I'm very glad DS9 didn't get movies

[Lord Garth]

After thinking about what the movies did to TNG, I'm very glad DS9 didn't make the switch to the big screen.

With all the studio interference that probably/definitely would've happened, I imagine Ira Steven Behr having some huge fall-out that would've taken him out of the picture.

DS9 is better suited to an action movie format than TNG was but the movie would have to bring everyone up to speed on who the Dominion are, why Starfleet is on a Cardassian station, who the Cardassians are, and it would take until at least the second act before the story got moving.

Then, there would probably be some obsessed villain who wants to blow up Bajor that Sisko has to stop while spouting one-liners. Sisko would turn into a Samuel L. Jackson wannabe, Odo would become super Clint Eastwood (I assume the ending to DS9 would be different if they were going to make movies), Quark would become more like Danny DeVito, and Kira would be turned into the Tough Bitch. They'd be reduced to archetypes.

In the process of fighting Big Bad, who has dubious motivation and we can't bring ourselves to care about, the Defiant would be blown up (also saved for the movie) and replaced with Super Bad-Ass ship by the third act. Then the villain would get blown up at the end, Bajor is saved from destruction in the nick of time, and that's the end of story. No story arc or anything to continue from into the next movie. Then it's off to the next adventure.

 

[I am not Spock]

Agreed. DS9 was best told on television. All the ambiguities, moral grey areas, and complex stories would have to be lost, in favour of one-liners, comedy lines about boobs, and things blowing up.

The TOS crew were more suited to movies than the TNG crew, so it worked in the former case, but not really in the latter.

 

[Arix]

Ugh, I completely agree. Even as a TV series you really need to watch it from the start, its not like the other series where you can pretty much just watch any random episode and understand what's going on.

So as much as I'd love to revisit DS9, I'm resigned to the fact that I'm only really going to be able to do that through the books.

The only other way you could do it is through a mini-series or something similar - but I don't think there's a market for that (unfortunately), and besides, it wouldn't be the same without all the original actors so it'd need to be set at least 10 years in the future

 

[DevilEyes]

The only other way you could do it is through a mini-series or something similar - but I don't think there's a market for that (unfortunately), and besides, it wouldn't be the same without all the original actors so it'd need to be set at least 10 years in the future

Most of the cast wear heavy makeup that prevents you from guessing their ages anyway. Sisko could be any age they decided, since he went with the Prophets - not sure why he'd be older, but I'm sure you could come up with some explanation and it doesn't really matter. That would be an issue only for Kira, Bashir, Ezri, O'Brien and Jake - and sure, they do look older, but if people could buy TMP being set just a few years after TOS, I really don't see the problem of setting a continuation of DS9 a few months or a few days after its finale. The actors have certainly changed less than Shatner or Doohan did between 1969 and 1979.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Agreed. No movie could ever match the depth of characterization the TV show realized. If there ever were a DS9 movie, it would only have been an FX extravaganza, nothing more.

 

[Arix]

The only other way you could do it is through a mini-series or something similar - but I don't think there's a market for that (unfortunately), and besides, it wouldn't be the same without all the original actors so it'd need to be set at least 10 years in the future

Most of the cast wear heavy makeup that prevents you from guessing their ages anyway. Sisko could be any age they decided, since he went with the Prophets - not sure why he'd be older, but I'm sure you could come up with some explanation and it doesn't really matter. That would be an issue only for Kira, Bashir, Ezri, O'Brien and Jake - and sure, they do look older, but if people could buy TMP being set just a few years after TOS, I really don't see the problem of setting a continuation of DS9 a few months or a few days after its finale. The actors have certainly changed less than Shatner or Doohan did between 1969 and 1979.

Well you have a point there of course, and while I'm hardly saying that any of the cast has aged badly I still think its... noticeable that they have aged. Especially for Jake and Ezri (the others, not as much).

So I really don't think setting it a few days or even a few months after the finale would be a good idea. A few years (say, 2 or 3, rather than 10) would be more believable imo.

But the main question I have is what story would a single movie be able to tell? I suppose it could follow TNG's example and have a random epic adventure, but DS9 was always at its best when it could tell a deep, character driven story of epic proportions... Maybe a trilogy could do that. But I think its far more likely that if a movie was made it would focus on action and adventure, rather than our characters...

