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Post by Prometheus59650 on Jun 17, 2024 16:11:43 GMT
Given how Matalas seems to have realized that season 2 was going to suck since he ducked out of it to focus on season 3 which basically undid a lot of what the first two seasons had established... my guess is that they knew season 1 had been received with "huh... meh" and season 2 would be received with "what the hell"... so, they felt "alright alright, we're gonna give the fanboys what they wanted". They retconned their own show in the process of making it (since the third season was shot immediately after the second). That's quite an accomplishment. And not one that speaks for them as writers/producers. Season 1 tried something different. I give it credit for that even if it stumbled more often than not. 2 was just crazy almost from start to finish and 3 was...basically an AI approximation of TNG. |
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Post by MrPicard on Jun 18, 2024 4:29:29 GMT
Yeah I'm also inclined to give them credit for trying something new in season 1. It had its flaws but it's the one season I can find myself somehow fitting in with the rest of TNG. Season 2 is a mess plot-wise and characterization-wise and season 3 is just one big badfic. AI TNG sounds about right indeed.
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Post by The Founder on Jun 25, 2024 6:05:26 GMT
Given how Matalas seems to have realized that season 2 was going to suck since he ducked out of it to focus on season 3 which basically undid a lot of what the first two seasons had established... my guess is that they knew season 1 had been received with "huh... meh" and season 2 would be received with "what the hell"... so, they felt "alright alright, we're gonna give the fanboys what they wanted". They retconned their own show in the process of making it (since the third season was shot immediately after the second). That's quite an accomplishment. And not one that speaks for them as writers/producers. I agree with everything you said. I definitely believe the very rough about-face was a result of the blowback from S1/S2. The one thing I felt kind of sad about is that they simply erased most of the S1/S2 cast. I hated that most of them just faded away or had abrupt endings (Rios). I think that was pretty cruel to their stories. Honestly? I feel like the show was pulled in two separate directions. S1 felt like it was attempting to do a personal story about Jean-Luc Picard overcoming the demons he carried with him. It was not meant to explore gaseous nebulae but the inner spirit. Then it ended with him fighting off a Romulan invasion coupled with a synth invasion from galaxy 9. I really wish it had either done the latter (which is typical, old-style Trek) or do a singular story about a man coping with his trauma. Balancing those two concepts is hard and they just weren't able to do that. |
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Post by SherlockHolmes on Jun 25, 2024 22:18:23 GMT
Given how Matalas seems to have realized that season 2 was going to suck since he ducked out of it to focus on season 3 which basically undid a lot of what the first two seasons had established... my guess is that they knew season 1 had been received with "huh... meh" and season 2 would be received with "what the hell"... so, they felt "alright alright, we're gonna give the fanboys what they wanted". They retconned their own show in the process of making it (since the third season was shot immediately after the second). That's quite an accomplishment. And not one that speaks for them as writers/producers. I agree with everything you said. I definitely believe the very rough about-face was a result of the blowback from S1/S2. The one thing I felt kind of sad about is that they simply erased most of the S1/S2 cast. I hated that most of them just faded away or had abrupt endings (Rios). I think that was pretty cruel to their stories. Honestly? I feel like the show was pulled in two separate directions. S1 felt like it was attempting to do a personal story about Jean-Luc Picard overcoming the demons he carried with him. It was not meant to explore gaseous nebulae but the inner spirit. Then it ended with him fighting off a Romulan invasion coupled with a synth invasion from galaxy 9. I really wish it had either done the latter (which is typical, old-style Trek) or do a singular story about a man coping with his trauma. Balancing those two concepts is hard and they just weren't able to do that. OMG!!! ITS THE FOUNDER!!! It's so good to see you!!! I feel like bowing like Weyoun. One thing the I have issue with across all 3 seasons is the freakin ugly Color grading. Why do we even need the color grading to begin with? It was applied so hard to season 3 that it made everything SOOOOOOO DARRRRRRRRK. Like they were trying to outdo Stuart Baird to the point the Scimitar having a brighter set than a Starfleet vessel. You can see behind the scenes that the sets were much brighter. Even the Enterprise-D set looked like crap with the color grading. (I'm still not letting go that despite everything else was accurate, that they got the neon lights the wrong color on the sides of the bridge) In the final episode, it looked like most of the lights were turned off and the only light shining on the bridge was from a sunlamp from the side.   Even with the darker "Movie set" , The lighting works better. There's more depth and you can see the characters better(see below)  God, that cinematographer could really light a movie.... |
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Post by Prometheus59650 on Jun 26, 2024 1:18:26 GMT
Alonzo made the D look almost like an entirely new set for GEN.
