Scifi Franchise Story/Concept Diversity: How much can you accept?

[MacLeod]

The one thing that nothing can overcome is poor writing. Poor FX can be overcome by an engaging story, people will excuse bad acting for an engaging story.

Poor or sloppy writing is the killer. You tell me in episode 2 that we only have x of this and can't replace ok fine. Just don't ignore this problem in episode 62 becaqsue it's inconvineant. A good writer would have acknowledged this problem and addressed it in an earlier episode.

If i see a gun on display on a wall in a movie/tv it doesn't suprise me when it's used. Now if they filmed that without the gun on the wall until the scene when it was need then that;s a sigon of sloppy write.

 

[xortex]

Poor writing should never be the problem with the talent available. It's the showrunner who decides which stories to do and not to do and ultimately the guy in power who was Berman for eighteen years - the entire run of tv Trek. Braga was a wimp. Unfortunutly that kind of artistic power is not something people give up lightly or can. JJ is an operative of CBS now - a puppet. Nothing can change that Power is too seductive to mediocrity.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Most people who say that they have "high standards" where pop culture is concerned go on to demonstrate that what they actually have are very specific expectations.

Are you saying those people give things like poor writing and acting a pass as long as the specific story points they like are being done?

Among other things, yeah. More to the point, they dismiss or actively object to good work because it doesn't happen to feed their craving for Mom's mac-and-cheese.

If someone doesn't like a movie like Captain America, that's fine - people like and dislike different things. If you "refuse to see it because his costume sucks," you've got a problem and fuck you.

 

[Leroy]

I can accept diversity to an extent I had no problem with TNG, DS9, and VOY, however it does bother me when something tends to not feel like a natural progression, a prequel like ENT, or a spin off like SGU.

A spin-off needs to have enough of the familiar to not seem jarring and enough new to seem fresh and interesting, this may or may not involve a change in creative staff.

 

[Kegg]

The whole idea that something is "not Star Trek" if its not on a ship baffles me.

Star Trek is a space opera franchise with a focus, typically, on people on a starship flying around space doing things. The latter is the key reason here. Yes, Star Trek has - as a corrollary of its genre - a large universe that is specific to the series, but more than that it has a premise the series hangs on.

Think of it this way: You could do a spinoff of The Sopranos that never shows any characters from that series and focuses entirely on British accountants who live in Liverpool.

...how would that even be a spinoff? Well, what if it's in the same universe (so the events of the HBO gangster drama 'happened'), but just with a different location, characters, and kind of show, and also just having The Sopranos: British Accountants as the title.

On the other hand, the various spinoffs of Law and Order and CSI make perfect sense because even if they don't have the same characters and locations they're usually telling the same kind of story.

So, what makes a space opera series different from a lot of television that you could radically change the premise and it would still be immediately recognizable as the same franchise because it still uses a lot of its unique lingo - Vulcans, phasers, the United Federation of Planets, et cetera. What doesn't make it different from other TV series is it's not the 'universe' it's set in that is the reason the show is a hit. It's the story (well, stories, particularly in episodic TV which Trek usually is) and the characters.

Now I liked Deep Space Nine, but that doesn't mean the objection doesn't make perfect sense, and if - for example - a Star Trek series focused entirely on 1960s Earth, with no science fiction stories of any kind, I'd call nonsense (unless the series happened to be good... but even then I woudn't like it for the reasons I like Star Trek, it'd probably be the reasons I like Mad Men.)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The one thing that nothing can overcome is poor writing.

Joe Flanigan can overcome it, as long as he forgets to comb his hair.

But in general, you have a point. If a show doesn't do what I like, it better be written damn well as compensation.

Star Trek is a space opera franchise with a focus, typically, on people on a starship flying around space doing things.

I think this is too restrictive. Star Trek is a optimistic look at the future, in which liberal humanism triumphs throughout the galaxy. There's no reason this has to involve starships. It could happen completely on one planet, without much reference to anything happening elsewhere in the galaxy.

So yeah, it could be about 1960s Earth, but it would have to try very hard to hammer it into the franchise theme. Maybe it would be alt-history showing how in this universe, Earth became evolved beyond nations, religions, and bigotry ahead of schedule. That wouldn't be the most natural or easy topic for a Star Trek series, but it's not impossible.

Think of it this way: You could do a spinoff of The Sopranos that never shows any characters from that series and focuses entirely on British accountants who live in Liverpool.

