Bryan Fuller is Showrunner on New Trek Series
- Thread starter SilentBen
- Start date
Someone's probably mentioned this already, but as Dennis said, Star Trek's only recent success has been in the new movies, and one of the movie's writers is the executive producer on the series, and now we have Fuller, who has been saying for years that if he made a Star Trek series he'd set it in a new timeline, I think it's safe to assume that it will definitely not be in the Prime universe.
Based on what little we know, is there any actual evidence that it will be Prime?
Based on what little we know, is there any actual evidence that it will be Prime?
CBS are doing this new series.
CBS owns Prime, Paramount owns JJ-verse.
Only FACT in this argument.
Source, please? The quotes I've read from him sound more ambiguous than that.
No, CBS owns Star Trek. The entire property, all its concepts and characters. The "alternate timelines" are themselves a fictional conceit within the property CBS owns. The current movies are made by Paramount and Bad Robot under license from CBS, which owns the concepts and characters they're using. Paramount and BR do control the elements unique to their movies, I believe, so the new series probably wouldn't use any of those. However, since CBS owns every incarnation of Star Trek, there's nothing stopping them from creating a new version of it.
For that matter, it might be possible to implicitly set the series in the Abramsverse even without the ability to explicity use any of its unique, original elements (e.g. Nero, Red Matter, Alexander Marcus, Keenser, etc.). You see that sort of thing a lot in movies and TV, implying a shared universe while tiptoeing around things you're not legally able to use explicitly -- like the Arrowverse shows dropping hints about the existence of characters they aren't able to use directly like Batman, Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman. After all, the Abramsverse's reality is defined so narrowly to date that there's plenty of room to flesh out other parts of it without directly incorporating anything unique to the films. Something set a century or two in the Abramsverse's future could be so unconnected that it would feel like a separate reality.
Heck, who knows? They might even decide to leave things ambiguous, to pick a new century and setting and imply that it could be the future of either timeline, leave it up to the fans to decide for themselves. Wouldn't that just set the cat among the pigeons, eh?
I respectfully disagree. I was here during those dark times. Back then, the most important issue in the universe... the thing that threatened to rip our community apart... the one issue that was far more important than the legality of building settlements on the west bank of Gaza... was should T'Pol be with Trip... or Archer... We barely made it out of that conflict alive.
CBS owns Star Trek. Paramount produces Star Trek movies under a license from CBS. - Fact
Any statement of who owns the IP associated with the new movies is speculation unless you've read the contracts between CBS, Paramount, Bad Robot, Abrams, and Kurtzman.
Well, you can also try reading the legal notices on Abramsverse products. For instance, the IDW Star Trek Ongoing comics have copyright notices for both CBS Studios and Paramount, and a notice that Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios. Although the DVD case for the first movie only has a copyright notice for Paramount and a trademark notice for CBS.
My two cents:
I agree with Tai that the best course of action is to set it in the Prime universe some point in the distant enough future that you can deal with what you want and ignore what you don't. Give all the other properties time and space, but keep it in continuity (or at the least don't state unequivocally that anything is out of continuity). This retains the core fan base(s) for the streaming service and shows that they respect (or at least acknowledge the debt they owe to) earlier characters and settings/ideas. It also leverages past intellectual property in that if new viewers like what they see and want to see more, CBS can just point to decades of previous material and say "start here". I think there is enough "room" in the Star Trek Prime universe for new creators (like Fuller) to design and develop their own look/style/feel/approach without having to "toss out the baby with the bathwater" (not to say that I think anyone is advocating this). I just don't see why you would make another Star Trek property just to get rid of everything that makes it Star Trek - just call it something else if you want to do that.
If I had to make a list of elements of Star Trek that are required to make it a Star Trek show, I would say it would have to include:
- an optimistic future, with humanity striving to be better and do better for themselves and others
- humanity and other races joined in the Federation (or its direct descendants)
- the existence of Star Fleet as an exploration/scientific body (with some military role) - though doesn't have to be set within Star Fleet
- interaction with other races as ways to explore different aspects of humanity or to posit different approaches to religion/government/life/art/etc.
- exploring the human condition and how that will change with technology/social developments/etc.
