Straczynski Offers To Re-Boot Star Trek [updated] 482
EvilMagnus writes "I just came across this thread over on usenet where J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 and Jeremiah, talks about the cancellation of Enterprise. It seems he and a collaborator have already written a series bible and treatment for a new version of Star Trek - but it's not been pitched to Paramount out of 'political considerations' (Berman refusing to give up his dead horse?). JMS calls for everyone who thinks a JMS-run Star Trek series would be a good idea to write Paramount and let them know." Along similar lines, yonnage writes "Last week there was an article posted here about Enterprise fans atempting to pay for the next season of Enterprise. It seems that all the efforts have been pulled together and a new website has been created and has started collecting contributions for Enterprise's next season." Update: 02/16 19:47 GMT by T : Read the rest of the thread to see JMS's followup; he's decided to at least postpone this endeavor.
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH, I liked much of Babylon 5 and prefer it over Enterprise (but not anything that really has Star Trek in its name). I think he would certainly be able to do a good job.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Expensive Props and Poor Writing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course with Bab5 he got some help in screwing up the end with the fact that it almost got cancelled after 4 series, so series 4 is compressed to fit it all in. Then series 5 does not have enough content and has too many filler episodes.
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I think that cancellation threat was the real reason that everything got screwed up. He had the original idea that it should take 5 seasons (which is great, you make this story with a fixed duration, you can make things work out nicely) but had to rush everything to fit into 4 (which showed), then had to append an entire 5th season when the whole story had already been told.
The sad thing is that Enterprise got cancelled when they had found some kind of nice equilibrium, building depth into the very foundations of the Star Trek universe. It was nice to see the strife on Vulcan, and exploring the Andorian civilization. It would have been nice to see the establishment of the federation etc (the first two seasons with the temporal cold war theme were simply pathetic).
Still, JMS does excellent work if the networks don't keep changing the allotted time. I got hooked into Bab 5 right from the pilot movie as it clearly indicated that there was a complex story behind the scenes... and you could feel that it had an end. A series that is too open ended without an end in sight automatically builds inconsistencies.
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
B5 was screwed with by the morons in the suits.
and Jeremiah was utterly destroyed by the idiots that run Showtime.
the first season had people rivited and giving up what they did on friday nights to watch it. The second season was finished but not with JMS's control and anyone can easily see that. He made it exactly like how the suits wanted it in the 2nd season and it sucked horribly because of it.
he did that because it was his proof to themthat the suits know absolutely nothing about Television and a good story. which is 100% true.
management will fuck up something good whenever they get the chance to.
JMS is a great storyteller, his book is a great insight into the PITA the industry is..
Re:Great idea (Score:3)
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Both are full of technical mumbo-jumbo and are hard to visualize. It had some interesting ideas - a lot of which were sort of advanced for the time. But theere wasn't too much character development.
As far as JMS doing ST goes, I think its a good idea. Trek needs some new blood. TNG was awesome, and I really enjoyed DS9 too. My response to Enterprise has been comparitively lukewarm. Right now I'm following BSG (Battlestar Galactica), whic
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
But all things considered he did a good job of pulling the rabbit out of the hat on that.
And if you've watched Jeremiah it is one of those slow paced shows but where you feel everything is getting entangled and what you first thought is not what you now think and you are left wondering "what will I think in season 2?"
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Probably neither. It's probably so unlikely that it's not worth categorizing. The reasons are many, but it comes down to this: Straczynski is pig-headed, but not stupid. He would never agree to do it without complete creative control, and there's practically no way Paramount would allow that to happen. It would be along the lines of Bill Gates giving over control of the Windows platform to Linus Torvalds without even retaining the right to veto checkins.
Without complete creative control, you know what would happen: JMS would put forward his bible saying, "we tear down half of Starfleet and kill off a few notables to shake things up," and Paramount would reply with notes like the following:
- Sounds good, but I don't think we want to kill anyone who has an action figure
- "Tear down" might be too strong. Let's just say that there's a night-club bombing somewhere on Ferengi-prime
- Great ideas, but you need to sex it up a bit
- The first scene needs to really pull the viewers in: make it a fist fight
- My kid loves tribbles, can you work one in as a major character?
