Slashdot Mirror
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.
The nice thing about JMS's work is how he weaves complex themes into the story arc, rather then exploring and discarding them in single episode blips. That was great for the original Star Trek and early science fiction on tv (time tunnel, that sub show, quantum leap, etc) but the work of series like Bab5 has raise sci fi on tv to a higher level - where they take advantage of the serial esque nature of weekly broadcasts.
I'm in.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
...That they now have a unified site to try and save Enterprise. *sigh* I wish they'd stop, it makes Gene Roddenberry's (SP?) corpse cry. As for there being another trek, I think the series needs to rest for a while.
How about bringing back a show that was interesting and original, like Firefly?
That would be worth the money. Not watching YATS (Yet Another Trek Show).
Cue all the "Let it die already!" and "Trek needs a rest" comments...
These people have nothing to lose by pitching another series to Paramount. Enterprise is dead, and I'm sure Paramount would eagerly pick up anything with the slightest chance of turning a profit.
Since the article mentions they're taking their idea "to the public" I think they'd get a better reaction by releasing a preview of some type. Kind of hard for an audience to approve and support a project without knowing what it is! (Because we all know counting on the Trek name alone doesn't always work)
..Voyager, and then Enterprise proved that the producers have completely lost their marbles, and totally lost touch with the core audience.
As soon as I heard the Enterprise opening theme, I knew it was dead.
I think trek needs to die, and stay dead for another 15 years or so. Only then will it be ready for another revival.
Such wasted effort on tripe like Enterprise, when stuff like Firefly is far more deserving.
I have a feeling that it would be something amazing if JMS was to "reboot" Trek...
It's become increasingly obvious that the franchise has run out of steam in it's current incarnation. There's just nothing left that feels new or exciting... So I'd be happy to see this happen. That said, I think there's a number of obstacles, not the least of which is the fear of the star trek establishment to try something new for fear of "breaking something".
Here's a newsflash folks. It's already broken, and staying with the status-quo is going to ensure that it remains broken. I suppose they could always take another 5 year hiatus and come back with another rehash, but they'll know it, and so will we.
I quite enjoyed Voyager because they had more free reign in the series to try new things, and trying new things is what keeps the show fresh...
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
And more Walter Koenig :)
:P
One of Trek's nicest guys played the B5 villain that everyone loved to hate! But I loved how JMS actually gave him a bit of a human side when you understood what made him the way he was...
Even villain need motives and factors that drive them - very few people are just inherently nasty for the sake of being mean
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I just think it's unfortunate that it turned out so bad. I like Scott Bakula and was thrilled that he was going to be the next Trek Captain. They squandered a potentially great character and actor on a poor iteration of a tired series. How you could have a show with someone that made Quantum Leap such a success for so long and turn it into absolute crap is beyond me. It's like being given the Dream Team and losing out to a sixth-grade play-ground team.
I only watched two episodes of the most recent series. I couldn't get past the stupid intro music. And the infatuation with the hot vulcan chick was juvinile and uninteresting.
I wasn't that interested in DS9, but from the few episodes I watched, it seemed far superior to Enterprise and Voyager. Voyager has to be the worst. Possibly even worse than the original Star Trek.
Then again, I'm just not a big fan of Star Trek. Or Star Wars. I like my sci-fi a little more X-Files, Farscape, Millenium, Red-Dwarf, Dr. Who, Blake's Seven, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone-ish... When it comes to television, at least.
Not to be a prick, but Star Trek always seemed like "sci fi" for the ditch digger, relaxing in his recliner and sweaty wife-beater, tossing back a beer. Sort of like checkers, instead of chess. TNG was unique, because the characters were typically very interesting and you cared about them. What other Trek characters since the Original are so widely known, besides TNG? That's also why Babylon 5 was so great. Aside from the wonderful story of self-sacrifice, hope and destiny - the characters were compelling.
