Will the original timeline ever be restored?
- Thread starter los2188
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Why?
TNG, Voyager, Enterprise and the TNG movies killed the general public's desire for the TNG Reboot timeline (TNG, Voyager) and the Enterprise Reboot timeline ( Enterprise).
DS9 took the best stuff from TNG and kicked the worst to the curb. But it was never popular because it wasn't a carbon copy of TNG.
The Bad Robot timeline is going strong. Pocket Books and IDW are doing stories in the Bad Robot Timeline.
Pocket Books and IDW is still doing stories in the Prime Timeline.
Again I ask, . . .
Why?
TNG, Voyager, Enterprise and the TNG movies killed the general public's desire for the TNG Reboot timeline (TNG, Voyager) and the Enterprise Reboot timeline ( Enterprise).
DS9 took the best stuff from TNG and kicked the worst to the curb. But it was never popular because it wasn't a carbon copy of TNG.
The Bad Robot timeline is going strong. Pocket Books and IDW are doing stories in the Bad Robot Timeline.
Pocket Books and IDW is still doing stories in the Prime Timeline.
Again I ask, . . .
Why?
Why?
Why have the previous Star Trek series inspired thirty years of spin offs, movies, comic books, and novels?
What keeps bringing Trek fans back for more of that universe?
What is it about Trek that makes it more than "just a TV show" to so many people?
You answer any one of those questions and you will have your "Why?"
Why have the previous Star Trek series inspired thirty years of spin offs, movies, comic books, and novels?
What keeps bringing Trek fans back for more of that universe?
What is it about Trek that makes it more than "just a TV show" to so many people?
You answer any one of those questions and you will have your "Why?"
But a fixed and unchanging continuity is not an answer to any of those questions. Heck, the various movies and sequel series have all reinterpreted or reinvented the continuity in various ways; there are huge inconsistencies between TOS and The Wrath of Khan, and TNG largely ignored TOS as much as possible in its early years; Roddenberry himself treated it as what we'd now call a soft reboot, an opportunity to rewrite the ground rules of the universe and cast aside the things about earlier productions that he wasn't proud of.
What's inspired all of the things you mention are the things I mentioned before: the characters, the ideas, the quality of the storytelling and the performances and the production values. Give them good characters and good stories in a new continuity and they'll respond just as they did to the old -- same as with any other long-running media franchise like Batman or Sherlock Holmes.
Nicely put. STAR TREK is more than just a timeline, let alone forty years of "canon."
When all is said and done, we ultimately will have six hours of Star Trek production, in which Chris Pine played Kirk, then (most likely) he'll be gone forever from that role. Place that against the multiple dozens of hours of Star Trek with that non-Pine guy playing Kirk.
William Shatner is still Kirk.
Can't they both be Kirk?
And lots of new comics, posters, t-shirts, action figures, etc., with his image used throughout. For many new ST fans and cinema patrons, the only Kirk they know. Yet.
Then they'll probably reboot again and someone else will take over as Kirk.
And Adam West is still Batman. We all have our favourites.
Nobody is James Kirk. He doesn't exist. He's a fictional character, and fictional characters get portrayed by actors. Spock has been portrayed by nine different people so far including voice actors, eleven if you count the uncredited babies in the two filmed versions of his birth, even more if you count stand-ins and stunt doubles. Is Spock somehow less pure a character than Kirk because he's been played by more people?
It doesn't make sense to insist that only one person gets to play a character and think that attitude somehow expresses devotion to that character. On the contrary, that attitude would damn the character to obscurity and extinction. How many people have played Sherlock Holmes by now? How many people have played Superman? How many have played Hercules or King Arthur? Do we want James T. Kirk to be merely a relic of a 20th-century entertainment franchise, or do we want him to be an enduring myth for generations to come? If it's the latter, then we should be glad to let other actors carry the role forward.
Heck, if the makers of Doctor Who had insisted that only William Hartnell could play the Doctor, the series would've ended after a bit more than three seasons and would now be mostly forgotten.
It doesn't make sense to insist that only one person gets to play a character and think that attitude somehow expresses devotion to that character. On the contrary, that attitude would damn the character to obscurity and extinction. How many people have played Sherlock Holmes by now? How many people have played Superman? How many have played Hercules or King Arthur? Do we want James T. Kirk to be merely a relic of a 20th-century entertainment franchise, or do we want him to be an enduring myth for generations to come? If it's the latter, then we should be glad to let other actors carry the role forward.
Heck, if the makers of Doctor Who had insisted that only William Hartnell could play the Doctor, the series would've ended after a bit more than three seasons and would now be mostly forgotten.
Yep.
And Bela Lugosi is Dracula, and so is Christopher Lee, and Frank Langella, and Louis Jourdan, and Gary Oldman . . . .
If we're lucky, there will be many more Kirks . . . and probably many more timelines.
Don't forget Leslie Nielsen!
I'd rather forget BLADE 3 and VAN HELSING . . . ..
Let's say that Star Trek 3 is released in 2016. Let's say it spawns a TV series, a cartoon, a spinoff movie, video games, whatever. Let's say they keep producing new stuff until 2020.
Do you really think that at that point, Abrams or any other producer would just say: "hey, remember the Star Trek continuity from FIFTEEN years ago, that was marginally different from the one we've got, and which became so unpopular that it sunk the franchise? Well, we're bringing it back!"?
That doesn't sound very plausible.
Do you really think that at that point, Abrams or any other producer would just say: "hey, remember the Star Trek continuity from FIFTEEN years ago, that was marginally different from the one we've got, and which became so unpopular that it sunk the franchise? Well, we're bringing it back!"?
That doesn't sound very plausible.
Not to mention the fact that the target demographic is not going be as attached to the old continuity as us old folks, especially five or ten years from now. Nemesis was how long ago?
It would be like the Batman movies going back to the old Tim Burton continuity--or maybe Adam West!
That the Trek novels have gone from standalone stories set during the series' which were never allowed to make any changes (for fear of being contradicted by future episodes or movies) to ongoing post-finale continuations of the series' which have made BIG changes to the characters and universe, pretty much tells you how much TPTB expect to see the 24th century brought back to TV or movieland.
Not necessarily, they could hit a reset button and continue in the prime universe about ten years after the destruction of Romulus, with a new ship (Enterprise or other) and a new crew. A fresh start, if you will ... none of the established characters would HAVE to appear, but they COULD if needed.
^The point is that, while theoretically they could do that, it wouldn't be commercially viable or sensible to do that. Making movies and TV is not a charity, it's a profit-making endeavor. If the old continuity were still profitable, they wouldn't have needed to start over with a new one. The survival of ST as a viable entertainment franchise requires building and holding onto a new audience, a new generation of fans. That means going forward, not clinging to the past.
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