I decided to wait a few days before I write a rant about it, to calm down, think it over, think about the good points of the movie... but even after two days of contemplation, I am even more convinced that this pilot raped Star Trek harder than the J.J. Abrams movies.
We have a Star Trek main protagonist who, based upon her paranoid, prejudiced and racists way of thinking, that the only good solution to their situation is to "preemptively" destroy a ship that haven't done anything yet besides hiding away and which belongs to a powerful nation with whom Federation relations are already cold-war style.
And then our "protagonist", when her advice is rejected by her captain, a captain that is shown to be a very positive figure and with whom they have a deep bond, she lures her away, knocks her out in order to take over the ship, lie to the rest of the crew in order to carry out her "preemptive strike"idea.
And although her plan is foiled, we, the audience, are shown that this preemptive strike would have been indeed the only good solution to the situation.
WHAT DE FUCK????
This is the main hero of a Star Trek series???
Star Trek which as someone defined "about intelligent people solving their problems by talking". Ofc not all Star Trek plots are solved by talking, but FFS, this goes against everything what Trek stands for!
I would like to remind everyone that this moral dilemma has been already visited in Trek (in DS9): the Battle of Omarion Nebula. There the alien empire was not even an equal, but a superior foe and their hostile intent was not just a paranoid speculation of a prejudiced lone officer, but it was officially announced. And yes there were those who believed in the necessity of a preemptive strike...
Those ones were the most nefarious organizations of the Trek universe: the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar! And what did our Star Fleet heroes do when they discovered this plot? They went out at great length to notify their enemy about the incoming preemptive strike! That's where Star Trek stands on this issue.
If they wanted to do a paranoia and prejudice driven show, like Battlestar Galactica, then they should have choosen Cardassians as their protagonists, not the Federation. I would have loved a Star Trek: The Cardassians show. "For our nation, for our children, for Cardassia!" :)
Just think about this: Star Trek always put a lot of emphasis on the contemporary political message of their shows. It used to be a left wing show, a communist and pacifist one to be more precise. Now, what is the political message here? Let me tell you, the reasoning what our main heroine put forth, I heard it already in real life. From israeli militant right wing people!
"These fucking arabs don't understand anything, only violence, it is in their culture, the only way to achieve peace is to show strength, so we must strike first and strike hard, that's the only way to peace!"
And that's exactly what our heroine here said about the klingons.
So that's where we stand. We have a Star Trek where the central drama is that our main protagonists gives us a militant and racists speech about striking first...
This is sad. This is shameful.
Add to this the dimension of mutiny. Mutiny to carry out this particular plan, because her captain had at least some vague ideas about what Star Fleet should never do. Like striking first without provocation. Based on nothing but conjecture which stemmed from paranoid prejudice.
And not your usual "I steal away in a shuttle to carry out some good deed" style of mutiny. Nope, she lured away her captain (her best friend), knocked her out then tried to fool the crew about what the captain's orders were, in order to get them fire upon a ship unprovoked.
Further plot points
This plot point really made me furious, but this wasn't the only event where the writer's moral sense failed utterly. The end of the pilot was shocking as well.
The battle is over and then we have our captain (the one who seemed to have at least a vague idea about the values of the Federation) show us that her grasp on ethics is vague indeed. She wanted to do a kamikaze attack on the enemy ship. AFTER the battle when there was no point in it besides revenge.
Again, we have seen this happen in Star Trek before. We have seen someone do a kamikaze attack to destroy the enemy flagship AFTER the battle was already over and both sides were retreating. That was when the jem'hadar destroyed the USS Odyssey!
And our heroes were shocked about it, why would anyone do a kamikaze run on an enemy vessel when the battle was already over? The point was to send a message: the jem'hadar are real meanies. More vicious than the klingons. And they don't value life at all.
Okay, so heroine #1 thinks the same way the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar think. These are the most nefarious, paranoid and oppressive secret services of the two most racist major empires. Meahwhile heroine #2 thinks the same way the jem'hadar do, the most violent, militaristic, fanatical terror troops of the Galaxy. This is great. Roddenbery must be turning in his grave :(
By the way, the Klingon ship stayed back to collect the corpses of the fallen. They were basically doing red cross duty. So what the captain planned to do was not only a pointless continuation of the violence, but also a war crime. Then she came up with the idea of booby trapping an enemy corpse. Yet another war crime.
Speaking of violence... okay, power levels of characters have alway been a bit wonky in Star Trek. Klingons and jem'hadar were supposed to be superior in battle, but named characters, even non-security staff, were always able to beat up a bunch of klingons or jem'hadar. It was like a 10th level wizard beating up a bunch of 1st level fighters :)
BUT these situations only came up when our heroes were attacked, or when they were trying to escape imprisonment. But in Discovery our heroines actually came up with the brilliant idea of sending just two women with the mission to storm the bridge of the klingon flagship to take their leader alive. WTF??
Violence is the only solution? And why just two persons against a klingon ship?? And why is it the captain and the first officer???
Even Kirk had the sensibility to bring on a bunch of red-shirts! And Riker confronted Picard and told him that the captain should not go on dangerous away missions.
