|
I don't really see much of a qualitative difference between that Disco control space fight and that battlestar or whatever one posted before with the blair witch shaky cam and flak explosions. To be fair that's a tough task. Take some machines that have no business fighting in anyway that would ever be visually interesting in the slightest, in literally the most vacuous empty environment in the known universe, the starfield screensaver. I just can't imagine there ever being a space battle scene where I'd be like, oh man I want to see any of that again and I definitely didn't tune out until the loud annoying part is over.
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 01:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 20:16 |
|
|
blastron posted:Perhaps he didn’t do that earlier because Discovery was explicitly watching for that to happen and would have stopped him, and then did it at the end out of desperation since his other option was complete failure? These aren’t particularly hard things to work out. Again, this only makes sense if Burnham and the Discovery crew literally forgot that there was a mad scientist on Book's ship who hadn't agreed to surrender to them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 01:16
|
|
|
Like, no one asked, "What about Tarka?"
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 01:19
|
|
|
Apparently the dozens of times per episode they explain emotions still isn't enough for everyone
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 02:21
|
|
|
I think this show is telling us. Our maybe just me? My biggest gripe about this show is that the more important it is for the plot that a high-stakes decision is made quickly, the more likely it is that everyone in the scene will just stop for what feels like 20 eternities when they're are only seconds to spare. They did that in this episode again. But while the resolution to these occurrences is usually to go with the decision that is obviously necessary for the plot, this time, we got an exciting resolution to some offscreen data analysis instead. I totally forgot that was even going on. So... good job, show? I was genuinely entertained with everything other than anything to do with Michael's ceaseless endangering of the mission.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 06:07
|
|
|
I think I’m one of the few posters here who’s genuinely enjoyed the show from the start (with occasional exceptions and caveats of course), but… I am really struggling to give a poo poo about this season. Say what you will about previous seasons, but the show has usually been consistently entertaining even when it was busy being dumb as poo poo. This season so far just feels like a total overcorrection away from the action-oriented plots and instead into this deadly serious mess that just isn’t fun to watch at all. Even the little fun moments we have had, like the poker game for example, eventually all just stop dead so characters can stare longingly at each other and frown about the big terrible situation they’re in. They took this often batshit Enterprise-JJTrek hybrid show and injected it with a big beige dose of Voyager and it sucks. I still like the show and this isn’t some “I’ll never watch another episode!” rant, but holy poo poo you could be doing so much more with the premise and setting that you just spent an entire season establishing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 06:16
|
|
|
Khanstant posted:I don't really see much of a qualitative difference between that Disco control space fight and that battlestar or whatever one posted before with the blair witch shaky cam and flak explosions. For the most parts ship fights in BSG operated to consistent in-universe rules. There wasn't any "execute evasion pattern alpha five" business. They were big heavy slow moving ships. Typically Galactica was trying to keep nukes and enemy fighters away from itself and the civilian ships, and in fights you could generally easily see who had the upper hand. Combined with that was the fact that fights had lasting consequences. The clear rules for how it all worked meant that when they broke them it really stood out. Galactica acting like an aircraft carrier means that when you saw it falling through an atmosphere you knew it was a big deal, and then made saw to keep lasting consequences.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 07:03
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:I think I’m one of the few posters here who’s genuinely enjoyed the show from the start (with occasional exceptions and caveats of course), but… I am really struggling to give a poo poo about this season. Say what you will about previous seasons, but the show has usually been consistently entertaining even when it was busy being dumb as poo poo. Yeah, I'm one of the few who loved Discovery here. And they are really not making the most of what they have right now. I'm still enjoying it, but this could be so much better than it is.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 08:19
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:It really is incredible that 15-20 years on the cgi stands up that well. It's fantastic. BSG and The Expanse have such incredible battle scenes. The BSG CG thing I know I've posted before but is still amazing to me is that was only four years after Babylon 5. Their CG got much better by the end but not even remotely on BSG's level.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 08:53
|
|
|
Yeah, the pace of progress in CG in the early 2000s was really astounding.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 09:09
|
|
|
Senor Tron posted:For the most parts ship fights in BSG operated to consistent in-universe rules. There wasn't any "execute evasion pattern alpha five" business. They were big heavy slow moving ships. Typically Galactica was trying to keep nukes and enemy fighters away from itself and the civilian ships, and in fights you could generally easily see who had the upper hand. Combined with that was the fact that fights had lasting consequences.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 09:15
|
|
|
Honestly, I wasn't even thinking that deep, more the basic level of directorial oversight and planning with shots that are actually thought out and set up to reinforce audience awareness of the situation and designed to flow with the live action and the music and the emotional beats: particular examples in that clip being the near-destruction of galactica or the final run of the Pegasus. Instead of Disco where I often get the impression that they just space out segments of the script with [exterior - frantic pew pew] and those just get made totally separately and injected at the end without any attempt to marry the live action and FX shot flow and pacing.
