My thoughts exactly. To try to shoehorn some concept into Trek in a vain attempt to become something as subjective as "cool" is rediculous. Especially when what is "cool" changes from moment to moment. There was a time when being a eyeglasses wearing, trivia spouting, know-it-all nerd was a one way ticket to loserville (as most most of us knows). Now, thanks to Kevin Smith, films like Juno and shows liike Mythbusters, being part of the nerd herd is "cool". No, the best Trek can do is not try to be cool, but just to be itself. Abrams knows this, or he wouldn't have taken the chance of putting the crew back in the brightly colored TOS tops as opposed to using some muted colors like nuBSG. Dispite what the canonistas and continuty porn fans think and, dispite a few small cosmetic changes, he wants Trek to be Trek again and let histroy decide wether or not it will be "cool".
To BECOME cool..again
- Thread starter RobertScorpio
- Start date
My thoughts exactly. To try to shoehorn some concept into Trek in a vain attempt to become something as subjective as "cool" is rediculous. Especially when what is "cool" changes from moment to moment. There was a time when being a eyeglasses wearing, trivia spouting, know-it-all nerd was a one way ticket to loserville (as most most of us knows). Now, thanks to Kevin Smith, films like Juno and shows liike Mythbusters, being part of the nerd herd is "cool". No, the best Trek can do is not try to be cool, but just to be itself. Abrams knows this, or he wouldn't have taken the chance of putting the crew back in the brightly colored TOS tops as opposed to using some muted colors like nuBSG. Dispite what the canonistas and continuty porn fans think and, dispite a few small cosmetic changes, he wants Trek to be Trek again and let histroy decide wether or not it will be "cool".
I think cool is knowing yourself more than anything. Nothing has ever become cool by trying to be a carbon copy of the latest greatest thing. I kinda dislike the "ripped from the headlines" approach because what seems to end up happening is that the show will look for the one story that everyone is already talking to death and then base an entire story around that. It doesn't work for me. I can always see the story they ripped from behind the dressing they put on top.
Kinda like the "genderless aliens" TNG ep. Once one fell in love with Riker, everyone watching knew that they were watching a story about gays. It wasn't hidden all that well. And since every plot point in that episode was point by point in line with "don't try to change gays" it wasn't so much a story as a sermon. I liked the X-men story better -- there's a cure for the thing that makes you a freak -- do you take it or not? Then it's about the characters agonizing about the cure, which isn't nearly so "hit people over the head with the sledgehammer" approach to getting the message across. I hate that, because it pulls me out of the story, and it seems like you're treating the audience like a bunch of drooling idiots.
Good point Balthier, Good point. Anyhoo I apologize if I made that post seem that harsh to the common TV viewer. It was 4 in the morning when I wrote the post so my brain wasn't working that well 
. Still I'm stickin' to my guns, the setting in the show need to have some relativity to the viewer. whether in the form of an aligory, or a compete mirror of our time. That's only setting though, The Story always revolves around the characters and the plot, the setting gives the story a needed flavor, like salt or pepper it makes the story easier to swallow. As I said before characters need flaws, Kirk and Spock were not perfect beings, each had there own flaw. That, and explosions are cool ala Mythbusters.
Cheers.
. Still I'm stickin' to my guns, the setting in the show need to have some relativity to the viewer. whether in the form of an aligory, or a compete mirror of our time. That's only setting though, The Story always revolves around the characters and the plot, the setting gives the story a needed flavor, like salt or pepper it makes the story easier to swallow. As I said before characters need flaws, Kirk and Spock were not perfect beings, each had there own flaw. That, and explosions are cool ala Mythbusters. Cheers.
Honestly, it didn't seem all that harsh. I think ultimately we're all touching the same elephant trying to discribe the thing, and just taking different angles.
It's not exactly that I don't want relevant stories, just that I want them to be more allagorical rather than literal -- I don't want to see a story about some situation that almost exactly mirrors the real world. I want something fictional that touches on the real world.
It's not exactly that I don't want relevant stories, just that I want them to be more allagorical rather than literal -- I don't want to see a story about some situation that almost exactly mirrors the real world. I want something fictional that touches on the real world.
Thank you!! I forgot how to spell that!
