If you could choose any Director...

[Peach Wookiee]

^That could be very interesting...

 

[trevanian]

Zero Hour said:

aridas sofia said:
I'd like to see him tackle the idea of a near-utopia like that Roddenberry envisioned to be the world that sent out his starships. I'd think the same depth of thought he put into "Children of Men" would be put to good use. I can imagine that just as his dystopian film ended in hope, a utopian film might end in something very complex and unsettling.

But in that case, would it be fair or sensible to call such a beast Star Trek? Even at its creative peak, Star Trek was a tv show with a fairly limited thematic scope. The Manifest Destiny of Man in the Universe, The Superiority of Man over Machine and The Rejection of Solipsism. None of these themes are particularly unsettling (indeed, together they form more of a feel-good mantra for the Space Age), and I wouldn't expect to see (or appreciate seeing) any of them shown unchallenged in a modern piece of fiction with any real pretensions of depth.

Why drag along all the continuity and baggage of Star Trek (not to mention the rabid fanbase) to make a movie that, thematically, will have to stand on its own anyway, if it is to be worth a damn?

You don't necessarily have to drag along all that to make the movie (if you did, it would NOT be worth a damn to most.)

A deeply unsettling wrapup could resonate -- geez, the only reason besides Nancy Kovacks to watch PRIVATE LITTLE WAR is to get to that "serpents for the garden of eden" denoument, regardless of its heavyhandedness -- and it'd be great to see a TREK in that vein. Adding moral ambiguity isn't going to ruin a trekverse, just give it some depth. Hey, even BATMAN BEGINS had me sort of rooting for the antagonist, since I think Liam Neeson's POV was more valid and truthful than BW's.

The only stuff I liked in TNG was when they hinted at some darkness (man, if they'd really followed through with warp drive is bad for the environment, or done 'replication rips holes in the fabric of spacetime', sort of like the damage done to two universes by an energy system in Asimov's THE GODS THEMSELVES), and if Fontana had been allowed to do a retelling of the PUEBLO capture instead of having it funned/dumbed to ENTERPRISE INCIDENT, I'm sure that would have been viewed as a moody classic by now.

Using TREK as a springboard for other interests has been considered and attempted in the past. Phil Kaufmann's notion for how PLANET OF THE TITANS would play out is very specifically based on Olaf Stapledon's work, which, while somewhat Promethean (as in 'technology overcomes all shortcomings'), is not just trekverse stuff. And Kaufmann has mentioned in interviews that Lucas tried to buy TREK before writing SW, looking to piggyback his notions onto an already-existing universe. I kind of wished they'd done PLANET OF THE TITANS as the new film, and change it so that it was Capt April and crew. You could relaunch TOS era or something close to it without getting into all this recasting stuff.

 

[aridas sofia]

^ Oh, I definitely agree. I think there is way too much importance placed on "Kirk" and "Spock," versus the Enterprise and what a competent writer can do with it. You could have viewers wrapped up in the inner lives of new characters in ten minutes of a film if done well. Prequel? It would make much more sense as April and Pike. But hell, the Bond example must have the franchise owners in a tizzy anticipating what the same kind of reimagining can do for their stable of icons. I think they might be in for a surprise.

 

[Jeffe63]

Being that Empire Strikes Back is one of my favorite films, how about Irvin Kirschner? (WHO?) I thought he did a great job.

 

[Deleted 2]

trevanian said:
You don't necessarily have to drag along all that to make the movie (if you did, it would NOT be worth a damn to most.)

Actually, you would bring it along, whether you want to or not. By giving a movie a name, you create certain expectations, and by giving it the name of an established franchise, you give the public a standard against which to measure it.

A deeply unsettling wrapup could resonate -- geez, the only reason besides Nancy Kovacks to watch PRIVATE LITTLE WAR is to get to that "serpents for the garden of eden" denoument, regardless of its heavyhandedness -- and it'd be great to see a TREK in that vein. Adding moral ambiguity isn't going to ruin a trekverse, just give it some depth.

Ask not what such a movie could do to the Star Trek Universe, ask what use the Star Trek universe could be to such a movie.

I firmly believe that good storytelling involves tailoring the setting to the necessities of the story--not vice versa.

Star Trek's virtue was that it provided a vehicle for the dramatic interpretation of sf stories. A compromise involving the establishment of minimal and onobstructive continuity, characters and formulaic constraints in exchange for access to (relatively) vast studio budgets.

Using TREK as a springboard for other interests has been considered and attempted in the past. Phil Kaufmann's notion for how PLANET OF THE TITANS would play out is very specifically based on Olaf Stapledon's work, which, while somewhat Promethean (as in 'technology overcomes all shortcomings'), is not just trekverse stuff.

And I think that Stanislaw Lem's "Invincible" (a clever parody of militaristic sf featuring some space hardware that would undoubtedly look spiffy on the big screen) could very well be adapted into a Star Trek movie. Do I want it to be Star Trek XII? No more than I want it to be Starship Troopers IV.

The only reason why movie 'franchises' like Star Trek exist is to pander to silly audiences who want familiar characters on the big screen as well as on the small screen. The idea of this thread is to talk about an ideal situation, in which case I would prefer it if the Star Trek franchise would be allowed to rest in what dignity it has left.

 

[trevanian]

Well we agree on the last sentence, anyway. If Trek is going to be anything like the last Bond travesty (masquerading as serious while actually being as stupid as nearly the worst of those before it), I'd prefer it dead, and I certainly won't see this new version.

I think the trek universe (and, for that matter, universes like THE FIFTH ELEMENT one and the ALIEN one) all have elements that would lend themselves to different approaches, ones that would broaden them and deepen them. But going back to the same well with the same characters (with different faces) ain't it for me. It worked for me on BATMAN BEGINS because I don't really care if that restarts, since I didn't particularly enjoy any of the other films, and I found this pic to be a standalone great. But that is comparing bats and utopias.