Star Trek on TV leader Alex Kurtzman’s media blitz is not over, with a couple more interviews out today. While they cover a lot of familiar ground, he also had some new things to say about the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, premiering January 17th.
Still serialized
There has been a lot of talk of changes coming in the second season, including doing some more traditional Star Trek exploration and storytelling. But in his interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Alex Kurtzman made clear that the highly serialized nature of the series will remain, even if you might not always notice it at first:
It’s very serialized. There are no real one-offs. Every piece of the puzzle is connected to the finale, we worked backward from knowing the outcome we wanted to get to. There are episodes that seem standalone that are fundamentally part of where we’re going at the end.
How Spock became Spock
In previous interviews, Kurtzman has discussed how the second season will explore the relationship between Michael Burnham and her foster brother Spock. On Variety’s TV Take podcast, the producer went into more detail on how the season will work as a sort of origin story for Spock:
I’m a huge sucker for a sibling story. It is one of my favorite kinds of story and it is so rarely told and it is such a unique and specific relationship. And you don’t necessarily have to be a blood sibling to have a distinct and unique connection. So, the idea that Spock and Burnham are playing out this dynamic of logic versus emotion and knew each other before Spock became the character we meet in TOS was so exciting to me. What got me so riled up about it is the idea that if we can take season two of Discovery and understand how his relationship with Michael informed how he became the Spock we meet in TOS and that without that relationship he would never have been prepared for Kirk, that is a new an interesting spin and something really worth talking about, because people haven’t seen that before.
By the time Spock and Kirk are together, which we see them being when you are airdropped into what became the first episode of TOS, Spock certainly works out logic versus emotion over the course of the series and movies, but he is more or less settled into his Vulcan character. And that was an interesting opporunity. Maybe he wasn’t always settled into that Vulcan character. Maybe he had to go through a whole journey of logic versus emotion to figure out what was neccessary ultimately was balance. And while Spock always represented the logic of the Enterprise, Kirk was the emotion of the Enterprise. And without his working through that self-exploration and self-discovery work – pun intended – he would never have become that character. So, that felt like a unique and interesting opportunity and a neccessary one.
Filling in the blanks for Pike and Number One
Kurtzman also discussed how season two will approach the characters of Captain Pike and Number One:
What was really exciting was the opportunity to explore a grey area about this relationship and these characters, Spock, Pike and Number One. Number One is a great example. You know very little about Number One. She was in one episode and then kind of out. So she is kind of a blank slate, but also always remembered by Trek fans. Why? And getting to look at that. Pike was obviously a character who had a large mythological presence on the show, both because of the pilot that never aired and what came later in “The Menagerie,” and then what we did with Bruce Greenwood we got to open more doors, but that is obviously the Kelvin universe and a different version of Pike. So, I loved the idea of saying “who are these people?” And we have fourteen episodes to explore nuances and details and parts of their lives the either may have been alluded to or left blank, that we can now fill in.
Anson Mount as Pike and Rebecca Romijn as Number One
Don’t expect Lorca, yet
But what about last season’s captain? Kurtzman set up expectations for seeing Jason Isaacs return as Captain Lorca, telling EW:
I will tell you that you should not expect to see him this season but that doesn’t mean he won’t be back.
The canon balancing act
In his interview with EW, the reporter opined that Kurtzman and his team should not worry so much about canon and focus instead on just telling a good story. Kurtzman weighed into the controversial topic, diplomatically saying:
We really do spend a lot of time talking a lot about canon and there are people in the writers’ room specifically to tell us where we’re stepping on the line of violation…But it’s always a conversation…The best version of the story needs to be the driver. But what’s the best version of a story is an entirely subjective thing. That’s why we have so many different voices in the writers room with so many different points of view. You want to write a nuanced story to get as many different voices as possible to represent how they feel about different ideas. A big part of my process is listening to the other writers. With Trek, you want to go out and beta-test ideas. But as soon as you do that you’ll get 50 percent of people telling you they love it and 50 percent saying you should be strung up and killed. At a certain point you need to follow your own internal compass, but you don’t want to do it in a vacuum — that’s very dangerous — so we hire people to express what they think Star Trek means, and where we’re violating canon and what we can invent within the grey area.
So, yes, we want to stay true to canon, but we’re also doing a lot of new invention that has nothing to do with canon. There’s a lot of conversation online like, “Why don’t you start with new things? Why do you have to look back?” And the answer is, “We can do both.” We have to do both. Star Trek has always done both.
Star Trek: Discovery is available in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on Space and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.
Keep up with all the Star Trek: Discovery news at TrekMovie.
Hmm. Lorca back (*maybe*), but we should not expect it this year.
A future Short Trek featuring what happened to the Buran, maybe?
Yeah which Buran?
I want to see the final moments of the USS Buran. It would be perfect for a Short Trek to show mirror Lorca crossing over into the prime universe and to show how the USS Buran was *really* destroyed. I think the crew of the Buran were starting to figure out that this Lorca wasn’t their captain, so he killed them and destroyed the ship in order to keep his secret and take his counterpart’s place.
I think the less we speak about Lorca the better. Every time he gets brought up it’s just a reminder of arguably the dumbest thing ever in the Star Trek universe.
Sorry but Paris and Janeway turning into Salamanders will probably forever keep that record.
That gives Lorca a run for the money but the Lorca thing still wins. Lorca was planned stupidity from day one for an entire series. It was supposed to be the season long “wow” moment. The salamander thing was just one goofy thing from ONE episode. Had Voyager devoted half a season with that being the payoff, then a case could be made for it.
Kurtzman, as usual, manages to say many of the things fans like me want to hear. It’s true that the development of the Spock/Burnham backstory, with a clever back-end twist that totally changed our perspective on his relationship with Sarek, gave us “Lethe,” easily the best episode of the first season. So there’s a lot of potential here, particularly with the inclusion of Pike and Number One from “The Menagerie,” for my money still the best two hours of Trek ever produced. But much of Discovery‘s first year didn’t live up to its potential, and the concluding shows were a disaster. As usual, it’ll all be in the execution. We’ll see.
Worst thing that happend to star trek, Mr Kurtzman.
Worst? Nah the worst would have been getting no star trek at all.
Yup (I agree the worst would be no Trek).
There are times when I long for the UseNet days, just to remind myself what people thought of Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, the fact that DS9 would take place on a (non-moving) station, etc…
I loved DS9.
I still love Deep Space Nine. Best series of the franchise imho.
Same! Deep Space Nine is my favorite Trek by far and I don’t know if there will ever be a show that will replace it. I would love to say the Picard show but getting way ahead of myself. ;)
Right but in the day DS9 took a lot of heat from fans.Things like boring, to dark ,and the subject of canon came up. Which brings me to this .I was a kid when TOS came out, watched next gen ,DS9 and the rest.When TOS was on TV they were telling stories, that’a all and some how someone decided this is canon.And now it’s like the holy bible!So it was all made up,who cares, I don’t ,just tell good stories and screw canon.There are basic rules with Star Trek ,fine, but to much nit picking and the logic here is if one rules is broken the series is deemed a failure.But in order for a series to move forward and should I say ratings so they can do more Star Trek they need to bring new things to the table and if that breaks a rule of canon so be it.Fans need to get over this canon stuff.The Roddenberry rules was pure theater on his part,another way to bring attention to Star Trek. Look bottom line this is a business.You can do a series that pleases fans or you can bring something new that knocks fans out as well as non-fans.And that would be break the rules.There is a point where the creators have to say screw the fans we got a great story here ,lets do it.Risk is part of game as Kirk said, you want to sit in that chair so forth and so on.Sometimes you win sometimes you lose. But playing it safe get you a show cancelled.
Yes and so did TNG, ENT and VOY. They ALL took heat for different things, this isn’t a new thing. I wish people stop acting like it was, especially in relation to DIS. VOY probably took the less heat but that’s mostly because it didn’t do anything stylishly different the way the others did at the time but people still had issues (sadly) that Janeway was a woman Captain. But in time most of the issues went away with these shows.
