TOS Purity and ENT

[Wingsley]

There have been discussions over the years about how STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE trampled upon TOS continuity, how it looked too much like TNG, and all that.

But let's assume, for sake of argument, that either TOS had been given a green light for a fourth year of production (including an episode featuring a historic story about Capt. Archer and his NX-01 Enterprise) or maybe the 1979 TMP had been about that history instead of V'ger.

What would be different? What would Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon and company have done to present one of the Federation's "founding fathers" and his prototype starship? How would it look or feel different to make it "fit" in TOS?

 

[RAMA]

They'd have used whatever modern technology and techniques allowed to create the most up-to-date "look" for the universe they created. No other self-respecting producer(s) would do less, including on Enterprise. In fact, Gene Roddenberry did no differently with STTMP. The idea that a 21st century series would have consistently used the TOS look is ludicrous.

RAMA

 

[number6]

They'd have used whatever modern technology and techniques allowed to create the most up-to-date "look" for the universe they created. No other self-respecting prducer would do less, including Enterprise. In fact, Gene Roddenberry did no differently with STTMP. The idea that a 21st century series would have consistently used the TOS look is ludicrous.

RAMA

This.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, the TMP look doesn't fit particularly well with TOS, so there's no reason to think that given sufficient budget they would have tried to be that consistent with a prequel. In those days they were a lot more interested in making a TV series than in creating a cult.

 

[Lieut. Arex]

For a fourth season show? No doubt the interior would have looked pretty much like part of the Enterprise. Think of how the interior of the Botany Bay looked in "Space Seed". The bridge may have been a redress of Auxiliary Control, smaller and less sophisticated than the bridge. Uniforms would have been another use of the ubiquitous jumpsuits. As for the ship's exterior, if they didn't use some AMT kits to bash together a ship, it's possible the Matt Jefferies's designed Leif Ericson might've been used. It carries forward some design elements of the DY-100 so could plausibly fit as an evolution of that lineage.

For a 1979 film/show? We'd have gotten something that looked a lot more like a modern NASA design with warp drive nacelles. For interiors, perhaps they would have used redresses of any space station mock-ups of the time, much as they used the Voyager model for Voyager 6.

 

[Wingsley]

Okay, we've gotten some ideas on what the interior and exterior of Archer's ship would've looked like. But if we assume that Archer & company would appear in historic "flashbacks" (maybe it's a story about the "past" and "present" problems with the Romulans, and how each generation encountered these foes) how would Roddenberry and company have presented Archer & company conceptually, not just the ship, sets and costumes, but how would the characters and their "world" have been presented? (TOS had a little bit of experience of showing us bits and pieces of their history, sometimes with vivid imagery and sometimes through imagination; consider "Where No Man Has Gone Before"... the ill-fated Valiant; "Balance of Terror"... the Earth-Romulan Conflict of a century before; and "The Menagerie"... the ep that cleverly showed us Pike's Enterprise of over a decade earlier)

I realize that Jonathan Archer was not a creation of Roddenberry, Coon, Fontana, etc. But I still think he and his crew generally "fit". Do you agree?

 

[number6]

I do, but then I thought ENT was a pretty good idea for the most part. I enjoyed the show.

If this were done around the time of TOS or TMP, I think they would have done it the way it has been guessed upthread..

 

[Captain Robert April]

My recollection is that ENT didn't so much violate continuity as it strained credibility from time to time. It's not that things couldn't be reconciled, it's that we have to jump through a few more hoops that we should to make it all fit.

 

[Saquist]

There have been discussions over the years about how STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE trampled upon TOS continuity, how it looked too much like TNG, and all that.

But let's assume, for sake of argument, that either TOS had been given a green light for a fourth year of production (including an episode featuring a historic story about Capt. Archer and his NX-01 Enterprise) or maybe the 1979 TMP had been about that history instead of V'ger.

What would be different? What would Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon and company have done to present one of the Federation's "founding fathers" and his prototype starship? How would it look or feel different to make it "fit" in TOS?

TMP and TOS were blended successfully.
TMP didn't trample upon TOS at every chance.
The look of each gave way to budget and tech and that is a respectable give but after 40 years you need to respect what came before. And if you're doing a prequel you need to strictly follow the path you've followed in the past.

That's just how it is otherwise you create a schism in your Fan Base.

 

[Forbin]

That's just how it is otherwise you create a schism in your Fan Base.

I can't imagine that happning!

 

[Shatnertage]

They'd have used whatever modern technology and techniques allowed to create the most up-to-date "look" for the universe they created. No other self-respecting producer(s) would do less, including on Enterprise. In fact, Gene Roddenberry did no differently with STTMP. The idea that a 21st century series would have consistently used the TOS look is ludicrous.