It doesn't matter how good you are. A dead horse is still a dead horse. Bob Hope was an amazing talent, but stayed in the public far too long, for example. You can be great and still fail, if the appetite isn't there for what you're producing.
This is a different world and a different generation. You can't expect the same old formula to work forever and it will take a significant attempt to be able to concoct something that appealed to a large audience, now.
How was B5 overlong? It was five seasons from day one. He had the very last scene of season five in his head before he even shot scene one of season one. It was as long as it was supposed to be; no more no less...
Hey All ...
... SG1 ... Atlantis ... Battlestar Galactica ... Andromeda ... (He he ... that's kind of gone down the toilet too ... but I still watch hopeing it will get better.)
I am disappointed w/ what's happened to Enterprise. Both the story lines and the cancellation.
However, There's plenty of good SciFi TV going on until the franchise gets it's act together.
Might I suggest SciFi Friday
Cheers,
-- The Dude
yes too much time travel... everything else can be fun (and interesting if done well)...
they should spend more time fighting evil viruses and other alien BIO and less time with "grand fights for the future of mankind..."
http://www.hawknest.com/
Just because Gene Rodenberry visualized humankind exploring the universe in what seemed to be their pyjamas, all subsequent series have assumed a starship would have to be a military operation with everyone in uniform. This does not actually reflect very well on us.
Science fiction for grown-ups...
It doesn't matter how many Trek sequals you make, you will never shut up the old fans of the original series (and some TNG fans) from still bitching about how "Kirk is better then every other Captian, Spock rules, and Scotty is the bomb diggity" Personally I like all of them, the original told a good story and had some good action, TNG also told a good story and was very diverse. DS9 started off really shitty, but it picked up when they got the Defiant and started applying some wartime plots to the middle and end of the series, though I think the character development was the best part of DS9. Voyager remains one of my favorites, it was a "new technology" series that backed a lot of action with very capable characters, it's first few seasons were great, sadly it slipped during the infamous "Time Travel" 4th season, but it ended very nicely. Enterprise to me just didn't gel. Unless you purposely want to spend 100 bucks per episode you can't make a series that can take place before the original and look authentic enough, not to mention breaking the timeline to hell in order to do it. I for one won't miss it when it leaves. Point is though, doesn't matter how many more Treks are made, they will still fall short of fans' high expectations set by the originals. It is not a series problem, it is a fan problem. This is why I like the books. And I second an ealier thread, New Frontier is an awesome series.
Since it sounds like JMS isn't interested, I wonder more and more if Trek needs a 5-10 year TV hiatus. They've got novels, games, etc., they can still rake in the $$$.
But after Enterprise (which I think didn't get a fair shake), what can they do? I can't think of anything. The well's dry.
Give SF a few years without a Trek. See what else pops up - fresh ideas, new takes, old concepts revived. Then perhaps something else can be tried.
I also wonder - and dare to ask - if the unspeakable could be done. From what I've seen the new Battlestar Galactica is quite good - could someone imagine a reboot of Trek TOS?
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Actually, Ira Steven Behr and Michael Piller were also executive producers. However, I don't think that it's a coincidence that Deep Space 9 picked up steam around the time when Voyager was launched. Personally I suspect Ira Steven Behr had far more to do with the success of Deep Space 9 than Berman ; he likely got more control of the show as Berman turned his attention to Voyager.
That's not to say that I think Berman is solely, nor even mostly responsible for the downfall of the franchise : Check Brannon Braga's credits : He had his fingers in a great deal of the two worst Star Trek shows. And notably absent from my favorite trek, DS9.