Back on Topic. Trek should be trek, as long as it doesnt turn into "911" Trek, or Scorpio's Trek (JK JK dont kill me please ) I'll be fine. On that note I'm currently working on a "pilot" (Its actually a 20 - 30 pg comic) based on an idea of the early 26th century trek if a ship had trans warp hopefully when Im done you guys could review it since my skills in both art and storytelling aren't amazing yet.
I don't think Trek can become 'cool'. It does need to become popular again. I know this word is being bandied about almost as much as 'canon' is, but like a few people here, I think Trek needs to be 'relevant' again. Or at least make people sit up and pay attention.
I've tried watching Voyager with family members, and they really can't get into it. It sometimes comes off as slightly preachy or pretentious, they relied too much on the flashing lights and the sparks and Janeway's hair getting messed up to show how much danger they were in, and worst of all, the sheer amount of technobabble can be crippling to a casual viewer.
I've seen a couple of interesting ideas thrown about here. Firefly grabbed a large proportion of non sci-fi fans, probably due to the Whedon fans, but also because Firefly was a story about humans, like you or me, and they just so happened to be in space.
Sci-fi by any other name is very popular and successful at the moment - Lost, Heroes, umm... Supernatural? Okay, not that many, but they are drawing in a large crowd. Even Doctor Who and Torchwood have made a significant impact to the sci-fi scene - particularly in the UK, where it's been pretty stagnant since TNG finished its run on the BBC in 96.
Maybe Trek doesn't need to be about the big space battles and the aliens with bumpy heads, but go back to the idea of analysing the human condition. Like people have said - characters can and will die, there's no magic fix/reset button at the end of every mission...
My take has always been that each race in Star Trek constitutes one overriding human characteristic, with humans being the happy medium for all the races. I think that's also why an all alien crew won't work. Having said that, humans were actually in the minority for DS9's characters, but all the characters were real and believable, each with their own particular character trait that set them apart.
I think a new series of Trek would have to dispense with this idea that all the main cast survives and the mission is over at the end of the episode, and focus more on the human aspect of it. It reminded me a bit of the first series or two of Red Dwarf, where the plots are mostly character driven between Rimmer and Lister. I'm not sure how to translate that into something more Trek-like, but it's an idea for making it accessible by the masses. Something like a lone research ship in a relatively low populated region of space or something along the lines of the Earth Cargo Authority and Boomers from Enterprise where the crew (and families) would mostly only have themselves for company. Maybe even something that deals with the political side of Trek (kind of like what the Federation One fanfilm is doing).
Maybe there's no mileage in that idea, but maybe something that uses aspects of it?
I've tried watching Voyager with family members, and they really can't get into it. It sometimes comes off as slightly preachy or pretentious, they relied too much on the flashing lights and the sparks and Janeway's hair getting messed up to show how much danger they were in, and worst of all, the sheer amount of technobabble can be crippling to a casual viewer.
I've seen a couple of interesting ideas thrown about here. Firefly grabbed a large proportion of non sci-fi fans, probably due to the Whedon fans, but also because Firefly was a story about humans, like you or me, and they just so happened to be in space.
Sci-fi by any other name is very popular and successful at the moment - Lost, Heroes, umm... Supernatural? Okay, not that many, but they are drawing in a large crowd. Even Doctor Who and Torchwood have made a significant impact to the sci-fi scene - particularly in the UK, where it's been pretty stagnant since TNG finished its run on the BBC in 96.
Maybe Trek doesn't need to be about the big space battles and the aliens with bumpy heads, but go back to the idea of analysing the human condition. Like people have said - characters can and will die, there's no magic fix/reset button at the end of every mission...
My take has always been that each race in Star Trek constitutes one overriding human characteristic, with humans being the happy medium for all the races. I think that's also why an all alien crew won't work. Having said that, humans were actually in the minority for DS9's characters, but all the characters were real and believable, each with their own particular character trait that set them apart.
