Would live action Trek be more successful if it were like Trek Lit

[Gotham Central]

One of the things that I love about Trek lit is that its made the crews FAR more diverse than their live action counterparts.

Not only is there more Earth based ethnicities and ALOT more female characters...the books also overflowing with aliens. One of the things that Star Wars always seemed to have over trek was that its universe was more coloful and more diverse in terms of the types of beings shown to live there.

Trek, on the other hand, confined itself almost exclusively to humans and bumpy forehead aliens. Even after CGI made it possible to show more diverse alien species, Trek films largely stuck to humans.

Many of the late Berman era films might have done better (especially with kids and families) had they shown us as much diversity as we get in the books.

 

[Christopher]

I doubt it. The things that matter there are the stories and the characters, not the designs of the aliens.

Look at the new Trek film. Although it has a few exotic background aliens, they're all humanoid except for a couple of large, dangerous animals on Delta Vega, and all the film's major characters are human or very close to it (Vulcan, Romulan, Orion). And that film was extremely successful.

 

[William Leisner]

And I don't think Star Wars' use of aliens is particularly impressive. All the main characters are humans, and overwhelmingly Caucasian to boot. The aliens are primarily restricted to small roles, bad comic relief, or background.

Now, if Trek had more 'droid comedy duos...

 

[TerriO]

We've already had the creature from Hoth. Don't tempt them, Bill.

 

[shivkala]

I'd say no. The novel format allows for more characterization, for one. For another, they can have alien characters look how they want to, without the need to pay make-up artists to design the look and apply it. Also, they can do action scenes without worrying about the cost for special effects (something Peter David made a note of in The Siege when he addressed the issue of why Odo could do things in the novel that he couldn't do on the tv show). They are limited by what they can imagine, not by what the budget can do.

For instance, I don't see them doing a Titan series because of the multiple designs for the crew members. Hell, some of them would probably need to be CGI to be portrayed as described. Then there's Melora, who I've heard rumored, was supposed to be a regular on DS9, but the cost of the low-gravity scenes would have been too much for the show.

 

[donners22]

Novels have the freedom of operating without a budget, unlike a TV series or film. Every CGI character would come at a substantial cost, which evidently was not considered worthwhile. Aside from the cost, one needs only to look at the monsters on the ice world in the latest film to see how poor the results can be - and that was in limited screentime with plenty of other distractions from the monsters' appearance.

I doubt that having a handful more colourful aliens would haved improved the performance of the films.

 

[Stephen!]

he addressed the issue of why Odo could do things in the novel that he couldn't do on the tv show).

And also, they mentioned in the DS9 companion, they didn't really want to over exploit his abilities all the time.

 

[Marie1]

I think it might- but I'm not sure a company would want to budget that. I mean, Odo's shapeshifting alone...

But I do super-enjoy the books!

 

[Una McCormack]

To Stephen!:

Just coming!

 

[shanejayell]

I often wish they'd do a few TV movies. *sigh* Or animated features.

 

[T'Girl]

Novels also have the advantage of only have to sell to a relativaly small group to be a commercial success. I'm not real sure about the numbers, but a star trek novel that sell hundred thousand copies is a block buster, that many tickets sold to a film is a failure. I believe that why the films are dumb down and filled with FX and battle/action. Charactor development doesn't fill seat, and let's face it films cost more than books.

 

[wizkid]

I believe that the current set of TNG / Titan writers would do a better job of creating a movie story for the big screen than what has been done to date with the movies. All the latest TNG stuff is fantastic.

The story and characters matter the most when reading a book and I believe people who make their living writing books of this nature understand and grasp this concept better than most movie makers/creators. If the author needs 1,000 Enterprise E's the zipping through worm holes or crazy creatures, they write it in because it helps the story, not to get more people in the theatre.

Movies seem to make the mistake believing they need big action and the story comes second.

 

[Thrawn]

Movies seem to make the mistake believing they need big action and the story comes second.

Unfortunately, the box office seems to agree (see: Transformers).

 

[Geoff]

To Stephen!:

Just coming!

Um... TMI.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Hey, dont blame the movies, blame the audience who supports them. They don't have to do a new series, but make a mini-series out of it concerning one era of Trek history like the Earth-Romulan War or the Early 24th Century.

 

[seigezunt]

I prefer the books that I can imagine as a movie, an epic one.

That said, I think the two should never meet. The books can give a depth and a perspective that a movie director would never have the budget or talent for (Star Trek XI notwithstanding ). I mean, some of these books, you'd have to be a nut like Peter Jackson to make them into movies.