I wouldn't mind some more lower budget movies (say 30 million dollars) being released to Paramount Plus that tell more off beat stories or animated films (with say a 5 million dollar budget) that tell stories that would be hard to do in animation.
What kind of Format would you like for future series/movies?
- Thread starter valkyrie013
- Start date
Star Trek Logs does exist, albeit on Instagram.
I'm inclined to choose all of the above.
One option I didn't see listed was animation-I'll gladly watch that too. I have since TAS.
One format I suggested was short arcs. Trek has had a few two-part episodes. Perhaps a three-parter could work as well. With an occasional stand alone episode.
With a show being Wagon Train meets the X-Files, Twilight Zone, and the Outer Limits.
One option I didn't see listed was animation-I'll gladly watch that too. I have since TAS.
One format I suggested was short arcs. Trek has had a few two-part episodes. Perhaps a three-parter could work as well. With an occasional stand alone episode.
With a show being Wagon Train meets the X-Files, Twilight Zone, and the Outer Limits.
Another way to get around this is to switch Trek to a more realistic ship usage model. Instead of dozens of models being refreshed every 10 years, an organization would conserve resources and use the same ship design for many dozens of ships like a real military does. And like they showed us in Picard.
Regardless, sets are can be (are already?) made to be more modular and interchangeable. Right now they have many interior sets available that could be tweaked to look different enough to appear as a new ship. Disco, Book's ship, Enterprise, various other alien ships. All they need to do is move things around, change the lights and put different chairs in and most of us fans won't cry about it. Wasn't Riker's bridge a tweaked Disco bridge? It worked for me. Partial digital edits could also be used.
I am of the mind that story counts more than these intricate details so if they can make it look good enough on first pass, then that is all I care about.
Just a quick observation on a common thing that I've seen for years with some in Star Trek fandom, and that's this thing with not minding for Star Trek to be "low budget."
It's like, what the hell is that?
I mean, one of the aspects of Star Trek is that it's supposed to depict the future. So make it believable, or at least somewhat believable. Give me that verisimilitude. Make me believe that what I'm looking at is real.
Now, no need to waste money on explosions and whatever. Of course, I guess unfortunately that's a common occurrence in these type of shows. That if it's asking for a big budget, then they want to see some explosions and whatnot. The money people want to see where that money went, so they want to see something blow up. Naturally you don't need that in Star Trek. And so all I ask is make the world look real at least. Spend the money on that. And once you do that, then I can get into your story and not constantly get kicked out of it because what I'm looking at looks "cheap."
That's also something that I firmly believe limits the potential for Star Trek, that when the uninitiated sees it that they don't believe it. They don't believe that they're in the 24th century or whenever. No, it's just look likes a "cheap" set to them. And now they have to use their own imagination and overlook what they're seeing. And ultimately they of course just turn to something else where they don't have to use their imagination as much. And I guess I'm just talking about me and 90s Star Trek, but that aside...
But no, in addition to the all of the above formats with Star Trek as what I'd like to see going forward, also make it believable.
Game of Thrones has now set the bar for this. And I also firmly believe that attributed greatly to it's success. That when people saw that world they immediately bought into it. Now everyone of course has to match that standard going forward, and surpass it.
Star Trek: Discovery does this very well in the first episode or two of each season. You can see where the money is being spent. Star Trek: Picard also did that very well in it's first couple of episodes. Hopefully the new VR walls used in production of the upcoming seasons of all of the series can extend that level of verisimilitude through most if not all of the episodes. Because the level of production overall is obviously as high as it's ever been, but it still drops off throughout the season. Because when it comes to an episode where they're inside or something most of the time it's like, "Yep, they spent most of the production money on the Iceland shoot. Now they have to do the rest of the season on the cheap."
Anyway.
EDIT:
I meant to say AR walls, not VR walls.
It's like, what the hell is that?
I mean, one of the aspects of Star Trek is that it's supposed to depict the future. So make it believable, or at least somewhat believable. Give me that verisimilitude. Make me believe that what I'm looking at is real.
Now, no need to waste money on explosions and whatever. Of course, I guess unfortunately that's a common occurrence in these type of shows. That if it's asking for a big budget, then they want to see some explosions and whatnot. The money people want to see where that money went, so they want to see something blow up. Naturally you don't need that in Star Trek. And so all I ask is make the world look real at least. Spend the money on that. And once you do that, then I can get into your story and not constantly get kicked out of it because what I'm looking at looks "cheap."
