Slashdot Mirror
New 'Star Trek' Series Set For Fall
demaria writes: "Executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga of ST: Voyager are at it again, and we can expect another Trek series in the fall, according to this article. Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation. I wonder if they'll make the bridge have the same cardboard/buttons glued-on look as TOS did." Just my luck -- the more Star Trek spinoffs there are, the more toys I have to buy for Trekkie friends, and I'm always a few shows behind. Hopefully this one will have some cool merchandise. ($15 MP3 playing "communicators" for kids?) So send in scripts early, if you want to counteract an expected writers' strike. Note that Rick Berman specifically denies the "early Federation" rumors.
yeah that might be cool. Except that the storylines would be extremely difficult. Paramount would have to explain how their Star Trek space-time continuum thingie works. Also, incidentally, we can't know anything about the future and our future specifically, due to that pesky Temporal Prime Directive.
Apparently a line of games from SNK have been bad enough in translating english to lead to the term SNK-glish being coined. This was all news to me.
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Although anyone who's interested will probably just go to www.startrek.com directly, you wouldn't want to subject innocent StarTek to a slashdotting from people that just click the link, would you?
Dallan
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
On TV, that is
1. Studios and recoding industries on a rampage agiast consumer rights, check.
2. Mindless TV programs coving "hoaxes", check.
3. New Star Trek series, check.
Well people we're all going to hell. Bring marshmallows.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Paramount has just introduced the latest spinoff of the popular Star Trek television series:
Star Trek: The Operating System
Now you too can experience the thrill of Starfleet's easily hackable, error-prone computers, just like on the popular series!
Captain, it appears that the Borg have infiltrated our journaling filesystem and are threatening to frag us!
Imagine the joy of having your own computer crash due to metaphasic radiation, perfectly in sync with the television broadcast, giving you a chance to test your skills and summon your own 'inner Wesley' to bring it back up.
"I had no idea of the constant trouble the crew of the Enterprise experienced while out in space. Having 'Star Trek: The Operating System' loaded on my machine has made me feel closer to the show. I now identify with the characters more intimately. Thanks, Paramount!" -- Lester Platt, Jeffersonville, IN
Order your copy of Star Trek: The Operating System today!
Hmm.. sounds a lot like Microsoft's "embrace and extend" ! It would be cool to see an "open source" alliance of worlds band together against the Federation... that would be a cool new series angle!
Maybe we should replace that Bill-Gates-of-Borg icon with one of Gates in a Federation Uniform?
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
no kidding! George was a guest star on ViP (with Pamela) this weekend, for god's sake.
er, I was just flipping channels, honest *cough cough*
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Should be: "Would you like me to talk like George Takai some more, Mike?" - Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Movie
---
I'm super excited! This made my day!!! Live Long And Prosper!
DS9 was the only series that *didn't* read like a soap opera. It had lots of cool military and political plots.
Sort of a Liberace with a bad rug who scores with all the green guys on the worlds they visit? Or were you thinking more along the lines of a Rock Hudson or Jim Nabors? Certainly the "hanging around in the bar" scenes should be different than previous series.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
Yes you can. No captain at all. The entire ship is run by a committee... or it could be an anarchy... or a group mind... Hmm, this might even get me to watch the series for an episode or two.
www.startrek.com
/. story didn't even point to the site.
403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
Weird considering the
DS9 - Agreed, but only toward the end with the Dominion episodes.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
> hat one of the plans for the new series is a
> Star Fleet Academy setting.
Oh, no. Those few lame acadamy episodes with Wesley "Westly, the boy?" were bad enough as it was. I still loathe the Tom Paris character to this day.
Is he the drummer in Everclear's AM Radio video?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Will the klingons in the theoretical new series have the ridge on their head, or not? Then we move into the theories about "The original series klingons were actually a subspecies of the klingon race..." :)
There will be no human actors. In a merchandising first, the actual toys will finally take center stage.
And, of course, Roddenberry's widow will play a bit part. She will appear on alternate episodes to feed the cow.
live long and profit
The thing I didn't like about Voyager was how technology got in the way of character. Episode after episode seems like the writers had a three step process :
1) What really cool thing can we show the audience (e.g. a 29th century Borg, Harry Kim is actually an alien, etc)
2) What technobabble do we need to get INTO this situation
3) What technobabble do we need to get OUT of this situation
There are of course exceptions, but the malfunction of technology got more character than any of the characters. Especially holograms - in the Star Trek world, when computers malfunction, they don't crash -- they become sentient!
Hopefully, a show set before the invention of all this technology will give us more Roddenberrean plots, where human frailties are the focus instead of technological ones. But I'm not holding my breath because it's been this way for so long -- and, given a writers' strike, it's surely easier to make up enough technobabble to get from plot point A to plot point B.
--------------------------------
Maybe now we'll discover the mysterious origin of Captain Kirk's Toupee.
I hope they deal with the politics of setting up the Federation. Babylon 5 was heading in this direction, then the series ended. I would like to see some sneaky political stuff about 20 years after the founding of the Federation. Maybe they could work in the start of Section 29.
And maybe they could get that cute little robot from Buck Rogers on the show. The one that said "bedebedebedebede". I just loved him. Just kidding.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Rick Berman doesn't know good Trek from a hole in the ground. What we really wanted was Excelsior! Get it straight, Berman!
I'm personally fed up with the over-merchandised crud that's being pushed on us under the guise of Star Trek nowadays. The quality of the series has been consistently declining since TNG. Even the low-budget TOS (my personal fave because it's the original) beats DS9 and VOY.
Constitutionally Correct
Easy - Galaxy Quest!
"Never give up, never surrender!"
Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart
And I suppose you prefer dry, dim-witted intellectual puzzles propped up by ridiculous nonsense? The great thing about DS9 is that it usually ignores the bogus technology, and focuses on the politics and interpersonal relationships, and unlike the other shows, the characters are almost interesting people.
I share your opinion on SG1, but I can never quite make my brain ignore the fact that every race they encounter speaks English and represents some cultural stereotype, just like in Star Trek, past the first one where "Tealk" lives. It is especially irritating since so much of the appeal of the movie was the depth of the foreign culture and Daniel's process of learning the language.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Another star Trek? Woohoo! I'm sure everyone here is mutually happy :)
Seeka
I remember hearing it was going to be about Star Fleet academy with like Nog and friends...I'd have to give that series a miss! I think what I'd like to see is a non federation centered series. Maybe some semi-rogue trader type...of couse the ships crew would encounter federations and other major races...But I'd like to see some of that universes' seemy underbelly! Hehe like ST:Privateer or Han Solo in Rodenberry land or something! Either way hopefully they'll do a good series because there aren't many to chose from lately!
Ar Trek Series Set For Fa-
L-
L Posted by timothy
on Monday Februar-
Y 19, @03:13AM fr-
Om the v-
Ulcans-in-tight-skirts dept. dema-
Ria writes: "Executive producers
Rick Berman and Brannon
Braga of ST: Voyager are at it again,
And we can expect another trek serie-
S in the fall, according to this articl-
E. Rumors are that it'll take place
during the early days of the Feder-
Ation. I wonder if they'll make the b-
Ridge have the same cardboard/buttons glu-
Ed-on look as TOS did." Just my luck -- the more Star
Trek spinoffs there are, the more toys I have to
Buy for Tr-
Ekkie friends, and I'm a-
Lways a few sh-
Ows behind. Hopefully this o-
Ne will have some cool merchandise. ($15 MP3 playin-
G
"communicators" for kids?) So send in scrip-
Ts early, if you want to c-
Ounteract an expected writers' strike. Note that Rick
Berman specifically denies the "early Federation" r-
Umor-
S.
-- Optimal, minimum-bandwidth solution, found by dynamic programming for your viewing pleasure. --
Recently, I've gotten into watching the original Star Trek on SPACE here in Toronto. These are remastered, full shows. Whole scenes missing since they were hacked off to make commercial room have returned. To me, it's a whole new Star Trek.
I looove the designs! The funky colours, the costumes, the sets, the hair! It stands up to the current shows without a problem. In fact, I find the old show to be incredably original and smart. It's hard to believe sometimes that I'm watching a sci-fi show made in 1965!!!
I hope the new show is as thoughtful, and funky as Star Trek has been in the past.
______
jeff13
ST:OLPGFM
(Star Trek: One Last Pathetic Grab for Money)
ST:AYBABTU
(STAR TREK: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US)
***
"Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation."
- -- --
Now does anybody have a clue is Star Trek is going to remain consistent and have Klingons without the big ridges on their foreheads??
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
"That government is best which governs
Another version of Zero Wing's intro, without the animated GIF: AYBABTU
---
Maybe there are details that I missed on the source of the "accepting script submissions" rumor, but it seems rather unlikely. Very few TV producers will accept and read unsolicited scripts or treatments, because it creates a lot of legal complications if they do.
Let's say that unknown writer X submits a script, which is rejected. Some time later, an episode is produced (written entirely by staff writer Y), which happens to follow the same basic plot, or incorporates elements used in writer X's script.
Writer X then sues, claiming that they're stealing his material, and the burden falls on the producers to prove that writer Y came up with this idea independently of writer X. The producers will probably win, but they spend time and money on the lawsuit.
Note that writers X and Y probably did come up with the same idea independently -- but because there's a limited number of elements to work with in a TV series (characters, basic setting, etc.), overlap between people's ideas is almost inevitable.
Life is much easier for the producers if they can simply say "all unsolicited scripts and treatments are returned to the sender unread" and let it end there.
They don't really lose much by doing so: the bulk of such submissions are unuseable freakish fan scripts, and the rest require work from their regular writers, anyway; producers hire a staff of writers in order to have enough good ideas to get them through the season.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
Also, 7 of 9 tried a new hairdo".
Man, I only wish! Come on, let it down, baby!
sig: sauer
I'm much more excited about the upcoming lone gunmen series.
Wouldn't there be a better equillibrated labor market if there were no union?
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Interresting idea, but for that they would have to use their brains for a change... Now how likely is THAT?
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
No the question was, will the show's stuff look like 1968 or 1999? Will the new TV show maintain that old federation look?
Actually, it's more like Federation == UN. Huamans == US. It is actually quite interesting to look at the parallels...
- Vulcans - England. Our closest ally, more restrained and refined, "discovered" Earth
- Klingons - Russia. During TOS, worst enemy, during TNG became a cautious ally.
