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Nimoy May Be the Star of the Next Trek Film?
ajs writes "Moriarty, over on Ain't It Cool News is running a column about the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. In it, he discusses some theories about where the movie is going, but doesn't reveal his sources. He claims that Nimoy's Spock, not the younger versions of the original Trek trio, will be the primary star of the film; and that the movie will make some very substantial changes to the Trek lore in a way that is internally consistent with what went before, but opens up many more options for future franchise films or series. If he's right, there are some pretty substantial spoilers in the column." Obviously, as unverifiable speculation this should be taken with a grain of salt. Live long and prosper.
I sure hope they don't pull a George Lucas by changing the past storyline to better align with the future series that have already been produced (eg. TNG, DS9, Voyager).
And with Doohan having passed on, there's already a very essential element missing. You just can't have Spock without Scotty.
someone may remake the vaunted 'Spock's Brain' episode into a feature-length film! THERE'S A PLOT!
He's 76 years old. Kind of hard to do action scenes, ain't it? What will he be doing the whole movie? Debating Vulcan philosophy?
"very substantial changes to the Trek lore in a way that is internally consistent with what went before, but opens up many more options for future franchise films or series"
There will be a tachyon anomaly that will give all the old characters characteristics of the new actors that play them.
This is just baseless speculation. It sounds like this guy just pulled the whole thing out of his bunghole. Then again I have to admit I've always hated AICN.
An article that is definitely News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.
Cool.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Hopefully it will not be a musical Aaaahhh!
Although if Captain Kirk shows up, even properly aged, he can sing amusing songs, now and then.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You can't exactly expect someone who isn't Roddenberry to be Roddenberry. Abrams will have his 5 minutes of fame here; but I really don't see his movie being a box office hit. Maybe it will have a strong opening day due to nostalgia; but other than that, it will flop if he's really changing things. I have over a year to tie the noose. Who else wants to be in the lynch mob?
The game.
I'm fine with JJ blowing the canon open. Caveat: I'm not a Trek fan.
I appreciate that die hard fans will be upset by that, however my feeling is that Star Trek has basically had about 12 plot lines that have essentially been recycled in various guises throughout all the seasons. They've finally flogged that deceased horse one too many times.
The fundamental issues I see is the utopian nature of the universe Roddenberry created. Ignoring the probability or possibility of human nature being so utterly warped into an utopia (I personally can't suspend my disbelief that far), as a basis for a TV or movie it's all very nice and all, but it makes for dull writing and little drama.
You're left with creating drama by have characters behave out of character by alien possession or secret starfleet order etc etc etc. Or time travel (which is a clichéd story, almost always in any medium - paradox, protect timeline, yawn blah blah, seen it a thousand times)
No, Star Trek needs its ass kicked. I'm not entirely sure that JJ Abrams is the best guy to do that, but he's probably better than anyone who's been in charge of that franchise for the past 20 years.
This has to mean there's more time travel. They should have renamed the franchise "Time Trek". Let me guess, old Spock travels the to past, ie the era in which the film is set, and does something that (supposedly) ties up assorted loose plot ends. Sigh.
(Mind, I've got nothing against a good time travel yarn. Operative word being "good".)
-- Alastair
...wasn't he always?
Frankly, the biggest problem the Star Trek franchise has is its own fans.
There's a big difference between being respectful of a story and hamstringing yourself to meet some fanboy's idea of "canon." There are long and drawn-out discussions all the time in Trek fandom about how this one inconsequential element of some story doesn't mesh with years of backstory which is itself internally inconsistent. They can't seem to let go of these whiny nitpicks.
Look at the new Battlestar Galactica -- Ronald D. Moore took the old BSG "canon" and completely ignored it. He realized that from a storytelling standpoint it would be too limiting to bother sticking with the old story -- after the destruction of nearly every human being, going to a "casino planet" is a betrayal of what could be an incredible storyline. RDM took the essence of what BSG was -- humanity is on the run against an insidious and implacable enemy and reduced it to its essentials. The result is infinitely better than what came before.
I hope J.J. Abrams has the pure chutzpah to do just that with Star Trek. Reinvent the franchise. Give it new life. Change things around and craft a story that can attract a new generation of fans rather than appealing to the people who spend all their life studying the minutiae of the shows.