And why I love DS9 is that it broke from a lot of Roddenberry ridiculous and stringent rules at the time and didn’t feel as Star Trek as the others, but in a good way. Star Trek can still do new and interesting things and sadly I don’t feel we gotten a show that has been that unique since.
DS9 did not follow the trope of a star ship visiting a planet of the week, but it still felt firmly in the Star Trek universe. And is easily for me the best of the spin off shows by a good margin.
Thomas V, I cannot agree more! I remember all the stuff about DS9 as well. And I disliked Voyager, but recently rewatched it and found it quite good. DS9 is still the standout.
I may be upset with what Disco eventually does or doesn’t do with Lorca, but it is what it is. I can write fanfic if I feel the need to “correct” it, LOL.
But every show has taken heat from fans, agreed? I understand he’s talking specifically the issues with DS9 at the time but they all got it in some way. TNG got it MUCH worse then DS9 did and many TOS fans didn’t even consider it Star Trek at all for several years. Its just this weird revisionist history I don’t get? In time, as DS9 showed, most come around. I believe Enterprise was the most hated show and now most people have seem to come around to that one even if its still less popular then some of the others, certainly with me.
And if you want to get rid of the ‘canon stuff’ fine then just call it a REBOOT!!!! That’s why we have them in the first place, so writers are allowed take characters and stories in completely different avenue then previous iterations.
But this just drives me nuts! They want to keep everything in the prime universe, but they want to change things, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but then they want to put it directly in the same timeline as previous stories which contradicts things immensely. But then they call it a ‘visual reboot’ as if that just makes every problem goes away. It’s trying to have your cake and eat it too.
It’s like if you take Tim Burton’s Batman movies as canon but then 20 years later Nolan shows up with his Batman movies and say they are suppose to be in Burton’s universe and suppose to be a prequel to those. If you simply ignore they don’t look, feel or act absolutely like one another then you should be fine, right? Because yeah that would go down well for Batman fans and why they rebooted the series in the first place. So they don’t have to put a square peg in a hole and pretend its suppose to fit.
No one is saying you can’t break rules, but you can only go so far with it in an already established universe. Create your own with NEW rules then you are fine. But people act like that’s just as wrong for some reason when it comes to Star Trek.
Yes. This. If a producer or writers like the set up but unhappy with the established rules, then do a REBOOT! That is the best of all things in that situation. I understand studio trepidation to a Trek reboot. But they are treating such a thing like it’s radioactive to Trek. Rebooting Star Trek they see as putting kryponite on Superman.
Fan’s opinions of Berman and Braga haven’t changed over the years. Everyone loves Ron Moore, though and pretty much everyone directly associated with DS9.
BSG Traditionalists don’t like Ron Moore in the least bit.
That makes sense. Original BSG was garbage. Moore made it infinitely better.
Honestly I never had a big problem with either Berman or Braga. But here is another shocker, I never had a big problem with Abrams, nor do I with Kurtzman now. I recognize people have legit reasons to hate a lot of these people and there is certainly something about all their work I have issues with, including Kurtzman and Discovery of course, but that can change. But I don’t think he’s any worse or better then other people, just different and it will take awhile for both he and fans to find a sweet spot.
But I also didn’t have a big issue with the Kelvin films like a lot of people had either and I know that’s where the hate mostly comes from. As far as Berman and Braga they probably stayed on longer then they should have but for me at least they did way more good then bad. It’s really Enterprise where it drew for me and I blame it on network interference as I do them. And that improved mightily under Coto. I wish he was still involved with Trek.
Personally I liked Ent more than Voy but DS9 is my favorite
Don’t be so rude.
For each one of those haters ther are two or more happy fans, and tens of casual viewers pretty satisfied with Mr. Kurtzman’s work. You are nothing but a troll, and you should be ashamed to behave like that. Those are people, just doing their jobs, trying to put their best on screen for our enjoyment. You should respect that. They don’t force you to watch it. Don’t like it, don’t watch it. But stop discharging your anger towards people just because you’re frustrated with your life. Mr. Kurtzman or the rest of us have nothing to do with that. Go punch a pillow.
Discovery doesn’t have casual viewers. Fans, yes, but no casual viewers. It’s not that kind of show.
Not true, sir. I know a number of people who have watched it on Netflix as they would watch any other show, and like it, but aren’t fans per se.
Bwhuahuahua, I know for a fact that there are casual viewers for Discovery. 188 countries with Netflix, man! It’s a lot of people — regular viewers, not fanatics like us –, and that’s why Disco is such a wonderful thing for CBS. They can slowly expand All-Access and just have Netflix pay for a large sum of that investment.
They are going to do what they are going to do as they produce the show. We can hope. We can suggest. We can hope they’ll take our opinions on board insofar as they fit with the general goals of the writing and production staff.
There was HUGE outcry against the “dark tone” of S1 Disco, which I liked despite the fan-critics. Also the silly outcry about what they “did to the Klingons” [I don’t care, they were well-written and -portrayed] so they gave them hair. They have lightened the tone for S2.
Be happy or don’t watch it. I hated that they made Lorca what he turned out to be, and I hope they bring him back in a way that pleases me, but I do not DEMAND it nor necessarily expect it, because ultimately? I don’t make the show. My voice is my subscription to CBSAA, and that’s pretty much it.
Just sayin’.
Wait a minute…people like Discovery?
Star Trek V says hello.
Star Trek 5 still had some excellent character moments, basically it was just lousily made because Shatner wasn’t much of a director.
You should blame the writer’s strike & budget restrictions for V. Not Shatner.
As the director, he should make it work within the budget. Unless Paramount first agreed on a budget and then lowered it later while they were already in production. Otherwise, it’s bad planning.
I heard they shorted him after the beginning, so …
Not a Shatner lover, but it sounded to me as if they kinda screwed him as a director.
And 5 still had better character moments than all of 4 put together.
ST5 showed he had a helluva directorial eye but was riding a marginal story … but the really bad part is that he was a terrible politician who didn’t know when to throw his weight around (surprising given that he was used to doing so as a ‘star’.)
I always go back to Meyer knowing how to deal with the studio on KHAN being a perfect counterpoint to Shatner panicking when being told that if they fall any further behinds, that script pages would be omitted from shooting. Meyer wanted a bridge explosion redone, and when told the studio wouldn’t pony up six figures to do it, said, take it out of my salary. Paramount got all ruffled up and replied, oh well, if it means that much to you, go shoot it. Shatner never put his money where his mouth was, and that was the real crime. He let himself get saddled with what seems like a largely incompetent crew, his producers let him get snowed by a VFX provider who was too close to Robert Abel in his delusions, and you wind up with a result that is lucky to be even half of the sum of its parts (probably owing to Goldsmith’s great score.)
You look at the camera movement and compositions (not the ones that were ruined by having to blow the film up to hide the scratches) and you can see he and his DP had some really good ideas and approaches. Compared to Nimoy’s usually too-restrained camera, ST 5 is practically Kubrickian. Personally I’d have liked to see more contrast with a strong shadow side to the lighting instead of the more filled look, but I say that about everything, especially this century with the digital stuff. Very little looks as good to me as the scenes in TOS on the bridge when they cut power and half the set is bathed in shadow, like end of JOURNEY TO BABEL and the ‘ship out, freak!’ scene in DAY OF THE DOVE.
Shatner did fine. Writer’s strike, no ILM and other factors impacted it. Picking on Shatner is always the easiest argument but it really doesn’t carry any weight.
Star Trek V is actually no different in quality to Star Trek VI. Both have their pros and cons regardless of what fan consensus says.
I am up for Burnham being improved but preparing him for Kirk. Give me a break
Are we to assume Burnham is responsible for one of the best sci fi team ever?
That’s an overreaction. Kurtzman didn’t say anything of the kind.
Well, kind of did. Without Michael Spock never would have figured things out, the experience prepped him for Kirk, blah.
I also don’t like the way he says “Prepare him for Kirk” Kirk and Spock’s friendship/brotherhood developed independently of whatever relationship Spock had with Burnham. My own conjecture is he never warmed up to his foster sister, hence never mentioning her to Kirk.
