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Star Trek XI: Romulan Wars? 753

Posted by michael from the it's-all-downhill-from-here dept.
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that the next Star Trek movie will deal with the war between Earth and the Romulans that led to the founding of the Federation. According to Rick Berman, the film will be 'set before the time of Kirk, but will not be connected with Enterprise.' So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"
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Star Trek XI: Romulan Wars? More

Star Trek XI: Romulan Wars?

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  • Uh.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by raehl ( 609729 ) * <(moc.oohay) (ta) (113lhear)> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:30PM (#9655218) Homepage
    Maybe the Romulans wear Vulcan disguises?

    • Re:Uh.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:34PM (#9655279) Homepage Journal
      Actually, the War was supposedly fought entirely in space. The treaty was handled over audio COMMs only, so the Federation never managed to find out what the Romulans looked like.

      Of course, they could just do like Space: Above and Beyond and goo the bad guys every time someone tries to peek inside their suit.

      • Re:Uh.... (Score:5, Funny)

        by freqres ( 638820 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:43PM (#9655412)
        That sounds supisciously like Sci-Fi pr0n to me.

      • Re:SAAB (Score:4, Informative)

        by MachDelta ( 704883 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:54PM (#9655535)
        We DID eventually get to see what the Chigs looked like in S:AAB though. I think it was the last two episodes (23: "And if they lay us down to rest..." and 24: "...Tell our moms we done our best") where they landed on the Chig moon and ran around in the swamp chasing the nursery-chig. Kinda reminded me of a predator, but without the dreads or funky jaw. Deep eye sockets, low snout, kind of a droopy mouth. They had gill-like things too (I think you got to see that in one of the very first episodes when they capture a chig). And of course, like all good Chigs they made them incessant clicking noises non-stop.

        Course, then the heroes screwwed things up by warning the nursery-chig of the attack... the diplo chig goes suicide bomber, and all hell breaks loose while the 58th are out exchanging prisoners. I wont ruin the ending... but damn. What a way to end a show. It's almost been a decade and I still miss it (luckilly I have all 24 eps on CD).
        In the immortal words of Wang: "HU-RAH! GET SOME!!" ;)

      • Humans will get to see Romulans (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:04PM (#9655659)
        Star Trek TOS got it wrong. They had the official story. In reality, humans will see Romulans a couple of times during the war. The Vulcans will engineer a cover-up, destroying records and doctoring memories with mind-melds.

      • Re:Uh.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cozziewozzie ( 344246 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:32PM (#9657554)
        Actually, Romulan redshirts (or their low-rank equivalent) wore shiny helmets in the TOS timeline. If hand-to-hand combat happens, the humans won't necessarily see any of the distinguishing features (like Vulcan-like pointy ears, for example :))

        On the other hand, Star Trek X pissed on the Romulan canon so badly that I have given up any hope of the proud race of Romulans ever being represented in their full TOS-era glory again.

        I believe that they will turn Romulans into some kind of Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation which kills civilisations for fun, hey that brings in money these days :-(

    • Re:Uh.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by PierceLabs ( 549351 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:35PM (#9656044)
      Nah, it is clear that all Romulan warships of the time used weapons that emitted BLINDEON particles.

    • This being Star Trek... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant.sbcglobal@netNOT> on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:36PM (#9656051) Homepage
      They use boilerplate story programs:

      "The Crew of the _______(insert catchy ship name here) finds out that the _________(1.transporter 2.holodeck 3.matter-antimatter thingy 4.dylithim crystals) has/have gone haywire and they only have 5 seconds to respond or be destroyed.

      During the crisis, they find the only way to save themselves is to _______(1. go back in time 2. somehow create a time-warp to go back in time 3. Accidentally go back in time 4. Have Q come to the rescue and send them back in time.)

      There is a middle part of the story that we'll just make up as we go until then end where right at the last moment, when things seem that the ship is in certain doom and with the added pressure of the entire known universe in jepardy, they simply reverse the _________(put techno speak thingy there) with the ________(place another techno speak thingy here) and in theory it should put everything right, but only after the huge time counter on the bridge counts down to 1 second left.

      Last line of course is _______(put in old literary sea-faring reference here)."

  • Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:30PM (#9655225) Homepage Journal

    So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"

    Perhaps no human that saw a Romulan made it back to Federation space to report the fact?

    • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:33PM (#9655258) Homepage Journal
      "So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?"

      You mean besides the damage done to the time-line by not only the Enterprise E in First Contact, but the temporal cold war where a race of people have intentionally mucked with Earth's time line to get us all wiped out? Well that's a tough one, I don't see how they could wriggle out of that.

      • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:36PM (#9655310) Homepage Journal
        You forgot the Cloaking device before the Cloaking device was invented. Personally, I'm a bit worried about B&B doing this project. These are the same guys who are PROUD of the fact that they never watched the original series.

        • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:42PM (#9655401) Homepage Journal
          "You forgot the Cloaking device before the Cloaking device was invented."

