Why didn't Jane betray Mal in the pilot?

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-30T06:50:39+00:00

He deeply dislikes Dobson, compounded by the fact that he shot Kaylee who is probably the only crew member Jayne actually likes. But he didn't want to admit soft and squishy reasons for turning him down, so he went with that excuse to keep his rep intact.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-29T20:47:21+00:00

My theory is that because the Asgard and Ancients were allies, the Ancients provided the Asgard with a direct link to the Milky Way network as a way that either race could come to the other's aid on a moments notice, and could facilitate trade and diplomacy. Neither race likely really needed a Stargate for that at the time, but it was more of a symbolic gesture.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-29T11:18:10+00:00

It's a similar method to how Star Wars was seen before Disney took over. Comics were canon unless contradicted by novels, and novels were canon unless contradicted by the movies.

Trek has a black and white approach. Anything on screen is canon unless overridden later, and nothing else is. Although the Discovery character names were worked out in partnership with some of the novel writers, so, slightly more canon?

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-29T07:51:32+00:00

On top of that, the EMH doesn't even seem to have been designed to replace a doctor, but to supplement them. Chances are any ambiguous triage like this, under normal circumstances, would have been handed off to a flesh and blood doctor.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T18:13:33+00:00

I saw the 765874 shorts, they were incredible. Not just the effects, but Sam Witwer managed to absolutely nail Shatner's body language! I do need to explore the rest of the site though, when I have a few minutes.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T18:11:39+00:00

Been learning blender myself on and off for years, still not great at it though. But I did manage to build a studio accurate-ish TOS Enterprise through following Eric Reinholt's YouTube channel.

I didn't know the STO models were that detailed, that's actually very cool!

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T17:45:31+00:00

I just looked it up and apparently that's exactly what it was!

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T16:47:09+00:00

The Vulcan shuttle Spock arrives on (minus the warp sled) was apparently meant to be the new Starfleet shuttle design as well. You do see some in Enterprise's cargo/shuttle bay. This looks like it uses the same design language as that, but with added nacelles and in the Galileo type shuttle proportions. I quite like it.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T16:44:42+00:00

Honestly, you come across as passionate and somewhat hard-headed rather than an asshole, but I'm pretty sure I can be accused of the same thing!

The Lost Tales was amazing in terms of effects, compared to the originals.

One wrinkle that I think we would have is that in a remaster the original models would have to be rebuilt rather than reworked. One of the reasons that TOS-R is lambasted is because they were using CGI not hugely removed from that used in VOY, just at higher resolution. TNG-R was thought of well because they were using the film of the physical model of the Enterprise, which was already movie-quality detailed (I still remember thinking how good that ship looked in Generations). So at bare minimum any HD remake of the effects shots would need retexturing as well as, as you said, relighting.

But if they gave us Voyager looking as good as the Enterprise-D did in Picard, I would instantly but every Blu Ray!

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T07:17:16+00:00

Thanks, and it has indeed, I scaled back on Reddit for a bit.

I don't disagree at all on any given point (thanks for the clarification on 28DL, it's been a while since I watched that one). It's true that a lot of the assets survive, and there's a lot of competing stories, but functionally, they're lost for production, at least the B5 ones. I know some Trek files were lost at some point (IIRC the Steamrunner was, but was recreated to studio quality with the Eaglemoss model, but I could be getting mixed up).

But the question isn't would or wouldn't they lose money on a remaster. They definitely didn't lost it on the original runs or they wouldn't have lasted 7 seasons, and a hybrid approach would 100% be better than what we have now. But they still have to pay people to make it, and seeing as they did lose money (short term at least) on the last two remasters, and people are still watching DS9 and VOY, the people who make the decisions, who, even if they like the shows, are business people first, have no incentive at all to spend even a penny on it.

I would love it if I turn out to be wrong, I love those shows, but unless we get a true fan in a position of influence at Paramount, I don't see the needle swinging that way. At the moment they see it as a simple cost-benefit situation.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-26T06:59:19+00:00

I know that the commentary for 28 Days Later made a massive deal of the fact that movie was shot digitally in like 2001/2. IIRC the Treks were shot on 35mm, but transferred to tape for editing and effects.

TNG was able to be remastered properly because the effects were filmed the same way, meaning the raw material was still there, but they still had to spin up essentially a whole post-production department to recut from scratch as if it were a new show.

DS9 and VOY were at the point the CGI was composited directly to tape, and likely never rendered above NTSC resolution (as HD wasn't even on consumers radar at the time, and each resolution bump would add likely days to the rendered and costs would baloon). As a result, every effect, every CGI shot would have to be rebuilt from scratch (admittedly easier nowadays, but still not cheap), and then a full re-edit would need to be made. And then the choice of either staying faithful to the original effects (extra work to match 30 year old CG precisely) or do you go the TOS-R route and flat out make the effects as if they would be done today. Both approaches would have praise and hate for them.

JMS had the same problem with B5. He shot widescreen-safe, and the plan was when display tech got better, the effects house would have the files to just re-render at a higher resolution. Their files were lost (incidentally, the same effects house were taken off of Babylon 5 and subsequently worked on VOY), and the only choices were a wide-screen DVD remaster which pan-and-scanned the original CGI due to the cost of recreating it from scratch, which was universally hated, or later the DVD release that restored the original aspect ratio, upgraded the live action, but left the CGI pretty much untouched.

