If Stewart and Spiner don't want to be in a new movie

then how about Kelsey Grammer, reprising his role as Morgan Bateson, in command of the Atlas. La Forge, Worf, and possibly others could be on the ship for a specific mission - maybe a follow-up to a TNG episode that makes their presence make sense.

Well? Whatya think?

 

I think that's not going to happen.

 

Well, yeah, probably not - especially since any new movies will probably springboard off of Star Trek 2009. BUT, disregarding that and assuming that TPTB were going to make a movie after Nemesis, what would be the problem with it?

Do you think we'd be more likely to see a Voyager movie?

 

I'm sorry but the book Ship of the Line completely ruined the character of Bateson for me, same with all his crew. I know it's all non-canon, but I intensely dislike the guy now and I hope he never shows up again (and I really like Kelsey Grammer!).

 

The problem is that nobody cares about Morgan Bateson (except presumably you, based on your avatar), especially if he's the lead. And honestly, do you really think Kelsey Grammer would commit to something like that even if he had a snowball's chance in hell of being offered the part? The guy does comedy, not serious sci-fi.

No, it's unlikely there will ever be a Voyager movie. As a matter of fact, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see any members of TNG, DS9, or Voyager ever again, except perhaps in some completely wasted cameo role. Their time is over. Abrams's Trek is now.

 

In a heartbeat, and maybe for less than his going rate if needed. Grammer is a huge Trekkie.

And you're right - no one would care about Morgan Bateson. But people like Kelsey Grammer, so I'm thinking that might make up for it.

 

I sincerely doubt that, but to each his own.

 

Do people like Grammer that much? They'll tune in to see him for free on TV, yeah, but has he ever headlined a really successful film?

The few he's starred in have been pretty limited affairs budgetwise, and made very little profit if any: Down Periscope made less than 40 million in theaters, Swing Vote made less than 18 million with a 21 million dollar budget, and An American Carol cost 20 million and only made 7 million.

It's unlikely that Grammer was a major reason that the X-Men movie he appeared in was successful.

No, you don't tap Grammer to headline a big film. Bad, bad idea.

 

And that's really a shame because those are characters we've spent a lot of time vesting ourselves in. I think it's targ manure that the only movies that have been and likely ever will be made include ships that bare the name Enterprise. Voyager did not deserve a movie... DS9, on the other hand, could go anywhere it wanted post WYLB. Will it happen? Of course not. It wouldn't make any money. And that's really a shame.


As to the OP... no, c'mon dude, that's never going to happen. And even if it were a solid idea on paper (I'd need to see it fleshed out a little more before I rendered a verdict) it would probably be poorly executed.


-Withers-​

 

How about Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto instead?

1. Who cares what happened after NEM.

2. Everyone's bored of TNG.

3. Nobody wants to see Kesley Grammar in a movie, in fact lately, nobody wants to see him in a TV show either.

If we see the 24th C again, it will be Pine and Quinto in a time travel story.

The "we"'s you're referring to are too few in number to pay for the production of a decent movie. And before Trek XI, I wouldn't have banked much on the "we"'s who are invested in Kirk and Spock being able to do that either. Abrams caused millions of people to be invested in the characters through Trek XI. They can become uninvested through mismanagement and neglect, very easily. Such things require maintanence and care.

I think a movie could be made about a crew other than the Enterprise. I think a successful TV show could also be made about the same. But who's going to do it, who has the ability to pull it off, and understands that the way to pull it off is not to cast a washed-up TV actor in the lead role?

 

I can't imagine TNG without Patrick Stewart. Anyway, how many more contrived ways can they come up with to keep shoehorning Worf into TNG films?

 

That "we" is everyone who liked any form of Trek that was made before the JJ Abrams film but you're still right- that fandom wasn't able to keep Enterprise on the air or make the TNG films the blockbuster that 09 Trek was. I'm with ya- the franchise needed new fans to remain alive and that's just what the new movie did.

I don't have the answers but I remain hopeful that someone does or will. I'd like to see a Trek that wasn't focused on the Enterprise and her crew. Period.

-Withers-​

 

Not long ago, people were saying that about TOS. Picard could be easily recast. I nominate Wentworth Miller.

 

1. I also care about what happened after NEM.

2. I am far from bored of TNG, or the other 24th century shows for that matter.

3. I always hoped we would see Bateson/Grammar in one of the TNG films. We heard him at the beginning of First Contact, which was way cool.

I would love a new miniseries (4-5 episodes for a total of 6-8 hrs.) based on 24th century Trek with it focused mainly on the Titan commanderd by Riker with Worf as his XO and Bashir as his CMO. We could see other familiar faces but we wouldn't necessarily see them all interacting together. If it succeeds, then we would see more miniseries, maybe one a year or so.

