Thoughts about a TOS revival with AI technology

[Lord Garth]

AI-generated TOS sounds interesting but I think this is the type of thing TOS itself would've been against. See "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Court Martial", and especially "The Ultimate Computer".

Someone will probably try it anyway, William Shatner did give his okay, but I just have to put the above out there.

EDITED TO ADD: Leonard Nimoy's family would be FAR less likely to give their blessing. And you can't have TOS without Spock. But someone might try to take the opportunity to create Phase II with Xon, in that case. Or use AI to Bring Back Kirk in the Picard Era. Those are the ways I'd see them using it. If they did it.

Because if they'd only have TOS Kirk, and wouldn't have TOS Spock, what would be the point of using AI to recreate TOS? They'd might as well recast and shoot with actual actors in the flesh.

 

[publiusr]

By 2066, I could see TOS novels brought to the screen at last.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Thank god Star Trek knows to recast instead of using that weird uncanny AI Disney Star Wars Young Luke shit.

In 10 years, if the world hasn't ended, fans will be making AI fanfilms of TOS using AI on a computer. But the pros won't, because that's not acting and those aren't actors.

 

[OtherGene]

It's unlikely but, seeing as we now know Star Fleet has stored Kirks' corpse at the Daystrom Station after the events on Viridian 3, there's clearly the possibility of him being reanimated if only as some sort of cameo.

Do I want to watch that? Yeah, why not.

 

[Qonundrum]

Last I recall, someone on TrekBBS "asked" an AI script generator to put out a Trek style plot. It was pretty much an amalgamation of TMP and STFC, and with less internal logic than either of them. It probably did have little bits and pieces, no pun intended, that a human could then get inspiration from - for cleverer dialogue, fixing the plot holes puked up, etc, etc.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

AI-generated TOS sounds interesting but I think this is the type of thing TOS itself would've been against. See "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Court Martial", and especially "The Ultimate Computer".

Timely point, but you know most people getting an itch in their pants over new technology usually ignore cautionary tales in favor of questionable "potential", obsession, directly feeding off of the life/work of others, etc.

See one of the worst examples with Star Wars Theory (YouTube).

 

[HotRod]

In the long history of stupid fucking ideas in media, this is one of the worst.

Fuck No.

 

[Forbin]

Someone, a while ago, suggested using the soundtrack of the animated series to recreate those stories as CGI animations. I think I'd be in for that.

 

[Lord Garth]

In 10 years, if the world hasn't ended, fans will be making AI fanfilms of TOS using AI on a computer. But the pros won't, because that's not acting and those aren't actors.

Then said fans will be sued. William Shatner wouldn't want his likeness used unless his family was compensated AND Paramount would clamp down even further on fan films.

 

[Noname Given]

Someone will probably try it anyway, William Shatner did give his okay, but I just have to put the above out there.

Actually, he didn't. he said he'd never allow it while he was still alive BUT after he's passed, IF members of his family agree and a WELL PAID; he'd be okay with it.
^^^
I don't think he likes the idea at all, but hey, he'll be dead and if it helps the kids make good money...

 

[Pauln6]

I really enjoyed John Byrne's New Visions so I suppose I wouldn't mind them using the technology to produce photo-realistic stories but Shatner's willingness doesn't change the fact that it's probably cheaper to just use artists because you would need actors for guest characters and digital backgrounds.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

In 10 years, if the world hasn't ended, fans will be making AI fanfilms of TOS using AI on a computer.

Well, you already have that with that Star Wars Theory person on YouTube, who has been widely (and deservedly) dragged through the coals for his recent AI Luke Skywalker for a fan film, which Mark Hamill has not approved of (and said as much on social media).

Plus you can't replicate the style of TOS - that of a 60s lens - to modern sensibilities.

That would be the most eye-roll inducing production in history.

 

[Henoch]

My prediction: They'll first use CGI William Shatner in a Star Trek based video game.

 

[evilchumlee]

My prediction: They'll first use CGI William Shatner in a Star Trek based video game.

We already have CGI Spock, so yeah why not.

I would be so incredibly on board with a Shatner-voiced Kirk game.

In the long history of stupid fucking ideas in media, this is one of the worst.

Fuck No.

TOS remains the best-selling franchise for merchandise. There's a reason why for the past two decades, Paramount/Whoever has been trying to do almost exclusively TOS or TOS adjacent projects.

 

[Redfern]

Someone, a while ago, suggested using the soundtrack of the animated series to recreate those stories as CGI animations. I think I'd be in for that.

That was Ptrope, the former moderator for the fan art sub-forum. At the time he was tooling with Poser based figure models. His original plan was to "re-animate" a single episode "The Time Trap", Trek's spin on the Bermuda Triangle nonsense. He got as far as modeling some of the interiors (which is how hobbyists got a Poser conversion of Sean Kennedy's bridge model as well as the transporter and Kirk's quarters that Ptrope built from scratch). He also tried to morph some likenesses with the help of Mylochka. I even dorked around a bit trying to refine a M'Ress figure (who was not in that episode but Ptrope wanted to appear, if only as a brief "walk-on") and do a bit of beta testing. But it never got beyond that point before he suffered a computer crash and lost a lot of work. Then, time marched on and real life concerns kinda' stifled the project.

But it was a fun diversion while it lasted.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

But it never got beyond that point before he suffered a computer crash and lost a lot of work. Then, time marched on and real life concerns kinda' stifled the project.

If you're not backing up your important files, you're riding for a fall.

 

[Forbin]

If you're not backing up your important files, you're riding for a fall.

What I recommend is using a second internal drive for data. That way if C: crashes, you don't lose any work. I also back the files up, TWICE, to two external physical drives. I still have almost every file I ever created going back to the beginning, including some converted Amiga files!

 

[fireproof78]

TOS remains the best-selling franchise for merchandise. There's a reason why for the past two decades, Paramount/Whoever has been trying to do almost exclusively TOS or TOS adjacent projects.

Because it's popular, has the most visual appeal and awareness in broader culture, and the most iconic figures, as well as several lampoons of those figures.

Paramount is wise to try and make guaranteed money in a time of slow down.

 

[Greg Cox]

Better to just recast the parts, as movies and TV have done for generations. IMO.

 

[aridas sofia]

Do all of you science fiction aficionados think that once generative AI is available, it won’t give you what you want if you ask it for a new episode of TOS? Do we really believe that it will be beholden to whatever legal structures we put in place to restrict it? If it believes there is a benefit to giving people what they want, it will give them what they want. And we won’t even realize how or why it is doing it. I’m not saying the sky is going to fall. But I am saying it is naive to believe we can hold the sky up with our puny human abilities.