It's called drama, in this case precisely about amazing heroes in weird and wild happenings. It's not like the show's not full of humor either.
When did you actually see the show?
Plot for a new Star Trek Series
- Thread starter dan_bevan
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When did you actually see the show?
Watched it first run, watched it in syndication, watched it on DVD, watched it on Netflix, now watching it on Blu-ray. I've easily seen every episode three or four times. I've seen the season one and two episodes of TNG a dozen times each. I own most of Modern Trek on DVD and have seen it all.
It was drama before Roddenberry left as well, it just didn't seem to treat itself quite so seriously. Like I've said before, there was a sense of fun that seemed to evaporate when Roddenberry died. An episode can be serious yet still be entertaining and make you smile at certain points. Roddenberry seemed to have a knack for making even the most dull or outrageous ideas entertaining. Post-Roddenberry, it was also less adventurous and the music stunk.
They should make a new generation happen again. There exists enough TOS and TNG. New tech (for innovative storytelling & coolness), new type of captain, new style. Keep the human condition topics, the ethos, the humour and the wackiness.
Who said anything about the movie stars? Do you think the BBC hesitated to make a new Sherlock Holmes series because Basil Rathbone wasn't available?
I keep going back to Sherlock Holmes because I think it's a good comparison. People weren't pissed off about Benedict Cumberbatch doing a rebooted Holmes series. The series is doing quite well, actually.
When I want "really new" stuff, as you put it, I don't turn to Star Trek, a nearly fifty-year-old franchise. If what you want is really new, then what would be the point of doing Star Trek at all?
Actually I think I'd watch that show.
Can we change his name to Hugo Douchebag? And are you suggesting we actually call the series DOUCHEBAG AND CO.? If so... okay.Let's put a fan series together.
I think Sherlock is a very flawed comparison here. Sherlock is a literary character, many have played him in the past, but he always existed primarily on the page and there is no iconic Sherlock Holmes actor.
Here, Shatner is Kirk, Nemoy is Spock, so on and so on. The new movies are good. They are fun. I enjoy them and I think they're worthwhile. But in the end, they are imitations of an original, which is why many people have had a hard time accepting them, and even to me, who's a fan, they'll never be the "real" Kirk and Spock and so on.
i think you push that a step too far if you try to reboot a secont time right now. Trek is a rich universe. It's way too dismissive to say that any original series set in it will only have stereotypical characters who aren't interesting just because they're not the original characters. Sure, that could happen if its done poorly. But it could equally be a great show if its done well.
Here, Shatner is Kirk, Nemoy is Spock, so on and so on. The new movies are good. They are fun. I enjoy them and I think they're worthwhile. But in the end, they are imitations of an original, which is why many people have had a hard time accepting them, and even to me, who's a fan, they'll never be the "real" Kirk and Spock and so on.
i think you push that a step too far if you try to reboot a secont time right now. Trek is a rich universe. It's way too dismissive to say that any original series set in it will only have stereotypical characters who aren't interesting just because they're not the original characters. Sure, that could happen if its done poorly. But it could equally be a great show if its done well.
What stories can you tell with Captain Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise that you can't tell with Captain Douchebag and the U.S.S. Fanboy?
Star Trek is a universe, whether you get it or not. It's bigger than just Kirk and company. Exploring universes we like by meeting other people and other situations is what makes a universe worthwhile beyond its original premise, in my opinion. DS9 is the finest example of what you can do with a universe when you break from the original boundaries. And it was awesome.
I think everyone has different ideas about what real star trek is. I can see a lot of people have remained extremely faithful to the TOS and as a result didn't take as well to the other incarnations of Trek. In a way a lot of viewers were determined not to like it as much as they felt nothing could compare to Kirk, Spock and co.
TOS was before my time and I grew up watching TNG. That was my Star Trek, although I went back and watched the TOS I always preferred TNG. I think people are sentimental and TNG always reminded me of my childhood, just as the older generation were sentimental of TOS.
I've watched all the rest of the Trek series and nothing compared to TNG, although they all did well in their own way and had some good episodes and also some bad episodes.
In my opinion, the thing that makes a good Trek series is the characters. TOS and TNG got the characters spot on for me which was why they were so successful and the most memorable. DS9 got some of the characters right. Voyager and Enterprise didn't get the characters quite right which was they didn't do so well.
The characters make the show and have to be likeable. The viewers have to care enough about the characters to watch and be enthralled by their adventures. The characters also have to portray humanity so that viewers can relate and see that humanity still exists in the 24th century, even the aliens of the Trek series are capable of portraying humanity.
Writers have to get the characters right first of all, that is key to the whole show. Once good characters have been written then excellent storywriting needs to be put into place. Great stories need to be told around these characters that we all love. Once these two key concepts are in place you have the basis for an excellent Star Trek. The stories need to be able to make us happy, laugh, cry, angry etc.. and without the right characters it would be hard for the stories to do this.
