What if ________ had directed Star Trek _________ ?

[Allyn Gibson]

What if Leonard Nimoy had directed "Generations"? The lowest moments of GEN were all parts with original crew. Chekov and Scotty we're OK, but their plot lines were strange. Kirk's death... Well, it was unnecessary (IMO). Maybe Nimoy could improve something or even remove scenes with original crew.

In my opinion, Nimoy would have been a step down from Carson. The direction was not the problem with the film, and Carson acquitted himself very well behind the camera. (It also helped that John Alonzo's cinematography was top-notch.) Nimoy's direction, in my opinion, was never lively.

What if David Fincher had directed Star Trek: First Contact?

 

[bbjeg]

What if Bryan Singer directed Star Trek: Nemesis?

You'd get a new view on the characters and what they think of themselves. Shinzon would have plucked Picard's emotional strings and Data and B4 scenes would have been more inhuman (focusing on the android).

It definitely would have beat that action flick they were going for.

 

[T'Girl]

Clint Eastwood directing Nemesis, he would have tightened up the actions scenes and brought more emotion to the expanded character scenes.

He would have done more with the Picard and Data scenes, Eastwood is great at showing strong male friendships.

 

[Green Shirt]

This idea was prompted by me musing about what if Robert Wise had directed The Final Frontier.

I'm just imagining endless shots of the approach to the Great Barrier.

 

[Armored Saint]

Generations by David Lynch:
- The first part with Kirk is interresting and sadly cut too short.
- Picard and Beverly or Riker are talking about Mintaka III.
- A too long second part where we learn that Liko was already a total nutjob before his encounter with The Picard. We also see Guinan, Q and mister Homn.
The story is incomplete because the movie was made to have a sequel, but it's a box office flop, so, no sequel.

 

[Timby]

What if Bryan Singer directed Star Trek: Nemesis?

You'd get a new view on the characters and what they think of themselves. Shinzon would have plucked Picard's emotional strings and Data and B4 scenes would have been more inhuman (focusing on the android).

It definitely would have beat that action flick they were going for.

Wouldn't have fixed that terrible script.

No, what I would have liked to see is Shatner directing The Search for Spock. He nailed the actual direction aspects (blocking, camera placements / movements) of The Final Frontier, including some of the best shots of the entire film series. I'd love to see what he would have done with a semi-decent script.

 

[AgentCoop]

Generations by David Lynch:
- The first part with Kirk is interresting and sadly cut too short.
- Picard and Beverly or Riker are talking about Mintaka III.
- A too long second part where we learn that Liko was already a total nutjob before his encounter with The Picard. We also see Guinan, Q and mister Homn.
The story is incomplete because the movie was made to have a sequel, but it's a box office flop, so, no sequel.

You forgot the subplot where Li Nalas tries to take over Bajor in a real estate swindle.

 

[Armored Saint]

And St. John Talbot shot by Caithlin Dar.

 

[Warped9]

No, what I would have liked to see is Shatner directing The Search for Spock. He nailed the actual direction aspects (blocking, camera placements / movements) of The Final Frontier, including some of the best shots of the entire film series. I'd love to see what he would have done with a semi-decent script.

It would have been nice if Shatner had actually had more than spare change for a budget.

 

[Maurice]

JJ and Steven?

According to the report at the Vulture, Abrams is now finishing a script he plans to direct which is “a tip of the hat to [Spielberg’s] movies of the 70’s and early 80’s.” As for the plot the report states:...

Boldface hurts eyes. Stop.

It would have been nice if Shatner had actually had more than spare change for a budget.

Wasn't that small. And he blew big chunks of his budget on expensive location shooting.

 

[OpenMaw]

Yeah, i'll never get where the notion comes from that Shatner didn't have money. Sure the film had some hiccups regarding certain actors, and not getting ILM for the effects work, but he did have money, he just spent it very poorly. TFF had more money behind it than any of the movies since TMP as far as I remember.

 

[HIjol]

^apologies to the Vice Admiral, above...boldface unintentional...

 

[F. King Daniel]

Tim Burton's Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Click!

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Tim Burton's Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Click!

That's close to being right...Star Trek: The Freakshow Picture.

 

[dub]

This idea was prompted by me musing about what if Robert Wise had directed The Final Frontier.

I'm just imagining endless shots of the approach to the Great Barrier.

You just won the thread, sir!

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, i'll never get where the notion comes from that Shatner didn't have money. Sure the film had some hiccups regarding certain actors, and not getting ILM for the effects work, but he did have money, he just spent it very poorly. TFF had more money behind it than any of the movies since TMP as far as I remember.

TFF had more scope than any of the other sequels, and scope costs money. Also, they had to drop a quarter-to-half-a-mil on a new bridge, which wasn't budgeted for, plus they spent money up front on nice little bonus items that they'd have dropped if they knew a budget crunch was going to hit (as is, I'm very happy to have new phasers that look like real weapons, but in the scheme of things, that money could have bought some VFX that mattered.) Half a mil for Paradise City seems a lot to me, don't know what Herman was thinking there ...

I don't think he spent it poorly by and large, but you could argue shot by shot. I really LOVE when the shuttlecraft lands and everybody jumps out in one shot, but certainly they could have done it with cutaways and saved a ton.

 

[trevanian]

Back on topic, I'd've liked to see what John Frankenheimer could have done with a TREK film. He was over his long slump by 1985 or so, and he could have brought the edginess/grittiness that Shatner was longing for while also supplying everything else you want in a director. If you look at his hat trick of MANCHURIAN/7DAYSINMAY/THE TRAIN in 1963-1965 (and add SECONDS too), that's a guy who know what to do with both cameras and actors. And he got a really good performance out of Rock Hudson in SECONDS. Plus he sometimes used inexpensive or forgotten actors like Will Geer, so it wouldn't break the bank.

I guess Frankenheimer for TUC, but MY version of TUC, the one where Gorkon lives and the two starships have to fight their way to Earth, with Kirk crashing the Enterprise into that uglyass spacedock & dying to allow the chancellor to make planetfall safely.

 

[Warped9]

It's a shame in a way that cgi wasn't around back then to address some of TFF's f/x problems. Too much of the film really looks cheap.

Thinking about it there should have been ways to rewrite the film to achieve essentially the same things but more effectively.

The whole Yosemite opening sequence is extraneous (and a waste of money). The whole Enterprise as lemon and with skeleton crew was also unnecessary. Was it absolutely necessary to build a new bridge? Couldn't the previous set be salvaged and tweaked? I can easily envision how everything prior to them arriving at Nimbus III could have been rewritten in a much tighter and more satisfying way (saving them money, too).

Yeah, it was nice to see a new shuttlecraft, but if the ship wasn't a lemon then you wouldn't really need a shuttlecraft and shoddy looking hangar set. More money saved.

The money saved in the beginning alone might have been enough to dress up the ending more suitably and maybe closer to what Shatner originally had in mind.

There was money to be saved here and there throughout the entire film all the while telling the story more effectively. There's a lot put into the film that was just extraneous crap.

 

[T'Girl]

David Lynch

The conference room scenes would have included drinking really good coffee

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The whole Yosemite opening sequence is extraneous (and a waste of money).

The money saved in the beginning alone might have been enough to dress up the ending more suitably and maybe closer to what Shatner originally had in mind.

Yosemite was the best part of the film; it provided real character moments / living real life beyond the main plot. Part of the success of TWOK was the exploration of the long-lived relationships. Take that away, and you end up wit the cardboard "archetype" characters (read: lazy writing) seen in many Star Wars or Marvel movies.