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J.J. Abrams To Direct New 'Star Trek' Film
Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday reports that Paramount has asked 'Lost' creator J.J. Abrams to direct a new 'Star Trek' film. The movie will be set at Starfleet Academy and will feature younger versions of James T. Kirk and Spock, chronicling their first meeting at the Academy and their first outer space mission. The movie is set for a 2008 release and will apparently be one of Paramount's biggest projects for the year."
Shatner doesn't make a guest appearance.
Milk it.... Miiiiilk it.... Miiiiiiiiiiiilk it....
Yeesh, talk about taking a good idea and turning it into a dogmatic commercial eggroll. Egads.
What's next? "Is that a phaser, or are you just happy to see me"? I'll pass.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
So it's Harry Potter in space then?
I was going to post a joke about Star Trek: The Beginning of the End, but then I realized that happened a long time ago. Paramount has gone beyond running Star Trek into the ground, at this point they're trying to get blood from a stone. Then again, with Spock's intellect, perhaps we can finally figure out all of the secrets on that darned island.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
I like the idea of reviving the original characters in some way. That was what was really lacking from the later iterations of Star Trek, was the strength of characters. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were the perfect balance of differing personalities, one of the best sets of characters ever in TV or film.
Corporatism != Free Market
Not enough time has passed since the last movie. They need a bigger break because they will still have the same people who have been dragging down the movies for a while. Unless the screenplay is truly orginal and very creatively written this is not going to be that good. The problem with the last couple of movies is that rather than create a fantastic movie around a fantastic story being told they are creating a movie to create a movie and using the template of Star Trek to do it. If you think of the very successful movies in the franchise they are the ones in which the writing of the story was original and out of the box.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
In my mind this could go one of two ways.
;)
1. The Star Trek equivalent of Animal House. Crazy co-eds, the antics of Star Fleet Academy's most crazy frat house
2. Cadets save the world.
I know which one is more likely, and it pains me to say it, I don't want to watch movie #2, but #1 would be awesome.
Seriously, who actually thinks a movie based in Starfleet academy is a good idea? Obviously the unimaginative producers think its an "angle" of Starfleet that hasn't been covered, and an excuse to "sex up" the franchise by having a bunch of 20-somethings in the roles.
I especially cringe at the thought of "young Kirk" and "young Spock". Face it, Muppet Babies was terrible, Star Trek babies will be too.
Personally, I'd rather see post-TOS but pre-TNG Star Trek, maroon uniforms and all. Kirk and Spock could be older (which works out for the actors who are older themselves now) and the movie could be set closer to the most popular (in terms of movie revenue) stint in Star Trek history. I've still got a bad taste in my mouth from Trek prequels thanks to First Contact and Enterprise.
Really, I don't think they could do any better than J.J. Abrams for a movie like this. The guy writes really smart, compelling stuff (Regarding Henry is one of my all-time favorites) and he's an impressive director, at least from the TV stuff I've seen him do. I'm actually kind of hoping this will spawn a new series. Anyone else get the feeling that maybe they're testing the waters? I wouldn't mind seeing a series created by J.J. Abrams. He's done well in the past, particularly with Lost and Alias.
Past experience would suggest that we should be wary of franchise prequels where principal characters have sidekicks with funny ears.
- Jonathan :)
No tuna is safe.
I suggest:
WringEveryOunceOfLifeOutOfThatFranchise
The origional fans that fueled the series don't want to see the past ""Fleshed out" (I.E. the timeline massacred even more).
That's why enterprise was such a failure. That's why this movie will also be a huge failure.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Kirk, while waterskiing, jumps over a shark pen.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
While I'm not a trekkie, I still think "miiiiilk it!" initially and although they're also jumping on the prequel bandwagon, I feel this is the best way of creating YASSS (yet another Star Trek Show). I've had it with new crews, new ships and "new" aliens. OK, so Enterprise was a prequel show, but this one lets us know the young originals!
I'm thinking college-like situations - Kirk in panty raids! Kirk and Scotty drinking contests! Keg parties, the occasional world-threatening alien encounter etc.
Might be fun. Might also bomb horrifically.
Never been that big of a Star Trek, but with characters so popular and well know a good scifi writer could do wonders with the time period/subject.
Instead,we will most likely get another cesspool of scifi cliches like Enterprise turned out to be.
I remember the excitement when I heard about Enterprise and imagined it as some sort of writing focused 1960s BBCesq drama about the human race learning the harsh realities of interstellar travel and interactions with alien cultures.
And what we got instead...
Who on Earth is waiting for another Star Trek movie? The franchise is OVER. It will bomb so hard that it will put a huge dent in JJ Abrams' career.
JJ, why don't you focus on, say Lost and What About Brian, and maybe do a decent film on your off time?
Bones: The horse... Its DEAD Jim!
Spock: I concur with the doctor. There is a 97% probability that this movie will suck.
Scotty: If ah tol' ya one I tol' ya a shoushand times, I'm not a miracle worker. Jus' let 'er rest in peace!
The story of a tallented student (Potter/Kirk) who breaks all the school rules to save his friend and is rewarded for his creative thinking.
I had this idea a while ago, except it would be a Star Trek s(h)itcom similar to Saved By the Bell. Heck, if they want to make a lot of money they just need to ripoff every hit show that ever was.
Everybody's Loves Spock
Full Ship
Starfleet Ties
The Kirksons
etc.
From fark's discussion board: it aint true.
Dark Horizons.
SyFyPortal.
I'd be happy to watch it as long as they don't have lots of CGI effects and technology that could only exist AFTER TNG. Star Wars anyone?
I don't have a problem with a new trek movie... I have a problem with Berman not being fired, and is it so hard to bring back Nicholas Meyer?
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
"...to re-energize the pipeline via high-profile tentpoles while revitalizing the Par brand with top-tier talent..."
Are they serious?
The movie will be set at Starfleet Academy and will feature younger versions of James T. Kirk and Spock, chronicling their first meeting at the Academy and their first outer space mission.
Star Trek Babies!
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I can't think of anybody better to direct one big flashback than the director of LOST.
At least there's that.
___ I don't respond to Anonymous Cowards, and I Never Mod them UP.
All the people that make fun of trekkies?
All the people that are too young to know the subtelties of Kirk, Spock, Jones, Scotty, Sulu and Uhura (did I miss anyone?)
Or all the fans that are screaming for a well thought out strongly scripted story?
Because on the last few tries, they've been failing all of the aforementioned groups. (Well, except for the first one, naturally.)
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Kirk and Spock could be older (which works out for the actors who are older themselves now) and the movie could be set closer to the most popular (in terms of movie revenue) stint in Star Trek history. I've still got a bad taste in my mouth from Trek prequels thanks to First Contact and Enterprise.
Ah, but from a Hollywood studio's perspective, that would be a vastly inferior choice (regardless of whether Trekkers would prefer it). This way they can cast young, "attractive" actors in popular, established roles. I don't know about you, but I only watch films to see 24-year-olds with sculpted hair, not novel and empathic stories.
Ooh, maybe the 1980s will reassert its marketing formula, and they'll follow the film with a new animated series—Enterprise Babies!
Hm, I'm one of those who grew up with the TOS reruns on german TV and watched every singele episode of Next Generation Deep Space Nine, and one of those to whom Star Trek is dead since ... I don't know 4th or 5th episode of Voyager? But this still sounds like a really nice idea to me. Just make sure that noone who particpated in the last movie and/or Enterprise is involved.
Now there is a fresh idea !
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
there is no hope
The Star Trek equivalent of Animal House. Crazy co-eds, the antics of Star Fleet Academy's most crazy frat house
That sounds like a plotline for an award winning TV Series!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a Greek sailor
I love prequels. Young Sherlock Holmes was the best movie ever. I've often think about how cool it would be if someone would cobble together a pre-Flight of the Navigator but this is even better. Now, if only someone could think of a way to show us what it was like for the young Luke Skywalker, where we learn that he wore a rat-tail for a brief period in middle-school and had a fat-phase.
it'll either be really good, yet confusing and frustrating (and make you wonder if the joke's on you) or really good for the first half and then suddenly be lame and sort of suck for the second half.
