It'll never happen, but....

[Warped9]

I bring this up every once in awhile.

Maybe more than anything else Trek wise I'd like to see a spin on a road not traveled. The road NBC chose not to go down. It would be a way to recapture some of the flavour of TOS yet still have a chance to do fresh work.

An animated Pike era series. Picking up after "The Cage." You could build on what little we know of the characters and the time period and introduce new elements. And the clean streamlined look of The Cage era would work well in animation.

I'm also thinking of well executed 2D animation as opposed to CGI. And hopefully written at least on the level of the early '90s Batman TAS.

Some additional thoughts, though.

- No Romulans or any familar races after TOS (or before they were introduced in TOS). Use Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, perhaps a few others and introduce new ones. And this is animation so let's make some real non-humanoid aliens. Pick up on the ambition of the original TAS only smarter and with much better animation.
- Use Klingons very sparingly.
- No TOS characters other than the younger Spock.
- Story is KEY. The story and how it's executed is everything, And avoid fanfic like writing and too much self-referencing.

It'll never happen, but it's nice to dream. It's also along the lines of what I'd hoped Marvel Comics' Early Voyages could have been like if it had worked out.

 

[Admiral2]

I'd watch it, but if the current bunch get their hands on it they'll probably have crap like Pike bodysurfing a subspace wave or Number One driving the ship wearing a bikini or something. So I say only if somebody not addicted to X-games is running the show.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Another show of support here, for what it's worth...

 

[Warped9]

I'd watch it, but if the current bunch get their hands on it they'll probably have crap like Pike bodysurfing a subspace wave or Number One driving the ship wearing a bikini or something. So I say only if somebody not addicted to X-games is running the show.

Your sig kills me.

 

[Admiral2]

I'd watch it, but if the current bunch get their hands on it they'll probably have crap like Pike bodysurfing a subspace wave or Number One driving the ship wearing a bikini or something. So I say only if somebody not addicted to X-games is running the show.

Your sig kills me.

Hey, it needed to be shared, cause it perfectly defines everything JJ Abrams does.

 

[Praetor]

A Batman TAS-style "Early Voyages"-ish animated series that doesn't exercise in canon-violating lack of creativity?

Count me in.

I'm not a huge fan of having a CGI Trek unless they can do it in a "Final Fantasy Advent Children" style, and I think we all know how long that would take.

That said, I think any Trek series has three simple rules to go by:

1) Tell a good, entertaining story.
2) Exploration is about space, but is a metaphor for the exploration of humanity.
3) Maintain believability and consistency.

Any Trek series that can pull that off will do fine. There are several places in the Trek franchise where some alternate decisions/implementations might have been desirable.

 

[hellsgate]

Actually that sounds entertaining. An animated TOS era show, but with "prototype" holosuites, following-up on Trip's experience with getting knocked-up by accident.

The Captain bodysurfing (but not surfing subspace but more like a simulation of the awesome surfing that might've existed on The Pacific Ocean during the aftermath of The Hermosa Quake,) in the holosuite.

Number One in a thong bikini, perhaps with some subtle body modifications (discrete, feminine and tasteful tattoo at the base of her spine, nose ring or belly button jewelery.) A more 2009 approach.

 

[Admiral2]

Actually that sounds entertaining. An animated TOS era show, but with "prototype" holosuites, following-up on Trip's experience with getting knocked-up by .

The Captain bodysurfing (but not surfing subspace but more like a simulation of the awesome surfing that might've existed on The Pacific Ocean during the aftermath of The Hermosa Quake,) in the holosuite.

Number One in a thong , perhaps with some subtle body modifications (discrete, feminine and tasteful tattoo at the base of her spine, nose ring or belly button jewelery.) A more 2009 approach.

Yo G, did you not sense the overwhelming note of disapproving cynicism in my first post?

I'll make it clearer for you. Those are things I wouldn't want to see, but am afraid that idiot Abrams would put in.

You want 'em, that's fine.

 

[Warped9]

The Pike era represents near a decade worth of stories between "The Cage" and Pike's promotion to Fleet Captain and Kirk taking over. That's a good amount of ground to cover if you can.

And just as I'd avoid overt tie-ins to the post Pike era I'd also avoid tie-ins to ENT and FC and VOY time travel stories. You don't have to go out of your way to contradict them, but you don't have to embrace them either. I think Trek really needs to get out of the heavy self-referential practices.

Let the show be mostly its own thing.

One thing I'd like to try my hand at down the road is to cobble together a few pics to see what this could look like. I'm thinking of an animation style different from TAS. If I (or someone else) could do it it could be interesting to see.

