Do fans want the prime timeline back?

[Greg Cox]

...When has a popular media franchise EVER gone back to a discarded continuity after rebooting itself? I mean, does anybody expect the Batman movies to go back to the Burton/Schumacher timeline now that Nolan's trilogy is over? Or maybe even back to the Adam West era?

That's not how it works.

Batman & Robin (may it rest in peace) was a reboot of the Adam West style of Batman. They tried to reboot Hulk (it wasn't the bomb, it was his DAD1?1) but they discarded that idea to reboot the tv show Incredible Hulk, and Star Wars, not just 1-3 which doesn't really count as a reboot but all the old republic books and games, isn't going to stop 7, 8, and 9 from being made.

And that argument that Nemesis killed prime trek is weak. All of the TOS movies weren't blockbusters but TNG was still made.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Those movies may have drawn inspiration from the earlier TV versions, but they weren't literally set back in the old timelines. Ed Norton wasn't playing "David Banner" and, of course, the character of Betty Ross was never part of the old HULK television series.

Similarly, BATMAN & ROBIN may have been trying to ape the style of the Adam West series, but it was still set squarely in the then-current movie timeline . . . as demonstrated by the fact that Batgirl was depicted as Alfred's niece, NOT Commissioner Gordon's daughter as in the 1960s TV series.

In the neither case, did the franchise restore the old continuity.

 

[bbjeg]

...
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Those movies may have drawn inspiration from the earlier TV versions, but they weren't literally set back in the old timelines. Ed Norton wasn't playing "David Banner"...

The Incredible Hulk paid homage to the original series by giving Bruce the alias of David. Betty was added but that's the power of a reboot.

 

[Greg Cox]

...
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. Those movies may have drawn inspiration from the earlier TV versions, but they weren't literally set back in the old timelines. Ed Norton wasn't playing "David Banner"...

The Incredible Hulk paid homage to the original series by giving Bruce the alias of David. Betty was added but that's the power of a reboot.

Exactly, it was a homage, but it was still a reboot. They didn't literally pick up where the old shows left off and restore the old continuity--like some people want Trek to do.

Or, to put it another way, neither THE INCREDIBLE HULK or BATMAN & ROBIN were meant to be continuations of the old TV shows. They were new versions that lifted elements from previous iterations--as remakes and reboots have always done.

 

[BillJ]

And that argument that Nemesis killed prime trek is weak. All of the TOS movies weren't blockbusters but TNG was still made.

Nemesis got beaten its opening weekend by a Jennifer Lopez Rom-com. Between it and "Enterprise", they slammed the door on that version of Trek's universe. No one was watching and no one cared by that point except the hardest of hardcore fans.

Who exactly is going to spend $100-$200 million dollars and tie themselves to a continuity that hasn't been touched in nearly a decade and tying their own hands in the process?

 

[bbjeg]

...Who exactly is going to spend $100-$200 million dollars and tie themselves to a continuity that hasn't been touched in nearly a decade and tying their own hands in the process?

Have you seen Star Wars 1-3? Even the reboot of TOS can fall into that category.

 

[BillJ]

Have you seen Star Wars 1-3?

Yeah, I have and they aren't very good. But the business model is different as Lucas owned all of Star Wars and could tell whatever story he wanted. Also, there were people who wanted more Star Wars. The same can't be said about Star Trek circa 2007 when J.J. Abrams came aboard, it was dead and I've yet to see anyone provide concrete evidence that anyone outside a few die-hards want the prime timeline back.

I can guarantee that Disney and Abrams aren't going to let minor details from episodes one thru six derail the stories they want to tell in episodes seven thru nine.

Even the reboot of TOS can fall into that category.

Yes and no.

They used time-travel to say "yes, the prime continuity is still there" but we're going to do whatever we want and it doesn't contradict anything. Hence, the reason many people refer to the films as a soft-reboot of the franchise.

 

[Beyerstein]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

 

[BillJ]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

But it wouldn't really be new and no matter how hard they tried, they would invariably make a misstep in regards to background that would conflict with one of the already existing series. Then the fans would be storming the proverbial castle about how they weren't doing their research and how could they get something so simple wrong.

All you have to do is take a gander at this very board while Enterprise was on the air.

 

[Galileo7]

There are always going to be fans of the prime universe who want it back because they were here first and carried the torch for over 40 years, immersing themselves in various aspects of it, buying merchandise, etc. Quite a few grew up with it.

