If You were Making Star Trek?

[Saito S]

TOS also had a modicum of intelligence. Abrams left that out too.

I see this sentiment a lot from those who didn't like the movie. And it brings back something I've been thinking for a while now.

Yes, TOS had "a modicum of intelligence" that was, I will admit, not fully present in STXI. So did TNG and DS9. Hell, even Voyager at its best had this certain depth to it, a feeling that the show could at times be more than simple entertainment. Abrams' movie didn't really have that. But you know what? NONE of the previous Trek movies had it in any great quantity, either. The only one that even aimed for something like that was TMP, and while its concepts were impressive, the movie itself was a boring, convoluted, melodramatic, slower-than-malfunctioning-maneuvering-thrusters mess (IMO, of course... others might love it, but it wasn't exactly a critical success, which spurred them to move in a different direction for TWOK). All nine of the movies that followed lacked a certain subtlety, a certain nuanced depth, either relating to emotion, morality, politics, science, whatever... It's something that all of the Trek shows had when at their best (as do the novels at THEIR best, actually), but that the movies discarded (for the most part, anyway; there are flashes of it here and there in some of the movies, but not to nearly the degree that it exists in the shows). That's why I never view the movies as the "primary" Trek storytelling vehicle, but as big, fun, action romp fests that were never meant to have the depth of the shows. To me, Abrams' movie was no better or worse than most of the others in that regard. All that separates the various Trek movies is simple quality of execution, and they certainly are not all on the same level there (and there is certainly no consensus on these boards as to which ones are good and which ones aren't). I feel that Abrams' movie can comfortably hang just below the top tier of Trek movies.

Enough prequels and reboots. A completely new series set about 200 years after Nemesis, when even the longest-lived Vulcan who was an adult in any previous story has been dust for decades.

While my own story ideas aren't set nearly that far ahead, this is still an intriguing concept. The only problem with jumping that far into the future relative to TNG is that you start to wonder if it makes sense to even show humans (and other humanoids) in a way that allows us to relate to them. I can't remember who or in what thread, but someone mentioned that any Trek story set far enough ahead after TNG (anything in the realm of 100 years or more) would need to introduce some element of transhumanism, or a fundamental change of SOME sort to how humanoid species exist and interact with the universe, and I tend to agree.

For budget reasons the show would be animated rather than live action... The Federation would exist, but with quantum drive so that they could visit any inhabited planet in the galaxy within a reasonable travel time, say a year from one end of the galaxy to the other.

Instead of traditional animation, I would do full CG. Everything; ships, backgrounds, effects, people. Avatar and FFVII: AC have shown that it's possible to do so and have it look really good these days, so I'd go that route over animation. Nothing against hand-drawn animation, mind you; I'm a fan of it. But I don't think it works too well for Trek. Never did. The blend of realism and stylization that one can achieve with high-end CG would be perfect, I think.
Funny you mention it taking a year to cross the galaxy. Based on some travel time figures in one of the Destiny trilogy books, I calculated out roughly how long it would take to cross from one side of the galaxy to the other via the quantum slipstream drive (which, later in the book, was successfully field-tested), and came up with just over one year.

First, just because you don't like it and call it the "Fuglyprise" doesn't make that so.

No it doesn't, any more than you saying it ISN'T "fugly" makes that so. Aesthetics are purely opinion. I don't like that ship very much either.

If I were going to do Trek, I'd like the ship to have some believability and a chance of being accepted as a real spacecraft - and that, frankly, means no more oldTrek stuff.

McQuarrie's probably isn't the way to go, but at least it's a start.

I see absolutely nothing in that ship you linked to that is in any way more believable or realistic than most Trek ships. It's just yet another variant on the Trek ship concept.

And what the heck does that even mean? What relevance do believability and realism have on the external VISUAL design of a space ship designed and built by the combined technical know-how of over a hundred fictional species that can travel FTL via a fictional method of propulsion, in a story set over 300 years (or over 200 years, for those of you who prefer 23rd century Trek ) from now? As long as a ship looks believable within the parameters of the universe it exists in, what's the problem?

Get the people who worked on Avatar in and ask them to design, you know, a spaceship that looks like it would work and see what they can come up with.