He's been through this before with TNT and Crusade (the mess that you saw on TV was the result). He won't do it again.All that said, YES, petition Paramount to do it. I think that at the very least it shows a massive lack of confidence in current show-runners and might upset the apple-cart enough to get someone creative in there.
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Informative)
Or maybe not.... :p
He says it's all moot now. [sunysb.edu]
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Each episode of B5 can be watched on its own and watched in sequence as well.
Yes, there will be unknown bits but that doesn't mean the episode itself isn't relevant on its own without watching other parts.
Shows like 24 and Alias have proven that prime time TV audiences are willing to accept a continuing story. I've watched three episodes of Alias, and despite not knowing certain bits, I didn't feel punished for not having seen previous episodes.
Re:Great idea (Score:3)
You want to see really great episodic television?
"House, MD" [imdb.com]
British actor Hugh Laurie has had some great roles over the years. I used to think that Bernie Wo
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I hear, I do think Alias may be beginning to have a problem with not knowing when to end. IE, the main arc is done - end the show.
I think trying to transition some stories, like Alias's into new arcs breaks the show. Like how Matrix as one movie was awesome, but trying to extend to a trilogy basically ruined it. IMHO of course.
And I'll give newer eps a chance when I can get
Continuity (Score:4, Interesting)
Just so that we're not exclusively on Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a decent job at this too. While there was a definite story going on that had been planned out (and included a large number of references towards and fro in the timeline) and things could change quite drastically (Spike's status as enemy, then friend, then enemy, then lover, then psychotic nutcase actually made some sense in the course of the series), you could pick up any one episode and enjoy what was going on. In my opinion, any good TV show or book series, should be like that, enough going on that it rewards people who site down and view it all, enough hints to allow people to step in at the middle, and subtle enough hints that people who are watching all the way through don't get annoyed at the repeated redundancy.
Re:Continuity (Score:3, Insightful)
Most certainly. And unlike JMS, Joss Whedon can write characters. In fact, he does characters well, and doesn't do so hot with story arcs, but B5's story arc was really, well, lame. B5 got a free pass because it was sci-fi, but the acting for the most part was truly awful, verging on Xena/Hercules quality.
As for G'Kar, he represented a successful bit of character evolution. The interplay between
Re:Continuity (Score:4, Interesting)
Gkar and Londo being the wonderfull exception: I must confess that long after I stopped caring what the outcome of the "war of the shadows" (huuUUUHHhhh
Londo starting out as the friendly and amiable buffoon , his change due to his ambition and his eventual redemption... or G'kar starting out as little more than a bully, finding out slowly by hints that there was more to him and his eventual "growing-up"...
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
"with challenging stories, contemporary themes, solid extrapolation, and the infusion of some of our best and brightest SF prose writers..."
IMO, writers like Ted Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, Jerome Bixby, Frederic Brown, David Gerrold, Norman Spinrad, Richard Matheson, and Larry Niven (animated series) gave the original series an edge that the later incarnations of Trek haven't matched.
But can we believe JMS here? Despite the g
Re:Great idea, Bad Implementation... (Score:4, Insightful)
Captain Adama's speech in the pilots for example was completely ridiculous. Why do we even deserve to live? Was that supposed to inspire anyone? Crap, if any real military leaders ever did that, their soldiers would be too dispirited to fight.
Then you have the fact that the Cylons are attempting to cross-breed with Humans. But if they wanted that so much, why did they try to wipe all the Humans out with nukes, *before* getting their hybrid? It makes no sense. If they wanted to nuke all the colonies, and destroy military ships, plus evading civilian ships, how could they ever get a cross-breed?
The fact that Baltar got too tired from doing tests, so he stopped testing people was also sheer nonsense. Why didn't he just get *someone else* to do the hard labour of testing? I mean, he was supposed to have an assistant already, plus a nuclear warhead, I doubt he would not be granted spare personnel. Not to mention: who is doing the testing (supposed to take man-years) now since he seems to be only doing political work since he got to be Vice-President?