- Romulans - China. Still an enemy
There are many other similarities with races, enough to write a thesis on, but also if you look at a few of the TOS episodes, they do remind the viewers in a not-so-subtle way that the Federation is just as bad as the Klingons in some ways, and Voyager is coming back to that trend of showing how Janeway is not always right and how people in the Delta Quadrant fear and hate her for imposing.
Make no mistake about this, it was intentionally a morality play - based on "current society" whatever that was when the show was airing.
For this reason, I'm pretty sure the new series will not be a prequel, despite the rumors... it is too hard to impose modern society *before* 70's society and not have an odd descrepancy...
-Alison
All your trolls are belong to us!
the new ST will probably not have a space-setting. It'll take place on a planet, which may be under fire from a new threat to the federation. Crew will consist partly of federation personnel (about half), other half is from the indigenous population who will have invented space-flight, but not warptech. Add some cloak-and-dagger stuff, the occasional infiltration, some beginning trade with the Ferengi (possibly the world is brought into the federation by the ferengi, as they provided warp-tech to the "primitive" natives). Occasional visits by Q are optional.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Except that any brothers of Leia or Darth would be known to Darth (the uncle's hiding is doubtful to have started prior to the Emperor coming to power) which means he executed a known relative.
Then again, Saddam has executed at least one of his sons-in-law, so it is possible.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
The lead characters should change over time, get replaced, or even die. There should be real humor and banter amoung the characters. They should carry grudges.
This ST Voyager 'let's see what's new this week' same-old, same-old, just shows how worthless Paramount's 'franchise' has become.
Who would care if Janeway, Paris, or any of the other characters die. They are not 'real' in any sense of the word. They have reset buttons, and spring back at the begining of the next show.
Good 'space' shows are;
Earth: Final Conflict
Babalon 5
Farscape
Lexx
Of these, B5 had the strongest series plot line, leading to the show ending.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
also an impressive collection here...
-Jon
Streamripper
this is my sig.
At least we won't have to deal with another damn malfunctioning Holodeck episode... Now they'll actually have to travel back in time to screw with history. :)
(At one time there was a "Particle of the week" web site, updated whenever Voyager introduced a new particle, which was about every week.)
And as I've said before when complaining about ST:TNG, "Let's just channel (particle X) through the deflector array!"
I'd still rather watch TOS than the newer ones, however I've still yet to see TNG's big finale. Damn!
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I'm in the middle of a series of books with/to my son that deals with Obi-Wan's early trining that kind of answers that.
Apparently, Jedi training begins with identification of potential knights at a very early age (months old). These very young children are taken to the 'Jedi Temple' where they are indeed trained by Yoda.
When a Jedi pupil reaches a certain age (10 or so) they become eligible to become an apprentice to a knight/master. In the story about Obi-Wan, he is nearing the age of 13 and has not yet been chosen by anyone as a 'padawan learner' and so is in danger of being ejected from the temple and never becoming a knight.
As it happens, Qui Gon ends up taking Obi-Wan as his apprentice. So there is a distinction made between the general training that Yoda gives to all Jedi students, and the one on one master/apprentice training that occurs on the road to becoming a 'Jedi Knight'.
As for the rest of the problems you mention, I agree - they are glaring, but there are always plausable explnations.
3PO does seem to hold information back, he might not readily volunteer that "skywalker?! why my first master was named Anakin Skywalker!" In ANH, he quite obviously knows who Leia is, but plays dumb when Luke asks him ("a person of some importance...")
Who the hell knows who "uncle" Owen is? He might be a relation a couple times removed. Anakin's ma had to come from somewhere, maybe she had a brother who had kids? I've seen families where 2nd and 3rd cousins are referred to as 'uncle' or 'aunt'.
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Last year i heard that there were two possible series scenarios, the first and best by far would be a show , where every week you follow a story on a diffrent federation ship in the star trek universe , and the stories slowly weave into each other , and each season finale ties up all of the threads that were placed on the diffrent ships over the past weeks, the second was the story of Captain Sulu and his journeys, which come to think of it would tie in with the theme you guys mention here, lets just hope they stay clear of to many human interst story episodes cause those suck, imagine a entire new episode of " this week on Star trek , Sulu realises that he has feelings , and shares them with the crew , only to find out nobody actually cares " , charater insite is such a bore, who ever said they liked the way picard was like a farther to " Weasel " Crusher, but i remeber those time travel ones
The 2nd series, The New Generation, resembled
"yuppies in space". Most of the characters were
30-somethings in the early 90s. They were upscale
and concerned about their careers, like yuppies.
Another Roddenbery-derived series- Andromeda-
resembles GenX in space. It has 20,30-somethings
of the current era. Includes geek, slacker
and artistic types.
The first Star Trek series was pre-boomer.
To get that real TOS look, you need a lot of complicated gadgets that make silly noises and seem to have been designed by people who never heard of integrated circuits.
Which, come to think of it, is precisely what I miss most about TOS. Like all good SF, it required a certain amount of imagination on the part of the audience. You're involved in making the concept work. Once you get in that mode, you don't care that surgical tools look like exotic salt shakers (they actually were), that all the caves and mines have flat floors, and that all the alien planets look like the San Gabriel valley.
Now all the effects and sets are letter perfect -- and the scripts are unimaginative, scientifically illiterate stories about a future where humanity is represented entirely by cliche-spouting dweebs, and all the aliens are walking stereotypes that would be considered painfully racist in any other context. This is progress?
__________________
I don't know if this got on all your local news stations but a few months ago before the final season of Voyager started, the local news sponsored a "Vote for the story of the next Trek series" poll. One of them was pretty lame (an "all stars" cast of everyone's favorites: Data, Odo, Pickard, the Doctor, etc.) but two others were interesting: 1) ST: Academy -- life at the Academy (duh!) and 2) ST: Borg -- all about the Borg I like the idea of the Borg one, because I've always loved those episodes, but that would seem to be very expensive and annoying to do full makeup on a regular basis. Not to mention they're just so powerful -- it'd have to be called Star Trek: Assimilated. The Academy one really seems to be a little interesting. Remember when the actor who plays Tom Paris on Voyager first showed up on Star Trek? It was in that episode on ST:TNG when Wesley gets in trouble when a member of his 4-shuttle flight team gets killed doing an illegal (dangerous) maneuver during Academy shuttle drills. Anyway, that sort of thing, I guess -- sounds better than early Federation to me, and yet still somewhat limited from overpowering the universe. Of course I've always loved the more powerful species in the Delta quadrant on Voyager -- maybe they should do some more stuff on that -- kinda like ST: Really Deep Space 10.
> [Used the]SuperTransHyperWarp drive for 5
> seconds so now we're closer to home.
And now it's busted, and we can't fix it to use it again, and we can't even extract any useable technology to speed ourselves up even a little bit.
Whatever happened to a "sustained rate of warp 9.97?" Aren't they about 50,000 light years away? Souldn't they be nearing the core of the galaxy, where "God" resides? Once they get to that, it's only a few hours to the Federation, according to the fifth or sixth movie, with Spock's brother.
Same thing as Gilligan's Island, except they have the advantage of making a little headway, story-wise, but not actually getting home.
And let's not forget that the Time Corps must come collect the Dr.s' mobile holo-emitter, not to mention wiping the computers and brains of everyone on board so they don't remember any of the technical details, since they repair the darned thing all the time.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation.
Isn't this what became Andromeda? A year ago, when they were supposedly considering two options for Trek shows, one of them was rumored to be a "birth of the Federation" type show. My understanding was that Andromeda came out of those discussions (with the plot from show A, but the name from show B). They decided not to make it a Trek show for some reason, and instead called it "Gene Roddenberry's ..."
If you look at the story line, the Trek concept is clearly still there. Instead of building the Federation, they're re-building the Commonwealth, but it's all the same thing really.
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
Rumor has it that Brannon Braga detests TOS in its entirety. They really oughta retire it for ten years, and then decide if more Trek is worth it. But I guess their balance sheets show that it still is, currently. They're certainly not making another spin-off for love of the genre. That's for certain.
Daniel Crawford
Hey, at last, an on-topic post that isn't flaming Gene Roddenbury's creation.
I fully realize that everyone here is a skeptic as to how well another series is going to go over with the fans and the rest of the world+dog. My experience has been that Paramount, evil corporation that they are, is generally very capable of exceeding my expectations when it comes to my affinity for Trek.
I got into Star Trek midway through the TNG series. (I say blegh to TOS, it was a good idea but far too ahead of its time.) Then along came DS9, which I had doubts about. But they eventually gave the charaters some personality and it scored pretty well with me. By the time Voyager was announced, everyone was like, "What *another* Star Trek? This can't work!" But somewhere after the first season or two, Paramount brought in some highly skilled writers and staff, and has now taken over TNG's spot as my favourite Trek series yet.
I have little doubt that they may be able to do it again. As for the premise of this new series, I can't even speculate. But if they can turn the "federation starship stranded in the Delta quadrant" idea into a good series, I think they can pull off pretty much anything.
I'd like to see some more cross-series character and species appearances. I highly doubt they would do Q, but Guinan is a very distinct (and excellent, might I add) possiblity. We all know she hung around mostly with humans after her culture was decimated by the Borg. I wonder if Whoopie Goldberg would be willing to do it, though.
The reason ST was such an amazing show wasn't the fact the roddenberry and crew were able to predict many of the developments of the future, he didn't most of those developments were made because of Star Trek, no it was because they were able to so accuratly portray the society of the day. The cold war, desegregation and such were the bread and butter of the original series. The Next Generation tackled issues of homosexuality, religion and psycology all within the context of today's society and yet set in interstellar space so we'd all actually notice it.
These shows were not simple science fiction.
No Deep Space Nine has that distinction, however, DS9's point was to be a show for the existing ST fans. Day to day life in the Federation, along with a continuing story arc, much like Babylon 5 but not as involved.
So I can see how Voyager was such a good idea, show the resourcefullness of the Federation's Star Fleet but stranding them light years away from home, throw in the need for help from their enemies and you've got a good show. But the screwed up and they didn't pursue any of those concepts very far. In the end the show turned into a bunch of technobabble to further a plot straight from a pulp fiction novel and it required the addition of a blond in a tight outfit to bring it's ratings back.
To me it seems the horse has died, or at least needs a rest.
but no this fall Paramount is coming out with yet Another ST show with another toatlly new concept not realizing the fans really don't want to see it.
They should put down the whip, or at least switch to an old one.