A 0.500 batting average might be good in the creative world; a writer that churns out really great stuff half the time is probably a really good writer. But the executive producer position is basically a "CEO" of a business, in this case a business that we call "the Star Trek franchise" -- with UPN basically a holding company for many such businesses. When your job is running a business, a batting average of 0.500 is pretty bad.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
Star Trek has suffered from poor writing since after TNG. Even Deep Space Nine still had some good plots that made you interested. Another problem with Enterprise is that they have bores like Trip and Malcom. I loved B5. Loved it. I am sure JMS would make sure that the writing wasn't lame. How? Because with little money to work with he concentrated on the storylines. I think they should stop spending so much money on the props, sets, makeup, etc., and start spending it on the writing. I also loved the original Trek which became classic because of the writing again, certainly not the props.
sportsdot
The slashcode sports site
I didn't keep up with the later shows; what went wrong?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Captain Adama's speech in the pilots for example was completely ridiculous. Why do we even deserve to live? Was that supposed to inspire anyone? Crap, if any real military leaders ever did that, their soldiers would be too dispirited to fight.
Then you have the fact that the Cylons are attempting to cross-breed with Humans. But if they wanted that so much, why did they try to wipe all the Humans out with nukes, *before* getting their hybrid? It makes no sense. If they wanted to nuke all the colonies, and destroy military ships, plus evading civilian ships, how could they ever get a cross-breed?
The fact that Baltar got too tired from doing tests, so he stopped testing people was also sheer nonsense. Why didn't he just get *someone else* to do the hard labour of testing? I mean, he was supposed to have an assistant already, plus a nuclear warhead, I doubt he would not be granted spare personnel. Not to mention: who is doing the testing (supposed to take man-years) now since he seems to be only doing political work since he got to be Vice-President?
There is some good stuff in there of course. I like this Baltar better than the old Baltar in the original series. The old Baltar made absolutely no sense at all.
Might I suggest SciFi Friday ... SG1 ... Atlantis ... Battlestar Galactica
I agree. I watch SciFi Friday, although I wish it was on a different night. SG1 and Atlantis are great shows and I have followed every episode. At one time I even bought Showtime just to get SG1 and have been glad SciFi bought it so I could cancel Showtime.
My biggest gripe: Every Alien they meet speaks English. At least with Trek you had the Universal Translator. With SG1 and Atlantis they completely ignore this. After many episodes it really bothers me.
sportsdot
The slashcode sports site
This doesn't make any sense to me. I've been a big star trek fan for my whole life, this Enterprise just sucked... I mean really sucked from the beginning intro song all the way to the end of each show. There is a reason it's going off the air you know....
> Just so that we're not exclusively on Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a decent job at this too.
Most certainly. And unlike JMS, Joss Whedon can write characters. In fact, he does characters well, and doesn't do so hot with story arcs, but B5's story arc was really, well, lame. B5 got a free pass because it was sci-fi, but the acting for the most part was truly awful, verging on Xena/Hercules quality.
As for G'Kar, he represented a successful bit of character evolution. The interplay between him and Londo really made the show for me. Wooden lifeless characters like Morden and Ivonava never did it for me. Delenn and Sheridan could have been all right, except I could never get over the mimbari baby talk ("the religious caste", "the shadows"), nor her harsh hissing accent.
Someone needs to create some sci-fi Frankenproducer with the best qualities of Chris Carter, JMS, and Joss Whedon. Maybe even some Berman. There's got to be something redeeming about Berman.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
I mean, I know that SF on TV is pretty much a kind of stage-play allegory, but it all feels so grounded in a '60s kind of shiny smarmy middle-class american morality (yes, I know all about demographics, I'm a director/producer). JMS's B5 brought a touch of biological diversity into the vidiotic galaxy.
What I would really like is a SF series that takes nanotech and extreme body customization into human -- not just evil borg -- society. One that has Samuel Delaney's sense of cultural development, Ridley Scott's visual and human grittiness, and KS Robinson's sense of the march of history. B5 had some of all that, but some truly cheesy interludes and unconvincing dialogue, and in the end fell back frequently to rely on the hollywood galactic tropes, so he should be able to cope in the ST version of 'future.' Here's hoping he can move the franchise into something more... contemporary.