Sorry, but that objection is ridiculous. Spock can help Burnham grow but she can’t help him grow? Somebody’s personality is formed over time, influenced by their experiences and the people around them. Spock wasn’t born the person he was in TOS and beyond. He developed into that person, and many people had a hand in that (I mean many people in the fictional universe of Trek). Given that Burnham and Spock are to some extent in a similar position (being stuck between Vulcan and human heritage) it makes sense that they would have a big influence on each other.
Plus, Pike helped him deal with Humans and Kirk helped Spock grow even more.
“Maybe he had to go through a whole journey of logic versus emotion to figure out what was neccessary ultimately was balance.”
Yeah well, Spock did eventually go on that journey. It was called Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Is the ‘I weep for V’Ger like I would for a brother’ scene canon or not? It was part of the extended movie, but not the first release of TMP.
One way I took that line is that Spock is saying that he would feel as strongly for V’Ger as he would a brother. Nothing contradictory there.
From my perspective, that’s a lifelong journey for Spock. I’m certain he went through many phases of self discovery.
I agree. But it seems like V’Ger was the biggest discovery for him. It’s the point between the Spock who wanted to purge all emotion and the more relaxed Obi-Wan like mentor we see in Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country.
Yes, Mark … I mean, don’t we all?
And what a boring journey it was. :-)
I love it, but, dude, how boring it was… :-P
If mean TMP, that was the only ST film during which, upon rewatching, I felt a need to drink to excess.
Maybe it would have been fine with some old-style weed.
Not a fan. Loved STII and watched it about 20 times, which is a huge number of rewatches for me.
I still dig the Spock spacewalk into V’ger.
TMP is the only ST film I’ve just seen twice in my life and I use to own it lol.
When the VHS of the Trek movies came out, if you bought all 6 when you stacked them next to each other they made an image of the Enterprise. I did not buy STIV as I could not bring myself to ever own it. And my Enterprise on the shelf had a segment missing. It looked weird. I did not see IV again until I bought the BD set. My opinion of it has not changed.
OMG we had the same set lol. Yep that’s the one I had as well. I was still a teenager but I was SO proud to own them lol. I stacked them on my shelf where you can see the Enterprise so anytime someone came in my room they would notice it (such a nerd). But yes I bought the entire set to say I had it but I probably wouldn’t have bought TMP on its own at the time.
Dude you REALLY hate TVH! You explained it to me in the past I just don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has hated it or at least not as much as you do. Most seem to at least like it. It’s my fourth favorite film behind TWOK, TUC and FC.
I had them on display too. And I was in college at the time! They also went up at my first apartment when I got my first job. If anyone asked about the gap I was pleased to explain my disdain for that film. Ugh… It was SOOO disappointing. It was cool getting all the news about Star Trek doing location shooting in SF and at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. I was so jazzed for that film. I was also looking forward to it being more light. I felt Trek needed such a thing after two very dark ones. But right from the opening credits I knew something was wrong. But we have been through all this. The idiocy of the whale story… The characters for some goofy reason just were not themselves at all. The fact that not ONE of the jokes worked. Hell, there were more laughs in the opening Yosemite scene in STV than in IV. But I digress. I could go on and on with what went wrong there.
I also think that movie did well at the BO because it was the least Star Trek of any Star Trek movie. And that includes the TNG and KU films.
Well I agree thats definitely why it made so much money because it was open enough for anyone and yes it had great word of mouth. I didn’t see it in the theater, I was still too young but I remember when I first watched it felt so different from anything I ever saw in Trek before, but in a good way. Yes some of the jokes were too lame and the characters did come off pretty goofy when we seen them in other time travel stories and they came off pretty confident and mature. This was more of a comedy so I guess Nimoy wanted to have more fun with them.
But it has a very nice feel good ending and it was obvious the actors were really having fun in the last scenes in the water. I like it because it really does put a smile on my face when I watch it but everyone is different.
Well said!
Spock had never dealt with someone who was a bit of a rebel, willing to test the rules, even bend or break them, until Burnham. This actually makes quite a lot of sense, because at a glance, the character of the logical, immovable Vulcan, and the emotional, swaggering Kirk would seem like oil and water.
And in fact, they were when they met as cadets in the Kelvin timeline. This is good stuff. I like it in principle, curious to see how it’s executed.
At least until the next show when someone decides there was someone else before Burnham.
To me the most “fascinating” loose-end canon issue to be revealed this season is why we never knew over fifty+ years that Spock had Burnham as a foster-sister. Like Sybok before her, the “real world” reason is that new characters were created to be linked to the iconic Spock. But what is the inner “imagined world” reason? This is a question never explored re Sybok, but one we’re told we will now discover re Burnham.
As Michael Hall said, we now know more about Spock’s decades-long estrangement from Sarek (“Journey to Babel”): Sarek had to choose and chose wrongly between his two “not quite Vulcans” (“Lethe”). We’ve seen Burnham after that choice being put under the tutelage of Georgiou to learn how to be human again. Young Spock seems the opposite: he apparently needs to learn how to “balance” (compensate?) for his human half by becoming more Vulcan. (Sarek in the birth of Spock flashback in “Final Frontier”: “So human.”)
But does any of this hint at the coming explanation about why we’ve never heard of Burnham before within the Trek universe? Somehow it will have to do with the Burnham-Spock interaction. Hmm.
Sybok was bullshit and so has Burnham been, so far.
I don’t even see that as a loose end. We all know why he didn’t, and in-universe it doesn’t matter. People who focus on that need to seriously see a medical professional because there’s legitimately something wrong with them in their heads.
Well, I’ll try not to take that remark too personally, Afterburn. For anyone interested in how an imaginary universe can both become more complex (as in real life) and also remain consistent, it does matter and I am looking forward to seeing how the present authors handle it since I thought they were pretty clever about Sarek’s choice in “Lethe.”
My point is people pick on the things they don’t like, not the things that don’t make sense.
People are criticizing “why Spock never mentioned Burnham” because they don’t like the show. Guarantee you if the show was a universal crowd-pleaser, few people would care.
Case in point? Nobody ever seems to bring up how nonsensical it is in-universe why NOBODY from the Enterprise attended Worf’s wedding on DS9 (I bring it up because I happen to be watching that episode right now). Not Riker, Picard, Geordi, Data, Troi, nobody. The real reason is that they couldn’t get the actors together, but not even a single line of dialogue explaining they were on a mission in the BlinkDaraKlocka Sector?
No, nobody cared because fans liked those shows.
We all recognize why Spock didn’t ever mention Burnham, Sybok, or even Sarek before his first appearance. Instead of using it as a justification to hate the show or the idea of a prequel, why not do what fans USED to do years ago when there’d be a question like this?
USE YOUR IMAGINATION.
I don’t need my hand held and to have every detail explained. It’s enough for me to assume he didn’t have a close relationship with his foster sister, and thus didn’t talk about her to Kirk when the cameras were on them. I can even imagine an entire episode that never aired involving Burnham’s visit to the Enterprise, where she met Kirk and went drinking with Scotty.
In the end, it just. doesnt. matter.
That’s actually an interesting point. It’s been a common complaint, including from myself, that Riker and Troi’s wedding in Nemesis was missing lots of guests who “should have been there.” But it barely crossed my mind that there weren’t important guests at Worf’s wedding.
I really wish Q would have shown up at the wedding!
And maybe they should have made an entire movie with Q.
Who? Lwaxana? Yes, that one I might give you, since she was a recurring character and Troi’s mother. But there was a clear explanation: they were doing a second wedding on Betazed, and Lwaxana was always shown to be a traditionalist when it comes to weddings.
Riker’s father? There were a lot of extras in the background; it’s easy enough to say Riker’s father was one of them. (The real reason we didn’t see a close-up of the character was that he appeared once, in an obscure episode where his relationship with Riker was iffy. We have no idea if the actor was available; including him would involve paying the actor, and fans can rationalize his absence).
Who else? Pulaski, maybe. But not 100% of people invited to weddings can always make it, even close friends.
Captain de Soto of the Hood? An even more obscure character; see above.