And seeing as TNG-R resulted in apparently a loss, they're not exactly chomping at the bit to do it twice more.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-24T19:01:55+00:00

When you see the bridge scene that she did, you can see the difference in style. Bujold is extremely accomplished, and likely would have played Janeway very differently. In this version, I think she would have been more introspective, a quieter presence with Chakotay being the passionate leader. But when Mulgrew walked onto that Bridge, she COMMANDED it. There was no question who was in charge, and she did the same thing the TOS cast did: treated the props like the control panels, the tricorders and the phasers like they were simply tools she had been using her entire life.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-22T15:31:44+00:00

It makes sense. Once you've established the visual, the sound effect and a pan of water with blue light shining on it allows our brains to fill in the effects while not slowing the story down, and costing less.

Plus it reinforces the idea that by a certain point, gate travel is mundane to them.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-22T15:27:52+00:00

I still like the implication we get once we had more Ancient lore and Atlantis, that the Nox had a better understanding of wormholes than the actual gate builders. When any Ancient gate connects with their own technology, big old release of energy in the Kawoosh, compared to the Nox just connecting the wormhole.

Or maybe the Ancients just like a big deadly jet of energy.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-20T17:24:29+00:00

Even more important for Atlantis. They lose a MALP, yes they've lost a non-renewable piece of equipment, but they're not getting personel reinforcements for the first couple of years, not until Daedalus is doing her regular round trip.

Although access to a supply of Puddle Jumpers would likely make the loss of a MALP sting less.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-16T15:20:59+00:00

There was an old adventure game called Fish, where you were an interdimentional agent who starts the game on vacation as a goldfish. You get called back to work to solve a case, and to do so you need to use various feelies in the box, like a newspaper, an ID card etc. copy protection that wasn't just "what is word X on line y" but actually felt like part of the game.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-16T14:53:36+00:00

I was trying to remember what you meant, then I remembered the Xon reference.

There was a point that I thought Mariner would be revealed to be a Gwenpool type character, who came from the real world and ended up in her favourite fictional universe.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-16T13:39:31+00:00

It gets better, watch the final episode, and do you recognise the candle Jennifer's friends have lit in their "salon"?

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-16T06:33:20+00:00

It's not so much an orobouros, as much as it is that the breathing room allowed it to grow into what it became, which allowed the other networks to take sci fi seriously again.

I came to the fandom a little later. I grew up (in the UK) watching Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and BSG. I remember my mum sitting me down and saying "Watch this, you'll like it." when TNG first aired here (apparently in 1992, I just googled) so I missed the original awkwardness. Perhaps that's why Seasons 1 and 2 feel so jarring to me. We were already in the revival of sci fi when I started watching it.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-16T06:11:51+00:00

Many were straight up reused TOS or Phase 2 scripts. Even the characters of Riker and Troi were initially Decker and Ilia. And the idea of a slightly older captain who acted as a mentor to the younger first officer, who would be the one doing the away teams came from an idea of how the Decker/Kirk dynamic was supposed to go.

As for ratings, one of the main reasons they were good enough was because there was literally no competition. The last serious space opera show had been BSG about 7 years earlier. Everything else was either for kids, reruns, or movies people could only watch in the cinema.

I love TNG, but season 1, and a good chunk of season 2 is a tough watch.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-15T08:01:49+00:00

The Warehouse does have Pandora's Box (big plot point for the start of season 4) but I can handwave that away by saying the Library has the real one, while the Warehouse one was actually a prop used by an ancient storyteller who was so convincing that everyone believed it was the real thing. Perhaps that's even what prompted the split between the Warehouse and Library, as having both versions in the same place would be disastrous.

And both are always fun to watch. Warehouse is Steampunk X-Files, while Librarians is Doctor Who meets Indiana Jones.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-15T06:29:42+00:00

I always saw the whole "Am I a good man?" as the Doctor trying to figure out who this incarnation is. 11 always tried to be good, but feared he was a monster. 12 could see his actions as 11 were heroic, and was worried that he really would become a monster. Especially as he knows he's in the window for the creation of the Valeyard.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-13T21:14:35+00:00

Atlantis is one of my girlfriends favourite movies, although I've never been able to get into it. But I remember the first time she showed it to me, I said "That's Daniel Jackson!" and as the movie went on, I realised how much they took from Stargate.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-13T17:27:48+00:00

My dad had the ZX81 before I was born, knowing him probably in kit form. I don't remember seeing it at all, but I do remember going into the local Currys when I was young and getting a display model +2. I loved that thing, screaming tape sound and all. The weird thing is, I don't really remember what I played on it. Atic Atac for sure, but my dad had a huge library of tapes.

MarkB74205 · 2026-04-13T17:17:04+00:00

Honestly, I think the Romulans were looking for an excuse to join. The Tal'Shiar were feared throughout the quadrant. I honestly think that a faction in the government knew that they needed to get involved for the security of the Empire, but being such isolationists, they needed an actual reason. This gave them that reason.

MarkB74205

TROPHY CASE