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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.
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
It's Berman's fault the series on TV is as stale as it is. Proof is that some of the ST novels are tremendously well-written, proving their are plenty of new, fresh, and quality stories left to tell in the final frontier.
Of the best, are the DS9 relaunch, which continues the story of Deep Space Nine directly after the TV series ends, and Peter David's remarkable New Frontier series with it's Xenexian captain Mackenzie Calhoun. This series has proved, IMHO, to be one of the best out of all the Trek series.
Sugapablo
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)
More Wil Wheaton!
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 );
..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.
Maybe JMS can sell one-year long mini-series or something ? Bab5 was overlong, although the idea of a multi-episode script was nicely exercised .
This is not a signature.
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.
I continously hope for enterprise to be ended in it's seven season as a Star Trek series ought to be ended! I must admit though that some seasons were really lame, I liked enterprise at first. When they didn't have any equipment that worked and their was no experience in anything of what they did had political problems with klingons and vulcans as well as andorians, pretty much the starting seasons. later on as they got photonic torpedoes and other technologies to their usage so that the humans wouldn't seem so inferior, that was when the show started to go bad and it's anticlimax must in my opinion been the whole time wars shit. This season been quite good though with Vulcans having internal problems and dealing with Andorians and Romulans starting to look like something good again, and hence I would like to have the series continue. Hopefully a new Star Trek series will also be made, I seem to never be able to get enough of Star Trek. I would have nothing against a remake of the old series, but I think they need to cram in some more juice into it, better scenery and Klingons that actually look like they should do and not human!
... tripe on Slashdot. People go on and on about how "It has all been downhill since TNG" and it has all been Berman's fault, etc.
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.
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).
Voyager, well..... what can you say. An amazing capability for a plot line, but it descended into fodder. Basically, the same thing with Enterprise.
So from *my* point of view, he is batting 0.500 - a decent average the way I look at it.
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.
It's generally thought that DS9 was a pretty good series, getting better as it went along and getting a story arc.
However, JMS might be reluctant to speak about DS9 for a personal reason. JMS had tried to pitch Babylon 5 to a number of studios, such as Paramount, but they wouldn't have it. After years of work, WB finally took up the show. After the Babylon 5 pilot was shot, Paramount just happens to shoot a pilot of their own new show that just happens to be set on a space station, and get the pilot to air just before the Babylon 5 pilot. (Why are some of the sets from the Enterprise?)
Although this had happened, JMS vocally disliked rivalry between the fans of Trek and B5 and advocated that one could like both.
DS9 turned out quite different in the end, so the competition from B5 was kind of good for Trek, wasn't it?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Makes his corpse reverse polarity in its grave, one might say.
I think I speak for many Trek fans that when I first heard about Enterprise, the possibilities for a prequel series seemed very interesting, and after Voyager we deserved something decent.
Like many I was worried about Berman being involved. I became more worried when the opening credits feature a dreadful recycled pop song instead of something symphonic. Then the temporal cold war silliness starts. Meanwhile, all along has been little effort to remain consistant with the Trek universe.
I will admit, I have not laughed so hard in a long time as I did when I saw the Xindi Nazi at the end of last season. But I don't think that was the intended effect.
For everyone who who is proclaiming this season is much better, how could it get much worse. Paramount and Berman especially should be ashamed at how they have treated such a large and loyal fanbase.
That said, I'm actually surprised that UPN killed it. They kept Voyager going for seven years and it was horrible most of that time. Enterprise seems like the high spot on their garbage filled network.
Trek needs a rest. If you want to send someone your money give it to http://www.eff.org/ or some other worthy cause. Don't worry, there will be more Trek, it has made too much money to be ignored forever.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
The story of two Chinese laundry truck drivers. Their 5 hour mission, to deliver clean lanudry, to seek out new customers and clients, to Boldly Go® where no chinese laundry truck drivers have gone before!
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
While I will beg to differ that the well has dried up for the Star Trek universe, I would have to agree that putting the series into hiatus would be a good idea.
When I hear director commentaries of Star Trek movies, or listen to actors make comments regarding their involvement with Star Trek, they seemingly have a universal theme: "I never saw Star Trek before I was hired by Paramount."
It makes me wonder about the writers as well. It is one thing to try and bring in some people from outside the Trekkies fan base to add some new and fresh ideas, but the near universality of the people producing and creating both the movies and the series doing it just as another job speaks volumes about how committed Paramount is to maintaining quality in the series.