I think a new series of Trek would have to dispense with this idea that all the main cast survives and the mission is over at the end of the episode, and focus more on the human aspect of it. It reminded me a bit of the first series or two of Red Dwarf, where the plots are mostly character driven between Rimmer and Lister. I'm not sure how to translate that into something more Trek-like, but it's an idea for making it accessible by the masses. Something like a lone research ship in a relatively low populated region of space or something along the lines of the Earth Cargo Authority and Boomers from Enterprise where the crew (and families) would mostly only have themselves for company. Maybe even something that deals with the political side of Trek (kind of like what the Federation One fanfilm is doing).
Maybe there's no mileage in that idea, but maybe something that uses aspects of it?
Last edited:
On that note I'm currently working on a "pilot" (Its actually a 20 - 30 pg comic) based on an idea of the early 26th century trek if a ship had trans warp hopefully when Im done you guys could review it since my skills in both art and storytelling aren't amazing yet.
Oddly enough I have a simila story concept, though it's 25th century, the technology's not Federation and oddly enough that led me to a wonderful idea... or what I thought was a wonderful idea, for something new and fresh.
Just need to write it down without getting distracted by the internet one day...
Or I need to befriend people at a TV studio (as long as they agree with me
)
On that note I'm currently working on a "pilot" (Its actually a 20 - 30 pg comic) based on an idea of the early 26th century trek if a ship had trans warp hopefully when Im done you guys could review it since my skills in both art and storytelling aren't amazing yet.
Oddly enough I have a simila story concept, though it's 25th century, the technology's not Federation and oddly enough that led me to a wonderful idea... or what I thought was a wonderful idea, for something new and fresh.
Just need to write it down without getting distracted by the internet one day...
Or I need to befriend people at a TV studio (as long as they agree with me
Join the club man, join it.
As long as it doesn't involve the following:
A captian who was beamed aboard a shuttle only wearing tropical gear and no one took him seriously until he got changed, they thought he was a civilian.
Back on topic.
Indeed, the technobabble has been nortorius for frying the minds of, lesser humans captain
PS just turned 18 WOOOOO!! I can pay taxes and get arrested! (pure sarcasm there) I got Star Trek comics as my first gift!!!
Join the club man, join it.
As long as it doesn't involve the following:
then I wont have to slip the dogs of war.A captian who was beamed aboard a shuttle only wearing tropical gear and no one took him seriously until he got changed, they thought he was a civilian.
How did you know!
Heh.The main theme of my idea was losing faith in his job and had been on a slump through the post-war years, it became a weird reflection of how I felt after a while watching Voyager and Enterprise and how I started to feel less interested.
If I didn't get distracted easily or write one off things as tests to check if I can actually take it seriously - one of which I posted last night on my blog - it might actually work.
Indeed, the technobabble has been nortorius for frying the minds of, lesser humans captain
I scribbled down an idea a few weeks ago that went somethnig like;
"Hand me the spikey, blue thing..."
"...you mean the sonic resonator?"
"Is it spikey and blue?"
"...yes."
"Then pass it over so I can zap the green thing."
"And you're the chief engineer, right?"
Didn't sound as great when I read it back sober.
And happy 18ness
I scribbled down an idea a few weeks ago that went somethnig like;
"Hand me the spikey, blue thing..."
"...you mean the sonic resonator?"
"Is it spikey and blue?"
"...yes."
"Then pass it over so I can zap the green thing."
"And you're the chief engineer, right?"
Didn't sound as great when I read it back sober.
And happy 18ness
That's exactly what I think needs to be done. Not dumb it down, obviously, but keep that sense that the characters are still from the same planet as us. Enterprise kinda had it right, at the start of the show, but quickly lost it and devolved into rerouting the plasma manifolds through the polaron flux transducer
And happy (belated) 18th from me too johnsonalmighty
That's exactly what I think needs to be done. Not dumb it down, obviously, but keep that sense that the characters are still from the same planet as us. Enterprise kinda had it right, at the start of the show, but quickly lost it and devolved into rerouting the plasma manifolds through the polaron flux transducer
It's the kind of thing I end up writing whenever I attempt to and I just get the feeling if I tied to publish something like it I'd end up in a room with a publisher asking '...are you serious?'
Strange thing is that it fit in with the logic - there was a line in DS9 about absorbing the Bajoran Militia when they enter Starfleet (though I may have just made that up, terrible memory) so I wrote a guy who's government had been absorbed info Starfleet after joining the Federation and feeling totally out of place as he has his own method of doing things... and no one told him otherwise.