          Yeah, well I'm sorry that I disqualified myself from being a nerd. It doesn't matter, anyway. The Suliban brought cloaking technology into the new timeline. Any number of events could have happened for it to land in Romulan hands. And, gee whiz, they're exactly the type of race that'd fight hard to get it and use it.

          • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman@ g m a i l . com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:48PM (#9655468) Homepage Journal
            Whoa. No offense was intended there. If I came off a bit strong, it's probably my anger at B&B showing through. I was just pointing that out as one of the biggest barriers to doing a decent Star Trek movie. If we just accept B&B's screwed up timeline, then we'll have to accept that Star Trek is finally dead.

            • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:58PM (#9655589) Homepage Journal
              "Whoa. No offense was intended there. If I came off a bit strong, it's probably my anger at B&B showing through."

              No no, wasn't offended. Actually I should be the one apologizing with the 'sorry I'm not a nerd' comment.

              I'm overreacting a bit. Every time there's a Slashdot story about Enterprise, somebody get's modded up to +5 for complaining about continuity. I get frustrated when I think about how somebody can have Trek's vaguely defined timeline from the original series memorized to the minutist detail, but they don't remember the events of one of Star Trek's most popular movies. They don't even notice when they get beaten over the head with the whole temporal cold war concept that was established in episode 1. I'm surprised that there isn't still an argument about why the NX-01 isn't a statue in the Enterprise-D ready room.
              • No no, wasn't offended. Actually I should be the one apologizing with the 'sorry I'm not a nerd' comment.

                It's okay. I'm actually not that much of a stickler for continuity, but the way that B&B off handedly destroy everything that's known and cherished about the Star Trek series is truly a disgusting sight to see.

                BTW, here's my post [slashdot.org] about how the movie *should* be done. All they need is one big reset button, or the whole movie premise will be shot.
                • "Whoa. No offense was intended there. If I came off a bit strong, it's probably my anger at B&B showing through."

                  "No no, wasn't offended. Actually I should be the one apologizing with the 'sorry I'm not a nerd' comment"

                  "It's okay. I'm actually not that much of a stickler for continuity..."

                  Sheesh, get a room, you two.

                  Steven's corollary to Godwin's Law: There is a positive relationship between the number of apologies give two avoid a flame war in successive threads and the amount of nausea felt in the r

              • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Funny)

                by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:49PM (#9656208)
                I'm overreacting a bit. Every time there's a Slashdot story about Enterprise, somebody get's modded up to +5 for complaining about continuity. I get frustrated when I think about how somebody can have Trek's vaguely defined timeline from the original series memorized to the minutist detail, but they don't remember the events of one of Star Trek's most popular movies.

                The movies are easier to remember (ok I had to check the startrek.com site to remember them all)

                1. The search for v'ger (aka a plot)
                2. The Search for K'han
                3. The Search for Spock
                4. The Search for Whales
                5. The Search for God
                6. The Search for Shakesphere
                7. The Search for William Shatner
                8. The Search for Vulcans
                9. The Search for Little Picard

                And the rule of thumb, even numbered trek films don't suck (as much).

                • "9. The Search for Little Picard

                  "And the rule of thumb, even numbered trek films don't suck (as much)."

                  You left out Insurrection (at number 9). That makes Nemesis number 10, and Nemesis sucked muchly.

              • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Funny)

                by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:53PM (#9656248) Homepage
                They don't even notice when they get beaten over the head with the whole temporal cold war concept that was established in episode 1

                Personally I disliked Jar Jar being in the star trek timeline.

            • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Tassach ( 137772 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:06PM (#9655677)
              we'll have to accept that Star Trek is finally dead
              Some of us already have, and have moved on. As far as I'm concerned, Star Trek died when DS9 went off the air. They kept the body on life support for Voyager, but it was brain dead. Enterprise is a brain-eating zombie made from the dead carcass of Star Trek. The only reason Rodenberry isn't spinning in his grave is that his ashes are in orbit.
              • I must say, that's the best summary of the state of Star Trek I've read in a while.
              • The only reason Rodenberry isn't spinning in his grave is that his ashes are in orbit.

                Maybe his ashes are spinning in orbit. Is his orbit getting higher? Have we found a way to extract zero-point energy from the gravitational potential of Gene Roddenberry's spinning ashes?!

                Terrible Star Trek Series: They Keep Gene Spinning In His Capsule, And Your Lights On (tm)

              • They kept the body on life support for Voyager...

                But, oh, what a body! [bigpond.net.au]

              • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:4, Interesting)

                by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @05:12PM (#9656950) Homepage Journal
                Your comment is nicely worded but I don't agree. It seems that the norm on Slashdot is to bash the shit out of modern Star Trek and Star Wars prequels for some reason. Take it from a fan since the TNG days: DS9 was great, Voyager was great, and Enterprise is great. And all that was made before I started watching was great. I'm not the only fan who feels this way. Perhaps I am on Slashdot though.

