Should they have made movies about the DS9, Voyager or Enterprise Crews?

I'll admit that it could've been done if they zeroed in on one or two things (A-plot and B-plot) instead of trying to cover all of it. Some people might not have gotten what they wanted but it would've been something.

 

I think the novelverse and comics are the best place for following up on the casts of the various shows, etc. I don't think major movies would have held their ground. Heck, the TNG cast was very popular and beloved, and those movies were mediocre at best (most would argue one good one and 3 horrible ones). The other series were not nearly as popular or broadly well-known in pop culture.

 

If Paramount Television (later CBS Studios) was interested in doing any to be aired on SyFy or Showtime.

 

Fan projects like Of Gods and Men and Renegades are pretty much what I imagine a bargain-basement SyFy Trek movie would be.

 

Actually, I'd imagine that Paramount (or CBS) would make the movie for about the same budget of any of the TV shows, Discovery's budget in particular. But you're probably right.

 

I'm still not convinced they should have done The Next Generation films.

 

I think the decision to do them was correct, it's just the execution that was lacking.

 

Before Star Trek was rested, it should've at least celebrated the 40th Anniversary back in 2006, with a kind of Generations II on steroids.

I would've set it decades after Nemesis about one last mission for an Admiral Picard. Not all his friends and colleagues are still around. So he picks people he's familiar with to be the senior staff aboard an Enterprise-E brought out of mothball. This means you can have selected TNG/DS9/VOY characters. There's a stopover at the Cardassian space station to pick up a special V.I.P.

Plot wise you throw in a reason to refer to some historic event ENT participated in, like the Romulan War and establish in a short scenes how it is the source of some grievance for the antagonist. I hate pointless easter eggs and absurd levels of verbal exposition... so damning evidence from the 2160's is presented, meaning the likes of Archer can actually appear, despite being long dead by the early 25th Century. Although I would probably push for an elderly Shran as a living witness to defend humanity and just say Andorians can out live even Vulcans.

Meanwhile and most importantly of all, TOS is represented by Spock, who's trying to bring a surviving faction of Romulans into the Federation.

Et voilá! All your fanbases are covered, and a not overly convoluted reason why they have to work together.

 

I think a two-part mini-series every three-five years, rotating between the different casts would have been perfect. Every show would have a chance at a post-series life. And I would have happily watched on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or some other network.

 

I would love to see Disney do something similar with this character.

 

But the problem with the movies, is the same problem with the books. Obviously the books exist in greater numbers, there are a few really good one (fewer still great), a few bad ones (some horrible), and the bulk are in the okay to meh range.

 

DS9 and VOY didn't need their stand-alone film stories, and the commercial realities wouldn't allow it even if so.

However, the TNG films should have incorporated DS9 and VOY in meaningful ways that amounted to more than wink-wink short cameos or references.

This could have been accomplished rather easily in basically an infinite number of ways. But it would have required them to tap the breaks after First Contact and allow those two series to wrap up so they could provide a full and accurate picture of everyone's stories.

 

I wouldn't have minded reincorporating Miles O'Brien back into the Enteprise's crew/family, he could have been made to fit into what was a TNG movie, because he was naturally a part of TNG. If you were generally familiar with TNG, but never saw a single moment DS9, you'd probably know who O'Brien was.

But that should be about it, we saw the Defiant, we saw Admiral Janeway. Those minimal touchstone were good enough.

 

I don't think the backplot would have been a massive problem for a DS9 movie, if the studio had seen the necessary interest.

Poster strapline: The war is over. Who wins the peace?

Exposition...
Ross: The only thing holding this alliance together was the war. Now it's over, they're all juggling for influence. Klingon, Romulans, even parts of Starfleet. I don't know how to hold it together. We need...
Kira: Captain Sisko?
Ross: He's dead, Nerys.
Kira: With the Prophets, sir.

And you're off. Cold war inspired plot, DS9 as Berlin/Casablanca,use Defiant/Enterprise/Voyager on missions to Quonos, Romulos or occupied Cardassia, bring back Sisko if you want... but basically, do a 1948ish post-WW2 cold war movie (with starships). There's a lot of those to use as inspiration.

 

Admittedly DS9 is the series I'm the least familiar with, but at the end of the series didn't the majority of the surviving characters basically scatter to the four winds?

The (debatably) two most interesting characters fell into the fire pits of Mordor.

Jadzia's gone, Damar's gone.

With the first TNG movie, the hero crew was still together. For a DS9 movie you would have to spend a block of the movie's run time "getting the band back together."

Kira: "Sorry to interrupt Admiral, but was there the smallest expectation on anyone's part that the alliance would stay together past the end of the war?

 

Movies come off TV shows when there's a big enough built-audience to justify it. Given the downward trend in Trek show ratings post-TNG there was never a compelling reason to make movies of those later shows.

 

I wouldn't mind a mini series for each spin off. I doubt a movie would work at this point or even back then. Everything else is coming back so why shouldn't TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise? Nostalgia is in. It would pass the time between Discovery seasons at the very least.

 

A movie could work, but it doesn’t have to break the bank to produce and require enormous box office take to justify it. Art house Trek. It doesn’t have to be the whole of known space to be at risk.

Less wow, more charm.

 

Motion Picture? No. A telefilm? It's been done several times on all of the series.

Those shows didn't have the fan base to support such a thing. I think DS9 had the closest to have a motion picture if Ira Behr didn't re-invent the show. There was so much there in the first 3 seasons creating this new world of Star Trek, the Bajorans, the Wormhole, the Gamma Quadrant, and those multi-faceted Cardassians.

There's more to Winn Adami and Gul Dukat than having them f^ck themselves to mediocrity; these characters were dangerous and cunning before Ira and Ron Moore turned them into 1 dimensional evil people who've lost all aspects of their own personal ethics. With their ethics intact, I think their diabolical minds could have created something movie worthy. A plan which could have torn the fabrics of Bajor, Cardassia, and the Federation.

When written the right way these characters' ideas and methods would've been far more interesting and entertaining than a Klingon/Dominion War.