MikeJF fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Feb 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 09:44
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Honestly, I wasn't even thinking that deep, more the basic level of directorial oversight and planning with shots that are actually thought out and set up to reinforce audience awareness of the situation and designed to flow with the live action and the music and the emotional beats: particular examples in that clip being the near-destruction of galactica or the final run of the Pegasus. Instead of Disco where I often get the impression that they just space out segments of the script with [exterior - frantic pew pew] and those just get made totally separately and injected at the end without any attempt to marry the live action and FX shot flow and pacing. Yeah this. The action scenes themselves are full of movement and chaos in the background, but you are always very clear exactly what is going on and what the stakes are. You knew enough about what was going on to look at a space sequence and understand if things were going well for the good guys or badly. Tension doesn't come from jets of fire on the bridge, tension comes from Adama and Caine calmly working together to fight a battle while knowing they're planning to kill each other at the end.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 10:28
|
|
|
I'm reminded of noticing how in the episode when Pegasus shows up, all the exterior shots of the fleet have Pegasus looming in the foreground above the Galactica, until the moment Adama decides to defy Admiral Cain and does the famous Getting My Men scene, where the establishing shot as he goes to confront her finally has Galactica in front of Pegasus. It's not exactly a super complex or subtle bit of direction but it's still a level of thought involved in elements like that which I don't really get the impression of here. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Feb 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 10:35
|
|
|
Starfleet being tight asses rationing that newly abundant dilithium ? Because it sure seems as though Starfleet ships do nothing other than idly float around HQ, even Voyager-J was docked this episode.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 11:07
|
|
|
Gelf posted:Starfleet being tight asses rationing that newly abundant dilithium ? Maybe they just have nowhere to go other than giving supplies to allies. They've dropped a bunch of references to the Galactic Barrier this season. I'd love it if they revealed that one of the things causing a stagnation of the Federation pre-burn was the fact that the galaxy was all charted and there were no strange new worlds to explore. No frontier to expand. gently caress, I'm calling it. Season 5 of Discovery will be the Andromeda series some have asked for over the years. Galactic Barrier turns out to be caused by the mystery aliens. They lower it, and Discovery with it's spore drive is sent to explore that new frontier.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 11:25
|
|
|
Hipster_Doofus posted:The plot summary sounds ridiculous, so if this show is actually good it must be very interesting. Gonna check it out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 12:15
|
|
|
Paradise and the writing team can't write good drama. There's nothing that can be changed about the show conceptually that will fix this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 15:04
|
|
|
Aww, Doug Jones got the inaugural Chair Award from the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Awards for his career achievements in acting under makeup and prosthetic. He deserves it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 16:04
|
|
|
I still really like Disco too, and for what it’s worth I’ve actually enjoyed the mystery of this season. My one complaint has been the ‘talking is a free action’ thing where there’s seconds to go, but they’ll stop to discuss things of emotional import when this could absolutely wait till after or have done so before. I have noticed this season they’ve been doing the TNG thing of ‘may I speak to you in my ready room?’ Professional private conversations.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 16:47
|
|
|
Senor Tron posted:Maybe they just have nowhere to go other than giving supplies to allies. no no no please, what a curse you have brought upon us all!! these people cannot even satisfyingly explore their own future-future setting, technology, or culture. Like seriously, have we had a single episode exploring the culture or lives of anything or anyone that wasn't Michael-adjacent? Maybe at the very start when they were blasting mothramen, does that count, they aren't Discovery crew, they were actually from the present/future. Watching some TNG last night and I went on more scifi and escapades in 2 episodes than all this season of disco, now the world's longest Trek episode. We still haven't had a fun medical accident yet, no programmable matter accidentally fusing with somebodys ancient times DNA quirk to make a weird virus that devolves everyone into Barclays or something fun. They won't even use the fun they have in their setting as it is, definitely don't want this team of near-creatives failing to capture any excitement or intrigue about another galaxy. Andromeda is cursed anyway. Andromeda the