So what I want to know is, are the controls and panels going to look like they are made from Lego sets?
Or will it be super sophisticated and electronically dazzling, or will it look like it does in the TV series era, cheap sets with cardboard controls and hand-painted view screens?
Fascinating.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I loved Deep Spance 9 because unlike TOS and TNG where it was a space ship flying around causing trouble, with DS9 the trouble came to the station. It was neat to have something different, and I really liked that.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Has this ever been covered in any of the Trek books? I just wonder if they might get Peter Jackson so that he can take something that has already been writen (and loved by fans for generations) and botch it to fit his personal vision of what this should be like.
My guess is that this film will probably do poorly either way. I'll still probably see it, but I don't think it's going to get any real praise out of me unless they really break from the Hollywood/ST film formula.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This is the SAME pitch that has been bouncing around since about 1980! This story shows up about every 18 months. I'll beliueve it when Aint it Cool has production photos.
Leaked preliminary script:
Cadet Kirk: Cadet Scott, how long until you tap into the visual sensors in the women's shower?
Cadet Scott: It'll be at least an hour. I can nay change the laws of physics.
Cadet Kirk: That hot freshman, Janice Rand is due in the showers in 5 minutes.
Cadet Scott: Janice Rand!!! I'll have it done with 2 seconds to spare or I'm not a half-sloshed stereotype.
Cadet Kirk: Good man! Do it and you can have any job you want when I'm captain of the fleet flagship.
Cadet Spock: Normally I would point out that the risks do not justify these actions... but that Janice Rand would bring on Ponn Farr in an Andorian. Perhaps you should try cross circuiting to B, Cadet Scott.
Cadet McCoy: Can you tie in my medical tricorder so I have a record for future... umm, anatomy study?
Cadet Scott: Do it yourself, pervert.
Cadet McCoy: I'm a medical student not a pornographer!!!
Cadet Scott: All right, all right.
The Star Trek Universe has become so damned muddled over the last years, I'm not even sure it would be canonical for Kirk and Spock to have been at the academy together. (Then again, I've never been clear if some of the stuff in Enterprise was strictly canonical either.)
:-P
Spock had served with Christopher Pike before Kirk, and I don't recall much in the way of explaination of how they met each other. Given the relative life-spans of Vulcans and Humans, I had assumed Spock had served in Star Fleet for quite a while.
Add this in with it being a prequel of a bunch of well known characters, I have fears this will turn into a Star-Trek Troopers meets Wesley Crusher Episode. They'll either have some fantastic adventure thrown in the middle, or it won't have any action and it'll be about Kirk reprogramming the Kobiashi Maru (or, well get an alternate explaination for it as opposed to it being a planned exam).
But the actors will either have to completely re-interpret the characters, and piss people off -- or they'll act as charicatures, and really piss people off.
Nothing good can come of this; and I'm not sure I'd watch this. It scares me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There, that is it, there is no more you need to know. Don't do these prequels, please. Why not just go further into the future, open with a well thought through movie and build a new series on that? I haven't even bothered to watch ST:Nemesis when I could have done it for free, and I have had many o times to do so.
And Turn Up The Suck!!!!!!!!!!!
That this dissapoints me a great deal. I was looking foward to a new crew and new ship set in some sort epic three part series. Not the OC in space.
Van Gough, and Rembrandt, don't be uptight, cause here comes KID DYNOMITE.
The Admin and the Engineer
When I was young I played the RPG. They had an interesting supplement that involved the secret agent side of star trek. I think this would be a better angle maybe not for a movie but for a series (say 20 years from now). It would have a darker angle from the ususal idealic society that Star Trek has created. They did a few episodes on espionage in a few of the different series but it would be a refreshing change from the starship/spacedock scenery.
I thought Rand was enlisted--she wouldn't be at the academy
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
but I could watch probably about 100 more TNG movies. It doesn't get any better than Riker shoving a photon torpedo right through those klingon bitch's windshield, or Data exclaiming 'oh shit!' when he realized the ship would be in for a rough landing.
Maybe I'm just too much of a TNG fan, but I've never seen an episode I haven't liked, nor changed the channel because I've already seen this one. IMO TNG was the pinnacle of Roddenberry's works, to go back and make a kind of spinoff/prequel of the original just isn't going to appeal to fans (and lets face it, who the hell else is going to go see it?)
Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
Frankly, I'm saddened that they're going to pursue this but NOT a Deep Space Nine movie.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Was when Bluto walks down the stairs during that toga party and comes across this dude playing guitar and singing some folk song to a couple of chicks. Then he grabs the guitar and slams it against the wall, smashing it to bits.
Could you imagine that set at Starfleet Academy? There's Spock plucking some Vulcan lute in the dorm while Kirk comes along and slams it against the wall, then walks away with the two green chicks listening nearby. But Spock doesn't pout. Nope. Spock doesn't pout.
So, Paramount runs out and gets themselves a "hot, young, edgy" director in order to take a more than well worn franchise in "new directions". But at the same time the film is a prequel featuring two of the most "historically" well known characters in said fictional universe. What's the point? We all know how it's going to end, assuming they choose to hold continuity and not just rewrite everything to suit their own tastes. But of course they will rewrite everything - I highly doubt that the demographic that Paramount is after wants to see it's virile young heroes dressed in velour shirts. No new fans will be generated by this exercise and all the old ones will become even more alienated. Star Trek is currently something we all look back on with fond memories and I for one would like to keep it that way. Let's put a merciful stake through the heart of this and move along, there's nothing to see here.
seriously a movie based around the Kobayashi Maru would be awesome. It could be one an oceans 11 type of "hiest" movie except in this case, Kirk is trying to rig the test so he can win.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
/nerd on
/nerd off
will have something to do with the legend of Kirk's cheating the Kobiashi Maru
The Admin and the Engineer
Trek and Trekker: When Kirk met Spock.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
bullshit
Don't let this happen.
Dy-nooooo-mite.
Don't tell me they're casting Steve Guttenberg as Kirk.
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Dammit Jim! I said I want to be a DOCTOR, not a proctor!
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I wonder how many other characters will be introduced - like Bones, Scotty etc.
Why won't these people give up. Star Trek is a tired franchise filled with aging figureheads that can't reclaim the glory of their early years.
I mean, they have to make a new story filled with "younger" versions of their most popular characters, because most people involved in ANY Star Trek series is over 50.
If the same people that drove the Star Trek televisions shows into the ground are involved in this movie (Rick Berman and Brannon Bragga), it will be a disaster, as it will contain story elements based only on cloning Roddenberry's concepts, nothing new or fresh has been injected into this franchise for 20 years.
Personally, I am about due for Star Trek to retire, and 2008 for a new movie is way too early after the last movie fiasco and television series flop. I am sure their gearing up for another vapid television series as well, something filled with the same trite plots that have been repeated over and over again with 5 previous television shows.
The only way Star Trek will ever succeed again is to round up EVERYBODY ever associated with the Star Trek franchise (except William Shatner) and fire them into the sun. Every writer, director and producer of Star Trek should be ashamed of themselves for taking a great money making concept and turning it into the worst Sci-Fi drivel imaginable.
What upsets me the most is that a sci-fi show like Firefly, that actually incorporated good writing, good acting, and novel ideas gets canned after 10 episodes, while the Star Trek franchise continues to limp along after being on cruise control since Roddenberry died. There was more originality and imagination in one episode of Firefly then in the entire DS9, Voyager and Enterprise series.
Put a photon torpedo into it already its dead Jim!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Forgive me for trying to quote from memory, but... in the DS9 Tribbles episode... Sisko: No, in the day, command wore gold (uniforms), engineers wore red... Dax: And women wore less. I'd pay the price of admission if Paramount *doesn't* screw with the uniforms!