                I've seen every episode of Star Trek and every Trek movie ever made and they all more or less capture the spirit that the show was founded on. I really wish people on Slashdot would give this Trek and Star Wars bashing a rest. I don't agree with all the decisions TPTB have made, but Trek is still good quality intelegent television in a word where mindless reality shows dominate the ratings.

            • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:4, Funny)

              by why-is-it ( 318134 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @04:18PM (#9656457) Homepage Journal
              If we just accept B&B's screwed up timeline, then we'll have to accept that Star Trek is finally dead.

              Not until Netcraft confirms it!

        • Kill Berman. Then put the franchise in stasis. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:56PM (#9655563) Homepage Journal
          These are the same guys who are PROUD of the fact that they never watched the original series.

          Now I know why I absolutely loathe Rick Berman and what he has done to Star Trek. TOS is the root from which the entire Star Trek Universe sprang. Cheesy or not, it is the model for everything that came before it.

          Someone yank the ST franchise from Berman's grubbies and put it on hiatus for a while. Voyager and Enterprise suck runny eggs. It's time to put it to bed. Maybe give it to Stracynski (sp?) after a few fallow years.

          • On June 17 of this year, JMS (Joe Straczynski) the author of Babylon 5, posted the following on the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated:

            Amusingly enough, on the Trek front, Bryce Zabel (the creator of Dark Skies) and I got together and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save ST and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way. I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere with Paramount, who knows?

            I, for one, would love to

            • They'd never do it. (Score:4, Funny)

              by Grendel Drago ( 41496 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @11:16PM (#9658906) Homepage
              Well, they'd never do it. Just because jms managed to pull a five-year "novel for television" out of his hat on half the budget of TNG (has anyone else managed to make a drama series---not a soap opera---with that level of continuity in any genre?)... just because he consistently wrote critically acclaimed work... you think someone would actually employ him?

              Come on! He enforced a "no cute animals, no robots" rule for B5! How would the small-minded Paramount execs manage to get him to put in big-boobed women in spandex?

              "And I don't go to bed until I've made some very bad decisions."

              Kidding aside, since it'll never, ever get made, I'd like to see his treatment of it. It's easy to backseat-drive ("they should have wrapped up Buffy Season 6 without the dead and evil lesbian cliche!") but more difficult to actually come up with something better. ("Here's a plot outline in which not only do I avoid cliche, but I tell a better story. Ha!")

              --grendel drago

      • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Funny)

        by blowdart ( 31458 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:36PM (#9655312) Homepage
        Simple.

        Berman : "How do I fix this"

        Braga : "Particle of the week"

      • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) <seebert42@gmail.com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:02PM (#9655636) Homepage Journal
        Actually, the temporal cold war was part of the original series- Remember the Mirror Universe? There's suggestions in some of the books that it started about the same time Lake Sloan on Alpha Centauri III changed it's name to Lake Riker- thus the incursion in First Contact created the new timeline Enterprise is in, the shadowy figure the Suliban are following is likely Emperor Tiberius Kirk or somebody from his government, and the people from the thirtyeth century are trying to head off the mirror universe before it causes too much damage.

        Along the way we also have the Sphere Builders the Xendi were fighting (read the New Voyages books for more info on this one) and now this new movie.

        But back to the original thread- Balance of Terror's claim of a lack of information about the Romulans can be explained one of three ways:
        1. This is the original timeline not in the mirror universe, so without Suliban interferance the Federation didn't even meet up with the Romulans until the war.
        2. This is the mirror universe- so due to Suliban interferance in the timeline, the Romulans gained a whole new set of technolgies- including cloaking technology- that allowed for the creation of the minefield seen in that Enterprise episode that I can't remember the name of right now, and therefore this movie will use Enterprise-style cloaking beacons to defeat cloaking, changing the entire nature of the Romulan War.
        3. Due to use of Nukes, nobody in the Romulan war actually ever sees a Romulan- at least, not without getting a lethal dose of radiation, as insinuated in Balance of Terror.

        • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Cpt_Kirks ( 37296 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:24PM (#9655893)
          Close, very close.

          Actually, Enterprise takes place in *ANOTHER* timeline (non-TOS and non-mirror). In this timeline, the borg attacked earth (ala "First Contact"), but the Temporal Cold War and Xindi attack caused a butterfly effect.

          Since neither of these events happened in the TOS timeline, BB and company have a pretty much clean slate to work with. All canon events are now moot.

          Anything can happen, like alien Nazis...

      • Re:Kill all the crew... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Starsmore ( 788910 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:03PM (#9655643) Homepage
        The only bit of Shatner's writing that works for Star Trek (the whole 'Kirk survives Generations, saves the galaxy another ten times' series) is that the events in First Contact are what triggered the split timeline, leading to the Mirror Universe (as seen in 'Mirror Mirror' and a dozen or so DS9 episodes).

        He explains it that humanity, realizing that big bad guys exist (because of the Borg), become more militaristic, leading to the formation of the Terran Empire, instead of the Federation.

        Doesn't explain Enterprise, but most Trekkies ignore it anyway. :)

    • Simple they'll just ignore what was meant to be just like they have all other series.