I question the idea that getting the people who worked on Avatar to work on Trek would somehow be such a great idea. Sure, it was a benchmark in visual effects. But the story was laughably simplistic, and as for vehicles (putting aside the mecha; hardly an exercise in believable realism, that), most were simply based on real vehicles, just extrapolated out in a logical way so that they looked appropriate to the future time-frame of the film. Given that Trek has always had vehicle designs that depart quite radically from real vehicles, how would looking to Avatar for future starship designs make any sense?

Either do something really different and more plausible or just leave the damned Franchise alone. Stop pretending that 1964 represents a gold standard that the studio should throw money at and that audiences should genuflect to. Abrams is already making excellent Star Trek within the broad confines of Trek and I don't think the studio needs fans mucking about with the minutiae.

I don't think 1964 is a gold standard, personally. The best parts of Trek IMO are not TOS-related. But - even though Warped9 and I don't agree on whether or not STXI was good, or true to Trek (and I'm SURE he and I don't agree on what the best parts of pre-Abrams Trek are ), I agree with him on this concept: if you are going to change EVERYTHING, if you are going to take the attitude "There is nothing (or almost nothing) about 'oldTrek' that's worth keeping around going forward", then why do Trek? (Using "Trek" in this case to mean the whole franchise, not just TOS). If the only way to keep it alive, to keep it going, to keep it popular, is to move SO FAR from what Trek "is" (granted, there are different interpretations of what exactly Trek "is" in the first place), then what's the point? Is the end goal simply to ensure that SOMETHING, ANYTHING with the name "Star Trek" remains in current production?

 

[Warped9]

Is the end goal simply to ensure that SOMETHING, ANYTHING with the name "Star Trek" remains in current production?

For some this likely quite true.

You're right that many of the previous films didn't have much more intelligence than Abrams' work. I've long thought that the bulk of the films (primarily the TOS derived ones) got by mostly on the charm and performance of the main characters. And I don't think the TNG films even had that.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Abrams's movie is easily as intelligent as most of TOS. It's not as didactic, and a lot of TOS fans are accustomed to being spoonfed theme and message in the most heavy-handed of ways. Roddenberry never met a subtext that he didn't think should be explicitly verbalized by his characters, however clumsily.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I question the idea that getting the people who worked on Avatar to work on Trek would somehow be such a great idea. Sure, it was a benchmark in visual effects. But the story was laughably simplistic, and as for vehicles (putting aside the mecha; hardly an exercise in believable realism, that), most were simply based on real vehicles, just extrapolated out in a logical way so that they looked appropriate to the future time-frame of the film. Given that Trek has always had vehicle designs that depart quite radically from real vehicles, how would looking to Avatar for future starship designs make any sense?

Because even with the considerable updating and improvements made by Abrams's team, nothing in Star Trek actually looks real. Ships, equipment, clothing and equippage, weapons and environment in Avatar do look real. I'm saying that I wouldn't bother "making Star Trek" at all unless it could be made over, again, working from the premise that it should seem like something that could be real to people who watch it and have never given a moment's thought to Star Trek.

Avatar has simply set the bar for envisioning a space-going future way higher than Star Trek in its current incarnation can probably reach. You know, before 2001: A Space Odyssey came out the ship designs in TOS were about as sophisticated as any that had been done for TV or movies. After 2001...well, look at any significant film made in the generation after 2001 and see whose designs everyone copied (it wasn't Trek).

 

[AlexR]

Because even with the considerable updating and improvements made by Abrams's team, nothing in Star Trek actually looks real.

I'm biased, of course, but in some ways I think TOS looks *more* real than what Abrams did, allowing for the era it was made and the respective budgets. I'd still have changed stuff, myself, to put it on the big screen, just not the way that Abrams and Chambliss did. Obviously those types of debates devolve pretty quickly into personal aesthetics, though.

Ships, equipment, clothing and equippage, weapons and environment in Avatar do look real.

I loved the production design of Avatar, and I completely agree with you on the reality of it. But unlike Trek, which was set farther into the relative future and also imagined a technological advancement curve much higher than reality is supporting, Avatar is much more grounded in today's physics and the tech that goes along with it.

I'm saying that I wouldn't bother "making Star Trek" at all unless it could be made over, again, working from the premise that it should seem like something that could be real to people who watch it and have never given a moment's thought to Star Trek.

