You weinies would bitch and moan if Shakespeare was writing Trek. Why is Dr Crusher a transvestite?
Seth McFarlane wants to Reboot Trek on TV
- Thread starter Mysterion
- Start date
I think team JJ is taking suggestions for story ideas. Offended by a gnat and swallow a camel. The hardest things to see are in plain sight. It's bizarre how any one thought that Trek '09 had any kind of story to it. It's almost like how and why my sister married her husband kind of thing.
You know, this is a very rare moment when I completely disagree with you.
A fair amount of Family Guy's humor is simply the injection of pop culture figures and situations into the show in a deliberately incongruous way.
One can find that funny, or not - one real problem with it is that it doesn't travel or age particularly well, but McFarlane isn't the first talented guy to go for this kind of laugh.
When Bugs Bunny falls back on a Groucho Marx impression in one of those old theatrical Warner Bros cartoons where he does nothing more than repeat a then-familiar punch-line out of context, or when caricatures of Laurel and Hardy walking a red carpet were used for the comical contrast of their exaggerated appearances, that was very much in the same vein.
An awful lot of what was funny at the time about a cartoon featuring a google-eyed moustached inchworm is lost when an audience no longer recognizes the caricature of Jerry Colonna. It's a one-joke show.
So yeah, milking current pop culture for laughs is problematic.
The humor in playing the ST II funeral straight with Stewie in Kirk's place, IMAO, is that the scene as it actually exists is so overwrought and dominated by Shatner's customarily strange delivery that when you just throw it out there without context it's really, really funny without comment. That Stewie - with characteristic pomposity that's a close match for the Shat at his most excessive - seems to envision this kind of grandiose scenario as an appropriate tribute for the relatively trivial (I know, not to him) loss of a stuffed animal is also funny.
There's also another layer which is just plain sitcom humor - and McFarlane loves him some sitcoms about as much as he loves musical theater - where the audience is primed to laugh just because There goes mean old Doctor Cox comically ranting again because Gosh Darn, Betty, for a moment there J.D. seemed to think maybe they've fallen into a parallel universe where Cox is even just the tiniest bit interested in the intern's problems. The characters have established characteristics that people who like the sitcom just find funny for their own sake and laugh at the familiarity itself. Stewie has identified with and fantasized about being Shatner more than once, in the most ridiculous ways
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXuSWUXDnuo[/yt]
That is, if you find it funny. I do, but I know an awful lot of folks find this and much of FG's humor tedious and I completely get that. And sitcom schtick may not be the highest form of comedy either. I just think that a) they knew what they were doing and b) inserting another gag or "gotcha" into the mix wouldn't actually have made it funnier in this case. It would have distracted the premise of the gag itself.
But now I'm dissecting and justifying a joke, which is itself a more tedious thing to do even than sitting through a lame Family Guy episode.
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Eh, South Park is brilliant and funny. Family Guy is clever and funny. The Simpsons...is still on the air.
to each his or her own. Far from finding "South Park "brilliant," I find it mostly unwatchable.
I did too, until I actually sat down and watched it. 
Same with Scrubs, actually.
Same with Scrubs, actually.
Bound to happen eventually!
See, for me it worked up to a point, but the scene eventually got tedious because it was long and there was nothing more to it that Stewie as Kirk. It stopped being entertaining long before it ended. YMMV, and probably does.
Please no! Just, NO!
I can't stand McFarlane!
I'd rather have chimps banging away at typewriters as the showrunners for a new Trek show. But then, given Family Guy, that's probably what we'd end up with if McFarlane got the job.
I can't stand McFarlane!
I'd rather have chimps banging away at typewriters as the showrunners for a new Trek show. But then, given Family Guy, that's probably what we'd end up with if McFarlane got the job.
Hey, you guys remember that time when Seth McFarlane did his obnoxious Family Guy routine when he was on Enterprise?
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I see no reason to think McFarlane would treat Star Trek the way he does Family Guy. From what I've seen/read/heard from him in regards to Star Trek, I believe he would take it very serious and be very respectful. I doubt he would do an AU Trek, but probably go with the prime universe. Which time period? I don't know. I also believe that if he were to push for it, CBS would allow him to do it.
