Should these movies have been serialized?

[The Overlord]

One advantage the Star War movies have over the Star Trek movies, is the Star Wars movies tell one giant story, while the Star Trek movies are very episodic. Back in the 80s the movies from II to IV were fairly serialized and most people love those movies and VI picked up on a lot plot threads from those films.

Should these movies have been serialized?

 

[The Wormhole]

The movies are fine as they are.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

Leave the serialization for TV and keep the movies as is.

Besides, I mostly dislike Trek III for feeling like a middle movie that's not totally complete. Trek 6 did it fine, pick up threads where you want, but overall, make a standalone movie with a definite beginning, middle and end.

Like how the new movies have been, continous and growing from the previous movies, yet stand-alone.

 

[donners22]

Not that I dislike what we got with Beyond, but ID set up some possibilities which were not taken up.

I was just reading that an early proposal for Beyond had a Khan-orchestrated Klingon invasion, which would have been interesting.

Perhaps if the fourth Kelvin film goes ahead, it will follow up some aspects of the first given Hemsworth's involvement.

 

[The Wormhole]

I was just reading that an early proposal for Beyond had a Khan-orchestrated Klingon invasion, which would have been interesting.

That was never going to happen. IDW dealt with the Klingon stuff from STID in their second comic story after STID's release. Orci wouldn't have signed off on that had there ever been any plans to follow up on it in the movies.

 

[seigezunt]

No. I can't stand being left hanging at the movies. They should have a beginning, middle and end for the most part. I'll put up with it for Star Wars and LOTR of course, but it would be too risky for Trek.

 

[Shalashaska]

I think serialization for DSC makes sense, most popular TV shows nowadays are serialized. TV is a novel and they should use that to their advantage.

The movies, on the other hand, should standalone. They're more like short stories.

In a sense, it's opposite of what's happened on television. We've gone back to telling more standalone stories on the big screen with a beginning, middle and end. Of course, there should be some plot threads that are developed throughout the full series of films (Kirk's relationship with his father seems to be one of them), but other than that, I think the format they're using now is fine.

 

[Galileo7]

Kelvin timeline serialized : ST2009, STID, Beyond
Kelvin timeline stand alone : ?

Prime timeline serialized: WOK, SFS, TVH, TFF{the new 1701-A status carryover from TVH}
Prime timeline stand alone: TMP, TUC, GEN, FC, INS, NEM

 

[The Overlord]

Kelvin timeline serialized : ST2009, STID, Beyond
Kelvin timeline stand alone : ?

Prime timeline serialized: WOK, SFS, TVH, TFF{the new 1701-A status carryover from TVH}
Prime timeline stand alone: TMP, TUC, GEN, FC, INS, NEM

What plot threads from the previous films were followed up upon in Beyond? Heck what plot threads were followed up upon from the first film in Into Darkness?

 

[Galileo7]

What plot threads from the previous films were followed up upon in Beyond? Heck what plot threads were followed up upon from the first film in Into Darkness?

STID: Pike regarding Kirk getting the 1701 in ST2009 and now loosing it because...
Beyond: now on the five year mission they departed on at the end of STID

 

[The Overlord]

STID: Pike regarding Kirk getting the 1701 in ST2009 and now loosing it because...
Beyond: now on the five year mission they departed on at the end of STID

That is not a continuing story, I think you think you could skip STID and go from 2009 to Beyond and you would miss nothing, there are no important elements from STID that inform Beyond, no refers to anything from that film and plot points from that film, just disappear in Beyond.

 

[Galileo7]

I look at it this way. At the end of Empire Strikes Back Solo was frozen and in Return of the Jedi they recovered him. At the end of TVH the 1701-A was given to Kirk & crew and in TFF we learn it was not in great condition. At the end of STID Kirk & crew are heading out on the five year mission and in Beyond they are in the middle of said five year mission. Albeit, minor, there are carry over of plot points, not a clean slate stand alone.

 

[Lance]

One advantage the Star War movies have over the Star Trek movies, is the Star Wars movies tell one giant story, while the Star Trek movies are very episodic.