At its core, Star Trek is Horatio Hornblower in space -- a valiant young captain and his intrepid crew going out an exploring a new frontier. The new film should be true to that spirit, but if J.J. Abrams just sticks to what comes before, he's passing up on an artistic opportunity.
I've been a fan of Star Trek all my life, but the franchise grew stale and repetitive. This is the chance to give it new life, and in order to do that J.J. Abrams will have to royally piss off a lot of Star Trek fans who indignantly demand that the series match their vision of what Star Trek should be. If he does it right, a whole lot of Trekkers will be calling for his head, but the franchise will (dare I say it), live long and prosper after years of neglect.
It's crap, Jim, but not as we know it.
Startrek has a problem. Wait, before you gather your torches and pitchforks hear me out.
The problem is: Startrek is really old. That is not said that it is bad - I quite enjoyed TOS when it ran on TV, and I rather liked most of the "sequels" (like TNG, DS9, Voyager, etc.) to a certain degree. I loved the movies. But Startrek, or rather the Startrek universe has become the equivalent of really old code. The kind of code that was written when C was at it's peak and because the application was good and functional it just has been extended and rewritten over the time. And now you are standing in from of 50k lines of code, some in C, some in C++, some ported from C to C++, all written by several dozens of different editors (with different styles and paradigms) with over the last two decades. And someone had the bright idea to use assembler to squeeze some out some MS from an inner loop. Short, a demonic cross between a patchwork quilt made from used yarn and spaghetti-code. And now you are supposed to implement that new shining feature - without breaking anything.
The Startrek universe is riddled with minor and major plotholes and inconsistencies. Of course, many of the got patched and re-patched when the popped up, but every time a new story is added to the canon some more or less obscure fact will exist to prove the inverse. Of course, the tools to patch them up exist - including the dreaded RETCON - but still there is too much too contradictory information.
So what would you, the programmer do, if faced with the demonic code mentioned earlier and the prospect of managing it for the next forseeable future. Use the well-know way and write on or be bold and pull the plug and start from (almost) scratch?
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Abrams is simply doing a retread and once the dust settles people will go back to being tired of Roddenberry's creation.
This is a complete retread, why bother? There is so much left unexplored in the Trek Universe, now if he was giving me the story of Kirk's younger brother, who rebelled and became a smuggler, then we might have something. Tell me the story of the people who aren't military officers, much loved by their quadrant spanning government.
We are all just people.
Honestly, and I've been following this kind of crap my whole life (30 + yrs.), so please don't take this the wrong way. But we, as a few of the better minds around, should have something better to do with our time. Do what we can with the limited resources we have to make this a better world. Don't screw around with this garbage YET AGAIN. We've been over this fantasy shit over and over and over. We have more important and complex issues to occupy ourselves. /plea
I am not an animal! I am something worse!
Does this mean that Spock will become the new R. Daneel Olivaw? babysitting the galaxy until in grows up enough to get by without him?
Yep, they worked well together and gave that series most of its charm.
But they aren't required for a "Star Trek" episode or movie or series.
There is so much material out there. Why don't any of the "writers" use it? Look at what most people consider the "best" Star Trek movie. You know which it was. And it was written with the restriction of being based off of a single episode.
Why does it always come back to getting the original cast into the "new" material? I'm sure that people here can come up with ten different, decent concepts that do NOT involve any of the established characters or contravene established canon. Why can't the writers do that?
PP is not a troll, he's right.
Star Trek has been out of new plot ideas since about season 4 of TNG. It was apparent when they made DS9 into a Babylon-5 ripoff, it was obvious all throughout Voyager and and it should have been apparent to even to a retarded 3-hour-old tribble after the Nazi episode of Enterprise. Departure from canon = good.
Sincerely, a former Trek fan.
0 1 - just my two bits
Better than that Gandalf guy, though he wasn't bad.
Also, I'm not a big trekkie, but I thought Nimoy had a literally emmy-level performance in that episode of STTNG, where he played an aged Spock on the planet of the Romulans. I suppose he probably never even got considered though.
- Alaska Jack
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Have you seen any of that? They have him getting a JOB. That is beyond stupid. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a script or camera or editing room.
I find this choice of lead actor to be highly illogical.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
They've already done a Trek where they used the "but its not the same timeline" excuse to muck up the history. It was called "Enterprise", and it tanked. I saw nothing in TFA that would indicate this idea would do any better. Yes, Paramount needs to attract new fans. But they need to do so without pissing off the old ones.