Honestly the best Star Trek concept I've ever heard involves returning to Sulu as he commanded the Excelsior. There is so much story behind the Excelsior they would have no trouble for episode ideas and more so they would be going back to the old school star trek that was only seen in the movies. Fans would not have to digest a whole new style, production wouldn't have to design new sets and costumes from scratch. It would just work. But big studios don't listen to fans.
I reminice to the days of the Original series where a letter writing campaign to desilu saved the series for oblivion.
They did that already, with the Daystrom computer....
....which was another bit of kick-a technology shoved into the locker that they could have hauled out over and over again to deal with the inferior Klingons and Romulans and so on.
Put those into half a dozen capital-class starships, slap in the phasing cloaking devices, and send them into the Klingon's territory.
Then there's Data. Why isn't he mass-produced and issued to Federation defense? He and his higher-functioning predecessor Lore are both capable of taking out a Borg cube by themselves.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> We know that cultures that seek admission to the
> Federation go through a lengthy petition process
Well, the wormhole sped that up quite a bit for Bajor, let's be real. Also, remember how quickly the Feds wanted to snarf up Organia before the Klingons got there, simply because it was the only class M planet in the area, thus, like the wormhole, was a very important tactical planet.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
Well, given that this is the home of "Information wants to be free! Free Napster! Free books! Free everything!", you didn't actually expect them to come out and help the producers of that free stuff did you? Why, that would almost imply that all that rhetoric about "big music labels" was based on some kind of moral view rather than the desire to shovel Free Stuff into the gaping maw of a billion whining geeks!
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Here's my suggestion:
When I used to be into ST:TNG., I had always hoped for a nerdly alternative to 90210... so, I'm going to suggest:
Star Trek: The Academy Years.
Just think, all night romulan ale keggers, high-tech malicious pranks, dangerous piloting stunts... all the scandalous but wickedly juicy details you never get from the officers!
Hmm. Naah.. Nevermind.
George Takei DESPERATELY needs a job. He's now starring in the eMerchantClub infomercial. Scaaaary stuff.
---
Since the mid-22nd century looked so much like the 1960s, I image that the early 22nd century will look a lot like the 1950s. Maybe the computer will have spinning tape drives?
It's a perfect example of Engrish!!!
It's from the intro sequence of an old SNES game called Zero Wing, where all the english is apparently the result of a horrible mistranslation job.
You can see an animated gif of the intro sequence here.
I always wondered what a tachyon was. Probably a gluon that isn't quite dry...
-- Soruk
"New Star Trek Series Set for Fall"
I couldn't agree more. It's doomed for failure. It won't go anywhere. It's set for a fall immediately.
Oh! You meant 'fall' as in 'autumn.' My mistake.
[
http://www.thefever.com/AYB2.swf
That's because when DS9 was cancelled, the best writers from that show were hired to rescue Voyager from total suckitude. The writing of individual episodes did improve, but the characters are so stale and annoying that even the injection of new writing talent (and the borg known as "two-of-double-D") was not enough to save the show from being horrible.
Killing it at the end of this season and starting over with a totally new show was the best decision they could have made.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Well, the problem is the federation is only cashless when it is convienient :) Notice all of a sudden when characters suddenly have a stash of gold-plated latinum for gambling or something, and don't get me started on the books (grr.. gave up on those YEARS ago).
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
If a series does take place before TNG period, the first question has to be: What do Klingons look like during this period?
Aggreed. Aristotle wrote a summary of kinds of
plots 2300 years ago in his essay "Poetics".
And authors still pretty much fit into his scheme.
And who can forget that infamous male-in-a-skirt-and-I-don't-mean-kilt brief shot in TNG...
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> If it's say 100 years pre-TOS, then it'll be 100
> years (give or take) in our future
It couldn't be. That's barely post-Cochrane Era (TM). Wouldn't be much of a space ship to go exploring in, even allowing for rapid scientific advancement as aided by the Vulcans.
Remember that Cochrane Era (TM) had poorer spaceflight than did Kahn, five years ago.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Actually, Nimoy thought that one up himself as part of his personal campaign to convince people that "I Am Not Spock". Of course, the only one who bought his record were trekkies.
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~pyang/base/ally ourbase.swf
So can we expect that star trek has finally finished it's slow and painful devolution into yet another soap opera? STNG was the last decent star trek series.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
and don't forget the "musical" spinoffs, like Mr. Spock singing about Bilbo Baggins...
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
You can turn that argument right back around against unions. They show no allegiance to any non-union members, often forcing them out of work (closed shops). Big business isn't exactly a force for good in the world, but I've never heard of them pulling something as odious as a teacher's strike - holding students, who have no control or involvement in the contract negotiations, ransom.
Yes, we need labour laws to keep big business in check, but it seems obvious that we strong union laws to keep them from abusing their power as they do.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Oh, it's a frustrating pile of shit; the writers took a brilliant concept and managed to mangle it.
First, the rift was supposedly caused by three Enterprises sending a specific beam at a specific spot. But only two Enterprises sent the beam -- the third was the Pasteur.
Second, when the Pasteur arrived at the scene, there was no rift. And the rift supposedly gets bigger as it goes back in time, not the other way around. So, when the Enterprise arrives later, there shouldn't be any rift -- but there should have been one on sensors as the Pasteur approached.
Therefore, the rift must be Q fantasy, not a real threat to humanity. And Picard's "leap", a conclusion on which he killed three crews and for which Q praised him, was actually a conclusion inconsistent with the facts displayed in the episode.
OTOH, it was less crappy than Star Trek 5.
I nearly feel embarassed for knowing this, but here goes ... :)
The thing with C3P0 is attributed to the fact that droids are often memory-wiped in order to avoid them developing degenerate personalities or some such. According to the RPG sourcebooks, I believe. I think it also said something about C3P0 & R2D2 being abnormal in the fact they hadn't been wiped in so long and had not become particularly aberrant as of yet.
As for R2, I only saw Ep 1 once (and must have tried to block out my memory of it), but don't remember R2 in there. And if there was an R2 unit, they are supposed to be fairly ubiquitous in the Star Wars universe as Astromech droids. So who knows if it was "the" R2D2.
Absolutely, I stopped watchind DS9 after the third or fourth season, when I was in college. I liked it, but it got to be too confusing about when a new episode was on, as the Fox affiliates here liked to run them every single night, but one night a week is a "new" episode and the rest are re-runs. Anyhow, I basically tuned out, got busy with school, etc.
Now, I've got more free time, and a TiVo! It's on every night here on our ABC affiliate, and I tuned it towards the start of the sixth season. It's incredible! The war with the Dominion episodes are outstanding, stories arc across entire seasons, and there is actual drama and emotion...
I read somewhere that this happened because Paramount was busy with Voyager, so they stopped paying attention to DS9, which allowed DS9 to bend the rules a bit, and do whatever they wanted to do. The resulting episodes are spectacular, and if the new Star Trek series wants to truly be successful, they'd be wise to look at those last two seasons of Deep Space Nine and follow the same sort of pattern.
I tuned out of Voyager after the second or third season, much for the same reason as Deep Space Nine, it became too much work to keep track of new episodes, and a lot of them got too repetitive. A new species shows up, threatens Voyager, Janeway kicks their butts, or makes peace with them, and Voyager continues on its merry way.
I'm not trying to bash Voyager, there are some good episodes of it, but it just didn't hold my attention the way ST:TNG and now DS9 do. Maybe when I can start watching all Voyager episodes in order via my TiVo, I'll come to appreciate it more.
Anyone have any news on the DVD releases of ST:TNG? The little inserts that come with the Original Series DVD's say that it's "coming soon". I'm hoping that they bundle entire seasons, like the X-Files, but I'm sure that Paramount will screw the fans by selling them only 2 episodes at a time, requiring us to have to store 90 DVD's to get the whole series...
---
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Isn't that what the Andromeda show is all about? Most if the episodes I have seen deal with space/time relativity and the craziness that can ensue because of it.
What is the Omega Directive?
cpeterso
Marrissa Amber Flores Picard
(Google is your friend).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
You left out handicapped -- Captain Christopher Pike.
The VERY best thing that could come from all of this is a series without the idiotic holodecks! How many times have we watched a starship almost be destroyed by some type of holodeck problem?
The other problem with the holodeck was that it was a technology so incongruous with everything else that it was "indistinguishable from magic" and totally destroyed the show's believability. They could take a relatively small room and, through the magic of... magic, make it into a full-size baseball field (DS9) where individual crew members could look at each other and be a hundred yards apart. People could run and run and never hit a wall. They could walk the plank and fall 20 feet into water (TNG - movie). It could reproduce old B&W sci-fi movies (Voyager) and, miraculously, all of the "real people" would see themselves as B&W. But despite the fact that it could manipulate visual perception this way, you still had people parading around the hallways on the way to the holodeck dressed as pirates, cowboys, and 19th century Irishmen. If it could make you see B&W, why couldn't it put a costume on you?
And it was not simply the visual and physical issues. Why was it that the computer, normally barely smart enough to open lift doors on command, could suddenly create completely believable, intelligent, human characters in the holodeck? They could be brilliant scientists and could solve ship problems, but ask that same computer on the bridge to solve the problem and you'd get the equivalent of "that does not compute."
I like science fiction to be science fiction and fantasy to be fantasy -- and never the twain should meet.
You did take the time to learn English just so you can insult us. Looks like we won.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
DS9 and Voyager sucked. Their were about three types of episodes that the shows just continued repeating. Interpersonal conflicts on ship/spacestation, discovery, and alien/Star Trek crew conflicts. Maybe if they had a show devoted to a localized war between three different alien civilizations set in the Start Trek universe (a la Star Craft), that would be new and interesting.
According to an article on Sci Fi Wire News, the new Star Trek might omit the Star Trek name. Kinda freaky, eh?
R2D2 was in Episode 1. He saved the Naboo fighter Amidala was escaping from by repairing the shield generator while under heavy fire. (Most, if not all, of the other R2 units got blown away.) Afterwards, one of the Queen's bodyguards (or whoever) announced to the Queen that his serial number was R2D2. I remember because everyone in the theater clapped at his name ;)
ACs, Trolls, Flamebaits, and Offtopics at +6 moderation.
But whoever wrote it (I honestly don't know the name), took it to another network and with some cosmetic changes, aired it as Babalon 5. Babylon 5 was being pitched since before TNG. It has no connection to Star Trek.
Actually, it's an FTL particle or class of particles that may really exist; its supposed characteristics don't contradict current physics.