That's also something that I firmly believe limits the potential for Star Trek, that when the uninitiated sees it that they don't believe it. They don't believe that they're in the 24th century or whenever. No, it's just look likes a "cheap" set to them. And now they have to use their own imagination and overlook what they're seeing. And ultimately they of course just turn to something else where they don't have to use their imagination as much. And I guess I'm just talking about me and 90s Star Trek, but that aside...
But no, in addition to the all of the above formats with Star Trek as what I'd like to see going forward, also make it believable.
Game of Thrones has now set the bar for this. And I also firmly believe that attributed greatly to it's success. That when people saw that world they immediately bought into it. Now everyone of course has to match that standard going forward, and surpass it.
Star Trek: Discovery does this very well in the first episode or two of each season. You can see where the money is being spent. Star Trek: Picard also did that very well in it's first couple of episodes. Hopefully the new VR walls used in production of the upcoming seasons of all of the series can extend that level of verisimilitude through most if not all of the episodes. Because the level of production overall is obviously as high as it's ever been, but it still drops off throughout the season. Because when it comes to an episode where they're inside or something most of the time it's like, "Yep, they spent most of the production money on the Iceland shoot. Now they have to do the rest of the season on the cheap."
Anyway.
EDIT:
I meant to say AR walls, not VR walls.
Last edited:
Just a quick observation on a common thing that I've seen for years with some in Star Trek fandom, and that's this thing with not minding for Star Trek to be "low budget."
It's like, what the hell is that?
I mean, one of the aspects of Star Trek is that it's supposed to depict the future. So make it believable, or at least somewhat believable. Give me that verisimilitude. Make me believe that what I'm looking at is real.
Now, no need to waste money on explosions and whatever. Of course, I guess unfortunately that's a common occurrence in these type of shows. That if it's asking for a big budget, then they want to see some explosions and whatnot. The money people want to see where that money went, so they want to see something blow up. Naturally you don't need that in Star Trek. And so all I ask is make the world look real at least. Spend the money on that. And once you do that, then I can get into your story and not constantly get kicked out of it because what I'm looking at looks "cheap."
That's also something that I firmly believe limits the potential for Star Trek, that when the uninitiated sees it that they don't believe it. They don't believe that they're in the 24th century or whenever. No, it's just look likes a "cheap" set to them. And now they have to use their own imagination and overlook what they're seeing. And ultimately they of course just turn to something else where they don't have to use their imagination as much. And I guess I'm just talking about me and 90s Star Trek, but that aside...
But no, in addition to the all of the above formats with Star Trek as what I'd like to see going forward, also make it believable.
Game of Thrones has now set the bar for this. And I also firmly believe that attributed greatly to it's success. That when people saw that world they immediately bought into it. Now everyone of course has to match that standard going forward, and surpass it.
Star Trek: Discovery does this very well in the first episode or two of each season. You can see where the money is being spent. Star Trek: Picard also did that very well in it's first couple of episodes. Hopefully the new VR walls used in production of the upcoming seasons of all of the series can extend that level of verisimilitude through most if not all of the episodes. Because the level of production overall is obviously as high as it's ever been, but it still drops off throughout the season. Because when it comes to an episode where they're inside or something most of the time it's like, "Yep, they spent most of the production money on the Iceland shoot. Now they have to do the rest of the season on the cheap."
Anyway.
The problem is the bigger budget the bigger the return has to be. The fourth Kelvin movie is limbo due to Star Trek Beyond barely breaking even in terms of budget and likely losing money when marketing comes into play. Unless a Star Trek movie can make as much as a Star Wars or Marvel movie, a smaller budget movie seems more likely.
Wrath of Khan has a budget of 11 million dollars and it's the best Star Trek movie, a good script tops a big budget when making a movie, IMO.
Well yeah, it's a tricky mix. And none of this is easy, otherwise everyone would make hit movies every time out. But the notion of the bigger the budget the bigger the return has to be as a reason to not spend the money is a little self-defeating, is it not? It's like, "We're not going to try that hard because we don't believe we're that good."
