Lower Decks Trailer Analysis

[ToddCam]

What a fun thread! I had also forgotten the turbolift rollercoaster thing. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. It's so stupid. But, I find I can't be angry about things like that anymore. What would be cool, though, is if they use this show to revisit some of the stupider things in Star Trek. I would love a sequel to "The Infinite Vulcan", or as someone mentioned, "Spock's Brain". Maybe Spock's Infinite Brain? Who will reconnect giant Spock's giant brain?! Maybe they can bring in a 153-year-old McCoy to help.

To discuss the actual trailer, I don't like the black bar over Boimler's genitals. Not that I need full-frontal action -- I just would prefer clever camera angles than non-diegetic censorship bars, if you have to censor at all (I do not equate nudity and pornography). Though maybe it has something to do with the Romulan eye bars?

 

[fireproof78]

I would love a sequel to "The Infinite Vulcan",

yes, please.

 

[Trekker4747]

What a fun thread! I had also forgotten the turbolift rollercoaster thing. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. It's so stupid. But, I find I can't be angry about things like that anymore. What would be cool, though, is if they use this show to revisit some of the stupider things in Star Trek. I would love a sequel to "The Infinite Vulcan", or as someone mentioned, "Spock's Brain". Maybe Spock's Infinite Brain? Who will reconnect giant Spock's giant brain?! Maybe they can bring in a 153-year-old McCoy to help.

To discuss the actual trailer, I don't like the black bar over Boimler's genitals. Not that I need full-frontal action -- I just would prefer clever camera angles than non-diegetic censorship bars, if you have to censor at all (I do not equate nudity and pornography). Though maybe it has something to do with the Romulan eye bars?

Well, obviously they went with the black bar so that they could make it tiny so as to imply he has a tiny dick: HUMOR!

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't know. Looks like a respectable sized black bar to me. I guess if another naked guy walked in with a larger black bar, you could have "tiny joke." Then they could play with the scene a bit more and have a naked alien from the race Kirk got into a fight with on Rura Penthe with the black bar on his knee.

 

[NCC-73515]

And the bar could grow and move up to indicate things... XD

 

[RAMA]

It's pretty amazing. For a show that I felt might get a couple of million views and moderate interest (with some positive media reaction, though nothing really special) Lower Decks interest has been astounding. The 2 main source videos are almost at 30 million views now and still climbing.

What caused this? Was it the Rick and Morty team or style? Was it the fact that more realistic animation like the Godzilla anime and such tends to bomb while "Adult" style cartoonish animation tends to be really popular right now?

The backgrounds of the show..the ship "sets" and exterior shots give me a sense of deja vu for TNG. That has me more interested than anything, though the voice actors all seem pretty enthusiastic too.

 

[Jayson1]

I think Bat'leth lady and black box penis dude have what I think might be a more family friendly friendship of Rick and Morty the characters. She will be "out there" doing her own thing and he will always be kind of hesitant but also having his own goals away from her.


Jason

 

[Tuskin38]

The background ships there are just flipped versions of each other lol. Not a complaint, just an observation.

 

[cooleddie74]

Black Box Penis Dude was a great band in high school. They sold out way too fast.

 

[DarthTimon]

Having seen the opening... um, scene, I'm looking forward to this!

 

[YouAreDooomed]

Didn't realize the chief of security (Shaxs) is a Bajoran. I like the light, cheerful atmosphere of the trailer and presumably show, general missions and adventures don't seem to deviate much from classic Trek.
----------------

If they're not going to treat the look and the premise of thing seriously, why should we care? That's sort of the problem, they wanted more style over substance. It'd look cool to have crazy, open, space with cars zipping around on roller coaster rails it'd look cooler than an elevator car in a shaft, so we'll do that! I personally find it ridiculous and if they're not going to treat thing seriously then why bother with the whole thing at all? It from what I can tell there's a lot of stuff in Disc like this where they just throw reason out the window, or establish continuity/canon because it looks cool or just has some dramatic/story telling element they want to do.