" The other problem with the holodeck was that it was a technology so incongruous with everything else that it was "indistinguishable from magic" and totally destroyed the show's believability. "
This is actually the thing that I like most about Star Trek, and paradoxically, the thing that most people hate about Star Trek. (Referring to the technology, not specifically the holodeck, though I will get to that.)
Many people miss the point that the writers are deliberately vague on the specifics of the technology. For one thing, it's obviously difficult to just invent technology that might exist hundredes of years from now for the mere purpose of a television show. Secondly, the technology is explained vaguely so that the audience is free to use its imagination regarding the details. This was always Gene Roddenberry's principle: Create an entertaining story about interesting characters and let the future be the vehicle.
In a nutshell, you have to do a bit of thinking for yourself in order to make the technology on Star Trek seem believable. You have to make your own interpretation. Those who refuse to do so are just plain lazy and inevitably come to the conclusion that Star Trek is stupid because its technology is unbelievable.
"They could take a relatively small room and, through the magic of... magic, make it into a full-size baseball field (DS9) where individual crew members could look at each other and be a hundred yards apart. People could run and run and never hit a wall. They could walk the plank and fall 20 feet into water (TNG - movie). It could reproduce old B&W sci-fi movies (Voyager) and, miraculously, all of the "real people" would see themselves as B&W. But despite the fact that it could manipulate visual perception this way, you still had people parading around the hallways on the way to the holodeck dressed as pirates, cowboys, and 19th century Irishmen. If it could make you see B&W, why couldn't it put a costume on you?"
My interpretation is this is that the holodeck is able to project the illusion so that the actual illusion itself is, in reality, never beyond a few meters of each participant. That, coupled with force fields and artificial gravity generators (which were never mentioned in any show, but this is *my* interpretation) can easily make it seem to separate people that they are walking away from each other, in any direction, for any distance.
There are contradictions to this in the very first few TNG episodes... such as where Wesly comes off the holodeck dripping wet after falling into the illusion of a stream. Or when data throws a rock into the wall of the holodeck when the rock is supposedly part of the illusion. I merely attribute these to bad writing.
About the costume issue. I would think that it might be a bit more desirable to replicate your own costume and don it in the privacy of your own quaters than to go to the holodeck, strip naked, and have the holodeck "paint" some clothes on you.
What if you have to leave really quick because the Borg are attacking? What happens if the deck loses power and the captain walks in?
Regarding B&W, it's probably a simple matter of projecting certain visual wavelengths on top of the existing environment that cancel out "colors" of the surrounding area, resulting in a monochromatic illusion.
" And it was not simply the visual and physical issues. Why was it that the computer, normally barely smart enough to open lift doors on command, could suddenly create completely believable, intelligent, human characters in the holodeck?"
Once again, my interpretation: technically, the computer does not do this. Whoever programs the particular scenario is responsible for the behavior of the characters, with a little help from a bunch of pre-made subroutines. The holodeck is not capable of "creating" people, it can only emulate them within whatever set of parameters the user defined.
But this rule too has been broken before. Moriarity, for example. Just a really stupid decision on the part of the writers. (Though it was a nice plot.)
"I like science fiction to be science fiction and fantasy to be fantasy -- and never the twain should meet."
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the former has always been a subset of the latter.
[And I apologize in advance for mozilla's splended job of misformatting this post.]
Hate to burst your bubble, but they rebuilt that bridge from scratch. Small props and costumes are kept, but sets take up valuable shooting space and they're scrapped as soon as filming is done.
While I don't agree with your assesment, I feel compelled to correct you on one minor aspect...
Its pretty clear that someone is trying to market the Roddenberry name pothumously.
That would be Paramount Pictures. And they are marketing the Star Trek franchise, not Roddenberry's name. Why? Only because it's the most successful television franchise to date.
Civil liberties are dependent on grass-roots-level solidarity (ooh, scary word that); just as militias and insurrections are our defense against the depredations of a corrupt government (see Yugoslavia, the Phillipines, Indonesia, etc.), unionizing, strikes, walk-outs etc. are our defense against the depredations of corrupt corporations.
I mean, the sides are writers who are ST geeks vs. UPN aka Viacom/Paramount etc.
Hooray for megacorps. BTW, the Viacom boardroom is sweet, let me tell you.
--
--
Make mine methylphenidate.
"Hello. This is the Emergency Commanding Hologram. Please state the nature of your tactical emergency."
Chelloveck
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
After all, if somebody tries to cross a picket line, it's only right to try to flip his car over with him in it.
According to the Screen Actors Guild there is a threat of an actor's strike. This is expected to impact the fall season.
Will we have yet another scale for Warp speed?
Fight Spammers!
One of Gene Rodenbury's smartest moves in the original series was writing for minimal special effects. He couldn't afford to show the Enterprise landing, so he wrote in the Transporter. This resulted in the creation of a world which had a truly futuristic look and feel. Now that good special effects are inexpensive to create, it easier to show more detail in a futuristic world. But the result of more detail seems to be a lower tech look and feel. For example, whose got the higher tech, STTOS or Babelyon 5?
I just don't care for her character on TNG, and knowing how she got the part makes it that much worse. She rang the producers and said, "I want a part. Did I mention that I am Whoopi? Everyone loves me." It just rubs me the wrong way.
Besides that I always though the character was lame. The superintelligent survivor of a great civilization... is a bartender? And why does a ship like that have any civilian employees anyway? Blech.
- 1 man's opinion.
Umm, I don't see what's wrong with having her on the show, schmoozing or not. Unlike most infrequent characters on the show, she was not annoying at all and often added a certain quality to the show that I'm certain no other actor could. She was a fan of the original series, and I think her perfomance as Guinan was excellent.
Remember that Sun Microsystems commercial from a few months back that showed the space ship dealing with some space-based threat? You know, the one with the character that was made to look as much like Mr. Spock as possible without infringing on any copyrights? Right down to him saying that "the Dot is highly logical," or something quite similar. Heck, they might even convince James Doohan to do a commercial for Sun where he says his famous "Hello, Computer" to the mouse. And the Dot could actually answer. Oh, and let's not forget the M$ Borg who would have to be the main enemy..."I am BillGatus, of Borg. Your life as it has been is over. From now on, you are one of M$."
Windows is going the way of phlogiston...
It might indeed be difficult to portray a level of technology that is sufficiently advanced to seem futuristic to us, but still less advanced than the LEGO-controlled computers with pneumatic voice synthesizers seen in the original series.
R2D2 was the only other being aboard the fighter with Anakin when Anakin blew up the Trade Federation ship.
Pike didn't have the Space Tube to blow in. The chair moved by thought, which is a lot less theatrical. And since he could only beep, and not speak, he's a suboptimal leading man.
FIRST OFFICER: Captain! The alien swarm is about to overtake us... what should we do?
PIKE: BEEEEP
FIRST OFFICER: So, did you want us to remodulate the shields, or charge the hull with isolinear tachyon radiation?
PIKE: BEEEEEEEP
FIRST OFFICER: STOP YOUR INFERNAL BEEPING!!
PIKE: BEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP
Besides, Pike was taken to Talos IV to live out a life of wonderful illusion anyway.
Voyager was so absolutely terrible that I don't care about Star Trek any more. Among Voyager's sins were making the characters one-dimensional and then making them repeatedly behave out of character, and completely ignoring the consequences of past events. It was very shallow Trek, written for people with short attention spans and no background in science fiction.
However, one of the 'More Headlines' on the Trek article page caught my eye: "Pern Pilot Preps For March." "http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2001 -02/16/14.00.tv" (Note that it's prepping to start shooting in March, not air in March.)
A Pern series could be really cool, and could be unlike anything else that's been on TV before. Pern, if you're not familiar with it, is a planet in a series of books far in the future; a colony ship from Earth lands on this remote planet and is soon beset by environmental problems which cut the colony off from the rest of civilization. Over centuries, technology is gradually lost and science is forgotten, and the people revert to a feudal caste-based society and forget their past. Adventure, romance, and some of the strongest female characters I've seen in literature; it's remarkable stuff, really!
So, who cares about Trek? I want Pern!
Captain, First Officer, Medical, Security, :) Yes you guessed it the Real World.
Helm, Tactical, Engineering... The 7 key positions
on the new trek shows, What other show has 7 main characters
So with all the current "reality" games show I can see it now...
7 sentient beings brought together to live on one way cool decorated Star Ship, stop being polite and start Being Real.....
Now these 7 have just 16 Stardates to find the secrets to the ancient Ferengi ritual of "Product Placement" thus winning A million bars of latinum
for answering all the right questions. But along the way can they stay together as One Crew, One Team with all the tempations they will face on a 7 day shore leave on Risa? Will they survive against the difficulties of living in a J'em H'aadar prison camp? And the grand finale where they admit their secrets on Spring'aks Sub-Space Holo-Show... " I slept with a what?!!!!"
This rumor has been around for months and the first time it shows up on slashdot is just a few days AFTER it gets refuted.
Rumors have suggested that the new series...will center on the early days of the Federation, in the days before the original series. Berman has denied those rumors.
----------
Technoli
Well, if it is actually set in a time frame Before the original series, it may be worth watching. It'd be interesting to see how the ST universe evolved early on. I just hope they don't fuck it up. Maybe they oughta get Turtledove to write a general outline of the history for them. Muahahah.
I bet it takes about 1/2 second after the first episode airs for some hardcore ST fans to start pointing out errors in the history, tho. But then it could be all explained away by rampant neutrino flux and uncoiled 11th dimension reflex sproingies.
Ouch. You are right about the Berman rip-off thing though. I did enjoy both B5 and DS9 though.
Lowmag.net
sue me
----------
Technoli
Right. I also liked the way they often portrayed the Federation as having some corruption here and there. And they had some absolutely bone-chilling episodes about the nature of war itself. Much more realistic than ST:TNG.
I say let Capt. Sulu have the spotlight in a post Star Trek 6 series. I sure miss the cowboy diplomacy of the old series but I expect that whatever Berman churns out will be full of 90's Polliticaly Correct New-World-Order pap.
Yes, but we all know that the Prime Directive can be over-ridden by the Omega Directive.. Amazing to what lenghts they will go to write an episode.
Lowmag.net
I am a Trekkie who seriously likes this. I'm sick of Captain X showing how morally great they are compared with everybody else. I think there are lot of people who would love to see the world from the view of a Klingon. Romulans would be tough since they are so different. Vulcans would work too but it might be boring.
