Really goes to show how empty a short like this can be without dialogue and without clear intent, assembled instead by which AI clips were the most coherent.
Fun that Robin Curtis (Saavik) and Shatner did some filming for it, though.
i do kind of appreciate that even though star trek is kind of on the ‘hard sf’ side of the trek/wars divide in fan culture, star trek is like… incredibly sentimental and vibes based most of the time, in fandom and in canon alike
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i have no comment on the content but that’s bad CG, not AI video. it was filmed on real locations, starred mostly real people, and if there was anything generated by AI it wasn’t obvious. The rendering tool they’re advertising, OctaneRender, has some AI tooling but it looks like it’s mostly denoising and upscaling, nothing about fully rendering video.
Unless we’re using some other definition of AI here (which i mean yeah it’s basically meaningless). So to be specific I’m 99% certain that their usage of Generative AI is minimal enough to be non-notable.
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depends on how nitty gritty you want to get to call the generative ai used to create deepfakes but yeah it was filmed on physical sets (and also the volume and also green screens) but the actors were just actually there being live swapped for the old guys
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I kind of liked it for the non- Trekster I am.
fun that the multiverse conceit of this lower decks season let them do a Data episode considering Actual Data is in his “post nemesis, pre-picard kinda alive and also dead in a drawer or a computer or something state”
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Absolutely loved Fully Dilated, this was such a fun and funny concept for an ep.
I liked how the Boimler and Rutherford B plot, by nature, could not be more than a few seconds, since it took place in the time frame where one second equals one week on the surface. Kept everything focused on the girls down on the planet. Really, really helps this show when they ditch the A/B plot structure and keep on-task like this.
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They should have just used the Michael Myers mask instead.
Yeah, apparently that actually was Gary Lockwood getting all Where No Man Has Gone Before-d up computer style at the beginning. Given the old Kirk sees young Kirk in the rift moment, I guess you have to have the most Dave Bowman adjacent person possible on board.
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i was waiting for an upper decks episode ever since lower decks started and honestly this is one of the most incredible narrative juggling acts i’ve seen. absolute trek maximalism, a dozen episode concepts squeezed into 25 minutes. brilliantly organized chaos. sitcom structure genius
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watching “court martial” and the costume design idea to make a futuristic version of a sailor dress accidentally makes this one character look kinda like a cosplayer
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another interesting thing about court martial is that it is one of the extremely rare times in star trek when they actually have security footage on the ship (something that would have solved the mysteries of dozens of other episodes) but the footage turned out to be computer generated fakery
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There’s a part in the novelization of Star Trek the Motion Picture where Sulu hides a boner
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https://fanlore.org/wiki/T’hy’la_(Vulcan_term)#:~:text=T’hy’la%20is%20an,brother"%20and%20"lover."
This is the same book that is cited as textual evidence of Kirk/Spock being canon, and specifically mentions Spock ‘going into heat’ in said paragraph.
Roddenberry was in all things, a horndog at heart.
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he tried to fuck tegs mom at a convention
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every time on tos when kirk goes on a little objectivist rant about how a man needs to be challenged and suffer and build fate for himself to grow i’m like yeah yeah yeah future boy in your post scarcity world relax dude
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now that we’re like midway through season 3, which i guess is when the show is supposed to ‘get good,’ i feel like i can still honestly stand by my claim that seasons 1-2 are preferable to me for a lot of reasons
like i love the show for all the reasons everyone loves it, but i think i would love seven seasons of a show with the exact vibes of Conspiracy even more
nevertheless, and i am fully aware this is not a new star trek opinion by any means, this show is incredibly therapeutic as a dramatization of, like, a supportive and healthy workplace environment. i have been literally moved to tears numerous times by captain jean luc picard’s strong and nurturing leadership capabilities. the camaraderie… it speaks to me… it makes me dream of a world where people solve problems by talking to one another. it is a miracle that this PBS-ass morality play about the chain of command was allowed to thrive in american pop culture, truly.
the politics of the show are uh dicey to say the least, but the interpersonal stuff is just so well executed. i’m writing this coming off of the episode where geordi is stranded with a romulan on a stormy planet. the perfect example of the irritating politics of the show and the absolutely perfect examination of How Great Leaders Make The Hard Decisions and Their Coworkers Love Them managerial utopianism
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the first half of the lower decks series finale is some of the best fanfic they have ever produced. like maybe the most interesting and best case scenarios for hyper nerdy layering on references and cameos. i gotta sit with it but maybe one of my favorite trek eps period. of all the LD episodes i think this one needed might have needed the full hour treatment the most. a real maximally indulgent treat.
canon garak/bashir husbands, t’pol from a universe where trip doesn’t die for no reason, a curzon dax in his prime, harry kim, fuckin lily sloane (with the ridiculous nerdy detail of the slightly different season 1 enterprise jumpsuit colors), the original matt jefferies enterprise design, an entire episode that is a section 31 mission that is not edgy or miserable. what a wild time.
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Came across this pretty insane video that I think was meant to be some kind of self-insert attraction at Universal, where you’d be edited into a Star Trek adventure with the TOS bridge crew?
That’s wild enough, but my boi Michael O’Hare, lead for the first season of Babylon 5, did this demo/pilot thing where he went through it and woodenly delivered his lines beside 3 other people who simply cannot be actors of any kind, perhaps instead acquaintances:
I would not say it is watchable, but definitely notable for being a really strange overlap of B5 and Trek.
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I cannot stop thinking about that thing that happened in the final season of Discovery where they needed to give Culber something to do so there was this whole long scene where the ship generates a sentient AI homunculus of his meema using data from the ship’s records. and he talks to her about how he got killed in season 1 and resurrected by the spore network when they undid it the next season.
This is like your therapist (the sentient computer) putting on a meema costume and sitting down with you and pretending to be her.
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Got a chance to catch up, Fissure Quest was great. Just a fun adventure full of characters we love. I feel like this poses the question, “what if there was a universe with no Rick Berman?”
There’s too many to list, but I’m in love with how they went back and fixed of every major missed opportunity or blunder in Trek since DS9. You love seeing these characters playing their roles in a world with better writing. Also dug the Star Wars axolotl barbarians!
Excited for the last ep.
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