting him there in the first place.