I started writing a story about or year or so ago that I called Neverland which deals with the first encounter with the Vedala mentioned in TAS' episode "Jihad." There's nothing connecting this to the original story except it builds on the mystery of the Vedala and what they seem to be about. It also has a younger Councillor Sarek of Vulcan along for the ride as a representative for a potential first contact. No, Spock and Sarek do not interact as father and son which is right in line with Amanda's reference in TOS' "Journey To Babel." Pike and Sarek happen to get along quite well even though Pike vocally disapproves of Sarek's treatment of his Science Officer. Sometime later in the story Pike learns of Spock and Sarek's relationship yet keeps it to himself out of respect and consideration for Spock, and this could be the seeds of Spock's loyalty to Pike.

The character stuff is background filler to the story, though. The idea was to tell a TOS like science fiction story exploring ideas and some run-and-jump adventure. We learn a great deal about the Vedala and yet we also learn almost nothing about them, too. Cues from the original episode (what few there are): the Vedala are a highly advanced race and much of their science is almost like magic, they are reclusive and secretive to the point you can question whether what we saw was actually a Vedala in true form, they ally themselves with no one, and they travel the galaxy in worldships instead of starships.

My essential approach to this is similar to James Blish's Spock Must Die! and Robert Wise's handling of TMP and to an extent GR's writing of "The Cage:" write a science fiction story set in the Star Trek universe. One major thing I like about TMP is that it's right in line with what Star Trek was: seeking out new life and exploring strange new worlds, or strange new whatever. One thing I've gotten to really dislike about a lot of later Trek particularly after TNG was that so much of it was ship battles and combat. So many redundant ship battles with the same rubber stamped dialogue had become the de facto substitute for drama. DS9 had something of an excuse because it had become a space war series with its seasons long story arc. But VOY and ENT and the TNG set films drove me nuts with this. I can enjoy a cool combat sequence, but it seems as if the more polished and sophisticated F/X got the greater tendency to go for depicting more and more kewl space battles.

I did fashion a few Never seen TOS scenes images of this as well. The pics are kinda like teasers for the story.

I know I have more pics. I'll just have to dig them up from wherever they're buried.

 

[Admiral2]

The Pike era represents near a decade worth of stories between "The Cage" and Pike's promotion to Fleet Captain and Kirk taking over. That's a good amount of ground to cover if you can.

And just as I'd avoid overt tie-ins to the post Pike era I'd also avoid tie-ins to ENT and FC and VOY time travel stories. You don't have to go out of your way to contradict them, but you don't have to embrace them either. I think Trek really needs to get out of the heavy self-referential practices.

Let the show be mostly its own thing.

That seems hard to do for Trek writers of all stripes. Ask someone to come up with a stand alone Pike story and they can't seem to help but tie it in to "The Menagerie" or tying it to Spock in a different era. It's just how so many seem to be wired.

One thing I'd like to try my hand at down the road is to cobble together a few pics to see what this could look like. I'm thinking of an animation style different from TAS. If I (or someone else) could do it it could be interesting to see.

My thinking would be using an Anime production company for the actual animation production, including character design, mechanical design, etc. They'll take the material more seriously than an American company would. I'd love to see how the teams that did Stand Alone Complex and Starship Operators would handle it.

I started writing a story about or year or so ago that I called Neverland which deals with the first encounter with the Vedala mentioned in TAS' episode "Jihad." There's nothing connecting this to the original story except it builds on the mystery of the Vedala and what they seem to be about. It also has a younger Councillor Sarek of Vulcan along for the ride as a representative for a potential first contact. No, Spock and Sarek do not interact as father and son which is right in line with Amanda's reference in TOS' "Journey To Babel." Pike and Sarek happen to get along quite well even though Pike vocally disapproves of Sarek's treatment of his Science Officer. Sometime later in the story Pike learns of Spock and Sarek's relationship yet keeps it to himself out of respect and consideration for Spock, and this could be the seeds of Spock's loyalty to Pike.

The character stuff is background filler to the story, though. The idea was to tell a TOS like science fiction story exploring ideas and some run-and-jump adventure. We learn a great deal about the Vedala and yet we also learn almost nothing about them, too. Cues from the original episode (what few there are): the Vedala are a highly advanced race and much of their science is almost like magic, they are reclusive and secretive to the point you can question whether what we saw was actually a Vedala in true form, they ally themselves with no one, and they travel the galaxy in worldships instead of starships.

My essential approach to this is similar to James Blish's Spock Must Die! and Robert Wise's handling of TMP and to an extent GR's writing of "The Cage:" write a science fiction story set in the Star Trek universe. One major thing I like about TMP is that it's right in line with what Star Trek was: seeking out new life and exploring strange new worlds, or strange new whatever. One thing I've gotten to really dislike about a lot of later Trek particularly after TNG was that so much of it was ship battles and combat. So many redundant ship battles with the same rubber stamped dialogue had become the de facto substitute for drama. DS9 had something of an excuse because it had become a space war series with its seasons long story arc. But VOY and ENT and the TNG set films drove me nuts with this. I can enjoy a cool combat sequence, but it seems as if the more polished and sophisticated F/X got the greater tendency to go for depicting more and more kewl space battles.