 

Definitely won't see the film franchise go back to tng-ds9-etc. For TV, the mini-series idea is a good one. Probably one of the main hangups is - after that whole massive Star Trek auction business, do the sets still exist? The Enterprise-E warp core, all that great stuff? Because starting from scratch would be ridiculous.
If the sets still existed, and provided there was some truly exceptional writing taking place - sure.
People were not bored of TNG. The TNG films all had varying elements of being forced to be "action" films, which distorted its tone, sometimes radically. It would have been a lot more successful, I think, if it had just continued to be itself. And not thrown a bridge on Captain Kirk, and left his body to be picked over by animals...he was better off being blown into space for Christsake...
...but if we had writing that was on par with the best of that era of shows, it would in fact be so much better than STXI it would be downright silly. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

The problem is that even a large audience for a TV show doesn't necessarily translate to a large audience for a feature film. Even before TMP came out there were worries about if the audience that made TOS a success in syndication would pay for the same thing on the big screen. It's possible the TNG films might've been somewhat more successful if they'd not gone for the action angle, but there's no way to prove that. After all, the two biggest moneymakers pre-XI were TMP and TVH, two films that didn't exactly play to the expectations of the fanbase.

 

Wow. So, um, what exactly did Grammer do to you, anyway?!

 

Well, considering that New Trek is at least somewhat based on the after-math of Nemesis, it would seem as though Abrams had at least some interest in it. Enough to do a graphic novel, anyway.

And, yet, it's syndicated on who knows how many stations. BBC America just picked it up as well.

This is not entirely accurate. Grammer's character in the X-Men films was extremely well received, to the extent that, much like Stewart, he was the only pick that most of the public could ever see playing the role.

His last two attempts at TV certainly didn't do well. However, there are a couple of reasons for that.

1. The writing sucked. The shows would have failed no matter who did them.

2. He was extremely successful playing the same character for 20 years. It was inevitible that any comedic leads he took on would fail due to constant comparisons to Frasier.

Grammer would definitely do well to do something more dramatic at this point. Something connected with Trek would probably do him well.

Personally, I'd scrap any thoughts of doing Khan for the next movie and find a way of signing Grammer as one of the top 2 villians of the movie.

Well, he at least managed to get thousands to go see it several times, anyway. There's no way of knowing how many individuals actually went to see this movie. The movie still didn't do well over-seas, where there aren't many Trek fans to see it a half dozen times to boost sales.

For all the hype, it didn't even make the top 5 in sales here in the states.

Again, it made a lot of money, I'm simply saying that the broad popularity of the film might be somewhat over-stated.

That is not to be taken as a suggestion that a TNG era movie would do better, because it wouldn't.

On the other hand, if as many people who saw Nemesis once had seen it as many times as some of the people in this forum say they saw New Trek, it probably would have made nearly as much money on a budget about half as much.

Interesting. One could have said the same thing about Lost 6 years ago, or Boston Legal. Nobody was lining up to see anything from Fox or Spader when those started, let alone Shatner.

It's also worth pointing out that Nimoy was retired when he was cast in New Trek.

There is no such thing as a washed up actor. Only one that hasn't found the right role.

 

The numbers that can support a graphic novel or a rerun on BBC America are not anywhere close to the numbers that will get a show back on network or even basic cable TV.

Unlike a rerun, where the production cost is already long since paid for, a new series would have to get ratings to justify new production at a high enough level that the SFX would not be embarassing. But what network would do a Trek series? Look at the upcoming pilot season, which is devoid of space opera of any type. If nobody is willing to take a chance on space opera as a genre, that's a bad sign for Trek. Even the so-called "sci fi" channel would rather do cooking shows.

With back to back failures in Back to You and Hank, Grammar needs to concentrate on salvaging his career. There's no way an actor in his vulnerable position is going to take any risks right now, and space opera would be a whopper of a risk.

Face it, TNG is dead and done with, except for low-cost media like print. And if Grammar gets another show, it will be something safe and completely generic.

Lost is (sadly) an outlier and Boston Legal was a lawyer show and therefore in a "safe" genre. Look at the coming pilot season to see how much anyone in TV is interested in risks: it's all cop/lawyer/doctor shows, generic sitcoms and reality crap. There isn't a whiff of risk-taking or originality anywhere. The economy and the continuing fragmentation of the audience is driving the whole TV industry into a bunker of plain vanilla boredom (how's that for a metaphor?)

 

Your point here is well taken, although the level of SFX necessary to make the show good is debatable.

I didn't like Abrams Trek. And while I found it visually spectacular and certainly far and above anything Trek had done previously, they could have green screened it and I wouldn't have liked it any less. Nor did the money they spent make me like it more.

Is that necessarily true for others? Who knows. As I said before, I'm still not completely sold on the widespread success of Trek. Given how poorly it did overseas and with the various awards groups, I'm still not certain if it's financial success wasn't more a matter of a small group seeing it a lot of itmes than a large group seeing it once. There is no way to tell, of course.

Me, personally, I would rather watch an episode from any incarnation of Stargate at whatever it's budget was/is than a visual fluff piece with no story.

That does lend itself to the question you asked...

I agree with this completely. If Trek really had the legs that many seem to think (read: want to believe) it does, then there would be networks lining up to jump on board. The fact that even second tier networks aren't showing much interest, IMHO, says volumes about the marketability of the product.

It may work in a movie situation where you can make money off of one viewer if you can convince them to see it more than once. That doesn't work for TV.

Not really. He needs to move as far away from comedy as he can get. Enterprise never achieved high ratings beyond about mid-way the first season. It could have easily been canceled after the 2nd season. It's failure didn't hurt Bakula, who moved on to smaller movies and now a fairly well received series on cable.

My point here is that Grammer has had 3 flops in a row (if you count American Carol) and it hasn't stopped Hollywood from calling. I'm sure he could survive a run at Trek, regardless of how good or bad it would turn out to be.