If it wasn't a prequel...

[Lynx]

Honestly, I think we need a TNG-era movie more than we need a recycled TOS.

A TNG-era movie with characters from TNG, DS9 and Voyager will, if it's well-done with a well-written story and well-advertised, attract fans of those three series. It will also attract most of the fans with an interest in Star Trek and hopefully also some new fans, most likely those "newbies" who are now watching re-runs of those series all over the world.

Hopefully new fans? Do you think Abrams went to Paramount and said "I'm going to do a movie that a few existing fans will really love and hopefully will attract some new fans?"

I can't think of anything worse than wheeling out a bunch of overweight TNG, DS9 and Voyager actors for a movie designed to revamp the franchise. It would need a plot drenched in implausible fanwankery to get them together in one story, and it would cater to about 17 people (and don't start using TBBS posters as indicative of what the audience wants to see).

As someone said above, I'm only interested in this movie because it's a prequel. If they churned out Star Trek:Implausible, where Picard and B9 happen to meet Lt Paris, Neelix, Worf and Chief O'Brien just in time to save the universe from Porthos' clone, I wouldn't even pirate it, let alone go and see it, and I suspect a large number of other people would feel the same. We want something fresh and new, not a recycled contrivance from Trek's failed era.

Since I actually like TOS, even if I do like TNG, DS9 and Voyager more, I can't think of anything worse than seeing some half-decent actors try to impersonate Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the other legends. They can never be those characters in the same way as Shatner, Nimoy and the other legendary Star Trek actors could. I don't want to see a TOS movie where the interior of the ship looks more like Voyager than the Kirk era Enterprise and I don't want to see established Trek history being screwed up the same way as it was done in "Enterprise".

I don't think that the names of Kirk and Spock will attract that many new fans. To be honest, I do think that the re-runs of all the Trek series all over the world have attracted more new fans and will attract more new fans than a movie with recycled TOS characters will do.

As I've written before, it must be a very good story, a very good production and brilliant acting if this project will succeed and I'm not so sure about that because if those in charge of the project cares more for money and possible ratings than good storytellintg and good characters (not to mention the portraying of the characters), then they are on thin ice.

The solid fanbase Star Trek have is what have kept Star Trek alive, both after the demise of TOS in the 60:s and after the recent failures with "Nemesis" and another prequel, "Enterprise". If the new people in charge abandon that solid fanbase and the whole premise of Star Trek in order to attract or please potential new fans, then they will end up just like so many sell-out rock bands have done, by losing everything. The solid fanbase will turn their back to them while the newbies who might be attracted by "terrific effects" or how cute some actor is will move on to next novelty.

What did bring Star trek back to life in the 80:s was a new TOS movie with Shatner, Nimoy and the others involved. What would have happened if they had used new actors for the first movie? It would have failed and been forgotten.

The combination of using the popular TOS characters and actors for a couple of good movies followed up by a new crew in TNG was what made Star Trek big in the 80:s and 90:s. A prequel with recycled TOS characters is a step in the wrong direction.

 

[Bill Morris]

If it weren't a prequel, it could be a new story about new characters in the late 24th century, with no need for people new to Star Trek to have any knowledge of any of the previous Trek movies or series in order to understand the characters but just get to know them as the story unfolds, as one would with most movies. A new audience doesn't need to know what a phaser is. The captain says, "Fire phasers," the scene changes to show phasers firing, and the audience knows the meaning of the word. And for Trek fans, there is no need to violate canon, since there needn't be much mention of anything from past Trek. If you want Klingons, that's okay. You don't need to hang signs on them for a new audience. Just introduce them as you would a Trek alien of the week.

But there has been this assumption that having characters from the past is necessary in order to draw audiences to a Trek movie, even though most movies introduce new characters. Why not do something that is new to everybody?

 

[Michael]

That would be the same as if a record company abandoned modern technology and went back to mono recordings on 78 rpm records.

Which would be a very interesting experiment.

 

[EyalM]

But there has been this assumption that having characters from the past is necessary in order to draw audiences to a Trek movie, even though most movies introduce new characters. Why not do something that is new to everybody?

It called "Name Recognition". It's the same reason that Marvel and DC are making X-Men, Batman, Superman, Spiderman movies, one after another, instead of making up new superheroes for every new film.

 

[pookha]

I would've liked to see Harry Kim transfer to the Enterprise to take over Ops after Data was blown to bits...And promote him already! I think both Beverly and Geordi were supposed to have left the Enterprise after the movie too...Bashir as the Enterprise CMO? B'elanna as Chief Engineer?

Wow, that's gotta be a small universe.

But it's always been a small universe. How many times - across all the series - were Our Heroes the only ones close enough to deal with the crisis of the week? Sometimes it seemed the Enterprise was the only ship in all of Starfleet - or at least, the only one anything happened to.

i dont know.
a lot of times within the story another of the starships actually was on hand else where taking care of emergency while enterprise at time was serving as transport for something important and just happened to have an adventure drop on top of them.



right now the time period just before tos has more appeal to me then some post nemesis thing.

there is a lot of blank canvas when dealing with that time period.

 

[The Saint]

TNG-era series about a ship other than the Enterprise. Yeah, it's a risk, but no more of a risk than a TOS "prequel" where they refuse to use TOS (read: 1960s Trek) ethics or TOS visual design, thereby irritating TOS fans in favor of people who have known about TOS their whole lives and already aren't TOS fans...

 

[Michael]

Yeah, it's a risk, but no more of a risk than a TOS "prequel" where they refuse to use TOS (read: 1960s Trek) ethics ...

Huh, I don't understand. When was it said that they don't use "TOS ethics" (whatever that may be)?

 

[ancient]

Possibly 'design ethic'? That's the only thing that makes sense to me.