# Woo Hoo! New Star Trek Movie Greenlighted! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2006, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600 "2006-04-21T12:35:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/41 "2006-04-21T19:29:55Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Nothing outside the movies and the live-action television series is considered canon, right? Novels, reference books, cartoon series, comic books, etc. A think a novel written by, say, D.C. Fontana is/would be canon. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/42 "2006-04-21T19:40:56Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Nothing outside the movies and the live-action television series is considered canon, right? Novels, reference books, cartoon series, comic books, etc. The specific book I am reffering to (dang name escapes me at the moment) is among those that were/are considered canon… they were done as “reference” books like th e Star Trek Maps, Concordance, Tech Manual, Blueprints, etc… novels, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter altogether. I’ll post what I can find tonite. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/43 "2006-04-21T19:58:37Z")
> [@Quasimodal](#): > > One extra note: apparently J. J. Abrams wrote the screenplay for armageddon… There were like twenty writers on that movie, of whom I seem to recall only seven actually making the on-screen credit. I’d have to check to verify the numbers but that’s in the ball park. > [@Diceman](#): > > I’ve suggested such a scenario before. A “Dark Ages” Trek. [Me too](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5797544&postcount=78). ---
**Author:** ![thwartme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@thwartme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thwartme)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/44 "2006-04-21T20:40:25Z")
> [@simster](#): > > I still wish I could find the link that said this movie was to be about the Romulan Earth wars… which is well before the time of Kirk (30ish at the time of his first romulan encounter, Spock was in his 70-90s at that time)… Try [this.](http://www.trektoday.com/news/160406_01.shtml) I think that would be really cool. Of course, I also like the Trek 90210 idea. Lets face it, I’ll watch anything Trek. At least for a while. I found something worthwhile about ALL the Trek movies and series. I just like Star Trek. I even watch [these.](http://www.newvoyages.com/) So bring it on, Abrams. I’m waiting. thwartme ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/45 "2006-04-21T20:52:53Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > Someone in another forum used the term “Star Trek 90210”, and I think that sums it up. > > It will suck ass. I can’t think of a way it _won’t_ suck ass. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/46 "2006-04-21T21:05:50Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > I can’t think of a way it _won’t_ suck ass. Re casting Kirk and Spock will probably suck one way or the other. _Ponderosa: the early years_ or whatever fellated with the utmost allacrity. We know they won’t die, fir instance. Someone will probably write an _Enterprise_ episode explaining why they look different in their youth. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/47 "2006-04-21T21:11:27Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > maybe they’ll finally have a [gay character](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=368076). It all sounds pretty gay to me ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/48 "2006-04-21T22:00:23Z")
Ok, the book I was reffering to is “Spaceflight Chronology”, published in 1979 and I do believe it was considered canon… 2123 is the date of the launch of the first Enterprise… Declaration Class crewed by 100, 850 Passengers, it was a cruise ship. Warp 3.2 “Starliner”. 2188 is the launch of the COnstitution Class Enterprise, First Captain is listed as Robert April. Of course, according to this book, the Phaser isnt developed until 2198 2106 - 2109 is the dates for the Romulan War… 70 years before Enterprise 1701, and easily 40-50 years pre- Kirk. Thwartme… thanks for the link… that is the article I was thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/49 "2006-04-21T22:24:01Z")
The [official word](http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/help/faqs/faq/676.html) on what is canon and non-canon in the Star Trek world. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/50 "2006-04-21T22:27:18Z")
I’m still hoping for a Sulu/Excelsior movie, showing him in a post-Praxis uiverse where the key enemy (the Klingons) have collapsed into semi-anarchy and him getting caught up in some politically-driven conflict with unclear motives… ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/51 "2006-04-21T22:34:23Z")