      "To boldly ignore what's gone before"!

  • Easy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by belg4mit ( 152620 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:31PM (#9655232) Homepage
    Just make sure whomever does, dies. Sheesh.
  • Heh, further proof thatBerman couldn't get an original idea to save his life [slashdot.org].

    Okay, so it's not EXACTLY the same, but dang, how close can a guy get? Anyway, sounds to me like this would be better 'experimented' as a TV miniseries, as you're going to have to introduce characters, do character development, plot development, and plot resolution all in a single flick. In a miniseries, you'd have more screen time to work with, and wouldn't have to rush through it all.

    Oh wait, this is Berman we're talking about. Then again, we'd be bashing him if this were announced as a miniseries talking about how much it's going to suck. :\

    My personal feeling is that until they return to the TNG timeline, come up with a believable story plot, and give the Berman team a rest, things aren't going to get better. Perhaps dropping the franchise altogether is the answer, but not so long as the cash flows is that going to happen.

    I know! Captain B-4 of the Starship Enterprise-F! :P Always remember to keep a reliable backup of your Data. ;)

    • Re:Berman, future, past, and stealing ideas. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by B3ryllium ( 571199 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:40PM (#9655381) Homepage
      My opinion is that Joss Whedon is what B&B can never be; a quality writer who cares about the material.

      That's why I plan to eschew Star Trek movies in favour of Serentity, due out in 2005. :)

      • Re:Berman, future, past, and stealing ideas. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:24PM (#9655882) Journal
        Hey, all you nerds! Even if Firefly wasn't your cup of tea, let's help Serenity kick Star Trek's ass at the box office. It would be good for everyone... most especially Star Trek, which needs all of us to stop shoveling our money over for crap so that there is an incentive to stop making that crap.
      • Speaking of movies from writers who know science fiction, anyone have recent news about the B5 movie?
    • You're not the only one [slashdot.org] to complain. I have a few wishes that had better be met if this movie is going to be any good:

      1. There better be a reset button hidden in that Temporal Cold War. We need to wipe out that idiot Enterprise episode where the Romulans were able to cloak. Not to mention the "invention" of phase cannons and photon torpedos.

      2. NUKES! BIG FRIGGIN' NUKES! There's only one way to fight a space war before phasers and photons, and that's with Gigawatt lasers/masers and BIG ASS NUKES!

      3. No hull plating. That stuff is the stupidest invention yet. They can use M2P2 shields for protection against radiation and nuclear explosions. Fine. But "charged" hull plating that "wears away" is just stupid. Ablative armor is the way REAL wars are fought.

      Think they'll listen?

      NAH. It will all be "photons", "phasers", "Oops, I fell on [bimbo of the series] boobs", and "Oh, yeah. There's like this... war... thing, going on. Guess we better save the day. Let's act REAL angry and tell them they're wrong. That always works."

    • How about a Trilogy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:08PM (#9655701) Homepage Journal
      Here's a thought, make it the Star Trek: The Romulan Wars : A Trilogy. Ditch the preexisting numbering system. These would legitimately be episodes I-III anyway. Star Trek II - IV were essentially a trilogy revolving around Spock's death and resurrection.

      Episode I: the first meetings and skirmishes, forces set in motion, characters introduced, we briefly see a young Kirk set on a trajectory to join Star Fleet. Earth (Federation?) scientists given a mandate to create technologies that will be needed in what is seen as the looming battle to come (ala the Manhattan Project, with many of the same moral dilemmas)

      Episode II: the Romulans posed to take over Earth, only support from Vulcans and other reluctant allies averts disaster.

      Episode III: a valiant counterstrike that forces the Romulans to withdraw with plot twists leading the power balance between Romulans, Federation and Klingons in TOS.

      Do it like LOTR and have the 3 episodes come out 1 a year as a planned, and make sure the fans know its all one story to be released as such, not a GEE-If-we-make-money-we'll-think-about-another-mov ie-in-3-years.

      Don't obsess on continuity, just make it a good story that half way sets up the Star Trek universe we know.

  • 'Secret history'? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mordant ( 138460 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:32PM (#9655254)
    One way to handle this would be to work the plot out so that Romulans are actually seen by Terrans and/or allies, but that those who see them are either a) all killed or b) that it's all hushed up (I like this latter option, as there are all kinds of cool foreshadowin things which could be done).

    • Re:'Secret history'? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wickedj ( 652189 )
      Actually, that's a good idea. Considering that Romulans and Vulcans have blood history that had been kept under wraps for such a long time. I remember something about Romulans being illogical, emotional Vulcans that were exiled from Vulcan. To prevent political strife, the Vulcans and higher up humans could have covered up seeing Romulans.

    • Re:'Secret history'? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:58PM (#9656279) Homepage Journal
      > One way to handle this would be to work the plot out so that Romulans are actually seen by Terrans and/or allies, but that those who see them are either a) all killed or b) that it's all hushed up (I like this latter option, as there are all kinds of cool foreshadowin things which could be done).

