Larry Niven's "The Pastel Terror" Would Have Been Trek 5

[JamesSmith]

What if Larry Niven's unmade Star Trek episode "The Pastel Terror" was made as Star Trek V, with the destruction of the Enterprise-A in Enterprise-D destruction in Generations style. Then in Star Trek VI, Kirk would have commanded the USS Enterprise-B.

 

[Kegek]

Not familiar with this episode concept beyond that post, I think blowing up the Enterprise would be totally redundant in TFF. They'd just got it back!

But I'm sure there are many ways the plot could have been improved, and pillaging the vault of unmade scripts might have been one of them. Kitumba, anyone? (Yes, besides TGT).

 

[Deleted 2]

^ Not sure I'd qualify Kitumba as a kind of treasure trove of interesting or even particularly good story ideas.

 

[JamesSmith]

The Enterprise-A would encounter the Pastel Beast and separated the saucer section, later it crashes to the planet like on Generations.

 

[blockaderunner]

I don't know. Whenever I hear the title "The Pastel Terror", I envision a rogue member of LGTB Alliance going militant and destroying any and all homophobes in his/her path.

 

[Kegek]

Zero Hour said:
^ Not sure I'd qualify Kitumba as a kind of treasure trove of interesting or even particularly good story ideas.

As one of the few unproduced feature-length scripts attached to the Star Trek project, though, it seemed like a natural choice. Rewriting would need to be done, but it wouldn't have to be expanded with subplots or whatever.

 

[Christopher]

Why do so many people start threads that are proposing hypotheticals or questions and give those threads titles that sound like declarative statements of fact? It's very misleading and very annoying. Many's the time I've seen a thread that looked like it was revealing or announcing something startling, and then I come in to learn more and it's just somebody posing a hypothetical. Do people do this on purpose to trick people into opening their threads, or is it just poor grammar? Maybe the OP said "Would" when he meant "Could" or "Should?"


Anyway, here's a summary of the Niven proposal:

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/pastel_terror.htm

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Why read the summary, when you can read the whole of Niven's outline for "The Pastel Terror"?

 

[Kegek]

Ah. From Allyn Gibson's link:

((The show would take at least two hours. Possibly three.))

I begin to see the point about this being a potential film idea...

 

[Valin]

I like Larry Niven's novels and short stories, but "Pastel" just didn't seem right as a Star Trek episode/film.

 

[Kirby]

Interesting idea. The title sucks, but overall I kinda like the story.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Christopher said:
Why do so many people start threads that are proposing hypotheticals or questions and give those threads titles that sound like declarative statements of fact? It's very misleading and very annoying. Many's the time I've seen a thread that looked like it was revealing or announcing something startling, and then I come in to learn more and it's just somebody posing a hypothetical. Do people do this on purpose to trick people into opening their threads, or is it just poor grammar? Maybe the OP said "Would" when he meant "Could" or "Should?"


Anyway, here's a summary of the Niven proposal:

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/pastel_terror.htm

I must agree with you. I've been teased and let down a few times with titles like "Pictures of J.J Abram's Enterprise!" then the post says " Where can I see them?"
All you need is a bloody question mark in the title!
Heck, I'm so nice that when I ask a question I even use the question mark Post Icon!

 

[aridas sofia]

I swear, every time I read that synopsis for "The Pastel Terror" I think Larry Niven must have been joking. Spock "beats up" Kirk. Kirk says Spock needs to "seduce" as many human women as possible. Man -- if you wanted to explore the sillier consequences of logical thinking, you couldn't do much better than this. It's like three "Spock's Brains" strung end to end, even to the point of having a deus ex machina. That doesn't however, save the ship.

Wow.

 

[Therin of Andor]

^ It is the same man who wrote the wonderful Superman article, "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex".

And speaking of weird Niven titles, his LA Times syndicated newspaper comic strip follow-up to his TAS episode ("The Counter-clock incident"), and featuring the return of the kzinti, was called "The Wristwatch Plantation".

 

[ChristopherPike]

I assume with a title like "The Pastel Terror", they'd be no need to repaint any of TNG's sets before shooting?

"Dammit Jim! It's the soothing paint scheme in this corridor... I nearly drifted off there for a second."

 

[Jack Bauer]

So this is the Star Trek/Miami Vice crossover film?

 

[Peach Wookiee]

"The Pastel Terror..."

 

[Kegek]

ChristopherPike said:
I assume with a title like "The Pastel Terror", they'd be no need to repaint any of TNG's sets before shooting?

"Dammit Jim! It's the soothing paint scheme in this corridor... I nearly drifted off there for a second."

How did you get a copy of Orci & Kurtzmann's screenplay?

I can just see the reviews now:

Abrams' Star Trek eschews traditional cosmic derring-do in favour of watching paint dry. Literally.

 

[Nebusj]

Holly Wookiee said:
"The Pastel Terror..."

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>program Star_Trek(input, output);
type
cast = array[1 .. 8] of character;

procedure strange_new_world(var k: integer);
</pre><hr />
.... oh, wait, hold on. Sorry. Never mind.

 

[USS KG5]

The title just makes me think of a camp villain mincing around redecorating the universe "on trend". It would have SERIOUSLY needed a new title if anyone had gone ahead with it.