I did fashion a few Never seen TOS scenes images of this as well. The pics are kinda like teasers for the story.

I know I have more pics. I'll just have to dig them up from wherever they're buried.

The only problem with this story is that in the context of an animated series, it would have to stretch over a few episodes to get the full scope of everything you want to do. In that case, you'd definitely need an anime company.

 

[Warped9]

^^ True. I wasn't suggesting this idea for a TAS episode, although that sort of thing has been done with the Batman and Superman TAS series.

 

[Admiral2]

^^ True. I wasn't suggesting this idea for a TAS episode, although that sort of thing has been done with the Batman and Superman TAS series.

Also true, and those series also show what you can do with a half-hour animated series.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

I bring this up every once in awhile.

Maybe more than anything else Trek wise I'd like to see a spin on a road not traveled. The road NBC chose not to go down. It would be a way to recapture some of the flavour of TOS yet still have a chance to do fresh work.

An animated Pike era series. Picking up after "The Cage." You could build on what little we know of the characters and the time period and introduce new elements. And the clean streamlined look of The Cage era would work well in animation.

I'm also thinking of well executed 2D animation as opposed to CGI. And hopefully written at least on the level of the early '90s Batman TAS.

Some additional thoughts, though.

- No Romulans or any familar races after TOS (or before they were introduced in TOS). Use Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, perhaps a few others and introduce new ones. And this is animation so let's make some real non-humanoid aliens. Pick up on the ambition of the original TAS only smarter and with much better animation.
- Use Klingons very sparingly.
- No TOS characters other than the younger Spock.
- Story is KEY. The story and how it's executed is everything, And avoid fanfic like writing and too much self-referencing.

It'll never happen, but it's nice to dream. It's also along the lines of what I'd hoped Marvel Comics' Early Voyages could have been like if it had worked out.

I'd watch a Pike series such as you desribe here, though I think it could go further - Spock in The Cage isn't the unemotional Vulcan that evolved in TOS. You could start with only what is shown in The Cage and go from there.

 

[Warped9]

^^ True. I wasn't suggesting this idea for a TAS episode, although that sort of thing has been done with the Batman and Superman TAS series.

Also true, and those series also show what you can do with a half-hour animated series.

I really enjoyed Superman TAS' "The Last Son Of Krypton." That could also have made a good movie.

Actually when I watch Batman and Superman and Justice League and even the new Brave And The Bold I'm always reminded of how cool a new Star Trek TAS could be assuming the writing is good.

But for Star Trek the animation style would have to be a tad more realistic.

The thing is you'd need an overall vision for this to avoid most cliches. A lot of Superman TAS could be him just slugging it out which gets dull fast, just like a lot of latter day Trek substitutes endless kewl space battles with rubber-stamped dialogue for drama. I've caught a few episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars and I was impressed. It wasn't bad. I even thought it better than the recent live-action movies in terms of writing and acting.

My approach on this would be to have most if not all the scripts for a season pretty well settled early on to avoid delays, allow sufficient lead time for the animation process and to avoid the too much formula. You don't even have to have a 22 episode season. You could have a 15-20 episode season of half-hour episodes. I'd rather go with a few less episodes and get quality than get the a lot of mediocre stories.

I'd also certainly push to avoid having this scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday morning timeslot.

Some of Praetor's thinking applys here:

I consider there to basically be three rules for making a good Trek series:

1) Tell a good, entertaining story.
2) Exploration is about space, but is a metaphor for the exploration of humanity.
3) Maintain believability and consistency.

Now those are pretty simply stated, but I think those are the three rules that TPTB must adhere to beyond everything else. Fears of maintaining the franchise and the Trekkie fanbase while attracting new viewers won't be a problem if you instead focus on those three goals first and foremost.

Do I think that the TNG production successfully pulled this sequel-to-TOS thing off, though? Not completely. De-emphasizing the "boldly going" bit was definitely a shame. I mean, the spirit was there, especially early on, but I think one thing that most people don't realize is that TNG changed the franchise's focus. I think on TNG the characters and universe of Trek itself began taking precedence over the actual stories, which I ultimately conclude was a mistake.

Some have also proposed before the "ER" approach to TNG - that is, write out new characters as old actors want to leave, promote everyone left up the chain, and bring in new characters to fill out the ranks. Personally, I'm fine with this. "Law and Order," again, has done this pretty well IMO. I would honestly have not minded if TNG continued to run concurrently with DS9 and VGR so long as the three shows presented distinctly different types of stories. Like with "Law and Order," there are certain stories and formats that each show would focus on, and the others would avoid doing, but they are all, generally, about the same thing.