Maybe it could take place on a planet/base that is in Romulan or Klingon territory before there is an alliance, and they are trying to rebel and join the federation. This way, the plot would be from the POV of a new alien race rather than from the Federation. And perhaps in the end they should end up winning the rebellion, but not being Fed either.
I wonder... 'Wagon Train in Space' worked so well for the first series: what show will they copy now?
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
that Paramount was keen on doing a "Starfleet Academy"-based series. I also have it on fairly good authority that the Excelsior proposal has been rejected outright. Once again, Paramount is ignoring their core fan base... not that I support the Excelsior campaign, but I have heard zero support for the Academy.
----------
Something cleverYeah, no kidding. I mean, she could have been a really hot looking chick if it hadn't of been for the dumb costume. Oh, and the oh-so-precious psycho-babble.
It was reported a long time ago that three ideas for ST series were tested with focus groups:
- a series set in the early days of the Federation, a.k.a. TOS Prequel - Digging Up the Past
- a series about an elite group of undercover operatives that work in trouble spots, a.k.a. Mission: Impossible clone
- a series about the academy, a.k.a Starfleet Academy, 90210
IMHO, only the first has long term potential.
Jim: What shall we do next Bones?
Bones: Damnit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a script writer.
-----------------------------
I'd like for the 'past federation' theme of the new show to take place on the Enterprise B, and include the Tasha Yar time thing and put her on there and the dude she left with the First Officer or something (but something tells me he actually was the first officer... only saw that episode once, never caught the rerun, however impossible that was after 3 yrs. of reruns on our local Fox station before Paramount stopped franchising and stuck it all on UPN, speaking of which Seven Days is a pretty good show to.....)
my Karma ran over my Dogma
According to a recent interview with Rick Berman, the title of the show may not include the phrase "Star Trek". I'm sure this will bring much rejoicing to those who feel he will only defame the name.
Personally, I'm not willing to trash Berman or Braga to quickly. Berman brought us Voyager, but he also brought us Deep Space Nine (with the much-appreciated direction of Ira Steven Behr) and the best years of The Next Generation. He brought us Generations and Insurrection, but he also brought us First Contact. Braga's similarly a mixed bag, but he also helped create many of Voyager's best episodes. He did the same on Next Generation, and he also co-wrote First Contact.
It's also interesting to note that Berman sees the need for "new blood" in the franchise. He's brought in John Logan to write Star Trek X, and now he claims that there will be mainly new writers for Star Trek's fifth series. (Sixth if you count the beloved animated series.)
As for the series itself, I don't believe we'll be getting "Birth of the Federation", and it seems doubtful that we'll get "Excelsior". But we've been promised something new and different, and it seems only fair to withhold judgment until we have some idea what that means.
There's nothing you have that they can't take away: Absolute zero, Gentle Jack, bottom line.
One of the neatest things was how this was sometimes a Red Herring.. there was an idea of some corruption, but that was really a Dominion plot to get everyone to suspect corruption everywhere, leading the Federation to collapse from the inside. Rather interesting.
Not another ST series. Haven't they realised they have played out ST yet. I prefer Andromeda of Star Trek. I barely watch any of the current series. They have become boring. Why must all intelligent main characters be in humanoid form? That is stupid. At least Andromeda has the Thran(sp?) which an insect race.
I'd prefer to watch reruns of Babylon 5! I wish Lucas would do a series based off of the New Jedi Order series. Now that would have potential. Large living planets to move troops and other living technology accross the universe. They need to give ST a break for a little while. Haven't they heard of overkill and flooding the market?
I like to see another star trek after voyager but not include all of the current crew. I'd like to see the slip stream technology incorporated. I would like to see aliens that are humanoid in form.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Bones:"Dammit Jim, I'm dead!"
Spock:"I believe, doctor, your observation is correct. Fascinating."
Bones: "Dammit Jim, the Star Trek series is dead!"
Spock: "I believe, doctor, your observation is in error."
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Well, strictly speaking, TOS lasted 3 seasons AND six blockbuster motion pictures.
LOL. "No there were 63 original episodes." "No there were 64." Anyone recall the South Park episode where a couple of Star Trek nerds build a time machine...
* Earth: Final Conflict
* Babalon 5
* Farscape
* Lexx
Earth is of course a Roddenberry creation (and I admit to not having seen it), but I saw some B5 and it just seemed too wacky for me yet far too similar to DS9. I have heard, however, that Babalon 5 was originally a script for the pilot of DS9, but was refused by Paramount for one reason or another. But whoever wrote it (I honestly don't know the name), took it to another network and with some cosmetic changes, aired it as Babalon 5.
I'm curious to see how they handle presenting the "future's past." Star Wars Ep I did a pretty bad job of making the past feel like it was actually earlier. As CGI techniques improve, it's harder to apply them without making things look more futuristic. Even the DS-9 tribbles timewarp episode spent half its efforts in getting the color palette right and making up for series discrepencies.
I bet they go for an earlier time, somewhere between first contact and The Enterprise. It could make for an interesting series, where more impactful discoveries are made than just another 'subspace anomaly.' It's been a long time since I watched an ST creation and actually felt like they were "boldly going where noone has gone before."
Will they change it back to "no man" since it's set earlier? Will Guinan guest star? Will Q?
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
It sais:
"HTTP Error 403
403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
This error can be caused if the Web server is busy and cannot process your request due to heavy traffic. Please try to connect again later.
Please contact the Web server's administrator if the problem persists."
...Mmm, nice.
*Reload*
Oh, here it is. And no mention of the new series. Then it must be a rumour, because "when it's not on startrek.com it still a rumour" (yeah right)
If they are not doing the "Birth of the Federation"-thing they might as well introduce the quantum slipstream drive. Than they can really go where noone has gone before...
I'll try to miss the first two series of the show. Because both ST:DS9 and ST:V started out pretty lame and became better near the end.
Anyone for a "Star Trek: Birth of the Federation"-drinking mug? ;)
Hmm, I actually rather like that idea.
But... for some reason, everyone (including myself) just *knows* that the final episode will feature Voyager getting home. It is practically written into the laws of the universe that the first episode had them flung into the depths of space, and the very last episode will have them finally getting back home.
I do like your friend's idea. It would certainly require Paramount to have some balls and do what everyone least expects them to do. And to have Picard and his crew, Sisko and his buddies, and Reg Barclay and everyone else that makes Star Trek matter appear in the film would be a delight for me.
There is at least one more TNG movie in the works, and I would definitely like to see a Voyager movie sometime in the future. I was watching Insurrection again today and was amazed at what a good show it really is, in comparison to the other two movies. No Borg, no time-travel, no Kirk, no Nexus... just good clean TNG fun.
"Kill us both, Spock."
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
This is why I subscribe to the belief, if you don't want it pointed at you, don't give it a mind of its own.
---
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
Rick Berman says the concept hasn't reached the internet yet: http://www.trektoday.com/news/130201_01.shtml
Good idea! I'd watch that show. Sorta like the Quantum Leap show, which was sorta like Then Came Bronson, which was sorta like The Fugitive. (In the sense that the hero comes into someone's life, helps them out in some way, then moves on to the next place. I guess ya gotta toss in Touched By An Angel as well.)
There was some information on aint-it-cool-news last year:
TREK TV Series 5 to be called ENTERPRISE?
A Fifth life for the Star Trek TV Series?
Also of interest: Three of the ideas they were floating before test groups. Personally, I think that the "Star Trek 90210" series sounded so bad that it's good, but I guess I'm in the minority.
A few years ago my friends and I decided that if ever there was another Trek done by that greedy moron Rick Berman, it would have to capitalize on the 'popular tv trends' of the time... So we can expect the new Trek to be called Star Trek : eXtreme... In the big chair we have Captain Badass and as his right-hand-man we have Commander Amazing! Roddenberry's sun-fried molecules must be spinning furiously.
- http://pakman.sytes.net/
Star Trek XIV: The Search for Spock's Dentures.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
The biggest problem facing the writers in Star Trek is that the technology can do so many different things. If the characters are in trouble, why not just beam them out? If a friend is fighting an enemy and you can't get a clear shot at the enemy, why not just stun them both? If the Federation had a cloaking device that not only made things invisible but could actually make things slide through solid matter, wouldn't they have done something with it when fighting a major war?
The current answer is just to handwave with silly made-up words: "We can't use the transporter right now because there is a cluster of verteron particles in the area." (At one time there was a "Particle of the week" web site, updated whenever Voyager introduced a new particle, which was about every week.)
A series set in the early days of the Federation would let them put more limits on the tech. They might go as long as a month before introducing a new particle to us.
If I were somehow put in charge of Star Trek, I know what series I would make. We know that when a civilization invents warp drive, the Prime Directive ends and they are invited into the Federation. We know that sometimes the Federation sends in a covert team to make sure things go smoothly--remember the episode where Riker was undercover and that alien chick was blackmailing him for sex? So, the series I would make is about a covert team that goes from planet to planet, helping smooth the way as each planet makes the final leap and joins the Federation. Because they are covert they can't just run around with phasers, communicators, and other gadgets, and they can't just beam out whenever they feel like it. Ideally it would have a story arc like Babylon 5 had, where it would take multiple episodes to resolve all threads in the plot and get the planet introduced to the Federation; over a 7 year run we might see 10 planets helped in this fashion. I wanted to call this "Star Trek: First Contact" but they used that title for a movie.
Anyway, setting the show in the wild-and-wooly early days of the Federation might work out well. But I still don't expect them to take any actual risks with the new show. It will be more of the same, but just a little bit different.
Hmmm, let's extrapolate from the past: white male starship captain, older starship captain, black starship captain, woman starship captain... I figure the next one up will be an older, woman black starship captain. Probably not bald, but we can't be sure.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Speaking of StarTrek, I picked up some StarTrek TriCorder computer mice with lights and sound effects when I was in the Hollywood Entertainment Museum [7000 Hollywood Blvd, or somewhere close to that at least].
They sold out of them in the beginning of December, but got more stock at the end of January. Also the museum has the bridge from ST:TNG, and will let you sit in it...
Darryl
Hmmm, let's extrapolate from the past: white male starship captain, older starship captain, black starship captain, woman starship captain... I figure the next one up will be an older, woman black starship captain. Probably not bald, but we can't be sure.
Nope! Either the captain will be a very compelling non-human, or it'll be a gay Arab man with a superintelligent pet that gets the crew past the more sticky situations.