Uhm. Dark Ages Trek? They’ve _done_ that. What do you think Andromeda was? I’m not joking, it was originally a Star Trek concept. You can guess who the Klingons would have been. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/52 "2006-04-21T22:38:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > We know they won’t die, fir instance. I wouldn’t put it past them, at this point. We’ve got such a funhouse of mirror universes by now, they pull anything out of their butts they like and fob it off as “many worlds” or somesuch. Hey, why not? Evil Kirk and Spock as gay lovers in a campy Slash musical with sountrack by Sir Elton John? ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/53 "2006-04-21T22:38:54Z")
Great book, I still have it in near mint condition issued when ST TMP was released. Lots and lots of cool starship paintings by Rick Sternbach. This should have been the backstory used for the early days of the Federation not the stupid drunken Zefram Cochrane nonsense from First Contact. Example: First warp drive equipped ship UNSS Bonaventure Length 206 m beam 63.4 m mass 19.4 million kg speed warp 2.5 range 40 ly I know, I know such a geek. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/54 "2006-04-21T22:43:00Z")
Sorry the thread had moved on when I was typing, this was in reference to the “Spaceflight Chronology” mentioned by **simster**. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/55 "2006-04-21T23:03:15Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > such a geek Being named after a semi-forgotten Alan Dean Foster novel will do that to you. And I speak as one who tracked down both of the sequels. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2006, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/56 "2006-04-21T23:30:01Z")
Mrs. Plant, World’s Greatest Trek Authority, has pointed out that from the chess scene in _Where No Man Has Gone Before,_ Kirk and Spock don’t seem to know each other very well yet. Thanks for the dates on the Romulan War, simster. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2006, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/57 "2006-04-22T12:03:57Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > You gotta wonder who they’ll cast as the young J.T. Kirk. I have an evil idea, but it involves William Shatner and way too much botox singing Hava Nagila. On the plus side, he occasionally slaps Tom Cruise, Bugs Bunny-style. > [@](#): > > Hell, Shatner can’t play it straight without the whole thing descending into unintended comedy. Ah, the curse of the Kosher Ham. > [@Loopydude](#): > > Hey, why not? Evil Kirk and Spock as gay lovers in a campy Slash musical with sountrack by Sir Elton John? They’re not evil. They’re FAB–u-Lous. > [@RikWriter](#): > > I think a drastic but very cool solution would be to set the next movie/series after an apocalyptic war that has wiped out much of the Federation and thrown everyone back to a technology not much more than when Earth first developed star travel. This is a worthy idea. I think the single most damaging thing that could happen to the Federation (to all spacefaring empires in the Trek universe, in fact) is that warp and subspace radio stops working, or they become too risky and expensive for anyone to attempt. This almost happened in TNG, but (IIRC) they played with the idea that the warp drives were ripping up the space-time continuum for a few episodes and then ignored it. Typical TV show junk. Anyway, some ideas occur: Warp drives and subspace radios really are ripping up the space-time continuum and anyone using them has a moderate and increasing risk of punching through to … where? When? Who the hell knows. Nobody has ever been back, or even sent word. This means that the Federation and the Cardassian Empire and whoever else exists in the universe you want to set this in just gradually falls apart. Ships with needed supplies and new blood and transmissions with information of the outside world become less and less frequent, more and more impoverished themselves, and eventually cease completely. The people on those worlds retain the language and culture they inherited from their mother world, but gradually adopt both to their new lifestyles. It’s like the Roman Empire falling apart into (almost) everyone from the British Isles to Constatinople and Palestine. Systems within ‘walking distance’ of each other (impulse speed and EM radio) can maintain trade, but nothing like what they had before. A few ships become marooned out in deep space because they no longer want to risk warp, or they didn’t have enough fuel to go both ways and though they’d find a full starport but didn’t. There’s probably fodder for a couple good series set in that universe, maybe a few movies as well. The plots would have to center around specific groups facing specific problems, as opposed to trying to tackle the entire collapse of multiple empires. Gradual decay doesn’t provide much dramatic tension. 