That's a matter of taste.

Personally, I think the dangers of serialization (whether in film or on TV) is in the overarching plot becoming snarled around itself and ending up being a confusing mess, as the writers try to escalate things to top previous highs. I've seen too many good franchises go south because their serialization meant events just got sillier and sillier, or characters started acting out-of-character, or whatever.

Star Wars hasn't avoided that.

I think one of the things Trek has got over Star Wars is that the stories are episodic and don't carry baggage over from previous stories.

Which isn't the same as avoiding continuity. Trek, by and large, has often managed the tricky balancing act of trying to maintain and build continuity, without becoming heavily serialized. For all the kvetching about the 'reset button' or whatever the truth is that the reason Trek and it's characters have got such a rich history is because people paid attention and built and built and built, fleshing it out.

The three modern Trek movies maintain this: an episodic feel, but with character development. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[The Overlord]

That's a matter of taste.

Personally, I think the dangers of serialization (whether in film or on TV) is in the overarching plot becoming snarled around itself and ending up being a confusing mess, as the writers try to escalate things to top previous highs. I've seen too many good franchises go south because their serialization meant events just got sillier and sillier, or characters started acting out-of-character, or whatever.

Star Wars hasn't avoided that.

I think one of the things Trek has got over Star Wars is that the stories are episodic and don't carry baggage over from previous stories.

Which isn't the same as avoiding continuity. Trek, by and large, has often managed the tricky balancing act of trying to maintain and build continuity, without becoming heavily serialized. For all the kvetching about the 'reset button' or whatever the truth is that the reason Trek and it's characters have got such a rich history is because people paid attention and built and built and built, fleshing it out.

The three modern Trek movies maintain this: an episodic feel, but with character development. Nothing wrong with that.

I think by Voyager, they did hit the reset button way too often, where the ship would be totaled by the end of an episode and would be fine by the start, that killed all my interest in an episodic TV series. Also hardly any of the characters in Voyager developed at all in that show, really Voyager is the show that made the usual Trek formula seem flawed. There was hardly any building with Voyager, episodes from the first season didn't seem that different from seventh season episodes. The ship should have very different by season 7, but instead it was mostly the same from season 1 on.

Plus there are tons of television series that have done very well with serialized story telling (Game of Thrones, House of Cards, etc) which are better then the episodic TV series airing now and the MCU has done well with serialized story telling and it is one of the biggest movie franchises around now. Serialized stories can build stories over time, episodic stories just don't carry much weight anymore, because it seemed they usually never be mentioned again and any character development from them can be forgotten (how often does Picard getting tortured by the Cardassians factor into other episodes, despite the fact that would be a life changing event in real life?)

I can accept a stand alone movie series, if it had better continuity, but a TV show needs to be serialized, I don't want another Voyager, with static characters and pat endings, that is not an era of TV I want to return to, I always preferred DS9 with its attempts at serialization.

 

[Lance]

I think by Voyager, they did hit the reset button way too often, where the ship would be totaled by the end of an episode and would be fine by the start, that killed all my interest in an episodic TV series. Also hardly any of the characters in Voyager developed at all in that show, really Voyager is the show that made the usual Trek formula seem flawed. There was hardly any building with Voyager, episodes from the first season didn't seem that different from seventh season episodes. The ship should have very different by season 7, but instead it was mostly the same from season 1 on.

Plus there are tons of television series that have done very well with serialized story telling (Game of Thrones, House of Cards, etc) which are better then the episodic TV series airing now and the MCU has done well with serialized story telling and it is one of the biggest movie franchises around now. Serialized stories can build stories over time, episodic stories just don't carry much weight anymore, because it seemed they usually never be mentioned again and any character development from them can be forgotten (how often does Picard getting tortured by the Cardassians factor into other episodes, despite the fact that would be a life changing event in real life?)

I can accept a stand alone movie series, if it had better continuity, but a TV show needs to be serialized, I don't want another Voyager, with static characters and pat endings, that is not an era of TV I want to return to, I always preferred DS9 with its attempts at serialization.

