I know I just wrote a bunch of random thoughts about Star Trek Discovery, but I’m still watching it so suck it. I am pretty sure I forgot some of my random thoughts I wanted to share yesterday, and if any more occur to me while writing this, I’m gonna include them, but I actually have something more specific I want to discuss regarding it, which of course means this will likely be much shorter than the random thought explosion of yesterday. As I was watching and enjoying episode 1 of S5 - and I was enjoying it - it really settled in why, even though Discovery works for me so much better now than it did in Season 1, why I am still not happy with it, and why it still doesn’t really feel much like Star Trek to me, and its honestly pretty simple and I’ve even touched on it before without, at least to my memory, fully articulating it: its got too much action.
Honestly if anyone were actually reading these posts I suspect they could point at my older posts and be like, “No you totally have already said this before,” but jokes on you, imaginary reader, I’m gonna say it again anyway, because while I definitely have alluded to it I hadn’t quite been able to crystalize it as my fundamental complaint - and I think it really is my fundamental complaint. Everything else has either been fixed by this point, or I just had to get used to it, or even in some cases I was just wrong - like when I first watched and I thought they might be doing fascist apologia because I didn’t realize they were bait and switching you in the first season and that actually, most of what they did is wrong and bad (TM) and thats the point, and the show eventually makes that clear. But now, in the final season, where it feels like the show has finally nailed down its identity and found a successful formula (for now, anyways, maybe the rest of the season will suck), this is the one element which still feels off to me.
And like, at the end of the day, its kind of a matter of taste. I think that if the original series was remade with modern technology by all the same people who somehow magically had all the same resources and knowledge of modern filmmakers, its very likely it would be as action packed as Discovery is. But they didn’t have those resources, so their action set pieces were just shirtless kirk fighting a man in a rubber suit, and thus they had to fill the run time with a lot more dialogue and narrative twists and characters shooting the shit and, especially in the TNG era, conference room scenes debating morality. They had all that at least in part not merely because they wanted to, but because it was a budgetary necessity. Now with CGI and streaming budgets, Star Trek can afford to become Star Wars, have some giant action set pieces every episode and frame the episodes around them, and you know? I just don’t care for it.
I like Star Wars movies okay. I’ve never been a HUGE Star Wars fan, but I’ve seen all of the nine core films, plus Rogue One, and even several of the TV series. I also used to be a big MCU fan, and thats all about huge action set pieces tied together with plot conveniences and snark. But neither was ever my favorite like Star Trek, and I came to Star Trek not for action set pieces, but for character, narrative, dialogue, and boring conference room scenes debating morality and politics and diplomacy and other big questions of existence. And I love that shit. And Discovery over time has included more and more of that, as they worked out the kinks in their formula as well as just getting enough total screentime to actually fully develop their cast (which it still hasn’t - everyone but Burnham, Saru, and Tilly feel underdeveloped to me still, especially the bridge crew, but progress has been made). But they still have their huge action set pieces. This episode was chock full of fight scenes and chases and two whole starships nosediving into dirt and its all super cool and hype… except honestly I was extremely bored? Not because it was bad action but just because, thats not what I am here for. A lot of people are probably happy that now Trek has both great action AND a political message, but for me, I know we are only getting so much Trek, and every second they spend on an action set piece is less time we spend discussing the nuances of morality or exploring the characters and their relationships, and I just don’t care about the action and do care about those other things.
And like, this is probably mostly a me problem. Like, most people eat this shit up. I even eat it up, in other franchises, when I’m in other moods, But its not what I come to Star Trek for, so when I watch Star Trek, I want something different. I am not looking for action. The most action I want in a Star Trek show is some karate chops or neck pinches or a few phaser shots. To dunk on Andy Weir, all I want in my Star Trek is the Federation and the Romulans sending diplomatic envoys at one another, not all this fucking action. And like, Discovery has shown that you can make politic points in an action heavy show. Discovery is not “not Star Trek” because it lacks a political viewpoint. But that viewpoint is definitely tempered by the amount of time spent espousing it versus showing cool action set pieces, and I just would rather they spend that screen time and production money on writing and character and narrative and politics driven dialogue scenes.
I know I am not the only one with this preference. Literally every other Star Trek fan I have ever spoken to in real life agrees with me, as have many I have seen online who aren’t chuds. Even hardcore defenders of New Trek usually will concede the new stuff is very effects and action heavy. And its undoubtable that has helped New Trek to keep succeeding and getting made. This is honestly the same issue I had with the reboot movies as well, and the only reason it took me longer to understand that it was my fundamental issue with Discovery as well is it had so many other glaring issues overshadowing it. But I don’t think I can fairly say that Discovery “isn’t Star Trek” even when that is kind of how I feel, because what I think defines Star Trek (aside from lore) is a scifi adventure story with an emphasis on diverse casting and representation and bearing politically progressive messages, and thats Discovery to a T. TNG set a very philosophical, thinky tone for the nineties, and thats the Trek I grew up on, but different shows are allowed to iterate on that, and a more actiony version isn’t a betrayal of that, merely a variation. One I like a lot less, but 🤷♀️ I’m allowed to like it less without it no longer being Star Trek. I do hope that we will eventually get a Star Trek thats allowed to not be about action set pieces, though. I am very behind on modern Trek, due to my difficulty getting through Discovery, and my impression is that while Discovery is the most actiony of the new Treks, they are all far more actiony that 90s Trek. But most of Starfleet Academy seemed willing to break out into a new and more classic feeling formula while still innovating in a new genre, and while it got summarily canceled, that does raise my hopes that maybe the era of talk Trek is not entirely dead or impossible to make profitable.
Also, apologies to Discovery, I really thought Tilly was gone for good, but seems she is still here. I hope she continues to show up most episodes. Also what the fuck was supposed to be going on between her and that guy when she was drunk? It seemed flirty at first but then they kind of just mutually separated without anyone saying anything very meaningful and maybe its just because I’m autistic but I did not understand the takeaway.
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