Strange New Worlds' showrunners advise fans to write to Skydance and Paramount if they're interested in a "Year One" Kirk sequel series

[Dukhat]

Look at how many people begged for that Star Trek Legacy show and that went absolutely no where. Every youtube channel in the world was building hype for it. Instead we got Section 31 and fucking Future Academy.

I’m with you so far, although I will point out that the fan ‘begging’ for Legacy was artificially created by Matalas in his effort to get support for his pet project idea that CBS/Paramount had no intention of producing from the get-go. The Section 31 movie was literally made just for Yeoh and hardly for fans, yet Osunsanmi pulled the same shit Matalas did by asking for fan support to have CBS make it a series. And now Goldsman is working right from that failed playbook and asking fans to support this ‘Year One’ nonsense that will never be produced. As for Starfleet Academy:

These are not executives who listen to fans. They're executives who tell fans what they should want and then blame them for not wanting it. I'm kind of done.

The executives should never listen to fans. Because no two fans think alike. SFA is the best thing they could have done, because ideas like Legacy, Section 31 and Year One only cater to a relatively small percentage of the fandom who aren’t going to help CBS’s bottom line. If more young people can get off TikTok and start watching Star Trek, you have to cater to them, because that’s how you get new viewers. Unfortunately SFA has already started with the memberberries that mean absolutely nothing to young people. I’m hoping that this is just relegated to the background.

 

[Turtletrekker]

It was in development as a TV series since 2018. The movie was a result of taking what was meant to be a ten episode story arc and condensing it into an hour and a half.

In fact, there were 10 completed scripts for that first season. I've said it before, but I would really love to be able to read those 10 scripts and see how that story was originally supposed to play out.

 

[fireproof78]

The executives should never listen to fans. Because no two fans think alike. SFA is the best thing they could have done, because ideas like Legacy, Section 31 and Year One only cater to a relatively small percentage of the fandom who aren’t going to help CBS’s bottom line.

Exactly this. Few, if any, fan ideas are actually the money makers based upon current costs. Diving deeper in to the niche is not helpful.

 

[Christopher]

I suppose the question is, when did the writers get the word to condense it down? How long did they have to do that before the script was locked? April 2023 was when it was publicly announced as a tv movie.

I was not attempting to defend the decisions that led to that terrible movie. I was simply pointing out that it is not unusual for a project to be in development for years and go through various rejected approaches before the final approach is chosen, so there is no correlation between how long a production is in development and how good the final product is.

The executives should never listen to fans. Because no two fans think alike.

Exactly. Fans have an overinflated sense of their importance to the process. Sports managers don't base their plays on how much the audience cheers or boos. Chefs don't poll the customers on how to prepare the food. Professionals work for years to learn how to do their jobs well, and it's by doing their jobs well that they please the public. The audience reaction comes at the end of the process, not the beginning. Chasing after public approval rather than applying professional experience and judgment is coming at the process from the outside rather than the inside, and that doesn't work.

SFA is the best thing they could have done, because ideas like Legacy, Section 31 and Year One only cater to a relatively small percentage of the fandom who aren’t going to help CBS’s bottom line. If more young people can get off TikTok and start watching Star Trek, you have to cater to them, because that’s how you get new viewers. Unfortunately SFA has already started with the memberberries that mean absolutely nothing to young people. I’m hoping that this is just relegated to the background.

I agree with you about SFA. I find it promising and I look forward to more exploration of the forward end of the timeline. I find it encouraging that the majority of the central characters are from new species or cultures, so I hope the references like that wall of names are just peripheral.

In the abstract, though, as much as I disliked the Section 31 movie and detest the concept of Section 31 in general, I think that a show about a secret spy organization in the Trek universe could conceivably have had appeal to a wide audience, including people who aren't fans of Trek but are fans of spy/intrigue fiction, a perennially popular genre. For that matter, since TOS and TNG are consistently the most popular and well-known Trek series, I'm not sure I agree that a TOS do-over would have only niche appeal. I mean, despite how they get ragged on in fandom, the Kelvin films were just about the most financially successful Trek movies of all time, even correcting for inflation.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, they had plenty of time to work on getting S31 right. They just didn't. There wasn't much right with the premise to begin with.

 

[Jedman67]

Yeah, they had plenty of time to work on getting S31 right. They just didn't. There wasn't much right with the premise to begin with.

I haven't seen it, but taking it on it's own, not compared to other trek or source material, is it really that bad?

 

[Mudd]

Taking it on its own, no one would have made it.

 

[Dukhat]

I haven't seen it, but taking it on it's own, not compared to other trek or source material, is it really that bad?

Let's put it this way: If 'Star Trek' wasn't in the title, it would be hard to not confuse it with some completely forgettable SyFy Channel schlock movie.

 

[Quinton]

Let's put it this way: If 'Star Trek' wasn't in the title, you'd be hard-pressed not to confuse it with some completely forgettable SyFy Channel schlock movie.

Sadly spot-on.

 

[Danja]

Exactly this. Few, if any, fan ideas are actually the money makers based upon current costs. Diving deeper in to the niche is not helpful.

SFA features The Doctor (Voyager), Jett Reno (Disco), and Sylvia Tilly (also Disco).

How is that any different from Legacy featuring Seven of Nine and Raffi?

Legacy has plenty of new characters (the La Forge sisters, Jack Crusher, Dr. Ohk, Mura, Esma, etc.)

Does this mean no Star Trek: Year One? Why don't we have Kirk: Origins?

See the adventures of James T. Kirk growing in Riverside, Iowa! It'll be Trek's answer to Smallville and Gotham!

