Brainstorming: Trek on a budget...

[Omegaphallic]

Hey guys,

We know that Paramount is in a contractional period right now, and that appears to be starting to negatively impact Star Trek as well, with the cancelation of Discovery. Whether there will be bigger issues down the line (like say cancelation of Lower Decks or Prodigy) remains to be seen. Ultimately, the issue for Paramount is while Star Trek is popular, it's also not cheap to make. So why not make another Yellowstone show instead for only a fraction of the cost?

Which got me to thinking - could modern Trek be made on the cheap? I'm not talking about cardboard rocks and the like, but could a show be structured in such a way as to limit the VFX and set budgets, allowing for filming at half or less of the cost of the average DIS, PIC, or SNW episode?

The resulting show may not get as many eyeballs on it. But I do think depending upon the content it would be enough to bring in hardcore Trek fans - particularly if it had good writing, and followed up with popular characters/plot points from older shows.

A couple ideas:

• One is a show focused essentially entirely on away missions. This could be an anthology-style show, allowing the jumping around through different eras/cameos from different people. Every episode would start with a "beam in." This sort of structure would mean you wouldn't need to create an expensive set of standing ship sets for the drama to take place in, though each episode may need new uniforms and other props. Of course, the individual sets (or maybe location filming) could get expensive, but similar to TOS (or Berman Trek with the holodeck episodes) they could find ways to creatively reuse standing sets on the Paramount back lot.
• Another idea is to have one-offs which are mostly focused on two people talking in a room. Lots of classic Trek episodes - including some all-time favorites (like say DS9's Duet) are mostly just set up like this. I think plenty of Trek fans would, as an example, tune in for an hour of Bashir and Garak bickering about their relationship in a runabout. Cheap to make, massively popular.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear if others have any ideas along these lines.

I think we are getting a taste of that with season 3 of Picard, its not an accidemt he's reusing models from STD, it's allowing him to have a huge ton of variety in ships that he wouldn't have had for next to nothing, because STO is thrilled with having their designs made canon which is HUGE advertizing for the game, while Terry Matalas pays little to nothing for them, using their programmers and graphic artists to his advantage have saved him a bundle that he can use for other stuff like the Shrike and Georgie musuem.

Add in using more practical effects and reusing assets already built to making brilliant use of Star Trek's partnerships and you could have Star Trek Titan for a modest budget.

Compare this Star Trek Discovery that over relies on its CGI and Green Screens and all that with a history of going massively over budget.

Imagine a Star Trek the puts story & lore over SFX!

 

[fireproof78]

Imagine a Star Trek the puts story & lore over SFX!

So...what I've been watching for the last 30+ years, with the exception of TMP?

 

[Omegaphallic]

Discovery over relied on SFX its why its budgets are so bloated.

 

[fireproof78]

Discovery over relied on SFX its why its budgets are so bloated.

Yet I still watched it for the characters. Not sure what VFX was over relied on.

 

[shapeshifter]

Honor TOS, rebuild the sets in cardboard!

 

[trekfan_1]

I imagine the CGI wall they built and created for Discovery (I think thats what it's called?) could be a cost saving tool in this approach.

And are animated shows really that expensive to produce? Does the cost of LD and Prodigy combined come close to even one live action show? My guess is no. I can see Paramount plus investing in SNW as their flagship. Then keeping the current animated shows (maybe even adding more)and sprinkling in a few limited series to keep Trek generally available for most of the calendar year.

The limited series could also serve as potential "extended" backdoor TV pilots. If one is well received enough by fans, it can be expanded to a full fledged series during or (more likely) after SNW ends. This way a larger investment can be made with a reasonable expectation of popularity and success.