Not that I'd complain if Paramount suddenly said they were making a DS9 movie! I'm one of the (seemingly rare) fans who loved ST09 - but my standards for a DS9 movie would be a hell of a lot higher. So while I might be thrilled that they were returning to DS9, and excited at the opportunity to see all my favourite character again, and while they might even be able to pull it off... Its far more likely that they'd do a terrible job and that I'd hate it more than Nemesis.

So I still agree with the OP, its best that they leave DS9 well enough alone..... Unless Paramount is willing to hand the reins back to Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore, give them enough money to make a trilogy, and let them set it at least a year after the finale.

 

[DevilEyes]

I don't think that a DS9 feature film is likely to ever happen, and it isn't a good idea anyway due to the reasons already stated (too much background that would need to be spelled out for the new viewers, etc.) But a TV movie or miniseries would be possible, if Paramount wanted to do it.

It would be best to set it a few years after What You Leave Behind (though not necessarily 10 years). I was joking about it being set a few days, few months later, because TMP was set a couple of years after TOS even though the actors had very noticeably aged. Luckly TPTB (or Nicholas Meyer) got smarter and set TWOK 15 years after the end of TOS.

 

[Arix]

I don't think that a DS9 feature film is likely to ever happen, and it isn't a good idea anyway due to the reasons already stated (too much background that would need to be spelled out for the new viewers, etc.) But a TV movie or miniseries would be possible, if Paramount wanted to do it.

It would be best to set it a few years after What You Leave Behind (though not necessarily 10 years). I was joking about it being set a few days, few months later, because TMP was set a couple of years after TOS even though the actors had very noticeably aged. Luckly TPTB (or Nicholas Meyer) got smarter and set TWOK 15 years after the end of TOS.

Whoops, my bad. My excuse is that I haven't seen TMP in years (and have no desire to, blegh).

I agree that a miniseries would be the best way to go... Oh I wish DS9 was as popular with the general public as TOS...

 

[C.E. Evans]

Well...had DS9 transitioned to the big screen (and I only say this as a hypothetical since it ain't likely to ever happen), I think it might not have been so bad if series showrunners Ira Steven Behr & Ron Moore had gone along for the ride as writers and producers and Rick Berman taken a more backseat supervisory role.

I'm inclined to think that the first DS9 movie would take place a few years after "What You Leave Behind..." with Bajor now a member of the Federation and Captain Sisko long back from the Prophets. The Dominion War would be mentioned briefly in passing, but a new even worse threat would probably be introduced from deeper within the Gamma Quadrant that would have caused the Federation and the Dominion to actually join forces. I could see Odo rejoining the DS9 gang as a representive of the Dominion.

 

[John200]

Well it's a safe bet that with the reboot out there is no chance of any past series getting a film version.

 

[Navaros]

DS9 is better suited to an action movie format than TNG was but the movie would have to bring everyone up to speed on who the Dominion are, why Starfleet is on a Cardassian station, who the Cardassians are, and it would take until at least the second act before the story got moving.

Then, there would probably be some obsessed villain who wants to blow up Bajor that Sisko has to stop while spouting one-liners. Sisko would turn into a Samuel L. Jackson wannabe, Odo would become super Clint Eastwood (I assume the ending to DS9 would be different if they were going to make movies), Quark would become more like Danny DeVito, and Kira would be turned into the Tough Bitch. They'd be reduced to archetypes.

In the process of fighting Big Bad, who has dubious motivation and we can't bring ourselves to care about, the Defiant would be blown up (also saved for the movie) and replaced with Super Bad-Ass ship by the third act. Then the villain would get blown up at the end, Bajor is saved from destruction in the nick of time, and that's the end of story. No story arc or anything to continue from into the next movie. Then it's off to the next adventure.

I don't agree that a DS9 movie would have to be like that at all. There's no need to dumb down DS9 one iota for a movie. If some people don't understand it, who cares, that's their own fault; they can go watch the show in order to understand it. No one would need to be brought up to speed, nor should the movie even attempt to do so.

DS9 easily could have made for best Trek movies ever by making them into an epic LOTR-esque trilogy, not dumbing them down at all, and further developing storylines and characters from the show.

New big baddie - indeed, that's an awful idea, so no way. Just use the Dominion, and make them bigger and badder than ever before.

On the other hand, making a dumbed-down, standalone DS9 movie that panders to LCD viewers who have never seen DS9 would indeed be total crap. In that case, it is better to not have made it.