But I think the majority of people don't care what universe Trek is as long as it entertains them. In that capacity, they have no more preference to the Abramsverse than they do to the prime universe and would be totally okay if Trek was all rebooted again in several years.

Agree.

 

[Tracer Bullet]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

But it wouldn't really be new and no matter how hard they tried, they would invariably make a misstep in regards to background that would conflict with one of the already existing series. Then the fans would be storming the proverbial castle about how they weren't doing their research and how could they get something so simple wrong.

All you have to do is take a gander at this very board while Enterprise was on the air.

CBS could give a shit if fans aren't happy because they said the Eugenics War started in 1776 if the ratings are there.

 

[Greg Cox]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

But it wouldn't really be new and no matter how hard they tried, they would invariably make a misstep in regards to background that would conflict with one of the already existing series. Then the fans would be storming the proverbial castle about how they weren't doing their research and how could they get something so simple wrong.

All you have to do is take a gander at this very board while Enterprise was on the air.

I like to think of it as pulling off the bandage with one swift motion rather than dragging it out with lots of tiny little ouches.

Better to reboot the continuity in one fell swoop than deal with years of fannish nitpicking and outrage over "canon violations."

(At this point I could gladly go my entire life without hearing the word "canon" again!)

 

[C.E. Evans]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

Quoted for ever lovin' truth.

Of the four Trek shows that followed TOS, only ENT really had to deal with the minutiae of Trek continuity by its very premise of being a prequel. The other shows didn't really reference other shows all that much and often limited it when they did to brief namedropping--little more than Easter eggs--in a small number of episodes.

 

[BillJ]

CBS could give a shit if fans aren't happy because they said the Eugenics War started in 1776 if the ratings are there.

You're right of course.

But this is my point: going back to the prime timeline offers you nothing in the way of promotion or ratings. It puts the show in a box creatively. So why cause your show-runners unnecessary trouble by putting them in that situation?

I think that if Trek ever makes it back to TV, they'll reboot again. That way any potential show-runners will be able to cherry pick the elements that they feel are useful to the new show and dump the rest.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Eventually, I think, the Berman-era Trek spinoffs are going to be forgotten, and thought of as no more an important part of Star Trek than the animated series SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE 22ND CENTURY has to do with the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories -- just derivative material created mostly by other people.

Four hours of NuTrek invalidating 21 seasons and 4 movies of the TNG/DS9/VOY era? Not anytime soon. But in another four, five years or so, it should be six hours.

I didn't say anything about nuTrek. Berman-era Trek is going to be mostly forgotten by the general public simply because it's derivative work created by other people.

Take the characters, rewrite them as you please, cherry pick the elements from the setting you want, mix it up in a blender and come out with "new" material. Just seems like lack of imagination to me.

This is why I loathe reboots. The best recent example I can think of for TV shows is nuBSG. I really did try to watch it. But less than halfway through the very first episode, I turned the TV off in sheer disgust. And I did watch the first Abrams nuTrek movie... and hated it. This isn't real Star Trek. It's some drivel that stole bits of Star Trek and calls itself Star Trek, but it's just an unimaginative rip-off by a lazy filmmaker with $$$$ signs in his eyes and zero respect for the fans.

Did you hate nuBSG and nuTrek simply because they were reboots? So you'd hate a reboot no matter what? Or is there a chance you'd like a reboot done well? I can't tell your position based on the above quote.

I don't like the Abrams Trek movies, but it's not because it's a reboot. I'm all for someone doing a really good reboot.

 

[The Emissary]

Well, I disagree with that. That's essentially what Star Trek is. The key to not making it into a predictable formula is not to rely solely on that. If you look at TOS and TNG, they were able to tell a variety of different stories within the scope of their basic premises.

This is one of those times where Star Trek is...whatever the viewer says it is. To you that is all Star Trek is about. To me, it's about a lot more.

I have to disagree with this too. The popularity of procedural shows really proves that stories that can be told in just one episode are still...well, popular. But as subsequent shows after TOS did, they had a mix of standalone and multi-episode stories to varying degrees--as well as a connection or overreaching background story between the first and last episodes--and I think that's the format any new Trek series should continue.

DS9 and ENT were the only ones to really have multi-episode stories. TNG and VOY didn't really. They had two parters or they'd RARELY revisit old plot threads (the Klingons), but that's not what I'm talking about at all.

I'm for how BSG did it. An overarching story, but with some stand alones every now and again.

