Star Trek Day brought our first look at the upcoming third season of Star Trek: Picard and at the event, TrekMovie had a few moments to talk to showrunner Terry Matalas, who gave us more details on what we can see in the new teaser trailer, and what to expect when the season arrives in February.
In our podcast interview, you talked about how you have a new DP (director of photography) for the show, And this new trailer looks very different, very much like a movie. Is that just trailer editing or does the show have a different look and feel in season 3?
It does. It is very different. We really wanted to make this as cinematic an experience as possible. If there wasn’t going to be a final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie then this 10-episode series would serve that and feel like that. So when it comes out, my recommendation would be to turn off the lights, pop some popcorn, and you got 10 chapters ahead of you that should feel as cinematic as possible.
Let’s talk ships. What can you tell us about the USS Titan?
So, in the trailer, you see our hero ship of season three. It’s actually a class that’s called, in Starfleet slang, the Neo-Constitution class or Constitution III. It’s based on a design by fan Bill Krause. Let’s say there are a few fan-designed ships that are canonized this season in the fleet.
But this is the Titan-A?
It is the Titan-A, yes. You’ll see in the season, that in the observation room we honor the previous Titans that have come before. You’ll see a gold model of the Luna class USS Titan as seen in Lower Decks, which was designed by Sean Tourangeau. And we even see a previous incarnation from the TOS movie era. We’ll see that there was a Titan that was a bit of a Constitution class as well, the original Shangri-La class [designed by Bill Krause]. So, the idea was that after the Luna class’s legacy run with Riker, that ship was damaged and retired. Some of the systems were refit and put into this new Titan, the Titan-A.
What kind of ship is it for Starfleet, more workhorse or more flagship?
It is a classic exploratory vessel that is a bit of an underdog in the situation that it gets into. So we really wanted to take a moment here and think about where Starfleet is at and how it would see advantages in the diversification of ship designs including purpose-built ships that were designed for specific types of missions. The new Titan is more of a long-range workhorse of a ship. Harkening back to the Constitution class that was designed for the long 5-year missions. It is an exploratory vessel with some serious maneuvering capabilities. Have you seen those impulse engines? Phew!
The Titan-A shows off its quad impulse engines
Can you talk about the design process, and maybe who worked on it?
The Luna class felt like it was more TNG-era than the Picard-era we set up with the new Stargazer, so we looked at many, many designs. I sat with [Picard production designer] Dave Blass along with Doug Drexler and John Eaves—both of which are Trek legends. One of the things we noticed was that the ships were starting to get a bit too aerodynamic. Oval and arrowheads. All curves, no angles. No proper saucers. We were quickly heading to Enterprise-J territory. So, we asked ourselves what if Starfleet designers looked backward to some of those old retro designs and updated them?—not unlike today’s modern car designers. But there needed to be a logic to it.
Doug Drexler had the idea that the round saucers and the wide saucers are inherently more stable in an emergency atmospheric entry. Not that we would see that in the season, but hey! It happens! His notion was that the elongated primary hull is more dependent on aerodynamic force fields, and ship’s computers to glide them in. So we started to tell ourselves some Trek stories to flesh it all out. Starfleet experienced an incident during an emergency atmospheric entry where a certain Sovereign class primary hull maybe inverted and perished. Then a repeat incident happened with an Intrepid class primary hull. Doug noted that nothing like this had ever happened in the long history of circular and wide-tracking hulls. Software solutions were computer tested but not 100% successful. Why this weakness did not show up in computer trials of the Sovereign is still a matter of debate amongst Starfleet engineers. Just ask Geordi. [laughs]
And that is why it has more of a retro design compared to ships like the Enterprise-E?
Well, the Enterprise-E was also created during the time of the Borg invasion and had a specific design put in it for that purpose. Now that the Borg are no longer seen as a major threat, the new designs would revert back to previous “scientific exploration” type designs. It’s also worth noting that with the Federation growing it’s harder and harder to get consensus on anything in Starfleet. One admiral pushes for building a bunch of the same design ships so that they can be replicated quickly and then parts can be exchanged. Thus, you end up with the Zheng He or Inquiry class fleet. The problem is once an enemy finds a flaw, they can exploit that on an entire fleet. You only learn this until you lose a whole squadron of ships, which is what Doug Drexler theorized happened with the Inquiry class.
Doug had an amazing take on this. He’d say, “A Jeep still is a Jeep.” And there are logical utilitarian reasons why the Jeep still works and hasn’t gone away, and won’t go away. Classic Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses were designed in 1932. They haven’t changed! Because it’s a perfect design. C’mon, the P-51 Mustang hasn’t been surpassed. And that’s why Maverick flies one in Top Gun. That design is almost 100 years old! And the Constitution Class starship is a perfect design. So, this is simple aircraft logic. That’s what defines Star Trek tech. You can thank Matt Jefferies.
The new USS Titan
There are some other ships in the trailer, can you tell us about those?
There is a science medical vessel you see early on, called the SS Eleos. That’s the first ship you see, and that’s Beverly Crusher’s ship.
Do you mean she is captain, or just assigned to this ship?
She is not assigned. She’s also not in Starfleet. I can’t really say much more than that.
Beverly Crusher’s ship, the S.S. Eleos.
But that is a Starfleet ship?
It used to be a Starfleet ship.
And it’s being attacked by some crescent-shaped ship, almost looks Ferengi?
They are not Ferengi.
The SS Eleos being attacked by an unknown ship.
What can you tell us about the Spacedock? Is it a new Spacedock or the old one with some add-ons?
It’s a new Spacedock. You actually find out the fate of the old Spacedock this season, but the new one is very much in the spirit of the Spacedock that I have certainly come to love in Star Trek III, and IV, and VI. I love that nautical feeling of a giant Spacedock and ships coming to and from around Earth. I just really wanted to return to that Starfleet pomp and circumstance.
The new Spacedock seen in the trailer.
Riker really feels like the core of this trailer, I think he has more lines than Picard. Does that translate to the season? Is he the core of season three?
Picard is very much foremost and at the center of everything in this. But Riker I would say, Riker and Beverly I would say, are very close number twos. But there is a lot of Riker, so if you are a fan of Will Riker, you are going to get a healthy dose of Riker. And some Riker you have never seen before. Some Riker you always wanted to see before. You are going to get a lot of things you always wanted for Christmas.
Regarding Seven, even though she greets them and sits in the chair, she’s not the captain of the Titan?
Saavik wasn’t the captain when she sat in the chair and took the ship out of Spacedock. So she’s not the captain. She’s definitely a commander.
Is the captain of the Titan someone we know?
To be announced. That captain is also a major character. It’s not a character you’ve ever seen before and you will be hearing more about the Titan-A from this captain. And it’s an actor that I’m very, very fond of.