What century, what location and what species they encounter are not that important to the viewers as long as the characters and stories are right.
TOS was before my time and I grew up watching TNG. That was my Star Trek, although I went back and watched the TOS I always preferred TNG. I think people are sentimental and TNG always reminded me of my childhood, just as the older generation were sentimental of TOS.
I've watched all the rest of the Trek series and nothing compared to TNG, although they all did well in their own way and had some good episodes and also some bad episodes.
In my opinion, the thing that makes a good Trek series is the characters. TOS and TNG got the characters spot on for me which was why they were so successful and the most memorable. DS9 got some of the characters right. Voyager and Enterprise didn't get the characters quite right which was they didn't do so well.
The characters make the show and have to be likeable. The viewers have to care enough about the characters to watch and be enthralled by their adventures. The characters also have to portray humanity so that viewers can relate and see that humanity still exists in the 24th century, even the aliens of the Trek series are capable of portraying humanity.
Writers have to get the characters right first of all, that is key to the whole show. Once good characters have been written then excellent storywriting needs to be put into place. Great stories need to be told around these characters that we all love. Once these two key concepts are in place you have the basis for an excellent Star Trek. The stories need to be able to make us happy, laugh, cry, angry etc.. and without the right characters it would be hard for the stories to do this.
What century, what location and what species they encounter are not that important to the viewers as long as the characters and stories are right.
Wrong, there are two. Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett, considered the most iconic portrayels of Sherlock Holmes for decades.
The current BBC production team have even admitted to modelling the 221B set on both of their sets, from the layout of the room to the items placed in it.
Benedict Cumberbatch is well on his way to becoming the third.
I will freely admit to not knowing who either of those are, but that's probably more a reflection on me, than on how popular they are. That being said, just the fact that there's two of them (with a third on the way as you say) proves the point I'm trying to make. No matter how successful the new movies are, Shatner and Nimoy will always BE Kirk and Spock, and Pine and Quinto will always be the guys who did a very good job at portraying Kirk and Spock.
But how awesome was it to general audiences? The ones you need to draw in order to make a series viable? Deep Space Nine was where the great Trek ratings slide began. It also struggled mightily in strip syndication here in the States.
It doesn't seem like general audiences are exactly clamoring for DS9 or something like it.
Pine and Quinto are every bit as much Kirk and Spock as Shatner and Nimoy were and I say that as someone who started watching Star Trek in 1975. Plus, while you and I were introduced to the characters by way of a TV screen, the characters were created on the written page.
It has nothing to do with what is "real" Star Trek. It has everything to do with what is "commercially viable" Star Trek.
Certainly fair if that's your opinion. It also may be technically true, but we're talking about public perception, and my completely unscientific guess is that you're in a very small minority in thinking that, even among people like myself who really like the movies and are happy with Pine and Quinto in the roles. The one point I will give you is that the new movies are certainly reaching more people who aren't as familiar with the original series, and therefore for those people, you're right, Pine and Quinto are Kirk and Spock as far as they are concerned, and those people might be willing to accept yet another reboot in television form. So yeah, it might be commercially viable, but it's still going to be a hard sell to the loyal base audience who are the primary reason Trek has been around for almost 50 years and that I think they'd need for a new tv show to succeed.
And I think you know very well that my point had nothing to do with the literal first place that the characters ever appeared. They aren't literary characters that existed in books long before someone portrayed them on screen. Sure there were outlines and scripts, but they originated on screen by actors who will forever be associated with them, that's why the Sherlock comparison fails.
The fanbase were all that was left when we got Star Trek: Nemesis and the Enterprise TV series was cancelled. New Trek cannot survive with only the fanbase watching.
Simply put, we are a dying breed from a completely different time. If Trek is too survive, it has to create new fans and its core characters offer the best chance to create new fans. Kirk and Spock are modern American mythology.
Plus, I think it is a silly proposition that we cannot tell "new" stories with Kirk and Spock. People confuse the time we've been exposed to the characters with the amount of actual live-action exposure these characters have. There's roughly one-hundred hours of Kirk and Spock vs. six-hundred hours of Modern Trek, and if ratings are any indication, the general public soured on and haven't exactly been rushing to watch.
My point was is that the characters are just as much an interpretation of what was on the written page as any other literary character that has been brought to "life".
Meh a new "TOS" series would be a bad idea to me. For any number of reasons. One, they wouldn't be able to afford the current cast as they're already 7 figures plus established stars now. So you'd have to recast some or all of them, which would alienate the fanbase more.