I don't think that was lost, truth be told. If anything, it was taken to extremes in VOY.

Not really. There was nothing unique about the Delta Quadrant that couldn't be found in the Alpha. Same bumpy headed aliens with the same looking ships (which also had cloaks). Random anomaly. etc. The only "unique" thing was maybe Species 8472 and they weren't even from the Delta Quadrant. How was it unique and alien?

It didn't to me. There was nothing really familiar--much less like the Alpha Quadrant--in the Delta Quadrant other than the Borg threatening to assimilate people and entire worlds. Sometimes VOY had to invent excuses (usually via a holodeck) to bring more Alpha Quadrant aspects into it.

I don't mean Alpha Quadrant as in Klingons or Starfleet Academy or something. I meant, the area of space looked generic like anything else you'd find in the Alpha Quadrant.

Sure, they did. They enabled us to see other Starfleet ships and outposts, Federation worlds and colonies.

That isn't their society. It's just other ships and planets. When I said society, I mean actually showing us life on Earth. To show us where our heroes came from. Not just showing them docking with Earth Space dock.

You probably didn't, because I wasn't talking about stories about life on Earth, but just stories other than exploring or meeting new aliens. TOS and TNG frequently did this.

"frequently"? Not really. From time to time. Yeah.

The problem with today's Trek, I sincerely believe, is that it isn't even really trying any more. It's simply decided, here's another "superhero franchise" where we assemble the familiar cast of multi-colored shirts, the usual list of villains (whether it's Khan or Mr. Mxyzptlk doesn't really matter much), and we make spaceships go foom and boom. So when folks say they want "the Prime Universe" back, I believe they're really crying out for the days when at least somebody tried to tell a quality story.

Exactly!

 

[Timewalker]

And when someone argues that such practices are dead and that a franchise can't tell a good story anymore, a bunch of nearly-broke producers in Britain assemble a truly terrific storyline around a guy without a name who travels space in a blue box.

Huh? Doctor Who has been around since 1963. Even during the long hiatus between Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, then McGann and Christopher Eccleston, there were still many books and audio adventures being published.

My counter-argument to that is this: Star Trek has always been the closest thing to "open source fiction" there could ever be. It's the collective product of the contributed wealth of thousands of writers. So if a writer cannot build a good story based on some part of that wealth, then it's extremely unlikely he could tell a better story with elements entirely of his own invention.

So you're saying that any author who can't tell a good Star Trek story, also can't tell a good story, period?

That's ridiculous.

This is why I loathe reboots. The best recent example I can think of for TV shows is nuBSG. I really did try to watch it. But less than halfway through the very first episode,.

Gotta disagree there. To my mind, nuBSG is practically the poster child for how reboots can sometimes be even better than the previous versions.

Then again, I confess I never liked the original BSG . . ..

Hey, I was in high school when Battlestar Galactica came along. Richard Hatch... Dirk Benedict... I watched Bonanza as a child, so was also a Lorne Greene fan.

This is why I loathe reboots. The best recent example I can think of for TV shows is nuBSG. I really did try to watch it. But less than halfway through the very first episode, I turned the TV off in sheer disgust. time.

nuBSG did a bad job at trying to be the original BSG. It did a fantastic job of being an awesome tv show worth watching. Absolutely the poster child for how a reboot can take a used concept and rework it in a way that is different and interesting. It's not a copy of the original, nor does it invalidate what the original was in anyway. Just a new take.

And I gotta say, I don't think you can claim to "really did try" to watch the nuBSG when all you put in was one half of one episode of a show that ran for 4 seasons.

I think it's not nice to call someone a liar. I don't watch much TV these days, so a show has to give me a damn good reason early on to invest my time and mental energy. I was looking forward to seeing what a new generation might do with Galactica, but when the characters show up in 20th-century clothes, with basically 20th-21st century-sounding names, pointless sex changes for the character names they kept from the original series...

And it's not like that's the only exposure I ever had to it. It's impossible to frequent SF, Trek, and gaming forums and not be exposed to discussions, photos, clips, and so on. I even tried on and off to watch a bit, to see if there was anything of interest. It still looked ridiculous. So don't tell me I didn't try. And tell me you haven't made up your mind about a TV show in even less time... I bet you can't.