Very fond? You have previously hinted at some 12 Monkeys people, so is that the connection?
I will say there are a few actors from the television series 12 Monkeys in this season that are pretty fantastic.
Commander Seven on deck.
More to come
TrekMovie spoke to a number of celebrities an creatives at on the purple carpet at Star Trek Day 2022. So check back for more exclusive interviews.
Rewatch the trailer
Star Trek: Picard season 3 arrives Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. Following its premiere, new episodes of the 10-episode long final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Picard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed concurrently by Paramount Global Content Distribution on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
Keep up with news for the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
His explanation for the Titan works for me!
He just made it up. 😂
But… isn’t everything made up?
LOL yeah.
Yep everything is made up. Huge surprise to some lol
PPSSHH no. Captain Branson went back in time and told Roddenberry everything.
Tolkien: The Ring gave Gollum unnaturally long life.
A34: You just made that up!
Tolkien: Yeah?
As opposed to… every other aspect of Star Trek, which is non-fictional?
Yeah, I still don’t love some of the design (mostly the secondary hull), but I do like the reasoning behind it, and also love that we’ll learn the fate of the previous Titan and space dock.
top of secondary hull really has an unfinished look in top pic, like somebody forgot to detail the shell.
Yes, the secondary hull looks completely ununiform to the neck connecting the primary hull. Also i will always prefer pylons that are straight over curved unless that are the Enterprise D ones.
Whatever “aerodynamics” Doug mentioned sounds like bullshit. I wish they actually consult their inhouse science advisors about it.
I really like how he gives very specific credit to designers and the kinds of feedback info they provided, rather than just using an imperial ‘we.’
He kind of lost me with his love of spacedock (I know, I know, mine is a minority view, but to me that orbiting blimp hangar was the first step down on the path away from Probert and towards JJ’s built-on-Earth nonsense.)
At least they built a suspenseful sequence out of the design of Spacedock, ie the doors opening. It is somewhat remarkable they could get something out of the Enterprise backing out of the garage. Though, Horner’s score did a lot of help there.
For me it was a little too obvious a setup; once you saw it had doors (to differentiate the vacuum of space from the vacuum of spacedock, I guess, or for dockworkers who didn’t want to wear RayBans inside their spacehelmets), you just knew that getting out was going to be harder than getting in. (and I still wonder about all those travel pods and shuttles trapped in there in TVH … were they all just caroming off the walls for the next day or two until Kirk righted things?)
I still think I’d’ve given the whole thing a pass if they’d really managed to ring all the suspense out of it that was possible, but the fact they didn’t have Sulu pivoting the ship through a quarter-barrel roll (so the engines would have been lined up with the doors opening vertically) was a missed bit of visual excitement for me. Of course if they’d just had the doors opening horizontally, that wouldn’t be so much of an issue.
My preferred or dream version of TUC — very little of which is in common with the movie except the premise — would have concluded with a near-totalled Enterprise riding point ahead of Kronos-1, blasting away at spacedock, which is crewed with Cartwright’s people, and eventually Kirk, riding solo, rams into the damn thing and takes it down into the atmosphere, allowing the Klingon peace party to reach Earth safely. Would have rid the universe of that mushroom for a time and given both Kirk and the -A an excellent dramatic ending, sort of DOOMSDAY MACHINE without the just-in-time rescue. But to quote TURNABOUT INTRUDER, “If only … if only.”
Okay then.
Of course, you could wait until the real 23rd Century (and probably beyond) before Paramount would have ever approved such a thing. The irony being, it would have beaten the hell off of the character falling from a bridge.
You’ve probably read how I wanted Trek to go after TSFS, with the crew staying renegade on the BoP. That’s as clear a way as I can imagine to show how my mind is WAY off from Paramount thinking (as is the way I wanted to follow up GEN, with a miniseries focusing on the E-B and the fact that all the political paranoia stuff in TUC was very much alive and festering for years afterward.)
Well, it probably was festering afterwards. How else could Spock and Kurzon have been Federation representative to the Khitomer accords? I’ve always thought there had to be more than one to get things really settled.
In terms of the in-universe logic of the design, I agree. But, dammit, I still think the thing looks cool.
Agreed.
I had a reply that fell out when the power cut here, but the short version is: had a lengthy debate nearly 20 years back with somebody (hobbytalk, trekbbs?) over the spacedock, and finally concluded that if they PeterEllenshaw’d it I’d stop complaining. That is to say, do what Peter Ellenshaw did for or to Robert McCall’s design for the CYGNUS in THE BLACK HOLE – keep the essential silhouette — so it is still ginormous, which is a selling point for some — but change it from slab-sided to filligree, which would tie back into the drydock of TMP while still increasing visual interest, since you’d be able get veiled looks at the stuff inside through all the piping.
Interesting. I like the veiled looks idea. I always loved that part of TMP… and TWOK.
I was in a very spirited debate over this at some forum or other nearly 20 years back, and the compromise I finally reached was to ‘Peter Ellenshaw the thing.’ As in what Ellenshaw did with (or to) Robert McCall’s art for the Cygnus in THE BLACK HOLE. Keep the silhouette/profile/size to make all the ‘big is better’ fans happy, but make it as filligreed as the drydock from TMP, so you can see in a veiled way through all these veiny pipes into lit sections within.
This interview is like a security blanket. Someone out there loves you.
Very that.
I’m very tempted to wait for the entire 10 episodes to run and then watch this en masse. Go for the ‘cinematic feel’ as much as possible. This waiting week-to-week nonsense kills the momentum with serialized shows, imo. This franchise isn’t the only culprit, by far.
I’m tempted to do the same, but I am afraid of spoilers for 10 weeks. I might watch it weekly then if its good enough, do the first re-watch of any nu-Trek I’ve ever done.
Yeah, that’s the approach I am taking now with both the new LOTR and GoT shows — waiting until the first season ends, then watching them within 3-4 days.
I’m not a big Lower Decks fan, so I cancelled P+ and I am waiting to binge the season. I think the shows with a season arc to them are better watched that way. Not that LD is, I just didn’t feel the need to pay for 2-3 months to watch it.
If only I had the self-control. They should totally go Netflix for this particular season. Picard for better or for worse has always seemed like it would flow so much better if you could binge-watch it from first release.
Seems like people who actually understand and care about Star Trek are putting time and thought into many of the decisions for Season 3.
But I’ve been fooled before, namely by 4 seasons of Discovery and 2 of Picard, I’m very weary.
Yes, but we’ve also had a season of Strange New Worlds, so there is some basis for optimism.
It is nice to know so many people who worked on season 3 worked on the other classic shows before so that’s a huge plus for me.
But yeah that’s the issue for me as well, EVERY season of both Discovery and Picard has looked real promising and started off great in some cases and I been let down again and again personally. Maybe this will change but I still remain cautiously optimistic. I am liking everything I am seeing though.
