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Star Trek XI In Two To Three Years.
Tycoon Guy writes "It seems rumors of the franchise's demise were greatly exaggerated. TrekToday reports that according to Trek head honcho Rick Berman, a new film might come sooner than you think: 'If it gets done in two years or three years I think that timeframe for a new, fresh feature with a whole different outlook would be fine.' He's previously said that the film will feature a whole new cast and ship; it's being written by Band of Brothers screenwriter Erik Jendresen."
That has the potential to be very good. The writers would have the freedom to kill off or transform any crew members they wish, not just the ones wearing red shirts. With everyone and everything (including the ship) potentially expendable, it could be a wild ride with lots of plot reversals.
It also has the potential to be very bad. Many viewers don't realise how much the regular Trek actors influence the show by keeping an independent reality check on their characters. Multi-season arcs in TNG were actually actor driven (like Troi quietly disliking Worf for most of the show).
So while it might be a great movie, it might be Trek only in name. We'll have to wait and see. Too bad it will be an odd number movie.
So if they change all the actors, the writers and the style of the show, is it still Star Trek?
Sure, it'll have some of the same races and politics, but these are only ever used as plot devices.
Personally, I'm happy as long as it's well written. If labelling a new show "Star Trek" is what it takes to get it on the TV, then go right ahead. Just make sure it's good enough to stay there.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
The best Star Trek movies were even numbered.
Star Trek II, was there a better villan than KHANN!!!!
Star Trek III, the search for spock kinda sucked.
Star Trek IV, was okay
The best one was the Undiscovered Country. I liked the interaction of the Klingons. It was one of the best movies, I loved the shakespear quotes. Once again dear friends, into the breach!
And is it just me, or have the Klingons gone from glorious warriors to whimps?? They used to be super strong, with ships designed for WAR. Yet they seem so weak. They are weaker than the Borg by a ton, they are weaker than most Enertrpise ships which are made to explore.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Actually insurrection just was awful because the plot was more or less lousy to the extrem (although the main acress was a cutie and also quite good at acting) Nemesis just was plain awful. I fell from my chair when the main villain suddenly appeared as a Dr. Evil ripoff, the acting was awful (Stewards being the exception), the plot basically dumped the entire non interference directive into the garbage bin the first five minutes and overall it was just a lousy copy of Wrath of Khan, which is a shame in itself. Khan replaced by Dr. Evil and beings an evil race copycatted by Nosferatu and a plot copycatted by Wrath of Khan. The whole movie basically sounded like, we dont can think of anything new, but wanna milk the cash cow and it also feeled like it.
And that's not all. Whatever happened to TNG's metaphasic shielding, which swould let you safely fly right into the sun? What happened to the finding that warp drive destroyed the fabric of space and would make subsequent space travel hazardous? What happened to that soliton wave technology that was supposed to replace warp drive but would have made a dandy weapon? On two or three occasions we've seen technology that could destabilize stars! I've lost count of the number of near omnipotent races the Federation has run into--- lessee, the Metroids, the Organians, Trellane's parents, Charlie X's guardians, the spinning ball of that loved anguish, V'ger, Q's people, the Doud, the Traveler, the Cythereans... what about them?
Who could write sensible stories with all these technologies and gods and societies interacting? It's a mess and it all just needs to be put to rest.
First, FTA: A lot of those shows are shot with budgets not much more than half of what ou(r) budgets are
Besides the obvious typo, I highly doubt that ST:E's budget is all that much bigger than any of SciFi's original programming. Example? SG-1. If SG-1 has an operating budget of even half of ST:E's, yet still produces high-quality programming, then the whole budget issue isn't a problem, and pretty much amounts to Berman blowing smoke up our asses.
SG-1 has quite a number of CGI sequences, like ST:E. Beyond the relatively simple animation of the gate itself and a few weapons, there are quite a number of ships (including the complex Goa'uld ships, Asgard cruisers, etc.), the Replicators (simple at first, then growing more complex), and the usual space scenes such as planets, stars, nebulae and more, not to mention the minor alterations to the Canadian landscape for location shots. Now, either Gekko/Double Secret/SciFi have found a way to render these scenes (which look pretty damn good) on the cheap, or Berman is using it as an excuse, one of many.
Second: I think the decline of Star Trek can be directly attributed to Berman himself, who started taking the franchise downhill not long after the death of Gene Roddenberry. Creative control, honestly, should have been given to Majel Barret-Roddenberry. After all, she was married to Gene, and it'd be impossible to think that some of his genius wouldn't have rubbed off on her during thier marriage. Berman was responsible for the lesser series DS9 and VGR, and obviously, those didn't do as well as TOS and TNG did, both in the ratings and creatively.
Third, according to quite a number of folks, Berman's not an easy guy to deal with. Slashdot's own Wil Wheaton can attest to that personally, and does so in his books. Granted, working with someone (relatively) new will bring about changes, but from most accounts, Berman was almost the direct antithesis to Roddenberry.
And no, I'm not trying to kiss Wheaton's ass.
My point is, Berman is giving us every excuse under the sun (some work slightly, others don't hold water) as to why Star Trek is in its waning years, instead of owning up to the fact that he took Roddenberry's vision and drove it into the ground himself. The slow demise of Trek can be traced back to when he took the helm (no pun intended).
I agree that Trek does need a rest. Oversaturation does play a part, but not as great a part as Berman would like us to believe...
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