Do fans want the prime timeline back? Part 2: Poll edition.

What about a series that restored the Abrams timeline to the Prime timeline, like a Back to the Future III, but with elements of the new BSG and FireFly in it?

 

Why?

 

Because in Star Trek, there has always between the moral sense to NOT mess with the timeline. You can fix it, travel through time and space, discover new things, and have a great story arch that ultimately winds up saving the galaxy. Have a catalyst, like a galaxy-wide war between the Borg and the Dominion.

 

The timeline is not going to be "fixed". The studio wanted rid of the old timeline on TV and film as there was little to no audience left.

 

I think there may have also been a perception, fair or not, that the sheer amount of Trek continuity out there had gotten too intimidating to the average viewer. A new timeline offers new viewers an opportunity to climb aboard without feeling that they have nearly fifty years of intricate Trek history to catch up on.

You needed do something to overcome the perception, among the public and mainstream media, that Trek was just for Trekkies--and too "complicated" for anybody who doesn't have a degree in Klingon politics! .

 

And it was, there was not one but several encyclopedias that couldn't keep up with the volume of superfluous information being produced.

So it was nice to remove that burdon from the franchise, lets not put that cumbersome weight right back on it.

 

When man's right, he's right. How long can you keep a franchise alive with an aging fanbase and a product that isn't relevant or interesting to the current market?

 

It'd be easy enough to create a whole new series within the new Abrams Verse that restores the Prime Verse and does it in a way that doesn't require a degree in Star Trek canon. For example, if it took place in a future where everyone was really vague about what happened historically, a future where humanity doesn't have the Starfleet Library available at subspace. Uh oh! Star Trek just got back into an original story exploring the human condition and new and exciting aliens? Hold on to your butts.

 

Or you jettison all the baggage, and you start over with the characters that are the real pop culture icons: the TOS crew.

 

A TOS story would be awesome. Thing is that since they're familiar, if you jettison all the baggage, you gotta jettison them, too. The brilliant thing about a timeline story is that you can visit them, you can have them help to save the 'verse, you can have them help in time, and, as The Doctor explains, time is weebly wobbly, and you can go Who with Trek, make it AWESOME!

 

I liked TOS and all but I was born in the TNG era, they've been my icon when it comes to Trek.

 

I actually have a pet theory, completed unsupported by any hard numbers, that most of the opposition to the reboot comes from TNG/DS9/VOY generation fans, as opposed to us old-timers who grew up on TOS, which was arguably pulpier and more action-oriented than the later shows.

 

Although not all the complaints about BadRobot Trek, there is a fair number of complaints about it that are specific to things from TNG forward, that were not in TOS, such as Picard's speechfying, and Utopia and everyone always getting along, so, there is definitely a segment of those who dislike BadRobot Trek because it is modeled after TOS, rather than TNG+

 

I for one, though born in the TNG era, enjoyed Nutrek.

 

That's my suspicion as well.

 

I was born before TOS even aired! There's a certain homogenized flavor to TNG, VOY even DS9 I don't care for...

 

Speechfying, Utopia and always getting along? Have you guys actually watched TNG, DS9 and VOY?

 

Heh, I've been cultivating the same thought.

I also get the feeling there's some resentment that the powers-that-be went back to the beginnings of Star Trek, and that not telling additional stories in the Berman-era continuity was somehow an indictment of the entire period (i.e. the perception being it "failed" and was no longer worth continuing).

 

There is a certain mind set in all fandoms that love continuity. To them its the most important element and makes the thing they're fans of "real". Take that away and they're lost and uncomfortable. They put a lot of stock in knowing the history and the details of the characters/universe. I'm reminded of a question asked by Mark Waid ( then just a fan) following the debut of the post Crisis Superman. "When is the real Superman coming back?"

 

The Prime Timeline never went anywhere. But I would prefer that they stopped making movies in an alternate universe ruled by the producers of the Fast and the Furious films.