Kirk is younger than Spock, Vulcans live longer than Humans. Spock was on Pike's crew before Kirk took over the Enterprise. Spock and Kirk first met on Enterprise, now they first met at the Academy? Spock graduated from the academy before Kirk attended. Now history is being rewritten.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
It's about time everyone stopped believing the hype that B&B was speading that Trek needed a break. What it needed was someone that gave a damn about it and that's what we have in JJ Abrams. For all you that just know Trek from the green slave-girls and Shatners over-dramatic acting need to know that Kirk was actually the third captain of the Enterprise, a young upstart, who had a reputation for taking unnessesary risks. Spock was an outcast to his entire people, not just for being half human, but for joining Starfleet. Bones had nearly gotten himself kicked out of Starfleet and lost nearly lost his licence to pratice medicine, twice! And lets not for get Scotty's perchance for the aile, which got him labled a drunk and insubordinant. Now imagine it's the beginning of the Earth-Klingon cold war, and you assemble this crew, put them on one of 12 ships-of-the-line, and send them off the explore the part of space that has, by that time, already made two starships disappear and turned the previous captain of the Enterprise into crippled mute. Let the festivities commence!
I know the comparative and superlative degrees are "more hard" to make (to quote Dan Brown) than just using more and most with the normal form of the adjective, but come on people. I though Slashdot folks were a bit brighter than the rest.
"You, there. Get off the corpse. We've warned you about this already."
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
The first three add up to a ridiculously bad story, and the last is more or less a betrayal. I mean, think about it: they cap off a rotten story not worthy of a mediocre television episode by killing Data. This is a problem in a lot of ways. For one, there is a lot of "future history" that says Data lives a long, long time -- longer than any of the other characters by far. Completely ignoring previous canon, to Star Trek fans, feels like...well, a betrayal. That's why they hated Enterprise and its freewheeling attitude toward canon. If you're going to do Star Trek, you really have to stick to the existing facts.
The other problem with killing Data is that, because he was supposed to be the longest-lived of all the main TNG characters, his death feels like all their stories are done. Put another way, as long as they aren't shown meeting their ends, they continue to be alive in the fans' minds. Having them die makes fans' interest in the entire thing drop off. It makes it hard to work up interest in any Star Trek.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
I never really got into Enterprise... I tried, but the writing and acting just never sold it.
With that said, can anyone give a quick summary of what happened in the series and how it ended? I saw the first couple seasons, so I know about the tempral war (or whatever) and they went into some temperal rift or something?
Don't tell me then pulled an "it was all a dream, and everything you jsut did never happened" ending...
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
[i]"In this episode, kirk, spock and a lot of extras are on drugs and end up believing they are in some sort of magical desertic island with polar bears and unicorns"[/i]
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Paramount has been wondering whether a re-creation of the original Star Trek (of Kirk, Spock, and the rest) would sell as a series. The purpose of this movie is to test those waters. If this movie does well, Paramount will go ahead and make a new Star Trek series which is a remade TOS. If the movie does badly, I guess Paramount goes back to the drawing boards.
I'm hoping the movie bombs. Next Star Trek series should be a generation after where Voyager and DS9 ended.
Or it could be
....
....
4) "ANGST.....IN......SPAAAAAAAACE!"
a la The O.C., or Beverly Hills 90210 or
Excuse me - had to go throw up.
Anyway. It could be the angst of a bunch of youngsters wondering if their next mistake will kill someone, start a war, or worst of all, embarrass them.
Of course this very conveniently overlooks the age difference between Kirk and Spock, the different maturation rates of humans vs. Vulcans, the different paths each took through Starfleet,
This is just more Paramount milking the Star Dreck franchise for all that it is worth, and more.
It's a DAMN SHAME that they didn't allow Enterprise (when it finally got good) to continue to explore the founding of the Federation.
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Star Trek : 90210
We may, indeed, share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, but then, we share 47% with cabbages.
Kirk: Can't ... let... it ... end... like... this... Must... milk... franchise
Paramount puts turnip in large vise. Seeks blood.
Scotty: Captn, it will take 1 year to make the movie
Kirk: Scotty, I give you six months.
Scotty: Captn, I'll do it in two!
Open Source Alternatives
It's my understanding it's going to be based on Star Trek The Lost Gay Episode.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Is it just me, or has anyone else ever wondered how GALAXYQUEST was able to lampoon the ENTERPRISE series so well, years before it went into production?
(I loved the space ELEVATOR, or whatever it was called!!!)
Because Trekkies and the studios that write stories for them have become so predictable. and crappy at the same time. I was able to actually watch Enterprise by blocking out its ties to Star Trek and pretend it was just another SCI-Fi space show. (it became almost interesting at that point.)
It's pretty much the same reason why the second Star Wars Trilogy (or should it be the first?) was pretty lame as well, if the stories are suposed to pre-date TOS, why does their ship look so much more advaanced? It kinda kills the story aspect and confuses the timeline.
It sounds like Paramount has looked at the popularity of the http://www.newvoyages.com/Star Trek New Voyages and realized that it can revive Kirk, Spock, et. al. without Shatner, Nimoy and the old cast. Recasting these characters probably seemed pretty risky before the fan flicks broke down that barrier.
Personally, I would love to see Paramount get behind New Voyages for real and help them crank out some of thier planned episodes.
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When I first glanced at the article I thought it said "Abrahams", as in Jim Abrahams and David Zucker of "Airplane!" fame. I think they should be the ones doing this movie and rename it "Starship!".
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I have been a Star Trek fan since I was 7 years old. I have had the pleasure of enjoying TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise; not to mention the whole host of motion pictures. But, I think its time for Paramount to pack it in, before they ride this franchise into the ground (if they haven't already done so).
If it takes a village to raise a child then it only takes one village idiot (Berman) to screw that child up. Those rat bastards who took Roddenberry's ideas and totally screwed them up can all die in a fire. They can take their own ideas about how to do characters and stories to make them 'edgier' 'darker' or whatever and write their own characters and their own stories and quit raping the memory of Star Trek. That's assuming they have any talent of their own which I doubt other than to be able to fasten themselves like leeches onto somebody else's ideas and somebody else's science fiction/fantasy universe. Pompous idiots without an ounce of creativity sucking at the teat of dead authors and dead creators and who try to bask in the reflected light of their betters. So unless Gene Roddenberry rises from the dead and decides to do something with Star Trek (which does not include changing what's already in the can - do you hear me George (die in a fire) Lucas?) then leave it alone. This means you Rick Berman/Paramount. The market will of course decide as it has with most remakes and recycled ideas and put them in the garbage disposal as they should. Personally you idea recycling bastards can take your Starsky and Hutch remake, your Dukes of Hazzard remake, your Star Trek 'remake',your upcoming Dallas remake and any movie starring or featuring Owen Wilson/Johnny Jackass whatever his last name is and shove them up the bodily orifice they came from. I won't buy one movie ticket, one dvd, I won't even watch a preview on Apple or even bittorrent a copy of your festering efforts. And so metaphorically speaking of course, may you all die in fires. (saw that term used on Fark (Duke sucks)and thought it was funny) Okay, rant over, I feel better now. - Please nobody actually die in a fire.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Seriously, why bother? Berman already destroyed the future of the franchise, and now they're going to go back and destroy the legacy of Kirk and Spock?
Just... no....
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I have to disagree. I think doing a TOS remake and a post Next Gen series can happily coexist. I think Paramount wants to erase the train-wreck that was Enterprise.
Please. Pretty please? Characters that have somewhere to go - rather than simply fulfilling our expectations of personalities long since drained of any originality. We know exactly how TOS characters will act, and we know that 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 minutes into this film there'll be an excruciatingly obvious bone mercilessly tossed to us in the form of a promordial "Dammit Jim", "Highly illogical", "Must... not... give... in... to...", or "She kenna' take much more, Cap'n!" that'll just tickle those clever writers. Every character in Serenity did something previously unseen but that moved their character forward and thus the story too.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Just the other day. kinda like the "Young Indiana Jones" tv series, except maybe it'll be good. I know it sounds like they're beating a dead horse...
but as long as Berman isn't involved i'm intrigued.