@MattR. Yes, that’s interesting. Notice that it was a complaint on a film that you didn’t like (presumably because it’s so generally reviled).
I supsect that had Nemesis been a great flick, it would have been easily forgiven/glossed over.
@Elrond
Yes, and it’s just as reasonable that Spock– in the 70 episodes and 6 movies (accounting for maybe 40 hours of his life) never mentioned his FOSTER sister that only lived with for a few years.
My hope is that they don’t make too big a point of focusing on “why he never mentioned her.” Have him mention right up front “Michael and I never saw eye to eye. She was not an important part of my life.”
That’s all we really need (and truthfully we don’t even need that).
Nemesis is a perfect example. It was a good film yet I never really noticed who was missing from the Riker wedding. In fact, I DID notice Wesley there. Was not fixated on who wasn’t there. Not once.
Ok, Afterburn, I take your point that in the end it doesn’t matter to the unfolding Trek saga if we get this explanation or not. However, since we’ve been told that one will be provided, I am looking forward to see what it is. I was inviting anyone interested to use their imaginations to foresee what it might be.
As to Worf’s wedding, it seemed reasonable in universe that one cannot simply reset the course of a starship for personal reasons to attend a social event (yeah, I know it happens in some Trek episodes). So no big deal.
I agree that there are people who pounce on this sudden appearance of Spock’s “sister” to vent their dislike of Discovery (or hairless Klingons or a different angle on Enterprise’s nacelles or whatever) and it seems petty to me. But that wasn’t my motive. Simply curious.
I will never understand the furious reaction to the Enterprise’s nacelle struts at the end of Season 1. Of all the things to take umbrage with when our world is falling to pieces around us. I really do have stop reading YouTube comments.
Afterburn, did you ever know that you’re my hero?
I’m everything you’d like to be.
Wrong. Liking something and that something making sense are unrelated. Example, WoK. I really liked the impact of Kirk heading to the bridge tubolift only to run into Scotty carrying an injured Preston. Yet that made zero sense when you think about it. People criticized the Spock Burnham connection before the show even aired. They didn’t know if the show was going to be good or bad yet. Myself, I did not like the connection but (while it was a bit of a stretch) it really didn’t violate any established rules. There are plenty of cases where things are liked and don’t make sense or not liked that DO make sense.
Don’t think there is any greater meaning to the Spock birth image in 5. That was Sybok THINKING he knew Spock. Spock even had to correct him.
To be honest Kurtzman can throw in as much continuity plugs as he likes but I don’t believe in any way that Burnham is Spock’s brother as much as I believe Mr Mott is Picard’s half brother.
Maybe Sybok introduced Spock to some hallucinogenic drugs. Hence, notice the longer hair and beard?
Just a crazy theory. 😊
My theory is he just never mentioned her. I have maybe mentioned my siblings to even my closest friends on a handful of occasions, let alone introduced them to them. If you were to record an hour of my day once a week for 3 years, then two hours once every two years for a decade, I’ll bet you’d never see me mention them.
I barely mention my eldest sibling to my friends unless he has annoyed me. So I get this.
Blah blah blah Kurtzman blah blah blah. Please don’t screw up Picard.
I fear that we’ll have a ‘Luke tosses his lightsaber moment’ and they’ll completely screw up the character.
While I have been rejoicing for this Picard series I am actually terrified at the same time!
It’s not a good feeling. Oy.
Too late. He was screwed up before he appeared on camera.
While I am looking forward to seeing season 2 and where it goes, there was one comment that I felt different about. It was Spock was the logic and Kirk was the emotion. I always found Spock was the logic, McCoy was the emotion and Kirk would be the balance of the two in order to make the best command decision. I’m not saying he is wrong, it was how I took it when watching it. This won’t matter for the Discovery story but it’s nice to get other perspectives on how people perceive the show.
If Trek 4 ever gets back on, I’m hoping they put the 3 of them back together.
He is wrong, and you are right. Kirk was never supposed to be the emotional one, and the Kirk we meet in TOS is an model Starfleet officer who does things by the book whenever possible. I hate the myth that’s cropped up around him, and it makes me really uneasy that the *showrunner* of a Trek show seems to have bought into it.
Yeah, and it makes me shudder a little if indeed for the future he wants to put Kirk in Discovery. Like PJ says up top, I also always thought Kirk was the balancing of McCoys emotion and Spock’s logic. Somehow all people seem to think these days is this weird image of Kirk being nothing but a womanizing, emotional captain who always acts instinctual. Nothing can be further from the truth.
You can bet we’ll see Kirk. And Burnham will somehow make him the great captain he was, too. Thank God she showed up.
LOL… And that was literal. It was funny but I can also totally see Discovery going that route, too!
It sounds like Kurzman’s idea of Kirk is filtered through Jeri Taylor’s Picard from UNIFICATION, which totally misses the mark on Kirk. Another sad and horrid case of THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE’s ‘print the legend.’
Yeah, that quote struck me off as well. McCoy was the emotion. But in fairness, this “myth” of Kirk began towards the end of Shatner’s era too. I always think of the scene between Kirk and Spock towards the end of TUC (always one of my favorites) where Kirk says something to the effect of he was always the one rushing in, while Spock was always the one for logic. So it’s been a myth slowly developing since the post-TOS days.
The myth really has its roots in STII and STIII, I think. But the difference in those movies was that while he was behaving recklessly and in contravention of a Starfleet regulations, they make a point of saying that Kirk was behaving out of character. But somehow, that portrayal of Kirk has become the way he’s seen, not just in “Unification,” but in Voyager’s “Flashback” as well.
I can’t remember where I read it (or heard it), but Roddenberry was fascinated by Freudian psychoanalysis. You could argue Spock was the Superego (the logic), McCoy the Id (the emotion/feeling) and Kirk the Self (the synthesis/balance of both).
I agree 100% there. I know in the longrun it don’t really matter but I don’t like how McCoy is so often forgotten but this is coming from somebody whose all time favorite character is McCoy.
While McCoy wasn’t a favorite, I agree that he has been left out a lot. The movies didn’t really follow the three of them until TFF. I particularly liked Sybok saying, “The bond between these three is strong.”
Many non-Trek people often forget that it was the triad of Kirk Spock AND McCoy that made it all work. Kirk was not the emotional one. McCoy was often said to be the “heart” of the three. The heart tends to be ruled by emotion. Spock was the mind and Kirk was the soul.
I’m somewhat surprised that not more fans of the old guard are taking offense with this obvious attempt at shoehorning their all-important “Michael Burnham” into this retcon of established Star Trek history.
Now she is not just responsible for the state of relationship between Spock and Sarek, but more pivotally, for Kirk and Spock? Give me a break. It seems not enough to turn this character which few fans outright liked in season 1 into the Mary Sue of the series, they need to make her the linchpin of all of Star Trek!
And here lies another folly of prequel series that Enterprise is guilty of as well: this constant temptation not just to disregard canon, but to put its own (new) characters above the previously established ones. Certainly another poorly characterized and played character, Archer, is guilty of somehow ending up “one of the greatest captains of Star Trek history (nobody ever heard of before)” while being a poor, impulsive Bush-imitation at the time, and before Enterprise “looking back” was NOT the modus operandi of Star Trek for 40 years save for the very occasional “special episode”!
Take it from the words of the Great Bird of the Galaxy who said in a documentary in 1989 shortly after the premiere of the profoundly different, and futuristic TNG: Trek needs to continue and go forward, from one generation to the next one!
The “old guard” fans haven’t had any good Star Trek since DS9 ended 2 DECADES ago and they sure as hell won’t let anything by Kurtzman into their headcanon.
I’m offended by everything Kurtzman makes and there there is never a shortage of people who like the things I do not. Not much I can do about it.
I only wonder why if someone gets the reins for a franchise they claim they like…they end up giving Spock secret a human foster sister or have Luke milk a space manatee. Odd thing to yearn for.
I can’t tell if you’re insulting “old guard” fans or not and being sarcastic. Hm.
Do you have evidence to back up your claim that “few” fans like the character of Michael Burnham? Survey data perhaps? Have you hosted a focus group? Do you have empirical evidence besides comments on niche websites or YouTube comments from militant fans? I’m curious as to how you can claim the character is so disliked.
