How Would You Have Done Star Trek (2008)?

[JacksonArcher]

blockaderunner said:
You left out the super transwarp drives, living starships, portable transporters that beam people planet to planet, and other superfluous, franchise killing, fanwank crap that the .1 percent of the fandom creams over.

Does the adage "less is more" mean anything to you?

I'm sorry, since when did I shit in your oatmeal?

 

[Good Will Riker]

I would have preferred a new Star Trek film in this vein:

The Enterprise-E commanded by Admiral Jean-Luc Picard with first officer Commander Worf. Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge is still chief engineer. Lieutenant Commander Julian Bashir is the Chief Medical Officer aboard.

Aboard the USS Titan, Captain William T. Riker is in command with his wife Deanna Riker as ship's counselor. Commander Tuvok is the chief security officer/tactical. Lieutenant Commander Wesley Crusher is the head of the Titan's engineering department.

B-4 (Data?) and Beverly Crusher won't be involved in this film.

The plot revolves around a Federation/Romulan peace initiative. Music conducted by Jerry Goldsmith's son. The film is directed by Jonathan Frakes. However, if NO Jonathan Frakes, then they will just have to settle for...James Cameron.

 

[MisterPL]

MisterPL said:
I'd have done it as a TV series on Showtime. (Fans get to pay to see it.)

It would have been a true reimagining. (Sulu would be the black chick, etc...)

I'd have stuck to the core of the concept. ("...these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise...")

Going forward, I'd rotate the cast as necessary. (Actor playing Kirk getting too pricey? Kirk gets a promotion to Starfleet Command and Picard (or Sulu or Janeway) becomes the next captain of the NCC-1701.)

One other thing. I'd set it in a non-specific future. I'd prefer not to reference any of Earth's history and wouldn't bother making up anything between the audience's era and the show's.

 

[AC84]

JacksonArcher said:

blockaderunner said:
You left out the super transwarp drives, living starships, portable transporters that beam people planet to planet, and other superfluous, franchise killing, fanwank crap that the .1 percent of the fandom creams over.

Does the adage "less is more" mean anything to you?

I'm sorry, since when did I shit in your oatmeal?

blockaderunner is the Bill O'Reilly of TrekBBS. His narrow-minded opinions are meant to offend.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

AC84 said:

JacksonArcher said:

blockaderunner said:
You left out the super transwarp drives, living starships, portable transporters that beam people planet to planet, and other superfluous, franchise killing, fanwank crap that the .1 percent of the fandom creams over.

Does the adage "less is more" mean anything to you?

I'm sorry, since when did I shit in your oatmeal?

blockaderunner is the Bill O'Reilly of TrekBBS. His narrow-minded opinions are meant to offend.

I think we can dispense with any further exchanges like this, guys. Please knock it off.

Thanks.

 

[Balthier the Great]

Yeah, that was kinda my thought. The idea is that everyone is doing what they're doing for their own reasons. Just like any civil war situation, you could wind up with family members being on opposite sides, lovers from two different factions, all kinds of personal drama. Sometimes one person might have to form an alliance with someone he personally dislikes or distrusts (probably both), or have to resort to tactics he doesn't like.

Some would be in it for fame and glory -- maybe wanting to be the next Kirk or something. Someone else might fight because he sees his planet being oppressed by local warlord #5. Maybe someone wants to end the war because he's tired of all the fighting. Surely there'll be some arsehat who fights just because he wants to rule the entire thing himself. Maybe even Maquis-type pirates.

I dunno how you'd do that for a movie -- for TV I'd probably devide up my seasons among however many characters. Or I might just have some POV character who is a sort of free agent who interacts with the rest. The first would be more interesting to ME, but for telly, you do need some sort of POV character.

Full confession though, I originally thought of making an RPG out of this story line, but it's way too big for a solo project.

 

[MarianLH]

Super deformed chibi Trek.









Just kidding. I've been watching a lot of shoujo anime lately. I haven't though about it before, but off the top of my head, I'd stick with the basic premise of revisiting TOS. However, I wouldn't put Nimoy in the film. Have him on set as an adviser, sure. Shatner too. But keep them out of the film proper.

Since framing a Trek film around a villain has generally been a failure (Khan excepted), maybe I wouldn't have one, instead doing something like TMP or STIV, where the heroes have to deal with a situation rather than directly overcome a scenery-chewing bad guy.

Ideas others have posted that I like: getting a good SF writer to work on the story, adapting a Star Trek novel (although I would go with a TOS novel instead of a TNG one).

I would definitely have: space exploration, going where no man has gone before, presumably as a lead-in to the plot.

I would definitely not have: time travel, threat to Earth.

Things I definitely would never do: revive TNG, anything in the 24th century, or go post-Nemesis.

Something else that I might do is re-imagine ENT. Through out the crappy series, start over from scratch, and do it so it doesn't suck.

Idea #3: Adapt Strangers From The Sky as a two-part miniseries.


Marian

 

[Roxana]

I'd thank my lucky stars that the Shat and Nimoy are still alive, and create a storyline about their saving dementia-ridden whales in the Romulan Neutral Zone whilst arranging Scotty's bagpipe funeral and going to an Emmys award ceremony for Sulu's performance in Heroes. Chekhov would provide comic interest by closing all of the British Embassy offices in Russia because of their lack of Davy Jones wigs (Brit topical satire there).

In an interesting sub-plot, Uhura would get involved with international bad-boy Justin Timberlake and they would invoke Jamesatwar's (YouTube) video "Bringing Shatner Back" for a reason for making William Shatner the new President of the USA.




Mark Wahlberg ...... Lieutenant Gary Mitchell

Zachary Quinto ...... Spock

Ray Liotta ...... Fleet-Captain Chris Pike
(Ray would be ask to lose 40 pounds)

Stephen McHattie ...... Dr. Boyce

Michelle Forbes ...... Number One
(The actress will have the same hairstyle and will be given a name)

George Clooney ...... Commodore Robert April

 

[HRHTheKING]

In very much a similar way to how Abrams is doing XI.

 

[gastrof]

MisterPL said:
...I'd set it in a non-specific future. I'd prefer not to reference any of Earth's history and wouldn't bother making up anything between the audience's era and the show's.

I always thought that was a failing...setting it in a specific era (and maybe to a lesser extent, giving dates as to when certain things happened in their history, like Khan and the supermen).

If they'd left it all vague, Trek could ALWAYS be viewed as "the future", no matter what tech breakthrus the real world did or didn't have.

Saying there'd been a big war at some time in the past with some historical records being lost was a great move that would have only helped the "non-specific future era" setting. If their tech looked dated compared to today's, the explanation would be that some things had to be reinvented.

Aside from that being incorporated into the movie (which doesn't really change anything from the existing Trek universe...it just erases any mention of specific years), I'd have left it all alone.

The movie Enterprise would look just like it did in TOS, inside and out.

The uniforms, tech, nothing would be changed except for the faces of the characters.

It worked and worked well in the ST: ENT mirror universe episode, and this new movie should have taken a cue from that.

(Before anyone starts flaming me with claims of "ENTERPRISE was a failure", I might throw in here that the mirror universe episode was shown during the season that many recognized as being of better quality than what came before. If CBS had the love of TREK that Paramount on its own did, ENTERPRISE would have been given the chance to continue, and it would have thrived. The proof was already there. CBS's move was foolish.)