What else could they have done for Trek V?

[2takesfrakes]

I mean the TNG era is gone isn't it?

Let's not get carried away, here ...

>>SNORT!!!<<

 

[Khan 2.0]

If you watch Star Trek IV carefully, Meyer and Bennett laid down quite a few things for possible follow up in Trek V.

• Saavik's mysterious exit (pregnant?)
• "There will be no peace as long as Kirk lives!"
• Gillian will "see you round the galaxy"
• Did Scotty giving Nichols the formula alter history? Gillian's disappearance?
• Brand new Enterprise with very impressive touch screens that looked like it was ready to handle a five year mission.
• Spock is still "not quite right"
• The Bird of Prey could looks like it survived intact.
• The establishing of the Federation president character, and several parliamentarians
• Chapel and Rand now work at Starfleet HQ under Cartwright

But, for whatever reason, Shatner and Bennett (let's not let him off for the disappointment of V) ignored the lot.

points 2&6 were lightly touched upon but yes there was a bunch of stuff in II-IV that could've been dealt with.

Its VI that's really the sequel to IV and epilogue to 'the trilogy' (there would've been even more connections had the budget allowed it - e.g. Kirk rounding up the crew opening finding Scottie messing about with the HMS Bounty), Vs got a different tone/look/feel. The SFX are just bad (no ILM), Shatner sort of playing Shatner instead of Kirk (also in Generations - in the others he was playing a mature James T Kirk), theres a strange ‘hyper’ atmosphere, and jokes for the sake of jokes (the humour in IV came naturally due to the Crocodile Dundee/BTTF fish out of water element - in V it was just forced - the banter, falling over, doors not working, goofy looks, McCoys constant Spock bashing, inappropriate humour)

 

[mos6507]

I don't think the dangling threads leftover in Trek IV were nearly as existential as past themes like Spock's arc of accepting more humanity or Kirk getting past his mid-life crisis. So they could have led to a new conflict of some kind, but not one directly tied to character arc issues. I thought having Gillian as a love interest in Trek IV worked fine, but bringing her into the future seemed to serve no purpose as she'd just be a fifth-wheel had they tried to maintain her relationship with Kirk. Same deal with Saavik and Spock. There were a lot of ways to play out the TOS characters. They were looking for a pass-the-baton aspect all the way back to Decker and Ilia in Phase II and they never followed through, finally using the Saavik betrayal story with the serial numbers filed off with Valeris. Again, the films are kind of an improvised franchise. Heck, even the original Star Wars is an improvised franchise. So maybe it's not so uncommon. But it seems these days sequels are so expected that the interlocking parts are pre-engineered a bit better.

 

[Warped9]

They did not plan out the franchise far into the future like they are currently with Marvel and DC. They thought it up as they went along and each film was not a sure-thing.

Yes. There was no real plan over the long term unlike franchises today. Back then it was more like the franchises seen in Superman, Batman, James Bond and Indiana Jones--basically winging it from film to film.

Even today it can be hard to buy into film events happening right after each other so it's smart to plan them as events with a decent amount of time between them. In retrospect that's what should have happened with Trek. It did in some measure, but not in any really planned way.


TFF's essential idea was a respectable one and similar to what had already been done in TOS. But it needed to be really thought through and TPTB should not have insisted on the comedy being ramped up.


If nothing else the Trek films as a whole serve as an example of certain things not to do as well as potential roads not taken.

 

[fireproof78]

They did not plan out the franchise far into the future like they are currently with Marvel and DC. They thought it up as they went along and each film was not a sure-thing.

Yes. There was no real plan over the long term unlike franchises today. Back then it was more like the franchises seen in Superman, Batman, James Bond and Indiana Jones--basically winging it from film to film.

Even today it can be hard to buy into film events happening right after each other so it's smart to plan them as events with a decent amount of time between them. In retrospect that's what should have happened with Trek. It did in some measure, but not in any really planned way.


TFF's essential idea was a respectable one and similar to what had already been done in TOS. But it needed to be really thought through and TPTB should not have insisted on the comedy being ramped up.


If nothing else the Trek films as a whole serve as an example of certain things not to do as well as potential roads not taken.

I think most of Trek, as a whole, are lessons in what to do or not do in a franchise. The films are a bit of a microcosm of the overall series and franchise that are interesting to learn, from a production point of view.

As for TFF, it tried to hard to be multiple things, comedy, serious drama, and is lacking for being spread out so thin. Even Roddenberry tried to convince Shatner that the "search for God" plot would not work, as that as an abandoned idea for TMP. The studio's desire for a comedy like TVH did not help matters. Also, the fact that it was Shatner's directorial debut made trying to engage in the comedy and dramatic moments difficult to balance.

 

[Warped9]

Roddenberry himself was hardly infallible. Both TMP and "The Chaneling" are search for God stories. Even WNMHGB is as well (in a manner of speaking) as Gary Mitchell seeks to be a God.

 

[Dukhat]

With Trek V you have the perfect storm of the cast (at least Shatner) giving off a vibe of entitlement about coming back every couple years to do another one, at the same time that Trek was going from a rare treat to a weekly ritual with TNG. So the stage was set to make the old cast look long-in-the-tooth.

Had Trek VI come out instead of Trek V, it would have been the way to end it, as Trek VI provides some decent bridges to Trek III (referring to the death of Kirk's son) and to TNG (with the Klingon angle), but there just wasn't enough mileage left in the character arcs to fuel more films beyond that. It would have been fine for a series with an alien-of-the-week premise, but that's about it.

Exactly. I remember back in 1989 at 16 years old that it would be awesome to have both the TNG TV series and a series of TOS movies every three years...not realizing at 16 that the TOS cast was done, or at least being overshadowed by the popularity of TNG. They basically became redundant.

What should have happened, IMHO, was that TVH would have been the final TOS movie. Spock is alive with all his marbles, the crew is reunited, they've just saved the world and got a brand-new Enterprise-A in the bargain. The rest of their story should have just been left to the imagination. TNG should have taken place only 20 years after TVH (20 years being the definition of a "generation") and the ship should have been the Enterprise-B. There was no reason whatsoever for TNG to have taken place 75 years later (other than Roddenberry wanting to distance it from previous Trek as far as he could).