Basically none.
One of the reasons why the Lord of the Rings was so absolutely fantastic was that the people involved with making those movies were some major fans of the work. Sure, a couple of actors may not have been as familiar with the story as die-hard fanatics, but with the rest of the production team really pulling to make it something special, those actors "caught the vision" and even added more to the passion to get it done.
I could even use the "Passion of the Christ" produced by Mel Gibson as an example of how somebody with in this case a deep religious conviction bringing something extra to the production that turned what could have been an ordinary movie into something extra ordinary.
I just don't see that kind of fire coming from Paramount these days. The attitude of William Shatner comments of "Get a Life" to fans is more typical. Star Trek has simply become a cash cow for studio executives, and they really don't care at all about the fan base other than trying to figure out how to get more money from what they percieve as a bunch of suckers. The Trek-based fan web pages legal mess is more proof of how stupid Paramount doesn't really know what they are doing other than trying to make a quick buck.
... tripe on Slashdot. People go on and on about how "It has all been downhill since TNG" and it has all been Berman's fault, etc.
But it is - he is in charge, ego he is to blame.
For one thing, Roddenberry died midway through TNG.
Lies. Roddenberry died at the end of season 5.
Berman was basically the man at the helm for what was argueable the best portion of the series, the last 3 seasons.
1: He was mostly working with the talent Roddenberry had hired.
2: He didn't have the guts to suddenly change TNG to something else in the middle of the series (like he let them do with DS9)
Ie, he just continued on the course set by Roddenberry.
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).
So DS9 became better once Berman withdrew from day to day running of the series and started to focus on Voayger - funny that. Not to mention again, he had Ira Steven Behr("Dark Angel"),Michael Piller("Dead Zone") , Ronald Moore("Battlestar Galactica") to help him. I entirely suspect he was out having lunch with management while they were writing.
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.
Yeah, except: HE HIRES THE WRITERS, his blame.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
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 do not believe there is any need to "rest" Star Trek, I think what it needs is creative talent that can improve the quality of the episodes, and it needs a series that is set after the DS9 and Voyager. I think Enterprise was a bad idea, creating a series which is set long before the other star trek series, it allows for a lot of trouble with messing up the timelines, and takes away some of the value of moving the star trek timeline forward into the future, new territory, and instead must dwell within an already defined past timeline.
In a sci-fi series like Star Trek, accuracy in timelines, events, facts and detials is very important and errors in the timelines, which they seem to have a hard time avoiding in Enterprise since it occurs previous to the other series', can shake ones confidence in the series and introduce paradoxes which weaken the entire structure of the franchise.
A new series I believe as well should incorporate the exploration and discovery aspects of Star Trek, finding strange new worlds, new civilisations, strange distant reaches of the galaxy filled with odd pecularities and phenomena. Integrating a sort of mystery-genre aspect into many episodes where the crew encounter odd mysterious and wierd phenomena and discovering what they are can be quite fascinating. There are so many creative possibilities for plots that don't involve pure action and violence but offer a deep and involving plot line, with mysteries, strangeness, and oddities, that there is no reason Star Trek cannot be revived. Furthermore we do have today far more resources avialable than in the original series in creating compelling renderings of these strange worlds and different races and beings that werent avialable in the original star trek. While the series should be based on a ship, there should also be episodes allowing the viewer to see other parts of the federation, such as the crew visiting space docks, and federation planets. In addition to exploration and discovery of distant corners of the galaxy, it would also be nice to see in several episodes the ship visit several core federation planets which we seem to see little of, like Vulcan and Earth.
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
Trekweb
11 teams of people with an existing relationship will race around federation worlds solving problems and seeing improbable sights.
The teams are:
Captains Picard and Riker.
Dr. Crusher and all powerful son being Wesley Crusher.
Lt. Commander Tuvok and Captain Kathryn Janeway
The Doctor and The Doctor
Lt. Ezri Dax and Dr. Phlox
Captain Jonathan Archer and Porthos
Constable Odo and Seven Of Nine
Chief Miles O'Brien and Lt. Cmdr. Data
Sub-Commander T'Pol and Tasha Yar
Lt. Cmdr. Deanna Troi and Commander Kira Nerys
Guinan Ensign Hoshi Sato
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating