Kicking this thread, because AICN's "Merrick" has written a fascinating summary of Erik Jendresen's abortive Trek XI script. Well worth reading, especially if you followed ENT.
I liked the JMS/Zabel reboot idea, personally. Also, recently had the chance to read the script for the Phase II "Kitumba" two-parter. Very interesting stuff. Could still work with some tweaking to fit it in with the Klingons we got (or the idea could be used with another species, perhaps). Wouldn't mind seeing as a novel along the lines of what Diane Duane did with the Rihannsu/Romulans.
^ The book actually just has summaries for PII scripts. The only scripts contained therein, IIRC, are "In Thy Image" (the pilot, which was reworked into TMP) and "The Child" (subsequently reworked into the TNG episode of the same name). I have no idea if there's anywhere those scripts are available, but I'd love to read them.
I would have loved to see a filmed version of that Phase II script about the "Mediator." Linky Spoiler: Phase2 Long story short, Enterprise crewmembers were studying a black hole. It flared up and the resulting energy surge destroyed the ship and killed the crew. Eleven years or so later, an alien force heals the crew and fixes the ship, and sends it back to Earth. Some crew, including Spock, are missing. Most of them are found on Earth, but Spock is on Vulcan - which somehow has never been part of any Federation and they don't recognize Earth. Enterprise stops off at Vulcan to retrieve Spock and they proceed to Earth, which is very different, like the Macintosh 1984 ad - a lot of faceless worker drones and stuff. Turns out this is the work of Scotty, who had been thrown back in time to the 1940's when the black hole went mad. He decided to change history to eliminate war, famine, etc., but this interference resulted in the dystopian future we saw. The 'aliens' we saw, were actually the evolved form of humanity, which became a sort of group mind - before it was *ready* to do so. So they sent the Enterprise crew back to fix things.
^ That is actually a description of Jon Povill's Star Trek II film proposal from 1975 which preceded Phase II by two years. TGT
There's another book, not from pocket, called TREK THE LOST YEARS, by Ed Gross, that covers phase 2 in some detail, from the late 80s I believe. It has much better interviews than the pocket phase 2 book, and while it doesn't have all the facts, it doesn't have anywhere near the number of errors the pocket phase 2 book has. Great interview w/ Joe Jennings.
It would have made a great episode of just about any Trek series. Although the bit about the "time gap" caused by the transporter would probably have to be rewritten.
I've always wanted to see an Excelsior show. If nothing else, a couple STV movies might've been cool. I'm not opposed to the Starfleet Academy idea either. I still think it could work, either as a live action or animated. Phase II sounded intriguing as well. My only trepidation about that would've been that we might not have gotten TNG or DS9 if Phase II had happened. However, I always thought that Decker and Illia got short shrift and would've liked to see more of them. It would've made more sense for me if they had made Decker the ENT captain for at least a year or something before his demotion, at least opening up the possiblity of novels, comics, other media perhaps fleshing out his backstory. Star Trek the Beginning sounded pretty interesting as well. Some of it didn't sound right to me, but I liked the idea of the United Earth Interstellar Navy, and the idea of it being merged within the more exploration-oriented Starfleet. Also, doing more with Adm. Gardner could've been interesting as well. I'm not so keen on the idea of Chase living in a place with Nazi memorabilia. However, I'm not opposed to him having some ties/past ties with Terra Prime. Having Shran in the film would've been cool too. However, not having ENT in the film, and then slamming them-with the Risa-comment is bad form. After B & B built Archer up as being so essential to the birth of the Federation, how can they not have him in the film. If nothing else as a Commodore or Admiral, or even if Chase has to rescue the ENT. The possibility that Chase might've changed his name to Kirk later on is a little meh for me to. However, I liked the idea of using Skon in the film. However, the potential was there for some good stuff. Though I think it would've played out better over a season or two of ENT.
From what I read in the Phase II book, and what I remember Roddenberry talking about at an appearance I saw him at in the late '70's, I would have liked to have seen a ST:Phase II series.
I think this would have been more about style and execution than just plot. Kaufmann was interested in exploring SF THEMES and was just using Trek as the medium. If you look at his BODY SNATCHERS film, you can see that it was something about the paranoia of the era (probably just as much as more classically regarded pics as THE CONVERSATION and THE PARALLAX VIEW) as much as it was a horror film. Having an actor like Mifune playing a major Klingon antagonist would have been better than any casting coup managed yet in a trek film. Although I didn't like McQuarrie's color designs, the Ken Adam designs that preceded them were pretty snazzy, and with another Bond alum, Derek Meddings, doing miniatures and Jordan Belson doing opticals (probably doing a VERY cool looking black hole 2 years before Disney stunk up the world with their BLACK HOLE, I think this pic would have had some dynamite visuals. And again, if you look at BODY SNATCHERS, you hear a film with a really good fusion of sound fx and music, where they aren't competing with one another. Could have been a good movie (still could be IMO.)
piece here about the Zabel/JMS reboot. http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3665&Itemid=99 it's laughable to me that they've got the balls to say it's a reboot and complain about a lack of ideas when A)it's a rip-off of TNG "The Chase" to claim all the species are inter-related. B)ancient alien races who leave stuff behind are ten a penny. Tkon, Iconians, Sargon's People, Promellians and Menthar, HurQ, Preservers, etc. etc. if they wanted to be truly original, they'd do something that doesn't involve an bloody anicent alien race.
^I have to agree with you there, every single sci-fi franchise has some sort of an anciet alien race who is responsible for something improtant. I would like to think that if someone was going to do a complete reboot that they would do something completely new and original.
J. Micheal Straczynski's concept while not the best I could see working. The thing with JMS is he thinks long term and his writing supports really long story arcs. I'm not too keen on them searching for an old race of aliens (Stargate's Ancients anyone) but in an infinite universe anything's possible so why not.
Or ever, in the franchise, period. Chalk him up along Robert Ryan as one of the actors it'd have been nice to see on Star Trek but things never came to pass.
If JMS ever got his hands on Star Trek... I don't even want to think about it. I thought B5 was boring. Imagine a rehash that's similarly destroying my memories of Trek. I hate people who haven't seen DS9 and want to "reform" the franchise and "take it a fresh direction". I really hate them. I think that whoever TPTB will be should be made to watch DS9.