RAMA

I think that nailed it. As RAMA and others have said, under GR the look of the ship and show was constantly evolving.

The only difference I can think of between what we saw and what GR might have presented is mini-dresses on the female crew instead of jumpsuits. Well, maybe mini-jumpsuits.

And I'm really not into the idea of Star Trek "purity." It's even more preposterous than the idea of a canon for a television show. The show itself inherently was a combination of ideas ("Wagon Train to the stars"). And it's always been organic, growing in different directions throughout the TV series, fiction, games, and movies.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Real life doesn't follow a smooth, seamless progression, so it's not a dealbreaker that Star Trek doesn't either. There are limits, but the lines on the road are a lot further apart than some folks think.

 

[Hober Mallow]

It's actually easy for me to deal with. ENT was crap, as was almost all Berman-era Trek. I don't watch ENT, therefore it's no issue at all.

 

[Ronald Held]

A fourth season and the same amount of money as for season 1 and 2? If so they might have strained the budget to build at least the NX-01 bridge set. If not there would be redresses of the standing sets, and we might wonder why there was so little technical progress in those ~100 years?

 

[KingstonTrekker]

There have been discussions over the years about how STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE trampled upon TOS continuity, how it looked too much like TNG, and all that.

But let's assume, for sake of argument, that either TOS had been given a green light for a fourth year of production (including an episode featuring a historic story about Capt. Archer and his NX-01 Enterprise) or maybe the 1979 TMP had been about that history instead of V'ger.

What would be different? What would Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon and company have done to present one of the Federation's "founding fathers" and his prototype starship? How would it look or feel different to make it "fit" in TOS?

Enterprise is in an alternate timeline --- a timeline created by the events of First Contact (e.g. the second season episode Regeneration.) My personal theory is that this new timeline helps to explain the advances in technology by the 2150s...and also with the Kelvin in the 2230's.

 

[Warped9]

Setting aside my animosity towards ENT in its entirety the reality is that a prequel series conceived and produced in the '70s would have been quite different than what we actually got. The main reason is that the producers wouldn't have been leaning on three spinoff series and 6-10 ten films as a starting point. And they wouldn't have had FC as an excuse for a screwed up continuity. Their prime source for historical background would be whatever had been established in TOS and maybe TAS.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Enterprise is an alternate timeline...

Except Hoshi and Archer's NX-01 service records are on the USS Defiant ("The Tholian Web", "In a Mirror, Darkly") computer, and the finale of Enterprise was a TNG episode.

And the reason modern TV/film Trek looks more advanced is because the future depicted in Star Trek is impessionistic. Star Trek's future moves with the present. I mean, who actually thinks the computers of 250 hence will de-evolve to the point where they can only display blinking coloured squares?

As for the OP, ENT in 1969 would have been a product of it's era and a totally different creative team. Comparing them would be like comparing any two versions of Batman. Visually they would have re-dressed TOS Enterprise sets if they imagined the era as B&B did. If not, it could have been anything, budget and story permitting.

Wouldn't such a TOS/ENT flashback thing be a bit too similar to "The Minagerie", anyway?

 

[Anji]

I gotta be honest I don't think Gene would've done a prequel. He didn't think like that. He always thought of going forward, what the future would be like.

And I don't know that he would've done anything beyond TNG. Remember, Roddenberry did TNG because he said it was the "Star Trek he wanted to do".

Also, when asked to help develop DS9, he said he wished everyone the best of luck but he was done.

I don't know what Gene would've done. But if he had one more series in him I would given anything to see it. The hopeful vision he gave us of the future is something we need right NOW!

 

[KingstonTrekker]

Enterprise is an alternate timeline...

Except Hoshi and Archer's NX-01 service records are on the USS Defiant ("The Tholian Web", "In a Mirror, Darkly") computer, and the finale of Enterprise was a TNG episode.

And the reason modern TV/film Trek looks more advanced is because the future depicted in Star Trek is impessionistic. Star Trek's future moves with the present. I mean, who actually thinks the computers of 250 hence will de-evolve to the point where they can only display blinking coloured squares?

Re: Point 1 Above

There is no reason that their biographies couldn't be similar in both timelines --- I was only proposing that the new timeline created by First Contact could account for the technologically advanced 2150's.


Re: Point 2 Above

OMG --- I never thought of this!!!

Of course I realise this...I was just trying to come up with an in-universe FICTIONAL possibility for the advanced technology in Enterprise.

 

[Warped9]

Enterprise is an alternate timeline...

Except Hoshi and Archer's NX-01 service records are on the USS Defiant ("The Tholian Web", "In a Mirror, Darkly") computer, and the finale of Enterprise was a TNG episode.

Which is retconning established in ENT and not TOS.