William Shatner Pitches 'Starfleet Academy' Show

Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that William Shatner recently pitched an 'Academy' show to Paramount. The series would feature teen versions of the Classic Star Trek characters Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and be set at Starfleet Academy. The studio turned Shatner down, but he's not letting go of the idea: Pocket Books has asked him to write a two-novel series based on the 'Starfleet Academy' concept. Also, Shatner apparently went over the head of Trek head honcho Rick Berman to pitch his idea straight to the head of Paramount - maybe after Enterprise ends and Berman leaves the franchise, the studio will be more inclined to listen to Shatner?"

Comments

Love his style

[NormalVisual]

You gotta give Shatner credit for totally dissing Berman like that. :-)

God love that manwhore!

[Nijika]

I think Shatner is by far, by far, my favorite Trekker. He's got a sense of humor about himself and his work, yet he's not even remotely afraid to take chances.

Re:God love that manwhore!

[Politburo]

See: Adam West, Family Guy.

Let it die.

[nberardi]

I think, as sad as it might be, that StarTrek has really come to an end. It has had a good 50 some odd years of episodes. Let it die with at least some dignity.

I like the idea...not the setting....

[haplo21112]

...the idea would be better served in the pre/post TNG/DS9 time frame and with new characters....perhaps with camio here or there from the established charaters.

Star Trek 90210

[snuf23]

This is a horrible idea. Just what would be needed to completely kill off the franchise. How about a whole show full of Wesley Crusher teen angst in a Federation uniform.
Visually it would be hard to jive with the old series, and having actors who are trying to potray the old characters might lead to pure campiness.
Ok so now everyone can tell how it would be great if they did it right - but come on people, you KNOW they wouldn't do it right.
I'm just hoping whatever new series comes out has Shatner singing the theme song. Hell, just have him sing the lyrics to the orignal theme from the '60s series.

Re:Star Trek 90210

[jfengel]

Yeah, they'd botch it. Not gonna argue with you on that one.

I agree that trying to make the old characters synch up would be hard. Star Trek is never about the 22nd/23rd/24th centuries; it's always about today. So having "young" Kirk have more mature attitudes (by our standards) than "old" Kirk would be disconcerting.

Besides, they'd have the same problem that they did on Enterprise: you can't place a character in real jeopardy if you already know that they survive. That's supposedly why they renamed T'Pau to T'Pol. Personally, I'd have loved to have seen the great leader of Vulcan as a young woman, to see what made her great, and screw the suspense factor, but they saw it otherwise. And then wrote absolutely nothing interesting for her to do.

Still, I like the idea of setting a series at Star Fleet Academy. There are a billion ways to do it wrong, and only a few to do it right, but there are some good opportunities there. Just like both Voyager and Enterprise had good opportunities that rotted behind unimaginative plotting, ratings-grabbing, and a failure to understand what Trek really is.

So, sadly, as a Trek fan from before the proliferation, I gotta agree: let it rest.

Re:Tekwars

[nametaken]

I wonder if Shatner will use the same ghost writer this time?

So long as he doesn't sing the theme song.

Seriously though, I'm glad he went over that douchebag's head.

You're thinking "New Shatner"

[GuyMannDude]

I think Shatner is by far, by far, my favorite Trekker. He's got a sense of humor about himself and his work, yet he's not even remotely afraid to take chances.

Really, I think that's a bit shortsighted. Shatner has only become that way in the last decade or so. Prior to that, he's tried to distance himself from the Trek fans as much as possible. Compared to how much he has benefited from Trek fandom, Shatner has given very little back. Contrast this with George Takei, Deforest Kelly, or Jimmy Doohan who have always been big supporters of Trek fandom. In a previous message, I talked about how Jimmy Doohan took it upon himself to use his fame to help a single fan back to health. Shatner would never do anything like this -- then or now. I'll admit that Shatner is likeable but that's been a recent thing. Read Takei's book sometime and listen to the shit that Shatner used to do. Shatner didn't even show up at Roddenberry's funeral, for chrissake!

You're entitled to your opinion but I'm baffled how you can consider him a Trekker at all, let alone your favorite.

GMD

Re:Tekwars

[Winkhorst]

There's apparently so little writing ability and creativity in Hollywood that they can't get beyond Star Trek as the only possible metaphor for space-based Sci Fi. There is an incredibly large universe out there, yet it doesn't appear to have enough room for anything other than ONE plot structure based on ONE metaphor? Here's an exercise: Create a program with the dynamism of the original Star Trek with NONE of the structural baggage. Tell me, is this really an impossible challenge?

Re:Tekwars

[Saxerman]

>>It was called Firefly. They cancelled it. >Because it sucked. This is honest opinion, not a troll or flamebait. >Every episode looked like a Mad TV or SNL spoof. It wasn't so bad that it was fit for an MST3K treatment, but it was close.

Wow. We must not have been watching the same show. At first blush I disliked Firefly due to the "Space Western" theme as I thought it sounded rather contrived. Why would we unlock tech in space flight and colonization and yet regress technologically?

Fortunately my friends convinced me to watch the show, and I was hooked. After I understood the story, it made perfect sense. I enjoyed how they accepted the advanced technologies of space travel but did not let them dominate the story. I enjoyed how the story stayed focused on the characters, and I especially enjoyed watching the characters and their relationships develop.

I'm not sure why you felt Firefly seemed like a space comedy. There were certainly some very funny moments but the thrust of the series seemed to focus on the serious morale issues of working within the grey areas of the law and surviving between those groups that considered the laws absolute and the criminal elements that would rather ignore the laws completely. If anything I would think you would take exception of the melodrama, considering how you cite that grievance against the Star Trek franchise. I also agree that Star Trek was too melodramatic for my tastes, which is why I considered Firefly a welcome change. I didn't feel like the script was talking down to me and appreciate how they directly tackled hard issues like religion ("You don't 'fix' the Bible, River.") and didn't make me feel like I was being preached too.