I loved the new Star Trek - it was fantastic fun. But loving parallel universes like I do, I wonder how it would compare to the aborted movie Starfleet Academy?
Starfleet Academy (aka Star Trek: The Academy Years) was that film that going to reboot the series in early 1990’s after Star Trek V, casting younger actors as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest (with a planned cameo from DeForest Kelly in the TOS-movie era framing story), and show their first adventure together at Starfleet Academy. The project was aborted after a huge letter-writing campaign by Trek fans (who had been led to wrongly believe the film was “police academy in space”). It’s a good thing film studios don’t listen to fans anymore – after all the whinging over this new film it would never have been made back then!
(Re-)reading the AICN write-up after seeing Star Trek is strange – it (obviously) covers a lot of the same ground as the new film, but this time in a story that deals with slavery and racism.
Kirk joins the academy, meets Spock, McCoy and Scotty, gets into trouble, and saves the day after taking command of the Enterprise during an attack. The story ends with the cadets (they stay cadets in this one – no super-duper promotion for Kirk at the end!) going their separate ways.
Obviously, Starfleet Academy would never have had the kind of money spent on it that the new Star Trek had ($150 million plus advertising).
I wonder what would be happening now if Starfleet Academy was released instead of Star Trek VI?
The AICN write-up can be read here:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/22789
There’s a page on Memory Alpha has concept art for the costumes and the (NX01-ish) Enterprise, but I can’t find it again to save my life :-(
I know these never-happened films are better in my head than they would be in reality, but I’d like to see this as a TV/DVD movie one day (which they could do fairly cheaply reusing the academy outfits and sets from the new film). Canon-heads would freak (assuming they have any strength left after STXI’s “crimes”), but I believe there’s room for alternate Star Trek origin stories. This one would be the ‘prime’ universe version of events, the way things happened until Nero went back and changed everything.
While we’re at it, lets have JTK’s granddad Tiberius Chase win the Romulan War all by himself in Star Trek: The Beginning too!
Starfleet Academy (aka Star Trek: The Academy Years) was that film that going to reboot the series in early 1990’s after Star Trek V, casting younger actors as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest (with a planned cameo from DeForest Kelly in the TOS-movie era framing story), and show their first adventure together at Starfleet Academy. The project was aborted after a huge letter-writing campaign by Trek fans (who had been led to wrongly believe the film was “police academy in space”). It’s a good thing film studios don’t listen to fans anymore – after all the whinging over this new film it would never have been made back then!
(Re-)reading the AICN write-up after seeing Star Trek is strange – it (obviously) covers a lot of the same ground as the new film, but this time in a story that deals with slavery and racism.
Kirk joins the academy, meets Spock, McCoy and Scotty, gets into trouble, and saves the day after taking command of the Enterprise during an attack. The story ends with the cadets (they stay cadets in this one – no super-duper promotion for Kirk at the end!) going their separate ways.
Obviously, Starfleet Academy would never have had the kind of money spent on it that the new Star Trek had ($150 million plus advertising).
I wonder what would be happening now if Starfleet Academy was released instead of Star Trek VI?
The AICN write-up can be read here:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/22789
There’s a page on Memory Alpha has concept art for the costumes and the (NX01-ish) Enterprise, but I can’t find it again to save my life :-(
I know these never-happened films are better in my head than they would be in reality, but I’d like to see this as a TV/DVD movie one day (which they could do fairly cheaply reusing the academy outfits and sets from the new film). Canon-heads would freak (assuming they have any strength left after STXI’s “crimes”), but I believe there’s room for alternate Star Trek origin stories. This one would be the ‘prime’ universe version of events, the way things happened until Nero went back and changed everything.
While we’re at it, lets have JTK’s granddad Tiberius Chase win the Romulan War all by himself in Star Trek: The Beginning too!
