If "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" had been the last classic-era film

[fireproof78]

For the TOS crew, it did.

In retrospect, I prefer the open ending of the previous 2 movies.

I mean, I found TUC to be open ended aside from the Enterprise's decommissioning. There is still plenty of room for adventure in that ending. I'm guessing "open ended" here means "They clearly are still on the Starship Enterprise."

Which is not the only adventure available to this crew.

 

[Oddish]

No Star Trek "why does God need a starship" V. And no underwhelming Kirk death in "Generations"... tempting.

I remember being very worried when I heard they were making a fourth Toy Story movie. TS3's ending was just SO satisfying... but from what I heard, it was a worthy follow up. But all too often, they've made a sequel and simply desecrated the original on the process.

 

[dupersuper]

For the TOS crew, it did.

In retrospect, I prefer the open ending of the previous 2 movies.

Not for me: the lost era novels, McCoy, Spock, Scotty and Sarek in TNG, Kirks Klingon adversaries in DS9, Checkov and Uhura in Renegades stuff, Checkov as temporal agent in Star Trek Online, Sulu hinted at in a DS9 novel, Scotty in Shield of Tomorrow, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Arex and M'Ress in Return of Kirk novels, New Frontier novels and others...

I love the expanded universe.

 

[Phoenix219]

So an addendum to my fake TOS-as-TNG outline from this thread .....

Pulaski as the doctor. But she is Joanna McCoy. Still keep Wesley as the young cadet to give Kirk baggage, but DeForest may have only been up for a part time gig, so the full time doctor could have been Muldar as his progeny.

 

[Phoenix219]

I still wish this movie had launched a shatner lead TV revival in '87 instead of next-gen.....

 

[thribs]

I still wish this movie had launched a shatner lead TV revival in '87 instead of next-gen.....

That would have been interesting but you wouldn't have Nimoy in it. He was done with doing TV by that point.

 

[Phoenix219]

That would have been interesting but you wouldn't have Nimoy in it. He was done with doing TV by that point.

That's ok. He may have changed his mind again, but if not, his once a year guest appearance (like he did on Fringe) would have been legendary, and there still could have been Data to take his place. A lot of NG could have still worked - blind helmsmen, first Klingon officer, Kirk dealing with having cadets/children/families/Wesley on board so soon after the loss of David, etc. Hopefully the show could have started with most of the original cast, and slowly replaced them as their ages and health declined. Not sure if Doohan or Kelly had much on the tank, or if Takei would have been ok delaying his fake Captaincy longer, but I would gladly trade 7 seasons of rng for 3 more with the movie era original cast.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But imagine this scenario: TNG starts with the Enterprise-A being retired after twenty years of service, and her replacement, the Enterprise-B, is revealed (the same model that we got in TNG, just with a "B" instead of a "D"). We see Kirk and crew for one final mission before the baton is passed to Picard and the Ent-B crew.

Nah. Roddenberry had determined that he wanted a deliberate time gap ("78 years since the days of Kirk and Spock...") specifically to avoid the writers attempting crossovers with TOS. The only Vulcans we see in "Encounter at Farpoint" are extras as crew members. The ship is going beyond known Federation space (until essentially turned back by Q, despite the episode ending with the idea that the original mission was back on track). The aliens we would meet in TNG were supposed to be all-new. It was only after DC Fontana added the great McCoy scene that GR relented somewhat. And then, reluctantly, Worf was added in as bridge crew - but he wasn't even mentioned in the Season One Writers' Bible, just a reference to the current political situation between the two powers.

As GR predicted - and even "The Naked Now" was probably too much of a callback to TOS, setting a precedent - the show was soon doing numerous other TOS crossovers, eg. "Sarek".

 

[publiusr]

What with Deep Fake…NFTs and What If stories…I think storytelling will be more and more personal.

I would have the last scene be a TOS style 1701-A…not hiding behind Excelsior…but in the TMP dry dock just outside the door of the mushroom space dock:

“Don’t be fooled by her looks—we are going back to circumferential designs…but she’s all new.”

Fan efforts might even take the lead in small circles. A group might retcon Insurrection into Star Trek V’s place. So the crew get the refit along with the ship. Maybe more than the whales are restored.

Something quite beautiful can be had as a “final” movie adventure to where you can imagine that they are still out there…

 

[ichab]

TUC is my favorite Trek film and had a great send off so...yes. I'm glad four wasn't the ending.

 

[Falconer]

I wonder if there were many people in the audience who hadn’t seen the previous three films, but wanted to see The Voyage Home because (based on the title) they thought it was THE end of THE mission which had been going on since TOS.

