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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.
He has already recanted this offer. http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17287/
From here
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
JMS already pulled the idea (Paramount decided to give Trek TV a rest).
Check out the updated info at TrekWeb
Je ne parle pas francais.
That link's broken. I thnk you meant this: http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17287
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
I can recall a few years ago anxiously waiting to see "Enterprise" for the first time on television, having been a fan of the franchise. I immediately grimaced upon hearing the theme song and new it was going to suck. The electric guitar style theme music was incredibly outdated and wreaked of a routinely formulaic bad-taste Hollywood production. And as I recall, it didn't even have lyrics in that broadcast. The lyrics made it even worse when I eventually heard that vesion, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.
That episode started with that one crew-member yapping about how she couldn't sleep because the stars were moving the opposite direction she was used to in her quarters. I kept thinking she was going to whine "but Dawson!" any moment. As for Scott Bakula, he was already typecasted from "Quantum Leap" and didn't fit the role. The whole concept of a series that was supposed to happen before the original series should have been a warning, since one of the big attractions of Star Trek was the fictional technology, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt when I first heard that.
But they just royally screwed it up. They really overdid the large breasts thing, blatantly pandering to an adolescent demographic. And the writing was awful. As an example, there was that episode where Archer tells a ship of Klingons that they have a defenceless alien vessel riding in the wake of their ship. I recall thinking that no character with half a brain would ever do that and it was just plain ridiculous, even to anyone who wasn't familiar with the franchise. I just recently saw an episode where Archer speaks with a senior Starfleet officer who's uniform had a friggin collar. A jump-suit with a collar. Another mistake. They just keep making them.
It takes some serious stupidity to screw up a franchise that had such a dedicated fan base as Star Trek, yet the people behind "Enterprise" have managed to do just that. Even if they manage to improve the writing now, bad first impressions last. I don't think this series is worth saving. I think people are clinging onto it out of dedication to the Star Trek franchise. If that is the case, they ought to just cancel this series and come up with a completely new one, or just focus on the movies. I'm personally a fan of the franchise, but it has gotten off-track in a direction I don't care to follow.
The potential for Crusade was never realised. Consider the first 15 episodes of B5 and remember how the focus was Jeffery Sinclair's missing 24 hours and the reason the Minbari surrendered during the Battle of the Line? How much of that was really relevant to the subsequent years with the Shadow war?
Crusade was about the Shadow virus that would wipe out Earth in five years. By the end of the episodes made, the structure of the virus (nano-tech) was understood. I've read that the virus would be cured fairly early in the series.
There were also glimpses of what was to come - the Apolcalypse box - whatever that was, was a mystery waiting to be solved, and there was the revelation that Galen (the Technomage) has some sort of implants. The unfilmed episodes pushed the series up a gear with the revelation that the Technomages were being hunted by Earthforce for their tech.
The opening dialogue to each episode contained some stuff that was familiar, but other lines that would have probably been explored throughout the series:
Who are you? (Vorlon)
What do you want? (Shadow)
Where are you going? (Lorien?)
Who do you serve and who do you trust?
The last one being probably the most important. Crusade was much more than we ever saw and to see it killed before being aired is very sad. I, like many B5 fans, would love to see it return and hope that TMOS (The Memory Of Shadows) will be the catalyst for this.
What you say is true for most TV series that are seriel in nature, However they don't have to be. 24 is pretty good example of this. The first couple minutes of every show gives a quick run down of what important events have brought you to the current point in the show. I have introduced several friends into watching 24 becuase of this. They don't have to worry about what they missed, becuase the lead in brings them where they need to be for the current show. It's not perfect, but it is a lot better than having to tell someone, oh yeah, you should watch show XYZ, but I'll have to let you know when a good starting episode will be on, other wise you won't know where you are at.
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