At least Paramount hasn't given up Star Trek for dead yet.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
One of the people involved with the project is Ronald D. Moore was one of the writers for DS9 and there are a lot of top episodes to his name. He also did Battlestar Galactica old and new. I personally welcome the news that Paramount haven't forgetten about Star Trek and actually decided to put it in capable handles of JJ Abrams and his possy. :)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0601822/filmoseries#tt0 106145
Taking the story line into the past brought the last series to an unfortunate end... Nice to see they are trying the same thing with the next movie. All I can say is, even numbered Star Trek movies don't suck, and this is an odd numbered one.
I like the idea too, as long as it doesn't involve the Kirk and Spock actors from http://www.newvoyages.com/ ;-)
They are cool guys, but their acting wouldn't translate well to the big screen
Oh You POS
The only way I think this movie could be more the suck is if we read something like this between now and the release.
April 23, 2006, Paramount Pictures and it's upcoming Star Trek prequel starring Twenty-something Kirk and Spock, announces that they have decided that renowned director Uwe Boll has the vision and desire to make his movie great.
Sheesh. How badly does this suck? Let me count the ways....
Brokeback Academy
Sulu: Impulse thrusters only, sir.
Kirk: No Mr. Sulu... Warp Factor 9, full speed ahead! Weeeeee!!!!!
Scotty: Careful there Cap'n, she canna take much more or she'll blow!
Spock: Fascinating!
I watch very little TV, go to relatively few movies. One reason for this is that, for example, I've already SEEN King Kong, Casablanca, and War of the Worlds (in two different versions). Endless remakes of old plots and scenarios just don't cut it; there are lots of original stories out there that would make marvellous films or TV series if competently done. (How 'bout the Miles Vorkosigan stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, or the Honor Harrington series by David Weber?)
Of course, that's the problem here, isn't it? Competence and originality are in woefully short supply in Tinseltown. Move along there, 900 channels and nothing to watch.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Yeah, I'm just one more voice in this chorus, but let's face it : Star Trek is dead.
What made the original series and the next generation so good in my eyes is that the stories weren't clear cut "good and evil" conflicts. Often, they were situations with no obvious answer that would really make me think about the problem presented. Nowdays, the writers cater to the lowered bar that america gives them and writes bad plots with worse characters.
This latest movie is a prime example of this trend. Someone else made a comment about how it'll basically be "Harry Potter in space" and I find it difficult to disagree with that analysis.
Ah well, just another two cents.
I, personally, am afraid they will inevitably inject a notion of Kirk's Kobiashi Maru Maneuver into the film. I find it to be among the most obvious and most tempting thing they could do to try to foster continuity and say 'Hey, you remember what Kirk was talking about in movie 2? THIS is it!'. It'll kind of be akin to the way Lucas approached the Star Wars prequels; destroying the mystique and legends established with episodes IV thru VI by shedding light on the past with I thru III, just to foster some extra sense of continuity. Sure, it tells you all the juicy details, but now newcomers to those movies will never see IV thru VI the way those of us pre-prequel fans saw it.
To stay on the Trek bend, I'm willing to bet that anyone who saw 'Wrath of Khan' for the first time did not expect Kirk to confess that he'd fudged his No-Win Scenario results. That was his own Rly Big Secret. With it being revealed in a prequel film, it pretty much kills the legend and impact of the revelation for any newbie who's never seen Trek before. 'Pshht, I knew he faked it before I even saw this movie, big deal'.
It could only be worse if a KM scene does happen in the next film and Kirk is quoted as saying, "Ha! There's no way this could EVER backfire in my face!' or something in that vein. But I will trust that the director is polished enough to see past a silly idea of that sort. It's not Uwe Boll, after all...
But hey, we all think differently (as evidenced by the bewildering array of opinions expressed thus far), so I could just be toting my own personal horn on what should be placed where.
-- Niko
TNG was the best Star Trek show of all, and none of those actors are too old to bring back the TNG TV show. There would have to be a few changes for consistency with later TV shows, but I think it could be done successfully.
Im afraid to think what they might do to the characters we loved. I miss the original ST movies, they were fun to watch, the only STNG movie that was good was the one with Kirk. Also I cant imagine how theyre going to make the academy really interesting for very long. trekkies are used to lots of action when it comes to the original characters. I wonder if Nimoy will play his own father? Whod play a young Shatner? Sean William Scott?
"Don't go out there!! Is there AAAIIRR??! YOU don't know!!"
... being exposed to the greatness of Firefly and BSG, what can Paramount do to even appease or *gasp* entertain their core audience.
The bar has been set way too high.
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
I gotta say this sounds absolutely terrible.
What happened to the other idea about completely new characters set sometime between end of enterprise and the begining of TOS with a backdrop of the romulan war? That sounded a lot better.
Oh well.
I'd much rather see movie adaptations of these two Trek Books any day...
Strangers From the Sky Margaret Wander Bonanno
Final Frontier Diane Carey
They *COULD* bring Data back. Just add in a flashback to him doing a "Android-mindmelt" with "B-4", or even downloading into the ship's computer, then later use that copy to overwrite Lore.
But then again, using flashbacks to add in parts into a previous story doesn't really work.
And I know the theme song!
/starboard bow, / starboard bow. / There's Klingons on the starboard bow, / starboard bow, [again|Jim].
/not as we know it, Captain.
/starboard bow, starboard bow. / There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, again.
/not as we know it, Captain
Star Trekkin'
By The Firm:
Star Trekking, across the universe, / On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk. / Star Trekking, across the universe, / Only going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Lt. Uhura, report! / There's Klingons on the starboard bow,
Analysis!, Mister Spock! / It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, / not as we know it. / It's life, Jim, but not as we know it,
Uhura: There's Klingons on the starboard bow,
Chorus: Star Trekking, across the universe,/ On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk. / Star Trekking, across the universe, / Only going forward, still can't find reverse.
Medical (garbled), Doctor McCoy
McCoy: It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim. / Dead, Jim. Dead, Jim. / It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim. Dead, Jim, Dead.
Spock: It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, / not as we know it. / It's life, Jim, but not as we know it,
There's Klingons on the starboard bow, / starboard bow,
starboard bow. / There's Klingons on the starboard bow,
starboard bow, Jim!
Starship Captain, James T. Kirk
Kirk: Ha-ha! We come in peace, shoot to kill, / shoot to kill, / shoot to kill. / We come in peace, shoot to kill, / shoot to kill, men.
McCoy: It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim. / Dead, Jim. Dead, Jim. / It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim. Dead, Jim, Dead.
Spock: Well, it's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, / not as we know it. / It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, Captain.
Uhura: There's Klingons on the starboard bow, / starboard bow, starboard bow. / There's Klingons on the starboard bow, / scrape 'em off, Jim
Chorus: Star Trekking, across the universe, / On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk! / Star Trekking, across the universe, / Only going forward, and things are getting worse!
Engine[er| room], Mister Scott
Scotty: Ye canna change the laws of physics, / laws of physics, laws of physics! / Ye canna change the laws of physics, laws of physics, [yet|Jim]
Kirk: Oh, we come in peace, shoot to kill, / shoot to kill, shoot to kill! / We come in peace, shoot to kill, / Scotty, beam me up!
McCoy: It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim! / Dead, Jim! Dead, Jim! / It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim! Dead, Jim, Dead!
Spock: Well, it's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, / not as we know it. / It's life, Jim, but not as we know it, / not as we know it, Captain.
Uhura: There's Klingons on the starboard bow, / starboard bow, starboard bow. / There's Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, aaagain!
Scotty: Ye canna change the script, Jim!
McCoy: It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim!
Kirk: Bridge to engine room, warp factor nine!
