Where should Star Trek go next if going forward?
- Thread starter SKTVillain
- Start date
Interesting that the exact opposite is what has actually been happening since 2001, though.
Couldn't they just down play the special effects?
Isn't that what The Orville is doing? Just doing enough production values to do the job, but not trying to show off too much.
Hello,
It is a little late in posting the results. I hope the link below works for you. We are at 52 responses as of yet.
Star Trek Survey Results
Thank you for participating!
We will continue to leave it open to what else would be said.
It is a little late in posting the results. I hope the link below works for you. We are at 52 responses as of yet.
Star Trek Survey Results
Thank you for participating!
We will continue to leave it open to what else would be said.
My reaction to the survey results, per each question:
Q1 - Not terribly surprising.
Q2 - Only surprising in that it's so similar to Q1.
Q3 - A little surprised that Solo ranks that low, but he's not so much a military captain anyways. I'm more surprised about Nesmith, because he isn't a captain at all; he's an actor.
Q4 - Makes sense that this question would lean female, given that Janeway is the Smurfette of Star Trek captains.
Q5 - I'm actually one of the people who wanted the captain to come from an engineering background, as I feel an engineer would understand the ship well enough to use the ship in ways a normal captain wouldn't conceive. I'm kinda surprised that Communications got more votes in this poll question, especially since it doesn't even have its own separate console in the Next Generation era.
Q6 - Wouldn't a War Hero already be in Starfleet? Also, why so little love for Rescue Volunteers? (Although, I didn't actually vote for that one either...)
Q7 - Solid support for Discovery + Crew. Might be interesting to play those two against each other for dramatic tension.
Q8 - Over 55% wanted the captain to have kids, and yet only a third wanted the captain married.
Q9 - Diplomatic/Charismatic, Dependable/Reliable and Adventurous/Curious won the day. Is it me, or does this sound like Picard?
Q10 - Most people wanted someone in the crew to have worked with the captain before. Reminds me of the Janeway/Tuvok relationship.
Q11 - Red part is cut off, but it seems like there's no real consensus on this question.
Q12 - The preference for exploration continues.
Q13 - No sure what to make of this question, other than non-organics being a bit more popular that I expected.
Q14 - There is a clear majority that support character-based storytelling. (EXCELLENT!)
Q15 - A majority want greater than five core characters, but it's shy of a super-majority. Since most Star Trek shows seem to have roughly 8 major characters, I'd say this is probably consistent with our collective unconscious idea of how many characters should be in a Trek series.
Q16 - There seems to be an even split between Captain and Circumstance. Oddly, this is reminiscent of Voyager, where half the crew were selected by the Captain and half were either Maquis or pulled together over time.
Q17 - I think this question is poorly constructed. People may feel that families shouldn't be on a ship, but that the crew should have some periodic contact with their families. I'm surprised how many people think that families should actually live on the ship. It would seem to me that such an arrangement would make a noble sacrifice of the entire ship nearly impossible because everyone you love is aboard the ship.
Q18 - Seems like the majority would like color to continue to depict the department. There also appears to be support for the idea that of having differences in uniform depending on occupation.
Q19 - Morale officer got creamed in this poll question, and shore leave surprisingly under-performs, but there's no clear preference otherwise.
Q20 - "Screw the Kelvin Timeline!"
Q21 - Most people seem to either want to keep the series near the Federation or want Star Trek: Atlantis.
Q22 - Most people want graphics that are improved but not a complete departure from previous shows.
Q23 - Andorians make a surprisingly strong showing, but that sorta makes sense given their role in Enterprise. Otherwise, no clear preference.
Q24 - Nothing really shocking here.
Q25 - Part of this got cut off. Basically goes the way you'd expect, though.
Q26 - Vorta seem to be slight favorites. (I suddenly have the impression that there's a softcore porn site out there featuring nothing but scantly-clad Vorta feeding each other nuts and berries. "Bet you won't suck this cashew out of my belly button. Tee-hee-hee!")
Q27 - Seems like most people want more tension within the Federation, but don't want it outright falling apart.
Q28 - Most people like the Federation the way it is.
Q29 - Unsurprisingly, characters and exploration win the day.
Q30 - Slight majority don't want more ships. Perhaps occasional team-ups with recurring ships are the way to go.
Q31 - A clear majority want multiple ships to cooperate.
Q32 - Three Weeks Earlier...