;-)
Instead of trying to redo the same old story with whats left of a aging and thinning available cast, they should take a hint from "The Next Generation" and move further in to the future with a new series and new characters.
Or give us a movie based on DS9
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Eww. Is K/S going to be the new goatse.cx around here? :-P
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
If they set it "in the future" of the franchise, when Kirk, Bones and Scotty have all died, then it could free them from the usual constraints. We may even see an intelligent story result from that.
before it becomes as idiotic as episodes I - III or even Dragon Ball Z ...*shudders*
On these boards. Abrams or writers are reading here.
I fear that we'll soon have a market for "Kirk shot first!" T-shirts.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Actually, Kirk's brother Sam was killed in an episode of the original Star Trek.
Since the existing Star Treks are not internally consistent it is not logical to propose that a new one can be.
The part where Sylar eats his brain and takes his powers!
I'm sick and tired of the maintainers of the Star Trek franchise trying to recapture the Original Series style and universe. That series failed for a reason. It had such a good movie run due to Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelly, as well as the epic nature of the stories. In the latter respect, the movies were successful because in style and substance they were the opposite of the failed series.
Star Trek: TNG was by far the most expansive and interesting universe, and has always been far and away the fan favorite. I don't mean by self-styled critics who ramble on about emotional dynamics and relationships. Star Trek: TNG was popular because first and foremost because of Patrick Stewart, but second because it, like the Original Series movies, cast the ordinary in the extraordinary.
Teenage boys and middle aged men and women did not watch Star Trek: TNG for character development and intricate relationships. They watched it because it rose above the trash on the rest of television, because it had ethics and virtue and told us what was right and what was wrong, and set things right by the end of every hour. Star Trek: TNG was a Greek morality play in a fantastically imaginative, yet intimately believable universe.
It was NOT Dawson's Creek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer in space. It NOT not a campy western in space.
Until the caretakers of the franchise look back and understand this, they will continue to fail to recapture that success.
I don't even watch Trek anymore but I swear to God, if they make this movie all Kirk/Spock I'm going to beat Abrams to death with his own severed limbs.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Live long, and milk a series for all it's worth. I lost interest after First Contact.
http://www.firsttvdrama.com/enterprise/index.php3
... well there were two problems.
Excellent reviews of Enterprise and WHY it sucked. Not really about the Star Trek universe. More about telling the stories in that universe. And isn't that what this is all about?
http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/trek/0.html
I hope that guy's bandwidth can take the hit. He has GREAT ideas about how to "fix" the Star Trek universe itself. Why DOES a phaser heat rocks AND vaporize enemies? How does a trasporter work? "Logically" within the framework provided.
The problem that Star Trek had
#1. It was episodic and the "technology" was altered from episode to episode to suit the writer of that episode.
#2. Roddenberry was fixated on the current (at the time) social issues and how to portray them in his series. That's why you have the first inter-racial kiss and a Russian working with a Chinese on a "USS" ship. Where's the gay captain today? The Islamic first officer?
Star Trek sucks now because the stories suck. And the stories suck because they aren't challenging. And the stories aren't challenging because Hollywood doesn't want the RISK of challenging stories.
If they want to bring back Star Trek they need to completely change the WRITING. Get the best writers and give them 4 hours to fill. With the only limitations being that all the techno-babble needed to be vetted by a real Star Trek geek and they couldn't alter the established time lines.
Each month you'd get an entirely new, but still coherent, Star Trek. Some would suck. Some would not. And the ones that didn't suck could be expanded.
i was hoping for "the rock" dwayne johnson to play spock
they both got that eyebrow raise
"DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE SPOCK IS COOKING?"
the vulcan nerve pinch could segue into a chokeslam and a powerbomb followed by a pummeling by a folding chair
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This article is not only unsourced, it's unsourceable - the man begins his speculation with "I think..." and goes on with his reckless speculation without even a slight intimation that any of this originated with someone working for Abrams. My friends, Moriarty has just served us up a heaping spoonful of bullshit, so I hope no one reading is willing to swallow.
That said, Moriarty's speculation also appears to be unlikely. Abrams is a big fan of using flashbacks as a narrative device, and it would not be unheard of to have an aged Spock telling the story of how he and a young James T. Kirk met so many years ago. Such a premise would allow Leonard Nimoy to play a substantial role in the film, and would also explain why William Shatner has not been asked to reprise his role as Kirk (Kirk's character having died in Generations).