The big difference for me is every Berman era show, at least IMHO got good or at least pretty decent by season 3. Discovery is well past that. But Picard hasn’t crossed that line yet.
Definitely agree there. All the Berman shows only got better in time and why they all remain popular today. Even Enterprise has gotten MORE popular today than when it got cancelled. I don’t know if Discovery has gotten worse by season 4 but ‘better’ is not a word I’ll use either.
Picard obviously can end on a big high note, but we won’t know until it airs obviously.
Great interview! I started watching 12 Monkeys recently after learning Terry would be working on Picard (12 Monkeys had been on my radar for a while I just never got around to it) and I am loving it. Really looking forward to season 3. I loved the original Picard cast (Soji, Rios, Jurati especially) and am a bit bummed we aren’t getting more of Rios and Soji (Jurtati’s arc was wrapped well I thought). Elnor’s character also didn’t have a chance to do much. Still, of course I am happy we’ll be getting the TNG cast back for this. I get it, it was their last chance to do so. If there’s no good story reason for Soji and Elnor (who is a cadet) to still be involved in the show then they shouldn’t be forced into it.
I truly have faith that Terry knows what he’s doing here. He is a good writer from what I’ve seen (12 Monkeys and early Picard S2 was strong) and he’s a longtime Trek fan. As someone whose mostly enjoyed all the new Trek shows and is still looking forward to new seasons of them (and most of classic Trek of course), I am really excited for this.
Really happy you are watching 12 Monkeys! There are dozens and dozens of us fans for that show here and other places. I watched it when it originally aired and was hooked on that show but I love time travel shows in general. But 12 Monkeys took those concepts and ran away with it in an way I haven’t seen in a long long time. Ironically it was a big reason I was so excited for Picard season 2, not just because Matalas was working on it, but because I thought we were going to get a lot of the same crazy time travel ideas and concepts since Star Trek has done a lot of loopy things (no pun intended ;)) with time travel in the past too.
Instead it was just a run-in-the-mill go to the past and preserve the future story line we seen over and over again on Star Trek, only stretched out to 10 episodes that ran out of ideas by episode 7. If the story itself was more interesting that would’ve been fine too of course but it was pretty bad IMO. Really bad.
So hoping season 3 will be better but 12 Monkeys shows he’s an amazing writer and now since he’s running season 3 by himself then it will show more. But it got you to watch 12 Monkeys so that was already a big plus!
Quick Q, which streaming service is 12 Monkeys on? I wanna check it out too.
If you live in America, it’s Hulu!
And if you don’t have it, it’s well worth getting it for one month to binge the show. That’s how strongly I feel about it. I think they have a free week for new subscribers. My advice, try and watch a few episodes if so and if you’re not liking it, then cancel before its up. Or just binge it all in a week lol.
Hulu. Live in America and I have it! Just not the Live TV version but that doesn’t matter. Thanks!
OK great!
And I would love to know your thoughts on it when you finish. I hope you can remember my handle assuming I haven’t left or just finally banned by then, but let me know what you thought if you do watch it.
Don’t worry, I’ll remember. And i am amirami just about everywhere I post online :)
I still don’t follow his logic. Yes, Old things still exist today and function today, but today’s Jeep is a far cry from the old Jeep, and a F-22 isn’t remotely similar to a P-51 Mustang despite ostensibly being for the same purpose.
If it’s supposed to be an old ship then thats fine, but what I don’t buy is the fact this is very deliberately mentioned as a successor to the Titan, given the suffix, and shares a single element with contemporary ships (The nacelles from the Stargazer which looked like a newer version of a ship) whilst still having literal components from 100s of years old designs.
Maybe just call it a hommage to both the Titan and the Constitution Class?
And maybe there’s also a very nostalgic admiral and loves retro designs?
Judging from dialogue about the Stargazer, it would seem Starfleet is suddenly hell bent on turning every ship into a ship of theseus, which considering post scarcity is kind of a silly prospect. You could literally recycle that matter into newer, better forms.
Seems to mee he pulled this logic out of his ass after the backlash to the retro design.
I like a retro design. I think they came up with it over the backlash on the Discovery era ships? I can’t stand any of them or their detached nacelles.
I still don’t get what purpose detached nacelles serve. The 32nd century tech depicted seems so weird and unadvanced.
How could he have? They interviewed him before many had the chance to comment.
If you looked at how they reintroduced the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Camaro quite a few years back – they looked at the past design of the cars for inspiration, whereas the Corvette has no resemblance to it’s predecessors.
Yet none of these are literally the same car they were in the 1960s. The Titan A saucer is pulled from a TMP era ship with extremely minor additions. Visually it looks like its 150 years older than the rest of the ship. It doesn’t flow.
Yet I never said that they were the same car from the 60s. Of you had bothered to actually read what I wrote, I said that they were inspired from the original. Not that difficult to understand. And that is exactly what he had said… Inspired from the ships of the past. I actually like the round saucer section. I’ve actually missed that look. The pointy nosed “saucer” section of the newer ships really didn’t work for me. Glad they are going back to some style.
I never said you said they were, but the saucer on the Titan IS literally ripped from TMP.
You mean in the fact that it is round. That is the only resemblance I see. But I do like the round saucers much better. I love that classic look. I love that inspiration.
In a world where we have to accept everything that we see on Lower Decks as stuff that actually happens in Star Trek’s future canon history, these kinds of inconsistencies/problems seem relatively minor.
Everything Lower Decks has done hasn’t seemed out of place. If anything, I much prefer their Obena Class Excelsior variant to the Excelsior II. Because again, it was something old tweaked to something different. We now have Excelsior II, Constellation II and Constitution III/Neo Constitution/ Titan III class. All really clunky nomenclature whereas Lower Decks has stuck with traditional naming schemes for Trek ships and classes.
The Cerritos itself is a visual callback to the TNG Aesthetic whilst very much being its own thing. This is all I want from Trek. It’s own thing whilst fitting in with the era its supposed to be from.
I have to agree. I think one of the reasons why Lower Decks is liked because it was the first show in the new era that tried to painfully stay accurate to the Prime the universe we knew for the last 50 years. I still remembered hearing the sound of the holodeck door opening in the first episode of season one and I remembered smiling because I haven’t heard or seen it in canon in literally 20 years. But if felt exactly like you would see it on the classic shows.
That was the complete problem with Discovery, it tried to overwrite the universe and failed miserably IMO. With LDS, they honored what came before but would add tweaks here and there. And of course it’s animated so it has a more creative license to do things a little differently but has done nothing major so far IMO.
LD clearly from a pure story perspective sticks to canon. WAY more than Discovery ever did as you mention.