      For me, I think it comes down to motive. Why would a government want to include in history the fact that Romulans were never seen by a human? Let's face it, they look an awful lot like the Vulcans, and in fact are related to them. You remember how racist TOS was when it came to Klingons? Maybe the higher ups were afraid that people, captains, would want to turn against the Vulcans if they ever knew what Romulans looked like.

      I think it'd be easy for this information to be marked classified, and be done with it. If anyone ever saw a Romulan, they were usually about to die anyway, or be hauled off to Remus to do dillithium mining...

      The thing I always wanted to see from Trek, that likely wouldn't ever happen, is a series about Roumulus. Just follow Captain Sula around on all her truly dark and mysterious missions. That'd actually be too dark for prime time, but the Sopranos has shown that even the darkest series can work and be huge success stories.

      I would love to see Roumulans in a series about Romulans. Wouldn't it rock? Show it from their side of things, with their dark and mysterious logic. It'd be cool as hell.
  • So how will they make this fit with the Classic Trek episode Balance of Terror, in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?

    1: Facial cloaking devices that bend light around the head
    2: Bandannas ("this here's a stick-up, human")
    3: Big helmets!
    4: The hero slingshots around the sun, goes back in time, and unveils Romulan faces, negating the old episode. Yes, it's a time paradox, but if "First Contact" could get away with telling Zeffrem Cochran about his future...
    5: Ignore old Trek on the assumption that only the geekiest fans would remember that episode and the rest wouldn't care.

    - Greg

  • I'd rather they not even try (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 77Punker ( 673758 ) <spencr04.highpoint@edu> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:35PM (#9655292)
    They should have let Trek die the graceful death it deserved instead of mutilating it into "Enterprise". I don't think there's any hope for this movie, connected to Enterprise or not.
  • West Wing episode 4.10 "Arctic Radar" [twiztv.com]

    JANICE
    I'm not obsessed, you know.

    JOSH
    I'm sorry?

    JANICE
    I'm not obsessed. I'm just a fan, and I care.

    JOSH
    What's your name again?

    JANICE
    Janice.

    JOSH
    I'm a fan. I'm a sports fan, I'm a music fan and I'm a Star Trek fan. All of them. But here's what I don't do. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: "Let's list our ten favorite episodes. Let's list our least favorite episodes. Let's list our favorite galaxies. Let's make a chart to see how often our favorite galaxies appear in our favorite episodes. What Romulan would you most like to see coupled with a Cardassian and why? Let's spend a weekend talking about Romulans falling in love with Cardassians and then let's do it again." That's not being a fan. That's having a fetish. And I don't have a problem with that, except you can't bring your hobbies in to work, okay?

    JANICE
    Got it.

  • The Simpsons' answer (Score:5, Funny)

    by gspr ( 602968 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:37PM (#9655320)
    "Ah yeah well, whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it."
    -"But in episode AG4..."
    "WIZARD!"

  • We Can See 'Em, They Can't (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:37PM (#9655328)
    Because the audience can see the Romulans doesn't mean the Earthlings will.

    Perhaps they'll tell the story from the Romulan point of view. Now, that would be a change.

    More realistically, fighting an enemy you can't see is a pretty good dramatic device.

  • It won't, of course. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by foxtrot ( 14140 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:37PM (#9655333)
    Rick Berman obviously never saw any classic Trek, so anything that happened there never really happened in the Bermanverse. :)

    Slightly more seriously, I'm glad to see uncharted ground. With the removal of Brannon Braga as "show runner" on Enterprise (replaced with Manny Coto), it may well step up a notch. If he brings in someone else to handle the Romulan movie, not an unreasonable thing to do for a completely new aspect of Trek, it may be done well. (Is it possible that this was the treatment Joe Straczynski and... uh, whassisface from Dark Skies? turned in?)

    After all, remember, Berman was in charge even through the hey-day of TNG and early DS9. Berman's problem may not be that he doesn't know decent science fiction from a hole in the ground; it may be that he can't seem to hire people who know decent science fiction from a hole in the ground...

    -JDF

  • Odd numbers (Score:5, Informative)

    by nattt ( 568106 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:40PM (#9655377)
    XI - that would make it another odd numbered star trek movie. I hold no hope for it....

    • I thought that number 10 made the modulus operator unreliable, though...

      Too bad, really, because

      ViewMovie( ($starTrekMovieNumber % 2) ? "dvd" : "theater" );
      worked so well...

    • Let Pixar do it (Score:5, Funny)

      by Gzip Christ ( 683175 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:12PM (#9655744) Homepage
      XI - that would make it another odd numbered star trek movie. I hold no hope for it....
      What they should do is just stick with X. I propose the following naming scheme for the next few Star Trek sequels:
      • Star Trek X: Leopard
      • Star Trek X: Puma
      • Star Trek X: Jaguar
      • Star Trek X: Panther
      • Star Trek X: Tiger
      The trick is to not vary the modulus of the version number but to vary the fur color instead.