There is some good stuff in there of course. I like this Baltar better than the old Baltar in the original series. The old Baltar made absolutely no sense at all.
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
It made DS9 far stronger a show than it would have been without the competition.
Now, with Enterprise, it looks different. Instead of stepping up to the plate and doing better, they're just packing up.
I see... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I see... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I see... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to worry! I don't think anyone can hear him in space [cnn.com].
Re:I see... (Score:4, Insightful)
In a sci-fi series like Star Trek, accuracy in timelines, events, facts and detials is very important and errors in the timelines, which they seem to have a hard time avoiding in Enterprise since it occurs previous to the other series', can shake ones confidence in the series and introduce paradoxes which weaken the entire structure of the franchise.
A new series I believe as well should incorporate the exploration and discovery aspects of Star Trek, finding strange new worlds, new civilisations, strange distant reaches of the galaxy filled with odd pecularities and phenomena. Integrating a sort of mystery-genre aspect into many episodes where the crew encounter odd mysterious and wierd phenomena and discovering what they are can be quite fascinating. There are so many creative possibilities for plots that don't involve pure action and violence but offer a deep and involving plot line, with mysteries, strangeness, and oddities, that there is no reason Star Trek cannot be revived. Furthermore we do have today far more resources avialable than in the original series in creating compelling renderings of these strange worlds and different races and beings that werent avialable in the original star trek. While the series should be based on a ship, there should also be episodes allowing the viewer to see other parts of the federation, such as the crew visiting space docks, and federation planets. In addition to exploration and discovery of distant corners of the galaxy, it would also be nice to see in several episodes the ship visit several core federation planets which we seem to see little of, like Vulcan and Earth.
It's Berman's fault (Score:5, Interesting)
Of the best, are the DS9 relaunch, which continues the story of Deep Space Nine directly after the TV series ends, and Peter David's remarkable New Frontier series with it's Xenexian captain Mackenzie Calhoun. This series has proved, IMHO, to be one of the best out of all the Trek series.
I am getting sick of this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
For one thing, Roddenberry died midway through TNG. Berman was basically the man at the helm for what was argueable the best portion of the series, the last 3 seasons. Even before that, he played a very, very large part in TNG. So to say that "Berman is Death" of everything, than to praise TNG, borders on the edge of ridiculousness.
For another, DS9 (the first series run soley by Berman) was actually very good (once it got going - the first season or two were quite.. icky).
Voyager, well..... what can you say. An amazing capability for a plot line, but it descended into fodder. Basically, the same thing with Enterprise.
So from *my* point of view, he is batting 0.500 - a decent average the way I look at it.
Aside from all this - you people seem to believe that the whole series lives and dies by Berman's word. Shouldn't some of the blame be put on the writers? The writers are the ones coming up with the same old crap over and over again.
Re:I am getting sick of this.... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a different world and a different generation. You can't expect the same old formula to work forever and it will take a significant attempt to be able to concoct something that appealed to a large audience, now.
Re:I am getting sick of this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Ira Steven Behr and Michael Piller were also executive producers. However, I don't think that it's a coincidence that Deep Space 9 picked up steam around the time when Voyager was launched. Personally I suspect Ira Steven Behr had far more to do with the success of Deep Space 9 than Berman ; he likely got more control of the show as Berman turned his attention to Voyager.
That's not to say that I think Berman is solely, nor even mostly responsible for the downfall of the franchise : Check Brannon Braga's [section31.com] credits : He had his fingers in a great deal of the two worst Star Trek shows. And notably absent from my favorite trek, DS9.
Re: I am getting sick of this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't keep up with the later shows; what went wrong?
Re: I am getting sick of this.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Braga was just a writer for TNG. His hands were probably far more tied back then as far as "creative license" is concerned. He worked his way up the producer ladder during Voyager, while continuing to write, until he shared Executive Producer duties with Berman.
If you want a good example of what happens when you let your Executive Producers write... look at Enterprise. It wasn't until Manny Coto took over that the show started to work. The whole tem
0.500 not good in the business world (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I am getting sick of Berman.... (Score:5, Interesting)
But it is - he is in charge, ego he is to blame.