I believe the problem isn’t that. I believe the problem people have is that LD doesn’t feel like it’s adhering to canon because it’s the first Trek show based on comedy and not drama. For 20+ years of Berman era Trek we had a 24th century world where people barely ever laughed and everything was aways so serious. Whether it was Picard being assimilated or the Dominion war or a crew lost 70 years from home or Florida being blown to bits. Is it any wonder when the first show of Trek’s return was so dire?
But the “prequel” generation of Trek fans I think tend to forget just how goofy TOS was. For every dead serious Balance of Terror or City on the Edge of Forever we had Spock’s Brain or Space hippies. And honestly one wasn’t any less “Trek” than the other.
Yeah I agree with that too, I think it’s the humor that still bothers some fans who don’t like it. Or people who thinks it’s not funny enough but it still goes to the same problem. Star Trek has always been a serious affair even though all the shows and a few films have had comedic episodes, situations and characters. But LDS isn’t just making the story it’s telling more lighter, it’s doing that to the universe as a whole while being more self aware; which is how most animated shows act today.
But that’s why I love the show, LDS tells people Star Trek isn’t just for ultra serious uptight nerds and knows the universe it takes place in is ridiculously absurd lol. So much craziness happens in the Star Trek universe than any other sci fi or fantasy franchise (although MCU is getting up there with the craziness these days), it’s hard to take it all seriously. That’s why the great Koala joke lands so well because it’s no less ridiculous than Vulcan Katras, non-linear aliens living in a wormhole, running into an Abraham Lincoln clone in space, fighting off alien Nazis or turning into salamaders after hitting warp 10 etc, etc. The difference is those things are couched in a super serious matter; but it’s all the same sci fi hokum end of the day. LDS just like to play around with it all.
But yet it still sticks to the values of what Star Trek is and every episode emphasizes them in some way. Either you appreciate that or you don’t I guess. I appreciate it fully.
I appreciate it too. And that’s the brilliance of make the show about lower tier officers. Obviously they aren’t going to carry the weight of the world that the senior officers do. So they story even rings true to a large degree.
I also think that’s why fans love the show more too because after season after season of Discovery and Picard saving the galaxy again and again it was just nice to have simple stories and lower ranked Starfleet officers dealing with more mundane issues. Maybe if the show came out at a different time or before those did, the reception could’ve been different. But it was just nice to have a show that didn’t take itself SO seriously on top of these overly large stakes every season.
Now that we have SNW and Prodigy it’s feeling like a better balance of shows with more ‘normal’ problems again like trying to move a comet from destroying a civilization or getting off a sentient murder planet that conjures up your thoughts into reality so it can eat you (it’s still Star Trek, right?). But LDS still focuses more on the mundane than those more often than not and why so many like it.
So true about SNW. It doesn’t just *look* so much like TOS with the amazing ship and uniforms and bridge and cast, it feels like it too with the perfect mix of drama AND comedic mix. They know when to lighten the F up
Hey there, I don’t know if you saw the new LDS episode yet but watching the cold opening to that episode made me think of this conversation we had here lol. NO spoilers but it really went directly to the point of how ridiculously absurd the Star Trek universe can be since they took that directly from a previous Star Trek episode (although one of the worse Star Trek episodes IMO) and made fun of it in the best way possible.
This is why I love LDS! And yes agreed about SNW. Another reason why it was popular out of the gate as well. But it just proves as much as we say as fans we want different stuff, reality we love our comfort food too as it’s probably the most ‘traditional’ Star Trek show since Enterprise ended.
In automotive design, modern day Ford Mustangs, Dodge Challengers and Jeep Wranglers intentionally call back retro legacy design cues from their predecessor models decades ago, but these are consumer products; retro design is done in a bid to increase sales. Why would Starfleet – essentially a military organization — need to do that?
And even so, those modern car callbacks are just that – echoes of past designs. They don’t literally use the same hood as a ’67 mustang with holes cut into it, which is what this Titan is doing with the Saucer. If you could have just made the saucer echo that look, then fair enough. Make it visually different from the TMP aesthetic but influenced by. You can still make it a circular saucer Terry. You can still have height to it. STO already did it with the Exeter Class. Just do a riff on that.
Exactly this. They’re literally reusing the exact saucer with the rounded long windows in nearly identical arrangements, with a lower sensor dome and the rounded blue navigational deflector all identical from that of a refit constitution–from what I can see. It’s almost like someone grabbed those parts from the Enterprise-A and slapped them on. The new Ford Broncos call back and are ‘inspired’ by the older design, but the lines, the shape and build is entirely new and original. It’s not like they grabbed the square headlights from the 1987 Bronco and slapped them on the 2022 version.
Here I thought we were moving onto more organic, rounded and sharper curves not literally grabbing parts from a ship a century earlier. (cue Picard facepalm)
Actually, I bought a new Ford Bronco. And I bought it for the lines and resemblance to my original Ford Bronco when I was a teenager.
But with the shape of the Mustangs, Challengers and Camaros… they don’t use the same hood but they do use that same shape and outline of the body.
Really pleased Riker will be front and centre of the series. I always felt he was side lined as the TNG series went on and in the movies in favour of Data. It was great catching up with him in Nepenthe and seeing how he had changed and his relationship with Picard had evolved.
In a way he’s the character that’s come the furthest (of the legacy characters we have seen so far), from the fresh faced young officer being given the run around by his captain in Encounter at Farpoint to a mature peer of Picard’s. Love seeing them together on screen.
Yeah truly love Riker and happy he’s going to be front and center of this season. He was one of my favorite characters from the very start and loved him in all the films and other shows he popped in from time to time. And while I didn’t love Nemesis I did like that they gave him and Troi a nice way to end their arc by marrying them off and finally giving the guy his own ship which he probably should’ve gotten by season 5 in TNG. And it’s really fun to see that story arc continue in both Lower Decks (he’s suppose to be back on that show this season too) and obviously Picard. He was one of the best things about season one and it sounds like he’ll be in every episode of this season too if he’s joining up with Picard in the first episode.
Frakes must be pinching himself that he’s so integrated in Star Trek again, both in front of and behind the camera. And who knows, if we do get another Star Trek movie before 2030 in some form, he could possibly be a contender to direct the next one. NOT holding my breath but anything seems possible right now.
RE: Frakes directing the next movie, and if the next movie isn’t going to be Kelvin, the real question is whether or not the next set of movies will still be Bad Robot or go to Secret Hideout.
Great question, but I have no idea. It would make sense that Secret Hideout would get them if Bad Robot was done though but it’s probably not that simple obviously. I don’t care if Bad Robot stays or goes in terms of making a film as long as they can make other Star Trek films if this movie ends up being cancelled. And if it is I HOPE they do move on from the Kelvin cast only because it’s probably a big reason why it’s taking so long to make another movie because of the costs and fear the next one could bomb too. It was literally why the Hemsworth film was cancelled.