    • Re:Odd numbers (Score:3, Informative)

      by dR.fuZZo ( 187666 )
      XI - that would make it another odd numbered star trek movie. I hold no hope for it....

      If the last movie was supposed to be a good one, then I really hold no hope for XI.

  • Film the movie like Das Boot (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda@NosPAM.etoyoc.com> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:44PM (#9655429) Homepage Journal
    In the original theatrical release of Das Boot, you never saw outside the craft. You lived the clasterphobic terror of WWII submarine warfare.

    (Of course the director's cut went off and added a whole bunch of cheasy plastic model in a green tank of water shots. Bastards.)

    Frankly, you don't really need to see the face of your enemy in a space battle. They are a blinking set of lights a few kilometers away. It's just a question of turning that blinking set of lights into a fireball before they turn you into one.

    • Frankly, you don't really need to see the face of your enemy in a space battle. They are a blinking set of lights a few kilometers away.

      I wish. In Trek, the ships pretty much fly up each others' noses before they shoot.

  • Improving Star Trek, the idiot's guide: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:46PM (#9655448)
    1. Shoot Rick Berman in the face with a nuke cannon.
    2. Bring back Gates McFadden. Irish people rock.
    3. Bring back Patrick Stewart. Bald english people rock.
    4. Bring back Jeri Ryan. Walking plot-elements rock, occasionally.
    5. Bring back Leonard Nimoy. It's only logical.
    6. Bring back whoever the hell played Kira in DS9. We need aggresive people who dont mind kicking ass.
    7. Bring back whoever played Worf. Same thing as Kira.
    8. Elimate time travel. Blame Q. Then elimate Q as well, blame time travel.
    9. Make the Borg kick ass again.
    10. More action. If I wanted advice on parenting, decisions, whatever, I'd visit my mother. Stop talking and kill those idiots.
    11. Bring Garibaldi and Marcus Cole from B5 into the series. They are awesome. Ivanova would be nice too, but she and Kira would likely kill eachother within five minutes.
    12. Leave the script to Mel Brooks.

  • We could always argue about (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eezy Bordone ( 645987 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:49PM (#9655487) Homepage
    How the first Romulan we saw was Spock's daddy.

  • Seeing Romulans (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gudlyf ( 544445 ) <gudlyf@rea[ ]tek.com ['lis' in gap]> on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:57PM (#9655582) Homepage Journal
    In the movie Enemy Mine [imdb.com] -- as strange as it was -- I think humans never saw the Drac before, only their spacecraft as they attacked. Could they use the same reasoning?

  • Where's my DS9? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dark-Helmet ( 64583 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:05PM (#9655660)
    Alright, so it's offtopic and I'm sure there's probally already a hundred posts about it below my threshold, but what about DS9? I'm not much one for prequels or even the TNG timeline. TNG was really "white bread" with it being extremely predictable episodes with flat (but sometimes lovable) characters resolving the given situation inside the episode to make for good syndication material. Oh, and throw in some Borg/combat oriented episodes towards for the season premiers and finales to try to hook people in and resolve it like any other syndicated episode afterwards.

    Anyway, enough of my dorky rant, here's what they should be doing:

    1.) Screw alternate time lines and particles and such. Don't even mention the possibility of it. Sure, it'd kinda annoy Star Trek dorks like me who have kept up with multiple series and like to compare them (god knows what Voyager did, haven't seen much of it myself) but if you just plug your ears and say lalala then it'll be okay. I promise!

    2.) Go back to DS9 era and explore what happened there. All three major powers (fed, klingons, romulans) of the Alpha quadrant are recovering from a long and costly war from a powerful adversary that was basically the anti-federation from the Gama quadrant. I'd love to see how the Dominion would deal with the aftermath considering it comprised of a variety of genetically engineered races to fulfill specific jobs. Now that their founder "gods" have been defeated, will that shake the Dominion to the core? If so, what happens?

    Hell, Sisko is still living in the Wormhole and with the Prophets, can we give him a resolution? I'm sure he'd come back and be part of the main story.

    3.) Don't involve Berman/Braga in the creative aspect. They're okay producers just bring back the DS9 writing team and people like Ira Steven Behr.

    4.) No fucking cameos. I'm sick of TNG cameos and the feeling that it needs to be done to somehow validate the series. Take a goddamn risk every once in a while. DS9 did it and it was succesful in a lot of regards. It didn't get the same ratings as TNG, but considering it was overlapping with Voyager and TNG towards the beggining its no suprise. I'd love to see a relaunch of this series after Enterprise is put to rest.

  • my take (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:08PM (#9655702)
    How would they make the movie so that nobody saw the face of a Romulan throughout the war? Simple:

    - the Romulans don't have a video-based comm.
    - the Romulan warriors have decorative/concealing battle armor for their heads
    - have a mystique throughout the film that paints the Romulans as a powerful, mysterious race, somewhat along the lines of what was done with the Borg, thus increasing the level of suspense.