show sucked. Mass Effect Andromeda sucked. The actual Andromeda galaxy itself sucks and the people that live there are loving worse clownshoe embarrassments than we are. Discondromeda would be bad too. DaveKap posted:If you've never seen the movie, I'd suggest you do. It's quite good, the show makes some subtle and cute references to it before flying off to do its own thing, and Snowpiercer media in general is adapted from a French comic book series. That being said, do note that there was some massive misinformation spread by a random graphic design company that led people to believe the comics, show, and movie are on a shared timeline. They are not, they're all just separate takes on the same premise. Have fun! Snowpiercer however is blessed. Comic good. Movie good. Tv show good. All done by different folks in different ways and they all work. Not sure I've seen anything else swing three different mediums and kick rear end in em all.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 18:38
|
|
|
Season 4 cliffhanger is just the Kelvans showing up going WASSUP WE'RE HERE TO PARTYYYYYYYY
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 18:59
|
|
|
aw man species 10-C is gonna be the Borg isn't it they assimilated what they could, calculated that trying to assimilate more Federation members would be a net loss, and moved on to the next logical phase which was developing large-scale resource acquisition.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 19:03
|
|
|
I think they got the scale just right in this season. Yeah, there's been a progressive lowering of the stakes, but this is where it should have been from the start. Season one was all life in all universes, season two was all organic life in this galaxy, season three was the very existence of the federation and only now in season four is it something that isn't so exhaustingly huge, and it still involves planetary destruction. The basic plot where there's a big scary world destroying anomaly they don't understand, and then bit by bit they come to understand it, is good. That it turns out to be an incredibly advanced mining rig is pretty cool. It's very Star Trek in that it involves figuring out a science problem and then a social problem, and not just doing violence better or anything like that. I even think having Booker be the villain was pretty compelling. There has been a lot of overwrought emotional stuff previously, so maybe all the goodwill had been spent, but Booker's reckless point of view made sense, as did Burnham's perspective. And to me at least, the two have legitimate chemistry, so this conflict had real personal emotional stakes. It's some solid emotional conflict between sympathetic characters that doesn't feel contrived. I thought the action scene in the DMA was pretty exciting and tense because, given the stakes, Discovery had a narrative chance to fail. The threat wasn't so bad that it would end the story. You know Burnham isn't going to die and the Discovery isn't going to be destroyed, but blowing up an alien mining rig and accidentally starting a war? That might happen. And in fact, at the end of the day it did happen, but not before some interesting twists, tactically, emotionally, and "scientifically." The idea that you could predict the DMA's movement by the trace particles it was mining made sense, and it was really cool that something like that was the key to deescalating with Booker at least. When after all that they failed anyway, there was a weird emotional letdown. They kept talking like they must succeed at their mission at all costs... but then they failed and had to keep on going and it was the oddest kind of deflation of tension. But I think it worked. Things are bad, but we have no idea how bad, and there's nothing we can do but deal with how bad they are. That at least is a novel feeling, and one that makes sense in the context of the show. We're going to have to deal with the repercussions later. A lot of the dilemmas this season have been about what to do in a dangerous situation with incomplete information, and here we are in a very dangerous situation, not knowing what's going to happen next. It's good all stuff. Seasons 3 and 4 have been more or less exactly what I want out of a Star Trek show after the rocky start of seasons 2 and especially 1. It's not perfect. There's a lot of moments that feel awkward or underwhelming. I feel they could have done a better job with that scene where the whole galaxy is supposed to be debating what to do about the DMA. It felt too small. But I think that's mainly an execution issue where the core idea is good, and I tend to be forgiving of those kinds of issues.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 19:04
|
|
|
I guess my issue is that I just don’t care about Booker all that much, so having him be the emotional core of the season just does nothing for me. This arc with the weapon also feels like the least interesting thing they could have done with him.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 19:09
|
|
|
"Load it in torpedo tube 6" Ok, it's not a torpedo but maybe the ship makes a programable matter housing for it.... but does Book's ship that totally fits into the discover shuttlebay without clipping really have SIX+ torpedo tubes? Also, book jumps inside the DMA and Discovery jumps in right nearby? In a thing lightyears across? Twice?