Why rip off the old name and pretend it's the same when it's clearly not? That's what angers me about nuGalactica, and nuTrek. They butchered the originals for no good reason other than laziness and greed (to rake in $$$$ from the fans desperate for anything, even ripoffs)... so why not call it by a different name?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Well, I disagree with that. That's essentially what Star Trek is. The key to not making it into a predictable formula is not to rely solely on that. If you look at TOS and TNG, they were able to tell a variety of different stories within the scope of their basic premises.

This is one of those times where Star Trek is...whatever the viewer says it is. To you that is all Star Trek is about. To me, it's about a lot more.

But when you strip it down, it's basically an adventure drama set in space. You can attach all sorts of other attributes and window dressing to it, but at it's core, that's what it is.

I have to disagree with this too. The popularity of procedural shows really proves that stories that can be told in just one episode are still...well, popular. But as subsequent shows after TOS did, they had a mix of standalone and multi-episode stories to varying degrees--as well as a connection or overreaching background story between the first and last episodes--and I think that's the format any new Trek series should continue.

DS9 and ENT were the only ones to really have multi-episode stories. TNG and VOY didn't really. They had two parters or they'd RARELY revisit old plot threads (the Klingons), but that's not what I'm talking about at all.

It's actually exactly what I'm talking about--a mix of standalone and multi-episode stories.

I'm for how BSG did it. An overarching story, but with some stand alones every now and again.

That's how nuBSG did it, and with a difference being that the mix of standalone and multi-episode stories favored the latter. Otherwise, though, TNG, DS9, VOY, & even ENT all had an overarching story with a beginning and an ending (although in the case of TNG, it's overarching story--the Trial of the Human Race--was something that didn't become clear until its finale; with ENT, it was about Earth's first Warp 5 starship).

Not really. There was nothing unique about the Delta Quadrant that couldn't be found in the Alpha. Same bumpy headed aliens with the same looking ships (which also had cloaks). Random anomaly. etc.

If that's the criteria you're basing on, then you're going to find that aplenty in every Star Trek series regardless of its setting or premise.

Otherwise, I can't disagree with that more that they were identical.

The only "unique" thing was maybe Species 8472 and they weren't even from the Delta Quadrant. How was it unique and alien?

I would think not being Human would be sufficient.

I don't mean Alpha Quadrant as in Klingons or Starfleet Academy or something. I meant, the area of space looked generic like anything else you'd find in the Alpha Quadrant.

I don't get this. Were you expecting the space in the Delta Quadrant to be a different color than that in the Alpha Quadrant? Otherwise what makes different territories in space different are the civilizations who live there and what policies they dictate.

That isn't their society.

Sure it is. It's the society they come from.

It's just other ships and planets.

It's not "just." It's showing other aspects of that fictional universe, to see other Starfleet crews and Federation worlds.

When I said society, I mean actually showing us life on Earth.

And they've done that on occasion when it was feasible for them to do so. But in a show set in space rather than on Earth, it's kind of hard to have many stories about ordinary people who get up, go to work, and then come back home.

To show us where our heroes came from. Not just showing them docking with Earth Space dock.

See above response.

You probably didn't, because I wasn't talking about stories about life on Earth, but just stories other than exploring or meeting new aliens. TOS and TNG frequently did this.

"frequently"? Not really. From time to time. Yeah.

No, not from time to time--TOS and TNG indeed frequently did so. Many stories weren't about exploring space and meeting new aliens, but rather dealt with routine domestic operations within the Federation, attending diplomatic conferences, going after bad guys, participating in fleet exercises, etc. TNG probably did this more than TOS even.

 

[DFScott]

Timewalker, let me clarify: What I mean by the Doctor Who reference is that those folks manage to do really good storytelling, and a few decent effects where appropriate, on a very tight budget. Certainly not as tight today as it was through the '60s. But that franchise is proof enough for me that a half-century-old backstory can be freshened up for not too much monetary investment, and presented very, very well. Modern Doctor Who blows away anything the Trek franchise has produced in this century.

So you're saying that any author who can't tell a good Star Trek story, also can't tell a good story, period?

No, that's not what I'm saying, and indeed, it would be ridiculous if I did. But I am saying there's no good excuse for a good writer (or these days, writing team) not to tell a good Star Trek story if she puts her mind to it.

