All Things Star Trek

[Ordnael]

Actually, I didn't say that you should watch it chronologically,

Watching chronologically is a valid point, I am not arguing against your opinion, just the message

just how I'd do it if I was going to attempt it (and yes, ENT relies on you having watched 90s Trek).

Aww come on!...ENT relies on watching 90's Trek but Disco doesn't!?
Why!?
Why make me angry this close to lunch!?

 

[Arakhor]

That's why I said the first two seasons of DSC. As far as I remember, other than the Section 31 silliness, those only rely on you having seen TOS (and even the Section 31 stuff doesn't require you to have seen DS9).

 

[Ordnael]

Ok...
But I still no see enough reasons to start with Disco instead of ENT?
I mean even Zefram Cochrane appears at the beginning of the show and also the end creating the alternative mirror universe timeline!

 

[Arakhor]

I guess that you could go in cold with Enterprise, but Cochrane won't mean anything to you beyond what's revealed in the show and you'll miss all the little (and large) ways the show is different from 90s Trek. I think it works best as what it was intended to be - a coda to 90s Trek.

 

[Ordnael]

OK...
But why you suggest for a 1st chronological view to start at Disco? And where do you go from Disco's 1st and 2nd season? Straight to Kirk?
So you start with weird ass looking Klingons, at least weird from our point of view as folks who have already seen all of Trek, then go to Genghis Khan look alike tanned humanoids with thin moustaches!?
You go from a, although experimental secret, but fantastical, even for the scope of Star Trek Sci-fi...nay even regular crazy sci-fi (aka Star Wars) spore drive that can instantaneously "magical like" teleport you from one point in the galaxy to the other or use it to evade Klingon disrupters while you take millisecond rapid shots of a cloaked vessel to get to know how that tech ticks to "plain old" impulse engines and warp drive set up...and this is just comparing lovable crazy stuff from Disco to relative "boring" setting of Kirk's TOS enterprise...the movies do get kinda crazy
And I have no idea what kinda of new crazy stuff Pike and Spock are on in SNW that most likely obfuscate with all its visual impression and complex writing Gene's original Wagon Train to the Stars.
...
but hey amazing discussionmakes me reminisce and I just truly started my trek voyage only 4 years ago

 

[Patine]

OK...
But why you suggest for a 1st chronological view to start at Disco? And where do you go from Disco's 1st and 2nd season? Straight to Kirk?
So you start with weird ass looking Klingons, at least weird from our point of view as folks who have already seen all of Trek, then go to Genghis Khan look alike tanned humanoids with thin moustaches!?
You go from a, although experimental secret, but fantastical, even for the scope of Star Trek Sci-fi...nay even regular crazy sci-fi (aka Star Wars) spore drive that can instantaneously "magical like" teleport you from one point in the galaxy to the other or use it to evade Klingon disrupters while you take millisecond rapid shots of a cloaked vessel to get to know how that tech ticks to "plain old" impulse engines and warp drive set up...and this is just comparing lovable crazy stuff from Disco to relative "boring" setting of Kirk's TOS enterprise...the movies do get kinda crazy
And I have no idea what kinda of new crazy stuff Pike and Spock are on in SNW that most likely obfuscate with all its visual impression and complex writing Gene's original Wagon Train to the Stars.
...
but hey amazing discussionmakes me reminisce and I just truly started my trek voyage only 4 years ago

It's always been easier to watch Star Wars than Star Trek, chronologically.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Really, even if you keep going after Wrath of Khan, the only thing that makes maximal sense of it all is production order, not airing order, very much not in-universe chronological order. Start w/ Pike in The Cage, see Where No Man Has Gone Before, and so on.

Everything "Star Trek" builds on or reacts to -or ignores- what has gone before, as in the last episode made or movie or show.

Unfortunately, I can never see any of it for the first time as a young person in the present, and my advice is made probably low-value. I WAS familiar with the second season of Lost in Space first...


(BTW, Pike, Kirk and Picard are all the same character, according to Roddenberry's original intent. I will fight on that hill and win.)

 

[Patine]

(BTW, Pike, Kirk and Picard are all the same character, according to Roddenberry's original intent. I will fight on that hill and win.)

Picard is the same character, but adapted through the lens of the Victorian-era high sea adventure novel Royal Navy captain archetype.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

No but.

Horatio Hornblower, the C. S. Forester Napoleonic nautical character, was in the pitch for Kirk all along -this has been public since while the show was still in production, see The Making of Star Trek- and no doubt Pike before him, and The Next Generation was always a retread of Star Trek: Phase Two that had ended up not happening in favor of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, go figure. Picard was Old Kirk, in intent, if not in the reality, the actor giving him too different a personality. Pike was proto-Kirk, Kirk having a very bad day. Kirk DID hit those same tropes, just never so sorely he was considering retirement...

 

[Ordnael]

(BTW, Pike, Kirk and Picard are all the same character, according to Roddenberry's original intent. I will fight on that hill and win.)

Did you just strolled into this saloon and interrupted the poker game I was playing with @Arakhor with guns blazing like that!?
It's gonna get bloody
I'll give Pike and Kirk though because Pike never gets properly fleshed out and in the end Shatner came in to substitute Jeffrey from the "failed" pilot...Discovery makes a point at giving him some more character although yeah...he's Kirk's template and it's fine
But to say that Picard and Kirk are the same character...that's criminal
And no, I don't agree with @Patine over simplification either.

I make my opening with:
Picard is no action man...besides getting involved in bar fights as a cadet...is more a man of thought...and Gene made sure of that by giving the grunt/action work to Riker who makes a point that the captain's place is at the bridge and not in away missions. He relies way more on his observation lounge counsel sessions than Kirk ever asked of Spock before diving into matters.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

See my edit while you were posting.