Q33 - Most people prefer short-to-medium-length arcs as opposed to a pure episodic format.
Q34 - A clear majority want multiple shows at the same time. Crossovers, perhaps?!? Maybe this is how you solve the multiple ship problem: multiple shows that cross over.
Q35 - Exploration destroys the competition. I'm amazed at how poorly combat did in this poll question.
Q36 - Not surprised Enterprise-D did so well. What is a surprise is that the original Connie and Voyager tied! Unsurprisingly, Archer is nearly shut out.
Q37 - "Shut up, Wesley!" Also, Beverly got shut out?!? Brutal!
Q38 - Interesting that the top three favorites in this poll question are either mixed race or transhuman.
Q39 - Generally evenly spread between characters. I'm surprised how little love Dr. Bashir got, though.
A shame. Reimagining of the same thing over and over again will eventually be pointless. Or they'll return to the form of reimagining that had some guy taking Samurai and Wild Western films (in terms of appearances or actions) and making Star Wars from a combination of those...
There's only so many original tropes to begin with. But TNG proved basing the future off of an original as opposed to inanely copying the original could be far better.
Then again, "Star Trek Beyond" really hit the spot in the way its two predecessors had not (but were on the right track) so reboots can be done. I'm truly ambivalent.
Are you sure you're not just unconsciously describing West World?
I suppose you could take the Alien: Isolation approach, where you deliberately make it retro-futuristic and extrapolate from there. Or you could have some sort of incident that happened in the future-past that caused everyone to stop using certain technologies, like email/social media and artificial intelligence.
I'd actually be excited to see a fourth movie in that series (assuming they keep going in the same direction with it), but at this point it's unlikely, given the fact that Beyond was a bit of a financial bomb.
I still like my idea of creating a series where you do a reboot that incorporates all the social, scientific and historical changes that have happened since Star Trek first airred, but make traditional Star Trek a holographic simulation that's a retro-futuristic reimagining of the "actual historical events". Previous actors could be brought back, but their characters and their history would be subtly changed to fit the "real" Star Trek universe.
Or how about an Anime reboot of Star Trek?
I tend to think that TNG was a fluke--a very successful fluke, but a fluke all the same. It came at the right time when there wasn't much sci-fi out there and it resonated with an audience hungry for the genre. It probably could have worked as a total reimagining of TOS, but the only reason it wasn't was because TOS was still continuing as a fairly successful movie franchise at the time.
Shows set after the time line where Voyager ended would be nice.
No, a post-Nemesis film should be like that new Terminator film in the works: it ignores Genisys. A post-Nemesis film/show should ignore Nemesis; the timeline is what matters. And a give a proper end to the Enterprise crew and try to do something like The Undiscovered Country did for the Klingons, for the Romulans.
I don't know why fans insist that all of the FX match up, especially if it's a prequel. Just go with it, what's consistency ever had to do with STAR TREK? During TOS' run, treating the show as if it were really happening and keeping track of its own canon it was establishing helped to compensate, some, for the low budget and obvious problems it created. But after that, it wasn't such a selling point, it seems and it shouldn't have been. My feelings on where STAR TREK should go now, especially with the next movie, STAR TREK 4, is that it should go back to a ST09 vibe, where it dares to be different from Trekkies expectations. More action-packed, more of a thrill ride. Up the COOL factor, as far as it'll go. That's what I want to see the next movie be. That's what I want to see happening with the franchise, overall.
The only thing I would insist NOT be changed is the optimistic view of the future. That's all. Otherwise, it's all good. I do not care for Discovery's look, at all. It has yet to really get 'good' but its heart is in the right place. It wants to entertain, it wants to inspire and all that good shite. But its growing pains aren't as fun to go through as maybe TOS' first season is. I'm just glad that new STAR TREK's being made, because it had no business ever going off the air. And now, "they" are talking about bringing even more STAR TREK to the screen and I'm just like ... FINALLY!!! Finally, these people get it. More STAR TREK is not the problem, as long as it entertains and fires the imagination.
The only thing I would insist NOT be changed is the optimistic view of the future. That's all. Otherwise, it's all good. I do not care for Discovery's look, at all. It has yet to really get 'good' but its heart is in the right place. It wants to entertain, it wants to inspire and all that good shite. But its growing pains aren't as fun to go through as maybe TOS' first season is. I'm just glad that new STAR TREK's being made, because it had no business ever going off the air. And now, "they" are talking about bringing even more STAR TREK to the screen and I'm just like ... FINALLY!!! Finally, these people get it. More STAR TREK is not the problem, as long as it entertains and fires the imagination.