I miss the good old times when ST was completely substance over style and full of reason like - among other stuff - exploding consoles or floor plates crew members have to remove manually so the ship can launch a torpedo (TWK).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Xmh-weq1g&t=2m13s

It's legit to point out the nonsense of the whole rollercoaster thing, I don't like it either, but at least people don't fucking die because of it, and it does not needlessly extend the time you need to get combat-ready. Apparently these issues are not a problem for you while the rollercoaster is a game changer, I sense obvious double standards here.

Didn't someone survive a torpedo explosion simply by closing a door between two rooms?

Trek materials can be incredibly resilient, especially when combined with force fields (Structural integrity field). Archer and Reed survive the blast of a mine 20 to 25 metres away in space using rather thin, reinforced shuttlepod hatches without any kind of force fields for protection.

They have automated drones when how many times over the course of the franchise we've seen single people have to take a risk or be ordered to take a risk to save the ship? I mean, gee, the automated R2-D2-like drones sure would have come in handy when Spock needed to futz with the dilithium chamber in TWK, and Geordi seemed really amazed at the exocomps in "Quality of Life" when apparently the Enterprise or Discovery dispatched numbers of drones to effect repairs on the ship during battle. It's that kind of stuff that just turns me off on Discovery, if they're not going to take things seriously or even try and be consistent with stuff then why pay them any bother?

The direct depiction of automated drones is not a contradiction, it was long OVERDUE. Let's not pretend robots are a big deal in a world full technological marvels such as space ships, beaming, ftl drives, insanely advanced computers and the whole lot of other space magic. Hell, TOS (and DS9) introduced completely automated vessels, cargo drones and robot ships, what's keeping them running?

DS9 shows some automated military hardware:

TNG has the special probe from "Interface" remotely controlled by Laforge and equipped with mini tractor beams which can do basically everything.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Interface_probe

The Ent-D can clean itself, we never saw how.

TWK is definetly not the answer to everything (see above, stupid torpedo bay design for instance), the movie or many elements of the movie are actually quite dumb tbh.
Exocomps are described and presented as very sophisticated, fast problem solvers with the ability to learn, we have no reason to believe DOT-7s and drones from Discovery equal them in terms of capabilities and performance.

ST is based on live-action shows and films, it should go without saying that they were (and still are) limited by budgetary and practical/ CGI constraints.

Ronald D. Moore acknowledged this kind of limitation:

<<As a writer, do you ever feel the weapons in Trek are *too* powerful? A
hand phaser could probably punch a hole in a boulder -- ducking behind a rock
or tree for cover wouldn't help much.>>

I agree. The weapons are way too powerful to present them in any realistic
kind of way. Given the real power of a hand phaser, we shouldn't be able to
show ANY firefights on camera where the opponents are even in sight of each
other, much less around the corner! It's annoying, but just one of those
things that we tend to slide by in order to concentrate on telling a dramatic
and interesting story.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Memory_Alpha:AOL_chats/Ronald_D._Moore/ron053.txt

It's about firefights, but basically covers it all ("one of those things that we tend to slide by").

Trek's historic norm was more "it's all absolute nonsense we make up as we go along, but at least it's generally consistent nonsense that is approached in a mundane fashion."

I think what Kurtzman is doing, if that is his approach, is entirely the problem and is probably why so much hate is heaped his way. No Trek has never been "hard" Sci-Fi but, really, nothing has that's been popular in TV or movies, but Trek has always tried to maintain some level of "reality" or consistency to it to some degree or another.

ST is full of continuity problems and retcons, DSC+ era Trek is actually restrained in that regard. The hate comes from fans or "fans" who feel offended because the vicious Kurtzman gang has the audacity to ruin their headcanons, plus some shitty youtubers and whatnot inventing and spreading bullshit for clickbait.

 

[BillJ]

...I sense obvious double standards here.

Welcome to the human race...