I’m split, some things Kurzman does I find bold and amazing and others I find bold and awful.
That’s the risk of being bold, though.
And, honestly, I’d rather have Bold Trek than Bland Trek. I’ll watch and support Trek that takes risks, even when it stumbles. I have zero interest or passion for a Trek that maintains the same formula and status-quo. Had 15 years of that, and I’m good.
Yes, that is why I hope the Picard show will not turn out as a TNG reunion show.
The way they are talking about it would make it seem not.
That is the one thing I will give credit to Discovery for. They tried something very different. Not the serialized nature of the show. That has been done before. But the overall tone and feel of the show was like nothing we had seen before. It’s unfortunate the final product was so very very bad.
Most Trek historians contend that Kirk of TOS was not an emotional rebel. Kirk was meant to be a professional who acutely feels the responsibility of command. Bones was often used to voice the emotional point of view. The maverick Kirk was more a product of the movies (especially STIII). As previous commenter points out, one of the most basic lessons of Trek 101 is that Spock is logic, McCoy is emotion, and Kirk is the leader who reconciles the two. (Of course, it doesn’t always break down this way). The distorted, mutating notion that Kirk is a womanizing maverick has a name- Kirk Drift. Erin Horakova has written about it.
That’s one of the most straightforward and dead-on concise posts I’ve seen here recently. Though part of the problem with looking at Kirk in the movies is that you’ve only got half of a baker’s dozen stories being told (counting GEN as 1/2 a film), and the latter ones mostly leverage off his TSFS actions, as if that was the norm, when you’ve only really got AMOK TIME as a previous incident, so it undercuts things, just like the 21st century Bond going rogue has lost meaning because he seems to always do this now (as opposed to the 20th century, when you’ve got the excellent LICENCE TO KILL being the only really signficant example.)
Speaking of GENERATIONS, which I rewatched last week (only dozed off once), has anybody done a comic or novel dealing with the period when Kirk apparently left Starfleet and hung with this Antonia woman? Am guessing this would be just before TWOK, perhaps after wrapping a 2nd 5 yr mission, this time aboard the refit?
I’d argue that even in Star Trek III, Kirk wasn’t a cavalier maverick. He made a very tough, well-considered decision to honor his brother/friend who had sacrificed everything for he and his crew.
In contrast to a lot of Trek captains and commanders (not just series leads), he was less “by the book” and a lot more emotionally driven, and a lot more likely to take a bold risk.
I’ll agree that perhaps “rebel” may be the wrong word, but he was much more likely to engage based on his feelings than by an objective analysis of the situation. Even Riker, for example, while often seen as “Kirk-like” was himself a lot more analytical and by the book despite his penchant to use unconventional tactics and to take risks.
Archer, I think, was an attempt to mimic Kirk (which is why casting Bakula just didn’t work, as his skill as an actor lends itself to a more dispassionate captain), which made a lot of sense in the pre-Federation days.
Picard was a deliberate choice to go the opposite direction, with a very straight laced by-the-book captain.
Boy howdy do I neither need nor want anyone to explain to me how someone got Spock ready for Kirk. What a lame vision for what “Star Trek” in the 21st century should be.
Beyond that, wouldn’t it be nice if the lead character of “Discovery” could be permitted to have her own stories and her own identity? All this fuss is — rightly — being made about having a black woman be the star of a “Star Trek” series, and all that’s being done with her is making her stand behind a bunch of white guys. This is the way to use Sonequa Martin-Green; she deserves better than to play second fiddle to people on her own show.
Excellent post.
Green is the worst lead ever. An unlikable sort, with wooden, stilted line readings worthy of an average 7th grade drama production.
Aren’t you a lovely person? Tell me, do you enjoy making vicious comments about actresses from behind your keyboard? Does it empower you to denigrate on a woman I’m such a fashion? I wonder if you’ve ever done the same about a man (probably not).
Bakula was just as bad as Archer as Green is at Burnham. And I LIKED Enterprise. That said, I think Bakula was miscast. Green is the victim of bad writing.
I wonder if you and I actually have watched the same show……
Spock is NOT a foster child.
Those guys at Midnight’s Edge After Dark called it: Burnham is going to teach Spock how to be Spock.
MIDNIGHT’S EDGE have had a vendetta against DSC from even before it came out, and keep endorsing the ghastly Alec Peters and his “Axanar”.
Anybody advocating a single fate other than prison for Peters loses all cred with me right out of the gate. In a world where I tend to see nearly everything (except violent felons) in shades of grey, he (and in recent years more than a few others) are coming across more and more as a clear-cut well-defined bad guy. Congratulations world, you’ve gotten me to revert to a 7 year old’s view of the world.
If Peters had actually done anything worthy of prison, he would have been charged, brought to court and sentenced…..just sayin’
Geez, look up what the guy has done with defrauding people and studios with his propworx gig, the guy lives to exploit and cheat, thus doing illegal stuff.
He definitely did things worthy of prison, it’s simply a matter of whether the studio felt it was worth the effort of pressing charges, because they’re not the kinds of offenses the city or state will prosecute independently.
Yeah I was thinking of subscribing. They do good work, I hope they keep it up (wink).
Why would anyone listen to anything M.E. has to say? Everything they’ve said is wrong. I mean factually, not opinions.
Heck, they even managed to debunk one of their own “rumors” when they interviewed Meyer!
Nope. Wrong.
Next he will say Burnham helped develop the dry humour Spock had in his jibes with McCoy.
I am up for Burnham being developed better and becoming more likeable, but don’t like idea of her being placed on this pedestal in which we have her to thank for TOS.
I agree, being responsible for TOS is not an honor, but an insult.
Good job that’s not what is happening…
Told ya they were retconning tos Spock story by making it that, instead of him discovering his human side and accepting it (which is his whole story in tos), he apparently was just a human boy before Michael made him vulcan (and then in tos and the movies he had to get back to discovering his human side that he lost because of his sister. .no, wait.)
Told ya they’d turn Spock’s unhealthy delusion and denial about his feelings and human side into a good thing because his hero sis made him vulcan.
I predicted they’d do that because they have given tos Spock’s original arc to Michael already (she tried to be just vulcan at first, came to accept her humanity and feelings. Sounds familiar?) so, of course, poor Spock has to get the reversed arc otherwise it feels like he’s copying his sister. I wonder what Nimoy would think about that.
…and you guys complained about kelvin trek (that is another reality anyway)
I would love it if we avoided all the Spocks entirely and just come up with something new…but yeah.
I don’t understand why everyone wants to run away from developing backstory. I’ve been a fan since the 70’s. There is nothing in all of entertainment more sacred to me than Kirk and Spock. And to me, the chance to have Spock further fleshed-out is the most exciting thing since 1987 and 2009.
THANK YOU. I love Spock, he is my absolute favorite pre-TNG character, and while nobody will EVER touch Nimoy’s interpretation for me, i love the CHARACTER, not just the performance, and a chance to revisit him in a big part of his life we’ve never seen has potential to be very exciting and intriguing.
I personally don’t need multiple interpretations of one character that we seen for decades already, but I’m not speaking for everyone just me. But the REAL issue is we know all people are going to do is spend their days arguing over these differences as we know they will. All you have to do is see how bitter some have for Quinto’s Spock and that character isn’t even in the same universe.
Look, if fans were less fickle about these things, then I would be more on board but I already can tell you exactly how this is going to go and anything that is remotely too different from the original Spock is going to be met with more scorn and hatred instead of just looking at it as another development. Or they are just exploiting the character for more ratings. The responses in this thread already gives an indication how divided its probably going to be.
I hope to be wrong but I doubt I will be.
So you are against something simply because people will argue over it? That’s nonsense, and possibly THE silliest reason to dislike something i’ve ever heard.
