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Star Trek Discovery's First Trailer Brings a New Ship, New Characters, and Old Conflicts (cbs.com)
nyquil superstar writes: Hey all, the Star Trek: Discovery trailer is out. Looks entertaining! From a report via Vox: "The trailer features Sonequa Martin-Green, fresh from The Walking Dead, as Michael Burnham, a first officer promoted unexpectedly to the position of captain by her mentor, Captain Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Set 10 years before the original Star Trek series (and 90 years after the franchise's only other prequel, Star Trek: Enterprise), the new series follows the starship Discovery as Burnham learns to become a captain. But she soon finds her abilities tested by a host of challenges that will be familiar to all lovers of the classic sci-fi universe: new worlds to explore and alliances to forge, hostile Klingons, and the difficulty of adhering to the Federation's peacekeeping mission."
I guess that means that we're going to have to just talk about something else...
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Star Trek has always been quite diverse, by TV standards.
Pilot - Number One was a woman
Original Series - Black woman, east Asian man, Russian and Scot in the main cast
Next Generation - Many female and black characters, Picard was French
Deep Space 9 - Black captain
Voyager - Female captain and chief engineer, Native American second in command
I didn't even mention the black/east Asian members of the crew in the later ones, they were so normal (for Trek) by that point. And Janeway was originally going to be French too, but they replaced the actor after some test footage didn't turn out as they had hoped.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This one seems to work for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8mesUEFjas
Roddenberry certainly tried to give women equal roles in the original series. In the pilot Majel Barret played the second in command of the ship. Unfortunately the studio objected and decided that they would have the child-like Yeoman Rand, and then got rid of her to make way for a love-interest-of-the-week (which is how Kirk got his reputation).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The episode order has been increased to 15. That's 15 too many, in my opinion. The development of Discovery has been marked by pure incompetence, despite having some really good people involved. I had high hopes with Bryan Fuller and Nicholas Meyer, who did really good work previously with Star Trek. I thought Rod Roddenberry might have a good feel how to run the show because he had praised Star Trek Continues, which is really well done. Fuller is gone and the show keeps sounding less interesting as more news comes out. It wasn't that long ago that Michael Dorn passed on being cast for Discovery as one of Worf's ancestors because they gave him an insulting lowball offer, about 65% of what he was paid on TNG and DS9. Between seven seasons on TNG and four on DS9, I don't think anyone else has come close to appearing in as many episodes as Dorn has. It's embarrassing.
I have no confidence in the people developing Discovery that it's going to be worthwhile. There's nothing in the trailer that impresses me. There's a lot of action but I'm not convinced there's an interesting story to go along with it. CBS hasn't given much information on the actual premise for Discovery, and I don't see a whole lot in this trailer to provide any more information about it. It doesn't matter how diverse your cast is or how much you include special effects and combat if you don't have good writing and an interesting story to tell. With all of the delays and personnel changes, there has been more than enough time to devise a compelling premise. If there was truly an interesting premise to this show, I would expect CBS to provide more information on what that is to attract viewers. The trailer doesn't do that at all. This just seems like more incompetence to me.
I wish this show interested me. But I have yet to see anything that makes me think it's worth watching. If I'm going to watch anything on All Access, it'll be Big Brother and The Good Fight, both of which seem far more worthwhile than Discovery. It's a shame because I really like TOS and DS9, and TNG was pretty good.
> Second, Rodenberry was a cynical guy.
Roddenberry was a working director in a tough broadcast market. From his own cast's testimony, he was a wonderful, sweet man to work with who had visions of what people could be and should be, and showed them living up to those goals in the face of tremendous pressures to please or avoid displeasing the sponsors who advertised on Star Trek episodes and on other shows by the same network.
> First, there's a big difference between a black woman with authority accepted by white men in the 60s,
This was the *early* 1960's, at the height of the civil rights movement. A black woman with authority for whom her racial identity was cultural, rather than a source of plot tension on a mixed staff, was a very large issue. The kiss between Captian Kirk and Leutenant Urura was a _very_ significatnt event, the first inter-racial kiss in television history. Nichelle Nichols part in Star Trek was a huge inspiration to black women and girls of all races. And Gene Roddenberry deserves all the credit he earned for his very positive stories that helped make Nichelle, and Uhura, heroes.