So IF this is cancelled too, hopefully they will move on to something smaller and maybe give Frakes the chair again if he wants it. But yes, I know its a long shot but a fanboy can dream lol.
Agreed about the Kelvin cast. Nothing against them, I thought they were all great in their roles (as directed) but between Pine and Saldana and probably Pegg they cost way too much. And with us already knee deep in TOS territory with SNW we don’t need it in the movies too.
I know the movies have different versions of Spiderman and soon Batman but I don’t think general audiences could take it with James T Kirk simultaneously. For almost 50 years there has only ever been one.
While I was never a huge fan of the Kelvin films, I always liked them. And if they keep making more of them, I would have no issue with that even though I would prefer something different or new at this point.
The problems is, well, we all know the problem lol. They seem stuck between a rock and a hard place. They seem afraid to move on from the Kelvin actors because it’s all they done in over a decade now but seem to afraid to make a movie with them as this will be the third attempt in six years. Something is seriously wrong there and it’s most likely money related.
I don’t want this to be another rant against Paramount and the movies (I been in a very good mood reading this thread ;)) but either make the movie or just put it on the back burner for a few years and come up with something new with a cheaper cast (and Frakes as director?) that everyone can get on board with. It’s clear they are not all on board with the film they are working on now.
And I just feel the Kelvin movies has had their time and the audience has basically moved on years ago already. They were already moving on when Beyond showed up and that was already six years ago and that was when there was no other Star Trek around.
Now that people have Picard, Janeway, Kirk and etc back not only on the small screen again but also back in the Prime universe as well which is what most fans cares about, it’s harder to make these movies feel more relevant today. And I think Paramount feels the same way at the moment.
OK, NO MORE movie talk lol. I always end up falling down this well for some reason. I guess because I want an actual movie. :(
LOL fair enough
I love Riker but to be fair her wasn’t nearly as sidelined as Crusher was. I’m really happy she is getting her turn in the spotlight now. As for Data, sure he is 3rd in command not second, but from the very beginning he was envisioned as TNG’s version of Spock and was always going to be in the spotlight next to Picard.
The more I watch that trailer, the more excited I get. It looks like we might very well, at last, get a strong season of PICARD.
It’s by no means a deal-killer, but I’ll just never love the Titan-A, sorry. To these eyes it’s ugly as sin — like the J.J.-Prise, a Constitution class gone entirely wrong.
Found it ugly at first but it’s slowly growing on me. Like the first time I saw the Excelsior in ST III – looked odd but practical and a logical evolution; same as the Titan-A.
By comparison the JJPrise looks like a model of restraint (and the alt-1701-A is more of a move back towards the TOS look, and I hope we get to see it on screen at least once).
These ships are very, very kitbashy, very fan-art to me.
Bill Krause is super talented, but I think what I’m missing here is some form of design unity.
I don’t think you can take a neo-Constitution saucer and just stick it on a weird angular body and then have weird curvy pylons and then angular nacelles; the shapes are fighting each other.
Whether you liked the 1701-D or not, it had design unity – ovals and curves, a good play of positive and negative space, it looked grand and futuristic, and that design language carried over into the bridge.
The TOS 1701 was sleek cylinders and spherical segments, very streamline deco, which was subtly updated for TMP.
The SNW 1701 doesn’t really deviate from the TOS formula, feeling like a plausible precursor or intermediate refit to the TOS version (or, as many say, ‘it always looked like that, we just got the low definition version first’).
This one.. if you were going to have design unity you’d either have to pick angular 25th century, or trad Constitution, and stick with it, not try to split the difference in an ungainly way.
Also, something I don’t get about the VFX here is the light bloom from every source, as if there’s fog or dust in space. At least in the KT films they try for some degree of realism in the lighting, lens flares aside, where you get bright daylight and harsher shadows.
Dirty blue space is just their thing I guess. It is such a corrupt and low-rez look, can’t understand the why of going that way at all, especially when the companies doing the work demonstrate on pretty much all their other shows that they can realistic and detailed renderings that don’t make me think I’m watching THE ABYSS.
Yeah. The ‘You Are There’, dust on the virtual lens thing is getting pretty old. I miss the relatively clean lighting and starscapes of the TNG to VOY era. I like DIS but their space scenes are too messy, especially the backgrounds which remind me more of those psychedelic skies from the 1966 Spider-Man cartoons. I would prefer the cleaner look of the KT films or something like Interstellar.
“Missing here some form of design unity.” “the shapes are fighting each other”
Both perfect ways to put that. I’ve been struggling to form my thoughts on the design and that sums it up exactly.
Glad to help. This is something that bugs me a lot in industrial design generally, and boutique-retro guitars specifically. So many of them look like melted lollipops, very disproportionate, with unfortunate styling cues that just end up a mishmash.
I somewhat like it from the side view but not at all from the front. But to be fair I felt that way about the Excelsior when I saw it for the first time as a Kid too. The truth is nothing will ever compare to the original 1701 to me.
Yep. Both the Excelsior and Sovereign classes look super-sleek and cool from the side, but the Excelsior looks fat and waddling from the front, and without a neck the Sovereign from the rear looks squashed flat. And with its stubby nacelles that don’t top the saucer, the Galaxy class only looks good FROM the back. In truth, there’s only one design that reads from all angles, and that’s Matt Jeffries’ original (and the TMP refit). Or maybe I’m just biased, old fart that I am.
Honestly it not just about the beauty either. The 1701 was designed with logic in mind. everything is separated with a purpose. The crew live in the saucer and most work there too. The secondary hull is separated from the primary because thats where the very dangerous matter/antimatter reactor is that can go kaboom and really only engineers go there (unless the bowling alley is really a thing lol). They you have the nacelles which are separated from both and in the back because thats where the WARP field is generated. Logical in every way.
Excelsior and Enterprise D retain some of that for the most part. But then you have ships like the Defiant and the Voyager that just fly in the face of it.
So in a way, I agree with the article here when they hypothesize that engineers took a long hard look at the current state of Starship design and said OOPS
Wow, I can’t wait to get Eaglemoss’ models of the new USS Titan and Spacedock.
Oh, wait… : (
ouch, too soon! :-(
Is it just me, but does Picard look a lot more expensive than SNW?
Hmm, the special effects look unfinished to me (sort of video-game level quality), so I would say no to that question. I expect that these are unfinished effects that will look better when we see them in the series?
I would agree that the CGI doesn’t look fully rendered, but productions often save a few bucks by skimping on rendering. But the overall look is much slicker and more cinematic.
I love that everything in this trailer feels bigger and more ambitious than the last two seasons (which I thought were big too but in a different way). Although we can’t base everything off a 90 second trailer it does at least look like we’re going to get a lot of cool ships and planets, something that was missing in the last two seasons outside 1 or 2 episodes.