Oh. Heck, I thought you were going to say we should put them together in one large, well-insulated box, and then drop it to the ocean floor. In the process we'd probably rid ourselves of 85 percent of the people who use the word "canon" to refer to something not related to the Roman Catholic Church.
Oh, wait a minute ... you didn't use the word "canon." You said "cannon." I'm back with you. Maybe you better start over from the beginning, though, because I'm not totally sure where you're aiming and what kind of ammunition you plan to use.
Breakfast served all day!
A lot of people writing on this board want Star Trek to become more dark, the characters less gung ho and somehow, that will make them "more realistic". That's patently absurd.
Let's understand this, guys that get to command state of the art "ships-of-the-line" are better than the rest of us average joes, just as much as guys that make it through Annapolis, then, work their way through years of active duty, to command an aircraft carrier or a ballistic missile submarine, are better than the rest of us. The whole point of the existence of military culture is to vett through thousands of young men to ultimately produce a handful of people that know how to take a state of the art system costing billions of dollars into battle. We expect these people to be gung-ho, idealistic, and confident, and our expectations of the bridge staff of one of 13 ships of the line in the Federation should be more, not less. After all, if you figure that the likes of NCC-1701 had only 400 or so crewman, out of a Federation population of tens of billions, you would expect that every man or woman on that ship would be of first rate education, character, and quality.
Roddenberry, for all of his other faults, nailed this exactly right on the head. Writers that want to have officers dragged down by "personal issues", filling people with all manner of dark character conflicts, really, are just catering to the masses. Yes Virginia, not everyone has mommy issues, and those that don't, get picked for the big jobs that you don't.
This is my sig.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The speculated plot from the article does sound a heck of a lot like First Contact... so much so that I would be very surprised if it's correct. Abrams can come up with something a bit more original than that... can't he?
Star Trek failed for the same reasons many TV shows fail. Some of them air in the wrong time slot, some of them fail to find sponsors, some of them are gutted by shortsighted producers ... Star Trek arguably experienced all of the above.
... one drunken country doctor was good enough for them, 'nuff said.
I read Shatner's book about his years with the Star Trek TV show. He said that the reason the show was canceled was ratings... more specifically, the way they used to do ratings at the time.
In the days of the original series, ratings were simple: what show has the most people watching it? That's the winning show.
These days, they slice the ratings much finer. They break ratings down by "demographics". And if they had done that with the original Star Trek it would have run for many more than three seasons, because it had a total lock on several very desirable demographics (people with lots of money they could spend).
If I recall correctly, Shatner said that the change to how ratings are calculated came just a couple of years after the original series was canceled. Just another way in which Star Trek was ahead of its time.
The original Enterprise didn't need no damn social worker
What I liked was that they got scripts from all over, including scripts by noted science fiction writers. Norman Spinrad, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, and more... there were some weird and really different scripts, and it was great. The modern Trek series were much more constrained.
At a Trek convention, I had a chance to ask one of the executives of TNG a question. My question was "Some of the original series episodes were just plain silly, just funny; for example, 'I, Mudd'. Will there every be any episodes of TNG like that?" The answer was something like "Episode Foo was pretty funny." I no longer remember which episode was the "Episode Foo" but I had seen it and a) it wasn't that funny and b) it certainly wasn't completely goofy. And, I never saw any new Trek episode (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) that was.
P.S. IMHO the genius of "The Trouble with Tribbles" was that it was almost completely goofy yet there was a shred of plot that hung together and was satisfying. You got to laugh a whole bunch, and they actually foiled a nefarious plot!
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
You've definitely got something here.
Roddenberry's dream was that in the future, humanity will be perfect. We'll all have worked out our differences, and there will be no crime, poverty or disease. In fact, there will be no money, because everyone will have whatever they need, thanks to replicator technology. All conflict must therefore come from encounters with alien species that aren't as evolved as we are.
But that dream just doesn't fit reality. Looking back over the last several thousand years of recorded history, I've seen absolutely no indication that human nature has changed one bit. Sure, technology has changed a lot, but people are still people. The Bible is full of examples of kings committing atrocities, businessmen and religious leaders being asshats, hypocrisy, racism, corruption, greed, etc. etc. We still have these problems today, and we will still have these problems in the 24th century.
Star Trek VI hinted that there are at least some humans who don't get along with everyone, and Deep Space Nine (created after Roddenberry's death) showed that greed still exists. I'd like to see that taken a few steps further.
