A reboot wouldn't be for you. It would be for modern audiences.
Is a modern-day big screen reboot of TNG inevitable?
- Thread starter Shalashaska
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A reboot wouldn't be for you. It would be for modern audiences.
Would a subsequent movie after beyond set further in the future with a possible Admiral Kirk talking to a young Captain Picard be a reboot? Or just the natural progression of the alternate timeline universe? I could certainly see that happening, especially if they get enough profits to continue making the movies but not want to keep ramping up the actor's salaries with future movies. They could get Tom Hardy to play Picard and bring things full circle! 
Bingo. That's the thing about remakes and reboots that people tend to forget. They're primarily about reintroducing some old property to a new generation of viewers. If you get some carry over from nostalgic old-timers like us, that's great, but that's not really the point of the enterprise (no pun intended).
As I've observed before, about other reboots: If you fondly remember the original from Day One, you are NOT the target demographic for the reboot. We had already had the 1987 version of the show. It's tomorrow's turn now.
And that's the way it's supposed to work. One generation's nostalgia should not trump the tastes of future generations--or their ability to rework and reinvent old standards.
This is true. I only just got into Star Trek last year. Before that, all I knew about the franchise was Spock, Kirk, Vulcan hand sign, "live long and prosper"..... and that bald meme guy and the black facepalm guy.
My knowledge of TOS came from pop culture references and common knowledge, my very brief and limited knowledge of TNG and DS9 came from a couple memes on the internet.
On the other hand, why should something that appeals to a niche be dumbed down to appeal to a mainstream audience? If mainstream audiences don't like cerebral Trek, that's fine, they have a thousand other shooty explody franchises to choose from. People who like cerebral shows have slim pickings, and Star Trek being annexed by the mainstream makes them slimmer.
The new generation has their own stuff. Why do they need ours too?
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Because they aren't being dumbed down. Jesus, are you really trying to play the "Star Trek is cerebral" card? There is far more shitty, dumb Star Trek out there than there is one's that would be categorized as "cerebral".
I find it hard to be persuaded that they'd do a reboot of a spin-off.
It's far more intuitive just to do an out-and-out spin-off.
It's far more intuitive just to do an out-and-out spin-off.
The further we move away from TNG, the less likely another spin off is. Your audience is going to be comprised of more people that haven't been exposed to TNG than have.
Really? I don't think most of those kids had been born yet. People my age grew up watching TOS, and I was 17 when TNG premiered.
You beat me to the punch.
Where did I say anything about the new versions needing to be less cerebral than the old versions? We're talking about a hypothetical TNG reboot by unknown personages, which could be better, worse, or just different than the previous version. The point is that we shouldn't assume (but too often do) that reboots--be they of STAR TREK, GHOSTBUSTERS, WESTWORLD or whatever--are being produced, first and foremost, for the previous generation of fans. "But that's not my STAR TREK!" Well, of course not. It's not supposed to be.
In short, I wasn't talking about the approach or execution. I was just talking about the intended audience. And who says future audiences are doomed to be less sophisticated than we were back in the 90s? Not me.
And where's the harm of rebooting things every generation or so? Nobody is taking "your own stuff" away. There's just another version, for another audience, taking another approach. I mean, it's not like anybody is planning an eighth season of TNG anyway, so a new version wouldn't be taking anything away from the old version, which ceased production years ago.
It's weird. We're living in an era where rewatching old media is easier than ever before, but people still seem to worry that a remake is somehow going to replace or erase the previous version, instead of just being, well, another version. Why not enjoy both versions--or as many as you live long enough to see? There's no rule that says we have to pick one or the other.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that the "niche" vs. "mainstream" thing is a whole other issue. Personally, I don't think think "mainstream" is a dirty word or that STAR TREK should only be this "niche" thing that only the True Believers can appreciate, but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether we'll get a new version of TNG someday.
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Not sure if it's a "UK thing", but I disagree that the TNG crew aren't well known like the TOS characters. Maybe not QUITE as well known, but TNG was huge here in the early 1990s. It was everywhere, even on comedy shows that often ribbed popular culture (Punt & Dennis - the crew visit the Planet of the Hugh Grant People! - , Alistair McGowan's Big Impression etc).
I think Picard, Worf and Data (as well as villains like the Borg and Ferengi - both introduced via TNG) are pretty recognisable and fondly remembered.
Do I think there will be a TNG reboot? It would surprise me, and I think it unlikely, but I certainly don't think it's "out of the question" for the future.
I think Picard, Worf and Data (as well as villains like the Borg and Ferengi - both introduced via TNG) are pretty recognisable and fondly remembered.