Damn those pesky terrorists
The writers didn't care about telling a story, so there simply wasn't a consistent story told. And that made DS9, in its later years, unwatchable to me, even though I followed it from the beginnings. Wormhole Aliens? Pagh Wraiths? The holodeck lounge singer? These are not signs of a well-written show. No consistency whatsoever, and not enough people cared because it was Star Trek and because Voyager kept flying off the handle. But at its best, I feel that Voyager was better than DS9 just because it occasionally made some sense--not always very much--and occasionally had characters dealing with human, emotional situations you could relate to. And I also feel that, on the whole, the acting was better, but when you have only garbage writing to work with, it doesn't always matter how good an actor you are.
For me, whatever chemistry Star Trek had vanished, for the most part, somewhere during season 6 of The Next Generation. That cast, however, was so good that they were able to finesse their way through the less-than-fortuitous episodes they had to deal with and turn out good work even when the odds were really against them; that's why, even when the quality was lesser, it still seemed pretty high. The DS9 and Voyager casts simply didn't have those tools. But Voyager came off better because the writers, producers, and actors never tried to make it more than it was. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. DS9's attempts to reach for the stars (even if they were in Babylon 5's universe) made it fall that much faster and harder. I can't say it's the worst of all Star Trek series, because I've only seen two episodes of Enterprise. But 75-80% of it is really embarrassingly bad, and a sad chapter in Star Trek history that is best left forgotten.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Let JMS write the political intrigues, Joss Whedon to write the characters and dialogue, and then some things from old-school Star Trek. Quite a mix that would be.
Braga was just a writer for TNG. His hands were probably far more tied back then as far as "creative license" is concerned. He worked his way up the producer ladder during Voyager, while continuing to write, until he shared Executive Producer duties with Berman.
If you want a good example of what happens when you let your Executive Producers write... look at Enterprise. It wasn't until Manny Coto took over that the show started to work. The whole temporal cold war was an idea that should never have seen the light of day. But when wrote the script and you also have final say in it... what are you going to do, say your story sucks and trash it?
Just my theory, of course.
Well, Berman, Brannon Braga, and their in-house "staff" writers, anyhow.
For one thing, Roddenberry died midway through TNG. Berman was basically the man at the helm for what was argueable the best portion of the series, the last 3 seasons. Even before that, he played a very, very large part in TNG. So to say that "Berman is Death" of everything, than to praise TNG, borders on the edge of ridiculousness.
I found seasons 1 and 2 barely watchable, 3-4(well, half of 5th too) to be good, and (half of)5th, and all of 6th and 7th to be completely unwatchable. Seasons 1-4 had outside writing talent for a majority of the episodes; it was after the staff writers took over that we got most of the horrible "and now Beverly Crusher gets to have a love affair with a ghost!" episodes.
For another, DS9 (the first series run soley by Berman) was actually very good (once it got going - the first season or two were quite.. icky).
DS9 was also heavily ripping off Babylon 5, while competing with it. That inspired a lot.
Voyager, well..... what can you say. An amazing capability for a plot line, but it descended into fodder. Basically, the same thing with Enterprise.
The Voyager itself was, literally, blown off course in the badlands of space. This was in the first episode, and set the tone for finding Amelia Earhart, devolving into amphibians that were allergic to water, and neelix's lungs. Voyager was abject shit of the first order. Enterprise was unwatchable for the first three seasons, with moments of amusement.
So from *my* point of view, he is batting 0.500 - a decent average the way I look at it.
From my point of view, he's taken something I grew up loving, and rammed it into the ground, while having marital relations with Gene Roddenberry's corpse. To each their own.
Aside from all this - you people seem to believe that the whole series lives and dies by Berman's word. Shouldn't some of the blame be put on the writers? The writers are the ones coming up with the same old crap over and over again.
The "writers" are his, and Brannon Braga's, fault. They're "staff writers" that were cycled in by the pair of them, to the exclusion of outside scripts. Thus, saying "Berman did it" can be accurate.