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 19:27
|
|
|
Not a big fan of the galactic senate kind of stuff, like, in the abstract would definitely watch a whole Trek Politics show, but I like how when I'm watching Voyager/TNG I feel like I'm on the crew, in a weird way? I see things primarily from a ship level with the rest of the world as something you're fighting for from you're ant level perspective. So less interested in pulling back to see the whole anthill especially when it mostly boils down to things that could've happened on a ship instead of white void resort. Book and the DMA thing could've been one episode, maybe a two-parter. No reason it's all season, there was an episode or two's worth here to mine and they've been dragging it all out to homeopathic levels. Then they supplement the homeopathic serial plot with "sad."There are other experiences for living beings to feel, almost all of them more enjoyable to both watch and feel. Snow Cone Capone posted:aw man species 10-C is gonna be the Borg isn't it This sort of thing is crazy to me because we are two seasons into this setting and we still don't even know most of the basics of our returning players. The one new alien they spent any time developing they blew up the planet for. Disappointing too because the Borg are great and there's a bunch of fun stuff they could do with them with the time jump. I would've hoped they'd join the federation at some point, if not, then at least developed some new strategies and PR faces. I think at some point the Borg will likely run out of species they can easily assimilate without consequence, start hitting diminishing returns on the spread n swallow strat. I'd like to see future-borg who are ethereally beautiful and graceful, well-spoken in any language, extremely charming and charismatic. More like a tempting cult where people choose to join for the obvious benefits. Have a borg crisis where an entire planet or species wholesale agrees to join voluntarily and it's not even nefarious, except to individualists who don't understand it, but the planet/species it's legit just an upgrade in every meaningful way to them. Maybe Federation was going to get them to join before they got the better borg offer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 19:35
|
|
|
Finally caught up with Disco. I actually liked the battle inside the DMA: two commanders who know each other inside and out, trying to second-guess and outmaneuver each other, neither one wanting to hurt the other but both of them utterly determined to prevail. The whole situation gradually spirals out of control until finally the two ships are exchanging fire and spore-jumping like mad. And then they just... stop. For a long long time, the two ships sit there facing each other, doing nothing. There's no reason for it except that the writers say it's time for Michael to go stand outside Book's window holding a boom box over her head, so that means the shooty part is over now. So many of the pieces of this show are surprisingly good. If only they were put together better, the show itself could be amazing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 21:57
|
|
|
The ship level view thing was always done well in TNG. Picard would feel like the most widely known and respected authority, then you'd see some random Starfleet admiral or diplomats and it's put back in context that there are massive and complex systems existing way above the level of this single ship. The Discovery approach to legacy aliens and technology feels like they've dusted off some of the early TNG concepts. In the early guidelines for TNG they intentionally avoided showing the Vulcans, and technology was meant to be so advanced that they weren't going to have any plots about the ship breaking down or tech malfunctioning.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 21:59
|
|
|
The Bloop posted:"Load it in torpedo tube 6" His ship breaks into multiple fragments. The six likely refers to the piece of the ship, IE "the torpedo tube on six" not "the sixth torpedo tube out of six" quote:Also, book jumps inside the DMA and Discovery jumps in right nearby? In a thing lightyears across? Twice? Yeah I can't imagine the guy who has the most experience traversing the mycelium network in the galaxy could sense a novice traveller using it nearby and match them
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 23:20
|
|
|
Charity Porno posted:His ship breaks into multiple fragments. The six likely refers to the piece of the ship, IE "the torpedo tube on six" not "the sixth torpedo tube out of six" You're doing some deep apologetics here to find either of those readings. They went out of their way to say they couldn't track the jumps before, although that was possibly so only Michael, rather than Stamets, could find Booker. FWIW I'm also annoyed that Stamets is mostly just the warp drive working off screen and not a character. At least Scotty felt like he was present if only his voice.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 23:26
|
|
|
