Poll Favorite Star Trek that didn't happen?

There’s a synopsis floating around the Internet. A quick summary would be the TNG episode “The Chase” stretched out into a series long mystery with the TOS crew.

 

I love TMP, but I always wonder about "Star Trek: Phase II" (1970s version, not the fan series) episodes of possibilities.

 

Top five selected, so far:

Star Trek: Phase II
Star Trek 4
Tarantino Trek
ENT Seasons 5-7
JMS Reboot

The first four are no surprise. But I'm surprised JMS's Star Trek has so many votes.

 

Umm... A fourth season of TOS? That's kind of a big one. Or maybe a third season of TOS where Roddenberry came back as the producer as he originally planned?

Connery would've done a nice job as Sybok, but I'm not willing to trade his performance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for it.

I voted for the JMS/Bryce Zabel Star Trek: Reboot the Universe (You should really have Zabel's name on there as well, BTW. It was his pitch as much as JMS'), the Kelvin ST4 (Chris Hemsworth returning as Kirk's dad sounds great & would've brought the Kelvin movies full circle), and the Quentin Tarantino ST movie (Whatever it would've been, I'm sure it would've been unlike any other Trek we've ever seen).

 

I think Star Trek works better as a TV show than a movie. For a movie to be a commercial success, they need to make it accessible to every person between 12 and 25 in the country, so they have to explain every little thing, and feel free to ignore cannon. The TV shows can be successful with only a few million regular viewers. So I voted for "Assignment Earth", "ST Phase Two", and Gene Roddenberry's JFK story.

 

I don't think a fourth season (or fifth) of TOS would've been different enough from what we've seen, either way. It either would've been more like the first two seasons or more like the third.

With ENT, the Romulan War and the actual lead up to the founding of the Federation would've made it quite a bit different from the previous four seasons.

 

A fifth season of ENT would've had the same showrunners and most likely would've continued in the same direction. TOS' fourth season, if it happened, would've had a different person calling the shots and likely would've changed course.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here.

 

Hmmm. Okay I'll add it in.

I've done it two ways. I put in an option for TOS S3 without Fred Freiberger. Whoever's voting can decide between whether or not it would be Gene Roddenberry or Bob Justman running things. And I have an option for TOS S4-S5.

 

Phase 2, Tarantino Trek, and the JMS reboot.

Basically anything that would have given TOS new life and longevity.

 

Cool.

I added in a vote for TOS S3 without Fred Freiberger. While I think either Roddenberry or Justman would've been better producers, I think Justman would have likely done a better job, and I'd be very curious to see what he could have brought to the show.

I couldn't vote for seasons 4 or 5 for TOS, though. I just don't see those as being very likely even under the best of circumstances, and if they'd happened, they would have massively altered the course of Trek history as we know it.

 

If I could only pick one it would be Enterprise season 5-7, it just felt like the show was getting good in season 4, there would have been so much potential for exploring things like the Romulan war, how we got to the founding of the federation.

I'm also intrigued by the Tarintino star trek movie as it would feel so different from what we have seen before in star trek, I'm guessing it would have strongly divided opinion, but I always enjoy Tarantinos films

 

My general thought on the options provided:

Star Trek: The Cage – with a Pike series possibly happening, its possible that it might be the cerebral series that Roddenberry intended it to be.

Star Trek: Phase II does have interesting stories that never happened (Tomorrow and the Stars, Deadlock, Lord Bobby’s Obsession, The War to End All Wars), but most them got reused for TNG anyways.

I’m of the opinion that the Planet of the Titans, JFK and Eddie Murphy movies may still happen under the reboot films and cast. In the case of the Eddie Murphy movie, they would have to decide if they still want to set it in the 1980s or have it set in the 2020s and have Catherine Hicks reprise her role from TVH.

Star Trek: IMAX is an interesting concept and seems Defenders-like.

Star Trek: The Beginning would work better as a miniseries than a movie.

New Frontier is interesting, to say the least.

I’m open minded to taking risks, but Tarantino’s Trek film would be better off as its own standalone film. But the idea itself is ingtruging to me.

I’m split on ENT 5-7. On one hand, they should have been allowed to finish their run, although with a different theme for those seasons, maybe a Faith of the Heart instumental for 5-6, and Archer's theme for the 7th. Season 5 should have been made, especially if they confirmed it would be the last before producing it. One the other, I think different showrunners would be needed for the Earth-Romulan War arc, even if Archer’s crew never saw action during the entire thing. It should be produced far differently from the Dominion War and even the Federation-Klingon War from DSC. There’s a chance they may have been too formulaic in its approach if they actually produced it during ENT's original airing.

TOS 4-5: Well, they need material for the Pike series if it happens, so maybe some of those unused stories might be used there.

I don’t care for the rest.

I think my favourite if I had to pick one is New Frontier.

 

I voted for (in chronological order)
1. Assignment: Earth spin-off

2. TOS Season 3 without Fred Freiberger --> I like the third season, but might as well see how it would've gone in an Alternate History. Particularly the DC Fontana version of "The Enterprise Incident" (even though it's one of my favorite episodes as is) and "The Way to Eden".

3. TOS Seasons 4-5

4. Planet of the Titans --> I even started a thread about it and figured out how to place it between TMP and TWOK.

5. Phase II --> I wouldn't give up the TOS Films in exchange, but this is a "What If?" I've always wondered about.

6. Tarantino Trek --> Though my ideal version would just be scenes from TOS taken and re-arranged out of context!

At this point, I should probably explain why I didn't vote for The God Thing. The more I hear about it, the dumber I think it sounds.

 

YUP. With most deleted scenes, there's usually a good reason why they were deleted. And with lots of rejected stories, there's a good reason why they were rejected.

 

If we use the fellow Desilu production Mission Impossible as an example, I could see some cast changes occuring. It's interesting to think about the course of Trek history if Kirk or Spock left the show mid-run. It also may have run itself into the ground to the point there wasn't a lot of anticipation for additional adventures. In either of those cases maybe we don't get the TOS movies. I still think something like TNG happens, since there were a lot of 60s revivals in that era, but it probably would have been different - for instance, I could see it being more of a true "next generation" with a single TOS character returning to lead an all new crew.

 

While I enjoyed for the most part the 2009 film, Into Darkness, Beyond, and signed up to watch Discovery & Picard, I'd still take the direction Enterprise was heading in for Season 5-7 over any production I've seen since that show folded.

As utterly insane sounding as Tarantino may be, for some gut reason I'd still put money on him crafting the single best big screen outing.

 

Tarantino Trek is the project I find most intriguing. It's no secret Tarantino is a genre fanatic, but he has yet to dabble much in the realm of sci-fi. Someone with his auteurial style, not to mention his knowledge of and enthusiasm for genre history (especially the weird stuff), would likely inject something fresh into the franchise.

 

Tarantino Trek definitely. Would [probably] have been the shot in the arm the franchise desperately needs. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all the new stuff very much. But it's all pretty conceptually defuncted when you get right down to it.

Also, I don't get the love for the Assignment Earth series. Sure the episode itself was a lot of fun. But I've always found Lansing to be a bit of a dud.

 

Star Trek Enterprise seasons 5 through seven

 

I went for two options
Enterprise Seasons 5-7
And TOS Seasons 4 onwards
I've never heard of some of the options, one that stood out as strangely interesting was Connery as a Vulcan