 

[Myasishchev]

Well...had DS9 transitioned to the big screen (and I only say this as a hypothetical since it ain't likely to ever happen), I think it might not have been so bad if series showrunners Ira Steven Behr & Ron Moore had gone along for the ride as writers and producers and Rick Berman taken a more backseat supervisory role.

I dunno. I've seen the movies Ron Moore did help make. They are not good.

 

[Lord Garth]

Also, bear in mind what I'm taking about in this alternate reality would be somewhere around 2000, if Paramount got it into their head that they wanted to expand Star Trek movies from a franchise to a genre or brand. There'd be Star Trek movies and Deep Space Nine movies, liked there'd be Spider-Man and X-Men movies.

I'd be very interested in a Star Trek movie written by 2010 Ron Moore. 2000 Ron Moore? Well, FC was okay, but...

BTW, it's so blatantly obvious who Big Bad would be in the LCD DS9 movie: Dukat. Keep him as Crazy Dukat, complete with the Pagh'Wriaths, but ratchet it up and he'd be "perfect".

I don't agree that a DS9 movie would have to be like that at all. There's no need to dumb down DS9 one iota for a movie. If some people don't understand it, who cares, that's their own fault; they can go watch the show in order to understand it. No one would need to be brought up to speed, nor should the movie even attempt to do so.

I don't disagree with you but I wonder what Paramount would've thought.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I dunno. I've seen the movies Ron Moore did help make. They are not good.

No. They aren't.

 

[Arix]

I don't agree that a DS9 movie would have to be like that at all. There's no need to dumb down DS9 one iota for a movie. If some people don't understand it, who cares, that's their own fault; they can go watch the show in order to understand it. No one would need to be brought up to speed, nor should the movie even attempt to do so.

DS9 easily could have made for best Trek movies ever by making them into an epic LOTR-esque trilogy, not dumbing them down at all, and further developing storylines and characters from the show.

New big baddie - indeed, that's an awful idea, so no way. Just use the Dominion, and make them bigger and badder than ever before.

On the other hand, making a dumbed-down, standalone DS9 movie that panders to LCD viewers who have never seen DS9 would indeed be total crap. In that case, it is better to not have made it.

-facepalm- I don't agree with your opinion at all.

The very reason DS9 never got a movie was because it was never particularly popular with the general public, but even if it was there is absolutely no way you'd be able to sell Paramount the idea of making a movie which no one except DS9 fans who'd seen the entire series would understand.

So you would need to have at least some character introductions and explanation - which wouldn't be too hard to get around if say, it was set a few years after the series, so all the series regulars just happened to return to DS9 for some big event. (For example, Bajor is finally joining the Federation, but of course some bad guy (Dukat perhaps?) returns to try and stop it from happening, so naturally Sisko has to return from the Prophets and stop him/them. Just as a very rough, hypothetical, example.)

You used LOTR as an example of an epic trilogy, but let me ask you this, did the average viewer need to go and read the entire trilogy before they could see the movie? Of course not! Making a movie accessible to an audience is not the same thing as dumbing it down and making it all about space battles and explosions.

And making a new big baddie is an awful idea? Fair enough, I can agree to that. But instead of that you propose bringing back the Dominion?! I'm sorry, but no, THAT my friend is the truly awful idea. Especially if, as you kept insisting, this movie should only appeal to Niners who've seen the entire series - we've watched the Dominion War, we saw its conclusion, and we most definitely don't need to see the Dominion brought back when the final episode showed the Feds making peace with them! As one of those Niners who the movie is supposed to (only) appeal to I'd much rather see a new bad guy, who the Federation has to team up with the Dominion to fight.

 

[Withers]

Here's the thing about DS9 that makes me glad they didn't get a movie too; the ending was perfect. That last scene with Jake staring out the window with Kira by his side, both of them thinking about Ben... flawless. They wrapped everything up so nice and tightly (that mattered- I don't care about what happened to Laas or Thomas Riker). Odo went back to his people, Worf went on to be the Federation Ambassador to Qo'nos, Miles went back to teach on Earth, Sisko went with the Prophets, Ezri and Julian settled down together no doubt, Kira finally became the commander of DS9... Nog, Quark, Garak... they all met a very satisfactory end for me.

I don't need more than that. It didn't happen that way on any of the other shows. At the end of TNG I wasn't satisfied (and by the time I'd seen that all the way through First Contact was out so I knew to expect more as well.) At the end of Voyager I wanted to know the ramifications of their return home (still waiting on more of that... probably gonna be waiting a while), and of course with Enterprise I just wanted more- they're obviously never getting a movie. But DS9 was that way. I felt the book close.