😉 Something that came to me when I first saw the phrase ‘Dark Ages Trek’ was the story of the Eugenics Wars and/or World War III. I don’t even think the Official Bible is quite clear on whether they are the same war or one causing the other or what. I know I’m not, so I’ll cavlierly state that the Eugenics Wars caused World War III by provoking someone (I’m looking at _you_, America) into the first use of nuclear weapons against the army of supermen lead by our pal, KHAAAAAAN! America, circa 1992, was a hell of a lot further advanced in genetics than it was in OTL. The disastrous Apollo 12 convinced us to get out of the space race (we’d been to the Moon once already) and into genetics, pouring the huge budget that would have gone to NASA into some universities that claimed to be ‘thiiis close’ to fully sequencing the human genome. The money paid off and by 1974 we had a full sequence. By 1981 we had FDA-approved genetically-engineered antibiotics, and by 1992 we were looking at the next step: cloning a human being. In an election year, no less. Congress and the President halted the plan completely. The funding dried up and the scientists were harried out of America and into Europe, where they found a much nicer regulatory régime. However, they didn’t know that their work was being duplicated in Asia by people living without any regulatory régime whatsoever, but tons of China White. Those Asian labs produced Khan and his warriors, who quickly killed off the drug lords (with American help) and killed off the Americans (with Chinese help). The American President signed Gulf of Tonkin _Part Deux_ and the Eugenics Wars were on. Imagine trying to fight a regiment full of people who make the Green Berets look like Special Olympiads in every possible respect. Imagine if that regiment could breed regiments in a few months and train them in a few more. Moral terror is indeed their greatest weapon. Nuclear weapons might not sound like that bad of an idea. The story of Ephraim Cochrane seems interesting, if only as a point of view throughout all of the preceding. I presume he had a very good job in some cutting-edge research lab prior to the Big Blowup and that he was working on something very like warp drives when it happened. There is probably a good reason he was able to get at those unfired missiles, as well. Not to mention a reason those missiles weren’t fired to begin with. **Cervaise** : Your idea in the linked thread is probably the best basis for a continuing series, and I suppose that is where the soul of Trek really lives. Good job. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2006, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/58 "2006-04-22T16:04:31Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > They’re not evil. They’re FAB–u-Lous. Oh, be-HAVE! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/59 "2006-04-22T17:32:22Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Cervaise** : Your idea in the linked thread is probably the best basis for a continuing series, and I suppose that is where the soul of Trek really lives. Good job. Thanks. As I described in that thread, I was really happy with the idea, and with its potential for being both broad and deep, until _Galactica_ came along and stole most of its thunder. (Another component of my scenario would have been similar to your notion about reducing the use of warp drive and subspace communication, except that I came at it from the standpoint of energy sources. Ships in _Trek_ have basically limitless power plants, and subspace relays positioned every couple of lightyears make quadrant-wide radio possible. My apocalyptic attack would have (a) destroyed a large part of whatever mines or resources were being used to fuel everything, and (b) eliminated almost all of the subspace relays. So the technology still exists and can be used, but not casually because there’s a premium. It sounds like we’re definitely on the same page with this stuff.) (But like I said: damn _Galactica._ :)) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600/60 "2006-04-22T19:39:01Z")
**Icerigger** : I misspelled Cochrane’s name, didn’t I? Damn it. :smack: **Cervaise** : We have the same basic idea: Get rid of the damned tech! How that’s accomplished is basically irrelevant, as long as everyone doesn’t end up borged in the process or similar. Maybe the problem is that Roddenberry was too optimistic for his own good. From all I’ve heard of the guy, he really wanted to help craft a utopia and _Star Trek_ was his manifesto. Omnipotent, benevolent tech was part of the vision, even if it destroys all sense of dramatic tension unless you can craft really tight character-driven stories. I think DS9 did that the most often of all the series. Any new Trek series will have to take DS9’s lessons into a very un-Trek-like universe to be anything near effective. And if it’s any good, it will be accused of ripping off B5 and _Galactica_ and _Firefly_. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woo-hoo-new-star-trek-movie-greenlighted/353600.md?page=4)