Am I watching Star Trek Discovery or Rambo Discovery?
The good, the bad and the klingon
Okay, let's move onto a bit more positive topic: the klingons.
I don't like the visual redesign, they look stupid and the whole redesign was unwarranted. The way they spoke, stopping for seconds after every syllable was horrible as well. Klingon language was so cool when spoken fluently. But I noticed that some of the other klingons spoke it at a normal pace so maybe it was only T'Kuvma who spoke in this retarded way.
Appearrances aside, the klingon storyline was pretty cool and got the flavor right. It felt very klingonish. Also I really liked the motivations of T'Kuvma: a conservative who wants to be left alone by globalization.
Star Trek always had this penchant to give the antagonists a motivation that were like this: not something we would necessarily agree with, but neither could we outright reject. These moral ambiguities are what made the antagonist races of the Trek universe so cool. The klingons, the romulans, the cardassians and the Dominion... you could always understand their motivations, even if you rejected the actions they choose based on those motivations.
But there are a few plotholes here. Problem #1 is that if the klingons wanted to be left alone by the Federation than the Federation would leave them alone. The Federation respects anyone desire to remain isolated. That's because the Federation is not the US. It's not a capitalist state with imperialistic tendencies and an ideology of a crusade to spread it's way of life. The Federation is perfectly fine with anyone who doesn't want to be integrated economically, culturally or politically into the Federation.
Remember, Star Trek was created by an american left-wing thinker during the middle of the Vietnam War. No surprise that not forcing its own world-view upon others is the Prime Directive.
A few other problematic points:
* If the Vulcans do have diplomatic relations with the Klingons, then it's nonsense to say that the Federation has no diplomatic relations, since the Vulcans are part of the Federation.
* If the Klingon empire is fragmentet at the moment and the 24 great houses are competing and feuding with each other then it is very hard to imagine that they are really isolationists. Feuding houses are very eager to use other races to their advantage - something we saw in many Trek episodes. Only unified empires are able to effectively close their borders (historical example: Japan only closed down its borders once Tokugawa united it under his shogunate)
* If the Federation wasn't able to contact the Klingons, why are they so worried about Federation influence?
So the whole setup upon which the klingon plot rests upon is quite contradictory.
ST:Discovery and feminism
Most of the time I am not a fan of SJWs counting quotas about characters. That's because I get the feeling that they are constraining artistic creativity (and even honest political messages in arts) by setting up these artifical demands. So when I first saw the Discovery trailer with two women of colour as the main protagonists I frowned.
But Trek is Trek and if there is a show that should allow political requirements drive artistic decisions, it is Star Trek (although it is alsoStar Trek where we have a few very good examples why it can turn out very badly... like in TNG season 7 when they wanted to do an enviromentalist story at all costs and it was very bad in all aspects). But in Discovery, this turned out very well!
Just think about it: go over the story of the pilot and imagine it happening to two guys:
Our heroes, Jack and George are walking in a desert planet. They blow up a well and they create a lake. Hurray, they have saved a civilization from extinction and averted an 80 year drought.
But then a storm comes and their comms are down. No problem they draw a sign into the sand and their ships finds them!
Ho boy, this would be soooo retro action pulp scifi. This would look like Valérian and Laureline!
Then they investigate a disappeared probe and they suspect A TRAP! They find a cloaked object!! The only solution: Jack must fly in there, in a simple spacesuit! Prepare for the action, for the thrill!!
He has to navigate an asteroid field, he will lose contact... and there is nuclear radiaton!!!oneone! So he is against a clock! Only 20m before he suffers irreversible damage (which will be reversed in 15m ofc).
He flies to the mysterious object which looks even more mysterious! It looks ritualistic! His captain said that the mission is strictly a flyby mission so he lands on it. Then out of nowhere a warrior appears! A warrior in a spacesuit, wielding a sword!! Will our hero survive? Fear not, dear reader, the alien is no match for our valiant hero!
The alien warrior attacks, when our hero engages his jetpack and pushing his enemy away he is somehow impaled by his own sword!!! (I still don't get how this happened). But our hero is damaged as well so he is floating away... Will the nuclear radiation kill him?
No, but his friends find him and drag him out of the sea (erm, space) unconscious and seriously injured...
This is soooooooo PULP. This is so 60s/70s era retro scifi! We even have a villain who is an evil high priest of a fanatical cult and his plot is to activate an ancient and legendary artifact! It is never explained why does he have it, if it was lost for millenia, but nevermind.
And ofc our protagonist has a traumatic background which is linked with the antagonists. He is the only one who can understand how they think and thus he is the only one who can defeat them! Or something like that...
Holy PULPINESS! Great pulp of all pulps!
If this show had two guys as its protagonists it's first drafts would have been rejected as something embarassingly retro, something that is utterly ridiculous nowadays.
But they put two women into their place and it works. It works marvelously! It seems fresh, exciting and dramatic!
I am NOT sarcastic here. This show convinced me that it is worth redoing classic stuff with gender swapping and it can make the show look fresh. Just why the hell did they have to name it Star Trek??!!
If it is true that the spirit of Star Trek is not sellable in the 21th century then leave it alone!
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