For one thing, Roddenberry died midway through TNG.
Lies. Roddenberry died at the end of season 5.
Berman was basically the man at the helm for what was argueable the best portion of the series, the last 3 seasons.
1: He was mostly working with the talent Roddenberry had hired.
2: He didn't have the guts to suddenly change TNG to something else in the middle of the series (like he let them do with DS9)
Ie, he just continued on the course set by Roddenberry.
For another, DS9 (the first series run soley by Berman) was actually very good (once it got going - the first season or two were quite.. icky).
So DS9 became better once Berman withdrew from day to day running of the series and started to focus on Voayger - funny that. Not to mention again, he had Ira Steven Behr("Dark Angel"),Michael Piller("Dead Zone") , Ronald Moore("Battlestar Galactica") to help him. I entirely suspect he was out having lunch with management while they were writing.
Aside from all this - you people seem to believe that the whole series lives and dies by Berman's word. Shouldn't some of the blame be put on the writers? The writers are the ones coming up with the same old crap over and over again.
Yeah, except: HE HIRES THE WRITERS, his blame.
Re:It's Berman's fault (Score:5, Funny)
"Fire the JMS ego ray ensign, they should cancel each other out"
"A hot space babe has just appeared, the ratings levels are going up rapidly, most logical captain"
Whoever does it around 50% of the fans are going to complain.
Forget Trek (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be worth the money. Not watching YATS (Yet Another Trek Show).
Re:Forget Trek (Score:3, Insightful)
What ever does this have to do with the question of Firefly's merits or lack thereof?
Go for it (Score:5, Insightful)
These people have nothing to lose by pitching another series to Paramount. Enterprise is dead, and I'm sure Paramount would eagerly pick up anything with the slightest chance of turning a profit.
Since the article mentions they're taking their idea "to the public" I think they'd get a better reaction by releasing a preview of some type. Kind of hard for an audience to approve and support a project without knowing what it is! (Because we all know counting on the Trek name alone doesn't always work)
Re:Go for it (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. I suppose JMS and company are counting on the geek legions to just support any idea he has, even sight unseen. This was certainly the case when Rick Berman was given all-but-complete control ove
JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:5, Insightful)
One of Trek's nicest guys played the B5 villain that everyone loved to hate! But I loved how JMS actually gave him a bit of a human side when you understood what made him the way he was...
Even villain need motives and factors that drive them - very few people are just inherently nasty for the sake of being mean
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:3, Informative)
First of all he's only 68. Second the only regular from the Original series to die has been DeForest Kelly who was 84. James Doohan is sick, yes but he's also turning 85 years old this year.
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:3, Funny)
Noooooooooooooooooooo!
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:2)
Wesley didn't have Q's endearing personality, ya know?
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:2)
Or that whole sequence could turn out to have been just a dream. Or it happened in an alternate universe. Or... well, you get the point. Trek can *always* find a way around these little plot holes.
Re:JMS - PLEASE READ THIS! (Score:3, Funny)
(drum roll...)
" 'Lost' in Space ".....
Hmmm, wonder if Bill Mumy's available...
Track Record? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Track Record? (Score:2)
Re:Track Record? (Score:2)
To be fir, what we saw was the result of such a complete political dogfight that it's hard to judge what it would have been. However, I never saw anything in it worth my time watching, and I gave it quite a try, being a B5 fan. Not one episode sticks in my mind, and not one character. I vaguely remember Edward Woodward as a guest star struggling like the professional he is with a leaden sub-Trek save-the-peasents-from-the-evil-corporation story li
Re:Track Record? (Score:4, Informative)
Crusade was about the Shadow virus that would wipe out Earth in five years. By the end of the episodes made, the structure of the virus (nano-tech) was understood. I've read that the virus would be cured fairly early in the series.
There were also glimpses of what was to come - the Apolcalypse box - whatever that was, was a mystery waiting to be solved, and there was the revelation that Galen (the Technomage) has some sort of implants. The unfilmed episodes pushed the series up a gear with the revelation that the Technomages were being hunted by Earthforce for their tech.
