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Straczynski Offers To Re-Boot Star Trek [updated]
EvilMagnus writes "I just came across this thread over on usenet where J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 and Jeremiah, talks about the cancellation of Enterprise. It seems he and a collaborator have already written a series bible and treatment for a new version of Star Trek - but it's not been pitched to Paramount out of 'political considerations' (Berman refusing to give up his dead horse?). JMS calls for everyone who thinks a JMS-run Star Trek series would be a good idea to write Paramount and let them know." Along similar lines, yonnage writes "Last week there was an article posted here about Enterprise fans atempting to pay for the next season of Enterprise. It seems that all the efforts have been pulled together and a new website has been created and has started collecting contributions for Enterprise's next season." Update: 02/16 19:47 GMT by T : Read the rest of the thread to see JMS's followup; he's decided to at least postpone this endeavor.
More Wil Wheaton!
Makes his corpse reverse polarity in its grave, one might say.
"Fire the JMS ego ray ensign, they should cancel each other out"
"A hot space babe has just appeared, the ratings levels are going up rapidly, most logical captain"
Whoever does it around 50% of the fans are going to complain.
Probably neither. It's probably so unlikely that it's not worth categorizing. The reasons are many, but it comes down to this: Straczynski is pig-headed, but not stupid. He would never agree to do it without complete creative control, and there's practically no way Paramount would allow that to happen. It would be along the lines of Bill Gates giving over control of the Windows platform to Linus Torvalds without even retaining the right to veto checkins.
Without complete creative control, you know what would happen: JMS would put forward his bible saying, "we tear down half of Starfleet and kill off a few notables to shake things up," and Paramount would reply with notes like the following:
- Sounds good, but I don't think we want to kill anyone who has an action figure
- "Tear down" might be too strong. Let's just say that there's a night-club bombing somewhere on Ferengi-prime
- Great ideas, but you need to sex it up a bit
- The first scene needs to really pull the viewers in: make it a fist fight
- My kid loves tribbles, can you work one in as a major character?
He's been through this before with TNT and Crusade (the mess that you saw on TV was the result). He won't do it again.All that said, YES, petition Paramount to do it. I think that at the very least it shows a massive lack of confidence in current show-runners and might upset the apple-cart enough to get someone creative in there.