Of course, it begs the question does ViacomCBS want Star Trek to be on the level of Star Wars or Marvel. Or, y'know, are they happy to settle for less than because they don't feel that their property is as good or as competitive from an entertainment standpoint.
If ViacomCBS are happy with where Star Trek is, as something less popular than Star Wars or Marvel, if they don't feel that Star Trek can compete on that level, then yeah, they're not going to spend the money.
If of course however ViacomCBS feels otherwise, and feels that Star Trek is as competitive, or desires for Star Trek to be as competitive from an entertainment standpoint with the bigger genre properties, then we'll see that on-screen.
Also, yes, everything was put on pause with the movies because obviously the story that Star Trek Beyond had didn't resonate with enough people. And while I personally didn't care for it, it's still the third highest grossing Star Trek movie ever. Either way, it's probably best not to let the people who wrote and directed Star Trek Beyond to work on a Star Trek movie again, otherwise you run the risk of that box office performance again...
Moreover, for people like Simon Pegg who don't feel that Star Trek can compete on the level of Marvel, yes, do not let people like that write your movies then... Unless of course you don't want your movies to compete on the level of the Marvel movies.
Yes, too, you naturally start with story first, that's a given. But of course that's also the hard part too: what's the story? You get that down first, and then you build up from there. And I maintain, with a property like Star Trek, you aim high, you think big.
The 2009 Star Trek movie is the second highest grossing Star Trek movie ever, Star Trek Into Darkness is the highest grossing Star Trek movie ever (something that I just realized today because for some reason I thought it was the other way around; but no, it's $386 million and $467 million respectively). Those two also had the largest and third largest budgets, at $190 million for Star Trek Into Darkness and $140 million for Star Trek. Those two also just happen to be the only Star Trek movies that I like, but anyway...
As a quick aside: I guess I felt that Star Trek Into Darkness didn't do as well as Star Trek, because if you go by "the internet," then one might be under the impression that Star Trek Into Darkness was a movie that was horrible or something. So without ever really looking at the numbers I just assumed that it didn't do as well. When in fact, no, it was a rare instance where the sequel made more money than the original.
Anyway, so it's just another case of it takes money to make money. You get a good story, then you spend the money, then you make the money. But if you're happy being a smaller property then you don't do that.
I think ViacomCBS wants Star Trek to compete on the levels with Star Wars and Marvel. So I'm thinking they're probably going to spend the money (because they are spending the money on the television shows for the most part). And obviously they didn't think that they had what they thought were good enough ideas for movies until now.
Additionally, I would hope that the people in charge of Star Trek don't have some sort of inferiority complex with the property. Because if they did, then what in the hell, they should be replaced.
At this point there is no getting around it. You need an anthology series.
There's a number of reasons relating to cost and flexibility.
For starters you don't want to put all your very expensive eggs in one basket. It makes trek far too conservative. You need to be able to experiment with ideas at a low cost.
Ideally "Star Trek:Federation" would start off with 8 stand alone episodes.
These 8 would be used as a barometer of what should be produced next.
Once this is done have intermittent releases of miniseries and new stand alones. The miniseries would be based on successful one off stand alones.
One obvious benefit is that you could recycle costumes and sets. This would save a ton of money as you can invent an entirely new ship with a new cast for a single episode. All you have to do is size your costume, and move around set pieces like the captains chair/helm/tactical/ops etc. It's moving furniture around instead of set building.
Another is the ability to get big name actors in for 1 offs without making it some cheesy guest star and without going broke. Alternatively you can hire no name actors and build them up based on their performance in the one off.
Doing all this will help you to create narratives without having to make up major plots contrivances like the reset switch. You can have consequences like watching your ship getting blowed up without resorting to a deus ex machine reset switch used at episodes end.
Best of all you can experiment with episode structures. You can experiment with non linear story telling. Where you watch Tom Hanks being killed off in episode 1 of season 1 and bring him back in season 2 as a prequel.
Within this format you can also create new canon on the fly. Where two stand alone episodes with very different crews and ships can turn out to have interlocking stories. I.e compare rogue one to a new hope.
Finally to top the list you can set it in whatever time, planet, scenario you want for a given episode.
There's a number of reasons relating to cost and flexibility.