And, when I get a little down that it's over, I just pop in Emissary. The chance of their spoiling what was negates any want I might have for anything more.

-Withers-​

 

[Arix]

Here's the thing about DS9 that makes me glad they didn't get a movie too; the ending was perfect. That last scene with Jake staring out the window with Kira by his side, both of them thinking about Ben... flawless. They wrapped everything up so nice and tightly (that mattered- I don't care about what happened to Laas or Thomas Riker). Odo went back to his people, Worf went on to be the Federation Ambassador to Qo'nos, Miles went back to teach on Earth, Sisko went with the Prophets, Ezri and Julian settled down together no doubt, Kira finally became the commander of DS9... Nog, Quark, Garak... they all met a very satisfactory end for me.

Hmmmm, I can agree with that to some extent, in that I too feel the show had an excellent ending - and that I don't think it needs say, a movie or even a trilogy, to tell another small story.

But I'm also an avid reader of Treklit, where DS9 has a relaunch (which has sadly dwindled somewhat in recent years, but still contains some 15 odd novels) that continues the story. While the other Trek series focus on a single crew and their adventures, I found that, even though DS9 was actually (I felt) the most character driven of all Trek shows, its actually the show which translates best to novels because its really about a place (and the people who live or visit that place). So the DS9 novels were the best at introducing a plethora of new characters while still focusing on our main characters from the series. ... I could probably continue discussing my thoughts on this, but perhaps its best left for a discussion in the Treklit forum.

To sum up, I feel that novels are the best way to 'continue' the story - the TV show had an ending, and I can still get my fix of 'what happens next' while being satisfied with its conclusion (or lack there of). A movie is too... short a medium for telling the kind of continuing story DS9 really needs.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Here's the thing about DS9 that makes me glad they didn't get a movie too; the ending was perfect. That last scene with Jake staring out the window with Kira by his side, both of them thinking about Ben... flawless. They wrapped everything up so nice and tightly (that mattered- I don't care about what happened to Laas or Thomas Riker). Odo went back to his people, Worf went on to be the Federation Ambassador to Qo'nos, Miles went back to teach on Earth, Sisko went with the Prophets, Ezri and Julian settled down together no doubt, Kira finally became the commander of DS9... Nog, Quark, Garak... they all met a very satisfactory end for me.

I disagree about them wrapping everything up nicely, but only with regards to Sisko. His status after jumping Dukat was irritatingly vague. He's not dead, he's not alive, he's coming back "maybe yesterday", what the hell does that mean? He's in some kind of limbo because the writers couldn't leave this silly prophet destiny nonsense alone and let him enjoy the post-war celebration with his friends like he deserved to.

I don't know how they could fix that and wrap things up with the Sisko character properly, but as has been suggested, it would be a daunting challenge for a movie. They'd have to explain where he's been and how he came back and the significance of each without confusing the general audience and with how confusing his 'prophet' status is by definition, I don't know how they could.

I know the books covered it (and well, apparently), but the only reason I'd want any sort of onscreen continuation of DS9 is to give the Sisko character the proper sendoff that it deserved and never got when the DS9 finale decided make his fate so ridiculous.

 

[RobertScorpio]

This comes up from time to time, and I totally agree. As for the vague ending for Sisko? I thought it fit perfectly with the character, and leaves it up to the viewer to decide. I know the relaunch books have had their 'say' on the subject matter, but for me DS9 ended right there with Jake staring out wondering where his father was.

And very happy it didn't become a movie. They would have had to dumb it down for the masses which never even watched the show.

Rob

 

[Withers]

In the end it comes down to what you want out of it whether or not you were satisfied with what was presented.

A lot of people I know were really disappointed with how the final chapter of Harry Potter ended, complaining that so much of it went unspoken and that there were obviously many years with the potential for adventure. They wanted to hear those stories too. In my case I just don't need that much...detail. It makes characters more real to me knowing there are chucks of their lives that aren't really "story worthy." The "cradle to grave" mentality when it comes to story telling just kills that added sense of realism that comes with avoiding it.

It speaks to why I like DS9 so much that I was also so happy with its ending; it wasn't spoon fed, it wasn't blatant it was subtle, and it left a lot for the viewer to decide for themselves just like the entire series did. I didn't expect different than what was shown (at least in regard to the way it was shown) so that's probably why I was and am happy with it.

-Withers-​