Should a new Star Trek show be live action or animated?

[The Overlord]

If they make a new Star Trek show, should it be live action or animated? Both approaches have their pros and cons, what would you prefer?

[C.E. Evans]

Prefer: Live-action
Likely to be: Animated

[Jeff O'Connor]

C.E. Evans wrote:

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Prefer: Live-action
Likely to be: Animated

Yep.

[Bry_Sinclair]

To be honest I'd be happy with either, I just want new Trek on TV.

Animated would allow for some pretty cool new aliens.

[BillJ]

Animated.

The only way I see Trek getting back on TV.

[Admiral2]

Live action.

There's nothing about animation that immediately makes it better than live action. A good cartoon will take just as long and cost just as much to produce as a decent live action show. Even the notion that you'll get cooler aliens with a cartoon is not automatically true, thanks to CGI and other fx methods that have developed over the years.

[BillJ]

Admiral2 wrote:

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Live action.

There's nothing about animation that immediately makes it better than live action. A good cartoon will take just as long and cost just as much to produce as a decent live action show. Even the notion that you'll get cooler aliens with a cartoon is not automatically true, thanks to CGI and other fx methods that have developed over the years.

I've seen numbers that peg The Clone Wars at $1.2 million dollars an episode, which would total $2.4 million an hour. I seriously doubt live-action Trek could be done for that little.

[C.E. Evans]

Admiral2 wrote:

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Live action.

There's nothing about animation that immediately makes it better than live action. A good cartoon will take just as long and cost just as much to produce as a decent live action show.

Not even remotely.

"A good cartoon" can have a budget anywhere between $100,000 to $500,000 dollars an episode based on the level of animation, post-production, and the salaries of any special voice actors. That's considerably cheaper than a live-action show, especially a Star Trek series, which these days probably starts at $2,000,000 an episode.

Some animated shows with extremely high (i.e., movie-quality) production values can be in excess of $750,000 dollars an episode, but such shows usually have fairly short runs of only 6-12 episodes total.

As far as the time it takes to produce an animated series, it depends on the animation studio involved, but quite a few studios can produce 18-22 episodes of a show per year.

BillJ wrote:

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I've seen numbers that peg The Clone Wars at $1.2 million dollars an episode, which would total $2.4 million an hour. I seriously doubt live-action Trek could be done for that little.

Yep. And The Clone Wars has a larger budget than most animated shows.

[Admiral2]

Well, hell! Obviously a cartoon's a brilliant choice! Brilliant, I say! Why don't we make it super brilliant and make it a Starfleet Academy Animated Series!

Then I can just shoot myself and get it over with.

[BillJ]

Admiral2 wrote:

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Well, hell! Obviously a cartoon's a brilliant choice! Brilliant, I say! Why don't we make it super brilliant and make it a Starfleet Academy Animated Series!

Then I can just shoot myself and get it over with.

What does it really matter as long as the stories are engaging?

[Satyrquaze]

Animated

[Temis the Vorta]

I want it to be live action but will settle for animation, which may be more fiscally realistic.

The Clone Wars is pretty good after all. Star Trek would need to be more character and politics, and less action focused, but that's an easy enough adjustment.

[The Overlord]

Well let's look at the pro and cons of an animated series vs. a live action series.

An animated series would have a smaller budget and could create more fantastic alien designs.

The biggest problem with an animated series is the Animation Age Ghetto. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ationAgeGhetto

Now Star Trek is not some super dark series and I do think most of the Star Trek episodes are fit for whole family, not being said I would hope some greedy exec wouldn't try to use a Star Trek cartoon to talk down to kids and try to sell them toys. I will say I think TV animation has improve a lot over the last 20 years, starting with the introduction of BTAS.

I think an animated show would have a faster pace then a then a live action, but if handled well perhaps it blend high paced action with heavier concepts, similar to what BTAS, Gargoyles and Avatar did.

[C.E. Evans]

The Overlord wrote:

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Now Star Trek is not some super dark series and I do think most of the Star Trek episodes are fit for whole family, not being said I would hope some greedy exec wouldn't try to use a Star Trek cartoon to talk down to kids and try to sell them toys.

I think a Trek cartoon aimed at kids should indeed sell toys and a whole slew of related merchandise. Why should it be limited only to (mostly adult) collectors?

As far as talking down to kids, there are very few cartoons that do that anymore (and frankly, I can't think of any currently on the air really). Most shows are either target age-appropriate or tend to appeal to both kids and adults in some fashion. I'm still amazed at how many adults tune in to watch My Little Pony.

[Temis the Vorta]

If its animated, it'll go on The Cartoon Network. FOX also does animation, but I can't see it fitting in with Family Guy. The Cartoon Network largely programs for kids, but they do have AdultSwim, aimed at young adults, so Star Trek could fit there, in an adjacent timeslot, and not be aimed primarily at kids.