Outside of this, just make the show good, compelling, and thoughtful. That will keep people watching and invested. You don't need action, but if you have it do it well. You don't need "sexual elements" (ala Enterprises decon chamber), but it you have it, do it well. You don't need to reference continuity, but if you do, do it well. Etc.
I agree with Tai that the best course of action is to set it in the Prime universe some point in the distant enough future that you can deal with what you want and ignore what you don't. Give all the other properties time and space, but keep it in continuity (or at the least don't state unequivocally that anything is out of continuity). This retains the core fan base(s) for the streaming service and shows that they respect (or at least acknowledge the debt they owe to) earlier characters and settings/ideas. It also leverages past intellectual property in that if new viewers like what they see and want to see more, CBS can just point to decades of previous material and say "start here". I think there is enough "room" in the Star Trek Prime universe for new creators (like Fuller) to design and develop their own look/style/feel/approach without having to "toss out the baby with the bathwater" (not to say that I think anyone is advocating this). I just don't see why you would make another Star Trek property just to get rid of everything that makes it Star Trek - just call it something else if you want to do that.
If I had to make a list of elements of Star Trek that are required to make it a Star Trek show, I would say it would have to include:
- an optimistic future, with humanity striving to be better and do better for themselves and others
- humanity and other races joined in the Federation (or its direct descendants)
- the existence of Star Fleet as an exploration/scientific body (with some military role) - though doesn't have to be set within Star Fleet
- interaction with other races as ways to explore different aspects of humanity or to posit different approaches to religion/government/life/art/etc.
- exploring the human condition and how that will change with technology/social developments/etc.
Outside of this, just make the show good, compelling, and thoughtful. That will keep people watching and invested. You don't need action, but if you have it do it well. You don't need "sexual elements" (ala Enterprises decon chamber), but it you have it, do it well. You don't need to reference continuity, but if you do, do it well. Etc.
One of the problems of setting it in the Prime universe is that you can't do anything you want. For example, the Borg can't be a new threat in a series that is set 100 years or whatever in the future. Want to do a different take on the Dominion War? Again it already happened 100 years before.
However a new timeline or one set in JJverse allows the writers to both reimagine events we have seen while also giving the writers the freedom to try new things. Its the Best of Both Worlds (sorry, it was too easy)
However a new timeline or one set in JJverse allows the writers to both reimagine events we have seen while also giving the writers the freedom to try new things. Its the Best of Both Worlds (sorry, it was too easy)
Ah well, enough of the timeline talk, I think it's better we move on.
Planning to watch the first episode of Dead Like Me tonight. Can't wait!
Planning to watch the first episode of Dead Like Me tonight. Can't wait!
Hmm, interesting perspective (regarding being able to do anything)...
I would argue that you can find a way. It might be a little harder, so maybe that comes down to how the continuity is restrictive. A strong science fiction approach could explore those alternate versions of past stuff, and could work well, informing both the original episodes/events and the current series. Listening to the Mission Log Podcast on "Yesterday's Enterprise", the hosts discuss how a two-parter (which they didn't really do at that point in the Next Gen run) would have allowed them to go into more depth on what the history of the alternate universe and characters were - how they got there and what that universe was really like. Alternatively, you could do it as "here's the real history of what happened" (only try to do it better than how Enterprise's finale shoehorned in stuff to TNG's "The Pegasus" and maybe more like how Voyager did it in "The Voyager Conspiracy"). Or you could do it like how Enterprise (mostly season 4, but also some of the previous stuff regarding Vulcans from seasons 1-3) went back and without really breaking continuity, said "you think you know Vulcans? Well 100 years before Kirk they weren't so logical and objective as they would become". I think this ties back into the "why do a show called Star Trek if you are just going to throw out the Star Trek part" - maybe this is the flip side in why "reboot" Star Trek if you are just going to hit the same events/points again (ahem, "Into Darkness")?
Going back to Yesterday's Enterprise, though, I am glad they didn't do a two-parter. I could easily have seen it going the way of the less-than-great elements of some of DS9's alternate universe episodes where they felt like they just had to shoehorn in funny, weird, or different things for the mirror characters just cause they could. It got too cutesy. I think Yesterday's Enterprise holds up so well because, in part, they didn't need to add in all those little elements. The story sticks to the core plotline, and the audience is left on their own to imagine the unspoken details.