I've yet to see The Sopranos, but I don't think this is a good analogy, if the show is about certain characters rather than an exploration of a theme. Star Trek is not only about any given set of characters, or else there could never have been any series after TOS. Most shows I can think of are about characters or a limited situation, not about an idea that lends itself to spinoffs.

On the other hand, the various spinoffs of Law and Order and CSI make perfect sense because even if they don't have the same characters and locations they're usually telling the same kind of story.

Those shows are about a common format, not common characters or a common theme. So sure, there needs to be something in common for the idea of a franchise to make sense. It doesn't always have to be a common theme, but for space adventure franchises, it usually is.

 

[milo bloom]

Most people who say that they have "high standards" where pop culture is concerned go on to demonstrate that what they actually have are very specific expectations.

Are you saying those people give things like poor writing and acting a pass as long as the specific story points they like are being done?

Among other things, yeah. More to the point, they dismiss or actively object to good work because it doesn't happen to feed their craving for Mom's mac-and-cheese.

If someone doesn't like a movie like Captain America, that's fine - people like and dislike different things. If you "refuse to see it because his costume sucks," you've got a problem and fuck you.

Well, a few years back, I was kinda excited to hear about this new Transformers movie that was going to be coming out, and being a child of the 80's I was kinda looking forward to it. Then I saw the designs and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they had fucked it up. Reading the reviews and reactions of the three movies seems to back up my assessment.

Haven't seen Captain America yet, just pics and trailers, but the costume doesn't seem too bad, but I was never a reader of the comic either. For any type of live-action adaptation of superheroes, I keep that little exchange from the first X-Men movie in mind: "You people go out in public in these things?" "Would you prefer yellow spandex?"

I can accept diversity to an extent I had no problem with TNG, DS9, and VOY, however it does bother me when something tends to not feel like a natural progression, a prequel like ENT, or a spin off like SGU.

A spin-off needs to have enough of the familiar to not seem jarring and enough new to seem fresh and interesting, this may or may not involve a change in creative staff.

I didn't have a problem with ENT being a prequel, the problem was they didn't write it as a prequel. For the majority of it's run, they were simply writing TNG scripts and doing a find>replace with the crew names. When they got to the fourth season and started truly thinking in the right mindset, the show improved by leaps and bounds.

So, for the OP's question, the problem with ENT wasn't that it was a prequel, it's that it wasn't written as a prequel.

 

[Kegg]

I think this is too restrictive. Star Trek is a optimistic look at the future, in which liberal humanism triumphs throughout the galaxy. There's no reason this has to involve starships.

It typically does. There's what Star Trek could be, and there's what it is. Of four live action TV series and eleven films, four of the TV series and eleven of the films it unconditionally into what I define as 'typical', and many episodes of Deep Space Nine - especially after they get the Defiant - do also.

That DS9 also has a lot of time spent on a static space station, and this is indeed the premise of the program, is what marks it apart from the rest of Trek on TV and film.

I've yet to see The Sopranos, but I don't think this is a good analogy, if the show is about certain characters rather than an exploration of a theme.

It has both characters and theme. Hell, make one of the accountants a middle aged man who gets morose and depressed and sees a psychiatrist and has little moral qualms about the ethics of accounting, whatever exactly those are, and you have theme. (This would be a series where when the accountant says he had coffee with someone, he'd really mean it!)

Those shows are about a common format, not common characters or a common theme.

Just so, and the format makes the series.

 

[Gotham Central]

The one thing that nothing can overcome is poor writing.

Joe Flanigan can overcome it, as long as he forgets to comb his hair.

But in general, you have a point. If a show doesn't do what I like, it better be written damn well as compensation.

Star Trek is a space opera franchise with a focus, typically, on people on a starship flying around space doing things.

I think this is too restrictive. Star Trek is a optimistic look at the future, in which liberal humanism triumphs throughout the galaxy. There's no reason this has to involve starships. It could happen completely on one planet, without much reference to anything happening elsewhere in the galaxy.

So yeah, it could be about 1960s Earth, but it would have to try very hard to hammer it into the franchise theme. Maybe it would be alt-history showing how in this universe, Earth became evolved beyond nations, religions, and bigotry ahead of schedule. That wouldn't be the most natural or easy topic for a Star Trek series, but it's not impossible.