    All this would be feasable, as we don't know much about pre-Enterprise romulans.

    Oh, and as far as timeline continuity is concerned: there was a physicist (I don't remember wich one) that said that the time-space continuity is more like a deck of stacked cards than a linear stream. If you were to move a card in that deck to a place lower in the deck, it would no longer be the same deck, and would change the position of each of the other cards after it.

    If that were the case, you could say that the altering of the time-space continuum by reptilians in Enterprise is a direct result of the war with the transdimensional creatures in the future, as they then went back and had those races (can't think of what they called themselves) conspire against Earth. Likewise, that would potentially alter any interactions with the Romulans.

  • Gack. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by solios ( 53048 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:10PM (#9655721) Homepage
    Great. Balance of Terror is, in my opinion, one of the best episodes of TOS, and ranks up there amongst the best in the series- namely for the reaction of Spock to the sight of a Romulan, and especially for the reaction of the entire crew to Spcok after the sighting. That episode dealt strongly with racism, and was damned entertaining.

    So now Berman's gonna take a shit all over one of the few uncorrupted Trek elements, and do it with a no-name crew?

    Why exactly does this guy still have his job, again?

  • Shatner, baby! (Score:3, Funny)

    by GPLDAN ( 732269 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:12PM (#9655740)
    Who wants to see Shatner play the evil Romulan? Huh? Raise your hands!

  • Red shirts (Score:4, Funny)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:12PM (#9655743) Journal

    in which we learned that no human ever saw the face of a Romulan during the Romulan Wars?

    This is easily explained. All of the witnesses of who saw the Romulans were wearing read shirts.

  • Continuity is Overrated (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Goldenhawk ( 242867 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:34PM (#9656010) Homepage
    Let's burn some karma here.

    Okay, I've read all the rants on either side of this issue, and the conclusion I've reached is this.

    Continuity is highly overrated.

    So, I'll admit I'm not a fanboy. I *am* a fan, however, and while continuity is important to me, it's not gospel, and I don't really get the urge to throw myself over the nearest cliff when it gets disrupted.

    Instead, the way I see it, Star Trek in its whole has provided a generalized SciFi framework, into which different authors, directors, writers, artists, etc. can provide a story. Look at the general spread between TOS, TNG, DS9, STV and STE. Aside from the "boldly go" kind of essense, there's a HUGE diversity there. And frankly, as long as any one story is enjoyable, I don't really mind if there's some non-canonical bits therein. I *do* mind if they overuse the particle-of-the-week, just like I thought the midichlorian was a hideously stupid plot trick in Star Wars Ep1. But for run-of-the-mill stories, I'm more interested in how they handle the character development, coupled with the staple of SciFi - which is, in my opinion, how humans handle advanced technology and its effects (including the effect of encountering other species). All the rest is just details. Cool technology, maybe, but still just details.

    So as far as I'm concerned, the "Star Trek" name provides a rather broad, rather permissive framework - with NAME RECOGNITION. And the best thing about it: that name recognition provides a budget for reasonably cool SciFi movies and television. Maybe not the BEST, but at least reasonably entertaining, and definitely more quantity than we'd get otherwise. And it spurs all kinds of spinoffs and competitors (B5, Andromeda, etc.) which are even better.

    So, I'm all for chilling out the holy wars and just enjoying whatever is enjoyable, as it gets released.

  • It isn't the 60s anymore ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by minairia ( 608427 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:43PM (#9656141)
    Although I am very much a StarTrek fan, I have never understood why it is so important that every movie, episode and series mesh so well with all the others.

    We fans have to realize that when the writers generated the orginal stories back in the 1960s, they had to take into mind the current politics in the US, what advertisers wanted, what the network wanted, what budget they had, last seasons ratings, etc.

    Every subsequent installment of StarTrek has to deal with this. For example, some fans complain about the Klingon's faces changing. Back in the 60s, it was either impossible or would have cost way too much to have full face costumes that wouldn't face looked fake or stupid. Or what about that really stupid episode where Kirk and et. al. find some planet full of American Indians who worship the US flag or something? I think we'd all agree that one ought to be dropped out of the story arc.

    Another thing is StarFleet itself. The 60s show had a mostly all white, crew-cut, "Right Stuff", NASA with bigger ships ethic. Women went around in mini-skirts bringing coffee. No problem with the miniskirts for me ... However, a show or movie with that kind of environment just wouldn't make it in these PC times. Half of the potential audience would be offended by it and advertisers would definitely keep well away.

    I'm not sure why people hate Enterprise so much. To me, it seems reasonably "realistic" as to how things would be on a small ship like that in close quarters months at a time. People argue, have fights, boink a lot, things don't work right, things stink, people make bad decisions, etc. It isn't a perfect show, of course, because, again, it has to conform to ratings, what is "PC" at the time, etc. (There's still the problem of how everyone in the entire universe happens to speak perfect English all the time ... but all SF shows have that problem, especially StarGate. But that's a different rant ... and an unavoidable problem without out making actors playing aliens have to emit nonsense phrases with sub-titles, which would be like watching some obscure East European art film or something.)