Consistency is always important no matter what you're doing, and has always had something to do with Star Trek. In some cases, you don't HAVE to have it (Hogan's Heroes is a prime example) but it always adds extra quality to the show, especially if you're developing a story over time, which is a story arc. Usually without that, it can lead to bad or lazy writing, as well as pissing off longtime fans that love to follow all kinds of details, and get really enthusiastic about the series. I mean, it'd be silly, especially in a very science-y style series like Trek, to not have appropriate consistency, which is one of the reasons Discovery is getting so much heat from fans. Trek is very much a nerd series, being the more science style counterpart to Star Wars (at least in my opinion), and I know a good deal of fans look for that consistency.
Expectations are also just as important as being able to forge a new path in the series, and in my honest opinion should also go hand-in-hand. If you have a hardcore fanbase with specific expectations for new Trek content, especially if they've liked all the older stuff (think 90's series and prior), if something completely different is done instead, it may very well not feel like actual Star Trek, yet again going back to Discovery as an example, such as dropping their F-bombs.
However, I do agree a bit more action would be nice to see in Trek, especially going back to the TNG, VOY, DS9 style, but not too much since that isn't what the series was primarily built around. There needs to be a good balance, taking everything that works from the formula used to make the past series that worked out well, but making it unique in it's own way still, without straying too far.
The optimistic view of the future is one of those things that has always been consistent and is a prime example of an expectation from the franchise. While it may not be realistic (although we are talking science fiction anyways, which isn't technically fully grounded in reality) or ever happen, it's still a good thing to be able to dream, and have an escape where things look hopeful, especially nowadays where the world seems to be coming apart at the seams.
All-in-all, Discovery in my opinion fell flat and abandoned a lot of things of the past, attempting to come up with a new modern, edgy formula, that feels like JJ Abrams' work.
If we're fortunate enough to get a new series, I think the best route is to go back towards the formula that worked back with the TNG era, and build upon that further, expanding the story going forward in years, not backwards to milking the TOS era over and over.
I guess it depends on what flavor of "optimistic" you use. TNG is usually at/near the top of fans favorite list, but one of the things about TNG that consistently gets pointed out as a flaw is the particular version of optimistic employed.
Near perfect Human beings living in a near perfect society.
TOS never had this, they were simply regular people living in the future.
One of the notable things DS9 changed (frequently pointed out) was stepping away from TNG's depiction of a "optimistic" future society. It wasn't just being on the frontier (where do you think TNG was?), DS9 significantly omitted the candy coated optimism.
VOY vision of optimistic was covered in a thick layer of pragmatism.
ENT had a bubbly optimistic captain, who occupied a limited-optimism universe. Part of Jonathon Archer's character arc was his realizing his initial view of the world was false. His earlier optimistic beliefs were seriously toned down.
There would be nothing wrong with showing a future where they've taken all the things we've already figured out and adding a few notches. But not to the point of a goofy pie-in-the-sky optimistic wonder world Star Trek series..
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I somewhat agree. The future of Star Trek needs to be on of realistic optimism, where people aren't perfect, and the universe isn't perfect, but it's still a demonstrably better place. One of the things that turns me off somewhat to grimdark depictions of the future is that they ultimately state that in a few hundred years we'll have basically learned nothing as a species.
@TheGameAce, at this point, I'm not convinced they can do a Star Trek series as popular as TNG without doing a hard reboot like BSG. The only way to avoid a reboot of some kind is to basically make the show retrofuturism, where all the social and technological stuff that's happened since Sarah Silverman was on Voyager never happened and only Star Trek-related technologies were developed.
Another possibility is a soft reboot, where the same things basically happened, but you add in new things like social media and retcon everything that's inconsistent or inconvenient. (Like maybe the Star Trek we know was a holodeck documentary done in the style of an late Twentieth Century TV show.)