The opening dialogue to each episode contained some stuff that was familiar, but other lines that would have probably been explored throughout the series:
Who are you? (Vorlon)
What do you want? (Shadow)
Where are you going? (Lorien?)
Who do you serve and who do you trust?
The last one being probably the most important. Crusade was much more than we ever saw and to see it killed before being aired is very sad. I, like many B5 fans, would love to see it return and hope that TMOS (The Memory Of Shadows) will be the catalyst for this.
sad news (Score:3, Informative)
Enterprise fan ?.. join here [enterprisefans.com] to support.
Recanted (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Recanted (Score:5, Informative)
No slash...
Re:Recanted (Score:2)
http://scifistorm.org/ [scifistorm.org]
Re:Recanted (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually he retracted the request for now.... (Score:5, Informative)
From here [sunysb.edu]
They lost it after DS9... (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as I heard the Enterprise opening theme, I knew it was dead.
I think trek needs to die, and stay dead for another 15 years or so. Only then will it be ready for another revival.
Such wasted effort on tripe like Enterprise, when stuff like Firefly [fireflyfans.net] is far more deserving.
Re:They lost it after DS9... (Score:3, Insightful)
Startrek Campaign ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Startrek Campaign ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not the simple self contained "Plot in a Box" in each Episode, with only minor changes to the overall Environment.
If you normally miss several Episodes it won't hurt, but the Babylon 5 Environment was alive, and with every Episode a steady change took place. Missing several Eps of Babylon 5 instantly gave you a WTF feeling when you watched again, since so many things had changed.
Re:Startrek Campaign ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
It's become increasingly obvious that the franchise has run out of steam in it's current incarnation. There's just nothing left that feels new or exciting... So I'd be happy to see this happen. That said, I think there's a number of obstacles, not the least of which is the fear of the star trek establishment to try something new for fear of "breaking something".
Here's a newsflash folks. It's already broken, and staying with the status-quo is going to ensure that it remains broken. I suppose they could always take another 5 year hiatus and come back with another rehash, but they'll know it, and so will we.
I quite enjoyed Voyager because they had more free reign in the series to try new things, and trying new things is what keeps the show fresh...
N.
Idea already been pulled (Score:5, Informative)
Check out the updated info at TrekWeb [trekweb.com]
Perhaps the only Hope for Star Trek (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course there are MANY people who could improve the current situation (for while I can image quite a few worse than Berman, yet most of them aren't in the TV biz) but Michael Straczynski is among the few that have the skill to revive a franchise that badly beaten.
So let's see the good part - either Michael gets to do the new series, or Berman drives another series in the ground and then - finally - is fired - even the most ignorant bosses don't like dropping ratings, and the cancellation of Enterprise shows that something is fundamentally wrong with the ratings and that the bosses noticed.
Too late (Score:2)
Except (Score:2)
Except Family Guy.
I can't bare to see Star Trek end! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I can't bare to see Star Trek end! (Score:3, Insightful)
they should spend more time fighting evil viruses and other alien BIO and less time with "grand fights for the future of mankind..."
Crusade sucked (Score:2)
Crusade was deliberately killed by the network (Score:2)
However: Crusade is a special case. Crusade was deliberately killed by the network.
It turned out that TNT-Atlanta had looked at the demographics from season 5 of Babylon 5 (which they actually saved from the failing PTEN), and saw that those who watched B5 wouldn't watch their wr
My own Star Trek theory and suggestions (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe they could make Star Trek miniserie every other year with only good episodes and not of that day to dayt crap. Or they could relax the format a little and ask Quentin Tarantino and others direct episodes like Ltn. Worf and planet of samurai swords.
Re:My own Star Trek theory and suggestions (Score:2, Funny)
Indeed. Aside from Doctor Who, etc., what other series can jump forward (and back) fifteen years in as many minutes?
Remember that infamous scene from Reservoir Dogs? Right, now substitute with a Ferengi.