I SAID in literally the first line I don’t have any real interest in seeing multiple interpretations of Spock in general. That is the biggest reason and I have stated this many times in other threads for months now. But yes its not the end of the world and I personally think Peck is going to make a good Spock and so I’m intrigued. But yes I also feel its probably a good idea to stay away from it if its only going to UPSET more fans then enlighten them. Again, look at this board. But as I also said I hope to be proven wrong. I had also hope to be proven wrong about Discovery and all the issues I saw coming the second that first trailer was shown but I wasn’t so I don’t feel I will be here.
I’ll make this clear, I AM excited about seeing Spock, OK? But no I don’t think we remotely needed to see him either but of course I get why we are.
Well we don’t remotely need ANY new Star Trek, really.
@Tiger2: If they stay away from any and all story lines that might upset some fickle fans what we end up with is a bland mix of more of the same.
This is true, but when you deal with iconic characters it just makes it worse, especially if they feel its just out of canon to the character they know, which is the real problem. When its new characters and not fighting against 50 years of canon you just have more freedoms. But of course I get why they want to use him like any well known character and I’m not saying they shouldn’t. I just preferred that they didn’t but I can say that about a lot of things on Star Trek.
I agree that it’s risky, and it’s definitely going to be polarizing (what isn’t with this fan base?), but I love that Star Trek is willing to take that risk and dive into TOS backstory as deeply as this. It’s something new for the franchise, and I think the controversy of it is part of the excitement.
I don’t think it risky at all. Not to CBS, anyway. It might be risky to the Trekkers out there. But CBS isn’t interested in just them.
You just said it and I agree. They ARE exploiting the character for ratings. Or in this case, subscribers. And also, I’m feeling like Spock has literally been done to death. Trek really needs to move away from that instead of making new shows that are tangentially related to it.
Well they are clearly using him for ratings. I don’t want to say exploiting him until we see how he is used. If its a story line that’s actually interesting and thoughtful then thats OK.
But I admit I been on both sides of this lol. As I said my first and strongest reaction is just DON’T! Stay away from all of that even if know you its going to get more people’s attention but if you screw it up its going to haunt you forever, hence Khan in STID.
However I would be lying if I said I’m not curious to see him there or how they use him. And we knew the second Michael was made his sister the temptation was too hard to avoid. Eventually he was going to have to show up or people would feel cheated. MY hope is he shows up, they get all the fan service they need out of their system and say they met and we never see him again. But we know the chances of that happening is about as good as Harry Kim or Nurse Chapel getting their own spin off show.
I tend to agree but here is the thing. STID was not done well at all. Yet it made the most money of the three. So while fans may be whining to the end of the day the studio still made plenty of money. Which do you think resonates better?
I’m going to get with the money!
HOWEVER that said he was kept alive for the very reason to be brought back in other films but its clear they knew he was SO hated they completely avoided bringing him back in Beyond. And there was zero indication he would’ve been back in the next one. So I think they felt after all the backlash they got over it it wasn’t worth going through it again even if others did like him.
And many believe Beyond partly bombed because of how much they hated Khan. That can’t be proven but plenty of people online has at least said that just like people claimed they didn’t see Solo because of TLJ.
I think you are on to something with the disappointment of ID leading into Beyond. STID may have been able to bring in casual or non fans of Trek, but the consensus among the hard cores trended in the negative. I really think that held over to Beyond. Many didn’t want to give another Bad Robot flim a shot after being disappointed with Darkness. I really think that played a part in it. Just as I think the goodwill from ST09 helped lead to the bigger BO of STID.
I certainly think its partly true, at least based on what I read online from fans. STID just really soured people on a film I don’t think I’ve ever seen before and there are much hated films in the franchise (certainly worse made ones lol).
To me STID is a little how I feel about Discovery, it had LOTS of problems but it didn’t turn me away from the franchise or anything and why I was still looking forward to Beyond. Sadly after STID, I think enough of the fanbase overall have rejected these movies for good and Paramount probably believes that too now.
@everyone derailing the point. I’m all about showing backstories but, as I clearly explained, I hate retcons especially the kind that fundamentally change the arc of a character.
Tos Spock was a mess and his obsession about trying to be more vulcan than vulcans was unhealthy. It took him years to accept his human side. Now, if he once used to be less uptight and then he changed before Kirk met him, something traumatic must have appended to him to make him reject feelings. Something bad, something negative. If Michael is responsible, she’d have a ‘fault’ and not a merit, like Alex makes it seems, if she is the one who turned Spock into that guy who needed years to overcome his delusions. Here Alex makes it seems that their goal is making it the opposite to give Michael merit for creating the (problenatic disguised as perfect) Spock we saw.
Further, all this idealizing his dynamic with Kirk when, actually, you could say Kirk gave Spock even more a pretext to hide himself in his delusions and pretend to be just vulcan to balance his friend who needed to play the human.
The reboot movies added a backstory to Spock and changed it too. However, they did that without retcons (it is an alternate reality anyway) and it still made sense with canon and is respectful. Why? Because they simply accelerated his emotional development from tos by essentially creating circumstances that make that version of him accept his feelings, thus himself, sooner and find a balance sooner. Their journeys have the same ‘end’ but Quinto’s version got there sooner than Nimoy’s because he could.
Discovery seems to want, instead, to completely change his conflict by making it seems he needs to accept his vulcan side (lol! That never was his issue) . That’s going backwards, not just with his arc but what he represented as the metaphor of a mixed kid.
It’s all a matter of understanding what tos Spock went through in the series and movies and from that, seeing that his backstory should align with that and, at the very least, just try to explain why the guy Kirk met later was so troubled.
But then again, some of you probably think that Spock’s purpose, as well as the end of his story, is getting rid of the silly human boy he once was and become a logical vulcan who doesn’t feel.. so you won’t see any difference, I guess.
Hear hear. I don’t mind the occasional call outs but making an entire season around Spock when their own boat was already full of holes feels like the wrong move. Fix your own ship before grabbing on to someone else’s.
Hey, I have a really out-there, outrageous idea….why don’t we ACTUALLY WATCH THE SHOW and see how this manifests itself? Probably the worst manifestation of a world of instant news and social media is the tendency to take every morsel of news and information, extrapolate on it and give an opinion on that extrapolation as if the whole thing has already happened.
Who f’ing cares? Not me. I like that they are actually creating back stories.
Hate to say it, but I saw this coming from a mile away. The Spock we’ve all known all our lives wouldn’t be Spock without the guidance of the foster-sister we never knew about. Because…2019. Thanks so much, Burnham, for making Star Trek what it was. Please.
We know next to nothing about Spock’s history beyond some snippets here or there (he had a teddy bear with sharp claws). We didn’t even know about his half-brother for decades. So it’s not only believable that he’d never mention Michael, it’s also a giant blank canvas that Kurtzman and the writers can fill to define how Spock became the person he was in TOS.
People change over the course of their lives and Spock is not exempt from that. We haven’t even seen yet what this means, how can you already reject it? It may make TOS-Spock an even stronger character in the end!
The quality of the writing in season one and the guy from the first two Abrams movies in charge (who reduced the characters to caricatures of themselves) doesn’t give me much convidence.
Agreed, this is really exciting, Danpaine! Glad you’re finally seeing the light and looking forward to this!
Exactly. We’re just going to shoehorn this character in that was never mentioned before to remake this old show into the way we think it should be in 2019.
That’s how prequels work, son.
They are not remaking TOS. They are showing a Spock several years before we saw him on TOS. Introducing Burnham hasn’t changed or contradicted anything in TOS. It has added to Spock’s backstory but not remade it.
Sybok was never mentioned before he showed up. Sarek was never mentioned before he showed up. Michael was never mentioned before she showed up. No one is “shoehorning” anyone. Deal with it.
Well, how do you explain how Spock goes from all smiley and shouty (THE WOMEN!!) to what we saw in TOS?
Pike told him to shout less. And he did.
Here is the explanation… The director told Spock to smile and shout. No one knew what Spock was then. The character changed a bit when the show got ordered. And even evolved some more soon after. I can accept that Spock had a foster sister. But I have a hard time buying that she turned him into what we saw on TOS.
As others have said it is insulting to TOS and everything that came before. Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon, D.C. Fontana etc. etc. don’t NEED Kurtzman’s reimagining of how things came to be in TOS. TOS is standing on its own feet, and Discovery is standing on the shoulders of THAT giant, NOT the other way round. The fact is: without the vision of all the mentioned people, Kurtzman would not even have a job for the next 5 years!