The Bloop posted:You're doing some deep apologetics here to find either of those readings. They went out of their way to say they couldn't track the jumps before, although that was possibly so only Michael, rather than Stamets, could find Booker. Yeah they couldn't track the jumps when the dude was jumping anywhere, not in the same vicinity over and over. I don't think it's deep apologetics as much as a burning desire to point out "flaws" and a week to do it in before the next episode. quote:FWIW I'm also annoyed that Stamets is mostly just the warp drive working off screen and not a character. At least Scotty felt like he was present if only his voice. They literally had an entire episode a few back that focused on him and his relationship with Zora. Lol I don't even think this show is good but holy poo poo
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Charity Porno posted:Yeah they couldn't track the jumps when the dude was jumping anywhere, not in the same vicinity over and over. I don't think it's deep apologetics as much as a burning desire to point out "flaws" and a week to do it in before the next episode. Lol my BURNING DESIRE is to enjoy some star Trek and to bullshit about it here in the Trek chat thread Again, feeling the jump nearby is something I'm pretty sure you made up and not something in the show. What IS in the show, decisions they made, are the DMA being light years across and talking about jumps being untraceable, either fact making their finding, nevermind RE finding book's ship an unbelievable stroke of I'll cop to being unclear on the latter point. I mean Stamets AS spore helmsman, not as suddenly paranoid about AI guy or explaining emotions to the ships counselor guy
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2022 23:51
|
|
|
The Bloop posted:
quote:A second generation spore drive was developed and a protoype able to be quickly and easily installed into any ship was built. It still required a compatible pilot. (DIS: "...But to Connect") Perhaps a capability of the second generation? Two possible explanations but since they didn't spell it out, it's a mistake
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 01:07
|
|
|
Charity Porno posted:Yeah they couldn't track the jumps when the dude was jumping anywhere, not in the same vicinity over and over. I don't think it's deep apologetics as much as a burning desire to point out "flaws" and a week to do it in before the next episode. dude u so eager to bang that "not pay attention" drum but don't you hear how it's kind of silly to be like "come on they already gave him a focus once, why should he come up more often." Plus he's just one due of a big cast who very often get no lines or anything of value to do. Older Treks did a better job giving all their cast something to do say or do in between that episodes' plots. Since disco only has 1 plot per season you'd think they'd be able to fit everyone else in more as they slowly unfurl their one mystery. Even when they do make time for others it's usually in a very sequestered way, they have a problem weaving their poo poo together. Even the out-of-nowhere Worf-Troi romance disaster I just saw happen was more gracefully woven in with the other plot of the ep.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 01:22
|
|
|
Senor Tron posted:The Discovery approach to legacy aliens and technology feels like they've dusted off some of the early TNG concepts. In the early guidelines for TNG they intentionally avoided showing the Vulcans, and technology was meant to be so advanced that they weren't going to have any plots about the ship breaking down or tech malfunctioning. Series 3/4 both feel like they're going "eh gently caress the old races who cares" And okay, sure - but why bother doing a star trek show if that's what you think? Where are the klingons!
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 02:16
|
|
|
Just talk to Stamets like they did to Scotty You don't even have to show him BLACK ALERT (you ready Mr only possible pilot Stamets?) JUMP Just to further the point, name drop Reno but you can't even have a .wav of her saying "aye captain goddamn it"
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 02:26
|
|
|
Big Mean Jerk posted:I guess my issue is that I just don’t care about Booker all that much, so having him be the emotional core of the season just does nothing for me. Book is a completely nothing character. We're supposed to like him because Michael does, I guess. also this show has made it pretty clear that their relationship is not actually in danger despite the writers trying to make us think that it is, at times.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 03:22
|
|
|
I liked Book in season 3, but then they started season 4 by erasing any possibility for the reconciliation and acceptance he was building towards in the previous season and turning him into Captain Ahab
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 03:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 20:16 |
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Yes I'm having this same issue Book is ironically best when he’s interacting with anyone other than Burnham, like his episodes with Stamets and Culber. I just don’t care about his search for revenge, especially since it seems to have completely walked back the little bit of acceptance and solace he got in the decent Vulcan episode. It’s boring! No one wants to watch a Han Solo type character mope about and feel sorry for himself.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2022 03:58
|
|