Would Phase Two have been more popular than TNG?

[Aike]

If the Phase Two series back in the late seventies had been made, do you think it would have been more popular than the Next Generation?

Given that The Motion Picture is the most popular Trek movie at the box office (not profitwise, though). And considering that there was a fan based demand to bring Star Trek back at the time my guess is yes.

 

[Maurice]

If the Phase Two series back in the late seventies had been made, do you think it would have been more popular than the Next Generation?

Given that The Motion Picture is the most popular Trek movie at the box office (not profitwise, though). And considering that there was a fan based demand to bring Star Trek back at the time my guess is yes.

It's hard to say. The mania for the show was peaking at the time, but Paramount's 4th network wasn't coming together. Had it gotten off the ground, the life of the network would have affected how long the show could have run, unless Paramount tried to shift it into syndication or sell it to another network as their own collapsed.

The scripts in development for Phase II weren't great, so unless the writing improved as it went into production, it's possible it might've just been sucky.

Or, on the other hand, maybe the staff would have pulled it all together and it'd have run for years like M*A*S*H. No way to know.

 

[JNG]

Assuming a level of promotion and such properly concomitant with a serious launch of a network, yes, I think it could have achieved even higher ratings than TNG. All that was the missing element--there was no shortage of interest in Star Trek, and even ten years later there was still rather a lot.

 

[Captain Zog]

Doubt it. The proposed new Enterprise was basically a Star Wars spacecraft and would have alienated the original fans. Plus the new characters - some of whom appeared in TMP - weren't much liked. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been successful. It's just that I think TNG took Star Trek to a more mature level.

 

[trekkerguy]

No.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Launching a feature film franchise and having 6 films under its belt gave TOS its legitimacy.

It's like Superman. People say that Brandon Routh is the current Superman with the release of the theatrical Superman Returns, but not many people are saying that of Tom Welling of TV's "Smallville."

It is the popularity of the TOS films that allowed there to be 4 Star Trek spin-offs in the 80's, 90's, and 00's and a base to launch an updated Star Trek feature film in 2009.

TOS going the movie route off of the success of Star Wars was a smart move. "Phase II," as good as it may have been, would have been unfavorably compared to the production values of George Lucas's original trilogy.

 

[Kelso]

The proposed new Enterprise was basically a Star Wars spacecraft and would have alienated the original fans.

It sounds like you're thinking of the Planet of the Titans ship-concept.

The Phase II Enterprise would have been truer to the original.

 

[Jefferies]

Well, considering that TNG had two spinoffs, all together with way over 500 episodes, I would say it is hard to beat. I think the first two seasons of TNG give us a good impression of what Phase II might have been like. They are the ones that are most heavily influenced by Gene Rodenberry and made use of several phase II scripts.

As those two seasons are consistently regarded as the weakest of all of Trek, together with Enterprise, I think people would have been rather disappointed after a while. But then again, maybe they would have found a way to improve the quality as they did with TNG.