Should the Borg be the villain in Trek 3?

No. Borg are a 24 Century villain. Trek 3 doesn't need a villain. It needs an alien threat or not even a threat at all. I want a fun lighthearted adventure for the crew. No more Giant ships, no more stopping off at Earth, No more KHAAAAAAN. Just Kirk and company on a grand new adventure exploring Space, the unknown.

 

Im kind of hoping they up the horror/dread/scares into the next Trek...make it really frightening and add abit of body gore etc (they can get away with quite abit in PG13 now)...leaning more towards the sense of dread in TNG Conspiracy (which had a chest burst straight out of Alien and an exploding head like in Scanners!! How did they get away with that!?), and all the early Borg eps and First Contact (although that was very action orientated like 'Aliens'). And TWOK certainly had an eerie atmosphere full of dread with elements of a vast, darker universe at play - almost as dark as the RScott Alien verse (it also had a certain Scanners/Cronenberg feel with the bugs, disintegration killings etc)

there was some horror elements in ST09/STID but not too much (e.g. the opening of ST09 with the kelvin alone in deep space coming across a gigantic monster of a ship and no one around to help, stranded on Delta Vega, Neros mind bugs, Khan going into full on Khan mode on the Vengence) - it was mainly action . so maybe bring in some horror for ST3 - after all the original series had an eerie, uncanny vibe not a million light years from 'The Twilight Zone' - The Enterprise charting a shadow haunted universe that hid some deeply strange and terryfying things. maybe return a little of that supernatural awe and dread to the next film

maybe the borg would be the best bet for that

 

Please no. Can't we just have First Contact and be happy with that?

 

That was said about TWOK

 

First Contact will be twenty years old by the time Star Trek 3 comes out. There is likely a large portion of the movie audience that have never even seen it.

 

as it gets closer to the movie im having serious doubts about the borg showing up (beyond some teaser easter egg for the 4th film) - its the 50th anniversary of TOS (not TNG), we're bound to run into the Klingons...

 

Tell that to Archer (who's been plugged in both movies.

The Borg used to be a threat until VOY reduced them to villain of the week status. If the Borg come back as a zombi-like threat, I'll buy it. But if we're going to have nuKirk logging lips trying to short circuit the Queen, I'll pass.

I'd like to see the Borg returned to frightening threat they were in Q2.

 

NO, THE BORG SHOULD IN NO WAY BE AFFILIATED WITH THIS STORY ARC!

I don't get the fascination...?

 

Cerebral exploration of deep space only really work in the episodic TV / Netflix format where they can afford to do it. Also, have you ever wondered why the following are always topping the list of favorite episodes: Doomsday Machine, Best of Both Worlds, Yesterday's Enterprise, All Good Things, etc... What do they have in common? What storyline do you think would make for a better once-off motion picture? (Hint: not intellectual space exploration).

 

If ST3 features the Borg, it seems inevitable to me that the resulting story would involve yet another enemy mega-ship. Making it the 4th straight Trek movie to do so. No thanks to that.

Can we please just have a well written original story without a bunch of re-ashes or fanboy wanks?

Considering that Orci is running the show my hopes aren't exactly high.

 

Fun adventure doesn't have to be slow and tedious. It can fit the length. It also doesn't have to lack action. While not great, Star Trek V proved it could be done. With good writing we could have a great Adventure film. Star Trek IV didn't have a villain so to speak, Nu Trek 3 doesn't and shouldn't need one either. It just needs some good writing that doesn't rely on classic Trek references or tropes to get it's point across let alone villains from the spinoff series introduced 100 years after TOS. I was one who didn't want to see Khan in STID.

 

I would not mind as long as the story is epic and not rushed.

 

You know, I was all "gah, Khan is a moron" before STID, but I ended up liking it...even though I would've preferred them just creating an original villain from scratch, but whatever. The Borg have been terribly overused, but if something entertaining comes out of rebooting them, I'm cool with it.