Or Star Trek reality TV! (Score:5, Funny)
11 teams of people with an existing relationship will race around federation worlds solving problems and seeing improbable sights.
The teams are:
Captains Picard and Riker.
Dr. Crusher and all powerful son being Wesley Crusher.
Lt. Commander Tuvok and Captain Kathryn Janeway
The Doctor and The Doctor
Lt. Ezri Dax and Dr. Phlox
Captain Jonathan Archer and Porthos
Constable Odo and Seven Of Nine
Chief Miles O'Brien and Lt. Cmdr. Data
Sub-Commander T'Pol and Tasha Yar
Lt. Cmdr. Deanna Troi and Commander Kira Nerys
Guinan Ensign Hoshi Sato
Unlikely... (Score:3, Funny)
Too early in the morning! (Score:2)
Kaminski, Strazynski... Whatever.
Let it die (Score:5, Interesting)
Like many I was worried about Berman being involved. I became more worried when the opening credits feature a dreadful recycled pop song instead of something symphonic. Then the temporal cold war silliness starts. Meanwhile, all along has been little effort to remain consistant with the Trek universe.
I will admit, I have not laughed so hard in a long time as I did when I saw the Xindi Nazi at the end of last season. But I don't think that was the intended effect.
For everyone who who is proclaiming this season is much better, how could it get much worse. Paramount and Berman especially should be ashamed at how they have treated such a large and loyal fanbase.
That said, I'm actually surprised that UPN killed it. They kept Voyager going for seven years and it was horrible most of that time. Enterprise seems like the high spot on their garbage filled network.
Trek needs a rest. If you want to send someone your money give it to http://www.eff.org/ [eff.org] or some other worthy cause. Don't worry, there will be more Trek, it has made too much money to be ignored forever.
Bad start (Score:4, Informative)
I can recall a few years ago anxiously waiting to see "Enterprise" for the first time on television, having been a fan of the franchise. I immediately grimaced upon hearing the theme song and new it was going to suck. The electric guitar style theme music was incredibly outdated and wreaked of a routinely formulaic bad-taste Hollywood production. And as I recall, it didn't even have lyrics in that broadcast. The lyrics made it even worse when I eventually heard that vesion, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.
That episode started with that one crew-member yapping about how she couldn't sleep because the stars were moving the opposite direction she was used to in her quarters. I kept thinking she was going to whine "but Dawson!" any moment. As for Scott Bakula, he was already typecasted from "Quantum Leap" and didn't fit the role. The whole concept of a series that was supposed to happen before the original series should have been a warning, since one of the big attractions of Star Trek was the fictional technology, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt when I first heard that.
But they just royally screwed it up. They really overdid the large breasts thing, blatantly pandering to an adolescent demographic. And the writing was awful. As an example, there was that episode where Archer tells a ship of Klingons that they have a defenceless alien vessel riding in the wake of their ship. I recall thinking that no character with half a brain would ever do that and it was just plain ridiculous, even to anyone who wasn't familiar with the franchise. I just recently saw an episode where Archer speaks with a senior Starfleet officer who's uniform had a friggin collar. A jump-suit with a collar. Another mistake. They just keep making them.
It takes some serious stupidity to screw up a franchise that had such a dedicated fan base as Star Trek, yet the people behind "Enterprise" have managed to do just that. Even if they manage to improve the writing now, bad first impressions last. I don't think this series is worth saving. I think people are clinging onto it out of dedication to the Star Trek franchise. If that is the case, they ought to just cancel this series and come up with a completely new one, or just focus on the movies. I'm personally a fan of the franchise, but it has gotten off-track in a direction I don't care to follow.
From a newish fan (Score:3, Interesting)
Some hot nerd + no feel to the series or intresting plots = a failed series.