Step forward in time a generation or two after the return of Voyager. The Federation isn't operating efficiently, not everyone has access to everything they want, and advanced technology can't fix everyone's problems. Starfleet Command has appeared to be in great shape for a long time, but behind the scenes, things have been falling apart. Several of the outer planets have formed their own alliance and decided to secede from the Federation, which has led to civil war. Alliance spies have infiltrated Starfleet to gain military intelligence, and some members of the Federation Council are of the opinion that desperate times call for desperate measures.
You could definitely come up with all kinds of interesting stories in that kind of environment. Plan a story arc, the way Babylon 5 was planned out. This has the disadvantage that viewers may get left out if they jump in in the middle of the series or miss a few episodes here and there, but the advantage that you can actually have character development and an overall plot! You still have to wrap up the main story in 42 minutes, but it frees you to move in new directions. What if the show was about the crew of the Enterprise G, but the captain and a few bridge crew members have personal ties with friends and family on Alliance worlds, and by the end of Season 1 they've decided the moral thing to do is to switch sides and turn against the Federation, helping to defend the freedom and liberty of the Alliance from the Federation oppressors?
Surely there are some good science fiction writers out there who can come up with better plot ideas than I can. Paramount just has to be willing to turn over the reigns to somebody with real vision.
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I don't think citing Babylon 5 as a way to develop the arc is a good idea.
There are severe problems with the way American TV is made (I'm not American, and I'm not American TV bashing, because so much of it is so far ahead of what we produce in the UK), but as an example, I only recently decided to watch Babylon 5, as I didn't watch it at the time.
I thought it was superb. But the 5th series was garbage. IMHO. I then read up about the history of the show, and was annoyed to learn of the whole thing about it being canceled after series 4. A great show, with a well though through arc, had to rush to some half-arsed finish, because they though it would get binned.
And that's the problem - you just can't think far enough ahead, because the ratings will drop, so anybody planning a 3/4 season arc has to make sure the ratings in the FIRST HALF of series 1 is interesting enough to justify even the first half of the season getting shown.
Long term planing is just not possible.
Star Trek died for me anyway with Cochrane's initial encounter with the Vulcans at the end of First Contact. That was the whole point at least that part of the film; the music for that movie is very funerary in tone, if you listen to it...it was one last look back, before the end, and it was a suitably poignant and respectful way to end the franchise as a whole, I thought.
I did not see Transformers, and I do not support the resurrection of certain things when there is no creative purpose for it, and the only reason is to cynically make money. Star Trek is dead; may it rest in peace.
All a "reboot" says is that a producer is too gutless to create and popularize their own fictional creation, so they take the shortcut of starting with the good name and recognizable parts of someone else's creation. I wish people who doesn't want to follow what has come before show some cajones and create their own thing from scratch.
After Firefly, Serenity several seasons of BSG, Star Trek just seems a bit 'quaint.'
Software Wars
Make a caves of steel movie.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
To a point, the golden age of Camp is passing quickly. The world mood is too somber now for us to "suspend disbelief" properly for that style any more.
/. post to mention the Trek Economics. The entire source of that economic optimism stemmed from moving away from the classical law of supply. We are in fact just seeing the first stages of that now, over on the RIAA side. It will shake out for another ten years, and eventually something like an Ad or Sponsor model will kick in, and music will be Free as in Beer.
What Roddenberry presented was not a utopia... only a time when things were going right for once and we could take a break from total disaster. Subject to the next couple of US elections, we're growing fatigued by the path the Bush dynasty has taken us. Even if the next President is a Compromise Candidate, I expect we will work towards repairing international relations... which is *exactly* what Trek was about.
This may finally be the correct
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I would argue that particular problem isn't limited to American commercial TV, though. PBS, our publicly funded foundation, would also have trouble finding the money to keep a series going for 5 years. A 5 year story arc is /hard/ to find funding for. It's doubly difficult when you're doing it for a series that is at the cutting edge of special effects.
For example, I've watched a fair sampling of what the BBC, ITN, and Channel 4 send across the Atlantic. I can't recall a single 5 year planning arc for any series that I've seen. The closest that I can come up with are the old Blackadder series, and in that case each year's plotline was completely self contained. Can you come up with any counter examples?
I'm fine with JJ blowing the canon open. Caveat: I'm not a Trek fan.