Doug Drexler said in another interview season 3 is basically 10 episodes of what we saw in episode one of season 2. That alone gets me excited.
I think Season 2 got to go big in the first 2 and last eps because they saved so much in the middle being on real life earth for the most part.
I’m pretty convinced they probably went with a much lower budget in season 2 so they can pay the TNG cast and do all the ship porn and big space FX for season 3. It would explain soooo much lol.
OOOh thats a good point. Not only would it explain so much it would forgive so much too lol. Not everything but a lot. lol
Yeah, agreed! I mean they can’t excuse the awful writing but it would explain things like why is Picard and Guinan sitting in an FBI basement for an entire episode lol.
I was thinking the same. But TMP looked a lot more expensive than TWoK too. Lets hope the story is great this time around.
Again, he certainly talks a good game in terms of S3. I am hopeful. We’ll see.
PS: One thing that concerns me — you wouldn’t want starships going to warp right next to a Spacedock?
Why not? The enterprise went to warp right next to space dock in search for Spock.
Can’t see a problem with that, it’s not like warp exhaust is radioactive gunpowder. Now take TVH’s going to warp while in the atmosphere, which should have exterminated a lot more than a couple of whales … that I have a problem with.
(I’m of the firm belief that the TMP log line about going to warp while still in the system has to do with it being problematic to do so with untested untuned warp engines. There’s nothing in trek history that I’ve seen to indicate any problem with going to warp in-system, TOS did it all the time, as did TNG.)
The episode in DS9 where changling Bashir was about to fly a runabout into the Bajoran Sun with a payload of Trilithium to blow up the solar system. Kyra in command of the Defiant commands Dax to go to WARP to catch up to him before it’s too late. Dax says, with in the solar system? And Kyra says if we don’t there won’t be anything of the solar system left. And of course in that instance there was nothing wrong with the Defiant’s engines. But I do agree in the case of TMP the issue was not only that the Enterprise had untested engines but that Earth’s solar system has a massively dense asteroid belt and maybe the Bajoran one does not?
Perhaps the issue in DS9 was using warp to travel less than 1 AU or so. Starting AND finishing the warp within the same system.
Perhaps? I haven’t seen the EP in years. But assuming Defiant’s starting point was the wormhole/DS9, that was technically outside the solar system IIRC. Like right outside of it. Maybe in their heliosphere. but way way far away from Bajor and the theoretical “habitable zone” of the solar system.
That sounds like Ron Moore or somebody misremembering, sort of like with how many years since eugenics wars.
That has been so inconsistent in Trek for so long I can’t even complain anymore. Sometimes like in DS9 they say don’t go to WARP in a solar System let alone next to a Starbase. The next minute you have the Bird of Prey in ST IV going to WARP in Earths Atmosphere which should have put them at mars in like 3 minutes.
Good point
When did someone in DS9 say not to go to warp inside a solar system? Dax seemed surprised at the suggestion to go to warp within a star system, but even when I first watched that episode I thought the reason would be because warp is so fast and you’d be going and starting within a relative short distance. She didn’t say there was any risk to the system or anything like that.
Well sure, depending on where you are in a solar system I don’t think there would be damage to the solar system. It probably would be more about danger to the ship. But the point is danger is danger. In the case of warping so close to a starbase, I would gather that creating a warp field is the closest thing there is to creating an artificial momentary wormhole. It could very easily rip the starbase apart. Or in the case of the DS9 ep if you are coming out of WARP so close to the Bajoran sun you could destabilize the hydrostatic equilibrium by sucking too much matter into the field and disrupting the balance between the density of the star and the gravity holding it together and then BOOM.
I think all of this comes from some TNG writers having read Larry Niven, who always had something in his Known Space stories about being a sufficient distance out from the primary before kicking in hyperdrive, because you have to be away from gravity wells. Diane Duane used some of that theoretical science in THE WOUNDED SKY, which has a terrific space battle between the E and a lot of Klingon ships. Of course, then Moore has a ship go to warp right in a sun’s … what was it, the corona or the photosphere … in order to blow up the ships chasing it.
Problem is…unless he dumped the abysmal Season 2 writers, Season 3 will be just as bad
IIRC he had to leave 1/2 way thru Season 2 so the whole season might not have been his.
I just looked at a list of 12 Monkeys actors and one that jumped out was TOM NOONAN. NOONAN has never been in a Star Trek and this would seem to be the perfect opportunity. Counting down the days until NOONAN TREK…
Wow. Fingers crossed.
Didn’t he say the actor was female?
The antagonist is supposedly female and someone he was very happy about working with. It seemed like he never had worked with her before.
That said, it would be wild if Tom Noonan was captain of the Titan.
He was featured in Manhunter, the original Hannibal Lecter film.
He directed two great indie films “What Happened Was…” and “the Wife” – and has a theater company.
Just the idea is making me happy.
Ahh gotcha.
Funny, it was Emily Hampshire, Barbara Sukowa and Todd Stashwick who leapt to mind for me.
Emily Hampshire has a number of other projects, including a starring role in the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman remake and a major film premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. The thought of her in a major role in Starfleet would be amazing though.
Clear out your bowels everyone, red alert!
ST TNG V: The Undiscovered Things
There is a really great interview of him and Doug Drexler talking to Robert Meyer Burnett on Youtube also talking about the trailer and they both go very in-depth discussing the Titan and other things without any major spoilers of course, but a very interesting and fun interview.
Both he and Drexler makes it very clear everything about season 3 is night and day from the first two seasons and use the Titan A as a big example of that being a big hero ship in the show (and not the ugly La Sierna which I STILL don’t like). Again they are saying the right things but I felt that way about seasons 1 and 2 as well.
But its no doubt this looks and feels like a proper TNG story line so that alone is pretty exciting. If this was a season one trailer and not a season three trailer I think people would feel even crazier about what they saw, including me. A lot of fans wanted a more traditional post-Nemesis shows with starfleet officers yelling things on the bridge and it looks like we are finally getting that at least. You add in all the iconic TNG characters and it’s even more of a thrill.
As a Star Trek fan since the late 70s, I really want them to knock this season out of the park. Although I am very critical of the new shows (as I was the old), I am a big fan of Prodigy, Lower Decks and SNW, so I like more than I don’t like. But out of all the shows, it’s Picard I really want to love the most because it’s the only new show that star both the characters and actors I grew up with! So I’m rooting for it to go out big!
Thanks for the heads-up. I’m watching it right now. Matalas seems like a cool dude. And I’m happy to see Doug Drexler having a good time there. He’s really been through some hell lately.