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Post by MrPicard on Jun 27, 2024 5:43:30 GMT
Given how Matalas seems to have realized that season 2 was going to suck since he ducked out of it to focus on season 3 which basically undid a lot of what the first two seasons had established... my guess is that they knew season 1 had been received with "huh... meh" and season 2 would be received with "what the hell"... so, they felt "alright alright, we're gonna give the fanboys what they wanted". They retconned their own show in the process of making it (since the third season was shot immediately after the second). That's quite an accomplishment. And not one that speaks for them as writers/producers. I agree with everything you said. I definitely believe the very rough about-face was a result of the blowback from S1/S2. The one thing I felt kind of sad about is that they simply erased most of the S1/S2 cast. I hated that most of them just faded away or had abrupt endings (Rios). I think that was pretty cruel to their stories. Honestly? I feel like the show was pulled in two separate directions. S1 felt like it was attempting to do a personal story about Jean-Luc Picard overcoming the demons he carried with him. It was not meant to explore gaseous nebulae but the inner spirit. Then it ended with him fighting off a Romulan invasion coupled with a synth invasion from galaxy 9. I really wish it had either done the latter (which is typical, old-style Trek) or do a singular story about a man coping with his trauma. Balancing those two concepts is hard and they just weren't able to do that. What's funny is that seasons 2 and 3 were shot back to back, which means that season 3 was at least in its final stages of writing when they worked on making season 2 a reality. This means they KNEW that season 2 would be a mess and that the fans would hate it. Matalas knew, too - he left the second season after the first two episodes and then went on to work on season 3. They were VERY much aware of the fact that the second season was terrible. Matalas himself said he was only concerned with making sure that season 3 was as perfect as it could be (or what he thinks of as perfect, at least). They KNEW that season 3 had to "fix" what the first two seasons did. That's why they allowed Matalas to do whatever he wanted - they probably had a "now that we've made a mess it can only get better somehow, let him do what he wants" line of thinking.
And I totally agree - it was a massive disrespect towards the cast from the first two seasons to shove them aside the way they did. I'm convinced they only kept Michelle Hurd around so that they could tick the "lgbt+" box with her romance with Seven that got like five seconds of screentime and went nowhere. At least they didn't kill off one of them tho - they learned THAT much about not using the "bury your gays" trope from the Disco backlash. And if I were Orla Brady I'd be very unhappy about how they didn't even bother to give Laris a final scene and just shoved her off to some planet in the first five minutes of the first season 3 episode just so that Crusher could take up the "romantic interest tension" spotlight with Jean-Luc. I can't think of any other show that ditched its whole cast for a final season just to bring back an old cast to win fanboy brownies. Even Sir Patrick expressed "sadness" about "breaking up our family", which is the most polite way (and probably the only legal one, given the contracts they sign that state that they can't say anything negative about the show they're working on) of saying "I was furious they ditched everyone I worked with".
And yup. They tried a character piece about Jean-Luc Picard (without understanding the character, but hey, they tried, I do give them credit for it) but this is Star Trek. You can do a character piece like that MUCH better in writing. It would have made an incredible novel (which is, ironically, probably why they hired a novel writer to write the show). But this sort of thing doesn't translate as well into television, especially not if you have a science fiction franchise that is more about the exploration of humanity and space and not exactly about season long character arcs. And you have a 20 year gap. Last time people saw Jean-Luc he was sitting in his captain's chair, ready to take on the unknown. And now they show him depressed and broken, dreading to wake up in the morning. You had better do a FANTASTIC job at explaining what happened. This should have taken up the entire season. A lot of flashbacks, much like they did on the show LOST where flashbacks explain why a character acts in this and that way now. A plot that matches what Jean-Luc went through with the Romulans and why he quit Starfleet. So that, in the end, you could say "this guy has overcome what made him quit". This is why I said this would have made a great novel. You can do all of this very well in a novel setting. In television, you either do it as brilliantly as LOST did or you do what PIC did and just crash after the first few episodes. And then make it all worse in the second season with some weird retconned trauma that makes no sense whatsoever because it beats a dead horse of "man can't have a relationship" when dude had a family for 30 years in an episode everyone conveniently forgot. It's no wonder the fandom said "no thanks" to the show and season 3 was declared "do whatever you can to salvage this mess".