As far as the Rupert funeral scene, I thought it was hilarious. It is my favorite moment from Family Guy for the very fact that he does stuff like that as a nod to Trek fans. He's not making fun of Trek, he's honoring it by poking a little fun. That's why it's funny because it's what Stewie imagines Rupert's funeral to be. So over the top and dramatic and personal. Anyway, I have to agree with Dennis(which amazes me) that I get why people don't like it, but I think it's hilarious and I thank Seth for recognizing Trek and Trek fans.
Honestly, I think Seth would do a really good job, much better than JJ. I like JJ. Trek, but it's kind of like watching a tribute band instead of the real deal. It was good, but I'd rather see something closer to the Trek I grew up with and familar with.
I think Mcfarlane has proven that he can make hit tv. shows, so hopefully something will come of this, but I doubt it. If it does, I hope there is a true Ensign Ricky. I do like what someone said about a realistic animated series. I think that might be a good way to go. You could put it on Cartoon Network. If he did do a live action series though, I wonder where it would go? I think the more stuff like this keeps coming up, then eventually CBS will go for it.
As far as the Rupert funeral scene, I thought it was hilarious. It is my favorite moment from Family Guy for the very fact that he does stuff like that as a nod to Trek fans. He's not making fun of Trek, he's honoring it by poking a little fun. That's why it's funny because it's what Stewie imagines Rupert's funeral to be. So over the top and dramatic and personal. Anyway, I have to agree with Dennis(which amazes me) that I get why people don't like it, but I think it's hilarious and I thank Seth for recognizing Trek and Trek fans.
Honestly, I think Seth would do a really good job, much better than JJ. I like JJ. Trek, but it's kind of like watching a tribute band instead of the real deal. It was good, but I'd rather see something closer to the Trek I grew up with and familar with.
I think Mcfarlane has proven that he can make hit tv. shows, so hopefully something will come of this, but I doubt it. If it does, I hope there is a true Ensign Ricky. I do like what someone said about a realistic animated series. I think that might be a good way to go. You could put it on Cartoon Network. If he did do a live action series though, I wonder where it would go? I think the more stuff like this keeps coming up, then eventually CBS will go for it.
Manatees. Keep the tropes straight; there's a table in the back of the book.
There's probably not a successful TV producer out there right now who could do Trek any real harm as a TV property at this point. To paraphrase Picard to Data, "It's already dead. What more could happen to it?"
There's probably not a successful TV producer out there right now who could do Trek any real harm as a TV property at this point. To paraphrase Picard to Data, "It's already dead. What more could happen to it?"
I don't understand.
I thought the "conventional wisdom" was that until the JJverse film cycle is complete, CBS shouldn't risk rocking the boat by licensing any new series from anybody, lest the series go south, give the Star Trek brand a bad rep, and hamper the most certain cash stream the franchise has seen in years.
Also, sci-fi shows are more expensive; doesn't that mean they are inherently riskier than other, less FX-laden shows (more "conventional wisdom")?
Did Fred Astaire ever think he'd be working as a pitch man for the dirt devil vacuum cleaner thirty years after he died? And that just might be the beginning for him and many others. We loved it on top and now we love it dragged though the dirt in shame too now. Build it up, knock it down. Play with it before you devour it. Go tell it to the Borg. They got their own version of history.
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I don't see how that adds up to damaging a TV brand that's currently nowhere gaining nothing.
Could it hurt the movies? Maybe.
Could it hurt the movies? Maybe.
I don't understand why people think that if someone does comedy that it's all they're capable of.
Sometimes Trek fans will complain about how alien species like Klingons are so one-dimensional and stereotypical, but then here you have the same stereotypes pushed at McFarlane.
Judging by the entire production of Family Guy, interviews with him, and his own serious music endeavors, I'm guessing that he could jump right into something like this.
At any rate, this whole conversation is kind of moot. He's not coming up with a pitch and TPTB are not listening. Trek TV isn't coming back anytime soon.
Sometimes Trek fans will complain about how alien species like Klingons are so one-dimensional and stereotypical, but then here you have the same stereotypes pushed at McFarlane.
Judging by the entire production of Family Guy, interviews with him, and his own serious music endeavors, I'm guessing that he could jump right into something like this.
At any rate, this whole conversation is kind of moot. He's not coming up with a pitch and TPTB are not listening. Trek TV isn't coming back anytime soon.
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