Good lord, TNG, TOS, DS9, VOY, it goes on, but ST is getting as many TLA's as MIS!
Free Online Woodworking Resources Directory
Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation
Good, maybe we'll have characters with some backbone, rather than a bunch of conflict resolution counselors who let their ships be mostly destroyed before they return fire. Whatever faults the old series had, at least they had a little bit of testosterone.
--
To have a laugh, rent the first episode of "The Next Generation" series. There is a man wearing a classic miniskirt costume walking along in the engine room briefly. It's hilarious.
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Note to readers: For those who are not Star Trek fans, here is a quick guide to the acronyms/different series:
In my (humble) opinion, something is being overlooked. I have been a Star Trek fan for a while but never an ardent one (I havn't seen all the episodes). What makes Star Trek such a lasting and important part of our/American culture is not the technology, not the federation, nor the plots. Star Trek is sucessful because of the character development and character interaction.
I'll get back to this in a moment but think about this TNG couple: Worf and Troy. Who would have predicted that!
(I used "our/American culture" for a reason, I'll get back to is soon)
First I want to explain my views on why the other elements are not the reason for Star Trek's rise to fame.
Among my friends (yes we are all geeks), some of our favorite quips are: "Just reverse the polarity.","Activate the Heisenburg compensators.", or "Turn on the Reality compensators." There is a reason why new physics is invented constantly, the real stuff is too contraining. Hence an episode of Voyager where the ship falls into "Chaotic Space," where the law of physics (conveniently) don't hold. My point is that technology simply a tool used by the writers/producers to set the show in. Not much of the technology in Star Trek makes that much sense. As someone pointed out in another comment, "If a friend is fighting an enemy and you can't get a clear shot at the enemy, why not just stun them both?"
What an ideal society. It's just that, and ideal society. Roddenberry wanted to set his show in some society that didn't have the social problems that were prevalent in the 1960's, when he conceptualized Star Trek. Look at TOS cast, a black woman Communication's Officer, a Japenese Helmsman, and Russian Tactial Officer, and a Scottish Engineer.
Yet at the same time women wore really short skirts and the three main characters were white males (Shatner, Nemoy, and DeKelly[sp?]). But that is another issue all together
I would like to point out that the main employer (or what looks to be) and/or main focal point of the Federation is not the ideal society but a military orginization. Let's face it, the Enterprise may have a mission "to go where no man has gone before," but they do it with phasers and photon torpedos. Again, my point is that the Federation plays the same role as technology does, a tool for the settting of the show.
Did you notice that you can save the (choose one: ship/planet/Federation/galaxy) in a single hour! Wow! I would argue that the plot of the episodes do not constitue a major part of the show's fame. Of course there are some exceptions. DS9's war with the dominion was a multi-season story that was well written and well produced. The reason plot is not important is tied into the culture behind the show, which I will now address.
Whether we like it or not, Star Trek is a part of American culture. The reason for this can be found in American history. In the 19th century, Americans moved west and covered the continent. That "western" era with cowboys and gunfights at the "OK Coral" inspired many American ideals and attitudes: the open frontier, the vast unknown, the cowboy hero. It also killed thousands of Native Americans and destroyed their culture but in the 1950's that was swept under the carpet.
I say 1950's because that is when television producers started making all the western shows that I have never seen. Roddenberry wanted to make a "western" style show set in the future, hence Star Trek was born. Think about the parallels: "to explore strange new worlds, to boldly go where no man has gone before." Sound like a cowboy western? Compare Captain James T. Kirk with Wyatt Erpp (sp) or The Lone Ranger. White men who are flamboyant and charasmatic. Although Roddenberry did not explicitly say, "I will make a western set in the future," the fact is that westerns were an ingrained part of American culture, and that culture unfluenced Roddenberry.
Star Trek TOS and TNG could easily inherent the western. Both has ships which ran around uncharted space exploring or fighting or discovering new conflicts that needed to be resolved (usually in an hour). DS9 had problems with this paradigm. A space station doesn't fly around space. To comensate the writers/produces introduced the Defiant. They also created a massive multi-threated plot (the Dominion war). Voyager has tried to mimic the TOS and TNG but for some reason is not as sucessful. That reason is because of the characters (my original point).
Character development and interactions is what made Star Trek (TOS and TNG and to a partial extent DS9) successful. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy worked great together, playing off each others personalities. Picard, Ricker, Data, etc. wound up being a great combination. Why didn't Wesly Crusher work out? Not because the fans didn't like him (it didn't help), but because he didn't fit into the TNG universe. Picard was the Shakespearean captian, wise and philosophical. Riker, the cowboy (likely more popular than Picard). Data, the brains of the operation. Worf, the warrior who could be gentle and humane. Look at the relationships that developed. The friendship between Georde and Data developed when the writers realized the two worked great together in Engineering. Picard and Riker played off each other; one a flamboyant, almost reckless first officer, the other a stern, yet brilliant captian. Like I said before, Troy and Worf developing a realtionship? Although some people would agrue that was a stupid love story, I would look back and say the two worked well together.
What definatly helped TNG in its character development was good actors. Not to say the acting was award-winning or great, just good. This is partially the reason why Voyager doesn't seem to get anywhere. Voyager tries to develope character realtionships, but it isn't working very well. Plus the acting isn't much to speak of, which doesn't help. Try this, think of two characters which play off each other well in TNG (you can use the ones I've pointed out if you want). Now compare that relationship to another relationship in Voyager. Can you even think of a good two person relationship in Voyager?
DS9 managed to be the exception to this rule of character development. Since the "cowboy frontier" genre was not working, the writers/producers introduced the huge Dominion war, which succeded in overlaping the lack of character development. Again, think of a relationship, Kira and Odo? (I'd rather not think about it thank you). Sisko and ??? In fact Avery Brooks really played off himself. He is a pretty good actor. He did a good job being Captain Sisko. His character and force personality really didn't need a foil. He was Captian Sisko. I would say he alone helped make DS9 a sucess. The plot however is what really captured viewers. I must admit I have been arguing character this and character that, but when I watch DS9 I watch for the plot. This is why some DS9 episodes that don't deal with the Dominion War suck.
Think about the difference between a movie and a TV series. A movie is about a story, told in two hours. Star Trek runs once a week, so unless you have a huge plot like DS9, what are you going to intice the viewers with. Answer: the characters.
I haven't said much about the new show. I would hope that regardless of where or when it is set, the producers get some good actors and the writers generate good characters. Regardless of what they come up with, the fan base is so large that not everyone will be happy. But I'll still watch the first episode, and that is what the producers are hoping for.
Star Wars had a cop out answer for your allegation. It was a time of greater glory and civilization, before the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the Empire. It was, as it were, the Golden Age of Rome, the Pax Romana, before the middle ages, before the crusades, before the Vandals and the Visigoths.
If I it really is about the birth of the Federation, they could do some really cool stuff. And I don't think they should be limited to making our future match with the past of ST:TOS technology. Make it a series as groundbreaking as the first Star Trek, about teamwork and survival and exploration. Make it about first contact, and learning how to be polite in a rude and uncaring world.
Those are my thoughts. If they pulled that off, I think I'd watch.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Where does that fall in relation to the first series?
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
Here are two special effect shots I created for the new show. I've put them up on my site for you all to see - Paramount will probably make me take them down once they find out about them, though, so mirror these quickly! I could tell you more about the show, but then I'd have to kill you all.
You can get a good feel for the new show seeing the setting in the first one & one of the craft used. The second shot has a pic of some aliens.
Craft & Bases
and
Aliens.
I have a very good inside source that tells me that the new series is the Early Days of the Federation without doubt. Rick Berman just likes to mess with trekkies.
Yes, it will start in the early days of the Federation. It will start with First Contact and detail the years of war and destruction that followed. I think First Contact will be a great place to start, since it really does tie in well with not only one, but TWO other star trek series...
The show, if I remember correctly, will be called something like "Star Trek: Birth of a Federation" (I know thats not it... but it will be quite similar)
Ever need an online dictionary?
Muhahahaha! Now I will prevent the series from ever getting made! If hundreds of tapes of pasty white geeks in their feeble acting attempts don't discourage the producers, nothing will! Ah, it's good to be evil...
What!?! The microphone is still on!?! Damn voice recognition systems!
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
-----
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
-----
email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Actually, I always figured Voyager was the more 'Love Boat' type series, at least DS9 had some neat eps, like how Sisko was making the log of how the Romulans joined the war, unlike Voyager *shudder*
Black Ops would rule. Except I have no confidence in any of the current producers to do it right. I can hardly remember any well-executed military action scenes in the whole damn franchise. They were all pretty lame... guys in red spandex.
Black Ops done RIGHT would be an awesome thing. I want to see the series really start using the amazing destructive power of their small arms. They ought to be vaporizing people right and left, blowing chunks out of buildings, all that good stuff...
Yes! It will finally arrive! They bring together casts and crews from TNG and TOS for a huge conglomeration of Star Trekness! Watch in amazement as they splice together old series shots with new series shots, and as the Enterprise-E runs rings around the Enterprise-Nothing! Watch for a dramatic conclusion of the popular cult debates:
- Spock vs. Data
- Scotty vs. Geordi
- 'Bones' vs. Crusher
- Kirk vs. Picard
- Chekov vs. Ensign Ho
- Nurse Chapel vs. Nurse Okinawa
- Spot vs. the Vulcan Gatorbeast
- Worf vs. Sulu (breakfast time!)
- Wesley try to survive Kirk!
- Whether or not Kirk will ever leave the damn Holodeck!
- Whether or not the Vulcan Nerve Pinch will work on Worf!
- The elapsed time between first contact with Kirk and when Worf gets
sick of his arrogance and opens fire!
Watch vicious new love triangles form, including:
- Worf, Troi, Nurse Chapel!
- Spock and Data!
- Kirk, a mirror, and the Holodeck!
- Scotty and TNG Warp drive!
- Riker and Uhura (!!!)
- Guinan and Uhura (!!!!!!!!)
- Sulu and Nurse Ogawa
- 'Bones' and the New Sickbay
Terrible tradegies...
- Kirk ReGenerated!! ARGH!HHHHHH!!H!H!H!H!H!!H!!!!
- Riker and Ensign Noname in a one-night stand which inevitably ends in death!
- Worf having to wear the "Ensign Noname" death shirt!
- Crusher have another child (ARGHHHHHH)
- Troi make passes at the confused Chekov
- Spock contemplate same-sex benefits as a logic problem
- TOS crew seeing TNG accomodations
- Kirk meeting the Borg. Heh. Heh. Heh.