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Post by SherlockHolmes on Jun 28, 2024 3:56:52 GMT
In my opinion, 'Picard' shouldn't even been made in the first place. It did a damned good job in assassinating Picard's character. That was not the same man that that preached to Wesley in 'The First Duty', that was not the same man that told Admiral Dougherty off in Insurrection. Then it continued to fk up the cast's legacy. Oh Riker and Troi must suffer, like Troi didn't suffer enough in TNG. Oh lets destroy Seven's character by killing off Icheb. I wonder if Geordi even knows Hugh is dead. Like lets kill off every significant guest character. Maddox, Hugh, Ro, Shelby. Im surprised they didn't kill off Vash. Lets kill off the Enterprise-E off screen while we're at it, AND AT THE SAME TIME, Make a joke about it. And also, lets retire a fan favorite (although I hated it) Enterprise-F. It finally got screen time to only be retired. And for the love of god, they made that damned ugly constitution knockoff an Enterprise. Its not worthy to be an Enterprise. Its got less armaments than a survey shuttle. Speaking of getting rid of original Picard cast. We learn that Samurai Romulan has been assigned to the Excelsior in season 2...that gets destroyed...so he dies. They forgot about him and unknowingly killed him off.
Yeah, Picard should have never been made.
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Post by MrPicard on Jun 29, 2024 5:13:37 GMT
Ironically, Vash would have been the only guest character where I would not have minded it if they had actually killed her off, lol. (Would have been interesting to see - if she had been the mother of Jean-Luc's child, how would he have dealt with suddenly being a dad AND kind of a single dad at that, too.)
But yeah. They brought guest characters back just to kill them off. Not even those who enjoyed the show liked this. And yeah. I also wish they had never made PIC. I know why I never wanted for Jean-Luc to return. PIC is precisely why not.
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Post by SherlockHolmes on Jun 29, 2024 12:52:44 GMT
Ironically, Vash would have been the only guest character where I would not have minded it if they had actually killed her off, lol. (Would have been interesting to see - if she had been the mother of Jean-Luc's child, how would he have dealt with suddenly being a dad AND kind of a single dad at that, too.) But yeah. They brought guest characters back just to kill them off. Not even those who enjoyed the show liked this. And yeah. I also wish they had never made PIC. I know why I never wanted for Jean-Luc to return. PIC is precisely why not. Can't trust these producers and show runners to take care of anything legacy wise. It needs me in charge. I would have made a series based on the USS Titan(Fan favorite), and after 20 years, Riker is on his last mission before retiring. The mission is to Transport Admiral Picard to the decommissioning ceremony for the Enterprise-E (yes, E) after 30 years of service. ( There will be discussion of an upcoming date on the laying out of the keel for the Enterprise-F scheduled a couple of years later). The Titan is approaching Earth when a tear in the fabric of space opens and endangers the Earth. Admiral Picard orders Riker to take the Titan into it to find themselves in another dimension. And for once, not having a daggum villain. Just an anomaly to figure out. This show would have tons of character moments. I'd still find a way to bring back data, via the way it was set up. Through the memory download of B4. I'd do so using a clone body of Dr. Soongh, an advanced race converting the memory engrams into neurons (Come on its not as outlandish as what we got.) Data would eventually age and die with passing of years, granting him an ending that he wanted for his story. I think I would also include the recovery of the Enterprise-D saucer with starfleet now having the technology to recover it, and place just the saucer, as it is, in a fleet museum. I would bring back Ro, but this time, her proving the point that the Federation was in the wrong how they did the Maquis . Also everything would be freakin brighter!!!!! And the sets would not look like Tron. I would bring in Eaves, Drexler, Sternbach, Probert (if he were willing) , Okuda....and Alonzo..I want everything to look as gorgeous as it did in Generations. I would rehire Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. I would personally direct the look of the external shots of the ships. I prefer artistic over realistic. ...yeah I'm a narcissist fanboy.... |
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Post by Prometheus59650 on Jun 29, 2024 18:44:59 GMT
Ironically, Vash would have been the only guest character where I would not have minded it if they had actually killed her off, lol. (Would have been interesting to see - if she had been the mother of Jean-Luc's child, how would he have dealt with suddenly being a dad AND kind of a single dad at that, too.) But yeah. They brought guest characters back just to kill them off. Not even those who enjoyed the show liked this. And yeah. I also wish they had never made PIC. I know why I never wanted for Jean-Luc to return. PIC is precisely why not. Is it though? I mean, in theory, yes. I could have listed all of the reasons Picard or the others should not have come back and that none of this should be done. Hell, we discussed them on TrekCore long before PIC was a thing. But for me, particularly S3 was worse than I could have imagined. Because I always imagined that there would be SOMEONE there that understood and had some reverence for the characters. But there was no one. |