 

[fireproof78]

ST is full of continuity problems and retcons, DSC+ era Trek is actually restrained in that regard. The hate comes from fans or "fans" who feel offended because the vicious Kurtzman gang has the audacity to ruin their headcanons, plus some shitty youtubers and whatnot inventing and spreading bullshit for clickbait.

While I enjoyed the rest, this point is quite on the nose. Overcoming headcanon, the Star Trek box, is seemingly impossible at this point.

 

[RAMA]

While I enjoyed the rest, this point is quite on the nose. Overcoming headcanon, the Star Trek box, is seemingly impossible at this point.

MY theory has been this: That vocal 5%...the ones who post on youtube threads, etc have in many cases gone 12 years without a Trek on TV and watching Trek on Netflix or by other means has ingrained a certain style over a long period that makes it really hard to get past the preconception of what Trek is "supposed" to be like: the slow pacing; the static, locked-off camera shots; the deliberate dialogue; the sameness of the writing style. It's not just head canon, it's a lot of those almost subconscious, subtle things. I doubt most of those Trekkies even know how to describe it, except "ruining their childhood" when new Trek comes along.

We also can't underestimate that long layoff having generational implications...12 years have gone by with only older Trek and the idea of new Trek was just an afterthought if it was a thought at all. Those 10 year olds when Enterprise went off the air were 22 when Discovery came on...a whole geek generation has been skipped! They bring a different outlook to new Trek.

 

[Kpnuts]

The background ships there are just flipped versions of each other lol. Not a complaint, just an observation.

More Copy / Paste

(kidding) (kind of...)

MY theory has been this: That vocal 5%...the ones who post on youtube threads, etc have in many cases gone 12 years without a Trek on TV and watching Trek on Netflix or by other means has ingrained a certain style over a long period that makes it really hard to get past the preconception of what Trek is "supposed" to be like: the slow pacing; the static, locked-off camera shots; the deliberate dialogue; the sameness of the writing style. It's not just head canon, its lot of those almost subconscious, subtle things. I doubt most of those Trekkies even know how to descirbe it, except "ruining their childhood" when new Trek comes along.

We also can't underestimate that long layoff having generational implications...12 years have gone by with only older Trek and the idea of new Trek was just an afterthought if it was a thought at all. Those 10 year olds when Enterprise went off the air were 22 when Discovery came on...a whole geek generation has been skipped! They bring a different outlook to new Trek.

The hate comes from fans or "fans" who feel offended because the vicious Kurtzman gang has the audacity to ruin their headcanons, plus some shitty youtubers and whatnot inventing and spreading bullshit for clickbait.

The hate comes from fans who think the writing, confused tone, convoluted plot, characters, script, CG and production design are shit. I personally couldn't care less who's running it, or the multitude of continuity problems Discovery introduced. I just want a good product, and apart from the opening handful of episodes of DIS season 2 and PIC, the rest have been terrible, imo. Nothing about ruining my childhood, or continuity problems.

 

[RAMA]

Great post btw!!

As far as automation goes:

I've specualted 3 possible ways the E-D was cleaned....foglets: programmable matter that simply rejects dirt to a cleaning apparatus; nanotech assemblers, in this case turning impurities inert; or...robots.

One thing announced by the Discovery producers was the desire to show both robots and Transhuman implications of the Trek universe as an update, and they have done that...we should ALWAYS have seen robots fixing, painting and cleaning.

What was the limitation? Mostly pre-Discovery budgets.

RAMA

Didn't realize the chief of security (Shaxs) is a Bajoran. I like the light, cheerful atmosphere of the trailer and presumably show, general missions and adventures don't seem to deviate much from classic Trek.
----------------


I miss the good old times when ST was completely substance over style and full of reason like - among other stuff - exploding consoles or floor plates crew members have to remove manually so the ship can launch a torpedo (TWK).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Xmh-weq1g&t=2m13s

It's legit to point out the nonsense of the whole rollercoaster thing, I don't like it either, but at least people don't fucking die because of it, and it does not needlessly extend the time you need to get combat-ready. Apparently these issues are not a problem for you while the rollercoaster is a game changer, I sense obvious double standards here.