Case in point: You have a main character who has become one of the more beloved in the world's popular folklore. And one of the reasons is because he never gives up hope. "There are always possibilities" is one of his taglines. Someone tells a story with that character in which his home planet blows up and his mother, among others, is killed. And in the same story, the man actually sits in and operates a time machine, which supposedly he himself has built in the future. And at no point does he consider, "Hmm, fascinating, suppose I ask my own ship how to engineer a time warp, either back to warn my home planet, or forward to stop the future guy from warping back." Instead, it's decided he'll bottle up his emotions and bury his feelings.

But then later, his boss whom he's only known for a year gets fried in an engine chamber, and he goes all Pon Farr on everyone, does a Shatner impression, and does a fist fight to the death for revenge. If the fellow who does "Star Trek Imponderables" hasn't considered this one, he should. It's easily the largest continuity crap-on since the 22nd century Romulan cloaking device.

Spock is a gold-mine of a character. So much of him has yet to be explored. And now there's a fairly good actor portraying him. So there's no excuse.

This is why folks say they want the Prime Universe back. What they want is the effort to tell as complete and contiguous a story as possible. I'd be happy seeing someone do that officially for the franchise, even as an animation. For heaven's sake, "Star Trek: Final Frontier" tells better stories on black-and-white storyboards than what I'm paying $15 to see in 3D.

DF "Imagining Peter Capaldi in His Previous Major Role Appearing in the JJA Universe to Tell Spock to Get an F-ing Clue" Scott

 

[Timewalker]

Timewalker, let me clarify: What I mean by the Doctor Who reference is that those folks manage to do really good storytelling, and a few decent effects where appropriate, on a very tight budget. Certainly not as tight today as it was through the '60s. But that franchise is proof enough for me that a half-century-old backstory can be freshened up for not too much monetary investment, and presented very, very well. Modern Doctor Who blows away anything the Trek franchise has produced in this century.

Okay, peace... I just wanted to clarify what you meant. I'm a Classic Who fan - to me the definitive Doctor is Tom Baker. I co-admin a whole forum dedicated to Tom Baker's Doctor.

While there are elements of modern Who I don't care for, I am thankful that the new production people haven't deliberately crapped all over the show's history (except for the nonsense of the Eighth Doctor being half-human; please tell me they retconned that shit at some point), blatantly ripped the names and locations, and essentially made it into a travesty with the same name and thought to fool people.

That's what Abrams has done with nuTrek. He can call his characters by the Star Trek names, but the character Quinto is playing is NOT Spock. Whatsisname is NOT playing real Kirk. That ridiculous child-man is not Chekov, that clown is not McCoy, and while real Uhura initially flirted with real Spock, that's as far as it ever went.

So you're saying that any author who can't tell a good Star Trek story, also can't tell a good story, period?

No, that's not what I'm saying, and indeed, it would be ridiculous if I did. But I am saying there's no good excuse for a good writer (or these days, writing team) not to tell a good Star Trek story if she puts her mind to it.

But there are some very good authors who are quite content not ever writing a Star Trek story - not because they couldn't do it, but because they just aren't interested. I'm pretty sure C.J. Cherryh would fall into this category. This woman is a genius at world and universe-building; her characters and worlds are incredibly rich and complex, and her stories are extremely compelling. IF she ever wanted to write a Star Trek story, I'm sure she'd blow at least 90% of the Trek authors out of the water. But to the best of my knowledge, she's never done so, nor does she have any interest in doing so.

This is why folks say they want the Prime Universe back. What they want is the effort to tell as complete and contiguous a story as possible. I'd be happy seeing someone do that officially for the franchise, even as an animation. For heaven's sake, "Star Trek: Final Frontier" tells better stories on black-and-white storyboards than what I'm paying $15 to see in 3D.

DF "Imagining Peter Capaldi in His Previous Major Role Appearing in the JJA Universe to Tell Spock to Get an F-ing Clue" Scott

I'll happily lead the parade of people wanting the Prime Universe back. Anyone who says there's nowhere else to go outside of the Abramsverse for good stories is just lacking imagination.

 

[Beyerstein]

When TNG first started they were worried about having too many references or mentions of the old show, because they wanted TNG to stand alone as its own show.

Any new series or movie could be in the prime universe without really having tied or weighted down.

It would just be something new.

But it wouldn't really be new and no matter how hard they tried, they would invariably make a misstep in regards to background that would conflict with one of the already existing series. Then the fans would be storming the proverbial castle about how they weren't doing their research and how could they get something so simple wrong.

All you have to do is take a gander at this very board while Enterprise was on the air.

I was here when enterprise was on and i remeber it being pretty split between "gushers and bashers"