I think with what they are doing now they are stepping onto far more dangerous territory than unknown spore drives and reimagined Klingons because it violates the fabric of its core characters.
You know D.C Fontana is still alive, I think the producers should have at least consulted her before writing their own version of Spock.
Why? That’s ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous to consult one of the original writers of a show. Actually its the exact opposite, it can be a form of respect to consult them. Also she wrote the best Spock episodes, that is why.
Well put, VS.
Yet some fans will think this is the best idea ever.
Can’t they just leave Spock alone already? Ironically that is exactly what he would’ve wanted. Discovery is a joke. Bring back Berman and Bragga! Kurtzman always messes with established things instead of creating new things. So frustrating.
Yes let’s bring the two executive producers who staunchly refused to try anything new once they were given the keys to the franchise. Let’s go back to that. Because that worked out so well for Voyager and Enterprise.
A trick will be missed if PU Lorca is not the new permanent captain of Discovery (to be met in Season 3?). Not only is the character charismatic, and Isaacs a fine actor, but there must be a story arc in finding whether the crew trust this incarnation of their captain…
The problem with that is that PU Lorca is the opposite of MU Lorca. Which means he would be boring white bread. We do not need to see Lorca ever again. Let’s not remind the audience of the emasculation of such a potentially rich character.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” helped reinforce the idea that what we know is often enough. We don’t beed an explanation for every aspect of a characters past.
I didn’t mind that movie as much as some though it really wasn’t ultimately necessary. The parts that dragged me down were like, “did we really need to see the origin of his last name? And his pistol?”
UGH.
Ugh, indeed. The name ‘Solo’ pretty much explained itself. We got it.
I don’t even mind it not being his last name. If you need an explanation, i’d be fine enough with it being a teenaged nickname because he’s a rogue who always works alone. But the way they did it, basically looking into the camera and saying “hm, you’re alone. So… Han SOLO.” Please…
Exactly! Which is partly why Solo bombed. No one needs to know every bit of minutiae to like or understand a character. And a character like Han, part of the appeal is that he was mysterious, that’s part of his mystic. That’s what they didn’t get in first place instead of spelling everything out like a book report.
As for Spock, we already know tons. Sure we don’t know EVERYTHING but we already know more about that guy then we do a lot of characters in the franchise. I’m not against learning more, I just don’t care about learning more either. But we both know it has zip to do with learning about Spock and more to do with bringing on a familiar character to get people to tune into AA. But if they came up with something interesting to tell, great.
The same way the Midichlorian explanation killed the mystique that made the Force. It not only was completely unnecessary, it took out the magic. It was no longer something mysterious and therefore interesting. It just made the Force bland.
There’s a quote from music composer Alex North somewhere about movies needing not to show and tell everything in order to work.
See, you’re just like dumb studio exec who takes the wrong lesson. Solo did not fail because it was an origin movie. Han Solo, first of all, was not the kind of character that is popular because he’s mysterious anyway.
I’d love to see more adventures of a young Han Solo, and I think audiences would too, but they need to be better, less contrived movies.
No, that’s not at all why Solo bombed. Solo bombed because of all the bad press, bad publicity, poor reception to TLJ, the over-saturation of the brand, and expectations that were already too high.
In a vacuum, Solo is a good movie. Very good, in fact. It just doesn’t have the feel of an “event film” like previous SW films. They overestimated how much it would make based on the name alone and put way too much money into it. Combine the backlash among SW fans over TLJ, the ballooning budget because they hired the wrong directors for it, and you wound up with a good movie that cost too much, and underperformed.
I said ‘partly’ why it bombed man, ‘partly’. All those things you said are the other reason too. But even BEFORE all of that, bad press, publicity, TLJ, blah, blah, blah people were predicting the film was going to bomb before it even started filming. People cited in multiple threads they just thought having a Solo film was unnecessary and had no interest in it.
Here is just one of MANY threads that was made about it. And yes check the date.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/5karpv/does_anyone_else_just_not_care_about_the_han_solo/
And for the recrod, one of those posts are mine! No I’m not telling you who I am lol but yes this was already the common narrative about the film before ANY of those other problems existed and I was saying even then I didn’t think the film will get a huge audience.
Now to be fair maybe if those other things didn’t happen it may have fared better but the writing was on the wall looooong ago this was a film most fans didn’t think was necessary from day one and that was always the biggest issue IMO.
It didn’t help that they changed directors and overall tone of the movie either. It wasn’t a good movie but it wasn’t terrible either. I also agree that I was never all that curious about Han Solo’s past but a feature about it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They just didn’t do it well. I was, however, VERY interested in Lando and was thinking THAT was a character I would like to see a whole movie about. Glover was PERFECT casting.
SOLO bombed because the actor sucked and so did they story.
Just seen some trailer for a documentary on the History Channel with Quinto. Could they seriously not have gotten him for this?
Nobody knows if they ever considered him. I’m also not sure whether he would have been interested. Even when the Kelvin movies were still being made it was my impression that Quinto wanted to make sure that Trek didn’t become the only thing defining him. Of course we don’t know any details but it seems like Spock is in quite a big part of Discovery season 2. So this would have been quite a big commitment on Qunto’s part. He may not have wanted that, especially with the prospect of also returning as Spock in Kelvin-Trek 4 (which may not happen now but seemed more close to being made a year ago).
It amazes me how everyone hates in the moment. Back in the early 2000s these sites were filled with how everyone thought Berman and Braga were the worst thing that happened to Star Trek. Now it’s all about how Kurtzman is the worst.
I don’t think Discover season 1 was great, but compared to TNG or DS9 it shines. Give them a chance and be glad you have Star Trek on the air fresh and new. Stop complaining.
I honestly think that some of this crowd could never be pleased.
It shines in production values only. In every other category both TNG and DS9 were superior 1st seasons. And I never warmed up to TNG. Consider that…
You might be in the minority on TNG first season, but of course every ST episode is a favorite of someones. :)
I remember when people considered George Lucas Satan and now people are begging him to take back Star Wars (not everyone but more than I thought would lol).
Just how it goes. Trust me, in 20 years time when some new guy (or gal) takes over Trek people will be wondering if they can get Kutzman back after they created a boycott cammpaign that got him fired in the first place.
And I liked DS9 season 1 way better than Discovery. The only seasons I though were worse was TNG and ENT.
Just remember everything Kurtzman says is merely an ad to get people to pay attention. Everyone’s losing their feathers about “who Spock” becomes and why. At the same time, everyone’s in love with Pike – and yet no one thinks there will be a connection? Because they hate Michael? What gives?
Pike is a barely known character from literally the first episode of the franchise, he’s not well defined like Spock is, so they can basically do what they want with him. Spock is a very different matter and the fact they made a new character in canon his sister out of the blue only compounds the issue with some people.
Perfectly stated.
Absolutely right, Tiger.
So many pieces of fan writing from the 70s until the 90s – and I read a lot of it – explored some kind of relationship between Spock, Pike, Number One – that whole crew. The addition of Michael makes sure there is a twist – not a remake of all the fan stories from the 70s.
Yes but none of that is cannon and I doubt most people ever read fan writing. And it would have zero basis for what we are seeing now.
I don’t know why, but I’ll say the same thing twice. The written fan fiction about Pike and Spock is everything that is propelling these new Trek producers to be in this part of the Trek Timeline, even if they haven’t said anything about it. They are really getting to heart of what fandom wanted. Why else would you go backwards? It makes literally no sense otherwise.
Where are you getting any of this is based on past fan fiction? Did someone ever suggest that?
What I am trying to express is that such an enormous amount of fan fiction on young Spock & Pike-related relationships means that fans want a definitive cannon answer. To argue that Michael is the problem is really besides the point. I agree out of the gate she just needs to be written (IMHO) in a way that doesn’t magically make all the other relationships work. But I don’t even believe that’s what they did. Let us complain after they show us the story – not about their marketing language. That’s all we are arguing about.