And, of course, new discoveries...
- Kirk's rug
- Spock's ears
- Bone's fetish (can't say for what, gotta save some secrets!)
- Uhura's a lesbian???
- Chekov loses his accent
- Scotty gains his accent to the point of non-understanding
- Crusher's hair dyeing secret
- Picard's rug (unlike Kirk, he knows enough not to wear it!)
- Riker as Kirk's long lost son (makes sense, no?)
- Troi's feelings for Worf
- Worf's feelings for Data
- Data's feelings for Spot
- Geordi's feelings for Troi and Data (?!?!!?)
- Ensign Ho's padded bra (!!!)
- Wesley as some super Traveller-like being (oops, too late)
- Guinan's relationship with Picard (his slave)
- Q's friends R, F, and P.
- The Borg discover Kirk's arrogance when they assimilate him
- Tasha's Grandfather's Sister's Son's Neice's Daughter's Mother's Great-Great-Grandmother is Nurse Chapel!
Don't miss this exciting new Trek phenonemon! Watch the pilot episode, Friday October 5th at 8:00 EST! Star Trek: The Next ReGeneration! Don't miss it!
This was written by Black Ninja.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Personally, I can't wait for an earlier Star Trek series, when Starfleet uniforms for women were those really short miniskirts instead of those horrible Deanna Troi jumpsuits.
The only certainty is entropy.
Politics of setting up the Federation could be cool, just think "Section 31".
Australian? Join EFA
I once got suckered into reading a ST novel. I don't recall the author, but the title was "Prime Directive". Basically, there's a whole bunch of the covert monitoring stuff surrounding a culture that's almost ready to join, yadda yadda, then Kirk manages to cause total nuclear devastation of the entire planet, which counts as "interference in the natural development of the people," go figure, and has to stand trial for it, yadda yadda, until Spock bails his ass out again.
I don't know whether you could make an entire series out of this. Even this novel started off with some interesting scenes, but was hard put to come up with a good ending. (Actually, it failed miserably to come up with a good ending. Oh look, a universe-eating monster in the last five pages.)
I do agree with you on this, however: reducing the level of tech available would make the show watchable again. (I nearly vomit when a character asks the computer to speculate on something, and it does so with complete accuracy in less than a second. If the characters could really do that... they wouldn't need to.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I read somewhere that the original concept for TNG was a knock-off of the "Horatio Hornblower" series. Wesley was supposed to be one of the main characters, always saving the day with his unconventional ways, while the stuffy captain did things by the book.
For whatever reason, they abandoned this and chose another route. Thank goodness...
You forgot :
5) No Whoopi allowed.
I read that Ms. Goldberg tried to schmooze her way onto the X-Files, just like she did with ST. Fortunately Chris Carter had the balls to tell her to get lost, he wasn't interested in having her on the show.
ST went downhill after TNG. StarWars is another good example of this trend - Episode I had great effects but fell short on content. Fantasy can exist without effects... its the reason you can play a text-based online RPG or even a paper-based one. The important thing is immersion.
At the same time, critics will skewer a show unless it has these needless effects, so what can you do? People just expect it now.
Exactly. All teacher unions are bad, teachers banding together in order to provide support to each other against school boards who are solely focused on teaching children.
Teachers unions are the reason why you have a shitty education and work in declining conditions, rather than being a e-millionaire at 12 and drinking umbrella drinks in Tahiti by 40.
The teachers union public school is in response to school boards paying higher wages to competent non-union teachers in order to accomplish their mission.
Remember that the media approves of unions because they're socialist, not because teachers unions are good.
Unions are useless, so is there an alternative? Reducing taxes so people can afford to send their kids to private schools because it makes for better learning in the long term?
-----
Just havin' fun with the juxtapositions.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Roddenberry was at least somewhat progressive. It was what NBC thought would sell that caused ST to come out the way it did.
And on a side note, NBC also tried to eliminate Spock because they thought he looked Satanic. LOL.
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
he has some brain-damage
have had an unhappy childhood
does not have all his marbles
is woefully ill-informed
has a father that's got oodles of dough
is terribly naive in thinking that the "american dream(tm)" can apply to him
most of the above
--
My first reaction to the headline was "yes, very probably true". Then I remembered that fall is the US word for autumn.
Well, to be honest, no, I'm not sure. Hence the disclaimer, "I have heard..." But it sounds plausible enough to me, given the similarities of the two.
It's already been done. It's called Star Wars, and the Federation is known as the Empire.
I'd don't think they can milk the Star Trek franchise any longer - let it die already!
And some of his other projects that never saw the light of day while he was alive - Andromeda or Earth Final Conflict - were pretty damn weak.
Its pretty clear that someone is trying to market the Roddenberry name pothumously.
A message from our sponsor
...feminine napkins...
Hmm... How do you tell if a woman in Star Trek is on her period? Every so often you hear a beep and the words "Menstrual fluid detected" coming from her crotch.
"No, it's YOUR turn."
"No, it's YOUR turn."
"No, it's YOUR turn."
"No, it's YOUR turn."
...
-The Talos IV Keepers...Realizing that illusion can only do so much.
Oh, no argument there. Thats why I tried to make it clear that I was talking about sci fi on TV. I'd love to see what Roddenbury would have created in a social world had he been writing a book rather than a TV series. Sci fi books tend to be much more progressive than TV shows - some seem to exist mostly to think about the social future rather than the tech one (childhoods end springs to mind).
TV in general seems (to me) to be a beat ahead of the heartland (just enough that they don't get worried) and two beats behind the coasts in terms of social representation. Movies run the gauntlet between painfully retrograde and slightly (but I'm sure painfully for others) progressive. Books can be whatever they want to be. :)
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I think it will be really interesting to have a show with a non-federation point of view. Will others races see the Federation as an evil monopoly that forces their ways to others? The Federation way or no way! Anyone not in the federation is pretty much a bad guy. I can see it now...
Just a joke, Trekkies leave me alone!
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Unionizing and strikes are fine, but they aren't inherently good any more than all corporations are bad. In recent decades unions have done as much to harm some workers as they've done to help others. As an example, the closed shop concept, in which you aren't allowed to get a job at a given employer unless you join the union. Well, what if I am opposed, diametrically, to many of the things the union supports? Well, if I want to work at that job, I still have to join the union. Are you telling me there are *no* Republican middle-class workers? As one myself, I'd be outraged to have my dues going to fund a party I don't usually vote for. Fortunately, I live in a state where closed shops are outlawed--but my state is, if I recall correctly, in the minority. Often, non-union workers are just people trying to make a living in their chosen field without having extra money siphoined from their paychecks, and used for political purposes. Unions often try to squash anyone who isn't a member, and act as bad as any strongarming corporation.
So, don't whine and boo-hoo about someone making a joke at a union strike. Non-union writers have every bit as much right to work as union members, and probably deserve more respect since they don't try to bully people into unionizing just to work and paying a union-tax that gets used for PAC money whether the worker forced to pay union dues agrees with it or not. Now, legally, union members don't have to pay the portion of dues used for political bribery--err, lobbying--but Big Unions managed to successfully defeat a bill that would have required union shops to post this information, so few union members even know this. Kind of reminds me how slimey megacorps buy legislation, eh...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
I haven't watched Voyager too much lately, especially after several of the horribly botched attempts Voyager had to get home during the series (Hell, Voyager should have been a 2 hour made-for-tv movie, all they had to do was drop a couple anti-matter pods on the Caretaker's space station, program them to auto-shutdown the magnetic containment fields at a specified time, and then use the station and go home. Since the Kazon didn't even have transporter tech, I highly doubt they could have analyzed and decrypted the proper codes to turn off the pod countdown anyways..)...and then there was the real badly botched ferengi episode, but enough of Voyager..
What I think would be cool is to set Trek in the 29th century with the time travelling ships and temporal prime directive. This I feel would do several things for Trek, number one being it gives script writers nearly 5 centuries of Trek history to conjure up and fill in. By bunching DS9 & Voyager into the same timeframe as TNG, I feel the writers messed up some Trek facts that had already been set forth in TNG or TOS... The addition of Time travel and that temporal prime directive could add a whole new level of complexity to the scripts (if the writers can even turn out a complex script to begin with)...hell, it could even be kinda like Quantum Leap, a ship that travels through various portions of the last 5 centuries setting things straight in an attempt to get home.. But who knows. I just feel that dropping it in the 29th century would allow for unrestricted creativity to fill the 5 century void between 29th & 24th century...new aliens, new technology, new twists with the Federation...really wicked looking ships from all races (Wonder what the 29th century Borg are like), etc..
I wouldn't mind seeing a good story arc either, TNG and TOS were cool with their one-story-per-episode thing, but DS9 and Voyager's attempts to mimic the story-arc-over-a-period-of-years thing I think went bad (Voyagers more so than DS9's). Babylon 5 I feel is probably the only sci-fi show I have seen to date that successfully creates a compelling and very awesome story-arc to follow over the 5 years. I really would like to see Trek come out with something similar.
--Kumba
"Now it's Omega zero day,
The red star shines it's last ray,
The sun that gave us life yesterday,
Is now the sun that takes our lives away."
Bruce Dickinson, "Omega" -- Accident of Birth
They have made a few, they have all be POO!
It is an affectation. Owen is Obi-Wan's brother.
Berman is what's wrong with Voyager.
Test
.
....
"it isn't dead, it just smells funny"
Star Trek... bubosh! i hated it then and now... I remember my abject disappointment when I viewed the first episode of the FIRST Star Trek when it FIRST aired, do I remember the episode itself? NFW! A seminal and transformative experience in my very early (!) youth: "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeleine L'Engle...
Hopefully,
1) The Federation has not made contact with Ferrengi yet.
2) Little brat kids are not allowed on board the ship at all. This means you Wesly, Nog & Naomi.
3) As with point number 2, this isn't "The Original Series Kids". We wont have the young adventures of Captain Kirk
4) Not the love boat in space as Deep Space 9 was.
The way I see it the series looks like it's going to be a whole series of first contacts with important races, and discoveries of technologies taken for granted in other series.
Major plot devices will be easy to come up with because they've already been in the series, just not introduced. We'll occasionally have some time travel so we can have star apperances, and probably an unrecorded Q encounter.
The question is what social/ethnic group will play Captain? Sadly not Sulu (which would of rocked cause he has coolest voice) slightly wrong time zone.