However (and that's a big whatever), I'd rather they just think up something new. Wasn't that the whole point of creating a parallel dimension? That the movies didn't have to get crushed by thousand tons of canon?

 

Yes. But I think people confuse that with thinking they should throw away everything that has been built over the years. It would obviously be problematic from a continuity POV to do a Kirk/Enterprise vs. the Borg story in the Prime Universe.

No such restraints exist in the new universe.

When DC Comics did "Crisis on Infinite Earths", they freed creators to come up with new angles for toys that were already in the toy box. They didn't throw away Lex Luthor or the Joker.

 

I agree: you don't have to throw established characters away, of course. Like I said, if they make an enjoyable movie, I'll enjoy it (I mean, I'll watch it regardless) - and I liked how they made Khan actually smart this time around (imo). But going into a ST movie and genuinely not knowing what to expect would be kind of awesome. They do put a lot of little canon details into the films, anyway.

 

I understand where many folks are coming from not wanting the Borg in the next movie. But from my perspective, being a fan for nearly forty years, there aren't too many things that they can do that I haven't seen an episode of or read a novel or comic about and Kirk/Spock (in their primes) vs. the Borg is one that I haven't seen or read before. It is a story that simply couldn't be done before the timeline split. It is one of the few ideas that actually seems big enough for a 50th Anniversary celebration.

New villains are okay. But I've probably seen a couple hundred episodes with new villains and read another hundred novels.

 

Yeah, well, looking at it like that, I think you're right. What I really want is an antagonist who is a Magnificent Bastard (tm), or - if it has to be the Borg because everyone knows them - make them scary and creepy as all hell. But no more Khan-esque dudes trying to fuck up Earth, at least this once.

 

In my opinion, TOS was at its best when it was going up against an antagonist with whom Kirk and Spock could match wits. That's what I'd like to see, so that rules out the Borg for me.

The soul-less hive mentality of the Borg was great because they were new to Trek canon. They were the "anti-Trek" villain. A nightmare to a society that lives by individualism and reason, and values diversity. But in FC, the creation of the Borg queen reduced the Borg to mindless minions of the queen's desires. All of a sudden, there was a focus where there hadn't been one. An "I" to the "we." The uniqueness of the Borg were lost. It wasn't nearly as terrifying as when they were thought of as a relentless horde of locusts with no focus, no reason, and no motivation other than spreading themselves out as far as they could.

Now, could all that made the Borg so terrifying be recaptured in a two hour movie and give our heroes proper service? I dunno. Whatever exposition an uniformed audience needed to know about the Borg in FC came from Picard's backstory and offhand remarks made by those who had dealt with them, before.

Further, with the Borg as the villain, what's the end game? Are they all destroyed? Or, is it a conflict with a small group of Borg separated from the hive, and they foreshadow an eventual run-in with the entire collective in the future? Would an ending like that be the best way a movie celebrating fifty years of Trek could end? On the realization that Starfleet will have to remilitarize and divert its resources to build ships and weapons systems even more powerful than the Vengeance in order to be ready for the Borg in a few decades? Go out on a dark and foreboding note like that?

 

Some good points raised by BillJ and Franklin

 

I don't think the Borg in the Abramsverse need to be so overpowering like they were in the Prime timeline. I think they are ripe for reinvention. You can do a story about technology run amok. Heck, you could plop the Enterprise down in a story about a world fighting the Borg offshoots from "Regeneration". I don't think Starfleet would have to remilitarize from a single instance on a far off world anymore than Starfleet began an instant militarization after "Q, Who?". Sure they did research, but the whole organization didn't flip a switch into being monsters and I think this Starfleet would be even more aware of the perils of overreacting to an outside force after what happened with Admiral Marcus.

You could do some nice character work with a Kirk forced into a decision he simply doesn't want to have to make. The eradication of a world's population (shades of "Operation: Annihilate!"). Is it heavy for a 50th Anniversary? Probably. But I really don't want them trying their hand at comedy, the results haven't been very good so far.