The biggest reason is, a reboot is just the ultimate lack of creativity. You take existing characters, in an existing setting, change a few details, and boom.. you have a "new" story. I'd rather see something genuinely new and original than a rehash of something that's already been done. Even the reboot, after lamely establishing the "alternate universe" in an attempt to appease the older fans, just went to that formula with the recent movie. Oh it's Khan. Wait we're probably gonna bring him back in the sequel too. Can't have Kirk and Spock facing a new villain or anything. Guess we can have Koloth and Harry Mudd in the next one. A series would invariably bring in every past villain from TOS at some point or another... the movie franchise as long as it goes is already trying to do this.
It doesn't even have to be a random group of people we don't know. Heck bring in John Cho as Captain of an Excelsior series in the rebootverse, that'd leave a lot of room for original storytelling that hasn't been done before. Or if we want to get back to the Prime universe, do a Titan series and recast Riker/Troi. You could even bring in Patrick Stewart as a guest star, "Admiral/Ambassador Picard" now and again since the man doesn't age.
You can make a connection to the past without blatantly ripping it off, mixing it up and trying to sell it as a new product. It just requires a slight amount of creativity. Even then you don't -have- to... TNG and DS9 did just fine with a new crew. a Series set in the early 25th century with Admiral Riker passing the baton might be interesting too.
But don't worry BillJ, your line of thought will probably prevail. Hollywood would rather redo something that's been done, than do something new after all. There's no risk in that.
The biggest reason is, a reboot is just the ultimate lack of creativity. You take existing characters, in an existing setting, change a few details, and boom.. you have a "new" story. I'd rather see something genuinely new and original than a rehash of something that's already been done. Even the reboot, after lamely establishing the "alternate universe" in an attempt to appease the older fans, just went to that formula with the recent movie. Oh it's Khan. Wait we're probably gonna bring him back in the sequel too. Can't have Kirk and Spock facing a new villain or anything. Guess we can have Koloth and Harry Mudd in the next one. A series would invariably bring in every past villain from TOS at some point or another... the movie franchise as long as it goes is already trying to do this.
It doesn't even have to be a random group of people we don't know. Heck bring in John Cho as Captain of an Excelsior series in the rebootverse, that'd leave a lot of room for original storytelling that hasn't been done before. Or if we want to get back to the Prime universe, do a Titan series and recast Riker/Troi. You could even bring in Patrick Stewart as a guest star, "Admiral/Ambassador Picard" now and again since the man doesn't age.
You can make a connection to the past without blatantly ripping it off, mixing it up and trying to sell it as a new product. It just requires a slight amount of creativity. Even then you don't -have- to... TNG and DS9 did just fine with a new crew. a Series set in the early 25th century with Admiral Riker passing the baton might be interesting too.
But don't worry BillJ, your line of thought will probably prevail. Hollywood would rather redo something that's been done, than do something new after all. There's no risk in that.
This is the only thing Paramount/CBS cares about. Like it or not, Star Trek is a business. If it stops making money, they'll find a new cash cow.
Star Trek, to most people, is Kirk and Spock. It's not a question of should it or shouldn't Star Trek be rebooted. It's going to be rebooted, again and again. My hope is that it will be done right in an imaginative way.
Guess Nero was a re-use of a prior character...
Which are all variations on a theme with re-use of already created characters. You're still bartering on Trek's past success.
Not sure why the use of Kirk and Spock in a modern series seems distasteful to some. The vast majority of material featuring the characters is at least forty-three years old.
Not even sure what this means. Whatever decision CBS makes with regards to the future of Trek, it won't impact me one way or the other. It's a TV show.
You do realize that just recreating Trek with yet another crew really isn't original? Original programming would be creating an all new sci-fi space series with its own unique rules and characters and bad guys.
Another Trek series is just a variation on a theme. So whether it's Kirk and the Enterprise or Douchebag and the Fanboy, it's just going to the well one more time.
Using Kirk and Spock just gives it a better chance of success. In my opinion.
Wtf is Paramount/CBS? Surely the creative people are part of it/them too? Stop obsessing about money more than these companies even. Major decisions are made for reasons other than money. It's just people in buildings who do many many things. Bosses just want to look efficient.
Most people never watched the show and to them it's probably just lots of standing around a starship bridge lethargically and/or some Plato's Stepchildren type moment from TOS.
This will probably happen, but not necessarily soon. They'll be trying a new generation for sure at some point as both were so obvious successes when they were done once before.
If they want new viewers they can do wtf they like with the show as long as it's interesting, and the viewers will come.
If they're just hacking something together, yes. If there's a decent idea in the works, it could go either way. There is also the almost fully original route of remaking TNG because people actually liked the show, but the spin-offs might make it look unprofitable which of course makes no sense. What could also happen is they'll do something lame, they'll know it's lame, and it won't work.
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Projected profitability will drive every decision that is made regarding Star Trek or any other entertainment project. They don't make these shows out of the goodness of their hearts, they have employees to pay and shareholders to satisfy.
There was just a story the other day that two underachieving movies will likely cause the head of Sony studios to get fired.
And I will obsess over whatever I want. Thankyouverymuch.
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