I think that, specific design "look" notwithstanding, a big part of the realism aspect also comes from how the characters act within the environment. In Trek, be it TOS or ST09, the characters acted like their environment was real *to them*, and that goes a long way toward establishing its reality for the audience.

I'd like to see Trek use more holography, though (real holography, not VOY-style, which showed just how little the writers understood it ). TNG started down that path, but apparently it was too expensive at the time to portray. STIII hinted at it, too, but only in one fleeting shot.

Avatar has simply set the bar for envisioning a space-going future way higher than Star Trek in its current incarnation can probably reach.

Maybe, but it also spent about 4 times as much money. To be fair, ST09 did a really good job of putting its vision on the screen, better than any Trek film since TMP. TMP actually had it solidly beat on the realism factor, though, thanks to folks like Andrew Probert.

You know, before 2001: A Space Odyssey came out the ship designs in TOS were about as sophisticated as any that had been done for TV or movies. After 2001...well, look at any significant film made in the generation after 2001 and see whose designs everyone copied (it wasn't Trek).

I think Trek's look became so iconic that to copy it too closely was to immediately invite comparisons, and a lot of producers at the time were trying to avoid those. For 2001, though, a lot of it was also reflective of a perception of the future that was less idiosyncratic and more broad-based, so it was easier for other productions to echo that without "looking" like they were copying directly from 2001.

I'll say one thing, though. I'm sort of glad that the '70s version of "Phase II" didn't happen, 'cause its production design, based on the drawings and early set shots, looked very '70s, even more so than TOS looked '60s, and even I would probably replace the Burke chairs in an update of the TOS bridge.

Best,
Alex

 

[T'Girl]

Tell the story of the Eugenics War from the perspective of a regular person watching it happen or tell the story of the Romulan War from the perspective of primarily the Romulans- just something different.

Made me remember the great mini series Winds of War / War and Remembrance. Would be a good general format to tell the story of the Eugenics War. Tell not just the story of the eugenic supermen, but also political climate that let them seize power in the early-mid nineties. Start the series in the nineteen fifties. Do the whole thing as alternate history.

Do the Romulan War as a straight military action-drama (too bad Hollywood sucks at real military movies), Think Space Above And Beyond and Blackhawk Down, not Starship Troopers or The Hurt Locker.
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If a new series, things I'd keep and change and delete:

1) Slipstream only in natural pathways. For plot reasons often in the wrong places.

2) Make the Federation more of a loose confederacy, better for story telling.

3) Low speed warp drive (wf4 or wf5) is cheap and easy, civilian shipping is everywhere. Faster is harder, big engines.

4) Get rid of most of canon, start fresh. Better for story telling. Keep maybe the stuff from first season of TOS.

5) Set the series (with Kirk?) further in the future that the 23rd century, more time for back stories. 26th or 27th century.

6) Our heroes lose sometime, sometimes badly.

7) Like Baylon Five have long and short story arcs. Occasional comedy.

8) Junk "modern secular liberalism." Sure a few of our characters still embrace this, but most of the characters are a diverse group in terms of their beliefs.

9) Yes more aliens, they will be alien through the actors portrayals, not elaborate make-up.

10) The series won't be about tech, however the tech that's shown makes sense. Same for science.

11) The crew has families, just not aboard with them. There are married couples.

YES: money, religion, politics, capitalism, ten forward, diversity.
NO: ubiquitous replicators, post-scarcity abundance.

Not sure just how "military" the show would be. I think today's audience might accept a more traditional military command structure. Or just stay with the para-military ranks we've seen.

Some of the things listed above come down to "Better For Storytelling."

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Trek is not a certain species, look for the spaceships, plotline, time period or technology. It is a certain view of the proper political alignment for all sentient species.

Holy Shit, Babylon 5 was Star Trek?

B5 was too cynical about humanity to be Star Trek (and I'm sure that was deliberate - why would JMS want to make a Star Trek spinoff?) Part of the political makeup of Star Trek is a certain goopy optimism of tone which is highly unfashionable and therefore Star Trek has little to fear from copycats. B5 never argued that the universe would be better off under the benign imperial control of humanity-led secular liberal democracy, or if it did, it sure whooshed right over my head.

