As a Star Trek fan, I like a lot of what you've done here, but there are some things that jump out at me:
- There seems to be a lot of Academy material, which is not really where Star Trek should focus, IMHO.
Well, I'd equate that to what was done in "Batman Begins," for example. How long was it before we saw Bruce Wayne in the batsuit? And yet, I think this worked much better.
The story I see is primarily a Kirk/Spock film, with two major supporting characters. Too many characters with major roles in a 2-hour movie and, inevitably, you either dilute the story or you underserve the characters.
So I focus, almost exclusively, on Kirk and Spock, and merely "introduce" other characters. I try to give them introductions that the audience will like, without seeming "pandering." But Kirk and Spock, they need a lot of depth here, as the heart of the movie is really about the two of them.
The the "childhood" stuff would run for a bit longer than we saw in ST'09 (roughly the same as if they hadn't removed the deleted scenes, really). The Academy stuff would run roughly twice as long as what we saw in ST'09, but we'd lose the "hangar scenes" and so forth, so we're probably really only talking something like 150% of the ST'09 "Academy screen time" shots. My main purpose was to make these scenes more "personal" in nature... more about the characters than I felt that they were in this film. This is because I really, truly believe that the character development in this film was its major failing. I really didn't find myself caring about these characters... and considering that I DO care about the characters I've know for all 44 years of my life, well, that's actually a fairly significant thing to say.
- It assumes 3 films, which may not be a given.
No, not really. It's just my desire to treat the situation as something more realistic. I HATE the idea that everything from TOS sort of "falls into place" in the space of a few hours, and then stays that way forever after. REAL LIFE is all about change and growth. I specifically structured things as I did to emphasize that everything doesn't magically happen all at once.
Star Trek, ultimately, is about people and about ideas. "The Human Adventure" and all that. That may seem pretentious to some folks, but to me, well, that why I love Star Trek, and that's what I miss when it's absent.
So, I wanted to make it more about people, and for it to be about REAL people (or rather, people we can believe could be real), these people need to have lives that make sense. Change is a part of real life, and I want to see change occur in this venue as well. That makes it more real... and thus makes it easier to make myself "willingly suspend my disbelief" and become involved in what I'm watching.
The three movies I listed need not all be made, obviously. Each would have had a different, and largely independent, theme.
- Kirk becomes the man we know
- Kirk gets command of the Enterprise
- The Adventures Begin...
To me, these really are different things - different events, different adventures - which would, in "real life," occur at different times.
Do we really need to have the second and third "events" covered in order for the first one to be relevant? Not at all? Do we really ned the first and third for the second to be relevant, or the first and second for the third to be relevant? Nope. I just think that the three should not have occurred simultaneously. That's not believable to me.
- Dr. McCoy and Scotty are grossly short-changed in their introductions, and we see little to tell us that Dr. MCoy and Kirk would be long-term friends later.
Well, obviously, I'm playing with ideas, not writing a script. I've never been very good at writing dialog, so I normally don't bother to try. There are lots of people who are very good at this (Roddenberry was an expert at it, for example), but I'm not among them.
I think that, halfway through the film, when the audience first sees Kirk leading a rescue party aboard the liner, and Kirk encounters the makeshift triage area... and then we see Urban walk in, covered with blood, with the "shellshocked but hard at work" thing Kelley did so well (and which was what made latter-day MASH shows so effective as well) would have been amazing. The audience would have had an introduction to McCoy that would have shown us his humanity... and passion for saving lives... in a way that the movie we actually got didn't so much as hint at.
In my outline, McCoy would be a constant participant in the plans to rescue everyone... because he'd be the one bringing up "and how do you propose that we get my three hundred unconscious wounded patients to climb six decks of ladders, you green-blooded hobgoblin!" and so forth.
Meanwhile, Scotty would also be a major participant, as he would be the only reason that the liner was still in one piece. And I'm certain that he would be the one to come up with the technical recommendation on how to use resources from both wrecks to allow everyone to survive. He'd be a major player. I just didn't bother to write the specifics...
- The Enterprise is also a BIG part of TOS, and is underrepresented here.
I hope you understand how much I LOVE the Enterprise... that is, the original ship, as seen on TOS. I don't leave it out lightly.
But, all that aside, the Enterprise is NOT a character. It's not. It's a "setting." It's a work of art. It's a machine. But it's not a character.
The Enterprise, under the command of Captain Scott Ferguson and first officer Mike Dubois, wouldn't be a central part of Star Trek as we know it. Any more than the house you may have grown up in is still "your house" if you've lived elsewhere for 20 years, and three other families have lived there after you did.
The Enterprise is significant for three reasons:
- 1) It's the plot-device for TOS which explains how our characters get from adventure to adventure, and how they deal with each adventure.
- 2) It's a distinctive visual design which, through what I consider to be some pretty masterful design, simultaneously brings to mind modern naval vessels and historical "tall ships," with all of the grace and beauty associated with them.
- 3) It holds a special place in the heart of two major characters... Kirk and Scott, both of whom fall in love with the ship and, because we see the ship through their eyes, make us care about the Enterprise.
A general audience will want to see how the crew of the ENTERPRISE gets together, and that implicitly means the ENTERPRISE should be a much bigger part of the movie.
I disagree, almost entirely.
"General audiences" don't care one bit about the "Star Trek Family." They want exciting entertainment about characters who they can, in the course of a couple of hours of entertainment, come to relate to and empathize with. This is why "ensemble" movies usually don't do well. The audience can really only be made to empathize with one, two, or SOMETIMES, three characters in that period of time. The more characters you "focus on," the less "focus" any individual character will get, and the less the audience will be able to "connect" to that character.