Think of it this way: You could do a spinoff of The Sopranos that never shows any characters from that series and focuses entirely on British accountants who live in Liverpool.

I've yet to see The Sopranos, but I don't think this is a good analogy, if the show is about certain characters rather than an exploration of a theme. Star Trek is not only about any given set of characters, or else there could never have been any series after TOS. Most shows I can think of are about characters or a limited situation, not about an idea that lends itself to spinoffs.

On the other hand, the various spinoffs of Law and Order and CSI make perfect sense because even if they don't have the same characters and locations they're usually telling the same kind of story.

Those shows are about a common format, not common characters or a common theme. So sure, there needs to be something in common for the idea of a franchise to make sense. It doesn't always have to be a common theme, but for space adventure franchises, it usually is.

If Gene Roddenberry had had his way we WOULD have has a Trek series set in the 1960s called Assignment: Earth. To this day, the adventures of Gary 7 and Roberta Lincoln are an integral part of Trek's literary history. One wonders had NBC bought the pilot if all this non-sense about something "not being trek" might have been avoided since a radical departure from the format would have occurred at the very start.

What separates Trek from the Sopranos is that the Sopranos, essentially takes place in our world. Beyond the characters there is nothing unique about the Sopranos that separates if from anything else on TV. You could do a show set in the UK dealing with accountants, but what would be the connective thread between it and the Sopranos? Is that connective thread even necessary? The UK exists and accountants exists independent of The Sopranos.

Star Trek is a unique, and completely made up universe with few visible ties to the real world. Thus if you want to tell political stories in the Federation capital, its has to be called Star Trek. If you want to tell stories about Federation temporal investigators it has to be Star Trek. If you want to tell stories involving Klingons, Vulcans Romulans etc it has to be Star Trek.

 

[Kegg]

If Gene Roddenberry had had his way we WOULD have has a Trek series set in the 1960s called Assignment: Earth.

If Gene Roddenberry had his way that series would have been accepted as a pilot to begin with. Attaching it to Star Trek happened after that stab was rejected.

This is why I specified a series without sci-fi plots; while the Gary 7 stuff was big on the existence of a nebulous alien race watching over humanity.

What separates Trek from the Sopranos is that the Sopranos, essentially takes place in our world. Beyond the characters there is nothing unique about the Sopranos that separates if from anything else on TV.

Yes but the point was to illustrate this distinction. Just because something can happen in the same 'universe' doesn't mean it makes for good television or television that builds on the strengths of a given brand.

Of course, one can overstress Star Trek's uniqueness here. You could, for example, make a TV series about the Temporal Agents in Star Trek... you could also pitch basically the same premise as an original series.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, a few years back, I was kinda excited to hear about this new Transformers movie that was going to be coming out, and being a child of the 80's I was kinda looking forward to it. Then I saw the designs and knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they had fucked it up. Reading the reviews and reactions of the three movies seems to back up my assessment.

If the movies weren't good it wasn't because of the designs of the robots. Conversely, if the movies had been good the designs of the robots would not have been important either.

I don't give a damn about the Transformers. However, I go to movies. I like big action movies. I'm a potential ticket sold, just as a kid who grew up wanting to be adopted by Optimus Prime would be. I ignored the Transformers films not because I know or care about what a giant robot is supposed to look like but because I heard from just about every reviewer and person who saw the first one that it was a bad movie.

All genuflecting unnecessarily to the history of a franchise is really good for is fellating the true believers, which is hardly necessary if you're doing good work - if you are, you'll succeed with the vast majority of potential viewers who are neither pre-sold or overly concerned with minutiae.

 

[C_Miller]

I've actually thought about this a lot when it comes to The X-Files, which is one of my favorite shows. There's always talk of a 3rd movie that comes out which would deal with the planned Alien Invasion of Earth, which was supposed to happen on December 21, 2012. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're getting that film at least not on time.

But, one of the "appeals" of the X-Files is that it wasn't an action show. The two leads were a medical doctor and a criminal profiler. Then they added an Ex Marine, a spiritual historian and a bureaucrat. That's not a team of action heroes and while the show wasn't devoid of action, the solutions were generally arrived at by quick wit and thinking.

I'm not sure how you do a full on alien invasion and stop it and what not in the tone of The X-Files, so realistically, they'd have to do some changing it up. But at what point would they change it so much that I just wouldn't like it because it's too different? I'm not sure, but it's definitely something I think about.