It looks like the upcoming Lower Decks season will be the last one 😭😭 I didn’t have any expectations for this show but it has quickly grown to be one of my favorites. I’ll miss it
It looks like the upcoming Lower Decks season will be the last one 😭😭 I didn’t have any expectations for this show but it has quickly grown to be one of my favorites. I’ll miss it
That’s… Not the point of a franchise. The point of a franchise is to continue a story or path in a world from perspectives beyond that of our originating characters. The only criteria of a franchise is that it must take place in the same world. There is nothing about a franchise that’s specifically built to cater to the same fans endlessly. Defining a franchise as “Something to leverage existing fans” is just strange.
If you wanna be negative or pessimistic that’s fine. My issue comes with the outright gatekeeping that is going on here. If you don’t wanna like the show, fine, but just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it bad. Just because it’s for a different demographic than normal doesn’t make it bad. And just because one demographic might not like it when they’ve had every other piece of Trek catered to them doesn’t make it bad. Every single complaint I’ve responded to has used demographics as the core argument by saying that its alienating the core fan base but that doesn’t matter. Not everything has to be made for that core fan base. Acting like it’s a problem if something isn’t made for them and is made for a new group of people is outright gatekeeping.
That’s a bold claim to make, and it’s not unreasonable that someone would disagree with you on it. The point of an established universe is obviously the background that the universe brings. Otherwise you may as well just create an entirely new universe. And given that the background is the value of the universe, there is a limitation to how far you can reasonably expect to bend it before the interpretation of the universe shifts from “fresh” to “hostile”.
For example, I’m not a particularly big fan of the Avatar movies, but they’re clearly pushing a naturalistic, shamanistic anti-corporate utopian vision. It’s not my cup of tea, but that is what the universe IS. If the next movie comes out and the Nav’i create planet-wide Walmart franchise and spend two hours boosting their stock price, it is absolutely reasonable to look at that at the VERY least as a wasteful use of the franchise, and it is not negativity for fans of the franchise to complain that it is not what they signed up for.
Now, we can argue all day about where that line is, but to suggest there ISN’T one at all is extreme.
We’re talking about two different things here. You’re talking about lore accuracy and new shows needing to stick to that and not hard countersteer into a new behavior/world building/etc that doesn’t make sense with what’s been previously established.
I am saying that there is no part of a franchise that is supposed to bow to the whims of older fans, fans that have been around longer, or a specific core demographic. That you can show stuff to other demographics and people that do not violate established lore/world building in any way. That it’s just a new view and that not everything has to be about that same core demographic over and over and over again.
They are two very different things. there isn’t an argument to be had here.
There’s more to an established universe than just the lore and plot. The tone, setting, and ethos of the world are every bit as important as the factual nature of what’s already happened. I’m not going to make a claim that the idea of a teen drama in the Star Trek universe is inconsistent with reality of the Star Trek franchise’s universe, but it is fair to say it is inconsistent with the established tone. I’m not making the claim that’s going to mean it’s bad, but it is completely fair and valid for existing fans to voice concern about that tonal shift. The tone is no less important to a series than the events that take place within them. If Luke’s hand being sliced off in Empire Strikes Back was played as a comic, silly moment, even though the events are consistent with the established universe, and in fact exactly the same, the nature of the scene and the franchise in which it happens are altered. These are not trivial concerns.
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Ignore the previous deleted comment. I was copying part of your comment to quote and hit enter while hovering over the post button. Apparently that’s a thing with my browser or something. Sorry. To the response.
Edit: I had to edit this comment because the same thing happened AGAIN.
I disagree. We’ve seen episodes that focus on periods during Starfleet Academy for specific characters, we’ve had the episode with Wesley in TNG, the slew of stuff in Discovery that is comparative between Tilly and the crew as well as the entirety of Prodigy. Then there’s Star Trek The Animated Series and Lower Decks which are also a pretty big tonal shift but is no less consistent than anything else with how they fit into the world.
Even if that tone wasn’t pre-established in the world, the world itself still allows for it. We’ve seen the tone shift when we focus on Klingons or on Ferengi or on Vulcans or on Romulans. Entire episodes and sections of movies are spent on them. That’s a pretty heavy tonal shift but it’s done because Star Treks whole thing is the exploration of new worlds, new peoples, new views and new tones. I’m just not sure why everything else in the galaxy gets a complete pass but focusing on young adults who are learning the ideals of Starfleet (which, again, is pretty similar to Prodigy) at an academy in the future is suddenly a huge problem.