The Section 31 movie was literally made just for Yeoh and hardly for fans, yet Osunsanmi pulled the same shit Matalas did by asking for fan support to have CBS make it a series.

And he failed.

 

[FredH]

The executives should never listen to fans. Because no two fans think alike.

True. Fans often seem to forget that they first become fans by first experiencing and enjoying something they didn’t originally ask for or expect.

I remember someone’s random comment from my decades-ago, teenage, Creation-Con-going years: “If George Lucas hadn’t created Star Wars I would’ve killed him!” Which, beyond obviously being silly hyperbole, is a nonsensical, meaningless statement: they wouldn’t have known about the thing which hadn’t been created, let alone liked it enough to seek revenge for its nonexistence.

Plus, of course, “We fans know better than those idiots at Paramount” is an egoboosting delusion that goes all the way back to the Seventies, at least.

 

[Dukhat]

And he failed.

To be fair, he had little to no chance to begin with. The entire reason that the movie even existed was because CBS didn’t want to make it a series. To have them suddenly backpedal, even if the movie didn’t end up like the heaping pile of shit that it was, would have made little sense. That movie was always meant to be a one-and-done thing.

 

[fireproof78]

SFA features The Doctor (Voyager), Jett Reno (Disco), and Sylvia Tilly (also Disco).

How is that any different from Legacy featuring Seven of Nine and Raffi?

I can only speak for myself but my strongest push back is the "Where is (fill in the blank) character?" if it's in the 25th century. It's expectations of all the familiar characters showing up and providing an update on their lives that I don't want to really see.

Strange New Worlds isn't doing this idea any favors for me either, with Pike and Spock being my biggest draws, and Scotty being less engaging.

 

[Danja]

I can only speak for myself but my strongest push back is the "Where is (fill in the blank) character?" if it's in the 25th century. It's expectations of all the familiar characters showing up and providing an update on their lives that I don't want to really see.

Reno and Tilly are showing up for Disco in the 32nd century.

 

[Christopher]

SFA features The Doctor (Voyager), Jett Reno (Disco), and Sylvia Tilly (also Disco).

How is that any different from Legacy featuring Seven of Nine and Raffi?

I would have thought that self-evident: A Legacy series would feature the reprised characters from Picard as its main characters, whereas the returning characters in SFA are in supporting roles (particularly Tilly, who's only a recurring guest. It makes an obvious difference whether something is a primary or secondary focus. Deep Space Nine spun the the O'Briens off from TNG, but it wasn't The O'Brien Show.

Legacy has plenty of new characters (the La Forge sisters, Jack Crusher, Dr. Ohk, Mura, Esma, etc.)

Uhh, none of those characters are new to Legacy, as they were all from Picard season 3.

 

[fireproof78]

Reno and Tilly are showing up for Disco in the 32nd century.

That isn't really my point. Everything about Legacy sounds like going around and catching up with everyone from A to Z that occured in the 24th century.

 

[Danja]

Uhh, none of those characters are new to Legacy, as they were all from Picard season 3.

They're relatively blank slates. They don't have decades worth of backstory behind them (that's especially true of Mura, Esmar, and Dr. Ohk).

That isn't really my point. Everything about Legacy sounds like going around and catching up with everyone from A to Z that occured in the 24th century.

Matalas's version (the "Where Are They Now?" version) is the one that CBS rejected (it would not have featured Seven and the Enterprise-G crew).

I would HOPE it's something more than just catching up with the 24th century people.

 

[Christopher]

They're relatively blank slates. They don't have decades worth of backstory behind them (that's especially true of Mura, Esmar, and Dr. Ohk).

Moving the goalposts. They're still spinoff characters from a previous work, so they are not analogous to the original characters in Academy.

 

[eschaton]

I dunno, I think we're currently seeing a shift away from the overuse of serialization and a rediscovery of the value of episodic storytelling, as reflected in shows like SNW and Lower Decks, as well as shows like The Mandalorian (sometimes more than others) and Poker Face. There's always a pendulum effect to these things, because our culture has no sense of moderation and we always take everything to an extreme, then react against it and swing back to the other extreme. If the modern day allows for Poker Face, which is a deliberate throwback to 1970s TV mysteries while also being modernized in its handling of that format, I don't think you can validly say the modern era precludes doing something on similar lines for Star Trek -- particularly since that's basically what SNW already is.

I'm utterly uninterested in heavy serialization as a format unless something is based upon an existing novel. Even then, it seems like it's 50/50, since scriptwriters often make choices in adaptation which weaken, rather than strengthen, the source material.

I think the sweet spot for TV is Buffy/DS9 levels of semi-serialization. Give people who want to binge a reason to watch more than one episode in a single sitting, but give every outing its own plot with a beginning, middle, and end.

In fact, there were 10 completed scripts for that first season. I've said it before, but I would really love to be able to read those 10 scripts and see how that story was originally supposed to play out.

You can actually see the remnants of this within the movie, IMHO. It feels like at least three "episodes" loosely tied to one another sequentially.

• The opening battle on the casino station.
• The motley crew crash-landed on the planet with the random flames, trying to figure out who betrayed them.
• The final confrontation with Shan's ship.

 

[fireproof78]

Matalas's version (the "Where Are They Now?" version) is the one that CBS rejected (it would not have featured Seven and the Enterprise-G crew).

I would HOPE it's something more than just catching up with the 24th century people.

I don't have that particular hope for it, nor am I strongly drawn to Seven as a character. Academy might have three names, but they're not the reason I'm watching.