"Picard was Old Kirk, in intent, if not in the reality, the actor giving him too different a personality"

Yeah - they tried to tell us Picard used to be a brash hellrake, but failed to stick the landing. Riker was somewhat an attempt to be Kirk: The Next generation, but again, the actor didn't sell it.

 

[Patine]

Did you just strolled into this saloon and interrupted the poker game I was playing with @Arakhor with guns blazing like that!?
It's gonna get bloody
I'll give Pike and Kirk though because Pike never gets properly fleshed out and in the end Shatner came in to substitute Jeffrey from the "failed" pilot...Discovery makes a point at giving him some more character although yeah...he's Kirk's template and it's fine
But to say that Picard and Kirk are the same character...that's criminal
And no, I don't agree with @Patine over simplification either.

I make my opening with:
Picard is no action man...besides getting involved in bar fights as a cadet...is more a man of thought...and Gene made sure of that by giving the grunt/action work to Riker who makes a point that the captain's place is at the bridge and not in away missions. He relies way more on his observation lounge counsel sessions than Kirk ever asked of Spock before diving into matters.

You do have some very good counter-points. Of course, Riker was based on a character called Decker who never came to be, planned for the aborted Phase Two to replace Spock, as Nimoy wasn't interested in the project, where the notion of the First Officer, not the Captain, leading the away teams, was first postulated.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

One thing I always say I'd do first if I could visit alternate timelines is score videotapes -I've been saying it that long- of Star Trek starring Jeffrey Hunter as Pike. Tapes of Phase Two happened. Genevive Bujold as Nichole Janeway. Some of it wouldn't be as good, but any that lasted long would be different and there's some new Star Trek for you - also some Voyager.

 

[Ordnael]

"Picard was Old Kirk, in intent, if not in the reality, the actor giving him too different a personality"

We get to see "old" Kirk in the movie screen...he is not Picard...sure being promoted to admiral forced him to ponder stuff...but he pretty much goes into stuff in action man mode, let Spock and Scotty sweat the necessary details as they rush along into stuff.

Yeah - they tried to tell us Picard used to be a brash hellrake, but failed to stick the landing.

Of course they failed...I don't even think that writers believed what they were trying to sell in that one-shot of an episode which is also a Q plot.

Riker was somewhat an attempt to be Kirk: The Next generation

Maybe...but

but again, the actor didn't sell it.

I don't think that was ever the objective...also due to 7 seasons plus 4 movies and a plethora of other appearances I think Riker is so much more than a failed attempt at Kirk...and don't take as me reducing Kirk in front of Riker..that is just not an exercise I am interested at.

Of course, Riker was based on a character called Decker who never came to be

He actually came to be...and beautifully so in the silver screen I might add

Will Decker

Will Decker was a 23rd century Starfleet officer who in the 2270s was assigned as captain of the USS Enterprise subsequent to James T. Kirk's promotion to admiral. Early in his Starfleet career, Decker held a posting on the planet Delta IV, where he entered into a romantic relationship with the...

memory-alpha.fandom.com

planned for the aborted Phase Two to replace Spock, as Nimoy wasn't interested in the project

Replacing a "Spock" like character for a Riker made little sense, I am glad the gave us Data in TNG and I am even more glad we got other proper Vulcans later in Voyager and Enterprise...thus my little grudge with TNG that it keeps Vulcans in the bench way, way too much for my liking

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Riker turns into a separate conversation, due to the elephant in the room being Jonathan Frakes is a terrible actor. A LOT of directors for a LOT of years let him and us down not telling him what to do while he's in the shot and Picard was talking. I blame RIck Berman. I blame him for EVERYthing...

 

[Patine]

Replacing a "Spock" like character for a Riker made little sense, I am glad the gave us Data in TNG and I am even more glad we got other proper Vulcans later in Voyager and Enterprise...thus my little grudge with TNG that it keeps Vulcans in the bench way, way too much for my liking

Well, there was Data, and a certain half-Betazoid, whose actress actually fabricated a custom accent to speak in, in-character.

 

[Arakhor]

But why you suggest for a 1st chronological view to start at Disco? And where do you go from Disco's 1st and 2nd season? Straight to Kirk?

Well, I wouldn't. I'd start with TOS, because of how heavily Michael's backstory in DSC relies on you knowing who Spock and Sarek are. (Yes, chronologically, DSC is before TOS, but I'd just taken it for granted that of course you'd start with TOS.)

 

[Ordnael]

Riker turns into a separate conversation, due to the elephant in the room being Jonathan Frakes is a terrible actor. A LOT of directors for a LOT of years let him and us down not telling him what to do while he's in the shot and Picard was talking. I blame RIck Berman. I blame him for EVERYthing...

That's a very strong opinion at which I strongly disagree
I don't know what other roles Frakes played that are as substantial as Riker, and I am also a poor judge of what is quality in acting...but I like Riker
I think Shatner sometimes if not at all times plays more his Kirk then whoever's directing him and that comes more into evidence when you see Chris Pine playing the sameish role...and that's fine because I like Shatner's flair...at least more than Patrick's.

 

[Patine]

I don't know what other roles Frakes played

I, myself, have only ever seen him, otherwise, as a guest star of the short-lived airport-based sitcom, "Wings," in the '90's, and I THINK a supporting in a move I can't remember.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, one thing to look for in assessing the quality of acting - look at what they do while they have no stage direction and somebody else is talking.

William Shatner himself has made fun of Riker's eternal smirk while Picard talks, to Jonathan Frake's face. Frakes himself says "I'm not even the best actor in my own house", because he's married to a notorious soap opera hack.