Oh well I've blathered enough.
It's turtles all the way down.
The trouble is, visions of the future are always warped by the era in which they where invented and so go out of date rediculously fast.
I always liked the idea of a series based on a Federation Black Ops unit. But it seems to contradict the Federations boy scout ethos too much for the suits to buy it.
About once a week, the writers and producers would get together and have a big brainstorming session. Ideas are tossed out at these meetings. The group as a whole thinks about continuity and character development: What areas haven't we explored lately? What interesting things might we do next? What overall direction should the show take, what relationships should we develop? What are we doing wrong that we could do better? That sort of thing.
Anyway, one fine week at the writer's meeting the chief Suggestion From On High was: "Hey, what about Wesley? We haven't really done much with that character. He's around, but we don't have much sense of who he is as a person." Everybody agreed, so that was the closing thought that a half-dozen Star Trek writers went away with.
And what's the easiest way for the audience to learn more about and identify more with Wesley? Have him save the ship! Arrange things so that some unlikely danger comes along that only Wesley's special talents are capable of recognizing or defending against. So what comes back is a slew of "Wesley saves the ship" scripts.
Most of these scripts were actually pretty good as individual scripts, but you wouldn't want to use them all sequentially as a matter of balance. Rather, in an ideal world you'd want to slip in a "Wesley saves the ship" script every now and then among the more traditional "Picard surrenders the ship" or "Geordi dislikes being blind" scripts. Use the better Wesley scripts first, send the weaker ones back for a rewrite or keep them around for a rainy day. No two consecutive episodes should be allowed to seem too similar.
But then the writer's strike was declared. When you've got a show to film and no new scripts are coming in, you use the scripts you've already got, regardless of whether this makes for a balanced presentation. Therefore, Wesley got to save the ship every other week, no matter how annoying it was to the fans who watched the show religiously. Thus, the "die-wesley-die" phenomenon.
[my best friend's godmother produced some of the ST:TNG episodes]
I play Nerd-Folk!
I guess that since it's gonna be before TOS that would preclude a series of adventures starring Capatain Sulu. Oh well, at least it means that the ships probly won't have transporters and would have to use shuttlecraft of some sort. Always seemed like a cheap cop out to me to have the transporters.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Merchandise? From Paramount? Not likely. Call Paramount a lot of things... but not sellouts.
Nosiree - Paramount has been careful about who it licenses the Star Trek name to. So far, they've carefully limited themselves to posters, books, flashlights, magazines, pencils, cereals, pretend phasers, Christmas ornaments, lunchboxes, action figures, clocks, calendars, buttons, feminine napkins, crappy ceramic figurines, decorative plates, jackets, cheese doodles, pretend communicators, aerosol sprays, hot water bottles, trading cards, toothpaste, children's vitamins, AOL CDs, video games, role playing games, board games, snow domes, playing cards, cheap jewlery, dolls, hats, keychains and mugs that make Mr. Spock disappear when you add hot water. So don't expect them to start licensing the name to just anyone who offers them $20 and a bottle of Jack Daniels. The asking price is $40 and two bottles.
Even if it is a troll/offtopic/odd post, it's still pretty funny...
Do you like German cars?
Yeh. Right. For your friends. Strange, isn't it, that whenever you see someone loaded up with armfuls of Trekkie merchandising crap, it's for their "friends".
I suppose that the only reason you were at that Star Trek Convention was "to see how gay it was", too, huh timmy?
Own up. You're fooling nobody.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I would love to see a series based on the Federation timeship Relativity!
On Voyager, episode "Relativity", they were visited by this ship, which was capable of moving through space and time on it's mission of policing the timeline.
The possibilities for exploration on a series such as this would be endless. And it would be so much sexier than a series based on the past. I want way cool new ships and technology and stuff, not more of the same! Though, I could be talked into something to do with the Q, or the Borg :-)
...is the fact that Captain Kirk, among his perverted associates also known as Captain Jerk-off, is a porn-man. How can I state such a thing? Well, just look at how he, in each and every one of the episodes of that sci-fi series Scar Track, walks around, softening - yes, mind you, softening - every reasonably (or not so reasonably) attractive female in his path. And, as if this highly irresponsible behaviour wasn't enough, I can assure you, that when he is not engaged in such hideous activities, he is either laying naked in his cabin, spreding his legs and softening his very own reproductive organs in a terribly pornographic manner, or is having boy-sex with is equally perverted collegues, Dr. Boner McToy-boy, and Mr. Spank.
Thank you.
If it wasn't for Lucille Ball in the sixties GR would've got zero budget. So if you don't like Star Trek blame her.
I was about 7 years old when I saw one of the original Star Trek Episodes on television (yes, I know this dates me) and it scarred me for life. This has to have been during it's original run on network television and I never found it again. I do remember the feeling though when I saw the pointy eared guy on the bridge of what they called a Starship. A thrill went through my young mind at the mind-boggling implications. It was indescribable and when my parents asked me two years later what I liked to read, I replied stories about rocket ships. It was....transformative and led me to the greats of Heinlein and Asimov, authors who shape my mind to this day. The transformation was matched a couple years later by finding on my elementary school bookshelf a copy of Geroge McDonald's The Princess and the Goblin (which gave me nightmares) and James Thurber's 'Many Moons'. I didn't feel that mind expanding rush which reached from my brain to my toes again until at 14 I saw the orignal trailers for 'Star Wars'. I saw all the episodes of Star Trek when it was in syndicattion when I was (relatively) adult. Nothing compares to it. I watched ST:TNG religiously for 3 years, but the wonder had gone out of it and I knew enough physics that their bogus particles turned me off. DS9 was a real drag and Voyager just seemed like another Lost In Space to me. I hate to see what Rodenberry's vision has become. But at least the original series was that, a real vision. Remember the wonder! PS: People may think me a romantic git, but I really like the new Rodenberry vision, Andromeda.
yeah, YOU... you filthy subhuman racist swine... stinking OFAY MOFO scumbag from hell WHITE TRASH oh, and Star Trek? I quit watching that dumbass program after the third episode in the ORIGINAL series (when it first aired)... get a life, y'all
"Would you like m to keep doing my George Takai impression, Mike?" :)
-----------
MOVE 'SIG'.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I was a trekkie back in the TNG days. Before Deep Space Nine came out there were a bunch of rumours of what the series would be about. Apparently some of the ideas were:
A sitcom based around Troi's Mom (Gosh, I forgot her name!)
Star Trek: The Klingon Empire (Based around the Klingons instead of the Federation)
Star Trek: DS9 - What they ended up actually using.
and
Star Trek: The Academy Years. This was supposed to be about Kirk while he was training in the Academy.
Perhaps they might of revived the latter idea?
Sorry But it can't be done, (though that never stopped them before) there is no way a new series can be done without a radical departure from the Genre of StarTrek, the reason?, The Fans, the people who watch the show know more about it that the writers, of course they might just find a crack in the event horizon, that leads through a worm hole, where the quantum coefficient of tachyon burst g-boson wavicle particles has been altered by subspace harmonic quarks, that allows them to come up with something remotely original. But then again we know this is only possible by using a disruter field reconfigured to run enertia less singularity pulse fragmentation scans of the continuum particles created by an emergance Folon particle from the corona of a Red Giant.
I'm not a Troll i prefer to be called a Goblin.
The transporters were a cheap cop out - Roddernberry couldnt afford to land the ship/shuttle craft each week, so they invented the transporters as a way to get arround it!
I was sitting around brainstorming with trek-geek Tronster, and he suggested that the final episode(s) of Voyager would result in them NOT returning home. Instead, the next movie, which is conveniently timed to be near the end of Voyager, would show Voyager returning home, but from the viewpoint of the Federation. We see DS9, and the Enterprise, then whoa! Voyager comes back. But surely someone will follow (Borg, Krenim, Haakon, Kazon) and the fun will ensue.
Any opinions?
What about the war with the Dominion in DS9? That was a pretty long-running sequence of episodes. And what about ST:TNG? The unifying theme there was: "In the future, human nature will evolve and we'll all form The Perfect Marxist Society (TM). Everyone will love each other." Actually, the germ of this was in TOS as well, but a little less perfected.
Star trek was never about the future of human society - it was about the current human society transplanted into a futuristic world. Hence male captains, doctors and engineers and female communication officers, nurses and yeomen (secretaries). Real issues of society were handled symbolicly - interspecies romances outnumbered interracial ones even in the new series. The pace of societal change within the trek universe was based on when the series were made, not when they were set. (ST of course isn't alone in this - B5, even though it was written by an atheist, had a just this moment view of religion again with troublesome current issues handled symbolicly through another species.)
So how would ST handle the confusion of a new show with todays societal norms being set before the old series? The Enterprise was a statistical anomaly? Kirk was just a throwback who didn't want to work with anyone but straight white males as semi equals? Starfleet was having a REALLY bad fashion decade never equaled before or since? Or maybe they'll just admit that the future is always now with better tech and avoid the issue entirely. That would likely be easiest.
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
I wonder if they'll make the bridge have the same cardboard/buttons glued-on look as TOS did.
What was unrealistic about the technology in the original episode? Given that the state of technology in 1968 *was* Das Blinkenlights and that the very few Americans who had actually seen a computer saw a lot of blinking lights and buttons, it's kind of hard to criticize the original ST set people for making technology look like it did.
Even if you didn't like the "look", they still had some advanced tech even by today's standards: Stuff like large-screen displays (the main "panel" on the bridge), solid-state memory packs (the little disk-type things they use), voice recognition and computer generated voices, advanced computers, the tricorder (a Palm on steroids?). This doesn't include the tech that really makes it sci-fi -- faster-than-light travel, artificial gravity, phasers, shields, and so on.
Given the budget and what computers of the day actually looked like, I thought they did a pretty good job of creating a high-tech environment.
Naturally after reading this story and the associated article, I decided to go to the Startrek.com site to see if they had viciously denounced the idea of "early-Federation Star Trek," but instead received, HTTP Error 403
403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected.
Wow, Slashdot has taken down the Federation - yet another shift of power has occured in the Alpha Quadrant.
I think that the new star trek is going to be from a new point of view. look at what Berman said "aliens that we have come to know and love" and "wonderful new aliens" .. If we went far back in time we would know see the same aliens. Maybe we will see a new star trek from the point of view of the Klingons. Or even the Q . I could be wrong but that just seems like a wicked idea to me. I will post more info as i get it about this whole ordeal at www.tomuch.org
Thorne