For starters you don't want to put all your very expensive eggs in one basket. It makes trek far too conservative. You need to be able to experiment with ideas at a low cost.
Ideally "Star Trek:Federation" would start off with 8 stand alone episodes.
These 8 would be used as a barometer of what should be produced next.
Once this is done have intermittent releases of miniseries and new stand alones. The miniseries would be based on successful one off stand alones.
One obvious benefit is that you could recycle costumes and sets. This would save a ton of money as you can invent an entirely new ship with a new cast for a single episode. All you have to do is size your costume, and move around set pieces like the captains chair/helm/tactical/ops etc. It's moving furniture around instead of set building.
Another is the ability to get big name actors in for 1 offs without making it some cheesy guest star and without going broke. Alternatively you can hire no name actors and build them up based on their performance in the one off.
Doing all this will help you to create narratives without having to make up major plots contrivances like the reset switch. You can have consequences like watching your ship getting blowed up without resorting to a deus ex machine reset switch used at episodes end.
Best of all you can experiment with episode structures. You can experiment with non linear story telling. Where you watch Tom Hanks being killed off in episode 1 of season 1 and bring him back in season 2 as a prequel.
Within this format you can also create new canon on the fly. Where two stand alone episodes with very different crews and ships can turn out to have interlocking stories. I.e compare rogue one to a new hope.
Finally to top the list you can set it in whatever time, planet, scenario you want for a given episode.
I forgot to mention I'd invest a whole lot of effort and money on educating the writer staff on previous treks. Most relevantly not just learning the canon, but learning why past episodes have failed and why past episodes have succeeded.
Star Trek will never be as big as the MCU or even Star Wars, those have a wide Mass Appeal that reaches every age range, gender, etc. Most of the time because its big and loud, and has an easy entry level to see it, One would just need to watch 9 movies in Star Wars, or just be familiar. Star Trek is seen as more Cerebreal, and it has 50 years and Hundreds of hours of material.
Most of the time, exept the recent Kelvin films, Star trek movies have been directed at fans, and not wide appeal, They hoped it had enough appeal to get new viewers in, but not usually. Why I said earlier in the thread, the theatrical Movies need to NOT be for the fans specifically, but for the widest appeal to get new people interested. and then you could make good money. Not MCU level, but with the right budget, a profitable one. Just look at streamer movies like Space Sweapers, Excellent effects, but a budget of 20 million. If you increase the budget to 80-100 million, you can have some great actors, good effects, a good story, and a good movie, and still make a profit. Not every movie is going to do a billion dollars.
Most of the time, exept the recent Kelvin films, Star trek movies have been directed at fans, and not wide appeal, They hoped it had enough appeal to get new viewers in, but not usually. Why I said earlier in the thread, the theatrical Movies need to NOT be for the fans specifically, but for the widest appeal to get new people interested. and then you could make good money. Not MCU level, but with the right budget, a profitable one. Just look at streamer movies like Space Sweapers, Excellent effects, but a budget of 20 million. If you increase the budget to 80-100 million, you can have some great actors, good effects, a good story, and a good movie, and still make a profit. Not every movie is going to do a billion dollars.
Well, that's expensive use of time and money.
Yes, because we all know the likes of Kirsten Beyer and Dayton Ward need education in what "Star Trek" is.
Oh, yes.
I don't think you need to know Trek to write good Trek. Indeed, I think knowing too much can be a recipe for writing derivative crap.
I do think however having a background as a SF writer - or at least a fan of written SF - would be a big help. Discovery notably lacked much in the way of high-concept SF ideas last season, and thus fell back on stock tropes way more than it needed to.
I don't think it is a matter of "good enough." I think it is a matter of "can we make money with this without spending Marvel level money." Even Lucas struggled with money at times with Star Wars and what he really wanted to do with it. Money is a very real barrier and concern for these execs. It's not a lack of confidence; it's an acknowledgement of the reality that they need to be careful.
This won't happen.
Pretty much every version of star trek had its flaw that were particularly unique to that show.
Being involved in those flaws does not exclude you from reviewing them.
In any work of art you want to avoid past mistakes.
If they themselves were not part of it, all the more reason to investigate.
Keeping in mind experienced people are at their best when they are communicating their failures and success to their peers.
Going into a production with poor planning is a train wreck.
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