    I view StarTrek as less of set series of stories than a generally close, but not always connected series of tales. In the future, with better, cheaper effects it might be possible to take the old StarTrek episodes, run them though a PC and make them look like they have whatever the latest in effects can do and maybe even adjust the plots to create a more unified set of stories.

    • Language barrier (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:29PM (#9657532) Journal
      There's still the problem of how everyone in the entire universe happens to speak perfect English all the time ... but all SF shows have that problem
      Not necessarily. Asimov's stories had a galaxy populated by humans who had long emigrated from and forgotten Earth, which is a lot more plausible than parallel evolution of species on different worlds that just so happened to take on 'humanoid' form. In an age of standardised communication it's a lot more likely that languages will hold true to a standard, like the introduction of the printing press in England standardised printed English, and the BBC (more or less) standardised spoken English.

      Cowboy Bebop is a show that has a solar system populated by humans, and it's probably the most believable one I have seen yet. There's a show that recognises that technologies that we have today (like wheels, for example) aren't necessarily going to be obsolete a few hundred years into the future. Again, there are no language problems there, at least none as complex as those that exist today on Earth. In that show, everyone speaks perfect Japanese!

  • What is this continuity thing you speak of? (Score:4, Funny)

    by person-0.9a ( 161545 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @03:53PM (#9656245)
    > So how will they make this fit with the Classic
    > Trek episode Balance of Terror,...

    The answer is: "It won't fit."

    We're talking about Berman and Braga, who appear to believe that:

    a) classic episodes are best ignored,
    b) continuity is an annoyance,
    c) suspension of disbelief is the responsibility of the viewer, not the creative staff.

  • I am not a human (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WilyKit ( 68796 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @04:35PM (#9656631)
    Just because no human in the Star Trek world saw the face of a Romulan during the whole length of the war, does not mean that we in the audience can't see the face of a Romulan during the whole length of the movie. I think they call that "Dramatic Irony".

  • How will they make it fit? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @04:54PM (#9656781) Journal
    Short answer: They won't.

    Its Berman after all.
  • at that peroid of time, Romulans wore combat armor with helmets that covered their faces. The faceplates were one way mirrors with the mirrors being on the outside. This was done to terrorize the Federation of Planets for fear of not knowing what the enemy looked like. Think of their grunt troops to be more like Storm Troopers or Clone Warriors from Star Wars. ;)

    Hey did I win a No-Prize or what?

  • There IS a pre-quel novel that covers this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LineGrunt ( 133002 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @06:00PM (#9657298)
    But for the life of me I can't remember the name/author...

    The general premise is that an earlier prototype of the Constitution class is on a maiden voyage (or something) and encounters the Romulans.

    Some of the book IS from the Romulan standpoint. There is a mutiney on the Romulan ship and the Romulan captain (who is the honorable elder statesman-type) defects. The Romulan (evil) second in command presses an attack on the Federation ship.

    The Federation captain learns from the Romulan captain that the Romulans have broken ALL of the Federation codes, so the Federation captain uses a ruse... PRETENDING that the Federation has invented a cloaking device and that there are other cloaked ships waiting for a general attack.

    The visible ship (our heros) has a "cloaking unit that has failed" and radios home in "theoretically unbreakable" code (that they know that the Romulans will intercept) that they (our heros) have compromised the general attack and to call it off.

    The Romulans KNOWING that there are additional Federation ships about (after all it came across in high priority code) break off their attack on our heros.

    So at the end of the book the Federation undergoes a crash program to improve their codes, while the Romulans break their balls trying to discover the "cloaking device" because "obviously the Federation can do it, why can't we..."

    It was a REALLY good read. Too bad I can't remember the title...

    Help? Older slashdotters?

    Line Grunt.

  • Could be the best thing to happen to ST in ages... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Saturday July 10, 2004 @02:47AM (#9659670)
    Just so long as they get a non-staff writer or a trekie for the script.

    Think about it!

    The concept is, "War in Space." --Humans versus the Romulans. That's it!

    No, "And every cast member of the popular television series except Wil has to have at least X minutes of screen time regardless of how irrelevant to the plot it may be."

    If the writer is a good one, if the director is a good one. . , why this could be the best thing since 'Kahn'. --Because we need something. Everything since Kirk left us has been idiotic garbage.

    In general. . . Star Trek movies suck when: Huge ensemble casts are scripted by Ricky-"Let's kill Picard's nephew, blow up those two Klingon sisters, make Data say, "Shit", and then crash the enterprise regardless of how little any of this has to do with anything even remotely story-related, cuz we can and it's cool in a college Jar-Head Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! sort of way,"-THE ASS-HAT Berman.

    Berman is one of the hugest wannabes in show-biz today. He should stay firmly socketed in the producer's chair and stop pretending that he can write.

    So barring his creative involvement, a new Trek film with some new blood and some real talent might just be the best thing to happen to Star Trek movies in over a decade.


    -FL

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