New TOS - Should we?

[ChallengerHK]

I'm going to introduce a term here, for convenience sake for the remainder of the thread. It's a term I keep seeing being used in many different ways: mise en scene. Technically it refers to staging, the placement of items in a set, etc. The other way I see it being used frequently is more along the lines of "everything but the acting, directing and writing".

I had a short, incomplete list upstream of the things that, for me, made TOS. It does include the acting, the directing and the writing, but it's also the mise en scene. In the second, broader definition, all those things would fall under mise en scene.

The reason I bring this up is that folks keep bring up narrow definitions, and the sum of the TOS parts are definitely more than those narrow definitions, and a major part of what brings pleasure to fans of TOS when watching.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It really sounds like you're arguing my points in the last few posts, and then going farther with them, i.e., a true reboot would use the name, and the idea of space exploration as a backdrop, and then go on to be its own thing, avoiding everything that made Star Trek Star Trek. If I were a director, or an actor, I'd want to just do my own thing instead of writing or directing something that wasn't Star Trek and then slapping the name on it.

My idea of a reboot would do stuff like reimagine Klingons (again), genderswap some lesser characters, and retell new versions of a few established Trek events among telling new stories on the USS Enterprise.

 

[Commishsleer]

Although I loved the Kelvin-verse, it was still tied into the 1960's vision of Trek, with all it's silliness and outdated tropes. A true reboot would really reimagine things from the ground-up for the 21st century.

What silliness and outdated tropes do you mean?
What more did you want them to do?
I thought Discovery has pretty much well done that hasn't it?

 

[ChallengerHK]

My idea of a reboot would do stuff like reimagine Klingons (again), genderswap some lesser characters, and retell new versions of a few established Trek events among telling new stories on the USS Enterprise.

Granted that you would like to see that from a personal standpoint, but what would it accomplish? I refer to the statement upstream, to the effect that if you change something so much, it becomes a different thing. It strike me kind of like saying I want to have a pet dog, but I want it to have a long trunk, poisonous quills, iridescent feathers, and I want it to lay eggs. At some point, it's no longer a dog.

I'm amused by re-imaging the Klingons again. They have to be having an existential crisis by now. :-)

 

[F. King Daniel]

What silliness and outdated tropes do you mean?
What more did you want them to do?
I thought Discovery has pretty much well done that hasn't it?

Things like sending the entire command staff down into immediate danger on hostile planets, or aliens all speaking english with perfect lip sync. Or aliens all being humans with bumpy foreheads. Sound in space and starships moving as if they're either jet fighters or battleships at sea. Discovery is just as mired in existing Trek as the Kelvin universe is.

Granted that you would like to see that from a personal standpoint, but what would it accomplish? I refer to the statement upstream, to the effect that if you change something so much, it becomes a different thing. It strike me kind of like saying I want to have a pet dog, but I want it to have a long trunk, poisonous quills, iridescent feathers, and I want it to lay eggs. At some point, it's no longer a dog.

I'm amused by re-imaging the Klingons again. They have to be having an existential crisis by now. :-)

It would be as much Star Trek as Gotham is Batman, or the recent Netflix series is Lost in Space. For me, that's enough.

 

[fireproof78]

You run the risk of a reboot becoming nothing like the original, though, which is what happened to Battlestar Galactica. There's a point where you change so much that it might as well be its own show.

Wouldn't The Orville and Galaxy Quest fit your premise? Or even TNG compared to TOS (as early seasons, with the exception of The Naked Now, seem to go out of their way to ignore TOS?)

Orville is closer than Galaxy Quest, but lacks a bit because it started out with a less serious tone, at least at first. Star Trek has always had a consistently serious tone to it, even when it gets a bit silly. And Star Trek has consistently kept that going forward, for good or for ill.

Yes, the danger is always rebooting to the point that it might as well be its own thing. But, I think that Star Trek has such a beautiful wide premise that it could accommodate a reboot while still being true to the core principles of optimism about humanity's future. I just think a reboot actually offers going back to those roots, rather than constantly exploring past characters, past time periods, and actually focuses on looking to the future.

The reason I bring this up is that folks keep bring up narrow definitions

I thought my definition was fairly broad.

It would be as much Star Trek as Gotham is Batman, or the recent Netflix series is Lost in Space. For me, that's enough.

Exactly.

I would like to reboot (restart) the history in universe of Trek. Look towards humanity's future from the 21st century rather than the 1960s.

 

[BillJ]

Granted that you would like to see that from a personal standpoint, but what would it accomplish?

The freedom to examine the characters and universe from a 21st century point of view without in universe historical restrictions.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I thought my definition was fairly broad.

What I'm referring to there is the idea that the Kelvinverse is comparable to TOS, but just "updated". The updating itself makes it NOTTOS instead of TOS. No claim as to which one is better, although you can guess which I prefer.

 

[ChallengerHK]

The freedom to examine the characters and universe from a 21st century point of view without in universe historical restrictions.

