If You were Making Star Trek?
- Thread starter Zakk
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TOS and TNG are the only Trek series with broad general recognition. And of the two TOS is the one recognized as the original and the most familiar and most assimilated into the mainstream collective consciousness. TOS was the only one that would generate real buzz when announced it would be relaunched. And that's what happened.
One has to realize that just because you like something that doesn't automatically translate into broad acceptance. DS9, VOY and ENT just don't really register in terms of broad general recognition and interest.
One has to realize that just because you like something that doesn't automatically translate into broad acceptance. DS9, VOY and ENT just don't really register in terms of broad general recognition and interest.
Withers
Captain
Sure and you're probably right about TOS and TNG being the most familiar and thus safest bet for a movie. Wouldn't you agree, that had they made Star Trek 09 about a re-booted Voyager or DS9, and maintained essentially the same plot and special effects it would have probably done pretty well?
I'm just saying I don't think the names or references are what made the film a success. Sure, going with TOS/TNG was the safest bet, but knowing the budget they had for the film and the direction they would ultimately take it, it'd be hard to fail regardless the characters from the STU they used I would think (and by "fail" I mean in terms of commercial success because, again, I don't think people were exactly chomping at the bit for more stories about James Kirk and company.)
-Withers-
With a familiar name like Star Trek no one is going to be happy with a modest box office return like small small scale SF films do. It has to be a major money maker, and DS9, VOY and ENT don't have that kind of recognition factor to risk taking a chance on.
No, if they'd done everything the same yet with a DS9, VOY or ENT setting then I don't believe it would have done nearly as well as the TOS derived Abrams' movie.
Day-mn, you too?
Although I'm pretty sure that Meluch was at one time and at some level a Trek fan - The Myriad is most Trekkian in certain story elements. And there's more than a little something familiar in Farragut's interaction with the Roman patterner. Meluch manages to make these things a lot more eccentric and tough, though.
I'm just starting Strength And Honor.
I sure don't. Let TOS rest in peace with dignity finally, for god's sake, instead of being zombified every few years to feed the craving of a diminishing number of addicts. TOS is what it was. Let it be that, and only that. It's enough.
They get recycled by being freely reinterpreted - 007 and Sherlock Holmes have just recently been recreated once again by discarding continuity or conceptual material that's too limiting and outdated, and both have been greatly successful as a result. They change Superman's backstory and universe every decade or so, and Dracula...is just about anything that a given filmmaker or writer says he is this year, which is what's kept that good ol' deadboy alive until now. I'm confident that you fully support similar treatment for TOS. 
Star Trek has become the American Perry Rhodan - as long as they can sell it, it'll be out there somewhere satisfying the appetite of its rather rigid fanbase...but it's the past, not the future, a curious relic of popular culture rather than a wellspring.
Star Trek has become the American Perry Rhodan - as long as they can sell it, it'll be out there somewhere satisfying the appetite of its rather rigid fanbase...but it's the past, not the future, a curious relic of popular culture rather than a wellspring.
My opinion is always more closely aligned with present reality than those of most TOS-onlies.
Or so you like to believe.My opinion is always more closely aligned with present reality than those of most TOS-onlies.
Not sure about a movie but I would mind making some miniseries that look at the early history of some of the other races especially the Borg.
I would not have gratuitously destroyed Vulcan just to be able to say "See? My predecessors may have killed off Kirk and Spock and threatened Earth with a Borg invasion and destroyed the Enterprise not once but several times, but I DESTROYED VULCAN!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Withers
Captain
I like how much freedom they're given. The movies you're talking about aren't even in the same "cannon" as the DCU (which included all the cartoon shows from Batman: The Animated Series through Justice League: Unlimited). Yet, still, you get to see stories that would likely never make it onto the big screen and weren't incorporated in previous small screen incarnations.