I would argue that you can find a way. It might be a little harder, so maybe that comes down to how the continuity is restrictive. A strong science fiction approach could explore those alternate versions of past stuff, and could work well, informing both the original episodes/events and the current series. Listening to the Mission Log Podcast on "Yesterday's Enterprise", the hosts discuss how a two-parter (which they didn't really do at that point in the Next Gen run) would have allowed them to go into more depth on what the history of the alternate universe and characters were - how they got there and what that universe was really like. Alternatively, you could do it as "here's the real history of what happened" (only try to do it better than how Enterprise's finale shoehorned in stuff to TNG's "The Pegasus" and maybe more like how Voyager did it in "The Voyager Conspiracy"). Or you could do it like how Enterprise (mostly season 4, but also some of the previous stuff regarding Vulcans from seasons 1-3) went back and without really breaking continuity, said "you think you know Vulcans? Well 100 years before Kirk they weren't so logical and objective as they would become". I think this ties back into the "why do a show called Star Trek if you are just going to throw out the Star Trek part" - maybe this is the flip side in why "reboot" Star Trek if you are just going to hit the same events/points again (ahem, "Into Darkness")?
Going back to Yesterday's Enterprise, though, I am glad they didn't do a two-parter. I could easily have seen it going the way of the less-than-great elements of some of DS9's alternate universe episodes where they felt like they just had to shoehorn in funny, weird, or different things for the mirror characters just cause they could. It got too cutesy. I think Yesterday's Enterprise holds up so well because, in part, they didn't need to add in all those little elements. The story sticks to the core plotline, and the audience is left on their own to imagine the unspoken details.
Unfortunately I don't have a link, but as I recall it was in a Trekmovie article from a few years back.
Canon > Window.
I hope they just start fresh, with the concepts and designs that make it recognizable as Trek, and damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. No canon, no reference to timeline.
I hope they just start fresh, with the concepts and designs that make it recognizable as Trek, and damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. No canon, no reference to timeline.
He said he found the JJ-verse to be interesting, not that he wanted to do a show in the JJ-verse.
Yeah, personally I hope it's in the JJ- Universe. The true strength of Star Trek has always been not the film series, but the tv series.
Films have always had limitations put upon them that tv doesn't really have to deal with.
Tv shows can take a long time to tell a story, to involve characters that really get time to grow. Time to let events actually build and occur in a more natural time frame, so you don't have to compress a time frame to get to all the points you need to be in a 2 hour movie.
Look at even TOS (which was seriously limited in scope and what could be shown with the budget and technology of its time) compared to the films that starred TOS. Yet TOS films really didn't expand much of the universe of TOS. Almost all of that, including characters and their development was handled for the larger part with TOS (and thats with the story telling of its time which really didn't allow the growth of character that we see in any later series, and its one of the reason only three characters got much of any real growth, you can even argue that three is too large a number).
It was the same with TNG, the TNG films glossed over most characters, and offered very little real growth, of its characters or its universe. Where did that growth occur, during its tv run.
In my opinion every single series of Trek has easily put out stories of higher quality that any Trek film. About the only thing that the films have allowed is better polish on the production values.
By putting it in JJ universe its gives the creators free reign to go into any direction they wish. And are only beholden to a small amount of Trek that has ever been released, ENT and three films. Using what we call the Prime Universe (which we know its actually not because we have seen them actually already change the timeline, thus certainly after the end of The Voyage Home every thing after that point has been a branched timeline, and not the original one that was started with TOS, but I doubt many what to acknowledge that little fact).
The creators are beholden to 5 series and ten films, as well as a few minutes in Star Trek 2009 (a few seconds with the Kelvin before the anomaly appears, and of course the events Spock tells new Kirk about).
As for going significantly forward in time, its an idea I really am not that fond of, as i literally don't trust the writers/ producers to be able to tell a show that actually shows significant advances in development, in a way that a significant audience would be able to appreciate.