At Comicon, JJ Abrams got infront of a crowd of 6500 people and proudly said "I'm more into Star Wars than Star Trek -- but the script was so good I just had to do it." Now, you may not be a Trek fan, but I am. I'm fine with blowing the canon open, but Abrams' comment was like a slap in the face to a true Trek fan, of which I count myself one. So not only is the canon being blown open, but it's being blown open by a guy who'd rather be watching Star Wars. I find that offensive.
But that dream just doesn't fit reality. Which would be why it's shown in the context of FTL space travel and teleportation.
The idea is that if we can accomplish such great progress in technology, we can do the same in sociology. Looking back over the last several thousand years of recorded history, I've seen absolutely no indication that human nature has changed one bit. You're not looking hard enough.
Before Zarathustra, emperors would raze villages they conquered. He introduced the idea of letting them live, helping them prosper, and taking a steady tax from them instead of pillaging once and burning the place down.
And so humanity evolved one step further.
Skip forward a few thousand years: The poor used be left to their own devices until the New Deal of the 20th Century. Widowed mothers could never have afforded to keep their sick child in an iron lung for months, but there are people alive and prosperous today because universal healthcare came along in the 60's (yes, the 60's in which Gene gave us a vision of a better future) and allowed the poor to survive polio. Medical progress coupled with social progress made the world a better place.
A bright future of happy workaholics is possible, if we strive for it. And a dark future of religious fanaticism and selfish greed is possible... all that is necessary for that is for good men to do nothing. Deep Space Nine (created after Roddenberry's death) showed that greed still exists. Yes, the soulless crap they labelled "Star Trek" after Roddenberry's death were created out of greed and run by evil men.
It has the copyrighted name of Star Trek, it has the copyrighted look of Star Trek, but it is not Star Trek.
If you want a dark space adventure show, you have your Firefly, and your Galactica, and countless others. But for the love of all that is good, for crying out loud, don't pervert Star Trek, don't snuff out the only candle of hope.
P.S. They did the same to Asimov's I Robot, those evil, greedy, Hollywood hacks.
You can't take the sky from me...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057927/combined
I'd love to see it.
It's a plot, Jim, but not as we know it.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
They should just wait a few more years for the tech to move forward some, then they can fully animate the actors and use the old series guys all they want (see the Beowulf trailer for an example of where this process stands, still a bit creepy looking but they're getting close).
At the risk of spoiling the joke of my previous post: Regular people with well-adjusted priorities don't care.
Breakfast served all day!
Geezers in Space.
Have gnu, will travel.
Oh. Joke > me, I guess. I thought you were seriously objecting to the use of the word.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I agree with all of that. I think that economic bounty depicted in Star Trek is based on the idea that we will eventually be able to create energy so cheaply that it's finally "too cheap to meter", and the rather more fantastic idea that we will then be able to use that power to create any object we desire, from a perfect copy of ourselves to a bowl of chicken soup.
If we can actually real that level of technology, it will solve a lot of problems, but it's hardly a utopia. There will still be plenty of reasons for us to fight with each other.
Sure. That's why I brought up Music/Videos. "Producing X Object is too cheap to meter".
But notice they haven't solved the Living Space problem. They sublimated the idea of rent based on unstated subsidized perks of a job.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was in the Star Trek DS9 episode, Tsunkatse. He had his ass handed to him on a plate by Seven of Nine.
(That really would have broken the canon!)
As best as I remember,
the original Trek pilot had a female captain.
So, how about Halle Berry in that role?
Don't forget, Voyager changed the past with Tom Paris.... when he had his incident on TNG, his name was Nick Ricardo. The name of this episode was 'The First Duty' Furthermore, don't forget Janeway made it to Admiral before Picard did, and all she had to do was break the Temperal Prime Directive to get there. In Picards defense, he never had to cheat to make his goals. I guess thats how affirmative action works in the future.
WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
... as long as Majel Barrett still plays Nurse Chapel!
(He took her job as first officer, so it's only fair.)
no, you do have a fair point about it not only being American TV. I'm not saying it could be done (or has been done) better elsewhere. I discounted making any comparisons with UK TV, as I think it's worse - in the UK, season are generally 6-8 episodes long, so long term planning is even worse!
I think it's more that I find it frustrating when excellent shows with great production values (american TV shows look so much better than ones over here) get cancelled because they don't have blockbuster ratings from the off...