No problem! It’s a great interview, especially because Burnett is the one doing it and he’s been on record how much he hates all of NuTrek, from the Kelvin movies through SNW. Picard season 3 is the ONLY thing he has liked so far oddly enough. He considers Picard season 1 and 2 some of the worst Star Trek ever produced but is singing the praises of season 3 which keeps fans like me hopeful since I wasn’t a big fan of the first two seasons of Picard either.
And while I have known who Doug Drexler is for decades now, I’ve never seen him in a single interview until just recently with season 2 of Picard. He’s hilarious but also pretty blunt of what he thinks of certain shows including everything he’s worked on in the past. He was very honest of how much he thinks the cut and paste ship scene at the end of Picard season one was a travesty and made sure it wouldn’t happen again. But it’s obvious how much he loves science fiction in general and obviously Star Trek. If they make another 25th century show, I hope he’s working on that one full time too.
I know he recently lost his wife just from this interview but still has a positive spirit.
Wow, he didn’t like SNW? I know the show has a few distractors but I didn’t think those behind the scenes so to speak would be one of them. PIcard I obv get but not SNW.
To be fair, I only saw Burnett discussing the first episode of SNW and haven’t seen any of his discussions since, so he may have a different opinion about it now. But he was mostly complaining about the look of the show. He’s a hardcore TOS fan, one of those types ;), and he hates the Enterprise is just way too big and pretty lol. He wanted it to look closer to a battle cruiser like the original instead of a cruise ship for vacationers. I understand his point as others have said it in the past but it’s one of those things you accept or you don’t I guess. And I never really cared personally, they want to make it a more modern and cool looking ship. No different than what they did with the Kelvin based Enterprise but SNW’s version is much more in line with the original so no issues with it personally.
So it was more about how it looked in canon and it still doesn’t look TOS I guess but some people you will never please. I like Burnett and I do agree with some of his points even with some of the shows I like, but he’s one of those fans where NuTrek can’t do anything right and it’s all a sham to him….until Picard season 3 apparently.
I can’t really say this feels TNG to me but it does VERY MUCH feel like the TOS era movies which what I know he is going for and IMHO so far mission accomplished.
He’s trying to combine his two favorite eras, the TOS films and TNG era which the Titan seems to be the symbol of that, although with mixed reviews so far. ;)
Based on what he has said, it sounds like he wants the big sweeping scope of the films, but use character interactions and mythology of the TNG period. We seen very little but liking the direction at least.
Maybe they finally wanted to show the Constitution-class in TNG! They used the 80 years old Excelsior-class and found a way to use the Miranda-class, but refused to show a Consti, even when they had the opportunity in Generations.
I’m almost shocked the Excelsior ad Miranda-class ships didn’t stick around to the 32nd century lol. And I don’t think people have too much of a problem seeing the Constitution class in this era, I guess it’s just how the Titan A was designed and the fact they called it the Titan. ;)
I think if they called it something else in term’s of the ship’s name and made it clear it’s an older ship model and not a retro design which I guess this is suppose to be people wouldn’t be so bothered.
Well, the 1701 blew up but the 1701-A didn’t. How nuts would it be if we saw the 1701-A in the fleet museum?
“This ship, and her history, will shortly become the care of another crew”
I still have the theory that they have stolen the 1701-A from the museum just like they stole it in ST III. These scenes are clearly inspired by ST III. Otherwise it also could be a false clue to keep season 3 talking until it starts and all theories and hints by Matalas might be proven wrong.
I’ve been having the same thoughts. I might just have to keep a defibrillator next to be when I watch the show in case that actually ends up happening.
Me too. I mean I can’t tell if this has more of a ST III or VI feel yet but I get a little hint of both. Not that I think for a second Picard is stealing the Titan based on this interview anyways.
I have a feeling he WILL indeed need to steal the Titan-A and assemble his old mates for one last adventure… just like Kirk did it.
Perhaps later on in the season. In the trailer tho Seven seems to be taking her out per orders.
The ugly la Sirena? I always thought of it as a VanHalen-Tribute-Frankenstrat-class-ship.
NCC-1984 or NX-51510 or NCC-OU812 or USS-For-Unlawful-Carnal-Knowledge.
Guitar players and modders will get that. ;-)
It’s the Kramer Baretta of starships
OK I’m going to just say I love everything about this interview! It’s got my imagination running wind.
So Beverly Crusher is not currently in Starfleet. I’m guessing she tapped out after the ban on synths; maybe she quit Starfleet after not being able to help save Riker/Troi’s son? Maybe she quit before that? I’m excited to find out, but that would probably explain something Sir Patrick and Gates gave away during their co-interviews. Jean-Luc and Beverly have not seen each other in many, many years.
Also – 12 Monkeys was amazing! Bring on Jennifer Goines!
I like the idea of tapping out after not being able to save The Riker child. Not only is that a very Crusher thing to do, it’s kinda reminiscent of when McCoy couldn’t save his father and then immediately found a cure after.
So in response to criticism of his anachronistic ship, the writer tells us a story about how it was a collective decision to abandon a century of design progression–because all the scientists in Starfleet over 100 years had never run simulations on oval saucers during reetry.
Sure.
Sort of makes you wonder how often saucersections have to do a re-entry. I assumed it was extremely rare, since in non-combat conditions it is a self-contained unit that would be safer up in space than down on a planet surface.
I got the impression from VOY that when the Voyager landed it’s indeed something that is not at all done very often. So maybe after Voyager returned home engineers were like, hey, if this starts happening more often we need to start rethinking things. That being said I would think a more arrow like saucer like voyager would be better than a circular shape like Enterprise.
A story it was. Probably the whole writers team sat down to come up with it after the reactions online.
A lot of these comments were shared on other sites on Star Trek Day though.
Well, it’s the same topic :)
Ok, sheesh, that was a lot of info! And exciting info! Titan and it’s constitution class saucer makes sense now and I am down. The original was the starship version of the perfect mustang!
It makes sense that Crusher isn’t in Starfleet because her ship is the “SS” and not the “U” “SS”.
It’s sweet that the Titan-A is a Constitution class starship but I hope that’s not what everyone meant by seeing a new “Enterprise”
I’m really dying to know what happened to the old Space Dock now. I’m hoping it wasn’t androids or Romulans that blew it up or something. And NOT NERO!
Never been a fan of the Akiraprise for the very reasons that I’m liking the ship and space station designs seen in the trailer. But the Refit Constitution Class is my favorite Sci Fi ship period, so (almost) anything that calls back to that perfect design works for me.
I clearly need help. As a fan in the 21st Century we’re supposed to be mad about everything and not like anything.
I really didn’t need that nonsense about starfleet returning to a retro design. Quite honestly, it looks good. All he had to say was, the ship was designed to evoke a feeling of exploration again after the Dominion war or something. He didn’t need that saucer atmosphere technobabble whatever.
Relax Terry, S3 will be great!
Same. It was a lot of reaching and justification bla bla I could’ve gone without. Doesn’t make anybody like their ship better or worse.
