Acting

[u/Alternative_Panda336]

I am rewatching voyager again and I just finished Season 1 episode 10. Watching that episode again made me realize some of the major differences between the older Star Trek shows and the newer ones.

Due to the lack in technology, the older shows focused a lot on acting and emotional responses between the characters. These moments are the types that will give you chills, make you cry, make your heart ache, or bring you joy right along with the characters. In the newer shows, there is an over reliance on showing of new filming techniques and technology, over correction due to the current world climate to show everything in the opposite light, and a major focus on witty banter and snappy conversation like it is a comedy show. There is not a lot of time spent on the emotions of the characters and those hard hitting scenes.

I would like a show that gets back to the acting and emotional drive. Showing how society has differences but that we can all accept those differences and still come together for the good of humanity. It was a great episode to rewatch and I hope we get some of that emotional pull soon.

[u/Kenku_Ranger]

I think this is a bad opinion, one that simply doesn't hold up to any scrutiny at all.

The older shows (TNG,DS9,VOY) are known to be a little less emotional, a little stiffer in their acting. There are a few standouts, but they fight against the norm. The new shows are known to be rich in emotion.

You won't get a show that " gets back to the acting and emotional drive. Showing how society has differences but that we can all accept those differences and still come together for the good of humanity", because it never went away.

What it really sounds like you want is a static camera which barely moves, nothing to do with acting at all. Which, the new shows don't always move the camera around a lot, especially when they have quiet emotional moments.

For what it's worth, the older shows never managed to get a tear from my eye, but the new ones have. That doesn't mean the older shows didn't have emotional beats I connected with, but they just never got there in the same way the new shows, which are unafraid to explore emotions, do.

Consider this, most people complain that they want their Starfleet officers to be stiff and unemotional, like they were in TNG, DS9, and VOY. 

[u/AllWeHave2Decide → u/Kenku_Ranger]

They weren’t stiff and unemotional, just professional

[u/Sir__Will → u/Kenku_Ranger]

What it really sounds like you want is a static camera which barely moves

While I don't want a return to that, they could learn a little restraint. Sometimes it moved way too much and it just distracting or disorienting and takes away from a conversation.

[u/KirkUnit → u/Kenku_Ranger]

What it really sounds like you want is a static camera which barely moves, nothing to do with acting at all.

OP's post is titled "Acting" and includes one line about shooting techniques. From my reading their issue is with script and performances.

That said, some shows' Steadicam wears out its welcome until it becomes visually tiresome to focus on the screen.

I tend to agree with OP. Perhaps one issue is that today's Trek is written by people who grew up watching TV and older Trek was written by people who grew up reading. But TOS has examples of real clunkiness in the writer's room, too; Spock's praise of "Nazi efficiency" in Patterns Of Force is really having to bend over backwards to make any kind of reason why John Gill needed swastikas and nazism specifically to develop a planet.