Deep Space Nine wasn't serialized. It had a very strong sense of continuity, but that's different from it having an overarching storyline that intersected every single episode, which (by definition) is what serialization is. It's not just about having episodes that reference past events. A strong case could be made that DS9's only truly serialized moment was the last half-dozen episodes leading up to the series finale. It was the blend of strong continuity and episodic storytelling that made DS9 work. I'm not wholly sure it would've functioned as well had it been a true serial, or whether it would have instead collapsed under the weight of a fully serialized storyline.

I also take exception to the idea that "Game of Thrones" has done 'very well' as a serial. There have been increasing amounts of criticisms of it's storytelling becoming unbelievable as it's gone on, plot and character developments that have gone in unrealistic directions, etc. That was the danger of serialization I was talking about: when your modus operandi is to keep mounting the tension and going bigger and bigger with new developments, eventually your serial will inevitably slide into ridiculousness. Look at the number of serialized shows where people have said "it was great at the beginning, but oy did it ever get silly later on!". Even Deep Space Nine made mis-steps in this regard (I'm thinking in particular revelations about Sisko that to my mind were just a step too far.)

I am sympathetic to your point of view about Voyager, but I would qualify that by saying look at it in context: Rick Berman had been overseeing Star Trek for a decade or so at that point, and had come to think of it as a factory, he was effectively sleepwalking on the job. Furthermore, it's been 15 years since Voyager went off the air, and modern storytelling standards are much more sophisticated...... even for shows that aren't serialized. There's no reason to assume that an episodic Star Trek automatically means the return of the USS Reset Button. I certainly don't think the new movies have done that.

 

[Desert Kris]

Ahhh....no. Especially when we consider the leisurely four-year gap between Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness, which is worse than the average wait between Star Wars movies when their up and running through a trilogy (and today's SW movies have shortened the gap, while ST is making us wait and wait...). I think the movies are fine as they are for the most part, and it's nice that there are some consistent narrative threads continuing between them. I would like to have seen a more meaningful final word on Uhura and Spock, definitely showing that they've effectively gone through a relationship crisis but are remaining together. Actually, I was just a little disappointed that they didn't move that relationship forward, the most we could hope for with the film makers' choice was a step back and then step forward...to where they were before, but they didn't even settle that question. They took a chance with destroying the Enterprise, much earlier in this continuity, why couldn't they have pushed things further with that??

Anyway, serialization is not the way to go with ST. They should feel free to plant the seeds of possible future narratives, as long as they don't overpower the actual story with a misleading sense of urgency. And then let subsequent movies pick up on whatever threads they want to develop further.

 

[loghaD]

I'd love a soft arc, similar to the "HMS Bounty trilogy" or "Genesis trilog (TWoK, TSFS, TVH), where the main plots of the movies are separate but there's a shared B plot.

Beyond did a good job incorporating the Vulcan diaspora into its plot. If they keep on making Kelvin timeline movies, I'd love for that to feature even more heavily.

 

[The Wormhole]

I think by Voyager, they did hit the reset button way too often, where the ship would be totaled by the end of an episode and would be fine by the start, that killed all my interest in an episodic TV series. Also hardly any of the characters in Voyager developed at all in that show, really Voyager is the show that made the usual Trek formula seem flawed. There was hardly any building with Voyager, episodes from the first season didn't seem that different from seventh season episodes. The ship should have very different by season 7, but instead it was mostly the same from season 1 on.

But that was because of network interference. Braga did want serialization on Voyager, UPN said no. In the most infamous example, Braga pitched Year of Hell as a season long arc which would lead to profound changes for ship and crew, UPN came down hard on that and said "no more than two-parts, and it has to be reset at the end."

 

[seigezunt]

I just remember being pretty damn angry at the end of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, having not known that it was going to be a cliffhanger. I never bothered to see any of the sequels because of that.

 

[shapeshifter]

I wonder if Beyond 'failed' because general audiences were expecting a Khan followup. Even we here were considering the possibility until we knew otherwise. They may been waiting with baited breath for that sequel but lost interest when they understood a new direction was taken.