Terry Matalas is extremely skilled at dishing nerd scoops without spoiling essential plot points.
As one of the creators of the TITAN novel line and many of the characters therein, although I appreciate the use of TITAN in Picard and Lower Decks, I have yet to see any good reasons for them NOT to use any of the crewmembers from the novels. Given their sales, it’s not as if the novels were inconsequential to fans, and it would be incredibly easy to feature them.
Royalties most likely.
I mean, other than Riker, Troi, and Tuvok, weren’t all the characters either novel-exclusive? Even Vale was a character ported from the TNG novels.
Brent Spiner is the captain of the Titan-A, watch. Likely as a completely new android, fits with how he says its a major character, but one we’ve never seen before, and its played by a actor he is very fond of.
It’s a great idea of refurbishing old, tried & true ships and I get what Terry is doing here: going with an under dog theme for now. It will probably build up to getting back to a majestic, illustrious flagship-level vessel somewhere at the end of S3 or maybe in the probable SNW: TNG, as I like to call it.
I still think Terry is awesome since he clearly knows Trek
So… Stupid question…
Is Seven going to be Commander Seven? Commander Seven of Nine? Commander of Nine? Commander Nine? Or maybe Commander Hansen?
She is a Commander… and it is a long story. We do not discuss it with outsiders.
PIC S3 is complete.
I’ve a few acquaintances who are involved with Trek that have seen the episodes.
The common response I’ve heard is that it’s TNG Season 8.
They are quite excited for it, as am I.
There are just some Trek fans out there who you can’t make happy. They’re only happy when they’re bitching about the current state of Star Trek.
Yes. The hatred out there for all new trek isn’t unique to trek. Seen it with other franchises recently. It’s a loud angry voice that complains nonstop and seems to be full of hatred. From complaining about minority casting to the color of a Klingon’s hair. They are the “trumpers” of fandom. I also think they are sad miserable people.
Not referring to just people who don’t like something and express that, but the people spewing anger and hatred on social media nonstop since discovery premiered. Whose whole feed is dedicated to complaining about shows nonstop for years. People who harass and insult writers and actors of a show they don’t like. People who insult fans for liking shows they don’t.
I definitely won’t speak for everyone here, but I’m guessing most are hopeful we are going to get a great season. And yes, the idea of a TNG season 8 would be a dream for many, certainly me.
But, you can’t blame people for feeling cynical IF they didn’t like either season of the show. Obviously for the fans who loved them, they don’t need to be convinced as much. But a lot of us went into first season wide eyed and very excited about what we were going to see. I can tell you there was not ONE single thing I objected to about season one before it started. I was completely open to all of it and still came away very disappointed.
Then when season 2 was on its way, I was pessimistic by then but the trailers (once again) won me over. I thought the first episode was some of the best Star Trek I seen in over 20 years. I was so excited for the rest of the season. By the time we got to episode 5 I was completely gutted again. It turned out out worse than season one IMO.
Now here we are again. They are saying the right things, the teaser (ONCE again) looks great. I don’t have any big issues with anything I seen. People are complaining about the Titan, but if we get a good story they will get over it.
But that’s the question, are we getting a great story this time? So far people who have seen it has praised it, but that’s not a guarantee obviously. But I think most people here really want to be proven wrong. But after two flailing seasons (if you didn’t like them), it’s hard to go in without any hesitation.
I appreciate Terry’s explanation and his obvious passion for the show, but I’m disappointed that this season isn’t going to be more visually consistent with the TNG era since we’ve had nothing but TOS reboots and Prequel shows showing us stuff like this already. And for me, this is just not an attractive ship at all. Weirdly the previous producers seem to understand this part of the show better than Terry. But Terry has this strange idea that TNG should resemble the TOS movies…I don’t get it, doesn’t work for me.
I kinda wish that they’d show the refit Constitution design on screen, even if it’s a quick visit to the Fleet Museum that we’ve heard so much about. We’ve never seen a full on Constitution refit on TV and haven’t seen one on screen since the movies. (I don’t count the possible destroyed one in the wreckage of Wolf-359.) We’ve seen a TON of the Miranda variants, but no Constitutions. Make it so! =)
So… they spent all this time on this gorgeous new Stargazer and now all of a sudden that whole design lineage is all wrong and too sleek and stuff? What even is he saying? Who wrote that?! That entire story makes no sense. LOL!
It’s just too much reaching and justification babble and I’m not buying it. Sorry, still don’t like the new design. And no amount of ‘explanation’ will change any mind. They need to get over certain opinions and accept that they’re just that. No amount of back story will change people’s minds, positive or negative.
These ships don’t last long, do they? The Enterprise D’s spaceframe was supposed to last 100 years, with major systems updates every 20 years. They made it to 7. Rumour has it that the E is now replaced and we now see that the Titan was replaced. (To be fair, we don’t know how old the TItan was, so it could have had a good run I suppose.)
Maybe the Pakleds destroyed the Titan?
I read the comments, so, I know I’m going to be the odd one out.
I utterly despise Terry Matalas.
What he wanted of PIC Season 3 was to bring back the Startrek of his childhood, with round saucers and all… and he pretty much bulldozed over anything that was in the way.
Anyone whom built or added something to Startrek and helped evolve that art and those designs, he can just decide to brush that away and bring up any excuse just to get what he wants.
It didn’t matter that the U.S.S. Titan existed in a time when books and games was what drove Startrek onward. It didn’t matter that the Luna-class had earned its share of fans, fans whom had rejoiced in seeing it in Lower Decks, and whom would have doubly rejoiced to see Riker’s moment in the sun with his ship in live action… something some people have been waiting since Nemesis. The Luna-class was certainly still period appropriate, as PIC S2 demonstrated.
It didn’t matter that the Luna-class actually had a successor design- the Titan-class – that could have been used/spruced up for screentime. A choice which would have moved the legacy started with that ship and moved it onward recognizably, even as it would have given the Startrek Online audience an additional reason to rejoice that one more part of their game was canon.
I’m happy for Bill Krause getting one of his creations as an hero ship, but I’m ambivalent since his success comes at the detriment of the success another could have had. I don’t dislike his ship. I don’t think it’s period appropriate, but I could have swallowed that bit down. But using the Titan-A name to grab for our nostalgia and slap it on a ship that really has no visual legacy with it (save of his own making) convinces me that Matalas is a poor steward for the future of Startrek.
I never had a strong bias against Picard as a series thus far, though I’ll acknowledge it hasn’t had a very strong showing in S1 and S2. But I’m very pessimistic about S3 every since Startrek Day.
After reading Terry’s explanation of the Titan on the toilet, aka the library, it’s good enough for me.
Commander Will Decker is the mystery guy…..12 monkey’s – His previous Tv show