GRIM RUMOURS ABOUT NEW STAR TREK:DISCOVERY SERIES

[Professor Bear]

I predict lots of really clever sub-headings like "The only thing you'll discover is how shit this show is", which have probably already been written by dozens of starving Huffpo freelancers now desperately waiting for the pilot to drop so they can stop eating from bins for a day or two.  Likewise there will be the odd one that chances their arm with a positive spin, and they'll probably go with "Star Trek REDISCOVERED" and bang on about how it's a brave reinvention of classic franchise tropes by not being like Star Trek in any way.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Do G has a short blurb on ST:D. Classic Era pre-ToS is the vibe.
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/star-trek-discovery/37600/star-trek-discovery-promises-classic-era-spirit

[Professor Bear]

Two takeaways:
1) Alex Kurtzman was pushed out of the production months ago and scripts have been rewritten and castmembers have been hired, fired or transferred to other roles in the interim.  He left the production after arguments with the other producers about tone and direction.  This is not necessarily an indication that the tone will be off, though, as Kurtzman wrote and produced two Star Trek movies that were nothing like Star Trek and promoted them by saying they kept to "the spirit" of the original.
2) as a result of the intended digital-release format and presumed binge-watcher audience, we've been told since early days that STD was an anthology show and this would be a self-contained story - the subtext being that even if you didn't like it, someone else would come along next season and make a different show.  That article contradicts this, meaning they've either massively changed direction, or were lying.
Or they might just want to reuse the sets and costumes - $120 million is kind of a lot.

[JLC]

Do G has a short blurb on ST:D. Classic Era pre-ToS is the vibe.
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/star-trek-discovery/37600/star-trek-discovery-promises-classic-era-spirit

Mmm, oh well...

[Dreddzilla]

The new Klingons (not the cathedral ones) look like Romulan/Crustacean hybrids.  http://www.treknews.net/2017/07/15/first-photo-mary-chieffo-klingon-lrell/


MOONVES!!! MOONVES!!MOONVES!

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

The new Klingons (not the cathedral ones) look like Romulan/Crustacean hybrids.  http://www.treknews.net/2017/07/15/first-photo-mary-chieffo-klingon-lrell/


MOONVES!!! MOONVES!!MOONVES!

Genestealer Hybrid! Warhammer influenced Gears of War so why not Star Trek!

[Mardroid]

Looks almost like a different (if related) species to the others.

Then I realised this one is female. 😁

[Dreddzilla]

Fun fact not mentioned in the article is that the original makeup artists and design teams were fired because the Klingons looked too Klingon for STD...Hollywood, am I right?    http://ew.com/tv/2017/07/17/star-trek-discovery-klingons-photo/

[Professor Bear]

Oh good another Klingon reinvention.  I am literally counting the seconds until IDW announce their 4-issue prequel miniseries explaining it in-universe in an excruciatingly boring and joyless way.

It really doesn't bode well that the producers are already trying to pass the buck on this one to Bryan Fuller, who would have been well-aware that there was already an (admittedly stupid) in-universe explanation for Klingons looking different across the various shows and that Discovery didn't actually have to come up with one of their own.

[Dandontdare]

Remind me what that reason was? All I can remember is Worf saying something like "we don't like to talk about it" in the DS9 tribbles ep.

[Mardroid]

Basically, the klingons tried to create their own super-powerful warriors by introducing DNA from human augment embryos- (products of the eugenics programme that created Kahn Noonien Singh and his folks).

Unfortunately, while they succeeded in creating super powerful klingons, their augments also inherited more human characteristics including no cranial ridges and a tendency to be more sly and nervous.

There was also a flu virus of some kind involved which got mixed up in it. This meant the characteristics somehow got transmitted to other klingons too. (I'm rather vague how that works.) It also made them extremely sick and shortened their life expectancy by breaking down their neural pathways within days. (Or something like that.)

The NX-01 Enterprise doctor, Phlox, was able to cure the klingons. He essentially was able to remove their enhanced abilities and the sickness, but was unable to remove the more normal human characteristics.

Hence: klingons seen onscreen in Kirk's time period look more human and act more sneaky and dishonourable than the tough space viking/samurai of the spin-off series.

Puff, puff!

There's more to it than that, but I think that's the... nutshell. Although the nut is a coconut, in this case, I think.

[Professor Bear]

Oh, don't miss the glorious context of all this technobabble, MD: that episode of DS9 came first, in which two characters bantz with Worf if there was some kind of genetic retrovirus or science experiment that caused Klingons to look different between TOS and TNG, and Worf - acting as an avatar for the writers who knew full well the reason was that TOS Klingons were yellow peril stereotypes smeared in blackface makeup Because 1960s That's Why, simply said "we do not talk about it" and absolutely no-one blamed him.
If you watch the DS9 Making Of featurette on that episode, the writers joke with each other onscreen that they would never have an in-universe explanation, because "absolutely any explanation we came up with would be ridiculous."

Fast forward to Enterprise, a show that not only shamelessly recreated the finale of Wrath Of Kahn with added kickboxing, but also offset a running joke about comparisons with Galaxy Quest by not only ripping off the plot of that film and having the same villain, but by making this story an entire fucking year long, and sure enough they not only come up with an explanation for it in-universe, it was a multi-part storyline, too.  The explanation given is literally what those two characters back in the early 1990s pulled out of their arses.  The best part?  This happened when Enterprise was good.

I remember thinking it sucked at the time, but I've since come to realise that the explanation given was actually the writers of Enterprise realising as they wrote the actual episode that they had not a single fuck left to give, so they cast Uncle Phil From Fresh Prince as a Klingon warlord to offset things - where the Fucks Not Given trend continued, as he walked around the set sounding exactly like Shredder from the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

[Dreddzilla]

Jeebuz, I just saw the new "Phaser" and it's a cross between something from Mass Effect and Starship Troopers. 

[Dreddzilla]

Do we really need the alien outsider cheracter in Trek anymore? http://io9.gizmodo.com/doug-jones-new-star-trek-alien-is-discoverys-answer-to-1797061579

[TordelBack]

Jeebuz, I just saw the new "Phaser" and it's a cross between something from Mass Effect and Starship Troopers. 

Or perhaps a cross between the ones in The Cage and TOS, as it should be. First thing I've seen from this production that looked appropriate to the supposed period.