The closest thing to Star Trek in tone is probably the Stargate TV series, but since that's present-day, it's still distinctive from Star Trek. Those shows come off more as a poor imitation of Star Trek than anything else.

Ironically, J.J. Abrams said it best: “I figure if you re-imagine something you should just imagine something else." Shame he lacked the courage of that conviction.

He was honest enough. He kept the core of Trek, which is essentially, "the early 60s notion of modern secular liberalism, as embodied by Starfleet, conquers the universe." As long as you keep that element, you can drag it hither an yon and still be Trek. A lot of the re-imagining ideas have no political element, so it's hard to judge whether they would stay true to the core of Trek or ignore/destroy it. Trek is not a certain species, look for the spaceships, plotline, time period or technology. It is a certain view of the proper political alignment for all sentient species.

TOS also had a modicum of intelligence. Abrams left that out too.

A long-form TV series will always be able to have more intelligent content than a two hour movie that is expected to take up at least and hour and a half with wham-bang action. Abrams could invest a Star Trek TV series with plenty of intelligence simply because he'd have more time to work with. It's futile to expect summer blockbuster movies to be anything more than mildly smart.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I heartedly disagree. I could name any number of films with action and humour that also exhibited intelligence that didn't detract one whit from the experience.

In like manner I can look at previous Trek films and easily see that (quoting Don ADams) just "missed it by that much."

In Abrams' case he missed it by a freaking mile. This argument will simply go back-and-forth with not one side ever being able to see the other. Many embrace Abrams' work while I and others cannot stand one single frame of it.

I think a lot of folks look at TOS as something mediocre that occasionally rises above that level, and therefore they think ST09 isn't far off the mark. I see TOS as something that got it right far more often than it got it wrong, and that's the bar I would have aimed for.

When I look at what Sam Raimi did for Spider-Man, particularly the first two films. The movie appealed to a broad audience that only got Spidey as a webslinging superhero. But Raimi got it and understood why many of us love Spider-Man. The same goes for Chris Nolan's general approach to Batman. The same goes for Casino Royale and the current portrayal of 007. The same goes for the Bourne trilogy spun off the original books.

TMP and TWoK tried to aim higher in the general sensibility of TOS. And one can fairly say that each goofed in some respect, but they each made the effort in their own ways.

Abrams' film aimed lower. It took its sensibilities from when TOS generally got it wrong and parlayed that as if it were the norm. And that's why I have zero respect for him as a filmmaker and storyteller at least in respect to Trek.

I loved TOS and Star Trek when it aimed higher to rise above sci-fi conventions. Abrams spoofed and parodied TOS and Star Trek in the grand tradition of VOY and ENT, Trek and its nadir.

Over the years I've criticized TWoK for many of the mistakes I see in it while acknowledging its pacing, its energy and the calibre of the cast's performance are the film's strengths. All ST09 has for it is pacing and energy and practically nothing else.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I loved the production design of Avatar, and I completely agree with you on the reality of it. But unlike Trek, which was set farther into the relative future and also imagined a technological advancement curve much higher than reality is supporting, Avatar is much more grounded in today's physics and the tech that goes along with it.

Which is the direction that I'd want Star Trek to go in order for it to be anything more interesting than the kind of nostalgic space opera that it's long since become.

The basic design and look of TOS was largely settled at a point when the producers and designers had not, in fact, settled on whether the series took place many centuries from 1964 or simply many decades - it wasn't intended to project a "far future" look so much as it was designed to suggest something several generations beyond equipment used at that time while remaining within a fixed construction and costuming budget. So rethinking Trek design to be as plausible and nearly as contemporary as Avatar doesn't limit the story potential of a new version of Trek in any particular way - the other part of my initial suggestion was to jettison everything about Trek that followed the earliest developments and build it forward from that again. The Enterprise is an interstellar vessel and there's a thriving Earth colonial culture out in the galaxy, along with frequent encounters with alien life - but who says it's three centuries hence and not two? Or one?

Another thing I'd do is exile all alien species that can be played by human beings wearing make-up. The Vulcans would be somewhat "grandfathered in," for Spock's sake - but if we ever got around to having other Vulcans show up they might well be a great deal less like human beings than Spock. And we'd explain that as necessary.

