Just out of curiosity. Does anyone know how many drafts of the script there were? The script that is reviewed here http://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/22789 seems a bit different.
Other than the bookends with TOS movie McCoy, the story is pretty much the one in the draft of the script I have.
There are a few slight differences. Kalibar's father is killed in an uprising. An ambassador to his home-world is on the Enterprise instead of the Federation President.
A big beef I have with the Academy idea is Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all being at the Academy at the same time. That doesn’t gel with the impressions I got from TOS. And it’s too much another cute neat-and-tidy notion that everything is neatly tied together. Blech!
Yeah same. Something like Star Trek doesn't need an "origin" story. Spock was a lieutenant over a decade prior to when we originally first see him. Kirk met Spock when Kirk assumed command of the Enterprise. I could see Scotty being there already as well. I totally can accept Kirk and Bones having history. But the characters were legends because the TV series is legendary. I'd have been interested in seeing Kirk's early days, but that wouldn't appeal to the audience who wanted to see a "Star Trek Kids" movie. And, honestly, it would have probably just felt like an expensive fan film.
McCoy and Scotty look to be a good decade older than Kirk. If we grant Scotty got into the Academy at 17 or 18 then he was at the Academy and gone long before Kirk and the rest. It’s not impossible for Scotty to already have been on the Enterprise with Pike when Kirk takes over. We see no indication (in “The Menagerie”) that Scotty already knows Pike, but we see nothing to contradict it either. McCoy isn’t so clear cut. His backstory is he went to space to put a painful marital breakup behind him. So it’s unlikely he was at the Academy when Scotty was there. And even if he was there is no certainty he could have known him. It’s therefore possible McCoy could have been at the Academy around the time Kirk was there only he would have been older than Kirk and the rest of the cadets. McCoy’s path into the Starfleet medical branch might also have been somewhat different given he might already have been an established physician and surgeon. To that end he and Kirk might have met while posted to the same ship sometime before the Enterprise’s 5-year mission under Kirk’s command. I resist the idea of McCoy already being on the Enterprise (under Pike) before Kirk takes over because we see no indication whatsoever (in “The Menagerie”) that McCoy knows Pike. Furthermore McCoy is nowhere in sight in WNMHGB, before the 5-year mission, although he could have been temporarily absent. While I don’t think Uhura and Sulu are much younger than Kirk it looks like he advanced faster than they have. So it’s not impossible for them being at the Acedmy at the same time as Kirk, but it’s more likely they attended after him. It’s not impossible for Uhura and Sulu to have served with Pike before Kirk takes over although we have no indication for or against the idea given Uhura isn’t seen in WNMHGB and Sulu is in an entirely different department from what we see later. Spock is a question mark. He could have been at the Academy at the same time as Kirk although it doesn’t necessarily mean they knew each other then. He could also have preceded Kirk by a couple or a few years and was already in space while Kirk was attending classes. I strongly suspect Kirk never knew Spock until he takes command of the Enterprise. And “The Menagerie” establishes Kirk never met Pike until he took over the Enterprise when Pike was promoted. Chekov definitely went to the Academy after the rest of the regular characters. Throwing them together at the beginning is just too damned cute-and-tidy. Having them follow separate paths is more interesting and more credible.
I mean, I think it can be done and done well enough if they can resist the Kirk-Spock-McCoy connected together. Though, even Shatner could not in his book with early Kirk. But, some of the YA Starfleet Academy books did a decent job with Worf and others have interactions with classmates that were slightly reflective of future relationships. Personally, while I agree it is too simple to have them all together, this is a franchise that also kept them together long past credibility.
In my mind McCoy did not attend Starfleet Academy. He's unaware of the Academy slang term "dunsel" in "The Ultimate Computer" and he's uncertain what the proper punishment for Spock's munity should be in "The Menagerie, Part I," asking if confinement to quarters is enough. Both of those point to him not receiving the same training as folks like Kirk and Spock, who can quote chapter and verse on Starfleet regulations. I see McCoy as being somewhat similar to the doctors in M*A*S*H, where as a doctor he's granted an officer's commission and begins serving after a brief Starfleet training course. I have McCoy graduating medical school in 2245, his marriage breaking up in 2255 (after a two-year extramarital affair with the future Nancy Crater), and enlisting in Starfleet shortly after. (Conveniently, this jibes with the year McCoy signs up with Starfleet in ST09. I wasn't going out of my way to make my ST Timeline conform with that movie, but I'm also not going to ignore serendipity when it happens.) Not particularly caring about protocol or promotions, I figure McCoy started out in Starfleet as a Lieutenant Commander and stayed one for years. He was only bumped up to a full Commander because Kirk recommended it at the end of the 5YM.
Still nobody wants to do an academy series or movie. They've been teasing this my whole life. I think the 2009 film is the closest we're going to get.
I don’t think that was the reason it stunk, but there you are. I suspect a genuine underlying reason we never got an Academy film is that most us want to see our heroes as we know them rather than seeing kids in a production they would most likely screw up to make everything cute-and-tidy.
Must be one of the few occasions in Trek films where everyones thankful how events transpired (SFA scrapped in favour of TOS cast returning) imagine if wed got a dud SFA film and no more TOS cast (aside SFA and Generations cameos) usually its how everything could've been better if such and such was done instead
I have mixed feelings, because I think the film could have been good and I like the concept art and synopsis and story elements, but I'm happy with the film we got instead and to be honest I've never cared about exploring the Star Trek characters as kids or knowing how Spock met Kirk or any of that. As far as I'm concerned they all could have met when they first stepped foot on the Enterprise. The Police Academy thing people bring up is funny to me because as a kid I thought Star Trek was just a film series and I often compared it to how Police Academy is just a film series.
People are hung up on origin stories. It isn’t at all necessary, not always, and I love how TOS just starts right in where they’re already into the 5-year voyage.
That would have been cool. If a future-based Starfleet Academy series manifests, a two parter might be for the heroes to travel back in time to see Bennett’s version.
I know it won't happen but my dream would be for this and other scripts to get turned into comic book graphic novels, like what JW Rinzler and Mike Mayhew did with "The Star Wars."