 

[Oddish]

I wonder if there were many people in the audience who hadn’t seen the previous three films, but wanted to see The Voyage Home because (based on the title) they thought it was THE end of THE mission which had been going on since TOS.

If they did, fine and dandy. ST IV was one of the few Trek films that was good enough that even a non-Trekkie could enjoy themselves.

 

[Bad Robot]

I wonder if there were many people in the audience who hadn’t seen the previous three films, but wanted to see The Voyage Home because (based on the title) they thought it was THE end of THE mission which had been going on since TOS.

Ohbl... maybe? Perhaps if you got into the re-runs more recently than the earlier films had come out?

I think more likely, if you were a casual fan and had dropped out on some of the movies (like perhaps you sat out The Search for Spock because it was unclear whether Nimoy would be IN the film), you went to this one because word-of-mouth said it was the one to see.

 

[Oddish]

Just had a thought... instead of flying back to the future with only two whales (OK, three, Gracie is pregnant), Kirk and company stay in the past and fly around the earth and blast every whaling ship that they find into flotsam with the Bounty's disruptors. Whales never go extinct, and the probe never bothers Earth. Plus, you know, no Star Trek V. And no "Kirk the afterthought" in Generations.

Perfect way to end the series at Star Trek IV. Just sayin'.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Just had a thought... instead of flying back to the future with only two whales (OK, three, Gracie is pregnant), Kirk and company stay in the past and fly around the earth and blast every whaling ship that they find into flotsam with the Bounty's disruptors. Whales never go extinct, and the probe never bothers Earth. Plus, you know, no Star Trek V. And no "Kirk the afterthought" in Generations.

Perfect way to end the series at Star Trek IV. Just sayin'.

While that might seem a good idea, it would have messed with the timeline. Not to mention it might’ve started WWIII early.

 

[Oddish]

While that might seem a good idea, it would have messed with the timeline. Not to mention it might’ve started WWIII early.

Good points. But one, Trek timelines are very hard to mess with. Look at First Contact... most of Zephram Cochrane's ground crew were slaughtered en masse by the Borg, but nothing changed. Not like they were the parents of any Starfleet pioneers or anything...

As for WWIII, they just stay cloaked, stay low when decloaking, and only blow up whaling ships. Everyone will figure they're a radical arm of Greenpeace.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Good points. But one, Trek timelines are very hard to mess with. Look at First Contact... most of Zephram Cochrane's ground crew were slaughtered en masse by the Borg, but nothing changed. Not like they were the parents of any Starfleet pioneers or anything...

Well, we don't know that, really. A number of things could have changed. "Regeneration" on Enterprise showed us a group of scientists who found the remnants of the Borg sphere and some bodies left behind from their attack. These scientists were assimilated, left Earth and were killed when this didn't happen to them before. Enterprise was invaded with Borg tech, Phlox was infected with Borg nanoprobes and had analyzed them. They had data. Plus they discovered that the assimilated scientists sent a message into Borg space and knew an invasion could be coming in the 24th century. This knowledge could have changed a lot of things. When you consider the next Star Trek movie after this episode was the 2009 reboot, we have no idea what was altered. The USS Kelvin was more advanced than the original series Enterprise and while that was just a production choice in the real world, in universe, this could be the reason: all those years of data and preparation. Even if not, since there weren't any new TV shows until recently, nobody has touched on the Borg invasion and the timeline incursion. There could be lots of changes, they just wouldn't have affected the episodes and films prior to it. They took place in the earlier timeline.

 

[USS Fardell]

Inspired by the TOS as TNG idea I came up with this:

Star Trek: The Continuing Adventures
1st Season
1987 - 1988
Cast
William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Walter Keonig as Commander Pavel Chekov
DeForest Kelly as Doctor Leonard McCoy
Diana Muldur as Doctor Joanna McCoy
James Doohan as Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott
Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Commander Nyota Uhura
Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data.
Levar Burton as Ensign Geordi La Forge
Wil Wheaton as Cadet Wesley Crusher
Denise Crosby as Counselor Deanna Troi (given that she was originally hired for the Troi role in our reality)

Encounter at Farpoint
Much the same as in our reality, written by Fontana, and 'expanded upon' by Roddenberry. More on Roddenberry's involvement in TCA, as compared to TNG, later.

Encounter at Farpoint guest stars
Leonard Nimoy as Ambassador in Training Spock
Mark Leonard as Ambassador Sarek
George Takei as Captain Hikaru Sulu of the Excelsior
John De Lancie as Q.

 

[Oddish]

The Good: A better bridge than "Generations".
The Bad: No Picard.

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

Nothing after the end of TVH?

I'd miss the campfire scenes from V, and the Sulu stuff from VI. But I personally have little use for the rest of those movies.