There is a difference between showing concern and outright gatekeeping which is what I was responding to originally.
This is a flagrantly disingenuous comparison. The creation of Starfleet Academy and focusing on a new view with new characters in an area that we know deals with these things is no where close to taking a pre-established moment and playing it in a different tone completely. The existence of this show does not undermine or overwrite the tone of any other show like you’re suggesting with that comparison. This is a new show with new characters showing a new side of the same coin. It is not rewriting anything or relighting anything.
It’s possible I wasn’t clear here. I’m not suggesting changing the tone of it as it already exists, but that if its original tone had been different the entire tone of the film and the universe would have been completely different as well. And while I agree that Star Trek has often had many different tones over the course of all the series and media, it’s one thing to have a tone for a particular episode or two parter, and another to have such a drastically different tone for an entire series. Additionally, while we DO explore Wesley’s situation at Starfleet academy, and other aspects of younger Starfleet cadets in episodes like the DS9 episode where a ship is entirely staffed by cadets, it’s still usually viewed not primarily through their eyes, but through the eyes of the established crew, keeping the tone of the series consistent overall. This is very different than say, hypothetically, changing gears in season 6 of TNG and deciding to make Wesley the main character.
That said, the TNG episode Lower Decks handles this idea extraordinarily well, so it’s entirely possible the entire thing will work and be fine. But it’s also equally possible it could be such a drastic tonal shift that it does not. I don’t see it as unreasonable or overreacting for longtime fans to, sight unseen given the scant information we DO know, view it with wariness.
Ah okay, my mistake there and I apologize for misunderstanding. I agree on that end but my response would be just reiterating what I said earlier in my comment so I won’t annoy you with just repeating myself for no reason.
Again, I disagree with this pretty heavily. Every Trek show (with maybe the exception of Voyager) has set it’s own very distinct and individual tone. TOS and TAS are leagues apart but so are both of them from TNG. DS9 took on a darker tone. VOY, as much as I love it, strikes a very similar tone to just a combo of DS9 and TNG. ENT went out of their way to set a tone so hated that it nearly killed the franchise. DSC came back with it’s own very distinct tone that is darker and more action oriented than the other series before it. LD then sets it’s own extremely specific comedic tone and Prodigy sets another that’s focused on kids themselves. SNW doesn’t so much set it’s own tone as update and revamp the tone from TOS. But like I said, why do all of those other shows get a pass but suddenly Starfleet Academy is such a problem? As mentioned with Prodigy, it’s not even a first for a series to be focused on younger audience in the Trek universe and it was so beloved that a fanpush got it taken over to Netflix to continue its story.
Again, the person I was originally responding to was not showing a basic concern. It was outright gatekeeping and a very different thing than what we’re currently discussing.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily that they get a pass. As you said, Enterprise was very poorly received by many fans, and that’s more or less directly attributable at least in part to its different tone. The other series have their naysayers too, although not necessarily on a tonal basis. It’s easy for us to look back now with the benefit of hindsight and say what worked and what didn’t. So I guess the question is, we live in an era now where we get more information about what is coming that we have ever had before. When Enterprise launched, it was more or less a black box to the fans until it was actually on the air. If we had known in advance the writers/directors’ intent about Enterprise’s tone while it was in production, and voiced concern, could the final product have been altered into a version of the show that would’ve succeeded better? We can’t know now, of course, but we’re in this situation with Starfleet Academy, and if there’s enough gut feeling that there’s potential for it to be handled badly, a cautious approach might be warranted. Being left in the production’s hands WITHOUT fan feedback on potential tonal shifts HAS backfired on trek shows before.
Fair enough.
I get being concerned about a potential tone conflict but this is for an entirely different group of people and demographic. I’m just not sure that the weight of adult fans get to have on a show for teenagers. That’s my concern with all of this. A lot of the complaints have just been a bunch of adults saying that the tone of the show is too far from what they’re used to. Well, yeah. Because it’s not for them. Enterprise had it’s naysayers but it also has plenty of people who are for it. Because there are some naysayers who don’t like it, does that mean that their opinion suddenly have more weight than the people who like it? The people who don’t like it, well, they can stop watching it. Do they have the right to say “Stop making a thing I don’t like for people who aren’t me”?