I actually enjoyed the new movies (mostly because of the casting, like you said), but I don’t consider them “Star Trek”. They’re more action adventures. Jar Jar Abrams is more about style than substance, I feel. His Force Awakens doesn’t quite feel like “Star Wars” either; the two movies after that were absolute dumpster fires.
While I don’t think we can ever say things with absolute certainty, I can say that I like Star Trek as it was and the ideals that it held and focused on. Anything new that calls itself “Star Trek” should build off of and respect that which preceded it. I find that today’s writing is all about tearing down the established canon and making things different and exciting. I don’t see the reverence in today’s Star Trek. I see many great qualities of what is considered traditional “Star Trek” completely abandoned. The first season story arc of Michael Burnham really challenged me as a fan of Star Trek. Thank God for Saru. The outright stealing of the blue tardigrade warp concept though was a huge flag that the writers didn’t care. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you liked Discovery, don’t look into it. It’s pretty unforgivable and shows a real lack of respect in the writer’s room.
Don’t get me started on that Rings of Power pile of…
I love trashing stuff online, apparently. That was quite therapeutic!
I’m going to say this as simply as I can. Fuck canon. If your pile of retcons serve to tell a good story, I don’t care if you recast Kirk with Brie Larson. Feel free to feel differently. Reverence for what came before is a conservative mindset and I’m good abstaining.
I agree. Being different for its own sake is a cop-out. Breaking canon in major ways (not minor inconsistencies of which Star trek has always been full) screams “My work is so sloppy and lazy that I can’t be bothered to even pretend I understand the work that preceded mine, let alone make things consistent with well established stories.” In a large sci-fi universe it is hardly difficult to write a new and compelling story without crapping all over the work of those who came before you.
I’ve never watched Discovery, but what I do know about it doesn’t encourage me to watch it.
For me it’s not reverence, but rather consistency permitting suspension of disbelief. If you constantly rewrite things which already happened you destroy any kind of shared universe, making world building pointless and turning everything into a bunch of unrelated random stories that happen to share some window dressing. If I see a Star Trek story that portrays Klingons as a pacifist race that love tribbles, then there’s no doubt in my mind that story is objectively wrong. Now a story about a single pacifist tribble loving Klingon, or even an entire separatist group would be ok, and perhaps interesting.
I can’t disagree with that sentiment. If the story is solid, breaking some canon is definitely encouraged.
There was plenty of stuff I did like about Discovery as the series progressed. Tig Notaro’s dry humour was damn near perfect. I liked Tilly, Saru and Spock and really enjoyed the high production value. A lot of episodes had movie quality effects. I enjoyed it for what it was.
For fans of the original series though, I highly recommend watching Star Trek Continues. It stays honest to the source material and the writing is actually pretty good. Yes, it’s fan service, but fan service of the highest degree. It’s a fun watch, is all I can honestly say.
And yes, the actor who plays Apollo in the first episode is the same actor from the original series (47 years later). And you might notice a resemblance in the actor who plays Scotty, but I won’t ruin it for you.