And of course someone more interested in the Star Trek universe than I wouldn't give this answer to the question "how would you make Star Trek?" But this is still my answer.

 

[Shazam!]

I don't think Star Trek looks futuristic enough. The last thing I want is Star Trek grounded in gritty realism and the familiar.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, we're not going to get that anyway. Abrams's version is a lot more futuristic looking than the 1990s TV version (or the 1990s TV-derived movie version). So there you go.

 

[indolover]

I would have the following:

- set in the 25th century, about 50 or 60 years after Nemesis
- newer races, and less Klingons, Ferengi, Cardassians etc. More Romulans, Tzenkethi, etc.
- A non-American actor captain. An alien XO. No Vulcans in the senior staff, an Andorian and Tellerite in the staff.
- Romulans, Federation and Klingons sign as alliance treaty, and the enemy is the Tzenkethi. Tzenkethi from the future say that the Romulans, Federation and Klingons would unite to form one power, and destroy the Tzenkethi homeworld.

If anything, the XO should be Romulan.

 

[Maurice]

McQuarrie's Enterprise design would be a good jumping-off place for thinking about what the ship should look like in any new incarnation - there's a guy who's done a wonderful elaboration of it over at www.scifi-meshes.com. I'll post the link but unfortunately you have to be a member to see most of the images:

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?73811-Planet-of-the-Titans-Enterprise

The images on the site linked don't show up if you're not logged in (a member).

The McQuarrie wide-prise variation of Ken Adam's designs isn't as attractive as the narrower one that appears in most of Adam's sketches. IMO of course.

 

[Warped9]

Well, we're not going to get that anyway. Abrams's version is a lot more futuristic looking than the 1990s TV version (or the 1990s TV-derived movie version). So there you go.

But if falls way behind what TMP managed to do. TMP is still the most futuristic looking of all the Trek works even if one doesn't care for its aesthetics.

 

[Anji]

No reboot. No young Kirk. No older Riker. None of that stuff. What's been filmed is filmed and I would only use the original actors in their original roles.

Sorry. I can't get past that.

What I would focus on would be major battles or steps in the development of the Federation. All new characters but plots still based on cannon.

Yep, I still go by cannon.

 

[Warped9]

^^ It's canon.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The McQuarrie wide-prise variation of Ken Adam's designs isn't as attractive as the narrower one that appears in most of Adam's sketches. IMO of course.

That's funny, I feel the opposite - never liked Adam's take on it as much as McQuarrie's couple of color renderings.

 

[Shazam!]

Well, we're not going to get that anyway. Abrams's version is a lot more futuristic looking than the 1990s TV version (or the 1990s TV-derived movie version).

Kind of, and in someways I agree but certain things [relative to the technology at the time] fall waaay behind even the 60s show. For a start the nacelles on the new ship look more like your standard spaceship rocket boosters.

 

[Shazam!]

What I would focus on would be major battles or steps in the development of the Federation.

I really don't get this at all. Ideas like this sound like the dullest show in the world.

 

[skep155]

What do I want to see? “Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.” It’s going to be in the Abram’s verse, right now they will run with whatever can make them money. I have no specific ideas but I’ll throw some suggestions out there.

In TNG there was an episode where they discovered that many species throughout the Galaxy share a common ancestor, and that an ancient race seeded many words with life billions of years ago. Where did they go? Although the original species were Humanoid, it would be interesting if it were discovered that they would later grow and evolve into what we know as ‘the Q’. Over billions of years this advancement eventually made them lose their ‘humanity’, and caused them to look upon the rest of the Galaxy with cold apathy, knowing that they are ultimately responsible for most of what has unfolded.

I think it would be appropriate to include Section 31 in the new series, given current events in the world. I had an idea for a story about an attempt to stop a Doomsday Machine from destroying a planet, but during the process Section 31 attempt to ‘hijack’ the weapon so they can use it to further Federation interests. Might make for a good ‘pre-emptive strike’ on the Klingon Home world if relations are getting a little tense.

What about that star that’s going to go boom and destroy Romulus in a few hundred years? I can’t see Section 31 wanting the Romulan’s to find out about that. All they have to do is bide their time and the Romulan Empire is out of the way….if they can prevent the secret from getting out. Older Spock and Kirk would need to be ‘silenced’.