Scotty: Ach! If I give 'er any more she'll blow[, Captain]!
Scotty: Ye canna change the status of the (auxiliary) ax'l engine eh?!
( loud boom )
Na..na..na..na..na..na..na..na..na
Chorus: Star Trekking, across the universe, / On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk! / Star Trekking, across the universe, / Only going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse!
Star Trekking, across the universe, / On the Starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk. / Star Trekking, across the universe, / Only going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Thank the Lameness filter for the formatting. Sheesh.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Throw in a young Khan Noonian Singh as he who cannot be named and you can pretty much recycle the script.
*you* may have already seen these classics; sadly, many of the younger viewers (I'm so ashamed of my generation ;) haven't, and might not even know they exist (hopefully not for King Kong, but definitely for some lesser known remakes). Besides, the new ones are soooo much cooler, because they're not black and white, and have totally awesomer special effects. And Tom Cruise.
"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
1. you already know they are going to live
2. We know the federation survives
3. I'm attached to the original characters and care about them but won't care about this unknown 20 something with an attitude
4. We all know they are going to pick a bunch of beautiful people to play the roles which is more unrealistic then star trek itself
5. What makes star trek so good are the bonds between the characters on the show, familiarity
6. You know they are going to have to make the Klingons bad guys because of the time period but I've gotten used to them being a allies.
Honestly if they want to go back in time they should base it on some unknowns rather than people we already know about. At least then I wouldn't be annoyed at this false representation of characters I know plus there would be the suspense of not knowing their future. You would have thought they had learned from Enterprise that going back in time is not a good idea. Honestly these people who own the ST franchise don't seem to understand what ST is all about. In the end, I look forward to any ST move but I don't think going back in time will do well. Hate to be negative but that's just the way I see it.
I saw the Serenity movie. I have seen several episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica. The geek/nerd in me just does not respond to either in the same way as I did to Star Trek TOS/TNG/DS9. The "sci-fi" shows that are popular of late seem too much like standard prime-time soap operas or television dramas, except for being set in space. BG is basically just a glorified "West Wing" in space. Remove the romance/drama and bring back the intellectual appeal of Star Trek.
Seriously, Paramount:
I'm sure Paramount thinks there's this loyal audience just itching to come back and in a sense they're right. Unfortunately, that loyal audience consists of the fans of Deep Space Nine, not the aging baby boomers who cared about Kirk and Spock back when they mattered... forty damn years ago. Back when there was no other sci-fi on TV. At this point, well, if you're not planning on being better than Battlestar Galactica, then we won't be needing you.
Ok, given that 1) Vulcan's live longer and Spock was believed to be about 10 years older than Kirk, and 2) Kirk and Spock outranked nearly everybody on the show, why should we believe that any of them would have been at the Academy at the same time.
If they're going to do a SF Academy movie, why not just use an original set of characters. Or for that matter, do one that starts with Picard winning the marathon.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Now I know I don't need to expend any more thought on your list because we obviously have very different taste in movies.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Wouldn't Picard's days at SA have been more interesting? I mean, he was a party animal, ladies man, and was stabbed through the heart in a fight. Sounds more interesting to me.
Being a Trek fan for the last, oh, 25 years, I REALLY think they need to step outside of Trek lore to create something that will be worth watching. Of course it probably won't happen, but with the commercial and/or critical successes of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly , Paramount needs to wakeup and realize that if they don't change soon, they risk the franchise as a whole.
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
If it's dead, you killed it.
Synopsis of proposed Brokeback Planet screenplay:
Ensign Sulu has longtime romantic affair with fellow cadet. Unfortunately they're assigned different starships after graduation. Every year they rondevous back in San Francisco (location of the Starfleet HQ and Academy) for a torrid affair, until the affair ends in tragedy.
(What did you expect when you locate Star Fleet Academy in San Francisco's Presido? [ currently occupied Industrial Light and Magic ])
Star Trek New Voyages is doing really well, and argues that TOS characters can be played by any skilled actor - just like in a LOTR play, a talented thesp could play Gandalf, and the same theory could be applied to Kirk, Spock, etc. in producing new TOS productions. (Hence, New Voyages)
And then all of a sudden, a new Kirk and Spock movie is announced by the Big Guns. Coincidence?
I had been waiting for news of a new series similiar to STNG set after the Voyager timeline. I would love to have even seen a continuation of DS9. I hated the idea of Enterprise from the start and it was a failure but at least it was watchable. So what do they go and do, create another prequel based on two of the worst ideas, younger TOS characters and the ST Academy. I have been hearing the prequel and ST Academy crap for years and hoped it would never come true.
Drown the bloody thing at birth, it's a devils spawn. This will not work!!! Can we please, PLEASE bring back DS9?! I want to know what happened to Sisko, damnit, and it's the only Star Trek series I would seriously consider watching.
i wish abrams would get busy killing 'alias' (which has been meandering for far too long) and get back to 'lost' (which could use a little guidance to move it along a little)...
;p
but this movie seems interesting. just as long as they don't cast sean william scott as kirk and Wilmer Valderrama as spock.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
You want a good Star Trek movie? Make it dark. Make it bleak, inhospitable, and moody.
The ingredients of a good Trek film:
* dark, apocalyptic feel
* an excellent Bad Guy who far outshines all the Good Guys combined
* brutal space warfare - not sanitized like in many films, but a grudge-match between two well matched ships, with massive casualties on all sides.
* lots of death and mayhem - no drawn-out goodbyes, no supreme-acts-of-sacrifice, but hard cold death.
* Kirk (or his equivilant) being at the very end of his rope, but managing to (barely) pull one last desperate rabbit out of his hat.
* terrible events that test the will, the resolve, and the loyalty of all involved
finally...
* An ending that isn't feel-good, but leaves you in awe and wonder. To borrow from Star Wars, picture the scene with Luke burning Vader's corpse and everyone realizing what's changed, without all the dancing and singing Ewoks.
Wrath of Khan was hands-down the greatest ST movie of all time. While there's some argument about #2, it seems most people place First Contact in that slot, again being one of their darkest. Voyage Home is an oddity - the most lighthearted one, yet the stakes were the absolute end of life on Earth, and it was very immediate... not just an abstraction. Also, it's humor was masterfully done. Even the original movie was one of the better ones, and it was dark as night, just not that well executed.
Please no more sappy Trek films. Insurrection was possibly worse than The Final Frontier, and Nemesis was too cute in it's badness. A few nasty moments, but very very poorly executed (and no budget).
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
Don't forget 'Two Kirks, A Khan & A Pizza Place'.
"When I hang my telecommunicator on the door, it means DON'T come in! Jeez, the last time you did that.. well, let's just say finding out that your ears aren't the ONLY pointy part was pretty freakin' weird, OK?"
A Serenity sequel? That's just what we need! We'll call it Serenity II: The Search for Steve the Pirate!
A series or movie set in Starfleet Academy must be character based. It can't be adventure based, because if I know my Star Trek writers and management, by the time they're done "amping up" the drama and adventure, the dominant question in your head at the end of Season One or the movie is why they don't just make Kirk a captain right now. (Especially for a series, where he'll have done it several times.)
It's just not an adventure if the Fate Of Humanity isn't on the line, no?
But Star Trek hasn't had good character writing for a long time now. One must conclude, given the number of writers that have passed through, that this is a management problem, and not just a writing problem. Remember, even if you dislike B&B, which I think is reasonable, there's another layer above them that thinks they're just peachy, and even if they replaced B&B, you'd likely end up with The Sons of B&B.
I think that because of these structural failings in the franchise, that the ability of Paramount to pull of a Star Trek Academy movie or series is just not there.
Don't think some Paramount executive somewhere hasn't given that idea some serious consideration at some point. Corporate synergy! New paradigms! "High-profile tentpoles!"
The plot of this new movie is actually what they pitched for the first movie 30-odd years ago.
Will the Klingons be the BumpyHead varity or the Looks like humans with swarthy skin tones and sahses kind.