But my guess is that you need a clean reset to effectively tell moderns sci-fi stories that are sufficiently relevant. Take the Borg, for instance. Nothing about them makes sense. For instance, if you had nanoprobes that could convert a person into a Borg, you wouldn't beam over drone, you'd beam over aerosol canisters all over the ship that spread a mist of nanoprobes that infect people and ship's systems alike. Heck, just abduct someone from a shuttlecraft, pump them full of nanoprobes and use them as a carrier. Their brain would be under Borg control, but they would look normal. The shuttlecraft lands in the bay, then all the carrier has to do is exhale. The nanoprobes quietly spread but don't start taking over people until they've reached a certain concentration throughout the ship, by which time it's already too late. The ship just disappears on day and no one knows what happened. (NOTE: I'm totally using this in a plot for a story I'm working on, BTW.) The Borg have all kinds of unnecessary limitations like this that prevent them from becoming the apocalyptically powerful, make-you-pee-your-pants race they should be.
Hmm, that's an excellent point. I'll try to remember that... Thinking back to it, I do indeed believe that it was a flaw. Optimism is fine, as long as it's grounded in reality. Otherwise it can feel like some old sitcom where everything worked out in the end for every episode, with things going back to normal or better than before. If you think about it, it really is overboard especially when they have ideas such as currency not being a thing, and people basically working for free. People always need a job that they enjoy and feel productive with, others to care for, a sense of having to earn things rather than just be handed them freely (such as by a replicator), etc.
I think it's possible, otherwise I wouldn't even try. I think it's a matter of just getting it right, capturing that lightning in a bottle again, putting in the right level of effort and detail, listening to the fans... My hope is that Discovery is just successful enough, even if only to the critics (since that seems to be what the studio cares about), to make them more inclined to listening to an idea for a new series, expanding on the TNG-DS9-VOY timeline. I just honestly view Star Trek as a unique series apart from all others, in the sense that it's had 5 total series in the past, expanding from the 60s, to a 6th series now with Discovery, and a ton of movies. Hand-in-hand with Starwars, I see them both as franchises that paved the way for modern sci-fi.
I think seeing more social-style ideas being brought in (such as some sort of internet in a way) could definitely be interesting, although I think if you went as far as pretty well excusing all of past Trek as nothing but an illusion/documentary, stuff that never really happened, the series implodes and fans will pick up their pitchforks and torches. A clean reset isn't really needed at all, just a creative enough mind that knows how to implement new things without them seeming out of place. For instance, our own holographic technology is starting to reflect Star Trek's in many ways, which is something (at least for communications and the Doctor) that's also still a bit on the new side in that universe, leading to the ability (with an advanced timeline toward 25+ years later) to easily explain things like that.
The Borg may not make sense, but a lot of Star Trek in general doesn't make sense and isn't supposed to. The Borg are still popular and do well as a series villain though. Everything I understand with them, too, is that they have to inject the nanoprobes using their assimilation tubules, anyways, and the nanoprobes immediately begin changing the affected person. For the shuttlecraft idea, they'd have to get it alone far out in space, undetected, and without the shuttle being able to send out an emergency signal. Without actual limitations though, they'd have no legitimate opposition with exception of the Q. It'd create an enemy that cannot be defeated, and would have just wiped the federation out. If they don't have limits, they can't be countered in any way. A good villain should be strong, but complex. They're still intimidating, however, and have the ability to constantly change, adapt, and become even better at their role if needed.
I must confess that I wish Vulcans had been played consistently, over the years. I like them very stoic and deadpan. To me ... that's what Vulcans are like. But they've been played as LOTR elfs for so long, I just have to throw my hands up, anymore and say "F-it!" What can you do? You know? What can you do ... But keeping track of every grunt and groan, making sure they match up, throughout the franchise does seem constipated. Even to the point of the digitally updated & revamped "Space Seed" dropping in Chekov, just to ensure that it connects with TWoK. I found that to be particularly risible.
It would be great to have that wholesomeness remain in STAR TREK. Where the show demonstrated through its fiction that it's actually cool just to be a decent person. Now, main characters are expected to fly their "I'm an Asshole" flags high, because it's more dramatic and nobody comes off as a pussy, like TNG's Barclay did. I get it. I'm OK with it. But it's like growing up, a little. You look back on your childhood, maybe, and you see that the world's different now. Or, maybe you just see it different, because you are, having grown up, some. Either way, every generation looks back and says, "... we were (more) innocent, in those days." Why losing that has to be considered so important, I don't know. But yeah, it would be nice to see TV not cater to the lowest denominator for ratings' sake. At the same time, this is how it is as a single tear rolls down my cheek. TOS' innocent charm doesn't translate, anymore. It would be nice if it did ... if it could. But TOS is still around and available, if people really need to see that.
