xortex said:
There's another thread somewhere that discusses this very issue. I'm going to find it.
Well the problem with it now is that its too full of formulae. We have the crew-mix formula, the formula for technical problems (how many times can the holodeck try to kill you before you say Smurf it and play Xbox insted?), a standard solutions toolbox (use the transporters, reverse the polarity, use the deflector dish, Vulcan mindmeld (or attach a wire to data's usb port), etc.), standard aliens -- to the point where even the alien designs have gotten fairly predictable. Latex foreheads must be cheap, 'cause that's about all that happens.
What they need to do is let go of the formulas and the standard approach. It's cheaper and easier to make everything on an assembly line, but there's no quality. Past the age of maybe six, you don't seek out fast food, you look for good stuff, something beyond the ordinary.
It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man's search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took "his" hypotheses, "his" postulates, "his" method and turned them into law. Impressive creeds were then invented, solemn reinforcing ceremonies prescribed, rigid philosophy and patterns formulated, and son on, until finally an institution was erected. So, what originated as one man's intuition of some sort of personal fluidity has been transformed into solidified, fixed knowledge, complete with organized classified responses presented in a logical order. In so doing, the well-meaning, loyal followers have not only made this knowledge a holy shrine, but also a tomb in which they have buried the founder's wisdom.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.platt/liberate.html
honestly, I think Lee is somewhat a genius himself, though I think he borrowed a bit from eastern philosophy.
But I think that the problem is the same as what Lee identified in Karate. At first, when Trek started, there were no formulas. They didn't start with [Brash Captain], [Logical Alien], and [Moralist Doctor]. They started with characters, tried to make them interesting in their own right. They didn't have a standard set of solutions either. One week, you kick the alien's ass, next week you might negotiate, and after that, you might logic a computer to death, there was even one ep where they stunned gangsters. It wasn't predictable because there wasn't a standard approach to solving the problems.
So the solution is to throw away the formulas. Not a reboot. Rebooting or not rebooting is a different question -- probably more like choosing uniform colors. If you aren't playing well, nobody cares. If the Yankees are winning every game they play, nobody would care if they showed up wearing pink tutus. But nobody would watch the A's even if they had the most bad-ass uniforms possible. It's packaging.