Rather than "movie only" I think small, well made mini-series (like a 2 hour thing once ever other year or something) that either expound on existing cannon or add entirely new elements to it all together is preferable. I think I'd rather that than an STU thats only additions come in the form of tales from the alternative universe in movies.
-Withers-
^^ I was thinking more along the lines of one or two series of straight-to-dvd films. Like perhaps a Pike era series set in the original continuity post The Cage yet before TOS. The Cage aesthetic would work well with 2D cel like animation. I would stress writing at least on par with the best of the DC straight-to-dvd movies or early '90s Batman TAS.
A second line could be whatever else. Perhaps TNG or DS9 stories or post TMP or whatever.
This is something that would be totally separate from the live-action Abramsverse films.
A second line could be whatever else. Perhaps TNG or DS9 stories or post TMP or whatever.
This is something that would be totally separate from the live-action Abramsverse films.
Withers
Captain
I think the TOS-era in general has had enough attention... the whole prequel notion is like "enough already." I mean the people who really like TOS are generally the ones who are seriously unhappy when anything is done with it (i.e. the new movie or Enterprise- which arguably most people were unhappy with early on) so lets just move on.
If they went the animated route I'd want them to really let loose and do the things that would've been impossible on any other show. I don't want just animated knock offs of the various series- I want it told from different view points, without the standard "lets just focus on this one crew of seven people and two aliens" bit. Tell the story of the Eugenics War from the perspective of a regular person watching it happen or tell the story of the Romulan War from the perspective of primarily the Romulans- just something different. (That was all off the top of my head and I'm sure better could be done but you get where I'm going with it.)
It'd be awesome to see some animated additions to the STU. It would be a little less awesome if those additions were just rehashes of whats already been done.
If they went the animated route I'd want them to really let loose and do the things that would've been impossible on any other show. I don't want just animated knock offs of the various series- I want it told from different view points, without the standard "lets just focus on this one crew of seven people and two aliens" bit. Tell the story of the Eugenics War from the perspective of a regular person watching it happen or tell the story of the Romulan War from the perspective of primarily the Romulans- just something different. (That was all off the top of my head and I'm sure better could be done but you get where I'm going with it.)
It'd be awesome to see some animated additions to the STU. It would be a little less awesome if those additions were just rehashes of whats already been done.
-Withers-
Except that such projects would have very limited appeal. It would be like telling Lex Luthor or Braniac stories where we see Superman once in a rare while if at all.
I'd set it in the Prime Universe, about a couple of decades, maybe centuries after Nemesis, and really change things up. Some details I would entail
- Earth will be gone. I want Star Trek to be going out there away from Earth, not looking for reasons to go back. Yes, Star Trek is a human story, but it's also NOT an Earth story. The writers will just have to put on their thinking caps and come up with new ways of making Star Trek exciting.
- I want ALIEN looking aliens gawd dangit, and I want them to have important roles. The fact they look different and that audiences may not be able to identify with them is the bloody point I want to make in Star Trek.
- Change some of the big named aliens roles. Maybe have the Klingons be almost non-existant while some other race takes on their role. Have it be like anyone who watches this series look back at the previous series and wonder "Thats what klingons were like?".
- If it's going to take place on a starship, it won't be called the Enterprise. If an Enterprise is going to be in it (which I'd be very open to), it won't be centralized to the overall story.
- Go ahead. Call me silly, but I'm going to make the crew actually have more female characters than male, and they're going to be awesome!
- There will be Tholians.
- Earth will be gone. I want Star Trek to be going out there away from Earth, not looking for reasons to go back. Yes, Star Trek is a human story, but it's also NOT an Earth story. The writers will just have to put on their thinking caps and come up with new ways of making Star Trek exciting.
- I want ALIEN looking aliens gawd dangit, and I want them to have important roles. The fact they look different and that audiences may not be able to identify with them is the bloody point I want to make in Star Trek.
- Change some of the big named aliens roles. Maybe have the Klingons be almost non-existant while some other race takes on their role. Have it be like anyone who watches this series look back at the previous series and wonder "Thats what klingons were like?".
