I know there are no shortage of haters out there, but I sure am loving these new ST movies since Disney took over. (I haven’t seen Solo yet, so no spoilers please. :))
I’m wondering if ST could do the same thing.
First off, I like JJ Abrams, but I’ve had my fill of his style. I’d like to see some new faces on the project.
There are certainly no shortage of interesting characters you could base a whole movie on. And there are certainly lots of back stories and side plots the franchise could explore. Origins of the Borg, Cardasian occupation of Bajor, etc…
I think you need to strike while the iron is hot for these things. The “new” Star Trek cast made its debut about ten years ago, and made three relatively successful movies but have kind of faded away, each moving on to other projects. Maybe something that reunites The Next Generation might be fun (before any of them die off) but the current big blockbuster hits seem to be based on comic books. Who knows? Maybe it’s come around to werewolves again before long.
There was a rumor when Discovery was in production that it was going to be an Anthology and each season would be a different setting and characters. I loved that idea. The Trek timeline is rich and can support that kind of story telling easily.
Well, a fair number of people think JJ Abrams basically already did that with the film reboots. There’s not an entire “cinematic universe” but it has been noted the style of the rebooted Trek films was more like “Star Wars but in the Trek universe”. Probably no accident that JJ Abrams then went on to re-do the original Star Wars for the modern era.
Besides, Trek has usually been more of a TV thing, and your suggestion is basically what they’re doing with Discovery in that medium (and no doubt wondering how to do more of that kind of thing without the overexposure that nearly killed the franchise 15 years ago).
I still think a look into the seedier parts of Trek would be good. Picture Quark’s bar without any Federation members around, at least not openly, and certainly without a Federation space station.
I always thought it would be fun to have episodes that explore what happens after (or before) the episodes we saw. So something like following the Enterprise-C through the rift at the end of Yesterday’s Enterprise and seeing how the battle plays out with the Romulans and what happens to Tasha Yar.
Or see what happens to Wesley at the end of Journey’s End when he leaves with the Traveler.
Follow Tin Man from the episode “Tin Man”.
Lots to choose from and they can re-syndicate the original episode the new one is based off of.
Star Trek is pretty much dead to me. At one point in the past, I would have said I liked both equally. But Trek destroyed itself with Time Travel infesting too many movies and TV series, messing up continuity and timelines.
I don’t think overexposure nearly killed the franchise. Show runners who had no clue as to what made ST great, and in fact were dead set against Gene’s optimism, that’s what nearly killed the franchise - if it isn’t dead, that is.
Movies or a show set in the TOS universe (far more interesting than the TNG era where everything worked) would be good, as long as they went back to first principles. I lived through the 60s and we could use some optimism today like Roddenberry provided then. Ain’t going to happen, though.
We already have a million shows and movies and games about space grifters and space smugglers and space outlaws who make their own rules, in space.
What would be the point of setting your space outlaw stories canonically in Star Trek?
It’s not that I’m 100% sick of space outlaw stories. But I’m not just wondering what space outlaw stories would bring to Star Trek, I’m wondering what Star Trek brings to space outlaw stories.
I’d like a space *exploration *series - finding and learning how to get along with different weird (especially non-humanoid) sophonts and alien environments every week. Sure, have some action and danger, but in the general vein of the danger and action of something on Discovery or Travel Channel or National Geographic or the like. I want the captain to be Space! David Attenborough™ and the First Officer to be Space! Bear Grylls™.
And if you need to do it, why not set them in the Mirror universe to keep them away from the Federation universe.
And since we have a revolution brewing, with a small band of rebels, maybe you can have the bad buys build this big weapon, call it the Murder Orb or something, which the good guys have to blow up again and again and again.
If we’re telling new stories in the Star Trek universe, here are a few requests I have. They could be in movies, live action television, or animation; I’m good either way. But I’m not paying for another subscription service. CBS All Access can kiss my butt.
–Following the adventures of another Starfleet crew during the Dominion War. We know how the DS9 crew did; let’s see someone else.
–A Klingon crew seeking out new worlds and new civilizations, and conquering them for the glory of the Empire. (I’m a HUGE fan of the I.K.S. Gorkon series of novels).
–A series taking place on the front lines of the Federation-Cardassian War, or the Federation-Tzenkethi War. Hell, we don’t even know what the Tzenkethi look like!
–A one-off animated episode about the Setlik III massacre, in which we see O’Brien’s first murder, of a Cardassian. (He didn’t know the phaser was set to maximum.)
–A series about the Bajoran resistance to the Cardassian occupation. (I love the Terok Nor novel trilogy.)
–A series about the adventures of the USS Excelsior under Captain Hikaru Sulu.
–A series about the Enterprise-B under Captain John Harriman.
–An episode filling in the gaps of “Yesterday’s Enterprise”-- how the Enterprise-C answered the Klingon distress call, and how they came back later and got destroyed.
–A series showing what happened after Deep Space Nine’s finale. (I love the DS9 relaunch novels.)
Because we already know some characters, background and storylines.
I love the MMO ‘Lord of the Rings Online’, because I already know lots about Middle Earth.
There’s an interesting book of short stories ‘The Kobayashi Maru’ which features Kirk, Scotty and Chekov individually tackling the unwinnable scenario.
That would be a good one. It is close enough to TOS time so that things are still interesting in the galaxy, seeing the impact of the Klingon peace treaty would be cool, and they could make Sulu gay which would make George happy.
Unfortunately, you are correct. We are rapidly approaching terminal SW fatigue, if we aren’t already there. The more movies they produced, the greater the ennui. The movies are just rehashing the same old stuff, because nobody is willing to take a multi-million dollar risk on something different in that universe. The EU could do that - the movies can’t.
As for ST - well, I hate JJ Abrams with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns, and I think ST:Discovery is a waste of electrons. So whatever they do with that universe is meaningless to me. The Orville is my ST now.
I think it would be entertaining to see a series focusing on one of the more prominent alien races (other than the Vulcans). The adventures of a Cardassian, Romulan, or Klingon ship would be fun to watch, as long as the focus is not on their interactions with humans. I’m picturing something like TNG but with a mostly alien crew.