But too much of that thought ended up the most anti-Trek stuff I could write. The link in my sig has an example of that, something I wote and ignored for a year until re-reading it yesterday.
My intention was to, again even if just for myself - I have no delusions of contributing anything outside of my own head to the Trek universe - create a more fun image of Star Trek, scoop up all the stuff I liked, ditch the stuff that bugged me and its ended up being in-story rants about stuff that bugged me.
I'd like to see a shake up in the Trek format thats like the one in my mind - but I couldn't say if it would be better or not, and I'm sure a lot of people have the same thought. But the direction of Enterpise and Voyager really alienated me as a fan... it felt too much like going back to the well instead of evolving and adapting to the audience.
Thank you for the well wishes.
Plus, I think your right. Lets leave trek to the people who make dough outta this. For us who have "brilliant" ideas, lets just post it on the web so the community has some entertainment in the meantime the hardcore fans wont complain about the new Enterprise so much.
Plus, I think your right. Lets leave trek to the people who make dough outta this. For us who have "brilliant" ideas, lets just post it on the web so the community has some entertainment in the meantime the hardcore fans wont complain about the new Enterprise so much.
I agree with this, but I go a step further. I hate to break this to anybody, but Star Trek has never been "cool." While Star Trek MAY have been what one would call mainstream, in that everybody knows what it is, most people don't watch it, and you'll find far more negative impressions on it (even among those who have never seen a single episode) than positive. Which, incidentally, is a big part of why I think this new movie will fail, because it ignores that to 90% of America (and perhaps the world), Star Trek is little more than the punchline of a joke.
I accepted that a long time ago. But, that doesn't mean that it can't be successful.
With all due respect, Gene Roddenberry never went out of his way to avoid the "sledgehammer" approach. He did it in TOS as well. Nichelle Nichols commented a long time ago about how TOS was a series of morality plays.
Star Trek has always had a pretty big following within the gay community. So, I don't know that there was a need to be any more subtle than it was.
Frankly, that's why I thought the Xindi season, along with the Demons/Terra Prime arc probably more closely fit with what Gene had done with TOS than anything else on Enterprise, even though most people on these boards hated those story lines. They had the most to do with the things that were going on at the time.
At any rate, the ship in space situation isn't really relevent unless the ship in space becomes the main focus of the story.
The real question is whether or not you can do something in a Star Trek format which is truly original. 28 seasons of TV is a long time. Throw in 10 movies and it's easy to see how you essentially end up with a Terminator story line for this new movie.
I don't think you can keep grabbing for the cookie cutter and hope to succeed with Trek or anything else.
Good points made. First, as to the Red Dwarf notion of being character driven I think we all recall from TOS the strong relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy - so that's how you make it translate - great characters and it's how they react to a given situation that makes for a compelling hour of television. Not the gimics or the set up but the characters and how they react in the plot. Hence the strength of DS9's run. Plus how Enterprise started off with trying to focus on Archer, T'Pol and Trip.
It's not a question of making it cool or even relevant. It's about making good consistent drama / adventure.
That's why Star trek is dead now. That concept has lost it's novelty. Without a change / fresh ideas, this series will be abandoned. And... well, they have abandoned it, aren't they? Star Trek XI is just their last hope to decided kill or not kill Star Trek.
There will always be good ideas, but if TPTB wanted to create a new Trek series, they'd investigate all possibilities and go with a great idea.
It's all about the quality of writing rather than the setting, really.
No, I just comment people who think that Star Trek is just about Starship moving around Nebula and doing "trek" business. It just a kind of strict static rules that make Star Trek won't go any where.
I'd agree with that, to be honest...
...if the films a success, and they wanted to capitalize on it with TV, I reckon a TV show would fall into the same mindset. Ship. Space. Trekking around... business as usual.
I've got a feeling that next year some suits will think "This is good business!" and restart Trek the wrong direction. Not only sticking to a done to death formula that Ent and Voyager seemed to fall into - but injecting the nostalgic elements of the TOS era ultimately proposing an embarrassing piece of television.
Similar threads