Do I think there will be a TNG reboot? It would surprise me, and I think it unlikely, but I certainly don't think it's "out of the question" for the future.
thats how I got into star trek. My father grew up on TOS, and would watch TNG in the afternoons when we got home from school. We'd join him in his office, watch the show with him, then mom would chase us off the tv to eat dinner or play outside or whatever
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Then again, they're rebooting XENA, which was a spin-off from HERCULES . . .
And, honestly, you wouldn't need to treat a TNG reboot as a spin-off. Just do a new STAR TREK series just that happens to star new versions of Picard and Data and that crowd, off in a space on a mission, having adventures. You wouldn't have to necessarily tie it to any particular version of TOS, aside from maybe the occasional "Easter Egg." It could work as a standalone series in its own right, as opposed to a spin-off from some iteration of TOS.
I'm of the same opinion. Picard, Data and Worf along with the Borg and the Ferengi are just as well known as Kirk, Spock, Bones, etc. in my neck of the woods. I'm surprised to hear they're apparently forgotten in the rest of the world. I did see a Saturday Night Live sketch last year that featured Worf and was pretty on point with the inclusion of stuff like the Klingon death cry. TNG has appeared several times on Family Guy also. There was an entire episode with the whole cast of TNG playing themselves. It seems America hasn't forgotten TNG but I don't live there so I can't be sure.
I have always found it strange when people say TNG is forgotten. Science fiction fans seem like the type to seek out old tv shows. I have a hard time believing anyone who values sci-fi would not have watched TNG and the other spin offs at some point.
One thing that I don't think people credit the Abramsverse movies with enough is the way in which they went back to brass tacks with a lot of the mythology, even incorporating aspects of the characters' histories that were evident in the 60s Star Trek bibles but which were never used as story points back in the day.
TNG likewise has a lot of untapped potential in the cast dynamic as established in the very beginning: Tasha Yar as the troubled chief of security with all her dark past and emotional hang-ups, Worf and Geordi as wet-behind-the-ears junior officers, Riker and Troi and their mixed up relationship, Picard and Beverly and the captain's guilt over the death of her husband and his own feelings for her, Data facing some degree of bigotry as the only 'synthetic lifeform' in Starfleet.... there's a lot of character stuff to be mined there which was never fully played with in either the TNG series or the movies. Or, at least, could be used in new and surprisingly different ways.
So a similarly back-to-basics approach to TNG could, alongside different interpretations on the regular characters brought by a cast of new actors, have potential to make the series sing. I guess the 'potential' is there.
TNG likewise has a lot of untapped potential in the cast dynamic as established in the very beginning: Tasha Yar as the troubled chief of security with all her dark past and emotional hang-ups, Worf and Geordi as wet-behind-the-ears junior officers, Riker and Troi and their mixed up relationship, Picard and Beverly and the captain's guilt over the death of her husband and his own feelings for her, Data facing some degree of bigotry as the only 'synthetic lifeform' in Starfleet.... there's a lot of character stuff to be mined there which was never fully played with in either the TNG series or the movies. Or, at least, could be used in new and surprisingly different ways.
So a similarly back-to-basics approach to TNG could, alongside different interpretations on the regular characters brought by a cast of new actors, have potential to make the series sing. I guess the 'potential' is there.
I hope it's not inevitable (or definitely not if it's done in the JJverse), as it just reeks of lack of imagination, especially so soon after the TOS films.
If it was an actual reboot, where the PTB actually took chances and made big changes to the show then I'd get more behind it. Simply just making the characters "younger and sexier" really wouldn't hold any appeal for me.
If it was an actual reboot, where the PTB actually took chances and made big changes to the show then I'd get more behind it. Simply just making the characters "younger and sexier" really wouldn't hold any appeal for me.
Said every old man, ever (including me). GET OFF MY LAWN!
The actual TNG movies struggled so I can't see a new look-a-like cast doing much better. Also, it seems somewhat silly to recast it when all the TNG cast are alive, fit and healthy (and available for work).
I think it's much more likely that, should the new TV series be a success, see that appear as a movie eventually. And then another TV series will be produced to replace that ad infinitum.
I think it's much more likely that, should the new TV series be a success, see that appear as a movie eventually. And then another TV series will be produced to replace that ad infinitum.
I don't think we'll see it with the Abramsverse. But if Trek were to get completely rebooted from the ground up in such a way as how DC's TV universe is different from it's film universe, but both draw on the core comics concepts, I think we might see 24th century characters again.
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