But just call it something else, then. Or change the name of the characters. Having Kirk and Spock being other than Kirk and Spock is going back to having the dog with the iridescent feathers.

My friend Chris is always complaining that Trek spends too much time on the Enterprise, with the characters we know, and as much as I love them, by the time of TUC it does make one question the realty of having all these people still together. If you want to tell stories in the Trek universe (or universes, as the case may be), but you don't want to use Kirk and Spock (not the names alone, but the characters themselves) then there are lots of other ships, characters, and universes to explore. "These are the voyages of the starship Bonhomme Richard...its five year mission...to try to make people forget that TOS ever existed..."

Run it and let it play out and see if people watch it. And they might. But there's no compelling reason to replace Kirk and Spock with iridescent-feathered dogs, even if we still called them Kirk and Spock. :-)

 

[BillJ]

What I'm referring to there is the idea that the Kelvinverse is comparable to TOS, but just "updated". The updating itself makes it NOTTOS instead of TOS. No claim as to which one is better, although you can guess which I prefer.

Nothing can be “TOS”, no matter how much one might want it. I actually prefer TOS, as it is my favorite TV show ever. It was a unique show created in a unique time.

 

[fireproof78]

What I'm referring to there is the idea that the Kelvinverse is comparable to TOS, but just "updated". The updating itself makes it NOTTOS instead of TOS. No claim as to which one is better, although you can guess which I prefer.

Then, this misses the point, in my opinion. Which is fine, but I don't agree. I also don't agree that it is a binary choice of TOS or NOTTOS.

 

[BillJ]

But just call it something else, then. Or change the name of the characters. Having Kirk and Spock being other than Kirk and Spock is going back to having the dog with the iridescent feathers.

Why should modern creators be restricted from doing their own interpretations of the characters and universe?

 

[ChallengerHK]

Then, this misses the point, in my opinion. Which is fine, but I don't agree. I also don't agree that it is a binary choice of TOS or NOTTOS.

You're right that it's not binary. I will say, however, that the spirit of the thread was more like TOS versus varying degrees of NOTTOS.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Why should modern creators be restricted from doing their own interpretations of the characters and universe?

I won't go so far as to say they should be prevented. That's somewhat totalitarian. I will say again, though, that I would expect that the more talented a creator is, the less I expect that they would want to mess around in anybody else's sandbox, let alone crap in it.

Beyond that, the point of the thread, again, is the idea of making new TOS episodes. Saying "Yeah, let's make them, but just don't make them like TOS" is pretty much the same thing as saying "Don't make them", right?

 

[BillJ]

Beyond that, the point of the thread, again, is the idea of making new TOS episodes. Saying "Yeah, let's make them, but just don't make them like TOS" is pretty much the same thing as saying "Don't make them", right?

I don’t consider new material as TOS. They are new interpretations of characters and material from the original Star Trek. I don’t want to shake the beehive, but I don’t consider Discovery as a prequel to TOS, I consider it as its own timeline that has its own versions of characters and material from TOS.

You simply can’t make more TOS, those days are long gone.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I don’t want to shake the beehive...

You simply can’t make more TOS, those days are long gone.

Excellent choice of words on the first.

You are correct that we can't have more TOS. Going back to the non binary definition above, I think I'd phrase it as "For this particular project/question, I have a very small tolerance for any deviation from TOS, and we have seen numerous examples of products which have minimized deviation, so we know it can be done."

For me, the answer is "Yes, as long as you're not expecting huge success, because most people would probably not.be interested in watching it." Your mileage will vary :-)

 

[fireproof78]

You're right that it's not binary. I will say, however, that the spirit of the thread was more like TOS versus varying degrees of NOTTOS.

I think you can capture the spirit of TOS in more ways than just, say, STC, or faithful recreation, is more my point.

Obviously, mileage will vary as to what that looks like, but I would say Kelvin Trek is in that spirit, but definitely a much different feel.

 

[Marsden]

I think if they do TOS over again as a streaming show, they should have Spock's Brain being stolen as a season long arc where it's stolen in episode 1 or 2, then they find the planet in episode 5 or 6, but aren't able to recover it until 7 or 8 and then do the surgery in episode 10 to put him back together again.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think if they do TOS over again as a streaming show, they should have Spock's Brain being stolen as a season long arc where it's stolen in episode 1 or 2, then they find the planet in episode 5 or 6, but aren't able to recover it until 7 or 8 and then do the surgery in episode 10 to put him back together again.

That'll be like, season 4 when the nununuSpock actor is getting tired of it all and wants reduced dates so he just shows up as a body for the first episode, does a little voice over work for the season and shows up in the flesh for the finale.

 

[ChallengerHK]

I think you can capture the spirit of TOS in more ways than just, say, STC, or faithful recreation, is more my point..

Let me see if you concur with this. If the goal is to pay homage to the original, then there are probably an infinite number of ways to approach it. If the goal is to mimic the original, then there's only one target to hit.