It's mainly the Star Trek FANS who want to see "everyone all together at once," not the "general audiences." So, as I see it, what I've proposed actually would better meet the "wants" of the general audience. You may not agree, of course, but I do, and I did what I did intentionally, and for that very reason.
You focus on your lead characters, and treat your supporting characters as just that... supporting characters. I wanted two leads, two "major supporting characters," and a few minor roles which don't have to be, but easily COULD be (and thus ideally SHOULD be) names which have been established as parts of these characters' pasts.
- The threat would probably need more prominence and definition, and really doesn't drive enough of the plot for audiences to care about. It is simply there.
And again, I did that intentionally. The story should not have been about "beating the enemy," it should be about the experiences which our characters go through. In other words, I don't WANT the audience to care about the threat... I want them to care about the characters and how the characters deal with that threat. The threat, itself, is ultimately irrelevant... it's a Deus Ex Machina. It could be a plague. It could be an attack by some never-identified hostile force. It could be a spontaneous singularity formation. It could be ANYTHING... as long as it creates the situation where our characters are stranded, facing death of not only themselves but many many more civilians (I chose the liner because it would have a massive civilian population... people who had never made a choice to "put their lives on the line" and thus would be more impactful to the audience, even intangibly, if they were at risk (how many of US have been on a cruise ship at some point?)
I'm trying, really hard, to make this less about "a mustache-twirling bad-guy ties Dora Do-Right to the train tracks" and more about "what's going on inside the minds and hearts of our main characters?"
- Spock probably needs a journey for the film beyond arguing with Kirk. They should learn something about each other, and bond in the process to become the friends we see later.
Well, I agree... I just didn't outline that aspect of things, again.
I hinted at it by pointing out that Spock was widely recognized as being "highly competent" but was also very unpopular in Starfleet. The reason for this, and the beginning of his growth beyond that, would be his "personal journey" in this film. AND the basis of the strong Kirk/Spock relationship we see throughout the entire series. Kirk is the first person to really drive home to Spock that there are ways of viewing the universe other than "pure logic." Although we know that, prior to this point, Spock (under Pike) had been more emotionally open, that could be a matter of his simply being less controlled, not of having made a conscious choice to be open to "outside of the box" solutions. Kirk, after all, is the one who taught Spock the advantages of Poker over Chess, remember. Maybe this movie would show us where this begins?
Taking Spock as a tutor, perhaps he's the one who recommends to the powers that be that Kirk be in command?
Well, I can see Spock recommending Kirk to Chris Pike (in the previously mentioned hypothetical second film)... and Pike being surprised (and pleased) at this recommendation. Kirk would not remember having met Pike (at the age of 12) but Pike would have kept his eye on Kirk over the years... and a recommendation from Spock would be all it would take to push Pike over the edge to "go to the mat" and argue to Starfleet Command that, at his promotion, they should make a relatively "young and unproven" officer, albeit with at least a few years of command-grade experience under his belt, captain of one of the most powerful and capable ships in the fleet.
See, this is an entirely separate event... and thus, in my opinion, is worthy of independent treatment as a separate film.
Obviously, for this second film to be worthwhile, it would need to have more to it than just "Kirk takes command of the Enterprise." And please understand, I don't inherently dislike the idea of villains... just not every SINGLE FREAKIN' FILM.
So, I'd argue that this movie could involve a major conflict involving a major villain. I think a couple of hints as to what sort of villain this might be could be drawn from Kirk's list of commendations in "Court Martial." But I haven't really given it much thought beyond that.
After the arguments between him and Kirk, which could get rather heated (on Kirk's end), and a hint of deepening respect, might raise eyebrows both on and off screen.
Agreed. It seemed way too fast, too extreme, and honestly too "forced" in ST'09. The shift from "abrasion" to "mutual respect" should take more time, and would grow with a bit of distance (both physically and more importantly, psychologically). That's why I chose not to put them both onto the same ship at the end of my "treatment," in fact.
Spock's cold logic here could be played a little too cold, and we need a hint of something personal for him, and something to show the audience who HE is, beyond the cold, emotionless foil for James Kirk's wild plans.
Ah, but that's what worked so well in TOS. Spock always took the "logical" side of the argument... the "ego" point to McCoy's "id" and Jim's "superego"... according to Freud's theories, at least:
they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described. According to this model, the uncoordinated instinctual trends are the "id"; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the "ego," and the critical and moralizing function the "super-ego
but that did not means that he was actually a cold character. Because Nimoy did so well with giving the character depth, even when the character was being played as "cold" he had greater depth than most "normal" characters would. I think Quinto could have pulled this off as well, had the director been sufficiently familiar with Star Trek and been able to steer his performance in that direction, rather than in the more overt, even hostile way that the character was portrayed in ST'09. That's ABRAMS' failing, not Quinto's, as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, there are some great opportunities with regards to Gary Mitchell, and with something more defined, meeting the Blonde Lab Technician in the movie might work to get more information about Kirk's feelings and thoughts, and could be used to illustrate his womanizing side, and his charm, which is a little bit lacking here.
Well, Mitchell would be a character who (at least in this movie) would be a throw-away. We, the fans, would have a little mental "hey, I recognize that guy" moment, but the general audience wouldn't care. They WOULD care, however, about how he would interact with Kirk... who they should care about at this point. Mitchell, in the context of this movie, would be a mirror for explaining aspects of Kirk, through dialogue, that's all. It could just as easily be "Joe Smith," for the purposes of storytelling... but why not use Mitchell, since the character already exists in the role of "Kirk's best friend" during this period?
Similarly, I specifically chose not to mention the "little blond lab tech" by name. WE know that this is Carol Marcus, but it's really irrelevant to the movie as a stand-alone piece. All the "general audience" really needs to know is that "Kirk's best friend is trying to get him to lighten up and accept that you can't always win."
)