Well, yes, not every movie, not every series episode has to be Fast & Furious, but having a ponderous story only to reveal that the secret, at the end, the great mystery, turns out to be ... what? ... an old Man behind the curtain. Or just to preach to the choir, here, "wouldn't it be great if we were all a little nicer to eachother?" That sucks. You know? That really sucks. If they're going to pull that shite, better make it a fun ride getting there, so it doesn't matter as much.
Every generation claims to have the answer. All of that Tree-hugging, Political Correctness has only caused people to act out those feelings differently. Repression doesn't lead to anything good. And you can't change people. I've had girlfriends believing their love would change me, for example. HA!!! When they eventually left, they did so much wiser. Trying to change someone only changes you. Not them. That's how Life works. But the joy of TNG was that we saw that people have changed and wanted to. They let go of the bullshit, because they found out that there's a whole Galactic Culture "out there" that Humanity has an important place in. A position from which timeless and entertaining stories could be told. That really speaks to me, I like that, a lot. When I spoke of "an optimistic future" earlier, in this thread, I wasn't actually referring to most of that, though. I just meant that STAR TREK should always look for ways to uplift the viewer's spirits in a fictional setting where Life isn't bad. Life can be good, for everybody, no matter who you are or what your problems might be ... regardless of their severity. Not that STAR TREK is going to provide useful solutions to any of that to a Real World audience, but just to present situations where you can escape from your troubles for an hour, or two and feel good about that.
Discovery still has to discover itself. That's what its problem is. If it becomes STAR TREK as we've never seen it before AND it entertains in a way that keeps you coming back for more, then vive Discovery! Until that day comes, then it's going to continue to be awkward to watch. It's so aware of its own self importance, because it's modern-day STAR TREK, that it's kind of lost its way. Edgar Alan Poe once said that if you want to come up with a really cool and interesting idea in a genre, you have to pretend like it doesn't exist. You have to pretend that you're the one inventing it. That's what Discovery needed to do, but it's got JJ Abrams' spin and "the franchise's legacy" on its ass.
Boy Scout Oath ....
On my honor
I will do my best
to do my duty
to God
and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people
at all times;
To keep myself
physically strong,
mentally awake,
and morally straight.
Unlikely to be word for word, but I like to see/hear something like this as the Starfleet oath. Maybe a flash back to a small crowd of resently graduated cadets about to be commissioned at the academy reciting a somewhat similar oath
Star Wars can get away with a lot because it's separated by great distance and time. It doesn't matter if we have Twitter, because they didn't have Twitter a billion years ago on the other side of the universe. Thus, Star Wars is sort of insulated from new technologies in a way that's similar to fantasy movies.
Star TREK, on the other hand, doesn't have that luxury, because they're supposed to be our descendants.
I didn't mean to suggest that the stuff never happened in the "soft reboot" scenario. I meant to imply that what happened in the documentary happened in real life, but in a slightly different way or with different technology that people wouldn't know about in the late 20th Century. That way, you could have the same actors reprise their roles, but they could be slightly darker, edgier versions of themselves, or have characteristics that weren't shown in the holo-documentary. Maybe the Doctor from Voyager actually has a mullet, or Janeway has a cybernetic arm made by Seven of Nine after she lost an arm fighting the Hirogen. So not throwing everything entirely out. Just adjusting to bring it in line with the times, add some interesting twists, and making especially clear to people that "Threshold" NEVER, EVER HAPPENED!
You mean like the way Geordi was captured and turned into a Romulan agent, with no memory of it even happening, in the episode "The Mind's Eye"? Kinda hard to argue that it couldn't happen when it already has.
Fair enough, although it would set up a really cool "Power of Frendship" arc, where every major power in the Alpha Quadrant would be forced to come together to defend themselves. Imagine a fleet of anti-Borg Federation-Romulan hybrid ships that can weave Tholan energy webs!
The problem with the Borg isn't their complexity. If anything, they became less complex (or at least less mysterious) as time when on. The problem is that they're techno-zombies that are basically just a metaphor for corporate America in the 1990s, and that's never been updated. If depictions of the Borg had even kept parity with the zombie genre, they'd still be half way interesting. Then again, I don't think we've even seen a new Borg on TV in 15 years, so...
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