If they want to revive Star Trek maybe they should look at continueing the adventures of Picard outside of the movies. The movie cast is starting to dye off or get sick of it, so why not do a short series (straight to DVD would do) or 20 episodes say, restock the crew, fill in some plot holes, give the fans what we want (real Trek) and then continue on the movies for another 5 years (2 movies maybe?) and use it to set up the next Enterprise. In the second film introduce the guy as a trainee, the series would then start 20 years later when the guy has command of his own ship. Picard could be his mentor and would pop up from time to time with other series spin offs to give advice, but rather then the "lets go look at the same 12 sets every 2 weeks!" put it in a war where Earth is being attacked on pass and the new enterprise is trying to defend it untill re-enforcements arrives. Once it's held off and got support it could go on the offence and try and find out information about the attackers (could be mysterious or some rebel faction of a friendly group). Throw in linked episodes (so you meet a character in episode 1-3 and he does some helpful stuff, only to find out in ep 24 he was infact a spy), if it was this well thought out geeks would adore it and the idiot fanbase who watched Enterprise just for the Vulcan ass and edited porn would all get confused and fuck off back to their little hell hole to oogle more poorly edited porn leaving the real Trekkies and geeks to enjoy their new series which isn't 4 sluts doing whatever or yet another cop drama,
Hidden message also? (Score:3, Interesting)
The campaign was calling for the original cast to play their roles in the upcomming Babylon 5 theatrical movie "Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows"
He was calling for a letter-writing campaign when it's "common knowledge" that those campaigns have become devalued because everybody is doing them these days.
The retraction [slashdot.org] also references a TV show for the fall of 2006. A TV show. One that sounds like a done deal. Which probably means that it's a new show that they believe so strongly in that they know it'll be picked up (a B5 universe show maybe), or that it's an existing TV show.
PS: When it comes to his reading of the poll on ScifiWire: "This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane."
Don't care.... (Score:3, Informative)
No, I don't think there's a loss of intrest in Star Trek. the only reason their seems to be is we have not been given something even remotely similar to Star Trek (Enterprise was so different and so bad.....the only reason it was Star Trek was because it had Vulcans, Romulan's and Klingons in it....). The NX-01 is so small scale to what we're used to....the gradioise in scale Enterprise NCC-1701-A-E's were what we WANTED to see. HUGE ships capable of not only exploration, but of defending itself. Why is it that from ther tail end of TNG onward the Federation routinely got thier asses handed to them? In any case, it's more then about the ship. It's about the people. The Best of Both Worlds episodes was some of the best trek there was with Commander Shelby and Riker trying to get Picard back from the Borg. Encounter at Farpoint was so much better of a start then the forgettable episode Enterprise started with. If we actually HAD a good trek series though, it woud likely not be good by our standards now though. There's too much at stake. They gotta try and make trek something many people would like. Unfortunately, that makes it a lousy series. Case in point, a friend of mine who is not a big fan of SciFi religiously watched Enterprise while I lost interest somewhere around 1st season. If I remember right, I caught myself many times watching TNG repeats on the old TNN network!
Starch Wreck (Score:4, Funny)
If they could be civilians this time. (Score:3, Insightful)
World Without Trek (Score:3, Insightful)
But after Enterprise (which I think didn't get a fair shake), what can they do? I can't think of anything. The well's dry.
Give SF a few years without a Trek. See what else pops up - fresh ideas, new takes, old concepts revived. Then perhaps something else can be tried.
I also wonder - and dare to ask - if the unspeakable could be done. From what I've seen the new Battlestar Galactica is quite good - could someone imagine a reboot of Trek TOS?
Re:World Without Trek (Score:5, Insightful)
When I hear director commentaries of Star Trek movies, or listen to actors make comments regarding their involvement with Star Trek, they seemingly have a universal theme: "I never saw Star Trek before I was hired by Paramount."
It makes me wonder about the writers as well. It is one thing to try and bring in some people from outside the Trekkies fan base to add some new and fresh ideas, but the near universality of the people producing and creating both the movies and the series doing it just as another job speaks volumes about how committed Paramount is to maintaining quality in the series.
Basically none.
One of the reasons why the Lord of the Rings was so absolutely fantastic was that the people involved with making those movies were some major fans of the work. Sure, a couple of actors may not have been as familiar with the story as die-hard fanatics, but with the rest of the production team really pulling to make it something special, those actors "caught the vision" and even added more to the passion to get it done.