I suppose it'l have to be the "bumpyhead" kind becuase they were also shown in Enterprise. The Human looking kind from TOS must have been "kabuki" klingons.
it's a scifi remake
the computer will clearly reprogram kirk first!
well, there goes what little rating I have here
I think I'll skip Star Trek and stick with the new Doctor Who. Just think, a show I can watch with my nine-year-old son (can't even consider that with Galactica -- start rant oh, god a future with square skinny eyeglasses and World War II era ship intercoms. end rant) I could think of a hundred better plots for a new Star Trek, none of which involve Kirk and Spock in the academy. Lots of loose ends from TOS that could be brought back and turned into a movie.
I mostly agree with you except regarding Enterprise, which really started to approach TNG in quality toward the end. I'm not sure why you couldn't call it Star Trek.
That said, this is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE idea. Who gives a shit about Kirk and Spock's academy years?
Give us the adventures of the Enterprise-B or -C. Give us a COMPLETELY NEW STORY - something that can stand on its own as Star Trek. How about a story about the frontier - that's only been briefly explored with the Maquis. Something going on with civilians at the edge - or beyond - recognized Federation space.
Something NEW, for God's sake. PLEASE. This movie as they explain it to us is going to be DeGrassi Junior High in space.
+++ATH0
Lost creator J.J. Abrams writing for the James T. Kirk character?
Excessive dramatic pause meets excessive commercial breaks. Excellent!
http://puvodni.startrek.cz/download/wall13.jpg
Personally, I think it would be kind of neat to 'update' that look like they did in the last season of the much-maligned Enterprise, but I wonder if Joe Q. Public will tolerate it?
Paramount should really consider putting this idea direct to video!
w henkirkmetspock.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/troyzilla/
Seriously http://www.starwreck.com/
Another piece of canon is that Vulcans live much longer then humans. Combine this with the canon fact that Kirk is the youngest captain and it seems pretty unlikely that they were at the academy together.
Certainly no existing piece of official fiction puts them together.
Now to ruin any chances of me ever picking up a girl on slashdot. In the star trek novel "Enterprise: The first adventure" by Vonda N. McIntyre we are in fact told the story of them meeting. A young Kirk takes over command from Pike and meets his new crew members. The already serving Uhura, Scotty, Janice Rand and Spock and the also newly arrived Sulu and McCoy.
We also get a glimpse of Mitch (who gets mentioned in the original series a couple of times as an academy friend of Kirk) and Carol (the divorced wive? from the movies)
It is one of those stories that work for real fans because it ties everyone together. I am a sucker for these pre-quel things when they are done right.
So yes your right, TV-series/movie canon does not put them together at the academy at the time of their study, and novel canon is clear they only meet for real as Kirk takes command of the Enterprise.
IF the movie is really going to put them in the same class it will really upset fans and totally scream "we don't give a fuck" to the hardcore fans. Wich are the people Star Trek movies need. They need those hardcore people to make sure that even if a movie fails it still sells enough tickets to the fans that will see any ST movie just because.
It is offcourse an old problem. If you create an expanded universe then you got a rich world to base your stories in but you are also going to run into restrictions because characters will develop a real history with a timeline you can't just ignore at will.
Well you can but it doesn't sit well with the fans.
But lets not overreact shall we. All it says that we will see a younger Kirk and Spock at the academy. Perhaps it will be a split time episode where they each do their part of the story but at different point in times never meeting. Now that would be Sci-Fi.
Yeah right. Who am I kidding.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Then there is the "fact" that Spock already served aboard the Enterprise before Kirk. A fact from the tv-series. Not any book.
I don't get the idea at all from the movie at least (haven't got the book at the moment) that Spock did the test with him. Their is a book about it, the kobashi maru, that tells the full tale and that of Scotty, Chekov and Sulu taking the trial on their own. Spock is not mentioned.
So for real fans the canon definitly tells us that Spock and Kirk were not at the academy together.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Star Trek: The Menacing Phantom" gets terrible reviews, meanwhile, civil rights groups are up in arms over perceived racial stereotyping as members of a pre-Borg civilization appear to demonstrate predominately "white" traits.
"It's entirely personal, though at one remove."
Even if everybody agrees the series has been milked to death we still can't agree when dead set in.
For fans of TOS it is clear. TNG with its 80's feel-good atmosphere and endless meetings was the beginning of the end. A counseler? We don't need no freaking counselers. Fuck it or Kill it Kirk style!
Others loved DS9, a show with not just 1 kid but 2. An offence punishable by death.
Voyager? Well, I always believed that Star Trek was a sorta reflection of America. TOS we got power but that doesn't always make us right. TNG lets have a meeting and then make one rule for us and one for everyone else. DS9 Lets make allies and then betray them for short term intrests. (Anyone finding the screwing over off the klingons and the koerds oddly similar, both helped defeat a powerfull enemy and then were left to rot when it was convenient?) Voyager, we are right and that makes us right so we can never be wrong.
Oh perhaps I am just reading to much into stuff.
Just remains funny that for all the complaints about to many series there will still be a rabid fanbase for every new series.
Oh and I didn't mention Enterprise because I can't stomach it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We should remember that Starfleet Acadamy is ostensibly somewhere near CalTech, so you need to get some Real Genius type stuff going on...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Hey! CleverNickName!!! You doin' anything??
yes i am a complete geek. but this sounds if nothing else like a breath of fresh air. except the old, you know, re-using characters thing. it seems "prequel" and recent sci-fi prequels have failed to deliver on expectations.
maybe they should skip forward a few hundred more years from TNG and start fresh again?
MORTAR COMBAT!
This is stupid, realy. There are so many realy good star trek books that could be turned into movies its not even funny. Paramount should start working with people like peter david and christie golden and come up with a movie that realy kicks ass.
...the Federation as Root Beer analogy...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Yeah, Firefly is great if you like character development. Personally, though, I like a little science in my science fiction.
Hear me out. Firefly was a great show. Watchable and very well-written. But it didn't have a whole lot of, you know, science. The emphasis is entirely NOT on the futuristic technology. We have hospitals and guns and... well, magic. The show would be less snazzy as a straight Western, but it would still work perfectly well if you subtracted seven hundred years from the timeframe, you know what I'm saying? This is at the same time what makes it so potentially appealing to the mainstream and so unsatisfactory to me, a geek. The show is set in a well-structured universe, culturally, but Joss Whedon is not a scientist and the cool-technology-loving portion of my television-watching mind recognises this.
I would describe Firefly as more "space fiction" than science fiction, and best consumed as part of a balanced diet of scifi.
qntm.org
Star Trek is over. They had their chance to keep up with the times in terms of writing (Battlestar Galatica makes it clear it doesn't matter what the technology is, as long as the characters are solid and the storylines are good and relevant. No one wants to watch a show about cooperation and peace and happiness and the federation when that's clearly not the direction we're heading. A show about the nearly total destruction of mankind somehow just seems more apropos.
Hell, Paramount probably only asked Abrams after asking Moore and being told to go fuck themselves.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
You. Me. A barren planet to serve as our battlefield.
It's GO time.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
JJ Abrams and his WHAT????
Will be featured in the script at some point...
If not then the movie will suck.
Not sure if a spelled that right.
Uhh... how is BSG not intellectual? It deals with civil rights, what it means to be human, the role of the military and government, and a myriad of other issues, and it does it very well, unlike the preachy, hackneyed ST:TOS. 'course, don't get me wrong, I love TOS, but if you're looking for real depth, I think BSG is the superior program.
Incidentally, I would claim that BSG is living up to the real intent of sci-fi better than most other shows before it. The writers realize that the science part of sci-fi is simply a vehicle for telling a story using devices and settings that would otherwise be unavailable to them. The real problem with many sci-fi shows is that they usually just devolve to simple deus ex machina, and BSG has generally avoided that pitfall.
Hear, hear!
I was going to say something similar, that is, that the only real way out is to pull a Dallas.
