Small Screen vs Large Screen & different standards?

[Gojira]

I'm binge watching TOS and its long been on my mind that there is a difference between what seems enjoyable and acceptable on the small screen vs. the large screen.

Do you want a movie with a giant space amoeba, a game of Fizzbin, with Herbert and Space Hippies? How about Abe Lincoln floating in space? Plants that copied Nazi Germany? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE these episodes, I just think that some elements of TOS would not be acceptable on the big screen.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Shore Leave would have been epic on the big screen.

 

[Gojira]

Shore Leave would have been epic on the big screen.

I would like to see something like that in a movie. It would be fun.

 

[Kor]

None of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, or ENT would have worked as-is on the big screen. And they don't have to. Television and feature films are just different formats with different storytelling methods.

Kor

 

[Spock's Barber]

I'm not sure, but I think in Solow/Justman's book Inside Star Trek it mentions a possible story outline about a planet of titans. Couldn't do it on a television budget, but it might have been impressive as a movie.

 

[Tosk]

None of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, or ENT would have worked as-is on the big screen. And they don't have to. Television and feature films are just different formats with different storytelling methods.

Kor

I think some of the DS9, VOY, or ENT multi-parters are better suited as "movies" than the TNG films were.

 

[Kor]

I'm not sure, but I think in Solow/Justman's book Inside Star Trek it mentions a possible story outline about a planet of titans. Couldn't do it on a television budget, but it might have been impressive as a movie.

"Planet of the Titans" was one of the early feature film concepts from the 1970s. I don't know if it was ever being considered as a television production.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

"Planet of the Titans" was one of the early feature film concepts from the 1970s. I don't know if it was ever being considered as a television production.

Kor

More accurately, it was the last of the feature film concepts considered prior to the Star Trek [Phase] II series that became TMP. Titans never was a TV project. It started as a treatment with that name but was renamed Star Trek—The Motion Picture a few months later as the script was being developed. No one's ever turned up a script or the original "Titans" treatment, albeit I've seen one document I shan't reveal as yet since I'm still researching it.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Do you want a movie with a giant space amoeba, a game of Fizzbin, with Herbert and Space Hippies? How about Abe Lincoln floating in space? Planets that copied Nazi Germany? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE these episodes, I just think that some elements of TOS would not be acceptable on the big screen.

Agreed. The fantasy and silly concepts, taken seriously within the episodes, wouldn't impress the broader movie-going audience who don't have our affection for the show. And I think even we fans want "straight" science fiction plots on the big screen if we're paying for tickets.

But then Star Trek also runs into trouble when it tries to do really "big" stories for the big screen:

http://trekmovie.com/2015/01/11/editorial-the-future-of-star-trek-its-the-story-stupid/

Star Trek has never translated well to movies. Its style and ideas play best on television, without the need to: (1) encapsulate its entire world (2) into the fundamental transformation of a single character, (3) that happens over two hours, (4) with all of civilization in jeopardy, including (5) stuff for the supporting cast to do and (6) all the de rigueur “He’s dead, Jim” moments, while (7) humoring die hard fans by not changing too much and (8) pandering to morons.

Any way you slice it, writing for the ST movies comes out as a whole different ballgame vs. the original TOS episodes.

That's a good essay I linked to if you want to check it out, btw.

 

[Jesse1066]

Old space probe destroying everything in its path while searching for its creator would work. Maybe.

 

[Spock's Barber]

Old space probe destroying everything in its path while searching for its creator would work. Maybe.

It worked so good for Gene Roddenberry that he tried the same story twice. What did Scotty say in Friday's Child...."Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

 

[Lance]

I don't necessarily think it's a "small screen" versus "big screen" thing, but maybe its more reflective of the time in which the various incarnations of Star Trek were made, and the audience expectations there-in. Some of the more 'way out' elements of TOS were perfectly acceptable in the context of a mid-to-late-60s adventure show format. But by the time the movies eventually materialized, a whole decade after TOS had left the airwaves, audiences probably would have expected something based more in some kind of tangible reality, and 'The Enterprise Encounters God' was probably too far into the realms of hocus-pocus for them. The difference between, say, Nomad and V'Ger isn't in the concepts themselves, but more in the way that each is portrayed on the screen. Not just aesthetically, but in how the characters interact with them.

 

[DonIago]

I find myself imagining a big-screen version of "Trials and Tribbleations"...

 

[johnnybear]

Arena could have worked on the big screen back in the day or even now perhaps as long as The Gorn wasn't a CGI disaster!!!
JB

 

[Poltargyst]

I hated that CGI Gorn in ENT. I would rather have the guy in the suit.

 

[Push The Button]

The Cage with added footage would have been great on the big screen, I think it could have stood on its own even if Trek had never made it to TV.

 

[DonIago]

I find "The Cage" to be a bit of a plod, personally. Different strokes for different folks, but I fear it might have gone over roughly the same way TMP did.

 

[uniderth]

It worked so good for Gene Roddenberry that he tried the same story twice. What did Scotty say in Friday's Child...."Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

 

[johnnybear]

I hated that CGI Gorn in ENT. I would rather have the guy in the suit.

I was thrilled that they were going to have a Gorn on ENT even if it was contradiction of a sort but what a let down that CGI Alligator was!
JB

 

[Spock's Barber]

Shatner's ego is bigger on the large screen.