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Post by Prometheus59650 on Jun 29, 2024 18:46:20 GMT
Ironically, Vash would have been the only guest character where I would not have minded it if they had actually killed her off, lol. (Would have been interesting to see - if she had been the mother of Jean-Luc's child, how would he have dealt with suddenly being a dad AND kind of a single dad at that, too.) But yeah. They brought guest characters back just to kill them off. Not even those who enjoyed the show liked this. And yeah. I also wish they had never made PIC. I know why I never wanted for Jean-Luc to return. PIC is precisely why not. Can't trust these producers and show runners to take care of anything legacy wise. It needs me in charge. I would have made a series based on the USS Titan(Fan favorite), and after 20 years, Riker is on his last mission before retiring. The mission is to Transport Admiral Picard to the decommissioning ceremony for the Enterprise-E (yes, E) after 30 years of service. ( There will be discussion of an upcoming date on the laying out of the keel for the Enterprise-F scheduled a couple of years later). The Titan is approaching Earth when a tear in the fabric of space opens and endangers the Earth. Admiral Picard orders Riker to take the Titan into it to find themselves in another dimension. And for once, not having a daggum villain. Just an anomaly to figure out. This show would have tons of character moments. I'd still find a way to bring back data, via the way it was set up. Through the memory download of B4. I'd do so using a clone body of Dr. Soongh, an advanced race converting the memory engrams into neurons (Come on its not as outlandish as what we got.) Data would eventually age and die with passing of years, granting him an ending that he wanted for his story. I think I would also include the recovery of the Enterprise-D saucer with starfleet now having the technology to recover it, and place just the saucer, as it is, in a fleet museum. I would bring back Ro, but this time, her proving the point that the Federation was in the wrong how they did the Maquis . Also everything would be freakin brighter!!!!! And the sets would not look like Tron. I would bring in Eaves, Drexler, Sternbach, Probert (if he were willing) , Okuda....and Alonzo..I want everything to look as gorgeous as it did in Generations. I would rehire Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. I would personally direct the look of the external shots of the ships. I prefer artistic over realistic. ...yeah I'm a narcissist fanboy.... At least you cop to it.  |
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Post by MrPicard on Jul 1, 2024 4:50:58 GMT
Ironically, Vash would have been the only guest character where I would not have minded it if they had actually killed her off, lol. (Would have been interesting to see - if she had been the mother of Jean-Luc's child, how would he have dealt with suddenly being a dad AND kind of a single dad at that, too.) But yeah. They brought guest characters back just to kill them off. Not even those who enjoyed the show liked this. And yeah. I also wish they had never made PIC. I know why I never wanted for Jean-Luc to return. PIC is precisely why not. Is it though? I mean, in theory, yes. I could have listed all of the reasons Picard or the others should not have come back and that none of this should be done. Hell, we discussed them on TrekCore long before PIC was a thing. But for me, particularly S3 was worse than I could have imagined. Because I always imagined that there would be SOMEONE there that understood and had some reverence for the characters. But there was no one.
That's basically exactly what I was always afraid of. Some fanboy brings back TNG and basically turns it into his own personal fan fiction without any understanding of the characters (particularly Jean-Luc) whatsoever OR some suit in charge of Paramount decides it's time to bring TNG back and they turn it into a shiny new show that ignores everything TNG was ever about in order to cater to some imaginary audience they think will love what they're doing.
Basically, both happened. I know I have high standards when it comes to Jean-Luc and I get irritated super easily but still. It's not because I think my story for him is superior. It's because I think they deliberatly ignored aspects of his character (and basic logic was well sometimes) to make him fit into their weird stories. And THAT is even WORSE than "whoops we forgot that". It's their "eh we ignored that, sorry not sorry, we needed for Picard to be like this and that" attitude that riles me up so much. I guess it all comes down to "they didn't respect his character". And that's what I knew would happen. And that's why I was always dead set against bringing Jean-Luc back and why I didn't share the enthusiasm when PIC was announced. I was more like... horrified.