OK I understand now. And for the record I’m not all that bothered by what Kurtzman said here. The guy is just trying to get people to watch, but it may not be a big deal in the story itself. But no matter what they do with Spock, TRUST ME, someone is going to be angry over it lol.
Currently binge-watching Discovery on Space TV. Two things so far:
1. How much I love ‘Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad’. It’s my my Top 10 Trek episodes, all series included;
2. How much I dislike James Frain’s Sarek. He feels wrong for a whole lot of reasons, some to do with his delivery, others for the way the character is written. I have no idea if it’s the acting or the writing. I hope I’ll like the character more in Season 2.
Well when it comes to Sarek, none have matched the great Mark Lenard’s performance and presence in the role. Like Nimoy will always be Spock, so Lenard will always be Sarek.
I find Frain good, but he just isn’t the same.
I absolutely agree, I think he played the character too emotionally and he seemed to have trouble with the American accent he was using.
Pish-posh. I think Mr Kurtzman may be obfuscating. Lorca will be back; he is very popular, even with critics. I predict in the last ep of Season 2 Mr Isaacs was in Toronto for a few weeks this year and sporting a military-style haircut. Also dropped very subtle hints at DragonCon Atlanta and DST Birmingham in England. Actually I heard they were not so subtle at Birmingham.
Maybe Regular Universe Lorca in a flashback, à la Regular Universe Georgiou coming back in Saru’s Short Trek?
Kirk was the emotion of the Enterprise? Funny, I thought that was McCoy. Kirk was the one who had to balance Spock’s logic with McCoy’s emotionalism and come out somewhere in the middle.
The one scene in all of Star Trek which typifies that relationship is when Spock and McCoy are debating Genesis in TWOK as Kirk looks on.
McCoy: Dear Lord. You think we’re intelligent enough to… Suppose – – what if this thing were used where life already exists?
Spock: It would destroy such life in favor of it’s new matrix.
McCoy: It’s “new matrix”? Do you have any idea what you’re saying?
Spock: I was not attempting to evaluate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create.
McCoy: Not anymore! Now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis! We’ll do it for you in six minutes!
Spock: Really, Dr. McCoy. You must learn to govern your passions; they will be your undoing. Logic suggests –
McCoy: Logic? My God, the man’s talking about logic; we’re talking about universal Armageddon! You green-blooded, inhuman – – !
Yeah, it makes me wonder about Kurtzman if he thinks that KIRK was the emotion, rather than McCoy being the emotion and Kirk being the balance point between the two.
And then there is this, that was brought to mind when mentioning the McCoy Spock thing in WoK… KHAN: You are an excellent tactician Captain. You let your first officer attack, while you sit and watch for weakness.”
What I would like is a simple answer from Alex and/or the other producers about the visual look of the series. Is this a visual reboot of the TOS era to make it feel more like it fits in between the “Enterprise” and “TMP” + eras, and we are suppose to imagine that the TOS stories happened, but everything really looked like they do as in “Discovery,” or is the visual look part of an ongoing plot, and that in 10 years time, the Enterprise is going to look just like the ship we saw in TOS (as implied by John Eaves), admittedly with a few extra details like thruster ports, phaser turrets, and torpedo launchers….
If it is indeed a visual reboot that won’t morph into the look of classic TOS, how far forward does this visual reboot look apply, before it morphes into the still established look of the later Trek universe? I see no reason to have to reboot the look of TMP, TNG, DS9. And VOY, eras. They hold up just fine to the measure of visual believability as advanced tech.
@Thomas Johnson — yup that’s pretty much what I expect. Just like the Klingons in TMP were intended to represent the way the Klingons had always looked in TOS, not some genetic mutation ill-conceived by producer’s out of ideas 30 years later. TMP also completely changed the visual look of the Trek universe. TNG looks like somebody with a degree in hotel design who did their thesis on hotels of the future, and if the Picard show merely copies that now dated look, I’ll be incredibly dissapointed. The look of Star Trek will change every few decades, that’s just the nature of the business. Trek has always been a projection of ourselves into our own future, and new movies and TV series should reflect that from the expectations of the time they’re made, not be beholden to a look established decades earlier, reflective of that generations expectations.
I didn’t have a problem with an in universe explanation being created for the different look of the Klingons. It made for a dramatic story and I liked it.
To me TMP, TNG, etc still look futuristic and believable, and don’t need visual reconning. I don’t have an issue with the look of “Enterprise” either and thought it did a fine job of trying to look futuristic from the present day, yet still more antiquated than TOS and TNG, which was hard. Nostalgic effection and the desire for technological and visual history aside, when looking at the universe of the franchise as a whole, TOS is the only link in the chain that looks out of place and “dated,” and we all know the reasons why. So I can understand and even appreciate them reconning the look of this era in Trek history to look like it actually belongs in between the ENT era and the TMP/TNG era etc.
What I want from the producers is a simple answer/explanation as to how far reaching this visual reconning extends, if it applies to the whole franchise, or is being limited to the TOS era, and the Enterprise as we see it in Discovery is still going to be refit into the ship we saw in TMP. Of course that means that they can’t claim that the Enterprise in Discovery is 450m long like they did, when the TOS Enterprise was was 289m and then refitted/rebuild to be 305m long, But some behind the scenes production stills from season 2 showing the technical specs of the Enterprise seem to imply that the producers have changed their minds on that and that the Enterprise has been resized to the same size ship as she was in TOS.
@Thomas Johnson — obviously I disagree with you. I don’t like the TNG era. I didn’t mind Enterprise, but I also wouldn’t mind if someone else re-imagined the way it looks 20 years from now either. My point is that I do hope they reboot the TNG era designs. In the end, neither of us are really going to have any input in this. A clear answer from producers now, about something they may not have really given much thought to is pointless. Producers often are vague about their plans, most likely because they don’t know what they’re going to do yet, and don’t want to set up expectations one way or the other. TV production especially moves so fast that they can barely keep up with today, much less tomorrow.
In the end, how does that information help us? We’ll all find out together as we watch the show. Knowing what they intend, even if that were possible, doesn’t really change anything, except perhaps diminish someone’s enjoyment knowing the look of the series is going to deviate or not from their expectations, which may turn out better than they expected in execution and not be the disappointment imagined anyway.
Perhaps so, but I still stick by my viewpoint.
One major reason though for my wanting an answer, is that it effects how I organize and categorize my ever growing display of starship models. 🤓
I actually would not be against doing a TNG reboot. I mean, a complete reboot. I want the ship to look different and I want the characters to be more interesting. The good thing about reboots is they can take an idea and maybe do a better job with it.
I’m a huge TNG fan and it made me the fanatic I am today even though I grew up watching TOS first. But I hope they don’t reboot it. One because I just want to see new things but two because I don’t want it to be the Kelvin movies again and everyone is fighting about every little thing EVEN THOUGH its a reboot. And it can still just be a bad one.
But I’m sure one day they will reboot it just like I’m sure they will TOS. Thankfully it won’t be anytime soon now that they are continuing that universe again with the Picard show. But I imagine if that show is super popular someone may think of a reboot down the road.
Rebooting something as iconic as Star Trek is a bit of a tightrope. You do a sub par job and the result is “why do it in the first place?” or “You spit on the legend!” But it it works out well, then you’re a bit of a hero. For the KU, I was torn. I loved the TOS characters. They were already great. So why redo something that was already great? But then, I loved the characters so much I also wanted to see more of them. For me, as I was not nearly attached to the TNG characters, that one felt like a better choice for a reboot.
I suspect there could be a TNG reboot at some point. But not just yet. Probably not until at least one or two of the TNG cast has passed away. And I still think Krik and Spock resonate better with non fans than Picard does. And I think it likely there will be another TOS reboot of some sort before we see a TNG reboot. Just my guesses.
They spoke about Spock getting “prepared” for Kirk. Well, it always seemed to me that Pike, more than anyone else did that. He was so loyal to Pike that he risked execution. Not sure what Burnham can add to that. But I guess we will find out…
“It’s very serialized. There are no real one-offs.” Good to see Alex learning from previous mistakes…