I could even use the "Passion of the Christ" produced by Mel Gibson as an example of how somebody with in this case a deep religious conviction bringing something extra to the production that turned what could have been an ordinary movie into something extra ordinary.
I just don't see that kind of fire coming from Paramount these days. The attitude of William Shatner comments of "Get a Life" to fans is more typical. Star Trek has simply become a cash cow for studio executives, and they really don't care at all about the fan base other than trying to figure out how to get more money from what they percieve as a bunch of suckers. The Trek-based fan web pages legal mess is more proof of how stupid Paramount doesn't really know what they are doing other than trying to make a quick buck.
Correction: Jeremiah's real creator (Score:3, Informative)
"Its dead, Jim" (Score:3, Funny)
It died of boredom- redoing the same tired old plots for the tenth time.
funny foreheaded aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I know that SF on TV is pretty much a kind of stage-play allegory, but it all feels so grounded in a '60s kind of shiny smarmy middle-class american morality (yes, I know all about demographics, I'm a director/producer). JMS's B5 brought a touch of biological diversity into the vidiotic galaxy.
What I would really like is a SF series that takes nanotech and extreme body customization into human -- not just evil borg -- society. One that has Samuel Delaney's sense of cultural development, Ridley Scott's visual and human grittiness, and KS Robinson's sense of the march of history. B5 had some of all that, but some truly cheesy interludes and unconvincing dialogue, and in the end fell back frequently to rely on the hollywood galactic tropes, so he should be able to cope in the ST version of 'future.' Here's hoping he can move the franchise into something more... contemporary.
JMS offer rescinded (Score:4, Informative)
Trekweb [trekweb.com]
Please don't write it yourself JMS (Score:3)
But you are a *terrible* writer!
Your dialogue is so unsubtle it is akin to be smacked in the face by a hallibut every time someone opens their mouth.
Hire
someone
else
BROKEN LINK - CORRECTION (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wrong department. (Score:2, Interesting)
Dont get me wrong, NextGen rocks, but to lump DS9 with Enterprise is just wrong. Enterprise totally sucked, and thats why it got axed. DS9 is rad and allowed for a real overarching plotline to develop, as opposed to the NextGen thing of the "X-Character Episodes." Like the "Data Episodes" where the silly humans are doing something that puzzles data and he endeavors to understand, or the "Barclay Episodes."
That's not to say that DS9 is better, I happen to like NG better ove
Re:Wrong department. (Score:3, Insightful)
I only watched two episodes of the most recent series.
Re:Wrong department. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, lets' see... Could the fact that QL was a formulaic remake of Highway to Heaven with smaller hair and some special effects be relevent here?
People involved in one crap series are often a good indicator that another will be crap IME.
DS9 and B5 (Score:5, Interesting)
However, JMS might be reluctant to speak about DS9 for a personal reason. JMS had tried to pitch Babylon 5 to a number of studios, such as Paramount, but they wouldn't have it. After years of work, WB finally took up the show. After the Babylon 5 pilot was shot, Paramount just happens to shoot a pilot of their own new show that just happens to be set on a space station, and get the pilot to air just before the Babylon 5 pilot. (Why are some of the sets from the Enterprise?)
Although this had happened, JMS vocally disliked rivalry between the fans of Trek and B5 and advocated that one could like both.
DS9 turned out quite different in the end, so the competition from B5 was kind of good for Trek, wasn't it?
Good comparison (Score:3, Funny)
And the girl creeps me out...monotone robots trying to be cute to gain our trust...they've got to be trying to take over the world! Have we learned nothing?
Re:Who cares?! (Score:3, Interesting)
If you don't like it, don't watch it. Some of us do like it, and are doing something proactive to see if we can keep it around for at least another season.
Re:Question, Why? (Score:2)
Bermen always wants to write/choose a love story of sorts, and fails every time.
Look at what Majel Roddenbury has done. Her stuff is much better than Bermen even. ST will continue to suck as long as Bermen is at the helm, so if other producers get the chance, pray they are accepted...