Trek materials can be incredibly resilient, especially when combined with force fields (Structural integrity field). Archer and Reed survive the blast of a mine 20 to 25 metres away in space using rather thin, reinforced shuttlepod hatches without any kind of force fields for protection.



The direct depiction of automated drones is not a contradiction, it was long OVERDUE. Let's not pretend robots are a big deal in a world full technological marvels such as space ships, beaming, ftl drives, insanely advanced computers and the whole lot of other space magic. Hell, TOS (and DS9) introduced completely automated vessels, cargo drones and robot ships, what's keeping them running?

DS9 shows some automated military hardware:

TNG has the special probe from "Interface" remotely controlled by Laforge and equipped with mini tractor beams which can do basically everything.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Interface_probe

The Ent-D can clean itself, we never saw how.

TWK is definetly not the answer to everything (see above, stupid torpedo bay design for instance), the movie or many elements of the movie are actually quite dumb tbh.
Exocomps are described and presented as very sophisticated, fast problem solvers with the ability to learn, we have no reason to believe DOT-7s and drones from Discovery equal them in terms of capabilities and performance.

ST is based on live-action shows and films, it should go without saying that they were (and still are) limited by budgetary and practical/ CGI constraints.

Ronald D. Moore acknowledged this kind of limitation:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Memory_Alpha:AOL_chats/Ronald_D._Moore/ron053.txt

It's about firefights, but basically covers it all ("one of those things that we tend to slide by").





ST is full of continuity problems and retcons, DSC+ era Trek is actually restrained in that regard. The hate comes from fans or "fans" who feel offended because the vicious Kurtzman gang has the audacity to ruin their headcanons, plus some shitty youtubers and whatnot inventing and spreading bullshit for clickbait.

 

[Kpnuts]

The 2 main source videos are almost at 30 million views now and still climbing.

It's incredibly misleading looking at those Twitter video views, all it takes is the video to be 50% visible on someone's timeline and play for 2 seconds and it counts as a view. Also I suspect it's cumulative if the same person sees it, and with all the retweets and algorithms, that video will get a lot of impressions.

 

[BillJ]

The hate comes from fans who think the writing...

This is where the majority of problems with CBS' material are at so far for me. Hopefully with a consistent showrunner, Discovery will be able to make the leap into watchable fare. Picard was just dull, I made it through seven episodes thinking it was alright, missed a week due to other things going on in life and just never went back. To this day, I just don't care what happened in the show's last three episodes.

 

[Kpnuts]

This is where the majority of problems with CBS' material are at so far for me. Hopefully with a consistent showrunner, Discovery will be able to make the leap into watchable fare. Picard was just dull, I made it through seven episodes thinking it was alright, missed a week due to other things going on in life and just never went back. To this day, I just don't care what happened in the show's last three episodes.

You really didn't miss much. It got typically OTT silly

 

[RAMA]

It's incredibly misleading looking at those Twitter video views, all it takes is the video to be 50% visible on someone's timeline and play for 2 seconds and it counts as a view. Also I suspect it's cumulative if the same person sees it, and with all the retweets and algorithms, that video will get a lot of impressions.

I only posted the 2 largest for time and sanity's sake, if I added other sources it would easily be 35-40 million. Of course, that doesn't translate to 40 million viewers, but again, it shows an interest I did not realize was there.

I think a decent 5-6 million aggregate viewers will probably stream it in the US the first month, maybe another 1-2 million in Canada. Probably, another 4-5 million will pirate it, and those numbers are reflected in the Parrot ratings (which takes downloading into account in it's demand numbers). Of course we don't know the international outlet for it yet, but Rick and Morty did well all over the world, so a lot of people will see this show.

RAMA