I was rereading my Neverland story last night and although it's not complete I'll post a link here for anyone curious to take a look at it. Yeah, it could do with a touch of editing, but overall I think it has the right tone. It also reads a bit like a science fiction novel, but the character stuff is definitely there.

Another thing I think would be a nice tip-of-the-hat to TOS would be something that hasn't been done since some of the films: have some good, evocative and memorable music. Contemporary Trek has absolutely sucked huge on this except for the opening themes.

 

[Warped9]

I found them:

 

[Praetor]

Those look really awesome.

 

[Admiral2]

^^ True. I wasn't suggesting this idea for a TAS episode, although that sort of thing has been done with the Batman and Superman TAS series.

Also true, and those series also show what you can do with a half-hour animated series.

I really enjoyed Superman TAS' "The Last Son Of Krypton." That could also have made a good movie.

Actually when I watch Batman and Superman and Justice League and even the new Brave And The Bold I'm always reminded of how cool a new Star Trek TAS could be assuming the writing is good.

But for Star Trek the animation style would have to be a tad more realistic.

I get that. That's why I recommended anime production companies. Watch this and imagine the same effort going into a new Pike Trek series:

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/animation/watch/v14532496hY9bmxc#watch=v1458456SgDbAJeP

The thing is you'd need an overall vision for this to avoid most cliches. A lot of Superman TAS could be him just slugging it out which gets dull fast, just like a lot of latter day Trek substitutes endless kewl space battles with rubber-stamped dialogue for drama. I've caught a few episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars and I was impressed. It wasn't bad. I even thought it better than the recent live-action movies in terms of writing and acting.

My approach on this would be to have most if not all the scripts for a season pretty well settled early on to avoid delays, allow sufficient lead time for the animation process and to avoid the too much formula. You don't even have to have a 22 episode season. You could have a 15-20 episode season of half-hour episodes. I'd rather go with a few less episodes and get quality than get the a lot of mediocre stories.

I'd also certainly push to avoid having this scheduled on a Saturday or Sunday morning timeslot.

Again, the benefit of anime companies. It'll end up on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim or Syfy's Ani-monday.

Some of Praetor's thinking applys here:

I consider there to basically be three rules for making a good Trek series:

1) Tell a good, entertaining story.
2) Exploration is about space, but is a metaphor for the exploration of humanity.
3) Maintain believability and consistency.

Now those are pretty simply stated, but I think those are the three rules that TPTB must adhere to beyond everything else. Fears of maintaining the franchise and the Trekkie fanbase while attracting new viewers won't be a problem if you instead focus on those three goals first and foremost.

Do I think that the TNG production successfully pulled this sequel-to-TOS thing off, though? Not completely. De-emphasizing the "boldly going" bit was definitely a shame. I mean, the spirit was there, especially early on, but I think one thing that most people don't realize is that TNG changed the franchise's focus. I think on TNG the characters and universe of Trek itself began taking precedence over the actual stories, which I ultimately conclude was a mistake.

Some have also proposed before the "ER" approach to TNG - that is, write out new characters as old actors want to leave, promote everyone left up the chain, and bring in new characters to fill out the ranks. Personally, I'm fine with this. "Law and Order," again, has done this pretty well IMO. I would honestly have not minded if TNG continued to run concurrently with DS9 and VGR so long as the three shows presented distinctly different types of stories. Like with "Law and Order," there are certain stories and formats that each show would focus on, and the others would avoid doing, but they are all, generally, about the same thing.

I was rereading my Neverland story last night and although it's not complete I'll post a link here for anyone curious to take a look at it. Yeah, it could do with a touch of editing, but overall I think it has the right tone. It also reads a bit like a science fiction novel, but the character stuff is definitely there.

Another thing I think would be a nice tip-of-the-hat to TOS would be something that hasn't been done since some of the films: have some good, evocative and memorable music. Contemporary Trek has absolutely sucked huge on this except for the opening themes.

Well, the closest I've come to writing Pike Trek is my reboot series, so that probably wouldn't count here, but I think some of the stories I've come up with would be useful.

 

[Warped9]

Those look really awesome.

Thanks. I even darkened Sarek's hair to make him look a bit younger.

 

[Captain Pike]

I could get down with that (the idea presented in the OP). As you can probably tell from my avatar, I'm rather fond of Early Voyages myself.

 

[AviTrek]

The production company has nothing to do with where the show ends up. CBS owns the rights and can sell the show to whoever it wants. Hell, CBS could air it on a weeknight at 9pm in the heart of primetime. Anime is way too much of a niche product in the US for CBS to ever consider Anime Trek. If CBS does an animated series it will want at least the placement of Clone Wars if not The Simpsons.