The only issues I have with the JJ Universe is that interstellar beaming needs to die. I mean sure we know at least one in TOS time did have that technology, when they beamed Larissa to the Enterprise from the alien planet the computer that created her was on, but that element really destroys the need for any ship. certainly if admiral Marcus new about that technology he could just destroy the Klingon homeward and never need launch a fake assault to insure Federation security. Just beam thousands off photon torpedoes to each city and bam the heart of the Klingons are destroyed, and its just a matter of taking out they ships, which they would have to fight in a war to begin with.
That and get rid of the hideous effect for warp speed, and actually do a better job showing the passage of time (something the new films are certainly not the only Trek to massively screw up).
Films have always had limitations put upon them that tv doesn't really have to deal with.
Tv shows can take a long time to tell a story, to involve characters that really get time to grow. Time to let events actually build and occur in a more natural time frame, so you don't have to compress a time frame to get to all the points you need to be in a 2 hour movie.
Look at even TOS (which was seriously limited in scope and what could be shown with the budget and technology of its time) compared to the films that starred TOS. Yet TOS films really didn't expand much of the universe of TOS. Almost all of that, including characters and their development was handled for the larger part with TOS (and thats with the story telling of its time which really didn't allow the growth of character that we see in any later series, and its one of the reason only three characters got much of any real growth, you can even argue that three is too large a number).
It was the same with TNG, the TNG films glossed over most characters, and offered very little real growth, of its characters or its universe. Where did that growth occur, during its tv run.
In my opinion every single series of Trek has easily put out stories of higher quality that any Trek film. About the only thing that the films have allowed is better polish on the production values.
By putting it in JJ universe its gives the creators free reign to go into any direction they wish. And are only beholden to a small amount of Trek that has ever been released, ENT and three films. Using what we call the Prime Universe (which we know its actually not because we have seen them actually already change the timeline, thus certainly after the end of The Voyage Home every thing after that point has been a branched timeline, and not the original one that was started with TOS, but I doubt many what to acknowledge that little fact).
The creators are beholden to 5 series and ten films, as well as a few minutes in Star Trek 2009 (a few seconds with the Kelvin before the anomaly appears, and of course the events Spock tells new Kirk about).
As for going significantly forward in time, its an idea I really am not that fond of, as i literally don't trust the writers/ producers to be able to tell a show that actually shows significant advances in development, in a way that a significant audience would be able to appreciate.
The only issues I have with the JJ Universe is that interstellar beaming needs to die. I mean sure we know at least one in TOS time did have that technology, when they beamed Larissa to the Enterprise from the alien planet the computer that created her was on, but that element really destroys the need for any ship. certainly if admiral Marcus new about that technology he could just destroy the Klingon homeward and never need launch a fake assault to insure Federation security. Just beam thousands off photon torpedoes to each city and bam the heart of the Klingons are destroyed, and its just a matter of taking out they ships, which they would have to fight in a war to begin with.
That and get rid of the hideous effect for warp speed, and actually do a better job showing the passage of time (something the new films are certainly not the only Trek to massively screw up).
On the one hand, I'm inclined to agree -- it would serve the Abramsverse well if it were given the chance to get fleshed out properly in a TV series, given more depth and breadth than it could ever have in a few movies. On the other hand, I still think Trek would be well-served by a wholesale reboot -- not an alternate timeline, but a completely fresh start that leaves behind a lot of the '60s conceptual baggage and outdated assumptions woven into the Trek reality and is able to start fresh and incorporate more modern ideas. Something that won't be rendered obsolete when the Bell Riots and the Ares IV mission fail to happen in the next couple of decades, along with all the stuff that already hasn't happened like the Eugenics Wars and interplanetary sleeper ships.
Do you mean Losira in "That Which Survives?"
Other canonical examples of interstellar beaming include the Providers in TOS: "The Gamesters of Triskelion," Gary Seven's sponsors in TOS: "Assignment: Earth," the Vedala in TAS: "The Jihad," DaiMon Bok's subspace transporter in TNG: "Bloodlines," and the Dominion in DS9: "The Jem'Hadar" and "Covenant."
Indeed not. First Contact implied that the Enterprise got from the Romulan border to Earth in a matter of minutes.
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