Star Trek's big contribution to the world is not about space stuff, it's about humanity:
It's not just the little morality plays of the first series. When they went to the big screen, they made the huge mistake of assuming we just all wanted to see a rehash of the same old faces, without the substance. The result was a seriously bad movie, unquestionably the worst of the Star Trek movies and arguably bad by many standards. Then they followed with one of the best movies of all time, not just best of Star Trek, best of any movie. It's in my all-time top-10.
Wrath of Kahn is not only an outstandingly well put together movie, but it broke ground on movies in a new way that, to my knowledge, had not been seriously done before, or not that effectively. Instead of treating the aging of a character as a weakness (as in Bond or Superman movies where they eventually replace the actor but always behave as if he does not age), they turned it to a strength and taught us about aging. They let the character's wisdom grow and they presented not just seasoned actors but characters befitting those seasoned actors.
To do it in reverse, is to return to the Bond/Superman fallacy--that what we want is more of the people. Sure we do, if we could. But their time has largely come and gone and we cannot go back. That was the message of the Star Trek movies. Life moves on, and you live with it.
To try to restart those characters is to ask for too much. It is to take no risks. Gene took a risk with Next Generation in going to a new crew, and showed the formula could survive the transition. But those entrusted with Gene's legacy didn't stick to formula in Enterprise, and now the studio has learned nothing and wants to simply return to clinging to straws rather than analyze the mistakes.
It's not inconceivable that a trip to Star Fleet academy could make an excellent series, but it's handicapped by trying to lock into Kirk and Spock. Get new characters.
What really killed Enterprise was a lack of purpose. I hope they reanalyze the purpose, or the "motive" as so many actors would say... "What's my motive?" The studio's motive seemed to be money and greed and milking a thought-naive audience, and the not-so-naive audience called them on it.
Star Trek took risks, but could reinvent itself weekly. Another thing Enterprise blew was that the new framework was so constraining (the long-arc time-travel story) that when it didn't work, there was no easy out. Let a thousand flowers bloom. Solicit stories from the community. Take some chances.
An academy might be about the unwritten future, except that we've already read the future. We know who will live and who will die unless there are new characters. That eliminates suspense. Enterprise also missed a huge chance to be funny. It presented a world before everything technological was debugged, and where the storylines might be as much about technical failure as success. But then it never used that. Will this new series really use its campus to its capability? It won't if it ties its hands too much with constraints of other series... Let it go free.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
If he can screw up Star Wars, think of what he could do with Star Trek.
Seriously, what is this need to create a huge backstory for these characters, with them all knowing each other? I preffer for these three individuals, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, to be three seperate individuals who led very different and seperate lives before they joined up on the Enterprise.
Maybe even have Kirk have a long history of hating the Vulcans for some reason. (Rascist perhaps.) That would lend more dramatic power to the Kirk/Spock bond many years later.
Have McCoy traveling around the universe with his parents who were entertainers. Live a life two rungs from the bottom of the social ladder. So he decides to become a doctor because everyone admires doctors. Then he turns his back on his parents, who he is ashamed of. Even have the love of his life meet his parents and take their side. She insists that McCoy should love his parents which he can not. So she lives him. At some heartbreak on top of heartbreak. (Sort of puts into perspective his "grouchiness" on the Enterprise.)
Have Spock be anything but the controlled, devout Vulcan on the Enterprise. Maybe he was a wild teen, caught up in drugs and killing people, until he one day woke up to find himself surrounded by the misery of life. He embraced the Vulcan traditions because they gave him stability in life to rise above. Maybe even add in some father-son conflict which we know existed thanks to ST:TNG.
Why in the hell do you dump these three characters at starfleet, and basically try to recreate the same show just with a different setting? Do something new and innovative. Having Kirk and Spock being friends at the academy makes no sense. It dilutes the history that they will have in the future.
And most likely Bones will be played by...bones.
Harry Mudd: Think positive, laddie-bucks!
Wow ... a new Star Trek movie that takes place when Kirk and Spock are at the academy ..... again.
Every single new series and every single new movie announced, this has always been the plotline everyone has assumed it was going to be .. and it never happens. I don't care where this information came from, it's BS.
Has to include Stiffler's mom.
I'm gonna go see this because J.J. Abrams is such hot name in the industry. At least that's what Paramount is hoping. But I know him as the guy that completely fucked up Alias whenever he meddled. He name is attached to Lost, but that show is only doing good because Abrams has left his grubby little hands off of it.
For those who don't watch Alias, they have a recurring story about people chasing the artifacts of an ancient inventor (Rimbaldi). When it was a mystery, it was somewhat fascinating. By the end of last season, they reveal that it was a zombie making machine. Needless to say, I haven't tuned in this season.
The idea behind the movie has already been repeatedly rejected by the fans. This is the same slap I've felt from Paramount back when they decided to leave Berman and Bragga in charge for Enterprise. A complete and utter contempt for their fans, but they want our money all the same. But you know what, this time I'm done. I'll wait till all those muthafuckers die off and then I'll give Star Trek a shot again.
Why not go with the current trend "Star Trek Returns"
Worked for Batman and Superman
I'm on the Berman-Haters bandwagon as well. But I will give him credit for basically defining the modern Trek Formula with TNG (Space Opera+Soap Opera=Ratings).
If there's anything remarkable about TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT is that it's basically the same show with different characters and it lasted an eternity in television-time.
Basically when it came down to it, it was decided that it would be better to leech the existing fanbase by churning out the same Berman-Trek Formula rather than trying anything different. Eventualy people got bored and left, but that was by design and not until Viacom had made boatloads of cash.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Please tell me that murderer of the trek franchise, Rick Berman, is not involved...Please. I've seen Trek go from fun sci-fi to inconsistent, technobabblish, weepy crap under his reign, and despise him for it.
I'm pretty sure I saw in the interviews on ST: The Motion Picture that one of Paramount's ideas for a followup to The Original Series was Kirk and Spock as cadets at the Academy, but Roddenberry hated the idea. Also wasn't Star Trek VI supposed to be an Academy movie? Is there no one at Paramount or in charge of Trek with new ideas? Oh wait, nevermind. That's been obvious for years.
[Garak takes a drink of root beer]
Quark: What do you think?
Elim Garak: It's vile.
Quark: I know. It's so bubbly and cloying and happy.
Elim Garak: Just like the Federation.
Quark: And you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it.
Elim Garak: It's insidious.
Quark: Just like the Federation.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
First of all, I see no actor that can play Kirk or Spock. If an actor tries to imitate Shatner or Nimoy, the result would be ridiculus; no one actor can imitate another one 100%. Shatner and Nimoy were special because they enriched their roles with their own personal elements. If, on the other hand, the new actors do not try to act like Kirk or Spock, then the whole thing will not be believable enough.
Secondly, what the audience needs is not a new movie, but a new series. Star Trek can not be done right unless it is done in a series format. Take DS9, for example. It would be impossible to offer even a glimpse of DS9 in a movie; it is just impossible. Star Trek has a lot of things to say in each episode; 99% of those things will be lost in a movie.
Thirdly, the academy setting will just not work. It is not possible to realistically show larger-than-life characters "saving the world" in larger-than-life situations while these characters are very young people. It is not believable enough, especially when the audience has already watched how 'larger-than-life' characters should be. Just like Indiana Jones/Superman - the early years did not work, so will happen with young Kirk/Spock.
Forthly, people are interested to see what happened to the Star Trek universe in the future. If one checks the related forums and messageboards, what every Star Trek fan wants is to see the Star Trek universe evolve, rather than go back.
Furthermore, Star Trek is about exploration...it is not a land-based show. You can simply not explore the universe in a Star Trek academy setting, no matter how genius the writers are. There are so many opportunities in the Star Trek universe, I do not see why they are ignored. A few clicks in related forums will persuade everyone as to what Star Trek fans want.