When I read the reactions to the casting, it seems like the reactions in some of the comments aren't that far off from the way Sesame Street was received. That show had an intentionally diverse cast, so much so that the state of Mississippi banned it from their PBS station in 1970. I disagree with criticizing a show for having a diverse cast or addressing societal issues.
The real issue here is whether the characters are well-written and the actors portray them well. The success of Sesame Street wasn't because it had a diverse cast, but because it was a high quality show for educating young children. The success of TOS wasn't because of the diversity of the cast but because of the premise was imaginative and the writing was generally good (especially in the first two seasons).
By the way, TOS generally didn't directly address the racism of the mid-20th century, but they used allegories for it. Balance Of Terror is one of the great Star Trek episodes in any series and also made a huge contribution to the continuity of the series. In that episode, the racism is directed by Lt. Stiles toward Spock, because the Vulcans were the ancestors of the Romulans. It's a great episode because it tells a very suspenseful story about the first Romulan encounter in 80 years and the first visual encounter ever with Romulans, who have an extremely powerful disruptor and a cloaking device, and are attacking an underpowered Federation. It wouldn't be a great episode if it didn't have such strong writing and a compelling plot to go along with the social message.
It's also why, aside from the Native American spirituality in Voyager, I seem to recall Star Trek steering away from including anything that could be considered a human religion. Make no mistake, they addressed religious issues, especially in DS9, but they were addressed through the allegory of other races and their religions.
Basically, a diverse cast is a plus, and I disagree with the criticism of it. However, it cannot substitute for well-written characters, good acting, and compelling stories. It's also best when the societal and social issues are addressed through the allegory of other races, for which science fiction provides a unique platform not available to other genres of fiction.
Why do you feel excluded from it? Half the cast is white males. Confirmed so far:
Sonequa Martin-Green (black female)
Terry Serpico (white male)
Maulik Pancholy (Asian American male)
Sam Vartholomeos (white male)
James Frain (white male)
Doug Jones (white male)
Michelle Yeoh (east Asian female)
Anthony Rapp (white male)
Chris Obi (black male)
Shazad Latif (British Asian male)
Mary Chieffo (white female)
Jason Isaacs (white male)
Mary Wiseman (white female)
Rainn Wilson (white male)
Kenneth Mitchell (white male)
Rekha Sharma (Asian female)
Damon Runyan (white male)
Clare McConnell (white female)
So the main confirmed cast is 50% white male, and 66% white. One character is gay, or 94% straight.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
2 words: Babylon 5.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What about the episode where Kirk kissed Uhura? It was the first interracial kiss on US TV, a major and shocking moment.
They softened it by making the characters be forced to do it, but still, they were clearly pushing hard there. In fact Roddenberry and some of the other writers made it a point to push the limits on the show, resulting in a great deal of friction with the studio. It's all been extensively documented in the various books about the show.
By comparison, TNG and what we have seen of Discovery are pretty tame. Discovery has done basically nothing so far. By modern standards the casting is not shocking or even surprising in the least.
Take a hint. People don't like being lectured.
Unfortunately people seem to imagine being lectured and then blame the imaginary lecturer in real life for it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You, like most Americans, overestimate the size of the gay population. This is not surprising, as gays have done an extraordinary job seeing to it that they are over-represented in pop culture (as I have indicated above). The Washington Post -- hardly a bastion of evangelical redneck conservatism -- reports that "More specifically, 1.8 percent of men self-identify as gay and 0.4 percent as bisexual, and 1.5 percent of women self-identify as lesbian and 0.9 percent as bisexual." So, yeah, 1-2 percent, like I said; less than half of the 5% you indicated. No where's near the percentage as portrayed in pop culture.
All that said, having worked in media and entertainment industries for my entire adult life, I would make an educated estimation that 25-30 percent of the "creatives" working professionally are openly gay (...and the remaining 70-75 percent are terrified of saying or writing something that will piss them off). So the fact that the "gay population" of pop culture characters skews so fabulously wrong is no surprise.
The History books were written by straight white Christian men; the Future History (science fiction) is being written by multi-racial gay people. Ironic...
You're trying to say that Oscar Issac Hernandez Estrada, born to a Guatemalan mother and Cuban father, in Guatemala, is white?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.