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Post by SherlockHolmes on Jul 2, 2024 17:00:43 GMT
Can't trust these producers and show runners to take care of anything legacy wise. It needs me in charge. I would have made a series based on the USS Titan(Fan favorite), and after 20 years, Riker is on his last mission before retiring. The mission is to Transport Admiral Picard to the decommissioning ceremony for the Enterprise-E (yes, E) after 30 years of service. ( There will be discussion of an upcoming date on the laying out of the keel for the Enterprise-F scheduled a couple of years later). The Titan is approaching Earth when a tear in the fabric of space opens and endangers the Earth. Admiral Picard orders Riker to take the Titan into it to find themselves in another dimension. And for once, not having a daggum villain. Just an anomaly to figure out. This show would have tons of character moments. I'd still find a way to bring back data, via the way it was set up. Through the memory download of B4. I'd do so using a clone body of Dr. Soongh, an advanced race converting the memory engrams into neurons (Come on its not as outlandish as what we got.) Data would eventually age and die with passing of years, granting him an ending that he wanted for his story. I think I would also include the recovery of the Enterprise-D saucer with starfleet now having the technology to recover it, and place just the saucer, as it is, in a fleet museum. I would bring back Ro, but this time, her proving the point that the Federation was in the wrong how they did the Maquis . Also everything would be freakin brighter!!!!! And the sets would not look like Tron. I would bring in Eaves, Drexler, Sternbach, Probert (if he were willing) , Okuda....and Alonzo..I want everything to look as gorgeous as it did in Generations. I would rehire Foundation Imaging and Digital Muse. I would personally direct the look of the external shots of the ships. I prefer artistic over realistic. ...yeah I'm a narcissist fanboy.... Yes, and that's the important part. More important than anything really, otherwise, you end up with things like Season 3 of Picard. |
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Post by SherlockHolmes on Jul 3, 2024 20:19:58 GMT
I agree with everything you said. I definitely believe the very rough about-face was a result of the blowback from S1/S2. The one thing I felt kind of sad about is that they simply erased most of the S1/S2 cast. I hated that most of them just faded away or had abrupt endings (Rios). I think that was pretty cruel to their stories. Honestly? I feel like the show was pulled in two separate directions. S1 felt like it was attempting to do a personal story about Jean-Luc Picard overcoming the demons he carried with him. It was not meant to explore gaseous nebulae but the inner spirit. Then it ended with him fighting off a Romulan invasion coupled with a synth invasion from galaxy 9. I really wish it had either done the latter (which is typical, old-style Trek) or do a singular story about a man coping with his trauma. Balancing those two concepts is hard and they just weren't able to do that. OMG!!! ITS THE FOUNDER!!! It's so good to see you!!! I feel like bowing like Weyoun. One thing the I have issue with across all 3 seasons is the freakin ugly Color grading. Why do we even need the color grading to begin with? It was applied so hard to season 3 that it made everything SOOOOOOO DARRRRRRRRK. Like they were trying to outdo Stuart Baird to the point the Scimitar having a brighter set than a Starfleet vessel. You can see behind the scenes that the sets were much brighter. Even the Enterprise-D set looked like crap with the color grading. (I'm still not letting go that despite everything else was accurate, that they got the neon lights the wrong color on the sides of the bridge) In the final episode, it looked like most of the lights were turned off and the only light shining on the bridge was from a sunlamp from the side. Even with the darker "Movie set" , The lighting works better. There's more depth and you can see the characters better(see below) God, that cinematographer could really light a movie.... Not meaning to bump, but I been trying to figure out what is bothering me so bad about the Enterprise-D in Picard. The bridge I mean. In the 3 pictures above, Its the only one of the 3 where the lightning doesn't make sense. Like why is most of the light coming from one side of the bridge in that picture. In the other pictures, the set lighting may not be what's illuminating them, but it is coming from the directions that there are supposed to be light sources. It looks great and realistic. On the 'Picard' bridge, There is literally nothing on that side of the bridge to produce that light. At least nothing that shouldn't be on the other side of the bridge too. This is real bad Cinematography. It clashes so bad that it looks unnatural. First you have light sources not casting any light, then you have casting light that doesn't have a source. Its horrible. Its worse than The Motion Picture bridge being seemingly illuminated by an invisible light around the viewscreen. Its amazing that Picard has me thinking a single color every time I hear of it. Desert brown. Like even the Enterprise-D bridge seems to be stuck with it. The color palette in Picard it the most sickening thing about it visually (until you get to the Darkness of S3-which if it isn't dark-its brown) . |
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I am so sorry...