Lastly, I would like to say that Gene Rodenberry's vision came to its zenith with Star Trek - The Next Generation. During TNG, the president (Reagan) came to the sets to get a glimpse of a possible future; the greatest scientists showed interest, and one of them even played in one of the episodes (Stephen Hawking); NASA experts were involved in many episodes; we saw Einstein and Newton. And all that because TNG was about physics (fake one, but still interesting), about philosophy, about what is life, about astronomy, about artificial intelligence, about a utopian society, about first contact with alien civilisations, about anything positive the current civilization has achieved or wants to achieve. And guess what...people really liked that! I agree that DS9 was better written, but DS9 was a soap opera in space more than anything else. It was about the personal relationships of the crew more than anything else. But the DS9 stories could easily be told in another setting that had nothing to do with space...but the TNG stories were impossible to be told without being in space!
So, dear Paramount, we want a new TNG-like series (with a tiny drop of DS9 thrown in). We need damn serious people like Picard; we need intelligent androids like Data; we need warriors who put honour above else, like Worf (and not the caricature Klingons we saw in the other series); we need our brains to be stimulated with episodes like Darmok (for example). We do not need another war, nor we need to see all the practical jokes of 20 year olds in the Starfleet Academy. We need to say young people that embrace science, like Wesley Crusher. It does not have to be exact TNG (the characters are getting old!), but the TNG format was the most successful of all times.
So, dear Paramount, think again really carefully about the Starfleet Academy movie. All things point to being a total failure...and a total failure at this point will put the final nail in the coffin of Star Trek!
Kirk and Spock? I suppose it's possible, but it just doesn't make sense. It sounds more like let's recapture our pissed away glory by going back to our roots and making a feel good buddy picture about how Kirk and Spock met and became best friends! Nevermind "Where No Man Has Gone Before", no one actually remembers any of that shit anymore. We sure don't!
Yeah, I suppose it's entirely plausible that Spock rose through the ranks much slower than Kirk did because of being half-vulcan (even though that sort of racism wouldn't really fit in with Roddenberry's rosie vision of the future), and that Gary Mitchell wasn't as important a friend as he appeared to be in the second pilot.
My wet dream at this point would be an original series re-imagining a la Battlestar Galactica, but more faithful to the original. I dream about what that Enterprise would look like rendered in modern CGI. The kinds of stories that could be done without being in the middle of an era full of hippies.
Or at least the thrilling adventures of Kelso n' Riley.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Vulcan Love Slave.... thats all I have to say on this matter :-P
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Oh cripes! Haven't we had enough of the "older" Star Trek. They've dragged their feet for the longest time, made several serious mistakes which did some serious damange to the Star Trek franchise.
It's time for something new and innovative.
I love Star Trek, of course; however, it's time for a change. They should take a few steps back to understand why other shows failed, apply that understanding to newer directions that appeal to our current society. And for God sakes, hire new writers and creators!
Make it interesting, not a constant re-telling of old, dated material.
Are you high? That's like lauding the femenist ideals of 'Jugs' magazine. Star Trek doesn't have an intellectual appeal. It has a techno-fetishist appeal. With the exception of DS9, 90% of trek fare is insipid morality plays with earth-shattering messages like 'nuclear war is bad' and 'racism is wrong'.
If you actually watch Star Trek with a critical eye you begin to realize that there is no actual canon, or even characterization. Every female character is either a heavily emotion driven mother figure or a spunky warrior woman (tomboy), or if you go back to the old series, a secretary or a nurse. There are no hard and fast rules in the Star Trek world. The Federation has a prime directive, but its routinely violated by every captain we've seen. The captains always approach such situations as if something like this has never come up in the whole history of the Federation, as opposed to three times in the previous season, series or decade. Doesn't the federation have a fucking supreme court to set precedent?
Look, I used to love Trek, because it was the only thing going, and because I was 15 and didn't know any better. I also used to be really into G.I. Joe, but these are things we get over, you know. I don't know what leads you to believe that Trek is in ANY way intellectual. Idealistic maybe, but not intellectual. Tell me why you think it is and I'll describe in detail why you're wrong.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
A fair point. Although I didn't see the original BSG characters as being terribly well-developed either. (I've never seen the new series.)
As for the "Animal House meets Star Trek" movie, I've refined my casting a little:
Owen Wilson - James T. Kirk
Vince Vaughn - Spock
Ben Stiller - Bones McCoy
Mike Myers - Scotty
Lindsay Lohan - Nursing Student Chapell
Ashley Olsen - Janice Rand (in high school near the Academy)
Mary Kate Olsen - Anne Rand (Janice's evil twin)
Frankie Muniz - Randy Rand (just to complete the obligatory minor-character family subplot)
William Shatner - Admiral Dean Wormer (Ooh! Aren't we clever with our casting!)
Jim Carrey - Kahn Noonian Singh (re-defined as Kirk's arch-rival at the Academy)
Brent Spiner - Dr. Noonian Soong (young, swinging, but absent-minded professor of Robotics)
The major plot would center around Kirk dragging Spock and Bones off on drunken binges, Kirk putting the moves on a high school student (Janice Rand), then getting Anne Rand "in trouble" in a case of mistaken identity, and almost getting beaten up by her scrawny brother. Bones, meanwhile, has the hots for Chapell, but she ends up sleeping with Professor Soong.
When Kirk staggers in for his Kobayashi Maru exam with a pounding hangover, he re-programs the simulation, getting the highest mark in the class, much to the disgust of Kahn, who spent all week preparing for the exam, and would have been the first student in Academy history to solve the scenario legitimately if Kirk's re-programming hadn't messed up his solution. He vows revenge on Kirk, yaddah yaddah.
Near the end of the movie, after Admiral Dean Wormer puts the Delta Quadrant House on "double... secret... PROBATION!", the gang takes a road trip in an Academy shuttle, and quite accidentally saves the life of a high-ranking admiral, earning Kirk command of the newly-commissioned Enterprise. (Captain Pike's command is conveniently forgotten.)
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Wil Wheaton as Kirk!!!!
Kirk and Spock? The future of Star Trek rests on a movie that sounds completely lame and will only interest a select few Star Trek fans? It annoys me that I've waited this long for ANOTHER movie about Kirk. When can we find out what happened after the Dominion War? I'm thoroughly disgusted.
Will the Academy be located on an island or at SD-6?
way around... They wanted the character to continue but she didn't want to be stuck doing Star Trek anymore, so they killed her character because they couldn't explain her absence and Worf's presence.
You're right, of course. But I chose to disregard reality in order to make a comment I liked more.
I never understood why she couldn't hold out for just one more season, but I don't really care either. Ezri is the superior Dax.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The plan to do an Academy series with a young Kirk and Spock has been around for a very, very long time, even predating the Motion Picture. It didn't even get as far along as the "Star Trek 2" TV series concept in the 70's, not all that long after TOS was cancelled. Prior to Enterprise, the other big alternative to Enterprise would have been a TV series again based at Starfleet Academy, but with a whole new crew (possibly following the whole Red Squadron or whatever it was that represented the elite cadets).
Personally, no matter how many people flame Enterprise, a lot of the episodes were better than any of the Ferengi madness and we love the Bajoran religion episodes of DS9, and certainly better than some other schlocky Sci Fi that we've had lately (Threshold, Andromeda, gah).
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
By creating another one? The problem with it would be the same as it was with Enterprise. You know where everything has to go. I wouln't mind a series based on the Enterprise B or the Enterprise C, as long as they didn't feel the need to introduce some gimmicky temporal meddling to make "exciting" episodes.
The problem with Enterprise B is you've seen it's crew and the beginning of it's voyages. The problem with Enterprise C is you've seen it's crew and know it's fate.
What they need to do is create a new series that will be based sometime after the Dominion War. Not so far after that you run into more time travel and not to close so that you feel the need to keep characters from TNG, DS9, or Voyager. If you do have surviving characters they should be the Vulcans from those groups or maybe Odo.
What I'm trying to say is, Do something new for a change.