reimagining the series

With the success the new trek has been,i was wondering if it would work with the series and have the cast reprise their roles for tv and remake all 78 epsiodes,ok it will look good and better special effects but would it have the same impact the original series have today?.

 

After much consideration, I must say ... and don't hold me to this ... it would have less impact than the original.

 

No. Not the same impact at all.

 

About the same impact as the New Monkees.

 

There will not be any NuTrek television spinning off from the Abrams movies. CBS and Abrams have both made it pretty clear.

 

Abrams primary cast are movie stars, therefor, it would be to expensive to pay them for a TV series. It all comes down to the movie economics vs. TV economics. You may be able to get one (like Urban in Only Human). But you are not going to get all of the primary movie cast, especially Pine. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc.. would basically have to re-cast. So there in lies a problem where CBS would have to decide is its worth recasting those characters, especially when there is another movie coming in 3 years or so. This will cause brand confusion. They are better off going in a different direction or trying to re-cast TNG.

 

A shame, because it would be beautiful to see TOS back on the small screen and the TNG characters get some decent movies for once.

 

Why would anyone want to do this? The purpose escapes me.

Since I already ignore Abram's Star Trek movies ( I really stopped watching new Trek after DS9 ended), it would just give me more to ignore!

 

What would be the point? Particularly what would be the point of redoning the original episodes. You certainly aren't going to catch that lightning-in-a-bottle again the same way. The nuTrek cast don't have anywhere near the same chemistry as the TOS cast had.

Also there were numerous individuals behind the scenes that made TOS what it was and the evidence is on the film screen that the nuTrek production crew didn't have that kind of talent. The biggest difficiencies in talent are the writing, the ideas and the producing/directing. They're nowhere near the level of a lot of what we saw on TOS.

What's being proposed here is essentially reshooting the TOS scripts, but everything else is changed from cast to writing to production crew. And because you're just reshooting existing scripts or even if you're adapting them you will draw inevitable comparisons with many episodes that are now considered classic and iconic. Furthermore the audience isn't the same as when TOS hit the ground and flourished in ensuing years. The television market is now much more fragmented.

A big difference (for me) is also the nature of the storytelling. NuTrek is mindless blockbuster fare with hyper action to (presumably) distract you from so many flaws in the story and plotting. Television by nature is more small scale also allowing you to tell a greater variety of stories, as evidenced by TOS and TNG. To get that kind of Star Trek story in film you have to rethink the blockbuster mentality and I think that's highly unlikely studio bosses would go for it. That said it would be kind of amazing to see a Star Trek film telling a story like "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Balance Of Terror," "Space Seed," "A Taste Of Armageddon" or "The Doomsday Machine" on the big screen. The real strength of those stories isn't the action sequences (even with re-imagined f/x) but in the ideas and character interplay. Imagine a Star Trek film that actually had the balls to go for story first and f/x as a genuinely supporting element. I'd say TMP and TWOK came closest to doing that.

Case in point: STID. It's a rip-off of TWOK and even with TWOK's logic missteps it's still a far better film than STID. And STID really pales in comparison to TOS' "Space Seed" in terms of storytelling.

Partly by its nature television forces you to focus more on story and character partly because you've got only 45-50 minutes to tell your story. And it's the thing you have to do if you really want to grab your audience in hopes of bringing them back week after week.

If you wanted to bring TOS back to television then it's obviously a reboot, with new stories and a much different approach than what was used in JJtrek.

 

Blah blah blah JJ bash blah blah blah.

 

Boiled down simply, smartass, is the dumbed down summer blockbuster approach wouldn't work for long on television unless you want it for Saturday morning programming. And I seriously doubt any network would spend that kind of money for a Saturday morning program.

And the OP brought JJtrek into it by proposing nuTrek be used to reshoot the original stories. They couldn't even rip-off TWOK half decently.

His proposal is flawed on a number of points.
- to what end reshooting the original scripts?
- you wouldn't have the same JJ cast.
- you wouldn't have the same JJ production crew.

So he's not really getting what he seems to asking for.

But we can we can play the thought exercise game as he's suggesting. And that brings us back to "why?" To what end reshooting the original episodes with the JJtrek universe? Why not make something new from scratch?

 

This doesn't strike me as the right forum for any of this.

The parts about ideas for a new series are Future of Trek. The parts about the merits of STID, or lack thereof, and same for STXI, are Star Trek Movies XI+.

 

A few years ago they launched a comic book series that 're-imagines' all the TOS episodes with the new versions of the TOS crew. These might give you an idea of how your idea might be realized. The ones I read weren't awful, nor were they all that interesting. Not sure if it's still going. Guys?

 

I didn't read further that that, since if you have to resort to name calling you've lost the argument by default.

 

A rebooted TOS series could be awesome, capture the public's imagination and be huge. Would it have the same long-term impact? Unlikely, but it would certainly be a huge boost to the longevity of the franchise.

But even if it was the most well written, wonderfully acted and beautiful show in television history, Warped9 would still loathe it on principle.

 

This same idea was floated last year in the world of Doctor Who fandom when the docudrama about William Hartnell was being made. "Why not take this new cast and remake all the old episodes?" It met with about the same reaction, only slightly less unfavorable because many of the Who episodes no longer exist.

 

As much as a modern take on TOS interests me, it also scares me. The characters would all be deconstructed down to their base flaws and many stories would revolve more around those flaws than the adventure of exploring and making the universe safe for truth, justice and the American way.

Scotty would be a raging alcoholic, McCoy openly racist, Kirk shown to have issues controlling his sexual urges.

I'm torn on remaking TOS for TV.

 

We reach. Papa Nez is on tour after a very well-reviewed Monkees tour.

 

Reshooting the original TOS scripts? Now there's the height of creativity.

Not to mention, Zoe Saldana and her agent would likely go ballistic (although Karl Urban might not mind so much).

 

Once the ground is broken, a story is no longer ground breaking. Kirk kissing Uhura would have much less impact today than it did in the 60s. The same holds true for the Black and White Cookie Episode.

Unless there are new stories with new ground being broken, it will have as much impact as any other rehash does.

Now, rebooting TOS with new stories - that would be a great idea. Maybe someday they will do that. Until then we'll get the rehashed movies that are amalgams of TOS. A good parody of Star Trek, but not the original.

For once? Did you miss Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis where the TNG characters were in movies? Oh, wait, you said decent movies... sorry.