- If it's going to take place on a starship, it won't be called the Enterprise. If an Enterprise is going to be in it (which I'd be very open to), it won't be centralized to the overall story.
- Go ahead. Call me silly, but I'm going to make the crew actually have more female characters than male, and they're going to be awesome!
- There will be Tholians.
Oh. Okay.
Uh...whatever.
That's quite true. Nobody (well, besides us
) cares what reality Trek is set in (90% of the audience probably doesn't fully realize that the setting has changed, or exactly how). All they care about is that it works as fairly intelligent entertainment.If Abrams had wanted to set the whole thing in the Prime U, I'm sure he could have pulled it off just fine.
L
Lord Garth
Guest
I wouldn't use TOS characters because I'd save them for the movies. Why go pay to see Kirk and Spock on the big screen when you can watch new episodes of them every week?
I wouldn't go out of my way to base them off of the Abrams movies either. By the time a sixth series would come out, the Abrams movies will have probably run their course anyway. If a new series comes out mid-decade, we'll already have at least three Abrams movies. If this incarnation of Star Trek is like other movie series (Star Trek or not) it'll start showing its age by the fourth movie and definitely the fifth. Not good. You want "new and exciting" by 2015 or 2020 standards, not "old and tired" by the standards of the same.
The audience for TV Trek would be smaller than for Movie Trek, so you could get away with more in terms of setting, but I would have the next series work independently of any of the previous series or movies, maybe being loosely connected or based on them.
For me the setting for a new series would be secondary to the types of stories I'd want to tell. I'd want a series whose stories are better suited to television than movies. More story that takes longer to develop, and less flash or quick-paced action sequences, which wouldn't be as good on television anyway. TV is a different animal and shouldn't be treated like the movies. I'd change the nature of the story-telling to fit other 21st Century series. The tone would be a little more adult than what you'd see in the movies.
As for Movie Trek, the next reboot, I'd do what I've wanted to see for a while: a hard reboot. Not a soft one with "alternate timelines". I'd probably make it appeal to people who grew up with Halo. Not that it would be like Halo but that would be my starting point. Generation Y will be older at that point and Generation Z is going to be smaller I assume (similar to Generation X), so I'd keep that in mind and write it a little older. I'd probably put more to the story and give more character to the antagonist. I like ST XI but it's definitely not because of Nero.
I wouldn't go out of my way to base them off of the Abrams movies either. By the time a sixth series would come out, the Abrams movies will have probably run their course anyway. If a new series comes out mid-decade, we'll already have at least three Abrams movies. If this incarnation of Star Trek is like other movie series (Star Trek or not) it'll start showing its age by the fourth movie and definitely the fifth. Not good. You want "new and exciting" by 2015 or 2020 standards, not "old and tired" by the standards of the same.
The audience for TV Trek would be smaller than for Movie Trek, so you could get away with more in terms of setting, but I would have the next series work independently of any of the previous series or movies, maybe being loosely connected or based on them.
For me the setting for a new series would be secondary to the types of stories I'd want to tell. I'd want a series whose stories are better suited to television than movies. More story that takes longer to develop, and less flash or quick-paced action sequences, which wouldn't be as good on television anyway. TV is a different animal and shouldn't be treated like the movies. I'd change the nature of the story-telling to fit other 21st Century series. The tone would be a little more adult than what you'd see in the movies.
As for Movie Trek, the next reboot, I'd do what I've wanted to see for a while: a hard reboot. Not a soft one with "alternate timelines". I'd probably make it appeal to people who grew up with Halo. Not that it would be like Halo but that would be my starting point. Generation Y will be older at that point and Generation Z is going to be smaller I assume (similar to Generation X), so I'd keep that in mind and write it a little older. I'd probably put more to the story and give more character to the antagonist. I like ST XI but it's definitely not because of Nero.
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